“H. Travel back to Melinda, and you will find the difficulty easily solved.” (The people of Melinda are all left-handed, i. e., their right is our left. But they are as right-handed as we are; for they use that hand in preference which is ordered by their custom, and is therefore their right hand, and leave out of employ the other, which is, therefore, their left hand.) “A thing may be at the same time both right and wrong, as well as right and left. It may be commanded to be done and commanded not to be done. The law—that which is laid down—may be different by different authorities.
“I have always been most obedient when most taxed with disobedience. But my right hand is not the right hand of Melinda. The right I revere is not the right ordered by sycophants: the jus vagum, the capricious command of princes or ministers. I follow the law of God, (what is laid down by him for the rule of my conduct,) when I follow the laws of human nature: which without any human testimony we know must proceed from God; and upon these are founded the rights of man, or what is ordered for man. I revere the constitution and constitutional laws of England, because they are in conformity with the laws of God and nature; and upon these are founded the rational rights of Englishmen. If princes, or ministers, or the corrupt sham-representatives of the people, order, command, or lay down any thing contrary to that which is ordered, commanded, or laid down by God, human nature, or the constitution of this government, I will still hold fast by the higher authorities. If the meaner authorities are offended, they can only destroy the body of the individual, but never can affect the right, or that which is ordered by their superiors.”[5]
[5] See his whole article on Rights.
Thus he is found to agree with Webster, that the will of God is the ultimate genus of the right. That is right, which conforms to the will of God as laid down in law—whether that law be a written revelation, nature, or the customs of society, (as in the case of the right and left hand,) as the exponent of that will—they are what is ordered in the case, and make the right. Hence he condemns as “wretched mummery” the distinction admitted by M. Portalis, between obedience to a command, and obedience to what is right and just in itself, and, on the same ground, pronounces it “highly improper” to say, with Mr. Locke, “God has a right to do it: we are his creatures.” For truly if his will be the ultimate genus of right, then he can have no rights, for there is certainly no superior to whose commands he conforms in the acts of his will. But precisely at this point let us take our stand. I affirm on the authority of Scripture, no less than sound philosophy, (always in harmony,) that God has rights, and that the distinction of M. Portalis is in many instances correct; and that hence Tooke, Dr. Paley, (who also concurs in this view—see his article Rights, in his Moral Philosophy,) Dr. Webster, with many others of great distinction, strangely err, not in their etymology of this word, but in that hypothesis by which they make it a significate of the will of God. We cannot agree with them that rights and duties which are reciprocal, are resolvable only into the will of God—have his will alone for their ultimate foundation. I take ground back of this. True, I say with them—and I claim full credit in the declaration—that the volitions, the acts of God, are always right; but I do not say that his will makes the essential or true distinction between right and wrong. We dare not assume that God, could, by an act of volition, make the right to be the wrong, and the wrong to be the right—good evil, and evil good! It is absurd to assume that God can do things that are in themselves contradictory. Omnipotent, we know, he is; but such things are not the objects of power, any more than things which are the objects of power, are, in the same sense, the objects of Omniscience. To affirm that he could make the right to be the wrong, is as false as it would be impious to affirm that he would do it, if he could—false, because, if he can, he has not deposited the truth in that great master-work of his hand, the mind of man; for, by the power of the intuition he has given us, we are assured that the idea is in itself a gross absurdity. And if this be not decisive of the question, then neither intuition nor the deductions of intuition are of any authority. Man is the victim of a false guide within! He may “eat and drink, for to-morrow he dies!” There will be no more of him; or, what is worse, he is but a link in a chain of sentient beings who are governed by a cruel fate, which regards not the distinctions of right and wrong; and he may be the sport of wickedness in the world to come, as he has been the victim of deception in this! I think it more than error to reason thus! I think it profane!
