Page:Literary studies by Joseph Jacobs.djvu/93

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CROSS'S 'LIFE'
65

this inward impulse. The will of God is the same thing as the will of other men, compelling us to work and avoid what they have seen to be harmful to social existence. Disjoined from any perceived good, the divine will is simply so much as we have ascertained of the facts of existence which compel obedience at our peril.'

These facts which compel obedience are declared to be 'the part which is played in the general human lot by hereditary conditions in the largest sense and the fact that what we call duty is entirely made up of such conditions.' The scientific conception of law in human nature was combined by her with the moral or religious fact of duty. Besides this the Comtist view of society as an organism was translated into the ethical consideration of the radiation of good and evil deeds throughout society. The moral progress of the world would depend, according to her, upon the degree in which men's minds were trained to see the consequences of their egoistic impulses. In an interesting correspondence with the Hon. Mrs. Ponsonby, where she sharply distinguishes her theory from the physical Positivism of Professor Tyndall and others, she clearly puts this aspiration:—

'With regard to the pains and limitations of one's personal lot, I suppose there is not a