GMAEKS ON THE FABLE OF THE BEES, 
 
 BY AVILLIAM LAAV, M.A. 
 
 KOR.MKRLY FELLOW OF EMMANUEL COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, 
 AUT,HOR OF "A SERIOUS CALL," &C. &C. 
 
 WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 
 BY THE REV. F. D. MAURICE, M.A. 
 
 lAPLAIN OF guy's HOSPITAL, PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE 
 AND MODERN HISTORY IN KING'S COLLEGE, LONDON, AND 
 AUTHOR OF "the KINGDOM OF CHRIST," &C. &C. 
 
 WITH AN APPENDIX, CONTAINING 
 
 THE POEM OF THE FABLE OF THE BEES, 
 
 MANDEVILLE'S INTRODUCTION AND TREATISE 
 
 ON THE ORIGIN OF MORALITY. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE UMVERSITy PRESS, 
 
 FOR D. & A. MACMILLAN, 
 
 AND SOLD BY GEORGE BELL, 186, FLEET STREET, LONDON. 
 M.DCCC.XLIV. - (^^ ^^ V 
 
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 ^Tl SZO 
 
 (M3L3 
 
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ADTEETISEMENT. 
 
 This little book is published in compliance with 
 the wishes of one whose memory is very dear to 
 many, my friend and brother-in-law, the Kev. 
 John Sterhng. In a letter written last summer 
 he expressed himself as follows. 
 
 *' I cannot refrain from sending you a few 
 words to announce a discovery which I made 
 yesterday afternoon. Looking by accident into 
 Wilham Law's works, I found, at the beginning 
 of the second Volume, an answer to Mandeville's 
 Fable of the Bees. The first section is one of 
 the most remarkable philosophical Essays I have 
 ever seen in Enghsh. You probably know him, 
 as perhaps the most perfect of controversial 
 writers, whether rio-ht or wrons; in his aro^u- 
 ment. Now this section has all the highest 
 beauty of his polemical compositions and a 
 weight of pithy right reason, such as fills one's 
 heart with joy. Perhaps you know the Tract 
 already. For myself, I have never seen, in our 
 language, the elementary grounds of a rational 
 ideal philosophy, as opposed to cniplricisiii, stated 
 
 359709 
 
 a 
 
IV advi:rtj8Ejment. 
 
 with nearly the same clearness, simplicity, and 
 force. If you have not seen it, I think I can 
 answer for the pleasure it will give you; and it 
 seems to me that, conversing as you do with 
 young men, you could have many opportunities 
 of recommending it where it would be sure to 
 do good." He then speaks of his wish that it 
 should be reprinted, adding " the later sections 
 are of inferior interest and value, though mark- 
 ed with the same ability." 
 
 In a subsequent letter, he says: ''It gives 
 me great pleasure to knoAV that you agree with 
 me as to the merit of that Essav of Law's. I 
 also am quite of your opinion on the unfortunate 
 intertangling of the polemics and the principles, 
 and felt it strongly in reading the work, admi- 
 rable as the cleverness of the disputation is. As 
 to the republication, my opinion is worth no- 
 thing ; but I suppose you might write to 
 
 and ask him to read the book, and say whether 
 he thinks anything could be done." 
 
 In the same letter he suggests that a vo- 
 lume might be made out of Law, something 
 similar to '^Coleridge's Aids to Keflection," 
 meaning, I suppose, that passages might be 
 made the texts for comments, as passages 
 
ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 from Leighton and other writers are by Cole- 
 ridge ; the object being to trace the outUnes of 
 a moral science. Bodily weakness made him 
 unequal to such a task : on other grounds I felt 
 myself equally incompetent to undertake it. In- 
 deed, the remark of a friend, that Law is the 
 most continuous writer in our language, each of 
 his sentences and paragraphs leading on naturally, 
 and as it were necessarily to that which follows, 
 makes me doubt whether the experiment of re- 
 ducing one of his books into aphorisms, could be 
 successful in any hands. 
 
 It was agreed, however, if the book were 
 republished, that I should write an Introduction, 
 for the purpose of explaining wherein I con- 
 ceived its special worth consisted, and how far 
 it was applicable to our circumstances. Tliis In- 
 troduction, though written in the lifetime of my 
 brother-in-laAv. he never saw. Believino- that 
 his admiration of Law arose from the delight 
 which he felt in meeting with a thoroughly 
 devout man, who recognized moral principles as 
 involved in our human constitution, and who 
 boldly appealed to the Conscience and Reason 
 of mankind as witnesses for them, I have made 
 it my chief object to defend this course as 
 
VI ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 honest, religious and safe. But I have expressed 
 my own convictions in my own way ; if he 
 were considered responsible for them it would 
 greatly disturb my gratification in being per- 
 mitted for the last time to be connected in any 
 earthly work with one from whom I have re- 
 ceived more benefits, and to whom I owe more 
 love than any words can express. 
 
 The poem of The Fable of the Bees, and 
 so much of Mandeville's exposition of it as 
 seemed necessary to make Law's " Remarks" 
 intelligible, will be found in the Appendix, 
 p. 101. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The Fable of the Bees, or " Private Vices 
 Public Benefits," was first published in a com- 
 plete form in the year 1714. The author, 
 Bernard Mandeville, a physician, had already 
 written a Satire upon the members of his own 
 profession, but he seems not to have attracted 
 much notice till he announced himself as a 
 moral and political theorist. In that charac- 
 ter he speedily received all the honours he 
 could have desired. The strange title of his 
 book was found faithfully to represent its con- 
 tents ; he had to all appearance arrived at a 
 serious conviction, that what are called vices, 
 are as necessary to the existence of society 
 as what are called virtues ; the opinion which 
 he had formed he had courage to assert and 
 abihty to defend ; many must have become 
 openly or covertly its supporters; it was ar- 
 raigned in numerous pamphlets and grave dis- 
 courses ; such men as Ilutcheson and Berkeley 
 thought that it needed a solemn refutation ; the 
 grand jury of the County of Middlesex pre- 
 sented the book in which it was put forth, as 
 one which was dano^erous to Religion and Order. 
 
Vlll MANDEVILLE S DOCTRINE. 
 
 How, it may be asked, can a childish par- 
 adox have deserved such treatment as this ? 
 No one who has read Mandeville's work will 
 be at a loss for a reply. Let a paradox, which 
 is merely the fancy of an individual mind, be 
 defended by the cleverest arguments in the 
 world, and you may safely leave it to be 
 confuted by the common sense, the indiffer- 
 ence, the vis inertice, of those to whom it is 
 presented. But if it be nothing else than the 
 setting forth in a clear definite proposition of a 
 notion upon which men have been acting, differ- 
 ent applications of which have been sanctioned by 
 the practice and the apologies of moralists, states- 
 men, and divines, the case is greatly changed. 
 There is a state of mind to be met with, in 
 young men especially, which refuses to shrink 
 from the explicit statement of a creed which 
 has been received impHcitly, and which it 
 seems that other men would confess if they 
 had only more of logical consistency or prac- 
 tical courage. There is a state of mind, far less 
 honest than this, which disposes men to look upon 
 words as having no connexion wdth realities, 
 and therefore to utter carelessly and fearlessly 
 whatever notions may present themselves to 
 them as possible or as amusing. Sober people, 
 who in the midst of habitual worldliness re- 
 tain something of real reverence for opinions 
 
ITS INFLUENCE ON ENGLISH SOCIETY. IX 
 
 which they have inherited, and a great dis- 
 like to be reminded of their own inconsisten- 
 cies, are scandahsed by the discourses which 
 they hear from both these classes, and long for 
 some summary method of silencing them. Their 
 zeal is encouraged by politicians, who grieve 
 that their secret of ruling the world should be 
 divulo:ed to the vulo-ar. Earnest men who 
 might have regarded the popular heresy as 
 a boyish freak to frighten aged women, per- 
 ceive that it is in fact a reductio ad ahsurdurri 
 of many prevalent practices and dogmas, and 
 welcome the opportunity of reasserting the 
 principles with wliich these practices and dog- 
 mas are at strife. 
 
 These considerations are, I think, quite 
 sufficient to account for the importance which 
 was attached to Mandeville's work by his con- 
 temporaries. He brought the great question, 
 whether the words "right'^ and "wrong" mean 
 anything, to an issue. Those who had a 
 trembling suspicion that no answer could bo 
 given to it, wished that it had never been 
 raised. Those who believed that there was 
 infinite danger in confusion of mind upon such 
 a subject, no danger in the subject itself, were 
 ready at once to declare the reason of their 
 faith. 
 
 But they were not equally successful. Who 
 would not have expected from such -a man 
 
X BERKELEY S CONFUTATION OF IT. 
 
 as Berkeley, the noblest and most courageous 
 assertion of moral principles, an encounter with 
 the sophist upon the main issue, with a com- 
 parative indifference to the accidents or acces- 
 sories of his arguments ? How painful it is to 
 find him, in his Minute Philosopher, abandoning 
 the high ground, and condescending to discuss 
 the important question, whether on the whole, 
 more malt would be brought into the market to 
 answer the demands of drunken or of sober men^ 
 But alas ! this admirable sage had been tempted, 
 in his previous dialogue, into a still graver sin, of 
 which this was the inevitable consequence. He 
 had permitted the worthy farmer, Euphranor, to 
 contend that the interests of society must be 
 injured by the publication of Alciphron's doc- 
 trines, and that this was a higher cf»nsideration 
 than their truth or their falsehood. He had 
 left it to the atheist to assert the godly doc- 
 trine, that truth is above all things, and is, at 
 all hazards, to be spoken. 
 
 On quite different grounds Mandeville was 
 encountered by Wilham Law. Most English 
 readers are familiar with his name. If they be- 
 long to the religious world, they will have read 
 
 ^ See Minute Philosopher, Dialogues 1 and 2. It is 
 one of the inconveniences of Berkeley's Dialogues that so 
 many persons of different philosophical views are brought 
 together under a common name. Lysicles is the repre- 
 sentative of Mandeville' s opinions. 
 
WILLIAM LAW. ll 
 
 his Serious Call : if they are zealous about 
 ecclesiastical doctrines, they will probably have 
 looked at liis pamphlets upon the Bangor Con- 
 troversy ; a few may have been tempted by 
 curiosity, or some higher motive, to study the 
 mystical writings of his later years. His most 
 popular work bears abundant witness to the 
 clearness and manliness of his Enghsh style, 
 and to his humorous perception of character. 
 His argument with Bishop Hoadley shews that 
 he had the powers and temptations of a singu- 
 larly able controversialist. His Spirit of Love, 
 and his Treatise on Christian Perfection, are at 
 least proofs that he did not seek for popular 
 reputation, and that he set before himself an 
 object, in the pursuit of which all his charac- 
 teristic infirmities were likely to manifest them- 
 selves, and would make him feel continual need 
 of help from above to resist them. The struggle 
 to overcome the bitterness of a polemic, without 
 sacrificing his zeal for truth, must have been 
 severe, and may not always have been suc- 
 cessful. Yet of all the persons whom he must 
 have irritated, Freethinkers, Methodists, Actors, 
 Hanoverians — of all the nonjuring friends, whom 
 he alienated by his quietism, no one, so far as 
 I know, ever expressed a doubt of his sincerity 
 and singleness of purpose. An ample testimony 
 to those qualities is borne by Gibbon, who knew 
 the reputation wliich he had enjoyed among 
 
Xll CHARACTER OF HIS ESSAY. 
 
 persons who saw him in the trying position of 
 a domestic chaplain ^ A suspicion therefore in 
 which Mr Alexander Knox permitted himself to 
 indulge respecting Law, must be pronounced un- 
 charitable and unwarrantable^. 
 
 The book, which is here submitted to the 
 reader, belongs to a stage of his life, long 
 previous to his acquaintance with the German 
 Theosophist. It exhibits all his wonted dia- 
 lectical skill, and is full of ingenious and sa- 
 gacious retorts upon his opponent. The former 
 merit I should have considered a very insufficient 
 reason for republishing the book; the latter a 
 positive reason against it. We do not par- 
 ticularly want to hear Mandeville's arguments 
 refuted, seeing that we probably have little 
 familiarity with them. We cannot have the 
 shghtest pleasure in hearing him abused, seeing 
 that upon the whole he may have done more 
 good, by bringing forth falsehood openly and 
 nakedly, than harm by the ingenuity with 
 which he defends it. But Law's book has 
 quaUties of a far more enduring kind ; qualities 
 
 ^ "In our family lie had left the reputation of a 
 worthy and pious man, who believed all that he pro- 
 fessed, and practised all that he enjoined." Memoirs of 
 my Life and Writings, p. 21. Gibbon also exj^resses 
 high respect for Law as a wit and a scholar. 
 
 ^ See Knox's Remains, Vol. L, Letter to Parken on 
 Mysticism. 
 
THE MANDEVILLE THEORY NOT EXTINCT. Xlll 
 
 which entitle it, especially the two first sections 
 of it, to a very high rank among works on 
 Moral Science. For the clearness of his expo- 
 sitions we may tolerate his skilful satire, since 
 it would be a vain attempt to separate the po- 
 lemical part of the treatise from the didactic. 
 No book which has any life in it, can be safely 
 torn apart from the occasion which called it 
 forth ; to reduce it into a set of dry theorems 
 and demonstrations, is to destroy its meaning. 
 And although Mandeville's work may not be 
 much read in our day, I fancy that we are 
 sufficiently acquainted with some of his maxims 
 and some of the current answers to them, to 
 be in a condition for estimating the worth of 
 a reply, which strikes at the root of the 
 sopliism, instead of merely plucking off a few /', 
 of the leaves which grow upon it. * 
 
 When a person, who aims at the reputation 
 of being profound, endeavours to prove that the 
 acts, feelings, habits, which are described by 
 the titles, good or virtuous, may be resolved 
 at last into those which are called mean, or 
 paltry, or base : how often have we heard the 
 answer, "But what necessity is there for this 
 rigid analysis ? What is gained by it ? Men 
 do not consciously act upon these low impulses. 
 They seem to themselves kindly, generous, 
 benevolent. And while this is the case, may 
 not we say that to all intents and purposes 
 
XIV ORDINARY ANSWERS. 1. THE PRUDENT. 
 
 they are so ? Why tell them that in all their 
 acts and thoughts they are but seeking their 
 own interest? Of course you make them 
 angry. They think you are unjust ; for till 
 you reveal the fact to them, it was to them 
 no fact at all. And besides provoking them, 
 you make them actually the bad men you 
 affirmed them to be. Do not probe sores 
 which nature has dehcately and graciously 
 plastered over, and which without your trouble- 
 some interference might never offend either the 
 patient or the by-standers." 
 
 To this reasoning Mandeville would have 
 replied : " You do in fact concede to me all 
 that I have asked for. I never said more 
 than you have said, namely, that human exist- 
 ence is an useful and excellent compound of 
 the most vulgar ingredients. I did not disturb 
 the compound. I heard people complaining 
 very angrily when some of the degrading ele- 
 ments came to light, and wishing to cast them 
 out. I warned them to beware of doing so. 
 I besought them not to meddle with these parts 
 of the mass, lest the whole should fall to pieces. 
 How unreasonable and ungrateful you are, to 
 tell me, I have pushed my inquiries too far. 
 You would not suffer people to be quiet in their 
 ignorance of their own state. I told them what 
 it was, because in their understanding it lay 
 the only remaining chance of peace." 
 
2. THE HEROIC AL. XV 
 
 Another class of persons take up the matter 
 quite (liiferently. They say : " High concep- 
 tions of beauty and excellence, it is true, do not 
 belong to the world at large. They are the 
 special characteristics of the great, the wise, 
 the noble. But it is by following these con- 
 ceptions, these dreams, if you will call them 
 so, that they become better than their brethren. 
 And their superiority sheds a light upon the 
 whole species. To them the herd of men owe 
 most of the advantages which they enjoy. 
 See what you are doing when you take these 
 thoughts away from us ; when you make the 
 rules and maxims of the multitude the measures 
 and standards of all. You do not leave men 
 even their common good things, their loaves and 
 fishes. The greater men have conferred these 
 upon them, and by the help of those conceptions 
 which you suppose proceed from the same root 
 as the meanest thoughts of the meanest men." 
 
 " I never denied," our doctor would have 
 rejoined, " the advantage of these high notions, 
 and of a class which should cultivate them. 
 I have admitted expressly that society has need 
 of a head of gold, as well as of feet of clay. 
 And moreover, I see the advantage of per- 
 suading men, that the gold is intrinsically 
 better than the clay. But the question stands 
 thus : The clay, you admit, is the ordinary 
 substance of humanity ; the gold is something 
 
XVI 3. THE RELIGIOUS. 
 
 extra-liuman ; you only trace veins of it in 
 certain exalted personages. Now, if I maintain 
 that all men are made of the same lump, my 
 opinion is at least as reasonable and even as 
 orthodox as the opposite one. And supposing I 
 do maintain that to be the case, I am bound to 
 suppose that the gold, by some process or other, 
 must have been wrought out of the clay. The 
 nature of the process I have endeavoured to ex- 
 plain in my book. I have shewn how possible 
 it is to get a conceit of the superiority of se^ 
 restraint to self-indulgence, of generosity t^ 
 meanness, of honesty to baseness, propagated 
 among men ; and how much good flows from 
 that conceit. There is no dispute between us 
 as to the value of fine thoughts where they 
 exist, but only as to the way in which they 
 are generated, and their relation to other parts 
 of the scheme." 
 
 Again, by a party most unlike the one 
 just alluded to, it is often said : " We acknow- 
 ledge that human nature is what you describe 
 it to be, selfish in its root, and utterly corrupt in 
 all its branches. The behef in this corruption, 
 and in its universality, is the starting-point of 
 religious faith. But the redeemed and regene- 
 rate man is raised out of the corrupt state 
 which is proper to humanity ; to him your 
 descriptions of mankind in the gross do not 
 belong." 
 
LAW S TREATMENT OF IT. XVH 
 
 To these statements also the reply is given 
 already in the Fable of the Bees. " I grant 
 your exception," says Mandeville. "To Jews 
 and Christians, as such, that is, to them in so 
 far as they are out of the condition of ordinary 
 human beings, my remarks do not apply. Those 
 who are in some other state than my own, are 
 beyond the reach of my criticism. I merely 
 speak of man as man. I merely say what are 
 the necessary conditions of society in his present 
 osition ; for he must be regarded and governed 
 accorcUng to the laws which we discover by ob- 
 serving liis actual doings and feelings." 
 
 ]S^ow the reader, I think, will perceive that 
 the argument of Law is diitcrent in kind from 
 any of these. He does not complain of any 
 analysis as too rigid; he does not cry quarter 
 for Goodness. On the contrary, he demands a 
 stricter investigation of all the facts to which 
 Mandeville appeals. And he asks you whether 
 this investigation dues not prove that evil is not 
 the substantial part of any act T\hich is ^cted, 
 or thought which is thought in the world; 
 but, on the contrary, the destructive element 
 of it, that which is making it unreal and 
 false; and whether the attempt to shew that 
 the real is the product of the unreal, that the 
 ti'ue is got by the mixture of different counter- 
 feits, is not the most monstrous of all possible 
 insults to the reason of mankind. Assuming 
 h 
 
XVlll RIGHT SUBSTANTIAL WRONG DESTRUCTIVE. 
 
 this ground, Law cannot speak of those high 
 conceptions of goodness and virtue to which 
 the second class of Mandeville's opponents refer, 
 precisely in their language. Tliat he was not 
 likely to undervalue such conceptions, his life 
 and his books sufficiently testify. But according 
 to the principle just laid down, nothing can be 
 good, except so far as it is real. If these 
 dreams be of something diiferent from what man 
 is, according to the will and purpose of his 
 Creator, they must be bad dreams. And if 
 they are dreams of the way in which any 
 particular individual, or any class of individuals, 
 may follow a different standard from the stand- 
 ard of humanity, and so may become isolated 
 from their kind, they ai'e bad dreams. To speak 
 plainly, if they are to be worth anything, they 
 must not be dreams at all; but sober, waking 
 perceptions of that which is the true state of 
 man, and of the methods whereby the life of 
 the perceiver may be brought into conformity 
 with it. 
 
 These conclusions of course would have been 
 set at nought, if Law had permitted liimself to 
 speak of human depravity in those terms which 
 were common among the religious writers of his 
 day, and are still more common in ours. There 
 was nothing, in his view, which could lead him 
 to underrate the amount and aggravation of this 
 depravity, or to explain away the scriptural 
 
IS THERE ANY CERTAINTY IN MORALS i XIX 
 
 history of its entrance into the world. But he 
 was bound to maintain that transgression can 
 never be a rule ; that evil must always be ano- 
 malous ; that sin can have no meaning in any 
 human creature, if there be not a right state 
 belonging to that creature, from which he is 
 departing ; and that this state, so implied in all 
 human acts, must be the one which is meant for 
 man — the proper human condition. All rej3roof 
 and moral censure imply the existence of it ; 
 all restoration implies the existence of it. Deny 
 that there is such a state belonging to any man, 
 and you say in effect, that as to him, the words 
 (I rejyroof," "jiichjment,'' and " restoration," are 
 without mcanino'. 
 
 It is obvious that these conclusions do not 
 form a system which Law is setting up in oppo- 
 sition to that of Mandeville. The question between 
 them is not this : — Of two moral theories, which 
 is the more probable one ? but this : Is there 
 anything certain, or, if certain, to be ascertained, 
 in morals at all ? In the natural world there 
 is a method of arriving at what is. If you ask 
 the things you see and handle what they mean, 
 not contenting yourself Avitli their first rude or 
 incoherent reply, but tormenting them till they 
 have manifestly told their secret, you feel that 
 a truth has been made known to you upon 
 which you may act. Is it altogether otherwise 
 in the reo;ion of human thoui^ht and life ? Ara 
 
 b 2 
 
XX GRAND JURY MORALITY. 
 
 we there merely in a world of opinions and no- 
 tions? Law finds that the words which men 
 speak, the deeds which they do, the judgments 
 which they pronounce, are as much facts as any 
 which can come under the notice of the physical 
 philosopher. And he finds that if you do not 
 satisfy yourself with the mere shadows which 
 are cast from these words, and acts, and judg- 
 ments, but resolutely insist upon their letting 
 you know what is in them, they too will speak 
 plainly and faithfully. For that human exist- 
 ence is not more a phantom and a trick, than 
 the existence of the sun and stars ; and that it 
 is not denied to a man to find out the real 
 ground of that which is nearest and dearest to 
 him, any more than of that which is distant, 
 and comparatively indifferent. 
 
 Experience, I think, has shewn that in all 
 ages this is the method, and the only method, 
 of dealing with sophistry. The Grand Jury of 
 the county of Middlesex had, no doubt, a cer- 
 tain indefinite impression that religion and order 
 are weak, delicate, sensitive plants, most neces- 
 sary, however, to be preserved for their plea- 
 sant odours, or their cuhnary uses, demanding 
 therefore the watchful eye of any functionaries 
 who are bound by their office to protect the 
 feeble. To some such apprehension as this, 
 mingling with another, and much truer, sense 
 of the weak hold which men in general have of 
 
PRESCRIPTIVE MORALITY. XXI 
 
 the principles that are most needful to their 
 existence, nearly all such interferences, and the 
 cry for them among religious men, may be 
 traced. The conviction communicates itself to 
 the more thoughtful and inquiring youths of the 
 time. It is not their business, they think, to 
 take care of a thing which cannot take care of 
 itself ; they want something to lean upon. ' How 
 can these tender nurshngs be what they want? 
 Keep them as long as you will or can from the 
 rude hoof of the multitude, but do not pretend 
 to us that they were planted in the soil by any 
 divine hand, or that they have any natural right 
 there. We know what artificial aids are re- 
 quired to keep them from utterly perishing.' 
 Morality doubtless comes forward less mfor^ma 
 pauperis when prescription and antiquity are 
 claimed for the current maxims and theories 
 respecting duty and obligation, right and wrong. 
 But whether the effect of such appeals upon the 
 class to which I have just alluded be more suc- 
 cessful or salutary, is very doubtful. What do 
 these words, 'duty' and 'obligation,' 'right' and 
 ' wrong,' mean, if not the condemnation of some 
 tendencies and habits which have been preva- 
 lent, and multiplying from generation to gene- 
 ration ? ' Shew that these habits are not at 
 the root of your current theories, and ancient 
 maxims, before you allege their popularity or 
 their age. But if you like to abide by your 
 
XXU THE MORALITY OF IGNORANCE. 
 
 theories, very well. You confess that you want 
 them to help out facts ; we want the facts to 
 tell their own story.' Again, a person wishing 
 to meet this last demand, may plunge at once 
 into the whole mass of facts which the popular 
 sophist of the day alleges ; he may special 
 plead the inferences from them ; may even con- 
 tend that facts enough have not been produced; 
 that the induction should be larger ; that per- 
 haps in the mighty scheme of God's universe, 
 there may be multitudes yet unknown to us 
 which would aifect the conclusion most seriously; 
 that modesty, therefore, and present acquiescence 
 in that which we have received, are most fit- 
 ting in us. How such suggestions, or such a 
 prospect, can have any result, except to bewilder 
 the conscience — to make it utterly doubtful of 
 all evidence — ready, therefore, to accept the 
 conclusions of the evil reasoner, because it starts 
 with his premises, I cannot conceive. Myriads 
 of new observations may perhaps open upon us ; 
 but how stands it with those which we have 
 made ; if all these lead us further into chaos, 
 what hope that a universe will emerge out 
 of those which are reserved for our descend- 
 ants, or that we shall be the better for it if it 
 do ? There is yet one argument more, which 
 is sanctioned by very high authorities — in one 
 passage of his writings, by the most remarkable 
 ethical teacher of Law's day. It is the argu-. 
 
THE MORALITY OF SAFETY. XXlll 
 
 ment of Safety. * What peril may lie in one 
 decision upon these points. And, that decision 
 may be wrong. Is it not judicious even with 
 a less apparent balance of probabilities in favour 
 of the other, wherein hes no similar hazard, to 
 embrace that ?' ' And so then,' the person ad- 
 dressed might answer, 'you do not any longer 
 appeal to truth and conscience, and such fine 
 words. You practically confess that these mean 
 very Uttle. You wish me only to be cautious ; 
 to see that I do not fall into mischief. Thank 
 you heartily ! But have you really read the 
 first fifty hues of Lucretius, without discovering 
 that the very reward we propose to ourselves 
 is the emancipation from those terrors by which 
 vou would hoodwink us, and hinder us from 
 looking into the nature of thmgs? I may run 
 into this danger surely, but what if the promise 
 of all the past discoveries I have made in the 
 line you would keep me from, is, that I shall 
 not ? Is not your argument, being as it is, a check 
 upon thought and discovery, a new motive to 
 push on, that I may take all such alarming 
 possibilities out of the way of myself and of 
 future inquirers ?' 
 
