Moral goodness

“ Its end is to make the mind sensible of the bond between virtue and happiness; it is the direct and vivid application of the law of merit. Again, he touches the states of moral satisfaction and remorse, speaks of our sympathy with the moral goodness of others and our benevolent feeling that arises towards them—emotions all, but covering up judgments ”

“ 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. ”

“ Thirdly, That the moral duty of man consists in imitating the moral goodness and beneficence of God manifested in the creation towards all his creatures. That seeing as we daily do the goodness of God to all men, it is an example calling upon all men to practise the same towards each other; and, consequently, that every thing of persecution and revenge between man and man, and every thing of cruelty to animals, is a violation of moral duty. ”

“ Is there a profession, or trade, or court, or country which has not been sanctified by moral heroes who drew in their holy inspirations from its lessons? And who can tell us the amount of goodness in every-day life, to some extent necessarily hidden, but of which we catch such unearthly glimpses, and which is the practical fruit of its principles? {299} The virtuous families, the upright transactions, the glorious sacrifices, the noble charities, the restraint of passion, the interior purity, the patient perseverance! ”

“ I propose therefore to begin our inquiry into the detail of goodness—into the particular kinds of conduct which the man wishing to do good for the sake of its goodness is entitled to count good—by considering what is of permanent moral value in the institutions of civil life, as established in Europe; in what way they have contributed and contribute to the possibility of morality in the higher sense of the term, and are justified, or have a moral claim upon our loyal conformity, in consequence. ”

“ They insist that there has been no moral growth in human nature, as a whole, to accompany the evolution of rational faculties and powers; and that, while human conduct has been gathering its potent gains of prudence, ingenuity, skillfulness, and the like—which are qualities relative to means and ends—it has gained, on the whole, in the absolute qualities of rightness and goodness, either nothing at all or less. ”

“ By as much as this theory of despair is suited to atrophy all nerve for the ethical task, and sink personality from its true intended elevation of divine fellowship and excellence into the inanity of unconscious being, by so much does the Christian truth of the assured success and victory of right and goodness in the advancing kingdom of God's grace and eternal love, exalting the worth and force of personality to the highest, inspire and sustain the moral endeavor. ”

“ We, too, rely on his goodness, on his goodness as manifested, not in extraordinary interpositions, but in those general laws which it has pleased him to establish in the physical and in the moral world. ”

“ It is not enough to ask what is most attractive, what line of life will ensure the greatest material gain or worldly honour? Rather should we ask, Where shall I be safest from moral danger, and, above all, in what position of life, open to me, can I do the most good? ”

“ To me it would establish no more than a good wholesome principle upon which the wicked may act, as well as the righteous—a principle upon which the world ought to act, by the moral obligations they are under to stretch out the arm of charity to every person, to fill up their days with industry, prudence, and faithfulness, procuring means to sustain themselves, and to administer to the wants of those who are unable to administer to themselves. ”

“ Still I agree to make a further concession to the pride of Virtue. Let the moral qualities of some men be so excellent, and the tenour of their lives so pure, as to entitle them to a positive reward from the great searcher of hearts and inspector of human actions: would not the daily blessings of this life be a suitable recompense for such desert; would not health, and prosperity, and reputation, and peace of mind, be an adequate return for their best services? ”

“ Secondly, that while there is diversity as to many points, there is none in its judgments as to the great body of virtues and vices of human life. As to all the49 leading qualities of character and conduct there is full and universal agreement. With respect to all the cardinal virtues, such as justice, kindness, veracity, love, courage, fidelity, generosity, the moral judgments approve them as the magnet owns its pole, in all the multi-form relations and offices of life. ”

“ As I consider virtue and vice to consist in action, and not in opinion, and as this action has its seat in the will, and not in the conscience, I shall confine my inquiries chiefly to the influence of physical causes upon that moral power of the mind, which is connected with volition, although many of these causes act likewise upon the conscience, as I shall show hereafter. The state of the moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society. ”

“ And this accords with the best cosmic philosophy.172 For this holds all these relations as parts of a rationally designed system of world-order for universal well-being, and the moral reason as capacitated to discern, with more or less clearness and fulness, the moral requirement which they involve and present for observance. We know of no morality that exists, or can exist, in human life, apart from them. Strike them all away, and all duties disappear. Take, as illustration, the most generic virtue of all the virtues recognized by the ethical judgments, that of good-will or love. ”

“ As moral agents, for whom alone exist all the predicaments of merit and demerit, praise and blame, effort and failure, vice and virtue, we are impotent and lost;—we are saved through that in us which is passive and involuntary; we are saved through our affections, it is as beings acted upon and influenced that we are saved! ”

“ Do you know, I sometimes think that all this talk of virtue, and teaching of religion, is a kind of practical joke, gravely kept up to find a church parade of respectability for States, a profession for hundreds, and a means of influencing men by making a tender point in their nervous system to be touched, as with a rod, when necessary—a rod that is held over them always in terrorem! We all talk about morality; but try some measure of reform, and you will find that every man sees the necessity of it for his neighbour only. Goodness is happiness, and sin is disease. ”

“ They concerned the powers and possibilities of man in the crowning endowments of his nature, and in the highest ascent of their evident intention and adaptation. They touched the great problems of personal and social welfare in the most vital relations and decisive interests. So the old sages became moralists and their great themes were the themes of virtue and duty. Not very deeply, however, did they, for centuries, succeed in penetrating the rational principles of the moral life and the authority of the moral judgments. ”

