Human, All Too Human Volume Ii Part 38

ORIGIN OF RIGHTS.-Rights may be traced to traditions, traditions to momentary agreements. At some time or other men were mutually content with the consequences of making an agreement, and, again, too indolent formally to renew it. Thus they went on living as if it had constantly been renewed, and gradually, when oblivion cast its veil over the origin, they thought they possessed a sacred, unalterable foundation on which every generation would be compelled to build. Tradition was now a constraint, even if it no more involved the profit originally derived from making the agreement.-Here the weak have always found their strong fortress. They are inclined to immortalise the momentary agreement, the single act of favour shown towards them.

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THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OBLIVION IN MORAL SENTIMENT.-The same actions that in primitive society first aimed at the common advantage were later on performed from other motives: from fear or reverence of those who demanded and recommended them; or from habit, because men had seen them done about them from childhood upwards; or from kindness, because the practising of them caused delight and approving looks on all sides; or from vanity, because they were praised. Such actions, in which the fundamental motive, that of utility, has been _forgotten_, are then called moral; not, indeed, because they are done from those other motives, but because they are not done with a conscious purpose of utility.-Whence the hatred of utility that suddenly manifests itself here, and by which all praiseworthy actions formally exclude all actions for the sake of utility?-Clearly society, the rallying-point of all morality and of all maxims in praise of moral action, has had to battle too long and too fiercely with the selfishness and obstinacy of the individual not to rate every motive morally higher than utility. Hence it looks as if morals had not sprung from utility, whereas in fact morals are originally the public utility, which had great difficulty in prevailing over the interests of the unit and securing a loftier reputation.

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THE HEIRS TO THE WEALTH OF MORALITY.-Even in the domain of morals there is an inherited wealth, which is owned by the gentle, the good-tempered, the compa.s.sionate, the indulgent. They have inherited from their forefathers their gentle mode of action, but not common sense (the source of that mode of action). The pleasant thing about this wealth is that one must always bestow and communicate a portion of it, if its presence is to be felt at all. Thus this wealth unconsciously aims at bridging the gulf between the morally rich and the morally poor, and, what is its best and most remarkable feature, not for the sake of a future mean between rich and poor, but for the sake of a universal prosperity and superfluity.-Such may be the prevailing view of inherited moral wealth, but it seems to me that this view is maintained more _in majorem gloriam_ of morality than in honour of truth. Experience at least establishes a maxim which must serve, if not as a refutation, at any rate as an important check upon that generalisation. Without the most exquisite intelligence, says experience, without the most refined capacity for choice and a strong propensity to observe the mean, the morally rich will become spendthrifts of morality.

For by abandoning themselves without restraint to their compa.s.sionate, gentle, conciliatory, harmonising instincts, they make all about them more careless, more covetous, and more sentimental. The children of these highly moral spendthrifts easily and (sad to relate) at best become pleasant but futile wasters.

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THE JUDGE AND EXTENUATING CIRc.u.mSTANCES.-"One should behave as a man of honour even towards the devil and pay his debts," said an old soldier, when the story of Faust had been related to him in rather fuller detail.

"h.e.l.l is the right place for Faust!" "You are terrible, you men!" cried his wife; "how can that be? After all, his only fault was having no ink in his ink-stand! It is indeed a sin to write with blood, but surely for that such a handsome man ought not to burn in h.e.l.l-fire?"

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PROBLEM OF THE DUTY OF TRUTH.-Duty is an imperious sentiment that forces us to action. We call it good, and consider it outside the pale of discussion. The origin, limits, and justification of duty we will not debate or allow to be debated. But the thinker considers everything an evolution and every evolution a subject for discussion, and is accordingly without duty so long as he is merely a thinker. As such, he would not recognise the duty of seeing and speaking the truth; he would not _feel_ the sentiment at all. He asks, whence comes it and whither will it go? But even this questioning appears to him questionable. Surely, however, the consequence would be that the thinker's machinery would no longer work properly if he could really feel himself unenc.u.mbered by duty in the search for knowledge? It would appear, then, that for fuel the same element is necessary as must be investigated by means of the machine.-Perhaps the formula will be: granted there were a duty of recognising truth, what is then the truth in regard to every other kind of duty?-But is not a hypothetical sense of duty a contradiction in terms?

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GRADES OF MORALS.-Morality is primarily a means of preserving the community and saving it from destruction. Next it is a means of maintaining the community on a certain plane and in a certain degree of benevolence. Its motives are fear and hope, and these in a more coa.r.s.e, rough, and powerful form, the more the propensity towards the perverse, one-sided, and personal still persists. The most terrible means of intimidation must be brought into play so long as milder forms have no effect and that twofold species of preservation cannot be attained. (The strongest intimidation, by the way, is the invention of a hereafter with a h.e.l.l everlasting.) For this purpose we must have racks and torturers of the soul. Further grades of morality, and accordingly means to the end referred to, are the commandments of a G.o.d (as in the Mosaic law). Still further and higher are the commandments of an absolute sense of duty with a "Thou shalt"-all rather roughly hewn yet _broad_ steps, because on the finer, narrower steps men cannot yet set their feet. Then comes a morality of inclination, of taste, finally of insight-which is beyond all the illusory motives of morality, but has convinced itself that humanity for long periods could be allowed no other.

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THE MORALITY OF PITY IN THE MOUTHS OF THE INTEMPERATE.-All those who are not sufficiently masters of themselves and do not know morality as a self-control and self-conquest continuously exercised in things great and small, unconsciously come to glorify the good, compa.s.sionate, benevolent impulses of that instinctive morality which has no head, but seems merely to consist of a heart and helpful hands. It is to their interest even to cast suspicion upon a morality of reason and to set up the other as the sole morality.

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SEWERS OF THE SOUL.-Even the soul must have its definite sewers, through which it can allow its filth to flow off: for this purpose it may use persons, relations, social cla.s.ses, its native country, or the world, or finally-for the wholly arrogant (I mean our modern "pessimists")-_le bon Dieu_.

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A KIND OF REST AND CONTEMPLATION.-Beware lest your rest and contemplation resemble that of a dog before a butcher's stall, prevented by fear from advancing and by greed from retiring, and opening its eyes wide as though they were mouths.

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PROHIBITIONS WITHOUT REASONS.-A prohibition, the reason of which we do not understand or admit, is almost a command, not only for the stiff-necked but for the thirster after knowledge. We at once make an experiment in order to learn _why_ the prohibition was made. Moral prohibitions, like those of the Decalogue, are only suited to ages when reason lies vanquished. Nowadays a prohibition like "Thou shalt not kill," "Thou shalt not commit adultery," laid down without reasons, would have an injurious rather than a beneficial effect.

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CHARACTER PORTRAIT.-What sort of a man is it that can say of himself: "I despise very easily, but never hate. I at once find out in every man something which can be honoured and for which I honour him: the so-called amiable qualities attract me but little"?

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PITY AND CONTEMPT.-The expression of pity is regarded as a sign of contempt, because one has clearly ceased to be an object of _fear_ as soon as one becomes an object of pity. One has sunk below the level of the equilibrium. For this equilibrium does not satisfy human vanity, which is only satisfied by the feeling that one is imposing respect and awe. Hence it is difficult to explain why pity is so highly prized, just as we need to explain why the unselfish man, who is originally despised or feared as being artful, is praised.

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