The Spiritist Review - Journal of Psychological Studies - 1863

Allan Kardec

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Parisian Society of Spiritist Studies, November 20th, 1863

Medium Mrs. Costel



Duty is a moral obligation, first before oneself and then before the others. It is the law of life and it is found in the tiniest details as much as in the most elevated acts. I will only speak of the moral duty and not of those imposed by profession. In the order of feelings, duty is very difficult to realize because it is in opposition to the seductions of instinct and heart. Its victories bear no witnesses and its defeats have no repression.

The intimate duty of a person is given to one’s free-will. The goad of conscience, that guardian of inner probity, warns and sustain it but it is frequently powerless before the sophisms of passion. The accomplished duty of heart elevates mankind but how can one measure that? Where does it start? Where does it end? It begins exactly where you threaten the happiness and the rest of your neighbor and ends at the border that you would not like to see transposed against yourself.

God created everyone equal for the pain. Great or small, ignorant or enlightened, all suffer for the same causes so that each one can judiciously assess the harm that can be caused. The same criteria do not exist for the good, infinitely more varied in its expressions.

The equality before pain is a sublime providence of God that wishes his creatures, instructed by the experience, do not do harm to one another by alleging ignorance. Duty is a practical summary of all moral speculations; it is the bravery of the soul that faces the anguishes of the combat; it is austere and simple, ready to yield to the many complications and inflexible before temptations. Anyone that does their duty loves God more than the creatures and the creatures more than oneself. That person is at the same time judge and slave in the same cause.

Duty is the most beautiful laurel of reason. It stems from that like the son from the mother. A person must love duty not because it prevents the miseries of life from which humanity cannot escape but because it gives the necessary strength for the development of the soul. No one can send away the chalice of atonement.

Duty is painful in its sacrifices and evil is bitter in its results but those pains, almost equal, have completely different results: one is healthy like the drugs that recover health, the other is harmful like the parties that ruin the body. Every superior stage of humanity has a greater and more radiant duty. There is never an end to the moral obligation of the creature to God. It must reflect the virtues of the Eternal that does not accept an imperfect sketch but he wishes the shine of greatness of his work resplendent before his eyes.

Lazarus

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