Common Sense Applied to Religion; Or, The Bible and the People

by Catharine Esther Beecher

The first and leading cause is a want of knowledge of the truth and a belief of error. We begin existence without knowledge of any kind, and without any power to receive instruction from others. The newborn mind is a mere unit of impulses and instincts, with an intellect entirely undeveloped, and a will which never can act intelligently. It is entirely dependent for its experience, safety, enjoyment, and knowledge of all kinds on those around. As it gains by experience and training, much of its knowledge and belief is correct, and many of its mental acts are right; but a large portion of its actions are wrong, and many of them inevitably so.

And here we must recognize again the distinction which our moral nature demands between wrong actions that result from unavoidable ignorance, and those which are committed intelligently and which violate conscience. In regard to the first class, the natural penalties are inevitable, and the justice of them involves the great question of the Creator's character and designs. In regard to those that violate conscience, our moral nature, as has been shown, leads us not only to approve additional penalties, but to demand them.

The violations of law which are sins of ignorance commence with the earliest period of existence. Owing to its helpless ignorance, often the little child can no more help acting wrong than it can help thinking and feeling.

A second cause of wrong action is false teachings. Although a large portion of the instruction given to the young, especially in regard to physical laws, are true, yet the infant commences life among imperfectly instructed beings, who often communicate error believing it to be truth. Meantime the little one has no power of correcting these errors, and thus again is inevitably led to wrong action.

A third cause of wrong action is the want of good habits and the early formation of bad ones. As a habit is a facility of action gained by repetition, of course, at first, there can be no habits. And then what the habits shall be is entirely decided by the opinions and conduct of its educators. While some habits are formed aright, others are formed wrong, and thus the disability of nature is increased instead of diminished.

The next cause of wrong action is those social influences of other minds that have most power both in securing and sustaining right action. In the previous chapter we have illustrated the power of the principles of love, gratitude, sympathy, and example in securing right action.

The same powerful influences exist in reference to wrong action. The child who loves its parents and playmates is not only taught to believe wrong action to be right, but has all the powerful influences which example, sympathy, love, and gratitude can combine to lead to the same wrong courses. Thus, to the natural ignorance of inexperienced mind, to false instructions, and to bad habits, are often added these most powerful of all influences.

The next cause of wrong action is the want of a ruling purpose to do right. It has been shown that all the powers of the intellect and all the susceptibilities can be regulated by a generic ruling purpose, and that it is impossible, according to the nature of mind, to regulate it any other way.

When such a purpose exists, and its object is any other except the right and true one, it is as impossible for a mind to act right as it is for a machine to fulfill its design when the main wheel is turned the wrong way.

That such a purpose does not exist in the new-born mind, and that it must be a considerable time before it is possible, in the nature of things, to be originated, needs no attempt to illustrate. Such a purpose is dependent on knowledge of truth, on habits, and these on the character of the educators of mind, and on other surrounding social influences.