the Mind to Action, yet that is utterly insufficient to support, or carry Mankind far in the Practice of Virtue; and if it had no other Support, Moral Sense considered as a Principle of Action, would be almost perpetually baffled by the Superior Allurements of Vice. No, Virtue receives a much greater Encouragement, from Pleasures expected to follow at a distance from the Practice of it, in this Life, or a future, than from the Concomitant Pleasure; and these the Moral Sense naturally leads to the Discovery of, by engaging the Attention of the Mind to survey such Actions, as appear naturally comely, on all sides: And thus may be of considerable use to restrain Mankind from being so Wicked, as otherwise they would be, and gives us Reason to admire at once, both the Wisdom and Goodness of its Author. But this likely and agreeable Speculation is all blasted, by our Author's unaccountable Notion of Virtue, which he makes to consist in a Disinterested Love of others, a Love seperated from all manner of Regard to Pleasure of any kind, Concomitant or Subsequent, in this Life or another. Which is outdoing the Stoicks themselves far away; for tho' they held Virtue sufficient for its own Reward; yet, I think, they did so, upon account of that inward Delight and Satisfaction, the Practice thereof naturally gives the Mind, and agreeably thereto pronounc'd their Wise Man alone completely happy; and from that Consideration recommended Virtue to Mankind. But our Author utterly disallows of all Respect to any Delight or Satisfaction whatsoever, as any proper Motive to Virtue; and therefore I should be glad to be inform'd, upon what Principle or Foundation he can pretend to recommend Virtue to the World. Others do it by constantly representing the Happiness to be expected from it in this Life, or another, or both; but, according to our Author, those are Poor, Mean, Selfish Considerations, absolutely inconsistent with the true Notion of Virtue, if a Man acts only from such Motives. 808 The Mind of Man is naturally fond of Pleasure, and always greedily embraces it, where it does not appear to interfere with the Enjoyment of a greater, or to be attended with any After-claps of Pain or Misery. Thus God Almighty has made Man, and can it be supposed, he has annexed a Sense of Pleasure to such Actions as he would have him perform, without any Intention, that he should be at all moved or excited by a Consideration thereof, to the Performance of those Actions? What a wild unaccountable 809 810 Supposition is this? May it not be as reasonable to suppose, God has annex'd a Perception of Pleasure, to the use of the ordinary Means of our Preservation, without any design we should thereby be wrought upon, to use them for that purpose? As that he has made Meat pleasant, but not to excite us by that Pleasure to Eat? That he has made the two Sexes agreeable to one another, but never meant, they should be disposed by that Agreeableness, to come together? The World has been always apt to think, and ever will, I imagine, that where God has, by an establish'd Order of Nature, annexed a Perception of Pleasure to the Performance of any Action, he thereby intended to excite Mankind generally to the performance of that Action, under proper Regulations and Restrictions. I might, I believe, venture to put the Issue of this whole Debate upon it, and yield our Author the Cause, if he can but shew, what use the Moral Sense can possibly be of, if it be not proper, and accordingly design'd, to excite us to Virtuous Actions, by that Pleasure it enables us to perceive in them, especially when performed by our selves, or the Discovery it may lead to of further Advantage from them. What is there in the Pleasure that Virtue makes us feel immediately, or gives a prospect of at a distance, for the Mind to boggle at, that it should not thereby be spurr'd on to Action in this Case, as well as others, where no Harm is apprehended from closing with the Pleasure in View? He tells us in his Preface, 'That the Author of Nature has made Virtue a lovely Form, to excite our Pursuit of it.' This has both Sense and Truth in it; but then how shall we reconcile it with his Declaration, 'That what excites us to those Actions which we call Virtuous, is not an Intention to obtain even this sensible Pleasure,' arising from this lovely Form, especially when in our own Possession? Has God given Virtue this lovely Form, on purpose to excite us to the Pursuit of it, and are we neither excited by it, nor ought to be, because it is sordid and selfish to act upon such a Principle, and deserves not the Name of Virtue? Or are we excited by it, but without any Intention of obtaining the sensible Pleasure the Loveliness of its Form is fitted to give us? Make that out, how Beauty can allure and excite to Action, and the Mind have at the same time no Intention in the least, of obtaining the Pleasure that Beauty gives. 