Enquiry Concerning Political Justice
by William Godwin
1793

ENQUIRY CONCERNING POLITICAL JUSTICE
AND ITS INFLUENCE ON MODERN MORALS AND HAPPINESS




BOOK I: OF THE POWERS OF MAN CONSIDERED IN HIS SOCIAL CAPACITY






CHAPTER I






INTRODUCTION






The object proposed in the following work is an investigation concerning

that form of public or political society, that system of intercourse and

reciprocal action, extending beyond the bounds of a single family, which

shall be found most to conduce to the general benefit. How may the peculiar

and independent operation of each individual in the social state most effectually

be preserved? How may the security each man ought to possess, as to his life,

and the employment of his faculties according to the dictates of his own

understanding, be most certainly defended from invasion? How may the individuals

of the human species be made to contribute most substantially to the general

improvement and happiness? The enquiry here undertaken has for its object

to facilitate the solution of these interesting questions.






In entering upon this investigation nothing can be more useful than to

examine into the extent of the influence that is to be ascribed to political

institutions; in other words, into the powers of man, as they have modified,

or may hereafter modify his social state of existence. Upon this subject

there has been considerable difference of opinion.






The most usually received hypothesis is that which considers the effects

of government or social institutions, whether acting by express regulations

or otherwise, as rather of a negative than positive nature. No doubt the

purposes for which government was established are in their strictest sense

negative; to maintain us in the possession of certain advantages against

the occasional hostility either of domestic or foreign invaders. But does

the influence of government stop at the point for the sake of which mankind

were first prevailed on to adopt it?






Those who believe that it does or can stop at this point necessarily regard

it as a matter of subordinate disquisition, or at most only co-ordinate with

several others. They survey man in his individual character, in his domestic

connections, and in the pursuits and attachments which his feelings may incline

him to adopt. These of course fill the principal part of the picture. These

are supposed, by the speculators of whom we now speak, to be in ordinary

cases independent of all political systems and establishments. It is only

in peculiar emergencies and matters that depart from the accustomed routine

of affairs that they conceive a private individual to have any occasion to

remember, or to be in the least affected by the government of his country.

If he commit or is supposed to commit any offence against the general welfare,

if he find himself called upon to repress the offence of another, or if any

danger from foreign hostility threaten the community in which he resides,

in these cases and these only is he obliged to recollect that he has a country.

These considerations impose upon him the further duty of consulting, even

when no immediate danger is nigh, how political liberty may best be maintained,

and maladministration prevented.






Many of the best patriots and most popular writers on the subject of government

appear to have proceeded upon the principles here delineated. They have treated

morality and personal happiness as one science, and politics as a different

one. But, while they have considered the virtues and pleasures of mankind

as essentially independent of civil policy, they have justly remarked, that

the security with which the one can be exercised and the other enjoyed will

be decided by the wisdom of our public institutions and the equity with which

they are administered; and have earnestly pressed it upon the attention of

mankind not to forget, in the rectitude or happiness of the present moment,

those precautions and that "generous plan of power"(1*) which may

tend to render it impregnable to the stratagems of corruption or the insolence

of tyranny.(2*)






But, while we confess ourselves indebted to the labours of these writers,

and perhaps still more to the intrepid language and behaviour of these patriots,

we are incited to enquire whether the topic which engaged their attention

be not of higher and more extensive importance than they suspected. Perhaps

government is not merely in some cases the defender, and in other the treacherous

foe of the domestic virtues. Perhaps it insinuates itself into our personal

dispositions, and insensibly communicates its own spirit to our private transactions.

Were not the inhabitants of ancient Greece and Rome indebted in some degree

to their political liberties for their excellence in art, and the illustrious

theatre they occupy in the moral history of mankind? Are not the governments

of modern Europe accountable for the slowness and inconstancy of its literary

efforts, and the unworthy selfishness that characterizes its inhabitants?

Is it not owing to the governments of the East that that part of the world

can scarcely be said to have made any progress in intellect or science?






When scepticism or a spirit of investigation has led us to start these

questions, we shall be apt not to stop at them. A wide field of speculation

opens itself before us. If government thus insinuate itself in its effects

into our most secret retirements, who shall define the extent of its operation?

If it be the author of thus much, who shall specify the points from which

its influence is excluded? May it not happen that the grand moral evils that

exist in the world, the calamities by which we are so grievously oppressed,

are to be traced to political institution as their source, and that their

removal is only to be expected from its correction? May it not be found that

the attempt to alter the morals of mankind singly and in detail is an injudicious

and futile undertaking; and that the change of their political institutions

must keep pace with their advancement in knowledge, if we expect to secure

to them a real and permanent improvement? To prove the affirmative of these

questions shall be the business of this first book.






The method to be pursued for that purpose shall be, first, to take a concise

survey of the evils existing in political society;(3*) secondly, to show

that these evils are to be ascribed to public institutions;(4*) and thirdly,

that they are not the inseparable condition of our existence, but admit of

removal and remedy.(5*)






NOTES:






1. Addison: Cato, Act iv.






2.  These remarks will for the most part apply to the English writers

upon politics, from Sydney and Locke to the author of the Rights of Man.

The more comprehensive view has been strikingly delineated by Rousseau and

Helvetius.






3. Chapters II, III.






4. Chapter IV.






5. Chapters V, VI, VII, VIII.






CHAPTER II






HISTORY OF POLITICAL SOCIETY






The extent of the influence of political systems will be forcibly illustrated

by a concise recollection of the records of political society.






It is an old observation that the history of mankind is little else than

a record of crimes. Society comes recommended to us by its tendency to supply

our wants and promote our well being. If we consider the human species, as

they were found previously to the existence of political society, it is difficult

not to be impressed with emotions of melancholy. But, though the chief purpose

of society is to defend us from want and inconvenience, it effects this purpose

in a very imperfect degree. We are still liable to casualties, disease, infirmity

and death. Famine destroys its thousands, and pestilence its ten thousands.

Anguish visits us under every variety of form, and day after day is spent

in languor and dissatisfaction. Exquisite pleasure is a guest of very rare

approach, and not less short continuance.






But, though the evils that arise to us from the structure of the material

universe are neither trivial nor few, yet the history of political society

sufficiently shows that man is of all other beings the most formidable enemy

to man. Among the various schemes that he has formed to destroy and plague

his kind, war is the most terrible. Satiated with petty mischief and retail

of insulated crimes, he rises in this instance to a project that lays nations

waste, and thins the population of the world. Man directs the murderous engine

against the life of his brother; he invents with indefatigable care refinements

in destruction; he proceeds in the midst of gaiety and pomp to the execution

of his horrid purpose; whole ranks of sensitive beings, endowed with the

most admirable faculties, are mowed down in an instant; they perish by inches

in the midst of agony and neglect, lacerated with every variety of method

that can give torture to the frame.






This is indeed a tremendous scene! Are we permitted to console ourselves

under the spectacle of its evils by the rareness with which it occurs, and

the forcible reasons that compel men to have recourse to this last appeal

of human society? Let us consider it under each of these heads.






War has hitherto been found the inseparable ally of political institution.

The earliest records of time are the annals of conquerors and heroes, a Bacchus,

a Sesostris, a Semiramis and a Cyrus. These princes led millions of men under

their standard, and ravaged innumerable provinces. A small number only of

their forces ever returned to their native homes, the rest having perished

by diseases, hardship and misery. The evils they inflicted, and the mortality

introduced in the countries against which their expeditions were directed,

were certainly not less severe than those which their countrymen suffered.






No sooner does history become more precise than we are presented with

the four great monarchies, that is, with four successful projects, by means

of bloodshed, violence and murder, of enslaving mankind. The expeditions

of Cambyses against Egypt, of Darius against the Scythians, and of Xerxes

against the Greeks, seem almost to set credibility at defiance by the fatal

consequences with which they were attended. The conquests of Alexander cost

innumerable lives, and the immortality of Caesar is computed to have been

purchased by the death of one million two hundred thousand men.






Indeed the Romans, by the long duration of their wars, and their inflexible

adherence to their purpose, are to be ranked among the foremost destroyers

of the  human species. Their wars in Italy continued for more than four hundred

years, and  their contest for supremacy with the Carthaginians two hundred.

The Mithridatic war began with a massacre of one hundred and fifty thousand

Romans, and in three single actions five hundred thousand men were lost by

the Eastern monarch. Sylla, his ferocious conqueror, next turned his arms

against his country, and the struggle between him and Marius was attended

with proscriptions, butcheries and murders that knew no restraint from humanity

or shame. The Romans, at length, suffered the evils they had been so prompt

to inflict upon others; and the world was vexed for three hundred years by

the irruptions of Goths, Vandals, Ostrogoths, Huns and innumerable hordes

of barbarians.






I forbear to detail the victorious progress of Mahomet and the pious expeditions

of Charlemagne. I will not enumerate the crusades against the infidels, the

exploits of Tamerlane, Gengiskan and Aurungzebe, or the extensive murders

of the Spaniards in the new world. Let us examine Europe, the most civilized

and favoured quarter of the world, or even those countries of Europe which

are thought the most enlightened.






France was wasted by successive battles during a whole century, for the

question of the Salic law, and the claim of the Plantagenets. Scarcely was

this contest terminated, before the religious wars broke out, some idea of

which we may form from the siege of Rochelle, where, of fifteen thousand

persons shut up, eleven thousand perished of hunger and misery; and from

the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, in which the numbers assassinated were

forty thousand. This quarrel was appeased by Henry the fourth, and succeeded

by the thirty years war in Germany for superiority with the house of Austria,

and afterwards by the military transactions of Louis the fourteenth.






In England the war of Cressy and Agincourt only gave place to the civil

war of York and Lancaster, and again after an interval to the war of Charles

the first and  his parliament. No sooner was the constitution settled by

the revolution than we were  engaged in a wide field of continental hostilities

by king William, the duke of  Marlborough, Maria Theresa and the king of

Prussia.






And what are in most cases the pretences upon which war is undertaken?

What rational man could possibly have given himself the least disturbance

for the sake of choosing whether Henry the sixth or Edward the fourth should

have the style of king of England? What English man could reasonably have

drawn his sword for the purpose of rendering his country an inferior dependency

of France, as it must necessarily have been if the ambition of the Plantagenets

had succeeded? What can be more deplorable than to see us first engage eight

years in war rather than suffer the haughty Maria Theresa to live with a

diminished sovereignty or in a private station; and then eight years more

to support the free-booter who had taken advantage of her helpless condition?






The usual causes of war are excellently described by Swift. "Sometimes

the quarrel between two princes is to decide which of them shall dispossess

a third of his dominions, where neither of them pretends to any right. Sometimes

one prince quarrels with another, for fear the other should quarrel with

him. Sometimes a war is entered upon because the enemy is too strong; and

sometimes because he is too weak. Sometimes our neighbours want the things

which we have, or have the things which we want; and we both fight, till

they take ours, or give us theirs. It is a very justifiable cause of war

to invade a country after the people have been wasted by famine, destroyed

by pestilence, or embroiled by factions among themselves. It is justifiable

to enter into a war against our nearest ally, when one of his towns lies

convenient for us, or a territory of land that would render our dominions

round and compact. If a prince sends forces into a nation where the people

are poor and ignorant, he may lawfully put the half of them to death, and

make slaves of the rest, in order to civilize and reduce them from their

barbarous way of living. It is a very kingly, honourable and frequent practice,

when one prince desires the assistance of another to secure him against an

invasion, that the assistant, when he has driven out the invader, should

seize on the dominions himself, and kill, imprison or banish the prince he

came to relieve."(1*)






If we turn from the foreign transactions of states with each other to

the principles of their domestic policy, we shall not find much greater reason

to be satisfied. A numerous class of mankind are held down in a state of

abject penury, and are continually prompted by disappointment and distress

to commit violence upon their more fortunate neighbours. The only mode which

is employed to repress this violence, and to maintain the order and peace

of society, is punishment. Whips, axes and gibbets, dungeons, chains and

racks are the most approved and established methods of persuading men to

obedience, and impressing upon their minds the lessons of reason. There are

few subjects upon which human ingenuity has been more fully displayed than

in inventing instruments of torture. The lash of the whip a thousand times

repeated and flagrant on the back of the defenceless victim, the bastinado

on the soles of the feet, the dislocation of limbs, the fracture of bones,

the faggot and the stake, the cross, impaling, and the mode of drifting pirates

on the Volga, make but a small part of the catalogue. When Damiens, the maniac,

was arraigned for his abortive attempt on the life of Louis XV of France,

a council of anatomists was summoned to deliberate how a human being might

be destroyed with the longest protracted and most diversified agony. Hundreds

of victims are annually sacrificed at the shrine of positive law and political

institution.






