Thoughts on Man

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The great principle of originality is in the soul of man. And
here again we may recur to Greece, the parent of all that is
excellent in art. Painting, statuary, architecture, poetry, in
their most exquisite and ravishing forms, originated in this
little province. Is not the Iliad a thing new, and that will for
ever remain new? Whether it was written by one man, as I
believe, or, as the levellers of human glory would have us think,
by many, there it stands: all the ages of the world present us
nothing that can come in competition with it.

Shakespear is another example of unrivalled originality. His
fame is like the giant-rivers of the world: the further it
flows, the wider it spreads out its stream, and the more
marvellous is the power with which it sweeps along.

But, in reality, all poetry and all art, that have a genuine
claim to originality, are new, the smallest, as well as the
greatest.

It is the mistake of dull minds only, to suppose that every thing
has been said, that human wit is exhausted, and that we, who have
unfortunately fallen upon the dregs of time, have no alternative
left, but either to be silent, or to say over and over again,
what has been well said already.

There remain yet immense tracts of invention, the mines of which
have been untouched. We perceive nothing of the strata of earth,
and the hidden fountains of water, that we travel over,
unconscious of the treasures that are immediately within our
reach, till some person, endowed with the gift of a superior
sagacity, comes into the country, who appears to see through the
opake and solid mass, as we see through the translucent air, and
tells us of things yet undiscovered, and enriches us with
treasures, of which we had been hitherto entirely ignorant. The
nature of the human mind, and the capabilities of our species are
in like manner a magazine of undiscovered things, till some
mighty genius comes to break the surface, and shew us the
wonderful treasures that lay beneath uncalled for and idle.

Human character is like the contents of an ample cabinet, brought
together by the untired zeal of some curious collector, who
tickets his rarities with numbers, and has a catalogue in many
volumes, in which are recorded the description and qualities of
the things presented to our view. Among the most splendid
examples of character which the genius of man has brought to
light, are Don Quixote and his trusty squire, sir Roger de
Coverley, Parson Adams, Walter Shandy and his brother Toby. Who
shall set bounds to the everlasting variety of nature, as she has
recorded her creations in the heart of man? Most of these
instances are recent, and sufficiently shew that the enterprising
adventurer, who would aspire to emulate the illustrious men from
whose writings these examples are drawn, has no cause to despair.

Vulgar observers pass carelessly by a thousand figures in the
crowded masquerade of human society, which, when inscribed on the
tablet by the pencil of a master, would prove not less wondrous
in the power of affording pleasure, nor less rich as themes for
inexhaustible reflection, than the most admirable of these. The
things are there, and all that is wanting is an eye to perceive,
and a pen to record them.

As to a great degree we may subscribe to the saying of the wise
man, that "there is nothing new under the sun," so in a certain
sense it may also be affirmed that nothing is old. Both of these
maxims may be equally true. The prima materia, the atoms of
which the universe is composed, is of a date beyond all record;
and the figures which have yet been introduced into the most
fantastic chronology, may perhaps be incompetent to represent the
period of its birth. But the ways in which they may be
compounded are exhaustless. It is like what the writers on the
Doctrine of Chances tell us of the throwing of dice. How many
men now exist on the face of the earth? Yet, if all these were
brought together, and if, in addition to this, we could call up
all the men that ever lived, it may be doubted, whether any two
would be found so much alike, that a clear-sighted and acute
observer might not surely distinguish the one from the other.
Leibnitz informs us, that no two leaves of a tree exist in the
most spacious garden, that, upon examination, could be pronounced
perfectly similar[19].

[19] See above, Essay 2.

The true question is not, whether any thing can be found that is
new, but whether the particulars in which any thing is new may
not be so minute and trifling, as scarcely to enter for any
thing, into that grand and comprehensive view of the whole, in
which matters of obvious insignificance are of no account.

