OBEDIENCE 171 



temper may yet comply, perhaps habitually, with the 

 commands of a master who has a special hold on him. 

 Caliban habitually complied with the commands of Prospero. 

 The subject of the present inquiry is the temper which 

 prompts obedient action, and only incidentally the action 

 itself. 



Taking the act itself, without any regard to the motive, 

 its general distinguishing characteristic is compliance. 

 But compliance, as will be seen, has a much wider conno 

 tation than obedience. The special mark which distin 

 guishes obedience from mere compliance is, that it follows 

 on a distinct command, or expression of an external will. 



Moreover, common usage would discriminate between 

 the obedience of the man on the treadmill and the obedience 

 of the Spartan at Thermopylae to the commands of Hellas, 

 and would say that the former was an improper or at any 

 rate forced application of the word. For true obedience 

 there is required not only an external command, but an 

 ability in the man to whom it is addressed to disobey it, 

 or at least to refuse to enter into the conditions which 

 make it obligatory. It is not merely compliance, it is 

 voluntary compliance to an external command. The com 

 pliance of the galley-slave with the lash is no more 

 obedience than the compliance of a starving man with the 

 demands of hunger. 



Again, not only must compulsion be absent, but there 

 must be no other motive of sufficient strength to ensure 

 the same resultant action, even if the external command 

 were not given. In so far as an act is in compliance with 

 other motives, besides the external command itself, it ceases 

 to be an act of obedience. When a covetous man is com 

 manded to accept a valuable legacy, the command is 

 superfluous : the whole process from the initial stimulus 

 to the final action would be exactly the same without it. 

 Or, if the mere avarice is not sufficient, without the com 

 mand, to produce the resultant action, it is a case of mixed 

 motives. The action is due partly to avarice and partly 

 to obedience. 



