DUTY. COMPENSATION AND ESCAPE
I shall ignore the complexities that arise when we seek to
organize our reactions into various groups by making a simple
classification of feeling, for the purposes of this book. There
is a primary result of any stimulation, whether from within
ourselves or without, which we have called excitement. This
excitement may have a pleasurable or an unpleasurable quality,
and we cannot understand just what is back of pleasure and pain
in this sense. Such an explanation, that pleasure is a sign of
good for the organism and pain a sign of bad, is an error in that
often an experience that produces pleasure is a detriment and an
injury. If pleasure were an infallible sign of good, no books on
character, morals or hygiene would need to be written.
This primary excitement, when associated with outer events or
things, becomes differentiated into many forms. Curiosity (or
interest) is the focusing of that excitement on particular
objects or ends, in order that the essential value or meaning of
that object or individual become known. Curiosity and interest
develop into the seeking of experience and the general
intellectual pursuits. We have already discussed this phase of
excitement.
An object of interest may then evoke further feeling. It may be
one's baby, or one's father or a kinsman or a female of the same
species. A type of feeling FAVORABLE to the object is aroused,
called "tender feeling," which is associated with deep-lying
instincts and has endless modifications and variations. Perhaps
its great example is the tender feeling of the mother for the
baby, a feeling so strong that it leads to conduct of self-
sacrifice; conduct that makes nothing of privation, suffering,
even death, if these will help the object of the tender feeling,
the child. Tender feeling of this type, which we call love, is a
theme one cannot discuss dryly, for it sweeps one into reveries;
it suggests softly glowing eyes, not far from tears, tenderly
curved lips, just barely smiling, and the soft humming of the
mother to the babe in her arms. It is the soft feeling which is
the unifying feeling, and when it reaches a group they become
gentle in tone and manners and feel as one. The dream of the
reformer has always been the extension of this tender feeling
from the baby, from the child and the helpless, to all men, thus
abolishing strife, conquering hate, unifying man. This type of
love is also paternal, though it is doubtful whether as such it
ever reaches the intensity it does in the mother. By a sort of
association it spreads to all children, to all little things, to
all helpless things, except where there exists a counter feeling
already well established.
Though typical in the mother, child relationship, tender feeling
or love, exists in many other relationships. The human family,
with its close association, its inculcated unity of interests, in
its highest form is based on the tender feeling. The noble ideal
of the brotherhood of man comes from an extension of the feeling
found in brothers. The brotherly feeling is emphasized, though
the sisterly feeling is fully as strong, merely because the male
member of genus homo has been the articulate member, he has
written and talked as if he, and not his sister, were the
important human personage. So fraternal feeling is tender
feeling, existing between members of the same family, or the love
that we conceive ought to be present. Is such love instinctive,
as is the maternal love? If it is, that instinct is very much
weaker, and hostile feeling, indifference, rivalry, may easily
replace it. We rarely conceive of a mortal world where so intense
a love as that of the mother will be the common feeling; all we
dare hope for is a world in which there will be a fine fraternal
feeling.
Fraternal feeling is born of association together, any task
undertaken en masse, any living together under one roof. Even
when men sit down to eat at the same table, it tends to appear.
So college life, the barracks, secret orders, awaken it, but
here, as always, while it links together the associated, it shuts
out as non-fraternal those not associated.
What we call friendly feeling is a less vehement, more
intellectualized form of tender feeling. It demands a certain
equality and a certain similarity in tastes, though some
friendships are noted for the dissimilarity of the friends.
Friendship lives on reciprocal benefits, tangible or intangible,
though sentimentalists may take exception to this. Primary in it
is the good opinion of the friends and interest in one another;
we cannot be friends with those who think we are foolish or mean
or bad. We ALLOW a friend to say that we have acted wrongly
because we think he has our interest at heart, because he has
shown that he has this interest at heart, though his saying so
sometimes strains the friendship for a while. Friendship ideally
expects no material benefits, but it lives on the spiritual
benefit of sympathy and expressed interest and the flattery of a
taste in common. It is a unification of individuals that has been
glorified as the perfect relationship, since it has no
classifiable instinct behind it and is in a sense democracy at
its noblest. Friendship is easiest formed in youth, because men
are least selfish, least specialized at that time. As time goes
on, alas, our own interests and purposes narrow down in order
that we may succeed; there is less time and energy for
friendship.
