cumstances not directly included in it. In itself it consisted in
merely bringing a small flame into contact with a small portion of a
beam. Events not involved in that simple act follow of themselves. The
part of the beam which was set afire is connected with its remote
portions, the beam itself is united with the woodwork of the house
generally, and this with other houses, so that a wide conflagration
ensues which destroys the goods and chattels of many other persons
besides those belonging to the person against whom the act of revenge
was first directed, perhaps even costs not a few men their lives. This
lay neither in the deed intrinsically nor in the design of the man who
committed it. But the action has a further general bearing. In the
design of the doer it was only revenge executed against an individual in
the destruction of his property, but it is, moreover, a crime, and that
involves punishment also. This may not have been present to the mind of
the perpetrator, still less in his intention; but his deed itself, the
general principles it calls into play, its substantial content, entail
it. By this example I wish only to impress on you the consideration
that, in a simple act, something further may be implicated than lies in
the intention and consciousness of the agent. The example before us
involves, however, the additional consideration that the substance of
the act, consequently, we may say, the act itself, recoils upon the
perpetrator--reacts upon him with destructive tendency. This union of
the two extremes--the embodiment of a general idea in the form of direct
reality and the elevation of a speciality into connection with universal
truth--is brought to pass, at first sight, under the conditions of an
utter diversity of nature between the two and an indifference of the one
extreme toward the other. The aims which the agents set before them are
limited and special; but it must be remarked that the agents themselves
are intelligent thinking beings. The purport of their desires is
interwoven with general, essential considerations of justice, good,
duty, etc.; for mere desire--volition in its rough and savage
forms--falls not within the scene and sphere of universal history. Those
general considerations, which form at the same time a norm for directing
aims and actions, have a determinate purport; for such an abstraction
as "good for its own sake," has no place in living reality. If men are
to act they must not o