Elements of Morals / With Special Application of the Moral Law to the Duties of the Individual and of Society and the State

ELEMENTS of MORALS:

WITH

SPECIAL APPLICATION OF THE MORAL LAW TO THE
DUTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL AND OF
SOCIETY AND THE STATE.

BY
PAUL JANET,
MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE, OF THE ACADEMY OF MORAL AND POLITICAL
SCIENCES, AUTHOR OF THEORY OF MORALS, HISTORY OF MORAL
AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY, FINAL CAUSES, ETC., ETC.

TRANSLATED BY
Mrs. C. R. CORSON.

A. S. BARNES & CO.,
NEW YORK AND CHICAGO

Copyright, 1884, by A. S. Barnes & Co.

PREFACE.

The Eléments de Morale, by M. Paul Janet, which we here present to the educational world, translated from the latest edition, is, of all the works of that distinguished moralist, the one best adapted to college and school purposes. Its scholarly and methodical arrangement, its clear and direct reasonings, its felicitous examples and illustrations, drawn with rare impartiality from the best ancient and modern writers, make of this study of Ethics, generally so unattractive to young students, one singularly inviting. It is a system of morals, practical rather than theoretical, setting forth man’s duties and the application thereto of the moral law. Starting with Preliminary Notions, M. Janet follows these up with a general division of duties, establishes the general principles of social and individual morality, and chapter by chapter moves from duties to duties, developing each in all its ramifications with unerring clearness, decision, and completeness. Never before, perhaps, was this difficult subject brought to the comprehension of the student with more convincing certainty, and, at the same time, with more vivid and impressive illustrations.

The position of M. Paul Janet is that of the religious moralist.

“He supplies,” says a writer in the British Quarterly Review,[1] in a notice of his Theory of Morals, “the very element to which Mr. Sully gives so little place. He cannot conceive morals without religion. Stated shortly, his position is, that moral good is founded upon a natural and essential good, and that the domains of good and of duty are absolutely equivalent. So far he would seem to follow Kant; but he differs from Kant in denying that there are indefinite duties: every duty, he holds, is definite as to its form; but it is either definite or indefinite as to its application. As religion is simply belief in the Divine goodness, morality must by necessity lead to religion, and is like a flowerless plant if it fail to do so. He holds with Kant that practical faith in the existence of God is the postulate of the moral law. The two things exist or fall together.”

This, as to M. Janet’s position as a moralist; as to his manner of treating his subject, the writer adds:

“... it is beyond our power to set forth, with approach to success, the admirable series of reasonings and illustrations by which his positions are established and maintained.”

M. Janet’s signal merit is the clearness and decision which he gives to the main points of his subject, keeping them ever distinctly in view, and strengthening and supplementing them by substantial and conclusive facts, drawn from the best sources, framing, so to say, his idea in time-honored and irrefutable truths.

The law of duty thus made clear to the comprehension of the student, cannot fail to fix his attention; and between fixing the attention and striking root, the difference is not very great.

C. R. C.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

ELEMENTS OF MORALS.

CHAPTER I.

PRELIMINARY NOTIONS.

SUMMARY.

Starting point of morals.—Notions of common sense.

Object and divisions of morals.—Practical morality and theoretical morality.

Utility of morals.—Morals are useful: 1, in protecting us against the sophisms which combat them; 2, in fixing principles in the mind; 3, in teaching us to reflect upon the motives of our actions; 4, in preparing us for the difficulties which may arise in practice.

Short résumé of theoretical morality.—Pleasure and the good.—The useful and the honest.—Duty.—Moral conscience and moral sentiment.—Liberty.—Merit and demerit.—Moral responsibility.—Moral sanction.

All sciences have for their starting-point certain elementary notions which are furnished them by the common experience of mankind. There would be no arithmetic if men had not, as their wants increased, begun by counting and calculating, and if they had not already had some ideas of numbers, unity, fractions, etc.; neither would there be any geometry if they had not also had ideas of the round, the square, the straight line. The same is true of morals. They presuppose a certain number of notions existing among all men, at least to some degree. Good and evil, duty and obligation, conscience, liberty and responsibility, virtue and vice, merit and demerit, sanction, punishment and reward, are notions which the philosopher has not invented, but which he has borrowed from common sense, to return them again cleared and deepened.

Let us begin, then, by rapidly enumerating the elementary and common notions, the analysis and elucidation of which is the object of moral science, and explain the terms employed to express them.

1. Starting point of morals: common notions.—All men distinguish the good and the bad, good actions and bad actions. For instance, to love one’s parents, respect other people’s property, to keep one’s word, etc., is right; to harm those who have done us no harm, to deceive and lie, to be ungrateful towards our benefactors, and unfaithful to our friends, etc., is wrong.

To do right is obligatory on every one—that is, it should be done; wrong, on the contrary, should be avoided. Duty is that law by which we are held to do the right and avoid the wrong. It is also called the moral law. This law, like all laws, commands, forbids, and permits.

He who acts and is capable of doing the right and the wrong, and who consequently is held to obey the moral law, is called a moral agent. In order that an agent may be held to obey a law, he must know it and understand it. In morals, as in legislation, no one is supposed to be ignorant of the law. There is, then, in every man a certain knowledge of the law, that is to say, a natural discernment of the right and the wrong. This discernment is what is called conscience, or sometimes the moral sense.

Conscience is an act of the mind, a judgment. But it is not only the mind that is made aware of the right and the wrong: it is the heart. Good and evil, done either by others or by ourselves, awaken in us emotions, affections of diverse nature. These emotions or affections are what collectively constitute the moral sentiment.

It does not suffice that a man know and distinguish the good and the evil, and experience for the one and for the other different sentiments; it is also necessary, in order to be a moral agent, that he be capable of choosing between them; he cannot be commanded to do what he cannot do, nor can he be forbidden to do what he cannot help doing. This power of choosing is called liberty, or free will.

A free agent—one, namely, who can discern between the right and the wrong—is said to be responsible for his actions; that is to say, he can answer for them, give an account of them, suffer their consequences; he is then their real cause. His actions may consequently be attributed to him, put to his account; in other words imputed to him. The agent is responsible, the actions are imputable.

Human actions, we have said, are sometimes good, sometimes bad. These two qualifications have degrees in proportion to the importance or the difficulty of the action. It is thus we call an action suitable, estimable, beautiful, admirable, sublime, etc. On the other hand, a bad action is sometimes but a simple mistake, and sometimes a crime. It is culpable, base, abominable, execrable, etc.

If we observe in an agent the habit of good actions, a constant tendency to conform to the law of duty, this habit or constant tendency is called virtue, and the contrary tendency is called vice.

Whilst man feels himself bound by his conscience to seek the right, he is impelled by his nature to seek pleasure. When he enjoys pleasure without any admixture of pain, he is happy; and the highest degree of possible pleasure with the least degree of possible pain is happiness. Now, experience shows that happiness is not always in harmony with virtue, and that pleasure does not necessarily accompany right doing.

And yet we find such a separation unjust; and we believe in a natural and legitimate connection between pleasure and right, pain and wrong. Pleasure, considered as the consequence of well-doing, is called recompense; and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil, is called punishment.

When a man has done well he thinks, and all other men think, that he has a right to a recompense. When he has done ill they think the contrary, and he himself thinks also that he must atone for his wrong-doing by a chastisement. This principle, by virtue of which we declare a moral agent deserving of happiness or unhappiness according to his good or bad actions, is called the principle of merit and demerit.

The sum total of the rewards and punishments attached to the execution or violation of a law is called sanction; the sanction of the moral law will then be called moral sanction.

All law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will presuppose, then, a moral legislator, and morality consequently raises us to God. All human or earthly sanction being shown by observation to be insufficient, the moral law calls for a religious sanction. It is thus that morality conducts us to the immortality of the soul.

If we go back upon the whole of the ideas we have just briefly expressed, we shall see that at each of the steps we have taken there are always two contraries opposed the one to the other: good and evil, command and prohibition, virtue and vice, merit and demerit, pleasure and pain, reward and punishment.

Human life presents itself, then, under two aspects. Man can choose between the two. This power is liberty. This choice is difficult and laborious; it exacts from us incessant efforts. It is for this reason that life is said to be a trial, and is often represented as a combat. It should therefore not be represented as a play, but rather as a manly and valiant effort. Struggle is its condition, peace its prize.

Such are the fundamental ideas morality has for its object, and of which it seeks, at the same time, both the principles and the applications.

2. What is morality? the object of morality.—Morality may be considered as a science or as an art.

By science we understand a totality of truths connected with each other concerning one and the same object. Science has for its object proper, knowledge.

By art we understand a totality of rules or precepts for directing activity towards a definite end; art has for its object proper, action.

Science is theoretical or speculative; art is practical.

Morality is a science inasmuch as it seeks to know and demonstrate the principles and conditions of morality; it is an art inasmuch as it shows and prescribes to us its applications.

As science, morality may be defined: science of good or science of duty.

As art, morality may be defined: the art of right living or the art of right acting.

3. Division of morality.—Morality is divided into two parts: in one it studies principles, in the other, applications; in the one, duty; in the other, duties.

Hence a theoretical morality and a practical morality. The first may also be called general morality, and the second particular morality, because the first has for its object the study of the common and general character of all our duties, and the other especially that of the particular duties, which vary according to objects and circumstances. It is in the first that morality has especially the character of science, and in the second, the character of art.

4. Utility of morality.—The utility of moral science has been disputed. The ancients questioned whether virtue could be taught. It may also be asked whether it should be taught. Morality, it is said, depends much more upon the heart than upon the reasoning faculties. It is rather by education, example, habit, religion, sentiment, than through theories, that men become habituated to virtue. If this were so, moral science would be of no use.

However, though it may be true that for happiness nothing can take the place of practice, it does not follow that reflection and study may not very efficaciously contribute toward it, and for the following reasons:

1. It often happens that evil has its origin in the sophisms of the mind, sophisms ever at the service of the passions. It is therefore necessary to ward off or prevent these sophisms by a thorough discussion of principles.

2. A careful study of the principles of morality causes them to penetrate deeper into the soul and gives them there greater fixity.

