Elements of Morals / With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State

by Paul Janet

Another confusion of ideas which should be equally avoided, and which is very common among men, is that which consists in taking the reward itself for a good, and the punishment for an evil.

It is thus that men are often more proud of the titles and honors they have obtained, than of the real merit through which they have won them. It is thus also that they fear the prison more than the crime, and shame more than vice.

It is for this reason that the greatest courage is needed to bear undeserved punishment.

We distinguish generally four species of sanction:

1. Natural sanction; 2, legal sanction; 3, the sanction of public opinion; 4, inward sanction.

1. Natural sanction is that which rests on the natural consequences of our actions. It is natural for sobriety to keep up and establish health, for intemperance to be a cause of disease. It is natural for work to bring with it ease of circumstances, for idleness to be a source of misery and poverty. It is natural that probity should insure security, confidence, and credit; that courage should put off the chances of death; that patience should render life more bearable; that good-will should call forth good-will; that wickedness should drive men from us; that perjury should cause them to distrust us, etc. These facts have ever been verified by experience. The honest is not always the useful; but it is often what is most useful.

2. Legal sanction is above all a penal sanction. It is composed of the chastisements which the law has established for the guilty. There are, in general, few rewards established by the law, and they may be classed among what is called the esteem of men.

3. Another kind of sanction consists in the opinion other men entertain in regard to our actions and character. We have seen that it is in the nature of good actions to inspire esteem, in the nature of the bad to inspire blame and contempt. The honest man generally enjoys public honor and consideration. The dishonest man, even though the law does not reach him, is branded with discredit, aversion, contempt, etc.

4. Finally, a more exact and certain sanction is that which results from the very conscience and moral sentiment mentioned above.

16. The superior sanction: the future life.—These various sanctions being insufficient to satisfy our want of justice, there is required still another, namely, the superior religious sanction.