Mr. Savage's weekly sermons are regularly printed in pamphlet form in Unity Pulpit." Subscription price, for the season, $1.50; single copy, 5 cents. GEO. H. ELLIS, Publisher, 141 Franklin St., Boston, Mass. DUTIES. WORDS frequently change their meaning, so that the present use of a word is not always to be found by tracing its root significance in the dictionary. But, in regard to the word "duties," it tells its own story. A duty is a feeling, or a thought, or a word, or an action that is due, due to somebody, due to something. Duties, then, are what we ought to pay. That is the dictionary meaning, and the practical meaning of the term. But why do we owe something to other people? Suppose I do not choose to recognize the debt, what is going to happen? What is anybody going to do about it? Why may I not shake myself free from these supposed obligations and follow my own course? It seems to me that it will be worth our while, at the very beginning, to consider just a little this matter of the why. There are those who, superficially looking over the world and finding that what is regarded as a duty in one age is not so regarded in another, finding that what is regarded as duty in Boston may not at all be such in Constantinople, wonder whether the whole matter is not one of custom or convention which has come down as a tradition, perhaps; whether certain tribes, certain races, have not come in some way to think that their members should think and speak and act so and so. Such people wonder sometimes whether there is any deeper meaning in this matter of ought, whether it strikes its root down into the nature of things, so as to become really a universal obligation. The matter will become quite clear, so far as this is concerned, when you note this fact. What people think they ought to do may be a matter of custom, of convention, of tradition; but the significant, the deep thing is the fact that people anywhere ever think they ought at all. It is this fact which is the significant thing, and not the question of what we ought. It is perfectly natural that duties should change from age to age, should change according to the conditions and circumstances of life,— that they should be different in Boston and in Constantinople; for, if we analyze the matter carefully, we shall see as I propose to make it clearer as I go on that we ought to do all we can for the welfare and happiness of men. What is for the welfare of men in one stage of civilization may not be at all for their welfare in another. What is for the welfare of the people of Boston may not be for the welfare of those in Constantinople. That is the reason we need to find the why. Let us look in another direction, and see if we find it. I think it is common, on the part of the popular churches of the world, to answer this question merely by saying that it is God's will. It is assumed that an Almighty Being, who has chosen to create a man, has a perfect right to do with him as he pleases,- to tell him to do this, and not to do that; and that this ends the matter. It seems to me, however, that, so far from ending the matter, it does not even begin it. With all reverence, with all simplicity of speech, I wish to say that a command of God has no relation whatever to settling the question whether a thing is right or not. In other words, there is no relation between the supposed will of an Omnipotent Being and the question of human duty. Let me say it soberly, God has no right to do with me as he pleases, unless he pleases to do right. God has no right to command me to do a certain thing except on the supposition that that thing is right. It is not his will nor his word that makes it right, simply regarding him as a Being of omnipotent power. John Stuart Mill, in a famous passage some years ago, issued what may well be called a declaration of the moral independence of the world. He said — I am not quoting his exact words that, if right be not the same thing here that it is up in heaven, then I can be under no obligation to do that which is supposed to be right in heaven. I am under the highest obligation to do that which seems right to me; and if, as the result of that, God chooses to send me to hell, then to hell I will go. That, I say, is a most magnificent declaration of independence for the moral ideals of the world. Mere power cannot make things right, and has no right to demand obedience to itself simply as power. So we must look further than this to find the why. If we trace historically the growth of the sense of duty, we shall find that it does not exist among the lower animals unless in the very simplest rudiments: in that way it probably does exist. If a man had lived all his life alone, he would have had no conception of what we mean by duty. There would have been no one else to whom he had ever owed anything. It is when a man looks in the face of another man, and recognizes that here is another individual substantially like himself, and when he goes farther and reflects, This other man now is hungry, and needs food as much as I; if I cut or hurt him, he will suffer pain as I would; if he has something which I would like to possess, it is his, and he has as much right to it as I have, it is, I say, when a man recognizes another personality in this way, a personality substantially like his own, and remembers that he has the same capacity for pleasure and pain as his own, that the sense of duty is born. I do not say that it goes no farther back than that; but here, at any rate, is the prime condition of its manifestation. But this does not quite answer the reason why; for I may recognize that another man is hungry, and I may refuse to share with him. I may recognize that he has something which I want, and that he has the same right to it that I have; and yet, if I am stronger, I may take it away from him, or, if I am cunning, I may cheat him out of it. I may recognize that he loves happiness as much as I do; and yet I may deliberately cause him unhappiness. Unless there is a deeper why than the recognition of this fact, I may still say to this other man, What are you going to do about it? Why should I recog-' nize your wants? It seems to me that now we are ready for the very deepest analysis possible. Doing right or doing wrong is a matter of life or death, nothing less than that. It is sometimes hinted that those who do not believe in arbitrary rewards and punishments as inflicted by God upon people hold to an easy way of salvation. But I take it that we liberals, if we understand what we are about, hold and preach the hardest method of salvation that there is: if you do right you live; if you do not, you die. Let me illustrate in several directions, and see that here is a universal truth, a necessary truth, which Omnipotence itself could not change,— a truth which no prayers can obviate, a truth which no church sacraments can get round, a truth that we cannot by any possibility escape in this world or in any other world. Take the simplest illustration. Here is my body. What I mean by doing right concerning my body is obeying the laws of its healthful physical condition. Now, if I break the slightest one of these laws, if I do not do my duty by my body, I lose efficiency, I grow weaker, something is wrong with me. If I carry it far enough, I am diseased. If I persist in it and carry it further, I must die. You cannot possibly break the laws of your physical body without paying the penalty; and God himself could not help it if he would. That is, there is no such thing as breaking a law and keeping it at the same time; so that omnipotent power has nothing whatever to do with a contradiction like that. Suppose I talk about the duty I owe to myself as an intellectual being, what do I mean by that? My intellect is for the sake of discovering truth: that is all it is for. It is a guide revealing to me the realities of my relations and conditions. Now, if I break the laws of my mind, I fail of finding the truth. As an intellectual being, I die. If I carry it far enough, I may destroy the very possibility in me of discerning the truth. |