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Part III, Chapter II, 3
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It scarce ever happens, however, that we are capable of adjusting our passive feelings to this perfect propriety. We indulge ourselves, and even the world indulges us, in some degree of irregularity in this respect. Though we should be too much affected by what concerns ourselves, and too little by what concerns other men, yet, if we always act with impartiality between ourselves and others, if we never actually sacrifice any great interest of others, to any little interest of our own, we are easily pardoned: and it were well, if, upon all occasions, those who desire to do their duty were capable of maintaining even this degree of impartiality between themselves and others. But this is very far from being the case. Even in good men, the judge within is often in danger of being corrupted by the violence and injustice of their selfish passions, and is often induced to make a report very different from what the real circumstances of the case are capable of authorizing.
There are two different occasions, upon which we examine our own conduct, and endeavour to view it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it. First, when we are about to act; and, secondly, after we have acted. Our views are very partial in both cases, but they are most so, when it is of most importance that they should be otherwise.
When we are about to act, the eagerness of passion will seldom allow us to consider what we are doing with the candour of an indifferent person. The violent emotions which at that time agitate us, discolour our views of things, even when we are endeavouring to place ourselves in the situation of another, and to regard the objects that interest us, in the light in which they will naturally appear to him. The fury of our own passions constantly calls us back to our own place, where every thing appears magnified and misrepresented by self-love. Of the manner in which those objects would appear to another, of the view which he would take of them, we can obtain, if I may say so, but instantaneous glimpses, which vanish in a moment, and which even while they last are not altogether just. We cannot even for that moment divest ourselves entirely of the heat and keenness with which our peculiar situation inspires us, nor consider what we are about to do with the complete impartiality of an equitable judge. The passions, upon this account, as father Malebranche says, all justify themselves, and seem reasonable, and proportioned to their objects, as long as we continue to feel them.
When the action is over, indeed, and the passions which prompted it have subsided, we can enter more coolly into sentiments of the indifferent spectator. What before interested us, is now become almost as indifferent to us as it always was to him, and we can now examine our own conduct with his candour and impartiality. But our judgments now are of little importance, compared to what they were before; and when they are most severely impartial, can commonly produce nothing but vain regret, and unavailing repentance, without securing us from the like errors for the future. It is seldom, however, that they are quite candid even in this case. The opinion which we entertain of our own character, depends entirely on our judgment concerning our past conduct. It is so disagreeable to think ill of ourselves, that we often purposely turn away our view from those circumstances which might render that judgment unfavourable. He is a bold surgeon, they say, whose hand does not tremble when he performs an operation upon his own person; and he is often equally bold who does not hesitate to pull off the mysterious veil of self-delusion, which covers from his view the deformities of his own conduct. Rather than see our own behaviour under so disagreeable an aspect, we too often, foolishly and weakly, endeavour to exasperate anew those unjust passions which had formerly misled us; we endeavour by artifice to awaken our old hatreds, and irritate afresh our almost forgotten resentments: we even exert ourselves for this miserable purpose, and thus persevere in injustice, merely because we once were unjust, and because we are ashamed and afraid to see that we were so.
So partial are the views of mankind with regard to the propriety of their own conduct, both at the time of action and after it; and so difficult is it for them to view it in the light in which any indifferent spectator would consider it. But if it was by a peculiar faculty, such as the moral sense is supposed to be, that they judged of their own conduct, if they were endued with a particular power of perception, which distinguished the beauty or deformity of passions and affections; as their own passions would be more immediately exposed to the view of this faculty, it would judge with more accuracy concerning them, than concerning those of other men, of which it had only a more distant prospect.
This self-deceit, this fatal weakness of mankind, is the source of half the disorders of human life. If we saw ourselves in the light in which others see us, or in which they would see us if they knew all, a reformation would generally be unavoidable. We could not otherwise endure the sight.
