[ CHAPTER II
The Sources of Moral Weakness]
[304.] Under this head five main points come up for consideration:—
- (1) Tendencies of the child’s will impulses.
- (2) Ethical judgments and their absence.
- (3) Formation of maxims.
- (4) Organization of maxims.
- (5) Application of organized maxims.
[305.] (1) Where training has not provided for occupation and for the distribution of time, we must always expect to encounter an activity which has no aim, and which forgets its own purposes. From such a state of affairs arise a craving for liberty averse to all control, and, where several pupils are grouped together, contention, either for the possession of something or for the sake of showing off. Each wants to be first; recognition of the just equality of all is deliberately refused. Mutual ill-will intrenches itself and stealthily waits for an opportunity to break forth. Here is the fountain head of many passions; even those which spring from excessive sensuousness must be classed under this first head, in so far as they are promoted by lack of regulated activity. The havoc caused by passions is a pervading element in the discussion of all of the remaining topics.
[306.] (2) It is true that education usually counteracts the tendency to indolence and to unruliness, not only by the use of the spur and the bridle, but also through guidance in the direction of the proprieties; giving rise to the thought “what will others say,” it shows existing conditions as mirrored in the minds of others. But when these others are compelled to remain silent, or when the pupil is sure of their partiality, or is exposed to their errors of judgment, the effect is to vitiate rather than to arouse the ethical judgment.
Nevertheless, calling attention to the judgment of others, and not merely of particular individuals, is very much better than waiting for the spontaneous awakening of ethical judgment. In most cases the waiting would be in vain. Matters of ethical import are either too close to the ordinary human being, and so, of course, to the boy left entirely to himself, or they are too remote, i.e., either they have not as yet passed outside the pale of affection or aversion, or else they are already fading from the field of vision. In neither case can an ethical judgment be formed with success. At any rate, it will vanish before it can produce an effect.
In order to reach those ethical judgments on which morality rests, the child must see will images, see them without the stirring of his own will impulse.
These will images, moreover, must embrace relations, the single members of which are themselves wills, and the beholder is to keep such members equally in sight, until the estimate of value rises spontaneously within him. But such contemplation implies a keenness and calmness of apprehension not to be looked for in unruly children. Hence it may be inferred how necessary training is—serious, not to say severe, training. Unruliness must have been tamed and regular attention secured. The preliminary condition fulfilled, it is further essential that there shall be no lack of sufficiently distinct presentations of the foregoing will images. And even then the ethical judgment often matures so tardily that it has to be pronounced in the name of other persons—persons higher in authority.