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164
But the influence of the understanding upon the will
is yet more important. It is to the understanding that every
appeal must be made & unless it can be associated with
the demands of morality there is little prospect for the success of the
Deontological teacher. His reasonings, his persuasions must be
addressed to the intellectual faculties. He must win them to his side
before he can influence conduct. It is by their assistance that
he is to teach the arithmetic of pains & pleasures. By them he
is to show what are the penalties to be paid by virtue vice & what
are the recompenses to wait upon virtue. He reasons, – in order that and his reasons
are prophetic of inevitable evil to imprudence & improbity, – of
infallible good to prudence & benevolence. Passion appeals only to
that which is, – the intellectual faculties bring what will be into the
thoughts. They in fact constitute the main difference between the
virtues of beasts & those of men. The lower animals for the most part are unchecked in
their search of pleasure by any anticipation of future pain.
No apprehension of consequences would lead them to abstain from any
present enjoyment – except among a few of the more intelligent all
the lessons are lost, even of experience which the waste of experience being perhaps attributable to the imperfections of the recollecting faculty.
But the mind of man stretches before & after. Reason brings
events that are passed to bear upon the future. It not only
draws upon experience but on imagination. The field of its influence
is boundless as the range of thought. Observant of consequences
it presents them to the Inquirer. It abstracts pains & pleasures
from the inerts dross that surrounds them – it analyses [T 273 their value
by dividing them into their component parts, – or gathers them
up into the a whole in order to ascertain the sum total. It
compares them one with another when they are arranged on
different sides – generalizes out of the collected elements, – and
deduces the ultimate result. In this way do the intellectual
faculties become the most important of the servants of virtue –
leading men into the true & trust worthy paths of felicity.
Identifier: | JB/015/315/001 "JB/" can not be assigned to a declared number type with value 15.
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deontology |
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315 |
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linking material |
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recto |
f164 |
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sir john bowring |
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5531 |
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