Moral truth

“ It is, on the contrary, a doctrine of the first moral and sociological importance that truth, wisdom, and righteousness come only by painstaking, study, and striving. These things are so hard that it is only the few who attain to them. ”

“ And, while the helpless subject of this great moral art is every moment requiring our aid,—with an understanding that may rise, from truth to truth, to the sublimest discoveries, or may remain sunk forever in ignorance, and with susceptibilities of vice that may be repressed, and of virtue that may be cherished,—can we know too well the means of checking what is evil, and of fostering what is good? ”

“ But the important truth to observe is not the particular details of their haphazard origin but the causes of their survival. Overlaying the countless originating causes of moral ideals are two main preservation—causes, two constant factors which retain certain of the innumerable impulses for one reason or other momentarily dominant. These are of extreme significance for a comprehension of the function of morality in life. ”

“ It would not repay us to investigate these difficulties in detail; they arise from doctrines which are not false in themselves, but each of which is false if taken as the expression of the whole truth, and their solution will come readily from the answer to the question, Who for the moral consciousness is the most moral man? ”

“ The various peoples had collections of moral precepts and rules for right living, often bright with gems of ethical truth and beauty, usually in close connection with religious beliefs and convictions ”

“ There is, next, the constant conviction of the reality of moral accountableness on the one hand, and of the strength of the passions and of the allurements of sense on the other, of the costing ethical character of the search for light and truth, of the ceaseless necessity of a turning of the whole man, of conversion. ”

“ Man naturally loves justice for its own sake, as the na- tural object of his conscience. As the mind loves truth and beauty, so conscience loves the right ; it is true and beautiful to the moral faculties. Conscience rests injustice as an end, as the mind in truth. As truth is the side of God turned towards the intellect, so is justice the side of Him which conscience looks upon. Love of justice is the moral part of piety. ”

“ Moral truths relate to such things as belong to every man's life in relation to society and his intercourse with others; in general, to sincerity and uprightness, and specifically to the virtues of every kind. ”

“ Therefore the great truth of moral principle should be regarded above the smaller truths of material facts and mental logic—and many of the inhabitants of your world, if I know mortal nature, will agree with me. ”

“ “But we shall both be amply repaid for their discussion, if this truth remain with you—that an opinion, right or wrong, can never constitute a moral offence, nor be in itself a moral obligation. It may be mistaken; it may involve an absurdity, or a contradiction. It is a truth; ”

“ but moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth. They lie not open as natural characters engraved on the mind; ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And it may be admitted that, in some cases at least, it is right and proper that a man’s motives should thus influence our judgment. But the question is: What sort of moral judgment is it right and proper that they should influence? ”

“ You will see men who, so far as theory is concerned, will discourse eloquently concerning human justice and morality, yet they utterly disregard and ignore all moral restraints in their private character and practices. ”

“ Yet this very tone of society, and all these standards of honor and uprightness, when traced to their origin, are found to arise from the precepts of revelation. We are all, physically and intellectually, the creatures of circumstance. Experience moulds and develops the intellect. Our moral natures are not innate, but solely and entirely the result of the influences by which we are surrounded. ”

“ You are this; for all these ideas, upon analysis, prove to possess an essential positive meaning, such as the Absolute Life inevitably fulfils. Moreover, whatever you do and intend as your act in a moral world really accomplishes what it morally ought to accomplish. So far, then, your life is real, and not illusory. ”

“ It is, moreover, equally absurd to look upon moral values as ultimate and irreducible categories of good and evil, irrevocably codified by an omniscient Deity for the conduct of humanity for all time, and supposedly accessible to the intelligence of all who consult their conscience. ”

“ They arrived,—though failing, as has been said, to give adequate practical satisfaction to the claims of man's moral side,—at the idea of a comprehensive adjustment of the claims of both the sides in man, the moral as well as the intellectual, of a full estimate of both, and of a reconciliation of both; an idea which is philosophically of the greatest value, and the best of lessons for us moderns. ”

“ We may love the true and the beautiful and the right. We may love the right as right. According to our choices we make the ethically good our own and mould our life into its excellence and blessedness, or the contrary. These feelings are motive powers, bringing occasions for choices.
It is proper to take note, however, that it is only the feelings in view of the right or wrong of an act yet to be done, that are directly moral motives. ”

