Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 11.djvu/337

 336 s. COIT : selves, they are all unhappy states of mind ; while the contrary is true of those which the thought of doing right awakens. Self-examination is never agreeable to the man whom his own moral judgment condemns ; the unhappiness of self-condemnation may mount to such intensity and volume as to drive men to the extremest measures for ridding themselves of it. On the other hand we find the conscious fulfilment of duty to be attended by a feeling of happiness which sometimes takes the form of deep inward peace, such as personal reverence and trust produce ; and sometimes the form of gladness and exultation, like that of a victor ; while in moments of supreme insight and action it breaks into rapture. We may comprehend all these forms of happiness, and may suggest the corresponding forms of unhappiness which the thought of doing wrong awakens, under the formula : Inward peace attends devotion to the right. If now we substitute for the formal conception " Tightness " its material equivalent, we shall have attained a statement which embraces not only the individual and subjective but also the social and objective side of morality : Inward peace attends that way of living which makes for universal happiness. But at least to the inner sanction which attends a life in devotion to moral conviction men have always testified, whenever they have reflected upon their own conduct. Every philosopher from Socrates to Plotinus and from Spinoza to Schopenhauer has affirmed its actuality and universality, however differently they may have explained it. Out of it all reflective literature has drawn both form and substance. It is the burden of the Bibles of the world. It seems to be the central fact of religious experience. But the best proof of the existence of this great fact of subjective moral experience and of its actual power over the thought and conduct of men is to be found in the cardinal doctrines of life which Buddhism and Christianity teach. For without doubt the Oriental doctrine of the attainment of Nirvana through self-renunciation, and the Christian teaching of the new birth through repentance and faith, had their empirical basis in the deep inward peace which the founders of these religions derived from holiness of life ; while on the other hand Oriental pessimism and the Christian doctrine of sin had their empirical basis in the prevalence of moral self- condemnation among men. This peace the holiest of men have felt the most fully ; and all men have felt or may feel it in some degree and at times. It is a form of happiness which is bound up in the very consciousness of doing right ; it is attainable ever}' moment of our conscious lives, and no