Chapter VII: Responsibility

"The astronomers said, 'Give us matter, and a little motion, and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove to launch the mass, and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and centripetal forces. Once heave the ball from the hand, and we can show how all this mighty order grew.'"--Emerson. _Nature._

"The essence of the Scandinavian, as indeed of all Pagan Mythologies, we found to be recognition of the divineness of Nature; sincere communion of man with the mysterious invisible Powers visibly seen at work in the world round him.... Such recognition of Nature one finds to be the chief element of Paganism: recognition of Man, and his Moral Duty, though this too is not wanting, comes to be the chief element only in purer forms of religion. Here, indeed, is a great distinction and epoch in Human Beliefs; a great landmark in the religious development of Mankind. Man first puts himself in relation with Nature and her Powers, wonders and worships over those; not till a later epoch does he discern that all Power is Moral, that the grand point is the distinction for him of Good and Evil, of _Thou shalt and Thou shalt not_."--Carlyle. _Heroes._

"Our Religion is not yet a horrible restless Doubt, still less a far horribler composed Cant; but a great heaven-high Unquestionability, encompassing, interpenetrating the whole of Life. Imperfect as we may be, we are here, to testify incessantly and indisputably to every heart, That this Earthly Life, and _its_ riches and possessions, and good and evil hap, are not intrinsically a reality at all, but _are_ a shadow of realities eternal, infinite; that this Time-world, as an air-image, fearfully _emblematic_, plays and flickers in the grand still mirror of Eternity; and man's little Life has Duties that are great, that are alone great."--Carlyle. _Past and Present._

"Goodness and greatness are not means but ends.
Hath he not always treasures, always friends,
The good great man?--Three treasures, life and light,
And calm thoughts, regular as infant's breath;
And three firm friends, more sure than day and night--
Himself, his Maker, and the Angel Death."

S. T. Coleridge.

"Omnia terrena
Per vices sunt aliena:
nescio sunt cuius;
mea nunc, cras huius et huius.
Dic, homo, quid speres,
si mundo totus adheres;
nulla tecum feres,
licet tu solus haberes."

From "_This World is false and vain_," lines 41-48.

"Threefold is the march of Time,
The Future, lame and lingering, totters on;
Swift as a dart the Present hurries by;
The Past stands fixed in mute Eternity.

"To urge his slow advancing pace
Impatience nought avails,
Nor fear, nor doubt, can check his race,
As fleetly past he sails.
No spell, no deep remorseful throes
Can move him from his stern repose.

"Mortal! they bid thee read this rule sublime:
Take for thy councillor the lingering one;
Make not the flying visitor thy friend,
Nor choose thy foe in him that standeth without end."

_After Confucius_, by Sir. J. Herschel.

"The world that I regard is myself; it is the microcosm of mine own frame that I cast mine eye on; for the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round sometimes for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, perusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude; for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point not only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly and celestial part within us: that mass of flesh that circumscribes me, limits not my mind: that surface that tells the heavens it hath an end, cannot persuade me I have any: I take my circle to be above three hundred and sixty; though the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth not my mind: whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, or little world, I find myself something more than the great. There is surely a piece of divinity in us, something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun."

Sir T. Browne. _Religio Medici._

[Greek: ison de nyktessin aiei,
isa d' en hamerais halion echontes aponesteron
esloi dedorkanti bion, ou chthona tarassontes en cheros akma
oude pontion hydôr
keinan para diaitan; alla para men timiois
theôn, hoitines echairon euorkiais, adakryn nemontai
aiôna'....
..... entha makarôn
nasos ôkeanides
aurai peripneois in, anthema de chrysou phlegei,
ta men chersothen ap' aglaôn dendreôn, hydôr d'alla pherbei
hormoisi tôn cheras anaplekonti kai kephalas.]

Pindar. _Olymp._ II.

"Stern Daughter of the Voice of God!
O Duty! if that name thou love
Who art a Light to guide, a Rod
To check the erring, and reprove;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe;
From vain temptations dost set free;
From strife and from despair; a glorious ministry.

* * * * *

"I, loving freedom, and untried;
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust:
Resolved that nothing e'er should press
Upon my present happiness,
I shoved unwelcome tasks away;
But thee I now would serve more strictly, if I may.

"Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy controul;
But in the quietness of thought:
Me this uncharter'd freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance desires:
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose which ever is the same.

"Yet not the less would I throughout
Still act according to the voice
Of my own wish; and feel past doubt
That my submissiveness was choice:
Not seeking in the school of pride
For 'precepts over dignified,'
Denial and restraint I prize
No farther than they breed a second Will more wise.

"Stern Lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace:
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds;
And Fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the Stars from wrong;
And the most ancient Heavens through Thee are fresh and strong.

"To humbler functions, awful Power!
I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh! let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wise,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;
The confidence of reason give;
And in the light of truth thy Bondman let me live!"

Wordsworth. _Poems_, 1807.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VII.

The object of this Chapter is to shew that the universally enforced maxim of Responsibility unites in itself _two_ factors.

(1.) A true power of Causation, as explained in Chapter VI.

(2.) A moral distinction of Right and Wrong.

This _second_ element of Responsibility is next investigated, and the Moral antithesis shewn to be inalienable. Right can never be Wrong, nor Wrong ever Right. Justice must certainly prevail at last.

From the connection of Morality with Causation, it may be inferred that the moral Law has its ultimate existence in a Supreme Personality--a just and sovereign God. This conclusion is verified. Human life and Human death read us the same lesson.

_Corollary._--If the conclusion just drawn be accepted, and to know God be Life Eternal, we may also infer an _à priori_ probability of some Supernatural assistances, intended to strengthen our human weaknesses and diminish our ignorance. This latter purpose would seem likely to include a better aid to happiness, and a more complete code of Moral Maxims.

_Analysis._--As a social fact, Responsibility is universal, and accounted inalienable by any individual man. Responsibility involves Causation in the highest sense, together with Moral Sensibility.

Attempts to refine away ethical Rightness. An appeal to consciousness proposed:--Distinctness of moral feeling;--and its _Permanence_. Antithesis of Right and Wrong an irreconcileable Antagonism. Contrasted with correlation of Power and Function; this antithesis never fluent, but rigorous, immutable, imperishable, absolute. Ultimate coincidence of Happiness with Virtue is a necessary result of Independent Morality.

Moral Law exists conceivably in and by a Will alone; as--

1. Its cause and spring of movement.

2. Its source of expression and practical authority.

Being supreme, it exists in and by a Supreme Moral Will or Personality. That is to say, in and by God.

This conception verified. World inexplicable without Man. Man inexplicable without God; Whom to know is Life Eternal.

_Corollary._--Supernatural assistance apparently to be expected when Moral Law is viewed as a human endowment proceeding from God. Thus Man is made for God, and God has not made Man in vain.

Confirmation from--

1. Image of Divine Love in Nature. 2. Nature of religious Trust as a Belief of Reason. 3. Incompleteness of our ethical knowledge apart from such assistance. 4. Universal expectation of Mankind.

_L'Envoy._