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The call of duty is an internal competing force which overcomes the individual's disinclination to do something disagreeable or indifferent. The person feels under an obligation. What he does under the impulse of obedience to the call of duty relieves him, like the payment of a just debt. ( Such extreme cases-misnamed altruism-are purely egoistic-they are done for the relief-benefit-of self. ) He feels that his duty must be done, willy-nilly, whatever the consequences to himself; whether he accidentally gains by it or whether he "falls or perishes," as Lewis Morris says the chances are he may. Obedience, self- sacrifice, unqualified and absolute, is the essence of duty.
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When a man realizes that, so long as he sacrifices for others' benefit, from a blind obedience to duty, so long may he continue to do so; that, so long as he is willing to pay taxes so long will he be taxed; and other eye openers of a like kind, he will decline to be duped any longer. Moralists will tell him, as a last straw to save a dying cult, that it is his duty to choose the path that leads to salvation for himself (if he will not for others ) . These words are meaningless. To the satisfaction of his desires he needs no injunction, no command of duty, but only aid as to the safest means of obtainment without deductions for needless pains and taxes.
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The only way of escape from bondage is to deny all rights and duties whatsoever. Look to self-interest direct for the attainment of your ends, and you will see that all the good things in life, all the harmonious relationships you cling to, will be preserved because you like them.
The vague way in which the appeal to duty is made, and the unquestioning saintly way in which the responsive dutiful actions are performed, smack of the superstitious, and show where the weak spot in human nature is to be found. A traveller on the look-out for signs of native superstitions in a far country, would be guided by all actions performed under the spell of duty.
Given a believer in duty, or one who is deeply susceptible to the feeling of obligation, and it becomes possible for him to be enslaved with his own consent.
The believer in duty is food for power. He will either be enslaved by the crafty, or by what he calls his "conscience." His freedom is a limited freedom at best. Circumstances change, but he dare not take advantage of the tide which, taken at the flood, would have led him on to fortune and pleasures new. The propitious time, when tabooed pleasures offer themselves to him, he is afraid of. His duty to Mrs. Grundy, or Mrs. Jones, to the dead hand, to his religion, or to a principle, binds him. He lives within boundary walls which he dare not scale.
"But our moral codes embody the experience of the race!," I hear some wiseacre exclaim. Experience of your grandmother. Circumstances change, and your moral codes won't stand the test.
In place of duty I put-nothing. Superstitions never want replacing, or we should never advance to freedom.
Waste not your energies, but turn them all to your own advantage.
Instead of pretending to be "doing my duty," I will in future go direct to the naked truth, acknowledge I am actuated in all I do by self-interest, and so economise in brainpower. What I want is to discover where my true, most lasting interests lie. I am the more likely to find that out if I allow no moral considerations to obscure my view.
If I find the ordinary tread-mill routine of existence irksome, or tame and unsatisfying, I fearlessly explore further-allow my mind full swing, and see no good reasons for bowing to the limitations set by others. Perchance I am seduced by the sciences, or I pursue the beautiful and try to realize my ideal. My pleasure is my only guide: and in proportion as my sympathies are great, that is in proportion to my susceptibility to external influences, which is, again, the measure of my capacity for feeling pleasure, for appreciating and receiving benefit by the most intense and most subtle impacts of which matter in motion is capable, do I seek the welfare of all I come in contact with. Society may be everything to me, but it is nothing to me except in so far as it furnishes me with material for my happiness.
If I have a bad liver complaint, or am worried by a thousand anxieties, or find it difficult to get food for myself and for those who are a part of me-if, in brief, I cannot get happiness out of the condition into which I am born, then the sacredness of those conditions is at a discount in my valuation of them, and their stability is not my concern. In the steps I take to satisfy my hunger, whether it be the hunger of the sense or of the mind, I am brought face to face with the universal properties of matter and cease to consider codes, moral and political.
It may be as beneficial for a man, as it is expedient for him, under some circumstances, to deny himself many luxuries; to partake of meat sparingly, and of pastry only once a month, to drink only water and eat bread without butter, to live in one small room, to worship only one god and no goddesses, or to share his love with only one woman in a lifetime.
But the economics and abnegations found useful at certain times and places are not to be codified as the laws for all times and places. All Mosaic tables, constitutions, pettyfogging County Council licensing systems, and other strait-waistcoat regulations, necessarily suppress much enjoyment, necessarily cause a sheer waste of life-for they are born of ignorance and possibilities of life, and of intolerance.
Working on egoistic lines, I see the necessity of forbearing from laying down moral law for anyone. What another does is beyond my praise or blame. Each one's activities have been set in motion by his environment (past and present), and contact with others shows how far each can go. In furtherance and in defence of my own well-being will I use my argumentative or other forces upon others. My self-interest teaches me to respect the liberty of others as the cheapest way to get my own respected.
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When we remember that this life is our first, last, and only chance, that "Only to youth will spring be spring," while each day brings us nearer to our final dissolution, the cruelty of expecting any one to sacrifice his or her possibilities of happiness-whether the possibilities be of a high or low order-is apparent. And it is more apparent to those of the widest sympathies than to the narrow-minded regulationist.
So long as the superstition that there is any ought or duty by which conduct should be regulated, has a hold over the minds of men and women, so long will those people be incapable of appreciating the full value of existence; and their living powers will run to waste while they grovel in the altruistic mire of self-denial. Only when that superstition is abandoned is the mind really emancipated. Only then is the individual free to rise to the highest bliss of which his or her nature is capable.
May the evenings amusement bear the mornings reflection.
FINIS