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

Natural appropriating per se is not yet a moral activity, but it is extra-moral, and therefore when it appears in and of itself as the substance and chief-end of life, it is immoral. It becomes morally good only when it is the expression of an under-lying spiritual appropriating, that is, when it does not rest on mere sensuous impulse, but on conscious love, not so much to the sensuous object per se as rather to God who lovingly gives it to us. This implies further that, with a moral person, the natural appropriating should never predominate over the spiritual,—that not the attendant sensuous enjoyment per se should be regarded as the essential and proper object of effort, but rather the rational God-willed end of the sensuous, so that consequently the sensuous enjoyment should be aimed at only in so far as the moral purpose admits of it.

There is per se forbidden to man, irrespective of his sinfulness, no natural temperate sensuous appropriating; this is plainly seen in the account of Paradise and in the example and deed of Christ at the wedding of Cana. Thankfulness to God even the sensuous appropriation of his gifts [1 Tim. iv, 3-5]. The Christian custom of saying at meals, after the example of Christ [Matt. xiv, 19; xv, 36], which prevailed also generally in the ancient church [Acts xxvii, 35; Tert. Apol., 39], has a high moral significancy; it rescues the natural enjoyment from the stage of mere sensuousness,—elevates it into the sphere of the moral. As even in the opinion of society the significancy of social repasts consists not in the sensuous enjoyment, but in the intellectual entertainment and interchange of sentiment, so according to Christian morals the significancy of all sensuous appropriation consists in its relation to God,—in the appropriating of the divine in and through the bread and wine of daily food. “Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” [1 Cor. x, 30, 31]. But man does not give God the glory when he forgets Him and finds pleasure merely in the sensuous. God neither forbids nor begrudges to man the enjoyment of the sensuous, but he forbids a beastly merging of one’s self into it. He who forgets the Giver in the gift sinks below the sphere of the moral and even of the human. The world at large is not fond of -saying, and yet even the made his libations to the gods at his repasts. Even Schleiermacher (Christl. Sitte, Beil., p. 33) found in the just-cited words of Paul simply an assumption of the animal element—food-taking—“into the sphere of social pleasure,” “in order to chasten mere sensuous desire,” and he is unable to discover any significancy in the saying of .

The observing of moderation in natural appropriation, the regarding it as a mere means to the rational end of preserving the individual as well as the species, is not merely a moral preserving of the person but also of the object,—is a doing of justice toward the object. He who is temperate simply, e. g., in order not to injure his health, is not yet moral, but only self-seeking. Appropriation finds its measure in the moral duty of sparing. All natural appropriating is more or less a destroying of the objective entity; and, as the latter has per se a right to sparing, it follows that the limit of appropriation is not a merely subjective one. The nightingale-tongue pies of the Roman epicures are not mentioned with detestation simply because they are a mere immoderation, but because they involved an injustice against the right of nature to be spared. And many modern table-luxuries are not of a much more innocent character.

In sexual appropriation the moral is conditioned not merely, as in the use of natural objects, on thankful love to God as the giver, but—inasmuch as the object appropriated is itself a moral personality—also on personal love to the same. Without this love the person of the object would be treated as a mere impersonality, as a mere nature-object, and its validity as a personal moral spirit ignored. Upon this moral recognition of the personality Scripture lays great emphasis. “Adam knew Eve, his wife;” the same expression (יָדַע) is very frequently used of wedlock communion, also on the part of the woman [Gen. xix, 8; Num. xxxi, 17]. This is usually explained as a mere euphemism, but it is in fact the appropriate expression to the essence of the matter. The persons mutually recognize each other as personalities bound to each other in full reciprocal possession,—recognize, each, himself in the other and the other in himself—recognize the complete belonging of each to the other in virtue of a mutual love which precludes every thing that is strange or disuniting, so that consequently the two constitute truly one soul and one flesh. The expression to “know,” to recognize, refers therefore primarily solely to legitimate wedlock cohabitation, and was applied only subsequently and improperly also to sinful.

Sexual appropriation also is in part a destruction, a despoiling of the person, which finds a compensation only in the fact that the one person belongs to the other as an inalienable possession—that both persons are united to an indissoluble life in common. Hence the commerce of the sexes without marriage is self-profanation; and virginity is esteemed among all, not absolutely barbarous nations as an inviolable treasure to which only that one has a right who is united in his whole personality to the person of the virgin. And even within the limits of marriage each party has a right to sparing, and should not be degraded into a mere object of sensuous pleasure; also here there is a measure that is conditioned on the end, and the transgressing of which is a dishonoring, a degrading. of the consort.