ness, the conclusions of which are governed by the catalogue of the external contents of life. But when two springs conflict, one is not simply right relatively to the other, but the right is also the dictate of perfect mind. To actualize a tendency, not merely because it is right, but rather because it is the expression of a perfect character, adds to the act a fresh glory and a new light— call it poetic, or call it Divine. Those who actualize an impulse because it is the dictate of perfect mind are they who realize the spring of Reverence. If it be objected that I have distributed the sentiment of reverence all along the gradations of worth, and yet retained it as one of the gradations, the reply is that a feeling -unlike a localized physical object-may be in two psychologic al places at once. In the incipient stage of ethical life I have assumed no more than the co-presence of two competing impulses with an unnamed feeling or simple consciousness that one is better than the other. Not till these cases and others like them have been repeated do they organize themselves into a conscience. Similarly, at first, when choice is made the preference of the better may be properly referred to the love of right or virtue. But this love of right is as yet only a simple feeling. Not until later do we become conscious of it, and so make it a conception which in turn may become the basis for a new feeling-viz., Reverence.

Besides these simple impulses there are various compound ones, whose moral nature depends upon the moral value of their elements. In the consideration of these I admit that it is not possible so plainly to keep on the line of intuition, for, as many of the composite incentives involve general conceptions, our first estimate of these incentives is subject to reflective correction in a way which is not observable with the simpler impulses. Yet there is a quasi-intuitive consciousness attending even the compound springs. Of these, one of the most familiar appears under the names of Vanity, Love of Praise, Love of Fame (or Glory). This incentive has a great latitude according as it is more or less qualified by social affection. It can scarcely be recognized as the same feeling in the aesthetic fop and the saintly recluse, but it readily discloses its place in its broadest forms. Generosity, again, is rather a certain intensity in the primary social affection -Attachment-than a new compound, yet, owing to its indefi

niteness, it cannot be given an invariable moral value. Gratitude is a variety of generosity, or rather generosity made definite. The Love of Justice, or the preference for worth, is a higher figure of the original sense of right, and might be called the enthusiasm of conscience for its own estimation of character. Lastly, whoever commits a breach of Veracity has spoken against the nature of things and the course of the world. Veracity, therefore, wields the authority of reverence as well as of social affection. But it is not, as a consequence, unconditionally obligatory; for it is binding only toward those who are within the "common understanding." Outside this region plainly lie robbers, madmen, and armed enemies. But the permissible cases of resort to falsehood cannot be determined without careful attention to the canon of consequences. Though I feel an unutterable repugnance to telling a deliberate lie, I should probably act, at one of the crises demanding such, rather as I think than as I feel, without, however, being able to escape the secret wound of a long humiliation.

The moral scale exhibits the duty of the agent at each crisis. It requires to be further observed that the agent, who is aware of the worth of a spring of action, can, to some extent, determine whether it should or should not present itself; but his power depends upon his usually limited command of favoring circumstances and surroundings. An exact definition of Right and Wrong will consequently assume this form: Every action is RIGHT which, in presence of a lower principle, follows a higher; every action is WRONG which, in presence of a higher principle, follows a lower.

II. It is necessary at the outset to understand what Mr. Martineau means by a spring of action. A spring of action is firstly a personal phenomenon. Spinoza has remarked that toward a being supposed to be free, affection is far more intense than toward one under necessity. Commenting upon this remark, Mr. Martineau says that "a being supposed to be free" he would designate as a person. In this statement he implies that, as it was merely Spinoza's rigid determinism which caused him to make use of the phrase "supposed to be," free agency is, from the practical point of view, the essence of personality. Consequently a spring of action is a phenomenon of a free agent; in other words,

it is "issued by the mind, and has its dynamic source there.” But, secondly, we might be aware of a spring of action without being able to assign to it any moral value. Such a spring would be simply an "inner propulsion from behind" urging the living being forward on a track of which he had no foresight. A living thing is blindly propelled whenever a spring of action, of whatever nature it may be, is present alone in the individual. This solitary spring is a mere spontaneity the nature of which does not require treatment in a work devoted to ethics. As an animal or a lunatic may be actuated by a mere spontaneity, such a spring of action is not necessarily a phenomenon of a free agent. Again, in contrast with the spontaneous state stands the volitional, in which there are always found two or more springs of action. As a volition consists in the choice of one spring of action and the rejection of the others, a spring of action cannot be a volition. While there could be no volition without a spring of action, there can be a spring of action without volition. Finally, any of the following terms may be applied to a single spring of action, namely: "impulse," "tendency," "incentive," "impelling principle," "inner propulsion," or "inner suggestion," in addition to which Mr. Martineau has on several occasions made use of the term "motive."

