38 Moral Responsibility. 



of confirmed drunkenness or gambling need only to be men- 

 tioned. How frequently do we see degraded ruffians, who 

 for years have never felt a higher sentiment than brutal self- 

 ishness, at last committing openly, even such acts as murder, 

 although directly contrary to their false views of that self- 

 interest which is their professed rule of conduct. And when 

 it then becomes the interest and therefore the duty of society 

 to remove or destroy a criminal, it must also be the criminal's 

 best interest to be so disposed of. His degeneration, though 

 unconscious, accelerates so rapidly and becomes so irreme- 

 diable, that every step only plunges him deeper and deeper 

 into vice and into miseiy. 



How delightful to remember that equally appropriate 

 rewards are the inevitable results of temperance, probity, 

 industry, benevolence, and knowledge ! How true it is that 

 honesty is the best policy, and that virtue is really its own 

 reward ! How true it is that these rewards are strictly 

 though indirectly physical, arising from reflex social action, 

 and are therefore called moral ! 



Some persons profess to be shocked at the idea of recom- 

 mending men to he honest or moral from motives of policy ; 

 of making virtue a question of mere self-interest. I should 

 not demur to this high-flown aesthetic sentiment being 

 adopted as a rule of conduct by those who recognise its 

 force, provided it were found effective. But notoriously, 

 it is not only inoperative upon, but beyond the conception 

 of all but a very few ; indeed those who uphold it are not 

 always as observant of it as their professedly selfish neigh- 

 bours. But what we want is, a principle of universal appli- 

 cation ; one which has, if possible, more weight with those 

 of evil tendencies and habits than with those of good. Any 

 other is absolutely worthless ; for it is the immoral, and not 

 the moral, who require a motive, and an incentive to alter 

 their conduct. I am convinced, however, that it is only in 

 speculative argument that the idea is entertained at all ; that 

 it never affected the conduct of anyone when more powerful 

 reasons did not support it, — sufficient to outweigh entirely all 

 temptation to the contrary ; — but men like to hug themselves 

 upon the nobleness, rather than the truth of the motives 

 they can find for their own actions, and to assume a virtue 

 though they have it not. 



It may be said that it is not proved that fully adequate 

 rewards and punishments are natural inevitable conse- 

 quences of all human acts. Granted ; it is not proved. 



