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In contrast with these cruel customs, the prohibitions of the Jewish law, the Ten Commandments, for example, were so humane, so productive of security and concord and a deep-rooted and lasting satisfaction, that they persisted and became the parent of much of our present day morality.
Command little and then use positive commands rather than prohibitions. Use "do" rather than "don't." Make right-doing delightful. Establish Fichte's doctrine of right, see page 64. Teach by example rather than precept. Therefore respect the child's rights as you wish him to respect yours. Use a low voice, especially in commanding or rebuking.
The first historical cause is Puritanism; but not Puritanism merely in the sense of Prohibitionism. The truth is that prohibitions might have done far less harm as prohibitions, if a vague association had not arisen, on some dark day of human unreason, between prohibition and progress. And it was the progress that did the harm, not the prohibition.
A succession of Navigation Acts, beginning about 1650, limited the English colonies to direct trade with the home country, in English or colonial vessels. Even between neighboring English colonies trade was hampered by restrictions or absolute prohibitions. Against the legal right of Parliament thus to control the trade of the colonies the Americans did not protest.
The planters they represented as being still, at least the mass of them, under the influence of the strong habits of tyrannizing and cruelty which they formed during slavery. The prohibitions and penalties of the law are not sufficient to prevent occasional and even frequent outbreakings of violence, so that the negroes even yet suffer much of the rigor of slavery.
The person who justifies himself by saying that he holds certain beliefs, or acts in a certain manner "on principle", and yet refuses to examine the basis and expediency of his principle, introduces into his thinking and conduct an irrational, mystical element similar to that which characterized savage prohibitions.
Effort is not in vain, for effort is itself a cause and determines an effect. Commandments and prohibitions are not useless, for the same reason. Reward and punishment are not unjust, even though antecedent causes over which man has no control determine his acts, any more than it is unjust that fire burns the one who comes near it, though he did so without intention.
To this day I do not know where to find a weapon strong enough to subdue the tendency to impurity in young men; and although I cannot tell them what I do not believe, I hanker sometimes after the old prohibitions and penalties.
I am of opinion that your Majesty promises more than you can fulfil. I shall, however, remove my custom-house prohibitions whenever the existing treaties may be executed. The following are my conditions: First, The interdiction of all trade and communication with England. Second, The supply of a fleet of fourteen sail-of the line, seven frigates and seven brigs or corvettes, armed and manned.
Having made up his mind that this ought to be, there is with M. Comte but one step to concluding that the Grand Pontiff of Humanity must take care that it shall be; and on this foundation he organizes an elaborate system for the total suppression of all independent thought. He does not, indeed, invoke the arm of the law, or call for any prohibitions. The clergy are to have no monopoly.
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