tude, and generosity generosity, just as a
white ray remains white after Newton had decomposed it into rays of
different colours.[608] Here once more we have the great principle of
indissoluble association or mental chemistry.

Granting that the emotions so generated may be real, we may still ask
whether the analysis be sufficient. James Mill's account of the way in
which they are generated leaves a doubt. Morality is first impressed
upon us by authority. Our parents praise and blame, reward and
punish. Thus are formed associations of praise and blame with certain
actions. Then, we form further associations with the causes of praise
and blame and thus acquire the sentiments of 'praiseworthiness' and
'blameworthiness.' The sensibility to praise and blame generally forms
the 'popular sanction,' and this, when praiseworthiness is concerned,
becomes the moral sanction.[609] Here we see that morality is regarded
as somehow the product of a 'sanction'; that is, of the action of
praise and blame with their usual consequences upon the individual.
His sensibility causes him through association to acquire the habits
which generally bring praise and blame; and ultimately these qualities
become attractive for their own sake. The difficulty is to see where
the line is crossed which divides truly moral or altruistic conduct
from mere prudence. Admitting that association may impel us to conduct
which involves self-sacrifice, we may still ask whether such conduct
is reasonable. Association produces belief in error as well as in
truth. If I love a man because he is useful and continue to love him
when he can no longer be useful, am I not misguided? If I wear a
ragged coat, because it was once smart, my conduct is easily explained
as a particular kind of folly. If I am good to my old mother when she
can no longer nurse me, am I not guilty of a similar folly? In short,
a man who inferred from Mill's principles that he would never do good
without being paid for it, would be hardly inconsistent. Your
associations, Mill would say, are indissoluble. He might answer, I
will try--it is surely not so hard to dissolve a tie of gratitude!
Granting, in short, that Mill gives an account of such virtue as may
be made of enlightened self-interest, he does not succeed in making
intelligible the conduct which alone deserves the name of virtuous.
The theory always halts at the point where something more is required
than an external sanction, and supposes