Nature, however, has not left this weakness, which is of so much importance, altogether without a remedy; nor has she abandoned us entirely to the delusions of self-love. Our continual observations upon the conduct of others, insensibly lead us to form to ourselves certain general rules concerning what is fit and proper either to be done or to be avoided. Some of their actions shock all our natural sentiments. We hear every body about us express the like detestation against them. This still further confirms, and even exasperates our natural sense of their deformity. It satisfies us that we view them in the proper light, when we see other people view them in the same light. We resolve never to be guilty of the like, nor ever, upon any account, to render ourselves in this manner the objects of universal disapprobation. We thus naturally lay down to ourselves a general rule, that all such actions are to be avoided, as tending to render us odious, contemptible, or punishable, the objects of all those sentiments for which we have the greatest dread and aversion. Other actions, on the contrary, call forth our approbation, and we hear every body around us express the same favourable opinion concerning them. Every body is eager to honour and reward them. They excite all those sentiments for which we have by nature the strongest desire; the love, the gratitude, the admiration of mankind. We become ambitious of performing the like; and thus naturally lay down to ourselves a rule of another kind, that every opportunity of acting in this manner is carefully to be sought after.
It is thus that the general rules of morality are formed. They are ultimately founded upon experience of what, in particular instances, our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve, or disapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconsistent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed by finding from experience, that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of. To the man who first saw an inhuman murder, committed from avarice, envy, or unjust resentment, and upon one too that loved and trusted the murderer, who beheld the last agonies of the dying person, who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the perfidy and ingratitude of his false friend, than of the violence which had been done to him, there could be no occasion, in order to conceive how horrible such an action was, that he should reflect, that one of the most sacred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the life of an innocent person, that this was a plain violation of that rule, and consequently a very blamable action. His detestation of this crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously and antecedent to his having formed to himself any such general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the detestation which he felt necessarily arise in his own breast, at the thought of this, and every other particular action of the same kind.
When we read in history or romance, the account of actions either of generosity or of baseness, the admiration which we conceive for the one, and the contempt which we feel for the other, neither of them arise from reflecting that there are certain general rules which declare all actions of the one kind admirable, and all actions of the other contemptible. Those general rules, on the contrary, are all formed from the experience we have had of the effects which actions of all different kinds naturally produce upon us.
An amiable action, a respectable action, an horrid action, are all of them actions which naturally excite the love, the respect, or the horror of the spectator, for the person who performs them. The general rules which determine what actions are, and what are not, the objects of each of those sentiments, can be formed no other way than by observing what actions actually and in fact excite them.
When these general rules, indeed, have been formed, when they are universally acknowledged and established, by the concurring sentiments of mankind, we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of judgment, in debating concerning the degree of praise or blame that is due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature. They are upon these occasions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is just and unjust in human conduct; and this circumstance seems to have misled several very eminent authors, to draw up their systems in such a manner, as if they had supposed that the original judgments of mankind with regard to right and wrong, were formed like the decisions of a court of judicatory, by considering first the general rule, and then, secondly, whether the particular action under consideration fell properly within its comprehension.
Those general rules of conduct, when they have been fixed in our mind by habitual reflection, are of great use in correcting misrepresentations of self-love concerning what is fit and proper to be done in our particular situation. The man of furious resentment, if he was to listen to the dictates of that passion, would perhaps regard the death of his enemy, as but a small compensation for the wrong, he imagines, he has received; which, however, may be no more than a very slight provocation. But his observations upon the conduct of others, have taught him how horrible all such sanguinary revenges appear. Unless his education has been very singular, he has laid it down to himself as an inviolable rule, to abstain from them upon all occasions. This rule preserves its authority with him, and renders him incapable of being guilty of such a violence. Yet the fury of his own temper may be such, that had this been the first time in which he considered such an action, he would undoubtedly have determined it to be quite just and proper, and what every impartial spectator would approve of. But that reverence for the rule which past experience has impressed upon him, checks the impetuosity of his passion, and helps him to correct the too partial views which self-love might otherwise suggest, of what was proper to be done in his situation. If he should allow himself to be so far transported by passion as to violate this rule, yet even in this case, he cannot throw off altogether the awe and respect with which he has been accustomed to regard it. At the very time of acting, at the moment in which passion mounts the highest, he hesitates and trembles at the thought of what he is about to do: he is secretly conscious to himself that he is breaking through those measures of conduct, which, in all his cool hours, he had resolved never to infringe, which he had never seen infringed by others without the highest disapprobation, and of which the infringement, his own mind forebodes, must soon render him the object of the same disagreeable sentiments. Before he can take the last fatal resolution, he is tormented with all the agonies of doubt and uncertainty; he is terrified at the thought of violating so sacred a rule, and at the same time is urged and goaded on by the fury of his desires to violate it. He changes his purpose every moment; sometimes he resolves to adhere to his principle, and not indulge a passion which may corrupt the remaining part of his life with the horrors of shame and repentance; and a momentary calm takes possession of his breast, from the prospect of that security and tranquillity which he will enjoy when he thus determines not to expose himself to the hazard of a contrary conduct. But immediately the passion rouses anew, and with fresh fury drives him on to commit what he had the instant before resolved to abstain from. Wearied and distracted with those continual irresolutions, he at length, from a sort of despair, makes the last fatal and irrecoverable step; but with that terror and amazement with which one flying from an enemy, throws himself over a precipice, where he is sure of meeting with more certain destruction than from any thing that pursues him from behind. Such are his sentiments even at the time of acting; though he is then, no doubt, less sensible of the impropriety of his own conduct than afterwards, when his passion being gratified and palled, he begins to view what he has done in the light in which others are apt to view it; and actually feels, what he had only foreseen very imperfectly before, the stings of remorse and repentance begin to agitate and torment him.
