Progressive Morality | Page 9

it is because, in all the higher forms of religion, the religious sanction is
conceived of as applying to exactly the same actions as the moral
sanction. What a man himself deems right, that he conceives God to
approve of, and what he conceives God as disapproving of, that he
deems wrong. But in a religion in which God was not regarded as holy,
just, and true, or in which there was a plurality of gods, some good and
some evil, I conceive that a man would look back with satisfaction, and
not with dissatisfaction, on those acts in which he had followed his own
sense of right rather than the supposed will of the Deity, just as, when
there is a conflict between the two, he now congratulates himself on
having submitted to the claims of conscience rather than to those of the
law.
The justification, then, of that claim to superiority, which is asserted by
the moral sanction, consists, I conceive, in two circumstances: first, that
the pleasures and pains, the feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction,
of self-approbation and self-disapprobation, by means of which it
works, are, in the normally constituted mind, far more intense and
durable than any other pleasures and pains; secondly, that, whenever
this sanction comes into conflict with any other sanction, its defeat is
sure, on a careful retrospect of our acts, to bring regret or remorse,
whereas its victory is equally certain to bring pleasure and satisfaction.
We arrive, then, at the conclusion that it is the moral sanction which is
the distinctive guide of conduct, and to which we must look, in the last
resort, to enforce right action, while the other sanctions are mainly
valuable in so far as they reinforce the moral sanction or correct its

aberrations. A man must, ultimately, be the judge of his own conduct,
and, as he acts or does not act according to his own best judgment, so
he will subsequently feel satisfaction or remorse; but these facts afford
no reason why he should not take pains to inform his judgment by all
the means which physical knowledge, law, society, and religion place
at his disposal.

CHAPTER III.
ANALYSIS AND FORMATION OF THE MORAL SENTIMENT.
ITS EDUCATION AND IMPROVEMENT.
Before proceeding to our third question, namely, how the moral
sentiment, which is the source of the moral sanction, has been formed,
and how it may be further educated and improved, it is desirable to
discriminate carefully between the intellectual and the emotional
elements in an act of approbation or disapprobation. We sometimes
speak of moral judgment, sometimes of moral feeling. These
expressions ought not to be regarded as the symbols of rival theories on
the nature of the act of moral approbation, as has sometimes been the
case, but as designating distinct parts of the process, or, to put the same
statement rather differently, separate elements in the analysis. Hume,
whose treatment of this subject is peculiarly lucid, as compared with
that of most writers on ethics, after reviewing the reasons assigned by
those authors respectively who resolve the act of approbation into an
act of judgment or an act of feeling, adds[1]: 'These arguments on each
side (and many more might be produced) are so plausible, that I am apt
to suspect they may, the one as well as the other, be solid and
satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral
determinations and conclusions. The final sentence; it is probable,
which pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious,
praiseworthy or blameable; that which stamps on them the mark of
honour or infamy, approbation or censure; that which renders morality
an active principle, and constitutes virtue our happiness and vice our
misery: it is probable, I say, that this final sentence depends on some
internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the whole

species. For what else can have an influence of this nature? But, in
order to pave the way for such a sentiment and give a proper
discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much
reasoning should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just
conclusions drawn, distant comparisons formed, complicated relations
examined, and general facts fixed and ascertained. Some species of
beauty, especially the natural kinds, on their first appearance, command
our affection and approbation; and, where they fail of this effect, it is
impossible for any reasoning to redress their influence, or adapt them
better to our taste and sentiment. But in many orders of beauty,
particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ much
reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may
frequently be corrected by argument and reflexion. There are just
grounds to conclude that moral beauty partakes much of this latter