Sex love is only in part made up of tender feeling. Passion,
admiration of beauty, desire of possession, the love of conquest,
take away from the "other" feeling that is the basis of
tenderness or true love. We desire so much for ourselves in sex
love that we have not so much capacity for tender feeling as we
usually think we have. The protests of eternal devotion and
unending self-sacrifice are sincere enough but they have this
proviso in the background: "You must give yourself to me." If the
lovers can also be friends, if they have a real harmony of
tastes, desires and ambitions, if they can recede their ego
feeling, know how to compromise, then this added to sex feeling
makes the most genuinely satisfying of all human relations, or at
least the most reciprocal. But the two human beings who fall in
love are rarely enough alike, and their relationship is rarely
one of equality; traditional duties and rights are not equal;
they will seek different things, and their relationship is too
close and intimate to be an easy one to maintain. Sex love and
marriage are different matters, for though they may be the same,
too often they are not. Rarely does sex love maintain itself
without marriage and marriage colors over sex love with parental
feelings, financial interests, home and its emotions, etc. In sex
gratification[1] there is the danger of all sensuous pleasure:
that a periodic appetite gratified often leaves behind it an
ennui, a distaste,--sometimes reaching dislike--of the entire act
and associations.
[1] Stanley Hall says that after sex gratification there is
"taedium vitae," weariness of life. In unsanctioned sex
gratification this is extreme and takes on either bitter
self-reproach or else a hate of the partner. But this is due to
the inner conflict rather than the sex act.
Is all tender feeling, all love, sexual in its essential nature?
The Freudians say yes to this, or what amounts to yes. All mother
love arises from the sex sphere, and it cannot be denied that in
the passionate desire to fondle, to kiss and even to bite there
is something very like the excitement of sex. But there is
something very different in the wish for self-sacrifice, the pity
for the helpless state, the love of the littleness. Women, when
they love men, often add maternal feeling to it, but mainly they
love their strength, size and vigor; and there tenderness and
passion differ. Certainly there seems little of the sexual in the
love of a father for his baby,[1] though the Freudians do not
hesitate in their use of the term homosexual. Apparently all
children have incestuous desire for their parents, if we are to
trust Freud. Without entering into detailed reasoning, I disavow
any truly sexual element in tender feeling. It is part of the
reception we give to objects having a favorable relation to
ourselves. Indeed, we give it to our houses, our dogs, our
cattle; our pipes are hallowed by friendly association, and so
with our books, our clothes and our homes. We extend it in deep,
full measure to the very rocks and rills of our native land or to
some place where we spent happy or tender days. Tender feeling,
love, is inclusive of much of the sex emotion, and the
characteristic mistake of the Freudians of identifying somewhat
similar things has here been made.
[1] It's a very difficult world to live in, if we are to trust
the Freudians. If your boy child loves his mother, that's
heterosexual; if he loves his father, that's homosexual; and the
love of a girl child for her parents simply reverses the above
formula. If your wife says of the baby boy, "How I love him! He
looks just like my father," be careful; that's a daughter-father
complex of a dangerous kind and means the most unhallowed things,
and may cause her to have a nervous breakdown some day!
Love, then, is this tender feeling made purposive and
intelligent. It is a sentiment, in Shand's phrase, and seeks the
good of its object. It may be narrow, it may be broad, it may be
intense or feeble, but in its organized sense it plans, fights
and cherishes. It has organized with it the primary
emotions,--fear if the object is in danger, or anger is evoked
according to the circumstances; joy if the object of love is
enhanced or prospers; sorrow if it is lost or injured under
circumstances that make the lover helpless. Love is not only the
tenderest feeling, but it is also the most heroic and desperate
fighter in behalf of the loved one. Here we are face to face with
the contradictions that we always meet when we personify a
quality or make an abstraction. Love may do the most hateful
things; love may stunt, the character of the lover and the
beloved. In other words, love, tender feeling, must be conjoined
with intelligence, good judgment, determination and fairness
before it is useful. It would be a nice question to determine
just how much harm misguided love has done.