3. Morality consists not only in the actions themselves, but especially in the motives of our actions. An outward morality, wholly of habit and imitation, is not yet the true morality. Morality must needs be accompanied by conscience and reflection. So viewed, moral science is a necessary element of a sound education, and the higher its principles the more the conscience is raised and refined.

4. Life often presents moral problems for our solution. If the mind is not prepared for them it will lack certainty of decision; what above all is to be feared is that it will mostly prefer the easier and the more convenient solution. It should be fortified in advance against its own weakness by acquiring the habit of judging of general questions before events put it to the proof.

Such is the utility of morality. It is of the same service to man as geometry is to the workman; it does not take the place of tact and common sense, but it guides and perfects them.

It is well understood, moreover, that such a study in nowise excludes, it even exacts, the co-operation of all the practical means we have indicated above, which constitute what is called education. Doctrinal teaching is but the complement and confirmation of teaching by practice and by example.

5. Short résumé of theoretical morality.—Theoretical morality should, in fact, precede practical morality, and that is what usually takes place; but as it presents more difficulties and less immediate applications than practical morality, we shall defer the developments it may give rise to, to a subsequent year.[2] The present will be a short résumé, purely elementary, containing only preliminary and strictly necessary notions. It will be an exposition of the common notions we have just enumerated above.

6. Pleasure and the good.—Morality being, as we have said, the science of the good, the first question that presents itself is: What is good?

If we are to believe the first impulses of nature, which instinctively urge us towards the agreeable and cause us to repel all that is painful, the answer to the preceding question would not be difficult; we should have but to reply: “Good is what makes us happy; good is pleasure.”

One can, without doubt, affirm that morality teaches us to be happy, and puts us on the way to true happiness. But it is not, as one might believe, in obeying that blind law of nature which inclines us towards pleasure, that we shall be truly happy. The road morality points out is less easy, but surer.

Some very simple reflections will suffice to show us that it cannot be said absolutely that pleasure is the good and pain the bad. Experience and reasoning easily demonstrate the falsity of this opinion.

1. Pleasure is not always a good, and in certain circumstances it may even become a real evil; and, vice versa, pain is not always an evil, and it may even become a great good. Thus we see, on the one hand, that the pleasures of intemperance bring with them sickness, the loss of health and reason, shortening of life. The pleasures of idleness bring poverty, uselessness, the contempt of men. The pleasures of vengeance and of crime carry with them chastisement, remorse, etc. Conversely, again, we see the most painful troubles and trials bringing with them evident good. The amputation of a limb saves our life; energetic and painstaking work brings comfort, etc. In these different cases, if we consider their results, it is pleasure that is an evil and pain a good.

2. It must be added that among the pleasures there are some that are low, degrading, vulgar; for example, the pleasures of drunkenness; others, again, that are noble and generous, as the heroism of the soldier. Among the pleasures of man there are some he has in common with the beasts, and others that are peculiar to him alone. Shall we put the one kind and the other on the same level? Assuredly not.

3. There are pleasures very keen, which, however, are fleeting, and soon pass away, as the pleasures of the passions; others which are durable and continuous, as those of health, security, domestic comfort, and the respect of mankind. Shall we sacrifice life-long pleasures to pleasures that last but an hour?

4. Other pleasures are very great, but equally uncertain, and dependent on chance; as, for instance, the pleasures of ambition or the pleasures of the gaming-table; others, again, calmer and less intoxicating, but surer, as the pleasures of the family circle.

Pleasures may then be compared in regard to certainty, purity, durability, intensity, etc. Experience teaches that we should not seek pleasures without distinction and choice; that we should use our reason and compare them; that we should sacrifice an uncertain and fleeting present to a durable future; prefer the simple and peaceful pleasures, free from regrets, to the tumultuous and dangerous pleasures of the passions, etc.; in a word, sacrifice the agreeable to the useful.

7. Utility and honesty.—One should prefer, we have just seen, the useful to the agreeable; but the useful itself should not be confounded with the real good—that is, with the honest.

Let us explain the differences between these two ideas.

1. There is no honesty or moral goodness without disinterestedness; and he who never seeks anything but his own personal interest is branded by all as a selfish man.

2. Interest gives only advice; morality gives commands. A man is not obliged to be skillful, but he is obliged to be honest.

3. Personal interest cannot be the foundation of any universal and general law as applicable to others as to ourselves, for the happiness of each depends on his own way of viewing things. Every man takes his pleasure where he finds it, and understands his interest as he pleases; but honesty or justice is the same for all men.

4. The honest is clear and self-evident; the useful is uncertain. Conscience tells every one what is right or wrong; but it requires a long trained experience to calculate all the possible consequences of our actions, and it would often be absolutely impossible for us to foresee them. We cannot, therefore, always know what is useful to us; but we can always know what is right.

5. It is never impossible to do right; but one cannot always carry out his own wishes in order to be happy. The prisoner may always bravely bear his prison, but he cannot always get out of it.

6. We judge ourselves according to the principles of action we recognize. The man who loses in gambling may be troubled and regret his imprudence; but he who is conscious of having cheated in gambling (though he won thereby) must despise himself if he judges himself from the standpoint of moral law. This law must therefore be something else than the principle of personal happiness. For, to be able to say to one’s self, “I am a villain, though I have filled my purse,” requires another principle than that by which one congratulates himself, saying, “I am a prudent man, for I have filled my cash-box.”

7. The idea of punishment or chastisement could not be understood, moreover, if the good only were the useful. A man is not punished for having been awkward; he is punished for being culpable.

8. The good or the honest.—We have just seen that neither pleasure nor usefulness is the legitimate and supreme object of human life. We are certainly permitted to seek pleasure, since nature invites us to it; but we should not make it the aim of life. We are also permitted, and even sometimes commanded, to seek what is useful, since reason demands we see to our self-preservation. But, above pleasure and utility, there is another aim, a higher aim, the real object of human life. This higher and final aim is what we call, according to circumstances, the good, the honest, and the just.

Now, what is honesty?

We distinguish in man a double nature, body and soul; and in the soul itself two parts, one superior, one inferior; one more particularly deserving of the name of soul, the other more carnal, more material, if one may say so, which comes nearer the body. In one class we have intelligence, sentiments, will; in the other, senses, appetites, passions. Now, that which distinguishes man from the lower animal is the power to rise above the senses, appetites, and passions, and to be capable of thinking, loving, and willing.

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; the noble affections of the heart to the inclinations of a vile selfishness.

In one word, moral good consists in man becoming truly man—that is to say, “A free will, guided by the heart and enlightened by reason.”

Moral good takes different names, according to the relations under which we consider it. For instance, when we consider it as having for its special object the individual man in relation with himself, good becomes what is properly called the honest, and has for its prime object personal dignity. In its relation with other men, good takes the name of the just, and has for its special object the happiness of others. It consists either in not doing to others what we should not wish they should do to us, or in doing to others as we should ourselves wish to be done by. Finally, in its relation to God, the good is called piety or saintliness, and consists in rendering to the Father of men and of the universe what is his due.

9. Duty.—Thus, the honest, the just, and the pious are the different names which moral good takes in its relations to ourselves, to other men, or to God.

Moral good, under these different forms, presents itself always in the same character, namely, imposing on us the obligation to do it as soon as we recognize it, and that, too, without regard to consequences and whatever be our inclinations to the contrary.

Thus, we should tell the truth even though it injures us; we should respect the property of others, though it be necessary to our existence; finally, we should even sacrifice, if necessary, our life for the family and the country.

This law, which prescribes to us the doing right for its own sake, is what is called moral law or the law of duty. It is a sort of constraint, but a moral constraint, and is distinguished from physical constraint by the fact that the latter is dictated by fate and is irresistible, whilst the constraint of duty imposes itself upon our reason without violating our liberty. This kind of necessity, which commands reason alone without constraining the will, is moral obligation.

To say that the right is obligatory is to say, then, that we consider ourselves held to do it, without being forced to do it. On the contrary, if we were to do it by force it would cease to be the right. It must therefore be done freely, and duty may thus be defined an obligation consented to.

Duty presents itself in a two-fold character: it is absolute and universal.

1. It is absolute: that is to say, it imposes its commands unconditionally, without taking account of our desires, our passions, our interests. It is by this that the commands of duty may be distinguished, as we have already said, from the counsels of an interested prudence. The rules or calculations of prudence are nothing but means to reach a certain end, which is the useful. The law of duty, on the contrary, is in itself its own aim. Here the law should be obeyed for its own sake, and not for any other reason. Prudence says: “The end justifies the means.” Duty says: “Do as thou shouldst do, let come what will.”

2. From this first character a second is deduced: duty being absolute, is universal; that is to say, it can be applied to all men in the same manner and under the same circumstances; whence it follows that each must acknowledge that this law is imposed not only on himself, but on all other men also.

To which correspond those two beautiful maxims of the Gospel: “Do to others as thou wishest to be done by. Do not do to others what thou dost not wish they should do to thee.”

The law of duty is not only obligatory in itself, it is so also because it is derived from God, who in his justice and goodness wishes we should submit to it. God being himself the absolutely perfect being, and having created us in his image, wishes, for this very reason, that we should make every effort to imitate him as much as possible, and has thus imposed on us the obligation of being virtuous. It is God we obey in obeying the law of honesty and duty.

10. Moral conscience.—A law cannot be imposed on a free agent without its being known to him; without its being present to his mind—that is to say, without his accepting it as true, and recognizing the necessity of its application in every particular case. This faculty of recognizing the moral law, and applying it in all the circumstances that may present themselves, is what is called conscience.

Conscience is then that act of the mind by which we apply to a particular case, to an action to be performed or already performed, the general rules prescribed by moral law. It is both the power that commands and the inward judge that condemns or absolves. On the one hand it dictates what should be done or avoided; on the other it judges what has been done. Hence it is the condition of the performance of all our duties.

Conscience being the practical judgment which in each particular case decides the right and the wrong, one can ask of man only one thing: namely, to act according to his conscience. At the moment of action there is no other rule. But one must take great care lest by subtle doubts, he obscures either within himself or in others the clear and distinct decisions of conscience.

