The analysis,
therefore, of the moral act, with which we have been mainly engaged in
the foregoing chapter, besides being essential to the determination of
any theoretical problem of ethics, has a most important practical
bearing from the indication which it affords of the direction in which
moral progress is, in the future, most likely to be found.
It must never be forgotten, however, that men may know what is right and
do what is wrong, and, hence, the due stimulation of the moral emotions,
so that they may respond to the improved moral judgments, is at once an
indispensable branch of moral education and an indispensable condition
of moral progress. But this is the function, not so much of the
scientific moralist, as of the parent, the instructor of youth, the
poet, the dramatist, the novelist, the journalist, the artist, and,
above all, of the religious teacher.
CHAPTER IV.
THE MORAL TEST AND ITS JUSTIFICATION.
The moral feeling, as we have seen, follows immediately and necessarily
on the moral judgment. But what considerations guide the moral judgment?
Our moral judgments, as we have also seen, are the result of a logical
process of reference to a class or of association with similars. This
particular action is like certain other actions, or belongs to a class
of actions, which we habitually regard as right or wrong, and,
consequently, as soon as the reference or association is made, the moral
feeling supervenes.
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