And
they also told their followers that, if they did not bring offerings,
if they did not pay the special respect which was due to the gods, if
they were not obedient to heir teachings, these pillars would give way,
and the earth would be precipitated into the abyss.
But we have found, as a result of our modern study of he universe, that
the earth needs no pillars on which to rest; but it swings freely in
its orbit, as the old verse that used to read in my schoolboy days
says, "Hangs on nothing in the air," part of the universal system of
things, stable in its eternal sound and motion, kept and cared for by
the power that lever sleeps and never is weary. So, by studying into
the foundations of the moral nature of man, we have discovered a last
that it needs no artificial props or supports, but that morality is
inherent, natural and eternal.
I shall not raise the question, which is rather curious than practical,
as to whether there are any beginnings of moral feeling in the animal
world below man. For our purpose this morning it is enough to note that
the minute that man appears conscience appears, and that conscience is
an act which springs out of social relations. In other words, when the
first man rose to the ability to look into the face of his fellow and
think of the other man as another self, like himself in feelings, in
possibilities of pleasure or pain, when this first man was able
imaginatively to put himself in: he place of this other, then morality
as a practical fact was Dorn.
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