necessary to combat seriously a doctrine of morality radically
incompatible with that which I would make penetrate your minds and your
souls. It was especially necessary for me to strip the ethics of
interest of that false appearance of liberty which they usurp in vain. I
maintain, on the contrary, that they are the ethics of slaves, and send
them back to the time when they ruled. Now, the principle of interest
being destroyed, I propose to examine other principles also, less false
without doubt, but still defective, exclusive, and incomplete, upon
which celebrated systems have pretended to found ethics. I will
successively combat these principles taken in themselves, and will then
bring them together, reduced to their just value, in a theory large
enough to contain all the true elements of morality, in order to express
faithfully common sense and entire human consciousness.
FOOTNOTES:
[190] On the ethics of interest, to this lecture may be joined those of
vol. iii. of the 1st Series, on the doctrine of Helvetius and St.
Lambert.
[191] The word _bonheur_, which has no exact English equivalent, which
M. Cousin uses in his ethical discussions in the precise sense of the
definition given above, we have sometimes translated happiness,
sometimes good fortune, sometimes prosperity, sometimes fortune. When
one has in mind the thing, he will not be troubled by the more or less
exact word that indicates it:--all language, at best, is only symbolic;
it bears the same relation to thought as the forms of nature do to the
laws that produce and govern them. The true reader never mistakes the
symbol for the thing symbolized, the shadow for the reality.
[192] On the danger of seeking unity before all, see in the 3d Series,
_Fragments Philosophiques_, vol. iv., our _Examination of the Lectures
of M. Laromeguiere_.
[193] On the difference between desire, intelligence, and will, see the
_Examination_, already cited, _of the Lectures of M. Laromeguiere_.
[194] 1st Series, vol. iii., p. 193: "In the doctrine of interest, every
man seeks the useful, but he is not sure of attaining it. He may, by
dint of prudence and profound combinations, increase in his favor the
chances of success; it is impossible that there should not remain some
chances against him; he never pursues, then, any thing but a probable
result. On the contrary, in the doctrine of duty, I am always sure of
obtaining the last end that I propose to myself, moral good. I risk my
life to save my fellow; if, through mischance, I miss this end, there is
another which does not, which cannot, escape me,--I have aimed at the
good, I have been successful. Moral good, being especially in the
virtuous intention, is always in my power and within my reach; as to the
material good that can result from the action itself, Providence alone
disposes of it. Let us felicitate ourselves that Providence has placed
our moral destiny in our own hands, by making it depend upon the good
and not upon the useful. The will, in order to act in the sad trials of
life, has need of being sustained by certainty. Who would be disposed to
give his blood for an uncertain end? Success is a complicated problem,
that, in order to be solved, exacts all the power of the calculus of
probabilities. What labor and what uncertainties does such a calculus
involve! Doubt is a very sad preparation for action. But when one
proposes before all to do his duty, he acts without any perplexity. Do
what you ought, let come what may, is a motto that does not deceive.
With such an end, we are sure of never pursuing it in vain."
[195] See the development of the idea of right, lectures 14 and 15.
[196] See lecture 14, Theory of liberty.
[197] See the preceding lecture, and lectures 14 and 15.
[198] 1st part, lecture 1.
[199] See lecture 16.
[200] On the politics that are derived from the philosophy of sensation,
see the four lectures that we devoted to the exposition and refutation
of the doctrine of Hobbes, vol. iii. of the 1st Series.
[201] These words sufficiently mark the generous epoch in which we
pronounce them, without wounding the authority and the applauses of a
noble youth, when M. de Chateaubriand covered the Restoration with his
own glory, when M. Royer-Collard presided over public instruction, M.
Pasquier, M. Laine, M. de Serre over justice and the interior, Marshal
St. Cyr over war, and the Duke de Richelieu over foreign affairs, when
the Duke de Broglie prepared the true legislation of the press, and M.
Decazes, the author of the wise and courageous ordinance of September 5,
1816, was at the head of the councils of the crown; when finally, Louis
XVIII. separated himself, like Henry IV., from his oldest servants in
order to be the king of the whole nation.
