ordinates his own
lower to his higher good, or his own good to the greater good of others,
or, when the interests only of others are at stake, the lesser good of
some to the greater good of others, as well as, under certain
circumstances, those actions in which he refuses to subordinate his own
greater good to the lesser good of others; while we blame, in the case
of others, and disapprove, in our own case, all those actions of the
above kind, in which he manifestly and distinctly (for there is a large
neutral zone of actions, which we neither applaud nor condemn)
subordinates his own higher to his lower good, or the greater good of
others to his own lesser good, or, where the interests only of others
are at stake, the greater good of some to the lesser good of others, or,
lastly, under certain circumstances, the lesser good of others to the
greater good of himself, especially where that greater good is the good
of his higher nature.

Even at the present stage of our enquiry, it must be tolerably evident
to the reader that moral progress, if such a fact exist, will be due
mainly to the increasing accuracy and the extended applications of our
moral judgments, or, in other words, to the development of the rational
rather than the emotional element in the ethical act. The moral feeling
follows on the moral judgment, and awards praise or blame, experiences
satisfaction or dissatisfaction, in accordance with the intellectual
decisions which have preceded it. The character of the feeling,
therefore, as distinct from its intensity, is already determined for it
by a previous process. And its intensity is undoubtedly greater amongst
primitive and uneducated men than it is in civilized life. Amongst
ourselves, not only are the feelings of approbation and disapprobation
themselves largely modified by the account we take of mixed motives,
qualifying circumstances, and the like, but the expression of, them is
still further restrained by the caution which the civilized man
habitually practises in the presence of others. Indeed, great, in many
respects, as are the advantages of this moderation and restraint, there
is a certain danger that, as civilisation advances, the approval of
virtue and the disapproval of vice may cease to be expressed in
sufficiently plain and emphatic terms. But, on the other hand, with the
extension of experience and the ever-improving discipline of the
intellectual faculties, the moral judgment, we may alread