lay morals-第5章
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trate roughly when to punish; they can never direct an anxious sinner what to do。
Only Polonius; or the like solemn sort of ass; can offer us a succinct proverb by way of advice; and not burst out blushing in our faces。 We grant them one and all and for all that they are worth; it is something above and beyond that we desire。 Christ was in general a great enemy to such a way of teaching; we rarely find him meddling with any of these plump commands but it was to open them out; and lift his hearers from the letter to the spirit。 For morals are a personal affair; in the war of righteousness every man fights for his own hand; all the six hundred precepts of the Mishna cannot shake my private judgment; my magistracy of myself is an indefeasible charge; and my decisions absolute for the time and case。 The moralist is not a judge of appeal; but an advocate who pleads at my tribunal。 He has to show not the law; but that the law applies。 Can he convince me? then he gains the cause。 And thus you find Christ giving various counsels to varying people; and often jealously careful to avoid definite precept。 Is he asked; for example; to divide a heritage? He refuses: and the best advice that he will offer is but a paraphrase of that tenth commandment which figures so strangely among the rest。 TAKE HEED; AND BEWARE OF COVETOUSNESS。 If you complain that this is vague; I have failed to carry you along with me in my argument。 For no definite precept can be more than an illustration; though its truth were resplendent like the sun; and it was announced from heaven by the voice of God。 And life is so intricate and changing; that perhaps not twenty times; or perhaps not twice in the ages; shall we find that nice consent of circumstances to which alone it can apply。
LAY MORALS CHAPTER III
ALTHOUGH the world and life have in a sense become commonplace to our experience; it is but in an external torpor; the true sentiment slumbers within us; and we have but to reflect on ourselves or our surroundings to rekindle our astonishment。 No length of habit can blunt our first surprise。 Of the world I have but little to say in this connection; a few strokes shall suffice。 We inhabit a dead ember swimming wide in the blank of space; dizzily spinning as it swims; and lighted up from several million miles away by a more horrible hell…fire than was ever conceived by the theological imagination。 Yet the dead ember is a green; commodious dwelling…place; and the reverberation of this hell…fire ripens flower and fruit and mildly warms us on summer eves upon the lawn。 Far off on all hands other dead embers; other flaming suns; wheel and race in the apparent void; the nearest is out of call; the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort to conceive the distance。 Shipwrecked seamen on the deep; though they bestride but the truncheon of a boom; are safe and near at home compared with mankind on its bullet。 Even to us who have known no other; it seems a strange; if not an appalling; place of residence。
But far stranger is the resident; man; a creature compact of wonders that; after centuries of custom; is still wonderful to himself。 He inhabits a body which he is continually outliving; discarding and renewing。 Food and sleep; by an unknown alchemy; restore his spirits and the freshness of his countenance。 Hair grows on him like grass; his eyes; his brain; his sinews; thirst for action; he joys to see and touch and hear; to partake the sun and wind; to sit down and intently ponder on his astonishing attributes and situation; to rise up and run; to perform the strange and revolting round of physical functions。 The sight of a flower; the note of a bird; will often move him deeply; yet he looks unconcerned on the impassable distances and portentous bonfires of the universe。 He comprehends; he designs; he tames nature; rides the sea; ploughs; climbs the air in a balloon; makes vast inquiries; begins interminable labours; joins himself into federations and populous cities; spends his days to deliver the ends of the earth or to benefit unborn posterity; and yet knows himself for a piece of unsurpassed fragility and the creature of a few days。 His sight; which conducts him; which takes notice of the farthest stars; which is miraculous in every way and a thing defying explanation or belief; is yet lodged in a piece of jelly; and can be extinguished with a touch。 His heart; which all through life so indomitably; so athletically labours; is but a capsule; and may be stopped with a pin。 His whole body; for all its savage energies; its leaping and its winged desires; may yet be tamed and conquered by a draught of air or a sprinkling of cold dew。 What he calls death; which is the seeming arrest of everything; and the ruin and hateful transformation of the visible body; lies in wait for him outwardly in a thousand accidents; and grows up in secret diseases from within。 He is still learning to be a man when his faculties are already beginning to decline; he has not yet understood himself or his position before he inevitably dies。 And yet this mad; chimerical creature can take no thought of his last end; lives as though he were eternal; plunges with his vulnerable body into the shock of war; and daily affronts death with unconcern。 He cannot take a step without pain or pleasure。 His life is a tissue of sensations; which he distinguishes as they seem to come more directly from himself or his surroundings。 He is conscious of himself as a joyer or a sufferer; as that which craves; chooses; and is satisfied; conscious of his surroundings as it were of an inexhaustible purveyor; the source of aspects; inspirations; wonders; cruel knocks and transporting caresses。 Thus he goes on his way; stumbling among delights and agonies。
Matter is a far…fetched theory; and materialism is without a root in man。 To him everything is important in the degree to which it moves him。 The telegraph wires and posts; the electricity speeding from clerk to clerk; the clerks; the glad or sorrowful import of the message; and the paper on which it is finally brought to him at home; are all equally facts; all equally exist for man。 A word or a thought can wound him as acutely as a knife of steel。 If he thinks he is loved; he will rise up and glory to himself; although he be in a distant land and short of necessary bread。 Does he think he is not loved? … he may have the woman at his beck; and there is not a joy for him in all the world。 Indeed; if we are to make any account of this figment of reason; the distinction between material and immaterial; we shall conclude that the life of each man as an individual is immaterial; although the continuation and prospects of mankind as a race turn upon material conditions。 The physical business of each man's body is transacted for him; like a sybarite; he has attentive valets in his own viscera; he breathes; he sweats; he digests without an effort; or so much as a consenting volition; for the most part he even eats; not with a wakeful consciousness; but as it were between two thoughts。 His life is centred among other and more important considerations; touch him in his honour or his love; creatures of the imagination which attach him to mankind or to an individual man or woman; cross him in his piety which connects his soul with heaven; and he turns from his food; he loathes his breath; and with a magnanimous emotion cuts the knots of his existence and frees himself at a blow from the web of pains and pleasures。
It follows that man is twofold at least; that he is not a rounded and autonomous empire; but that in the same body with him there dwell other powers tributary but independent。 If I now behold one walking in a garden; curiously coloured and illuminated by the sun; digesting his food with elaborate chemistry; breathing; circulating blood; directing himself by the sight of his eyes; accommodating his body by a thousand delicate balancings to the wind and the uneven surface of the path; and all the time; perhaps; with his mind engaged about America; or the dog…star; or the attr