Among the good actions, some are beautiful, heroic, sublime; others, proper, right, and honest; among the bad, some are simply censurable, others shameful, criminal, hideous; finally, among the indifferent ones, some are agreeable and allowable, others necessary and unavoidable.
Let us give some examples by which the different characters of human actions may be well understood.
A judge who administers justice without partiality, a merchant who sells his merchandise for no more than it is worth, a debtor who regularly pays his creditor, a soldier punctual at drill, obedient to discipline, and faithful at his post in times of peace or war, a schoolboy doing regularly the task assigned to him, all these persons perform actions good and laudable, but they cannot be called extraordinary. They are approved of, but not admired. To manage one’s fortune economically, not to yield too much to the pleasure of the senses, to tell no lies, to neither strike nor wound others, are so many good, right, proper, and estimable actions; but they cannot be called admirable actions.
Actions are beautiful in proportion to the difficulty of their performance; when they are extremely difficult and perilous, then we call them heroic and sublime; that is, provided they are good actions, for heroism is unfortunately sometimes allied with wrong. He who, like President de Harlay, can say to a very powerful usurper: “It is a sad thing when the servant is allowed to dismiss the master;” he who can say, like Viscount d’Orthez, who made opposition to Charles IX. after St. Bartholomew, saying: “My soldiers are no executioners;” he who, like Boissy d’Anglas, can firmly and resolutely uphold the rights of an assembly in the face of a sanguinary, violent, and rebellious populace; he who, like Morus or Dubourg, would rather die than sacrifice his trust; he who, like Columbus, can venture upon an unknown ocean, and brave the revolt of a rude and superstitious crew, to obey a generous conviction; he who, like Alexander, confides in friendship enough to receive from the hands of his physician a drink reputed poisoned; any man, in short, who devotes himself for his fellow beings, who, in fire, in water, in the depths of the earth, braves death to save life; who, in order to spread the truth, to remain true and honest, to work in the interests of religion, science, or humanity, will suffer hunger and thirst, poverty, slavery, torture, or death, is a hero.
Epictetus was a slave. His master, for some negligence or other, caused him to be beaten. “You will break my leg,” said the sufferer; and the leg broke, indeed, under the blows. “I told you you would break it,” he remarked quietly. This is a hero.
Joan of Arc, defeated by the English and made a prisoner, threatened with the stake, said to her executioners: “I knew quite well that the English would put me to death; but were there a hundred thousand of them, they should not have this kingdom.” This is a heroine.
Bad actions have their degrees likewise. But here we should call attention to the fact that the worst are those that stand in opposition to the simply good actions; on the contrary, an action which is not heroic is not necessarily bad; and when it is bad it is not to be classed among the most criminal. Some examples will again be necessary to understand these various shades of meaning, which every one feels and recognizes in practice, but which are very difficult to analyze theoretically.
To be respectful towards one’s parents is a good and proper action, but not a heroic one. On the contrary, to strike them, insult them, kill them, are abominable actions, and to be classed among the basest and most hideous that can be committed. To love one’s friends, to be as serviceable to them as possible, shows a straightforward and well-endowed soul; but there is nothing sublime in it. On the other hand, to betray friendship; to slander those that love us; to lie in order to win their favor; to inquire into their secrets for the purpose of using them against them, are black, base, and shameful actions. There is scarcely any merit in not taking what does not belong to us; theft, on the contrary, is the most contemptible of things. Now, not to be able to bear with adversity, to fear death, to shrink from braving the ice of the North Pole, to stay at home when fire or flood threatens our neighbor, may be mean or weak, but not criminal. Let us add, however, that there are cases where heroism becomes obligatory, and where it is criminal not to be heroic. A sea-captain, who has endangered his ship, and who, instead of saving it, leaves his post; a general who, when the moment calls for it, refuses to die at the head of his army, lack courage; the chief of a State who, in times of revolt, or when the country is in peril, fears death; the president of a convention who takes to flight before a rebellion; the physician who runs away before an epidemic; the magistrate who is afraid to be just; all these are truly culpable. Every condition of life has its peculiar heroism, which at certain moments becomes a duty. Yet will it always be true that the more easy an action is, the less excusable is its neglect, and consequently the more odious is it to try to escape from it.
Besides the good or bad actions, there are others which appear to partake of neither the one nor the other of these two characters, which are neither good nor bad, and which for this reason are called indifferent. For instance, to go and take a walk is an action which, considered by itself, is neither good nor bad, although it may become the one or the other according to circumstances. To be asleep, to be awake, to eat, to take exercise, to talk with one’s friends, to read an agreeable book, to play on some instrument, are actions which certainly have nothing bad in themselves, but which, nevertheless, could not be cited as examples of good actions. One would not say, for instance, such a one is an honest man because he plays the violin well; such a one is a scholar because he has a good appetite; still less when actions absolutely necessary come into question, as the act of breathing and sleeping. Actions, then, which are inseparable from the necessities of our existence, have no moral character; they are the same with us as with the animals and plants; they are purely natural actions. There are others, again, that are not necessary, but simply agreeable, which we perform because they suit our tastes and fancies.
It is sufficient that they are not contrary to the right, that one cannot call them bad; but it does not follow from this that they are good, and such are what are called indifferent actions.