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 '|lbilj3Sopbicul Classics for Cnglislj |vcabcrs 
 
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 B U T L E E
 
 B 
 I2i3 
 
 77 
 C 7
 
 BUTLER 
 
 FROM THE PICTURE BV VANDERBANK.
 
 BUTLER 
 
 EEV. W. LUCAS COLLIXS, M.A. 
 
 HONORARY CANON OF PEfERBOROVGH 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKAVOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH A NM) LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXI 
 
 All rtirjhts reserved
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAOE 
 
 I. BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE, ... 1 
 
 II. MODERN ETHICAL THEORIES, . . 31 
 
 III. SERMONS ON HUMAN NATQRE, , . 4-3 
 
 IV. COMPARATIVE VIEWS OF CONSCIENCE, . 82 
 V. RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY OF THE AGE, . 92 
 
 VI. ANALOGY OF NATURAL RELIGION TO THE 
 
 COURSE OF NATURE, . . ,103 
 
 VII. ANALOGY OF REVEALED RELIGION TO THE 
 
 CONSTITUTION AND COURSE OF NATURE, 134 
 
 Vin. MODERN CRITICISMS, . , . 154 
 
 IX. STYLE, ..... 166 
 
 NOTE, ..... 176
 
 B U T L E E. 
 
 CHAPTEE I. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE. 
 
 Joseph Butler -was born at Wantage in 1692. His 
 father was a prosperous linen and. woollen draper, who 
 had retired from business to a house known as the 
 Priory, still standing on the outskirts of the town. 
 Though it has undergone many modern alterations, 
 having been occupied for several years as a school, and 
 now as the residence of the curates of the parish, the 
 room is still shown in which the great writer was born. 
 He received his early education under the Rev. Philip 
 P)arton, a clergyman of the Church of England, master 
 of the ' Latin ' School, held at that time in an Eliza- 
 bethan building which had replaced the small ISTorman 
 church, standing in Leland's days side by side witli the 
 present church, — a curious instance, as the old antiquary 
 remarks, of 'two churches in one churchyard.' The 
 whole has since been pulled down, and the old Nor- 
 
 P. — II. A
 
 2 Butler. 
 
 man porch, Avliich had still survived, has been trans- 
 ferred to the new school buildings in another part 
 of the town. To the training of his first teacher the 
 future bishop must have attached some value, as one 
 of his first acts, as soon as such preferment lay in his 
 power, was to appoint Mr Barton to a comfortable 
 rectory. But ]\Ir Butler, the father, was a Presby- 
 terian, and his Avish was to bring up Joseph, his 
 youngest son, to the Presbyterian ministry. With this 
 view he removed him to a Dissenting academy of con- 
 siderable repute, kept by Mr Samuel Jones, first at 
 CJloucester, and afterwards at Tewkesbury. ^Vt this 
 latter place young Butler was associated witli some 
 schoolfellows whose distinction in after-life would seem 
 to show that their teacher was a man of more than 
 ordinary ability. Thomas Seeker, afterwards Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury; Isaac Maddox, Bishop of Wor- 
 cester ; Samuel Chandler, an able iN'onconf ormist divine ; 
 Dr Nathaniel Lardner ; and John (Lord) Bowes, who be- 
 came Lord Chancellor of Ireland, — were all at some time 
 or other his felloAv-pupils. There must have been some- 
 thing in the training which Butler received under his 
 ]N"onconformist tutor that rose above the narrowness 
 of sectarianism ; and it would be highly interesting, if 
 it were possible, to know what Avas the course of reading 
 and Avhat the system of instruction wliich led to such re- 
 markable results in the case of some of his pupils. All 
 we do know is that in November 1713 young Butler 
 — who, although in his twenty-second year, was still a 
 student at Tewkesbury — wrote the first of those remark- 
 able letters to Dr Samuel Clarke of Norwich, the scholar 
 of Newton, and the ablest metaphysician of the time,
 
 Correspondence vAth Clarlx. 3 
 
 which are now printed in most editions of his works. 
 He had been much struck with Qarke's recent piiblica- 
 tion, ' A Demonstration of the Eeing and Attributes of 
 (xod.' Such demonstrative proof the young student had, 
 as lie tells Dr Clarke, been long seeking in vain. ' I 
 have made it my business,' he says in this letter, ' ever 
 since I thought myself capable of such sort of reasoning, 
 to prove to myself the being and attributes of God : ' 
 surely a very remarkable declaration — and its honesty 
 cannot be doubted — to come from so young a man. But 
 ' though he had got very probable arguments, yet he 
 could go but a very little way with demonstration in the 
 proof of those things ; ' and he was not altogether satis- 
 fied with Clarke's method of reasoning. He put forward 
 with great acuteness, and at the same time with great 
 modesty, two distinct objections which had struck him 
 in reading the book, first to Clarke's proof of ' the in- 
 finity or omnipresence ' of the self-existing Being, and 
 secondly to his proof that such Being ' must of necessity 
 be one.' Although these objections have been held by 
 Sir J. Mackintosh and other metaphysical vrriters to be 
 unanswerable, Butler himself Avithdrew the first of them 
 in his fourth letter, and (as will be seen) in a subse- 
 quent correspondence with (Clarke professed himself fully 
 satisfied as to the second.-^ So that they were not with- 
 drawn, as some of his biographers have imagined, out 
 of his modesty as a young man, but simply because he 
 considered them untenable ; and whatever may be their 
 real value as against Clarke, we may dismiss them alto- 
 gether in considering Butler's own views, as not approved 
 by his maturer judgment. 
 
 1 See also Analogy, Pt. I. ch. vi.
 
 4 Butler. 
 
 The young student was very modest in the conduct of 
 this early correspondence. He not only withheld his 
 name — "wiiting under the signature of ' A Gentleman 
 in Gloucestershire ' — but deputed his friend Seeker to 
 carry the letters to and from the Tewkesbury post-office, 
 where, no doubt, in those days of unfrequent corre- 
 spondence, the few letters despatched and received by 
 the members of Mr Jones's academy were likely to 
 undergo some amount of curious scrutiny. 
 
 He very early formed the intention of conforming to 
 the Church. Such intention was naturally far from 
 agreeable to his father's views ; and a kind of conference 
 of Presbyterian divines was gathered in order to deal 
 with young Joseph. But their arguments had little 
 efifect, and Mr Butler the elder very sensibly gave way, 
 and allowed his son to enter at Oriel College, Oxford, in 
 March 1714. There he made an acquaintance which 
 had much influence on his future career. He became 
 the intimate friend of Edward Talbot, whose father was 
 then bishop of Salisbury, and afterwards of Durham. 
 Talbot, who became subsequently fellow of the college, 
 was a young man of high promise and somewhat enthu- 
 siastic temperament ; he was at one time a member of 
 the little 'Society for Promoting Primitive Christianity,' 
 set on foot by the well-known William Whiston, whose 
 fanatical vagaries ended at last in confirmed insanity. 
 But the Oxford of those days was on the whole a great 
 disappointment to the earnest young student. He 
 appears to have kept up a correspondence with I)r 
 Clarke, who had become rector of St James's, West- 
 minster, and a few of the letters, now written under 
 his proper name, have been preserved. One of these is
 
 Studies at Oxford. 5 
 
 a reply to some comnninication from Clarke, of which 
 he says-* — 
 
 ' It revived in my mind some very melancholy thoughts 
 I had upon my being obliged to cpiit those studies which 
 have a direct tendency to di^'inity, that being what I should 
 choose for the business of my life : it being, I think, of all 
 other studies the most suited to a reasonable nature. I say 
 my being obliged ; for there is very little encouragement ^ 
 (whether one regards interest or usefulness) nowadays for 
 any one to enter that profession who has not got a way of 
 commanding his assent to received opinions without ex- 
 amination.' 
 
 In a subsequent letter (Sept. 30, 1717) he announces 
 his intention of migrating to Cambridge in order to take 
 his degree in law, a step to which he had noAV received 
 liis father's consent, and asks Clarke to recommend him 
 a tutor there : at the same time strongly expressing his 
 disgust at the formal routine of the Oxford schools.^ 
 
 ' We are obliged to misspend so much time here in attend- 
 ing frivolous lectures and unintelligible disputations, that I 
 am quite tired out with such a disagreeable way of trifling ; 
 so that if I can't be exciised from these things at Cambridge, 
 I shall only just keep one term there.' 
 
 He ' will beg leave to trouble Dr Clarke Avith a diffi- 
 culty in relation to Freedom, which very nnich perplexes 
 
 ^ A copy of tliis letter is in the library of the British Museum : it 
 is printed in Steere's Unpublished Remains of Bishop Butler, p. 12. 
 It bears no date, but was written soon after he left Gloucester. 
 
 - The printed copy has 'every encouragement;' but in the MS., 
 probably in the hand\vriting of Dr Birch, the word is ' very,' and the 
 context leaves no doubt that the word ' little ' has been omitted. 
 
 '^ European Magazine, Jan. 1802, p. 9.
 
 6 Butler. 
 
 him,' and as to which he can get no help where he is — 
 ' Our people here have never had any doubt in their 
 lives concerning a received opinion, so that I cannot 
 mention a difficulty to them.' 
 
 ' I see great reason to be satisfied that freedom and action 
 are identical ideas, and that man is, properly speaking, an 
 agent or free being. But as the question concerning free- 
 dom is or is not of consequence just as it affects the purposes 
 of religion, my not being able clearly to make out how 
 freedom renders us capable of moral government perplexes 
 me as much as though I was in doubt concerning freedom 
 itself. I am satisfied it is in our power to act or not to act in 
 any given case : yet 1 do not see that it follows from thence 
 tliat it is in our power to act \drtuously, because the physical 
 and the moral nature come under quite two diff'erent con- 
 siderations. Virtue does not consist barely in acting, but in 
 acting upon such motives and to such ends : and acting upon 
 such motives, &c., e\ddently supposes a disposition in our 
 nature to be influenced by those motives ; which disposition, 
 not being in action, does not depend upon us, but, like the 
 rest of our affections, seems to depend upon our original 
 frame and constitution.' 
 
 He takes, as an instance, alms-giving to the poor : it 
 has not the character of a virtuous action, unless done 
 from a motive of dutj'. He sees it quite within his own 
 power to do the i^liysical action, but not the moral 
 action, unless he has 'a disposition in his natui"e to he 
 influenced by this motive ; ' and therefore 
 
 ' This disposition may be considered as a sine qud non to 
 the performance of every duty. Now that we have not this 
 disposition when we neglect our duty is evident from this — 
 that, if we had it, we should always certainly (though not 
 necessarily) do our duty. How then can we be accountable 
 for neglecting the practice of any virtue, when at what time
 
 Correspondence with Clarice. 7 
 
 soever we did neglect it, we wanted tliat was a sine qua non, 
 or absolutely necessary to the performance of it — viz., a dis- 
 position to be influenced by the proper motive ? . . . 
 Upon the whole, such is the imperfection of our nature, that 
 it seems impossible for us to perform any one more virtuous 
 action than we do perform.' 
 
 Yet, he continues, he is ' conscious of somewhat in 
 himself, and can discern the same in others, wliich 
 seems directly to contradict such objections,' though he 
 ' cannot see where the weakness in them lies. ' 
 
 In the answer jotted doAvn on the back of this letter, 
 Clarke admits that ' a disposition to be influenced by 
 right motives is a sine qua non to virtuous actions : ' 
 such a disposition is invariable only in the case of the 
 Deity himself : but men, as rational beings, are not 
 Avithout such disposition, if they will only follow it. 
 
 Butler carries on the argiunent in a third letter : ^ — • 
 
 ' I do indeed think that no rational creature is, strictly 
 speaking, indifferent to right motives, but yet there is some- 
 thing which to all intents of the present question is the same, 
 - — viz., a stronger disposition to be influenced by contrary or 
 wrong motives : and this I take always to be the case when 
 any vice is committed.' 
 
 And he thinks Clarke has omitted this consideration, 
 — of the worse principle being the stronger. To which 
 Clarke again jots down a rough copy of a reply : he will 
 not admit that ' there can be such a thing naturally in 
 rational creatures as a disposition to be influenced by 
 wrong motives : ' but the disposition to be influenced 
 by right motives may be neutralised by a ' perverseness 
 1 Steere's Remains of Bp. Butler, p. 13.
 
 8 Butler. 
 
 of will : ' ' the liberty of the will forcibly overrules tlie 
 disposition to the right.' 
 
 Butler agrees with this view in his next letter ; in 
 which he also says he is ' now fully satisfied ' with 
 Clarke's argument for the unity of the divine nature, 
 which he did not see at the time he was writing on that 
 subject.^ 
 
 It will be seen how little this acquiescence in ' received 
 opinions,' which he found the rule at Oxford, was in 
 accordance with Butler's disposition. In the last of 
 these letters which have been preserved," he still cher- 
 ishes the idea of going to Cambridge at once, if he can 
 get the terms already kept by him at Oxford allowed 
 at the sister university, of which, however, he under- 
 stands there is some doubt. In that case he proposes 
 to remain at Oriel until he has taken his degree as 
 Bachelor of Arts, and then proceed to Cambridge to 
 take his degrees in Law. It seems probable that at 
 this time he had not made up his mind as to his future 
 profession. 
 
 The contemplated migration to Cambridge never 
 took place. His friend Talbot entered into holy orders 
 about this time, and was very soon (in 1717) appointed 
 to the rectory of East Hendred, near Butler's native town. 
 Butler must have been ordained in the same year, and 
 either acted as Talbot's cm-ate or assisted him occasion- 
 ally in his parish duties, as his signature appears in the 
 
 1 Steere's Remains of Bp. Butler, p. 1 7. 
 
 2 Brit. Museum, Add. MSS. 12, 101. Printed in the European 
 Magazine, Fell. 1802, and in Steere's Remains, p. 17. Clarlve had 
 intended these letters for piiblicatiou, as on the back of this he has 
 noted — ' These are to be added to the next edition of Leibnitz's 
 letters.'
 
 Preacher at the Bolls. 9 
 
 registers of baptisms and burials at East Hendred dur- 
 ing the first few months of his friend's incumbency. In 
 the following year, though he was only twenty-six, the 
 joint influence of Talbot and Clarke obtained for him 
 the appointment of Preacher at the EoUs Chapel, — no 
 great preferment (in fact the stipend was so poor that 
 his eldest brother had to supply him with money), but 
 still a distinguished position for so young a man. Two 
 years afterwards, Edward Talbot, who had become 
 Archdeacon of Berks, died at the early age of twenty- 
 nine, recommending earnestly his friends Butler and 
 Seeker to the kind offices of his father ; and the bishop, 
 on his translation to the see of Durham next year, at 
 once presented Butler (who had only just taken his first 
 degree of B.C.L.) to the rectory of Haughton-le-Skerne, 
 near Darlington. Seeker, like his old schoolfellow, had 
 originally been intended for the Nonconformist minis- 
 try, but he too had changed his views, and had gone 
 from Gloucester to Paris to study medicine. His 
 opinions in early life seem to have been very unsettled, 
 and he is said at one time to have presided at a club 
 of Free-thinkers. But he had kept up a correspond- 
 ence with Butler, who had spoken warmly of him to 
 Edward Talbot ; and, probably by their advice, he had 
 entered at Oxford, and, as was easy enough in those days, 
 obtained a degree at once. Bishop Talbot ordained him, 
 and gave him the living of Houghton-le-Spring. He 
 appears to have been very grateful to Butler, and took 
 an early opportunity of repaying his good offices. But- 
 ler's strong taste for building, which he was enabled to 
 indulge safely in later life as bishop of Bristol and of 
 Durham, threatened to involve liim in difficulties at
 
 10 Butler. 
 
 Haugliton, ■where he ■was preparing to rebuild the dilap- 
 idated parsonage. Seeker feared that his unpractical 
 friend "would ruin himself, and obtained for him from 
 Bishop Talbot the presentation to tlie richer living of 
 Stanhope in "NVeardale, known in the north as ' the golden 
 rectory.' Thither he removed in 1725, and now for the 
 first time found himself able to live without pecuniary 
 assistance from his brother, who appears to have been 
 very liberal to him. The last entry of that kind in his 
 memoranda is the receipt of £100 in January of that 
 year. 
 
 He had hitherto retained his preachership at the Eolls 
 Chapel, and seems to have divided his time betAveen 
 London and his country parish. These changes of resi- 
 dence were somewhat sudden, if an anecdote commonly 
 told of him be true. It is said that he would remark 
 casually to his servant, 'John, it is time you and I were 
 moving north Avards ' — Avhich was well understood by the 
 recipient of the hint as an order to have the horses at the 
 door next morning. Of his life and habits as rector of 
 Stanhope almost nothing is known. Bishop Philpotts, 
 who succeeded him in the rectory after an interval of 
 eighty years, and tried to collect some local traditions of 
 him, could only gather that his kindness of heart won for 
 him the affection and respect of his parishioners ; that 
 he was so little able to resist the appeal of a beggar, 
 and yet so averse to indiscriminate alms-giving, that he 
 used to run away from such an applicant and shut himself 
 up in his house ; and that ' he rode a black pony, and 
 rode very fast.' Sometimes, however, it is said that 
 the pony was seen quietly grazing on the hillsides or 
 in the lanes, while the rider sat with loose rein absorbed
 
 Rector of Stanliope. 11 
 
 in meditation. But a recent inquirer, who appears to 
 have spared no pains in his researches on the spot, 
 found the actual traces of Butler's residence at Stan- 
 hope scanty in the extreme. The rectory - house in 
 which he lived has been replaced by a more modern- 
 one ', the church has lately been restored. A sun-dial 
 now on the south wall of the chancel, removed from the 
 south porch, where it was set up during Butler's incum- 
 bency, bears an inscription probably of his suggestion — 
 ' Ut hora sic vita.'' And in an old book of church 
 accounts, still kno-\\Ti as ' Butler's book,' and contain- 
 ing many entries in his hand, there is one brief record 
 of some interest : ' I leave to the Parsonage the follow- 
 ing things belonging to the little Oratory — a brass lock 
 and spring to the door, a branch candlestick, tAvo large 
 candlesticks, three mahogany seats. — Jo. Butler.'^ The 
 existence of this ' little oratory ' at Stanhope rectory 
 perhaps gave some colour to the charge subsequently 
 brought against him of a leaning toAvards Borne. 
 
 Tlie year after his induction to Stanhope (1726) he 
 resigned his preachership in London, and at the same 
 time published his celebrated fifteen sermons preached 
 there, which he dedicated to Sir Joseph Jekyll, INIaster of 
 the Bolls. These Avere, of course, only a small selection 
 from those he had delivered during his eight years ten- 
 ure of the appointment ; and he says himself, in his 
 preface, that this selection Avas ' in a great measure 
 accidental.' The rest of the series were probably burnt 
 amongst his other papers in accordance A\dth the direc- 
 tions in his AA^ll ; and perhaps the substance of them 
 had been Avorked up into his later publication, the 
 
 1 See 'Stanhope Memorials of Butler,' by W. M. Egglestona
 
 12 Butler. 
 
 ' Analogy.' ^ The preparation of this work was the chief 
 occupation of the next seven years of his life, which 
 were spent entirely at Stanhope. 
 
 His life there must have seemed very secluded to one 
 who had so long enjoyed the opportunities of intellec- 
 tual society in London, and it was probably not with- 
 out its effect on Butler's somewhat melancholy tempera- 
 ment. Seeker, at an}^ rate, seems to have feared this, 
 and was generously anxious that his friend's great abili- 
 ties should find wider and more congenial sphere. He 
 had been appointed one of the royal chaplains, and 
 after a sermon delivered at Court, was honoiu-ed Avith a 
 long conversation by Queen Caroline, who very much 
 affected theology. He took the opportunity of speaking 
 to her jMajesty about the late preacher at the Eolls, 
 with whose reputation at least she seems to have been 
 already acquainted, for she replied that she ' thought 
 Mr Butler had been dead.' When she asked the ques- 
 tion subsequently of Ai'chdeacon Blackburne, he re- 
 plied, 'iSTo, madam, he is not dead, — but he is buried.' 
 Seeker's mention of his friend to the Queen had no 
 result at the time : but he had sufficient influence with 
 Bishop Talbot to get Butler appointed chaplain to the 
 bishop's brother, then Lord Chancellor, by whom, three 
 years afterwards, he was made a prebendary of Roches- 
 ter ; and the Queen, in the same year, made him Clerk of 
 the Closet. She soon became much interested in him, 
 
 1 About the close of the last centuiy, some one discovered the wife of 
 a country rector in the act of destroying, for culinary purposes, the 
 last remnant of a box of sermons which seemed to have been written 
 by Joseph Butler. The lady was reproved, but the exculpatory re- 
 joinder was — ' Why, the box was full once, and I thought they were 
 my husband's ! ' Bagehot's Literary Studies, vol. ii. p. 54.
 
 Queen Carolines Suppers. 13 
 
 and commanded his regidar attendance at the little 
 private supper-parties at which she loved to gather 
 round her some of the fashionable divines of the day 
 for theological debate. Butler's old correspondent Dr 
 Clarke, who had once taken part in these debates, had 
 just died : but Hoadley, Sherlock, and Seeker were 
 still amongst the invited guests on these occasions, and 
 it was the delight of the Queen to listen to their dis- 
 putes on theology and metaphysics, and to flatter herself 
 that she understood them. Mr Pattison, in his essay 
 ' On the Tendencies of Religious Thought,' suggests that 
 possibly these discussions, 'where such topics were can- 
 vassed with earnestness and freedom, and he must often 
 have felt the impotence of reply in detail,' first set him 
 upon the preparation of a methodical defence of Chris- 
 tianity. Of this he finds some evidence in a passage 
 in Butler's Durham Charge, where the bishop says : — • 
 
 * The general evidence of religion is complex and various. 
 It consists of a long series of things, one preparatory to and 
 confirming another, from the very beginning of the world to 
 the present time. And it is easy to see how impossible it 
 must be, in a cursory conversation, to unite all this into one 
 argument, and represent it as it ought : and could it be done, 
 how utterly indisposed people would be to attend to it,^I 
 say, in a cursory conversation : whereas unconnected objec- 
 tions are thrown out in a few words, and are easily appre- 
 hended, without more attention than is usual in common 
 talk. So that, notwitb standing we have the best cause in 
 the world, and though a man were very capable of defending 
 it, yet I know not why he should be forward to undertake 
 it upon so great a disadvantage, and to so little good effect, 
 as it must be done amidst the gaiety and carelessness of com- 
 mon conversation.'
 
 14 Butler. 
 
 This suggestion receives some further confirmation 
 from a passage in the 'Analogy.' 
 
 ' It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this 
 evidence gives to those persons wlio attack Christianity, 
 especially in conversation. For it is easy to show, in a short 
 and lively manner, that such and such things are liable to 
 objection, that this and another thing is of little weight in 
 itself ; but impossible to show, in like manner, the imited 
 force of the whole argument in one view ' — Anal., Pt. II. 
 eh. vii. 
 
 It seems not improbable (indeed his style very much 
 favours the impression) that Eiitler's thoughts and Avords 
 did not flow so readily in conversational argiiment as 
 those of less able men. 
 
 It Avas in this year (1736) that Butler gave to the 
 press his great work — great in matter, though contained 
 within very moderate compass — ' The Analogy of Eeli- 
 gion, l^atural and Revealed, to the Constitution and 
 Course of Xature.' It seems to have at once attracted 
 more general attention than the sermons, though these 
 had doubtless prepared the way for its appreciation. But 
 an amusing story is told, of its reception by the author's 
 own family. He had presented a copy to each of his 
 nephews at Wantage. 
 
 ' One of these, John, a wealthy and eccentric bachelor, who 
 had more taste for practical mechanics than for metaphysical 
 research, appeared to attach but little value to his uncle's 
 production. Having occasion to borrow an iron vice of his 
 neighbour Mr Thompson, a shrewd and sensible Scotch 
 solicitor, who spoke in high terms of the "Analogy," and 
 expressed great respect for the author, John Butler proposed 
 that as Mr Thompson liked the " Analogy," and he himself
 
 Fuhlishcs the Analog ij. 15 
 
 liked the iron vice, they should make an exchange. To this 
 Mr Tlionipson cheerfully assented, and John Butler left him 
 highly pleased, and thinking that he had turned his uncle's 
 present to an excellent account. ^ 
 
 Butler presented a copy of his work, as in duty 
 hound, to Queen Caroline, and her Majesty appears to' 
 liave read it Avith great interest, whether she was able 
 to follow its close argument or not. Lord Bolingbroke 
 has noticed this, — not without a sneer, as might be 
 expected. 
 
 ' She studies with much application the " Analogy of Ee- 
 vealed Religion to the Constitution and Course of Nature." 
 She understands the whole argument perfectly, and con- 
 cludes with the Right Rev. author " that it is not so clear a 
 case that there is nothing in revealed religion." Siich royal, 
 such lucrative encouragement, must needs keep both meta- 
 physics and the sublunest theology in credit.' ^ 
 
 Bolingbroke was Avrong on one point : the autbor Avas 
 never 'Eight ReA'.' during Queen Caroline's life. She 
 died in the year following the publication of the book, 
 and Butler Avas not appointed to the see of Bristol till 
 nearly a year after her death. She received her last 
 Communion from his hands, and made his preferment 
 one of her last requests to the King. A month after 
 her death he preached before his Majesty, by special 
 command, in the Princess Amelia's apartment. ' He 
 preached upon the subject of being bettered by afflictions, 
 which affected his Majesty so mucli that he desired the 
 sermon, and assured him that lie Avoiild do something 
 
 1 Bartlett's Life of Bp. Butler, p. 95. 
 
 2 Philosopliical Works, vol. l.p. 123 (edit. 1754).
 
 16 Butler. 
 
 very good for him.' Such is the memorandum made 
 by Dr Thomas AVilson (son of the well-known bishop) 
 in his diary. He says that he received the account from 
 Sir J. Jekyll, Master of the EoUs, ' who desired that 
 it might be known publicly : it was told him by the 
 bishop of Oxford (Seeker).' Butler had a powerful 
 friend also in Lord Chancellor Talbot, and in August 
 1738 he received from Sir Robert Walpole, then Prime 
 IVIinister, the offer of the see of Bristol It was a very 
 poor preferment — the worst endowed of the English 
 bishoprics, its revenue not amounting at that time to 
 more than £500 (some authorities say £400) a-year ; and 
 Butler had perhaps a right to expect, from the King's 
 warm professions, some more substantial mark of royal 
 favour. He certainly did expect it; and probably a 
 more singular letter was never penned in reply to the 
 offer of a mitre, than that in which he conveyed his 
 acceptance to the minister. 
 
 ' Stanhope, Aug. 28, 1738. 
 
 Sir, — I received yesterday from your own hand (an 
 honour which I ought very particularly to acknowledge) 
 the information that the King had nominated me to the 
 bishopric of Bristol. I most truly think niyseff very high- 
 ly obliged to liis Majesty, as much, all things considered, as 
 any subject in his dominions ; for I know no greater obliga- 
 tion than to find the Queen's condescending goodness and 
 kind intentions towards me transferred to his Majesty. Nor 
 is it possible, while I live, to be wdthout the most grateful 
 sense of his favour towards me, whether the effects of it be 
 greater or less ; for this must in some measure depend upon 
 accidents. Indeed, the bishopric of Bristol is not very 
 suitable either to the condition of my fortune or the circum- 
 stances of my preferment ; nor, as I should have thought.
 
 Bishop of Bristol. 1 7 
 
 answerable to the recommendation with which I was 
 honoured. But you will excuse me, sir, if I think of this 
 last with greater sensibility than the conduct of affairs will 
 admit of. 
 
 'But, A\-ithout entering further into detail, I desire, sir, 
 that you ■will please to let his Majesty know that I humbly 
 accept this instance of his favour with all possible gratitude. 
 
 ' I beg leave also, sir, to return you my humble thanks for 
 your good offices upon this and all occasions, and for your very 
 obliging expressions of regard to, sir, your most obedient, 
 most faithful, and most humble servant, 
 
 'Joseph Butler,' 
 
 The writer, no doubt, considered himself somewliat 
 ill-used in not having had offered to him the richer see 
 of Norwich, to which Dr Gooch was translated from 
 Bristol The plain-speaking of his letter to Walpole 
 gave no offence : on the contrary, it seems to have made 
 the desired impression, for within two years he was 
 appointed to the deanery of St Paul's ; and this addition 
 to his income enabled him to resign his prebend at 
 Rochester, and also the living of Stanhope, which he 
 had been holding m commendam with his bishopric. 
 One of his first acts of patronage as dean of St Paul's 
 was to prefer his old master, Philip Barton, to the 
 rectory of Hutton in Essex. 
 
 His accession of income from the deanery enabled liim 
 to indulge the taste for building which, in Seeker's 
 opinion, had threatened to ruin him as rector of Haugh- 
 ton. He spent nearly five thoiisand pounds in the im- 
 provement and embellishment of the episcopal palace at 
 Bristol, towards which the merchants of the city pre- 
 sented him with a large quantity of cedar. So liberal 
 was the gift that much of it remained unused, and Avas 
 
 p. — n. B
 
 18 Butler. 
 
 removed by the bishop afterwards to Durham, when he 
 was translated thither. One ornament whicli he intro- 
 duced into the palace chapel at Bristol was the subject 
 of much comment both at the time and afterwards. He 
 set up over the altar a large slab of black marble, in- 
 laid with a cross in white marble about three feet high. 
 Little objection would be taken to such a symbol now ; 
 but it was one of the points urged against him at a later 
 date by those Avho accused him of a leaning towards 
 Eome. Lord Hardwicke is said to have suggested to 
 Bishop Young, who in after-days succeeded to the see 
 of Bristol, to take the cross down. Young replied that 
 he should probably never have set it up there, but that 
 he would not have it said that Bishop Young had pulled 
 down what Bishop Butler had erected : and the cross 
 retained its position until it was destroyed with the- 
 chapel and palace in the Eeform riots at Bristol in 1831. 
 Even then, it is said that an old sexton, who had a 
 traditional respect for the great bishop, searched among 
 the ruins in the hope of recovering it, but found it 
 broken to pieces. 
 
 It was very soon after he became bishop of Bristol 
 that he was brought into communication with a man of 
 very different temperament, who had a far larger influ- 
 ence on the religious life of England than the author of 
 the 'Analogy.' The eager zeal of John AVesley had 
 drawn him into practical antagonism to the cold and 
 lifeless formalism which had crept over the Church of 
 which he was an ordained minister; while the sober tone 
 of her devotions, and her historical claim to his allegi- 
 ance, had won Butler in spite of his jS^onconformist 
 education. They had more than one interview ; but we
 
 Interview with Wesley. 19 
 
 know nothing of the occasions, or of what jiassed be- 
 tween them, except from a fragment of a conversation 
 recorded in Wesley's handwriting, in Angust 1739. 
 He had been preaching in Butler's diocese, notably to 
 the Kingswood colliers, and had most likely been com- 
 plained of by some orthodox clergyman as an unauthor- 
 ised intruder, and summoned to the palace to make his 
 defence. Wesley's memorandum of what seems to have 
 been their second intervicAv begins abruptly with a 
 reply of the bishop (apparently) to some remark on the 
 vexed question of faith and works — ' ^\'hy, sir, our faith 
 itself is a good work — it is a virtuous temper of mind.' 
 Wesley insisted that men Avere justified by faith only, 
 and that faith was 'the gift of God.' That, replied 
 Butler, was making out God to be ' a capricious tyrant ; ' 
 if no moral goodness availed anything, then ' Avhy did 
 He not justify all, — or none 1 ' After some discussion 
 on the nature of justification, Butler said that ' the pre- 
 tending to extraordinary revelations and gifts of the 
 Holy Spirit was a horrid thing — a very horrid thing.' 
 Wesley declared that he made no such pretension — he 
 could not answer for AVhitfield. Then the bishop asked 
 whether he did not administer the Holy Sacrament at 
 their meetings % to which AVesley replied that ' he never 
 had, and believed he never should.' The conversation 
 closed by the bishop advising him to leave the diocese, 
 as he had no commission to preach there : to which, of 
 course, Wesley replied that his commission Avas to preach 
 everywhere, as ' a priest of the church universal.' -^ The 
 narrator of this conversation very naturally gives the 
 impression that he had the best of it ; but one Avould 
 1 Moore's Life of Wesley, vol. i. p. 468.
 
 20 Butler. 
 
 very much like to have had some account of it from 
 Butler himself. 
 
 Any supposed want of recognition of Butler's merits 
 on the part of king or minister was amply atoned for a 
 few years later. On the death of Archbishop Potter in 
 1747, an offer was made to Butler (who had just been ap- 
 pointed Clerk of the Closet to the king) of the primacy. 
 He declined it — probably unwilling, and perhaps un- 
 fitted from constitutional temperament, to undertake 
 the responsibilities of such a position. The reason he 
 is said to have given for his refusal is characteristic of 
 the melancholy turn of mind which led him to see all 
 things at their worst : ' It was too late,' he said, ' for 
 him to try to support a falling Churcli.' His rejection 
 of such high promotion was naturally a disappointment 
 to his own family, who had been very prosperous in 
 trade, and were better able to appreciate an archbishopric 
 than the 'Analogy.' His nephew John, the wealthy 
 bachelor already mentioned, came up to London pur- 
 posely to offer to advance his imcle £20,000, or even 
 a larger sum, if his hesitation to accept the primacy 
 arose from any dread of the first expenses. 
 
 Two years afterwards he was offered the see of Dur- 
 ham, by the express desire of the king. This offer he 
 was at first disposed to decline upon a scruple of con- 
 science. Durham being a see-palatine, the lord-lieuten- 
 ancy of the county, up to a very recent date, was at- 
 tached to the bishopric. It was the wish of the then 
 minister, the Duke of Newcastle, to separate them on 
 this occasion, and to confer the lieutenancy upon a lay- 
 man. When this was suggested to Butler, he is said 
 to have replied that ' it was a matter of indifference to
 
 Translation to Durham. 21 
 
 him -u-hetlier lie died bishop of Bristol or of Diirham ; 
 hut that it was not a matter of indifference to him 
 whether the honours of the see were invaded or not 
 during liis incumbency.' There was another arrange- 
 ment proposed to him, by which the deanery of St 
 Paul's, to be vacated by him on his translation, was to 
 be conferred on his friend Seeker, on condition that 
 the new bishop of Durham would appoint a Dr Chap- 
 man to the stall at Durham which Seeker would thus 
 vacate. This having been suggested to Eutler before 
 his translation took place, he refused to consent to 
 what appeared to him a g'?<«sy'-simoniacal contract. His 
 firmness on both points resulted in his being appointed 
 to Durham without conditions of any kind. 
 
