JUST AND UNJUST.

Who has given us the perception of just and unjust? God, who gave us a brain and a heart. But when does our reason inform us that there are such things as vice¹ and virtue²? Just at the same time it teaches us that two and two make four. There is no innate³ knowledge, for the same reason that there is no tree that bears leaves and fruit when it first starts above the earth. There is nothing innate, or fully⁴ developed in the first instance; but — we repeat here what we have often said — God causes us to be born with organs, which, as they grow and become unfolded, make us feel all that is necessary for our species to feel, for the conservation of that species.

How is this continual mystery performed? Tell me, ye yellow inhabitants of the Isles⁵ of Sunda, ye black Africans, ye beardless Indians; and you — Plato, Cicero, and Epictetus. You all equally feel that it is better to give the superfluity of your bread, your rice, or your manioc, to the poor man who meekly⁶ requests it, than to kill him or scoop⁷ his eyes out. It is evident to the whole world that a benefit is more honorable to the performer than an outrage⁸, that gentleness is preferable to fury.

The only thing required, then, is to exercise our reason in discriminating⁹ the various shades of what is right and wrong. Good and evil are often neighbors; our passions confound them; who shall enlighten and direct us? Ourselves, when we are calm and undisturbed. Whoever has written on the subject of human duties, in all countries throughout the world, has written well, because he wrote with reason. All have said the same thing; Socrates and Epictetus, Confucius and Cicero, Marcus Antoninus and Amurath II. had the same morality.

We would repeat every day to the whole of the human race: Morality is uniform and invariable; it comes from God: dogmas are different; they come from ourselves.

Jesus never taught any metaphysical dogmas; He wrote no theological courses; He never said: I am consubstantial; I have two wills and two natures with only one person. He left for the Cordeliers and the Jacobins, who would appear twelve hundred years after Him, the delicate and difficult topic of argument, whether His mother was conceived in original sin. He never pronounced marriage to be the visible sign of a thing invisible; He never said a word about concomitant grace; He instituted neither monks¹⁰ nor inquisitors; He appointed nothing of what we see at the present day.

God had given the knowledge of just and unjust, right and wrong, throughout all the ages which preceded Christianity. God never changed nor can change. The constitution of our souls, our principles of reason and morality, will ever be the same. How is virtue promoted by theological distinctions, by dogmas founded on those distinctions, by persecutions founded on those dogmas? Nature, terrified and horror-struck at all these barbarous inventions, calls aloud to all men: Be just, and not persecuting¹¹ sophists.

You read in the “Zend-Avesta,” which is the summary of the laws of Zoroaster, this admirable maxim¹²: “When it is doubtful whether the action you are about to perform is just or unjust, abstain¹³ from doing it.” What legislator ever spoke¹⁴ better? We have not here the system of “probable opinions,” invented by people who call themselves “the Society of Jesus.”

1 vice   

n.坏事；恶习；[pl.]台钳，老虎钳；adj.副的

参考例句：

• He guarded himself against vice.他避免染上坏习惯。
• They are sunk in the depth of vice.他们堕入了罪恶的深渊。

2 virtue   

n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力

参考例句：

• He was considered to be a paragon of virtue.他被认为是品德尽善尽美的典范。
• You need to decorate your mind with virtue.你应该用德行美化心灵。

3 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

4 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

5 isles   

岛( isle的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the geology of the British Isles 不列颠群岛的地质
• The boat left for the isles. 小船驶向那些小岛。

6 meekly   

adv.温顺地，逆来顺受地

参考例句：

• He stood aside meekly when the new policy was proposed. 当有人提出新政策时，他唯唯诺诺地站 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He meekly accepted the rebuke. 他顺从地接受了批评。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 scoop   

n.铲子，舀取，独家新闻；v.汲取，舀取，抢先登出

参考例句：

• In the morning he must get his boy to scoop it out.早上一定得叫佣人把它剜出来。
• Uh,one scoop of coffee and one scoop of chocolate for me.我要一勺咖啡的和一勺巧克力的。

8 outrage   

n.暴行，侮辱，愤怒；vt.凌辱，激怒

参考例句：

• When he heard the news he reacted with a sense of outrage.他得悉此事时义愤填膺。
• We should never forget the outrage committed by the Japanese invaders.我们永远都不应该忘记日本侵略者犯下的暴行。

9 discriminating   

a.有辨别能力的

参考例句：

• Due caution should be exercised in discriminating between the two. 在区别这两者时应该相当谨慎。
• Many businesses are accused of discriminating against women. 许多企业被控有歧视妇女的做法。

10 monks   

n.修道士，僧侣( monk的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The monks lived a very ascetic life. 僧侣过着很清苦的生活。
• He had been trained rigorously by the monks. 他接受过修道士的严格训练。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 persecuting   

（尤指宗教或政治信仰的）迫害(~sb. for sth.)( persecute的现在分词 )； 烦扰，困扰或骚扰某人

参考例句：

• This endurance made old Earnshaw furious, when he discovered his son persecuting the poor, fatherless child, as he called him. 当老恩萧发现他的儿子这样虐待他所谓的可怜的孤儿时，这种逆来顺受使老恩萧冒火了。
• He is possessed with the idea that someone is persecuting him. 他老是觉得有人要害他。

12 maxim   

n.格言，箴言

参考例句：

• Please lay the maxim to your heart.请把此格言记在心里。
• "Waste not,want not" is her favourite maxim.“不浪费则不匮乏”是她喜爱的格言。

13 abstain   

v.自制，戒绝，弃权，避免

参考例句：

• His doctor ordered him to abstain from beer and wine.他的医生嘱咐他戒酒。
• Three Conservative MPs abstained in the vote.三位保守党下院议员投了弃权票。

14 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。