Upon this principal all law is made;
For were man free he could not be controlled,
And all compliance would be his caprice.
But since he is the tyrant-motive’s slave,
The law to govern motive only seeks
And builds its sanction on the base of pain,
As motive strongest in the human heart.
It only falls below perfection’s height,
Because there are exceptions to the rule;
When hate and passion, lust and greed of gold,
Prove stronger than the fear of distant pain.
And could the law know fully every heart,
And vary sanction, there would be no crime.

But law itself, and the obeying world,
Are proofs against the grosser form of Fate:
That all is preordained, nor can be changed.
All human life is vacillating life;
We make our plans each day, then alter them.
We form resolves one hour that break the next,
And no one dares assert that he will act,
Upon the morrow, in a certain way;
But cries, it all depends on circumstance.
And this is strange, that while we cannot change
Our lives one tittle by our own free will,
We help, each day, to change our neighbor’s course;
And he assists the motives changing ours.
For all relations to our fellow-men,
Are powers that form our lives, in spite of us.
But we may change our motives, often do,
By changing place, or circumstance of life,
By hearing, reading, or reflective thought;
Yet are these very things from motives done,
And motives mocking all our vain commands.
One motive made the object of an act,
Another rises subject of the act;
And to the final motive we can never reach.

The world’s a self-adjusting, vast machine,
Whose human comparts cannot guide themselves;
And each is but a puppet to the whole,
Yet adds its mite towards its government;
Here, in this motive circle, lies all Fate.
Our fellow-men with motives furnish us,
While we contribute to their motive fund.
The real power, hidden deep within,
Escapes the eye of careless consciousness;
Who proudly tells us we are action’s cause.
Upon this error men, mistaken, raise
The edifice of law in all its forms;
That yet performs its varied functions well,
Because it offers motives that restrain,
Till stronger overcome, and crime ensues.
The motive gibbet lifts its warning arms;
The pillory gapes its scolloped lips for necks;
The lash grows stiff with blood and shreds of flesh;
The treadmill yields beneath the wearied feet;
And Sabbath after Sabbath preachers tell
Of judgment, and of awful Hell, and Heaven;
All these, to stronger make, than lust of sin.
And yet, to lead my reasoning to its end,
I find a chaos of absurdity.
If I am by an unruled motive driven,
Why act at all? Why passive not recline
Upon the lap of destiny, and wait her arms?
Why struggle to acquire means of life,
When Fate must fill our mouths or let us die?
Why go not naked forth into the world,
And trust to Fate for clothes? Why spring aside
From falling weight, or flee a burning house,
Or fight with instinct strength the clasp of waves?
Because we cannot help it; every act
Behind it has a motive, whose command
We, willing or unwilling, must obey.

Law governs motives, motives create law;
Between the reflex action man is placed,
The helpless shuttlecock of unjust Fate!
Now passive driven to commit a crime,
Then by the driver laid upon the rack;
A Zeno’s slave, compelled by Fate to steal,
And then compelled by Fate to bear the lash!

What gross injustice is the rule of life!
A sentient being made without a will,
And placed a cat’s-paw in the hands of Fate,
Who rakes the moral embers for a sin,
That, found, must burn the helpless one alone.
All right and wrong, and whate’er makes man man,
Are gone, and language is half obsolete;
No need of words to tell of moral worth
Existing not, nor e’en conceivable;
No words of blame or commendation, given
According to the intention of a deed;
No words of cheer or comfort, to incite,
For man must act without our useless tongues;
No words of prayer, if Fate supplies our wants;
No words of prayer, if Fate locks up her store;
No words of love, for fondest love were loathe g line,
And sadly shows its hopeless fixity.