We may take ground back of this—ground as honorable to God as it is exalting to man and encouraging to his hopes. It is true, that both rectitude and duty, together with liberty, are resolvable into the essential good. Or, in other words, freedom, rectitude, and duty are the modes of thought in which we conceive of the good as existing in the soul of man, and that they are, each of them, in their distinct nature and harmonious union, the true ideal of the good—the modes of thought, also, in which the intuition of man perceives the good in the case of every moral action which is good. And concerning the good in itself, which is thus in an humble degree perceived by us, it is certainly a reality which is immutable and eternal. God did not make it—nor was it made. It is of the essential nature of God, and eternal. He is the great impersonation of the good. His will, his volitions, in all cases, are but the expressions of this high attribute. His will, therefore, always conforming to the essential good, is a perfect rule of what is right in itself, and proper to be observed by us, as a rule of duty or conduct. Such a rule, it will be seen, is eminently adapted to the wants of humanity; but, at the same time, his will and the good are different realities. The one is an essential quality of his holy nature, and the other is, to a certain extent, an expression of this attribute in the form of volitions. That the will of God did not make the right in itself, will readily appear. Is it to be conceived that there ever was a period in eternity past, when truth was not truth, or when truth did not exist? when the good was not the good, or when the good did not exist? But does it not accord with the clearest teachings of reason, that the truth always was the truth, and ever will be the truth? that the good always will be the good? That two and two are equal to four; that to affirm a thing to be and not to be at the same time is an absurdity and a contradiction; and that things equal to one and the same thing are equal to one another, we say are all intuitive truths—we cannot be mistaken about them. So also in morals: that the truth is good; that virtue is good; that a good action is not an evil action; and that to affirm that a good action is not a good action is an absurdity, a contradiction, we say, are all intuitions—we cannot be mistaken about them. But is it not equally intuitive that these things were always so—that these truths were always truths—the good was always the good, just as certainly as that they are so now? Then the eternity of these things is just as certainly an intuition, as that they exist now is an intuition. Hence the eternity of God, who is the great impersonation of this high quality, or whose attribute it is, is an intuitive truth. Hence his will did not make it, for it is absurd to say that he made himself. His will, therefore, which, in given cases, is his volition, is but the expression of this essential quality of his holy nature. Hence his will is a rule of right, because in all cases it conforms to the good, but it did not make the good.
Therefore the right, as it conforms to the essential good, is of the nature of the good. It is properly a significate of the good, and not a significate of the will of God. Things agreeing with one and the same thing agree with each other. Hence it coincides with the will of God. But such coincidence does not constitute any thing right in itself; but it is because, like the will of God, it conforms to, or is of the nature of, the essential good, that it is right. The right then, in itself, is the good. The good is the true generic idea which classifies all the different applications of this term. So far as any thing is of the nature of the good, it is in itself right. So far as any thing, to which the idea of the right applies, is negative of the good, i. e., is evil, it is wrong.
The good, therefore, as an ultimate genus, is much more extensive in meaning than the right. It extends to all physical as well as moral good. Our subject requires us to consider it only so far as it applies to humanity. And how far is this? When Jehovah created man, he pronounced him to be “very good,” i. e., essentially good in the attributes of his nature. He was created in “his own image: in the image of God created he him.” “And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” That is, he was created a pure spiritual intelligence. He had a clear and correct perception and judgment of pure abstract truth, and of the relations of truth; with the corresponding feelings of obligation to duty, and a power of will sufficient to control the mental states within the sphere of its operations. Now, as a pure intelligence, thus endowed, he is within the limits of his capacity a cause within himself—strictly a self-acting agent, and hence accountable. And as he was created with a feeling of obligation to observe the good as a rule in all his conduct, he was created a subject of duty—he was under obligation to do, to act; and as in each of these respects, and in all others, he was created in conformity with the essential good, he was rectus, right. All this is implied in that declaration of his essential nature, as a pure spiritual intelligence, (who was therein made in the image of God,) which defined him to be “very good.” Nor can we think of this good as a quality or attribute of humanity, without being conscious, if we reflect closely, of associating in our minds the idea that the being who personates it is for that reason free; that for that reason he is rectus, straight, conformed to the good as the rule, that is, right; and that for the same reason he is under obligation—it is his duty to act according to that rule. Every instance of moral action that is good implies these ideas: it is free, it is rectus, straight, and it is done in accordance with duty. In the same sense in which life, sense, and motion enter into and so form the comprehension of the creature, animal; so liberty, rectitude, and duty form the comprehension of moral good, so far as it applies to humanity. These are distinct ideas. Still they coincide, and either implies the others as correlatives. Hence we say of a free action that it is good, implying that it is at the same time rectus, and done in accordance with duty; and of an action in conformity to a proper rule, that it is good, implying at the same time that it is free, and done in accordance with duty; and also of an action in compliance with duty, that it is good, implying that it is also free, and straight, i. e., conformed to rule: thus in each case we imply the correlative ideas.
Now, whatever is in my possession by natural endowment is mine, in the strictest sense. Hence, freedom is mine, duty is mine, and rectitude is mine, because the good is mine, and those are the elements of the good, each one implying the others.
Hence arises the idea of natural right: that is, the right with which I am endowed by the constitution of my nature as a rational being. But what is that right? Evidently, the good. The good as an attribute is in my possession. I am constituted with it and by it. Hence it is inalienable. Divest me of the good as an attribute of my nature, i. e., liberty, rectitude, and duty, and I sink at once in the scale of being: I cease altogether to be a rational or accountable being.