the need of a closer psychological definition and interpretation of ethical emotion must be apparent to any reader of the current psychology, where we find the utmost confusion and looseness of usage. one of the most glaring instances which i have come across is this from perez (first three years of childhood, p. 286): “as soon as the child begins to obey, from fear or from habit, he enters on the possession of the moral sense; as soon as he obeys in order to be rewarded or praised or to give pleasure, he has advanced further in this possession.” a boy at table reaches out for the last piece of cake, but withdraws his hand out of love for his mother’s approbation, and fear of her disapprobation. does this imply moral sense and emotion? we say, indeed, that these were very proper and moral emotions for the child to have; objectively moral, but we do not describe the psychical state of the child correctly by saying that it has the moral sense and emotion. in fact, just so far as he acts out of love or fear, just so far he is not acting out of ethical emotion; that is, simply because he feels he ought.

only the slightest introspection, then, is needed to recognise the distinction of objective and subjective morality, of a moral emotion and the emotion of morality. so we must disallow even dread of “moral discomfort” as psychically moral, spencer notwithstanding (essays i., p. 348). the fear of remorse may restrain from objectively 333immoral acts, but the ethical emotion is not a fear constraint, as every one knows when doing a thing simply because he feels he ought to. because i judge my feeling or act a right one, does not constitute this the feeling of rightness as psychic fact. in short, we must always distinguish between the socially right action, the morally right action, and the psychologically moral action. he who erects a model tenement, even though he do it to advertise himself, is doing the right thing by society, though his action is neither prompted by a moral emotion nor the moral emotion. if philanthropy incites him, both the act and feeling objectively are moral, but psychically he is immoral, and only becomes psychically moral when he acts out of the ethical emotion as feeling of duty. one who acts out of sympathy, pity, mercy, affection, feeling of honour, love of approbation, and similar emotions, often confounded with the moral emotion, is objectively moral. we pronounce these to be right emotions, yet they are not the emotion of right, and so not psychically moral; and it is evident, also, that they may not be socially right, for often actions from these motives result in social wrongs. however, in later phases of psychic evolution, when emotions themselves are reflected upon as psychic acts, the emotion of the moral “ought” may be felt as stimulus to them, and so we may at once feel that we ought to sympathise, and so sympathise, and so act, and may thus at the same time be psychically, morally and socially right.

but while the nature and rise of ethical emotion is often untruly connected with some one kind of act, as obedience, or with some one kind of motive, as love of reward, a far more likely field of investigation is opened by those who connect feeling of duty with conflict of motives. yet it is obvious at first sight that mere opposition of any two psychic factors is not a distinct feeling. i have seen my dog run away from me to follow some canine friend, and then back to follow, and so on, till one affection became 334dominant force; but such simple interference of emotions does not constitute any third and new or higher emotion. conflicts of this sort in higher natures have sometimes a reflex psychosis in painful feeling of distraction and bewilderment, but this is the end of the natural course of feeling conflicts.

there are, however, higher phases of conflict of motives which may bring us nearer to ethical emotion. a burglar, the evening he is to crack a safe, is inclined to indulge in several glasses of wine, but his companion remarks that he ought not to drink if he expects to do the job. here is something to be done, a duty, and under the compulsive force of the feeling of this duty the burglar lays down his glass untouched. is not the psychic phenomenon really a case of the ethical emotion as involved in the thwarting of present inclination for the right carrying out of the thing to be done? a feeling for that which is laid upon us to be done, whether we lay it upon ourselves, or it is laid upon us by others, has certainly the compulsory quality which we commonly attribute to the ethical emotion. when we have set out to do something, this pre-determination exercises a peculiar pressure when some diverse inclination enters, but it is the force of firmly-formed purpose and of tenacious will. its compulsiveness is not ethical, but volitional. a very little reflection convinces me that something to be done, and something which ought to be done, incite distinct emotions. i feel differently when i go to church, because i have planned to go, or have been told to go, and when i go simply because i feel i ought. there is also superadded, the purely impulsive force of the emotion for the larger good; and this may, indeed, play the whole part in the contest with present inclination, which contest then becomes of the simple alternating order. thus the burglar has avaricious visions of gold, and relaxes his cup; he looks at the tempting wine, and grasps it again, and so on.