But, if art and the invention of the human mind are exhaustless,
science is even more notoriously so. We stand but on the
threshold of the knowledge of nature, and of the various ways in
which physical power may be brought to operate for the
accommodation of man. This is a business that seems to be
perpetually in progress; and, like the fall of bodies by the
power of gravitation, appears to gain in momentum, in proportion
as it advances to a greater distance from the point at which the
impulse was given. The discoveries which at no remote period
have been made, would, if prophesied of, have been laughed to
scorn by the ignorant sluggishness of former generations; and we
are equally ready to regard with incredulity the discoveries yet
unmade, which will be familiar to our posterity. Indeed every
man of a capacious and liberal mind is willing to admit, that the
progress of human understanding in science, which is now going
on, is altogether without any limits that by the most penetrating
genius can be assigned. It is like a mighty river, that flows on
for ever and for ever, as far as the words, "for ever," can have
a meaning to the comprehension of mortals. The question that
remains is, our practicable improvement in literature and morals,
and here those persons who entertain a mean opinion of human
nature, are constantly ready to tell us that it will be found to
amount to nothing. However we may be continually improving in
mechanical knowledge and ingenuity, we are assured by this party,
that we shall never surpass what has already been done in poetry
and literature, and, which is still worse, that, however
marvellous may be our future acquisitions in science and the
application of science, we shall be, as much as ever, the
creatures of that vanity, ostentation, opulence and the spirit of
exclusive accumulation, which has hitherto, in most countries
(not in all countries), generated the glaring inequality of
property, and the oppression of the many for the sake of
pampering the folly of the few.

There is another circumstance that may be mentioned, which,
particularly as regards the question of repetition and novelty
that is now under consideration, may seem to operate in an
eminent degree in favour of science, while it casts a most
discouraging veil over poetry and the pure growth of human fancy
and invention. Poetry is, after all, nothing more than new
combinations of old materials. Nihil est in intellectu, quod non
fuit prius in sensu. The poet has perhaps in all languages been
called a maker, a creator: but this seems to be a vain-glorious
and an empty boast. He is a collector of materials only, which
he afterwards uses as best he may be able. He answers to the
description I have heard given of a tailor, a man who cuts to
pieces whatever is delivered to him from the loom, that he may
afterwards sew it together again. The poet therefore, we may be
told, adds nothing to the stock of ideas and conceptions already
laid up in the storehouse of mind. But the man who is employed
upon the secrets of nature, is eternally in progress; day after
day he delivers in to the magazine of materials for thinking and
acting, what was not there before; he increases the stock, upon
which human ingenuity and the arts of life are destined to
operate. He does not, as the poet may be affirmed by his
censurers to do, travel for ever in a circle, but continues to
hasten towards a goal, while at every interval we may mark how
much further he has proceeded from the point at which his race
began.

Much may be said in answer to this, and in vindication and honour
of the poet and the artist. All that is here alleged to their
disadvantage, is in reality little better than a sophism. The
consideration of the articles he makes use of, does not in sound
estimate detract from the glories of which he is the artificer.
Materiem superat opus. He changes the nature of what he handles;
all that he touches is turned into gold. The manufacture he
delivers to us is so new, that the thing it previously was, is no
longer recognisable. The impression that he makes upon the
imagination and the heart, the impulses that he communicates to
the understanding and the moral feeling, are all his own; and,
"if there is any thing lovely and of good report, if there is any
virtue and any praise," he may well claim our applauses and our
thankfulness for what he has effected.

There is a still further advantage that belongs to the poet and
the votarist of polite literature, which ought to be mentioned,
as strongly calculated to repress the arrogance of the men of
science, and the supercilious contempt they are apt to express
for those who are engrossed by the pursuits of imagination and
taste. They are for ever talking of the reality and
progressiveness of their pursuits, and telling us that every step
they take is a point gained, and gained for the latest posterity,
while the poet merely suits himself to the taste of the men among
whom he lives, writes up to the fashion of the day, and, as our
manners turn, is sure to be swept away to the gulph of oblivion.
But how does the matter really stand? It is to a great degree
the very reverse of this.

