Courage is valuable, as tending to give effect to our benevolence. It must not exist in such excess as to lead a man to adventure a great risk for a disproportionately small object, and must therefore be go verned by prudence. Mr. Mill indeed has treated of courage as a particular form of prudence, a mode of treating of it which we cannot think proper. There is an obvious difference, which Mr. Mill seems strangely to have lost sight of, between courage being governed by prudence, as it unquestionably ought to be, and courage being only a particular form of prudence.
Sincerity comprehends truth in words and honesty or justice in con duct. The manner in which the practice of these virtues, or the absti nence from the opposite vices of tying and cheating, is recommended by general utility, is obvious. Without the general observance of truth and honesty, men would have no confidence in one another, and there would be no safety. The proverb, that " honesty is the best policy," pithily expresses the bearing of this virtue on one's own good. Kant, in his ' Metaphysic of Ethics' (Metaphysik der Sitten), classes the virtue of sincerity among the duties owed by a mau to himself. " A lie is the abandonment and, as it were, the annihilation of the dignity of a man." It remains to speak of humility. This is perhaps not so decidedly a virtue as its opposite, pride, is a vice. The evil of this vice consists in its tendency to hurt the feelings of others, and to diminish our dis position to do good. Tolerance of others' opinions, and reverence towards superiors in intellectual and moral worth, are forms of humility; and these are dispositions which, when they exist, are fruitful of much good both for oneself and for others.
2. The duties towards men as members of the same political society or state, resolve themselves into the general dispositions of patriotism and obedience. The first is a virtue, the value of which has been often greatly overrated, and which is very apt to degenerate into the failing called nationality. But nevertheless it is a virtue. As the general happiness is best pursued by each individual making his own happiness his own chief object, and again by each body of individuals making the pursuit of their own separate interests their chief object, patriotism properly tempered, or the desire to benefit one's own country so long as this is not done in such manner as to injure other countries, is one valuable means of promoting the general happiness of mankind. Of obedience to those who are invested with authority in a state, and to the laws, it belongs to morals to speak only in the most general manner. The filling up of the detail belongs to political science. This science having determined what laws ought to be enacted, on the ground of conduciveness to general happiness, morals enjoins obedience to them, without reference to their individual goodness, but for the sake of maintaining political society generally, and of preserving to men all the advantages which political society yields.
3. The duties towards others who are members of the same family consist altogether in affection, which manifests itself differently accord ing to the different family relations. Thus we speak of conjugal affection, paternal and maternal affection, filial affection, and fraternal affection. Conjugal affection implies fidelity. The proper exercise of the paternal and maternal affection opens a wide field of discussion ; but it may be said generally to show itself best in the proper education of the children. Into filial affection gratitude and reverence largely enter. Fraternal affection differs from friendship only in the peculiar relation under which the feeling exists.
Thus have we given a brief general summary of man's duties. We have said nothing of duties towards God, which are generally made to form a separate division in treatises on morals, because we conceive that these duties, so far as they depend on God's special commands, and thus differ from the duties which we have enumerated, and which we come to know by observing their tendency to promote general happiness, belong to the separate subject of religion ; in the same way as the duties which depend on kk-wItire laws enacted ins political society have been referred to political science. Generally we may say that man ought to entertain feelings of reverence and gratitude to Ood, by reason of his superiority, and of the blessings which he has con forred upon us. But the duty of entertaining these feelings in this particular case flows at once from the general duties of gratitude to a benefactor and reverence towards a superior ; and inasmuch as the application of the general duties to this particular case needs not the aasistance of revelation, and involves no essential difference from the application to other cases, there seems no necessity for a separate division.
So also the duty of kindness to the inferior animals must be taken as a corollary from the general duty of kindness which has been incul cated. The pain which we believe that God wills shall not be in flieted upon men, we must believe too that he wills shall not be inflicted on other animals which he has created. The pain of which animals are susceptible we suppose to be of the same sort as that of which men are susceptible ; at least we have no means of conceiving any other sort of pain. And inasmuch as no different circumstances are introduced, there is no need for a separate division wherein to treat of our duties towards the inferior animals.