Again, science reveals most clearly the necessary means to ends; it says that to make nitro-glycerine you must use such and such ingredients. In viewing these means in their necessity there may arise a certain emotion of compulsion to their use; but this compulsive quality is not, I ought to do so and so, but I must, if I would attain the end. It is plainly an unethical use of terms to say, If you wish to succeed or be happy you ought to do so and so, or that is the right way to succeed or be happy. Morality is not a recipe toward any end but itself. So the feeling as to the “Conditions by fulfilment of which happiness is achieved”—emphasized by Spencer in the principles of Ethics as the main element in moral emotion—is not real ethical emotion. I may feel the constraint and necessity to using certain means, difficult and unpleasant in themselves, in order to reach a desired end, but a moment’s introspection shows that this compulsive emotion is not thereby moral, that this feeling is not a feeling of duty but of necessity to employ the means. If I feel that I ought to become happy, then alone will I feel I ought to use the means to happiness. So also a man may desire to win in athletic competition, but the requisite means, a hard course of training, may deter him from entering; that is, his love of ease conflicts and overcomes his desire of athletic success as far as action is concerned. If he undertakes the training and struggles through, he feels the compulsion of the means in direct proportion to his love of ease and pleasure. He refuses a cigar under this emotion at the necessity of the means, but this is plainly not a case of ethical emotion; he refuses, not because he ought, but because he must, and the trainer who says to him, “You ought not to take that cigar,” does not primarily appeal to moral principle, but to the constraint of the means to desired end. This does not deny that a man may feel training as a matter of duty, but it is still obvious that he who refuses a cigar as a mere matter of training, is as psychic fact actuated by an emotion of distinct quality from that which the man feels who refuses to smoke as a matter of conscience; the feeling, “I must not,” is diverse from the feeling implied in, “I ought not.” The athlete may be conscientiously an athlete, but in general he refuses to smoke merely because that is the right stand, i.e., suitable to gaining the particular desired end, whereas the conscientious man refuses as determined by a feeling for some end whose rightness is assumed, as the preservation of health, or the being inoffensive to others. The athlete is moved by what is right or useful to some end, while the psychically moral man is actuated by the emotion for the end of rightness; and while constraint appears as characteristic of both emotions, still in breadth, depth, and particular tone, the ethical is plainly differentiated from the necessitarian emotion. At bottom also it is plain that the feeling of compulsion to means is a case of conflict of motives—as with the athlete is love of pleasure of smoking versus desire of athletic success—and conflict of motives has been previously discussed.

Neither scientific nor common knowledge then can as method of means give by itself the moral emotion. But it may be said that science does provide ends for action and that the emotion about the end is an ethical emotion. Thus the end of truth, of adherence to reality, is naturally emphasized by science; yet here is not duty, but the essential guiding emotion is the emotion for achievement and the achievement of the desired accordance with nicety and completeness. The enthusiasm for truth and truth in action is an emotion which may be sanctioned by moral feeling, but it is not moral feeling. Adaptation to environment or conformity to reality as a general end of action may have its impetus in moral emotion, I may feel that I ought to accord with the nature of things as scientifically revealed, but this motive is by no means necessarily implied in the end. And conduct is rarely actuated by pure sentiment for this end; rather the general form is, “Do this and thou shalt live”; that is, the emotion is desire for personal ends to which accordance with nature is the means.

Again, take a suggestion of end for conduct from some special science. For instance, Biology marks as the general result of the struggle for existence and of natural selection, the perfection—practical and relative—of the kind. Thus the result, that is, end unconsciously achieved, of the life of deer is power of locomotion and keenness of scent, while with man the tendency of evolution is toward brain power. Man obviously is able to consciously make an evolution tendency an end, to conduct himself with reference to it, and thus man’s life may be a conscious and strenuous carrying out of tendency. A constraint arises from this end as from others, but it is not moral constraint, till the end has been adjudged right; thus this end does not explain rightness. The aspiration toward self-culture and self-fulfilment is not psychically moral, nor yet the determination to achieve this perfection. Perfection, be it remarked, is not an end, but the measure of attainment of any end; a perfect man is one who is complete in certain respects. Morality is not the carrying out any end, perfectly or imperfectly, be it pleasing, satisfactory, true, good, etc., but it pursues and is pursued by the right end, which is rightness as universal, authoritative, compulsive, self-approved, impersonal law. The emotion of oughtness in its purely ethical form is responsive to this alone. Purely moral emotion as psychic fact, is not any feeling for any summum bonum or any perfection of attainment of any kind, but is an emotion for the right for its own sake. It is neglectful of all consequences, and cries, “Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.” We all know the distinct difference in quality of feeling when acting merely to do my duty and when acting to achieve an end for the achievement’s sake or for the good implied. Ethical emotion may arise about any extrinsic end, but does not arise out of it.

