Christianity still further enlarges our ethical knowledge by declaring the *universality of moral laws*. There are many cases, in which it might seem to us not only expedient, but even right, to set aside some principle acknowledged to be valid in the greater number of instances, to violate justice or truth for some urgent claim of charity, or to consent to the performance of a little evil for the accomplishment of a great good. But in all such cases Christianity interposes its peremptory precepts, assuring us on authority which the Christian regards as supreme and infallible, that there are no exceptions or qualifications to any rule of right; that the moral law, in all its parts, is of inalienable obligation, and that the greatest good cannot but be the ultimate result of inflexible obedience.

That *Christianity gives a fuller knowledge of the right* than can be attained independently of its teachings, is shown by the review of all extra-Christian ethical systems. There is not one of these which does not confessedly omit essential portions of the right, and hardly one which does not sanction dispositions and modes of conduct confessedly wrong and evil; while even those who disclaim Christianity as a Divine revelation, fail to detect like omissions and blemishes in the ethics of the New Testament. Thus, though there is hardly a precept of Jesus Christ, the like of which cannot be found in the ethical writings of Greece, China, India, or Persia, the faultlessness and completeness of his teachings give them a position by themselves, and are among the strongest internal evidences of their divinity. They are also distinguished from the ethical systems of other teachers by their positiveness. Others say, "Thou shalt not;" Jesus Christ says, "Thou shalt." They forbid and prohibit; He commands. They prescribe abstinence from evil; He, a constant approach to perfection. Buddhism is, in our time, often referred to as occupying a higher plane than Christianity; but its precepts are all negative, its virtues are negative, and its disciple is deemed most nearly perfect, when in body, mind, and soul he has made himself utterly quiescent and inert. Christianity, on the other hand, enjoins the unresting activity of all the powers and faculties in pursuit of the highest ends.



Chapter VI.

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS.

Of the things that are fitting and right, there are some which, though they may be described in general terms, cannot be defined and limited with entire accuracy; there are others which are *so obvious and manifest, or so easily ascertained*, that, in precise form and measure, *they may be claimed* by those to whom they are due, *and required* of those from whom they are due. These last are rights, and the duties which result from them are *obligations*. Thus it is right that a poor man should be relieved; and it is my duty, so far as I can, to relieve the poor. But this or that individual poor man cannot claim that it is my duty rather than that of my neighbor to minister to his needs, or that I am bound to give him what I might otherwise give to his equally needy neighbor. He has no specific right to any portion of my money or goods; I have no specific obligation to give him anything. But if a man has lent me money, he has a right to as much of my money or goods as will repay him with interest; and I am under an obligation thus to repay him. Again, it is right that in the public highway there should be, among those who make it their thoroughfare, mutual accommodation, courtesy, and kindness; but no one man can prescribe the precise distance within which he shall not be approached, or the precise amount of pressure which may be allowable to his abutters in a crowd. Nor yet can the individual citizen occupy the street in such a way as to obstruct those who make use of it. He has no exclusive rights in the street; nor are others under obligation to yield to him any peculiar privileges. But he has a right to exclude whom he will from his own garden, and to occupy it in whatever way may please him best; and his fellow-citizens are under obligation to keep their feet from his alleys and flower-beds, their hands from his fruit, and to abstain from all acts that may annoy or injure him in the use and enjoyment of his garden.

*Rights*—with the corresponding obligations—might be divided into *natural* and *legal*. But the division is nominal rather than real; for, in the first place, there are no natural rights, capable of being defined, which are not in civilized countries under the sanction and protection of law; secondly, it is an open question whether some generally recognized rights—as, for instance, that of property—exist independently of law; and, thirdly, it may be maintained, on the other hand, that law is powerless to create, competent only to declare rights.

One chief agency of law as to rights is exercised in limiting *natural rights*. Considered simply in his relation to outward nature, a man has a manifest right to whatever he can make tributary to his enjoyment or well-being. But his fellow-men have the same right. If, then, there be a restricted supply of what he and they may claim by equal right, the alternative is, on the one hand, usurpation or perpetual strife, or, on the other, an adjustment by which each shall yield a part of what he might claim were there no fellow-claimant, and thus each shall have his proportion of what belongs equally to all. To make this adjustment equitably is the province of law. The problem which it attempts to solve is, How may each individual citizen secure the fullest amount of liberty and of material well-being, consistent with the admitted or established rights of others? Under republican institutions, this problem presents itself in the simplest form, society being in principle an equal partnership, in which no one man can claim a larger dividend than another. But where birth or condition confers certain peculiar rights, the problem must be so modified, that the rights conceded to the common citizens shall not interfere with these inherited or vested rights. In either case, the rights of each member of the community are bounded only by the conterminous rights of others. Obligations correspond to rights. Each member of the community is under obligation, always to refrain from encroachment on the rights of others, and in many cases to aid in securing or defending those rights, he on like occasions and in similar ways having his own rights protected by others.

We will consider separately *rights appertaining to the person, to property, and to reputation*.

1. *Rights appertaining to the person.* The most essential of these is the right to life, on which of course all else that can be enjoyed is contingent. This right is invaded, not only by direct violence, but by whatever may impair or endanger health. The corresponding obligation of the individual member of society is to refrain from all acts, employments, or recreations that may imperil life or health, and of society collectively, to furnish a police-force adequate to the protection of its members, to forbid and punish all crimes of violence, to enact and maintain proper sanitary regulations, and to suppress such nuisances as may be not only annoying, but harmful.

But the citizen is entitled to protection, only so long as he refrains from acts by which he puts other lives in peril. If he assault another man with a deadly weapon, and his own life be taken in the encounter, the slayer has violated no right, nay, so far as moral considerations are concerned, he is not even the slayer; for the man who wrongfully puts himself in a position in which another life can be protected only at the peril of his own, if his own be forfeited, has virtually committed suicide. Nor is the case materially altered, if a man in performing an unlawful act puts himself in a position in which he may be reasonably supposed to intend violence. Thus, while both law and conscience would condemn me if I killed a thief in broad daylight, in order to protect my property,—if a burglar enter my house by night with no intention of violence, and yet in the surprise and darkness of the hour I have reason to suppose my life and the lives of my family in danger from him, the law regards my slaying of such a person as justifiable homicide; and my conscience would acquit me in defending the right to life appertaining to my family and myself, against one whose intention or willingness to commit violence was to be reasonably inferred from his own unlawful act.

Society, through the agency of law, in some cases and directions limits the right of the individual citizen to life, and this *to the contingent benefit of each,—to the absolute benefit of all*. So long as men are less than perfect in character and condition, there must of necessity be some sacrifice of life; but this sacrifice may be reduced to its minimum by judicious legislation. Now, if without such legislation the percentage of deaths would be numerically much higher than under well-framed laws, the lives sacrificed under these laws are simply cases in which the right of the individual is made to yield to the paramount rights of the community. Thus, there can be no doubt, that contagious disease of the most malignant type could, in many cases, be more successfully treated at the homes of the patients than in public hospitals. But if by the removal of patients to hospitals the number of cases may be greatly diminished, and the contagion speedily arrested, this removal is the right of the community,—yet not under circumstances of needless privation and hardship, not without the best appliances of comfort, care, and skill which money can procure; for the public can be justified in the exercise of such a right, only by the extension of the most generous offices of humanity to those who are imperilled for the public good.

