PRACTICAL MORALITY. 



T TNDER the head of ETHICS (see No. 76, 

 v-' P- 379) a sketch is given of the theory of 

 morals of the inquiry how some things come to 

 be held right and others wrong, and how the feel- 

 ing arises of an obligation to do the one and avoid 

 the other. The ground of this is found in the 

 constitution of man's nature, and that of the world 

 in which he lives. The results of all human ex- 

 perience shew that certain lines of personal con- 

 duct are indispensable in securing the well-being 

 either of an individual or a community ; and the 

 power which man possesses of remembering the 

 past, and inferring from it the future, together with 

 his faculty of identifying his interests with those 

 of others, naturally lead to the feeling that these 

 lines of conduct ought to be followed that they 

 are duties. In systems of ethics, the principal 

 duties are commonly called the ' cardinal virtues,' 

 because the whole of human virtue is supposed to 

 hinge or turn upon them. Men have not invari- 

 ably adopted the same classification of these duties, 

 but we may perhaps enumerate without question, 

 Order, Truth, Justice, Benevolence, and Temper- 

 ance. The proper fulfilment of these is absolutely 

 necessary for the preservation of the individual 

 and the continued existence of society, and is in 

 civilised communities enforced as far as possible 

 by laws framed expressly for that purpose. It is not 

 enough, however, to be convinced of these obliga- 

 tions in a general way, and to wish to act upon 

 them; reason or judgment must be called into 

 exercise to shew us how in each particular case 

 a duty is to be performed. If it be not rationally 

 performed, as much evil may ensue as if the duty 

 had been neglected, though we may not be justified 

 in censuring the doer. For example, let us take 

 the duty of Order. A man may be patriotic, and 

 sincerely desirous of promoting the good govern- 

 ment and interests of his country ; yet he may be 

 much mistaken as to what line of conduct on his 

 part will best promote those objects, and uninten- 

 tionally become the means of imperilling the 

 results he is most anxious to see accomplished. 

 Again, everybody should speak truthfully, for 

 where there is no truth, there can be no mutual 

 trust, no confidence in each other ; but is the 

 whole truth to be brought out on every occasion ? 

 A man may have committed some serious act of 

 folly in his early days, and have afterwards ex- 

 piated the same. Should we always be men- 

 tioning this to his friends and acquaintances, 

 unless circumstances make it necessary? So 

 with Justice ; we must be just, but we must also 

 be merciful. A man who becomes bankrupt 

 from causes beyond his control may be pitied, 

 but the evil-doer who makes bankruptcy an excuse 

 for swindling his creditors deserves reprobation 

 and punishment. Benevolence, again, when blindly 

 exercised, often misses its aim. In our attempts 

 to relieve distress, we frequently find our indis- 

 creet charity tending to perpetuate it It is our 

 duty to aid those who stand in need of our assist- 

 ance, but the aid thus given should not be suffi- 

 87 



cient to overcome the incentive to self-help on the 

 part of those so assisted. Moreover, in many 

 instances, we have to reconcile generosity with 

 justice, for the most distressed are not always the 

 most deserving. 



But how are we to learn in what manner each 

 particular duty or obligation can be best fulfilled, 

 so as to be productive of the most good, both to 

 the individual and the community of which he 

 forms part ? To answer this and similar questions 

 by axioms and precepts, and to enforce those 

 axioms and precepts by argument and example, 

 has been the theme of moralists and sages, pro- 

 phets and legislators, since the beginning of time. 

 The experience of generations on all points of 

 human conduct is also treasured up in proverbs 

 and other wise sayings ; and the chief aim of all 

 literature is to depict how one man is blessed and 

 another the reverse, each according to his deeds. 

 A digest of the wisdom thus treasured up through 

 successive ages, arranged so as to meet the various 

 emergencies of daily life, would form a complete 

 body of Practical Morality. In what follows we 

 can only afford to touch upon a few of the more 

 important duties. 



Moral duties are usually divided into (i) those 

 which a man owes to himself, and (2) those which 

 he owes to others. The former are called PER- 

 SONAL duties, and the latter SOCIAL duties. Thus 

 Temperance is a personal duty, because by habits 

 of intemperance a man injures himself; while 

 Truth is a social duty, for by the utterance of a 

 lie a man may injure his neighbour. The distinc- 

 tion, however, is only partial. The intemperate 

 man no doubt injures himself in the first place ; 

 but his family and very often his friends suffer to 

 an almost equal extent, and the whole community 

 loses by his becoming a less valuable member, if 

 not an actual burden. A lie is usually intended 

 to serve the purposes of him who tells it, at the 

 expense of some one else. As a rule, however, it 

 recoils in the end upon its author, a fact which 

 finds expression in the maxim that ' Honesty is 

 the best policy.' The truth is, that society is vir- 

 tually an elaborately organised body made up of 

 mutually sympathetic parts, so that when one 

 member suffers, all the other members suffer 

 with it. It is not correct to say that ' a man is 

 nobody's enemy but his own,' for a man cannot 

 be an enemy to himself, without being also an 

 enemy to everybody else. In like manner, every 

 man who is a friend to himself becomes also a 

 friend of his fellow-men. Not only does he enjoy 

 the happiness which invariably accompanies a 

 well-regulated life, but his example assists in stim- 

 ulating others to adopt a similar line of conduct, 

 thereby tending to promote the well-being of 

 themselves and their fellow-members of the com- 

 munity. Nevertheless, as the distinction of 

 duties into personal and social is primarily a real 

 one, and enables us to classify them so that 

 they are readily remembered, we purpose to con- 

 sider in a practical way the most important of 



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