DUTY NOT BASED ON WILL.
I cannot too often recommend it to the serious consideration of all
men, who think civil society to be within the province of moral
jurisdiction, that if we owe to it any duty, it is not subject to our
will. Duties are not voluntary. Duty and will are even contradictory
terms. Now, though civil society might be at first a voluntary act
(which in many cases it undoubtedly was), its continuance is under a
permanent, standing covenant, co-existing with the society; and it
attaches upon every individual of that society, without any formal
act of his own. This is warranted by the general practice, arising
out of the general sense of mankind. Men without their choice derive
benefits from that association; without their choice they are
subjected to duties in consequence of these benefits; and without
their choice they enter into a virtual obligation as binding as any
that is actual. Look through the whole of life and the whole system
of duties. Much the strongest moral obligations are such as were
never the results of our option. I allow, that if no supreme ruler
exists, wise to form, and potent to enforce, the moral law, there is
no sanction to any contract, virtual or even actual, against the will
of prevalent power. On that hypothesis, let any set of men be strong
enough to set their duties at defiance, and they cease to be duties
any longer.
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