It is only on similar grounds that the *death-penalty for murder* can be justified. The life of the very worst of men should be sacrificed only for the preservation of life; for if it be unsafe to leave them at liberty, they may be kept under restraint and duress, without being wholly cut off from the means of enjoyment and improvement. The primeval custom of the earlier nations required the nearest kinsman of the murdered man to kill the murderer with his own hand, and in so doing to shed his blood, which was believed to have a mysterious efficacy in expiating the crime. This form of revenge was greatly checked and restricted by the institutions of Moses; it fell into disuse among the Jews, with their growth in civilization; and was certainly included in the entire repeal of the law of retaliation by Jesus Christ.(5)

But if with the dangerous classes of men the dread of capital punishment is a dissuasive from crimes of violence, so that the number of murders is less, and the lives of peaceable citizens are safer, than were murder liable to some milder penalty, then it is the undoubted right of the public to confiscate the murderer's right to life, and thus to sacrifice the smaller number of comparatively worthless lives for the security of the larger number of lives that may be valuable to the community. Or again if, by the profligate use of the pardoning power, the murderer sentenced to perpetual imprisonment will probably be let loose upon society unreformed, and with passions which may lead to the repetition of his crime, it is immeasurably more fitting that he be killed, than that he be preserved to do farther mischief. Yet again, if there be in the death-penalty for murder an educational force,—if by means of it each new generation is trained in the greater reverence for human life, and the greater detestation and horror of the crime by which it is destroyed,—then is capital punishment to be retained as a means of preserving an incalculably greater number of lives than it sacrifices. On these grounds, though in opposition to early and strong conviction, we are constrained to express the belief that, in our time and country, the capital punishment of the murderer is needed for the security of the public, and is justified as a life-saving measure.

In *enforced military service*, also, legal authority exposes the lives of a portion of the citizens for the security of the greater number. It is an unquestionable truth that, in its moral affinities, war is generated by evil, is allied to numberless forms of evil, and has a countless progeny of evil. But it is equally true that war will recur at not unfrequent intervals, so long as the moral evils from which it springs remain unreformed. Such are the complications of international affairs, that the most righteous and pacific policy may not always shield a people from hostile aggressions; while insurrection, sedition, and civil war may result not only from governmental oppression, but from the most salutary measures of reform and progress. In such cases, self-defence on the part of the nation or the government assailed, is a right and an obligation, due even in the interest of human life, and still more, in behalf of interests more precious than life. Moreover, even in a war of unprovoked aggression, the aggressive nation does not forfeit the right of self-defence by the unprincipled ambition of its rulers, and, war once declared, its vigorous pursuit may be the only mode of averting disaster or ruin. Thus war, though always involving atrocious wrong on the part of its promoters and abettors, becomes to the nations involved in it a necessity for which they are compelled to provide.

This provision may, in some cases, be made by voluntary enlistment; but in most civilized countries, it has been found necessary to fill and recruit the army by conscription, thus forcibly endangering the lives of a portion of the citizens, in order to avert from the soil and the homes of the people at large the worse calamities of invasion, devastation, and conquest. So far as this is necessary, it is undoubtedly right, and the lives thus sacrificed are justly due to the safety and well-being of the whole people. But in making this admission, we would say, without abatement or qualification, that war is essentially inhuman, barbarous, and opposed to and by the principles and spirit of Christianity, and that should the world ever be thoroughly Christianized, the ages when war was possible, will be looked back upon with the same horror with which we now regard cannibalism.

Associated with the right to life, and essential to its full enjoyment, is the *right to liberty*. This includes the right to direct one's own employments and recreations, to divide and use his time as may seem to him good, to go where he pleases, to bestow his vote or his influence in public affairs as he thinks best, and to express his own opinions orally, in writing, or through the press, without hindrance or molestation. These several rights belong equally to all; but as they cannot be exercised in full without mutual interference and annoyance, the common sense of mankind, uttering itself through law, permits each individual to enjoy them only so far as he can consistently with the freedom, comfort, and well-being of his fellow-citizens.

*Slavery* is so nearly extirpated from Christendom, that it is superfluous to enter into the controversy, which a few years ago no treatise on Moral Philosophy could have evaded. It was defended only by patent sophistry, and its advocates argued from the fact to the right, inventing the latter to sustain the former.

*Personal liberty is legally and rightfully restricted* in the case of minors, on the ground of their *immature* judgment and discretion, of their natural state of dependence on parents, and of their usual abode under the parental roof. The age of mature discretion varies very widely, not only in different races, but among different individuals of the same race, as does also the period of emancipation from the controlling influence of parents, and of an independent and self-sustaining condition in life. But, as it is impossible for government to institute special inquiries in the case of each individual, and as, were this possible, there would be indefinite room for favoritism and invidious distinctions, there is an intrinsic fitness in fixing an average age at which parental or quasi-parental tutelage shall cease, and after which the man shall have full and sole responsibility for his own acts. It is perfectly obvious that the liberty of the insane and feeble-minded ought to be restricted so far as is necessary for their own safety and for that of others. There is, also, in most communities, a provision by which notorious spendthrifts may be put under guardianship, and thus restrained in what might be claimed as their rightful disposal of their own property. This may be justified on the ground that, by persistent wastefulness, they may throw upon the public the charge of their own support and that of their families.

*Imprisonment* is, on the part of society, a measure, not of revenge, but of self-defence. The design of this mode of punishment is, first, to prevent the speedy repetition of the crime on the part of the person punished; secondly, so to work, either upon his moral nature by confinement, labor, and instruction, or at the worst, on his fears, by the dread of repeated and longer restraint, that he may abstain from crime in future; and lastly, to deter those who might otherwise be tempted to crime from exposing themselves to its penal consequences. As regards the prisoner, he has justly forfeited the right to liberty by employing it in aggression on the rights of others.

As regards acts not in themselves wrong, the freedom of the individual is rightfully restrained, when it would interfere with the health, comfort, or lawful pursuits of his neighbors. Thus no man has the right, either legal or moral, to establish, in an inhabited vicinage, a trade or manufacture which confessedly poisons the air or the water in his neighborhood; nor has one a moral right (even if there are technical difficulties in the way of declaring his calling a nuisance), to annoy his neighbors by an avocation grossly offensive or intolerably noisy. It is on this ground alone that legislation with reference to the Lord's day can be justified. Christians have no right to impose upon Jews, Pagans, or infidels, entire cessation of labor, business, or recreation on Sunday, and the attempt at coercive measures of this kind can only react to the damage of the cause in which they are instituted. But if the majority of the people believe it their duty to observe the first day of the week as a day of rest and devotion, they have a right to be protected in its observance by the suppression of such kinds, degrees, and displays of labor and recreation as would essentially interfere with their employment of the day for its sacred uses.

2. *The right to property* is an inevitable corollary from the right to liberty; for this implies freedom to labor at one's will, and to what purpose can a man labor, unless he can make the fruit of his labor his own? All property, except land, has been created by labor. Except where slavery is legalized, it is admitted that the laborer owns the value he creates. If it be an article made or produced wholly by himself, it is his to keep, to use, to give, or to sell. If his labor be bestowed on materials not his own, or if he be one of a body of workmen, he is entitled to a fair equivalent for the labor he contributes.

*Property in land*, no doubt, originated in labor. A man was deemed the proprietor of so much ground as he tilled. In a sparse population there could have been no danger of mutual interference; and in every country, governments must have been instituted before there was a sufficiently close occupation of the soil to occasion collisions and conflicts among the occupants. The governments of the early ages, in general, confirmed the titles founded in productive occupancy, and treated the unoccupied land as the property of the state, either to be held in common, to be ceded to individual owners in reward of loyalty or services, or to be sold on the public account.

It is manifest that the *security of property is essential to civilization and progress*. Men would labor only for the needs of the day, if they could not retain and enjoy the fruits of their labor; nor would they be at pains to invent or actualize industrial improvements of any kind, if they had no permanent interest in the results of such improvements. Then, too, if there were no protection for property, there could be no accumulation of capital, and without capital there could be no enterprise, no combined industries, no expenditure in faith of a remote, yet certain profit. Nor yet can the ends of a progressive civilization be answered by a community of goods and gains. Wherever this experiment has been tried, it has been attended by a decline of industrial energy and capacity; and where there has not been absolute failure, there have been apathy, stupidity, and a decreasing standard of intelligence. In fine, there is in man's bodily and mental powers a certain vis inertiae, which can be efficiently aroused only by the stimulus of personal interest in the results of industry, ingenuity, and prudence.

