OF THE U N I VERS ITY Of ILLINOIS Received by bequest from Albert H. Lybyer Professor of History University of Illinois 1916-1949 55 3QS UNIVERSITY Of- a _ ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN STACKS CENTRAL CIRCULATION BOOKSTACKS The person charging this material is re¬ sponsible for its renewal or its return to the library from which it was borrowed on or before the Latest Date stamped below. You may be charged a minimum fee of $75.00 for each lost book. Theft, n wtlktl wv end underlining of books are reasons for disciplinary action and may result In dismissal from the University. TO RENEW CALL TELEPHONE CENTER, 333-8400 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS LIBRARY AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN JUl 0 8 1997 MAY 1 2 1998 'Baflantgnc -T5r egs BALLANTYNE, HANSON AND CO. EDINBURGH AND LONDON THE ANALOGY OF Religion Natural and Revealed TO THE CONSTITUTION AND THE COURSE OF NATURE JOSEPH BUTLER, LL.D. WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND AN APPENDIX By HENRY MORLEY LL.D., PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE AT' UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON FOURTH EDITION LONDON GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS, Limited BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL GLASGOW, MANCHESTER, AND NEW YORK. MORLEY’S UNIVERSAL LIBRARY. 1. Sheridan's Plays. 2. Plays from Mo Hire. By English Dramatists. 3. Marlowe's Faustus and Goethe's Faust. 4. Chronicle of the Cid. 5. Rabelais' Gargantuaa.nc, J4. Southey's Life of Nelson. ! 35. De Quincey's Confessions of an Opium-Eater, <5 rc. 36 . Stories of Ireland. By Miss Edgeworth. 37. Frere's Aristophanes: Acharnians, Knights, Birds. 38. Burke's Speeches and Letters. 39. Thomas h Kempis. 40. Popular Songs of Ireland. 41. Potter's VEschylus. j 42. Goethe's Faust: Part II. Anster’s Translation. 43. Famous Pamphlets. 44. Francklin's Sophocles. 45. M. G. Lewis's Tales 0/ Terror and Wonder. 46. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. 47. Drayton's Barons' Wars , Nvmphidia, &oc. 48. Cobbetfs Advice to Youno Men. 49. The Banquet of Dante. 50. Walker's Original. 51. Schiller's Poems and Ballads. 52 . Peele's Plays and Poems. 53. Harrington's Oceana. 54. Euripides: Alcestis and other Plays. 55 - Praed's Essays. 56. T 7 'adilional Tales. Allan Cunningham. 57 - Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity’. Books I.-I V. 58. Euripides: The Bacchanals and other Plays. 59. Izaak Walton's Lives. 60. Aristotle's Politics. 61. Euripides: Hecuba and other Plays. 62. Rabelais—Sequel to Panta- gruel. 63. A Miscellany. “ Marvels of clear type and general neatness ."—Daily Telegraph. 039 6^7ct 1^0 INTRODUCTION. Joseph Butler, youngest of eight children of a linendraper at Wantage, in Berkshire, was born on the 18th of May, 1692. His father had then re¬ tired from business, and although a Presbyterian, lived at “The Priory.” From the Wantage Grammar School, Joseph Butler was sent by his father to Gloucester to be trained as a Nonconformist minister under Samuel Jones, who removed afterwards to Tewkesbury and had then lately reckoned among his pupils Nathaniel Lardner. Lardner, about eight years older than Butler, was after¬ wards one of the chief writers on the Evidences of Christianity from the Unitarian point of view, in his works on the “Credibility of the Gospel History," and “Jewish and Heathen Testimonies in favour of Christianity.” Thomas Seeker, who lived to become, in 1758, Archbishop of Canterbury, was but a year younger than Butler. Butler and Seeker laid the foundations of their lifelong friendship w r hen they were studying together for the Non- o- conformist Ministry under Samuel J ones. In Robert Boyle the true scientific temper was united with a living faith in God. He died a year before the birth of Joseph Butler, and left, by his will, provision for the establishment of lectures that were to set forth year by year to all future time, the Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion. The first Boyle Lectures were given in the year of Butler’s birth. In 1704-5 the Boyle lecturer was Dr. Samuel Clarke. He preached and published sixteen sermons on “ The Being and Attributes of God” and “The Evidences of Natural and Revealed Religion.” Dr. Clarke was the most accessible of reasoners. He answered frankly every letter from a correspondent who sought further help in battle with the difficulties that beset his faith. Young Butler, then twenty-two years old, without giving his name, entered into a correspondence, which pro¬ duced five letters from Dr. Clarke in answer to the doubts he urged as to the ' demonstration of the unity and omnipresence of a self-existent God. Butler was at last satisfied with the answer he received, and the correspondence, which established a new friendship, was annexed by Dr. Clarke to subsequent editions of his Lectures. While his friend Seeker was fetching for him the letters of Dr. Clarke, that were tb be left till called for at a Post Office, Butler’s mind was swaying with Seeker’s towards conformity with the Established Church. He found time also to write a lover’s acrostic on the name of a fair cousin ; but his flirtation did not advance far, and Joseph Butler never married. He was thin, pale, studious, and chiefly anxious to find firm ground for his religious faith. Scepticism surrounded him in many forms. There was a fashionable scepticism that had its chief source in the libertinism of the Court of Charles the Second ; the air of a Gallio caring about none of these things ; a fashion kindly satirized by Richard Steele in his 77th “Tatler,” when he referred to the young gentleman “so ambitious to be thought worse than he is, that in his degree of understanding he sets up for a freethinker, and talks atheistically in coffee-houses all day, though every morning and evening it can be proved upon him, he regularly at home says his prayers.” There was a 6 INTRODUCTION. philosophical scepticism, following' Ren6 Descartes in avoidance of all blind submission to authority, and finding the way to truth by a fresh start from Doubting Castle. But stronger than all was a scepticism based upon the wrongs of life and manifest corruption in high places. All paths of life were being choked up with dead forms. Authority in Church and State was weakened by the factious greed of men who enforced with a mean tyranny on others the forms of opinion that had no living root in their own lives. Joseph Butler was but four years old when Pierre Bayle published his “ Dictionnaire Historique,” a work that spread more widely than any other of its time the question whether there could be a just God ruling such a world as this. Bayle, a born student, recoiled from the. spirit of persecution common to both Protestants and Catholics. He had found no God in the aragonnades of Louis XIV., which brought his Majesty, as Madame de Maintenon said, by every post tidings which filled him with joy, “the conversions take place every day by thousands.” When the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685, was driving into exile seme of the best men in France, Bayle wrote “A Philosophical Commentary upon these words of the Gospel, ‘Compel them to come in.’ ” Unhallowed forms of man’s authority, maintaining the mere name of religion by gross outrage on its nature, drove many a true man into bitter antagonism. Pierre Bayle, when he began his Dictionary, the first book to which he signed his name, had been driven by persecution out of a Professorship at Rotterdam. His Dictionary, first published in 1696, associated with its lively and learned sketches of the lives of men a pervading suggestion of doubt as to the evidences of a divine rule over Man and Nature. Bayle died in 1706. When Leibnitz, in 1710, wrote his “ Theodic^e’’ (Justice of God) to meet the form of doubt diffused especially by Bayle, he began with the suggestion that Bayle is now in Heaven ; and from his point of view nearer the Throne of God, can see the order that seemed disorder to his bounded view on earth. The scepticism to be met and reasoned with in those days was not the old questioning as to the consistency of this or that theological dogma with the conception of a God who is wise, just, and merciful; it went to the root of all faith by declaring that the evils in the life of Man, and the conditions of sur¬ rounding Nature shut out faith in such a Deity. Fairly to meet this form of doubt, already rising in his time, was the desire of Robert Boyle when he bequeathed money to found lectures for the defence of Natural and Revealed Religion. It was the aim of all who then sought by their writings to defend the besieged stronghold of Religion, the aim of Samuel Clarke as of Nathaniel Lardner; of Pope, whom theologians decry ; as of Butler, whom theologians exalt. Pope’s “ Essay on Man,” published in 1732, 3, 4, with the Universal Hymn added in 1738, was as clearly intended to meet this kind of doubt as the “ Th^odicee ” of Leibnitz in 1710; or Butler’s book on “The Analogy of Religion Natural and Revealed to the Constitution and Course of Nature,” which was first published in 1736. Butler, indeed, assuming God in Nature, addressed rather the Deists than the Atheists. But different as they are in form and course of argument and in persuasive force, Pope’s “ Essay on Man,” and Butler’s “Analogy” are contemporary books that dealt virtually with the same question, and sought, as Pope expressed it by a variation of Milton’s line for the worse—“ to vindicate the ways of God to man.” Milton wrote “justify,” which was a wiser word. For some time after his correspondence with Dr. Samuel Clarke, Joseph Butler’s mind swayed more and more towards the Church Establishment. His father at last saw that he could not be trained for a Nonconformist ministry, and sent him to Oxford, as a commoner of Oriel, a few months before Queen Anne died. At Oxford, Butler established afriendship with Edward Talbot, whosefather. Dr. William Talbot, was afterwards Bishop of Durham. At that time the Reverend William Whiston, who, in 1703, succeeded Sir Isaac Newton as INTRODUCTION . 1 Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge—and who is known also as a translator of Josephus—had been subjected to persecution. For abandoning the doctrine of the Trinity, he was expelled, in 1710, from his office and his University. He endeavoured then to teach astronomy in London, but was prosecuted as a heretic till 1715. Then, being refused admission to the sacrament at his parish church, he began to hold services at his own house in Cross Street, Hatton Garden, and formed a Society for the Restoration of Primitive Christianity. Butler’s friend, Talbot, joined this Society, introduced to it by a young friend, Mr. Rundle, who afterwards became Bishop of Derry. But, says Whiston in his Memoirs, “ Mr. Rundle once invited me to eat a cheesecake, as he termed it, with Mr. Talbot and himself, to which invitation I agreed, without suspicion of any particular design. But when I came, I found such a collection of wine and sweetmeats prepared, as little corresponded to the terms of the invitation. After some time the secret was disclosed ; and I was informed that they were both determined to sign the Thirty-nine Articles, and take holy orders and prefer¬ ment. This greatly surprised me, and occasioned this short but sharp answer from me : ' I understand you well; you are going to leave the paths of up¬ rightness, to walk in the ways of darkness, and I will have nothing more to do with you.’ ” Talbot was appointed to the living of Hendred, near Wantage, and Butler, also ordained, now and then preached from his friend’s pulpit. In 1718, on the recommendation of his friend Talbot, and his old correspondent Dr. Samuel Clarke, who had become Rector of St. James’s, the Rev. Joseph Butler, aged 26, was made preacher at the Rolls Chapel. Butler still maintained friendliest correspondence with his old fellow pupil at Gloucester, Thomas Seeker. Seeker had abandoned thought of entering the Nonconformist ministry, but had not yet been able to subscribe to the Articles of the Church of England. He now came back from studying medicine abroad, and was brought by Butler into fellowship with himself and Edward Talbot. Talbot died soon afterwards, effectually recommending both Butler and Seeker to his father’s patronage ; for in 1721, as soon as Dr. Talbot became Bishop of Durham, he presented Butler to the living of Haughton-le-Skerne, near Darlington, and Seeker to the living of Houghton-le-Spring, seven miles from Durham. Butler retained his office of preacher at the Rolls until Dr. Talbot had removed him to the richer rectory of Stanhope, in the diocese of Durham. The removal is said to have been procured for Butler at the recommendation of Seeker, who saw that his friend’s taste for building improvements was about to draw him into serious expense for the repair of his dilapidated parsonage at Haughton. The transfer was made in 1725, and in the following year Butler resigned his office at the Rolls, after publishing fifteen ethical Sermons that he had preached in the Rolls Chapel. In these sermons at the Rolls, Butler dealt with conscience as the mind sitting in judgment on its own acts, and distinguished clearly between vicious, selfishness and a dispassionate self-love that reason guides in its care for a man’s whole well-being by the right fulfilment of his duties. Having left London, Butler quietly laboured for the next seven years in his parish at Stanhope. A rector of the same parish, eighty years afterwards, endeavoured to collect local traditions of his famous predecessor. All he could learn was that “ Rector Butler rode a black pony, and always rode very fast; that he was loved and respected by all his parishioners ; that he lived very retired, was very kind, and could not resist the importunities of common beggars who, knowing his infirmity, pursued him so earnestly as sometimes to drive him back into his own house as his only escape.” And such as this was Butler’s life while he was planning and writing his “Analogy.” His Sermons had given him reputation when Queen Caroline, some time after their publication, asked Arch¬ bishop Blackburne whether the author of the Rolls Sermons was not dead. The Archbishop replied that he was only buried. Butler’s friend, Seeker, was now c c INTRODUCTION. resolved to dig him up. Thomas Seeker had himself been rising in the Church. He had become prebendary of Durham, chaplain to the king, and rector of St. ]ames’s, Westminster. In 1733 Charles Talbot, elder brother of Edward Talbot and eldest son of Dr. William Talbot, Bishop of Durham, became a Privy Councillor and Lord Chancellor, as Baron Talbot. Seeker then caused the new Lord Chancellor to take Butler as his chaplain. In 1735 Seeker became Bishop of Bristol, and he obtained, in 1736, for his friend, through Chancellor Talbot, a prebend at Rochester. Queen Caroline appointed Butler in the same year her Clerk of the Closet, and commanded his attendance every evening from seven to nine. In that year, 1736, at the age of forty-four, Joseph Butler published his ‘ ‘ Analogy. ” The book was written with the single purpose of assisting others in what had been the business of his own life, the search after truth. Its reasonings are those with which he had in his own mind overcome doubt. There is no thought about style ; no care to give graceful form to sentences intellectually armed with suggestive, defensive, restrictive and otherwise subordinated clauses, so that it has been said that every one of Butler’s sentences is like a well-considered move in chess. Some notes upon the scope of the book will be found in an Appendix to this volume. Queen Caroline died in the year after the publication of the “ Analogy,” and on her death-bed she pressed Butler’s claims upon the King. In the following year, 1738, the bishopric of Norwich became vacant. Dr. Gooch, who held the bishopric of Bristol, said to have been then worth only ^400 a year, was translated to Norwich, and the poor bishopric given to Joseph Butler, who wrote to Sir Robert Walpole, when accepting it, that “indeed the bishopric of Bristol is not very suitable either to the condition of my fortune, or the circum¬ stances of my preferment; nor, as I should have thought, answerable to the recommendation with which I was honoured. But you will excuse me, Sir, if I think of this last with greater sensibility than the conduct of affairs will admit of.” The Crown made amends in 1740, when the deanery of St. Paul’s became vacant. The deanery was given to Butler, who then resigned the living of Stanhope, which he had been