Add to this the species of government which prevails over nine tenths

of the globe, which is despotism: a government, as Locke justly observes,

altogether "vile and miserable," and "more to be deprecated

than anarchy itself."(2*)






Certainly every man who takes a dispassionate survey of this picture will

feel himself inclined to pause respecting the necessity of the havoc which

is thus made of his species, and to question whether the established methods

for protecting mankind against the caprices of each other are the best that

can be devised. He will be at a loss which of the two to pronounce most worthy

of regret, the misery that is inflicted, or the depravity by which it is

produced. If this be the unalterable allotment of our nature, the eminence

of our rational faculties must be considered as rather an abortion than a

substantial benefit; and we shall not fail to lament that, while in some

respects we are elevated above the brutes, we are in so many important ones

destined for ever to remain their inferiors.






NOTES:






1. Gulliver's Travels, Part IV, Chapter V.






2. Locke on Government, Book I, Chapter i, section 1; and Book II, Chapter

vii., section 91.






Most of the above arguments may be found much more at large in Burke's

Vindication of Natural Society; a treatise in which the evils of the existing

political institutions are displayed with incomparable force of reasoning

and lustre of eloquence, while the intention of the author was to show that

these evils were to be considered as trivial.






CHAPTER III






SPIRIT OF POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS.






Additional perspicuity will be communicated to our view of the evils of

political society if we reflect with further and closer attention upon what

may be called its interior and domestic history.






Two of the greatest abuses relative to the interior policy of nations,

which at this time prevail in the world, consist in the irregular transfer

of property, either first by violence, or secondly by fraud. If among the

inhabitants of any country there existed no desire in one individual to possess

himself of the substance of another, or no desire so vehement and restless

as to prompt him to acquire it by means inconsistent with order and justice,

undoubtedly in that country guilt could scarcely be known but by report.

If every man could with perfect facility obtain the necessaries of life,

and, obtaining them, feel no uneasy craving after its superfluities, temptation

would lose its power. Private interest would visibly accord with public good;

and civil society become what poetry has feigned of the golden age. Let us

enquire into the principles to which these abuses are indebted for their

existence.






First then it is to be observed that, in the most refined states of Europe,

the inequality of property has risen to an alarming height. Vast numbers

of their inhabitants are deprived of almost every accommodation that can

render life tolerable or secure. Their utmost industry scarcely suffices

for their support. The women and children lean with an insupportable weight

upon the efforts of the man, so that a large family has in the lower orders

of life become a proverbial expression for an uncommon degree of poverty

and wretchedness. If sickness, or some of those casualties which are perpetually

incident to an active and laborious life, be added to these burdens, the

distress is yet greater.






It seems to be agreed that in England there is less wretchedness and distress

than in most of the kingdoms of the continent. In England the poors' rates

amount to the sum of two millions sterling per annum. It has been calculated

that one person in seven of the inhabitants of this country derives at some

period of his life assistance from this fund. If to this we add the persons

who, from pride, a spirit of independence, or the want of a legal settlement,

though in equal distress receive no such assistance, the proportion will

be considerably increased.






I lay no stress upon the accuracy of this calculation; the general fact

is sufficient to give us an idea of the greatness of the abuse. The consequences

that result are placed beyond the reach of contradiction. A perpetual struggle

with the evils of poverty, if frequently ineffectual, must necessarily render

many of the sufferers desperate. A painful feeling of their oppressed situation

will itself deprive them of the power of surmounting it. The superiority

of the rich, being thus unmercifully exercised, must inevitably expose them

to reprisals; and the poor man will be induced to regard the state of society

as a state of war, an unjust combination, not for protecting every man in

his rights and securing to him the means of existence, but for engrossing

all its advantages to a few favoured individuals, and reserving for the portion

of the rest want, dependence and misery.






A second source of those destructive passions by which the peace of society

is interrupted is to be found in the luxury, the pageantry and magnificence

with which enormous wealth is usually accompanied. Human beings are capable

of encountering with cheerfulness considerable hardships when those hardships

are impartially shared with the rest of the society, and they are not insulted

with  the spectacle of indolence and ease in others, no way deserving of

greater advantages than themselves. But it is a bitter aggravation of their

own calamity, to have the privileges of others forced on their observation,

and, while they are perpetually and vainly endeavouring to secure for themselves

and their families the poorest conveniences, to find others revelling in

the fruits of their labours. This aggravation is assiduously administered

to them under most of the political establishments at present in existence.

There is a numerous class of individuals who, though rich, have neither brilliant

talents nor sublime virtues; and, however highly they may prize their education,

their affability, their superior polish and the elegance of their manners,

have a secret consciousness that they possess nothing by which they can so

securely assert their pre-eminence and keep their inferiors at a distance

as the splendour of their equipage, the magnificence of their retinue and

the sumptuousness of their entertainments. The poor man is struck with this

exhibition; he feels his own miseries; he knows how unwearied are his efforts

to obtain a slender pittance of this prodigal waste; and he mistakes opulence

for felicity. He cannot persuade himself that an embroidered garment may

frequently cover an aching heart.






A third disadvantage that is apt to connect poverty with discontent consists

in the insolence and usurpation of the rich. If the poor man would in other

respects compose himself in philosophic indifference, and, conscious that

he possesses every thing that is truly honourable to man as fully as his

rich neighbour, would look upon the rest as beneath his envy, his neighbour

will not permit him to do so. He seems as if he could never be satisfied

with his possessions unless he can make the spectacle of them grating to

others; and that honest self-esteem, by which his inferior might otherwise

attain to tranquillity, is rendered the instrument of galling him with oppression

and injustice. In many countries justice is avowedly made a subject of solicitation,

and the man of the highest rank and most splendid connections almost infallibly

carries his cause  against the unprotected and friendless. In countries where

this shameless practice is not established, justice is frequently a matter

of expensive purchase, and the man with the longest purse is proverbially

victorious. A consciousness of these facts must be expected to render the

rich little cautious of offence in his dealings with the poor, and to inspire

him with a temper overbearing, dictatorial and tyrannical. Nor does this

indirect oppression satisfy his despotism. The rich are in all such countries

directly or indirectly the legislators of the state; and of consequence are

perpetually reducing oppression into a system, and depriving the poor of

that little commonage of nature which might otherwise still have remained

to them.






The opinions of individuals, and of consequence their desires, for desire

is nothing but opinion maturing for action, will always be in a great degree

regulated by the opinions of the community. But the manners prevailing in

many countries are accurately calculated to impress a conviction that integrity,

virtue, understanding and industry are nothing, and that opulence is everything.

Does a man whose exterior denotes indigence expect to be well received in

society, and especially by those who would be understood to dictate to the

rest? Does he find or imagine himself in want of their assistance and favour?

He is presently taught that no merit can atone for a mean appearance. The

lesson that is read to him is, "Go home; enrich yourself by whatever

means; obtain those superfluities which are alone regarded as estimable;

and you may then be secure of an amicable reception." Accordingly poverty

in such countries is viewed as the greatest of demerits. It is escaped from

with an eagerness that has no leisure for the scruples of honesty. It is

concealed as the most indelible disgrace. While one man chooses the path

of undistinguishing accumulation, another plunges into expenses which are

to impose him upon the world as more opulent than he is. He hastens to the

reality of  that penury the appearance of which he dreads; and, together

with his property, sacrifices the integrity, veracity and character which

might have consoled him in his adversity.






Such are the causes that, in different degrees under the different governments

of the world, prompt mankind openly or secretly to encroach upon the property

of each other. Let us consider how far they admit either of remedy or aggravation

from political institution. Whatever tends to decrease the injuries attendant

upon poverty decreases at the same time the inordinate desire and the enormous

accumulation of wealth. Wealth is not pursued for its own sake, and seldom

for the sensual gratifications it can purchase, but for the same reasons

that ordinarily prompt men to the acquisition of learning, eloquence and

skill, for the love of distinction and the fear of contempt. How few would

prize the possession of riches if they were condemned to enjoy their equipage,

their palaces and their entertainments in solitude, with no eye to wonder

at their magnificence, and no sordid observer ready to convert that wonder

into an adulation of the owner? If admiration were not generally deemed the

exclusive property of the rich, and contempt the constant lacquey of poverty,

the love of gain would cease to be an universal passion. Let us consider

in what respects political institution is rendered subservient to this passion.






First then, legislation is in almost every country grossly the favourer

of the rich against the poor. Such is the character of the game-laws, by

which the industrious rustic is forbidden to destroy the animal that preys

upon the hopes of his future subsistence, or to supply himself with the food

that unsought thrusts itself in his path. Such was the spirit of the late

revenue-laws of France, which in several of their provisions fell exclusively

upon the humble and industrious, and exempted from their operation those

who were best able to support it. Thus in England the land-tax at this moment

produces half a million less than it did a century ago, while the taxes on

 consumption have experienced an addition of thirteen millions per annum

during the same period. This is an attempt, whether effectual or no, to throw

the burthen from the rich upon the poor, and as such is an example of the

spirit of legislation. Upon the same principle robbery and other offences,

which the wealthier part of the community have no temptation to commit, are

treated as capital crimes, and attended with the most rigorous, often the

most inhuman punishments. The rich are encouraged to associate for the execution

of the most partial and oppressive positive laws; monopolies and patents

are lavishly dispensed to such as are able to purchase them; while the most

vigilant policy is employed to prevent combinations of the poor to fix the

price of labour, and they are deprived of the benefit of that prudence and

judgement which would select the scene of their industry.






Secondly, the administration of law is not less iniquitous than the spirit

in which it is framed. Under the late government of France the office of

judge was a matter of purchase, partly by an open price advanced to the crown,

and partly by a secret douceur paid to the minister. He who knew best how

to manage his market in the retail trade of justice could afford to purchase

the good will of its functions at the highest price. To the client justice

was avowedly made an object of personal solicitation; and a powerful friend,

a handsome woman, or a proper present were articles of much greater value

than a good cause. In England the criminal law is administered with greater

impartiality so far as regards the trial itself; but the number of capital

offences, and of consequence the frequency of pardons, open a wide door to

favour and abuse. In causes relating to property the practice of law is arrived

at such a pitch as to render its nominal impartiality utterly nugatory. The

length of our chancery suits, the multiplied appeals from court to court,

the enormous fees of counsel, attorneys, secretaries, clerks, the drawing

of briefs, bills, replications and rejoinders, and what has sometimes been

called the "glorious uncertainty" of the law, render it frequently

more advisable to resign a property than to contest it, and particularly

exclude the impoverished claimant from the faintest hope of redress.






Thirdly, the inequality of conditions usually maintained by political

institution is calculated greatly to enhance the imagined excellence of wealth.

