tages to offer. If you are good, you will be well thought of by society. You will gain reputation, society will give you a "good character," and conformity to social convention will go far to advance your success. (4) Lastly, the religious sanction holds out, as an incentive to virtue, the reward of Heaven, and the prospect of eternal bliss.
The sanction of success is, in one respect, obviously higher than the sanction of punishment. The former encourages action, whereas the latter sets a premium on inaction. The ambition to attain success is a positive thing, whereas the anxiety to avoid punishment is negative. And, as we have seen, the positive life is better than the negative.
§ 7. Criticism of the Sanctions. But whether the sanctions be regarded from the positive or negative point of view, they are equally open to fatal criticism. (1) The sanctions are external to conduct. They import their reasons from outside, from facts which are foreign to conduct. If a man does an action, merely because some external sanction advises it, his action is not really moral at all. It has no moral motive. The reasons given by the sanctions why certain actions should be done and others avoided are not really moral at all. Now the justification of a moral act must always itself be moral. It will not do to attempt to justify a moral action by referring to some physical pain or pleasure, that will attend its avoidance or performance. Nor can moral actions be sanctioned by pointing to the legal, social, and religious consequences of them. These associations and consequences are all non-moral; they are all external to the action. A man who abstains from