The natural and experimental philosopher has nothing sacred and
indestructible in the language and form in which he delivers
truths. New discoveries and experiments come, and his individual
terms and phrases and theories perish. One race of natural
philosophers does but prepare the way for another race, which is
to succeed. They "blow the trumpet, and give out the play." And
they must be contented to perish before the brighter knowledge,
of which their efforts were but the harbingers. The Ptolemaic
system gave way to Tycho Brahe, and his to that of Copernicus.
The vortices of Descartes perished before the discoveries of
Newton; and the philosophy of Newton already begins to grow old,
and is found to have weak and decaying parts mixed with those
which are immortal and divine. In the science of mind Aristotle
and Plato are set aside; the depth of Malebranche, and the
patient investigation of Locke have had their day; more
penetrating, and concise, and lynx-eyed reasoners of our own
country have succeeded; the German metaphysicians seem to have
thrust these aside; and it perhaps needs no great degree of
sagacity to foresee, that Kant and Fichte will at last fare no
better than those that went before them.

But the poet is immortal. The verses of Homer are of workmanship
no less divine, than the armour of his own Achilles. His poems
are as fresh and consummate to us now, as they were to the
Greeks, when the old man of Chios wandered in person through the
different cities, rehearsing his rhapsodies to the accompaniment
of his lute. The language and the thoughts of the poet are
inextricably woven together; and the first is no more exposed to
decay and to perish than the last. Presumptuous innovators have
attempted to modernise Chaucer, and Spenser, and other authors,
whose style was supposed to have grown obsolete. But true taste
cannot endure the impious mockery. The very words that occurred
to these men, when the God descended, and a fire from heaven
tingled in all their veins, are sacred, are part of themselves;
and you may as well attempt to preserve the man when you have
deprived him of all his members, as think to preserve the poet
when you have taken away the words that he spoke. No part of his
glorious effusions must perish; and "the hairs of his head are
all numbered."

ESSAY XI.
OF SELF-LOVE AND BENEVOLENCE.

NO question has more memorably exercised the ingenuity of men who
have speculated upon the structure of the human mind, than that
of the motives by which we are actuated in our intercourse with
our fellow-creatures. The dictates of a plain and
unsophisticated understanding on the subject are manifest; and
they have been asserted in the broadest way by the authors of
religion, the reformers of mankind, and all persons who have been
penetrated with zeal and enthusiasm for the true interests of the
race to which they belong.

"The end of the commandment," say the authors of the New
Testament, "is love." "This is the great commandment of the law,
Thou shalt love thy maker with all thy heart; and the second is
like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." "Though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and give my body to be
burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing." "For none
of us liveth to himself; and no man dieth to himself."

The sentiments of the ancient Greeks and Romans, for so many
centuries as their institutions retained their original purity,
were cast in a mould of a similar nature. A Spartan was seldom
alone; they were always in society with each other. The love of
their country and of the public good was their predominant
passion, they did not imagine that they belonged to themselves,
but to the state. After the battle of Leuctra, in which the
Spartans were defeated by the Thebans, the mothers of those who
were slain congratulated one another, and went to the temples to
thank the Gods, that their children had done their duty; while
the relations of those who survived the defeat were inconsolable.

The Romans were not less distinguished by their self-denying
patriotism. It was in this spirit that Brutus put his two sons
to death for conspiring against their country. It was in this
spirit that the Fabii perished at their fort on the Cremera, and
the Decii devoted themselves for the public. The rigour of
self-denial in a true Roman approached to a temper which moderns
are inclined to denominate savage.

In the times of the ancient republics the impulse of the citizens
was to merge their own individuality in the interests of the
state. They held it their duty to live but for their country.
In this spirit they were educated; and the lessons of their early
youth regulated the conduct of their riper years.

In a more recent period we have learned to model our characters
by a different standard. We seldom recollect the society of
which we are politically members, as a whole, but are broken into
detached parties, thinking only for the most part of ourselves
and our immediate connections and attachments.

