SCIENCE. 



101 



versal fact of consciousness as regards ourselves, and of 

 observation in regard to others, that, knowing evil to be 

 evil, men are nevertheless prone to do it, and that hav- 

 ing this sense of moral obligation, they are never- 

 theless prone to disobey it. This fact is entirely 

 independent of the particular standard by which 

 men in different stages of society have judged ceitain 

 things to be good and other things to be evil. It is en- 

 tirely independent of the infinite variety of rules accord- 

 ing to which they recognize the doing of particular acts, 

 and the abstention from other acts, to be obligatory 

 upon them. Under every variety of circumstance in re- 

 gard to these rules, under every diversity of custom, of 

 law, or of religion by which they are established, the gen- 

 eral fact remains the same — that what men themselves 

 recognize as duty they continually disobey, and what ac- 

 cording to their own standard they acknowledge to be 

 wrong they continually do. 



There is unquestionably much difficulty in finding any 

 place for this fact among the unities of Nature. It falls, 

 therefore, in the way of this inquiry to investigate how 

 this difficulty arises, and wherein it consists. 



And here we at once encounter those old fundamental 

 questions on the nature, the origin, and the authority of 

 the Moral Sense which have exercised the human mind 

 for more than two thousand years ; and on which an 

 eminent writer of our own time has said that no sensible 

 progress has been made. This result may well suggest 

 that the direction which inquiry has taken is a direction 

 in which progress is impossible. If men will try to 

 analyze something which is incapable of analysis, a per- 

 petual consciousness of abortive effort will be their only 

 and their inevitable reward. 



For just as in the physical world there are bodies or 

 substances which are (to us) elementary, so in the spirit- 

 ual world there are perceptions, feelings, or emotions, 

 which are equally elementary — that is to say, which re- 

 sist all attempts to resolve them into a combination of 

 other and similar affections of the mind. And of this 

 kind is the idea, or the conception, or the sentiment of 

 obligation. That which we mean when we say, " I 

 ought," is a meaning which is incapable of reduction. 

 It is a meaning which enters as an element into many 

 other conceptions, and into the import of many other forms 

 of expression, but it is itself uncompounded. All attempts 

 to explain it do one or other of these two things — either 

 they assume and include the idea of obligation in the very 

 circumlocutions by which they profess to explain its 

 origin ; or else they build up a structure which, when 

 completed, remains as destitute of the idea of obligation 

 as the separate materials of which it is composed. In 

 the one case, they first put in the gold, and then they 

 think that by some alchemy they have made it ; in the 

 other case, they do not indeed first put in the gold, but 

 neither in the end do they ever get it. No combinations 

 of other things will give the idea of obligation, unless 

 with and among these tilings there is some concealed'or 

 unconscious admission of itself. But in this, as in other 

 cases with which we have already dealt, the ambiguities 

 of language afford an easy means or an abundant source 

 of self-deception. One common phrase is enough to serve 

 the purpose — the "association of ideas." Under this 

 vague and indefinite form of words all mental operations 

 and all mental affections may be classed. Consequently 

 those which are elementary may be included, without 

 being expressly named. This is one way of putting in 

 the gold and then of pretending to find it as a result. 

 Take one of the simplest cases in which the idea of obli- 

 gation arises, even in the rudest minds — namely, the case 

 of gratitude to those who have done us good. Beyond 

 all question, this simple form of the sense of obligation 

 is one which involves the association of many ideas. It 

 involves the idea of Self as a moral agent and the recipi- 

 ent of good. It involves the idea of other human beings 

 as likewise moral agents, and as related to us 



by a common nature, as well as, perhaps, by still 

 more special ties. It involves the idea of things 

 good for them, and of our having power to confer 

 these things upon them. All these ideas are "associ- 

 ated " in the sense of gratitude towards those who have 

 conferred upon us any kind of favor. But the mere 

 word " association " throws no light whatever upon the 

 nature of the connection. " Association " means noth- 

 ing but grouping or contiguity of any kind. It may be 

 the grouping of mere accident — the associations of 

 things which happen to lie together, but which have no 

 other likeness, relation, or connection. But this, obvi- 

 ously, is not the kind of association which connects to- 

 gether the different ideas which are involved in the con- 

 ception of gratitude to those who have done us good. 

 What then is the associating tie ? What is the link which 

 binds them together, and constitutes the particular kind 

 or principle of association? It is the sense of obliga- 

 tion. The associating or grouping power lies in this 

 sense. It is the centre round which the other perceptions 

 aggregate. It is the seat of that force which holds them 

 together, which keeps them in a definite and fixed rela- 

 tion, and gives its mental character to the combination as 

 a whole. 



If we examine closely the language of those who have 

 attempted to analyze the Moral" Sense, or, in other words, 

 the sense of obligation, we shall always detect the same 

 fallacy — namely, the use of words so vague that under 

 cover of them the idea of obligation is assumed as the 

 explanation of itself. Sometimes this fallacy is so trans- 

 parent in the very forms of expression which are used, 

 that we wonder how men of even ordinary intelligence, 

 far more men of the highest intellectual power, can have 

 failed to see and feel the confusion of their thoughts. 

 Thus, for example, we find Mr. Grote expressing himself 

 as follows: "This idea of the judgment of others upon 

 our conduct and feeling as agents, or the idea of our own 

 judgment as spectators in concurrence with others upon 

 our own conduct as agents, is the main basis of what is 

 properly called Ethical sentiment." 1 In this passage the 

 word "judgment " can only mean moral judgment, which 

 is an exercise of the Moral Sense ; and this exercise is 

 gravely represented as the " basis " of itself. 



Two things, however, ought to be carefully considered 

 and remembered in respect to this elementary character of 

 the Moral Sense. The first is, that we must clearly define 

 to ourselves what the idea is of which, and of which 

 alone, we can affirm that it is elementary ; and secondly, 

 that we must define ourselves as clearly, if it be pos- 

 sible to do so, in what sense it is that any faculty what- 

 ever of the mind can really be contemplated as separable 

 from, or as uncombined with, others. 



As regards the first of these two things to be defined, 

 namely, the idea which we affirm to be simple or ele- 

 mentary, it must be clearly understood that this elemen- 

 tary character, this incapability of being reduced by anal- 

 ysis, belongs to the bare sense or feeling of obligation, 

 and not at all, or not generally, to the processes of 

 thought by which that feeling may be guided in its ex- 

 ercise. The distinction is immense and obvious. The 

 sense of Tightness and of wrongness is one thing ; the way 

 in which we come to attach the idea of right or wrong to 

 the doing of certain acts, or to the abstention from cer- 

 tain other acts, is another and a very different thing. This 

 is a distinction which applies equally to many other simple 

 or elementary affections of the mind. The liking or dis- 

 liking of certain tastes or affections of the palate is uni- 

 versal and elementary. But the particular tastes which 

 are the objects of liking or of aversion are for the most 

 part determined by habits and education. There may 

 be tastes which all men are so coustituted as necessarily 

 to feel disgusting ; and in like manner there may be cer- 

 tain acts which all men everywhere must feel to be con- 



" Fragments on Ethical Subjects," pp. 9, 10. 