[202] _Oeuvres de Reid_, vol. iv., p. 297: "Men are neither as good
nor as bad as their principles; and, as there is no skeptic in the
street, so I am sure there is no disinterested spectator of human
actions who is not compelled to discern them as just and unjust.
Skepticism has no light that does not pale before the splendor of that
vivid internal light that lightens the objects of moral perception, as
the light of day lightens the objects of sensible perception."
LECTURE XIII.
OTHER DEFECTIVE PRINCIPLES.
The ethics of sentiment.--The ethics founded on the principle of
the interest of the greatest number.--The ethics founded on the
will of God alone.--The ethics founded on the punishments and
rewards of another life.
Against the ethics of interest, all generous souls take refuge in the
ethics of sentiment. The following are some of the facts on which these
ethics are supported, and by which they seem to be authorized.
When we have done a good action, is it not certain that we experience a
pleasure of a certain nature, which is to us the reward of this action?
This pleasure does not come from the senses--it has neither its
principle nor its measure in an impression made upon our organs. Neither
is it confounded with the joy of satisfied personal interest,--we are
not moved in the same manner, in thinking that we have succeeded, and in
thinking that we have been honest. The pleasure attached to the
testimony of a good conscience is pure; other pleasures are much
alloyed. It is durable, whilst the others quickly pass away. Finally, it
is always within our reach. Even in the midst of misfortune, man bears
in himself a permanent source of exquisite joys, for he always has the
power of doing right, whilst success, dependent upon a thousand
circumstances of which we are not the masters, can give only an
occasional and precarious pleasure.
As virtue has its joys, so crime has its pains. The suffering that
follows a fault is the just recompense for the pleasure that we have
found in it, and is often born with it. It poisons culpable joys and the
successes that are not legitimate. It wounds, rends, bites, thus to
speak, and thereby receives its name.[203] To be man, is sufficient to
understand this suffering,--it is remorse.
Here are other facts equally incontestable:
I perceive a man whose face bears the marks of distress and misery.
There is nothing in this that reaches and injures me; nevertheless,
without reflection or calculation, the sight alone of this suffering man
makes me suffer. This sentiment is pity, compassion, whose general
principle is sympathy.
The sadness of one of my fellow-men inspires me with sadness, and a glad
face disposes me to joy:
Ut ridentibus arrident, ita flentibus adflent
Humani vultus.
The joy of others has an echo in our souls, and their sufferings, even
their physical sufferings, communicate themselves to us almost
physically. Not as exaggerated as it has been supposed was that
expression of Mme. de Sevigne to her sick daughter: I have a pain in
your breast.
Our soul feels the need of putting itself in unison, and, as it were, in
equilibrium with that of others. Hence those electric movements, thus to
speak, that run through large assemblies. One receives the
counter-stroke of the sentiments of his neighbors,--admiration and
enthusiasm are contagious, as well as pleasantry and ridicule. Hence
again the sentiment with which the author of a virtuous action inspires
us. We feel a pleasure analogous to that which he feels himself. But are
we witnesses of a bad action? our souls refuse to participate in the
sentiments that animate the culpable man,--they have for him a true
aversion, what is called antipathy.
We do not forget a third order of facts that pertain to the preceding,
but differ from them.
We not only sympathize with the author of a virtuous action, we wish
him well, we voluntarily do good to him, in a certain degree we love
him. This love goes as far as enthusiasm when it has for its object a
sublime act and a hero. This is the principle of the homages, of the
honors that humanity renders to great men. And this sentiment does not
pertain solely to others,--we apply it to ourselves by a sort of return
that is not egoism. Yes, it may be said that we love ourselves when we
have done well. The sentiment that others owe us, if they are just, we
accord to ourselves,--that sentiment is benevolence.