In fact, men often, to divert themselves from the right when they wish to do certain bad actions, fight their own conscience with sophisms. Under the influence of these sophisms, conscience becomes erroneous; that is to say, it ends by taking good for evil and evil for good, and this is even one of the punishments of those who follow the path of vice: they become at last incapable of discerning between right and wrong. When it is said of a man that he has no conscience, it is not meant that he is really deprived of it (else he were not a man); but that he has fallen into the habit of not consulting it or of holding its decisions in contempt.

By ignorant conscience we mean that conscience which does wrong because it has not yet learned to know what is right. Thus, a child tormenting animals does not always do so out of bad motives: he does not know or does not think that he hurts them. In fact, it is with good as it is with evil; the child is already good or bad before it is able to discern between the one or the other. This is what is called the state of innocence, which in some respects is conscience asleep. But this state cannot last; the child’s conscience, and in general the conscience of all men, must be enlightened. This is the progress of human reason which every day teaches us better to know the difference between good and evil.

It sometimes happens that one is in some respects in doubt between two indications of conscience; not, of course, between duty and passion, which is the highest moral combat, but between two or more duties. This is what is called a doubting or perplexed conscience. In such a case the simplest rule to follow, when it is practicable, is the one expressed by that celebrated maxim: When in doubt, abstain. In cases where it is impossible to absolutely abstain, and where it becomes necessary not only to act but to choose, the rule should always be to choose that part which favors least our interests, for we may always suppose that that which causes our conscience to doubt, is an interested, unobserved motive. If there is no private interest in the matter either on the one side or the other, there remains nothing better to do than to decide according to circumstances. But it is very rare that conscience ever finds itself in such an absolute state of doubt, and there are almost always more reasons on the one side than on the other. The simplest and most general rule in such a case is to chose what seems most probable.

11. Moral Sentiment.—At the same time, as the mind distinguishes between good and evil by a judgment called conscience, the heart experiences emotions or divers affections, which are embraced under the common term moral sentiment. These are the pleasures or pains which arise in our soul at the sight of good or evil, either in ourselves or in others.

In respect to our own actions this sentiment is modified according as the action is to be performed, or is already performed. In the first instance we experience, on the one hand, a certain attraction for the right (that is when passion is not strong enough to stifle it), and on the other, a repugnance or aversion for the wrong (more or less attenuated, according to circumstances, by habit or the violence of the design). Usage has not given any particular names to these two sentiments.

When, on the contrary, the action is performed, the pleasure which results from it, if we have acted rightly, is called moral satisfaction; and if we have acted wrong, remorse, or repentance.

Remorse is a burning pain; and, as the word indicates, the bite that tortures the heart after a culpable action. This pain may be found among the very ones who have no regret for having done wrong, and who would do it over again if they could. It has therefore no moral character whatsoever, and must be considered as a sort of punishment attached to crime by nature herself. “Malice,” said Montaigne, “poisons itself with its own venom. Vice leaves, like an ulcer in the flesh, a repentance in the soul, which, ever scratching itself, draws ever fresh blood.”

Repentance is also, like remorse, a pain which comes from a bad action; but there is coupled with it the regret of having done it, and the wish, if not the firm resolution, never to do it again.

Repentance is a sadness of the soul; remorse is a torture and an anguish. Repentance is almost a virtue; remorse is a punishment; but the one leads to the other, and he who feels no remorse can feel no repentance.

Moral satisfaction, on the contrary, is a peace, a joy, a keen and delicious emotion born from the feeling of having accomplished one’s duty. It is the only remuneration that never fails us.

Among the sentiments called forth by our own actions, there are two which are the natural auxiliaries of the moral sentiment: they are the sentiment of honor and the sentiment of shame.

Honor is a principle which incites us to perform actions which raise us in our own eyes, and to avoid such as would lower us.

Shame is the opposite of honor; it is what we feel when we have done something that lowers us not only in the eyes of others, but in our own. All remorse is more or less accompanied by shame; yet the shame is greater for actions which indicate a certain baseness of soul. For instance, one will feel more ashamed of having told a falsehood than for having struck a person; for having cheated in gambling than for having fought a duel.

Honor and shame are therefore not always an exact measure of the moral value of actions; for be they but brilliant, man will soon rid himself of all shame; this happens, for instance, in cases of prodigality, licentiousness, ambition. One does wrong, not without remorse, but with a certain ostentation which stifles the feelings of shame.

Let us pass now to the sentiments which the actions of others excite in us.

Sympathy, antipathy, kindness, esteem, contempt, respect, enthusiasm, indignation, these are the various terms by which we express the diverse sentiments of the soul touching virtue and vice.

Sympathy is a disposition to share the same impressions with other men; to sympathize with their joy is to share that joy; to sympathize with their grief is to share that grief. It may happen that one sympathizes with the defects of others when they are the same as our own; but, as a general thing, people sympathize above all with the good qualities, and experience only antipathy for the bad. At the theatre, all the spectators, good and bad, wish to see virtue rewarded and crime punished.

The contrary of sympathy is antipathy.

Kindness is the disposition to wish others well. Esteem is a sort of kindness mingled with judgment and reflection, which we feel for those who have acted well, especially in cases of ordinary virtues; for before the higher and more difficult virtues, esteem becomes respect; if it be heroism, respect turns into admiration and enthusiasm; admiration being the feeling of surprise which great actions excite in us, and enthusiasm that same feeling pushed to an extreme; carrying us away from ourselves, as if a god were in us.[3] Contempt is the feeling of aversion we entertain towards him who does wrong; it implies particularly a case of base and shameful actions. When these actions are only condemnable without being odious, the sentiment is one of blame, which, like esteem, is nearer being a judgment than a sentiment. When, finally, it is a case of criminal and revolting actions, the feeling is one of horror or execration.

12. Liberty.—We have already said that man or the moral agent is free, when he is in a condition to choose between right and wrong, and able to do either at his will.

Liberty always supposes one to be in possession of himself. Man is free when he is awake, in a state of reason, and an adult. He is not free, or very little so, when he is asleep, or delirious, or in his first childhood.

Liberty is certified to man.

1. By the inward sentiment which accompanies each of his acts; for instance, at the moment of acting, I feel that I can will or not will to do such or such an action; if I enter on it, I feel that I can discontinue it as long as it is not fully executed; when it is completed, I am convinced that I might have acted otherwise.

2. By the very fact of moral law or duty; I ought, therefore I can. No one is held to do the impossible. If, then, there is in me a law that commands me to do good and avoid evil, it is because I can do either as I wish.

3. By the moral satisfaction which accompanies a good action; by the remorse or repentance which follows a bad one. One does not rejoice over a thing done against his will, and no one reproaches himself for an act committed under compulsion. The first word of all those reproached for a bad action is, that it was not done on purpose, intentionally. They acknowledge thereby that we can only be reproached for an action done wilfully; namely, freely.

4. By the rewards and punishments, and in general by the moral responsibility which is attached to all our actions when they have been committed knowingly. We do not punish actions which are the result of constraint or ignorance.

5. By the exhortations or counsels we give to others. We do not exhort a man to be warm or cold, not to suffer hunger or thirst, because it is well known that this is not a thing dependent on his will. But we exhort him to be honest, because we believe that he can be so if he wishes.

6. By promises: no one promises not to die, not to be sick, etc., but one promises to be present at a certain meeting, to pay a certain sum of money, on such a day, to such a man, because one feels he can do so unless circumstances over which he has no control prevent.

Prejudices against Liberty.—Although men, as we have seen, may have the sense of liberty very strong, and may show it by their acts, by their approbation or blame, etc., yet, on the other hand, they often yield to the force of certain prejudices which seem to contradict the universal belief we have just spoken of.

1. Character.—The principal one of these prejudices is the often expressed opinion that every man is impelled by his own character to perform the actions which accord with this character, and that there is no help against this irresistible necessity of nature; this is often expressed by the common axiom: “One cannot make himself over again.” The same has also been expressed by the poet Destouches in that celebrated line:

Chassez le naturel, il revient au galop.[4]

Nothing is less exact as a fact and more dangerous as a principle, than this pretended immutability of human character, which, if true, would render evil irremediable and incorrigible.

Experience teaches the contrary. No man is wholly deprived of good and bad inclinations; he may develop the one or the other, as he chooses between them.

2. Habits.—Habits in the long run become, it is true, irresistible. It is a fact which has been often observed; but if, on the one hand, an inveterate habit is irresistible, it is not so in the beginning, and man is thus free to prevent the encroachments of bad habits. It is for this reason that moralists warn us above all against the beginnings of habits. “Beware especially of beginnings,” says the Imitation.

3. Passions.—Passions have especially enjoyed the privilege of passing for uncontrollable and irresistible. All great sinners find their excuse in the fatal allurements of passions. “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak,” says the Gospel. The remarks we have just made touching the habits, may be equally applied to the passions. It is rare that passions manifest themselves all of a sudden, and with that excess of violence which, breaking upon one unexpectedly and like a delirium, assume, indeed, all the appearances of a fatality. But, as a general thing, passions grow little by little. “Some smaller crimes always precede the greater crimes.” It is especially when the first attacks of a passion begin to show themselves that it should be energetically fought down.

4. Education and circumstances.—The education one has received, the circumstances one finds himself in, may put a limit to his liberty; and man is not wholly responsible for the impulses which he may owe to example and the bad principles in which he may have been brought up. These may, perhaps, be called attenuating circumstances; but they do not go so far as wholly to suppress liberty and responsibility. In the appreciation of other people’s acts, we may allow the attenuating circumstances as large a margin as possible, but in the case of self-government, one should make it as strict and narrow as possible. No one having, in fact, a measure by which he may determine his moral strength in an absolute manner, it is better to aim too high than too low. One should be guided by the principle that nothing is impossible to him who has a strong will; for “we can do a thing when we think we can.” In conclusion, liberty means nothing else but moral strength. Experience certifies that man can become the master of the physical nature which he can subject to his designs; he can gain the mastery over his own body, his passions, his habits, his own disposition; in a word, he can be “master of himself.” In thus ascending, step by step, from exterior nature to the body, from the body to the passions, from the passions to the habits and the character, we arrive at the first motor of action which moves everything without being moved: namely, liberty.

13. Merit and demerit.—We call in general merit the quality by virtue of which a moral agent renders himself worthy of a reward; and demerit that by which he renders himself, so to say, worthy of punishment.

