Can lay on nature is a paradise
To what we fear of death."
Existence, no matter how sordid, is immeasurably better than non-existence, for non-existence is nothing; and when we consider eternal life after separation from the body, even as a probability, that raises existence to infinite possibilities above the void of non-existence. A human life, even in an Australian Bushman, in a tuberculous pauper, in the vilest criminal, is in itself so stupendously noble a thing that the whole universe exists for its upholding toward betterment. The raising of human life toward a higher condition has been the sole tendency of all the magnificent charity, sacrifice, patriotism, and heroism the best men and women of the world since time began have striven in. The necessary first cause itself is life, and life is by far the most sacred thing possible for the first cause to effect. Eternal life is the greatest reward of the just.
It is not permissible under any possible circumstance directly to kill an innocent human being. By killing directly is meant either (1) as an end desirable in itself, as when a man is killed for revenge; or (2) as a means to an end. By an innocent human being is meant a person who has not by any voluntary act of his own done harm commensurate with the loss of his own life.
To kill a human being is to destroy human nature, by separating the vital principle from the body; to destroy anything is to subordinate and sacrifice that thing absolutely to the purposes of the slayer; but (1) no one has a right so to subordinate another human being, because man and his life are solely under the dominion of God. If a man may not kill himself, as we proved above, because he is not master of his own life, he surely may not kill another to whom he is no more closely related as master than he is to himself. (2) No man has a right to subordinate another human being as is done in slaying him, because this other human being is a person, an intelligent nature, and consequently free, independent, referring its operations solely to itself as to their centre. This very freedom differentiates man from brutes and inanimate things. These are not independent; they are rightly possessed by man; but man may be possessed by no one except God. Even extrinsic human slavery is abhorrent to us as a corollary of the intrinsic freedom of man, which is absolute. This intrinsic freedom is such that we may not under any circumstances lawfully resign it to another's possession. This is one of the chief moral objections to oath-bound secret societies which exact blind obedience. All morality depends on that freedom, all peace in life, all civilization, and society itself.
The end of our struggles, toil, fortitude, temperance, thrift, is freedom,—freedom to do and to hold, freedom from the thraldom of vice and barbarity. The rational endeavor of every civilized nation is that it be free; and this means solely that every citizen thereof, from the highest to the lowest, is made secure in his rights as a human being. It intends that justice should prevail. Nearly all the unhappiness, crime, moral misery, and much of the physical misery in the world are due to a disregard for liberty, for the safeguarding of men in their inalienable rights. Give every man his bare rights as a man and all troubles of capital and labor, all race problems would cease, the prisons would be empty, war would be unknown. Our struggle toward justice, toward the protection of the rights of man, toward liberty, must go on, or anarchy and social destruction will ensue. Now, as there is nothing greater and nobler than liberty, the freedom of the sons of God to do what they have a right to do, and as every human being has a right to that liberty, so there is nothing baser than its contrary, the destruction of that liberty; and no destruction is so final as that of killing the man, no usurpation so abhorrent to human nature and all liberty. Abhorrence for such a destruction is the primal instinct of all human beings; even the irrational reflexes of our bodies react quickest in protecting us from that destruction.
Justice and order must prevail; that is a fundamental natural law to which all other laws are subordinate. Justice, moreover, is a moral equation, and whenever one right transcends another it must be superior to the right it holds in abeyance. The right an innocent human being has to his life, however, is so great that no other human right can be superior to it while he remains innocent. Subversion of this right by creatures is intrinsically evil, as blasphemy and perjury are evil, although not in exactly the same degree.
There are occasions upon which it is permissible to kill, indirectly, innocent persons. An effect is brought about indirectly when it is neither intended as an end for its own sake, nor chosen as means toward an end, but is attached as a circumstance to the end or the means. Means help to an end, circumstances often do not, although they may affect the morality of an act.
Suppose two swimmers, Peter and Paul, are trying to save Thomas, who dies in the water; as he dies Thomas grips Peter and Paul so tightly that they cannot shake the corpse off. Peter is weak, and he will soon sink and drown, owing to his weakness and the weight of the corpse; Paul also will go down later, owing to the weight of Peter and Thomas. Peter, however, cuts his own clothing loose from the grip of the corpse and is saved; but Paul immediately is drowned, owing to the fact that the full weight of the corpse comes upon him. Is Peter justified in cutting himself loose? Certainly he is. This is an example of indirect killing, a case of double effect, one good, the saving of Peter's life, the other evil, the loss of Paul's life, both proceeding immediately and equally from the causal act, the cutting loose of the clothing. The good effect is intended, the bad effect is reluctantly permitted.
Again, let us set the same condition for Peter, Paul, and Thomas; but Peter is not able to cut himself loose. John, a fourth person, can cut Peter loose and save him, but can do no more; he must let Paul go down with the corpse of Thomas. May John cut Peter loose? Certainly he may, on the principle quod liceat per se licet per alium. This is another case of double effect, with the extenuating circumstances as above.