Moral Philosophy from Montaigne to Kant

This anthology contains excerpts from some thirty-two important seven-

teenth- and eighteenth-century moral philosophers. Including a substantial
introductioh and extensive bibliographies, the anthology facilitates the study
and teaching of early modern moral philosophy in its crucial formative period.
In addition to well-known thinkers such as Hobbes, Hume, and Kant, there
are excerpts from a wide range of philosophers never previously assembled
in one text, such as Grotius, Pufendorf, Nicole, Clarke, Leibniz, Malebranche,
Holbach, and Paley. Some of the writers, such as Crusius and Wolff, have never
appeared in English before.
Originally issued as a two-volume edition in 1990, the anthology is now re-
issued, with a new foreword by Professor Schneewind, as a one-volume
anthology to serve as a companion to his highly successful history of modern
ethics, The Invention of Autonomy. The anthology provides many of the
sources discussed in The Invention of Autonomy, and taken together the two
volumes will be an invaluable resource for the teaching of the history of
modern moral philosophy.

J. B. Schneewind is Professor of Philosophy at the Johns Hopkins University.

 Moral Philosophy from
Montaigne to Kant

Edited by
J. B. SCHNEEWIND
Johns Hopkins University

10,M46).72

CAMBRIDGE
UNIVERSITY PRESS
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, SAO Paulo

Cambridge University Press

40 West 20th Street, New York, NY 10011-4211, USA
www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521802598

© Cambridge University Press 2003

This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception

and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without
the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2003

Reprinted 2005

Printed in the United States of America

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Moral philosophy from Montaigne to Kant / edited by J. B. Schneewind.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-521-80259-8 — ISBN 0-521-00304-0 (pbk.)
1. Philosophy, Modern. I. Schneewind, J. B. (Jerome B.), 1930—
BJ301.M67 2002
170—dc21 2002067615

ISBN-13 978-0-521-80259-8 hardback

ISBN-10 0-521-80259-8 hardback
ISBN-13 978-0-521-00304-9 paperback
ISBN-10 0-521-00304-0 paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for

the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or
third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this book
and does not guarantee that any content on such
Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.
 Contents

Preface page xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint xix

Introduction 1
Aims of the Anthology 1
European Religious Controversies 3
Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas 4
Luther and Calvin 7
Stoicism and Epicureanism 10
Skepticism 13
The Classical Republic 14
Montaigne's Two Attitudes 16
General Problems for Moral Philosophy 18
Reworking Natural Law 21
Intellect and Morality 23
Epicureans and Egoists 24
Autonomy and Responsibility 26
Conclusion 29
Notes 30
Bibliography 32

PROLEGOMENA: SOME QUESTIONS RAISED

Michel de Montaigne 37
Introduction 37
Apology for Raymond Sebond 38
Of Repentance 45
vi Contents

Of Vanity 55
Of Physiognomy 56
Of Experience 59
Editor's Notes 62
Further Reading 62

PART I. REWORKING NATURAL LAW

Francisco Suarez 67
Introduction 67
On Law and God the Lawgiver 68
Editor's Notes 86
Further Reading 86

Hugo Grotius 88
Introduction 88
On the Law of War and Peace 90
Editor's Notes 109
Further Reading 110

Thomas Hobbes 111

Introduction 111
Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society 112
Editor's Notes 136
Further Reading 136

Richard Cumberland 138

Introduction 138
A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 140
Editor's Notes 154
Further Reading 155

Samuel Pufendorf 156

Introduction 156
On the Duty of Man and Citizen 158
The Law of Nature and of Nations 170
Editor's Notes 181
Further Reading 182
 Contents vii

John Locke 183

Introduction 183
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 184
The Reasonableness of Christianity 194
Editor's Notes 197
Further Reading 197

PART II. INTELLECT AND MORALITY

Guillaume Du Vair 201

Introduction 201
The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 202
Editor's Notes 215
Further Reading 215

Rene Descartes 216

Introduction 216
Discourse on Method 218
Principles of Philosophy 221
Correspondence with Princess Elizabeth and Queen Christina 224
Replies to Objections 233
Editor's Notes 235
Further Reading 235

Benedict de Spinoza 237

Introduction 237
A Treatise on Religion and Politics 239
Ethics 246
Editor's Notes 254
Further Reading 255

Nicholas Malebranche 256

Introduction 256
Treatise of Morality 258
Editor's Notes 273
Further Reading 273
viii Contents

Ralph Cudworth 275

Introduction 275
A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 277
Editor's Notes 290
Further Reading 291

Samuel Clarke 293

Introduction 293
A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of Natural
Religion 295
Editor's Notes 311
Further Reading 312

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 313

Introduction 313
The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason 315
On Wisdom 318
Felicity 320
Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice 322
Codex iuris gentium (Praefatio) 324
The Principles of Pufendorf 327
Editor's Notes 329
Further Reading 330

Christian Wolff 331

Introduction 331
Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men, for the Promotion
of Their Happiness 333
Editor's Notes 348
Further Reading 350

PART III. EPICUREANS AND EGOISTS

Pierre Gassendi 353

Introduction 353
Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 355
Editor's Notes 366
Further Reading 367
 Contents ix

Pierre Nicole 369

Introduction 369
Of Charity and Self-Love 370
Editor's Notes 387
Further Reading 387

Bernard Mandeville 388

Introduction 388
The Fable of the Bees 390
An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour 396
Editor's Notes 398
Further Reading 398

John Gay 399

Introduction 399
Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 400
Editor's Notes 413
Further Reading 413

Claude Adrien Helvetius 414

Introduction 414
On the Mind 416
Editor's Notes 429
Further Reading 430

Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach 431

Introduction 431
Universal Morality; or, The Duties of Man, Founded on Nature 432
System of Nature 437
Editor's Note 445
Further Reading 445

William Paley 446

Introduction 446
Moral and Political Philosophy 447
Editor's Notes 458
Further Reading 458

Jeremy Bentham 460

Introduction 460
An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation 462
x Contents

Theory of Legislation 475

Editor's Notes 479
Further Reading 479

PART IV. AUTONOMY AND RESPONSIBILITY

The Earl of Shaftesbury 483

Introduction 483
Sensus communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour 485
Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author 486
An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 488
Editor's Notes 501
Further Reading 501

Francis Hutcheson 503

Introduction 503
An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 505
Editor's Notes 523
Further Reading 524

Joseph Butler 525

Introduction 525
Sermons 527
Dissertation on Virtue 542
Editor's Notes 543
Further Reading 544

David Hume 545

Introduction 545
An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 547
Editor's Notes 566
Further Reading 566

Christian August Crusius 568

Introduction 568
Guide to Rational Living 569
Editor's Notes 585
Further Reading 585
 Contents xi

Richard Price 586

Introduction 586
A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 588
Editor's Notes 603
Further Reading 603

Jean-Jacques Rousseau 605

Introduction 605
Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among
Men 607
On the Social Contract 615
Emile 623
Editor's Notes 628
Further Reading 629

Thomas Reid 630

Introduction 630
Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 632
Editor's Notes 640
Further Reading 650

Immanuel Kant 651

Introduction 651
Lectures of Mr. Kant on the Metaphysics of Morals 653
Editor's Notes 662
Further Reading 664

Supplemental Bibliography 665

 Preface

This anthology grew out of the frustration I came increasingly to feel because
of the unavailability of texts I wanted to use in teaching the history of modern
moral philosophy. Of course, the ethical writings of Hobbes, Butler, Hume,
Bentham, and Kant are and have been regularly available, and it is easy to
fill a term with discussions of their work. From time to time I taught the
history of ethics doing just that. But I quickly came to realize that analysis
and criticism of the arguments of these five philosophers did not give students
a real picture of the development of moral philosophy in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. The philosophers' writings alone could not convey a
sense of the alternatives already available to each of them, nor could they
give the students a sense of what besides technical considerations might have
motivated their authors to accept, alter, or go entirely beyond existing views.
I came to think that if I did not include some of the less frequently studied
writers from the period and did not get beyond critical analysis of the argu-
ments, I could not be sure that I was not using my canonical subjects simply
as starting points for discussing problems I happened to find important at the
moment. And however valuable such a course might be, it would not be a
course in the history of the field.
When I tried to move beyond this way of teaching, however, I was blocked
by the difficulty of providing source material. There was the old anthology by
L. A. Selby-Bigge, The British Moralists, which is sporadically in print, and
there was its excellent, more recent successor with the same title, edited by
D. D. Raphael, which I used many times. Each has its own drawbacks. Selby-
Bigge did not aim to cover the seventeenth century, although he included a
little Hobbes and some Locke and Cudworth. Raphael, more comprehensive,
likewise made Hobbes his earliest writer. But I was coming to think it a
mistake to treat Hobbes as the starting point of modern moral philosophy.
And as I learned more about the work of the authors whom these editors
included, I came to think also that both anthologists were oversimplifying in
treating "the British moralists" as a proper unit of study. The British philoso-
phers were indeed carrying on a lively and interesting conversation among
themselves. But they were talking about as much to writers from across the
English Channel Although I had taken for granted the influence of British
moral philosophy on France and Germany, it now began to seem to me that
xiv Preface
the influence was reciprocal. If so, then the students needed to learn some-
thing of the Continental writers in order to understand the British discussion.
But the works of these other participants are even less accessible than those
of the British writers would be without the existing anthologies.
As I came to use more varied material in class — beginning with lengthy
assignments from Montaigne's Essays and only gradually getting to actual
scissors-and-paste handouts — I found that my interests were changing. Much
as I was still tempted to linger on the question of the validity of a specific
argument or the soundness of an objection, I found more and more that I
needed to trace patterns of development, the ways in which a thought intro-
duced by one philosopher was taken up and altered by others or was dropped
altogether. I could not, indeed, understand or explain why such changes were
made unless I was clear about the philosophical strengths and weaknesses of
the earlier position, and this, of course, required critical assessment. But I
found equally that many aspects of a later position remained inexplicable
until I knew what the earlier views were from which the philosopher had actu-
ally started his reflections. A satisfactory answer to the question "Why did he
say that?" required a philosophical story, not just a philosophical analysis. And
to be able to tell the story, I had to examine a variety of texts that were gen-
erally ignored.
The "story" part of what I was saying took me, moreover, beyond purely
philosophical considerations into remarks about the philosophers' social,
political, economic, and religious situations and about the reasons they might
have had or were known to have had for writing the kinds of things they did.
Historical considerations of this kind shed light on the general orientation of
a theory and helped the students appreciate the cultural importance of a
philosopher's work. They did not, however, suffice to explain the structure
and inner workings of what the philosopher was saying. For that, philoso-
phical discussion remained indispensable. It turned out that the different
approaches to the texts could be combined in one course, but it was a differ-
ent kind of course from the one I had initially taught.
In trying to learn enough to teach the history of ethics in this new way, I
made another discovery: that there is surprisingly little secondary literature
on many of the moral philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth cen-
turies. This is particularly noticeable if one is looking for help in gaining a his-
torical perspective on them. Among the innumerable studies of the ethics of
Hobbes or Hume or Kant, few indeed make serious attempts to locate them
in the controversies in which they took themselves to be engaging, and there
are not even many critical studies of lesser figures — sometimes none at all. I
came to think, therefore, that an anthology of primary material might help
stimulate interest in a neglected but quite important part of the history of phi-
losophy. In the bibliographies I give here I have usually omitted German and
French writings; but even had I included them, many lists would have
remained very short.
The present anthology obviously contains much more material than one
 Preface xv
could teach in a term or even in a year. The excess is deliberate. It makes it
possible for the instructor to give the same basic course several times while
varying at least some of the readings. It also enables the instructor to assign
several of the authors in each main section while lecturing on only one or two
and to assign papers or ask examination questions in which the student is
expected to show knowledge of more material than has been covered in class.
Students will gain as much from finding out how to do a careful comparative
study as from learning how to analyze in detail one philosopher's arguments.
Finally, the quantity of material allows the instructor to refer to some of the
less familiar philosophical works that constitute the intellectual context of the
canonical great writings, knowing that the interested student can read selec-
tions from them in the course textbook.
Some of the material included here is so simple as hardly to call for assis-
tance from an instructor, and some is quite difficult. The harder excerpts are,
however, no more difficult than those we conventionally expect students to
master in a survey course in the history of modern epistemology and meta-
physics from Descartes to Kant. Like that course, an introductory course on
the history of modern ethics would be accessible to students with little or no
preparation in philosophy. The material assembled here can also be used for
more advanced courses, including graduate seminars. I need hardly say
that it is not suitable for intensive study of any of the individual authors
represented.
To anthologize is to mutilate. The period as a whole is only partly repre-
sented, because I have not been able to include every philosophical writer
who is entitled to a place. Pierre Bayle and Christian Thomasius are the omis-
sions I regret most; readers will readily create their own lists of unfortunate
absences. The individual writers suffer as well, with the mutilation more
apparent in some cases than in others. The lecturer will, therefore, often need
to supplement as well as to comment on what I have included, but I have tried
to give enough in each case to ensure that the text presents at least the main
points of each author's moral philosophy.
I hope the availability of these texts will enable the development of modern
moral philosophy to find its place in the curriculum alongside the history of
modern epistemology and metaphysics. The subject is at least as important,
and it does not presuppose knowledge of the latter. If the biases in my story
of the development of moral philosophy, and their consequences for the selec-
tions, turn out to provoke the reader to investigate the history of ethics more
fully than the anthology itself makes possible, then my second hope for the
book will be realized. The anthology was designed as an aid to teaching and
learning. If it leads to more research in a neglected field, so much the better.
 Acknowledgments

At the end of the job it is a pleasure to thank the people who helped me
create this anthology. Jonathan Sinclair-Wilson first encouraged me to present
a proposal for it to Cambridge University Press. Terence Moore made impor-
tant suggestions about its final form and provided thoughtful comments about
many of its details. I am grateful to both of them. I thank the anonymous
referee who wrote a thoroughly informed and very valuable report on a draft
table of contents. My thanks also go to Knud Haakonssen, who commented
on a first attempt to abridge Grotius and Pufendorf, and to Onora O'Neill,
who read over the Kant selections. I am particularly indebted to Elborg
Forster, who delivered an excellent translation of the selection from Nicole
in what seemed like no time at all.
I am deeply indebted to Edna Ford, who transposed into the computer
endless amounts of more or less unreadable seventeenth- and eighteenth-
century text. Her skill is remarkable, and her willingness to tackle "just one
more" — and then another — seems to be inexhaustible. Without her assistance
it would have been much more difficult to make accessible many of these
texts.
My greatest debt is to the students who have taken the courses out of which
the anthology grew, listening patiently to my efforts to construct a sensible
narrative and, in more recent years, offering their views of the usefulness of
tentative selections.
Much of the work on this anthology was done during a sabbatical leave
from Johns Hopkins University, whose administration in this as in many other
ways has been understanding and helpful in fostering research.
Acknowledgments to publishers who granted permission to use excerpts to
which they hold copyright are given in the introductions to the individual
authors.

xvii
 Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint

In the Introduction to the original printing of this anthology I said that a

proper account of the readings it contains would require a substantial volume
on the history of modern moral philosophy. My attempt to provide such an
account is contained in The Invention of Autonomy, published about nine
years after the anthology was finished.' Not surprisingly, as I worked on the
book I changed my mind about some of the views I held while preparing the
anthology. In this Foreword I first try to supplement the original Introduction
by discussing one major theme — the significance of religious voluntarism for
moral philosophy — that I think I have come to understand more fully than I
did. I then make some comments about how moral philosophers may benefit
from the study of the history of their subject.
I have added a brief bibliography, listing some of the work on the history
of early modern moral philosophy that has appeared since the anthology was
completed. In the body of the reprint I have been able only to correct a few
minor errors and typographical mistakes.

I
Contemporary moral philosophy outside the Roman Catholic tradition arose
from debates about three views that had been developed by the end of the
eighteenth century: utilitarianism, intuitionism, and Kantianism. These alter-
natives were not among the theories available to thinkers of the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries. The texts reprinted here enable the reader to see how
and why the newer positions emerged from discussions of moral philosophy
in early modern Europe. To interpret the readings is to link them in a narra-
tive that makes sense of them. Any interpretation highlights some aspects of
the historical material and gives less weight to other aspects. No single inter-
pretation is the sole correct one, but some ways of linking the readings are
better than others.
One interpretation is better than another if it is more comprehensive and
more accurate in its use of sources, links more of what they say together, and
does a better job of enabling us to find and understand the reasons that led
intelligent people to hold the conflicting views that were under discussion.
xix
xx Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint
Other ways of comprehending such disagreements might come from expla-
nations of them in terms of economic or sociological or psychological causes.
As philosophers, however, we are interested in the debates insofar as they
involved reasoned responses to the arguments and positions that were in
question. And when we look at the debates historically we need to be sure
that we are considering arguments and views that were known to the partici-
pants at the time. Otherwise we run the risk of substituting our own concerns
for theirs.

In what follows I sketch a problem that was very much on the minds of
philosophers — and many others — in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
My interpretive suggestion is that the three main kinds of theory that came
to be debated in the following two centuries emerged as attempts to solve
this problem. Much of the evidence to support this interpretation is contained
in the texts I have assembled here.
In the early modern period it was impossible to think philosophically about
morality without considering what God had to do with it. Of course there
were doubters and atheists, and some of them, like David Hume, tried to work
out ways of understanding morality that made no reference to God. 2 But most
moral philosophers worked on the assumption that God was indispensable
for morality. For them the main question was: Just how is God involved?
At least two main kinds of answer were available. One was the straight-
forward view taught by Martin Luther. Morality is centrally concerned with
our obedience to laws that bind all human beings alike. God makes those laws
simply by willing that his creatures are to behave in the specific ways that he
dictates. In instituting moral law his will is not governed by anything external
to itself. In particular there are no values or laws that God must observe. Some
of Luther's statements of that view are given in the Introduction (p. 8). John
Calvin had a similar position. "God's will," he said, "is so much the highest
rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by the very fact that he wills it,
must be considered righteous." We cannot ask why God has willed as he has:
To ask that is to suppose something higher than God, which Calvin took to
be absurd.'
Nineteenth-century scholars labeled this kind of view voluntarism. Nowa-
days moral philosophers and theologians think of it as divine command
ethics.' Descartes held a version of voluntarism, and more importantly for the
history of ethics so did the Lutherans Pufendorf and Crusius. Many other
writers on the Continent and in Britain also adhered to it. Thus William
Law, an influential eighteenth-century English minister, insisted that "Nothing
has a sufficient moral reason or fitness to be done, but because it is the will
of God that it should be done." Law went further. God must continually
will the rightness of certain acts if they are to continue to be right, just as his
will must sustain the existence of the physical universe from moment to
moment.5
Voluntarism brought together many aspects of Christian teaching. It gave
a central place to God's total omnipotence. Indeed some thinkers held that
 Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint xxi

it was the view required by the admission of his omnipotence. Voluntarism

seemed to make the foundation of morality clear. It fostered awe and humble
obedience, the attitudes proper for human beings to have toward God. And
it showed exactly how and why God is essential to morality. There would be
no morality at all if God had not willed that we obey specific commands. We
are obligated to obey his commands because they are his commands and he
can back them with force. The sinfulness of our flawed human nature means
that we will usually not obey out of love of God or out of gratitude to him.
But we can be made to obey out of fear of punishment and hope of reward.
This overall picture appealed to many deeply religious Christians.
It appalled others. It seemed to them to make God into a tyrant. His com-
mands seem wholly arbitrary because they do not have to be guided by inde-
pendent standards of goodness or rightness. We cannot know whether he
loves us or not because we cannot understand his will. How can we love a
being like this? This is no loving father caring for his children, but an unprin-
cipled despot. Yet the scripture tells us that Christ commanded us to love God
above all else. He also taught us to act with love toward other people, and not
just from fear of punishment or selfish hope of reward. Voluntarism, its critics
said, makes Christian love impossible. It was morally unacceptable and had
to be rejected for that reason.
What, then, is the alternative? Two problems had to be solved to work out
a satisfactory answer. First, the anti-voluntarist had to show how we can be
sure that morality applies both to God and to humans. This required that the
basis or foundation for morality — whatever makes it binding on us — be shown
to make it binding on God as well. Second, the anti-voluntarist had to explain
how it is that God is essential to morality. The second question was as impor-
tant during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as the first. A view that
made morality wholly independent of God was taken to amount to atheism,
which for the vast majority was unthinkable. But any adequate solution to the
first problem seemed to make the second problem much more difficult than
it was for the voluntarists.
We can see why if we see that the anti-voluntarists had to produce a basic
principle or set of principles that met four conditions. First, the basic princi-
ples had to be necessarily tied to what makes anyone capable of acting for
reasons. Otherwise the anti-voluntarists could not argue that such principles
must be common to humans and to God. Second, the principles had to be
able to answer all moral questions. Otherwise room would be left for God to
make arbitrary moral decisions. Third, moral principles had to be accessible
to us without any help from revelation. Otherwise we would be left without
assurance of the ultimate justifiability of God's communications to us. And
finally there had to be a tie between motivation to act morally and awareness
of moral principles. Only then could we be sure that we would not be forced
to rely on divine threats and offers to get most people to act as the principles
direct — and that God, who cannot be threatened, would also act on them.
Each of the three kinds of theory that emerged by the end of the eighteenth
century tries to meet these conditions, in different ways. Consider first the
xxii Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint

view that right acts are those that produce the best consequences. Reason-
able agents expect good to result from their actions and would not do them
if only bad resulted, or if there were other acts that would bring about more
good. This seems to be so obvious that it is easy to think that it is a simple
definition of rational action. And we get started on a complete theory when
the philosopher fills in the notion of the good that rationality requires us to
maximize Is the good taken to be pleasure? We get various forms of utili-
tarianism. Is the good human perfection? Then we get different perfectionist
views. From this point on the philosopher's task is to show how all of moral-
ity follows once it is specified what constitutes the good.
Intuitionism starts from what was then a generally accepted view. Reason-
ing in every field starts with self-evident principles. After all, we cannot prove
everything we say. We have to start from claims that can be seen to be true
without argument. That is how geometry starts, and there seem to be moral
principles that are every bit as obvious as the axioms of geometry. The mental
ability to grasp self-evident truths is intuition. At least some of the basic prin-
ciples of morals seem self-evident to any reasonable agent. The philosopher's
job is then to show that there are enough such principles to cover the whole
of morality.
And finally Kantianism. Kant presented his principle as articulating the
core requirement of practical reason itself. All reasoning requires the avoid-
ance of self-contradiction. As rational agents, we act not just from impulse or
blind desire but for reasons. And if we have a reason to act in a certain way
in a specific case, we have a similar reason to act in the same way in cases that
are just like the first one. Kant argued that respecting this practical principle
is a matter of respecting rational agency as such, and he claimed he could
develop the whole of morality from these considerations.
Once philosophers found principles that met these conditions for respond-
ing to voluntarism, they were faced with the second problem. Any principle
that meets all the conditions would seem to leave no part for God to play in
morality. If we can by ourselves know what we ought to do in every case, at
least in principle, and if we can always be moved to do it from within our-
selves, what need have we of the divinity? The anti-voluntarists seemed to be
moving toward atheism or, as we would now say, toward secularism. Most of
them did not intend to do so. What, then, could they say of God's role? What
is there left for him to do?
The general answer was that God is needed to assure us that the universe
is friendly to morality. The morality that reason shows us engages us in a
cooperative endeavor with others. Much of what it requires makes sense only
if other people are trying to do their part along with us and if most people
succeed most of the time. Otherwise the sacrifices called for by morality would
be senseless. And of course it cannot be reasonable to engage in senseless
activity. How can we be sure that doing what is required by a reasonable
morality has any chance of resulting in a decent and livable world? Modern
science was no help here. It presented a world that was completely indiffer-
 Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint xxiii
ent to the values that guide our lives and our societies. Nature neither helps
nor hinders us. We need a God — a "divine superintendent," as Adam Smith
called him — to assure us that we live in a universe that is friendly to moral-
ity. The passage from Cumberland in the Introduction to this volume (p. 22)
shows one way in which this point was expressed at the time.
The anti-voluntarists were moved by an intense feeling that voluntarism
presented a morally degrading picture both of human beings and of God.
They saw the view as fundamentally at odds with the Christian moral teach-
ing that centered on love. They also saw it as having dangerous political impli-
cations. If God ruled us as a despot, why might not earthly rulers do the same?
The political analog of God's absolute will was never far from the minds of
the anti-voluntarists.

II
The controversy about voluntarism illustrates two important points about the
history of ethics. First, modern thought about our moral convictions and about
the psychology and metaphysics presupposed by them was profoundly shaped
by moral and political concerns. Philosophers did not simply apply to moral-
ity the theoretical views they worked out in response to problems posed by
skepticism and the new science. Moral and political beliefs helped shape the
epistemologies they developed to explain our awareness of how we ought to
behave.
Second, the issues that shaped the development of early modern moral phi-
losophy arose largely from problems specific to the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. They were different from both the problems faced by
ancient philosophers and our own problems. The point can be illustrated by
looking at a kind of argument that anti-voluntarists repeatedly used against
the voluntarists. "It is agreed," Leibniz wrote, "that whatever God wills is good
and just. But there remains the question whether it is good and just because
God wills it or whether God wills it because it is good and just." To take the
first position, the voluntarist position, is to "destroy the justice of God. For
why praise him because he acts according to justice, if the notion of justice,
in his case, adds nothing to that of action?" (Leibniz, this volume p. 322; see
also pp. 327-9). On the voluntarist view, saying that God acts justly is saying
only that God acts as he wills to act. But we mean to praise God when we
say he acts justly. The voluntarist makes this impossible.
Now this looks very much like the argument that Plato has Socrates bring
to bear in the Euthyphro. Euthyphro claimed that bringing a law suit against
his father would be right because the gods would approve it. Socrates asked
him whether it would be right because the gods approved, or whether the
gods approved because it was right. The former answer would yield some-
thing like a voluntarist view, and it seemed (so Plato suggests) so obviously
wrong that Euthyphro would hesitate to accept it. The strength of the argu-
ment is clear.
xxiv Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint

Some of the anti-voluntarists explicitly appealed to this Platonic dialogue.

But what they were doing in using arguments of the Socratic kind was con-
fronting a widely accepted interpretation of the dominant ideology of Europe.
It was an interpretation of Christianity that insisted on a humbling and dep-
recatory vision of human capacities, to which the anti-voluntarists were
strongly opposed. Against the Augustinian view as restated by Luther and
Calvin the early modern anti-voluntarists were creating and defending a new
moral vision of human dignity. All of this was plainly not something that
Socrates or Plato could even have imagined doing. They did not have the
Christian conceptions of God and original sin and so could not have been
trying to work out alternative interpretations of them.
We will therefore miss a great deal if we think that the point of the
Euthyphro-like argument used by Leibniz and others was simply to get
straight on the analysis of moral terms or to correct a conceptual error made
by predecessors. The point was much larger. The philosophers' debates arose
from problems that were vitally important within the culture in which they
occurred. We must look outside of the purely philosophical debates to see
why the issues were urgent. And we need the same frame of reference in order
to understand the precise shape the problem took and the constraints on what
could count as an adequate answer.
In our own time arguments against naturalistic accounts of morality often
remind us of the Euthyphro argument. It can thus easily seem as if there is a
recurrent problem, first noticed by Plato, with defining moral concepts in
terms of non-moral ones (what the gods want, what the Christian God com-
mands, what evolution leads to, what is pleasant). And we might take this as
a model of the concerns of moral philosophy. We might think that philo-
sophical problems arise simply from reflection on ideas that are always
involved in morality. We can of course confine our philosophy within these
limits We get some useful analyses and arguments by doing so. But we miss
the larger significance that moral philosophy has had and can continue to have
if it remains as responsive to issues outside of itself as it has been in the past.
Histories of moral philosophy written in the last century and a half have
not on the whole helped us to understand the way in which the works they
study have been connected with the problems of the societies in which they
were written. Such histories — the most influential early example is the
Outlines of the History of Ethics by Henry Sidgwick (1886) — tend to confine
themselves to discussion of issues internal to systematic philosophical thought
about morality. They thus reinforce the image of the subject created by the
academic study of it. They treat moral philosophy as if it had always been a
self-enclosed discipline to be taught and advanced by scholars who are cre-
dentialed and evaluated by others in the same profession. They have often
taken the problems and methods of the moral philosophy of their time as the
way the subject has to be. They have not asked how and why those problems
came to be discussed and those methods used. They assumed, that is, that the
 Foreword to the One-Volume Reprint xxv
answer to the question "What is the moral philosopher doing?" is always the
same: trying to solve philosophical problems.
Much valuable history of philosophy has been written in this style. But it
would now be useful to realize that there can be many answers to the ques-
tion of what the philosopher is doing. Philosophy can be and has been used
to address problems that begin outside of philosophy and are of significance
to the society generally. For example, in addressing the question of whether
moral concepts can be defined in terms of non-moral concepts the early
modern anti-voluntarists were attacking what they took to be a degrading
view of human beings, criticizing a source of support for political despotism,
and trying to free their societies from certain kinds of dictation by the clergy.
If we see that in the past moral philosophers have used their philosophy for
purposes like these we may feel freer to ask whether our own philosophical
activity can help with the problems of our own times.
English-language moral philosophy during the last three decades of the
previous century has increasingly turned toward such issues. Moral philoso-
phers began to ask how their abstract theories might be of use in addressing
the problems of fairness in the distribution of wealth and income, racial
justice, peace, the equality of women, and new issues created by science and
technology in medicine and elsewhere. They did less in asking how those prob-
lems might contribute to the reshaping of abstract philosophical theories.
Recovery of past thought, its social contexts, and its purposes, is valuable in
its own right. But in addition, a fuller and more varied historiography of moral
philosophy might help to enrich the subject itself.

Notes
1. J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge University Press,
1998).
2. Some philosophers who did not present themselves as atheists were widely taken
to be unbelievers nonetheless. Spinoza is a prime example. See Jonathan I. Israel,
Radical Enlightenment (Oxford University Press, 2001), chs. 12-17, for an impor-
tant study of his thought and its influence.
3. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, ed. John T. McNeill. Trans. Ford
Lewis Battles. 2 vols. (London: 1941), III.xxiii.2.
4. For a brief account of contemporary discussions, with useful references, see "Divine
Command Ethics" by Janine Marie Idziak, in A Companion to Philosophy of Reli-
gion, ed. Philip L. Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (Blackwell Publishers, 1997), pp.
453-9.
5. William Law, The Case of Reason, or Natural Religion (London, 1731), reprinted in
The Works of the Reverend William Law (Brockenhurst, Hampshire: G. Moreton,
1892), vol. 2, pp. 86-7, cf. p. 68. Voluntarism continued to be defended
in Britain in the nineteenth century. John Stuart Mill took it seriously enough to
write a scathing diatribe against it, one that echoes many of the earlier objections
made to it. See Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philosophy (1865),
ch. VII.
 Introduction

The development of modern science from the sixteenth century onward al-
tered the European culture that was its home, and the philosophies that arose
from the effort to comprehend and to aid or halt the growth of scientific
understanding have occupied a central place in our thinking and teaching ever
since. A second change in European culture during this period, no less mo-
mentous, was equally intertwined with philosophy. The view people had of
themselves as moral agents changed, and with it their view of their responsi-
bilities and their possibilities. The philosophy involved in this change, resist-
ing it or helping create and understand it, was moral philosophy. Its history
has not been as carefully studied and as regularly taught as has the history of
epistemology and metaphysics. Yet the problems that engaged moral philoso-
phers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries have their own distinc-
tive motivations and are at least as significant as those of epistemology and
metaphysics. It is not necessary that our work on the history of modern
philosophy be mainly concentrated — as it conventionally has been — on the
latter issues. The history of ethics is an equally significant field of study.

Aims of the Anthology

The readings gathered in this anthology were chosen to show what the issues
regarding morality were and how philosophical thought about them devel-
oped during this period. I have, of course, included the well-known philoso-
phers to whose work we commonly trace the origins of our current problems
and options in philosophical ethics: Hobbes, Butler, Hume, Bentham, Kant. I
have set their writings amid selections from some of the now lesser-known
writers who were their predecessors and contemporaries. The views of those
who have become the canonical great thinkers emerged from protracted inter-
change with these writers, as well as with such writers from classical antiquity
as Cicero, Seneca, and Sextus Empiricus. But reading only the famous figures
is like hearing only one or two voices in a complex discussion. Unless we catch
something of what the others had to say, we will not understand what the
philosophical problems were or why the discussions took the turns they did.
We will also fail to see just why we now understand the problems of moral
philosophy as we do.

1
2 Introduction

Many other kinds of writing about morality might have been included.
Commentaries on Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, books of both Roman
Catholic and Protestant casuistry,' political and moral tracts, polemics against
theorists and their theories, exhortations to the virtuous life, demonstrations
of the truth of Christianity and its morality, volumes on the way to true
happiness, and popular moralizing journals like the Spectator and its innu-
merable imitations — all contributed to public debate about morality and to
the changing understanding of it. An ideal anthology showing the growth of
thought about morality would represent writings of all these kinds. But the
ideal anthology would demand more time for the subject than most readers
are likely to have.
In choosing and organizing the selections, I have had to adjust the past.
One of the adjustments was necessary because the very subject of this anthol-
ogy, moral philosophy, was not always understood as we understand it today.
We distinguish the subject from both political theory and religious ethics, and
we do not think it includes discussion of how to be successful, polite, and
happy. The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century writings in which we find the
material we think of as part of ethics did not generally have so narrow a focus.
Rather, moral philosophy was simply the study of the whole of human action,
undertaken with the hope of improving practice. In selecting material for
studying the history of thought about morality, I have frequently had to be
anachronistic in deciding that some parts of a book were moral philosophy
and other parts were not.
I have further adjusted the past in organizing the selections topically rather
than chronologically. The organization that I have imposed comes from my
own view of the historical development of modern moral philosophy. Other
views of its development would naturally result in somewhat different selec-
tions and in other ways of grouping them. Indeed, even in the light of my own
outlook, my groupings are to some extent arbitrary. Some of the philosophers
I have put in one section might have gone into another one. Hobbes, for
instance, is placed among the natural lawyers, although he might have gone in
with the Epicureans. I hope, however, that there is enough in these excerpts
to enable to reader to judge whether my way of organizing the material is
helpful and to improve on it or to ignore it where called for.
A full introduction to the readings I have assembled would require a
substantial volume interpreting the course of modern moral philosophy. In
the comments I prefix to each of the selections, therefore, I try only to relate
the specific contribution of the writer to the kind of view he represents and
to the issues he addresses. As an introduction to the readings generally, I
first outline some of the earlier views of morality that formed the intellectual
context within which modern moral philosophy began its course. I then
explain the categories into which I have divided the moral philosophy of the
period, by discussing briefly some of the themes and problems running
through its development.
 European Religious Controversies 3

European Religious Controversies

Modern moral philosophy originated in the need to rethink the inherited ways
in which European culture defined proper conduct and good character. There
was a certain amount, of general agreement about how civilized people were to
behave, but there was increasing disarray in the ways in which the accepted
demands on action were explained. The new natural science, by its challenge
to the authority of received opinion rather than by any direct assault on
religion, was slowly beginning to carouse questions. Europeans were also per-
plexed by the stories that travelers brought back from remote parts of the
world — reports about people living peacefully and happily in ways quite differ-
ent from those that were known at home. Yet neither of these sources of
disquiet raised problems as difficult as those that came from within the Chris-
tian framework of Western culture.
The reformation of religion begun by Martin Luther in 1517 and carried
forward by John Calvin had broken up the seeming agreement of the Western
world about the truth of the Christian faith as taught by the Roman Catholic
church. Many versions of the Protestants' new theology offered interpreta-
tions of the faith, and traditional Catholic teaching was reiterated and devel-
oped to answer the Reformers and to resolve new social and political prob-
lems. Demands for loyalty and service to one's sovereign were often made in
the name of the truth of one or another variety of Christianity, and the savage
and brutal wars that devastated Europe during much of the sixteenth and the
first half of the seventeenth centuries were usually explained and justified in
religious terms. Until the middle of the seventeenth century the warfare must
have seemed interminable. The continuing slaughter reinforced the conclu-
sion that the endless controversies of theologians made inescapable: that
religion could no longer provide a commonly acceptable account of the ways
in which we should live.
Christian visions of the virtuous life and the decent society were not the
only ones available. More significant than the travelers' tales were the works
of the pagan writers of classical antiquity. New editions and translations were
making them more accessible to a wide readership than ever before. Stoicism
and Epicureanism had long been known, and the teachings of Pyrrhonic
skepticism were rediscovered during the sixteenth century as well. These
philosophies were taken as doctrines concerning how to live and were under-
stood to be more or less in competition with Christianity. It was natural for
thoughtful people to ask what one was to make of all this and what bearing it
had on one's behavior.
There was an evident dilemma. It was dangerous if not impossible to appeal
to specifically Christian doctrine to justify proposals for settling disputes
about political and social issues, because such appeals rapidly degenerated
into the standard unresolvable arguments about religion. Yet for most people
a wholly secular morality was not a genuine option. Christian Europe might
4 Introduction

be divided into warring factions, but it was Christian still. Open doubt about
religion was rarely expressed; a declaration of atheism could be dangerous
even in the later eighteenth century. For a small elite, a private life lived in
terms provided by pagan writers might be acceptable, although even such
views were usually "Christianized" to a greater or lesser extent. But the
language of statecraft, like the language most people used in thinking of
personal relations, was religious. An acceptable public morality thus would
have to present itself as a reconstruction of Christian morality, however that
might be understood.
A bare minimum of Christian morality would be taken in the seventeenth
century as the Decalogue interpreted in the light of the summary Christ gave
of the law: Love God above all else and your neighbor as yourself. (Matt.
22:37-40). 2 The teaching of Saint Paul added two dimensions to these pre-
cepts. First, he declared that knowledge of God's requirements is not re-
stricted to those who have a written revelation of them. For "when the
Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the
law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves" (Rom. 2:14). 3 At
the same time Paul stressed the sinfulness of fallen man and the general
decay of human nature that is its outcome. These biblical texts made it
necessary for Christian theologians and moral philosophers to explain the
relations between law and love and between natural awareness of what
morality requires and sinful temptations to ignore that awareness. Two ear-
lier explanations of how all these things fit together were essential to our
period: those proposed by Saint Augustine and by Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Augustinianism was a major source of the distinctive views of Luther and
Calvin, as well as of the Catholic Jansenist movement in seventeenth-century
France; Thomism shaped the positions of numerous Protestants as well as of
Catholics. I offer here only the most compressed reminders of the main
pertinent aspects of the two positions.

Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas

Augustine (353-430 c.E.) began by interpreting the creation in Neoplatonic
terms, as the overflowing of God's infinite being into an ordered hierarchy of
entities that exist or possess being in lesser degrees than God does. 4 For
Augustine, being and goodness were essentially the same, so that whatever
God made is good. What we take to be evil, Augustine held, is only an
absence of good, an absence we notice when we see something to be less good
than others of its kind or of some other kind. Things of even the least degree
of being or goodness have a role and a place in declaring God's glory, and the
world would be less perfect without them. Admitting that we see things as
ugly, as destructive, or in other ways as suffering from defects, Augustine
insisted that all of this is unavoidably part of the infinite variety that expresses
God's essence. We, of course, with our limited minds, do not see this. "We
cannot observe the whole design, in which these small parts, which are to us
 Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas 5
so disagreeable, fit together to make an ordered scheme of beauty." 5 And so
we think that there is evil.
The one kind of evil whose existence Augustine admitted is the kind that
humans do. We were created, he held, loving the good, and we were meant to
pursue different things in accordance with the degree of goodness embodied
in them. Because we are finite beings, we have needs and desires, and there is
nothing wrong with satisfying them, nor is there anything evil about the things
and actions needed for our sustenance and enjoyment. Rather, what is evil is
the love that loves things more than they deserve. God, being infinitely good,
is our true final end. Only in union with him can we find satisfaction and final
peace. But our desires tempt us to want things regardless of their true place in
the hierarchy of being. We want worldly wealth, for example, as if it were our
final good. And because we were created with a free will, which enables us to
choose among the various goods that are presented to us, we can choose to act
for the sake of a wrong love. When we do so, we are acting evilly. The good
person is one who chooses what he or she knows, through reason or faith, to
be truly good; the evil person is one who chooses to follow desire even when it
leads to the pursuit of overvalued ends.
Adam's decision to follow Eve rather than to obey God — to choose the
lesser rather than the greater good — was not only the prototype of all bad
willing; it was also the cause of a disaster to the human species. Since Adam's
Fall our nature has been spoiled, and the second nature we have acquired is a
sinful one. We are no longer able to choose freely between true good and
merely apparent good. We are able to choose freely only to do evil, for we can
no longer choose freely to do all things for the love of God. We act always for
the gratification of our own desires, and even when these are relatively de-
cent, as they were in many of the fabled pagan heroes, they still are sinful
because they are the expression of the pride and self-will of their possessors.
And pride — reliance on himself rather than on God — was the sin of the chief
of the fallen angels, the devil.
The consequence of the Fall was that although God has let us know what he
expects us to do, we do not have the moral capacity to do it, at least not as we
should. No effort of ours will enable us to be what God commands us to be.
We will be lost eternally if he does not aid us. And of course, through the
coming of Christ, God told us that he will aid us. Augustine held that God's
aid must come to us without any merit on our part. It is "prevenient," or
coming before we deserve it. From our point of view, therefore, it looks
arbitrary. God saves whom he will, and according to Augustine, he saves very
few indeed. To those whom he saves he gives right love; they constitute the
members of the City of God, and they will see him after death. The others,
members of the earthly city, remain cumbered with wrong love, condemned
even after death to exile from God's presence.
In his own time Augustine's position was challenged by an Irish monk
named Pelagius (c. 360-431 c.E.), who denied that the Fall had ruined anyone
besides Adam himself. God would not be so unjust, Pelagius believed, as to
6 Introduction

command us to do what he himself had made it impossible for us to do, and he

was not so ignorant of our abilities as to misjudge theta. Our freedom remains
with us and, with it, the sole responsibility for our condition. We can at any
time cease to live sinfully and begin to live righteously, and if we do so, we can
come to deserve an eternal reward. Augustine was appalled by this view,
however: It presumed that humans could make God into their debtor. It
seemed to make the coming of Christ superfluous. It offended Augustine's
sense of the majesty of God and the littleness of humanity, and he wrote tract
after tract to refute it. 6 Augustine was a mighty dialectician and a convincing
writer. Pelagianism became a heresy, but the position did not die. Indeed,
some see traces of it in the highly orthodox position of Saint Thomas.
Thomas accepted the Augustinian vision of the world as a hierarchy of
creatures possessing different degrees of being and goodness. His own expla-
nation of this ordered whole was given in terms of laws and Aristotelian ends
,

or goals natural to each kind of thing, God's eternal wisdom is contained in

the eternal law, which leads each kind of thing to work for the common good
as it strives to attain its own natural end. We humans are unique among the
visible created beings in that we participate in the eternal law through our
reason. The natural law is what results from our sharing in the divine reason,
and it is what Saint Paul alluded to in his dictum about our being a law unto
ourselves. The dictum, Thomas made clear, does not mean that we are inde-
pendent of God's rule:
Law is present not only in the ruling principle but derivatively as well in the subject
ruled. In this last manner each is a law unto himself, in so far as he enters into the plan
of the governing authority. So St. Paul goes on to say that people show the work of the
law written in their hearts. 7

In addition to the natural law, which directs our striving for our natural end —
earthly happiness — there is another law, the divine law, which shows us how
to attain our supernatural end, union with God. The natural law is given to
reason, by being imprinted in the special part of conscience that Thomas
occasionally called the "synteresis," or repository of principles.' The divine
law, however, can be known only by revelation.
For Saint Thomas, all knowledge starts with self-evident principles, and
practical knowledge is no exception. The Decalogue contains some of the laws
of nature but does not itself spell out the most basic axioms. They are con-
tained in it only as its presupposed principles. Of these the first is that good is
to be sought and evil avoided. This tells us that the main features of our
nature are to be turned to good. Although we can come to know the laws of
nature directly from the synteresis, we can explain them by seeing that they
instruct beings with our nature about their proper good. Some precepts of
natural law pertain to not killing and to honoring parents, for example, be-
cause as animals we all desire life and offspring. We are rational as well as
animal beings, and the natural law tells us that it is for the good of such beings
not only to seek the knowledge of God through which we can be united with
 Luther and Calvin 7

him but also to live with others of their kind. Hence we must worship God and
do whatever facilitates life in a community of rational beings. The other
precepts of the Decalogue, and all the rest of the natural law, can be given
similar explanations. Everyone can grasp at least the most basic principles,
although only few can see everything they. entail. Although all of these laws
may be carried out in many different ways — as there are many ways of paying
a debt or of honoring God — the basic moral precepts are always valid "be-
cause they belong of themselves to the nature of virtue." 9
Thomas's doctrine of natural law is at heart a doctrine not of natural rights
but of natural responsibilities. "The good of the part is for the good of the
whole," Thomas asserted, "hence everything, by its natural appetite and love,
loves its own proper good because of the common good of the whole universe,
which is God." 1° The laws of nature show us what we are to do as our proper
work for the common good, and other people should allow us to do those
things. In this way we might have rights arising from our responsibilities in the
cosmic venture. But the responsibilities come before the rights, and both
belong to us only as members 01 a community. Only the laws of nature, and
not rights as such, can place any restraints on the laws that humans can pass.
Within this vision of entities of every kind striving for their natural ends or
goods and thereby working to create a common universe that declares God's
glory, what place is there for sin and grace? Thomas's doctrine is too complex
for adequate summary here but in outline is roughly as follows: Even Adam
unfallen had need of God's grace to enable him to win salvation, and we now,
damaged by his Fall, need it more. For us it is harder than it was for Adam to
know our duty and to do it as we ought, from love. Yet a first grace is offered
to all of us, and although it comes without our deserving it, our active partici-
pation through our natural power of free choice is required if it is to be
effective within us. That power was not destroyed by the Fall, and the grace
that is offered to everyone does not remove it. We can and must continue to
cooperate in the acceptance of grace in order ultimately to merit salvation;
and if we do so, we are cooperating in a work that does not replace our nature
but restores and perfects it."

Luther and Calvin

If Thomas is not a Pelagian, he at least sees us as able to contribute voluntarily
to our salvation. Martin Luther (1483-1546) revolutionized Christianity as an
organized institution and did so in part because he held views of our moral
and religious capacities that were considerably grimmer than Thomas's. Lu-
ther accepted the belief that God had created an ordered cosmos to express
his glory. He agreed that the cosmos was governed by laws, the natural laws
for humanity among them. Like all his predecessors, Luther saw God as
humanity's final end, and people as mistakenly and fruitlessly seeking for the
highest good among earthly possessions and pleasures. But he followed Saint
Augustine rather than Thomas in stressing the disorder introduced by human
8 Introduction

sin, and our inability to address it adequately by institutional actions. It was in

part because Luther felt that the Catholic church was underestimating the
seriousness of that disorder that he thought reform was needed:
Saint Thomas tried everywhere to remove the mystery of the Christian
teaching and to make it as reasonable as possible. Luther insisted that God
surpasses human understanding and that consequently his actions must often
be incomprehensible. Why does a just and loving God create beings who, as
he knows, will inevitably sin and thereby come to deserve eternal punish-
ment? This question, Luther declared,
touches on the secrets of His Majesty. . . . It is not for us to inquire into these mysteries,
but to adore them . . . God is He for Whose will no cause or ground may be laid down as
its rule or standard; for nothing is on a level with it or above it, but it is itself the rule for
all things. . . . What God wills is not right because He ought, or was, bound, so to will; on
the contrary, what takes place must be right, because he so wills it . 12

Here Luther is in the company of the voluntarist thinkers who from Duns
Scotus (c. 1265-1308) to William of Ockham (1285-1349) and Gabriel Biel (c.
1410-95) opposed the intellectualism of Saint Thomas and his followers. They
all denied that God wills things to exist because there are independent and
eternal standards of goodness or rightness to which his willing must conform.
Any such standards, they thought, would impose a limit to God's
omnipotence, and such limits cannot be accepted. Although they allowed
that God could not contradict himself, they did not see any problem in suppos-
ing that God might have willed laws for human conduct other than those
enshrined in the Decalogue. Had he done so, those other laws would now be
as binding on us as the Ten Commandments currently are." John Calvin
agreed on this matter with Luther: God's will, he said,
is, and rightly ought to be, the cause of all things that are. For if it has any cause,
something must precede it, to which it is, as it were, bound; this is unlawful to imagine.
For God's will is so much the highest rule of righteousness that whatever he wills, by
the very fact that he wills it, must be considered righteous. °

The most important way in which the sovereignty of God's will shows itself in
our lives is in the distribution of salvation. Both of these Reformers held that we
can do nothing to deserve God's saving grace. He chooses — arbitrarily as it
must seem to us — some to be saved and most to be cut off forever from the
contact with him that is our only enduring good. To ask why just these people
are saved and all others damned, why so few are saved and so many lost, is to
display the pride characteristic of our fallen condition.
Like Saint Augustine, Luther and Calvin saw unredeemed humanity as
utterly selfish. The sinner, Luther observed,
does not seek God. . . . he seeks his own riches, and glory and works, and wisdom,
and power, and sovereignty in everything, and wants to enjoy it in peace. If anyone
stands in his way . . . he is moved with the same perverted desire that moves him to
seek them, and is outraged and furious with his opponent. He can no more restrain his
fury than he can stop his self-seeking.'5
 Luther and Calvin 9
Although Luther takes us to be free on one level — we can control much of
our publicly observable behavior such as eating or accepting an offer of help —
we are not inwardly free to reject our selfish motives and act from loving ones.
Only grace enables us to do that, and grace comes only to the few. The saved
must live in society with those who are not saved, and the latter would be like
wild savage beasts 16 if they were not restrained by laws and magistrates with
power to enforce them. Hence there is justification for earthly power and
earthly law, and earthly law must conform to God's laws for humankind. But
God's laws have a function more important than that of showing how the
wicked must be constrained so that people can live in peaceful societies.
The first function of the law — Luther is thinking of the Ten Command-
ments — is to show us that without God's aid we are hopelessly sinful and weak.
It shows us what we ought to do, or what it would be good to do, in order to
show us first of all that we cannot do what it directs.
Although the commandments teach things that are good, the things taught are not
done as soon as they are taught, for the commandments show us what we ought to do
but do not give us the power to do it. They are intended to teach man to know himself,
that through them he may recognize his inability to do good and may despair of his
own ability. 17

This view of the old or Mosaic law was anticipated by Saint Thomas. The new
law, he stated, is the law of grace. It could only function after man had been
"left to himself under the state of the Old Law," which taught him to "realize
his weakness, and acknowledge his need of grace." I8 Luther was far more
emphatic:
The law is . . . to reveal unto a man his sin, his blindness, his misery, his impiety,
ignorance, hatred and contempt of God, death, hell, the judgment and deserved wrath
of God. . . . This . . . is the proper and principal use of the law . . . and also the most
necessary. . . . For as long as the opinion of righteousness abideth in man, so long
there abideth also in him incomprehensible pride, presumption, security, hatred of
God, contempt of his grace and mercy. 19

Calvin agreed that the first use of the law was to strike down pride and
presumption and to convict us of our sinfulness by increasing our transgres-
sions. He, along with Luther, saw the law's second use as restraining the
wicked, through threats of punishment. And Calvin added a third use, which
Luther did not admit: "The Lord instructs by their reading of [the law] those
whom he inwardly instills with a readiness to obey." He took Saint Paul's
dictum in Romans 2:14-15 to be saying that we understand the laws needed
for sociable living — the precepts of the second table of the Decalogue —
better than we do the precepts of the first table ordering our relations with
God. Reason alone can hardly grasp the latter, and even with the former,
Calvin insisted, we persistently fail to see everything that is required. Without
divine assistance we would be not only unable to act in the appropriate loving
spirit but also ignorant of much that we should do. 2°
Luther and Calvin divided human concerns into the worldly and the other-
10 Introduction

worldly.2I The scope of the former was whatever pertains to peaceable social
life on earth; and of the latter, all that affects our attainment of salvation. For
the most part our worldly affairs are matters of the way we act and usually not
matters of the spirit in which we act. According to the Reformers we are able
to develop habits of acting in ways that conform to the requirements of law,
but our sinful nature would not permit us, without divine assistance, to go
beyond that to genuine loving motives. In all our worldly affairs we need to be
ruled by the magistrate; and in all our other-worldly ones, by God. There is
no realm in which we govern ourselves both inwardly and outwardly. We do
not have the capacity to do so.

Stoicism and Epicureanism

Along with their Christian heritage — however it was to be interpreted —
educated Europeans of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries knew a good
deal of the culture of classical antiquity. Aristotle was still a presence, al-
though the acceptance of many of his views by Catholic theologians made him
suspect in the minds of some (though not all) Protestants, and the new science
had done much to shake his authority generally. Plato, despite the efforts of
Renaissance scholars and admirers, was not as widely read or taught as Aris-
totle was. And in the development of moral thought neither of them was as
significant as Cicero and Seneca were!' These Roman writers were far more
universally read and did more to provide the topics and starting points for
discussions of morals in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries than did
either Plato or Aristotle. Not everyone studied Greek, but everyone learned
Latin: What Cicero and Seneca had written for grave Roman gentlemen was
taught as lessons for schoolchildren and was not forgotten. 23
Neither Cicero (106-43 B.c.E.) nor Seneca (4 B.c.D.-65 c.E.) was a philoso-
pher of any originality; in all their writings they drew heavily on the work of
earlier Greek philosophers. They wrote consolatory or exhortative essays on
topics to which a "philosophical attitude" — a vaguely Stoic refusal to feel
distressed by the difficulties of life — was appropriate. Among other things
they reflected on old age, death, pain, grief, the shortness of life, and the loss
of friends. They examined more thoroughly special points of personal life and
politics. For example, Cicero's essay on friendship explores not only one's
duties to one's friends but also the limits a virtuous man will place on what one
friend will do for another. Seneca explained the importance of the virtue of
clemency for rulers as a means of remaining loved by their subjects. Seneca
also wrote a lengthy treatise, De beneficiis, on the importance of generosity or
liberality and gratitude in holding society together. He discussed the impor-
tance for one's character of a genuine concern for the well-being of one's
beneficiary, the proprieties of giving (to whom should one give? from whom
may one receive?), the difference between what is truly given and what can be
demanded by law, the ways in which everyone in society — slaves as well as
free men — must be involved in exchanges of benefits, and many related sub-
 Stoicism and Epicureanism 11
jects. In these essays Cicero and Seneca are moralists rather than moral
philosophers. They advise and exhort, but although they refer to theories,
they do not systematically expound or argue for them.
It was Cicero rather than Seneca who served as the major transmitter of the
ancients' philosophical ethics to the modern world. His long philosophical
writings (composed in the last two or three years of his life) are devoted to
bringing the main Greek theories to the attention of the Romans and to giving
Cicero's own assessment of them. In order to summarize the Greek philoso-
phers, Cicero had to invent or assign Latin words to carry the meanings of
their technical terms. By doing so he became the originator of much of the
Latin vocabulary for moral philosophy which during our period had to be
translated into various vernaculars. His De finibus bonorum et malorum,
concerning our ultimate ends or goods, is a dialogue in which Cicero had a
number of figures, drawn from life, debate the merits of different moral
theories. In De officiis, concerning our duties, Cicero presented a fairly com-
prehensive outline of what he took to be our main obligations and responsibili-
ties and how they are related to our own good and that of others. Through
these works in particular, the systematic ethical theories of pagan antiquity
found their way into the thinking of the period that concerns us.
Cicero devoted one of his philosophical works, De natura deorum, to a
discussion of the gods, arguments for their existence, and an investigation of
their connection with human affairs. In his two main treatises on ethics,
although he occasionally mentions the deities, there is no thought that their
wishes or commands are especially relevant to morality. To those raised in a
Christian culture, particularly in a Protestant culture that encouraged intense
concern about the individual's daily relations with a single deity, the absence
of reference to divine will or divine punishments and rewards would necessar-
ily stand out. But Cicero assumed that reasonable people, with no resources
other than their own intelligence, could come up with generally acceptable
answers to questions about how to live and what to do. The only sources of
authority, for Cicero as for the interlocutors in his dialogues, are men who
may be recognized as wiser than the speakers themselves but who are differ-
ent in no other way. Their claims to wisdom are always open to challenge. The
speakers' own experience of life and their reflections on it are all that is
available and all that is needed to construct a morally acceptable way of living.
Cicero presented himself and the participants in his discussions as agreeing
that the part of philosophy that matters most is ethics, rather than logic or
physics, which were the other conventionally accepted divisions of the sub-
ject. Ethics is the study of how to attain the good life, and the good life, it is
agreed, must be a life with which its possessor is happy or contented, a life
that suffices. The principal question, then, is, What sort of life gives us that
outcome?
The followers of Epicurus say that the chief good is pleasure. We are urged
to seek it by nature, as is shown by the fact that we voluntarily undergo
something painful only because we expect a greater pleasure for ourselves as a
12 Introduction
result. The greatest pleasure comes not from sensuous enjoyment or animal
gratification but from the absence of pain. This is itself the most reliable and
enduring pleasure and is therefore what the wise man seeks. Wisdom teaches
us how to attain it; temperance gives us a pleasing harmony within the soul;
courage keeps us free from fear of death and other perturbations; and our
own justice not only keeps us from harming others but also assures us of
tranquillity because the just man knows that others will have no cause to harm
him, whereas the unjust man must always be fearful that his wrong actions will
become known and make him subject to reprisal. All the virtues are therefore
valuable as means to the tranquil and enjoyable condition that is the highest
good.
Stoics, in direct opposition to Epicureans, saw the honorable or virtuous
life as itself the good life. The honestum they defined as "that which, though
devoid of all utility [utilitatem] can justly be commended in and for itself,
apart from any reward or profit." 24 The life of honestas springs not from our
desires but from reason, which separates us from the beasts, makes us socia-
ble, and enables us to lift ourselves above the blows of fortune so that we can
achieve a good that cannot be taken from us. Reason makes us wish to
contemplate truth and so leads us to wisdom; it keeps us truthful in all things
and thereby renders us just; it is intrinsically superior to all other things and
hence makes us courageous; and in ordering these aspects of virtue — of
honestum — it generates temperance. The virtues are simply aspects of the life
worth living for its own sake, and we need no ulterior motive for striving for
them.
Cicero, plainly more sympathetic to the Stoic than to the Epicurean out-
look, presented many objections to the latter. But he asked whether the Stoics
were not excessive in claiming to be wholly independent of external goods and
in holding that there was no intermediate condition between being a perfect
sage, indifferent to all feeling, and being a complete fool. Although the later
Stoics were prepared to emend the system so as to grant that there are some
natural goods that even wise people may enjoy and some proper actions that
even those who are not sages can do, 25 Cicero allowed himself to enter the
dialogue expounding a different view. It is one that he traced back to the
"ancients" — the Peripatetics and the Old Academy — who, admitting that
reason is the highest part of man, reminded us that it is not the only part.
Hence, although a life of virtue is surely part of our end, it cannot be the
whole of it. The satisfaction of the natural desires must be allowed as well if
our good is to be the good for the whole person. 26
Other variations on these themes were pursued, and Cicero ended the
dialogues without claiming to have obtained a conclusive result. In the De
officiis he was more assertive. Adopting an essentially Stoic position, he told
his young son, to whom he was writing, that the good offices we must perform
if we would be morally worthy fall into the four traditional categories of
wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance. The honestum, Cicero explained,
is concerned
 Skepticism 13
either with the full perception and intelligent development of the true; or with the
conservation of organized society, with rendering every man his due and with the
faithful discharge of obligations assumed [rerum contractarum]; or with the greatness
and strength of a noble and invincible spirit; or with the orderliness and moderation of
everything that is said and done. 27
In Cicero's elaboration of the various more specific duties that fall under
these four traditional headings, two points in particular stand out. One is his
insistence that both justice and beneficence or liberality are needed to hold
society together and that both are indispensable aspects of individual virtue. 28
Justicenvol,frdghamtoersnd,kpigo'
promises. Liberality takes one beyond this and aids others. In being generous,
however, one must respect the bounds set by justice and also consider
whether the objects of one's bounty are deserving of it. 29 The second point is
that although Cicero stressed throughout De officiis the importance of hon-
estas, he held that what is virtuous (honeste) must always coincide with what is
useful (utile). The notion of what is expedient, he explained, had been per-
verted to such a point that "separating moral rectitude from expediency [hon-
estatem ab utilitate], it is accepted that a thing may be morally right without
being expedient. No more pernicious doctrine than this could be introduced
into human life." 30 Both of these teachings were to have long lives.

Skepticism
One other school of philosophy from classical antiquity came to be of great
importance during the sixteenth century and attracted followers well beyond
then: the skeptical school.' The most influential version of skepticism, which
claimed Pyrrho (c. 360-270 B.c.E.) as its founder, became available to Europe
when a new edition of Sextus Empiricus's Outlines of Pyrrhonism was pub-
lished in 1562. Sextus was a reporter of the doctrines of others rather than a
philosopher himself, but he gave a full report, thereby preserving views that
otherwise would have been lost to us. Some skeptics taught that although we
cannot attain knowledge, some opinions are more probable than others are,
and so we should seek the more probable view and live accordingly. The
Pyrrhonic skepticism that Sextus presented was more radical. According to
him, these skeptics held that for every way in which things appear to be to one
person, there is someone at some time to whom they have appeared to be
different. To each person the way things appear is utterly convincing: how are
we to choose between differing appearances? In order to do so reasonably, we
would need a criterion for telling true appearances from false. But for any
proposition that anyone has taken to be the right criterion, there is a different
and opposed proposition that has seemed the right criterion to someone else.
And to choose between these we would need yet another criterion.
Consistent Pyrrhonic skeptics did not teach that we never know anything,
nor did they say that we ought to refuse to believe anything. But each time
they found an appearance convincing, they would find another, opposed ap-
14 Introduction

pearance that was equally so; and because the two canceled out each other,
they found themselves with no beliefs. The skeptical writings consisted largely
of arguments to show that a belief of any sort could be counterposed with a
conflicting belief of the same sort. Reading their work, the skeptical philoso-
phers thought, would induce suspension of belief. And suspension of belief,
the reader would find, brought in its wake the kind of tranquillity and satisfac-
tion with life that the Epicurean and the Stoic sought in vain. One would no
longer be convinced that what appears good really is so. One could conse-
quently be indifferent to attaining it or failing to attain it. One would still be
moved by natural impulses to eat, or to avoid danger, or to propagate. But
one would not do so in the belief that these activities brought good. One
would simply be the vehicle of one's impulses, maintaining all the while an
indifference to the outcome of one's behavior.
Thus skepticism, like its rivals, was a way of life. It was, to be sure, a way
of life that could, so to speak, only be backed into. It could not be pursued
out of the belief that it was the best way of life. But it had the same kind of
appeal as did the more positive approaches of the other classical views, and
much of the skeptics' argumentation was directed against the claims to
knowledge that both Epicureans and Stoics had to make if their teaching was
to be viable.

The Classical Republic

The historians of classical antiquity, as well as its theorists of the good life,
provided resources for the thought of the seventeenth and eighteenth centu-
ries and thereby contributed indirectly to the development of modern moral
philosophy. Machiavelli, 32 widely feared and condemned as the devilish
teacher of a radical amoralism regarding politics, drew on his understanding
of Roman history to offer advice about how a political society could best
struggle against the adversities that fortune is bound to send its way. He
believed that under the right circumstances a republican form of government
would give a society the strength it needed to defend itself against external
aggression and the ability to become a successful aggressor itself. The key to
successful government was the citizens' active participation in the tasks of
ruling and their willingness to take turns ruling and being ruled. Machiavelli
did not think everyone, not even every adult male, was called on to do the
same things. Rather, he accepted a realistic distinction between nobles and
populace and assigned different functions to each group.
If the republic is to survive, some people must be willing and able to lead
and to fight for their society. Only those could do so who had sufficient wealth
to afford the costs of arms, the training to use them, and the time required for
governing and fighting. These noblemen would be the natural rulers, chosen
in rotation by the populace and submitting their political decisions to the
populace for approval. The nobles would naturally tend to try to aggrandize
themselves at the expense of the populace and of other nobles not actually in
 The Classical Republic 15
1
office. The populace, under the right conditions, would be wise enough to
prevent all such moves, which would threaten their own liberty. But the
populace would not be wise enough to lead in wartime or to devise the various
possible strategies the republic might use in coping with its internal difficulties
and its external enemies, which the learning and experience of the nobles
would, ideally, enable them to do.
For the republic to turn to advantage the inevitable tensions between no-
bles and populace and to survive despite them and the attacks of enemies, the
essential condition, Machiavelli held, was that its citizens possess the proper
character. He used the term virtu for this, and there has been considerable
debate about what he meant by it. He did not mean simply "virtue" in any
moralistic sense. On the contrary: he meant roughly the wholehearted willing-
ness as well as the ability to do whatever is needed for the good of the
republic. In its leaders this is a readiness to do things most people would think
immoral, such as murdering a subordinate who is alienating the populace. To
the populace as well as the leaders, it means dedication to the common good.
Such dedication usually shows itself in the commonly recognized virtues, but
not always. It leads one to care little for material prosperity — Machiavelli
admired those Roman heroes who farmed their own small plots when they
were not leading great armies to victory — and it means that the populace as
well as the nobles find their own well-being in the prosperity and glory of their
country rather than in private enjoyments or attainments.
Machiavelli paid no attention to Christianity in his analyses of what is
required to set up and maintain a successful political society. If the prince
must have someone murdered, so be it: Machiavelli said nothing at all about
the possible eternal damnation of his soul. The populace can be molded into
the right kind of character only by means of good laws, and it takes an
exceptional statesman to know what these are and to seize the fortuitous
opportunity to bring them into play. But Machiavelli did not talk of laws of
nature as setting the limits to what the statesman may do, nor indeed of any
limits except those set by the resources that his country and its inhabitants
could provide. Rome had shown, Machiavelli argued, that a republic gov-
erned by tenets such as those he was recommending could actually achieve
lasting greatness, and he hoped his own Florence would do the same.
Machiavelli made a claim about what men can do without any divine guid-
ance or divine aid. He thought it possible that we could live with one another
in a society in which through participation in governing ourselves the liberty
of each of us would be assured. Machiavelli's name became a byword for
immorality and ruthlessness, and it seems odd to cite him as a precursor of
those later theorists of morality who contended that we all are capable of
moral self-governance. Yet in fact Machiavelli had followers who, without
being moral philosophers themselves, nonetheless influenced those who were.
For example, James Harrington (1611-77) 33 tried to show what a classical
republic would look like if established in England, and the model of an ideal
state sketched by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) owed debts not only to his
16 Introduction
recollections of the Geneva of his childhood but to his knowledge of the
classical republican tradition as well. Harrington and those influenced by
him — among them, Shaftesbury and Hutcheson — were important to the de-
velopment of the opposition of Hobbes's political and moral views in En-
gland. Rousseau was responsible for some radical changes in Kant's thought.
Machiavelli would have been quite surprised at the directions in which his
ideas were taken.

Montaigne's Two Attitudes

I have used selections from the Essais of Michel de Montaigne (1533-92) as
the "Prolegomena," or preliminary readings, for this anthology because his
work seems to me to be the first self-conscious and comprehensive attempt to
ask the entire European heritage, What can you tell me about how to live?
Montaigne is usually classified as a skeptic, and although he is much more
than that, the skeptical aspect of his thought is certainly important. He de-
clared himself a devout Catholic and submitted his judgment in matters of
faith to the church, but there was nothing in the human realm, including the
practices of Christians, that he did not look at afresh. Montaigne's skepticism
was not skepticism of the kind Descartes invented half a century later. It was
not derived from a few sweeping arguments denying foundations to all knowl-
edge, and it could not be cured by finding a new and unshakable foundation.
Rather, Montaigne's skepticism was much more Pyrrhonic. It arose from the
contrarieties that Montaigne found — and delighted in — between one opinion
and another, between customs in one country and those in another, between
his own opinions when young and his opinions when old, and, not least,
between firm declarations on the subject of how to live and vacillating prac-
tice by those who made them. If things appeared at one time or place in one
way, then they appeared differently at other times and places, and who was in
a position to judge which was right? Not Montaigne. He took as his motto the
question, What do I know?
No theories, not even any general attitudes survived Montaigne's scrutiny,
but he was not without convictions. He found no plausible opinion to counter-
balance his hatred of cruelty and deceit, or his abhorrence of torture and the
burning of witches. About the hideousness of these things he had no doubts.
Eventually he arrived also at some firm convictions about what was, at least
for him, the best way to live. He could recommend it to others as a cupbearer
can recommend the wine. He had tried it, and it tasted good to him. Beyond
that, however, he would not go. In public matters, Montaigne held, there is
only this to be said: obey the laws of your country. They may not be good, but
they are the nearest thing to stability you will ever find in this shaky world.
You will try to improve on them only at the great risk of making everything
worse. And if the laws bid you act in ways your private convictions make
abhorrent to you? On this Montaigne was silent.
 Montaigne's Two Attitudes 17

Everyone read Montaigne, and if few could fail to feel the charm of his
writing, few could be content with the limited answers he gave to the ques-
tions he raised. The life of skeptical tranquillity could be available, at most, to
the privileged few, and it is not clear how many of them tried to live it.
Skepticism could not make much sense of the lives of those involved in the
turmoil of daily life, commercial rivalry, legal struggles, the tensions of mar-
ried life, international diplomacy, and trade. It was more likely to seem a
threat to everything they most deeply believed than a relief from anxiety.
There was also a general fear about the effects of skepticism. Montaigne
was not the only serious writer spreading such views, 34 and there was in
addition a notorious literature by so-called libertines — poets and others who
were freethinkers concerning God and who earned thereby a reputation
(sometimes deserved) for loose living. Their prose as well as their verse was
witty and readable; it won a large audience and drew a number of earnest and
weighty attacks. 35 Many people regarded their work as a sign that skepticism
was endangering society. If nothing but custom and the laws of the state
existed to restrain us, if we could know nothing of eternal laws, would we not
begin to live sensuously and selfishly, if we thought we could get away with it?
If we could know of nothing outside ourselves to check us, and if we were as
weak and as easily swayed by passion as the Christian tradition said we were,
then there would seem to be no prop for personal virtue and nothing we could
count on to enable us to sustain social order.
Although Montaigne eloquently expressed his doubt about our ability to
discover how God intended us all to live, or to find in external nature a
common guide to the good life, he also offered another point of view. In his
late writings he revealed his confidence that we have within ourselves the
capacity to develop an orderly life in accordance with demands arising from
our own inner nature. Socrates showed us, Montaigne said, how much human
nature can do without divine aid — how much it can do by itself. In this mood
Montaigne held that we are stronger than the wretched beings he himself
portrayed in his earlier, despairing essays. He suggested that we all may have
the potential he saw realized in Socrates, because he eventually discovered
some of it within himself. And if this is so, then we may not need to look
beyond ourselves to find a source of order that would enable us to live virtu-
ously and to form a decent and honorable society.
Montaigne thus gave voice, in varying degrees, to two attitudes toward
human moral capacity. One leads us to think that we are so constituted that
we can be gotten to live together decently only if there is something outside
us, whether it be God or nature, that both shows us what we are to do and
induces or requires us to do it. The other suggests that we are so constituted
that the expression of our own nature, without external directives, will lead us
to live decent private lives; and this opens the possibility, which Montaigne
did not broach, that the same self-expression would enable us to constitute a
morally satisfactory society.
18 Introduction

General Problems for Moral Philosophy

Both of Montaigne's outlooks found exponents as moral philosophy devel-
oped through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At one extreme it
was held that we cannot learn the laws to which we must conform except 4
through God's revelation, that only some of us are capable of knowing what
those laws direct, so that the many must be instructed by the few, and that we
must be brought to obey them by threats of punishment for failing to do so. At
the other extreme there emerged the view that morality is itself a creation or
prdjection of our inmost nature and that consequently we are naturally both
aware of what it tells us to do and motivated to do it. Modern moral philoso-
phy in the two formative centuries covered by this anthology was the attempt
to show where human moral capacities should be located on the scale marked
out by these extremes.
We can make clearer the general issues of moral philosophy in the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries by keeping in mind three questions. First, is
the moral order that is required in our behavior and our character patterned
after some external source, or does it come from within us, expressing our-
selves rather than requiring us to conform to a model that is authoritative for
us? Second, is the knowledge or awareness of how we should behave directly
available only to some among us, or is it equally available to everyone? Third,
must we be induced or compelled to bring ourselves and our actions into line
with the requirements of morality by some motivation arranged to bring us
into compliance, or are we so constituted that we have within ourselves mo-
tives that lead us to morality without regard for external inducements?
These three questions lead to epistemological issues; yet an epistemology
suitable for understanding claims to theoretical knowledge cannot alone pro-
vide the answers. Those who held that we can have virtue in our lives only
by being brought into conformity with a moral order existing independently
of us had, of course, to explain how we can know the values by which we are
meant to live. Although they did not need to take on the whole of the
skeptical challenge to human claims to knowledge, they had to remove any
doubt about whether we can, even in principle, know what morality in
particular requires. Moral knowledge presumably matters because people
must have it in order to act decently, but everyone (or almost everyone)
must act decently if social life is to be possible. So there is a problem for the
epistemology of morals that does not arise in the same way for the epistemol-
ogy of theoretical knowledge. If even one person at one time knows some
truth, Cartesian skepticism is mistaken,. Of course, if one person at one time
knows a practical principle, moral skepticism is also mistaken, but that by
itself would hardly allay the fears of those who thought that if skepticism
spread, libertinism would be rampant and society would disintegrate. A
response to skepticism about morality needed to specify, therefore, whether
everyone is able to know the requirements of morality and, if not, then to
 General Problems for Moral Philosophy 19
indicate how the moral knowledge that some people can possess could be
made effective among the others.
This leads to another matter on which theorists of morality had to move
beyond epistemology as such. They had to consider the connection between
the knowledge of what one ought to do and one's willingness to do it. Moral
knowledge is important because it answers practical questions by showing us
what to do. Theoretical knowledge may or may not move us to action, but no
one ever doubted that moral knowledge is somehow supposed to influence
our behavior. A full reply to the moral skeptic would have to show what it is
about moral knowledge, or about us, that moves us to act at its behest. The
problem of moral motivation was at least as important to the development of
modern moral philosophy as was the problem of moral knowledge.
Philosophical argument was not the only determinant of answers to these
questions. Luther and Calvin, following Saint Augustine, had religious rea-
sons for attributing to us a very low degree of moral capacity. There were
many who accepted something like their view and worked out a moral philoso-
phy to accord with it. Roman Catholicism, however, did not give so negative
an estimate of our ability to follow the laws written in our consciences, though
it found ample room for the guidance of one's confessor. And many Protes-
tants thought that Calvinism's low estimate of human potential, and its por-
trayal of God as harsh and arbitrary, was not an acceptable interpretation of
their faith.
Political as well as religious concerns were duly pondered. Those who sup-
ported a strong central government would not be apt to portray everyone as
having a considerable capacity for self-governance. But if they opposed the
theory of the divine right of kings, they might be forced to grant to individuals
sufficient moral capacity at least to make a binding contract to obey the
magistrate. And if our capacity for self-mastery could take us that far, why not
farther? When overtly antireligious writers eventually tried to show how a
wholly secular morality is possible, their differences among themselves about
how far up or down on the scale of autonomy our capacities would entitle us
to be placed were due in part to their different views about what kind of
politics their secular ethics should warrant.
Moral philosophy owed much of its vitality and its public recognition to the
social, political, and religious forces pulling toward or away from these op-
posed views of the extent to which we are able to govern ourselves. Those
who disagreed on these issues held remarkably similar views on many of the
details of morality. No one doubted that both law and love, both justice and
beneficence, had to be incorporated into any acceptable system of morality.
No one thought that ruthless and overt self-seeking could be allowed, or
defiance of the laws of the land encouraged. There were indeed disagree-
ments about more specific important issues, such as whether or not slavery is
permissible or whether there are limits to the sanctity of private property. But
these differences were small in comparison with the extent of agreement. No
20 Introduction

one doubted that there ought to be general respect for property, fidelity to
promises, truthfulness, honoring of contracts, supremacy of the husband
within the family, obedience to parents, avoidance of offensive and arrogant
behavior, and charity to those needier than oneself. Moral philosophers tried
to connect these undoubted requirements with their understanding of moral-
ity as a whole and of ourselves as moral agents. In so doing they sometimes
proposed revisions of accepted morality, but it was not these suggested alter-
ations that gave their work its importance.
The importance of moral philosophy, furthermore, was not dependent on
its ability to provide epistemologically indubitable foundations for moral prin-
ciples. The philosophers often promised such foundations, but although some
were more convincing than others, no one came up with an uncontestable
theory. If their work nonetheless attracted attention, it was, I suggest, because
it served another purpose, which, briefly, is as follows:
Human beings may not be swayed a great deal by purely rational argument,
but human identity requires a vocabulary, and a coherent vocabulary involves
a coherent outlook. In everything beyond the most elementary physical and
biological life, we can be only what we can think and say we are. If we are to
think of ourselves in more than sectarian or local terms, we need a view that
enables us to explain who and what we are in addition to being members of
some special group, and how this aspect of our identity enables and requires
us to act. Every culture provides such modes of understanding and explaining
ourselves. But when circumstances change drastically, old modes of self-
understanding may become too cumbersome, too much weighed down by
outmoded assumptions, too much out of kilter with the problems people face.
Then a new way of looking at things may simply strike people as better, even
if it has not been "proved" in any strong sense. The moral philosophy of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries was that culture's attempt to articulate
the merits and drawbacks of old modes of self-understanding and to invent
and assess possible new ones.
For centuries the theologians of Christianity had been expected to perform
the cultural task of restating and improving the comprehensive doctrine from
which a common moral vocabulary was drawn to provide a shared self-
understanding. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries clerical thinkers
were joined, usually to their dismay, by nonclerical philosophers who took it
upon themselves to provide comprehensive views that would improve on the
ideas of the theologians — or that even would replace them. Religious, politi-
cal, social, and economic changes increasingly forced philosophers to face the
question of the extent to which human beings are capable of moral self-
governance. The development of moral philosophy in our period is best under-
stood by seeing the complex problem of autonomy at its core. This, at least, is
the assumption on which I have assembled the readings in this anthology.

I have divided the moral philosophers of the seventeenth and eighteenth

centuries into four categories: those who reworked ideas of natural law, those
 Reworking Natural Law 21
who appealed basically to knowledge of the good to structure morality, those
who saw self-interested motivation as the key to moral order, and those who
with increasing clarity argued for moral autonomy. The categories are built
around philosophical differences of view that I shall explain briefly. Chronol-
ogy is not, however, wholly ignored. Within each of the four categories it is
respected, and the order of the categories reflects chronology as well. All of
the natural law writers presented here immediately after Montaigne are
seventeenth-century thinkers. Those whom I have placed in the next two
divisions, the rationalists and the egoists, come from the eighteenth as well as
the seventeenth century, and the section on the egoists ends with the most
influential of late eighteenth-century representatives of this line of thought,
Jeremy Bentham. All of the writers in the fourth division are eighteenth-
century philosophers, and the section ends with two — Thomas Reid and Im-
manuel Kant — from the latter part of the century whose work profoundly
influenced the f011owing century. The actual sequence of philosophical change
is thus roughly mirrored in the topical divisions.
Any attempt to divide into tidy groupings as diverse an assemblage of
philosophers as I have collected here is bound to involve some simplification.
But if there is some artifice in the divisions I use, there are also some grounds
for them in the writings that they include. I shall explain these in the following
four sections.

Reworking Natural Law

In Part I, "Reworking Natural Law," I have brought together writers who
have a common ancestry in the Stoic and Christian traditions synthesized by
Saint Thomas. Although their differences from one another are considerable,
there are two reasons for considering them as a group. One is historical.
During the later seventeenth century and the eighteenth century, these writers
were usually considered to constitute a group. Pufendorf, the most widely
read of these theorists, and undoubtedly the most widely read of anyone who
wrote on moral philosophy during the entire period, claimed that he was
Grotius's successor and that Hobbes was the great intervening figure. This
self-portrayal was accepted by a number of historians of natural law theory
and became the prevailing view of the past. 36
The second reason is more systematic. All the natural law writers stressed
,

our need to cooperate with one another in creating and preserving a decent
society that will provide us with the things we need and the security to enjoy
them. They also held that we are by nature strongly and unalterably moved to
seek our own good. Competition and controversy are therefore inevitable and
cannot be eliminated even in a well-organized society. Our unsocial sociability
therefore requires the control of laws imposing obligations. And such laws, so
the thinkers of this school held, are in place in the "state of nature," the
condition in which people must be considered to live prior to the formation of
the actual governments that are now in place. The laws of nature can there-
22 Introduction

fore serve as the framework within which people can construct and evaluate
various forms of social organization.
The natural law philosopher Richard Cumberland used an image that
clearly reveals the problem that people have in understanding how morality
functions. He attempted to explain why political authority is needed, by re-
minding us of

the common experience of all in those things which respect the care of a family or the
building a house or the production of any other effect, to which the different services
of several persons are required; where we perceive that all our labor is bestowed in
vain except some command and others obey. For it is evident that the procuring the
greatest good the whole society of rational beings is capable of is an effect more
complicated and intricate than any of these now mentioned, and that it depends
necessarily upon the concurrent assistance of everyone, by mutual services of very
different kinds; and that it is therefore impossible to obtain such effect, though fore-
seen and designed, with certainty and steadiness, except a subordination of rational
beings be established, and all obey God as the supreme and most rational agent by
observing those natural laws, common to all nations, which I have explained. 3

The natural lawyers saw the laws of nature as providing the only viable
solution to an unavoidable problem: how beings with natures like ours are to
succeed in living together, as we must, in ways that we all will find acceptable.
They believed — the reader will see that they offered many different theories
about this — that compliance with those laws would always be for the good of
the individual as well as the good of society. But they did not suppose that
most people most of the time could fully see that both of these goods would be
achieved by means of obedience. The solution given by the laws of nature to
the problem of common life is simply too complex for most people to grasp.
And even if all of us equally could understand it, our primary concern with
our own individual good would always tempt us to disobedience. There is only
one way to obtain compliance from us: by offering sanctions. If there is a
reliable threat of punishment or a promise of reward backing up the require-
ment that we obey the laws of nature, anyone will be able to understand it and
so will be moved to act appropriately.
Through the notion of sanctions the natural lawyers explained the concept
of obligation, which they took to be the most salient feature of morality. To be
obligated, according to most of them, was to be given a powerful motive by
someone to do something. As the civil sovereign obligates us to obey his laws
through threats of punishment for disobedience, so God obligates us in a
similar way to obey the laws of nature. Unlike our earthly rulers, God always
aims at the common good and obligates us to act in ways that will in fact bring
it about. The obligation of morality arises, then, not simply from the good
that compliance will bring for humankind at large but from the good it will
bring to the dutiful agent. Thus the natural lawyers agreed in seeing us as
needing to be ruled by some intelligence or power external to and greater than
that of the individual. Although morality suits our nature, it must nonetheless
be imposed on us.
 Intellect and Morality 23

Intellect and Morality

The natural lawyers used a law-enforcement model of morality. Some of
them, as the reader will see, began to attenuate it, but it remained as the
animating spirit or metaphor of their thinking. Powerful opposition to this
model arose among thinkers who held that its religious implications were
untenable. The model allowed too little to humanity and made God too much
a distant ruler rather than a loving father. The natural lawyers thereby under-
estimated our ability to recognize what we ought to do to bring about the
common good, as well as our inner motivation to act accordingly. In Part II,
"Intellect and Morality," I have assembled philosophers who tried, in differ-
ent ways, to break with the law-enforcement model of the natural lawyers and
to find other accounts of the laws of morality.
The natural lawyers held that we must study human nature empirically in
order to learn from it the ways in which God commands us to behave. In
opposition to them, the view developed that the knowledge we need is not
empirical knowledge at all. Rather, it is knowledge of the eternal relations of
things in the universe. It may be knowledge enabling us to compare degrees of
the essential perfections of things, or knowledge of laws stating relations of
fitness between things, comparable to mathematical relations, or knowledge
of the necessary connections of things. The mind thus has the power to see
that one kind of action is better than another, or more perfect than another, or
more appropriate than another, and through these insights we learn what
morality requires.
We are, moreover, capable of being moved as a result of our insights,
because what we pursue when we act voluntarily is what we take to be good. It
is only ignorance or error that leads us astray. When our knowledge is clear we
do not need sanctions, appealing to self-interest, to move us to act virtuously.
We can display the kind of love that Christ urged upon us. Knowledge of the
eternal fitnesses of things, if only it is clear enough, can in effect transform us
from shortsighted seekers of our own good into wise seekers of the common
good.
According to this view, is there then no place for obligation? Obligation of
the sort that the natural lawyers explained would always be needed for at least
some people — the sinful, who willfully refuse to see where the good lies and
who therefore must be controlled by sanctions — but the rudiments of a distinc-
tion began to be drawn. Perhaps the kind of obligation arising from sanctions
is not really the kind that is central to morality. It is, after all, merely an
external sort of obligation, and morality is an inner matter. And of the inner
obligation, a definite account emerged. We are obliged, these philosophers
held, to do what we believe will bring about more good or more perfection
than will any other action open to us. The essential nature of things entails
that different degrees of perfections are attained through different actions,
and we can learn what these are. It is thus the very nature of things that
obliges us morally to act in some ways and not in others. The model of laws of
24 Introduction

nature that the lawyers used is thus misleading. We are not ruled by some
conscious external power who needs to induce us to obey by deliberately
attaching sanctions to edicts. Instead, our innate ability to know and respond
with love to the perfections inherent in the nature of things explains moral
obligation quite satisfactorily. And does this kind of view not show that we are
a law unto ourselves, as Saint Paul had said, in a fuller sense than the natural
lawyers could allow?
According to this view, perhaps some of us approach autonomy, but not all.
The rationalists did not hold that the knowledge essential to virtue is equally
available to everyone. I shall quote here a passage I have included in the
selections, simply to emphasize how untroubled such philosophers were about
the implication of their doctrine that only an elite could possess firsthand
moral knowledge. Christian Wolff, after summarizing the difficult thinking
needed in order to know how to act, raised the following question:
Perhaps someone will wonder how it will go with the pursuit of good if so much is
required in order to distinguish good from bad. Here it will do to respond that we are
now speaking only of those who are to generate from their own reflections the
rules . . . that belong to a doctrine of morals. But it is not necessary that all men be
discoverers. It is enough if some among the learned devote themselves to discovery,
whose findings the others can afterwards learn, which is much easier. 38

Epicureans and Egoists

The psychology of the rationalists offered a major target for criticism. In Part
III, "Epicureans and Egoists," I have assembled philosophers who worked
from a different psychological view. It might have been true of humans as God
first created them that they pursued whatever they took to be good, for no
matter whom. But fallen humans — and surely the evidence for this is
overwhelming? — look out for themselves not merely at first, as many of the
rationalists would have admitted, but always. The similarity between the
visions of humanity given by Augustine, Luther, Calvin, and the atheist (as he
was thought to be) Hobbes suggested that this was a point on which believer
and unbeliever would agree. 39 If so, the basic point about morality is quite
straightforward. Each of us knows or has beliefs about what we ourselves
want, and it is easy enough to let others know what that is. Our actions will be
steered, of course, always and only by our knowledge or belief about what
enables us to attain our aim. So the moralist who wishes to show us that we
are obligated to act justly or generously to others will have to show us that
such action pays. And surely it does! For we need the help of others, and we
will obtain it only if we show ourselves prepared to help them; and besides
(some added), it is simply enjoyable to help others. If only we each knew
where our own true good was, everyone would act, out of self-interest, in
ways that would in fact bring about the general good.
It is important to see that the egoists were not simply selfish thinkers
seeking to excuse their unpleasant proclivities by appealing to an implausible
 Epicureans and Egoists 25
theory. Rather, the egoists were saying that morality must accommodate our
essential nature as agents. Because we are by nature unalterably self-seeking,
only a morality that pays will be effective in guiding us. Theories of this kind
could spring from the belief that our nature is fundamen6lly flawed, but they
could be — and they became — affirmations of the self as it is. For the later,
secular, theorists of self-interest, we are not required to repent for being what
we are and to try to become something fundamentally different. Consciously
or not, they repeat the burden of one, of Montaigne's greatest essays.
Some of the egoists were in many ways more conventional than Montaigne
was. They accepted the main commonplaces of morality. They argued, rather
complacently, that with God in his heaven, all is well, because God has so
arranged things that when we each act for our own (enlightened) self-interest,
we are doing as much as we can for others. But some philosophers, less at ease
in the world, took a different view. An unprejudiced look at society might
convince one that it was not in fact in each person's own interest to act in
morally acceptable ways. Society might be so structured that some were ex-
ploited by others, kept in ignorance and superstition, and thereby led to
believe that nonetheless all was well. In a corrupt society, immorality and
crime might be the result of accurate knowledge of one's interests. Hence
some thinkers were led to conclude that if God or nature failed to arrange
things so that we could find our own good in bringing about the good of
others, we ourselves would have to construct a society in which this was
possible.
It was no accident that Bentham's version of utilitarianism developed out of
a line of thought dominated by egoistic psychology. Nor was there any incon-
gruity in his combining an egoistic psychology with the thesis that right action
always is action that aims at the greatest good for the greatest number. To
enable us to do what we ought to do, Bentham held, we need to reform
society. The theory that led him to this conclusion did more, he thought, than
simply explain morality. It gave him a criterion by which to judge the existing
situation and to make decisions about where it needed to be changed.
Psychological egoism put its exponents in a position to claim that moral
order must be something we create, not something to which we merely con-
form, and to argue that we possess within ourselves the resources needed for
this task. Even so, the egoists could not say that our moral capacities make us
all completely autonomous. They were, for one thing, blocked from making
this claim by the problem of access to relevant knowledge. Only enlightened
self-interest can lead one to act in ways that benefit others as well as oneself,
and the amount of knowledge needed for this enlightenment — an understand-
ing of the social system so complete that we can see that each of our possible
actions benefiting others will benefit us as well — is so considerable that it is
hard to suppose realistically that everyone could have it. Nor, indeed, did
most egoists think everyone could: they tended to share Christian Wolff's
attitude. There is, moreover, another way in' which psychological egoism
blocks autonomy. Even an enlightened agent can be virtuous only in a well-
26 Introduction

ordered society. Otherwise, as I have noted, enlightenment must necessarily

lead to vice. Virtue as the psychological egoists can understand it — action that
in fact benefits others, regardless of its self-interested motive — is not ours to
command; it emerges only when society evokes it.

Autonomy and Responsibility

Two kinds of interests led some philosophers to argue that we are capable of
fuller or more deeply rooted autonomy than had been allowed by any of the
thinkers considered thus far.
One interest was political. The idea of a classical republic, reinvigorated by
Machiavai, was the idea of a society governed by its citizens, who are able to
govern themselves and others because of their dedication to the common
good. The citizens are free under their laws because they themselves make the
laws. What must we be like as individuals if we can have such a political
system, opposed to rule by interest-driven majorities no less than to monarchi-
cal governance? The effort to answer this question initiated lines of thought
that moved toward the conclusion that we must be morally autonomous.
The second interest was religious. The thought behind it was expressed as
early as 1706 by Jean Barbeyrac, the scholar who translated into French
Grotius, Pufendorf, and Cumberland. In the history of moral philosophy that
he prefixed to his translation of Pufendorf, Barbeyrac remarked that because
God had made us capable of understanding a "vast number of mathematical
truths," he must surely have made us even more capable of "knowing and
establishing with the same evidence the maxims of morality, in which are
contained those duties he indispensably requires of us." God's goodness "will
not permit us to doubt" the point, Barbeyrac stated, for how could a good
deity hold us responsible for obeying laws we cannot know? 4° Implicit in the
question is the assumption that we can do what we know we ought to do, and
so again there was a reason for taking a less restricted view of human moral
capacities than earlier thinkers had taken.
In Part IV, "Autonomy and Responsibility," I have assembled selections
from the diverse group of philosophers who contributed to this rehabilitation
of human nature. They were very much at odds with one another. Yet their
controversies can perhaps be organized usefully around two now-familiar
themes: the problem of motivation and the problem of the accessibility of
awareness of what morality requires.
Two main ways of coping with the latter issue emerged during the eighteenth
century. One was to deny that awareness of the requirements of morality is
primarily a matter of knowing something. Instead, it was taken to be a matter of
feeling. Not everyone can grasp complicated sets of rules, or the endless unfold-
ing of the consequences of actions throughout all of society. But everyone has
feelings. Feelings respond much more quickly to situations calling for action
than calculation does; feelings move us to action, whereas we often are indiffer-
ent to rules or results; and through feelings we car00 associated with our
 Autonomy and Responsibility 27
fellows, whereas we tend to disagree with them when we must reason and
dispute. Suppose, then, that moral judgments express not knowledge of eternal
laws or ontological perfections or calculable consequences but feelings of ap-
proval and disapproval that spring forth spontaneously from a special moral
faculty, a moral sense existing within every human being. Will this not enable us
to explain at one stroke how it is that awareness of what morality requires is
equally accessible to everyone alike? The sentimentalists — as these thinkers
were known to their contemporaries 41 — believed that it would, and they con-
tended, moreover, that the feelings arising from a moral sense alone could
explain the very meanings of moral terms.
In opposition to the sentimentalists, there developed a new effort to show
exactly why awareness of the requirements of morality had to be understaood
as a matter of knowing what one ought to do. The arguments between these
two groups are still of interest, but what we should notice in particular here is
that the champions of moral knowledge went out of their way to offer ac-
counts of how that knowledge could be available to everyone alike.
Most of them claimed, in one way or another, that moral truths are simply
self-evident and that they are known by "intuition" — the ability to grasp
truths that cannot themselves be proved but that are the sources of any truths
that can be. Everyone alike, it was assumed, has the ability to intuit; and if
there are some situations in which it is difficult to see how the intuitively
evident truths of morality apply, such difficulties will similarly arise for every-
one. Those taking this line of thought sometimes reinterpreted conscience as
the ability to grasp immediately what morality requires in each case. Others
believed that intuitions are required in all knowledge and that morality is no
different in this respect from geometry or the sciences or even a commonsense
knowledge of physical objects.
The appeal to intuition, however, had its drawbacks, as Bentham pointed
out in a scathing footnote. 42 Like the sentimentalist doctrine of the moral
sense, the appeal to intuition cut off debate and served as an authoritative way
to impose one's will on others. It did not — unlike the utilitarian calculus that
Bentham proposed — permit rational discussion of basic moral issues. One
version of the belief that morality involves distinctive moral knowledge tried
to avoid this kind of objection. Immanuel Kant argued that there is a rational
formula for morality capable of showing us what we ought to do and that it is
so simple that anyone, even an uneducated worker, could use it. Hence he
held that even without intuition there could be equal access to awareness of
the requirements of morality. Wolff's instructions would not be needed.
The new views of the accessibility of awareness of morality's requirements, in
turn, called for new views of motivation. All of the thinkers in Part IV were
opposed to the egoistic position, with some of them, particularly Butler, mount-
ing effective attacks on it. Human motivation is simply more complex, they
held, than the egoists had realized. We have both self-interested and disinter-
ested motives. On this basis the sentimentalists, beginning with Shaftesbury,
took another important step. They held that the immediate objects of the
28 Introduction

feelings of moral approval and disapproval are themselves human motives.

