Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/225

Rh Man, must be admitted to unfold itself in each individual's case, in a dark tissue of unqualified evil; we have but to admit that the working out of this freedom is the great end of man, and constitutes his true self; and we have also but to admit that whatever conduces to the accomplishment of this end is right; and the question just broached easily resolves itself. For, supposing man not to be originally free, let us ask how is the end of human liberty to be attained? Is it to be attained by passively imbibing the various impressions forced upon us from without? Is it to be attained by yielding ourselves up in pliant obedience to the manifold modifications which stamp their moulds upon us from within? Unquestionably not. All these impressions and modifications constitute the very badges of our slavery. They are the very trophies of the causal conquests of nature planted by her on the ground where the true man ought to have stood, but where he fell. Now, since human freedom, the great end of man, is thus contravened by these passive conditions and susceptibilities of his nature, therefore it is that they are wrong. And, by the same rule, an act of resistance put forth against them is right, inasmuch as an act of this kind contributes, every tune it is exerted, to the accomplishment of that great end.

Now, looking to our hatred of our enemies, we see that this is a natural passion which is most strongly forced upon us by the tyranny of the causal law; therefore it tends to obliterate and counteract our