The Republican journal., 1875-04-22

| Between the notion of right and the notion q
| utility, between the idea of duty and the i,le
| of pleasure, there is a radical difference, toun
| expressed in all languages, which no process
of development can bridge over. If we wou
reach the sphere of the moral, we must com
| mence higher up than on the plane Of the eX
pedient. The principle of association of idea
| can do much. In the hands of certain schoo
| OF philosophers it is made to explain every
| thing. But, in truth, it can never bridge suci
chasm as this. The laws Of association ar
but the laws Of the succession of ideas and 0
the attached or attaching feeling. They cal
fuse two or more already existing ideas int
one; but they can never of themselves general,
any new idea. Make it work and mix and ag
gltltlnate as vigorously as you please, you can
not bring out by means of it anything ditferen
from what was given it at first. No association
of Ideas will give blind man any idea of color
or a man born deaf any idea of music. From
pleasures and pains the only ideas we can gel
are those of pleasures and pains, never ideas
OF right and wrong. If we ever seem by virtue
OF the association Of ideas to get more than we
put IN, it is because, like the old alchemists
who pretended to have discovered how to get
gold out of ordinary metal, the higher element
Is secretly slipped in somewhere during the pro-
cess. This, in fact, is the case with the Utili-
tarian ''We should seek the greatest happi-
ness OF the greatest number" he SAYS. Here
is all that we need as the foundation of NOR
atty But why should we do so? There is
llO lcuSOl ~ Dt given cACcIl 10 say tllal all
men have equal rights to happiness. And now
is this known except BY direct moral intuition
OF instinct:
If the origin Of our ideas Of right aud wrong
be i'll the utility or peasurableness Of the ac-
tons. the Vlrtuousness of actions should be
greater the more these qualities are involved,
and diminish when they diminish. But in
point OF fact it is just the reverse of this. The
nobest acts are those most disconnected with
advantage. "Generositv and courage command
from us admiration, not only apart from their
utility, but because they set at defiance all
utility, and make us feel that to such men there
are things dearer than eternal joy If the
idea of the yirtuous is but the idea of the Use
ful and the pleasant, accumulated and refined
through descent, whence came we to believe it
duty to feel grateful: whence came that sen
timent of the superiority of the right to all profit
or pleasure which has found expression in the
proverbs -"Let Justice be done though the
heavens fa"' Ii conscience be but a deposit
left by the selfish experiences of the race,
whence came it to give its highest praise rather
than its strongest condemnation to the sacrifice
OF sell? whence came it ever to prompt to any
deed of heroism? Take the death of 4 Savon-
arOla or Il Huss, nay, of common soldier or
brake man who will stand at his post till the last
and how weak and insufficient is any such eX-
planaion. The natural heart, even Of the pro-
fessed Utilitarian, atfrms the existence of Il
higher bond. - If the Almighty" said MIR.
hlll, WOulu Sclll me 10 nell because would
not f1atter him with untruths, then to hell |
will 60" brave and noble resolution, touch
ing the very summit of virtue. But if such a
course is right for him, it is right for all the
rest Of mankind. But when the whole race
have thus gone to perdition in obedience to the
eternal law of truth, are we still to believe that
there was nothing in such rectitude but 1.-THE
seeking the greatest happiness of the greatest
number?"
Our moral sense is then no product of pleas
uSable sense or useful experience No spawn
Of circumstances or OF associated ideas. 1t i,
a distinct, undecomposable element. 1t is Il
native instinct. Its essential declarations are
primary intuitions. From primeyal times
downward there have been constant signs OF
its presence. 1t is this that has written laws.
1t is this that has built courts of justice. The
remorse Of the transgressor, the peace of the
innocent, are its abiding universal witnesses.