But man on Earth I love to ridicule,
A little clod of sordid selfishness!
I’ll take his mental acts of every kind
And see how self originates them all;
I’ll follow Stewart, since he classifies
With shrewd discretion, though his reasoning err,
He places first the appetites; and these
Perforce are selfish, as our self alone
Must feel and suffer with our wants. Our food
Tastes good alone to us. The richest feast,
In others’ mouths, could never satisfy
Our appetite for food; self must be fed.
Desires are next; and that of knowledge, first,
Is proven selfish, by his quoted line
From Cicero—that “knowledge is the food
Of mind”—and food is ever sought for self.
Desire of social intercourse with men,
From thought that it will better self, proceeds.
Man’s state is friendly, not a state of war,
For instinct teaches him society
Will offer many benefits to self;
And only when he has a cause to fear
That self will suffer, does he learn to war.
Desire to gain esteem, is self in search
Of approbation; like the appetite,
The end pursued affects alone the self.
And lastly Stewart boasts posthumous fame,
When self, as sacrificed, can seek no good.
To prove the motive is a selfish good,
I’ll not assert enjoyment after life,
But say, the pleasure of the millions’ praise,
Anticipated in the present thought,
And intense consciousness of heroism,
Far more than compensates the pangs of death.
A Curtius leaping down the dread abyss,
Enjoys his fame enough, before he strikes,
To pay for every pain of mangling death.
Affections next adorn the moral page.
At that of kindred, mothers cry aloud:
“For shame! for shame! do you pretend to say
I love my child with any thought of self?
When I would lay my arm upon the block,
And have it severed for his slightest good!”
I’ll square your love by Reason’s rigid rule,
And test its source. Why do you love him so?
For benefit he has conferred, or may?
No, as the helpless babe, demanding care,
You love him most. Your love is instinct then,
And like the cow her calf, you love your child;
That you may care for him, before self moves.
Then do you love him always just the same,
When rude and bad as when obedient?
But I’ll dissect your love, and take away
Each part affecting self; and see what’s left.
He now has grown beyond your instinct love;
You love him, first, because he is your son,
And you would suffer blame, if you did not;
You love him, too, because he does reflect
A credit on yourself. You feel assured
That others thinking well of him, think well
Of you. Because it flatters all your pride
To think so fine a life is part of yours;
Because his high opinion of your worth
Evokes a meet return; because you look
Into the future, and see honors bright
Awaiting you through him; because you feel
The world is praising you for loving him,
And would condemn you, did you not. And last,
You feel the pleasure deep of self-esteem,
Because you fill the public’s and your own
Romantic ideas of a mother’s love.

Let each component part be now destroyed,
And see if still you love him. As a man,
He plunges into vice of vilest kinds;
His bright reflections on yourself are gone,
And people think the worse of you, for him;
You never smile, but frown, upon him now,
But still you love him dearly! To his vice
He adds a crime, a foul and blasting crime;
Your pride is gone, you feel a bitter shame,
A score of opposites to love creep in;
A righteous anger at his foolish sins,
A just contempt for nature, weak as his;
But yet you love him fondly, for the world
Is lauding you for “mother’s holy love”;
And you delight its clinging strength to show,
You gain in public credit by your woes,
And get the soothing martyr’s sympathy.
But let him still grow worse, and sink so low,
That people say you are disgraced through him,
Your warmest friends will not acquaintance own,
Your love for such an object’s ridiculed,
And gains respect from none. Your only chance
Is to disown him. How you loud proclaim,
“He’s not my child but by the accident
Of birth!”
Do yet you love him in your heart?
This then because you think yourself so good,
So heaven-like, for loving him disgraced,
You go to see him in the shameful jail;
He spits upon, and beats you from his cell,
And tells you that he hates your very name.
Now all your love is gone, except the glow
Of pity for him chained to dungeon floor;
But he’s released, and deeper goes in crime;
Then, lastly, Pity yields. Your heart is stone!

But love was only touched in selfish part,
Yet should you still deny your love is self’s;
Of several children, do you not love most
The one whose conduct pleases most yourself?
But love, unselfish, never could be moved
By anything affecting self alone.

