the point that I do wish to establish here is, I think, not at all obscure. The reader has first to recognize that moral judgments are not discursive; next, that nevertheless they do start from and rest on a certain basis; and then if he puts the two together, he will see that they involve what he may call the ‘intuitive understanding,’ or any other name, so long as he keeps in sight the two elements and holds them together.
On the head that moral judgments are not discursive, no one, I think, will wish me to stay long. If the reader attends to the facts he will not want anything else; and if he does not, I confess I can not prove my point. In practical morality no doubt we may reflect on our principles, but I think it is not too much to say that we never do so, except where we have come upon a difficulty of particular application. If any one thinks that a man’s ordinary judgment, ‘this is right or wrong,’ comes from the having a rule before the mind and bringing the particular case under it, he may be right; and I can not try to show that he is wrong. I can only leave it to the reader to judge for himself. We say we ‘see’ and we ‘feel’ in these cases, not we ‘conclude.’ We prize the advice of persons who can give us no reasons for what they say. There is a general belief that the having a reason for all your actions is pedantic and absurd. There is a general belief that to try to have reasons for all that you do is sometimes very dangerous. Not only the woman but the man who deliberates may be lost. First thoughts are often the best,[1] and if once you begin to argue with the devil you are in a perilous state. And I think I may add (though I do it in fear) that women are remarkable for the fineness of their moral perceptions[2] and the quickness of their judgments, and yet are or (let me save myself by saying) ‘may be’ not remarkable for corresponding discursive ability.
Taking for granted then that our ordinary way of judging in morals is not by reflection and explicit reasoning, we have now
- ↑ It is right to remark that second thoughts are often the offspring of wrong desire, but not always so. They may arise from collisions, and in these cases we see how little is to be done by theoretical deduction.
- ↑ Not, perhaps, on all matters. Nor, again, will it do to say that everywhere women are pre-eminently intuitive, and men discursive. But in practical matters there seems not much doubt that it is so.