 The spirit in which he accepted this well-deserved 
 promotion is simply, and no doid^t honestly, expressed 
 in the following letter to a friend : — ■ 
 
 ' . . . I thank yoxi for your kind congratulations, though 
 I am not without my doubts and fears how far the occasion 
 of them is a real subject of congratulation to me. Increase 
 of fortune is insignificant to one who thought lie had enough 
 before ; and I foresee many difficulties in the station I am 
 coming into, and no advantage worth thinking of, except some 
 greater power of being ser^dceable to others ; and whether this 
 be an advantage, entirely depends on the use one shall make of 
 it : I pray God it may be a good one. It would be a melan- 
 choly thing, in the close of life, to have no reflections to en- 
 tertain one's self with, except that one had spent the revenues 
 of the bishopric of Durham in a sximptuous course of li\ing, 
 and enriched one's friends with the promotions of it, instead 
 of haA'ing really set one's self to do good, and promote worthy 
 men. Yet this right use of fortune and power is more difficult 
 than even the generality of good people think, and requires 
 both a guard upon one's self, and a strength of mind to with-
 
 22 Bittlcr. 
 
 stand solicitations, greater, I wisli I may not find it, than I 
 am master of.' 
 
 The bishop was anxious to revive Laud's idea of estab- 
 lishing Episcopacy in the jSTorth American colonies ; but 
 the Puritans of Xew England were so bitterly opposed 
 to any scheme of the kind, and so much clamour was 
 raised against it by the Dissenters at home, that although 
 it Avas warmly taken up by Sherlock, bishop of London, 
 the movement came to nothing. 
 
 The first and only charge which he addressed to the 
 clergy of his new diocese drew upon him some captious 
 criticism. He found the state of things amongst both 
 clergy and laity such that he thought it needful to im- 
 press upon them the importance of external religion — 
 ' the keeping up, as well as we are able, the form and 
 face of religion Avith decency and reverence.' For, as 
 he goes on to saj', ' the form of religion may indeed be, 
 where there is little of the thing itself ; but the thing 
 itself cannot be preserved among mankind without 
 the form.' He observes, with much point and force, 
 how ' in the heathen world their superstition was the 
 chief subject of statuary, sculpture, painting, and poetry : 
 it mixed itself with business, civil forms, diversions, 
 domestic entertainments, and every part of common 
 life ; ' how, again, ' the Mohammedans are obliged to 
 short devotions five times between morning and even- 
 ing ; ' and how, ' in Eoman Catholic countries, people 
 cannot pass a day Avithout having religion recalled to 
 their thoughts by some or other memorial of it, — by 
 some ceremony or public religious form occurring in 
 their way : besides their frequent holidays, the short 
 prayers they are daily called to, and the occasional
 
 Charge to Ids Clergy. 23 
 
 devotions enjoined by confessors.' By these means, 
 he says, ' their superstition sinks deej) into the minds 
 of the people, and their rehgion also into the minds 
 of such among tliem as are serious and well-disposed.' 
 He impresses on his clergy the great evil of the neglect 
 of the public service of the Church, ' not only on com- 
 mon days, but also upon saints' days ; ' and shows him- 
 self to have anticipated, on such points, the revival of 
 old Chxu'ch principles and practices by what is called 
 the High Church party in the early part of the present 
 century. Under this head of external religion he chvells 
 upon ' the proper regard to the structures which are con- 
 secrated to the service of God ; ' and remarks, with the 
 caustic satire of which he was evidently a master when 
 he chose to use it, that ' in the present turn of the age, 
 one may observe a wonderful frugality in everything 
 which has respect to religion, and extravagance in 
 everything else.' It must surprise any dispassionate 
 reader of this charge now, to find that it Avas severely 
 criticised in a pamphlet published soon afterwards,-^ as 
 showing a manifest tendency on the part of the author 
 to Eomish views and practices, and that it formed one 
 of the grounds upon which he was even accused of an 
 actual conformity to Rome before his death. So far 
 as the charge itself is concerned, it only requires to be 
 read through to show the utter groundlessness of such 
 an imputation. 
 
 Another feature in this Durham char"e is even more 
 
 1 ' A Serious Inquiry into the Use and Importance of External Re- 
 ligion, occasioned by some passages in the Lord Bishop of Durham's 
 Charge,' &c. The authorship was afterwards admitted by Archdeacon 
 Blackburne, and it is published in his Works,
 
 24 Butler. 
 
 interesting to readers of the ' Aiialogy,' as showing how 
 thoroughly the author's mind was saturated with the 
 importance of the leading principle laid do^\Tl in the 
 opening of that great work — that the seeker after moral 
 or religious truth must be satisfied with probable evi- 
 dence, not mathematical demonstration. The follow- 
 ing passage, in fact, contains a summary in brief of 
 the position which he sought to reclaim, at the very 
 least, for the evidences of Christianity. 
 
 'Were the e\'idence of religion no more than doubtful, 
 then it ought not to be concluded false any more than true, 
 nor denied any more than affirmed ; for suspense would be 
 the reasonable state of mind with regard to it. And then it 
 ought in all reason, considering its infinite importance, to 
 have nearly the same influence upon practice as if it were 
 thoroughly believed. For would it not be madness for a 
 man to forsake a safe road, and prefer to it one in which he 
 acknowledges there is an even chance he should lose his life, 
 though there were an even chance likewise of his getting 
 safe tlirough it? Yet there are people absurd enough to 
 take the supposed doubtfulness of religion for the same 
 thing as a proof of its falsehood, after they have concluded 
 it doubtful from hearing it often called in question. This 
 shows how infinitely unreasonable sceptical men are %\'ith 
 regard to religion ; and that they really lay aside their reason 
 upon this subject, as much as the most extravagant enthu- 
 siasts.' 
 
 Very probably the bishop thought some of his northern 
 clergy might not have cared to encounter the hard read- 
 ing and close thinking which the ' Analogy ' demanded, 
 and was willing to lay before them this important and 
 neglected view of the evidences of religion, in the more 
 direct and popular shape of a personal address.
 
 At Durham and Rampstead. 25 
 
 He seems to have attended Parliament pretty regu- 
 larly, though he is not known to have taken any part in 
 the debates. His silence on the question of the Regency 
 Bill in 1751 drew from the Earl of Orford (Horace 
 Walpole) the sneering remark that ' the bishop of 
 Durham had been wafted to that see in a cloud of 
 metaphysics, and remained absorbed in it.' In the later 
 years of his life he occupied, wliile attending his parlia- 
 mentary duties, a house which he had bought at Hamp- 
 stead, and fitted up with a somewhat fantastic taste, if 
 the descriptions of it may be trusted. ' A most enchant- 
 ing, gay, and elegant house,' Miss Talbot (daughter of 
 Butler's old friend) calls it, in a letter to Mrs Carter ; 
 and it is certain that he laid out a good deal of money 
 there. Some of the painted glass which he had intro- 
 duced into it was presented by a subsequent occupier to 
 Butler's old college of Oriel, where it may still be seen 
 in the window of the audit-room. The bishop also ex- 
 pended considerable sums on his palaces, Durham Castle 
 and Auckland, but did not live to complete his work. 
 He mamtained at Durham a liberal hospitality, to which 
 the poorest of his clergy were welcomed, as well as the 
 nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood. But his own 
 private habits were always of the simplest kind. The 
 following anecdote is given by the Eev. John iNewton : 
 
 ' A friend of mine, since deceased, told me that when he 
 was a young man he once dined with the late Dr Butler, at 
 that time bishop of Durham ; and though the guest was a 
 man of fortune, and the interview by appointment, the pro- 
 vision was no more than a joint and a pudding. The bishop 
 apologised for his plain fare by saying " that it was his ^\•ay 
 of li\'ing ; that he had long been disgusted with the fashion-
 
 26 Butler. 
 
 able expense of time and money in entertainments, and was 
 determined that it should receive no countenance from his 
 example." ' 
 
 His liberality to public and private charitable objects 
 was of almost too impulsive a character (reminding us 
 of the tradition of his being unable to refuse a beggar), 
 if a well-known story which was current on the subject 
 be not rather apocryphal. A gentleman is said to have 
 called upon him to ask his aid in some benevolent 
 scheme Avhich he was setting on foot. The bishop ap- 
 proved, and having summoned his steward, asked him 
 how much money he had in the house ? ' Five hundred 
 pounds, my lord.' ' Five hundred pounds ! ' said 
 Butler ; ' what a shame for a bishop to have so much ! 
 Give it away at once — give it to this gentleman, who 
 has a good use for it.' 
 
 In the exercise of the large patronage attached to his 
 new diocese lie Avas strictly conscientious, and took all 
 pains to acquaint himself with the characters and deserts 
 of his clergy. A book containing certain memoranda on 
 these points (some of them partly in cipher) is preserved 
 in the library of Oriel College. He even declined to give 
 j)referment to one of his nephews who was in holy orders, 
 because he was not satisfied with what he heard of him ; 
 a scrupulousness very unusual in those times, and which 
 is said to have drawn a remonstrance from a brother of 
 the disappointed aspirant — John, Avho had so recently 
 offered the loan to his uncle. 'My lord,' said he to the 
 bishop, 'it is a misfortune to be related to you.' 
 
 He held the see of Durham less than two years. 
 His health rapidly failed, and he was ordered by his 
 physicians successively to Clifton and to Bath. At the
 
 His Death. 27 
 
 latter place he died, after some siifFering, June 16, 
 1752, in his sixtieth year. His chaplain, Forster, who 
 was in attendance on him, writing to Seeker (then bishop 
 of Oxford), says that ' during the last few days of his life, 
 when he had in great measure lost the use of his facul- 
 ties, he was perpetually talking of writing' to his old 
 friend, ' though without seeming to have anything which 
 he was at all capable of communicating.' He was buried 
 in his old cathedral at Bristol. 
 
 Bishop Butler was a man who lived much to himself, 
 with few intimacies, and apparently by no means a large 
 circle of acquaintance. But there miist have been 
 much in his character that was very lovable, for the 
 two or three who had become his friends in early life 
 seem to have been devoted to him. To Edward Talbot's 
 warm interest he owed, instrumentally, his success in 
 life ; and Seeker watched over him, from the old school- 
 days to his death at Bath, with more than the tender- 
 ness of a brother. His chaplain, Dr Forster, was much 
 attached to him, and Catherine Talbot, his deceased 
 friend's daughter, who with her mother was his frequent 
 guest both at Stanhope and at Hampstead, speaks of him, 
 in another letter to INlrs Carter, Avitli evident affection.^ 
 
 'From the first of my real remembrance, I have ever 
 known in him the kind affectionate friend, the faithful ad- 
 viser, which he would condescend to when I was quite a 
 child ; and the most delightful companion, from a delicacy 
 
 ^ Mr Bagehot, wlio ingeniously seeks to make out that Butler was 
 a gloomy ascetic, says that ' there is no evidence of his ever having 
 si^oken to any lady save Queen Caroline.' This is what Butler would 
 have called arguing on a preconceived hypothesis, — Literary Esti- 
 mates, vol. ii. p. 74.
 
 28 Bnthr. 
 
 of thinking, an extreme politeness, a vast knowledge of the 
 world, and a something peculiar, to be met with in nobody 
 else. And all this in a man whose sanctity of manners and 
 sublimity of genius gave him one of the first ranks among 
 men.' 
 
 Surtees, in his ' History of Durham,' describes liiin as 
 follows : — 
 
 ' During the short time that Butler held the see of Dur- 
 ham he conciliated all hearts. In advanced years he re- 
 tained the same genuine modesty and native sweetness of 
 disposition which had distinguished him in youth, and in 
 retirement. During the performance of the sacred office, u 
 divine animation seemed to pervade his whole manner, and 
 lighted up his pale, wan countenance, already marked A^-ith 
 the progress of disease : like a torch glimmering in its socket, 
 yet bright and iiseful to the last.' 
 
 ' He was,' says Hutchinson, ' of a most reverend as- 
 pect ; his face thin and pale ; but there was a divine 
 placidness in his countenance which inspired veneration, 
 and expressed the most benevolent mind. His white 
 hair hung gracefully on his shoulders, and his whole 
 figure was patriarchal.'^ 
 
 Of his private tastes and habits Ave know very little. 
 He was fond of music ; and his under-secretary, Emms, 
 who had been a chorister of St Paul's, used to play to 
 him on the organ in private when at Durham. A some- 
 what singular fancy is attributed to him by one of his 
 domestic chaplains, Dr Tucker, afterwards dean of 
 Gloucester. He would walk for hours in the little 
 garden behind his palace at Bristol 'in the darkest 
 night which the time of the year could afford ; ' and 
 on one occasion, when tlie chaplain "was with him, 
 1 History of Durliaiii, vol. i. p. 578.
 
 Habits and Character. 29 
 
 he stopped suddenly to ask the question, 'What 
 security is there against the insanity of individ- 
 uals 1 The physicians know of none ; and as to di- 
 vines, we have no data either from Scripture or from 
 reason to go upon relative to this affair.' Tucker ad- 
 mitted that ' no man had a lease of his understanding • 
 any more than of his life.' The hishop took another 
 turn and stopped again. '"WHiy might not whole 
 communities and public bodies be seized with fits of 
 insanity as well as individuals'?' The chaplain could 
 give no opinion. ' Nothing,' continued the bishop, ' but 
 this principle — that they are liable to insanity, equally 
 at least with private persons — can account for the major 
 part of those transactions of which we read in history.' 
 
 A recent writer asserts that Butler had no literary 
 tastes : surely a rash assumption. The lad who began a 
 critical reading of metaphysics at the Gloucester acad- 
 emy was likely to be a great reader all his life ; and 
 although Butler's retired habits and reticent nature make 
 it impossible to discover what he did or did not read, 
 there are traces enough of the student in his works, 
 though he never quotes or gives references. All we 
 are told by those Avho knew him is, that he was fond 
 of studying 'the lives of the Eoman Saints, and their 
 books of mystic piety : ' and here we are reminded of 
 the little oratory at Stanhope. Coleridge says that 
 'Bishop Butler was all his life struggling against the 
 devilish suggestions of his senses, Avhich would have 
 maddened him if he had relaxed the stem watchful- 
 ness of his reason for a single moment : ' but nothing 
 that we find in his life or writings seems to supply 
 any justification of the statement. Somewhat apocry-
 
 30 Butler. 
 
 phal stories are told of the awe Avhich he expressed 
 at the near approach of death, but they suffice to show 
 that he was a sincere and humble Christian. The same 
 impression is gathered from several entries amongst his 
 few private memoranda, as the following : — 
 
 ' Be more afraid of myself than of the world.' 
 ' To discern the hand of God in everything, and have a 
 due sense of it.' 
 
 ' Instead of deluding one's self in imagining one should be- 
 have better in times and circumstances other than those in 
 which one is placed, to take care and be faithful in those one 
 is placed in.' 
 
 Six sermons, preached on special public occasions 
 between the years 1738 and 1748, during his occupancy 
 of the see of Bristol, make up, with the ' Analogy,' the 
 Eolls Sermons, and the Durham Charge, the brief list of 
 his published works. In his will he leaves this express 
 direction to his executor, Dr Forster — ' that all my ser- 
 mons, letters, and papers whatever, be burnt without 
 being read by any one, so soon as may be after my 
 decease.' 
 
 The charge of Romanism was revived against him, 
 fifteen years after his death, in an anonymous pamphlet 
 attributed either to Blackburne or Theophilus Lindsey, 
 in which it was asserted that he had died in the com- 
 munion of the Church of Rome. Seeker, who had then 
 become archbishop of Canterbury, came forward loyally 
 to vindicate Butler's memory from this unfounded slan- 
 der. It Avas the last tribute of a lifelong friendship, 
 and one of the closing acts of his own life : he died next 
 year.
 
 31 
 
 CHAPTEE 11. 
 
 MODERN ETHICAL THEORIES. 
 
 The position of Butler as an ethical writer cannot be 
 understood without some knowledge of the theories 
 which had been previously advanced on the subject of 
 morals, and which he either combated or criticised, or 
 in some cases adopted as the basis of his own, though 
 he seldom refers by name to their authors. But the 
 sketch here given must of necessity be slight and im- 
 perfect. 
 
 The existence of two distinct theories as to the foun- 
 dations of morality may be traced from the earliest days 
 in which the human mind Avas directed to such inquir- 
 ies. "WHiether the ideas of right and wrong Avere some- 
 thing eternal and pre-existent in man's moral nature, or 
 whether they were the result of experience, handed down 
 from generation to generation, of the general tendencies 
 of certain lines of conduct as affecting the happiness 
 of the individual or of mankind — whether duty or 
 pleasure was to be the rule of life — whether there was 
 any such thing as unselfish virtue, — were questions on 
 Avhich philosophers liad. been at variance before the days 
 of Plato and Aristotle. The two schools of moralists
 
 32 Butler. 
 
 are commonly known, amongst English writers upon 
 ethics, as the Intuitive and the Inductive : the former 
 being sometimes called the Sentimental, and the latter 
 the Utilitarian or the Selfish. Setting aside the various 
 subdivisions and cross - divisions of these two main 
 lines of thought, it may be said broadly that the Intui- 
 tive moralists hold that we have implanted in us a 
 moral f acidty which takes cognisance of right and wrong, 
 quite independent of our interest or our pleasure, and 
 that the notion of right carries with it the obHgation to 
 follow it. The Inductive school contends, on the other 
 hand, that we have no such innate moral faculty what- 
 ever ; that such ideas of right and wrong as men con- 
 ceive are gained from long observation of what does or 
 does not conduce to happiness ; that virtue is but an 
 enlightened self-interest, and that the highest form of it 
 is to seek ' the greatest happiness of the greatest num- 
 ber.' Both theories have their vulnerable points, which 
 have been vigorously attacked by their opponents. 
 They are mainly these. It is objected against the latter 
 (the Inductive) hypothesis, that when the good of soci- 
 ety clashes or seems to clash with our OAvn personal 
 pleasure or interest, there is no moral obligation to seek 
 it, if the existence of a primary moral judgment be 
 denied : while the Intuitive theory is said to be con- 
 tradicted by the fact that this moral judgment is seen 
 to vary in different nations and in different eras of civi- 
 lisation, and that in what seems man's natural state — 
 the savage — it is defective and sometimes wholly want- 
 ing. Its opponents point to the admitted fact that 
 infanticide, murder of enemies, polygamy, and other 
 customs which we hold to be highly immoral, have all
 
 Modern Ethical Theories. 33 
 
 at different periods been held laAvfuL "We have only to 
 refer to Homer to see that in his day piracy was rather 
 respectable than otherwise ; and the idea that robbery, 
 merely as such, was disgraceful, ' never occurred,' says 
 Macavday, 'to the mind of a Celtic chief.' To the Cal- 
 latian Indians of Herodotus's story, who ate their fathers, 
 the practice, says Locke, was ' the recognised mode of 
 showing filial affection.' 
 
 Foremost amongst the moralists of the Intuitive 
 school stand the names of Lord Herbert of Cherbury, 
 Descartes, Cudworth, and Dr Samuel Clarke. Their 
 A'iews by no means correspond on all points, and may 
 require a brief separate statement here. Herbert, who 
 wrote in 1624, maintains that we have what he terms 
 'natural instincts.' They are principles implanted in 
 us and sanctioned by nature, against which if we rebel 
 it is at our peril. The criterion by which we may know 
 them is their universality : what all men accept must be 
 true. So the existence of the Deity, and the idea of 
 virtue, and of a future state, are eternal and universal 
 truths. Conscience is that which guides us to the prac- 
 tical use of such truths, exciting satisfaction in well- 
 doing, uneasiness and repentance in iU-doing. AYitli 
 Herbert may be classed the great French philosopher 
 Descartes, who published his specidations a few years 
 later, and was the founder or originator of a distinct 
 school which bears his name. He, too, appeals to 'in- 
 tuition ' as furnishing us with truths which are self- 
 evident and do not admit of or need demonstration, — 
 such as the consciousness of our own existence, or the 
 being of God. In the power of thought he finds the 
 proof of existence : Cogito, ergo sum — ' I think, therefore 
 
 p. — II. C
 
 34 Butler. 
 
 I exist.' The idea of perfection, which he finds in his 
 own mind, necessitates the existence of a perfect Being, 
 since every idea must have a cause — Ex nihilo nihil fit 
 — ' N'othing comes of nothing.' Such are two of his 
 well-knoAvn leading axioms. 
 
 Cudworth, whose views were considerably influenced 
 by those of Descartes, was the most learned of the 
 English school of Intuitionists. His main position is 
 embodied in the title of his posthumous work — ' A Treat- 
 ise on Eternal and Immutable Morality.' He charges 
 the Inductive moralists (it was Hobbes especially to 
 whom his book was intended as a reply) with reviving 
 the old sophistries of Greek philosophers who had tried 
 to obscure the distinction between right and wrong. 
 This distinction is, he maintains, so absolute and eternal 
 in the nature of things, that no arbitrary law of man, or 
 even the will of God (and here he comes into collision 
 with some learned divines) can alter it. God can no 
 more make a thing good that is not good, than He can 
 make a triangle that has not three angles. Good and 
 Evil are among the eternal and immutable verities 
 which we ajiprehend not by sense or experience, but by 
 pure intellect, and are things far more real than the mere 
 phenomena of sense. He holds, with Herbert, that our 
 ideas of these things are innate : they are conceptions 
 which the mind appears to have the power of drawing 
 out of itself, wholly independent of teaching or experi- 
 ence, and Avhich Plato for that reason sought to explain 
 by the hypothesis of their having been acquired in a 
 previous state of existence. Of the conditions of Happi- 
 ness he takes no account in his system. 
 
 Clarke's theory is somewhat peculiar, — that 'things'
 
 Modern Ethical Theories. 35 
 
 (by which expression he means rather ' Beings ') stand 
 one to another in certain relations which are necessary 
 and eternal ; that we can conceive nothing without at the 
 same time conceiving its relations to something else ; that 
 there are such relations, for instance, between man and 
 God, and between man and man ; that from such relations' 
 there arises a Fitness or Unfitness of actions, indepen- 
 dent of and antecedent to the positive command of God, 
 or any expectation of present or future reward or pun- 
 ishment ; and that from such fitness there arises an 
 obligation, resting on 'the eternal Eeason of things,' to 
 which the sanction of reward or punishment, however 
 effectual, is only secondary. In accordance with this 
 'fitness,' God Avills Avhat is agreeable to Justice, Good- 
 ness, and Truth : our duty to God is Veneration, Love, 
 "Worship ; to our fellow-men. Justice and Benevolence ; 
 to ourselves. Self-preservation and Temperance. He 
 rests his proof of his position (very much as we shall 
 find Butler does hereafter) on the judgment Ave pass 
 both upon our oa\ti actions and vipon the conduct 
 of others towards ourselves. And in reply to the ob- 
 jection that this moral fitness finds no place in the 
 minds of savages, he answers that neither do the sim- 
 plest mathematical truths, — yet both exist immutably, 
 notwithstanding. Happiness he rather assumes to be 
 consequent on the conduct being in harmony with this 
 ' fitness,' than discusses directly. Wollaston's theory is 
 very similar to Clarke's. He makes virtue the assertion 
 of truth, and vice the denial of it : thus theft is a denial 
 of the right of property. Of this immutable truth or 
 falsehood he makes reason the judge. It may be re- 
 marked that he alloAvs distinctly, what may meet the
 
 36 Butler. 
 
 grand objection of the Inductive moralist, that there is a 
 progressive morality, notwithstanding : and that the ignor- 
 ance of a truth reduces a vicious action to a mere error 
 in morals — the affirmation by tlie agent of a false propo- 
 sition assumed to be true. Cudworth, Clarke, and Wol- 
 laston have been classed together as ' Rational ' moralists. 
 One more writer of the Intuitive school must be 
 noticed, exactly contemporary with Butler, — whose earli- 
 est work was published the year before Butler's Sermons, 
 and had probably been studied by him before the com- 
 position of the 'Analogy.' This was Francis Hutcheson, 
 whose theory of the natural history of morals differed 
 from those advanced by his predecessors in this, that he 
 rejects not only the hypothesis that we gain our notions 
 of right and wrong from education, or association of 
 ideas, or from self-interest, but also that they result from 
 either 'the fitness of things 'or 'the truth of things.' 
 He contends that we have a moral sense as natural to us 
 as our other senses, capable like them of being trained 
 by cultivation to a higher degree of perfectiom-'- It has 
 a taste and relish for what is good ; and, in its highest 
 development, it appreciates above everything else the 
 exercise of goodwill to all men. Thus he may be said 
 generally to resolve virtue into Benevolence ; admitting 
 (as Shaftesbury did, and as we shall see that Butler 
 does) the twofold determination of man's nature to- 
 wards our OAvn good and the good of our neighbour, but 
 holding that this ' moral sense,' when perfectly exercised, 
 will lead us to decide at once in favour of the latter 
 whenever they may seem to clash, and placing the high- 
 est form of happiness in Benevolence fully gratified. 
 1 Inquiry into the Ideas of Beauty and Virtue.
 
 Modern Etliiccd Tlicorics. 37 
 
 At the head of the Inductive school in England — 
 better known as that of Utilitarianism— both as to date 
 and eminence, stands Thomas Hobbes of Malmesbnry. 
 He is the most uncompromising advocate of the selfish 
 philosophy. He makes self the ultimate object of all hu- 
 man action, and rejects the notion of disinterested virtue 
 almost with a sneer. ' When a man deliberates whether 
 to do a thing or not, he does nothing else but consider 
 whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it,' 
 ' Good and evil are names that signify our appetites and 
 aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doc- 
 trines of men are different.' ' He struck the affections,' 
 as Mackintosh says, ' out of the map of human nature ; ' 
 for he represents them as only so many forms of self- 
 love. Charity is the complacent exercise of power, in 
 being able to assist others. ' Pity is imagination of 
 future calamity to ourselves ; ' ' even the goodness 
 which we apprehend in God Almighty is his goodness 
 to us.' The state of nature is a state of war, in which 
 the notions of right and wrong, justice or injustice, 
 find no place ; in which every man has a right to every- 
 thing. But this right men Avere content to forego, Avhcn 
 they found by experience that, on the whole, self-re- 
 straint promoted happiness, and that their own selfish 
 interests were best secured by order and co-operation ; 
 and thus certain principles Avere evolved Avhich he 
 terms (by what seems rather a misnomer) the ' laws of 
 nature,' and these he makes to embrace, in the main, 
 the received maxims of morality. Eight, therefore, in 
 Hobbes's system, is chiefly founded on recognised law, 
 — that is, in other words, upon Might. Upon this the 
 State — the great ' Leviathan ' — rests, and dictates laws to
 
 3S Butler. 
 
 the people ; and it is this established authority which 
 regulates both religion and morality. Ethics and legisla- 
 tion, under this view, run parallel, if they are not abso- 
 lutely identical. AVriting as he did in the ferment of 
 the Great Eebellion, he held all liberty to be pernicious, 
 and that misery arose in great measure from men being 
 allowed to have opinions. He inculcates the practice of 
 virtue chiefly from motives of fear — in order to prevent 
 injury to society or individuals ; while Cudworth and 
 his school rest it on the higher ground of a regard to 
 the promotion of the general welfare. The theory of 
 Hobbes was pushed to its cynical extreme a few years 
 later by INIandeville, who took the lowest view of human 
 nature ever seriously professed by a moralist, — that 
 morality is only the cunning device of rulers, by which 
 men are coaxed and flattered to prefer the public in- 
 terest to their own. He might have found this cynical 
 theory, no doubt, among the many discussed by Plato, 
 Avho makes one of his disputants in the ' Gorgias ' main- 
 tain that Justice is only the interest of the stronger ; and 
 puts into the mouth of the sophist Thrasymachus, in the 
 'Ee public,' the assertion that rulers only legislate with 
 a view to their personal interest, and regard their sub- 
 jects in the same light as a shepherd does his sheep, 
 which he fattens solely for his ovn\ profit. ' The moral 
 virtues,' says INIandeville, ' are the political ofl'spring 
 which flattery begot upon pride.' Virtue in general he 
 defines as ' a thirst for praise : ' conveniently ignoring 
 the argument, on which Butler dwells strongly, that the 
 praise men willingly award to virtue is a criterion of its 
 reality. Such a paradox was sure to attract readers in 
 its day : it is worth notice here, as showing the abuse
 
 Modern Etliical Theories. 39 
 
 of which, the utilitarian doctrines may be capable. But 
 Mandeville found more readers than disciples. 
 
 Locke follows Hobbes so far as to deny the existence 
 of 'innate ideas.' If these be said, with Cud worth, to be 
 universal, he denies it, — they do not exist in children, 
 or in idiots, or in savages ; and if it be intended to. 
 limit this universality to such as have arrived at the use 
 of reason, then it is reason that discovers them to us, 
 and they can no longer be said to be innate. The rules 
 of morality seem to differ among men according to cir- 
 cumstances ; and there is no rule which has not been 
 formally set aside by some community or other. If 
 such rules were really innate, they would be found to 
 regulate the general practice of men, which we know 
 they do not. Our moral sentiments, he holds, are 
 formed by education, by custom, which is more power- 
 ful than nature, and, above all, by the ' association of 
 ideas.' 'Good and Evil are nothing but Pleasure and 
 Pain, or that which occasions pleasure or pain to us ; ' 
 these are attached, as consequences, in the shape of 
 reward or punishment, to certain courses of action 
 by one of three laws — the divine law, when we can 
 ascertain it, the law of the State, and the law of public 
 opinion ; and an action is morally good or morally evil 
 according as it is or is not in conformity with one or 
 other of these laws. And he observes, with much force 
 and truth, that the sanction of this last law — the law 
 of opinion — is often more efficacious than either the 
 divine or the civil legislator. He admits that man has 
 innate faculties, but traces the source of all ideas to 
 sensation and reflection. 
 
 It is difficult to class with either of these schools of
 
 40 Butler. 
 
 ethics a writer to whom Butler was much indebted, 
 Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of Shaftesbury. Trained 
 in the principles of Locke, so far as concerns the ulti- 
 mate appeal to reason on all questions, he yet opposed 
 him strongly by upholding the existence in the human 
 mind of innate ideas or principles, though he would 
 rather have them termed ' connate.' ' The sense of 
 Eight and Wrong,' he says, ' is as natural to us as 
 natural affection itself, and is a first principle in our 
 constitution and make.' -^ His discursive fashion of 
 Avriting often makes his opinions difficult to collect ; he 
 does not always seem consistent with himself, nor, in- 
 deed, does he make any pretence to lay down any formal 
 system or theory. ' The most ingenious way of be- 
 coming foolish is,' he says, ' by a system.' But he 
 deserves the credit of having maintained, perhaps 
 more decidedly and strongly than had been done 
 before, the existence of an unselfish element in hu- 
 man nature. He is so afraid of selfishness that, in 
 his view, the holding out the prospect of rewards and 
 punishments, though he admits they are efficacious 
 in leading men to pursue virtue and avoid vice, is an 
 appeal to selfish and inferior motives. He affirms that 
 true happiness consists in the full exercise of our un- 
 selfish and benevolent affections. To love, with him, is 
 to be happy — to hate is to be miserable. He sots him- 
 self to prove ' that to have the natural, kindly, and 
 generous affections strong and powerful towards the good 
 of the public, is to have the chief means and power of 
 self-enjoyment ; and that to want them is certain misery 
 1 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Book I., Part 3, § 1.
 
 Modc7-n Ethical Theories. 41 
 
 and ill. ' ^ He sees a certain harmony pervading the 
 course of nature, which results in a moral beauty, as per- 
 ceptible as physical beauty : and he asserts a moral sense 
 by which we apprehend this. 'AVliat is beautiful is 
 harmonious and proportionable ; what is harmonious and 
 proportionable is true ; and what is at once both beau- ' 
 tiful and true, is of consequence agreeable and good.'^ 
 He will not admit that conscience carries with it any 
 sense of obligation, possibly because he dislikes the 
 notion of virtue being obligatory in any sense. He 
 looks upon conscience as an emotion — a moral taste; 
 the pleasure of gratifying it leads to virtue, while ' to 
 want conscience, or natural sense of the odiousness of 
 crime and injustice, is to be most of all miserable in 
 life.' These seem to be the leading features of Shaftes- 
 bury's unsystematic ' Inquiry after Virtue,' the nature 
 and the grounds of which he held might be discov- 
 ered by ethics without appeal to revelation. It will 
 be seen how Butler, in his sermons, adopts this mode 
 of inquiry as far as a divine, speaking from the pulpit, 
 might venture to do, and rarely appeals to Scripture 
 until he has fairly proved his point withoi;t it. There is 
 no doubt that Butler had studied Shaftesbury's writings 
 attentively ; and though in his ethical sermons, and still 
 more in his ' Analogy,' he differs from him as to the moral 
 value of rewards and punishments, the sermons them- 
 selves are based very much upon Shaftesbury's specu- 
 lations. He sees, with him, ' an order and symmetry 
 of the inward part,' which leads him to discuss human 
 nature as a system or constitution. 
 
 1 Ibid., Book II., Part 1, § 3 ad fin. 2 Miscellanies, iii. ch. 2.
 
 42 Butler. 
 
 Like Shaftesbury, Butler does not profess to lay clown 
 any formal system of ethics. His views of moral philo- 
 sophy are set forth in his ' Sermons on Human I^ature,' 
 to Avhich those on Benevolence, on Compassion, and 
 upon Eesentment, serve by way of appendix and illus- 
 tration, and in the ' Dissertation upon Virtue ' which he 
 has appended to the third chapter of the 'Analogy.' 
 They are also to be found interspersed in other parts of 
 this later work, which help to fill up the outline. For 
 he found it impossible to dissociate philosophy from 
 religion in his own mind ; he would have agreed with 
 South, that ' what is nonsense upon a principle of Rea- 
 son will never be sense upon a principle of Eeligion.' 
 Much of his reasoning, therefore, in the first part of 
 the 'Analogy,' proceeds upon purely ethical principles 
 — those involved in the constitution of human nature. 
 The ' Sermons ' appear to be intended mainly as an 
 answer to those sceptics who pushed to an extreme the 
 principles of Locke.
 
 43 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE. 
 
 As Butler's Sermons preached at the Eolls Chapel 
 preceded his ' Analogy ' in composition and publica- 
 tion, so also they may be regarded as containing the 
 first germs of the arginnent afterwards developed in 
 that work. 'There are two ways,' he observes in his 
 preface, ' in which morals may be treated : ' — 
 
 ' One begins from inquiring into the abstract relations of 
 things [which is the system of Cudworth, Clarke, and Wol- 
 laston] ; the other from a matter of fact, — namely, what the 
 j)articular nature of man is, its several parts, their economy 
 or constitution ; from whence it proceeds to determine what 
 course of life it is which is correspondent to this whole na- 
 ture. In the former method, the conclusion is expressed thus, 
 that vice is contrary to the nature and reason of things ; in 
 the latter, that it is a violation or breaking in upon our own 
 nature. Thus they both lead us to the same thing, our ob- 
 ligations to the practice of virtue ; and thus they exceeding- 
 ly strengthen and enforce each other. The first seems the 
 most direct formal proof, and in some respects the least 
 liable to cavil and dispute ; tbe latter is in a peculiar manner 
 adapted to satisfy a fair mind, and is more easily applicable 
 to the several particular relations and circumstances in life.'
 
