A Writer's Notebook (26 page)

Sometimes I ask myself at night what I have done that day, what new thought or idea I have had, what particular emotion I have felt, what there has been to mark it off from its fellows; and too often it appears to me insignificant and useless.

Moralists say that the performance of duty brings happiness. Duty is dictated by law, by public opinion, and by conscience. Each by itself may have no great power, but the three together are probably irresistible. But public opinion and law are sometimes antagonistic—as in duelling on the continent; and public opinion is variable; what one section reprobates another approves; and different professions, army, church and commerce, have their different standards.

There are occasions when to do one's duty obviously is not a pleasure; then often enough it is not done, and for its performance new sanctions must be found. In the Boer War officers placed in dangerous positions surrendered very easily, preferring that dishonour to the chance of death; and it was not till some were shot and more cashiered that the majority nerved themselves to a stouter courage.

After all, the distinctive element of Christianity as it is taught by the divines is the consciousness of sin. It is this which looms in the outlook on life of believers, intimidating them, and renders them unable and unwilling to take existence frankly. The theory of man is imperfect, they say, unless the fact of sin is recognised. But what is sin? Sin is an action which troubles the conscience. And what is conscience? It is the feeling you have that you have done something of which others (and maybe God) would disapprove. It would be interesting to attempt an analysis of conscience. It would be necessary to examine how it arose, the estimation in which it has been held, its psychological ground and the affairs upon which it exercises sway. The Pathan who has killed his man is not conscience-stricken, nor is the Corsican who has murdered his enemy in vendetta. The scrupulous Englishman will hesitate to lie; the Spaniard, no less scrupulous, will not think twice about it.

Cesare Borgia may well be taken as an example of almost perfect self-realisation. The only morality, so far as the individual is concerned, is to give his instincts, mental and bodily, free play. In this lies the æsthetic beauty of a career, and in this respect the lives of Cesare Borgia and of Francis of Assisi are parallel. Each fulfilled his character and nothing more can be demanded of any man. The world, judging only of the effect of action upon itself, has called one infamous and the other saintly. How would the world judge such a man as Torquemada, the most pious creature of his age, who perfected an instrument of persecution which has cost more deaths and greater misery than many a long and bloody war?

On the individual in relation to himself there is neither obligation nor duty: to the individual the words are meaningless, and it is only in his relation to others that they acquire
significance. With regard to himself the individual has perfect freedom, for there is no power with authority to give him orders.

Society makes rules for its own preservation, but the individual can have no duty toward society: there is nothing to restrain him but prudence. He can go his own way, freely, doing what he wills, but he must not complain if society punishes him when he does not act in accordance with its dictates. More efficacious than all the laws society has made for its self-preservation is the institution of conscience, setting thereby a policeman in every man's bosom to see that its laws are obeyed; and it is singular that even in a man's most private affairs, where one might imagine society has no concern, conscience leads him to act according to the good of this organism outside himself.

One of the great differences between Christianity and Science is that the first gives a high and important value to the individual, while to the other, to Science, he is of no account.

Relativity applies to conscience necessarily from the transitoriness of human ideas of good and evil. A man in one age will be conscience-stricken for neglecting to do an act the performance of which in another will be followed by remorse.

Common-sense is often taken as the rule of ethics. But if it is analysed, if its dictates are taken one by one, the student will be astounded at the contradictions he finds. He will not be able to understand how common-sense orders diametrically opposite things in different countries and among different classes and sections in the same country. He will even find
that the dictates of common-sense in the same country, in the same class and section, are often mutually incompatible.

Common-sense appears to be only another name for the thoughtlessness of the unthinking. It is made up of the prejudices of childhood, the idiosyncrasies of individual character and the opinion of the newspapers.

Common-sense makes a great show of disinterestedness in regard to our dealings with others, but it is only a show. Take the question whether it is proper to refrain from indulgence till the surrounding want and misery have been removed; common-sense gives an unhesitating negative.

If sensual indulgence is condemned the condemnation should be thorough. If you condemn the appetites of the palate or of sex, you should condemn also the other appetites for warmth, comfort, exercise and the beauties of art and nature. Otherwise it is not sensual indulgence that you condemn, but some other frailty which rests only in the pleasures of eating or of sex.