Self.
Hitherto we have considered things, relations, persons, and institutions
outside ourselves as the objects which together constitute our
environment.
The self is not a new object, but rather the bond which binds together
into unity all the experiences of life. It is their relation to this
conscious self which gives to all objects their moral worth. Every act
upon an object reacts upon ourselves. The virtues and vices, the rewards
and penalties that we have been studying are the various reactions of
conduct upon ourselves. This chapter then will be a comprehensive review
and summary of all that has gone before. Instead of taking one by one
the particular reactions which follow particular acts with reference to
particular objects, we shall now look at conduct as a whole; regard our
environment in its totality; and consider duty, virtue, and self in
their unity.
THE DUTY.
+The duty we owe to ourselves is the realization of our capacities and
powers in harmony with each other, and in proportion to their worth as
elements in a complete individual and social life.+--We have within us
the capacity for an ever increasing fullness and richness and intensity
of life. The materials out of which this life is to be developed are
ready to our hands in those objects which we have been considering. One
way of conduct toward these objects, which we have called duty; one
attitude of mind and will toward them which we have called virtue, leads
to those completions and fulfillments of ourselves which we have called
rewards. Duty then to self; duty in its most comprehensive aspect, is
the obligation which the existence of capacity within and material
without imposes on us to bring the two together in harmonious relations,
so as to realize the capacities and powers of ourselves and of others,
and promote society's well being. In simpler terms our fundamental duty
is to make the most of ourselves; and to become as large and genuine a
part of the social world in which we live as it is possible for us to
be.
THE VIRTUE.
+The habit of seeking to realize the highest capacities and widest
relationships of our nature in every act is conscientiousness.
Conscience is our consciousness of the ideal in conduct and character.
Conscience is the knowledge of our duty, coupled as that knowledge
always is with the feeling that we ought to do it.+--Knowledge of any
kind calls up some feeling appropriate to the fact known. Knowledge that
a given act would realize my ideal calls up the feeling of
dissatisfaction with myself until that act is performed; because that
is the feeling appropriate to the recognition of an unrealized yet
attainable ideal. Conscience is not a mysterious faculty of our nature.
It is simply thought and feeling, recognizing and responding to the fact
of duty, and reaching out toward virtue and excellence.
The objective worth of the deliverances and dictates of the conscience
of the individual, depends on the degree of moral enlightenment and
sensitiveness he has attained. The conscience of an educated Christian
has a worth and authority which the conscience of the benighted savage
has not. Since conscience is the recognition of the ideal of conduct and
character, every new appreciation of duty and virtue gives to conscience
added strength and clearness.
+The absolute authority of conscience.+--Relatively to the individual
himself, at the time of acting, his own individual conscience is the
final and absolute authority. The man who does what his conscience tells
him, does the best that he can do. For he realizes the highest ideal
that is present to his mind. A wiser man than he might do better than
this man, acting according to his conscience, is able to do. But this
man, with the limited knowledge and imperfect ideal which he actually
has, can do no more than obey his conscience which bids him realize the
highest ideal that he knows. The act of the conscientious man may be
right or wrong, judged by objective, social standards. Judged by
subjective standards, seen from within, every conscientious act is,
relatively to the individual himself, a right act. We should spare no
pains to enlighten our conscience, and make it the reflection of the
most exalted ideals which society has reached. Having done this,
conscience becomes to us the authoritative judge for us of what we
shall, and what we shall not do. The light of conscience will be clear
and pure, or dim and clouded, according to the completeness of our moral
environment, training, and insight. But clear or dim, high or low,
sensitive or dull, the light of conscience is the only light we have to
guide us in the path of virtue. In hours of leisure and study it is our
privilege to inform and clarify this consciousness of the ideal. That
has been the purpose of the preceding pages. When the time for action
comes, then, without a murmur, without an instant's hesitation, the
voice of conscience should be implicitly obeyed. Conscientiousness is
the form which all the virtues take, when viewed as determinations of
the self. It is the assertion of the ideal of the self in its every act.
THE REWARD.
+Character the form in which the result of virtuous conduct is
preserved.+--It is neither possible nor desirable to solve each question
of conduct as it arises by conscious and explicit reference to rules and
principles. Were we to attempt to do so it would make us prigs and
prudes.