obliged to hold in commendam. He could now spend part of his income, as Dean of St. Paul's, on the improvement of his palace at Bristol. In 1747 Butler declined the Primacy. In 1750 he accepted the Bishopric of Durham. While retaining his taste for expensive building improvements, and liberal in generous expense, Butler, as Bishop of Durham, could ask a man of fortune to dinner, and sit down with him quietly to a joint of meat and a pudding, saying only that it was ‘ ‘ his way of living ; he had long been disgusted with the fashionable expense of time and money in entertainments, and was determined that it should have no countenance from him.” When attending Parliament he lived in a house at Hampstead, which he made beautiful with painted glass and other adornments. At Bristol it was lamented that Butler put up a white marble cross over the altar of his chapel there ; at Durham he showed interest in the Lives of Saints ; and Hampstead people suspected that he got his painted windows from the Pope. The tradition of Joseph Butler during his last years in Durham, as given in Hutchinson's “ History of Durham,” is that “he was of a most reverend aspect; his face thin and pale ; but there was a divine placidness in his countenance which inspired veneration, and expressed the most benevolent mind. His white hair hung gracefully on his shoulders, and his whole figure was patriarchal.” But he was hardly of patriarchal age, only a month older than sixty, when he died, on the 16th of June 1752. Four days afterwards he was buried in Bristol Cathedral. He had died at Bath, while seeking health there. April , 1884. H. M. The A NALOGY OF RELIGION TO THE Constitution and Course of Nature, PART I. OF NATURAL RELIGION. CHAPTER I. Of a Future Life. Strange difficulties have been raised by some concerning personal identity, or the sameness of living agents, implied in the notion of our existing now and hereafter, or in any two successive moments; which, whoever thinks it worth while, may see considered in the first dissertation at the end of this treatise. But without regard to any of them here, let us consider what the analogy of nature, and the several changes which we have undergone, and those which we know we may undergo without being destroyed, suggest, as to the effect which death may or may not have upon us, and whether it be not from thence probable that we may survive this change, and exist in a future state of life and perception. I, From our being bom into the present world in the IO THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION helpless imperfect state of infancy, and having arrived from thence to mature age, we find it to be a general law of nature in our own species that the same creatures, the same individuals, should exist in degrees of life and perception, with capacities of action, of enjoyment and suffering, in one period of their being greatly different from those appointed them in another period of it. And in other creatures the same law holds. For the difference of their capacities and states of life at their birth (to go no higher) and in maturity; the change of worms into flies, and the vast enlargement of their locomotive powers by such change; and birds and insects bursting the shell, their habitation, and by this means entering into a new world, furnished with new accommodations for them, and finding a new sphere of action assigned them—these are instances of this general law of nature. Thus all the various and wonderful transforma¬ tions of animals are to be taken into consideration here. But the states of life in which we ourselves existed, formerly in the womb and in our infancy, are almost as different from our present in mature age as it is possible to conceive any two states or degrees of life can be. Therefore, that we are to exist hereafter, in a state as different (suppose) from our present as this is from our former, is but according to the analogy of nature—according to a natural order or appointment of the very same kind with what we have already experienced. II. We know we are endued with capacities of action, of happiness and misery, for we are conscious of acting, of enjoying pleasure and suffering pain. Now, that we have these powers and capacities before death, is a presumption that we shall retain them through and after death; indeed a probability of if abundantly sufficient to act upon, unless there be some positive reason to think that death is the destruction of those living powers; because there is in TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. ii every case a probability that all things will continue as we experience they are, in all respects except those in which we have some reason to think they will be altered. This is that kind 1 of presumption or probability from analogy, expressed in the very word “ continuance,” which seems our only natural reason for believing the course of the world will continue to-morrow as it has done so far as our experi¬ ence or knowledge of history can carry us back. Nay, it seems our only reason for believing that any one substance now existing will continue to exist a moment longer, the self-existent substance only excepted. Thus, if men were assured that the unknown event death was not the destruc¬ tion of our faculties of perception and of action, there would be no apprehension that any other power or event, uncon¬ nected with this of death, would destroy these faculties just at the instant of each creature’s death, and therefore no doubt but that they would remain after it; which shows the high probability that our living powers will continue after death, unless there be some ground to think that death is their destruction 2 . For, if it would be in a manner certain that we should survive death, provided it were certain 1 I say kind of presumption or probability, for I do not mean to affirm that there is the same degree of conviction that our living powers will continue after death as there is that our substances will. 2 “ Destruction of living powers’’ is a manner of expression unavoid¬ ably ambiguous, and may signify either the destruction of a living being, so as that the same living being shall be incapable of ever per¬ ceiving or acting again at all ; or the destruction of those means and instruments by which it is capable of its present life, of its present state of perception and of action. It is here used in the former sense. When it is used in the latter, the epithet “present” is added. The loss of a man’s eye is a destruction of living powers in the latter sense ; but we have no reason to think the destruction of living powers in the former sense to be possible. We have no more reason to think a being endued with living powers ever loses them during its whole existence, than to believe that a stone ever acquires them. 12 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION that death would not be our destruction, it must be highly probable we shall survive it if there be no ground to think death will be our destruction. Now, though I think it must be acknowledged that, prior to the natural and moral proofs of a future life commonly insisted upon, there would arise a general confused suspicion, that in the great shock and alteration which we shall undergo by death, we—/.s vvv Trepipbveis, v 6 t€ HfjLppvov e/e tt?s TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 2 5 sphere of perception and of action, may be much greater than at present. For as our relation to our external organs of sense renders us capable of existing in our present state of sensation, so it may be the only natural hindrance to our existing, immediately and of course, in a higher state of reflection. The truth is, reason does not at all show us in what state death naturally leaves us. But were we sure that it would suspend all our perceptive and active powers, yet the suspension of a power and the destruction of it are effects so totally different in kind, as we experience from sleep and a swoon, that we cannot in any wise argue from one to the other, or conclude even to the lowest degree of probability that the same kind of force which is sufficient to suspend our faculties, though it be increased ever so much, will be sufficient to destroy them. These observations together may be sufficient to show how little presumption there is that death is the destruction of human creatures. However, there is the shadow of an analogy which may lead us to imagine it is; the supposed likeness which is observed between the decay of vegetables and of living creatures. And this likeness is indeed suffi¬ cient to afford the poets very apt allusions to the flowers of the field in their pictures of the frailty of our present life. But in reason, the analogy is so far from holding, that there appears no ground even for the comparison as to the present question; because one of the two subjects com¬ pared is wholly void of that which is the principal and chief thing in the other, the power of perception and of action; and which is the only thing we are inquiring about the continuance of. So that the destruction of a vegetable is an event not similar or analogous to the destruction of a living agent. yaarpbs tt)% ywaucos crov oCtoj e/c5^%ea3 , cu ttjv wpav iv y r£ \pvx<*-piov crov too iXtirpov tovtov iiarecre?TCU (lib. ix. c. 3.) 26 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION But if, as was above intimated, leaving off the delusive custom of substituting imagination in the room of experience, we would confine ourselves to what we do know and under¬ stand, if we would argue only from that, and from that form our expectations, it would appear at first sight that as no probability of living beings ever ceasing to be so can be concluded from the reason of the thing, so none can be collected from the analogy of Nature ; because we cannot trace any living beings beyond death. But as we are con¬ scious that we are endued with capacities of perception and of action, and are living persons; what we are to go upon is that we shall continue so till we foresee some accident or event which will endanger those capacities, or be likely to destroy us; which death does in no wise appear to be. And thus, when we go out of this world, we may pass into new scenes, and a new state of life and action, just as naturally as we came into the present. And this new state may naturally be a social one. And the advantages of it, advantages of every kind, may naturally be bestowed, according to some fixed general laws of wisdom, upon every one in proportion to the degrees of his virtue. And though the advantages of that future natural state should not be bestowed, as these of the present in some measure are, by the will of the society, but entirely by his more immediate action, upon whom the whole frame of Nature depends, yet this distribution may be just as natural as their being distributed here by the instrumentality of men. And, indeed, though one were to allow any confused unde¬ termined sense, which people please to put upon the word natural, it would be a shortness of thought scarce credible to imagine that no system or course of things can be so, but only what we see at present : x especially whilst the pro- 1 See Part IL ch. ii. p. 154, &c. ; and Part II, ch. iii. p. 179. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 27 ^ability of a future life, or the natural immortality of the soul, is admitted upon the evidence of reason ; because this is really both admitting and denying at once a state of being different from the present to be natural. But the only distinct meaning of that word is, stated , fixed , or settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so— i.e., to effect it continually, or at stated times—as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once. And from hence it must follow that persons’ notions of what is natural will be enlarged in proportion to their greater knowledge of the works of God, and the dispensations of His providence. Nor is there any absurdity in supposing that there may be beings in 'the universe whose capacities and knowledge and views may be so extensive as that the whole Christian dispensation may to them appear natural — i.e., analogous or conformable to God’s dealings with other parts of His creation, as natural as the visible known course of things appears to us. For there seems scarce any other possible sense to be put upon the word, but that only in which it is here used— similar, stated, or uniform. This credibility of a future life which has been here insisted upon, how little soever it may satisfy our curiosity, seems to answer all the purposes of religion in like manner as a demonstrative proof would. Indeed, a proof, even a demonstrative one, of a future life, would not be a proof of religion. For that we are to live hereafter is just as recon¬ cilable with the scheme of Atheism, and as well to be accounted for by it, as that we are now alive, is; and there¬ fore nothing can be more absurd than to argue from that scheme that there can be no future state. But as religion implies a future state, any presumption against such a state is a presumption against religion. And the foregoing observations remove all presumptions of that sort, and 28 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION prove, to a very considerable degree of probability, one fundamental doctrine of religion, which, if believed, would greatly open and dispose the mind seriously to attend to the general evidence of the whole. CHAPTER II. Of the Government of God by Rewards and Punishments, and particularly of the latter. That which makes the question concerning a future life to be of so great importance to us is our capacity of happiness and misery. And that which makes the consideration of it to be of so great importance to us is the supposition of our happiness and misery hereafter depending upon our actions here. Without this, indeed, curiosity could not but some¬ times bring a subject, in which we may be so highly interested, to our thoughts ; especially upon the mortality of others, or the near prospect of our own. But reasonable men would not take any further thought about hereafter than what should happen thus occasionally to rise in their minds, if it were certain that our future interest no way- depended upon our present behaviour. Whereas, on the contrary, if there be ground, either from analogy or any¬ thing else to think it does, then there is reason also for the most active thought and solicitude to secure that interest; to behave so as that we may escape that misery and obtain that happiness in another life which we not only suppose ourselves capable of, but which we apprehend also is put in our own power. And whether there be ground for this TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 29 last apprehension certainly would deserve to be most seriously considered, were there no other proof of a future life and interest than that presumptive one which the foregoing observations amount to. Now, in the present state, all which we enjoy, and a great part of what we suffer, is put in our ow?i power. For plea¬ sure and pain are the consequences of our actions ; and we are endued by the Author of our Nature with capacities of foreseeing these consequences. We find by experience He does not so much as preserve our lives, exclusively of our own care and attention, to provide ourselves with and to make use of that sustenance by which He has appointed our lives shall be preserved, and without which He has appointed they shall not be preserved at all. And in general we foresee that the external things, which are the objects of our various passions, can neither be obtained nor enjoyed without exerting ourselves in such and such manners; but by thus exerting ourselves we obtain and enjoy these objects in which our natural good consists, or by this means God gives us the possession and enjoyment of them. I know not that we have any one kind or degree of enjoyment, but by the means of our own actions. And by prudence and care we may, for the most part, pass our days in tolerable ease and quiet; or, on the contrary, we may, by rashness, ungoverned passion, wilfulness, or even by negligence, make ourselves as miserable as ever we please. And many do please to make themselves extremely miserable— i.e., to do what they know beforehand will render them so. They follow those ways, the fruit of which they know, by instruc¬ tion, example, experience, will be disgrace and poverty and sickness and untimely death. This every one observes to be the general course of things ; though it is to be allowed we cannot find by experience that all our sufferings are owing to our own follies. 