Thoughts on Man
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Just so the benevolent man is an individual who finds a peculiar
delight in contemplating the contentment, the peace and heart's
ease of other men, and sympathises in no ordinary degree with
their sufferings. He rejoices in the existence and diffusion of
human happiness, though he should not have had the smallest share
in giving birth to the thing he loves. It is because such are
his tastes, and what above all things he prefers, that he
afterwards becomes distinguished by the benevolence of his
conduct.
The reflex act of the mind, which these new philosophers put
forward as the solution of all human pursuits, rarely presents
itself but to the speculative enquirer in his closet. The savage
never dreams of it. The active man, engaged in the busy scenes
of life, thinks little, and on rare occasions of himself, but
much, and in a manner for ever, of the objects of his pursuit.
Some men are uniform in their character, and from the cradle to
the grave prefer the same objects that first awakened their
partialities. Other men are inconsistent and given to change,
are "every thing by starts, and nothing long." Still it is
probable that, in most cases, he who performs an act of
benevolence, feels for the time that he has a peculiar delight in
contemplating the good of his fellow-man.
The doctrine of the modern philosophers on this point, is in many
ways imbecil and unsound. It is inauspicious to their creed,
that the reflex act of the mind is purely the affair of
experience. Why did the liberal-minded man perform his first act
of benevolence? The answer of these persons ought to be, because
the recollection of a generous deed is a source of the truest
delight. But there is an absurdity on the face of this solution.
We do not experimentally know the delight which attends the
recollection of a generous deed, till a generous deed has been
performed by us. We do not learn these things from books. And
least of all is this solution to the purpose, when the business
is to find a solution that suits the human mind universally, the
unlearned as well as the learned, the savage as well as the sage.
And surely it is inconsistent with all sound reasoning, to
represent that as the sole spring of our benevolent actions,
which by the very terms will not fit the first benevolent act in
which any man engaged.
The advocates of the doctrine of "self-love the source of all our
actions," are still more puzzled, when the case set before them
is that of the man, who flies, at an instant's warning, to save
the life of the child who has fallen into the river, or the
unfortunate whom he beholds in the upper story of a house in
flames. This man, as might be illustrated in a thousand
instances, treats his own existence as unworthy of notice, and
exposes it to multiplied risks to effect the object to which he
devotes himself.
They are obliged to say, that this man anticipates the joy he
will feel in the recollection of a noble act, and the cutting and
intolerable pain he will experience in the consciousness that a
human being has perished, whom it was in his power to save. It
is in vain that we tell them that, without a moment's
consideration, he tore off his clothes, or plunged into the
stream with his clothes on, or rushed up a flaming stair-case.
Still they tell us, that he recollected what compunctious
visitings would be his lot if he remained supine--he felt the
sharpest uneasiness at sight of the accident before him, and it
was to get rid of that uneasiness, and not for the smallest
regard to the unhappy being he has been the means to save, that
he entered on the hazardous undertaking.
Uneasiness, the knowledge of what inwardly passes in the mind, is
a thing not in the slightest degree adverted to but in an
interval of leisure. No; the man here spoken of thinks of
nothing but the object immediately before his eyes; he adverts
not at all to himself; he acts only with an undeveloped, confused
and hurried consciousness that he may be of some use, and may
avert the instantly impending calamity. He has scarcely even so
much reflection as amounts to this.
The history of man, whether national or individual, and
consequently the acts of human creatures which it describes, are
cast in another mould than that which the philosophy of self-love
sets before us. A topic that from the earliest accounts
perpetually presents itself in the records of mankind, is
self-sacrifice, parents sacrificing themselves for their
children, and children for their parents. Cimon, the Athenian,
yet in the flower of his youth, voluntarily became the inmate of
a prison, that the body of his father might receive the honours
of sepulture. Various and unquestionable are the examples of
persons who have exposed themselves to destruction, and even
petitioned to die, that so they might save the lives of those,
whose lives they held dearer than their own. Life is indeed a
thing, that is notoriously set at nothing by generous souls, who
have fervently devoted themselves to an overwhelming purpose.
