Elements of Morals Part 2

Conscience being the practical judgment which in each particular case decides the right and the wrong, one can ask of man only one thing: namely, to act according to his conscience. At the moment of action there is no other rule. But one must take great care lest by subtle doubts, he obscures either within himself or in others the clear and distinct decisions of conscience.

In fact, men often, to divert themselves from the right when they wish to do certain bad actions, fight their own conscience with sophisms. Under the influence of these sophisms, conscience becomes _erroneous_; that is to say, it ends by taking good for evil and evil for good, and this is even one of the punishments of those who follow the path of vice: they become at last incapable of discerning between right and wrong. When it is said of a man that _he has no conscience_, it is not meant that he is really deprived of it (else he were not a man); but that he has fallen into the habit of not consulting it or of holding its decisions in contempt.

By _ignorant conscience_ we mean that conscience which does wrong because it has not yet learned to know what is right. Thus, a child tormenting animals does not always do so out of bad motives: he does not know or does not think that he hurts them. In fact, it is with good as it is with evil; the child is already good or bad before it is able to discern between the one or the other. This is what is called the state of _innocence_, which in some respects is conscience asleep. But this state cannot last; the child's conscience, and in general the conscience of all men, must be enlightened. This is the progress of human reason which every day teaches us better to know the difference between good and evil.

It sometimes happens that one is in some respects in doubt between two indications of conscience; not, of course, between duty and pa.s.sion, which is the highest moral combat, but between two or more duties. This is what is called a _doubting_ or _perplexed_ conscience. In such a case the simplest rule to follow, when it is practicable, is the one expressed by that celebrated maxim: _When in doubt, abstain_. In cases where it is impossible to absolutely abstain, and where it becomes necessary not only to act but to choose, the rule should always be to choose that part which favors least our interests, for we may always suppose that that which causes our conscience to doubt, is an interested, un.o.bserved motive. If there is no private interest in the matter either on the one side or the other, there remains nothing better to do than to decide according to circ.u.mstances. But it is very rare that conscience ever finds itself in such an absolute state of doubt, and there are almost always more reasons on the one side than on the other. The simplest and most general rule in such a case is to chose what seems most probable.

=11. Moral Sentiment.=--At the same time, as the _mind_ distinguishes between good and evil by a _judgment_ called conscience, the _heart_ experiences emotions or divers affections, which are embraced under the common term _moral sentiment_. These are the pleasures or pains which arise in our soul at the sight of good or evil, either in _ourselves_ or in _others_.

In respect to our own actions this sentiment is modified according as the action is to be performed, or is already performed. In the first instance we experience, on the one hand, a certain attraction for the right (that is when pa.s.sion is not strong enough to stifle it), and on the other, a repugnance or aversion for the wrong (more or less attenuated, according to circ.u.mstances, by habit or the violence of the design). Usage has not given any particular names to these two sentiments.

When, on the contrary, the action is performed, the pleasure which results from it, if we have acted rightly, is called _moral satisfaction_; and if we have acted wrong, _remorse_, or _repentance_.

Remorse is a burning pain; and, as the word indicates, the _bite_ that tortures the heart after a culpable action. This pain may be found among the very ones who have no regret for having done wrong, and who would do it over again if they could. It has therefore no moral character whatsoever, and must be considered as a sort of punishment attached to crime by nature herself. "Malice," said Montaigne, "poisons itself with its own venom. Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul, which, ever scratching itself, draws ever fresh blood."

_Repentance_ is also, like remorse, a pain which comes from a bad action; but there is coupled with it the regret of having done it, and the wish, if not the firm resolution, never to do it again.

Repentance is a sadness of the soul; remorse is a torture and an anguish.

Repentance is almost a virtue; remorse is a punishment; but the one leads to the other, and he who feels no remorse can feel no repentance.

_Moral satisfaction_, on the contrary, is a peace, a joy, a keen and delicious emotion born from the feeling of having accomplished one's duty.

It is the only remuneration that never fails us.

Among the sentiments called forth by our own actions, there are two which are the natural auxiliaries of the moral sentiment: they are the sentiment of _honor_ and the sentiment of _shame_.

Honor is a principle which incites us to perform actions which raise us in our own eyes, and to avoid such as would lower us.

Shame is the opposite of honor; it is what we feel when we have done something that lowers us not only in the eyes of others, but in our own.

All remorse is more or less accompanied by shame; yet the shame is greater for actions which indicate a certain baseness of soul. For instance, one will feel more ashamed of having told a falsehood than for having struck a person; for having cheated in gambling than for having fought a duel.

Honor and shame are therefore not always an exact measure of the moral value of actions; for be they but brilliant, man will soon rid himself of all shame; this happens, for instance, in cases of prodigality, licentiousness, ambition. One does wrong, not without remorse, but with a certain ostentation which stifles the feelings of shame.