Musean translation
Mouseia’s complete machine-assisted Musean translation, made directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included) for fidelity, the author’s force and cadence, and modern clarity.
It seldom happens, however, that we can bring our passive feelings into such perfect propriety. We allow ourselves, and even the world allows us, some irregularity in this respect. Though we may feel too much about our own concerns and too little about other people's, we are readily forgiven if we always act impartially between ourselves and others, never sacrificing a great interest of theirs to a small interest of our own. It would be well if those who wish to do their duty could always maintain even this degree of impartiality. But they are very far from doing so. Even in good people, the judge within is often in danger of corruption by the violence and injustice of selfish passions; it is often induced to give an account quite different from the one the actual circumstances warrant.
There are two occasions on which we examine our conduct and try to see it as the impartial spectator would: first, when we are about to act, and second, after we have acted. Our view is partial in both cases, but most partial when it matters most that it should not be.
When we are about to act, the urgency of passion seldom lets us consider what we are doing with the candor of a disinterested person. The violent emotions then stirring us color our view, even when we try to put ourselves in another's place and see the objects that concern us as they would naturally appear to him. The fury of our passions continually draws us back to our own position, where self-love magnifies and distorts everything. We catch, if I may put it this way, only fleeting glimpses of how those objects would appear to someone else and how he would judge them; they vanish at once, and even while they last are not entirely accurate. We cannot, even for that instant, wholly set aside the heat and intensity our particular situation inspires, or consider what we are about to do with a fair judge's complete impartiality. For this reason, as Father Malebranche says, the passions all justify themselves: as long as we feel them, they appear reasonable and proportionate to their objects.
Once the action is over, however, and the passions that prompted it have subsided, we can more calmly enter into the feelings of a disinterested spectator. What formerly absorbed us has become almost as indifferent to us as it always was to him; we can now examine our conduct with his candor and impartiality. But our judgments now count for little compared with what they would have counted before. Even at their most severely impartial they commonly bring nothing but futile regret and ineffectual repentance, without protecting us from similar errors in the future. Yet they are seldom entirely candid even now. Our opinion of our own character depends wholly on our judgment of our past conduct. Thinking badly of ourselves is so unpleasant that we often deliberately turn our eyes from circumstances that might make that judgment unfavorable. They say a surgeon is bold if his hand does not tremble while operating on himself. Someone who does not hesitate to lift the mysterious veil of self-deception that hides the deformities of his conduct from him is often just as bold. Rather than see our behavior in so disagreeable a light, we too often foolishly and weakly try to inflame again the unjust passions that misled us before. By contrivance we seek to revive old hatreds and rekindle resentments almost forgotten. We exert ourselves toward this miserable end and persist in injustice merely because we were once unjust, and because we are ashamed and afraid to see it.
So partial are people's views of the propriety of their own conduct, both during the act and afterward, and so difficult is it for them to see it as a disinterested spectator would. But suppose they judged their conduct by a special faculty such as the supposed moral sense: a distinct power of perception that discerns the beauty or deformity of passions and affections. Their own passions would then lie more immediately before that faculty, and it would judge them more accurately than the passions of others, which it could only see from a distance.
This self-deception, this fatal human weakness, is the source of half the troubles in human life. If we saw ourselves as others see us, or as they would see us if they knew everything, reform would usually be unavoidable. We could not otherwise bear the sight.
