Note (return) — Chapter III

It is clear, then, that if man has duties there must he a self-conscious Will by whom these duties are imposed, for only a real will can be legislative. If man has a sense of obligation, there must be a supreme authority by which he is obliged. If he is responsible, there must be a being to whom he is accountable. 116 It can not be said that he is accountable to himself, for by that supposition the idea of duty is obliterated, and "right" becomes identical with mere interest or pleasure. It can not be said that he is simply responsible to society--to mere conventions of human opinions and human governments--for then "right" becomes a mere creature of human legislation, and "justice" is nothing but the arbitrary will of the strong who tyrannize over the weak. Might constitutes right. Against such hypotheses the human mind, however, instinctively revolts. Mankind feel, universally, that there is an authority beyond all human governments, and a higher law above all human laws, from whence all their powers are derived. That higher law is the Law of God, that supreme authority is the God of Justice. To this eternally just God, innocence, under oppression and wrong, has made its proud appeal, like that of Prometheus to the elements, to the witnessing clouds, to coming ages, and has been sustained and comforted. And to that higher law the weak have confidently appealed against the unrighteous enactments of the strong, and have finally conquered. The last and inmost ground of all obligation is thus the conscious relation of the moral creature to God. The sense of absolute dependence upon a Supreme Being compels man, even while conscious of subjective freedom, to recognize at the same time his obligation to determine himself in harmony with the will of Him "in whom we live, and move, and are."