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Untitled Article
ficient . It was out of the hardness of their hearts that they needed signs . Had all been right within , the precepts themselves would have sufficed to prove their own origin . We have expended more words than were perhaps necessary upon so preposterous a doctrine . Our excuse must be , the infinitely mischievous tendency of a theory of moral duty , according
to which God is to be obeyed , not because God is good , nor because it is good to obey him , but from some motive or principle which might have dictated equally implicit obedience to the powers of darkness . Such a philosophy , in proportion as it is realized in men ' s lives and characters , must extirpate from their minds all reverence , all admiration , and all conscience , and leave them only the abject feelings of a slave .
Such a theory cannot be combated too often ; it should be warred against wherever it rears its head . But with regard to most of the other conflicting opinions respecting the primary grounds of moral obligation , it appears to us that a degree of importance is often attached to them , more than commensurate to the influence they really exercise for good or for evil . Doubtless
they are important , as all questions in morals are important : a clear conception of the ultimate foundation of morality , is essential to a systematic and scientific treatment of the subject , and to the decision of some of its disputed practical problems . ^ 3 ut the most momentous of the differences of opinion on the details of
morality , have quite another origin . The real character of any man ' s ethical system depends not on his first and fundamental principle , which is of necessity so general as to be rarely susceptible of an immediate application to practice ; but upon the nature of those secondary and intermediate maxims , vera ilia et media axiomata , in which , as Bacon observes , real wisdom resides .
The grand consideration is , not what any person regards as the ultimate end of human conduct , but through what intermediate ends he holds that his ultimate end is attainable , and should be pursued : and in these there is a nearer agreement between some who differ , than between some who agree , in their conception of the ultimate end . When disputes arise as to any of the secondary maxims , they can be decided , it is true , only by an appeal to first principles ; but the necessity of this appeal may be
avoided far oftener than is commonly believed ; it is surprising how few , in comparison , of the disputed questions of practical morals , require for their determination any premises but such as are common to all philosophic sects , }
Untitled Article
Blakey ' s History of Moral Science . 669
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Oct. 2, 1833, page 669, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2624/page/9/
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