search into the foundations of morality. No
thought which leads men to concern themselves once more with these grave
questions, could be useless or indifferent. We simply challenge the
thinker to find a way to wait till he has unearthed these foundations,
before he does an act of humanity, of honesty or dishonesty, of valor or
cowardice. And most of all do we wish to formulate a reply for all the
insincere who have never tried to philosophize, and for ourselves when
we would offer our state of philosophic doubt in justification of our
practical omissions. From the simple fact that we are men, before all
theorizing, positive, or negative, about duty, we have the peremptory
law to conduct ourselves like men. There is no getting out of it.

But he little knows the resources of the human heart, who counts on the
effect of such a reply. It matters not that it is itself unanswerable;
it cannot keep other questions from arising. The sum of our pretexts for
evading duty is equal to the sum of the sands of the sea or the stars of
heaven.

We take refuge, then, behind duty that is obscure, difficult,
contradictory. And these are certainly words to call up painful
memories. To be a man of duty and to question one's route, grope in the
dark, feel one's self torn between the contrary solicitations of
conflicting calls, or again, to face a duty gigantic, overwhelming,
beyond our strength--what is harder! And such things happen. We would
neither deny nor contest the tragedy in certain situations or the
anguish of certain lives. And yet, duty rarely has to make itself plain
across such conflicting circumstances, or to be struck out from the
tortured mind like lightning from a storm-cloud. Such formidable shocks
are exceptional. Well for us if we stand staunch when they come! But if
no one is astonished that oaks are uprooted by the whirlwind, that a
wayfarer stumbles at night on an unknown road, or that a soldier caught
between two fires is vanquished, no more should he condemn without
appeal those who have been worsted in almost superhuman moral conflicts.
To succumb under the force of numbers or obstacles has never been
counted a disgrace.

So my weapons are at the service of those who intrench themselves
behind the impregnable rampart of duty ill-defined, complicated or
contradictory. But it is not that which occupies me to-day; it is of
plain, I had almost said easy duty, that I wish to speak.

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