What then is the use of studying at such length the temptations and
duties, the virtues and vices, with their rewards and penalties, if all
these things are to be forgotten and ignored when the occasions for
practical action arrive?
The study of ethics has the same use as the study of writing, grammar,
or piano-playing. In learning to write we have to think precisely how
each letter is formed, how one letter is connected with another, where
to use capitals, where to punctuate and the like. But after we have
become proficient in writing, we do all this without once thinking
explicitly of any of these things. In learning to play the piano we have
to count out loud in order to keep time correctly, and we are obliged to
stop and think just where to put the finger in order to strike each
separate note. But the expert player does all these things without the
slightest conscious effort.
Still, though the particular rules and principles are not consciously
present in each act of the finished writer or musician, they are not
entirely absent. When the master of these arts makes a mistake, he
recognizes it instantly, and corrects it, or endeavors to avoid its
repetition. This shows that the rule is not lost. It has ceased to be
before the mind as a distinct object of consciousness. It is no longer
needed in that form for ordinary purposes. Instead, it has come to be a
part of the mind itself--a way in which the mind works instinctively. As
long as the mind works in conformity with the principle, it is not
distinctly recognized, because there is no need for such recognition.
The principle comes to consciousness only as a power to check or
restrain acts that are at variance with it.
It is in this way that the practical man carries with him his ethical
principles. He does not stop to reason out the relation of duty and
virtue to reward, or of temptation and vice to penalty, before he
decides to help the unfortunate, or to be faithful to a friend, or to
vote on election day. This trained, habitual will, causing acts to be
performed in conformity to duty and virtue, yet without conscious
reference to the explicit principles that underlie them, is character.
It is chiefly in the formation of character that the explicit
recognition of ethical principles has its value. Character is a storage
battery in which the power acquired by our past acts is accumulated and
preserved for future use.
It is through this power of character, this tendency of acts of a given
nature to repeat and perpetuate themselves, that we give unity and
consistency to our lives. This also is the secret of our power of
growth. As soon as one virtue has become habitual and enters into our
character, we can leave it, trusting it in the hands of this unconscious
power of self-perpetuation; and then we can turn the energy thus freed
toward the acquisition of new virtues.
Day by day we are turning over more and more of our lives to this domain
of character. Hence it is of the utmost importance to allow nothing to
enter this almost irrevocable state of unconscious, habitual character
that has not first received the approval of conscience, the sanction of
duty, and the stamp of virtue. Character, once formed in a wrong
direction, may be corrected. But it can be done only with the greatest
difficulty, and by a process as hard to resolve upon as the amputation
of a limb or the plucking out of an eye.
The greater part of the principles of ethics we knew before we undertook
this formal study. We learned them from our parents; we picked them up
in contact with one another in the daily intercourse of life. The value
of our study will not consist so much in new truths learned, as in the
clearer and sharper outlines which it will have given to some of the
features of the moral ideal. The definite results of such a study we
cannot mark or measure. Just as sunshine and rain come to the plants and
trees, and then seem to vanish, leaving no visible or tangible trace
behind; yet the plants and trees are different from what they were
before, and have the heat and moisture stored up within their structure
to burst forth into fresher and larger life; in like manner, though we
should forget every formal statement that we have read, yet we could not
fail to be affected by the incorporation within ourselves in the form of
character of some of these principles of duty and virtue which we have
been considering. It has been said: "Sow an act, and you reap a habit;
sow a habit and you reap a character; sow a character and you reap a
destiny."
THE TEMPTATION.
+Pleasure not a reliable guide to conduct.+--The realization of capacity
brings with it pleasure. The harmonious realization of all our powers
would bring harmonious and permanent pleasure or happiness. Pleasure is
always to be welcomed as a sign of health and activity. Other things
being equal, the more pleasure we have the better. It is possible
however to abstract the pleasure from the activity which gives rise to
it, and make pleasure the end for which we act. This pursuit of pleasure
for pleasure's sake is delusive and destructive. It is delusive, because
the direct aim at pleasure turns us aside from the direct aim at
objects. And when we cease to aim directly at objects, we begin to lose
the pleasure and zest which only a direct pursuit of objects can
produce. For instance, we all know that if we go to a picnic or a party
thinking all the while about having a good time, and asking ourselves
every now and then whether we are having a good time or not, we find the
picnic or party a dreadful bore, and ourselves perfectly miserable. We
know that the whole secret of having a good time on such occasions is to
get interested in something else; a game, a boat-ride, anything that
makes us forget ourselves and our pleasures, and helps us to lose
ourselves in the eager, arduous, absorbing pursuit of something outside
ourselves. Then we have a glorious time.