Nature, however, has not left this consequential weakness wholly without a remedy or abandoned us entirely to the illusions of self-love. Our constant observation of other people's conduct leads us, without our noticing it, to form general rules about what is proper to do or avoid. Some actions shock all our natural feelings. We hear everyone around us express the same abhorrence of them. This confirms and even intensifies our natural sense of their ugliness. Seeing others regard them as we do assures us that we see them rightly. We resolve never to commit anything similar or, on any account, make ourselves the objects of universal disapproval. We thus naturally establish a general rule for ourselves: avoid actions that tend to make us hated, despised, or liable to punishment, objects of precisely the feelings we most dread. Other actions, by contrast, draw our approval, and we hear everyone around us speak of them with the same favor. Everyone is eager to honor and reward them. They stir the feelings we most naturally desire: the love, gratitude, and admiration of humankind. We become eager to do likewise, and naturally establish another kind of rule for ourselves: seek out every opportunity to act in this way.
That is how general rules of morality are formed. Their ultimate foundation is our experience of what our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve or disapprove in particular cases. We do not first approve or condemn particular actions because, on examination, they agree or conflict with some general rule. Rather, the general rule is formed when experience shows us that actions of a certain kind, or actions occurring under certain circumstances, meet with approval or disapproval. Consider someone seeing for the first time an inhuman murder committed out of greed, envy, or unjust resentment, against a person who loved and trusted the murderer. He sees the dying person's final agonies and hears him, with his last breath, lament his false friend's treachery and ingratitude even more than the violence done to him. To recognize the horror of this action, he need not first reflect that a most sacred rule of conduct forbids taking an innocent person's life, and that the act therefore violates the rule and deserves great blame. Plainly, his abhorrence of the crime would arise immediately, before he had formed any such general rule. Any general rule he might subsequently form would instead rest on the abhorrence that necessarily arose in him at the thought of this action and every other particular action of its kind.
When we read an account of generous or base actions in a history or a romance, neither our admiration for the former nor our contempt for the latter comes from reflecting on general rules declaring all actions of one kind admirable and all of the other kind contemptible. Those general rules are instead formed from our experience of the effects that different kinds of action naturally have upon us.
A lovable action, a respectable action, and a horrific action are each actions that naturally inspire love, respect, or horror in a spectator toward the person who performs them. General rules determining which actions are and are not objects of these feelings can only be formed by observing which actions actually inspire them.
Once these general rules have been formed and established by the agreement of human feeling, we often appeal to them as standards of judgment when debating how much praise or blame complicated and doubtful actions deserve. On such occasions they are commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of justice and injustice in human conduct. This fact seems to have misled several very eminent authors into arranging their systems as though they believed that people's original judgments of right and wrong were formed like the decisions of a court: first by considering the general rule, and then by deciding whether the particular action at issue properly falls within it.
Once habitual reflection has fixed those general rules of conduct in our minds, they are of great use in correcting self-love's distorted account of what is proper in our own situation. A man in a rage, if he followed the dictates of his resentment, might regard his enemy's death as scant compensation for a wrong he imagines he has suffered, though it may amount to no more than a slight provocation. But observing other people's conduct has taught him how horrible such bloody revenge appears. Unless his education has been very unusual, he has established an inviolable rule for himself to refrain from it in every circumstance. The rule retains its authority over him and prevents him from committing such violence. Yet his temper may be so furious that, if this were his first encounter with such an action, he would certainly pronounce it entirely just and proper, something every impartial spectator would approve. But respect for the rule, impressed upon him by past experience, checks the rush of passion and helps correct the excessively partial view that self-love would otherwise suggest of what is proper in his situation. Even if passion carries him so far that he violates the rule, he cannot wholly cast off his accustomed awe and respect for it. At the very moment of action, when passion rises highest, he hesitates and trembles at the thought of what he is about to do. Secretly he knows he is breaking the standards of conduct that in his calmer hours he had resolved never to breach, whose breach in others he had never witnessed without the deepest disapproval, and whose breach by himself, he foresees, must soon make him the object of the same painful feelings. Before he can make the final, fatal decision, he suffers every agony of doubt and uncertainty: terrified of violating so sacred a rule, yet driven and goaded by the fury of his desires to violate it. His purpose changes every moment. At times he resolves to stand by his principle and not indulge a passion that might poison the rest of his life with shame and repentance. The prospect of the security and tranquility he will enjoy by choosing not to risk the opposite course brings a moment's calm to his heart. But passion immediately reawakens and drives him, with renewed fury, toward the deed he had just resolved to avoid. Worn out and distracted by this ceaseless wavering, he finally takes the fatal and irreversible step in a kind of despair, with the terror and bewilderment of someone who, fleeing an enemy, leaps over a precipice where destruction is more certain than anything pursuing him. Such are his feelings even as he acts, though he is undoubtedly less aware then of his conduct's impropriety than he will be afterward. Once his passion has been satisfied and spent, he begins to see what he has done as others are likely to see it, and actually feels what he could previously foresee only imperfectly: the stings of remorse and repentance beginning to disturb and torment him.