The right of property implies *the right of the owner, while he lives*, to hold, enjoy, or dispose of his possessions in such way as may please him. But his ownership necessarily ceases at death; and what was his becomes *rightfully the property of the public*. Yet in all civilized countries, it has been deemed fitting that the owner should have the liberty—with certain restrictions—of dictating the disposal of his property after his death, and also that, unless alienated by his will (and in some countries his will notwithstanding), his property should pass to his family or his nearest kindred. It is believed that it would discourage industry and enfeeble enterprise were their earnings to be treated as public property on the death of the owner; and that, on the other hand, men are most surely trained to and preserved in habits of diligence and thrift, either by the power of directing the disposal of their property after death, or by the certainty that they can thereby benefit those whom they hold in the dearest regard. Laws with reference to wills and to the succession of estates are not, then, limitations of the rights of private property, but a directory as to what is deemed the best mode of disposing of such property as from time to time accrues to the public.

*The law limits the right of property* by appropriating to public uses such portions of it as are needed for the maintenance, convenience, and well-being of the body politic. This is done, in the first place, by taxation, which—in order to be just—must be equitable in its mode of assessment, and not excessive in amount. As to the modes of assessment, it is obvious that a system which lightens the burden upon the rich, and thus presses the more heavily on the poor (as would be the case were a revenue raised on the necessaries of life, while luxuries were left free), cannot be justified. On the other hand, it may be maintained that the rate of taxation might fairly increase with the amount of property; for a very large proportion of the machinery of government is designed for the protection of property, and the more property an individual has, the less capable is he of protecting his various interests by his own personal care, and the more is he in need of well-devised and faithfully executed laws. Taxation excessive in amount is simply legalized theft. Sinecures, supernumerary offices, needless and costly formalities in the transaction of public business, journeys and festivities at the public charge, buildings designed for ostentation rather than for use, have been so long tolerated in the municipal, state, and national administrations, that they may seem inseparable from our system of government; but they imply gross dishonesty on the part of large numbers of our public servants, and guilty complicity in it on the part of many more. Under a system of direct taxation, assessments can be more equitably made, and their expenditure will be more carefully watched, than in the case of indirect taxation; while the latter method is more likely to find favor with those who hold or seek public office, as encouraging a larger freedom of expenditure, and supporting a larger number of needless functionaries at the public cost.

The law, also, authorizes *the appropriation of specific portions of property to public uses*, as for streets, roads, aqueducts, and public grounds, and even in aid of private enterprises in which the community has a beneficial interest, as of canals, bridges, and railways. This is necessary, and therefore right. It is obvious that, but for this, the most essential facilities and improvements might be prevented, or burdened with unreasonable costs, by the obstinacy or cupidity of individuals. The conditions under which such use of private property is justified are, that the improvement proposed be for the general good, that a fair compensation be given for the property taken, and that as to both these points, in case of a difference of opinion, the ultimate appeal shall be to an impartial tribunal or arbitration.

3. *The right to reputation.* Every man has a right to the reputation he deserves, and is under obligation to respect that right in every other man. This obligation is violated, not only by the fabrication of slander, but equally by its repetition, unless the person who repeats it knows it to be true, and also by silence and seeming acquiescence in an injurious report, if one knows or believes it to be false. But has a man a right to a better reputation than he deserves? Certainly not, in a moral point of view; and if men could be generally known to be what they are, few would fail to become what they would wish to seem. Yet the law admits the truth of a slanderous charge in justification of the slanderer, only when it can be shown that the knowledge of the truth is for the public benefit. There are good reasons for this attitude of the law, without reference to any supposed rights of the justly accused party. There is, in many instances, room for a reasonable doubt as to evil reports that seem authentic, and in many more instances there may be extenuating circumstances which form a part of the case, though almost never, of the report. Then, too, the family and kindred of the person defamed may incur, through true, yet useless reports to his discredit, shame, annoyance, and damage, which they do not merit. Evil reports, also, even if true, disturb the peace of the community, and often provoke violent retaliation. The wanton circulation of them, therefore, if a luxury to him who gives them currency, is a luxury indulged at the expense of the public, and he ought to be held liable for all that it may cost. Finally, and above all, the slanderer becomes a nuisance to the community, not only by his reports of real or imagined wrong and evil, but by the degradation of his own character, which can hardly remain above the level of his social intercourse.

By the law, defamation and libel are, very justly, liable both to *criminal prosecution*, as offences against the public, and to *action for damages* by civil process, on the obvious ground that the injury of a man's character tends to impair his success in business, his pecuniary credit, and his comfortable enjoyment of his property.



Chapter VII.

MOTIVE, PASSION, AND HABIT.

The appetites, desires, and affections are, as has been said, the *proximate motives* of action. The perception of expediency and the sense of right act, not independently of these motives, but upon them and through them, checking some, stimulating others. Thus they, both, restrain the appetites, the former, so far as prudence requires; the latter, in subserviency to the more noble elements of character. The former directs the desires toward worthy, but earthly objects; the latter works most efficiently through the benevolent affections, as exercised toward God and man.

Exterior motives are of a secondary order, acting not directly upon the will, but influencing it indirectly, through the springs of action, or through the principles which direct and govern them.

*The action of exterior motives* takes place in three different ways. 1. When they are in harmony with any predominant appetite, desire, or affection, they at once intensify it, and prompt acts by which it may be gratified. Thus, for instance, a sumptuously spread table gives the epicure a keener appetite, and invites him to its free indulgence. The opportunity of a potentially lucrative, though hazardous investment, excites the cupidity of the man who prizes money above all things else, and tempts him to incur the doubtful risk. The presence of the object of love or hatred adds strength to the affection, and induces expressions or acts of kindness or malevolence. 2. An exterior motive opposed to the predominant spring of action often starts that spring into vigorous and decisive activity, and makes it thenceforth stronger and more imperative. It is thus that remonstrances, obstacles, and interposing difficulties not infrequently render sensual passion more rabid; while temptation, by the acts of resistance which it elicits, nourishes the virtue it assails. 3. An exterior motive may have a sufficient stress and cogency to call forth into energetic action some appetite, desire, or affection previously dormant or feeble, thus to repress the activity of those which before held sway, and so to produce a fundamental change in the character. In this way the sudden presentation of vice, in attractive forms, may give paramount sway to passions which had previously shown no signs of mastery; and, in like manner, a signal experience of peril, calamity, deliverance, or unexpected joy may call forth the religious affections, and invest them with enduring supremacy over a soul previously surrendered to appetite, inferior desires, or meaner loves.

*An undue influence* in the formation or change of character *is often ascribed to exterior motives.* They are oftener the consequence than the cause of character. Men, in general, exercise more power over their surroundings, than their surroundings over them. A very large proportion of the circumstances which seem to have a decisive influence upon us, are of our own choice, and we might—had we so willed—have chosen their opposites. A virtuous person seldom finds it necessary to breathe a vicious atmosphere. A willingness to be tempted is commonly the antecedent condition to one's being led into temptation. Sympathy, example, and social influences are second in their power, whether for good or for evil, to no other class of exterior motives; and there are few who cannot choose their own society, and who do not choose it in accordance with their elective affinities. It is true, indeed, that the choice of companions of doubtful virtue is often the first outward sign of vicious proclivities; while a tenacious adherence to the society of the most worthy not infrequently precedes any very conspicuous development of personal excellence; but in either case the choice of friends indicates the predominant springs of action, and the direction in which the character has begun to grow. So far then is man from being under the irresistible control of motives from without, that these motives are in great part the results and the tokens of his own voluntary agency.

Christianity justly claims preeminence, not only as a source of knowledge as to the right, but equally as presenting the most influential and persistent motives to right conduct. These motives we have in its endearing and winning manifestation of the Divine fatherhood by Jesus Christ; in his own sacrifice, death, and undying love for man; in the assurance of forgiveness for past wrongs and omissions, without which there could be little courage for future well-doing; in the promise of Divine aid in every right purpose and worthy endeavor; in the certainty of a righteous retribution in the life to come; and in institutions and observances designed and adapted to perpetuate the memory of the salient facts, and to *renew* at frequent intervals the recognition of the essential truths, which give the religion its name and character. The desires and affections, stimulated and directed by these motives, are incapable of being perverted to evil, while desires with lower aims and affections for inferior objects are always liable to be thus perverted. These religious motives, too, resting on the Infinite and the Eternal, are of inexhaustible power; if felt at all, they must of necessity be felt more strongly than all other motives; and they cannot fail to be adequate to any stress of need, temptation, or trial.

