each
other, namely, that "the character of an action, whether good or bad,
depends on the intention of the agent," and "that unfitness, misuse,
abuse, is none the less wrong because the result of ignorance." Both these
propositions are true. The same act may be in intent right and good, and
yet, through defect of knowledge, wrong and evil; and it may, in virtue of
its good intent, be attended and followed by beneficent results, while at
the same time the evil that there is in it may be attended or followed by
injurious consequences. We may best illustrate this double character of
actions by a case so simple that we can see through it at a single glance.
I will suppose that I carry to a sick person a potion which I believe to
be an efficient remedy, but which, by a mistake for which I am not
accountable, proves to be a deadly poison. My act, by the standard of
absolute right, is an unfitting and therefore a wrong act, and it has its
inevitable result in killing the patient. But because my intention was
right, I have not placed myself in any wrong relation to God or man. Nay,
if I procured what I supposed to be a healing potion with care, cost, and
trouble, and for one whose suffering and need were his only claim upon me,
I have by my labor of love brought myself into an even more intimate
relation, filial and fraternal, with God and man, the result of which must
be my enhanced usefulness and happiness. If on the other hand I had meant
to poison the man, but had by mistake given him a healing potion, my act
would have been absolutely right, because conformed to the fitness of
things, but relatively wrong, because in its intention and purpose opposed
to the fitness of things; and as in itself fitting, it would have done the
sick man good, while, as in its purpose unfitting, it would have thrown me
out of the relations in which I ought to stand both with God and man.

*Mistakes as to specific acts of duty* bear the closest possible analogy
to the case of the poison given for medicine. The savage, who sincerely
means to express reverence, kindness, loyalty, fidelity, may perform, in
the expression of those sentiments, acts that are utterly unfitting, and
therefore utterly wrong; and if so, each of these acts produces its due
consequences, it may be, baleful and lamentable. Yet because he did the
best he knew in the expression of these sentiments, he has not sunk, but
risen in his character as a moral being,--has become better