self would probably appear weak, if not ludicrous. The restraint which the rules of society tend to put upon emotional expression, serves to confine its more energetic forms to the limited companionship of intimate friend and to solitude. How far this is a desirable result, need not be considered here. It may suffice to say that if the stronger activities of moral feeling, namely, the vigorous pulsations of exalted moral worship and of deep abhorrence, are valuable forces, they must apparently be realised in some form of private devotion. It is probable that a man never knows the deep anguish of conscious wrong until he has had the courage to face in solitude its naked hideousness, not trying to control the throbbing outbursts of his sorrow. Nor are such outpourings of the heart significant merely to those who profess themselves conscious of an unseen presence. A man may become a presence to himself; and if he be a sincere striver after an unattained righteousness the frequent recurrence of adverse impulses will pretty certainly familiarise him with the idea of a double nature, one part of which may exercise supervision and restraint over the other.

Thus far it has been assumed that feeling, however cultivated, will tend to modify external action. Yet I am fully aware of the common supposition that the cultivation of the moral and religious emotions may be carried to a high point without any perceptible effects on the outward life. The occasional appearance of a hopeless criminal with a large development of emotional sensibility, or of a Bulstrode in whom the apparently sincerest religious culture coexists with an inveterate moral infirmity, gives colour to the belief that lofty sentiment has no certain relation to lofty action, and that the systematic culture of the more ethereal element is but a sadly futile employment. Is this so? And if not, what is the precise value of the emotional element in morality?

In order to establish the existence of a relation between systematic emotional culture and right conduct, it would be necessary to collect a large number of very inaccessible facts. What number of men really carry out these secret offices, it is of course impossible to say. It might be something to the point to show that on the whole professedly religious men, and especially men known to be earnest adherents to their faith, are more easily trusted than non-professors, even by outsiders. But this result, if established, might clearly be due to the greater social restraint that surrounds a member of a religious community, and not to any private exercises of his religion. It is obvious, indeed, that the a posteriori method is inap

plicable to the study of a cause, the presence of which in any case is only a matter of inference. All that can be done is to reason deductively from what is known to be the mode of action of emotional influence in general.

Psychology marks off emotion as one of the three radical divisions of mind, and thus contrasts it in the sharpest manner with volition. Further, it is known that emotional activity, though always accompanied by ideas, may be carried on with comparative quiescence of the will. In all the moods of reverie, poetic fancy and religious aspiration, there is nothing but a spontaneous play of feeling and idea-a feeling calling up a harmonious image, the image in its turn ministering to the intensity of the feeling. Nor does this activity of a feeling necessarily involve any strong control of voluntary action. For first of all, the object of this cultivated sentiment may be of a highly ideal character, not presenting itself to the active mind as an attainable end. And secondly, though conscious action is always motived by some feeling, the intensification of a feeling does not always increase its force as a motive in a proportionate degree; for its tendency to do so may be counteracted by some strong defect of will, more particularly by the destructive effect of inveterate habit. When a course of life has been pursued uninterruptedly for a long period there is developed a force of cohesion between certain impressions and certain actions, which tends to remove the conduct from the region of conscious and modifiable phenomena. A drunkard's repentance to-day fails to influence his conduct to-morrow under sudden temptation, just because the rapid and automatic character of his habit allows no space in consciousness for the intervention of deterring memory. Another and very closely allied defect of will is due to the exciting and engrossing character of certain ideas. To some temperaments the very thought of certain modes of gratification is, so to speak, inflammatory. tends to fill the mind and to overwhelm the springs of action, leaving no room for the play of conscious choice. When either of these defects is very conspicuous a large amount of emotional selfculture may fail to produce any appreciable result on conduct.

Applying these general considerations to the particular problem before us, namely, the influence of a cultivation of the moral feelings on external conduct, it may be said first of all that the object of feeling is in this case something eminently real and attainable. Even if certain forms of religious aspiration point to a purity and a perfection recognised as impossible on earth, it would seem that

moral aspiration, if in the least degree reflective, must take account of daily possibilities and daily temptations. Notwithstanding such baffling characters as that of Bulstrode, it may be assumed that in most men the sense of consistency is too powerful to admit of the co-existence of strong moral feeling with daily delinquency. The discord of the conflicting forces would be so great as to effect, in co-operation with the stronger, the subjection of the weaker. If there only exist clear ideas of what is right and noble, it seems certain that a frequent cultivation of a revering sentiment towards these objects will tend to promote the active pursuit of them. And it is hard to see how this effect can fail to be produced when the self-discipline takes the form of a daily survey of achievement and failure. It is no doubt conceivable that the defects of will referred to may prove invincible; and in that case the result must be either a maddening misery or a reckless abandonment of upward effort. But in all healthy and normal conditions of mind, where there is no habit or impulse so strong but that it may be modified by new motive, the range of influence open to such self-appointed discipline seems to be a very wide one. The worthiest natures have been able, by means of this steady exercise of thought and feeling, to reach daily to a higher level of excellence. And even in the case of the weaker moral structures, such activities may serve in unknown measure to break the occasional fall and to confine within a smaller circle the corrupting influence of some ineradicable "taints of blood."