3 ° THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION Why the Author of Nature does not give His creatures promiscuously such and such perceptions, without regard to their behaviour, why He does not make them happy without the instrumentality of their own actions, and prevent their bringing any sufferings upon themselves, is another matter. Perhaps there may be some impossibilities in the nature of things which we are unacquainted with . 1 Or less happiness, it may be, would upon the whole be produced by such a method of conduct than is by the present. Or perhaps divine goodness, with which, if I mistake not, we make very free in our speculations, may not be a bare single disposition to produce happiness, but a disposition to make the good, the faithful, the honest man happy. Perhaps an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased with seeing his creatures behave suitably to the nature which he has given them, to the relations which he has placed them in to each other, and to that which they stand in to himself, that relation to himself which, during their existence is even necessary, and which is the most im¬ portant one of all. Perhaps, I say, an infinitely perfect mind may be pleased with this moral piety of moral agents, in and for itself, as well as upon account of its being essentially conducive to the happiness of his creation. Or the whole end for which God made and thus governs the world may be utterly beyond the reach of our faculties. There may be somewhat in it as impossible for us to have any conception of as for a blind man to have a conception of colours. But however this be, it is certain matter of universal experience that the general method of divine administration is fore¬ warning us, or giving us capacities to foresee, with more or less clearness, that if we act so and so we shall have such enjoyments, if so and so such sufferings, and giving us 1 Ch. vii. p. 119, &c TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 3 * those enjoyments and making us feel those sufferings in consequence of our actions. “ But all this is to be ascribed to the general course of nature.” True. This is the very thing which I am observ¬ ing. It is to be ascribed to the general course of nature—• i.e., not surely to the words or ideas, “ course of nature, but to him who appointed it, and put things into it; or to a course of operation, from its uniformity or constancy, called natural , 1 and which necessarily implies an operating agent. For when men find themselves necessitated to confess an Author of Nature, or that God is the natural governor of the world, they must not deny this again, because His government is uniform; they must not deny that He does all things at all, because He does them con¬ stantly ; because the effects of His acting are permanent, whether His acting be so or not, though there is no reason to think it is not. In short, every man, in every thing he does, naturally acts upon the forethought and apprehension of avoiding evil or obtaining good, and if the natural course of things be the appointment of God, and our natural faculties of knowledge and experience are given us by Him, then the good and bad consequences which follow our actions are His appointment, and our foresight of those consequences is a warning given us by Him how we are to act. “Is the pleasure, then, naturally accompanying every particular gratification of passion intended to put us upon gratifying ourselves in every such particular instance, and as a reward to us for so doing?” No, certainly. Nor is it to be said that our eyes were naturally intended to give us the sight of each particular object to which they do or can extend; objects which are destructive of them, or which, 1 Pp. 26, 27. 32 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION for any other reason, it may become us to turn our eyes from. Yet there is no doubt but that our eyes were intended for us to see with. So neither is there any doubt but that the foreseen pleasures and pains belonging to the passions were intended, in general, to induce mankind to act in such and such manners. Now from this general observation, obvious to every one, that God has given us to understand, He has appointed satisfaction and delight to be the consequence of our acting in one manner, and pain and uneasiness of our acting in another, and of our not acting at all, and that we find the consequences, which we were beforehand informed of, uniformly to follow, we may learn that we are at present actually under His government in the strictest and most proper sense in such a sense as that he rewards and punishes us for our actions. An Author of Nature being supposed, it is not so much a deduction of reason as a matter of experience that we are thus under His govern¬ ment ; under His government in the same sense as we are under the government of civil magistrates. Because the annexing pleasure to some actions, and pain to others, in our power to do or forbear, and giving notice of this appointment beforehand to those whom it concerns, is the proper formal notion of government. Whether the pleasure or pain which thus follows upon our behaviour be owing to the Author of Nature’s acting upon us every moment which we feel it, or to his having at once contrived and executed his own part in the plan of the world, makes no alteration as to the matter before us. P'or, if civil magistrates could make the sanctions of their laws take place without inter¬ posing at all, after they had passed them, without a trial and the formalities of an excution; if they were able to make their laws execute themselve-s, or every offender to execute them upon himself, we should be just in the same TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 33 sense under their government then as we are now, but in a much higher degree and more perfect manner. Vain is the ridicule with which one foresees some persons will divert themselves upon finding lesser pains considered as instances of divine punishment. There is no possibility of answering or evading the general thing here intended with¬ out denying all final causes. For final causes being admitted, the pleasures and pains now mentioned must be admitted too as instances of them. And if they are, if God annexes delight to some actions, and uneasiness to others, with an apparent design to induce us to act so and so, then He not only dispenses happiness and misery, but also rewards and punishes actions. If, for example, the pain which we feel upon doing what tends to the destruction of our bodies—suppose upon too near approaches to fire, or upon wounding ourselves—be appointed by the Author of Nature to prevent our doing what thus tends to our destruc¬ tion, this is altogether as much an instance of His punish¬ ing our actions, and consequently of our being under His government, as declaring by a voice from heaven, that if we acted so He would inflict such pain upon us, and inflicting it, whether it be greater or less. Thus we find that the true notion or conception of the Author of Nature is that of a master or governor, prior to the consideration of his moral attributes. The fact of our case, which we find by experience, is, that He actually exercises dominion or government over us at present, by rewarding and punishing us for our actions, in as strict and proper a sense of these words, and even in the same sense, as children, servants, subjects, are rewarded and punished by those who govern them. And thus the whole analogy of Nature, the whole present course of things, most fully shows that there is nothing incredible in the general doctrine of religion; that God will B 34 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION reward and punish men for their actions hereafter—nothing incredible, I mean, arising out of the notion of rewarding and punishing. For the whole course of Nature is a present instance of His exercising that government over us which implies in it rewarding and punishing. But as divine punishment is what men chiefly object against, and are most unwilling to allow, it may be proper to mention some circumstances in the natural course of punishments at present which are analogous to what religion teaches us concerning a future state of punishment; indeed so analogous that as they add a further credibility to it, so they cannot but raise a most serious apprehension of it in those who will attend to them. It has been now observed that such and such miseries naturally follow such and such actions of imprudence and wilfulness, as well as actions more commonly and more distinctly considered as vicious; and that these consequences when they may be foreseen are properly natural punish¬ ments annexed to such actions. For the general thing here insisted upon is, not that we see a great deal of misery in the world, but a great deal which men bring upon them¬ selves by their own behaviour, which they might have fore¬ seen and avoided. Now the circumstances of these natural punishments particularly deserving our attention are such as these; that oftentimes they follow, or are inflicted in consequence of, actions which procure many present ad¬ vantages, and are accompanied with much present pleasure: for instance, sickness and untimely death is the consequence of intemperance, though accompanied with the highest mirth and jollity : that these punishments are often much greater than the advantages or pleasures obtained by the actions of which they are the punishments or consequences : that though we may imagine a constitution of nature in TO THE COURSE OF NATURE . 35 which these natural punishments which are in fact to follow would follow immediately upon such actions being done, or very soon after, we find, on the contrary, in our world, that they are often delayed a great while, sometimes even till long after the actions occasioning them are forgot; so that the constitution of nature is such, that delay of punishment is no sort or degree of presumption of final impunity: that after such delay, these natural punishments or miseries often come, not by degrees, but suddenly, with violence, and at once; however, the chief misery often does : that as certainty of such distant misery following such actions is never afforded persons, so perhaps during the actions they have seldom a distinct full expectation of its following d and many times the case in only thus, that they see in general, or may see, the credibility that intem¬ perance, suppose, will bring after it diseases, civil crimes, civil punishments, when yet the real probability often is that they shall escape ; but things notwithstanding take their destined course, and the misery inevitably follows at its appointed time in very many of these cases. Thus also though youth may be alleged as an excuse for rashness and folly, as being naturally thoughtless, and not clearly foreseeing all the consequences of being untractable and profligate, this does not hinder; but that these consequences follow, and are grievously felt throughout the whole course of mature life. Habits contracted even in that age are often utter ruin; and men's success in the world, not only in the common sense of worldly success, but their real happiness and misery, depends, in a great degree and in various ways, upon the manner in which they pass their youth ; which consequences they for the most part neglect to consider, and perhaps seldom can properly be said to believe, beforehand. It requires also to be mentioned 1 See Part II. chap vi. 36 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION that in numberless cases the natural course of things affords us opportunities for procuring advantages to ourselves at certain times which we cannot procure when we will, nor ever recall the opportunities if we have neglected them. Indeed, the general course of nature is an example of this. If, during the opportunity of youth, persons are indocile and self-willed, they inevitably suffer in their future life for want of those acquirements which they neglected the natural season of attaining. If the husbandman lets his seed-time pass without sowing, the whole year is lost to him beyond recovery. In like manner, though after men have been guilty of folly and extravagance up to a certain degree, it is often in their power, for instance, to retrieve their affairs, to recover their health and character, at least in good measure; yet real reformation is, in many cases, of no avail at ail towards preventing the miseries, poverty, sick¬ ness, infamy, naturally annexed to folly and extravagance exceeding that degree. There is a certain bound of impru¬ dence and misbehaviour, which being transgressed, there remains no place for repentance in the natural course of things. It is further very much to be remarked, that neglects from inconsiderateness, want of attention , 1 not looking about us to see what we have to do, are often attended with consequences altogether as dreadful as any active misbehaviour from the most extravagant passion. And, lastly, civil government being natural, the punishments of it are so too; and some of these punishments are capital, as the effects of a dissolute course of pleasure are often mortal. So that many natural punishments are final 2 to him 1 Part II. chap. vi. 2 The general consideration of a future state of punishment most evidently belongs to the subject of natural religion. But if any of these reflections should be thought to relate more peculiarly to this doctrine as taught in Scripture, the reader is desired to observe that Gentile TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 37 who incurs them, if considered only in his temporal capacity, and seem inflicted by natural appointment, either to remove the offender out of the way of being further mischievous, or as an example, though frequently a disregarded one, to those who are left behind. These things are not what we call accidental, or to be met with only now and then, but they are things of every-day ex¬ perience. They proceed from general laws, very general ones, by which God governs the world in the natural course of His providence. And they are so analogous to what religion teaches us concerning the future punishment of the wicked, so much of a piece with it, that both would naturally be expressed in the very same words and manner of description. In the Book of Proverbs , 1 for instance, wisdom is introduced as frequenting the most public places of resort, and as rejected when she offers herself as the natural appointed guide of human life. “ How long/’ speaking to those who are passing through it, “ how long, ye simple ones, will ye love writers, both moralists and poets, speak of the future punishment of the wicked, both as to the duration and degree of it, in a like manner of expression and of description as the Scripture does. So that all which can positively be asserted to be matter of mere revelation with regard to this doctrine seems to be, that the great distinction between the righteous and the wicked shall be made at the end of this world ; that each shall then receive according to his deserts. Reason did, as it well might, conclude that it should, finally and upon the whole, be well with the righteous, and ill with the wicked. But it could not be deter¬ mined, upon any principles of reason, whether human creatures might not have been appointed to pass through other states of life and being before that distributive justice should finally and effectually take place. Revelation teaches us that the next state of things after the present is appointed for the execution of this justice ; that it shall be no longer delayed ; but “ the mystery of God,” the great mystery of His suffering vice and confusion to prevail, “shall then be finished;” and He will “take to Him His great power and will reign,” by rendering to every one according to his works. 