 44 Butler. 
 
 This latter method, he tells us, has been mainly fol- 
 lowed in these sermons, — in the first three, wholly. 
 These three, then, are entitled ' Sermons on Human 
 N'ature.' They are in themselves an analysis, original 
 in idea and masterly in execution, of man's moral and 
 social constitution. It is from these three sermons that 
 Mackintosh (no blind disciple of Butler) declared that 
 he 'had learnt all his philosophy.' In these, he says, 
 ' Butler has taught truths more capable of being distin- 
 guished from the doctrines of his predecessors, more 
 satisfactorily established, more comprehensively applied 
 to particulars, more rationally connected with each other, 
 and therefore more worthy of the name of discovery, 
 than any with which we are acquainted.' ' They were 
 intended,' says the author in his preface, ' to explain 
 what is meant by the nature of man, when it is said 
 that virtue consists in following, and vice in deviating 
 from it ; and, by explaining, to show that the assertion 
 is true.' Thus he practically takes as his text through- 
 out the old dogma of the Stoics, that in following 
 nature we should be choosing the best guide. But this 
 profession of following nature will be ' at best but a 
 loose way of talk ' (as WoUaston had said, and Butler 
 agrees), unless we have a clear conception of what the 
 term ' nature ' in this application means. 
 
 Human nature is to be considered, then, as a system 
 or constitution — a Avhole, made up of several parts, but 
 of which the idea is not complete unless we include 
 * the relations and respects which those parts have to 
 each other.' Of this he gives the following illustra- 
 tion, which may possibly have supplied Paley with the 
 hint for the well-known passage in which he argues tliat
 
 Sermons on Human Nature. 45 
 
 the existing world implies a Creator as certainly as the 
 sight of a watch would lead to the conclusion that it 
 had a maker : — 
 
 ' Let US instance in a watch ; suppose the several parts of 
 it taken to pieces and placed apart from each other ; let a 
 man have ever so exact a notion of these several parts, un- 
 less he considers the respects and relations which they have 
 to each other, he will not have anything like the idea of a 
 watch. Suppose these several parts brought together and 
 anyhow united ; neither will he yet, be the union ever 
 so close, have an idea which will bear any resemblance 
 to that of a watch. But let him view those several parts 
 put together, or consider them as to be put together in the 
 manner of a watch ; let him form a notion of the relations 
 which those several parts have to each other, all conducive 
 in their respective ways to this purpose, showing the hour of 
 the day ; and then he has the idea of a watch. Thus it is 
 with regard to the inward frame of a man. Appetites, pas- 
 sions, affections, and the principle of reflection, considered 
 merely as the several parts of our inward nature, do not at 
 all give us an idea of the system or constitution of this 
 nature ; because the constitution is formed by somewhat not 
 yet taken into consideration, namely, by the relation which 
 these several parts have to each other — the chief of which 
 is the authority of reflection or conscience.' 
 
 The first sermon discusses hiunan nature in its prin- 
 ciples, as regards self, and as regards society; the 
 second deals with its complex elements, and their rela- 
 tion to each other, and insists on the grand supremacy 
 of Conscience ; the third shows that such constitution of 
 human nature evolves rules of virtue, and makes them 
 obligatory in practice. The method pursued is some- 
 thing like the following. 
 
 There is a natural instinct in man which tends to his
 
 46 Butler. 
 
 own self-preservation and happiness ; and there is a 
 natural principle of benevolence, ' which is to society in 
 some degree what self-love is to the individual.' These 
 are distinct, and must be so considered, though they do 
 practically coincide : and the existence of these two 
 distinct principles is a clear indication that Ave are 
 made for society, and are intended to act for the good 
 of society, as well as to take care of ourselves. Far 
 from admitting, with Hobbes, that ' a state of nature is 
 a state of war,' Butler holds, Avith Aristotle, that man is 
 naturally a social -animal He even goes so far, in one 
 place, as to declare that' a due recognition of this fact, 
 ' that mankind is a community — that we all stand in a 
 relation to each other — is the sum of morals.' ^ And he 
 gathers from Scripture that the future state will be a 
 community also. The existence of love, of friendship, 
 of family affections, in hoAvever Ioav a degree, he takes 
 as sufficient proof that ' benevolence ' is a principle of 
 our nature.^ And these tAvo principles of self-love and 
 bencA'olence are so far connected, that 'avc can scarce 
 promote the one Avithout the other,' and ' self-loA'e is one 
 cliief security of our right behaviour toAvards society.' 
 
 Here, as elscAvhere, Butler shoAvs himself the Avilling 
 scholar of Aristotle. He had learnt from the ' Ethics ' 
 that self-love, properly understood, is a duty. ' The 
 good man must necessarily be a lover of himself ; ' ^ that 
 such self-love is cj^uite distinct from Avhat Ave term self- 
 
 1 Sermon ' On Forgiveness.' 
 
 2 There is a paper in the Spectator (No. 601) on this subject, which 
 had probably come imder Butler's notice. The concluding sentence 
 exactly expresses his view — ' Place the mind in its right posture, it 
 will immediately discover its innate propension to beneficence.' 
 
 3 Ethics, viii. 7. 6.
 
 Sermons on Human Nature. 47 
 
 ishness, which only seeks to gratify the lower part of 
 our nature : the real self is the nobler part — the intellec- 
 tual.^ So again, Aristotle represents Friendship (which 
 nearly answers to Butler's term 'Benevolence,') as an 
 extension of self-love, for ' the friend is a second self ; ' 
 and though the man of high principle will give up life 
 and property for his friend or for his country at the 
 call of honour, yet even in this he does not put self out 
 of sight, inasmuch as he retains for himself the higher 
 good — honour itself.^ 
 
 We have also passions and affections, distinct alike from 
 self-love and from benevolence, which yet, in their proper 
 exercise, ' contribute and lead us to public good as Avell 
 as to private ; ' and this sometimes when exercised without 
 any such view or intention. For instance, the appetite of 
 hunger tends unconsciously to self-preservation, and the 
 love of reputation contributes, without such intention, to 
 the public good ; in both which cases they are ' instru- 
 ments in the hand of Providence,' and proofs of the 
 Divine intention that ' we should be instruments of good 
 to each other as well as to ourselves.' We are thus un- 
 consciously pursuing an end different from and beyond 
 the mere gratification of the special appetite or passion. 
 This distinction (which Butler may have found in 
 Aquinas) is a peculiar feature in his psychology. 
 
 Thirdly, we have Conscience; as to Avhich these are 
 Butler's words : — 
 
 ' There is a principle of reflection in men, by wliicli tliey 
 distingi;isli between, approve, and disapprove their own 
 actions. We are plainly constituted such sort of creatures 
 
 1 Ethics, ix. 4. 4. 2 ibid., ix. 8. 9.
 
 48 Butler. 
 
 as? to reflect upon our own nature. The mind can take u 
 view of what passes within itself, its propensions, aversions, 
 passions, affections, as respecting such objects, and in such 
 degrees ; and of the several actions consequent thereupon. 
 In this survey it approves of one, disapproves of another, 
 and towards a third is affected in neither of these ways, but 
 is quite indifferent. This principle in man, by which he ap- 
 proves or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions, is Con- 
 science ; for this is the strict sense of the word, though 
 sometimes it is used so as to take in more.' 
 
 The existence of Conscience, he holds, will not be 
 disputed : the place assigned to it by N"ature, its author- 
 ity, and the influence it ought of right to have, he v^ill 
 consider hereafter. From what has been said he holds 
 it to be ' as manifest that we are made for society, and 
 to promote the happiness of it, as that we were intended 
 to take care of our own life and health and private 
 good.' This gives, he thinks, 'a different draught of 
 human nature from Avhat we are often presented with : ' 
 and his usually cold and measured language warms into 
 eloquence as he proceeds thus to illustrate his posi- 
 tion : — 
 
 ' There is such a natural principle of attraction in man 
 towards man, that having trod the same tract of land, 
 having breathed in the same climate, barely having been 
 in the same artificial district or division, becomes the occa- 
 sion of contracting acquaintances and familiarities many 
 years after : for anything may serve the jDurpose. Thus re- 
 lations merely nominal are sought and invented, not by 
 governors, but liy the lowest of the people, which are found 
 sufficient to hold mankind together in little fraternities and 
 copartnerships ; weak ties, indeed, and what may afford 
 fund enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered 
 as the real principles of that union ; but they are in truth
 
 Sermons on Human Nature. 49 
 
 merely the occasions, as anything may be of anything, upon 
 which our nature carries us on according to its own previous 
 bent and bias ; which occasions, therefore, would be nothing 
 at all, were there not this prior disposition and bias of 
 nature. Men are so much one body, that in a peculiar 
 manner they feel for each other shame, sudden danger, re- 
 sentment, honour, prosperity, distress ; one or another, or . 
 all of these, from the social nature in general, from benev- 
 olence, upon the occasion of natural relation, acquaintance, 
 protection, dependence ; each of these being distinct cements 
 of society. And, therefore, to have no restraint from, no 
 regard to others in our behaviour, is the speculative absurd- 
 ity of considering ourselves as single and independent, — as 
 having nothing in our nature which has respect to our fellow- 
 creatures, — reduced to action and practice. And this is the 
 same absurdity as to suppose a hand, or any part, to have no 
 natural respect to any other, or to tlie whole body.' 
 
 It may be objected that there are in man's nature dis- 
 positions and principles mischievous to society : so also 
 there are those which are mischievous to himself. There 
 are ungoverned passions, which men Avill gratify to their 
 own injury as well as to the injury of others : but there is 
 no principle of hatred of others jjer se, any more than of 
 self-hatred. If it be said there are persons without nat- 
 ural affection to others, — so also there are persons prac- 
 tically without natural affection for themselves : the 
 nature of man is not to be judged by exceptions. Men 
 too often neglect their own true interest and happiness : 
 so they do those of their neighbours, when it is incon- 
 sistent in either case with a present gratification. A 
 passage in the preface to these sermons may here deserve 
 quotation. 
 
 'Neither does there appear any reason to wish self-love were 
 weaker in the generality of the world than it is. The intiu- 
 r. — 11. D
 
 50 Butler. 
 
 ence which it has seems plainly owing to its being constant 
 and habitual, which it cannot but be, and not to the degree 
 or strength of it. Every caprice of the imagination, every 
 curiosity of the understanding, every affection of the heart, 
 is perpetually showing its weakness by prevailing over it. 
 Men daily, hourly, sacrifice the greatest known interest to 
 fancy, inquisitiveness, love, or hatred, — any vagrant inclina- 
 tion. The thing to be lamented is, not that men have so 
 great regard to their own good or interest in the present 
 world, — for they have not enough ; bv;t that they have so 
 little to the good of others. . . . With all the mistakes 
 men fall into about interest, it would be less mischievous 
 than the extravagances of mere appetite, will, or pleasure.' 
 
 In the second sermon, he attempts, from the considera- 
 tion of the elements of human nature, to define moral- 
 ity. It is difficult, he admits. He proposes to solve 
 the difficulty very much in accordance with Aristotle's 
 method : he inquires what is the proper end (reAos) of 
 man. ' If the real nature of any creature leads him and 
 is adapted to such and such purposes only, or more than 
 to any other, there is reason to believe the author of that 
 nature intended it for those purposes.' We must ' follow 
 nature,' no doubt,- — in this the ancients were right. But 
 this does not mean acting as we please — according as 
 passion, reflection, or appetite (the several parts of it) 
 happen to be the strongest in the individual; but in 
 obeying that highest principle, ' to which belongs the ad- 
 justment and correction of all other inward movements 
 and affections.' This is that principle of reflection, or 
 Conscience, already spoken of, which in every man ' dis- 
 tinguishes between the internal principles of his heart 
 as well as his external actions : which passes judgment 
 upon himself and them ; pronounces determinately some
 
 Sermons on Human Nature. 51 
 
 actions to be in themselves just, riglit, and good ; others 
 to be in themselves evil, Avrong, unjust ; which Avithout 
 being consulted, without being advised with, magisteri- 
 ally exerts itself, and approves or condemns him, the 
 doer of them, accordingly.' It is ' a faculty in kind and 
 in natxire supreme over all others, and which bears its 
 own authority for being so.' Passion, or interest, may 
 rebel against this authority, — nay, in some circumstances 
 may prove the stronger for the time ; but all such power 
 is mere usurpation, — ' a violation of the constitution of 
 man.' 
 
 ' All this is no more than the distinction which everybody 
 is acquainted with between mere power and authority ; 
 only, instead of being intended to express the difference be- 
 tween what is possible and what is la'wful m civil govern- 
 ment, here it has been shoAvn applicable to the several prin- 
 ciples in the mind of man. Thus that principle by which 
 we survey, and either approve or disapprove our own heart, 
 temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what is 
 in its turn to have some influence (which may be said of 
 every passion, of the lowest appetites), but likewise as being 
 superior, as from its very nature manifestly claiming supe- 
 riority over all others ; insomuch that you cannot form a 
 notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking in judg- 
 ment, direction, superintendency. This is a constituent 
 part of the idea, — that is, of the faculty itself ; and to pre- 
 side and govern, from the very economy and constitution of 
 man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right, — had it 
 power, as it has manifest authority, — it would absolutely 
 govern the world.' 
 
 Having thus established the supremacy of Conscience, 
 we see what is meant by 'human nature,' when virtue 
 is said to consist in foUoAving it, and vice in deviating 
 from it.
 
 52 Butler. 
 
 As every civil constitution implies subordination of 
 its parts under one supreme authority — the strength 
 of each particular member not entering into the idea, 
 • — and as, if this subordination be removed — if mere 
 strength prevails over authority — that constitution is 
 destroyed ; so it is not the comparative strength of 
 reason, appetites, or passions, but their relation to 
 each other, and their subordination to Conscience, 
 which makes up the complete idea of Human JN'ature. 
 And if the lower faculties prevail over that which is 
 of right supreme, that constitution is violated. So that 
 man ' has the rule of right within him ; what is Avant- 
 ing is only that he honestly attend to it.' This rule, 
 he contends, is not difficult to apply in practice. In 
 strong contradiction to the dictum of Hobbes, already 
 quoted, that 'when a man deliberates he does notlring 
 else than consider whether it be better for himself to 
 do the thing or not to do it,' Butler says — 
 
 * Let any plain, honest man, before he engage in any course 
 of action, ask himself, " Is this I am going about right, or is 
 it wrong ? — Is it good, or is it evil ? " I do not in the least 
 doubt but that this question would be answered agreeably to 
 truth and vii'tue by almost any fair man, under almost any 
 circumstances.' 
 
 He repeats this in his sermon on the character of 
 Balaam : * In all common ordinary cases we see intui- 
 tively at first x'mw what is our duty — -svliat is the 
 honest part. This is the ground of the observation 
 that * the first thought is often the best.' And if we 
 ask what obligation lies upon us to obey this inward 
 rule, Butler's answer is, that the fact of its being a law 
 of our nature makes it obligatory.
 
 Sermons on Human Nature. 53 / 
 
 It may be objected, "why jiiit any restraint upon our- 
 selves for the good of others ? Why not rid ourselves 
 of such embarrassments ? He replies, that our own self- 
 ish happiness depends much on our relations with others ; 
 and that Ave can gain no end without restraints of some 
 kind. And if it be said, again, that we need, in any case, 
 submit only to such restraints as tend to our oton interests 
 and convenience — he agrees : our own happiness is the 
 measure and end of virtue ; only, he insists that not vice 
 but virtue promotes happiness ; and that it is vice, not 
 virtue, that puts a man under most thraldom and re- 
 straint. Self-love does, in its true sense, coincide Avith 
 virtue. He sums up the whole argument in these con- 
 clusions, — that the correspondence of actions to the true 
 nature of the agent renders them natural, as their dis- 
 proportion to this nature renders them mmatural ; that 
 such correspondence does not mean agreement with the 
 principle that happens to be strongest, but Avith the 
 higher principle, Avhich is in nature and kind superior to 
 the others; and that this principle is conscience, Avhich,---'" 
 leads the same Avay as reasonable self-love. His practical 
 conclusion — required to justify these metaphysical essaysA 
 in being entitled ' Sermons ' — is, that ' duty and interest \ 
 are perfectly coincident, for the most part, in this Avorld, \ 
 but entirely and in every instance, if Ave take in the I 
 future and the whole — this being implied in the notion / 
 of a good and perfect administration of things.' / 
 
 The order in Avhich the remaining sermons are arranged 
 appears someAvhat arbitrary ; and it may be convenient 
 to take first those in which the author applies the prin- 
 ciples already laid down in the discourses on Human 
 N'ature to four several kinds of passions or affections —
 
 54 Butler. 
 
 Compassion, Anger, Benevolence, or love of oiir neighbour, 
 and Love to God, And as ' Benevolence ' has already 
 been defined as the principle in man, socially considered, 
 which corresponds to self-love in the individual, if we 
 take Butler's discussion of it first in order, it will per- 
 haps make the general connection of his moral theory 
 seem clearer. 
 
 r" Indeed, in the first of his two sermons on Benevolence 
 he resumes his previous ground. He discusses the relation 
 
 I of this affection to self-love — which is the desire for indi- 
 vidual happiness, ' inseparable from all sensible creatures.' 
 j But self-love is not in itself happiness, — that consists 
 
 / in the reasonable gratification of our passions and affec- 
 tions ; whereas self-love, in excess, may only cause incon- 
 venience and misery. Benevolence, then, is not neces- 
 sarily opposed to self-love merely because it is distinct 
 from it, any more than the appetites and passions are. 
 The idea of self-love * does not exclude goodwill, or love 
 towards others, otherwise than merely by not including 
 it : nor otherwise than it excludes love of art, or of rep- 
 utation, or of anything else. . . . Love of our neigh- 
 bour has just the same respect to, and is no more distant 
 
 . from self-love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love 
 or hatred of anything else.' 
 
 N^either does the fact that any affection tends to the 
 happiness of another hinder its tending to our own 
 happiness too. The object which a man pursiies for 
 his own gratification may at the same time conduce 
 to the good of others ; and the ambitious man who 
 has gained his object is not necessarily happier than 
 he who has ' such a singularity of mind ' as to have an 
 aflectiou for the public good, if he too be successful.
 
 On Benevolence. 55 
 
 The state of mind engendered by benevolence is no / 
 small component of happiness : nay, ' the being in 
 good hnmour (which is benevolence while it lasts) is 
 itself the temper of satisfaction and enjoyment.' The \ 
 author has thus briefly summed up his argument : — 
 
 ' The short of the matter is no more than this. Happiness 
 consists in the gratification of certain affections, appetites, 
 passions, with objects which are by nature adapted to them. 
 Self-love may indeed set us on work to gratify these ; but 
 happiness or enjoyment has no immediate connection with 
 self-love, but arises from such gratification alone. Love of 
 our neighbour is one of those affections. This, considered as 
 a virtuous principle, is gratified by a consciousness of en- 
 deavouring to promote the good of others ; but considered as 
 a natural affection, its gratification consists in the actual ac- 
 complishment of this endeavour. Now, indulgence or grati- 
 fication of this affection, whether in that consciousness or this 
 accomplishment, has the same respect to interest as indulg- 
 ence of any other affection ; they equally proceed from or do 
 not proceed from self-love, they equally include or ef^ually 
 exclude this principle. Thus it appears that benevolence and 
 the pursuit of public good hath at least as great respect to 
 self-love and the pursuit of private good as any other particu- 
 lar passions and their respective pursuits.' 
 
 There are cases in which self-love, or private interest, 
 competes or interferes with our particular passions or 
 affections ; but this applies much oftener to the grosser 
 appetites, or to such affections as pride or revenge, 
 than to benevolence. 
 
 The mistake of assuming this special opposition be- V 
 tween self-love and the love of others has arisen, the \ 
 author considers, from a confused notion of property, 
 — as though property itself, and not the enjoyment of
 
 5G Butler. 
 
 it, constituted happiness ; ' for if property and happiness 
 be one and tlie same thing, as by increasing the pro- 
 perty of another you lessen your [own] property, so by 
 promoting the happiness of another you lessen your 
 own happiness ; ' whereas this exclusion of others forms 
 only a part, and not the whole, of the idea of property. 
 The clearing up of this mistake is of importance ; 
 because 
 
 * Common reason and humanity will have some influence 
 iipon mankind, whatever becomes of speculations ; but, so 
 fer as the interests of virtue depend upon the theory of it 
 bemg secured from o^^en scorn, so far its very being in the 
 world depends upon its appearing to have no contrariety to 
 private interest and self-loA'e. 
 
 In his second sermon on the subject, Butler considers 
 — 1. The proper object of this affection ; 2. The proper ex- 
 tent of it ; 3. Its influence on our own character. First, 
 then, benevolence in its highest form must be the per- 
 fection of God rather than man, — it embraces love to the 
 Avhole universe. But in our own case, even mankind, 
 Avhich the moralists suggest — or our country, as others 
 would substitute (our tribe, according to Spencer and 
 Clifford) — is too large an object. We must be prac- 
 tically content to entertain this affection merely as 
 Christianity limits it — to our neighbours. 
 
 Then, secondly, if we are to love our neighbour 'as 
 ourself,' the affection must be of the same kind, and 
 bear a certain proportion to our love for ourselves ; 
 for, since we take human nature to be a well-balanced 
 constitution, it is not the degree in which we entertain 
 any one affection, but the proportion which that one bears
 
 On Benevolence, 57 
 
 to others within lis, which really goes to the formation 
 of character. And the proportion which benevolence 
 and self - love bear to each other is that which ' de- 
 nominates men's character as to virtue.' As to the 
 measiu'e of this proportion, it may be said that, so 
 long as a man does not neglect what is due to him- 
 self, the more care and thought and money he em- 
 ploys in doing good to others, the nearer he comes to 
 ' the law of perfection.' Even though the expression, 
 that we should love others 'as ourselves,' be taken to 
 mean an equality of affection, there need be no appre- 
 hension, he thinks, that the care of ourselves would be 
 neglected. 
 
 Thirdly, its influence extends to all the relations of 
 life : it creates a charitable temper ; it prevents our 
 giving offence, or readily taking it; and may be said 
 with truth to comprehend all other virtues. Not that 
 Butler resolves all virtue into benevolence, as Hutcheson 
 and Leibnitz would teach ; it must be not ' a blind pro- 
 pension,' but under the guidance of reason. He guards 
 his readers against this notion in his 'Dissertation on 
 A^irtue.' , 
 
 ' Benevolence, and the want of it, singly considered, are in 
 no sort the whole of virtue and vice. For if tliis were the 
 case, in tlie review of one's own character or that of otliers, 
 our moral understanding and moral sense would be indiffer- 
 ent to everything but the degrees in which benevolence pre- 
 vailed, and the degrees in which it was wanting. That is, 
 we should neither approve of benevolence to some persons 
 rather than to others, nor disapprove injustice and falsehood 
 upon any other account, than merely as an overbalance of 
 happiness was foreseen likely to be produced by the first, 
 and of misery by the second.'
 
 58 Butler. 
 
 So when, in the conchision of his sermon, he exalts 
 this princijile of benevolence by the assertion that ' we 
 have no clear conception of any positive moral attribute 
 in the Supreme Being, but what may be resolved up 
 into goodness ' — we must be careful to attach its due 
 weight to the phrase ' no clear conception ; ' for other- 
 wise such language will be in contradiction to what he 
 says elsewhere, 
 
 ' Some men seem to think the only character of the Author 
 of nature to be that of simple absolute benevolence ; and sup- 
 posing this to be the only character of God, veracity and jus- 
 tice in Him would be nothing but benevolence conducted by 
 wisdom. Now surely this ought not to be asserted unless it 
 can be proved ; for we should speak with cautious reverence 
 on such a subject.' — Analogy, i. 3. 
 
 Butler asserts that Hobbes had defined benevolence, 
 or goodwill, to be nothing more than the love of power,^ 
 and (in a note to his first sermon) satirically observes that 
 such a view can only be explained to any ordinary mind 
 by supposing that this 'learned person had a general 
 hypothesis to which the appearance of goodwill could 
 no otherwise be reconciled.' The fact that what has the 
 appearance of benevolence is sometimes nothing but 
 ambition, and that delight in the display of superiority 
 
 "^ He is here somewhat unfair to Hobbes, if this is the passage to 
 which he refers : ' There is yet another passion, sometimes called 
 love, but more properly goodwill or charitj'. There can be no 
 greater argument to a man of his own power than to find himself able 
 not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to assist other men 
 in theirs ; and this is the conception wherein consisteth charitj'.' — 
 Human Nature, ix. 17. Hobbes's lang^iage comes to little more than 
 Butler's — that ' charity is the pleasure felt by the stronger in the con- 
 scious exercise of power on behalf of the weaker.
 
 On Compassion. 59 
 
 does often mix itself Avith benevolence, ' only makes it 
 more specious to call it ambition than hunger, of the 
 two ; ' but ambition really no more accounts for the 
 appearance of benevolence generally than hunger does. 
 He adds that delight in the exercise of power may as 
 often lead to mischief and cruelty, as to charity and 
 goodwill. 
 
 A note upon Hobbes's view of benevolence, Avhich 
 appears amongst Butler's few private memoranda, may 
 find its place here. 
 
 ' Hobbes's definition of benevolence^that 'tis the love of 
 power — is base and false ; but there is more of truth in it 
 than appears at first sight, — the real benevolence of men 
 being, I think, for the most part, not indeed the single 
 love of power, but the love of power to be exercised in the 
 way of doing good. That is a different thing from the love 
 of the good or happiness of others by whomsoever effected, 
 Avhich last I call single or simple benevolence. How little 
 there is of this in the world may appear by observing how 
 many persons can bear with great tranquillity that a friend 
 or child should live in misery, who yet cannot bear the 
 thought of their death.' ^ 
 
 The sermon on Compassion is also in great measure 
 a refutation of Hobbes, on whose definition of this 
 affection Butler has appended a long note. The follow- 
 ing is Hobbes's statement in his own words : — 
 
 ' Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to our- 
 selves, proceeding from the sense of another man's calamity. 
 But when it lighteth on such as we think have not deserved 
 the same, the compassion is greater, because then there ap- 
 peareth more probability that the same may happen to us ; 
 
 1 Steele's Unpublished Remains of Bisliop Butler.
 
 60 Butler. 
 
 for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen 
 to every man. But when we see a man suffer for great 
 crimes, which we cannot easily think will fall upon our- 
 selves, the pity is the less. And therefore men are apt to 
 pity those whom they love ; for, whom they love they think 
 worthy of good, and tlierefore not worthy of calamity. 
 Thence it is also that men pity the vices of some persons at 
 the first sight only, out of love to their aspect. The contrary 
 of pity is hardness of heart, proceeding either from slow- 
 ness of imagination, or some extreme great opinion of their 
 own exemption from the like calamity, or from hatred of all 
 or most men.' — Human Nature, chap. ix. 
 
 Butler remarks in his note that those who, like 
 Hobbes, exclude the social affections altogether from 
 their system, and reduce all human motives to the prin- 
 ciple of selfishness, are driven to give some such explana- 
 tion of a feeling the existence of Avhich they cannot 
 deny : they find ' a plain matter-of-fact Avliich they cannot 
 reconcile with the general account they think fit to give of 
 things, and therefore, instead of that manifest fact, they 
 substitute another which is reconcilable to their own 
 scheme.' He maintains that such a definition as that 
 given by Hobbes makes compassion almost identical 
 with fear, and that he makes ourselves, and not our 
 friends, the object of the passion, in plain contradiction 
 to ovx experience. He admits that the sense of our own 
 liability to the like suffering (as also a conscious satis- 
 faction in our present freedom from it) may be accom- 
 paniments of the feeling of compassion, but they are not 
 of the essence of such feeling. And he adds, with much 
 acuteness, that if the sight of the miseries of others 
 excites an imagination of danger to ourselves, it is a 
 proof of sympathy, which is an essential principle in 
 
 I
 
 On Compassion. Gl 
 
 his ovnx account of human nature, but which would be 
 'furthest from the tlioughts ' of Hobbes.^ 
 
 He himself ranks Compassion among those principles 
 of action which belong to man in his social capacity. 
 It is as natural to him as self-love. It is the correlative 
 of another feeling, not so powerful, and not so needful 
 in man's social relations, and Avliich, perhaps for that 
 reason, has no single term in use to express it,^ — gratifi- 
 cation at the sight of the felicity of others. 
 
 There is nothing strange, he considers, in our being 
 thus affected toAVards the interests of others : — 
 
 ' For if there be any appetite or any inward principle be- 
 sides self-love, Avliy may there not be an aftection towards 
 tlie good of our fellow-creatures, and delight in that affection's 
 being gratified, and uneasiness from things going contrary to 
 it?'3 
 
 1 It may perhaps be qiiestioned whether Butler is right in saying 
 that a conscious satisfaction in our own i'reedom from suffering ex- 
 cites pity at tlie siglit of it in others. Lucretius seems more near 
 the trutli when he says that we are apt to view the sufferings of 
 others with a sort of self-congratulation, — 'Suave mari magno,' &c. 
 
 2 Butler, like Aristotle, feels the want of sufficiently distinct terms. 
 
 3 Hume, who has followed Butler's views more frequently than 
 might have been expected, in defending the existence of the unself- 
 ish element in human nature, has a very similar passage : ' Hunger 
 and thirst have eating and drinking for their end, and from the grati- 
 fication of those primary appetites arises a jjleasure which may be- 
 come the object of another species of desire or inclination that is 
 secondary and interested. In the same manner, tliere are mental 
 passions by which we are impelled immediately to seek particular 
 objects, such as fame or power or vengeance, without any regard to 
 interest : and when these objects are attained, a pleasing enjoyment 
 ensues. . . . Now where is the difficulty of conceiving that 
 this may be likewise the case with benevolence and friendship ? and 
 that from the original frame of our temper we may feel a desire 
 of another's happiness or good, which by means of that aftection be-
 
 62 Butler. 
 
 It may be argued that Compassion is a weakness 
 rather than a true motive of action — a passion which 
 may mislead us, whereas we ought to be influenced by 
 reason only. Mandeville, in fact, did so argue : pity, 
 he says, is as much a frailty of our nature as anger, 
 pride, or fear. But it is, says Butler, no more a weak- 
 ness than are our senses or appetites ; ' our passions are 
 as really a part of our constitution as our senses ; ' both 
 are ' a supply to the imperfection of our nature ; ' and 
 to seek to eradicate them is no mark of wisdom. 
 
 1. The reasonable exercise of such affections as this 
 increases the happiness of life. The happiness of others 
 adds to our own, and this fact necessarily involves 
 compassion at their unhappiness ; and the recognised 
 existence of such a feeling does in some sense alleviate 
 suffering. 
 
 2. Such affections are an incentive to our duties to 
 others. As our passions and appetites aid in securing 
 our private good (we might forget to support life suffi- 
 ciently but for the appetite of hunger), so the principle 
 of benevolence needs ' the under-affections, which are 
 its assistants,' to insure its full exercise. Compassion 
 insures for the distressed an access to our feelings which 
 otherwise might be wanting. And even to those natures 
 in which the feeling is absent, its general existence 
 serves as a rebuke and restraint. 
 
 With some of the tenets of stoicism Butler, Stoic as 
 he shows himself in his general theory of morals, has no 
 sympathy whatever. 
 
 comes our own good, and is afterwards pursued from the combined 
 motives of benevolence and self-enjoyment ? ' — Inquiry Concerning 
 Morals, App. II.
 
 On Compassion. 63 
 
 ' In general, experience will sliow tliat as want of natural 
 appetite to food supposes and proceeds from some bodily dis- 
 ease ; so the apathy the Stoics talk of, as much supposes or is 
 accompanied with somewhat amiss in the moral character, in 
 that which is the health of the mind. Those who formerly 
 aimed at this upon the foot of philosophy appear to have 
 had better success in eradicating the affections of tenderness 
 and compassion, than they had with the passions of envy, 
 pride, and resentment : these latter, at best, were but con- 
 cealed, and that imperfectly too. How far this observation 
 may be extended to such as endeavour to suppress the natu- 
 ral impulses of their affections, in order to form themselves 
 for business and the world, I shall not determine.' 
 
 And witli Hobbes's speculations still in his mind, he 
 closes the first of the two sermons on Compassion with 
 these remarks on the danger of what he calls ' over-re- 
 finements in morality and religion : ' — 
 
 ' Morality and religion must be somewhat plain and easy 
 to be understood : they must appeal to what we call common- 
 sense, as distinguished from superior capacity and improve- 
 ment, because they appeal to mankind. Persons of superior 
 capacity and improvement have often fallen into errors, 
 which no one of mere common understanding could. Is it 
 possible that one of this latter character could ever of him- 
 self have thought that there was absolutely no such thing in 
 mankind as affection to the good of others (suppose of par- 
 ents to their children) ; or that what he felt upon seeing a 
 friend in distress was only fear for himself ; or, upon suppo- 
 sition of the affections of kindness and compassion, that it 
 was the business of wisdom and virtue to set him about ex- 
 tirpating them as fast as he could ? And yet each of these 
 manifest contradictions to nature has been laid down by 
 men of speculation as a discovery in moral philosophy ; 
 which they, it seems, have found out through all the specious 
 appearances to the contrary.'
 
 64 Bidler. 
 
 In his second sermon on the same subject (which is 
 rather the second part of an essay too long for deliver- 
 ing all at once) he begins with a sentence in which we 
 find the key-note of the ' Analogy : ' ' There is a much 
 more exact correspondence between the natural and the 
 moral world than we are apt to take notice of.' ^ And he 
 quotes from Ecclesiasticus what might have served for 
 the motto of his great work — "All things are double 
 one against another.' The inward frame of man answers 
 to the external condition and circumstances of his life, 
 and the purpose or final cause of the affections may be 
 as certainly discovered as in the case of the material 
 world. The final cause of compassion is the prevention 
 or relief of misery. 
 
 The despondent tone of Butler's mind, wdiich has 
 been remarked by more than one careful student of his 
 writings, may perhaps be traced in the Avhole bearing of 
 this second sermon. He holds that ' tlie power we have 
 over the misery of our fellow-creatures, to occasion or to 
 lessen it,' is much greater, and more important, than our 
 power to promote their happiness ; as also man's capac- 
 ity for misery is greater (or at least more lasting) than 
 his capacity for happiness : and this it is which makes 
 compassion for others so much more needful and more 
 natural than the correlative feeling which leads us to 
 rejoice in their well-doing. And he concludes that our 
 aim in life for ourselves should be rather ' to escape 
 misery,' or to obtain some relief from it, than to pursue 
 
 1 ' For, to correspond with object-matters that are specifically dis- 
 tinct, nature must have framed parts of the soul that are specifically 
 distinct; since their knowledge of their respective object -matter 
 cannot bait depend upon a certain similarity to and aflBnity witli it.' 
 — Aristotle, Ethics, vi. 1 (Williams's translation).
 
