Page:Mind (Old Series) Volume 12.djvu/48

 " IDIOPSYCHOLOGICAL ETHICS." 35 possible, these elements of error, confusion and uncertainty is, in my view, the fundamental question of ethics, which can only be answered by the construction of an ethical system. With this task I am not at present concerned further than to explain that I do not expect to find this true moral system where Dr. Martineau looks for it ; that is, by introspection directed to the moral sentiments and apparently immediate moral judgments caused in my mind by the con- templation of particular acts, apart from systematic conside- ration of these acts and their consequences in relation to what I adopt as the ultimate end of action. That I should have such sentiments, and, where prompt action is needed, should act on such judgments, is at once natural and, in my opinion, conducive to the ultimate end ; but I continually find that these immediate pronouncements have to be cor- rected and restrained by a careful consideration of con- sequences. To sum up : there are, in my view, three fundamentally distinct questions, which ought to be investigated by essentially different methods : (1) what the received morality was in other ages and countries, which is to be answered by impartial historical study; (2) what the received morality is here and now, which is to be ascertained by an unpre- judiced comparison of one's own moral judgments with those of others ; (3) what morality ought to be a problem which can only be solved by the construction of an ethical system. It is the answer which Dr. Martineau has given to the second of these questions and this alone which I propose now to consider. According to Dr. Martineau, the " broad fact " of the moral consciousness is that " we have an irresistible tendency to pass judgments of right and wrong " (p. 17) : when I pass such judgments "as an agent " on my own conduct " I speak of my duty" a word which "expresses the sense we have of a debt which we are bound," or " obliged," to pay. This sense of obligation implies, of course, a conflict between the moral judgment and some impulse prompting us to con- duct disapproved by our moral judgment. But in Dr. Mar- tineau's view it necessarily implies more than this ; it neces- sarily implies the recognition of "another person," who has authority over us : the dictates of conscience, he holds, are unmeaning unless we give them a Theistic interpre- tation. Now I quite admit that a Christian Theist must necessarily conceive of the dictates of conscience as Divine commands ; but I think it rash and unwarrantable in him to affirm that