The author of the article which appeared in the eleventh number of “The
Hours,” of 1795, upon “The Danger of Æsthetic Manners,” was right to
hold as doubtful a morality founded only on a feeling for the beautiful,
and which has no other warrant than _taste_; but it is evident that a
strong and pure feeling for the beautiful ought to exercise a salutary
influence upon the moral life; and this is the question of which I am
about to treat.
When I attribute to taste the merit of contributing to moral progress,
it is not in the least my intention to pretend that the interest that
good taste takes in an action suffices to make an action moral; morality
could never have any other foundation than her own. Taste can be
favorable to morality in the conduct, as I hope to point out in the
present essay; but alone, and by its unaided influence, it could never
produce anything moral.
It is absolutely the same with respect to internal liberty as with
external physical liberty. I act freely in a physical sense only when,
independently of all external influence, I simply obey my will. But for
the possibility of thus obeying without hinderance my own will, it is
probable, ultimately, that I am indebted to a principle beyond or
distinct from myself immediately it is admitted that this principle
would hamper my will. The same also with regard to the possibility of
accomplishing such action in conformity with duty—it may be that I owe
it, ultimately, to a principle distinct from my reason; that is
possible, the moment the idea of this principle is recognized as a force
which could have constrained my independence. Thus the same as we can
say of a man, that he holds his liberty from another man, although
liberty in its proper sense consists in not being forced to be regulated
by another—in like manner we can also say that taste here obeys virtue,
although virtue herself expressly carries this idea, that in the
practice of virtue she makes use of no other foreign help. An action
does not in any degree cease to be free, because he who could hamper its
accomplishment should fortunately abstain from putting any obstacle in
the way; it suffices to know that this agent has been moved by his own
will without any consideration of another will. In the same way, an
action of the moral order does not lose its right to be qualified as a
moral action, because the temptations which might have turned it in
another direction did not present themselves; it suffices to admit that
the agent obeyed solely the decree of his reason to the exclusion of all
foreign springs of action. The liberty of an external act is established
as soon as it directly proceeds from the will of a person; the morality
of an interior action is established from the moment that the will of
the agent is at once determined to it by the laws of reason.
It may be rendered easier or more difficult to act as free men according
as we meet or not in our path forces adverse to our will that must be
overcome. In this sense liberty is more or less susceptible. It is
greater, or at least more visible, when we enable it to prevail over the
opposing forces, however energetic their opposition; but it is not
suspended because our will should have met with no resistance, or that a
foreign succor coming to our aid should have destroyed this resistance,
without any help from ourselves.
The same with respect to morality; we might have more or less resistance
to offer in order on the instant to obey our reason, according as it
awakens or not in us those instincts which struggle against its
precepts, and which must be put aside. In this sense morality is
susceptible of more or of less. Our morality is greater, or at least
more in relief, when we immediately obey reason, however powerful the
instincts are which push us in a contrary direction; but it is not
suspended because we have had no temptation to disobey, or that this
force had been paralyzed by some other force other than our will. We are
incited to an action solely because it is moral, without previously
asking ourselves if it is the most agreeable. It is enough that such an
action is morally good, and it would preserve this character even if
there were cause to believe that we should have acted differently if the
action had cost us any trouble, or had deprived us of a pleasure.
It can be admitted, for the honor of humanity, that no man could fall so
low as to prefer evil solely because it is evil, but rather that every
man, without exception, would prefer the good because it is the good, if
by some accidental circumstance the good did not exclude the agreeable,
or did not entail trouble. Thus in reality all moral action seems to
have no other principle than a conflict between the good and the
agreeable; or, that which comes to the same thing, between desire and
reason; the _force_ of our sensuous instincts on one side, and, on the
other side, the feebleness of will, the moral faculty: such apparently
is the source of all our faults.
There may be, therefore, two different ways of favoring morality, the
same as there are two kinds of obstacles which thwart it: either we must
strengthen the side of reason, and the power of the good will, so that
no temptation can overcome it; or we must break the force of temptation,
in order that the reason and the will, although feebler, should yet be
in a state to surmount it.