 Vietv of Hopjmicss. 65 
 
 or aim at any high degree of happiness. So he else- 
 where declares that, 'if the discoveries of men of re- 
 search tend in any way to render life less unhajyj^i/, then 
 are they most usefully employed.' In this view of hu- 
 man life he stands almost alone amongst moralists, as 
 he is surely in contradiction to the natural instincts of 
 humanity. Here Ave find him no longer in accord with 
 Aristotle, whose whole system assmnes happiness, under 
 whatever ideal, as the natural and fitting aim of Hfe, 
 and an aim which, rightly directed, will be on the whole 
 successful. Yet Aristotle fully recognises the difficulty 
 of its attainment : that at the best we can only be happy 
 ' as men,' Avhich can be by no means a perfect happiness. 
 In one place he even seems to admit that the grandest 
 result of virtue may lie, not in seciiring happiness, but 
 in bearing the ills of life nobly ; and that all that can 
 be predicated with certainty of virtuous energies is, that 
 the man who steadily exercises them can never be really 
 miserable.-^ Butler might perhaps appeal, in support of 
 his own view, to the admitted experience that the plea- 
 sure most sensibly felt is the relief from pain, and to 
 the vague dissatisfaction with the present felt alike by 
 the earnest and the idle — said by a modern preacher 
 to be ' one of the signatures of man's immortality ' - — ■ 
 Avhich in the one case is often the moving spring of 
 high enterprises, and in the other creates a restless 
 craving for excitement. Whether the pursuit of hap- 
 piness, as we commonly understand the term, is the 
 highest philosophical view of human life, may be ques- 
 tionable ; but it is that which will always commend 
 itself to ordinary minds, and no theory of morals or of 
 
 1 Ethics, i. 10. 11, 14. 2 p. w. Robertson. 
 
 P. — II. E
 
 66 Bidlcr. 
 
 religion will be accepted as practical which, does not 
 claim at least a probable balance of happiness as the 
 result of the observance of its laws. Mr Arnold ingeni- 
 ously suggests that Butler hesitates to recognise too dis- 
 tinctly the desire for happiness, because he is ' afraid of 
 men's cutting and carving for apparent happiness, in 
 defiance of the rules of justice and virtue.' But his 
 expressions on this subject may more probably be as- 
 cribed to his pecidiar temperament. 
 
 The sermons on ' Eesentment ' and on ' Forgiveness 
 of Injuries' are original and striking. The author here 
 repeats his warning, that in discussing the passions we 
 must take human nature as it is, not as we think God 
 might have made it. We have only to consider for 
 what end, being what we are, the passion was given us, 
 and so note its possible abuses. 
 
 Of Eesentment he distinguishes two kinds : first, the 
 hasty and sudden emotion which we call Anger, or 
 sometimes, by a limitation of the term, simply Passion ; 
 often a mere instinct, excited by ' opposition or by 
 sudden burst of violence,' in which the reasoning facul- 
 ty, as to any injustice or intentional wrong done us, has 
 no share. This instinct is implanted in us for the pre- 
 vention of violence, or resistance to it. It is defensive 
 merely, not judicial. Secondly, there is the deliberate 
 feeling, to which the term ' Resentment ' is more strictly 
 applied. This is excited only when there is a wrong or 
 injustice (or at least what Ave take to be such), and not 
 merely harm, done to ourselves or others. ' It is not 
 natural but moral evil — not suffering, but injury ' — which 
 raises it. ' It is a weapon put into our hands by Nature 
 against injury, injustice, and cruelty.'
 
 On Besentment. 67 
 
 Both forms of this passion have their abuses. Sudden 
 anger may arise on insufficient cause, or no cause at 
 all ; may assume the character of violent rage in strong 
 natures, or peevishness in the weak. And deliberate 
 resentment is commonly carried to abuse, ' when from 
 partiality to ourselves Ave imagine an injury done to 
 ourselves when there is none ; when this partiality 
 represents it to us as being greater than it really is ; ' 
 or when we resent, as an injury, an unintentional harm 
 done us, or inflict pain or injury to gratify our resent- 
 ment. He notices, too, the evil which so commonly 
 accompanies the passion when in excess — ' a certain 
 determination and resolute bent of mind not to be con- 
 vinced or set right, though it be ever so plain that there 
 is no reason for the displeasure.' 
 
 But in spite of all such abuses, this passion is one of 
 the safeguards of society. It serves as ' a balance to the 
 weakness of pity,' which might otherwise render the 
 necessary severity against gross offenders difficult of 
 execution : for commonly it is not cool refl^ection (though 
 it should be so) which brings offenders to justice, but 
 resentment and indignation against the wrong and its 
 author. And men are often restrained from wrong by 
 the fear of public or private resentment, when they 
 would not be so restrained by any principle of virtue. 
 
 He concludes that the existence of such an emotion 
 as indignation against wrong -doing is a corroborative 
 proof that virtue is a real thing, — not the mere creation 
 of human pohcy, as* Hobbes would make it ; and a 
 warning that even our passions, much as we may abuse 
 them, are implanted in our nature for wise ends. 
 
 Eesentment being thus a natural affection, the duty
 
 68 Butler. 
 
 of forgiveness does not forbid the feeling itself, but 
 only the excess or abuse of it ; more especially retalia- 
 tion and revenge, though ' custom and false honour ' 
 are in favour of these. For malice begets malice, and 
 so aggravates evil Eesentment is in itself a painful 
 remedy, both to the individual and the community, and 
 therefore never to be applied wantonly, or indulged for 
 its own sake, but only to produce some greater good. 
 The gratification of other passions may sometimes be 
 innocent, even when they do not serve the end for 
 Avhich they were implanted in our nature : but in this 
 passion alone ' the gratification of it consists in pro- 
 ducing misery ; ' and unless such misery be remedial — 
 /. e., calculated to deter from wrong or to prevent it 
 — its production contradicts the general obligation to 
 benevolence. 
 
 Even love of our enemies (which is practically the 
 same as forgiveness of injuries) forms part of this general 
 law of benevolence. Bi;t a reasonable exercise of re- 
 sentment is not inconsistent with this, as we see in the 
 case of parents towards their children : it is only when 
 in. excess that resentment becomes malice, and so de- 
 stroys benevolence. And no amount of guilt, and no 
 amount of -wrong-doing, on the part of those whom we 
 regard as enemies, can release us from this law. Love 
 of our enemies does not mean ' that we are required to 
 love them with any peculiar kind of affection ; ' but, 
 when stated reasonably, ' it is so far from being a rant, 
 as it has been profanely called, that it is in truth the 
 law of our nature.' 
 
 The true obstacle to our reception of this principle is 
 that we are blinded by self-love, or rather self-partiality.
 
 On Forgiveness. 69 
 
 The language of objectors, if they would speak out, says 
 Butler, comes to this : ' Mankind — that is, a creature de- 
 fective and faulty — is the proper object of goodwill, 
 whatever his faidts are, when they respect others, but 
 not when they respect me myseK.' We imagine or greatly 
 exaggerate injuries done to ourselves : and Butler ex- . 
 presses a hope — somewhat ironical in expression if not 
 in intention — that some effect might be produced by 
 disabusing men's minds on this point : — 
 
 ' One would hope an intimation of this sort might be kind- 
 ly received, and that people would be glad to find the injury 
 not so great as they imagined. Therefore, without know- 
 ing particulars, I take upon me to assure all persons who 
 think they have received indignities or injurious treatment, 
 that they may depend upon it, as in a manner certain, that 
 the offence is not so great as they themselves imagine. We 
 are in such a peculiar situation with respect to injuries done 
 to ourselves, that we can scarce any more see them as they 
 really are, than our eye can see itself. If we could place 
 ourselves at a due distance — i.e., be really unprejudiced — we 
 should frequently discern that to be in reality inadvertence 
 and mistake in our enemy, which we now fancy we see to be 
 malice or scorn. From this proper point of view we should 
 likewise in all probability see something of these latter in 
 ourselves, and most certainly a great deal of the former. 
 Thus the indignity or injury would almost infinitely lessen, 
 and perhaps at last come out to be nothing at all. Self-love 
 is a medium of a peculiar kind — in these cases it magnifies 
 everything which is amiss in others, at the same time that 
 it lessens everything amiss in ourselves.' 
 
 Further, the duty of forgiveness is urged from the 
 consideration that the injury we resent, even if it has 
 not its origin in inadvertence or misunderstanding, does 
 not arise from any positive feeling of ill-will (of which,
 
 70 Butler. 
 
 it must be remembered, Butler does not admit the exist- 
 ence as an original principle of action), but from some 
 form of passion or self-love — such as we ourselves are 
 liable to. And again, he who has done the wrong is 
 rather an object of compassion; 'for no one ever did a 
 designed injury to another, but at the same time he did 
 a much greater to himself.' 
 
 Finally, besides the Christian precept, which here as 
 elsewhere he is careful not to press too far, we have 
 the general presentiment natural to mankind, ' that we 
 ourselves shall one time or other be dealt with, as we 
 deal with others : ' the equity of which we all admit. 
 
 The two sermons which follow on ' Love to God ' are 
 necessarily less ethical and more distinctly religious in 
 tone. The author's intention seems to have been to 
 treat the subject in a calm and practical spirit ; — to make 
 his protest at once against the enthusiasm of the French 
 school of mystics, as represented by Madame Guyon, and 
 in a less exaggerated shape by Fenelon, and against the 
 contrary extreme, which he thought was the tendency of 
 his own time, of insisting on ' a reasonable religion — so 
 very reasonable as to have nothing to do with the heart 
 and the affections.' Madame Guyon and her followers 
 placed Christian perfection in the pure and disinterested 
 love of God, without regard to future reward or pun- 
 ishment : and to this view Butler so far inclines, that in 
 his preface to these sermons he insists that when we 
 speak of the love of God, ' somewhat more must be 
 meant than merely that we live in hope of rewards or 
 fear of punishments from Him.' And so here, in the 
 opening of his sermon, he reminds us that ' a doctrine's 
 having been a shelter for enthusiasm, or made to serve
 
 On Love to God. 71 
 
 the purposes of superstition, is no proof of the falsity of 
 it.' He argues that as we have some affections which 
 rest entirely in their objects, as there are individuals 
 whom we love without any ulterior views of our own 
 interest, and as, if any of those individuals were perfect 
 in goodness, in wisdom, and power, and in close relation 
 with ourselves, — still more, if he were our guardian and 
 governor, — this affection would be deeper and stronger 
 still : so in our relations with God such feeling would 
 rise to its highest. He is the highest object of such affec- 
 tion, or rather, of the several affections — love, reverence, 
 fear, desire of approbation — which are supposed to exist 
 already in our minds. In this our present imperfect 
 state, such complex affection would result in a temper of 
 perfect resignation — ' such a loyalty of heart to the Gover- 
 nor of the universe as shall prevail over all sinister in- 
 direct desires of our own ' — in consequence of our just 
 conceptions of His nature and our sense of His presence : 
 and devotion or worship would be this temper developed 
 into action. Here, too, we seem to trace something of 
 the shade of melancholy which tinged Butler's views. 
 As he saw in man's nature more capacities for misery 
 than happiness, and held that our aim in this life must 
 be not so much to seek for happiness as to avoid suffer- 
 ing, so here his idea of a mind pervaded by the love of 
 God has nothing in it of the rapture Avhich more san- 
 guine temperaments have expressed, and doubtless have 
 experienced, — hardly anything even of the calm satis- 
 faction and peace which the Christian philosopher would 
 seem naturally to attach to a rightly placed affection, — 
 but only ' resignation ' — acquiescence in the Divine will, 
 rather than implicit confidence in the Divine love. He
 
 72 Butler. 
 
 may probably have adopted this view from Shaftesbury, 
 who appears to place his idea of piety in * true resigna- 
 tion, or submission to the will and order of the Deity.' ^ 
 It would be hardly fair, however, to measure Butler's 
 private and personal feeling by the cautious and re- 
 strained expressions of so reserved a man in writing for 
 the public. 
 
 He does, however, supplement this somewhat cold 
 conclusion by holding out the prospect that, in the future 
 and perfect state, — where we may be able to contemplate 
 in their essence the wisdom and power of which in this 
 world we see only the effects, and the goodness of which 
 here we know so little in its original, though 'jiist men 
 bear its resemblance,'- — this temper of resignation will 
 be developed into perfect satisfaction. That which 
 might be enthusiasm here will there at least be reality. 
 
 ' Nothing is more certain than that an infinite Being may 
 Himself be, if He pleases, the supply to all the capacities of our 
 nature. All the common enjoyments of life are from the 
 fiiculties He hath endued us with, and the objects He hath 
 made suitable to them. He may himself be to us infinitely 
 more than all these ; He may be to us all that we want. As 
 our understanding can contemplate itself, and our afl'ections 
 be exercised upon themselves by reflection, so may each be 
 employed in the sauie manner upon any other mind ; and 
 since the Supreme Mind, the Author and Cause of all things, 
 is the highest possible object to Himself, He may be an ade- 
 quate supply to all the faculties of our souls, a subject to our 
 understanding, and an object to our affections.' 
 
 The sermon on ' The Ignorance of Man ' is especially 
 interesting, as containing many of the germs of the 
 'Analogy.' We know very little, says the preacher, even 
 1 Inquiry Concerning Virtue, Book I. cli. iii. 3. 

 
 On the Ignorance of Man. 73 
 
 of the world around us — that very small portion of the 
 great system of the universe which comes under our 
 observation. 
 
 ' It is indeed in general no more than effects, that the 
 most knowing are acquainted with : for as to causes, they 
 are as entirely in the dark as the most ignorant. What are 
 the laws by which matter acts upon matter, but certain 
 effects ; which some, having observed to be frequently re- 
 peated, have reduced to general rules ? The real nature and 
 essence of beings likewise is what we are altogether ignorant 
 of. All these things are so entirely out of our reach, that Ave 
 have not the least glimpse of them. And we know little 
 more of ourselves than we do of the world about us.' ^ 
 
 Yet, he proceeds to shoAv, we can see enough of the 
 relation whicli the several parts of tlie great scheme of 
 Providence bear to each other, to be conscious that we 
 cannot have a thorough knowledge of any one part with- 
 out knowing the whole : and this ' should surely convince 
 us that we are much less competent judges of the very 
 small part that comes under our notice in this world 
 than we are apt to imagine.' And this may furnish 
 us with an answer to objections grounded on the seeming 
 evils and irregularities in the government of the world. 
 It may be that such ignorance is best for us. 
 
 ' There possibly may be reasons which originally made it 
 fit that many things should be concealed from us which we 
 have perhaps natural capacities of understanding : many 
 things concerning the designs, methods and ends of Divine 
 
 1 He seemR to have anticipated, in this remarkable passage, the 
 arguments of Hume, that human reason cannot apprehend a cause — 
 that experience teaches us the relations between cause and effect, but 
 can go no fuither.
 
 74 Butler. 
 
 Providence in the government of the world. There is no 
 manner of absurdity in supposing a veil on purpose drawn 
 over some scenes of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, 
 the sight of which might some way or other strike us too 
 strongly ; or that better ends are designed and served by 
 their being concealed, than could be by their being exposed 
 to our knowledge.' 
 
 Such imperfect knowledge may even be a part of our 
 probation. Perfect knowledge and irresistible evidence 
 may be incompatible with a state of discipline and im- 
 provement. Ignorance, and limited powers of reason, 
 may be a trial, in the same way as temptations and 
 difficulties are. ' Less sensible evidence, with less diffi- 
 culty in practice, is the same [he means, as a mode of 
 probation] as more sensible evidence with greater diffi- 
 culty in practice.' We shall find this suggestion ex- 
 panded, and applied with great force, when in the 
 ' Analogy ' he argues that different characters may need 
 different forms of trial. ^ 
 
 The consciousness of this ignorance should teach us 
 to expect, in our inc[uiry about religion, to meet Avith 
 difficulties and things which are to us mysterious : to 
 inquire with any other expectation 'is not to inquire as 
 a man, but as one of another order of creatures.' It 
 should teach us, also, to be content with ' any evidence 
 which is real' Butler insists upon this in one of his 
 most forcible passages : — 
 
 ' I mention this as the contrary to a disposition, of which 
 there are not wanting instances, to find fault with and reject 
 evidence because it is not such as was desired. If a man 
 were to walk by twilight, must he not follow his eyes as 
 
 1 Part II. chap. vi.
 
 On the Ignorance of Man. 75 
 
 mucli as if it were broad clay and clear sunshine ? Or if lie 
 were obliged to take a journey by niglit, would he not give 
 heed to any light shining in the darkness, till the day should 
 break and the day-star arise ? It would not be altogether 
 unnatural for liim to reflect how much better it were to have 
 daylight ; he might perhaps have great curiosity to see the 
 country round about him ; he might lament that the dark- 
 ness concealed many extended prospects from his eyes, and 
 ■wish for the sun to draw away the veil ; but how ridiculous 
 would it be to reject with scorn and disdain the guidance 
 and direction which that lesser light might aftbrd him, be- 
 cause it was not the sun itself ! If the make and constitu- 
 tion of man, the circumstances he is placed in, or the reason 
 of things, aftbrds the least hint or intimation that virtue is 
 the law he is born under, scepticism itself should lead him 
 to the most strict and inviolable practice of it ; that he may 
 not make the dreadful experiment of leaving the course of 
 life marked out for him by nature, whatever that nature 
 be, and entering paths of his own, of which he can know 
 neither the dangers nor the end. For though no danger be 
 seen, yet darkness, ignorance, and blindness are no manner 
 of security.' 
 
 He concludes that we should apply ourselves to practice 
 rather than to speculation : — 
 
 ' If the proper happiness of man consisted in knowledge, 
 considered as a possession or treasure, men who are possessed 
 of the largest share would have a very ill time of it, as they 
 would be infinitely more sensible than others of their poverty 
 in this respect : thus he who increases knowledge would 
 eminently " increase sorrow." Men of deep research and curi- 
 ous inquiry should just be put in mind not to mistake what 
 they are doing. If their discoveries serve the cause of virtue 
 and religion in the way of proof, motive to practice, or assist- 
 ance in it, or if they tend to render life less unhappy, and 
 promote its satisfactions, then they are most usefully em- 
 ployed ; but bringing things to light, alone and of itself, is
 
 76 Butler. 
 
 of no manner of use any otlierA\ise than as an entertainment 
 or diversion.' 
 
 The science which really concerns us is 'the science 
 of improving the temper and making the heart better.' 
 And 'he that should find out one rule to assist us in 
 this wovk would deserve infinitely better of mankind 
 than all the improvers of other knowledge put together.' 
 He concludes by recommending the cultivation of his 
 favourite temper of ' absolute resignation ' — resignation 
 of the judgment as well as of the wiU. 
 
 The sermons on ' Self-Deceit ' and on ' The Character 
 of Balaam ' (which latter may be said also to deal with 
 one particular form of seK-deceit) illustrate the author's 
 etliical vicAvs in some of their bearings upon practice. 
 In the first of these two sermons he shows that self- 
 deceit may create in us a kind of false conscience. 
 It is the result of an exaggerated self-love. Indeed, 
 Butler goes so far as to assert here, in so many words, 
 that ' vice in general consists in having an unreason- 
 able and too great regard for ourselves in comparison 
 of others.' ^ It is a reasonable self-love only which he 
 will admit : he does not reprobate the feeling entirely, as 
 Hutcheson dOes ; nor yet admit it to be the ruling prin- 
 ciple, like the Utilitarians. But he shows how, combined 
 with any niling passion, ' it may prejudice and darken 
 the understanding itself.' And therefore, so far is self- 
 partiality from extenuating guilt, that ' it is the greatest 
 of all guilt in proportion to the degree it prevails, for 
 
 ^ He probably chooses here to state the case from a practical rather 
 than from a philosophical point of view ; asserting rather one of the 
 common phases which vice assumes, than that which is its essential 
 constituent.
 
 On Self -Deceit. 77 
 
 it is a corruption of the Avhole moral character in its 
 principle.' The province of self-deceit is more especi- 
 ally that debateable ground in morals, where evil can- 
 not be exactly defined, but on which perhaps the greater 
 portion of our social intercourse and duties are exer- 
 cised. It is here that great latitude is left to us to 
 determine each for oiu'selves, and consequently the 
 greatest scope for self-deceit. Our best safeguard agamst 
 it will be to watch carefully the weak point in our 
 character, for it is on this side we shall surely be most 
 liable to it ; as Aristotle would have us, in seeking the 
 happy mean, avoid that extreme to wliich we are natu- 
 rally inclinetL 
 
 He has a shrewd remark upon the fact that men are 
 not unconmionly victims of self-deceit on one favourite 
 point only; while on others their judgment, even in 
 their own case, is fair and just enough. 
 
 ' Hence arises that amazing incongruity and seeming in- 
 consistency of character, from whence slight observers take 
 it for granted that the whole is hypocritical and false, not 
 being able othermse to reconcile the several parts ; whereas, 
 in truth, there is real honesty, so far as it goes. There is 
 such a thmg as men's being honest to such a degree and in 
 such respects, but no further ; and this, as it is true, so it is 
 absolutely necessary to be taken notice of and allowed them : 
 such general and undistinguisbing censure of their whole 
 characters, as designing and false, being one main thing 
 which confirms them in their self-deceit. They know that 
 the whole censure is not true, and so take it for granted that 
 no part of it is.' 
 
 He regards Balaam's conduct not as an instance where 
 strong passion — ' the brute force Avithin '—prevails over 
 the rightful supremacy of conscience ; but as a kind of
 
 78 Butler. 
 
 voluntary obscnration of conscience by religious equivo- 
 cation. When our first intuitive perception of duty is 
 clear, 'doubt and deliberation is in itself dishonesty.' 
 ' That which is called considering what is our duty in a 
 particidar case is very often nothing but endeavouring to 
 explain it away.' The lover of aphorisms might make 
 an interesting collection from the pages of Butler. 
 
 Any notice of these sermons would be incomplete 
 wbich did not include that on ' The Government of 
 the Tongue ; ' though it is, in fact, a serious essay on 
 conversation rather than a sermon in the recognised 
 sense. Butler takes as his text the warning of St 
 James about bridling the tongue, and explains at the 
 outset that the vice which the Apostle meant to cen- 
 sure was not l}'ing, or slander, or evil-speaking, but 
 simply ' talkativeness ' — which may, if indulged, easily 
 run into aU or any of the others. The tiling reproved, 
 he considers, is the love of 'talking for its own sake,' 
 Such talkers are so eager to engage attention by any 
 means, that they will speak either good or evil, truth 
 or falsehood, according as one or other has most chance 
 of being listened to. 
 
 Wlien he proceeds to tell us in what ' bridling the 
 tongue ' consists, he is not too severe upon ordinary 
 social conversation. He maintains his theory that man 
 is essentially a social animal. The first and most im- 
 portant use of speech is, of course, to communicate our 
 thoughts and wishes. But there are secondary uses 
 of all our facidties : they are meant to minister to our 
 enjoyment as well as to our necessity. 
 
 ' The secondary use of speech is to please and be entertain- 
 ing to each other in conversation. This is in every respect
 
 On Conversation. 79 
 
 allowable and right : it unites men closer in alliances and 
 friendships ; gives us a fellow-feeling of the prosperity and 
 unhappiness of each other ; and is in several respects ser-\dce- 
 able to virtue, and to promote good behaviour in the world. 
 And provided there be not too much time spent in it — if it 
 were to be considered only in the way of gratification and 
 delight — men must have strange notions of God and of relig- 
 ion to think that He can be offended with it, or that it is 
 in any way consistent with the strictest virtue. But the 
 truth is, such sort of conversation, though it has no particu- 
 lar good tendency, yet it has a general good one : it is social 
 and iriendly, and tends to promote humanity, good-nature, 
 and civility.' 
 
 He gives his cautions as to the due government of the 
 tongue under three several heads. The first is the value 
 of silence — especially when a man has nothing to say, 
 or nothing but what were better left unsaid. The fol- 
 lowing passage is admirable in its quiet satire, however 
 strange it might sound from a modem pulpit. The 
 preacher is himself aware that many persons would think 
 the subject ' too little to come into a serious discourse ; ' 
 but, as he tmly observes, 'the greatest evils in life 
 have had their rise from som.ewhat which was thought 
 of too little importance to be attended to.' 
 
 ' The wise man observes that " there is a time to speak 
 and a time to keep silence." One meets with people in the 
 world who seem never to have made the last of these obser- 
 vations ; and yet these great talkers do not at all speak from 
 their having anything to say, as every sentence shows, but 
 only from their inclination to be talking : their conversation 
 is merely an exercise of the tongue, — no other human fsiculty 
 has any share in it. It is strange these persons can help re- 
 flecting that, unless they have in truth a superior capacity, 
 and are in an extraordinary manner furnished for conversa-
 
 80 Butler. 
 
 tion, if they are entertaining, it is at their o-\vn expense. Is 
 it possible that it shonld never come into people's thoughts 
 to suspect whether or no it he to their advantage to show 
 so very much of themselves ? " Oh that ye would altogether 
 hold your peace ; and it should be your wisdom ! " ^ Re- 
 member likewise, there are persons who love fewer words ; 
 an inoffensive sort of people, and who deserve some regard, 
 though of too still and composed tempers for you. Of this 
 number was the son of Siracli ; for he plainly speaks from 
 experience when he says, " As hills of sand are to the steps 
 of the aged, so is one of many words to a quiet man." But 
 one would think it should be obvious to every one that when 
 they are in company with their superiors of any kind, — in 
 years, knowledge, and experience ; when proper and useful 
 subjects are discoursed of which they cannot bear a part in, 
 — that these are times for silence, when they should learn to 
 hear and be attentive, at least in their turn. It is, indeed, 
 a very unhappy way these people are in : they in a manner 
 cut themselves out from all advantage of conversation, ex- 
 cept that of being entertained with their own talk ; their 
 business in coming into company not being at all to be in- 
 formed, to hear, to learn, but to display themselves, or 
 rather to exert their facultj', and talk without any design 
 at all.' 
 
 His second caution is, that such conversation should 
 in all cases be what he calls 'indifferent' — which he 
 explains to mean that it should in no way be 'offen- 
 sive to virtue, religion, or good manners,' And his 
 third and last is a caution against allowing it to run 
 too much t;pon one very attractive subject, which he 
 Avill scarcely admit as coming imder the term ' indiffer- 
 ent,' because the talk upon it ' almost perpetually runs 
 into somewhat criminal.' We are not, he argues, suffi- 
 ciently ' neutral ' to trust ourselves to discuss our neigh- 
 1 Job xiii. 5.
 
 On Conversation. 81 
 
 hours freely. ' There is perpetually (and often it is not 
 attended to) a rivalship among people of one kind or 
 another, in respect to wit, heauty, learning, fortune ; and 
 that one thing will insensibly influence them to speak 
 to the disadvantage of others, even where there is no 
 formed malice or ill design.' He admits the impossi-. 
 bility of excluding this tempting subject from conversa- 
 tion, and is content to remind us that what Ave say on 
 such occasions may be important in its results : that we 
 should confine ourselves to fact, and not indulge in 
 opinions. At the same time, we are not to shrink from 
 unmasking hypocrisy, or denouncing injustice, when 
 there is need for it in the real interests of truth and 
 justice — though he is well aware that those 'who are 
 given to scandal and detraction may make an ill use 
 of this last observation.' 
 
 -ir.
 
 82 
 
 CHAPTEE IV. 
 
 COMPARATIVE VIEWS OP CONSCIENCE. 
 
 It will have been seen that Butler, in his investigation 
 of the foundations of morals, does not use the a priori 
 method of inquiry ; that is, he does not examme what 
 he calls 'the abstract relations of things,' their immut- 
 able 'truth' or 'fitness,' as laid down by such writers 
 as Cudworth, Clarke, and Wollaston. He examines 
 Avhat he calls ' human nature ' — the constitution of the 
 human mind, as we discover it from dispassionate obser- 
 vation of ourselves and others. Somewhere deep down 
 in ourselves he thought we should find those principles 
 of action which other moralists had sought to discover 
 in theoretical speculations as to the infinite, the eternal, 
 and the immutable, which lie to a great extent outside 
 the little world of man, and beyond his reason. At the 
 same time it must be remembered that he by no means 
 ignores the value of the other method : he is careful to 
 observe, towards the close of his argument in the 'An- 
 alogy ' — •' I have omitted a thing of the utmost import- 
 ance, which I do believe, — the moral fitness or unfitness 
 of actions prior to all will whatever.' He is as fully 
 persuaded as any a priori reasoner can be, of the exist-
 
 Conscience. S3 
 
 ence of order and system in nature : what he does pro- 
 test against, with all his heart, is that men slaould seek 
 to build a world, or a scheme of moral being, upon 
 hypothesis — the mere creation, as he would say, of their 
 own fancies — and not on observation, or ' things as they 
 are.' His inquiry is what human nature is, not what it 
 might be, or, as Ave think, ought to be. His peculiar 
 claim as a moral teacher is his having placed in the 
 clearest light the action of the human conscience, and 
 his powerful vindication of its moral supremacy. Its 
 position, in his view, is Avholly distinct from all other 
 sentiments, because its judgments carry with them a 
 sense of obligation. It is not that Butler was himself 
 the originator of such a view, but he has simplified and 
 reduced it to a practical system of morality, easily un- 
 derstood. He was the first to show clearly that we have 
 what may be called a consciousness in ourselves of con- 
 science as a ruling principle. So strong are his utter- 
 ances on this point, that he is said to have gone so far 
 as to deify conscience : and certainly he recognises in 
 its silent voice of authority what Cicero calls ' the god 
 ruling within us.' He has also been charged with adopt- 
 ing an arbitrary and fantastic psychology — -' too mechani- 
 cal,' Mr Arnold calls it : but may not these epithets be 
 applied, in a certain sense, to all psychological systems ? 
 The facts of himian life, and the motives of human 
 conduct, whatever they may be, are antecedent to any 
 systems of ethics : and the terms by which we express 
 the abstractions gathered from any examination of these 
 must always be arbitrary, and may have the appearance 
 of being fantastic, to any reader who does not agree in 
 the propriety of their application. It would be much
 
 84 Butler. 
 
 too large a question to discuss how far such a character 
 may possibly belong to all attempts, however elaborate 
 and complete in their method, to map out, as it were, and 
 distinguish sharply by special names, all the faculties, 
 motives, and phenomena of the human mind. The 
 office which Butler has assigned to Conscience, and the 
 supremacy of such a moral faculty in the hierarchy of 
 human nature, is but the development of Plato's en- 
 thronement of Eeason as lawful sovereign ,in the soul of 
 man, where it should rule as in a well-ordered common- 
 Avealth, while Desire should obey, and the Passions be 
 held in leash, ' as the dog is by the shepherd, — so that 
 Virtue will be a harmony of the sold, while Vice is 
 anarchy and discord ; and in the case of the sold, as in 
 the case of the body, if the constitution be tampered 
 with, all life goes wrong. In this recognition of the 
 rightful authority of conscience, Butler has been fol- 
 lowed, though of course quite independently, by Kant, 
 who assigns to conscience the enforcement of the higher 
 kind of duties — 'virtue-duties,' as he callsthem. Amongst 
 later English writers on ethics, Bentham does not admit 
 the existence of such a principle at all; and Mill explains 
 it as a complex feeling, more or less artificial, made up 
 of associations and early recollections, — a compound of 
 love and fear, and self-esteem and desire of approbation : 
 while Bain would trace its existence to the rules of 
 conduct which have been gradually adopted for the 
 preservation of society, from which is generated what 
 he calls ' an ideal avoidance ' of such conduct as would 
 be liable to punishment, as contravening those rules : 
 so that ' authority or punishment is the commencement 
 of that state of mind recognised under the various
 
 Conscience. 85 
 
 names of Conscience, the ]\roral Sense, the Sentiment of 
 Obligation,'^ — which would seem to be going back very 
 nearly to Hobbes's position, that morality is the creature 
 of law. 
 
 Butler was prepared to meet the real difficulty which 
 lies upon the threshold of his doctrine, — that conscience 
 is a shifting rule, varying with the various stages of 
 civilisation — with age, with country, and even with 
 climate. The standard of the internal nature of man is 
 not ' exactly settled,' he admits : neither is that of his 
 external shape and stature. Yet practically we all under- 
 stand what is meant when we speak of the one or the 
 other. He is even prepared to allow with "VYollaston 
 that conscience has its rudimentary stage, and that mor- 
 ality has therefore been progressive. But he is scarcely 
 so bold or so clear on this point as we might wish him 
 to be. Hartley, with whom perhaps Butler would not 
 have altogether disagreed, has stated this undoubted 
 truth more distinctly. ' The rule of life cbawn from the 
 practice and opinions of mankind corrects and improves 
 itself perpetually, till at last it determines entirely for 
 virtue, and excludes all kinds and conditions of vice.' ^ 
 Butler has something to the same effect, Avhen he says 
 that some lessons of life 'are learnt so insensibly and 
 so perfectly as to be mistaken perhaps for instinct, 
 though they are the effect of long experience and exer- 
 cise, — as much so as language.'^ 
 
 Mackintosh has Avell compared this growth of con- 
 science to the gradual development of the faculties in 
 the individual, in the progress from childliood to matur- 
 
 1 Emotions and Will, p. 481. 
 
 2 Essay on Man, i. 207. ^ Analogy, Part I. chap, v.
 
 86 Butler, 
 
 ity : the moral conscience of society ripens ' as children 
 in their growth tend to the opinions as well as to the 
 strength of adnlts.' And thongh this may appear at first 
 sight to weaken the presumption in favour of an intui- 
 tive moral faculty, it hardly does so, if we admit that 
 the whole principle of growth is ever towards perfection, 
 not deterioration ; and that the development of the con- 
 science, or whatever name it may be called by, in the 
 direction of virtue, not vice, — good, and not evil, — is a 
 strong witness in favour of the innate existence in man's 
 nature of such a ride of actioiiphowever riTdimentary 
 and imperfect may be the state in which we find it in 
 certain stages of society, or under certain unfavourable 
 circumstances. But this theory of growth has been 
 carried oat more thoroughly by several later "v\T.'iters, 
 under whose analysis conscience becomes no longer an 
 intuitive princijjle, but the gradual product of human 
 experience — a conscience ' of the race, not of the in- 
 dividual' 
 
 Still, the apparently shifting nature of this moral 
 rule presents a very real difficulty. This rightfid su- 
 premacy of conscience is grand in theory, and seems to 
 be in harmony with the belief and the observation of 
 all thoughtful men, as it is also with the conclusions of 
 the great thinkers of . antiqiuty. Eut are we to take it 
 to mean that every rational agent possesses, in his own 
 individual conscience, an infallible rule which is to 
 gaide him in all questions of morality ; and that so long 
 as he follows this, he is safe to do what is right 1 So 
 far, no doubt, as it afTects man's responsibility as an 
 accountable being, such a statement might be sufficient. 
 The eidi2:htened and the luienlightened conscience are
 
 Conscience. 87 
 
 not to lae judged by the same rule : there are acts which 
 involve the deepest moral guilt when committed by a 
 civilised man, to which in the case of the savage we 
 should attach no such character at aU. Here, by a re- 
 markable inversion, the rule of Scripture is more liberal 
 than the rule of morality : ' To him that knoweth to. 
 do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin.' But this 
 ought not to content, and will not content, the ethi- 
 cal inquirer into the foundations of morals, whose bus- 
 iness is not to judge or to punish individuals, but to 
 discover, if it may be, the essential nature of right and 
 wrong. He has to examine the objective moral quality 
 of actions, and the rule by which this is to be tested, — 
 not their subjective guilt or excusableness in certain 
 persons under certain circumstances. If conscience is 
 to be the jiidge, where and in whom is this conscience 
 to be found 1 We are much in the same position, after 
 all, in which Aristotle found himself, and have to refer 
 for our moral standard to that which the ideal man- - 
 the man who is supposed to have arrived already at 
 some state Avhich allows us to pronounce him ' excellent ' 
 or 'judicious' — shall lay doA\ai. Mackintosh remarks 
 that in all ethical inquiries there are two distinct ques- 
 tions : firstly, what is the quality in any act which 
 leads men to pronounce it virtuous? secondly, what is 
 the nature of the feelings Avith which they regard it ? — 
 and that while Butler has answered the second question 
 completely, to the first he has given no real answer at 
 all. There seems a certain amount of truth in the 
 strictures made by the same writer, who is here fol- 
 lowed by Mr Leslie Stephen, upon Butler's theory of 
 Conscience (as they might be made upon some defini-
 
 88 Butler. 
 
 tions of Aristotle), that it is arguing in a circle : that he 
 first defines virtuous acts to be those which conscience 
 approves, and then makes conscience the faculty which 
 determines and approves virtuous acts. Must we fall 
 back then, after all, upon the a j^rt'ori view — the neces- 
 sary existence of certain truths in morals corresponding 
 to the axioms of mathematics, and look there for this 
 essence of morality which is continually escaping us 1 
 
 Mackintosh also considers Butler's statement deficient 
 in so far as he has omitted to lay down the grounds of 
 the supremacy which he claims for conscience : and 
 "VAHieweU questions the proper use of the word ' suprem- 
 acy ' at all, and would substitute for it the term ' author- 
 ity,' as limiting the action of conscience to a decision on 
 moral questions which may be disputed and overborne. 
 He would define conscience as ' the faculty or habit of 
 referring our acts to a moral standard : ' ^ this moral 
 standard requiring the exercise of reason for its discov- 
 ery and application ; which appears to be deposing con- 
 science from the sovereignty which Butler claims for it, 
 and relegating it to a mere ministerial office. 
 
