For evidently the notions of right and wrong imply accord and discord with some general principle requiring all voluntary activity or personal conduct to conform uniformly to its indications. Hence every case must be subsumed under that principle in order to ascertain which one of the two qualities is predicable of it. This is a logical process. It is not a discernment of pure reason, but is a reasoning; not conscience, but inference.1 The logical process concluding the moral quality in a given case, is very liable to error. The specific action in which the moral quality inheres is, as we shall immediately show, subjective, internal in the agent. Now, when one judges his own act, though it is open to his direct observation by introspective self-examination, still, from a lack of clear discernment of the primary principle, or from a lack of logical tion between right and wrong. This distinction appears among the necessary ideas of the human mind. It is a phenomenon in the psychology of the human race. It is developed, in the presence of the facts and relations of life, as something provided for in the normal and necessary action of the rational self-conscious ego. It must be viewed as an intuition of the reason. It cannot be otherwise accounted for. In its nature it is not a feeling, though it gives rise to feeling. It is not a volition, for it comes irrespective of choice, and asserts its own rights before the will. It is not a mere experience, though it arises on occasion of experience. The idea stands for something beyond experience, experience being limited to the profitable, the enjoyable or the painful. We experience the useful and the agreeable, but the right, the ethical idea, must be perceived or rationally seen, as a super-sensible reality in the ideal realm of the demands of duty. It is not a perception of the relations themselves, but of a distinction as to something due in human relations and life." -VALENTINE, Theoretical Ethics, ch. iv, 4. Dean Stanley says that Livingstone "never tired of repeating that he found among the native races of Africa that same feeling of right and wrong which he found in his own conscience; and that it needed only to be developed and enlightened to make a perfect character." Aristotle, in Rhetoric, bk. i, ch. 13, says: "There does exist naturally a universal sense of right and wrong, which in a certain degree all intuitively apprehend." 1 See supra, §§ 2, 3, 43. skill in making the deduction, or from carelessness, he often errs. Much more is one liable to err when judging the act of another person. For the subjective movement of another is beyond one's observation, and can be known only by his confessions, his professions, or by his outward perceptible movements, these together with circumstances being signs from which the internal act is inferred. This additional inference greatly increases the uncertainty of the conclusion. and warns against hasty judgment. § 57. What is the specific action of which the moral quality is a property? In other words, what is the distinct and informing fact wherein conscience discerns obligatory moral quality, and whereon we pass discriminating moral judgment? It is to be premised that no fact of causation has moral quality. Whatever is caused is necessitated by its cause to be just what it is. There is no alternative. Moreover, by the axiom of uniformity, that like causes have like effects, there is no variation in effects, if there be none in their causes. This is the realm of necessity. It is opposed to the realm of freedom, wherein alone moral quality finds place; for freedom must be allowed as conditio sine qua non of moral action. Only beings having free will are morally responsible, and among these only such persons as are conscious of moral obligation.1 Outward physical or muscular action, therefore, has in itself no moral quality, not even that outward action commonly called voluntary. For the movement of the muscles is due to physical causes originating in the brain, and this brain action causing muscular motion is itself caused by antecedent mental action. Hence only to mental action can moral quality be immediately attributed. 1 See Elements of Inductive Logic, §§ 18, 19. Also see supra, § 10, and § 18, note. The exercise of conscience discerning moral quality, for like reason, has in itself no moral quality; it is neither right nor wrong. Knowledge of right and wrong, and of the distinction between them, arises on the presentation of a personal action, which empirical occasion is a condition precedent. Moreover, conscience can never have the quality imported into it; for its exercise is originally and essentially involuntary, the discernment intuitively necessary. The same is true of all pure intuitions. All empirical intuitions, as the sense-perceptions, are likewise destitute in themselves of moral quality, since they are the involuntary products of our constitution in the presence of causative objects. The exercise of the logical faculty, even in case of moral judgment, has no moral quality in itself, for