conduct by any external pressure, there cannot be too much of it; but a
necessary condition is its spontaneity; since the notion of a happiness
for all, procured by the self-sacrifice of each, if the abnegation is
really felt to be a sacrifice, is a contradiction. Such spontaneity by
no means excludes sympathetic encouragement; but the encouragement
should take the form of making self-devotion pleasant, not that of
making everything else painful. The object should be to stimulate
services to humanity by their natural rewards; not to render the pursuit
of our own good in any other manner impossible, by visiting it with the
reproaches of other and of our own conscience. The proper office of
those sanctions is to enforce upon every one, the conduct necessary to
give all other persons their fair chance: conduct which chiefly consists
in not doing them harm, and not impeding them in anything which without
harming others does good to themselves. To this must of course be added,
that when we either expressly or tacitly undertake to do more, we are
bound to keep our promise. And inasmuch as every one, who avails himself
of the advantages of society, leads others to expect from him all such
positive good offices and disinterested services as the moral
improvement attained by mankind has rendered customary, he deserves
moral blame if, without just cause, he disappoints that expectation.
Through this principle the domain of moral duty is always widening.
When what once was uncommon virtue becomes common virtue, it comes to be
numbered among obligations, while a degree exceeding what has grown
common, remains simply meritorious.

M. Comte is accustomed to draw most of his ideas of moral cultivation
from the discipline of the Catholic Church. Had he followed that
guidance in the present case, he would have been less wide of the mark.
For the distinction which we have drawn was fully recognized by the
sagacious and far-sighted men who created the Catholic ethics. It is
even one of the stock reproaches against Catholicism, that it has two
standards of morality, and does not make obligatory on all Christians
the highest rule of Christian perfection. It has one standard which,
faithfully acted up to, suffices for salvation, another and a higher
which when realized constitutes a saint. M. Comte, perhaps
unconsciously, for there is nothing that he would have been more
unlikely to do if he had been aware of it, has taken a leaf out of the