1 Chap. i. THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION 3 & folly, and the scomers delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge ? Turn ye at my reproof. Behold, I will pour out my spirit upon you, I will make known my words unto you.” But upon being neglected, “ Because I have called, and ye refused, I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded. But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity, I will mock when your fear cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me.” This passage, every one sees, is poetical, and some parts of it are highly figurative ; but their meaning is obvious. And the thing intended is expressed more literally in the follow¬ ing words : “For that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord, therefore shall they eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices. For the security of the simple shall stay them, and the pros¬ perity of fools shall destroy them.” And the whole passage is so equally applicable to what we experience in the present world concerning the consequences of man’s actions, and to what religion teaches us is to be expected in another, that it may be questioned which of the two was principally intended. Indeed, when one has been recollecting the proper proofs of a future state of rewards and punishments, nothing, me- thinks, can give one so sensible an apprehension of the latter, or representation of it to the mind, as observing that after the many disregarded checks, admonitions and warnings, which people meet with in the ways of vice and folly and extravagance, warnings from their very nature, from the examples of others, from the lesser inconveniences which they bring upon themselves, from the instructions of wise and virtuous men; after these have been long despised, scorned, TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 39 ridiculed; after the chief bad consequences, temporal con¬ sequences, of their follies have been delayed for a great while, at length they break in irresistibly, like an armed force; repentance is too late to relieve, and can serve only to aggravate their distress. The case is become desperate, and poverty and sickness, remorse and anguish, infamy and death, the effects of their own doings, overwhelm them beyond possibility of remedy or escape. This is an account of what is in fact the general constitution of nature. It is not in any sort meant that according to what appears at present of the natural course of things men are always uniformly punished in proportion to their misbehaviour; but that there are very many instances of misbehaviour punished in the several ways now mentioned, and very dreadful instances too, sufficient to show what the laws of the universe may admit, and if thoroughly considered, suffi¬ cient fully to answer all objections against the credibility of a future state of punishments from any imaginations that the frailty of our nature and external temptations almost annihilate the guilt of human vices, as well as objections of another sort from necessity, from suppositions that the will of an infinite Being cannot be contradicted, or that He must be incapable of offence and provocation , 1 Reflections of this kind are not without their terrors to serious persons, the most free from enthusiasm and of the greatest strength of mind. But it is fit things be stated and considered as they really are. And there is in the present age a certain fearlessness with regard to what may be here¬ after under the government of God, which nothing but an universally acknowledged demonstration on the side of Atheism can justify, and which makes it quite necessary that men be reminded, and if possible made to feel, that there is no sort of ground for being thus presumptuous, even upon 1 See chaps, iv. and vi. 40 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION the most sceptical principles. For, may it not be said of any person upon his being born into the world, he may behave so as to be of no service to it, but by being made an example of the woful effects of vice and folly ? That he may, as any one may if he will, incur an infamous execution from the hands of civil justice, or in some other course of extravagance shorten his days, or bring upon himself infamy and diseases worse than death ? So that it had been better for him, even with regard to the present world, that he had never been born. And is there any pretence of reason for people to think themselves secure, and talk as if they had certain proof, that let them act as licentiously as they will, there can be nothing analogous to this with regard to a future and more general interest, under the providence and government of the same God. CHAPTER III. Of the Moral Government of God. As the manifold appearances of design and of final causes in the constitution of the world prove it to be the work of an intelligent mind, so the particular final causes of pleasure and pain distributed amongst His creatures prove that they are under His government, what may be called His natural government of creatures endued with sense and reason. This, however, implies somewhat more than seems usually attended to, when we speak of God's natural government of the world. It implies government of the very same kind with that which a master exercises over his servants, or a TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 4* civil magistrate over his subjects. These latter instances of final causes as really prove an intelligent Governor of the world, in the sense now mentioned, and before 1 distinctly treated of as any other instances of final causes, prove an intelligent Maker of it. But this alone does not appear at first sight to determine anything certainly concerning the moral character of the Author of Nature considered in this relation of governor; does not ascertain His government to be moral, or prove that He is the righteous judge of the world. Moral government consists not barely in rewarding and punishing men for their actions, which the most tyrannical person may do, but in rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked; in rendering to men according to their actions, considered as good or evil. And the perfection of moral government consists in doing this with regard to all intelli¬ gent creatures, in an exact proportion to their personal merits or demerits. Some men seem to think the only character of the Author of Nature to be that of simple absolute benevolence. This, considered as a principle of action and infinite in degree, is a disposition to produce the greatest possible happiness without regard to persons’ behaviour, otherwise than as such regard would produce higher degrees of it. And supposing this to be the only character of God, veracity and justice in Him would be nothing but benevolence conducted by wisdom. Now surely this ought not to be asserted unless it can be proved, for we should speak with cautious reve¬ rence upon such a subject. And whether it can be proved or no, is not the thing here to be inquired into, but whether in the constitution and conduct of the world a righteous government be not discernibly planned out, which necessarily implies a righteous governor. There may possibly be in 1 Chap. ii. 42 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION the creation beings to whom the Author of Nature manifests Himself under this most amiable of all characters, this of infinite absolute benevolence; for it is the most amiable, supposing it not, as perhaps it is not, incompatible with justice, but He manifests Himself to us under the character of a righteous governor. He may consistently with this be simply and absolutely benevolent in the sense now explained. But He is, for He has given us a proof in the consitution and conduct of the world, that He is a governor over servants, as He rewards and punishes us for our actions. And in the constitution and conduct of it, He may also have given besides the reason of the thing and the natural presages of conscience, clear and distinct intima¬ tions that His government is righteous or moral; clear to such as think the nature of it deserving their attention, and yet not to every careless person who casts a transient reflec¬ tion upon the subject . 1 But it is particularly to be observed that the divine government, which we experience ourselves under in the present state, taken alone, is allowed not to be the perfec¬ tion of moral government. And yet this by no means hinders but that there may be somewhat, be it more or less, truly moral in it. A righteous government may plainly appear to be carried on to some degree, enough to give us the apprehension that it shall be completed or carried on to that degree of perfection which religion teaches us it shall, 1 The objections against religion, from the evidence of it not being universal, nor so strong as might possibly have been, may be urged against natural religion as well as against revealed. And therefore the consideration of them belongs to the first part of this treatise as well as the second. But as these objections are chiefly urged against revealed religion, I chose to consider them in the second part. And the answer to them there (ch. vi.), as urged against Christianity, being almost equally applicable to them as urged against the religion of Nature ; to avoid repetition, the reader is referred to that chapter. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE . 43 but which cannot appear till much more of the divine administration be seen than can in the present life. And the design of this chapter is to inquire how far this is the case ; how far over and above the moral nature 1 which God has given us, and our natural notion of Him as righteous governor of those His creatures, to whom He has given this nature f I say how far besides this the principles and beginnings of a moral government over the world may be discerned, notwithstanding and amidst all the confusion and disorder of it. Now one might mention here what has been often urged with great force, that in general less uneasiness and more satisfaction are the natural consequences 3 of a virtuous than of a vicious course of life, in the present state, as an instance of a moral government established in nature ; an instance of it collected from experience and present matter of fact. But it must be owned a thing of difficulty to weigh and balance pleasures and uneasinesses each amongst themselves, and also against each other, so as to make an estimate with any exactness of the overplus of happiness on the side of virtue. And it is not impossible that, amidst the infinite disorders of the world, there may be exceptions to the happiness of virtue, even with regard to those persons whose course of life from their youth up has been blame¬ less ; and more with regard to those who have gone on for some time in the ways of vice and have afterwards reformed. For, suppose an instance of the latter case ; a person with his passions inflamed, his natural faculty of self-government impaired by habits of indulgence, and with all his vices about him, like so many harpies, craving for their accustomed grati¬ fication ; who can say how long it might be before such a person would find more satisfaction in the reasonableness 1 Dissertation II. 2 Chap. vi. p. 107, &c. 3 See Lord Shaftesbury’s Inquiry concerning Virtue, Part II. 44 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION and present good consequences of virtue than difficulties and self-denial in the restraints of it ? Experience also shows that men can, to a great degree, get over their sense of shame, so as that by professing themselves to be without principle, and avowing even direct villainy, they can support themselves against the infamy of it. But as the ill actions of any one will probably be more talked of and oftener thrown in his way upon his reformation, so the infamy of them will be much more felt after the natural sense of virtue and of honour is recovered. Uneasinesses of this kind ought, indeed, to be put to the account of former vices ; yet it will be said they are in part the consequences of reformation. Still I am far from allowing it doubtful whether virtue, upon the whole, be happier than vice in the present world. Bui if it were, yet the beginnings of a righteous administration may, beyond all question, be found in nature if we will attentively inquire after them. And, I. In whatever manner the notion of God’s moral govern¬ ment over the world might be treated, if it did not appear whether He were in a proper sense our Governor at all; yet when it is certain matter of experience, that He does manifest Himself to us under the character of a Governor, in the sense explained , 1 it must deserve to be considered whether there be not reason to apprehend that He may be a righteous or moral Governor. Since it appears to be fact that God does govern mankind by the method of rewards and punish¬ ments, according to some settled rules of distribution, it is surely a question to be asked, What presumption is there against His finally rewarding and punishing them, according to this particular rule—namely, as they act reasonably or unreasonably, virtuously or viciously ? Since rendering men happy or miserable by this rule certainly falls in, much more falls in with our natural apprehensions and 1 Chap: ii. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 45 sense of things, than doing so by any other rule whatever : since rewarding and punishing actions by any other rule would appear much harder to be accounted for by minds formed as He has formed ours. Be the evidence of religion then more or less clear, the expectation which it raises in us that the righteous shall, upon the whole, be happy, and the wicked miserable, cannot, however, possibly be considered as absurd or chimerical; because it is no more than an ex¬ pectation that a method of government already begun, shall be carried on, the method of rewarding and punishing actions ; and shall be carried on by a particular rule, which unavoidably appears to us at first sight more natural than any other, the rule which we call distributive justice. Nor, II. Ought it to be entirely passed over that tranquillity, satisfaction, and external advantages, being the natural con¬ sequences of prudent management of ourselves and our affairs; and rashness, profligate negligence and wilful folly, bringing after them many inconveniences and sufferings; these afford instances of a right constitution of nature; as the correction of children, for their own sakes, and by way of example, when they run into danger or hurt themselves, is a part of right education. And thus that God governs the world by general fixed laws, that He has endued us with capacities of reflecting upon this constitution of things, and foreseeing the good and bad consequences of our behaviour, plainly implies some sort of moral government; since from such a constitution of things it cannot but follow that pru¬ dence and imprudence, which are of the nature of virtue and vice , 1 must be, as they are, respectively rewarded and punished. III. From the natural course of things, vicious actions are, to a great degree, actually punished as mischievous to society; and besides punishment actually inflicted upon this 1 See Dissert. II« 46 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION account, there is also the fear and apprehension of it in those persons whose crimes have rendered them obnoxious to it, in case of a discovery; this state of fear being itself often a very considerable punishment. The natural fear and apprehension of it too, which restrains from such crimes, is a declaration of nature against them. It is ne¬ cessary to the very being of society that vices destructive of it should be punished as being so; the vices of falsehood, injustice, cruelty, which punishment therefore is as natural as society; and so is an instance of a kind of moral govern¬ ment, naturally established and actually taking place. And since the certain natural course of things is the conduct of Providence or the government of God, though carried on by the instrumentality of men, the observation here made amounts to this, that mankind find themselves placed by Him in such circumstances as that they are unavoidably accountable for their behaviour, and are often punished, and sometimes rewarded, under His government, in the view of theii being mischievous or eminently beneficial to society. If it be objected that good actions, and such as are beneficial to society, are often punished, as in the case of persecution and in other cases, and that ill and mischievous actions are often rewarded : it may be answered distinctly, first, that this is in no sort necessary, and consequently not natural in the sense in which it is necessary, and therefore natural that ill or mischievous actions should be punished ; and in the next place, that good actions are never punished considered as beneficial to society, nor ill actions rewarded, under the view of their being hurtful to it. So that it stands good, without anything on the side of vice to be set over against it, that the Author of Nature has as truly directed that vicious actions, considered as mischievous to society, should be punished, and put mankind under a necessity of TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 47 thus punishing them, as He has directed and necessitated us to preserve our lives by food. IV. In the natural course of things, virtue