10 
of any general theory of accountability may soon appear 
insuperable. 
And beyond all this, the various Religions of the world 
6. Be facto, introduce a wide range of considerations often 
iTe^ons 8 on c 0130 * 1 ^ i n t° collision with each other, and not 
personal ’ ac- unfrequently with the ascertained deontology of 
countability. our race. Some of these are so influential in 
personal action, that no philosophy of duty can finally omit 
their existence as facts. 
But when all difficulties are stated, (and none are here 
intentionally passed over), the broad fact remains, on which 
alone philosophy can proceed : Man treats his fellow-man as 
Accountable for much ; and the fact is all the stronger for its 
holding its ground, and outliving all the conceivable and 
actual difficulties which thus surround it. 
III. 
disapproba 
tion. 
13. It is with the full admission then of difficulties, both in 
But the fact theory and in experience, that we have to analyze 
i!ty acC stm ta re- this fact, that all men hold others in some degree 
mams. accountable for their actions. 
We must at once mark, in at. least a preliminary way, what 
men really mean by “holding each other accountable.” For first, 
it is no mere accident that they do so. To imagine a state of 
things in which the reverse could be true, would be to imagine 
something different from all human consciousness, 
probatmn 9 and relationship, and association. That mutual ac- 
countability, then, which belongs to our nature, 
implies approbation or disapprobation of each 
other, as felt and expressed under certain conditions. Nor 
would human beings bear to have it believed that their ap- 
probation was given except to what is right , and their 
disapprobation to what is wrong. Some primary ideas there- 
. , . . fore of Rectitude and its opposite, or what is corn- 
ideas of right monly called virtue and vice, right and wrong, 
an wrong. however ru dimental, would seem in the next place 
to be involved, ah initio , in the capacity of approval and dis- 
approval implied in mutual accountability. 
Every one may judge for himself, and from all he knows of 
human beings, whether these two conclusions are or are not 
based on the facts of our present life and nature. 
14. But such results, it will be replied, are very vague. What, 
