From the preceding it appears that the more our race advances in
civilization, the more numerous and complicated are the laws of God which
must first be discovered and then obeyed.
By advance in civilization is signified increase in the capacities of the
human mind for varied enjoyments, and increase in the appropriate supply
of these capacities. The early history of the race resembles the early
period of individual life, when the chief enjoyments are those of the
senses. The refined and varied pleasures of taste are but little attained
except by cultivation. So also the higher pleasures of the intellect and
of the moral nature are dependent on culture.
As every new avenue to enjoyment is opened, and every new capacity
developed, there are inevitably resulting difficulties and temptations
which, experience soon shows, must be regulated by laws and penalties.
From this results the endless multitude of civil and statute laws, in
addition to the various domestic and social rules enforced in the family,
the school and the neighborhood.
All these laws and rules will be found to be only specific applications of
the great law of sacrifice which demands that, in all cases, every mind
shall choose what is best for self and best for the whole. The great
democratic principle that the majority shall rule is but one mode of
applying this general law of sacrifice.
In this aspect we can perceive how it is, that every attempt to develop
any faculty of enjoyment in any created mind, and every effort to provide
aliment for such developed capacities is right, as in agreement with the
grand end designed by the Creator; provided it is done according to the
great law of sacrifice disclosed by reason, viz., that individual
enjoyment be made subordinate to the general good, and that no greater
good be sacrificed for a less, either for self or for the commonwealth.
In this light, music, drawing, painting, sculpture, architecture, the
drama, poetry, laughter, all things that impart enjoyment to any mind are
_right_, provided no higher good is sacrificed in enjoying them. Nay,
more; all these modes of imparting enjoyment may become positive duties,
in cases where they do not interfere with some higher good.
This view of the subject still further illustrates the nature of that
inability which exists in _all_ finite minds in discovering and obeying
the laws of God.
There are only two conceivable modes by which we can learn these laws; one
is by the _experience_ of finite beings; the other is by _revelation_ from
the Creator. To learn what is right and wrong by experience involves not
only the certainty, but the necessity, as it respects the absolute right,
of wrong‐doing; for no one, however right the motive or intention may be,
can discover what will cause more or less good or evil but by experiments
in which the evil as well as the good is detected by experience.
To learn what is right and wrong in all the thousand and million
complications of life by revelation, would involve the necessity of a
direct revelation every hour of every day, to every individual of the
race. But the only conceivable mode by which revelations from God are
possible, is by miracles and prophecy, which are interruptions of the
ordinary uniformity of nature. It is the fact that the laws of nature are
uniform that alone makes miracles possible, so that incessant revelations
by miracles would destroy such uniformity, and thus destroy the only
conceivable mode of communication from the Creator.
This being so, the only possible method by which mankind can discover what
is right and wrong in the greater portion of their actions is by an
experience involving, more or less, wrong‐doing as a part.
There are _general rules_ of right and wrong which can be communicated
both by God and man, but these rules are to be _applied_ by men to the
numberless and ever‐varying circumstances of life, involving still the
same necessity of _experience of evil_ in order to detect the _relative_
amount of good to be gained in the varied courses offered for pursuit to
which these rules are to be applied.
Now the grand difficulty, as it respects both God and man, as before
shown, is the positive inability of undeveloped mind to understand much of
what is right and wrong. This difficulty meets the mature mind as really
as it does the infant’s; for while many of the general rules evolved by
reason and experience are clear, and easily perceived, there are endless
varieties of cases in which the _application_ of these rules is a matter
of uncertainty. For example, that men are to be honest and speak the
truth, are rules universally appreciated. But then come the questions
whether this and that thing _is_ honest, or whether in this or that
emergency it may not be right to say what is false. The higher men advance
in civilization, and the more means and modes of enjoyment are discovered,
the more complicated become the questions of right, and the more frequent
the temptations to wrong.
All that can be done is to cultivate the conscience and train the
reasoning powers of mankind, so that by means of the experience of life,
as developed by individuals and communities, regard to the rules of right
and wrong shall keep pace with the increasing civilization.
With these distinctions in the mind, we can perceive that _sin_, in its
widest sense, including transgression of _unknown_ law, is inevitable in a
perfect system of finite minds, while in the limited sense, as
transgression of _known_ law, it is not so.
So also we can see, that without the intervention of the Creator to teach
us, it is an impossibility for any human being to live without sin; so
that this intervention is impossible except to a limited extent, without
an entire change in the eternal nature of things to which God’s own will
is conformed.