“ Moral perfection for himself, and, as the outcome to the world, not a new church or a theology or a missionary enterprise, but a winning of the forces of nature to the service of man, and a shaping of the social organism for the benefit of all. ”

“ Clothed in actual flesh and blood, the sweet persuasiveness of the ideal—the nobility and divineness of suffering voluntarily borne in the stead of another—made unwonted appeal to the heart of humanity, and for eighteen hundred years and more, accepted as a true symbol and interpretation of the moral order, it has been a chief molding force in the moral life of the Western world. ”

“ When this adjustment is effected, the right working of man's moral nature is secured; in other words, moral virtue is the result, while happiness is at the same time attained, inasmuch as man is now living a rational life in the best and noblest way in which such a life can be led—in accordance, namely, with excellence or virtue. ”

“ And this is true, but how are we to get men to accept it? Teach men to believe in a future life and you strengthen every moral sentiment and every Godward aspiration by revealing the true dignity of human nature. ”

“ It is inquired for what reason a human being should engage in procuring the happiness, or refrain from producing the pain of another? When a reason is required to prove the necessity of adopting any system of conduct, what is it that the objector demands? He requires proof of that system of conduct being such as will most effectually promote the happiness of mankind. To demonstrate this, is to render a moral reason. Such is the object of Virtue. ”

“ When we are governed by this motive, which the men of the world would deride as the figment of an enthusiastic imagination, our benevolence becomes one of the established laws of our moral system, which admits of no suspension or diversion, without occasioning a shock to our sense of right and wrong. ”

“ If we teach righteousness, let us also practice righteousness in every sense of the word; if we teach morality let us be moral; let us see to it that we preserve ourselves within the bounds of all the good which we teach to others. ”

“ The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, on the other; the two classes of motives conspiring to promote both our own good and the good of mankind. ”

“ By appealing directly to the individual conscience, and making religion a matter of personal concern and of moral conviction, it raised the value of each individual as a responsible moral agent, and placed the dignity of every man as a social monad on the firmest possible pedestal. ”

“ Moral courage is requisite to meet the wrong and proclaim the right. But how shall we reform the man who has more animal than moral courage, who has less Soul, because he has more material sense? Through my method of silent argument, convince his reason of its mistaken means for procuring happiness. Perhaps reason is his highest human faculty. Let that inform the sentiments, and awaken his dormant sense of moral obligation; and by degrees he will learn the nothingness of the pleasures of human sense, and the grandeur and bliss of a diviner sense that is superior to matter. ”

“ To these profound principles of natural knowledge are added some moral instructions equally new; that self-interest, well understood, will produce social concord; that men are mutual gainers by mutual benefits; that evil is sometimes balanced by good; that human advantages are unstable and fallacious, of uncertain duration and doubtful effect; that our true honour is not to have a great part, but to act it well; that virtue only is our own ”

“ Thus, moral good consists in preferring what there is best in us to what there is least good; the goods of the soul to the goods of the body; the dignity of human nature to the servitude of animal passions ”

“ LVIII. No other forces are to be recognized than those which reside in matter, and all moral teaching and moral excellence ought to be made to consist in the accumulation and increase of riches by every possible means, and in the enjoyment of pleasure. ”

“ That many of the natural virtues have this tendency to the good of society, no one can doubt of. Meekness, beneficence, charity, generosity, clemency, moderation, equity, bear the greatest figure among the moral qualities, and are commonly denominated the social virtues, to mark their tendency to the good of society. ”

“ For though, while in obeying our fallible conscience, we have thus failed to bring our whole outward action in the case into harmony with full duty, or have even done what to others about us or to God above us was wrong, we have maintained our own subjective personal moral integrity, in maintaining that which is the fundamental and essential element of all morality, the right intention and effort. ”

“ Besides, independently of their intrinsic merits, whether intellectual or moral, the necessities of their daily life serve to impress them with respect for the great rules of morality, which in most cases were framed for their own protection. ”

“ The healthy state of a moral being is strikingly referred, in the sacred writings, to three great heads,—justice,—benevolence,—and a conformity of the moral feelings to a reverential sense of the presence and perfections of the Deity;—"to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." ”

“ While the result of the contest is so honourable [207] and advantageous to us and to posterity, it is to be lamented that those moral and religious duties so essential to the order of society and the permanent happiness of mankind, have been too much neglected. To recover them into practice, the life and conduct of every good man should be a constant example. ”

“ It is, moreover, efficient in proportion to the purity of the moral principle of a people. We hence perceive the elements of superiority which, by the constitution of our nature, have been bestowed upon virtue.
Another illustration of the power of the moral principle, is seen in the sentiments with which we contemplate the character of confessors, martyrs, and men of every age, who have sacrificed every thing else for the sake of adherence to righteousness. The highest glory of human nature is to love right better than life, and to obey the dictates of conscience at every conceivable hazard. ”

“ What is called 'moral sentiment' is merely a weaker form of that interest in social well-being which, when wrought into a man's habits and strong enough to determine action, we call virtue. So far as this interest is brought into play on the mere survey of action, and serves merely to determine an approbation or disapprobation, it is called moral sentiment. ”