The direct pursuit of pleasure is destructive of character, because it
judges things by the way they affect our personal feelings; which is a
very shallow and selfish standard of judgment; and because it centers
interest in the merely emotional side of our nature, which is peculiar
to ourselves; instead of in the rational part of our nature which is
common to all men, and unites us to our fellows.
Duty demands not the hap-hazard realization of this or that side of our
nature. Yet this is what the pursuit of pleasure would lead to. Duty
demands the realization of all our faculties, in harmony with each
other, and in proportion to their worth. And to this proportioned and
harmonious realization, pleasure, pure and simple, is no guide at all.
Hence, as Aristotle remarks, "In all cases we must be specially on our
guard against pleasant things and against pleasure: for we can scarce
judge her impartially." "Again, as the exercises of our faculties differ
in goodness and badness, and some are to be desired and some to be
shunned, so do the several pleasures differ; for each exercise has its
proper pleasure. The pleasure which is proper to a good activity, then,
is good, and that which is proper to one that is not good is bad." "As
the exercises of the faculties vary, so do their respective pleasures."
To the same effect John Stuart Mill says that the pleasures which result
from the exercise of the higher faculties are to be preferred. "It is
better to be a human being dissatisfied, than a pig satisfied; better to
be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied." Whether it is possible
to stretch, and qualify, and attenuate the conception of pleasure so as
to make it cover the ideal of human life, without having it, like a
soap-bubble, burst in the process, is a question foreign to the
practical purpose of this book. That pleasure, as ordinarily understood
by plain people, is a treacherous, dangerous, and ruinous guide to
conduct, moralists of every school declare. Pleasure is the most subtle
and universal form of temptation. Pleasure is the accompaniment of all
exercise of power. When it comes rightly it is to be accepted with
thankfulness. We must remember however that the quality of the act
determines the worth of the pleasure; and that the amount of pleasure
does not determine the quality of the act. A pleasant act may be right,
and it may be wrong. Whether we ought to do it or not must in every case
be decided on higher grounds.
To the boy who says, "I should like to be something that would make me a
great man, and very happy besides--something that would not hinder me
from having a great deal of pleasure"--George Eliot represents "Romola"
as replying, "That is not easy, my Lillo. It is only a poor sort of
happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own narrow
pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness, such as goes along
with being a great man, by having wide thoughts, and much feeling for
the rest of the world as well as for ourselves; and this sort of
happiness often brings so much pain with it that we can only tell it
from pain by its being what we would choose before everything else,
because our souls see it is good. And so, my Lillo, if you mean to act
nobly and seek to know the best things God has put within reach of men,
you must learn to fix your mind on that end, and not on what will happen
to you because of it. And remember, if you were to choose something
lower, and make it the rule of your life to seek your own pleasure and
escape from what is disagreeable, calamity might come just the same; and
it would be calamity falling on a base mind, which is the one form of
sorrow that has no balm in it, and that may well make a man say--It
would have been better for me if I had never been born."
THE VICE OF DEFECT.
+The unscrupulous man acts as he happens to feel like acting.+--Whatever
course of conduct presents itself as pleasant, or profitable, or easy,
he adopts. Anything is good enough for him. He seeks to embody no ideal,
aims consistently at no worthy end, acknowledges no duty, but simply
yields himself a passive instrument for lust, or avarice, or cowardice,
or falsehood to play upon. Refusing to be the servant of virtue he
becomes the slave of vice. Disowning the authority of duty and the
ideal, he becomes the tool of appetite, the football of circumstance.
Unscrupulousness is the form of all the vices of defect, when viewed in
relation to that absence of regard for realization of self, which is
their common characteristic.
THE VICE OF EXCESS.