Let us pa.s.s now to the sentiments which the actions of others excite in us.

Sympathy, antipathy, kindness, esteem, contempt, respect, enthusiasm, indignation, these are the various terms by which we express the diverse sentiments of the soul touching virtue and vice.

_Sympathy_ is a disposition to share the same impressions with other men; to sympathize with their joy is to share that joy; to sympathize with their grief is to share that grief. It may happen that one sympathizes with the defects of others when they are the same as our own; but, as a general thing, people sympathize above all with the good qualities, and experience only antipathy for the bad. At the theatre, all the spectators, good and bad, wish to see virtue rewarded and crime punished.

The contrary of sympathy is antipathy.

Kindness is the disposition to wish others well. _Esteem_ is a sort of kindness mingled with judgment and reflection, which we feel for those who have acted well, especially in cases of ordinary virtues; for before the higher and more difficult virtues, esteem becomes _respect_; if it be heroism, respect turns into _admiration_ and _enthusiasm_; admiration being the feeling of surprise which great actions excite in us, and enthusiasm that same feeling pushed to an extreme; carrying us away from ourselves, as if a G.o.d were in us.[3] _Contempt_ is the feeling of aversion we entertain towards him who does wrong; it implies particularly a case of base and shameful actions. When these actions are only condemnable without being odious, the sentiment is one of _blame_, which, like esteem, is nearer being a judgment than a sentiment. When, finally, it is a case of criminal and revolting actions, the feeling is one of _horror_ or _execration_.

=12. Liberty.=--We have already said that man or the _moral agent_ is _free_, when he is in a condition to choose between right and wrong, and able to do either at his will.

Liberty always supposes one to be in possession of himself. Man is free when he is awake, in a state of reason, and an adult. He is not free, or very little so, when he is asleep, or delirious, or in his first childhood.

Liberty is certified to man.

1. By the inward sentiment which accompanies each of his acts; for instance, at the moment of acting, I feel that I can will or not will to do such or such an action; if I enter on it, I feel that I can discontinue it as long as it is not fully executed; when it is completed, I am convinced that I might have acted otherwise.

2. By the very fact of _moral law_ or _duty_; I _ought_, therefore I _can_. No one is held to do the impossible. If, then, there is in me a law that commands me to do good and avoid evil, it is because I can do either as I wish.

3. By the _moral satisfaction_ which accompanies a good action; by the remorse or repentance which follows a bad one. One does not rejoice over a thing done against his will, and no one reproaches himself for an act committed under compulsion. The first word of all those reproached for a bad action is, that it was not done _on purpose, intentionally_. They acknowledge thereby that we can only be reproached for an action done wilfully; namely, freely.

4. By the rewards and punishments, and in general by the _moral responsibility_ which is attached to all our actions when they have been committed knowingly. We do not punish actions which are the result of constraint or ignorance.

5. By the _exhortations_ or counsels we give to others. We do not exhort a man to be warm or cold, not to suffer hunger or thirst, because it is well known that this is not a thing dependent on his will. But we exhort him to be honest, because we believe that he can be so if he wishes.

6. By _promises_: no one promises not to die, not to be sick, etc., but one promises to be present at a certain meeting, to pay a certain sum of money, on such a day, to such a man, because one feels he can do so unless circ.u.mstances over which he has no control prevent.

_Prejudices against Liberty._--Although men, as we have seen, may have the sense of liberty very strong, and may show it by their acts, by their approbation or blame, etc., yet, on the other hand, they often yield to the force of certain prejudices which seem to contradict the universal belief we have just spoken of.

1. _Character._--The princ.i.p.al one of these prejudices is the often expressed opinion that every man is impelled by his own _character_ to perform the actions which accord with this character, and that there is no help against this irresistible necessity of nature; this is often expressed by the common axiom: "One cannot make himself over again." The same has also been expressed by the poet Destouches in that celebrated line:

Cha.s.sez le naturel, il revient au galop.[4]

Nothing is less exact as a fact and more dangerous as a principle, than this pretended immutability of human character, which, if true, would render evil irremediable and incorrigible.

Experience teaches the contrary. No man is wholly deprived of good and bad inclinations; he may develop the one or the other, as he chooses between them.

2. _Habits._--Habits in the long run become, it is true, irresistible. It is a fact which has been often observed; but if, on the one hand, an inveterate habit is irresistible, it is not so in the beginning, and man is thus free to prevent the encroachments of bad habits. It is for this reason that moralists warn us above all against the beginnings of habits.

"Beware especially of beginnings," says the _Imitation_.

