And these two theories really amount to the same
thing, for in both the individual is opposed to society, as if the
individual had preceded society and therefore were destined to survive
it. And both ethics are ethics of the cloister.
And the fact that guilt is collective must not actuate me to throw mine
upon the shoulders of others, but rather to take upon myself the burden
of the guilt of others, the guilt of all men; not to merge and sink my
guilt in the total mass of guilt, but to make this total guilt my own;
not to dismiss and banish my own guilt, but to open the doors of my
heart to the guilt of all men, to centre it within myself and
appropriate it to myself. And each one of us ought to help to remedy the
guilt, and just because others do not do so. The fact that society is
guilty aggravates the guilt of each member of it. "Someone ought to do
it, but why should I? is the ever re-echoed phrase of weak-kneed
amiability. Someone ought to do it, so why not I? is the cry of some
earnest servant of man, eagerly forward springing to face some perilous
duty. Between these two sentences lie whole centuries of moral
evolution." Thus spoke Mrs. Annie Besant in her autobiography. Thus
spoke theosophy.
The fact that society is guilty aggravates the guilt of each one, and he
is most guilty who most is sensible of the guilt. Christ, the innocent,
since he best knew the intensity of the guilt, was in a certain sense
the most guilty.
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