He goes beyond most people in his care for all weakly creatures; judging, instinctively, that to be but sentient is to possess rights.

He conceives a hundred duties, though he may not call them by that name, of the existence of which purely duteous souls may have no suspicion.

He has a kind of pride in doing more than they, in a way of his own.

Sometimes, he may think that those men of line and rule do not really understand their own business.
How narrow, inflexible, unintelligent! what poor guardians (he may reason) of the inward spirit of righteousness, are some supposed careful walkers according to its letter and form.

And yet all the while he admits, as such, no moral world at all: no [9] theoretic equivalent to so large a proportion of the facts of life.
But, over and above such practical rectitude, thus determined by natural affection or self-love or fear, he may notice that there is a remnant of right conduct, what he does, still more what he abstains from doing, not so much through his own free election, as from a deference, an "assent," entire, habitual, unconscious, to custom--to the actual habit or fashion of others, from whom he could not endure to break away, any more than he would care to be out of agreement with them on questions of mere manner, or, say, even, of dress.