For the moral consciousness tells us that a man is not good morally according as he stands in the scale of human progress; that a man’s morality may in one sense be higher than another man’s, yet he himself may be, strictly speaking, morally lower. It tells us that, if we judge by a purely moral standard, the low savage may be, not a higher, but a better man than the civilized European; and, we see, (1) the most moral man is the man who tries most to act up to what his light tells him is best. But in that we must remember is included the getting the best light which, up to his light, he can.
(2) Suppose now that the lights of two men are equal, can we then look to the greater or lesser realization of their ideal, and judge them accordingly? Morality says, No. It says the formal energy in all men is not the same; and, unless selves are equal to start with, they can not be morally compared simply with an eye to their respective realization.
(3) And again men vary, not only in light and in formal energy, but also in disposition. Disposition no doubt is not moral character; that does not begin until a man is self-conscious, and by volition the good and bad selves get their specific character one against the other;[1] but none the less is natural disposition the material from which the moral self is built up. And dispositions or natures vary indefinitely: some are more harmonious than others, and some again are more chaotic and lead inevitably to jars and painful contradictions. The material of some men offers more resistance to the systematizing good will, and gives more openings for the increase and strengthening of the bad self, than does that of others. And, unless in this too individuals are equal, you can not simply compare them by the result.
(4) And further we have to consider external circumstances in relation to disposition, as bearing on the facility of appropriating the good, and again on the difficulty of controlling the bad self; and our conclusion at present is this. Men equal in light, formal energy, natural disposition, and circumstances, and equal also in present extent and intent of their good and bad selves, are morally equal.
- ↑ See more in following Essay.
