For reason is thus confined
within her own peculiar province- the arrangement of ends or aims,
which is at the same time the arrangement of nature; and, as a
practical faculty, without limiting itself to the latter, it is
justified in extending the former, and with it our own existence,
beyond the boundaries of experience and life. If we turn our attention
to the analogy of the nature of living beings in this world, in the
consideration of which reason is obliged to accept as a principle that
no organ, no faculty, no appetite is useless, and that nothing is
superfluous, nothing disproportionate to its use, nothing unsuited
to its end; but that, on the contrary, everything is perfectly
conformed to its destination in life- we shall find that man, who
alone is the final end and aim of this order, is still the only animal
that seems to be excepted from it. For his natural gifts- not merely
as regards the talents and motives that may incite him to employ them,
but especially the moral law in him- stretch so far beyond all mere
earthly utility and advantage, that he feels himself bound to prize
the mere consciousness of probity, apart from all advantageous
consequences- even the shadowy gift of posthumous fame- above
everything; and he is conscious of an inward call to constitute
himself, by his conduct in this world- without regard to mere
sublunary interests- the citizen of a better.
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