lUENCK.
(2.) The effects of transgression are not ahcays confined to the indiridmd offender. — This is evidently true of the violation of physical laws, for the chiltlren, friends, and neighbors of the person erring are frequently involved in calamity consequent ujion his blunders. How often does a mistake or a careless act spread conflagration, disaster, and even death, in a community. The same takes place to a certain extent with regard to the tem- poral results from a violation tif moral laws, as in cases of inherited disease, murder, and crimes generally, in which the family or victims innocently suffer. Ni>r is this all: a continued course of immorality is sometinns propagated through successive generations, mostly, no doubt, by the force of vicious example and defective or erroneous training, but partly also perhaps by a certain congenital taint or bias to the same vices. With regard to social sins, these forms of retribution are especially illustrated — for national wrongs and crimes are as cer- tain to be visited by tlic ajjprojiriatc penalty as personal ones. But the punishment that falls upon the nation is of course shared by its individual nuinbers in com- mon, some of whom, however, and frc(|iieiilly tliose most guilty, escape in whole or in part by reasim of their ex- alted position and pecidiar advantages (^2 Sam. xxiv, 17), while in other instances the blmv falls most heavily upon eminent individuals ns rejiresentative characters (2 Sam. xxi, 1-0). Nor tloes tlie retribution alway.s come upon tlie same generation or the same portion of the community that has sinned (Matt, xxiii, o5). These arc but speeinKiis of that iuetiualiiy in the penalty of
MORAL OBLIGATION
569
MORAL PHILOSOPHY
wrong-doing that prevails in the present life (Jer. xxxi, 29) ; but they do not extend to the other world. There the account will be strictly personal, and the settlement rigidly just. As we have aheady indicated, it is this final award that vindicates the sentence of the supreme Jud"-e. The vicarious sufferings of the Redeemer as a ransom from this ultimate adjudication have been con- sidered under the article JIediatiox.
(3.) We thus finally reach the question of the alleged disproportion between human guilt and endless imnish- ment. We do not seek, with many, to justify the ever- lasting doom of the wicked by magnifying their crime as having been committed against infinite authority, majesty, and forbearance, however much we may con- ceive these features as aggravating its enormity. We base our theodicy upon simpler and more palpable ground, namely, the continued and hopelessly incorrigi- ble sinfulness of the condemned themselves. We may presume that none are cut off from probation till they have evinced a desperate moral condition (Luke xiii, 8) ; but whether this be so or not, it follows inevitably from the above line of reasoning, and from the character of the depraved heart bereft of the probationary aids to reform, that the impenitence, unbelief, and rebellion for which the sentence is at first pronounced will but hard- en and intensify as the ages of eternity advance. Un- less the fable of purgatory be true— and its absurdity is not less than its mendacity — there can be no improve- ment in the fate of the finally lost, because there can be no amendment in their moral character. Their destiny is eternally fixed, not so much by the arbitrary decree of omnipotent vengeance as by their own determined resistance of sovereign law. Perdition is but another name for self-destruction {aTroWv^iai, in the middle voice). See Pye-Smith, First Lines of Christian The- ology, p. 177 sq. ; MUller, Christian Doctrine of Sin ; Hovianh, Abiding Obligation of the Moral Law; Watts, Uses of the Moral Law ; Cobbin, View of Moral Law ; Q\iCiVfox\.h, Eternal and Immutable Morality; Cumber- land Presb. Qu. Jan. 1873, art. ii ; Neif-Englander, July, 1872 ; A cademy, Sept. 1, 1873, p. 328.
Moral Obligation. See Moral Law; Moral
Sense.
Moral Philosophy. Nearly every system of philosophy broached in ancient or modern times has impinged more or less closely upon tlie domain of morals. Indeed, this part of the field has usually been the most hotly contested, as the theosophical problems which it presents have afforded more occasion for philosophical as well as theological polemics than all other themes. The paramount importance of the subjects mentioned — the relation of the finite to the Infinite, and the conse- quent duties and destiny of man at the hands of God — have given the most intense interest to the reasonings, teachings, and controversies respecting them. But as these have been so commonly mentioned in the intel- lectual or metaphysical branches of tlie investigation, we will here content ourselves with referring to Philos- ophy in general for the history of their development, and to the article Ethics for their more systematic classification. We shall therefore in the present article discuss, in a brief and practical manner, only a few points upon which every scheme of moral philosophy worthy of the name must hinge.
1. Human Responsibility. — Were man a mere animal, endowed with locomotion, instinct, and perception, or could we conceive of him as possessing simply emotion and will, such as brutes seem to evince — nay, even as capable of the boldest stretch of reason and the highest flights of fancy, yet destitute of the power of appreci- ating the difference between right and wrong, and there- fore unable to recognise the fundamental relation of allegiance subsisting on his part toward his Maker, and the common bond of brotherhood between himself and his fellows, we could not justly hold him amenable for his moral conduct, since this entirely depends upon a due ob-