440 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Either prevailing theory is egregiously wrong, or else much of 

 present practice, measured by that theory, may be fairly termed 

 barbarous in its complete disregard of scientific principle. If 

 there is one thing in theory upon which all schools are agreed, it 

 is that conduct is not moral except as its motive is pure except, 

 that is, as free from reference to personal fear of punishment and 

 hope of reward. The intuitionalist insists that duty must be done 

 for duty's sake ; the empiricist, that while consequences make the 

 moral criterion, yet the agent is truly moralized only in so far as 

 his motive is regard for the consequences which follow intrinsic- 

 ally from the act itself. And yet the main motive actually ap- 

 pealed to is the desire to avoid either actual punishment, whether 

 from God or from one's parent, or else the reflex into one's self of 

 their displeasure in the way of being grieved or hurt. The last 

 motive appealed to, it would seem, is that connected with the act 

 itself. Enlightenment as to the true nature of the act performed, 

 irrespective of the source of its imposition, irrespective of the 

 favor or disfavor which the act will arouse from others (save, of 

 course, in so far as that disfavor or favor is, through the social 

 structure, one of the intrinsic constituents of the act) and the 

 development of interest in that act for its own sake, seem to be 

 the last things aimed at.* It is commonly said, I know, that a 

 child can not understand the moral bearing of his acts, and that 

 therefore rather arbitrary and external motives must be appealed 

 to. Of this, I would say two things : First, it is true that the 

 child can not see in the act all that an adult sees in it. There is 

 not the slightest reason why he should. If he did, it would be an 

 entirely different act, an act having different conditions, a differ- 

 ent aim, and a different value. The question is whether the child 

 can be made to see the reason why lie should perform the act, not 

 why some other older person should perform it. Limiting the 

 question in this way, it loses, I think, a large part of its force. As 

 for what remains, it may still be said that the ideal is to appeal 

 to the child's own intelligence and interest as much as possible. 

 One of the strongest impressions made upon me by the papers is 

 the natural strong interest of children in moral questions not, 

 indeed, as consciously moral, but as questions of what to do and 



* I hope I shall not be understood here as arguing for the principle of doing right be- 

 cause it is right. In the first place, the phrase is very ambiguous, meaning either doing 

 the act for the sake of. something right, in the abstract or at large, a right whose connec- 

 tion with the particular act is not seen ; or else doing the act for its own sake, for the 

 meaning which the act itself has for the agent a principle which is the extreme opposite 

 of the other sense. But, in the second place, I am desirous to state the matter in terms 

 upon which all schools are agreed ; and I understand that (however differently they may 

 phrase it) all schools are agreed that an act has really moral worth only when the agent 

 does it because of what he sees and feels in it. 



