Not every form of self-reproach or of self-approval is a moral emotion--no more than is every form of resentment or retributive kindly emotion towards other persons. We may be angry with ourselves on account of some act of ours which is injurious to our own interests. He who has lost at play may be as vexed at himself as he who has {107} cheated at play, and the egoist may bitterly reproach himself for having yielded to a momentary impulse of benevolence, or even to conscience itself. In order to be moral emotions, our self-condemnation and self-approval must present the same characteristics as make resentment and retributive kindliness moral emotions when they are felt with reference to the conduct of other people. A person does not feel remorse when he reproaches himself from an egoistic motive, or when he afterwards regrets that he has sacrificed the interests of his children to the impartial claim of justice. Nor does a person feel moral self-approval when he is pleased with himself for having committed an act which he recognises as selfish or unjust. And besides being disinterested and apparently impartial, remorse and moral self-approval have a flavour of generality. As Professor Baldwin remarks, moral approval or disapproval, not only of other people, but of one's self, "is never at its best except when it is accompanied, in the consciousness which has it, with the knowledge or belief that it is also socially shared."[18] Indeed, almost inseparable from the moral judgments which we pass on our own conduct seems to be the image of an impartial outsider who acts as our judge. [Footnote 18: Baldwin, _Social and Ethical Interpretation in Mental Development_, p. 314.] CHAPTER V THE ORIGIN OF THE MORAL EMOTIONS WE have found that resentment and retributive kindly emotion are easily explicable from their usefulness, both of them having a tendency to promote the interests of the individuals who feel them. This explanation also holds good for the moral emotions, in so far as they are retributive emotions: it accounts for the hostile attitude of moral disapproval towards the cause of pain, and for the friendly attitude of moral approval towards the cause of pleasure. But it still remains for us to discover the origin of those elements in the moral emotions by which they are distinguished from other, non-moral, retributive emotions. First, how shall we explain their disinterestedness?