In the ancient monarchies of the East, and in Turkey at the present day,

an eminent station could scarcely fail to excite implicit deference. The

timid inhabitant trembled before his superior; and would have thought it

little less than blasphemy to touch the veil drawn by the proud satrap over

his inglorious origin. The same principles were extensively prevalent under

the feudal system. The vassal, who was regarded as a sort of live stock upon

the estate, and knew no appeal from the arbitrary fiat of his lord, would

scarcely venture to suspect that he was of the same species. This however

constituted an unnatural and violent situation. There is a propensity in

man to look further than the outside; and to come with a writ of enquiry

into the title of the upstart and the successful. By the operation of these

causes the insolence of wealth has been in some degree moderated. Meantime

it cannot be pretended that even among ourselves the inequality is not strained

so as to give birth to very unfortunate consequences. If, in the enormous

degree in which it prevails in some parts of the world, it wholly debilitate

and emasculate the human race, we shall feel some reason to believe that,

even in the milder state in which we are accustomed to behold it, it is still

pregnant with the most mischievous effects.






CHAPTER IV(1*)






THE CHARACTERS OF MEN ORIGINATE IN THEIR EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES.






Thus far we have argued from historical facts, and from them have collected

a very strong presumptive evidence that political institutions have a more

powerful and extensive influence than it has been generally the practice

to ascribe to them.






But we can never arrive at precise conceptions relative to this part of

the subject  without entering into an analysis of the human mind,(2*) and

endeavouring to ascertain the nature of the causes by which its operations

are directed. Under this branch of the subject I shall attempt to prove two

things: first, that the actions and dispositions of mankind are the offspring

of circumstances and events, and not of any original determination that they

bring into the world; and, secondly, that the great stream of our voluntary

actions essentially depends, not upon the direct and immediate impulses of

sense, but upon the decisions of the understanding. If these propositions

can be sufficiently established, it will follow that the happiness men are

able to attain is proportioned to the justness of the opinions they take

as guides in the pursuit; and it will only remain, for the purpose of applying

these premises to the point under consideration, that we should demonstrate

the opinions of men to be, for the most part, under the absolute control

 of political institution.






First, the actions and dispositions of men are not the off-spring of any

original bias that they bring into the world in favour of one sentiment or

character rather than another, but flow entirely from the operation of circumstances

and events acting upon a faculty of receiving sensible impressions.






There are three modes in which the human mind has been conceived to be

modified, independently of the circumstances which occur to us, and the sensations

excited: first, innate principles; secondly, instincts; thirdly, the original

differences of our structure, together with the impressions we receive in

the womb. Let us examine each of these in their order.






First, innate principles of judgement. Those by whom this doctrine has

been maintained have supposed that there were certain branches of knowledge,

and those perhaps of all others the most important, concerning which we felt

an irresistible persuasion, at the same time that we were wholly unable to

trace them through any channels of external evidence and methodical deduction.

They conceived therefore that they were originally written in our hearts;

or perhaps, more properly speaking, that there was a general propensity in

the human mind suggesting them to our reflections, and fastening them upon

our conviction. Accordingly, they established the universal consent of mankind

as one of the most infallible criterions of fundamental truth. It appeared

upon their system that we were furnished with a sort of sixth sense, the

existence of which was not proved to us, like that of our other senses, by

direct and proper evidence, but from the consideration of certain phenomena

in the history of the human mind, which cannot be otherwise accounted for

than by the assumption of this hypothesis.






There is an essential deficiency in every speculation of this sort. It

turns entirely upon an appeal to our ignorance. Its language is as follows:

"You cannot account for certain events from the known laws of the subjects

to which  they belong; therefore they are not deducible from those laws;

therefore you must admit a new principle into the system for the express

purpose of accounting for them." But there cannot be a sounder maxim

of reasoning than that which points out to us the error of admitting into

our hypotheses unnecessary principles, or referring the phenomena that occur

to remote and extraordinary sources, when they may with equal facility be

referred to sources which obviously exist, and the results of which we daily

observe. This maxim alone is sufficient to persuade us to reject the doctrine

of innate principles. If we consider the infinitely various causes by which

the human mind is perceptibly modified, and the different principles, argument,

imitation, inclination, early prejudice and imaginary interest, by which

opinion is generated, we shall readily perceive that nothing can be more

difficult than to assign any opinion, existing among the human species, and

at the same time incapable of being generated by any of these causes and

principles.






A careful enquirer will be strongly inclined to suspect the soundness

of opinions which rest for their support on so ambiguous a foundation as

that of innate impression. We cannot reasonably question the existence of

facts; that is, we cannot deny the existence of our sensations, or the series

in which they occur. We cannot deny the axioms of mathematics; for they exhibit

nothing more than a consistent use of words, and affirm of some idea that

it is itself and not something else. We can entertain little doubt of the

validity of mathematical demonstrations, which appear to be irresistible

conclusions deduced from identical propositions. We ascribe a certain value,

sometimes greater and sometimes less, to considerations drawn from analogy.

But what degree of weight shall we attribute to affirmations which pretend

to rest upon none of these grounds? The most preposterous propositions, incapable

of any rational defence, have in different ages and countries appealed to

this inexplicable authority, and passed for infallible and innate. The enquirer

that has no other object than truth,  that refuses to be misled, and is determined

to proceed only upon just and sufficient evidence will find little reason

to be satisfied with dogmas which rest upon no other foundation than a pretended

necessity impelling the human mind to yield its assent.






But there is a still more irresistible argument proving to us the absurdity

of the supposition of innate principles. Every principle is a proposition:

either it affirms, or it denies. Every proposition consists in the connection

of at least two distinct ideas, which are affirmed to agree or disagree with

each other. It is impossible that the proposition can be innate, unless the

ideas to which it relates be also innate. A connection where there is nothing

to be connected, a proposition where there is neither subject nor conclusion,

is the most incoherent of all suppositions. But nothing can be more incontrovertible

than that we do not bring pre-established ideas into the world with us.






Let the innate principle be that "virtue is a rule to which we are

obliged to conform." Here are three principal and leading ideas, not

to mention subordinate ones, which it is necessary to form, before we can

so much as understand the proposition. What is virtue? Previously to our

forming an idea corresponding to this general term, it seems necessary that

we should have observed the several features by which virtue is distinguished,

and the several subordinate articles of right conduct, that taken together

constitute that mass of practical judgements to which we give the denomination

of virtue. These are so far from being innate that the most impartial and

laborious enquirers are not yet agreed respecting them. The next idea included

in the above proposition is that of a rule or standard, a generical measure

with which individuals are to be compared, and their conformity or disagreement

with which is to determine their value. Lastly, there is the idea of obligation,

its nature and source, the obliger and the sanction, the penalty and the

reward.






Who is there in the present state of scientifical improvement that will

believe  that this vast chain of perceptions and notions is something that

we bring into the world with us, a mystical magazine, shut up in the human

embryo, whose treasures are to be gradually unfolded as circumstances shall

require? Who does not perceive that they are regularly generated in the mind

by a series of impressions, and digested and arranged by association and

reflection?






But, if we are not endowed with innate principles of judgement, it has

nevertheless been supposed by some persons that we might have instincts to

action, leading us to the performance of certain useful and necessary functions,

independently of any previous reasoning as to the advantage of these functions.

These instincts, like the innate principles of judgement we have already

examined, are conceived to be original, a separate endowment annexed to our

being, and not anything that irresistibly flows from the mere faculty of

perception and thought, as acted upon by the circumstances, either of our

animal frame, or of the external objects, by which we are affected. They

are liable therefore to the same objection as that already urged against

innate principles. The system by which they are attempted to be established

is a mere appeal to our ignorance, assuming that we are fully acquainted

with all the possible operations of known powers, and imposing upon us an

unknown power as indispensable to the accounting for certain phenomena. If

we were wholly unable to solve these phenomena, it would yet behove us to

be extremely cautious in affirming that known principles and causes are inadequate

to their solution. If we are able upon strict and mature investigation to

trace the greater part of them to their source, this necessarily adds force

to the caution here recommended.






An unknown cause is exceptionable, in the first place, inasmuch as to

multiply causes is contrary to the experienced operation of scientifical

improvement. It is exceptionable, secondly, because its tendency is to break

that train of antecedents and consequents of which the history of the universe

is composed. It  introduces an action apparently extraneous, instead of imputing

the nature of what follows to the properties of that which preceded. It bars

the progress of enquiry by introducing that which is occult, mysterious and

incapable of further investigation. It allows nothing to the future advancement

of human knowledge; but represents the limits of what is already known, as

the limits of human understanding.






Let us review a few of the most common examples adduced in favour of human

instincts, and examine how far they authorize the conclusion that is attempted

to be drawn from them: and first, some of those actions which appear to rise

in the most instantaneous and irresistible manner.






A certain irritation of the palm of the hand will produce that contraction

of the fingers which accompanies the action of grasping. This contraction

will at first take place unaccompanied with design, the object will be grasped

without any intention to retain it, and let go again without thought or observation.

After a certain number of repetitions, the nature of the action will be perceived;

it will be performed with a consciousness of its tendency; and even the hand

stretched out upon the approach of any object that is desired. Present to

the child, thus far instructed, a lighted candle. The sight of it will produce

a pleasurable state of the organs of perception. He will probably stretch

out his hand to the flame, and will have no apprehension of the pain of burning

till he has felt the sensation.






At the age of maturity, the eyelids instantaneously close when any substance

from which danger is apprehended is advanced towards them; and this action

is so constant as to be with great difficulty prevented by a grown person,

though he should explicitly desire it. In infants there is no such propensity;

and an object may be approached to their organs, however near and however

suddenly, without producing this effect. Frowns will be totally indifferent

to a child,  who has never found them associated with the effects of anger.

Fear itself is a species of foresight, and in no case exists till introduced

by experience.






It has been said that the desire of self-preservation is innate. I demand

what is meant by this desire? Must we not understand by it a preference of

existence to nonexistence? Do we prefer anything but because it is apprehended

to be good ? It follows that we cannot prefer existence, previously to our

experience of the motives for preference it possesses. Indeed the ideas of

life and death are exceedingly complicated, and very tardy in their formation.

A child desires pleasure and loathes pain long before he can have any imagination

respecting the ceasing to exist.






Again, it has been said that self-love is innate. But there cannot be

an error more easy of detection. By the love of self we understand the approbation

of pleasure, and dislike of pain: but this is only the faculty of perception

under another name. Who ever denied that man was a percipient being? Who

ever dreamed that there was a particular instinct necessary to render him

percipient?






Pity has sometimes been supposed an instance of innate principle; particularly

as it seems to arise with greater facility in young persons, and persons

of little refinement, than in others. But it was reasonable to expect that

threats and anger, circumstances that have been associated with our own sufferings,

should excite painful feelings in us in the case of others, independently

of any laboured analysis. The cries of distress, the appearance of agony

or corporal infliction, irresistibly revive the memory of the pains accompanied

by those symptoms in ourselves. Longer experience and observation enable

us to separate the calamities of others and our own safety, the existence

of pain in one subject and of pleasure or benefit in others, or in the same

at a future period, more accurately than we could be expected to do previously

to that experience.






If then it appear that the human mind is unattended either with innate

principles or instincts, there are only  two remaining circumstances that

can be imagined to anticipate the effects of institution, and fix the human

character independently of every species of education: these are, the qualities

that may be produced in the human mind previously to the era of our birth,

and the differences that may result from the different structure of the greater

or subtler elements of the animal frame.






To objections derived from these sources the answer will be in both cases

similar.