It might be said, without doubt, that true morality gains little by this
second proceeding, because it happens without any modification of the
will, and yet that it is the nature of the will that alone give to
actions their moral character. But I say also, in the case in question,
a change of will is not at all necessary; because we do not suppose a
bad will which should require to be changed, but only a will turned to
good, but which is feeble. Therefore, this will, inclined to good, but
too feeble, does not fail to attain by this route to good actions, which
might not have happened if a stronger impulsion had drawn it in a
contrary sense. But every time that a strong will towards good becomes
the principle of an action, we are really in presence of a moral action.
I have therefore no scruple in advancing this proposition—that all which
neutralizes the resistance offered to the law of duty really favors
morality.
Morality has within us a natural enemy, the sensuous instinct; this, as
soon as some object solicits its desires, aspires at once to gratify it,
and, as soon as reason requires from it anything repugnant, it does not
fail to rebel against its precepts. This sensuous instinct is constantly
occupied in gaining the will on its side. The will is nevertheless under
the jurisdiction of the moral law, and it is under an obligation never
to be in contradiction with that which reason demands.
But the sensuous instinct does not recognize the moral law; it wishes to
enjoy its object and to induce the will to realize it also,
notwithstanding what the reason may advance. This tendency of the
faculty of our appetites, of immediately directing the will without
troubling itself about superior laws, is perpetually in conflict with
our moral destination, and it is the most powerful adversary that man
has to combat in his moral conduct. The coarse soul, without either
moral or æsthetic education, receives directly the law of appetite, and
acts only according to the good pleasure of the senses. The moral soul,
but which wants æsthetic culture, receives in a direct manner the law of
reason, and it is only out of respect for duty that it triumphs over
temptation. In the purified æsthetic soul, there is moreover another
motive, another force, which frequently takes the place of virtue when
virtue is absent, and which renders it easier when it is present—that
is, taste.
Taste demands of us moderation and dignity; it has a horror of
everything sharp, hard and violent; it likes all that shapes itself with
ease and harmony. To listen to the voice of reason amidst the tempest of
the senses, and to know where to place a limit to nature in its most
brutified explosions, is, as we are aware, required by good breeding,
which is no other than an æsthetic law; this is required of every
civilized man. Well, then, this constraint imposed upon civilized man in
the expression of his feelings, confers upon him already a certain
degree of authority over them, or at least develops in him a certain
aptitude to rise above the purely passive state of the soul, to
interrupt this state by an initiative act, and to stop by reflection the
petulance of the feelings, ever ready to pass from affections to acts.
Therefore everything that interrupts the blind impetuosity of these
movements of the affections does not as yet, however, produce, I own, a
virtue (for virtue ought never to have any other active principle than
itself), but that at least opens the road to the will, in order to turn
it on the side of virtue. Still, this victory of taste over brutish
affections is by no means a moral action, and the freedom which the will
acquires by the intervention of taste is as yet in no way a moral
liberty. Taste delivers the soul from the yoke of instinct, only to
impose upon it chains of its own; and in discerning the first enemy, the
declared enemy of moral liberty, it remains itself, too often, as a
second enemy, perhaps even the more dangerous as it assumes the aspect
of a friend. Taste effectively governs the soul itself only by the
attraction of pleasure; it is true of a nobler type, because its
principle is reason, but still as long as the will is determined by
pleasure there is not yet morality.
Notwithstanding this, a great point is gained already by the
intervention of taste in the operations of the will. All those material
inclinations and brutal appetites, which oppose with so much obstinacy
and vehemence the practice of good, the soul is freed from through the
æsthetic taste; and in their place, it implants in us nobler and gentler
inclinations, which draw nearer to order, to harmony, and to perfection;
and although these inclinations are not by themselves virtues, they have
at least something in common with virtue; it is their _object_.
Thenceforth, if it is the appetite that speaks, it will have to undergo
a rigorous control before the sense of the beautiful: if it is the
reason which speaks, and which commands in its acts conformity with
order, harmony, and perfection, not only will it no longer meet with an
adversary on the side of inclination, but it will find the most active
competition. If we survey all the forms under which morality can be
produced, we shall see that all these forms can be reduced to two;
either it is sensuous nature which moves the soul either to do this
thing or not to do the other, and the will finally decides after the law
of the reason; or it is the reason itself which impels the motion, and
the will obeys it without seeking counsel of the senses.
