2. Interest gives only advice; morality gives commands. A man is not obliged to be skillful, but he is obliged to be honest.
3. Personal interest cannot be the foundation of any universal and general law as applicable to others as to ourselves, for the happiness of each depends on his own way of viewing things. Every man takes his pleasure where he finds it, and understands his interest as he pleases; but honesty or justice is the same for all men.
4. The honest is clear and self-evident; the useful is uncertain. Conscience tells every one what is right or wrong; but it requires a long trained experience to calculate all the possible consequences of our actions, and it would often be absolutely impossible for us to foresee them. We cannot, therefore, always know what is useful to us; but we can always know what is right.
5. It is never impossible to do right; but one cannot always carry out his own wishes in order to be happy. The prisoner may always bravely bear his prison, but he cannot always get out of it.
6. We judge ourselves according to the principles of action we recognize. The man who loses in gambling may be troubled and regret his imprudence; but he who is conscious of having cheated in gambling (though he won thereby) must despise himself if he judges himself from the standpoint of moral law. This law must therefore be something else than the principle of personal happiness. For, to be able to say to one’s self, “I am a villain, though I have filled my purse,” requires another principle than that by which one congratulates himself, saying, “I am a prudent man, for I have filled my cash-box.”
7. The idea of punishment or chastisement could not be understood, moreover, if the good only were the useful. A man is not punished for having been awkward; he is punished for being culpable.
8. The good or the honest.—We have just seen that neither pleasure nor usefulness is the legitimate and supreme object of human life. We are certainly permitted to seek pleasure, since nature invites us to it; but we should not make it the aim of life. We are also permitted, and even sometimes commanded, to seek what is useful, since reason demands we see to our self-preservation. But, above pleasure and utility, there is another aim, a higher aim, the real object of human life. This higher and final aim is what we call, according to circumstances, the good, the honest, and the just.
Now, what is honesty?
We distinguish in man a double nature, body and soul; and in the soul itself two parts, one superior, one inferior; one more particularly deserving of the name of soul, the other more carnal, more material, if one may say so, which comes nearer the body. In one class we have intelligence, sentiments, will; in the other, senses, appetites, passions. Now, that which distinguishes man from the lower animal is the power to rise above the senses, appetites, and passions, and to be capable of thinking, loving, and willing.
Thus, moral good consists in preferring what there is best in us to what there is least good; the goods of the soul to the goods of the body; the dignity of human nature to the servitude of animal passions; the noble affections of the heart to the inclinations of a vile selfishness.