6

accompanied by a clear idea of what makes us angry can with difficulty be compared with anger devoid of so definitely conceived an object. The tender emotion' of a self-conscious being whose whole life is coloured by the clearly framed contrast of himself and other people cannot be the same as before that contrast is at all distinctly drawn. Especially difficult are the instincts of 'self-abasement' and 'self-assertion' in Dr. McDougall's list. We can only describe them in terms whose meaning involves a reflective separation of the self from its fellows. Yet we are asked to attribute them to creatures held to be incapable of making this distinction. The truth seems to be that, while fully-developed shame, shame in the full sense of the word, does imply self-consciousness and a self-regarding sentiment, yet in the emotion that accompanies this impulse to slink submissively we may see the rudiment of shame.'1 What in language such as this must be understood by germ. or rudiment psychologists hardly explain. No doubt an impulse or an emotion in a creature of self-conscious intelligence cannot be the same as in a creature that does not possess these higher powers. But what is left after the necessary subtractions have been made is too vague for precise description, and the vagueness is only half concealed by the various terms in which the lower is described as implicitly containing the higher.

Until then a more precise view can be obtained, if that is possible, about the nature of impulse in beings below the personal level, it might be best to defer a definite answer to the question whether their impulses and emotions have a moral worth. But the general problem of the value of impulse and emotion ought to be further considered on

1 McDougall, p. 65.

several grounds, and especially because of its bearing on responsibility.

Let us agree then that if we imagine a being capable of pleasure or pain, but not capable of either thought or will, unmoved by the slightest impulse of love or hatred, such a creature would be non-moral. We should be acting immorally if when it was possible to produce in it pleasure, we rather inflicted pain upon it: yet the creature itself whose pleasure and pain ought thus to be considered would not be either bad or good. If again a being could be conceived that not only felt but thought and knew-let us suppose even per impossibile a creature of limitless theoretic power that neither desired nor willed and was stirred by no emotion-such a creature also would possess an existence that ought to be called valuable and yet could not rightly be called morally good. But if we leave these unreal suppositions and put the more plausible case of a being endowed with impulses and passions swayed entirely by the momentary strength of this or that feeling, incapable of definitely planned action, do we reach here for the first time elements not of value merely, but of distinctly moral value?

If we may suppose benevolent dispositions to exist before rational planning, must we not say that true morality already finds there its beginning? I have given reasons for doubting whether definite impulses of this kind ought to be attributed to any creature that is not self-conscious: and though personality does not seem altogether conterminous with self-consciousness, it is scarcely worth while debating very precisely how much unity of memory and purpose must be present in selfconscious beings if they are to deserve the title of person. On these grounds I hesitate to put the above question

in the form, can moral goodness be found except in persons? But in any case the real problem is not how far down in the chain of living creatures morality is present, but rather if in personal life this impulsive and emotional element can have a place in goodness is the goodness of personality the goodness of its most distinctive elements ?

I wish to hold that below the level of rational planning goodness can be found. The opinion of much high authority, however, is adverse to this position. The conviction is frequently expressed that only where there is preference, deliberate choice, can you rightly speak of badness or goodness.

It is in fact clear that the text-books of ethics were not written for such creatures as we have described, nor even about them. The moralist supposes men searching for canons of conduct agitated by the question what they shall do to be saved. Even when the outcome of reflection on these issues is to recommend the inquirer to trust his own heart, or in other words to give the rein to his impulses, it is one thing to act on impulse after you have decided that to be the wisest course, quite another to do so because no other course has been considered. Nor as a matter of fact is such an answer ever satisfactory for long. The very starting-point of reflection is the fact that impulses clash and that man's heart is divided. So soon as he is conscious of the conflict and anxious to resolve it, he has left the stage of impulse; he may finally re-introduce simplicity into his life, but it will not be the simplicity that has never questioned itself, nor wrung some solid answer from doubt.

It is inevitable then that moralists should be most interested in beings that not only desire but prefer.

Now preference or deliberate choice must imply the definite recollection of the past. It is not enough that past experience should have modified the impulse, as in the pike that ceased after three months1 to hurl itself against the pane of glass which separates it from a neighbour that ought to be its victim, and would not resume the attacks even when the pane was removed. What is wanted is not the creation of a new impulse, but the power of holding one impulse against another in the light of knowledge that has been won about their results and their intrinsic worth. Similarly preference implies definite anticipation of a future in which other elements are held before the mind beside the satisfaction of one insistent desire. It belongs then to the stage at which a mind knows itself against a persistent environment, and shapes its course by critical reflection on its own powers and on their relation to the surrounding world. Mind raised to this power seems to be not merely self-conscious but definitely personal. The moralist therefore is most interested by persons, and in persons, is most concerned with their deliberate purposive action.

But while this explains how the elements in conduct which cause most discussion are those which most clearly imply personality as their basis, it is no sufficient reason for dismissing from the range of ethics the whole of the merely impulsive or emotional conduct that continues to exist even on the personal level. That impulses or emotions are not good or bad, but merely the stuff out of which goodness and badness can be wrought is a doctrine as unsatisfactory as it is persistent. How is it really possible to treat all impulses as equal? To dismiss 1 Hobhouse, Mind in Evolution, p. 88,

with impartial disdain from the contemplation of the moralist alike the unreflective generosity of the child, and its unreflective pleasure in cruelty? To suppose that natural jealousy is neither good nor bad in the same sense as the same lover's equally unstudied self-devotion?

The question is 'ultimate', and can hardly be studied in simpler terms. If any one on consideration finds that in unreflective love or in generous impulse, however pure, he find no goodness, it is difficult to prove that he is wrong. But it is worth suggesting two considerations, especially as they bear on the problem of responsibility. There are two reasons for which the indifference of impulse and emotion is sometimes maintained, and it may be that even when they are not clearly expressed they influence in some obscure way those who take the view here rejected. It is sometimes thought that pure impulse is not different from a mechanical reaction to stimulus; that impulsive generosity, the spontaneous sympathy with pain or suffering is like the instinctive raising of a hand to screen the face from injury, or the movements made to save the body from falling when it is thrown off its balance. This is not at all the case. In the latter instances there is no consciousness present except the sensation that accompanies the bodily movements, in the former there is real desire and feeling that prompts or issues in bodily movement.1 Now it is just this desire and feeling which can be asserted to have value.

Or again, though the comparison of impulse and instinctive reflex movement is not maintained, it may

1 This may seem to hold, only given the interaction' theory of mind and body. But the distinction between pure reflex and impulse would remain even on the parallelist view.