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Could it be brought home to people that there is no absolute standard in morality, they would perhaps be somewhat more tolerant in their judgments, and more apt to listen to the voice of reason. If the right has an objective existence, the moral consciousness has certainly been playing at blindman's buff ever since it was born, and will continue to do so until the extinction of the

human race. But who does admit this? The popular mind is always inclined to believe that it possesses the knowledge of what is right and wrong, and to regard public opinion as the reliable guide of conduct. We have, to be sure, no reason to regret that there are men who rebel against the established rules of morality; it is more deplorable that the rebels are so few, and that, consequently, the old rules change so slowly. Far above the vulgar idea that the right is a settled something to which everybody has to adjust his opinions, rises the conviction that it has its existence in each individual mind, capable of any expansion, proclaiming its own right to exist, if needs be, venturing to make a stand against the whole world. Such a conviction makes for progress.

CHAPTER II

THE NATURE OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS

In the preceding chapter it was asserted, in general terms, that the moral concepts are based on emotions, and the leading arguments to the contrary were met. We shall now proceed to examine the nature of the moral emotions.

These emotions are of two kinds: disapproval, or indignation, and approval. They have in common characteristics which make them moral emotions, in distinction from others of a non-moral character, but at the same time both of them belong to a wider class of emotions, which I call retributive emotions. Again, they differ from each other in points which make each of them allied to certain non-moral retributive emotions, disapproval to anger and revenge, and approval to that kind of retributive kindly emotion which in its most developed form is gratitude. They may thus, on the one hand, be regarded as two distinct divisions of the moral emotions, whilst, on the other hand, disapproval, like anger and revenge, forms a sub-species of resentment, and approval, like gratitude, forms a sub-species of retributive kindly emotion. The following diagram will help to elucidate the matter :—

Retributive Emotions.

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That moral disapproval is a kind of resentment and akin to anger and revenge, and that moral approval is a kind of retributive kindly emotion and akin to gratitude, are, of course, statements which call for proof. An analysis of all these emotions, and a detailed study of the causes which evoke them, will, I hope, bear out the correctness of my classification. In this connection only the analysis can be attempted. The study of causes will be involved in the treatment of the subjects of moral judgments.

Resentment may be described as an aggressive attitude of mind towards a cause of pain. Anger is sudden resentment, in which the hostile reaction against the cause of pain is unrestrained by deliberation. Revenge, on the other hand, is a more deliberate form of non-moral resentment, in which the hostile reaction is more or less restrained by reason and calculation. It is impossible, however, to draw any distinct limit between these two types of resentment, as also to discern where an actual desire to inflict pain comes in. In its primitive form, anger, even when directed against a living being, contains a vehement impulse to remove the cause of pain without any real desire to produce suffering. Anger is strikingly shown by many fish, and notoriously by sticklebacks when their territory is invaded by other sticklebacks. In such circumstances of provocation the whole animal changes colour, and, darting at the trespasser, shows rage and fury in every movement; but we can hardly believe that any idea of inflicting pain is present to its mind. As we proceed still lower down the

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scale of animal life we find the conative element itself gradually dwindle away until nothing is left but mere reflex action.

That the fury of an injured animal turns against the real or assumed cause of its injury is a matter of notoriety, and everybody knows that the same is the case with the

1 Cf. Ribot, Psychology of the Emotions, p. 220 sqq.

2 There are some good remarks on this in Mr. Hiram Stanley's Studies in

the Evolutionary Psychology of Feeling, p. 138 sq.

3 Romanes, Animal Intelligence, p. 246 sqq.

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anger of a child. No doubt, as Professor Sully observes, hitting out right and left, throwing things down on the floor and breaking them, howling, wild agitated movements of the arms and whole body, these are the outward vents which the gust of childish fury is apt to take.' But, on the other hand, we know well enough that Darwin's little boy, who became a great adept at throwing books and sticks at any one who offended him,2 was in this respect no exceptional child. Towards the age of one year, according to M. Perez, children "will beat people, animals, and inanimate objects if they are angry with them; they will throw their toys, their food, their plate, anything, in short, that is at hand, at the people who have displeased them." That a similar discrimination characterises the resentment of a savage is a fact upon which it is necessary to dwell at some length for the reason that it has been disputed, and because there are some seeming anomalies which require an explanation.

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In a comprehensive work, Dr. Steinmetz has made the feeling of revenge the object of a detailed investigation, which cannot be left unnoticed. The ultimate conclusions at which he has arrived are these :-Revenge is essentially rooted in the feeling of power and superiority. It arises consequently upon the experience of injury, and its aim is to enhance the "self-feeling" which has been lowered or degraded by the injury suffered. It answers this purpose best if it is directed against the aggressor himself, but it is not essential to it that it should take any determinate direction, for, per se, and originally, it is "undirected." 5

1 Sully, Studies in Childhood, p. 232 sq.

2 Darwin, Biographical Sketch of an Infant,' in Mind, ii. 288.

3 Perez, First Three Years of Childhood, p. 66 sq.

4 Ethnologische Studien zur ersten Entwicklung der Strafe.

5 Strictly speaking, this theory is not new. Dr. Paul Rée, in his book Die

Entstehung des Gewissens, has pro-
nounced revenge to be a reaction
against the feeling of inferiority which
the aggressor impresses upon his victim.
The injured man, he says (ibid. p. 40),
is naturally reluctant to feel himself in-
ferior to another man, and consequently
strives, by avenging the aggression, to
show himself equal or even superior to
the aggressor.
A similar view was pre-

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We are told, in fact, that the first stage through which revenge passed within the human race was characterised by a total, or almost total, want of discrimination. The aim of the offended man was merely to raise his injured self-feeling" by inflicting pain upon somebody else, and his savage desire was satisfied whether the man on whom he wreaked his wrath was guilty or innocent.1 No doubt, there were from the outset instances in which the offender himself was purposely made the victim, especially if he was a fellow-tribesman; but it was not really due to the feeling of revenge if the suffering was inflicted upon him, in preference to others. Even primitive man must have found out that vengeance directed against the actual culprit, besides being a strong deterrent to others, was a capital means of making a dangerous person harmless. However, Dr. Steinmetz adds, these advantages should not be overestimated, as even indiscriminate revenge has a deterring influence on the malefactor. In early times, then, vengeance, according to Dr. Steinmetz, was in the main" undirected."

At the next stage it becomes, he says, somewhat less indiscriminate. A proper victim is sought for even in cases of what we should call natural death, which the savage generally attributes to the ill-will of some foe skilled in sorcery; though indeed Dr. Steinmetz doubts whether in such cases the unfortunate sufferer is really supposed to have committed the deed imputed to him.* At all events, a need is felt of choosing somebody for a victim, and "undirected" vengeance gradually gives way to "directed" vengeance. A rude specimen of this is the blood-feud, in which the individual culprit is left out of consideration, but war is carried on against the group of which he is a member, either his family or his tribe. And

viously expressed by Schopenhauer (Parerga und Paralipomena, ii. 475 sq.). But Dr. Steinmetz has elaborated his theory with an independence and fulness which make any question of priority quite insignificant.

1 Steinmetz, op. cit. i. 355, 356, 359, 561.

2 Ibid. i. 362.

3 Ibid. i. 356 sq.

4 Ibid. i. 359 sq.

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