“ Likewise the readings set before us the burning words of first one and then another prophetical soul to deepen in our own the conviction of the seriousness of life, its far-reaching responsibilities, the realisation of the boundless capacities for good or evil which man has within him, and the utter worthlessness of all things on this earth compared with character, integrity, the perfection of the will by conformity with the moral law. ”

“ For now let us observe that the ethical sentiment and idea, properly so-called, are independent of the ideas and sentiments above described as derived from external authorities, and coercions, and approbations—religious, political, or social. The true moral consciousness which we name conscience does not refer to those extrinsic results of conduct which take the shape of praise or blame, reward or punishment, externally awarded ”

“ When I attempt to convince any one that certain conduct which he considers right is wrong, by showing him that it is opposed to the general welfare, my final appeal is to his conscience. And in the same manner, when I correct some of my own moral conceptions, it is my conscience which determines me to the proof of them, and my conscience which is the standard that determines my decision. Conscience is the principle underlying my moral convictions. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in this further discernment is revealed the nexus that binds together perceived right and man's responsibility to it. Hence, this is the cardinal thing in the conscience, for which the ethical idea prepares, and upon which the moral life rests. It is the point at which humanity is organized under a moral constitution and the behests of moral law. It is the sublime endowment in which man's nature is capacitated for its position, as standing face to face with the sublimer reality of the divine government over the world. ”

“ But, may it not be said, that every system of ethics must, or ought, to terminate, in plain and general maxims for the use of life? and, though in such axioms no discovery is made, does not the beauty of the moral theory consist in the premises, and the chain of reasoning that leads to the conclusion? ”

“ Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whase stay an' trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice! ”

“ 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. ”

“ In previous lectures I have explained what I understand moral goodness to be, and how it is possible that there should be such a thing; in other words, what are the conditions on the part of reason and will which are implied in our being able to conceive moral goodness as an object to be aimed at, and to give some partial reality to the conception. ”

“ It is a remarkable fact that the testimonies from literature and life to the phenomenon of moral distinctions everywhere maintain the difference between the idea of right and that of the pleasurable or profitable. ”

“ On any theory of right and wrong the man himself, not the accident of fortune, determines the moral character of his act; and this view must be held equally whether one believes the man’s will to be free or to be bound. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Of what may we justly affirm moral quality? Where does the conscience apply the distinctions of right and wrong? What are properly the objects, and the only objects, of moral approval or condemnation? Or, to put it in a way possibly more easily understood, to what human activities or features of life does moral quality belong?
It has already been noted in general that only personal beings can be moral agents or become, in what they are and do, objects of moral judgment. Apart from personality, no place for virtue or vice can be found. ”

“ The discussions have certified the immovable foundations and essential features of the moral system. The fresh light from the advance of knowledge has proved, as it always does, not destructive, but corrective and confirmatory. ”

“ What the moralist asks is, Shall we gain or lose by surrendering human life to the relative spirit? Experience answers that the dominant tendency of life is to turn ascertained truth into a dead letter, to make us all the phlegmatic servants of routine. The relative spirit, by its constant dwelling on the more fugitive conditions or circumstances of things, breaking through a thousand rough and brutal classifications, and giving elasticity to inflexible principles, begets an intellectual finesse of which the ethical result is a delicate and tender justice in the criticism of human life. ”

“ Out of this strife morality is breathed up like a rainbow between the sun and storm. Moreover, by adopting these views, we get rid of the necessity of postulating a moral sense, and of all the other hypothetical subsidies to which an erroneous philosophy has recourse in explaining the phenomena of man. ”

“ We note how emphatically the field in which this wisdom is to be exercised is declared to be the moral conduct of life. 'Righteousness and judgment and equity' are 'wise dealing,' and the end of true wisdom is to practise these. ”

“ This new intellectual life, speaking broadly, has reacted favorably upon the moral life. It has dispelled superstition, destroyed prejudices, widened the outlook of men, and broadened their moral sympathies. ”

“ The dispute of the moralists has reference, not to any characteristic of the qualities in conduct which we cognize as moral, but to the mode in which they are cognized. Our conception of such qualities involves the conception of absoluteness in them, and it is only by that notion of absoluteness that they are distinguished from the other qualities which appear in human conduct, such as wisdom, prudence, ingenuity, and the like. ”

“ We are aware of the attempts which have been made to invest our emotions with the stamp and attribute of morality: but, in addition to the testimony of our own experience, we have the highest authority for holding that none of the natural feelings or modifications of the human heart partake in any degree of a moral character. ”