Morality is a restraint which the community imposes on each of its
members. It demands from the individual the sacrifice of his transitory
and momentary comfort in favour of his general welfare which is
dependent on that of the community. It prohibits the pleasure of
gratifying his desires in order that by this unpleasant renunciation his
lasting well-being may be ensured. Subjectively experienced and viewed,
therefore, Morality always implies the limitation of free will, the
curbing of desire, opposition to inclinations and appetites, and the
diminution or suppression of free, or let us rather say of unbridled,
action. Before Morality can profit the community, it disturbs and
incommodes the individual, it rouses in him disagreeable sensations
which may reach such a pitch as to be intense pain. It is only after
deep reflection, of which not everyone is capable, that the individual
realizes that Morality is an essential condition of the life of society,
and that the preservation of society is an essential condition of his
own life; before he investigates, before he even meditates on Morality,
the individual feels it directly to be unpleasant, laborious,
stern--nay, hostile.
The control which Morality exercises over the actions, and indeed in
many cases over the most secret thoughts of the individual, appears at
the first glance to be somewhat paradoxical. It is by no means obvious
why the individual should always take sides against himself and,
adopting a defensive and disapproving attitude, hold his instinctive
tendencies in check. Moral conduct would be intelligible if the
community were always ready with means of coercion and could constrain
the individual by brute force to place its interest before his own
pleasure. But the individual does not wait for police intervention on
the part of the community. He frowns upon himself with the awful
severity of the law. He threatens himself with a cudgel. He divides
himself into two beings, one of which wants to follow its instincts,
while the other curbs them vigorously; one is a rearing, often a
refractory, horse, the other a rider with bridle, whip and spur.
This reduplication of the ego, one-half of which establishes control
over the other, one-half of which tries to remain true to itself, while
the other divests itself of its identity and denies itself--this is the
inner process, the outward manifestation of which is moral conduct. This
demands investigation and explanation. We must show how the organism
could develop from within itself the power to paralyse, or completely
repress, its own elemental activities, and how Morality was able to
become an integral part in the general scheme of life processes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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