Here we must again recognize the distinction between two classes of mental actions, viz., those acts which are natural as resulting necessarily from the constitution of mind, of which God is the producing cause, and those which are voluntary and of which man is the producing cause. The first are natural and involuntary, the latter are moral and voluntary.
This introduces the second part of the system of natural religion, that which relates to man's obligations or duty toward the Creator, toward his fellow beings, and toward himself. In other words, the question is, “what is right voluntary or moral action?”
In seeking the reply to this without the aid of revelation, the following particulars demand attention:
In all discussions on this question there is no mental analysis more important than the distinction between the desire, or what moves us to choose, and the act of choice.
The mind is always moved to choice by desire for some good to be gained or some evil to be avoided. The susceptibility or power of being thus led, in popular language is called a “bias,” an “inclination,” a “propensity,” a “tendency,” or a “proclivity” toward the object which causes the desire. Thus the susceptibility to desire stimulating drinks is excited by liquors, and this is called “a propensity” to strong drink.
The susceptibility to desire to amass money is called a bias, or propensity to avarice. The only thing ever meant by a bias or propensity to choose any thing is, that there are such susceptibilities that desire can be excited for that thing.
But all such propensities or biases are from evil and toward good in the widest sense of these terms. No rational mind ever desires pure evil, but always desires good of some sort. On the contrary, it is one of the implanted principles of common sense that no rational mind will choose pure evil. Any man who should do this would be regarded as insane—as having lost the distinctive feature of a rational mind.
But we find that desires are called strong, imperative, powerful, and the like, not at all with reference to the question whether what is desired would be best for all concerned. They are measured, as to strength or weakness, by the degrees of enjoyment their gratification secures, or the amount of pain that self-denial would involve. This measurement of varied degrees of pleasure and pain is a matter of consciousness to every mind, and is constantly referred to by all races and in all languages.
In this use of the term, the strongest desire often exists for that which is perceived to be the best good for all concerned. At other times the strongest desire is for that which is seen to be the lesser good. When the strongest desire is for that which is best, the choice is easy, and the mind always chooses the best good. But when the strongest desire is for that which is not best, then choice is more difficult, and there is a conscious struggle between the promptings of reason and conscience, and the importunities of strong desire for the lesser good.
At such periods there is a conscious power in every mind to choose either way, and sometimes we choose to gratify the strongest desire and give up the best good, and at other times we choose the best good and [pg 133] deny the strongest desire. Every human being has been conscious of this struggle between excited desire and the dictates of reason, and all the literature of the world refers to it as a universal fact. The terms self-denial, self-control, self-government, all are based on this experience of all minds.[6]