On the contrary, do we witness a bad action? We experience for the
author of this action antipathy; moreover we wish him evil,--we desire
that he should suffer for the fault that he has committed, and in
proportion to the gravity of the fault. For this reason great culprits
are odious to us, if they do not compensate for their crimes by deep
remorse, or by great virtues mingled with their crimes. This sentiment
is not malevolence. Malevolence is a personal and interested sentiment,
which makes us wish evil to others, because they are an obstacle to us.
Hatred does not ask whether such a man is virtuous or vicious, but
whether he obstructs us, surpasses us, or injures us. The sentiment of
which we are speaking is a sort of hatred, but a generous hatred that
neither springs from interest nor envy, but from a shocked conscience.
It is turned against us when we do evil, as well as against others.
Moral satisfaction is not sympathy, neither is sympathy, to speak
rigorously, benevolence. But these three phenomena have the common
character of all being sentiments. They give birth to three different
and analogous systems of ethics.
According to certain philosophers, a good action is that which is
followed by moral satisfaction, a bad action is that which is followed
by remorse. The good or bad character of an action is at first attested
to us by the sentiment that accompanies it. Then, this sentiment, with
its moral signification, we attribute to other men; for we judge that
they do as we do, that in presence of the same actions they feel the
same sentiments.
Other philosophers have assigned the same part to sympathy or
benevolence.
For these the sign and measure of the good is in the sentiments of
affection and benevolence which we feel for a moral agent. Does a man
excite in us by such or such an action a more or less vivid disposition
to wish him well, a desire to see and even make him happy? we may say
that this action is good. If, by a series of actions of the same kind,
he makes this disposition and this desire permanent in us, we judge that
he is a virtuous man. Does he excite an opposite desire, an opposite
disposition? he appears to us a dishonest man.
For the former, the good is that with which we naturally sympathize. Has
a man devoted himself to death through love for his country? this heroic
action awakens in us, in a certain degree, the same sentiments that
inspired him. Bad passions are not thus echoed in our hearts, unless
they find us already very corrupt, and have interest for their
accomplice; but even then there is something in us that revolts against
these passions, and in the most depraved soul subsists a concealed
sentiment of sympathy for the good, and antipathy for the evil.
These different systems may be reduced to a single one, which is called
the ethics of sentiment.
It is not difficult to show the difference which separates these ethics
from those of egoism. Egoism is the exclusive love of self, is the
thoughtful and permanent search for our own pleasure and our own
well-being.
What is there more opposed to interest than benevolence? In benevolence,
far from wishing others well by reason of our interest, we will
voluntarily risk something, we will make some sacrifice in order to
serve an honest man who has coined our heart. If even in this sacrifice
the soul feels a pleasure, this pleasure is only the involuntary
accompaniment of sentiment, it is not the end proposed,--we feel it
without having sought it. It is, indeed, permitted the soul to taste
this pleasure, for it is nature herself that attaches it to
benevolence.
Sympathy, like benevolence, is related to another than ourselves,--our
interest is not its starting-point. The soul is so constituted that it
is capable of suffering on account of the sufferings of an enemy. That a
man does a noble action, although it opposes our interests, awakens in
us a certain sympathy for that action and its author.
The attempt has been made to explain the compassion with which the
suffering of one of our fellow-men inspires us by the fear that we have
of feeling it in our turn. But the unhappiness for which we feel
compassion, is often so far from us and threatens us so little, that it
would be absurd to fear it. Doubtless, that sympathy may have existence
it is necessary to experience suffering,--_non ignara mali_. For how do
you suppose that I can be sensible to evils of which I form to myself no
idea? But that is only the condition of sympathy. It is not at all
necessary to conclude that it is only a remembrance of our own ills or
the fear of ills to come.
No recurrence to ourselves can account for sympathy. In the first place,
it is involuntary, like antipathy. Then it cannot be supposed that we
sympathize with any one in order to win his benevolence; for he who is
its object often knows not what we feel. What benevolence are we
seeking, when we sympathize with men that we have never seen, that we
never shall see, with men that are no more?
Egoism admits all pleasures; it repels none; it may, if it is
enlightened, if it has become delicate and refined, recommend, as more
durable and less alloyed, the pleasures of sentiment. The ethics of
sentiment would then be confounded with those of egoism, if they should
prescribe obedience to sentiment for the pleasure that we find in it.
