Page:Philosophical Review Volume 8.djvu/441

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423
REVIEW OF BOOKS.
[Vol. VIII.

dignity when to sympathy and a cheerful compliance with duty there is added a complete surrender to that self-respect which is but duty with an internal sanction. Self-respect arises when a man who has grown accustomed to judge others by the standard of his sympathies turns inward on his own actions the same critical faculty. "Self-respect, though it has no new morality to teach, enforces the old with a peculiar absoluteness and absence of compromise. The sense of duty makes a man desire the commendation of the good, but a sense of self-respect makes him desire to be wholly worthy of that commendation" (Vol. II, p. 64). "But morality appears in all its noblest guise when upon these three there is superimposed an æsthetic glow, when the sight of right conduct awakens all the enthusiasm that kindles within us at the aspect of aught that is beautiful" (Vol. I, p. 111). Then a man seeks no reason for his allegiance outside of the nature of the thing itself: he feels that to do right is right and seeks no other guidance.

There is much in this that is valuable and suggestive, but there seems to be too much distinction and too little coördination. The principle of self-respect which is emphasized so strongly might well be made the central regulating principle of morality. Taken in its widest sense, it is capable of synthesizing all the active tendencies of human nature, and it does not seem possible to have a higher morality than that which springs from self-respect rightly interpreted. The æsthetic enthusiasm which the contemplation of goodness arouses is translated into moral action only when the man feels he owes it to himself to act in this way. The individual may be carried away by this æsthetic feeling, it is true, but if he justifies his action in a 'calm hour' it is on the ground that he acted in accordance with what 'he owed to himself.' On the other hand, action from duty is not moral at all if duty is a purely external pressure. Such action becomes moral only if the external becomes internal. It may be added that Mr. Sutherland has hampered himself at this point by his unfortunate terminology. Though 'selfish' actions are admitted to be necessary, sympathetic actions alone are called 'moral.' This leads to the needlessly paradoxical statement that right conduct is not always moral. It also undoubtedly confuses the author himself; for the associations which words acquire cannot easily be discarded. It is impossible to discuss in detail the mass of facts and the numerous hypotheses which the author has brought into connection with his central position, and which have usually an intrinsic value. We have said enough to show that this carefully written book deserves careful