Section LXXVIII. The Inner Revelation and the Conscience. (Concl'd) · SECTION C.

Moral sparing is a self-limiting of personal action in the interest of the rights of the object; the latter is neither appropriated nor formed by the person, but simply let alone in its peculiar being and nature. The duty of sparing rests upon the right of every natural or spiritual and historical entity to its existence and its peculiarity, in so far as these are good, and hence upon love to the object as being good,—consequently, in the final instance, upon a pious world theory, upon love to God. The entity is spared because it bears in itself the impress of the Eternal,—is an expression of the will of God; hence sparing is moral only in so far as it relates to the good and the divine ill existence, and not to that which by virtue of its ungodly nature should be an object of moral hatred.—The higher the perfection of an object, so much the higher is also its right to moral sparing; the less the perfection, the more the object falls within the sphere of appropriation and formation. The highest object of moral sparing among created things is man, and whatever exists through and for him; but, above all, his moral personality itself, and hence also his honor. God himself cannot indeed be an object of moral sparing in the strict sense of the word, but lie is such, however, in the forms of his revelation in time, and in all that symbolically represents him.

An indiscriminate sparing would be simply spiritual and moral or indifference, and hence immoral. The sparing of the anti-godly is a sinning against God, is the withholding of moral love. An evil existence has indeed also, in so far as any good still inheres in it, a right to be spared,—only, however, in that which it has of good. The right to be spared is not, of course, in the case of finite existences, of an unlimited and unconditional character, and in the case of nature-objects it is much more limited than with personal beings, though indeed it never sinks entirely to zero. It is true, nature is destined to service under the dominion of the rational spirit, and, in so far as it reaches this destination, man has in fact a right to pass beyond the limits of mere sparing restraint, and actively to lay hold on the very existence of nature, transforming and appropriating it. Where the right of the personal spirit is not recognized, where God is conceived of as a mere nature-entity, there pious morality manifests itself in a wide-reaching sparing of natural objects, far beyond the measure of what is required of us; so is it with the Brahmins and the Buddhists; and, especially in the case of the former, this over-delicate sparing of natural objects is associated with a cruel un-sparingness toward themselves.

As the duty of sparing rests on the right of each particular being to its own peculiarity, hence this duty as well as this right rise in scope in proportion to the degree of the individual perfection. That which is absolutely perfect bears the character of eternity and unchangeableness, and though it may indeed be spiritually appropriated, yet it cannot in any respect be formed or changed. In the process of education, the dictating influence upon the child falls into the background in proportion as the child grows toward moral maturity. Lifeless matter has no claim to sparing. When the Brahmin does not allow himself causelessly to crush the least earth-clod, this is simply because he regards it as the sacred body of Brahma. Plants have a better claim to be spared than inorganic objects, and the more so the higher their organization, and especially as they stand in a closer relation to man; to injure fruit-trees and other edible vegetation, without cause, is regarded as sinful even by uncultured tribes. The more an object enters into the sphere of man’s spiritual life, the more it bears the impress of the spirit, constituting, as it were, a sort of larger corporeality for man, so much the higher is its claim upon sparing. This is especially the case with the human body itself, as the organ of the spirit, as a “temple of the ;” in the next rank stand all such natural objects as hold a relation to the spiritual life, and which are mementos of important events and of spiritual effort in general,—every thing, in fine, that has been actually produced by the human spirit, and the more so in proportion as it is of a spiritualized character,—and hence, especially, all products of industry and art. But the highest right to sparing is possessed by the personal spirit itself in its personal peculiarity; to assail the honor of another is to wound his moral being; the higher the moral culture and maturity of a person, the higher is also his right to moral sparing; by sin this right is necessarily largely forfeited.

While the idol falls, of course, within the sphere of human sparing, the eternal and almighty God stands beyond the scope of this activity. Nevertheless there are sacred duties which express, in a certain sense, a sparing of the divine; the name of God and his honor are to be held sacred; and whatever is a symbol of the divine, or is a reminder of God’s presence, has an especial claim to moral sparing; even uncultured tribes practice a reverential sparing in regard to all that is sacred or stands in relation to the divine in contradistinction to the and the profane. From the simple fact of the sparing of whatever stands in real, or even in symbolical, relation to God, it is very evident, of how great significancy is piety for morality. The pious mind finds God’s being and in all things and in all life, and whatever is not hostile to God is, for it, sacred and an object of pious sparing. The higher the piety of the person, so much the higher becomes the worth, and hence also the right, of all existence, in so far as this existence is good. He who is impious has no reverence for created things,—no tenderness toward them. Not to spare that which has a right to sparing, is moral rudeness. The immoral and the impious are uniformly rude and coarse; they have indeed fear but no awe.

Sparing is, as a non-doing, only then moral when it is a conscious and freely-willed withholding of a real out-going action, that is, when it is an inner activity, a moral self-controlling out of respect for another’s right, and when it is in real harmony with moral forming and appropriating, so as not in any manner to interfere therewith,—that is, when it is the virtualizing of the real rights of the moral object. The formable or cultivable object has, however, just as good a right to be formed as it has to be spared. In so far as sparing is a mere non-influencing of the objective entity, it is not yet moral, and may even also be evil. The spiritually indolent declines even this form of activity, not, however, from love to the object, but from mere selfishness. Only that sparing is morally good which rests on love to the object, and which therefore implies a conscious self-limitation and self-controlling, and which is, consequently, only in outer form, but not in inner essence, a mere non-doing; mere non-doing would be per se sinful, inasmuch as the moral life must always be active, and it is only the seeming non-doing which, however, is an inner-doing, that can be moral. True moral sparing is, in relation to beings that are. formable and in need of formation, uniformly also a formative influence, namely, in that it gives proper play for legitimate self-forming on the part of the object. A tyrannical education that extends its tutorial dictation into all the minute details, produces not a moral character but only servile-mindedness. All right education must also practice, in the interest of the training of moral freedom, a wise sparing,—must allow the child the possibility of determining itself independently, and of thereby maturing itself toward moral freedom. As the sparing of a growing plant is at the same time also a furthering of it, so also, and even in a higher degree, is this true of sparing as exercised toward rational beings; the pardoning of an offense exercises frequently a very fruitful influence on the moral development of him who is pardoned.