This change in the sentiments and manners of modern times has
among its other consequences given birth to a new species of
philosophy. We have been taught to affirm, that we can have no
express and pure regard for our fellow-creatures, but that all
our benevolence and affection come to us through the strainers of
a gross or a refined self-love. The coarser adherents of this
doctrine maintain, that mankind are in all cases guided by views
of the narrowest self-interest, and that those who advance the
highest claims to philanthropy, patriotism, generosity and
self-sacrifice, are all the time deceiving others, or deceiving
themselves, and use a plausible and high-sounding language
merely, that serves no other purpose than to veil from
observation "that hideous sight, a naked human heart."

The more delicate and fastidious supporters of the doctrine of
universal self-love, take a different ground. They affirm that
"such persons as talk to us of disinterestedness and pure
benevolence, have not considered with sufficient accuracy the
nature of mind, feeling and will. To understand," they say, "is
one thing, and to choose another. The clearest proposition that
ever was stated, has, in itself, no tendency to produce voluntary
action on the part of the percipient. It can be only something
apprehended as agreeable or disagreeable to us, that can operate
so as to determine the will. Such is the law of universal
nature. We act from the impulse of our own desires and
aversions; and we seek to effect or avert a thing, merely because
it is viewed by us as an object of gratification or the contrary.

The virtuous man and the vicious are alike governed by the same
principle; and it is therefore the proper business of a wise
instructor of youth, and of a man who would bring his own
sentiments and feelings into the most praise-worthy frame, to
teach us to find our interest and gratification in that which
shall be most beneficial to others."

When we proceed to examine the truth of these statements, it
certainly is not strictly an argument to say, that the advocate
of self-love on either of these hypotheses cannot consistently be
a believer in Christianity, or even a theist, as theism is
ordinarily understood. The commandments of the author of the
Christian religion are, as we have seen, purely disinterested:
and, especially if we admit the latter of the two explanations of
self-love, we shall be obliged to confess, on the hypothesis of
this new philosophy, that the almighty author of the universe
never acts in any of his designs either of creation or
providence, but from a principle of self-love. In the mean time,
if this is not strictly an argument, it is however but fair to
warn the adherents of the doctrine I oppose, of the consequences
to which their theory leads. It is my purpose to subvert that
doctrine by means of the severest demonstration; but I am not
unwilling, before I begin, to conciliate, as far as may be, the
good-will of my readers to the propositions I proceed to
establish.

I will therefore further venture to add, that, upon the
hypothesis of self-love, there can be no such thing as virtue.
There are two circumstances required, to entitle an action to be
denominated virtuous. It must have a tendency to produce good
rather than evil to the race of man, and it must have been
generated by an intention to produce such good. The most
beneficent action that ever was performed, if it did not spring
from the intention of good to others, is not of the nature of
virtue. Virtue, where it exists in any eminence, is a species of
conduct, modelled upon a true estimate of the good intended to be
produced. He that makes a false estimate, and prefers a trivial
and partial good to an important and comprehensive one, is
vicious[20].

[20] Political Justice, Book 11, Chap. IV.

It is admitted on all hands, that it is possible for a man to
sacrifice his own existence to that of twenty others. But the
advocates of the doctrine of self-love must say, that he does
this that he may escape from uneasiness, and because he could not
bear to encounter the inward upbraiding with which he would be
visited, if he acted otherwise. This in reality would change his
action from an act of virtue to an act of vice. So far as
belongs to the real merits of the case, his own advantage or
pleasure is a very insignificant consideration, and the benefit
to be produced, suppose to a world, is inestimable. Yet he
falsely and unjustly prefers the first, and views the latter as
trivial; nay, separately taken, as not entitled to the smallest
regard. If the dictates of impartial justice be taken into the
account, then, according to the system of self-love, the best
action that ever was performed, may, for any thing we know, have
been the action, in the whole world, of the most exquisite and
deliberate injustice. Nay, it could not have been otherwise,
since it produced the greatest good, and therefore was the
individual instance, in which the greatest good was most directly
postponed to personal gratification[21]. Such is the spirit of
the doctrine I undertake to refute.

[21] Political Justice, Book IV, Chap. X.

But man is not in truth so poor and pusillanimous a creature as
this system would represent.