The Greek princess, Anna Comnena, speaks of a rebel prisoner, whom her
father Alexis, then a simple general of his predecessor, had been
charged to conduct to Constantinople. During the journey, as they were
riding side by side, Alexis desired to halt under the shade of a tree to
refresh himself during the great heat of the day. It was not long before
he fell asleep, whilst his companion, who felt no inclination to repose
with the fear of death awaiting him before his eyes, remained awake.
Alexis slumbered profoundly, with his sword hanging upon a branch above
his head; the prisoner perceived the sword, and immediately conceived
the idea of killing his guardian and thus of regaining his freedom. Anna
Comnena gives us to understand that she knows not what might have been
the result had not Alexis fortunately awoke at that instant. In this
there is a moral of the highest kind, in which the sensuous instinct
first raised its voice, and of which the reason had only afterwards
taken cognizance in quality of judge. But suppose that the prisoner had
triumphed over the temptation only out of respect for justice, there
could be no doubt the action would have been a moral action.
When the late Duke Leopold of Brunswick, standing upon the banks of the
raging waters of the Oder, asked himself if at the peril of his life he
ought to venture into the impetuous flood in order to save some
unfortunates who without his aid were sure to perish; and when—I suppose
a case—simply under the influence of duty, he throws himself into the
boat into which none other dares to enter, no one will contest doubtless
that he acted morally. The duke was here in a contrary position to that
of the preceding one. The idea of duty, in this circumstance, was the
first which presented itself, and afterwards only the instinct of
self-preservation was roused to oppose itself to that prescribed by
reason. But in both cases the will acted in the same way; it obeyed
unhesitatingly the reason, yet both of them are moral actions.
But would the action have continued moral in both cases, if we suppose
the æsthetic taste to have taken part in it? For example, suppose that
the first, who was tempted to commit a bad action, and who gave it up
from respect for justice, had the taste sufficiently cultivated to feel
an invincible horror aroused in him against all disgraceful or violent
action, the æsthetic sense alone will suffice to turn him from it; there
is no longer any deliberation before the moral tribunal, before the
conscience; another motive, another jurisdiction has already pronounced.
But the æsthetic sense governs the will by the feeling and not by laws.
Thus this man refuses to enjoy the agreeable sensation of a life saved,
because he cannot support his odious feelings of having committed a
baseness. Therefore all, in this, took place before the feelings alone,
and the conduct of this man, although in conformity with the law, is
morally indifferent; it is simply a fine effect of nature.
Now let us suppose that the second, he to whom his reason prescribed to
do a thing against which natural instinct protested; suppose that this
man had to the same extent a susceptibility for the beautiful, so that
all which is great and perfect enraptured him; at the same moment, when
reason gave the order, the feelings would place themselves on the same
side, and he would do willingly that which without the inclination for
the beautiful he would have had to do contrary to inclination. But would
this be a reason for us to find it less perfect? Assuredly not, because
in principle it acts out of pure respect for the prescriptions of
reason; and if it follows these injunctions with joy, that can take
nothing away from the moral _purity_ of the act. Thus, this man will be
quite as _perfect in the moral sense_; and, on the contrary, he will be
incomparably more perfect in the physical sense, because he is
infinitely more capable of making a virtuous subject.
Thus, taste gives a direction to the soul which disposes it to virtue,
in keeping away such inclinations as are contrary to it, and in rousing
those which are favorable. Taste could not injure true virtue, although
in every case where natural instinct speaks first, taste commences by
deciding for its chief that which conscience otherwise ought to have
known; in consequence it is the cause that, amongst the actions of those
whom it governs, there are many more actions morally indifferent than
actions truly moral. It thus happens that the excellency of the man does
not consist in the least degree in producing a larger sum of vigorously
moral particular actions, but by evincing as a whole a greater
conformity of all his natural dispositions with the moral law; and it is
not a thing to give people a very high idea of their country or of their
age to hear morality so often spoken of and particular acts boasted of
as traits of virtue. Let us hope that the day when civilization shall
have consummated its work (if we can realize this term in the mind)
there will no longer be any question of this. But, on the other side,
taste can become of possible utility to true virtue, in all cases when,
the first instigations issuing from reason, its voice incurs the risk of
being stifled by the more powerful solicitations of natural instinct.
