I agree with those moralists who hold that what we judge to be the right is simply the rational, in a large sense of that word. The mind is the theatre of conflict for an infinite number of impulses, variously originating, among which it is ever striving to produce some sort of unification or harmony. This endeavor to harmonize or assimilate includes deliberate reasoning, but is something much more general and continuous than that. It is mostly an unconscious or subconscious manipulation of the materials presented, an unremitting comparison and rearrangement of them, which ever tends to organize them into some sort of a whole. The right, then, is that which stands this test; the sanction of conscience attaches to those thoughts which, in the long run, maintain their places as part of that orderly whole which the mental instinct calls for, and which it is ever working with more or less success to build up. That is right which presents itself, after the mind has done its full work upon the matter, as the mentally necessary, which we cannot gainsay without breaking up our mental integrity.
According to this view of the matter, judgments of right and wrong are in no way isolated or radically different in kind from other judgments. Such peculiarity as they have seems to come chiefly from the unusual intensity of the mental conflict that precedes them. The slightest scrutiny of experience shows, it seems to me, that the sharp and absolute distinction often assumed to exist between conscience and other mental activities does not hold good in life. There are gradual transitions from judgments which no one thinks of as peculiarly moral, through others which some would regard as moral and others would not, to those which are universally so regarded; and likewise moral feeling or sentiment varies a good deal in different individuals, and in the same individual under different conditions.
The class of judgments which everyone considers as moral is perhaps limited to such as follow an exciting and somewhat protracted mental struggle, involving an imaginative weighing of conflicting personal ideas. A line of conduct has to be chosen; alternatives present themselves, each of which is backed by strong impulses, among which are some, at least, of sympathetic origin; the mind is intensely, even painfully, aroused, and when a decision is reached, it is accompanied by a somewhat peculiar sort of feeling called the sense of obligation, duty, or right. There would be little agreement, however, as to what sort of situations evoke this feeling. We are apt to feel that any question in regard to which we are much in earnest is a question of right and wrong. To the artist a consciously false stroke of brush or chisel is a moral wrong, a sin; and a good carpenter will suffer remorse if he lets a bad joint go uncorrected.
The fact that the judgment of right is likely to present itself to people of emotional temperament as an imagined voice, admonishing them what they ought to do, is an illustration of that essentially social or interlocutory character of thought, spoken of in an earlier chapter. Our thoughts are always, in some sort, imaginary conversations; and when vividly felt they are likely to become quite distinctly so. On the other hand, people whose moral life is calm perceive little or no distinction, in this regard, between the conclusions of conscience and other judgments.
Of course, the view that the right is the rational would be untrue, if by rational were meant merely the result of formal reasoning. The judgment of right and the conclusion of formal thought are frequently opposed to each other, because, I take it, the latter is a comparatively narrow, partial, and conventional product of the mind. The former is rational and mentally authoritative in a larger sense; its premises are immeasurably richer; it deals with the whole content of life, with instincts freighted with the inarticulate conclusions of a remote past, and with the unformulated inductions of individual experience. To set the product of a superficial ratiocination over the final output, in conscience, of our whole mental being, is a kind of pedantry. I do not mean to imply that there is usually an opposition between the two—they should work harmoniously together—but only to assert that when there is, conscience must be regarded as of a profounder rationality.
On the other hand, the wrong, the immoral, is, in a similar sense, the irrational. It is that which, after the mind has done its full work upon the matter, presents itself as the mentally isolated, the inharmonious, that which we cannot follow without having, in our more collected moods, a sense of having been untrue to ourselves, of having done ourselves a harm. The mind in its fullest activity is denied and desecrated; we are split in two. To violate conscience is to act under the control of an incomplete and fragmentary state of mind; and so to become less a person, to begin to disintegrate and go to pieces. An unjust or incontinent deed produces remorse, apparently because the thought of it will not lie still in the mind, but is of such a nature that there is no comfortable place for it in the system of thought already established there.
The question of right and wrong, as it presents itself to any particular mind, is, then, a question of the completest practicable organization of the impulses with which that mind finds itself compelled to deal. The working out of the right conclusion may be compared to the process by which a deliberative body comes to a conclusion upon some momentous public measure. Time must be given for all the more important passions, prejudices, traditions, interests, and the like, to be urged upon the members with such cogency as their advocates can give them, and for attempts to harmonize these conflicting forces so that a measure can be framed which the body can be induced to pass. And when a decision is finally reached there is a sense of relief, the greater in proportion as the struggle has been severe, and a tendency, even on the part of the opposition, to regard the matter as settled. Those people who cannot achieve moral unity, but have always a sense of two personalities warring within them, may be compared to certain countries in whose assemblies political parties are so embittered that they never come to an understanding with one another.
The mental process is, of course, only the proximate source of the idea of right, the conflict by which the competitive strength of the various impulses is measured, and some combination of them achieved; behind it is the whole history of the race and of the individual, in which impulses are rooted. Instinctive passions, like love, ambition, and revenge; the momentum of habit, the need of change, personal ascendencies, and the like, all have their bearing upon the final synthesis, and must either be conciliated or suppressed. Thus in case of a strong passion, like revenge let us say, one of two things is pretty sure to happen; either it will succeed in getting its revengeful impulse, more or less disguised perhaps, judged as right; or, if opposing ideas prove stronger, revenge will be kept under by the rise of an intense feeling of wrong that associates itself with it. If one observes that a person has a very vivid sense of the wrong of some particular impulse, one may usually infer that he has had in some way to contend with it; either as a temptation in his own mind, or as injuriously manifested in the conduct of others.
The natural way to solve a moral question, when immediate action is not required, is to let it lie in the mind, turning it over from time to time as attention is directed to it. In this manner the new situation gradually relates itself to all the mental forces having pertinency to it. The less violent but more persistent tendencies connect themselves quietly but firmly to recalcitrant impulse, enwrapping it like the filaments of a spider’s web, and bringing it under discipline. Something of this sort is implied in the rule of conduct suggested by Mr. H. R. Marshall, in his excellent work, “Instinct and Reason”: “Act to restrain the impulses which demand immediate reaction, in order that the impulse order determined by the existence of impulses of less strength, but of wider significance, may have full weight in the guidance of your life.”[[93]]
It occurs to me, however, that there is no absolute rule that the right is the deliberate. It is usually so, because the danger of irrationality and disintegration comes, in most cases, from the temporary sway of some active impulse, like that to strike or use injurious words in anger. But rationality involves decision as well as deliberation; and there are persons in whom the impulse to meditate and ponder so much outweighs the impulse to decide and act, as itself to endanger the unity of life. Such a person may well come to feel that the right is the decisive. It seems likely that in most minds the larger rationality, which gives the sense of right, is the sequel of much pondering, but is definitely achieved in moments of vivid insight.