Fitness is the only standard by which we regard our own actions or the actions of others as good or evil,—by which we justify or condemn ourselves or others. Duty has fitness for its only aim and end. To whatever object comes under our control, its fit place, purpose, uses, and relations are due; and our perception of what is thus due constitutes our duty, and awakens in us a sense of obligation. To ourselves, and to other beings and objects, our fidelity to our relations has in it an intrinsic fitness; that fitness is due to them and to ourselves; and our perception of what is thus due constitutes our duty, and awakens in us a sense of obligation.
Right and wrong are not contingent on the knowledge of the moral agent. Unfitness, misuse, abuse, is none the less intrinsically wrong, because it is the result of ignorance. It is out of harmony with the fitness of things. It deprives an object of its due use. It perverts to pernicious results what is salutary in its purpose. It lessens for the agent his [pg 037] aggregate of good and of happiness, and increases for him his aggregate of evil and of misery. In this sense—far more significant than that of arbitrary infliction—the well-known maxim of jurisprudence, “Ignorance of the law excuses no one,”[2] is a fundamental law of nature.
There is, however, an important distinction between absolute and relative right. In action, the absolute right is conduct in entire conformity with beings and objects as they are; the relative right is conduct in accordance with beings and objects as, with the best means of knowledge within our reach, we believe them to be. The Omniscient Being alone can have perfect knowledge of all beings and things as they are. This knowledge is possessed by men in different degrees, corresponding to their respective measures of intelligence, sagacity, culture, and personal or traditional experience. In the ruder conditions of society, acts that seem to us atrociously wrong, often proceed from honest and inevitable misapprehension, are right in their intention, and are therefore proper objects of moral approbation. In an advanced condition of intelligence, and especially under high religious culture, though the realm of things unknown far exceeds that of things known, there is a sufficiently clear understanding of the objects and relations of ordinary life to secure men against sins of ignorance, and to leave in their wrong-doing no semblance or vestige of right.
The distinction between absolute and relative right [pg 038] enables us to reconcile two statements that may have seemed inconsistent with each other, namely, that “the character of an action, whether good or bad, depends on the intention of the agent,” and “that unfitness, misuse, abuse, is none the less wrong because the result of ignorance.” Both these propositions are true. The same act may be in intent right and good, and yet, through defect of knowledge, wrong and evil; and it may, in virtue of its good intent, be attended and followed by beneficent results, while at the same time the evil that there is in it may be attended or followed by injurious consequences. We may best illustrate this double character of actions by a case so simple that we can see through it at a single glance. I will suppose that I carry to a sick person a potion which I believe to be an efficient remedy, but which, by a mistake for which I am not accountable, proves to be a deadly poison. My act, by the standard of absolute right, is an unfitting and therefore a wrong act, and it has its inevitable result in killing the patient. But because my intention was right, I have not placed myself in any wrong relation to God or man. Nay, if I procured what I supposed to be a healing potion with care, cost, and trouble, and for one whose suffering and need were his only claim upon me, I have by my labor of love brought myself into an even more intimate relation, filial and fraternal, with God and man, the result of which must be my enhanced usefulness and happiness. If on the other hand I had meant to poison the man, but had by [pg 039] mistake given him a healing potion, my act would have been absolutely right, because conformed to the fitness of things, but relatively wrong, because in its intention and purpose opposed to the fitness of things; and as in itself fitting, it would have done the sick man good, while, as in its purpose unfitting, it would have thrown me out of the relations in which I ought to stand both with God and man.
Mistakes as to specific acts of duty bear the closest possible analogy to the case of the poison given for medicine. The savage, who sincerely means to express reverence, kindness, loyalty, fidelity, may perform, in the expression of those sentiments, acts that are utterly unfitting, and therefore utterly wrong; and if so, each of these acts produces its due consequences, it may be, baleful and lamentable. Yet because he did the best he knew in the expression of these sentiments, he has not sunk, but risen in his character as a moral being,—has become better and more capable of good.
Ignorance of the right, however, is innocent, only when inevitable. At the moment of action, indeed, what seems to me fitting is relatively right, and were I to do otherwise, even though my act were absolutely right, it would be relatively wrong. But if I have had and neglected the means of knowing the right, I have violated the fitnesses of my own nature by not employing my cognitive powers on subjects of vital importance to my well-being. In this case, though [pg 040] what are called the sins of ignorance may be mistakes and not sins, the ignorance itself has all the characteristics that attach themselves to the term sin, and must be attended with proportionally harmful consequences to the offender.