But glory, it will be said, the passion of glory inspired Regulus; it is, then, interest still that explains the apparent heroism of the old Roman. Admit, then, that this manner of understanding his interest is even ridiculously absurd, and that heroes are very unskilful and inconsistent egoists. Instead of erecting statues, with the deceived human race, to Regulus, d'Assas, and St. Vincent de Paul, true philosophy must send them to the Petites-Maisons, that a good regime may cure them of generosity, charity, and greatness of soul, and restore them to the sane state, the normal state, the state in which man only thinks of himself, and knows no other law, no other principle of action than his interest.
3d. If there is no liberty, if there is no essential distinction between good and evil, if there is only interest well or ill understood, there can be no obligation.
It is at first very evident that obligation supposes a being capable of fulfilling it, that duty is applied only to a free being. Then the nature of obligation is such, that if we are delinquent in fulfilling it, we feel ourselves culpable, whilst if, instead of understanding our interest well, we have understood it ill, there follows only a single thing, that we are unfortunate. Are, then, being culpable and being unfortunate the same thing? These are two ideas radically different. You may advise me to understand my interest well, under penalty of falling into misfortune; you cannot command me to see clearly in regard to my interest under penalty of crime.
Imprudence has never been considered a crime. When it is morally accused, it is much less as being wrong than as attesting vices of the soul, lightness, presumption, feebleness.
As we have said, our true interest is often most difficult of discernment. Obligation is always immediate and manifest. In vain passion and desire combat it; in vain the reasoning that passion trains for its attendance, like a docile slave, tries to smother it under a mass of sophisms: the instinct of conscience, a cry of the soul, an intuition of reason, different from reasoning, is sufficient to repel all sophisms, and make obligation appear.
However pressing may be the solicitations of interest, we may always enter into contest and arrangement with it. There are a thousand ways of being happy. You assure me that, by conducting myself in such a manner, I shall arrive at fortune. Yes, but I love repose more than fortune, and with happiness alone in view, activity is not better than sloth. Nothing is more difficult than to advise any one in regard to his interest, nothing is easier than to advise him in regard to honor.
After all, in practice, the useful is resolved into the agreeable, that is to say, into pleasure. Now, in regard to pleasure, every thing depends on humor and temperament. When there is neither good nor evil in itself, there are no pleasures more or less noble, more or less elevated; there are only pleasures that are more or less agreeable to us. Every thing depends on the nature of each one. This is the reason why interest is so capricious. Each one understands it as it pleases him, because each one is the judge of what pleases him. One is more moved by pleasures of the senses; another by pleasures of mind and heart. To the latter, the passion of glory takes the place of pleasures of the senses; to the former, the pleasure of dominion appears much superior to that of glory. Each man has his own passions, each man, then, has his own way of understanding his interest; and even my interest of to-day is not my interest of to-morrow. The revolutions of health, age, and events greatly modify our tastes, our humors. We are ourselves perpetually changing, and with us change our desires and our interests.
It is not so with obligation. It exists not, or it is absolute. The idea of obligation implies that of something inflexible. That alone is a duty from which one cannot be loosed under any pretext, and is, by the same title, a duty for all. There is one thing before which all the caprices of my mind, of my imagination, of my sensibility must disappear,—the idea of the good with the obligation which it involves. To this supreme command I can oppose neither my humor, nor circumstances, nor even difficulties. This law admits of no delay, no accommodation, no excuse. When it speaks, be it to you or me, in whatever place, under whatever circumstance, in whatever disposition we may be, it only remains for us to obey. We are able not to obey, for we are free; but every disobedience to the law appears to ourselves a fault more or less grave, a bad use of our liberty. And the violated law has its immediate penal sanction in the remorse that it inflicts upon us.
The only penalty that is brought upon us by the counsels of prudence, comprehended more or less well, followed more or less well, is, in the final account, more or less happiness or unhappiness. Now I pray you, am I obligated to be happy? Can obligation depend upon happiness, that is to say, on a thing that it is equally impossible for me to always seek and obtain at will? If I am obligated, it must be in my power to fulfil the obligation imposed. But my liberty has but little power over my happiness, which depends upon a thousand circumstances independent of me, whilst it is all in all in regard to virtue, for virtue is only an employment of liberty. Moreover, happiness is in itself, morally, neither better nor worse than unhappiness. If I understand my interest badly, I am punished for it by regret, not by remorse. Unhappiness can overwhelm me; it does not disgrace me, if it is not the consequence of some vice of the soul.
Not that I would renew stoicism and say to suffering, Thou art no evil. No, I earnestly advise man to escape suffering as much as he can, to understand well his interest, to shun unhappiness and seek happiness. I only wish to establish that happiness is one thing and virtue another, that man necessarily aspires after happiness, but that he is only obligated to virtue, and that consequently, by the side of and above interest well understood is a moral law, that is to say, as consciousness attests, and the whole human race avows, an imperative prescription of which one cannot voluntarily divest himself without crime and shame.