we abhor, cherishing the desire to remedy the evil in them, and otherwise to better them. We should love even a wicked and active enemy; righteous defensive resentment being quite consistent with the impulse to promote, not his evil way, but his well-being whenever opportunity offers or can be found, and in so far as we do not thereby trespass on some other. In civilized warfare after a victory the wounded abandoned by the defeated are cared for humanely. This is love to enemies; we feel the obligation, and call it humanity. We are bound to love all men of all races, those in the remotest regions of the globe, our very antipodes, yes, and even the generation yet unborn, in a due manner and measure. This is the obligation of philanthropy.1 § 90. Service fulfilling the law must be, not merely willing service, but loving service. We have seen that a life of sacrificial service, of active beneficence, determined only by respect for the law, fails of completeness.2 Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. It is essential to duty that love be its spring. The service due is loving service. Let the duplex form of this phrase be noted. Loving is desiring, a subjective motive; it is benevolence, well-wishing. Service is acting, an objective motion; it is beneficence, well-doing. Serving is the normal outcome, the natural consequent, of loving; they are psychological correlatives. Neither is complete without the other. For, how is it possible that one should sincerely, willingly, intentionally endeavor to promote another's welfare, unless 1 "Friends, parents, neighbors, first it will embrace, Earth smiles around, in boundless beauty dressed, 2 See supra, § 86. he desire the other's welfare? All voluntary effort is conditioned on an antecedent desire, so that the command of intelligent, willing service is a command of intelligent, loving service. One cannot sincerely strive for another's welfare unless he desire it, and this is love. If it be said, the desire is simply to obey, we reply, a desire to obey a command to serve, is a desire to serve as commanded. On the other hand, how can there be love not followed by service? As faith without works is dead, so also is love without service. If it have any life, it is at least ready and watchful of opportunity to serve. For generous love impels to service. He who loves will serve, will render willing, active, self-sacrificing service. Also he who loves will be just, will pay all dues, will not trespass. Bear ye one Owe no man any another's burdens, and so fulfill the law. thing, save to love one another, this being the only debt that cannot be finally discharged; for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. Love is the fulfillment of the law.1 All the various presentations of the moral law heretofore considered, we now find to be summed in the law of loving service, Thou shalt love and serve. And indeed we see that even herein is superfluity, for the whole moral law, the total of human obligation, is completely and comprehensively Love is natural, normal; 1 See Galatians, 6:2; Romans, 13: 8, 10. hate, unnatural, abnormal. "It is to the credit of human nature, that, except where its selfishness is brought into play, it loves more readily than it hates. Hatred, by a gradual and quiet process, will even be transformed into love, unless the change be impeded by a continually new irritation of the original feeling of hostility.' - HAWTHORNE, Scarlet Letter, ch. 13. "Das Gesetz der Liebe soll walten, und was das Naturgesetz in den Dingen, das ist das Sittengesetz und das Recht im BACH, Auf der Höhe. "First of all was Chaos; next in order, Earth with her spacious bosom ; then Love, who is preeminent among the Immortals." -HESIOD, as quoted by Aristotle in Metaphysics, bk. i, ch. 4. summed in the single categorical imperative of one syllable, love. Thou shalt love, is the perfect law, the law of love.1 § 91. Progress in moral culture consists in transforming fear into respect, and respect into love. With primitive characters, and even with many highly cultured otherwise, the fear of penalty is the chief, often the only, motive of obedience. To this may be added as one step higher, the hope of reward. In this is an appeal to the selfish propensities usually predominant in crude humanity. They are not thereby approved, but used to bring the man to at least outward obedience, a step toward inward culture. Thus the law is a pedagogue, leading men upward.2 A thoughtful consideration of one's relations, a clear recognition of the law in us, inspires respect for its mandate, and an impulse to observance. Herein is a passing away from the influence of threats and promises. These are lost to 1 "General benevolence is the great law of the whole moral creation." BUTLER, Sermon viii. "O high imperative, how dost thou impend Love would ensure all right, include all virtue, Perfect man's being and fulfill his end?" -HENRY W. RANKIN, The Law of Love. "The law ordained, Thou shalt love, and love ordained that law. Man could not keep it. Then love ordained the gospel, God so loved. Thus, Thou shalt love, is the whole of The Law; and, God so loved, is the whole of The Gospel. This is so clear, that it is at once Law and Gospel for children and for savages; and yet it is so deep in its limpid clearness that no philosopher can fathom it."