 All these methods, and many more, had 
 proved utterly ineffectual with the Athenian 
 youths in the days of Socrates. In proportion 
 to the keenness of their intellects, to the 
 vivacity of their characters, even strange as it 
 
XXIV SOCRATES AND THE SOPHISTS. 
 
 may seem, to their zeal for truth, was the 
 danger to which they were exposed from Pro- 
 tagoras, Hippias and Prodicus. Unless they could 
 meet with one more able to sympathise with 
 their questioning spirit than these teachers, as 
 willing as they to confront facts, as little caring 
 to magnify opinions, of whatever date or preva- 
 lency, to the disparagement of them, the Greek 
 Mandevilles must have gained a complete vic- 
 tory. The one competent assailant of them set 
 himself to shew that those principles for which 
 politicians trembled, lest the wmds of heaven 
 should visit their faces too roughly, were in fact 
 the substance of their lives — those realities to 
 lose which, in the strictest sense, is to lose one's 
 self. Dogmas respecting these principles were 
 entitled to reverent attention, but the moment 
 they set themselves up as substitutes for the prin- 
 ciples, they become dangerous — a mere paper-' 
 currency without any gold to answer it. Let 
 the new teacher then bring forward his coin, he 
 shall not be stopped from cu^culating it by being 
 told that it is not of the realm ; only let us see 
 what it is, let us have the liberty of testing and 
 weighing it also. Straightway some new and 
 splendid theory is produced, with a great array 
 of experiences. No objection is taken to the 
 first, because it is not comprehensive enough ; to 
 the latter, because it might be extended further. 
 Quite the contrary. There is one phrase in 
 
MORALITY SUBSTANTIAL. XXV 
 
 the enunciation of that theory which has 
 puzzled Socrates ; he should like to investigate 
 it carefully. That catalogue of important facts 
 was too much for him, he is so slow in his 
 memory and perceptions ; if he might but search 
 out the meaning of a particular fact which was 
 reported, he should be much more competent to 
 enter into the general inquiry. Then begin 
 those wincino's and wrio^o-linfrs of the hitherto 
 triumphant teacher, longing to break loose from 
 his moorings and float again into the open sea 
 of generalities, enraged that his own consecrated 
 instrument of lano-uao-e should be wrested from 
 his hand and turned against him, which are 
 described so livingly in the Platonic dialogues. 
 But yet we feel that this object is entirely sub- 
 ordinate to a higher one : not the self-glorying 
 sophist, but the confused, almost shipwrecked, 
 but still earnest or half-earnest disciple, is ever 
 present to the mind of the sage. The great 
 object is to make him safe, not by teUing him 
 that in a matter of great moment he may trust 
 himself to a shifting sand of probabilities, but 
 by urging him not to rest till he has his feet 
 upon the ground, and stands firmly on it. 'The 
 universe seems to you a mere shadow-world, a 
 collection of phantoms. Well ! but what arc 
 you ? You are not afraid to question notions, 
 systems, traditions ; be not afraid to ask your- 
 self this question : Am I a phantom ? Once 
 
XXVI A METHOD FOR ALL TIMES. 
 
 ask it boldly, meaning to get an answer, and 
 you are beyond the sophist's circle ; his charms 
 cannot reach you. For you must feel yourself 
 to be something; and to be anything, you must 
 have something to take hold of; and that some- 
 thing must he too. And so you find that there 
 is a substance, and that it is near you ; and 
 all the argumentation in the world cannot de- 
 stroy it, or your connexion with it.' 
 
 Vast as were the differences between Athens 
 in the age of Pericles, and England in the 
 reign of George the First, this method was 
 as applicable to the one country and the one 
 period as to the other. Centuries of accumulated 
 experience had not made it less necessary that 
 men should have a point of view from which 
 they might contemplate their stores, a position 
 in which they should not be crushed by them. 
 To be born in an atmosphere of holier and 
 purer traditions, was a reason for each man to 
 enquire more diligently how they concerned him, 
 what he himself was ; neglecting that enquiry 
 he forfeited the blessing, corrupted the tra- 
 ditions which should have been helps to save 
 him from his natural idolatries, with those 
 idolatries; made the truth which remained in 
 them a witness against the want of any cor- 
 responding truth in himself. Nor could the 
 higher gift of a revelation from heaven other- 
 wise affect this duty, than by making it more 
 
ENGLAND IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. XXVll 
 
 imperative, seeing that the very word revelation 
 imports the making known that which is, to the 
 persons w^ho are the most interested in knowing 
 it ; and seeing that tliis revelation proclaimed 
 itself to be a hght to the feet and a lamp to 
 the path : not professing to supply a set of 
 portable rules or maxims, but offering to lead 
 the humble disciple into the apprehension of the 
 laws and mysteries under which he is himself 
 livino'. 
 
 And the young men of Great Britain, with 
 all their advantages, had as much need at this 
 time to be preserved from utter scepticism re- 
 specting moral principles, as the far more lively 
 and quick-thoughted Greek. Great part of 
 the popular literature of the time, prose and 
 poetical, was simply modal : the stage had 
 established a formal code of libertinism ; the 
 statesmen had reduced political dishonesty to a 
 system ; the upper classes, having no great fear 
 for the stability of property, could indulge them- 
 selves in the luxury of doubting whether there 
 was stabihty in anything else. At such a time, 
 serious men were driven to enquire what roots 
 there were below the soil, of which those who 
 turned up its surface so cleverly and industri- 
 ously knew nothing. I am far from thinking 
 that the professed moralists were the only per- 
 sons who helped to obtain for this question a 
 satisfactory answer. Some of the writers of 
 
XXVlll MORALITY ITS GREATEST SUBJECT. 
 
 fiction, by shewing that there is another stand- 
 ard of hfe and character than mere decorum, 
 and that every act presumes a person who does 
 it, and who is himself worthy to be studied, as 
 well as his acts, may have helped to cultivate 
 a stronger and more healthful morality, even 
 though they were stained by the unclean habits 
 of the people with whom they conversed, and 
 whom they described. Morality was, however, 
 in a very strict and peculiar sense, the subject 
 which, to good or bad effect, successfully or un- 
 successfully, occupied all the men of this time. 
 The most insignificant compositions of any age 
 help to point out the direction of the most ear- 
 nest and thoughtful. The second-rate literature 
 of this time, including its pulpit discourses, con- 
 sisted of laudations, most jejune and soporific, of 
 the gracefulness, becomingness, and utility of 
 virtue. We may be sure, then, that somewhere 
 or other these conventional phrases and dreary 
 commonplaces were questioned as to their mean- 
 ing, and were actually translated into letters 
 and life. But wherever this was the case, men 
 who in their ordinary habits of thinking were 
 the most removed from sympathy with Plato, 
 fell into his method of examinino; the forms of 
 expression and of thought which the sophist 
 resorted to, for the purpose of shewing how 
 necessarily the moral truths he denied were im- 
 plied in them. 
 
ENGLAND IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. XXIX 
 
 But the circumstances of the 19th century 
 are very different from those of the 18th. "We 
 often fancy that we have more sympathy with 
 the most remote ages than with our immediate 
 predecessors. And the want of sympathy seems 
 to be much in that point which has been just 
 noticed. Moral questions in a naked form did 
 directly interest the men of the last century, 
 and do not at all in the same degree interest 
 us. Such a change must indicate that the work 
 which is appointed for us, is not precisely that 
 wliich was appointed for them. No reasonable 
 man can expect or wish that his contemporaries 
 should listen to the confutation of doctrines 
 which do not molest them, or should forsake 
 the controversies with which they are busy. 
 But he may feel, that each period performing 
 its own task well contributes somethino* to the 
 next, and that, through want of that especial 
 lore which those who have gone before possess- 
 ed, we are likely to do our own work ineffi- 
 ciently and blunderingly. The reasons for this 
 belief and this fear will be perhaps apparent, if 
 we consider more exactly wherein the difference 
 to which I have alluded consists. 
 
 I do not conceive that it can be expressed 
 with any truth in this form, that moral studies 
 were most pursued by the men of the last cen- 
 tury — physical studies by us. Theirs was a 
 time of great activity in physical research ; the 
 
XXX THE PHY.SICS OF THE TWO PERIODS. 
 
 most important scientific discoveries, as well as 
 mechanical inventions, belong to it. No doubt 
 the results of these discoveries and inventions 
 have multiplied beyond all calculation; and this 
 circumstance may be significant of the inward 
 alteration which has taken place. Our fathers 
 were more busy in observing the fixed laws of 
 nature, and such of her living processes as can- 
 not well be overlooked by one who takes note 
 of her laws ; we are much more anxious to 
 obtain powers from her for our own use. The 
 two purposes can never be wholly separated, 
 but there may be clear indications which has 
 the most tendency to exalt itself, or become ex- 
 clusive, in any given time. Neither pursuit can 
 of itself make men indifferent to those great 
 questions concerning their own life which are 
 ever thrusting themselves before us, and de- 
 mianding some kind of settlement. But the 
 direction which the thoughts of people follow in 
 this department, will answer to the direction 
 which they follow in the other. When the 
 naturahst is consulting his mistress about the 
 laws and principles by which she is governed, 
 the moralist will desire to know what laws and 
 principles govern the life of human and rational 
 creatures. When the naturalist is most anxious 
 concerning the application of the energies which 
 he finds in the world around him, to the in- 
 crease of our strength and convenience, the hu- 
 
SEARCH FOR ACTIVE POWERS. XXXI 
 
 man student will be employing himself about the 
 ways in which men act upon their felloAY-creatures 
 — about spiritual powers and influences gene- 
 rally — about the movements of society. Those 
 admirable men amongst us who have devoted 
 themselves to physiological or chemical investi- 
 gations, appear fully to understand our position 
 in reference to these, and the duties which it 
 imposes upon them. They are not anxious to 
 bring back a cold statical character into phy- 
 sics; they do not demand that science should 
 retreat into corners, and disclaim a connexion 
 with the common toils and occupations of men. 
 But since the desire to turn natural ao-ents to 
 account must assuredly breed infinite quackeries, 
 and probably some dark superstitions, they would 
 lead men to see that the right employment of 
 every such agent by us involves a solemn in- 
 quiry into the functions and energies which the 
 Creator has assigned it. They would look upon 
 every experiment as a devout prayer to Him, 
 that he would reveal his own methods, that we 
 may imitate them; and as they would complain 
 of all check upon such experiments as contrary 
 to his will, and a kind of denial of man"'s rela- 
 tion to him, so they would treat all dealing 
 with physical powers and mysteries, which is not 
 grounded upon such discoveries, or is not for the 
 purpose of leading to some, as mischievous pro- 
 fancness — a wrong to man, and an insult to God. 
 
XXXll MORAL PERILS. 
 
 Such I believe to be the spirit which ac- 
 tuates our more eminent students in this region; 
 and what seems of all things most desirable is, 
 a like temper and a corresponding diligence in 
 those who watch over still more sacred in- 
 terests. In the sphere with which they concern 
 themselves, there is no less imminent danger of 
 quackeries and superstitions — of men proceeding 
 without principles, and not seeking for any. 
 There, too, we are hurried along, and more 
 rapidly, by the necessity of practising with 
 powers of the use and limits of which we com- 
 prehend but little. With fulminating balls and 
 explosive steam, the most subtle electricity, the 
 strangest magnetism, is every one conversant 
 who lives with human beings — far more who 
 teaches or rules them. Yet it may be hoped 
 that these powers too are under some regula- 
 tion ; that here too there is some relation between 
 motions and impulses, and that the impulses 
 themselves can be traced to some origin. Men 
 may be impatient of being stopped in their busi- 
 ness with the question whether this is the case 
 or no ; they may tell you there was leisure for 
 such thoughts in the past time, none now. But, 
 unfortunately, they are stopped in their business 
 without any such inquiries ; they have most 
 perplexing moments of leisure, which they do 
 not owe to any troublesome moralist. In their 
 driving, they come into contact with some ob- 
 
MORALS AND METAPHYSICS. XXXIU 
 
 stacle whicli will not let thorn advance ; a voice 
 from the earth beneath, or else from the heaven 
 above, says to them, You can go no farther in 
 this way. If these threatenings will not be 
 disobeyed, is it of use to ask what they signify ? 
 If our movements are in dano-er of becomincr 
 mere gyrations, is it so great a check to them, 
 that we should learn what is the condition of 
 their being progressive? A glance at some of 
 the subjects with which we most occupy our- 
 selves at this time, either in the way of practice 
 or of meditation, will shew, I think, that the 
 help which we may gain from an 18th-century 
 teacher, who was comparatively httle versed in 
 them, but who understood his own vocation 
 well, is by no means to be slighted. 
 
 I. Questi(>ns concerning Virtue in the true 
 Roman sense <.>f the word, that is to say, con- 
 cerning that which makes or constitutes a Man — 
 concerning J Juty and Obligation, concerning liight 
 and Righteousness — are clearly distinguishable, 
 and are always practically distinguished, from 
 questions concerning the nature and hmit of our 
 Faculties — concerning the relation m which man 
 stands to the sensible world, concerning his con- 
 nexion with any world different from that. But 
 these subjects must always connect themselves 
 with each other; the chief difference in the 
 treatment of them arising from the first or the 
 last being regarded as principal or as subordinate, 
 c 
 
XXXIV THEIR POSITION TO EACH OTHER CHANGED. 
 
 There can be no doubt of the relation in which 
 they stood to each other in the eighteenth century ; 
 though it was owing to the discussions which 
 arose in that century that their position was 
 changed. Hume, who hke his contemporaries 
 generally perhaps took more real interest in 
 ethical questions than in all others, by raising the 
 great controversy on the authority of experi- 
 ence, and the impossibility of referring to any 
 higher one, compelled men's thoughts into a 
 more purely metaphysical direction. For the 
 greatest moral interests were at stake in this 
 argument. If nothing be eternal, there can be 
 no eternal right. It was this consideration, 
 say some who are well competent to give an 
 opinion, which urged Kant to enter upon his 
 enquiry into the province of experience ; and his 
 dehght in having ascertained, as he believed, 
 the existence of a faculty which takes cogni- 
 sance of principles, and does not merely observe 
 successive facts, or draw inferences from them, 
 was mainly excited by the conviction that he 
 was discovering a firm basis for moral science. 
 But his doctrine was sure to be reco™sed as 
 important for its own sake, and not merely for 
 this result. Those who believe that there is an 
 organ in man for conversing with the inlinite 
 have been occupied with numberless contro- 
 versies which that belief suggests ; such as 
 whether this organ do itself contain or originate 
 
THEIR PRACTICAL CONNEXION. XXXV 
 
 that which it perceives, or whether its existence 
 impUes something pre-existing, from which its 
 hght is derived : a most deep and solemn en- 
 quiry indeed, involving issues so important that 
 they may well make all, even those concerning 
 the nature and meaning of morality, seem in- 
 significant. Those, on the other hand, who have 
 rejected Kant's conclusion, have been endeavour- 
 ing to make a theory of our faculties, without 
 reference to it: to shew how it is possible, by 
 certain modifications in the notion of experience, 
 to avoid the startling inferences of Hume ; or 
 how we may take his premises in their fullest 
 extent, and yet ground some other conclusions 
 upon them ; or how those conclusions may be 
 defended ; or how others are involved in them 
 which he did not develope. 
 
 Now I do not profess to enquire whether, 
 in an encyclopedic view of the sciences, it be the 
 more or less correct course to look upon JMeta- 
 physics as the genus of which Ethics are a 
 species. But I cannot help thinking, that one 
 who is studying primarily for the sake of his 
 own life, will find it very advisable to enter 
 upon the elder argument first, even if the ulti- 
 mate object which he proposes to himself is to 
 arrive at satisfaction upon that which is most 
 popular in his day. It may be a great thing 
 to know whether we have this or that power; 
 whether we have merely eyes and ears, or some 
 
 c 2 
 
XXXVl BEING BEFORE FACULTIES. 
 
 gifts wliicli are not contained in these. But it 
 is surely a more serious thing to know that we 
 are something, and what we are. To be or not 
 to be, is after all the question which is set be- 
 fore us in our cradles, and goes along with us 
 to our graves. To a man who has grappled 
 with it, different hints and discoveries respecting 
 his faculties will be much more intelligible. 
 For one who knows that he is a responsible 
 being will have found occasions of exercising 
 his faculties before he has ascertained their pre- 
 cise nature or definition, and that exercise 
 will have taught him more respecting them 
 than all the speculations in the world. So by 
 degrees he will learn to distinguish their kinds 
 and objects; since clear conscious acts are always 
 distinguishable ; through them the habit of 
 distinction is formed ; premature efforts at 
 classification stifle it. Nothing is sadder than 
 to see a man fitting up shelves and dividing 
 them by compartments, when he has nothing 
 to put into them. He who has no deep neces- 
 sity for converse with the Infinite, will never 
 really beheve that he has an organ for such 
 converse, whatever he may pretend about it. 
 He who has that necessity, will recognise the 
 existence of this organ in some phrases or other. 
 If his phrases are not good, he will improve 
 them as fast as his faculties of perception grow, 
 and he cannot with any advantage improve them 
 
THE SPIRITUAL ORGAN RIGHT AND TRUTH. XXXVll 
 
 faster. Much debating then upon this matter 
 seems to me unprofitable. Whoever confesses 
 the existence of a higher spiritual organ has a 
 right, I think, to ask his opponents not to as- 
 sume a priori that nothing is true a priori — 
 not, in their zeal for experience, to reject the 
 aid of experiment. And on his side he is bound 
 to concede that there is the same prima facie 
 plausibility in the Locke notion of the intel- 
 lectual universe, which there is in the Ptolemaic 
 notion of the outward universe. If he ask more 
 than this, or refuse this admission, he makes it 
 evident that he has not faith in his own prin- 
 ciple. 
 
 That other great question, about which those 
 who believe in the existence of this organ are 
 divided, whether it be the ground of truth, or 
 only the mirror which reflects it — the light, or 
 the eye which dwells in the light — will also be 
 much more likely to find a satisfactory deter- 
 mination, if the question, whether there is a 
 right and wrong, has been seriously considered 
 first. For I do not think that any one has 
 ever calmly meditated on the words, ' llight,' 
 * Ought,' ' Obhgation,' without feehng that the 
 first, as much as the last, implies the idea of 
 reciprocal rule and subjection, of authority and 
 obedience. It will be very hard to have ad- 
 mitted this reciprocity in the one region, with- 
 out carrying it into the other ; practically very 
 
XXXVlll EDUCATION 
 
 hard indeed, for a man who feels that he is 
 obeying a law when he does right, to feel when 
 he perceives a truth that he is the author of it. 
 I do not say that in a system there is any 
 necessary connexion between these two ideas ; I 
 am certain there is the most intimate connexion 
 between them when a man is working to satisfy 
 himself concerning the principles of his own life 
 and being. 
 
 II. But I have no notion that questions of 
 this kind will in this form have any interest for 
 more than a very few of our countrymen; nor 
 do I desire that they should. In another form 
 they are continually thrusting themselves upon 
 our notice, not in solemn academical discussions, 
 but in books for schools, rewards for good boys, 
 guides to mothers. Education may not be the 
 business of this time more than of any other ; 
 but we more feel it to be our business, talk much 
 more about it, devise many more schemes and 
 instruments for carrying it on. In the invention 
 and application of these, hosts of metaphysical 
 theories are put forth ; we find ourselves arrived, 
 by a most sudden and unexpected route, at the 
 conclusion of interminable controversies; the 
 Essay on the Human Understanding, or the 
 Critique of the Pure Reason, are taken for grant- 
 ed as a preparation for hints on English gram- 
 mar, or lessons in three syllables. Nor have 
 we any right to complain that these writers do 
 
INVOLVED WITH METAPHYSICS. XXXIX 
 
 not wait a longer time to ascertain the grounds 
 of the opinions which they assume; for children 
 grow very fast ; they must be taught in some 
 way; and we know that they have been taught 
 well by persons who are ignorant of all these 
 discussions. That which we would crave of 
 our doctors and doctresses in education is, not 
 a more extensive but a slenderer, assortment 
 of metaphysical phrases — a greater freedom of 
 spirit to act and teach, without any reference to 
 them. For if they had this freedom, if they 
 did become as little children, that they might 
 guide little children, they w^ould contribute 
 far more to our knowledge of the growth of 
 the human spirit, of its acts and processes, of 
 its needs and capacities, than they have ever 
 yet received, or are hkely to receive, from the 
 professors in this department. But here lies 
 the difficulty. To purge the eye of the teacher 
 of its mists that it may not see falsely, to rid 
 him of maxims and theories, which make his 
 observations, and, what is more important, his 
 doings, contradictory and insincere. Of these 
 cloudy theories, the most mischievous, it seems 
 to me, are those which confound the corruption 
 which every day will bring to light in the child, 
 with the child itself; as if the evil were its 
 substance, instead of being its curse and its de- 
 struction. For this is an hypothesis which every 
 ncAV experience appears to contirm, and wliich 
 
xl NEEDS A MORAL BASIS. 
 
 mixes itself in fearful complication with all exas- 
 perations, pettinesses, bitternesses, in the mind of 
 the instructor. True, he denies his own hypo- 
 thesis every time he speaks to his pupil as to a 
 moral creature conscious of its own wrong ; his 
 vocation is a denial of it; yet it becomes more and 
 more a habit of his mind, it begets in him more 
 and more listlessness and despair, it is a root of 
 infinite perplexities in his conduct, which reflect 
 themselves too faithfully in the subject of liis care. 
 In very different measures does this opinion 
 operate. It meets with some partially successful 
 counteractions. The humble self-denying parent 
 or schoolmaster learns to overcome it in prac- 
 tice, though the phrases which express it may 
 still cleave to him; but that it is a serious hin- 
 derance t«) education, one which has affected us, 
 and does affect us all in a thousand ways, those 
 who have reflected most upon tlie history of their 
 own lives, and have studied most affectionately the 
 histories of other men, will, I suspect, be the least 
 disposed to deny. A writer then, like Law, 
 who lays the axe to the root of tliis falsehood, 
 though he may have said nothing upon the 
 subject of education, may remove one of the 
 greatest obstructions to the right study and 
 practice of it among us. 
 
 III. But here in England, questions of 
 metaphysics, and even questions of education, are 
 commonly absorbed into the one great study of 
 
POLITICS. xli 
 
 politics. Of this study it is evident that Law took 
 little heed. Mandevillc's Treatise was in the ^ 
 strictest sense a political one; the moral question 
 was only introduced because it interfered with 
 the settlement of his social scheme. ITis op- \ 
 poncnt reverses the relation of the two subjects. 
 '' Settle the interests of society as you can, these 
 principles must be true ;" this is the method of 
 his answer. If what I have said about the 
 vocation of his age be right, he shewed a sound 
 discretion in reasoning the case upon this 
 ground ; Berkeley failed precisely because he 
 deserted it. But I fancy that we should be very 
 indiscreet if in a similar undertaking we follow- 
 ed his example. How the change has come to 
 pass I do not enquire ; but I am satisfied that 
 any one calmly comparing the eighty years 
 before the French revolution with the fifty years 
 since, w^ill feel that social questions force them- 
 selves upon the men of one period as they did 
 not upon those of the other, and refuse to be 
 postponed to any, however important, which 
 merely concern individual men. If this be the 
 case, it must be unsafe in our day to set up 
 morality merely as a check upon the acts and 
 plans of the politician. The maxim which Lord 
 Ashley propounded in the last session of par- 
 liament, " Nothing which is morally wrong can 
 be politically right," is of the greatest worth, 
 and was especially gratifying in such a place, 
 
Xlii THE JUST AND THE POLITIC 
 
 from sucli a speaker ; but the experience of the 
 past does not encourage us to hope much from 
 it taken alone, or even from a hue of conduct 
 simply grounded upon it. The old Athenian 
 notion of an Aristides as the needful balance to 
 a Themistocles — of Justice hanging as a drag 
 upon the wheels of Policy, was no doubt for a 
 time useful to the protection of the national 
 character. But a nation strong and growing 
 feels that self-preservation, self-extension, is a 
 duty ; not its lower instinct, but its higher con- 
 science, testifies of it. The Greek feeling, "Man's 
 intelligence is meant to rule over animal force ; 
 we are intended to govern the barbarians," may 
 have been mixed with all kinds of falsehood ; 
 but it was not in itself false, it was the germ 
 of deepest truth, the recognition of a divine and 
 spiritual order in the universe. For morality 
 to be regarded as something in deadly oppo- 
 sition to this internal conviction, wherein so 
 much of the life and strength of the Athenian 
 people lay, was surely most unfortunate ; all the 
 unhappy results which followed might have been 
 predicted from such a contradiction. When great 
 wrongs had been perpetrated, — wrongs known 
 and felt to be such, — there would arise a be- 
 wildered feeling that they were inevitable ; 
 another law than the one which grave men 
 talked about had already been recognised and 
 acted upon; that must henceforth be followed. 
 
SOCIETY ITSELF JUST. xliii 
 
 Sopliists would soon arise to announce this law, 
 to express it in clear and rigorous definition. 
 " Might is right," would presently be felt to be 
 the only true doctrine, the one which lay at the 
 root of all state existence ; circumstances might 
 conceal it or mochfy it ; but they were hypo- 
 crites who pretended that mankind could be 
 governed by any other. 
 
 K^ow such a statement as this requires to be 
 met directly, not indirectly. Unless you can 
 shew that society itself has a foundation, that 
 an eternal justice is implied in the existence of 
 communion and government, you may keep your 
 moral principles as pocket-treasures, you may be 
 tolerated in the possession and occasional display 
 of them; their application being only denied 
 when any evil is to be committed on a great 
 scale, or when wrong doing has established itself 
 into a system. To this o-reat aro^ument there- 
 fore the Greek sao;e addressed himself. He 
 felt that the work for which he lived was not 
 half accomplished, unless he could shew that 
 righteousness must lie at the root of a human 
 commonwealth — must be the meaning and the 
 substance of it — and that there must be a 
 method of bringing into conformity with it the 
 minds of those who are rulers or subjects. This 
 seems to be the object of that work which has 
 been wrongly supposed to be the sketch of an 
 imaginary republic. Plato undoubtedly would 
 
Xliv HOW MORALS AND POLITICS ARE RELATED. 
 
 have denied it to be imaginary at all. He 
 would have said, that it was the discovery, so 
 far as his light enabled liim, of the actual order 
 of human society ; that order which men's acts 
 may contradict, but which the very contradic- 
 tions help to manifest. And whatever opinion 
 we may form as to the success of his investiga- 
 tion, some such investigation, aided by all the 
 instruments which we possess for entering into 
 the meaning of the facts amongst which we are 
 living, must, I conceive, be the groundwork of 
 a political science. 
 
 But the Republic of Plato is undoubtedly 
 meant as the crownino- work of a series. The 
 method which is followed in it had previously 
 been established by other and simpler experi- 
 ments. We may then profit greatly in our political 
 studies by a work like Law's, which exhibits 
 this method in its elementary form, in reference 
 to the first laws and principles of morality. The 
 nature of this help will be more apparent if we 
 consider that there are three forms of political 
 opinion exactly answering to those which we 
 have spoken of already, as pretending to be 
 substitutes for Mandevillc's moral creed, and as 
 at last giving it a practical sanction. 
 
 The first of these political opinions is that of 
 the Conservative. Society according to him is 
 a thing of most feeble and delicate structure, 
 which any shock a little rougher than usual 
 
CONSERVATISM. 
 
 xlv 
 
 may destroy utterly. To watch over it, to 
 keep it by any means together, is the great 
 business of the statesman. For this end he 
 must resist every attempt at alteration which is 
 suggested by some meditative man ; only ac- 
 knowledged abuses, that is to say, only those 
 which have attracted the notice of the multitude, 
 and have called forth a strong popular cry 
 against them, are to be corrected — to be cor- 
 rected not because they are abuses, but because 
 they are acknowledged, and because the peril 
 of parting with tlicui appears, upon a refined' 
 calculation, to be less than the peril of preserv- 
 ing them. The measure of peril being the only 
 measure of action, it becomes of course indif- 
 ferent whether the thing denounced be an abuse 
 or no ; whatever is so considered by a sufficient 
 number of strong people, is to be condenmed ; 
 just as whatever is not so considered is to be 
 upheld. These are the golden maxims of 
 modern political wisdom, those which a vast 
 majority of Englishmen in the upper classes 
 receive as the guides of their thoughts and 
 conduct. 
 
 The Reformer, however, has courage to 
 oppose them. To maintain the present order of 
 society, can never, he thinks, be the aim of any 
 great or even of any honest man. There is 
 some model somewhere after which it oiiMit to 
 be fashioned anew. It may be found in some 
 
xlvi 
 
 REFORMERS RELIGIOUS MEN. 
 
 past age, and then the question in which, be- 
 gets various strifes and schisms ; or it may be 
 obtained by training men to some higher ap- 
 prehension than they possess at present of what 
 is noble and good ; or it may be hoped for 
 from a scheme which shall define with loo-ical 
 precision the motives and influences whereby 
 men are ordinarily swayed — shall make them 
 act as checks upon each other, and shall use 
 them for the repression of crime, for the pro- 
 duction of harmony. 
 
