Page:Dawn of the Day.pdf/138

102 but little nice discernment an attachment to intellectual fairness, in the relatives and friends amongst whom he grew up and, consequently, spent most of his strength and time on the imitation of feelings, will, as an adult, notice in himself that every new thing and person he comes across will at once stir up in him either affection or dislike, envy or contempt. Under the pressure of this experience, which he feels power-less to shake off, he admires the neutrality of sentiment, the "objectiveness," as something marvellous, some attribute of genius or of the rarest morality, and does not feel inclined to believe that even this is but the child of discipline and practice.

—On duties are the claims which others have on us. By what means lid they acquire them? By assuming us capable of contract and retribution, by setting us down as like and similar unto them, by accordingly entrusting something to us, by educating, reproving, supporting us. We fulfil our duty,—that is, we justify that notion of our power for the sake of which all these things were bestowed on us, we return with the same measure with which they were meted out to us. Thus it is our pride which bids us do our duty, by re-establishing our self-glory in putting up in rivalry with that which others have done for us, something that we do for them, —for thereby