There have been instances of persons, exposed to all the horrors
of famine, where one has determined to perish by that slowest and
most humiliating of all the modes of animal destruction, that
another, dearer to him than life itself, might, if possible, be
preserved.
What is the true explanation of these determinations of the human
will? Is it, that the person, thus consigning himself to death,
loved nothing but himself, regarded only the pleasure he might
reap, or the uneasiness he was eager to avoid? Or, is it, that
he had arrived at the exalted point of self-oblivion, and that
his whole soul was penetrated and ingrossed with the love of
those for whom he conceived so exalted a partiality?
This sentiment so truly forms a part of our nature, that a
multitude of absurd practices, and a multitude of heart-rending
fables, have been founded upon the consciousness of man in
different ages and nations, that these modes of thinking form a
constituent part of our common existence. In India there was
found a woman, whose love to the deceased partner of her soul was
so overwhelming, that she resolved voluntarily to perish on his
funeral pile. And this example became so fascinating and
admirable, that, by insensible degrees, it grew into a national
custom with the Hindoos, that, by a sort of voluntary constraint,
the widows of all men of a certain caste, should consign
themselves to the flames with the dead bodies of their husbands.
The story of Zopyrus cutting off his nose and ears, and of
Curtius leaping into the gulph, may be fictitious: but it was
the consciousness of those by whom these narratives were written
that they drew their materials from the mighty store-house of the
heart of man, that prompted them to record them. The
institutions of clientship and clans, so extensively diffused in
different ages of the world, rests upon this characteristic of
our nature, that multitudes of men may be trained and educated
so, as to hold their existence at no price, when the life of the
individual they were taught unlimitedly to reverence might be
preserved, or might be defended at the risk of their destruction.
The principal circumstance that divides our feelings for others
from our feelings for ourselves, and that gives, to satirical
observers, and superficial thinkers, an air of exclusive
selfishness to the human mind, lies in this, that we can fly from
others, but cannot fly from ourselves. While I am sitting by the
bed-side of the sufferer, while I am listening to the tale of his
woes, there is comparatively but a slight line of demarcation,
whether they are his sorrows or my own. My sympathy is
vehemently excited towards him, and I feel his twinges and
anguish in a most painful degree. But I can quit his apartment
and the house in which he dwells, can go out in the fields, and
feel the fresh air of heaven fanning my hair, and playing upon my
cheeks. This is at first but a very imperfect relief. His image
follows me; I cannot forget what I have heard and seen; I even
reproach myself for the mitigation I involuntarily experience.
But man is the creature of his senses. I am every moment further
removed, both in time and place, from the object that distressed
me. There he still lies upon the bed of agony: but the sound of
his complaint, and the sight of all that expresses his suffering,
are no longer before me. A short experience of human life
convinces us that we have this remedy always at hand ["I am
unhappy, only while I please"[24]; and we soon come therefore to
anticipate the cure, and so, even while we are in the presence of
the sufferer, to feel that he and ourselves are not perfectly
one.
[24] Douglas.
But with our own distempers and adversities it is altogether
different. It is this that barbs the arrow. We may change the
place of our local existence; but we cannot go away from
ourselves. With chariots, and embarking ourselves on board of
ships, we may seek to escape from the enemy. But grief and
apprehension enter the vessel along with us; and, when we mount
on horseback, the discontent that specially annoyed us, gets up
behind, and clings to our sides with a hold never to be
loosened[25].
[25] Horace.
Is it then indeed a proof of selfishness, that we are in a
greater or less degree relieved from the anguish we endured for
our friend, when other objects occupy us, and we are no longer
the witnesses of his sufferings? If this were true, the same
argument would irresistibly prove, that we are the most generous
of imaginable beings, the most disregardful of whatever relates
to ourselves. Is it not the first ejaculation of the miserable,
"Oh, that I could fly from myself? Oh, for a thick, substantial
sleep!" What the desperate man hates is his own identity. But he
knows that, if for a few moments he loses himself in
forgetfulness, he will presently awake to all that distracted
him. He knows that he must act his part to the end, and drink
the bitter cup to the dregs. He can do none of these things by
proxy. It is the consciousness of the indubitable future, from
which we can never be divorced, that gives to our present
calamity its most fearful empire. Were it not for this great
line of distinction, there are many that would feel not less for
their friend than for themselves. But they are aware, that his
ruin will not make them beggars, his mortal disease will not
bring them to the tomb, and that, when he is dead, they may yet
be reserved for many years of health, of consciousness and
vigour.
