Page:Mind (New Series) Volume 9.djvu/213

 Ill MARKS ON THE PREDICATES OF MORAL JUDGMENTS. 199 it is manifest that they are not identical. As the discharge of a duty may be regarded as a good act, so it may also be regarded as deserving praise. The apparent antagonism between duty and merit arises from the fact that no merit is conferred upon him who performs a duty which is seldom transgressed, or the transgression of which would actually incur censure or punishment, and also that many or most acts deemed to be meritorious really fall outside the limits of duty as roughly drawn by the popular mind. We praise and regard as praiseworthy only what is above the average, 1 we censure chiefly what is below it. We are disposed to attribute merit to a man not only on account of the intrinsic character of his conduct, but at the same time because it is comparatively unusual ; and to confer greater merit upon him who, ceteris paribus, has overcome unusually great diffi- culties by resisting temptations from without or by subduing some strong desire. On the other hand, we do not think that a man ought to be praised for what his own interest prompts him to perform. And since the transgression of a moral command which is usually obeyed is generally censured or punished, there is under ordinary circumstances nothing meritorious in performing a duty. 1 confess that I fail to grasp what those writers really mean who identify the " meritorious " with the " super- obligatory " and at the same time deny the existence of any super-obligatory. Do they shut their eyes to the im- portant psychical fact indicated by the term " merit," or do they look upon it as a chimera inconsistent with a sufficiently enlightened moral consciousness '? For my own part I can- not see how the moral consciousness could dispense with the idea that there are actions which deserve moral praise. 2 The denial of merit can be defended from a purely theo- logical point of view, and then only with regard to man's relation to God. It is obvious that a fallen being who is sinning even when doing his best, could not be recognised as good by God and could have no merit. But it is hardly just, nor is it practically possible, that a man should measure his fellow creatures by a superhuman standard of perfection, 'Merit, as Prof. Alexander puts it (loc. cit., p. 196), "expresses the interval which separates the meritorious from the average ". 2 Prof. Bain, who takes a very legal view of the moral consciousness, maintains that " positive good deeds and self-sacrifice . . . transcend the region of morality proper, and occupy a sphere of their own " ( The K mat fans and the Will, p. 202). I believe that his restriction of the moral consciousness within so narrow limits ig unique among modern writers, and it is certainly not to be recommended.