Page:Philosophical Review Volume 3.djvu/670

654 ideal or end of life there could be no sense of obligation to realise it. Furthermore, our primary ought-feeling is so greatly strengthened by social requirements and religious faith that we can scarcely imagine the morality (even where we assume its presence) of "one lone man in an atheistic universe." For us, at any rate, the sense of duty is not an insulated phenomenon in an insulated man, but a consciousness interfused with love and care of humanity and trust in the Infinite Ground of all existence. It is this fact which lends plausibility both to the Empirical and the Theological theory. The latter, indeed, might be expressed in a form which should do no injustice to our native sense of obligation. Accepting that as ultimate, and rejecting the somewhat gross conception of divine rewards and penalties, we may conceive the moral ideal (to which the will does reverent homage) as the divinely intended goal and type of humanity. Something like this would seem to be the attainment of the highest reach of metaphysics. But, even if it be made out, it will be observed that the ground of obligation continues subjective. To the question, Why ought I to do the good? the answer will still be, Because it is good. Were the other answer given, Because God ordains it, this would only be a shorthand formula for the complete statement, God is good and the good has inherent authority over a nature like mine. Of course, for rogues and criminals this angel of goodness would be a poor scarecrow; but, so far as I know, there is no theory of obligation, certainly not the one here maintained, which proposes to abolish the auxiliaries and supports of obligation in dealing with natures that refuse to hearken to the voice of its persuasions. No particular theory of obligation, on the other hand, has a monopoly of jails, penitentiaries, the gallows,—or hell!

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