The language of the hypothesis of self-love was well adapted to
the courtiers of the reign of Louis the Fourteenth. The language
of disinterestedness was adapted to the ancient republicans in
the purest times of Sparta and Rome.
But these ancients were not always disinterested; and the moderns
are not always narrow, self-centred and cold. The ancients paid,
though with comparative infrequency, the tax imposed upon
mortals, and thought of their own gratification and ease; and the
moderns are not utterly disqualified for acts of heroic
affection.
It is of great consequence that men should come to think
correctly on this subject. The most snail-blooded man that
exists, is not so selfish as he pretends to be. In spite of all
the indifference he professes towards the good of others, he will
sometimes be detected in a very heretical state of sensibility
towards his wife, his child or his friend; he will shed tears at
a tale of distress, and make considerable sacrifices of his own
gratification for the relief of others.
But his creed is a pernicious one. He who for ever thinks, that
his "charity must begin at home," is in great danger of becoming
an indifferent citizen, and of withering those feelings of
philanthropy, which in all sound estimation constitute the
crowning glory of man. He will perhaps have a reasonable
affection towards what he calls his own flesh and blood, and may
assist even a stranger in a case of urgent distress.--But it is
dangerous to trifle with the first principles and sentiments of
morality. And this man will scarcely in any case have his mind
prepared to hail the first dawnings of human improvement, and to
regard all that belongs to the welfare of his kind as parcel of
his own particular estate.
The creed of self-love will always have a tendency to make us
Frenchmen in the frivolous part of that character, and Dutchmen
in the plodding and shopkeeping spirit of barter and sale. There
is no need that we should beat down the impulse of heroism in the
human character, and be upon our guard against the effervescences
and excess of a generous sentiment. One of the instructors of my
youth was accustomed to say to his pupils, "Do not be afraid to
commit your thoughts to paper in all the fervour and glow of your
first conception: when you come to look at them the next day,
you will find this gone off to a surprising degree." As this was
no ill precept for literary composition, even so in our actions
and moral conduct we shall be in small danger of being too
warm-hearted and too generous.
Modern improvements in education are earnest in recommending to
us the study of facts, and that we should not waste the time of
young persons upon the flights of imagination. But it is to
imagination that we are indebted for our highest enjoyments; it
tames the ruggedness of uncivilised nature, and is the
never-failing associate of all the considerable advances of
social man, whether in throwing down the strong fences of
intellectual slavery, or in giving firmness and duration to the
edifice of political freedom.
And who does not feel that every thing depends upon the creed we
embrace, and the discipline we exercise over our own souls?
The disciple of the theory of self-love, if of a liberal
disposition, will perpetually whip himself forward "with loose
reins," upon a spiritless Pegasus, and say, "I will do generous
things; I will not bring into contempt the master I serve--though
I am conscious all the while that this is but a delusion, and
that, however I brag of generosity, I do not set a step forward,
but singly for my own ends, and my own gratification."
Meanwhile, this is all a forced condition of thought; and the man
who cherishes it, will be perpetually falling back into the cold,
heartless convictions he inwardly retains. Self-love is the
unwholesome, infectious atmosphere in which he dwells; and,
however he may seek to rise, the wings of his soul will eternally
be drawn downwards, and he cannot be pervaded, as he might have
been, with the free spirit of genuine philanthropy. To be
consistent, he ought continually to grow colder and colder; and
the romance, which fired his youth, and made him forget the
venomous potion he had swallowed, will fade away in age,
rendering him careless of all but himself, and indifferent to the
adversity and sufferings of all of whom he hears, and all with
whom he is connected.
On the other hand, the man who has embraced the creed of
disinterested benevolence, will know that it is not his fitting
element to "live for himself, or to die for himself." Whether he
is under the dominion of family-affection, friendship,
patriotism, or a zeal for his brethren of mankind, he will feel
that he is at home. The generous man therefore looks forward to
the time when the chilling and wretched philosophy of the reign
of Louis the Fourteenth shall be forgotten, and a fervent desire
for the happiness and improvement of the human species shall
reign in all hearts.