as such is actually rewarded, and vice as such punished; which seems to afford an instance or example, not only of government, but of moral government, begun and established; moral in the strictest sense, though not in that perfection of degree which religion teaches us to expect. In order to see this more clearly, we must distinguish between actions them¬ selves and that quality ascribed to them which we call virtuous or vicious. The gratification itself of every natural passion must be attended with delight, and acquisitions of fortune, however made, are acquisitions of the means or materials of enjoyment. An action, then by which any natural passion is gratified or fortune acquired, procures delight or advantage, abstracted from all consideration of the morality of such action. Consequently, the pleasure or advantage in this case is gained by the action itself, not by the morality, the virtuousness or viciousness of it; though it be, perhaps, virtuous or vicious. Thus, to say such an action or course of behaviour procured such pleasure or advantage, or brought on such inconvenience and pain, is quite a different thing from saying that such good or bad effect was owing to the virtue or vice of such action or behaviour. In one case an action abstracted from all moral consideration produced its effect; in the other case— for it will appear that there are such cases—the morality of the action, the action under a moral consideration—/. under them require to be distinctly and most thoroughly TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 259 examined into; that the weight of each may be judged of upon such examination and such conclusion drawn as results from their united force. But this has not been attempted here. I have gone no further than to show that the general imperfect view of them now given, the confessed historical evidence for miracles, and the many obvious appearing completions of prophecy, together with the collateral things 1 here mentioned, and there are several others of the like sort; that all this together, which being fact must be acknowledged by unbelievers, amounts to real evidence of somewhat more than human in this matter: evidence much more important than careless men who have been accustomed only to transient and partial views of it can imagine, and indeed abundantly sufficient to act upon. And these things I apprehend must be acknowledged by unbelievers. For though they may say, they the historical evidence of miracles -wrought in attestation of Christianity is not sufficient to convince them that such miracles were really wrought they cannot deny: that there is such historical evidence, it being a known matter of fact that there is. They may say the conformity between the prophecies and events is by accident; but there are many instances in which such conformity itself cannot be denied. They may say with regard to such kind of collateral things as those above mentioned, that any odd accidental events, without meaning, will have a meaning found in them by fanciful people; and that such as are fanciful in any one certain way will make out a thousand coincidences which seem to favour their peculiar follies. Men, I say, may talk thus, but no one who is serious can possibly think these things to be nothing, if he considers the importance of collateral 1 All the particular things mentioned in this chapter, not reducible to the head of certain miracles, or determinate completions of prophecy* See pp. 224, 225. 26 o THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION things and even of lesser circumstances, in the evidence of probability, as distinguished in Nature from the evidence of demonstration. In many cases, indeed, it seems to require the truest judgment to determine with exactness the weight of circumstantial evidence; but it is very often altogether as convincing as that which is the mort express and direct. This general view of the evidence for Christianity, considered as making one argument, may also serve to recommend to serious persons to set down everything which they think may be of any real weight at all in proof of it, and particularly the many seeming completions of prophecy: and they will find that judging by the natural rules, by which we judge of probable evidence in common matters, they amount to a much higher degree of proof upon such a joint review than could be supposed upon Considering them separately at different times; how strong soever the proof might before appear to them upon such separate views of it. For probable proofs, by being added, not only increase the evidence but multiply it. Nor should I dissuade any one from setting down what he thought made for the contrary side. But then it is to be re¬ membered, not in order to influence his judgment but his practice, that a mistake on one side may be in its conse¬ quences much more dangerous than a mistake on the other. And what course is most safe and what most dangerous is a consideration thought very material, when we deliberate not concerning events but concerning conduct in our temporal affairs. To be influenced by this consideration in our judg¬ ment, to believe or disbelieve upon it, is indeed as much prejudice as anything whatever. And, like other prejudices, it operates contrariwise in different men. For some are inclined to believe what they hope, and others what they fear. And it is manifest unreasonableness to apply to men’s passions in order to gain their assent. But in deliberations TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 261 concerning conduct there is nothing which reason more requires to be taken into the account than the importance of it. For suppose it doubtful what would be the conse¬ quence of acting in this or in a contrary manner, still that taking one side could be attended with little or no bad consequence, and taking the other might be attended with the greatest, must appear to unprejudiced reason of the highest moment towards determining how we are to act. But the truth of our religion, like the truth of common matters, is to be judged of by all the evidence taken together. And unless the whole series of things which may be alleged in this argument, and every particular thing in it, can reasonably be supposed to have been by accident (for here the stress of the argument for Christianity lies); then is the truth of it proved: in like manner as if in any common case numerous events acknowledged were to be alleged in proof of any other event disputed ; the truth of the disputed event would be proved, not only if any one of the acknow¬ ledged ones did of itself clearly imply it, but though no one of them singly did so if the whole of the acknowledged events taken together could not in reason be supposed to have happened unless the disputed one were true. It is obvious how much advantage the nature of this evidence gives to those persons who attack Christianity, especially in conversation. For it is easy to show in a short and lively manner that such and such things are liable to objection, that this and another thing is of little weight in jtself, but impossible to show in like manner the united force of the whole argument in one view. However, lastly, as it has been made appear that there is no presumption against a revelation as miraculous, that the general scheme of Christianity and the principal parts of it are conformable to the experienced constitution of things, and the whole perfectly credible : so the account now given 262 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION of the positive evidence for it shows that this evidence is such as from the nature of it cannot be destroyed, though it should be lessened. CHAPTER VIII. Of the Objections which may be made against arguing from the Analogy of Nature to Religion. If every one would consider, with such attention as they are bound even in point of morality to consider, what they judge and give characters of, the occasion of this chapter would be, in some good measure at least, superseded. But since this is not to be expected—for some we find do not concern themselves to understand even what they write against—since this treatise, in common with most others, lies open to objections, which may appear very material to thoughtful men at first sight, and besides that, seems peculiarly liable to the objections of such as can judge without thinking, and of such as can censure without judging, it may not be amiss to set down the chief of these objections which occur to me, and consider them to their hands. And they are such as these :—“ That it is a poor thing to solve difficulties in revelation, by saying, that there are the same in natural religion, when what is wanting is to clear both of them, of these their common as well as other their respective difficulties. But that it is a strange way indeed of convincing men of the obligations of religion, to show them that they have as little reason for their worldly pursuits—and a strange way of vindicating the justice and goodness of the Author of Nature, and of removing the objections against both, to which the system of religion lies TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 263 open, to show that the like objections lie against natural providence; a way of answering objections against religion without so much as pretending to make out that the system of it, or the particular things in it objected against, are reasonable—especially perhaps some may be inattentive enough to add, must this be thought strange, when it is confessed that analogy is no answer to such objections. That when this sort of reasoning is carried to the utmost length it can be imagined capable of, it will yet leave the mind in a very unsatisfied state; and that it must be unaccountable ignorance of mankind, to imagine they will be prevailed with to forego their present interests and pleasures, from regard to religion, upon doubtful evidence.” Now, as plausible as this way of talking may appear, that appearance will be found in a great measure owing to half views, which show but part of an object, yet show that indistinctly, and to undeterminate language. By these means weak men are often deceived by others, and ludicrous men by themselves. And even those who are serious and considerate, cannot always readily disentangle and at once clearly see through the perplexities in which subjects themselves are involved, and which are heightened by the deficiencies and the abuse of words. To this latter sort of persons, the following reply to each part of this objection severally, may be of some assistance; as it may also tend a little to stop and silence others. First: The thing wanted— i.e., what men require, is to have all difficulties cleared. And this is, or at least for any¬ thing we know to the contrary, it may be the same as requiring to comprehend the Divine nature, and the whole plan of Providence from everlasting to everlasting. But it hath always been allowed to argue from what is acknow¬ ledged to what is disputed. And it is in no other sense a poor thing to argue from natural religion to revealed, in 264 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION the manner found fault with, than it is to argue in number¬ less other ways of probable deduction and inference in matters of conduct, which we are continually reduced to the necessity of doing. Indeed the epithet poor may be applied, I fear, as properly to great part or the whole of human life, as it is to the things mentioned in the objec¬ tion. Is it not a poor thing for a physician to have so little knowledge in the cure of diseases, as even the most eminent have? To act upon conjecture and guess, where the life of man is concerned ? Undoubtedly it is; but not in com¬ parison of having no skill at all in that useful art, and being obliged to act wholly in the dark. l urther: since it is as unreasonable as it is common to mge objections against revelation, which are of equal weight against natural religion; and those who do this, if they are not confused themselves, deal unfairly with others, in making it seem [that they are arguing only against revelation or particular doctrines of it, when in reality they are arguing against moral providence; it is a thing of consequence to show that such objections are as much levelled against natural religion as against revealed. And objections which are equally applicable to both, are, properly speaking, answered by its being shown that they are so provided the former be admitted to be true. And without taking in the consideration how distinctly this is admitted, it is plainly very material to observe that as the things objected against in natural religion are of the same kind with what is certain matter of experience in the course of Providence, and in the information which God affords us concerning our temporal interest under His government; so the objections against the system of Christianity and the evidence of it, are of the very same kind with those which are made against the system and evidence of natural religion. However, the reader upon review may see that TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 265 most of the analogies insisted upon, even in the latter part of this treatise, do not necessarily require to have more taken for granted than is in the former; that there is an Author of Nature, or natural governor of the world—and Christianity is vindicated, not from its analogy to natural religion, but chiefly from its analogy to the experienced constitution of Nature. Secondly: Religion is a practical thing, and consists in such a determinate course of life, as being what there is reason to think, is commanded by the Author of Nature and will, upon the whole, be our happiness under His govern" ment. Now if men can be convinced that they have the like reason to believe this as to believe that taking care of their temporal affairs will be to their advantage, such con¬ viction cannot but be an argument to them for the practice of religion ; and if there be really any reason for believing one of these and endeavouring to preserve life, and secure ourselves the necessaries and conveniences of it, then there is reason also for believing the other and endeavouring to secure the interest it proposes to us; and if the interest which religion proposes to us be infinitely greater than our whole temporal interest, then there must be proportionably greater reason for endeavouring to secure one than the other, since, by the supposition, the probability of our se¬ curing one is equal to the probability of our securing the other. This seems plainly unanswerable, and has a ten¬ dency to influence fair minds who consider what our con¬ dition really is, or upon what evidence we are naturally appointed to act, and who are disposed to acquiesce in the terms upon which we live, and attend to and follow that practical instruction, whatever it be, which is afforded us. But the chief and proper force of the argument referred to in the objection, lies in another place. For it is said that the proof of religion is involved in such inextricable 266 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION difficulties as to render it doubtful; and that it cannot be supposed, that if it were true, it would be left upon doubtful evidence. Here then, over and above the force of each particular difficulty or objection, these difficulties and ob¬ jections taken together are turned into a positive argument against the truth of religion, which argument would stand thus. If religion were true, it would not be left doubtful and open to objections to the degree in which it is ; there¬ fore that it is thus left, not only renders the evidence of it weak, and lessens its force in proportion to the weight of such objections, but also shows it to be false, or is a general presumption of its being so. Now the observation, that from the natural constitution and course of things we must in our temporal concerns, almost continually, and in matters of great consequence, act upon evidence of a like kind and degree to the evidence of religion, is an answer to this argument; because it shows that it is according to the con¬ duct and character of the Author of Nature to appoint we should act upon evidence like to that which this argument presumes He cannot be supposed, to appoint we should act upon. It is an instance, a general one made up of nu¬ merous particular ones, of somewhat in His dealing with us, similar to what is said to be incredible ; and as the force of this answer lies merely in the parallel which there is between the evidence for religion and for our temporal conduct, the answer is equally just and conclusive, whether the parallel