e there is no
satisfaction in the morality of his person, nothing to compensate for his
misconduct. Yet both supply a valuable object for art; this phenomenon
can easily be made to agree with what has been said.

We find pleasure not only in obedience to morality, but in the punishment
given to its infraction. The pain resulting from moral imperfection
agrees with its opposite, the satisfaction at conformity with the law.
Repentance, even despair, have nobleness morally, and can only exist if
an incorruptible sense of justice exists at the bottom of the criminal
heart, and if conscience maintains its ground against self-love.
Repentance comes by comparing our acts with the moral law, hence in the
moment of repenting the moral law speaks loudly in man. Its power must
be greater than the gain resulting from the crime as the infraction
poisons the enjoyment. Now, a state of mind where duty is sovereign is
morally proper, and therefore a source of moral pleasure. What, then,
sublimer than the heroic despair that tramples even life underfoot,
because it cannot bear the judgment within? A good man sacrificing his
life to conform to the moral law, or a criminal taking his own life
because of the morality he has violated: in both cases our respect for
the moral law is raised to the highest power. If there be any advantage
it is in the case of the latter; for the good man may have been
encouraged in his sacrifice by an approving conscience, thus detracting
from his merit. Repentance and regret at past crimes show us some of the
sublimest pictures of morality in active condition. A man who violates
morality comes back to the moral law by repentance.

But moral pleasure is sometimes obtained only at the cost of moral pain.
Thus one duty may clash with another. Let us suppose Coriolanus encamped
with a Roman army before Antium or Corioli, and his mother a Volscian; if
her prayers move him to desist, we now no longer admire him. His
obedience to his mother would be at strife with a higher duty, that of a
citizen. The governor to whom the alternative is proposed, either of
giving up the town or of seeing his son stabbed, decides at once on the
latter, his duty as father being beneath that of citizen. At first our
heart revolts at this conduct in a father, but we soon pass to admiration
that moral instinct, even combined with inclination, could not lead
reason astray in the empire where it commands. When Timoleon of Corinth
puts to d