First, ideas are to the mind nearly what atoms are to the body. The whole

mass is in a perpetual flux; nothing is stable and permanent; after the lapse

of a given period not a single particle probably remains the same. Who knows

not that in the course of a human life the character of the individual frequently

undergoes two or three revolutions of its fundamental stamina? The turbulent

man will frequently become contemplative, the generous be changed into selfish,

and the frank and good-humoured into peevish and morose. How often does it

happen that, if we meet our best loved friend after an absence of twenty

years, we look in vain in the man before us for the qualities that formerly

excited our sympathy, and, instead of the exquisite delight we promised ourselves,

reap nothing but disappointment? If it is thus in habits apparently the most

rooted, who will be disposed to lay any extraordinary stress upon the impressions

which an infant may have received in the womb of his mother?






He that considers human life with an attentive eye will not fail to remark

that there is scarcely such a thing in character and principles as an irremediable

error. Persons of narrow and limited views may upon many occasions incline

to sit down in despair; but those who are inspired with a genuine energy

will derive new incentives from miscarriage. Has any unfortunate and undesirable

impression been made upon the youthful mind? Nothing will be more easy than

for a judicious superintendent, provided its nature is understood, and  it

is undertaken sufficiently early, to remedy and obliterate it. Has a child

passed a certain period of existence in ill-judged indulgence and habits

of command and caprice? The skilful parent, when the child returns to its

paternal roof, knows that this evil is not invincible, and sets himself with

an undoubting spirit to the removal of the depravity. It often happens that

the very impression which, if not counteracted, shall decide upon the pursuits

and fortune of an entire life might perhaps under other circumstances be

reduced to complete inefficiency in half an hour.






It is in corporeal structure as in intellectual impressions. The first

impressions of our infancy are so much upon the surface that their effects

scarcely survive the period of the impression itself. The mature man seldom

retains the faintest recollection of the incidents of the two first years

of his life. Is it to be supposed that that which has left no trace upon

the memory can be in an eminent degree powerful in its associated effects?

Just so in the structure of the animal frame. What is born into the world

is an unfinished sketch, without character or decisive feature impressed

upon it. In the sequel there is a correspondence between the physiognomy

and the intellectual and moral qualities of the mind. But is it not reasonable

to suppose that this is produced by the continual tendency of the mind to

modify its material engine in a particular way? There is for the most part

no essential difference between the child of the lord and of the porter.

Provided he do not come into the world infected with any ruinous distemper,

the child of the lord, if changed in the cradle, would scarcely find any

greater difficulty than the other in learning the trade of his softer father,

and becoming a carrier of burthens. The muscles of those limbs which are

most frequently called into play are always observed to acquire peculiar

flexibility or strength. It is not improbable, if it should be found that

the capacity of the skull of a wise man is greater than that of a fool, that

this enlargement should be produced  by the incessantly repeated action of

the intellectual faculties, especially if we recollect of how flexible materials

the skulls of infants are composed, and at how early an age persons of eminent

intellectual merit acquire some portion of their future characteristics.






In the meantime it would be ridiculous to question the real differences

that exist between children at the period of their birth. Hercules and his

brother, the robust infant whom scarcely any neglect can destroy, and the

infant that is with difficulty reared, are undoubtedly from the moment of

parturition very different beings. If each of them could receive an education

precisely equal and eminently wise, the child labouring under original disadvantage

would be benefited, but the child to whom circumstances had been most favourable

in the outset would always retain his priority. These considerations however

do not appear materially to affect the doctrine of the present chapter; and

that for the following reasons.






First, education never can be equal. The inequality of external circumstances

in two beings whose situations most nearly resemble is so great as to baffle

all power of calculation. In the present state of mankind this is eminently

the case. There is no fact more palpable than that children of all sizes

and forms indifferently become wise. It is not the man of great stature or

vigorous make that outstrips his fellow in understanding. It is not the man

who possesses all the external senses in the highest perfection. It is not

the man whose health is most vigorous and invariable. Those moral causes

that awaken the mind, that inspire sensibility, imagination and perseverance,

are distributed without distinction to the tall or the dwarfish, the graceful

or the deformed, the lynx-eyed or the blind. But, if the more obvious distinctions

of animal structure appear to have little share in deciding upon their associated

varieties of intellect, it is surely in the highest degree unjustifiable

to attribute these varieties to such subtle and imperceptible differences

as, being out of our power to assign, are yet gratuitously  assumed to account

for the most stupendous effects. This  mysterious solution is the refuge

of indolence or the instrument of imposture, but incompatible with a sober

and persevering spirit of investigation.






Secondly, it is sufficient to recollect the nature of moral causes to

be satisfied that their efficiency is nearly unlimited. The essential differences

that are to be found between individual and individual originate in the opinions

they form, and the circumstances by which they are controlled. It is impossible

to believe that the same moral train would not make nearly the same man.

Let us suppose a being to have heard all the arguments and been subject to

all the excitements that were ever addressed to any celebrated character.

The same arguments, with all their strength and all their weakness, unaccompanied

with the smallest addition or variation, and retailed in exactly the same

proportions from month to month and year to year, must surely have produced

the same opinions. The same excitements, without reservation, whether direct

or accidental, must have fixed the same propensities. Whatever science or

pursuit was selected by this celebrated character must be loved by the person

respecting whom we are supposing this identity of impressions. In fine, it

is impression that makes the man, and, compared with the empire of impression,

the mere differences of animal structure are inexpressibly unimportant and

powerless.






These truths will be brought to our minds with much additional evidence

if we compare in this respect the case of brutes with that of men. Among

the inferior  animals, breed is a circumstance of considerable importance,

and a judicious mixture and preservation in this point is found to be attended

with the most unequivocal results. But nothing of that kind appears to take

place in our own species. A generous blood, a gallant and fearless spirit

is by no means propagated from father to son. When a particular appellation

is granted, as is usually practised in the existing governments of Europe,

to designate the descendants of a magnanimous ancestry, we do not find, even

with all the arts of modern education, to assist, that such descendants are

the legitimate representatives of departed heroism. Whence comes this difference?

Probably from the more irresistible operation of moral causes. It is not

impossible that among savages those differences would be conspicuous which

with us are annihilated. It is not unlikely that if men, like brutes, were

withheld from the more considerable means of intellectual improvement, if

they derived nothing from the discoveries and sagacity of their ancestors,

if each individual had to begin absolutely de novo in the discipline and

arrangement of his ideas, blood or whatever other circumstances distinguish

one man from another at the period of his nativity would produce as memorable

effects in man as they now do in those classes of animals that are deprived

of our advantages. Even in the case of brutes, education and care on the

part of the man seem to be nearly indispensable, if we would not have the

foal of the finest racer degenerate to the level of the cart-horse. In plants

the peculiarities of soil decide in a great degree upon the future properties

of each. But who would think of forming the character of a human being by

the operations of heat and cold, dryness and moisture upon the animal frame?

With us moral considerations swallow up the effects of every other accident.

Present a pursuit to the mind, convey to it the apprehension of calamity

or advantage, excite it by motives of aversion or motives of affection, and

the slow and silent influence of material causes perishes like dews at the

rising of the sun.






The result of these considerations is that at the moment of birth man

has really a certain character, and each man a character different from his

fellows. The accidents which pass during the months of percipiency in the

womb of the mother produce a real effect. Various external accidents, unlimited

as to the period of their commencement, modify in different ways the elements

of the animal frame. Everything in the universe is linked and united together.

No event, however minute and imperceptible, is barren of a train of consequences,

however comparatively evanescent those consequences may in some instances

be found. If there have been philosophers that have asserted otherwise, and

taught that all minds from the period of birth were precisely alike, they

have reflected discredit by such an incautious statement upon the truth they

proposed to defend.






But, though the original differences of man and man be arithmetically

speaking something, speaking in the way of a general and comprehensive estimate

they may be said to be almost nothing. If the early impressions of our childhood

may by a skilful observer be as it were obliterated almost as soon as made,

how much less can the confused and unpronounced impressions of the womb be

expected to resist the multiplicity of ideas that successively contribute

to wear out their traces? If the temper of the man appear in many instances

to be totally changed, how can it be supposed that there is anything permanent

and inflexible in the propensities of a new-born infant? and, if not in the

character of the  disposition, how much less in that of the understanding?






Speak the language of truth and reason to your child, and be under no

apprehension for the result. Show him that what you recommend is valuable

and desirable, and fear not but he will desire it. Convince his understanding,

and you enlist all his powers animal and intellectual in your service. How

long has the genius of education been disheartened and unnerved by the pretence

that man is born all that it is possible for him to become? How long has

the jargon imposed upon the world which would persuade us that in instructing

a man you do not add to, but unfold his stores? The miscarriages of education

do not proceed from the boundedness of its powers, but from the mistakes

with which it is accompanied. We often inspire disgust, where we mean to

infuse desire. We are wrapped up in ourselves, and do not observe, as we

ought, step by step the sensations that pass in the mind of our hearer. We

mistake compulsion for persuasion,  and delude ourselves into the belief

that despotism is the road to the heart.






Education will proceed with a firm step and with genuine lustre when those

who conduct it shall know what a vast field it embraces; when they shall

be aware that the effect, the question whether the pupil shall be a man of

perseverance and enterprise or a stupid and inanimate dolt, depends upon

the powers of those under whose direction he is placed and the skill with

which those powers shall be applied. Industry will be exerted with tenfold

alacrity when it shall be generally confessed that there are no obstacles

to our improvement which do not yield to the powers of industry. Multitudes

will never exert the energy necessary to extraordinary success, till they

shall dismiss the prejudices that fetter them, get rid of the chilling system

of occult and inexplicable causes, and consider the human mind as an intelligent

agent, guided by motives and prospects presented to the understanding, and

not by causes of which we have no proper cognisance and can form no calculation.






Apply these considerations to the subject of politics, and they will authorize

us to infer that the excellencies and defects of the human character are

not derived from causes beyond the reach of ingenuity to modify and correct.

If we entertain false views and be involved in pernicious mistakes, this

disadvantage is not the offspring of an irresistible destiny. We have been

ignorant, we have been hasty, or we have been misled. Remove the causes of

this ignorance or this miscalculation, and the effects will cease. Show me

in the clearest and most unambiguous manner that a certain mode of proceeding

is most reasonable in itself or most conducive to my interest, and I shall

infallibly pursue that mode, as long as the views you suggested to me continue

present to my mind. The conduct of human beings in every situation is governed

by the judgements they make and the sensations that are communicated to them.






It has appeared that the characters of men are determined in all their

most essential circumstances by education. By education in this place I would

be understood to convey the most comprehensive sense that can possibly be

annexed to that word, including every incident that produces an idea in the

mind, and can give birth to a train of reflections. It may be of use for

a clearer understanding of the subject we here examine to consider education

under three heads: the education of accident, or those impressions we receive

independently of any design on the part of the preceptor; education commonly

so called, or the impressions which he intentionally communicates; and political

education, or the modification our ideas receive from the form of government

under which we live. In the course of this successive review we shall be

enabled in some degree to ascertain the respective influence which is to

be attributed to each.






It is not unusual to hear persons dwell with emphasis on the wide difference

of the results in two young persons who have been educated together; and

this has been produced as a decisive argument in favour of the essential

differences we are supposed to bring into the world with us. But this could

scarcely have happened but from extreme inattention in the persons who have

so argued. Innumerable ideas, or changes in the state of the percipient being,

probably occur in every moment of time. How many of these enter into the

plan of the preceptor? Two children walk out together. One busies himself

in plucking flowers or running after butterflies, the other walks in the

hand of their conductor. Two men view a picture. They never see it from the

same point of view, and therefore strictly speaking never see the same picture.

If they sit down to hear a lecture or any piece of instruction, they never

sit down with the same degree of attention, seriousness or good humour. The

previous state of mind is different, and therefore the impression received

cannot be the same. It has been found in the history of several eminent men,

and probably would have been found  much oftener had their juvenile adventures

been more accurately recorded, that the most trivial circumstance has sometimes

furnished the original occasion of awakening the ardour of their minds and

determining the bent of their studies.