What is pity? Though objects of love always elicit pity, when
helpless or injured, objects of pity are not necessarily objects
of love. In fact, we may pity through contempt. Objective pity is
a type of tender feeling in which there is little or no
self-feeling. We do not extend the ego to the piteous object. We
desire to help, even though the object of pity is an enemy or
disgusting. One of the commonest struggles of life is that
between self-interest and pity,--and the selfish resent any
situation that arouses their pity, because they dislike to give.
Pity tends to disappear from the life of the soldier and is,
indeed, a trait he does not need; in the lives of the strong and
successful, pity is apt to be a hindering quality. In a world in
which competition is keen, the cooperative gentle qualities
hinder success. The weak seek the pity of others; they need it;
and the pity-seeker is a very distinct type. The strong and proud
hate to be pitied, and when wounded they hide, shun their friends
and keep the semblance of strength with a brave face. Pity
directed toward oneself as the object is self-pity,--a quality
found in children and in a certain amiable, weak, egoistic type,
whose eyes are always full of tears as they talk of themselves.
Of course, at times, we are all prone to this vice of character,
but there are some chronically afflicted.
Certain so-called sentimentalists are those who die, tribute
their pity in an erratic fashion. These are the vegetarians who
are sad because it is wrong to kill for food; yet they wear
without compunction the leather of cattle who have neither
committed suicide nor died of old age. And the
anti-vivisectionists view without any stir of pity the children
of the slums and the sick of all kinds. Pity raises man to the
divine but, like all the gentle qualities, it needs guidance by
reason and common sense before it is of any value.
Just as there are objects and individuals recognized or believed
to be as somehow favorable and who evoke tender feeling, so there
are objects and individuals regarded as unfavorable, perhaps
dangerous, who arouse aversion and hatred. The feeling thus
produced is the other great sentiment of life, which on the whole
organizes character and conduct on a great plane. Hatred, a
decidedly primitive reaction, still is powerful in the world and
is back of dissension of all kinds, from lawsuits to war. When
one hates he is attached to the hated object in a fashion just
the reverse of the attachment of love; joy, anger, fear and
sorrow arise under exactly the opposite circumstances, and the
aim and end of hate is to block, thwart and destroy the hated
one. The earlier history of man lays emphasis on the activities
of hate,--war, feats of arms, individual feuds. Hate, unlike
love, needs no moral code or teaching to bring it into activity;
it springs into being and constantly needs repression. Unlikeness
alone often brings it to life; to be too different from others is
recognized as a legitimate reason for hatred. The most important
cause is conflict of interest and wounding of self-feeling and
pride. Revengeful feeling, fostered by tradition and
"patriotism," caused many wars and in its lesser spheres of
operation is back of murders, assaults, insults and the lesser
categories of injuries of all kinds.
The prime emotion of hatred is anger; in its less intense aspect
of aversion it is disgust. The aim and end of anger is
destruction of the offending object; the aim and end of aversion
is removal, ejection. Hate may be and often is a noble sentiment,
though the trend of modern thought, as it minimizes personal
responsibility, is to eliminate hate against persons and
intellectualize hate so that it is reserved for the battle
against ideas. Whether you can really summon all your effort
against any one, against his plans, opinions and actions, unless
you have built up the steady sentiment of hatred for him, is a
nice psychological question. Hate is most intense in little
people, in persons absolutely convinced that their interests,
opinions and plans are sacred, sure of their superiority and
righteousness. Once let insight into yourself, your weakness and
your real motives creep into your mind and your hate against
opponents and obstructors must lessen. Those who realize most the
fallibility of men and women, to whom Pilate's question "What is
truth?" has added to it a more sceptical question, "What is
right," find it hard to hate. Therefore, such persons, the
broad-minded and the most deeply wise, are not the best fighters
for a cause, since their efforts are lessened by sympathy for the
opponent. Here is the marvel of Abraham Lincoln; rich with
insight, he could hate slavery and secession and yet not hate the
southern people. In that division of himself lies his greatness
and his suffering.