3. _Pa.s.sions._--Pa.s.sions have especially enjoyed the privilege of pa.s.sing for uncontrollable and irresistible. All great sinners find their excuse in the fatal allurements of pa.s.sions. "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak," says the Gospel. The remarks we have just made touching the habits, may be equally applied to the pa.s.sions. It is rare that pa.s.sions manifest themselves all of a sudden, and with that excess of violence which, breaking upon one unexpectedly and like a delirium, a.s.sume, indeed, all the appearances of a fatality. But, as a general thing, pa.s.sions grow little by little. "Some smaller crimes always precede the greater crimes." It is especially when the first attacks of a pa.s.sion begin to show themselves that it should be energetically fought down.

4. _Education and circ.u.mstances._--The education one has received, the circ.u.mstances one finds himself in, may put a limit to his liberty; and man is not wholly responsible for the impulses which he may owe to example and the bad principles in which he may have been brought up. These may, perhaps, be called _attenuating circ.u.mstances_; but they do not go so far as wholly to suppress liberty and responsibility. In the appreciation of _other people's acts_, we may allow the _attenuating circ.u.mstances_ as large a margin as possible, but in the case of self-government, one should make it as strict and narrow as possible. No one having, in fact, a measure by which he may determine his moral strength in an absolute manner, it is better to aim too high than too low. One should be guided by the principle that nothing is impossible to him who has a strong will; for "we can do a thing when we think we can." In conclusion, liberty means nothing else but _moral strength_. Experience certifies that man can become the master of the physical nature which he can subject to his designs; he can gain the mastery over his own body, his pa.s.sions, his habits, his own disposition; in a word, he can be "master of himself." In thus ascending, step by step, from exterior nature to the body, from the body to the pa.s.sions, from the pa.s.sions to the habits and the character, we arrive at the first motor of action which moves everything without being moved: namely, liberty.

=13. Merit and demerit.=--We call in general _merit_ the quality by virtue of which a moral agent renders himself worthy of a reward; and _demerit_ that by which he renders himself, so to say, worthy of punishment.

The merit of an action may be determined: 1, by the difficulty of the action; 2, by the importance of the duty.

1. Why, for instance, is there in general very little merit in respecting other people's property and abstaining from theft? Because education in this respect has so fashioned us, that few men have any temptation to the contrary; and, even were there such a temptation, we should be ashamed to publicly claim any merit for having resisted it.

Why, on the other hand, is there great merit in sacrificing one's life to the happiness of others? Because we are strongly attached to life, and comparatively very little attached to men in general; to sacrifice what we love most, to what we love but little, from a sense of duty, is evidently very difficult; for this reason, we find in this action a very great merit.

Suppose a man, who had enjoyed in all security of conscience and during a long life, a large fortune which he believes his, and of which he has made the n.o.blest use, should learn all at once, and at the brink of old age, that this fortune belongs to another. Suppose, to render the action still more difficult to perform, that he alone knows the fact, and could consequently in all security keep the fortune if he wishes; aggravate the situation still more by supposing that this fortune belongs to heirs in great poverty, and that in renouncing it the possessor would himself be reduced to utter misery. Imagine, finally, all the circ.u.mstances which may render a duty both the strictest and most difficult, and you will have an action the merit of which will be very great.

2. It is not only the difficulty of an action that const.i.tutes its merit, but also the importance of the duty. Thus the merit of a difficulty surmounted, has no more value in morality than it has in poetry, when it stands alone. One may of course impose upon himself a sort of moral gymnastics, and consequently very difficult tasks, though very useless in the end; but these will be considered only in the light of discipline and exercise, and not in that of duty; and this discipline would have to be more or less connected with the life one may be called to lead. For instance, suppose a missionary, called to brave during all his life all kinds of climates and dangers, should exercise himself beforehand in undertakings brave and bold, such undertakings would be both reasonable and meritorious. But he who out of bravado, ostentation, and without any worthy aim, should undertake the climbing to inaccessible mountain-tops, the swimming across an arm of the sea, the fighting openly ferocious animals, etc., he would accomplish actions which, it is true, would not be without merit, since they are brave; but their merit would not be equivalent to that we should attribute to other actions less difficult, but more wise.

As to demerit, it is in proportion to the gravity of duties, and the facility of accomplishing them. The more important a matter, and the easier to fulfil, the more is one culpable in failing to fulfil it.

According to these principles, one may determine as follows the estimation of moral actions:

Human actions, we have said, are divided into two cla.s.ses: the good and the bad. It is a question among the moralists to determine whether there are any that are to be called _indifferent_.

Among the good actions, some are _beautiful_, _heroic_, _sublime_; others, _proper_, _right_, and _honest_; among the bad, some are simply _censurable_, others _shameful_, _criminal_, _hideous_; finally, among the indifferent ones, some are agreeable and allowable, others necessary and unavoidable.

Let us give some examples by which the different characters of human actions may be well understood.