 The divergence between Butler's views and those of 
 another distinguished moralist of later date who, like 
 him, treated moral philosophy as 'the science which 
 teaches men their duty and the reasons of it,' deserves 
 at least some mention. The popularity and influence of 
 Paley's philosophy threw into the shade for many years, 
 especially at the University of Cambridge, the study of 
 Butler. It was not until the year 1837 that, chiefly 
 by the influence of "Whewell and Julius Hare, Butler's 
 Sermons found a distinct place among the subjects of 
 1 Elements of Morality, p. 359.
 
 BtttJer and Palcy. 89 
 
 examination. Paley's style was more attractive, and his 
 conclusions more plausible. The absence of uniformity 
 in the operation of the moral sense, as exemplified in 
 the varying code of morality in different nations, is, in 
 Paley's view, a proof that such sense is not instinctive, 
 but the result of a process of experience and imitation. 
 The sentiment of approbation, on which P)utler lays such 
 stress as an indication of an inherent moral quality in 
 actions, Paley considers to be merely entertained, in its 
 origin, towards qualities in others which we beheve to 
 be beneficial to ourselves, and to have gro'wn into a settled 
 principle by an insensible process of association. ' There 
 is nothing so soon made,' he says, 'as a maxim.' He 
 also assumes that aU men's passions and aifections are 
 the same in kind, though they differ ' in continuance 
 and intensity ; ' while Butler's theory of the authority of 
 conscience rests upon a difference in kind as well as in 
 strength. Paley's moral rule may claim at least to be 
 more clearly and tersely expressed than Butler's : ' Ac- 
 tions are to be estimated by their tendency. Whatever 
 is expedient is right. It is the utility of any moral rule 
 alone which constitutes the obligation of it.'-"- This 
 author's philosophy has been characterised as ' moderate ' 
 utilitarianism ; but it is somewhat difficult to see how 
 any doctrine could be laid down more broadly or more 
 distinctly. Virtue he defines as ' the doing good to man- 
 kind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake 
 of everlasting happiness : ' which last, as a motive of 
 action, does much to weaken its character of disinterest- 
 edness. The chief diflPerence between Paley and Ben- 
 tham seems to be, that while the former goes on to add 
 1 Moral Philosophy, chap. vi.
 
 90 Butler. 
 
 to his ethical standard this reference to the 'will of 
 God' and 'everlasting happiness,' Bentham practically 
 contents himself with the test of utility : ^ and, clearly, 
 so far as a mere ethical system has to be constructed, 
 the appeal to theology, thrown in as it were by way of 
 make-weight, appears somewhat out of place. The same 
 kind of reference is made occasionally by Bixtler : but then 
 he was professedly Avriting sermons, and not attempting 
 a scheme of 'Moral Philosophy.' Happiness, in Paley's 
 view, consists mainly in good health, good spirits, con- 
 genial occupation, and a prudent course of life : with 
 aU. which moral considerations would seem to have very 
 little to do. I^or is it a very elevated philosophy that 
 is content Avith • the conclusion (which, after all, the 
 author does very little to prove) that ' vice has no ad- 
 vantage over virtue, even with respect to this world's 
 happiness.' Butler has been claimed as the exponent of 
 a compound utilitarian scheme, which regards the pro- 
 motion of general happiness as the single inherent char- 
 acteristic of virtuous actions. It is true that he asserts 
 that ' virtue and happiness cannot contradict each other,' 
 and even admits that ' when we sit down in a cool hour 
 we cannot justify to ourselves this [the pursuit of vir- 
 tue] or any other pursuit tiU we are convinced it will be 
 for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it ; ' ^ and 
 this has been considered, as perhaps it is, somewhat in- 
 consistent with his general argument for an independent 
 morality. But, as Mr Leslie Stephen, the ablest and 
 the fairest of Butler's adverse critics, candidly admits, 
 
 1 He does indeed recognise amongst his four ' sanctions ' the ' re- 
 ligious ; ' but it finds little place in his general argument. 
 
 2 Sermon xi.
 
 Butler and Foley. 91 
 
 ' this view might be excised with benefit to the general 
 argument.'^ Butler feels, as Aristotle did, the difficulty 
 which experience, at least in certain cases, throws in the 
 way of the theory that ' virtue is happiness ; ' he feels 
 that happiness can hardly be predicated of the man, 
 however virtuous, who meets Avith ' the misfortunes of 
 Priam. '^ But the moralist who maintains that well- 
 doing, as such, gives us satisfaction at least in some 
 instances, whereas ill-doing, as such, never does, is sure- 
 ly the advocate of a very difi'erent utilitarianism from 
 Paley's. 
 
 1 History of Englisli Thought, vol. ii. p. 50. 
 
 2 Ethics,^ i. 10. il.
 
 92 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 RELIGIOUS CONTROVERSY OF THE AGE. 
 
 The age in wliicli Butler lived might be called, Avithotit 
 any shade of satire, the Age of Eeason. It had succeeded 
 an age of comparative indifference to all serious thought. 
 There was scepticism enough in both; but while the 
 scepticism of the Restoration was rather the contemp- 
 tuous ignoring of the restrictions of morality and re- 
 ligion by a profligate society, the scepticism of Butler's 
 time was intellectual and acute. It was connected, no 
 doubt, with a decline in religious feeling and the pre- 
 valence of a lax tone of morality. Butler speaks of 
 this in a tone almost of despair in his charge to his 
 Durham clergy. 
 
 It is impossible for me to forbear lamenting with you 
 the general decay of religion in this nation, which is now 
 observed by every one, and has been for some time the com- 
 plaint of all serious persons. The influence of it is more and 
 more wearing out of the minds of men, even of those who do 
 not pretend to enter into speculations upon the subject ; but 
 the number of those who do, and who profess themselves 
 unbelievers, increases, and with their numbers their zeal. 
 Zeal, it is natural to ask, for what ? "Why, truly, for noth-
 
 Irreligion of the Age. 93 
 
 ing, but against everything that is good and sacred among 
 us. . . . For as different ages have been distinguished 
 by different sorts of particular errors and vices, the deplor- 
 able distinction of ours is an avowed scorn of religion in 
 some, and a growing disregard to it in the generality.' 
 
 If this picture of his own times might be thought to 
 take its colour in some degree from the despondent tem- 
 perament of a man who had held it ' too late to support 
 a falling Church,' we may turn to that wdiich w^e find 
 drawn by a man of very different character, Bishop War- 
 burton, in the dedication of his great work, the ' Divine 
 Legation.' 
 
 ' I had lived to see what lawgivers have always seemed to 
 dread, as the certain prognostic of public ruin, that fatal 
 crisis when religion hath lost its hold on the minds of a 
 people. . . • The most painful circumstance in this re- 
 lation is that the mischief began amongst our friends ; by 
 men who loved their country, but were too eagerly intent 
 on one part only of their object — the security of its civil 
 liberty.' 
 
 Swift declared that, so far as his observation went, 
 * hardly more than two or three persons in the army 
 and navy ' had any belief in religion, and that ' of 
 people of quality great numbers openly avow their dis- 
 belief in all revelation.' Hartley, the physician and 
 philosopher, writing a few years later, speaks not only 
 of ' the great growth of atheism and infidelity,' but of 
 'the open and abandoned immorality of both sexes, 
 especially in the high ranks of life,' 'the sordid and 
 avowed self-interest ' of public men, and ' the licentious- 
 ness and contempt of every kind of authority, divine or 
 human, notorious in inferiors of all ranks.' -^ 
 1 Observations on Man, vol. ii. p. 441.
 
 94 Butler. 
 
 Warburton, in the dedication just quoted, goes on to 
 attribute this prevalence of unbelief to the hostile atti- 
 tude assumed by the Church — ' or at least that party of 
 Churchmen which had usurped the name,' the Jacobite 
 clergy — to the principles of the late Revolution. This, 
 he contends, had discredited the Church, and with the 
 Church religion generally, in the eyes of the people ; 
 especially since the enemies of all religion had hastened 
 to make common cause with the opponents of the Tory 
 High Church party. The sober friends of civil freedom 
 were now, he thinks, finding out the mistake they had 
 made in entangling themselves with such allies. ' In 
 their endeavours to take off the influence of a Church, 
 or rather of a party of Churchmen, inauspicious to a 
 free state, they had occasioned at least the loosening 
 of all the ties which till then religion had on the 
 minds of the populace, and which till then statesmen 
 had ever thought were the best security magistrates 
 had for their obedience.' But while Warburton and 
 his school attributed this neglect of religion and depra- 
 vation of morals to the prevailing distnist of the High 
 Church Jacobites, these latter on their part threw the 
 blame on the latitudinarianism which reigned amongst 
 Church dignitaries ; for most of the bishops were Hano- 
 verian, while the doctrines of non-resistance and divine 
 right continued to be held by a majority of the paro- 
 chial clergy. The residt of this conflict of opinion could 
 not but be disastrous to religion itself. 
 
 But in fact the bonds of authority, whether intellec- 
 tual, moral, civil, or religious, had been loosened alto- 
 gather by the events of the last half-century. A second 
 revolution had practically destroyed the old belief in the
 
 The Deists. 95 
 
 divine authority of kings, as the Eeformation had long 
 since destroyed the sovereign authority of the Church ; 
 the bitter struggle of religious parties, and the persecut- 
 ing spirit shown on both sides, had made men of the 
 world doubt, as INIontaigne had doubted after the war 
 of the League, whether the dogmas of religion were 
 anything more than a party cry. lio wonder that 
 the authority of Scripture came to be openly questioned, 
 Reason was appealed to in its stead, and men boldly 
 claimed to judge of the former by the latter. Gra- 
 dually was developed that spirit of independent in- 
 quiry, called in the seventeenth century liationalism 
 (though the term did not then bear the anti-religious 
 sense now attached to it), which early in the eight- 
 eenth century became known as Tree -thinking,' and 
 Avhose most prominent representatives are usually classed 
 under the name of Deists. Those to whom the term is 
 fairly applicable admitted the existence of the Deity, 
 of what they called ' natural ' religion, and of a moral 
 conscience in man, while they denied, either wholly 
 or as to its miracidous features, the Christian revela- 
 tion. Deism may be said to have taken its rise with 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Hoblies of Malmes- 
 bury, in the reign of Charles I., and to have ended 
 with Eolingbroke and Hume. Its greatest develop- 
 ment was in the period following the Revolution of 
 1688, when we find it embodied in the writings of 
 John Toland, Anthony CoUins, Lord Shaftesbury, and 
 Matthew Tindal. Eut it must be borne in mind that 
 there was no special sect of Deists, and that the name 
 was often very vaguely applied as a controversial stigma. 
 Locke — and even Cudworth, Clarke, and Tillotson — were
 
 96 Butler. 
 
 all called Deists by their enemies, tliougli they would 
 certainly have objected to be classed with Toland or Tin- 
 dal. Shaftesbury himself repudiates the use of the term 
 as 'set in opposition to Christianity;' he would prob- 
 ably have accepted for himself the designation of sceptic 
 in the real sense of the word. How far he was or was 
 not an unbeliever is difficult to collect from his writings, 
 amidst the scoffing irony directed by one who avowedly 
 made ridicule the test of truth against the externals of 
 religion as they were presented in his day, and the tone 
 of critical indifference, whether genuine or assumed, in 
 which he discusses such questions as miracles and 
 sacraments. 
 
 Yet it is curious to note how, in spite of this practical 
 contempt for religion, accompanied as it was with satire 
 of every kind heaped upon the clergy and received with 
 delight, an open denial of Christianity was reckoned to 
 be at least bad manners, and those who attacked it were 
 not unfairly accused of doing so in a covert and disin- 
 genuous way. 
 
 Previous to the growth of this disposition to reject 
 authority, and to subject all questions to the decision 
 of reason, morals and religion had been supposed to rest 
 upon the same basis. Hitherto, revelation was the recog- 
 nised foundation both of moral and of spiritual truths. 
 Gradually all this was changed. ' Free inquiry ' was 
 applied alike to the sources of both ; and the result, in 
 some of not the least acute minds of the day, was the 
 practical divorce of morality from religion. It was not 
 that the two were set in opposition one against the 
 other; but Scripture was no longer to be appealed to 
 for the laws or the sanctions of morality. These were
 
 The Deists — Toland. 97 
 
 held to be antecedent to, and independent of, revelation 
 of any kind ; and revelation so far was held unnecessary, 
 of no binding authority, — and, where such reasoning was 
 pushed boldly to its conclusion, not a divine revelation 
 in any sense at all. AVliatever in Scripture Avas found 
 to be in accordance with reason, — or, in other words, . 
 agreeable to the religion of nature, — the deistical writers 
 were content to accept ; whatever was not so, they re- 
 jected- Under this latter head they classed miracles 
 generally, and also, by consequence, the doctrine of the 
 atonement. Locke, while he belonged to the school 
 of Eationalism, so far as that he fully recognised the 
 appeal to the light of reason, yet maintained that 
 Christianity was reasonable. ' Eeason,' said he, ' is 
 natural revelation. . . . Eevelation is natural reason 
 enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by 
 God immediately, which reason vouches the truth of.' 
 Toland (who was originally an Irish Catholic),^ in a 
 volume entitled ' Christianity not Mysterious,' published 
 in 1696, carried out Locke's propositions to what was per- 
 haps their legitimate conclusion, and argued that as there 
 was in Christianity nothing contrary to reason, so there 
 was nothing in it that was above reason, and that ' no 
 Christian doctrine can properly be called a mystery ; ' 
 nay, that Christianity does not lay claim to any ' mys- 
 teries,' in our sense of the word, — that such sense as is 
 commonly attached to it was borrowed from paganism, 
 and is of comparatively modern introduction. This 
 
 ^ An illustration of the way in which theological questions were at 
 this time discussed in all circles may he found in the anecdote (whether 
 true or false) that Toland was converted by the arguments which he 
 heard in coffee-houses. 
 
 P. II, G
 
 98 Butler. 
 
 almost forgotten book of Toland's produced an extra- 
 ordinary sensation at the time. It was thought of 
 sufficient importance to be condemned in succession by 
 the grand juries of Middlesex and Dublin, and by the 
 Irish ParHament, and only escaped the verdict of the 
 English Convocation by a legal technicality. No less 
 than one hundred and fifteen replies to it are said to 
 have appeared — all of which are also happily forgotten. 
 Of Anthony Collins's ' Discourse on Free-thinking ' (in 
 which the technical use of the term ' Free-thinker ' is 
 said first to occur) not much need be said here ; or of 
 Woolston's grossly irreverent 'Discourses on Miracles,' 
 though Voltaire declares that of this last work more than 
 thirty thousand copies were rapidly sold, and the pens 
 of no less than four bishops were exercised in reply to 
 what may charitably be considered the production of a 
 disordered mind. 
 
 Such were some of the controversial works which 
 formed the literary topics of the day, and which could 
 not fail to arouse the interest of a mind like Butler's. 
 But the book which he is generally supposed to have 
 had specially in view, and to which his ' Analogy ' is 
 intended as a reply, is a work Avhich had been given to 
 the press soon after the Rolls Sermons, by ]\Iatthew 
 Tindal, fellow of AU Souls' College, called ' Christianity 
 as old as the Creation : or, the Gospel a Republication 
 of the Religion of Nature.' Tindal attacked the proofs 
 of revelation, especially its attestation by miracles, and 
 denied that we could rest on any safe assurance of its 
 having been transmitted to us in an authentic shape. 
 He asserted that what was claimed as revelation was \in- 
 certain and obscure ; its views of the Deity derogatory
 
 Popular Religious Controversy. 99 
 
 to what we conceive of the divine nature ; its precepts 
 not clearly intelligible to the multitude, as must be the 
 case with all arbitrary and positive precepts, and sonae- 
 times contrary to natural morality ; and that the Avant 
 of universality in its publication, and the corruptions 
 introduced even at an early date, invalidated its divine 
 origin. Such were the chief positions maintained by 
 Tindal in the first portion of his work, in which the 
 argument was mainly destructive. The second part, in 
 which he proposed to show that all the vital truths con- 
 tained in Christianity were 'as old as the creation,' he 
 did not live to complete. 
 
 But it was not only in books that such questions were 
 discussed. There was a great deal of free-talking as well 
 as free-thinking ; nor was it confined by any means to 
 such learned circles as Queen Caroline's supper - table. 
 Waterland, -writing while Butler was preaching at the 
 Rolls Chapel, says that the controversy on the Trinity 
 ' was spread abroad among all ranks and degrees of 
 men, and the Athanasian Creed became the subject of 
 common and ordinary conversation.' Butler himself, 
 in his charge to his clergy, cautions them against rashly 
 engaging in argument with ' sceptical and profane men, 
 who are apt to bring up this subject at meetings of 
 entertainment' Bishop Berkeley, a few years later, 
 says that ' in a drawing-room, a coffee-house, a chocolate- 
 house, a tavern, or a groom-porter's,' it was ' the custom 
 for polite persons to speak freely on all subjects, religi- 
 ous, moral, or political.' And valuable as Butler's book 
 was, and is, as a reply to the objections against Chris- 
 tianity as they Avere formally stated by controversial 
 writers, they had an especial value as bearing upon the
 
 100 Butler. 
 
 doubts and difficulties that were current in all men's 
 mouths. He told a friend that his plan in the composi- 
 tion of it had been ' to endeavour to answer, as he went 
 along, every possible objection that might occur to any 
 one against any position of his in his book.' ^ 
 
 The title of Butler's work is frequently misquoted — 
 probably because of its length. It is not ' The Analogy 
 of N'atural and Revealed Eeligion,' — which would im- 
 ply their relations one to the other, — but ' The Analogy 
 of Eeligion, IS'atural and Eevealed, to the Constitution 
 and Course of Nature ; ' Natural Eeligion forming the 
 subject of the first part of the work, and Eevealed Ee- 
 ligion of the second. As in his Sermons he had ex- 
 amined the moral constitution of man, considered as a 
 social being, so in this, his later work, he has analysed 
 man's spiritual constitution, as placed in a state of pro- 
 bation here, to be perfected in a future existence. He 
 adopted as his motto a passage from Qiiintilian, in which 
 the analogical method of reasoning is briefly defined.- 
 Mill says it may be reduced to the following formula : 
 ' Two things resemble each other in one or more re- 
 spects — a certain proposition is true of the one, therefore 
 it is true of the other.' Its value depends (he says 
 again) ' on the extent of ascertained resemblance com- 
 pared with the amount of ascertained difference.' Cople- 
 stone says that analogy is * not a similarity of two 
 things, but of two relations ; ' and this appears to de- 
 scribe more nearly the mode in which Butler apphes it, 
 
 1 Bartlett's Life, p. 50. 
 
 2 ' Ejus [Analogise] hrec vis est, ut id quod dubium est ad aliquid 
 simile, de quo non quseritur, referat, ut iucerta certis probet.' — Quint. 
 Inst. Orat., I. vi.
 
 The Analogy. 101 
 
 tliongh he gives no definition of it himself, and seems 
 practically to extend it to probable reasoning of any 
 kind.i 
 
 His method is like Eacon's, to Avhoni Chalmers has 
 compared him — i.e., so far as analogy resembles induc- 
 tion, of which it may be said to be an imperfect kind : 
 it is the method of experience as opposed to hypothesis. 
 He argues from what we know to what we do not know 
 — from the acknowledged truths of nature to the probable 
 truths of revelation. He postulates from his readers 
 thus much : that there is an intelligent Author of nature 
 (this would be admitted by the Deists, to whom his 
 arguments are chiefly addressed) ; that human know- 
 ledge is imperfect (and this, in his view, lies at the 
 root of most of the real difficulties) ; and that his op- 
 ponent shall be content to proceed i;pon principles of 
 reason. Like Aristotle, he has no mind to argue Avith 
 inconsequent people. 
 
 The motive of his work is thus pointedly stated by 
 himself — not without a vein of sarcasm — in his ' Adver- 
 tisement ' to the first edition : — ■ 
 
 ' It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted by 
 many persons, that Cliristianity is not so much as a subject 
 of inquiry, but that it is now at length discovered to be 
 
 1 Dr Hampden states the form of analogical reasoning thus : — ■ 
 
 ' Whatever belongs to this particular (or to these several particu- 
 lars) belongs to any particular of the same class ; this [some pro- 
 perty inferred from observation] belongs to this particular ; therefore, 
 the same property belongs to this other particular of the same class.' 
 
 'Like Induction, Analogy can only pretend at best to a high degree 
 of probability : it may have a high degree of certainty, but it never 
 can reach to necessity.' — Sir W. Hamilton. 
 
 ' Analogy is the soul of Induction.' — Baden Powell.
 
 102 Butler. 
 
 fictitious. And accordingly tliey treat it as if, in the present 
 age, tliis were an agreed point among all people of discern- 
 ment, and nothing remained but to set it up as a principal 
 subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals 
 for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world. 
 On the contrary, thus much at least will be here found, not 
 taken for granted, but proved, that any reasonable man, who 
 Avill thoroughly consider the matter, may be as much assured 
 as he is of his own being, that it is not, however, so clear a 
 case that there is nothing in it. There is, I think, strong 
 evidence of its truth ; but it is certain no one can, upon 
 principles of reason, be satisfied of the contrary. And the 
 practical consequence to be drawn from this is not attended 
 to by every one who is concerned in it.'
 
 103 
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 ANALOGY OF NATURAL RELIGION TO THE COURSE 
 OF NATURE. 
 
 The opening words of the introductory chapter of the 
 ' Analogy' warn the reader what he may and what he ninst 
 not expect in the Avay of proof, and hmit distinctly the 
 scope of the argument. 'Probable evidence is essen- 
 tially distinguished from demonstrative by this,— that it 
 admits of degrees, and of all variety of them, from the 
 highest moral certainty to the very lowest presumption.' 
 And — • ' even a Ioav presumption often repeated will 
 amount even to moral certainty.' Butler is perfectly 
 candid as to the nature of the mode of proof which he 
 is adopting. 
 
 ' Probable evidence, in its very nature, affords but an im- 
 perfect kind of information ; and is to be considered as 
 relative only to beings of limited capacities. For nothing 
 which is the possible object of knowledge, whether past, 
 present, or future, can be probable to an infinite Intelli- 
 gence ; since it cannot but be discerned absolutely as it is ■ 
 in itself, certainly true, or certainly false. But to us, pro- 
 bability IS THE VERY GUIDE OF LIFE.' ^ 
 
 ]\Ir Gladstone, iu his essay on ' The Law of Probable Evidence
 
 104 Butler. 
 
 In practical questions, prudence and interest constantly 
 oblige us to take the side on wliicli stands the balance of 
 probability, ' even though it be so low as to leave the 
 luind in very great doubt which is the truth.' N"ay, when 
 the question is very important, the prudent man will act 
 upon Avhat seems less than an even chance. Such is 
 his argument, which perhaps he might well have carried 
 further. For after all, even physical science rests upon 
 probable evidence as truly as moral science does, and the 
 accuracy of the perceptions of sense is based upon 
 assumption as much as the tinitli of our moral and 
 religious instincts. 
 
 He proceeds to take as his text an observation of 
 Origen,^ — that ' he wlio believes the Scripture to have 
 proceeded from Him who is the Author of nature, may 
 well expect to find the same sort of difficulties in it as 
 are foimd in the constitution of nature.' And so, Butler 
 adds on his own part, — 'he who denies the Scripture 
 to have been from God upon account of those diffi- 
 culties, may for the very same reason deny the world to 
 have been formed by Him.' But if we find that the 
 course of nature, as known to us by experience, is analo- 
 gous to the scheme of providence made known to us 
 by revelation, it is a strong presumption that they have 
 the same author. That there is an Author of nature is 
 assumed as granted : so far, the writer and those to 
 
 in its relation to Conduct,' quotes very appositely to this statement 
 of Butler a passage from Voltaire, ' On Probabilities in Judicial 
 Questions,' — 'Almost the whole of human life turns on probabilities. 
 . . . It is necessary, therefore, for our nature, weak, blind, and 
 ever liable to error as it is, to study probabilities as carefully as we 
 study arithmetic or geometry.' 
 1 Philocalis, p. 23.
 
 Credibility of a Future State. 105 
 
 whom he addresses himself are supposed to stand on the 
 same basis of belief. Consequently, it must be borne in 
 mind that the argument of the treatise contains no answer 
 at all to the Atheist. This has been urged as detracting 
 from its value as a work upon the evidences of religion ; 
 but an author can hardly be fairly charged with not 
 having done what he does not profess to attempt. 
 
 We are to compare, then, ' the known constitution 
 and course of things with what is said to be the moral 
 system of nature ; ' and note the analogy between what 
 we find in nature, and what we believe and expect in 
 religion. We shall thus find, the author thinks, that ' the 
 system of religion, both natural and revealed, considered 
 only as a system, and prior to any proof of it, is not a 
 subject of ridicule, unless that of nature be so too ; ' 
 and this analogy will supply an answer to all objections 
 against the system of religion, and, though in a less 
 degree, to objections against the proof of it ; ' for ob- 
 jections against a proof, and objections against what is 
 said to be proved, are different things.' 
 
 The very notion of a divine government, implied in 
 the notion of religion in general, must rest, as he assumes, 
 on the existence of a future state; the credibility of this 
 he accordingly proceeds to discuss in his first chapter. 
 The various changes in ourselves from infancy to ma- 
 turity, and the transformations which take place in the 
 case of many animals, make it probable that we may 
 exist hereafter in a state as diff"erent from the present as 
 that is from our past. The possession of living powers 
 now is a presumption that we shall retain them after 
 death, unless death can be shown to destroy them. Of 
 this we have no proof, either in the 'reason of things,'
 
 106 Butler. 
 
 — because we do not know what death is, or on what 
 the existence of these living powers depend; or from 
 the analogy of nature, because even in the case of ani- 
 mals there is ' not even the slightest presumption that 
 they ever lose their living powers.' Death does indeed 
 destroy the ' sensible proof ' of such possession ; but 
 beyond that we know nothing. "VVe only imagine 
 death will destroy them. But we must listen to reason 
 — not to imagination. 
 
 Death is not the destruction of the living being, 
 because that implies that such being is ' compoinided, 
 and therefore discerptible.' But consciousness is in- 
 divisible, and therefore the conscious being must be 
 indivisible too : this ' has been argued,' he says, ' and, 
 for anything appearing to the contrary, justly.' (He 
 is sparing, as usual, of direct references, but he has 
 Clarke's letters to Dodwell in his mind, probably, rather 
 than Descartes, by whom this distinction between the 
 'discerptible' body and the indivisible and therefore 
 indestructible mind is dra-nni.) We ourselves may ex- 
 ist out of bodies as well as in them. This 'absolute 
 oneness of the living agent ' cannot, he admits, be proved 
 experimentally ; but the fact that men lose their limbs 
 by amputation, and that bodies undergo a gradual 
 flux (amounting, as physiologists tell us, to a total 
 change within a certain period), without losing their 
 identity, is a strong presumption in its favour. Our 
 real selves are independent of matter; and our organs 
 of sense, perception, and motion, are indeed only in- 
 struments (as much as eye-glasses are) by which the 
 conscious being acts. Their dissolution does not im- 
 ply the destruction of the being himself. It is the
 
 Credibility of a Future State. 107 
 
 very argument of Plato in the ' Alcibiades ' — that the 
 whole body is the mere instrument of man, and that 
 ' the man and his body are two different thmgs.' ^ 
 That this argument applies equally to brutes, Butler 
 wUl not admit to be a real objection. They may, he 
 conceives, have latent powers, like infants ; or they 
 may have an immortality without them : in any case, 
 we are entirely ignorant in the matter. And here again, 
 as very frequently, Butler follows Clarke, who had met 
 the objection m a similar way in his answer to Anthony 
 Collins, who maintained, with Dodwell, the startling 
 doctrine of the natural mortality of the human soul 
 without baptism. Clarke — and perhaps Butler — was 
 evidently inclined to acbnit the possibility of a future 
 life for the brute creation.^ It must be observed that 
 he does not here enter upon the question of the im- 
 materiality of the soul : his argument in favour of its 
 indestructibility will apply equally well, as Dr Hampden 
 has remarked, whatever theory as to its nature be 
 adopted. 
 
 But, if death does not destroy the living being, still, 
 may it not destroy our present powers of reflection'? 
 His answer is, the body is not necessary for the ex- 
 ercise of these : as we reflect independently of our 
 
 1 Alcibiades, i. s. 51. Aristotle (De Anima, ii. 2.) draws the same 
 distinction between ' the immortal and the corruptible.' 
 
 2 ' That man does not do any great honour either to God or to the 
 Christian religion, who will contend tliat through a boundless eternity 
 there shall never exist anything in the immense universe but what 
 must needs partake either of the happiness or misery of mankind.' — 
 Clarke, Reply to Collins. Descartes, when pressed with the objec- 
 tion that his arguments against the intelligence of animals would ap- 
 ply equally to infants, replied that he would not have believed that 
 these latter had souls, but that he saw their development in the adult.
 
 lOS Butler. 
 
 senses, these may be destroyed and yet reflection re- 
 main ; and as disease often does not in its progress 
 affect oi;r intellectual powers, there is no presumption 
 that it will eventually destroy them. 
 
 Nor is there any reason to conclude that it involves 
 even the suspension of them. 
 
 ' Nay, for auglit we know of ourselves — of our present life 
 and of death — death may immediately, in the natural course 
 of things, put us into a higher and more enlarged state of 
 life, as our birth does ; a state in which our capacities, and 
 sphere of perception and of action, may be much greater than 
 at present. For as our relation to our external organs of sense 
 renders us capable of existing in our present state of sensa- 
 tion, so it may be the only natural hindrance to our existing, 
 inmiediately and of course, in a higher state of reflection. 
 The truth is, reason does not at all show us in what state 
 death naturally leaves us.' 
 
 In any case, the suspension and the destruction of a 
 faculty are two very dilferent things. 
 
 So the change which death makes in us may be as 
 natural as our birth. And this new state may be a social 
 one, and governed by fixed laws of perfect Avisdom. 
 And though all this amounts only to credibility, it is 
 as sufficient for the practical purposes of religion as de- 
 monstrative proof. 
 
 Before proceeding to the argument in the next chap- 
 ter, it may be well to notice the discussion of the 
 question of Personal Identity, which, as the author 
 tells us, he had originally intended for insertion in 
 this part of his work, but afterwards placed in an ap- 
 pendix. It was a question which delighted the meta- 
 physicians of the day, but Avhich Butler's practical mind
 
 Personal Identity. 109 
 
 evidently regarded as rather a question of Avords, to 
 which common - sense supplied the only really satis- 
 factory answer. All attempts to define this identity 
 'woiild but perplex it,' in his opinion: while the idea 
 of it is not diticult at all Shaftesbury has observed 
 how little the question, ' Wliat are we ourselves 1 ' is 
 answered by the formula of Descartes, ' I think, there- 
 fore I am.' If the '/'be well established in the first 
 part of the proposition, no doiibt, as he says with his 
 iisual acuteness, it will hold good in the latter. 
 
 ' But the question is, " What constitutes the We or I ? " 
 And " Whether the I of tliis instant be the same with that of 
 any instant preceding or to come ? " For Ave have nothing 
 but memory to warrant us ; and memory may be false. We 
 may believe we have thought or reflected thus and thus ; but 
 we may be mistaken. We may be conscious of that as truth, 
 which perhaps was no more than a dream. . . . This is 
 Avhat metaphysicians mean when they say that identity can 
 be proA'ed only by consciousness : but that consciousness 
 withal may be as Avell false as real in respect of what is 
 past. So that the same successional We or I must remain 
 .still, on this account, undecided.' — Characteristics, vol. iii. p. 
 193 (ed. 1732). 
 
 Shaftesbury goes on to say that he is content to ' take 
 his being upon trust.' And it is not difficult to gather 
 from Butler's pages that he Avas content practically to do 
 the same. But he felt that the subject he Avas upon 
 compelled him to notice speculations Avhich Avere the 
 literary passion of the day, little as he himself A'alued 
 such inquiries. 
 
 He sees that consciousness cannot constitute personal 
 identity, though it may make it clear practically to our- 
 selves. Xo doubt, if Ave compare our consciousness noAV 
 
 r
 
 110 Butler. 
 
 and at some past moment, it gives us the idea that we 
 are one and the same person ; hut it presupposes such 
 identity, and is not necessary to it at alL Personality 
 must he prior to consciousness, as truth is prior to the 
 knowledge of truth. He means that we are really the 
 same persons now that we were twenty years ago, — 
 whether we rememher it or not. !Nor is our identity the 
 mere sameness of life and organisation, as in the case 
 of the tree, which we say is 'the same' tree as it was 
 fifty years ago ; it is not mere continiiity of existence, 
 as the materialist would hold. He is more content with 
 the definition given hy Locke— that personal identity is 
 ' the sameness of a rational being.' But the difficulty 
 which Locke and others saw was this : that the con- 
 sciousness of our existence at any two successive periods 
 (say youth and old age) is ' not the same consciousness, 
 but different successive consciousnesses.' And this re- 
 finement of doubt was carried out by others (notably by 
 Collins in his reply to Clarke) to such length that it 
 came practically to asserting, as Butler puts it, that ' con- 
 sciousness, being successive, cannot be the same in any 
 two moments, nor, consequently, can the personality con- 
 stituted by it.' -■■ 
 
 Butler pursues this to its remoter but necessary con- 
 clusion, which he thinks is the best confutation of it. 
 
 ' And from hence it must follow that it is a fallacy upon 
 tiurselves to charge our present selves with anything we did, 
 or to imagine our present selves interested in anything which 
 
 1 Reid has remarked, in stronger terms than Butler, that Locke 
 strangely confounds the evidence of personal identity with the 
 identity itself.
 
