We must
distinguish between sins on the one hand and mere errors of judgment and
differences of taste from ourselves. To draw up harsh laws, to practise
exclusions against everyone who does not see fit to duplicate one's own
blameless home life, is to waste a number of courageous and exceptional
persons in every generation, to drive many of them into a forced
alliance with real crime and embittered rebellion against custom and the
law.
3.30. CONDUCT IN RELATION TO THE THING THAT IS.
But the reader must keep clear in his mind the distinction between
conduct that is right or permissible in itself and conduct that becomes
either inadvisable or mischievous and wrong because of the circumstances
about it. There is no harm under ordinary conditions in asking a boy
with a pleasant voice to sing a song in the night, but the case is
altered altogether if you have reason to suppose that a Red Indian is
lying in wait a hundred yards off, holding a loaded rifle and ready to
fire at the voice. It is a valid objection to many actions that I do not
think objectionable in themselves, that to do them will discharge a
loaded prejudice into the heart of my friend--or even into my own.
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