Fundamental Philosophy, Vol. 2 (of 2)

by Jaime Luciano Balmes

263. Parents must support and educate their children; for without this the human race could not be preserved.

264. Conjugal duties arise from the order necessary for the preservation and perfection of the society of the family, which is indispensable for the preservation of the human race.

265. The more necessary the connection of an act with the preservation and perfection of the family, the more necessary is its morality, and consequently the less subject to modifications.

266. The immorality of acts contrary to chastity, and especially of those against nature, is founded on great reasons of an order indispensable for the preservation of the individual and the species.

267. Passions, because they are blind, are evidently given us as means, not as ends.

268. Therefore, when the gratification of the passions is taken, not as a means, but as the end, the act is immoral. A simple example will explain this idea. The pleasure of eating has a very useful object in the preservation of the individual; thus to eat with pleasure is not evil, but good; to eat for the pleasure of eating is to invert the order: the act is not good. The same action which in the first case is very reasonable, in the second, is an act of gluttony. Common sense renders any proof of this superfluous.

269. If a man lived all alone, the use of his physical freedom could never injure any one but himself; the moral limit of his freedom would be to satisfy his wants and desires in conformity to the dictates of reason. But as men live in society, the exercise of the physical freedom of one necessarily interferes with the freedom of others; to prevent disorder it is necessary that the physical freedom of each one should be restricted a little, and that all should be subjected to an order conformed to reason and conducive to the general good; hence the necessity of civil legislation. But as the legislation cannot be established or preserved by itself alone, a public power becomes necessary. The object of society is the general good, in subjection to the principles of eternal morality; the same is the object of the public power.

270. This theory explains satisfactorily the double character presented by the moral order: the absolute, and the relative. The heart, reason, and common sense force us to acknowledge in the moral order something absolute and independent of the consideration of utility; this is explained by rising to an absolute act of absolute perfection, and regarding the morality of creatures as a participation of that act. Reason and experience teach that the morality of actions has useful results; this is explained by observing that the absolute act includes the love of the order which must rule among created beings in order that they may fulfil their destinies. This order, then, is at the same time willed by God, and conducive to the special end of each creature; therefore it is at the same time both moral and useful.

271. But these two characters are always kept essentially distinct; the first we perceive; the second we calculate. When the first is wanting, we are evil; when the second fails, we are unfortunate. The painful result is punishment when our will has knowingly violated the order; otherwise, it is simply misfortune.

272. I hope I may flatter myself that this theory is somewhat more satisfactory than those invented by some modern philosophers for the purpose of explaining the absolute nature of morality. I had need of the idea of God, it is true; but I conceive no moral order, if God be taken from the world. Without God morality is nothing but a blind sentiment, as absurd in its object as in itself; the philosophy which does not found it on God, can never explain it scientifically; it must confine itself to establishing the fact as a necessity whose character and origin they know nothing of.