The disappearance of personal hate from the world can only come
when men realize the essential unity of mankind. For part of the
psychological origin of hate lies in unlikeness. Great unlikeness
in color and facial line seems to act as a challenge to the
feeling of superiority. Wherever a "different" group challenges
another's superiority, or enters into active competition for the
goods of life, there hate enters in its most virulent form. The
disappearance of the "unlike" feeling is very slow and is
hindered by the existence of small "particular" groups. Little
nationalities,[1] small sects, even exclusive clubs and circles
are means of generating difference and thus hate.
[1] The more nationalities, each with its claim to a great
destiny, the more wars! There is the essential danger and folly
of tribal patriotism.
We shall not enter into the origin of hate through the danger to
purpose, through rivalry among those not separated by unlikeness.
Hate seems to be a chronic anger, or at least that emotion kept
at a more or less constant level by perception of danger and the
threat at personal dignity and worth. Obstructed love or passion
and the feeling of "wrong," i. e., injury done that was not
merited, that the personal conscience does not justify, furnish
the most virulent types of hatred. "Love thine enemies" is still
an impossible injunction for most men.
We cannot hope to trace the feeling of revenge in its effects on
human conduct. Though at present religion and law both prohibit
revengeful acts, the desire "to get even" flames high in almost
every human breast under all kinds of injury or insult. This form
of hate may express itself crudely in the vendetta of the
Sicilian, the feud of the Tennessee mountaineer, or the assault
and battery of an aggrieved husband; it is behind the present-day
conflict in Ireland, and it threatened Europe for forty years
after the Franco-Prussian War, --and no man knows how profoundly
it will influence future world affairs because of the Great War.
Often it disguises itself as justice, the principle of the thing,
in those who will not admit revenge as a motive; and the eclipsed
and beaten take revenge in slander, innuendo and double-edged
praise. To some revenge is a devil to be fought out of their
hearts; to others it is a god that guides every act. We may
define nobility of character as the withdrawal from revenge as a
motive and the substitution for it of justice.
Some hatred expresses itself openly and fearlessly and as such
gains some respect, even from its own object. Other hatred plots
and schemes, the intelligence lends itself to the plans
completely and the whole personality suffers in consequence. Some
hatred, weak and without self-confidence, or seeking the effect
of surprise, is hypocritical, dissimulates, affects friendly
feeling, rubs its hands over insults and awaits the opportune
moment. This type is associated in all minds with a feeling of
disgust, for at bottom we rather admire the "good" hater.
We have spoken of these three specialized and directed outgrowths
of excitement, interest, love and hatred as if they were
primarily directed to the outside world, though in a previous
chapter we discussed the introspective interest. What shall we
call the love and hatred a man has for himself? Is the
self-regarding sentiment any different than the sentiment of love
for others? Is that hate and disgust we feel for ourselves, or
for some action or thought, different from the hate and disgust
we have for others?
Judged by Shand's dicta that anger and fear are aroused if the
object of love is threatened, joy is aroused as it prospers, and
sorrow if it is deeply injured or lost, self-love remarkably
resembles other-love. The pride we take in our own achievements
is unalloyed by jealousy, and there is always a trace of jealousy
in the pride we take in the achievements of others, but there is
no difference in the pride itself. There is no essential
difference in the "good" we seek for ourselves and in the good we
seek for others, for what we seek will depend on our idea of
"good." Thus the ambitious mother seeks for her daughter a rich
husband and the idealist seeks for his son a career of devotion
to the ideal. And the sensualist devoted to the good of his belly
and his pocket loves his child and shows it by feeding and
enriching him.
There seems to be lacking, however, the glow of tender feeling in
self-love. The projection of the self-interest to others has a
passion, a melting in it that self-love never seems to possess,
though it may be constant and ever-operating. Self-regard,
self-admiration or conceit may be very high and deeply felt, but
though more common than real admiration for others, it seldom
reaches the awe and reverence that the projected emotion reaches.
