CHAPTER IV.

MORAL PSYCHOLOGY.

Our next inquiry leads us to a solution of the question-Is man a moral being? Is he a responsible agent? Has he a moral nature? A moral being is one who is conscious that there is a difference in the acts performed by him; that some acts ought to be done, and some ought not to be done, and that simply because the reason sees that the one is right and the other wrong, and that if he does the right he is happy, and if he does the wrong he is unhappy. In this definition or description of a moral being, I confine myself simply to what is evidenced, or may be evidenced by consciousness. Man cannot be a moral being without being conscious of it; and it is only by a study of consciousness that this question can be answered. What, then, does human consciousness disclose when carefully analyzed? What are the facts of human consciousness derived from on investigation of man's moral nature? This is the present inquiry. And in this inquiry the object is not to ascertain what is objectively right or wrong, but what is subjectively so. What, then, does human consciousness disclose ?

Consciousness makes us acquainted with the powers and operations, the feelings and emotions of our own minds. When we study consciousness, therefore, we study ourselves. We endeavor to ascertain what our mental capacities are, and how they are developed; what our thoughts are, and the relations existing between

them. In consciousness we discover our personality, with its ability to do or not to do; through it, we classify our mental powers, analyze our thoughts, and feelings, and emotions, and comprehend our own knowledge. This is a mere scientific investigation into the mind itself, and all the knowledge we gain, or can gain from it, is limited to the mind itself; beyond this, consciousness can give no information without going out of itself.

Let us, then, proceed to interrogate consciousness upon this important fact of a moral nature, and the mode of its manifestation. If man is not subjectively a moral being, he cannot be made such by any amount of objective moral teaching. Man must have a capacity for morality, for religion, before moral or religious teaching can for him become a possibility.

The first fact disclosed on a careful study of consciousness, is the remarkable one that the mind makes a distinction in actions; that there are some actions regarded by it as right, and others as wrong; some which it ought to do, and some which it ought not to do. This is an universal fact, disclosed in the consciousness of every human being, so far as human knowledge extends. All feel it in their own bosoms, and know it to exist in the bosoms of all others. It is not limited to one grade of intelligence, to one class of men; the ignorant and the educated, the high and the low, the heathen and the Christian, the Mohammedan and the Hindoo, alike recognize and acknowledge the presence of this fact in human consciousness, however contradictory may be their creeds and their opinions. No people has yet been found so low and degraded that it did not, in its consciousness and in its language, the voice of consciousness, recognize, admit, and act upon this great fact-a moral distinction in the character of actions.

Another great fact, equally clear in human consciousness, is the feeling of blame and praise, merit and demerit, in the mind itself, in the individual, on the doing or the not doing of certain acts. Brown calls these feelings the emotions of moral approbation and dis

approbation, the former of which are pleasurable, and the latter the reverse. On the doing of some acts the individual feels unhappy, miserable, wretched; while, on the doing of certain other acts, he feels happy, satisfied with himself. In the one case, his whole mental being seems at discord with itself, out of harmony, in a state of conflict and laceration; while in the other case, his soul seems in harmony with itself, in a perfect state of concord, as acting in accordance with the law of its own being. In the former case, the man is miserable; in the latter, he is happy. This feeling is equally as universal as the other, and equally a part of our nature, from which there is no escape. The rise in the soul of these feelings of pain and pleasure, of misery and happiness, do not depend upon our voluntary action; they rise necessarily under the proper conditions, against our volitions and in spite of them. No one can bid them down, or directly weaken their force or the intensity of their action. This mental misery is a law of the human soul, and must of necessity arise under certain conditions or states of mind.

While this great fact exists in humanity, the distinction of actions, and the emotions of pain or pleasure consequent on the performance of the one or the other of these classes of actions, there is an infinite variety of opinions as to what actions do or do not bring up in the soul the one or the other of these states of mind; or in other words, there is great conflict as to what actions are right and what are wrong; as to what are good and what are bad; as to what are blameworthy and what are praiseworthy. So great has been this apparent conflict that some writers have been disposed hastily to conclude that there was no distinction in actions-that all were alike; while others have claimed that right and wrong were mere creations of the mind itself; that right and wrong, good and bad, were only subjectively true, never objectively So. There may be an element of truth in each of these extreme views, and yet neither of them be the truth. Indeed no system of

thought or science has yet been constructed by the human mind which had not somewhat of truth in its stand point, in its premises, in the facts upon which it rested. The mission of science is to gather up what of truth there may be in each of these systems, and out of these truths to construct that whole, which shall be the truth.

This conflict does exist. In different minds, the same acts will call up in the soul directly conflicting emotions. What will produce in one mind emotions of pleasure, will produce emotions of pain in another. The whole history of humanity demonstrates the existence of this strange anomaly. When we appeal to history for an answer to the questions, what is right, what is wrong; what actions will the feelings of pleasure or pain follow, we receive a response as discordant as the babblings of Babel. All minds are conscious of the distinction, are conscious that some acts are praiseworthy and others blameworthy; that some are followed by painful emotions and others by pleasurable ones; but wherein exists this distinction? and how does it happen that there is such a conflict of opinions as to which actions are the right and which the wrong; and how can it be that the same action can produce in different minds emotions as unlike as pleasure and pain, happiness and misery?

Numerous facts demonstrate this conflict. The Hindoo mother will sacrifice the life of her infant, while the Christian mother nurtures it with all the care and watchfulness which a Christian mother's love alone can produce. So, even in Christian countries, this conflict has been found-is found to exist. In past times, Christians engaged in a trade, without scruple, without self-condemnation, which is now stamped as piracy by every Christian nation. A Christian now would no more engage in the slave trade than in murder; and if he did, he must experience the pangs of conscience, which bites like the gnawing worm, and consumes like devouring fire. The same is true of all the fashionable

vices which have once been the scourges of humanity, but are now condemned as immoral. These acts were once performed by good men, but now are even shunned by bad men. The doing of them once called up no painful emotion, but the reverse would now be the case. But it is useless to cite examples; every man feels the truth of it in his own soul; he feels that he could once do acts without experiencing any mental pain, which would now fill his soul with anguish too intense to be endured.

How, then, are we to explain this strange anomaly in human experience? Under what circumstances do these feelings of mental pain and pleasure develop themselves in human consciousness? If human minds are identical, there must be some fact, some law of humanity, reconciling and harmonizing these apparent contradictions. Humanity cannot be in conflict with itself; what is true of one mind must be also true of every other mind.

In prosecuting this inquiry, it must be borne in mind that we are still working within human consciousness; our effort is now simply to ascertain the facts therein disclosed. The question is not now what is right, or wrong; but under what circumstances is it that these feelings of pain and pleasure arise in the mind? Or, to use the language of the schools, what is subjective truth?

What, then, is that state of mind which does and must precede the development of these feelings of pain and pleasure, these emotions of approbation and disapprobation, these self-condemning and self-justifying feelings, of which we are all conscious? In the first place, we are conscious of our own personality, of the possession of a free will, and of our ability to act, or not to act; so that whatever we do, we feel conscious that it is we who do it, and not another, and that the responsibility of all acts rests upon ourselves and not upon another. An act to which we are forced is not our act, but the act of the constraining force. We can never feel guilt for such an act. The consciousness, then, that the act is our own act, is a condition of mind without which these feeling of pain