The throbbing hearts of lovers beat for self,
And this I’ll prove, though Pyramus may vow
He has no thought but Thisbe.
Take away
Love’s sensual part, which is an appetite,
And therefore selfish, by its Nature’s law;
And what remains is, first, a slight conceit
And left a narrow opening in front.
Then with a speed the lightning ne’er attained,
Our cloud pavilion swiftly whirled through space.
A seed that would have slain me with its haste,
Had not the Angel been so near.
As on the cars,
We dash through towns, and mark the hurrying lights,
Or shudder at an engine rattling by;
So through our door, I marked the countless worlds,
In clustering systems, chained by gravity,
Flash by an endless course. A second’s time
Sufficed to pass our little group of stars,
That waltz about our Sun, as if it lit
The very Universe. Then systems came,
Round which our system moves, and these
Round others, till the series grew so vast
I shrank from looking. Great Alcyone,
Our telescopic giantess, a babe
Amid the monsters of the starry tribe,
The last familiar face in Heaven’s throng,
Blazed by the door; an instant, out of sight!
And after all that we have known or named
On Earth were far behind, the millions came
In endless multitude; and on we swept,
Till worlds became a dull monotony,
And all the wonders of the Heavens were shown.
A planet wheels its huge proportions past,
Its pimpled face with red volcanoes thick,
That, with our speed, seem girdling bands of light;
A Sun, whose flame would fade our yellow spark,
Roars out a moment at our narrow door
As through its blaze we fly, then dies away,
Casting a weird and momentary gleam
Over the Angel’s unrelenting face;
A meteor tears its whizzing way along,
All showering off the scintillating sparks
That mark its trail. Far off, a comet runs
Its bended course, the mighty fan-like tail
Lit with a myriad globes of dancing fire,
That seemed like Argus’ eyes on Juno’s bird.
And on we sped, till one last Sun appeared,
A monstrous hemisphere of concave shape,
And brilliancy intense; it seemed to stand
On great Creation’s bounds, a lense of light.
Close by its vast red rim we shaved, and passed
Beyond, to empty space unoccupied.
No world, no sun, no object passed the door;
The steady blue, tinged with a brightening gold,
Alone was seen. Still on and on we flew,
Until a score of ages seemed elapsed,
And I had near forgotten Earth and home.

And yet the air grew brighter, till I feared
That we approached a sun, so infinite
In light, that I should sink in dazzled death.

We came to rest, the curtains fell away,
And lo! I stood within the light of Heaven.
And oh! its glorious light! No angry red,
Nor blinding white, nor sickly yellow glare,
But one vast golden flood, sublime, serene,
No object near, on which it could reflect,
It formed the very atmosphere itself,
An air in which the soul could bathe and breathe,
And ever live without its fleshly food.

No object near, for on the farthest bounds
Of space immense as mortal can conceive,
Creation hung, a group of clustering motes,
Where only suns were seen as tiny specks,
And Earth and smaller stars were out of sight.
No object near, for farther than the motes,
The walls of Heaven, in glorious grandeur loomed,
Yet near as flesh and blood could bear.
How grand!
From infinite to infinite extent
The glittering battlements were spread, the height
Above conception, built of purest gold,
Yet gold transparent, for I could discern
Though indistinctly, domes and spires beyond,
And all the wondrous workmanship divine,
That blazed with jewels, flashing varied hues
In perfect union; and bright happy fields,
That bloomed with flowers immortal, in whose midst
The crystal river ran. And through the scenes
Thronged million forms, that each sought happiness,
From million varied, purified desires.
Each face serenely bright as Evening’s star,
And some I thought I knew, were dear to me;
But as I gazed, they ever disappeared.

Along the walls, twelve gates of pearl were seen,
So great their breadth, and high their jewelled arch,
That Earth could almost trundle in untouched,
And in each arch was fixed a giant bell
Of silver, with a golden tongue that hung,
A pendant sun. So wide the silver lips,
That Chimularee plucked up by the roots,
And as a clapper swung within its circ,
Would tinkle, like a pebble, noiselessly
Against the rigid side. And as the saved
Were brought in teeming host, by Angel bands,
Before the gates, the bells began their swing;
And to and fro the ponderous tongue was hurled,
Till through the portals marched the shouting throng,
And then it fell against the bounding side.
And loud and long their booming thunder
Rends the golden air asunder,
While the ransomed, passing under,
Fall in praise beneath the bells,
Whose mighty throbbing welcome tells;
And the Angels hush their harps in wonder—
Bells of Heaven, glory booming bells!

Gentler now, the silver’s shiver
Purls the rippling waves that quiver
Through the ether’s tide forever,
Mellow as they left the bells,
Whose softening vibrate welcome tells;
And the quavers play adown the river—
Bells of Heaven, softly sobbing bells!