be made out by showing the evidence of the former to be higher, or the evidence of the latter to be lower. Thirdly : The design of this treatise is not to vindicate the character of God. but to show the obligations of men ; it is not to justify His Providence, but to show what belongs to us to do. These are two subjects, and ought not to be confounded; and though they may at length run up into each other, yet observations may immediately tend to make TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 267 out the latter, which do not appear, by any immediate con¬ nection to the purpose of the former, which is less our concern than many seem to think. For, first, it is not necessary we should justify the dispensations of Providence against objections any further than to show that the things objected against may, for aught we know, be consistent with justice and goodness. Suppose, then, that there are things in the system of this world, and plan of Providence relating to it, which taken alone would be unjust ; yet it has been shown unanswerably that if we could take in the reference which these things may have to other things present, past and to come, to the whole scheme which the things objected against are parts of; these very things might, for aught we know, be found to be not only consistent with justice, but instances of it. Indeed it has been shown, by the analogy of what we see, not only possible that this may be the case, but credible that it is ; and thus objections, drawn from such things, are answered, and Providence is vindicated as far as religion makes its vindication necessary. Hence it appears, secondly, that objections against the Divine justice and goodness are not endeavoured to be removed by showing that the like objections, allowed to be really conclusive, lie against natural providence; but those objections being supposed and shown not to be conclusive, the things objected against, considered as matters of fact, are further shown to be credible from their conformity to the constitution of Nature ; for instance, that God will reward and punish men for their actions hereafter, from the obser¬ vation that He does reward and punish them for their actions here; and this, I apprehend, is of weight. And I add, thirdly, it would be of weight, even though those objections were not answered; for, there being the proof of religion above set down, and religion implying several facts. For instance again, the fact last mentioned that God will reward 268 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION and punish men for their actions hereafter; the observation that His present method of government is by rewards and punishments shows that future fact not to be' incredible, whatever objections men may think they have against it as unjust or unmerciful, according to their notions of justice and mercy, or as improbable from their belief of necessity. I say, as improbable, for it is evident no objection against it, as unjust, can be urged from necessity, since this notion as much destroys injustice as it does justice. Then, fourthly, though objections against the reasonableness of the system of religion cannot indeed be answered without entering into consideration of its reasonableness, yet objections against the credibility or truth of it may; because the system of it is reducible into what is properly matter of fact, and the truth, the probable truth of facts, may be shown without consideration of their reasonableness. Nor is it necessary, though in some cases and respects it is highly useful and proper, yet it is not necessary to give a proof of the reason¬ ableness of every precept enjoined us, and of every par¬ ticular dispensation of Providence which comes into the system of religion. Indeed, the more thoroughly a person of a right disposition is convinced of the perfection of the Divine nature and conduct, the further he will advance towards that perfection of religion which St. John 1 speaks of; but the general obligations of religion are fully made out by proving the reasonableness of the practice of it. And that the practice of religion is reasonable may be shown, though no more could be proved than that the system of it may be so, for aught we know to the contrary, and even without entering into the distinct consideration of this. And front hence, fifthly, it is easy to see that though the analogy oi Nature is not an immediate answer to objections against the wisdom, the justice or goodness of any doctrine or pre- 1 I John iv. 18. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 269 cept of religion; yet it may be, as it is, an immediate and direct answer to what is really intended by such objec¬ tions, which is to show that the things objected against are incredible. Fourthly: It is most readily acknowledged that the fore¬ going treatise is by no means satisfactory, very far indeed from it; but so would any natural institution of life appear, if reduced into a system together with its evidence. Leaving religion out of the case, men are divided in their opinions, whether our pleasures overbalance our pains, and whether it be, or be not, eligible to live in this world. And were all such controversies settled, which perhaps in speculation would be found involved in great difficulties ; and were it determined upon the evidence of reason, as Nature has determined it to our hands, that life is to be preserved ; yet still the rules which God has been pleased to afford us for escaping the miseries of it and obtaining its satisfactions, the rules, for instance, of preserving health and recovering it when lost, are not only fallible and precarious, but very far from being exact. Nor are we informed by Nature, in future contingencies and accidents, so as to render it at all certain, what is the best method of managing our affairs. What will be the success of our temporal pursuits, in the common sense of the word success, is highly doubtful. And what will be the success of them in the proper sense of the word— i.e., what happiness or enjoyment we shall obtain by them, is doubtful in a much higher degree. Indeed, the unsatisfactory nature of the evidence with which we are obliged to take up in the daily course of life, is scarce to be expressed. Yet men do not throw away life or disregard the interests of it upon account of this doubtfulness. The evidence of religion then being admitted real, those who object against it as not satisfactory— i.e., as not being what they wish it, plainly forget the very condition of our being, for satisfaction in this 27 ° THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION sense does not belong to such a creature as man. And, which is more material, they forget also the very nature of religion. For religion presupposes in all those who will embrace it a certain degree of integrity and honesty, which it was intended to try whether men have or not, and to exercise in such as have it, in order to its improvement. Religion presupposes this as much and in the same sense as speaking to a man presupposes he understands the language in which you speak; or as warning a man of any danger presupposes that he hath such a regard to himself as that he will endeavour to avoid it. And therefore the question is not at all whether the evidence of religion be satisfactory, but whether it be in reason sufficient to prove and discipline that virtue which it presupposes. Now the evidence of it is fully sufficient for all those purposes of probation ; how far soever it is from being satisfactory, as to the purposes of curiosity, or any other; and indeed it answers the purposes of the former in several respects,, which it would not do if it were as overbearing as is required. One might add further, that whether the motives or the evidence for any course of action be satisfactory, meaning here by that word what satisfies a man, that such a course of action will in event be for his good, this need never be, and I think strictly speaking never is, the practical question in common matters. But the practical question in all cases is, whether the evidence for a course of action be such, as taking in all circumstances makes the faculty within us, which is the guide and judge of conduct, 1 determine that course of action to be prudent. Indeed satisfaction that it will be for our interest or happi¬ ness, abundantly determines an action to be prudent; but evidence almost infinitely lower than this determines actions to be so too, even in the conduct of every day. Fifthly: As to the objection concerning the influence 1 See Dissertation I 271 TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. which this argument or any part of it, may or may not be expected to have upon men; I observe as above, that religion being extended for a trial and exercise of the morality of every person’s character, who is a subject of it, and there being as I have shown such evidence for it as is sufficient in reason to influence men to embrace it; to object that it is not to be imagined mankind will be influenced by such evidence, is nothing to the purpose of the foregoing treatise. For the purpose of it is not to inquire what sort of creatures mankind are, but what the light and knowledge which is afforded them requires they should be, to show how in reason they ought to behave, not how in fact they will behave. This depends upon themselves, and is their own concern, the personal concern of each man in particular. And how little regard the generality have to it, experience indeed does too fully show. But religion, considered as a probation, has had its end upon all persons to whom it has been proposed with evidence sufficient in reason to influence their practice, for by this means they have been put into a state of probation; let them behave as they will in it. And thus not only revelation, but reason also, teaches us that by the evidence of religion being laid before men, the designs of Providence are carrying on, not only with regard to those who will, but likewise with regard to those who will not, be influenced by it. However, lastly, the objection here re¬ ferred to allows the things insisted upon in this treatise to be of some weight; and if so, it may be hoped it will have some influence. And if there be a probability that it will have any at all, there is the same reason in kind, though not in degree, to lay it before men as there would be if it were likely to have a greater influence. And further, I desire it may be considered with respect to the whole of the foregoing objections that in this treatise I 272 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION have argued upon the principles of others , 1 not ray own, and have omitted what I think true and of the utmost importance, because by others thought unintelligible or not true. Thus I have argued upon the principles of the fatalists, which I do not believe, and have omitted a thing of the utmost importance, which I do believe, the moral fitness and unfitness of actions prior to all will whatever, which I apprehend as certainly to determine the Divine conduct, as speculative truth and falsehood necessarily determine the Divine judgment. Indeed, the principle of liberty and that of moral fitness so force themselves upon the mind that moralists, the ancients as well as modems, have formed their language upon it. And probably it may appear in mine, though I have endeavoured to avoid it; and in order to avoid it have sometimes been obliged to express myself in a manner which will appear strange to such as do not observe the reason for it; but the general argument here pursued does not at all suppose or proceed upon these principles. Now these two abstract principles of liberty and moral fitness being omitted, religion can be considered in no other view than merely as a question of fact: and in this view it is here considered. It is obvious that Chris¬ tianity and the proof of it are both historical. And even natural religion is properly a matter of fact. For that there is a righteous Governor of the world is so, and this proposi¬ tion contains the general system of natural religion. But then several abstract truths, and in particular those two principles, are usually taken into consideration in the proof of it, whereas it is here treated of only as a matter of fact. 1 By arguing upon the principles of others, the reader will observe is meant, not proving anything from those principles, but notwith¬ standing them. Thus religion is proved not from the opinion of necessity, which is absurd, but notwithstanding or even though that opinion were admitted to be true. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE . 273 To explain this, that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right ones is an abstract truth, but that they appear so to our mind is only a matter of fact. And this last must have been admitted if anything was by those ancient sceptics who would not have admitted the former, but pretended to doubt whether there were any such thing as truth, or whether we could certainly depend upon our faculties of understanding for the knowledge of it in any case. So likewise that there is in the nature of things an original standard of right and wrong in actions independent upon all will, but which unalterably determines the will of God to exercise that moral government over the world which religion teaches— i.e., finally and upon the whole to reward and punish - men respectively as they act right or wrong, this assertion contains an abstract truth as well as matter of fact. But suppose in the present state every man, without exception, was rewarded and punished in exact proportion as he followed or transgressed that sense of right and wrong which God has implanted in the nature of every man, this would not be at all an abstract truth, but only a matter of fact. And though this fact were acknowledged by every one, yet the very same difficulties might be raised as are now concerning the abstract questions of liberty and moral fitness; and we should have a proof, even the certain one of experience, that the government of the world was perfectly moral without taking in the consideration of those questions, and this proof would remain in what way soever they were determined. And thus God having given man¬ kind a moral faculty, the object of which is actions, and which naturally approves some actions as right and of good desert and condemns others as wrong and of ill desert; that He will finally and upon the whole reward the former and punish the latter is not an assertion of an abstract truth, but of what is as mere a fact as His doing so at present would be. 274 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION This future fact I have not indeed proved with the force with which it might be proved from the principles of liberty and moral fitness, but without them have given a really conclusive practical proof of it, which is greatly strengthened by the general analogy of Nature, a proof easily cavilled at, easily shown not to be demonstrative ; for it is not offered as such, but impossible, I think, to be evaded or answered. And thus the obligations of religion are made out exclusively of the questions concerning liberty and moral fitness, which have been perplexed with difficulties and abstruse reason¬ ings as everything may. Hence therefore may be observed distinctly what is the force of this treatise. It will be to such as are convinced of religion, upon the proof arising out of the two last-men¬ tioned principles, an additional proof and a confirmation of it; to such as do not admit those principles an original proof of it , 1 and a confirmation of that proof. Those who believe will here find the scheme of Christianity cleared of objections, and the evidence of it in a peculiar manner strengthened; those who do not believe, will at least be shown the absurdity of all attempts to prove Christianity false, the plain undoubted credibility of it, and, I hope, a great deal more. And thus, though some perhaps may seriously think that analogy as here urged has too great stress laid upon it, and ridicule, unanswerable ridicule, may be applied to show the argument from it in a disadvantageous light; yet there can be no question but that it is a real one. For religion, both natural and revealed, implying in it numerous facts, analogy being a confirmation of all facts to which it can be applied, as it is the only proof of most, cannot but be admitted by every one to be a material thing, and truly of weight on the 1 P. 107, &c. