Excerpt from Substance and Shadow: Or Morality and Religion in Their Relation to Life; An Essay Upon the Physics of Creation
The leading words of my title-page call for a precise definition, in order that the reader may clearly discern the aim of the discussion to which I invite his attention.
By morality I mean that sentiment of selfhood or property which every man not an idiot feels in his own body. It is a state of conscious freedom or rationality, exempting him from the further control of parents or guardians, and entitling him in his own estimation and that of his fellows, to the undivided ownership of his words and deeds. It is the basis of conscience in man, or what enables him to appropriate good and evil to himself, instead of ascribing the former as he may one day learn to do exclusively to celestial, the latter exclusively to infernal influence. The word is often viciously used as a synonyme of spiritual goodness, as when we say, "A is a very moral man," meaning a just one; or, "B is a very immoral man," meaning an unjust one. No man can be either good or evil, either just or unjust, but by virtue of his morality;. e.unless he have selfhood or freedom entitling him to own his action. This is a conditio sine qua non.
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