Well—I will. I remember the time, Seward, when there was a great clamour for a Standard of Taste. A definite measure of the indefinite!
TALBOYS.
Which is impossible.
NORTH.
And there is a great clamour for a Standard of Morals. A definite measure of the indefinite!
TALBOYS.
Which is impossible.
NORTH.
Why, gentlemen, the Faculty of Beauty lives; and in finite beings, which we are, Life changes incessantly. The Faculty of Moral Perception lives—and thereby it too changes for better and for worse. This is the Divine Law—at once encouraging and fearful—that Obedience brightens the moral eyesight—Sin darkens. Let all men know this, and keep it in mind always—that a single narrowest, simplest Duty, steadily practised day after day, does more to support, and may do more to enlighten the soul of the Doer, than a course of Moral Philosophy taught by a tongue which a soul compounded of Bacon, Spenser, Shakspeare, Homer, Demosthenes, and Burke—to say nothing of Socrates, and Plato, and Aristotle, should inspire.
BULLER.