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called Thugs; they thought it was their duty to kill any man they could and take away all his money; the larger the number of men they killed * thus, the better they thought they were. Ordinarily if a man goes out into the street and shoots down another man, he is apt to feel sorry for it, thinking that he had done wrong, and that he had not clearly done his duty. But if the very same man, standing as a fighting soldier in the ranks of his regiment, kills not one man but twenty men by shooting them down, he is certain to feel glad and think that he did his duty re. markably well. Therefore it must be easy to see that it is not the thing done that defines a duty. "To give an objective definition of duty is thus entirely impossible; there is no such thing as an objectively defined duty. Yet there is duty from the subjective side ; any action that makes us go Godward is a good action, and is our duty; any action that makes us go downward is an evil action, and is not our duty. From the subjective stand-point we may see that certain acts have à
