Precept and Practice – OCTOBER 20 – Wealth

Men are exceedingly apt to imagine that nothing can be seriously wrong, which they have a right to do;  to forget that the licence which is allowed by law may be sternly prohibited by morality.   How little concern does any wise and conscientious principle appear to have with the expenditure of private revenue, especially where that revenue is the largest.   How despotically there do mere whim and chance suggestion appear to reign!   How wastefully are the elements of human enjoyment squandered in pernicious luxuries, or dissipated in random experiments of benevolence, of which a little knowledge beforehand might have taught the result just as well as the failure afterwards!   And if ever a gentle remonstrance is insinuated, how instantly does the vulgar and ignorant feeling leap forth, ‘And may I not do what I like with my own?’   No you may not, unless your liking and your duty are in happy accordance.   Morally you are as much bound to distribute your own wealth wisely, as to abstain from touching another man’s;  bound by the very same fundamental reasons, which forbid the privation of human enjoyment no less than the creation of human misery.   As large a portion of well-being may be sacrificed by an act of wilful extravagance as by the commission of a dishonesty:  and were it of a nature to be definable by law, would merit as severe punishment.

Shall anything then deter us from saying that such self-indulgence is a thief?

James Martineau

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From the Introduction to Precept and Practice

The kindly welcome given to my other little books, ‘Being and Doing’ and ‘Character and Conduct,’ must be my excuse for adding another collection of extracts to the number now in circulation.

The quotations are gathered from the books of many earnest thinkers, and deal with Life in all its length and breadth, with ourselves, our characters, our plain unvarnished faults and weaknesses, our often untoward circumstances, and with all that drags us down;-  with our purposes, our religion, our love and friendships, and with all that uplifts us;-  with our relation to others, our influence and responsibilities, and finally with those stages of our journey which bring us to the Road’s Last Turn and to the Silent Land.

CONSTANCE  M. WHISHAW