ection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold
sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the
law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the
other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties
by clearing yourself in the direct, or in the reflex way. Consider
whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin,
neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But
I may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself. I have
my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to
many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts it
enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that
this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the
common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a
taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that
he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a
simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction
society, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart
of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding
whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death
and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons.
We want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state, but
we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants,
have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force and do
lean and beg day and night continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant,
our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion we have not
chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor soldiers. We shun
the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all
heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest
genius studies at one of our colleges and is not installed in an office
within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New
York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being
disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from
New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tr