335it is true, however, that the feeling for the larger and future good against a present inclination may be a feeling of oughtness, a feeling of duty, a constraining to do a set something. providence and prudential action are enforced not merely by, “i wish to get the larger good,” but, “i ought to reach it.” the most permanent, the greatest and completest pleasure and benefit not only incites us, but constrains us. constraining emotion, a feeling of oughtness, may then arise both from a preview of bare accomplishment of plan or purpose set by ourselves or others, and also from sense of larger over lesser advantage. here is the region of utilitarian duty, of the ethics of calculation of personal pleasure and happiness. psychically here is a true feeling of ought, and here is the ethical emotion, if we make the term denominate all feeling of oughtness. but if this is the region of ethics, it may be said to be the region of the lower ethics, and we may indeed deny the term ethical to all this kind of emotion of oughtness. the emotion arises about personal and particular ends, and not about principles. the ambitious man feels an ought as well as the conscientious, but they are diverse in nature. alike merely in the general quality of compulsive force, they may differ in tone and special qualities. the constraining emotion which comes with viewing a universal law of right may be claimed as distinct from the constraint exercised by personal ends. but it is not our purpose to discuss this matter here.

the psychic conflict which is specially connected with moral emotion is the conflict of the egoistic and altruistic impulses. when in such a struggle sympathy prevails, we approve as objectively moral and right, but the existence of ethical emotion in determining the dominance of the altruism is not assured. pity originally overcame hatred without the compulsion of duty. altruistic impulses contest with egoistic in na?ve and simple natures without any appearance of feeling for duty. the origin and 336nature of morality does not thus seem bound up with the earliest forms of egoistic-altruistic contests, though in later evolution it may come in as reinforcement of the altruistic. we may feel then, not merely like helping a man in distress at the expense of our own comfort, but we feel we ought to help him; the force of a general principle of conduct is felt in the form we term the ethical emotion, yet it is obvious that such a recognition of a general and universal law and such a feeling therefor is far later than the rise of altruism itself. darwin alludes to the baulking of the social instinct as having special ethical significance. with the social instinct baulked, as with any other, there certainly results distress, but it is by no means made clear that this necessarily involves moral quality. when a savage in a fit of anger slays his pet child, the misery of baulked parental instinct may soon be felt, and he may bitterly regret the deed, but this does not involve moral feeling, a feeling of repentance for the essential wrongfulness of the act. he would regret in the same spirit the destroying his dinner by his own hand. if we say that he is stricken with remorse, we assert conscience violated. remorse cannot explain conscience, but must be explained by it. still, morality is not bound up necessarily with sociality. sociality certainly arises and progresses to a considerable evolution before moral compulsion and the emotion of bare rightness arises to sanction and to stimulate social activities. and if moral emotion is not implied positively in altruism as an outgoing towards others, neither is it implied in the incoming of others upon the individual, either in respect of approbation or disapprobation, or in the more direct and essential way of rewards and penalties. penalty is at bottom but a species of disadvantage brought to bear on the individual through fear of consequences. the desire to get even—an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth—and all exacting justice as an equivalence, whether as exacted by the individual or by 337persons delegated, the officers of justice, is plainly not in its origin and basis the ethical emotion. a system of mutual dues and rights may or may not have the sanction of morality, but they arise in advantage; and the motives which originate penalties and act with reference thereto, are far from being the pure moral emotion, a direct feeling for rightness as rightness. the merchant in general pays his import duty, not as a moral duty, but as something required by legality rather than morality. law and public sentiment exercise through emotion, and that of a compulsory type, certain effects on conduct, but it is clear that the general feeling of oughtness as self-imposed law of rightness is not presupposed.