 No ! answers the Religious doctor ; these 
 schemes are mere dreams. In societies of men, 
 such as you suppose, none of these reforms are 
 possible. Your society is nothing but that world 
 which the Bible declares to be lying in w^icked- 
 ness. True, there is a divine society established 
 among men, but it consists of those who are ex- 
 cepted out of the mass. We belong to it by 
 renouncing this world, and by proposing to our- 
 selves a future one as the object of all our 
 search and solicitude. 
 
 Now, while I admit the great truth which 
 lies under each of these systems, I must contend 
 that, as systems, they involve the grossest self- 
 contradiction, and leave the field of politics as 
 the rightful and exclusive possession of Mande- 
 ville and his school. Of all things, that which 
 is most hateful to the Conservative is subjection 
 to the opinion and will of the multitude ; yet 
 
INCONSISTENCY OF CONSERVATISM. xlvii 
 
 who becomes so utterly a servant to the multi- 
 tude as he ? He denies that there is any gift 
 of foresight in the statesman ; till the crowd has 
 spoken its word — has uttered its groan — his 
 business is to hold his peace, and shut his eyes. 
 Then what a Destructive he becomes, in virtue 
 of this Conservative principle. The pain which 
 causes the abuse to be acknowledged is intolera- 
 ble ; it must be redressed by an application to 
 the spot at which it is felt. The head seems 
 full to bursting — the patient cries out for the 
 leech or the cupping-glass. The state doctor 
 knows that it is not a case of fulness, but of 
 exhaustion ; depletion will at once weaken the 
 constitution, and increase the disorder. Yet he 
 must obey ; this is the acknoivledged abuse ; 
 with the unacknowledged derangement of 
 stomach or Uver, by the hypothesis, he has no- 
 thine" to do. In his wisdom he avoids takine: 
 any step, till the only steps which he can take 
 are such as lead, by a slower or a quicker pro- 
 cess, to death. 
 
 Is the Reformer less at variance with himself? 
 The whole system of society around him is cor- 
 rupt and abominable — he stands aloof from it, 
 and protests against it. All, he complains, is 
 mere talk and profession — real doing he can 
 find nowhere. "Alas!" he beo:ins in time to 
 think with himself, "and what am I doinfi^ ? 
 am not I talking and professing ; objecting to 
 
Xlviii OF THE REFORMERS AND RELIGIOUS MEN. ' 
 
 other nien''s labours — never putting my own 
 hand to the plough ; displaying a perfect plat- 
 form of society — never taking any honest pains 
 to set it up ?" He changes his scheme, mixes 
 with the actual affairs of the world, only 
 for the purpose of bringing them to the state 
 he longs for. But for this end he is reduced 
 to the necessity of perpetual compromises; that-^ 
 he may at last have everything according to his 
 model he must be content, in the mean time, 
 almost to forget it: till by a necessary process 
 he at last actually forgets it ; the vision dies 
 away, or fades into the light of common day; 
 he falls into the routine of ordinary plotting 
 and officiality. 
 
 Nor is it otherwise with the reliirious de- , 
 claimer against human politics. He, too, finds 
 that he must occupy himself with them, in order 
 to fulfil the express commands of his Master ; that 
 he may, even in an ordinary way, do his duty 
 to his neighbour. But how sadly confused his 
 work is ! What a sense of wrong doing accom- 
 panies every step of it! He is dealing with 
 secular things, he calls them so, he believes 
 them to be so. He knows, in some way or 
 other, that his mind is becoming secularised — his 
 conscience less and less clear. And what he 
 is not conscious of is but too evidently the 
 fact ; he is colouring all his notions of the un- 
 seen world with the mists and fogs of this. 
 
PRACTICAL EFFECT OF THESE SYSTEMS. xlix 
 
 Now the practical statesman may incline to 
 any one of these views, or he may mingle them 
 altogether. It signifies little which course he 
 takes; if there were nothing better in his heart 
 than these systems would lead him to, he must 
 adopt the maxim of the Fable of the Bees. He 
 must say, ' However I may value high notions of 
 morality myself, as a politician I have nothing 
 to do with them. With relio-ious influences I 
 may have to do, because they may be useful 
 as instruments to me, or dangerous as obstruc- 
 tions. But I must use them, just as I use every 
 bad and low influence which acts upon men, and 
 I must always be careful of their becoming too 
 strong, too pure, lest they should overpower 
 me; if I cannot secure that they shall be diluted 
 with what is earthly and evil, I know that 
 they will.' 
 
 It is not certainly to be assumed that one 
 who has acquired the habit of looking at what 
 is good as the substantial part of everything in 
 the region of individual life, will be able at once 
 to transfer that habit to social hfe; but at least 
 he will find it a great shock to his mind to re- 
 cognise any other as if it had a stronger stamp 
 of morality and religion. If he has learnt that 
 the disorder in his own mind and character is 
 itself the witness to an order, he will not be 
 easily persuaded that any amount of disorder, 
 d 
 
1 
 
 THE REMEDY. 
 
 in the relations of men to each other, can bear 
 an opposite witness. If he be convinced that 
 there is a permanent state of being, which he 
 must call his, as much when he is most at 
 variance with it as when he is most in accord- 
 ance with it, he will not be affected by any 
 one's telling him that there was a true state 
 of society once, or that there may be a true 
 state hereafter, but that now all is inco- 
 herency and corruption. He may hail with 
 hearty joy all that he can find of purity and 
 goodness in the past, he may feel infinite long- 
 ino-s for the blessing-s he believes are reserved 
 to man in the future ; but he can only under- 
 stand that partial purity and goodness of the 
 past, that perfect purity and goodness of the 
 future, as the more distant or more exact accord- 
 ance with the truth of things, the truth of which 
 our consciences testify as living and present,^ 
 which our words and acts intimate that we are 
 professing to aim at, and need not war against. 
 In this spirit the Jewish prophets of old spoke 
 to their countrymen ; they felt indeed that the 
 days on which they had fallen were days of 
 grievous corruption — of corruption which nothing 
 but a tremendous judgment, a day of the Lord, 
 could purge away. But still they spoke of the 
 order as being there ; the king, priest, prophet, 
 were he ever so rebellious or false, had each 
 
EFFECTS OF THIS REMEDY. ll 
 
 his vocation, and might fulfil it ; his position 
 was not less desirable than that of his fore- 
 fathers, only he had abused it more ; the effect 
 of any change would be to unfold more thoroughly 
 the meaning of the state in which they were 
 then living, and to bring those who received the 
 punishments rightly into practical submission to 
 it. All sound Conservatism, all sound Refor- 
 mation, seem to he in this method ; Conservatism 
 being the preservation of the true sense and 
 meaning of the things which actually exist ; 
 Reformation the separating of it from its coun- 
 terfeits. And here, too, seems to he the true 
 rehgious view of the case, not in confounding 
 what is most pure and holy with what is most 
 base under certain large formulas about gene- 
 ral corruption, but in shewing how the tendency 
 to evil in man is manifested by his continually 
 losing sight of reahties, and substituting vain 
 shows and mockeries for them. 
 
 The practical politician, who honestly takes 
 this course, would certainly be obhged to aban- 
 don many of his current maxims ; he would not 
 be able so easily to cast in his lot with any 
 one party of the state and to adopt its theory 
 of action ; he would not be able to get so much 
 credit with moralists when he is out of office, for 
 his bold denunciations of his opponent's system 
 as utterly evil and abominable ; nor so much 
 credit with easy men, when ho is in office, for 
 
 d 2 
 
lii LO.SS OF PARTY GENERALITIES. 
 
 his clever defences of any act or system, as the 
 best under existing circumstances. He will feel 
 that in each measure and system there is likely 
 to be a true meaning, a real object, which it is 
 very stupid and very wicked to cry down for 
 any party purpose, and that there is probably 
 some base mixture with that good purpose, or 
 with the means for effecting it, to which no cir- 
 cumstances existing or not existing, no trumpery 
 generalities, no clever sarcasms, can reconcile the 
 conscience of any honest man. He will not allow 
 himself to join in cheap declamations, against 
 the abomination of our whole scheme of foreign "' 
 policy (in India for instance), as if we had been 
 from first to last mere highwaymen. He will 
 feel how easy it is to utter phrases of this kind, 
 and to earn the reputation of setting up a high 
 standard by uttering them. But what, he will 
 ask, comes of them, except a just indignation in 
 the mind of every man who feels that he is 
 aiming to do right in that sphere of labour in 
 which he is told no man can do right — an ease 
 to the conscience of every bad man, who under- 
 stands that he is only following out maxims 
 which in his circumstances are inevitable. There- 
 fore to act upon just the opposite rule to this, 
 to assume that there has been a principle blindly 
 or wrongly followed, even in the midst of our 
 bad doings, and that this principle may be re- 
 cognised and applied to the consideration of 
 
HISTORY. Jill 
 
 every specific act, justifying it if it be right, 
 condemning it if it be wrong ; this seems to be 
 the honest and reasonable course for a man who 
 wishes rather to do good, than to have credit 
 for his way of discoursing about it^ 
 
 IV. But the appUcation of this method to 
 practice presupposes the use of it in the study 
 of history. Who can estimate the evil effects of 
 that habit, which in this study has prevailed 
 so largely, of pronouncing sentence upon whole 
 generations of men, under the names of 'dark,' or 
 * superstitious,' or ' barbarous,' or of the reaction 
 which follows, when good is discovered in them, 
 and they begin to be idolized? Who can measure 
 
 ' I could scarcely avoid thinking of our Indian policy 
 when I made these remarks, because it has been recently 
 discussed in a volume which exposes the wrong method, 
 of whicli I have been speaking, with incomparable clear- 
 ness and force, but exposes it still more effectually by 
 exliibitii)g an example of the true and righteous method 
 which is appropriate to every political question. I allude 
 to Mr Lushington's "Little Wars of a Great Nation," 
 (Parker, London,) a book combining a singularly beauti- 
 ful narrative with the soundest and manliest political 
 morality. No one who feels the imioortance of applying 
 great principles to passing occurrences, will complain of 
 the writer for devoting gifts so rare, informed by a still 
 rarer zeal for truth and honesty, to the wars of Affghan- 
 istan and Scinde. But Mr Lusliingtons readers will 
 have some reason to find fault with him, if he do not 
 hereafter endow the literature of his country with some 
 great and enduring history. 
 
liv PERPLEXITIES RESPECTING IT. 
 
 the mischief to his own mind, of having been 
 taught to speak and think scornfully of men, as 
 mere charlatans and impostors, because they 
 did some wrong, or were betrayed into self- 
 glorification, who were yet full of earnestness 
 and hope, and really desired to utter and to 
 spread truth ? Who has not felt a miserable 
 confusion in his mind when this error has been 
 detected, and it has seemed to him as if all 
 things or all men might be equally true or 
 false ? Who has not heard acts and men con- 
 demned as utterly wrong and evil, when he has 
 felt nevertheless that there was something in 
 them which he must admire, nay, which the 
 very persons who were condemning them did 
 admire ? AVho has not in consequence been 
 tempted to the opinion, that the higher standard 
 which the judge professed to set up was merely 
 artificial, merely something to be talked about, 
 and not to be followed ? Who has not applied 
 the maxims of his own age, in determining what 
 was right or wrong in times gone by, and who, 
 when he has been convinced of his injustice, has 
 not caught himself yielding to tlie notion, that 
 each age has a certain standard of its own, and 
 that to talk of a right and a wrong for all times 
 is imposture ? Such opposite perils lie in this 
 study, which yet of all seems the one to which 
 this century is most called, and for which its 
 better men have most gifts. But surely he who 
 
APPLICATION OF INDIVIDUAL EXPERIENCE TO IT. Iv 
 
 has manfully studied the facts which directly 
 concern his own life, will be able to see his way 
 through these contradictions, for he will have 
 encountered them already in another sphere. 
 He has felt that he must recognize a permanent 
 standard for himself; that in different stages of 
 his life, different sides and portions of it reveal 
 themselves to him; that in each different stage 
 of his life there are particular counterfeits, 
 mocking that truth which he then is especially 
 required to take liold of; that if he yields 
 to them, they hide it from him, that if he 
 resists them, more of the truth is manifested to 
 him, and he is able better to connect it with 
 that which he knew before. He feels also that 
 he cannot stop in his course ; the child must 
 become the boy, the boy must become the man ; 
 and the child, the boy, the man must each 
 meet the temptations of his own time, whether 
 he has trained himself to meet them by a right 
 use of the former time or no. He knows too that 
 in each new period there is a stronger light about 
 him, as well as a thicker darkness : he cannot 
 deny either fact for the sake of the other, since 
 each involves the other. Let a man but bravely 
 carry this knowledge into history, (and if he has 
 fairly earned it in one department it will go 
 with him to the other — it will be part of the 
 habit of his mind,) and then I think the puz- 
 zles he meets with there will furnish indeed 
 
Ivi THE PAST AND PRESENT. 
 
 continual exercise to his conscience and reason, 
 but a healthful, profitable, hopeful exercise. The 
 words, " Judge not, that thou be not judged," 
 will be ever present to him, as one of the 
 deepest commands ever uttered. And the more 
 he applies this principle, the more lovingly he 
 sympathises with his fellow-men, feels their 
 temptations to be his own, rejoices in the portion 
 of light which has been vouchsafed to them, won- 
 ders that they followed it as they did, when he 
 thinks how he has used his own- — the more will 
 a clear and severe judgment of good and evil 
 acts, of good and evil principles, form itself in 
 his mind, the less will he tolerate any confusion 
 of right and wrong, the more readily will he 
 recognise one who is seeking to be right and 
 true under whatever difficulties, and turn away 
 with disgust from a mere pretender. This 
 severity is not alien from that charity ; they 
 grow together, they are of one substance, they 
 cannot bear to be separated. 
 
 This habit of connecting his own life with 
 the life of history, must, I conceive, be of great 
 worth to the practical politician. What a sad 
 thing it is that the newspapers should be so 
 much a world of their own ! that the great and 
 marvellous facts of the present should be so 
 little seen by the light of the past, and the past 
 so little recognised as having any relation to 
 them ; that the one should be regarded only as 
 
CHURCH HISTORY. Ivii 
 
 a storehouse of illustrations for schoolboy themes, 
 or parliamentary harangues, the other as a 
 sphere in which men are to live at hazard, doing 
 what is best under existing circumstances. Surely 
 Roman history, and Greek history, and middle- 
 age history, are meant to assist us in under- 
 standing corn-laws and poor-laws. Surely it is 
 not well to read about the Servile war, or the 
 Peasant's war, without remembering that the 
 people in Italy and in Germany, nineteen cen- 
 turies ago, and three centuries ago, were of the 
 same flesh and blood with those who crowd our 
 factories, or set fire to our stacks. 
 
 But especially, I think, is this habit de- 
 manded of those who occupy themselves with 
 the history of the Church, and its relation to 
 human society generally. It is fearful to think 
 what immoral maxims we have applied to this 
 study ; how we have dared to lie for the sake 
 of upholding truth and righteousness ; how we 
 have fancied it was a duty to lower and degrade 
 that which belongs to the earth, for the sake of 
 glorifying the kingdom of heaven which has been 
 set up in the midst of it to exalt and purify it. 
 And all this evil, with the fearful party notions 
 which have generated it, and been generated 
 by it, seems to spring mainly from our looking 
 on this body as if it were meant to be some- 
 thing inhuman, or anti-human, instead of being 
 meant to embody the idea of perfection in hu- 
 
Iviii RELIGIOUS REACTION AGAINST MORALITIES. 
 
 manity — to shew forth the glory which God 
 has put upon it. A deep consideration of the 
 way in which all immoral sophistry connects 
 itself with a denial of a moral ground for man 
 as man, and of the necessity imposed upon 
 earnest and religious men, like Law, who en- 
 countered sophistry, above all things, to assert 
 this ground, may, I hope, help to set us right 
 in this matter, to shew us why we have gone so 
 far wrong, to make us feel the reality of many 
 principles which perhaps we have been fighting 
 for stoutly, without perceiving what bearing 
 they have upon practice and life. 
 
 V. But the moral teaching of the last age 
 was most effectually displaced by the rehgious 
 revolution which took place at the close of it. 
 That Blair and the traders in moral common- 
 places, should have fallen before the Methodist 
 power, was most natural ; it may seem harder 
 that Berkeley and Butler should have been con- 
 founded in the same category with these. But 
 hard, or not, the fate was inevitable. The 
 thoughtful student had no more voice for the 
 people than the fashionable preacher. The 
 hearts of colliers and pickpockets could no more 
 be reached by an announcement of the laws of 
 human life and action, than by well-turned sen- 
 tences about decorum. That which could reach 
 them had evidence of power in it, which the 
 sagest book on ethical science could not offer. 
 
RESULTS OF IT. ll'x 
 
 Thank God that the power made itself felt, 
 whatever it may have swept away in its 
 course ! 
 
 If the world be not made for scholars and 
 gentlemen, if it is worth anything that the 
 spiritual existence of a poor man should be re- 
 cognised, if there be truth in the assertion of 
 moralists, that moral principles belong to one 
 man as much as to another, then we must re- 
 joice that the Methodist stood his ground against 
 all the opposition which he encountered from 
 weak men and strong men, from bad men and 
 good men — from those who dreaded the new 
 influence, because it disturbed the peace of a 
 generation which was settling upon its lees, and 
 from those who feared that superficial temporary 
 excitements raio-ht be substituted for fixed and 
 eternal principles. 
 
 The victory, I think, may be considered 
 quite decisive, but the trophies of it are not 
 such as the good men who fought the battle 
 wished to see. They are to be found in the 
 almost total disuse of the moral phrases which 
 were current in respectable books of the last 
 century, and the introduction and circulation 
 throughout society of anotlier set of phrases, be- 
 longing, as it is commonly said, to a heart-religion. 
 Xow so far as these phrases are significant, they 
 must be most precious ; so far as they denote the 
 tone and direction of popular feeling, they have 
 
Ix THE TEACHERS WHO PROMOTED IT. 
 
 a secondary, historical, but still real, value; so far 
 as they are a mere mode of the day, they must 
 in themselves be pronounced worthless, but very 
 fearful when one considers what feelings, or what 
 truths, they ought to represent, and how much 
 of life must have died, how much of death must 
 have lived, before they can have lost their 
 value. 
 
 We are bound to believe however that they 
 have not yet lost it altogether. And lest the 
 depreciation should go on still more rapidly than 
 it has done, w^e are bound also to ask how it 
 may be arrested. By consulting the records of 
 those men who circulated these phrases when 
 they fetched the least in the market, we 
 may perhaps get the answer. The old Me- 
 thodist preacher spoke to men sunk in evil. He 
 told them that they were so, and they knew he 
 was right. But he spoke to them as sunken 
 men ; whatever the evil above them, beneath 
 them, within them, might be, they were there. 
 The voice which spoke to them told them they 
 might be raised out of the mire ; the promise 
 was that they should, if they did not choose to 
 abide in it. A power, they were told, had in- 
 terfered on their behalf — a power which could 
 and would bring them into a righteous state — 
 make them righteous men. This was the good 
 news which was declared to them ; all strength 
 from above was to lead to this ; every energy 
 
THEIR MORAL STRENGTH. 
 
 Ixi 
 
 of any kind awakened within themselves was 
 to lead to this. The Lord of all was wilhng 
 to make them righteous; they were to be- 
 lieve in him, and trust him, that they might 
 become so. This teaching was in the strictest 
 sense moral teaching; this exhortation was a 
 mo)xd exhortation ; however little even great 
 moralists might recognise it, or sympathise with 
 it. And I cannot but think that in losing the 
 morality of the Methodist teachers, we lose their 
 power. Unless we remember that what a man 
 wants is to be raised out of wrong, and to be 
 made right, and that whoever offers him any 
 boon of which this is not the greatest part, does 
 not offer him the thing which he wants, our 
 words must be feeble indeed. And this is surely 
 a great danger of our time. We but half believe 
 that to be true and right is the best thing of 
 all ; we half fancy that there is a better thing 
 to which this is only a means. With this 
 feeling another is necessarily connected. We 
 cannot really speak to men as if there were 
 that in them which desired righteousness, which 
 would fain rise out of darkness and death, if it 
 knew the way. Nay, we hardly think that 
 this desire can be kindled in any one's mind, 
 except by help of some secondary stimuli, which, 
 if we looked fairly at facts, we should see could 
 have very little power indeed, except to confuse 
 the conscience — a conscience confused enough 
 
Ixii OUR MORAL WEAKNESS. 
 
 already, and requiring nothing so much as to be 
 dealt with straightly and honestly. It seems 
 as if we had forgotten that evil is a present 
 burden, crushing men to death ; as if we thought 
 it had some distant prospect of becoming a bur- 
 den, when punishment should have been inflicted 
 for it. We do not seem to believe that good is a 
 good now, only that it may prove to be so here- 
 after, when a certain amount of pleasure has been 
 appended to it. But if such maxims as these be 
 adopted, what is called heart-preaching must be- 
 come a very poor trade indeed — as poor as the 
 moral preaching of the times gone by. For what 
 heart is it that you speak to ? Not one seek- 
 ing in ignorance and confusion a something to 
 embrace that it may rise out of itself, looking 
 amidst a thousand images to find the perfect 
 object of love which it has need of. You do 
 not believe that there is such a heart as this in 
 your fellow-man, otherwise you could at once 
 present the pure and righteous object to it. But 
 you are holding converse with a creature which 
 must be persuaded by certain devices of rhe- 
 toric, by arguments of fear, or arguments of 
 hope, not to neglect its own interest — not to be 
 lost when it has the means of being saved. If 
 indeed, these words, ' lost' and ' saved,' were con- 
 nected with moral death and moral life, with 
 slavery and freedom, none might be better. 
 But if they have lost this stamp, another of a 
 
MEN CRAVE TO BE MADE RIGHT. Ixiii 
 
 very low and earthly kind becomes gradually 
 impressed upon them ; they merely awaken that 
 selfishness we are sent to fight against. The 
 more we foster this selfishness, the more ut- 
 terly dead becomes the man whom we are 
 to move. Our words may be tolerated, because 
 they niean nothing to him. But his farm and his 
 merchandize must be the real things in his 
 mind ; all his notions of losing and saving belong 
 to these, and interpret themselves by these. 
 Then, because the case seems so hopeless, we 
 must bring new machinery to bear upon it. 
 And if at last we cannot subdue the worldliness 
 of men by calling it forth, we think we may 
 at least make some impression upon the nerves 
 of women ; in the dialect of some popular 
 preachers the aifections and the nerves seem 
 to be convertible terms. 
 
 Yet we are not left without witnesses of the 
 truth, that a righteous state, and deliverance 
 from an evil one, is that which men long for ; 
 and that the promise of tliis, set directly before 
 them, is more eflficacious than all arguments ad- 
 dressed to their self-interest. The temperance 
 movement in Ireland, and even in England and 
 America, if we will but look fairly at the liis- 
 tory of it, is decisive upon this point. All kinds 
 of evidence have been produced to prove how 
 much harm comes from drunkenness ; what are 
 the advantages and blessings of sobriety. And 
 
Ixiv EVIDENCE THAT THE CLERGY 
 
 if the greatest change in this kind had been 
 wrought in a sagacious calculating nation, there 
 might be some pretence for the opinion (though, 
 I think, a very poor one) that besotted men had 
 heard this evidence, had felt the force of it, 
 had weighed it against the present temptation, 
 had deliberately entered upon a new scheme of 
 life. But when the people which really aban- 
 dons its evil habits is one proverbially uncalcu- 
 lating, incapable of tracing the relation between 
 acts and their results, we are compelled, whether 
 we will or no, into another hypothesis, which is 
 equally applicable to both cases. We must be- 
 lieve that it is the sense of present degradation 
 and wrong which makes the preacher's word 
 intelligible ; that it is the feehng ' there is a 
 truer state, and it is the one I am meant for,' 
 which makes his promise of a divine help and 
 deliverance seem most reasonable. A man fast 
 bound within the meshes of an evil habit, which 
 holds him the faster the more he strives to ex- 
 tricate himself, feels there is a dignus vindice 
 nodus; that he must and may look for a divine 
 rescue. This faith he has, and it is an honest 
 and true one. If Father Mathew, or any one 
 else, do on any occasion abuse it, or devise 
 stratagems to make it stronger, I am sure that 
 he does a wicked and foolish thing, which ulti- 
 mately defeats his own object. But to attribute 
 the great work he has been effecting, whether 
 
NEED TO BE MORAL TEACHERS. IxV 
 
 it be permanent or transitory, to the falsehood 
 which may have mingled with his truth, and not 
 to the truth, seems to me ridiculous as well as 
 wrong. The Irish people, be it remembered, 
 are used to all the machinery of religious ter- 
 rors. Curses from the altar they may hear every 
 Sunday ; the beUef of a mysterious divine power 
 which is to do them good, to raise them out of 
 evil, this they wanted ; and the effects of it, 
 when it was imparted, are not greater than any 
 one might expect who behoves in the divine 
 government of the world. Those effects must 
 undoubtedly disappear, if the principle which 
 produced them do not work also in other direc- 
 tions — if the people are not led to seek truth in 
 their other words and acts, truth in their inward 
 parts. But I am speaking simply as to the 
 nature of these effects, and what they indicate 
 respecting the object we should propose to 
 ourselves, and which we should believe that 
 all divine influences are conspiring to accom- 
 phsh. 
 
 A book, then, which leads us to think about 
 the foundations of morality may be very help- 
 ful to those who desire to cultivate a heart-reli- 
 gion in themselves or in others; not by turning 
 them away from their proper pursuit, or mode- 
 rating their zeal in it, but by giving more clear- 
 ness and substance to their thoughts, and by 
 teaching them better to understand the kind of 
 
Ixvi THEY MUST RE POLITICIANS ALSO. 
 
 beings with whom they have to deal. Their 
 guides in this path were, it should be remem- 
 bered, brought up in the moral discipline of the 
 last age, and however they may have despised 
 it, they profited by it. Far indeed am I from 
 thinking that this discipline would be sufficient 
 for our wants. The Christian teacher in this 
 day finds feelings stirring about him, which, in 
 the days of his fathers, were almost dormant. 
 It is not only in the schools, or among the upper 
 classes, that political questions have taken the 
 place of purely moral ones. The labourer or 
 mechanic, in the days of Wesley, had felt that 
 he was a clod, and learnt to believe that he was 
 a spirit; the poor man now feels that he is in 
 some way connected with a society which is 
 either owning him as a member, or treating 
 him as an outcast. The difference is immense. 
 Would that our young clergy understood it, or 
 were in the way to understand it ! AVould 
 that they had that free intercourse with then" 
 poorer countrymen, which would enable them 
 to know what thoughts are actually awake in 
 them — what they are actually seeking after ! 
 Or why do I say, of our poorer countrymen? 
 What a blessing it would be if we had a free, 
 open fellowship with any class ; if any men did 
 not think themselves bound, in compliment to us, 
 to suppress all the deep thoughts of their minds, 
 and to parade before us only what is most shal- 
 
NEED OF SYMPATHY AND HONESTY. Ixvii 
 
 low and artificial. What a hateful privilege it 
 is thus to be cut off from real communion with 
 the very creatures whom we are appointed to 
 help — wdth whose sorrows, conflicts, tempta- 
 tions, w^e ought to have greater sympathy than 
 all other people. What a dark opinion the 
 privilege rests upon, that we do not really be- 
 lieve the things we speak, and that it is very 
 rude and wrong to make us sensible of our un- 
 comfortable and insincere position. At all events, 
 let us determine that this opinion shall have no 
 foundation ; let us shew that we believe it is 
 good for ourselves, and for all men, to be de- 
 tected in w hatever is fiilse and wrong, and not 
 to hide it ; that we know the falsehood is in 
 ourselves, and not in our position ; that we feel 
 that to be a perpetual assertion of what is real 
 and substantial, against what is conventional and 
 shadowy ; that in order to be true to it, we feel 
 we must be true in ourselves. AVhich considera- 
 tion brings us back to the same point as before. 
 We must learn first to believe that personal mo- 
 rality is not a thing of modes and accidents ; 
 then we shall feel that social life is equally solid; 
 then, with these two convictions, w^e may speak 
 boldly to the affections and understandings of 
 our countrymen : knowing that we have some- 
 thing to set before them which is worth their 
 having, and for which they will not find a sub- 
 stitute elsewdicre. 
 
 e2 
 
Ixviii RELIGIOUS EUD^MONISM. 
 