it is an effect of voluntary attention. The like consideration sets aside, not only all presentations and the representations of thought, but also the representations of mediate perception, memory and imagination, together with the feelings and desires that attend them. All these are strictly effects, and therefore destitute in themselves of moral quality. § 58. Consequently, in our search for the activity which has moral quality in itself, we are shut up to the volitions. Volition has three constitutive elements, choice, intention, effort.1 This last, the effort, which is voluntary attention, is caused by the motive, the desire that prevails, without alternative. Hence the effort is a necessitated act, and so without moral quality, in itself neither right nor wrong. The first element, the choice, viewed simply as an act apart from its specific character, is also causally necessitated 1 See supra, §§ 7-9. to take place or occur by the mere presentation of possible alternatives; I must choose between them. Hence the simple act of choosing is in itself destitute of moral quality. But the choice of one alternative rather than the other, the taking this rather than that, is a fact uncaused, not necessitated, free; for herein is the specific characteristic and the very essence of choice. In its resolution choice becomes intention, the intention to do or forbear a certain action. This central fact, the only fact in human nature or in nature at large that is not caused to be what it is, this resolution, this intention, purpose, design, this alone is capable of inherent moral quality. An intention, though not causally determined, is rationally determined, is in accord with some one or more reasons.1 Now the moral law furnishes a reason naturally and therefore rightly dominating all others, and since it is the intention only that intelligently, impellingly, freely, preferably, conforms to or disregards moral law, it follows that the intention properly has moral quality, is either right or wrong. Moreover, since the all-dominating moral law, the ultimate and absolute criterion of conduct, is addressed directly and exclusively to choice becoming intention, it follows that the intention is never morally indifferent, is always either right or wrong; right, when it intelligently, reverently and willingly conforms to the law; wrong, when it knowingly violates or merely disregards the law. From these considerations it is manifest that the moral law applies, not directly to the outward, expressed, objective activity, but primarily and immediately to the inward, antecedent, subjective intention.2 Hence, if we regard a trespass 1 See supra, § 10, note. 2 "Acts may be distinguished into external and internal. By external, are meant corporeal acts, acts of the body; by internal, mental acts, acts of the mind. Thus, to strike is an external or exterior or 'overt' act; to in as an action passing over from one person onto another, a realization of an intention inflicting injury, the formula of the moral law should be: Thou shalt not intend to do aught that would involve a trespass. It will be better, however, to regard a trespass as the total activity, including both the subjective antecedents and the objective consequents, the moral quality of this total residing in the intention. § 59. That moral quality is thus a constant property of intention requires some further consideration, especially of the distinction between the intention to do an act and the ulterior intention with which it is done or the purpose. There is a large class of offenses varying in degree from extreme criminality to comparatively slight culpability, such as murder, stealing, lying, betting, whose very essence is trespass. Hence the intentional doing of an action of this class is wrong; or, more closely, the intention to do it is wrong, wrong in itself, being a radical violation of the law of trespass. Complete, successful action is not requisite to constitute guilt. An attempt, an overt act, though it fail, is evidence of guilty intention, and therefore condemnable; as in the murderous contrivance of Guy Fawkes, and in the villainous slander of Don John.1 A mere intention to do tend to strike, an internal or interior one.' - BENTHAM, Principles of Morals and Legislation, ch. vii, § 11. It is the common habit of thought and speech to attribute moral quality directly to the external act, and this habit is confirmed by the practice of the civil courts requiring at least an overt act for indictment. Yet the courts seek evidence of intention as the ultimate determinant. Murder implies criminal intent; accidental homicide is distinguished from murder merely by the absence of such intent. Says the Duke, speaking of Angelo : "His act did not o'ertake his bad intent, And must be buried but as an intent That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects, -Measure for Measure, Act v, sc. 1, 1. 445, sq. 1 See Much Ado About Nothing. In his Institutes of the Criminal Law, p. 85, Professor Rosshirt, of Heidelberg, defines an attempt thus: "Eine |