+The exclusive regard for self, in abstraction from those objects and
social relationships through which alone the self can be truly realized,
leads to formalism.+--Formalism keeps the law simply for the sake of
keeping it. Conscientiousness, if it is wise and well-balanced,
reverences the duties and requirements of the moral life, because these
duties are the essential conditions of individual and social well-being.
The law is a means to well-being, which is the end. Formalism makes the
law an end in itself; and will even sacrifice well-being to law, when
the two squarely conflict.
+Extreme cases in which moral laws may be suspended.+--The particular
duties, virtues, and laws which society has established and recognized
are the expressions of reason and experience declaring the conditions of
human well-being. As such they deserve our profoundest respect; our
unswerving obedience. Still it is impossible for rules to cover every
case. There are legitimate, though very rare, exceptions, even to moral
laws and duties. For instance it is a duty to respect the property of
others. Yet to save the life of a person who is starving, we are
justified in taking the property of another without asking his consent.
To save a person from drowning, we may seize a boat belonging to
another. To spread the news of a fire, we may take the first horse we
find, without inquiring who is the owner. To save a sick person from a
fatal shock, we may withhold facts in violation of the strict duty of
truthfulness. To promote an important public measure, we may
deliberately break down our health, spend our private fortune, and
reduce ourselves to helpless beggary. Such acts violate particular
duties. They break moral laws. And yet they all are justified in these
extreme cases by the higher law of love; by the greater duty of devotion
to the highest good of our fellow-men. The doctrine that "the end
justifies the means" is a mischievous and dangerous doctrine. Stated in
that unqualified form, it is easily made the excuse for all sorts of
immorality. The true solution of the seeming conflict of duties lies in
the recognition that the larger social good justifies the sacrifice of
the lesser social good when the two conflict. One must remember,
however, that the universal recognition of established duties and laws
is itself the greatest social good; and only the most extreme cases can
justify a departure from the path of generally recognized and
established moral law.
These extreme cases when they occur, however, must be dealt with
bravely. The form of law and rule must be sacrificed to the substance of
righteousness and love when the two conflict. As Professor Marshall
remarks in the chapter of his "History of Greek Philosophy" which deals
with Socrates, "The highest activity does not always take the form of
conformity to rule. There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in
fact, obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of
which rules and formulæ are at best only an adumbration."
There is nothing more contemptible than that timid, self-seeking virtue
which will sacrifice the obvious well-being of others to save itself the
pain of breaking a rule. There is nothing more pitiful than that
self-righteous virtue which does right, not because it loves the right,
still less because it loves the person who is affected by its action,
but simply because it wants to keep its own sweet sense of
self-righteousness unimpaired. Mrs. Browning gives us a clear example of
this "harmless life, she called a virtuous life," in the case of the
frigid aunt of "Aurora Leigh":
From that day, she did
Her duty to me (I appreciate it
In her own word as spoken to herself),
Her duty, in large measure, well-pressed out,
But measured always. She was generous, bland,
More courteous than was tender, gave me still
The first place,--as if fearful that God's saints
Would look down suddenly and say, 'Herein
You missed a point, I think, through lack of love.'
THE PENALTY.
+Just as continuity in virtue strengthens and unifies character and
makes life a consistent and harmonious whole; so self-indulgence in
vicious pleasures disorganizes a man's life and eats the heart out of
him.+--Corrupt means literally broken. The corrupt man has no soundness,
no solidity, no unity in his life. He cannot respect himself. Others
cannot put confidence in him. There is no principle binding each part of
his life to every other, and holding the whole together. The other words
by which we describe such a life all spring from the same conception. We
call such a person dissolute; and dissolute means literally separated,
loosed, broken apart. We call him dissipated; and dissipated means
literally scattered, torn apart, thrown away.
These forms of statement all point to the same fact, that the
unscrupulous pleasure-seeker, the selfish, vicious man has no
consistent, continuous, coherent life whatever. "The unity of his
being," as Janet says, "is lost in the multiplicity of his sensations."
His life is a mere series of disconnected fragments. There is no growth,
no development. There is nothing on which he can look with approval; no
consistent career of devotion to worthy objective ends, the fruits of
which can be witnessed in the improvement of the world in which he has
lived, and stored up in the character which he has formed.