A Manual of Moral Philosophy

by Andrew P. Peabody

While we cannot command our affections, we can so govern and direct our thoughts as to excite the [pg 114] affections which we desire to cherish; and if certain affections must inevitably result from certain trains or habits of thought, those affections may be regarded as virtually subject to the will, and, if right, as duties. It is in this sense that gratitude and love to God are duties. We cannot contemplate the tokens of his love in the outward universe, the unnumbered objects which have no other possible use than to be enjoyed, the benignity of his perpetual providence, the endowments and capacities of our own being, the immortality of our natural aspiration and our Christian faith and hope, the forgiveness and redemption that come to us through Jesus Christ, and the immeasurable blessings of his mission and gospel, without fervent gratitude to our infinite Benefactor. Nor can we think of him as the Archetype and Source of all those traits of spiritual beauty and excellence which, in man, call forth our reverence, admiration, and affection, without loving in Him perfect goodness, purity, and mercy. These attributes might, indeed, of themselves fail to present the Supreme Being to our conceptions as a cognizable personality, were it not that the personal element is so clearly manifest in the visible universe and in God's constant providence. But there are numerous objects, phenomena, and events in nature and providence which have—so to speak—a distinctive personal expression, so that the familiar metaphors of God's countenance, smile, hand, and voice do not transcend the literal experience of him who goes through life with the inward eye and ear always open.

The omnipresence of God makes it the dictate of natural piety to address Him directly in thanksgiving and prayer,—not, of necessity, in words, except as words are essential to the definiteness of thoughts, but in such words or thoughts as constitute an expression to Him of the sentiments of which He is fittingly the object. As regards prayer, indeed, the grave doubts that exist in some minds as to its efficacy might be urged as a reason why it should not be offered; but wrongly. It is so natural, so intrinsically fitting to ask what we desire and need of an omnipresent, omnipotent, all-merciful Being, who has taught us to call him our Father, that the very appropriateness of the asking is in itself a strong reason for believing that we shall not ask in vain. Nor can we ask in vain, if through this communion of the human spirit with the Divine there be an inflow of strength or of peace into the soul that prays, even though the specific objects prayed for be not granted. That these objects, when material, are often not granted, we very well know; yet we know too little of the extent of material laws, and of the degree to which a discretionary Providence may work, not in contravention of, but through those laws, to pronounce dogmatically that the prayers of men are wholly unrecognized in the course of events.

As the members of the same community have very numerous blessings and needs in common, it is obviously fitting that they should unite in public worship, praise, and prayer; and if this be a duty of [pg 116] the community collectively, participation in it must, by parity of reason, be the duty of its individual members. Public worship involves the fitness, we may even say the necessity, of appropriating exclusively to it certain places and times. Associations attach themselves to places so indelibly, that it would be impossible to maintain the gravity and sacredness of devotional services in buildings or on spots ordinarily devoted to secular purposes, either of business or of recreation. Nor could assemblies for worship be convened, otherwise that at predetermined and stated intervals; nor could their devotional purpose be served, were there not stated portions of time sequestered from ordinary avocations and amusements. Hence the duty—on the part of all who admit the fitness of public worship—of reverence for conventionally sacred places, and of abstinence from whatever is inconsistent with the religious uses of the day appropriated to worship.[11]

It remains for us to consider the obligations imposed by an acknowledged revelation from God. The position in which we are placed by such a revelation may best be illustrated by reference to what takes place in every human family. A judicious father's commands, precepts, or counsels to his son are of two kinds. In the first place, he lays emphatic stress on duties which the son knows or might know from his own sense of the fitting and the right, such as honesty, veracity, temperance. These duties will not be in reality any more incumbent on the son because they are urged upon him by his father; but if he be a son worthy of the name, he will be more profoundly impressed by their obligation, and will find in his filial love an additional and strong motive toward their observance. The father will, in the second place, prescribe either for his son's benefit or in his own service certain specific acts, in themselves morally indifferent, and these, when thus prescribed, are no longer indifferent, but, as acts of obedience to rightful authority, they become fitting, right, obligatory, and endowed with all the characteristics of acts that are in themselves virtuous. Now a revelation naturally would, and the Christian revelation does, contain precepts and commands of both these classes. It prescribes with solemn emphasis the natural virtues [pg 118] which are obligatory upon us on grounds of intrinsic fitness; and though these are not thus made any the more our duty, we have, through the teachings and example of Jesus Christ, a more vivid sense of our obligation, a higher appreciation of the beauty of virtue, and added motives to its cultivation derived from the love, the justice, and the retributive providence of God. The Christian revelation, also, contains certain directions, not in themselves of any intrinsic obligation, as, for instance, those relating to baptism and the eucharist. So far as we can see, other and very different rites might have served the same purpose with these. Yet it is fitting and right that these, and not others, should be observed, simply because the Divine authority which enacts them has a right to command and to be obeyed. Duties of this class are commonly called positive, in contradistinction from natural obligations. Both classes are equally imperative on the ground of fitness; but with this difference, that in the latter class the fitness resides in the duties themselves, in the former it grows out of the relation between him who gives and those who receive the command.

Section II.

Duties Of The Family.

The inviolableness and permanence of marriage are so absolutely essential to the stability and well-being [pg 119] of families, as to be virtually a part of the law of nature. The young of other species have but a very brief period of dependence; while the human child advances very slowly toward maturity, and for a considerable portion of his life needs, for both body and mind, support, protection, and guidance from his seniors. The separation of parents by other causes than death might leave it an unsolvable question, to which of them the custody of their children appertained; and in whichever way they were disposed of, their due nurture and education would be inadequately secured. The children might be thrown upon the mother's care, while the means of supporting them belonged exclusively to the father. Or in the father's house they might suffer for lack of a mother's personal attention and services; while if he contracted a new matrimonial connection, the children of the previous marriage could hardly fail of neglect, or even of hatred and injury, from their mother's successful rival, especially if she had children of her own.[12]

The life-tenure of the marriage-contract contributes equally to the happiness of the conjugal relation, in the aggregate. There are, no doubt, individual cases of hardship, in which an utter and irremediable incompatibility [pg 120] of temper and character makes married life a burden and a weariness to both parties. But the cases are much more numerous, in which discrepancies of taste and disposition are brought by time and habit into a more comprehensive harmony, and the husband and wife, because unlike, become only the more essential, each to the other's happiness and welfare. Where there is sincere affection, there is little danger that lapse of years in a permanent marriage will enfeeble it; while, were the contract voidable at will, there might be after marriage, as often before marriage, a series of attachments of seemingly equal ardor, each to be superseded in its turn by some new attraction. Where, on the other hand, the union is the result, not of love, but of mutual esteem and confidence, aided by motives of convenience, the very possibility of an easy divorce would render each party captious and suspicious, so that confidence could be easily shaken, and esteem easily impaired; while in those who expect always to have a common home the tendency is to those habits of mutual tolerance, accommodation, and concession, through which confidence and esteem ripen into sincere and lasting affection.

As in many respects each family must be a unit, and as the conflict of rival powers is no less ruinous to a household than to a state, the family must needs have one recognized head or representative, and this place is fittingly held by the husband rather than by the wife; for by the laws and usages of all civilized [pg 121] nations he is held responsible—except in criminal matters—for his wife and his minor children. But in the well-ordered family, each party to the marriage-contract is supreme in his or her own department, and in that of the other prompt in counsel, sympathy, and aid, and slow in dissent, remonstrance, or reproof. These departments are defined with perfect distinctness by considerations of intrinsic fitness, and any attempt to interchange them can be only subversive of domestic peace and social order.