The merit of an action may be determined: 1, by the difficulty of the action; 2, by the importance of the duty.

1. Why, for instance, is there in general very little merit in respecting other people’s property and abstaining from theft? Because education in this respect has so fashioned us, that few men have any temptation to the contrary; and, even were there such a temptation, we should be ashamed to publicly claim any merit for having resisted it.

Why, on the other hand, is there great merit in sacrificing one’s life to the happiness of others? Because we are strongly attached to life, and comparatively very little attached to men in general; to sacrifice what we love most, to what we love but little, from a sense of duty, is evidently very difficult; for this reason, we find in this action a very great merit.

Suppose a man, who had enjoyed in all security of conscience and during a long life, a large fortune which he believes his, and of which he has made the noblest use, should learn all at once, and at the brink of old age, that this fortune belongs to another. Suppose, to render the action still more difficult to perform, that he alone knows the fact, and could consequently in all security keep the fortune if he wishes; aggravate the situation still more by supposing that this fortune belongs to heirs in great poverty, and that in renouncing it the possessor would himself be reduced to utter misery. Imagine, finally, all the circumstances which may render a duty both the strictest and most difficult, and you will have an action the merit of which will be very great.

2. It is not only the difficulty of an action that constitutes its merit, but also the importance of the duty. Thus the merit of a difficulty surmounted, has no more value in morality than it has in poetry, when it stands alone. One may of course impose upon himself a sort of moral gymnastics, and consequently very difficult tasks, though very useless in the end; but these will be considered only in the light of discipline and exercise, and not in that of duty; and this discipline would have to be more or less connected with the life one may be called to lead. For instance, suppose a missionary, called to brave during all his life all kinds of climates and dangers, should exercise himself beforehand in undertakings brave and bold, such undertakings would be both reasonable and meritorious. But he who out of bravado, ostentation, and without any worthy aim, should undertake the climbing to inaccessible mountain-tops, the swimming across an arm of the sea, the fighting openly ferocious animals, etc., he would accomplish actions which, it is true, would not be without merit, since they are brave; but their merit would not be equivalent to that we should attribute to other actions less difficult, but more wise.

As to demerit, it is in proportion to the gravity of duties, and the facility of accomplishing them. The more important a matter, and the easier to fulfil, the more is one culpable in failing to fulfil it.

According to these principles, one may determine as follows the estimation of moral actions:

Human actions, we have said, are divided into two classes: the good and the bad. It is a question among the moralists to determine whether there are any that are to be called indifferent.

Among the good actions, some are beautiful, heroic, sublime; others, proper, right, and honest; among the bad, some are simply censurable, others shameful, criminal, hideous; finally, among the indifferent ones, some are agreeable and allowable, others necessary and unavoidable.

Let us give some examples by which the different characters of human actions may be well understood.

A judge who administers justice without partiality, a merchant who sells his merchandise for no more than it is worth, a debtor who regularly pays his creditor, a soldier punctual at drill, obedient to discipline, and faithful at his post in times of peace or war, a schoolboy doing regularly the task assigned to him, all these persons perform actions good and laudable, but they cannot be called extraordinary. They are approved of, but not admired. To manage one’s fortune economically, not to yield too much to the pleasure of the senses, to tell no lies, to neither strike nor wound others, are so many good, right, proper, and estimable actions; but they cannot be called admirable actions.

Actions are beautiful in proportion to the difficulty of their performance; when they are extremely difficult and perilous, then we call them heroic and sublime; that is, provided they are good actions, for heroism is unfortunately sometimes allied with wrong. He who, like President de Harlay, can say to a very powerful usurper: “It is a sad thing when the servant is allowed to dismiss the master;” he who can say, like Viscount d’Orthez, who made opposition to Charles IX. after St. Bartholomew, saying: “My soldiers are no executioners;” he who, like Boissy d’Anglas, can firmly and resolutely uphold the rights of an assembly in the face of a sanguinary, violent, and rebellious populace; he who, like Morus or Dubourg, would rather die than sacrifice his trust; he who, like Columbus, can venture upon an unknown ocean, and brave the revolt of a rude and superstitious crew, to obey a generous conviction; he who, like Alexander, confides in friendship enough to receive from the hands of his physician a drink reputed poisoned; any man, in short, who devotes himself for his fellow beings, who, in fire, in water, in the depths of the earth, braves death to save life; who, in order to spread the truth, to remain true and honest, to work in the interests of religion, science, or humanity, will suffer hunger and thirst, poverty, slavery, torture, or death, is a hero.

Epictetus was a slave. His master, for some negligence or other, caused him to be beaten. “You will break my leg,” said the sufferer; and the leg broke, indeed, under the blows. “I told you you would break it,” he remarked quietly. This is a hero.

Joan of Arc, defeated by the English and made a prisoner, threatened with the stake, said to her executioners: “I knew quite well that the English would put me to death; but were there a hundred thousand of them, they should not have this kingdom.” This is a heroine.

Bad actions have their degrees likewise. But here we should call attention to the fact that the worst are those that stand in opposition to the simply good actions; on the contrary, an action which is not heroic is not necessarily bad; and when it is bad it is not to be classed among the most criminal. Some examples will again be necessary to understand these various shades of meaning, which every one feels and recognizes in practice, but which are very difficult to analyze theoretically.

To be respectful towards one’s parents is a good and proper action, but not a heroic one. On the contrary, to strike them, insult them, kill them, are abominable actions, and to be classed among the basest and most hideous that can be committed. To love one’s friends, to be as serviceable to them as possible, shows a straightforward and well-endowed soul; but there is nothing sublime in it. On the other hand, to betray friendship; to slander those that love us; to lie in order to win their favor; to inquire into their secrets for the purpose of using them against them, are black, base, and shameful actions. There is scarcely any merit in not taking what does not belong to us; theft, on the contrary, is the most contemptible of things. Now, not to be able to bear with adversity, to fear death, to shrink from braving the ice of the North Pole, to stay at home when fire or flood threatens our neighbor, may be mean or weak, but not criminal. Let us add, however, that there are cases where heroism becomes obligatory, and where it is criminal not to be heroic. A sea-captain, who has endangered his ship, and who, instead of saving it, leaves his post; a general who, when the moment calls for it, refuses to die at the head of his army, lack courage; the chief of a State who, in times of revolt, or when the country is in peril, fears death; the president of a convention who takes to flight before a rebellion; the physician who runs away before an epidemic; the magistrate who is afraid to be just; all these are truly culpable. Every condition of life has its peculiar heroism, which at certain moments becomes a duty. Yet will it always be true that the more easy an action is, the less excusable is its neglect, and consequently the more odious is it to try to escape from it.

Besides the good or bad actions, there are others which appear to partake of neither the one nor the other of these two characters, which are neither good nor bad, and which for this reason are called indifferent. For instance, to go and take a walk is an action which, considered by itself, is neither good nor bad, although it may become the one or the other according to circumstances. To be asleep, to be awake, to eat, to take exercise, to talk with one’s friends, to read an agreeable book, to play on some instrument, are actions which certainly have nothing bad in themselves, but which, nevertheless, could not be cited as examples of good actions. One would not say, for instance, such a one is an honest man because he plays the violin well; such a one is a scholar because he has a good appetite; still less when actions absolutely necessary come into question, as the act of breathing and sleeping. Actions, then, which are inseparable from the necessities of our existence, have no moral character; they are the same with us as with the animals and plants; they are purely natural actions. There are others, again, that are not necessary, but simply agreeable, which we perform because they suit our tastes and fancies.

It is sufficient that they are not contrary to the right, that one cannot call them bad; but it does not follow from this that they are good, and such are what are called indifferent actions.

Such, at least, is the appearance of things; for, in a more elevated sense, the moralists were right in saying that there is no action absolutely indifferent, and that all actions are in some respect good or bad, according to motive.

14. Moral responsibility.—Man being free, is for this reason responsible for his actions: they can be imputed to him. These two expressions have about the same meaning, only the term responsibility applies to the agent, and imputability to the actions.

The two fundamental conditions of moral responsibility are: 1, the knowledge of good and evil; 2, the liberty of action. In proportion as these two conditions vary, the responsibility will vary.

It follows from this, that idiocy, insanity, delirium in cases of illness—destroying nearly always both conditions of responsibility—namely, discernment and free agency, deprive thereby of all moral character the actions committed in these different states. They are not of a nature to be imputed to a moral agent. Yet are there certain lunatics not wholly insane who may preserve in their lucid state a certain portion of responsibility.

2. Drunkenness. May that be considered a cause of irresponsibility? No, certainly not; for, on the one hand, one is responsible for the very act of drunkenness; and, on the other, one knows that in putting himself in such a condition he exposes himself to all its consequences, and accepts them implicitly. For example, he who puts himself in a state of drunkenness, consents beforehand to all the low, vulgar actions inseparable from that state. As to the violent and dangerous actions which may accidentally result from it, as blows and murders springing from quarrels, one cannot, of course, impute them to the drunken man with the same severity as to the sober man, for he certainly did not explicitly chose them when he put himself into a state of drunkenness; but neither is he wholly innocent of them, for he knew that they were some of the possible consequences of that condition. As to him who puts himself voluntarily into a state of drunkenness, with the express intention of committing a crime and giving himself courage for the act, it is evident that, so far from diminishing thereby his share of responsibility in the action, he, on the contrary, increases it, since he makes violent efforts to keep off all the scruples or hesitations which might keep him from committing it.

3. “No one is held to do impossible things.” According to this theory, it is evident that one is not responsible for an action he has been absolutely unable to accomplish; thus we cannot blame a paralytic, or a child, or an invalid, for not taking up arms in defence of his country. Yet we must not have voluntarily created the impossibility of acting, as it often happened in Rome, where some, in order not to go to war, cut off their thumbs. The same with a debtor who, by circumstances independent of his will (fire, shipwreck, epidemics), is unable to acquit himself: he is excusable; but if he placed himself in circumstances which he knew would disable him, his inability is no longer an excuse.