Plain English translation
Mouseia’s complete Plain English edition, made independently and directly from the complete sixth-edition English text of all parts (the appended Dissertation on the Origin of Languages is not included).
Yet we can hardly ever bring our feelings about what happens to us into perfect propriety. We allow ourselves some imbalance in these feelings, and other people allow us some too. We may care too much about our own concerns and too little about other people's. But we are readily forgiven if we still act impartially toward ourselves and others, and never sacrifice an important interest of theirs for a minor interest of ours. It would be good if everyone who wants to do their duty could always manage even that much impartiality. But they often cannot. Even in good people, the inner judge risks being corrupted by strong and unjust selfish passions. It may then give a verdict that the actual facts cannot support.
We examine our own conduct on two occasions, trying to see it as the impartial spectator would. The first is before we act, and the second is after. Our views are biased in both cases, but most of all when an unbiased view matters most.
Before we act, strong feelings rarely let us look at what we are doing as frankly as an uninvolved person would. These emotions distort how things look to us. They do so even when we try to put ourselves in someone else's place and see what matters to us as that person would see it. Our passions keep pulling us back to our own position, where self-love enlarges and distorts everything. We get only fleeting glimpses, so to speak, of how these things would look to someone else and what that person would think. Those glimpses disappear at once, and they are not quite accurate even while they last. Not even for a moment can we entirely shed the heat and intensity produced by our own situation. We cannot judge what we are about to do with the complete impartiality of a fair judge. For this reason, as Father Malebranche says, our passions all justify themselves. As long as we feel them, they seem reasonable and proportionate to their causes.
After the act is over and the feelings that drove it have faded, we can take the uninvolved spectator's view more calmly. What interested us before now matters almost as little to us as it always did to that spectator. We can examine our conduct with the same honesty and impartiality. But these judgments matter much less than they did before we acted. Even when they are strictly impartial, they usually bring only useless regret and repentance that changes nothing. They do not protect us against similar mistakes in the future. And even afterward, our judgments are rarely completely honest. Our opinion of our own character depends entirely on how we judge our past conduct. Thinking badly of ourselves is so unpleasant that we often deliberately look away from facts that might lead to an unfavorable judgment. They say it takes a bold surgeon to operate on himself without a trembling hand. It takes just as much courage to pull away the veil of self-deception that hides the ugliness of our conduct from us. Rather than see our behavior in such an unpleasant light, we too often foolishly try to stir up again the unjust passions that misled us. We work to revive old hatreds and inflame grudges we had almost forgotten. We make an effort for this miserable purpose. In this way we persist in injustice simply because we were once unjust, and are ashamed and afraid to admit it.
People's views of the propriety of their own conduct are biased both before and after they act. It is hard for them to see it as any uninvolved spectator would. Suppose, however, that they judged their conduct by a special faculty, such as the proposed moral sense. Suppose this power detected the beauty or ugliness of passions and feelings. Their own passions would be more directly visible to this faculty than other people's, which it could see only from a distance. It would therefore judge their own passions more accurately than those of others.
This self-deception, a dangerous human weakness, causes half the troubles of human life. If we could see ourselves as others see us, or as they would see us if they knew everything, we would usually have no choice but to change. We could not bear what we saw otherwise.
