In answer to Kant we may say that the feeling or impulse of obligation is no more a category or form of the mind than any other feeling. Nor is it something outside of my empirical consciousness, as I experience it. To say that a feeling of authority or obligation is present in consciousness, means that I feel bound or constrained or obliged to perform certain acts. Obligation is not a special category or faculty or form of the reason; it is a psychical fact which is never found in consciousness apart from other mental states. To say that this feeling or impulse is an innate form, does not help us any more than to say that the feeling of hope is such a form. Of course, hope and fear and love are all "innate forms," if we mean by this that human beings experience them in connection with certain concrete ideas. What we wish to know is what modes of conduct are felt to be obligatory, and, if possible, why they are felt to be so.

4. The Feelings of Approval and Disapproval. Some thinkers emphasize this feeling of obligation, and regard it as constituting the very essence of the moral consciousness, or conscience. But, as we noticed before, the idea of an act is, or at least may be, suffused with feelings of approbation and reprobation.1 The contemplation of a deed arouses feelings eral characteristic of all obligatory acts their fitness to become universal law. See chap. ii, § 7, (1); also chap. vii, § 15.

1 These feelings, too, like the feeling of obligation, contain active or impulsive elements, which express themselves in bodily movements.

of condemnation, contempt, disgust, abhorrence, indignation, etc., or feelings of approval, admiration, respect, reverence, enthusiasm, etc. Some philosophers have laid stress on such feelings, and have identified them with conscience. The moral-sense philosophers 1 belong to this class, which is very apt to overlook the authoritative element in morality. Esthetic feelings may also arise in connection with those we have mentioned. I may feel æsthetic pleasure in the contemplation of a deed. This fact has led some authors to identify the moral sentiments with the æsthetic feelings, and to look upon ethics as a branch of æsthetics. We must insist, however, that conscience is a complexus of psychical states, and that the characteristic emotional elements peculiar to it are the feelings of approval (or disapproval) and the feeling of obligation or authority.

5. Conscience as Judgment. But conscience also judges, and in so far is cognitive, or intellectual in character. Let us see how we come to make moral judgments. The perception or thought of an act arouses feelings of obligation and feelings of approval. We express these feelings in language by saying, This act is right and ought to be done. We make a moral judgment. The judgment here is based on feeling. When I declare an act to be right or wrong, I am expressing my feelings with

1 See chap. ii, § 4. 2 See Sully, Human Mind, Vol. II, p. 167 See Herbart and Volkmann.

reference to it. When I say an object is beautiful, I am really saying that it arouses certain feelings (here called æsthetic) in me. When I assert that spitting is indecent, I am giving expression to the feelings of disgust aroused in me by a certain act. If the so-called moral act and beautiful object and indecent behavior did not provoke in me these peculiar emotional reactions, I should not judge them as I do.

Some philosophers have emphasized the cognitive element in conscience, and have, therefore, called it the faculty of moral judgment. For them it is not an emotional faculty, but a cognitive faculty, a faculty that discovers truth. It is the special faculty by which we discern moral truth. We may say, however, first, that this is not its only function, that we must not overlook the characteristic emotional and impulsive elements contained in conscience, and secondly, that there is no difference between the faculty which makes moral judgments (as such) and the faculty which makes other judgments. The difference lies in the subject-matter judged and the mental background (feelings and impulses) which gives rise to the judgment. Judgment is judgment, whether it be applied in morals, æsthetics, or etiquette. Judgment is a fundamental activity of mind involving analysis and synthesis. When I say, This house is red, I am analyzing one of my presentations, picking out of it a particular quality, and predicating this of the original concrete whole

which I have just broken up.

When I say, This act is wrong, I am really analyzing out of the act the feelings which it arouses in me, I am stating what impression it makes upon my consciousness.

6. Criticism of Intuitionism. Some moralists have recognized the fact that conscience functions as a judging power, and, therefore, speak of it in the manner of Calderwood, who says: "Conscience is that power of mind by which moral law is discovered to each individual for the guidance of his conduct. It is the reason, as that discovers to us absolute moral truth."1 Cudworth and Clarke looked upon such judgments as, Stealing is wrong, Murder is wrong, etc., as self-evident and necessary, and consequently proclaimed them as eternal truths, truths of the kind discovered in mathematics. Such propositions, they declared, are recognized immediately and intuitively; it is neither necessary nor possible to prove them. They are inherent in the mind, original possessions of reason, a priori, innate. Other writers believe that we immediately perceive the rightness and wrongness of acts, that as soon as an act is presented to consciousness, we perceive its moral worth. To this school belong Martineau and Lecky. The rationalistic intuitionists, therefore, hold either that certain moral propositions are engraven on the mind, or that we have a rational faculty which is bound by its very nature to

1 Handbook of Moral Philosophy, Part I, chap. iv, p. 77, 12th edition.

formulate them, while the perceptional intuitionists maintain that we have no such universal propositions stamped upon the mind or turned out by reason, but that we perceive the rightness and wrongness of acts and motives immediately upon their presentation to consciousness.

In answer to these schools we may say, among other things: (1) Although there is present in the moral consciousness an intellectual or cognitive element (call it perception or reason or what you will), this is not all there is in it. We must not ignore the important emotional and impulsive constituents mentioned before.

(2) We have no such innate knowledge or perception of moral distinctions as is claimed by extreme intuitionists. If we did, then all men would have to agree in their judgments, which is not the case. It will not do to say that the moral law has been obscured and eliminated in savage tribes.1 We cannot corrupt or eliminate the perception of space and time in whole groups of men; how then should it be possible to wipe out the a priori moral forms? Kant seems to think that men who are apparently without conscience are not actually without it, but merely disregard its dictates.2 This is undoubtedly true of some men; but we surely cannot claim that whole ages and peoples have known

1 See Leibniz, New Essays, Bk. I, chap. ii, § 12.

2 See Abbott's translation, pp. 192, 311, 321, 343; also Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der blossen Vernunft, pp. 235, 285.