In mental disease, of the type known as Maniac Depressive
insanity, there is a curious oscillation of self-love and
self-admiration. This disease is cyclic, in that two opposing
groups of symptoms tend to appear and displace each other. In the
manic, or excited state, there is greatly heightened activity
with correspondingly heightened feeling of power. Self-love and
admiration reach absurd levels: one is the most beautiful, the
richest and wisest of persons, infallible, irresistible, aye,
perhaps God or Christ. Sometimes the feeling of grandeur, the
euphoria, is less fantastic and the patient imagines himself a
great inventor, a statesman of power and wisdom, a writer of
renown, etc. Suddenly, or perhaps gradually, the change comes;
self-feeling drops into an abyss. "I am the most miserable of
persons, the vilest sinner, hated and rightly by God and man,
cause of suffering and misery. I am no good, no use, a horrible
odor issues from me, I am loathsome to look at, etc., etc."
Desperate suicidal attempts are made, and all the desires that
tend to preserve the individual disappear, including appetite for
food and drink, the power to sleep. It is the most startling of
transitions; one can hardly realize that the dejected, silent
person, sitting in a corner, hiding his face and hardly
breathing, is the same individual who lately tore around the
wards, happy, dancing, singing and boasting of his greatness of
power. Indeed, is he the same individual? No wonder the ancients
regarded such insanity as a possession by an evil spirit. We of a
later day who deal with this disease on the whole are inclined to
the belief that some internal factor of a physical kind is
responsible, some neuronic shift, or some strange, visceral
endocrinal disorder.
While self-hate in this pathological aspect is relatively
uncommon, in every person there are self-critical,
self-condemning activities which sometimes for short periods of
time reach self-hatred and disgust. McDougall makes a good deal
of the self-abasing instinct which makes us lower ourselves
gladly and willingly. This seems to me to be an aspect of the
emotion of admiration and wonder, for we do not wish ordinarily
to kneel at the feet of the insignificant, debased; or it is an
aspect of fear and the effort to obtain conciliation and pity.
But the establishment of ideals for ourselves to which we are not
faithful brings with it a disgust and loathing for self that is
extremely painful and leads to a desire for penance of any kind
In order that we may punish ourselves and feel that we have made
amends. The capacity for self-hate and self-disgust depends
largely upon the development of these ideals and principles of
conscience, of expectation of the self. Frequently there is an
overrigidity, a ceaseless self-examination that now and then
produces miracles of character and achievement but more often
brings the breakdown of health. This is the seeker of perfection
in himself, who will not compromise with his instincts and his
human flesh. There seekers of perfection are among the noblest of
the race, admired in the abstract but condemned by their friends
as "too good," "impractical," as possessors of the "New England
conscience." One of the effects of a Puritanical bringing-up is
a belief that pleasure is unworthy, especially in the sex field
and even in marriage. Now and then one meets a patient caught
between perfectly proper desire and an obsession that such
pleasure is debasing; and a feeling of self-disgust and
self-hatred results that is the more tragic since it is useless.
There are those in whom self-love and self-esteem is at a lower
pressure than with the average man, just as there are those in
whom it is at a much higher pressure. Such people, when fatigued
or when subject to the hostile or even non-friendly opinion of
others, become so-called self-conscious, i. e., are afflicted
with fear and a feeling of inferiority. This may deepen into
self-contempt and self-hatred. Part of what is called confidence
in oneself is self-esteem, and under fatigue, illness, after
punishment of a physical or mental nature, it is apt to
disappear. Very distressing is this in those who have been
accustomed to courage and self-confidence, perhaps whose
occupation makes these qualities necessary. Soldiers, after
gassing or cerebral concussion, men completely without
introspection, fearless and gay with assurance, become
apprehensive, self-analytical and without the least faith in
themselves, so that they approach their work in fear. So with men
who work in high places or where there is risk, such as
steeplejacks, bridge builders, iron workers, engineers; let an
accident happen to them, or let there occur an exhausting disease
with its aftermath of neurasthenia, and the self-esteem and
self-confidence disappear so that in many cases they have to give
up their job.
