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ble he ever should have) of emotions of approval and disapproval.

§ 390. Of the place or position, mentally considered, of the emotions of approval or disapproval.

Moral emotions, or emotions of moral approval and disapproval, occupy a place, considered in reference to other departments of the mind, immediately successive to intellections or acts of the intellect. In this respect they agree with the natural or pathematic emotions, which occupy the same position. It is, for instance, impossible for us to feel the beauty of an object, which is an act of the Natural sensibilities, without first having a perception or knowledge of the object itself. In like manner, it is impossible for us to approve or disapprove a thing, in the moral sense of the terms, without first having some perception, some knowledge of the thing approved or disapproved.

And as the natural emotions are immediately followed by Desires; so the moral emotions, viz., of approval and disapproval, (for these are all the states of mind that are properly comprehended under that phrase,) are followed, in like manner, by Obligatory feelings, or feelings of moral obligation. The position, therefore, of moral emotions, and they are found nowhere else, is between perceptions or intellective acts on the one hand, and Obligatory sentiments on the other. And as there can be no moral emotions without antecedent perceptions, so there can be no feelings of moral obligation without antecedent emotions of approval and disapproval. Accordingly, if we are said, in any given case, to be under obligation, either to do a thing or to abstain from doing it, we may always find a reason for our thus being under obligation in the antecedent action of the mind, viz., in our approval or disapproval, as the case may be, of the thing to which the obligation relates.

391. Changes in the moral emotions take place in accordance with changes in the antecedent perceptions.

If the emotions of approval and disapproval, which are the basis of the subsequent feelings of moral obligation, are naturally founded upon antecedent perceptions, we

may expect, and such is the fact, that they will change in their character in accordance with changes in those perceptions. If, for instance, a statement of facts is made to us, clearly establishing in our view a case of great crime, our emotions of disapproval are prompt and decided. But if it should happen that afterward some new facts are mingled in the statement, throwing a degree of doubt and perplexity upon what was believed to have taken place, the feelings of disapproval would at once become perplexed and undecided, in a degree precisely corresponding to the perplexity and indecision that, under the new circumstances, pervade the intellectual perception in the case. If still subsequently the introduction of other new facts should show that what was supposed to be a crime was directly the reverse, our moral emotions would undergo a new change, and, instead of condemning the transaction either more or less decidedly, would approve.

Nor is this changeableness in the character and the degree of the moral emotions to be regarded as implying any defect in the moral nature. On the contrary, it is unquestionably one of the most decisive indications of its value. If the moral nature were so constituted as not only to pronounce a thing right or wrong under certain given circumstances, but necessarily to adhere to that decision under essential changes in the circumstances, it certainly could not be regarded as a safe rule for men's guidance. A man kills another by means of the infliction of a heavy blow, and, as we suppose, with evil intention or malice prepense, and the action is at once disapproved and condemned by conscience. But it subsequently appears that the blow, which had the appearance at first of being intentional, was entirely a matter of accident; and the conscience or moral nature immediately conforms its decision to the new aspect of the transaction, and annuls the disapproving and condemnatory sentence which it had before pronounced. If it were otherwise, if it did not promptly and fully conform itself, by changes in its own action, to antecedent changes in the percipient or cognitive action, it would confound vice and virtue, guilt and innocence; and, as a rule of moral conduct, would not only be without value, but absolutely and exceedingly injurious,

392. Of objects of moral approval and disapproval.

We are not to suppose that the sphere of that moral adjudication, which is involved in the existence of emotions of moral approval and disapproval, extends to all objects indiscriminately. It is a proper inquiry, therefore, and in some respects an important inquiry, what are the appropriate objects of approving and disapproving emotions. In answer to this question, we remark in the first place that such objects are voluntary agents. The feelings in question, in their announcements of the right and the wrong of any case that comes before them, have nothing to do with things without life. And more than this, they require, as the objects of their exercise, something more than mere vegetable and animal life, viz., intellective, sensitive, and volitive life. In other words, they require, in the appropriate objects of their adjudication those attributes of perceiving, feeling, and willing, which are necessarily implied in voluntary agency.