Assuming that it is not difficult to know either our own motives or those of
others, they believed that moral feeling responds not to mere bodily motion but
to whatever in the agent gives human meaning to such motions — to the pas-
sions and desires from which the agent acts. When we find ourselves or others
acting from desires for the good of others, we also find ourselves approving
them. To have strong and firm dispositions to act for the sake of the good of
others is in fact to be virtuous. And it is happily true that having such disposi-
tions is the surest route to enjoying life oneself. Thus virtue and interest coin-
cide, but only if the good of others is disinterestedly pursued.
The claim that the possession of reliable benevolent motives is the core of
virtue raised a number of problems. Butler argued tellingly that we have
obligations other than to act benevolently in this life, such as the obligation to
act justly. Hume replied by contending that even the claims of justice move us
because they appeal to our concern for the good of all alike. What was at stake
in this debate went beyond the important matter of the correct analysis of
justice; it involved the most basic understanding of the psychology of action.
The standard view of human motivation, going back to Plato, was that
insofar as we act voluntarily and rationally, we act to obtain what we believe
to be the greatest good we can get. If we act otherwise, we are ignorant, or
irrational, or acting out of deliberate wickedness. Locke voiced his dissent
from this accepted view, asserting that we are moved not by the greatest good
in prospect but by the greatest uneasiness felt at the moment of action. He did
not say what this uneasiness might be. Later thinkers, Richard Price among
them, argued that among the many motives capable of affecting us, one is a
concern to do what we see to be right or obligatory, simply because it is so.
In one way this was not a new idea. The Stoics had held that the wise man
chooses virtue for its own sake. But now the idea was disconnected from the
Stoic belief that living in accordance with virtue — acting as duty requires —
for its own sake constitutes the whole of the good life. Doing what we see to
be right, just because we see it to be so, could be considered rational because
the principles of duty are themselves rational. We might know that in doing
our duty we are not bringing about the greatest good that we might, and
nonetheless be acting as reason requires. And given that we have an inner
motive to respond to what we see to be our duty, we can be fully autonomous
in our moral lives.
Sentimentalists and cognitivists alike, then, were contending that we all are
capable of being aware of what morality asks of us and that we all possess our
own inner motivation to accede. They were arguing, in short, that morality
comes from and expresses our own nature and is not imposed on us from
without. Rationalists like Price and Reid, however — rejecting the sentimental-
ist claim that it is our feelings that project moral distinctions into the world —
still left us complying with eternal truths whose nature and origin had not
been explained. And in this compliance, they held in the end, we were still
obeying God.
 Conclusion 29
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was led to a bold move beyond this view, by his
desire to subvert the theories of Grotius and Pufendorf. Their understanding
of natural law, he believed, justified political tyranny as well as personal
slavery, both of which Rousseau abhorred. He admired the classical republic,
a version of which he thought he saw realized in the city of Geneva, where he
had been raised. And he asked what we must be like if such a republic is to be
possible. We must be fully capable of self-governance, and our lives must be
self-governed at all times. Yet this need not exclude our submission to law — if
the law is one we make ourselves. In a famous sentence, Rousseau asserted
that "the impulse of appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one
has prescribed for oneself is freedom." 43 Could this view be used to under-
stand not only politics but also individual morality, treating morality as at its
core a matter of self-legislation? Rousseau did not try to work out a detailed
answer. Immanuel Kant did.
Although Kant sided with the rationalists in claiming that morality must be
a matter of reason, he nonetheless agreed with the sentimentalists in two
respects. Like them he held that morality comes into the physical world as an
expression of ourselves, but, he argued, it is constructed not by our senti-
ments but by our own imposition of a requirement of the rational will on our
action. The law that we impose requires us to examine not the consequences
of our action or the eternal perfections of things but, in line with the sentimen-
talists' view, our own plans of action. If our intentions pass the test the moral
law requires them to pass, we may act on them; if they do not, we may not.
And we can always be sure that we can do as morality requires, Kant be-
lieved, because even if we must reject intentions springing from our natural
motives, the moral law will create in us a special moral motive — respect for
the law — which is as universal in humankind as is awareness of the law itself.
Whether Kant succeeded in making this theory of morality coherent and
plausible has been a matter of debate ever since he first published it. In any
event, it is clear that his position offers an astonishingly high estimate of the
extent of human moral autonomy. Kant is as far as one can get from the belief
that only a few people can truly know what morality imposes on us and that all
or most people must be brought to comply with it by means of sanctions.

Conclusion
At the beginning of the period covered by this anthology, the general question
underlying thought about morality was something like this: how can people be
taught and brought to act in ways that will make virtue and a decent society
possible? By the end of the period, the question was more nearly something
like this: what enables us all to be aware of what morality requires and to
move ourselves to act accordingly? The second question and its assumptions
are today still at the root of our inquiries concerning morals. The history of
moral philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is the history of
the transformation of the basic question of moral philosophy. It is at the same
30 Introduction

time the history of the transformation of our basic understanding of ourselves

as moral agents.

Notes

1. See Albert R. Jonsen and Stephen Toulmin, The Abuse of Casuistry (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).
2. From Christ's summary of the law, moral philosophers derived the widely used
division of morality into duties to God, duties to self, and duties to neighbor.
Another text frequently used to justify this division was Titus 2:12: "Teaching us
that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly [duties to self],
righteously [duties to neighbor], and godly, in this present world." Innumerable
treatises and textbooks were organized along these lines, well into the nineteenth
century.
3. Saint Paul's dictum was the great text authorizing and supporting the belief that
there is a natural law discoverable by reason. And because in the next verse Paul
explained his dictum by saying that the Gentiles "show the work of the law in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness" (Rom. 2:15), it was generally ac-
cepted that the natural law was taught to all through the conscience. The reader
will see how differently rationalists and empiricists interpreted conscience and the
ability of all people to know the law.
4. Saint Augustine, The City of God, trans. Henry Bettenson (London: Penguin,
1972), bk. XII.2, p. 473.
5. Ibid., bk. XII.4, p. 475.
6. For a useful brief selection of texts from both Pelagius and Augustine, see Henry
Bettenson, Documents of the Christian Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1947), pp. 74-87. There is a good discussion in Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967), chaps. 29-31.
7. Summa Theologiae, Ia IIae 90.3; abbreviated hereafter as ST. I use the translation
given in Anton Pegis, ed., Basic Writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, 2 vols. (New
York: Random House, 1945).
8. The term is also spelled "synderesis." For a good discussion, see M. B. Crowe,
The Changing Profile of Natural Law (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), pp. 123-41.
Conscience involves, in addition, the ability to apply principles to cases.
9. ST, Ia IIae 108.3 r3.
10. ST Ia IIae 109.3.
11. ST, Ia IIa 109-14.
12. Martin Luther, The Bondage of the Will, 1525, in John Dillenberger, ed., Martin
Luther (New York: Doubleday, 1961), pp. 195-6.
13. Scotus thought God could not will that he himself not be loved, and concluded
that therefore the first table of the Decalogue contained natural law in a strong
sense, whereas the second table contained what is now natural law but might be
otherwise. See Allan B. Wolter, Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1986), p. 277. For Biel's similar
view, see Heiko A. Oberman, The Harvest of Late Mediaeval Theology (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1963), pp. 100-2.
14. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. Ford Lewis Battles (Lon-
don: SCM Press, 1961), III.xxiii.2, p. 949.
15. Luther, The Bondage of the Will, in Dillenberger, Martin Luther, p. 192.
16. Luther, Secular Authority: To What Extent It Ought to Be Obeyed, in Dillenberger,
Martin Luther, p. 370.
17. Luther, The Freedom of a Christian (1520), in Dillenberger, Martin Luther, p. 57.
18. ST Ia IIae 106.3.
 Notes 31
19. Luther, A Commentary on St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians (1531), in
Dillenberger, Martin Luther, pp. 140-1.
20. Institutes, II.ii.22, pp. 280-2, and II. ii.24, pp. 283-4.
21. See Luther, Secular Authority, in Dillenberger, Martin Luther, pp. 370 ff.; Calvin,
Institutes, II.ii.13, p. 272, and III.xix.15, p. 847.
22. For an excellent collection of philosophically relevant texts, not only from Cicero
and Seneca but also from other important sources of the philosophical thought of
late antiquity, see A. A. Long and D. N. Sedly, The Hellenistic Philosophers, vol.
1: Translations of the Principal Sources (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1987). This is the best place to begin studying the ethics of the Stoics,
the Epicureans, and the Skeptics.
23. Plutarch's Moralia was also widely read, especially after its translation into French
by Amyot in 1572 and into English by Holland in 1603.
24. De finibus, trans. H. Rackham (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1914), II.xiv, p. 133.
25. See De finibus, III. xv-xviii.
26. De finibus, IV.xiv-xv.
27. De officiis, trans. Walter Miller (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1913), I.v, p. 16.
28. De officiis, I.vii, pp. 21ff.
29. De officiis, I.xiv-xv; see also II.xvff.
30 ') De officiis, II. iii, p. 177; also cf. III.iii, p. 279: "It is beyond question that
expediency can never conflict with moral rectitude."
31. For this development, see Julia Annas and Jonathan Barnes, The Modes of
Scepticism (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985); Myles Burn-
yeat, ed., The Skeptical Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Cali-
fornia, 1983); and Richard Popkin, The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to
Spinoza (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979).
32. For the best short introduction to Machiavelli, see Quentin Skinner, Machiavelli
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981). Isaiah Berlin, "The Originality of Ma-
chiavelli," in Isaiah Berlin, Against the Current (New York: Viking, 1980), is a
brilliant essay with an extensive discussion of the literature. For classical republi-
canism as a historical movement, see J. G. A. Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975).
33. See J. G. A. Pocock, ed., The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1977).
34. Pierre Charron, author of De la sagesse (1601, translated into English before 1612
as Of Wisdome) was one of the most widely read of the others.
35. On the libertines see J. S. Spink, French Free Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire
(London: Athlone, 1960); Leroy E. Loemker, Struggle for Synthesis: The Seven-
teenth Century Background of Leibniz's Synthesis of Order and Freedom (Cam-
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1972); and for a good selection of texts,
Antoine Adam, Les libertins au XVIle siecle (Paris: Editions Buchet/Chastel,
1964).
36. For an excellent brief discussion of this, see Richard Tuck, Hobbes (Oxford:
• Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 92-100, which gives further references.
37. Richard Cumberland, Treatise of the Laws of Nature, 1672, chap. 9, §V, p. 348.
38. Wolff, Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men, §150; see the selections in
Part II of this anthology.
39. Of course the Christian thinkers held that our selfishness was a sinful result of sin,
and Hobbes was careful to point out that he held no such opinion of our inevitable
self-interest.
40. Jean Barbeyrac, Prefatory Discourse, in S. Pufendorf, Of the Law of Nature and of
Nations, trans. B. Kennett, London, 4th ed., 1729, sec. II, p. 3.
32 Introduction

41. Some scholars believe that Hutcheson was not a "sentimentalist" in morals but a
"moral realist" and that Hume, influenced by him, resembled him in this respect. I
give references to the literature on this issue in the Further Reading section for
Hutcheson, in Part IV of Volume II. Historically, readers have assumed that these
writers were sentimentalists. I agree with that assumption and find it appropriate
to present them as such in a historical anthology.
42. See the Bentham selections in Part III of Volume II.
43. Social Contract, I.viii §4, in the Rousseau selections in Part IV of Volume II.

Bibliography
What follows is not intended as a full bibliography of the history of ethics. Rather, it is
a list of some of the standard works on the subject, together with other books I have
found useful in preparing the Introduction to this anthology. The "Further Reading"
section for each philosopher is an additional bibliography.

Adam, Antoine. Les libertins au XVIle siecle. Paris: Editions Buchet/Chastel, 1964.
Albee, Ernest. A History of English Utilitarianism. London: Allen & Unwin, 1901.
Annas, Julia, and Jonathan Barnes. The Modes of Scepticism. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Berlin, Isaiah. Against the Current. New York: Viking, 1980.
Bettenson, Henry. Documents of the Christian Church. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1947.
Bourke, V. J. History of Ethics. 2 vols. New York: Image Books, 1968.
Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1967.
Burnyeat, Myles, ed. The Skeptical Tradition. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1983.
Cassirer, E. The Platonic Renaissance in England. Translated by James Pettegrove.
Austin: University of Texas Press, 1953.
Crocker, Lester. Nature and Culture: Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment.
Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963.
Crowe, M. B. The Changing Profile of Natural Law. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972.
Deane, Herbert A. The Political and Social Ideas of St. Augustine. New York: Colum-
bia University Press, 1963.
Douglas, A. E. "Cicero the Philosopher." In T. A. Dorey, ed., Cicero. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1965.
Forbes, Duncan. Hume's Philosophical Politics. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1975.
Gierke, Otto. Natural Law and the Theory of Society 1500 to 1800. 2 vols. Translated
by Ernest Barker. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1934.
Haakonssen, Knud. "Natural Law and Moral Realism: The Scottish Synthesis." In M.
A. Stewart, ed., The Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989.
Hitschman, Albert 0. The Passions and the Interests. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Uni-
versity Press, 1977.
Hope, Vincent, ed. Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press, 1984.
Ilting, Karl-Heinz. Naturrecht and Sittlichkeit. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1983.
 Bibliography 33

Job!, Friedrich. Geschichte der Ethik. 2 vols. 2nd. ed. Stuttgart, 1906.
Jonsen, Albert R., and Stephen Toulmin. The Abuse of Casuistry. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1988.
Keohane, Nannerl 0. Philosophy and the State in France. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1980.
Kirk, Kenneth E. The Vision of God. London: Longmans Green, 1932.
Knox, Ronald. Enthusiasm. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1950.
Kors, Alan C. D'Holbach's Coterie. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1976.
Leites, Edmund, ed. Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
Levi, Anthony. French Moralists: The Theory of the Passions 1585-1659. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1964.
Loemker, Leroy E. Struggle for Synthesis: The Seventeenth Century Background of
Leibniz's Synthesis of Order and Freedom. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1972.
Long, A. A. Hellenistic Philosophy. 2nd ed. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, 1986.
Long, A. A., and D. N. Sedley. The Hellenistic Philosophers. Vol. 1: Translations
of the Principal Sources. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1987.
Lovejoy, Arthur 0. Reflections on Human Nature. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univer-
sity Press, 1961.
Maclntyre, Alasdair. A Short History of Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1966.
Norton, David Fate. David Hume, Common-Sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician.
Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1982.
Oberman, Heiko A. The Harvest of Late Mediaeval Theology. Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 1963.
Passerin d'Entreves, A. Natural Law. London: Hutchinson, 1951.
Passmore, J. A. Ralph Cudworth. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1951.
Perelman, Chaim. Introduction historique a la philosophie morale. Brussels: Editions
de 1 'University de Bruxelles, 1980.
Pocock, J. G. A. The Machiavellian Moment. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1975.
ed. The Political Works of James Harrington. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1977.
Popkin, Richard. The History of Scepticism from Erasmus to Spinoza. Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1979.
Rommen, H. A. The Natural Law. Translated by Thomas R. Hanley. St. Louis:
Herder, 1947.
Rupp, Gordon. The Righteousness of God: Luther Studies. London: Hodder &
Stoughton, 1953.
Schmucker, Josef. Die Urspriinge der Ethik Kants. Meisenheim, West Germany: Ver-
lag Anton Hain KG, 1961.
Schneiders, Werner. Naturrech and Liebesethik. Hildesheim, West Germany: Olms
Verlag, 1971.
Shklar, Judith. Montesquieu. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Sidgwick, Henry. Outlines of the History of Ethics. London: Macmillan, 1896.
34 Introduction

Skinner, Quentin. The Foundations of Modern Political Thought. 2 vols. Cambridge,

England: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
Machiavelli. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1981.
Spink, J. S. French Free Thought from Gassendi to Voltaire. London: Athlone, 1960.
Stephen, Sir Leslie. History of English Thought in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols.
London, 1876.
Tuck, Richard. Natural Rights Theories. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1979.
Viner, Jacob. The Role of Providence in the Social Order. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1972.
Wendel, Francois. Calvin. Translated by Philip Mairet. London: Collins, 1963.
Wolter, Allan B. Duns Scotus on the Will and Morality. Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, 1986.
Wood, Neal. Cicero's Social and Political Thought. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1988.
Wundt, Max. Die Deutsche Schulphilosophie im Zeitalter der Aufklarung. Hildesheim,
West Germany: Olms Verlag, 1964.
 Prolegomena:
Some Questions Raised
 Michel de Montaigne

Introduction
Michel de Montaigne is discussed in a section of the Introduction to this anthology, and
little need be added here.
He was born in 1533, in a family mansion near Bordeaux, France. His father had
him educated at home, where he spoke only Latin until he was six, learning French
thereafter. His family was noble and well connected. For thirteen years, from 1557 on,
Montaigne served in the local parliament. He married in 1565 and a few years later, on
the death of his father, became the owner of an ample estate. With leisure at his
command, Montaigne left politics and devoted himself to writing, completing the first
edition of his Essais for publication in 1580. After extensive travels he returned to
become the mayor of Bordeaux, in reluctant but dutiful obedience to the king. Al-
though Montaigne spent four years in office, he continued to work on his book, adding
new essays and revising — without omitting what was already written — the earlier
ones. An enlarged edition was published in 1588, but Montaigne continued revising
until his death, in 1592. In good editions of Montaigne's works, the writings from the
different periods are marked accordingly, with "A" indicating the earliest material,
"B" the additions made in the 1588 version, and "C" the insertions made during
Montaigne's last years.
The Essais are anything but systematic philosophy, and moral concerns are not their
sole focus. If they have any central theme, it is Montaigne's project of writing his life as
he lived and perceived it, suppressing nothing, altering nothing, leaving nothing un-
touched by his own way of articulating it. Questions about how to live and what to live
for were among his interests. So was almost everything else. In the following selections
I have had to ignore most of the variety of the Essais in order to give the reader some
sense of Montaigne's way of thinking about the ethical questions that had engaged the
classical moralists, which were to be dealt with in very different ways by later writers.
Montaigne adorned his writings with so many references to and quotations (or
misquotations) from classical authors that he suspected, he said, that others might
think he was doing no more than collecting other men's flowers. But even if his
quotations add grace to his prose and indicate something of the range of his learning,
they are not used to give authority to his views. In the end Montaigne tested every
view against his own experience, his own reactions, and his own capacity to absorb
what is said and make it truly a part of his life. He did not proselytize, but his manner
of thought is contagious. Careful reading of Montaigne will not leave the reader
untouched.
I have included five selections: "Of Repentance" (Book 111.2) is given in its entirety.

37
38 Michel de Montaigne
It is preceded by parts of the longest and most skeptical of the essays, the "Apology for
Raymond Sebond" (Book 11.12), and followed by shorter excerpts from "Of Vanity"
(Book 111.9), "Of Physiognomy" (Book 111.12), and "Of Experience" (Book 111.13),
the last of the essays. In the notes I have indicated the sources of a few of the
quotations and identified some of the people to whom he referred. Because the signifi-
cance of most of Montaigne's references is clear from their use in the text, it did not
seem necessary to annotate each one.
The translation is by Donald Frame, reprinted from The Complete Essays of Mon-
taigne, with permission of the publishers, Stanford University Press, © 1958. The
translator has kept the marks indicating the edition from which the passages come and
has identified the sources of quotations. He has also broken the text into paragraphs,
which were not used in the original.

Apology for Raymond Sebond

. . . Yet must I see at last whether it is in the power of man to find what he
seeks, and whether that quest that he has been making for so many centuries
has enriched him with any new power and any solid truth.
I think he will confess to me, if he speaks in all conscience, that all the profit
he has gained from so long a pursuit is to have learned to acknowledge his
weakness. The ignorance that was naturally in us we have by long study
confirmed and verified.
To really learned men has happened what happens to ears of wheat: they
rise high and lofty, heads erect and proud, as long as they are empty; but when
they are full and swollen with grain in their ripeness, they begin to grow
humble and lower their horns. Similarly, men who have tried everything and
sounded everything, having found in that pile of knowledge and store of so
many various things nothing solid and firm, and nothing but vanity, have
renounced their presumption and recognized their natural condition.
cit is what Velleius reproaches Cotta and Cicero for, that they learned from
Philo that they had learned nothing.'
Pherecydes, one of the Seven Sages, writing to Thales as he was dying, said:
"I have ordered my friends, after they have buried me, to bring you my
writings. If they satisfy you and the other sages, publish them; if not, suppress
them: they contain no certainty that satisfies myself. Nor do I profess to know
the truth and to attain it. I uncover things more than I discover them." 2
AThe wisest man that ever was, when they asked him what he knew, an-
swered that he knew this much, that he knew nothing.' He was verifying what
they say, that the greatest part of what we know is the least of those parts that
we do not know; that is to say that the very thing we think we know is a part,
and a very small part, of our ignorance. . . .
I wish to take man in his highest estate. Let us consider him in that small
number of excellent and select men who, having been endowed with fine and
particular natural ability, have further strengthened and sharpened it by care,
by study, and by art, and have raised it to the highest pitch cof wisdom Athat it
 Apology for Raymond Sebond 39
can attain. They have fashioned their soul to all directions and all angles,
supported and propped it with all the outside assistance that was fit for it, and
enriched and adorned it with all they could borrow, for its advantage, from the
inside and the outside of the world; it is in them that the utmost height of
human nature is found. They have regulated the world with governments and
laws; they have instructed it with arts and sciences, and instructed it further by
the example of their admirable conduct.
I shall take into account only these people, their testimony, and their experi-
ence. Let us see how far they have gone and where they have halted. The
infirmities and defects that we shall find in this assembly the world may well
boldly acknowledge as its own.
Whoever seeks anything comes to this point: he says either that he has
found it, or that it cannot be found, or that he is still in quest of it. All
philosophy is divided into these three types. Its purpose is to seek out truth,
knowledge, and certainty.
The Peripatetics, Epicureans, Stoics, and others thought they had found it.
These established the sciences that we have, and treated them as certain
knowledge.
Clitomachus, Carneades, and the Academics despaired of their quest, and
judged that truth could not be conceived by our powers. The conclusion of
these men was man's weakness and ignorance. This school had the greatest
following and the noblest adherents. 4
Pyrrho and other Skeptics or Epechists 5 cwhose doctrines, many of the an-
cients maintained, were derived from Homer, the Seven Sages, Archilochus,
and Euripides, and were held by Zeno, Democritus, Xenophanes — Asay that
they are still in search of the truth. These men judge that those who think they
have found it are infinitely mistaken; and that there is also an overbold vanity in
that second class that assures us that human powers are not capable of attaining
it. For this matter of establishing the measure of our power, of knowing and
judging the difficulty of things, is a great and supreme knowledge, of which they
doubt that man is capable:
Whoever thinks that we know nothing does not know
Whether we know enough to say that this is so.
Lucretius

Ignorance that knows itself, that judges itself and condemns itself, is not
complete ignorance: to be that, it must be ignorant of itself. So that the
profession of the Pyrrhonians is to waver, doubt, and inquire, to be sure of
nothing, to answer for nothing. Of the three functions of the soul, the imagina-
tive, the appetitive, and the consenting, they accept the first two; the last they
suspend and keep it ambiguous, without inclination or approbation, however
slight, in one direction or the other.
cZen° pictured in a gesture his conception of this division of the faculties of
the soul: the hand spread and open was appearance; the hand half shut and
40 Michel de Montaigne

the fingers a little hooked, consent; the closed fist, comprehension; when with
his left hand he closed his fist still tighter, knowledge.
ANow this attitude of their judgment, straight and inflexible, taking all
things in without adherence or consent, leads them to their Ataraxy, 6 which is
a peaceful and sedate condition of life, exempt from the agitations we receive
through the impression of the opinion and knowledge we think we have of
things. Whence are born fear, avarice, envy, immoderate desires, ambition,
pride, superstition, love of novelty, rebellion, disobedience, obstinacy, and
most bodily ills. Indeed, they free themselves thereby from jealousy on behalf
of their doctrine. For they dispute in a very mild manner. They do not fear
contradiction in their discussion. When they say that heavy things go down,
they would be very sorry to have anyone take their word for it; and they seek
to be contradicted, so as to create doubt and suspension of judgment, which is
their goal. They advance their propositions only to combat those they think
we believe in. . . .
The Pyrrhonians have kept themselves a wonderful advantage in combat,
having rid themselves of the need to cover up. It does not matter to them that
they are struck, provided they strike; and they do their work with everything.
If they win, your proposition is lame; if you win, theirs is. If they lose, they
confirm ignorance; if you lose, you confirm it. If they prove that nothing is
known, well and good; if they do not know how to prove it, just as good. cSo
that, since equal reasons are found on both sides of the same subject, it may be
the easier to suspend judgment on each side [Cicero].
And they set store by the fact that they can find much more easily why a
thing is false than that it is true; and what is not than what its; and what they
do not believe than what they believe.
ATheir expressions are: "I establish nothing; it is no more thus than thus, or
than neither way; I do not understand it; the appearances are equal on all
sides; it is equally legitimate to speak for and against. cNothing seems true,
which may not seem false." ATheir sacramental word is i 7texo.), 7 that is to say,
"I hold back, I do not budge." Those are their refrains, and others of similar
substance. Their effect is a pure, complete and very perfect postponement
and suspension of judgment. They use their reason to inquire and debate, but
not to conclude and choose. Whoever will imagine a perpetual confession of
ignorance, a judgment without leaning or inclination, on any occasion what-
ever, he has a conception of Pyrrhonism.
I express this point of view as well as I can, because many find it difficult
to conceive; and its authors themselves represent it rather obscurely and
diversely. . . .
AThere is nothing in man's invention that has so much verisimilitude and
usefulness. 8 It presents man naked and empty, acknowledging his natural weak-
ness, fit to receive from above some outside power; stripped of human knowl-
edge, and all the more apt to lodge divine knowledge in himself, Bannihilating
his judgment to make more room for faith; cneither disbelieving Anor setting up
any doctrine Bagainst the common observances; humble, obedient, teachable,
 Apology for Raymond Sebond 41
zealous; a sworn enemy of heresy, Aand consequently free from the vain and
irreligious opinions introduced by the false sects. BHe is a blank tablet prepared
to take from the finger of God such forms as he shall be pleased to engrave on it.
The more we cast ourselves back on God and commit ourselves to him, and
renounce ourselves, the better we are. A"Receive things thankfully," says the
Preacher, "in the aspect and taste that they are offered to thee, from day to day;
the rest is beyond thy knowledge." cThe Lord knoweth the thoughts of man, that
they are vanity [Psalms].
AThat is how, of three general sects of philosophy, two make express profes-
sion of doubt and ignorance; and in that of the dogmatists, which is the third,
it is easy to discover that most of them have put on the mask of assurance only
to look better. They have not thought so much of establishing any certainty
for us as of showing us how far they had gone in this pursuit of the truth:
cwhich the learned suppose rather than know [Livy]. . . .
AIf nature enfolds within the bounds of her ordinary progress, like all other
things, also the beliefs, judgments, and opinions of men; if they have their
rotation, their season, their birth, their death, like cabbages; if heaven moves
and rolls them at its will, what magisterial and permanent authority are we
attributing to them? BIf we feel palpably by experience that the form of our
being depends on the air, the climate, and the soil where we are born — not
only the complexion, the stature, the constitution and countenance, but also
the faculties of the soul: cthe climate affects not only the vigor of the body, but
also that of the soul, says Vegetius — and if the goddess who founded the city of
Athens chose for its situation a climate which made men prudent, as the
priests of Egypt taught Solon: the air of Athens is thin, whereby the Atticans
are reputed more acute; that of Thebes is thick, wherefore the Thebans are
reputed gross and solid [Cicero]; Bso that just as fruits are born different, and
animals, men too are born more or less bellicose, just, temperate, and
docile — here subject to wine, elsewhere to theft or lechery; here inclined to
superstition, elsewhere to unbelief; there to freedom, here to servitude;
Bcapable of one science or of one art, dull or ingenious, obedient or rebellious,
good or bad, according to the influence of the place where they are situated —
and take on a new disposition if you change their place, like trees; which was
the reason why Cyrus would not allow the Persians to abandon their rugged
and hilly country to move into another that was mild and flat, csaying that fat,
soft lands make men soft, and fertile lands infertile minds; Bif we see flourish-
ing now one art, one opinion, now another, by some celestial influence; such-
and-such a century produce such-and-such natures, and incline the human
race to such-and-such a bent; the minds of men now lusty, now lean, like our
fields; what becomes of all those fine prerogatives on which we flatter our-
selves? Since a wise man can be mistaken, and a .hundred men, and many
nations, yes, and human nature according to us is mistaken for many centuries
about this or that, what assurance have we that sometimes it stops being
mistaken, sand that in this century it is not making a mistake?
AAmong other tokens of our imbecility, it seems to me that this does not
42 Michel de Montaigne
deserve to be forgotten: that even through desire, man does not know how to
find what he needs; that not by enjoyment, not even by imagination and wish,
can we agree about what we need for our contentment. Let our thought cut
out and sew at its pleasure, it will not even be able to desire what is fit for it,
sand satisfy itself:
'Tor what by reason do we want or fear?
What plan so happily do you conceive
But its successful trial makes you grieve?
Juvenal
. . . AThere is no combat so violent among the philosophers, and so bitter,
as that which arises over the question of the sovereign good of man, cout of
which, by Varro's reckoning, two hundred and eighty-eight sects were born. 9
But he who disagrees about the supreme good, disagrees about the whole
principle of philosophy [Cicero].
AThree guests of mine differ on what is good;
Their various palates call for various food.
What shall I serve? What not? What makes one glad,
You don't enjoy; what you like, they find bad.
Horace
Nature should reply thus to their arguments and disputes.
Some say that our good' lies in virtue, others in sensual pleasure, others in
conforming to nature; one man in knowledge, cone in having no pain, Aone in
not letting ourselves be carried away by appearances. And this notion seems
to resemble this other, Bof the ancient Pythagoras:
AWonder at nothing: that is all I know
To make men happy and to keep them so;
Horace
which is the goal of the Pyrrhonian school.
cAristotle attributes wondering at nothing to greatness of soul?' AAnd
Arcesilaus used to say that to suspend the judgment and keep it upright and
inflexible is a good thing, but to consent and incline it is a vice and a bad thing.
It is true that by establishing this by a certain axiom, he was departing from
Pyrrhonism. The Pyrrhonians, when they say that the sovereign good is
Ataraxy, which is the immobility of the judgment, do not mean to say it in an
affirmative way; but the same impulse of their soul that makes them avoid
precipices and take cover in the cool of the evening, itself offers them this
fancy and makes them refuse any other. . . .
AMoreover, if it is from ourselves that we derive the ruling of our conduct,
into what confusion do we cast ourselves! For the most plausible advice that
our reason gives us in the matter is generally for each man to obey the laws of
his country, Bwhich is the advice of Socrates, inspired, he says, by divine
counsel. AAnd what does reason mean by that, unless that our duty has no rule
but an accidental one?
 Apology for Raymond Sebond 43
Truth must have one face, the same and universal. If man knew any recti-
tude and justice that had body and real existence, he would not tie it down to
the condition of the customs of this country or that. It would not be from the
fancy of the Persians or the Indians that virtue would take its form.
There is nothing subject to more continual agitation than the laws. Since I
was born I have seen those of our neighbors the English change three or four
times; not only in political matters, in which people want to dispense with
constancy, but in the most important subject that can be, to wit, religion. At
which I am shamed and vexed, the more so because that is a nation with which
the people of my region formerly had such intimate acquaintance that there
still remain in my house some traces of our old cousinship.
cAnd here at home I have seen things which were capital offenses among us
become legitimate; and we who consider other things legitimate are liable,
according to the uncertainty of the fortunes of war, to be one day guilty of
human and divine high treason, when our justice falls into the mercy of
injustice, and, after a few years of captivity, assumes a contrary character.
How could that ancient god" more clearly accuse human knowledge of
ignorance of the divine being, and teach men that religion was only a creature
of their own invention, suitable to bind their society together, than by declar-
ing, as he did, to those who sought instruction therein at his tripod, that the
true cult for each man was that which he found observed according to the
practice of the place he was in?
O God, what an obligation do we not have to the benignity of our sovereign
creator for having freed our belief from the folly of those vagabond and
arbitrary devotions, and having based it on the eternal foundation of his holy
word?
AWhat then will philosophy tell us in this our need? To follow the laws of
our country — that is to say, the undulating sea of the opinions of a people or a
prince, which will paint me justice in as many colors, and refashion it into as
many faces, as there are changes of passion in those men? I cannot have my
judgment so flexible.
What am I to make of a virtue that I saw in credit yesterday, that will be
discredited tomorrow, cand that becomes a crime on the other side of the
river? What of a truth that is bounded by these mountains and is falsehood to
the world that lives beyond?
ABut they are funny when, to give some certainty to the laws, they say that
there are some which are firm, perpetual, and immutable, which they call
natural, which are imprinted on the human race by the condition of their very
being. And of those one man says the number is three, one man four, one
more, one less: a sign that the mark of them is as doubtful as the rest. Now
they are so unfortunate (for what else can I call it but misfortune, that out of
such an infinite number of laws not even one is found that fortune cand the
heedlessness of chance Ahave allowed to be universally accepted by the con-
sent of all nations?), they are, I say, so wretched that of these three or four
selected laws there is not a single one that is not contradicted and disavowed,
44 Michel de Montaigne
not by one nation but by many. Now the only likely sign by which they can
argue certain laws to be natural is universality of approval. For what nature
had truly ordered for us we would without doubt follow by common consent.
And not only every nation, but every individual, would resent the force and
violence used on him by anyone who tried to impel him to oppose that law.
Let them show me just one law of that sort — I'd like to see it.
Protagoras and Aristo assigned no other essence to the justice of the laws
than the authority and judgment of the lawgiver; and said that apart from
that, the good and the honest lost their qualities and remained empty names
of indifferent things. Thrasymachus, in Plato," thinks that there is no other
right than the advantage of the superior.
There is nothing in which the world is so varied as in customs and laws. A
given thing is abominable here, which bring commendation elsewhere: as in
Lacedaemon cleverness in stealing. Marriages between close relatives are
capital offenses among us, elsewhere they are in honor:
There are some nations, it is said,
Where mothers sons, and fathers daughters wed;
And thus affection grows, doubled by love.
Ovid

The murder of infants, the murder of fathers, sharing of wives, traffic in

robberies, license for all sorts of sensual pleasures, nothing in short is so
extreme that it is not accepted by the usage of some nation.
BIt is credible that there are natural laws, as may be seen in other creatures;
but in us they are lost; that fine human reason butts in everywhere, domineer-
ing and commanding, muddling and confusing the face of things in accordance
with its vanity and inconsistency. clslothing is ours any more; what I call ours is
a product of art [Cicero]. . . .
Finally, there is no existence that is constant, either of our being or of that
of objects. And we, and our judgment, and all mortal things go on flowing
and rolling unceasingly. Thus nothing certain can be established about one
thing by another, both the judging and the judged being in continual change
and motion.
We have no communication with being," because every human nature is
always midway between birth and death, offering only a dim semblance and
shadow of itself, and an uncertain and feeble opinion. And if by chance you
fix your thought on trying to grasp its essence, it will be neither more nor less
than if someone tried to grasp water: for the more he squeezes and presses
what by its nature flows all over, the more he will lose what he was trying to
hold and grasp. Thus, all things being subject to pass from one change to
another, reason, seeking a real stability in them, is baffled, being unable to
apprehend anything stable and permanent; because everything is either com-
ing into being and not yet fully existent, or beginning to die before it is
born. . . . we must conclude that God alone is — not at all according to any
measure of time, but according to an eternity immutable and immobile, not
 Of Repentance 45
measured by time or subject to any decline; before whom there is nothing, nor
will there be after, nor is there anything more new or more recent; but one
who really is — who by one single now fills the ever; and there is nothing that
really is but he alone — nor can we say "He has been," or "He will be" —
without beginning and without end.
To this most religious conclusion of a pagan I want to add only this remark
of a witness of the same condition,' for an ending to this long and boring
discourse, which would give me material without end: "0 what a vile and
abject thing is man," he says, "if he does not raise himself above humanity!"
That is a good statement and a useful desire, but equally absurd. For Ato
make the handful bigger than the hand, the armful bigger than the arm, and to
hope to straddle more than the reach of our legs; is impossible and unnatural.
Nor can man raise himself above himself and humanity; for he can see only
with his own eyes, and seize only with his own grasp.
He will rise, if God by exception lends him a hand; he will rise by abandon-
ing and renouncing his own means, and letting himself be raised and uplifted
by purely celestial means.
CR is for our Christian faith, not for his Stoical virtue, to aspire to that
divine and miraculous metamorphosis.

Of Repentance
BOthers form man; I tell of him, and portray a particular one, very ill-formed,
whom I should really make very different from what he is if I had to fashion
him over again. But now it is done.
Now the lines of my painting do not go astray, though they change and vary.
The world is but a perennial movement. All things in it are in constant
motion — the earth, the rocks of the Caucasus, the pyramids of Egypt — both
with the common motion and with their own. Stability itself is nothing but a
more languid motion.
I cannot keep my subject still. It goes along befuddled and staggering, with a
natural drunkenness. I take it in this condition, just as it is at the moment I gave
my attention to it. I do not portray being: I portray passing. Not the passing
from one age to another, or, as the people say, from seven years to seven years,
but from day to day, from minute to minute. My history needs to be adapted to
the moment. I may presently change, not only by chance, but also by intention.
This is a record of various and changeable occurrences, and of irresolute and,
when it so befalls, contradictory ideas: whether I am different myself, or
whether I take hold of my subjects in different circumstances and aspects. So,
all in all, I may indeed contradict' myself now and then; but truth, as Demades
said, I do not contradict. If my mind could gain a firm footing, I would not make
essays, I would make decisions; but it is always in apprenticeship and on trial.
I set forth a humble and inglorious life; that does not matter. You can tie up
all moral philosophy with a common and private life just as well as with a life
of richer stuff. Each man bears the entire form of man's estate.
46 Michel de Montaigne
cAuthors communicate with the people by some special extrinsic mark; I
am the first to do so by my entire being, as Michel de Montaigne, not as a
grammarian or a poet or a jurist. If the world complains that I speak too much
of myself, I complain that it does not even think of itself.
BBut is it reasonable that I, so fond of privacy in actual life, should aspire to
publicity in the knowledge of me? Is it reasonable too that I should set forth to
the world, where fashioning and art have so much credit and authority, some
crude and simple products of nature, and of a very feeble nature at that? Is it
not making a wall without stone, or something like that, to construct books
without knowledge and without art? Musical fancies are guided by art, mine
by chance.
At least I have one thing according to the rules: that no man ever treated a
subject he knew and understood better than I do the subject I have under-
taken; and that in this I am the most learned man alive. Secondly, that no man
ever cpenetrated more deeply into his material, or plucked its limbs and
consequences cleaner, or Breached more accurately and fully the goal he had
set for his work. To accomplish it, I need only bring it to fidelity; and that is in
it, as sincere and pure as can be found. I speak the truth, not my fill of it, but
as much as I dare speak; and I dare to do so a little more as I grow old, for it
seems that custom allows old age more freedom to prate and more indiscre-
tion in talking about oneself. It cannot happen here as I see it happening
often, that the craftsman and his work contradict each other: "Has a man
whose conversation is so good written such a stupid book?" or "Have such
learned writings come from a man whose conversation is so feeble?"
cIf a man is commonplace in conversation and rare in writing, that means
that his capacity is in the place from which he borrows it, and not in himself. A
learned man is not learned in all matters; but the capable man is capable in all
matters, even in ignorance.
BIn this case we go hand in hand and at the same pace, my book and I. In
other cases one may commend or blame the work apart from the workman;
not so here; he who touches the one, touches the other. He who judges it
without knowing it will injure himself more than me; he who has known it will
completely satisfy me. Happy beyond my deserts if I have just this share of
public approval, that I make men of understanding feel that I was capable of
profiting by knowledge, if I had had any, and that I deserved better assistance
from my memory.
Let me here excuse what I often say, that I rarely repent sand that my
conscience is content with itself — not as the conscience of an angel or a horse,
but as the conscience of a man; Balways adding this refrain, not perfunctorily
but in sincere and complete submission: that I speak as an ignorant inquirer,
referring the decision purely and simply to the common and authorized be-
liefs. I do not teach, I tell.
There is no vice truly a vice which is not offensive, and which a sound
judgment does not condemn; for its ugliness and painfulness is so apparent
that perhaps the people are right who say it is chiefly produced by stupid-
 Of Repentance 47
ity and ignorance. So hard it is to imagine anyone knowing it without hat-
ing it.
cMalice sucks up the greater part of its own venom, and poisons itself with
it. BVice leaves repentance in the soul, like an ulcer in the flesh, which is
always scratching itself and drawing blood. For reason effaces other griefs and
sorrows; but it engenders that of repentance, which is all the more grievous
because it springs from within, as the cold and heat of fevers is sharper than
that which comes from outside. I consider as vices (but each one according to
its measure) not only those that reason and nature condemn, but also those
that man's opinion has created, even false and erroneous opinion, if it is
authorized by laws and customs.
There is likewise no good deed that does not rejoice a wellborn nature.
Indeed there is a sort of gratification in doing good which makes us rejoice in
ourselves, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience. A boldly
vicious soul may perhaps arm itself with security, but with this complacency
and satisfaction it cannot provide itself. It is no slight pleasure to feel oneself
preserved from the contagion of so depraved an age, and to say to oneself: "If
anyone should see right into my soul, still he would not find me guilty either of
anyone's affliction or ruin, or of vengeance or envy, or of public offense
against the laws, or of innovation and disturbance, or of failing in my word;
and in spite of what the license of the times allows and teaches each man, still
I have not put my hand either upon the property or into the purse of any
Frenchman, and have lived only on my own, both in war and peace; nor have
I used any man's work without paying his wages." These testimonies of con-
science give us pleasure; and this natural rejoicing is a great boon to us, and
the only payment that never fails us.
To found the reward for virtuous actions on the approval of others is to
choose too uncertain and shaky a foundation. cEspecially in an age as corrupt
and ignorant as this, the good opinion of the people is a dishonor. Whom can
you trust to see what is praiseworthy? God keep me from being a worthy man
according to the descriptions I see people every, day giving of themselves in
their own honor. What were vices now are moral acts [Seneca].
Certain of my friends have sometimes undertaken to call me on the carpet
and lecture me unreservedly, either of their own accord or at my invitation, as
a service which, to a well-formed soul, surpasses all the services of friendship,
not only in usefulness, but also in pleasantness. I have always welcomed it
with the wide-open arms of courtesy and gratitude. But to speak of it now in
all conscience, I have often found in their reproach or praise such false mea-
sure that I would hardly have erred to err rather than to do good in their
fashion.
BThose of us especially who live a private life that is on display only to
ourselves must have a pattern established within us by which to test our
actions, and, according to this pattern, now pat ourselves on the back, now
punish ourselves. I have my own laws and court to judge me, and I address
myself to them more than anywhere else. To be sure, I restrain my actions
48 Michel de Montaigne

according to others, but I extend them only according to myself. There is no

one but yourself who knows whether you are cowardly and cruel, or loyal and
devout. Others do not see you, they guess at you by uncertain conjectures;
they see not so much your nature as your art. Therefore do not cling to their
judgment; cling to your own. cYou must use your own judgment. . . . With
regard to virtues and vices, your own conscience has great weight: take that
away, and everything falls [Cicero].
BBut the saying that repentance follows close upon sin does not seem to
consider the sin that is in robes of state, that dwells in us as in its own home.
We can disown and retract the vices that take us by surprisp, and toward which
we are swept by passion; but those which by long habit are rooted and an-
chored in a strong and vigorous will cannot be denied. Repentance is nothing
but a disavowal of our will and an opposition to our fancies, which leads us
about in all directions. It makes this man disown his past virtue and his
continence:
Why had I not in youth the mind I have today?
Or why, with old desires, have red cheeks flown away?
Horace
It is a rare life that remains well ordered even in private. Any man can play
his part in the side show and represent a worthy man on the boards; but to be
disciplined within, in his own bosom, where all is permissible, where all is
concealed — that's the point. The next step to that is to be so in our own
house, in our ordinary actions, for which we need render account to no one,
where nothing is studied or artificial. And therefore Bias, depicting an excel-
lent state of family life, says it is one in which the master is the same within, by
his own volition, as he is outside for fear of the law and of what people will
say. And it was a worthy remark of Julius Drusus to the workmen who of-
fered, for three thousand crowns, to arrange his house so that his neighbors
would no longer be able to look into it as they could before. "I will give you
six thousand," he said; "make it so that everyone can see in from all sides."
The practice of Agesilaus is noted with honor, of taking lodging in the
churches when traveling, so that the people and the gods themselves might see
into his private actions. Men have seemed miraculous to the world, in whom
their wives and valets have never seen anything even worth noticing. Few men
have been admired by their own households.
cNo man has been a prophet, not merely in his own house, but in his own
country, says the experience of history. Likewise in things of no importance.
And in this humble example you may see an image of greater ones. In my
region of Gascony they think it a joke to see me in print. The farther from my
lair the knowledge of me spreads, the more I am valued. I buy printers in
Guienne, elsewhere they buy me. On this phenomenon those people base
their hopes who hide themselves while alive and present, to gain favor when
dead and gone. I would rather have less of it. And I cast myself on the world
only for the share of favor I get now. When I leave it, I shall hold it quits.
 Of Repentance 49
BThe people escort this man back to his door, with awe, from a public
function. He drops his part with his gown; the higher he has hoisted himself,
the lower he falls back; inside, in his home, everything is tumultuous and vile.
Even if there is order there, it takes a keen and select judgment to perceive it
in these humble private actions. Besides, order is a dull and somber virtue. To
win through a breach, to conduct an embassy, to govern a people, these are
dazzling actions. To scold, to laugh, to sell, to pay, to love, to hate, and to deal
pleasantly and justly with our household and ourselves, not to let ourselves
go, not to be false to ourselves, that is a rarer matter, more difficult and less
noticeable.
Therefore retired lives, whatever people may say, accomplish duties as
harsh and strenuous as other lives, or more so. cAnd private persons, says
Aristotle, render higher and more difficult service to virtue than those who
are in authority. BWe prepare ourselves for eminent occasions more for glory
than for conscience. The shortest way to attain glory would be to do for
conscience what we do for glory. BAnd Alexander's virtue seems to me to
represent much less vigor in his theater than does that of Socrates in his lowly
and obscure activity. I can easily imagine Socrates in Alexander's place; Alex-
ander in that of Socrates, I cannot. If you ask the former what he knows how
to do, he will answer, "Subdue the world"; if you ask the latter, he will say,
"Lead the life of man in conformity with its natural condition"; a knowledge
much more general, more weighty, and more legitimate.
The value of the soul consists not in flying high, but in an orderly pace.
cIts greatness is exercised not in greatness, but in mediocrity: 5 As those who
judge and touch us inwardly make little account of the brilliance of our
public acts, and see that these are only thin streams and jets of water
spurting from a bottom otherwise muddy and thick; so likewise those who
judge us by this brave outward appearance draw similar conclusions about
our inner constitution, and cannot associate common faculties, just like their
own, with these other faculties that astonish them and are so far beyond
their scope. So we give demons wild shapes. And who does not give
Tamerlane raised eyebrows, open nostrils, a dreadful face, and immense
size, like the size of the imaginary picture of him we have formed from the
renown of his name? If I had been able to see Erasmus" in other days, it
would have been hard for me not to take for adages and apophthegms
everything he said to his valet and his hostess. We imagine much more
appropriately an artisan on the toilet seat or on his wife than a great presi-
dent, venerable by his demeanor and his ability. It seems to us that they do
not stoop from their lofty thrones even to live.
BAs vicious souls are often incited to do good by some extraneous impulse,
so are virtuous souls to do evil. Thus we must judge them by their settled
state, when they are at home, if ever they are; or at least when they are closest
to repose and their natural position.
Natural inclinations gain assistance and strength from education; but they
are scarcely to be changed and overcome. A thousand natures, in my time,
50 Michel de Montaigne

have escaped toward virtue or toward vice through the lines of a contrary
training:
As when wild beasts grow tame, shut in a cage,
Forget the woods, and lose their look of rage,
And learn to suffer man; but if they taste
Hot blood, their rage and fury is replaced,
Their reminiscent jaws distend, they burn,
And for their trembling keeper's blood they yearn.
Lucan
We do not root out these original qualities, we cover them up, we conceal
them. Latin is like a native tongue to me; I understand it better than French;
but for forty years I have not used it at all for speaking or writing. Yet in
sudden and extreme emotions, into which I have fallen two or three times in
my life — one of them when I saw my father, in perfect health, fall back into
my arms in a faint — I have always poured out my first words from the depths
of my entrails in Latin; cNature surging forth and expressing herself by force,
in the face of long habit. BAnd this experience is told of many others.
Those who in my time have tried to correct the world's morals by new ideas,
reform the superficial vices; the essential ones they leave as they were, if they
do not increase them; and increase is to be feared. People are as likely to rest
from all other well-doing on the strength of these external, arbitrary reforms,
which cost us less and bring greater acclaim; and thereby they satisfy at little
expense the other natural, consubstantial, and internal vices.
Just consider the evidence of this in our own experience. There is no one
who, if he listens to himself, does not discover in himself a pattern all his own,
a ruling pattern, which struggles against education and against the tempest of
the passions that oppose it. For my part, I do not feel much sudden agitation;
I am nearly always in place, like heavy and inert bodies. If I am not at home, I
am always very near it. My excesses do not carry me very far away. There is
nothing extreme or strange about them. And besides I have periods of vigor-
ous and healthy reaction.
The real condemnation, which applies to the common run of men of today, is
that even their retirement is full of corruption and filth; their idea of reforma-
tion, blurred; their penitence, diseased and guilty, almost as much as their sin.
Some, either from being glued to vice by a natural attachment, or from long
habit, no longer recognize its ugliness. On others (in whose regiment I belong)
vice weighs heavily, but they counterbalance it with pleasure or some other
consideration, and endure it and lend themselves to it for a certain price;
viciously, however, and basely. Yet it might be possible to imagine a dispropor-
tion so extreme that the pleasure might justly excuse the sin, as we say utility
does; not only if the pleasure was incidental and not a part of the sin, as in theft,
but if it was in the very exercise of the sin, as in intercourse with women, where
the impulse is violent, and, they say, sometimes invincible.
The other day when I was at Armagnac, on the estate of a kinsman of mine,
I saw a country fellow whom everyone nicknames the Thief. He gave this
 Of Repentance 51

account of his life: that born a beggar, and finding that by earning is bread by
the toil of his hands he would never protect himself enough against want, he
had decided to become a thief; and he had spent all his youth at this trade in
security, by virtue of his bodily strength. For he reaped his harvest and vintage
from other people's lands, but so far away and in such great loads that it was
inconceivable that one man could have carried off so much on his shoulders in
one night. And he was careful besides to equalize and spread out the damage
he did, so that the loss was less insupportable for each individual. He is now,
in his old age, rich for a man in his station, thanks to this traffic, which he
openly confesses. And to make his peace with God for his acquisitions, he
says that he spends his days compensating, by good deeds, the successors of
the people he robbed; and that if he does not finish this task (for he cannot do
it all at once), he will charge his heirs with it, according to the knowledge,
which he alone has, of the amount of wrong he did to each. Judging by this
description, whether it is true or false, this man regards theft as a dishonor-
able action and hates it, but hates it less than poverty; he indeed repents of it
in itself, but in so far as it was thus counterbalanced and compensated, he
does not repent of it. This is not that habit that incorporates us with vice and
brings even our understanding into conformity with it; nor is it that impetuous
wind that comes in gusts to confuse and blind our soul, and hurls us for the
moment headlong, judgment and all, into the power of vice.
I customarily do wholeheartedly whatever I do, and go my way all in one
piece. I scarcely make a motion that is hidden and out of sight of my reason,
and that is not guided by the consent of nearly all parts of me, without
division, without internal sedition. My judgment takes all the blame or all the
praise for it; and the blame it once takes, it always keeps, for virtually since its
birth it has been one; the same inclination, the same road, the same strength.
And in the matter of general opinions, in childhood I established myself in the
position where I was to remain.
There are some impetuous, prompt, and sudden sins: let us leave them
aside. But as for these other sins so many times repeated, planned, and
premeditated, constitutional sins, cor even professional or vocational sins, BI
cannot imagine that they can be implanted so long in one and the same heart,
without the reason and conscience of their possessor constantly willing and
intending it to be so. And the repentance which he claims comes to him at a
certain prescribed moment is a little hard for me to imagine and conceive.
CI do not follow the belief of the sect of Pythagoras, that man take on a new
soul when they approach the images of the gods to receive their oracles.
Unless he meant just this, that the soul must indeed be foreign, new, and
loaned for the occasion, since their own showed so little sign of any purifica-
tion and cleanness worthy of this office.
BThey do just the opposite of the Stoic precepts, which indeed order us to
correct the imperfections and vices that we recognize in us, but forbid us to be
repentant and glum about them. These men make us believe that they feel
great regret and remorse within; but of amendment and correction, cor inter-
52 Michel de Montaigne
ruption, Bthey show us no sign. Yet it is no cure if the disease is not thrown off.
If repentance were weighing in the scale of the balance, it would outweigh the
sin. I know of no quality so easy to counterfeit as piety, if conduct and life are
not made to conform with it. Its essence is abstruse and occult; its semblance,
easy and showy.
As for me, I may desire in a general way to be different; I may condemn
and dislike my nature as a whole, and implore God to reform me completely
and to pardon my natural weakness. But this I ought not to call repentance, it
seems to me, any more than my displeasure at being neither an angel nor
Cato. 18 My actions are in order and conformity with what I am and with my
condition. I can do no better. And repentance does not properly apply to the
things that are not in our power; rather does regret. I imagine numberless
natures loftier and better regulated than mine, but for all that, I do not amend
by faculties; just as neither my arm nor my mind becomes more vigorous by
imagining another that is so. If imagining and desiring a nobler conduct than
ours produced repentance of our own, we should have to repent of our most
innocent actions, inasmuch as we rightly judge that in a more excellent nature
they would have been performed with greater perfection and dignity, and we
should wish to do likewise.
When I consider the behavior of my youth in comparison with that of my
old age, I find that I have generally conducted myself in orderly fashion,
according to my lights; that is all my resistance can accomplish. I do not flatter
myself; in similar circumstances I should always be the same. It is not a spot, it
is rather a tincture with which I am stained all over. I know no superficial,
halfway, and perfunctory repentance. It must affect me in every part before I
will call it so, and must grip me by the vitals and afflict them as deeply and as
completely as God sees into me.
In business matters, several good opportunities have escaped me for want
of successful management. However, my counsels have been good, according
to the circumstances they were faced with; their way is always to take the
easiest and surest course. I find that in my past deliberations, according to my
rule, I have proceeded wisely, considering the state of the matter proposed to
me, and I should do the same a thousand years from now in similar situations.
I am not considering what it is at this moment, but what it was when I was
deliberating about it.
cThe soundness of any plan depends on the time; circumstances and things
roll about and change incessantly. I have fallen into some serious and impor-
tant mistakes in my life, not for lack of good counsel but for lack of good luck.
There are secret parts in the matters we handle which cannot be guessed,
especially in human nature — mute factors that do not show, factors some-
times unknown to their possessor himself, which are brought forth and
aroused by unexpected occasions. If my prudence has been unable to see into
them and predict them, I bear it no ill will; its responsibility is restricted within
its limitations. It is the outcome that beats me; and Bif it favors the course I
 Of Repentance 53
have refused, there is no help for it; I do not blame myself; I accuse my luck,
not my work. That is not to be called repentance.
Phocion had given the Athenians some advice that was not followed. When
however the affair came out prosperously against his opinion, someone said to
him: "Well, Phocion, are you glad that the thing is going so well?" "Indeed I
am glad," he said, "that it has turned out this way, but I do not repent of
having advised that way."
When my friends apply to me for advice, I give it freely and clearly, and
without hesitating as nearly everyone else does because, the affair being
hazardous, it may come out contrary to my expectations, wherefore they may
have cause to reproach me for my advice; that does not worry me. For they
will be wrong, and I should not have refused them this service.
CI have scarcely any occasion to blame my mistakes or mishaps on anyone
but myself. For in practice I rarely ask other people's advice, unless as a
compliment and out of politeness, except when I need scientific information
or knowledge of the facts. But in things where I have only my judgment to
employ, other people's reasons can serve to support me, but seldom to change
my course. I listen to them all favorably and decently; but so far as I can
remember, I have never up to this moment followed any but my own. If you
ask me, they are nothing but flies and atoms that distract my will. I set little
value on my own opinions, but I set just as little on those of others. Fortune
pays me properly. If I do not take advice, I give still less. Mine is seldom
asked, but it is followed even less; and I know of no public or private enter-
prise that my advice restored to its feet and to the right path. Even the people
whom fortune has made somewhat dependent on it have let themselves be
managed more readily by anyone else's brains. Being a man who is quite as
jealous of the rights of my repose as of the rights of my authority, I prefer it
so; by leaving me alone, they treat me according to my professed principle,
which is to be wholly contained and established within myself. To me it is a
pleasure not to be concerned in other people's affairs and to be free of
responsibility for them.
BIn all affairs, when they are past, however they have turned out, I have
little regret. For this idea takes away the pain: that they were bound to
happen thus, and now they are in the great stream of the universe and in the
chain of Stoical causes. Your fancy, by wish or imagination, cannot change a
single point without overturning the whole order of things, and the past and
the future.
For the rest, I hate that accidental repentance that age brings. The man °
whosaidfltebgdohyarsfvingdmoesual-
ity had a different viewpoint from mine; I shall never be grateful to impotence
for any good it may do me. cNor will Providence ever be so hostile to her own
work that debility should be ranked among the best things [Quintilian]. BOur
appetites are few in old age; a profound satiety seizes us after the act. In that I
see nothing of conscience; sourness and weakness imprint on us a sluggish and
54 Michel de Montaigne
rheumatic virtue. We must not let ourselves be so carried away by natural
changes as to let our judgment degenerate. Youth and pleasure in other ways
did not make me fail to recognize the face of vice in voluptuousness; nor does
the distaste that the years bring me make me fail to recognize the face of
voluptuousness in vice. Now that I am no longer in that state, I judge it as
though I were in it.
CI who shake up my reason sharply and attentively, find that Bit is the very
same I had in my more licentious years, except perhaps in so far as it has grown
weaker and worse as it has grown old. cAnd I find that even if it refuses, out of
consideration for the interests of my bodily health, to put me in the furnace of
this pleasure, it would not refuse to do so, any more than formerly, for my
spiritual health. BI do not consider it any more valiant for seeing it hors de
combat. My temptations are so broken and mortified that they are not worth its
opposition. By merely stretching out my hands to them, I exorcise them. If my
reason were confronted with my former lust, I fear that it would have less
strength to resist than it used to have. I do not see that of itself it judges anything
differently than it did then, nor that it has gained any new light. Wherefore, if
there is any convalescence, it is a deformed convalescence.
cMiserable sort of remedy, to owe our health to disease! It is not for our
misfortune to do us this service, it is for the good fortune of our judgment.
You cannot make me do anything by ills and afflictions except curse them.
They are for people who are only awakened by whipping. My reason runs a
much freer course in prosperity. It is much more distracted and busy digesting
pains than pleasures. I see much more clearly in fair weather. Health admon-
ishes me more cheerfully and so more usefully than sickness. I advanced as far
as I could toward reform and a regulated life when I had health to enjoy. I
should be ashamed and resentful if the misery and misfortune of my decrepi-
tude were to be thought better than my good, healthy, lively, vigorous years,
and if people were to esteem me not for what I have been, but for ceasing to
be that.
In my opinion it is living happily, not, as Antisthenes said, dying happily,
that constitutes human felicity. I have made no effort to attach, monstrously,
the tail of a philosopher to the head and body of a dissipated man: or that this
sickly remainder of my life should disavow and belie its fairest, longest, and
most complete part. I want to present and show myself uniformly throughout.
If I had to live over again, I would live as I have lived. I have neither tears for
the past nor fears for the future. And unless I am fooling myself, it has gone
about the same way within me as without. It is one of the chief obligations I
have to my fortune that my bodily state has run its course with each thing in
due season. I have seen the grass, the flower, and the fruit; now I see the
dryness — happily, since it is naturally. I bear the ills I have much more easily
because they are properly timed, and also because they make me remember
more pleasantly the long felicity of my past life.
Likewise my wisdom may well have been of the same proportions in one
age as in the other; but it was much more potent and graceful when green,
 Of Vanity 55
gay, and natural, than it is now, being broken down, peevish, and labored.
Therefore I renounce these casual and painful reformations.
BGod must touch our hearts. Our conscience must reform by itself through
the strengthening of our reason, not through the weakening of our appetites.
Sensual pleasure is neither pale nor colorless in itself for being seen through
dim and bleary eyes. We should love temperance for itself and out of rever-
ence toward God, who has commanded it, and also chastity; what catarrh
lends us, and what I owe to the favor of my colic, is neither chastity nor
temperance. We cannot boast of despising and fighting sensual pleasure, if we
do not see or know it, and its charms, its powers, and its most alluring beauty.
I know them both; I have a right to speak; but it seems to me that in old age
our souls are subject to more troublesome ailments and imperfections than in
our youth. I used to say so when I was young; then they taunted me with my
beardless chin. I still say so now that my cgray Bhair gives me authority to
speak. We call "wisdom" the difficulty of our humors, our distaste for present
things. But in truth we do not so much abandon our vices as change them,
and, in my opinion, for the worse. Besides a silly and decrepit. pride, a tedious
prattle, prickly and unsociable humors, superstition, and a ridiculous concern
for riches when we have lost the use of them, I find there more envy, injustice,
and malice. Old age puts more wrinkles in our minds than on our faces; and
we never, or rarely, see a soul that in growing old does not come to smell sour
and musty. Man grows and dwindles in his entirety.
cSeeing the wisdom of Socrates and several circumstances of his condemna-
tion, I should venture to believe that he lent himself to it to some extent,
purposely, by prevarication, being seventy, and having so soon to suffer an
increasing torpor of the rich activity of his mind, and the dimming of its
accustomed brightness.
BWhat metamorphoses I see old age producing every day in many of my
acquaintances! It is a powerful malady, and it creeps up on us naturally and
imperceptibly. We need a great provision of study, and great precaution, to
avoid the imperfections it loads upon us, or at least to slow up their progress. I
feel that, notwithstanding all my retrenchments, it gains on me foot by foot. I
stand fast as well as I can. But I do not know where it will lead even me in the
end. In any event, I am glad to have people know whence I shall have fallen.

Of Vanity
. . . human society holds and is knit together at any cost whatever. Whatever
position you set men in, they pile up and arrange themselves by moving and
crowding together, just as ill-matched objects, put in a bag without order, find
of themselves a way to unite and fall into place together, often better than
they could have been arranged by art. King Philip collected the most wicked
and incorrigible men he could find, and settled them all in a city he had built
for them, which bore their name. I judge that from their very vices they set up
a political system among themselves and a workable and regular society.
56 Michel de Montaigne
I see not one action, or three, or a hundred, but morals in common and
accepted practice, so monstrous, especially in inhumanity and treachery, that
I have not the heart to think of them without horror; and I marvel at them
almost as much as I detest them. The practice of these arrant villainies bears
the mark of vigor and strength of soul as much as of error and disorder.
Necessity reconciles men and brings them together. This accidental link
afterward takes the form of laws; for there have been some as savage as any
human opinion can produce, which have nevertheless maintained their bodily
health and long life as well as those of Plato and Aristotle could do.
And indeed all those imaginary, artificial descriptions of a government
prove ridiculous and unfit to put into practice. These great, lengthy alterca-
tions about the best form of society and the rules most suitable to bind us, are
altercations fit only for the exercise of our minds; as in the liberal arts there
are several subjects whose essence is controversy and dispute, and which have
no life apart from that. Such a description of a government would be applica-
ble in a new world, but we take men already bound and formed to certain
customs; we do not create them, like Pyrrha or Cadmus. 2° By whatever means
we may have power to correct and reform them, we can hardly twist them out
of their accustomed bent without breaking up everything. Solon was asked
whether he had established the best laws he could for the Athenians. "Yes
indeed," he answered, "the best they would have accepted."
Warr° excuses himself in the same way, saying that if he had to write about
religion as something new, he would say what he thinks of it; but since it is
already formed and accepted, he will speak of it more according to custom
than according to nature.
BNot in theory, but in truth, the best and most excellent government for
each nation is the one under which it has preserved its existence. Its form and
essential fitness depend on habit. We are prone to be discontented with the
present state of things. But I maintain, nevertheless, that to wish for the
government of a few in a democratic state, or another type of government in a
monarchy, is foolish and wrong.

Of Physiognomy

BAlmost all of the opinions we have are taken on authority and on credit.
There is no harm in this: we could not make a worse choice than our own in so
feeble an age. The version of the sayings of Socrates that his friends have left
us we approve only out of respect for the universal approval these sayings
enjoy, not by our own knowledge. They are beyond our experience. If any-
thing of the kind were brought forth at this time, there are few men who
would prize it.
We perceive no charms that are not sharpened, puffed out, and inflated by
artifice. Those which glide along naturally and simply easily escape a sight so
gross as ours. They have a delicate and hidden beauty; we need a clear and
 Of Physiognomy 57
well-purged sight to discover their secret light. Is not naturalness, according to
us, akin to stupidity and a matter for reproach?
Socrates makes his soul move with a natural and common motion. So says a
peasant, so says a woman. cHis mouth is full of nothing but carters, joiners,
cobblers, and masons. BHis are inductions and similes drawn from the com-
monest and best-known actions of men; everyone understands him. Under so
mean a form we should never have picked out the nobility and splendor of his
admirable ideas, we cwho consider flat and low all ideas that are not raised up
by learning, and Bwho perceive richness only in pomp and show. Our world is
formed only for ostentation; men inflate themselves only with wind, and go
bouncing around like balls. This man did not propose to himself any idle
fancies: his aim was to furnish us with things and precepts that serve life really
and more closely:
To keep the mean, to hold our aim in view,
And follow nature.
Lucan
He was also always one and the same, and raised himself not by sallies but
by disposition, to the utmost point of vigor. Or, to speak more exactly, he
raised nothing, but rather brought vigor, hardships, and difficulties down and
back to his own natural and original level, and subjected them to it. For in
Cato we see very clearly that his is a pace strained far above the ordinary; in
the brave exploits of his life and in his death we feel that he is always mounted
on his high horse. The other walks close to the ground, and at a gentle and
ordinary pace treats the most useful subjects; and behaves, both in the face of
death and in the thorniest trials that can confront us, in the ordinary way of
human life.
It happened fortunately that the man most worthy to be known and to be
presented to the world as an example should be the one of whom we have
most certain knowledge. We have light on him from the most clear-sighted
men who ever lived; the witnesses we have of him are wonderful in fidelity
and competence.
It is a great thing to have been able to impart such order to the pure and
simple notions of a child that, without altering or stretching them, he pro-
duced from them the most beautiful achievements of our soul. He shows it as
neither elevated nor rich; he shows it only as healthy, but assuredly with a very
blithe and clear health. By these vulgar and natural motives, by these ordinary
and common ideas, without excitement or fuss, he constructed not only the
best regulated but the loftiest and most vigorous beliefs, actions, and morals
that ever were. cIt is he who brought human wisdom back down from heaven,
where she was wasting her time, and restored her to man, with whom lies her
most proper and laborious and useful business. BSee him plead before his
judges, see by what reasonings he rouses his courage in the hazards of war,
what arguments fortify his patience against calumny, tyranny, death, and his
wife's bad temper. There is nothing borrowed from art and the sciences; even
58 Michel de Montaigne
the simplest can recognize in him their means and their strength; it is impossi-
ble to go back further and lower. He did a great favor to human nature by
showing how much it can do by itself.
We are each richer than we think, but we are trained to borrow and beg; we
are taught to use the resources of others more than our own. In nothing does
man know how to stop at the limit of his need; of pleasure, riches, power, he
embraces more than he can hold; his greed is incapable of moderation. I find
that it is the same with the curiosity for knowledge. Man cuts out for himself
much more work than he can do or has any reason to do, ctrying to stretch the
usefulness of knowledge as wide as its matter. In learning, as in all other
things, we suffer from intemperance [Seneca]. And Tacitus is right to praise
Agricola's mother for having curbed in her son too boiling an appetite for
learning. Looked at steadily, it is like men's other goods; it has in it much
intrinsic and natural vanity and weakness, and it costs dear.
It is far more hazardous to acquire than any other food or drink. For with
other things, what we have bought we carry home in some vessel, and there
we have a chance to examine its value and how much we shall take of it and
when. But learning we can at the outset put into no other vessel than our
mind; we swallow it as we buy it, and leave the market place already either
infected or improved. There is some of it that only hampers and burdens us
instead of feeding us, and also some which, under color of curing us, poi-
sons us.
BI once took pleasure in seeing men in some place, through piety, take a
vow of ignorance, as one might of chastity, poverty, penitence. It is also
castrating our disorderly appetites, to blunt that cupidity that pricks us on to
the study of books, and to deprive the soul of that voluptuous complacency
which tickles us with the notion of being learned. cAnd it is accomplishing
richly the vow of poverty to add to it also that of the mind.
BWe need hardly any learning to live at ease. And Socrates teaches us that it
is in us, and the way to find it and help ourselves with it. All this ability of ours
that is beyond the natural is as good as vain and superfluous. It is a lot if it
does not load us down and bother us more than it serves us. cLittle learning is
needed for a good mind [Seneca]. BThese are feverish excesses of our mind, a
meddlesome and restless instrument. . . .
They may boast about it all they please. The whole life of a philosopher is a
meditation on death [Cicero]. But it seems to me that death is indeed the end,
but not therefore the goal, of life; it is its finish, its extremity, but not there-
fore its object. Life should be an aim unto itself, a purpose unto itself; its
rightful study is to regulate, conduct, and suffer itself. Among the many other
duties comprised in this general and principal chapter on knowing how to live
is this article on knowing how to die; and it is one of the lightest, if our fear did
not give it weight.
BTo judge by utility and natural truth, the lessons of simplicity yield little
to those which learning preaches to us to the contrary. Men are diverse in
inclination and strength; they must be led to their own good according to
 Of Experience 59
their nature and by diverse routes. c Wherever the tempest drives me, there I
land [Horace]. . . .
As I have said elsewhere, I have very simply and crudely adopted for my
own sake this ancient precept: that we cannot go wrong by following Nature,
that the sovereign precept is to conform to her. I have not, like Socrates,
corrected my natural disposition by force of reason, and have not troubled my
inclination at all by art. I let myself go as I have come. I combat nothing. My
two ruling parts, of their own volition, live in peace and good accord. But my
nurse's milk, thank God, was moderately healthy and temperate.
cShall I say this in passing: that I see held in greater price than it is worth a
certain idea of scholastic probity, almost the only one practiced among us, a
slave to precepts, held down beneath fear and hope? What I like is the virtue
that laws and religions do not make but perfect and authorize, that feels in
itself enough to sustain itself without help, born in us from its own roots, from
the seed of universal reason that is implanted in every man who is not dena-
tured. This reason, which straightens Socrates from his inclination to vice,
makes him obedient to the men and gods who command in his city, coura-
geous in death not because his soul is immortal but because he is mortal. It is a
ruinous teaching for any society, and much more harmful than ingenious and
subtle, which persuades the people that religious belief is enough, by itself
and without morals, to satisfy divine justice. Practice makes us see an enor-
mous distinction between devoutness and conscience.

Of Experience
. . . As for me, then, I love life and cultivate it just as God has been pleased to
grant it to us. I do not go about wishing that it should lack the need to eat and
drink, cand it would seem to me no less excusable a failing to wish that need to
be doubled. The wise man is the keenest searcher for natural treasures [Sen-
eca]. Nor do I wish Bthat we should sustain ourselves by merely putting into
our mouths a little of that drug by which Epimenides took away his appetite
and kept himself alive; nor that we should beget children insensibly with our
fingers or our heels, cbut rather, with due respect, that we could also beget
them voluptuously with our fingers and heels; nor Bthat the body should be
without desire and without titillation. Those are ungrateful cand unfair
Bcomplaints. I accept with all my heart c and with gratitude Bwhat nature has
done for me, and I am pleased with myself and proud of myself that I do. We
wrong that great and all-powerful Giver by refusing his gift, nullifying it, and
disfiguring it. cHimself all good, he has made all things good. All things that
are according to nature are worthy of esteem [Cicero].
BOf opinions of philosophy I most gladly embrace those that are most solid,
that is to say, most human and most our own; my opinions, in conformity with
my conduct, are low and humble. cPhilosophy is very childish, to my mind,
when she gets up on her hind legs and preaches to us that it is a barbarous
alliance to marry the divine with the earthly, the reasonable with the unreason-
60 Michel de Montaigne

able, the severe with the indulgent, the honorable with the dishonorable; that
sensual pleasure is a brutish thing unworthy of being enjoyed by the wise man;
that the only pleasure he derives from the enjoyment of a beautiful young wife
is the pleasure of his consciousness of doing the right thing, like putting on his
boots for a useful ride. May her followers have no more right and sinews and
sap in deflowering their wives than her lessons have!
That is not what Socrates says, her tutor and ours. He prizes bodily pleasure
as he should, but he prefers that of the mind, as having more power, con-
stancy, ease, variety, and dignity. The latter by no means goes alone, accord-
ing to him — he is not so fanciful — but only comes first. For him temperance is
the moderator, not the adversary, of pleasures.
BNature is a gentle guide, but no more gentle than wise and just. cWe must
penetrate into the nature of things and clearly see exactly what it demands
[Cicero]. BI seek her footprints everywhere. We have confused them with
artificial tracks, sand for that reason the sovereign good of the Academics and
the Peripatetics, which is "to live according to nature," becomes hard to limit
and express; also that of the Stoics, a neighbor to the other, which is "to
consent to nature."
BIs it not an error to consider some actions less worthy because they are
necessary? No, they will not knock it out of my head that the marriage of
pleasure with necessity, cwith whom, says an ancient, the gods always con-
spire, Bis a very suitable one. To what purpose do we dismember by divorce a
structure made up of such close and brotherly correspondence? On the con-
trary, let us bind it together again by mutual services. Let the mind arouse and
quicken the heaviness of the body, and the body check and make fast the
lightness of the mind. c He who praises the nature of the soul as the sovereign
good and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, truly both carnally desires the
soul and carnally shuns the flesh; for his feeling is inspired by human vanity,
not by divine truth [Saint Augustine].
BThere is no part unworthy of our care in this gift that God has given us; we
are accountable for it even to a single hair. And it is not a perfunctory charge
to man to guide man according to his nature; it is express, simple, cand of
prime importance, Band the creator has given it to us seriously and sternly.
cAuthority alone has power over common intelligences, and has more weight
in a foreign language. Let us renew the charge here. Who would not say that it
is the essence of folly to do lazily and rebelliously what has to be done, to impel
the body one way and the soul another, to be split between the most conflicting
motions? [Seneca].
BCome on now, just to see, some day get some man to tell you the absorbing
thoughts and fancies that he takes into his head, and for the sake of which he
turns his mind from a good meal and laments the time he spends on feeding
himself. You will find there is nothing so insipid in all the dishes on your table
as this fine entertainment of his mind (most of the time we should do better to
go to sleep completely than to stay awake for what we do stay awake for); and
you will find that his ideas and aspirations are not worth your stew. Even if
tOf Experience 61
they were the transports of Archimedes himself, what of it? I am not here
touching on, or mixing up with that brattish rabble of men that we are, or with
the vanity of the desires and musings that distract us, those venerable souls,
exalted by ardent piety and religion to constant and conscientious meditation
on divine things, cwho, anticipating, by dint of keen and vehement hope, the
enjoyment of eternal food, final goal and ultimate limit of Christian desires,
sole constant and incorruptible pleasure, scorn to give their attention to our
beggarly, waterly, and ambiguous comforts, and readily resign to the body the
concern and enjoyment of sensual and temporal fodder. BThat is a privileged
study. cBetween ourselves, these are two things that I have always observed to
be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct.
BAesop, cthat great man, Bsaw his master pissing as he walked. "What
next?" he said. "Shall we have to shit as we run?" Let us manage our time; we
shall still have a lot left idle and ill spent. Our mind likes to think it has not
enough leisure hours to do its own business unless it dissociates itself from the
body for the little time that the body really needs it.
They want to get out of themselves and escape from the man. That is mad-
ness: instead of changing into angels, they change into beasts; instead of raising
themselves, they lower themselves. cThese transcendental humors frighten me,
like lofty and inaccessible places; and nothing is so hard for me to stomach in
the life of Socrates as his ecstasies and possessions by his daemon, nothing is so
human in Plato as the qualities for which they say he is called divine. BAnd of
our sciences, those seem to me most terrestrial and low which have risen the
highest. And I find nothing so humble and so mortal in the life of Alexander as
his fancies about his immortalization. Philotas stung him wittily by his answer.
He congratulated him by letter on the oracle of Jupiter Ammon which had
lodged him among the gods: "As far as you are concerned, I am very glad of it;
but there is reason to pity the men who will have to live with and obey a man
who exceeds cand is not content with Ba man's proportions."
cSince you obey the gods, you rule the world.
Horace
BThe nice inscription with which the Athenians honored the entry of
Pompey into their city is in accord with my meaning.
You are as much a god as you will own
That you are nothing but a man alone.
Amyot's Plutarch
It is an absolute perfection and virtually divine to know how to enjoy our
being rightfully. We seek other conditions because we do not understand the
use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is
like inside. cYet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must
still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still
sitting only on our own rump.
BThe most beautiful lives, to my mind, are those that conform to the com-
 Part I.
Reworking Natural Law
 Francisco Suarez

Introduction
Francisco Suarez (1548-1617) was one of a number of Spanish scholastic thinkers who
transmitted and elaborated the views of Saint Thomas Aquinas (1224-74). Unpromis-
ing as a student, he was eventually accepted into the Jesuit order and became a priest.
Suarez taught at a number of Spanish universities and in Rome, attaining great fame
and wide influence. He was very prolific, writing on many metaphysical and theologi-
cal topics and on the political problems of his time, such as the treatment of Catholics
in England, as well as on natural law. His works tend to be lengthy. He generally gives
careful consideration of the views of many others who have written on his subject,
discussing their arguments and their biblical and other citations in detail, and only
slowly coming to the presentation of his own final position. Drastic cutting was needed
to obtain selections that might convey some of the main points of Suarez's theory
within a reasonable number of pages. But even in abridged form there are a bewilder-
ing number of distinctions and claims to keep in mind if Suarez's theory is to be seen as
a coherent whole.
Suarez accepted the general theses of classical natural law theory as it was developed
by Saint Thomas Aquinas. Like Saint Thomas he presented a universe created and
governed by God in ways designed to benefit each thing in it and to work for the
common good of the whole creation. The pattern of governance is set by the eternal
law, which is timeless and expresses God's nature; natural law is the special way in
which humans "participate in" the eternal law. God directs the movements of stones
and animals, but he does not do so, Suarez believed, by law properly so called. Law in
the full sense pertains only to free and rational beings. We differ from the lower
creatures because we can guide our actions by knowledge of the ways in which God
means us to act. The natural law, unlike the law revealed in the Scriptures, can be
discovered by reason, without the aid of special grace or revelation. Its first principles
are self-evident; its other precepts can be derived from them — some with ease, others
only with difficulty.
Suarez did not elaborate on how the laws are to be derived from the basic principles,
nor did he give an exhaustive and careful list of the laws, divided according to degrees
of evidence. Nonetheless, his general view is reasonably clear. He followed Saint
Thomas in holding that one of the basic self-evident laws is that good is to be pursued
and evil is to be avoided. Suarez did not suppose that other laws — such as those
contained in the Decalogue — are simply deduced from this empty-sounding premise
alone. Rather, we are to look at human nature and to apply the basic principle by
seeing how each of the main characteristics that all of us have in common as humans

67
68 Francisco Suarez
can be used for good instead of for evil. God means all things, including the distinguish-
ing features of our nature, to work for good, and the laws of nature spell out the ways
in which this is to be done. Suarez did not seem to think there can be any controversy
about what constitutes the good we are to work for — the special kind of happiness
appropriate to us — nor did he treat as doubtful the content of the law of nature. His
aim was not so much to instruct his reader about what kinds of actions are appropriate
or required as it was to lay out the structure of natural law and to explain the main
concepts involved in understanding it.
In some of his explanations Suarez went into considerably more detail than Saint
Thomas did. One of the most important of his elaborations concerns the concept of
obligation. Suarez tried to accommodate within a basically Thomistic framework the
voluntarist theologians Scotus and Ockham (discussed briefly in the section "Luther
and Calvin" in the Introduction to this anthology), who argued that morality arises
solely from God's will. The voluntarists were strongly opposed by those who, following
Thomas, held that God's legislation reflects or expresses his intellectual nature and
therefore complies with the eternal truths of logic and morality. Suarez developed a
position that would take account of both of these views. He argued, on the one hand,
that God's legislative activity is guided by the goods and evils that are connected to the
unalterable natures of created things, but he insisted also that moral obligation arises
solely from God's command and that without command there is no law. His theory
raised, more acutely than Thomas's did, a number of questions about how moral
obligation binds the will, how human freedom is compatible with the will's being
bound, and the relation between goodness and rightness as sources of human action
generally.
Voluntarism was not merely an issue from the past or for Catholics. The Reformers
Luther and Calvin, as I indicated in the Introduction, subscribed to versions of it;
Descartes proposed his own variety of it; and the great natural lawyer Pufendorf
opened his major work with a restatement of it. Conversely, innumerable writers
during the period tried to refute voluntarism and to present alternatives to it. Suarez's
mediating position was influential among philosophers and clergymen, including Prot-
estants as well as Catholics. His work, therefore, not only shows one way in which
classical natural law doctrine was carried forward into a new era; it also represents an
early phase in the development of some of the issues that would become central to
modern moral philosophy.
All of the following selections are taken from Suarez's treatise On Law and God
the Lawgiver, as translated from De legibus ac Deo legislatore (1612) by Gwladys
Williams, Ammi Brown, and John Waldron (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1944), reprinted by permission of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
I have included the book, chapter, and section numbers, which are useful for giving
references.

On Law and God the Lawgiver

Preface
It need not surprise anyone that it should occur to a professional theologian to
take up the discussion of laws. For the eminence of theology, derived as it is
from its most eminent subject-matter, precludes all reason for wonder. Surely,
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 69
if the question is rightly examined, it will be evident that a treatise on laws is
so included within the range of theology, that the theologian cannot exhaust
his subject unless he tarries for a time in the study of laws. For just as
theologians should contemplate God on many other grounds, so also should
they contemplate Him on this ground: that He is the last end towards Whom
rational creatures tend and in Whom their sole felicity consists. It follows,
then, that the sacred science has this last end in view, and that it also sets forth
the way to attain that end; since God is not only the end, and (as it were) the
goal, towards which all intellectual creatures tend, but also the cause of that
goal's attainment. For He directs His creatures, and, having shown the way,
leads them to Himself. Moreover, He checks them with admonitions, that
they may not stray from the path of righteousness, and when they do stray
from it, by His ineffable providence He recalls them and shepherds them
back, enlightening them by His teaching, admonishing them with His coun-
sels, impelling them by His laws and, above all, succoring them with the aid of
His grace. . . .
Since, then, the way of this salvation lies in free actions and in moral
rectitude — which rectitude depends to a great extent upon law as the rule of
human actions — it follows thence that the study of laws becomes a large
division of theology; and when the sacred science treats of law, that science
surely regards no other object than God Himself as Lawgiver. . . .

BOOK I: CONCERNING LAW IN GENERAL; AND CONCERNING ITS

NATURE, CAUSES, AND EFFECTS

Chapter I: The Meaning of the Term "Law" (Lex)

1. St. Thomas defines the term "law" (lex) as follows: "Law is a certain rule
and measure in accordance with which one is induced to act or is restrained
from acting."' This definition would appear to be too broad and general. For
law would in that case be applicable not only to men, or rational creatures,
since everything has its own rule and measure. . . .
5. . . . accordingly, we should narrow the description given by St. Thomas,
so that it runs as follows: law is a certain measure of moral acts, in the sense
that such acts are characterized by moral rectitude through their conformity to
law, and by perversity, if they are out of harmony with law.
6. Hence, although unrighteous precepts or rules are frequently designated
by the term "law" . . . nevertheless, strictly and absolutely speaking, only
that which is a measure of rectitude, viewed absolutely, and consequently that
which is a right and virtuous rule, can be called law.

Chapter II: What lus means and How It Is to Be compared with Lex
4. . . . the word ius has two principal meanings. . . . ius has the same
meaning as iustum (that which is just), and aeguum (that which is equitable),
70 Francisco Suarez
these being the objects of iustitia (justice). Yet one must take into consider-
ation the fact that the word iustitia has [also] two acceptations. In the first
place, this word may stand for every virtue, since every virtue in some wise is
directed toward and brings about equity. In the second place, it may signify a
special virtue which renders to another that which is his due.' Accordingly, the
word ius conforms, in due proportion, to each of these two meanings [of
iustitia]. For, in the first sense, ius may refer to whatever is fair and in har-
mony with reason, this being, as it were, the general objective of virtue in the
abstract. In the second sense, ius may refer to the equity which is due to each
individual as a matter of justice. This latter acceptation is more common,
since ius so taken is most particularly wont to be related to justice in the strict
sense. Thus St. Thomas has said3 that such justice constitutes the primary
basis and significance of ius. And in consequence he well concludes that ius is
not lex, but is rather that which is prescribed or measured by lex. . . .
5. According to the latter and strict acceptation of ius, this name is properly
wont to be bestowed upon a certain moral power which every man has, either
over his own property or with respect to that which is due to him. For it is thus
that the owner of a thing is said to have a right (ius) in that thing, and the
labourer is said to have that right to his wages by reason of which he is
declared worthy of his hire. . . . Accordingly, this right to claim (actio), or
moral power, which every man possesses with respect to his own property or
with respect to a thing which in some way pertains to him, is called ius, and
appears to be the true object of justice. . . .

Chapter III: The Extent of the Necessity for Laws, and of Their Variety
1. Having treated of the terms ius and lex, we must first demonstrate,
before we inquire into the nature of lex, that it actually exists.
This demonstration will best be effected by explaining the necessity for
lex. . . . Necessity, however, is usually divided into two kinds. One is the
absolute necessity in accordance with which a given thing is said to be neces-
sary of itself and for itself, in an absolute sense. Thus, there is attributed to
God a necessity for His existence in accordance with His actual existence; and
it is of this necessity that we are now speaking. The second kind is a relative
necessity, having respect to some particular end or effect. This kind is subdi-
ed into two phases: one phase is that of simple necessity; the other, that of
• for the attainment of the better state, this latter phase being, in
ante, utility.
rdingly, two134ns seem, generally speaking, to be certain.
st point is this solute necessity does not pertain to law as such.
of of this assertion Is as follows: such necessity is an attribute proper
d, Who alone is a Being existent per se and necessary in an absolute
e; whereaRevery law is either a created thing or at least one which
supposes the exiser
---C-1. some creature on whose account it is estab-
 Cn Law and God the Lawgiver 71
lished; for God cannot be subjected to law; and therefore, inasmuch as a
created thing is not absolutely necessary, law in like manner lacks the attri-
bute of absolute necessity. In addition, I shall state that, if one is speaking of
law in the strict sense of the term (as we are now doing) it can [be consid-
ered to] exist only in view of some rational creature; for law is imposed only
upon a nature that is free, and has for its subject-matter free acts alone . . . ;
accordingly law cannot be more necessary than a rational or intellectual
creature; and rational creatures are not characterized by an absolute neces-
sity for their existence; therefore, neither is law itself characterized by this
necessity. . . .
3. Secondly, I make the following assertion: if the creation of rational
creatures is assumed to have taken place, law, both absolutely and with a view
to attaining the better state, has become necessary in the necessity of its
purpose. This truth is (so to speak) . . . a self-evident principle.
Moreover, in so far as concerns the first part [of the assertion] — the part
relating to absolute necessity — one may adduce the argument that an intellec-
tual creature, by virtue of the very fact that he is a created being, has a
superior to whose providence and control he is subject; while, for the very
reason that he is intellectual, he is capable of being subjected to moral govern-
ment, which is effected through command; and therefore, it is connatural 4 to
such a creature, and necessary to him, that he be made subject to some
superior who will govern him through command, that is, through law.
Furthermore, this creature, because of the very fact that he has been made
out of nothing, may be bent to good or to evil. . . . Consequently, not only is
he capable of being subjected to law, whereby he may be directed towards the
good and held back from the evil, but furthermore, some such law is abso-
lutely necessary for him, that he may live as becomes his nature. . . .
The second part of our assertion — that which relates to utility — is clearly
proved on the basis of the first part. For necessity pertaining to an end must
include utility. . . .
6. . . . a rational principle existing in the mind of God [is] recognized by the
theologians, who . . . call it the eternal law. . . . it as certainly exists in God,
as does His providence over the universe; for the term refers simply to the
essential principle of this providence, a principle dwelling in God, or to some
element of that providence. . . . just as it would be impossible for the universe
to continue in existence apart from divine providence, so would it be impossi-
ble apart from this divine and eternal law; and furthermore, all utility and
benefit flowing forth to this universe from divine providence should also be
ascribed to this same divine law.
8. . . . "law" is to be attributed to insensate things, not in its strict sense,
but metaphorically. . . . Not even brute animals are capable of [participating
in] law in a strict sense, since they have the use neither of reason nor of
liberty. . . .
9. Natural law, then, in the proper sense of the term — the natural law which
pertains to moral doctrine and to theology — is that form of law which dwells
72 Francisco Suarez
within the human mind, in order that the righteous may be distinguished from
the evil. . . .
17. It remains to discuss positive human law, which is so named because of
the proximate source from which it flows . . . it was devised and established
proximately by men . . . because the original derivation of every human law is
in a certain sense traced back to the eternal law. . . .
18. . . . the necessity, or the utility, of this human law is also readily to be
seen. For as St Thomas has noted, 5 its necessity springs from the fact that the
natural, or the divine law, is of a general nature, and includes only certain self-
evident principles of conduct, extending, at most, to those points which follow
necessarily and by a process of obvious inference from the said principles;
whereas, in addition to such points, many others are necessarily involved in
the case of a human commonwealth in order that it may be preserved and
rightly governed. . . .
19. . . . man is a social animal, requiring by his very nature a civil life and
intercourse with other men; therefore, it is necessary that he should live
rightly, not only as a private person, but also as a part of a community; and
this is a matter which depends to a large extent upon the laws of the individual
community. . . . Again, it is necessary that those points which relate to the
common good of men, or of the state, should be accorded particular care and
observance; yet, men as individuals have difficulty in ascertaining what is
expedient for the common good, and moreover, rarely strive for that good as
a primary object; so that, in consequence, there was a necessity for human
laws. . . .

Chapter IV: What Acts in the Mind of the Lawmaker Are Necessary for
the Making of a Law?
2. . . . law is a thing which pertains to the intellectual nature as such, and
accordingly, to the mind thereof; both intellect and will being included. . . .
3. Secondly, I assume that law . . . is based upon a concrete act, and not
upon a habit or power. This is clearly true, because that which is called law has
the virtue of proximately moving its subjects and imposing an obligation upon
them; but this virtue does not exist in potency or habit. . . .
6. In the first place, law, in so far as it is externally imposed upon the
subjects, is a species of means for securing their welfare and peace or happi-
ness. And therefore, one may assume first of all that the will of the lawmaker
includes the purpose of promoting the common welfare. . . . From this pur-
pose there follows forthwith in the intellect a consideration of this or that
[possible] law, as to which of them is just, or suitable for the common-
wealth. . . .
7. Secondly, it is certain that there is required, in addition to this act of
judgment, an act on the part of the will, by which the prince agrees, chooses,
and wills that his subjects shall be obedient to that which his intellect has
judged expedient. 6 . . . the reason . . . is, briefly, this: law does not merely
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 73
enlighten, but also provides motive force and impels; and, in intellectual
processes, the primary faculty for moving to action is the will. . . .

