Obligation. 261 



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that a specific act will promote the great end, 

 which it is the law of man's being to seek, and the 

 sense of obligation to perform that act arises at 

 once. The action of obligation is, in this sense, an- 

 alogous to the action of the lower instinctive im- 

 pulses. We have shown that they have a certain 

 relation to the impression made upon the senses. 

 Make a certain impression upon the senses of an 

 animal, and the instinctive act follows, though its 

 results may be the worst possible for the being. 

 Animal Instinct was made to depend upon the 

 senses for its light, or condition of acting, where it 

 has any relation to the senses at all. In like man- 

 ner, when the relation of a certain act, to the great 

 end of our being, is judged to be direct, by the com- 

 prehending power of man, the sense of obligation to 

 perform that act, arises at once, though the per- 

 formance of it may, through ignorance of relations, 

 involve the worst possible consequences. From 

 this, it is plain that the impulse of obligation has 

 the same relation to the comprehending power of 

 man, that ordinary instinctive impulse has to sim- 

 ple sense-perception in animals. 



Obligation then, we may regard as the great 

 moral, instinctive impulse, that drives us to act in 

 securing the greatest moral good at which man can 

 aim, as the lower instinctive impulses drive animals 

 and men to act to secure physical life, which to them, 

 as mere animals, is the greatest good, as it is the 

 condition of all good to them. 



Both animal Instinct and the Sense of Obliga- 

 tion depend for their light, ,pr condition of action, 