There would, then, be no disinterestedness in it,--the individual would
be the centre and sole end of all his actions. But such is not the case.
The charm of the pleasures of conscience comes from the very fact that
we are forgetful of self in the action that has produced them. So if
nature has joined to sympathy and benevolence a true enjoyment, it is
on condition that these sentiments remain as they are, pure and
disinterested; you must only think of the object of your sympathy and
benevolence in order that benevolence and sympathy may receive their
recompense in the pleasure which they give. Otherwise, this pleasure no
longer has its reason for existence, and it is wanting as soon as it
sought for itself. No metamorphose of interest can produce a pleasure
attached to disinterestedness alone.
The ethics of egoism are only a perpetual falsehood,--they preserve the
names consecrated by ethics, but they abolish ethics themselves; they
deceive humanity by speaking to humanity its own language, concealing
under this borrowed language a radical opposition to all the instincts,
to all the ideas that form the treasure of mankind. On the contrary, if
sentiment is not the good itself, it is its faithful companion and
useful auxiliary. It is as it were the sign of the presence of the good,
and renders the accomplishment of it more easy. We always have sophisms
at our disposal, in order to persuade ourselves that our true interest
is to satisfy present passion; but sophism has less influence over the
mind when the mind is in some sort defended by the heart. Nothing is,
therefore, more salutary than to excite and preserve in the soul those
noble sentiments that lift us above the slavery of personal interest.
The habit of participating in the sentiments of virtuous men disposes us
to act like them. To cultivate in ourselves benevolence and sympathy is
to fertilize the source of charity and love, is to nourish and develop
the germ of generosity and devotion.
It is seen that we render sincere homage to the ethics of sentiment.
These ethics are true,--only they are not sufficient for themselves;
they need a principle which authorizes them.
I act well, and I feel on account of it an internal satisfaction: I do
evil, and feel remorse on account of it. These two sentiments do not
qualify the act that I have just done, since they follow it. Would it be
possible for us to feel any internal satisfaction for having acted well
if we did not judge that we had acted well?--any remorse for having
done evil, if we did not judge that we had done evil? At the same time
that we do such or such an act, a natural and instinctive judgment
characterizes it, and it is in consequence of this judgment that our
sensibility is moved. Sentiment is not this primitive and immediate
judgment; far from forming the basis of the idea of the good, it
supposes it. It is manifestly a vicious circle to derive the knowledge
of the good from that which would not exist without this knowledge.[204]
So is it not because we find a good action that we sympathize with it?
Is it not because the dispositions of a man appear to us conformed to
the idea of justice, that we are inclined to participate in them with
him? Moreover, if sympathy were the true criterion of the good, every
thing for which we feel sympathy would be good. But sympathy is not only
related to things in their nature moral, we also sympathize with the
grief and the joy that have nothing to do with virtue and crime. We even
sympathize with physical sufferings. Moral sympathy is only a case of
general sympathy. It must even be acknowledged that sympathy is not
always in accordance with right. We sometimes sympathize with certain
sentiments that we condemn, because, without being in themselves
bad--which would prevent all sympathy--they give an inclination to the
greatest faults; for example, love, which comes so near to irregularity,
and emulation, that so quickly leads to ambition.
Benevolence also is not always determined by the good alone. And, again,
when it is applied to a virtuous man, it supposes a judgment by which we
pronounce that this man is virtuous. It is not because we wish the
author of an action well that we judge that this action is good; it is
because we judge that this action is good that we wish its author well.
This is not all. In the sentiment of benevolence is enveloped a new
judgment which is not in sympathy. This judgment is the following: the
author of a good action deserves to be happy, as the author of a bad
action deserves to suffer in order to expiate it. This is the reason why
we desire happiness for the one and reparatory suffering for the other.
Benevolence is little else than the sensible form of this judgment.