'An honest Farmer will tell you, that he studies the Preservation 811 and Happiness of his Children, and loves them without any Design of Good to himself1.' Ans. How can that be, when he will be infallibly miserable if he does not? He proposes perhaps no Good to himself, but that Satisfaction which necessarily arises from a Sense of their Preservation and Happiness; but that is a Good so great, that he must be exceedingly uneasy without it; a Sense of which most certainly determines him to study the Good of his Children. A Man may as well say, that in labouring to prevent the Gout, Stone, or any other Distemper, he proposes no Good to himself, because he expects no Accession of Wealth, Honour, or Fame thereby, tho' it be visible he labours in that manner for the Pleasure of Health, and to avoid the Pain and Disturbance of the Distemper he fears. Just so do Parents labour for the Good of their Children, for the Sake of the Pleasure they receive from a Sense of their Welfare, and to avoid that Sorrow and Affliction, their Misery would unavoidably give them. And this was wisely so ordered by the Author of Nature, to oblige Parents to take Care of their Children, for their own Sakes, because they find it impossible to be easy upon any other Terms. 'But his Love to his Child,' says our Author, ' makes him affected with his Pleasures and Pains. This Love then is antecedent to the Conjunction of Interest, and the Cause of it, not the Effect 2' Ans. This, I humbly conceive, is a great and fundamental Mistake. In no Sense of the Word, Love, can it be said to make the Parent affected with the Pleasures of his Child, or to be the Cause of that Affection because the Love of Complacency is that very Affection, and not the Cause of it. And the Love of Benevolence in a Parent for his Child, being nothing but a strong Disposition, or passionate Inclination, to preserve and provide for its Happiness, is the Effect, and not the Cause of that Affection, which our Author calls a Conjunction of Interest; but I rather choose to call a natural Connection betwixt the Happiness of the Child and its Parent, by which that of the latter is rendered dependent upon the former. And it is a strange Inversion of the Order of Nature to imagine, that the Disposition in the Parent to seek the Child's Good, is the Cause of that Connection, when 'tis as clear as Sun-shine, that the latter is the Cause of the former: And the Father is so disposed, because 1 Above, § 106. 2 Ibid. 812 he finds by Experience, there is such a Connection: The Cause of which is in the unknown Frame and Constitution of the Mind, which no Body can account for, any more than why the Smell of a Rose should be sweet, and that of Assa Foetida otherwise. The Case is manifestly thus. The Great and Wise God designing, for very good Reasons no doubt, that Man should be born into the World in a very weak and helpless Condition, and not arrive at such a Use of his Reason, as is sufficient for his own Guidance and Direction, in the Management of himself and his Affairs, but by a gradual and slow Process, has laid Parents under an Obligation, to take Care of, and provide for, conduct and govern their Children, till they are capable of doing so much for themselves. But because this was like to prove a tedious Task, and the Performance not to be expected from a Sense of Duty, which the thoughtless Part of Mankind would want, and the wiser not be sufficiently influenced by, to undertake, or substantially execute such a terrible Piece of Drudgery, he has thought fit so to mould and fashion the Human Mind, that the Parents by a strange and surprizing Sympathy, should be very deeply affected with the Pleasures and Pains of their Offspring, receive a most wonderful Satisfaction in the former, and as terrible a Disturbance from the latter, and so be obliged by the very Principle of Self-Love, to take Care of their Issue, and provide for their Happiness, in order to secure their own. From all which, I think it is very evident, that Natural Affection, or the strong Benevolence in Parents towards their Children, arises from the pleasure and pain their happiness and misery necessarily and unavoidably give them, and so is founded in Self-Love; or that the Reason why Parents love their Children so much, that is, are so strongly inclined to study their Welfare, is, because they love themselves, and are invincibly disposed to pursue their own Happiness. And it is a Wonder indeed, how a Person of our Author's Parts could miss a Thing so very apparent. RALPH CUDWORTH A Treatise concerning Eternal and [Written before 1688. First published 1731. Reprinted here from the posthumous first edition.] 813 BOOK I. CHAPTER II. 1. WHEREFORE in the first Place, it is a Thing which we shall very easily demonstrate, That Moral Good and Evil, Just and Unjust, Honest and Dishonest, (if they be not meer Names without any Signification, or Names for nothing else, but Willed and Commanded, but have a Reality in Respect of the Persons obliged to do and avoid them) cannot possibly be Arbitrary things, made by Will without Nature; because it is Universally true, That things are what they are, not by Will but by Nature. As for Example, Things are White by Whiteness, and Black by Blackness, Triangular by Triangularity, and Round by Rotundity, Like by Likeness, and Equal by Equality, that is, by such certain Natures of their own. Neither can Omnipotence itself (to speak with Reverence) by meer Will make a Thing White or Black without Whiteness or Blackness; that is, without such certain Natures, whether we consider them as Qualities in the Objects without us according to the Peripatetical Philosophy, or as certain Dispositions of Parts in respect of Magnitude, Figure, Site and Motion, which beget those Sensations or Phantasms of White and Black in Or, to instance in Geometrical Figures, Omnipotence itself us. |