The Nature of Goodness by Palmer, George Herbert, 1842-1933

And possibly I ought to mention a third variety of these incalculabilities of sacrifice. We do not plan the case. A while ago, meeting a literary man whose product is of much consequence to the community and himself, I asked him how his book was coming on. "Badly," he answered. "Just now an aged relative has fallen ill. There is no other place where she can be properly disposed, and so she has been brought to my house. I must care for her, my home will be much broken up, and my work must be set aside." I said, "Is that your duty? Have you not a more important obligation to your book?" But he answered, "One cannot choose a duty." I did not fully agree. I think we should carefully weigh duties, even if we do not choose them. Morality would otherwise become the sport of accident. But I perceive that in the last analysis no duty is made by ourselves. It is given us by something more authoritative than we, something which we cannot alter, fully estimate, or without damage evade. Necessity is laid upon us, sometimes an invading necessity. We are walking our well-ordered path, pursuing some dear aims, when harsh before us stands a waiting duty, bidding us lay aside that in which we are engaged and take it. I have said I believe a degree of scrutiny is needful here. We should ask, what for? We should correlate the new duty with those already pledged. And probably an interrupting duty is less often the one it is well to follow than one which has had something of our time and care. Few fresh calls can have the weighty claim of loyalty to obligation already incurred. But, after all, that on which we finally decide has not sprung from our own wishes. It subjects those wishes to itself. Standing over against us, it summons us to do its bidding, and allows us no more to be our own self-directed masters.

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