The principle in its simplest form appears in hypnotism (q.v.). It is well known that a hyp notic subject feels constrained to follow almost all the commands of his hypnotizer. Ordinarily he unhesitatingly obeys, and does not question the latter's right to issue orders. Ile may begin to d..; something else, hut feels a restraining force. if he stops short of full performance he will say to himself, as one of Ochorowicz's patients is re qorded to have said, 'I have something yet to do' (Ochorowicz, Mental Suggestion,-English transla tion, page 63: New York, 1891). This suscep tibility to the word of command is not a phenom enon peculiar to hypnosis. We all know how strong is often the impulsion to do what a man with 'strong personality' orders us to do. We say he has 'personal magnetism,' and can make everybody do what he wants. We are also coming to say sometimes that he hypnotizes us.
Now if we reflect that there are certain com mands that have been issued to us from our in fancy up, by those who in our childhood imposed them$elves upon our will; if we remember that every time we were caught disobeying them we were made to feel the inexorable resolution in all our friends to hold us up to the law laid down; if we consider how our counter-tendencies were stern ly checked while the 'suggestive' force of the com mand was allowed free swing, can we wonder that in presence of such a constant, uninterrupted imposition of commands upon us, even the most stubborn of us have come to feel, when we fail to live up to those laws, as the hypnotic subject above alluded to felt—that we 'have something yet to do'? Gradually the very thought of acts contrary to these commands calls up in our con sciousness the momentous words. 'Thou shalt not.' and the long habit of acknowledging their author ity accords them, when thus revived, not by rep etition of outward injunction, but by the psychic law of association, the same recognition of right ful claim over us as they had when enforced by parent and teacher and preacher and exacting neighbor. The outer law of man becomes now the inner law- of 'conscience,' and under the influence of current conceptions may be referred to some daimon, as by Socrates, or to some ministering angel, or to God's voice in man's soul. All these explanations are but attempts to explain the fact, easily explicable by psychological laws, that "when whispers low 'Thou must.'" Duty is only a reverberating echo of old commands so indefatigably inculcated on us by all the per sonal agencies that have taken part in our moral education. Reason has no part to play in this process. The most absurd commands may be im
posed and he loyally accepted as unconditionally binding, as the history of the moral conscious ness shows.
But a time conies in the history of sonic ind i v idua ls when the spell of the word of command is broken. They begin to ask, must 1 be moral ?"chey challenge the authority of ar bitrary despotism, and demand a reason for the moral law. This is a critical moment, big with possibilities of progress or downfall. In default of wide experience a man may at. such a juncture devote himself to what he calls pleasure-seeking. lf, however, it can be shown him that the law did not enter that offense might abound, but, in large measure, that invaluable human ends might be realized, the desire he may naturally have for these ends may turn into conditional, teleologic al imperatives the obligations heretofore blindly accepted but now questioned. Open-eyed sub mission may take the place of the blind hypnotic control, now spurned; and 'in the confidence of reason' he may come to yield himself a loyal subject to the law as a law of liberty.
When the change takes place it must be ex pected that the contents of the law will not re main wholly unchanged. Of the many exactions made in the name of morality, it would he strange if some are not found useless or even mischievous. In the nature of the case this discovery can never be the work of any one man or age. The problem is too complex. and the complexity is increased by a constant shifting of values (Nietzsche's Unrwertang). A teleological moral ity is that system of conduct that most complete ly meets human needs and realizes human aspira tions. As needs and aspirations vary, so teleo logical morality must vary. Thus the partial solution of the moral problem of one age means a change in terms of the problem for the next; for every partial solution creates a new situation giving a new outlook, and the exact attitude of new beingF, to a new situation with a new outlook can never he foretold by human prophecy. This, however, is no reason for despair; for only those who look forward with ecstasy to stagnation could wish to have the problem of morality definitely solved with one flash of insight. But while the problem is never solved definitely, it is progressively solved. Adapting Hegel's words we may say, Die Settengeschichte ist des Sit gerieht—The history of morals is the judgment of morals. And the greater the part that intel ligence plays in directing the cause of moral development, the more nearly does the historical solution of the problem correspond to the right answer for the time.