Chapter VI: Is it Inherent in the Nature of Law That It Should Be

Instituted for Some Community?
8. . . . it is inherent in the nature of law, as signified by this name, that it be
a common precept; that is to say, a precept imposed upon the community, or
upon a multitude of men. . . .

Chapter VII: Is It Inherent in the Nature of Law That It Be Enacted for

the Sake of the Common Good?
1. . . . With respect, then, to the question above set forth, there is no
dispute among the various authorities; on the contrary, this axiom is common
to them all: it is inherent in the nature and essence of law, that it shall be
enacted for the sake of the common good; that is to say, that it shall be
formulated particularly with reference to that good. . . .
3. This truth is indeed self-evident in the case of divine laws; so that it does
not call for demonstration. For though the said laws are necessarily directed
to the honouring of God (since He cannot will anything apart from Himself,
or act save for His own sake), nevertheless in those laws He seeks not His own
profit, but the good and happiness of humanity. Wherefore, since the divine
works are superlatively perfect, and of a finely proportioned suitability, divine
laws, in so far as they are given to a particular community, are accordingly
given with a view to the common good and felicity of that community; a fact
which becomes easily evident through a process of induction, with respect
both to natural law and to the positive divine laws.'

Chapter IX: Is It Inherent in the Nature of Law That It Be Just?

2. . . . it is inherent in the nature and essence of law that it shall prescribe
just things.
This assertion is not only indubitably true by the light of faith, but is also
manifest by the light of natural reason.
. . . "justice" sometimes signifies a special virtue; while at other times it
refers to all the virtues. But in the present case, our assertion that law should
be just must be taken in a general sense, as meaning that whatever the law
prescribes should be such that it may be executed justly and virtuously, that is,
righteously. . . .
4. . . . a human legislator does not have a perfect will, as God has; and
therefore, of himself and with respect to the deed [prescribed], such a legisla-
tor may sometimes prescribe unjust things, a fact which is manifestly true; but
he has not the power to bind through unjust .laws, and consequently, even
though he may indeed prescribe that which is unjust, such a precept is not law,
74 Francisco Suarez
inasmuch as it lacks the force or validity to impose a binding obligation. To be
sure, I am speaking of unjust deeds which are opposed to natural or divine
law. . . . no inferior can impose an obligation that is contrary to the law and
the will of his superior; but a law prescribing a wrongful act is contrary to the
law of God, Who prohibits that act; therefore [the former law] cannot be
binding, for it is not possible that men should be bound, at one and the same
time, to do and to abstain from doing a given thing. . . .
11. . . . However, all the Doctors indicate that the evidence of injustice in
the law must be such as to constitute a moral certainty. For if the matter is
doubtful, a presumption must be made in favour of the lawgiver. . . . the
subjects, if this presumption in his favour did not exist, would assume an
excessive licence to disregard the laws. . . .
17. . . . it is inherent in the nature of the law that it shall be practicable.
This assertion, interpreted in a general sense, is applicable to every law.
However, in order that it may be proved and expounded, we should note
that the term possibilis [practicable] admits of two distinct interpretations:
first, as opposed, absolutely, to impossibilis; secondly, as opposed to what is
difficult, oppressive, and burdensome.
Taken in the first sense, this property of practicability is a self-evident
[requirement of law], whatsoever the evasive arguments heretics may em-
ploy. 8 For that which does not fall within the realm of freedom does not fall
within that of law; but what is absolutely impossible does not come within the
realm of freedom, since the latter of its very nature demands power to choose
either of two alternatives; and therefore [what is impossible] cannot be the
subject-matter of law. Similarly, in cases of transgression or omission which
cannot be reckoned as involving guilt or calling for punishment, it is impossi-
ble for law to intervene. For it is a part of the intrinsic nature of law that it
shall contain some intrinsic element of obligation; but the omission to perform
impossible deeds cannot be accounted guilt . . . and therefore laws cannot be
concerned with matters of this sort.

Chapter XII: What Definition of Law flex] Is Derived from the

Conditions of Law Above Set Forth?
3. . . . that deduced by St. Thomas 9 has more frequently been adopted,
namely: "Law is an ordinace of reason for the common good, promulgated by
one who is charged with the care of the community." .. .
4. A question indeed may arise owing to the fact that the said definition
contains no limitation whereby counsel is excluded from law.
I therefore reply that counsel is excluded in a twofold manner. . . . For
counsel, as such, is not of its very nature derived from a superior in so far as
he possesses power over and charge of his subjects. . . . Counsel . . . passes
essentially between equals. . . . Furthermore, the kind of ordinance in ques-
tion should be interpreted as being an efficacious ordinance that has compul-
sory force. . . . For the word promulgation implies an order for the purpose
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 75
of creating an obligation, and it is in this respect most of all that counsel
differs from law.
5. . . . Therefore, law may perhaps be more briefly defined as follows: law
is "a common, just, and stable precept which has been sufficiently promul-
gated."

BOOK II: ON THE ETERNAL LAW, THE NATURAL LAW, AND THE
IUS GENTIUM

Chapter IV: Is the Eternal Law the Cause of All Laws?

2. . . . the eternal law . . . contains in itself a binding force, if it is suffi-
ciently promulgated and applied.
The proof is that otherwise it would not be law in the true and proper sense,
since it is of the essence of law to have binding force. . . .
4. . . . in some way, every law is derived from the eternal law, and receives
binding force from the same.

Chapter V: Is the Natural Law Natural Right Reason?

9. . . . two aspects of rational nature are distinguishable: one being that
nature itself, in so far as it is (so to speak) the basis of the conformity or non-
conformity of human acts with itself; the other consisting in a certain power
which this nature possesses, to discriminate between the actions in harmony
with it and those discordant with it, a power to which we give the name of
natural reason.
With regard to the first aspect, rational nature is said to be the basis of
natural rectitude; but with regard to the second, it is said to be the very
precept [lex] of nature which lays commands or prohibitions upon the human
will regarding what must be done [or left undone], as a matter of natural law
[ius]. . . .
10. The opinion in question may also find a basis in the words of Paul (Rom.
2: [14-15]), who, after saying: "For when the Gentiles who have not the law, do
by nature those things that are of the law, these having not the law, are a law to
themselves," adds, as if to indicate the way in which the Gentiles are a law unto
themgelves and the nature of that law: "Who show the work of the law written
in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness to them." For conscience is an
exercise of the reason, as is evident; and conscience bears witness to and reveals
the work of the law written in the hearts of men, since it testifies that a man does
ill or well, when he resists or obeys the natural dictates of right reason, reveal-
ing also, in consequence, the fact that such dictates have the force of law over
man, even though, they may not be externally clothed in the form of written
law. Therefore, these dictates constitute natural law; and, accordingly, the man
who is guided by them, is said to be a law unto himself, since he bears law
written within himself through the medium of the dictates of natural reason. St.
76 Francisco Suarez
Thomas confirms this view l° in his comment on the passage from Psalms 4: 6-7:
"[Many say,] Who sheweth us good things? The light of thy countenance 0
Lord, is signed upon us"; for these words, [according to St. Thomas], mean that
man participates by the light of reason in the eternal law, which dictates what
must be done or left undone. This [rational illumination], then, is the natural
law; for the latter is nothing other than a natural participation (so to speak) in
the eternal law.
12. The opinion above set forth may be briefly supported by reasoning, in
accordance with what has been said.
First, [we may argue] by means of an adequate discrimination: for natural
law resides in man, since it does not reside in God, being temporal and
created, nor is it external to man, since it is written not upon tablets but in the
heart; neither does it dwell immediately within human nature itself, since we
have proved that it does not do so; nor is it in the will, since it does not depend
upon the will of man, but, on the contrary, binds and (as it were) coerces his
will; hence, this natural law must necessarily reside in the reason.
Secondly, one may adduce the argument that the legal effects which may be
thought of in the case of natural law, proceed immediately from a dictate of
the reason, for that dictate directs and binds and is a rule of conscience which
censures or approves what is done, so that law of the kind in question consists
in the said dictate.
Thirdly, the exercise of dominion and the function of ruling are characteris-
tic of law; and in man, these functions are to be attributed to right reason, that
he may be rightly governed in accordance with nature; therefore, the natural
law must be constituted in the reason, as in the immediate and intrinsic rule of
human actions.
15. . . . "conscience" is a broader term than "natural law" since it puts into
application, not only the law of nature, but also every other law, whether
divine or human. Indeed, conscience is wont to apply not merely true law, but
even reputed law, in which sense it sometimes occurs that conscience is in
error. [True] law, on the other hand, can never be in error, for, by the very fact
that it was erroneous, it would fail to be law, an assertion which is especially
true with respect to the natural law, of which God is the Author.
Finally, law is properly concerned with acts which are to be performed;
while conscience deals also with things which have already been done, and
consequently is endowed not only with the attribute of imposing obligations,
but also with those of accusing, bearing witness, and defending. . . .

Chapter VI: Is Natural Law in Truth Preceptive Divine Law?

5. . . . My first proposition, then, is as follows: Not only does the natural
law indicate what is good or evil, but furthermore, it contains its own prohibi-
tion of evil and command of good.
6. This proposition may be proved, first, on the basis of the peculiar nature
of law. For the natural law is truly law, inasmuch as all the Fathers, theolo-
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 77
gians, and philosophers so speak and think of it; but the mere knowledge or
conception of anything existing in the mind cannot be called law, a fact which
is self-evident and which follows also from the definition of law given above;
therefore, .. .
A second argument may be drawn from those actions which are evil, in that
they are prohibited by human law. For in the case of such acts, also, if a man is
to be guilty of sin, it is necessary that there be a preceding mental judgment
indicating that the thing in question is evil; yet that judgment has not the
nature of a law or prohibition, since it merely indicates [a quality] existing
within that thing, whatever the source of the quality may be; hence, by the
same reasoning, although in those matters which fall within the province of
the natural law as it relates to good or evil actions, a judgment pointing out
the good or evil involved in a particular thing or act must necessarily precede
[that act]; nevertheless, such a judgment has not the character of a law or of a
prohibition, but is merely a recognition of some fact already assumed to be
true. Accordingly, the act which is recognized as evil by the said judgment, is
not evil for the reason that it is thus considered, but because it actually is evil,
and is, in consequence, truly adjudged to be so; therefore, that judgment is
not a rule of evil or of good; and consequently, neither is it a law nor a
prohibition.
Thirdly, if the assertion in question were not true, God Himself would be
subject to a natural law relating to His will; since even in God, an intellectual
act of judgment logically precedes an act of His will, a judgment indicating
that lying is wicked, that to keep one's promises is wholly right and necessary
[and so forth]; and therefore, if such an act of the intellect is sufficient to
constitute the essence of law, then there will be a true natural law, even with
respect to God Himself.
Finally, a judgment showing the nature of a given action is not the act of a
superior, but may, on the contrary, be that of an equal or of an inferior who
has no binding power; and consequently, it is impossible for that judgment to
have the nature of a law or of a prohibition. Otherwise, a teacher when he
points out what is good and what is evil, would be imposing a law, an assertion
which cannot [truthfully] be made. Law, then, is that sort of authority which
can impose a binding obligation; whereas the judgment in question does not
impose an obligation, but [simply] points out what obligation should be as-
sumed to exist. Therefore, if this judgment is to have the nature of law, it must
indicate some sort of authority as the source of such obligation.
11. My second assertion is as follows: this divine volition, in the form of a
prohibition or in that of an [affirmative] command, is not the whole reason for
the good or evil involved in the observance of transgression of the natural law;
on the contrary, it necessarily presupposes the existence of a certain righteous-
ness or turpitude in these actions, and attaches to them a special obligation
derived from divine law. This second assertion is drawn from the words of St.
Thomas, in the passages above cited.
The first part of the proposition may be deduced from an axiom common to
78 Francisco Suarez
the theologians, that certain evils are prohibited, because they are evil. For if
they are forbidden on that very ground, they cannot derive the primary reason
for their evil quality from the fact that they are prohibited, since an effect is
not the reason for its cause. . . .
12. As for the latter half of this second proposition, its truth may be inferred
from what we have already said in connection with the former conclusion. For
the natural law prohibits those things which are bad in themselves; and this
law is true divine law and a true prohibition; hence it must necessarily result in
some sort of additional obligation to avoid an evil which is already evil of itself
and by its very nature. Neither is it irrational to suppose that one may add to
an act which is of itself righteous, the obligation to perform it; or that one may
add to an act of itself evil, the obligation to avoid it. In fact, even when one
obligation already exists, another may be added thereto, especially if it be of a
different character, as is clearly true of a vow, a human law, and similar
matters. Therefore, the law of nature, as it is true divine law, may also
superimpose its own moral obligation, derived from a precept, over and
above what may be called the natural evil or virtue inherent in the subject-
er in regard to which such a precept is imposed. This point will presently
expounded, when we reply to the contrary argument.
oregoing, then, I conclude and state as my third proposition
law is truly and properly divine law, of which God is the

23. There e, I hold with Cajetan (on I.—II, q. 100, art. 8)," that although
the divine will is absolutely free in its external actions, nevertheless, if it be
assumed that this will elicit one free act, then it may be necessarily bound, in
consequence, to the performance of another action. For example, if through
the divine will an unconditional promise is made, that will is obliged to fulfil
the promise; and if it be the divine will to speak, or to make a revelation, that
will must of necessity reveal what is true. In like manner, if it is the divine will
to create the world, and to preserve the same in such a way as to fulfil a
certain end, then there cannot fail to exist a providential care over that world;
and assuming the existence of the will to exercise such providential care, there
cannot but be a perfect providence, in harmony with the goodness and wis-
dom of the divine will. Accordingly, assuming the existence of the will to
create rational nature [in such fashion that it shall be endowed] with sufficient
knowledge for the doing of good and evil, and with sufficient divine co-
operation for the performance of both, God could not have refrained from
willing to forbid that a creature so endowed should commit acts intrinsically
evil, nor could He have willed not to prescribe [for performance by the
creature] the necessary righteous acts. For just as God cannot lie, neither can
He govern unwisely or unjustly; and it would be a form of providence in the
highest degree foreign to the divine wisdom and goodness, to refrain from
forbidding or prescribing to those who were subject to that providence, such
things as are [respectively] intrinsically evil, or necessary and righteous.
Therefore, in the [alleged] argument, we must make a distinction as to the
minor premiss. For, absolutely speaking, God could have refrained from
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 79
laying down any command or prohibition; yet, assuming that He has willed to
have subjects endowed with the use of reason, He could not have failed to be
their lawgiver — in those matters, at least, which are necessary to natural
moral rectitude. In like manner, the arguments suggested above are suffi-
ciently cogent, since God cannot fail to hate that evil which is opposed to right
reason, and since, moreover, He entertains this hatred, not merely as a pri-
vate individual, but also as Supreme Governor; therefore, because of this
hatred, He wills to bind His subjects lest they commit such evil.
24. Secondly, however, the objection is raised, that the will of the lawgiver
does not suffice for the completeness of law, unless a publication, or declara-
tion, of that will also takes place; and there is no reason which makes it
obligatory that God should declare His will; hence, it is possible that He may
refrain from making such a declaration, since He is free to refrain; and,
therefore, it is possible that He may not establish the law in question, nor
create any binding obligation through it, inasmuch as no obligation exists,
independently of the declaration.
To this second objection I shall reply, in the first place, that if that volition on
the part of God is essential to a fitting and prudent providence and government
over mankind, it is in consequence necessary that, by virtue of this same provi-
dence, that divine volition shall be capable of being made known to men; and
this process is sufficient for the nature of a precept and of law, nor is any other
form of declaration necessary. Wherefore, it may further be stated that this very
faculty of judgment which is contained in right reason and bestowed by nature
upon men, is of itself a sufficient sign of such divine volition, no other notifica-
tion being necessary. The proof of the foregoing is as follows: the faculty of
judgment contained in reason, of itself indicates the existence of a divine provi-
dence befitting God, and morally necessary for His complete dominion and for
the due subjection of mankind to Him, within which providence the legislation
in question is comprehended. Moreover, for this same cause, it is revealed by
the light of natural understanding, that God is offended by sins committed in
contravention of the natural law, and that the judgment and the punishment of
those sins pertain to Him. Hence, this natural light is of itself a sufficient
promulgation of the natural law, not only because it makes clearly manifest the
intrinsic conformity or non-conformity of actions [with respect to that law] a
conformity and non-conformity which are indicated by the increate light of
God; but also because it makes known to man the fact that actions contrary [to
the law so revealed] are displeasing to the Author of nature, as Supreme Lord,
Guardian and Governor of that same nature. This, then, suffices for the promul-
gation of the law under discussion. . . .

Chapter VII: What Is the Subject-Matter Dealt with by Natural Law; or,
What Are the Precepts of That Law?

1. We assume from the foregoing discussion that the subject-matter of

natural law consists in the good which is essentially righteous, or necessary to
80 Francisco Suarez
righteousness, and the evil which is opposed to that good; in the one, as
something to be prescribed, in the other, as something to be forbidden.
The proof of this assumption is as follows: since the law in question is true
law and God is its Author, it cannot be other than righteous; and, therefore, it
cannot prescribe anything save that which is righteous, neither can it prohibit
anything which is not opposed to righteousness. Morover, this law prescribes
that which is in harmony with rational nature as such, and prohibits the
contrary; and it is evident that the former is not otherwise than righteous.
Indeed, the natural law differs from other laws in this very respect, namely,
that the latter render evil what they prohibit, while they render necessary, or
righteous, what they prescribe; whereas the natural law assumes the existence
in a given act or object, of the rectitude which it prescribes, or the depravity
which it prohibits. Accordingly, it is usual to say that this law forbids a thing
because that thing is evil, or prescribes a thing because it is good. We have
already touched on this point, in the preceding Chapter.
4. Nevertheless, we must assert that the natural law embraces all precepts
or moral principles which are plainly characterized by the goodness necessary
to rectitude of conduct, just as the opposite precepts clearly involve moral
irregularity or wickedness.
5. The assertion in question may also be demonstrated by reasoning. For
those things which are recognized by means of natural reason, may be divided
into three classes. First, some of them are primary and general principles of
morality, such principles as: "one must do good, and shun evil," "do not to
another that which you would not wish done to yourself," and the like. There
is no doubt but that these principles pertain to the natural law. Again, there
are certain others, more definite and specific, which, nevertheless, are also
self-evident truths by their very terminology. Examples [of the second group]
are these principles: "justice must be observed"; "God must be worshipped";
"one must live temperately"; and so forth. Neither is there any doubt concern-
ing [the fact that] this group [comes under the natural law], a point which will
become evident, a fortiori, as a result of the discussion that is to follow. In the
third class, we place those conclusions which are deduced from natural princi-
ples by an evident inference, and which cannot become known save through
rational reflection. Of these conclusions, some are recognized more easily
than others, and by a greater number of persons; as, for example, the infer-
ences that adultery, theft, and similar acts are wrong. Other conclusions re-
quire more reflection, of a sort not easily within the capacity of all, as is the
case with the inferences that fornication is intrinsically evil, that usury is
unjust, that lying can never be justified, and the like.
The assertion set forth above may, then, be understood as applicable to all
these [principles and conclusions]; for all of them pertain to the natural law.
And if this truth is established with regard even to the conclusions of any one
of these classes, then, the same truth will, a fortiori, be established with
regard to the other conclusions mentioned, provided only that a degree of
evidence involving certainty is reached.
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 81
6. Therefore, the proof follows; first, by a process of induction. For the
precepts of the Decalogue are precepts of natural law, a fact accepted by all.
Yet they do not all embody self-evident principles. On the contrary, some of
them require reflection, as is also evident. This point is still more clear with
regard to many natural precepts which are included within those of the Deca-
logue; as, for example, the prohibitions against simple fornication, against
usury and against vengeance inflicted upon an enemy by one's own authority,
all of which according to Catholic doctrine, indubitably pertain to natural law.
In like manner, the affirmative commands to keep vows and promises, to give
alms out of one's superfluous possessions, to honour one's parents, are natu-
ral precepts, not only according to the faith, but also according to the philoso-
phers and all right-thinking persons. Yet the conclusions [leading to these
precepts] are not reached without reflection and, in some cases, a great deal
of elaborate reasoning.
7. Thirdly, no one is doubtful as to the primary and general principles;
hence, neither can there be doubt as to the specific principles, since these,
also, in themselves and by virtue of their very terminology, harmonize with
rational nature as such; and, therefore, there should be no doubt with respect
to the conclusions clearly derived from these principles, inasmuch as the truth
of the principle is contained in the conclusion, and he who prescribes or
forbids the one, necessarily prescribes or forbids that which is bound up in it,
or without which it could not exist. Indeed, strictly speaking, the natural law.
works more through these proximate principles or conclusions than through
universal principles; for a law is a proximate rule of operation, and the general
principles mentioned above are not rules save in so far as they are definitely
applied by specific rules to the individual sorts of acts or virtues.
Finally, all these precepts proceed, by a certain necessity, from nature, and
from God as the Author of nature, and all tend to the same end, which is
undoubtedly the due preservation and natural perfection or felicity of human
nature; therefore, they all pertain to the natural law.
12. A difficulty arises, however, with regard to the first part of the explana-
tion, a difficulty as to whether there exists in connection with every virtue, a
natural precept requiring the exercise of that virtue at one time or another.
For, as a general rule, it is a sufficiently self-evident fact that this is the case;
but the rule does not seem to hold with regard to certain virtues, such as
liberality, which by its very nature would seem to exclude an attendant obliga-
tion, or eutrapelia (urbanity) which also appears to be in large measure a
, 12

matter of choice.
An exact treatment of this difficulty, indeed, would necessitate an examina-
tion of all the virtues. Consequently, I shall state briefly that if the term
"precept" is taken in its rigorous meaning, as involving obligation under pain
of mortal guilt, then precepts are to be applied not to every sort of virtue, but
only to the more important ones, a fact which is proved by the argument set
forth above. With regard to truth [for example], many persons hold that this
virtue is never in itself obligatory under pain of mortal guilt, unless there is
82 Francisco Suarez
attached to it an obligation of justice or of some other similar virtue which is
involved in it; [otherwise, truth] is not prescribed under penalty of mortal
guilt. If, however, we are speaking more broadly, so as to include obligations
under pain of venial guilt, there is probably, in that sense, no virtue the
practice of which is not at one time or another obligatory. For, in view of the
fact that the perfect rectitude of an individual man, his proper behaviour, both
relatively to himself and in his relations with others, results from the posses-
sion of all the virtues collectively, it is probable that there are for each of the
virtues respectively occasions on which it ought to be practised, owing to a
special obligation attaching to each, with respect to which neither liberality
nor any other virtue is an exception.

Chapter VIII: Is the Natural Law One Unified Whole?

1. Three questions may be asked at this point. First, with respect to a single
individual, is the natural law one unified whole? Secondly, with respect to all
men and in all places, is it one unified whole? Thirdly, is it also such a unified
whole with respect to all time and every condition of human nature?
2. Turning to the first question, then, we must state that with respect to any
one individual, there are many natural precepts; but that from all of these
there is formed one unified body of natural law. . . . The basis of this unity,
apart from the common manner of speaking, consists, according to St.
Thomas, in the fact that all natural precepts may be reduced to one first
principle in which these precepts are (as it were) united; for where there is
union, there is also a certain unity. . . . it may be added that all natural
precepts are united in one end; in one author or lawgiver, also; and in the one
characteristic of avoiding evil because it is evil, and of prescribing good be-
cause it is right and necessary; so that these facts suffice to constitute a moral
unity.
3. However, in order that the multitude of precepts may be reduced to some
kind of order, they may be distinguished from one another under various
heads. For example, they may be distinguished with reference to the persons
for whom they are — objectively, so to speak — ordained. Thus, certain pre-
cepts relate to God; certain others to one's neighbour; and still others, to the
individual himself. Or, the precepts in question may be distinguished accord-
ing to the virtues [which they prescribe]. For some relate to justice; others to
charity or natural love; and so on. Or, again, they may be distinguished
according to their respective relations to the intellect. It is thus that natural
precepts are classified by St. Thomas, Cajetan, and others, even as proposi-
tions necessarily true are classified by the philosophers. For certain of these
precepts are manifest in and of themselves, and with respect to all men, as is
the case with the most universal precepts. Others are manifest in and of
themselves, and in an immediate sense, but not in so far as relates to our
apprehension, although they may have this character in so far as relates to the
wise. As examples of this group, we have certain precepts regarding individ-
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 83
ual virtues, and the Commandments of the Decalogue. However, there are
still other precepts, which call for reflection [in order that they may be
known], and this group, in turn, admits of gradations; for certain of these
precepts are recognized easily, others with difficulty. The distinctions above
set forth will be useful in examining the matter of ignorance in regard to
natural law, a point which we shall presently discuss.
4. Lastly, St. Thomas, u followed by Cajetan and others, traces this variety in
the natural precepts to the varied natural inclinations of mankind. For man is
(as it were) an individual entity and as such has an inclination to preserve his
own being, and to safeguard his own welfare; he is also a being corruptible —
that is to say, mortal — and as such is inclined towards the preservation of the
species, and towards the actions necessary to that end; and finally, he is a
rational being and as such is inclined towards the preservation of the species,
and towards the actions necessary to that end; and finally, he is a rational being
and as such is suited for immortality, for spiritual perfection, and for communi-
cation with God and social intercourse with rational creatures. Hence, the
natural law brings man to perfection, with regard to every one of his tendencies
and, in this capacity, it contains various precepts — for example, precepts of
temperance and of fortitude, relating to the first tendency mentioned above;
those of chastity and prudence, relating to the third tendency. For all these
propensities in man must be viewed as being in some way determined and
elevated by a process of rational gradation. For, if these propensities are consid-
ered merely in their natural aspect, or as animal propensities, they must be
bridled, that virtue may be attained and on the other hand, if the same propensi-
ties are considered with respect to their capacity for being regulated by right
reason, then proper and suitable precepts apply to each of them.
5. In answer to the second question, the statement must be made that this
natural law is a unified whole with respect to all men and in all places.
The rational basis of this position is that the law in question is (so to speak)
a peculiar quality accompanying not the particular rational faculty of any
given individual, but rather that characteristic nature which is the same in all
men. Furthermore, synteresis 14 is one and the same in all men; and, absolutely
speaking, the recognition of the truth of conclusions might be one and the
same; therefore, the law of nature is also one and the same [in all men].
At this point, one encounters the objection that various nations have fol-
lowed laws contrary to natural precepts; and that consequently, the natural
law is not the same in all nations.
To this objection, following St. Thomas (ibid.), I shall reply briefly that the
natural law in so far as relates to its substance is one and the same among all
men, but that, in so far as concerns the knowledge of it, that law is not
complete (so to speak) among all.
6. I shall expound this statement briefly. For, as I have previously re-
marked, the natural law may be considered in its first act, and as such, it may
be regarded as the intellectual understanding itself; so that it is therefore
evident that in this sense, the natural law is one and the same in all men.
84 Francisco Suarez

Furthermore, it may be the same with respect to the second act, that is, in
actual cognition and judgment, or again, in a proximate habit induced by such
act; and in this sense, the natural law is in part [the same] in all who have the
use of reason. For in so far, at least, as regards the primary and most universal
principles — no one can be ignorant of this law, inasmuch as those principles
are by the very terms defining them completely known and to such a degree in
harmony with and (as it were) fitted to the natural bent of the reason and will,
that it is not possible to evade them. . . . On the other hand, one may [less
reprehensibly] be ignorant of particular precepts; and, assuming the existence
of such ignorance, some nations may have introduced rules contrary to the
natural law, although these rules were never regarded by them as natural, but
were considered as positive human rules.
7. In this connexion, however, a question arises as to whether such igno-
rance of natural precepts can be invincible. . . . my opinion shall be briefly
stated here, as follows: it is not possible that one should in any way be
ignorant of the primary principles of the natural law, much less invincibly
ignorant of them; one may, however, be ignorant of the particular precepts,
whether of those which are self-evident, or of those which are deduced with
great ease from the self-evident precepts.
Yet such ignorance cannot exist without guilt; not, at least, for any great
length of time; for knowledge of these precepts may be acquired by very
little diligence; and nature itself, and conscience, are so insistent in the case
of the acts relating to those [precepts] as to permit no inculpable ignorance
of them. . . . However, with respect to other precepts, which require greater
reflection, invincible ignorance is possible, especially on the part of the
multitude.

Chapter IX: Is the Natural Law Binding in Conscience?

1. Thus far, we have expounded the nature and causes, that is to say, the
subject-matter, of the natural law. Next in order we must treat of the effects of
that law, of which the chief, or very nearly the sole effect, is its binding force,
for if the natural law does have other effects, they too may be reduced to this
one. Its binding obligation then, and the mode in which it so binds, must be
discussed.
2. In the first place, we must establish the fact that the natural law is binding
in conscience.
This conclusion is unquestionably true, being a matter of faith, according to
the theologians. It may be deduced, moreover, from the words of Paul (Rom.
2: [12]): "For whosoever have sinned without the law," — the written law,
undoubtedly — "shall perish with the law"; that is [they shall perish] because
they have violated the natural law. With regard to the latter, Paul adds [14-
15]: "The Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature those things that are of
the law [ . . . ], their conscience bearing witness to them."
As for the reasons in favour of the above proposition, however, the first is
 On Law and God the Lawgiver 85
that the natural law is the law of God, as has been shown. Secondly, this law is
the proximate rule of moral goodness; and therefore, moral evil is wont to
result from defiance of this law, so that sin is defined as an act contrary to
God's law. . . .
3. As against this truthful assertion, however, it may in the first place be
urged that the natural law is a dictate of natural reason; but natural reason
knows nothing of eternal punishment; hence, this law cannot be binding
under pain of eternal punishment; and consequently, it cannot bind under
pain of mortal guilt. The truth of the latter consequent is evident, because that
sin is mortal which leads to eternal punishment. And the truth of the former
consequent is proved, since a law cannot be binding with the sanction of a
punishment which it can neither indicate nor inflict.
For the present, we simply assert that, according to the faith, it cannot be
denied that a transgression of the natural law suffices for the incurring of
eternal punishment, even if the transgressor be ignorant of every supernatural
law. For this fact is convincingly established by the testimony of Paul, and by
the arguments already adduced. Neither is it to be controverted by the objec-
tion set forth above, for even though, in us, the natural law is reason itself,
nevertheless in God, it is the Divine reason or will, and therefore it suffices
that God Himself should know the penalty due to transgressors of that law.
For in order that the subject and transgressor of the law may incur a given
penalty, it is not necessary that he himself shall be aware of the penalty
attaching to his transgression; on the contrary, it suffices if he commits an act
that deserves such punishment.

Chapter XIV: Is Natural Law Subject to Human Power?

7. . . . among the precepts of natural law, there are certain precepts —
dealing with pacts, agreements, obligations — which are introduced through
the will of men: for example, the laws relating to the observance of vows and
of human promises, whether these be made in simple form or confirmed by
oath; and the same is true of other contracts, according to the particular
characteristics of each; and true, also, of rights, natural and legal, arising
therefrom.
There are other natural laws, however, which are directly binding, in their
very subject-matter and independently of any prior consent by human will: for
example, the positive precepts of religion in relation to God, of filial piety, of
mercy, and of almsgiving to one's neighbour; and the negative precepts
against killing, those against slander, and similar prohibitions. In both kinds
of precepts there is involved the same necessity in so far as concerns the
formal character of law, and consequently, there are the same uniformity and
immutability; but with respect to the subject-matter, the second group of
precepts possesses a greater degree of immutability, since they have not for
their subject-matter (so to speak) human free will, which is exceedingly
changeable and frequently requires correction and alteration.
86 Francisco Suarez

Editor's Notes

1. Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia IIae 90.1; hereafter referred to

simply as ST.
2. Suarez here follows Aristotle and Saint Thomas in distinguishing between justice
in a broad sense, which is the whole of virtue insofar as virtue affects others
besides the agent, and justice in a more specific sense, in which it is the virtue that
renders to each his or her due. The latter is closer to the modern sense of the term.
3. ST IIa IIae 57.1.
4. That is, not part of the created being's nature but always accompanying it, as
regularly as if it were part of that nature.
5. ST Ia IIae 91.3.
6. Although Suarez talks of a prince in this paragraph, his point is meant to apply to
God's legislation as well.
7. Positive divine laws are laws God has given to particular communities, for exam-
ple, to the Jews, whereas natural laws are laws God has laid down for all people.
8. Suarez is referring to Martin Luther, who, as indicated in the section "Luther and
Calvin" in the Introduction, held that the moral commandments were laid down
by God in order to show us both what we absolutely ought to do and what we
cannot do, at least not by our own unaided efforts. In this way, "the Law is a
schoolmaster unto Christ," showing us our desperate need for grace. Suarez fol-
lowed Saint Thomas's theory of grace, touched on in the section "Saint Augustine
and Saint Thomas" in the Introduction, which is very different.
9. ST Ia IIae 90.4.
10. ST Ia Iae 91.2.
11. The reference is the Commentary on Saint Thomas's Summa by Thomas de Vio,
Cardinal Cajetan (1468-1534).
12. Aristotle uses the term to mean "ready wit" (Rhetoric 1389b11, Nicomachean
Ethics 1108a24) — plainly not something that includes obligation. (I owe this infor-
mation to Prof. Russell M. Dancy.)
13. ST, Ia IIae 94.2.
14. A technical term, discussed briefly in the section "Saint Augustine and Saint
Thomas" in the Introduction to this volume, referring to the aspect of conscience
in which it is a "repository of principles"; that is, it is in possession of general
precepts for guiding and judging action. Its other main aspect is its ability to
subsume particular cases under these principles.

Further Reading
The translation from which the selections in this volume were taken does not include
the whole of On Law and God the Lawgiver, but it is the fullest source available in
English for the study of Suarez's views on morality. Parts of some of his political and
metaphysical works have been translated as well.
The neglect of Suarez by English-language scholars of natural law is reflected in the
scarcity of works on him written in English. J. H. Fichter, Man of Spain: Francisco
Suarez (New York: Macmillan, 1940), is a general study. There is a useful monograph
by Reijo Wilenius, The Social and Political Theory of Francisco Suarez, in Acta Philo-
sophica Fennica, vol. 15 (Helsinki: Philosophical Society of Finland, 1963), which
contains a bibliography. Henrich Rommen examined Suarez in his The Natural Law,
trans. Thomas R. Hanley (St. Louis: Herder, 1947). Suarez's political views are the
 Further Reading 87

focus of an excellent discussion in Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Politi-

cal Thought (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1978), vol. 2, chap. 5,
which also looks at some of the other Thomists of the period. For further background,
consult Bernice Hamilton, Political Thought in Sixteenth Century Spain (Oxford: Cla-
rendon Press, 1963).
 Hugo Grotius

Introduction

In 1788 Thomas Reid praised the "immortal Hugo Grotius" as the author of the first
noteworthy attempt to systematize the commonsense morality of the human race with
the aid of the civil law's technical apparatus. Eighty years earlier Jean Barbeyrac, who
translated Grotius's main work into French, claimed that Grotius was the "first who
broke the ice" in the modern history of the "science of morality." It was Grotius who
left behind the sterile debates of the Aristotelian scholastics and opened the way for
the modern development of moral philosophy, and it was Grotius's position, Bar-
beyrac added, and not that of the brilliant but dangerous Hobbes, that was continued
by Pufendorf and Locke. Nineteenth- and twentieth-century surveys of the history of
moral philosophy do not give Grotius so important a place, but if we wish to see the
subject as it looked in early modern Europe, we cannot ignore him.
Hugo Grotius was born in the Netherlands in 1583. A brilliant and precocious
scholar, he was part of a diplomatic mission to France when he was only fifteen. He
practiced law, held several high public offices, and wrote Latin dramas as well as
treatises on maritime law and a history of his country. Much against his will Grotius
became involved in the fierce religious controversies then dividing the Protestants of
Holland, which were connected with continuing struggles for political power. As a
result he was sentenced in 1619 to life imprisonment. A daring escape engineered by
his wife enabled him to flee to France, where he wrote his main work, De jure belli ac
pacis (On the Law of War and Peace), first published in 1625. After serving as the
Swedish ambassador to France and writing works on theology and other subjects, he
died in 1645.
Grotius is often described as the first "modern" natural law thinker. The title is
meant to distinguish him from the Thomistic thinkers who, like Suarez, continued to
write and be read well into and beyond Grotius's lifetime. The reader will find several
reasons for thinking of Grotius as an innovator, but what is usually taken to entitle
Grotius to special recognition is the passage in §11 of the "Prolegomena" to On the
Law of War and Peace in which he claimed that there would be binding laws of nature
even if God did not exist. This statement is central to Grotius's aims of freeing natural
law theory from religious controversy and of making the study of natural law a disci-
pline that could be pursued without regard to sectarian religious differences. If Grotius
had claimed only that there are goods and ills independent of the existence of God, his
view would not have been particularly original. Such claims had been made in one
form or another by various earlier thinkers. They were what Suarez had in mind when
he asserted that goods and ills alone do not give rise to obligation and that a sanction

88
 Introduction 89
imposed by a lawgiver must be added if there are to be obligations. Grotius's innova-
tion was his assertion that there would be obligations, and not simply goods and ills,
even if God did not exist.
Grotius did not offer any abstract proof that Suarez was mistaken on this point.
What gave weight to his view was his use of it in developing an explicit statement of a
body of law that was both acceptable to people of all religious confessions and capable
of guiding the most important aspects of international relations, in peace as well as
war. In order to do this Grotius set out the principles he thought were behind the
institutions of private property, promise and contract, and marriage. His proposals on
all these matters continued to influence actual legislation in Germany and elsewhere in
Europe well into the eighteenth century.
To open the way for his system, Grotius found it necessary to assert that it is possible
to have definite knowledge of laws that bind all people alike. This involved him in an
attempt to confront the skepticism that had been expressed by writers such as Mon-
taigne. In taking on this issue, Grotius ventured into matters that were not addressed
by the traditional natural lawyers, who simply did not see skepticism as a problem.
Theorists like Suarez took themselves to be expounding and improving the work of
their authoritative sources — Aristotle, the church fathers, or Saint Thomas himself.
Grotius cited many authorities, among them writers from classical antiquity, theolo-
gians, and scholastic natural lawyers, but his aim was not to explain or even to accom-
modate their views. It was simply to call them as witnesses to the fact that everyone —
or at least the wisest men in the civilized nations — had always agreed on the basic
principles of natural law. Grotius was contending that there was far less•disagreement
about the laws of nature than there was said to be by the skeptics of his time, who
were, of course, his real targets, rather than the ancient skeptic, Carneades, whom he
named.
Grotius also offered a theory about the sources of this agreement, a theory about
our basic desires. We are self-interested, but we also are sociable. We look out for
ourselves — a point Hobbes later stressed — but we enjoy one another's company for its
own sake. Society therefore must be organized to take account of our ineradicable
tendency to engage in controversies as well as our inherent sociability, and natural law
shows us how to do it. Grotius's point seems to be that no one can deny these claims
about human beings; so if it can be shown that these are the facts on which the laws of
nature depend, the skeptic will be overcome. This is not an epistemological argument
about the nature of knowledge, and even if it is effective, it does not establish certainty
about anything but the foundations of morals.
If Grotius was breaking new ground in taking on skepticism, he was also innovating
by introducing a new understanding of rights. He treated rights as attributes that each
individual possesses independently of membership in any group or society and prior to
being under any law. He also held that any or all of an individual's rights could be given
away, a point he took to be shown by the possibility of agreeing to be a slave if one is
given the choice of slavery or death when one is captured during wartime. In asserting
that rights are qualities of individuals as such, Grotius was breaking with older views
and initiating a way of understanding the sphere of control belonging to individuals
that is still important. Against the skeptic it would seem less effective to claim that all
humans possess rights than to hold that all are moved to some extent by self-interest.
Yet both claims are important to Grotius's theory.
Because Grotius wrote as a lawyer rather than as a philosopher, the philosophically
important parts of his text, after the "Prolegomena," are widely scattered. He opened
90 Hugo Grotius
with a bewildering array of definitions of law and of kinds of rights, none of which he
put to immediate use. It was only later, when Grotius discussed more specific issues
such as the origins of political power or of property, that he began to apply the notions.
I have therefore included some of these specific discussions, although they bear more
directly on political than on moral philosophy. The reader will see in some of these
selections that while writing at length of rights and laws, Grotius also referred occasion-
ally to love as an important part of our relations with one another. If he did not
elaborate a complete theory of the relations between law and love, he did include
enough about it to lead his successors to say more.
The following selections are taken from On the Law of War and Peace, trans. Francis
W. Kelsey (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1925).

On the Law of War and Peace

PROLE GOMENA

1. The Municipal law of Rome and of other states has been treated by
many, who have undertaken to elucidate it by means of commentaries or to
reduce it to a convenient digest. That body of law, however, which is con-
cerned with the mutual relations among states or rulers of states, whether
derived from nature, or established by divine ordinances, or having its origin
in custom and tacit agreement, few have touched upon. Up to the present
time no one has treated it in a comprehensive and systematic manner; yet the
welfare of mankind demands that this task be accomplished.
5. Since our discussion concerning law will have been undertaken in vain if
there is no law, in order to open the way for a favourable reception of our
work and at the same time to fortify it against attacks, this very serious error
must be briefly refuted. In order that we may not be obliged to deal with a
crowd of opponents, let us assign to them a pleader. And whom should we
choose in preference to Carneades?' For he had attained to so perfect a
mastery of the peculiar tenet of his Academy that he was able to devote the
power of his eloquence to the service of falsehood not less readily than to that
of truth.
Carneades, then, having undertaken to hold a brief against justice, in par-
ticular against the phase of justice with which we are concerned, was able to
muster no argument stronger than this, that for reasons of expediency, men
imposed upon themselves laws, which vary according to customs, and among
the same peoples often undergo changes as times change; moreover that there
is no law of nature, because all creatures, men as well as animals, are impelled
by nature towards ends advantageous to themselves; that, consequently, there
is no justice, or, if such there be; it is supreme folly, since one does violence to
his own interests if he consults the advantage of others.
6. What the philosopher here says . . . must not for one moment be admit-
ted. Man is, to be sure, an animal, but an animal of a superior kind, much
farther removed from all other animals than the different kinds of animals are
 On the Law of War and Peace 91
from one another; evidence on this point may be found in the many traits
peculiar to the human species. But among the traits characteristic of man is an
impelling desire for society, that is, for the social life — not of any and every
sort, but peaceful, and organized according to the measure of his intelligence,
with those who are of his own kind; this social trend the Stoics called "sociable-
ness." Stated as a universal truth, therefore the assertion that every animal is
impelled by nature to seek only its own good cannot be conceded.
7. Some of the other animals, in fact, do in a way restrain the appetency for
that which is good for themselves alone, to the advantage, now of their
offspring, now of other animals of the same species. This aspect of their
behaviour has its origin, we believe, in some extrinsic intelligent principle,
because with regard to other actions, which involve no more difficulty than
those referred to, a like degree of intelligence is not manifest in them. The
same thing must be said of children. In children, even before their training has
begun, some disposition to do good to others appears . . . ; thus sympathy for
others comes out spontaneously at that age. The mature man in fact has
knowledge which prompts him to similar actions under similar conditions,
together with an impelling desire for society, for the gratification of which he
alone among animals possesses a special instrument, speech. He has also been
endowed with the faculty of knowing and of acting in accordance with general
principles. Whatever accords with that faculty is not common to all animals,
but peculiar to the nature of man.
8. This maintenance of the social order, which we have roughly sketched,
and which is consonant with human intelligence, is the source of law properly
so called. To this sphere of law belong the abstaining from that which is
another's, the restoration to another of anything of his which we may have,
together with any gain which we may have received from it; the obligation to
fulfil promises, the making good of a loss incurred through our fault, and the
inflicting of penalties upon men according to their deserts.
9. From this signification of the word law there has flowed another and
more extended meaning. Since over other animals man has the advantage of
possessing not only a strong bent towards social life, of which we have spoken,
but also a power of discrimination which enables him to decide what things
are agreeable or harmful (as to both things present and things to come), and
what can lead to either alternative: in such things it is meet for the nature of
man, within the limitations of human intelligence, to follow the direction of a
well-tempered judgement, being neither led astray by fear or the allurement
of immediate pleasure, nor carried away by rash impulse. Whatever is clearly
at variance with such judgement is understood to be contrary also to the law
of nature, that is, to the nature of man.
10. To this exercise of judgement belongs moreover the rational allotment to
each man, or to each social group, of those things which are properly theirs, in
such a way as to give the preference now to him who is more wise over the less
wise, now to a kinsman rather than to a stranger, now to a poor man rather than
to a man of means, as the conduct of each or the nature of the thing suggests.
92 Hugo Grotius

Long ago the view came to be held by many, that this discriminating allotment is
a part of law, properly and strictly so called; nevertheless law, properly defined,
has a far different nature, because its essence lies in leaving to another that
which belongs to him or in fulfilling our obligations to him.
11. What we have been saying would have a degree of validity even if we
should concede that which cannot be conceded without the utmost wicked-
ness, that there is no God, or that the affairs of men are of no concern to
Him. 2 The very opposite of this view has been implanted in us partly by
reason, partly by unbroken tradition, and confirmed by many proofs as well as
by miracles attested by all ages. Hence it follows that we must without excep-
tion render obedience to God as our Creator, to Whom we owe all that we are
and have; especially since in manifold ways, He has shown Himself supremely
good and supremely powerful, so that to those who obey Him He is able to
give supremely great rewards, even rewards that are eternal, since He Himself
is eternal. We ought, moreover, to believe that He was willed to give rewards,
and all the more should we cherish such a belief if He has so promised in plain
words; that He has done this, we Christians believe, convinced by the indubita-
ble assurance of testimonies.
12. Herein, then, is another source of law besides the source in nature, that
is, the free will of God, to which beyond all cavil our reason tells us we must
render obedience. But the law of nature of which we have spoken, comprising
alike that which relates to the social life of man and that which is so called in a
larger sense, proceeding as it does from the essential traits implanted in man,
can nevertheless rightly be attributed to God, because of His having willed
that such traits exist in us.
13. There is an additional consideration in that, by means of the laws which
He has given, God has made those fundamental traits more manifest, even to
those who possess feebler reasoning powers; and He has forbidden us to yield
to impulses drawing us in opposite directions — affecting now our own inter-
est, now the interest of others — in an effort to control more effectively our
more violent impulses and to restrain them within proper limits.
15. Again, since it is a rule of the law of nature to abide by pacts (for it was
necessary that among men there be some method of obligating themselves
one to another, and no other natural method can be imagined), out of this
source the bodies of municipal law have arisen. For those who had associated
themselves with some group, or had subjected themselves to a man or to men,
had either expressly promised, or from the nature of the transaction must be
understood impliedly to have promised, that they would conform to that
which should have been determined, in the one case by the majority, in the
other by those upon whom authority had been conferred.
16. What is said, therefore, in accordance with the view not only of
Carneades but also of others, that

Expediency is, as it were, the mother

Of what is just and fair,3
 On the Law of War and Peace 93

is not true, if we wish to speak accurately. For the very nature of man, which
even if we had no lack of anything would lead us into the mutual relations of
society, is the mother of the law of nature. But the mother of municipal law is
that obligation which arises from mutual consent; and since this obligation
derives its force from the law of nature, nature may be considered, so to say,
the great-grandmother of municipal law.
The law of nature nevertheless has the reinforcement of expediency; for the
Author of nature willed that as individuals we should be weak, and should
lack many things needed in order to live properly, to the end that we might be
the more constrained to cultivate the social life. But expediency afforded an
opportunity also for municipal law, since that kind of association of which we
have spoken, and subjection to authority, have their roots in expediency.
From this it follows that those who prescribe laws for others in so doing are
accustomed to have, or ought to have, some advantage in view.
18. Wrongly, moreover, does Carneades ridicule justice as folly. For since,
by his own admission, the national who in his own country obeys its laws is not
foolish, even though, out of regard for that law, he may be obliged to forgo
certain advantages for himself, so that nation is not foolish which does not
press its own advantage to the point of disregarding the laws common to
nations. The reason in either case is the same. For just as the national, who
violates the law of his country in order to obtain an immediate advantage,*
breaks down that by which the advantages of himself and his posterity are for
all future time assured, so the state which transgresses the laws of nature and
of nations cuts away also the bulwarks which safeguard its own future peace.
Even if no advantage were to be contemplated from the keeping of the law, it
would be a mark of wisdom, not of folly, to allow ourselves to be drawn
towards that to which we feel that our nature leads.
19. Wherefore, in general, it is by no means true that
You must confess that laws were framed
From fear of the unjust, 4
a thought which in Plato some one explains thus, that laws were invented from
fear of receiving injury, and that men are constrained by a kind of force to
cultivate justice. For that relates only to the institutions and laws which have
been devised to facilitate the enforcement of right; as when many persons in
themselves weak, in order that they might not be overwhelmed by the more
powerful, leagued themselves together to establish tribunals and by combined
force to maintain these, that as a united whole they might prevail against
those with whom as individuals they could not cope.
And in this sense we may readily admit also the truth of the saying that right
is that which is acceptable to the stronger; so that we may understand that law
fails of its outward effect unless it has a sanction behind it. . . .
20. Nevertheless law, even though without a sanction, is not entirely void of
* . . . Marcus Aurelius . . . says: "What is advantageous to the swarm is advantageous to the
bee."
94 Hugo Grotius
effect. For justice brings peace of conscience, while injustice causes torments
and anguish, such as Plato describes, in the breast of tyrants. Justice is ap-
proved, and injustice condemned, by the common agreement of good men.
But, most important of all, in God injustice finds an enemy, justice a protec-
tor. He reserves His judgements for the life after this, yet in such a way that
He often causes their effects to become manifest even in this life, as history
teaches by numerous examples.
25. Least of all should that be admitted which some people imagine, that in
war all laws are in abeyance. On the contrary war ought not to be undertaken
except for the enforcement of rights; when once undertaken, it should be
carried on only within the bounds of law and good faith. . . .
39. . . . I have made it my concern to refer the proofs of things touching
the law of nature to certain fundamental conceptions which are beyond
question, so that no one can deny them without doing violence to himself.
For the principles of that law, if only you pay strict heed to them, are in
themselves manifest and clear, almost as evident as are those things which
we perceive by the external senses; and the senses do not err if the organs of
perception are properly formed and if the other conditions requisite to per-
ception are present. . . .
40. In order to prove the existence of this law of nature, I have furthermore,
availed myself of the testimony of philosophers, historians, poets, finally also
of orators. Not that confidence is to be reposed in them without discrimina-
tion; for they were accustomed to serve the interests of their sect, their sub-
ject, or their cause. But when many at different times, and in different places,
affirm the same thing as certain, that ought to be referred to a universal cause;
and this cause, in the lines of inquiry which we are following, must be either a
correct conclusion drawn from the principles of nature, or common consent.
The former points to the law of nature; the latter, to the law of nations.
The distinction between these kinds of law is not to be drawn from the
testimonies themselves (for writers everywhere confuse the terms law of na-
ture and law of nations), but from the character of the matter. For whatever
cannot be deduced from certain principles by a sure process of reasoning, and
yet is clearly observed everywhere, must have its origin in the free will of man.
43. . . . it seems to me that not without reason some of the Platonists and
early Christians departed from the teachings of Aristotle in this, that he
considered the very nature of virtue as a mean in passions and actions. 5 That
principle, once adopted, led him to unite distinct virtues, as generosity and
frugality, into one; to assign to truth extremes between which, on any fair
premiss, there is no possible co-ordination, boastfulness, and dissimulation;
and to apply the designation of vice to certain things which either do not exist,
or are not in themselves vices, such as contempt for pleasure and for honours,
and freedom from anger against men.
44. That this basic principle, when broadly stated, is unsound, becomes
clear even from the case of justice. For, being unable to find in passions and
acts resulting therefrom the too much and the too little opposed to that virtue,
 On the Law of War and Peace 95

Aristotle sought each extreme in the things themselves with which justice is
concerned. 6 Now in the first place this is simply to leap from one class of
things over into another class, a fault which he rightly censures in others;
then, for a person to accept less than belongs to him may in fact under unusual
conditions constitute a fault, in view of that which, according to the circum-
stances, he owes to himself and to those dependent on him; but in any case the
act cannot be a variance with justice, the essence of which lies in abstaining
from that which belongs to another.
By equally faulty reasoning Aristotle tries to make out that adultery commit-
ted in a burst of passion, or a murder due to anger, is not properly an injus-
tice. Whereas nevertheless injustice has no other essential quality than the
unlawful seizure of that which belongs to another; and it does not matter
whether injustice arises from avarice, from lust, from anger, or from ill-
advised compassion; or from an overmastering desire to achieve eminence,
out of which instances of the gravest injustice constantly arise. For to dispar-
age such incitements, with the sole purpose in view that human society may
not receive injury, is in truth the concern of justice.
45. To return to the point whence I started, the truth is that some virtues do
tend to keep passions under control; but that is not because such control is a
proper and essential characteristic of every virtue. Rather it is because right
reason, which virtue everywhere follows, in some things prescribes the pursu-
ing of a middle course, in others stimulates to the utmost degree. We cannot,
for example, worship God too much; for superstition errs not by worshipping
God too much, but by worshipping in a perverse way. Neither can we too
much seek after the blessings that shall abide for ever, nor fear too much the
everlasting evils, nor have too great hatred for sin. . . .
48. I frequently appeal to the authority of the books which men inspired by
God have either written or approved, nevertheless with a distinction between
the Old Testament and the New. There are some who urge that the Old
Testament sets forth the law of nature. Without doubt they are in error, for
many of its rules come from the free will of God. And yet this is never in
conflict with the true law of nature; and up to this point the Old Testament can
be used as a source of the law of nature, provided we carefully distinguish
between the law of God, which God sometimes executes through men, and
the law of men in their relations with one another.
This error we have, so far as possible, avoided, and also another opposed to
it, which supposes that after the coming of the New Testament the Old Testa-
ment in this respect was no longer of use. We believe the contrary, partly for
the reasons which we have already given, partly because the character of the
New Testament is such that in its teachings respecting the moral virtues it
enjoins the same as the Old Testament or even enjoins greater precepts. In
this way we see that the early Christian writers used the witnesses of the Old
Testament. . . .
50. The New Testament I use in order to explain — and this cannot be
learned from any other source — what is permissible to Christians. This,
96 Hugo Grotius

however — contrary to the practice of most men — I have distinguished from

the law of nature, considering it as certain that in that most holy law a greater
degree of moral perfection is enjoined upon us than the law of nature, alone
and by itself, would require. And nevertheless I have not omitted to note the
things that are recommended to us rather than enjoined, that we may know
that, while the turning aside from what has been enjoined is wrong and
involves the risk of punishment, a striving for the highest excellence implies a
noble purpose and will not fail of its reward. . . .
58. If any one thinks that I have had in view any controversies of our own
times, either those that have arisen or those which can be foreseen as likely to
arise, he will do me an injustice. With all truthfulness I aver that, just as
mathematicians treat their figures as abstracted from bodies, so in treating law
I have withdrawn my mind from every particular fact.

BOOK I

Chapter I: What Is War? What Is Law?

I. Scope of the treatise

Controversies among those who are not held together by a common bond of
municipal law are related either to time of war or to times of peace. Such
controversies may arise among those who have not yet united to form a
nation, and those who belong to different nations, both private persons and
kings; also those who have the same body of rights that kings have, whether
members of a ruling aristocracy, or free peoples.
War, however, is undertaken in order to secure peace, and there is no
controversy which may not give rise to war. In undertaking to treat the law of
war, therefore, it will be in order to treat such controversies, of any and every
kind, as are likely to arise. War itself will finally conduct us to peace as its
ultimate goal.

III. Law is considered as a rule of action .. .

1. In giving to our treatise the title "The Law of War," we mean first of all,
as already stated, to inquire whether any war can be just, and then, what is
just in war. For law in our use of the term here means nothing else than what
is just, and that, too, rather in a negative than in an affirmative sense, that
being lawful which is not unjust.
Now that is unjust which is in conflict with the nature of society of beings
endowed with reason. . . .

IV. A body of rights in respect to quality is divided into faculties and aptitudes
There is another meaning of law viewed as a body of rights, different from
the one just defined but growing out of it, which has reference to the person.
 On the Law of War and Peace 97

In this sense a right becomes a moral quality of a person, making it possible to

have or to do something lawfully.
Such a right attaches to a person, even if sometimes it may follow a thing, as
in the case of servitudes over lands, which are called real rights, in contrast
with other rights purely personal; not because such rights do not also attach to
a person, but because they do not attach to any other person than the one who
is entitled to a certain thing.
When the moral quality is perfect' we call it facultas, "faculty"; when it is
not perfect, aptitudo, "aptitude." To the former, in the range of natural
things, "act" corresponds; to the latter, "potency."

V Faculties, or legal rights strictly so called, are divided into powers, property
rights, and contractual rights
A legal right (facultas) is called by the jurists the right to one's own (suum);
after this we shall call it a legal right properly or strictly so called.
Under it are included power, now over oneself, which is called freedom,
now over other, as that of the father (patria potestas) and that of the master
over slaves; ownership, either absolute, or less than absolute, as usufruct' and
the right of pledge; and contractual rights, to which on the opposite side
contractual obligations correspond.

VIII. On expletive justice and attributive justice .. .

1. Legal rights are the concern of expletive justice (iustitia expletrix), which
is entitled to the name of justice properly or strictly so called. This is called
"contractual" justice by Aristotle, with too narrow a use of the term; for
though the possessor of something belonging to me may give it back to me,
that does not result "from a contract," and nevertheless the act falls within the
purview of this type of justice; and so the same philosopher has more aptly
termed it "restorative" justice.
Aptitudes are the concern of attributive justice (iustitia attributrix). This
Aristotle called "distributive" justice. It is associated with those virtues which
have as their purpose to do good to others, as generosity, compassion, and
foresight in matters of government. . . .

IX. Law is defined as a rule, and divided into the law of nature and volitional
law
1. There is a third meaning of the word law, which has the same force as
statute whenever this work is taken in the broadest sense as a rule of moral
actions imposing obligation to what is right. We have need of an obligation;
for counsels and instructions of every sort, which enjoin what is honourable
indeed but do not impose an obligation, do not come under the term statute
or law. Permission, again, is not, strictly speaking, an operation of law, but a
negation of operation, except in so far as it obligates another not to put any
hindrance in the way of him to whom permission is given. We said, moreover,
"imposing obligation to what is right," not merely to what is lawful, because
98 Hugo Grotius
law in our use of the term here stands related to the matter not only of justice,
as we have set it forth, but also of other virtues. Nevertheless that which, in
accordance with this law, is right, in a broader sense is called just.
2. The best division of law thus conceived is found in Aristotle, that is, into
natural law and volitional law, to which he applies the term statutory, with a
rather strict use of the word statute; sometimes he calls it established law. . . .

X. Definition of the law of nature, division, and distinction from things which
are not properly so called
1. The law of nature is a dictate of right reason, which points out that an act,
according as it is or is not in conformity with rational nature, has in it a quality
of moral baseness or moral necessity; and that in consequence, such an act is
either forbidden or enjoined by the author of nature, God.
2. The acts in regard to which such a dictate exists are, in themselves, either
obligatory or not permissible, and so it is understood that necessarily they are
enjoined or forbidden by God. In this characteristic the law of nature differs
not only from human law, but also from volitional divine law; for volitional
divine law does not enjoin or forbid those things which in themselves and by
their own nature are obligatory or not permissible, but by forbidding things it
makes them unlawful, and by commanding things it makes them obligatory.
3. For the understanding of the law of nature, again, we must note that
certain things are said to be according to this law not in a proper sense but — as
the Schoolmen love to say — by reduction, the law of nature not being in
conflict with them; just as we said above that things are called just which are
free from injustice. Sometimes, also, by misuse of the term, things which
reason declares are honourable, or better than their opposites, are said to be
according to the law of nature, although not obligatory.
4. It is necessary to understand, further, that the law of nature deals not
only with things which are outside the domain of the human will, but with
many things also which result from an act of the human will. Thus ownership,
such as now obtains, was introduced by the will of man; but, once introduced,
the law of nature points out that it is wrong for me, against your will, to take
away that which is subject to your ownership. . . .
5. The law of nature, again, is unchangeable — even in the sense that it
cannot be changed by God. Measureless as is the power of God, nevertheless
it can be said that there are certain things over which that power does not
extend; for things of which this is said are spoken only, having no sense
corresponding with reality and being mutually contradictory. Just as even
God, then, cannot cause that two times two should not make four, so he
cannot cause that that which is intrinsically evil be not evil.

XI. That the instinct common to other animals, or that peculiar to man, does
not constitute another kind of law
1. The distinction, which appears in the books of Roman law, between an
unchangeable law common to animals and man, which the Roman legal writ-
 On the Law of War and Peace 99
ers9 call the law of nature in a more restricted sense, and a law peculiar to
man, which they frequently call the law of nations, is of hardly any value. For,
strictly speaking, only a being that applies general principles is capable of
law. . . .

XIL In what way the existence of the law of nature is proved

1. In two ways men are wont to prove that something is according to the law
of nature, from that which is antecedent and from that which is consequent.
Of the two lines of proof the former is more subtle, the latter more familiar.
Proof a priori consists in demonstrating the necessary agreement or dis-
agreement of anything with a rational and social nature; proof a posteriori, in
concluding, if not with absolute assurance, at least with every probability, that
that is according to the law of nature which is believed to be such among all
nations, or among all those that are more advanced in civilization. For an
effect that is universal demands a universal cause; and the cause of such an
opinion can hardly be anything else than the feeling which is called the com-
mon sense of mankind.

Chapter II: Whether It Is Ever Lawful to Wage War

I. That war is not in conflict with the law of nature is proved by several
considerations
1. Having seen what the sources of law are, let us come to the first and most
general question, which is this: whether any war is lawful, or whether it is ever
permissible to wage war. This question, as also the others which will follow,
must first be taken up from the point of view of the law of nature.
Marcus Tullius Cicero, both in the third book of his treatise On Ends' and
in other places, following Stoic writings learnedly argues that there are certain
first principles of nature — "first according to nature," as the Greeks phrased
it — and certain other principles which are later manifest but which are to have
the preference over those first principles. He calls first principles of nature
those in accordance with which every animal from the moment of its birth has
regard for itself and is impelled to preserve itself, to have zealous consider-
ation for its own condition and for those things which tend to preserve it, and
also shrinks from destruction and things which appear likely to cause destruc-
tion. Hence also it happens, he says, that there is no one who, if the choice
were presented to him, would not prefer to have all the parts of his body in
proper order and whole rather than dwarfed or deformed; and that it is one's
first duty to keep oneself in the condition which nature gave to him, then to
reject those things that are contrary thereto.
2. But after these things have received due consideration [Cicero contin-
ues], there follows a notion of the conformity of things with reason, which is
superior to the body. Now this conformity, in which moral goodness becomes
the paramount object, ought to be accounted of higher import than the
100 Hugo Grotius

things to which alone instinct first directed itself, because the first principles
of nature commend us to right reason, and right reason ought to be more
dear to us than those things through whose instrumentality we have been
brought to it.
Since this is true and without other demonstration would easily receive the
assent of all who are endowed with sound judgement, it follows that in investi-
gating the law of nature it is necessary first to see what is consistent with those
fundamental principles of nature, and then to come to that which, though of
later origin, is nevertheless more worthy — that which ought not only to be
grasped, if it appear, but to be sought out by every effort. . . .
4. In the first principles of nature there is nothing which is opposed to war;
rather, all points are in its favour. The end and aim of war being the preserva-
tion of life and limb, and the keeping or acquiring of things useful to life, war
is in perfect accord with those first principles of nature. If in order to achieve
these ends it is necessary to use force, no inconsistency with the first principles
of nature is involved, since nature has given to each animal strength sufficient
for self-defence and self-assistance.
5. Right reason, moreover, and the nature of society, which must be studied
in the second place and are of even greater importance, do not prohibit all use
of force, but only that use of force which is in conflict with society, that is
which attempts to take away the rights of another. For society has in view this
object, that through community of resource and effort each individual be
safeguarded in the possession of what belongs to him.
6. It is not, then, contrary to the nature of society to look out for oneself
and advance one's own interests, provided the rights of others are not in-
fringed; and consequently the use of force which does not violate the rights of
others is not unjust. . . .

VI. Preliminary considerations bearing upon the question whether war is in

conflict with the law of the Gospel
9. The third argument" is wont to be taken from the passage which follows
in Matthew [v. 43]: "Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour and hate thine enemy; but I say unto you, love your enemies, bless
them that curse you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute
you." For there are men who think that with such love and well-doing towards
enemies and them that despitefully use us, both capital punishment and wars
are irreconcilable.
The argument, however, is easily refuted if we take into consideration the
precise provision of the Hebraic law. It was enjoined upon the Jews to love
their neighbour, that is a Jew; . . . But magistrates were none the less com-
manded to put to death murderers and others guilty of heinous crimes; the
eleven tribes none the less attacked the tribe of Benjamin in a just war on
account of a monstrous crime (Judg., v. 21); none the less did David, who
"fought the battles of the Lord," undertake to wrest from Ishbosheth by arms,
and rightly, the kingdom which had been promised to him.
 On the Law of War and Peace 101
10. Let us concede, then, a broader signification of the word "neighbour,"
to include all men — for all men have now been received into a common
dispensation, there are no peoples doomed by God to destruction — never-
theless that will be permitted with respect to all men which was then permitted
with respect to the Israelites; they were bidden to love one another, just as
now all men are. And if you wish to believe also that a greater degree of love
is commanded in the law of the Gospel, let this too be granted, provided also
the fact is recognized that love is not due to all in the same degree, but that a
greater love is due to a father than to a stranger. In like manner also, in
accordance with the law of a well-ordered love, the good of an innocent
person should receive consideration before the good of one who is guilty, and
the public good before that of the individual.
Now it is in the love of innocent men that both capital punishment and just
wars have their origin. . . . The teachings of Christ in regard to loving and
helping men ought, therefore, to be carried into effect unless a greater and
more just love stand in the way.

Chapter III: On the Distinction Between Public and Private War

VII. What sovereignty is

1. That power is called sovereign whose actions are not subject to the legal
control of another, so that they cannot be rendered void by the operation of
another human will. When I say "of another," I exclude from consideration
him who exercises the sovereign power, who has the right to change his
determinations; I exclude also his successor, who enjoys the same right, and
therefore has the same power, not a different power. Let us, then, see who is
the subject of sovereignty.
The subject of a power is either common or special. Just as the body is a
common, the eye a special subject of the power of sight, so the state, which
we have defined above as a perfect 12 association, is the common subject of
sovereignty. . . .

VIII. The opinion that sovereignty always resides in the people is rejected,
and arguments are answered
1. At this point first of all the opinion of those must be rejected who hold
that everywhere and without exception sovereignty resides in the people, so
that it is permissible for the people to restrain and punish kings whenever they
make a bad use of their power. How many evils this opinion has given rise to,
and can even now give rise to if it sinks deep into men's minds, no wise person
fails to see. We refute it by means of the following arguments.
To every man it is permitted to enslave himself to any one he pleases for
private ownership, as is evident both from the Hebraic and from the Roman
Law. 13 Why, then, would it not be permitted to a people having legal compe-
tence to submit itself to some one person, or to several persons, in such a way
102 Hugo Grotius

as plainly to transfer to him the legal right to govern, retaining no vestige of

that right for itself? And you should not say that such a presumption is not
admissible; for we are not trying to ascertain what the presumption should be
in case of doubt, but what can legally be done.
It is idle, too, to bring up the inconveniences which result, or may result,
from such a procedure; for no matter what form of government you may
devise, you will never be free from difficulties and dangers. . . .
2. Just as, in fact, there are many ways of living, one being better than
another, and out of so many ways of living each is free to select that which he
prefers, so also a people can select the form of government which it wishes;
and the extent of its legal right in the matter is not to be measured by the
superior excellence of this or that form of government, in regard to which
different men hold different views, but by its free choice.
3. In truth it is possible to find not a few causes which may impel a people
wholly to renounce the right to govern itself and to vest this in another, as, for
example, if a people threatened with destruction cannot induce anyone to
defend it on any other condition; again, if a people pinched by want can in no
other way obtain the supplies needed to sustain life. . . .

Chapter IV: War of Subjects Against Superiors

I. State of the question

2. The question to be considered here is simply this, whether it is permissible
for either private or official persons to wage war against those under whose
authority they are, whether this authority be sovereign or subordinate. . . .
3. Among all good men one principle at any rate is established beyond
controversy, that if the authorities issue any order that is contrary to the law of
nature or to the commandments of God, the order should not be carried out.
For when the Apostles said that obedience should be rendered to God rather
than men, they appealed to an infallible rule of action, which is written in the
hearts of all men, and which you may find in Plate expressed in about as
many words. But if from any such cause, or under other conditions as a result
of caprice on the part of him who holds the sovereign power, unjust treatment
be inflicted on us, we ought to endure it rather than resist by force. . . .

VII. What view is to be taken in case of extreme and in other respects

unavoidable necessity
1. More serious is the question whether the law of nonresistance should
bind us in case of extreme and imminent peril. Even some laws of God,
although stated in general terms, carry a tacit exception in case of extreme
necessity. . . .
2. I do not deny that even according to human law certain acts of a moral
nature can be ordered which expose one to a sure danger of death; an exam-
ple is the order not to leave one's post. We are not, however, rashly to assume
 On the Law of War and Peace 103
that such was the purpose of him who laid down the law; and it is apparent
that men would not have received so drastic a law applying to themselves and
others except as constrained by extreme necessity. For laws are formulated by
men and ought to be formulated with an appreciation of human frailty.
Now this law which we are discussing — the law of nonresistance — seems to
draw its validity from the will of those who associate themselves together in
the first place to form a civil society; from the same source, furthermore,
derives the right which passes into the hands of those who govern. If these
men could be asked whether they purposed to impose upon all persons the
obligation to prefer death rather than under any circumstances to take up
arms in order to ward off the violence of those having superior authority, I do
not know whether they would answer in the affirmative, unless, perhaps, with
this qualification, in case resistance could not be made without a very great
disturbance in the state, and without the destruction of a great many innocent
people. I do not doubt that to human law also there can be applied what love
under such circumstances would commend. . . .

BOOK II

Chapter I: The Causes of War — First, Defence of Self and Property

I. What causes of war may be called justifiable

1. Let us proceed to the causes of war — I mean justifiable causes; for there
are also other causes which influence men through regard for what is expedi-
ent and differ from those that influence men through regard for what is
right. . . .

IX. Defence is sometimes not permissible against a person useful to the state
because at variance with the law of love
1. On the other hand, it may happen that, since the life of the assailant is
useful to many, he cannot be killed without wrong. And this is true, not only
according to divine law, whether of the old or the new dispensation — this we
treated above, when we showed that the person of a king is sacred — but also
by the law of nature. For the law of nature, in so far as it has the force of a law,
holds in view not only the dictates of expletive justice, as we have called it, but
also actions exemplifying other virtues, such as self-mastery, bravery, and
prudence, as under certain circumstances not merely honourable, but even
obligatory. And to such actions we are constrained by regard for others.

Chapter II: Of Things Which Belong to Men in Common

I. The division of that which is our own

Next in order among the causes of war 15 is an injury actually received; and
first, an injury to that which belongs to us. Some things belong to us by a right
common to mankind, others by our individual right.
104 Hugo Grotius

Let us begin with the right which is common to all men. This right holds
good directly over a corporeal thing, or over certain actions. Corporeal things
free from private ownership are either such as cannot become subject to
private ownership, or such as can. In order to understand the distinction fully,
it will be necessary to know the origin of proprietorship, which jurists call the
right of ownership.

II. The origin and development of the right of private ownership

1. Soon after the creation of the world, and a second time after the Flood,
God conferred upon the human race a general right over things of a lower
nature.'6 "All things," as Justin says, "were the common and undivided posses-
sion of all men, as if all possessed a common inheritance."" In consequence,
each man could at once take whatever he wished for his own needs, and could
consume whatever was capable of being consumed. The enjoyment of this
universal right then served the purpose of private ownership; for whatever
each had thus taken for his own needs another could not take from him except
by an unjust act. This can be understood from the comparison used by Cicero
in his third book On Ends.' "Although the theatre is a public place, yet it is
correct to say that the seat which a man has taken belongs to him."
This primitive state might have lasted if men had continued in great simplic-
ity, or had lived on terms of mutual affection such as rarely appears. . . .
2. Men did not, however, continue to live this simple and innocent life, but
turned their thoughts to various kinds of knowledge, the symbol for which was
the tree of knowledge of good and evil, that is a knowledge of the things of
which it is possible to make at times a good use, at times a bad use. . . .
The most ancient arts, agriculture and grazing, were pursued by the first
brothers, not without some interchange of commodities. From the difference
in pursuits arose rivalry, and even murder; and at length, since the good were
corrupted by contact with the wicked, there came the kind of life ascribed to
the giants, that is given over to violence, like the life of those whom the
Greeks characterized as "men that cultivate justice with the fist." After the
world had been cleansed by the Deluge, that brutish life was succeeded by a
passion for pleasure, to which wine ministered; whence came also unlawful
loves.
3. Harmony, however, was destroyed chiefly by a less ignoble vice, ambi-
tion, of which the symbol was the tower of Babel.
4. From these sources we learn what was the cause on account of which the
primitive common ownership, first of movable objects, later also of immov-
able property, was abandoned. The reason was that men were not content to
feed on the spontaneous products of the earth, to dwell in caves, to have the
body either naked or clothed with the bark of trees or skins of wild animals,
but chose a more refined mode of life; this gave rise to industry, which some
applied to one thing, others to another.
Moreover, the gathering of the products of the soil into a common store was
hindered first by the remoteness of the places to which men had made their
 On the Law of War and Peace 105
way, then by the lack of justice and kindness; in consequence of such a lack
the proper fairness in making division was not observed, either in respect to
labour or in the consumption of the fruits.
5. At the same time we learn how things became subject to private owner-
ship. This happened not by a mere act of will, for one could not know what
things another wished to have, in order to abstain from them — and besides
several might desire the same thing — but rather by a kind of agreement,
either expressed, as by a division, or implied, as by occupation. In fact, as
soon as community ownership was abandoned, and as yet no division had
been made, it is to be supposed that all agreed, that whatever each one had
taken possession of should be his property. . . .

VI. That in case of necessity men have the right to use things which have
become the property of another, and whence this right comes
1. Now let us see whether men in general possess any right over things
which have already become the property of another.
Some perchance may think it strange that this question should be raised,
since the right of private ownership seems completely to have absorbed the
right which had its origin in a state of community of property. Such, however,
is not the case. We must, in fact, consider what the intention was of those who
first introduced individual ownership; and we are forced to believe that it was
their intention to depart as little as possible from natural equity. For as in this
sense even written laws are to be interpreted, much more should such a point
of view prevail in the interpretation of usages which are not held to exact
statement by the limitations of a written form.
2. Hence it follows, first, that in direst need the primitive right of user
revives, as if community of ownership had remained, since in respect to all
human laws — the law of ownership included — supreme necessity seems to
have been excepted.
3. Hence it follows, again, that on a voyage, if provisions fail, whatever
each person has ought to be contributed to the common stock. Thus, again, if
fire has broken out, in order to protect a building belonging to me I can
destroy a building of my neighbour. I can, furthermore, cut the ropes or nets
in which my ship has been caught, if it cannot otherwise be freed. None of
these rules was introduced by the civil law, but they have all come into exis-
tence through interpretations of it.
4. Even among the theologians the principle has been accepted that, if a
man under stress of such necessity takes from the property of another what is
necessary to preserve his own life, he does not commit a theft.
The reason which lies back of this principle is not, as some allege, that the
owner of a thing is bound by the rule of love to give to him who lacks; it is,
rather, that all things seem to have been distributed to individual owners with
the benign reservation in favour of the primitive right. For if those who made
the original distribution had been asked what they thought about this matter
they would have given the same answer that we do. . . .
106 Hugo Grotius

Chapter XII: On Contracts

VII. What acts are called contracts

Now all acts of benefits to others, except mere acts of kindness, are called
contracts.

VIII. That equality is required in contracts; and first, equality as regards

preceding acts
The law of nature enjoins that there be equality in contracts, and in such a
way that the party who receives less acquires a right of action from the
inequality.

IX. That equality is required in contracts as regards knowledge of the facts

1. To the preceding acts the consideration pertains that the person who is
making a contract with any one ought to point out to him the faults of the
thing concerned in the transaction which are known to himself. This is not
only prevailingly established by the civil laws but is also consistent with the
nature of the act. For between the contracting parties there is a closer union
than ordinarily obtains in human society.
2. The same thing, however, should not be said in regard to circumstances
which have no direct connexion with the thing contracted for; as if any one
should know that many ships were in route bringing grain. The giving of such
information is, in fact, a part of one's duty, and praiseworthy, so that often it
cannot be omitted without violating the rule of love. Yet such omission is not
unjust, that is, it is not inconsistent with the right of the one with whom the
contract is made. °

X. That equality is required in contracts as regards freedom of choice

Not only in the knowledge of facts but also in the freedom of choice there
ought to be a kind of equality between the contracting parties. Not indeed that
any preceding fear, if justly inspired, ought to be removed, for that is outside
of the contract; but that no fear should be unjustly inspired for the sake of
making the contract, or, if such fear has been inspired, that it should be
removed.

Chapter XX: On Punishments

XLI. The law of nature must be distinguished from widely current national
customs
But at this point certain precautions need to be stated.
First, national customs are not to be taken for the law of nature, although
they have been received on reasonable grounds among many peoples.
 On the Law of War and Peace 107

XLII. The law of nature must be distinguished also from the Divine law that
is not voluntarily recognized by all
Second, we should not hastily class with the things forbidden by nature
those with regard to which this point is not sufficiently clear, and which are
rather prohibited by the law of the Divine Will. In this class we may perhaps
place unions not classed as marriages and those which are called incestuous,
as well as usury.

XLIII. In the law of nature we must distinguish between what is evident and
what is not evident '
1. Third, we should carefully distinguish between general principles, as, for
example, that one must live honourably, that is according to reason, and
certain principles akin to these, but so evident that they do not admit of
doubt, as that one must not seize what belongs to another, and inferences;
such inferences in some cases easily gain recognition, as that, for example,
accepting marriage we cannot admit adultery, but in other cases are not so
easily accepted, as the inference that vengeance which is satisfied with the
pain of another is wicked. Here we have almost the same thing as in mathemat-
ics, where there are certain primary notions, or notions akin to those that are
primary, certain proofs which are at once recognized and admitted, and cer-
tain others which are true indeed but not evident to all.
2. Therefore, just as in the case of municipal laws we excuse those who lack
knowledge or understanding of the laws, so also with regard to the laws of
nature it is right to pardon those who are hampered by weakness of their
powers of reasoning or deficient education. For as ignorance of the law, if it is
unavoidable, cancels the sin, so also, when it is combined with a certain
degree of negligence, it lessens the offence.

Chapter XXIII: On Doubtful Causes of War

I. On the source of the causes of doubt in moral questions

What Aristotle wrote 2° is perfectly true, that certainty is not to be found in
moral questions in the same degree as in mathematical science. This comes
from the fact that mathematical science completely separates forms from
substance, and that the forms themselves are generally such that between two
of them there is no intermediate form, just as there is no mean between a
straight and a curved line. In moral questions, on the contrary, even trifling
circumstances alter the substance, and the forms, which are the subject of
inquiry, are wont to have something intermediate, which is of such scope that
it approaches now more closely to this, now to that extreme.
Thus it comes about that between what should be done and what it is wrong
to do there is a mean, that which is permissible; and this is now closer to the
former, now to the latter. Hence there often comes a moment of doubt, just as
108 Hugo Grotius

when day passes into night, or when cold water slowly becomes warm. This is
what Aristotle means when he says: "Oftentimes it is hard to decide what
choice one should make." .. .

II. Nothing is to be done contrary to the dictates of one's mind, however

erroneous they may be
1. First of all we must hold to the principle that, even if something is in itself
just, when it is done by one who, taking everything into consideration, consid-
ers it unjust, the act is vicious. This in fact is what the Apostle Paul meant by
saying, "Whatsoever is not of faith, is sin," 21 where "faith" signifies the judge-
ment of the mind on the matter. For God has given the power of judgement as
a guide for human actions, and if this is treated with contempt the mind
becomes brutish.
2. Nevertheless, it often happens that the judgement presents no certainty,
but is undecided. If this indecision cannot be dissipated by careful consider-
ation, we must follow the precept of Cicero: 22 "That is a good rule which they
lay down who bid you not to do a thing when you are in doubt whether it is
right or wrong." .. .
This course, however, cannot be pursued where one really must do one of
two things, and yet is in doubt whether either is right. In that case he will be
allowed to choose that which appears to him to be less wrong. For always,
when a choice cannot be avoided, the lesser evil assumes the aspect of the
good. . . .

Chapter XXV: On the Causes of Undertaking War on Behalf of Others

III. Whether an innocent subject may be surrendered to an enemy, in order

that danger may be avoided
1. Thus if one citizen, although innocent, is demanded by an enemy, to be
made away with, there is no doubt that he may be abandoned to them if it
appears that the state is by no means a match for the power of the enemy.
This view is opposed by Fernando Vazquez; 23 but, if you consider his pur-
pose rather than his words, he seems to be making this point, that such a
citizen is not to be hastily abandoned, where there is hope that he may be
defended. For he also cites the story of the Italian infantry who deserted
Pompey when his cause was not yet clearly desperate, but when they had been
assured of their safety by Caesar. This conduct he deservedly censures.
2. Still the learned do discuss the question whether an innocent citizen may
be delivered into the hands of the enemy, in order to prevent the ruin other-
wise threatening the state; and the same question was debated long ago, as
when Demosthenes brought forward the notable fable of the dogs, which the
wolves demanded should be surrendered to them by the sheep for the sake of
peace. That such a surrender may be made is denied not merely by Vazquez
but also by Soto, whose opinion is attacked by Vazquez as bordering on
 Editor's Notes 109
treachery. Nevertheless, Soto holds that such a citizen is bound to surrender
himself to the enemy; but this also is denied by Vazquez, on the ground that
the nature of political society, which each enters for his own advantage, does
not require it.
3. But from this nothing more follows than that a citizen is not bound to
surrender himself by law properly so called; it does not follow also that love
permits him to do otherwise. For there are many duties which are not in the
domain of justice properly speaking, but in that of affection, which are not
only discharged amid praise (this Vazquez does not recognize) but cannot
even be omitted without blame.
Such a duty seems quite clearly to be this, that a person should value the
lives of a very large number of innocent persons above his own life.

Editor's Notes
1. Carneades (c. 213-128 a.c.E.), head of the Platonic Academy, who developed
skeptical arguments against the Epicureans and the Stoics. None of his writings
has survived intact. Cicero's De republica contains some discussion of his views, in
Book III.vff. Cicero's own work survives only in fragmentary form and does not
contain much that came directly from Carneades. More fragments of Carneades'
work were quoted in a treatise, the Divine Institutes, by the third-century Chris-
tian apologist Lactantius. Grotius could have known of Carneades from both these
sources.
The accuracy of Grotius's presentation of Carneades does not matter much,
because his real concern, as I have indicated, was with contemporary skepticism.
2. The Latin etiamsi daremus, translated as "even if we should concede," is often
taken as a shorthand way to identify this important statement. Denial that God is
concerned about humans, or that he exercises providential care over his creation,
was interpreted by many writers during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
as amounting to a denial that God exists.
3. Horace, Satires, I.iii.98.
4. Horace, Satires, I. iii.111.
5. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics 11.6-11.9.
6. Aristotle treats justice in Nicomachean Ethics, V.
7. The Latin perfectus means "complete." A perfect right is a complete right, with all
the attributes of a right, including enforceability at law. An imperfect right is less
complete. Creditors have a perfect right to be paid what is owed them; beggars
have an imperfect right to be given alms Grotius said little about this distinction,
which nonetheless came to be of considerable significance to later writers.
8. A Roman legal term, meaning the right to enjoy the use of something such as land
and what comes from using it, when it is owned by someone else.
9. The early codifier of Roman law, Ulpian, is said to have written a passage found
near the opening of Justinian's Digest and the Institutes: "Natural law is that which
nature has taught all animals. For it is not peculiar to the human race but belongs
to all animals. From this law comes the union of male and female, which we call
marriage, and the begetting and education of children. For we see that all other
animals are likewise governed by a knowledge of this law." Quoted in Barry
Nicholas, An Introduction to Roman Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1984), pp. 55-56.
10. Cicero, De finibus, III.v.17; vi.20.
110 Hugo Grotius

11. This is the third argument against the permissibility of war that is drawn from the
gospel.
12. "Perfect" again in the sense of "complete": a state can be self-sufficient in a way
that any lesser human association like the family or a club cannot be.
13. Grotius was referring to Exod. 21:6 and to various provisions of the Roman law.
14. In the Apology.
15. The first cause of war is preventing injury.
16. Gen. 1:29, 30.
17. Institutes XLIII [i.3].
18. De finibus III.xx.67.
19. This is one of the places where Grotius expands on his distinction between perfect
and imperfect rights and shows its use in making important distinctions for legal
transactions.
20. Nicomachean Ethics 1.3.
21. Rom. 14:23.
22. De officiis I.ix.30.
23. Vazquez and de Soto, referred to a few lines later, were Catholic theologians of
the sixteenth century. The case seems to have been widely discussed.

Further Reading
Although the secondary literature on Grotius is large, there is little that is relevant to
the bearing of his work on moral philosophy. Usually it is Grotius's legal and political
doctrines that are discussed, and he is accordingly treated at greater or lesser length in
all the standard histories of political thought.
For older Catholic views of Grotius, the reader should consult Heinrich A.
Rommen, The Natural Law, trans. Thomas R. Hanley (St. Louis: Herder, 1946), and
Anton-Hermann Chroust, "Hugo Grotius and the Scholastic Natural Law Tradition,"
The New Scholasticism 17(2)(1943). More recently, M. B. Crowe challenged Grotius's
originality in asserting the validity of law even if God does not exist, in The Changing
Profile of Natural Law (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972).
Charles Edwards, Hugo Grotius (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1981), is a readable general
study of Grotius's life and his work on natural and international law, although it is not
always accurate on details. Knud Haakonssen, "Hugo Grotius and the History of
Political Thought," Political Theory 13(2)(1985):239-65, is an excellent overview, help-
ful on some matters of philosophical importance. Richard Tuck, Natural Rights Theo-
ries (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979), is a pioneering study of
the origins of modern ideas of natural rights; Chapter 3, on Grotius, is indispensable.
Tuck has also written three articles bearing on Grotius: "Grotius, Carneades, and
Hobbes," in Grotiana, n.s. 4 (1983):43-62; "The 'Modern' Theory of Natural Law," in
Anthony Pagden, ed., The Languages of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987); and "Optics and Sceptics:
The Philosophical Foundations of Hobbes' Political Thought," in Edmund Leites, ed.,
Conscience and Casuistry in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1988).
 Thomas Hobbes

Introduction
The moral philosophy of Thomas Hobbes has been more frequently discussed in the
past half century than has that of any other seventeenth-century thinker. There have
been a number of different interpretations of what he meant both in general and on
specific issues. And many philosophers have tried to show that his basic theory can be
understood in a way that shows him to have been essentially right. Indeed, Hobbes
transcends his age as few moral and political thinkers ever have.
Hobbes was born in 1588 and died in 1679, a long life at any time and especially in
the seventeenth century. He studied at Oxford for five years, becoming acquainted
there with Aristotelian philosophy and with extreme Puritan opinions. His rejection of
both of these colored much of his later thought. When he was twenty he became a
tutor for the Cavendish family, with which he remained closely associated for the rest
of his life. The connection enabled Hobbes to travel to the Continent and to meet
many scientific and literary leaders of the period, including Bacon and Descartes. He
spent much of his time giving himself a humanistic education — his first work was a
translation of Thucydides into English — and he did not learn geometry until he was
forty. Hobbes's fascination with the demonstrative powers of geometric proof lasted
the rest of his life, and he was equally impressed by the physical laws that the new
science was revealing to the world.
Hobbes lived in extremely turbulent times. Protracted religious, political, and mili-
tary struggles for the control of England took place while he was at the height of his
powers, and he viewed his philosophy as a doctrine — as indeed the only doctrine —
that could bring peace and stability back into his world. In 1640 he completed Elements
of Law, which contained a sketch of his views but which he did not publish until 1650.
His moral and political theory first appeared in De cive in 1642, and the fullest account
of it came out in 1651, in Leviathan.
Between 1640 and 1651 Hobbes lived in Paris; he returned thereafter to England,
wrote new accounts of various parts of his system, engaged in sometimes-heated
controversies over his views, and, toward the end of his life, translated Homer into
English.
Hobbes had some followers, but for the most part those who read him hated and
feared his views. He came to rival Niccolo Machiavelli in the popular mind as an
exponent of dangerous and immoral doctrines. His critics took it as obvious that he
was an atheist and that as a materialist he denied the existence of the soul. He was
universally held to teach that iftweiseriateastaal"in their voluntary
actioils. Because he did not believe that people have free will, he was thought to deny

111
112 Thomas Hobbes

that we could be held accountable for our actions. Hobbes was generally considered an
Epicurean, a proponent of the doctrine that pleasure alone is the good for man — and
only the coarser pleasures at that. He taught, it was believed, that there are no
universal standards of morality and that because only what the sovereign requires is
obligatory, morality varies from country to country. In political matters, Hobbes was
assumed to have provided justification for tyrannical or despotical rule.
No doubt many of these doctrines are unappealing: the reader must decide whether
or not Hobbes held them, or something close enough to them to warrant the condemna-
tions to which he was subjected. Whether or not he did, it was because such views were
attributed to him that he was the main object of criticism for generations of philoso-
phers who succeeded him. Many of these criticisms were uninteresting, resting on
gross misreadings of what Hobbes said or taking for granted much that he thought false
or irrelevant. But the better critics — such as Hutcheson and Butler — were able not
only to make telling objections to what they took him to expound but to do so in ways
that advanced our philosophical understanding of human motivation and of morality.
For the value of the opposition he generated as well as for the depth and originality of
his own thought, Hobbes is an indispensable central figure in the history of ethics.
The following selections are from the English translation of De cive published in
1651 under the title Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society. It is
possible that this translation was written by Hobbes himself, although the evidence is
not conclusive. I have taken the text from the nineteenth-century edition by Sir Wil-
liam Molesworth, who modernized to some extent the spelling and punctuation.

Philosophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society

The Epistle Dedicatory

. . . Now look, how many sorts of things there are, which properly fall within
the cognizance of human reason; into so many branches does the tree of
philosophy divide itself. And from the diversity of the matter about which
they are conversant, there hath been given to those branches a diversity of
names too. For treating of figures, it is called geometry; of motion, physic; of
natural right, morals; put altogether, and they make up philosophy. Just as the
British, the Atlantic, and the Indian seas, being diversely christened from the
diversity of their shores, do notwithstanding all together make up the ocean.
And truly the geometricians have very admirably performed their part. For
whatsoever assistance doth accrue to the life of man, whether from the obser-
vation of the heavens or from the description of the earth, from the notation
of times, or from the remotest experiments of navigation; finally, whatsoever
things they are in which this present age doth differ from the rude simpleness
of antiquity, we must acknowledge to be a debt which we owe merely to
geometry. If the moral philosophers had as happily discharged their duty, I
know not what could have been added by human industry to the completion
of that happiness, which is consistent with human life. For were the nature of
human actions as distinctly known as the nature of quantity in geometrical
figures, the strength of avarice and ambition, which is sustained by the errone-
ous opinions of the vulgar as touching the nature of right and wrong, would
presently faint and languish; and mankind should enjoy such an immortal
 Philosophical Rudiments 113
peace, that unless it were for habitation, on supposition that the earth should
grow too narrow for her inhabitants, there would hardly be left any pretence
for war. But now on the contrary, that neither the sword nor the pen should be
allowed any cessation; that the knowledge of the law of nature should lose its
growth, not advancing a whit beyond its ancient stature; that there should still
be such siding with the several factions of philosophers, that the very same
action should be decried by some, and as much elevated by others; that the
very same man should at several times embrace his several opinions, and
esteem has own actions far otherwise in himself than he does in others: these,
I say, are so many signs, so many manifest arguments, that what hath hitherto
been written by moral philosophers, hath not made any progress in the knowl-
edge of the truth; but yet hath took with the world, not so much by giving any
light to the understanding as entertainment to the affections, whilst by the
successful rhetorications of their speech they have confirmed them in their
rashly received opinions.
. . . when I applied my thoughts to the investigation of natural justice, I
was presently advertised from the very word justice, (which signifies a steady
will of giving every one his own),' that my first enquiry was to be, from
whence it proceeded that any man should call anything rather his own, than
another man's. And when I found that this proceeded not from nature, but
consent; (for what nature at first laid forth in common, men did afterwards
distribute into several impropriations);2 I was conducted from thence to an-
other inquiry; namely, to what end and upon what impulsives, when all was
equally every man's in common, men did rather think it fitting that every man
should have his inclosure. And I found the reason was, that from a community
of goods there must needs arise contention, whose enjoyment should be
greatest. And from that contention all kind of calamities must unavoidably
ensue, which by the instinct of nature every man is taught to shun. Having
therefore thus arrived at two maxims of human nature; the one arising from
the concupiscible part, which desires to appropriate to itself the use of those
things in which all others have a joint interest; the other proceeding from the
rational, which teaches every man to fly a contra-natural dissolution, as the
greatest mischief that can arrive to nature: which principles being laid down, I
seem from them to have demonstrated by a most evident connexion, in this
little work of mine, first, the absolute necessity of leagues and contracts, and
thence the rudiments both of moral and of civil prudence. That appendage
which is added concerning the regiment of God, 3 hath been done with this
intent; that the dictates of God Almighty in the law of nature, might not seem
repugnant to the written law, revealed to us in his word. I have also been very
wary in the whole tenour of my discourse, not to meddle with the civil laws of
any particular nation whatsoever. . . .