1t has inspired the martyr and raised up the
champions of liberty. From it, as from root,
spring our aspirations for social rectitude. 1t
blossoms in such maXims as "Do As YOU would
be done by Honesty is the best policy
':Might is not right" Its fruit is equity. nl
out Wieklitfe, Knox, and Luther to contend
with the Pope. Itpiloted the pilgrim fathers to
the new world. 1t led out our Unitarian an-
cestor- with pain and reluctance from thC
church they We're reared in. To-day it shows
itself in sympathy with all oppressed, atlmira
ton of every brave word or disintercsted act
sorrow and shame at every divergence from
high principle. We may-we must, if we SEE
Its full character and primal source-We mus
fhbe 46 Is as the u & teaehers and pr9Phet' Of oI dL
Wondrous world be NOT mere pile of meaning
less dust, but the manifestation OF the ideas M,
feelings of its Divine Creator; if he who can
penetrate to the comprehension of one of it,
laws can say, as kepier did when he caught
sight Oh the laws of planetary motion, Il think
God, thy thoughts after thee" if we can dis
Germ that our physical, mental, and moral con.
stitution was the work of the Creator, and tell
respectively Of His power, His intelligence, an,
His holiness, then, indeed, we can give to oll
conscience no lower position than that of tho
divine speech within us, procla inning to us oul
duty.
But we are not to imagine that the mora
sense, because OF this divine origin and signlfi
cation, is fully developed in Us from the first
or equally developed III all men. Its declart
tons are at first very few, very simple. 1t,
essential function, lis first work, is Just to If
tirm that there Is something else than set-loyc
eXpediency, or happiness to be considered; tha
there is right and that there is a wrong, an,
that we are under paramount and solemn OBJ
legation to do the right and to avoid the wrong
10 keep us conscious of this--this, ! say, is tn,
| essential work Of the conscience, a thing il
which there has never been any diversity ii
any age or people, L thing without which W,
| flve no basis for any system Of morality
Heu Ill Tue next place conscience gives lis Ger
tam selt-eVldent aAloms of morality and gen
eral principles of virtue and vice, which ma,
form the basis Of our applied systems and fur
| nish guiding lines bv which to direct our steps
This is as far as the proper sphere Of mora
intuition extends. To deduce from these ee
| mentary principles complete system of mo
| rahty; to decide by what means the end al
! proved shall be obtained; to determine qtle>
| tons of supremacy and relative obligation
among conflicting duties; to solve puzzles 0
casuistry; to unravel the windings of soph
| istry; to determine what notifications sh;ll
! be made because of circumstances this is no
the work Of the intuitive moral faculty, but @
deduction, OF reason, a thing each man must d
| for himself God gives every man at startn
the moral loadstone that will point ever to tn
| pole-star of right, but he must interpret its me
tons for himself, he must pick out his way atte
that by his own skill. For God desires ma
! to learn, to become Independent, not stay rs
child. Moreover, Qor the analogy Of the loa,
stone holds still further) as the mariners ma4
net though of itself ever true, must yet i
isolated and watched and guarded against al
fractions of neighboring metal and local cu
rents of electricity, and can be depended o
only when kept true to the magnetic meridian
so the magnet of conscience (divinelv fashione
| and true as it is in itself must be constant
guarded against the seductons of passion an
interest, and against divergence by educatio
| and society; and it can be depended upon onl
when kept in the meridian Of the highest el
| lightcnment and purity.
The diversities of moral judgment that hay
spoken of do not, then, dsprove the eXistent
and authority Of Il special moral sense. Bl
they do show that it needs watching. that
needs education. 1t is the mis-e,lucatiol
the misapplication of conscience, that WORK
the enormities that we see committed in i
sacred name. Take the most fragrant of the,
cases, and we see that the motive, the origin
intuition with which the conscience starts,
quite right. The Feejee Islander strangles h
parents only out of what he believes kindne
to them. The Inquisitor tortures and burr
not out of cruelty, but solely that he may pr'
serve the world from religious error. l.,
Casas introduced negro slavery into Amerit
with the high aim of saving the red man fro
destruction. Attila eXtirpated and erased Sc
entv cities, not in blood-thirstiness, but becau,
he believed himself Gods avenger, called
execute upon them their merited punishment
It is in the application Of the general aXo
Of conscience to the wrong case-the selectic
Of principle, true, but not appropriately
the error of such deeds comes. To prevel
such things, the moral faculty must be traine
must be enlightened.
We talk about a lawyers conscience, pol
tician's conscience, a traders conscience "a CO..
ductor's conscience, as if there were separa
| n ipi ~ a