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 275 side of religion, both natural and revealed; and it ought to be particularly regarded by such as profess to follow Nature and to be less satisfied with abstract reasonings. CONCLUSION. Whatever account may be given of the strange inattention and disregard in some ages and countries, to a matter of such importance as religion ; it would, before experience, be incredible that there should be the like disregard in those who have had the moral system of the world laid before them, as it is by Christianity, and often inculcated upon them ; because this moral system carries in it a good degree of evidence for its truth, upon its being barely pro¬ posed to our thoughts. There is no need of abstruse reasonings and distinctions to convince an unprejudiced understanding that there is a God who made and governs the world, and will judge it in righteousness ; though they may be necessary to answer abstruse difficulties, when once such are raised; when the very meaning of those words, which express most intelligibly the general doctrine of religion, is pretended to be uncertain, and the clear truth of the thing itself is obscured by the intricacies of specu¬ lation. But to an unprejudiced mind, ten thousand thousand instances of design cannot but prove a designer. And it is intuitively manifest that creatures ought to live under a dutiful sense of their Maker, and that justice and charity must be His laws to creatures whom He has made social, and placed in society. Indeed the truth of revealed religion, peculiarly so-called, is not self-evident, but 27 6 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION requires external truth in order to its being received. Yet inattention among us to revealed religion, will be found to imply the same dissolute immoral temper of mind as inattention to natural religion, because, when both are laid before us in the manner they are in Christian countries of liberty, our obligations to inquire into both, and to embrace both upon supposition of their truth, are obliga¬ tions of the same nature. For revelation claims to be the voice of God, and our obligation to attend to His voice is surely moral in all cases. And as it is insisted that its evidence is conclusive upon thorough consideration of it, so it offers itself to us with manifest obvious appear¬ ances of having something more than human in it, and therefore in all reason requires to have its claims most seriously examined into. It is to be added that, though light and knowledge, in what manner soever afforded us, is equally from God, yet a miraculous revelation has a peculiar tendency from the first principles of our nature to awaken mankind, and inspire them with reverence and awe. And this is a peculiar obligation to attend to what claims to be so with such appearances of truth. It is therefore most certain that our obligations to inquire seriously into the evidence of Christianity, and upon supposition of its truth to embrace it, are of the utmost importance, and moral in the highest and most proper sense. Let us then suppose that the evidence of religion in general, and of Christianity, has been seriously inquired into by all reasonable men among us. Yet we find many professedly to reject both upon speculative principles of infidelity. And all of them do not content themselves with a bare neglect of religion, and enjoying their imaginary freedom from its restraints. Some go much beyond this. They deride God’s moral government over the world. They renounce His protection and defy His justice. They 277 TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. ridicule and vilify Christianity, and blaspheme the Author of it, and take all occasions to manifest a scorn and contempt of revelation. This amounts to an active setting them¬ selves against religion, to what may be considered as a positive principle of irreligion, which they cultivate within themselves, and, whether they intend this effect or not, render habitual, as a good man does the contrary principle. And others who are not chargeable with all this profligate¬ ness, yet are in avowed opposition to religion, as if discovered to be groundless. Now admitting, which is the supposition we go upon, that these persons act upon what they think principles of reason, and otherwise they are not to be argued with, it is really inconceivable that they should imagine they clearly see the whole evidence of it, considered in itself, to be nothing at all. Nor do they pretend this. They are far indeed from having a just notion of its evidence—but they would not say its evidence was nothing if they thought the system of it, with all its circumstances, were credible, like other matters of science or history. So that their manner of treating it must proceed, either from such kind of objections against all religion as have been answered or obviated in the former part of this treatise, or else from objections and difficulties supposed more peculiar to Christianity. Thus they entertain prejudices against the whole notion of a revelation and miraculous inter¬ positions. They find things in Scripture, whether in incidental passages or in the general scheme of it, which appear to them unreasonable. They take for granted that, if Christianity were true, the light of it must have been more general, and the evidence of it more satisfactory, or rather overbearing; that it must and would have been in some way, otherwise put and left, than it is. Now this is not imagining they see the evidence itself to be nothing or inconsiderable, but quite another thing. It is being fortified 27 § THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION against the evidence, in some degree acknowledged, by thinking they see the system of Christianity, or somewhat which appears to them necessarily connected with it, to be incredible or false, fortified against that evidence, which might otherwise make great impression upon them. Or, lastly, if any of these persons are, upon the whole, in doubt concerning the truth of Christianity, their behaviour seems owing to their taking for granted, through strange inattention, that such doubting is, in a manner, the same thing as being certain against it. To these persons, and to this state of opinion concerning religion, the foregoing treatise is adapted. For all the general objections against the moral system of Nature having been obviated, it is shown that there is not any peculiar presumption at all against Christianity, either con¬ sidered as not discoverable by reason, or as unlike to what is so discovered; nor any worth mentioning against it as miraculous, if any at all; none, certainly, which can render it in the least incredible. It is shown, that upon supposition of a Divine revelation, the analogy of Nature renders it beforehand highly credible, I think probable, that many things in it must appear liable to great objections, and that we must be incompetent judges of it to a great degree. This observation is, I think, unquestionably true and of the very utmost importance; but it is urged, as I hope it will be understood, with great caution of not vilifying the faculty of reason, which is “the candle of the Lord within us,” 1 though it can afford no light where it does not shine ; nor judge, where it has no principles to judge upon. The objections here spoken of, being first answered in the view of objections against Christianity as a matter of fact, are in the next place considered as urged, more immediately, 1 Prov. xx. 27. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 279 against the wisdom, justice, and goodness of the Christian dispensation. And it is fully made out, that they admit of exactly the like answer, in every respect, to what the like objections against the constitution of Nature admit of, that as partial views give the appearance of wrong to things, which, upon further consideration and knowledge of their relations to other things, are found just and good; so it is perfectly credible that the things objected against the wisdom and goodness of the Christian dispensation, may be rendered instances of wisdom and goodness, by their re¬ ference to other things beyond our view : because Chris¬ tianity is a scheme as much above our comprehension as that of Nature ; and like that a scheme in which means are made use of to accomplish ends, and which, as is most cre¬ dible, may be carried on by general laws. And it ought to be attended to, that this is not an answer taken, merely or chiefly, from our ignorance; but from somewhat positive, which our observation shows us. For, to like objections, the like answer is experienced to be just in numberless parallel cases. The objections against the Christian dispen¬ sation, and the method by which it is carried on, having been thus obviated, in general and together ; the chief of them are considered distinctly, and the particular things objected to are shown credible, by their perfect analogy, each apart, to the constitution of Nature. Thus, if man be fallen from his primitive state, and to be restored, and infinite wisdom and power engages in accomplishing our recovery; it were to have been expected, it is said, that this should' have been effected at once; and not by such a long series of means, and such a various economy of persons and things; one dispensation preparatory to ano¬ ther, this to a further one, and so on through an indefinite number of ages, before the end of the scheme proposed can be completely accomplished : a scheme conducted by 280 THE ANALOGY OP RELIGION infinite wisdom, and executed by almighty power. But now, on the contrary, our finding that everything in the constitution and course of Nature is thus carried on, shows such expectations concerning revelation to be highly unrea¬ sonable ; and is a satisfactory answer to them when urged as objections against the credibility that the great scheme of Providence in the redemption of the world may be of this kind, and to be accomplished in this manner. As to the particular method of our redemption, the appointment of a Mediator between God and man: this has been shown to be most obviously analogous to the general conduct of nature— i.e., the God of Nature, in appointing others to be the instruments of His mercy, as we experience in the daily course of Providence. The condition of this world, which the doctrine of our redemption by Christ presupposes, so much falls in with natural appearances, that heathen moralists inferred it from those appearances: inferred that human nature was fallen from its original rectitude, and, in consequence of this, degraded from its primitive happiness. Or, however this opinion came into the world, these appear¬ ances must have kept up the tradition, and confirmed the belief of it. And as it was the general opinion, under the light of Nature, that repentance and reformation, alone and by itself, was not sufficient to do away sin, and procure a full remission of the penalties annexed to it, and as the reason of the thing does not at all lead to any such con¬ clusion ; so every day’s experience shows us that reforma¬ tion is not, in any sort, sufficient to prevent the present disadvantages and miseries which, in the natural course of things, God has annexed to folly and extravagance. Yet there may be ground to think that the punishments, which by the general laws of Divine government, are annexed to vice, may be prevented; that provision may have been, even originally, made, that they should be prevented by TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 281 some means or other, though they could not by reformation alone. For we have daily instances of such mercy, in the general conduct of Nature; compassion provided for misery, 1 medicines for diseases, friends against enemies. There is provision made, in the original constitution of the world, that much of the natural bad consequences of our follies, which persons themselves alone cannot prevent, may be prevented by the assistance of others; assistance, which Nature enables and disposes and appoints them to afford. By a method of goodness analogous to this, when the world lay in wickedness and consequently in ruin, “ God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son ” to save it; and “ He being made perfect by suffering, became the Author of eternal salvation to all them that obey Him.” 2 Indeed, neither reason nor analogy would lead us to think, in particular, that the interposition of Christ, in the manner in which He did interpose, would be of that efficacy for recovery of the world which the Scripture teaches us it was; but neither would reason nor analogy lead us to think that other particular means would be of the efficacy, which experience shows they are in numberless instances. And therefore, as the case before us does not admit of experience, so, that neither reason nor analogy can show, how or in what particular way the interposition of Christ, as revealed in Scripture, is of that efficacy, which it is there represented to be; this is no kind nor degree of presumption against its being really of that efficacy. Further : the objections against Christianity, from the light of it not being universal, nor its evidence so strong as might possibly be given us, have been answered by the general analogy of Nature. That God has made such variety of creatures, is indeed an answer to the former. But that He dispenses His gifts in such variety, both of degrees and kinds, amongst creatures of the same 1 Serm, at the Rolls, p. 106. 2 John iii. 16; Heb. v. 9. 282 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGltJ species, and even to the same individuals at different times, is a more obvious and full answer to it. And it is so far from being the method of Providence in other cases, to afford us such overbearing evidence, as some require in proof of Christianity; that, on the contrary, the evidence upon which we are naturally appointed to act in common matters, throughout a very great part of life, is doubtful in a high degree. And admitting the fact that God has afforded to some no more than doubtful evidence of religion, the same account maybe given of it as of diffi¬ culties and temptations with regard to practice. But as it is not impossible, 1 surely, that this alleged doubtfulness may be men's own fault, it deserves their most serious consideration whether it be not so. However, it is certain that doubting implies a degree of evidence for that of which we doubt, and that this degree of evidence as really lays us under obligations as demonstrative evidence. The whole, then, of religion is throughout credible; nor is there, I think, anything relating to the revealed dispen¬ sation of things more different from the experienced con¬ stitution and course of Nature than some parts of the constitution of Nature are from other parts of it; and if so, the only question which remains is, what positive evidence can be alleged for the truth of Christianity. 'Phis, too, in general has been considered and the objections against it estimated. Deduct therefore what is to be deducted from that evidence upon account of any weight which may be thought to remain in these objections after what the analogy of Nature has suggested in answer to them; and then con¬ sider what are the practical consequences from all this, upon the most sceptical principles one can argue upon (for I am writing to persons who entertain these principles); and 1 P. 218, &c. TO THE COURSE OF NATURE. 