Because self-disgust and hatred are so painful, compensatory
"mechanisms" have been set up. There is in many people a tendency
to project outward the blame for those acts or thoughts which
they dislike. In the pathological field we get those delusions of
influence that are so common. Thus a patient will attribute his
obscene thoughts and words to a hypnotic effect of some person or
group of persons and saves his own face by the delusion. In
lesser pathological measure, men have fiercely preached against
the snares and wiles of women, refusing to recognize that the
turmoil of unwelcome desire into which they were thrown was
internal in the greater part of its origin and that the woman
often knew little or not at all of the effect she helped produce.
One of the outstanding features in the history of the race has
been this transfer of blame from the desire of men to the agent
which aroused them. Of course, women have played on the desires
of men, but even where this was true the blame for VULNERABILITY
has seldom been fully accepted. Whenever any one has been "weak"
or "foolish" or "sinful," his mind at once seeks avenues of
escape from the blame, from the painful feeling of inferiority
and self-reproach. The avenue of escape selected may be to blame
others as tempting or not warning and not teaching, may become
entirely delusional, or it may take the religious form of
confession, expiation and repentance. There are some so hardy in
their self-esteem that they never suffer, never seek any escape
from self-reproach, largely because they never feel it; and
others, though they seek escape, are continually dragged by
conscience to self-imposed torture. Most of us seek explanations
for our unwelcome conduct on a plane most favorable to our
self-esteem, and there arises an elaborate system of
self-disguise, expiation, repentance and confession that is in a
large part the real inner life of most of us. To explain failure
especially are the avenues of escape utilized. Wounded in his
self-esteem, rare is the one who frankly acknowledges
inferiority. "Pull," "favoritism," "luck," explain the success of
others as do the reverse circumstances explain our failures to
ourselves. Sickness explains it, and so the defeated search in
themselves for the explanation which will in part compensate
them. Escape from inferiority follows many avenues, --by actual
development of superiority, by denying real superiority to
others, or by explaining the inferiority on some acceptable
basis.
Here (as elsewhere in character) there is evident an organic and
a social basis for feeling. We have not emphasized sufficiently a
peculiarity of all human feeling, all emotions, all sentiments.
They have their value to the individual in organizing his
conduct, his standard of value. They are of enormous importance
socially. A great law of feeling of whatever kind, of whatever
elaboration, is this; it tends to spread from individual to
individual and excites whole groups to the same feeling; tender
feeling is contagious, and so is hate. We are somehow so made
that we reverberate at a friendly smile in one way and to the
snarl and stern look of hate in another way. Ordinarily love
awakens love and hate awakens hate, though it may bring fear or
contempt. It is true that we may feel so superior or cherish some
secret hate that will make another's love odious to us, and also
we may admire and worship one who hates us. These are exceptional
cases and are examples of exceptional sentimental stability. It
is of course understood that by love is not meant sex passion.
Here the curious effect of coldness is sometimes to fan the flame
of passion. Desire obstructed often gains in violence, and the
desire to conquer and to possess the proud, that we all feel,
adds to the fire of lust.
Self-esteem, self-confidence, hateful to others if in excess or
if obtrusive, is an essential of the leader. His feeling is
extraordinarily contagious, and the morale of the group is in his
keeping. He must not show fear, or self-distrust or self-lowering
in any way. He must be deliberate, but forceful, vigorous,
masterful. If he has doubts, he must keep them to himself or
exhibit them only to one who loves him, who is not a mere
follower. It is a law of life that the herd follows the
unwounded, confident, egoistic leader and tears to pieces or
deserts the one who is wearying.
