date

25 Sept. 1814 Logic 2
25 Sept. 1814

Logic

2

Ch. Ontology

57

An obligation understand here that sort of obligation which, through the medium of the will, operates on the active faculty, - takes its nature from some act to which it applies itself; it is an obligation to perform or to abstain from performing a certain act.

An /A legal/ obligation to do /to perform/ the act in question is said to attach upon a man, to be incumbent upon him, in so far as in the event of his performing the act (understand both at the time and place in question) he will not suffer any pain, but in the event of his not performing it he will suffer a certain pain, viz. the pain that corresponds to it, and by the virtue of which applying itself eventually as above, the obligation is created.

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    Of all the sanctions or sources of pleasure and pain above brought to view, the political sanction being susceptible of being the strongest and surest in its operation, and, accordingly, the obligation derived from it the strongest and most effective, this is the sanction which it seems advisable to take for consideration in the first instance; the correspondent obligations of the same name which may be considered as emanating from these other fictitious entities being, in the instance of some of these sanctions, of too weak a nature to act with any sufficient force capable of giving to any of those other productions any practical value.

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    An obligation (viz. the obligation of conducting himself in a certain manner,) is incumbent on a man, (i.e. is spoken of as incumbent on a man) in so far as, in the event of his failing to conduct himself in that manner, pain, or loss of pleasure, is considered as about to be experienced by him.

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    1. The exponend, or say the word to be expounded, is an obligation.

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    3. To fit it for receiving exposition in this shape, it is in the character of the subject of a proposition, by the help of the requisite compliments made up into a fictitious proposition. These compliments are, 1, the predicate, incumbent on a man; 2, the copula is; and of these when thus added to the name of the subject, viz. obligation, the fictitious proposition which requires to be expounded by paraphrasis, viz. the proposition An obligation is incumbent on a man, is composed.

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