It is
thus also that, with an increase of the industrial spirit, with softened
manners, and with that quickening of our sympathetic nature which has
gradually been effected by the teaching of Christianity, a strong
sentiment against slavery, a respect for human life as such, a regard
for the weak, the suffering, the oppressed, and many tender feelings of
a similar kind, have almost insensibly been developed as an essential
element in modern civilisation.
These considerations naturally lead me to notice the two different ways
in which the test of conduct may be, and as a fact is, applied. One mode
is the conscious and intentional application of it by the reflective
man. The other is the semi-conscious and almost instinctive application
of it by the community at large. In morals, as in the arts, men, almost
without knowing it, are constantly re-adjusting their means to their
ends, feeling their way to some tentative solution of a new difficulty
or a better solution of an old one, shaping their conduct with reference
to the special needs of the situation in which they are placed. It is
thus, for the most part, that new circumstances develope new rules, and
that the simple maxims of a primitive people are gradually replaced by
the multifarious code of law and morals with which we are now familiar.
The guiding principle throughout the process is the conception of their
own good, comprehending, as it does, not only ease, personal comfort,
and gratification of the various appetites and desires, which, in the
early stages of society, are the preponderating considerations, but also
those higher constituents of welfare, both individual and social, which
attain an ever-increasing importance as society advances, such as are
the development of the moral, the intellectual, and the aesthetic
faculties; the purification of the religious sentiments, the expansion
of the sympathetic feelings, the diffusion of liberty and prosperity,
the consolidation of national unity, the elevation of human life.
Pages:
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84