Why do we thus go back for principles that should always rest on the
same base, and have the same weight to-day that they had a thousand
years ago- and not a jot more? If parents discharge their duty they
have a strong hold and sacred claim on the gratitude of their
children; but few parents are willing to receive the respectful
affection of their offspring on such terms. They demand blind
obedience, because they do not merit a reasonable service: and to
render these demands of weakness and ignorance more binding, a
mysterious sanctity is spread round the most arbitrary principle;
for what other name can be given to the blind duty of obeying
vicious or weak beings merely because they obeyed a powerful instinct?
The simple definition of the reciprocal duty, which naturally
subsists between parent and child, may be given in a few words: The
parent who pays proper attention to helpless infancy has a right to
require the same attention when the feebleness of age comes upon
him. But to subjugate a rational being to the mere will of another,
after he is of age to answer to society for his own conduct, is a most
cruel and undue stretch of power; and, perhaps, as injurious to
morality as those religious systems which do not allow right and wrong
to have any existence, but in the Divine will.
I never knew a parent who had paid more than common attention to his
children, disregarded; * on the contrary, the early habit of relying
almost implicitly on the opinion of a respected parent is not easily
shook, even when matured reason convinces the child that his father is
not the wisest man in the world.
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