The Preface to the Reader

. . . The benefit of it ,4 when rightly delivered, that is, when derived from true
principles by evident connection, we shall then best discern, when we shall but
114 Thomas Hobbes
well have considered the mischiefs that have befallen mankind from its coun-
terfeit and babbling form. For in matters wherein we speculate for the exer-
cise of our wits, if any error escape us, it is without hurt; neither is there any
loss, but of time only. But in those things which every man ought to meditate
for the steerage of his life, it necessarily happens that not only from errors,
but even from ignorance itself, there arise offences, contentions, nay, even
slaughter itself. Look now, how great a prejudice these are; such and so great
is the benefit arising from this doctrine of morality truly declared. How many
kings, and those good men too, hath this one error, that a tyrant king might
lawfully be put to death, been the slaughter of! How many throats hath this
false position cut, that a prince for some causes may by some certain men be
deposed! And what bloodshed hath not this erroneous doctrine caused, that
kings are not superiors to, but administrators for the multitude! Lastly, how
many rebellions hath this opinion been the cause of, which teacheth that the
knowledge whether the commands of kings be just or unjust, belongs to
private men; and that before they yield obedience, they not only may, but
ought to dispute them! .. .
Since therefore such opinions are daily seen to arise, if any man now shall
dispel those clouds, and by most firm reasons demonstrate that there are no
authentical doctrines concerning right and wrong, good and evil, besides the
constituted laws in each realm and government; and that the question whether
any future action will prove just or unjust, good or ill, is to be demanded of
none but those to whom the supreme' hath committed the interpretation of
his laws: surely he will not only show us the highway to peace, but will also
teach us how to avoid the close, dark, and dangerous by-paths of faction and
sedition; than which I know not what can be thought more profitable.
Concerning my method, I thought it not sufficient to use a plain and evident
style in what I have to deliver, except I took my beginning from the very
matter of civil government, and thence proceeded to its generation and form,
and the first beginning of justice. For everything is best understood by its
constitutive causes. For as in a watch, or some such small engine, the matter,
figure, and motion of the wheels cannot well be known, except it be taken
insunder and viewed in parts; so to make a more curious search into the rights
of states and duties of subjects, it is necessary, I say, not to take them
insunder, but yet that they be so considered as if they were dissolved; that is,
that we rightly understand what the quality of human nature is, in what
matters it is, in what not, fit to make up a civil government, and how men
must be agreed amongst themselves that intend to grow up into a well-
grounded state. Having therefore followed this kind of method, in the first
place I set down for a principle, by experience known to all men and denied by
none, to wit, that the dispositions of men are naturally such, that except they
be restrained through fear of some coercive power, every man will distrust
and dread each other; and as by natural right he may, so by necessity he will
be forced to make use of the strength he hath, toward the preservation of
himself. . . .
 Philosophical Rudiments 115
Some object that this principle being admitted, it would needs follow, not
only that all men were wicked, (which perhaps though it seem hard, yet we
must yield to, since it is so clearly declared by holy writ), but also wicked by
nature, which cannot be granted without impiety: But this, that men are evil
by nature, follows not from this principle. For though the wicked were fewer
than the righteous, yet because we cannot distinguish them, there is a neces-
sity of suspecting, heeding, anticipating, subjugating, self-defending, ever
incident to the most honest and fairest conditioned. Much less does it follow,
that those who are wicked, are so by nature. For though from nature, that is,
from their first birth, as they are merely sensible creatures, they have this
disposition, that immediately as much as in them lies they desire and do
whatsoever is best pleasing to them, and that either through fear they fly
from, or through hardness repel those dangers which approach them; yet are
they not for this reason to be accounted wicked. For the affections of the
mind, which arise only from the lower parts of the soul, are not wicked
themselves; but the actions thence proceeding may be so sometimes, as when
they are either offensive or against duty... .
. . . The foundation therefore which I have laid, standing firm, I demon-
strate, in the first place, that the state of men without civil society, which state
we may properly call the state of nature, is nothing else but a mere war of all
against all; and in that war all men have equal right unto all thing. Next, that
ailswasus soon as they arrive to understanding of this hateful condition, d9
desire, even nature itself compelling them, to be freed from this misery. But
that this cannot be done, except by compact, they all quit that right they have
to all things. Furthermore, I declare and confirm what the nature of compact
is; how and by what means the right of one might be transferred unto another
to make their compacts valid; also what rights, and to whom they must neces-
sarily be granted, for the establishing of peace; I mean, what those dictates of
reason are, which may properly be termed the laws of nature. And all these
are contained in that part of this book which I entitle Liberty.
These grounds thus laid, I show further what civil government, and the
supreme power in it, and the divers kinds of it are; by what means it becomes
so; and what rights particular men, who intend to constitute the civil govern-
ment, must so necessarily transfer from themselves on the supreme power,
whether it be one man or an assembly of men, that, except they do so, it will
evidently appear to be no civil government, but the rights which all men have
to all things, that is, the rights of war will still remain. . . .

PHILOSOPHICAL ELEMENTS OF A TRUE CITIZEN

Liberty

Chapter I: Of the State of Men Without Civil Society

1. The Introduction. 2. That the beginning of civil society is from mutual fear. 3.
That men by nature are all equal. 4. Whence the will of mischieving each other ariseth.
116 Thomas Hobbes
5. The discord arising from comparison of wits. 6. From the appetite many have to the
same thing. 7. The definition of right. 8. A right to the end, gives a right to the means
necessary to that end. 9. By the right of nature, every man is judge of the means which
tend to his own preservation. 10. By nature all men have equal right to all things. 11.
This right which all men have to all things, is unprofitable. 12. The state of men
without civil society, is a mere state of war: the definitions of peace and war. 13. War is
an adversary to man's preservation. 14. It is lawful for any man, by material right, to
compel another whom he hath gotten in his power, to give caution of his future
obedience. 15. Nature dictates the seeking after peace.

The faculties of human nature may be reduced unto four kinds; bodily
strength, experience, reason, passion. Taking the beginning of this following
doctrine from these, we will declare, in the first place, what manner of inclina-
tions men who are endued with these faculties bear towards each other, and
whether, and by what faculty they are born apt for society, and to preserve
themselves against mutual violence; then proceeding, we will shew what ad-
vice was necessary to be taken for this business, and what are the conditions of
society, or of human peace; that is to say, (changing the words only), what are
the fundamental laws of nature.
2. The greatest part of those men who have written aught concerning com-
monwealths, either suppose, or require us or beg of us to believe, that man is
a creature born fit* for society. The Greeks call him Wov nokLuxov; 6 and on
this foundation they so build up the doctrine of civil society, as if for the
preservation of peace, and the government of mankind, there were nothing
else necessary than that men should agree to make certain covenants and
conditions together, which themselves should then call laws. Which axiom,
though received by most, is yet certainly false; and an error proceeding from
our too slight contemplation of human nature. For they who shall more nar-
rowly look into the causes for which men come together, and delight in each
other's company, shall easily find that this happens not because naturally it

* Born fit.] Since we now see actually a constituted society among men, and none living out of it,
since we discern all desirous of congress and mutual correspondence, it may seem a wonderful
kind of stupidity, to lay in the very threshold of this doctrine such a stumbling block before the
reader, as to deny man to be born fit for society. Therefore I must more plainly say, that it is true
indeed, that to man by nature, or as man, that is, as soon as he is born, solitude is an enemy; for
infants have need of others to help them to live, and those of riper years to help them to live
well. Wherefore I deny not that men (even nature compelling) desire to come together. But
civil societies are not mere meetings, but bonds, to the making whereof faith and compacts are
necessary; the virtue whereof to children and fools, and the profit whereof to those who have
not yet tasted the miseries which accompany its defects, is altogether unknown; whence it
happens, that those, because they know not what society is, cannot enter into it; these, because
ignorant of the benefit it brings, care not for it. Manifest therefore it is, that all men, because
they are born in infancy, are born unapt for society. Many also, perhaps most men, either
through defect of mind or want of education, remain unfit during the whole course of their
lives; yet have they, infants as well as those of riper years, a human nature. Wherefore man is
made fit for society not by nature, but by education. Furthermore, although man were born in
such a condition as to desire it, it follows not, that he therefore were born fit to enter into it.
For it is one thing to desire, another to be in capacity fit for what we desire; for even they, who
through their pride, will not stoop to equal conditions, without which there can be no society,
do yet desire it.
 Philosophical Rudiments 117
could happen no otherwise, but by accident. For if by nature one man should
love another, that is, as man, there could no reason be returned why every man
should not equally love every man, as being equally man; or why he should
rather frequent those, whose society affords him honour or profit. We do not
therefore by nature seek society for its own sake, but that we may receive some
honour or profit from it; these we desire primarily, that secondarily.
The same is also collected by reason out of the definitions themselves of
will, good, honour, profitable. For when we voluntarily contract society, in all
manner of society we look after the object of the will, that is, that which every
one of those who gather together, propounds to himself for good. Now whatso-
ever seems good, is pleasant, and relates either to the senses, or the mind. But
all the mind's pleasure is either glory, (or to have a good opinion of one's
self), or refers to glory in the end; the rest are sensual, or conducing to
sensuality, which may be all comprehended under the word conveniences. All
society therefore is either for gain, or for glory; that is, not so much for love of
our fellows, as for the love of ourselves. But no society can be great or lasting,
which begins from vain glory. Because that glory is like honour; if all men
have it no man hath it, for they consist in comparison and precellence. 7
Neithrdoscyfeadvnwhitcuseofmyglrn
in myself; for every man must account himself, such as he can make himself
without the help of others. But though the benefits of this life may be much
furthered by mutual help; since yet those may be better attained to by domin-
ion than by the society of others, I hope no body will doubt, but that men
would much more greedily be carried by nature, if all fear were removed, to
obtain dominion, than to gain society. We must therefore resolve, that the
original of all great and lasting societies consisted not in the mutual good will
men had towards each other, but in the mutual fear they had of each other.
3. The ittiouLmutual fear consists partly in the natural equality of men,
opiftly in their mutual will of hurting: whence it comes to pass, that we can
neither expect from others, nor promise to ourselves the least security. For if
we look on men full-grown, and consider how brittle the frame of our human
body is, which perishing, all its strength, vigour, and wisdom itself perisheth
with it; and how easy a matter it is, even for the weakest man to kill the
,

strongest: there is no, reason why any man, trusting to his own strength, ,
uguauldueneeive himself made by nature above others. They are equals, whp
c40 49 equal things one against the other; but they who can do the greatest
,

things, namely, kill, can do equal things. All men therefore among themselves
are by nature equal; the inequality we now discern, hath its spring from the
civil law.
4. 4°A-If -in the state of =nature have a desireantkwill,to hurt, but not
proceeding from the same cause, neither equally to be condemned. For one
man, according to that natural equality which is among us, permits as much to
others as he assumes to himself; which is an argument of a temperate man,
and one that rightly values his power. Another, supposing himself above
others, will have a license to do what he lists, and challenges respect and
118 Thomas Hobbes

honour, as due to him before others; which is an argument of a fiery spirit.

This man's will to hurt ariseth from vain glory, and the false esteem he hath of
his own strength; the other's from the necessity of defending himself, his
liberty, and his goods, against this man's violence.
5. Furthermore, since the combat of wits is the fiercest, the greatest dis-
cords which are, must necessarily arise from this contention. For in this case it
is not only odious to contend against, but also not to consent. For not to
approve of what a man saith, is no less than tacitly to accuse him of an error in
that thing which he speaketh: as in very many things to dissent, is as much as if
you accounted him a fool whom you dissent from. Which may appear hence,
that there are no wars so sharply waged as between sects of the same religion,
and factions of the same commonweal, where the contestation is either con-
cerning doctrines or politic prudence. And since all the pleasure and jollity of
the mind consists in this, even to get some, with whom comparing, it may find
somewhat wherein to triumph and vaunt itself; it is impossible but men must
declare sometimes some mutual scorn and contempt, either by laughter, or by
words, or by gesture, or some sign or other; than which there is no greater
vexation of mind, and than from which there cannot possibly arise a greater
desire to do hurt.
6. Mit the most frequent reason why men desire to hurt each other, ariseth
hence, that many men at the same time have an appetite to the same thing;
which yet very often they can neither enjoy in common, nor yet divide it;
whence it follows that the strongest must have it, and who is strongest must be
decided by the sword.
7. Among so many dangers therefore, as the natural lusts of men do daily
threaten each other withal, to have a care of one's self is so far from being a
matter scornfully to be looked upon, that one has neither the power nor wish
to have done otherwise. For every man is desirous of what is good for him,
and shuns what is evil, but chiefly the chiefest of natural evils, which is death;
and this he doth by a certain impulsion of nature, no less than that whereby a
stone moves downward. It is therefore neither absurd nor reprehensible,
neither against the dictates of true reason, for a man to use all his endeavours
to preserve and defend his body and the members thereof from death and
sorrows. But that which is not contrary to right reason, that all men account to
be done justly, and with right. Neither by the word right is anything elie
signified, than that liberty which every man hath to make use of his natural
faculties according to right reasons Therefore the first foundation of natural
right is this, that every man as much as in him lies endeavour to protect his *
and members!
8. But because it is in vain for a man to have a right to the end, if the right to
the necessary means be denied him, it follows, that since every man hath a
right to preserve himself, he must also be allowed a right to use all the means,
and do all the actions, without which he cannot preserve himself
9. Now whether the means which he is about to use, and the action he is
performing, be necessary to the preservation of his life and members or not,
 Philosophical Rudiments 119
he himself, by the right of nature, must be judge. For if it be contrary to right
reason that I should judge of mine own peril, say, that another man is judge.
Why now, because he judgeth of what concerns me, by the same reason,
because we are equal by nature, will I judge also of things which do belong to
him. Therefore it agrees with right reason, that is, it is the right of nature that
I judge of his opinion, that is, whether it conduce to my preservation or not.
10..-,Nature hath given to every one a right to all; that's; it was lawful for
every man, in the bare state of nature, , or before such time as men had
engaged themselves by any covenants or bonds, to do what he would, and
against whom he thought fit, and to possess, use, and enjoy all what he would,
or could get. Now because whatsoever a man would, it therefore seems good
to him because he wills it, and either it really doth, or at least seems to him to
contribute towards his preservation, (but we have already allowed him to be
judge, in the foregoing article, whether it doth or not, insomuch as we are to
hold all for necessary whatsoever he shall esteem so), and by the 7th article it
appears that by the right of nature those things may be done, and must be
had, which necessarily conduce to the protection of life and members, it
follows, that in the state of nature, to have all, and do all, is lawful for all. And
this is that which is meant by that common saying, nature hath given all to all.
From whence we understand likewise, that in the state of nature profit is the
measure of right.
11. But it was the least benefit for men thus to have a common right to all
things. For the effects of this right are the same, almost, as if there had been
no right at all. For although any man might say of every thing, this is mine, yet
could he not enjoy it, by reason of his neighbour, who having equal right and
equal power, would pretend the same thing to be his.
12. If now to this natural proclivity of men, to hurt each other, which they
derive from their passions, but chiefly from a vain esteem of themselves, you
add, the right of all to all, wherewith one by right invades, the other by right
resists, and whence arise perpetual jealousies and suspicions on all hands, and
In the bare state of nature.] This is thus to be understood: what any man does in the bare state of
nature, is injurious to no man; not that in such a state he cannot offend God, or break the laws
of nature; for injustice against men presupposeth human laws, such as in the state of nature
there are none. Now the truth of this proposition thus conceived, is sufficiently demonstrated to
the mindful reader in the articles immediately foregoing; but because in certain eases the
difficulty of the conclusion makes us forget the premises, I will contract this argument, and
make it most evident to a single view. Every man hath right to protect himself, as appears by
the seventh article. The same man therefore hath a right to use all the means which necessarily
conduce to this end, by the eighth article. But those are the necessary means which he shall
judge to be such, by the ninth article. He therefore hath a right to make use of, and to do all
whatsoever he shall judge requisite for his preservation; wherefore by the judgment of him that
doth it, the thing done is either right Qr wrong, and therefore right. True it is therefore in the
bare state of nature, &c. But if any man pretend somewhat to tend necessarily to his preserva-
tion, which yet he himself doth not confidently believe so, he may offend against the laws of
nature, as in the third chapter of this book is more at large declared. It hath been objected by
some: if a son kill his father, doth he him no injury? I have answered, that a son cannot be
understood to be at any time in the state of nature, as being under the power and command of
them to whom he owes his protection as soon as ever he is born, namely, either his father's or
his mother's, or him that nourished him; as is demonstrated in the ninth chapter.
120 Thomas Hobbes

how hard a thing it is to provide against an enemy invading us with an inten-

tion to oppress and ruin, though he come with a small number, and no great
provision; it cannot be denied but that the natural state of men, before they
entered into society, was a mere war, and that not simply, but a war of all men
against all men. For what is WAR, but that same time in which the will of
contesting by force is fully declared, either by words or deeds? The time
remaining is termed PEACE.
13. But it is easily judged how disagreeable a thing to the preservation
either of mankind, or of each single man, a perpetual war is. But it is perpet-
ual in its own nature; because in regard of the equality of those that strive, it
cannot be ended by victory. For in this state the conqueror is subject to so
much danger, as it were to be accounted a miracle, if any, even the most
strong, should close up his life with many years and old age. They of America
are examples hereof, even in this present age: other nations have been in
former ages; which now indeed are become civil and flourishing, but were
then few, fierce, short-lived, poor, nasty, and deprived of all that pleasure and
beauty of life, which peace and society are wont to bring with them. Whoso-
ever therefore holds, that it had been best to have continued in that state in
which all things were lawful for all men, he contradicts himself. For every man
by natural necessity desires that which is good for him: nor is there any that
esteems a war of all against all, which necessarily adheres to such a state, to be
good for him. And so it happens, that through fear of each other we think it fit
to rid ourselves of this condition, and to get some fellows; that if there needs
must be war, it may not yet be against all men, nor without some helps.
14. Fellows are gotten either by constraint, or by consent; by constraint,
when after fight the conqueror makes the conquered serve him, either
through fear of death, or by laying fetters on him: by consent, when men enter
into society to help each other, both parties consenting without any con-
straint. But the conqueror may by right compel the conquered, or the strong-
est the weaker, (as a man in health may one that is sick, or he that is of riper
years a child), unless he will choose to die, to give caution of his future
obedience. For since the right of protecting ourselves according to our own
wills, proceeded from our danger, and our danger from our equality, it is more
consonant to reason, and more certain for our conservation, using the present
advantage to secure ourselves by taking caution, than when they shall be full
grown and strong, and got out of our power, to endeavour to recover that
power again by doubtful fight. And on the other side, nothing can be thought
more absurd, than by discharging whom you already have weak in your
power, to make him at once both an enemy and a strong one. From whence
we may understand likewise as a corollary in the natural state of men, that a
sure and irresistible power confers the right of dominion and ruling over those
who cannot resist; insomuch, as the right of all things that can be done,
adheres essentially and immediately unto this omnipotence hence arising.
15. Yet cannot men expect any lasting preservation, continuing thus in the
state of nature, that is, of war, by reason of that equality of power, and other
 Philosophical Rudiments 121
human faculties they are endued withal. Wherefore to seek peace, where
there is any hopes of obtaining it, and where there is none, to enquire out for
auxiliaries of war, is the dictate of right reason, that is, the law of nature; as
shall be showed in the next chapter.

Chapter II: Of the Law of Nature Concerning Contracts

1. That the law of nature is not an agreement of men, but the dictate of reason. 2.
That the fundamental law of nature, is to seek peace, where it may be had, and where
not, to defend ourselves. 3. That the first special law of nature, is not to retain our right
to all things. 4. What it is to quit our right: what to transfer it. 5. That in the transfer-
ring of our right, the will of him that receives it is necessarily required. 6. No words but
those of the present tense, transfer any right. 7. Words of the future, if there be some
other tokens to signify the will, are valid in the translation of right. 8. In matters of free
gift, our right passeth not from us through any words of the future. 9. The definition of
contract and compact. 10. In compacts, our right passeth from us through words of the
future. 11. Compacts of mutual faith, in the state of nature are of no effect and vain;
but not so in civil government. 12. That no man can make compacts with beasts, nor
yet with God without revelation. 13. Nor yet make a vow to God. 14. That compacts
oblige not beyond our utmost endeavour. 15. By what means we are freed from our
compacts. 16. That promises extorted through fear of death, in the state of nature are
valid. 17. A later compact contradicting the former, is invalid. 18. A compact not to
resist him that shall prejudice my body, is invalid. 19. A compact to accuse one's self, is
invalid. 20. The definition of swearing. 21. That swearing is to be conceived in that
form which he useth that takes the oath. 22. An oath superadds nothing to the obliga-
tion which is made by compact. 23. An oath ought not to be pressed, but where the
breach of compacts may be kept private, or cannot be punished but from God himself.

1. All authors agree not concerning the definition of the natural law, who
notwithstanding do very often make use of this term in their writings. The
method therefore wherein we begin from definitions and exclusion of all
equivocation, is only proper to them who leave no place for contrary disputes.
For the rest, if any man say that somewhat is done against the law of nature,
one proves it hence; because it was done against the general agreement of all
the most wise and learned nations: but this declares not who shall be the judge
of the wisdom and learning of all nations. Another hence, that it was done
against the general consent of all mankind; which definition is by no means to
be admitted. For then it were impossible for any but children and fools, to
offend against such a law; for sure, under the notion of mankind, they compre-
hend all men actually endued with reason. These therefore either do nought
against it, or if they do aught, it is without their own consent, and therefore
ought to be excused. But to receive the laws of nature from the consents of
them who oftener break than observe them, is in truth unreasonable. Besides,
men condemn the same things in others, which they approve in themselves;
on the other side, they publicly commend what they privately condemn; and
they deliver their opinions more by hearsay, than any speculation of their
own; and they accord more through hatred of some object, through fear,
hope, love, or some other perturbation of mind, than true reason. And there-
fore it comes to pass, that whole bodies of people often do those things with
122 Thomas Hobbes

the greatest unanimity and earnestness, which those writers most willingly
acknowledge to be against the law of nature. But since all do grant, that is
done by right, which is not done against reason, we ought to judge those
actions only wrong, which are repugnant to right reason, that is, which contra-
dict some certain truth collected by right reasoning from true principles. But
that which is done wrong, we say it is done against some law. Therefore true
reason is a certain law; which, since it is no less a part of human nature, than
any other faculty or affection of the mind, is also termed natural. Therefore
the law' of nature, that I may define it, is the dictate of right reasod,t conver-
sant about those things which are either to be done or omitted for the constant
preservation of life and members, as much as in us lies.
2. But the first and fundamental law of nature is, that peace is to be sought
after, where it may be found; and where not, there to provide ourselves for
helps of war. For we showed in the last article of the foregoing chapter, that
this precept is the dictate of right reason; but that the dictates of right reason
are natural laws, that hath been newly proved above. But this is the first,
because the rest are derived from this, and they direct the ways either to
peace or self-defence.
3. But one of the natural laws derived from this fundamental one is this: that
the right of all men to all things ought not to be retained; but that some certain
rights ought to be transferred or relinquished. Er if .
Ottiwidrettaitti*
'Eight -t9 all things, it must necessarily follow, s me y right migkkinya41e,
and others, by the same right, might defend themselves against them. For every
man by natural necessity endeavours to defend his body, and the things which
he judgeth necessary towards the protection of his body. Therefore wariivouita
follow. He therefore acts against the reason of peace, that is, against the law of
nature, whosoever he be, that doth not part with his right to all things.
4. But he is said to part with his right, who either absolutely renounceth it,
or conveys it to another. He absolutely renounceth it, who by some sufficient
sign or meet tokens declares, that he is willing that it shall never be lawful for
him to do that again, which before by right he might have done. But he
conveys it to another, who by some sufficient sign or meet tokens declares to
that other, that he is willing it should be unlawful for him to resist him, in
going about to do somewhat in the performance whereof he might before with
Right reason.] By right reason in the natural state of men, I understand not, as many do, an
infallible faculty, but the act of reasoning, that is, the peculiar and true ratiocination of every
man concerning those actions of his, which may either redound to the damage or benefit of his
neighbours. I call it peculiar, because although in a civil government the reason of the supreme,
that is, the civil law, is to be received by each single subject for the right; gOONtritsitttntrt thn
civit government, in which state no man can know right reason from fake, but by comparing it
with his own, every man's own reason is to be accounted, otikt rule of his own•actin
which are done at his own peril, but also for the measure ci ano er man's reasoii, in suc
things as do concern him. I call it true, that is, concluding from true principles rightly framed,
because that the whole breach of the 14ws of nature consists in the false reasoning, or rather
folly of those men, who see not those duties they are necessarily to perform towards others in
order to their own conservation. But the principles of right reasoning about such like duties,
are those which are explained in the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh articles of
the first chapter.
 Philosophical Rudiments 123
right have resisted him. But that the conveyance of right consists merely in not
resisting, is understood by this, that before it was conveyed, he to whom he
conveyed it, had even then also a right to all; whence he could not give any
new right; but the resisting right he had before he gave it, by reason whereof
the other could not freely enjoy his rights, is utterly abolished. Whosoever
therefore acquires some right in the natural state of men, he only procures
himself security and freedom from just molestation in the enjoyment of his
primitive right. As for example, if any man shall sell or give away a farm, he
utterly deprives himself only from all right to this farm; but he does not so
others also.
5. But in the conveyance of right, the will is requisite not only of him that
conveys, but of him also that accepts it. If either be wanting, the right re-
mains. For if I would have given what was mine to one who refused to accept
of it, I have not therefore either simply renounced my right, or conveyed it to
any man. For the cause which moved me to part with it to this man, was in him
only, not in others too.
6. But if there be no other token extant of our will either to quit or convey
our right, but only words; those words must either relate to the present or
tiswitast; for if ,they be of the future only, they convey nothing. For example,
he that speaks thus of the time to come, I will give to-morrow, declares openly
that yet he hath not given it. So that all this day his right remains, and abides
tomorrow too, unless in the interim he actually bestows it ftist4tuttatiWinine,
INNIONAGICIdetbkve partiedmitb it But if I shall speak of the time present,
suppose thus; I do give or have given you this to be received to-morrow: by
these words is signified that I have already given it, and that his right to
receive it to-morrow is conveyed to him by me to-day.
7. Nevertheless, although words alone are not sufficient tokens to declare
the will; if yet towords relating to the future there shall some other signs be
added, they may become as valid as if they had been spoken of the present. If
therefore, as by reason of those other signs, it appear that he that speaks of
the future, intends those words should be effectual toward the perfect transfer-
ring of his right, they ought to be valid. For the conveyance of right depends
not on words, but, as hath been instanced in the fourth article, on the declara-
tion of the will.
8. If any man convey some part of his right to another, and doth not this for
some certain benefit received, or for some compact, a conveyance in this kind
is called a gift or free donation. But in free donation, those words only oblige
us, which signify the present or the time past; for if they respect the future,
they oblige not as words, for the reason given in the foregoing article. It must
needs therefore be, that the obligation arise from some other tokens of the
will. But, because whatsoever is voluntarily done, is done for some good to
him that wills it; there can no other token be assigned of the will to give it,
except some benefit either already received, or to be acquired. But it is
supposed that no such benefit is acquired, nor any compact in being; for if so,
it would cease to be a free gift. It remains therefore, that a mutual good turn
124 Thomas Hobbes
without agreement be expected. But no sign can be given, that he, who used
future words toward him who was in no sort engaged to return a benefit,
should desire to have his words so understood as to oblige himself thereby.
Not k Stsitabte 40 reason, that_those.who ,etre inctilied tertkriVelFf4
others, should be obliged by every promise, testifying their present good
affection. And for this cause, a promiser in this kind must be understood to
have time to deliberate, and power to change that affection, as well as he to
whom he made that promise, may alter his desert. But he that deliberates, is
so far forth free, nor can be said to have already given. But if he promise
often, and yet give seldom, he ought to be condemned of levity. . . .
9. But the act of two, or more, mutually conveying their rights, is called a
contract. But in every contract, either both parties instantly perform what
they contract for, insomuch as there is no trust had from either to other; or the
one performs, the other is trusted; or neither perform. Where both parties
perform presently, there the contract is ended as soon as it is performed. But
where there is credit given, either to one or both, there the party trusted
promiseth after-performance; and this kind of promise is called a covenant.
10. But the covenant made by the party trusted with him who hath already
performed, although the promise be made by words pointing at the future, doth
no less transfer the right of future time, than if it had been made by words
signifying the present or time past. For the other's performance is a most
manifest sign that he so understood the speech of him whom he trusted, as that
he would certainly make performance also at the appointed time; and by this
sign the party trusted knew himself to be thus understood; which because he
hindered not, was an evident token of his will to perform. The promises there-
fore which are made for some benefit received, which are also covenants, are
tokens of the will; that is, as in the foregoing section hath been declared, of the
last act of deliberating, whereby the liberty of non-performance is abolished,
and by consequence are obligatory. For where liberty ceaseth, there beginneth
obligation.
11. But the covenants which are made in contract of mutual trust, neither
party performing out of hand, if there arisel a just suspicion in either of them,
are in the state of nature invalid. For he that first performs, by reason of the
wicked disposition of the greatest part of men studying their own advantage
either by right or wrong, exposeth himself to the perverse will of him with
whom he hath contracted. For it suits not with reason, that any man should
perform first, if it be not likely that the other will make good his promise
after; which, whether it be probable or not, he that doubts it must be judge of,
as hath been showed in the foregoing chapter in the ninth article. Thus, I say,
things stand in the state of nature. But in a civil state, when there is a power
which can compel both parties, he that hath contracted to perform first, must

I Arise.] For, except there appear some new cause of fear, either from somewhat done, or some
other token of the will not to perform from the other part, it cannot be judged to be a just fear;
for the cause which was not sufficient to keep him from making compact, must not suffice to
authorize the breach of it, being made.
 Philosophical Rudiments
first perform; because, that since the other may be compelled, t
which made him fear the other's non-performance, ceaseth.
12. But from this reason, that in all free gifts and compacts there is a..
acceptance of the conveyance of right required: it follows that no man can
compact with him who doth not declare his acceptance. And therefore we
cannot compact with beasts, neither can we give or take from them any
manner of right, by reason of their want of speech and understanding. Neither
can any man covenant with God, or be obliged to him by vow; except so far
forth as it appears to him by Holy Scriptures, that he hath substituted certain
men who have authority to accept of such-like vows and covenants, as being in
God's stead.
13. Those therefore do vow in vain, who are in the state of nature, where
they are not tied by any civil law, except, by most certain revelation, the will
of God to accept their vow or pact, be made known to them. For if what they
vow be contrary to the law of nature, they are not tied by their vow; for no
man is tied to perform an unlawful act. But if what is vowed, be commanded
by some law of nature, it is not their vow, but the law itself which ties them.
But if he were free, before his vow, either to do it or not do it, his liberty
remains; because that the openly declared will of the obliger is requisite to
make an obligation by vow; which, in the case propounded, is supposed not to
be. Now I call him the obliger, to whom any one is tied; and the obliged, him
who is tied.
14. Covenants are made of such things only as fall under our deliberation.
For it can be no covenant without the will of the contractor. But the will is the
last act of him who deliberates; 8 wherefore they only concern things possible
and to come. No man, therefore, by his compact obligeth himself to an impos-
sibility. But yet, though we often covenant to do such things as then seemed
possible when we promised them, which yet afterward appear to be impossi-
ble, are we not therefore freed from all obligation. The reason whereof is,
that he who promiseth a future, in certainty receives a present benefit, on
condition that he return another for it. For his will, who performs the present
benefit, hath simply before it for its object a certain good, equally valuable
with the thing promised; but the thing itself not simply, but with condition if it
could be done. But if it should so happen, that even this should prove impossi-
ble, why then he must perform as much as he can. Covenants, therefore,
oblige us not to perform just the thing itself covenanted for, but our utmost
endeavour; for this only is, the things themselves are not in our power.
15. We are freed from covenents two ways, either by performing, or by
being forgiven. By performing, for beyond that we obliged not ourselves. By
being forgiven, because he whom we obliged ourselves to, by forgiving is
conceived to return us that right which we passed over to him. For forgiving
implies giving, that is, by the fourth article of this chapter, a conveyance of
right to him to whom the gift is made.
16. It is a usual question, whether compacts extorted from us through fear,
do oblige or not. For example, if, to redeem my life from the power of a
i26 Thomas Hobbes
robber, I promise to pay him 1001. next day, and that I will do no act whereby
to apprehend and bring him to justice: whether I am tied to keep promise or
not. But though such a promise must sometimes be judged to be of no effect,
yet it is not to be accounted so because it proceedeth from fear. For then it
would follow, that those promises which reduced men to a civil life, and by
which laws were made, might likewise be of none effect; (for it proceeds from
fear of mutual slaughter, that one man submits himself to the dominion of
another); and he should play the fool finely, who should trust his captive
covenanting with the price of his redemption. It holds universally true, that
promises do oblige, when there is some benefit received, and when the prom-
ise, and the thing promised, be lawful. But it is lawful, for the redemption of
my life, both to promise and to give what I will of mine own to any man, even
to a thief. We are obliged, therefore, by promises proceeding from fear,
except the civil law forbid them; by virtue whereof, that which is promised
becomes unlawful.
17. Whosoever shall contract with one to do or omit somewhat, and shall
after covenant the contrary with another, he maketh not the former, but the
latter contract unlawful. For he hath no longer right to do or to omit aught,
who by former contracts hath conveyed it to another. Wherefore he can
convey no right by latter contracts, and what is promised is promised without
right. He is therefore tied only to his first contract, to break which is unlawful.
18. No man is obliged by any contracts whatsoever not to resist him who
shall offer to kill, wound, or any other way hurt his body. For there is in every
man a certain high degree of fear, through which he apprehends that evil
which is done to him to be the greatest; and therefore by natural necessity he
shuns it all he can, and it is supposed he can do no otherwise. When a man is
arrived to this degree of fear, we cannot expect but he will provide for himself
either by flight or fight. Since therefore no man is tied to impossibilities, they
who are threatened either with death, (which is the greatest evil to nature), or
wounds, or some other bodily hurts, and are not stout enough to bear them,
are not obliged to endure them. Furthermore, he that is tied by contract is
trusted; for faith only is the bond of contracts; but they who are brought to
punishment, either capital or more gentle, are fettered or strongly guarded;
which is a most certain sign that they seemed not sufficiently bound from non-
resistance by their contracts. It is one thing, if I promise thus: if I do it not at
the day appointed, kill me. Another thing, if thus: if I do it not, though you
should offer to kill me, I will not resist. All men, if need be, contract the first
way, and there is need sometimes. This second way, none; neither is it ever
needful. For in the mere state of nature, if you have a mind to kill, that state
itself affords you a right; insomuch as you need not first trust him, if for
breach of trust you will afterwards kill him. But in a civil state, where the right
of life and death and of all corporal punishment is with the supreme, 9 that
same right of killing cannot be granted to any private person. Neither need the
supreme himself contract with any man patiently to yield to his punishment;
but only this, that no man offer to defend others from him. If in the state of
 Philosophical Rudiments 127
nature, as between two realms, there should a contract be made on condition
of killing if it were not performed, we must presuppose another contract of
not killing before the appointed day. Wherefore on that day, if there be no
performance, the right of war returns, that is a hostile state, in which all things
are lawful, and therefore resistance also. Lastly, by the contract of not resist-
ing, we are obliged, of two evils to make choice of that which seems the
greater. For certain death is a greater evil than fighting. But of two evils it is
impossible not to choose the least. By such a compact, therefore, we should
be tied to impossibilities; which is contrary to the very nature of compacts.
19. Likewise no man is tied by any compacts whatsoever to accuse himself,
or any other, by whose damage he is like to procure himself a bitter life.
Wherefore neither is a father obliged to bear witness against his son, nor a
husband against his wife, nor a son against his father, nor any man against any
one by whose means he hath his subsistence; for in vain is that testimony
which is presumed to be corrupted from nature. But although no man be tied
to accuse himself by any compact, yet in a public trial he may by torture be
forced to make answer. But such answers are no testimony of the fact, but
helps for the searching out of truth; so that whether the party tortured his
answer be true or false, or whether he answer not at all, whatsoever he doth,
he doth it by right.

Chapter III: Of the Other Laws of Nature

1. The second law of nature, is to perform contracts. 2. That trust is to be held with
all men without exception. 3. What injury is. zkiniury cut', be done to;none but those,
onitis,u*Rin we eotitract. 5. The distinction of justice into that of men, and that of
agaimmoommewaimpammem
actions. 6. The distinction of commutative and distributive justice examined. 73010
. 8. The third law of nature, concerning
ingratitude. 9. The fourth law of nature, that every man render himself useful. 10. The
fifth law, of mercy. 11. The sixth law, that punishments regard the future only. 12. The
seventh law, against reproach. 13. The eighth law, against pride. 14. The ninth law, of
humility. 15. The tenth, of equity, or against acceptance of persons. 16. The eleventh,
of things to be had in common. 17. The twelfth, of things to be divided by lot. 18. The
thirteenth, of birthright and first possession. 19. The fourteenth, of the safeguard of
them who are mediators for peace. 20. The fifteenth, of constituting an umpire. 21.
The sixteenth, that no man is judge in his own cause. 22. The seventeenth, that
umpires must be without all hope of reward from those whose cause is to be judged.
23. The eighteenth, of witnesses. 24. The nineteenth, that there can no contract be
made with the umpire. 25. The twentieth, against gluttony, and all such things as
hinder the use of reason. 26. The rule by which we may presently know, whether what
we are doing be against the law of nature or not. 27. The laws of nature oblige only in
the court of conscience. 28. The laws of nature are sometimes broke by doing things
agreeable to those laws. 29. The laws of nature are unchangeable. 30. Whosoever
endeavours to fulfil the laws of nature, is a just man. 31. The natural and moral law are
one. 32. How it comes to pass, that what hath been said of the laws of nature, is not the
same with what philosophers have delivered concerning the virtues. 33. The law of
nature is not properly a law, but as it is delivered in Holy Writ.

1. Another of the laws of nature is, to perform contracts, or to keep trust.

For it hath been showed in the foregoing chapter, that the law of nature
 128 Thomas Hobbes
commands every man, as a thing necessary, to obtain peace, to convey certain
rights from each to other; and that this, as often as it shall happen to be done,
is called a contract. But this is so far forth only conducible to peace, as we
shall perform ourselves what we contract with others shall be done or omitted;
and in vain would contacts be made, unless we stood to them. Because there-
fore to stand to our covenants, or to keep faith, is a thing necessary for the
obtaining of peace; it will prove, by the second article of the second chapter,
to be a precept of the natural law.
2. Neither is there in this matter any exception of the persons with whom we
contract; as if they keep no faith with others, or hold that none ought to be
kept, or are guilty of any other kind of vice. For he that contracts, in that he
doth contract, denies that action to be in vain; and it is against reason for a
knowing man to do a thing in vain: Ippommilialikriethia WOW tri tee*
thinking so he affirms the contract to be made in wen. He therefore who
contracts with one with whom he thinks he is not bound to keep faith, he doth
at once think a contract to be a thing done in vain, and not in vain; which is
absurd. AM& therefo re we *Mt hoid ItItSt With ith
either there must be a declared war, or *
Migatt4illetirlitilit is,
i/eaCe.
3Yrberbroaking of a bargain, as also the taking back of a gift, (which ever
consists in some action or omission), is called an injury. But that action or
omission is called unjust; insomuch as an injury, and an unjust action or
omission, signify the same thing, and both are the same with breach of con-
tract and trust. And it seerns the word injury came to be given to any actionos
emission, because they were without rights he that acted or omitted, having
before conveyed his right to some other. And there is some likeness between_
that which in the common course of life we call injury, and that which in the
Schools is usually called absurd. For even as he who by arguments is driven to
deny the assertion which he first maintained, is said to be brought to an
absurdity; in like manner, he who through weakness of mind does or omits
that which before he had by contract promised not to do or omit, commits an
injury, and falls into no less contradiction than he who in the Schools is
reduced to an absurdity. For by contracting for some future action, he wills it
done; by not doing it, he wills it not done: sidia****awiiiii thinvitomandfieto
fclone at the same time, which is a contradiction! An injury therefore is a kind
of absurdity in conversation, as an absurdity is a kind of injury in disputation.
4. From these grounds it follows, that an injury can be done to no mania but
Injury can be done to no man, &c.] The word injustice relates to some law: injury, to some
person, as well as some law. For what is unjust, is unjust to all; but there may an injury be done,
and yet not against me, nor thee, but some other; and sometimes against no private person, but
the magistrate only; sometimes also neither against the magistrate, nor any private man, but
only against God. For through contract and conveyance of right, we say, that an injury is done
against this or that man. Hence it is, which we see in all kind of government, that what private
men contract between themselves by word or writing, is released again at the will of the obliger.
But those mischiefs which are done against the laws of the land, as theft, homicide, and the
like, are punished, not as he wills to whom the hurt is done, but according to the will of the
magistrate; that is, the constituted laws.
 Philosophical Rudiments 129
him with whom we enter covenant, or to whom somewhat is made over by
deed of gift, or to whom somewhat is promised by way of bargain. And
therefore damaging and injuring are often disjoined. For if a master command
his servant, who hath promised to obey him, to pay a sum of money, or carry
some present to a third man; the servant, if he do it not, hath indeed damaged
this third party, but he injured his master only.liwidso4n* civil government, iff
offtlid another with whom he hath made no contract, he damages
kin! to whom the evil is done; Not.lao injures none but him to whom the/0596er
N9fogovetritifiritIZTOngs. For if he who receives the hurt should expostulate the
mischief, he that did it should answer thus: what art thou to me; why should I
rather do according to your than mine own will, since I do not hinder but you
may do your own, and not my mind? In which speech, where there hath no
manner of pre-contract passed, I see not, I confess, what is reprehensible.
5. These words, just and unjust, as also justice and injustice, are equivocal;
for they signify one thing when they are attributed to persons, another when
to actions. When they are attributed to actions, just signifies as much as what
is done with right, and unjust, as what is done with injury. He who hath done
some just thing, is not therefore said to be a just person, but guiltless; and he
that hath done some unjust thing, we do not therefore say he is an unjust, but
guilty man. But when the words are applied to persons, to be just signifies as
much as to be delighted in just dealing, to study how to do righteousness, or to
endeavour in all things to do that which is just; and to be unjust is to neglect
righteous dealing, or to think it is to be measured not according to my con-
tract, but some present benefit. So as the justice or injustice of the mind, the
intention, or the man, is one thing, that of an action or omission another; and
innumerable actions of a just man may be unjust, and of an unjust man, just.
But that man is to be accounted just, who doth just things because the law
commands it, unjust things only by reason of his infirmity; and he is properly
said to be unjust, who doth righteousness for fear of the punishment annexed
unto the law, and unrighteousness by reason of the iniquity of his mind.
7. a* so 0101,saying, voienti non fit injuria, the willing man receives no
Awl; yet the truth of it may be derived from our principles. For grant that a
man be willing that that should be done which he conceives to be an injury to
him; why then, that is done by his will, which by contract was not lawful to be
done. But he being willing that should be done which was not lawful by
contract, the contract itself (by the fifteenth article of the foregoing chapter)
becomes void. The right therefore of doing it returns; therefore it is done by
right; wherefore it is no injury.
8. The third precept of the natural law is, Wriit you suffer Met Mm to' be the
vtagatioP you, who, out of the confidenee he had in you, first did you a good
orthatyati.occept not agift4totavith a mind to endeavour that the giver
cif AMMO itatocatsion wrepetithho of his gift. For without this, he should
act without reason, that would confer a benefit where he sees it would be lost;
and by this means all beneficence and trust, together with all kind of benevo-
lence, would be taken from among men, neither would there be aught of
130 Thomas Hobbes
mutual assistance among them, nor any commencement of gaining grace and
favour; 11,ttleaboit whereof the state of war would necessarily remain, youtrary
to the fundamental law of nature. But because the breach of this law is not a
breach of trust or contract, (for we suppose no contracts to have passed
among them), therefore is it not usually termed an injury; but because good
turns and thanks have a mutual eye to each other, it is called ingratitude.
9. The fourth precept of nature is, that every man render himself useful unto
others: which that we may rightly understand, we must remember that there is
in men a diversity of dispositions to enter into society, arising from the diver-
sity of their affections, not unlike that which is found in stones, brought
together in the building, by reason of the diversity of their matter and figure.
For as a stone, which in regard of its sharp and angular form takes up more
room from other stones than it fills up itself, neither because of the hardness
of its matter can it well be pressed together, or easily cut, and would hinder
the building from being fitly compacted, is cast away, as not fit for use: so a
man, for the harshness of his disposition in retaining superfluities for himself,
and detaining of necessaries from others, and being incorrigible by reason of
the stubbornness of his affections, is commonly said to be useless and trouble-
some unto others. Now, because each one not by right only, but even by
natural necessity, is supposed with all his main might to intend the procure-
ment of those things which are necessary to his own preservation; if any man
will contend on the other side for superfluities, by his default there will arise a
war; because that on him alone there lay no necessity of contending; he
therefore acts against the fundamental law of nature. Whence it follows,
(which we were to show), that it is a precept of nature, that every man
accommodate himself to others. But he who breaks this law may be called
useless and troublesome. Yet Cicero opposeth inhumanity to this usefulness,
as having regard to this very law.
10. The fifth precept of the law of nature is, that we must forgive him who
repents and asks pardon for what is past, having first taken caution for the time
to come. The pardon of what is past, or the remission of an offence, is nothing
else but the granting of peace to him that asketh it, after he hath warred
against us, and now is become penitent. But peace granted to him that repents
not, that is, to him that retains a hostile mind, or that gives not caution for the
future, that is, seeks not peace, but opportunity; is not properly peace, but
fear, and therefore is not commanded by nature. Now to him that will not
pardon the penitent and that gives future caution, peace itself it seems is not
pleasing: which is contrary to the natural law.
11.The sixth precept of the natural law is, that in revenge and punishments
we must have our eye not at the evil past, but the future good: that is, it is not
lawful to inflict punishment for any other end, but that the offender may be
corrected, or that others warned by his punishment may become better. But
this is confirmed chiefly from hence, that each man is bound by the law of
nature to forgive one another, provided he give caution for the future, as hath
been showed in the foregoing article. Furthermore, because revenge, if the
 Philosophical Rudiments 131
time past be only considered, is nothing else but a certain triumph and glory of
mind, which points at no end; for it contemplates only what is past, but the
end is a thing to come; but that which is directed to no end, is vain: that
revenge therefore which regards not the future, proceeds from vain glory, and
is therefore without reason. Sin to hurt another without reason, introduces a
Ater, and is contrary to the fundamental law of nature. It is therefore a precept
of the law of nature, that in revenge we look not backwards, but forward.
Now the breach of this law is commonly called cruelty.
12. But because all signs of hatred and contempt provoke most of all to
brawling and fighting, insomuch as most men would rather lose their lives
(that I say not, their peace) than suffer slander; it follows in the seventh place,
that it is prescribed by the law of nature, that no man, either by deeds or
words, countenance or laughter, do declare himself to hate or scorn another.
The breach of which law is called reproach. But although nothing be more
frequent than the scoffs and jeers of the powerful against the weak, and
namely, of judges against guilty persons, which neither relate to the offence of
the guilty, nor the duty of the judges; yet these kind of men do act against the
law of nature, and are to be esteemed for contumelious.
13. The question whether of two men be the more worthy, belongs not to
the natural, but civil state. For it hath been showed before (Chap. 1. Art. 3)
Oat all men by nature are equal; And therefore the inequality which now is,
suppose from riches, power, nobility of kindred, is come from the civil law. I
know that Aristotle, in his first book of Politics, affirms as a foundation of the
whole political science, that some men by nature are made worthy to com-
mand, others only to serve; as if lord and servant were distinguished not by
consent of men, but by an aptness, that is, a certain kind of natural knowledge
or ignorance. Which foundation is not only against reason, (as but now hath
been showed), but also against experience. For neither almost is any man so
dull of understanding as not to judge it better to be ruled by himself, than to
yield himself to the government of another; neither if the wiser and stronger
do contest, have these always or often the upper hand of those. Whether
therefore men be equal by nature, the equality is to be acknowledged; or
whether unequal, because they are like to contest for dominion, it is necessary
for the obtaining of peace, that they be esteemed as equal; and therefore it is in
the eighth place a precept of the law of nature, that every man be accounted by
nature equal to another; the contrary to which law is pride.
26. Perhaps some man, who sees all these precepts of nature derived by a
certain artifice from the single dictate of reason advising us to look to the
preservation and safeguard of ourselves, will say that the deduction of these
laws is so hard, that it is not to be expected they will be vulgarly known, and
therefore neither will they prove obliging: for laws, if they be not known,
oblige not, nay indeed, are not laws. To this I answer, it is true, that hope,
fear, anger, ambition, covetousness, vain glory, and other perturbations of
mind, do hinder a man, so as he cannot attain to the knowledge of these laws
whilst those passions prevail in him: but there is no man who is not sometimes
132 Thomas Hobbes

in a quiet mind. At that time therefore there is nothing easier for him to know,
though he be never so rude and unlearned, than this only rule, that when he
doubts whether what he is now doing to another may be done by the law of
nature or not, he conceive himself to be in that other's stead. Here instantly
those perturbations which persuaded him to the fact, being now cast into the
other scale, dissuade him as much. And this rule is not only easy, but is
anciently celebrated in these words, quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris: do
not that to others, you would not have done to yourself
27. But because most men, by reason of their perverse desire of present
profit, are very unapt to observe these laws, although acknowledged by them;
if perhaps some, more humble than the rest, should exercise that equity and
usefulness which reason dictates, the others not practising the same, surely
they would not follow reason in so doing: nor would they hereby procure
themselves peace, but a more certain quick destruction, and the keepers of
the law become a mere prey to the breakers of it. It is not therefore to be
imagined, that by nature, that is, by reason, men are obliged to the exercise of
all these laws* in that state of men wherein they are not practised by others.
We are obliged yet, in the interim, to a readiness of mind to observe them,
whensoever their observation shall seem to conduce to the end for which they
were ordained. We must therefore conclude, that the law of nature doth
always and everywhere oblige in the internal court, or that of conscience; but
not always in the external court, but then only when it may be done with
safety.
28. But the laws which oblige conscience, may be broken by an act not only
contrary to them, but also agreeable with them; if so be that he who does it,
be of another opinion. For though the act itself be answerable to the laws, yet
his conscience is against them.
29. The laws of nature are immutable and eternal: what they forbid, can
never be lawful; what they command, can never be unlawful. For pride,
ingratitude, breach of contracts (or injury), inhumanity, contumely, will never
be lawful, nor the contrary virtues to these ever unlawful, as we take them for
dispositions of the mind, that is, as they are considered in the court of con-
science, where only they oblige and are laws. Yet actions may be so diversified
by circumstances and the civil law, that what is done with equity at one time, is
guilty of iniquity at another; and what suits with reason at one time, is con-
* The exercise of all these laws.] Nay, among these laws some things there are, the omission
whereof, provided it be done for peace or self-preservation, seems rather to be the fulfilling,
than breach of the natural law. For he that doth all things against those that do all things, and
plunders plunderers, doth equity. But on the contrary, to do that which in peace is a handsome
action, and becoming an honest man, is dejectedness and poorness of spirit, and a betraying of
one's self, in the time of war. But there are certain natural laws, whose exercise ceaseth not
even in the time of war itself. For I cannot understand what drunkenness or cruelty, that is,
revenge which respects not the future good, can advance toward peace, or the preservation of
any man. Briefly, in the state of nature, what is just and unjust, is not to be esteemed by the
actions but by the counsel and conscience of the actor. That which is done out of necessity, out
of endeavour for peace, for the preservation of ourselves, is done with right, otherwise every
damage done to a man would be a breach of the natural law, and an injury against God.
 Philosophical Rudiments 133
trary to it another. Yet reason is still the same, and changeth not her end,
which is peace and defence, nor the means to attain them, to wit, those virtues
of the mind which we have declared above, and which cannot be abrogated by
any custom or law whatsoever.
30. It is evident by what hath hitherto been said, how easily the laws of
nature are to be observed, because they require the endeavour only, (but that
must be true and constant); which whoso shall perform, we may rightly call
him just. For he who tends to this with his whole might, namely, that his
actions be squared according to the precepts of nature, he shows clearly that
he hath a mind to fulfil all those laws; which is all we are obliged to by rational
nature. Now he that hath done all he is obliged to, is a just man.
31. All writers do agree, that the natural law is the same with the moral. Let
us see wherefore this is true. We must know, therefore, that good and evil are
names given to things to signify the inclination or aversion of them, by whom
they were given. But the inclinations of men are diverse, according to their
diverse constitutions, customs, opinions; as we may see in those things we
apprehend by sense, as by tasting, touching, smelling; but much more in those
which pertain to the common actions of life, where what this man commends,
that is to say, calls good, the other undervalues, as being evil. Nay, very often
the same man at diverse times praises and dispraises the same thing. Whilst
thus they do, necessary it is there should be discord and strife. They are,
therefore, so long in the state of war, as by reason of the diversity of the
present appetite, they mete good and evil by diverse measures. All men easily
acknowledge this state, as long as they are in it, to be evil, and by conse-
quence that peace is good. They therefore who could not agree concerning a
present, do agree concerning a future good; which indeed is a work of reason;
for things present are obvious to the sense, things to come to our reason only.
Reason declaring peace to be good, it follows by the same reason, that all the
necessary means to peace be good also; and therefore that modesty, equity,
trust, humanity, mercy, (which we have demonstrated to be necessary to
peace), are good manners or habits, that is, virtues. Vile law therefore, in the
mans to peace, commands also good manners, or the practice of virtue; and
therefore it is called moral.
32. But because men cannot put off this same irrational appetite, whereby
they greedily prefer the present good (to which, by strict consequence, many
unforseen evils do adhere) before the future; it happens, that though all men
do agree in the commendation of the foresaid virtues, yet they disagree still
concerning their nature, to wit, in what each of them doth consist. For as oft
as another's good action displeaseth any man, that action hath the name given
of some neighbouring vice; likewise the bad actions which please them, are
ever intituled to some virtue. Whence it comes to pass that the same action is
praised by these, and called virtue, and dispraised by those, and termed vice.
Neither is there as yet any remedy found by philosophers for this matter. For
since they could not observe the goodness of actions to consist in this, that it
was in order to peace, and the evil in this, that it related to discord, they built
134 Thomas Hobbes

a moral philosophy wholly estranged from the moral law, and unconstant to
itself. For they would have the nature of virtues seated in a certain kind of
mediocrity between two extremes, and the vices in the extremes themselves;
which is apparently false. For to dare is commended, and, under the name of
fortitude is taken for a virtue, although it be an extreme, if the cause be
approved. Also the quantity of a thing given, whether it be great or little, or
between both, makes not liberality, but the cause of giving it. Neither is it
injustice, if I give any man more of what is mine own than I owe him. The laws
of nature, therefore, are the sum of moral philosophy; whereof I have only
delivered such precepts in this place, as appertain to the preservation of
ourselves against those dangers which arise from discord. But there are other
precepts of rational nature, from whence spring other virtues; for temperance,
also, is a precept of reason, because intemperance tends to sickness and
death. And so fortitude too, that is, that same faculty of resisting stoutly in
present dangers, and which are more hardly declined than overcome; because
it is a means tending to the preservation of him that resists.
33. But those which we call the laws of nature, (since they are nothing else
but certain conclusions, understood by reason, of things to be done and
omitted; but a law, to speak properly and accurately, is the speech of him who
by right commands somewhat to others to be done or omitted), are not in
propriety of speech laws, as they proceed from nature. Yet, as they are deliv-
ered by God in holy Scriptures, as we shall see in the chapter following, they
are most properly called by the name of laws. For the sacred Scripture is the
speech of God commanding over all things by greatest right.

Chapter IV: That the Law of Nature Is a Divine Law

1. The same law which is natural and moral, is also wont to be called divine,
nor undeservedly; as well because reason, which is the law of nature, is given
by God to every man for the rule of his actions; as because the precepts of
living which are thence derived, are the same with those which have been
delivered from the divine Majesty for the laws of his heavenly kingdom, by
our Lord Jesus Christ, and his holy prophets and apostles. What therefore by
reasoning we have understood above concerning the law of nature, we will
endeavour to confirm the same in this chapter by holy writ.

Chapter V: Of the Causes and First Beginning of Civil Government

1. It is of itself manifest, that the actions of men proceed from the will, and
the will from hope and fear, insomuch as when they shall see a greater good,
or less evil, likely to happen to them by the breach, than observation of the
laws, they will wittingly violate them. The hope therefore which each man
hath of his security and self-preservation, consists in this, that by force or craft
he may disappoint his neighbour, either openly, or by stratagem. Whence we
may understand, that the natural laws, though well understood, do not in-
stantly secure any man in their practice, and consequently, that as long as
there is no caution had from the invasion of others, ‘11%i‘remains to every
 Philosophical Rudiments 135

Ira that same primitive right of self-defence, by.such means as either he can
or will make use of, that is, a right to all things, or the right of war. And it is
sufficient for the fulfilling of the natural law, that a man be prepared in mind
to embrace peace when it may be had.
3. Since therefore the exercise of the natural law is necessary for the preser-
vation of peace, and that for the exercise of the natural law security is no less
necessary, it is worth the considering what that is which affords such a security.
For this matter nothing else can be imagined, but that each man provide
himself of such meet helps, as the invasion of one on the other may be
rendered so dangerous, as either of them may think it better to refrain, than
to meddle. But first, it is plain, that the consent of two or three cannot make
good such a security; because that the addition but of one, or some few on the
other side, is sufficient to make the victory undoubtedly sure, and heartens
the enemy to attack us. It is therefore necessary, to the end the security sought
for may be obtained, that the number of them who conspire in a mutual
assistance be so great, that the accession of some few to the enemy's party
may not prove to them a matter of moment sufficient to assure the victory.
4. Furthermore, how great soever the number of them is who meet on self-
defence, if yet they agree not among themselves of some excellent means
whereby to compass this, but every man after his own manner shall make use
of his endeavours, nothing will be done. . . .
6. Since therefore the conspiring of many wills to the same end doth not
suffice to preserve peace, and to make a lasting defence, it is requisite that, in
those necessary matters which concern peace and self-defence, there be but
one will of all men. But this cannot be done, unless every man will so subject
his will to some other one, to wit, either man or council, that whatsoever his
will is in those things which are necessary to the common peace, it be received
for the wills of all men in general, and of every one in particular. Now the
gathering together of many men who deliberate of what is to be done, or not
to be done, for the common good of all men, is that which I call a council.
7. This submission of the wills of all those men to the will of one man, or
one council, is then made, when each one of them obligeth himself by contract
to every one of the rest, not to resist the will of that one man, or council, to
which he hath submitted himself; that is, that he refuse him not the use of his
wealth and strength against any others whatsoever (for he is supposed still to
retain a right of defending himself against violence) and this is called union.
But we understand that to be the will of the council, which is the will of the
major part of those men of whom the council consists.
8. But though the will itself be not voluntary, but only the beginning of
voluntary actions (for we will not to will, but to act) and therefore falls least of
all under deliberation and compact; yet he who submits his will to the will of
another, conveys to that other the right of his strength and faculties; insomuch
as when the rest have done the same, he to whom they have submitted hath so
much power, as by the terror of it he can conform the wills of particular men
unto unity and concord.
9. Now union thus made is called a city, or civil society. . . .
136 Thomas Hobbes

Editor's Notes
1. The traditional definition, first given by the Roman jurist Ulpian in the second
century c.E.
2. To impropriate is to take as one's own property.
3. God's general rule or regime.
4. "Civil science," that is, the true science of government.
5. God.
6. Political animal.
7. Superior excellence or precedence.
8. In Leviathan, chap. 6, Hobbes stated:
"When in the mind of man, appetites, and aversions, hopes, and fears, concern-
ing one and the same thing, arise alternately; and divers good and evil conse-
quences of the doing, or omitting the thing propounded, come successively into
our thoughts; so that sometimes we have an appetite to it; sometimes an aversion
from it; sometimes hope to be able to do it; sometimes despair, or fear to attempt
it; the whole sum of desires, aversions, hopes and fears continued till the thing be
either done, or thought impossible, is that we call deliberation. . . .
"In deliberation, the last appetite, or aversion, immediately adhering to
the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call the will; the act, not the
faculty, of willing. And beasts that have deliberation, must necessarily also have
will. . . ."
9. That is, the supreme civil power, the sovereign.

Further Reading
The only complete edition of Hobbes's works is that compiled by Sir William Moles-
worth, dated 1839-45, in which the English works take up eleven volumes and the
Latin five. Howard Warrender edited both De cive and its English translation, Philo-
sophical Rudiments Concerning Government and Society (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1983), for the Clarendon Edition of Hobbes's works, but Warrender's death has halted
that edition at least for the near future. The reader will find Warrender's "Introduc-
tion" to De cive most helpful.
The secondary literature on Hobbes is enormous and shows no signs of ceasing to
grow. The best brief introduction is by Richard Tuck, Hobbes (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1989), which includes a discussion of various interpretations of Hobbes.
Both Richard Peters, Hobbes (London: Penguin, 1956), and J. W. N. Watkins,
Hobbes's System of Ideas (London: Hutchinson University Library, 1965), give good
general introductions to Hobbes's philosophy, including his views of meaning, method,
and knowledge. In Keith Brown, ed., Hobbes Studies (Oxford: Blackwell Publisher,
1965), the reader will find a number of useful essays on different aspects of Hobbes's
views and their historical setting. Another collection of valuable essays is by G. A. J.
Rogers and Alan Ryan, Perspectives on Thomas Hobbes (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1989).
There are several systematic studies, among which the most useful are David Gau-
thier, The Logic of Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1969); Jean Hampton,
Hobbes and the Social Contract Tradition (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1986); and Gregory S. Kavka, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory (Prince-
ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). Each offers a systematic reconstruction of
Hobbesian doctrine. Hampton has an extensive bibliography. Howard Warrender, The
 Further Reading 137
Political Philosophy of Hobbes (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1957), offers an acute but
controversial reading of Hobbes's theory.
On the reception of Hobbes, see John Bowie, Hobbes and His Critics (London:
Jonathan Cape, 1951); Samuel I. Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge, En-
gland: Cambridge University Press, 1969); and Quentin Skinner, "Thomas Hobbes
and His Disciples in France and England," Comparative Studies in Society and History
8 (1965): 153-67.
There are many editions of Hobbes's major work, Leviathan: the "Introduction" to
the one by Michael Oakeshott (Oxford: Blackwell Publisher, n.d.), is particularly
interesting.
 Richard Cumberland

Introduction

Born in 1631 in London, Cumberland studied at Cambridge University and was elected
a fellow of Magdalene College there in 1656. His career was in the Church of England,
of which, after serving in several different parishes, he was made a bishop in 1691. He
had been a loyal Protestant through the troubled years when Catholicism threatened
England under James II. If the bishopric of Peterborough was a reward, it was one
Cumberland had not sought, and he was diligent in carrying out the duties of his office.
His only philosophical work was De legibus naturae (Treatise of the Laws of Nature),
published in 1672 and translated into English twice during the eighteenth century and
also into French, by Barbeyrac, the translator of Grotius and Pufendorf. Cumberland's
other interest was history. He loved antiquarian research into Jewish history and wrote
several volumes on various aspects of it, some published posthumously. He died in
1718.
The Treatise of the Laws of Nature is a rambling, badly organized work, in which
Cumberland tried to replace Hobbes's views with an outlook that is at once philosophi-
cally defensible and substantively Christian. He spent many pages arguing against
Hobbes — against his method, against his psychology, against the moral conclusions he
drew, against his atheism, and against his politics. Cumberland tried to argue as
rigorously as possible, drawing on science for assistance (there is a long section on
human physiology, complete with a foldout diagram of the nerves in the backbone) but
abstaining from the kind of humanistic citation of classical authors that Grotius used.
Cumberland offered extensive mathematical formulations or analogies for some of his
ideas. Though aware that he had anti-Hobbesian allies among the Cambridge philoso-
phers, he refrained from joining with them in an appeal to a Platonic idea of the good,
because he knew such an appeal would carry no weight against Hobbes. Yet although
Cumberland tried to be scientific and up to date, there is no question that his message
is that love is the fulfillment of the law (Rom. 13:10, cited on his title page). Love, for
Cumberland, is benevolence, and benevolence, as he understood it, moves us to
increase the happiness of all rational beings. In his work we can see natural law theory
being moved decisively in one of the directions inherent in it, the utilitarian.
According to the utilitarian view, the basic principle of morality is that we are to
bring about the greatest good we can, and other moral concepts are defined in terms of
the good. All the natural lawyers, whether Thomistic or "modern," would have agreed
that one function of the laws of nature is to direct us to attain something good. For
Hobbes they show each individual the way to attain his or her own good, but for the

138
 Introduction 139
other lawyers they direct our actions toward the common good as well as toward our
own. For the natural lawyers, however, the laws of nature do more than teach us how
to attain the good. They show us what God wills us to do, and they bind or obligate us
as well. Furthermore, the concept of obligation is not defined simply in terms of the
good. Now Cumberland did not deny that the law shows us God's will and also carries
obligation with it, but he takes the fact that the laws direct us to the common good as
their central feature and tries to show that the other functions of law derive solely from
it. He moved natural law theory in the direction of utilitarianism because he believed
that the single basic law of nature is that we are to increase the good of all rational
beings and also because he wanted to explain how obligation is itself a function of that
requirement.
Did Cumberland manage•to achieve all his aims — to defeat Hobbes, to argue in
scientific terms, and to preserve Christian teaching — in a consistent and coherent way?
One problem he faced was that as a Christian he had to demonstrate that God matters
for morality. God matters because the laws of nature are proper laws; proper laws
require a sanction; and God is the source of the sanction. Cumberland was a moderate
in the Church of England and rejected the extreme voluntarism of the Calvinists, as
well as, of course, the variant of voluntarism in Hobbes. Hence he wanted to say that
the good is not made by will but is eternal. We perceive it and are moved by it, and
this, somehow, must explain how there is a law of nature.
Cumberland also rejected the idea of a wrathful deity moving us only by threats. He
accordingly treated the sanctions of the laws of nature as coming from the way we
naturally respond to the world. Just as we find that temperance benefits us personally,
so we find that being benevolent is enjoyable and that being selfish is, in the long run,
self-defeating. Sanctions become the pleasures and pains that naturally attend various
courses of action, not rewards and punishments in addition to them. One then wants to
ask why God is really needed. Admitting that God made the world with this helpful
structure, what more is left for him to do? Cumberland came close to believing that the
world can run on its own and that we, as part of it, can direct our own lives.
There are other ways in which Cumberland revealed this position. One of the
points of Hobbes's doctrine that his critics disliked most was his denial that there is
anything properly called free will. Actions can be free, Hobbes held, but not the will
as such. We simply are part of the mechanism of nature, and natural forces are as
effectively at work in determining the course of our desires and aversions as they are
in the external world. Although Cumberland made an effort to distance himself from
the egoism he found in Hobbes's psychology, he evaded the issue of free will, stating
that he was not interested in metaphysical subtleties. He did not accept Hobbesian
materialism, but he did not try to show that our mode of action differs in principle
from the behavior of nonhuman beings. This comes out most strikingly in Cumber-
land's refusal to distinguish between stating the law of nature in terms of what does
in fact occur and stating it in terms of what ought to occur. It is as if Cumberland
were saying, I shall tackle Hobbes on his own terms, showing that as parts of nature
we are moved to obtain not our own personal greatest good but the greatest good for
all rational beings. The reader may wish to ask whether this is an adequate reply or
simply a confusion.
The following selections are from Cumberland's Treatise of the Laws of Nature,
translated by John Maxwell, London, 1727. I have used fewer capital letters and italics
than the translator did and have simplified some of the punctuation.
140 Richard Cumberland

A Treatise of the Laws of Nature

THE INTRODUCTION

§I. It concerns us both, friendly reader, that you should be briefly acquainted
with the design and method of this treatise; for thence you will immediately
perceive what I have performed, or at least attempted; and what is further to be
supplied from your own understanding of the writings of others. The laws of
nature are the foundations of all moral and civil knowledge, as in the following
work will at large appear. But these, as all other conclusions discoverable by the
light of nature, may be deduced two ways: either from those manifest effects
which flow from them or from the causes whence they themselves arise. I have
endeavoured to discover them in this latter method, by arguing from the cause
to the effect. To the former method of proving their obligation (by arguing from
the effect to the cause) belongs what has been written by Hugo Grotius . . . the
work of Hugo Grotius, which was the first of the kind, I think worthy both of
the author and of immortality. . . .
§IV. Wherefore, that the conclusions of reason in moral matters might more
evidently appear to be laws, laws of God, I have thought it proper to make a
philosophical inquiry into their causes, as well internal as external, the nearer
and the more remote; for by this method we shall at last arrive at their first
author or efficient cause, from whose essential perfections and internal sanc-
tion of them by rewards and punishments . . . their authority arises. Most
others have been satisfied with saying in general terms that these conclusions,
or actions conformable to them, are taught by nature; but to me it seems
necessary, especially at this time, to trace more distinctly after what manner
the powers of things, as well without as within us, conspire to imprint these
conclusions upon our minds and to give a sanction to them.
§V. The Platonists,' indeed, clear up this difficulty in an easier manner, by
the supposition of innate ideas, as well of the laws of nature themselves as of
those matters about which they are conversant; but, truly, I have not been so
happy as to learn the laws of nature in so short a way. Nor seems it to me well
advised to build the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon an hypothe-
sis which has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as well heathen
as Christian, and can never be proved against the Epicureans, 2 with whom is
our chief controversy. I was resolved, however, not to oppose this opinion,
because it is my earnest desire that whatever looks with a friendly aspect upon
piety and morality might have its due weight (and I look upon these Platonists
to be favourers of their cause) and because it is not impossible that such ideas
might be both born with us and afterwards impressed upon us from without.
§VI. Moreover, the same reasons which hindered us from supposing innate
ideas of the laws of nature in our minds hinder us likewise from supposing
without proof that these laws have existed from eternity in the divine mind. 3 I
have therefore thought it necessary to remove the difficulty, and assert and
prove the authority and eternal existence of these conclusions in the divine
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 141
mind, in the following method; assuming those notices which we have from
sense and daily experience, I demonstrate that the nature of things, which
subsists and is continually governed by its first cause, does necessarily imprint
on our minds some practical propositions (which must be always true, and
cannot without a contradiction be supposed otherwise) concerning the study of
promoting the joint felicity of all rationals: and that the terms of these proposi-
tions do immediately and directly signify that the first cause, in his original
constitution of things, has annexed the greatest rewards and punishments to the
observance and neglect of these truths. Whence it manifestly follows that they
are laws, laws being nothing but practical propositions, with rewards and pun-
ishments annexed, promulged4 by competent authority. Having hence shewn
that the knowledge and practice of these laws is the natural perfection or most
happy state of our rational nature, I infer that there must be in the first cause
(from whom proceed both this our perfection, and that most wise disposition
which we see, every day, of effects without us, for the common preservation and
perfection of the whole system) a perfection correspondent but infinitely supe-
rior to this knowledge and practice of the laws of nature. For I look upon it as
most evident that we must first know what justice is and from whence those laws
are derived in the observance whereof it wholly consists, before we can dis-
tinctly know that justice is to be attributed to God, and that we ought to
propose his justice as our example. For we come not at the knowledge of God
by immediate intuition of his perfections, but from his effects first known by
sense and experience; nor can we safely ascribe to him attributes which from
other considerations we do not sufficiently comprehend.
§IX. Lastly, upon a diligent consideration of all those propositions which
deserve to be ranked amongst the general laws of nature, I have observed
they may be reduced to one universal one, from the just explication whereof
all the particular laws may be both dul limited and illustrated. This general
proposition may be thus expressed: "The endeavour, to the utmost of our
power, of promoting the common goo of the whole system of rational agents
conduces, as far as in us lies, to the ood of every part, in which our own
happiness as that of a part is containe But contrary actions produce contrary
effects, and consequently our own misery, among that of others."
§XV. That the summary of all the precepts and sanctions of the law of
nature is contained in our proposition and its corollary concerning the oppo-
site behaviour, I thus briefly shew. The subject (to borrow a school-term) of
the proposition is "an endeavour, according to our ability, to promote the
common good of the whole system of rationals." This includes our love of
God and of all mankind, who are the parts of this system. God, indeed, is the
principal part; men, the subordinate: a benevolence toward both includes
piety and humanity, that is, both tables of the law of nature. 5 The predicate of
the proposition (to borrow another phrase from the schools) is "conducing to
the good of every part, in which our own happiness, as of a part, is con-
tained." In which, as all those good things we can procure to all are said to be
the effect of this endeavour, so among the rest is not omitted that collection of
142 Richard Cumberland
good things whence our own happiness arises, which is the greatest reward of
obedience; as misery arising from actions of a contrary kind is the greatest
punishment of wickedness. But the natural connexion of the predicate with
the subject is both the foundation of the truth of the proposition and the proof
of the natural connexion between obedience and rewards, transgression and
punishments.
Hence the reader will easily observe the true reason why this practical
proposition, and all those which may be deduced from thence, oblige all
rational beings who understand them; whilst other practical propositions (sup-
pose geometrical ones) equally impressed by nature and consequently by God
upon the mind of man do not oblige him to conform his practice to them; but
may safely be neglected by most, to whom the practice of geometry is not
necessary: which is wholly owing to the nature of the effects arising from the
one and the other practice. The effects of the practice of geometry are such as
most people may want 6 without prejudice. But the effects of a care of the
common good do so nearly concern all, of whom we ourselves are a part, and
upon whose pleasure the happiness of each individual does in some measure
depend, that such care cannot be rejected without the hazard of losing that
happiness or the hope thereof: and this God has manifested to us by the very
nature of things, and thereby he has sufficiently promulged that he himself is
the author of the connexion of rewards and punishments with our actions;
whence this proposition and all others which flow from thence commence laws
by his authority.
§XVI. From the very terms of our proposition, it is manifest that the
adequate and immediate effect of that practice which this law establishes is
that which is acceptable to God and beneficial to all men; which is the natural
good of the whole system of rationals, even the greatest of all those good
things which can be procured for them, as being greater than the like good of
any part of the same system. Moreover, it sufficiently implies that the happi-
ness of each individual (from the prospect of enjoying which, or being de-
prived of it, the whole sanction is taken) is derived from the best state of the
whole system, as the nourishment of each member of an animal depends upon
the nourishment of the whole mass of blood diffused through the whole.
Hence it is manifest, that this greatest effect (not any small portion thereof,
the private happiness suppose, of any single person) is the principal end of the
lawgiver and of everyone who truly obeys his will. It is likewise hence evident
that those human actions which from their own natural force or efficacy are
apt to promote the common good are called naturally good, and indeed better
than those actions which are subservient to the private good of any individual,
in proportion as the public good is greater than a private.
In like manner, such actions as take the shortest way to this effect as to their
end, are naturally right, because of their natural resemblance to a right line,
which is the shortest that can be drawn between any two given points. Never-
theless, the same actions, afterward, when they are compared with the law,
whether natural or positive, which is the rule of morality, and they are found
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 143

conformable to it, are called morally good, as also right, that is, agreeing with
the rule; but the rule itself is called right, as pointing out the shortest way to
the end.
§XVII. But because the connexion of rewards and punishments with such
actions as promote the public good, or the contrary, is somewhat obscured by
those evil things which happen to the good and those good things which
happen to the evil, it seems necessary to our purpose more carefully to shew
that (notwithstanding these) that connexion is sufficiently constant and mani-
fest in human nature so that thence may with certainty be inferred the sanc-
tion of the law of nature, commanding these actions, and forbidding those.
§XVIII. The causes of human actions are the powers of the mind and body
of man. Wherefore, because I have observed it to be manifest that happiness,
or the highest reward, is necessarily connected with the most full and constant
exercise of all our powers about the best and greatest objects and effects
which are adequate and proportionable to them; I hence collect, that men
endowed with these faculties are naturally bound, under the penalty of forfeit-
ing their happiness, to employ or exercise them about the noblest objects in
nature, viz. God, and man his image. Nor can it be long a question whether
our faculties may be more properly employed in cultivating friendship or
enmity with these, in engaging with them in a state of peace or war. For it is
plain that there can be no neutral state, in which God and men shall be neither
loved nor hated and irritated, or in which we shall act neither acceptably nor
unacceptably to either, especially when we make use of things without us. For
of necessity we must either take care not to deprive others of things necessary
to their happiness, which without benevolence cannot be supposed; or we
shall willingly take them away, which is a sure indication of a malicious mind.
But if it be acknowledged that there is an evident necessity in order to happi-
ness of cultivating friendship with God and man, the sanction of that most
general law of nature, which alone we are here tracing, is of course granted.
For that alone establishes both all natural religion and everything that is
necessary to the happiness of mankind.
§XXIII. I have thus briefly laid down the method by which I have deduced
the sanction of the laws of nature; in which I have considered the happiness
which naturally flows from good actions as the reward annexed to them by the
author of nature; and the loss thereof as a punishment not less naturally
connected with evil actions. For whatever good or evil is the necessary conse-
quence of human actions must necessarily be contained in such practical
propositions as truly declare the consequences of those actions. And God
himself is supposed to declare those practical propositions which are necessar-
ily suggested to our minds by the nature, as well of our own actions, as of
those of other rational beings, and which truly foretell what consequences will
follow. But those advantages and disadvantages which God himself pro-
nounces annexed to human actions, and by which we are admonished to
pursue those and avoid these, are really and truly rewards and punishments.
§XXIV. Moreover, this method, by which I have reduced all the precepts of
144 Richard Cumberland
the law of nature to one, seems useful, because the proof of this one proposi-
tion is more easy and expeditious than that of those many which are usually
proposed by philosophers; and the ease of the memory is better consulted, to
which daily calling to mind a single sentence is not a burden; and (which is the
greatest advantage of all) from the very nature of the common good, which in
this proposition we are directed to promote, a certain rule or measure is
afforded to the prudent man's judgment by the help whereof he may ascertain
that just measure in his actions and affections in which virtue consists. This
task Aristotle has assigned to the judgment of the prudent, in his definition of
virtue, but has not pointed out the rule by which such judgment is to be
formed. Our proposition shews that the rule is to be taken from the nature of
the best and greatest end, respect being had to all the parts of the whole
system of rationals, or of that society of which God is the head, the members,
all God's subjects.

CHAPTER 1: OF THE NATURE OF THINGS

§IV. . . . although there are innumerable things which, in the knowledge of

the universe, may be made use of for the matter of particular propositions
which are to form our manners, I have nevertheless thought proper to select
only a few, and those the most general, which might in some measure explain
that general description of the laws of nature which I at first proposed, and are
a little more manifestly contained in one proposition, the fountain of all
nature's laws. Which general proposition is this, "the greatest benevolence of
every rational agent towards all, forms the happiest state of every, and of all
the benevolent, as far as is in their power, and is necessarily requisite to the
happiest state which they can attain, and therefore the common good is the
supreme law."
§XV. The things now proposed concerning human happiness appear so
plain by common experience or obvious reasoning that I know nothing belong-
ing to human nature more evident; and they have the same respect to the
direction of our practice in morality which the postulates of geometricians
have to the construction of problems; such are for plain problems that we can
draw a right line from any one point to any other, or that we can describe a
circle with any center and radius, and other more difficult ones, for the
construction of solid and linear problems. In all these cases are supposed
actions depending upon the free powers of men; yet geometry does not be-
come uncertain by any disputes arising from the explanation of free will. The
like may be said of arithmetical operations; for it is sufficient for the truth of
these sciences that the connexion is inseparable between such acts (which it
supposes may be done and which we find placed in our power when we go
about the practice of geometry), and the effects desired. And either the
pleasure arising from such contemplations or the manifold uses in life are
sufficient to invite men to search after such effects. By a like reasoning, the
truth of moral philosophy is founded in the necessary connexion between the
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 145
greatest happiness human powers can reach, and those acts of universal be-
nevolence, or of love towards God and men, which is branched out into all the
moral virtues. But in the mean time these things are supposed as postulates:
that the greatest happiness they can attain is sought by men; and, that they
can exercise love not only towards themselves but also towards God and
[towards] men partaking of the same rational nature with themselves.
§XXII. Secondly. If men or other things do, or afford, any thing for the use
of men, such service or benefit is naturally and necessarily limited to certain
persons, times, and places. Therefore, if right reason enjoins that the use of
things or the services of men should be useful to all men, it necessarily enjoins
that for a certain time and place that use of things and of human services
should be limited to certain persons. The consequence is manifest because
that is right reason in commanding which commands that to be done which is
possible to be done according to the nature of things. The consequence tends
to prove that a division of things and of human services, at least for the time
they may be of use to others, is necessary for the advantage of all.
And certainly that necessary limitation of the use of one thing to one man
for the time it benefits any person is a natural division, that is, separation from
the use of any other person for the same time. It is manifest that I here call
those things one that are necessarily wholly employed in one use at one time.
For other things are likewise called one which at the same time may be of use
to many, as one island, one wood, etc. concerning whose division I have yet
affirmed nothing. From the above-mentioned natural division of things and its
necessity to the preservation of all, is derived that primitive right to things by
first occupancy (which is so frequently mentioned by philosophers and law-
yers, and which they teach is to take place supposing all things common). For
right is the liberty of acting any thing granted by a law. But in that supposed
state there is no other law but the conclusions of right reason, concerning
actions necessary to the common good, promulgated by God. . . .
§XXIII. Nor, upon these suppositions, will there be any right to do anything
except what right reason declares to be necessary to the common good or at
least consistent with it; of which the first is therefore commanded by reason,
the last permitted. . . . This, however, I thought proper here carefully to
inculcate, that all right, even to the use of those things which are absolutely
necessary to every one's preservation (as it is distinguished from the mere
force of seizing those things, in which sense only its original is here inquired
into) is founded in the command, or at least in the permission, of the law of
nature, that is, of right reason pronouncing concerning those things which are
necessary to the common good according to the nature of things; and that
therefore it cannot be known that any one has a right to preserve himself,
unless it be known that this will contribute to the common good or that it is at
least consistent with it. But if this be the rise of our right to our own preserva-
tion, our powers will be hereby so limited that we may not invade the equal
rights of others, nor break forth into a war against all; that is, make an
attempt towards the destruction of all.
146 Richard Cumberland

CHAPTER 2: OF HUMAN NATURE AND RIGHT REASON

§VII. I think it proper to observe here, by the way, that by the dictates of
practical reason I understand propositions which point out either the end or
the means thereto in every man's power. For all practice is resolved into
these; and that practical reason is then called right when it determines truly, or
as the thing is in itself, in propositions declaring what is every man's best and
most necessary end and what are the most proper means of obtaining it; or
(which comes to the same thing) which pronounces according to truth what
effects of our own counsel and will will render our selves and others happy,
and how we shall with the greatest certainty produce them; just as in geometry
that speculative reason is right which affirms a quantity which is really in its
own nature greater to be greater than another. And that practical proposition
is right, which teaches that method of constructing problems which if we
pursue, we shall really produce the effect proposed. Nor is an opinion or
proposition of this kind truer when affirmed by a king than when by a subject.
Since then all right reason is conformable to those things about which we have
formed a judgment, since each thing is in its nature but one and uniform with
it self; it follows that right reason in one [person] cannot dictate that which
contradicts right reason concerning the same things in any other person.
From this principle follows that precept of universal use concerning the
actions of all men, that human actions ought to be uniform and consistent with
themselves, through the whole course of every man's life; .. .
It is included in the notion of a true proposition (a practical one, for in-
stance) and is consequently a necessary perfection of a man forming a right
judgment in that affair, that it should agree with other true propositions
framed about a like subject, though that like case should happen at another
time or belong to another man. And therefore, if any one judge that his act of
taking to himself the necessaries of life not yet possessed by any other would
promote the common happiness, it is necessary that the judgment that the like
action of another in like circumstances would equally conduce to the same
end, must be undoubtedly right. Whoever therefore judges truly, must judge
the same things which he thinks truly are lawful to himself to be lawful to
others in a like case. In the same manner, whatever assistance any man rightly
and truly believes he may or ought to demand according to right reason, it is
equitable and consequently a dictate of right reason that he should think that
any other in like circumstances justly may or ought to demand the like help
from him.
§XII. Shall I not reckon among the perfections of the human understanding
that it can reflect upon itself? Consider its habits as dispositions arising from
past actions? Judge which way the mind inclines? And direct itself to the
pursuit of what seems fittest to be done? Our mind is conscious to itself of all
its own actions, and both can and often does observe what counsels produced
them; it naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and thence procures to
itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety and sorrow. In this power of the
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 147
mind, and the actions thence arising consists the whole force of conscience, by
which it proposes laws to itself, examines its past and regulates its future
conduct. Nor appear any traces in other animals of so noble a faculty. Great
are the powers of this principle, both to the formation and increase of virtue,
to the erecting and preserving civil societies, both among those who are not
subject to the same civil power, and among fellow-subjects. And, indeed, the
principal design of this treatise is to shew how this power of our mind, either
of itself, or excited by external objects, forms certain universal practical propo-
sitions which give us a more distinct idea of the utmost possible happiness of
mankind and pronounce by what actions of ours, in all variety of circum-
stances, that happiness may most effectually be obtained. For these are the
rules of action, these are the laws of nature.

CHAPTER 3: OF NATURAL GOOD

§I. Good is that which preserves or enlarges and perfects the faculties of
any one thing or of several. For in these effects is discovered that particular
agreement of one thing with another which is requisite to denominate any-
thing good to the nature of this thing rather than of others.
In the definition of "good" I chose to avoid the word "agreement" because
of its very uncertain signification. Nevertheless, those things whose actions or
motions conduce to the preservation or increase of the powers of other things
consistently with the nature of the individual may justly be said to agree with
them. . . . So that is good to man which preserves or enlarges the powers of
the mind and body, or of either, without prejudice to the other. . . .
Good of this kind, of which we form an idea without the consideration of
any laws whatsoever, I call natural good. . . .
It is distinguished by its greater extensiveness from that good which is called
"moral," which is ascribed only to such actions and habits of rational agents as
are agreeable to laws, whether natural or civil, and is ultimately resolved into
the natural common good, to the preservation and increase of which alone all
the laws of nature and all just civil laws do direct use. . . .
§II. I own, therefore, that to be called "good" which agrees with another
and consequently that the term is relative. But it is not always referred to the
desire, nor always to that one person only who desires it. In these two points
Hobbes' has often erred grossly (though he sometimes comes out with the
truth, in contradiction to himself) and on these fundamental mistakes is sup-
ported most of what he has writ amiss concerning the right of war of all against
all in a state of nature, and a right of exercising arbitrary power in a state of
society. . . .
I . . . am of opinion that things are first judged to be good and that they are
afterwards desired only so far as they seem good; that anything is therefore
truly judged good because its effect or force truly helps nature; that a private
good is that which profits one, public, which is of advantage to many; not
because it is desired from opinion whether true or false or delights for this or
148 Richard Cumberland
that moment of time. . . . And it is the part of brutes only to measure the
goodness of things or of actions by affection only, without the guidance of
reason. . . .
§IV. There is another error of Hobbes concerning good, which is, that "the
object of the" human "will is that, which every man thinks good for himself."*
Which he thus expresses elsewhere, "every one is presumed to pursue his own
good naturally; that which is just, for peace only, and by accident." , What is
just, respects the good of others, which he does not think any man seeks
unless from a fear of those evils which arise from a state of war. Of a piece
with these passages are the places above quoted out of him; and numberless
others, scattered through his writings, insinuate the same thing. Upon this is
grounded that passage, "whatever is done voluntarily, is done for some good
to him who wills it. "t .. .
But if we examine what led him into an opinion so contrary to that of all
philosophers, I can see nothing but that one hint which he affords, by the bye,
in the same section, where he explains "nature" by "the affections planted in
every animal, till by inconvenient consequences or by precepts it is effected,
that the desire of things present is checked by the remembrance of things
past."V e judges of human nature and the adequate object of the will from
those a ections, which are previous to the use of reason, to experience, and
to discipline, such as are found in children and madmen asee his Preface to his
treatise De cive. But I, as well as all other philosoph hat I know of, think
that we are to take an estimate of the nature of man rather from reason (and
that therefore the will may extend it self to those things which reason dictates
to be agreeable to the nature of any person) since such irrational affections
are to be looked on rather as perturbations of the mind and consequently as
preternatural; which even Hobbes himself, since the publishing his book De
cive, confesses in his treatise De homine. 8 Nor see I any thing to hinder but
that what I judge agreeable to any nature I may desire should happen to it;
nay, that I should endeavour, as far as in me lies, that it should be effected.
Nay, this may be demonstrated a priori to those who acknowledge the
nature of the will to consist in the consent of the mind with the judgment of
the understanding concerning things agreeing among themselves. For it is
certain that the understanding is capable of judging what promotes the good
of others as well as what promotes our own; nor is there any reason why we
cannot will those same things which we have judged to be good. (Nay, it is
hardly possible that we should not will those things which we have judged to
be good.) But it is to be observed that, whatever a man can will, he can also
resolve to effect the same as far as it is in his power. Good thus willed by us is
said to be intended, and, by virtue of this intention, it assumes the complete
* Hobbes, De cive, 1.2. (The passage in the English version is as follows: "For when we voluntar-
ily contract society, in all manner of society we look after the object of the will, that is, that
which every one of those who gather together propounds to himself for good.")
t Ibid., 111.21.
: Ibid., 11.8.
§ Ibid.
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 149
nature of an end: therefore the common good of the universe may be an end
proposed by men.

CHAPTER 4: OF THE PRACTICAL DICTATES OF REASON

§I. . . . A practical proposition is sometimes thus expressed: "This possible

human action (universal benevolence, for instance) will chiefly, beyond any
other action at the same time possible, conduce to my happiness and that of
all others, either as an essential part thereof or as a cause which will, some
time or other, effect a principal essential part thereof." It is sometimes ex-
pressed, in the form of a command: "Let that action, which is in thy power,
and which will most effectually, of all those which thou can'st exert, promote
the common good in the present circumstances, be exerted"; often also, in the
form of a gerund: "such an action ought to be done." In my opinion, these
several forms of speech relating to the law of nature mean the same thing,
whether the understanding judges this best to be done, or commands it, or
tells me, in the form of a gerund, that I am bound to do it. For the understand-
ing (which in this affair is called conscience) sufficiently hints the natural
obligation when it says, "this is best to be done, both for your self and others."
For, in omitting what is declared best for me it is thence evident that I bring
mischief (which may be called punishment) upon my self. If the dictate be
considered under the form of a command, the same thing is inculcated by
representing every man's own understanding as a magistrate deputed and
authorized to make laws: Which, because it sounds somewhat metaphorically
is therefore less philosophical. It is useful however, because the comparison
has a very just foundation in nature. The form of a gerund teaches the same
thing; but as an inferior judge or counsellor admonishing concerning a law
already made and requiring a conformity of the future action therewith. The
first manner is most becoming a philosopher, which, if we consider the form,
appears a speculative proposition; if the force, a practical, as teaching the
natural foundation of obligation. The second best becomes a sovereign
prince; the third, a divine. But they may all be used promiscuously, provided
we retain in mind the distinction, such as it is, between these forms. The
nature of things represents to the mind what is best to be done. The mind,
considering the government of things, does, from the idea of God, conclude,
that he wills or commands them to be done and in his name imposes the
command on itself, in the second form. In the third, it reflects upon the two
former, and pronounces that an action agreeable to that command will be
just; the contrary, unjust.
§IV. But before we consider these laws more particularly, it will be worth
while to insist somewhat longer on treating of the nature of practical proposi-
tions, and first to shew their great affinity or agreement in meaning, whether
they be absolute or conditional, with speculative propositions. Secondly, that
in them all the effect is looked upon as the end; actions in our power, as the
means.
150 Richard Cumberland
In order to which we are first to observe that those are properly called
practical propositions which declare the origin of an effect from human ac-
tions, which definition I think proper to illustrate by examples. Such is this in
arithmetic, "the addition of numbers forms the sum," or "the subtraction of
one number from another leaves their difference."
Yet farther: the science of morality and politics both can and ought to
imitate the analytic art (in which I comprehend not only the extraction of
roots, but also the whole doctrine of specious arithmetic or algebra) as the
noblest pattern of science.
1. By delivering the rules of its practice and the whole substance of its art in
a few universal theorems. Where I think proper to observe that its certainty is
no more weakened or usefulness lessened because we cannot exactly deter-
mine what is fit to be done in our external actions with relation to a subject
involved in a vast variety of circumstances, than the truth or usefulness of
geometrical principles about measuring lines, surfaces, or solids is overthrown
because neither our senses nor instruments will enable us to form without us a
line exactly straight, or a surface perfectly plane or spherical or a body in all
respects regular. It is sufficient that we approach so near to exactness that
what we want of it is of no consequence in practice.
2. . . . moral philosophy begins with contemplating an end very intricate,
and means variously involved. For the end is a collection of all those good
things within our power which are capable of adorning the kingdom of God,
the whole system of intelligent agents, and its several parts. The means, by
which this end is to be obtained, are all our possible free actions, about what
object soever. And, from an equality supposed between these two ideas, as
between the powers of the cause and their adequate effect are to be drawn all
moral rules and all virtuous actions enjoined by them. It is evident that these
things are equal because the end is the entire effect to be produced, and all
our possible actions make up the entire efficient cause.
3. As algebra supposes the quantity unknown and yet sought after in some
sort already known, by a certain anticipation of the mind, and expresses it by
a proper character, and is thus enabled to exhibit its given relation to the
known quantities, by means whereof itself at last becomes known: so ethics,
also, forms some kind of idea of the end or effect proposed; by the help of
those relations which it bears to our operations in some measure known (at
least in general) it distinguishes it by the name of the chief good, or of
happiness, from other objects, although it knows that it does not yet exist, and
although it does not distinctly know what shall at last be the effect of our
operations, and of the concurrence of things without us; whence it may justly
be called unknown: but by the help of those actions and faculties to which it is
related as the effect to its causes, and on which consequently it most certainly
entirely depends, it at last gradually becomes known. Hither also is to be
referred that, whereas the end proposed by every one is that entire and
greatest good which he can procure to the universe and to himself in his
station, it follows that the end is to be conceived as the greatest aggregate or
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 151
sum of good effects, most acceptable to God and men, which can be effected
by the greatest industry of all our future actions. It often happens (and we
ought to endeavour that it should happen as often as may be) that the good
effects of our power increase in a geometrical progression (as in increase
arising from interest upon interest, or in husbandry, or merchandizing, when
every year the increase of the former is added to the main stock) whence
arises a vast increase, both of public and private happiness beyond what can
be distinctly foreseen.