4. Natural qualities or defects of mind and body cannot be imputed to any one, either for good or for bad. Who would reproach a man for being born blind, or because he became so in consequence of sickness or a blow? The same with the defects of the mind: no one is responsible for having no memory, or for not being bright. Yet as these defects may be corrected by exercise, we are more or less responsible for making no efforts to remedy them. As to the defects or deformities which result from our own fault, as, for example, the consequences of our passions, it is evident that they can justly be imputed to us. Natural qualities cannot be credited to any one. Thus we should not honor people for their physical strength, health, beauty, or even wit; and no one should boast of such advantages, or pride himself on them. However, he who by a wise and laborious life has succeeded in preserving or developing his physical strength, or who, by the effort of his will, has cultivated and perfected his mind, deserves praise; and it is thus that physical and moral advantages may become indirectly legitimate matter for moral approbation.

5. The effects of extraneous causes and events, whatever they may be, whether good or bad, can only be imputed to a man, as he could or should have produced, prevented, or directed them, and has been careful or negligent in doing so. Thus a farmer, according as he works the land entrusted to him well or badly, is made responsible for a good or bad harvest.

6. A final question is that of the responsibility of a man for other people’s actions. Theoretically, no man certainly is responsible for any but his own actions. But human actions are so interlinked with each other that it is very rare that we have not some share, direct or indirect, in the conduct of others. For instance, one is responsible in a certain measure for the conduct of those under him; a father for his children, a master for his servants, and, up to a certain point, an employer for his workmen; 2, one is responsible in a measure for actions which he might have prevented, when, either through negligence or laziness, he did not do so; if you see a man about to kill himself, and make no effort to prevent it, you are not innocent of his death, unless, of course, you did not suspect what he was going to do; 3, you are responsible for other people’s actions when, either by your instigations, or even by a simple approbation, you have co-operated towards them.

15. Moral sanction.—We call the sanction of a law the body of recompenses and punishments attached to the execution or violation of the law. Civil laws, in general, make more use of punishments than rewards; for punishments may appear means sufficient to have the law executed. In education, on the contrary, the commands or laws laid down by a superior, have as much need of rewards as punishments.

But what is to be understood by the terms recompense and punishment? The recompense of a good and virtuous action is the pleasure we derive from it, and for the very reason that it is good and virtuous.

There are to be distinguished, however, two other kinds of rewards, which, though they resemble recompense, are nevertheless very different from it namely, favor and remuneration.

Favor is a pleasure or an advantage bestowed on us, without our having deserved or earned it; a pure expression of the good-will of others towards us. It is thus that a king grants favors to his courtiers, that those in power distribute favors. It is thus we speak of the favors of fortune. Although theoretically there is no reason why we should understand the word favor in a bad sense, yet has it by usage come to signify not only an advantage undeserved, but unworthy; not only a legitimate preference which has its reason in sympathy, but an arbitrary choice more or less contrary to justice. However, although no such ugly signification need be attached to it, a favor, as a gratuitous gift, must always be distinguished from reward, which, on the contrary, implies a remuneration; that is to say, a gift in return for something.

Yet not all remuneration is necessarily a reward; and here we must establish another distinction between reward and remuneration. By remuneration we mean the price we pay for a service rendered us, no matter what motive may determine a person to render us this service; it is for its utility we pay, and for nothing else. The reward, on the contrary, implies the idea of a certain effort to do good. He who renders us a service from affection and devotion, would refuse being paid for it, and, vice versa, he who sells us his work does not ask us for a recompense, but for an equivalent of what he would have earned for himself if he had applied his work to his own wants.

On the contrary, we call every pain or suffering inflicted on an agent for committing a bad action, for no other reason than that it is bad, chastisement or punishment.

Punishment stands against damage or wrong; that is to say, against undeserved harm. The blows of fortune or of men are not always punishments. One may be struck without being punished.

Although we say in a general way that the ills that befall men are often the chastisements of their faults, yet this should not be taken too strictly, otherwise we should too easily transform the merely unfortunate into criminals.

Although recompenses and punishments may be only secondary means by which men may be led to do good and avoid evil, this should not be their essential office nor their real idea.

It is not that the law should be fulfilled that there are rewards and punishments in morality; it is because it has been fulfilled or violated. Such is the true principle of reward. It comes from justice, not utility.

For the same reason, chastisement, in its true sense, should not only be a menace insuring the execution of the law, but a reparation or expiation for its violation. The order of things disturbed by a rebellious will is again re-established by the suffering which is the consequence of the fault committed. In one sense it may be said that punishment is the remedy for the fault. In fact, injustice and vice being, as it were, the diseases of the soul, it is certain that suffering is their remedy; but only on condition that this suffering be accepted by way of chastisement. It is thus that grief has a purifying virtue, and that instead of being considered an evil, it may be called a good.

Another confusion of ideas which should be equally avoided, and which is very common among men, is that which consists in taking the reward itself for a good, and the punishment for an evil.

It is thus that men are often more proud of the titles and honors they have obtained, than of the real merit through which they have won them. It is thus also that they fear the prison more than the crime, and shame more than vice.

It is for this reason that the greatest courage is needed to bear undeserved punishment.

We distinguish generally four species of sanction:

1. Natural sanction; 2, legal sanction; 3, the sanction of public opinion; 4, inward sanction.

1. Natural sanction is that which rests on the natural consequences of our actions. It is natural for sobriety to keep up and establish health, for intemperance to be a cause of disease. It is natural for work to bring with it ease of circumstances, for idleness to be a source of misery and poverty. It is natural that probity should insure security, confidence, and credit; that courage should put off the chances of death; that patience should render life more bearable; that good-will should call forth good-will; that wickedness should drive men from us; that perjury should cause them to distrust us, etc. These facts have ever been verified by experience. The honest is not always the useful; but it is often what is most useful.

2. Legal sanction is above all a penal sanction. It is composed of the chastisements which the law has established for the guilty. There are, in general, few rewards established by the law, and they may be classed among what is called the esteem of men.

3. Another kind of sanction consists in the opinion other men entertain in regard to our actions and character. We have seen that it is in the nature of good actions to inspire esteem, in the nature of the bad to inspire blame and contempt. The honest man generally enjoys public honor and consideration. The dishonest man, even though the law does not reach him, is branded with discredit, aversion, contempt, etc.

4. Finally, a more exact and certain sanction is that which results from the very conscience and moral sentiment mentioned above.

16. The superior sanction: the future life.—These various sanctions being insufficient to satisfy our want of justice, there is required still another, namely, the superior religious sanction.

It is a well-known fact that virtue is not a sufficient shield to protect us against the blows of adversity, and that immorality does not necessarily condemn one to misery and grief. It is evident that a man corrupt and wicked may be born with all the advantages of genius, fortune, health; and that an honest man may have inherited none of these.

There is in this neither injustice nor blind chance; but it proves that the harmony between moral good and happiness is not of this world.

In regard to the pleasures and pains of conscience, it is also evident that they are not sufficient. In fact, the pleasures of the senses may divert and deaden the pangs of remorse; and it must also be said, though it be still more sad, that it sometimes happens that a merciless continuance of misfortune deadens in an honest soul the delight in virtue; and the painful efforts which virtue costs may finally obliterate in a man, tired of life, the calm and sweet enjoyment which it naturally brings with it.

If such is the disproportion and disagreement between the inner pleasures and pains, and the moral merit of him who experiences them, what shall we say of that wholly outward sanction which consists in the rewards and punishments distributed by the unequal justice of man? I do not speak of legal pains alone; it is well known that they often fall upon the innocent, and are spared to the guilty; that they are almost always disproportioned: the law punishing the crime, without taking note of the exact moral value of the action; but I speak also of the pains and rewards of public opinion, esteem, and contempt. Are these always in an exact proportion to merit?

From all these observations it results that the law of harmony between good and happiness is not of this world; that there is always disagreement, or at least disproportion, between moral merit and the pleasures of the senses. Hence the necessity of a superior sanction, the means and time of which are in the hand of God.

“The more I go within myself,” says a philosopher,[5] “the more I consult myself, the more I read these words written in my soul: be just and thou shalt be happy. And yet it is not so, looking at the actual state of things: the wicked prosper, and the just are oppressed. See, also, what indignation arises in us when this expectation is frustrated! The conscience murmurs and rebels against its author; it cries to him, groaning: Thou hast deceived me! I have deceived thee, oh thou rash one? Who has told thee so? Is thy soul annihilated? Hast thou ceased to exist? Oh, Brutus! oh, my son, do not stain thy noble life by putting an end to it; do not leave thy hopes and glory with thy body on the fields of Philippi. Why sayest thou: Virtue is nothing when thou art now about entering into the enjoyment of thine? Thou shalt die, thinkest thou; no, thou shalt live, and it is then I shall keep what I have promised! One would say, hearing the murmurings of impatient mortals, that God owes them a reward before they have shown any merit, and that he is obliged to pay their virtue in advance. Oh! let us first be good; we shall be happy afterwards. Do not let us claim the prize before the victory, nor the salary before the work. ‘It is not in the lists,’ says Plutarch, ‘that the victors in our sacred games are crowned; it is after they have run the course.’”

CHAPTER II.

DIVISION OF DUTIES—GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL MORALITY.

SUMMARY.

Division of duties.—In theory there is but one duty, which is to do right; but this duty is subdivided according to the various relations of man. Hence three classes of duties: duties towards ourselves, towards others, towards God: individual, social, religious morality. We will begin with social morality, which requires the most expounding.

General principles of social duties: to do good; not to do evil.

Different degrees of this double obligation: 1, not to return evil for good (ingratitude); 2, not to do evil to those who have not done us any (injustice and cruelty); 3, not to return evil for evil (revenge); 4, to return good for good (gratitude); 5, to do good to those who have not done us any (charity); 6, to return good for evil (clemency, generosity).

Distinction between the various kinds of social duties: 1, towards the lives of other men; 2, towards their property; 3, towards their family; 4, towards their honor; 5, towards their liberty.

Distinction between the duties of justice and the duties of charity.—Justice is absolute, without restriction, without exception. Charity, although as obligatory as justice, is more independent in its application. It chooses its time and place; its objects and means; its beauty is in its liberty.

We have seen that practical morality or private morality has for its object to acquaint us with the application of theoretical morality. It bears not so much on duty as on duties. The first question, then, that presents itself to us is that of the division of duties.