It may however reasonably be suspected whether the education of design

be not, intrinsically considered, more powerful than the education of accident.

If at any time it appear impotent, this is probably owing to mistake in the

project. The instructor continually fails in wisdom of contrivance, or conciliation

of manner, or both. It may often happen, either from the pedantry of his

habits, or the impatience of his temper, that his recommendation shall operate

rather as an antidote than an attraction. Preceptors are apt to pique themselves

upon disclosing part and concealing part of the truth, upon a sort of common

place, cant exhortation to be addressed to youth, which it would be an insult

to offer to the understandings of men. But children are not inclined to consider

him entirely as their friend whom they detect in an attempt to impose upon

them. Were it otherwise, were we sufficiently frank and sufficiently skilful,

did we apply ourselves to excite the sympathy of the young and to gain their

confidence, it is not to be believed but that the systematical measures of

the preceptor would have a decisive advantage over the desultory influence

of accidental impression. Children are a sort of raw material put into our

hands, a ductile and yielding substance, which, if we do not ultimately mould

in conformity to our wishes, it is because we throw away the power committed

to us, by the folly with which we are accustomed to exert it. But there is

another error not less decisive. The object we choose is an improper one.

Our labour is expended, not in teaching truth, but in teaching falsehood.

When that is the case, education is necessarily and happily maimed of half

its powers. The success of an attempt to mislead can never be complete. We

continually communicate in spite of ourselves the materials of just reasoning;

reason is the genuine exercise,  and truth the native element of an intellectual

nature; it is no wonder therefore that, with a crude and abortive plan to

govern his efforts, the preceptor is perpetually baffled, and the pupil,

who has been thus stored with systematic delusions, and partial, obscure,

and disfigured truths, should come out anything rather than that which his

instructor intended him.






It remains to be considered what share political institution and forms

of government occupy in the education of every human being. Their degree

of influence depends upon two essential circumstances.






First, it is nearly impossible to oppose the education of the preceptor,

and the education we derive from the forms of government under which we live,

to each other; and therefore, however powerful the former of these may be,

absolutely considered, it can never enter the lists with the latter upon

equal terms. Should anyone talk to us of rescuing a young person from the

sinister influence of a corrupt government by the power of education, it

will be fair to ask who is the preceptor by whom this talk is to be effected?

Is he born in the ordinary mode of generation, or does he descend among us

from the skies?  Has his character been in no degree modified by that very

influence he undertakes to counteract? It is beyond all controversy that

men who live in a state of equality, or that approaches equality, will be

frank, ingenuous and intrepid in their carriage; while those who inhabit

where a great disparity of ranks has prevailed will be distinguished by coldness,

irresoluteness, timidity and caution. Will the preceptor in question be altogether

superior to these qualities? Which of us is there who utters his thoughts

in the fearless and explicit manner that true wisdom would prescribe? Who,

that is sufficiently critical and severe, does not detect himself every hour

in some act of falsehood or equivocation that example and early habits have

planted too deeply to be eradicated? But the question is not what extraordinary

persons can be found who may shine illustrious exceptions to the prevailing

 degeneracy of their neighbours. As long as parents and teachers in general

shall fall under the established rule, it is clear that politics and modes

of government will educate and infect us all. They poison our minds before

we can resist, or so much as suspect their malignity. Like the barbarous

directors of the Eastern seraglios, they deprive us of our virility, and

fit us for their despicable employment from the cradle. So false is the opinion

that has too generally prevailed that politics is an affair with which ordinary

men have little concern.






Secondly, supposing the preceptor had all the qualifications that can

reasonably be imputed, let us recollect for a moment what are the influences

with which he would have to struggle. Political institution, by the consequences

with which it is pregnant, strongly suggests to everyone who enters within

its sphere what is the path he should avoid, as well as what he should pursue.

Under a government fundamentally erroneous, he will see intrepid virtue proscribed,

and a servile and corrupt spirit uniformly encouraged. But morality itself

is nothing but a calculation of consequences. What strange confusion will

the spectacle of that knavery which is universally practised through all

the existing classes of society produce in the mind? The preceptor cannot

go out of the world, or prevent the intercourse of his pupil with human beings

of a character different from his own. Attempts of this kind are generally

unhappy, stamped with the impression of artifice, intolerance and usurpation.

From earliest infancy therefore there will be two principles contending for

empire, the peculiar and elevated system of the preceptor, and the grovelling

views of the great mass of mankind. These will generate confusion, uncertainty

and irresolution. At no period of life will the effect correspond to what

it would have been if the community were virtuous and wise. But its effect,

obscure and imperceptible for a time, may be expected to burst into explosion

at the period of puberty. When the pupil first becomes master of his own

actions, and chooses his avocations and his  associates, he will necessarily

be acquainted with many things of which before he had very slender notions.

At this time the follies of the world wear their most alluring face. He can

scarcely avoid imagining that he has hitherto laboured under some species

of delusion. Delusion, when detected, causes him upon whom it was practised

to be indignant and restive. The only chance which remains is that, after

a time, he should be recalled and awakened: and against this chance there

are the progressive enticements of society; sensuality, ambition, sordid

interest, false ridicule and the incessant decay of that unblemished purity

which attended him in his outset. The best that can be expected is that he

should return at last to sobriety and truth, with a mind debilitated and

relaxed by repeated errors, and a moral constitution in which the seeds of

degeneracy have been deeply and extensively sown.






NOTES:






1. In the plan of this work it was originally conceived that it was advisable

not to press matters of close and laborious speculation in the outset. It

appeared as if moral and political philosophy might assume something more

than had been usual of a popular form, without deducting from the justness

and depth of its investigation. Upon revisal however, it was found that the

inferences of the First Book had been materially injured by an overscrupulousness

in that point. The fruit of the discovery was this and the following chapter,

as they now stand. It is recommended, to the reader who finds himself deterred

by their apparent difficulty, to pass on to the remaining divisions of the

enquiry.






2. Some persons have of late suggested doubts concerning the propriety

of the use of the word mind. An accurate philosophy has led modern enquirers

to question the existence of two classes of substances in the universe, to

reject the metaphysical denominations of spirit and soul, and even to doubt

whether human beings have any satisfactory acquaintance with the properties

of matter. The same accuracy, it has been said, ought to teach us to discard

the term mind. But this objection seems to be premature. We are indeed wholly

uncertain whether the causes of our sensations, heat, colour, hardness and

extension (the two former of these properties have been questioned in a very

forcible manner by Locke, Human Understanding, the two latter by Berkeley

and Hume) be in any respect similar to the ideas they produce. We know nothing

of the substance or substratum of matter, or of that which is the recipient

of thought and perception. We do not even know that the idea annexed to the

word substance is correct, or has any counterpart in the reality of existence.

But, if there be any one thing that we know more certainly than another,

it is the existence of our own thoughts, ideas, perceptions or sensations

(by whatever term we may choose to express them), and that they are ordinarily

linked together so as to produce the complex notion of unity or personal

identity. Now it is this series of thoughts thus linked together, without

considering whether they reside in any or what substratum, that is most aptly

expressed by the term mind; and in this sense the term is intended to be

used throughout the following work.






CHAPTER V






THE VOLUNTARY ACTIONS OF MEN ORIGINATE IN THEIR OPINIONS






If by the reasons already given, we have removed the supposition of any

original bias in the mind that is inaccessible to human skill, and shown

that the defects to which we are now subject are not irrevocably entailed

upon us, there is another question of no less importance to be decided, before

the ground can appear to be sufficiently cleared for political melioration.

There is a doctrine the advocates of which have not been less numerous than

those for innate principles and instincts, teaching "that the conduct

of human beings in many important particulars is not determined upon any

grounds of reasoning and comparison, but by immediate and irresistible impression,

in defiance of the conclusions and conviction of the understanding Man is

a compound being," say the favourers of this hypothesis, "made

up of powers of reasoning and powers of sensation. These two principles are

in perpetual hostility; and, as reason will in some cases subdue all the

allurements of sense, so there are others ill which the headlong impulses

of sense will for ever defeat the tardy decisions of judgement. He that should

attempt to regulate man entirely by his understanding, and supersede the

irregular influences of material excitement; or that should imagine it practicable

by any process and in any length of time to reduce the human species under

the influence of general truth;(1*) would show himself profoundly ignorant

of some of the first laws of our nature."






This doctrine, which in many cases has passed so current as to be thought

scarcely a topic for examination, is highly worthy of a minute analysis.

If true, it no less than the doctrine of innate principles opposes a bar

to the efforts of philanthropy, and the improvement of social institutions.

Certain it is that our prospects of melioration depend upon the progress

of enquiry and the general advancement of knowledge. If therefore there be

points, and those important ones, in which, so to express myself, knowledge

and the thinking principle in man cannot be brought into contact, if, however

great be the improvement of his reason, he will not the less certainly in

many cases act in a way irrational and absurd, this consideration must greatly

overcloud the prospect of the moral reformer.






There is another consequence that will flow from the vulgarly received

doctrine upon this subject. If man be, by the very constitution of his nature,

the subject of opinion, and if truth and reason when properly displayed give

us a complete hold upon his choice, then the search of the political enquirer

will be much simplified. Then we have only to discover what form of civil

society is most conformable to reason, and we may rest assured that, as soon

as men shall be persuaded from conviction to adopt that form, they will have

acquired to themselves an invaluable benefit. But, if reason be frequently

inadequate to its task, if there be an opposite principle in man resting

upon its own ground, and maintaining a separate jurisdiction, the most rational

principles of society may be rendered abortive, it may be necessary to call

in mere sensible causes to encounter causes of the same nature, folly may

be the fittest instrument to effect the purposes of wisdom, and vice to disseminate

and establish the public benefit. In that case the salutary prejudices and

useful delusions (as they have been called) of aristocracy, the glittering

diadem, the magnificent canopy, the ribands, stars and titles of an illustrious

rank, may at last be found the fittest instruments for guiding and alluring

to his proper ends the savage, man.(2*)






Such is the nature of the question to be examined, and such its connection

with the enquiry concerning the influence of political institutions.






The more accurately to conceive the topic before us, it is necessary to

observe that it relates to the voluntary actions of man.






The distinction between voluntary and involuntary action, if properly

stated, is  exceedingly simple. That  action is involuntary which takes place

in us either without foresight on our part, or contrary to the full bent

of our inclinations. Thus, if a child or a person of mature age burst into

tears in a manner unexpected or unforeseen by himself, or if he burst into

tears though his pride or any other principle make him exert every effort

to restrain them, this action is involuntary. Voluntary action is where the

event is foreseen previously to its occurrence, and the hope or fear of that

event forms the excitement, or, as it is most frequently termed, the motive,(3*)

inducing us, if hope be the passion, to endeavour to forward, and, if fear,

to endeavour to prevent it. It is this motion, in this manner generated,

to which we annex the idea of voluntariness. Let it be observed that the

word action is here used in the sense of natural philosophers, as descriptive

of a charge taking place in any part of the universe, without entering into

the question whether that change be necessary or free.






Now let us consider what are the inferences that immediately result from

the above simple and unquestionable explanation of voluntary action.






