The two are not absolutely irreconcilable: each of them corresponds to a different period of evolution; the emotional view to the instinctive stage, the stage of moral chaos; the intellectualist view to the reflective stage of rational organisation; but it is clear that one alone can claim the mark of its origin. In other words, we may say: in the moral consciousness there are two elements—judgment and feeling. A judgment (approving or condemnatory) on our own conduct and that of others is the result of a deeper process—not an intellectual one—of an emotional process of which it is only the clear and intelligible manifestation in consciousness. It would be a psychological absurdity to suppose that a bare, dry idea, an abstract conception without emotional accompaniments, and resembling a geometrical notion, could have the least influence on human conduct. No doubt, we must admit that the evolution is rather that of moral ideas than of the moral sentiment, which, in itself, is no more than a tendency to act—a predisposition; but an evolution of _purely speculative_ ideas, with no emotional accompaniment, will have no results in the practical order. We may note that the opposition between these two views is constantly reflected in the history of moral theory. In England, where psychology predominates, the doctrine of feeling has had numerous champions, from Shaftesbury down to the present day. In Germany, where metaphysics are predominant, the intellectualist doctrine, since Kant, occupies the first place, except with Schopenhauer and his adherents. It is quite natural that the metaphysicians, intellectualists by temperament and by profession, should have adopted this position. For the rest we are concerned here with the moral sentiment, and with that alone; the other elements of morality do not form part of our study. It consists, at bottom, in movement or arrest of movement, in a tendency to act or not to act; it is not, _in its origin_, due to an idea or a judgment; it is instinctive, and herein lies its strength. It is innate, not like an alleged archetype, infused into man, invariable, illuminating him everywhere and always, but in the same way as hunger and thirst and other constitutional needs. It is necessary; it forces one to act (when not kept in check by counter-tendencies), as the sight of water forces the duckling to plunge into it. Thus we must say that the man who impulsively throws himself into danger to save another is more thoroughly moral than he who only does so after reflection; one must be blinded by intellectualist prejudices to maintain the contrary. _Natural_ morality is a gift—theologians would say a grace; it is artificial, acquired morality, which is measured by the quantity of resistance overcome. Finally, like every other tendency, it results in satisfaction or dissatisfaction (_e.g._, remorse).[178] In short, its innateness and its necessity place it in the _motor_, not in the intellectual order. -----