§ 5.

But how, it may be asked, can a sentiment have a perception? how can a desire give rise to a moral sense? Is there not here a confounding of the intellectual with the emotional? It is the office of a sense to perceive, not to induce a certain kind of action; whilst it is the office of an instinct to induce a certain kind of action, and not to perceive. But in the foregoing arguments, motor and percipient functions are attributed to the same agent.

The objection seems a serious one; and were the term senseEdition: current; Page: [25] to be understood in its strictest acceptation, would be fatal. But the word is in this case, as in many others, used to express that feeling with which an instinct comes to regard the deeds and objects it is related to; or rather that judgment which, by a kind of reflex action, it causes the intellect to form of them. To elucidate this we must take an example; and perhaps the love of accumulation will afford us as good a one as any.

We find, then, that conjoined with the impulse to acquire property, there is what we call a sense of the value of property; and we find the vividness of this sense to vary with the strength of the impulse. Contrast the miser and the spendthrift. Accompanying his constant desire to heap up, the miser has a quite peculiar belief in the worth of money. The most stringent economy he thinks virtuous; and anything like the most ordinary liberality vicious; whilst of extravagance he has an absolute horror. Whatever adds to his store seems to him good: whatever takes from it, bad. And should a passing gleam of generosity lead him on some special occasion to open his purse, he is pretty sure afterwards to reproach himself with having done wrong. On the other hand, whilst the spendthrift is deficient in the instinct of acquisition, he also fails to realize the intrinsic worth of property; it does not come home to him; he has little sense of it. Hence under the influence of other feelings, he regards saving habits as mean; and holds that there is something noble in profuseness. Now it is clear that these opposite perceptions of the propriety or impropriety of certain lines of conduct, do not originate with the intellect, but with the emotional faculties. The intellect, uninfluenced by desire, would show both miser and spendthrift that their habits were unwise; whereas the intellect, influenced by desire, makes each think the other a fool, but does not enable him to see his own foolishness.

Now this law is at work universally. Every feeling is accompanied by a sense of the rightness of those actions which give it gratification—tends to generate convictions that things are good or bad, according as they bring to it pleasure or pain; and would always generate such convictions, were it unopposed. Edition: current; Page: [26] As however there is a perpetual conflict amongst the feelings—some of them being in antagonism throughout life—there results a proportionate incongruity in the beliefs—a similar conflict amongst these also—a parallel antagonism. So that it is only where a desire is very predominant, or where no adverse desire exists, that this connection between the instincts and the opinions they dictate, becomes distinctly visible.

Applied to the elucidation of the case in hand, these facts explain how from an impulse to behave in the way we call equitable, there will arise a perception that such behaviour is proper—a conviction that it is good. This instinct or sentiment, being gratified by a just action, and distressed by an unjust action, produces in us an approbation of the one, and a disgust towards the other; and these readily beget beliefs that the one is virtuous, and the other vicious. Or, referring again to the illustration, we may say that as the desire to accumulate property is accompanied by a sense of the value of property, so is the desire to act fairly, accompanied by a sense of what is fair. And thus, limiting the word sense to the expression of this fact, there is nothing wrong in attributing motor and percipient functions to the same agent.

It will perhaps be needful here to meet the objection, that whereas according to the foregoing statement each feeling tends to generate notions of the rightness or wrongness of the actions towards which it is related; and whereas morality should determine what is correct in all departments of conduct, it is improper to confine the term “moral sense” to that which can afford directions in only one department. This is quite true. Nevertheless, seeing that our behaviour towards each other is the most important part of our behaviour, and that in which we are most prone to err; seeing also that this same faculty is so purely and immediately moral in its purpose; and seeing further, as we shall shortly do, that its dictates are the only ones capable of reduction to an exact form, we may with some show of reason continue to employ that term, with this restricted meaning.

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