'Voluntary action is accompanied with foresight; the hope or fear of a

certain event is its motive.' But foresight is not an affair of simple and

immediate impulse: it implies a series of observations so extensive as to

enable us from like antecedents to infer like consequents. Voluntary action

is occasioned by the idea of consequences to result. Wine is set before me,

and I fill my glass. I do this either because I foresee that the flavour

will be agreeable to my palate, or that its effect will be to produce gaiety

and exhilaration, or that my drinking it will prove the   kindness and good

humour I feel towards the company with which I am engaged. If in any case

my action in filling dwindle into mechanical or semi-mechanical, done with

little or no adverting of the mind to its performance, it so far becomes

an involuntary action. But, if every voluntary action be performed for the

sake of its consequences, then in every voluntary action there is comparison

and judgement. Every such action proceeds upon the apprehended truth of some

proposition. The mind decides "this is good" or "desirable;"

and immediately upon that decision, if accompanied with a persuasion that

we are competent to accomplish this good or desirable thing, the limbs proceed

to their office. The mind decides "this is better than something else;"

either wine and cordials are before me, and I choose the wine rather than

the cordials; or the wine only is presented or thought of, and I decide that

to take the wine is better than to abstain from it. Thus it appears that

in every voluntary action there is preference or choice, which indeed are

synonymous terms.






This full elucidation of the nature of voluntary action enables us to

proceed a step further. Hence it appears that the voluntary actions of men

in all cases originate in their opinions. The actions of men, it will readily

be admitted, originate in the state of their minds immediately previous to

those actions. Actions therefore which are preceded by a judgement "this

is good," or "this is desirable," originate in the state of

judgement or opinion upon that subject. It may happen that the opinion may

be exceedingly fugitive; it may have been preceded by aversion and followed

by remorse; but it was unquestionably the opinion of the mind at the instant

in which the action commenced.






It is by no means uninstructive to remark how those persons who seem most

to have discarded the use of their reason have frequently fallen by accident,

as it were, upon important truths. There has been a sect of Christians who

taught that the only point which was to determine  the future everlasting

happiness or misery of mankind was their faith. Being pressed with the shocking

immorality of their doctrine, and the cruel and tyrannical character it imputed

to the author of the universe, some of the most ingenious of them have explained

themselves thus.






"Man is made up of two parts, his internal sentiments and his external

conduct. Between these two there is a close and indissoluble connection;

as are his sentiments so is his conduct. Faith, that faith which alone entitles

to salvation, is indeed a man's opinion, but not every opinion he may happen

openly to profess, not every opinion which floats idly in his brain, and

is only recollected when he is gravely questioned upon the subject. Faith

is the opinion that is always present to the mind, that lives in the memory,

or at least infallibly suggests itself when any article of conduct is considered

with which it is materially connected. Faith is that strong, permanent and

lively persuasion of the understanding with which no delusive temptations

will ever be able successfully to contend. Faith modifies the conduct, gives

a new direction to the dispositions, and renders the whole character pure

and heavenly. But heavenly dispositions only can fit a man for the enjoyment

of heaven. Heaven in reality is not so properly a place as a state of the

mind; and, if a wicked man could be introduced into the society of 'saints

made perfect,' he would be miserable. God therefore, when he requires faith

alone as a qualification for heaven, is so far from being arbitrary that

he merely executes the laws of reason, and does the only thing it was possible

for him to do."






In this system there are enormous absurdities, but the view it exhibits

of the source of voluntary action, sufficiently corresponds with the analysis

we have given of the subject.






The author of the Characteristics has illustrated this branch of the nature

of man in a very masterly manner. He observes: "There are few who think

always consistently, or according to one certain hypothesis upon any subject

so abstruse and intricate as the cause of all things and the economy or government

of the universe. For it is evident in the case of the most devout people,

even by their own confession, that there are times when their faith hardly

can support them in the belief of a supreme, wisdom; and that they are often

tempted to judge disadvantageously of a providence and just administration

in the whole.






"That alone therefore is to be called a man's opinion, which is of

any other the most habitual to him, and occurs upon most occasions. So that

it is hard to pronounce certainly of any man, that he is an atheist; because,

unless his whole thoughts are at all seasons and on all occasions steadily

bent against all supposition or imagination of design in things, he is no

perfect atheist. In the same manner, if a man's thoughts are not at all times

steady and resolute against all imagination of chance, fortune, or ill design

in things, he is no perfect theist. But, if any one believes more of chance

and confusion than of design, he is to be esteemed more an atheist than a

theist (this is surely not a very accurate or liberal view of the atheistical

system) from that which most predominates, or has the ascendant. And, in

case he believes more of the prevalency of an ill designing principle than

of a good one, he is rather a demonist, and may be justly so called, from

the side to which the balance or his judgement most inclines.'(4*)






From this view of the subject we shall easily be led to perceive how little

the fact of the variableness and inconstancy of human conduct is incompatible

with the principle here delivered, that the voluntary actions of men in all

cases originate in their opinions. The persuasion that exists in the mind

of the drunkard in committing his first act of intoxication, that in so doing

he complies with the most cogent and irresistible reason capable of being

assigned upon the subject, may be exceedingly temporary; but it is the clear

and unequivocal  persuasion of his mind at the moment that he determines

upon the action. The  thoughts of the murderer will frequently be in a state

of the most tempestuous fluctuation; he may make and unmake his diabolical

purpose fifty times in an hour; his mind may be torn a thousand ways by terror

and fury, malignity and remorse. But, whenever his resolution is formed,

it is formed upon the suggestions  of the rational faculty; and, when he

ultimately works up his mind to the perpetration, he is then most strongly

impressed with the superior recommendations of the conduct he pursues. One

of the fallacies by which we are most frequently induced to a conduct which

our habitual judgement disapproves is that our attention becomes so engrossed

by a particular view of the subject as wholly to forget, for the moment,

those considerations which at other times were accustomed to determine our

opinion. In such cases it frequently happens that the neglected consideration

recurs the instant the hurry of action has subsided, and we stand astonished

at our own infatuation and folly.






This reasoning, however clear and irresistible it may appear, is yet exposed

to one very striking objection. "According to the ideas here delivered,

men always proceed in their voluntary actions upon judgements extant to their

understanding. Such judgements must be attended with consciousness; and,

were this hypothesis a sound one, nothing could be more easy than for a man

in all cases to assign the precise reason that induced him to any particular

action. The human mind would then be a very simple machine, always aware

of the grounds upon which it proceeded, and self-deception would be impossible.

But this statement is completely in opposition to experience and history.

Ask a man the reason why he puts on his clothes, why he eats his dinner,

or performs any other ordinary action of his life. He immediately hesitates,

endeavours to recollect himself, and often assigns a reason the most remote

from what the true  philosophy of motive would have led us to expect. Nothing

is more dear than that of the moving cause of this action was not expressly

present to his apprehension at the time he performed it. Self-deception is

so far from impossible that it is one of the most ordinary phenomena with

which we are acquainted. Nothing is more usual than for a man to impute his

actions to honourable motives, when it is nearly demonstrable that they flowed

from some corrupt and contemptible source. On the other hand many persons

suppose themselves to be worse than an impartial spectator will find any

good reason to believe them. A penetrating observer will frequently be able

to convince his neighbour that upon such an occasion he was actuated by motives

very different from what he imagined. Philosophers to this hour dispute whether

human beings in their most virtuous exertions are under the power of disinterested

benevolence, or merely of an enlightened self-interest. Here then we are

presented, in one or other of these sets of philosophers, with a striking

instance of men's acting from motives diametrically opposite to those which

they suppose to be the guides of their conduct. Self-examination is to a

proverb one of the most arduous of those tasks which true virtue imposes.

Are not these facts in express contradiction to the doctrine that the voluntary

actions of men in all cases originate in the judgements of the understanding?"






Undoubtedly the facts which have been here enumerated appear to be strictly

true. To determine how far they affect the doctrine of the present chapter,

it is necessary to return to our analysis of the phenomena of the human mind.

Hitherto we have considered the actions of human beings only under two classes,

voluntary and involuntary. In strictness however there is a third class,

which belongs to neither, yet partakes of the nature of both.






We have already defined voluntary action to be that of which certain consequences,

foreseen, and considered either as objects of desire or aversion, are the

motive. Foresight and volition are inseparable. But what is foreseen must,

by the very terms, be present to the understanding. Every action therefore,

so far as it is perfectly voluntary, flows solely from the decision of the

judgement. But the actions above cited, such as relate to our garments and

our food, are only imperfectly voluntary.(5*)






In respect of volition there appear to be two stages in the history of

the human mind. Foresight is the result of experience; therefore foresight,

and by parity of reasoning volition, cannot enter into the earliest actions

of a human being. As soon however as the infant perceives the connection

between certain attitudes and gestures and the circumstance of receiving

such, for example, he is brought to desire those preliminaries for the sake

of that result. Here, so far as relates to volition and the judgement of

the understanding, the action is as simple as can well be imagined. Yet,

even in this instance, the motive may be said to be complex. Habit, or custom,

has its share. This habit is founded in actions originally involuntary and

mechanical, and modifies after various methods such of our actions as are

voluntary.






But there are habits of a second sort. In proportion as our experience

enlarges, the subjects of voluntary action become more numerous. In this

state of the human being, he soon comes to perceive a considerable similarity

between situation and situation. In consequence he feels inclined to abridge

the process of deliberation, and to act today conformably to the determination

of yesterday.  Thus the understanding fixes for itself resting places, is

no longer a novice, and is not at the trouble continually to go back and

revise the original reasons which determined it to a course of action. Thus

the man acquire habits from which it is very difficult to wean him, and which

he obeys without being able to assign either to himself or others any explicit

reason for his proceeding. This is the history of prepossession and prejudice.






Let us consider how much there is of voluntary, and how much of involuntary

in this species of action. Let the instance be of a man going to church today.

He has been accustomed, suppose, to a certain routine of this kind from his

childhood. Most undoubtedly then, in performing this function today, his

motive does not singly consist of inducements present to his understanding.

His feelings are not of the same nature as those of a man who should be persuaded

by a train of reasoning to perform that function for the first time in his

life. His case is partly similar to that of a scholar who has gone through

a course of geometry, and who now believes the truth of the propositions

upon the testimony of his memory, though the proofs are by no means present

to his understanding. Thus the person in question, is partly induced to go

to church by reasons which once appeared sufficient to his understanding,

and the effects of which remain, though the reasons are now forgotten, or

at least are not continually recollected. He goes partly for the sake of

decorum, character, and to secure the good will of his neighbours. A part

of his inducement also perhaps is that his parents accustomed him to go to

church at first, from the mere force of authority, and that the omission

of a habit to which we have been formed is apt to fit awkwardly and uneasily

upon the human mind. Thus it happens that a man who should scrupulously examine

his own conduct in going to church would find great difficulty in satisfying

his mind as to the precise motive, or proportion contributed by different

motives, which maintained his adherence to that practice.






It is probable however that, when he goes to church, he determines that

this action is right, proper or expedient, referring for the reasons which

prove this rectitude or expediency to the complex impression which remains

in his mind, from the inducements that at different times inclined him to

that practice. It is still more reasonable to believe that, when he sets

out, there  is an express volition, foresight or apprehended motive inducing

him to that  particular action, and that he proceeds in such a direction

because he knows it  leads to the church. Now, so much of this action as

proceeds from actually existing foresight and apprehended motive, it is proper

to call perfectly voluntary. So much as proceeds upon a motive, out of sight,

and the operation of which depends upon habit, is imperfectly voluntary.






This sort of habit however must be admitted to retain something of the

nature of voluntariness for two reasons. First, it proceeds upon judgement,

or apprehended motives, though the reasons of that judgement be out of sight

and forgotten; at the time the individual performed the first action of the

kind, his proceeding was perfectly voluntary. Secondly, the custom of language

authorizes us in denominating every action as in some degree voluntary which

a volition, foresight or apprehended motive in contrary direction might have

prevented from taking place.






