CHAPTER XXI.

THE DIVISION OF MOTIVES, INTO RATIONAL AND ANIMAL.

Reid’s distinction. DR. THOMAS REID, in his work on the Active Powers, endeavours to maintain his doctrine that the will is not always governed by motives, by a reference to a certain distinction. Animal motives act by a blind impulse on the will, without regard to remote consequences. Rational motives operate by the force of reasonable considerations. Dr. Reid asserts that these classes of motives are so widely different, that their influence can never be compared: that what may be the strongest of one class, may be the weakest of the other, and that the mind must determine between them.

The difference real. The distinction is no doubt just. There are 142principles in the human constitution, which act on the will with great force, by a blind impulse. Such are the appetites and passions, and the desire of happiness, and especially the desire to escape pungent pain, at present experienced.

Appetite. The appetite of hunger urges the subject of it to eat, whether it can be done lawfully and consistently with health, or not. This influence is sensibly present, and it requires some strength of purpose to resist it, when the agent is convinced that the act cannot be done with propriety. Here then is the simultaneous operation of an animal and a rational motive; and it is evident that they counteract each other, and that according to the strength of one or the other, the will is determined this way or that way. Whether the two can be compared. It is not true, therefore, that these different kinds of motives cannot be compared as to their effective force. The fact is, they are brought into comparison every day, and every day victories are obtained by one over the other, according to the strength or influence which they respectively 143possess, at the moment. Hunger impels a man to eat; reason tells him that it will be injurious to health. Here is a fair trial of strength between the force of blind appetite, and a rational regard for health. If the appetite be very strong, it will require a strong resolution to oppose it. In such cases, however, appetite commonly prevails; but not without resistance. In every case of the kind, there is a trial of strength between these different motives. Case of hunger and self-preservation. Suppose food to be placed before a hungry man; if there be no considerations of duty or utility to prevent, he will of course indulge his appetite. But if he should be informed that the food is poisoned, although he be still impelled by his appetite to eat, yet the love of life or fear of death, will be sufficient to induce him to refrain.

Case of hunger and duty. Suppose, again, that the food is the property of another, whose consent to use it cannot be obtained. Here the moral feelings stand in the way of indulgence; and upon the comparative strength of his appetite and of the vigour of his 144conscience, will depend his determination. So far is it from being true, then, that animal and rational motives cannot be compared, in regard to their influence on the will, that there is nothing in human life more common than the experience of the struggle for mastery between the higher and lower principles of our nature.

The determination accords with prevalent desires. When it is said that the mind determines between these contending motives, it is true, but not in the sense intended. It is true that the mind determines, and of course the volition is on one side or the other; but this determination is not independent of the strength of the contending motives, being always in accordance with the strongest existing desires.

The difference of the two. There is this important difference between animal and rational motives, that a sensible impulse of the former as merely felt, is not of a moral nature. The hunger of a man is no more moral than the hunger of a beast. These animal feelings are unavoidable and constitutional. The point at which such feelings begin to partake of 145a moral quality, is when they require to be governed and directed. It was not wrong for the hungry man when he saw bread before him to desire it. But when he knew it to be the property of another, it would have been wrong to take it; and when he knew that the food would injure him, it became his duty to forbear.

We cannot extinguish the animal feelings by an act of the will; they arise involuntarily, and therefore cannot be in themselves of a moral nature. Yet as man has other principles and powers by which he should be governed, he becomes faulty when he neglects to govern these lower propensities in accordance with the dictates of reason and conscience. But in regard to other desires and affections, they are good or bad in every degree in which they exist. For example, not only are malice and envy sinful when ripened into act, but the smallest conceivable exercise of such feelings is evil; and as they increase in strength, their moral evil in creases. It does not require an act of volition, consenting to these feelings, to render them evil; 146their very essence is evil, and is condemned by the moral sense of mankind.

Concupiscence. A clear understanding of this distinction might have prevented or reconciled an old dispute, viz. whether concupiscence³³   It may remove ambiguity to say that the word concupiscence is here used not in its popular and modern, but its theological acceptation. The controversy to which allusion is made began early in the schools, and was actively waged at the time of the Reformation. The following references will enable the reader to inquire further: Augustini, Opp. x., ed. Benedict. pp. 387, 1029, 1828, 1881, 1955.—Catechismus Cone. Trident. ed. Lips. 1851, pp. 385, 386.—Chemnitii Examen. ed. Genev., 1641, pp. 88, 89, 90, 94, 95.—Turrettini Instt. P. ii. Qu. 21.—Bretschneider, Syst. Entwickelung; 4 ed. 1841, pp. 540, 541. was of the nature of sin, in the first rising of desire, prior to any act of the will.