The basic sentiments of interest, love and hate, projected
outward or inward, organize personality. Men's characters and
their destinies rest in the things they find interesting, the
persons they love and hate, their self-confidence and
self-esteem, their self-contempt and hatred. And it is true that
often we hate and love the same person or circumstance; we are
divided, secretly, in our tenderest feelings, in our fiercest
hate, more often, alas, in the former. For occasionally
admiration and respect will mitigate hate and render impotent our
aim, but more commonly we are jealous of or envy son, brother,
sister, husband, wife, father, mother and friend. We love our
work but hate its tyranny, and even the ideal that we cherish,
when we examine it too closely, seems overconventionalized, not
enough our own, and it stifles and martyrs too many unpleasant
desires. We rebel against our own affections, against the love
that chains us perhaps to weakness and forces us, weary, to the
wheel.
How deeply the feeling of "right" enters into the sentiments and
their labors needs only a little reflection to understand. Here
we come to the effect of the sentiment of duty, for as such it
may be discussed. The establishment of conscience as our inner
guide to conduct, and even to thought and emotions, has been
studied briefly. On a basis of innate capacity, conscience arises
from the teaching and traditions of the group (or groups). The
individual who has a susceptibility or a readiness to believe and
a desire to be in conformity accepts or evolves for himself
principles of conduct, based on obligation, expectation of reward
and fear of punishment, these entering in various proportions,
according to the type of person. In children, or the very young
child, expectation of reward and fear of punishment are more
important than obligation, and this remains true of many people
throughout life. Gradually right, what we call duty, becomes
established as a guiding principle; but it must struggle with
impulse and the desire for immediate pleasure throughout life. In
fact, one of the dangers of the development of the feeling of
duty lies in the view often held by those guided by principle and
duty that pleasure is in itself somehow wrong and needs
justification. Whereas, in my opinion, pleasure is right and
needs no justification and is wrong only when it offends the
fundamental moralities and purposes of Society.
The feeling of "right" depends to a certain extent on the kind of
teaching in early childhood, but more on the nature of the
individual. It is based on his social feeling, his desire to be
in harmony with a group or a God that essentially stands above
any group. For the idea of God introduces an element having more
authority than the group whom He leads. Here also is a factor of
importance: choice is difficult for the great majority. Placed in
a situation where more than one response is possible, an unhappy
state of bewilderment results unless there are formulae for
action. The leader is the chooser for the group; religion is an
established system of choices even in its "Thou shalt not"
injunctions, and to be at one with God implies that one is
following an infallible leader, and doubt and uncertainty
disappear. Trotter[1] points out clearly the role the feeling of
certitude plays in developing codes. As life becomes more
complex, as more choices appear, the need of an established
method of choosing becomes greater. The careful, cautious,
conscientious types develop a system of principles for choice of
action; they discard the uncertainty of pleasure as a guide for
the certainty of a code laid down and fixed. Duty is the north
star of conduct!
[1] "The Herd and its Instincts in Peace and War."
In passing, an interesting development of our times is worth
noticing. The tendency is to discard established codes, to weaken
dogma and to throw more responsibility on the individual
conscience. That is the meaning of the Protestant reformation,
and it is the meaning of the growth of Unitarianism within the
Protestant church; it is also the meaning of the reform movement
in Judaism. The Catholic church has felt it in the breaking away
of state after state from its authority, which virtually means
that the states have thrown their citizens back on their own
consciences and the state laws. In fact, reliance on law is in
part an effort to escape the necessity of choosing. The pressure
of external authority has its burden, but in giving up its
certainty man also gives up tranquillity. Much of modern
neurasthenia is characterized by a feeling of uncertainty,
unreality, doubt: what is right, what is real? True, as religion
in the dogmatic sense relinquishes its power, ethics grow in
value and men seek some other formula which will compensate for
the dogma. It is no accident that as the old religions lose their
complete control new ones appear, with all-embracing formula,
like Christian Science, New Thought, etc. Though these start with
elastic general principles, sooner or later the directions for
conduct become minute and then fixed. The tragedy of a great
founder of religion like Buddha or Christ is that though he gives
out a great pure principle, his followers must have, demand and
evolve a dogmatic religion with fixed ceremonials. Man, on the
whole, does not want to choose; he wants to have the feeling that
he ought to do this or that according to a code laid down by
authority. This will make a real democracy always impossible.