I am not especially desirous of sheltering my opinions under the
authority of great names: but, in a question of such vital
importance to the true welfare of men in society, no fair
advantage should be neglected. The author of the system of
"self-love the source of all our actions" was La Rochefoucault;
and the whole herd of the French philosophers have not been
ashamed to follow in the train of their vaunted master. I am
grieved to say, that, as I think, the majority of my refining and
subtilising countrymen of the present day have enlisted under his
banner. But the more noble and generous view of the subject has
been powerfully supported by Shaftesbury, Butler, Hutcheson and
Hume. On the last of these I particularly pique myself; inasmuch
as, though he became naturalised as a Frenchman in a vast variety
of topics, the greatness of his intellectual powers exempted him
from degradation in this.
That however which I would chiefly urge in the way of authority,
is the thing mentioned in the beginning of this Essay, I mean,
the sentiments that have animated the authors of religion, that
characterise the best ages of Greece and Rome, and that in all
cases display themselves when the loftiest and most generous
sentiments of the heart are called into action. The opposite
creed could only have been engendered in the dregs of a corrupt
and emasculated court; and human nature will never shew itself
what it is capable of being, till the last remains of a doctrine,
invented in the latter part of the seventeenth century, shall
have been consigned to the execration they deserve.
ESSAY XII.
OF THE LIBERTY OF HUMAN ACTIONS.
The question, which has been attended with so long and obstinate
debates, concerning the metaphysical doctrines of liberty and
necessity, and the freedom of human actions, is not even yet
finally and satisfactorily settled.
The negative is made out by an argument which seems to amount to
demonstration, that every event requires a cause, a cause why it
is as it is and not otherwise, that the human will is guided by
motives, and is consequently always ruled by the strongest
motive, and that we can never choose any thing, either without a
motive of preference, or in the way of following the weaker, and
deserting the stronger motive[26].
[26] Political Justice, Book IV, Chap. VII.
Why is it then that disbelief or doubt should still subsist in a
question so fully decided?
For the same reason that compels us to reject many other
demonstrations. The human mind is so constituted as to oblige
us, if not theoretically, at least practically, to reject
demonstration, and adhere to our senses.
The case is thus in the great question of the non-existence of an
external world, or of matter. How ever much the understanding
may be satisfied of the truth of the proposition by the arguments
of Berkeley and others, we no sooner go out into actual life,
than we become convinced, in spite of our previous scepticism or
unbelief, of the real existence of the table, the chair, and the
objects around us, and of the permanence and reality of the
persons, both body and mind, with whom we have intercourse. If
we were not, we should soon become indifferent to their pleasure
and pain, and in no long time reason ourselves into the opinion
that the one was not more desirable than the other, and conduct
ourselves accordingly.
But there is a great difference between the question of a
material world, and the question of liberty and necessity. The
most strenuous Berkleian can never say, that there is any
contradiction or impossibility in the existence of matter. All
that he can consistently and soberly maintain is, that, if the
material world exists, we can never perceive it, and that our
sensations, and trains of impressions and thinking go on wholly
independent of that existence.
But the question of the freedom of human actions is totally of
another class. To say that in our choice we reject the stronger
motive, and that we choose a thing merely because we choose it,
is sheer nonsense and absurdity; and whoever with a sound
understanding will fix his mind upon the state of the question
will perceive its impossibility.
In the mean time it is not less true, that every man, the
necessarian as well as his opponent, acts on the assumption of
human liberty, and can never for a moment, when he enters into
the scenes of real life, divest himself of this persuasion.
Let us take separately into our consideration the laws of matter
and of mind. We acknowledge generally in both an established
order of antecedents and consequents, or of causes and effects.