 Personal Identity. Ill 
 
 befell us yesterday, or that our present self will be interested 
 in what will befall us to-morrow ; since cur present self is 
 not, in reality, the same mth the self of yesterday, but 
 another like self or person coming in its room, and mis- 
 taken for it ; to which another self will succeed to-morrow. 
 This, I say, must follow ; for if the self or person of to-day 
 and that of to-morrow are not the same, but only like per- 
 sons, the person of to-day is really no more interested in 
 what wall befall the person of to-morrow, than in what will 
 befall any other person.' 
 
 Such, an explanation of personal identity would, as lie 
 remarks at the outset of this dissertation, make the 
 question of a future life of no practical importance at all 
 to us in the present. But it plainly contradicts our in- 
 herent convictions, our memory, and our consciousness. 
 We should never dream of applying it to the present 
 life — of altering our conduct as to our health or worldly 
 affairs, ' from a suspicion that though we should live to- 
 morrow, we shall not be the same persons we are to- 
 day.' Yet, if it were reasonable to act on such a notion 
 with regard to the future life, it wovild be equally reason- 
 able in the case of tlie present. 
 
 But may not our memory and consciousness deceive 
 us 1 jNIay not memory play us false, as Shaftesbury puts 
 if? This, says Butler, is really a question as to the 
 truth of all perception by memory, and he who doubts 
 this may equally doubt perception by deduction and 
 reasoning. "VYe cannot prove the truth of either, be- 
 cause we could only prove it by the use of the very 
 faculties whose accuracy we suspect. 
 
 (Chap. II.) What makes the question of a future life 
 really important to us is the supposition of oiu' happiness 
 or misery in that life depending on our behaviour in this.
 
 112 Butler. 
 
 Kow, we are plainly living in this world under a law 
 of reward and punishment ; happiness or misery follows 
 upon a certain course of action ; life itself depends upon 
 care, success upon exertion. If we ask why the Author 
 of nature does not make aU his creatures happy without 
 the instrumentality of their own actions, Butler con- 
 tends, in a forcible passage, that this may perhaps be 
 impossible ' in the nature of things ; ' or contrary to the 
 perfection of divine goodness, 'with which,' he caustic- 
 ally observes, ' if I mistake not, we make very free in 
 our speculations.' Or, such instrumentality may be 
 an essential part of a scheme which, as he presentlj'^ 
 shows, is imperfectly comprehended. However, the 
 fact is matter of experience, that we are forewarned 
 — or enabled to foresee — that enjopiient or suffering 
 will follow upon a certain course of action. And if 
 it be objected that this is only the general course of 
 nature, the reply is that this means the mode of govern- 
 ment of the Author of nature (for such an Author we 
 are supposing throughout), who does not govern the 
 less reaUy because his government is uniform. Even if 
 nature were a machine working according to fixed laws 
 (as Leibnitz affirmed), Butler would recognise the gov- 
 erning mind which contrived the machine, and would 
 not contend, as Clarke did, that such a notion tended to 
 exclude the providence and government of God. Nay, 
 he holds that if the civil magistrates ' could make their 
 laws execute themselves,' we should only be under their 
 personal government in a higher and more perfect manner. 
 Thus the whole course of natiu-e shows us to be now 
 under a government by means of rewards and punish- 
 ments ; and therefore, by analogy, there is at least
 
 Dissertation on Virtue. 113 
 
 nothing incredible in our being rewarded or punished 
 for our actions hereafter. 
 
 But it is divine punishment in the future that men are 
 most unwilling to allow. I^ow the punishments which 
 follow upon certain acts in the natural course of things 
 are remarkably analogous to what religion teaches us as 
 to the future. 1. They follow actions which promise, and 
 even give, present pleasure and advantage. 2. They 
 seem often disproportionately great compared with such 
 pleasure or advantage. 3. They are often long delayed, 
 — but this gives no presumption of impxmity, — and 
 when they come, often come suddenly. 4. They are 
 not foreseen as a certainty, and seldom distinctly ex- 
 pected. 5. "VSHien incurred, the step which incurred 
 them is irretrievable, and Avhen certain bounds have 
 been transgressed, ' there remains no place for repent- 
 ance in the natural course of things.' And all this, 
 though it does not uniformly follow, or always propor- 
 tionately to the character of the act, yet is not accidental, 
 but, as experience shows us, the working of a general 
 law ; so that it leaves ' no pretence of reason for people 
 to think themselves secure ' that there is no analogous 
 state of things hereafter. 
 
 In his ' Dissertation upon Virtue,' originally intended 
 to form part of this chapter upon the moral government 
 of the world, Butler shows that such government implies 
 man's having a moral nature and moral faculties capable 
 of distinguishing right from wrong. Here, as in his 
 sermons on human nature, he is in distinct opposition 
 to that narrower school of Utilitarianism of which 
 Hobbes may be taken as the founder, according to 
 which there exists no innate sense at all of right and 
 
 p.— ir. H
 
 lU Butler. 
 
 wrong, and such ideas are only gathered by experi- 
 ence of what is on the whole conducive to our own 
 interest. Butler argues, on the other hand, that this 
 faculty of moral perception is that which in the main 
 makes our humanity — that in whicli we differ from 
 the brutes, in common with whom we have instincts 
 and propensions. He calls this faculty a ' moral ap- 
 proving and disapproving faculty ' (terms which, as he 
 explains, he borrows from the opening chapter of Epic- 
 tetus), by Avhich, wholly irrespective of advantage or 
 disadvantage to society, we have a sense of merit or 
 demerit attached to certain actions (including always 
 the intention of the agent), of which we are inwardly 
 conscious from our own experience, and which we 
 recognise in others — ' whether we call it conscience, 
 moral sense, moral reason, or divine reason.' ]\Ioral 
 government, then, consists in awarding happiness and 
 misery according to the degree in which men follow 
 or depart from the rule suggested by this innate moral 
 sense ; this, and not its utility in even its Avidest ap- 
 plication, Butler asserts to be the test of the quality 
 of an action. Virtue is not to be resolved entirely into 
 benevolence, as the school of Hutcheson would assert ; 
 nor is its rule the 'attaining the greatest happiness of 
 the greatest number.' He would hold, with Paley, that 
 virtue does in its final results always conduce to the 
 true happiness both of the individual and of society; 
 but that we do not judge of actions, and ought not to 
 regulate our own, by any measure of direct utility. We 
 condemn falsehood, violence, and injustice, even though 
 we should have reason to believe that the immediate 
 result would be to increase the amount of human hap-
 
 Future Retribution morally demonstrated. 115 
 
 piness : we are so made that we can judge of the right 
 and the wrong, while we are wholly incompetent to 
 judge of remote consequences. 
 
 It may be admitted that, as Chalmers and others 
 have thouglit, Butler's argoiments in his first chapter 
 are far from conclusive as to the existence of a future 
 state, however destructive they may be of popular 
 objections to the doctrine. Probably it would be im- 
 possible, putting revelation aside, to adduce any argu- 
 ment more weighty than the longing for immortality 
 implanted in man's heart, and the belief in it which, 
 in a more or less intelligent form, is so nearly universal 
 But in this chapter on rewards and punishments, where 
 he is dealing with what is more within the compass of 
 the human facidties, his reasoning amounts almost to 
 moral demonstration ; and the moderation of his state- 
 ment of the case only strengthens the appeal, somewhat 
 more impassioned than his usual tone, which he makes 
 in the concluding paragrapli. 
 
 ' It is fit things be stated and considered as they really are. 
 And there is, in the present age, a certain fearlessness with 
 regard to what may be hereafter under the government of 
 God, which nothing but an universally acknowledged demon- 
 stration on the side of atheism can justify; and which makes 
 it quite necessary that men be reminded, and if possible made 
 to feel, that there is no sort of ground for being thus pre- 
 sumptuous, even upon the most sceptical principles. For 
 may it not be said of any person, upon his being born into 
 the world, he may behave so as to be of no service to it, but 
 by being made an example of the woful effects of vice and 
 folly ? that he may (as any one may, if he will) incur an 
 inftimous execution from the hands of civil justice ; or in 
 some other course of extravagance shorten his days ; or bring
 
 116 Butler. 
 
 upon himself infamy and diseases worse than death ? so 
 that it had been better for him, even with regard to the 
 present world, that he had never been born. And is there 
 any pretence of reason for people to think themselves secure, 
 and talk as if they had certain proof that, let them act as 
 licentiously as they will, there can be nothing analogous to 
 this, with regard to a future and more general interest, under 
 the providence and government of the same God ? ' 
 
 (Cliap. III.) As a government by rewards and pun- 
 ishments does not of necessity imply a moral government 
 — i.e., the reward of virtue and the punishment of vice, as 
 such. ; and as this last is the kind of government whicli 
 religion ascribes to God, we have now to examine how 
 far — over and above the moral nature whicli He has given 
 us, and the notion of Him as a righteous governor which 
 He has implanted in that nature — we can discover the 
 existence of the principles of such a government even 
 in the present (confessedly imperfect and confused) state 
 of things. Butler will not insist much, upon the argument 
 that virtue produces happiness, — he admits candidly that 
 in our present life there are exceptions to this, however 
 true it may be upon the whole. But he maintains that 
 as it has been shown that we are rewarded and pun- 
 ished here according to settled rules of some kind, it 
 corresponds with our ' sense of things ' that this rule 
 should be what we call ' distributive justice ; ' that the 
 existence of such a ride is witnessed by the fact that 
 prudence and imprudence — 'which are of the nature 
 of virtue and vice ' — are rewarded and punished here ; 
 that vice is, in some degree, punished by society, either 
 by actual penalty or by the fear of it ; and though 
 virtuous actions may sometimes be punished (as in
 
 Butler's Utopia. 117 
 
 the case of persecution), or vice reAvarded, yet they 
 are not punished or reAvarded as such ; while the world 
 does, on the whole, show its approbation of the one 
 and its disapprobation of the other. "We find that we 
 are so made that well- doing, in itself, satisfies us — 
 at least in some instances ; ill-doing, never. ' There is 
 nothing in the human mind contradictory, as the logici- 
 ans speak, to virtue.' If we see, as we do, vice prosper- 
 ous and virtue suffering, plainly it is not the intent of 
 nature that it should be so. In all cases where circum- 
 stances thwart and hinder this intent, such hindrance 
 is more or less abnormal and accidental, while the in- 
 tent is uniform and consistent. And were it not for 
 such accidental disturbances, the general law that virtue 
 is rewarded here, and vice punished, would come out 
 more distinctly. Such hindrances and disturbances may 
 be removed in a future and more perfect state, and the 
 virtue that is cramped and thwarted here may have fuU 
 scope hereafter. The present tendencies in its favour 
 are, as Butler remarks in his concluding sinnmary, 'to 
 be considered as intimations — as implicit promises and 
 threatenings — from the Author of nature,' of a much 
 more perfect system of rewards and punishments in the 
 future. 
 
 The author proceeds, in support of his position, to 
 draw a picture of a kingdom or society where virtue 
 should be permanently established in its full perfection. 
 He admits that it is an impossible Utopia. 
 
 ' In such a state there would be no such thing as faction ; 
 but men of the greatest capacity would, of course, all along 
 have the chief direction of affairs willingly yielded to tlieni, 
 and they would share it among themselves witliout envy.
 
 118 Butler. 
 
 Each of these would have the part assigned him to which 
 his genius was peculiarly adapted ; and others, who had not 
 any distinguished genius, would he safe, and think them- 
 selves very happy, by being under the protection and guid- 
 ance of those ^\'ho had. Public determinations would really 
 be the result of the united wisdom of the community ; and 
 they would faithfully be executed by the united strength of 
 it. Some would in a higher way contribute, but all would 
 in some way contribute, to the public prosperity ; and in it 
 each would enjoy the fruits of his own virtue. And as in- 
 justice, whether by fraud or force, would be unknown among 
 themselves, so they would be sufficiently secured from it in 
 their neighbours. For cunning and false self-interest, con- 
 federacies in injustice — ever slight, and accompanied with 
 faction and intestine treachery — these on one hand would 
 be found mere childish folly and weakness, when set in 
 opposition against -wisdom, public spirit, union inviolable, 
 and fidelity on the other, — allowing both a sufficient lengtli 
 of years to try their force. Add the general influence which 
 such a kingdom would have over the face of the earth, by 
 way of example particularly, and the reverence which would 
 be paid it. It would plainly be superior to all others, and 
 the world must gradually come under its empire ; not by 
 means of lawless violence, but partly by what must be 
 allowed to be just conquest, and partly by other kingdoms 
 submitting themselves voluntarily to it, throughout a course 
 of ages, and claiming its protection, one after another, in suc- 
 cessive exigencies.! "pi^g liead of it would be an universal 
 monarch, in another sense than any mortal has yet been.' 
 
 We have on the wliole, then, a real presumption that 
 the moral scheme of government established by nature 
 shall be carried out in its full perfection hereafter. 
 
 1 Mr Leslie Stephen remarks that this hypothesis, Avhich contains 
 a position substantially true, ' that races will flourish as they adapt 
 themselves to the laws of nature,' is in harmony with the doctrine of the 
 ' survival of the fittest.' — History of English Thought, vol. i. p. 292. 
 
 I
 
 Natural and Bdigioiis Probation. 119 
 
 (Chap. IV.) The moral government of God, as 
 tanght by religion, implies that we are here in a state 
 of trial as regards our future state. Can we, tlien, 
 find that we are in any analogous state of trial as 
 regards the present 1 
 
 Our happiness here depends in great degree on our 
 own acts, and we are constantly under temptations to 
 neglect our temporal interests. And the causes of this 
 natural probation are strictly analogous to the causes of 
 our religious probation, arising either from our own 
 nature or from the circumstances in which we are 
 placed. Our passions are often as strongly opposed to 
 that ' reasonable self-love ' Avhich tends to our true 
 worldly interest, as they are to the principles of virtue 
 and religion : while our difficulties and dangers are, in 
 both cases, increased by bad education, evil example, 
 and the prevalence of false views. 
 
 Butler finds in this state of things the confirmation 
 of a truth which underlies his theory of human nature 
 throughout, though he is careful in this part of his 
 treatise not to press it, — that we are here 'in a state 
 of degradation ; ' ' in a condition that does not seem, by 
 any means, the most advantageous we could imagine or 
 desire, either in our natural or moral capacity, for secur- 
 ing either our present or future interest' This is, as he 
 shoAvs hereafter,^ a fact, not only revealed in Scripture, 
 but patent to any thovightful observation, and admitted 
 by heathen moralists, — ' how difficult soever to account 
 for.' To complain of it would be, he thinks, as un- 
 reasonable as useless, since neither nature nor religion 
 put upon us more than we can do, and the probation is 
 1 Part 11., uliap. v.
 
 120 Butler. 
 
 in neither case beyond our strength. It involves the 
 hazard of faihire, no doubt, in the one case as in the 
 other ; and ' why anything of hazard and danger should 
 be put upon such frail creatures as we are, may well be 
 thought a difficulty in speculation, and cannot but be 
 so until we know the whole or however much more of 
 the case.' But if thought, and care, and self-denial un- 
 der temptation, are needful to secure our lower interests 
 here, this at least removes all presumption against their 
 being needful to secure our higher interests hereafter. 
 Under both systems, as he strikingly puts it, as our inter- 
 est ' is not forced upon us, so neither is it offered to our 
 acceptance, but to our acquisition ; ' and we may miss it 
 in the future, as men notoriously do miss it in the present. 
 (Chap. V. ) The inquiry why we are placed in a state of 
 probation at all is, in fact, the inquiry into the origin and 
 existence of evil, — the question that has never yet been 
 answered. There were speculations enough about it in 
 Butler's day. Leibnitz had taught, with some of the best 
 of the old Greek philosophers, that evil was in itself only 
 a form of good, or essential to the existence of good. 
 Archbishop King and other English writers had argued 
 that evil was not inconsistent with the character of 
 the Deity, and was the necessary result of the action 
 of free-will. Butler makes no attempt to solve the real 
 difficulty : he doubts whether we should understand the 
 solution if we could discover it, and whether it would 
 help us if we did. He contents himself with maintain- 
 ing that at least wickedness is voluntary, as the term itself 
 Avould iniply ; and so passes on to the more practical in- 
 quiry, ' Wliat is our business here,' — in this world where, 
 as a fact, evil does exist 1
 
 Habit. 121 
 
 He argues that here we are in a state of education as 
 well as probation. As childhood and youth are an edu- 
 cation for maturity, — 'an important opportunity which 
 nature puts into our hands, and whicli, wlien lost, is not 
 to be recovered ' — and as the capacities of the child de- 
 velop into those of the man, — one state of this temporal 
 life preparing lis for another, — so there is a preparation 
 going on here for a higher state of existence ; there are 
 capacities to be developed, a character to be formed, 
 which is to qualify us for a future happiness. For 
 happiness, in order to be happiness at all, must be suited 
 to our capacities : and the constitution of human nature 
 we find to be such that its capacities can be largely de- 
 veloped ; we are ' capable of becoming qualified for states 
 of life for which we were once wholly disqualified,' — as 
 in the case of the child growing into a man. We are 
 capable of acquiring new facilities of action, and of 
 settled alterations in our temper and character. This is 
 the power of habit, the paramount importance of which 
 as a factor in moral character Butler recognises as dis- 
 tinctly as Aristotle. He shows how habits arise from 
 repeated action ; and notes acutely how passive impres- 
 sions grow weakened by repetition, Avhile action grows 
 easier and more pleasurable. This part of the chapter 
 is indeed mainly founded upon Aristotle's ethical the- 
 ory, and Butler's exposition of the growth and power of 
 habit has been considered by many (Archdeacon Hare 
 among the number) as the most valuable portion of 
 the treatise. 
 
 He has a remark upon the superiority of action over 
 speculation, which shows how keenly sensible he was 
 of the danger to the active minds of his own day of
 
 122 Butler. 
 
 discussing systems of religion and morals instead of 
 applying them in practice. 
 
 ' Going over the theory of virtue in one's thoughts, talking 
 Avell, and drawing fine pictures of it, — this is so far from 
 necessarily or certainly conducing to form a haljit of it in 
 him who thus employs himself, that it may harden the mind 
 in a contrary course, and render it gradually more insensible 
 — i.e., form a habit of insensibility — to all moral considera- 
 tions. For, from our very faculty of habits, passive impres- 
 sions, by being repeated, grow weaker.' 
 
 Some of the author's remarks upon the possible ends 
 of such a state of educational discipline as he shows 
 mankind to be placed under are original and striking, 
 and sho^v an inclination to holder speculation than is 
 liis wont. He holds it probable that the state of ex- 
 istence hereafter will be 'a community,' in which there 
 will be * scope for the exercise of veracity, justice, and 
 charity,' and which may therefore presumably require 
 a frame of mind ' formed by the daily practice of those 
 virtues here ; ' that ' particular affections ' — by which 
 he seems to mean the natural passions — will still re- 
 main to us in that state ; that consequently there 
 may be still, in a certain sense, temptation for such 
 passions or affections, and that the principle of virtue, 
 strengthened by habit, may still be necessary for their 
 regulation, and our real safeguard against falling. So 
 the practical discipline of life — experience of evil, pain, 
 and sorroAV, of the frailty of our nature, of the danger 
 of ungoverned passions, of possible misery — may have 
 been needful for us : ' Who knows whether the security 
 of creatures in the highest and most settled state of 
 perfection may not arise from their having had such
 
 Waste in Nature. 123 
 
 a sense of things as this formed and fixed within them 
 in some state of probation % ' 
 
 Butler seems here to anticipate and to suggest a pos- 
 sible answer to an objection raised by Mackintosh against 
 the completeness of the argument from analogy as to a 
 future state : if happiness and misery now depend on 
 our conduct here, may they not, in the future state, de- 
 pend on our conduct there % He would seem prepared 
 to reply that there probably loill be the same real con- 
 nection between conduct and happiness ; and that there- 
 fore the habit of virtue must be confirmed during our 
 probation here. 
 
 It may be objected — and, as he admits, Avith truth — 
 that to most men this present state is, in effect, rather a 
 discipline of vice than of virtue. He argues, with an un- 
 flinching sternness of view Avhich is characteristic of him, 
 that 'the viciousness of the world is the great tempta- 
 tion which renders it a state of virtx;ous discipline to 
 all good men ; ' and that if these be few out of many, 
 this is but analogous to the waste which Ave observe 
 continually going on in nature, in the case of the seed of 
 vegetables, and the young of certain animals. 
 
 ' Yet no one, Avho does not deny all final causes, Avill deny 
 that those seeds and bodies, Avhich do attain to that point of 
 maturity and perfection, answer the end for Avhicli they Avere 
 really designed Ijy nature ; and therefore that nature de- 
 signed them for such perfection. And I cannot forbear add- 
 ing, though it is not to the present purpose, that the appearance 
 of such an amazing waste in nature, Avith respect to these seeds 
 and bodies, by foreign causes, is to us as unaccountable as 
 Avhat is much more terrible, the present and future ruin of 
 so many moral agents by themselves — i.e., by vice.' 
 
 Aristotle Avould tell us that it is the stubbornness of
 
 124 Butler. 
 
 the material which causes this waste, — these anomalies 
 and ' superfluities.' Creation he looks upon as the cease- 
 less progress of matter into form, in which there are, as 
 it Avere, tentative failures : the brute is the failure of 
 inan. It is not difficult to see in this the germ of the 
 modern doctrine of Evolution. Berkeley has called this 
 waste ' a splendid profusion ' — the working of a power 
 whose resources are unlimited, and which has no need 
 of thrift.^ Modern philosophy, on the other hand, as 
 represented by Mill and Spencer, sees in this waste of 
 nature — or, as they would rather term it, the * struggle 
 for existence ' — an argument against the credibility of an. 
 Author of nature, inasmuch as it would be an intimation 
 of his deficiency either in power or in goodness. 
 
 Butler notices other objections, of which the most ob- 
 vious and telling seems to be this — that all the trouble 
 and danger of such discipline might have been spared us, 
 had we been made at once the characters that we were 
 to be. But this, again, would be contrary to the analogy 
 of nature's law, which is not to save us trouble and 
 danger, but to make us able to overcome it — not to 
 bestow at once, but to enable us to acquire and per- 
 fect the qualifications needed, and to make us become 
 what we are to be by effCrt passing into habit. 
 
 The thought with -which Butler concludes this chapter 
 may possibly be considered fanciful, but is so striking 
 and suggestive as to deserve quotation. 
 
 ' There is a third thing which may seem implied in the 
 present world's being a state of probation, — that it is a theatre 
 of action for the manifestation of persons' characters with re- 
 spect to a future one ; not, to be sure, to an all-knowing Being, 
 
 1 Principles of Human Knowledge, sect. 152.
 
 Fatalism. 125 
 
 but to this creation or part of it. This may, perhaps, be only 
 a consequence of our being in a state of probation in the other 
 senses. However, it is not impossible that men's showing 
 and making manifest what is in their heart, what their real 
 character is, may have respect to a future life in ways and 
 manners which we are not acquainted with ; particiilarly it 
 may be a means (for the Author of nature does not ajjpear 
 to do anything without means) of their being disposed of 
 suitably to their characters, and of its being known to the 
 creation, by way of example, that they are tliiis disposed of.' 
 
 He returns again to this idea in the latter part of the 
 treatise, Avhen in speaking of those characters for whom 
 the lower temptations of life seem to be no real trial at 
 all,— to whom the practice of religion seems easy, and 
 for whom intellectual doubt may be assigned as a proba- 
 tion — lie says, ' It may be requisite, for reasons unknown 
 to us, that they should give some further manifestation 
 what is their moral character to the creation of God 
 than such a practice of it would be.'^ 
 
 (Chap. VI.) The author now proceeds to meet the 
 question whether the fatalist, who must admit that his 
 doctrine of Necessity is reconcilable with the scheme of 
 nature as we know it, is not also bound to admit that 
 it may be reconcilable with the system of religion such 
 as it is presented to us, or with the existence of a moral 
 Governor of the world. Fatalism, or Necessity,^ does 
 not exclude the notion of an intelligent agent in crea- 
 tion, or an intelligent Governor of nature, any more 
 
 1 Part II., chap. vi. 
 
 2 The Necessitarians, however, deny that Necessity, as they under- 
 stand it, is Fatalism. Their assertion is this : that, given the motives 
 present to a man's mind, and given also his character and disposi- 
 tion, his behaviour under certain circumstances can be as certainly 
 predicted as any physical result. (See Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 415.)
 
 126 Butler. 
 
 than it excludes (for instance) the notion of an archi- 
 tect in the case of the existence of a house. All that the 
 fatalist can possibly assert is, that the house was built 
 by the architect under necessity, and not as a free agent, 
 and so that the constitution of nature is the work of an 
 intelligent agent acting under the law of necessity. 
 Wlien the fatalist speaks of necessity as the cause of 
 things, he must mean (' though I am very sensible,' 
 says Butler, ' he Avould not choose to mean it ') an 
 agent acting necessarily. ' ]^ecessity as much recjuires 
 and supposes a necessary agent, as freedom requires 
 and supposes a free agent, to be the former of the 
 world.' 
 
 But if this doctrine of necessity does not destroy the 
 proof of an intelligent Author of nature and natural Gov- 
 ernor of the world, does it, in the Avay of analogy, destroy 
 ' all reasonable ground of belief that we are in a state of 
 religion' — i.e., imder a moral government ? ]^o; for 
 practically, even supposing fatalism to be true, we act 
 as if it were false. The child brought up in the prin- 
 ciples of fatalism would find that he was nevertheless 
 blamed and punished for doing what he was forbidden, 
 and treated by the world, as he grew up, jiist as though 
 he were a free agent and accountable for his actions. Or 
 if a man decline to iise ordinary care for his own pre- 
 servation, in the belief that he is absolutely fated to 
 live a certain nuuiber of years, he will find that in ap- 
 plication his doctrine becomes practically false. ' There- 
 fore, though it were admitted that tliis doctrine of neces- 
 sity were speculatively true, yet with regard to practice 
 it is as if it were false.' Under this present natural 
 government of the world we are dealt with as if we
 
 Fatalism ^practically false. 127 
 
 were free : whatever be the truth of this doctrine of 
 necessity, the appHcation of it in practice is found by 
 experience to mislead us terribly as to our present in- 
 terests, — is there not a probability it may so mislead 
 us as to our future interests too 1 
 
 Besides, we are conscious of a will and a character in 
 ourselves ; and if this be reconcilable with the doctrine 
 of necessity in our own case, it must be so in the case of 
 the Author of nature : indeed, his being the Designer and 
 Governor of the world implies his possessing such will and 
 character ; and necessity no more excludes benevolence, 
 veracity, and justice in Irim (upon which our idea of his 
 character is founded) than any other qualities, since 
 that doctrine, if it be true, plainly does not exclude 
 these qualities in the case of men. If the fatalist 
 denies the existence of any moral character, and de- 
 nounces any punishment as unjust, because it is in- 
 flicted for doing that which the sufferer could not 
 help doing, Butler shows the confusion of thought 
 which is practically involved. 
 
 ' As if the necessity wliicli is supposed to destroy the in- 
 justice of murder, for instance, would not also destroy the 
 injustice of punishing it. However, as little to the purpose 
 as this objection is in itself, it is very much to the purpose 
 to observe from it how the notions of justice and injvistice 
 remain, even whilst we endeavour to suppose them removed ; 
 how they force themselves upon the mind, even whilst we 
 are making suppositions destructive of them ; for there is 
 not perhaps a man in the world but would be ready to make 
 this objection at first thought.' 
 
 The author, though he holds the real existence of 
 free-will to be matter of experience (and probably felt,
 
 128 Butler. 
 
 with Clarke, that this was the most cogent of all argu- 
 ments), admits that its discussion opens the Avay to 'the 
 most abstruse of all speculations.' But the doctrine of 
 necessity he rightly holds to be ' the very basis on 
 which infidelity grounds itself,' removing, as he says 
 afterwards, all restraints upon vice, and contradicting 
 alike the course of nature and our own experience, and 
 so ' overturnmg everything ; ' and therefore he is at some 
 pains to show that it is of no real force, even if true, in 
 destroying the obligations of religion. 
 
 We find, as a matter of fact, independent of all specu- 
 lation, that this world is governed under a system of 
 rewards and punishments, and that we have within us a 
 moral faculty by which we distinguish actions as virtu- 
 ous or vicious, and praise and blame them accordingly ; 
 that this implies a peculiar rule of action, carrying with 
 it an authority of which we are conscious, ' from which 
 we cannot depart without being self-condemned.' And 
 the sense of security we feel in following this rule, and 
 of danger in departing from it, shoAvs it to be nothing 
 less than a law of God, carrying with it an implicit 
 promise of reward and threat of punishment. This 
 is confirmed by Avhat has been shoA\ai before of the 
 natural tendencies of virtue and vice, and by the punish- 
 ment of vicious acts as such, and as being mischievous 
 to society. "While thus the internal evidence, resting on 
 experience, cannot be disproved by any preconceiA'ed 
 notion of necessity, the external evidences of natural 
 religion are plainly not aff'ected by it at all. 
 
 But after all, the fatalist may be supposed to reply 
 that he is not obliged to answer mere probable argu- 
 ments in support of an opinion which he believes can
 
 Fatalism practicallij false. 129 
 
 clearly he shown to he false : that government hy re- 
 wards and punishments goes on the supposition that we 
 are free, whereas we are really necessary agents : and it 
 is incredihle that the Author of nature should govern us 
 on a supposition Avhich he knows to be false. 
 
 ' The answer to all this is full, and not to be evaded, — that 
 the whole constitution and course of things, the whole ana- 
 logy of Pro\ddence, shows beyond possibility of doubt that 
 the conclusion from this reasoning is false, wherever the fal- 
 lacy lies. The doctrine of freedom indeed clearly shows 
 where, — in supposing ourselves necessary, when in truth we 
 are free, agents. But upon the supposition of necessity, the 
 fallacy lies in taking for granted that it is incredible neces- 
 sary agents should be rewarded and punished. But that, 
 somehow or other, the conclusion now mentioned is false, is 
 most certain. For it is fact that God does govern even brute 
 creatures by the method of rewards and punishments, in the 
 natural course of things. And men are rewarded and pun- 
 ished for their actions, — punished for actions mischievous to 
 society as being so, punished for vicious actions as such, — hy 
 the natural instrumentality of each other, under the present 
 conduct of Providence.' 
 
 His conclusion is that necessity' — supposing it to be 
 true and reconcilable Avith ' the constitution of things ' — 
 in no way interferes with the proof that the Author of 
 nature will in his eternal government bestow happiness 
 and misery on his creatxires according to their behaviour; 
 that the analogy of nature shows us that the doctrine of 
 necessity, considered as influencing practice, is false ; 
 and that the hypothesis of its truth, as it does not de- 
 stroy the proof of natural religion, so it does not affect 
 the truth of revealed. 
 
 (Chap. VIT.) The fact of a moral government of the 
 p. — II. I
 
 130 Butler. 
 
 world has been shown to be credible from the analogy of 
 its natural government, and also that this credibility is 
 not destroyed by the hypothesis of necessity. But ob- 
 jections may be taken against the wisdom and goodness 
 of this government, which can be answered from analogy 
 only remotely, thus : by showing that, as the natural 
 government of the world is a complex scheme, and as 
 such imperfectly comprehended, analogy Avould lead us 
 to expect the same in the moral government which we 
 are set to consider. Butler is here only developing the 
 argument which he had stated briefly in his sermon ' On 
 the Ignorance of Man,' which should be read in connec- 
 tion with this chapter of his 'Analogy.' He there says 
 that ' the scheme of Providence is too vast and of too 
 large extent for our capacities,' and that ' we are much 
 less competent judges of the very small part which comes 
 under our notice in this world than we are apt to ima- 
 gine ; ' so that ' our ignorance is the proper answer to 
 many things which are called objections against religion.' 
 His treatment here of this important truth is a good 
 specimen of his more lucid style. 
 
 ' It is most obvious, analogy renders it highly credible, 
 that, iipon supposition of a moral government, it must be a 
 scheme : for the world, and the whole natural government 
 of it, appears to be so — to be a scheme, system, or constitu- 
 tion, whose parts correspond to each other, and to a whole ; 
 as really as any work of art, or as any particular model of a 
 civil constitution and government. In this great scheme ot 
 the natural world, individuals have various peciiliar relations 
 to other individuals of their o^vn species. And whole species 
 are, we find, variously related to other species upon this 
 earth. Nor do we know how much further these kinds of 
 relations may extend. And as there is not any action or
 
 Nature a vast scheme. 131 
 
 natural event, whicli ^-e are acquainted with, so single and 
 unconnected as not to have a respect to some other actions 
 and events ; so possibly each of them, when it has not an 
 immediate, may yet have a remote, natural relation to other 
 actions and events, miich beyond the compass of this present 
 world. There seems indeed nothing from whence we can so . 
 much as make a conjecture, whether all creatures, actions, 
 and events, throughout the whole of nature, have relations 
 to each other. But, as it is obvious that all events have 
 future unknown consequences ; so if we trace any, as far as 
 we can go, into what is connected ■svith it, we shall find that 
 if such event were not connected with somewhat further in 
 nature unknown to us, somewhat both past and present, 
 such event could not possibly have been at all. Nor can we 
 give the whole account of any one thing whatever, — of all its 
 causes, ends, and necessary adjuncts ; those adjuncts, I mean, 
 without which it could not have been. By this most as- 
 tonishing connection, these reciprocal correspondences and 
 mutual relations, everything which Ave see in the course of 
 nature is actually brought about. And things seemingly 
 the most insignificant imaginable are perpetually observed to 
 be necessary conditions to other things of the greatest im- 
 portance : so that any one thing whatever may, for aught 
 we know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any 
 other.' 
 
 Tlie connection between the natural and moral govern- 
 ment of the world is so close that they appear really to 
 make up only one scheme : it seems probable that the 
 former ' is only formed and carried on in subserviency to 
 the latter, as the vegetable world is for the animal, and 
 organised bodies for minds ; ' so that every act of Divine 
 justice and goodness may be supposed to look far beyond 
 itself, w'ith reference to a general moral plan. In which 
 case it is evident that we are not competent judges of 
 a scheme, a very small part of which comes within our
 
 132 Butler. 
 
 present view, and cannot reasonably insist upon objec- 
 tions taken against any sucli part by itself. 
 
 He adduces some particular analogies between what we 
 know to be tlie case in the natural government of the 
 world, and what we may suppose to be the case in the 
 moral Undesirable means will often, in the natural 
 world, conduce to ends which are desirable in much 
 larger degree : so in the moral world the misery Ave 
 suffer from each other, and our liability to vice, may 
 tend ultimately to the furtherance of virtue, and thus to 
 a larger balance of happiness. God's natural govern- 
 ment is carried on under general laws, which do not 
 prevent great exceptional irregrdarities : and so in his 
 moral government the general laws may be Avise and 
 good, and the exceptions to which Ave take objection 
 unavoidable, though Ave cannot see the reason Avhy. 
 
