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feelings awakened in us by God , appears most plainly in that lofty idea out of which as a centre all the rest emanate , in the idea of holiness or moral goodness . What it is , we feel . It is the liveliest feeling of the heart . It is recognized in the involuntary homage which we pay it , in the inward satisfaction with which it is contemplated , and the dissatisfaction which is excited by its contrary , of both which the feeling is distinct and complete .
The soul is conscious of the feeling , and seeks to make it plain to itself through the understanding ; but the feeling is so far from being generated in us through the idea of the morally good , that the idea comes far hehind the feeling :, and it is long before it can assume a distinct form . We all feel what moral goodness is , but in whom does an exact and precise idea of it exist ? Many thinking men have tried to set forth its essence , but none
have been able to give a satisfactory definition ; and the poet ' s expression , in its fullest sense , is true of virtue ; * What no understanding of the wise sees clearly , the feeling of the child puts forth simply in practice . * Were there , indeed , a being who could think , yet wanted the moral feeling , in no way could we give him the idea of moral goodness . He would have no sense , no orsjan for its reception . It would be to him as foreign as light to the blind . For this reason all moral instruction consists in awakening the
moral feeling , more or less dormant in another , by placing before him our own , that he may by his own responding experience apprehend what is the morally good . This is , in fact , confessed by Tzcherner , when he says , the suggestions of the religious and moral feelings are sleeping tones , which then only awake to clearness and distinctness when they are awakened by words which strike upon them from without . The conclusion is , that not knowledge , but feeling , is the element out of which all the powers of the
soul are developed . But when we derive ideas in this manner from the indwelling feelings , it is scarcely necessary to say , that by this is not meant the feelings and affections occasioned by the changes of human condition , or excited by the images of fancy , often very delusive , and to which the weakest souls are most a prey ; but those deep feelings which lie originally
in every soul of man , and which we may more or less benumb , confuse , and silence , but can never utterly extinguish within us ; and such are the moral and religious feelings . These are so far from being changeable , uncertain , and obscure , that they are rather what is most determinate and abiding in our souls . '
On the Nature and Origin of Moral Evil . " When the soul is not well instructed in the relation of its sensual feelings and instincts to its higher affections , and does not order and rule them according to this view of them , they master the whole life of the soul , they manifest themselves as vehement desires and blind passions , which , like a torrent , carry the heart before it , and overwhelm in their unbridled course the more elevated feelings . In such a condition man is spoiled of his
dignity , and is as if he were fallen under the dominion of a blind physical force . All the sensual inclinations and desires come out of self-love , the wish to be and to possess that which gratifies us ; an affection of the mind which is not only innocent , but useful , since it is indispensable to the unfolding of the powers of the soul . But when , instead of ruling and moderating this selflove , we suffer it to be unbridled in its strength , and to contradict the dictates of the spirit , it settles into selfishness , the fountain of all moral evil . The sensual desires by their nature easily pass into selfishness ; they seek only their own gratification ; they wish to be , to possess , to reject , solely for
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292 Letters from Germany .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1831, page 292, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2597/page/4/
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