Page:Philosophical Review Volume 1.djvu/488

472 The rest of the article (in small print) is devoted to a criticism of Marshall's theory regarding pleasure and pain.

I. Preliminary Remarks. — On the one hand we see the possibility, be it real or merely theoretical possibility, that men may live as consistent egoists with untroubled inner satisfaction. On the other hand we see the exquisite absurdity of admitting that any one's selfishness could be to him a matter of conscience, a duty. All moral precepts as such must be able to move the conscience. The conscience is a feeling of a particular kind; as hope, fear, love, etc., are distinct feelings, so is conscience a distinct feeling which must have its own conditions. For the study of these conditions it makes no difference whether the commands of conscience are mistaken or legitimate. The sciences of logic and aesthetics study the conditions under which the particular feelings of logical and aesthetic pleasure arise, and then analyze the objective relations which really, and not by the mere fancy of the individual, contain these conditions. The science of ethics has but to follow the path indicated, and not to trouble itself with endless reflections concerning the possibility of a demonstration of the desirability of conscientious living. II. Analysis of Conscience. — Among civilized as among primitive nations, among adults as among children, experience shows us characters which are very heroic in enduring every kind of physical pain, and yet tremble before the same pains when they are incurred as punishment. Punishment is pain inflicted by a natural manifestation of our fellow-men's displeasure. If simple apprehension of suffering causes one feeling, and apprehension of the same suffering due to other men's displeasure causes a different feeling, this latter circumstance must be regarded as at least one of the principal causes of the particular character of the second feeling. The bad conscience, as distinguished from fear of punishment, must therefore be defined as a feeling of uneasiness at having incurred the displeasure of other men. How, then, may conscience hold to be right what is condemned by the whole world? The independence here claimed by the individual cannot be said to be indifference to the effect of our actions upon the interests of others; it can only mean that in the valuation of our actions we do not care whether others are in fact pleased or displeased, but whether they have reason or not to be pleased or displeased with our conduct. In itself the inner authority does not signify more than