However the sentiment of duty arises, it becomes the central
feeling in all inner conflicts, and it wrestles with inclination
and the pleasant choice. Duty is the great inhibitor, but also it
says "Thou shalt!" Ideally, duty involves self-sacrifice, and
practically man dislikes self-sacrifice save where love is very
strong. Duty chains a man to his task where he is inclined for a
holiday. Duty may demand a man's life, and that sacrifice seems
easier for men to make than the giving up of power and pelf. (In
the late war it was no great trouble to pass laws conscripting
life; it was impossible to pass laws conscripting wealth. It was
easier for a man to allow his son to go to war than to give up
his wealth en masse.)
The power of the feeling of duty and right over men is very
variable. There are a few to whom the feeling of "ought" is all
powerful; they cannot struggle against it, even though they wish
to. All of their goings, comings and doings are governed thereby,
and even though they find the rest of the world dropping from
them, they resist the herd. For the mass of men duty governs a
few relationships--to family and country--and even here
self-interest is camouflaged by the term "duty" in the phrase "a
man owes a duty to himself." This is the end of real duty. The
average man or woman makes a duty of nonessentials, of
ceremonials, but is greatly moved by the cry of duty if it comes
from authority or from those he respects. He fiercely resents it
if told he is not doing his duty, but is quick to tell others
they are not doing theirs.
There is also a group in whom the sense of duty is almost
completely lacking, or rather fails to govern action. Ordinarily
these are spoken of as lacking moral fiber, but in reality the
organizing energy of character and the inhibition of the impulse
to seek pleasure and present desire is feeble. Sometimes there is
lack of affection toward others, little of the real glow of
tender feeling, either towards children[1] or parents or any one.
Though these are often emotional, they are not, in the good
meaning of the term, sentimental.
[1] It is again to be emphasized that the most vital instincts
may be lacking. Even the maternal feeling may be absent, not only
in the human mother but in the animal mother. So we need not be
surprised if there are those with no sense of right or duty.
Is the sentiment of duty waning? The alarmists say it is and
point to the increase of divorce, falling off in church
attendance, and the unrest among the laboring classes as evidence
that there is a decadence. Pleasure is sought, excitement is the
goal, and sober, solid duty is "forgotten." They point out a
resemblance to the decadent days of Rome, in the rise of luxury
and luxurious tastes, and indicate that duty and the love of
luxury cannot coexist. Woman has forgotten her duty to bear
children and to maintain the home and man has forgotten his duty
to God.
Superficially these critics are right. There is a demand for a
more satisfying life, involving less self sacrifice on the part
of those who have in the past made the bulk of the sacrifices.
Woman, demanding equality, refuses to be regarded as merely a
child bearer and is become a seeker of luxury. The working man,
looking at the world he has built, now able to read, write and
vote, asks why the duty is all on his side. In other words, a
demand for justice, which is merely reciprocal, universal duty,
has weakened something of the sense of duty. In fact, that is the
first effect of the feeling of injustice, of unjust inequality.
Dealing with the emancipated, the old conception of duty as
loyalty under all conditions has not worked, and we need new
ideals of duty on the part of governments and governing groups
before we can get the proper ideals of duty in the governed.
Some of those ideals are commencing to be heard. International
duty for governments is talked of and some are bold to say that
national feeling prevents a real feeling of duty to the world, to
man. These claim that duty must have its origin in the extension
of tender feeling, in fraternity, to all men. In a lesser way
business is commencing to substitute for its former motto,
"Handelschaft ist keine Bruderschaft" (business is no
brotherhood), the ideal of service, as the duty of business.
Everywhere we are commencing to hear of "social duty," of
obligation to the lesser and unfortunate, of the responsibility
of the leaders to the led, of the well to the sick, of the
law-abiding to the criminal. Strange notion, this last, but one
at bottom sound and practical.
In the end, the true sense of duty is in a sense of individual
responsibility. Our age feels this as no other age has felt it.
Other ages have placed responsibility on the Church, on God and
on the State. Difficult and onerous as is the burden, we are
commencing to place duty on the individual, and in that respect
we are not in the least a decadent generation.