It is time however to proceed to the real merits of the question,
to examine what in fact is the motive which induces a good man to
elect a generous mode of proceeding.

Locke is the philosopher, who, in writing on Human Understanding,
has specially delivered the doctrine, that uneasiness is the
cause which determines the will, and urges us to act. He
says[22], "The motive we have for continuing in the same state,
is only the present satisfaction we feel in it; the motive to
change is always some uneasiness: nothing setting us upon the
change of state, or upon any new action, but some uneasiness.
This is the great motive that works on the mind."

[22] Book II, Chap. XXI, Sect. 29.

It is not my concern to enquire, whether Locke by this statement
meant to assert that self-love is the only principle of human
action. It has at any rate been taken to express the doctrine
which I here propose to refute.

And, in the first place, I say, that, if our business is to
discover the consideration entertained by the mind which induces
us to act, this tells us nothing. It is like the case of the
Indian philosopher[23], who, being asked what it was that kept
the earth in its place, answered, that it was supported by an
elephant, and that elephant again rested on a tortoise. He must
be endowed with a slender portion of curiosity, who, being told
that uneasiness is that which spurs on the mind to act, shall
rest satisfied with this explanation, and does not proceed to
enquire, what makes us uneasy?

[23] Locke on Understanding, Book 11, Chap. XIII, Sect. 19.

An explanation like this is no more instructive, than it would
be, if, when we saw a man walking, or grasping a sword or a
bludgeon, and we enquired into the cause of this phenomenon, any
one should inform us that he walks, because he has feet, and he
grasps, because he has hands.

I could not commodiously give to my thoughts their present form,
unless I had been previously furnished with pens and paper. But
it would be absurd to say, that my being furnished with pens and
paper, is the cause of my writing this Essay on Self-love and
Benevolence.

The advocates of self-love have, very inartificially and
unjustly, substituted the abstract definition of a voluntary
agent, and made that stand for the motive by which he is prompted
to act. It is true, that we cannot act without the impulse of
desire or uneasiness; but we do not think of that desire and
uneasiness; and it is the thing upon which the mind is fixed that
constitutes our motive. In the boundless variety of the acts,
passions and pursuits of human beings, it is absurd on the face
of it to say that we are all governed by one motive, and that,
however dissimilar are the ends we pursue, all this dissimilarity
is the fruit of a single cause.

One man chooses travelling, another ambition, a third study, a
fourth voluptuousness and a mistress. Why do these men take so
different courses?

Because one is partial to new scenes, new buildings, new manners,
and the study of character. Because a second is attracted by the
contemplation of wealth and power. Because a third feels a
decided preference for the works of Homer, or Shakespear, or
Bacon, or Euclid. Because a fourth finds nothing calculated to
stir his mind in comparison with female beauty, female
allurements, or expensive living.

Each of these finds the qualities he likes, intrinsically in the
thing he chooses. One man feels himself strongly moved, and
raised to extacy, by the beauties of nature, or the magnificence
of architecture. Another is ravished with the divine
excellencies of Homer, or of some other of the heroes of
literature. A third finds nothing delights him so much as the
happiness of others, the beholding that happiness increased, and
seeing pain and oppression and sorrow put to flight. The cause
of these differences is, that each man has an individual internal
structure, directing his partialities, one man to one thing, and
another to another.

Few things can exceed the characters of human beings in variety.
There must be something abstractedly in the nature of mind, which
renders it accessible to these varieties. For the present we
will call it taste. One man feels his spirits regaled with the
sight of those things which constitute wealth, another in
meditating the triumphs of Alexander or Caesar, and a third in
viewing the galleries of the Louvre. Not one of these thinks in
the outset of appropriating these objects to himself; not one of
them begins with aspiring to be the possessor of vast opulence,
or emulating the triumphs of Caesar, or obtaining in property the
pictures and statues the sight of which affords him so exquisite
delight. Even the admirer of female beauty, does not at first
think of converting this attractive object into a mistress, but
on the contrary desires, like Pygmalion, that the figure he
beholds might become his solace and companion, because he had
previously admired it for itself.

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