17. Division of duties.—It has been reasonably asserted that there is in reality but one duty, which is to do good under all circumstances, the same as it has also been said that there is but one virtue: wisdom, or obedience to the laws of reason. But as these two general divisions teach us in reality nothing touching our various actions, which are very numerous, it is useful and necessary to classify the principal circumstances in which we have to act, in order to specify in a more particular manner wherein the general principle which commands us to do good may be applied in each case.

Human actions may then be divided, either in regard to the different beings they have for their object, or in regard to the various faculties to which they relate.

The ancients divided morality particularly in reference to the divers human faculties, and in private morality they considered above all the virtues.

The moderns, on the other hand, have divided morality particularly in its relations to the different objects of our actions; and, in private morality, they have considered, above all, the duties.

The ancients reduced all virtues to four principal ones: prudence, temperance, courage, and justice. This division was transmitted to us, and it is these four virtues which the catechism teaches under the name of cardinal virtues.

The moderns reduced duties to three classes: the duties towards ourselves, towards others, and towards God. Some add a fourth class, namely, duties towards animals.

That portion of morality which treats of the duties towards ourselves, is called individual morality; that which treats of the duties towards God, is called religious morality; that which treats of the duties towards other men, social morality. As to the duties towards animals, they are of so secondary an order, that it is not worth while to classify them apart; we shall include them in social morality.

Social morality is by far the most extended in precepts and applications, the various relations of men with each other being extremely numerous. It may be subdivided into three parts: 1, general duties of social life, or morality properly called social; 2, duties towards the State, or civil morality; 3, duties towards the family, or domestic morality.

We will begin with the study of social morality, social duties towards men in general, and we will first establish their principles and different varieties.

Let us in a few pages rapidly take a summary review of the general principles of social morality.

18. General principles of social duties: to do good, not to do evil.—All human actions, in regard to others, may be reduced to these two precepts: 1, to do good to men; 2, not to do them harm. To this all the virtues of social morality may be reduced. But before exhibiting these virtues and vices more in detail, let us explain what is understood by the expressions to do good and to do evil.

In the most general and apparent sense to do any one good would seem to be to give him pleasure; to do him harm, would seem to be to give him pain. Yet, is it always doing good to a person to procure him pleasure? and is it always doing him harm, to cause him pain? For example, Kant[6] says, “Shall we allow the idler soft cushions; the drunkard wines in abundance; the rogue an agreeable face and manners, to deceive more easily; the violent man audacity and a good fist?” Would it really be doing good to these men to grant them the object of their desires, what may satisfy their passions? On the other hand, the surgeon who amputates a mortified limb, the dentist who pulls out a bad tooth, the teacher who obliges you to learn, the father who corrects your faults or restrains your passions, do they really do you harm because they give you pain? No, certainly not. There are, then, cases where to do some one good is to cause him pain, and to do him harm is to procure him pleasure.

One may reasonably reduce all principles of social morality to these two maxims of the gospel: “Do not do to others what you do not wish them do to you;”—“Do to others as you wish to be done by.” These two maxims are admirable, certainly; but they must be interpreted rightly. If, for instance, we have done wrong, do we generally wish to be corrected and punished? When we are yielding to a passion, do we wish to be repressed in it, have it repelled? On the contrary, do we not rather wish to be allowed to enjoy it, and have the free range of our vices? Is not this generally what we all wish, when the voice of duty is mute and does not silence our passionate feelings? If this is so, should we wish to do to others as we wish in similar circumstances, namely, in the gratification of passions, to be done by? Should we not rather do to them what we should not like them do to us, that is, punish and correct them? It is evidently not in that sense we are to understand the two evangelical maxims; for they would be then no other than maxims of remissness and improper kindness; whilst they, on the contrary, express most admirably a moral truth; only when they speak of what we wish, they mean a true and good wish, not the desires of passion; the same when we recommend men to do good, we mean real good and not apparent good; as also in recommending to do no harm, we mean real harm, not the illusory harm of the senses, imagination and passions.

Thus, to well understand the duties we have to fulfil towards other men, we must understand the distinction between true good and false good. False good is that which consists exclusively in pleasure, all abstraction being made of usefulness or moral value; as, for example, the pleasures of passions. True good is that which independently of pleasure recommends itself either through usefulness or through moral value; as, for instance, health or education. The real evils, of course, are those which injure either the interests of others or their moral dignity, such as misery or corruption. Apparent evils are those which cause us to suffer but a moment and redeem themselves by subsequent advantages: as, for instance, remedies or chastisements.

When we speak of good in regard to others, we should not fear to understand by that their interest, as well as their moral welfare; for, though we should not make our own interest the aim of our actions, it is not so in our relation with others. The seeking of our own happiness has no moral value; but the seeking of other people’s happiness may have one, provided, we repeat, that we do not deceive ourselves touching the real sense of the word happiness, and that we do not understand by it a deceitful and short-lived delight.

“To do to others as we wish to be done by; not to do to them what we do not wish they should do us,” should, therefore, be understood in the sense of an enlightened will, which wills for itself nothing but what is truly conformable either to a proper interest or to virtue. Thus understood (and it is their true sense[7]), these two maxims comprehend perfectly the whole of social morality.

19. Different degrees of this double obligation.—The sense of these two expressions, to do good and to do harm, being now well-defined, let us examine the various cases which may present themselves, in rising, so to say, from the lowest to the highest round of duty. Let us first suppose a certain good or a certain evil, which will not vary in any of the following cases: this is the scale one may observe starting from the least virtue, to which corresponds evidently the greatest vice (by virtue of the principle set forth above[8]), to rise to the highest virtue, to which the least vice corresponds.

1. Not to return evil for good.—This is, one may say (all things being equal), the feeblest of the virtues, as to return evil for good constitutes the greatest of wrongs. Say, for example, homicide: is it not evident that the murder of a benefactor is the most abominable of all? that to rob a benefactor is the most horrible of robberies? that the slander of a benefactor is the most criminal of slanders? On the other hand again, not to kill, not to steal, not to slander, not to deceive a benefactor, is the minimum of moral virtue. To abstain from doing harm to him who has done you good, is a wholly negative virtue, which is simply the absence of a crime. We cannot call that gratitude, for gratitude is a positive virtue, not a negative one; it is all in action, and not in omission; but, before being grateful, the first condition at least, is to be not ungrateful. We shall then say that the greatest of crimes is ingratitude. It is by reason of this principle that the crimes towards parents are the most odious of all; for we have no greater benefactors than our parents, and without mentioning the crimes nature finds repugnant enough, it is evident that the same kind of harm (wounds, blows, insults, negligence, etc.) will always be more blamable when done to parents than to any other benefactors, and to benefactors in general, than to any other men.

2. Not to do harm to those who have not done us any.—The violation of this maxim is the second degree of crime and of sin, somewhat less serious than the preceding one, but still odious enough that to abstain from it is, in many cases, a rather feeble virtue. Not to kill, not to steal, not to deceive, not to expose one’s self to the punishments of the law, are, indeed, of a very feeble moral value; whilst their contraries constitute the basest and most odious of actions.

The kind of vice which injures others without provocation is what is called injustice, and when the pleasure of doing wrong is joined thereto, it is called cruelty. Cruelty is an injustice which rejoices in the harm done to others; injustice contents itself with taking advantage of it. There is, therefore, a higher degree of evil in cruelty than in injustice pure and simple.

The virtue opposed to injustice is justice, which has two degrees and two forms: the one negative, which consists simply in abstaining from doing injury to any one; the second positive, which consists in rendering to each his due. This second form of justice is more difficult than the first, for it is active. It is more difficult to restore to others what we hold as our own, or to pay one’s debts, than to abstain from stealing; it is more difficult to speak well of one’s rivals, than to abstain from slandering them; it is more difficult to give up one’s position to another who deserves it, than to abstain from taking his; and yet there are cases where justice requires one should act instead of simply abstaining.

3. Not to return evil for good.—Here we rise, in some respect, a degree in the moral scale. The two inferior degrees, namely, ingratitude and cruelty, have always and everywhere been considered as crimes. Nowhere has it ever been considered allowable to do harm to those who have done us good. But in nearly all societies, at a certain degree of civilization, has it been considered allowable, and even praiseworthy, to return evil for evil. “To do good to our friends, and harm to our enemies,” is one of the maxims the poets and sages of Greece oftenest repeat. Among the Indians of America, glory consists in ornamenting one’s dwelling with the greatest possible number of scalps taken from conquered enemies. We know about the Corsican vendetta. In one word, the passion of revenge (which consists precisely in returning evil for evil) is one of the most natural and the most profound in the human heart, and it demands a very advanced moral education to comprehend that revenge is contrary to the laws of morality. Now, as the beauty of virtue is in proportion to the difficulty of the passions to be overcome, it is evident that the virtues contrary to revenge, namely: gentleness, clemency, pardon of injuries, are amongst the most beautiful and most sublime. Already among the ancients had morality reached this maxim, that one should not do any harm, namely, even to those who had done us some, as may be seen from the dialogue of Plato, entitled the Crito. “Socrates: One should then commit no injustice whatsoever?” “Crito: No, certainly not.” “Socrates: Then should one not be unjust even towards those who are unjust towards us.”

4. Thus far we have only spoken of the virtues which express themselves negatively, and which consist especially in doing no harm. Let us now consider those which express themselves affirmatively, and which consist in doing good. The first degree is to return good for good: which is gratitude, the contrary of which, as we have seen, is ingratitude; but there are two sorts of ingratitude, as there are two sorts of gratitude. There is a negative ingratitude, as there is a positive ingratitude. The positive ingratitude, which is, as we have seen, the most odious of all crimes, consists in returning evil for good; negative ingratitude consists simply in not returning good for good, namely, in forgetting a kindness. It is not so reprehensible as the former, but it has still a certain character of baseness. Gratitude is also twofold in its degrees and forms: it is negative, inasmuch as it abstains from injuring a benefactor;[9] it is positive, inasmuch as it returns good for good. In one sense, gratitude is a part of justice, for it consists in returning to a benefactor what is due him; but it is also a notable part, and one which deserves being pointed out, for it seems that there is nothing easier than to return good for good; and experience, on the contrary, teaches us that there is nothing more rare. [This is certainly too strongly put.]

