It is a rule of life
that suggests itself spontaneously. It is a natural and prompt
expression of the fact that our life is social: our acts have the
closest relation to others besides ourselves. Now and again, perhaps, a
man is tempted to assert his own personality, or seek his own
gratification, in such a way as to ignore his fellows; but he is usually
arrested before long by the simple experience that he himself suffers
from the actions of others just as they may suffer from his conduct. It
is a lesson of life which one needs no power of analysis to learn.
And the chief reason why the abandonment of the old doctrines is
proceeding without any moral degeneration is that this experience was
really always the basis of general morality. We need not question--it
would be absurd to question--that refined natures have received moral
aid from their belief in the presence of God, or in a desire to please
God by accepting the law of virtue as a declaration of his will; though
we must be equally candid in admitting that men and women of this nature
have not been observed to deteriorate when they sacrifice their
religious beliefs, as thousands of them have done.
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