* * * * *

*Passion* implies a passive state,—a condition in which the will yields without resistance to some dominant appetite, desire, or affection, under whose imperious reign reason is silenced, considerations of expediency and of right suppressed, and exterior counteracting motives neutralized. It resembles insanity in the degree in which the actions induced by it are the results of unreasoning impulse, and in the unreal and distorted views which it presents of persons, objects, and events. It differs from insanity, mainly in its being a self-induced madness, for which, as for drunkenness, the sufferer is morally accountable, and in yielding to which, as in drunkenness, he, by suffering his will to pass beyond the control of reason, makes himself responsible, both legally and morally, for whatever crimes or wrongs he commits in this state of mental alienation.

*There is no appetite, desire, or affection which may not become a passion*, and there is no passion which does not impair the sense of right, and interfere with the discharge of duty. The appetites, the lower desires, the malevolent affections, and, not infrequently, love, when they become passions, have their issues in vice and crime. The nobler desires and affections when made passions, may not lead to positive evil, but can hardly fail to derange the fitting order of life, and to result in the dereliction of some of its essential duties. Thus, the passion for knowledge may render one indifferent to his social and religious obligations. Philanthropy, when a passion, overlooks nearer for more remote claims of duty, and is very prone to omit self-discipline and self-culture in its zeal for world-embracing charities. Even the religious affections, when they assume the character of passions, either, on the one hand, are kindled into wild fanaticism, or, on the other, lapse into a self-absorbed quietism, which forgets outside duties in the luxury of devout contemplation; and though either of these is to be immeasurably preferred to indifference, they both are as immeasurably inferior to that piety, equally fervent and rational, which neglects neither man for God, nor God for man, and which remains mindful of all human and earthly relations, fitnesses, and duties, while at the same time it retains its hold of faith, hope, and habitual communion, on the higher life.

* * * * *

*Habit* also involves the suspension of reason and motive in the performance of individual acts; but it differs from passion in that its acts were in the beginning prompted by reason and motive. Indeed, it may be plausibly maintained that in each habitual act there is a virtual remembrance—a recollection too transient to be itself remembered—of the reasoning or motive which induced the first act of the series. In some cases the habitual act is performed, as it is said, unconsciously, certainly with a consciousness so evanescent as to leave no trace of itself. In other cases the act is performed consciously, but as by a felt necessity, in consequence of an uneasy sensation—analogous to hunger and thirst—which can be allayed in this way only. Under this last head we may class, in the first place, habits of criminal indulgence, including the indulgence of morbid and depraved appetite; secondly, many of those morally indifferent habits, which constitute a large portion of a regular and systematic life; and thirdly, habits of virtuous conduct, of industry, of punctuality, of charity.

*Habit bears a most momentous part in the formation and growth of character*, whether for evil or for good. It is in the easy and rapid formation of habit that lies the imminent peril of single acts of vicious indulgence. The first act is performed with the determination that it shall be the last of its kind. But of all examples one's own is that which he is most prone to follow, and of all bad examples one's own is the most dangerous. The precedent once established, there is the strongest temptation to repeat it, still with a conscious power of self-control, and with the resolution to limit the degree and to arrest the course of indulgence, so as to evade the ultimate disgrace and ruin to which it tends. But before the pre-determined limit is reached, the indulgence has become a habit; its suspension is painful; its continuance or renewal seems essential to comfortable existence; and even in those ultimate stages when its very pleasure has lapsed into satiety, and then into wretchedness, its discontinuance threatens still greater wretchedness, because the craving is even more intense when the enjoyment has ceased.

*The beneficent agency of habit no less deserves emphatic notice.* Its office in practical morality is analogous to that of labor-saving inventions in the various departments of industry. A machine by which ten men can do the work that has been done by thirty, disengages the twenty for new modes of productive labor, and thus augments the products of industry and the comfort of the community. A good habit is a labor-saving instrument. The cultivating of any specific virtue to such a degree that it shall become an inseparable and enduring element of the character demands, at the outset, vigilance, self-discipline, and, not infrequently, strenuous effort. But when the exercise of that virtue has become habitual, and therefore natural, easy, and essential to one's conscious well-being, it ceases to task the energies; it no longer requires constant watchfulness; its occasions are met spontaneously by the appropriate dispositions and acts. The powers which have been employed in its culture are thus set free for the acquisition of yet other virtues, and the formation of other good habits. Herein lies the secret of progressive goodness, of an ever nearer approach to a perfect standard of character. The primal virtues are first made habits of the unceasing consciousness and of the daily life, and the moral power no longer needed for these is then employed in the cultivation of the finer traits of superior excellence,—the shaping of the delicate lines, roundings, and proportions, which constitute "the beauty of holiness," the symmetry and grace of character that win not only abounding respect and confidence, but universal admiration and love.

*What has been said of habit, is true not only as to outward acts, but equally as to wonted directions and currents of thought, study, reflection, and reverie.* It is mainly through successive stages of habit that the mind grows in its power of application, research, and invention. It is thus that the spirit of devotion is trained to ever clearer realization of sacred truth and a more fervent love and piety. It is thus that minds of good native capacity lose their apprehensive faculties and their working power; and thus, also, that moral corruption often, no doubt, takes place before the evil desires cherished within find the opportunity of actualizing themselves in a depraved life.



Chapter VIII.

VIRTUES, AND THE VIRTUES.

*The term virtue* is employed in various senses, which, though they cover a wide range, are yet very closely allied to one another, and to the initial conception in which they all have birth. Its primitive signification, as its structure(6) indicates, is manliness. Now what preeminently distinguishes, not so much the human race from the lower animals, as the full-grown and strong man from the feebler members of his own race, is the power of resolute, strenuous, persevering conflict and resistance. It is the part of a man worthy of the name to maintain his own position, to hold his ground against all invaders, to show a firm front against all hostile force, and to prefer death to conquest. All this is implied in the Greek and Roman idea of virtue, and is included in the Latin virtus, when it is used with reference to military transactions, so that its earliest meaning was, simply, military prowess. But with the growth of ethical philosophy, and especially with the cultivation by the Stoics of the sterner and hardier traits of moral excellence, men learned that there was open to them a more perilous battle-ground, a severer conflict, and a more glorious victory, than in mere physical warfare,—that there was a higher type of manliness in self-conquest, in the resistance and subdual of appetite and passion, in the maintenance of integrity and purity under intense temptation and amidst vicious surroundings, than in the proudest achievements of military valour. Virtue thus came to mean, not moral goodness in itself considered, but goodness militant and triumphant.(7)

But *words which have a complex signification always tend to slough off a part of their meaning*; and, especially, words that denote a state or property, together with its mode of growth or of manifestation, are prone to drop the latter, even though it may have given them root and form. Thus the term virtue is often used to denote the qualities that constitute human excellence, without direct reference to the conflict with evil, whence it gets its name, and in which those qualities have their surest growth and most conspicuous manifestation. There is still, however, a tacit reference to temptation and conflict in our use of the term. Though we employ it to denote goodness that has stood no very severe test, we use it only where such a test may be regarded as possible. Though we call a man virtuous who has been shielded from all corrupt examples and influences, and has had no inducements to be otherwise than good, we do not apply the epithet to the little child who cannot by any possibility have been exposed to temptation. Nor yet would we apply it to the perfect purity and holiness of the Supreme Being, who "cannot be tempted with evil."

