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 CHAPTER XI.

THE PLACE OF DUTY IN THE MORAL LIFE.

§ 1. Moral Obligation. So far we have been considering conduct from the point of view of the rightness and wrongness of the actions in which it consists. We examined the various sanctions of conduct, and concluded that while these sanctions are of educational value in persuading children to do the right, they are not to be regarded as reasons why the good should be done. There is no reason why we should do the right except simply that it is right. What is right is what I have morally got to do. It is my duty to do the right. If I am morally healthy, the right action presents itself to me as the action that I am morally bound to do. It is my "bounden duty."

This consciousness of moral obligation is possible only to a growing self. It is possible only to a self that is aware of its own imperfection, and also of an ideal perfection which it has not yet attained. The sense of moral obligation implies that the self is aware that it ought to perform a certain action. Now, if the self is morally healthy, as soon as it perceives what it ought to do, it will do it. If it is morally healthy, it will regard what it ought to do as the only