Thus, taste determines our feelings to take the part of duty, and in
this manner renders a mediocre moral force of will sufficient for the
practice of virtue.
In this light, if the taste never injures true morality, and if in many
cases it is of evident use—and this circumstance is very important—then
it is supremely favorable to the legality of our conduct. Suppose that
æsthetic education contributes in no degree to the improvement of our
feelings, at least it renders us better able to act, although without
true moral disposition, as we should have acted if our soul had been
truly moral. Therefore, it is quite true that, before the tribunal of
the conscience, our acts have absolutely no importance but as the
expression of our feelings: but it is precisely the contrary in the
physical order and in the plan of nature: there it is no longer our
sentiments that are of importance; they are only important so far as
they give occasion to acts which conduce to the aims of nature. But the
physical order which is governed by forces, and the moral order which
governs itself by laws, are so exactly made one for the other, and are
so intimately blended, that the actions which are by their form morally
suitable, necessarily contain also a physical suitability; and as the
entire edifice of nature seems to exist only to render possible the
highest of all aims, which is the good, in the same manner the good can
in its turn be employed as the means of preserving the edifice. Thus,
the natural order has been rendered dependent upon the morality of our
souls, and we cannot go against the moral laws of the world without at
the same time provoking a perturbation in the physical world.
If, then, it is impossible to expect that human nature, as long as it is
only human nature, should act without interruption or feebleness,
uniformly and constantly as pure reason, and that it never offend the
laws of moral order; if fully persuaded, as we are, both of the
necessity and the possibility of pure virtue, we are forced to avow how
subject to accident is the exercise of it, and how little we ought to
reckon upon the steadfastness of our best principles; if with this
conviction of human fragility we bear in mind that each of the
infractions of the moral law attacks the edifice of nature, if we recall
all these considerations to our memory, it would be assuredly the most
criminal boldness to place the interests of the entire world at the
mercy of the uncertainty of our virtue. Let us rather draw from it the
following conclusion, that it is for us an obligation to satisfy at the
very least the physical order by the object of our acts, even when we do
not satisfy the exigencies of the moral order by the form of these acts;
to pay, at least, as perfect instruments the aims of nature, that which
we owe as imperfect persons to reason, in order not to appear shamefaced
before both tribunals. For if we refused to make any effort to conform
our acts to it because simple legality is without moral merit, the order
of the world might in the meanwhile be dissolved, and before we had
succeeded in establishing our principles all the links of society might
be broken No, the more our morality is subjected to chance, the more is
it necessary to take measures in order to assure its legality; to
neglect, either from levity or pride, this legality is a fault for which
we shall have to answer before morality. When a maniac believes himself
threatened with a fit of madness, he leaves no knife within reach of his
hands, and he puts himself under constraint, in order to avoid
responsibility in a state of sanity for the crimes which his troubled
brain might lead him to commit. In a similar manner it is an obligation
for us to seek the salutary bonds which religion and the æsthetic laws
present to us, in order that during the crisis when our passion is
dominant it shall not injure the physical order.
It is not unintentionally that I have placed religion and taste in one
and the same class; the reason is that both one and the other have the
merit, similar in effect, although dissimilar in principle and in value,
to take the place of virtue properly so called, and to assure legality
where there is no possibility to hope for morality. Doubtless that would
hold an incontestably higher rank in the order of pure spirits, as they
would need neither the attraction of the beautiful nor the perspective
of eternal life, to conform on every occasion to the demands of reason;
but we know man is short-sighted, and his feebleness forces the most
rigid moralist to temper in some degree the rigidity of his system in
practice, although he will yield nothing in theory; it obliges him, in
order to insure the welfare of the human race, which would be ill
protected by a virtue subjected to chance, to have further recourse to
two strong anchors—those of religion and taste.