 VI . When I spoke of a tendency among our- 
 selves to bribe men with promises of happiness, 
 or to terrify them with threats of punishment, 
 instead of recognising at once a deeper want, 
 and a deeper evil, of which they are conscious, 
 or may become conscious, I did not mean that 
 there was no similar weakness in the last age. 
 I have already noted instances of it in two men 
 of first-rate wisdom and excellence, Berkeley 
 and Butler, and though I cannot discover any 
 equally flagrant offences in this treatise of Law, 
 I am far from saying that he is entirely free 
 from the habit of mind which gave rise to them. 
 In many passages of his answer to Mandeville 
 he speaks of Happiness as the great end of all 
 man's aims and strivings. Now Happiness in 
 his nomenclature is the satisfaction of all man's 
 capacities and necessities, the order and har- 
 mony of his being ; in other words, it is the 
 right state of a man ; all jarring, confusion, dis- 
 order, being the necessary result, or rather the 
 exponent of wrong. Such a view of happiness 
 excludes the notion, that the great thing which 
 a man has to desire, is some consequence or 
 reward or superadded bliss ; it makes the right 
 or righteous state of a man, whatever that may 
 be, identical with his felicity. The dispute, 
 therefore, might seem to be one of words, and 
 so in a sense it is. But what need was there 
 for the word? Why did one so clear and 
 
FIRST OCCASION OF IT IN THE LAST AGE. Ixix 
 
 logical, so anxious to assert moral principles, 
 feel himself oblio:ecl to use a form of lan2:uao:e, 
 which apparently — yes, and for his readers 
 really — has the effect of substituting some other 
 end for the moral end ? , 
 
 The question is a very important one : the 
 answers to it, 1 think, are two. First, he felt 
 that morality to be good at all must be good for 
 mankind — where by good I mean practically 
 available. He did not wish to exclude any 
 human creature from the benefits which be- 
 longed to the race. But he had no experience 
 to tell him that men generally can be more 
 affected by a higher principle than by a lower 
 one : apparently, the evidence was in favour of 
 the opposite conclusion. And therefore he would 
 tolerate a flaw in his own reasoning, and some- 
 thing like a general degradation of the species, 
 rather than seem to set up a high rule, which 
 only a few could acknowledge. This, I think, 
 is one apology for a kind of language which 
 seems, at first sight, more inconsistent in these 
 professed moralists than it would be in other 
 men. But, if what I have said already be true, 
 this defence is taken away from us. We have 
 no pretext for looking upon the poorest and 
 worst of our fellow-creatures as more suscep- 
 tible of influences from mean or secondary prin- 
 ciples, than from the higher. We have direct 
 and accumulated evidence to the contrary. All 
 
IXX THE SECOND OCCASION. 
 
 appeals to the people are testimonies that the 
 more you look upon them as open only to sordid 
 arguments, the less you will prevail ; that the 
 more you address them as human beings, nay, as 
 having a direct relation to that which is above 
 humanity, the more you will move them. Thus 
 the case is the same here as in physical science; 
 each fresh experiment brings out some ascer- 
 tained truth into clearer manifestation, and 
 makes unnecessary some of the webs of specu- 
 lation and fancy which men have woven for 
 themselves about it. But I cannot help perceiv- 
 ing another reason, too, which I think operated 
 upon these great men. They felt that moral prin- 
 ciples are altogether different from mere rules 
 and maxims of conduct — that they are not ab- 
 stractions at all, but realities. But how are 
 they to be realised ? How establish practically 
 the distinction between a principle and a rule, a 
 mere dead sentence and a living law ? The 
 answer, of course is, ' Let it be embodied, let it 
 be seen in life.' But men whose special pro- 
 vince it was to discover the law in its strict- 
 ness and completeness, had a natural dread of 
 determining its strength by instances in which it 
 only came out partially and confusedly. Or it 
 would be more correct to say, their habit of 
 mind, both from its excellences and defects, was 
 unfavourable to personality. Now it seems very 
 natural, that persons labouring under the diffi- 
 
EUD^iMONISM OF THIS AGE. Ixxi 
 
 culty I have described, feeling the impotency 
 of mere principles in their naked form — or ra- 
 ther feehng that in that form they were not 
 properly speaking principles, living roots of liv- 
 ing acts — should seek to make up for this de- 
 ficiency by appending certain promises of plea- 
 sure or happiness to these principles, trusting 
 that these would be links by which they might 
 attach themselves to the heart. 
 
 But the religious teachers who followed 
 these moralists were altogether personal ; they 
 spoke to each man not about laws, but about 
 himself: it was a personal object which they 
 continually presented to his affection and trust. 
 Why then does the same necessity exist for 
 them ? The necessity, I apprehend, arises in this 
 way. Personality has its own corrupt tendency, 
 a tendency to make the person addressed regard 
 himself as a centre, and so look upon all acts of 
 grace and condescension as done for his sake. 
 When this state of mind has reached its height, 
 the Being whom he professes to trust in and 
 adore is no longer contemplated as the perfect 
 Form of beauty and loveliness which the heart 
 craves for, and by beholding which it can 
 alone be exalted. He is regarded — the word 
 must be spoken, for the profaneness lies in 
 the thing, and not in the description — simply 
 as an Agent, an instrument to confer cer- 
 tain benefits upon his creatures. And these 
 
Ixxii THEOLOGY. 
 
 benefits will be measured by the creature's 
 own notion of things : it is not the benefit of 
 being raised up to see the perfect standard, and to 
 be fashioned after it — for the standard has been 
 lost, the man has become his own standard — but 
 it is the getting something which he calls Hap- 
 piness, the escape from something which he 
 calls Suffering. I have no words to express my 
 sense of the moral feebleness, the degradation 
 of the Christian, and of the national character, 
 which this mode of contemplating the hopes and 
 promises of religion seems threatening to pro- 
 duce in us. 
 
 If these opposite causes seem to have led 
 to the same result, it is evident there can be no 
 escape from this danger into the moral notions 
 of the last age. But we may derive good from 
 that aoje if we learn to connect their strong: 
 sense of a moral law and principle with our 
 desire to see everything embodied and made 
 personal. It is from this union alone, I believe, 
 that we can hope for a sound and manly The- 
 ology. Much has been said of late about the 
 distinction between scientific and popular theo- 
 logy, and the importance of not confounding 
 them. In the sense in which these words are 
 used, I have no doubt the caution may be a 
 valuable one. Men in general need not be 
 troubled with criticism, and are not competent 
 to understand it. But if we follow the analogy 
 
THE UNION OF PRINCIPLES AND PERSONALITY. Ixxiii 
 
 of other studies, I imagine that the mere cri- 
 ticism of facts, of words, or of sources, though 
 it may be an important aid to science, can never 
 be said to constitute it. A Science of Mature 
 must, in its highest sense, be a knowledge of the 
 Powers and the Laws of nature, or of some meet- 
 ing point in which Law and Power become one. 
 The Science of Man must be the knowledge of 
 the Laws under which Humanity exists, and of 
 the Powers appertaining to it. And surely, in 
 Theology the same must hold true. It cannot be 
 some one of the operations leachng to this knoAV- 
 ledge, but that whereto they all lead, which 
 deserves the name. But I cannot believe that 
 this knowledge has need to separate itself more 
 widely from that which is popular and belongs 
 to all. It seems to me that coldness and dry- 
 ness on the one side, confusion and idolatry 
 on the other, have been the eifects of this sepa- 
 ration, and that the sooner it is terminated 
 the better. The notion of its necessity I fear 
 has proceeded from the feehng that poor men 
 want certain helps and apphances to make them 
 decent, or well-behaved, or good, but that they 
 do not need the knowledofe of the hvino^ and 
 true God ; that this is altogether above them ; 
 that in place of it they must be content with a 
 religion. Now it seems to me that every day 
 is confounding this notion ; is teaching us that 
 every man everywhere is in peril of atheism, 
 
Ixxiv 
 
 THE SCHOLAR SEEKING TRUTH. 
 
 and that the deepest knowledge of all, that 
 which, we are told, is eternal life, is that of 
 which every man everywhere is in want. If 
 this knowledge be Theology, in its simplest, 
 truest sense, and every part of theology points 
 to this as explaining its meaning and its relation 
 to every other part, then is it a living science, 
 which sustains, connects, crowns all others ; a 
 science for the attainment and diffusion of which 
 it is worth while to live and die. If this be 
 theology, the method of it must be living and 
 wonderful, like that to which it leads, and in 
 which it terminates. He who leads the heart 
 and reason of man into it, and gives lowhness, 
 and courage, and hope to move along in it, 
 must Himself be living, and mysterious, and 
 divine. And dreary, jejune, without a centre, 
 without an end — a system, not a science — must, 
 I think, be all theology which is not of this 
 kind. Safe, indeed, will it be from all popular 
 sympathy ; whether it is taught or untaught, 
 believed or rejected, must seem to acting work- 
 ing men a matter of profound indifference. But 
 what more precious uses has it for the man of 
 most earnest study, of deepest meditation? Being 
 nearer to the tree, more within reach of its 
 fruits, having pined more for them, he under- 
 stands better than all others their dryness, 
 bitterness, rottenness. From his inmost soul 
 will burst again the " leider audi Theologie" 
 
THE MULTITUDE SEEKING LIFE. IxXV 
 
 of Faust, as the last and highest expression of 
 sadness and discontent, signifying how a series 
 of profitless, hopeless studies, find in this their 
 clhnax — how when this is reached, the result of 
 all is known to be nothingness. And yet when 
 he ventures from the cave to the market-place, 
 he may almost persuade himself that the wares 
 which are exposed there have even less of sub- 
 stance than that raw material of them which he 
 has examined in his solitude. For there the 
 abstractions which had presented themselves to 
 him as naked skeletons are painted and dressed 
 out, the hollow sockets filled with eye-balls, the 
 shapes made to move by some impulse not their 
 own, a semblance of sense, even of speech, 
 given to them, multitudes ready to fall down 
 and worship them. A sad alternative if he 
 must indeed choose between acknowledged death 
 and the counterfeits of life ! A profitable com- 
 parison if it leads him to reflect that what is 
 demanded here is demanded also there ; that 
 what he was hungering and thirsting to find, 
 amidst the dry bones of theological systems, was 
 Righteousness, the Absolute Truth — that wliich 
 actually is ; that what men are hungering and 
 thirsting after, amidst these idols, is still Right- 
 eousness : only they can teach him that tliis 
 Perfect Righteousness is worth nothing, is no- 
 thing, unless it dwell in a Living Being, to whom 
 they are related ; he can teach them that this 
 
Ixxvi 
 
 SEARCH FOR UNITY. 
 
 Being loses that very perfection, which their 
 hearts seek for, when they form him after their 
 image, instead of behoving that they are formed 
 after His. And thus, in discovering the needful 
 reconciliation between what is popular and what 
 is scientific, he realises the necessary and eter- 
 nal connexion between moral science and theo- 
 logical science, as well as between moral practice 
 and the idea of a Perfect Being ; he feels how 
 each is destroyed by the effort to put them 
 asunder. 
 
 VII. I admit, however, that there is another 
 idea in some sense higher than this, which, in 
 this day especially, will be continually presenting 
 itself to us. In all directions we shall find men 
 searching after unity, endeavouring to connect 
 all the objects of their thoughts and feelings 
 together, to fuse the different elements of so- 
 ciety into one, to establish a harmony in the 
 sciences, to exhibit all schemes and systems of 
 religion as portions of a great whole or as indi- 
 cations of a wish to form one. No one can hold 
 much converse with his fellow-men without per- 
 ceiving that this tendency is at work in one di- 
 rection as much as in another. No one can know 
 himself without being aware that it is at work 
 in him — I think, without feehng that he would 
 be wrong to stifle it. But no one also can help 
 seeing that in pursuit of this object men are 
 disposed to obliterate all distinctions — to make 
 
ITS CONNEXION WITH RIGHTEOUSNESS. IxXvii 
 
 a desert, and call it peace — to combine all dis- 
 cords, and call them harmony — to establish a 
 unity in which there shall be no centre. Now 
 the protection from these perils is in our laying 
 a firm moral foundation, before we enter upon 
 this question of unity ; in our recognising the 
 eternal opposition of right and wrong as a start- 
 ing point ; in our confessing a Righteous Being 
 as the ground of our life, and the object of our 
 hopes. Then the idea of unity will gradually 
 unfold itself in a form which will be satisfactory 
 to the reason, without insulting the conscience 
 and moral feelino-s. Theoloo-y will feel that it is 
 capable of meeting this class of our wants and 
 feelings, that it can reveal the true idea of unity, 
 and that this idea connects itself with all human 
 relationships — interprets them, glorifies them. 
 
 In the assurance that it is his vocation thus to 
 come into contact with all that is most real and 
 practical, that a revelation from Heaven proves 
 itself by the light it throws upon the earth, the 
 theological student will tremble while he reflects 
 how much confusion he may be the means of 
 introducing into other studies, and into human 
 life. In the notion which has formally received 
 the sanction of some great names, and which 
 has secretly incorporated itself with much of our 
 popular divinity, that the words which express 
 characteristics of the Divine Being may possibly 
 have an altojxether different sio:niflcation in that 
 
IxXViii HOW THEOLOGY MAY DESTROY MORALITY, 
 
 application from the one wliich they bear when 
 they are used respecting human agents, he will 
 discover a root out of which all uncertainties 
 and contradictions in every region of thought 
 may naturally develop themselves. How plau- 
 sible the opinion is — how readily it commends 
 itself to the heart which does not like to retain 
 God in its knowledge, and is glad to substitute 
 for Him, even to its own bitter cost, a power 
 utterly arbitrary, imposing rules which have no 
 counterpart in itself, making Right, not being 
 Right — how hard it is to shake oif the dreadful 
 vision, when once it has been contemplated, and 
 to rise into the confession of One whom we may 
 call our Father, describing by that name a real, 
 not an imaginary relation — he will know too 
 well, from his own history, and from the history 
 of the world. But the necessity of the eman- 
 cipation he will equally have learnt from both, 
 as well as the impossibihty of morahty, on the 
 other hypothesis, being anything but a dream — 
 the assertion that we are made in the image of 
 God a monstrous fiction. Once sanction the 
 doctrine that there is, or can be, a diversity in 
 kind between the mercy and justice of the per- 
 fectly Merciful and Just, and the mercy and jus- 
 tice which He begets in his creatures, and these 
 words become mere counters, upon which we 
 may put any value, or traffic with in any way 
 we please. It is idle, then, to seek for any re- 
 
OR BE ITS SAFE FOUNDATION. Ixxix 
 
 latlon between social acts or principles and In- 
 dividual acts or principles ; all the anomalies of 
 the world easily assume the character of laws ; 
 the theory that Private Vices are Public Benefits, 
 may be just as sound and rational as any other. 
 Determine, on the contrary, to maintain that 
 He is light, and in Him is no darkness at all, 
 and that the pure essential hght is the source 
 of every ray of it which has ever cheered the 
 universe, and the fancy that any of the lower 
 forms which refract it can change its nature, is 
 rejected as simply impossible. There cannot be 
 so deep a conviction in the mind of any man, 
 that the same law rules the motions of the pla- 
 nets, and the flight of an insect, as there must 
 be that the Eternal Righteousness and Law 
 which dwell in the heart of the Creator, do 
 alone hold human society together, and declare 
 what at every moment of his life each of us is 
 meant to be. 
 
 I may seem to have wandered very far from 
 the book which has given occasion to these re- 
 marks ; but I have never consciously forgotten 
 it, or my purpose, which was to shew that the 
 subject, and the principle of it, very greatly 
 concern us, whatever bo the course of thought 
 to which we have devoted ourselves. I now 
 leave the reader to a wiser Guide. 
 
EEMAEKS UPON A BOOK ENTITLED 
 THE FABLE OF THE BEES. 
 
 Sir, 
 
 I HAVE read your several compositions in 
 favour of the vices and corruptions of mankind, 
 and hope I need make no apology for pre- 
 sumino" to offer a word or two on the side of 
 virtue and religion. 
 
 I shall spend no time in preface, or general 
 reflections, but proceed directly to the examina- 
 tion of such passages as expose moral virtue 
 as a fraud and imposition, and render all pre- 
 tences to it as odious and contemptible. 
 
 Though I direct myself to you, I hope it 
 will be no offence if I sometimes speak as if I 
 was speaking to a Christian, or shew some ways 
 of thinkmg that may be owing to that kind of 
 worship which is professed amongst us. Ways 
 of thmkino- derived from revealed religion are 
 much more suitable to our low capacities, than 
 any arrogant pretences to be wise by our own 
 lio^ht. 
 
 Moral virtue, however disregarded in prac- 
 tice, has hitherto had a speculative esteem 
 amongst men ; her praises have been celebrated 
 1 
 
remaeks ox the 
 
 by authors of all kinds, as the confessed beauty, 
 ornament, and perfection of human nature. 
 
 On the contrary, immorality has been 
 looked upon as the greatest reproach and tor- 
 ment of mankind ; no satire has been thought 
 severe enough upon its natural baseness and 
 deformity, nor any wit able to express the evils 
 it occasions in private life and public societies. 
 
 Your goodness would not suffer you to see 
 this part of Christendom deluded with such false 
 notions, of I know not what excellence in virtue, 
 or evil in vice ; but obliged you immediately to 
 compose a system (as you call it) wherein you 
 do these three things. 
 
 1st. You consider man inerely as an 
 animal, having, like other animals, nothing to 
 do but to follow his appetites. 
 
 2dly. You consider man as cheated and 
 flattered out of his natural state by the craft 
 of moralists, and pretend to be very sure that 
 the moral virtues are the political offspring 
 which flattery begot upon p)ride. 
 
 So that man and morality are here both 
 destroyed together ; man is declared to be only 
 an animal and morality an imposture. 
 
 According to this doctrine, to say that a 
 man is cUshonest, is making him just such a 
 criminal as a horse that does not dance. 
 
 But this is not all, for you dare further 
 affirm in praise of immorality, that evil, as 
 
FABLE OF THE BEE3. 
 
 luell moral as natural, is the solid basis, the 
 life and support of all trades and emj^loyments 
 luithout exception; that there we must look for 
 the true origin of all arts and sciences ; and 
 that the moment evil ceases, the society must 
 he spoiled, if not dissolved^. 
 
 These are the principal doctrines which with 
 more than fanatic zeal you recommend to your 
 readers ; and if lewd stories, profane observa- 
 tions, loose jests, and haughty assertions, might 
 pass for arguments, few people would be able 
 to dispute with you. 
 
 I shall begin with your definition of man. 
 As for my part, say you, without any compli- 
 ment to the courteous reader, or myself, I be- 
 lieve^ man {besides skin, flesh, bones, ^c. that 
 are obvious to the eye) to be a coinpound of 
 various passions, that all of them as they are 
 provoked, and come uj)permost, govern him by 
 turns, whether he ivill or ow ~. 
 
 Surely this definition is too general, because 
 it seems to suit a ivolf, or a bear, as exactly as 
 yourself, or a Grecian philosoplier. 
 
 You say, you believe man to be, &c. Now 
 I cannot understand to what part of you this 
 believing faculty is to be ascribed ; for your de- 
 finition of man makes him incapable of believing 
 any thing, unless behoving can be said to be a 
 passion, or some faculty of skin or bones. 
 
 ^ p. 428. ^ introduction. 
 
 1—2 
 
REMARKS ON THE 
 
 But supposing such a belief as yours, be- 
 cause of its blindness, might justly be called a 
 passion, yet surely there are greater things con- 
 ceived by some men than can be ascribed to 
 mere passions, or skin and flesh. 
 
 That reach of thought, and strong pene- 
 tration which has carried Sir Isaac Newton 
 through such regions of science, must truly be 
 owing to some higher principle. Or will you 
 say, that all his demonstrations are only so 
 many blind sallies of passion ? 
 
 If man had nothing but instincts and pas- 
 sions, he could not dispute about them ; for to 
 dispute is no more an instinct or a passion, 
 than it is a leg or an arm. 
 
 If therefore you would prove yourself to 
 be no more than a brute, or an animal, how 
 much of your life you need alter I cannot tell, 
 but you must at least forbear writing against 
 virtue, for no mere animal ever hated it. 
 
 But however, since you desire to be 
 thought only skin and flesh, and a compound 
 of 2^c(^ssions, I will forget your better part, as 
 much as you have done, and consider you in 
 your own way. You tell us, that the moral 
 virtues are the p)olitical offspring which flat- 
 tery begot upon pride^. 
 
 You therefore, who are an advocate for 
 moral vices, should, by the rule of contraries, 
 
 • p. 87. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 
 
 be supposed to be acted by humility ; but that 
 being (as I think) not of the number of the 
 passions, you have no claim to be guided by it. 
 
 The prevailing passions which you say 
 have the sole government of man in their turns, 
 are pride, shame, fear, lust, and anger ; you 
 have appropriated the moral virtues to joride, 
 so that your own conduct must be ascribed 
 either to fear, shame, anger, or lust, or else to 
 a beautiful union and concurrence of them all. 
 
 I doubt not but you are already angry 
 that I consider you only as an animal, that 
 acts as anger, or lust, or any other passion 
 moves it, although it is your own assertion 
 that you are no better. But to proceed. 
 
 Sagacious moralists, say you, draiu men 
 like angels, in hopes that the pride at least 
 of some will put them upon copying after the 
 beautiful originals, luhich they are represented 
 to be\ 
 
 I am loth to charge you with sagacity, 
 because I would not accuse you falsely; but if 
 this remark is well made, I can help you to 
 another full as just, viz. That sagacious advo- 
 cates for immorality draiu men like brutes, 
 in hopes that the depravity at least of some 
 luill p)ut them upon copying after the base 
 originals, luhich they are represented to be. 
 
 The province you have chosen for yourself, 
 2 p. 38. 
 
b REMARKS ON THE 
 
 is to deliver man from the sagacity of moralists, 
 the encroachments of virtue, and to replace 
 him in the rights and privileges of brutality ; 
 to recall him from the giddy heights of rational 
 dignity, and angelic likeness, to go to grass, or 
 wallow in the mire. 
 
 Had the excellence of man's nature been 
 only a false insinuation of crafty politicians, the 
 very falseness of the thing had made some 
 men at peace with it ; but this doctrine coming 
 from heaven, its being a principle of rehgion, 
 and a foundation of solid virtue, has roused up 
 all this zeal against it. 
 
 And God said. Let us make man in our 
 own image, after our likeness. 
 
 This was a declaration of the dignity of 
 man's nature, made long before any of your 
 sagacious moralists had a meeting. As this 
 doctrine came thus early from heaven, so in 
 the several ages of the world God has had his 
 oracles and prophets, to raise men's thoughts 
 to their first original ; to preserve a sense of 
 their relation to God, and angehc natures, and 
 encourage them to expect a state of greatness 
 suitable to that image after which they were 
 created ; to assure them, that they that sleep 
 in the dust of the earth shall aivake, some to 
 everlasting life, and some to shame ami ever- 
 lasting contempt. Ami they that he luise shall 
 shine as the brightness of the firmament, and 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 7 
 
 they that turn many to righteousness, as the 
 stars for ever and ever^. 
 
 The last revelation which God has made to 
 the world, by his Son Jesus Christ, is greatly- 
 glorious in this respect, that it has more per- 
 fectly brought life and immortahty to light ; 
 that it turns our thouo'hts from the low satis- 
 factions of flesh and sense, to press and aspire 
 after the deathless state of greatness, where 
 we shall be as tlie angels of God. 
 
 It is not therefore the sagacity and 
 cunning of any philosophers that has tricked 
 men into notions of morality, as a thing suit- 
 able to a pretended dignity of nature within 
 them. 
 
 But it is God himself who first declared 
 the excellence of human nature, and has made 
 so many revelations since, to fill men's minds 
 with high and noble desires suitable to it. 
 
 Before I proceed to consider your Enquiry 
 into your Origin of Moral Virtue, I shall take 
 notice of the apology that you make to Jews 
 and Christians. 
 
 You are sensible that what you have said 
 is inconsistent both with the old and new testa- 
 ment, and therefore thus excuse yourself to 
 your scrupulous reader. 
 
 That in your enquiry into the origin of 
 moral virtue, you speak neither of the Jews 
 1 Dan. xii. 2, 3. 
 
(S REMARKS ON THE 
 
 nor Christians, hut man in his state of nature 
 and ignorance of the time Deity ^. 
 
 The absurdity of this apology will appear 
 from hence : Let us suppose that you had been 
 making an enquiry into the origin of the world, 
 and should declare that it arose from a casual 
 concourse of atoms, and then tell your scru- 
 pulous reader, by way of excuse, that you did 
 not mean the world which Jeivs and Christians 
 dwell upon, but that w^hich is inhabited hy man 
 in his state of nature and ignorance of the 
 true Deity. Could any thing be more weak 
 or senseless than such an apology ? Yet it is 
 exactly the same as that which you have here 
 made. 
 
 For the difference of Jew or heathen no 
 more supposes or allows of two different origins 
 of morality, than it supposes or allows of two 
 different origins of the world. »^^- , 
 
 For as the creation of the world was over, 
 and OAving to its true cause, before the existence 
 of either Jeiu or heathen, so morality was in 
 being, and sprung from its proper source, be- 
 fore either Jew or heathen came into the world. 
 And consequently neither the origin of the one 
 or the other admits of any different account, 
 because in the after ages of the world some 
 people were called Jews, and others heathens. 
 Besides, if you contradict the rehgion of Jews 
 
 ^ p. tib. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 
 
 and Christians, in your account of morality, is 
 it less a contradiction, or less false, because you 
 pretend that your face was turned towards 
 Pagans ? 
 
 If you was to assert that there was no God, 
 or true religion, could it be any excuse to say 
 that you w^as speaking to a Mahometan ? 
 
 2dly. To defend your account of the origin 
 of morality, you suppose man in a state of na- 
 ture, savage and brutal, without any notions of [ 
 morality or ideas of religion. 
 
 Now this very supposition is so far from 
 being any apology for you, that it enhances 
 your accusation : for you suppose such a state 
 of nature (as you call it) as the scripture makes 
 it morally impossible that men should ever have 
 been in. , 
 
 When Noah's family came out of the ark i 
 we presume they were as well educated in the i 
 principles of virtue and moral wisdom as any j 
 people were ever since ; at least, we arc sure 
 they were well instructed in the true rehgion. 
 
 There was therefore a time when all the 
 people in the world were well versed in moral 
 virtue, and worshipped God according to the 
 true religion. 
 
 He therefore that gives a later account of 
 the origin of moral virtue, gives ^ false account 
 of it. 
 
 Now as all parts of the world were by 
 
10 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 degrees inhabited by the descendants of such 
 ancestors as were well instructed both in religion 
 and morality, it is morally impossible that there 
 should be any nation of the world amongst 
 whom there were no remains of morality, no 
 instances of virtue, no principles of rehgion de- 
 rived from their ancestors. 
 
