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 200 EDWARD WESTEBMARCK : and to try to suppress the natural emotion of moral approval by persuading himself that there is no mortal being who deserves it. Quite distinct from the question of merit, then, is that of the super-obligatory. Can a man do more than his duty, or, in other words, is there anything good which is not at the same time a duty ? The answer depends on the contents given to the commandments of duty, hence it may vary with- out affecting the notion of duty itself. If we consider that there is an obligation on every man to promote the general happiness to the very utmost of his ability, we must also maintain that nobody can ever do anything good beyond his duty. The same is the case if we regard "self-realisation," or a " normal " exercise of his natural functions as a man's fundamental duty. In all these cases " to aim at acting beyond obligation," as Price puts it, 1 is "the same with aiming at acting contrary to obligation, and doing more than is fit to be done, the same with doing wrong ". It can hardly be denied, however, that those who hold similar views have actually two standards of duty, one by which they measure man and his doings in the abstract, with reference to a certain ideal of life which they please to identify with duty, and another by which they are guided in their prac- tical moral judgments upon their own and their neighbours' conduct. The conscientious man is apt to judge himself more severely than he judges others, partly because he knows his own case better than theirs, 8 and partly because he is naturally afraid of being intolerant and unjust. He may in- deed be unwilling to admit that he ever can do more than his duty, seeing how difficult it is even to do what he ought to do, and impressed, as he would be, with the feeling of his own shortcomings. Yet I do not see how he could conscien- tiously deny that he has omitted to do many praiseworthy or heroic deeds without holding himself blamable for such omissions. Prof. Sidgwick observes that we can hardly deny that it is, in some sense, a man's strict duty to do whatever action he judges most excellent, so far as it is in his power. 3 This, as it seems to me, is not a matter of course, and nothing of the kind is involved in the notion of duty itself. We must not confound the moral law with the moral ideal. Duty is the minimum of morality, the supreme moral ideal of the best man is the maximum of it. Those who sum up the 1 Price, .4 Review of tlie Principal Questions in Morals (1787), p. 204 sq. 3 Cf. Sidgwick, toe. cit., p. 221. '> Ibid., p. 219 nq.