 It may be objected to the Avhole of this argument 
 that Ave must judge of religion, as of other things, by 
 Avliat Ave do knoAV, and not by Avhat Ave do not knoAV ; 
 and that the plea of ignorance may be used to invalidate 
 the proof as much as the objection. Butler's reply is 
 perhaps more ingenious than convincing ; ' total ignor- 
 ance,' he admits, Avould preclude equally all proof and 
 all objections : ' partial ignorance does not' "VVe may 
 knoAV the character of an agent, and therefore the ends 
 he Avill consequently pursue, yet may be A'ery ignorant 
 as to the due means he Avill take. So Ave may knoAv 
 the moral character of God, and the final purpose of his 
 government, and yet be ignorant as to the best mode of 
 accomplishing it. 
 
 But suppose the objection A'alid, our moral obliga- 
 tions Avould still remain, — both because they arise from
 
 Our Vnoxdcdrjc 'partial. 133 
 
 that laAv within its Avhich we cannot violate without 
 condemning ourselves, and hecanse there is at least a 
 sufficient prohahiJltij of those consequences of our con- 
 duct, which religion teaches, to engage us in common 
 prudence to act upon it. We are referred once more to. 
 the principle which is the corner-stone of the Avhole trea- 
 tise — that 'prohability is to lis the very guide of life.' 
 But perhaps the strongest defence of the present argu- 
 ment is contained in the last paragi-aph of the chapter, 
 in which we are reminded that though it may be said 
 in general terms to turn upon our ' ignorance,' it is really 
 our incompetency to judge as to certain particulars 
 Avhich, as Ave have learnt from analogy, might lead us 
 to false conclusions ; and that to take this into account 
 is not really ignorance, hut knowledge : it is ' to judge 
 by experience and by what we do know.' 
 
 The author recapitulates the outlines of the argument 
 contained in the previous chapters in a few pages of 
 'Conclusion' to this first part of the 'Analogy.' The 
 demand which he makes upon his readers is studiously 
 moderate. He does not ask them to admit that he has 
 conclusively proved his case, b\it that he has adduced 
 such evidence as merits their ' earnest consideration ; ' 
 that it is ' absurd for men to think themselves secure in 
 a vicious life, or even in that immoral thoughtlessness 
 which far the greatest part of them are fallen into :' and 
 that ' a righteous administration established in nature,' 
 and a future judgment in accordance with it, are founded 
 on evidence fully sufficient, even though, like all such 
 evidence, 'it should be mixed with some doubt.'
 
 134 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 ANALOGY OF REVEALED RELIGION TO THE CONSTITUTION 
 AND COURSE OF NATURE. 
 
 In tlie first part of the treatise wliich we have just been 
 considering, Revealed Religion, or in other words, the 
 scheme of Christianity, has been studiously excluded, 
 so far as possible, from the argument. For the purpose 
 of the author was there confined to showing how nat- 
 ural religion — involving a future life, a moral govern- 
 ment by rewards and punishments, and a present state 
 of probation — was in the very highest degree probable, 
 as analogous to the course and constitution of the natural 
 world as we see it. In this second part he proceeds to 
 show that the Christian revelation is also (to say the 
 least) highly credible on the same grounds. And here 
 he applies himself in the first place to answer the argu- 
 ment of Tindal in tlie work already named — 'Christianity 
 as old as the Creation. ' ^ ' Some persons, upon pretence 
 of the sufficiency of the light of nature, avowedly reject 
 all revelation as in its very notion incredible, and what 
 must be fictitious.' Such are the opening words of this 
 portion of his argument. Tindal had scarcely said so 
 1 See p. 98.
 
 Reply to Tindal. 135 
 
 much as this ; but perhaps Butler was justified in assum- 
 ing it as the real conclusion to which Tindal's view 
 necessarily tended. The position which the latter had 
 taken is this : that natural religion, if proceeding, as we 
 assume, from a perfect legislator, must itself be absolute- 
 ly perfect ; revelation, therefore, can add nothing to it 
 thart carries obligation, and therefore is not needed. 
 "V\'Tiatever in Scripture makes for the honour of God, 
 whatever is in accordance with reason and agreeable to 
 natural religion, he would be content to accept in Avhat 
 was called revelation ; but whatever represents the 
 Deity as doing what our reason does not approve as 
 worthy of the Divine character, no evidence could make 
 credible to him ; and in Scripture he found the Deity 
 sometimes so represented. Such Avas the line of objec- 
 tion also taken by Shaftesbury and Bolingbroke. Butler's 
 argument in reply to such objections comes to something 
 like this : ' You assert the religion of nature to be abso- 
 lutely perfect and according to reason, Avhereas the re- 
 ligion of revelation is foimd to be inconsistent and im- 
 perfect : I am prepared to show that the same apparent 
 inconsistencies and imperfections exist in both.' Perhaps 
 Butler, as well as Tindal, was inclined to draw too broad 
 a distinction between the terms 'natural' and 'revealed.' 
 IS^othing can be said to be revealed which has not ante- 
 cedently a real and therefore a natural existence. The 
 knowledge of God which we call natural religion is as 
 much a revelation to the mind of man as the doctrines 
 of Christianity. Indeed Butler himself says, further on, 
 that natural religion 'was not first reasoned out,' but 
 came into the world by revelation:^ just as he argues, 
 ^ Part n. chap. ii.
 
 136 Butler. 
 
 in the same chapter, that the poAver exerted in creation 
 was as different from the present course of nature (and 
 therefore open to the same objections on that ground) as 
 the Christian miracles themselves. 
 
 He admits that had the light of nature been of itself 
 sufficient no further revelation would have been needed, 
 and therefore none would have been given. Eut he 
 denies the existence of this light of nature, even amongst 
 the wisest and best of the heathen. He proceeds in this 
 chapter to address himself more particularly to those who 
 do not go so far as Tindal in assertion, but who look upon 
 revelation (even on the supposition of its truth) as of 
 comparatively small importance. ' The only design of 
 it, say they, must be to establish a belief of the moral 
 system of nature, and to enforce the practice of natural 
 piety and virtue ; ' and whether such results be secured 
 on the evidence and motives of nature or revelation is, in 
 their view, of little consequence. 
 
 The inquiry into the importance of Christianity should 
 therefore, he considers, precede any inquiry as to its 
 credibility. 
 
 'So\Y if God has given a revelation containing certain 
 commands, it cannot be matter of indifference Avhether 
 we obey these commands or not. 
 
 Christianity is important, first, as a republication of 
 natural religion, in its genuine simplicity, not overlaid 
 Avith superstitions; with new and authoritative proofs, 
 such as prophecy and miracles ; with new light thrown 
 iTpon important truths, such as immortality and ' the 
 efficacy of repentance ; ' with positive institutions, such 
 as a visible Church and forms of public worship, to re- 
 mind men of the reality of religion, a perpetual embodi-
 
 JRcason and Hcvclation. 137 
 
 ment and memorial of its trutlis. And if it be objected 
 that in spite of this Christianity has been perverted and 
 corrupted, and has done but little good (which last he 
 denies), Butler's reply is consistent Avith the principle 
 of the argument he has laid down ; the law of nature 
 (admitted to be from God) has also been too often 
 perverted and made ineffectual. Analogy holds good 
 in this case also ; and the argument from abuse is in 
 no case any argument at all. 
 
 ' For one cannot proceed one step in reasoning upon natural 
 religion, any more than upon Christianity, without laying it 
 down as a first principle, that the dispensations of Providence 
 are not to be judged of by their perversions, but by their 
 genuine tendencies ; not by what they do actually seem to 
 effect, but by what they would effect if mankind did their 
 part — that part which is justly put and left upon us.' 
 
 But further, in the second place, Christianity reveals 
 a dispensation of things not discoverable by reason, in- 
 volving consequently new precepts and new duties — the 
 knowledge of the Son as the metiiator, and the Holy 
 Spirit as guide and sanctifier, and the duties which 
 spring from our relations to each. It is not only a re- 
 publication of natural religion ; it makes knoAvn to us 
 additional truths, adapted to the state in Avhich natural 
 religion Avould leave us, — ' the recovery and salvation 
 of mankind, Avho are represented by Scripture to be in 
 a state of ruin.' 
 
 ' If this account of tlie Christian religion be just, those per- 
 sons who can speak lightly of it, as of little consequence pro- 
 vided natural religion be kept to, plainly forget that Christi- 
 anity, even what is peculiarly so called as distinguished from 
 natural religion, has yet somewhat very inq^ortant, even of
 
 138 Butler. 
 
 a moral nature. For the office of our Lord being made 
 known, and the reUxtion He stands in to us, the obligation 
 of religious regards to Him is plainly moral, as much as 
 charity to mankind is ; since this obligation arises, before 
 external command, immediately out of that His office and 
 relation itself. Those persons appear to forget that revela- 
 tion is to be considered as informing us of someAvhat new in 
 the state of mankind and in the government of the world ; 
 as acquainting us with some relations we stand in which 
 could not otherwise have been known. And these relations 
 being real, though before revelation we could be under no 
 obligations from them, yet upon their being revealed, there is 
 no reason to think but that neglect of behaving suitably to 
 them will be attended with the same kind of consecj^uences 
 under God's government, as neglecting to behave suitably to 
 any other revelations made knowni to us by reason. And 
 ignorance, whether unavoidable or voluntary, so far as we 
 can possibly see, will just as much, and just as little, excuse 
 in one case as in the other,— the ignorance being supposed 
 erjually unavoidable, or equally voluntary, in both cases.' 
 
 Tindal had strongly asserted, in harmony with his 
 theory of the all-sufficiency of the light of nature, that 
 God could not under any circumstances enjoin upon man- 
 kind positive precepts, but only moral. He used the 
 term ' positive ' in a sense soniewdiat unfair, as though 
 it were equivalent to arbitrary — i.e., precepts for -which 
 there is no reason at all. Butler, after showing that 
 the whole spirit of Christianity tends to the obeying 
 the moral rather than the positive precept, whenever 
 they seem to interfere, adds one of those practical 
 cautions which, almost more than anything else, stamp 
 the character of the author's mind upon his book. 
 
 ' But, as it is one of the peculiar Aveaknesses of human 
 nature, when upon a comparison of two things one is found
 
 Reason and Bevelation. 139 
 
 to be of greater importance than the other, to consider this 
 other as of scarce any importance at all ; it is highly neces- 
 sary that we remind ourselves how great presumption it is 
 to make light of any institutions of Divine appointment ; that 
 our obligations to obey all God's commands whatever are 
 absolute and indispensable ; and that commands merely posi- 
 tive, admitted to be from Him, lay us under a moral obliga- 
 tion to obey them, — an obligation moral in the strictest and 
 most proper sense.' 
 
 He concludes this chapter with another pregnant sen- 
 tence, — a warning alike against reasoning from ignorance, 
 and the neglect to use our reasoning at all. For Butler 
 is as ready to admit a legitimate appeal to reason as any 
 rationalist or free-tliinker of his day. 
 
 ' If in revelation there be found any passages, the seeming 
 meaning of which is contrary to natural religion, we may 
 most certainly conclude such seeming meaning not to be the 
 real one. But it is not any degree of a presumption against 
 an interpretation of Scripture, that such interpretation con- 
 tains a doctrine which the light of nature cannot discover ; 
 or a precept which the law of nature does not oblige to.' 
 
 (Chap. II.) Having shown that Christianity is at 
 the least important enough to deserve a careful consid- 
 eration, the author proceeds to meet tlie presumptive 
 objections, which seem to him so commonly enter- 
 tained, against such a revelation on account of its 
 miraculous nature. Such presumption must rest, he 
 considers, either on the ground of its being not discov- 
 erable by reason or experience, or on that of its being 
 unlike the Avhole course of nature. As to the first, 
 the analogy of what the wisest of us know — or rather, 
 do not know— of the natural and moral system of the 
 universe, does not fairly raise any such presumption at
 
 UO Butler. 
 
 all. ' That things shoxild lie beyond the natural reach of 
 our faculties ' is no presumption against their reality, 
 for -we daily meet Avith things in the constitution of 
 nature which are confessedly of this kind. Xor is 
 there any just presumption against the teaching of 
 Scripture from its being unlike the known course of 
 nature. To expect that the ^cliole course of the Divine 
 government, and everything in it, should be like some- 
 thing we already know, is to make an unfair demand 
 upon analogy ; even in the natural and moral govern- 
 ment of the world we see many things unlike each 
 other — therefore ' we ought not to Avonder at such un- 
 likeness between things visible and invisible.' But that 
 the scheme of Christianity is ' by no means entirely 
 unlike the scheme of nature ' he will hereafter show. 
 
 He denies that there can be any presumption from 
 analogy against a miraculous revelation at the beginning 
 of the world ; for a miracle means something different 
 from the knoAni course of nature, and in the begin- 
 ning there was no established course at all Besides, 
 the power exerted at creation was different from the 
 present course of nature ; and whether that power Avas 
 further exerted so as to give a revelation, is a question 
 not of kind but of degree. And history and tradition 
 teach that religion was not first reasoned out, but that 
 it came by revelation. Still, it may be objected that 
 at least there is a presumption against miracles, and 
 revelation especially, after the course of nature has 
 been settled. But there is also a strong presumption 
 beforehand against some ordinary f;xcts, which neverthe- 
 less the most ordinary proof makes credible. And Ave 
 knoAv so little of the causes and reasons on Avhich the 
 
 I
 
 Miracles. 141 
 
 present course of nature depends, that we cannot decide 
 as to the improbability of miracidous interpositions — 
 especially Avlien religion gives us reasons for them. 
 
 Such is Butler's argument, briefly stated, not so much 
 in defence of miracles as in contravention of the pre- 
 sumption against them. His language seems here even 
 less clear than usual, and his statement scarcely accurate. 
 Mill has pointed out that a confusion is apt to be made 
 between improbability hefore the fad, Avhich may be 
 alleged against the occurrence of any special event (he 
 instances a particular cast of the dice), and improbabil- 
 ity after the fact — i.e., an event which contradicts all 
 experience or violates a law of nature, and which there- 
 fore needs strong evidence in order to be believed, — to 
 wliich latter case of improbability a miracle belongs.^ 
 It would be plainly impossible in these pages to dis- 
 cuss such a large and momentous question, or even to 
 notice the different theories on the subject. But it may 
 be said that if the Creation and the Incarnation be ac- 
 cepted, there can at least be no antecedent probability 
 (which is all that Butler here deals with) against any 
 miracles which may follow. 
 
 He feels himself on firmer and more congenial ground 
 Avhen, in the following chapter, he meets the objections 
 alleged against Christianity as a scheme, not by denying 
 that it is open to oljjections, unless we are content to 
 judge by the analogy of nature, but by asserting our 
 incapacity of judging what was to be expected in a 
 revelation, and ' the credibility, from analogy, that it 
 must contain things appearing liable to objections.' 
 Xature, of Avhich we are assuming throughout that God 
 1 See Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 169 (sixth edit.)
 
 142 Butler. 
 
 is the author, and revelation, of which He is asserted 
 to be the author, together make up one great scheme of 
 Providence ; and if "we are incompetent judges of the 
 one (as we find from experience that Ave are), it is credi- 
 ble that we should be incompetent judges of the other. 
 The constitution and course of nature we find to be 
 very different from what we should have expected be- 
 forehand : so also may be the character and mode of 
 a revelation. 'We scarce know what are improba- 
 bilities in the matter we are here considering.' He 
 shows, in a very striking passage, how the natural means 
 by which God instructs us are largely open to this charge 
 of ijrimd facie improbability. 
 
 ' For instance, would it not have been thought highly im- 
 probable that men should have been so much more capable 
 of discovering, even to certainty, the general laws of matter, 
 and the magnitudes, paths, and revolutions of the heavenly 
 bodies, than the occasions and cures of distempers, and many 
 other things in which human life seems so much more nearly 
 concerned than in astronomy ? How capricious and irregu- 
 lar a way of information, would it be said, is that of invention, 
 by means of which nature instructs us in matters of science, 
 and in many things upon whicli the affairs of the world 
 greatly depend ; that a man should by this faculty be made 
 acquainted with a thing in an instant, when, perhaps, he 
 is thinking of somewhat else, which he has in vain been 
 searching after it may be for years. So likewise the imper- 
 fections attending the only method by which nature enables 
 and directs us to communicate our thoughts to each other, 
 are innumerable. Language is, in its very nature, inade- 
 quate, ambiguous — liable to infinite abuse, even from negli- 
 gence, and so liable to it from design, that every man can 
 deceive and betray by it. And to mention but one instance 
 more : that brutes without reason should act in many re- 
 spects with a sagacity and foresight vastly greater than what
 
 Knoivlcdgc progressive. 143 
 
 men have in tliose respects, would be thoiTglit impossible. 
 Yet it is certain tliey do act witli such superior foresight — • 
 whether it be their own, indeed, is another qi;estion.' 
 
 He proceeds to show how in other respects there is a 
 strong analogy between the light of nature and the light 
 of revelation. In both, the practical rules of life are 
 plain and obvious ; while deeper and more particular 
 knowledge requires exact thought and careful study. 
 The hindrances to both have been of the same kind. 
 The whole scheme of Scripture, admitted to be not as 
 yet imderstood, must be unfolded by the gradual ' pro- 
 gress of learning and of liberty,' and by individual re- 
 search. ' For this is the way in which all improve- 
 ments are made ; by thoughtful men's tracing on obscure 
 hints as it Avere dropped us by nature accidentally, or 
 which seem to come into our minds by chance.' 
 
 There is one most important objection which Butler 
 foresees might be made to this part of his argument, and 
 which really applies to the whole argument from the 
 analogy between the teaching of nature and that of 
 revelation, as later objectors have not failed to point 
 out. Butler himself puts it thus : — 
 
 ' The Scripture represents the world as in a state of ruin, 
 and Christianity as an expedient to recover it, — to help in 
 these respects where nature fails ; in particular, to supply 
 the deficiencies of natural light. Is it credible, then, that so 
 many ages should have been let pass before a matter of such 
 a sort, of so great and so general importance, was made 
 known to mankind ; and then that it should be made known 
 to so small a part of them ? Is it conceivable that this 
 supply should be so very deficient, should have the like 
 obscurity and doubtfulness, be liable to the like perversions,
 
 144 Butler. 
 
 — in pliort, lie open to all the like dejections as the light of 
 nature itself?' 
 
 His reply to this is of weight so far as it goes. He 
 argues that men are liable to diseases the remedies for 
 which, though existing in nature, were long unknown, 
 are still known but to few, and to them only as the 
 result of long research and study, and repeated fail- 
 ures, while some are probably still unknown ; that 
 they are in many cases misapplied or rejected, and in 
 many ineffectual ; and that the same principles of rea- 
 soning which would lead us to conclude they must 
 invariably be certain, perfect, and universal, would lead 
 us in like manner to conclude that there should be no 
 occasion for their use, in the existence of any diseases at 
 all. Such reply does not wholly invalidate, though it 
 may lessen, the force of such objections. The objection 
 does and will remain, — that we should not expect to find 
 the same difficulties in revelation that we find in nature, 
 but that rather any supernatural commimication, given for 
 the purpose supposed, ought to explain such difficulties, 
 instead of involving us in new perplexities ; and there- 
 fore that the analogy of the two systems, however 
 clearly shown, is no sufficient proof of the Divine origin 
 of the latter. "We may find, perhaps, the real reply 
 which the author would make to such objectors, not 
 only in his contention that difficulties in religion may 
 be a constituent part of our trial here, and that our 
 knowledge of the scheme of this world, considered as a 
 whole, is very limited, but also in the words of his con- 
 cluding chapter, where ' he readily acknowledges ' that 
 such arguments are 'by no means satisfactory,'^ but 
 1 Chap. viii.
 
 Province of Bcason. 145 
 
 that such is the case with all the problems of life. 
 But to this we shall have to return hereafter. For 
 the present we may note that he cautions us against 
 drawing any such conclusion as that reason is no judge 
 at all of what professes to be revelation, because it is 
 not a competent judge of everything pertaining to it. ' 
 Reason can and may judge of the morality of a revela- 
 tion — whether or not it contains anything contradictory 
 to wisdom, justice, and goodness — and no objection has 
 been taken against Scripture on that point, but Avhat 
 applies equally to the constitution of nature ; and reason 
 can and miist judge of the evidence of revelation (on 
 which the truth of Christianity really depends) and the 
 objections made against it, to be dealt Avith hereafter. 
 
 As he had before shoAvn (Part I. chap. A^ll.) that 
 nature was a scheme imperfectly comprehended, so in his 
 next chapter (IV.) he proceeds to show that Christianity 
 must be regarded under tlie like reservation. If we look at 
 its mysterious teachings, especially in its gi-eat doctrines 
 of redemption and sanctification, it is plain that ' for 
 all purposes of judging or objecting Ave knoAV as little of 
 it as of the constitution of nature ; our ignorance, there- 
 fore, is as much an ansAver to our objections against 
 the perfection of one as against the perfection of the 
 other.' Both are carried on by general laAvs, as Ave 
 gather even from our limited observation, which leaves 
 us in ignorance of many of these laws, in the case of 
 nature ; and this renders it at least ' supposable ' that 
 even miraculous interpositions may have been by general 
 laAvs of Avisdom. To the objections against the Gospel 
 scheme on the ground of the alleged intricacy and ap- 
 parent tediousness of God's method, his ansAver is con- 
 
 p. — ir. K
 
 146 Butler. 
 
 elusive. There is a mystery ; this is his direct answer 
 to Tindal's assertion that ' Christianity is not mysterious;' 
 but the mystery is ' as great in nature as in Christianity.' 
 Butler rises here, as he does in more passages than some 
 of his critics are willing to allow, to an eloquence of 
 Avhich he was chary rather than incapable. 
 
 ' Thus much is manifest, that the whole natural world and 
 the government of it is a scheme or system,— not a fixed, but 
 a progressive one : a scheme in which the operation of 
 various means takes up a great length of time before the 
 ends they tend to can be attained. Tbe change of seasons, 
 the ripening of the fruits of the earth, the very history of a 
 flower, is an instance of this : and so is human life. Tln;s 
 vegetable bodies and those of animals, though possibly formed 
 at once, yet grow up by degrees to a mature state. And thus 
 rational agents, who animate these latter bodies, are natur- 
 ally directed to form each his o^\^l manners and character, by 
 the gradual gaining of knowledge and experience, and by a 
 long course of action. Our existence is not only successive, 
 as it must be of necessity ; but one state of our life and be- 
 ing is appointed by God to be a preparation for another ; and 
 that, to be the means of attaining to another succeeding one : 
 infancy to childhood ; childhood to youth ; youth to mature 
 age. Men are impatient, and for precipitating things : but 
 the Author of nature appears deliberate throughout His 
 operations, accomplishing his natural ends by slow successive 
 step.?.^ And there is a plan of things beforehand laid out. 
 
 1 Dr Fitzgerald here appositely quotes a passage from Guizot : — 
 ' The ways of Providence are not confined within narrow limits ; 
 He hurries not Himself to display to-day the consequences of the 
 principle which He yesterday laid down ; He will draw it out in the 
 lapse of ages, when the hour is come ; and even according to our 
 reasoning, logic is not the less sure because it is slow. Providence is 
 unconcerned as to time ; His march (if I may be allowed the simile) 
 is like that of the fabulous deities of Homer through space ; He takes 
 a step, and ages have elapsed.' — ' Civilisation in Europe,' Lect. I.
 
 Doctrine of a Mediator. 147 
 
 which, from the nature of it, requires various systems of 
 means, as well as length of time, in order to the carr}dng on 
 its several parts into execution. Thus in the daily course of 
 natural providence God operates in the very same manner 
 as in the dispensation of Christianity, making one thing 
 subservient to another, this to somewhat further ; and so. 
 on through a progressive series of means, which extend, both 
 backward and forward, beyond our utmost view.' 
 
 In Chapter V. the author proceeds to defend the 
 Christian doctrine of a Mediator, which has been so often 
 and strongly controverted. Yet, as he argues, there is very 
 much in the analogy of nature that corresponds with the 
 general notion. Our birth, our preservation in infancy, 
 our happiness or misery here, in large degree, depend on 
 the instrumentality of others. He goes further, and by 
 a chain of argument more ingenious, perhaps, than satis- 
 factory, maintains that the notion of mediation, as inter- 
 posing between sin and its punishment, is at least not 
 inconsistent with what we know of God's moral govern- 
 ment here. Punishment — that is, misery — is here the 
 natural and necessary consequence of certain vicious 
 courses : and it may very well be that in the future 
 state punishment follows -wickedness in the same way — 
 by natural consequence, as we call it. But we observe 
 that here, in the workings of Providence, all the penal 
 consequences of men's actions do not always follow,— 
 some provision seems made to prevent it, and rehefs and 
 remedies provided, and this sometimes by the help of 
 others. Such is the compassion of nature. So we may 
 hope, from analogy, that however fatally ruinous here- 
 after the natural consequences of Avickedness would be, 
 according to the general laws of the Divine government,
 
 148 Butler. 
 
 some such provision would be made for preventing these 
 consequences from following inevitably and in all cases. 
 Yet there seems no probability that they could be pre- 
 vented by anything we ourselves could do. We neither 
 understand all the reasons for future punishment, nor all 
 the appointed consequences of vice, and therefore do not 
 know how to set about to avert them. ISTor will mere 
 repentance or future well-doing repair the ruin, in many 
 cases, even in this world. ' If, then, the laws of God's 
 general government had been permitted to operate, with- 
 out any interposition on our behalf, the future punish- 
 ment, for aught we know to the contrary or have any 
 reason to think, must inevitably have followed, notwith- 
 standing anything we cou.ld have done to prevent it.' 
 
 Here, then, says Butler, ' revelation comes in ; ' and 
 while it confirms our fears, and ' supposes the world in 
 a state of ruin,' teaches us at the same time ' that the 
 unknown laws of God's more general government, no less 
 than the particular laws by which we experience He 
 governs us at present, are compassionate as Avell as 
 good ; ' that pardon is possible, not on our repentance 
 alone, but by the interposition of another — His Son. 
 He deals at some length with the whole Christian 
 scheme of mediation ; but into this more strictly theo- 
 logical branch of the treatise it is not necessary for 
 our purpose (or indeed possible within the limits of 
 these pages) that we shoidd follow him. We may 
 just note that in reply to the possible objection, that 
 such scheme supposes a state of degradation, he re- 
 minds his readers that ' it is not Christianity which 
 has put us into this state,' and that Scripture does 
 but profess to account for a fact Avliich is verified
 
 Eevelation 2JaTtial. 149 
 
 alike by experience and hj the confession of heathen 
 moralists ; while the objection against vicarious suffer- 
 ing is refuted by the analogy of such suffering in our 
 various experience in the course of natural providence. 
 He warns us once more against the presumption of 
 objections from ignorance. His practical conclusion 
 is in accordance with his usual moderation of state- 
 ment — ' not to expect to have the like information 
 concerning the Divine conduct as concerning our own 
 duty. . . . The constitution of the Avorld, and God's 
 natural government of the world, is all mystery, as 
 much as the Christian dispensation. Yet under the 
 first He has given men all things pertaining to life, 
 and under the second all things pertaining to godliness.' 
 Precepts of duty are clear — difficulties are speculative. 
 
 Two objections are discussed in the next chapter (VI.), 
 which must be read in its entirety in order to do any 
 kind of justice to the cogency of the argument on But- 
 ler's great principles, and the force and clearness of the 
 language, which in this case presents none of the rugged- 
 ness sometimes justly complained of in the writer's style. 
 The objections are the want of universality in revela- 
 tion, and the deficiency in the proof of it. To the first 
 he replies that analogy shows us this same apparently 
 partial distribution of gifts in the natural government of 
 the world — health and strength, riches and education ; 
 but such disparity in the matter of temporal advantages 
 is held to be no disproof of God's natural govern- 
 ment, and no excuse for imprudent management of 
 our temporal affairs. And as we find different orders 
 of creatures endoAved with various degrees of capacity, 
 so we might reasonably expect to find creatures of the
 
 1 50 Butler. 
 
 same order placed in different situations as regards the 
 advantages of religion. Infinite justice can (and will, as 
 we are assured) deal equitably at the last with all. As 
 to the second objection — deficiency of proof — this may 
 be a part of our intellectual probation, a test of our 
 fairness, earnestness, and seriousness, in dealing with 
 evidence on a matter so important ; — a test as needful 
 for the character in some cases as a moral probation is 
 in others. 
 
 ' Nor does there appear any absurdity in supposing that 
 the speculative difficulties in which the evidence of rehgion 
 is involved, may make even the principal part of some per- 
 sons' trial. For as the chief temptations of the generality 
 of the world are the ordinary motives to injustice or unre- 
 strained pleasure ; or to live in the neglect of religion, from 
 that frame of mind which renders many persons almost with- 
 out feehng as to anything distant, or which is not the object 
 of their senses : so there are other persons without this shal- 
 lowness of temper — persons of a deeper sense as to what is in- 
 visible and future — who not only see, but have a general 
 practical feeling, that what is to come ^vill be present, and 
 that things are not less real for their not being the objects of 
 sense ; and who, from their natural constitution of body and 
 temper, and from their external condition, may have small 
 temptations to behave ill, small difficulty in beha\dng well, 
 in the common course of life.' 
 
 Even doiibt implies some evidence ; and doubtful 
 evidence, we find from experience, serves frequently as 
 our probation in temporal matters. N^ay, ' after we have 
 judged the very best we can, the evidence on which we 
 must act, if we will live and act at all, is perpetually 
 doubtful to a very high degree.' 
 
 (Chap. VII.) It is not necessary to follow the author
 
 His Conclusions. 151 
 
 into his brief defence of what he calls ' the particular 
 evidence for Christianity ' — the positive evidence founded 
 chiefly on the miracles and on the fulfilment of prophecy. 
 These large subjects have been questioned and discussed 
 in our own days with greater interest, and perhaps 
 greater ability, than even in Butler's, and, it may be 
 said, in a keener spirit of inquiry, and with less preju- 
 dice ; and Butler's ground of defence has been more 
 fully occupied by modern writers, to whom the student 
 of theology would more profitably refer. That ' gradual 
 progress of learning and of liberty '■• — i.e., freedom of 
 thought — which Butler's large and candid mind foresaw 
 in the future, has already widened the field of inquiry, — 
 has raised new forms of not irreverent scepticism, and 
 established new lines of defence. It is enough to notice 
 how he insists forcibly on the value (apt to be ignored 
 by undisciplined minds in all judicial inquiries) of cir- 
 cumstantial evidence — ' often as convincing as that which 
 is the most express and direct ; ' and of cumulative proof, 
 the importance of which is sometimes equally lost sight 
 of — ' for probable proofs, by being added, not only in- 
 crease the evidence, but multiplj^ it.' Yet he is not 
 tempted, either by the zeal of a controversialist or 
 by his own undoubted convictions, to press upon his 
 readers more than the very moderate conclusion which 
 he claims to have here established — that the objections 
 may weaken the evidence, but do not therefore destroy 
 it, and that the positive evidence, taken as a whole, 
 must be admitted to have at least ' great weight,' and 
 to deserve serious attention — ' instead of that cursory 
 thought- of them with which we are familiarised.' He 
 1 Chap. iii. See p. Ii3.
 
 152 B idler. 
 
 recognises, like a cool and able general, the Aiilnerable 
 points of a position which he, nevertheless, believes to 
 be tenable : ' Eidicule — unanswerable ridicule — may be 
 applied to show the argument from analogy in a dis- 
 advantageous light : yet there can be no question but 
 that it is a real one.' He has therefore made out his 
 claim for serious inquiry. He reminds his readers that 
 doubt as to the truth of anything is by no means the 
 same (though many appear to think so) as being certain 
 of its falsehood. That ' overbearing evidence ' which 
 men demand for Christianity is neither sought nor 
 afforded for our decisions on some of the Aveightiest 
 matters of common life. And he recurs to the practical 
 consideration suggested in his opening chapter, that 
 where ' a mistake on the one side is much more 
 dangerous than a mistake on the other,' this becomes 
 of the highest moment, as in our temporal affairs, in 
 determining how we are to act. 
 
 For, as he says in his concluding chapter, ' religion 
 is a practical thing.' Those who insist on having all 
 difficidties cleared should remeudDer that this may be 
 the same thing as claiming to comprehend the Divine 
 nature, and the eternal counsels of the Deity. ' The 
 design of this treatise is not to vindicate the honour 
 of God, but to show the obligations of man : not to 
 justify His providence, but to show what belongs to us 
 to do.' To those who Avould complain that his argu- 
 ment leaves the mind after all in a very unsatisfied 
 state, he admits Avith an almost cynical candour that 
 it is 'by no means satisfactory — very far indeed from 
 it,' — if by 'not satisfactory' they mean 'not being Avhat 
 they Avish it ; ' for ' satisfaction, in this sense, does not
 
 His Conclusions. 153 
 
 belong to such a creatiire as man.' The question for 
 a reasonable man to consider is not, ' Whether the evi- 
 dence of religion be satisfactory,' but '"WHiether the 
 evidence for a course of action be such as, taking in 
 all circumstances, makes the faculty within us, which 
 is the guide and judge of conduct, determine that 
 course of action to be prudent.' 
 
 N
 
 154 
 
 CHAPTEE VIII. 
 
 MODERN CRITICISMS. 
 
 As was to be expected, the cautious and sober line of 
 argument pursued by Butler in his 'Analogy,' the very 
 care which he has taken to assume nothing in his pre- 
 mises which would not be generally admitted by those 
 to whom he addressed himself, and to content himself 
 with a conclusion which amounted at best to a moral 
 and not a mathematical demonstration, has draAvn upon 
 him attacks more or less able from various quarters, — 
 alike from those who have been keen to detect any 
 weakness in the alleged proofs of revelation, and from 
 those who, like himself, have been earnest apologists for 
 Christianity. The insufhciency of his argument, and 
 the unsatisfactory nature of his conclusion, which the 
 first-mentioned class of objectors have been eager to 
 expose, the others have lamented as an injury done to a 
 grand cause by a weak defence. He was accused even 
 by some of his contemporaries as having been ' a little 
 too little vigorous,' and they ' wished he would have 
 spoken more earnestly.' But from the other side no 
 ojiponent of any weight came forward in his own day, 
 and none whom he felt called upon to answer. Indeed
 
 Modern Criticisms. 155 
 
 the only publication of his which seems to have drawn 
 forth any direct reply is the Charge to his clergy, de- 
 livered the year before his death, against which Black- 
 burne's pamphlet, already mentioned, was levelled,^ if 
 we except some ' Remarks ' on the sixth chapter of the 
 'Analogy,' published in 1737 under the signature of 
 ' Philanthropos ' (said to be by a Eev. Mr Bott), which 
 were quite undeserving of any notice, and obtained 
 none ; and a brief ' Vindication of Locke's views of 
 Personal Identity against the Mistakes of Dr Butler,' 
 by Mr Perronet, Vicar of Shoreham, who afterwards 
 became a Methodist. For more than a century the 
 'Analogy' enjoyed, not only amongst English Church- 
 men, but among Christian controversialists generally, 
 an urichallenged reputation as one of the best manuals 
 upon the evidence of revelation. Southey, indeed, had 
 claimed for its author, in the inscription on his monument 
 in Bristol Cathedral, the merit of having constructed an 
 ' irrefragable proof ' of the Christian revelation : a claim 
 which he himself would surely not have made, because 
 such proof was what he never attempted. He only 
 claimed to show that the current objections and diffi- 
 culties supplied no proof at all to the contrary. But it 
 was at least tacitly admitted that such proof as he had 
 adduced from his own special process of reasoning was 
 of undeniable and important weight. 
 