We conclude then that as psychical fact there is a variety of compulsory emotions, an ought of law as behest of others, an ought of means, an ought of end, an ought of advantage, an ought of bare moral rightness, and that this latter emotion, as every one knows by introspection, has its own peculiar quality and force. He who feels constraint from authority, from use of means, from end purposed, is plainly feeling different from him who feels the constraining emotion at moral right. And the law which says, “Do this and thou shalt live,” does not bring moral pressure, for the moral law says, “Do this whether thou livest or not”; that is, moral emotion and activity is not consciously to itself a life factor. As a matter of psychic fact a world of moral activity exists solely for and in itself, and the emotion in this sphere of absolute morality, in which many conscientious people live habitually, is ethical emotion in the narrow and strict sense of the term. The immediate feeling of absolute rightness—so-called intuitive morality—however and whenever it has arisen, seems to present itself as mental factor radically diverse from all emotions of means, ends, and law.

Here we may criticise a so-called rule of moral conduct to which appeal is often made, namely, the rule that we ought to do as we would be done by. We know, indeed, that the principle of equivalence is strong in society, and that if we wish to be well treated we should treat others well. However, to do as we would be done by, in order that we may be done by as we would, transforms moral precept into prudential maxim. Here is a method of advantage: in order to attain the given end we ought to do so and so, but the purely ethical emotion is not aroused. But further, interpret the rule as simple universal moral law that we ought to do as we would be done by. This involves putting ourselves in another’s place and considering how we would like to be treated under the circumstances, and so treating him. This is hedonistic altruism, and its measure is crude and unreliable, for what might please me in a given case might not please another. This automorphic interpretation is, however, extremely common, especially in lower psychism. The child and the savage judge inevitably and naturally that they are giving you the greatest pleasure when they share their dainties with you. But slowly is individuality of taste recognised, and still more slowly recognised as proper and right. Still a hedonistic altruism, whether by mistaken mode of putting yourself in his place, or by true measure of realizing what he is in his own place and acting accordingly, on either method is of very doubtful morality if judged by any high standard. Indeed, hedonistic altruism, whatever its motive, has wrought both incalculable injury and unrighteousness, whether as a weak sentimentalism as seen, for instance, in promiscuous charity, or in more special forms, like parental indulgence. Ethical emotion which seeks to be directed in its action by an extraneous measure adulterates itself. We ought not to do to others as we would like them to do by us, nor yet as they would like, nor yet merely as we feel they ought to be treated, but the real golden rule is, we ought to do by others as we feel that they in their own nature and position ought to be done by. This is no more than to say that we ought to do by others as we ought, a moral identical proposition; and the reducing to this shows that moral emotion rests only on itself. The end of pure ethical conduct is always and ever merely to fulfil righteousness everywhere or to secure its fulfilment everywhere, to help and forward all doing right. The so-called golden rule may have its place, as undoubtedly it was meant, as propædeutic to a kingdom of righteousness, but it has not pure ethical quality in itself.

CHAPTER XX
THE EXPRESSION OF FEELING

The primary function of mentality, as we have throughout assumed, is as stimulant to activities advantageous to the individual under the conditions of its existence; hence all these activities are in a broad sense expressions of mental state, they are the outflow of psychoses and are indicative of them. In particular, feeling is specially and directly related to motor values, which thus become to the self-observant or to others observant an index or expression of the feeling. Thus, I see a deer fleeing from a wolf, and I infer that this is an expression of fear. Hence we may rightly say that in a large sense all action is expression, for all such action rises in feeling; in other words, from one point of view expression equals action. Not only may exterior bodily phenomena betray the feeling which is their inciting cause, but to a vivisectionist, for example, interior phenomena, cerebral and other, may be noted as indicating a feeling origin. Excluding, of course, so-called reflex action, which is really reflex motion, action and expression are but different points of view of the same thing: what we term an action when we dwell upon the motor side, we term an expression when we dwell on the mental prius and stimulus which is revealed.

Now as the evolution of mind progresses actions no longer serviceable may survive in connection with given feelings, remain indicative of them; thus the strong beating of the heart in fear and the scowl in anger. Such survival actions which occur in connection with all kinds of feelings, and especially with those which are pre-human in their origin, are with particular emphasis styled expressions. The scowl in anger is considered as expression rather than the actual blow struck, which is equally the result and indication of anger.[[F]]

[F]. Wundt says that when in emotion we look “sour” we think we are actually tasting the sour, and so make the repulsing action, “sour” look. (Lectures on Psychology, p. 283.) I think it more probable that the “sour” look is the survival expression of such an emotion as disappointment. It is likely that the genesis of disappointment was in tasting the sour for the supposedly sweet, e.g., lemon for orange, and the “sour” look has remained as expression of disappointment long since its utility ceased. The genesis and early growth of most emotions is in connection with certain sense experiences and their related actions, and these actions tend to remain as “expressions” long after their real quality as actions has disappeared. Hence it is by survival, and not because he thinks himself tasting something sour, that a man looks “soured” by disappointment when I fail to give him money as promised. So also black is gloomy because we are diurnal, and our ancestors were diurnal. If nocturnal, black would seem joyous, white gloomy. (Cf. Wundt, ibid., p. 375.)