5. To do good to those who have done us neither good nor harm. This is what is called charity, which is a degree above the preceding, for in the preceding case we scarcely do more than give back what we have received; in this case we put in something of our own. But to characterize this new degree of virtue, it is necessary to well explain that the question relates to a good that is not due. For justice, we have seen, does not always mean to abstain from evil; it even does good sometimes. To restore a trust to one not expecting it; to do good to him who deserves it; to elect to a position one worthy of it; or, what is still more heroic, to give one’s own position up to him, this evidently is doing good to others, and to those who have not done us any; but these are goods due, which already belong in some respects to those upon whom we confer them. It is not so with the goods which charity distributes. The gifts I make to the poor, the consolations I give to the afflicted, the care I bestow upon the sick, all of which take from my time, my interests, and my life which I endanger to save a fellow-being, are also goods which are my own and not his. I do not return to him what he would otherwise legitimately possess, whether he knows it or not. I give him something of my own; it is a pure gift. This gift is suggested to me by love, not by justice. The contrary of charity or devotion to others is selfishness.

Finally, there is a last degree above all other preceding degrees, namely, to return good for evil. This kind of virtue, the highest of all, has no particular name in the language. Charity, in fact, consists in doing good generally, and comprises the two degrees: to do good to the unfortunate, and return good for evil. Clemency may consist in simply pardoning; it does not necessarily go so far as to return good for evil.

Corneille might as well have called his tragedy of Cinna, the Clemency of Augustus, even if Augustus had merely pardoned Cinna, and not added: “Let us be friends!” Thus has this great and magnificent virtue no name, and as science is powerless in creating words suitable for every-day language, it must rest satisfied with periphrases. Nevertheless, this sublime virtue finds nowhere a grander expression than in those maxims of the Gospel: “You have been told that it was said: Thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thy enemy: But I say to you: Love your enemies; do good to those that hate you, and pray for those that despitefully use you and persecute you.”

20. Different kinds of social duties.—After the preceding division, which answers to the different degrees of obligation which may exist among men, there is another classification which rests on the various species or kinds of duties which we may have to perform towards our fellow-beings. Let us first briefly state what will be developed at greater length in the following chapters.

1. Duties relating to the life of others.—According to the two maxims cited above, these duties are of two kinds: 1, not to attempt the life of others; 2, to make efforts to save the life of others. All attempt at the life of others is called homicide. When accompanied by perfidy or treason, it is assassination. The murder of parents by children is called parricide; of children by parents (especially at the tenderest age), infanticide; of brothers by brothers, fratricide. All these crimes are most odious, and most repugnant to the human heart. Murder is never permitted, even when the highest interest and the greatest good is at stake. Thus did the ancients err in believing that the murder of a tyrant, or tyrannicide, was not only legitimate, but also honorable and beautiful. However, there is to be excepted the case of legitimate self-defense; for we cannot be forbidden to defend ourselves against him who wishes to deprive us of life. But the duel should not be considered an act of legitimate self-defense: that is evident in the case of the aggressor; and, on the other side, there is only the defense that there has been the consent to be put in peril. As to the question whether an attack on honor is not equivalent to an attack on life, it cannot be said that it is false in all cases; but the abuse of the thing is here so near the principle, that it is wiser to condemn altogether a barbarous practice, of which so deplorable an abuse has been made. Finally, homicide in war, within the conditions authorized by international law, is considered a case of legitimate self-defense.[10]

If murder is the most criminal of actions, and the most revolting to our sensibilities, the action, on the contrary, which consists in saving the life of others is the most beautiful of all. “The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.”

With the fundamental duty not to attempt the life of other men, is connected, as corollary, the duty not to injure them bodily by blows or wounds, or by dangerous violence done to their health, and, conversely, to assist them in illness.

2. Duties relating to property.—It is evident[11] that man cannot preserve his life and render it happy and comfortable without a certain number of material objects which are his. The legitimate possession of these goods is what is called property.[12] The right of property rests in one respect on social utility, and in the other on human labor. On the one hand, society cannot subsist without a certain order that settles for each what is his own; on the other, it is but right that each should be the proprietor of what he has earned by his work; the right of possession carries with it the right of economizing, and, consequently, the right of forming a capital, and, moreover, the right of using this capital in making it bear interest. Again, the right of preserving implies also the right of transmission; hence the legitimacy of inheritance.

Property once founded upon law, it becomes our duty not to transgress the law. The act of taking what belongs to another is called theft. Theft is absolutely forbidden by the moral law, whatever name it may assume, or under whatever prestige it may present itself. “Thou shalt not steal.” Theft does not consist merely in putting one’s hand into a neighbor’s pocket; it includes all possible ways whereby the property of others may be appropriated. For example, to defraud in regard to the quality of the thing sold; to practice illegal stock-jobbing; to convert to one’s own use a deposit entrusted to one’s care; to borrow without knowing whether one can pay, and after having borrowed, to disown the debt, or refuse to pay it; there are as many forms of theft as there are ways of appropriating the property of others.

Regarding the property of others, the negative duty then consists in not taking what belongs to others. The positive duty consists in assisting others with one’s own property, in relieving their misery. This is called benevolence, which benevolence may be exercised in various ways, either by gift, or by loan. It may also be exercised in kind, that is in giving to others the objects necessary to their maintenance or support, or in money, that is, in furnishing them the means of procuring them; or in work, which is the best of all gifts; for in thus relieving others we procure them the means of helping themselves.

With the duty relating to the property of others, are connected as corollaries, the duties relating to the observance of agreements or contracts; the transmission of property in society being not always done from hand to hand, but by means of promises and writings. To fail in keeping one’s promise, to pervert the sense of solemn contracts, is, on the one side, to appropriate other people’s property, and on the other, to lie and deceive, and thus to fail in a double duty.

3. Duties relating to the families of others.—We have seen above what are the duties of man in his family; there remains to be said a few words touching the duties towards the families of others. One may fail in these duties either by violating the conjugal bond, which is adultery; or by carrying off other people’s children, which is abduction, or by depraving them through bad advice or bad examples, which is corruption.

4. Duties relating to the honor of others.—One may fail in these duties, either by saying to a man (who does not deserve it), wounding and rude things to his face, which are insults, or in speaking ill of others; and here we distinguish two degrees: if what is said is true, it is backbiting; if what is said is false and an invention, it is slander. In general one must not too easily ascribe evil to other men; this kind of defect is what is called rash judgments.

The positive duty respecting other people’s reputation is to be just towards every one, even towards one’s enemies; to speak well of them if they deserve it, and even of those who speak ill of us. It is a duty to entertain a kindly disposition towards men in general, provided this does not go so far as to wink at wrong. In our relations with our neighbors, usage of the world has, in order to avoid quarrels and insults, introduced what is called politeness, which, for being a worldly virtue, is not the less a necessary virtue in the order of society.

5. Duties towards the liberty of others.—These are rather the duties of the State than of the individual. They consist in respecting in others the liberty of conscience, the liberty of labor, individual liberty, personal responsibility, all of which are the natural rights of man. However, private individuals may themselves also fail in this kind of duties. The violation of the liberty of conscience is called intolerance; it consists either in employing force to constrain the consciences, or in imputing bad morals or bad motives to those who do not think as we do. The virtue opposed to intolerance is tolerance, a disposition of the soul which consists, not in approving what we think false, but in respecting in others what we wish they should respect in us, namely, conscience. One may also violate individual liberty, the liberty of labor, in keeping one’s fellow-beings in slavery; but slavery is rather a social institution than an individual act. However, there may be cases where one may seek to injure other people’s work, in restraining others by threats from work; which, for example, takes sometimes place in workmen’s strikes. There is also a certain way of domineering over the freedom of others without restraining it materially, which constitutes real tyranny; it is the dominion which a strong will exercises over a feeble will, and of which it too often is tempted to take advantage. On the contrary, it is a duty, not only to respect the liberty of others, but also to encourage it, to develop it, to enlighten it through education.

6. Duties relating to friendship.—All the preceding duties are the same towards all men. There are others which concern more particularly certain men, those, for example, to whom we are attached either by congeniality of disposition or uniformity of occupation, or a common education, etc., those, namely, whom we call friends. The duties relating to friendship are: 1, to choose well one’s friends; to choose the honest, and enlightened, in order to find in their society encouragement to right-doing. Nothing more dangerous than pleasure-friends or interested friends, united by vices and passions, instead of being united by wisdom and virtue; 2, the friends once chosen, the reciprocal duty is fidelity. They should treat each other with perfect equality and with confidence. They owe each other secrecy when they mutually entrust their dearest interests; they owe each other self-devotion when they need each other’s help. Finally, they owe to each other in a more strict and rigorous a sense, all they generally owe to other men, for the faults or crimes against humanity in general assume a still more odious character when against friends.

21. Professional duties and civic duties.—Such are the general duties of men in relation to each other, when simply viewed as men. But these duties become diversified and specialized according as we view man either in the light of the private functions he fills in society, which are his professional duties, or in the light of the particular society of which he is a member, and which is called the State or the country, and these are the civic duties. (See chapters xii. and xiii.)

22. Distinction between the duties of justice and the duties of charity.—We have said above that all the social duties could be reduced to these two maxims: “Do not do unto others what you do not wish they should do to you. Do to others as you wish to be done by.” These two maxims correspond with what is called: 1, the duties of justice; 2, the duties of charity.

The first consists in not doing wrong, or at least in repairing the wrong already done. Charity consists in doing good, or at least in giving to others what is not really their due. A celebrated writer[13] has made a very subtle and forcible distinction between these two virtues:

“The respect for the rights of others is called justice. All violation of any right whatsoever is an injustice. The greatest of injustices, since it comprises all, is slavery. Slavery is the subjugation of all the faculties of a man for the benefit of another. Moral personality should be respected in you as well as in me, and for the same reason. In regard to myself it has imposed a duty on me; in you it becomes the foundation of a right, and imposes thereby, relatively to you, a new duty on me. I owe you the truth as I owe it to myself, and it is my strict duty to respect the development of your intelligence and not arrest its progress towards the truth. I must also respect your liberty; perhaps even I owe it to you more than I do to myself, for I have not always the right to prevent you from making a mistake.

“I must respect you in your affections, which are a part of yourself; and of all the affections none are more holy than those of the family. To violate the conjugal and paternal right is to violate what a person holds most sacred.