 At least it is absolutely impossible for you 
 to shew that there was any such nation, free 
 from all impressions of rehgion and morality. 
 This you can no more do than you can shew 
 that all the world are not descended from 
 Adam. 
 
 So that your origin of moral virtue sup- 
 poses a state of man which the scriptures make 
 it morally impossible ever to happen, and which 
 it is absolutely impossible for you to shew that 
 it really did ever happen. 
 
 But supposing some of the posterity of 
 Noah, in some corner of the world, should have 
 become so degenerate as to have not the least 
 remains of virtue or rehgion left among them ; 
 and suppose some philosophers should get 
 among them, and wheedle and flatter them 
 into some notions of morality ; could that be 
 called an account of the origin of moral virtue, 
 when moral virtue from the beginning of the 
 world had been practised and taught by the 
 virtuous ancestors of such a depraved offspring? 
 
 To make the taming of some such supposed 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 11 
 
 savage creatures the origin of morality, is as 
 just a way of thinking, as to make the history 
 of the curing people in Bedlam a true account 
 of the origin of reason, 
 
 3dly. Your apology to your scrupulous 
 reader, as if your origin of morality related 
 not to Jews or Christians, is false and absurd. 
 
 Because the observations which you have 
 made upon human nature, on which your origin 
 of moral virtue is founded, are only so many 
 observations upon the manners of all oixlers of 
 Christians. It is their falseness, hypocrisy, 
 pride, and passion, that have induced you to 
 consider morality as having no rational foun- 
 dation in man's nature, but as the political off- 
 spring which flattery begot iq:)on pride. 
 
 And yet you, good man, are not talking 
 about Christians or Jews. 
 
 But every page of your book confutes that 
 excuse, and indeed needs must ; for how should 
 your observations relate to any but to those 
 people whose natures and practices have fur- 
 nished you with them ? 
 
 / have, say you, searched through eveft^y 
 degree and station of men ; at last you tell us, 
 you went to the convents, but even there you 
 found that all was^arce and hypocrisy^. 
 
 You tell us also, that whoever searches thus 
 deep into human nature, will lind that moral 
 
 ' p. 2G3. 
 
12 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 virtue is the ijolitical offsjwhig which flattery 
 begot upon pride. Yet this searching into all 
 orders of men, into convents, and from thence 
 making this discovery, that morality is all owing 
 to pride and policy, is not pronouncing any 
 thing upon Christians. 
 
 Nothing can be more weak than to form 
 your opinion of human nature upon the tem- 
 pers and practices of all orders of Christians, 
 and then pretend you are only treating of man 
 in such a state of nature as you never saw one 
 in in your life. 
 
 For how can your observations upon men 
 under the power of education, custom, laws, and 
 religion, tell you what man is in a supposed 
 state where all these are wanting ? 
 
 Or will you say that you are acquainted, 
 and intimately acquainted with men, so entirely 
 divested of all the ideas of religion, morality, 
 and virtue, that you can make their natures a 
 true specimen of man in his most savage, brutal 
 condition ? 
 
 Though your knowledge of human nature 
 was great, yet you was forced, it seems, to visit 
 the convents, before you could pronounce any 
 thing of them. It seems therefore necessary, 
 in order to know what creatures men are in a 
 state of brutality, destitute of all sense of God 
 and virtue, that vou should know where to visit 
 them. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 13 
 
 Again, this apology of yours happens to 
 be inconsistent with the first and main principle 
 upon which your fine discourse is founded : I 
 mean your definition of man, whom you define 
 to be, besides skin, flesh, and hones, 8>lg. a com- 
 pound of various passions. This is the vile, 
 abominable, false, proud animal, that you treat 
 of under the name of man. In your excuse 
 you tell us, this is man only in a state of nature ; 
 but in your introduction you tell us, that to 
 forbear complimenting, that definition belongs 
 both to yourself and the courteous reader. 
 
 So that you must either allow, that you and 
 your courteous readers are all savages, in an 
 unenhghtened state of nature, or else that the 
 man you have described belongs to all orders 
 of Christians. 
 
 Having shewn the weakness and folly of 
 your apology, I proceed now to your more par- 
 ticular account of the origin of moral virtue. 
 
 You are pleased to impute its origin to 
 pride alone, that having the same cause as fine 
 clothes ; we may wear as much, or as little, or as 
 we please, without incurring any greater offence 
 than a little variation in dress. 
 
 If p7'ide be the only foundation of virtue, 
 then the more vicious any one is, the more 
 humble he ought to be esteemed ; and he who 
 is the most humble is at the greatest distance 
 he can be placed from moral virtue. And a 
 
] 4 REMAKKS OX THE 
 
 perfect humility (which by most morahsts has 
 been reckoned a virtue) must, according to this 
 account, render any one incapable of any virtue ; 
 for such a one not only wants that which you 
 make the only cause of virtue, but is possessed 
 of the contrary quality. 
 
 Having carefully considered human nature, 
 you have at last discovered, that the moral 
 virtues are the political offspring which flat- 
 tery begot upon p)^'ide. 
 
 You are so fond of this discovery, that you 
 cannot help shewing us how you made it. 
 
 The first moralists or jDhilosophers, say you, 
 thoroughly examined all the strength and 
 frailty of our nature, and observing that none 
 were either so savage, as not to be charmed 
 with praise, or so despicable as 2^<^ti^ntly to 
 bear contempt, justly concluded that flattery 
 must be the ^jowerful argument that could be 
 used to human creatures} 
 
 What a graphical description is here ! One 
 would think that you had been an eye-witness 
 to all that passed, and that you had held the 
 candle to those first philosophers when they 
 were so carefully peeping into human nature. 
 You do not love to dwell upon little matters, or 
 else you could have told us the philosopher's 
 name who first discovered this flattery, how 
 long he looked before he found it, how he 
 
 ' p. 29. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 15 
 
 proved it to bo agreeable to pride, -what dis- 
 putes happened upon the occasion, and how 
 many ages of the world had passed before this 
 consultation of the philosophers. 
 
 But, however, you pass on to more material 
 points : They, say you, (that is the philoso- 
 phers,) making use of this hewitchiiig engine, 
 extolled the excellence of our nature above other 
 animals. Having by this artful luay of flat- 
 tery insinuated themselves into the hearts of 
 men, they began to instruct them in the notions 
 of honour and shame ; — they laid before them 
 hoiu unbecoming it luas the dignity of such 
 sublime creatures to be solicitous about grati- 
 fying those apjjetites ivhich they had in com- 
 mon with brutes, «&c. 
 
 This you take to be a sufficient proof that 
 the moral virtues are the jwlitical offsjyring 
 which flattery begot upon jwide. 
 
 I can go no further till I present you with 
 a fine speculation of an abstract thinker upon 
 the origin of the erect posture of mankind. 
 
 " It was his opinion, that the nearer we 
 search into human nature, the more we shall 
 be convinced, that walking upon our feet with 
 our body erect was the p>olitical offspring 
 ivhich flattery begot upon p^ride. 
 
 " The first legislators, says he, having ex- 
 amined the strength and weakness of man's 
 body, they discovered that he was not so top- 
 
16 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 heavy, but that he might stand upright on his 
 feet; but the difficulty was, how to raise him up. 
 
 " Some philosopher, more sagacious than the 
 rest, found out, that though man crept on the 
 ground, yet he was made up of pride, and that 
 if flattery took hold of that, he might easily be 
 set on his legs. 
 
 "Making use of this bewitching engine, they 
 extolled the excellence of his shape above other 
 animals, and told liim what a grovelling thing 
 it was to creep on all four, like the meanest 
 animals. 
 
 "Thus did these first philosophers shame 
 poor man out of his natural state of creeping, 
 and wheedled him into the dignity and honour 
 of walking upright, to serve their own ambitious 
 ends, and that they might have his hands to be 
 employed in their drudgery." 
 
 This gentleman, being deeply learned in the 
 knowledge of human nature, has much the same 
 curiosities concerning the organ of speech, and 
 the first invention of truth, which he thinks, 
 upon a strict research into nature, may very 
 justly be ascribed to pride and flattery. 
 
 But to return to your history. The next 
 thing your philosopher did was this : 
 
 In order to introduce an emulation 
 amongst men, they divided the whole s^oecies 
 into two classes, vastly differing from one 
 another. The one consisted of vile, grovelling 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 17 
 
 wretches, luhich they said ivere the dross of 
 their kind, and having only the shape 0/ men, 
 differed from brutes only in their outiuard 
 figure ; hut the other class of men luere made 
 up of high-spirited lofty creatures^. 
 
 Chronology and geography, I presume, are 
 studies not pohte enough for your attention, or 
 else I suppose you would have told us the time 
 when and the place where all this happened. 
 
 For it is material to know what the world 
 was doing before these philosophers made this 
 division ; whether before this there was any 
 fear of God, any belief of a providence, any 
 duty to parents, any sense of equity, any 
 notions of faith, or any regard to truth. 
 
 For if the enquiry was about the origin of 
 seeing, or hearing, and you should be ever so 
 exact in telling me the manner how some cun- 
 ning philosophers first brought that matter to 
 bear, I should be very scrupulous about it, 
 unless you told me the time when and the 
 place where they met, what they were doing 
 before, how they came thither, and how they 
 knew when they were there. 
 
 Now there is just this same difficulty in 
 your account of the origin of moral virtue. 
 
 For, let me tell you, sir, moral virtue came 
 amongst men in the same manner as seeing 
 and hearing came amongst them. 
 
 1 p. 30. 
 2 
 
18 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Had there ever been a time when there 
 was nothing of it in the world, it could no 
 more have been introduced, than the faculties 
 of seeing and hearing could have been contrived 
 by men who were blind and deaf. 
 
 Were not the first principles and reasons 
 of morality connatural to us, and essential to 
 our minds, there would have been nothing for 
 the moral philosophers to have improved upon. 
 
 Nor indeed can any art or science be 
 formed, but in such matters as where Nature 
 has taken the first steps herself, and shewn 
 certain principles to proceed upon. 
 
 Perspective supposes an agreement in the 
 different appearances of objects. Music sup- 
 poses a confessed perception of various sounds, 
 and moral philosophy supposes an acknow- 
 ledged difference of Good and Evil. 
 
 Were we not all naturally mathematicians 
 and logicians, there would be no such sciences ; 
 for science is only an improvement of those 
 first principles or ways of thinking which 
 Nature has given us. 
 
 Take away the mathematician's postidata, 
 or those first elements and principles of reason, 
 which are allowed by the common sense of 
 mankind, and were philosophers even as cun- 
 ning as yourself, they must give up all the 
 science. 
 
 Do but suppose all to be invented, and 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 19 
 
 then it will follow that nothing could be in- 
 vented in any science. 
 
 It is thus in all sciences : the rationahty of 
 our nature contains the first rules or princi- 
 ples, and it is the speculation of man that builds 
 and enlarges upon them. 
 
 As the mathematician, seeing the acknow- 
 ledged differences and proportions of lines and 
 figures, proceeded upon them to enlarge men's 
 knowledge in such matters ; so the moral phi- 
 losophers, seeing the acknowledged difference be- 
 tween Right and Wrong, Good and Evil, which 
 the common reason of man consented to, they 
 proceeded to enlarge and improve upon them. 
 
 So that their labours are but speculations 
 and harangues upon those common principles 
 of morahty, which were as connatural to the 
 reason of man, as the first principles of any 
 other science. 
 
 Moral j^hilosoph^ may be compared to 
 eloquence ; it is an improvement upon the com- 
 mon reason of man, as eloquence is an improve- 
 ment upon speech. 
 
 Now should some connoisseur take it into 
 his head to inquire into the origin of speech, 
 and tell the world, " That once upon a time, 
 some orators, seeing that man had something in 
 his mouth by the movement of which he could 
 make a particular sound, they told him of the 
 dignity and honour of uttering such sounds, 
 
20 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 and so through the pride of his nature taught 
 the animal to speak, though in reaUty it was 
 neither natural to him, nor anv true excellence; 
 but ambitious men flattered him into it, that he 
 might be the fitter to go on their errands." 
 
 Should any profound thinker give this ac- 
 count of the origin of sj^eech, you would have 
 a right to say that he had stole the discovery 
 from you, who have given us just the same false 
 and ridiculous account of the origin of morality. 
 
 For it is full as reasonable to make elo- 
 quence the origin of forming articulate sounds, 
 as to make the harangues or labours of moral 
 philosophers the origin of moral virtue. 
 
 Could it be supposed that an understanding 
 so fine as yours could be conveyed to your 
 descendants, and that you should ever have a 
 grandson as wise as yourself, it may be 
 expected that he will be able to teach that 
 generation of men that seeing was first intro- 
 duced into the world by Sir Isaac Newton's 
 treatise upon ojytics. 
 
 To enquire into the origin of moral virtue, 
 is to enquire into the origin of reason, truth, 
 and the relations of things. 
 
 And to fancy that some politicians contrived 
 moral virtue, is to fancy that some pohtician 
 contrived reason and truth, and invented the 
 difference between one action and another. 
 
 There is nothing that began to be, but 
 
FARLE OF THE BEES. 21 
 
 what may be destroyed or cease to be ; but as 
 truth and reason can never cease to be, so it 
 imphes a contradiction in terms for truth and 
 reason ever to have had a beginning. 
 
 It is the same in moral virtue, which is 
 truth and reason considered in relation to 
 actions ; and the difference between one action 
 and another is as immutable and eternal as 
 the difference between one line and another, 
 and can no more be destroyed. 
 
 As things are different by their own proper 
 natures, independent of our wills, so actions 
 have their own peculiar qualities from them- 
 selves, and not from our thoughts about them. 
 In these immutable quahties of actions i? 
 founded the fitness and reasonableness of them., 
 which we can no more alter, than we can change 
 the proportions or relations of lines and figures. 
 
 And it is no more the j9riVZe of man that 
 has made this difference between actions, than 
 it is the pride of man that makes the difference 
 between a circle and a square. 
 
 Moral virtue therefore, if considered in 
 itself as the rule or law of intelligent beings, 
 had no origin ; that is, there never was a time 
 when it began to be ; but it is as much without 
 beginning as truth and goodness, which are in 
 their natures as eternal as God. 
 
 But moral virtue, if considered as the 
 object of man's knowledge, began with the first 
 
22 EEMARKS ON THE 
 
 man, and is as natural to him as it is natural 
 to man to think and perceive, or feel the differ- 
 ence between pleasure and pain. 
 
 For his rational nature as much implies 
 a fitness to perceive a difference in actions as to 
 right and wrong, as it implies a fitness to per- 
 ceive a difference in things as to great and 
 small, pleasing or painful. 
 
 It may now be enquired, whether this moral 
 virtue be our laiv, and how it appears that we 
 are under any obligations to behave ourselves 
 according to this difference of right and ivrong 
 that appears in actions. 
 
 Now the reasonableness and fitness of 
 actions themselves is a law to rational beings, 
 and the sight of that reasonableness carries an 
 obligation. 
 
 The different magnitude of things is a reason 
 to us to acknowledge such difference ; and he 
 that affirms any thing contrary to the sight of 
 his mind, offends against the law of his nature. 
 
 The different nature of actions is a reason 
 for us to act according to such differences, and 
 he who does any thing contrary to the sight of 
 hLs mind in that respect, sins against the law of 
 his nature. 
 
 Now that this is not an imaginary obliga- 
 tion, or a law fancied by morahsts, may appear 
 from hence ; that this is a law to which even the 
 Divine nature is subject ; for God is necessarily 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 23 
 
 just and good, not from any external force, but 
 from the excellence of justice and goodness. 
 Reason is His law, because it is reason. That 
 therefore which is a law to God because of its 
 excellence, must surely be a law to all beings 
 whom He has created capable of discerning that 
 excellence. For if the reason or excellence of 
 the thino' be of sufficient force to determine 
 the action of God, certainly it ought not to be 
 thouo'ht too little to determine us in our actions. 
 
 I^or can that be said to be an imao:inarv 
 speculative law to inteUigent beings, which is an 
 inviolable law to the most perfect intelligent 
 nature. 
 
 2dly. It is the will of God that makes moral 
 virtue our law, and obliges us to act reasonably. 
 
 If you ask how this will of God appears, I 
 must beg leave at present only to suppose that 
 God is of infinite justice, and goodness, and 
 truth ; and then the thing proves itself : for 
 such a God must necessarily will that all his 
 creatures, in their several proportions, be just, 
 and good, and true. 
 
 Few mathematical demonstrations conclude 
 stronger than this. There is only one objection 
 to be made against it, which is to suppose that 
 God is neither just nor true. 
 
 If rather than yield, you will put the Ejn- 
 curean upon me, and say that God may disregard 
 us, and neither will one way nor the other ; it 
 
24 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 may be answered, that this is inconsistent with 
 the idea of God just laid down : for a God of 
 infinite goodness and truth can no more fail to 
 will goodness and truth in every instance, than 
 an infinite being can fail to be present in every 
 place, or an omnipotent being be deficient in any 
 acts of power. So that it is absolutely neces- 
 sary to say, either that God is not of infinite 
 goodness and truth, or to allow that he requires 
 all his creatures in their several capacities to be 
 just, and true, and good. 
 
 Here, sir, is the noble and divine origin of 
 moral virtue; it is founded in the immutable re- 
 lations of things, in the perfections and attributes 
 of God, and not in the 'pride of man, or the 
 craft of cunning poHticians. 
 
 As the reasons and obligations to moral 
 virtue have always been in being, so has man- 
 kind always had sight of them ; it being as 
 essential and natural for a rational being to 
 perceive these differences or actions, as it is for 
 an extended being to occupy space. 
 
 And the creation of a rational nature as 
 much implies a sight of the reasonableness of 
 Jhings, as the creation of an extended being 
 implies its possession of so much space. 
 
 Matter of fact also supports this observation ; 
 for history tells us of no age or country where 
 men have not agreed to ascribe justice, goodness, 
 and truth, to the Supreme Being. 
 
FAELE OF THE BEES. ZO 
 
 Now this shews that they always not only 
 knew what goodness, justice, and truth were, 
 but also that they took them to be such excellent 
 qualities as ought to be ascribed to the highest 
 and best Being;. 
 
 How monstrous is it, therefore, to impute 
 these fine moral virtues to the contrivance of 
 politicians, when all ages of the world have 
 agreed to ascribe them to God, and number 
 them amongst his glorious attributes ! 
 
 God is just ; therefore there is such a thing 
 as justice, independent of the will and con- 
 trivance of man, is a way of reasoning that 
 cannot be refuted. 
 
 It is in vain to say, that there may be a 
 divine justice and goodness, and yet what we 
 call goodness and justice amongst men may be 
 only a human contrivance. 
 
 For to this it may be answered, that we 
 cannot ascribe any thing to God of which we 
 have not some conception ourselves. Did we 
 not perceive some degrees of wisdom, we could 
 not call him all-wise; did we not feel power, 
 and understand what it is, we could not ascribe 
 omnipotence to God. For our idea of God is 
 only formed by adding infinite to every per- 
 fection that we have any knowledge of. 
 
 So that had we not from the rationality of 
 our nature as plain a sight of justice, goodness, 
 and truth, as we have of poxver^ existence, or 
 
26 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 any thing else, we could not attribute tliem to 
 God. 
 
 That we are rational beings, is as plain as 
 that we have bodies and bodily senses. As 
 there is no man so refined and elevated but 
 gives frequent proof that he is subject also to 
 instincts and passions; so there is no one so 
 addicted to an animal life as to shew no signs 
 of an higher principle within him. 
 
 It is this rationality of our nature that 
 makes us both capable of, and obliged to prac- 
 tise, moral virtue, and brings us into a kind of 
 ^' society with God and all other intelhgent beings. 
 For our reason gives us a share in that 
 common light which all intelligent beings enjoy, 
 and by making us partakers of the same things, 
 so far makes us of one society. 
 
 By our reason we know some truths wliich 
 God and all intelligent beings know, and ap- 
 prehend some perfections, and different qualities 
 in things and actions, which all intelligent beings 
 apprehend. 
 
 Now by being let into this region of truth, 
 by being able to see some truths which God 
 also sees, and to know some perfections which 
 he also knows, we are as plainly declared to be 
 rational beings, and that reason is one law of 
 our nature, as the principles of flesh and blood 
 shew us to be animals, and subject to the in- 
 stincts of an animal life. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 27 
 
 For how weak is it to suppose that the 
 animal hfc should be the foundation of laws of 
 nature, so as to make it fit for us to act agree- 
 able to its wants and desires ; and that the 
 rationality of our being s, which is, in some de- 
 gree, a likeness to God, should be the founda- 
 tion of no laws of nature, so as to make it fit 
 for us to act suitable to its perfection and hap- 
 piness ! 
 
 The short is this, truth and reason is the 
 law by which God acts ; man is, in some de- 
 gree, made a partaker of that truth and reason ; 
 therefore it is a law to him also. The more 
 we act according to Order, Truth, and Reason, 
 the more we make ourselves like to God, who is 
 truth and reason itself. 
 
 This is the strong and immoveable founda- 
 tion of moral virtue, having the same certainty 
 as the attributes of God. 
 
 Away then, I beseech you, with your idle 
 and profane fancies about the origin of mo^^al 
 virtue. For once turn your eyes towards 
 heaven, and dare but own a just and good 
 God, and then you have owned the true origin 
 of religion and moral virtue. 
 
 Thus much will, I presume, be thought suf- 
 ficient to vindicate the excellence and obliga- 
 tions of moral virtue from the false and impious 
 accounts you have given of its origin. 
 
 I proceed to consider, in the next place, 
 
28 REMARKS OX THE 
 
 some other methods that are made use of to 
 render moral virtue odious and contemptible. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 The most boasted objection against the 
 reahty of virtue which is urged by men, who 
 appropriate the knowledge of human nature to 
 themselves, is this, that no action is performed 
 by us through a love of goodness, or upon a 
 rational principle of virtue ; but that it is com- 
 j)lexion, natural temper, education, jjride, 
 shame, or some other blind impulse that moves 
 us in all our actions that have the appearance 
 of virtue. Thus a man who relieves an object 
 of compassion, only gratifies his commiserating 
 temper; he is subject to pitg, tvhich is a frailty 
 of our natures, and of which the vjeakest minds 
 have generally the greatest share, as may be 
 seen in women and children^. Again, the 
 humblest man alive, say you, must confess, 
 that the reward of a virtuous action, which is 
 the satisfaction that ensues iqwn it, consists 
 in a captain pleasure he produces to himself in 
 contemplating his own worth ; which pleasure, 
 together with the occasion of it, are as certain 
 signs of pride, as looking pale and trembling 
 
 1 p. 42. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 29 
 
 at any imminent danger are the symjJtoms of 
 fear~. 
 
 IS'ow, sir, if this be a true account of the ' 
 humblest man alive, then, by the rule of con- 
 traries, this must be a true account of the proud- 
 est man alive, that the satisfaction he enjoys 
 in being so, consists in a certain pleasure he 
 procures to himself by contemplating his own 
 vileness. 
 
 This accurate description you have given 
 us of the p)leasure of the humblest man alive, 
 must be owing to such a feeling sense as the 
 blind man had of light, vrho being asked what 
 it was like, answered, that it was like the sound 
 of a trumpet. 
 
 But to consider this charge against human 
 virtue, that it is notliing but education, natural 
 temper, or complexion ; this being so laboured 
 a point, I shall state the whole matter as clearly 
 as I can. 
 
 1st. It is granted that an action is only \ 
 then virtuous when it is performed, because it I 
 is agreeable to reason, and those laws which 
 God requires us to observe. 
 
 Now this virtue is man's duty, not as a task 
 that is imposed upon him, but as it is the only 
 practice that is the natural pleasure and proper 
 good of his bcinc:. 
 
 Virtue ha vino- that natural fitness to a ra- 
 
 o 
 
 '^ p. 43, 
 
-^ 
 
 30 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 / tional soul that fine sights have to the eye, or 
 harmonious sounds to the ear. 
 
 A rational being is in order, in its right 
 state and frame, when it is acting reasonably. 
 
 The infinite goodness of God makes him in- 
 finitely happy, and the perfection of every being 
 is its happiness; and the greater and more per- 
 fect the virtue of any one is, the more perfect 
 is his happiness. 
 
 Now it is here to be observed, that an ac- 
 tion is not less virtuous, or loses any of its ex- 
 cellency, because the soul is delighted and made 
 happy by it ; for it is the very nature of virtue 
 to produce such eifects, and it shews the recti- 
 tude of the soul when it can act virtuously with 
 dehght, and feel its happiness in so doing. 
 
 This is being virtuous upon principle, and 
 through a love of goodness; for goodness is 
 loved for itself, when it is loved for what it is, 
 the true good and proper delight of a rational 
 being. "' 
 
 Now will any one say that there is no ex- 
 cellence in virtue, that it is mere nature and 
 temper, because it is so agreeable, so proper to 
 our rational natures ? Then let him say there 
 is no excellence in the goodness and justice of 
 God, because they are so suitable to his nature, 
 and constitute his happiness. 
 
 Granting therefore that virtue was its own 
 reward, as it elevates and perfects the soul, and 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 31 \ / 1 ^-f 
 
 keeps it in a state of right enjoyment, it would 
 not be the less reasonable on that account. 
 
 For happiness is the only reasonable end of 
 every being. 
 
 An action is not good, or virtuous, because 
 it is self-denial, but because it is according to 
 duty ; and he who through long habits of good- 
 ness has made the practice of virtue to have 
 less of self-denial in it, is the most virtuous 
 man. 
 
 Now it is no objection against the recdity 
 of goodness, that as rational beings we are na- 
 turcdly and comj^lexionalli/ disposed to practise 
 and dehght in it ; or that this natural dispo- 
 sition may by exercise, meditation, and habit, j 
 be heightened and increased. ■ 
 
 For custom, habit, and natural temper, are 
 proper assistances of our most virtuous actions, 
 and cannot be said to make them less reasonable, 
 unless it be a fault or imperfection to be habi- 
 tually and strongly disposed to goodness. 
 
 Thus much therefore is true of us considered 
 only as rational beings ; that we must even in 
 that state be by nature and temper formed to 
 perceive pleasure, from some particular ways of I 
 acting ; and that the very excellence of our na- 1 
 tures consists in a fitness and disposition for 
 virtuous actions, which the more we improve 
 and strengthen by meditation and habit, the j 
 more reasonable we make ourselves. 
 
32 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 , It has pleased God in the formation of man 
 ISO to unite this rational nature to a hody of 
 iflesh and blood, that they shall generally act to- 
 Igether ; and that the soul shall as well be influ- 
 ienced by bodily instincts, and motions of the 
 Iblood and spirits, as by its own thoughts and 
 I reflections. 
 
 Thus, a dehghtful thought conceived ever 
 so secretly in the mind, shall, at its first con- 
 ception, have the blood and spirits join in the 
 pleasure. 
 
 \ So that every right judgment of the mind, 
 Vevery proper aversion, or regular love, has as 
 much the concurrence of the blood and spirits, 
 as if they were the only agents. 
 
 The body being thus visibly an agent in all 
 that we do, has made some weak heads imagine 
 that we are nothing else but body ; as from the 
 same want of thought some have concluded that 
 there is nothing besides the material world, be- 
 cause nothing else is obvious to their eyes. 
 I The soul being thus united to the body, no 
 I act of the man is less reasonable or virtuous, 
 because it has the concurrence of the blood and 
 spirits ; for this was the intention of the union, 
 Ithat a creature of such a form should exert its 
 (instincts and passions in conformity to reason. 
 
 I For instance, suppose any one should medi- 
 tate upon the attributes and perfections of God, 
 (till the great idea had raised and w^armed his 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. S3 
 
 Spirits ; though the reflection is then supported 
 by the agitation of bodily spirits, yet the medi- 
 tation is not less religious, or less devout, or 
 reasonable, because the heat of bodily spirits 
 assisted in it. 
 
