If we grant, for the sake of argument, that your scheme and the
other schemes aim at and produce the same result--RIGHT LIVING--has
yours an advantage over the others?
O.M. One, yes--a large one. It has no concealments, no deceptions.
When a man leads a right and valuable life under it he is not deceived as
to the REAL chief motive which impels him to it--in those other cases he
is.
Y.M. Is that an advantage? Is it an advantage to live a lofty life for
a mean reason? In the other cases he lives the lofty life under the
IMPRESSION that he is living for a lofty reason. Is not that an
advantage?
O.M. Perhaps so. The same advantage he might get out of thinking
himself a duke, and living a duke's life and parading in ducal fuss and
feathers, when he wasn't a duke at all, and could find it out if he would
only examine the herald's records.
Y.M. But anyway, he is obliged to do a duke's part; he puts his hand in
his pocket and does his benevolences on as big a scale as he can stand,
and that benefits the community.
O.M. He could do that without being a duke.
Y.M. But would he?
O.M. Don't you see where you are arriving?
Y.M. Where?
O.M. At the standpoint of the other schemes: That it is good morals to
let an ignorant duke do showy benevolences for his pride's sake, a pretty
low motive, and go on doing them unwarned, lest if he were made
acquainted with the actual motive which prompted them he might shut up
his purse and cease to be good?
Y.
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