“I owe respect to your body, inasmuch as belonging to you, it is the instrument of your personality. I have neither the right to kill you nor to wound you, unless in self-defense.

“I owe respect to your property, for it is the product of your labor; I owe respect to your labor, which is your very liberty in action; and if your property comes from inheritance, I owe respect to the free will which has transmitted it to you.

“Justice, that is, the respect for the person in all that constitutes his personality, is the first duty of man towards his fellow-man. Is this duty the only one?

“When we have respected the person of others, when we have neither put a restraint upon their liberty, nor smothered their intelligence, nor maltreated their body, nor interfered with their family rights nor their property, can we say that we have fulfilled towards them all moral duties? A wretch is here suffering before us. Is our conscience satisfied if we can assure ourselves that we have not contributed to his sufferings? No; something tells us that it would be well if we should give him bread, help, consolation; and yet this man in pain, who, perhaps, is going to die, has not the least right to the least part of our fortune, were this fortune ever so great; and if he were to use violence to take a farthing from us, he would commit a crime. We shall meet here a new order of duties which do not correspond to rights. Man, we have seen, may resort to force to have his rights respected, but he cannot impose on another a sacrifice, whatever that may be. Justice respects or restores: charity gives.

“One cannot say that to be charitable is not obligatory; but this obligation is by no means as precise and as inflexible as justice. Charity implies sacrifice. Now, who will furnish the rule for sacrifice, the formula for self-renunciation? For justice, the formula is clear: to respect the rights of others. But charity knows neither rule nor limits. It is above all obligation. Its beauty is precisely in its liberty.”

It follows from these considerations that justice is absolute, without restriction, without exception. Charity, whilst it is as obligatory as justice, is more independent in its applications; it chooses its place and its time, considers its objects and means. In a word, as Victor Cousin says, “its beauty is in its liberty.”

Let us not hesitate to borrow from the Apostle St. Paul his admirable exaltation of charity:

“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.”

“And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.”[14]

“And though I bestowed all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

“Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself; is not puffed up.”

“Doth not behave itself unseemely; seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked; thinketh no evil.”

“Beareth all things; believeth all things; endureth all things.”[15]

CHAPTER III.

DUTIES OF JUSTICE—DUTIES TOWARDS HUMAN LIFE.

SUMMARY.

Division of the duties of justice.—Four kinds of duties: 1, towards the life of others; 2, towards the liberty of others; 3, towards the honor of others; 4, towards the property of others.

Duties towards human life.—Avoid homicide, acts of violence, and mutilation. Pascal and the Provinciales.

The right of self-defense.—Right to oppose force to force. Limits of this right.

Problems.—Four very grave problems are bound up in the question of self-defense: 1, the penalty of death; 2, political assassination; 3, the duel; 4, war.

The penalty of death.—The penalty of death is the right of self-defense exercised by society: it is just so far as it is efficacious.

Political assassination.—Murder is always a crime, under whatever pretext it may conceal itself.

The duel.—The duel is at the same time a homicide and a suicide; it is falsely considered justice, since it appeals to chance and skill.

War.—War is the only mode of self-defense existing among nations; it is desirable for the sake of humanity that it may some day disappear; but humanity cannot now exact this sacrifice of the country.

23. Division of social duties.—According to the foregoing distinctions, we will first divide duties into duties of justice and duties of charity.

Let us begin by expounding the duties of justice.

These duties may be summed up in a general manner in the respect for the person of others, and for all that is necessary for the preservation and development of that person. Hence four kinds of duties:

1. Towards the life of other men.

2. Towards their liberty.

3. Towards their honor.

4. Towards their property.

Besides these duties, purely negative, which consist only in doing others no harm, there are also the duties of justice, which may be called positive; and which consist not only in not injuring others, but also in granting each what he has a right to. This is called distributive or remunerative justice, and is the duty of all those who have others under them, and who are commissioned to distribute rewards, titles, or functions.

24. Duties towards the life of men.—We have seen above that self-preservation is the duty of every one, and that one should not attempt one’s own life, nor mutilate one’s self, nor injure one’s health. Now, all these obligations which we have towards ourselves, we have equally towards others; for that which each owes to himself, he owes it to his quality, as man, to his quality as a free and reasonable being, a moral person. It is, as Kant says, humanity itself that each one must respect in his own person; and it is also humanity which each must respect in others. We should not do to others what we do not wish that they should do to us, or what we should not wish to do to ourselves. Now, no one wishes others to attempt his life; no one should wish to attempt it himself. For the same reason he should not wish to attempt the life of others.

These are such self-evident considerations that it is useless to insist on them. Let us add that this duty rests, besides, on one of the most powerful instincts of humanity, the instinct of sympathy for other men, the horror of their sufferings, the horror of spilt blood. Those who are wanting in this sentiment are like monsters in the midst of humanity.

One of the corollaries of this principle is to avoid the blows and wounds which might, through imprudence and unexpectedly, cause death, and which, besides, are in themselves to be condemned, inasmuch as they contribute, if not towards destroying, at least towards mutilating, the person and rendering it unfitted to fulfil its duties and functions. In a word, to avoid scuffles, bodily quarrels, which are unworthy, moreover, from their very brutality, of a reasonable being; all this is comprised in the duty of avoiding homicide. All may be summed up in these words of the Decalogue: “Thou shalt not kill.”

Pascal, in his letter on homicide (xiv. Provinciale), expressed most eloquently the duty concerning the respect for human life:

“Everybody knows, my fathers, that individuals are never permitted to seek the death of any person, and that, even if a man should have ruined us, maimed us, burnt our houses, killed our parents, and was preparing to murder us, to rob us of our honor, that our seeking his death would not be listened to in a court of justice. So that it was necessary to establish public functionaries who seek it in the name of the king, or rather in the name of God. Suppose, then, these public functionaries should seek the death of him who has committed all these crimes, how would they proceed? Would they plunge the dagger in his breast at once? No; the life of man is too important; they would proceed with more consideration; the law has not left it subject to the decision of all sorts of people; but only to that of the judges, whose integrity and sufficiency have been ascertained. And think you that one alone is enough to condemn a man to death? No; there are at least seven required; and among these seven there must not be any one whom the criminal has in any way offended, for fear that his judgment be affected, or corrupted by anger. In short, they can judge him only upon the testimony of witnesses, and according to the other forms prescribed to them; in consequence of which they can conscientiously pronounce upon him only according to law, or judge worthy of death only those whom the law condemns.”

After having thus expounded the innumerable precautions which society has taken, out of respect for human life, touching the persons of criminals, Pascal continues as follows:

“Behold in what way, in the order of justice, the life of man is disposed of; let us see now how you dispose of it.[16] In your new laws there is but one judge, and this judge is the offended party. He is at the same time judge, accuser, and executioner. He seeks himself the death of his enemy; he commands it, he executes him on the spot; and, without respect for either the body or soul of his brother, he kills and damns him for whom Christ died; and all this to avenge an affront, or slander, or an insulting word, or other similar offences for which a judge, although clothed with legal authority, would be considered a criminal if he should condemn to death those who had committed them, because the laws themselves are very far from condemning them.”

Finally, gathering into one word all the evils which homicide comprises, Pascal ends by saying “homicide is the only crime which at the same time destroys the State, the Church, nature, and piety.”

25. The right of self-defense.—None of the foregoing principles would present the shadow of a difficulty to any except those who are nearer the brute than man, if it were not for an apparent exception to the rule, which is the case of legitimate self-defense. To understand properly the solution of this question, it is necessary to examine carefully the nature of the relations which bind men to each other.

Every man is a moral person; that is to say, a free being, and for that very reason inviolable in his dignity and in his rights. He is, as Kant says, an end to himself, and should not be treated as a means. The things of nature are to us but means to satisfy our wants; we may therefore mutilate and destroy them, not as our whims may dictate, but as our wants require. Thus can we cut the finest trees of a forest to make fire of, or for furniture. We even claim a similar right over animals, although it may, perhaps, not be so evident. But we have no such right over man. We can neither mutilate nor destroy him for our use.

And, in fact, to destroy or mutilate through sheer force a member of humanity, is to apply to him the law of compulsion, which is the law of physical nature, and which without reserve governs all physical phenomena: it is to make of man a thing of nature, to see in him the body only, and ignore the soul.

The consequence of such conduct is evident: it is that whosoever employs against another the law of compulsion means thereby that he does not recognize between himself and other men any other law but that. Treating them as if they were purely physical agents, he gives us thereby to understand that he recognizes himself, and expects to be treated, as such; he means to take advantage of his strength as long as he is the strongest, but gives us to understand thereby that he is satisfied to submit to strength if he is the weaker.

It is here that the right of self-defense comes in. He who is violently attacked, has the right to oppose to violence just as much strength as there is employed against him. Otherwise, in allowing himself to be knocked down by strength, he would consent to the abasement, to the suppression of his own personality; he would in some respect be the accomplice of the violence he is made to suffer. Some Christian sects, straining this point, go so far as to condemn absolutely the right of self-defense; they do not see that this would infallibly bring with it the triumph of brute force, and the suppression of all justice. Such sects may, to a certain extent, manage to exist in civilized societies; but the principle is self-destructive, since not to resist violence is in some respect to be its accomplice.

Yet, whilst admitting the right of self-defense, it is necessary to recognize its limits. “This agent,” says M. Renouvier, “whom the right of self-defense treats as a brute, this being is a man, nevertheless, or has been one, or may become such. Hence the doctrine of conscience is to admit this right only when necessary, and not beyond what is necessary.” (Moral Science, Ch. LVI.) This is, to begin with, a natural consequence of the duties towards one’s self, since it is already a surrender of one’s dignity to be obliged to act in the capacity of a physical agent, and renounce one’s character of a moral person; it is also a duty towards humanity in general, which is represented by every man, even the most violent and the most uncultivated.

26. Problems.—The right of legitimate self-defense gives rise to a certain number of problems relative to the law of homicide. M. Jules Simon[17] reduces them to five: homicide in case of self-defense, penalty of death, political assassination, duel, and war. In the first case it is implied in what precedes, that legitimate self-defense may go so far as to deprive another man of life; but only in case of absolute necessity.