CHAPTER 5: OF THE LAW OF NATURE, AND ITS OBLIGATION

§I. Having prepared the way for all that is to follow, I shall begin this
chapter with the definition of the law of nature. The law of nature is a proposi-
tion proposed to the observation of, or impressed upon, the mind with sufficient
clearness by the nature of things, from the will of the first cause which points out
that possible action of a rational agent which will chiefly promote the common
good and by which only the entire happiness of particular persons can be
obtained. The former part of this definition contains the precept, the latter,
the sanction; and the mind receives the impression of both, from the nature of
things.
§XXII. The second method 9 of knowing that God wills that actions conduc-
ing to the common good of rational agents should be performed by men or
that he wills that such actions should be honoured with rewards, or the con-
trary restrained by punishments, is taken from the effects of this will, that is,
from the rewards and punishments themselves, which, by means of the inward
constitution of all men and of this whole system of the world, framed by the
appointment of the divine will, are the natural and ordinary consequences of
human actions; and do render men either miserable by evil or happy by good.
For it is not to be doubted but that God, who has so established the natural
order of all things that the consequences of human actions with respect to the
actors themselves should be such; and who has caused that these ordinary
consequences may be foreknown or expected with the highest probability by
them, willed that before they prepared for action they should consider these
things, and be determined by them, as by arguments contained in the sanction
of the laws.
Such kind of effects are those internal pleasures of mind, which accompany
every noble action intended for the publick good; and, on the contrary, those
fears and anxieties of mind, which, like furies, pursue the wicked: and also
those external rewards and punishments by which other rational agents, ac-
cording to the dictates of right reason concerning the best end and means,
preserve mankind from destruction and promote the common happiness.
I thought it proper to insist the longer upon this argument in this treatise,
because I hoped my antagonists, who are so intent upon their own preserva-
tion, would the more willingly acknowledge its force; and because the nature
of things seemed to propose many proofs of this matter, which required a very
152 Richard Cumberland
particular explication. I therefore resolve moral obligation (which is the imme-
diate effect of nature's laws) into their first and principal cause which is the
will and counsel of God promoting the common good; and therefore by
rewards and punishments enacting into laws the practical propositions which
tend thereto. Men's care of their own happiness, which causes them to con-
sider and be moved by rewards and punishments, is no cause of obligation;
that proceeds wholly from the law and the lawgiver. It is only a necessary
disposition in the subject, without which the rewards and penalties of the law
would be of no force to induce men to the performance of their duty. As
contact is necessary in the communication of motion from body to body,
though force impressed be the only cause of that motion.
It ought also in confirmation of this point to be considered that the obliga-
tion lies upon them too whose mind is so stupid that they wholly neglect the
divine will and the sanction thereby annexed to the law. I must add that the
care of preserving and perfecting ourselves, which is natural and inseparable
from man, and that which is superinduced by right reason and which I ac-
knowledge has some place among the motives to good actions, tho' not a
cause of our obligation to them, are both wholly from God. From thence it
follows, that the force of this care detracts nothing from his authority or
honour, and that it ought to have its due influence.
§XXVII. Here, lest I should be thought to use words in a sense different
from what is usual, I shall briefly shew that what I have said is implied in the
received definition of obligation.
There is nothing which can superinduce a necessity of doing or forbearing
any thing upon a human mind deliberating upon a thing future except
thoughts or propositions promising good or evil to our selves or others, conse-
quent upon what we are about to do. But because we are determined by some
sort of natural necessity to pursue good foreseen, especially the greatest, and
to avoid evils; hence those dictates of reason which discover to us that these
things will follow from certain of our actions are said to lay upon us some kind
of necessity of performing or omitting those actions, and to oblige us; because
those advantages are necessarily connected with our happiness, which we
naturally desire, and our actions are evidently necessary to the attainment of
them.
I therefore think that moral obligation may be thus universally and properly
defined: "Obligation is that act of a legislator by which he declares that
actions conformable to his law are necessary to those for whom the law is
made." An action is then understood to be necessary to a rational agent when
it is certainly one of the causes necessarily required to that happiness which he
naturally and consequently necessarily desires. Thus we are obliged to pursue
the common good when the nature of things (especially of rational causes)
exposed to our observation discovers to our minds that this action is a cause
necessarily requisite to complete our happiness; which, therefore, naturally
depends upon the pursuit of the common good of all rational agents; as the
soundness of a member depends upon the soundness and life of the whole
 A Treatise of the Laws of Nature 153
animated body. It amounts to the same thing when we say that the obligation
is an act of the legislator or of the first cause, as if in this place we had called it
an act of the law of nature. For the legislator obliges by the law sufficiently
promulged, and he sufficiently promulges it when he discovers to our minds
that the prosecution of the common good is the cause necessarily requisite to
that happiness which every one necessarily desires.
Upon discovering this all men are obliged, whether it be of so great weight
with them as perfectly to incline their minds to what it persuades, or whether
what is alleged in favour of the contrary opinion weigh more. Those bodies
which, through a fault in the balance, are raised by a smaller weight in the
opposite scale are yet in themselves heavier or have a greater tendency to-
wards the center of the earth.
It is to be observed that those arguments which prove our obligation in this
case would certainly prevail, unless the ignorance, turbulent affections, or
rashness of men, like the fault in the balance, opposed their efficacy; as
discovering, beside rewards and punishments manifested or expressed, that
others greater (if there be occasion) will be added at the pleasure of the
supreme governour of the world.
. . . the entire happiness of every particular nan naturally depends upon
the benevolence of God and of other men; but neither can the benevolence of
God towards any one be separated from his regard to his own honour; nor the
favourable inclination of others towards us, be disjoined from their care of
their own happiness. Nay, we must needs acknowledge this to be stronger in
them than their affection towards us. Wherefore it is impossible that he who
duly considers the nature of rational beings should desire that they should
assist us, except their own preservation were at the same time taken care of;
and, therefore he cannot propose to himself his own happiness separately
from that of others as his adequate end.

CHAPTER 7: OF THE ORIGINAL OF DOMINION, AND THE

MORAL VIRTUES

§XII. . . . Moreover; these general laws of nature concerning' the care of

the publick good and the settling and preserving dominion require that both
God and men take care, whenever they please to enact any positive law, to
give sufficient evidence of their doing so; for such discovery is necessary to the
promulgation thereof, without which no one can be obliged. Hence it is
necessary that if God would command anything by a revelation, it must first
appear plain that the command is perfectly consistent with his unchangeable
laws known from nature. For it is certain, that the divine reason cannot
contradict itself. And it is farther required that his will to enforce this new law
be discovered to those for whom it is enacted by enabling his messengers to
fortell future contingencies without mistake or deceit, or else to work true
miracles. Hence also human legislators, when they enact laws, do in the first
place declare that they tend to the publick good and therefore have the same
154 Richard Cumberland
view with the laws of nature; and then add some signs, or testimonies, to
make it known that they have been actually promulged by their authority.

CHAPTER 8: OF THE MORAL VIRTUES IN PARTICULAR

§I. . . . First, then, we are to observe that as universal justice is a moral

perfection to which we are therefore obliged because such a will, or inclina-
tion of mind, is commanded by the universal law of nature, enjoining the
settling and preserving to every one his rights; so we ought to possess all
particular virtues, or we are therefore obliged by them because they are
commanded by some particular law of nature, which is contained in that
universal one which I have mentioned. They are indeed, in their own nature
good though there were no law, because they conduce to the good state of the
universe. But moral obligation and the nature of a debt thence arising is
unintelligible without a respect to a law, at least, of nature. Nay, farther: the
very honour from which actions are distinguished by the title of (honestas)
laudable practice, or are called honourable, seems wholly to come from this,
that they are praised by the law of the supreme ruler, discovered by the light
of nature, and honoured with the greatest rewards, among which is to be
reckoned the concurring praise of good men. And justly they are called natu-
rally lawful and honourable, because the law, which makes them such does
not depend upon the pleasure of the civil power but arises necessarily, in the
manner already explained, from the very nature of things, and is altogether
unchangeable whilst nature remains unchanged.
§II. The special laws of the moral virtues may after this manner be deduced
from the law of universal justice. There being a law given which fixes and
preserves the rights of particular persons, for this end only, that the common
good of all be promoted by every one, all will be laid under these two obliga-
tions, in order to that end: (1) To contribute to others such a share of those
things which are committed to their trust as may not destroy that part which is
necessary to themselves for the same end: (2) To reserve to themselves that
use of what is their own as may be most advantageous to, or at least consistent
with, the good of others.
§IV. Having explained the measure of that mediocrity m which is usually
required in moral virtues, it is easy to describe them separately, because their
essence consists in the inclination of the will to obey the laws deduced from
the general law of justice.

Editor's Notes
1. Cumberland refers not to the followers of Plato in antiquity but to the group of his
contemporaries at Cambridge, known as the Cambridge Platonists. This book
includes selections from one of these Platonists, Ralph Cudworth. Cudworth's
writings on moral philosophy, however, were not published until the eighteenth
century. Cumberland would have known of the — rather vague and diffuse —
Platonism of this group from the works of Benjamin Whichcote, Henry More, and
 Further Reading 155

John Smith. There is a good selection from these writers in C. A. Patrides, ed.,
The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1980).
2. Cumberland had in mind chiefly Hobbes.
3. Cumberland here is declaring his opposition to voluntarism.
4. Promulgated.
5. Cumberland is referring to the first and second tables or parts of the Decalogue,
the first covering our duties to God and the second those to our neighbor. He
followed Saint Thomas in treating these as parts of the law of nature.
6. To lack, to be without.
7. In Leviathan, 1.6 Hobbes stated: "Whatsoever is the object of any man's appe-
tite, that is it which he for his part calleth good: and the object of his hate and
aversion, evil. . . . For these words of good, evil, . . . are ever used with relation
to the person that useth them; there being nothing simply and absolutely so; nor
any common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the objects
themselves. . . ."
8. Hobbes's De cive — from which excerpts were presented earlier — was published in
Latin in 1642 and in English translation in 1651. His De homine appeared in 1658;
the sections most pertinent to ethics are available in English in Bernard Gert, ed.,
Man and Citizen (New York: Peter Smith, 1972).
9. In V.xix Cumberland observed that the will of God can be known a priori by
arguing from his known attributes or the causes of his willing as he does, or it can
be known from the effects of his willing as he does. Cumberland preferred the
latter kind of argument, which he is discussing here. The argument from God's
attributes is, he believed, less effective against his opponents.
10. The reference is to the Aristotelian mean, the middle amount between too little
and too much, which is the measure of virtue.

Further Reading
There is no modern edition of Cumberland, and little has been written about his
philosophy. Ernest Albee, A History of English Utilitarianism (London: Allen & Un-
win, 1901) devotes two chapters to him. Linda Kirk, Richard Cumberland and Natural
Law (Cambridge, England: James Clark, 1987), sketches Cumberland's life and his
involvement in the politics of his time and analyzes his particular theory of natural law.
Murray Forsyth, "The Place of Richard Cumberland in the History of Natural Law
Doctrine," Journal of the History of Philosophy 20 (1982), also is helpful.
 Samuel Pufendorf

Introduction

Samuel Pufendorf, son of a Lutheran pastor, was born in 1632 in Saxony. After
receiving a conventional education at Leipzig, he went to Jena for further work. There
he studied mathematics and first read Grotius and Hobbes. In 1658, while serving as a
tutor for a Swedish family during a war between Sweden and Denmark, he was
arrested and imprisoned. In prison he wrote his first work, Elementorum jurispru-
dentiae universalis (Elements of Universal Jurisprudence), published in 1660. He re-
turned to Germany to accept the first professorship in natural and international law at
Heidelberg. Pufendorf's interest in contemporary affairs led him to publish in 1667 an
analysis of the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire, which, he argued, was not
helpfully explained by any known model. He then moved to a professorship in Swe-
den, where he wrote his great De jure naturae et gentium (On the Law of Nature and of
Nations), which was published in 1672. In the next year he published a compact
summary of this work, De officio hominis et civis (On the Duty of Man and Citizen).
These two works had an amazing reception. Despite its enormous length, the Law of
Nature went through many Latin editions and was translated into every major Euro-
pean language, and the Duty of Man, in Latin or in modern languages, became the
textbook with which students in much of Europe and in many of the American colonies
studied natural law until well into the eighteenth century. No other modern natural law
theorist had so wide and enduring a readership as did Pufendorf. In addition, several
commentaries on his works were written to help students. And although orthodox
Lutherans as well as lawyers and philosophers wrote frequent, sometimes vicious
attacks on Pufendorf (to which he often replied), his portrayal of himself as the
successor to the founder of modern natural law — the great and admittedly devout
Grotius — was generally accepted.
Pufendorf spent much of his later life as court historian for the king of Sweden. He
then accepted a similar post with the ruler of Prussia and died in 1688 as a result of a
winter trip to Sweden to try to retrieve his manuscripts from his disgruntled former
employer.
More systematic than Grotius and more inclined to spell out every detail of his view,
Pufendorf produced as complete a "system" of natural law as Europe has ever seen. It
has its philosophical underpinnings and a host of definitions of key terms; it relates
these key terms to one another, and it then applies all this apparatus first to the
construction of a fundamental law of nature, then to proximate implications of the
fundamental law, and finally, in more detail, to every area of human activity but
especially commercial relations, politics, and international affairs. Indeed, a contempo-

156
 Introduction 157
rary reviewer said that The Law of Nature would be valuable to everyone: the mer-
chant, the lawyer, and the businessman as well as the teacher.
Although Pufendorf quoted far less often than Grotius did from the authors of
antiquity, he frequently discussed those of his contemporaries whom he thought impor-
tant, signaling his agreement or disagreement with them and sometimes engaging in
meticulous arguments over fine points. Hobbes, in particular, was vital to Pufendorf's
thinking. He agreed with many of Hobbes's assumptions but tried to avoid being
associated with not only Hobbes's atheism but also many of his moral and political
conclusions. Cumberland's treatise on the law of nature was published in the same year
as was Pufendorf's own large work, and Cumberland, a severe critic of Hobbes, is
frequently cited favorably in Pufendorf's second edition. Pufendorf also discussed
many other writers, most of them wholly ignored at present. He plainly relished such
encounters, enjoying showing his readers that he was right on these important matters
and rooting out the errors spread by wrongheaded thinkers.

I have begun the following selections with excerpts from Pufendorf's own summary of
his doctrine, The Duty of Man and Citizen, to enable the reader to see the main
outlines of Pufendorf's understanding of natural law. After stressing the independence
of the study of natural law from the study of theology, Pufendorf showed how the laws
of nature are tailored to the facts about the human constitution. Our self-interested
nature combines with our weakness to make sociability — a disposition toward life in
common — a primary need for all of us, and from the basic law of sociability all other
laws are derived. Some of our duties arise from laws to which we are obligated by
virtue of being human. Pufendorf began with negative duties, such as not harming
others, but considered certain positive duties no less important. Thus we are to treat
others as equals, and we are to be helpful, even generous, to one another. These basic
duties do not, however, encompass as wide and detailed a field as do the derivative
duties and rights arising from the various agreements we make with one another.
Property rights belong here, as do contractual rights, including those of marriage, and
political rights. Much of Pufendorf's work is concerned with derivative duties, but I
have had to omit his treatment of them here.
The next selections come from The Law of Nature and of Nations, in which Pufendorf
presented philosophical matters in more detail than he did in the student compendium.
Particularly important instances can be found in the opening chapters of The Law of
Nature, which develop a voluntaristic position, criticize Grotius for not holding such a
view, and discuss the possibility of attaining certainty in moral matters. Pufendorf's ac-
count of free will and his elaborations on the difference between perfect and imperfect
duties, as well as on the relation between duties and rights, should help the reader get a
better grasp of his account of obligation and of the general structure of morality.
Natural law, Pufendorf believed, can be studied without appeal to revealed religion
or theology, but he did not think religious truth irrelevant to the subject. Reasoning
from our experience of the world leads us to understand that there is an all-powerful
and benevolent creator who has definite plans for the way in which his creation is to
operate. The purely physical things God has created carry out his will automatically,
but the human part is under a special kind of direction, which Pufendorf explained in
his discussion of moral entities. God imposes certain directives on us so that human life
may have an order and a decorum lacking among animals and not be taken up entirely
with the pursuit of goods that animals also pursue. God imposes obligations by legislat-
ing for us, and from his laws arise natural duties and rights. We can legislate as well
158 Samuel Pufendorf
and, by enacting laws, can create positions and titles that everyone should respect. Our
legislation should be directed to benefit everyone, and God's certainly is so directed.
But moral attributes are not the same as natural attributes, nor can they be explained
in terms of them.
The voluntarism that Pufendorf articulated in his doctrine of moral entities has been
variously interpreted. Some commentators have seen it as an indication of Pufendorf's
belief that human culture has a unique status in the universe and therefore must be
studied in a special way. They claim him as a forerunner of those who declare the
methodological independence of the social sciences from the natural sciences. Others
see the voluntarism as making Pufendorf the first to assert that there is no way of
deriving conclusions about how people ought to act from premises concerning how in
fact they do act. But however we read him on these points, his voluntarism is certainly
a way of making clear that without God's will there would be no such thing as morality.
Pufendorf thus distanced himself from Grotius, Hobbes, and Cumberland, who all
offered theories that in one way or another imply that morality is independent of
divine volition. Pufendorf was in some matters extremely audacious. For instance, he
rejected without argument the age-old equation of "good" with "being" and offered a
new account of what goodness is. Yet in making God indispensable to morality he was
holding on to one of the oldest strands of Christian thought.
The following excerpts are modern translations: The Duty of Man and Citizen, trans.
Frank Gardner Moore (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1927), and The Law of
Nature and of Nations, trans. C. H. Oldfather and W. A. Oldfather (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1934). The reader may also wish to consult the eighteenth-century
English translation of the latter work by Basil Kennet, which includes useful annota-
tions by Jean Barbeyrac, who added them to his own French translation.

On the Duty of Man and Citizen

To THE BENEVOLENT READER, GREETING!
is manifest that from three founts, so to speak, men derive the
. . . it
knowledge of their duty and what in this life they must do, as being morally
good, and what not to do, as being morally bad: namely the light of reason,
the civil laws and the particular revelation of the divine authority. From the
first flow the commonest duties of man, especially those which make him
sociable with other men; from the second, the duties of man in so far as he
lives subject to a particular and definite State; from the third, the duties of a
man who is a Christian. From this three separate studies arise, the first of
which is the natural law, common to all nations; the second, the civil law of the
single individual States, into which the human race departed. The third is
called moral theology in contradistinction to that part of theology which ex-
plains what is to be believed [that is, dogmatic theology].
Each of these studies uses a method of proving its dogmas corresponding to
its principle. In the natural law it is asserted that something must be done
because the same is gathered by right reason as necessary for sociability
between men. The last analysis of the precepts of the civil law is that the
lawgiver so established. The moral theologian acquiesces in that ultimate
proposition, because God has so ordered in the Holy Scriptures. . . .
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 159
The first distinction therefore, whereby those studies are mutually sepa-
rated, results from the different source from which each derives its dogmas,
and upon this point we have just touched. Consequently, if there be some
actions which we are bid by divine literature to perform or not to perform, yet
whose necessity can not be grasped by reason left to itself, those actions fall
outside the natural law and properly look toward moral theology. Moreover in
theology law is considered proportionately as it has annexed a divine promise
and a certain sort of pact between God and man. From this consideration the
natural law abstracts, obviously since that which reason alone can not discover
proceeds from the particular revelation of God.
Furthermore, that is by far the most important distinction whereby the end
and aim of the natural law is included only in the circuit of this life, and
therefore it moulds man accordingly as he ought to lead this life in society with
others. But moral theology moulds a man into a Christian, who should not
only have the purpose of passing honorably through this life, but who espe-
cially hopes for the fruit of piety after this life and who on this account has his
nokixeuRa l in heaven, while here he lives merely as a wayfarer or sojourner.
For although the mind of man not only with a glowing desire leans, as it were,
towards immortality and vigorously shrinks from self-destruction, and hence
among many of the Gentiles the persuasion has become inveterate that the
soul remains after its separation from the body and that then it will go well
with the good and ill with the bad; nevertheless a persuasion of this sort on
such matters, in which the mind of man might plainly and firmly acquiesce, is
drawn only from the word of God. Hence the decrees of the natural law are
adapted only to the human forum, 2 which does not extend beyond this life,
and they are wrongly applied in many places to the divine forum, which is the
especial care of theology.
From this also it follows that, because the human forum is busied with only
the external actions of man, while to those which lie concealed within the
breast and produce no effect or sign outside it does not penetrate and conse-
quently is not disturbed about them, the natural law likewise is concerned to a
great extent with the directing of the external actions of man. But for moral
theology it is not sufficient that the external customs of men have been made
in some way or another in keeping with decorum; but it is concerned chiefly
with this, that the mind and its internal movements be fashioned after the will
of the deity; and it reprobates those very actions which extrinsically indeed
appear to be proper, but nevertheless emanate from an impure mind. . . .

BOOK I

Chapter II: On the Norm of Human Action, or Law in General

1. Because human actions depend upon the will, but the wills of individuals
are not always consistent, and those of different men generally tend toward
different things, therefore, in order to establish order and seemliness among
160 Samuel Pufendorf

the human race, it was necessary that some norm should come into being, to
which actions might be conformed. For otherwise, if with such freedom of the
will, and such diversity of inclinations and tastes, each should do whatever
came into his head, without reference to a fixed norm, nothing but the great-
est confusion could arise among men.
2. That norm is called law, that is, a decree by which a superior obliges a
subject to conform his acts to his own prescription.
3. That this definition may be better understood, we must develop the
meaning of obligation, whence it arises, who can undertake an obligation, and
who impose it upon another. Obligation, then, is commonly defined as a legal
bond, by which we are of necessity bound to perform something. That is, a
kind of bridle is thereby put upon our freedom, so that, though in actual fact
the will can have a different aim, still it finds itself imbued with an inward
sentiment due to the obligation, with the result that, if the action performed is
not in conformity with the prescribed norm, the will is forced to acknowledge
that it has not done what is right. And so if any ill should befall a man on that
account, he would judge that it befalls him not undeservedly; since by follow-
ing the norm, as was proper, he might have avoided it.
4. For the fact that man is fitted to undertake an obligation there are two
reasons: one, because he has a will which can turn in different directions, and
so also conform to the rule: the other, since man is not free from the power of
a superior. For where an agent's powers have been bound by nature to a
uniform mode of action, there we look in vain for free action; and it is vain to
prescribe a rule for a man who cannot understand it nor conform to the same.
Again, assuming that a man does not recognize a superior, there is for that
reason no one who can rightfully impose a necessity upon him. And if he be
ever so strict in observing a certain method of action, and consistently abstain
from certain acts, still he is understood to do this not from any obligation, but
from his own good pleasure. It follows then that he is capable of an obligation
who not only has a superior, but also can recognize a prescribed rule, and
further has a will flexible in different directions, but conscious of the fact that,
when the rule has been prescribed by a superior, it does wrong to depart from
the same. Such is evidently the nature with which man is endowed.
5. Obligation is properly introduced into the mind of a man by a superior,
that is, a person who has not only the power to bring some harm at once upon
those who resist, but also just grounds for his claim that the freedom of our
will should be limited at his discretion. For when these conditions are found in
anyone, he has only to intimate his wish, and there must arise in men's minds
a fear that is tempered with respect, the former in view of his power, the latter
in consideration of the reasons, which, were there no fear, must still induce
one to embrace his will. For whoever is unable to assign any other reason why
he wishes to impose an obligation upon me against my will, except mere
power, can indeed frighten me into thinking it better for a time to obey him, to
avoid a greater evil; but, once that fear is removed, nothing further remains to
prevent my acting according to my will rather than his. Conversely, if he has
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 161
indeed the reasons which make it my duty to obey him, but lacks the power of
inflicting any harm upon me, I may with impunity neglect his commands,
unless a more powerful person comes to assert the authority upon which I
have trampled. Now the reasons why one may rightly demand that another
obey him are: in case some conspicuous benefits have come to the latter from
the former; or if it be proved that he wishes the other well, and is also better
able than the man himself to provide for him, and at the same time actually
claims control over the other; and finally if a man has willingly subjected
himself to another and agreed to his control. . . .
16. With respect to its author, the law is divided into divine and human, the
one enacted by God, the other by men. But if law be considered according as
it has a necessary and universal adaptation to men or not, it is divided into the
natural and the positive. The former is so adapted to the rational and social
nature of man, that an honorable and peaceful society cannot exist for man-
kind without it. Consequently it can be investigated and learned as a whole,
by the light of man's inborn reason and a consideration of human nature. The
latter kind of justice by no means flows from the common condition of human
nature, but proceeds from the decision of the lawgiver alone. And yet it ought
not to lack its own reason, and the utility which it effects for certain men or a
particular society. But while the divine law is now natural and now positive,
human law is, in the strict sense, altogether positive.

Chapter III: On Natural Law

1. What is the character of the natural law, what its necessity, and of what
precepts it consists in the present state of mankind, are most clearly seen, after
one has thoroughly examined the nature and disposition of man. For, just as for
an accurate knowledge of civil laws, it is very important to have a clear under-
standing of the condition of the state, and of the habits and interests of its
citizens, so if we have examined the common disposition of men and their
condition, it will be readily apparent upon what laws their welfare depends.
2. Now man shares with all the animals that have consciousness the fact that
he holds nothing dearer than himself, and is eager in every way to preserve
himself; that he strives to gain what seem to him good things, and to reject the
evil. This feeling is regularly so strong that all the others give way to it. And
one cannot but resent it, if any man make an attack upon one's life, so much
so that, even after the threatened danger had been averted, hatred usually still
remains, and a desire for vengeance.
3. But in one respect man seems to be in a worse state even than the
brutes — that scarcely any other animal is attended from birth by such weak-
ness. Hence it would be a miracle, if anyone reached mature years, if he have
not the aid of other men, since, as it is, among all the helps which have been
invented for human needs, careful training for a number of years is required,
to enable a man to gain his food and clothing by his own efforts. Let us
imagine a man brought to maturity without any care and training bestowed
162 Samuel Pufendorf

upon him by others, having no knowledge except what sprang up of itself in

his own mind, and in a desert, deprived of all help and society of other men.
Certainly a more miserable animal it will be hard to find. Speechless and
naked, he has nothing left him but to pluck herbs and roots, or gather wild
fruits, to slake his thirst from spring or river, or the first marsh he encoun-
tered, to seek shelter in a cave from the violence of the weather, or to cover
his body somehow with moss or grass, to pass his time most tediously in
idleness, to shudder at any noise or the encounter with another creature,
finally to perish by hunger or cold or some wild beast. On the other hand,
whatever advantages now attend human life have flowed entirely from the
mutual help of men. It follows that, after God, there is nothing in this world
from which greater advantage can come to man than from man himself.
4. Yet this animal, though so useful to his kind, suffers from not a few faults,
and is endowed with no less power to injure; which facts make contact with
him rather uncertain, and call for great caution, that one may not receive evil
from him instead of good. First of all, there is generally a greater tendency to
injure found in man than in any of the brutes. For the brutes are usually
excited by the desire for food and for love, both of which, however, they can
themselves easily satisfy. But having stilled that craving, they are not readily
roused to anger or to injure people, unless someone provokes them. But man
is an animal at no time disinclined to lust, and by its goad he is excited much
more frequently than would seem necessary for the conservation'of the race.
And his belly desires not merely to be satisfied, but also to be tickled, and
often craves more than nature is able to digest. That the brutes should not
need clothing nature has provided. But man delights to clothe himself, not for
necessity only, but also for display. Many more passions and desires unknown
to the brutes are found in man, as the desire to have superfluities, avarice, the
love of glory and eminence, envy, emulation, and rivalry of wits. Witness the
fact that most wars, in which men clash with men, are waged for reasons
unknown to the brutes. And all these things can, and usually do, incite men to
desire to injure one another. Then too there is in many a notable insolence
and passion for insulting their fellows, at which the rest, modest though they
be by nature, cannot fail to take offense, and gird themselves to resist, from
the desire to maintain and defend themselves and their freedom. At times also
men are driven to mutual injury by want, and the fact that their present
resources are insufficient for their desires or their need.
5. Moreover men have in them great power for the infliction of mutual
injuries. For though not formidable because of teeth or claws or horns, as are
many of the brutes, still manual dexterity can prove a most effective means of
injury; and shrewdness gives a man the opportunity to attack by cunning and
in ambush, where the enemy cannot be reached by open force. Hence it is
very easy for man to inflict upon man the worst of natural evils, namely death.
6. Finally, we must also consider in mankind such a remarkable variety of
gifts as is not observed in single species of animals, which, in fact, generally
have like inclinations, and are led by the same passion and desire. But among
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 163
men there are as many emotions as there are heads, and each has his own idea
of the attractive. Nor are all stirred by a single and uniform desire, but by one
that is manifold and variously intermixed. Even one and the same man often
appears unlike himself, and if he has eagerly sought a thing at one time, at
another he is very averse to it. And there is no legs variety in the tastes and
habits, the inclinations to exert mental powers — a variety which we see now
in the almost countless modes of life. That men may not thus be brought into
collision, there is need of careful regulation and control.
7. Thus then man is indeed an animal most bent upon self-preservation,
helpless in himself, unable to save himself without the aid of his fellows,
highly adapted to promote mutual interests; but on the other hand no less
malicious, insolent, and easily provoked, also as able as he is prone to inflict
injury upon another. Whence it follows that, in order to be safe, he must be
sociable, that is, must be united with men like himself, and so conduct himself
toward them that they may have no good cause to injure him, but rather may
be ready to maintain and promote his interests.
8. The laws then of this sociability, or those which teach how a man should
conduct himself, to become a good member of human society, are called
natural laws.
9. So much settled, it is clear that the fundamental natural law is this: that
every man must cherish and maintain sociability, so far as in him lies. From
this it follows that, as he who wishes an end, wishes also the means, without
which the end cannot be obtained, all things which necessarily and universally
make for that sociability are understood to be ordained by natural law, and all
that confuse or destroy it forbidden. The remaining precepts are mere corollar-
ies, so to speak, under this general law, and the natural light given to mankind
declares that they are evident.
10. Again, although those precepts have manifest utility, still, if they are to
have the force of law, it is necessary to presuppose that God exists, and by His
providence rules all things; also that He has enjoined upon the human race
that they observe those dictates of the reason, as laws promulgated by Himself
by means of our natural light. For otherwise they might, to be sure, be
observed perhaps, in view of their utility, like the prescriptions of physicians
for the regimen of health, but not as laws; since these of necessity presuppose
a superior, and in fact one who has actually undertaken the direction of
another.
11. But that God is the author of the natural law, is proved by the natural
reason, if only we limit ourselves strictly to the present condition of humanity,
disregarding the question whether his primitive condition was different from
the present, or whence that change has come about. 3 The nature of man is so
constituted that the race cannot be preserved without the social life, and
man's mind is found to be capable of all the notions which serve that end. And
it is in fact clear, not only that the human race owes its origin, as do the other
creatures, to God, but also that, whatever be its present state, God includes
the race in the government of His providence. It follows from these arguments
164 Samuel Pufendorf
that God wills that man use for the conservation of his own nature those
special powers which he knows are peculiarly his own, as compared with the
brutes, and thus that man's life be distinguished from the lawless life of the
brutes. And as this cannot be secured except by observing the natural law, we
understand too that man has been obliged to God to keep the same, as a
means not devised by will of man, and changeable at their discretion, but
expressly ordained by God Himself, in order to insure this end. For whoever
binds a man to an end, is considered to have bound him also to employ the
means necessary to that end. And besides, we have evidence that the social
life has been enjoined upon men by God's authority, in the fact that in no
other creature do we find the religious sentiment or fear of the Deity — a
feeling which seems inconceivable in a lawless animal. Hence in the minds of
men not entirely corrupt a very delicate sense is born, which convinces them
that by sin against the natural law they offend Him who holds sway over the
minds of men, and is to be feared even when the fear of men does not impend.
12. The common saying that the law is known by nature, should not be
understood, it seems, as though actual and distinct propositions concerning
things to be done or to be avoided were inherent in men's minds at the hour of
their birth. But it means in part that the law can be investigated by the light of
reason, in part that at least the common and important provisions of the
natural law are so plain and clear that they at once find assent, and grow up in
our minds, so that they can never again be destroyed, no matter how the
impious man, in order to still the twinges of conscience, may endeavor to blot
out the consciousness of those precepts. For this reason in Scripture too the
law is said to be "written in the hearts" of men. 4 Hence, since we are imbued
from childhood with a consciousness of those maxims, in accordance with our
social training, and cannot remember the time when we first imbibed them,
we think of this knowledge exactly as if we had had it already at birth.
Everyone has the same experience with his mother tongue.
13. Of the duties incumbent upon man in accordance with natural law the
most convenient division seems to be according to the objects in regard to
which they are to be practiced. From this standpoint they are classified under
three main heads: the first of which instructs us how, according to the dictate
of sound reason alone, a man should conduct himself toward God, the sec-
ond, how toward himself, the third, how toward other men. Although those
precepts of natural law which concern other men may be derived primarily
and directly from sociability, which we have laid down as a foundation, indi-
rectly also the duties of man to God as creator can be derived from the same,
since the ultimate confirmation of duties toward other men comes from reli-
gion and fear of the Deity, so that man would not be sociable either, if not
imbued with religion; and since reason alone cannot go further in religion
than in so far as the latter subserves the promotion of peace and sociability in
this life. For, in so far as religion promotes the salvation of souls, it proceeds
from a special divine revelation. But duties of man to himself spring from
religion and sociability conjointly. For the reason why he cannot determine
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 165
certain acts concerning himself in accordance with his own free will, is partly
that he may be a fit worshiper of the Deity, and partly that he may be a good
and useful member of human society.

Chapter VI: On Mutual Duties, and First, That of Not Injuring Others
1. Next come the duties which a man must practice toward other men. Some
of them spring from the common obligation, by which the Creator willed that
all men as such should be bound together. But some flow from a definite
institution, introduced or received by men, or from a certain adventitious status
of men. The first are to be practiced by every man toward every other; the
second only toward certain persons, a certain condition or status being as-
sumed. Hence one may call the former absolute duties, the latter conditional.
2. Among the absolute duties, i.e., of anybody to anybody, the first place
belongs to this one: let no one injure another. For this is the broadest of all
duties, embracing all men as such. It is also the easiest, as consisting in mere
refraining from action, unless the passions that resist reason have somehow to
be checked at times. Again, it is likewise the most necessary duty, because
without it the social life could in no way exist. For with the man who confers
no benefit upon me, who makes no interchange even of the common duties
with me, I can still live at peace, provided he injure me in no way. In fact,
from the vast majority of men we desire nothing more than that. Benefits are
generally exchanged by the few. But with the man who injures me, I cannot by
any means live peaceably. For nature has implanted in each man so sensitive a
love of self and one's own possessions, that one cannot help repelling by every
means the man who essays to injure them.
3. Moreover, this same duty is a bulwark not only to what a man has by
nature itself, for instance, life, body, members, chastity, freedom, but also to
all that has been acquired through some institution and convention of men.
Hence by this precept it is forbidden to carry off, spoil, injure, or withdraw
from our use, in whole or in part, anything that by any legitimate title is ours.
Consequently the same duty is understood to interdict any crimes by which
injury is inflicted upon others, as bloodshed, wounding, beating, robbery,
theft, fraud, violence, directly or indirectly, mediately or immediately, and the
like. . . .

Chapter VII: On Recognition of the Natural Equality of Men

1. Man is an animal not only most devoted to self-preservation, but one in
which has been implanted a sensitive self-esteem. And if this be in any way
slighted, he is in general no less perturbed, than if an injury has been inflicted
upon his person or property. Even the word man is thought to contain a
certain dignity, so that the last and most effective argument in repelling the
insolent contempt of others is this: "I am certainly not a dog, but a man as well
as you." Inasmuch then as human nature is the same for all alike, and no one
166 Samuel Pufendorf
is perfectly willing or able to be associated with another, who does not esteem
him as at least equally a man and a sharer in the common nature; therefore,
among the mutual duties the second place is given to this: that each esteem
and treat the other as naturally his equal, that is, as a man just as much as
himself.
2. But this equality of men consists not only in the fact that adult men are
about equal in strength, in so far as the weaker can inflict death upon the
stronger by ambush, or with the help of dexterity, or an effective weapon; but
also in this, that, although one has been fitted out by nature with various gifts
of mind and body beyond the other, he must none the less practice the
precepts of natural law toward other men, and himself expects the same
treatment from others; and in the fact that no more freedom is given the man
to injure others on that account. So, conversely too, niggardliness of nature or
straitened circumstances do not of themselves condemn a man to a lot inferior
to that of others as regards the enjoyment of the common right. But what one
can demand or expect from another, that others too must demand of him,
other things being equal. And it is eminently proper that one should himself
practice the law which he has set up for others. For the obligation to cultivate
the social life with others binds all men equally, and one is no more permitted
than another to violate the natural laws in their dealings with each other. And
yet popular arguments are not lacking to illustrate that equality; for example,
that we all descend from the same stock, and are born, fed, and die in the
same manner; and that God has given no man assurance of a stable and
unshaken fortune. So also the injunctions of the Christian religion do not
commend nobility, power, or wealth, as a means of gaining the favor of God,
but sincere piety, which can be found in the humble, just as well as in the
great.
3. Moreover, it follows from this equality that he who wishes to use the
services of others for his own advantage, is bound in turn to spend himself,
that their wants may be satisfied. For the man who demands that others serve
him, but on the other hand desires to be always immune himself, is certainly
considering others not equal to himself. Hence, as those who readily allow the
same permission to all as to themselves, are the best adapted to society, so
those are plainly unsociable who, thinking themselves superior to others, wish
to have all things permitted to themselves alone, and arrogate honor to them-
selves above the rest, and the lion's share of the things common to all, to
which they have no better right than the others. Accordingly this too is one of
the common duties of the natural law: that no one, who has not acquired a
peculiar right, arrogate more to himself than the rest have, but permit others
to enjoy the same right as himself.
4. The same equality shows how a man should conduct himself, when he
must assign their various rights to others, viz., that he must treat them as
equals, and not indulge the one as against the other, except on the merits of
the case. For if this is not done, the man not favored is affronted as well as
injured, and the esteem Nature gave him is taken away. It follows then that a
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 167
common thing must be duly divided in equal portions among equals. When it
does not admit of division, those who have an equal right ought to use it in
common, and this as much as each shall please, if the amount permits. But if
this is impracticable, they should then use the thing after a manner prescribed,
and in proportion to the number of the users. For no other method of respect-
ing equality can be devised. But if the thing can neither be divided nor held in
common, let the enjoyment of it be alternate; or if this also fails, or no
equivalent can be furnished the rest, the thing must be awarded to one by lot.
For in cases of this kind no better remedy than the lot can be found, since this
takes away the sense of a slight, and if it fails to favor a man, it does not
detract from his esteem. . . .

Chapter VIII: On the Common Duties of Humanity

1. Among the duties of men in general to others in general, and those which
are to be practiced for the sake of the common sociability, the third place is
taken by this: that every man promote the advantage of another, so far as he
conveniently can. For since Nature has established a kind of kinship among
men, it would not be enough to have refrained from injuring or despising
others; but we must also bestow such attentions upon others — or mutually
exchange them — that thus mutual benevolence may be fostered among men.
Now we benefit others either definitely or indefinitely, and that with a loss, or
else without loss, to ourselves.
2. A man tends to promote the advantage of others indefinitely, if he
thoroughly cultivates his own soul and body, so that useful actions may ema-
nate from him to others; or if by ingenuity he finds the means of making
human life better equipped. Hence it is against this duty that they are to be
thought sinners, who learn no honorable art, pass their life in silence, and
have a soul "only as so much salt, to keep the body from decay"' — "mere
numbers," and "born to consume the fruits of earth." 6 Also those who, con-
tent with the riches left by their ancestors, think they may with impunity offer
sacrifice to indolence, since the industry of others has already gained for them
means to live upon. . . .
3. But to those who endeavor to be benefactors of the human race, the rest
owe this in return, that they be not envious, throw no obstacle in the way of
their noble efforts. Also that, if there be no other way of compensating them,
they at least promote their fame and memory, this being the chief reward of
labors.
4. But especially is it regarded as contemptible malignity and inhumanity,
not to bestow willingly upon others those blessings which can be accorded
without loss, trouble, or labor to ourselves. These are usually called mere
favors, that is, benefiting the recipient, and not burdening the giver. Exam-
ples are: not to exclude from running water, to allow taking fire from our fire,
to give honest advice to one in doubt, to point out the way kindly to him who
has lost it. . . .
168 Samuel Pufendorf

5. A higher form of humanity is bestowing freely upon another, and out of

rare benevolence, something costing money or painful effort, designed to
meet his needs, or win for him some signal advantage. These are called
benefits par excellence, and they offer the best opportunity to gain praise, if
only nobility of spirit and prudence duly control them. The dispensing of
these and their proper limits are governed generally by the situation of the
giver and that of the recipient. And here we must take special care that our
generosity do not injure both those to whom we think we are doing a kind
turn, and the others too; also that the generosity be not greater than our
means; and again that we give to each in proportion to his worth, and above
all to those who have deserved well; also in proportion to their need of our
help, and with regard also to the different degrees of closeness in the rela-
tions of men. We must also consider what each needs most, and what he can
accomplish or not, with or without us. The manner of giving too adds much
to the acceptability of favors, if we give with cheerful face, readily, and with
assurance of our good-will.
6. In return there must be gratitude in the mind of the recipient. Thus he
shows that the gift was acceptable to him, and for that reason he favors the
giver, and seeks an occasion to make an equal or larger return, in so far as he
can. For it is not necessary to return precisely the amount of the gift; but often
zeal and endeavor satisfy the obligation. However there must be no reason-
able exception which we can take, as against the man who claims to have done
us a favor. For example, I owe nothing to the man who has pulled me out of
the water, if he first threw me in.

Chapter IX: On the Duties of Contracting Parties in General

1. From the absolute duties we pass to the conditional, by way of agree-
ments as a transition; since all the duties not already enumerated seem to
presuppose an express or tacit agreement. We have then to treat here of the
nature of agreements, and what is to be observed by those who enter into
them.
2. Now it is sufficiently clear that it was necessary for men to enter into
agreements. For, although the duties of humanity are widely diffused through-
out human life, it is still impossible to deduce from that one source all that
men were entitled to receive to advantage from one another. For not all have
such natural goodness, that they are willing, out of mere humanity, to do all
the things by means of which they may benefit others, without an assured
hope of receiving the like in return. Often, too, favors which can come to us
from others, are of a sort to make us unable to demand without a blush that
they be done for us for nothing. And frequently it is unbecoming to our
station or person to owe such a favor to another. And in fact, as the other is
unable to give much, so we are often unwilling to accept, unless he receives an
equivalent from us. Finally, not uncommonly others are in the dark as to how
 On the Duty of Man and Citizen 169
they may serve our interests. Therefore, in order that the mutual duties of
men (the fruit, that is of sociability) may be discharged more frequently and
according to certain rules, it was necessary for men to agree among them-
selves, as to the mutual performance of all that they could not certainly
promise themselves from others, on the basis of the law of humanity alone.
And indeed it was necessary to determine in advance, what one was bound to
perform for another, and what the latter should in turn expect and exact as his
right from the former. And this is done by promises and agreements.
3. In regard to these, the general duty which we owe under natural law is,
that a man keep his plighted word, that is, fulfill his promises and agreements.
For, but for this, we should lose the greatest part of the advantage which is apt
to arise for the race from the interchange of services and property. And were
there not the necessity of keeping promises, one could not build one's calcula-
tions firmly upon the support of others. And also from a breach of faith there
are apt to arise entirely just causes for quarrels and war. For when I have
performed something in accordance with an agreement, if the other defaults
his promise, I have lost my property, or my services, for nothing. But if, on
the other hand, I have not yet performed anything, it is still an annoyance to
have my calculations and plans disturbed, since I could have made other
provision for my affairs, if he had not presented himself. And it is a shame to
be mocked because I believed the other a prudent and honest man.
4. We must observe also, that what we owe under the mere duty of
humanity differs from what is owed by virtue of a compact or perfect prom-
ise especially in this respect, viz., the things of the former class are properly
asked, and honorably performed; but when the other has failed of his own
motion to perform, I can complain merely of his inhumanity, barbarity, or
harshness; but I cannot compel him to perform, by my own force or that of
my superior. This is my privilege, however, when he does not of himself
perform what is due in acordance with a perfect promise or a compact.
Hence we are said in the former case to have an imperfect right, in the
latter, a perfect right, as also to be obligated imperfectly in the one case, and
perfectly in the other.
8. Moreover, that promises and compacts may bind us to give or do some-
thing not formerly required of us, or to omit what we previously had a right to
do, our voluntary consent is most essential. For, since the fulfillment of any
promise and agreement is associated with some burden, there is no better
reason to prevent our justly complaining about it, than the fact that we volun-
tarily consented to what it was evidently in our own power to avoid.
22. Such are the absolute duties of man, as also those which serve as a
transition to the other kind. The rest presuppose either some human institu-
tion, based upon a universal convention, and introduced among men, or else
some particular form of government. Of such institutions we observe in par-
ticular three: language, ownership and value, and human government. We
must next explain each of these, together with the resulting duties.
170 Samuel Pufendorf

The Law of Nature and of Nations

BOOK I

Chapter 1: On the Origin and Variety of Moral Entities

1. The task of prime philosophy [metaphysics], if it was to fulfil the calling
of its own very nature, was to give the most comprehensive definitions of
things and to divide them appropriately into distinct classes, giving in addition
the general nature and condition of every kind of thing. Now the classification
of natural things seems to have been sufficiently treated by those who have so
far undertaken the consideration of that science, but it is perfectly clear that
they have not been as much concerned with moral entities as the dignity of
these requires. Many, indeed, have not considered them at all; others have
but lightly touched upon them, as if they were unimportant or figments of no
moment. And yet their nature should by all means be known by man, to
whom has been given the power to produce them, and whose life is deeply
penetrated by their influence. This consideration impels us to give by way of
preface, in so far as shall seem necessary for our undertaking, a discussion of
this field of knowledge which has been neglected so far by most writers. . . .
2. According as all things which this universe embraces consist of their own
principles, which the Great and Good Creator has apportioned and assigned
to the constitution of their essence, so each several thing is observed to have its
own properties, which arise from the disposition and aptitude of its substance,
and to exert itself in distinct actions according to the measure of strength
imparted it by the Creator. These properties we usually call natural, since by
the term "nature" has generally been designated not merely the entire sum of
created things, but also their modes and acts which follow from that innate
strength which produces those infinite varieties of motion, whereby, as we
observe, all things in this universe are stirred. Now those things which act with
no perception at all, or with mere downright perception, or with perception
but slightly aided by reflection, are led solely by the instinct of nature, and can
in no way temper their actions by any measures that are taken of themselves.
But to man there has been given, not merely beauty and adaptability of body,
but also the distinctive light of intelligence, by the aid of which he can under-
stand things more accurately, compare them with one another, judge the
unknown by the known, and decide how things agree among themselves; so
that, as it would seem, not only is he freed from the necessity of confining his
actions to any one mode, but he can even exert, suspend, or moderate them.
Furthermore, to the same being, man, there has been granted the power to
invent or apply certain aids to each faculty, whereby it is signally assisted and
directed in its functioning. It is the task of others to set forth all that in the way
of concepts has been discovered to help save the intellect from being confused
by the infinite variety of things. It is for us to observe, how, chiefly for the
direction of the acts of the will, a specific kind of attribute has been given to
 The Law of Nature and of Nations 171
things and their natural motions, from which there has arisen a certain propri-
ety in the actions of man, and that outstanding seemliness and order which
adorn the life of men. Now these attributes are called Moral Entities, because
by them the morals and actions of men are judged and tempered, so that they
may attain a character and appearance different from the rude simplicity of
dumb animals.
3. We seem able, accordingly, to define moral ideas most conveniently as
certain modes [qualities], added to physical things or motions, by intelligent
beings, primarily to direct and temper the freedom of the voluntary acts of
man, and thereby to secure a certain orderliness and decorum in civilized life.
We use the term modes, for the term entity seems more fittingly to be divisible
into the two great subdivisions of substance and mode, than into those of
substance and accident. Furthermore, as mode is distinguished from sub-
stance, so moral ideas clearly do not exist of themselves, but have their basis
only in substances and in their motions, which they can affect only to a limited
extent. Now some modes flow, as it were, from the very nature of the thing
itself, while others are superadded by intelligent agency to physical things and
modes. For whatever has been endowed with intellect is able, by means of
reflection and a comparison of one thing with another, to form concepts,
which are suitable to be the guides of a consistent faculty. Moral entities also
are of the same kind. You may justly call the Great and Good God their
maker, who surely did not will that men should spend their lives like beasts
without civilization and moral law, but that their life and actions should be
tempered by a fixed mode of conduct, which was impossible without moral
entities. Nevertheless, the majority of them have been superadded later at the
pleasure of men themselves, according as they felt that the introduction of
them would help to develop the life of man and to reduce it to order. And so
of these latter the purpose is clear: It is not the perfection of this world of
nature, as is the case with physical entities, but it is the perfection in a
distinctive way of the life of man, in so far as it was capable of a certain beauty
of order above that in the life of beasts, as also the production of a pleasing
harmony in a thing so changeable as the human mind.
4. Now as the original way of producing physical entities is creation, so the
way in which moral entities are produced can scarcely be better expressed
than by the word imposition. For they do not arise out of the intrinsic nature
of the physical properties of things, but they are superadded, at the will of
intelligent entities, to things already existent and physically complete, and to
their natural effects, and, indeed, come into existence only by the determina-
tion of their authors. And these authors give them also certain effects, which
they can also remove at their own pleasure without any accompanying change
in the object to which they had been added. Hence the active force which lies
in them does not consist in their ability directly to produce any physical
motion or change in any thing, but only in this, that it is made clear to men
along what line they should govern their liberty of action, and that in a special
way men are made capable of receiving some good or evil and of directing
172 Samuel Pufendorf
certain actions towards other persons with a particular effect. Also the effi-
cacy of moral entities instituted by God flows from the fact, that, as man's
creator, He has the right to set certain limits to the liberty of will which He has
designed to vouchsafe man, and to turn that will, when reluctant, by the
threat of some evil to whatever course He wishes. Nay, even men themselves
have been able to give a force to their own inventions, by threatening some
evil that lay within their power, on him who refused to conform to their
dictates. . . .
12. Moral entities, regarded on the analogy of substances, are termed moral
persons. These are either individual men, or men united by a moral bond into
one system, considered together with their status, or the function which they
perform in common life. Now moral persons are either simple or composite.
Simple persons, on the basis of a difference in their status or functions, are
either public or private, as their function is directly for the use of a civil group,
or for the advantage of individuals as such. In the usage of Christian peoples
public persons are divided into civil and ecclesiastical. The former are either
principal, or inferior. Some among them rule a commonwealth with supreme
authority; some, by virtue of the power given them from the supreme author-
ity, have charge of a certain part of the administration and are properly called
magistrates, or aid in the proper administration of the state by their counsels.
Inferior persons render a less important service to the state and to the magis-
trates as such. In war the superior and inferior officers correspond to the
magistrates, and are in command of the common soldiers, who, in this re-
spect, may be considered public persons, because they are authorized, di-
rectly or indirectly, by the highest civil power, to bear arms in behalf of the
state. . . .
15. . . . the imposition which produces real moral persons is not at all a free
thing, but it should presuppose such qualities as are appropriate, so that some
real benefit may thereby accrue to mankind; and he who has no respect for
this consideration in constituting persons, should be regarded as insulting
mankind with his recklessness and folly. . . .
18. A conspicuous place among moral attributes is occupied by titles, which
are designations for the distinctions, made in the civil life of persons, upon the
basis of their esteem and status. They are in the main of two kinds. Some,
indeed, denote the degree of the esteem of individuals in civil life, or the
qualities peculiar to them, but they only connote and hint more or less clearly
at the status, according as such and such a title is ordinarily applied to few or
many statuses. Such are those honorary titles which are commonly appended
to the names of persons of distinction, as "most serene," "most eminent,"
"most illustrious," &c., the implications of which is greater or less according
to the force of the substantives to which they are attached. Other titles di-
rectly signify some status or some seat or peculiar place in a status, while they
indirectly connote a degree of the esteem which commonly attaches to that
status or position. Such are the names of moral persons, at least of those who
occupy any post of honour. . . .
 The Law of Nature and of Nations 173

19. Moral operative qualities are either active or passive. Of the former the
most noble species are power, right, and obligation. Power is that by which a
man is able to do something legally and with a moral effect. This effect is that
an obligation is laid upon another to perform some task, or to admit as valid
some of his actions, or not to hinder them, or that he shall be able to confer
upon another a power of action or possession, which the latter did not for-
merly possess. For this quality is, indeed, to a very high degree diffusive, as it
were, of itself. On the side of its efficacy, power is divided into perfect and
imperfect.' The former is that which can be exercised by force against those
who unlawfully endeavour to oppose it (force being chiefly exercised inside
the boundaries of a state by an action at law; outside the boundaries, by war).
In the case of the latter, if any one be prohibited unlawfully from its exercise,
he is being treated inhumanely, indeed, and yet he has no right to defend it
either by a legal action or by war, unless it so happen that necessity has
supplied what it lacks in efficacy. 8
On the side of its subject, power is divided into personal and communica-
ble. The former is that which one cannot lawfully transmit to another. But in
this there are several differences, for some powers are so intimately connected
with a person that the acts belonging to them cannot rightly be exercised at all
through the instrumentality of another. Such is the power of a husband over
the body of his wife, the exercise of which by another no laws would admit.
Such are also the powers the possession of which cannot be transferred by us
to another, although the commission of the acts proper to them can be dele-
gated to others; provided, however, that the acts derive all their authority
from him to whom those powers inherently belong. Of this nature is the
power of kings who have been constituted as such by the will of the people.
For they cannot transfer to any one else the right to rule, and yet they can
employ the services of ministers for the exercise of the acts that belong to such
a right. Communicable power is such as can properly be transferred from one
person to another, whether that be at his own pleasure, or by the authority or
consent of a superior.
Finally, with regard to objects, most kinds of power can be classified into
four groups. For powers concern either persons or things, and both these
according as they are one's own or another's. Power over one's own person
and actions is called liberty (although the ambiguities under which this
word labours will have to be set forth elsewhere). Liberty is not to be
understood as a principle distinct from him who enjoys it, or as a right of
forcing oneself to an abhorrent task . . . but rather as a man's faculty to
dispose of himself and his actions in accordance with his own desires;
which faculty of itself involves a negation of any hindrance arising from a
superior power. Power over one's own possessions is called ownership.
Power over the persons of other men is properly command; power over
another's possessions is easement. 9
20. The word "right" (ius) is highly ambiguous. For in addition to the
meanings where it is used for law, and for a body or system of homogeneous
174 Samuel Pufendorf
laws, as well as for the decision rendered by a judge, it very frequently
happens that it is taken as the moral quality by which we legally either com-
mand persons, or possess things, or by virtue of which something is owed us.
This difference, however, seems to exist between the words power and right,
namely, that the former tends more to introduce into things or persons the
actual presence of the quality mentioned, and less expressly connotes the
mode by which one has secured it. Right, however, directly and clearly indi-
cates that a thing has been lawfully acquired and is lawfully now retained.
Because, however, most kinds of power have a distinguishing name, which
that quality, whereby something is understood to be owed us, lacks, it is
convenient to designate this quality in a special way by the word "right,"
although we have not seen fit to avoid the other meanings of this word,
because of customary usage.
Now we class right among active qualities, since by virtue of it something
can be demanded of another. But it is also placed among passive moral quali-
ties, since it enables a man lawfully to receive something. For passive qualities
are those by which one can lawfully have, suffer, admit, or receive something.
Of these there are three kinds: The first is that whereby we properly receive
something, in such a way, however, that we have no power to demand it, nor
is there any obligation on another to render it. Such is the ability to receive a
gift that is purely gratuitous. And that such a quality is not an absolute fiction,
may be ascertained from the consideration, that, for example, a judge may be
forbidden to receive under any consideration a gift from parties to a suit. The
second is that whereby we are capacitated to receive something from another,
not in such a way that it can be extorted from him against his will, unless a
chance necessity requires it, but only in so far as he is obliged by some moral
virtue to give it. This is called by Grotius an "aptitude." 1° The third is that
whereby we are able to force a man, even against his will, to the performance
of something, and he himself is fully obligated to such performance by a
specific law that prescribes a definite penalty. . . .
21. An obligation is that whereby one is required under moral necessity to
do, or admit, or suffer something; its divisions will be treated more in detail
below. There are also moral "sensible" qualities which are understood to
affect the judgement of men in a particular manner, just as among physical
qualities this term is used for those which affect the faculty of sensation; such
are honour, disgrace, authority, dignity, fame, obscurity, and the like.
23. In conclusion, as moral entities owe their origin to imposition, so from
this they obtain their stability, as well as their variations, and when it has
ceased to operate, as it were, they simultaneously disappear, just as a
shadow disappears the instant a light is extinguished. Moreover, those which
are of divine imposition are removed again only at the divine pleasure.
Those which have been established by the will of men are abolished again by
the same, even though the physical substance of the persons or things re-
main unchanged. . . .
 The Law of Nature and of Nations 175

Chapter II: On the Certainty of the Moral Sciences

1. The majority of scholars have for long firmly held, that moral science
lacks that certitude, which is so characteristic of other knowledge, and espe-
cially of mathematics, because it has no place for demonstrations, from which
alone is derived knowledge that is pure and free from fear of error; and
because what is known of it rests on probability alone. This feeling has
worked an immense injury to sciences most noble and most necessary to the
life of man. . . .
4. . . . Now that knowledge, which considers what is upright and what base
in human actions, the principal portion of which we have undertaken to
present, rests entirely upon grounds so secure, that from it can be deduced
genuine demonstrations which are capable of producing a solid science. So
certainly can its conclusions be derived from distinct principles, that no fur-
ther ground is left for doubt.
5. Some there are who maintain that things moral are always uncertain and
changing, and that no greater certitude can attach to any science than to the
objects with which it deals. The reply is, that, although moral entities owe
their origin to imposition, and for that reason are not in an absolute sense
necessary, yet they have not arisen in such a loose and general manner, that
scientific knowledge about them is on that account utterly uncertain. For the
very condition of man demanded the institution of most of them, a condition
assigned him by the most Good and Great Creator out of His goodness and
wisdom; hence such entities can by no means be uncertain and weak. . . .
6. Now in order that this knowledge of natural law with which we are now
concerned, and which includes all moral and civil knowledge that is genuine
and solid, may meet the full requirements of a science, we feel that we need not
declare, with certain writers," that some things are noble or base of themselves
without any imposition, and that these form the object of natural and perpetual
law, while those, the good repute or baseness of which depends upon the will of
a legislator, fall under the head of positive laws. For since good repute, or moral
necessity, and turpitude, are affections of human actions arising from their
conformity or non-conformity to some norm or law, and law is the bidding of a
superior, it does not appear that good repute or turpitude can be conceived to
exist before law, and without the imposition of a superior. . . .
And, indeed, they who set up an eternal rule for the morality of human
actions, beyond the imposition of God, seem to me to do nothing other than
to join to God some co-eternal extrinsic principle which He Himself had to
follow in the assignment of forms of things [at the moment of creation]. All,
furthermore, admit that God created all things, man included, of His free will;
it must follow, then, that it lay within His own pleasure to assign whatever
nature He wished to this creature whom He was about to create. How, then,
can an action of man be accorded any quality, if it takes its rise from an
extrinsic and absolute necessity, without the imposition and pleasure of God?
176 Samuel Pufendorf
On this argument, in very truth, all the movements and actions of man, if
every law both divine and human be removed, are indifferent; while some of
them are termed naturally reputable or base, because the condition of nature,
which the Creator freely bestowed upon man, most rigorously requires either
their execution or avoidance; it does not follow, however, that any morality
can exist of itself, without any law, in its own motion and the application of
physical power. . . .
Here it should be carefully noted that this indifference of physical motion in
the actions of men is maintained by us only in respect to morality. For other-
wise actions prescribed by the law of nature have, through the determination
of the first cause, the native power to produce an effect good and useful to
mankind, while actions similarly forbidden produce a contrary effect. But this
natural goodness and evil does by no means constitute an action in the field of
morals. For there are many things which contribute to the happiness and
convenience of man and yet are not morally good, since they are not volun-
tary actions, nor are they enjoined by any law; while many acts which tend to
the welfare of man have the same natural effect among beasts, although
among the latter they possess no moral quality. . . .
The reason why many men cannot understand such an indifference in ac-
tions, is because from childhood on we have been imbued with a hatred of such
vices; and this hatred, impressed on a mind still simple, appears to have grown
to have the strength of a moral judgment, the result being that few have thought
of distinguishing between the material and the formal in such actions. Hence it
is patent that Grotius, On the Law of War and Peace, Bk. I, chap. i, § 10, had not
considered this matter thoroughly, when he refers the wickedness of some
human actions to the class of things to which the power of God Himself does not
extend, because they involve a contradiction. Twice two, indeed, can only be
four, because twice two and four are one and the same thing, differing only in
name and in the point of view. It is, however, a contradiction for something
simultaneously to be and not to be the same thing. But surely such a contradic-
tion does not appear in the case of actions which are opposed to natural law. For
the same reason Grotius shortly thereafter undertakes to derive this wicked-
ness from a comparison with nature when following sound reason. And yet in
the words sound reason, as attributed to man, there is involved a reference to
the law of society as given to man by the Creator. Again in § 12, he says that the
absolute existence of any natural law is tested by its necessary agreement or
non-agreement with rational and social nature. And yet man received this social
nature not from any immutable necessity, but from the pleasure of God. There-
fore, the morality of actions as well, whether they do or do not suit him as a
social being, must be derived from the same source. And so morality is fittingly
attributed to these actions, not of an absolute necessity, but of a hypothetical
necessity, since such a position is posited for man as God freely assigned him
above all other creatures. . . .
10. But, as a matter of fact, a certain latitude is found in moral quantities, and
principally for that reason mathematical knowledge is generally held to surpass
 • The Law of Nature and of Nations 177
moral in the delicacy of its processes. That is due to the different nature of
physical and moral quantity. For physical quantities can be exactly compared
with one another, and measured and divided into distinct parts, because they
are in a material way objects of our senses. Hence one can determine accurately
what relation or proportion they have to one another, especially since with
numbers, which we use, all such relations are most exactly set forth. And
besides, those quantities are a product of nature, and hence unmoved and
eternal. But moral quantities arise from imposition, and the judgement of
intelligent and free agents, whose judgement and pleasure is in no way subject
to physical measurement; and so the quantity which they conceive and deter-
mine by their imposition, cannot be referred to a like measure, but retains the
liberty and laxness of its origin. Neither did the end, for which moral quantities
were introduced, require such a measure of exactness, and such straining after
details, but it was enough for the purpose of man's life that persons, things, and
actions be roughly rated and compared. . . .

Chapter IV: On the Will of Man as It Concurs in Moral Actions

1. Since the most wise Creator wished to make man an animal to be gov-
erned by laws, He implanted in his soul a will, as an internal director of his
actions, so that after objects were proposed and understood, he might be able
to move himself to them by an intrinsic principle apart from any physical
necessity, and be able to choose what seemed to him the most fitting; as well
as turn from those which did not seem agreeable to him. . . .
2. Freedom, men call a faculty of the will, whereby, given all things requi-
site for acting, it is able, from among many objects before it, to choose one, or
some, and to reject the rest; or, if but one object be presented, it may admit or
not admit it, do or not do it. Requisites for acting are sometimes summed up
under the single word "occasion," from which requisites the final determina-
tion of the agent is considered to be a separate thing; and when determination
is added to the other requisites, action at once follows. Now the requisites
connected with liberty are distinguished from that aid to actions which is
furnished by the man himself. But more particularly the faculty of choosing,
from among many objects, one or several, is called liberty of specification or
contrariety; the faculty which is concerned with the choice or rejection of but
one object, is called liberty of contradiction or of exercise.
Now liberty is supposed to add to spontaneity, firstly, an indifference as to
the exercise of its acts, so that the will is under no necessity to exert one of its
acts, that is, to will or to refuse, but, touching a particular object before it (for
in general it cannot help but turn to that which is good as such, or renounce
evil as such), it may choose whatever action it please, although chance may
incline it more to one than to another. Liberty also adds a free determination,
so that the will by an internal impulse may choose here and now either of its
acts, that is, to will or to refuse.
It should, however, be added, that, even though it may seem to a man that
178 Samuel Pufendorf

something should be desired or avoided, this is not dependent on the will but
on the state of the object, according as it presents an appearance of good or
evil; although that desire or aversion, which thus follows the appearance of
the object, is not so strong but that there still remains to the will the liberty to
shape itself to some outward action upon the object; especially since the
appearance of an evil thing can seem desirable only so long as another evil is
at its side. . . .
3. But the chief affection of the will, which seems to rise immediately from
its very nature, is that it is not restrained intrinsically to a definite, fixed, and
invariable mode of acting, which affection we shall denominate indifference,
and that this intrinsic indifference cannot be entirely destroyed by an extrane-
ous means. And this must be maintained all the more firmly because upon its
removal the morality of human actions is at once entirely destroyed.
4. But some preliminary remarks should be made concerning the nature of
good, so that the indifference of the will may be correctly apprehended. Now
good is considered in an absolute way by some philosophers, so that every
entity, actually existing, may be considered good; but we pay no attention to
such a meaning, and consider a thing as good only in so far as it has a respect
to others, and it is understood to be good for some person, or on his behalf.
Taken in this sense the nature of good seems to consist in an aptitude whereby
one thing is fitted to help, preserve, or complete another. And . since this
aptitude depends on the very nature of things, whether this nature be native
or adapted by some contrivance, that good which we can call natural, is firm
and uniform, and in no way dependent on the erroneous or changeable opin-
ions of men. . . .
From what has been said it is clear that it belongs to the nature of the will
always to seek what is inherently good, and to avoid what is inherently evil.
For it implies a clear contradiction that you should not incline to what you see
is agreeable to you, and should incline to what you feel is not agreeable. And
so this general inclination of the will can admit no indifference, as though the
will might seek good and evil by an appetite of simple approbation. But the
will of individuals exerts the force of its indifference on particular good and
evils, as men incline to different things at particular times. And this is so
because scarcely any things good or evil appear to a man uncontaminated and
distinct, but intermixed, evil with good and good with evil. . . .

Chapter VII: On the Qualities of Moral Actions

7 . . . . It should be observed, in conclusion, that some things are due us by
a perfect, others by an imperfect right. When what is due us on the former
score is not voluntarily given, it is the right of those in enjoyment of natural
liberty to resort to violence and war in forcing another to furnish it, or, if we
live within the same state, an action against him at law is allowed; but what is
due on the latter score cannot be claimed by war or extorted by a threat of the
 The Law of Nature and of Nations 179

law. Writers frequently designate a perfect right by the additional words, "his
own," as they say, for example, a man demands this by his own [suo] right.
But the reason why some things are due us perfectly and others imperfectly, is
because among those who live in a state of mutual natural law there is a
diversity in the rules of this law, some of which conduce to the mere existence
of society, others to an improved existence. And since it is less necessary that
the latter be observed towards another than the former, it is, therefore, rea-
sonable that the former can be exacted more rigorously than the latter, for it is
foolish to prescribe a medicine far more troublesome and dangerous than the
disease. There is, furthermore, in the case of the former usually an agree-
ment, but not in the latter, and so, since the latter are left to a man's sense of
decency and conscience, it would be inconsistent to extort them from another
by force, unless a grave necessity happens to arise. In civil states this distinc-
tion arises from their civil laws, which either allow or deny an action, although
in most instances states have followed in the footsteps of natural law, except
where their own reasons persuaded them to take another course.
8. When, therefore, actions or things are extended to another, which are
due him only by an imperfect right, or when actions are performed for an-
other which have no relation to business, it is usually said that universal
justice is observed; as when one comes to the aid of a man with counsel,
goods, or personal assistance, and performs a service of piety, respect, grati-
tude, kindness, or generosity, for those to whom he was obligated to perform
the same. The only concern of this kind of justice is that one should furnish
what is due another, without observing whether the service furnished is equal
to, or less than, that which was the reason for the obligation. Thus an office of
gratitude is fulfilled if as much is shown as one's faculties permit, although the
kindness done may have far surpassed that measure. But when acts which
concern business relations are performed for another, or acts by which some-
thing is transferred to another to which he had a perfect right, that is called
particular justice.

Boot( III

Chapter IV: On Keeping Faith and on the Divisions of Obligations

6. We may well discuss the division of obligations into natural and civil, not
so much on the ground that such a division explains the origin of obligations,
as that it suggests the basis of their force in common life. And so a natural
obligation is that which binds only by the force of natural law; a civil obliga-
tion that which is reinforced by civil laws and authority. The efficacy of each is
considered, either in him in whom it resides as the subject of the obligation, or
in the other person, who is its object. From the point of view of the subject,
the efficacy of a natural obligation consists principally in the fact that it binds
the conscience of a man, or that a man realizes, when he has not fulfilled it,
180 Samuel Pufendorf
that he is disobeying the will of God, whose law all men recognize that they
should obey, just as they are indebted to Him for their very existence. And
although penal sanctions are not to be found so expressly defined in natural
law, there is no reason to feel that it lacks every kind of sanction, and that the
man who breaks its obligation should expect no greater punishment from the
hands of its author than he who fulfils the same. Among other arguments for
this fact are those bitings of conscience with which the wicked are seized, even
when they have hope of deceiving men and escaping human punishment; and
that such a fear springs from no higher principle, from no realization of the
divine sovereignty, but can be traced to mere simplicity, habit, or the fear of
human punishment, no pious man is convinced. . . .
. . . Nor can I believe that any man has ever found for himself in the
impiety of atheism a final relief from such terrors, but that his fear of God has
at times got the upper hand, and shaken his impious mind in the end with even
greater tumults. . . .
Now although the binding of a man's conscience is the most characteristic
feature of a natural obligation, the same efficacy is found as well in a civil
obligation, provided the latter is concerned with an object not repugnant to
the former. And so civil laws also, which are not repugnant to natural law,
have an influence on the conscience. Furthermore, both obligations agree in
this respect, that a man should do, of his own accord and by an intrinsic
motive, the things which they demand of him. This forms the main difference
between obligation and compulsion, since in the latter the mind is forced to
something by mere external violence contrary to its intrinsic inclination, while
whatever we do from an obligation is understood to come from an intrinsic
impulse of the mind, and with the full approbation of its own judgment.
But when these obligations are viewed from the effect which they produce
on the person who is owed something by reason of them, they have this
feature in common, namely, that whatever is furnished as a debt on this
account may be rightfully received and kept. But when a man neglects or
refuses to meet an obligation, there arises a distinction, in the manner of
requiring its fulfilment, between natural and civil obligations, according as
one lives in natural liberty, or in a civil state.
Among those who live in natural liberty there obtains, from the precepts of
natural law, an inequality of obligation. For such things as natural law com-
mands one man to show another, before any agreement has passed between
them, such as the duties of charity and humanity, can be required only by
peaceful means, as by persuasion, admonition, request, or entreaty. But it will
not be allowable to use force against a person who persists in his refusal,
unless it happen that extreme necessity impels us. The reason for this seems to
lie in the fact that, without such duties, the intercourse of men cannot be
sufficiently peaceful, and so nature is understood to have put them to one
side, as a means by which men may bind others to themselves by a special
exhibition of good will; since things which may be extorted by force have no
such power to win the hearts of others, as those which may be denied without
 Editor's Notes 181
fear. But if what is owed by an agreement is not forthcoming, force may be
used to extort it. In the same way we may defend any of our possessions by
force, when another man inflicts injury upon them.
Now civil obligations, or such as secure authority from civil law, open the
way for action in a civil court. . . .

Chapter V: On the Nature of Promises and Pacts in General

3. . . . not every natural faculty to do something is properly a right, but
only that which concerns some moral effect, in the case of those who have the
same nature as I. Thus, as in the fables . . . the horse had a natural faculty to
graze in the meadow, and so had the stag as well, yet neither of them had a
right to this, because their respective faculties did not concern the other. In
the same way, when a man takes inanimate objects or animals for his use, he
exercises only a purely natural faculty, if it is considered simply with regard to
the objects and animals which he uses, without respect to other men. But this
faculty takes on the nature of a real right, at the moment when this moral
effect is produced in the rest of mankind, that other men may not hinder him,
or compete with him, against his will, in using such objects or animals. Of
course it is absurd to try to designate as a right that faculty which all other men
have an equal right to prevent one from exercising.
Now we admit that man has by nature a faculty to take for his use all
inanimate objects and animals. But that faculty, thus exactly defined, cannot
properly be called a right, both because such things are under no obligation to
present themselves for man's use, and because, by virtue of the natural equal-
ity of all men, one man cannot rightfully exclude the rest from such things,
unless their consent, expressed or presumed, has let him have them as his very
own. Only when this has been done, can he say that he has a proper right to
the thing. To state it more concisely: A right to all things, previous to every
human deed, must be understood not exclusively, but only indefinitely, that is,
not that one man may claim everything for himself to the exclusion of the rest
of mankind, but that nature does not define what particular things belong to
one man, and what to another, before they agree among themselves on their
divison and allocation. And even less does the same equality of men allow one
man to claim that he has by nature a right over every other man. Nay rather,
no man would ever have a right to rule over another, had he not acquired it in
some special way from the other's consent, or from some other antecedent act
of his, as is shown at greater length in its proper place.

Editor's Notes
1. "Polity," that is, city or abiding home.
2. The human court of judgment. The term inner forum was often used to refer to
the conscience.
3. In a work on natural law Pufendorf did not discuss human origins or touch on
matters of original sin.
182 Samuel Pufendorf
4. Rom. 2:14-15.
5. Cicero De natura deorum 11.160, attributed to Chrysippus, who was speaking of
the function of the pig's soul.
6. Horace, Epistulae 1.2.27.
7. That is, complete or incomplete.
8. In dire emergencies — cases of necessity — a sufferer may use force to obtain what
is needed to sustain life, even though such force would not normally be legitimate.
For example, a beggar may not ordinarily use force to get what he requests; but a
starving man, to prevent his own death, may take food that is not his.
9. An easement now is a legal permission to use another's property, for example, to
allow my porch to extend over to your plot of ground.
10. Law of War and Peace, I.I.iv.
11. As Pufendorf soon made clear, he had in mind at least Grotius.

Further Reading
In addition to the translations of Pufendorf's major works on natural law mentioned in
the Introduction, another essay of his is available in English, in Michael Seidler, trans.,
Samuel Pufendorf's "On the Natural State of Men" (New York: Mellen Press, 1990);
Seidler has provided a substantial and useful introduction. The only book on Pufen-
dorf in English is by Leonard Krieger, The Politics of Discretion: Pufendorf and the
Acceptance of Natural Law (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965). For a brief
study of the main points of Pufendorf's moral philosophy, see J. B. Schneewind,
"Pufendorf's Place in the History of Ethics," Synthese 72 (1987):123-55, which con-
tains references to some of the important literature on Pufendorf in German and in
French. Richard Tuck discusses Pufendorf on several points in Natural Rights Theories
(Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979). The same author, in "The
`Modern' Theory of Natural Law," in Anthony Pagden, ed., The Languages of Political
Theory in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1987), presents an important examination of the distinguishing features of Grotian and
post-Grotian natural law. The Pagden volume also includes an essay by Istvan Hont,
"The Language of Sociability and Commerce: Samuel Pufendorf and the Theoretical
Foundations of the 'Four States Theory,' " which reviews Pufendorf's role in the rise of
a developmental view of human history that is important to the economic work of
Adam Smith. Michael Nutkiewicz, "Samuel Pufendorf: Obligation As the Basis of the
State," Journal of the History of Philosophy 21 (1983):15-29, illuminates Pufendorf's
ethics as well as his political thought.
 John Locke

Introduction
Locke claimed that a deductive science of moral principles could be produced, al-
though he himself never produced one. His epistemological and political views were so
influential, however, that they gave considerable weight to the ideas about morality
that Locke expressed in his various works. Those interested in the history of ethics
should therefore have some acquaintance with Locke's views.
Locke was born in 1632 and educated at Oxford, where he taught for a period and then
studied medicine, eventually obtaining a degree in 1674. In 1667 he took a post as physi-
cian to Lord Ashley (after 1672 the earl of Shaftesbury), whom he served in many capaci-
ties until the earl's death in 1683. Shaftesbury was a major figure in the party opposing
absolutist monarchy and working to keep the throne in Protestant hands. Indeed, his
intrigues led to his being tried for treason. Although he was acquitted, Shaftesbury fled
England, and after the earl's death, Locke, thinking that he also was in some danger, left
Oxford for Holland. He stayed there until 1689, returning when William and Mary — to
whom he had been an adviser in Holland — came to the English throne.
When Locke was a student, philosophy at Oxford was still scholastic, and he was not
interested in it. He studied Descartes only after he had finished his formal education.
Then, during a stay in Paris Locke met a number of leading philosophical figures,
among them Gassendi's disciple Bernier, who encouraged him in following an empiri-
cist line of thought. During his exile in Holland, Locke worked on his Essay Concern-
ing Human Understanding, which was published in 1690. The Two Treatises on Civil
Government, though also dated 1690, had appeared shortly before the Essay. Locke's
health was poor, and after his return to England he lived much of the time with friends
in the country, although he also held a position in the new government. His Reasonable-
ness of Christianity was published anonymously in 1695. In his later years Locke
revised the Essay, engaged in controversy about it, and wrote on many other subjects.
He died in 1704.
In the final chapter of the Essay, Locke divided the objects of understanding into
three classes: the nature of things as they are in themselves, those things that man
ought to do, and the ways by which he is to attain these two kinds of knowledge. The
second kind of knowledge, Locke stated, is
the skill of right applying our own powers and actions for the attainment of things good and
useful. The most considerable under this head is Ethics, which is the seeking out those rules and
measures of human actions which lead to happiness, and the means to practice them.
The point of this sort of knowledge, Locke explained, is not "bare speculation";
rather, it is the improvement of practice.

183
184 John Locke

Locke had a long-standing interest in morals and politics. When he was about thirty,
he wrote two tracts on political affairs and a set of essays or disputations on the law of
nature, and the discussions with friends that stimulated Locke to write the Essay
probably initially concerned ethics. In the Essay itself Locke treated morality almost
entirely as part of his general effort to work out accounts of how our ideas are derived
from experience, of the way language is built on our experientially based ideas, and of
the roles of reason and experience in combining these ideas into the different kinds of
knowledge we possess. Thus he argued against innate moral ideas as part of his wider
argument against innate ideas of any sort, and his account of moral relations was
included as part of the discussion of relational ideas generally.
Some aspects of Locke's own position regarding morality emerge during these pri-
marily epistemological discussions. He made apparent his hedonism: good and evil are
defined in terms of pleasure and pain, and happiness is the presence of the one and the
absence of the other. We all pursue happiness, although we do not always pursue what
seems to us at the moment the greatest attainable good. We can place our happiness in
different things, Locke believed, and so, even if I know that something would give me
pleasure, I need not pursue it, because I need not think of that particular good or
pleasure as contributing to my happiness. Locke stressed the variety of goods that
people pursue and concluded, in a Hobbesian way, that
the philosophers of old did in vain inquire whether summum bonum [highest good] consisted in
riches, or bodily delights, or virtue or contemplation; and they might have as reasonably disputed
whether the best relish were to be found in apples, plums, or nuts. (Essay, II. xxi.55)
If moral principles are somehow meant to show us how to attain happiness, it will not
be easy to figure out what those principles are.
Another feature of morality, in Locke's view, is that God is central to it. God has
given us a law to live by, and he enforces it by means of sanctions. No law without a
lawgiver, no lawgiver without the power to enforce. Here Locke distanced himself
from Grotius and aligned himself with Pufendorf, whom he admired and whose books
he recommended for the education of gentlemen. God is needed not only to lay down
the law but also to instruct us in it, and not by roundabout means such as reason.
Revelation was originally necessary because reason was too weak to inform us of what
God requires of us — although Locke firmly believed that once the requirements were
revealed, reason could show us that they were reasonable.
Locke did not publish his early writings on natural law, and he refused later requests to
publish them, made by the few people who knew of them. They must be studied for a full
understanding of Locke's views on morality, but because they did not become available
until this century, the following selections are drawn from his published works. The first
excerpts are from the Essay Concerning Human Understanding and the second from The
Reasonableness of Christianity. The texts are from Locke's Works, 3rd ed., 3 vols.
(London, 1727). I have modernized the spelling and some of the punctuation.

An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

BOOK I

Chapter III
1. If those speculative maxims whereof we discoursed in the foregoing
chapter have not an actual universal assent from all mankind, as we there
 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 185
proved, it is much more visible concerning practical principles, that they come
short of an universal reception; and I think it will be hard to instance any one
moral rule which can pretend to so general and ready an assent as "What is,
is" or to be so manifest a truth as this, "that it is impossible for the same thing
to be and not to be." Whereby it is evident that they are farther removed from
a title to be innate; and the doubt of their being native impressions on the
mind is stronger against these moral principles than the other. Not that it
brings their truth at all in question. They are equally true, though not equally
evident. Those speculative maxims carry their own evidence with them. But
moral principles require reasoning and discourse, and some exercise of the
mind, to discover the certainty of their truth. They lie not open as natural
characters ingraven on the mind; which if any such were, they must needs be
visible by themselves, and by their own light be certain and known to every-
body. But this is no derogation to their truth and certainty . . . these moral
rules are capable of demonstration: and therefore it is our own faults, if we
come not to a certain knowledge of them. But the ignorance wherein many
men are of them, and the slowness of assent wherewith others receive them,
are manifest proofs that they are not innate. . . .
2. Whether there be any such moral principles wherein all men do agree, I
appeal to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of
mankind and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys. Where
is that practical truth that is universally received without doubt or question, as it
must be if innate? Justice, and keeping contracts, is that which most men seem
to agree in. This is a principle which is thought to extend itself to the dens of
thieves, and the confederacies of the greatest villains; and they who have gone
farthest towards the putting off of humanity itself keep faith and rules of justice
one with another. I grant that outlaws themselves do this one amongst another,
but 'tis without receiving these as the innate laws of nature. They practise them
as rules of convenience within their own communities. But it is impossible to
conceive that he embraces justice as a practical principle who acts fairly with his
fellow highwaymen, and at the same time plunders or kills the next honest man
he meets with. Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and therefore
even outlaws and robbers, who break with all the world besides, must keep
faith and rules of equity amongst themselves, or else they cannot hold together.
But will any one say that those that live by fraud and rapine have innate
principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to?
4. Another reason that makes me doubt of any innate practical principles is
that I think there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may
not justly demand a reason, which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd if
they were innate, or so much as self-evident; which every innate principle
must needs be, and not need any proof to ascertain its truth, nor want any
reason to gain it approbation. He would be thought void of common sense
who asked on the one side or on the other side went . about to give a reason
why it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be. It carries its own
light and evidence with it and needs no other proof. He that understands the
terms assents to it for its own sake, or else nothing will ever be able to prevail
186 John Locke
with him to do it. But should that most unshaken rule of morality and founda-
tion of all social virtue, that one should do as he would be done unto, be
proposed to one who never heard it before, but yet is of capacity to under-
stand its meaning, might he not without any absurdity ask a reason why? And
were not he that proposed it bound to make out the truth and reasonableness
of it to him? Which plainly shews it not to be innate, for if it were, it could
neither want nor receive any proof. . . .
6. Hence naturally flows the great variety of opinions concerning moral
rules which are to be found amongst men, according to the different sorts of
happiness they have a prospect of or propose to themselves; which could not
be if practical principles were innate and imprinted in our minds immediately
by the hand of God. I grant the existence of God is so many ways manifest,
and the obedience we owe him so congruous to the light of reason, that a great
part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature. But yet I think it must be
allowed that several moral rules may receive from mankind a very general
approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true ground of moral-
ity; which can only be the will and law of a God who sees men in the dark, has
in his hand rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the
proudest offender. . . .

BOOK II

Chapter XXI
31. To return then to the enquiry, what is it that determines the will in
regard to our actions? And that upon second thoughts' I am apt to imagine is
not, as is generally supposed, the greater good in view, but some (and for the
most part the most pressing) uneasiness a man is at present under. This is that
which successively determines the will and sets us upon those actions we
perform. This uneasiness we may call, as it is, desire; which is an uneasiness of
the mind for want of some absent good. . . .
35. It seems so established and settled a maxim by the general consent of all
mankind that good, the greater good, determines the will, that I do not at all
wonder that when I first published my thoughts on this subject I took it for
granted; and I imagine that by a great many I shall be thought more excusable
for having then done so, than that now I have ventured to recede from so
received an opinion. But yet upon a stricter enquiry, I am forced to conclude
that good, the greater good, though apprehended and acknowledged to be so,
does not determine the will until our desire, raised proportionably to it, makes
us uneasy in the want of it. Convince a man never so much that plenty has its
advantages over poverty; make him see and own that the handsome conve-
niences of life are better than nasty penury: yet as long as he is content with
the latter and finds no uneasiness in it, he moves not; his will never is deter-
mined to any action that shall bring him out of it. Let a man be never so well
persuaded of the advantages of virtue, that it is as necessary to a man who has
 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 187

any great aims in this world or hopes in the next as food to life: yet till he
hungers and thirsts after righteousness, till he feels an uneasiness in the want
of it, his will will not be determined to any action in pursuit of this confessed
greater good; but any other uneasiness he feels in himself shall take place and
carry his will to other actions. . . .
38. Were the will determined by the views of good, as it appears in contem-
plation greater or less to the understanding, which is the state of all absent
good and that which in the received opinion the will is supposed to move to
and to be moved by, I do not see how it could ever get loose from the infinite
eternal joys of Heaven, once proposed and considered as possible. For all
absent good, by which alone-barely proposed and coming in view the will is
thought to be determined and so to set us on action, being only possible, but
not infallibly certain, 'tis unavoidable that the infinitely greater possible good
should regularly and constantly determine the will in all the successive actions
it directs; and then we should keep constantly and steadily in our course
towards Heaven. . . .
This would be the state of the mind and regular tendency of the will in all its
determinations, were it determined by that which is considered and in view
the greater good; but that it is not so is visible in experience. . . .
41. If it be farther asked, what 'tis moves desire? I answer happiness and
that alone. Happiness and misery are the names of two extremes, the utmost
bounds whereof we know not; 'tis what eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard,
nor hath it entered into the heart of man to conceive. 2 But of some degrees of
both we have very lively impressions, made by several instances of delight and
joy on the one side, and torment and sorrow on the other; which, for short-
ness sake, I shall comprehend under the names of pleasure and pain, there
being pleasure and pain of the mind as well as the body. With him is fullness of
joy, and pleasure for evermore. 3 Or to speak truly, they are all of the mind,
though some have their rise in the mind from thought, others in the body from
certain modifications of motion.
42. Happiness then in its full extent is the utmost pleasure we are capable
of, and misery the utmost pain. And the lowest degree of what can be called
happiness is so much ease from all pain, and so much present pleasure, as
without which any one cannot be content. Now because pleasure and pain are
produced in us by operation of certain objects, either on our minds or our
bodies, and in different degrees, therefore what has an aptness to produce
pleasure in us is that we call good, and what is apt to produce pain in us we call
evil, for no other reason but for its aptness to produce pleasure and pain in us,
wherein consists our happiness and misery. . . .
43. Though this be that which is called good and evil, and all good be the
proper object of desire in general; yet all good, even seen and confessed to be
so, does not necessarily move every particular man's desire, but only that
part, or so much of it, as is considered and taken to make a necessary part of
his happiness. All other good, however great in reality or appearance, excites
not a man's desires, who looks not on it to make a part of that happiness
188 John Locke
wherewith he, in his present thought, can satisfy himself. Happiness, under
this view, every one constantly pursues and desires what makes any part of it.
Other things acknowledged to be good he can look upon without desire, pass
by, and be content without. . . .
44. This, I think, anyone may observe in himself and others, that the greater
visible good does not always raise men's desires in proportion to the greatness
it appears and is acknowledged to have, though every little trouble moves us
and sets us on work to get rid of it. The reason whereof is evident from the
nature of our happiness and misery itself. All present pain, whatever it be,
makes a part of our present misery. But all absent good does not at any time
make a necessary part of our present happiness, nor the absence of it make a
part of our misery. If it did, we should be constantly and infinitely miserable,
there being infinite degrees of happiness, which are not in our possession. All
uneasiness therefore being removed, a moderate portion of good serves at
present to content men. . . .
47. There being in us a great many uneasinesses always soliciting and ready
to determine the will, it is natural, as I have said, that the greatest and most
pressing should determine the will to the next action; and so it does for the
most part, but not always. For the mind having in most cases, as is evident in
experience, a power to suspend the execution and satisfaction of any of its
desires, and so all one after another, is at liberty to consider the objects of
them, examine them on all sides, and weigh them with others. In this lies the
liberty man has; and from the not using of it right comes all that variety of
mistakes, errors, and faults which we run into in the conduct of our lives and
our endeavours after happiness; whilst we precipitate the determination of
our wills and engage too soon before due examination. To prevent this we
have a power to suspend the prosecution of this or that desire, as every one
daily may experiment in himself. This seems to me the source of all liberty; in
this seems to consist that which is (as I think improperly) called free will. For
during this suspension of any desire, before the will be determined to action,
and the action (which follows that determination) done, we have opportunity
to examine, view, and judge of the good or evil of what we are going to do:
and when upon due examination we have judged, we have done our duty, all
that we can or ought to do in pursuit of our happiness; and 'tis not a fault but a
perfection of our nature to desire, will, and act according to the last result of a
fair examination.
48. This is so far from being a restraint or diminution of freedom that it is
the very improvement and benefit of it; 'tis not an abridgement, 'tis the end
and use of our liberty. And the farther we are removed from such a determina-
tion, the nearer we are to misery and slavery. . . .
52. This is the hinge on which turns the liberty of intellectual beings in their
constant endeavours after and a steady prosecution of true felicity, that they
can suspend this prosecution in particular cases till they have looked before
them and informed themselves whether that particular thing which is then
proposed or desired lie in the way to their main end and make a real part of
 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 189
that which is their greatest good. For the inclination and tendency of their
nature to happiness is an obligation and motive to them to take care not to
mistake or miss it; and so necessarily puts them upon caution, deliberation
and wariness in the direction of their particular actions, which are the means
to obtain it. Whatever necessity determines to the pursuit of real bliss, the
same necessity with the same force establishes suspense, deliberation and
scrutiny of each successive desire, whether the satisfaction of it does not
interfere with our true happiness and mislead us from it. This as seems to me
is the great privilege of finite intellectual Beings; and I desire it may be well
considered whether the great inlet and exercise of all the liberty men have, are
capable of, or can be useful to them, and that whereon depends the turn of
their actions, does not lie in this. . . .
54. From what has been said, it is easy to give an account, how it comes to
pass that though all men desire happiness, yet their wills carry them so con-
trarily, and consequently some of them to what is evil. And to this I say that
the various and contrary choices that men make in the world do not argue that
they do not all pursue good; but that the same thing is not good to every man
alike. This variety of pursuits shows that every one does not place his happi-
ness in the same thing or choose the same way to it. Were all the concerns of
man terminated in this life, why one followed study and knowledge and
another hawking and hunting; why one chose luxury and debauchery, and
another sobriety and riches, would not be, because every one of these did not
aim at his own happiness; but because their happiness was placed in different
things. And therefore 'twas a right answer of the physician to his patient, that
had sore eyes: if you have more pleasure in the taste of wine than in the use of
your sight, wine is good for you; but if the pleasure of seeing be greater to you
than that of drinking, wine is naught.