All these sentiments, therefore, suppose an anterior and superior
judgment. Everywhere and always the same vicious circle. From the fact
that the sentiments which we have just described have a moral character,
it is concluded that they constitute the idea of the good, whilst it is
the idea of the good that communicates to them the character that we
perceive in them.
Another difficulty is, that sentiments pertain to sensibility, and
borrow from it something of its relative and changing nature. It is,
then, very necessary that all men should be made to enjoy with the same
delicacy the pleasures of the heart. There are gross natures and natures
refined. If your desires are impetuous and violent, will not the idea of
the pleasures of virtue be in you much more easily overcome by the force
of passion than if nature had given you a tranquil temperament? The
state of the atmosphere, health, sickness, calm or rouse our moral
sensibility. Solitude, by delivering man up to himself, leaves to
remorse all its energy, the presence of death redoubles it; but the
world, noise, force of example, habit, without power to smother it, in
some sort stun it. The spirit has a little season of rest. We are not
always in the vein of enthusiasm. Courage itself has its intermissions.
We know the celebrated expression: He was one day brave. Humor has its
vicissitudes that influence our most intimate sentiments. The purest,
the most ideal sentiment still pertains on some side to organization.
The inspiration of the poet, the passion of the lover, the enthusiasm of
the martyr, have their languors and shortcomings that often depend on
very pitiable material causes. On those perpetual fluctuations of
sentiment, is it possible to ground a legislation equal for all?
Sympathy and benevolence do not escape the conditions of all the
phenomena of sensibility. We do not all possess in the same degree the
power of feeling what others experience. Those who have suffered most
best comprehend suffering, and consequently feel for it the most lively
compassion. With mere imagination one also represents to himself better
and feels more what passes in the souls of his fellow-man. One feels
more sympathy for physical pleasures and pains, another for pleasures
and pains of soul; and each of these sympathies has in each of us its
degrees and variations. They not only differ, they often oppose each
other. Sympathy for talent weakens the indignation that outraged virtue
produces. We overlook many things in Voltaire, in Rousseau, in Mirabeau,
and we excuse them on account of the corruption of their century. The
sympathy caused by the pain of a condemned person renders less lively
the just antipathy excited by his crime. Thus turns and wavers at each
step that sympathy which some would set up as the supreme arbiter of the
good. Benevolence does not vary less. We have souls naturally more or
less affectionate, more or less animated. And, then, like sympathy,
benevolence receives the counter-stroke of different passions that are
mingled with it. Friendship, for example, often renders us, in spite of
ourselves, more benevolent than justice would wish.
Is it not a rule of prudence not to listen to, without always disdaining
them, the inspirations--often capricious--of the heart? Governed by
reason, sentiment becomes to it an admirable support. But, delivered up
to itself, in a little while it degenerates into passion, and passion is
fantastic, excessive, unjust; it gives to the soul spring and energy,
but generally troubles and perverts it. It is even not very far from
egoism, and it usually terminates in that, wholly generous as it is or
seems to be in the beginning. Unless we always keep in sight the good
and the inflexible obligation that is attached to it, unless we always
keep in sight this fixed and immutable point, the soul knows not where
to betake itself on that moving ground that is called sensibility; it
floats from sentiment to passion, from generosity to selfishness,
ascending one day to the pitch of enthusiasm, and the next day
descending to all the miseries of personality.
Thus the ethics of sentiment, although superior to those of interest,
are not less insufficient: 1st. They give as the foundation of the idea
of the good what is founded on this same idea; 2d. The rule that they
propose is too mobile to be universally obligatory.[205]
There is another system of which I will also say, as of the preceding,
that it is not false, but incomplete and insufficient.
The partisans of the ethics of utility and happiness have tried to save
their principle by generalizing it. According to them, the good can be
nothing but happiness; but egoism is wrong in understanding by that the
happiness of the individual; we must understand by it the general
happiness.
Let us establish, in the first place, that the new principle is entirely
opposed to that of personal interest, for, according to circumstances,
it may demand, not only a passing sacrifice, but an irreparable
sacrifice, that of life. Now, the wisest calculations of personal
interest cannot go thus far.