While moral desire, because of its eminently practical character, seems fitted to accelerate attainment, it may be added that a steady and systematic cultivation of it is in itself a considerable exercise of the will. Unlike a purely spontaneous outflow of emotion, the deliberate cultivation of moral feeling is a laborious task which men will only undertake under the pressure of a strong and urgent reason. To nobody can it be a highly grateful occupation to exercise that moral self-criticism of which we have been speaking; and the development of a high moral sensibility can scarcely fail to bring suffering with it, as the mind recognises the meanness of actual attainment. Especially with the modern conditions of life, it is a matter of immense difficulty, requiring great firmness of resolve, to secure a periodic quiet for grave reflection and saddening selfscrutiny. Hence the man who succeeds in maintaining this habit has, ipso facto, done much to prop up the barriers of will against the stormy inroads of impulse.

It may well seem that all the advantage here claimed is but a

sorry thing, and that a faithful self-inspection and an earnest cultivation of moral enthusiasm can only succeed in disclosing the vast chasm that ever separates the ideal from the reality. Without doubt all severe moral exercise does teach this, and hence the most devout worshipper of a perfect holiness must also be the most humble. Yet a wise man will scarcely refuse in the hour of feebleness a supporting staff because of an inseparable chafing roughness. A sincere and thoughtful striver after a virtuous life will feel that his frequent retirement from action is a necessary factor in the striving, without which his vision would be hasty and incorrect and his spiritual pulse languid. He may be fully aware that each new adjustment of life's instrument fails to yield a note that accords with the perfect purity of the ideal tone; and yet he would not be without that inner music with all its sad accompaniment. It is something to him to have heard it, and much more to know that it is drawing to itself, however slowly, the best forces of his life.

Thus far we have been examining the processes of moral culture without any definite supposition as to the accepted basis of morality. I have sought to show that in the education of the moral ideas and feelings, whatever their precise origin and foundation may be, there is ample room for exercises which have commonly been connected with religious discipline. We may now complete these considerations by inquiring whether the value of these processes remains unaltered upon an acceptance of a purely relative and empirical conception of morality. The doctrine which bases all the worth of duty and virtue on known elements of human welfare, and which interprets moral intuitions as the slow products of experience, is frequently supposed to be destructive of the highest kind of ethical sentiment and of the impulses towards internal moral attainment. Nevertheless this relative view of the moral reality appears to have established itself with a stability sufficient to suggest the possibility of a final dominion among the most intelligent minds. And accordingly it strikes one as a question of considerable importance whether the doctrine is really antagonistic to higher moral culture, or whether, on the contrary, it is favourable to that patient selfdiscipline which we have seen to be so valuable in the finest developments of individual character.

Now, first of all, it may be remarked that the adoption of any particular theory respecting the final significance of morality has very little to do with one's practical sentiment towards this quality. A person may fully recognise that virtue owes all its worth to its

paramount value in the production of human welfare, and yet love and revere it very much in the same way as other men who know nothing of this ethical question. Indeed the very recognition of this supremacy of the life-end over the moral end, may lead one to devote himself to earnest pursuit of the latter and narrower, as one of the surest means of realising the former and wider aim.* Further, it may be well to remind ourselves of what a revered wisdom some time since taught us, that the final ascription of all moral worth to the results of conduct does not compel one to exclude from this category of conduct the silent government of thought and feeling, or to deny the very highest value to the invisible dispositions and impulses which are a main condition of external conduct.

Nor is this all. It may be urged with considerable force of reason that the necessity of private moral discipline is rendered more evident on this empirical theory of duty, than on any other theoretic basis. Let us compare it, in respect to its capability of inculcating this discipline, with the two other rival theories, the theological and the intuitive.

First of all, then, the utilitarian theory presents us with by far the most complex intellectual problem in the discovery of duty and in the appreciation of the highest excellence. On the supposition that all needed morality is supplied us in a divine revelation, the main difficulty is one of interpretation. If the idea of virtue is an innate possession of the mind, capable of being discovered by introspection, there may be need of thought in the separation of this idea from the mental effects of experience, and in the discovery of the orders of action and of character to which the seal of intuitive selection properly belongs. But there is no doubt about the existence of definite and "eternal" laws of right, and of their correlative forms of thought in the untaught mind, if only care be given to the recognition of these. On the other hand, to one who adopts the experience theory the task is far greater. Starting from the assumption that all

*This has been well illustrated in the autobiography of Mr. Mill. While feeling that happiness was the one aim of life, he saw also that an attempt to compass this vast object directly in conscious pursuit would defeat itself, and that in order to secure the widest possible measure of happiness it is necessary to renounce the immediate search for it, in favour of a limited and practicable endeavour after some definite condition of it. One is not a little surprised to find that so discerning a writer as Professor Caird declares this to be an "inconsequence." See a review of The Logic of Hegel in the Academy of January 10th, 1874.