Nature, however, has not left such an important weakness entirely without a remedy. It has not left us completely at the mercy of self-love's illusions. By constantly observing other people's conduct, we gradually form general rules about what should be done and what should be avoided. Some actions shock our natural feelings. We hear everyone around us express the same disgust. This confirms and even strengthens our sense that those actions are ugly. Seeing others view them as we do reassures us that we see them correctly. We resolve never to act that way or make ourselves the objects of universal disapproval. So we naturally form a general rule against actions that would make us hated, despised, or liable to punishment. Those reactions are the ones we most fear and dislike. Other actions, by contrast, win our approval, and we hear everyone around us approve of them too. Everyone wants to honor and reward them. They inspire the feelings we most want to receive: people's love, gratitude, and admiration. We want to do similar things, and naturally form a different rule: we should carefully seek every chance to act that way.
This is how the general rules of morality arise. Their ultimate basis is our experience of what our moral faculties, our natural sense of merit and propriety, approve or disapprove in particular cases. We do not first approve or condemn an action because we check it against a general rule. Instead, experience shows us that actions of a certain kind, or done in certain circumstances, meet with approval or disapproval. From that experience we form the rule. Imagine the first person to witness a cruel murder. The murderer acts from greed, envy, or unjust resentment, and the victim loved and trusted him. The witness sees the victim's final agony and hears him, with his dying breath, complain more about his false friend's betrayal and ingratitude than about the violence itself. The witness does not need to recall a sacred rule forbidding the killing of an innocent person, then note that the murder breaks it, in order to see how horrible it is. Clearly, he would hate the crime immediately, before forming such a general rule. A rule he formed later would instead be based on the disgust he necessarily felt at the thought of this act and every other act of the same kind.
When we read about generous or base actions in history or fiction, our admiration for one kind and contempt for the other do not come from thinking of general rules. We do not first recall rules declaring one kind admirable and the other contemptible. Instead, we form those rules from experience of the effects different kinds of actions naturally have on us.
A lovable action, a respectable action, and a horrible action naturally make spectators feel love, respect, or horror toward the person who performs them. We can form general rules identifying which actions call for each feeling only by observing which actions actually cause it.
Once general rules are established and widely accepted because people agree in their feelings, we often appeal to them as standards. We do so when debating how much praise or blame a complicated, doubtful action deserves. On such occasions we often cite them as the ultimate basis for deciding what is just or unjust in human conduct. This seems to have misled several distinguished writers. They present their systems as though people first decided right and wrong like a court: they considered a general rule, then asked whether the action in question fell under it.
When repeated reflection has firmly established general rules of conduct in our minds, they are very useful. They correct the distorted picture that self-love gives us of what is proper in our own situation. If a man in a rage listened only to his resentment, he might think his enemy's death scarcely made up for a supposed wrong. Yet the offense may have been very slight. Watching others, however, has taught him how horrible such bloody revenge looks. Unless he has had a very unusual upbringing, he has made it an unbreakable rule never to take such revenge. The rule retains its authority and keeps him from committing that violence. His temper may still be so fierce that, if he were considering the act for the first time, he would certainly call it entirely just and proper, and think every impartial spectator would approve. But respect for a rule impressed on him by past experience checks the rush of passion. It helps correct the overly favorable view of his own case that self-love would otherwise suggest. Even if passion carries him far enough to break the rule, he cannot wholly shake off his accustomed awe and respect for it. At the very moment when passion is strongest, he hesitates and trembles at what he is about to do. Secretly he knows that he is breaking standards he had always resolved to follow when calm. He had never seen anyone else break them without strongly disapproving, and he foresees that breaking them will soon bring the same unpleasant judgments on himself. Before he makes the final, fatal decision, doubt and uncertainty torment him. The thought of breaking such a sacred rule frightens him, while furious desire drives him to break it. His mind changes at every moment. Sometimes he resolves to stick to his principle and refuse a passion that could poison the rest of his life with shame and regret. For a moment he feels calm at the prospect of the security and peace he will enjoy by deciding not to risk the opposite course. But then passion rises again and drives him with renewed fury to do what he had just resolved not to do. Worn down and distracted by constant indecision, he finally takes the fatal step he cannot undo, almost in despair. He does it with the terror and bewilderment of someone who, fleeing an enemy, throws himself off a cliff where destruction is more certain than anything pursuing him. These are his feelings even as he acts. He is certainly less aware then that his conduct is improper than he will be later. Once his passion has been satisfied and has lost its force, he begins to see his deed as others see it. Then he actually feels the pangs of remorse and repentance torment him—pangs he had only dimly foreseen before.