Virtue then, in its more usual sense at the present time, denotes *conduct in accordance with the right*, or with the fitness of things, on the part of one who has the power to do otherwise. But in this sense there are few, if any, perfectly virtuous men. There are, perhaps, none who are equally sensitive to all that the right requires, and it is often the deficiencies of a character that give it its reputation for distinguished excellence in some one form of virtue, the vigilance, self-discipline, and effort which might have sustained the character in a well-balanced mediocrity being so concentrated upon some single department of duty as to excite high admiration and extended praise. There may be a deficient sensitiveness to some classes of obligations, while yet there is no willing or conscious violation of the right, and in such cases the character must be regarded as virtuous. But if in any one department of duty a person is consciously false to his sense of right, even though in all other respects he conforms to the right, he cannot be deemed virtuous, nor can there be any good ground for assurance that he may not, with sufficient inducement, violate the very obligations which he now holds in the most faithful regard. This is what is meant by that saying of St. James, "Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, is guilty of all,"—not that he who commits a single offence through inadvertency or sudden temptation, is thus guilty; but he who willingly and deliberately violates the right as to matters in which he is the most strongly tempted to wrong and evil, shows an indifference to the right which will lead him to observe it only so long and so far as he finds it convenient and easy so to do.

Here we are naturally led to inquire whether there is any essential *connection between virtue and piety*,—between the faithful discharge of the common duties of life and loving loyalty toward the Supreme Being. On this subject extreme opinions have been held, sceptics and unbelievers, on the one side, Christians with a leaven of antinomianism on the other, maintaining the entire independence of virtue on piety; while Christians of the opposite tendency have represented them, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary, as inseparable. We shall find, on examination, that they are separable and independent, yet auxiliary each to the other. Virtue is conduct in accordance with the right, and we have seen that right and wrong, as moral distinctions, depend not on the Divine nature, will or law,(8) but on the inherent, necessary conditions of being. The atheist cannot escape or disown them. Whatever exists—no matter how it came into being—must needs have its due place, affinities, adaptations, and uses. An intelligent dweller among the things that are, cannot but know something of their fitnesses and harmonies, and so far as he acts upon them cannot but feel the obligation to recognize their fitnesses, and thus to create or restore their harmonies. Even to the atheist, vice is a violation of fitnesses which he knows or may know. It is opposed to his conscientious judgment. He has with regard to it an inevitable sense of wrong. We can, therefore, conceive of an atheist's being rigidly virtuous, and that on principle. Though among the ancient Stoics there were some eminently devout men, there were others, men of impregnable virtue, whose theology was too vague and meagre to furnish either ground or nourishment for piety. While, therefore, in the mutual and reciprocal fitnesses that pervade the universe we find demonstrative evidence of the being, unity, and moral perfectness of the Creator, we are constrained to acknowledge the possibility of these fitnesses being recognized in the conduct of life by those who do not follow them out to the great truths of theology to which they point and lead.

But, on the other hand, where there is a clear knowledge of, or an undoubting belief in the being and providence of God, and especially for persons who receive Christianity as a revelation of the truth, though, as an affection, piety is independent of virtue, the duties of piety are an essential part of virtue. If God is, we stand in definable relations to Him, and those relations are made definite through Christianity. Those relations have their fitnesses, and we see not how he can be a thoroughly virtuous man, who, discerning these fitnesses with the understanding, fails to recognize them in conduct. Conscience can take cognizance only of the fitnesses which the individual man knows or believes; but it does take cognizance of all the fitnesses which he knows or believes. Virtue may coexist with a very low standard of emotional piety; but it cannot coexist, in one who believes the truths of religion, with blasphemy, irreverence, or the conscious violation or neglect of religious obligations. He who is willingly false to his relations with the Supreme Being, needs only adequate temptation to make him false to his human relations, and to the fitnesses of his daily life. Moreover, while, as we have said, virtue may exist where there is but little emotional piety, virtue can hardly fail to cherish piety. Loyalty of conduct deepens loyalty of spirit; obedience nourishes love; he who faithfully does the will of God can hardly fail to become worshipful and devout; and while men are more frequently led by emotional piety to virtue, there can be no doubt that with many the process is reversed, and virtue leads to emotional piety. Then again, we have seen that religion supplies the most efficient of all motives to a virtuous life,—motives adequate to a stress of temptation and trial which suffices to overpower and neutralize all inferior motives.

* * * * *

Virtue is one and indivisible in its principle and essence, yet *in its external manifestations presenting widely different aspects*, and eliciting a corresponding diversity in specific traits of character. Thus, though intrinsic fitness be equally the rule of conduct at a pleasure-party and by a pauper's bed-side, the conduct of the virtuous man will be widely different on these two occasions; and not only so, but with the same purpose of fidelity to what is fitting and right, his dispositions, aims, and endeavors on these two occasions will have little or nothing in common except the one pervading purpose. Hence virtue may under different forms assume various names, and may thus be broken up into separate virtues. These are many or few, according as we distribute in smaller or larger groups the occasions for virtuous conduct, or analyze with greater or less minuteness the sentiments and dispositions from which it proceeds.

*The cardinal*(*9*)* virtues* are the hinge-virtues, those on which the character hinges or turns, those, the possession of all which, would constitute a virtuous character, while the absence of any one of them would justly forfeit for a man the epithet virtuous. There are other less salient and essential qualities—minor virtues—the possession of which adds to the symmetry, beauty, and efficiency of the character, but which one may lack, and yet none the less deserve to be regarded as a virtuous man. Thus, justice is a cardinal virtue; gentleness, one of the lesser rank.

We propose to adopt as a *division of the virtues* one which recognizes four cardinal virtues, corresponding to four classes under which may be comprehended all the fitnesses of man's condition in this world, and the duties proceeding from them respectively.(10) There are fitnesses and duties appertaining, first, to one's own being, nature, capacities, and needs; secondly, to his relations to his fellow-beings; thirdly, to his disposition and conduct with reference to external objects and events beyond his control; and fourthly, to his arrangement, disposal, and use of objects under his control. It is difficult to find names which in their common use comprehend severally all the contents of each of these four divisions; but yet they are all comprised within the broadest significance of the terms Prudence, Justice, Fortitude, and Order. Thus employed, Prudence, or providence, includes all the duties of self-government and self-culture; Justice denotes all that is due to God and man, embracing piety and benevolence; Fortitude, which is but a synonyme for strength, is an appropriate general name for every mode, whether of defiance, resistance, or endurance, in which man shows himself superior to his inevitable surroundings; and Order is extended to all subjects in which the question of duty is a question of time, place, or measure.

*We can conceive of no right feeling, purpose, or action, which does not come under one of these heads.* It is obvious, too, that these are all cardinal virtues, not one of which could be wanting or grossly deficient in a virtuous man. For, in the first place, he who omits were it only the duties of self-culture, and thus leaves himself ignorant of what he ought to know, takes upon himself the full burden, blame, and penalty of whatever wrong he may commit in consequence of needless ignorance; secondly, he who is willingly unfaithful in any of his relations to God or man, cannot by any possibility be worthy of approbation; nor, thirdly, can he be so, who is the slave, not the master, of his surroundings; while, fourthly, fitnesses of time, place, and measure are so essential to right-doing that the violation of them renders what else were right, wrong.

Moreover, *each of these four virtues*, if genuine and highly developed, *implies the presence of all the others*. 1. There is a world of wisdom in the question asked in the Hebrew Scriptures: "Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge?" There is in all wrong-doing either ignorance, or temporary hallucination or blindness, and imprudence is but ignorance or delusion carried into action. Did we see clearly the certain bearings and consequences of actions, we should need no stronger dissuasive from all evil, no more cogent motive to every form of virtue. 2. There is no conceivable duty which may not be brought under the head of justice, either to God or to man; for our duties to ourselves are due to God who has ordained them, and to man whom we are the more able to benefit, the more diligent we are in self-government and self-improvement. 3. Our wrong-doing of every kind comes from our yielding to outward things instead of rising above them; and he who truly lives above the world, can hardly fail to do all that is right and good in it. 4. Perfect order—the doing of everything in the right time, place, and measure—would imply the presence of all the virtues, and would include all their work.