 Suppose any one should so often reflect 
 upon an eternal state of darkness and separa- 
 tion from God, till his blood and spirit join in 
 increasing the horror ; such an horror would 
 not be less reasonable, because the body joined 
 in keeping it up. 
 
 The mechanical influence which our spirits 
 and temperament have upon our actions does 
 not take away from the reasonableness of them, 
 any more than the rational frame of our minds, 
 which is naturally disposed to acquiesce in the 
 reason of things, destroys the reasonableness of 
 actions. 
 
 As it would be no excellence in a pure 
 thinking being to be equally inclined to truth 
 or falsehood ; so it would add no merit to such a 
 mixed nature as ours is, if our bodily tempera- 
 ments were neither more or less inclined to, or 
 delighted with, one sort of actions than another. 
 
 Let us only suppose that a rational soul 
 and an animal nature were united to act in a 
 state of personality. 
 
 It cannot be that the reasonableness of its 
 actions should be impaired by the body's ap- 
 pearing to have a share in them, because it does 
 3 ^ t 
 
34 KEMARKS ON THE 
 
 not act according to its nature, unless the body 
 
 1 does concur ; and in such a mixed beinof it is 
 
 no more required that its actions should be per- 
 
 j formed abstractly by pure reason, than it is 
 
 ■ allowed that its motions should be merely animal. 
 
 Yet this is the false judgment wliich men 
 
 who are not the greatest friends of virtue make, 
 
 because the influence of the animal nature is 
 
 visible in the best of men ; and because such 
 
 enquirers generally converse intimately only with 
 
 the worst, they rashly conclude against all force 
 
 of principle, and deny reason to have any share 
 
 in our actions. 
 
 From what has been said we may easily 
 support the reality of virtue from all the ob- 
 jections of these critics upon human nature. 
 / For granting the force of education, the 
 power of custom, and the influence of our bodily 
 instincts and tempers ; yet nothing can thence 
 be concluded against the share that reason and 
 principle are required to have in our actions. 
 
 For both reason and religion direct us to 
 use the influence and assistance of all these 
 helps ; and consequently they no more lessen 
 or take from the reality of virtuous actions, 
 when we are assisted by them, than fasting or 
 prayer make our piety less excellent, because 
 it was assisted by them. 
 
 And it is as suitable to our natures to 
 streno'then and establish our virtue, bv edu- 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. S5 
 
 cation, custom, complexion, and bodily instincts, 
 as it is suitable to religion " to improve and 
 heighten it by fasting and prayer. 
 
 And he who savs that such or such actions 
 have no principle of virtue or religion in them, 
 because they are made easy by education, 
 temper, and practice, thinks as weakly as if 
 he should affirm that such actions have no 
 reaUty of principle in them, because they are 
 the effects of meditation and habits of attention ; 
 for good habits of body no more lessen the ex- 
 cellence of virtue than good habits of mind. 
 
 An action is virtuous because it is an obe- 
 dience to reason and the laws of God, and 
 does not cease to be so, because the body is 
 either formed by use, or created by disposition, 
 easy and ready for the performance of it. 
 
 A good education would be a sin, if the 
 benefit that is received from it, or the facihtv 
 of performing good actions, took away from 
 their goodness. 
 
 JN'ay, all habits of virtue would, upon this 
 foot, be blameable, because such habits must be 
 supposed to have rendered both body and mind 
 more ready and exact in goodness. 
 
 All these absurdities necessarily follow from 
 this argument, that there is no virtuous princi- 
 ple in our good actions, because custom, edu- 
 cation, temper, and complexion, have their share 
 in them. 
 
 3—2 
 
 / 
 
o 
 
 6 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 2ndly. This objection against the reality of 
 virtue is rather a calumny than any just charge 
 against it. 
 
 For as it is as certain that we think and 
 j reason, as that we are subject to bodily instincts 
 [and habits, nothing can prove that our reason 
 I and reflection do not principally concur in any 
 j action, but the impossibility of it. He there- 
 j fore that would prove that my mind does not 
 ;act upon a principle of reason, where he thinks 
 that temper or complexion may carry me 
 through it, can never prove it till he can shew 
 I that there was no principle of reason, no proper 
 "Tmotive, no precept of duty; toK move me to it ; 
 f'^for if there be a plain reason in the thing, if 
 there be a precept of duty to excite my mind, 
 as well as a natural disposition in my temper 
 to perform the action, it is impossible for the 
 most penetrating genius to prove that my tem- 
 j^erament had a greater share in the action 
 than the reason of my mind ; and consequently 
 this objection is a mere calumny, and an ill- 
 natured suspicion, which can never prove itself 
 to be justly made. 
 
 Now, that reason is the chief principle in 
 the performance of good actions, may, in some 
 degree, be learnt from hence, that reasonable 
 and wise actions never occasion any sorrow or 
 repentance in the mind ; but, on the contrary, 
 in violent actions, where the fermentation of 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 37 
 
 the blood and spirits may be supposed to have 
 bhndly hurried on the action, that fermentation 
 is no sooner abated, but there arises a pain in 
 the mind, and reason condemns the action ; which 
 condemnation chiefly consists in this, that reason 
 had not the guidance of it ; which is a plain 
 confession that it is the way of our nature to 
 have reason govern the instincts and motions of 
 the spirits, and that she shrinks and is uneasy 
 at those actions where she was not the principal 
 agent. 
 
 If therefore actions only satisfy and content 
 us by being approved by our reason, it is a 
 manifest proof that our reason is the principal 
 agent in our good actions. 
 
 Nor will it be any objection to this to say 
 that many people are satisfied with false notions 
 of virtue and rehgion ; for this only shews that 
 the principle of reason may be weak, and of 
 very little discerning force in some people ; but 
 still it is their faculty of reason, such as it is, 
 that gives them peace when it presides ; and 
 it is living contrary to reason that gives them 
 pain, as it gives pain to others who enjoy a 
 more enhghtened mind. 
 
 If the religious Turk abhors the abomi- 
 nation of wine, it cannot be said that such 
 abhorrence is only the eff*ect of temper, bodily 
 instincts, and custom, unless it could be shewn 
 that he would equally abhor it, though he 
 
38 REMARICS ON THE 
 
 was fully persuaded that Mahomet was a 
 cheat. 
 
 From this account of human nature we 
 may be able to reject all those reproaches 
 which are cast upon virtue and religion, as if 
 they were never founded upon any rational 
 principle, but were the casual blind effects of 
 custom, education, temper, or complexion. 
 
 1st. As it appears that in our rational natures 
 
 we are naturally and complexionally formed to 
 
 practise and dehght in reasonable actions, and 
 
 jjlK. * ithat such a tendency of temper or nature to- 
 
 S ..X wards virtue no more lessens the excellence of 
 
 it than the rectitude of God's natm^e takes away 
 
 the excellence of his actions. 
 
 ! 2ndly. That actions are not less virtuous 
 
 ^for being suitable to any disposition, whether 
 
 I natural or acquired, than for being suitable to 
 
 I the reason of the mind. 
 
 3rdly. That education, custom, habits, 
 complexion, &c. are so far from taking away 
 the reasonableness of our actions, that we could 
 I not be said to act reasonably, unless we endea- 
 voured to make a greater progress in virtue by 
 their assistance. 
 
 4thly. That it is impossible, even in those 
 actions where custom, education, complexion, 
 and habit, seem to be in full power, for any one 
 to prove that reason and principle have not the 
 greatest share in them. , 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. -39 
 
 5thly. That peace of mind, which attends 
 our good actions, is a plain proof of the power 
 which our reason had in the performance of 
 them. 
 
 To come now to a particular instance or two. 
 
 1st. Philo's charity and compassion is no 
 virtue, you say, because it is mere complexion 
 and temper : he gratifies his pity^ and acts in 
 conformity to his blood and spirits. 
 
 Now this is so far from proving that he 
 has not the virtue of charity, that it might be 
 urged as a proof of his having it. 
 
 For his body is in that disposition that it 
 should be, supposing that his mind had been 
 long exercised and endued with habits of cha- 
 rity ; it gives that further pleasure in charitable 
 acts which the right turn of the instincts, and 
 blood, and spirits, should give to the mind in 
 every virtuous action. 
 
 For, as I have observed, man is then in his 
 best state, when the course of the blood and 
 spirits act in concurrence with his reason ; so 
 that when my body, with its instincts and 
 motions, joins with the right judgments of my 
 mind, what I so perform has all the perfection 
 that a human creature is able to exert. 
 
 This complexion therefore, or bodily dispo- 
 sition towards charitable acts, is so far from 
 implying that therefore the mind has no share 
 in the action, that were the mind in its best 
 
.^ 
 
 40 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 state, and in its full power (as at first created), 
 it would use a greater and more constant con- 
 currence of all bodily tempers in the perform- 
 ance of its duty. 
 
 So that when complexion or bodily tempe- 
 rament readily join in the performance of good 
 actions, this is so far from implying any defect 
 of principle, or want of rational motive, that it 
 shews, in some degree, the remains of that 
 primitive rectitude of body and mind before the 
 fall. 
 
 2ndly. To say that Philo's charity is mere 
 complexion, is a calumny and groundless accu- 
 sation ; it is a suspicion as ill-grounded as if I 
 was to suspect that a man had no pride in his 
 mind, because there appeared an haughtiness in 
 his carriage ; or no humihty within, because of 
 a natural lowliness without : it is a suspicion 
 thus founded against all the appearances of 
 truth, and is forced to make those the proofs of 
 the absence of a thing, which are the natural 
 signs of its presence. 
 
 And as it is thus unreasonable, so is it 
 utterly impossible that it should ever justify 
 itself. 
 
 I For seeing it is not only possible, but na- 
 'tural for this complexional disposition to act in 
 conformity to the internal principle of the mind^^ 
 it can never be proved that it does not. 
 
 It can never be proved that reason and 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 41 
 
 religion have not a greater share in Philo's 
 charity, than his complexion. How far some 
 precept of religion, some principle of reason 
 may influence his mind, cannot be known by 
 the most sagacious philosopher ; therefore the 
 charge against his charity, as the mere effect 
 of complexion, must be always ill-natured, un- 
 just, and groundless. 
 
 Further, granting that Philo was complex- 
 ionally disposed to pity and compassion, even 
 before he could be supposed to act upon a 
 principle of virtue and religion, yet even this 
 supposition will make nothing against it after- 
 wards. 
 
 For will any one argue that a man can \ 
 never fear, love, or hate, upon principles of I 
 reason, because children fear, love, and hate, \ 
 before reason is of any force to direct them ? 
 
 Yet this is as wise as to suppose that a 
 man's complexion is never made to concur with 
 a principle of reason, because such complexion 
 appeared before reason could be supposed of 
 sufiicient power to guide it. 
 
 As to what you say, that Pity is as much 
 a frailty of our nature as anger, pride, ^c. : 
 that the weakest minds have generally tlie 
 greatest share of it, for which reason none are 
 more comj^assionate than ivomen and children^ : 
 
 Two things may be observed : first, the 
 
 'p. 42. 
 
i2 REMARKS ON THE -f~- a 
 
 inconsistency of this assertion with the rest of 
 your book. 
 
 Here you derive the compassion of women 
 from a supposed weakness of mind; which sup- 
 poses that their tempers depend upon their 
 minds, and are subject to them, and influenced 
 by them ; though in this very page you make 
 pity to be only an impulse of nature, and it 
 is your chief design throughout your book to 
 shew that all our tempers and passions are 
 mere mechanism and constitution, founded only 
 in the temper and tone of our bodily spirits. 
 
 So that, according to your deep philosophy, 
 pity is only an impulse of nature and bodily 
 temper ; yet women are more pitiful than men, 
 because they have (as you suppose) lueaker 
 mhids. 
 
 That is, their minds, because weak, have a 
 power over their tempers, and form their dis- 
 positions ; but men's minds, being strong, have 
 no such power. 
 
 To what temper of mind such philosophy 
 as this is to be imputed, need not be observed. 
 
 2ndly. To say that women have the lueak- 
 est minds, is saying more than you are able to 
 prove. If they are more inclined to compas- 
 sion, through a tenderness of nature, it is so far 
 from being a lueakness of their minds, that it is 
 a right judgment, assisted, or made more easy, 
 by a happy tenderness of their constitutions. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 43 
 
 And it is owing, perhcaps, to this mahe of 
 their spirits, that they are commonly more af- 
 fected with the truths of religion than the 
 generahty of men are. 
 
 "When our minds are once softened, by what- 
 ever cause it is, we are generally in the best 
 disposition for the impressions of rehgion ; so 
 that j^ity is so far from being as much a frailty 
 as ^^rwZe and anger, that they are as different 
 in their effects as a heart of flesh and a heart 
 of stone, which holy scripture makes as different 
 as a blessing and a curse. 
 
 But to return (if this be a digression) to 
 my subject. 
 
 Let us now further suppose that Philo's 
 charity is greatly owing to his nature and com- 
 plexion ; that the quality of his spirits began 
 the disposition, and helped to recommend this 
 virtue to the mind ; yet may such a virtue be 
 as truly rational and religious as if it had been 
 let into the mind any other way. 
 
 Sickness, poverty, and distress, have a na- 
 tural tendency to correct our folhes, and convert 
 our minds towards our true good. These con- 
 ditions of life may make it as easy for a man 
 to be humble and compassionate as any bodily 
 complexion whatever ; yet is such humility and 
 compassion not to be esteemed void of principle 
 or reason, because such causes contributed to- 
 wards them, and led the mind into them. 
 
44 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 For the mind is acting according to the 
 truest principles of reason and religion when it 
 makes advantage of these external helps, and 
 turns ease and pain, sickness and health, into 
 occasional causes of greater piety. 
 
 Nor is it any more a diminution of the 
 reality of Philo's charity, to say that bodily 
 temper first prepared and inclined his mind 
 towards it, than it is a diminution of the reality 
 of any one's repentance, to say that it was some 
 misfortune or cross accident that first disposed 
 and fitted his mind for it. 
 
 David said, (without fear of destroying the 
 reahty of his piety), It is good for me that I 
 have heen afflicted. 
 
 Now if actions or ways of life may be good, 
 though afflictions contributed towards them, 
 surely they may be equally good, though some 
 bodily tempers proved in some degree the oc- 
 casions of them. 
 
 And it is as consistent with true and real 
 virtue to owe itSj-fise to some bodily constitu- 
 tion or temper, as it is consistent with solid and 
 substantial piety to owe its beginning to some 
 particular calamity or action of God's provi- 
 dence. 
 
 But to proceed : It is further objected that 
 Philo's charity must be mere complexion, and 
 not virtue ; for if it were virtue, he would not 
 allow himself in the neglect of other duties. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 45 
 
 This, again, is a false conclusion ; for a 
 man may perform one duty upon a principle 
 of virtue and sense of duty, and yet, through 
 mistake or negligence, be deficient in others. 
 
 Such great judges of human nature should 
 consider, that even in worldly aifairs a man 
 does not always act up to the same principle in 
 everything he does. 
 
 Will any one say that Avarus does not 
 consider gain when he is making bargains, be- 
 cause at some other times he seems not to value 
 expense ? 
 
 If not, why then must Philo be looked upon 
 as not at all influenced by a sense of duty in 
 his acts of charity, because at some other times 
 and occasions he seems not to be governed by it. 
 
 Our present state is a state of great weak- 
 ness and imperfection, and our reason, weak as , 
 it is, has a thousand impediments to hinder and 
 divert its force. In the aifairs of civil life we 
 are neither perfectly wise nor wholly foolish, 
 and we are almost the same men in the things 
 that relate to God. In some instances reason 
 and rehgion get more power over us, and guide 
 us under a sense of duty ; whilst in other parts 
 of our life it may be very apparent that reason 
 has a less share in our actions. 
 
 But to conclude that reason, or a principle 
 of virtue, does not influence us in any part of 
 our behaviour, because it does not act equally 
 
46 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 and constantly in every other part of our lives, 
 is as absurd as to affirm that we do not tliink 
 at all in any thing that we do, because we do 
 not think with the same exactness or attention 
 in every thing that is done by us. 
 
 If Philo lives in the neglect or violation of 
 some duties, this shews that he is a weak, im- 
 perfect man ; but it does not shew that he is 
 the same weak and imperfect man, and as de- 
 void of any principle of virtue, when he does 
 his duty, as when he neglects it : for it is as 
 possible for him to be charitable upon a princi- 
 ple of duty, and yet fail in some other respects, 
 as it is possible for a man to use his reason in 
 some things, and not in others ; or to reason 
 right in some points, and yield to folly in others. 
 
 So that to impute actions seemingly vir- 
 tuous solely to natural temj^er, or complexion, 
 or some other blind motive, because the man is 
 not uniform in his hfe, is groundless and absurd : 
 all that can with any truth be affirmed of such 
 a man is this, that he is not uniform in his 
 actions, and that, through some mistake or neg- 
 ligence, he is not so careful of his duty in some 
 respects as in others. 
 
 Our understanding and reason, even in 
 matters of mere speculation, are well nigh as 
 weak and inconstant as in points of duty and 
 conscience. 
 
 Few systems of philosophy but obtrude 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 47 
 
 some errors upon us with as much assurance 
 as they affirm the truth : Descartes asserted 
 a plenum ; Sir Isaac Newton has proved a 
 vacuum. 
 
 Now, will any one say that it was not the 
 reason or understanding of Descartes that de- 
 monstrated so many solid truths, because he 
 yielded to falsity and error in the doctrine of 
 a j^^^i^um ? Yet it would be much more rea- 
 sonable to affirm tliis, in matters of mere specu- 
 lation, than to affirm that, in points of practice 
 and duty, a man is in no actions governed 
 by reason and principle, because in some in- 
 stances he acts weakly, and not according to 
 reason. 
 
 For, produce but the true reason why a 
 philosopher may be said to proceed in some 
 speculations according to strict reason and truth, 
 and yet hold some tenets contrary to them, and 
 then you will shew that it is possible, nay, 
 highly probable, that a man may, in some 
 points of duty, act upon a principle of reason 
 and virtue, though in some things he may swerve 
 from them. 
 
 There is, I acknowledge, a great difference 
 in bodily temperaments, so that one man may 
 be born with better dispositions for the practice 
 of some virtues than others, yet it is reason 
 within that is the chief principle that actuates 
 all of them ; for the finest spirits are tilings 
 
48 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 as blind and senseless of themselves as the 
 hands and feet, or the grosser parts of the 
 body. 
 
 Wit and understanding depend much upon 
 bodily temperaments ; yet who is so weak as to 
 imagine that therefore the reason of the mind 
 has no share in arts and sciences ? 
 
 It is the same in virtue, or at least, as to 
 
 some particular virtues ; there may be a kind 
 
 disposition in the animal spirits to produce them, 
 
 [but it is great weakness to suppose that reason 
 
 land judgment have no part in them. 
 
 It is impossible for our stinted capacities to 
 explain or calculate the exact powers that are 
 to be attributed to our souls and bodies in the 
 performance of actions, because we have no clear 
 ideas of them ; but we know enough to affirm 
 the united operation of both, and to shew that 
 he reasons falsely who would ascribe an action 
 wholly to the body, because it appears to have 
 some share in it ; because, supposing it to take 
 its rise wholly from reason, the union of the 
 soul and body requires that the body should 
 appear to have the same part in the production 
 of the action. 
 
 There are nothing more various, impercepti- 
 ble, or more out of our sight, than the motives 
 of human actions. We know no more how ar- 
 guments and ojnnions act upon the mind, or how 
 far they contribute to our choice, than we can 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 49 
 
 tell how far the air, and how far the sun, ope- 
 rates in the growth of plants. 
 
 When a freethinker asserts that our re- 
 ligious belief and persuasions are not at all 
 the causes of human actions, he proceeds upon 
 as good grounds as if he had said that air is not 
 at all the cause of the circulation of the blood. 
 
 For it is as easy to shew that air has no 
 influence upon our bodies, as that reason and 
 opinions have no power over our minds. 
 
 And it is more possible to tell how far the 
 fluids, and how far the solids, in an human 
 body, contribute to bodily action, than it is to 
 affirm how far opinions and judgments, and how 
 far temp>er and complexion, operate in human 
 actions. 
 
 Nay, these gentlemen themselves, to make 
 their philosophy still more ridiculous, are fre- 
 quently wondering at the strange and monstrous 
 contradictions which they think they cUscover 
 in human nature. 
 
 As if they should say, that fincUng human 
 nature to be unaccountable, they therefore take 
 upon them to give certain and positive accounts 
 of its manner of acting. 
 
 I shall be pardoned for insisting so long 
 upon this article, because it is that on wliich 
 some celebrated wits have spent so much pains, 
 to the prejudice of rehgion and morality. It 
 is not easy to imagine the fatal cftccts that 
 4 
 
50 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Mr Bayle's and Esprit's writings have had 
 upon people's minds, by denying the power of 
 reason and religion, and ascribing all human 
 actions to coinplexion, natural temper, &c. 
 
 It is an easy thing to be a wit, and a jM- 
 losopher, if you will but write against religion 
 and virtue ; for I need not say all arguments, 
 but all fancies, are admitted as demonstrations 
 on that side ; and the bolder steps you take, 
 the surer you are of being esteemed a genius. 
 
 Had Mr Bayle filled his books with the 
 most useful, noble truths, he had not had half 
 so many admirers, as for one single sentence 
 which the most thoughtless rake might have 
 said through the mere assurance of his own ex- 
 travagancies. 
 
 Speaking of fornication, I question, says 
 he, whether one man in a hundred is clear of 
 the guilt. 
 
 Could he have said a more extravagant 
 thing, that had reflected more upon morality 
 and the power of religion, he had still been 
 more admired. It is thus that Mr Bayle and 
 Esprit have purchased the esteem and increased 
 the numbers of infidels and libertines. 
 
 These gentlemen are dead, and their ashes 
 safe, if the death of men implies no more than 
 the fall of leaves. 
 
 AYhat reasons you have to appear in the 
 same cause of immorality, or what security you 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 51 
 
 have against the power of God, is, I dare saj, 
 not known to yourself. 
 
 Infidehty and irrcHgion have few topics for 
 reflection ; they have not so much as one argu- 
 ment on their side. 
 
 You can no more shew that you are not 
 immortal, than you can shew what was doing 
 before the creation of the world. 
 
 To fancy that all expires with the body, is 
 as well supported as if you was to fancy that 
 there are no beino's but what are visible to vour 
 eyes. To suppose that man will never be called 
 to an account, is as much to be depended upon, 
 as if you supposed that there will be nothing in 
 being a thousand years hence. 
 
 Yet these are the st7^ong foundations of 
 infidelity and profaneness ; these are the solid 
 principles upon which great jyhilosophers esta- 
 blish deluded (or as they call themselves) yree- 
 t1 linkers. 
 
 A revelation from God, that justifies itself 
 from the creation of the world ; that tells you 
 every truth that a wise man would be glad to 
 hear ; that is supported with all the authority 
 that an omnipotent God can give ; that is con- 
 firmed with all the assurance that human testi- 
 mony can afford, is of no weight against a few 
 bold assertions of weak mortals, who exceed 
 their fellow-creatures only in arrogance and 
 presumption. 
 
52 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 One would imagine, by what has already 
 passed, that you had sufficiently vented your 
 passion upon moral virtue, and that you had 
 hardly any more arrows to draw against it ; but 
 you proceed to shew us that however you may 
 fail in argument, you will never be wanting in 
 inclination to attack it. 
 
 I You set yourself with an air of satisfaction, 
 as if morahty and religion lay at your feet, to 
 \examine into the pulchrum and honestum of the 
 \ ancients ; that is, to enquire whether there be 
 I any real excellence or worth in things, a pre- 
 I eminence of one thing above another^. 
 
 And to shew that there is no such thing as 
 any real worth or excellence in things or 
 actions, but that all is mere whim and fancy, 
 you proceed thus : 
 
 In the works of nature woi^th and excel- 
 lence are as uncertain. How whimsical is the 
 florist ! sometimes the tulip, sometimes the au- 
 ricula, shall engross his esteem. What mortal 
 can decide which is the handsomest, abstract 
 from the mode in being, to wear great buttons 
 or small ones^. 
 
 In morals, say you, there is no greater 
 certainty^. 
 
 ' p. 373. - p. 377. ^ p. 379. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 5o 
 
 So that, according to your philosophy, he 
 who prefers equity to injustice is but hke him 
 that chooses a great button rather than a small 
 one ; and he who prefers fideHty to falseness, as 
 whimsical as the florist who admires the auri- 
 cula more than the tulijy. 
 
 Now if there be only this difference between 
 actions, then there can be no greater difference 
 between agents ; the best of men can only excel 
 the vilest of their race as a tulip may excel an 
 auricula. 
 
 Nay, if truth and falsehood be no otherwise 
 different from one another than as one button 
 differs from another, then it must follow that 
 there can be no greater difference between the 
 author of the one and the author of the other. 
 
 Now, the rehgion of our country tells us 
 that God is truth, and the devil the author of 
 lies. 
 
 This, sir, you see is the direct, immediate 
 blasphemy of your notions, and not drawn from 
 them by any distant or remote consequences. 
 
 And if I should ask you why one should 
 be worshipped rather than the other, I should 
 puzzle your profound philosophy as much as if 
 I asked you which was the finest flower ; for 
 you cannot tell me that one of these beings is 
 really good, and the other really evil, and yet 
 maintain that there is no real goodness in truth, 
 nor any real evil in lies and falsehood. j 
 
54 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 It is utterly impossible to answer this ques- 
 tion, without giving up your uncertainty in 
 morals, and allowing that there is something 
 certain and immutable in the worth and excel- 
 lence of things and actions. 
 
 Should any one charge you with the gross- 
 est villanies and most flagrant immoralities that 
 ever were committed by man, you could have no 
 more pretence to be angry at the imputation 
 than if he had said you was particularly fond 
 of little buttons. 
 
 To proceed: which is the best religion, 
 say you, is a question that has caused more 
 mischief than all other questions together^. 
 
 Religion never comes in your way but it 
 puts you in a passion ; though I dare say you 
 never had any harm by it in your life. This 
 is a heavy charge upon religion, and upon the 
 best religion, for that is it which is enquired 
 after. You charge a great deal of mischief to 
 this enquiry after the best religion, on purpose 
 to enhance, I suppose, your own merit, that you 
 may appear to do a more pubhc good, who en- 
 deavour to destroy the very idea of it. 
 
 But as mischievous as you reckon this en- 
 quiry to be, I am of another opinion, taken 
 from him who made the enquiry necessary, 
 who is God himself. 
 
 Thou shalt have no other God besides me, 
 ' p. 379. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 55 
 
 was setting up the best religion ; and thou shall 
 not make to thyself any graven image, &c. was 
 a determination against paganism. Now I look 
 upon the best rehgion to be a matter of great 
 moment, because God has commanded it ; and 
 take the enquiry after it to be well authorised, 
 because God has forbid all false worship. 
 
 If you like it the worse for having this au- 
 thority, and should be better pleased with religion, 
 if it was some politician's invention, I shall only 
 say, that you are fonder of cheats than I am. 
 
 Again, I do not allow myself to be angry 
 at the enquiry after the best rehgion, because I 
 find that our blessed Saviour came into the 
 world to teach men the best rehgion, and with 
 the highest rewards and punishments to persuade 
 men to seek after and embrace it. This is life 
 eternal, to know thee, the only true God, and 
 Jesus Clirist whom thou hast sent. And again. 
 Go ye and teach all nations, baptizing them in 
 the name of the Father, and of the Son, and 
 of the Holy Ghost ; and lo, I am ivith you 
 alway, even unto the end of the world. 
 