Perhaps no action of a man arrived at years of maturity is, in the sense

above defined, perfectly voluntary; as there is no demonstration in the higher

branches of the mathematics which contains the whole of its proof within

itself, and does not depend upon former propositions, the proofs of which

are not present to the mind of the learner. The subtlety of the human mind

in this respect is incredible. Many single actions, if carefully analysed

and traced to their remotest source, would be found to be the complex result

of different motives, to the amount perhaps of some hundreds.






In the meantime it is obvious to remark that the perfection of the human

character consists in approaching as nearly as possible to the perfectly

voluntary state. We ought to be upon all occasions prepared to render a reason

of our actions. We should remove ourselves to the furthest distance from

the state of mere inanimate machines, acted upon by causes of which they

have no understanding. We should be cautious of thinking it a sufficient

reason for an action that we are accustomed to perform it, and that we once

thought it right. The human understanding has so powerful a tendency to improvement

that it is more than probable that, in many instances, the arguments which

once appeared to us sufficient would upon re-examination appear inadequate

and futile. We should therefore subject them to perpetual revisal. In our

speculative opinions and our practical principles we should never consider

the book of enquiry as shut. We should accustom ourselves not to forget the

reasons that produced our determination, but be ready upon all occasions

clearly to announce and fully to enumerate them.






Having thus explained the nature of human actions, involuntary, imperfectly

voluntary and voluntary, let us consider how far this explanation affects

the doctrine of the present chapter. Now it should seem that the great practical

political principle remains as entire as ever. Still volition and foresight,

in their strict and accurate construction, are inseparable. All the most

important occasions of our lives are capable of being subjected at pleasure

to a decision, as nearly as possible, perfectly voluntary. Still it remains

true that, when the understanding clearly perceives rectitude, propriety

and eligibility to belong to a certain conduct, and so long as it has that

perception, that conduct will infallibly be adopted. A perception of truth

will inevitably be produced by a clear evidence brought home to the understanding,

and the constancy of the perception will be proportioned to the apprehended

value of the thing perceived. Reason therefore and conviction still appear

to be the proper instrument, and the sufficient instrument for regulating

the actions of mankind.






Having sufficiently established the principle that in all cases of volition

we act, not from impulse, but opinion, there is a further obstacle to be

removed before this reasoning can be usefully applied to the subject of political

melioration. It may be objected, by a person who should admit the force of

the above arguments, "that little was gained by this exposition to the

cause it was intended to promote. Whether or no the actions of men frequently

arise, as some authors have asserted, from immediate impression, it cannot

however be denied that the perturbations of sense frequently seduce the judgement,

and that the ideas and temporary notions they produce are too strong for

any force that can be brought against them. But, what man is now in this

respect he will always to a certain degree remain. He will always have senses,

and, in spite of all the attempts which can be made to mortify them, their

pleasures will always be accompanied with irritation and allurement. Hence

it appears that all ideas of vast and extraordinary improvement in man are

visionary, that he will always remain in some degree the dupe of illusion,

and that reason, and absolute, impartial truth, can never hope to possess

him entire."






The first observation that suggests itself upon this statement is that

the points already established tend in some degree to set this new question

in a clearer light. From them it may be inferred that the contending forces

of reason and sense, in the power they exercise over our conduct, at least

pass through the same medium, and assume the same form. It is opinion contending

with opinion, and judgement with judgement; and this consideration is not

unattended with encouragement. When we discourse of the comparative powers

of appetite and reason, we speak of those actions which have the consent

of the mind, and partake of the nature of voluntary. The question neither

is nor deserves to be respecting cases where no choice is exerted, and no

preference shown. Every man is aware that the cases into which volition enters

either for a part or the whole are sufficiently numerous to decide upon all

that is most important in the events of our life. It follows therefore that,

in the contention of sense and reason, it cannot be improbable to hope that

the opinion  which is intrinsically the best founded shall ultimately prevail.






But let us examine a little minutely these pleasures of sense, the attractions

of which are supposed to be so irresistible. In reality they are in no way

enabled to maintain their hold upon us but by means of the adscititious ornaments

with which they are assiduously connected. Reduce them to their true nakedness,

and they would be generally despised. Where almost is the man who would sit

down with impatient eagerness to the most splendid feast, the most exquisite

viands and highly flavoured wines, "taste after taste upheld with kindliest

change,"(6*) if he must sit down alone, and it were not relieved and

assisted by the more exalted charms of society, conversation and mutual benevolence?

Strip the commerce of the sexes of all its attendant circumstances; and the

effect would be similar. Tell a man that all women, so far as sense is concerned,

are nearly alike. Bid him therefore take a partner without any attention

to the symmetry of her person, her vivacity, the voluptuous softness of her

temper, the affectionate kindness of her feelings, her imagination or her

wit. You would probably instantly convince him that the commerce itself,

which by superficial observers is put for the whole, is the least important

branch of the complicated consideration to which it belongs. It is probable

that he who should form himself with the greatest care upon a system of solitary

sensualism would come at last to a decision not very different from that

which Epicurus is said to have adopted in favour of fresh herbs and water

from the spring.






"But let it be confessed that the pleasures of sense are unimportant

and trivial. It is next to be asked whether, trifling as they are, they may

not nevertheless possess a delusive and treacherous power by means of which

they may often be enabled to overcome every opposition?"






The better to determine this question, let us suppose a man to be engaged

in the progressive voluptuousness of the most sensual scene. Here, if ever,

we may expect sensation to be triumphant. Passion is in this case in its

full career. He impatiently shuts out every consideration that may disturb

his enjoyment; moral views and dissuasives can no longer obtrude themselves

into his mind; he resigns himself, without power of resistance, to his predominant

idea. Alas, in this situation, nothing is so easy as to extinguish his sensuality!

Tell him at this moment that his father is dead, that he has lost or gained

a considerable sum of money, or even that his favourite horse is stolen from

the meadow, and his whole passion shall be instantly annihilated: so vast

is the power which a mere proposition possesses over the mind of man. So

conscious are we of the precariousness of the fascination of the senses that

upon such occasions we provide against the slightest interruption. If our

little finger ached, we might probably immediately bid adieu to the empire

of this supposed almighty power. It is said to be an experiment successfully

made by sailors and persons in that class of society, to lay a wager with

their comrades that the sexual intercourse shall not take place between them

and their bedfellow the ensuing night, and to trust to their veracity for

a confession of the event. The only means probably by which any man ever

succeeds in indulging the pleasures of sense, in contradiction to the habitual

persuasion of his judgement, is by contriving to forget everything that can

be offered against them. If, notwithstanding all his endeavours, the unwished

for idea intrudes, the indulgence instantly becomes impossible. Is it to

be supposed that the power of sensual allurement, which must be carefully

kept alive, and which the slightest accident overthrows, can be invincible

only to the artillery of reason, and that the most irresistible considerations

of justice, interest and happiness will never be able habitually to control

it?






To consider the subject in another point of view. It seems to be a strange

absurdity to hear men assert that the attractions of sensual pleasure are

irresistible, in contradiction to the multiplied experience of all ages and

countries. Are all good stories of our nature false? Did no man ever resist

temptation? On the contrary, have not all the considerations which have power

over our hopes, our fears, or our weaknesses been, in competition with a

firm and manly virtue, employed in vain? But what has been done may be done

again. What has been done by individuals cannot be impossible, in a widely

different state of society, to be done by the whole species.






The system we are here combating, of the irresistible power of sensual

allurements, has been numerously supported, and a variety of arguments has

been adduced in its behalf. Among other things it has been remarked "that,

as the human mind has no innate and original principles, so all the information

it has is derived from sensation; and everything that passes within it is

either direct impression upon our external organs, or the substance of such

impressions modified and refined through certain intellectual strainers and

alembics. It is therefore reasonable to conclude that the original substance

should be most powerful in its properties, and the pleasures of external

sense more genuine than any other pleasure. Every sensation is, by its very

nature, accompanied with the idea of pleasure or pain in a vigorous or feeble

degree. The only thing which can or ought to excite desire is happiness or

agreeable sensation. It is impossible that the hand can be stretched out

to obtain anything except so far as it is considered as desirable; and to

be desirable is the same thing as to have a tendency to communicate pleasure.

Thus, after all the complexities of philosophy, we are brought back to this

simple and irresistible proposition, that man is an animal purely sensual.

Hence it follows that in all his transactions much must depend upon immediate

impression, and little is to be attributed to the generalities of ratiocination."






All the premises in the objection here stated are unquestionably true.

Man is just such an animal as the objection describes. Everything within

him that has a tendency to voluntary action is an affair of external or internal

sense, and has relation to pleasure or pain. But it does not follow from

hence that the pleasures of our external organs are more exquisite than any

other pleasures. It is by no means unexampled for the result of a combination

of materials to be more excellent than the materials themselves. Let us consider

the materials by means of which an admirable poem, or, if you will, the author

of an admirable poem, is constructed, and we shall immediately acknowledge

this to be the case. In reality the pleasures of a savage, or, which is much

the same thing, of a brute, are feeble indeed compared with those of the

man of civilization and refinement. Our sensual pleasures, commonly so called,

would be almost universally despised had we not the art to combine them with

the pleasures of intellect and cultivation. No man ever performed an act

of exalted benevolence without having sufficient reason to know, at least

so long as the sensation was present to his mind, that all the gratifications

of appetite were contemptible in the comparison. That which gives the last

zest to our enjoyments is the approbation of our own minds, the consciousness

that the exertion we have made was such as was called for by impartial justice

and reason; and this consciousness will be clear and satisfying in proportion

as our decision in that respect is unmixed with error. Our perceptions can

never be so luminous and accurate in the belief of falsehood as of truth.






The great advantage possessed by the allurements of sense is "that

the ideas suggested by them are definite and precise, while those which deal

in generalities are apt to be faint and obscure. The difference is like that

between things absent and present; of the recommendations possessed by the

latter we have a more vivid perception, and seem to have a better assurance

of the probability of their attainment. These circumstances must necessarily,

in the comparison instituted by the mind in all similar cases, to a certain

degree incline the balance towards that side. Add to which, that what is

present forces itself upon our attention, while that which is absent depends

for its  recurrence upon the capriciousness of memory."






But these advantages are seen upon the very face of them to be of a precarious

nature. If my ideas of virtue, benevolence and justice, or whatever it is

that ought to restrain me from an improper leaning to the pleasures of sense,

be now less definite and precise, they may be gradually and unlimitedly improved.

If I do not now sufficiently perceive all the recommendations they possess,

and their clear superiority over the allurements of sense, there is surely

no natural impossibility in my being made to understand a distinct proposition,

or in my being fully convinced by an unanswerable argument. As to recollection,

that is certainly a faculty of the mind which is capable of improvement;

and the point, of which I have been once intimately convinced and have had

a lively and profound impression, will not easily be forgotten when the period

of action shall arrive.






It has been said "that a rainy day will frequently convert a man

of valour into a coward." If that should be the case, there is no presumption

in affirming that his courage was produced by very slight and inadequate

motives. How long would a sensation of this kind be able to hold out against

the idea of the benefits to arise from his valour, safety to his family and

children, defeat to an unjust and formidable assailant, and freedom and felicity

to be secured to his country? In reality, the atmosphere, instead of considerably

affecting the mass of mankind, affects in an eminent degree only a small

part of that mass. The majority are either above or below it; are either

too gross to feel strongly these minute variations, or too busy to attend

to them. The case is to a considerable degree the same with the rest of our

animal sensations. "Indigestion," it has been said, "perhaps

a fit of the tooth ache, renders a man incapable of strong thinking and spirited

exertion." How far would they be able to maintain their ground against

an unexpected piece of intelligence of the most delightful nature?  Pain

is probably more formidable in its attacks upon us, and more exquisitely

felt than any species of bodily pleasure. Yet all history affords us examples

where pain has been contemned and defied by the energies of intellectual

resolution. Do we not read of Mutius Scaevola who suffered his hand to be

destroyed by fire without betraying any symptom of emotion, and archbishop

Cranmer who endured the same trial two hundred years ago in our own country?

