Progressive Morality | Page 6

to the estimation in which we shall be held by any other being than ourselves, but that it has regard simply and solely to the internal feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction with which, on reflexion, we shall look back upon our own acts.

CHAPTER II.
THE MORAL SANCTION OR MORAL SENTIMENT. ITS FUNCTIONS AND THE JUSTIFICATION OF ITS CLAIMS TO SUPERIORITY.
I now proceed to consider more at length what are the precise functions of the moral sentiment or moral sanction[1], and what is the justification of the weight which we attach to it, or rather of the preference which we assign to it, or feel that we ought to assign to it, over all the other sanctions of conduct. We have already seen that the moral sentiment or sanction is the feeling of satisfaction or dissatisfaction which we experience when we reflect on our own acts, without any reference to any external authority or external opinion. Now it is important to ask whether this feeling is uniformly felt on the occurrence of the same acts, or whether it ever varies, so that acts, for instance, which are at one time viewed with satisfaction, are at another time regarded with indifference or with positive dissatisfaction. It would seem as if no man who reflects on ethical subjects, and profits by the observation and experience of life, could possibly answer this question in any other than one way. There must be very few educated and reflective men who have not seen reason, with advancing years, to alter their opinion on many of, at least, the minor points of morality in which they were instructed as children. A familiar instance occurs at once in the different way in which most of us view card-playing or attendance at balls or theatres from the much stricter views which prevailed in many respectable English households a generation ago. On the other hand, excess in eating and drinking is regarded with far less indulgence now than it was in the days of our fathers and grandfathers. On these points, then, at least, and such as these, it must be allowed that there is a variation of moral sentiment, or, in other words, that the acts condemned or approved by the moral sanction are not invariably the same. Moreover, any of us who are accustomed to reason on moral questions, and can observe carefully the processes through which the mind passes, will notice that there is constantly going on a re-adjustment, so to speak, of our ethical opinions, whether we are reviewing abstract questions of morality or the specific acts of ourselves or others. We at one time think ourselves or others more, and, at another time, less blameable for the self-same acts, or we come to regard some particular class of acts in a different light from what we used to do, either modifying our praise or blame, or, in extreme cases, actually substituting one for the other. But, though these facts are patent, and may be verified by any one in his experience either of himself or others, there have actually been moralists who have appeared to maintain the position that, when a man is unbiassed by passion or interest, his moral judgments are and must be invariably the same. This error has, undoubtedly, been largely fostered by the loose and popular use of the terms conscience and moral sense. These terms, and especially the word conscience, are often employed to designate a sort of mysterious entity, supposed to have been implanted in the mind by God Himself, and endowed by Him with the unique prerogative of infallibility. Even so philosophical and sober a writer as Bishop Butler has given some countenance to this extravagant supposition, and to the exaggerated language which he employs on the prerogatives of conscience, and to the emphatic manner in which he insists on the absolute, if not the infallible, character of its decisions, may be traced much of the misconception which still prevails on the subject. But we have only to take account of the notorious fact that the consciences of two equally conscientious men may point in entirely opposite directions, in order to see that the decisions of conscience cannot, at all events, be credited with infallibility. Those who denounce and those who defend religious persecution, those who insist on the removal and those who insist on the retention of religious disabilities, those who are in favour of and those who are opposed to a relaxation of the marriage laws, those who advocate a total abstention from intoxicating liquors and those who allow of a moderate use of them,--men on both sides in these controversies, or, at least, the majority of them, doubtless act conscientiously, and yet, as they arrive at opposite conclusions, the conscience of one side or other must