Chapter XXVIII
4. Fourthly, there is another sort of relation, which is the conformity or
disagreement men's voluntary actions have to a rule to which they are re-
ferred, and by which they are judged of: which I think may be called moral
relations, as being that which denominates our moral actions, and deserves
well to be examined, there being no part of knowledge wherein we should be
more careful to get determined ideas and avoid, as much as may be, obscurity
and confusion.
5. Good and evil, as hath been shown (bk. II, chap. XX, sec. 2, and chap.
XXI, sec. 42) are nothing but pleasure or pain, or that which occasions or
procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil then is only the confor-
mity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law whereby good or
evil is drawn on us from the will and power of the law-maker; which good and
evil, pleasure or pain, attending our observance or breach of the law by the
decree of the law-maker, is that we call reward and punishment.
6. Of these moral rules, or laws, to which men generally refer and by which
190 John Locke
they judge of the rectitude or pravity4 of their actions, there seem to me to be
three sorts, with their three different enforcements, or rewards and punish-
ments. For since it would be utterly in vain to suppose a rule set to the free
actions of man without annexing to it some enforcement of good and evil to
determine his will, we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also some
reward or punishment annexed to that law. It would be in vain for one intelli-
gent being to set a rule to the action of another if he had it not in his power to
reward the compliance with, and punish deviation from his rule by some good
and evil that is not the natural product and consequence of the action itself.
For that being a natural convenience or inconvenience would operate of itself
without a law. This, if I mistake not, is the true nature of all law properly so
called.
7. The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their
rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three: (1) the divine law; (2) the
civil law; (3) the law of opinion or reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation
they bear to the first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or
duties; by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third,
whether they be virtues or vices.
8. First, the divine law, whereby I mean that law which God has set to the
actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature or the
voice of revelation. That God has given a rule whereby men should govern
themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to deny. He has a right to do
it; we are his creatures. He has goodness and wisdom to direct our actions to
that which is best, and he has power to enforce it by rewards and punishments
of infinite weight and duration, in another life, for nobody can take us out of
his hands. This is the only true touchstone of moral rectitude; and by compar-
ing them to this law it is, that men judge of the most considerable moral good
or evil of their actions; that is, whether as duties or sins they are like to
procure them happiness or misery from the hand of the ALMIGHTY.
9. Secondly, the civil law, the rule set by the commonwealth to the actions of
those who belong to it, is another rule to which men refer their actions to
judge whether they be criminal, or no. This law nobody overlooks, the re-
wards and punishments that enforce it being ready at hand and suitable to the
power that makes it, which is the force of the commonwealth engaged to
protect the lives, liberties and possessions of those who live according to its
laws, and has power to take away life, liberty or goods from him who dis-
obeys; which is the punishment of offences committed against this Law.
10. Thirdly, the law of opinion or reputation. Virtue and vice are names
pretended and supposed everywhere to stand for actions in their own nature
right and wrong. And as far as they really are so applied, they so far are co-
incident with the divine law above-mentioned. But yet, whatever is pre-
tended, this is visible, that these names, virtue and vice, in the particular
instances of their application, through the several nations and societies of men
in the world, are constantly attributed only to such actions as in each country
and society are in reputation or discredit. Nor is it to be thought strange that
 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 191

men everywhere should give the name of virtue to those actions which
amongst them are judged praiseworthy, and call that vice which they account
blamable, since otherwise they would condemn themselves if they should
think any thing right to which they allowed not commendation; anything
wrong, which they let pass without blame. Thus the measure of what is every-
where called and esteemed virtue and vice is this approbation or dislike,
praise or blame, which by a secret and tacit consent establishes itself in the
several societies, tribes and clubs of men in the world, whereby several actions
come to find credit or disgrace amongst them according to the judgment,
maxims or fashions of that place. For though men, uniting into politic soci-
eties, have resigned up to the public the disposing of all their force so that they
cannot employ it against any fellow-citizen any farther than the law of the
country directs, yet they retain still the power of thinking well or ill, approving
or disapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst and converse
with. And by this approbation and dislike they establish amongst themselves
what they will call virtue and vice.
11. That this is the common measure of virtue and vice will appear to
anyone who considers that though that passes for vice in one country which is
counted a virtue or at least not vice in another, yet everywhere virtue and
praise, vice and blame, go together. Virtue is everywhere that which is
thought praiseworthy, and nothing else but that which has the allowance of
public esteem is called virtue. . . .
12. If any one shall imagine that I have forgot my own notion of a law when
I make the law whereby men judge of virtue and vice to be nothing else but
the consent of private men, who have not authority enough to make a law,
especially wanting that which is so necessary and essential to a law, a power to
inforce it, I think I may say that he who imagines commendation and disgrace
not to be strong motives on men to accommodate themselves to the opinions
and rules of those with whom they converse seems little skilled in the nature
or history of mankind; the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern
themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion; and, so they do that
which keeps them in reputation with their company, little regard the laws of
God or the magistrate. The penalties that attend the breach of God's laws,
some, nay, perhaps most men seldom seriously reflect on. And amongst those
that do many, whilst they break the law, entertain thoughts of future reconcil-
iation and making their peace for such breaches. And as to the punishments
due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves
with the hopes of impunity. But no man escapes the punishment of their
censure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the com-
pany he keeps, and would recommend himself to.
13. These three then: first, the law of God; secondly, the law of politic
societies; thirdly, the law of fashion, or private censure, are those to which
men variously compare their actions. And 'tis by their conformity to one of
these laws that they take their measures when they would judge of their moral
rectitude and denominate their actions good or bad.
192 John Locke
14. Whether the rule to which, as to a touchstone, we bring our voluntary
actions to examine them by and try their goodness, and accordingly to name
them, which is, as it were, the mark of the value we set upon them, whether, I
say, we take that rule from the fashion of the country or the will of a law-
maker, the mind is easily able to observe the relation any action hath to it, and
to judge whether the action agrees or disagrees with the Rule; and so hath a
notion of moral goodness or evil which is either conformity or not conformity
of any action to that rule, and therefore is often called moral rectitude. This
rule being nothing but a collection of several simple ideas, the conformity
thereto is but so ordering the action that the simple ideas belonging to it may
correspond to those which the law requires. And thus we see how moral
beings and notions are founded on and terminated in these simple ideas we
have received from sensation or reflections. . . .
15.To conceive rightly of moral actions, we must take notice of them under
this two-fold consideration. First, as they are in themselves each made up of
such a collection of simple ideas. Thus "drunkenness" or "lying" signify such
or such a collection of simple ideas which I call mixed modes.' And in this
sense they are as much positive absolute ideas as the drinking of a horse or
speaking of a parrot. Secondly, our actions are considered as good, bad, or
indifferent; and in this respect they are relative, it being their conformity to or
disagreement with 'some rule that makes them to be regular or irregular, good
or bad. And so as far as they are compared with a rule and thereupon denomi-
nated, they come under relation. Thus the challenging and fighting with a
man, as it is a certain positive mode or particular sort of action, by particular
ideas distinguished from all others, is called duelling; which, when considered
in relation to the law of God, will deserve the name sin; to the law of fashion
in some countries, valour and virtue; and to the municipal laws of some
governments, a capital crime. In this case, when the positive mode has one
name and another name as it stands in relation to the law, the distinction may
as easily be observed as it is in substances, where one name, e.g. man, is used
to signify the thing, another, e.g. father, to signify the relation.

Boot( IV

Chapter III
18. As to the third sort of our knowledge, viz. the agreement or disagree-
ment of any of our ideas in any other relation, this, as it is the largest field of
our knowledge, so it is hard to determine how far it may extend, because the
advances that are made in this part of knowledge, depending on our sagacity
in finding intermediate ideas that may shew the relations and habitudes of
ideas whose co-existence is not considered, 'tis a hard matter to tell when we
are at an end of such discoveries, and when reason has all the helps it is
capable of for the finding of proofs or examining the agreement or disagree-
ment of remote ideas. They that are ignorant of algebra cannot imagine the
 An Essay Concerning Human Understanding 193
wonders in this kind are to be done by it: and what farther improvements and
helps advantageous to other parts of knowledge the sagacious mind of man
may yet find out, 'tis not easy to determine. This at least I believe, that the
ideas of quantity are not those alone that are capable of demonstration and
knowledge; and that other and perhaps more useful parts of contemplation
would afford us certainty, if vices, passions, and domineering interest did not
oppose or menace such endeavours.
The idea of a supreme Being, infinite in power, goodness, and wisdom,
whose workmanship we are and on whom we depend, and the idea of
ourselves, as understanding, rational beings, being such as are clear in us,
would, I suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such foundations of
our duty and rules of action, as might place morality amongst the sciences
capable of demonstration; wherein I doubt not but from self-evident proposi-
tions, by necessary consequences as incontestable as those in mathematics,
the measures of right and wrong might be made out to any one that will
apply himself with the same indifferency and attention to the one as he does
to the other of these sciences. The relation of other modes may certainly be
perceived as well as those of number and extension. And I cannot see why
they should not also be capable of demonstration, if due methods were
thought on to examine or pursue their agreement or disagreement. "Where
there is no property there is no injustice" is a proposition as certain as any
demonstration in Euclid. For the idea of property being a right to any thing,
and the idea to which the name "injustice" is given being the invasion or
violation of that right, it is evident that these ideas being thus established
and these names annexed to them, I can as certainly know this proposition
to be true as that a triangle has three angles equal to two right ones. Again,
"No government allows absolute liberty": the idea of government being the
establishment of society upon certain rules or laws which require conformity
to them, and the idea of absolute liberty being for any one to do whatever
he pleases, I am as capable of being certain of the truth of this proposition as
of any in mathematics.
19. That which in this respect has given the advantage to the ideas of
quantity and made them thought more capable of certainty and demonstra-
tion, is,
First, that they can be set down and represented by sensible marks which
have a greater and nearer correspondence with them than any words or
sounds whatsoever. Diagrams drawn on paper are copies of the ideas in the
mind, and not liable to the uncertainty that words carry in their signification.
An angle, circle, or square, drawn in lines, lies open to the view and cannot be
mistaken. It remains unchangeable and may at leisure be considered and
examined, and the demonstration be revised, and all the parts of it may be
gone over more than once without any danger of the least change in the ideas.
This cannot be thus done in moral Ideas. We have no sensible marks that
resemble them whereby we can set them down. We have nothing but words to
express them by, which though when written they remain the same, yet the
194 John Locke
ideas they stand for may change in the same man, and 'tis very seldom that
they are not different in different persons.
Secondly, another thing that makes the greater difficulty in ethics is that
moral ideas are commonly more complex than those of the figures ordinarily
considered in mathematics. From whence these two inconveniences follow.
First, that their names are of more uncertain signification, the precise collec-
tion of simple ideas they stand for not being so easily agreed on, and so the
sign that is used for them in communication always and in thinking often does
not steadily carry with it the same idea. Upon which the same disorder,
confusion, and error follows as would if a man going to demonstrate some-
thing of an heptagon should in the diagram he took to do it leave out one of
the angles, or by oversight make the figure with one angle more than the
name ordinarily imported, or he intended it should, when at first he thought
of his demonstration. This often happens and is hardly avoidable in very
complex moral ideas, where the same name being retained, one angle, i.e.
one simple idea is left out or put in, in the complex one (still called by the
same name) more at one time than another. Secondly, from the complexed-
ness of these moral ideas there follows another inconvenience, viz. that the
mind cannot easily retain those precise combinations so exactly and perfectly
as is necessary in the examination of the habitudes and correspondencies,
agreements or disagreements, of several of them one with another; especially
where it is to be judged of by long deductions and the intervention of several
other complex ideas to shew the agreement or disagreement of two remote
ones.
20. One part of these disadvantages in moral ideas which has made them be
thought not capable of demonstration may in a good measure be remedied by
definitions, setting down that collection of simple ideas which every term shall
stand for; and then using the terms steadily and constantly for that precise
collection. And what methods algebra or something of that kind may here-
after suggest to remove the other difficulties is not easy to foretell. Confident
I am that if men would in the same method and with the same indifferency
search after moral as they do mathematical truths, they would find them to
have a stronger connection one with another, and a more necessary conse-
quence from our clear and distinct ideas, and to come nearer perfect demon-
stration, than is commonly imagined.

The Reasonableness of Christianity

It will possibly here be asked . . . What need was there of a Saviour? What
advantage have we by Jesus Christ? .. .
2. Next to the knowledge of one God, maker of all things, a clear knowl-
edge of their duty was wanting to mankind. . . . It should seem by the little
that has hitherto been done in it that 'tis too hard a task for unassisted reason
to establish morality in all its parts upon its true foundation, with a clear and
convincing light. And 'tis at least a surer and shorter way to the apprehensions
 The Reasonableness of Christianity 195
of the vulgar and mass of mankind that one manifestly sent from God and
coming with visible authority from him should as a king and law-maker tell
them their duties, and require their obedience, than leave it to the long and
sometimes intricate deductions of reason to be made out to them. Such trains
of reasonings the greatest part of mankind have neither leisure to weigh nor,
for want of education and use, skill to judge of. We see how unsuccessful in
this the attempts of philosophers were before our Saviour's time. How short
their several systems came of the perfection of a true and complete morality is
very visible. And if, since that, the Christian philosophers have much out-
done them, yet we may observe that the first knowledge of the truths they
have added [is] owing to revelation, though as soon as they are heard and
considered they are found to be agreeable to reason, and such as can by no
means be contradicted. . . . 'tis plain in fact that human reason unassisted
failed men in its great and proper business of morality. It never from unques-
tionable principles, by clear deductions, made out an entire body of the Law
of Nature. And he that shall collect all the moral rules of the philosophers and
compare them with those contained in the New Testament shall find them to
come short of the morality delivered by our Saviour. . . .
Though yet if any one should think that out of the sayings of the wise
heathens, before our Saviour's time, there might be a collection made of all
those rules of morality which are to be found in the Christian religion, yet this
would not at all hinder but that the world nevertheless stood as much in need of
our Saviour and the morality delivered by him. Let it be granted (though not
true) that all the moral precepts of the Gospel were known by somebody or
other amongst mankind before. But where or how or of what use is not consid-
ered. Suppose they may be picked up here and there. . . . What will all this do
to give the world a complete morality that may be to mankind the unquestion-
able rule of life and manners? . . . What would this amount to towards being a
steady rule, a certain transcript of a law that we are under? . . .Was Zeno 6 a
law-giver to mankind? If not, what he or any other philosopher delivered was
but a saying of his. . . . `Tis not enough that there were up and down scattered
sayings of wise men, conformable to right reason. The law of nature is the law
of convenience too, and 'tis no wonder that those men of parts, and studious of
virtue . . . should by meditation light on the right, even from the observable
convenience and beauty of it, without making out its obligation from the true
principles of the law of nature and foundations of morality. . . . 'Tis not every
writer of morals, or compiler of it from others, that can thereby be erected into
a law-giver to mankind, and a dictator of rules which are therefore valid
because they are to be found in his books. . . . He that anyone will pretend to
set up in this kind, and have his rules pass for authentic directions, must show
that either he builds his doctrine upon principles of reason, self-evident in
themselves, or that he deduces all the parts of it from thence, by clear and
evident demonstration, or must show his commission from heaven, that he
comes with authority from God to deliver his will and commands to the world.
In the former way nobody that I know before our Saviour's time ever did or
196 John Locke
went about to give us a morality. 'Tis true there is a law of nature; but who is
there that ever did or undertook to give it us all entire, as a law, no more nor no
less than what was contained in and had the obligation of law? Who ever made
out all the parts of it, put them together, and showed the world their obliga-
tion? Where was there any such code that mankind might have recourse to as
their unerring rule, before our Saviour's time? If there was not, 'tis plain there
was need of one to give us such a morality. . . .
. . . A great many things which we have been bred up in the belief of from
our cradles (and are notions grown familiar and as it were natural to us, under
the Gospel) we take for unquestionable obvious truths, and easily demonstra-
ble, without considering how long we might have been in doubt or ignorance
of them had revelation been silent. And many are beholden to revelation who
do not acknowledge it. 'Tis no diminishing to revelation that reason gives its
suffrage too to the truths revelation has discovered. But 'tis our mistake to
think that because reason confirms them to us, we had the first certain knowl-
edge of them from thence, and in that clear evidence we now possess them.
The contrary is manifest in the defective morality of the Gentiles before our
Saviour's time; and the want of reformation in the principles and measures of
it as well as practice. Philosophy seemed to have spent its strength and done
its utmost; or if it should have gone further, as we see it did not, and from
undeniable principles given us ethics in a science like mathematics, in every
part demonstrable, this yet would not have been so effectual to man in this
imperfect state, nor proper for the cure. The greatest part of mankind want
leisure or capacity for demonstration, nor can carry a train of proofs, which in
that way they must always depend upon for conviction, and cannot be re-
quired to assent to till they see the demonstration. Wherever they stick, the
teachers are always put upon proof and must clear the doubt by a threat of
coherent deductions from the first principle, how long or how intricate soever
that be. And you may as soon hope to have all the day-laborers and trades-
men, the spinsters and dairy maids perfect mathematicians, as to have them
perfect in ethics this way. Hearing plain commands is the sure and only course
to bring them to obedience and practice. The greatest part cannot know and
therefore they must believe. And I ask whether one coming from Heaven in
the power of God, in full and clear evidence and demonstration of miracles,
giving plain and direct rules of morality and obedience be not likelier to
enlighten the bulk of mankind, and set them right in their duties, and bring
them to do them, than by reasoning with them from general notions and
principles of human reason? And were all the duties of human life clearly
demonstrated, yet I conclude, when well considered, that method of teaching
men their duties would be thought proper only for a few, who had much
leisure, improved understandings, and were used to abstract reasonings. But
the instruction of the people were best still to be left to the precepts and
principles of the Gospel. . . .
4. Another great advantage received by our Saviour is the great encourage-
ment he brought to a virtuous and pious life. . . . The portion of the righteous
 Further Reading 197
has been in all ages taken notice of to be pretty scanty in this world. Virtue
and prosperity do not often accompany one another, and therefore virtue
seldom had many followers. . . . Mankind, who are and must be allowed to
pursue their happiness, nay, cannot be hindered, could not but think them-
selves excused from a strict observation of rules which appeared so little to
consist with their chief end, happiness, whilst they kept them from the enjoy-
ments of this life; and they had little evidence and security of another. 'Tis
true, they might have argued the other way and concluded that, because the
good were most of them ill treated here, there was another place where they
should meet with better usage; but 'tis plain they did not. Their thoughts of
another life were at best obscure, and their expectations uncertain. . . . Be-
fore our Saviour's time the doctrine of a future state, though it were not
wholly hid, yet it was not clearly known in the world. . . . How hath this one
truth changed the nature of things in the world, and given advantage to piety
over all that could tempt or deter men from it? The philosophers, indeed,
showed the beauty of virtue; . . . but leaving her unendowed, very few were
willing to espouse her. . . . But now there being put into the scales, on her
side, an exceeding and immortal weight of glory, interest is come about to her,
and virtue now is visible to most enriching purchase and by much the best
bargain. . . . The view of heaven and hell will cast a slight upon the short
pleasures and pains of the present state, and give attractions and encourage-
ments to virtue which reason and interest and the care of our selves cannot but
allow and prefer. Upon this foundation, and upon this only, morality stands
firm and may defy all competition. This makes it more than a name, a substan-
tial good, worth all our aims and endeavors; and thus the Gospel of Jesus
Christ has delivered it to us.

Editor's Notes
1. Second thoughts, because Locke changed his mind on this matter after the first
edition. In the first edition he said that "good . . . the greater good is that alone
which determines the will" (11.29). In section 35 (immediately following), he
rejected this view.
2. 1 Cor. 2:9.
3. Ps. 16:11.
4. That is, depravity.
5. Locke explained mixed modes in II.xxii. The mind actively assembles several of
the ideas that it has passively received and considers them together as forming a
single idea. It marks the unity of the collection by using a single word as its name.
Locke offered "obligation," "sacrilege," "murder," and "parricide" as examples,
but evaluative terms are not the only terms standing for mixed modes.
6. Zeno of Citium (c. 336-265 B.c.E.), the founder of Stoicism.

Further Reading
Locke's early writings on the law of nature and on politics are available in W. von
Leyden, ed., John Locke: Essays on the Law of Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
198 John Locke
1954), and Philip Abrams, ed., John Locke: livo Tracts on Government (Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1967). The best edition of Locke's Two Treatises
of Government is that by Peter Laslett (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1988).
For an overview of Locke's philosophy, the reader may wish to consult Richard
Aaron, John Locke, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971); D. J. O'Connor, John
Locke (London: Penguin, 1952); R. S. Woolhouse, Locke (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1983); or John W. Yolton, Locke, an Introduction (Oxford: Black-
well Publisher, 1985), which opens with discussion of Locke's moral views.
John Colman, John Locke's Moral Philosophy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1983) — the only book in English on the subject — is an excellent study with a
good bibliography. For a discussion of Locke's religious views and their connection
with his ethics, see W. M. Spellman, John Locke and the Problem of Depravity (Ox-
ford: Clarendon Press, 1988).
John Dunn, The Political Thought of John Locke (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1969), is an important study of the way Locke understood his own
political thought. James Tully, A Discourse on Property (Cambridge, England: Cam-
bridge University Press, 1980), though largely concerned with Locke's political views,
sheds considerable light on his ethics.
 Part II.
Intellect and Morality
 Guillaume Du Vair

Introduction
Guillaume Du Vair was born into an old family in France in 1556. After receiving a
good education, he toured Italy and later served for a time as a courtier. He then
turned to reflecting on life and published in 1584 a book that combined Stoic and
Christian themes, the Sainte philosophie (Holy Philosophy). Du Vair then began a
more intensive study of Epictetus, whose Encheiridion or Manual he translated into
French, and in 1585 he published his own rewriting of Epictetus, the short Philosophie
morale des Stoiques (The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics). Thereafter he became active
in politics, rising to high provincial office. In 1603 he was made a bishop, and in 1615
he was required to return to the service of the king. He died in 1621 while on a military
campaign.
Of Du Vair's several writings, The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics was the most
widely read. Its philosophy, as Du Vair himself pointed out, comes directly from
Epictetus, with several passages, such as the advice about how to respond to the death
of one's own child, being little more than paraphrases. In general, Du Vair recom-
mended that we follow nature, live according to reason, concern ourselves only with
what is within our power and remain unmoved by whatever we cannot control, recog-
nize that reason is the highest part of the self, and see that the good is virtue. He was
not interested in spelling out these teachings in detail, much less in proving them.
Rather, his aim was to expound them briefly and attractively, providing thereby a
manual that would be more accessible to his contemporaries than Epictetus's classic
work was.
Only in one regard did Du Vair depart somewhat from his model — and then in a
way that made Stoicism more acceptable to modern readers attracted to its austere
teaching. Toward the end of his book, Du Vair managed to insert a distinctly Christian
interpretation of the Stoic teachings. He urged the reader to practice Christian piety,
thereby transforming Stoic aloofness from one's feelings into Christian acceptance of
whatever God providentially sends, even though one cannot see the good that will
come of it. The neo-Stoicism that was so influential in the seventeenth century thus
was usually Christianized, to varying degrees.
Another effort to rewrite Stoicism for modern times was made by the Dutch scholar
and political thinker Justus Lipsius, who in 1584 published De constantia (On Con-
stancy), an exposition of the proper Stoic attitude toward political misfortune and
personal hardship, which went through innumerable editions and was translated into
several languages. The religious warfare of the period made it a time of great insecu-
rity for everyone, not least for those serving their country as soldiers or in positions of

201
202 Guillaume Du Vair
command. A Christianized Stoicism, therefore, was a fit doctrine for both armies and
those whose political fortunes might radically change overnight. Although Lipsius was
a distinguished scholar who worked carefully on the ancient sources of our knowledge
of Stoicism, his On Constancy was not meant to be an academic treatise. Like Du
Vair's book, it paid no attention to the elaborate distinctions worked into the exposi-
tions of Stoicism preserved in Cicero. Both authors were writing for an unscholarly
audience that needed a doctrine to live by, and the popularity of both of their works
showed that they were meeting this need.
As Du Vair made clear at the beginning of his book, the Stoic believes that knowl-
edge of the good is sufficient to achieve the good life. If we see clearly what is good, we
will infallibly pursue it, because will follows the guidance of intellect. It is only when
we "do not know wherein consisteth our good" that we "shoot wide from our general
mark and intention." Du Vair did not argue for the trustworthiness of intellect as
Descartes later did, but Descartes, like the rationalists who succeeded him, held the
view that we need only know the constitution of things in the fullest sense to be moved
to act for the good, an aspect of Stoicism that lived on well into the eighteenth century.
The following selections are from the English translation of Du Vair by Thomas
James, published in 1598 and reprinted with an introduction and notes by Rudolf Kirk
(New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1951). I have modernized the spelling
and punctuation somewhat but have left James's English otherwise intact.

The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics

There is nothing in the world which tendeth not to one end or other: yea, even
things insensible do advance themselves (as it seemeth) and make themselves
fit for that use unto which they do properly belong: and being applied
thereunto do shew forth a kind of joy, and seem to have a feeling of the
perfection and happiness of their estates. Things that have action in them
move of themselves in such sort as we see; all creatures in general, and every
one severally in his kind, with great vehemence and contention, followeth and
pursueth after that for which they are born and bred, and do most certainly
rejoice and exult in the fruition of that which they seek, when they have found
it out.
What then ought man to do, whom nature, besides this inclination and
motion which dead things do partake with him, hath endowed with sense, and
over and besides sense, which is common to him and other creatures, hath
given the benefit of discourse and reason, to be able to discern and choose the
best things of all things which present themselves unto his consideration, and
that which is most fit and proper to his use? May we not safely conclude that
man also has his end, as well as all other creatures; which is set before him as
the furthermost mark and butt, whereto all his actions should be directed: and
since the happiness of all things is their perfection, and their perfection the
fruition of their end, shall not the happiness and felicity of man consist in the
full obtaining and attaining unto that which is proposed unto him, and
whereunto all his actions are to be referred?
Now the end of man and of all his thoughts and meditations is good. And
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 203
truly, there is not one among many, so diverse in nature and condition of life,
which desireth not that which is good, and escheweth not that which is evil:
and being demanded wherefore he does this or that, answereth not, but that
he doth it or thinks that he doth it for his good and welfare. And albeit in our
actions a man may find a great many more bad than good; yet the general
intention whereby we are directed and guided is to come unto that which is
good.
But as it fareth many times with him which aims at a mark, if his sight be
hindered, either by some disease of the eye or fault in the air, or if he take one
thing for another, although he desire to hit the mark, so that he covet nothing
more, yet it is impossible but he should be wide from it: so likewise we,
because we do not know wherein consisteth our good, but oftentimes take
that which is about it, for it, do therefore in our particular actions take our
aim amiss, and shoot wide from our general mark and intention.
Good, in good truth, is not so placed that all the world may see and perceive
it; nature has sowed and scattered here beneath amongst us certain weak and
feeble sparklings of that heat, which notwithstanding' being rightly applied
unto our minds, are able to kindle a pure light in them, and cause us to see
good as it is and not as it seems. So then, we must seek it, and we shall find it;
and having found it, we must acknowledge it; acknowledging it, we cannot
choose but love it; and loving it, we shall fasten all our desires thereunto, and
enjoy it with great happiness. For even as truth presenting itself unto our
understanding is there entertained with great joy and contentedness: even so
good offering itself unto our will, is received by her with great pleasure, as
being her natural object.
And therefore I think that if a man would properly define good, he must
affirm it to be nothing else but the essence and usage of a thing according unto
his nature.' For this same nature is so prudent and provident a mistress that
she always disposeth all things unto their greatest good, and therefore hath
given them a first motion unto that which is good, and unto that end which
they should seek and search after: in such sort, that he that will follow after it
cannot choose but compass and obtain it.
Now by the rules of nature, man should be so composed and fashioned that
that which is most excellent in him should bear rule and command, and that
reason should use all that which is presented unto her as best beseemeth her,
and shall most serve for her purpose. Well then, the good and happiness of
man consists in the right use of reason, and what is that but virtue, which is
nothing else but a constant disposition of will to follow that which is honest
and convenient.' There is no man, as I suppose, but will avow this to be good:
but yet for all that there will be a great many found out which will affirm that
herein only consisteth not man's good and happiness, but that he must have a
sound and well disposed body, and a hundred more commodities, without the
which it is not possible for man's life to be, much less to be happy and
fortunate.
But if our position which we have set down unto you at the first be true (as
204 Guillaume Du Vair
true it is), that the end of every thing is his good, and his good is his end, and
that these two are so reciprocable and convertible the one with the other, that
the one cannot be without the other, then may we not justly say that health, or
riches, are man's good, seeing that they are not his end which he regardeth.
For he cannot possess or use them but to some other end. And so too, that the
greatest part of his time, while he enjoys them, he cannot joy in them, but is
with them unfortunate and unhappy: unless peradventure some man will say
that they are happy which make their riches and health serve them (as they do
full many in the world) to nourish their vices, and cherish them up in their
wicked passions and affections.
But happily will some man say, they do serve as means and instruments
disposed unto the attainment of this good, without which it is not possible that
a man should get it, and therefore by a necessary consequent they are to be
accounted necessary to the obtaining thereof, and therefore good. Truly it is a
harsh and improper kind of speech to call that good which serves to the
procurement and obtaining of that which is good; or that which is the subject
and matter of good. For virtue, which we have proved before to be the true
good, is of such a nature that she can make her benefit indifferently of things
contrary in nature; she profits and helps her self as well by poverty as by
riches, by sickness as by health. For we do as much commend him that can
patiently endure his poverty, and constantly bear his griefs of disease, as we
do him that liberally bestoweth his goods, and being in health, honestly la-
boureth in his vocation. So that if you will needs call riches good, because they
serve to the obtaining and getting of virtue, why may you not as well call
poverty by the same name, seeing that it serves to the self same use, and that
more profitable also? Now to call things so contrary and repugnant as riches
and poverty are by the same name hath not so much as any show or appear-
ance of any truth. Wherefore, let all these things remain indifferent, as being
made good or evil by the mind of man which knoweth how to use them rightly,
which if he want, yet will he not want the means of attaining unto his end,
which is to be fashioned and framed rightly according unto reason, and to
make use and benefit of all things which shall happen whatsoever, and conse-
quently to purchase his chief good and felicity.
If we will truly know wherein consisteth this good, let us consider within
ourselves what that is which seeks it: for it must needs be the good of that
part. Nothing seeks after that [good] which is another's, unless it be coupled
and joined with his own. Now then there is no doubt but that the beginning
and first motion of all our actions cometh from the understanding and will,
and therefore the good which we seek after must needs be the perfection, rest
and contentment of the same. But if we place riches and health in this ac-
count, and esteem them for things good, and by a consequent repute all things
contrary unto them evil; what do we else but testify unto all men that there is
no true felicity in this world, and that our minds are here held in perpetual
torment? For a man must needs have death and grief continually before his
eyes, both which are esteemed evils, and whereof one is oftentimes present
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 205
with him, the other never ceaseth to threaten and menace him. If then they be
things evil, the fear of them is just, and if he be always in fear, how can he be
at any time happy? Let us therefore confess that either man hath no good
ordained and prepared for him in this world which he may compass and attain
unto, or else ackilowledge that his good doth wholly and entirely consist in
virtue. For it must needs be that the end of every thing should be proportion-
able unto the strength and nature of the thing itself: for otherwise, if the end
were impossible to be achieved, instead of being man's good it would turn to
be man's further torment. And so he should nothing but labour and travail in
vain, as the daughters of Danaue are said to do in hell, striving to fill certain
bottomless vessels with water, which can hold no water at all.
Again, if there be no science nor art in the world, which hath not one end or
other which they may come unto by keeping certain precepts and rules, shall
we think that nature, the mother of Arts and Sciences, hath proposed unto man
(which is her chief work) an end which it is impossible for him to come unto
because it is out of his power? Will (as we say) is that which seeketh after our
good: now a ruled and well governed will never coveteth (as indeed it ought not
to do) but that which she may, and which it is in her power to procure. She
busieth not herself about having of that which it is not in her power to have
when she will; as health, riches, and honours. For if our good did consist and
depend of them, we should not need to employ reason or will to the procure-
ment of them, but we might as well compass them by prayers and wishes: for it
is a thing which is subject unto a thousand casualties, which cannot be pre-
vented or foreseen, as not being in our hands to dispose of them as we list, but
subject unto the rule of Fortune, their good Lady and mistress. What show or
probability of reason is there I pray you in this, that Nature should so create
man, the perfection of all other creatures, that his good, which is his perfec-
tion, should depend not only upon other matters, but upon so many things that
a man hath not hope to have them all favourable unto him; but that he should
here beneath with Tantalus' lie miserably thirsting and crying after water.
Nay doubtless Nature doth offer you so much to the getting of this good as a
mind well disposed and fit to use anything which shall be laid before it, and to
pass over those things which do far pass his reach and capacity. Will you then
rather choose to run unto Fortune, and wait at her deceitful hands for that
good which you may give unto yourself if you will? For this is a divine and
inviolable law, which hath been made since the beginning of the world, that if
we will have any good, we must purchase and get it our selves, by our own
labour and industry. For nature hath provided a rich storehouse of all good
things, and inclosed it in our minds: let us then but stretch forth the hands of
our will, and we shall take as much as we will. For if the will of man be well
guided and ordered, it will turn all things to her good, as Midas turned all
things that he touched into gold. There is no accident so grievous, which can
befall a man either in body or riches, whence a man may not reap some rest
and comfort of mind: so that if we can here rest content our selves, we have
already found out our end. For though we should remit so much of the
206 Guillaume Du [pair
severity of this sect, 6 as to confess that the body or goods, which are but
instruments of man's life, were a part of man's substance and might by their
qualities alter the quality of the soul; yet may we not avouch this for good,
that loss either in goods or body is unable to hinder the felicity and happiness
of man, if his mind enjoy quiet rest and content.
In things which are compounded of many parts, the most noble part giveth
both name and laws unto the rest, and they take their denomination from her:
what doubt then can there be, but that man should be wholly happy, if his
mind enjoyeth his happiness. And so we say that a Commonwealth is happy
after a great victory, although there be many citizens lost, because the happi-
ness thereof is measured by the person of the Prince, or else of the state, to
the good and service of whom all the rest must be obedient. Hence is it that
particular men do even glory in their wounds, do even brag and boast of them,
if they have received them in the defence of either Prince or country. Shall we
then assign unto the body any other motion or desire than that by which it
referreth all things that come unto him, unto the joy and happiness of the
mind? Shall we, I say, be so foolish as to link and knit the soul so fast unto the
body that the good thereof should remain as a slave within his members, and
so far forth depend on them that accordingly as the body should be well or ill
disposed, the mind should be altered, and accounted either happy or un-
happy? Truly, if so be that nature would have had man's happiness and
perfection to have depended on his body, or consisted in his goods, she would
have given unto all men like bodies and like measure and quantity of goods:
for so she should not have been partial, but equal unto all, and so have passed
from the general unto every particular of that kind. But on the contrary side,
she having made all men of very diverse natures and conditions, both in
respect of their bodies as also in regard of their goods, hath notwithstanding
granted unto all men like power and ability of well using their bodies or riches
of what sort soever they be, in such sort that the action of the mind may be as
honourable and glorious in one sort as in another: yea, the excellency thereof
doth appear and shine forth more gloriously and merit more praise then,
when being destitute of means and instruments he cometh of himself unto his
wished end. For so in my opinion we are to judge him to be the skilfuller pilot
in a ship, which can in a great tempest, amidst the raging floods, guide an old
sea-beaten ship full of holes, whose sails are rent and ropes broken, than he
which can tell how to govern a new ship well rigged and furnished with all
necessaries, having wind at will and seas favourable. Therefore we will here
conclude this point thus: seeing that the happiness of man doth lie in procur-
ing of his good, and that his good is to live according unto nature; and to live
according unto nature, is not to be troubled with any passions or perturba-
tions of the mind, but so to behave himself, happen what happen may, as that
he do not exceed patience, or pass the bounds of reason; that if we will be
truly happy, we must purge our minds of all manner of passions, and learn
how to be affected in mind towards all things which shall happen.
Now there is nothing which can so soon set us in this way and learn us how
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 207
to obtain the right course of ordering our affections, minds and wills according
unto reason, as Wisdom, which is (in my simple opinion) both the beginning
and end of all virtues. For causing us to have an exact and true knowledge of
the condition and quality of things which come into our considerations and
views, she teacheth and telleth us what is according unto nature, and what
not, and likewise what is to be desired and followed, or shunned and avoided.
She removes all false opinions out of our heads which trouble our brains,
makes our affections kind and natural, and finally upon her wait all other
virtues, as being their mother, nurse, and keeper. 0 how happy would man's
life be, if it were always led and guided by her direction? But alas, as this
virtue is most fair and excellent, so she is most rare and hard to be found: For
she is so hidden in the bottom of our minds, as the veins of gold lie secret in
the bowels of the earth, and are found but in few places. . . . we must go to
school to Philosophy to know the right use of wisdom. And if we will hearken
unto her, she will tell us, that wisdom hath two properties and uses, the one to
prick us forward to that which is good, the other to pull us back from follow-
ing that which is evil. Now because when we come unto Philosophy, we do not
bring with us a mind pure and neat, but already distempered, evilly disposed,
and possessed with filthy humours, and such as are incident unto the common
sort of people; because, I say, we come unto her as unto a skilfull leech' or
cunning physician: therefore if we will be cured, we must do as surgeons do
which have to do with sores and wounds, who before they apply any medicine
or salve to cure them do first draw out all the bad humours and dead flesh:
and so must we also in like manner begin first of all to purge our minds of all
such passions as do arise in them, and with the smoke of them darken and
obscure the eye of reason: for otherwise precepts of manners and wholesome
instructions would profit our souls as little as plenty of meat doth a corrupted
body, which the more you feed the more you offend.
Now to know what these passions are, you must understand that we do term
them a violent or vehement motion of the soul in the sensitive part, which is
caused in the following or eschewing of that which seemeth to be either good
or evil. For albeit there be but one soul in every one of us, which is the cause
of life, and fountain of all our actions, and is all in all, and all in every part: yet
there be many faculties in the soul, which it is strange to see how diverse, yea
how contrary they be many times one towards another, according unto the
diversity of instruments and vessels where it is kept, and variety of objects
which are offered unto her. In one place she causeth vegetation, 8 in another
motion, in another sense, in another desire or appetite, in another imagina-
tion, in another remembrance, in another reason and discourse: even as the
Sun, which though he be all in his own essence, yet dividing and parting his
beams in diverse places, he bringeth heat to one place, and light to another,
softeneth wax and hardens clay, scattereth the clouds, and drieth up standing
pools and lakes. And when the parts where the soul lieth inclosed do retain
and use her but in a proportion of their capacities, and as far forth as it is
necessary for their convenient use, then she bringeth forth gentle, sweet, and
208 Guillaume Du Vair
orderly effects: but contrariwise, if her parts do take more heat and motion
then is requisite and convenient, you shall have clean contrary operations,
and such as will prove very hurtful and prejudicial unto the soul. . . . Now it
hath pleased nature to grant unto sense this power and strength which cometh
from the soul, to apply itself unto things and extract their forms, 9 and after-
wards either to choose or refuse them, as they shall best please or displease
him, and agree or disagree with his nature. And this is done for two reasons:
one because they should be instead of sentinels unto the body still watching
and warding for his good: the other, which is a principal cause indeed, because
they should be messengers and vant-couriers m from the sovereign and chiefest
part of the soul, and also serve for ministers and instruments of bettering our
discourse and reason. But as she hath allotted them this power and authority:
so she doth most straitly will and command them to content themselves with
their office, which is to call to mind things past, and thereupon to advise
themselves what is best to be done: not presuming or daring to disquiet the
higher and stronger faculties, or breed any further uproar or confusion. For so
it falleth out many times in an army, that the watch, because they know not
the purpose of the General whose direction they should follow, may be de-
ceived and take the enemy coming unto them disguised for friends, and their
friends which come in good will to succour and relieve them for enemies: and
even so the senses, because they cannot throughly conceive and comprehend
things appertaining unto reason, as being above their reach, are beguiled with
show and appearance of things, and do oft time judge that for a friend unto
us, which is our greatest adversary. And so while they presently rush forward
without staying, or looking for any commandment from reason, they provoke
and stir up that part of the soul where concupiscence and anger doth lodge,
whereby springeth such a tumult and hurly burly in the mind, that reason
during this fury cannot be heard, nor understanding obeyed, no more then
laws or Magistrates are regarded in a state rent and torn with evil dissention.
But in this trouble, the passions which do wax most mutinous and trouble-
some unto the quiet rest of the spirit, do first arise in the appetible or
concupiscible part, that is to say, in that place where the soul doth exercise this
faculty of desiring or rejecting things presented unto her, as being things
proper or contrary unto her welfare and preservation. So then, their first
moving and springing is upon a show and appearance or imagination of some
good or evil. Now if it be of some present good which she doth already begin
to possess, we call this motion by the name of pleasure: but if it be of some
good to come, which is as yet far estranged from us, we call it desire: if it be of
a present evil, the inconvenience and grief whereof we do already feel, being
moved and incensed against another, we call it hatred or horror: and being
moved within our selves, discontentedness, which if it happen upon occasion
of anything which concerns us, we call it sorrow: if by reason of another man's
evil, pity: if by occasion of an apparent good where we pretend a part, jeal-
ousy: if otherwise, envy. Again, to fall back unto the second part of our
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 209
second general division: if it be of some after ensuing evil, it is rightly termed
by the name of fear.
See here the first band of these seditious passions, which so much trouble
the quiet rest of our soul, which are accompanied with most dangerous ef-
fects, and yet nothing like so dangerous as are those which follow after. For
why? These first motions being bred and formed in that part, by means of the
object which presents itself, do pass forth incontinently unto the irascible part
of the mind, that is to say, to the place where the soul seeks all means possible
of obtaining or avoiding that which seemeth unto her good or evil. And then,
forthwith as a wheel which is already moved being to receive a fresh motion is
carried about with greater swiftness: so the mind being moved with the first
apprehension, having a second strength added unto the former, is whirled
about with greater violence than before, and stirs up more strong and
untameable passions, because they are doubled and coupled with the former,
and so being joined together do stay and strengthen one another with mutual
help and consent. For the first passions, which are formed from some imag-
ined or seeming good, considering with themselves of the means how to
obtain and acquire it, do stir up in us either hope or despair: but those
affections which are made of the object of some seeming evil, do bring forth
fear and anger: which four passions are wonderfully strong and violent, and
do wholly overturn the frame of reason which they find already tottering.
Here behold and mark the four winds (as I verily suppose) from whence
spring the cruel tempests of our souls. Their den from whence they come, is
nothing else (as hath been already showed you) but a false imagination which
we have that those things which are presented unto us are either good or evil.
For by this means attributing that quality unto them, which indeed is not in
them, we fly or follow after them with vehemence: and this is the very original
and spring of these passions. Well then to stop this den, assure the rest of our
souls, and provide that they be not otherwise moved then it is meet for them
to be, let us call to mind that which was proved unto us in the very beginning
and entrance into this discourse. To wit, that the good of a man, and the
perfection of his nature, consisteth in the disposing and fashioning of his will
to the right use of things according unto reason: and contrariwise, that his evil
cometh from a disordered or unskilful using, or rather abusing of them. For
by the first he shall reap much profit, receive much content and quietness, and
chance what chance, nay he may set up his rest, and remain as stable and
immoveable as a rock in the midst of the sea: by the second, every small thing
that chanceth will trouble him and turn to his great grief and disadvantage.
Now this disposition of our will lieth wholly in our power, and consequently
our good and evil. Wherefore, if at any time there be presented unto us any
object, to the end that we may not be troubled at all as with some good or evil
which doth follow us, let us consider whether the thing which happeneth be in
our power or no. If it be in our power well and good, it may be good or ill unto
us. And yet in this case too, we must not be too passionately affected in any
210 Guillaume Du Vair
sort: for if we can but moderate and guide our wills aright, we shall make it
good, and so continue it still. If it be out of our power, then it is neither good
nor evil, and consequently we ought not to seek or provide it.
Now the things which are in our power are these; to approve, undertake,
desire, and eschew a matter, and in a word, all our actions. For our will hath
authority and power to rule and govern them according unto reason, till they
come unto the place from whence our good and happiness must come. As, for
example's sake, she is able to dispose our opinion, so that it yield not consent
but to that which it is meet it should, and which shall be examined either by
sense or reason, that she shall cleave fast unto things which are evidently true
of themselves, and keep her self in suspense in things doubtful, and utterly
reject things which are of themselves plainly untrue and false. Besides, she
can so rule our desire, that it shall follow after nothing but that which is
agreeable with nature, and eschew the contrary. The things which are out of
our power are these; our riches, reputation, and briefly, that which doth no
way depend of our wills: and here, if anything do happen, we may not say that
it is contrary to our natures: because it happeneth either by the universal and
continual order of things, and ordinary continuance of causes, and therefore
should not seem strange unto us: or else cometh to pass by some particular
providence so ordering it, and then we must know that nature hath made us
subject thereunto. Furthermore, she hath given us a power and ability in the
soul of well using and applying ourselves to all that which shall happen unto us
from without; which showeth that she hath not made us fit and proper to one
thing, but to every thing which shall come unto us whatsoever: in such sort
that we may not desire or fly any such external thing which is not in our
power, as well for that is a very foolish and vain affection to will that which it is
not in our power to have, as also because that howsoever it happen, it may
prove good unto us, and be the subject of many worthy and laudable actions.
Now then if we can so command ourselves and our minds as not to desire or
fly anything which is out of our powers, but with a sober and moderate
affection receive and entertain it when it cometh, we shall be altogether
exempted from all troubles and perturbations of the mind, we shall be free
and happy, and never frustrated of our expectations, or hindered in our affairs
and enterprises: we shall not need to hate any man, to complain of any man,
to fear any man, or to be angry with any man: for no man shall be able to do
us harm. On the other side, if we desire and labour to avoid that which is out
of our powers, we shall oftentimes fall from our hopes and wished ends, and
miss of our purposes, and light upon that which we so much abhor, we shall
trouble ourselves, vex and torment ourselves, and all to no purpose or end in
the world. . . .
Therefore when anything doth use to trouble us, let us consider two things:
the one, the nature of that which hath chanced unto us: the other, the nature
of that which is in us: and then let us learn to use everything according unto his
nature, and so we shall be sure never to receive any loathing or discontent-
ment at all. For discontent being a disease of the soul is contrary unto nature,
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 211
and therefore we may not suffer it to take deep root within us. Now there is
nothing that causeth more offence or discontentment than the newness or
strangeness of a thing when it happeneth. And this appeareth most evidently
in that the things which displease us most are made pleasant and sweet by
custom and continuance. The galley slaves when they go to sea weep at first
shipping, but after three or four months they sing as merrily as birds. So that
you see custom is all: for they which have not been accustomed to the sea are
afraid and look pale when they see them weigh anchors and launch forth into
the sea, though it be in a calm: where contrarily the old and tried mariners
laugh and are merry in a tempest. And look what good custom bringeth unto
the common sort of people, the same meditation bringeth unto a Philosopher:
for by often thinking and meditation upon things, he maketh them seem most
familiar and ordinary unto him. Let us therefore exactly consider and rumi-
nate with ourselves the nature of each thing that may molest and trouble us,
and let us cast beforehand the worst that may happen; as sickness, poverty,
banishment and injuries, and let us sift them narrowly to find out the nature of
them, or else that which is most contrary unto their natures. It so falleth out
that some of us are diseased in body: well, it is not we that are offended but
our bodies; for the offence being taken, many times hindereth the excellency
and perfection of the thing: whereas otherwise the disease may happen to be a
great deal fitter subject and occasion to exercise our patience with praise and
commendation than health: now where there is most occasion of praise, is
there least good to be gotten?
As much as the mind is more to be accounted of than the body, so much the
goods of the mind are more to be valued and esteemed of then the goods of
the body. If then the body be the instrument of the mind, who will be so
foolish as to complain, when he seeth the instrument applied unto that use for
which it is ordained? A man's body is sick and diseased: no great marvel, for
seeing it is a compound thing, therefore it is subject unto alteration. Yea sir, it
is true, as you say: but yet for all that the grief of the disease is felt so violently
that it makes us cry out in spite of our teeth. I grant indeed that it is felt, I
must needs confess that, but it is felt only in body, and it makes us cry too and
if we will be so foolish. Grief is not intolerable but unto them which think that
it is so: for there be which can endure and suffer it when it is at the sharpest.
Posidonius the philosopher" discoursing at large of certain matters in the
presence of Pompey, 12 was sorely troubled with the gout, and when the dis-
ease pained him most, he said no more but this: Sir grief, you have attempted
your worst against me, what remedy but patience: you think to make me curse
and speak ill of you: no, no, far be it from me that ever I should say that you
are evil: and so he went forward with his discourse, and made as if he had
never felt it. Now I pray tell me and if you can, what new remedies had this
Philosopher found out against this grief? What plasters and ointments had he
stored up against the gout? Truly these two, the knowledge of things, and
courage of mind. For he was thoroughly resolved, that the body was made to
serve the soul, and that if so be the soul should be grieved for that which
212 Guillaume Du Vair
happened unto the body, that then it must of force be subject to the body.
Now if it ought not to be troubled for that which happeneth unto the body,
how much less ought she be grieved for the loss of goods? For the loss of a
man's goods doth not touch a man so near as the want of his health. Indeed
both of them are things merely without us, yet of the two the body is nearer
unto us than goods. . . .
Do you know how to suffer loss of things so that it shall not trouble you? It
is quickly learned, there is no more in it but this, not to accustom your self to
love anything otherwise then it is, or better than it deserveth. If a man have an
earthen vessel, let him love it as a vessel of earth, which may be broken, and
so if it chance to be broken, the matter will never trouble him much. Let us
pass from smaller things to greater things, from vile and baser things to things
of greater value and more account, and let us do the like. If we love our
children, let us love them as men, that is to say, as men subject unto infinite
casualties of death, and then afterwards when they happen to die their deaths
will be neither strange nor grievous unto us.
Indeed it is an imagination and opinion that vexeth and tormenteth us more
then the things themselves, which is formed of those words which a man useth
when he is surprised with such accidents: for we call one thing by the name of
another, and imagine it to be like unto that other, and the image and idea
thereof remaineth so in our minds. And therefore let us mollify and sweeten
our words as well as we can: for if one of our children chance to die, say not I
have lost one of my children: but this, I have restored one of my children to
God, of whom I borrowed them. And likewise if we lose any other of our
goods, let us use the like words. If a naughty fellow take away our goods from
us, and it grieves us at the very heart, say no more but this: Was it not meet
that God should have that again which he had lent me for a time? For the rest,
remember your own opinion of the like mishaps when they did happen unto
others, and consider with your self how then you were not much moved, but
rather how you did blame them, and neglect their frivolous and vain com-
plaints. Suppose that the judgement which you give of them is a prejudice
against yourself which cannot be avoided. For our judgements in another
man's behalf are always more just and favourable than in a man's own cause.
If a servant of your neighbour's chance to break a glass, you say, there is no
great harm done, it was but a glass broken. If his son die, you say, he was of
estate mortal, not born to live ever: and I pray why can you not say as much
when your own son dieth, without crying out, tormenting your self, or accus-
ing God and men for the loss of that which is so ordinary? .. .
O that we could be once fully persuaded in this point not to fear death,
good God how happy should we then be? For in this one thing more than in
any other, opinion taketh occasion to band herself against reason, that so she
might terrify us by wearing the ugly vizar of death. And albeit there be but
one death in all the world, yet she painteth him forth unto us after an infinite
kind of fashions. Believe me there is nothing in death which is to be feared:
But here is the mischief, she sendeth forth certain fearful and cowardly spies
 The Moral Philosophy of the Stoics 213
abroad, to spy what is done, which report not the truth what they have seen,
but what they have heard men say, and which they themselves fear is likely for
to happen. Indeed we trust too much unto the sayings of the vulgar sort of
people, which are most inconsiderate, affirming it to be a great evil, and yield
no credit unto Philosophy, which teacheth us that it is the haven of man's life.
If Socrates be to be believed, death is not to be feared. If Cato ° have any
credit with us, he will persuade us to run and meet her coming unto us. . . .
Let us therefore accustom ourselves to forgive all the whole world. Let not
the greatness or grievousness of the injury withhold us from pardoning them:
but on the contrary side let us think that the greater the injury is the better it
deserveth to be pardoned, and that the more just our revenge is, the more our
gentleness is to be praised. But especially such as are seated by fortune in the
highest degree of honour, should take heed to their motions that they be
remiss and temperate: for as their actions are of greater importance, so their
faults are harder to be cured. The heaven itself presenteth them daily with an
example and doctrine of avoiding all manner of haste and precipitation, in
shewing them that Saturn the very highest of all the planets is most remiss and
slowest in his course. And astronomers say that Jupiter alone by himself is
able to shoot forth profitable and pleasing lightnings and good auguries; but
when there is a question or sending forth hurtful and revenging storms and
lightnings, then he cannot do this of his own authority, but is to crave the
counsel and assistance of twelve other gods. And is it not a very strange case,
that he that is the greatest of all the gods, that can do good unto all the whole
world, is not able to hurt one person, but after a solemn counsel and delibera-
tion? So that Jupiter himself, though that he be very wise, yet is he afraid lest
he should overshoot himself in a matter of revenge, and therefore thinketh he
had need of good counsel to advise him. Wherefore if at any time we happen
to have feeling of this passion within us, let us repair unto our friends, and
ripen our cholers with their pleasant discourses. For take the best man that is
in the world when he is moved, and you shall see whether he be able to do
anything as he ought to do. For reason being hindered with passions, stands a
man in as much stead as wings do birds when they are caught with lime-twigs
fast by the feet. And this is the reason why we should study to lift up our
hearts from the earth, and place them in a quiet and peaceable estate, if we
desire to make our souls capable of all good and virtuous actions. We must
never leave til we have brought our minds to be of such a disposition, as the
highest region of the air is, which is never darkened with clouds, nor shaken
with thunderbolts, but enjoyeth a continual fairness: for so the mind should
never be darkened with sorrow, nor moved with choler. And if once a man
could bring his mind unto this pass, he should very easily rule his other
actions, and bring them unto their wished end: for then doubtless he would
follow nature hard by the heels, tread altogether in her steps, and join himself
by a pleasant and temperate affection unto those other parts of the world, of
which man is the knot, the marriage knot which linketh heavenly and earthly
things together.
214 Guillaume Du Vair
The effects of this soft and temperate affection which man beareth towards
other things of the world, are called duties," as if they did shew us our duties 15
andbehviourstw ng.Therfoiwuldantre
moderate this duty, and to be informed in the right use thereof, we cannot
have a better mistress then Nature to teach and inform us. For she hath
established an order and disposition in everything, by virtue whereof she
committeth things one under another, and yet chaineth them altogether with
the links of mutual respect which they owe one to another, which she hath
engraven in the forehead of each thing, as Princes stamp their images in their
coin, to show that they are good and lawful money. Let us therefore in every
thing consider the order and course of nature, and we shall straightways know
the value of it, whether it be current or no, and how much will be given for it.
Good being the object of man's will, where perfect and true good is to be
found, there our will ought to be moved.
This being granted, it must needs follow that the strongest and chiefest
affection of man ought to be accounted that which joineth us together with the
author and fountain of all good, to wit, godliness: for by it a man is reunited
and substantially engrafted in his first cause, as being the root which keepeth
him (as long as he abideth and dwelleth in it) in his full perfection: but
contrarily, being separated from it withereth and drieth away incontinently.
Now the principal effect of piety is to teach us how to know God: For the
honour and respect which we bear unto anything proceedeth from the true
knowledge of it. Therefore first of all we must believe that there is a God:
secondly, that he hath created the world by his mighty power, bounty and
wisdom, and by them governeth it: then, that his providence watcheth over all
things, yea the smallest things in the world. Again, that whatsoever he
sendeth unto us is for our good and that our evil cometh not but from our
selves. For if we esteem those chances evil which God sendeth unto us, we
shall oftentimes take occasion to blaspheme him; because that naturally we
honour them which seek our good, and hate them which procure us any evil.
And therefore we must resolve with our selves to be obedient unto him, and
take in good part whatsoever cometh from his hands. And seeing that his
knowledge is most perfect, his power thrice infinite, and his will most loving
and charitable: what resteth then, but that we should conclude that God
sendeth nothing unto us, but tendeth to our great good? and albeit we for our
parts cannot conceive the good which we ought to receive of that which he
sendeth us; yet nevertheless we hope all is for the best: supposing, that as the
physician doth oftentimes many things for the safety of the body, which may
seem at the beginning to hurt it: so God in the guiding of our lives doth save us
by means which may seem grievous and hurtful.
The physician diverse times pricketh the eye to recover a man's sight: and
oftentime God almighty useth to prick and wound our hearts with sharp
afflictions to restore our minds unto their brightness. Under the seal of this
assurance we ought to commit and submit ourselves unto him, confessing that
 Further Reading 215
we come into the world not to command, but to obey, finding laws already
made which we ought to follow. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. That is, even though the sparklings are weak and feeble.
2. More accurately, "to be and to act according to nature" — the fundamental Stoic
principle.
3. Convenable, that is, suitable.
4. In Greek mythology, Danaus ordered his fifty daughters to slay the husbands to
whom he had been forced to give them. All but one obeyed him, and for punish-
ment they were condemned to try to fill with water a jar with holes in the bottom.
5. Tantalus, a Greek mythological figure, was punished by the gods by being left
beside a pool that receded whenever he tried to drink from it.
6. That is, of the Stoics.
7. One who lets blood.
8. That is, simple bodily growth.
9. Du Vair assumed that sense perception is explained by saying that perceptible
forms enter the senses, thereby conveying information about the things whose
forms they are.
10. Advance runners.
11. Lived around 135-151 B.C.E., head of the Stoic school in Rhodes.
12. Roman general, 106-48 B.C.E.
13. Roman soldier and official, 234-149 B.C.E., taken as a model of the Stoic sage.
14. Du Vair used the term offices.
15. Here Du Vair used le devoir.

Further Reading
Aside from Rudolf Kirk's helpful introduction to his edition of The Moral Philosophie
of the Stoicks, there is not much to recommend to the reader anxious to know more
about Du Vair. He is discussed in some histories of French literature but is lucky to get
even a mention in histories of philosophy.
Hiram Haydn, The Counter-Renaissance (New York: Harcourt Brace & World,
1950), talks about neo-Stoicism in various passages and often mentions Du Vair. The
reader wishing to know more about neo-Stoicism will also want to consult Rudolf
Kirk's edition of Justus Lipsius, Two Bookes of Constancie (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1939). Lipsius is also the focus of an important study of the
political significance of neo-Stoicism in early modern Europe by Gerhard Oestreich,
Neostoicism and the Early Modern State (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1982).
 Rene Descartes

Introduction

Descartes was born in 1596. He attended the Jesuit school at La Fleche from 1606 to
1614 and then obtained a law degree at Poitiers. While spending some time learning
military skills and traveling, Descartes began to work on mathematics and physics, and
on the night of November 10, 1619, he had three dreams that he took as indications
that he should devote his life to developing some of the new ideas about science that he
had been considering. During the next few years Descartes traveled and spent time in
Paris, in contact with many of the leading scientists and other thinkers of the time.
In 1628 Descartes moved to Holland, where he lived for most of the rest of his life.
He was upset enough by the condemnation of Galileo in 1633 to drop his plan for
publishing a scientific treatise he had written. It thus was not until 1637 that he
published his first book, Discourse on Method, which was accompanied by three
scientific essays illustrating how successfully the method he advocated could be used.
In 1641 he published his Meditations on First Philosophy, which also contained six sets
of objections to Descartes's views, by some philosophers and theologians to whom the
Meditations had been sent in manuscript, and his own replies. A systematic exposition
of his views, the Principles of Philosophy appeared in 1644. In 1649 Descartes went to
Sweden at the invitation of Queen Christina, with whom he had corresponded and
who wanted him to teach her philosophy. Shortly after he arrived he published his
psychology, the Passions of the Soul. Then, during the winter, he caught pneumonia,
from which he died in 1650.
Descartes's views were extremely controversial, and his efforts to placate the estab-
lished educational and religious powers did not succeed. In 1663 his works were put on
the Roman Catholic index of prohibited books; but whatever the orthodox thought of
him, his philosophy captured educated Europe. Descartes offered a comprehensive
alternative to the then-dominant Aristotelian understanding of the world. Moreover,
he submitted examples to show in detail how his program worked. As he was a master
of the new science (including its mathematics, to which he made major contributions),
he could integrate what we now distinguish as his specifically philosophical theory with
the work of Galileo, Harvey, and other discoverers of the time, to produce a synthesis
more convincing than anything hitherto available. It was not until Isaac Newton pro-
duced an alternative that the hold of Cartesian physics was broken.
The Cartesian system had some omissions. Most notably, perhaps, Descartes did not
develop the hints he dropped here and there about morality. Why not? In a letter
dated November 20, 1647, to Chanut, the French ambassador to Sweden, Descartes
stated:

216
 Introduction 217

It is true that I am accustomed to refuse to write down my thoughts concerning morality, and that
for two reasons: first, that there is no subject from which malicious people can more easily draw
pretexts for slandering one; second, that I believe it is proper only for sovereigns, or for those
who are authorized by them, to busy themselves with regulating the morals [les moeurs] of others.
In Part Six of the Discourse Descartes again noted the role of authority in establishing
morality: "As regards conduct," he observed,
everyone is so full of his own wisdom that we might find as many reformers as heads if permission
to institute change in these matters were granted to anyone other than those whom God has set
up as sovereigns over his people or those on whom he has bestowed sufficient grace and zeal to be
prophets.
Descartes here seems to be thinking of morality as centering on laws that must come
either from God through his prophets or from secular authority, thus leaving no room
for private reflection on it. In other places Descartes made quite different suggestions.
Morality, he wrote, is part of the tree of knowledge. Along with medicine and mechan-
ics, it is one of the fruit-bearing twigs that grow on a trunk firmly rooted in the first
principles of metaphysical truth, which Descartes had established. These principles
give rise to or warrant our knowledge of the physical world, and in due time they will
enable us to explain both human psychology and the mechanisms of the human body.
If this much of the tree is independent of religious or political authority, why should
not moral knowledge be so as well?
It all depends on what moral knowledge is. When Descartes reached that issue, he
did not tell us that we must know the rules or laws that we are commanded to obey.
Instead, he discussed the sovereign good. Does wisdom constitute the supreme good,
and is it composed of the knowledge of physics and the other sciences? At one point
Descartes suggested that this was so, but at his most explicit, in his letters, he took a
different approach. He mentioned contentment, happiness, and the satisfaction of
desire, which come, he asserted, from attaining the perfections of body and soul.
Reason can tell us what the perfections are, and we can then pursue what will bring us
the greatest perfection, and with it the greatest pleasure — at least if we control the
passions that make us distort the values of things.
Descartes did not explain what he meant by the perfections of body and soul. Not,
surely, what the Aristotelians meant: he rejected the natural teleology on which their
notions of perfection rested. But he offered no alternative account, nor did he tell his
correspondents how his emphasis on personal virtue as being what makes its possessor
happy fits in with the morality that God or the sovereign imposes on us. He thus left a
problem for later philosophers who wanted to understand — more fully than Descartes
cared to — the place of morality in the new world picture he had done so much to
create.
Descartes left another problem as well, or rather he gave an old problem new life. In
letters and in published work he let it be known, without going into much detail, that he
accepted a voluntarist view of the principles that underlie knowledge and morality. They
are as they are, he confirmed, because God willed them to be so, and he could have
willed them to be otherwise. This reversion to voluntarism (see the section "Luther and
Calvin" in the Introduction to this anthology) caused his contemporaries — as it causes
his present commentators — no end of headache. For recent commentators, the problem
is one of interpreting Descartes on the status of logic and mathematics. For his contempo-
raries, it raised serious issues about religion and morality. Many Catholics regarded
voluntarism as a specifically Protestant view, and to thinkers of both confessions
218 Rene Descartes

Hobbesianism was its ultimate implication. But Descartes himself did not discuss the
bearing of his voluntarist view on his moral outlook.
On Cartesian principles a provable morality and a science of medicine can someday
be obtained. Descartes allowed that he could not produce either of them. In his
Discourse, however, he told us what code he proposed to live by until the true morality
is proved. In other places as well, particularly in The Passions of the Soul, we can catch
glimpses of Descartes's own moral outlook, which is often described as Stoic or neo-
Stoic. Change oneself rather than the world; control one's passions by means of virtue;
do not be upset by what is beyond one's control — all this, indeed, sounds rather Stoic.
But other passages sound less so. For instance, as Descartes pointed out in Part Six of
the Discourse, through his philosophy we can attain sufficient knowledge of the physi-
cal world to make ourselves "lords and masters of nature." We shall be able to invent
innumerable devices to make life more convenient and enjoyable, and when medicine
is perfected we shall be able to use it even to improve the condition of our minds, as
bodily health greatly affects the mind. These are hardly Stoic sentiments, and passages
in his letters defending the enjoyment of life also sound somewhat less than Stoic. The
reader will need, therefore, to consider whether Descartes was simply wavering at
these points or whether a deeper outlook unified all his attitudes.
The following selections are from three sources. The first is from the Discourse on
Method, in John Cottingham, Robert Stoothof, and Dugald Murdoch, trans., The
Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1985). The third is from the "Replies" to the Sixth Set of Objections, in the
second volume of the same translation. Both are reprinted by permission of the Cam-
bridge University Press. The second set of excerpts is from Anthony Kenny, trans.,
Descartes: Philosophical Letters (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), reprinted by permis-
sion of Anthony Kenny.

Discourse on Method

PART THREE

Now, before starting to rebuild your house, it is not enough simply to pull it
down, to make provision for materials and architects (or else train yourself in
architecture), and to have carefully drawn up the plans; you must also provide
yourself with some other place where you can live comfortably while building
is in progress. Likewise, lest I should remain indecisive in my actions while
reason obliged me to be so in my judgements, and in order to live as happily
as I could during this time, I formed for myself a provisional moral code
consisting of just three or four maxims, which I should like to tell you about.
The first was to obey the laws and customs of my country, holding con-
stantly to the religion in which by God's grace I had been instructed from my
childhood, and governing myself in all other matters according to the most
moderate and least extreme opinions — the opinions commonly accepted in
practice by the most sensible of those with whom I should have to live. For I
had begun at this time to count my own opinions as worthless, because I
wished to submit them all to examination, and so I was sure I could do no
better than follow those of the most sensible men. And although there may be
 Discourse on Method 219
men as sensible among the Persians or Chinese as among ourselves, I thought
it would be most useful for me to be guided by those with whom I should have
to live. I thought too that in order to discover what opinions they really held I
had to attend to what they did rather than what they said. For with our
declining standards of behaviour, few people are willing to say everything that
they believe; and besides, many people do not know what they believe, since
believing something and knowing that one believes it are different acts of
thinking, and the one often occurs without the other. Where many opinions
were equally well accepted, I chose only the most moderate, both because
these are always the easiest to act upon and probably the best (excess being
usually bad), and also so that if I made a mistake, I should depart less from the
right path than I would if I chose one extreme when I ought to have pursued
the other. In particular, I counted as excessive all promises by which we give
up some of our freedom. It was not that I disapproved of laws which remedy
the inconstancy of weak minds by allowing us to make vows or contracts that
oblige perseverance in some worthy project (or even, for the security of
commerce, in some indifferent one). But I saw nothing in the world which
remained always in the same state, and for my part I was determined to make
my judgements more and more perfect, rather than worse. For these reasons I
thought I would be sinning against good sense if I were to take my previous
approval of something as obliging me to regard it as good later on, when it had
perhaps ceased to be good or I no longer regarded it as such.
My second maxim was to be as firm and decisive in my actions as I could,
and to follow even the most doubtful opinions, once I had adopted them, with
no less constancy than if they had been quite certain. In this respect I would
be imitating a traveller who, upon finding himself lost in a forest, should not
wander about turning this way and that, and still less stay in one place, but
should keep walking as straight as he can in one direction, never changing it
for slight reasons even if mere chance made him choose it in the first place; for
in this way, even if he does not go exactly where he wishes, he will at least end
up in a place where he is likely to be better off than in the middle of a forest.
Similarly, since in everyday life we must often act without delay, it is a most
certain truth that when it is not in our power to discern the truest opinions, we
must follow the most probable. Even when no opinions appear more probable
than any others, we must still adopt some; and having done so we must then
regard them not as doubtful, from a practical point of view, but as most true
and certain, on the grounds that the reason which made us adopt them is itself
true and certain. By following this maxim I could free myself from all the
regrets and remorse which usually trouble the consciences of those weak and
faltering spirits who allow themselves to set out on some supposedly good
course of action which later, in their inconstancy, they judge to be bad.
My third maxim was to try always to master myself rather than fortune, and
change my desires rather than the order of the world. In general I would
become accustomed to believing that nothing lies entirely within our power
except our thoughts, so that after doing our best in dealing with matters
220 Rene Descartes
external to us, whatever we fail to achieve is absolutely impossible so far as we
are concerned. This alone, I thought, would be sufficient to prevent me from
desiring in future something I could not get, and so to make me content. For
our will naturally tends to desire only what our intellect represents to it as
somehow possible; and so it is certain that if we consider all external goods as
equally beyond our power, we shall not regret the absence of goods which
seem to be our birthright when we are deprived of them through no fault of
our own, any more than we regret not possessing the kingdom of China or of
Mexico. Making a virtue of necessity, as they say, we shall not desire to be
healthy when ill or free when imprisoned, any more than we now desire to
have bodies of a material as indestructible as diamond or wings to fly like the
birds. But I admit that it takes long practice and repeated meditation to
become accustomed to seeing everything in this light. In this, I believe, lay the
secret of those philosophers who in earlier times were able to escape from the
dominion of fortune and, despite suffering and poverty, rival their gods in
happiness. Through constant reflection upon the limits prescribed for them by
nature, they became perfectly convinced that nothing was in their power but
their thoughts, and this alone was sufficient to prevent them from being
attracted to other things. Their mastery over their thoughts was so absolute
that they had reason to count themselves richer, more powerful, freer and
happier than other men who, because they lack this philosophy, never achieve
such mastery over all their desires, however favoured by nature and fortune
they may be. 1
Finally, to conclude this moral code, I decided to review the various occupa-
tions which men have in this life, in order to try to choose the best. Without
wishing to say anything about the occupations of others, I thought I could do
no better than to continue with the very one I was engaged in, and devote my
whole life to cultivating my reason and advancing as far as I could in the
knowledge of the truth, following the method I had prescribed for myself.
Since beginning to use this method I had felt such extreme contentment that I
did not think one could enjoy any sweeter or purer one in this life. Every day I
discovered by its means truths which, it seemed to me, were quite important
and were generally unknown by other men; and the satisfaction they gave me
so filled my mind that nothing else mattered to me. Besides, the sole basis of
the foregoing three maxims was the plan I had to continue my self-instruction.
For since God has given each of us a light to distinguish truth from falsehood,
I should not have thought myself obliged to rest content with the opinions of
others for a single moment if I had not intended in due course to examine
them using my own judgement; and I could not have avoided having scruples
about following these opinions, if I had not hoped to lose no opportunity to
discover better ones, in case there were any. Lastly, I could not have limited
my desires, or been happy, had I not been following a path by which I thought
I was sure to acquire all the knowledge of which I was capable, and in this way
all the true goods within my reach. For since our will tends to pursue or avoid
only what our intellect represents as good or bad, we need only to judge well
 Principles of Philosophy 221
in order to act well, and to judge as well as we can in order to do our best —
that is to say, in order to acquire all the virtues and in general all the other
goods we can acquire. And when we are certain of this, we cannot fail to be
happy.
Once I had established these maxims and set them on one side together
with the truths of faith, which have always been foremost among my beliefs,
I judged that I could freely undertake to rid myself of all the rest of my
opinions . 2 .. .

Principles of Philosophy

PREFACE TO THE FRENCH EDITION

Author's Letter to the Translator of the Book Which May Here Serve as
a Preface
First of all, I would have wished to explain what philosophy is, beginning with
the most commonplace points. For example, the word "philosophy" means
the study of wisdom, and by "wisdom" is meant not only prudence in our
everyday affairs but also a perfect knowledge of all things that mankind is
capable of knowing, both for the conduct of life and for the preservation of
health and the discovery of all manner of skills. In order for this kind of
knowledge to be perfect it must be deduced from first causes; thus, in order to
set about acquiring it — and it is this activity to which the term "to philoso-
phize" strictly refers — we must start with the search for first causes or princi-
ples. These principles must satisfy two conditions. First, they must be so clear
and so evident that the human mind cannot doubt their truth when it atten-
tively concentrates on them; and, secondly, the knowledge of other things
must depend on them, in the sense that the principles must be capable of
being known without knowledge of these other matters, but not vice versa.
Next, in deducing from these principles the knowledge of things which depend
on them, we must try to ensure that everything in the entire chain of deduc-
tions which we draw is very manifest. In truth it is only God who is perfectly
wise, that is to say, who possesses complete knowledge of the truth of all
things; but men can be said to possess more or less wisdom depending on how
much knowledge they possess of the most important truths. I think that every-
thing I have just said would be accepted by all people of learning.
Next, I would have looked at the benefits of this philosophy and shown that it
encompasses everything which the human mind is capable of knowing. Thus we
should consider that it is this philosophy alone which distinguishes us from the
most savage and barbarous peoples, and that a nation's civilization and refine-
ment depends on the superiority of the philosophy which is practised there.
Hence the greatest good that a state can enjoy is to possess true philosophers.
As for the individual, it is not only beneficial to live with those who apply
themselves to this study; it is incomparably better to undertake it oneself. For
222 Rene Descartes
by the same token it is undoubtedly much better to use one's own eyes to get
about, and also to enjoy the beauty of colours and light, than to close one's eyes
and be led around by someone else. Yet even the latter is much better than
keeping one's eyes closed and having no guide but oneself. Living without
philosophizing is exactly like having one's eyes closed without ever trying to
open them; and the pleasure of seeing everything which our sight reveals is in
no way comparable to the satisfaction accorded by knowledge of the things
which philosophy enables us to discover. Lastly, the study of philosophy is more
necessary for the regulation of our morals and our conduct in this life than is the
use of our eyes to guide our steps. The brute beasts, who have only their bodies
to preserve, are continually occupied in looking for food to nourish them; but
human beings, whose most important part is the mind, should devote their
main efforts to the search for wisdom, which is the true food of the mind. And I
am sure that there are many people who would not fail to make the search if
they had some hope of success and knew how much they were capable of. No
soul, however base, is so strongly attached to the objects of the senses that it
does not sometimes turn aside and desire some other, greater good, even
though it may often not know what this good consists in. Those who are most
favoured by fortune and possess health, honour and riches in abundance are no
more exempt from this desire than anyone else. On the contrary, I am con-
vinced that it is just such people who long most ardently for another good — a
higher good than all those that they already possess. Now this supreme good,
considered by natural reason without the light of faith, is nothing other than the
knowledge of the truth through its first causes, that is to say wisdom, of which
philosophy is the study. Since all these points are absolutely true, they would
easily carry conviction if they were properly argued.
What prevents these points being accepted is the widespread experience
that those who profess to be philosophers are often less wise and less reason-
able than those who have never applied themselves to philosophy. And so at
this point I would have explained briefly what all the knowledge which we
now possess consists in and the levels of wisdom that have so far been at-
tained. The first level contains only notions which are so clear in themselves
that they can be acquired without meditation. The second comprises every-
thing we are acquainted with through sensory experience. The third comprises
what we learn by conversing with other people. And one may add a fourth
category, namely what is learned by reading books — not all books, but those
which have been written by people who are capable of instructing as well; for
in such cases we hold a kind of conversation with the authors. I think that all
the wisdom which is generally possessed is acquired in these four ways. I am
not including divine revelation in the list, because it does not lead us on by
degrees but raises us at a stroke to infallible faith. Now in all ages there have
been great men who have tried to find a fifth way of reaching wisdom — a way
which is incomparably more elevated and more sure than the other four. This
consists in the search for the first causes and the true principles which enable
us to deduce the reasons for everything we are capable of knowing; and it is
above all those who have laboured to this end who have been called philoso-
 Principles of Philosophy 223
phers. I am not sure, however, that there has been anyone up till now who has
succeeded in this project. . . .
After fully explaining these matters, I would have wanted next to put down
the reasons which serve to prove that the true principles, enabling one to
reach the highest degree of wisdom which constitutes the supreme good of
human life, are the principles which I have set down in this book. Just two
reasons are enough to prove the point: the first is that the principles are very
clear, and the second is that they enable all other things to be deduced from
them. These are the only two conditions that such principles must meet. Now
I can easily prove that the principles are very clear. This is shown by the way
in which I discovered them, namely by rejecting everything in which I could
discover the least occasion for doubt; for it is certain that principles which it
was impossible to reject in this way, when one attentively considered them,
are the clearest and most evident that the human mind can know. Thus I
considered that someone who wishes to doubt everything cannot, for all that,
doubt that he exists while he is doubting; and that what reasons in this way,
being unable to doubt itself while doubting everything else, is not what we call
our body but what we call our soul or our thought. Accordingly I took the
being or existence of this thought as my first principle, and from it I deduced
very clearly the following principles. There is a God who is the author of
everything there is in the world; further, since he is the source of all truth, he
certainly did not create in us an understanding of the kind which would be
capable of making a mistake in its judgements concerning the things of which
it possesses a very clear and very distinct perception. These are all the princi-
ples that I make use of with regard to immaterial or metaphysical things, and
from them I deduce very clearly the principles of corporeal or physical things,
namely that there are bodies which are extended in length, breadth and
depth, and which have various shapes and move in various ways. Here, in
total, are all the principles which I use to deduce the truth of other things. The
other reason which proves the clarity of these principles is that they have been
known for all time and indeed accepted as true and indubitable by everyone,
with the sole exception of the existence of God, which some people have
called into doubt because they have attributed too much to sensory percep-
tions, and God cannot be seen or touched. Yet although all the truths which I
include among my principles have been known for all time by everyone, there
has, so far as I know, been no one up till now who has recognized them as the
principles of philosophy, that is to say, as the principles which enable us to
deduce the knowledge of all the other things to be found in the world. This is
why it remains for me here to prove that they do indeed qualify as principles
of this sort; and I think that the best way of doing this is to get people to see by
experience that this is so, that is to say, to invite my readers to read this book.
Admittedly, I have not dealt with all things, for this would be impossible. But
I think I have explained all the things I have had occasion to deal with in such
a way that those who read the book attentively will be convinced that in order
to arrive at the highest knowledge of which the human mind is capable there is
no need to look for any principles other than those I have provided. . . .
224 Rene Descartes
Following on from this, in order to get people to see the purpose I had in
publishing my work, I would wish to explain here the order which I think we
should follow when we aim to instruct ourselves. First of all, a man who still
possesses only the ordinary and imperfect knowledge that can be acquired in
the four ways explained above should try before anything else to devise for
himself a code of morals which is sufficient to regulate the actions of his life.
For this is something which permits no delay, since we should endeavour
above all else to live well. After that, he should study logic. I do not mean the
logic of the Schools, for this is strictly speaking nothing but a dialectic which
teaches ways of expounding to others what one already knows or even of
holding forth without judgement about things one does not know. Such logic
corrupts good sense rather than increasing it. I mean instead the kind of logic
which teaches us to direct our reason with a view to discovering the truths of
which we are ignorant. Since this depends to a great extent on practice, it is
good for the student to work for a long time at practising the rules on very
easy and simple questions like those of mathematics. Then, when he has
acquired some skill in finding the truth on these questions, he should begin to
tackle true philosophy in earnest. The first part of philosophy is metaphysics,
which contains the principles of knowledge, including the explanation of the
principal attributes of God, the non-material nature of our souls and all the
clear and distinct notions which are in us. The second part is physics, where,
after discovering the true principles of material things, we examine the gen-
eral composition of the entire universe and then, in particular, the nature of
this earth and all the bodies which are most commonly found upon it, such as
air, water, fire, magnetic ore and other minerals. Next we need to examine
individually the nature of plants, of animals and, above all, of man, so that we
may be capable later on of discovering the other sciences which are beneficial
to man. Thus the whole of philosophy is like a tree. The roots are metaphys-
ics, the trunk is physics, and the branches emerging from the trunk are all the
other sciences, which may be reduced to three principal ones, namely medi-
cine, mechanics and morals. By "morals" I understand the highest and most
perfect moral system, which presupposes a complete knowledge of the other
sciences and is the ultimate level of wisdom.
Now just as it is not the roots or the trunk of a tree from which one gathers
the fruit, but only the ends of the branches, so the principal benefit of philoso-
phy depends on those parts of it which can only be learnt last of all. I am
ignorant of almost all of these. . . .

Correspondence with Princess Elizabeth and Queen Christina

DESCARTES TO ELIZABETH, 4 AUGUST 1645 3

Madame,
When I chose Seneca's de vita beata4 to suggest to your Highness as an
agreeable topic of discussion, I took account only of the reputation of the
 Correspondence 225
author and the importance of his topic, without thinking of his manner of
treating it. I have since given some thought to this and find it not sufficiently
accurate to deserve to be followed. To assist your Highness to make a judge-
ment on the topic, I will try to explain how I think the topic should have been
treated by such a philosopher, unenlightened by faith, with only natural rea-
son to guide him.
At the beginning he says very well that all men want to live happily (vivere
beate), but not all see clearly what makes a life happy. But first we must know
what vivere beate means; I would translate it into French vivre heureusement,
if there were not a difference between heur5 and beatitude. The former de-
pends only on outward things: a man is thought more fortunate (heureux) than
wise if some good happens to him without his own effort; but happiness
(beatitude) consists, it seems to me, in a perfect contentment of mind and
inner satisfaction, which is not commonly possessed by those who are most
favoured by fortune, and which is acquired by the wise without fortune's
favour. So vivere beate, to live happily, is to have a perfectly content and
satisfied mind.
Next we must consider what makes a life happy, i.e. what are the things
which can give us this supreme contentment. Such things, I observe, can be
divided into two classes: those which depend on us, like virtue and wisdom,
and those which do not, like honours, riches, and health. For it is certain that
a man of good birth who is not ill, and who lacks nothing can enjoy a more
perfect contentment than another who is poor, unhealthy and deformed pro-
vided that the two are equally wise and virtuous. None the less a small vessel
may be just as full as a large one, although it contains less liquid; and similarly
if we regard each man's contentment as the full satisfaction of all his reason-
able desires, I do not doubt that the poorest man, least blest by nature and
fortune, can be entirely content and satisfied just as much as every one else,
although he does not enjoy as many good things. It is only this sort of content-
ment which is here in question; to seek the other sort would be a waste of
time, since it is not in our own power.
It seems to me that every man can make himself content without any
external assistance, provided that he respects three conditions, which are
related to the three rules of morality which I put in the Discourse on Method. °
The first is always to employ his mind as well as he can to discover what he
should or should not do in all the circumstances of life.
The second is to have a firm and constant resolution to carry out whatever
reason recommends without being diverted by passion or appetite. Virtue, I
believe, consists precisely in firmness in this resolution; though I do not know
that anyone has ever so described it. Instead, they have divided it into differ-
ent species to which they have given various names, because of the various
objects to which it applies.
The third is to bear in mind that while one thus guides oneself, as far as
one can, by reason, all the good things which one does not possess are all
equally outside one's power. In this way one will accustom oneself not to
226 Rene Descartes
desire them. Nothing can impede our contentment except desire, regret, and
repentance; but if we always do what reason tells us, even if events show us
afterwards that we were mistaken, we will never have any grounds for repen-
tance, because it was not our own fault. We do not desire to have more arms
or more tongues than we have, and yet we do desire to have more health or
more riches. The reason is simply that we imagine that the latter, unlike the
former, can be acquired by our exertions, or are due to our nature. We can
rid ourselves of that opinion by bearing in mind that since we have always
followed the advice of our reason, we have left undone nothing that was in
our power; and that sickness and misfortune are no less natural to man than
prosperity and health.
Of course not every kind of desire is incompatible with happiness: only
those which are accompanied with impatience and sadness. It is also not
necessary that our reason should be free from error; it is sufficient if our
conscience testifies that we have never lacked resolution and virtue to carry
out whatever we judge the best course. So virtue by itself is sufficient to make
us happy in this life. But virtue unenlightened by intellect can be false: that is
to say, the will and resolution to do well can carry us to evil courses, if we
think them good; and in such a case the contentment which virtue brings is not
solid. Moreover, such virtue is commonly set in opposition to pleasure, appe-
tite and passion, and is accordingly very difficult to practise. The right use of
reason on the other hand, by giving a true knowledge of good, prevents virtue
from being false; by accommodating it to licit pleasures makes it easy to
practise; and by making us realize the condition of our nature sets bounds to
our desires. So we must conclude that the greatest felicity of man depends on
the right use of reason; and consequently the study which leads to its acquisi-
tion is the most useful occupation one can take up. Certainly it is the most
agreeable and delightful.
After this, it seems to me, Seneca should have taught us all the principal
truths whose knowledge is necessary to facilitate the practice of virtue and to
regulate our desires and passions, and thus to enjoy natural happiness. That
would have made his book the finest and most useful that a pagan philosopher
could have written. . . .

DESCARTES TO ELIZABETH, 1 SEPTEMBER 1645

Madame,
When last I wrote I was uncertain whether your Highness was at the Hague
or at Rhenen, so I addressed my letter via Leyden; and the one you conde-
scended to write me was only delivered to me after the departure of the
messenger who had brought it to Alkmaar. So I have been unable to tell you
earlier how proud I am that my judgement of the book you read is no different
from yours, and that my manner of reasoning seems natural to you. I am sure
that if you had had as much leisure as I have had to think about these topics, I
could not write anything which you would not have observed better than I;
 Correspondence 227
but because your Highness' age, birth, and business have not permitted this,
perhaps what I write can save you time.
Even my faults will give you opportunities for observing the truth. For
instance, I spoke of a happiness which depends entirely on our free will, which
all men can acquire without assistance from without. You observe very truly
that there are diseases which take away the power of reasoning and with it the
power of enjoying the satisfaction proper to a rational mind. This shows me
that what I said about all men without exception applies only to those who
have the free use of their reason, and in addition know the way to reach such
happiness. For everybody wants to make himself happy; but most people do
not know how to, and often a bodily indisposition prevents their will from
being free. This happens too when we are asleep; because nobody, however
philosophical, can prevent himself having bad dreams when his temperament
so disposes him. However, experience shows that if one has often had a
certain thought while one's mind was at liberty, it returns again however
indisposed one's body may be. Thus I can boast that my own dreams never
portray anything distressing, and there is no doubt that it is a great advantage
to have long accustomed oneself to drive away sad thoughts. But we cannot
altogether answer for ourselves except when we are in our own power. It is
better to lose one's life than to lose the use of reason, because even without
the teachings of faith, natural philosophy by itself makes us hope that our soul
will be in a happier state after death than now; and makes us fear nothing
more than being attached to a body which altogether takes away its liberty.
There are other indispositions which do no harm to one's reason but which
merely alter the humours, and make a man unusually inclined to sadness, or
anger, or some other passion. These certainly cause distress, but they can be
overcome; and the harder they are to conquer, the more satisfaction the soul
can take in doing so. The same is true of all exterior handicaps, such as the
splendour of high birth, the flatteries of courts, the adversities of fortune, and
also great prosperity, which commonly does more than misfortune to hamper
the would-be philosopher. When everything goes according to our wishes we
forget to think of ourselves; when fortune changes we are the more surprised
the more we trusted it. Altogether, we can say, nothing can completely take
away our power of making ourselves happy provided that it does not trouble
our reason. It is not always the things which seem the most distressing which
do the most harm.
But in order to discover what contribution each thing can make to our
contentment, we must consider what are its possible causes. This information
is also most valuable in making it easy to practise virtue; because all actions of
our soul that acquire us some perfection are virtuous, and all our contentment
consists in our interior awareness of possessing some perfection. Thus when-
ever we practise any virtue — that is to say, do what reason tells us we should
do — we automatically receive satisfaction and pleasure from so doing. But
pleasures are of two kinds: those that belong to the mind by itself, and those
that belong to the whole human being, that is to say to the mind as joined to
228 Rene Descartes
the body. These last present themselves in a confused manner to the imagina-
tion and often appear much greater than they are, especially before we pos-
sess them; and this is the source of all the evils and all the errors of life. For
according to the rule of reason, each pleasure should be measured by the size
of the perfection which produces it; it is thus that we measure those whose
causes are clearly known to us. But often passion makes us believe certain
things to be much better and more desirable than they are; then, when we
have taken much trouble to acquire them, and in the process lost the chance
of possessing other more genuine goods, possession of them brings home to us
their defects; and thence arises dissatisfaction, regret, and remorse. And so
the true function of reason is to examine the just value of all the goods whose
acquisition seems to depend in some way on our conduct, so that we always
devote our efforts to obtaining those which are in truth the most desirable. If,
in such cases, fortune opposes our plans and makes them fail, we shall at least
have the satisfaction that our loss was not our fault; and despite our failure we
shall enjoy all the natural happiness whose acquisition was really within our
power.
Anger, for instance, can sometimes excite in us such violent desires for
vengeance that it makes us imagine more pleasure in chastising our enemy
than in preserving our honour or our life, and makes us risk both imprudently
in the attempt. Whereas, if reason examines what is the good or perfection on
which the pleasure derived from vengeance is based, it will find — unless the
vengeance serves to prevent future offences — that there is nothing except our
imagination that we have some superiority and advantage over the person on
whom we are taking vengeance. And this is often only a vain imagination,
which is worthless in comparison with honour or life, or even the satisfaction
to be had from seeing one's own mastery of one's anger when one abstains
from revenge.
The same is true of the other passions. They all represent the goods to
which they tend with greater splendour than they deserve, and before we
experience pleasures they make them seem greater than experience shows
them to be. This is why pleasure is commonly dispraised, because the word is
used to mean only the pleasures which frequently deceive us by their appear-
ance, and make us neglect other much solider pleasures, such as the pleasures
of the mind commonly are, which are not so impressive in anticipation. I say
"commonly" because not all pleasures of the mind are praiseworthy: they can
be founded on some false opinion. An instance is the pleasure we take in
slander, which is based only on the belief that the worse others are esteemed,
the better esteemed we shall be ourselves. Also, they can deceive us by their
appearance, when some strong passion accompanies them, as can be seen in
the pleasure arising from ambition.
But the main difference between the pleasures of the body and those of the
mind is the following. The body is subject to perpetual change, and indeed its
preservation and well-being depend on change; so the pleasures proper to it
last a very short time, since they arise from the acquisition of something useful
 Correspondence 229
to the body at the moment of reception, and cease as soon as it stops being
useful. The pleasures of the soul, on the other hand, can be as immortal as the
soul itself, provided they are so solidly founded that neither the knowledge of
truth nor any false persuasion can destroy them.
The true function of reason, then, in the conduct of life is to examine and
consider without passion the value of all perfections of body and soul that can
be acquired by our conduct, so that since we are commonly obliged to deprive
ourselves of some goods in order to acquire others, we shall always choose the
better. Because the pleasures of the body are minor, it can be said in general
that it is possible to make oneself happy without them. However, I do not
think that they should be altogether despised, nor even that one should free
oneself altogether from passion. It is enough to subject one's passions to
reason; and once they are thus tamed they are sometimes useful precisely to
the degree that they tend to excess. I will never have a more excessive passion
than that which impels me to the respect and veneration which I owe you and
makes me, etc.

