There is scarcely an eventuality in life that
without the help of these generalizations would not exceed the average
man's intellectual power and moral energy, just as there is scarcely an
idea or an emotion that can be conveyed without the use of faulty and
defective common names. Justice and Mercy are indeed not ultimately
different in their nature from such other conventions as the rules of a
game, the rules of etiquette, forms of address, cab tariffs and
standards of all sorts. They are mere organizations of relationship
either to economize thought or else to facilitate mutual understanding
and codify common action. Modesty and self-submission, love and service
are, in the right system of my beliefs, far more fundamental rightnesses
and duties.
We are not mercantile and litigious units such as making Justice our
social basis would imply, we are not select responsible persons mixed
with and tending weak irresponsible wrong persons such as the notion of
Mercy suggests, we are parts of one being and body, each unique yet
sharing a common nature and a variety of imperfections and working
together (albeit more or less darkly and ignorantly) for a common end.
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