if the ethical emotion be not specially bound up with obedience or with conflict of motives, may it not be particularly connected with science? at the outset we note that a very natural confusion of science and ethics is favoured by the fact that we can apply the term ethics both to the science and the matter treated, and so speak of the science ethics as the science of ethics, of ethical perception, emotion and action. but yet we know that the science is by no means to be identified with its subject matter, and also that the science of a matter and the ethics of it are two very diverse psychic tendencies and points of view. science is always an objectifying impulse whose end is merely to know, but ethics is subjective, whose end is merely to be. this is emphasized by the fact that science in its ceaseless objectifying may constitute a science of science, and science of the science of science, and so on, but ethics is self-contained, and there can be no ethics of ethics. while we so sharply distinguish scientific and ethical activity, yet so far as the science is prompted by ethical emotion it is ethical activity. if i learn and know out of the feeling of duty, the act is psychically moral, yet is always distinct in quality from the feeling 338which prompts it. thus there is an ethics of science, or rather, to or toward science, though most scientific activity is carried on at the stimulus of other impulses, as love of truth, ambition, etc. psychologically speaking, then, science is in no wise ethics nor ethics science.

but it will be said, “is not ethical discrimination a cognitive activity? must not one know the right, know that he ought, before he can feel ethically and act ethically?” but it will be found that at bottom the rightness of an action is the appreciated accord of the action with an end which is already felt to be right. i am asked whether i think it was right for a certain poor man to purloin a loaf from a baker for his starving family. in passing ethical judgment i simply fall back on some ethical postulate. the right of the family to life, i may say, ought to take precedence of the right of property. i therein fall back upon the simple feeling of right as ethical emotion. the knowing activity is concerned merely in the apprehending the situation, and ratiocination in tracing back to moral principles, but the ethical discrimination is neither, but an affair of direct emotion. if it be felt to be right to save life in any wise that seems necessary, i will approve it as right. a reason can only make an act right by being a right reason. thus it is that moral discrimination is at bottom no more than a peculiar feeling about acts, towards or against the doing them, which, like all emotion, involves the knowing its object, but is not involved or explained in its psychic quality by the knowing act. the setting out what ought to be done, the establishing duties and moral rules of conduct, the development of a system of ethics, is not then fundamentally cognitive process, but emotive. hence it is, psychically speaking, a misnomer to denote any system of ethics a science.

it is true we may denote by ethics—always capitalizing the term—that branch of psychology and sociology which investigates the nature and laws of ethical phenomena. 339this ethics merely gives an objective account of ethical emotion and conduct. it is often defined as the science of conduct, a definition quite too wide, for conduct is action consciously self-directed to an end, be the impulse anger, fear, love, ethical emotion, or any other emotion; but psychological ethics studies only conduct as moved by ethical emotion. conduct is, indeed, the sphere for ethical feeling, and any specimen of conduct, whatever its psychic stimulus, may excite moral approval or disapproval and stir ethical emotion, but this ethical survey of conduct is not properly a science, as has just been shown. all conduct is then objectively interpretable as moral, though it be inherently and psychologically immoral, that is, having no element of moral feeling. the spheres of objective and subjective morality are far from being coincident.

further, science is not peculiarly related above common knowledge to ethical emotion. common sense and ordinary fear lead me to jump off the track before an approaching train, while physiological knowledge and ordinary fear may incite me to put on rubbers on a wet day. scientific knowledge opens the way for the common emotions; it shows the consequences of acts with fulness and accuracy, and so opens a wide range for the ordinary emotions which awake at sight of the experienced and experienceable. if i feel i ought to put on rubbers, this feeling arises, not directly at the consequences which science reveals, but at the rightness of the consequences. i feel i ought not to injure my health, a feeling which science does not generate, but it merely establishes the fact that such and such actions will injure my health, and so gives the opportunity of applying the moral postulate, i ought not to injure my health. i judge the rightness of an act, not by its consequences, but by the rightness of its consequences.

again, science reveals most clearly the necessary means to ends; it says that to make nitro-glycerine you must 340use 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 341to 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 342desire 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.

343we 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, 344and 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 prop?deutic to a kingdom of righteousness, but it has not pure ethical quality in itself.