ABSTRACT
All duties have reference to persons, and it is the existence of persons which makes duties possible. An abstract conception of duty without regard to persons for whom it is performed, like that of Wordsworth’s famous “Ode to Duty,” may be beautiful and even inspiring, but it is as imperfect as are harmonies conceived in the brain of the musician and allowed to remain there unwritten and unperformed. Individual duties, individual moral instincts pale before the splendour of that living bond which was to bind the disciples with him and with each other; “apart from me ye can do nothing.” The strongest proof that duties imply persons could be found in the writings of the professed champions of duty themselves. Almost without exception, other systems outside the Bible have ignored the fact that virtue has its origin among persons. Virtue is an attitude, and consists not in doing, but in being; the “virtues “are the different expressions of that attitude.