 This convinces me, that the enquiry after 
 the best religion is the noblest, the most happy, 
 and beneficial of all other, because it is an en- 
 quiry after eternal happiness : but since you 
 take it to have done more mischief than all other 
 enquiries, you know now where to charge it; 
 you know who it was that sent twelve apostles, 
 
56 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 endued with resistless power, to persuade all the 
 nations of the world to enquire after, and re- 
 ceive the one best rehgion. "Ask it, say you, 
 {i. e. wliich is the best religion) at Peking, at 
 Constantinople, at Rome, and you will receive 
 three distinct answers, extremely different from 
 one another, yet all of them equally positive 
 and peremptory. Christians are well assured 
 of the falsity of the Pagan and Mahometan 
 suiter stitio7is ; hut enquire of the several sects 
 they are divided into, which is the true church 
 of Christ, and all of them will tell you it is 
 theirs^. 
 
 Then comes your golden conclusion. It 
 is manifest, then, that the hunting after this 
 pulchrum a7id honestum, is not much better than 
 a wild-goose chase, &c. 
 
 Here I observe that, very consistently indeed 
 with yourself, having rejected all moral virtue 
 and natural religion, you treat revelation in the 
 same manner. Christianity and paganism are 
 put upon the same foot, and the enquiry which 
 is the best, esteemed no better than a wild- 
 goose chase, &c. Is this declaration of yours 
 the effect of a serious enquiry into the merits of 
 different rehgions ? That cannot be ; it refxocts 
 too much upon so fine an understanding as yours 
 to suppose that you could ever have been seri- 
 ously chasing of wild geese. 
 
 ^ p. 879. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 57 
 
 The acuteness of your parts must have 
 always prevented the enquiry. You knew, I 
 suppose, ah origine, from your cradle, that there 
 was no God, or you could not have been always 
 so clear about the insignificance of any religion. 
 For if there be a God, it is more than probable 
 that he is to be worshipped, and it is hardly to 
 be supposed that all ways of worship are equally 
 acceptable to him. 
 
 You represent the enquiry after the best 
 religion as a mere ivild-goose chase, because, if 
 the question is put at Peking, Constantinople, or 
 amongst the various sects of Christians, all of 
 them claim the only true worship. 
 
 Now, sir, I will remove the question from the 
 disciples and followers to the authors of these 
 rehgions. You shall put the question thus. Ask 
 Jesus, ask Mahomet, ask some Pagan impostor, 
 and you will receive three distinct answers, ex- 
 tremely different from one another, and yet 
 equally positive and peremptory. 
 
 Will you stand to your conclusion here, that 
 therefore it is madness to concern ourselves 
 more about the one than the other ? 
 
 Is there any creature so absurd as to tliink 
 this an argument against Christ, or that the 
 enquiry after him is folly, because there was 
 one ^lahomet called for disciples ? 
 
 Yet the argument is full as just and cogent 
 against Christ himself as against the religion 
 
58 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 which he has instituted ; for if the religion of 
 Christ and that of Mahomet have nothing to 
 distinguish them, and Christianity is to be ridi- 
 culed and despised, because there is such a 
 religion as Mahometism, then it undeniably 
 follows, that Christ, when on earth, might be 
 justly rejected, because there have been other 
 persons who have pretended to come from 
 God. 
 
 This argument of yours (if it proves any 
 thing) proves it impossible that there ever should 
 be any revelation or rehgion from God, which 
 mankind would be obliged to receive, so long as 
 there were either wicked spirits or wicked men 
 in the world. For evil spirits and evil men will 
 have evil designs, and will oppose the wisdom 
 and providence of God, in setting u]3 ways of 
 religion suitable to their own tempers and de- 
 signs. But according to your argument, no re- 
 hgion has any pretence to our regard, when 
 once it is opposed ; nor need we trouble our 
 heads about the truth of any, because there is 
 more than one that lays claim to it, which is as 
 good sense as if you was to affirm that a lie 
 was a demonstration that there was no such 
 thmg as truth. 
 
 Whereas the very possibility of a false re- 
 ligion implies the possibihty of a true one, as 
 much as falsehood implies the possibility of 
 truth, or wrong supposes right. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 59 
 
 The wisest speech therefore that you can 
 make to your sagacious followers is this : 
 
 •' Gentlemen, I would not have you to eat or 
 drink, because physicians differ very much 
 about diet, and poisons are generally conveyed 
 that way ; nor would I have you take any 
 money, because there is counterfeit coin in the 
 world. 
 
 "There are a great many false accounts of 
 things ; therefore you need not, nay, ought not, 
 to trouble yourselves about any that are true. 
 
 "You may laugh at David, when he says, 
 
 TJie heavens declare the glory of God, and the 
 
 fiynnament sheiveth his handy-iuork ; because 
 
 there is a contrary opinion, a fool that hath 
 
 said in his heart, There is no God. 
 
 " You need not regard Christianity or its 
 divine institution, because there are other re- 
 ligions at Peking and Constantinople ; nor need 
 you worship the true God, because in Egypt 
 they worshipped leeks and onions ; nay, you 
 need not hold that there is any true God, be- 
 cause there are people who have invented false 
 deities. 
 
 " When any history is urged upon you, you 
 may answer, that of Robinson Crusoe is called a 
 true account ; or if any one pretends to be posi- 
 tive on the side of virtue, you may confute his 
 arrogance by saying, it can never be proved 
 that the auricula exceeds the tulip. 
 
60 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 " These are strong and short maxims, which 
 will support you against the wisdom of all ages; 
 they confute whole volumes of prophets and 
 apostles with a word speaking. 
 
 "These are doctrines that require no study 
 or application, and you may believe them to be 
 proper by their fitness for use. You may 
 drink, debauch, eat, and sleep as you please, 
 without hindering your progress in these doc- 
 trines. Luxury and wantonness will improve your 
 readiness ; and your very dulness will make you 
 more acute. 
 
 "Nay, the more you sink into sensuality and 
 the animal life, the more you will feel and relish 
 the truth of these sentiments. Though you are 
 to fly from all appearance of truth, and avoid 
 all concern about any rehgion, as you would 
 avoid the folly of chasing of wild geese ; yet 
 you must remember that you are my scholars: 
 for I am an abstract thinker, and in these my 
 abstract speculations you must be my diligent 
 and dutiful scholars. Though Christianity may 
 be despised, because other rehgions are set up 
 against it, yet you must value me the more for 
 being contrary to the wisest men of all ages in 
 the world. 
 
 "Though there is nothing certain or valuable 
 in religious truths, though moral virtue is the 
 offsjwing of pride, the invention of philosophers, 
 and all mere whim and fancy ; yet my specula- 
 
FABLE OP THE BEES. 61 
 
 tions having the utmost contrariety to all that 
 is virtuous, moral, or religious, you may safely 
 put your whole trust and confidence in them." 
 
 This is the best speech that you can pos- 
 sibly make to your deluded followers ; and I 
 dare say, if your principles would allow of 
 greater stupidity or dulness, you would not 
 be without a party, who, to avoid salvation, 
 would join with an enemy to virtue, merely for 
 the sake of his cause. 
 
 The infidelity of the present age is very 
 great, and shews such a contempt of sacred 
 things, as was hardly ever heard of before. 
 
 If one enquires into the grounds of it, it 
 seems founded on such an implicit faith reposed 
 in men of wanton and sensual minds, as is 
 looked upon to be mean and slavish, when 
 yielded to the highest evidence in matters of 
 the last moment. 
 
 To believe Moses and the prophets, is 
 ridiculed, because it is believing; but to be 
 a slave to a wanton infidel, and blindly swear 
 into his opinions, is glorious and manly, because 
 it is free-thinking. 
 
 Deists and freethinkers are generally con- 
 sidered as unbelievers ; but upon examination, 
 they will appear to be men of the most re- 
 signed and implicit faith in the world ; they 
 would believe ti^ansubstantiation, but that it 
 imphes a behoving in God ; for they never re- 
 
62 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 sign their reason, but when it is to yield to 
 something that opposes salvation. 
 
 For the Deisfs creed has as many articles 
 as the Christian's, and requires a much greater 
 suspension of our reason to believe them. So 
 that if to believe things upon no authority, or 
 without any reason, be an argument of cre- 
 dulity, the freethinker will appear to be the 
 most easy, credulous creature alive. In the 
 first place, he is to believe almost all the same 
 articles to be false, which the Christian believes 
 to be true. 
 
 Now, it may easily be shewn, that it re- 
 quires stronger acts of faith to believe these 
 articles to be false, than to beheve them to be 
 true. 
 
 For, taking faith to be an assent of the 
 mind to some proposition, of which we have 
 no certain knowledge, it will appear that the 
 Deist's faith is much stronger, and has more of 
 credulity in it than the Christian's. For in- 
 stance, the Christian believes the resurrection of 
 the dead, because he finds it supported by such 
 evidence and authority as cannot possibly be 
 higher, supposing the thing was true ; and he 
 does no more violence to his reason in believing; 
 it, than in supposing that God may intend to 
 do some things which the reason of man cannot 
 conceive how they will be effected. 
 
 On the contrary, the Deist believes there 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 63 
 
 will be no resurrection. And how great is his 
 faith ! for he pretends to no evidence or au- 
 thority to support it ; it is a pure naked assent 
 of his mind to what he does not know to be 
 true, and of which nobody has or can give him 
 any full assurance. 
 
 So that the difference between a Christian 
 and a Deist does not consist in this, that the 
 one assents to things unknown, and the other 
 does not ; but in this, that the Christian assents 
 to things unknown, on the account of evidence ; 
 the other assents to things unknown, without 
 any evidence at all. 
 
 Which shews that the Christian is the 
 rational believer, and the Deist the blind bio-ot. 
 
 Ask a Deist or freethinker, why he be- 
 lieves Christianity to be an imposture, you must 
 not expect to have any arguments offered you ; 
 but however, all arguments aside, he can tell 
 you, that the enquiry after the best religion 
 has done more mischief thsm all other enquiries 
 together ; that it is, at best, but a luild-goose 
 chase ; he will tell you how Jesus has been 
 called the Galilean by way of contempt ; that 
 there are various readings in the scriptures ; 
 that Mr Whiston is the most learned and 
 sincere divine of the age ; that he has called 
 the present doctrine of the Trinity an apostaci/; 
 and says that the present text of the Old 
 Testament is not that which was used in our 
 
64 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Saviour's time : he may, perhaps, crack a jest 
 upon some text of the New Testament, and tell 
 you how such a one used to say that ivorking 
 a miracle was like shewing a trick. 
 
 If you have strength enough to maintain 
 your ground against such attacks as these, the 
 Deists can get no power over you : but it must 
 be confessed, that idle and foolish as these arts 
 appear in point of reason, yet they are very 
 fatal in their effects upon the minds of men. 
 
 Rehgion requires a serious and wise use of 
 our reason, and can only recommend itself to 
 us, when we are in a disposition to reason and 
 think soberly ; it preserves its power over our 
 minds no longer than wliilst we consider it as 
 the most serious, important, and sacred thing 
 in the world. 
 
 Hence it appears why we are generally 
 so little affected with religion, because we are 
 seldom in a state of sober thinking. The con- 
 cerns of the world keep our spirits in a con- 
 stant hurry, and prevent our judging rightly 
 of those things which are not to be judged of 
 but by cool reason. 
 
 Every one knows that sickness, adversity, 
 and the approach of death, are advantageous 
 seasons for the truths of religion to affect us ; 
 whereas they carry no other advantage than as 
 they bring a man into such a state as disposes 
 him to think seriously. For this reason they 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 65 
 
 who only laugh at religion, may be said to 
 have used the strongest argument against it, 
 for there is no coming at it any other way ; it 
 is only to be attacked by little jests, lewd flings 
 of wit, such as may betray the mind into levity, 
 and corrupt the imagination, which so far as 
 it is eifected, so far is the power of rehgion 
 lessened. 
 
 It is not the Deist's business to reason so- 
 berly, and consider the weight and moment of 
 things with exactness ; for, to reason soberly, is 
 to act against himself, and put his reader into 
 that state of mind in which religion has its 
 chief force. 
 
 But idle stories about gods and goddesses, 
 and pagan mysteries, saucy jests, lewd inuendos, 
 and nick-names given to serious things, serve 
 the cause of infidelity much better than any 
 arguments it has yet found out. 
 
 For these not only serve to confound and 
 distract the mind, and lessen the difference of 
 things, but they also gratify and engage the 
 most immoral and wicked men, as they furnish 
 them with a confutation of religion at so cheap 
 a rate. 
 
 How many fine gentlemen must have been 
 forced to have owned themselves Christians, had 
 not such short confutations of Christianity been 
 provided to their hands ! But as the cause is 
 now managed, no one can be too dull, senseless, 
 5 
 
B6 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 or debauched, to be a powerful Deist ; a poor 
 inflamed wretch, who never had the use of his 
 reason in his life, may easily call reHgion a Dul- 
 cinea del Tohosa, and all who would procure 
 any regard to it, Saint Errants ; and when he 
 has done this, he may reckon liimself a great 
 genius, and to have shewn as much learning in 
 favour of Deism as the first-rate infidel of the 
 age. 
 
 How many lively beaux had buried their 
 parts in swearing and obscenity, had not all 
 jests upon Scripture been allowed as true proofs 
 of Deism and pohteness ! 
 
 And though the fraternity now boasts of 
 its numbers (as every vice if it could speak might 
 do the same), yet, if no one was to be allowed 
 to be a Deist till he had examined the truths 
 and authority of religion, as he would examine 
 the title to an estate, even the present age 
 would be able to shew more squarers of the 
 circle, or discoverers of the longitude, than pro- 
 fessors of Deism. 
 
 Nay, was one to ask the most pliilosophical 
 amongst them to shew the great danger of 
 being a good Christian, or the fatal consequences 
 of living in expectation of the resurrection, and 
 judgment to come ; was he asked to shew the 
 certain safety of infidelity, or why an infidel 
 can be no sufferer for rejecting the offers of the 
 gospel, he could give you as plain an answer 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 67 
 
 as if you had asked what state this globe of 
 earth will be in five thousand years hence. 
 
 But indeed it seems needless to observe that 
 prudence and common sense have no hand in 
 infidelity. Self-murder does not more directly 
 prove lunacy than infidehty proves the loss of 
 reason. 
 
 There is no one that seems more to depend 
 upon the folly and madness of his readers than 
 you do. 
 
 You tell them that you are a mere animal, 
 governed by appetites over which you have no 
 power ; that is, you describe yourself as a ma- 
 chine that would look well in a bridle, and then 
 pretend to talk of God, and providence, and re- 
 ligion and morality, and to pierce into the in- 
 most nature of things and actions, with as much 
 ease as if you was some superior form that was 
 made up of pure wisdom and intelHgence. 
 
 But the thing is, you knew what side you 
 had chosen, and that if you was not wanting in 
 impiety, lewdness, and reproaches upon virtue, 
 you might abound in nonsense as much as you 
 pleased. 
 
 And indeed it must be confessed, that as 
 hardly any authority is sufficient to recommend 
 a person that comes from God to do us good ; so 
 is there scarce any folly great enough to expose 
 another that comes a missioner from the kino-dom 
 of darkness to do us harm. 
 
 5—2 
 
68 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 You are at last so sensible of the abilities 
 which you have discovered in laying open the 
 mysteries of human nature, that you think it 
 but a necessary piece of civility to make an 
 apology to the world for shewing such a supe- 
 rior knowledge. Thus say you : 
 
 What hurt do I do to man, if I mahe him 
 more known to himself than he was before ? 
 
 But we are so desperately in love ivith 
 flattery, that lue can never relish a truth that 
 is mortifying. 
 
 To prove the justice of this remark, you say, 
 / do not believe the immoi^tality of the soid 
 would even have found so general a reception in 
 human capacities as it has, had it not been a 
 ]:> leasing one, that extolled and was a compli- 
 ment to the whole species \ 
 
 This remark supposes that the mortality of 
 the soul is a truth, for you make our not be- 
 lieving it to be mortal a proof that we cannot 
 reUsh a truth that is mortifying. You also 
 impute our opinion of the soul's immortahty to 
 a desperate love of flattery, which is giving it 
 as sure a mark of an error as you could well 
 have thought of. 
 
 The reasonableness of this remark is founded 
 upon that advantage and dignity which arise 
 
 1 p. 256. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 69 
 
 from immortality ; this is wliat induces you to 
 think that its reception in human capacities is 
 owing to a love of flattery. 
 
 You mio:ht have made the same remark 
 upon the belief of the being and providence of 
 God, that they had never had so general a 
 reception in human capacities, were not men 
 desperately in love with flattery, and not able 
 to relish a truth that is mortifying. 
 
 For the being and providence of God are 
 the most pleasing truths, and more extol and 
 elevate man's nature and condition than any- 
 thing else ; and whilst we assert the providence 
 of God, we assert our own happiness, as being 
 the care and concern of so great and glorious a 
 nature. 
 
 But how ouo'ht that man to be treated who 
 should bring the belief of a divine being as an 
 instance of the power of flattery over human 
 nature, or allege the doctrine of providence as 
 a proof that we cannot relish a truth that is 
 mortifying ? 
 
 Yet tliis would be as well as to instance, as 
 you have done, in the immortality of the soul. 
 For it is as reasonable to rejoice in the immor- 
 tality of our souls, as in the being of God ; and 
 it is as impious to say that we hold its immor- 
 tality, because we cannot relish a truth that is 
 mortifying, as to say that we believe the provi- 
 dence of God for the same rqason. 
 
70 BEMAKKS ON THE 
 
 What an aversion must you have to the 
 force of this principle, that when you was to 
 shew that we cannot rehsh a truth that is mor- 
 tifying, you could like no instance so well as the 
 general disbelief of the soul's mortality ? Can 
 it be supposed that you would have instanced 
 in this opinion, if you had not wished that it 
 should lose its force upon men's minds, and be 
 no longer considered as the corner stone of re- 
 ligion, but as a notion founded in the falseness, 
 pride, and flattery of man's nature ? 
 
 Was any one ever so angry at the Mace- 
 donian hero's vanity of being a god ? need he 
 have reproached him more than by imputing it 
 to a desperate love of flattery ? 
 
 Yet this is the tender method in which you 
 have chose to expose the behef of the soul's im- 
 mortality as owing to a desperate love of flat- 
 tery. 
 
 You will perhaps say, Have I denied the 
 souVs immortality ? 
 
 In express terms you have not denied it ; 
 such a flat denial would have signified much less 
 than what you have said. 
 
 You knew very well that to impute the 
 belief of it to falseness and flattery, was the best 
 way of denying it. 
 
 It is rejected here in a manner that highly 
 suits the temper of irreligion, by being considered 
 not only as false, b,ut as arising from the basest 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 71 
 
 qualities of human nature, ^:)riV?e and a desperate 
 love of flattery. 
 
 These things serve not only to raise a dis- 
 belief, but to excite an indignation against a 
 principle owing to such reproachful causes ; and, 
 what is still a greater point gained, they teach 
 people to look with contempt and dislike on 
 those persons and that religion which teach 
 such a principle. 
 
 Our blessed Saviour saith, / avd the resur- 
 rection and the life^ he that helieveth in me shall 
 never die. 
 
 Now, according to your philosophy, this 
 speech of our Saviour's must be reckoned an 
 artful apphcation to the weakness and vanity of 
 human nature, an address to the blind side of 
 man to increase his love of flattery, and keep 
 him from a true knowledge of himself. 
 
 For if man believes the immortality of his 
 soul, through a desperate love of flattery, cer- 
 tainly he who comes to encourage and establish 
 such a behef, comes to encourage and estabhsh 
 that immoderate love of flattery. 
 
 Nay, this doctrine of yours not only serves 
 to expose the opinion of the immortality of the 
 soul, and reproaches the Christian religion which 
 teaches it, but it prepares a man to be proof 
 against all doctrines of rehgion that have any 
 happiness in them ; for whatever is believed or 
 practised that tends any way to raise or exalt 
 
 fi^ 
 
72 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 the condition of man, is equally subject to this 
 reproach, that it is received through an exces- 
 sive fondness of flattery. 
 
 So that your wise philosophy comes to 
 this, that if there was no honour or happi- 
 ness in rehgion, no greatness to be acquired by 
 our obeying God, it could not be charged upon 
 our pride and vanity ; but since religion is in 
 order to happiness, and since our worshipping 
 of God implies our having a great and glorious 
 friend and benefactor, such a religion may be 
 owing to a vice of our nature, a desperate love 
 of flattery. 
 
 And the same may be said of every virtuous 
 action, that it is practised through a desperate 
 love of flattery, inasmuch as virtue is supposed 
 to make us friends and favourites of God, and 
 so dio'nifies and exalts our state. 
 
 Nay, this way of arguing proves, that the 
 greater and more glorious the idea is which we 
 form of God, the more we may be influenced by 
 an ill motive ; for the greater and more glorious 
 we represent the nature of God, the more we 
 raise and dignify ourselves, who are related to 
 so great a being, and are in covenant with 
 him. 
 
 So that to clear ourselves of a desperate 
 love of flattery, and to shew that we can relish 
 truths that are mortifying, we should conceive 
 very low and mean notions of God, and such as 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 78 
 
 would make it neither our honour nor happi- 
 ness to worship him. 
 
 Such a rehgion as this, that had nothing 
 in it worthy of God or men, might, according 
 to your account, be owing to some rational 
 principle, and not capable of being imputed to 
 the pride or vanity of man's nature. 
 
 For since you impute the behef of the soul's 
 immortality to a desperate love of flattery, be- 
 cause such belief sets us out to great advantage, 
 and adds dignity to our nature, the same impu- 
 tation is equally chargeable upon every doctrine 
 or practice that promises any happiness or 
 honour to us ; and no religion or opinions can 
 be free from that charge but such as are of 
 no benefit or advantage to us. 
 
 From this therefore we may beheve, that 
 had we a rehgion which proposed nothing 
 worthy of God, or beneficial to man, the Deists 
 and wits of your size would all of them turn 
 priests, and devoutly wait at its altars. 
 
 To speak now a word or two concerning 
 pride. 
 
 Pride is an error or a vice, as covetous- 
 ness is a vice ; it is a notable desire, ill directed : 
 it is a right desire earnestly to desire happi- 
 ness, but that desire is sinful when it is wholly 
 set upon gold, or any other ^a^^e good. 
 
 So a desire of greatness is an excellent de- 
 sire, a right turn of mind; but when it fixes 
 
 ^^^-A^.V'tcr 
 
74 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 upon a false honour, it is a vicious irregularity. 
 To desire the highest exaltation of which our 
 nature is capable, is as right a disposition as to 
 desire to be as hke to God as we can. 
 
 Now, had you said that the belief of the 
 soul's immortahty was assisted and strengthened 
 in us through a desire of greatness, you had 
 said as reasonable a thing as to say, that Chris- 
 tianity makes a stronger impression upon the 
 minds of men through a desire of happiness. 
 
 For had we not these dispositions, neither 
 rehgion, nor anything else that was of any 
 advantage to us, could take any hold of us : 
 for what would the happiness or greatness of 
 any proposal signify to beings whose natures 
 were not affected with them ? 
 
 Now, to say that religion is better received 
 through this tendency of our nature, is no more 
 a reproach, than it is to say that our under- 
 standing and reason recommend religion to us. 
 
 For these dispositions or inclinations consti- 
 tute the excellence of our nature, and give us 
 all the dignity that we have : it being as right 
 a judgment of the mind, to desire to be as like 
 to God as our natures will allow, as it is to 
 prefer truth to falsehood. 
 
 But to impute our belief of the immortality 
 of the soul to i^^ide, is as ridiculous as to impute 
 cm* desire of eternal happiness to avarice. 
 
 For py^ide, considered as a vice, is no more 
 
FABLE OF THE EEES. 7o 
 
 the cause of our approbation of immortality, 
 than avarice is the cause of our setting our 
 affection on things above. 
 
 Pride is as earthly and down-looking a vice 
 as covetousness, and as truly sinks the soul into 
 a state of meanness. 
 
 A delight in false honour as much debases 
 and hinders the mind from aspiring after its 
 true greatness, as a fondness for empty riches 
 keeps the soul averse from the approbation of 
 her true good. That this is the effect of pride, 
 that it debases the mind, and makes it unable 
 to relish its true greatness ; that it unfits it for 
 the reception of doctrines which exalt and raise 
 our nature, may be also learnt from him who 
 came to lead us unto all truth. 
 
 Speaking of vain-glorious men, says our 
 blessed Saviour, How can ye believe, which 
 receive honour one of another, and seek not 
 that honour which comethfrom God alone ?^ 
 
 But you make the pride of man the cause 
 of his behoving divine truths, though they are 
 as opposite to one another as avarice and hea- 
 venlv-mindedness, lio-ht and darkness. 
 
 To make some apology for yourself, you 
 say, What hurt do I do to a man, if I make 
 him more known to himself than he was be- 
 fore ? 
 
 You should have put the question thus : 
 ^ St John V. 44. 
 
76 
 
 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 What hurt do I do to a man, if I make him 
 
 more vicious than he was before, if I deprave 
 
 his understanding, and lead him into a contempt 
 
 ! and dislilve of the strongest principles of rehgion? 
 
 For if there is any danger, either to yourself 
 or others, in corrupting their minds, and de- 
 stroying the motives to religion and virtue, you 
 are capable of no other apology but what that 
 being may make who goeth about as a roaring 
 lion, seeking whom he may devour. 
 
 The arrow that flieth by day, and the pes- 
 tilence that walketh in darkness, are mere 
 blessings, if compared to the man who infuses 
 vicious opinions into the mind, which weakens 
 the power of religion, and make men less de- 
 voted to the worship and service of God. 
 
 How can you say that you have only made 
 man more known to himself, by teaching him 
 that the general belief of the soul's immortality 
 is owing to a desperate love of flattery ? 
 
 Have you proved that he does not know 
 himself, if he thinks it is owing to any other 
 cause ? Have you so much as attempted to 
 shew that it can have no other foundation ? 
 that it is not founded in reason, religion, and 
 the attributes of God ? 
 
 But proving (I recollect) is no talent of 
 yours ; and if you may be allowed to shine in 
 anything, it is in loose insinuations, positive 
 assertions, and vain conjectures. 
 
FABLE OF THE REES. 77 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 You come now to give us a taste of your 
 skill in phraseology, or the force and propriety 
 of words. All sorts of learnino- seem to be at 
 your service, and you are so constant to your- 
 self as to make them all conspire in one and 
 the same design against religion. 
 
 Hope, being a word of great consolation in 
 the Christian religion, you have pitched upon 
 that as most deserving the kind assistance of 
 your learned hand. 
 
 All hope, say you, includes doubt ; a silver 
 inkhorn may jyass in speech, because every 
 body knows what ive mean by it, but a cer- 
 tain hope cannot. The epithet destroys the 
 essence of the substantive ; it is palpable non- 
 sense. The reason therefore why it is not so 
 shocking to some, to hear a man speak of 
 certain hope, as if he should talk of hot ice, 
 or hquid oak, is not because there is less non- 
 sense contained in the first than in either of 
 the latter, but because the word hope, / mean 
 the essence of it, is not so clearly understood 
 by the generality of the people, as the luords 
 and essences of ice and oak are^. 
 
 What a triumph is here over religion ! and 
 with how much ease do you reject an article of 
 faith with a noun substantive I 
 ' p. 140. 
 
78 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 In our burial service we have these words, 
 In sure and certain hope of a resurrection, &;c. 
 
 This it seems cannot pass in speech, with- 
 out the destruction of a substantive ; it is 
 shoching, and palpable nonsense. 
 
 Let it first be observed, that 1iop)e impHes 
 the belief, dependence, or expectation of some- 
 thing that shall come to pass. JN'ow I should 
 think that a thing may as well be expected 
 with certainty, as uncertainty ; and that its 
 being certain to happen, is no inconsistency in 
 the expression. It can hardly be denied but 
 that a man may be certain that some things 
 will never happen ; and where is the contra- 
 diction of supposing him as certain that some 
 tilings will happen ? 
 
 But to come to your own arguments. 
 