- DUNCAN, Colloquia Peripatetica. 2 See Galatians, 3:24, 25; 2 Corinthians, 5:11; and cf. supra, § 52, last paragraph. sight, and obedience is determined simply by respect for the law.1 The vast all-pervading sense of moral obligation, a wide comprehensive view of duty, an obedience to the law for its own sake superior to its sanctions, produce nobility and excellence in moral character. Yet this ideal is cold, hard, stern, repressing as weakness the natural play of tender sympathy, of generous sentiment, of warm inclination toward others, maintaining a stoical indifference to their weal or woe, and giving help exclusively out of respect for the law of service. As a scheme of morals, this cannot be purged of egoism, of selfishness; for necessarily it holds that the socalled duties to self are equally or even more imperative than duties to another, those being the basis from which all other duties arise. In the still higher ideal, cold respect for law is gradually, as culture progresses, replaced by charity, which is the bond of perfectness. As in the second grade the sanctions of the law are lost to sight, so in this highest grade the law itself disappears from view, and its requirements are fulfilled without reference to its mandate. It is the fruit of moral growth that both subjective and objective activities accord with the law, not because of its pressure, but because the order and harmony of the natural powers have been restored, and the man does what is right because his dominant impulses lead thereto, and his free preference finds therein his highest gratification. He renders loving service in due meas 1 "It argues a low degree of insight into the nature and dignity of man," says Froebel, "if the incentive of reward in a future world is supposed to be needed in order to insure a conduct worthy of his nature and destiny. If the human being is enabled at an early period to live in accordance with genuine humanity, he can and should at all times appreciate the dignity of his being; and at all times the consciousness of having lived worthily and in accordance with the requirements of his being, should be his highest reward, needing no addition of external recompense." The Education of Man, § 88. See supra, § 86. ure to his fellow men, this having become the habit, the second nature of his being. He does by nature the things of the law, and having no law, is a law unto himself, showing the work of the law written in his heart. For love knows no law other than its own impulse.1 Obviously, in the economy of human nature, this progression does not take place uniformly. A criminal at war with society at large may be dutiful to his family in other matters because of strong domestic affection, and in so far fulfill the law of love. The average good citizen knows little and cares less about the criminal code. Its enactments are not for him. He has not the slightest disposition to do what it forbids, and orders his actions without reference to it. The penitentiary, the jail, the gallows, have no terrors for him. The police, the courts, the judiciary, he recognizes as social machinery devised and maintained for the protection of his rights. They have no other meaning for him. He has risen above the great body of civil law, and is not, properly speaking, an obedient, but a law-abiding citizen who, without 1 See Colossians, 3:14; 1 John, 4: 18. See the progress as stated in 2 Peter, 1:5-7. "He who does good with inclination, and with love to his neighbor, stands on a higher plane than he who is doing it with a constant victory over himself."— STAHL, Rechts- und Staats-Lehre, i, 158. "Sympathy, fellowship in the needs of others, philanthropy, is the source from which flows everything that Ethics prescribes under the name of duties of virtue and love. It is the source of all actions which have moral value, the sole genuine moral motive, and the firmest and surest pledge of moral deportment." SCHOPENHAUER, Grund-Probleme, 133. It is curious to note that the words of St Paul, in Romans, 2 : 14, oûtoɩ νόμον μὴ ἔχοντες ἑαυτοῖς εἰσιν νόμος, these, not having a law, are a law unto themselves, have à counterpart in Aristotle's Ethics, bk. iv, ch. 8, §10, ỏ ♪ǹ χαρίεις καὶ ἐλευθέριος ὄντως ἕξει, οἷον νόμος ὢν ἑαυτῷ, the refined and free-spirited will behave, as being a law unto himself. Again in Galatians, 5: 23, we find : κατὰ ὲ τῶν τοιούτων οὐκ ἔστιν νόμος, against such there is no law; and in Aristotle's Politica, bk. iii, ch. 13, we have: Kaтa dè tŵv toloútwy oỷK ČOTI νόμος· ἀυτοὶ γάρ εἰσι νόμος, against such there is no law; for they themselves are a law. |