With this explanation we shall use the terms *Prudence*, *Justice*, *Fortitude*, and *Order* in the titles of the four following chapters, at the same time claiming the liberty of employing these words, as we shall find it convenient, in the more restricted sense which they commonly bear.



Chapter IX.

PRUDENCE; OR DUTIES TO ONE'S SELF.

Can there be *duties to one's self*, which are of absolute obligation? Duties are dues, and they imply two parties,—one who owes them, and one to whom they are due,—the debtor and the creditor. But the creditor may, at his will, cancel the debt, and release the debtor. In selfward duties, then, why may I not, as creditor, release myself as debtor? Why may I not—so long as I violate no obligation to others—be, at my own pleasure, idle or industrious, self-indulgent or abstinent, frivolous or serious? Why, if life seem burdensome to me, may I not relieve myself of the trouble of living? The answer is, that to every object in the universe with which I am brought into relation I owe its fit use, and that no being in the universe, not even the Omnipotent, can absolve me from this obligation. Now my several powers and faculties, with reference to my will, are objects on which my volitions take effect, and I am bound to will their fit uses, and to abstain from thwarting or violating those uses, on the same ground on which I am bound to observe and reverence the fitnesses of objects that form no part of my personality. Moreover, this earthly life is, with reference to my will, an object on which my volitions may take effect; I learn—if not by unaided reason, from the Christian revelation—that my life has its fit uses, both in this world and in preparation for a higher state of being, and that these uses are often best served by the most painful events and experiences; and I thus find myself bound to take the utmost care of my life, even when it seems the least worth caring for.

The *duties due to one's self* are self-preservation, the attainment of knowledge, self-control, and moral self-culture.



Section I.

Self-Preservation.

The *uses of life*, both to ourselves, and to others through us, suffice, as we have said, to render its preservation a duty, enjoined upon us by the law of fitness. This duty is violated not only by suicide—against which it is useless to reason, for its victims in modern Christendom are seldom of sound mind—but equally by needless and wanton exposure to peril. Such exposure is frequently incurred in reckless feats of strength or daring, sometimes consummated in immediate death, and still oftener in slower self-destruction by disease. There are, no doubt, occasions when self-preservation must yield to a higher duty, and humanity has made no important stage of progress without the free sacrifice of many noble lives; but because it may be a duty to give life in the cause of truth or liberty, it by no means follows that one has a right to throw it away for the gratification of vanity, for a paltry wager, or to win the fame of an accomplished athlete.

The duty of self-preservation includes, of course, *a reasonable care for health*, without which the uses of life are essentially restricted and impaired. Here a just mean must be sought and adhered to. There is, on the one hand, an excessive care of the body, which, if it does not enfeeble the mind, distracts it from its true work, and makes the spiritual nature a mere slave of the material organism. This solicitude is sometimes so excessive as to defeat its own purpose, by creating imaginary diseases, and then making them real; and the number is by no means small of those who have become chronic invalids solely by the pains they have taken not to be so. On the other hand, there is a carelessness as to dress and diet, to which the strongest constitution must at length yield; and the intense consciousness of strength and vigor, which tempts one to deem himself invulnerable, not infrequently is the cause of life-long infirmity and disability. Of the cases of prolonged and enfeebling disease, probably more are the result of avoidable than of unavoidable causes, and if we add to these the numerous instances in which the failure of health is to be ascribed to hereditary causes which might have been avoided, or to defective sanitary arrangements that may be laid to the charge of the public, we have an enormous amount of serviceable life needlessly wasted for all purposes of active usefulness; while for the precious examples of patience, resignation, and cheerful endurance, the infirmities and sufferings incident to the most favorable sanitary conditions might have been amply sufficient.

There are, no doubt, such wide diversities of constitution and temperament that *no specific rules of self-preservation can be laid down*; and as regards diet, sleep, and exercise, habit may render the most unlike methods and times equally safe and beneficial. But wholesome food in moderate quantity, sleep long enough for rest and refreshment, exercise sufficient to neutralize the torpifying influence of sedentary pursuits, and these, though not with slavish uniformity, yet with a good degree of regularity, may be regarded as essential to a sound working condition of body and mind. The same may be said of the unstinted use of water, which has happily become a necessity of high civilization, of pure air, the worth of which as a sanitary agent is practically ignored by the major part of our community, and of the direct light of heaven, the exclusion of which from dwellings from motives of economy, while it may spare carpets and curtains, wilts and depresses their owners. These topics are inserted in a treatise on ethics, because whatever has a bearing on health, and thus on the capacity for usefulness selfward and manward which constitutes the whole value of this earthly life, is of grave moral significance. If the preservation of life is a duty, then all hygienic precautions and measures are duties, and as such they should be treated by the individual moral agent, by parents, guardians, and teachers, and by the public at large.

*Self-preservation is endangered by poverty.* In the lack or precariousness of the means of subsistence, the health of the body is liable to suffer; and even where there is not absolute want, but a condition straitened in the present and doubtful as to the future, the mind loses much of its working power, and life is deprived of a large portion of its utility. Hence the duty of industry and economy on the part of those dependent on their own exertions. It is not a man's duty to be rich, though he who in acquiring wealth takes upon himself its due obligations and responsibilities, is a public benefactor; but it is every man's duty to shun poverty, if he can, and he who makes or keeps himself poor by his own indolence, thriftlessness, or prodigality, commits a sin against his own life, which he curtails as to its capacity of good, and against society, which has a beneficial interest in the fully developed life of all its members.



Section II.

The Attainment Of Knowledge.

Inasmuch as knowledge, real or supposed, must needs precede every act of the will, and as the adaptation of our actions to our purposes depends on the accuracy of our knowledge, *it is intrinsically fitting ** that our cognitive powers should be thoroughly developed and trained, and diligently employed.* Especially is this fitting, because—as has been already shown—it is through knowledge alone that we can bring our conduct into conformity with the absolute right, and there is nothing within the range of our possible knowledge, which may not become in some way connected with our agency as moral beings.

It is of prime importance that what we seem to know we know accurately; and as it is through the senses that we acquire our knowledge, not only of the outward objects with which we are daily conversant, but of other minds than our own, *the education of the senses* is an obvious duty. There are few so prolific sources of social evil, injustice, and misery, as the falsehood of persons who mean to tell the truth, but who see or hear only in part, and supply the deficiencies of perception by the imagination. In the acquisition of knowledge of the highest interest and importance this same hindrance is one of the most frequent obstacles. The careless eye and the heedless ear waste for many minds a large portion of the time ostensibly given to serious pursuits, and render their growth pitifully slow and scanty as compared with their means of culture. The senses may, especially in early life, be trained to alertness and precision, so that they shall carry to the mind true and full reports of what they see and hear; and it is only by such training that the perceptive faculties can accomplish the whole work for which they are designed and fitted.

There are, also, interior senses, *apprehensive powers of the mind*, which equally crave culture, and which depend for their precision and force on careful education and diligent use. Mere observation, experience, or study, cannot give knowledge that will be of any avail. One may have a largely and variously stocked memory, and yet be unable to employ its contents to his own advantage or to the benefit of others. Indeed, there are minds that are paralyzed by being overloaded,—by taking in freight faster than they have room for it. It is only materials which the mind has made its own, incorporated into its substance, that it can fully utilize. Knowledge must be acted upon by the understanding, the reason, the judgment, before it can be transmuted into wisdom, and employed either in the acquisition of new truth or in the conduct of life. Mental activity, then, is a duty; for if we are bound to preserve life, by parity of reason, we are bound to improve its quality and increase its quantity, and this cannot be done unless the intellectual powers are strengthened by diligent exercise, as well as nourished by the facts and truths which are the raw material of wisdom.