283 upon such consideration it will be obvious that immorality as little excuse as it admits of in itself, is greatly aggravated in persons who have been made acquainted with Chris¬ tianity whether they believe it or not; because the moral system of Nature, or natural religion which Christianity lays before us, approves itself almost intuitively to a reason¬ able mind upon seeing it proposed. In the next place, with regard to Christianity, it will be observed that there is a middle between a full satisfaction of the truth of it and a satisfaction of the contrary. The middle state of mind between these two consists in a serious apprehension that it may be true, joined with doubt whether it be so ; and this, upon the best judgment I am able to make, is as far towards speculative infidelity as any sceptic can at all be supposed to go who has had true Christianity, with the proper evidence of it laid before him, and has in any tolerable measure con¬ sidered them ; for I would not be mistaken to comprehend all who have ever heard of it, because it seems evident that in many countries called Christian, neither Christianity nor its evidence are fairly laid before men. And in places where both are, there appear to be some who have very little attended to either, and who reject Christianity with a scorn proportionate to their inattention, and yet are by no means without understanding in other matters. Nov/ it has been shown that a serious apprehension that Christianity may be true lays persons under the strictest obligations of a serious regard to it throughout the whole of their life, a regard not the same exactly, but in many respects nearly the same, with what a full conviction of its truth would lay them under. Lastly, it will appear, that blasphemy and profaneness, I mean with regard to Christianity, are absolutely without excuse ; for there is no temptation to it but from the wan¬ tonness of vanity or mirth, and these, considering the in¬ finite importance of the subject, are no such temptations as 284 THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION. .0 afford any excuse for it. If this be a just account of things, and yet men can go on to vilify or disregard Chris¬ tianity, which is to talk and act as if they had a demonstra¬ tion of its falsehood, there is no reason to think they would alter their behaviour to any purpose, though there were a demonstration of its truth. Of Personal Identity. Whether we are to live in a future state, as it is the most important question which can possibly be asked, so it is the most intelligible one which can be expressed in language. Yet strange perplexities have been raised about the meaning of that identity or sameness of person which is implied in the notion of our living now and hereafter, or in any two successive moments; and the solution of these difficulties hath been stranger than the difficulties themselves ; for per¬ sonal identity has been explained so by some as to render the inquiry concerning a future life of no consequence at all to us, the persons who are making it; and though few men can be misled by such subtleties, yet it may be proper a little to consider them. Now when it is asked wherein personal identity consists, the answer should be the same as if it were asked wherein consists similitude or equality, that ali attempts to define would but perplex it, yet there is no difficulty at all in ascertaining the idea; for as, upon two triangles being com¬ pared or viewed together there arises to the mind the idea of similitude, or upon twice two and four the idea of equality; so likewise, upon comparing the consciousnesses of oneself or one’s own existence in any two moments, there as immediately arises to the mind the idea of personal identity; and as the two former comparisons not only give 286 DISSERTA TIONS. us the ideas of similitude and equality, but also show us that two triangles are alike, and twice two and four are equal; so the latter comparison not only gives us the idea of personal identity, but also shows us the identity of our¬ selves in those two moments; the present, suppose, and that immediately past, or the present, and that a month, a year, or twenty years past; or, in other words, by reflecting upon that which is myself now and that which was myself twenty years ago, I discern there are not two, but one and the same self. But though consciousness of what is past does thus ascertain our personal identity to ourselves, yet to say that it makes personal identity, or is necessary to our being the same persons, is to say that a person has not existed a single moment, nor done one action but what he can re¬ remember, indeed none but what he reflects upon ; and one should really think it self-evident that consciousness of per¬ sonal identity presupposes, and therefore cannot constitute personal identity any more than knowledge, in any other case, can constitute truth, which it presupposes. This wonderful mistake may possibly have arisen from hence, that to be indued with consciousness is inseparable from the idea of a person or intelligent being. For this might be expressed inaccurately thus, that consciousness makes personality, and from hence it might be concluded to make personal identity. But though present conscious¬ ness of what we at present do and feel is necessary to our being the persons we now are, yet present consciousness of past actions or feelings is not necessary to our being the same persons who performed those actions, or had those feelings. The inquiry what makes vegetables the same, in the common acceptation of the word, does not appear to have any relation to this of personal identity, because the word same, when applied to them and to person, is not only OF PERSONAL IDENTITY, 287 applied to different subjects, but it is also used in different senses. For when a man swears to the same tree as having stood fifty years in the same place, he means only the same as to all the purposes of property and uses of common life; and not that the tree has been all that time the same, in the strict philosophical sense of the word. For he does not know whether any one particle of the present tree, be the same with any one particle of the tree which stood in the same place fifty years ago. And if they have not one common particle of matter, they cannot be the same tree in the proper philosophic sense of the word same, it being evidently a contradiction in terms to say they are, when no part of their substance and no one of their properties is the same; no part of their substance by the supposition; no one of their properties, because it is allowed that the same property cannot be transferred from one substance to another. And therefore, when we say the identity or sameness of a plant consists in a continuation of the same life, communicated under the same organization, to a number of particles of matter, whether the same or not; the word same, when applied to life and to organization, cannot possibly be understood to signify, what it signifies in this very sentence, when applied to matter. In a loose and popular sense then, the life and the organization and the plant are justly said to be the same, notwithstanding the perpetual change of the parts. But in a strict and philo¬ sophical manner of speech, no man, no being, no mode of being, no anything, can be the same with that with which it hath indeed nothing the same. Now sameness is used in this latter sense when applied to persons. The identity of these, therefore, cannot subsist with diversity of substance. The thing here considered, and demonstratively, as I think, determined, is proposed by Mr. Locke in these words, “whether it"—the same self or person, “be the 288 DISSERT A TIO NS. same identical substance ?” And he has suggested what is a much better answer to the question, than that which he gives it in form. For he defines person, “a thinking intelligent being,” &c., and personal identity, “ the sameness of a rational being.” 1 The question then is, whether the same rational being is the same substance ; which needs no answer, because being and substance, in this place, stand for the same idea. The ground of the doubt, whether the same person be the same substance, is said to be this ; that the consciousness of our own existence, in youth and in old age, or in any two joint successive moments, is not the same individual action 2 — i.e., not the same consciousness, but different successive consciousnesses. Now it is strange that this should have occasioned such perplexities. For it is surely conceivable that a person may have a capacity of knowing some object or other to be the same now which it was when he contemplated it formerly; yet in this case, where, by the supposition, the object is perceived to be the same, the perception of it in any two moments cannot be one and the same perception. And thus, though the successive consciousnesses which we have of our own existence are not the same, yet are they consciousnesses, of one and the same thing or object; of the same person, self, or living agent. The person, of whose existence the con¬ sciousness is felt now, and was felt an hour or a year ago, is discerned to be, not two persons, but one and the same person; and therefore is one and the same. Mr. Locke’s observations upon this subject appear hasty, and he seems to profess himself dissatisfied with supposi¬ tions which he has made relating to it. 3 But some of those hasty observations have been carried to a strange length by others, whose notion, when traced and examined to the 1 Locke’s Wotks, vol, i. p. 146. 2 Locke, pp. 146, 147. 3 Locke, p. 152. OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 289 \ l bottom, amounts, I think, to this : l “ that personality is not a permanent but a transient thing ; that it lives and dies, begins and ends continually; that no one can any more remain one and the same person two moments together, than two successive moments can be one and the same moment; that our substance is indeed continually changing, but whether this be so or not, is, it seems, nothing to the purpose, since it is not substance, but consciousness alone, which constitutes personality; which consciousness, being successive, cannot be the same in any two moments, nor consequently the personality constituted by it.” And from hence it must follow, that it is a fallacy upon ourselves to charge our present selves with anything we did, or to imagine our present selves interested in anything which befell us yesterday; or that our present self will be inter¬ ested in what will befall us to-morrow; since our present self is not in reality the same with the self of yesterday, but another like self or person coming. in its room and mistaken for it, to which another self will succeed to¬ morrow. This, I say, must follow ; for if the self or person of to-day, and that of to-morrow, are not the same, but only like persons, the person of to-day is really no more interested in what will befall the person of to-morrow than in what will befall any other person. It may be thought, perhaps, that this is not a just representation of the opinion we are speaking of, because those who maintain it allow that a person is the same as far back as his remembrance reaches. And indeed they do use the words, identity and same person. Nor will language permit these words to be laid aside, since if they were, there must be, I know not what ridiculous periphrasis, substituted in the room of them. But they cannot consistently with themselves mean that the 1 See “An Answer to Dr. Clarke’s Third Defence of his Letter to Mr. Dodwell,” 2nd ed. pp. 44, 56, &c. K 290 DISSERTATIONS. person is really the same. For it is self-evident that the personality cannot be really the same, if, as they expressly assert that in which it consists, is not the same. And as consistently with themselves, they cannot, so, I think it appears, they do not mean that the person is really the same, but only that he is so in a fictitious sense; in such a sense only as they assert, for this they do assert, that any number of persons whatever may be the same person. The bare unfolding this notion, and laying it thus naked and open, seems the best confutation of it. However, since great stress is said to be put upon it, I add the follow¬ ing things. First: This notion is absolutely contradictory to that certain conviction, which necessarily and every moment rises within us, when we turn our thoughts upon ourselves, when we reflect upon what is passed, and look forward upon what is to come. All imagination of a daily change of that living agent, which each man calls himself, for another, or of any such change throughout our whole present life, is entirely borne down by our natural sense of things. Nor is it possible for a person in his wits to alter his conduct, with regard to his health or affairs, from a suspicion, that though he should live to-morrow, he should not, however, be the same person he is to-day. And yet, if it be reasonable to act, with respect to a future life, upon this notion that personality is transient, it is reasonable to act upon it with respect to the present. Here then is a notion equally applicable to religion and to our temporal concerns, and every one sees and feels the inexpressible absurdity of it in the latter case ; if therefore any can take up with it in the former, this cannot proceed from the reason of the thing, but must be owing to an inward unfairness and secret corruption of heart. Secondly: It is not an idea, or abstract notion, or OF PERSONAL IDENTITY. 291 quality, but a being only, which is capable of life and action, of happiness and misery. Now all beings confessedly continue the same, during the whole time of their existence. Consider then a living being now existing, and which has existed for any time alive ; this living being must have done and suffered and enjoyed, what it has done and suffered and enjoyed formerly (this living being, I say, and not another), as really as it does and suffers and enjoys, what it does and suffers and enjoys this instant. All these successive actions, enjoyments and sufferings are actions, enjoyments and sufferings of the same living being. And they are so, prior to all consideration of its remembering or forgetting—since remembering or forgetting can make no alteration in the truth of past matter-of-fact. And suppose this being endued with limited powers of knowledge and memory, there is no more difficulty in conceiving it to have a power, of knowing itself to be the same living being which it was some time ago, of remembering some of its actions, sufferings, and enjoy¬ ments, and forgetting others, than in conceiving it to know or remember or forget anything else. Thirdly: Every person is conscious that he is now the same person or self he was, as far back as his remembrance reaches, since when any one reflects upon a past action of his own, he is just as certain of the person who did that action—namely, himself, the person who now reflects upon it, as he is certain that the action was at all done. Nay, very often a person’s assurance of an action having been done, of which he is absolutely assured, arises wholly from the consciousness that he himself did it. And this he, person, or self, must either be a substance, or the property of some substance. If he, if person, be a substance, then, consciousness that he is the same person is consciousness that he is the same substance. If the person, or he, be the property of a substance, still consciousness that he is the 292 DISSERT A TIONS. same property is as certain a proof that his substance remains the same, as consciousness that he remains the same substance would be—since the same property cannot be transferred from one substance to another. But though we are thus certain that we are the same agents, living beings, or substances, now, which we were as far back as our remembrance reaches, yet it is asked whether we may not possibly be deceived in it ? And this question may be asked at the end of any demonstration whatever, because it is a question concerning the truth of perception by memory. And he who can doubt whether perception by memory can in this case be depended upon, may doubt also whether perception by deduction and reasoning, which also include memory, or indeed whether intuitive perception can. Here then we can go no further. For it is ridiculous to attempt to prove the truth of those perceptions whose truth we can no otherwise prove than by other perceptions of exactly the same kind with them, and which there is just the same ground to suspect; or to attempt to prove the truth of our faculties, which can no otherwise be proved, than by the use or means of those very suspected faculties themselves. \ 293 Of the Nature of Virtue. That which renders beings capable of moral government, is their having a moral nature, and moral faculties of per¬ ception and of action. Brute creatures are impressed and actuated by various instincts and propensions, so also are we. But additional to this, we have a capacity of reflecting upon actions and characters, and making them an object to our thought; and on doing this we naturally and unavoidably approve some actions, under the peculiar view of their being virtuous and of good desert, and disapprove others as vicious and of ill desert. That we have this moral approving and disapproving 1 faculty, is certain from our experiencing it in ourselves, and recognizing it in each other. It appears from our exercising it unavoidably in the approbation and disap¬ probation even of feigned characters ; from the words, right 1 This way of speaking is taken from Epictetus,* and is made use of as seeming the most full, and least liable to cavil. And the moral faculty may be understood to have these two epithets, doKi/xacrTiK^ and aTrodoKLfxaaTiKT], upon a double account: because, upon a survey of actions, whether before or after they are done, it determines them to be good or evil; and also because it determines itself to be the guide of action and