IS CONSCIENCE AN EMOTION P* WE call attention to these
lectures by Dr. Rashdall, both because of the importance of the cause which he advocates, and also because of the singularly lucid manner of his exposi- tion. Even persons unused to the discussion of philosophical questions will be able to appreciate the force of much of his argument; and they will enjoy the vigour of his style and the humour of many of his sallies. The importance of the question at stake cannot be overestimated. Is conscience reason or emotion ? Is there in our minds an idea of duty, and of right and wrong, which is independent of our desires and sympathies, and as little analysable as such other ulti- mate notions as space or causality ; or, on the other hand, is our conscience a mere subjective emotion, resolvable into social approbation, or sympathy, or some other feeling ? Dr. Rashdall in the following paragraph shows what is at stake in the decision :—
"It is only upon the assumption that our ulti-sate moral judgments represent real deliverances of Reason—self-evident judgments about the real nature of things—that we are justified in using them to interpret to ourselves the nature and meaning of the Universe in which wo live. Thorn are many lines of thought which load up to the great conviction that the ultimate Reality is spiritual, and if spiritual, then purposeful. But as to what the purpose is, there is only one possible source of information ; and that is the moral consciousness of man. If our judgments of value are valid pronouncements of Reason, we have the right to claim that in the moral consciousness of man at its highest, there is contained a true revelation of the rational Will which expresses itself in nature. If we accept that clue to the meaning of the Universe, wo may, on the testimony of our moral judgments, pro- ceed to the further assertion that the character of God is best summed up in the one word 'Love.' And upon that fact must rest the main burden of the hope that this present life—with all its inequalities and its injustices, with all its sinfulness and imper- fection and unfulfilled aspiration—is not the whole life of man, but only a stago—a preparatory or educational stage—in the development that is designed for human souls by the greater Spirit from which their being is derived."
The freshest and most interesting of the lectures is that which examines the view that the idea of duty, having come down to us in the course of ages from savages and the higher animals, can have no greater validity than the instincts or
emotions, whioh in their case represent morality. "There can be no doubt," says Dr. Rashdall, "that anthropology is the trump card of the emotional morality." How he treats this trump card the reader will be interested to discover. The book is printed in America, and it would almost seem as if the author had not read the proof-sheets of the first lecture, for there are some serious "escapes of the press." Thus on p. 31 "the moral view" must mean "the moral sense view"; on pp. 45 and 46 " analysable " should be " unanalysable" ; and we are told that in English county society, where a man who is suspected of shooting a fox is more unpopular than he who has undoubtedly shot a man, "the man-slayer, according to Hume, would be actually the more wicked person," as incur- ring the greater "disapprobation of society." The argument, of course, requires that the " fox-slayer " should be the more wicked person.
Previous page
