a consequence, suffering an "agony of remorse," then the bird might properly be said to be conscience-stricken. And if we could suppose the bird, while still brooding over her young ones, to foresee the agony of remorse she would subsequently feel if she now yields to the stronger instinct by deserting her young, then the bird might properly be said to be acting conscientiously.
Again, mere fear of punishment must not be confused with conscience—it being of the essence of conscientious action that it should be prompted by feelings wholly distinct from fear of retaliation by the object of injury, whether by way of punishment or revenge. Conscience must be capable of effecting its own punishment if violated; otherwise the principle of action, whatever it may be, must be called by some other name.[1]
It is evident that conscience, as we find it in ourselves, is distinct from love of approbation and fear of disapprobation. Nevertheless, if our hypothesis concerning the development of the moral sense is the true one, we should expect that during the early phases of that development love of approbation and fear of disapprobation should have played a large part in the formation of conscience. For although, by the hypothesis, it is sympathy and not self-love that constitutes the seat of the moral sense, still the particular manifestations of self-love with which we are now concerned—viz., desire of approbation and dislike of the reverse—would clearly be impossible but for the presence of sympathy. "Mr. Bain has clearly shown that the love of praise, and the strong feeling of glory, and the still stronger horror of scorn and infamy, 'are due to the workings of sympathy.'"[2] I think, therefore, that in testing—by observations upon the lower animals—the truth of Mr. Darwin's theory concerning the genesis of conscience, it would be no valid objection to any satisfactory instances of conscientious action in an animal to say that such action is partly due to a desire of praise or a fear of blame. This would be no valid objection, because, in the first place, it would in most cases be impossible to say how far the implication is true—how far the animal may have acted from pure sympathy or regard for the feelings of others, and how far from an admixture of sympathy with self-love; and in the next place, even if the implication be conceded wholly true, it would not tend to disprove the theory in question. If an animal's sympathies are so powerful that, even after being reflected through self-love, they still retain force enough to prompt a course of action which is in direct opposition to the more immediate dictates of self-love, then the sympathies of such an animal are hereby proved to be sufficiently exalted to
- ↑ Of course I recognize fear of punishment as an important factor in the original constitution of the moral sentiment; but, for reasons stated at the end of this article, we must, when treating of animal psychology, eliminate this factor when conscience has become sufficiently developed to be "a law to itself."
- ↑ "Descent of Man," p. 109 (1874). "Mental and Moral Science," p, 254 (1868).
