We are now in the sphere of conscience. The actor is a unit of moral
powers. And the thing done is therefore the work of a sole agency whose sovereign
prerogatives are put to an interchangeable use between all the members, which,
in turn, serve it in accordance with the scheme of subordination which
prescribes their functions. However, there can be no personal responsibility until
the actor has consciously informed himself of the constraint, or urgency, which
signalizes the authority of moral convictions. He must be informed of their
awful significance. And he must affirm, or opine, that he is bound by his
conceptions of right and wrong, even though he may outrage conviction by bad
conduct. The question comes up here : Whence this obligation in morals ; on
what does it found ? Our answer is that man, as a unit of power over conduct, frames
a judgment of the good or bad qualities in his acts, and conceives, or affirms,
himself to be Personally responsible for their commission. And this power to value
acts as good or bad, places him in a rank to himself among terrestrial
creatures. But to be more explicit: Because of his uniquely human gifts, he is
constrained (as a discoverer of moral sanctions and their stress)to act from a
conviction of his personal responsibility for their employment. For, once
seeing their obligatory character, the force of the obligation is felt to be a personal
motor in all that pertains to conduct.
Why a conception of the moral qualities of our acts turns up a further
conception, that we are personally under bonds to them, is a matter of curious interest.
In other language, why does a rational witnessing of individual acts of right
and wrong come back to us, as persons open to their moral pressure ?An answer
might be gathered from previous discussions. We are referring to that
astounding transcendence of human reason by which we alone of all God's
creatures can grasp the idea of a righteous power seated in every moral
conception. For he who discovers such knowledge, discovers its
power over conduct; judging himself, and others, by what he and they
do ; even appraising his very thoughts by the potencies which distinguish, and emphasize,
their diverse characters.
I take it that you are now aware of the estimate I put on the mind of
animals. I spoke of their perspicacity being as clear as that of man, allowance
being made for their narrower horizon. They reason quite knowingly, within
their confined outlook. They have even ends and aims which they pursue, but
they stop short of the Heaven-born distinctions, discovered and affirmed by the
broader and deeper intellectual vision of man, in virtue of which distinctions,
he comes to know of an austerity in moral sanctions utterly unknown to feebler
intelligences. They lack power of mind to frame an articulate conception of the
divine mission of right to rule in the realm of morals. And it is for this
reason that moral power, as both constructive and conceptive of the
equities ,beauties, humanities, and duties, and culture of a human soul, is unknown
to them. But wherein lies the diversely marked superiority of man " seeing
that he also is hedged in with limitations, as inviolable as those of animals
?For, neither can demit one iota of what is peculiar to himself, or to itself.
But man has committed to him the strictly human charge of doing right or wrong,
in deference to a giftlier conception of the steps and extent of the
obligation. He discovers the meum and tuum of our humanities, and in acquiring
this knowledge he acquiresits obligatory sanctions. It is to be remembered,
however, that, on a first acquaintance with this human meum and tuum, the mine
and thine, the right and wrong of morals, etc., we see only the actions of the
different actors. This alone is our first seeing. And let me add that it is
just here that the ideas
It is to be observed, too, that the one who sits in judgment, and
approves, or reprehends, is having himself so informed of the qualities in such
particulars of conduct, that he can side with, or against, them. But this is an
act of choice, or the affirmation of personal preference, on evidence for it.
We conclude, therefore, that when one sees, or does, an
act which he conceives to be right or wrong, he is in fact adjudging
himself to be a right or wrong doer; affirming choice, and, at the same time, visiting
upon himself the moral reprisals of self approval, or rebuke. For the judgment
is that, in as much as he is the doer of the act, he is to be personally
commended, or else reprehended. In either case, he is upheld by that fealty to
himself, and the accepted stress of his moral convictions by which he asserts a
personal preference, or sides with what he does, and so commends
his own acts, as good or bad,
in the light of his moral conceptions, ever thus, from the hour of
responsibility, when one reaches a judgment of right or wrong, he is also
affirming one of praise or censure (which is an affirmative or negative
choice),and he is therefore also affirming his personal responsibility for choice
and conduct.