Then the dreamy cadence dying,
Sings as soft as zephyrs sighing;
Faintest echoes cease replying
To the murmur of the bells,
Whose stil elfish theory, carried to its end,
Makes wrong of right, and overturns the world.
And strong it is in seeming; for the self,
In human conduct, plays important part.
But ’tis not action’s only source, nor dims
The quality of every action’s worth.
’Tis true that Man exists in self alone,
And in himself feels pain or pleasure. True,
An instinct teaches to avoid the one,
And seek the other; true, that every act,
How small soe’er, gives pleasure or gives pain.
Yet thousand deeds are done without regard
To one or other, or effect on Self.
Howe’er an action may affect the Self,
If he that acts has not a thought of it,
The action is not selfish. You appeal
To Man, and so will I appeal to you.
You find a helpless brute, with broken limb,
Upon the roadside, moaning out its pain.
Now, though to aid will surely pleasure give,
And to neglect will cause remorseful pain,
Is there a single thought of this, when you,
With kindest hand, bind up the swollen bruise,
And hold the grateful water to its mouth?
Is not each thought to ease the sufferer’s pain?
Is not the Self first found, when on your way
You go, with lighter heart, for kindness done?
And while you think with pleasure on the deed,
Would you not feel despised in your own eyes,
If consciousness revealed ’twas done for Self?
But should you say that Self was thus concealed,
And still evoked the deed, the argument
The same; if Self was out of thought, the deed
Had other source.
In all, you thus mistake
The deed’s effect, unthought of, for its source.
God, in His wisdom, hath affixed to good
Performed, a pleasure, and to evil, pain.
But selfish actions are not good, you’ve said,
And therefore cannot slightest pleasure yield.
Here, then, your system contradicts itself;
All actions emanate from love of Self,
To find the highest pleasure for that Self;
And yet the pleasure’s lost by very search;
What good soe’er apparently is sought,
The consciousness of selfish aims destroys.
And here is wisdom manifest. When Self
Would seek the good, for pleasure to the Self,
The pleasure is not found; but when it seeks
The good alone, true pleasure is conferred.
I mean the Self of soul, not Self of flesh;
For pleasure to the sense, to be attained
Is sought; these two are mingled intricate
(And hard to separate), in thousand ways.
But when Man’s higher Self would seek its good,
It must forget the Self. In every case
You instanced, Self of soul must be unthought,
For pleasure will not come at call of Self.
Your gambler none will doubt has selfish ends;
Not so the preacher, for his pleasure sought,
Would ne’er be found; it must be out of thought.
His burning eloquence, his pastoral care,
Can not proceed from any love of Self,
For Self would suffer, when it knew their source;
But as he acts from love of good as good,
The Self is happy. When he ascertains
That some have died in sin through his neglect,
The Self is grieved, not that it was uncared,
For care of Self would not allay the pain,
But that a duty had not been performed;
That good had been neglected, as a good.
The gambler’s object may be highest good
For Self, according to his estimate;
The preacher seeks a good, but not for Self;
When Self appears, the good to evil turns.
Nor is the mystic selfish in his cave,
Save that he buries talents in himself,
That might avail for good to other men;
But all his mind is bent on pleasing God,
His only thought of Self is for its pain;
And this he deems acceptable to Heaven.
You can not judge by your analysis,
But by what passes in the actor’s mind.
One surely then could not be selfish termed,
Who only lived to mortify the Self,
Howe’er mistaken may his conduct be.
Nor is the man, who gives his wealth away,
If from right principles he gives. ’Tis true,
He finds a pleasure in the deed when done,
But if to gain that pleasure he has given,
It turns to gall and wormwood in his grasp.
If two men matches light, and know full well,
If one is dropped, a house will be consumed,
He is the most guilty that allows its fall.
The miser, then, who knows he does a wrong,
Is by that knowledge rendered criminal.
“The quality of actions must be judged”
From their intents, that often differ wide;
The man who shoots his friend by accident
Has no intent, and therefore does no wrong;
But he who murders does a score of wrongs,—
A score of basest motives prompt the deed,
All centred in the Self. The Christian’s work
Must, from its very nature, have no Self,
Or it becomes unchristian. Man can judge,
Not from effect, but motives ascertained
By inference, and experience. The law
Is formed hereon, and modified by years.
Time teaches men that punishment will stop,
And only punishment, the spread of crime.
Instinct and Nature’s order teaches you
That pain must follow wrong. A man commits
A crime; if left unpunished, he repeats;
And others, seeing his security,
Will do as he has done. So all mankind
Would hasten on to lawlessness and ruin.
But law, for real wrong inflicts a wrong,
Which would be just did it no farther go;
But it is proved expedient, inasmuch
As it prevents continued crime. Then death
By law can not be murder termed, since good

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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