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Jan 31/72/ Morals

After when I say acts are moral in man because he is Moral Being.

To illustrate this I may remark if a man at risk of own life saves another impulsively without a seconds hesitation, everyone who has not formed some peculiar & artificial definition of moral sense, will call this a moral act. On other hand if a Newfoundland dog drags a child from a torrent no one calls this a moral act, because he is not a moral animal, & never [illeg] tries to do actions because they are right or wrong. Whether done unintentionally, or deliberately & [illeg] for since that it is a duty or easily from habit after repetition because in all these cases, the foundation is sympathy for ones fellow [creatures], ie the social instinct is the same, & the sole difference between the man that does it impulsively & instinctively & resulting after [deliberation], is either that the impulse is stronger or more strongly inherited in the one case, or fear greater in the other. If we know that the act was performed for self-interest or vanity &c. then it ceases to be a moral. But in great majority of cases we cannot tell in others & although hardly in [general] how far impulse, habit, deliberation, or the baser motive have been preponderant, therefore we have no choice but to call the action moral in all cases. And we are in fact justified in so doing.