This is the sole foundation of human prudence and of all
morality. It is because we foresee that certain effects will
follow from a certain mode of conduct, that we act in one way
rather than another. It is because we foresee that, if the soil
is prepared in a certain way, and if seed is properly scattered
and covered up in the soil thus prepared, a crop will follow,
that we engage in the labours of agriculture. In the same
manner, it is because we foresee that, if lessons are properly
given, and a young person has them clearly explained to him,
certain benefits will result, and because we are apprised of the
operation of persuasion, admonition, remonstrance, menace,
punishment and reward, that we engage in the labours of
education. All the studies of the natural philosopher and the
chemist, all our journeys by land and our voyages by sea, and all
the systems and science of government, are built upon this
principle, that from a certain method of proceeding, regulated by
the precepts of wisdom and experience, certain effects may be
expected to follow.
Yet, at the same time that we admit of a regular series of cause
and effect in the operations both of matter and mind, we never
fail, in our reflections upon each, to ascribe to them an
essential difference. In the laws by which a falling body
descends to the earth, and by which the planets are retained in
their orbits, in a word, in all that relates to inanimate nature,
we readily assent to the existence of absolute laws, so that,
when we have once ascertained the fundamental principles of
astronomy and physics, we rely with perfect assurance upon the
invariable operation of these laws, yesterday, to-day, and for
ever. As long as the system of things, of which we are
spectators, and in which we act our several parts, shall remain,
so long have the general phenomena of nature gone on unchanged
for more years of past ages than we can define, and will in all
probability continue to operate for as many ages to come. We
admit of no variation, but firmly believe that, if we were
perfectly acquainted with all the causes, we could, without
danger of error, predict all the effects. We are satisfied that,
since first the machine of the universe was set going, every
thing in inanimate nature has taken place in a regular course,
and nothing has happened and can happen, otherwise than as it
actually has been and will be.
But we believe, or, more accurately speaking, we feel, that it is
otherwise in the universe of mind. Whoever attentively observes
the phenomena of thinking and sentient beings, will be convinced,
that men and animals are under the influence of motives, that we
are subject to the predominance of the passions, of love and
hatred, of desire and aversion, of sorrow and joy, and that the
elections we make are regulated by impressions supplied to us by
these passions. But we are fully penetrated with the notion,
that mind is an arbiter, that it sits on its throne, and decides,
as an absolute prince, this may or that; in short, that, while
inanimate nature proceeds passively in an eternal chain of cause
and effect, mind is endowed with an initiating power, and forms
its determinations by an inherent and indefeasible prerogative.
Hence arises the idea of contingency relative to the acts of
living and sentient beings, and the opinion that, while, in the
universe of matter, every thing proceeds in regular course, and
nothing has happened or can happen, otherwise than as it actually
has been or will be, in the determinations and acts of living
beings each occurrence may be or not be, and waits the mastery of
mind to decide whether the event shall be one way or the other,
both issues being equally possible till that decision has been
made.
Thus, as was said in the beginning, we have demonstration, all
the powers of our reasoning faculty, on one side, and the
feeling, of our minds, an inward persuasion of which with all our
efforts we can never divest ourselves, on the other. This
phenomenon in the history of every human creature, had aptly
enough been denominated, the "delusive sense of liberty[27]."
[27] The first writer, by whom this proposition was distinctly
enunciated, seems to have been Lord Kaimes, in his Essays on the
Principles of Morality and Natural Religion, published in 1751.
But this ingenious author was afterwards frightened with the
boldness of his own conclusions, and in the subsequent editions
of his work endeavoured ineffectually to explain away what he had
said.
And, though the philosopher in his closet will for the most part
fully assent to the doctrine of the necessity of human actions,
yet this indestructible feeling of liberty, which accompanies us
from the cradle to the grave, is entitled to our serious
attention, and has never obtained that consideration from the
speculative part of mankind, which must by no means be withheld,
if we would properly enter into the mysteries of our nature. The
necessarian has paid it very imperfect attention to the impulses
which form the character of man, if he omits this chapter in the
history of mind, while on the other hand the advocate of free
will, if he would follow up his doctrine rigorously into all its
consequences, would render all speculations on human character
and conduct superfluous, put an end to the system of persuasion,
admonition, remonstrance, menace, punishment and reward,
annihilate the very essence of civil government, and bring to a
close all distinction between the sane person and the maniac.
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