II

It is necessary, in the second place, to examine the
views of those who regard Conscience as essentially Rational
or Intellectual in nature. This view has been most
recently luged by Dr. Hastings Rashdall, whose lectures
and pubUshed works have placed aU students of ethics
under lasting obHgation, and whose contributions to the
psychology of Conscience, in particular, deserve the fullest
respect and the most careful examination. Nevertheless,
the writer finds it difficvilt to accept his teaching on the nature
of Conscience as it is developed in the chapter on ' Reason
and Feeling ' in the Theory of Good and Evil, and latterly



i6o SELF AND NEIGHBOUR

in his book Is Conscience an Emotion? Dr. Rashdall
strenuously maintains that only as moral judgments are the
work of Reason can their objectivity and authority be
assured. Reason, he says, enunciates for our moral guidance
certain axioms, — ^which turn out to be those maxims of
' Equity ' and ' Rational Benevolence ' of which Sidgwick
makes so much use in his Methods of Ethics. But no sooner
have these been mentioned than the author admits that
they are only quantitative principles, and have no direct
relation to the nature of conduct : they concern only the
distribution of good after its nature has been other-
wise determined. The question whether such quantitative
maxims are of primary and essential importance in Ethics
will depend on the nature of good. To ascribe to them
•such an importance involves at least that good shall
be quantitative and measurable. The axiom that the
greater good ought always to be preferred to the less is
really inapplicable unless goods are commensurable, both
within the hfe of the individual and also as between the
individual and the community. Any qualitative differ-
ences of good must be expressible in terms of quantity.