It is manifest that the above statements contain two very different accounts of a spring of action. While, on the one hand, as a personal phenomenon it must be the expression of a free agent, on the other hand, as a mere spontaneity common to man, with animals it need not be the expression of a free agent. Although these accounts appear to be flatly contradictory of each other, there is a sense in which each is true. It may be true, e. g., that an animal is urged by a mere spontaneity in a direction unknown to itself-i. e., an animal does not act as a free agent acts. It may be true, further, that man, even the mature man, is actuated at times by such a spontaneity. At the same time it is true that not until we have an act as the product of a free agent do we enter the field of ethical discussion. Until a free act is analyzed no content can be found for the fact that we approve or disapprove, nor can it be said that the causality has been "not with the springs of action, to do with us according to their dynamics, but with us to express by their just subordination the symmetry and energy of our will." Consequently, to obliterate the distinction

between a spring of action from the standpoint of a free agent and a spring of action from the standpoint of a mere animal is to make ethics a branch of physiology, and would be false to the "idiopsychological" point of view.

On the other hand, while these seemingly contradictory estimates of a spring of action may both be true, as viewed from the side of the history of the individual or the race, both cannot be correct descriptions of a spring of action for the self-conscious agent; for the spring of action for a self-conscious agent has its dynamic source in the agent's mind or will, and is therefore the free identification of himself with any possibility of an act. Notwithstanding this fact, Mr. Martineau, throughout his presentation of his own ethical views, considers a spring of action for a free agent to be at one time a mere spontaneity and at another time the outcome of free will, and by means of these opposing principles is able to conceal from himself the fact that his theory is not an organic union, but simply a combination of two opposite ethical positions. It will presently be seen that these contradictory accounts of a spring of action may be reconciled if they are taken to be descriptions of aspects of a single spring of action and not descriptions of different springs. But nowhere does Mr. Martineau effect that reconciliation. Afterward it will be pointed out that the dualism which he establishes between the theory of Conscience and the theory of Prudence, and again between Primary and Secondary springs of action, rests upon the conception that the above conflicting views of a spring of action are both ethically sound.

In the introduction to the second volume Mr. Martineau, speaking of the different faculties of man's nature, says that by them he does not mean any separate agents, though he is unavoidably led at times into language of personification, and so attributes to them "conflict," "strife," and "authority." This language, nevertheless, he applies not only to faculties but to springs of action also, as when, for example, he says that "two incompatible impulses appear in our consciousness and contest the field." But this current coin of the ordinary sermon needs to be rung on the counter of a purely ethical discussion. Manifestly, if the language of personification is not in the strictest sense accurate, it should not be used, and, further, if it continues to be used after it

is admitted to be unequal to its place, any confession of its incapacity must come from the lips and not from the heart. Consequently it is not a surprise to find that Mr. Martineau generalizes the figure contained in the terms "contest," "strife," etc., and permits himself to speak of the impulses as "forces," and of the "dynamics" of a spring of action. But it has been already noticed that for him each spring of action has its dynamic source in the mind of the agent. So that underneath this figurative language he is able to speak of will as the source of moral action, and again of the spring of action as the moral source. When he is thus able to transfer the essence of an act from the spring of action, as in indissoluble union with the mind to the spring of action as it is in itself, he can easily ignore the fact that the essence of an act of a free agent consists in the identification of himself with a preconceived end or, in Mr. Martineau's language, with a particular spring of action. As a result, he is led to consider as the act of a moral agent that occurrence in which a single impulse has undisputed right, and with which the agent has no more to do than to watch its progress as an interested spectator. Once more, therefore, it is evident that the above figurative language conceals the radical distinction between a spring of action as the identification of a free agent with a certain tendency and a spring of action as simply that tendency. If a man does not identify himself with a certain course of conduct, no movements made because of his muscular and nervous organization can be called moral acts. Nor are they made moral acts by the supposition that the individual has the capacity to observe their nature and register their effects.

The same oversight on the part of Mr. Martineau is found in a note at the foot of page 156, where he remarks that "the one condition under which felt action may take place without self-appropriation of it by the subject is where it is put forth by a solitary instinct running an unimpeded course." Here may be found two different conceptions of the nature of action depending on the two different conceptions of the nature of a spring of action. If a single impulse or a solitary instinct be called a spring of action, the changes in the individual, which are the result of the operation of the impulse, must be considered as acts, and the subject of the influences must be an agent. But, on the other hand, if the spring of action