{"id":"01KG8AN1SFR84BGRMCGSCAEXQS","cid":"bafkreigklyrtkz6j6d5sd3usob7oexlmwwo6uewai5ceiwycyhxityypni","type":"chunk","properties":{"end_line":9602,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:52.921Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Chunk 10","source_file":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","start_line":9546,"text":"any other being, or any cause, or any conceit. (For, does aught else\r\ncompletely and unconditionally sacrifice itself for him? God's own sun\r\ndoes not abate one tittle of its heat in July, however you swoon with\r\nthat heat in the sun. And if it _did_ abate its heat on your behalf,\r\nthen the wheat and the rye would not ripen; and so, for the incidental\r\nbenefit of one, a whole population would suffer.)\r\n\r\n\"A virtuous expediency, then, seems the highest desirable or attainable\r\nearthly excellence for the mass of men, and is the only earthly\r\nexcellence that their Creator intended for them. When they go to heaven,\r\nit will be quite another thing. There, they can freely turn the left\r\ncheek, because there the right cheek will never be smitten. There they\r\ncan freely give all to the poor, for _there_ there will be no poor to\r\ngive to. A due appreciation of this matter will do good to man. For,\r\nhitherto, being authoritatively taught by his dogmatical teachers that\r\nhe must, while on earth, aim at heaven, and attain it, too, in all his\r\nearthly acts, on pain of eternal wrath; and finding by experience that\r\nthis is utterly impossible; in his despair, he is too apt to run clean\r\naway into all manner of moral abandonment, self-deceit, and hypocrisy\r\n(cloaked, however, mostly under an aspect of the most respectable\r\ndevotion); or else he openly runs, like a mad dog, into atheism.\r\nWhereas, let men be taught those Chronometricals and Horologicals, and\r\nwhile still retaining every common-sense incentive to whatever of virtue\r\nbe practicable and desirable, and having these incentives strengthened,\r\ntoo, by the consciousness of powers to attain their mark; then there\r\nwould be an end to that fatal despair of becoming at all good, which has\r\ntoo often proved the vice-producing result in many minds of the\r\nundiluted chronometrical doctrines hitherto taught to mankind. But if\r\nany man say, that such a doctrine as this I lay down is false, is\r\nimpious; I would charitably refer that man to the history of Christendom\r\nfor the last 1800 years; and ask him, whether, in spite of all the\r\nmaxims of Christ, that history is not just as full of blood, violence,\r\nwrong, and iniquity of every kind, as any previous portion of the\r\nworld's story? Therefore, it follows, that so far as practical results\r\nare concerned--regarded in a purely earthly light--the only great\r\noriginal moral doctrine of Christianity (_i. e._ the chronometrical\r\ngratuitous return of good for evil, as distinguished from the\r\nhorological forgiveness of injuries taught by some of the Pagan\r\nphilosophers), has been found (horologically) a false one; because after\r\n1800 years' inculcation from tens of thousands of pulpits, it has proved\r\nentirely impracticable.\r\n\r\n\"I but lay down, then, what the best mortal men do daily practice; and\r\nwhat all really wicked men are very far removed from. I present\r\nconsolation to the earnest man, who, among all his human frailties, is\r\nstill agonizingly conscious of the beauty of chronometrical excellence.\r\nI hold up a practicable virtue to the vicious; and interfere not with\r\nthe eternal truth, that, sooner or later, in all cases, downright vice\r\nis downright woe.\r\n\r\n\"Moreover: if----\"\r\n\r\nBut here the pamphlet was torn, and came to a most untidy termination.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r","title":"Chunk 10"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG8AJTDYVK8J8YE00DK13XV8","peer_type":"chapter","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG89J1JSYKSGCE149MH9HF6A","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG89HMDZKNY753EZE1CJ8HZW","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG8AN1SFEX2CGW6Q0MSPTPVC","peer_type":"chunk","predicate":"prev"}],"ver":2,"created_at":"2026-01-30T20:48:57.135Z","ts":"2026-01-30T20:49:25.254Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF0H3YRP9ZSM033AM0QJ47H"}}