134 ETHICAL ASPECTS OF EVOLUTION 



appropriated ; if not, it takes the form of remorse. A con 

 siderable school of philosophers to whom the recognition 

 of a conscience is unwelcome identify remorse with fear of 

 punishment. It is true that the same conduct which is 

 followed by remorse will often render a man liable to 

 punishment under other laws. With a person who is at 

 once conscientious and devout, the stings of remorse and 

 the dread of the wrath of Heaven will often subsist side by 

 side, and may easily fail to be distinguished. The same 

 kind of conduct may also render him obnoxious to the penal 

 ties of the criminal law, and of the unwritten laws of society, 

 and the complex feeling which is thus produced is often 

 mistaken for the simple emotion of fear. The confusion 

 would, however, be dispelled by introspection. The differ 

 ence between the feeling tones of self-accusation and of fear 

 is unmistakable, and they result in different courses of action. 

 One prompts to reparation, the other to flight. Remorse 

 may be so strong as to overcome the sense of fear and 

 induce the offender to appease the reproaches of his con 

 science by delivering himself up to justice. So far indeed 

 is the fear of consequences from being identical with or 

 the parent of remorse that it would be more correct to 

 regard remorse as the parent of the fear of consequences, 

 as indeed it often is. The impulse which has been endorsed 

 by the conscience acquires a double strength, and its defeat 

 is productive of extreme depression, which discolours our 

 views of the whole future, near or distant ; a thousand 

 imaginary disasters are anticipated, and we are oppressed 

 by a fear of punishment which in our healthier moments 

 we should know to be groundless. 



Again, remorse may visit with its utmost severity the 

 minds of men who, by their position and their beliefs, are 

 exempt from the fear of consequences. No more appalling 

 lesson is given us by history than the last days of the aged 

 tyrant who wrote Di me deaeque magis perdant quam me 

 perire cotidie sentio . The furies who pursued Orestes 

 were the punishment itself, and not the dread of it. Those 

 whom other penalties fail to reach are especially exposed 