(II.) In the second place, the legitimate objects of approval and disapproval are not only voluntary agents, but MORAL agents. No being is the object of moral emotions, (that is to say, no being can by possibility be approved or disapproved in the moral sense of the terms,) except such as have a conscience or moral nature. It is impossible that any others should have a knowledge of right and wrong; and, of course, impossible that they should conform themselves to the rule of right. Hence no one regards brute animals as the proper objects of these emo

tions.

(III.) Again, moral agents (this expression, of course, implies that they are also voluntary agents) are morally accountable; in other words, are the proper objects of moral approval and disapproval, in respect to those things only which are truly in their power. This remark, which limits the sphere of moral approval and disapproval not only to moral agents, but to what is actually in the power of moral agents, is practically an important one. So far as we can regulate our outward actions, we are accountable; that is to say, we are the proper objects of the emotions of moral approval and disapproval. So far as we can regulate the action of the

intellect, the sensibilities, and the will, we are accountable also. So far as the action, whether physical or mental, is either involuntary or instinctive, it is not an appropriate object of the notice and adjudication of conscience; for all such action, although it belongs to, and is not separable from, the agent, is nevertheless not under his control. Accordingly, when the moral agent, in the exercise of all his various powers, does what he ought to do, he stands approved. When, in the exercise of the same powers, he fails to do what he ought to do, he stands. condemned. The extent of his capability is the basis of his duty; and the law of conscience is the measure of its fulfilment. And this simple statement intimates both the rule by which he is judged, and the vast amount of his responsibility.

CHAPTER II.

RELATION OF REASONING TO THE MORAL NATURE.

393. Of the doctrine which confounds reasoning and conscience. We are now prepared, in view of what has been said in the last Chapter, particularly in connexion with the subject of the grounds or principles on which changes take place in moral emotions, to proceed to another subject not more interesting than it is practically important. -The opinion has sometimes been advanced, that those moral decisions or judgments, which, as moral beings, we are capable of forming, are the direct results of REASONING. The advocates of this doctrine, rejecting the idea of a distinct moral principle or conscience, appear to regard the reasoning power as entirely adequate to the causation of all those results in the mind which have a moral aspect. In a word, they may be regarded either as denying entirely the existence of conscience, or, what is philosophically, if not practically, the same thing, as identifying it with mere ratiocination.

It is not surprising, on the whole, that this mistake,

which is certainly a very serious and prejudicial one, should have been committed, when we consider how close the relation is which reason sustains to conscience. It will be noticed that we speak without any hesitation of the doctrine referred to as a mistaken one. We do not suppose it to be necessary, after what has already been said, to attempt to show that reasoning and conscience are not identical, and that the moral nature has a distinct and substantive existence. Nevertheless, we freely admit the intimate and important relation which they sustain to each other. A relation so important, in a practical as well as in a philosophical point of view, that we shall delay here for the purpose of entering into some explanations of it.

◊ 394. Of the close connexion between conscience and reasoning. Reasoning, it will be recollected, is purely an intellectual process; consisting of successive propositions arranged together, and a succession of relative suggestions or perceptions, but, in itself considered, involving nothing which is properly called an emotion or desire. This single circumstance separates the reasoning power entirely from the moral nature; which, in its appropriate action, never originates, like the reasoning power, perceptions or new intellectual views, but merely moral emotions and feelings of moral obligation. Probably every one can say with confidence that he is conscious of a difference in the moral emotions of approval and disapproval, and the mere intellectual perceptions of agreement and disagreement, which are characteristic of reasoning. In the view of consciousness, there can be no doubt that they are regarded as entirely diverse in their nature, and as utterly incapable of being interchanged or identified with each other. The moral feeling is one thing; and the intellectual perception or suggestion, involved both in the process and the result of reasoning, is another.

Although the reasoning power and the conscience or moral being are thus distinct from each other in their nature, they are closely connected in their relations, as has been intimated already; inasmuch as the intellect, particularly the ratiocinative or deductive part of it, is the

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