every
case. There are legitimate, though very rare, exceptions, even to moral
laws and duties. For instance it is a duty to respect the property of
others. Yet to save the life of a person who is starving, we are
justified in taking the property of another without asking his consent.
To save a person from drowning, we may seize a boat belonging to
another. To spread the news of a fire, we may take the first horse we
find, without inquiring who is the owner. To save a sick person from a
fatal shock, we may withhold facts in violation of the strict duty of
truthfulness. To promote an important public measure, we may
deliberately break down our health, spend our private fortune, and
reduce ourselves to helpless beggary. Such acts violate particular
duties. They break moral laws. And yet they all are justified in these
extreme cases by the higher law of love; by the greater duty of devotion
to the highest good of our fellow-men. The doctrine that "the end
justifies the means" is a mischievous and dangerous doctrine. Stated in
that unqualified form, it is easily made the excuse for all sorts of
immorality. The true solution of the seeming conflict of duties lies in
the recognition that the larger social good justifies the sacrifice of
the lesser social good when the two conflict. One must remember,
however, that the universal recognition of established duties and laws
is itself the greatest social good; and only the most extreme cases can
justify a departure from the path of generally recognized and
established moral law.

These extreme cases when they occur, however, must be dealt with
bravely. The form of law and rule must be sacrificed to the substance of
righteousness and love when the two conflict. As Professor Marshall
remarks in the chapter of his "History of Greek Philosophy" which deals
with Socrates, "The highest activity does not always take the form of
conformity to rule. There are critical moments when rules fail, when, in
fact, obedience to rule would mean disobedience to that higher law, of
which rules and formulae are at best only an adumbration."

There is nothing more contemptible than that timid, self-seeking virtue
which will sacrifice the obvious well-being of others to save itself the
pain of breaking a rule. There is nothing more pitiful than that
self-righteous virtue which does right, not because it loves the right,
still less because it loves the person who is affected by its action,
but simply be