The fit *objects of knowledge* vary indefinitely with one's condition in life. Things in themselves trivial or evanescent may, under certain circumstances, claim our careful attention and thorough cognizance. We ought, on the one hand, to know all we can about matters concerning which we must speak or act, and, on the other hand, to refrain from voluntarily speaking or acting in matters of which we are ignorant. Thus our social relations and our daily intercourse may render it incumbent on us to obtain for current use a large amount of accurate knowledge which is not worth our remembering. Then a man's profession, stated business, or usual occupation opens a large field of knowledge, with which and with its allied provinces it is his manifest duty to become conversant to his utmost ability; for the genuineness and value of his work must be in a great degree contingent on his intelligence. At the same time, every man is bound to make his profession worthy of respect; in failing to do so, he wrongs and injures the members of his profession collectively; and no calling can obtain respect, if those who pursue it show themselves uncultivated and ignorant. Thus far, then, should knowledge be extended on grounds of practical utility. Beyond and above this range, there is an unlimited realm of truth, the knowledge of which is inestimably precious for the higher culture of the mind and character. In this realm, of which only an infinitesimal portion can be conquered during an earthly lifetime, there is no unfruitful region,—there is no department of nature, of psychology, or of social science, through which the mind may not be expanded, exalted, energized, led into more intimate relations with the Supreme Intelligence, endowed with added power of beneficent agency. While, therefore, knowledge of things as they are, and of their underlying principles and laws, so far as we are able to acquire it, is not only a privilege beyond all price, but an absolute duty, there are no moral considerations which need direct or limit our choice of the themes of research or study. These may properly be determined by native or acquired proclivity, by opportunity, or by considerations of usefulness. Nor, if the love of truth be formed and cherished, can it of be of any essential importance whether this or that portion of truth be pursued or neglected during the brief period of our life in this world; for, at best, what we leave unattained must immeasurably exceed our attainments, and there is an eternity before us for what we are compelled to omit here. At the same time, the unbounded scope and the vast diversity of things knowable and worthy to be known are adapted to stimulate self-culture, and in that same proportion to invest human life with a higher dignity, a larger intrinsic value, and a more enduring influence.



Section III.

Self-Control.

*A man must be either self-governed, or under a worse government than his own.* God governs men, only by teaching and helping them to govern themselves. Good men, if also wise, seek not, even for the highest ends, to control their fellow-men, but, so far as they can, enable and encourage them to exercise a due self-control. It is only unwise or bad men who usurp the government of other wills than their own. But the individual will is oftener made inefficient by passion, than by direct influence from other minds. Man, in his normal state, wills either what is expedient or what is right. Passion suspends, as to its objects, all reference to expediency and right, even when there is the clearest knowledge of the tendencies of the acts to which it prompts. Thus the sensualist often knows that he is committing sure and rapid suicide, yet cannot arrest himself on the declivity of certain ruin. The man in whom avarice has become a passion is perfectly aware of the comforts and enjoyments which he is sacrificing, yet is as little capable of procuring them as if he were a pauper. Anger and revenge not infrequently force men to crimes which they know will be no less fatal to themselves than to their victims. Now if a man will not put and keep himself under the government of conscience, it concerns him at least to remain under the control of reason, which, if it do not compel him to do right, will restrain him within the limits of expediency, and thus will insure for him reputation, a fair position, and a safe course in life, even though it fail of the highest and most enduring good.

*Self-control is easily lost*, and is often lost unconsciously. The first surrender of it is prone to be final and lifelong. Indeed, in many cases, the passion destined to be dominant has nearly reached the maturity of its power previously to any outward violation of the expedient or the right. Where the restraining influences of education and surroundings are strong, where important interests are at stake, or where conscience has not been habitually silenced or tampered with, the perilous appetite, desire, or affection broods long in the thought, and is so largely indulged in reverie and anticipation, that it becomes imperious and despotic before it assumes its wonted forms of outward manifestation. Hence, the sudden infatuation and rapid ruin which we sometimes witness,—the cases in which there seems but a single step between innocence and deep depravity. In truth there are many steps; but until they become precipitous, they are veiled from human sight.

*Self-control*, then, in order to be effective, *must be exercised upon the thoughts and feelings*, especially upon the imagination, which fills so largely with its phantasms and day-dreams our else unoccupied hours. Let these hours be as few as possible; and let them be filled with thoughts which we would not blush to utter, with plans which we could actualize with the approving suffrage of all good men. The inward life which would dread expression and exposure, already puts the outward life in peril; for passion, thus inwardly nourished and fostered, can hardly fail to assume sooner or later the control of the conduct and the shaping of the character. Let the thoughts be well governed, and the life is emancipated from passion, and under the control of reason and principle.



Section IV.

Moral Self-Culture.

It is evident that, *whatever a man's aims may be, the attainment of them depends more upon himself than upon any agency that he can employ*. If his aim be extended influence, his words and acts have simply the force which his character gives them. If his aim be usefulness, his own personality measures in part the value of his gifts, and determines entirely the worth of his services. If his aim be happiness, the more of a man he is, the larger is his capacity of enjoyment; for as a dog gets more enjoyment out of life than a zooephyte, and a man than a dog, so does the fully and symmetrically developed man exceed in receptivity of happiness him whose nature is imperfectly or abnormally developed. Now it is through the thorough training and faithful exercise of his moral faculties and powers that man is most capable of influence, best fitted for usefulness, and endowed with the largest capacity for happiness. History shows this. The men whose lot (if any but our own) we would be willing to assume, have been, without an exception, good men. If there are in our respective circles those whose position we deem in every respect enviable, they are men of preeminent moral excellence. We would not take—could we have it—the most desirable external position with a damaged character. Probably there are few who do not regard a virtuous character as so much to be desired, that in yielding to temptation and falling under the yoke of vicious habits they still mean to reform and to become what they admire. Old men who have led profligate lives always bear visible tokens of having forfeited all the valuable purposes of life, often confess that their whole past has been a mistake, and not infrequently bear faithful testimony to the transcendent worth of moral goodness. To remain satisfied without this is, therefore, a sin against one's own nature, a sacrifice of well-being and happiness which no one has a right to make, and which no prudent man will make.

Self-culture in virtue implies and demands reflection on duty and on the motives to duty, on one's own nature, capacities and liabilities, and on those great themes of thought, which by their amplitude and loftiness enlarge and exalt the minds that become familiar with them. The mere tongue-work or hand-*work, of virtue slackens and becomes deteriorated, when not sustained by profound thought and feeling. Moreover, it is the mind that acts, and it puts into its action all that it has—and no more—of moral and spiritual energy, so that the same outward act means more or less, is of greater or less worth, in proportion to the depth and vigor of feeling and purpose from which it proceeds. It is thus that religious devotion nourishes virtue, and that none are so well fitted for the duties of the earthly life as those who, in their habitual meditation, are the most intimately conversant with the heavenly life.

In moral self-culture great benefit is derived from example, whether of the living or the dead. Perhaps the dead are, in this respect, more useful than the living. In witnessing the worthy deeds and beneficent agency of a person of superior excellence, the tendency is to an over-exact imitation of specific acts and methods, which, precisely because they are spontaneous and fitting in his case, will not be so in the case of his copyist; while the biography of an eminently good man enlists our sympathy with his spirit rather than with the details of his life, and stimulates us to embody the same spirit in widely different forms of duty and usefulness. Thus the school-master who in Dr. Arnold's lifetime heard of his unprecedented success as an educator, would have been tempted to go to Rugby, to study the system on the ground, and then to adopt, so far as possible, the very plans which he there saw in successful operation,—plans which might have been fitted neither to his genius, the traditions of his school, nor the demands of its patrons. At the same time, the interior of Rugby School was very little known, the principles of its administration still less, to persons other than teachers. But Arnold's biography, revealing the foundation-principles of his character and his work, raised up for him a host of imitators of all classes and conditions. Price, who converted his immense candle-factory near London into a veritable Christian seminary for mutual improvement in knowledge, virtue, and piety, professed to owe his impulse to this enterprise solely to the "Life of Arnold," and like instances were multiplied in very various professions throughout the English-speaking world. In fine, example is of service to us, not in pointing out the precise things to be done, but in exhibiting the beauty, loveliness, and majesty of moral goodness, the possibility of exalted moral attainments, and the varied scope for their exercise in human life. Even he whose example we, as Christians, hold in a reverence which none other shares, is to be imitated, not by slavishly copying his specific acts, which, because they were suitable in Judaea in the first century, are for the most part unfitting in America in the nineteenth century, but by imbibing his spirit, and then incarnating it in the forms of active duty and service appropriate to our time and land.

