It reminds us of pardon
and of duty. It says to us, "Thou art loved--love; thou hast
received--give; thou must die--labor while thou canst; overcome anger by
kindness; overcome evil with good. What does the blindness of opinion
matter, or misunderstanding, or ingratitude? Thou art neither bound to
follow the common example nor to succeed. _Fais ce que dois, advienne
que pourra_. Thou hast a witness in thy conscience; and thy conscience
is God speaking to thee!"
March 3, 1879.--The sensible politician is governed by considerations of
social utility, the public good, the greatest attainable good; the
political windbag starts from the idea of the rights of the
individual--abstract rights, of which the extent is affirmed, not
demonstrated, for the political right of the individual is precisely
what is in question. The revolutionary school always forgets that right
apart from duty is a compass with one leg. The notion of right inflates
the individual fills him with thoughts of self and of what others owe
him, while it ignores the other side of the question, and extinguishes
his capacity for devoting himself to a common cause. The state becomes a
shop with self-interest for a principle--or rather an arena, in which
every combatant fights for his own hand only. In either case self is the
motive power.
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