SECTION LXVII.

In virtue of the union of spirit and body into one personality, the spirit is manifoldly determined also in its moral life, and it appears in consequence under different phases of existence, which occasion also correspondingly different manifestations of morality.

1. The stages of life. The spirit is dependent in its development on that of the body, not absolutely, however, but only relatively; the development-stages of the moral spirit—which do not entirely coincide 68with those of the body, but only in general and partially run parallel therewith—are the following:—(a) The stage of moral minority, childhood. Here the body is as yet master over the spirit; the spirit is as yet in most things essentially unfree—dependent on outer, sensuous, and spiritual influences,—is more guided than self-guiding.—(b) The stage of transition to majority,—still wavering between freedom and unfreedom; morality appears essentially under the form of free obedience toward educators.—(c) The stage of moral majority. The person has come into possession of himself,—is actually master over himself as regards moral self-determination, is able by his moral consciousness to guide himself independently; hence he is fully morally responsible, and is in process of developing an independent character.—A relapsing of the morally matured into a state of moral irresponsibility, a becoming childish, is not conceivable in a normal condition of humanity, though here there would doubtless, indeed, be a greater turning away from merely earthly things, and a growing preoccupation with the supernatural,—in the stage of moral old age.

The development of a spirit as united with a body, consists in one of its phases in the fact that it more and more throws off its primarily normal greater dependence on the corporeal life,—that it becomes freer, ripens toward maturity. Although we cannot conceive of the first created human beings as beginning life in a state of unconscious childhood, still the above-mentioned stages of life, seeing that they are implied in the very nature of self-development, must hold good, at least, of all succeeding generations; and even the first man could not appear at once as a perfectly mature, morally-ripened spirit, but had to pass through similar stages of development. According to the naturalistic view, the spiritual development 69is exclusively and absolutely conditioned on that of the body—is only the bloom and vigor of the same. This assertion, as well as the theory on which it is based, is refuted by the simple matter of fact that spiritual development often far outruns that of the body, and in fact in a normal development must do so, and also that in persons of precisely equal bodily development, the spiritual ripeness may be very widely different. In an as yet unmatured body there may be a mature spirit, in a weak and ailing body, a strong spirit; this would be inconceivable on the naturalistic hypothesis. But especially the moral development may come to ripeness of character much earlier than the corporeal life; growth in knowledge is much more dependent on the development of the body; the understanding does not outrun the years, and children that are early ripe intellectually, are usually morbid phenomena; but a very youthful soul may acquire a real and firm moral character. The proverb, “Youth is without virtue,” in so far as it is meant to be an excuse, is absolutely immoral and perverse.

In consequence of the normal super-ordination of the spirit to the body, the spiritual development-stages do not coincide, in point of time, with the corresponding bodily stages, but precede them somewhat. The first stage is that of childlike innocence, where the child as yet knows not how to distinguish between good and evil [Isa. vii, 16], where, as yet, the moral consciousness slumbers, and the life-activity does not spring from a will conscious of a moral purpose, but, on the contrary, from unconscious feelings which are directly excited by external or sensuous influences; hence an accountability proper cannot as yet be presumed. The child has indeed propensions and aversions, love and anger, and other states of feeling, but it does not have them intelligently,—is not as yet in spiritual self-possession. Obedience is, as yet, a mere scarcely-conscious following, taking its rise simply from natural feelings and from the instinct of imitation, and which is indeed a germ of morality, though not, as yet, actual morality, but is, in-fact, also found to some extent among domesticated animals. The typical character of children as presented by Christ [Matt. xviii, 3] does not relate to any moral perfection in them, but only to their receptiveness for 70moral impressions, to their innocence, to their consciousness of need, and their readiness to believe.

The stage of transition, or youth, is the time when the person can distinguish between good and evil, and where, consequently, there exists a real moral consciousness, though not one that is thoroughly formed and in every case self-determining, but only primarily a consciousness of good and evil in general, and the particular application of which in single cases is, for the most part, not left to personal free self-determination, but to the guidance of educators. The boy has the definite law, as yet, only in an objective manner, in the will of his parents; his moral consciousness sketches only general outlines,—for the more definite traits and shades it is as yet dependent on some other, to him objective, consciousness. Hence the most characteristic form of the morality of this period is obedience; and the greatest danger to morality, so long as this partial uncertainty yet remains, is the tendency, readily resulting from the incipient consciousness of moral self-determination, to wish to determine one’s conduct in particular cases directly and immediately from the, as yet, only general and indefinite moral consciousness,—that is, the tendency to premature freedom, the pleasure in an unregulated enjoyment of freedom, in arbitrary self-determination. This in fact was the danger to which our first parents fell a prey.

The stage of moral maturity, in a normal development, far more than overtakes that of bodily ripeness. While civil law fixes the civil majority, that is, the time of ripe understanding, at the period of full bodily maturity, the moral community, the Church, declares man as morally mature much earlier (confirmation); also the state fixes full moral responsibility much earlier than the civil majority. These distinctions rest on well-grounded experience. The young man knows not merely moral duty in general, but he is also capable of conforming his life thereto in particular. Obedience to parents or guardians assumes now the form of obedience to the moral law, which latter indeed includes the former, but no longer as an essentially unconditional obedience, but simply as one that is to be subordinated to the moral law. But a morally mature person can come into an actual conjuncture where it is necessary to refuse obedience to parents, only on 71the presupposition of a morally disordered state of humanity; and also civil law finds in such obedience, after years of moral majority, no excuse for criminal acts.

The becoming-childish of the aged would be a very weighty reason for doubting of personal immortality, were it a normal phenomenon of old age. When, however, we consider that even in the present sin-disordered condition of the race, this becoming-childish is by no means a necessary and universal phenomenon, but that, on the contrary, the fruit of a morally-pious life—even in far advanced age, and despite the otherwise slumber-like obscuration of the intellectual faculties—is a heightening of the religious and moral consciousness, and that even the better forms of heathenism consider reverence for the moral wisdom of the aged as a high virtue,—we can readily, then, infer from this, how little room there would be for a real becoming-childish in any respect whatever in an unfallen state of humanity. Precisely what would have been the characteristics of normal old age in a sinless state, we know not; this much, however, we do know, that the life of an immortal spirit, as being destined to a higher ennoblement or transfiguration, and as not subject to a positive violent death, could not be liable to a return to a state of moral minority,—at the farthest it would only have prepared itself for this freely self-accomplishing ennobling, by a greater turning away from earthly things. All senility of age we can regard only as an absolutely abnormal sin-born phenomenon, seeing that it stands in manifest antagonism to the nature and destination of the personal spirit.