Finally, and obviously, *the practice of virtue* is the most efficient means of moral self-culture. As the thought uttered or written becomes indelibly fixed in the mind, so does the principle or sentiment embodied in action become more intimately and persistently an element of the moral self-consciousness.



Chapter X.

JUSTICE; OR, DUTIES TO ONE'S FELLOW-BEINGS.

Justice, in the common use of the word, refers only to such rights and dues as can be precisely defined, enacted by law, and enforced by legal authority. Yet we virtually recognize a broader meaning of the word, whenever we place law and justice in opposition to each other, as when we speak of an unjust law. In this phrase we imply that there is a supreme and universal justice, of whose requirements human law is but a partial and imperfect transcript. This justice must embrace all rights and dues of all beings, human and Divine; and it is in this sense that we may regard whatever any one being in the universe can fitly claim of another being as coming under the head of justice. Such, as we have already intimated, is the sense in which we have used the term in the caption of a chapter which will embrace piety and benevolence no less than integrity and veracity.



Section I.

Duties To God.

While we cannot command our affections, we can so *govern and direct our thoughts* as to excite the affections which we desire to cherish; and if certain affections must inevitably result from certain trains or habits of thought, those affections may be regarded as virtually subject to the will, and, if right, as duties. It is in this sense that gratitude and love to God are duties. We cannot contemplate the tokens of his love in the outward universe, the unnumbered objects which have no other possible use than to be enjoyed, the benignity of his perpetual providence, the endowments and capacities of our own being, the immortality of our natural aspiration and our Christian faith and hope, the forgiveness and redemption that come to us through Jesus Christ, and the immeasurable blessings of his mission and gospel, without fervent gratitude to our infinite Benefactor. Nor can we think of him as the Archetype and Source of all those traits of spiritual beauty and excellence which, in man, call forth our reverence, admiration, and affection, without loving in Him perfect goodness, purity, and mercy. These attributes might, indeed, of themselves fail to present the Supreme Being to our conceptions as a cognizable personality, were it not that the personal element is so clearly manifest in the visible universe and in God's constant providence. But there are numerous objects, phenomena, and events in nature and providence which have—so to speak—a distinctive personal expression, so that the familiar metaphors of God's countenance, smile, hand, and voice do not transcend the literal experience of him who goes through life with the inward eye and ear always open.

The omnipresence of God makes it the dictate of natural piety to address Him directly in *thanksgiving and prayer*,—not, of necessity, in words, except as words are essential to the definiteness of thoughts, but in such words or thoughts as constitute an expression to Him of the sentiments of which He is fittingly the object. As regards prayer, indeed, the grave doubts that exist in some minds as to its efficacy might be urged as a reason why it should not be offered; but wrongly. It is so natural, so intrinsically fitting to ask what we desire and need of an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-merciful Being, who has taught us to call him our Father, that the very appropriateness of the asking is in itself a strong reason for believing that we shall not ask in vain. Nor can we ask in vain, if through this communion of the human spirit with the Divine there be an inflow of strength or of peace into the soul that prays, even though the specific objects prayed for be not granted. That these objects, when material, are often not granted, we very well know; yet we know too little of the extent of material laws, and of the degree to which a discretionary Providence may work, not in contravention of, but through those laws, to pronounce dogmatically that the prayers of men are wholly unrecognized in the course of events.

As the members of the same community have very numerous blessings and needs in common, it is obviously fitting that they should unite in *public worship, praise, and prayer*; and if this be a duty of the community collectively, participation in it must, by parity of reason, be the duty of its individual members. Public worship involves the fitness, we may even say the necessity, of appropriating exclusively to it certain places and times. Associations attach themselves to places so indelibly, that it would be impossible to maintain the gravity and sacredness of devotional services in buildings or on spots ordinarily devoted to secular purposes, either of business or of recreation. Nor could assemblies for worship be convened, otherwise that at predetermined and stated intervals; nor could their devotional purpose be served, were there not stated portions of time sequestered from ordinary avocations and amusements. Hence the duty—on the part of all who admit the fitness of public worship—of reverence for conventionally sacred places, and of abstinence from whatever is inconsistent with the religious uses of the day appropriated to worship.(11)

It remains for us to consider *the obligations imposed by an acknowledged revelation from God*. The position in which we are placed by such a revelation may best be illustrated by reference to what takes place in every human family. A judicious father's commands, precepts, or counsels to his son are of two kinds. In the first place, he lays emphatic stress on duties which the son knows or might know from his own sense of the fitting and the right, such as honesty, veracity, temperance. These duties will not be in reality any more incumbent on the son because they are urged upon him by his father; but if he be a son worthy of the name, he will be more profoundly impressed by their obligation, and will find in his filial love an additional and strong motive toward their observance. The father will, in the second place, prescribe either for his son's benefit or in his own service certain specific acts, in themselves morally indifferent, and these, when thus prescribed, are no longer indifferent, but, as acts of obedience to rightful authority, they become fitting, right, obligatory, and endowed with all the characteristics of acts that are in themselves virtuous. Now a revelation naturally would, and the Christian revelation does, contain precepts and commands of both these classes. It prescribes with solemn emphasis the natural virtues which are obligatory upon us on grounds of intrinsic fitness; and though these are not thus made any the more our duty, we have, through the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, a more vivid sense of our obligation, a higher appreciation of the beauty of virtue, and added motives to its cultivation derived from the love, the justice, and the retributive providence of God. The Christian revelation, also, contains certain directions, not in themselves of any intrinsic obligation, as, for instance, those relating to baptism and the eucharist. So far as we can see, other and very different rites might have served the same purpose with these. Yet it is fitting and right that these, and not others, should be observed, simply because the Divine authority which enacts them has a right to command and to be obeyed. Duties of this class are commonly called positive, in contradistinction from natural obligations. Both classes are equally imperative on the ground of fitness; but with this difference, that in the latter class the fitness resides in the duties themselves, in the former it grows out of the relation between him who gives and those who receive the command.



Section II.

Duties Of The Family.

*The inviolableness and permanence of marriage* are so absolutely essential to the stability and well-being of families, as to be virtually a part of the law of nature. The young of other species have but a very brief period of dependence; while the human child advances very slowly toward maturity, and for a considerable portion of his life needs, for both body and mind, support, protection, and guidance from his seniors. The separation of parents by other causes than death might leave it an unsolvable question, to which of them the custody of their children appertained; and in whichever way they were disposed of, their due nurture and education would be inadequately secured. The children might be thrown upon the mother's care, while the means of supporting them belonged exclusively to the father. Or in the father's house they might suffer for lack of a mother's personal attention and services; while if he contracted a new matrimonial connection, the children of the previous marriage could hardly fail of neglect, or even of hatred and injury, from their mother's successful rival, especially if she had children of her own.(12)

The life-tenure of the marriage-contract contributes equally to the *happiness of the conjugal relation*, in the aggregate. There are, no doubt, individual cases of hardship, in which an utter and irremediable incompatibility of temper and character makes married life a burden and a weariness to both parties. But the cases are much more numerous, in which discrepancies of taste and disposition are brought by time and habit into a more comprehensive harmony, and the husband and wife, because unlike, become only the more essential, each to the other's happiness and welfare. Where there is sincere affection, there is little danger that lapse of years in a permanent marriage will enfeeble it; while, were the contract voidable at will, there might be after marriage, as often before marriage, a series of attachments of seemingly equal ardor, each to be superseded in its turn by some new attraction. Where, on the other hand, the union is the result, not of love, but of mutual esteem and confidence, aided by motives of convenience, the very possibility of an easy divorce would render each party captious and suspicious, so that confidence could be easily shaken, and esteem easily impaired; while in those who expect always to have a common home the tendency is to those habits of mutual tolerance, accommodation, and concession, through which confidence and esteem ripen into sincere and lasting affection.