Is it not recorded of Anaxarchus that, while suffering the most excruciating

tortures, he exclaimed, "Beat on, tyrant! Thou mayest destroy the shell

of Anaxarchus, but thou canst not touch Anaxarchus himself?" The very

savage Indians sing amidst the wanton tortures that are inflicted on them,

and tauntingly provoke their tormentors to more ingenious cruelty. When we

read such stories, we recognize in them the genuine characteristics of man.

Man is not a vegetable to be governed by sensations of heat and cold, dryness

and moisture. He is a reasonable creature, capable of perceiving what is

eligible and right, of fixing indelibly certain principles upon his mind,

and adhering inflexibly to the resolutions he has made.






Let us attend for a moment to the general result of the preceding discussions.

The tendency of the whole is to ascertain an important principle in the science

of the human mind. If the arguments here adduced to be admitted to be valid,

it necessarily follows that whatever can be adequately brought home to the

conviction of the understanding may be depended upon as affording a secure

hold upon the conduct. We are no longer at liberty to consider man as divided

between two independent principles, or to imagine that his inclinations are

in any case inaccessible through the medium of his reason. We find the principle

within us to be uniform and simple; in consequence of which we are entitled

to conclude, that it is in every respect the proper subject of education

and persuasion, and is susceptible of unlimited improvement. There is no

conduct, in itself reasonable, which the refutation of error, and dissipating

of uncertainty,  will not make appear to be such. There is no conduct which

can be shown to be reasonable, the reasons of which may not sooner or later

be made impressive, irresistible and matter of habitual recollection. Lastly,

there is no conduct, the reasons of which are thus conclusive and thus communicated,

which will not infallibly and uniformly be adopted by the man to whom they

are communicated.






It may not be improper to attend a little to the light which may be derived

from these speculations upon certain maxims, almost universally received,

but which, as they convey no distinct ideas, may be productive of mischief,

and can scarcely be productive of good.






The first of these is that the passions ought to be purified, but not

to be eradicated. Another, conveying nearly the same lesson, but in different

words, is that passion is not to be conquered by reason, but by bringing

some other passion into contention with it.






The word passion is a term extremely vague in its signification. It is

used principally in three senses. It either represents the ardour and vehemence

of mind with which any object is purified; or secondly, that temporary persuasion

of excellence and desirableness which accompanies any action performed by

us contrary to our more customary and usual habits of thinking; or lastly,

those external modes or necessities to which the whole human species is alike

subject, such as hunger, the passion between the sexes, and others. In which

of these senses is the word to be understood in the maxims above stated?






In the first sense, it has sufficiently appeared that none of our sensations,

or, which is the same thing, none of our ideas, are unaccompanied with a

consciousness of pleasure or pain; consequently all our volitions are attended

with complacence or aversion. In this sense without doubt passion cannot

be eradicated; but in this sense also passion is so far from being incompatible

with reason that it is inseparable from it. Virtue, sincerity, justice and

all those principles which are begotten and cherished in  us by a due exercise

of reason will never be very strenuously espoused till they are ardently

loved; that is, till their value is clearly perceived and adequately understood.

In this sense nothing is necessary but to show us that a thing is truly good

and worthy to be desired, in order to excite in us a passion for its attainment.

If therefore this be the meaning of passion in the above proposition, it

is true that passion ought not to be eradicated, but it is equally true that

it cannot be eradicated: it is true that the only way to conquer one passion

is by the introduction of another; but it is equally true that, if we employ

our rational faculties, we cannot fail of thus conquering our erroneous propensities.

The maxims therefore are nugatory.






In the second sense, our passions are ambition, avarice, the love of power,

the love of fame, envy, revenge and innumerable others. Miserable indeed

would be our condition if we could only expel one bad passion by another

of the same kind, and there was no way of rooting out delusion from the mind

but by substituting another delusion in its place. But it has been demonstrated

at large that this is not the case. Truth is not less powerful, or less friendly

to ardent exertion, than error, and needs not fear its encounter. Falsehood

is not, as such a principle would suppose, the only element in which the

human mind can exist, so that, if the space which the mind occupies be too

much rarefied and cleared, its existence or health will be in some degree

injured. On the contrary, we need not fear any sinister consequences from

the subversion of error, and introducing as much truth into the mind as we

can possibly accumulate. All those notions by which we are accustomed to

ascribe to anything a value which it does not really possess should be eradicated

without mercy; and truth, a sound and just estimate of things, which is not

less favourable to zeal or activity, should be earnestly and incessantly

cultivated.






In the third sense of the word passion, as it describes the result of

those circumstances which are common to  the whole species, such as hunger

and the propensity to the intercourse of the sexes, it seems sufficiently

reasonable to say that no attempt ought to be made to eradicate them. But

this sentiment was hardly worth the formality of a maxim. So far as these

propensities ought to be conquered or restrained, there is no reason why

this should not he effected by the due exercise of the understanding. From

these illustrations it is sufficiently apparent that the care recommended

to us not to extinguish or seek to extinguish our passions is founded in

a confused or mistaken view of the subject.






Another maxim not inferior in reputation to those above recited is that

of following nature. But the term nature here is still more loose and unintelligible

than the term passion was before. If it be meant that we ought to accommodate

ourselves to hunger and the other appetites which are common to our species,

this is probably true. But these appetites, some of them in particular, lead

to excess, and the mischief with which they are pregnant is to be corrected,

not by consulting our appetites, but our reason. If it be meant that we should

follow instinct, it has been proved that we have no instincts. The advocates

of this maxim are apt to consider whatever now exists among mankind as inherent

and perpetual, and to conclude that this is to be maintained, not in proportion

as it can be shown to be reasonable, but because it is natural. Thus it has

been said that man is naturally a religious animal, and for this reason,

and not in proportion to our power of demonstrating the being of a God or

the truth of Christianity, religion is to be maintained. Thus again it has

been called natural that men should form themselves into immense tribes or

nations, and go to war with each other. Thus persons of narrow views and

observation regard everything as natural and right that happens, however

capriciously or for however short a time, to prevail in the society in which

they live. The only things which can be said to compose the nature or constitution

of man are our external structure, which itself is capable of being modified

with indefinite variety; the appetites and impressions growing out of that

structure; and the capacity of combining ideas and inferring conclusions.

The appetites common to the species we cannot wholly destroy: the faculty

of reason it would be absurd systematically to counteract, since it is only

by some sort of reasoning, bad or good, that we can so much as adopt any

system. In this sense therefore no doubt we ought to follow nature, that

is, to employ our understandings and increase our discernment. But, by conforming

ourselves to the principles of our constitution in this respect, we most

effectually exclude all following, or implicit assent. If we would fully

comport ourselves in a manner correspondent to our properties and powers,

we must bring everything to the standard of reason. Nothing must be admitted

either as principle or precept that will not support this trial. Nothing

must be sustained because it is ancient, because we have been accustomed

to regard it as sacred, or because it has been unusual to bring its validity

into question. Finally, if by following nature be understood that we must

fix our preference upon things that will conduce to human happiness, in this

there is some truth. But the truth it contains is extremely darkened by the

phraseology in which it is couched. We must consider our external structure

so far as relates to the mere question of our preservation. As to the rest,

whatever will make a reasonable nature happy will make us happy; and our

preference ought to be bestowed upon that species of pleasure which has most

independence and most animation.






The corollaries respecting political truth, deducible from the simple

proposition, which seems clearly established by the reasonings of the present

chapter, that the voluntary actions of men are in all instances conformable

to the deductions of their understanding, are of the highest importance.

Hence we may infer what are the hopes and prospects of human improvement.

The doctrine which may be founded upon these principles may perhaps best

be expressed  in the five following propositions: Sound reasoning and truth,

when adequately communicated, must always be victorious over error: Sound

reasoning and truth are capable of being so communicated: Truth is omnipotent:

The vices and moral weakness of man are not invincible: Man is perfectible,

or in other words susceptible of perpetual improvement.






These propositions will be found in part synonymous with each other. But

the time of the enquirer will not be unprofitably spent in copiously clearing

up the foundations of moral and political system. It is extremely beneficial

that truth should be viewed on all sides, and examined under different aspects.

The propositions are even little more than so many different modes of stating

the principal topic of this chapter. But, if they will not admit each of

a distinct train of arguments in its support, it may not however be useless

to bestow upon each a short illustration.






The first of these propositions is so evident that it needs only be stated

in order to the being universally admitted. Is there anyone who can imagine

that, when sound argument and sophistry are fairly brought into comparison,

the victory can be doubtful? Sophistry may assume a plausible appearance,

and contrive to a certain extent to bewilder the understanding. But it is

one of the prerogatives of truth, to follow it in its mazes and strip it

of disguise. Nor does any difficulty from this consideration interfere with

the establishment of the present proposition. We suppose truth not merely

to be exhibited, but adequately communicated; that is, in other words, distinctly

apprehended by the person to whom it is addressed. In this case the victory

is too sure to admit of being controverted by the most inveterate scepticism.






The second proposition is that sound reasoning and truth are capable of

being adequately communicated by one man to another. This proposition may

be understood of such communication, either as it affects the individual,

or the species. First of the individual.






In order to its due application in this point of view, opportunity for

the communication must necessarily be supposed. The incapacity of human intellect

at present requires that this opportunity should be of long duration or repeated

recurrence. We do not always know how to communicate all the evidence we

are capable of communicating in a single conversation, and much less in a

single instant. But, if the communicator be sufficiently master of his subject,

and if the truth be altogether on his side, he must ultimately succeed in

his undertaking. We suppose him to have sufficient urbanity to conciliate

the good will, and sufficient energy to engage the attention, of the party

concerned. In that case, there is no prejudice, no blind reverence for established

systems, no false fear of the inferences to be drawn, that can resist him.

He will encounter these one after the other, and he will encounter them with

success. Our prejudices, our undue reverence, and imaginary fears, flow out

of some views the mind has been induced to entertain; they are founded in

the belief of some propositions. But every one of these propositions is capable

of being refuted. The champion we describe proceeds from point to point;

if in any his success have been doubtful, that he will retrace and put out

of the reach of mistake; and it is evidently impossible that with such qualifications

and such perseverance he should not ultimately accomplish his purpose.






Such is the appearance which this proposition assumes when examined in

a loose and practical view. In strict consideration it will not admit of

debate. Man is a rational being. If there be any man who is incapable of

making inferences for himself, or of understanding, when stated in the most

explicit terms, the inferences of another, him we consider as an abortive

production, and not in strictness belonging to the human species. It is absurd

therefore to say that sound reasoning and truth cannot be communicated by

one man to another. Whenever in any case he fails, it is that he is not sufficiently

laborious, patient and dear. We suppose of course the person who undertakes

to  communicate the truth really to possess it, and be master of his subject;

for it is scarcely worth an observation to say that that which he has not

himself he cannot communicate to another.






If truth therefore can be brought home to the conviction of the individual,

let us see how it stands with the public or the world. Now in the first place,

it is extremely clear that, if no individual can resist the force of truth,

it can only be necessary to apply this proposition from individual to individual,

and we shall at length comprehend the whole. Thus the affirmation in its

literal sense is completely established.






With respect to the chance of success, this will depend, first, upon the

precluding all extraordinary convulsions of nature, and after this upon the

activity and energy of those to whose hands the sacred cause of truth may

be entrusted. It is apparent that, if justice be done to its merits, it includes

in it the indestructible germ of ultimate victory. Every new convert that

is made to its cause, if he be taught its excellence as well as its reality,

is