Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/67

Rh Moral feelings and moral conscriptions.—Moral feelings are evidently transmitted in such wise that children, observing in adults strong inclinations and aversions to certain actions, are led, as born apes, to initate these inclinatious and versions ; in after-life, when they find themselves imbued with these artificially acquired and well-exercised emotions, they consider a posthumous "Why," in confirmation of the fact that these inclina-tious and aversions are legitimate—a mere matter of propriety, Yet these confirmations love nothing whatever to do with either the origin or the degree of the feeling: one simply accomodates oneself to the rule that, as a rationual being, one must give reasons for one's pros and cons, and, what is more, reasons both adducible and acceptable. In this respect the history of moral feelings is a totally different one from that of moral conceptions. The former are powerful previous to the action; the latter especially after the action, considering the obligation which one feels under to pronounce upon them.

Feelings as descended from judgments.—"Trust to your feeling."—But feelings are nothing final, original ; feelings are built up on judgments and valuations which are transmitted to us in the form of feelings (inclinations, inversious). The inspiration which originates in feeling