 All hope, say you, includes doubt. This 
 as much contradicts my understanding as if 
 you had said that all trust includes diffidence ; 
 and I cannot trust a man, unless I distrust 
 him. The apostle says, by hope we are saved; 
 according to you, he must mean, by doubting 
 Ave are saved ; for if hop>e necessarily includes 
 doubting, and hoj^e be necessary to salvation, it 
 evidently follows, that doubting is necessary to 
 salvation ; and every exhortation to hope in 
 God, is an exhortation to doidyt of God. 
 
 Our blessed Saviour said, If ye have faith, 
 and doubt not, &c. Now had you been present 
 
FA RLE OF THE BEES. 79 
 
 at this saying, you could have shewn the im- 
 possibihty of what he exhorted them to ; that 
 faith or hoj^e imphed doubting ; and that to 
 talk of certain hope or faith, was as shocking 
 to a fine understanding as to talk of hot ice 
 or liquid oak. 
 
 Certain hope, you say, is palpable non- 
 sense, because the ep)ithet destroys the essence 
 of the substantive. 
 
 So that doubting is the essence of hope, 
 and consequently whatever else belongs to hope is 
 only accidental; the essence of hope is doubting. 
 
 Now if doubting is the essence of hope, 
 then where there is the most doubting there 
 must be the most of hope ; for where there is 
 most of the essence of a thing, there must neces- 
 sarily be most of the thing itself. 
 
 Now it seems to me as ridiculous to make 
 doubting the essence of hope, as to make fear 
 the essence of courage. For hope, so fiir as it 
 goes, as much excludes doubting as courage, so 
 far as it extends, banishes fear. There may be 
 a weak hope which is mixed with doubt, as there 
 may be a half courage that is attended with 
 fear ; but a thorough hope as truly rejects doubt, 
 as a perfect courage shakes oif all fear. And it 
 is just such shocking nonsense to talk of a cer- 
 tain hope as to speak of a fearless courage : 
 and there is just as much murder of the sub- 
 stantive in one case as the other. 
 
 vr- 
 
80 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Hope, or expectation, does not imply uncer- 
 tainty, but futurity, that the things expected are 
 not in being, but are to come to pass ; this is 
 atl that is of the essence of hope ; it is only the 
 futurity of things that makes it. 
 
 Let the things come to pass, and the hope 
 ceases, this is the only way of destroying it. 
 But whether the things to come be with cer- 
 tainty or uncertainty expected, no more destroys 
 -that disposition of mind, which is called hope, 
 than the passion of fear is destroyed by exert- 
 ing itself reasonably or unreasonably. 
 
 Hope is uncertain, not because we cannot 
 hope or expect with certainty, but because the 
 things we hope for are generally not in our 
 power, so as we can be secure of the event. 
 
 But you ridiculously suppose, that hope, or 
 expectation, as a faculty of the mind neces- 
 sarily includes uncertainty, as if a man cannot 
 expect or hope for that which he is sure will 
 answer his expectation ; or that he must cease 
 to expect things, because he has certain grounds 
 to expect them. These are the absurdities 
 which you plunge into, rather than allow a 
 certain hope of the resurrection of the dead. 
 
 Hope is as the things hoped for. In uncertain 
 things it is uncertain. But if God is pleased to 
 inform us of things to come, we are with certain 
 hope and expectation to depend upon them. 
 
 Agreeable to this, St Paul says, In hope of 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 81 
 
 eternal life, luhich God, that cannot lie, pro- 
 mised before the luorld began. 
 
 Here we have an apostle's authority for a 
 certain hope, made as undeniable as the veracity 
 of God. 
 
 But this must be very shocking to a gentle- 
 man of your refined understanding, and must 
 give you a further uneasiness, to behold the 
 destruction of a whole noun substantive to 
 establish only an article of rehgion. 
 
 You compare certain hoi^e to hot ice, or 
 liquid oak, and say, that the expressions would 
 be equally shocking were the nature of hope 
 as well understood as the nature of ice and 
 oak. 
 
 Had you not been used to understand every 
 thing wrong, you had never made this obser- 
 vation ; for the contrary to this happens to be 
 true, that the expression is not so shocking in 
 one case as the other, because the nature of 
 hope is as well understood as that of ice, &c. 
 
 It is not shocking to say certain hope, be- 
 cause hope is known to be founded upon some 
 degrees of assurance. 
 
 But does ice suppose some degrees of heat 
 in order to its existence? Is ice hotter or 
 colder, as hope is more or less assured ? Hope 
 is stronger and better the more it has of assur- 
 ance, and the less it is opposed with doubts ; 
 but is ice the stronger and harder the more it 
 
82 - REMARKS ON THE 
 
 has of heat, or the less it is surrounded with 
 cold? 
 
 Your comparison also of certain hope to 
 liquid oak is equally ingenious and worthy of 
 yourself; for it supposes that an oak changes 
 from solid to liquid, as hope fluctuates from 
 doubts to belief. For were not an oak as 
 various in its nature, as to liquid and solid, as 
 hojye is various in its nature, as to doubt and 
 assurance, it must be shocking nonsense to 
 make a liquid oak the same thing as an as- 
 .nired hope. 
 
 I have been the longer upon this point, 
 l)ecause it is levelled at the very foundation of 
 our religion, and would teach people to doubt 
 of its greatest articles, through the mere force 
 of a word or two, and for the sake of a noun 
 substantive. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 I HAD now taken my leave of you, if the 
 letter you published in the London Journal, in 
 defence of your book, had not been just put 
 into my hands. 
 
 Having seen your talent at apology, I ex- 
 pected no great matter from you in that way ; 
 but, however, I am now convinced that your 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 83 
 
 book gives us but a small essay of your abilities, 
 and that you can exceed it as much as you 
 please. 
 
 For who would imagine that the author of 
 so poor a rhapsody could produce such masterly 
 strokes as these in the defence of it ? 
 
 ''My vanity,'' say you, '' I never could con- 
 quer so luell as I could wish, and I am too 
 proud to commit crimes^ 
 
 Surely no one after this will venture to lay 
 any thing to your charge, since great must be 
 your innocence if pride be the guardian of it. 
 
 But if any one should chance to humble 
 you, you must then fall into a defenceless state. 
 But if you are not to be proved guilty till you 
 can be shewn to be deficient in pride, it may 
 require some time to effect it. 
 
 Since you ground your vindication so much 
 upon your pride, it may not be amiss to re- 
 collect the definition you have given us of it in 
 your own book. Pride, say you, is that 
 natural faculty by which every mortal that 
 has any understanding overvalues and im- 
 agines better things of himself than any im- 
 partial judge, thoroughly acquainted luith all 
 his qualities and circumstances, would allow 
 him^. 
 
 A pretty qualification indeed for a man to 
 found his innocence upon ! Yet you (with a 
 
 1 p. 125. 
 
 G— 2 
 
84 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 more than ordinary brightness) own that you 
 are governed by this vice, to prove yourself to 
 be faultless. 
 
 Should a blind man, who had lost his way, 
 allege his blindness as a proof that he could not 
 lose it, he would shew that he was just as well 
 acquainted with the advantages of blindness as 
 you are with the effects of pride. 
 
 The next ingenious step that you take is 
 this : The Fable of the Bees, say you, luas de- 
 signed for the entertainment of ])eo'ple of know- 
 ledge and education. It is a book of severe 
 and exalted morality, that contains a strict 
 test of virtue. 
 
 Had you said that the author was a sera- 
 phim, and that he never was any nearer the 
 earth than the fixed stars, I should have thought 
 you in as sober a way as you now appear to 
 be in. 
 
 That you intended it for the entertainment 
 of people of knowledge and education, is what 
 I cannot say is false ; for if your pride is such 
 as you assert, you may be capable of intending 
 anything ; I know of nothing too monstrous 
 for you to go about. 
 
 But if you can believe that you have wrote 
 a book of severe and exalted morality, you 
 must not laugh at those who believed stocks and 
 stones to be objects of worship, or took a leek 
 or an onion to be a deity. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 85 
 
 You are liappy in this, that you have made 
 an assertion which an adversary cannot further 
 expose, because there is no superior degree of 
 extravagance to which it can be compared. 
 
 For if a person will write a book to prove 
 that man is a mere animal, and that moral 
 virtue is the political offspring which flattery 
 begot upon pride, and then call it a book of 
 severe and exalted morality, he has this satis- 
 faction, that no skill can aggravate his nonsense. 
 
 Such as it is, you say, you are satisfied it 
 has diverted 2^^'^sons of great probity and 
 virtue. 
 
 Pray, sir, how does this appear? Where 
 do you find these ipeoiple of great virtue,^ When 
 you wrote your book you knew of no such 
 4)eople. Virtue was then nowhere to be found ; 
 for you tell us, that having in vain sought for 
 it in the world, you at last went to the convents, 
 but even there it had no existence. But now, 
 it seems, rather than want an apology, you will 
 suppose even what confutes your book, and what 
 you most hate, that there is such a being as a 
 man of great virtue. 
 
 I lay it down, you add, as a first principle, 
 that in all societies, great or small, it is the 
 duty of every member of it to be good ; that 
 virtue ought to be encouraged, vice discounte- 
 nanced, the laws obeyed, and the transgressors 
 punished ; and then you say there is not a 
 
86 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 line in the whole hook that contradicts this 
 doctrine. 
 
 This comes so oddly from you, that it need 
 not be exposed to the reader ; if you had in- 
 tended it as a public recantation of all that you 
 had dehvered before, there had been something 
 in it ; but to say that there is not a line in 
 your book that contradicts this, is trusting too 
 much to the weakness of your readers : for, 
 can you pretend to have sl first principle, or to 
 talk of duty or virtue, after you have declared 
 that the moral virtues are all a cheat, by making 
 them the political offspring which flattery be- 
 got upon pride ? 
 
 Can you recommend goodness, who have 
 compared the pidchrum and honestum in ac- 
 tions to the whimsical distinctions of floiuers, 
 and made the difference between good and evil 
 as fanciful as the difference between a tulip and 
 an auricida. 
 
 When therefore you pretend to lay it down 
 as a first principle, that it is the duty of every 
 man to be good, &c. : it amounts to as much as 
 if you had said, having shewn that there is 
 nothing but fancy in the preference of floAvers, 
 / lay it down as a first principle, that it is 
 the duty of every man to admire the tulip 
 above all other flowers ; that the love of tulips 
 ought to be encouraged, and that of auriculas 
 discountenanced, &c. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 87 
 
 But however, lest any of your readers 
 should imagine that you meant something more 
 than this, and to clear yourself from all sus- 
 picion of gravity or seriousness in your recom- 
 mendation of virtue and goodness, you immedi- 
 ately add this explication of yourself. 
 
 Would you banish fraud and luxury, j^re- 
 vent profaneness and irreligion, and make the 
 generality of the people charitable, good, and 
 virtuous ; break doivn the 2J7^inting-pr esses, 
 melt the founts, and burn all the books in the 
 island; knock doiun foreign trade, prohibit all 
 commerce with strangers, and permit no ships 
 to go to sea ; restore to the clergy, the king, 
 and the barons, their ancient privileges, pre- 
 rogatives, and possessions ; build new churches, 
 and convert all the coin you can come at into 
 sacred utensils; erect monasteries and alms- 
 houses in abundance, and let no parish be 
 luithout a charity-school; let the clergy 
 preach abstinence and self-denial toothers, and 
 take what liberty they please for themselves ; 
 let no man be made lord treasurer but a 
 bishoj). By such pious endeavours and luhole- 
 some regulations the scene would soon be al- 
 tered. Such a change would influence the 
 manners of the nation, and render them tem- 
 2)erate, honest, and sincere ; and from the next 
 generation we might reasonably expect a harm- 
 less, innocent, and well-meaning people, that 
 
88 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 luould never dispute the doctrine of passive 
 obedience, nor any other orthodox principles, 
 hut he suhmissive to superiors, and unanimous 
 in religious ivorship^. 
 
 It must be owned that you never so much 
 exceeded yourself as in this flight of your 
 oratory. And had your teeming imagination 
 been able to have produced one more evil or 
 folly, it had been added to the lovely idea you 
 have formed of a people intending to live like 
 Christians. 
 
 He that can now suspect you guilty of one 
 sober thought in relation to religion or mora- 
 lity, must be acknowledged to be very senseless. 
 
 For, mention your regard to rehgion or 
 virtue as often as you please, you have here 
 taken care to assure us, that you wish their 
 prosperity as heartily as you wish to see the 
 kingdom full of monasteries, and all our money 
 converted into sacred utensils. 
 
 But I beg pardon for supposing that what 
 you have so clearly said to shew your ab- 
 horrence of religion, and contempt of virtue, 
 needs any illustration. 
 
 But to carry on the hanter, you still add, 
 ^^ If I have shewn the way to luorldly great- 
 ness, I have always without hesitation p7^ef erred 
 the road that leads to virtue." 
 
 Had there been one instance of this kind 
 1 p. 253. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 89 
 
 in your book, I suppose you would have re- 
 ferred us to it. But enough has been already 
 observed to shew what virtue implies in your 
 system. I shall however produce one passage to 
 shew how you always, and without hesitation, 
 'prefer the road that leads to virtue. 
 
 Spealdng of lust, you say, " The artful 
 moralists have taught us cheerfully to subdue 
 it." And then you cry out, " Oh 1 the mighty 
 prize we have in view for all our self-denial ! 
 Can any man he so serious as to abstain from 
 laughter, ivhen he considers that for so much 
 deceit and insincerity practised upo7i ourselves 
 a>s luell as others, lue have no other recompence 
 than the vain satisfaction of making our 
 species appear more exalted, and remote from 
 that of other animals than it really is, and 
 we in our otun consciences know it to 6e^." 
 
 Thus it is that without hesitation you give 
 your approbation of virtue ; you make the mo- 
 deration of our passions to be even a sin against 
 our own consciences, as acting deceitfully, con- 
 trary to what we know becomes us. 
 
 You make self-denial, or any restraints 
 which distinguish us from brutes, to be so ridi- 
 culous a thing as ought to excite the laughter 
 and contempt of every creature. 
 
 Thus is your prostitute pen wantonly cm- 
 ployed to put out, as far as you can, the hght 
 
 » p. 157. 
 
.00 , REMARKS ON THE 
 
 of reason and religion, and deliver up mankind 
 to sensuality and vileness. 
 
 Should I now lament the miserable fruits of 
 
 free-thinking, which thus tend not only to set 
 
 us loose from the regards of religion, but to 
 
 destroy whatever is reasonable, decent, or comely 
 
 in human nature, though as a friend of religion 
 
 I might be censured by some, yet surely as an 
 
 advocate for the dignity of man I might be 
 
 pardoned by all. 
 
 I But it is our peculiar unhappiness as clergy- 
 
 i men, that if we sit loose to the duties of re- 
 
 I ligion, we are doubly reproached, and if we 
 
 firmly assert its doctrines, we fall under as great 
 
 I condemnation. 
 
 In all other causes a man is better received, 
 because it is his proper business to appear, yet 
 that which should recommend our pleading, 
 happens to make them less regarded ; we are 
 worse heard because God has made it our duty 
 to speak. 
 
 But I wave this topic ; for if, when we 
 assert the common doctrines of Christianity, we 
 are thought too much interested, we shall hardly 
 be reckoned less selfish when we plead for com- 
 mon equity towards ourselves. 
 
 You have therefore picked out a right body 
 of men to ridicule, and your manner of doing 
 it shews you knew that no want of wit would 
 make you less successful. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 91 
 
 We often suffer from porters and carmen, 
 who venture to be smart upon us, through an 
 assurance, that we must lose by replying. A 
 security Uke this has encouraged you to be very 
 hberal of your mirth, and such mirth as might 
 pass for dulness upon any other subject. 
 
 I will not say how infinite your wit has 
 been upon our dress and habit, or what uncom- 
 mon vivacity you have shewn Aipon the heaver 
 hat, whether new or old. 
 
 Had you spared our majestic gait, slick 
 faces kept constantly shaved, handsome nails 
 diligently pared, and linen transparently cu- 
 rious^, nothing of the sublime had been found 
 in your book. It must be confessed this is a 
 heavy charge against the j)riesthood ; but we 
 may see you was loth to enhance it, or you 
 might have mentioned the black eyes, the 
 high foreheads, and the dimp)led chins, which 
 may be proved upon several of them, which 
 they shew in the face of the world at noon- 
 day. 
 
 But since I have charged you with wit, I 
 do not think it fair to leave you under so gross 
 an accusation without something to support your 
 spirits. Read therefore the following words of 
 the most excellent Bruyere. 
 
 Have the libertines, says he, ivho valve 
 themselves so much upon the title of wits, have 
 ' p. 135. 
 
92 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 they wit enough to perceive that they are only 
 called so by irony ? 
 
 You can hardly relish anything of mine, 
 after this taste of so fine a writer, I shall there- 
 fore trouble you but little further. 
 
 If you wonder that I have taken no notice 
 of the dreadful evils you charge upon charity- 
 schools, and the sad effects which such cate- 
 chizing-houses must have upon a kingdom that 
 is both Christian and Protestant, I must tell 
 you that I purposely avoided it. Some things 
 are so plain that it is yielding too much to 
 offer to defend them. 
 
 Christians, I hope, will have so much com- 
 mon sense as to know that no Christian can call 
 such houses an evil ; and as to complaints from 
 other hands, who would not wish that the ene- 
 mies of Christianity may have every day more 
 reason to complain ? 
 
 As to your part, they will observe, that in 
 these very writings, where you complain of the 
 evil of charity-schools, you make moral virtue 
 a cheat, the offspring oi pride, and the enquiry 
 after the best religion, but a wild-goose chase, 
 A very worthy person indeed to talk of either 
 good or evil! 
 
 Whilst we can preserve but the very name 
 of religion, a charitable contribution to educate 
 children in it must be reckoned amongst our 
 best works. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 93 
 
 Charity-schools can never need a defence 
 in a kingdom that boasts of having the scrip- 
 tures in the vulgar tongue. For if it be our 
 glory and happiness to have the Bible in Eng- 
 lish, surely it must be in some degree glorious 
 to teach our natives how to read it. 
 
 You say, if any one can shew the least 
 tittle of blasphemy or profaneness in your book, 
 or anything tending to immorality, or a cor- 
 ruption of mamiers, you ivill burn it yourself 
 at any time or place your adversary shall 
 appoint. I appoint the first time, and the 
 most public place, and if you keep your word 
 shall be your humble servant. 
 
 POSTSCRIPT. 
 
 Having in my second section mentioned Mr 
 Bayle as the principal author amongst those 
 whose parts have been employed to arraign and 
 expose virtue and religion, as being only the 
 blind effects of complexion, natural temp)er, and 
 custom, SiC: ; it may not be improper to recom- 
 mend to his admirers the following instances of 
 that gentleman's great j^e^ie^ra^io^i and clear- 
 ness on this subject. 
 
 Mr Bayle engaged in a cause where he 
 found it necessary to assert, that a society of 
 
94 . REMARKS ON THE 
 
 Atheists might be as virtuous men as a society 
 of other people professing rehgion ; and to main- 
 tain this opinion, he was farther obhged to de- 
 clare, that religious opinions and beliefs had no 
 mfluence at all upon men's actions. 
 
 This step was very necessary to be taken ; 
 for if religious opinions or beliefs were allowed 
 to have any influence upon our actions, then it 
 must also have been allowed, that a society of 
 Atheists must have been less virtuous than a 
 society of people holding religious opinions. 
 
 Mr Bayle therefore roundly denied that re- 
 ligious opinions have any mfluence upon us, and 
 set himself to prove that comjylexion, natural tem- 
 per, custom, &c. are the only causes of our actions. 
 
 Thus he says he is persuaded that man is 
 that kind of creature luho, with all his boasted 
 reason, never acts by the principles of his be- 
 lief \ Again, it cannot be denied that man 
 acts continually against principles. And again, 
 I pretend to have demonstrated that men never 
 act by p)rinciple. 
 
 Mr Bayle has often diverted himself with 
 the unreasonableness of those divines who first 
 declare the sublimity and inconceivableness of 
 the Christian mysteries, and then pretend to ex- 
 plain them. But they may laugh at liim in 
 their turn, who happens to be as weak and un- 
 reasonable even in hh philosophic chair. 
 ^ Miscel. Reflect. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 95 
 
 For he can give it you out as an undeniable 
 maxim, that the mind of man, heing subject to 
 infinite caprice and variety^ no rule can he 
 laid down concerning it not liable to a thou- 
 sand objections ^ ; and then tell you he has de- 
 monstrated that man never acts by principle. 
 As if he had said, I give you here a certain 
 and infallible rule concerning the mind of man, 
 not liable to one objection ; though I assure you 
 that no ride can be laid down not liable to a 
 thousand objections. 
 
 Mr Bayle, to shew that his society of 
 Atheists might be as virtuous as other men, 
 affirms, that a wicked inclination neither arises 
 from our ignorance of God''s existence^ nor is 
 checked by the knowledge of a Supreme Judge 
 who punishes and rewards. And that an in- 
 clination to evil belongs no more to a heart 
 void of the sense of God, than one j^ossessed 
 with it, and that one is under no looser a rein 
 than the other^. 
 
 With how much reason and freedom of 
 mind Mr Bayle asserts this may be seen from 
 what he says in other places. Thus, in his His- 
 torical Dictionary he can tell you, that there is 
 nothing so advantageous to man, if ive consider 
 either the mind or the heart, as to know God 
 rightly \ 
 
 He can commend the saying of Silius ItaU- 
 '^ Ibid. p. 279. ' Ibid. p. 294. * Vol. iv. p. 2683. 
 
96 KEMARKS ON THE 
 
 cus, as very pertinently spoken of the Cartha- 
 ginians: — Alas, miserable mortals! your igno- 
 rance of the Divine nature is the original cause 
 of your crimes. Again, / luill not deny there 
 have been pagans, who, making the utmost use 
 of their notion of the Divine nature, have ren- 
 dered it the means of abating the violence of 
 their passions^. 
 
 These contradictions need no illustration ; 
 I shall pass on to shew you a few more of the 
 same kind. 
 
 Mr Bayle affirms, that man never acts by 
 the p^rinciples of his belief Yet see how often 
 he teaches the contrary. Speaking of the 
 stange opinions and practices of some pagans, 
 who, though loersuaded of a providence, denied 
 nothing to their lusts and passions ; he gives 
 this as the reason of their conduct, Either 
 that they must suppose the gods approved these 
 ways, or else that one need not trouble one's self 
 whether they did or no^. 
 
 See here tliis elevated free-thinker assert- 
 ing that man never acts by his belief, and yet 
 making it necessary that the pagans must have 
 had such or such a belief or else they could 
 never have acted as they did. 
 
 Instances of this kind are very numerous. 
 In the article of the Sadducees, he says, The 
 good life of the Sadducees might have been an 
 ^ Miscel. Reflect, p. 294. ^ Ibid, p. 404. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 97 
 
 (\ffect of their believing a py^ovidence. Again, 
 the orthodox lu ill feel the activity of that im- 
 pression as luell as the Sadducees, and heiny 
 moreover persuaded of a future state, relirjion 
 will have a greater influence upon their lives'^. 
 
 Here a belief of a providence in this world 
 is allowed to be the cause of a fjood life, and a 
 persuasion of a future state affirmed to have a 
 still greater influence upon our lives ; and yet 
 the same great reasoner demonstrates that men 
 always act without any regard to their beliefs 
 or persuasions. 
 
 To demonstrate that beliefs and opinions 
 have no part in the forming our lives, Mr 
 Bayle appeals to the lives of Christians ; " For, 
 luere it otherivise," says he, ''hoiu is it pyossible 
 that Cliristians, so clearly instructed from re- 
 velation supported by so many miracles, that 
 they must renounce their sins in order to be 
 eternally happy, and to prevent eternal misery, 
 should yet live as they do, in the most enormous 
 ivays of sin and disobedience?" 
 
 This is Mr Bayle's invincible demonstra- 
 tion, that beliefs and persuasions have no effect 
 upon us, and that man never acts by principle ; 
 though you shall see that he can as well de- 
 monstrate the contrary to this. 
 
 In the article of Sommona-codom, speaking 
 of this doctrine, viz. That an old sinner who 
 
 =* Hist. Diet. 
 7 
 
98 REMARKS ON THE 
 
 has enjoyed all the 2^leasures of life will be 
 eternally hapjjy, provided he truly rejjents on 
 his death-bed ; he makes this remark, Doubt- 
 less this may be the reason luhy the fear of 
 God's judgments, w the hopes of his rewards, 
 make no great impressions upon worldly 
 people^. 
 
 Here you see this learned philosopher urges 
 the lives of Christians as a demonstration that 
 men never act hj persuasion; and yet tells you 
 as a thing j^ctst all doubt, that they live as they * 
 do through a p)ersuasion that a death-bed re- 
 pentance will set all right. 
 
 Take another instance of the same kind. 
 Religion and principle have no effect upon 
 us : This must be the case, says Mr Bayle, 
 "^or the ancient j^c^yeins, who were under the 
 yoke of numberless superstitions, continually 
 employed in appeasing the anger of their 
 idols, awed by infinite prodigies, and firmly 
 persuaded the gods dispensed good or evil 
 according to the life they led, had been re- 
 strained f^om all the abominable crimes they 
 committed^.'' 
 
 This paragraph is to shew that religious 
 persuasions have no effect upon us ; because if 
 they had, the j^&^snusions of the pagans must 
 have made them good men. 
 
 But Mr Bayle here forgets that he himself 
 ' Hist. Diet. 2 Miscel. Reflect, p. 275. 
 
FABLE OF THE BEES. 99 
 
 lias affirmed that the 'pacjan religion not 
 only taught ridiculous tilings, hut that it ivas 
 besides a religion authorizing tlie most abomi- 
 nable crimes^ ; that they luere led to their 
 crimes by their very religion ; that it must 
 have been a j)oint of faith luith them, that to 
 make themselves imitators of God, they ought 
 to be cheats, envious, fornicators, adidterers. 
 
 So that this philosopher shews, with great 
 consistency, that the religion of the pagans 
 enojao'ed them in abominable crimes, and that 
 the jyagans did not act by their rehgion, because 
 they were guilty of abominable crimes. 
 
 But I proceed no further at present; this 
 specimen of Mr Bayle's absurdities and con- 
 tradictions on this very article, where he has 
 been most admired, may suffice to shew that if 
 he has gained upon men's minds, it has been 
 by other arts than those of clear reasonino-. 
 I would not by this insinuate that he was not 
 a man of fine parts ; Bellarmin's absurdities, 
 though ever so many, still leave room to ac- 
 knowledge his great abilities. This seems to 
 have been Mr Bayle's case ; he was no Jesuit 
 or papist, but he was as great a zealot in his 
 way. BcUarmin contradicted himself for the 
 sake of mother church ; and Mr Bavle con- 
 tradicted himself as heartily for the sake of an 
 imaginary society, a society of Atheists. 
 
 3 Ibid. 390. 
 
 7—2 
 
100 REMARKS ON THE FABLE OF THE BEES. 
 
 I have inserted these few contradictory 
 passages for the sake of such as are proselytes 
 to Mr Bayle's philosophy ; let them here see, 
 that in following him they only leave religion 
 to follow blindness and bigotry in systems of 
 profaneness. 
 
 When clergymen contradict one another, 
 though it be but upon a ceremony of religion, 
 infidels make great advantage of it ; for irre- 
 ligion, having no arguments of its own, is forced 
 to catch at every foreign objection. 
 
 But Mr Bayle's self-contradictions upon 
 the chief article of his philosophy may perhaps 
 not lessen his authority with our men of reason. 
 
 For whether omy freethinkers are not such 
 bigots as to adore Mr Bayle's contradictions is 
 what I will not presume to say. 
 
 I will promise for nothing but their little 
 minds and blind zeal to have a share in every 
 error that can give offence to well-minded men. 
 
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