We, however, differ from an inanimate and passive machine, in that we are agents, our constitution is put in our power and charge, and "therefore we are accountable for any disorder or violation of it." Since we are responsible agents, the natural law is the moral law.
This identification of morality with nature, however, does not mean that we are free to follow each and any part of our nature as its turn happens to come. If to be natural is the same as to be moral, are we not, it might be asked, free to indulge without distinction our appetites and passions, for they too are natural, and in gratifying them we are following where natural impulse leads? But this is by no means what Butler, or, as he points out, what the Stoics meant when they made virtue consist in following nature. Such a view would rest on a misconception of human nature as a whole. If the whole were merely an aggregate of parts with no inherent qualitative differences, then the only sense in which the dictate could be taken would be in the fatal sense of following nature wherever the strongest present inclination for the moment impelled us. But if we conceive human nature, not as a mere aggregate, but as a truly organic whole, then the pursuit of random inclination would be contrary to the constitution of the whole, since such a course would involve the substitution of the law of a part for the law of the whole. Nevertheless, since the whole is made up of mutually related parts, the function of each part must have its legitimate place in the law of the whole, and conscientious conduct must allow a due and just proportion to the claims of each element. The gratification of desire is in itself natural, and therefore right, so long as it is in accordance with right reason; it becomes vicious only when it is granted undue, i.e., unreasonable, prominence. Butler, like Aristotle, sees no reason why there should be any ethical necessity to annihilate desire and its function; he insists only on its proper subordination to reason. Here his vantage ground over Kant is of momentous consequence. He has no interest to lead him to draw a line of strict demarkation between action from duty and action from inclination, and consequently he is not forced to introduce a unique feeling of "respect" or "reverence" with all its attendant