DESCARTES TO ELIZABETH, 15 SEPTEMBER 1645

Madame,
Your Highness has so accurately observed all the reasons which prevented
Seneca from expounding clearly his opinion on the supreme good, and you
have read his book so carefully, that I would fear to be tedious if I continued
examining his chapters one by one. Moreover, I do not want to put off
replying to your question how to fortify one's understanding so as to discern
what is the best in all the actions of life. And so, without following Seneca any
further, I will try simply to explain my own opinion on the topic.
In order to be always disposed to judge well only two things seem to me
necessary. One is the knowledge of truth, the other is practice in remembering
and assenting to this knowledge whenever the occasion demands. But because
nobody except God knows everything perfectly, we have to content ourselves
with knowing the truths most useful to us.
The first and chief of these is that there is a God on whom all things depend,
whose perfections are infinite, whose power is immense, and whose decrees
are infallible. This teaches us to accept calmly all the things which happen to
us as expressly sent by God. Moreover, since the true object of love is perfec-
tion, when we lift up our minds to consider Him as He is, we find ourselves
naturally so inclined to love Him, that we even rejoice in our afflictions at the
thought that they are an expression of His will.
The second thing we must know is the nature of our soul. We must know
that it is a substance independent of, and nobler than, the body, and that it is
capable of enjoying many satisfactions not to be found in this life. This pre-
vents us from fearing death, and so detaches our affections from the things of
this world that we scorn whatever is in the power of fortune.
Here it is important to judge worthily of the works of God and to have a
230 Rene Descartes
vast idea of the extent of the universe, such as I tried to convey in the third
,

book of my Principles.' For if we imagine that beyond the heavens there is

nothing but imaginary spaces, and that all the heavens are made only for the
service of the earth, and the earth only for man, we will be inclined to think
that this earth is our principal abode and this life our best. Instead of discover-
ing the perfections that are truly within us, we will attribute to other creatures
imperfections which they do not have, so as to raise ourselves above them. We
will be so absurdly presumptuous as to wish to belong to God's council and
assist Him in the government of the world; and this will bring us a mass of vain
anxiety and distress.
After acknowledging the goodness of God, the immortality of our souls,
and the immensity of the universe, there is yet another truth that is, in my
opinion, most useful to know. That is, that though each of us is a person
distinct from others, whose interests are accordingly in some way different
from those of the rest of the world, we must still think that none of us could
subsist alone and each one of us is really one of the many parts of the uni-
verse, and more particularly a part of the earth, the State, the society, and the
family to which we belong by our domicile, our oath of allegiance, and our
birth. And the interests of the whole, of which each of us is a part, must
always be preferred to those of our individual personality — with measure, of
course, and discretion, because it would be wrong to expose ourselves to a
great evil to produce only a slight benefit to our kinsfolk or our country.
(Indeed if a man were worth more, by himself, than all his fellow citizens he
would have no reason to destroy himself to save his city.) But if a man saw
everything in relation to himself, he would not hesitate to injure others greatly
when he thought he could draw some slight advantage; and he would have no
true friendship, no fidelity, no virtue at all. On the other hand, if a man
considers himself a part of the community he delights in doing good to every-
one, and does not hesitate even to risk his life in the service of others, when
the occasion demands. If he could, he would even be willing to lose his soul to
save others. So that this consideration is the source and origin of all the most
heroic actions done by men. A man seems to me more pitiful than admirable
if he risks death from vanity, in the hope of praise, or through stupidity,
because he does not apprehend the danger. But when a man risks death
because he believes it to be his duty, or when he suffers some other evil to
bring good to others, then he acts in virtue of the consideration that he owes
more to the community of which he is a part than to himself as an individual,
though this thought may be only confusedly in his mind without his reflecting
upon it. Once a man knows and loves God as he should he has a natural
impulse to think in this way; because, abandoning himself altogether to God's
will, he strips himself of his own interests, and has no other passion than to do
what he thinks pleasing to Him. Thus he acquires a mental satisfaction and
contentment incomparably more valuable than all the passing joys which
depend upon the senses.
In addition to these truths which concern all our actions in general, others
 Correspondence 231
must be known which concern more particularly each individual action. The
chief of these, in my view, are those I mentioned in my last letter: namely, that
all our passions represent to us the goods to whose pursuit they impel us as
being much greater than they really are; and that the pleasures of the body are
never as lasting as those of the soul, nor as great in possession as they appear
in anticipation. We must pay great attention to this, so that when we feel
ourselves moved by some passion we should suspend our judgement until it is
calmed, and not let ourselves easily be deceived by the false appearance of the
goods of this world.
I have only this to add, that one must also examine minutely all the customs
of one's place of abode to see how far they should be followed. Though we
cannot have certain proofs of everything, still we must take sides, and in
matters of custom embrace the opinions that seem the most probable, so that
we may never be irresolute when we need to act. For nothing causes regret
and remorse except irresolution.
I said above that besides the knowledge of truth, practice also is required if
one is to be always disposed to judge well. We cannot continually pay atten-
tion to the same thing; and so however clear and evident the reasons may have
been that persuaded us of some truth in the past, we can later be turned away
from believing it by some false appearances unless we have so imprinted it on
our mind by long and frequent meditation that it has become a settled disposi-
tion with us. In this sense the scholastics are right when they say that virtues
are habitus; because our failings are rarely due to the lack of theoretical
knowledge of what one should do, but to lack of knowledge in practice, that is
for lack of a firm habit of belief. And since in examining these truths I am also
increasing in myself the corresponding habit, I am particularly obliged to your
Highness for allowing me to correspond with her about them. There is no
activity in which I think my leisure better spent than one in which I can prove
that I am, etc.

DESCARTES TO CHRISTINE OF SWEDEN, 20 NOVEMBER 1647 8

Madame,
I learn from M. Chanut 9 that it pleases your Majesty that I should have the
honour to expound to you my view of the supreme good understood in the
sense of the ancient philosophers. I count this command such a great favour
that my desire to obey it turns away all other thoughts; so without making
excuses for my insufficiency I will put in a few words all that I have been able
to discover on the topic.
The goodness of each thing can be considered in itself without reference to
anything else, and in this sense it is evident that God is the supreme good,
since He is incomparably more perfect than any creature. But goodness can
also be considered in relation to ourselves, and in this sense I do not see
anything which we can esteem good unless it somehow belongs to us and
makes us more perfect. Thus, the ancient philosophers, unenlightened by the
232 Rene Descartes
light of faith and knowing nothing about supernatural beatitude, considered
only the goods we can possess in this life; and what they were trying to
discover was which of these is the supreme, that is, the chief and greatest
good.
In trying to decide this, my first observation is that we should not consider
as good, in relation to ourselves, anything which we do not possess and is not
in our power to acquire. Once this is agreed, it seems to me that the supreme
good of all men together is the total or aggregate of all the goods, of soul, of
body and of fortune, which can belong to any human being; but that the
supreme good of each individual is quite a different thing, and consists only in
a firm will to do well and the contentment which this produces. My reason for
this is that I can discover no other good which seems so great or so entirely
within each man's power. For the goods of the body and of fortune do not
depend absolutely upon us; and those of the soul can be all reduced to two
heads, the one being to know, and the other to will, what is good. But
knowledge is often beyond our powers, and so there remains only our will of
which we can dispose outright. I do not see that it is possible to dispose it
better than by a regular and constant resolution to carry out to the letter
whatever one judges best, and to employ all the powers of one's mind in
informing this judgement. This by itself constitutes all the virtues; this alone
really deserves praise and glory; this alone, finally, produces the greatest and
most solid contentment of life. So I conclude that it is this which constitutes
the supreme good.
In this way I think I can reconcile the most opposed and famous opinions of
the ancient philosophers, that of Zeno' ) who thought virtue or honour the
supreme good, and that of Epicurus," who thought the supreme good was
contentment, to which he gave the name of pleasure. All vices arise only from
the uncertainty and weakness consequent on ignorance — and virtue consists
only in the resolution and vigour with which a man is inclined to do the things
which he thinks good — this vigour, of course, must not stem from stubborn-
ness, but from the consciousness of having examined the matter as well as one
morally can. What a man does after such examination may be bad, but none
the less he can be sure of having done his duty; whereas, if he does a virtuous
action thinking he is doing wrong, or takes no trouble to find out whether he is
doing right or wrong, he is not acting like a virtuous man. As for honour and
praise, these are often awarded to the other goods of fortune; but because I
am sure that your Majesty values virtue more than her crown, I shall not
hesitate to express my opinion that nothing except virtue really deserves
praise. All other goods deserve only to be esteemed and not to be honoured
or praised, except in so far as they are supposed to have been acquired or
obtained from God by the good use of free will. For honour and praise is a
kind of reward, and only what depends on the will provides grounds for
reward or punishment.
I still have to show that the good use of free will is what produces the greatest
 Replies to Objections 233

and most solid happiness in life. This does not seem difficult if we consider
carefully what constitutes pleasure, or delight, and in general all the happi-
nesses we can have. I observe first that all of them are entirely within the soul,
though many of them depend on the body; just as it is the soul that sees, though
through the medium of the eyes. Next I observe that there is nothing that can
content the soul except its belief that it possesses some good, and that often this
belief is only a very confused representation in the soul. Moreover, the soul's
union with the body causes it commonly to represent certain goods to itself as
being incomparably greater than they are; but if it knew distinctly their just
value, its contentment would always be in proportion to the greatness of the
good from which it proceeded. I observe also that the greatness of a good, in
relation to us, should not be measured only by the value of the thing which
constitutes it but principally also by the manner in which it is related to us. Now
free will is in itself the noblest thing we can have because it makes us in a certain
manner equal to God and exempts us from being his subjects; and so its rightful
use is the greatest of all the goods we possess, and further there is nothing that is
more our own or that matters more to us. From all this it follows that nothing
but free will can produce our greatest contentments. Thus we see that the
repose of mind and interior satisfaction felt by those who know they never fail
to do their best is a pleasure incomparably sweeter, more lasting and more solid
than all those which come from elsewhere.
I omit here many other things, because when I call to mind how much
business is involved in ruling a great Kingdom, and how much of it your
Majesty attends to in person, I do not dare to ask for longer audience. But I
am sending to M. Chanut some papers in which I have expressed my senti-
ments on the matter at greater length. 12 If it pleases your Majesty to look at
them, he will oblige me by presenting them to her, and show that I am etc.

Replies to Objections

SIXTH SET OF REPLIES

6. As for the freedom of the will, the way in which it exists in God is quite
different from the way in which it exists in us. It is self-contradictory to
suppose that the will of God was not indifferent from eternity with respect to
everything which has happened or will ever happen; for it is impossible to
imagine that anything is thought of in the divine intellect as good or true, or
worthy of belief or action or omission, prior to the decision of the divine will
to make it so. I am not speaking here of temporal priority: I mean that there is
not even any priority of order, or nature, or of "rationally determined reason"
as they call it, such that God's idea of the good impelled him to choose one
thing rather than another. For example, God did not will the creation of the
world in time because he saw that it would be better this way than if he had
created it from eternity; nor did he will that the three angles of a triangle
234 Rene Descartes
should be equal to two right angles because he recognized that it could not be
otherwise, and so on. On the contrary, it is because he willed to create the
world in time that it is better this way than if he had created it from eternity;
and it is because he willed that the three angles of a triangle should necessarily
equal two right angles that this is true and cannot be otherwise; and so on in
other cases. There is no problem in the fact that the merit of the saints may be
said to be the cause of their obtaining eternal life; for it is not the cause of this
reward in the sense that it determines God to will anything, but is merely the
cause of an effect of which God willed from eternity that it should be the
cause. Thus the supreme indifference to be found in God is the supreme
indication of his omnipotence. But as for man, since he finds that the nature
of all goodness and truth is already determined by God, and his will cannot
tend towards anything else, it is evident that he will embrace what is good and
true all the more willingly, and hence more freely, in proportion as he sees it
more clearly. He is never indifferent except when he does not know which of
the two alternatives is the better or truer, or at least when he does not see this
clearly enough to rule out any possibility of doubt. Hence the indifference
which belongs to human freedom is very different from that which belongs to
divine freedom.
8. If anyone attends to the immeasurable greatness of God he will find it
manifestly clear that there can be nothing whatsoever which does not depend
on him. This applies not just to everything that subsists, but to all order, every
law, and every reason for anything's being true or good. If this were not so,
then, as noted a little earlier, God would not have been completely indifferent
with respect to the creation of what he did in fact create. If some reason for
something's being good had existed prior to his preordination, this would
have determined God to prefer those things which it was best to do. But on
the contrary, just because he resolved to prefer those things which are now to
be done, for this very reason, in the words of Genesis, "they are very good";
in other words, the reason for their goodness depends on the fact that he
exercised his will to make them so. There is no need to ask what category of
causality is applicable to the dependence of this goodness upon God, or to the
dependence on him of other truths, both mathematical and metaphysical. For
since the various kinds of cause were enumerated by thinkers who did not,
perhaps, attend to this type of causality, it is hardly surprising that they gave
no name to it. But in fact they did give it a name, for it can be called efficient
causality, in the sense that a king may be called the efficient cause of a law,
although the law itself is not a thing which has physical existence, but is
merely what they call a "moral entity." Again, there is no need to ask how
God could have brought it about from eternity that it was not true that twice
four make eight, and so on; for I admit this is unintelligible to us. Yet on the
other hand I do understand, quite correctly, that there cannot be any class of
entity that does not depend on God; I also understand that it would have been
easy for God to ordain certain things such that we men cannot understand the
possibility of their being otherwise than they are. And therefore it would be
 Further Reading 235
irrational for us to doubt what we do understand correctly just because there
is something which we do not understand and which, so far as we can see,
there is no reason why we should understand. Hence we should not suppose
that eternal truths "depend on the human intellect or on other existing
things"; they depend on God alone, who, as the supreme legislator, has
ordained them from eternity.

Editor's Notes
1. This is a portrait of the Stoic wise man.
2. Descartes gives, in the fourth section of the Discourse, a brief account of how he
rid himself of all his opinions; the main account is in the first of the Meditations on
First Philosophy.
3. Princess Elizabeth (1618-88) was one of thirteen children of King Frederick V of
Bohemia and Elizabeth Stuart of England. She lived in exile, devoting herself to
intellectual endeavors.
4. Seneca's essay "On the Happy Life," written in the latter half of the first century
C. E., is a short treatment, Stoic in tone, of what constitutes the happy life and how
to attain it. According to Seneca, the happy life is one in harmony with nature,
and it can be obtained by studying philosophy. See Seneca, Moral Essays II, trans.
John Basore (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1932), for the text and
a translation.
5. The French heur means "chance" or "luck."
6. Given in the previous selection.
7. Part III of the Principles of Philosophy gives a scientific account of the visible
universe, including the stars, the solar system, and the principles of their move-
ments.
8. Queen Christine (or Christina) of Sweden (1626-89), daughter of Gustavus Adol-
phus, reigned from 1632 until her abdication in 1654.
9. Chanut was the French ambassador at the Swedish court.
10. Zeno of Citium, fl. c. 300 B.C.E., was the founder of Stoicism.
11. The founder of Epicureanism, lived from 341 to 270 B.C.E.
12. Copies of his letters to Elizabeth.

Further Reading
The best translation of Descartes's works is that by John Cottingham, Robert
Stoothof, and Dugald Murdoch, The Philosophical Writings of Descartes, 2 vols. (Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985). John J. Blom, in Descartes: His
Moral Philosophy and Psychology (New York: New York University Press, 1978),
translated more of the letters pertinent to ethics than did Anthony Kenny in the
volume from which the present excerpts from the correspondence were taken.
Several good general studies of Descartes's philosophy are available. Among them
are Tom Sorrell, Descartes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), which is very
brief; Margaret Wilson, Descartes (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978); Anthony
Kenny, Descartes (New York: Random House, 1968); Jonathan Ree, Descartes (Lon-
don: Lane, 1974); and E. M. Curley, Descartes Against the Skeptics (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1978). These, however, do not discuss Descartes's
ethics.
A. Boyce Gibson, The Philosophy of Descartes (London: Methuen, 1932), chap. 10,
236 Rene Descartes
"Free Will and the Moral Life," is helpful regarding Descartes and ethics. The great
French scholar Martial Gueroult discussed Descartes's moral philosophy in chapters 19
and 20 of his Descartes' Philosophy Interpreted According to the Order of Reasons,
trans. Roger Ariew, 2 vols. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984). See
also Robert Cumming, "Descartes' Provisional Morality," Review of Metaphysics 9
(1955): 208-35.
 Benedict de Spinoza

Introduction
Spinoza was born in Amsterdam in 1632, a descendant of Portuguese Jews who had
fled persecution. ("Benedict" was the conventional Latin equivalent of his given name,
Baruch.) Spinoza received a traditional Hebrew education and learned several modern
languages. As he grew up, he found it more and more difficult to reconcile the Bible
with the new sciences. His skepticism increased, and as he would not keep it to
himself, he was excommunicated and thus cut off from the Jewish community. Deter-
mined to be independent, he learned the highly skilled craft of grinding lenses for the
optical instruments that scientists needed, and he maintained himself by this work.
Spinoza lived in Amsterdam until 1660 and then moved to a quiet village close to
Leyden, where he wrote his first book, the Short Treatise on the Improvement of the
Understanding, which was not published until more than a century later. He also wrote
an exposition of Descartes's philosophy, presenting it in geometrical order, and began
work on what eventually became his masterpiece, the Ethics. Spinoza's account of
Descartes was published in 1663 under his name, with a preface explaining that he did
not accept all of Descartes's views.
Spinoza let some of his own views be known in correspondence with friends and with
scientists with whom he worked, and gradually he acquired a wide reputation as an
important philosopher. Leibniz corresponded with him and even came to the Nether-
lands to talk with him. When Spinoza was asked to become the professor of philosophy
at Heidelberg, he refused in order to maintain his independence. Although he lived
quietly, he was concerned enough about Dutch political affairs to have tried once or
twice to become active in them. Spinoza's political interests and protracted investiga-
tion of the Bible as a book written by human beings and calling for purely rational
study culminated in an important work on politics and biblical interpretation, the
Tractatus theologico-politicus (Treatise on Religion and Politics), published anony-
mously in 1670.
When Spinoza died in 1677 of lung disease, probably aggravated by the constant
inhalation of glass particles while grinding lenses, he left behind an unfinished treatise
on politics, as well as his Ethics. His works were published posthumously and were
generally ignored. Spinoza had the reputation of being an atheist, and insofar as the
Ethics was read, it was initially dismissed as an irreligious tract. Not until the latter part
of the eighteenth century was more careful and more favorable attention paid to his
work.
Everyone agrees that the theory Spinoza presented in the Ethics is difficult. Part of
the difficulty comes from the geometrical form into which he cast his thought, and part

237
238 Benedict de Spinoza
of it from having to grasp the whole system in order to understand its parts. The
interconnection of parts within his theory corresponds to his belief that none of the
things we usually assume to be individual entities can be understood by itself. For
Spinoza each such thing is a part or aspect of the one substance that exists, and each
expresses that substance's being in a special way. We can understand things only by
seeing how they are connected to the one substance, which may be called indifferently
God or Nature, and we can understand Spinoza's thought only when we grasp the
connections of all its parts through the idea of God or Nature.
Like Hobbes and unlike Descartes, Spinoza tried to show that human life is com-
pletely contained within the natural order. "Most of those who have written about the
Affects, and men's way of living," he stated at the beginning of Part III of the Ethics,
"seem to treat, not of natural things, which follow the common laws of nature, but of
things which are outside nature. Indeed they seem to conceive man in nature as a
dominion within a dominion." Spinoza's system, by contrast, shows us a wholly deter-
ministic nature, which includes thoughts and desires no less than the motions of
bodies. Like Descartes, we may think we are free to control our feelings and our
actions, Spinoza pointed out, but this is because we are aware only of our present ideas
and emotions and not of their causes. But if we had adequate knowledge of the world,
we would see that everything has to be as it is.
The implications of this thesis for the moral life are considerable. As the reader will
see, Spinoza believed that a drastic revision of our understanding of the whole moral
vocabulary was needed. When speaking of what one ought to do, or of what would be
better than the way things now are, we seem to suppose that things might be other than
they are. If we were completely informed about the world, would we not think such
talk mistaken? There is a sense in which Spinoza thinks we would. But for us, who
have far less than adequate knowledge of the world, such language does have uses.
Spinoza's political and ethical writings explain what these uses are. They also go well
beyond that topic to provide substantive views on how to live. In his political works
Spinoza argued in favor of a limited democracy, extending, as far as possible, freedom
and toleration of diversity of opinion. Parts IV and V of the Ethics offer a deeply felt
and moving portrait of the wise or virtuous man, which we can use as a model in our
own search for the good.
The usefulness of the model is based on a fundamental point about human psychol-
ogy. In Proposition 6 (P6) or Part III of the Ethics Spinoza stated that "each thing, as
far as it can by its own power, strives to persevere in its being." The conatus, or striving
to persevere, is displayed at one level in the adhesion of a stone's parts to one another,
and at another level in human efforts to satisfy desires. Spinoza used his proposition to
imply that each of us always seeks to advance his or her own interests. But we, unlike
stones, can modify the direction of our striving. Hence reason is not, as it was for
Hobbes, only a tool by which we can find out how to get what we want; it also can
change our aims. We need not be narrowly selfish, as Hobbesian men in a state of
nature seem to be. The transformation is effected by knowledge — but knowledge of
what?
The knowledge that a wise man possesses is not specifically moral knowledge, for
according to Spinoza, there is really no such thing. God does not command, and there
are no eternal and immutable laws of morality, only the laws that determine how
everything in the universe actually and necessarily behaves. Neither is the good some-
thing built into the nature of things, waiting there for us to discover and pursue it. The
good, to both Spinoza and Hobbes, is always relative to our conative response to
 A Treatise on Religion and Politics 239
things. What virtuous agents know, then, is the necessary connections of all things.
The more clearly and distinctly they know the metaphysical and physical workings of
the universe, the freer and more blessed they will be. Because Spinoza thought that
skepticism was a mistake, he was sure that this kind of knowledge was available in
principle. But he would have admitted — or, rather, insisted — that most people would
never acquire it.
The excerpts in the first section are from A Treatise on Religion and Politics, in
Benedict de Spinoza, The Political Works, ed. and trans. A. G. Wernham (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1958), reprinted by permission of Oxford University Press.
Those in the second section are from the Ethics, in Edwin Curley, ed. and trans., The
Collected Works of Spinoza, vol. 1 (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1985).
Copyright © 1985 by Princeton University Press and reprinted by permission of Prince-
ton University Press.
In structuring the Ethics, Spinoza used the format of the Euclidean geometry of his
day. Each of its "parts" is, therefore, divided into numbered "propositions," with
accompanying "demonstrations," and these are sometimes accompanied by "corollar-
ies" (further propositions following from or easily shown in conjunction with a main
proposition) and by "scholia" (explanatory notes appended to propositions). In the
translation used here, these labels are abbreviated as "P" (Proposition), "Dem" (Dem-
onstration), "Cor" (Corollary), and "Schol" (Scholium). In the references, the part
from which a proposition comes is indicated by a roman numeral before the letter "P."
The general direction of Spinoza's thought can often be gathered from the proposi-
tions, corollaries, and scholia without working through the demonstrations, some of
which I have accordingly omitted.

A Treatise on Religion and Politics

CHAPTER IV: OF THE DIVINE LAW

The word "law" in the widest sense means a rule in accordance with which all
individual things, or all things of the same species, or some of them, act in one
and the same fixed and determinate way; and this either by natural necessity or
by the will of men. A law based on natural necessity is one which follows
necessarily from the actual nature or definition of the thing in question; while a
law based on the will of men — more properly called an ordinance — is one
which men prescribe for themselves and others in order to live in greater
security and comfort, or for some other purpose. E.g. that any body impinging
on a smaller body loses as much of its own motion as it imparts to the other is a
law which is common to all bodies and depends on natural necessity. Similarly,
that on thinking of one thing a man immediately thinks of something else like it,
or associated with it in his previous experience, is a law which follows necessar-
ily from human nature. But that men should surrender, or be forced to surren-
der, the right which they hold from nature, and should bind themselves to
follow a definite rule of life, depends on human volition. . . .
But the application of the word "law" to natural things seems to be meta-
phorical, and the ordinary meaning of law is simply a command which men
can either obey or disobey, since it confines human power within definite
240 Benedict de Spinoza
bounds which are narrower than its natural limits, and requires nothing that is
beyond man's strength. This makes it advisable, I think, to restrict the word to
its second meaning, and to define law as a rule of life which man prescribes to
himself or to others for some object. Yet the real object of law is seldom
obvious to more than a few; most men are practically incapable of seeing it,
and do anything but live by reason's guidance. Thus in order to bind all men
equally legislators have wisely introduced another motive for obedience —
very different from the one which follows necessarily from the nature of law —
by holding out the sort of reward for active support, and the sort of penalty for
transgression, that appeals most strongly to the hopes and fears of the masses;
and in this way they have tried to keep them on the tightest possible rein. In
consequence, law is apt to be regarded as a rule of life prescribed for men by
the command of others; accordingly, those who obey law are said to live under
law, and are thought to be slaves. Now it is true that he who gives every man
his own because he fears the gallows acts by the command of another and
under compulsion of evil, so that he cannot be called just; still, he who gives
every man his own because he knows the real reason and necessity for law acts
with constancy of purpose and of his own volition, not another's, and hence is
rightly called just. . . . Law, then, is simply a rule of living which men pre-
scribe to themselves or to others for some object; and since this is so, it seems
necessary to divide it into two categories, human and divine. By human law I
mean a rule of living which serves no other purpose than to preserve life and
the state; while by divine law I mean one whose sole object is the supreme
good, i.e. true knowledge and love of God. I call the latter divine because of
the nature of the supreme good, which I shall now explain as briefly and as
clearly as possible.
Since the better part of us is our understanding, it follows that, if we really
wish to seek our own good, our primary aim must be to make our understand-
ing as perfect as possible; for it is in its perfection that our supreme good must
lie. Now since all our knowledge, and the certainty which really removes all
doubt, depends wholly on our knowledge of God — not only because nothing
can either be or be conceived without God, but also because complete
scepticism is possible as long as we have no clear and distinct idea of God —
our supreme good and perfection is wholly dependent on our knowledge of
God and the consequences of that knowledge. Again, since nothing can either
be or be conceived without God it necessarily follows that everything in
nature involves and expresses the concept of God in proportion to its essence
and perfection; so that the more we learn of things in nature, the greater and
more perfect is the knowledge of God we acquire: or (since to understand an
effect through its cause is simply to understand a particular property of the
cause) the more we learn of things in nature the more perfect becomes our
knowledge of God's essence, which is the cause of all things. Hence all our
knowledge, i.e. our supreme good, not only depends upon, but wholly con-
sists in our knowledge of God. This also follows from the fact that a man is
more perfect as the main object of his love is more perfect, and vice versa; so
 A Treatise on Religion and Politics 241
that the man whose main love and chief delight is the intellectual knowledge
of the most perfect being, God, is necessarily most perfect, and shares most
fully in supreme blessedness. Our highest good and blessedness, then, is
summed up in this — knowledge and love of God. Accordingly, the means
required by this object of all human actions, i.e. by God himself in so far as we
have the idea of him in our minds, can be called the commands of God, since
they are, so to speak, prescribed to us by God himself in so far as he exists in
our minds; and so the rule of living which has this object in view is well named
the divine law. What these means are, what rule of living this object requires,
and how the principles of the best state, and the best way of living among
men, are derived from it, are questions for a comprehensive treatise on ethics.
Here I shall confine myself to discussing the divine law in general terms.
Since love of God is the supreme happiness and blessedness of man, and the
highest object and aim of all human actions, the only man who fulfils the
divine law is he who seeks to love God, not from fear of punishment, or
through love for other things like pleasure, fame, and so forth, but simply
because he knows God, or knows that knowledge and love of God is the
supreme good. Hence the sum of the divine law, and its fundamental precept,
is to love God as the supreme good; that is — to repeat what I have said
already — not from fear of any punishment or penalty, or through love of
anything else which we desire to enjoy. For what the idea of God teaches us is
that God is our supreme good, i.e. that knowledge and love of God is the
ultimate object to which all our actions should be directed. The sensual man
cannot understand this, and to him it seems empty talk, because he has too
slight a knowledge of God, and also because in the supreme good, which
consists entirely in contemplation and purity of spirit, he has found nothing to
fondle or eat, nothing, in short, to appeal to the carnal nature which is his
chief source of pleasure. But those who know that they have no possessions
more precious than understanding and soundness of mind will doubtless re-
gard these blessings as pretty substantial. I have thus explained the main
content of the divine law, and shown which laws are human; they are all that
have a different aim. . . . If we now consider the nature of natural divine law
in the sense just explained, we shall see:
I. That it is universal, i.e. common to all men; for I have deduced it from
human nature in general.
II. That it requires no belief in historical narratives' of any kind; for since
reflection on human nature is all that is needed to understand it, this law can
certainly be conceived in Adam as easily as in any other man, in a solitary as
easily as in a social being. In any case, belief in historical narratives, however
well-grounded, cannot give us knowledge of God, and hence cannot give us
love for him either. For love of God arises from knowledge of him, and
knowledge of him must be derived from common notions which are self-
validating and self-evident; hence it is quite untrue that belief in historical
narratives is a necessary condition of our attaining our supreme good. Never-
theless, although belief in historical narratives cannot give us knowledge and
242 Benedict de Spinoza
love of God, I do not deny that a perusal of them gives very useful guidance
for living in society; for the more we have observed, and the better we know,
men's characters and dispositions — which are best discovered from their
actions — the more we shall be able to live discreetly among them, and to
make reasonable allowances for their nature in the conduct of our lives.
III. We see that this natural divine law does not require ceremonies, i.e.
actions which are indifferent in themselves and are called good only by conven-
tion, or symbolize some good necessary for salvation, or, if you like, have a
justification which is beyond human understanding. For the light of nature
requires nothing that is beyond its own compass, but only what it can clearly
show us to be good, i.e. a means to our blessedness. Actions whose only claim
to goodness is the fact that they are prescribed by convention, or that they
symbolize some good, can do nothing to perfect our understanding, but are
simply empty forms, and no part of conduct which is the product or fruit of
understanding and sound sense. But there is no need to show this more fully
here.
IV. Finally, we see that the supreme reward of the divine law is the law
itself, i.e. to know God and love him in true freedom with a pure and constant
mind; while its penalty is lack of these blessings and slavery to the flesh, or a
troubled and inconstant mind.
Having noted these points we must now inquire:
I. Whether the light of nature allows us to conceive God as a legislator or
king who lays down laws for men.
II. What Holy Writ teaches regarding the light of nature and this natural
law. . . .
The answer we must give to the first is easily deduced from the nature of
God's will, which is distinguished from his understanding only from the view-
point of our reason; that is to say, God's will and God's understanding are in
themselves really one and the same, and the distinction between them has no
basis but our different ways of conceiving God's understanding. For example,
when we confine our attention to the fact that the nature of a triangle is
eternally contained in the divine nature as an eternal truth, we say that God
has an idea of the triangle, or understands the nature of the triangle. But when
we afterwards consider that it is only through the necessity of the divine
nature that the triangle's nature is thus contained in it, and not through the
necessity of the essence and nature of the triangle, indeed, that the necessity
of the essence and properties of the triangle, again in so far as they are
conceived as eternal truths, depends wholly on the necessity of the divine
nature and understanding, and not on the nature of the triangle; then what we
called God's understanding we now call God's will or decree. Hence we make
one and the same assertion about God in saying that he has eternally decreed
and willed the three angles of the triangle to be equal to two right angles, and
in saying that he has understood this to be so. It follows that God's affirma-
tions and negations always involve eternal necessity or truth. Thus if God, for
example, had told Adam that he willed him not to eat of the tree of the
 A Treatise on Religion and Politics 243
knowledge of good and evil, it would have involved a contradiction for Adam
to be able to eat of that tree, and so it would have been impossible that Adam
should eat of it; for that divine decree would necessarily have involved eternal
necessity and truth. But since Scripture nevertheless relates that Adam did eat
of the tree in spite of what God had told him, we must hold that God only
revealed to Adam the evil which would befall him if he ate of it, and did not
reveal the necessity with which that evil would follow. In consequence, Adam
did not regard the revelation as an eternal and necessary truth, but as a law,
i.e. as an ordinance involving rewards and penalties which do not follow
necessarily from the nature of the action performed, but are wholly depen-
dent on the whim and absolute authority of some king. Hence that revelation
was a law, and God a legislator or king, only in Adam's eyes, and only because
of his lack of knowledge did he conceive them in this way. Similarly, the
Decalogue was a law only in the eyes of the Jews; and this for the same reason,
lack of knowledge. For since they did not apprehend God's existence as an
eternal truth, they had to regard what was revealed to them in the Decalogue,
i.e. that God exists and that God alone must be worshipped, as a law: whereas
if God had spoken to them directly, without using any physical means, they
would have understood this revelation as an eternal truth, and not as a law.
What I have just said about the Israelites and Adam applies with equal force
to all the prophets who wrote laws in God's name; none of them understood
God's decrees adequately, as eternal truths. It applies even to Moses himself.
For through revelation, or the fundamental laws revealed to him, Moses
merely saw how the people of Israel could be united in a particular strip of
territory, could form an independent community, i.e. establish a state, and
could be compelled to obedience; he did not see or have revealed to him that
the means prescribed were the best, and that the general obedience of the
people in such a strip of territory would necessarily lead to the end they
sought. He thus conceived all his discoveries, not as eternal truths, but as
precepts and ordinances, and commanded them as God's laws; accordingly,
he imagined God as a ruler, a legislator, a king, as merciful, just, and so on;
although all such characteristics belong to human nature only, and must be
eliminated completely from our conception of the divine nature. . . . I con-
clude then that the stupidity of the masses, and their failure to think, is the
only reason why God is described as a legislator or king, and called just,
merciful, and so on; that in fact God acts and directs everything by the
necessity of his own nature and perfection alone; and, finally, that his decrees
and volitions are eternal truths, and always involve necessity. This was the
first point which I proposed to explain and prove.
Let us therefore pass to the second question, and run through the pages of
Holy Writ to see what it teaches about the light of nature and this divine law.
The first thing we find is the story of the first man, which tells how God
commanded Adam not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good
and evil. This seems to mean that God told Adam to do and pursue good as
good, and not as the opposite of evil, i.e. to pursue good from love of good,
244 Benedict de Spinoza
and not from fear of evil. For, as I have already shown, he who does good
from true knowledge and love of good acts with freedom and constancy of
purpose; while he who does good from fear of evil acts under compulsion of
evil, like a slave, and lives under the control of another. Thus this single
command laid by God upon Adam comprehends the whole of the natural
divine law, and is in complete agreement with the dictate of the light of
nature. . . .

CHAPTER XVI: THE BASIS OF THE STATE; THE RIGHT OF THE

INDIVIDUAL, BOTH NATURAL AND CIVIL; AND THE RIGHT OF
THE SOVEREIGN

. . . we must discuss the basis of the state; and we must begin with the natural
right of the individual, paying no attention for the present to either state or
religion.
By the right and law of nature I simply mean the rules of each individual
thing's nature, the rules whereby we conceive it as naturally determined to
exist and act in a definite way. Fish, for example, are determined by nature to
swim, and the large to eat the smaller; so fish occupy the water, and the large
eat the smaller, with perfect natural right. For there is no doubt that nature in
the absolute sense has a perfect right to do everything in its power, i.e. that
the right of nature extends as far as its power; the power of nature being
nothing but the power of God, who has a perfect right to do everything. But
the universal power of nature as a whole is simply the power of all individual
things combined; hence each individual thing has a perfect right to do every-
thing it can, in other words, its right extends to the limit of its power. And
since the supreme law of nature is that everything does its utmost to preserve
its own condition, and this without regard to anything but itself, everything
has a perfect right to do this, i.e. (as I said) to exist and act as nature has
determined it to do. Nor do I recognize any difference in this respect between
men and other individual things in nature, or between men endowed with
reason and others to whom true reason is unknown, or between the foolish,
the mad, and the sane: for whatever anything does by the laws of its nature it
does with perfect right, simply because it acts as it has been determined by
nature to act, and can do nothing else. Hence as long as men are regarded as
living under the sway of nature alone, he who is still blind to reason, or has
still to acquire a virtuous disposition, lives wholly by the laws of appetite with
as perfect a right as he who guides his life by the laws of reason. In other
words, just as an enlightened man has a perfect right to do everything which
reason dictates, or to live by the laws of reason, so too an unenlightened and
weak-minded man has a perfect right to do everything that appetite suggests,
or to live by the laws of appetite. . . .
Thus man's natural right is not determined by sound reason, but by his desire
and his power. For men are not all determined by nature to act in accordance
with the rules and laws of reason; on the contrary, all men are born in complete
 A Treatise on Religion and Politics 245
ignorance, and, even although they are well brought up, much of their life must
pass before they can discover the true way of living and acquire a virtuous
disposition. Yet meanwhile they have to live and preserve themselves as best
they can; that is, by the prompting of appetite alone, since nature has given
them nothing else, and has denied them the effective power to live by sound
reason. Hence they are no more bound to live by the laws of a sound understand-
ing than a cat is bound to live by the laws of a lion's nature. Anything, then, that
an individual who is considered as subject only to nature judges to be useful to
himself — either through the guidance of sound reason or through the impetus
of passion — he has a perfect natural right to desire and indeed to appropriate
by any means in his power — by force, fraud, entreaty, or however he finds it
easiest; and hence a perfect natural right to regard as an enemy anyone who
wishes to prevent him from satisfying his desire.
It follows that the right and law of nature, under which all are born and for
the most part live, forbids nothing save what nobody desires and nobody can
do: it forbids neither strife, nor hatred, nor anger, nor deceit; in short, it is
opposed to nothing that appetite can suggest. Nor is this surprising; for nature
is not bounded by the laws of human reason, which aim only at men's true
interest and preservation, but by other laws of infinite scope governing the
eternal order of the whole of nature, in which man is a tiny part: and it is by
the necessity of this order alone that all individual things are determined to
exist and act in a definite way. Hence if anything in nature seems to us
ridiculous, absurd, or bad, this is because we know things only in part, being
almost entirely ignorant of how they are linked together in the universal
system of nature; and because we wish everything to be directed in conformity
with our own reason. Yet what reason declares to be bad is not bad in relation
to the order and laws of nature as a whole, but only in relation to the laws of
our nature in particular.
Still, nobody can doubt that it is much more advantageous for men to live
by the laws and sure dictates of our reason, which, as I said, aim at nothing
but the true interest of men. Moreover everyone desires to enjoy the maxi-
mum safety and security (which is impossible as long as each may do anything
he pleases, and reason is allowed no more influence than hatred and anger);
for everyone lives a life of anxiety when surrounded by hostility, hatred,
anger, and treachery, and so does his utmost to escape such things. If we also
reflect . . . that without mutual help men live in utter wretchedness, and are
inevitably debarred from the cultivation of reason, we shall see very clearly
that to live safely and well men had necessarily to join together. They there-
fore arranged that the right to do everything which each had by nature should
be held collectively, and should be determined no longer by the force and
appetite of each but by the power and will of all together. But they would not
have succeeded in this had they been willing to follow nothing but the prompt-
ing of appetite (for by the laws of appetite individuals are drawn in different
ways); so each must have firmly resolved and contracted to direct everything
by the dictate of reason alone (which no one dares to oppose openly lest he
246 Benedict de Spinoza
appear to lack understanding), to bridle his appetite when it suggested any-
thing harmful to another, to do to nobody what he would not wish done to
himself, and, finally, to defend his neighbour's right as if it were his own.
But we must now inquire how this contract must be made if it is to be
permanently binding: for it is a universal law of human nature that no one
forgoes anything he thinks good save from hope of a greater good or fear of a
greater loss, or tolerates any evil save to avoid a greater, or from hope of a
greater good. In other words, of two goods everyone will choose the one
which he thinks the greater, and of two evils the one which he thinks the
lesser. I say expressly "which he (the chooser) thinks the greater or lesser";
not that his judgement is necessarily correct. Now this law is graven so deeply
upon human nature that it must be set among the eternal truths which every-
one must know. . . .

Ethics

FOURTH PART OF THE ETHICS: ON HUMAN BONDAGE, OR THE

POWERS OF THE AFFECTS

Preface
Man's lack of power to moderate and restrain the affects' I call Bondage. For
the man who is subject to affects is under the control, not of himself, but of
fortune, in whose power he so greatly is that often, though he sees the better
for himself, he is still forced to follow the worse.' In this Part, I have under-
taken to demonstrate the cause of this, and what there is of good and evil in
the affects. But before I begin, I choose to say a few words first on perfection
and imperfection, good and evil.
If someone has decided to make something, and has finished it, then he will
call his thing perfect4 — and so will anyone who rightly knows, or thinks he
knows, the mind and purpose of the Author of the work. For example, if
someone sees a work (which I suppose to be not yet completed), and knows
that the purpose of the Author of that work is to build a house, he will say that
it is imperfect. On the other hand, he will call it perfect as soon as he sees that
the work has been carried through to the end which its Author has decided to
give it. But if someone sees a work whose like he has never seen, and does not
know the mind of its maker, he will, of course, not be able to know whether
that work is perfect or imperfect. And this seems to have been the first
meaning of these words.
But after men began to form universal ideas, and devise models of houses,
buildings, towers, etc., and to prefer some models of things to others, it came
about that each one called perfect what he saw agreed with the universal idea
he had formed of this kind of thing, and imperfect, what he saw agreed less
with the model he had conceived, even though its maker thought he had
entirely finished it.
 Ethics 247

Nor does there seem to be any other reason why men also commonly call
perfect or imperfect natural things, which have not been made by human
hand. For they are accustomed to form universal ideas of natural things as
much as they do of artificial ones. They regard these universal ideas as models
of things, and believe that nature (which they think does nothing except for
the sake of some end) looks to them, and sets them before itself as models. So
when they see something happen in nature which does not agree with the
model they have conceived of this kind of thing, they believe that Nature itself
has failed or sinned, and left the thing imperfect.
We see, therefore, that men are accustomed to call natural things perfect or
imperfect more from prejudice than from true knowledge of those things. For
we have shown in the Appendix of Part I, that Nature does nothing on
account of an end. That eternal and infinite being we call God, or Nature, acts
from the same necessity from which he exists. For we have shown (IP16) that
the necessity of nature from which he acts is the same as that from which he
exists. The reason, therefore, or cause, why God, or Nature, acts, and the
reason why he exists, are one and the same. As he exists for the sake of no
end, he also acts for the sake of no end. Rather, as he has no principle or end
of existing, so he also has none of acting. What is called a final cause is
nothing but a human appetite insofar as it is considered as a principle, or
primary cause, of some thing.
For example, when we say that habitation was the final cause of this or that
house, surely we understand nothing but that a man, because he imagined the
conveniences of domestic life, had an appetite to build a house. So habitation,
insofar as it is considered as a final cause, is nothing more than this singular
appetite. It is really an efficient cause, which is considered as a first cause,
because men are commonly ignorant of the causes of their appetites. For as I
have often said before, they are conscious of their actions and appetites, but
not aware of the causes by which they are determined to want something.
As for what they commonly say — that Nature sometimes fails or sins, and
produces imperfect things — I number this among the fictions I treated in the
Appendix of Part I.
Perfection and imperfection, therefore, are only modes of thinking, i.e.,
notions we are accustomed to feign because we compare individuals of the
same species or genus to one another. This is why I said above (IID6) that by
reality and perfection I understand the same thing. For we are accustomed to
refer all individuals in Nature to one genus, which is called the most general,
i.e., to the notion of being, which pertains absolutely to all individuals in
Nature. So insofar as we refer all individuals in Nature to this genus, compare
them to one another, and find that some have more being, or reality, than
others, we say that some are more perfect than others. And insofar as we
attribute something to them that involves negation, like a limit, an end, lack
of power, etc., we call them imperfect, because they do not affect our Mind as
much as those we call perfect, and not because something is lacking in them
which is theirs, or because Nature has sinned. For nothing belongs to the
248 Benedict de Spinoza

nature of anything except what follows from the necessity of the nature of the
efficient cause. And whatever follows from the necessity of the nature of the
efficient cause happens necessarily.
As far as good and evil are concerned, they also indicate nothing positive in
things, considered in themselves, nor are they anything other than modes of
thinking, or notions we form because we compare things to one another. For
one and the same thing can, at the same time, be good, and bad, and also
indifferent. For example, Music is good for one who is Melancholy, bad for
one who is mourning, and neither good nor bad to one who is deaf.
But though this is so, still we must retain these words. For because we
desire to form an idea of man, as a model of human nature which we may look
to, it will be useful to us to retain these same words with the meaning I have
indicated. In what follows, therefore, I shall understand by good what we
know certainly is a means by which we may approach nearer and nearer to the
model of human nature that we set before ourselves. By evil, what we cer-
tainly know prevents us from becoming like that model. Next, we shall say
that men are more perfect or imperfect, insofar as they approach more or less
near to this model. . . .

P36: The greatest good of those who seek virtue is common to all, and can be
enjoyed by all equally. . . .
Schol.: But suppose someone should ask: what if the greatest good of those
who seek virtue were not common to all? Would it not follow from that, as
above (see P34), that men who live according to the guidance of reason, i.e.
(by P35), men, insofar as they agree in nature, would be contrary to one
another?
To this the answer is that it is not by accident that man's greatest good is
common to all; rather, it arises from the very nature of reason, because it is
deduced from the very essence of man, insofar as [that essence] is defined by
reason, and because man could neither be nor be conceived if he did not have
the power to enjoy this greatest good. For it pertains to the essence of the
human Mind (by IIP47) to have an adequate knowledge of God's eternal and
infinite essence.

P37: The good which everyone who seeks virtue wants for himself he also
desires for other men; and this Desire is greater as his knowledge of God is
greater. . . .
Schol. 1: He who strives, only because of an affect, that others should love
what he loves, and live according to his temperament, acts only from impulse
and is hateful — especially to those to whom other things are pleasing, and
who also, therefore, strive eagerly, from the same impulse, to have other men
live according to their own temperament. And since the greatest good men
seek from an affect is often such that only one can possess it fully, those who
love are not of one mind in their love — while they rejoice to sing the praises
of the thing they love, they fear to be believed. But he who strives from
 Ethics 249
reason to guide others acts not by impulse, but kindly, generously, and with
the greatest steadfastness of mind.
Again, whatever we desire and do of which we are the cause insofar as we
have the idea of God, or insofar as we know God, I relate to Religion. The
Desire to do good generated in us by our living according to the guidance of
reason, I call Morality. The Desire by which a man who lives according to the
guidance of reason is bound to join others to himself in friendship, I call Being
Honorable,' and I call that honorable which men who live according to the
guidance of reason praise; on the other hand, what is contrary to the forma-
tion of friendship, I call dishonorable. . . .

P50: Pity, in a man who lives according to the guidance of reason, is evil of
itself and useless:
Cor.: From this it follows that man who lives according to the dictate of
reason, strives, as far as he can, not to be touched by pity.
Schol.: He who rightly knows that all things follow from the necessity of the
divine nature, and happen according to the eternal laws and rules of nature,
will surely find nothing worthy of Hate, Mockery or Disdain, nor anyone
whom he will pity. Instead he will strive, as far as human virtue allows, to act
well, as they say, and rejoice.
To this we may add that he who is easily touched by the affect of Pity, and
moved by another's suffering or tears, often does something he later repents —
both because, from an affect, we do nothing which we certainly know to be
good, and because we are easily deceived by false tears.
Here I am speaking expressly of a man who lives according to the guidance
of reason. For one who is moved to aid others neither by reason nor by pity is
rightly called inhuman. For (by II1P27) he seems to be unlike a man.

P53: Humility is not a virtue, or does not arise from reason.

P54: Repentance is not a virtue, or does not arise from reason; instead, he who
repents what he has done is twice wretched, or lacking in power.
Schol.: Because men rarely live from the dictate of reason, these two af-
fects, Humility and Repentance, and in addition, Hope and Fear, bring more
advantage than disadvantage. So since men must sin, they ought rather to sin
in that direction. If weak-minded men were all equally proud, ashamed of
nothing, and afraid of nothing, how could they be united or restrained by any
bonds?
The mob is terrifying, if unafraid. So it is no wonder that the Prophets, who
considered the common advantage, not that of the few, commended Humility,
Repentance, and Reverence so greatly. Really, those who are subject to these
affects can be guided far more easily than others, so that in the end they may
live from the guidance of reason, i.e., may be free and enjoy the life of the
blessed.
250 Benedict de Spinoza

P64: Knowledge of evil is an inadequate knowledge.

Cor.: From this it follows that if the human Mind had only adequate ideas,
it would form no notion of evil.

P66: From the guidance of reason we want a greater future good in preference
to a lesser present one, and a lesser present evil in preference to a greater future
one.
Schol.: If these things are compared with those we have shown in this Part
up to P18, concerning the powers of the affects, we shall easily see what the
difference is between a man who is led only by an affect, or by opinion, and
one who is led by reason. For the former, whether he will or no, does those
things he is most ignorant of, whereas the latter complies with no one's wishes
but his own, and does only those things he knows to be the most important in
life, and therefore desires very greatly. Hence, I call the former a slave, but
the latter, a free man.
I wish now to note a few more things concerning the free man's tempera-
ment and manner of living.

P67: A free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is a
meditation on life, not on death.
Dem.: A free man, i.e., one who lives according to the dictate of reason
alone, is not led by Fear (by P63), but desires the good directly (by P63C), i.e.
(by P24), acts, lives, and preserves his being from the foundation of seeking
his own advantage. And so he thinks of nothing less than of death. Instead his
wisdom is a meditation on life, q.e.d.

P68: If men were born free, they would form no concept of good and evil so
long as they remained free.
Dem.: I call him free who is led by reason alone. Therefore, he who is born
free, and remains free, has only adequate ideas, and so has no concept of evil
(by P64C). And since good and evil are correlates, he also has no concept of
good, q.e.d.

P72: A free man always acts honestly, not deceptively.

Dem.: If a free man, insofar as he is free, did anything by deception, he
would do it from the dictate of reason (for so far only do we call him free).
And so it would be a virtue to act deceptively (by P24), and hence (by the
same Prop.), everyone would be better advised to act deceptively to preserve
his being. I.e. (as is known through itself), men would be better advised to
agree only in words, and be contrary to one another in fact. But this is absurd
(by P31C). Therefore, a free man etc., q.e.d.
Schol.: Suppose someone now asks: what if a man could save himself from
the present danger of death by treachery? Would not the principle of preserv-
ing his own being recommend, without qualification, that he be treacherous?
The reply to this is the same. If reason should recommend that, it would
 Ethics 251
recommend it to all men. And so reason would recommend, without qualifica-
tion, that men make agreements, join forces, and have common rights only by
deception — i.e., that really they have no common rights. This is absurd.

P73: A man who is guided by reason is more free in a state, where he lives
according to a common decision, than in solitude, where he obeys only himself
Dem.: A man who is guided by reason is not led to obey by Fear (by P63),
but insofar as he strives to preserve his being from the dictate of reason, i.e.
(by P66S), insofar as he strives to live freely, desires to maintain the principle
of common life and common advantage (by P37). Consequently (as we have
shown in P37S2), he desires to live according to the common decision of the
state. Therefore, a man who is guided by reason desires, in order to live more
freely, to keep the common laws of the state, q.e.d.
Schol.: These and similar things which we have shown concerning the true
freedom of man are related to Strength of Character, 6 i.e. (by II1P59S), to
Tenacity' and Nobility. 8 I do not consider it worthwhile to demonstrate sepa-
rately here all the properties of Strength of Character, much less that a man
strong in character hates no one, is angry with no one, envies no one, is
indignant with no one, scorns no one, and is not at all proud. For these and all
things which relate to true life and Religion are easily proven from P37 and
P46, viz. that Hate is to be conquered by returning Love, and that everyone
who is led by reason desires for others also the good he wants for himself.
To this we may add what we have noted in P5OS and in other places: a man
strong in character considers this most of all, that all things follow from the
necessity of the divine nature, and hence, that whatever he thinks is trouble-
some and evil, and moreover, whatever seems immoral, dreadful, unjust, and
dishonorable, arises from the fact that he conceives the things themselves in a
way that is disordered, mutilated, and confused. For this reason, he strives
most of all to conceive things as they are in themselves, and to remove the
obstacles to true knowledge, like Hate, Anger, Envy, Mockery, Pride, and the
rest of the things we have noted in the preceding pages.
- And so, as we have said [II/47/21], he strives, as far as he can, to act well
and rejoice. In the following Part I shall demonstrate how far human virtue
can go in the attainment of these things, and what it is capable of.

FIFTH PART OF THE ETHICS: ON THE POWER OF THE INTELLECT,

OR ON HUMAN FREEDOM

Preface
I pass, finally, to the remaining Part of the Ethics, which concerns the means, or
way, leading to Freedom. Here, then, I shall treat of the power of reason,
showing what it can do against the affects, and what Freedom of Mind, or
blessedness, is. From this we shall see how much more the wise man can do
than the ignorant. . . .
252 Benedict de Spinoza

P6: Insofar as the Mind understands all things as necessary, it has a greater
power over the affects, or is less acted on by them.
Dem.: The Mind understands all things to be necessary (by IP29), and to be
determined by an infinite connection of causes to exist and produce effects (by
IP28). And so (by P5) to that extent [the mind] brings it about that it is less
acted on by the affects springing from these things, and (by 111P48) is less
affected toward them, q.e .d.
Schol.: The more this knowledge that things are necessary is concerned
with singular things, which we imagine more distinctly and vividly, the greater
is this power of the Mind over the affects, as experience itself also testifies.
For we see that Sadness over some good which has perished is lessened as
soon as the man who has lost it realizes that this good could not, in any way,
have been kept. Similarly, we see that no one pities infants because of their
inability to speak, to walk, or to reason, or because they live so many years, as
it were, unconscious of themselves. But if most people were born grown up,
and only one or two were born infants, then everyone would pity the infants,
because they would regard infancy itself, not as a natural and necessary thing,
but as a vice of nature, or a sin. We could point out many other things along
this line.

P20: This love toward God cannot be tainted by an affect of Envy or Jeal-
ousy
Schol.: . . . the power of the Mind over the affects consists:
I. In the knowledge itself of the affects (see P4S);
II. In the fact that it separates the affects from the thought of an external
cause, which we imagine confusedly (see P2 and P4S);
III. In the time by which the affections related to things we understand
surpass those related to things we conceive confusedly, or in a mutilated way
(see P7);
IV. In the multiplicity of causes by which affections related to common
properties or to God are encouraged (see P9 and P11);
V.Finally, in the order by which the Mind can order its affects and connect
them to one another (see P10, and in addition, P12, P13, and P14).
But to understand better this power of the Mind over the affects, the most
important thing to note is that we call affects great when we compare the
affect of one man with that of another, and see that the same affect troubles
one more than the other, or when we compare the affects of one and the same
man with each other, and find that he is affected, or moved, more by one
affect than by another. For (by IVP5) the force of each affect is defined by the
power of the external cause compared with our own. But the power of the
Mind is defined by knowledge alone, whereas lack of power, or passion, is
judged solely by the privation of knowledge, i.e., by that through which ideas
are called inadequate.
From this it follows that that Mind is most acted on, of which inadequate
ideas constitute the greatest part, so that it is distinguished more by what it
 Ethics 253
undergoes than by what it does. On the other hand, that Mind acts most, of
which adequate ideas constitute the greatest part, so that though it may have
as many inadequate ideas as the other, it is still distinguished more by those
which are attributed to human virtue than by those which betray man's lack of
power.
Next, it should be noted that sickness of the mind and misfortunes take
their origin especially from too much Love toward a thing which is liable to
many variations and which we can never fully possess. For no one is disturbed
or anxious concerning anything unless he loves it, nor do wrongs, suspicions,
and enmities arise except from Love for a thing which no one can really fully
possess.
From what we have said, we easily conceive what clear and distinct
knowledge — and especially that third kind of knowledge (see IIP47S), whose
foundation is the knowledge of God itself — can accomplish against the affects.
Insofar as the affects are passions, if clear and distinct knowledge does not
absolutely remove them (see P3 and P4S), at least it brings it about that they
constitute the smallest part of the Mind (see P14). And then it begets a Love
toward a thing immutable and eternal (see P15), which we really fully possess
(see IIP45), and which therefore cannot be tainted by any of the vices which are
in ordinary Love, but can always be greater and greater (by P15), and occupy
the greatest part of the Mind (by P16), and affect it extensively. . . .

P41: Even if we did not know that our Mind is eternal, we would still regard as
of the first importance Morality, Religion, and absolutely all the things we have
shown (in Part IV) to be related to Tenacity and Nobility.
Dem.: The first and only foundation of virtue, or of the method of living
rightly (by IVP22C and P24) is the seeking of our own advantage. But to
determine what reason prescribes as useful, we took no account of the eter-
nity of the Mind, which we only came to know in the Fifth Part. Therefore,
though we did not know then that the Mind is eternal, we still regarded as of
the first importance the things we showed to be related to Tenacity and
Nobility. And so, even if we also did not know this now, we would still regard
as of the first importance the same rules of reason, q.e.d.
Schol.: The usual conviction of the multitude seems to be different. For
most people apparently believe that they are free to the extent that they are
permitted to yield to their lust, and that they give up their right to the extent
that they are bound to live according to the rule of the divine law. Morality,
then, and Religion, and absolutely everything related to Strength of Char-
acter, they believe to be burdens, which they hope to put down after death,
when they also hope to receive a reward for their bondage, that is, for their
Morality and Religion. They are induced to live according to the rule of the
divine law (as far as their weakness and lack of character allows) not only by
this hope, but also, and especially, by the fear that they may be punished
horribly after death. If men did not have this Hope and Fear, but believed
instead that minds die with the body, and that the wretched, exhausted with
254 Benedict de Spinoza

the burden of Morality, cannot look foward to a life to come, they would
return to their natural disposition, and would prefer to govern all their actions
according to lust, and to obey fortune rather than themselves.
These opinions seem no less absurd to me than if someone, because he does
not believe he can nourish his body with good food to eternity, should prefer
to fill himself with poisons and other deadly things, or because he sees that the
Mind is not eternal, or immortal, should prefer to be mindless, and to live
without reason. These [common beliefs] are so absurd they are hardly worth
mentioning.

P42: Blessedness is not the reward of virtue, but virtue itself; nor do we enjoy it
because we restrain our lusts; on the contrary, because we enjoy it, we are able
to restrain them.
Dem.: Blessedness consists in Love of God (by P36 and P36S), a Love
which arises from the third kind of knowledge (by P32C). So this Love (by
II1P59 and P3) must be related to the Mind insofar as it acts. Therefore (by
IVD8), it is virtue itself. This was the first point.
Next, the more the Mind enjoys this divine Love, or blessedness, the more
it understands (by P32), i.e. (by P3C), the greater the power it has over the
affects, and (by P38) the less it is acted on by evil affects. So because the Mind
enjoys this divine Love or blessedness, it has the power of restraining lusts.
And because human power to restrain the affects consists only in the intellect,
no one enjoys blessedness because he has restrained the affects. Instead, the
power to restrain lusts arises from blessedness itself, q.e.d.
Schol.: With this I have finished all the things I wished to show concerning
the Mind's power over the affects and its Freedom. From what has been
shown, it is clear how much the Wise man is capable of, and how much more
powerful he is than one who is ignorant and is driven only by lust. For not only
is the ignorant man troubled in many ways by external causes, and unable
ever to possess true peace of mind, but he also lives as if he knew neither
himself, nor God, nor things; and as soon as he ceases to be acted on, he
ceases to be. On the other hand, the wise man, insofar as he is considered as
such, is hardly troubled in spirit, but being, by a certain eternal necessity,
conscious of himself, and of God, and of things, he never ceases to be, but
always possesses true peace of mind.
If the way I have shown to lead to these things now seems very hard, still, it
can be found. And of course, what is found so rarely must be hard. For if salva-
tion were at hand, and could be found without great effort, how could nearly
everyone neglect it? But all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Editor's Notes
1. Spinoza is referring to biblical narratives.
2. "Affect" is a somewhat technical term, translating the Latin affectus. It refers to
emotions, feelings, desires, and other mental states leading us to act, but because
 Further Reading 255
for Spinoza the mental and the physical were always strictly correlated, the affects
are bodily conditions as well.
3. Spinoza was echoing an often-quoted passage from Ovid's Metamorphoses VII.20-
21: Medea is torn between reason, telling her to obey her father, and passion, urging
her to yield to her desire for her beloved:
One way desire, another reason calls;
The better course I see and do approve —
The worse I follow . . . (Melville translation)
4. Spinoza was relying on the Latin sense of perfectus, which means "completed or
fully made."
5. This translates the Latin honestas.
6. This translates the Latin fortitudo.
7. This translates the Latin animositas, which another translator rendered as "strength
of mind."
8. This translates the Latin generositas.

Further Reading
Stuart Hampshire, Spinoza (London: Penguin, 1951) provides a good general introduc-
tion to Spinoza's thought, as does Henry E. Allison, Benedict de Spinoza (New Haven,
Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986). Edwin Curley, Behind the Geometrical Method
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1988), is an excellent brief treatment of the
main themes in the Ethics. Alan Donagan, Spinoza (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1989), is a comprehensive study. For analytical commentary, see Jonathan Ben-
nett, A Study of Spinoza's Ethics (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1984); and R. J. Delahunty,
Spinoza (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985). Stuart Hampshire's Two Theories of
Morality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), reprinted in Hampshire's Morality
and Conflict (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983), is an insightful com-
parison of Aristotle's and Spinoza's moral outlooks. Hampshire's views are discussed in
Bennett, A Study, pp. 347-55. David Bidney, The Psychology and Ethics of Spinoza,
2nd ed. (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1940), is one of the few books
concentrating on Spinoza's moral psychology and morality. Eugene Freeman and Mau-
rice Mandelbaum, Spinoza, Essays in Interpretation (LaSalle, Ill.: Open Court, 1975),
contains a number of essays concerning Spinoza's moral philosophy, as well as an
extensive bibliography.
 Nicholas Malebranche

Introduction

Born in Paris in 1638 into a prosperous and well-connected family, Malebranche stud-
ied theology at the Sorbonne and entered the religious order of the Oratory in 1660. It
was a reading of Descartes's treatise On Man in 1664 that awoke his philosophical
interests. His first, and in many ways his most important, book, De la recherche de la
verite (The Search for Truth), published in two volumes in 1674 and 1675, showed the
intermingling of religious concern with philosophical argument that was characteristic
of all of Malebranche's thought. In later books he presented arguments for the truth of
Christianity, discussed the relations between nature and grace, and explained his
theory in graceful dialogues. The Traite de morale (Treatise of Morality) was published
in 1684.
Malebranche lived during a period of stormy religious controversy and spent much
time replying to his critics and criticizing others in turn. Leibniz, his slightly younger
contemporary, and Antoine Arnauld, the logician and controversialist of the Port
Royal Jansenists, were among his antagonists. Eventually the religious authorities
decided that Malebranche's views were dangerous, and two of his works — the Search
for Truth and the Treatise on Nature and Grace — were put on the index of books
forbidden by the Catholic church. Malebranche was widely read in his lifetime, and his
major works were translated into English. Admired by Berkeley and Hume, he exer-
cised a not inconsiderable influence on British thought. He died in 1715.
Malebranche held two remarkable basic views. The first concerned perception.
Starting from the accepted theory of his time, that we do not perceive external objects
directly but only through the mediation of something in our minds, Malebranche
argued to the conclusion that what we perceive directly is always ideas in the mind of
God. We perceive these ideas sometimes clearly and distinctly but more often con-
fusedly, and in the latter case they come to us as sensations or feelings. Malebranche
did not deny the existence of physical objects but simply insisted that all our knowl-
edge of them is mediated through our awareness of ideas of them in the divine mind.
Malebranche's second unusual view concerned causation. He denied that either
physical objects or our own thoughts have the power to influence or act on one
another. There certainly are regular sequences of events, and we can learn what these
are by observation. But we cannot form any clear idea of what it would be for one body
or one thought to have sufficient power or force to alter another. No matter how much
we learn about any single entity, we can never infer what changes it will bring about in
any other entity. Hence there cannot be what our idea of cause supposes there is — a
necessary connection between one entity and another.

256
 Introduction 257
The only conceivable causal power capable of affecting anything is God, and so we
must believe that all the actions of things — and the continuity of things — depend on
God as their cause. Physical objects and souls or minds have no more power to sustain
themselves over time than they have to affect other things. Thus, instead of speaking
of one event's causing another, Malebranche believed that we should say that one
event is the occasion for God to produce another. Malebranche's view of causation is
therefore called occasionalism.
According to Malebranche, then, philosophy proves that it is in God that we live
and move and have our being. This rational support may be a boon to religion, but it is
clear that Malebranche's view raises serious problems for the understanding of Chris-
tianity. Is God, who alone can cause anything to happen, then responsible for all the
evil in the world? Malebranche believed that we have a power of free choice and can
make choices that God does not make for us. But if my mind cannot cause my body to
move and God causes it to move on the occasion of my choosing (say) to shoot
someone, will it not really be God who pulls the trigger? Malebranche wrestled with
this problem, as well as with the problem of explaining how, in his view, God's ordi-
nary actions could differ from his special action of bestowing grace on us. Is not every
happening in the universe as miraculous and specially caused by God as is the gift of
grace to an individual?
Much of the reply rests on Malebranche's thesis that God acts by means of general
laws and does not make exceptions. (Miracles pose another problem for Male-
branche.) Natural evil, such as the ravaging of a forest by a flood, is due to the complex
interactions of particular things working under general laws. Humans too must cope
with the generality of God's laws. God will not stop a roof tile from falling toward you,
but you will not be disobeying him if you step out of its way, because we are meant to
use our power of free choice in directing our lives (admittedly with God making our
bodies move). Likewise, for the evil we occasion through our choices, we, and not
God, are responsible.
Malebranche's resolution of the problem of evil is very much in the spirit of Saint
Augustine, and much of Malebranche's ethic is also Augustinian. (See the section
"Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas" in the Introduction to this anthology.) Like
Augustine, Malebranche made central to morality his ideas of right love and wrong
love. And like him also, he made the rightness or wrongness of a love depend on its
relation to its object. The different things in the world possess different degrees of
perfection. We can see what these are when we perceive the ideas of things in the mind
of God. When our love of the more perfect is greater than our love of the less perfect,
we love with a right love. And a habitual right love — a habitual love of the order of
things according to their perfections — is what constitutes virtue.
Malebranche thought that humans were always tempted to pursue their own good
rather than to follow the immutable order of perfection. There is a good that is proper
to us, and we would realize — if only we could see the order of perfection clearly and
distinctly — that our own good is best attained by developing the habit of conforming
to that order. This sounds like one more reiteration of the old assertion that virtue is
the best means to happiness, and in a way it is. But what is interesting about
Malebranche's way of developing the idea is that the order of perfection is conceptu-
ally quite distinct from the good proper to a finite being. Malebranche did not, as many
other writers did, conceptually tie virtue to what brings good to the agent. Rather, he
defined virtue in terms of conformity to order. The knowledge we need if we are to be
virtuous is not knowledge of a deeper truth than we usually have about how to attain
258 Nicholas Malebranche
our own good. We can nonetheless be moved by a love of order as such, and in being
so moved we are not motivated by a desire for our own good, not even our own long-
range good.
Prudence and morality were thus distinguished more sharply by Malebranche than
by his predecessors, and there are other ways in which Malebranche made morality a
special realm of knowledge. The knowledge we need in order to be virtuous is not
knowledge of God's commands, not even of those he imposes on everyone alike, as it
is for the natural lawyers. It is not scientific or metaphysical knowledge of the intercon-
nection of everything in nature, as it is for Spinoza. Instead, it is knowledge of a
unique kind of relationship, and it is practical knowledge, knowledge essentially tied to
the guidance of action. Moral philosophy for the first time had a subject matter of its
own, capable of rational study.
The following readings are from the Treatise of Morality, translated by James Ship-
ton, London, 1699. I have modernized the spelling and punctuation and silently cor-
rected the translation itself at a few points.

Treatise of Morality

PART I

Chapter I
I. The reason of man is the word or the wisdom of God himself; for every
creature is a particular being, but the reason of a man is universal.
II. If my own particular mind were my reason and my light, my mind would
also be the reason for all intelligent beings; for I am certain that my reason
enlightens all intelligent beings. No one can feel my pain but myself, but
everyone may see the truth which I contemplate; so that the pain which I feel
is a modification of my own proper substance, but truth is a possession com-
mon to all spiritual beings.
III. Thus by the means of reason I have or may have some society with God
and all other intelligent beings, because they all possess a good or a law in
common with me, to wit, reason.
IV. This spiritual society consists in a participation of the same intellectual
substance of the word, from which all spiritual beings may receive their nour-
ishment. In contemplating this divine substance I am able to see some part of
what God thinks; for God sees all truths, and there are some which I can see. I
can also discover something of the will of God, for God wills nothing but
according to a certain order, and this order is not altogether unknown to me.
It is certain that God loves things according as they are worthy of love; and I
can discover that there are some things more perfect, more valuable, and
consequently more worthy of love than others.
V. It is true, indeed, that I cannot by contemplating the word or consulting
reason be assured whether God doth actually produce anything out of his own
being or no. For none of the creatures proceed naturally from the word, nor is
the world a necessary emanation of the deity. God is fully sufficient for
 Treatise of Morality 259
himself, and the idea of a being infinitely perfect can be conceived to subsist
alone.' The creatures then suppose in God free and arbitrary decrees which
give them their being. 2 So that the word as such not containing in it the
existence of the creatures, we cannot by the contemplation of it be assured of
the action of God; but supposing that God doth act, I am able to know
something of the manner in which he acts, and may be certain that he doth not
act in such and such a manner; for that which regulates his manner of acting,
the law which he inviolably observes, is the word, the eternal wisdom, the
universal reason which makes me rational and which I can in part contemplate
according to my own desires.
VI. If we suppose man to be a rational creature, we cannot certainly deny
him the knowledge of something that God thinks and of the manner in which
he acts. For by contemplating the intelligible substance of the word, which
alone makes me and all other intelligent beings rational, I can clearly discover
the relations or proportions of greatness that are between the intellectual
ideas comprehended in it; and these relations are the same eternal truths
which God himself sees. For God sees as well as I that twice two is four and
that triangles which have the same base and are between the same parallels
are equal. I can also discover, at least confusedly, the relations of perfection,
which are the immutable order which God consults when he acts and which
ought also to regulate the esteem and love of all intelligent beings.'
VII. From hence it is evident that there are such things as true and false,
just and unjust, and that too in respect of all intelligent beings; that whatso-
ever is true in respect of man is true also in respect of angels and of God
himself; that what is injustice or disorder with relation to man is so also with
relation to God. For all spiritual beings contemplating the same intellectual
substance necessarily discover in it the same relations of greatness or the same
speculative truths. They discover also the same practical truths, the same
laws, and the same order when they see the relations of perfection that are
between those intellectual beings comprehended in the substance of the word,
which alone is the immediate object of all our knowledge.
VIII. I say, when they see these relations of perfection or greatness, and not
when they judge of them; for only truth or the real relations of things are
visible, and we ought to judge of nothing but what we see. When we judge
before we see or of more things than we see, we are deceived in our judgment,
or at least we judge ill, though we may happen by chance not to be deceived.
For when we judge of things by chance, as well as when we judge by passion
or interest, we judge ill. This is judging by our selves and not by reason, or
according to the laws of universal reason; that reason, I say, which alone is
superior to spirits and hath a right to judge of those judgments which are
pronounced by them.
IX. The mind of man being finite cannot see all the relations that the
objects of its knowledge bear to one another. So it may be deceived when it
judges of relations which it does not see. But if it judged of nothing but just
what it saw, which without doubt it may do, certainly though it be a finite
260 Nicholas Malebranche
spirit, though it be ignorant and in its own nature subject to error, it would
never be deceived; for then the judgments framed by it would proceed not so
much from itself as from the universal reason pronouncing the same judg-
ments in it.
XIII. . . . that a beast is more valuable than a stone and less valuable than a
man, is true, because a beast bears a greater proportion or relation of perfec-
tion to a stone than a stone doth to a beast; and a beast has less proportion of
perfection compared to a man than a man hath compared to a beast. And he
that sees these relations sees such truths as ought to regulate his esteem and
consequently that sort of love which is determined by esteem. But he that
esteems his horse more than his coachman or thinks a stone is in itself more
valuable than a fly or than the very least of organized bodies doth not see that
which perhaps he thinks he doth. It is not universal reason but his own
particular reason that makes him judge after that manner. It is not the love of
order but self-love [1'anzour-propre] which inclines him to love as he doth.
That which he thinks he sees is neither visible nor intelligible; 'tis a false and
imaginary relation; and he that governs his esteem or love by this or the like
relation must necessarily fall into error and irregularity.
XIV. Since truth and order are relations of greatness and perfection, real
immutable and necessary relations, relations comprehended in the substance
of the divine word, he that sees these relations sees that which God sees. He
that regulates his love according to these relations observes a law which God
invincibly loves. So that there is a perfect conformity of mind and will be-
tween God and him. In a word, seeing he knows that which God knows and
loves that which God loves, he is like God as far as he is capable of being so.
So likewise since God invincibly loves himself, he cannot but esteem and love
his own image. And as he loves things in proportion to their being amiable, he
cannot but prefer it before all those beings which either by their nature or
corruption are far from resembling him.
XV. Man is a free agent, and I suppose him to have all necessary assis-
tances. In respect of truth, he is capable of searching after it notwithstanding
the difficulty he finds in meditation; and in respect of order, he is able to
follow it in spite of all the efforts of concupiscence. He can sacrifice his ease to
truth and his pleasures to order. On the other side he can prefer his actual and
present happiness before his duties, and fall into error and disorder. In a
word, he can be deserving or not. Now God is just; he loves his creatures as
they are loveable or as they resemble him His will therefore is that every
good action should be rewarded and every evil one punished; that he who
hath made a good use of his liberty, and by that means hath rendered himself
in part perfect and like God, should be in part happy as he is, and, on the
contrary, etc.
XVII. He therefore that labors for his perfection and endeavors to make
himself like God labors for his happiness and advancement. If he doth that
which in some sort depends upon himself, that is to say, if he deserves well by
making himself perfect, God will do that which in no sort depends upon him,
 Treatise of Morality 261
in making him happy. . . . He that incessantly consults his reason and loves
order, having a share in the perfection of God shall have also a share in his
happiness, glory, and greatness.
XIX. This then is the first and greatest duty, that for which God hath created
us, the love of which is the mother of all virtue, the universal, the fundamental
virtue, the virtue which makes us just and which will one day make us happy.
We are rational creatures; our virtue and perfection is to love reason or rather
to love order. For the knowledge of speculative truths, or relations of greatness,
doth not regulate our duties. It is principally the knowledge and love of the
relations of perfection, or practical truths, wherein consist our perfection. Let
us apply ourselves then to know, to love and follow order. . . .
VC. The obedience which we pay to order and submission to the law of
God is virtue in all senses. Submission to the divine decrees or to the power of
God is rather necessity than virtue. . . .
XXI. If all the motions of bodies were caused by particular acts of the will of
God, it would be a sin to avoid the ruins of a falling house by flight, for we
cannot without injustice refuse to render back to God that life which he hath
given us when he requires it again. At this rate it would be an affront to the
wisdom of God to alter the course of rivers and to turn them to places that
want water; we should follow the order of nature and be quiet. But since God
acts in consequence of certain general laws, we correct his work without
injuring his wisdom. We resist his action without opposing his will, because he
doth not will positively and directly every thing that he doth. For example, he
doth not directly will unjust actions, though he alone gives motion to those
that commit them. And though it be only he who sends rain, yet every man
hath a liberty to shelter himself when it rains For God doth not send rain but
by a necessary consequence of general laws, laws which he hath established
not that such or such a man should be wet through but for greater ends. . . .

Chapter II
I. The love of order is not only the chief of all moral virtues but the only
virtue. It is the mother virtue, the fundamental, universal virtue, the virtue
which alone makes the habits or dispositions of the mind virtuous. He that
bestows his goods on the poor out of vanity or natural compassion is not
libera1,4 because it is not reason that guides him, nor order that governs him,
it is nothing but pride or mechanism. . . . The same may be said of all the
other virtues. If the love of order be not the foundation of them, they are false
and vain and altogether unbecoming a reasonable nature which bears the
image of God himself and hath a communication with him. They derive their
original from the body only . . . whatever the rebellious imagination may
think, it is not mean and servile to submit to the law of God himself. Nothing
is more just than to be conformable to order. Nothing is more brave and
generous than to follow the party of reason with an unshaken constancy and
inviolable fidelity, not only when one may follow it with honor, but then more
262 Nicholas Malebranche
especially when the circumstances of times and places are such that one can-
not do it without the greatest shame and disgrace. For he that passes for a fool
in following reason loves reason more than himself, but he that follows order
only when it shines and sparkles in the eyes of the world seeks only glory; and
though he may be very glorious in the eyes of men, he is an abomination in the
sight of God.
II. I know not whether I may be mistaken or no, but I believe there are
abundance of people that do not rightly know what true virtue is, and even
those that have writ of morality do not always speak very clearly and exactly
of it. It is certain that all those great names which they give to virtues and vices
produce rather confused sensations in the mind than clear ideas. But because
the sensations affect the soul, and abstracted ideas, though clear in them-
selves, do not diffuse their light but in attentive minds, men most commonly
rest satisfied with these words which please the senses but leave the mind in
the dark. . . .
IV. One of the greatest defects observable in the moral writings of some
philosophers is that they confound duties with virtues, or that they give the
name of virtues to simple duties, so that though properly there be but one
virtue, to wit the love of order, they make an infinite number of them. This is
it which causes such confusion and so perplexes that science, that it is very
hard to understand thoroughly what a man must do to be perfectly good and
virtuous.
VII. It is certain that universal reason is always the same. Order is immuta-
ble, and yet morality changes according to places and times. It is a virtue
among the Germans to drink hard, and a man can have no conversation with
them if he be not drunk. It is not reason but wine that unites their soci-
eties. . . . Duelling was for a long time a lawful action amongst the French,
and as if reason was not worthy to determine their differences, they decided
them by force. . . .
VIII. . . . From whence can this diversity proceed, if the reason of man be
always the same? From hence, no doubt, that they leave off consulting reason
and suffer themselves to be guided by imagination, its enemy. Instead of
observing the immutable order as their inviolable and natural law, they frame
to themselves ideas of virtue conformable at least in some things to their own
inclinations. . . .
X. I must confess that the immutable order is not easy to be found. It dwells
within us, but we are always roving abroad. Our senses unite our soul to all
the parts of the body, our imagination and passions extend it to all the objects
which surround us and often carry it into a world that hath no more reality
than imaginary spaces. This is undeniably so. But then we should endeavor to
silence our sense, imagination and passions, and not fancy that we can be
reasonable without consulting reason. . . .
XII. I grant then that those who have not light enough to guide themselves
may attain to virtue as well as those who retire into themselves to consult
reason and contemplate the beauty of order, because the grace of sense or
 Treatise of Morality 263

prevenient delectation s may supply the want of light and keep them firm and
steadfast in their duty. But that which I maintain is, first, that supposing all
other things equal, he that enters farthest into himself and harkens to the truth
within him in the greatest silence of his sense, imagination and passions is the
most solidly virtuous. Secondly, that such a love of order as hath for its
foundation more of reason than of faith, that is, more of light than of plea-
sure, is more solid, meritorious and valuable than another love which I sup-
pose equal. For indeed the true good, the good of the soul, should be loved by
reason and not by the instinct of pleasure. But the condition to which sin hath
reduced us makes the grace of delight necessary to counterpoise the continual
endeavors of our concupiscence. Lastly I assert that if a man should never, I
say, never retire into himself, his imaginary faith would be wholly useless to
him. For the word became sensible only to render truth intelligible. Reason
was made incarnate for no other end but to guide men to reason by their
senses; and he that should do and suffer all that Jesus Christ did and suffered
would be neither reasonable nor a Christian if he did it not in the spirit of
Christ, the spirit of order and reason. . . .

Chapter III
I. Though I have not expressed the principal or mother virtue by the authen-
tic name of charity, I would not have anyone imagine that I pretend to deliver
to men any other virtue than that which Christ himself hath established in
these words: "All the law and the prophets depend on these two command-
ments: thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy
strength, and thy neighbor as thyself." .. .
II. These words are clear, but it is chiefly to those who are inwardly taught
by the unction of the spirit. For as to others, they are more obscure than is
commonly imagined. To "love" is an equivocal term. It signifies two things
among many others: first, to unite ourselves by the will to any object as to our
good or the cause of our happiness; and secondly to wish well to anyone. We
may love God in the first sense and our neighbor in the second. But it would
be impiety or at least stupidity to love God in the latter sense, and a kind of
idolatry to love our neighbor in the former.
IV. . . . Our Saviour tells us in the parable of the Samaritan that all man-
kind is our neighbor. . . . Certainly there are none but those that love the true
and real good who fulfil this commandment in loving their neighbor as them-
selves. For a father who loves his son with great tenderness and carefully
procures for him all sensible good things, what love soever he may have for
him, is very far from loving him as God commands us to love our neighbor.
VI. I think then I may say that justifying charity, or that virtue which
renders the possessors of it truly just and virtuous, is properly a ruling love of
the immutable order. But that I may clear those obscurities which ordinarily
attend abstract ideas, I must explain these terms a little more at large.
VII. I have already said that the immutable order consists in nothing else
264 Nicholas Malebranche
but in those proportions or relations of perfection which are between the
intellectual ideas comprehended in the substance of the eternal word. Now we
ought to esteem and love nothing but perfection. And therefore our esteem
and love should be conformable to order. I mean there should be the same
proportion between two degrees of love as there is between the perfection or
reality or the objects which cause them. For if there be not, they are not
conformable to order. From hence it is evident that charity or the love of God
is a consequence of the love of order, and that we ought to esteem and love
God not only more, but infinitely more, than all other things. For there can be
no finite relation between infinite and finite.
VIII. There are two principal kinds of love, a love of benevolence and a love
which may be called love of union. A sensual man loves the object of his passion
with a love of union, because he looks upon that object as the cause of his happi-
ness, and therefore he desires to be united to it that it may act upon him and
make him happy. He is carried towards it as well by the motion of his heart or by
his affections as by the motion of his body. The love which we bear to persons of
worth and merit is a love of benevolence. For we love them even when they are
not in a condition to do us any good. We love them because they have more
perfection and virtue than other men. So that the power to do us good, or that
kind of perfection which relates to our happiness, in one word, goodness, ex-
cites in us a love of union, and all other perfections a love of benevolence. Now
God only is good. He alone hath the power of acting on us. 6 He does not really
communicate that perfection to his creatures, but only makes them occasional
causes for the producing of some effects. For real and true power is incommuni-
cable. Therefore all our love of union ought to tend toward God.
IX. We may, for instance, bring our body to the fire, because fire is the
occasional cause of heat, which is necessary for it. But we cannot love it with a
love of union without offending against order, because fire is so far from
having any power over that part of us which is capable of loving that it hath no
power at all. The same may be said of all other creatures, even angels and
demons. . . . When I speak of loving, I mean also fearing and hating . . . the
soul should remain unmoved in their presence. . . .
X. But the case is not the same with the love of benevolence as with the love
of union. God is infinitely more amiable with this sort of love than all his
creatures together. But as he hath really communicated to them some perfec-
tion, as they are capable of happiness, they really deserve our love and es-
teem. Order itself requires that we should esteem and love them according to
the measure of perfection which they enjoy, or rather according to that which
we know to be in them. For to esteem and love them exactly in proportion to
their being amiable is utterly impossible, because many times their perfections
are unknown to us, and we can never know exactly the proportions that are
between perfections; for we cannot express them either by numbers or by
incommensurable lines. Nevertheless faith takes away a great many difficul-
ties in this matter. For since a finite being, by the relation it hath to infinity,
acquires an infinite value, it is evident that we ought to love those creatures
 Treatise of Morality 265
which have or may have a great relation to God infinitely more than those
which do not bear his image. . . .
XII. Self-love, the irreconcilable enemy of virtue, or a ruling love of the
immutable order, may agree with the love of union which is referred to and
honors a power capable of acting on us. For it is sufficient for that purpose
that this self-love be enlightened. Man invincibly desires to be happy, and he
sees clearly that God alone is able to make him so. This being supposed and
all the rest excluded, of which I do not speak, it is evident that he may desire
to be united to God. For to take away everything that may be equivocal, I do
not speak of a man who knows that God rewards only merit and who finds
none in himself; but I speak of one who considers only the power and good-
ness of God, or one to whom the testimony of his conscience and his faith give
a free access, as I may so say, to draw near to God and join himself with him.
XIII. But the case is different with the love of esteem or benevolence which a
man ought to bear to himself. Self-love makes it always irregular. Order re-
quires that the reward should be proportionable to the merit and the happiness
to the perfection of the soul, which it hath gained by a good use of its liberty. But
self-love can endure no bounds to its happiness and glory. Though it be never so
much enlightened, yet if it be not just it must of necessity be contrary to order;
and it cannot be just without diminishing or destroying itself. Nevertheless,
when self-love is both enlightened and just, whether it be destroyed by, or
confounded with, the love of order, a man hath then the greatest perfection that
he is capable of. For certainly he that always places himself in the rank that
belongs to him, who desires to be happy no farther than he deserves to be so and
seeks his happiness in the justice which he expects from the righteous judge,
who lives by faith and rests contented, steadfast and patient in the hope of
foretaste of the true good; he, I say, is really a good man, though the love he
bears to himself, reformed indeed and corrected by grace, be the natural foun-
dation of his love of order above all things.
XVI. . . . to obtain the possession of virtue, it is not sufficient that we love
order with a natural love but we must also love it with a free, enlightened and
reasonable love. It is not sufficient to love it when it agrees with our self-love.
We must sacrifice everything to it, our actual happiness and if it should require
it of us our very being. . . .

Chapter IV
I. That I may give a clear explication of the means of acquiring or preserv-
ing the ruling love of the immutable order, I shall lay down two fundamental
truths belonging to the first part of this treatise. First, that virtues are gener-
ally acquired and fortified by acts. Secondly, that when we act we do not
always produce the acts of the ruling virtue. What I say of virtue must be also
understood of all habits good or bad, and even of the passions which are
natural to us.
XVI. All then that we have to do to acquire and preserve the ruling love of
266 Nicholas Malebranche
immutable order . . . consists in searching diligently what are the things that
excite this love and make it produce its proper acts, and what those are that
can stop the actual motion of self-love. Now I know but two principles which
determine the natural motion of the will and stir up the habits, to wit, light
and sense. Without one of these principles no habit is formed naturally, and
those which are formed remain unactive. If anyone will take the pains to
consult what he finds within himself, he will easily be satisfied that the will
never actually loves any good except the light discovers it or pleasure renders
it present to the soul. And if we consult reason we shall be convinced that it
must be so, for otherwise the author of nature would imprint useless motions
on the will.
XVII. There is nothing then but light and pleasure which can produce any
motion in the soul. Light discovers to it the good which it loves by an irresist-
ible impression, and pleasure assures it that the good is actually present. For
the soul is never more fully convinced of its good than when it makes itself
actually touched with the pleasure which makes it happy. Let us therefore
enquire into the means by which we may cause the light to diffuse itself in our
minds, and make our hearts be touched with such sensations as are suitable to
our design, which is to produce in us the acts of the love of order, or to hinder
us from forming those of self-love. For it is evident that all the precepts of
morality absolutely depend on these means.

Chapter V
XII. The only rule which I would have carefully observed is to meditate
only on clear ideas and undeniable experiences. To meditate on confused
sensations and doubtful experiences is lost labor. This is to contemplate noth-
ing but chimeras and to follow error. The immutable and necessary order, the
divine law, is also our law. This ought to be the principal subject of our
meditations. Now there is nothing more abstracted and less subject to sense
than this order. I grant that we may also be guided by order made sensible and
visible by the actions and precepts of Jesus Christ. Yet that is because that
sensible order raises the mind to the knowledge of the intellectual order, for
the word made flesh is our model only to conform us to reason, the indispens-
able model of all intelligent beings. . . .
XV. By clear ideas, which I make the principal object of those who would
know and love order, I mean not only those between which the mind can
discover the precise and exact relations such as are all those which are the
object of mathematical knowledge and may be expressed by numbers or
represented by lines. But I understand in general by clear ideas all such as
produce any light in the mind of those who contemplate them, and from which
one may draw certain consequences. So that I reckon among clear ideas not
only simple ideas but also those truths which contain the relations that are
between ideas. I comprehend also in this number common notions and princi-
ples of morality and in a word all clear truths which are evident either of
 Treatise of Morality 267
themselves, or by demonstration, or by an infallible authority, though to
speak more nicely these last are rather certain than clear and evident.
XVI. By undeniable experiences I mean chiefly those matters of fact which
faith informs us of and those of which we are convinced by the inward sense
we have of what passes within ourselves. . . .
XIX. The knowledge of order, which is our indispensable law, is com-
pounded of both these, clear ideas and inward sensations. Every man knows
that it is better to be good, than rich, a prince, or a conqueror; but every man
doth not see it by a clear idea. Children and ignorant people know well enough
when they do ill; but 'tis because the secret check of reason reproves them for it,
and not always because the light discovers it to them. For order considered
speculatively and precisely, only as it contains the relations of perfection, en-
lightens the mind without moving it; if it be taken only for the law of God, the
law of all spiritual beings, and considered only so far as it hath the force of a law
(for God loves order himself and irresistibly wills that we should love it or that
we should love everything in proportion to its being amiable); order, I say, as it
is the natural and necessary principle and rule of all the motions of the soul
touches, penetrates and convinces the mind without enlightening it. So that we
may discover order by a clear idea, but we know it also by a sensation. For since
God loves order and continually imprints on us a love and motion like his own,
we must necessarily be informed by the sure and compendious way of sensa-
tions when we follow or forsake the immutable order.
XX. But we must observe that this way of discovering order by sensation or
instinct is often rendered uncertain by sin, which hath introduced concupis-
cence, because the secret influences of the passions are of the same nature
with that inward sensation. For when we act contrary to opinion and custom
we often feel such inward checks as very much resemble those of reason and
order. Before sin entered the world, the sense of inward reproof was a sign
that could not be mistaken . . . but since that time the secret inspirations of
our passions are not subject to our wills, so that they are easily confounded
with the inspirations of inward truth when the mind is not enlightened. Hence
it is that there are so many people who seriously and in good earnest maintain
abominable errors. A false idea of religion and morality which agrees with
their interests and passions appears truth itself to them. . . .
XXI. There is nothing then more certain and secure than light. We cannot
fix our attention too long on clear ideas, and though we may suffer ourselves
to be animated by the inward sense yet we must never be guided by it. We
must contemplate order in itself and permit this sensation only to keep up our
attention by the motion which it excites in us. Otherwise our meditations will
never be rewarded with a clear prospect of truth. . . .

Chapter VI
I. We cannot discover truth without the labor of attention, because this
labor alone is rewarded with light. Before a man can support and continue the
268 Nicholas Malebranche

labor of attention, he must have attained some strength of mind. . . .to keep
[a man] from falling into error it is not sufficient to have a strong mind to
endure labor, but he must also have another virtue which I cannot better
express than by the equivocal name of liberty of mind, by which a man
withholds his assent until he be irresistibly forced to give it.
II. When we examine any very compounded question and our mind finds
itself surrounded on all sides with very great difficulties, reason permits us to
give over our labor, but it indispensably requires us to suspend our assent and
to judge of nothing when nothing is evident. To make use of our liberty as
much as we can is an essential and indispensable precept both of logic and of
morality. For we ought never to believe till evidence obliges us to it; we ought
never to love that which we may without remorse hinder ourselves from
loving. . . .
IV. . . . he that loves nothing but what he evidently knows to be the true
good, nothing but what he cannot help loving, is not irregular in his love. He
loves nothing but God, for there is nothing else which we cannot without
remorse hinder ourselves from loving. There is nothing but God which we
clearly and evidently know to be really good. . . .
V. Strength and liberty of mind then are two virtues which we may call
general or to use the common term cardinal virtues. For since we ought never
to love anything nor do any action without good consideration, we must make
use of the strength and liberty of our mind every moment. . . .
XV. That we may clearly comprehend the necessity of endeavoring to gain
some liberty of mind, or some facility of suspending the assent of the will, we
must know that when two or more goods are actually present to the mind and
the mind determines its choice in relation to them, it never fails to choose that
which at that instant appears to be the best, supposing equality in everything
else. For the soul being capable of loving only by the natural tendency which it
hath toward good must of necessity love that which hath the greatest confor-
mity with what it loves irresistibly.
XVI. But we must observe that the soul may still suspend its assent and not
determine itself finally, even when it doth determine itself . . . we may with-
hold our assent till evidence obliges us to yield it. Now we can never evidently
see that false goods are true ones because we can never evidently see that which
is not. So that though we cannot hinder ourselves from determining in favor of
the most apparent goods, yet by suspending our assent we may love none but
those that are most solid. . . . There is nothing then more necessary than the
liberty of the mind to make us love none but the true good, live according to
order, inviolably obey reason, and procure us true and solid virtue. . . .

Chapter VII
I. The facility of rendering the mind attentive and of withholding its assent
till evidence obliges it are habits necessary for such as would be substantially
virtuous. But solid virtue, virtue every way complete, doth not consist only in
 Treatise of Morality 269
those two noble and extraordinary dispositions of the mind. There is required
besides an exact obedience to the law of God, general nicety in all our duties,
a firm and governing disposition of regulating all the motions of our hearts by
the known order, in a word the love of order. . . .
II. But how must we gain this fixed and ruling disposition of governing all
the motions of our heart and all the actions of our lives by the known or-
der? . . . Habits are formed by acts. We must therefore frequently make firm
and constant resolutions of obeying order and sacrificing everything to it. For
by often repeating these actual resolutions and pursuing them at least in part,
we may by degrees form some kind of habitual disposition. This is easy
enough to be conceived, but it is by no means easy to be practiced. For which
way can we frame this heroic resolution of sacrificing even our predominant
passion to the divine law? Certainly it is not possible to be done without
grace. . . . the desire of happiness is invincible and irresistible. And therefore
without a firm faith and the hope of enjoying a happiness more solid than that
which we part with, self-love, though never so much enlightened, cannot
beget in us a bare resolution of sacrificing our predominant passion. This is
without dispute.
III. Now . . . this faith and hope are the gifts of God. . . .

Chapter VIII
II. But when our faith is not lively nor our hope strong enough to make us
resolve to sacrifice a passion which hath got such a dominion over our heart
that it corrupts our mind every moment and draws it to its party, the only thing
we ought to do, and perhaps the only thing we can do in this case, is to seek
for that in the fear of Hell and the just indignation of an avenging God which
we cannot find in the hope of an eternal happiness. . . .
XIV. I know very well that many people condemn the fear of hell as a
motive of self-love. Notwithstanding I have made use of it as being the most
lively and the most common motive to excite us to do those things which may
contribute to our justification. . . . to desire to be happy or to desire not to be
miserable is the same thing. . . . The fear of pain and the desire of pleasure
are both of them but motions of self-love. Now self-love in itself is not evil.
God continually produces it in us. He irresistibly inclines us to good and by
the same motion irresistibly diverts us from evil. We cannot hinder ourselves
from desiring to be happy and consequently from desiring not to be miserable.
So then the fear of Hell and the hope of Heaven are two motives equally
good: only that of fear hath this advantage over the other, that it is more
lively, strong and efficacious, because generally, supposing all other things
equal, we fear pain more than we desire pleasure. . . . besides it hath this
advantage, that it is proper to awaken the most drowsy and stupid; and for
this reason it is that the Scripture and the Fathers make use of this motive*
* By motive I understand that which excites in the soul an actual motion of that kind of love
which I called before the love of union.
270 Nicholas Malebranche
upon all occasions. For after all, it is not properly the motive which regulates
the heart but the love of order. Every motive is grounded on self-love. . . .
XV. . . . There is a difference between the motives and the end. We are
excited by the motives to act for the end. It is the greatest crime imaginable to
place our end in ourselves. We should do everything for God. All our actions
should be referred to him from whom alone we have the power to do them.
Otherwise we violate order, we offend God and are guilty of injustice. This is
undeniable. But we should seek for the motives which may make us love
order in that invincible love which God hath given us for happiness. For since
God is just, we cannot be happy if we are not subservient to order. It matters
not whether those motives be of fear or of hope, if they do but animate and
support us. . . .