 Murmurs of dissent, however, had been heard from 
 time to time. Pitt is reported to have said, in con- 
 versation with Wilberforce, that the book ' had raised 
 in his mind more doubts than it answered.'^ Sir 
 James Mackintosh's estimate of its value is somewhat 
 1 See p. 23, note. - Life of W. Wilberforce, p. 41.
 
 156 Butler. 
 
 misrepresented in a remark attributed to him by liis 
 biographer. He is reported as having said, ' Butler's 
 " Analogy " is not his best work ; it is not philosophical, 
 but religious ; the whole of it is contained in a single 
 passage of Quintilian, which he had the honesty to give 
 as the motto to his work.' Here there is, in the first 
 place, an evident confusion between the motto from 
 Quintilian and the quotation from Origen, which proves 
 the conversation to have been very incorrectly recorded ; 
 Avhile the supposed criticism is contradicted, as Dr 
 Fitzgerald has shown, -^ by the words which J\Iackintosh 
 has himself deliberately j)ublished : ' Butler's great work, 
 though only a commentary on the singularly original 
 and pregnant passage of " Origen," which is so honestly 
 prefixed to it as a motto, is, notwithstanding, the most 
 original and profound Avork extant in any language on 
 the philosophy of religion.' 
 
 But the more formidable attacks upon Butler have 
 been reserved for our own days, and have proceeded 
 chiefly from those who, though they would range them- 
 selves with the author of the 'Analogy' as to the main 
 object which he had in view, differ from him as to the 
 value of the line of defence which he has adopted. Dr 
 Martineau, in his ' Studies of Christianity,' regards the 
 ' Analogy ' as ' having furnished, with a design directly 
 contrary, one of the most terrible of the persuasives to 
 atheism that has ever been produced ; ' apparently on 
 the ground that it is possible, by substituting the idea 
 of 'JSTature' for the idea of God, to turn the whole 
 course of Butler's argument in that direction. "With- 
 out going nearly so far as this sweeping assertion, Mr 
 1 Fitzgerald's Analogy, preface, p. xlix.
 
 Jfodern Criticisms. 157 
 
 Maurice, Mr Matthew Arnold, and Mr Goldwin Smith 
 have entered their several protests against the tendency 
 of Butler's religious philosophy. INIr Maurice has said 
 that as the argument of the ' Analogy ' is commonly in- 
 terpreted, it 'assumes all moral principles to depend on 
 probable evidence ; ' he regards the author as entertain- 
 ing ' strong presiimptions in favour of a moral constitu- 
 tion of man, and notliing more ; ' and on this general 
 ground he deplores the scepticism of such a principle 
 'as placing the moral law upon a basis of uncertainty.' 
 He also objects against his system of ethics that it ap- 
 peals too often to lower motives — to that ' fear of con- 
 sequences ' which Shaftesbury had sought to eliminate 
 from a pure and disinterested morality. He sees in his 
 Sermons ' evident marks of their having been Avritten by 
 a very young man ; ' which, however true as to literal 
 fact, is certainly a new discovery so far as any internal 
 evidence is concerned, and nothing in Butler's later 
 writings leads to the conclusion that he had in any way 
 changed his views. The ethics of the 'Analogy' are 
 those of the Sermons. 
 
 Perhaps Butler has scarcely yet been sufficiently 
 appreciated as the champion of 'Human ISTature.' He 
 casts to the winds, not in words exactly, but by impli- 
 cation in almost the whole course of his argiunent, that 
 doctrine of its total depravity Avhich was held, and which 
 he knew to be held, by some of the best men of his day, 
 with whom on other grounds he would have gladly 
 made common cause. All his reasoning, all his system 
 of the conscience of man ruling, on the whole, with an 
 authority not seldom resisted and disputed but intrin- 
 sically legitimate, over the passions and affections, rests
 
 158 Butler. 
 
 on the supposition that man still retains the frame- 
 work of the nature in which he was made. He does 
 not put out of sight his helief in a fall from what might 
 have been originally perfection : ' there are natural ap- 
 pearances of our being in a state of degradation.' He 
 sees, with his usual acuteness, that the fact of our liav- 
 ing some propensions which may be gratified in contra- 
 diction of moral principle, and under some circumstances 
 can only be so gratified, may lead to such a fall from 
 ^"cjriginal uprightness. But not only does he recognise 
 I our natural affections as so many helps, not hindrances, 
 1 to our due cultivation of goodwill to men, and our fol- 
 \ lowing the moral ride Avithin us, but he holds that even 
 \ our passions (using the word in its lower sense) may 
 contribute to the same end if kept didy under control. 
 'Xo passion that God has endowed us with can be in 
 itself evil.' Anger, in man's moral constitution, like 
 pain in the natural world, is but an instance of the wis- 
 dom and goodness of Him who made us. How bold 
 and wise are these words ! — 
 
 ' We should learn to be cautious lest we charge God foolish- 
 ly, by ascriT)ing that to Him, or to the nature He lias given 
 us, which is owing wholly to our own abuse of it. Men 
 may speak of the degeneracy and corruption of the world, 
 according to the experience they have had of it ; but human 
 nature, considered as the Divine workmanship, should, me- 
 thinks, be considered as sacred ; for " in the image of God 
 made He man." ' ^ 
 
 His views have been called pessimist, and they may 
 bear that character as contrasted with the optimism of 
 his favourite Shaftesbury — 'the religion of sunshine,' 
 
 1 Sermon viii., ad fin.
 
 Modern Criticisms. 159 
 
 as it has been not inaptly termed ; his view of Iiuman 
 Hfe has been called dark and gloomy, the reflex of a 
 melancholy temperament ; and certainly he takes serious 
 note of all the shadows in the picture. But strong and 
 deep is his conviction, which he never hesitates to ex- 
 press, that in our nature, considered as a system, there • 
 is that which tends to righteousness ; that ' poverty and 
 disgrace, tortures and death, are not so contrary to it 
 as injustice ; ' that man ' hath the rule of right within 
 him : what is wanting is that he honestly attend to it.' 
 It is a remarkable exemplification of the effect which 
 an able and honest writer has upon minds differently 
 constituted from his own, that some of his warmest 
 admirers have been men brought up in quite a different 
 school of theology, like Chalmers and others, who some- 
 times think it necessary to qualify and explain some of 
 his statements on this point, but always Avith deference 
 and respect. 
 
 And here lies Butler's great claim to the attention of 
 all thoughtful readers, even such as may take exception 
 to some of the steps in his argument, and not yield a 
 perfect assent to all his conclusions. His aim throughout 
 is to impress upon us the obligations of duty. He left 
 it for others to busy themselves with the C|uestion of the 
 immutability of the idea of right — whether the laws of 
 morality were constant or progressive. His purpose was 
 to inquire into their practical influence upon life — the 
 province of that moral sense of which, Avhatever its 
 origin, we have a distinct personal consciousness, and 
 from Avhich arises the obligation to do the right and 
 avoid the wrong. When, in the opening of his sermon 
 on Human Ignorance, he speaks of the writings of
 
 160 Biitlcr. 
 
 Solomon — 'so very mucli taken up with reflections on 
 hmnan nature and limnan life ' — in which the wise 
 aiithor laments the labour and weariness of his search 
 after wisdom, — -how he had found as the result of it 
 only ' sorrow, perplexity, and a sense of his necessary 
 ignorance,' — he comes to the conclusion that 'knowledge 
 is not our happiness,' but that the honest performance 
 of duty is : and that ' he who should find out one rule 
 to assist us in this work, would deserve infinitely better 
 of mankind than all the improvers of other knowledge 
 put together.' 
 
 A great question, affecting Avhat may be called the 
 ethics of religion, has arisen with regard to a passage in 
 the ' Analogy ' Avhich seems to imply that a positive 
 precept, resting on Divine authority, may change the 
 moral quality of an action. ' There are some particular 
 precepts in Scripture,' says Butler, 'given to particular 
 persons, requiring actions which would be immoral and 
 vicious were it not for such precepts.'-^ The difficulty, 
 and the objections founded upon it, are neither imagin- 
 ary, nor in any way peculiar to Butler's days : Ave have 
 here only to consider his mode of dealing Avith them. 
 And it will probably be confessed by his most sincere 
 admirers that he has rather hurried over this question 
 than examined it as thoroughly as its importance de- 
 manded. Admitting that in certain cases (which Avill 
 at once occur to every reader's mind) the act command- 
 ed ' must have appeared and really been ' unjust or im- 
 moral prior to the precept, he proceeds to say, — ' It is 
 easy to see that all these are of such a kind that the 
 precept changes the whole nature of the case and of the 
 1 Part II. chap. iii.
 
 Modern Criticisms. 161 
 
 action ; wliicli may well be, since none of these precepts 
 are contrary to immutable morality.' And he goes on 
 to explain why he considers that they are not so. 
 
 ' If it were commanded to cultivate the principles and act 
 from the spirit of treachery, ingratitude, cruelty, — the com- ' 
 mand would not alter the nature of the case or of the action 
 in any of these instances. But it is quite otherwise in pre- 
 cepts which require only the doing an external action, — for 
 instance, taking away the property or life of any. For men 
 have no right to either life or property, but what arises solely 
 from the grant of God : when this grant is revoked, they 
 cease to have any right at all in either ; and when this revo- 
 cation is made known, as surely it is possible it may be, it 
 must cease to be unjust to deprive them of either. And 
 though a course of external acts, which without command 
 would be immoral, must make an immoral habit ; yet a few 
 detached commands have no such natural tendency. I 
 thought proper to say thus much of the few Scripture pre- 
 cepts which require, not vicious actions, but actions which 
 would have been vicious had it not been for such precepts ; 
 because they are sometimes M^eakly urged as immoral, and 
 great weight is laid upon olijections drawn from them. But 
 to me there seems no difficulty at all in these precepts, but 
 what arises from their being offences — i.e., from their being 
 liable to be perverted, as indeed they are, by wicked design- 
 ing men to serve the most horrid purposes, and perhaps to 
 mislead the weak and enthusiastic' ^ 
 
 Few will agree with the author that this is 'easy to 
 see,' or that in such precepts there seems 'no difficulty 
 at all ; ' or that it is possible to reconcile Avith the great 
 theory of habits already laid down in this treatise the 
 assertion that ' a few detached commands,' resulting in 
 immoral actions, have no tendency to create an immoral 
 
 1 Analogy, Part II. chap. iii. 
 P. — II. L
 
 162 Butler. 
 
 habit. He is verging here far too closely on a doctrine 
 he would surely have repudiated as strongly as Cud- 
 worth had done in the previous generation, — the doc- 
 trine of Ockham and Gerson, and in a modified form 
 of Warburton and Paley, — that all morality was founded 
 on the absolute will of God — 'that what God willed 
 was and must be good, even if He willed us to hate 
 Him.' The question how far the Divine attributes 
 were or were not identical in kind with those of human- 
 ity, and how far, therefore, human reason was capable 
 of judging at all of the precepts or the acts of the Deity, 
 had been keenly discussed before the appearance of 
 Butler's work ; and Clarke, for one, had insisted that 
 unless we were to understand the Divine morality as 
 identical with our own moral consciousness, it was 
 only ' an unmeaning phrase.' N'or does Butler much 
 mend his position by the suggestion that precepts Avhich 
 now seem to us immoral might be found to bear another 
 character if we knew all the reasons for them. It is 
 true that, when we assert the identity of Divine with 
 human justice, we have to remember that the one moves 
 in an infinite, the other in a finite sphere ; but if our 
 moral sense revolts against any one positive precept 
 enjoined upon us, — though it be owing to our limited 
 knowledge, — hoAV can it be a safe guide to us in other 
 cases 1 Attention has been directed afresh to this argu- 
 ment of Butler's, owing to its adoption by the late Dean 
 Mansel in his Bampton Lecture for 1858, in which he 
 lays down the proposition that while there is imdoubt- 
 edly an ' absolute morality ' in the abstract, based upon, 
 or rather identical with, the eternal nature of God, there 
 is also a relative morality in the concrete, with which
 
 Modern Criticisms. 163 
 
 in practice we have to do. These are the lecturer's 
 words : ' As all human morality is manifested in this 
 form, the conclusion seems unavoidable that human 
 morality, even in its highest elevation, is not identical 
 with, nor adequate to measure, the absolute morality of 
 God.'^ In quoting with approval the passage from the 
 ' Analogy ' which has been given above, he calls such 
 exceptional instances of precepts which contradict, or 
 seem to contradict, our ideas of justice or morality, 
 ' temporary suspensions of the laws of obligation,' and 
 compares them with the ' corresponding suspension of 
 the laws of natural phenomena which constitute our 
 ordinary conception of a miracle.' And he says again: 
 ' We are not justified in regarding the occasional sus- 
 pension of human duties by the same authority Avhich 
 enacted them, as a violation of the immi;table principles 
 of morality itself.' ^ 
 
 It is not surprising that such teaching from such a 
 quarter should have produced strong remonstrances. 
 It is not necessary to go so far as Mr Goldwin Smith, 
 when he says (thongh here he does little more than 
 repeat the protest of Cudworth) that to argue on such 
 doctrine consistently, ' we must finally recur to abso- 
 lute atheism.' But his langiiage seems hardly too 
 strong when he characterises such arguments as ' the 
 dreadful figment of two moralities,' and says that with- 
 out the grand doctrine of Clarke as to the identity 
 of human and Divine justice, it seems to him ' that 
 history and the whole moral world would be reduced 
 to chaos.' Butler's argument, such as it is, appears to 
 have been borrowed from Waterland, and could hardly, 
 1 Banipton Lecture, p. 206. 2 ibjj.^ pp. 2ii, 210.
 
 161: BiUkr. 
 
 one •svoukl think, have satisfied his own mind. It is at 
 least remarkable that a writer who was not usually spar- 
 ing of words, and who not unfrequently puts his reason- 
 ing into two or three diflerent forms in order to press it 
 home, should have dismissed this notoriously difficult 
 question in a few brief sentences. The trutli is, that 
 great as Butler is, so long as he is on his OAvn chosen 
 ground, he cannot be said to rise above the level of 
 ordinary apologists when he comes to deal with the 
 historical evidences of Christianity, or with the special 
 difficidties of revelation. AVlien he attempts the defence 
 of miracles or prophecy, or this special question of 
 Okl Testament morality, the modern student feels at 
 once that these subjects have been treated by abler 
 hands. Butler's reading was probably not very wide ; 
 and, notwithstanding liis protest against the tj-ranny of 
 estabHshed opinions, he may have found himself ham- 
 pered, almost unconsciously, in his position, by what 
 were held to be orthodox views, and may have had a 
 wholesome dread of Lliscrediting his work by incurring 
 the charge of neology. On this particular question of 
 the apparent contradiction between the laws of morality 
 and certain isolated acts commanded or sanctioned in the 
 historical books of Scripture, we have only to turn to the 
 recent publication of Dr Mozley to see how tliis kind of 
 theological criticism has advanced and widened since 
 Butler's day.i 
 
 He has been charged with lacking spirituality, — with 
 
 losing sight of the essence of religion in the cold and 
 
 unimpassioned examination of its credentials. It must 
 
 be remembered that the whole nature of his argument, 
 
 1 See Mozley's 'Euliiig Ideas iu Early Ages.'
 
 Modem Criticisms. 165 
 
 the character of those to whom he addresses it, and the 
 conchision which alone he sets himself to prove, de- 
 manded that he shoidd not only reject as far as pos- 
 sible the terminology of the spiritual teacher, but should 
 forbear, or at least be sparing of, the appeal to Scripture 
 authority or Christian teaching. ]\Iore than once — even 
 in his Sermons — we can see that he puts a constraint 
 upon himself in this particular. Speaking of the office 
 of conscience in this our present state, he says that ' it 
 naturally, and of course, goes on to anticipate a higher 
 and more effectual sentence, which shall hereafter second 
 and affirm its own.'^ But here at once he checks him- 
 self : ' this part of the office of conscience it is beyond 
 his present design explicitly to consider,' because he is 
 dealing only with the moral nature of man. So, again, 
 in his sermon on ' Love of our jSTeighbour,' the view 
 which God will take of their choice, Avho find their 
 happiness in promoting that of others, is ' a consid- 
 eration not formally to be insisted on here ; ' and in 
 the ' Analogy ' he maintains this reserve throughout. 
 Throughout the Sermons also, as in his later work, he 
 uses the terms ' virtue ' and ' vice ' in the place of their 
 theological equivalents, 'righteousness' and 'sin.' But 
 in thus treating his subject as a moralist rather than 
 a divine, he is not sinking religion in philosophy, but 
 bringing to religion the support of philosophy, which he 
 had found so often arrayed against it. 
 
 1 Sermon II., On Human Nature.
 
 166 
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 STYLE. 
 
 Butler's style has been generally cliarged, even by some 
 of his -warmest admirers^ with rougliness and obscurity. 
 Sir James IMackintosh spoke of him as ' one of the best 
 thinkers and worst writers, being in the latter particular 
 dark and obscure.' ' His words,' says Mr ]\Iaurice, 
 ' often become feeble and contradictory, because he can- 
 not write what is struggling within him.' Mr Bagehot 
 has complacently styled him ' a poor writer,' and speaks 
 of his 'feeble words and halting sentences;' paying 
 him at the same time the compliment of comparing 
 him with Aristotle as ' finding it hard to make his mean- 
 ing clear.' It is possible that the Greek philosopher 
 might have pleaded, as Butler might, that before the 
 meaning of any ethical or metaphysical treatise can be 
 clear to the reader, the reader must have a fair previ- 
 ous acquaintance with the subject-matter of which it 
 treats, and of the terms previously employed in its 
 discussion. The Ethics of Aristotle are almost incom- 
 prehensible to the student who has no previous acquaint- 
 ance with Plato : we should have found very much new
 
 Style. 167 
 
 light thrown upon tlieni liad we been present at the 
 word-fencing in the schools at Athens ; and the modest 
 student will do well to suspect that many of the diffi- 
 culties which remain may arise, not so niiich from any 
 difficulty which Aristotle found in expressing himself, 
 as from his own imperfect knowledge of Greek, — to say 
 nothing of possible inaccuracies in the copies of written 
 lectures. It must be admitted that Butler's style is in 
 many places dry and hard. He eschewed ornament, and 
 carefully avoided anything like rhetoric. It has been 
 said that he had no poetry in his composition, which is 
 perhaps too much to assert of one who had taken to 
 verse-writing in his youth ; but he certainly expresses 
 great dread of imagination, as 'the author of all error,' 
 ' that forward delusive faculty, ever obtruding beyond 
 its sphere.' ^ It was also his special purpose to avoid 
 so far as possible any of the terms currently em- 
 ployed in dogmatic theology : to assume no theory 
 which Avould be questioned by the sceptics of his day, 
 and to employ no language Avhich might seem to in- 
 volve the holding of such theory on his own part. Con- 
 sequently, in his carefulness to eschew any mode of 
 expression which luight lay him open to the charge of 
 appearing to beg the question, he sometimes has re- 
 course to a circuitous phraseology which bears the ap- 
 pearance of indistinctness of thought. Thxis, in the first 
 chapter of the 'Analogy,' he is so careful to keep clear of 
 any theory as to the soul, and to discuss the question of 
 a future life on purely natural grounds, that he avoids 
 the use of the Avord ' soul ' altogether, and contents him- 
 self with such awlvAvard phrases as 'living powers,' and 
 ' Analogy, Part I. chap. i.
 
 168 Butler. 
 
 'faculties of perception and action.'^ He confesses 
 himself that there are certain principles — those, for 
 instance, of the liberty of the wiU and of moral fitness 
 — "which have been so generally admitted that ' moralists, 
 ancients as well as moderns, have formed tlieir language 
 upon it ; ' ' and probably,' he adds, ' it may appear in 
 mine, though I have endeavoured to avoid it, and in 
 order to avoid it, have sometimes been obliged to ex- 
 press myself in a manner which will appear strange to 
 such as do not observe the reason for it.' - He was very 
 conscious that his style Avould not be found popular or 
 attractive. Of this, indeed, he tliought the nature of the 
 subject would scarcely admit, ' It is very unallowable 
 for a work of imagination or entertainment not to be of 
 easy comprehension, but may be unavoidable in a work 
 of another kind, Avhere a man is not to form or accom- 
 modate, but to state things as he finds them.' Such 
 obscurity as we may find did not at least arise from 
 negligence, or from his not fully recognising the duty of 
 every writer to be as clear as the nature of his subject 
 would permit. 
 
 ' Confusion and perplexity in "WTiting is indeed without 
 excuse ; because any one may, if he pleases, know whether 
 he understands and sees through what he is about : and it is 
 unpardonable for a man to lay his thoughts before others 
 when he is conscious that he himself does not know where- 
 abouts he is, or how the matter before him stands. It is 
 coming abroad in disorder, which he ought to be dissatisfied 
 to find himself in at home.' 
 
 Many will perhaps think that, after all, Butler is at 
 
 1 See Hampden's Pliilosopli. Evidences of Christianity, pref., p. x. 
 
 2 Analogy. Part II. chap. viii. 
 
 I
 
 Style. 169 
 
 least as intelligible as some modern "writers upon etliics ; 
 and that his argiiment, iinattractive as it often is in 
 form, contrasts not unfavourably Avith the haziness of 
 thought Avhich "sve find clothed in more polished sen- 
 tences and a more copious ethical vocabulary. He is 
 said to have sought his friend Seeker's help in prepar- 
 ing his works for the press, with an esj^ecial view to 
 simplifying the construction of his sentences ; but the 
 style of the two writers is so very dissimilar that they 
 probably received but few touches from Seeker's hand. 
 That he took some pains in correcting his own writings 
 is evident from a comparison of the second with the 
 first edition of liis Sermons. He was, hoAvever, some- 
 what impatient of careless readers ; and those who Avill 
 be at the trouble to read the folloAving passage from 
 his preface to the second edition, Avill hardly be in- 
 clined to question, in this case, either tlie lucidity of 
 his English diction or the keen polish of his satire : — 
 
 ' The great number of books and papers of amusement 
 AAdiich, of one kind or another, daily come in one's way, have 
 in part occasioned, and most perfectly fall in Avith and 
 humour, this idle Avay of reading and considering things. 
 By this means, time even in solitude is happily got rid of, 
 Avithout the pain of attention : neither is any part of it more 
 put to the account of idleness — one can scarce forbear saying, 
 is spent Avith less thought — than great part of that which is 
 spent in reading. 
 
 ' Thus people habituate themseh'es to let tilings pass 
 through their minds, as one may speak, rather than to think 
 of them. Thus by use they become satisfied merely Avith 
 seeing Avliat is said, Avithout going any furtlier. RevieAv and 
 attention, and even forming a judgment, becomes fatigue ; 
 and to lay anything before them that requires it, is putting 
 them quite out of their Avay.
 
 170 Butler. 
 
 ' There are also persons, and there are at least more of them 
 than have a right to claim such superiority, who take for 
 granted that they are acquainted with everything ; and that 
 no subject, if treated in the manner it should be, can be 
 treated in any manner but what is familiar and easy to 
 them.' 
 
 Some allowance has also to be made for the somewhat 
 affected phraseology (as it seems to us) of the days in 
 which he wrote, and the use of many words in a differ- 
 ent sense from that now commonly attached to them.^ 
 If Butler be obscure to the modern reader, he is very 
 much less so than many of his immediate predecessors. 
 The punctuation, too, will be often found rather to mis- 
 lead than to assist the reader; for punctuation was 
 used (or misused) in the strangest manner by the writers 
 and printers of Eutler's clay, and modern editors have 
 done very little to improve it." 
 
 Butler had also to contend Avitli a difficulty common 
 to the earlier English writers on ethics and metaphysics, 
 as well as to the Latin, that there was as yet no recog- 
 nised set of terms to express the several ideas under 
 discussion ; and he often A^Tites under an evident con- 
 sciousness that such words as he can find to use do not 
 define his idea sufficiently. In ethics, he says, ' ideas 
 
 ^ E.g., His frequent iise of 'however,' where we should now saj- 
 ' in any case ; ' ' to be sure ' for ' assuredly ; ' ' sensible ' in the double 
 meaning of ' capable of happiness or misery ' and ' an object of 
 sense ; ' ' uneasy ' for ' not easy ; ' ' indifferent ' (of conversation) in 
 the sense of 'harmless,' &c. A favourite phrase of his, that a qualitj' 
 ' is in a very low degree,' has in one passage (Serra. vi.) led most 
 of his editors sadly astray in their attempts at punctuation. 
 
 ~ An example and a warning of how punctuation may be used so 
 as to increase a reader's difficulties may be found in Al ford's edition 
 of Donne's works (1839), and iu the posthumous edition of Frederick 
 Eobertson's Sermons, 1855.
 
 Style. 171 
 
 are never in themselves determinate, but become so hj 
 the train of reasoning and tlie place they stand in ; since 
 it is impossible words can always stand for tlie same 
 ideas even in the same author, much less in different 
 ones.' He has himself remarked, in the concluding 
 chapter of the 'Analogy,' that 'the perplexities in which 
 subjects themselves are involved are heightened by the 
 deficiencies and the abuse of words.' 
 
 Perhaps the most serious and the best-founded objec- 
 tion which has been brought against his style is that it 
 is wanting in persuasiveness. He pays little attention 
 to what tlie Latin rhetoricians called the ' conciliation ' 
 of his readers. He has none of the unfairness and little 
 of the bitterness of the controversialist ; but he is hard 
 and unsympathetic. He speaks as if from a vantage- 
 ground, with something of a high contempt for the 
 shallowness of the opinions he is confuting. No doubt 
 there was much in the tone of the scepticism of his day 
 which was especially repulsive to one Avho had, even 
 from his boyhood, made the problems of theology and 
 metaphysics matter of earnest and serious study : any- 
 thing like levity on such a subject jarred on the solemn 
 questionings of his own mind. He never conceals the 
 feeling that he has to deal with a class of opponents 
 who are not really, like himself, seekers after truth. 
 This feeling colours the language of his 'Advertisement,' 
 already quoted ; ^ and he recurs to it afterwards : — 
 
 ' It is much more easy, and more falls in with the negli- 
 gence, presumption, and wilfulness of the generality, to de- 
 termine at once with a decisive air, — there is nothing in it. 
 
 1 P. 101.
 
 172 Butler. 
 
 The prejudices arising from that absolute contempt and 
 scorn with which this evidence is treated in the world, I do 
 not mention. For what indeed can be said to persons who 
 are Aveak enough in their understandings to think this any 
 presumption against it ; or, if they do not, are yet weak 
 enough in their temper to be influenced by such prejudices 
 upon such a subject V 
 
 The same tone occurs repeatedly at various stages of 
 liis argument. J\Ir Hunt thinks that there was one 
 class of objectors on whom the author of the 'Analogy' 
 ' could only have had pity ' — those ' who treated not 
 only Christianity with contempt, but everything Avliicli 
 required serious attention. ' ^ Whatever pity Butler might 
 have felt, it would be difficult to find the expression of 
 it in his language. He speaks with a curt severity of 
 ' the objections of such as can judge without thinking, 
 and of such as can censure without judging : ' and has 
 little patience with those ' who reject Christianity Avitli 
 a scorn proportionate to their inattention.' Even to the 
 general reader he seems at times to throw down his 
 arguments like a challenge. ]\Ir Arnold has noticed the 
 cold judicial tone in which, after representing the diffi- 
 culties in the evidence of religion as perhaps intended 
 for men's trial, he adds — ' By this means they haA'e been 
 put into a state of probation ; let them behave as they 
 will in it.' We find something very similar in the per- 
 oration of his sermon on Balaam. 
 
 ' Things and actions are what they are, and the consequen- 
 ces of them will be what they will be : why then should we 
 desire to be deceived ? As we are reasonable creatures and 
 have any regard to ourselves, we ought to lay these things 
 
 History of Religious Thought, vol. iii. p. 129.
 
 Style. 173 
 
 plainly and honestly before our mind : and upon this, act as 
 you please, as you think most fit ; make tliat choice and 
 prefer that course of life which you can justify to yourself, 
 and which sits most easy upon your own mind.' 
 
 He might perhaps have justified himself in this by an 
 appeal to the many warnings in Scripture itself, whose 
 note is — ' Whether they will hear or whether they will 
 forbear.' And there is no laek of calm impressive earn- 
 estness in such appeal as the following, full of practical 
 wisdom as it must be allowed to be : — 
 
 ' If there are any persons who never set themselves heart- 
 ily and in earnest to be informed in religion, — if there are 
 any who secretly wish it may not prove true, and are less 
 attentive to evidence than to difficulties, and more to objec- 
 tions than to what is said in answer to them. — these persons 
 will scarce be thought in a likely way of seeing the evi- 
 dence of religion, though it were most certainly true, and 
 capable of being ever so fully proved. If any accustom them- 
 selves to consider this subject usually in the way of mirth 
 and sport, — if they attend to forms and representations, and 
 inadequate manners of expression, instead of the real things 
 intended by them (for signs often can be no more than 
 inadequately expressive of the things signified) ; or if they 
 substitute human errors in the room of Divine truth, — why 
 may not all, or any of these things, hinder some men from 
 seeing that evidence, which really is seen by others ; as a 
 like turn of mind, with respect to matters of common specu- 
 lation and practice, does, we find by experience, hinder them 
 from attaining that knowledge and right understanding in 
 matters of common speculation and practice, which more 
 fair and attentive minds attain to ? And the eff'ect will be 
 the same, whether their neglect of seriously considering the 
 evidence of religion, and their indirect behaviour with re- 
 gard to it, proceed from mere carelessness, or from the grosser 
 ■vices ; or whether it be owing to this, that forms and figura-
 
 174 Butler. 
 
 tive manners of expression, as well as errors, administer 
 occasions of ridicnle, when the things intended, and the 
 truth itself, would not. Men may indiilge a ludicroi;s turn 
 so far as to lose all sense of conduct and prudence in worldly 
 affairs, and even, as it seems, to impair their faculty of rea- 
 son. And in general, levity, carelessness, passion, and pre- 
 judice, do hinder us from being rightly informed, with re- 
 spect to common things : and they may, in like manner, and 
 perhaps in some further pro^*idential manner, Avith respect 
 to moral and religious subjects — may hinder evidence from 
 being laid before ns, and from being seen when it is.' 
 
 It is very much to the credit also of Butler's honesty 
 and moderation, that in spite of the tone of something 
 like contempt for the arguments, or want of arguments, 
 of the objectors to whom he addresses himself, he never 
 imputes to them any moral obliquity. It was very easy 
 to say, as many of the writers on Christian evidences 
 did, that unbelief was a sin : that a dislike to the precepts 
 of Christian morality lay at the root of Deism. It is a 
 favourite assertion with some of our modern divines. It 
 is easily said, and not altogether unnatural to assert ; 
 liecause, no doubt, to many natures the release from re- 
 ligious obligation is nothing less than the letting loose 
 of the appetites and passions. Eut tliis is no more in- 
 variably the case than is the converse, — that a real con- 
 viction of the religious and moral obligation invariably 
 produces a moral life. From the use of this common- 
 place weapon against his adversary Butler's good sense 
 and love of fair dealing happily preserved him. 
 
 If he was wanting in some of the qualifications of 
 the professional advocate, — the suasiveness which carries 
 the jury or the audience with him, as we say — the 
 allowance for their prejudices and weaknesses, the ap-
 
 Style. 175 
 
 peals to their better sense, or tlie professions of respect 
 for their judgment, which go far to make them think 
 that the verdict for which so sensible a speaker asks 
 must be the right one, — he is strong in a point which 
 all authorities, from Aristotle downwards, have laid 
 down as an essential requisite in one who would per- 
 suade men — the creating in the minds of those whom he 
 addresses an impression of his own high moral integrity, 
 and earnestness of piirpose. In this Butler stands far 
 above the reach of cavil. Objections against both his 
 matter and his manner have been many and various : 
 some have charged him with coldness, and others with 
 enthusiasm. Mr Stephen says he is 'no philosopher,' 
 while Mr Arnold tells us he is ' a better moralist than 
 theologian ' — with that happy discrepancy of able 
 criticism which is the solace of the criticised : but both, 
 — and in this they do but express the universal judg- 
 ment — are luigrudging in their admiration of his can- 
 dour and his honesty, his moderation and forbearance. 
 Philosopher or no philosopher, theologian or no theolo- 
 gian, we feel throughout that we are following one who, 
 in more than profession, made ' the search after truth 
 the business of his life ; ' ^ who could sympathise with 
 honest doubt because he probably had felt it ; and Avho 
 wrote, as he had acted, inader the guiding of the Con- 
 science Avhose rightful supremacy he vindicated in our 
 common nature. 
 
 1 Fourth Letter to Clarke.
 
 176 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The best edition of Butler's complete Works is that in 
 2 vols. 8vo, Oxford, 1849. Separately, the most useful 
 edition of the ' Analogy ' is that with Preface and Xotes 
 by Dr W. Fitzgerald, now Bishop of Killaloe (Lond. 
 1860); and of the Sermons, that with Notes by the 
 Eev. E. Carmichael (Lond. 1856), and those by Dr 
 AVlrewell and Dr Angus. 
 
 The following works, to some of which these pages 
 are much indebted, will be found useful in the study of 
 Butler :— 
 
 ' Essay on the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity,' 
 by R D. Hampden, D.D. (Lond. 1827.) 
 
 Dr T. Chalmers's Bridgewater Treatise (1834), 'On 
 the Adaptation of External Nature to the INIoral and 
 Intellectual Constitution of Man.' (Also contained in 
 Yols. I. and II. of his collected Avorks.) 
 
 ' Lectures on Butler's Analogy,' by Sir Joseph Napier. 
 (1864.) 
 
 'Essays on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy,' by 
 Sir J. IMackintosh. (Edinb. 1872.) 
 
 ' The Conscience : Lectures on Casuistry,' by J. F. 
 D. Maurice. (Lond. 1872.)
 
 Note. 177 
 
 ' Bishop Butler and his Critics : ' Two Lectures, by 
 J. R I Eaton, M.A. (Oxf. 1877.) 
 
 jS'otices and criticisms of Butler's philosophy will also 
 be found in Hunt's ' History of Eeligious Thought in 
 England ; ' Lecky's ' History of European Morals • ' 
 Bain's ' Mental and Moral Science ; ' E. D. Maurice's 
 'Moral and Philosophical Philosophy' (Lond. 1872); 
 Essay on the ' Tendencies of Eeligious Thought in Eng- 
 land, 1688-1750,' by the Eector of Lincoln College, 
 Oxford, in ' Essays and Eeviews ; ' Leslie Stephen's 
 ' History of English Thought in tlie Eighteenth Cen- 
 tury;' and the Article "Butler" in the 'Encyclopaedia 
 Britannica.' Mr Goldwin Smith's ' Eational Eeligion,' 
 Avith Dean Mansel's ' Letter ' in reply, and INIr INI. 
 Arnold's two articles on " Bishop Butler and the Zeit- 
 Geist," in the ' Contemporary Eeview,' 1876, may also 
 be consulted with advantage. 
 
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