A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and CharacterHillis, Newell Dwight
Philosophy
A Man's Value to Society: Studies in Self Culture and Character
Hillis, Newell Dwight
Character; Self-culture
Never since man stepped foot upon this planet has there been a time
when conscience, the judge, has praised a David when sinning against
what he believed to be the law of right; never once has it condemned a
Daniel in doing what he believed to be right. In this sense conscience
is, indeed, infallible and is the very voice and regent of God.
Since, therefore, conscience partakes of this divine nature and speaks
as an oracle, what are its uses and functions? Primarily, the moral
sense furnishes a standard and tests actions for righteousness or
iniquity. To its judgment-seat comes reason, with its purposes and
ambitions. When his color sense is jaded the artist uses the sapphire
or ruby to bring his tints up to perfection. And when contact with
selfishness or sordidness has soiled the soul's garments, dulled its
instruments, and lowered its standards, then conscience comes in to
freshen the ideals and to smite vice and vulgarity. In these luminous
hours when conscience causes the deeper convictions to prevail, how
beautiful seem truth and purity and justice! How does the soul revolt
from iniquity, even as the eye revolts from the slough or the nostril
from filth!
Conscience has also relations to judgment. It pronounces upon the
inner motive that colors the deeds, for it is the motive within that
makes the actions without right or wrong. When Coleridge, the
schoolboy, was going along the street thinking of the story of Hero
and Leander and imagining himself to be swimming the Hellespont, he
threw wide his arms as though breasting the waves. Unfortunately, his
hand struck the pocket of a passer-by and knocked out a purse. The
outer deed was that of a pickpocket and could have sent the youth to
jail. The inner motive was that of an imaginative youth deeply
impressed by the story he was translating from the Greek, and that
inner motive made the owner of the purse his friend and sent young
Coleridge to college. Thus, the philosopher tells us, the motive made
what was outwardly wrong to be inwardly right.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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