PART II

Chapter I
II. So then, though it be sufficient to make us just and acceptable to God
that the love of order be our predominant habit, yet if we would be perfect
and complete, we must be able to govern this love by an exact knowledge of
our duties. Nay, I would say that he who neglects or slights this knowledge,
what zeal soever he may find within himself for order, his heart is by no means
rightly disposed. . . .
III. Indeed those whose mind is so weak and their passions so strong that
they are not capable of giving counsel to themselves, or rather of taking
counsel of him who enlightens all men, are excusable before God if they
sincerely desire and follow the advice of such as they believe to be the best
and wisest of men. . . .
V. But since it is impossible for a man that is not versed in the science of
morality to discover the order of his duties in sudden and unexpected occa-
sions, though he have never so great strength and liberty of mind, it is neces-
sary for him to provide against those occasions which leave him no time for
examination, and by a prudent foresight to inform himself of his duties in
general, or of some certain and undeniable principles to govern his actions by
in particular cases. This study of a man's duties ought without doubt to be
preferred before all others. Its end and reward is eternity. . . .

Chapter IV
VII. Now that the natural love which God continually imprints on us may
still continue love and not be turned into hatred, that the love of happiness
may make us happy, that it may carry us toward good and unite us to him .. .
our love must always be conformable to or resembling the divine love. We
must love perfection as well as happiness. We must remain united to the
wisdom of God as well as to his power. For God when he created man gave
 Treatise of Morality 271
him . . . as it were two sorts of love, one of happiness and the other of
perfection. By the love of happiness he united him to his power, which alone
can make him happy; and by the love of perfection he united him to his
wisdom, by which alone as his inviolable law he ought to be governed. . . .
VIII. For we must observe that in the condition we are now in, our happi-
ness and our perfection often clash, and we cannot avoid engaging on one side
or the other. . . . when we sacrifice our happiness to our perfection, or our
pleasure to the love of order, we merit, for then we obey the divine law,
though we suffer by it, and thereby we give honor to the wisdom of God. . . .
God is certainly just and faithful. He will give us all the happiness we deserve;
our patience shall not be fruitless. . . .

Chapter VI
I. Having explained in general the duties which we owe to God, we must
now examine those which we owe to other men. . . .
II. We are capable of forming two sorts of society with other men: a society
for some years, and an eternal society; a society of commerce and a society of
religion. . . .
III. The great, or indeed the only, design of God is the holy city, the
heavenly Jerusalem, where truth and justice inhabit. All other societies shall
perish. . . .
V. So when our savior bids us love one another, we must not imagine that he
absolutely commands us any other thing than to procure one another the true
and spiritual goods. . . . We must assist our neighbor and preserve his life as
we are obliged to preserve our own, but we must prefer the salvation of our
neighbor before his and our own life.
VII. . . . we may and ought to love [our neighbor] with a love of benevo-
lence. We must love him in that sense of the word which signifies to desire his
happiness and perfection, and . . . use all our endeavors to procure him solid
virtue that he may merit the true goods which are the reward of it.
X. There is this difference between the duties which religion obliges us to
pay to God and those which society requires us to pay to men: that the
principal duties of religion are inward and spiritual, because God searches the
hearts and absolutely speaking hath no need of his creatures; whereas the
duties of society are almost all external. . . .
XI. Therefore to expect from other men inward and spiritual duties which
are due to God alone . . . is a diabolical pride. . . . If they faithfully perform
what we desire of them, what can we complain of?

Chapter VII
I. The three general heads to which all the particular duties that we owe to
other men may be reduced are . . . simple esteem, which ought to be propor-
tioned to the excellence or perfection of every being; respect, or a relative
272 Nicholas Malebranche
submission of the mind proportionable to the subordinate power of intelligent
occasional causes;' and the love of benevolence. . . .
II. Simple esteem is a duty which we owe to all mankind. Contempt is an
injury, and the greatest of injuries. There is nothing contemptible but nothing,
for every real being deserves esteem. And as man is the noblest of creatures,
it is a false judgment and an irregular motion to despise any man, let him be
what he will. . . .
VII. As to our enemies and persecutors, it is certain that esteem is a duty
more general than benevolence. There are some goods which we are not
bound to wish our enemies. . . . But the persecution of our enemies ought not
of itself to diminish the esteem that is due to them. . . .

Chapter XIV
I. The duties which we owe to ourselves as well as those which we owe to
our neighbors may be reduced to this general head, of laboring for our happi-
ness and perfection: our perfection, which consists chiefly in a perfect confor-
mity of our will with the immutable order; and our happiness, which consists
wholly in the enjoyment of pleasure. . . .
II. The perfection of the mind consists chiefly in the conformity of the will
to order. For he that loves order above all things hath virtue. He that obeys
order in all things fulfils his duty. And he that sacrifices his present pleasure to
order, that suffers pain and despises himself out of respect to the divine law,
merits a solid happiness, the genuine and suitable reward of a tried and
approved virtue. That almighty and all-righteous law shall judge his cause and
shall reward him to all eternity.
III. To seek after happiness is not virtue but necessity. For virtue is free and
voluntary but the desire of happiness is not in our own choice. Self-love,
properly speaking, is not a quality which may be increased or diminished. We
cannot cease to love ourselves, though we may cease to love ourselves amiss.
We cannot stop the motion of self-love, but we may regulate it according to
the divine law. We may by the motion of self-love enlightened, supported by
faith and hope, and governed by charity, we may, I say, sacrifice present for
future pleasures and make ourselves miserable for a time to escape the eternal
vengeance of the righteous judge. For grace doth not destroy nature. The
motion which God continually imprints on us toward good in general never
stops. The wicked and the righteous equally desire to be happy. They equally
tend toward the source of their felicity. Only the righteous doth not suffer
himself to be deceived and corrupted by pleasing appearances. The foretaste
of the true good supports him in his course. But the sinner, being blinded by
his passions, forgets God, his rewards and punishments, and employs all the
motion which God gives him for the true good in the pursuit of phantoms and
illusions.
IV. Self-love therefore or the desire of being happy is neither virtue nor
vice. But it is the natural motive to virtue and in wicked men becomes the
 Further Reading 273
motive to vice. God alone is our end; he alone is our good; reason alone is our
law; and self-love . . . is the motive which should make us love God, unite
ourselves to him, and submit to his law. For we are not our own good nor our
own law. . . .
V. Our self-love then is the motive which being assisted by grace unites us to
God as our good or the cause of our happiness, and subjects us to reason as
our law or the model of our perfection. But we must not make the motive our
End or our law. We must truly and sincerely love order and unite ourselves to
God by reason. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. And consequently, following the Cartesian principle that what can be conceived
can be, such a being can exist all alone, without creating other beings.
2. Particular beings must be created by God's volition, but not the eternal order itself
or the essences of things, which determine their degrees of perfection. Male-
branche was opposed to Descartes's voluntarism. See the tenth "Clarification" of
the Search for Truth.
3. For Malebranche, relations of greatness hold between ideas of the same nature, as
between a fathom and a foot, whereas relations of perfection hold between ideas
of different natures, as between body and spirit or mind.
4. "Liberal" in the sense of displaying the virtue of liberality or generosity.
5. Malebranche was arguing here that unenlightened religious faith may do some-
thing to lead men to virtue because it may facilitate the acquisition of a grace that
comes before merit, a prevenient grace, and this may show itself by one's taking
pleasure in virtue. But, as he continued, virtue arising from the love of clearly seen
order is firmer and much better.
6. This is the core of Malebranche's occasionalism, here turned to show that we
ought to love God above all else.
7. Malebranche considered all human actions (like every other motion) as only occa-
sional causes, that is, as not having any real power to do anything. Only God has
such power. Within this metaphysical framework, Malebranche was telling us we
must respect what are commonly thought to be earthly superior powers.

Further Reading
Volume 11 of Andre Robinet, ed., Oeuvres completes de Malebranche (Paris: Vrin,
1966), is a modern edition of the Traite de morale.
Malebranche's major philosophical work, De la recherche de la verite, was translated
into English by Thomas M. Lennon and Paul Olscamp as The Search After Truth (Colum-
bus: Ohio State University Press, 1980). Another of his works available in English,
Dialogues on Metaphysics, trans. M. Ginsberg (London: Allen & Unwin, 1923), is a
good introduction to Malebranche's epistemological and metaphysical views.
Although Malebranche has been much studied by the French, there is little about
him in English, no recent general review of his philosophy, and only one book on his
ethics: Craig Walton, De la Recherche du Bien, A Study of Malebranche's Science of
Ethics (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972). Michael E. Hobart, Science and Religion in the
Thought of Nicholas Malebranche (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,
1982), does not discuss the ethics. Patrick Riley discusses the political bearing of
274 Nicholas Malebranche
Malebranche's metaphysical, religious, and moral views — particularly the thesis that
God always acts by general laws — in The General Will Before Rousseau (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1986). For the political context of Malebranche's
work, see Nannerl 0. Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1980), pp. 308-10. Ira 0. Wade, Intellectual Origins of the
French Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971), esp. pp.
418-36, explains Malebranche's importance to later French thought.
Charles McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1983), is a good study of the influence of Malebranche's views on British thought.
 Ralph Cudworth

Introduction

Cudworth was born in 1617 and died in 1688, thus living through the troubled years of
rebellion and restoration in England. It was a time during which the Puritans' Calvinist
views attained and then lost dominance. Conflicting philosophies and theologies
moved rapidly from the bookshelf to the battlefield, and ecclesiastical and academic
positions were given and taken away on doctrinal grounds; never before had public life
been so divided by ideology. The concurrent growth of scientific knowledge was prov-
ing as unsettling to some thinkers as was Hobbes's powerful secular vision of morals
and politics.
Cudworth attended Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and was elected a fellow in 1639.
While a student, he came under the influence of Benjamin Whichcote, a leading figure
among the opponents of strongly Calvinistic versions of Christianity. Cudworth was
sympathetic enough to the Puritans, however, to be appointed by them to the mastership
of Clare College and to serve on committees for the Parliament they controlled. None-
theless, in the sermon he gave at the invitation of Parliament in 1647, Cudworth spoke as
a follower of Whichcote's. He argued eloquently against making matters of doctrine and
ritual central to the Christian life, defended the independence of standards of good and
evil from God's will, and stressed the importance of a moral life that all people could
lead regardless of their differences regarding religious doctrines.
After a few years away from Cambridge, Cudworth returned in 1654 as master of
Christ's College. He wrote a great deal but hesitated to publish anything. In 1678,
however, his massive treatise The True Intellectual System of the Universe was issued,
but it was not until 1731 that his Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality
appeared, and his incomplete Treatise of Freewill was not published until 1838.
Cudworth's influence, however, may have been greater than this publication record
suggests, as his manuscripts were available to a few people before their publication,
and his daughter, Damaris Lady Masham, who was a close friend of John Locke's, did
much to disseminate her father's thought. Cudworth's substantial extant manuscripts
are now being studied by scholars, but until more work is done on them, our knowl-
edge of his views will remain incomplete.
Cudworth served as professor of Hebrew at Cambridge and was a man of enormous
erudition. His True Intellectual System is so crammed with learning and quotations that
it was long considered valuable mainly for the historical lessons offered. Yet Cudworth
was an acute philosopher, with a far greater ability to work out a systematic view than
that of any of the other Cambridge thinkers with whom he was allied. Centered at
Emmanuel College and known as the Cambridge Platonists, this group was united by a

275
276 Ralph Cudworth

desire to present Christianity as teaching that morality matters more than dogma does
and that morality is chiefly a matter of love, of showing to one another God's love to
us. The Platonists were strongly opposed to Puritan interpretations of their religion,
and they welcomed the advances of the new science, seeing in them nothing to
threaten the core of faith. For they held that religion is wholly reasonable and that
reason cannot conflict with itself.
"In the use of reason and the exercise of virtue, we enjoy God," stated Benjamin
Whichcote, summing up two key points of the Platonists' view. And in one of his most
famous aphorisms, he observed, "There are but two things in religion: morals and
institutions. Morals may be known by the reason of the thing; morals are owned [i.e.,
accepted] as soon as spoken, and they are nineteen parts in twenty of all religion."
Against the voluntarism of the Puritans — and with the belief that Hobbes was also a
voluntarist — Whichcote remarked, "The moral part of religion never alters. Moral
laws are laws of themselves, without sanction by will; and the necessity of them arises
from the things themselves." He approached this also from another angle: "The spirit
of God in us is a living law, informing the soul; not constrained by a law without, that
enlivens not; but we act in the power of an inward principle of life, which enables,
inclines, facilitates, determines." We can be moved by this lad within Ili, Whichcote
believed with his colleagues, because lire are free. The Pietentsts dust obbOted the
predestinarianism of the Puritans and the determinism of Hobbts. They wore equally
opposed to materialistic doctrines, as these cut at the root of their belief that it is in our
communion with God, through reason, that we acquire the living knowledge of moral-
ity that is indispensable to salvation.
Some of the Platonists, like Henry More, wrote philosophical treatises; others, like
Whichcote and John Smith, confined themselves to sermons and tracts. Even More
found it difficult to write a convincing philosophical articulation and defense of the
Platonists' position. If anyone provided a philosophy for the Platonists, it was
Cudworth.
Cudworth's Mee Intellectual System is an attempt to refute deterministit . It begins by
attacking atheism, which Cudworth assumed was implied by materialism. Hence he
attacked Hobbes's materialisln and also the more complex materialism attributing to
matter its own kind of soul — an ancient doctrine that, Cudworth thought, was being
revived by Spinoza. Cudworth tried to replace these views with a dualism of active arid
passive entities, of which the active ones are like the human mind, although there are
other kinds of active entities as well. The view that the human mind is active is central
to Cudworth's ethics, but unfortunately in the published work the details are not
spelled out. In the treatise on morality, however, Cudworth argued on epistemologiesl
grounds that the mind cannot only be a passive recipient of sensation it must also
contribute substantially from its own resourcest. in for us to have the knowledge
we have. This holds for both scientific and moral knowledge. The mind brings to the
world its innate understanding of God's mind, of which we can have a rational, if only
a partial, grasp. This knowledge is gathered from outside the self and is also involved
in its central identity. Hence it can provide us with reason to act as it directs: external
inducements, punishments and rewards, are unnecessary.
Cudworth's opposition to voluntarism is evident throughout the Treatise Concerning
Eternal and Immutable Morality. He vadat to oppose both the voluntarist view of the
ultimate unintelligibility of God's direction of our lives and the model of morality as
laws backed by sanctions. In the published work Cudworth offered little or nothing of
an alternative vision of morality. But it would be consonant with the general views of
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 277
the Platonists to assume that, Ilor Wm, morality was an expression of proper love turd
laisioraiity was excessive self-love,. What is perhaps less evident in the Treatise is
Cudworth's insistence that although morality requires no punishment-wielding legisla-
tor, God is nonetheless indispensable to the moral life. In knowing what morality
requires, we are knowing God's mind, without which we would be able to know only
our own, separate minds. Because we would then have no common moral knowledge,
it is plain that the human community is held together through God. Cudworth's Trea-
4ise is essentially a work of moral epistemology. It shows us the subject emerging as
part of an overall defense of a Christian view.
The following selections are from A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable
Morality, London, 1731. I have modernized some of the spelling, capitalization, italics,
and punctuation.

A Treatise Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality

BOOK I

Chapter I
I. As the vulgar generally look no higher for the original of moral good and
evil, just and unjust, than the codes and pandects, the tables and laws of their
country and religion; so there have not wanted pretended philosophers in all
ages who have asserted nothing to be good and evil, just and unjust, naturally
and immutably; but that all these things were positive, arbitrary and factitious
only. . . .
Of this sort is that late writer of ethics and politics' who asserts "that there
are no authentic doctrines concerning just and unjust, good and evil, except
the laws which are established in every city; and that it concerns none to
inquire whether an action shall be reputed just or unjust, good or evil, except
such only whom the community have appointed to be the interpreters of their
laws."
And again, "even a Christian government hath power to determine what is
righteous, and what is the transgression of it."
And he gives us the same over again in English: "In the state of nature
nothing can be unjust; the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice
have there no place; where there is no common power, there is no law; where
no law, no transgression. No law, can be unjust." Nay, temperance is no more
naturally according to this civil (or rather uncivil) philosopher, than justice.
"Sensuality in that sense in which it is condemned, hath no place till there be
laws."
5. But whatsoever was the true meaning of these philosophers, that affirm
justice and injustice to be only by law and not by nature (of which I shall
discourse afterwards,) certain it is that divers modern theologers do not only
seriously but zealously contend in like manner that there is nothing absolutely,
intrinsically and naturally good and evil, just and unjust antecedently to any
positive command or prohibition of God; but that the arbitrary will and
278 Ralph Cudworth

pleasure of God (that is, an omnipotent being devoid of all essential and
natural justice), by its commands and prohibitions, is the first and only rule
and measure thereof. Whence it follows unavoidably that nothing can be
imagined so grossly wicked or so foully unjust or dishonest but if it were
supposed to be commanded by this omnipotent deity, must needs upon that
hypothesis forthwith become holy, just and righteous. For though the ancient
fathers of the Christian church were very abhorrent from this doctrine (as
shall be shewed hereafter) yet it crept up afterward in the scholastic age,
Ockham2 being among the first that maintained that there is no act evil but as
it is prohibited by God, and which cannot be made good if it be commanded
by God. And so on the other hand as to good. . . .
But this doctrine hath been since chiefly promoted and advanced by such as
think nothing so essential to the deity as uncontrollable power and arbitrary
will, and therefore that God could not be God if there should be anything evil
in its own nature which he could not do; and who impute such dark counsels
and dismal actions unto God, as cannot be justified otherwise than by saying
that whatsoever God can be supposed to do or will, will be for that reason
good or just, because he wills it.
Now the necessary and unavoidable consequences of this opinion are such
as these, that to love God is by nature an indifferent thing, and is morally
good only because it is commanded by God; that to prohibit the love of God,
or command the hatred of God, is not inconsistent with the nature of God,
but only with his free will; 3 that it is not inconsistent with the natural equity of
God to command blasphemy, perjury, lying, etc. That God may command
what is contrary, as to all the precepts of the decalogue, so especially to the
first, second, third; that holiness is not a conformity with the nature of God;
that God may oblige man to what is impossible; 4 that God hath no natural
inclination to the good of the creatures; that God can justly doom an innocent
creature to eternal torment.' All which propositions with others of like kind
are word for word asserted by some late authors. . . . And yet [none of these
writers] are to be thought any more blame-worthy herein, than many others
that holding the same premises have either dissembled or disowned those
conclusions which unavoidably follow therefrom, but rather to be com-
mended for their openness, simplicity and ingenuity, 6 in representing their
opinion nakedly to the world, such as indeed it is, without any veil or mask.
Wherefore since there are so many, Both philosophers and theologers, that
seemingly and verbally acknowledge such things as moral good and evil, just
and unjust, that contend notwithstanding that these are not by nature but
institution,' and that there is nothing naturally or immutably just or unjust, I
shall from hence fetch the rise of this ethical discourse or inquiry concerning
things good and evil, just and unjust, laudable and shameful (for so I find
these words frequently used as synonymous in Plato and other ancient au-
thors) demonstrating in the first place that if there be anything at all good or
evil, just or unjust, there must of necessity be something naturally and immu-
table good and just. And from thence I shall proceed afterward to shew what
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 279
this natural, immutable, and eternal justice is, with the branches and species
of it.

Chapter II
1. Wherefore in the first place, it is a thing which we shall very easily
demonstrate that moral good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest
(if they be not mere names without any signification, or names for nothing
else, but willed and commanded, but have a reality in respect of the persons
obliged to do and avoid them) cannot possibly be arbitrary things, made by
will without nature; because it is universally true that things are what they are,
not by will but by nature. As for example, things are white by whiteness, and
black by blackness, triangular by triangularity, and round by rotundity, like by
likeness, and equal by equality, that is, by such certain natures of their own.
Neither can omnipotence itself (to speak with reverence) by mere will make a
thing white or black without whiteness or blackness; that is, without such
certain natures, whether we consider them as qualities in the objects without
us according to the peripatetical philosophy, or as certain dispositions of parts
in respect of magnitude, figure, site and motion, which beget those sensations
or phantasms of white and black in us. 8 Or, for instance in geometrical figures,
omnipotence itself cannot by mere will make a body triangular, without hav-
ing the nature and properties of a triangle in it; that is, without having three
angles equal to two right ones, nor circular without the nature of a circle; that
is, without having a circumference equidistant everywhere from the center or
middle point. Or lastly, to instance in things relative only; omnipotent will
cannot make things like or equal one to another, without the natures of
likeness and equality. The reason whereof is plain, because all these things
imply a manifest contradiction; that things should be what they are not. And
this is truth fundamentally necessary to all knowledge, that contradictories
cannot be true: For otherwise, nothing would be certainly true or false. Now
things may as well be made white or black by mere will, without whiteness or
blackness, equal and unequal, without equality and inequality, as morally
good and evil, just and unjust, honest and dishonest, debita and illicita, 9 by
mere will, without any nature of goodness, justice, honesty. For though the
will of God be the supreme efficient cause of all things and can produce into
being or existence or reduce into nothing what it pleaseth, yet it is not the
formal cause of anything besides itself, as the schoolmen have determined in
these words, that God himself cannot supply the place of a formal cause. w
Andtherfoicasuplythermcaonufjstier-
tice, honestly or dishonestly. Now all that we have hitherto said amounts to no
more than this, that it is impossible anything should be by will only, that is,
without a nature or entity, or that the nature and essence of any thing should
be arbitrary.
2. And since a thing cannot be made anything by mere will without a being
i.or nature, everything must be necessarily and immutably determined by its
280 Ralph Cudworth
own nature, and the nature of things be that which it is, and nothing else. For
though the will and power of God have an absolute, infinite and unlimited
command upon the existences of all created things to make them to be, or not
to be at pleasure; yet when things exist, they are what they are, this or that,
absolutely or relatively, not by will or arbitrary command, but by the necessity
of their own nature. . . .
3. Now the necessary consequence of that which we have hitherto said is
this, that it is so far from being true that all moral good and evil, just and
unjust are mere arbitrary and factitious things that are created wholly by will,
that (if we would speak properly) we must needs say that nothing is morally
good or evil, just or unjust by mere will without nature, because everything is
what it is by nature, and not by will. For though it will be objected here that
when God or civil powers command a thing to be done that was not before
obligatory or unlawful, the thing willed or commanded doth forthwith become
obligatory; that which ought to be done by creatures and subjects respec-
tively; in which the nature of moral good or evil is commonly conceived to
consist. And therefore if all good and evil, just and unjust be not the creatures
of mere will (as many assert) yet at least positive things must needs owe all
their morality, their good and evil to mere will without nature. Yet notwith-
standing, if we well consider it we shall find that oven in positive commands
themselves, mere will doth not make the thing commanded just or obligatory,
or beget and create any obligation to obedience; but that it is natural justice or
equity, which gives to one the right or authority of commanding, and begets in
another duty and obligation to obedience. Therefore it is observable that laws
and commands do not run thus, to will that this or that thing shall become just
or unjust, obligatory or unlawful; or that men shall be obliged or bound to
obey; but only to require that something be done or not done, or otherwise to
menace punishment to the transgressors thereof. For it was never heard of
that any one founded all his authority of commanding others and others'
obligation or duty to obey his commands in a law of his own making, that men
should be required, obliged, or bound to obey him. Wherefore since the thing
willed in all laws is not that men should be bound or obliged to obey, this thing
cannot be the product of the mere will of the commander, but it must proceed
from something else; namely, the right or authority of the commander, which
is founded in natural justice and equity, and an antecedent obligation to
obedience in the subjects; which things are not made by laws but presupposed
before all laws to make them valid. And if it should be imagined that anyone
should make a positive law to require that others should be obliged or bound
to obey him, everyone would think such a law ridiculous and absurd; for if
they were obliged before, then this law would be in vain, and to no purpose;
and if they were not before obliged, then they could not be obliged by any
positive law, because they were not previously bound to obey such a person's
commands. So that obligation to obey all positive laws is older than all laws,
and previous or antecedent to them. Neither is it a thing that is arbitrarily
made by will or can be the object of command, but that which either is or is
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 281
not by nature. And if this were not morally good and just in its own nature
before any positive command of God, that God should be obeyed by his
creatures, the bare will of God himself could not beget an obligation upon any
to do what he willed and commanded, because the natures of things do not
depend upon will, being not things that are arbitrarily made, but things that
are. To conclude therefore, even in positive laws and commands it is not mere
will that obligeth, but the natures of good and evil, just and unjust, really
existing in the world.
4. Wherefore that common distinction betwixt things, things naturally and
positively good and evil, or (as others express it) betwixt things that are
therefore commanded because they are good and just, and things that are
therefore good and just, because they are commanded," stands in need of a
right explication, that we be not led into a mistake thereby, as if the obligation
to do those thetical 12 and positive things did arise wholly from will without
nature, whereas it is not the mere will and pleasure of him that commandeth
that obligeth to do positive things commanded, but the intellectual nature of
him that is commanded. Wherefore the difference of these things lies wholly
in this, that there are some things which the intellectual nature obligeth to of
itself, and directly, absolutely and perpetually, and these things are called
naturally good and evil; other things there are which the same intellectual
nature obligeth to by accident only, and hypothetically, upon condition of
some voluntary action either of our own or some other persons, by means
whereof those things which were in their own nature indifferent, falling under
something that is absolutely good or evil and thereby acquiring a new relation
to the intellectual nature do for the time become such things as ought to be
done or omitted, being made such not by will but by nature. As for example,
to keep faith and perform covenants is that which natural justice obligeth to
absolutely; therefore upon the supposition that any one maketh a promise,
which is a voluntary act of his own, to do something which he was not before
obliged to by natural justice, upon the intervention of this voluntary act of his
own, that indifferent thing promised falling now under something absolutely
good, and becoming the matter of promise and covenant, standeth for the
present in a new relation to the rational nature of the promiser, and becometh
for the time a thing which ought to be done by him, or which he is obliged to
do. Not as if the mere will of words and breath of him that covenanteth had
any power to change the moral natures of things, or any ethical virtue of
obliging; but because natural justice and equity obligeth to keep faith and
perform covenants. In like manner natural justice, that is, the rational or
intellectual nature, obligeth not only to obey God, but also civil powers, that
have lawful authority of commanding, and to observe political order amongst
men; and therefore if God or civil powers command any thing to be done that
is not unlawful in itself, upon the intervention of this voluntary act of theirs
those things that were before indifferent become by accident for the time
obligatory, such things as ought to be done by us, not for their own sakes, but
for the sake of that which natural justice absolutely obligeth to.
282 Ralph Cudworth
And these are the things that are commonly called positively good and evil,
just or unjust, such as though they are adiaphorous 13 or indifferent in them-
selves, yet natural justice obligeth to accidentally on supposition of the volun-
tary action of some other person rightly qualified in commanding, whereby
they fall into something absolutely good. Which things are not made good or
due by the mere will or pleasure of the commander, but by that natural justice
which gives him right and authority of commanding, and obligeth others to
obey him; without which natural justice, neither covenants nor commands
could possibly oblige any one. For the will of another does no more oblige in
commands, than our own will in promises and covenants. To conclude there-
fore, things called naturally good and due are such things as the intellectual
nature obliges to immediately, absolutely and perpetually, and upon no condi-
tion of any voluntary action that may be done or omitted intervening; but
those things that are called positively good and due are such as natural justice
or the intellectual nature obligeth to accidentally and hypothetically, upon
condition of some voluntary act of another person invested with lawful author-
ity in commanding.
And that it is not the mere will of the commander that makes these positive
things to oblige or become due, but the nature of things, appears evidently
from hence, because it is not the volition of everyone that obligeth, but of a
person rightly qualified and invested with lawful authority; and because the
liberty of commanding is circumscribed within certain bounds and limits, so
that if any commander go beyond the sphere and bounds that nature sets him,
which are indifferent things, his commands will not at all oblige.

Chapter III
1. But some there are that will still contend that though it should be granted
that moral good and evil, just and unjust do not depend upon any created will,
yet notwithstanding they must needs depend upon the arbitrary will of God
because the natures and essences of all things, and consequently all verities
and falsities, depend upon the same. For if the natures and essences of things
should not depend upon the will of God, it would follow from hence that
something that was not God was independent upon God.
2. And this is plainly asserted by that ingenious philosopher Renatus Des
Cartes.. . 14
. . . whether Cartesius were in jest or earnest in this business it matters not,
for his bare authority ought to be no more valued by us than the authority of
Aristotle and other ancient philosophers was by him, whom he so freely
dissents from.
4. For thougliihe names of things may be changed b an ne at pleasure, as
that a square may be called a circle, or a cube a sphere ye that the nature of a
square should not be necessarily what it is, but be arbitrarily convertible into
the nature of a circle, and so the essence of a circle into the essence of a
sphere, or that the self-same body, which is perfectly cubical, without any
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 283

physical alteration made in it, should by this metaphysical way of transforma-

tion of essences by mere will and command be made spherical or cylindrical;
this doth most plainly imply a contradiction, and the compossibility of contra-
dictions destroys all knowledge and the definite natures or notions of things.
Nay, that which implies a contradiction is a non-entity and therefore cannot be
the object of divine power. And the reason is the same for all other things, as
just and unjust; for everything is what it is immutably by the necessity of its
own nature; neither is it any derogation at all from the power of God to say
that he cannot make a thing to be that which it is not. Then there might be no
such thing as knowledge in God himself. God might will that there should be
no such thing as knowledge.
5. And as to the being or not being of particular essences, as that God might
if he pleased have willed that there should be no such thing as a triangle or
circle and therefore nothing demonstrable or knowable of either of them,
which is likewise asserted by Cartesius, and those that make the essences of
things dependent upon an arbitrary will in God: This is all one as if one should
say that God could have willed, if he had pleased, that neither his own power
nor knowledge should be infinite.
6. Now it is certain that if the natures and essences of all things, as to their
being such or such, do depend upon a will of God that is essentially arbitrary,
there can be no such thing as science or demonstration nor the truth of any
mathematical or metaphysical proposition be known any otherwise than by
some revelation of the will of God concerning it, and by a certain enthusiastic
or fanatic faith and persuasion thereupon that God would have such a thing to
be true or false at such a time or for so long. And so nothing would be true or
false naturally but positively only, all truth and science being mere arbitrary
things. Truth and falsehood would be only names. Neither would there be any
more certainty in the knowledge of God himself, since it must wholly depend
upon the mutability of a will in him essentially indifferent and undetermined;
and if we would speak properly according to this hypothesis, God himself
would not know or be wise by knowledge or by wisdom, but by will.
7. Wherefore as for that argument that unless the essences of things and all
verities and falsities depend upon the arbitrary will of God, there would be
something that was not God, independent upon God; if it be well considered,
it will prove a mere bugbear, and nothing so terrible and formidable as
Cartesius seemed to think it. For there is no other genuine consequence
deducible from this assertion that the essences and verities of things are
independent upon the will of God, but that there is an eternal and immutable
wisdom in the mind of God, and thence participated by created beings inde-
pendent upon the will of God. Now the Wisdom of God is as much God as the
Will of God; and whether of these two things in God, that is, will or wisdom,
should depend upon the other, will be best determined from the several
natures of them. For wisdom in itself hath the nature of a rule and measure, it
being a most determinate and inflexible thing; but will being not only a blind
and dark thing, as considered in itself, but also indefinite and indeterminate,
284 Ralph Cudworth

hath therefore the nature of a thing regulable and measurable. Wherefore it is

the perfection of will, as such, to be guided and determined by wisdom and
truth; but to make wisdom, knowledge and truth to be arbitrarily determined
by will and to be regulated by such a plumbean 15 and flexible rule as that is, is
quite to destroy the nature of it; for science or knowledge is the comprehen-
sion of that which necessarily is, and there can be nothing more contradictory
than truth and falsehood arbitrary. Now all the knowledge and wisdom that is
in creatures, whether angels or men, is nothing else but a participation of that
one eternal, immutable and increased wisdom of God, or several signatures of
that one archetypal seal, or like so many multiplied reflections of one and the
same face, made in several glasses, whereof some are clearer, some obscurer,
some standing nearer, some further off.
8. Moreover, it was the opinion of the wisest of the philosophers (as we shall
show afterward) that there is also in the scale of being a nature of goodness
superior to wisdom, which therefore measures and determines the wisdom of
God, as his wisdom measures and determines his will. . . . Wherefore al-
though some noveliste make a contracted idea of God consisting of nothing
else but will and power, yet his nature is better expressed by some in this
mystical or enigmatical representation of an infinite circle, whose inmost
center is simple goodness, the rays and expanded plat" thereof, all compre-
hending and immutable wisdom, the exterior periphery or interminate circum-
ference, omnipotent will or activity, by which everything without God is
brought forth into existence. Wherefore the will and power of God have no
command inwardly either upon the wisdom and knowledge of God, or upon
the ethical and moral disposition of his nature, which is his essential goodness;
but the sphere of its activity is without God, where it hath an absolute com-
mand upon the existences of things; and is always free, though not always
indifferent, since it is its greatest perfection to be determined by infinite
wisdom and infinite goodness. But this is to anticipate what according to the
laws of method should follow afterward in another place.

BOOK IV

Chapter I
7. Wherefore it is evident from what we have declared that there are two
kinds of perceptive cogitations in the soul, the one passive, when the soul
perceives by suffering from its body, and the objects without; the other active,
when it perceives by exerting its own native vigour from within itself. The
passive perceptions of the soul have two several names given unto them; for
when the soul, by sympathizing with the body, seems to perceive corporeal
things as present and really existing without it, then they are called sensations.
But when the passive affections of the soul are looked upon not as things
really existing without the mind, but only as pictures of sensible things in the
mind, or more crass or corporeal cogitations, then they are called phantasms
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 285
or imaginations. But these phantasms and sensations being really the same
things, as we said before, both of them being passions or affections in the soul,
caused by some local motions in the body, and the difference between them
being only accidental, insomuch that phantasms may be changed into sensa-
tions, and sometimes also sensations into phantasms, therefore all these pas-
sive perceptions of the soul may be called in general phantasms. But the active
perceptions which rise from the mind itself without the body are commonly
called conceptions of the mind; and so we have the two species of perceptive
cogitations; the one phantasms, and the other conceptions of the mind.
8. Now that all our perceptive cogitations are not phantasms, as many
contend, but that there is another species of perceptive cogitations distinct
from them, arising from the active vigour of the mind itself, which we there-
fore call conceptions of the mind, is demonstrably evident from hence; be-
cause phantasms are nothing else but sensible ideas, images or pictures of
outward objects, such as are caused in the soul by sense; whence it follows
that nothing is the object of fancy but what is also the object of sense, nothing
can be fancied by the soul but what is perceptible by sense. But there are
many objects of our mind which we can neither see, hear, feel, smell nor taste,
and which did never enter into it by any sense; and therefore we can have no
sensible pictures or ideas of them, drawn by the pencil of that inward limner
or painter which borrows all his colours from sense, which we call fancy; and if
we reflect on our own cogitations of these things we shall sensibly perceive
that they are not phantastical, but noematical. 18 As, for example, justice,
equity, duty and obligation, cogitation, opinion, intellection, volition, mem-
ory, verity, falsity, cause, effect, genus, species, nullity, contingency, possibil-
ity, impossibility, and innumerable more such there are that will occur to any
one that shall turn over the vocabularies of any language, none of which can
have any sensible picture drawn by the pencil of the fancy. And there are
many whole propositions likewise in which there is not any one work or
notion that we can have any genuine phantasm of, much less can fancy reach
to an apprehension of the necessity of the connexion of the terms. As for
example, nothing can be and not be at the same time. What proper and
genuine phantasms can any perceive in his mind either of nothing, or can, or
be, or and, or not be, or at the same, or time. . . .

Chapter II
10. There are many other such ideas of the mind, of certain wholes made up
of several corporeal parts, which, though sometimes locally discontinued, yet
are joined together by relations, and habitudes to one another (founded in
some actions of them, as they are cogitative beings) and by order all conspir-
ing into one thing; which, though they are altogether imperceptible by sense,
and therefore were never stamped or impressed upon the mind from the
objects without; yet, notwithstanding, are not mere figments or beings of
reason but things of the greatest reality, founded in certain actions of thinking
286 Ralph Cudworth
and cogitative beings; which are altogether imperceptible by sense and there-
fore could not possibly be outwardly stamped upon the mind; as for example,
a polity or commonwealth, called an artificial man, which is a company of
many united together by consent or contract under one government, to be
regulated by some certain laws as it were by one will for the good of the
whole; where, though the eye may see the particular persons (or at least their
outsides) that are the respective members thereof, yet it can neither see the
bond which unites them together, which is nothing but relation, nor compre-
hend the whole that is made up of them, that is, a polity or commonwealth
according to the formal nature of it, which is an idea that proceeds merely
from the unitive power and activity of the mind itself. . . .
13. Just in the same manner it happens many times in the contemplation of
that great self-mover of the material universe which is the artifice of God, the
artifice of the best mechanist, though there be no more passively impressed
upon us from it than there is upon the diaphanous air or liquid ether contigu-
ous to all solid bodies by local motion, of which only sensitive beings have
conscious perception; yet there is a wonderful scene of various thoughts and
motions raised in the mind thereupon, which are only occasionally invited by
those stamps and impressions made from the material fabric and its various
furniture without, but owe their true original and efficiency to nothing else
but the innate vigour and activity of the mind itself. Some of which we have
already instanced in the ideas of those relative considerations of corporeal
things themselves and their parts to one another, by means of which the
intellect rises up to that comprehensive view of the natures of particular
corporeal things and the universal mundane system within itself all at once;
which sense perceiving only by little and little, and taking in as it were point
after point, cannot sum up its partial perceptions into the entire idea of any
one whole. But the intellect doth not rest here, but upon occasion of those
corporeal things thus comprehended in themselves naturally rises higher to
the framing and exciting of certain ideas from within itself of other things not
existing in those sensible objects but absolutely incorporeal. For being rav-
ished with the contemplation of this admirable mechanism and artificial con-
trivance of the material universe, forthwith it naturally conceives it to be
nothing else but the passive stamp, print and signature of some living art and
wisdom as the pattern, archetype and seal of it, and so excites from within
itself an idea of that divine art and wisdom. Nay, considering further how all
things in this great mundane machine or animal (as the ancients would have it)
are contrived not only for the beauty of the whole but also for the good of
every part of it that is endued with life and sense, it exerts another idea, viz. of
goodness and benignity from within itself, besides that of art and wisdom, as
the queen regent and empress of art whereby art is employed, regulated and
determined; now both these things, whereof the first is art, wisdom and
knowledge; the second, goodness, benignity and morality, being looked upon
as modes of some intellectual being or mind in which they exist, it from hence
presently makes up an idea of God, as the author or architect of this great and
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 287
boundless machine; a mind infinitely good and wise; and so as it were re-
sounds and re-echoes back the great creator's name, which from those visible
characters impressed upon the material universe had pierced loudly into its
ears, but in such an indiscernible manner, that sense listening never so atten-
tively could not perceive the least murmur or whisper of it. And this is the
most natural scale by which the intellectual mind in the contemplation of
corporeal things ascends to God; from the passive prints and signatures of that
one art and wisdom that appears in the universe, by taking notice from thence
of the exemplary or archetypal cause, one infinite and eternal mind setting his
seal upon all. For as he that hears a consort of musicians playing a lesson
consisting of six or eight several parts, all conspiring to make up one harmony,
will immediately conclude that there was some other cause of that harmony
besides those several particular efficients 19 that struck the several instruments;
for every one of them could be but a cause of his own part which he played.
But the unity of the whole harmony into which all the several parts conspire
must needs proceed from the art and musical skill of some one mind, the
exemplary and archetypal cause of that vocal harmony which was but a pas-
sive print or stamp of it. So though the atheist might possibly persuade himself
that every particular creature was the first author or efficient of that part
which it played in the universe by a certain innate power of its own; yet all the
parts of the mundane system conspiring into one perfect harmony, there must
of necessity be some one universal mind, the archetypal and exemplary cause
thereof, containing the plot of the whole mundane music as one entire thing
made up of so many several parts within himself. . . .

Chapter V
5. But probably it may be here demanded how a man shall know when his
conceptions are conformed to the absolute and immutable natures of essences
of things and their unchangeable relations to one another? Since the immedi-
ate objects of intellection exist in the mind itself, we must not go about to look
for the criterion of truth without ourselves by consulting individual sensibles
as the exemplars of our ideas and measuring our conceptions by them. And
how is it possible to know by measuring of sensible squares that the diameter
of every square is incommensurable with the sides? Nay, as was observed
before, the necessary truth of no geometrical theorem can ever be examined,
proved, or determined by sensible things mechanically. And though the eter-
nal divine intellect be the archetypal rule of truth, we cannot consult that,
neither, to see whether our conceptions be commensurate with it. I answer
therefore, that the criterion of true knowledge is not to be looked for any-
where abroad without our own minds, neither in the heighth above nor in the
depth beneath, but only in our knowledge and conceptions themselves.r
Itterentity of all theoretical truth is nothing else but clear intelligibility, and
whatever is clearly conceived is an entity and a truth; but that which is false,
divine power itself cannot make it to be clearly and distinctly understood,
288 Ralph Cudworth
because falsehood is a non-entity, and a clear conception is an entity: and
omnipotence itself cannot make a non-entity to be an entity.
Wherefore no man ever was or can be deceived in taking that for an
epistemonica1 2° truth which he clearly and distinctly apprehends, but only in
assenting to things not clearly apprehended by him, which is the only true
original of all error. . . .
11. It is a fond imagination for any to suppose that it is derogatory to the
glory of God to bestow or import any such gift upon his creatures as knowl-
edge is, which hath an intrinsical evidence within itself, or that creatures
should have a certainty of the first principles which all men are conscious that
they do so clearly understand that they cannot doubt of them, as that Nihili
nulla est affectio. Aequalia addita aequalibus efficient aequalia;21 without
which they can know nothing at all; though they be notwithstanding ignorant,
doubting, and erring in many things, and slowly proceed in their ratiocinations
from one thing to another; whereas on the contrary it is plainly derogatory to
it22
t osuppose that God cannot make any creature that can possibly have any
certain knowledge of God's own existence or anything more than a bare
credulity of the same.
12.Wherefore since it cannot be denied but every clear apprehension is an
entity and the essence of truth is nothing but clear intelligibility, those philoso-
phers must lay the stress of their cause here, that intellectual faculties may be
so made as that men can never certainly tell when they have clear apprehen-
sions, but may think they have them when they have not.
And it cannot be denied but that men are oftentimes deceived and think
they clearly comprehend what they do not. But it does not follow from hence,
because men sometimes think that they clearly comprehend what they do not,
that therefore they can never be certain that they do clearly comprehend
anything; which is just as if we should argue that because in our dreams we
think we have clear sensations, we cannot therefore be ever sure when we are
awake that we see things that really are. . . .

Chapter VI
1. We have now abundantly consumed the Protagorean philosophy 23 which,
that it might be sure to destroy the immutable natures of just and unjust,
would destroy all science or knowledge and make it relative and phantastical.
Having shewed that this tenet is not only most absurd and contradictory in
itself but also manifestly repugnant to that very atomical physiology on which
Protagoras endeavored to found it, and than which nothing can more effectu-
ally confute and destroy it; and also largely demonstrated that though sense
be indeed a mere relative and phantastical perception, as Protagoras thus far
rightly supposed; yet notwithstanding there is a superior power of intellection
and knowledge of a different nature from sense, which is not terminated in
mere seeming and appearance only, but in the truth and reality of things, and
reaches to the comprehension of that which really and absolutely is, whose
 Concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality 289
objects are the eternal and immutable essences and natures of things, and
their unchangeable relations to one another. . . .
4. But I have not taken all this pain only to confute scepticism or phan-
tasticism, or merely to defend and corroborate our argument for the immuta-
ble natures of just and unjust, but also for some other weighty purposes that
are very much conducing to the business that we have in hand. And first of all,
that the soul is not a mere rasa tabula,24 a naked and passive thing which has
no innate furniture of activity of its own nor anything at all in it but what was
impressed upon it without; for if it were so then there could not possibly be
any such thing as moral good and evil, just and unjust; forasmuch as these
differences do not arise merely from the outward objects or from the im-
presses which they make upon us by sense, there being no such thing in them;
in which sense it is truly affirmed by the author of the Leviathan, page 24, that
"there is no common rule of good and evil to be taken from the nature of the
objects themselves," 25 that is, either considered absolutely in themselves or
relatively to external sense only, but according to some other interior analogy
which things have to a certain inward determination in the soul itself, from
whence the foundation of all this difference must need raise, as I shall shew
afterwards; not that the anticipations of morality spring merely from intellec-
Nal forms and notional ideas of the mind or from certain rules or proposi-
tions, arbitrarily printed upon the soul as upon a book, but from some other
more inward and vital principle in intellectual beings as such, whereby they
have a natural determination in them to do some things and to avoid others,
which could not be if they were mere naked passive things. . . .
5. Again, I have the rather insisted upon this argument also because that
which makes men so inclinable to think that justice, honesty and morality are
but thin, airy and phantastical things that have little or no entity or reality in
them besides sensuality is a certain opinion in philosophy which does usually
accompany it, that matter and body are the first original and source of all
things; that there is no incorporeal substance superior to matter and indepen-
dent upon it; and therefore that sensible things are the only real and substantial
things in nature; but souls and minds springing secondarily out of body, that
intellectuality and morality which belong unto them are but thin and evanid6
shadows of sensible and corporeal things and not natural but artificial and
factitious things that do as it were border upon the confines of non-entity. . . .
13. Lastly, I have insisted the rather so largely upon this argument for this
further reason also, because it is not possible that there should be any such
thing as morality unless there be a God, that is, an infinite eternal mind that is
the first original and source of all things, whose nature is the first rule and
exemplar of morality; for otherwise it is not conceivable whence any such
thing should be derived to particular intellectual beings. Now there can be no
such thing as God if stupid and senseless matter be the first original of all
things; and if all being and perfection that is found in the world, may spring up
and arise out of the dark womb of unthinking matter; but if knowledge and
understanding, if soul, mind and wisdom may result and emerge out of it, then
290 Ralph Cudworth
doubtless everything that appears in the world may; and so night, matter and
chaos must needs be the first and only original of all things.
15. Wherefore we have not only shewed that all intellection and knowledge
does not emerge or emane out of sense, but also that sense itself is not a
mere passion or reception of corporeal impresses without, but that it is an
active energy and vigour, though sympathetical in the sentient. And it is no
more possible that this should arise out of senseless matter and atoms by
reason of any peculiar contemperation or contexture of them in respect of
figure, site, and motion, than that which all atheists stoutly deny, that some-
thing should arise out of nothing.
And here we can never sufficiently applaud that ancient atomical philoso-
phy so successfully revived of late by Cartesius, in that it shews distinctly what
matter is and what it can amount unto, namely nothing else but what may be
produced from mere magnitude, figure, site, local motion, and rest; from
whence it is demonstrably evident and mathematically certain that no cogita-
tion can possibly arise out of the power of matter; whereas that other philoso-
phy which brings in a dark unintelligible matter that is nothing and everything,
out of whose potentiality not only innumerable qualities, but also substantial
forms and sensitive souls (and therefore why not rational also, since all reason
emerges out of sense) may be educed, must of necessity perpetually brood and
hatch atheism. Whereas we cannot but extremely admire that monstrous dot-
age and sottishness of Epicurus, and some other spurious pretenders to this
atomical philosophy, that notwithstanding they acknowledge nothing else in
matter besides magnitude, figure, site, and motion, yet would make not only
the power of sensation, but also of intellection and ratiocination and therefore
all human souls to arise from the mere contexture of corporeal atoms and
utterly explode all incorporeal substances; than which two assertions nothing
can be more contradictious. And this is far more absurd, to make reason and
intellection to arise from magnitude, figure and motion, than to attribute those
unintelligible qualities to matter which they explode.

Editor's Notes
1. Hobbes: Cudworth was citing both De cive and Leviathan, without giving refer-
ences and without quoting them exactly.
2. William of Ockham (1285-1349), the best known of the medieval voluntarists.
3. Among the medieval voluntarists it was a matter of debate whether God could
command creatures to hate him.
4. Here Cudworth was aiming at the Lutheran and Calvinist teaching about the
functions of the moral law. See the section "Luther and Calvin" in the Introduc-
tion to this anthology.
5. The target here is the doctrine of predestination: God chooses to give some people
grace and so to save them but does not give it to others equally undeserving. Of
course, the Calvinist reply would be that all are undeserving, rather than innocent,
because of Adam's sinfulness which we have inherited.
6. Not their cleverness — the modern sense — but their ingenuousness, candor, or
freedom from reserve.
 Further Reading 291
7. That is, by positive enactment that institutes them.
8. Cudworth was contrasting the older Aristotelian view of perception with the
modern Lockean theory.
9. Cudworth elsewhere treated debita as meaning "obligatory or just" and illicita as
meaning "unjust."
10. Although he himself was favorably inclined toward Cartesian science, Cudworth
here used the Aristotelian scholastic terminology to say that although God can
cause something to come into existence (be the efficient cause), he cannot cause a
formal set of properties to have the content and structure they do (be the cause of
a form or essence, what makes a thing the kind of thing it is).
11. A common distinction in natural law theory: things commanded because they are
good and just are the subjects of natural law; things good and just because com-
manded are the subjects of God's positive laws, such as those given to the Jews
concerning diet or to the Christians concerning worship.
12. Laid down by arbitrary institution.
13. Neither required nor forbidden.
14. Cudworth here was citing a passage from the "Replies" to the Sixth Set of Objec-
tions, given in the Descartes selections.
15. Made of lead and therefore malleable.
16. Innovators.
17. Area.
18. Pertaining not to the power of one's ability to fantasize or imagine but to the
power to think.
19. Efficient causes, that is, the players.
20. Capable of becoming an object of knowledge. The Oxford English Dictionary
cites only this passage as an example of the use of the term.
21. Nothing is caused by nothing; equals added to equals make e quals.
22. That is, God's glory.
23. Cudworth was referring to Protagoras of Abdera (490?-421? B.C.E.), the Sophist
who held that "man is the measure of all things," a relativism that Cudworth used
as a prototype of everything to which he objected.
24. Blank tablet.
25. Hobbes, Leviathan, chap. 6; in Oakeshott's edition, p. 32.
26. Evanescent, vanishing.
27. Emanate.

Further Reading
Two excellent anthologies of the Cambridge Platonists' writings, both with good bibli-
ographies, provide source material supplementing the Cudworth selections given here:
C. A. Patrides, ed., The Cambridge Platonists (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1980), and Gerald R. Cragg, ed., The Cambridge Platonists (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1968). Both of them contain selections from Whichcote's
"Aphorisms" and Cudworth's "Sermon to the House of Commons." There is no
modern edition of Cudworth's works.
The second volume of John Tulloch, Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in
England in the Seventeenth Century, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh: William Blackwood, 1874), is
still one of the best general studies of the Cambridge Platonists; chapter 4 is on
Cudworth. See also J. H. Muirhead, The Platonic Tradition in Anglo-Saxon Philoso-
phy (London: Allen & Unwin, 1931), of which pp. 33-71 discuss Cudworth; Ernst
Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in England, trans. James P. Pettegrove (Austin:
292 Ralph Cudworth
University of Texas Press, 1953); and Gordon R. Cragg, From Puritanism to the Age of
Reason: A Study of Religious Thought in the Church of England 1660-1770 (Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1950). John Redwood, Reason, Ridicule
and Religion (London: Thames & Hudson, 1976), chap. 2, discusses Cudworth's attack
on atheism.
Cudworth is usually discussed in connection with the Cambridge Platonists, but
there are some special studies of him. Of these, by far the best is J. A. Passmore, Ralph
Cudworth: An Interpretation (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1951). Lydia Gysi, Platonism and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth
(Bern: H. Lang, 1962), is less reliable. James Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, 3rd
ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1891), discusses Cudworth's ethics in vol. 2, pp. 427-
59. Arthur N. Prior examines Cudworth in Logic and the Basis of Ethics (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1949), chap. 2.
Finally, Cudworth's opposition to Hobbes's materialism and determinism is consid-
ered in Samuel Mintz, The Hunting of Leviathan (Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1962), chaps. 5 and 6.
 Samuel Clarke

Introduction
Samuel Clarke was not only a moral philosopher, he was also a theologian, a defender
and popularizer of Newton, and a successful Anglican minister whose sermons were
much admired. Born in 1675, he studied at Cambridge, where he had to learn New-
ton's Principia by himself because no one on the faculty understood it well enough to
help him. Clarke translated a textbook of Cartesian physics into Latin, inserting Newto-
nian doctrines into the footnotes to contradict the author he was translating. This
textbook was used at Cambridge as late as 1730. When he graduated, Clarke entered
the Church of England and eventually became chaplain to Queen Anne, who ap-
pointed him to a prosperous London church, where he remained until his death in
1729. Clarke was suspected of Unitarian leanings, however, and this lack of orthodoxy
regarding the doctrine of the Trinity lost him his chaplaincy and kept him from further
advancement.
Clarke's most enduring works were the lectures he gave in the series established by
the scientist Robert Boyle, who was eager to encourage up-to-date defenses of the
truth of Christianity. Clarke's Boyle lectures, A Discourse Concerning the Being and
Attributes of God (1704) and A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of
Natural Religion (1705), made him one of the most influential and frequently reprinted
philosophers of the early eighteenth century. A decade after giving these lectures,
Clarke began a correspondence with Leibniz, answering Leibniz's criticisms of New-
ton's views of space, time, and gravity. He and Leibniz each wrote five letters, which
were published in 1717.
The first set of Boyle lectures was intended to confute atheism. An atheist, Clarke
thought, must be one of three things: stupid, debauched, or misled by bad philosophy.
He attempted to cope with the third source of atheism, bad philosophy, by proving that
God not only exists but exists necessarily. He also argued that although we do not
comprehend God's substance, we can understand some of his attributes. Having
shown that the necessary being is eternal, infinite, and omnipresent, Clarke then tried
to show that God is intelligent, infinitely powerful, wise, and good and that he acts
freely. Clarke proved the necessity of God's existence a priori and the truth about
God's other attributes a posteriori from our experience of the causal order in which we
live and from the many perfections we find in it.
Clarke ended with a point that led to his views of morality. He argued that although
God necessarily always chooses what he sees to be eternally best and most fitting, his
freedom of action is in no way impaired. There is a moral necessity that he do what is
most fitting, but this is not a "necessity of fate." Moral necessity is consistent with

293
294 Samuel Clarke
perfect liberty; to think otherwise is to confuse moral motives with efficient causes,
such as those treated in Newton's physics. Because God freely chooses to make it his
rule to comply with the eternal fitnesses of things, he expects us to do so as well. Hence
if we act differently, Clarke asserted, we not only flout the eternal fitnesses of things
that reason reveals to us, we also affront God directly.
In the second set of lectures, Clarke defended the assumption that there are eternal
fitnesses of things that should guide our actions. He also claimed that we can be
moved, by being aware of these fitnesses, to do as they direct. These views, which
Clarke put forward in the first three of the fifteen propositions defended in these
lectures, are at the core of his ethics. He thus presented a theory asserting the indepen-
dence of morality from God's will. In so doing, his purpose was not to argue for human
autonomy but, rather, to provide the basis for his arguments in support of Christianity.
Assuming that he had refuted atheism, Clarke in these lectures attacked the deists,
those who admit there is an intelligent creator but who either deny that he concerns
himself with the world he made or believe that only what reason can show about him
need be accepted. His aim was to lead the deists beyond deism to Christianity. The
argument Clarke used to bring the deists to this point rested on an appeal to our moral
knowledge, which is independent of anything we think about Christianity.
The argument, briefly, is as follows: We know that to act virtuously is to act piously,
justly, benevolently, and prudently. But ordinary experience shows that even if we are
virtuous, we may nevertheless not be happy. It is evident, however, that the virtuous
deserve to be happy, and because God acts according to the principles we see to be
eternally true, we have reason to believe that the virtuous will get what they deserve.
Thus we have reason to believe in a future life. Most people cannot come to believe in
a future life by means of reasoning, and even the philosophers among the heathens
cannot obtain a full and clear grasp of the eternal moral truths. Without such knowl-
edge, however, it is not reasonable to expect people to be virtuous; yet they are
required to be so. This shows that a revelation is needed, and because God is benevo-
lent, it follows that there is reason to suppose that there has been a revelation. Further-
more, only the Christian revelation has the features we could reasonably expect in a
revelation from a just and benevolent God, and Christian doctrine also has the fea-
tures one would expect in a divinely revealed truth. It teaches a morality consonant
with natural reason and human happiness, and its specifically religious tenets are
reasonable and lead to improved morals. In addition, it has the support of miracles.
Anyone not convinced by these evidences of Christianity would not, Clarke con-
cluded, be convinced of its truth by any evidence whatsoever, and so it is no use talking
with such people.
Clarke's ethics must be understood, then, within this larger religious framework. He
was trying to show how we can reject voluntarism while keeping God indispensable to
morality. Indeed, to show that disregarding morality is offensive to God and will be
punished was as important to Clarke as it was to demonstrate that morality is not
constituted by God's will alone. Clarke's main innovation was to propose a model of
the laws of nature that the natural lawyers never used, by comparing moral laws with
laws of geometry or arithmetic. It plainly makes sense to talk of such laws, and just as
plainly, these laws do not seem, as a sovereign's laws do, to need a legislator. At the
same time Clarke tried to avoid the Platonism of his rationalist predecessors. Without
using any metaphysical doctrine or appealing to innate ideas, he presented principles
that he thought his readers would see as so evidently true that no one could deny them.
He also attempted to explain how the knowledge of these principles generates a motive
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 295
for acting as they direct, thus making ambitious claims for the powers of reason in
practical matters. These claims were widely debated during the following decades; the
present-day reader may find it profitable to engage in this debate as well.
The following selections are from the tenth edition of A Discourse Concerning the
Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion. I have somewhat modernized the spell-
ing and the use of capitals and italics and simplified some of the punctuation.

A Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable Obligations of

Natural Religion
I. The same necessary and eternal different relations that different things
bear one to another and the same consequent fitness or unfitness of the
application of different things or different relations one to another, with re-
gard to which the will of God always and necessarily does determine itself to
choose to act only what is agreeable to justice, equity, goodness and truth, in
order to the welfare of the whole universe; ought likewise constantly to deter-
mine the wills of all subordinate rational beings to govern all their actions by
the same rules, for the good of the public, in their respective stations.
That is; these eternal and necessary differences of things make it fit and
reasonable for creatures so to act; they cause it to be their duty or lay an
obligation upon them so to do, even separate from the consideration of these
rules being the positive will or command of God; and also antecedent to any
respect or regard, expectation or apprehension, of any particular private and
personal advantage or disadvantage, reward or punishment, either present or
future; annexed either by natural consequence or by positive appointment to
the practicing or neglecting of those rules.
The several parts of this proposition may be proved distinctly in the follow-
ing manner.
1. That there are differences of things, and different relations, respects or
proportions, of some things towards others, is as evident and undeniable as
that one magnitude or number is greater, equal to, or smaller than another.
That from these different relations of different things there necessarily arises
an agreement or disagreement of some things with others, or a fitness or
unfitness of the application of different things or different relations one to
another, is likewise as plain as that there is any such thing as proportion or
disproportion in geometry and arithmetic, or uniformity or disformity in com-
paring together the respective figures of bodies.
Further, that there is a fitness or suitableness of certain circumstances to
certain persons, and an unsuitableness of others founded in the nature of
things and the qualifications of persons, antecedent to all positive appoint-
ment whatsoever; also that from the different relations of different persons
one to another there necessarily arises a fitness or unfitness of certain man-
ners of behaviour of some persons towards others, is as manifest as that the
properties which flow from the essences of different mathematical figures
have different congruities or incongruities between themselves; or that in
296 Samuel Clarke
mechanics certain weights or powers have very different forces and different
effects one upon another, according to their different distances or different
positions and situations in respect of each other.
For instance: that God is infinitely superior to men is as clear as that infinity
is larger than a point, or eternity longer than a moment. And 'tis as certainly
fit that men should honour and worship, obey and imitate God, rather than on
the contrary in all their actions endeavour to dishonour and disobey him, as
'tis certainly true, that they have an entire dependence on him, and he on the
contrary can in no respect receive any advantage from them; and not only so,
but also that his will is as certainly and unalterably just and equitable in giving
his commands as his power is irresistible in requiring submission to it. Again,
'tis a thing absolutely and necessarily fitter in itself that the supreme author
and creator of the universe should govern, order and direct all things to
certain and constant regular ends, than that every thing should be permitted
to go on at adventures and produce uncertain effects merely by chance and in
the utmost confusion, without any determinate view or design at all. 'Tis a
thing manifestly fitter in itself, that the all-powerful governour of the world
should do always what is best in the whole and what tends most to the
universal good of the whole creation, than that he should make the whole
continually miserable or that, to satisfy the unreasonable desires of any par-
ticular depraved natures, he should at any time suffer the order of the whole
to be altered and perverted. Lastly, 'tis a thing evidently and infinitely more fit
that any one particular innocent and good being should by the supreme ruler
and disposer of all things be placed and preserved in an easy and happy estate,
than that, without any fault or demerit of its own, it should be made ex-
tremely, remedilessly, and endlessly miserable.
In like manner, in men's dealing and conversing one with another 'tis unde-
niably more fit, absolutely and in the nature of the thing itself, that all men
should endeavour to promote the universal good and welfare of all, than that
all men should be continually contriving the ruin and destruction of all. 'Tis
evidently more fit, even before all positive bargains and compacts, that men
should deal one with another according to the known rules of justice and
equity than that every man for his own present advantage should without
scruple disappoint the most reasonable and equitable expectations of his
neighbours, and cheat and defraud or spoil by violence all others without
restraint. Lastly, 'tis without dispute more fit and reasonable in itself that I
should preserve the life of an innocent man that happens at any time to be in
my power, or deliver him from any imminent danger, though I have never
made any promise so to do, than that I should suffer him to perish or take
away his life without any reason or provocation at all.
These things are so notoriously plain and self-evident that nothing but the
extremest stupidity of mind, corruption of manners, or perverseness of spirit
can possibly make any man entertain the least doubt concerning them. For a
man endued with reason to deny the truth of these things is the very same
thing as if a man that has the use of his sight should at the same time that he
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 297
beholds the sun deny that there is any such thing as light in the world. . . .
Any man of ordinary capacity and unbiased judgment, plainness and simplic-
ity who had never read and had never been told that there were men and
philosophers who had in earnest asserted and attempted to prove that there is
no natural and unalterable difference between good and evil would at the first
hearing be as hardly persuaded to believe that it could ever really enter into
the heart of any intelligent man to deny all natural difference between right
and wrong, as he would be to believe that ever there could be any geometer
who would seriously and in good earnest lay it down as a first principle that a
crooked line is as straight as a right one.
So that indeed it might justly seem altogether a needless undertaking to
attempt to prove and establish the eternal difference of good and evil, had
there not appeared certain men, as Mr. Hobbes and some few others, who
have presumed, contrary to the plainest and most obvious reason of mankind,
to assert, and not without some subtlety endeavoured to prove that there is no
such real difference originally, necessarily, and absolutely in the nature of
things; but that all obligation of duty to God arises merely from his absolute
irresistible power; and all duty towards men merely from positive compact: 1
Andhavefoutirwlschemofptunaio.
Wherein as they have contradicted the judgment of all the wisest and sober-
est part of mankind, so they have not been able to avoid contradicting them-
selves also. For (not to mention now, that they have no way to show how
compacts themselves come to be obligatory, but by inconsistently owning an
eternal original fitness in the thing itself . . .) if there be naturally and abso-
lutely in things themselves no difference between good and evil, just and
unjust; then in the state of nature, before any compact be made, 'tis equally as
good, just and reasonable, for one man to destroy the life of another, not only
when 'tis necessary for his own preservation, but also arbitrarily and without
any provocation at all, or any appearance of advantage to himself; as to
preserve or have another man's life when he may do it without any hazard of
his own. The consequence of which is that not only the first and most obvious
way for every particular man to secure himself effectually would be (as Mr.
Hobbes teaches) to endeavour to prevent and cut off all others, but also that
men might destroy one another upon every foolish and peevish or arbitrary
humour, even when they did not think any such thing necessary for their own
preservation. And the effect of this practice must needs be, that it would
terminate in the destruction of all mankind. Which being undeniably a great
and unsufferable evil, Mr. Hobbes himself confesses it reasonable that, to
prevent this evil, men should enter into certain compacts to preserve one
another.
Now if the destruction of mankind by each other's hands, be such an evil
that, to prevent it, it was fit and reasonable that men should enter into
compacts to preserve each other, then before any such compacts it was mani-
festly a thing unfit and unreasonable in itself that mankind should all destroy
one another. And if so, then for the same reason it was also unfit and unrea-
298 Samuel Clarke
sonable, antecedent to all compacts, that any one man should destroy another
arbitrarily and without any provocation, or at any time when it was not
absolutely and immediately necessary for the preservation of himself. Which
is directly contradictory to Mr. Hobbes's first supposition, of there being no
natural and absolute difference between good and evil, just and unjust, ante-
cedent to positive compact. . . .
The true state therefore of this case is plainly this. Some things are in their
own nature good and reasonable and fit to be done, such as keeping faith and
performing equitable compacts, and the like; and these receive not their
obligatory power from any law or authority, but are only declared, confirmed,
and enforced by penalties, upon such as would not perhaps be governed by
right reason only. Other things are in their own nature absolutely evil, such as
breaking faith, refusing to perform equitable compacts, cruelly destroying
those who have neither directly nor indirectly given any occasion for any such
treatment, and the like; and these cannot by any law or authority whatsoever
be made fit and reasonable or excusable to be practiced. Lastly, other things
are in their own nature indifferent. . . .
The principal thing that can, with any colour of reason, seem to counte-
nance the opinion of those who deny the natural and eternal difference of
good and evil . . . is the difficulty there may sometimes be to define exactly
the bounds of right and wrong: the variety of opinions that have obtained even
among understanding and learned men concerning certain questions of just
and unjust, especially in political matters: and the many contrary laws that
have been made in diverse ages and in different countries concerning these
matters. . . . it may perhaps be very difficult in some nice and perplexed cases
(which yet are very far from occurring frequently) to define exactly the
bounds of right and wrong, just and unjust; and there may be some latitude in
the judgment of different men, and the laws of diverse nations; yet right and
wrong are nevertheless in themselves totally and essentially different; even
altogether as much as white and black, light and darkness. . . .
Now if in the flagrant cases the natural and essential difference between good
and evil, right and wrong cannot but be confessed to be plainly and undeniably
evident, the difference between them must be also essential and unalterable in
all even the smallest and nicest and most intricate cases, though it be not so easy
to be discerned and accurately distinguished. For if from the difficulty of deter-
mining exactly the bounds of right and wrong in many perplexed cases it could
truly be concluded that just and unjust were not essentially different by nature
but only by positive constitution and custom; it would follow equally, that they
were not really, essentially, and unalterably different, even in the most flagrant
cases that can be supposed. Which is an assertion so very absurd, that Mr.
Hobbes himself could hardly vent it without blushing, and discovering plainly,
by his shifting expressions, his secret self-condemnation.
There are therefore certain necessary and eternal differences of things, and
certain consequent fitnesses or unfitnesses of the application of different
things or different relations one to another; not depending on any positive
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 299

constitutions, but founded unchangeably in the nature and reason of things

and unavoidably arising from the differences of the things themselves. Which
is the first branch of the general proposition I proposed to prove.
2. Now what these eternal and unalterable relations, respects, or propor-
tions of things, with their consequent agreements or disagreements, fitnesses
or unfitnesses, absolutely and necessarily are in themselves; that also they
appear to be, to the understandings of all intelligent beings, except those only
who understand things to be what they are not, that is, whose understandings
are either very imperfect or very much depraved. And by this understanding
or knowledge of the natural and necessary relations, fitnesses, and propor-
tions of things, the wills likewise of all intelligent beings are constantly di-
rected and must needs be determined to act accordingly, excepting those only
who will things to be what they are not and cannot be; that is, whose wills are
corrupted by particular interest or affection, or swayed by some unreasonable
and prevailing passion. Wherefore since the natural attributes of God, his
infinite knowledge, wisdom and power, set him infinitely above all possibility
of being deceived by any errour or of being influenced by any wrong affection,
'tis manifest his divine will cannot but always and necessarily determine itself
to choose to do what in the whole is absolutely best and fittest to be done; that
is, to act constantly according to the eternal rules of infinite goodness, justice,
and truth. . . .
3. And now, that the same reason of things, with regard to which the will of
God always and necessarily does determine itself to act in constant conformity
to the eternal rules of justice, equity, goodness, and truth, ought also con-
stantly to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings, to govern all
their actions by the same rules, is very evident. For, as 'tis absolutely impossi-
ble in nature that God should be deceived by any errour or influenced by any
wrong affection: So 'tis very unreasonable and blameworthy in practice that
any intelligent creatures, whom God has made so far like unto himself as to
endow them with those excellent faculties of reason and will whereby they are
enabled to distinguish good from evil, and to choose the one and refuse the
other; should either negligently suffer themselves to be imposed upon and
deceived in matters of good and evil, right and wrong; or wilfully and per-
versely allow themselves to be over-ruled by absurd passions, and corrupt or
partial affections, to act contrary to what they know is fit to be done.
Which two things, viz. negligent misunderstanding and wilful passions or
lusts, are, as I said, the only causes which can make a reasonable creature act
contrary to reason, that is, contrary to the eternal rules of justice, equity,
righteousness and truth. For was it not for these inexcusable corruptions and
depravations, 'tis impossible but the same proportions and fitnesses of things
which have so much weight and so much excellency and beauty in them, that
the all-powerful creator and governour of the universe, . . . thinks it no dimi-
nution of his power to make this reason of things the unalterable rule and law
of his own actions in the government of the world, and does nothing by mere
will and arbitrariness; . . . must much more have weight enough to determine
300 Samuel Clarke
constantly the wills and actions of all subordinate, finite, dependent and
accountable beings.
For originally and in reality, 'tis as natural and (morally speaking) necessary
that the will should be determined in every action by the reason of the thing
and the right of the case as 'tis natural and (absolutely speaking) necessary
that the understanding should submit to a demonstrated truth. And 'tis as
absurd and blameworthy to mistake negligently plain right and wrong, that is,
to understand the proportions of things in morality to be what they are not; or
wilfully to act contrary to known justice and equity, that is, to will things to be
what they are not; or wilfully to act contrary to known justice and equity, that
is, to will things to be what they are not and cannot be; as it would be absurd
and ridiculous for a man in arithmetical matters, ignorantly to believe that
twice two is not equal to four; or wilfully and obstinately to contend, against
his own clear knowledge, that the whole is not equal to all its parts.
The only difference is, that assent to a plain speculative truth is not in a
man's power to withhold; but to act according to the plain right and reason of
things, this he may, by the natural liberty of his will, forbear. But the one he
ought to do and 'tis as much his plain and indispensable duty, as the other he
cannot but do, and 'tis the necessity of his nature to do it.
He that wilfully refuses to honour and obey God, from whom he received
his being, and to whom he continually owes his preservation is really guilty of
an equal absurdity and inconsistency in practice as he that in speculation
denies the effect to owe any thing to its cause, or the whole to be bigger than
its part. He that refuses to deal with all men equitably, and with every man as
he desires they should deal with him is guilty of the very same unreasonable-
ness and contradiction in one case as he that in another case should affirm one
number or quantity to be equal to another, and yet that other at the same time
not to be equal to the first. . . .
In a word; all wilful wickedness and perversion of right is the very same
insolence and absurdity in moral matters as it would be in natural things for a
man to pretend to alter the certain proportions of numbers, to take away the
demonstrable relations and properties of mathematical figures, to make light
darkness, and darkness light, or to call sweet bitter, and bitter sweet.
Further: As it appears thus from the abstract and absolute reason and
nature of things that all rational creatures ought, that is, are obliged to take
care that their wills and actions be constantly determined and governed by the
eternal rule of right and equity: So the certainty and universality of that
obligation is plainly confirmed and the force of it particularly discovered and
applied to every man by this, that in like manner as no one who is instructed in
mathematics can forbear giving his assent to every geometrical demonstra-
tion, of which he understands the terms, either by his own study or by having
had them explained to him by others; so no man who either has patience and
opportunities to examine and consider things himself or has the means of
being taught and instructed in any tolerable manner by others, concerning the
necessary relations and dependencies of things; can avoid giving his assent to
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 301
the fitness and reasonableness of his governing all his actions by the law or
rule before mentioned, even though his practice, through the prevalence of
brutish lusts, be most absurdly contradictory to that assent.
That is to say: by the reason of his mind, he cannot but be compelled to own
and acknowledge that there is really such an obligation indispensably incum-
bent upon him; even at the same time that in the actions of his life he is
endeavouring to throw it off and despise it. For the judgment and conscience
of a man's own mind concerning the reasonableness and fitness of the thing,
that his actions should be conformed to such or such a rule or law, is the truest
and formallest obligation; even more properly and strictly so than any opinion
whatsoever of the authority of the giver of a law, or any regard he may have to
its sanction by rewards and punishments. For whoever acts contrary to this
sense and conscience of his own mind, is necessarily self-condemned; and the
greatest and strongest of all obligations is that, which a man cannot break
through without condemning himself.
The dread of superiour power and authority, and the sanction of rewards
and punishments, however indeed absolutely necessary to the government of
frail and fallible creatures, and truly the most effectual means of keeping them
in their duty, is yet really in itself only a secondary and additional obligation
or enforcement of the first. The original obligation of all (the ambiguous use
of which word as a term of art has caused some perplexity and confusion in
this matter) is the eternal reason of things; that reason, which God himself
who has no superiour to direct him, and to whose happiness nothing can be
added nor anything diminished from it, yet constantly obliges himself to gov-
ern the world by. And the more excellent and perfect (or the freer from
corruption and depravation) any creatures are, the more cheerfully and
steadily are their wills always determined by this supreme obligation, in con-
formity to the nature and in imitation of the most perfect will of God.
So far therefore as men are conscious of what is right and wrong, so far they
are under an obligation to act accordingly; and consequently that eternal rule
of right, which I have been hitherto describing, 'tis evident ought as indispens-
ably to govern men's actions, as it cannot but necessarily determine their
assent.
Now that the case is truly thus; that the eternal differences of good and evil,
the unalterable rule of right and equity, do necessarily and unavoidably deter-
mine the judgment and force the assent of all men that use any consideration,
is undeniably manifest from the universal experience of mankind. For no man
willingly and deliberately transgresses this rule in any great and considerable
instance, but he acts contrary to the judgment and reason of his own mind,
and secretly reproaches himself for so doing. And no man observes and obeys
it steadily, especially in cases of difficulty and temptation, when it interferes
with any present interest, pleasure or passion, but his own mind commends
and applauds him for him for his resolution, in executing what his conscience
could not forbear giving its assent to, as just and right. And this is what Saint
Paul means when he says (Rom. 2: 14, 15) that "when the Gentiles which have
302 Samuel Clarke
not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the
law, are a law unto themselves; which shew the work of the law written in their
hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean
while accusing, or else excusing one another." .. .
Some men indeed, who, by means of a very evil and vicious education, or
through a long habit of wickedness and debauchery, have extremely corrupted
the principles of their nature, and have long accustomed themselves to bear
down their own reason by the force of prejudice, lust, and passion; that they
may not be forced to confess themselves self-condemned, will confidently and
absolutely contend that they do not really see any natural and necessary
difference between what we call right and wrong, just and unjust; that the
reason and judgment of their own mind does not tell them they are under any
such indispensable obligations as we would endeavour to persuade them; and
that they are not sensible they ought to be governed by any other rule than
their own will and pleasure.
But even these men, the most abandoned of all mankind, however industri-
ously they endeavour to conceal and deny their self-condemnation, yet they
cannot avoid making a discovery of it sometimes when they are not aware of
it. For example, there is no man so vile and desperate, who commits at any
time a murder and robbery with the most unrelenting mind, but would
choose, if such a thing could be proposed to him, to obtain all the same profit
or advantage, whatsoever it be that he aims at, without committing the crime,
rather than with it; even though he was sure to go unpunished for committing
the crime. . . .
But the truth of this, that the mind of man naturally and necessarily assents
to the eternal law of righteousness, may still better and more clearly and more
universally appear from the judgment that men pass upon each other's actions
than from what we can discern concerning their consciousness of their own.
For men may dissemble and conceal from the world the judgment of their own
conscience; nay, by a strange partiality, they may even impose upon and
deceive themselves; . . . But men's judgments concerning the actions of oth-
ers, especially where they have no relation to themselves or repugnance to
their interest, are commonly impartial; and from this we may judge what
sense men naturally have of the unalterable difference of right and wrong.
Now the observation which everyone cannot but make in this matter, is this:
that virtue and true goodness, righteousness and equity, are things so truly
noble and excellent, so lovely and venerable in themselves, and do so necessar-
ily approve themselves to the reason and consciences of men, that even those
very persons who by the prevailing power of some interest or lust, are them-
selves drawn aside out of the paths of virtue, can yet hardly ever forbear to
give it its true character and commendation in others. . . .
There is but one thing that I am sensible of which can here with any colour
be objected against what has been hitherto said concerning the necessity of
the mind's giving its assent to the eternal law of righteousness; and that is the
total ignorance, which some whole nations are reported to lie under, of the
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 303
nature and force of these moral obligations. I am not satisfied the matter of
fact is true. But if it was, yet mere ignorance affords no just objection against
the certainty of any truth. Were there upon earth a nation of rational and
considerate persons, whose notions concerning moral obligations and concern-
ing the nature and force of them, were universally and directly contrary to
what I have hitherto represented, this would be indeed a weighty objection.
But ignorance and stupidity are no arguments against the certainty of any-
thing. There are many nations and people almost totally ignorant of the
plainest mathematical truths; as of the proportion, for example, of a square to
a triangle of the same base and height. And yet these truths are such, to which
the mind cannot but give its assent necessarily and unavoidably as soon as
they are distinctly proposed to it. All that this objection proves therefore .. .
[is] that men have great need to be taught and instructed in some very plain
and easy as well as certain truths; and, if they be important truths, that then
men have need also to have them frequently inculcated and strongly enforced
upon them. Which is very true, and is . . . one good argument for the reason-
ableness of expecting a revelation.
4. Thus it appears in general that the mind of man cannot avoid giving its
assent to the eternal law of righteousness; that is, cannot but acknowledge the
reasonableness and fitness of men's governing all their actions by the rule of
right or equity: And also that this assent is a formal obligation upon every
man, actually and constantly to conform himself to that rule. I might now
from hence deduce in particular all the several duties of morality or natural
religion. But because this would take up too large a portion of my intended
discourse and may easily be supplied abundantly out of several late excellent
writers, I shall only mention the three great and principal branches from
which all the other and smaller instances of duty do naturally flow or may
without difficulty be derived.
First then, in respect of God, the rule of righteousness is that we keep up
constantly in our minds, the highest possible honour, esteem, and veneration
for him, which must express itself in proper and respective influences upon all
our passions, and in the suitable direction of all our actions. . . .
Secondly. In respect of our fellow-creatures, the rule of righteousness is that
in particular we deal with every man as in like circumstances we could reason-
ably expect he should deal with us; and that in general we endeavour, by an
universal benevolence, to promote the welfare and happiness of all men. The
former branch of this rule, is equity; the latter, is love.
As to the former, viz. equity: the reason which obliges every man in prac-
tice so to deal always with another as he would reasonably expect that others
should in like circumstances deal with him, is the very same as that which
forces him in speculation to affirm that if one line or number be equal to
another, that other is reciprocally equal to it. Iniquity is the very same in
action as falsity or contradiction in theory; and the same cause which makes
the one absurd makes the other unreasonable. Whatever relation or propor-
tion one man in any case bears to another, the same that other, when put in
304 Samuel Clarke
like circumstances, bears to him. Whatever I judge reasonable or unreason-
able for another to do for me, that, by the same judgment, I declare reason-
able or unreasonable, that I in the like case should do for him. And to deny
this either in work or action is as if a man should contend that, though two and
three are equal to five, yet five are not equal to two and three. Wherefore
were not men strangely and most unnaturally corrupted by perverse and
unaccountably false opinions, and monstrous evil customs and habits prevail-
ing against the clearest and plainest reason in the world, it would be impossi-
ble that universal equity should not be practiced by all mankind; and espe-
cially among equals, where the proportion of equity is simple and obvious,
and every man's own case is already the same with all others, without any nice
comparing or transposing of circumstances. . . .
In considering indeed the duties of superiours and inferiours in various
relations, the proportion of equity is somewhat more complex; but still it may
always be deduced from the same rule of doing as we would be done by, if
careful regard be had at the same time to the difference of relation. That is, if
in considering what is fit for you to do to another, you always take into the
account, not only every circumstance of the action, but also every circum-
stance wherein the person differs from you; and in judging what you would
desire that another, if your circumstances were transposed, should do to you,
you always consider not what any unreasonable passion or private interest
would prompt you, but what impartial reason would dictate to you to desire.
For example: A magistrate, in order to deal equitably with a criminal, is not to
consider what fear or self-love could cause him, in the criminal's case, to
desire; but what reason and the public good would oblige him to acknowledge
was fit and just for him to expect. And the same proportion is to be observed
in deducing the duties of parents and children, of matters and servants, of
governours and subjects, of citizens and foreigners. . . . In the regular and
uniform practice of all which duties among all mankind, in their several and
respective relations, through the whole earth, consists that universal justice
which is the top and perfection of all virtues: . . .
The second branch of the rule of righteousness with respect to our fellow-
creatures, I said, was universal love or benevolence; that is, not only the doing
barely what is just and right, in our dealings with every man; but also a
constant endeavouring to promote in general, to the utmost of our power, the
welfare and happiness of all men.
The obligation to which duty also may easily be deduced from what has
been already laid down. For if (as has been before proved) there be a natural
and necessary difference between good and evil, and that which is good is fit
and reasonable, and that which is evil is unreasonable to be done; and that
which is the greatest good, is always the most fit and reasonable to be chosen:
then, as the goodness of God extends itself universally over all works through
the whole creation, by doing always what is absolutely best in the whole, so
every rational creature ought in its sphere and station, according to its respec-
tive powers and faculties, to do all the good it can to all its fellow-creatures. To
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 305
which end universal love and benevolence is as plainly the most direct, cer-
tain, and effectual means; as in mathematics the flowing of a point is, to
produce a line; or in arithmetic, the addition of numbers to produce a sum; or
in physics, certain kinds of motions to preserve certain bodies, which other
kinds of motions tend to corrupt.
Of all which the mind of man is so naturally sensible that, except in such
men whose affections are prodigiously corrupted by most unnatural and habit-
ual vicious practices, there is no duty whatsoever, the performance whereof
affords a man so ample pleasure and satisfaction, and fills his mind with so
comfortable a sense of his having done the greatest good he was capable to
do, of his having best answered the ends of his creation and nearliest imitated
the perfections of his creator, and consequently of his having fully complied
with the highest and principal obligations of his nature; as the performance of
this one duty, of universal love and benevolence, naturally affords.
But further: the obligation to this great duty may also otherwise be deduced
from the nature of man in the following manner. Next to that natural self-love
or care of his own preservation, which everyone necessarily has in the first
place for himself, there is in all men a certain natural affection for their
children and posterity, who have a dependence upon them; and for their near
relations and friends, who have an intimacy with them. And because the
nature of man is such that they cannot live comfortably in independent fami-
lies, without still further society and commerce with each other; therefore
they naturally desire to increase their dependencies by multiplying affinities,
and to enlarge their friendships by mutual good offices, and to establish
societies by a communication of arts and labour; till by degrees the affection
of single persons becomes a friendship of families; and this enlarges itself to
society of towns and cities and nations; and terminates in the agreeing commu-
nity of all mankind. The foundation, preservation, and perfection of which
universal friendship or society, is mutual love and benevolence. And nothing
hinders the world from being actually put into so happy a state, but perverse
iniquity, and unreasonable want of mutual charity.
Wherefore since men are plainly so constituted by nature, that they stand in
need of each other's assistance to make themselves easy in the world, and are
fitted to live in communities, and society is absolutely necessary for them; and
mutual love and benevolence is the only possible means to establish this
society in any tolerable and durable manner; and in this respect all men stand
upon the same level, and have the same natural wants and desires, and are in
the same need of each other's help, and are equally capable of enjoying the
benefit and advantage of society: 'Tis evident every man is bound by the law
of his nature, as he is also prompted by the inclination of his uncorrupted
affections, to look upon himself as a part and member of that one universal
body or community, which is made up of all mankind; to think himself born to
promote the public good and welfare of all his fellow-creatures; and conse-
quently obliged, as the necessary and only effectual means to that end, to
embrace them all with universal love and benevolence. . . .
306 Samuel Clarke
Thirdly, with respect to ourselves, the rule of righteousness is that every
man preserve his own being, as long as he is able, and take care to keep
himself at all times in such temper and disposition both of body and mind as
may best fit and enable him to perform his duty in all other instances. That is:
he ought to bridle his appetites, with temperance; to govern his passions, with
moderation; and to apply himself to the business of his present station in the
world, whatsoever it be, with attention and contentment. That every man
ought to preserve his own being as long as he is able, is evident; because what
he is not himself the author and giver of, he can never of himself have just
power or authority to take away. He that sent us into the world, and alone
knows for how long time he appointed us our station here, and when we have
finished all the business he intended we should do, can alone judge when 'tis
fit for us to be taken hence and has alone authority to dismiss and discharge
us. . . . Lastly: For the same reason that a man is obliged not to depart
wilfully out of this life, which is the general station that God has appointed
him, he is obliged likewise to attend the duties of that particular station or
condition of life, whatsoever it be, wherein providence has at present placed
him, with diligence and contentment, without being uneasy and discontented,
that others are placed by providence in different and superiour stations in the
world; or so extremely and unreasonably solicitous to change his state for the
future as thereby to neglect his present duty.
From these three great and general branches, all the smaller and more
particular instances of moral obligations, may (as I said) easily be deduced.
5. And now this (this eternal rule of equity, which I have been hitherto
describing) is that right reason which makes the principal distinction between
man and beasts. This is the law of nature. . . .
6. Further yet: as this law of nature is infinitely superiour to all authority of
men and independent upon it; so its obligation, primarily and originally, is
antecedent also even to this consideration, of its being the positive will or
command of God himself. For as the addition of certain numbers necessarily
produces a certain sum, and certain geometrical or mechanical operations
give a constant and unalterable solution of certain problems or propositions:
So in moral matters, there are certain necessary and unalterable respects or
relations of things, which have not their original from arbitrary and positive
constitution, but are of eternal necessity in their own nature. . . .
The existence indeed of the things themselves, whose proportions and rela-
tions we consider, depends entirely on the mere arbitrary will and good plea-
sure of God; who can create things when he pleases, and destroy them again
whenever he thinks fit. But when things are created, and so long as it pleases
God to continue them in being, their proportions, which are abstractly of
eternal necessity, are also in the things themselves absolutely unalterable.
Hence God himself, though he has no superiour from whose will to receive
any law of his actions yet disdains not to observe the rule of equity and
goodness, as the law of all his actions in the government of the world; and
condescends to appeal even to men for the equity and righteousness of his
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 307
judgments. To this law, the infinite perfections of his divine nature make it
necessary for him (as has been before proved) to have constant regard.
And . . . not barely his infinite power, but the rules of this eternal law, are the
true foundation and the measure of his dominion over his creatures. (For if
infinite power was the rule and measure of right, 'tis evident that goodness
and mercy and all other divine perfections would be empty words without any
signification at all.) .. .
7. Lastly, this law of nature has its full obligatory power, antecedent to all
consideration of any particular private and personal reward or punishment,
annexed either by natural consequence or by positive appointment to the
observance or neglect of it. This also is very evident, because, if good and evil,
right and wrong, fitness and unfitness of being practiced, be (as has been
shown originally) eternally and necessarily in the nature of the things them-
selves, 'tis plain that the view of particular rewards or punishments, which is
only an after-consideration and does not at all alter the nature of things,
cannot be the original cause of the obligation of the law, but is only an
additional weight to enforce the practice of what men were before obliged to
by right reason. There is no man who has any just sense of the difference
between good and evil but must needs acknowledge that virtue and goodness
are truly amiable, and to be chosen for their own sakes and intrinsic worth;
though a man had no prospect of gaining any particular advantage to himself,
by the practice of them; and that, on the contrary, cruelty, violence and
oppression, fraud, injustice, and all manner of wickedness are of themselves
hateful and by all means to be avoided, even though a man had absolute
assurance that he should bring no manner of inconvenience upon himself by
the commission of any or all of these crimes. . . .
Thus far is clear. But now from hence it does not at all follow either that a
good man ought to have no respect to rewards and punishments or that
rewards and punishments are not absolutely necessary to maintain the prac-
tice of virtue and righteousness in this present world. 'Tis certain indeed, that
virtue and vice are eternally and necessarily different, and that the one truly
deserves to be chosen for its own sake, and the other ought by all means to be
avoided, though a man was sure for his own particular neither to gain nor lose
anything by the practice of either. And if this was truly the state of things in
the world, certainly that man must have a very corrupt mind indeed who could
in the least doubt, or so much as once deliberate with himself, which he would
choose. But the case does not stand thus. The question now in the general
practice of the world, supposing all expectation of rewards and punishments
set aside, will not be whether a man would choose virtue for its own sake, and
avoid vice; but the practice of vice is accompanied with great temptations and
allurements of pleasure and profit; and the practice of virtue is often threat-
ened with great calamities, losses, and sometimes even with death itself. And
this alters the question and destroys the practice of that which appears so
reasonable in the whole speculation, and introduces a necessity of rewards
and punishments. For though virtue is unquestionably worthy to be chosen for
308 Samuel Clarke
its own sake, even without any expectation of reward; yet it does not follow
that it is therefore entirely self-sufficient and able to support a man under all
kinds of sufferings, and even death itself, for its sake, without any prospect of
future recompence. Here therefore began the error of the Stoics, who taught
that the bare practice of virtue was itself the chief good and able of itself to
make a man happy, under all the calamities in the world. 2 Their defence
indeed of the cause of virtue was very brave. They saw well that its excellency
was intrinsic and founded in the nature of things themselves, and could not be
altered by any outward circumstances; that therefore virtue must needs be
desirable for its own sake and not merely for the advantage it might bring
along with it; and if so, then consequently neither could any external disadvan-
tage which it might happen to be attended with change the intrinsic worth of
the thing itself, or ever make it cease to be truly desirable. Wherefore, in the
case of sufferings and death for the sake of virtue, not having any certain
knowledge of a future state of reward . . . they were forced, that they might
be consistent with their own principles, to suppose the practice of virtue a
sufficient reward to itself in all cases, and a full compensation for all the
sufferings in the world. And accordingly they very bravely indeed taught that
the practice of virtue was not only infinitely to be preferred before all the
sinful pleasures in the world, but also that a man ought without scruple to
choose, if the case was proposed to him, rather to undergo all possible suffer-
ings with virtue, than to obtain all possible worldly happiness by sin. . . .
But yet, after all this, 'tis plain that the general practice of virtue in the
world can never be supported upon this foot. The discourse is admirable, but
it seldom goes further than mere words. And the practice of those few who
have acted accordingly has not been imitated by the rest of the world. Men
never will generally, and indeed 'tis not very reasonably to be expected they
should, part with all the comforts of life and even life itself without expecta-
tion of any future recompence. So that if we suppose no future state of
rewards, it will follow that God has endowed men with such faculties as put
them under a necessity of approving and choosing virtue in the judgment of
their own minds; and yet has not given them wherewith to support themselves
in the suitable and constant practice of it. The consideration of which inexpli-
cable difficulty ought to have led the philosophers to a firm belief and expecta-
tion of a future state of rewards and punishments, without which their whole
scheme of morality cannot be supported. . . .
Thus have I endeavoured to deduce the original obligations of morality
from the necessary and eternal reason and proportions of things. Some have
chosen to found all difference of good and evil in the mere positive will and
power of God. But the absurdity of this, I have shown elsewhere. Others have
contended that all difference of good and evil and all obligations of morality
ought to be founded originally upon considerations of public utility. And true
indeed it is, in the whole, that the good of the universal creation does always
coincide with the necessary truth and reason of things. But otherwise (and
separate from this consideration that God will certainly cause truth and right
 The Unchangeable Obligations of Natural Religion 309
to terminate in happiness) what is for the good of the whole creation, in very
many cases, none but an infinite understanding can possibly judge. Public
utility is one thing to one nation, and the contrary to another: And the
governours of every nation will and must be judges of the public good. And by
public good they will generally mean the private good of that particular na-
tion. But truth and right (whether public or private) founded in the eternal
and necessary reason of things is what every man can judge of, when laid
before him. 'Tis necessarily one and the same, to every man's understanding;
just as light is the same, to every man's eyes. . . .
And now, from what has been said upon this head, 'tis easy to see the falsity
and weakness of Mr. Hobbes's doctrines that there is no such thing as just and
unjust, right and wrong, originally in the nature of things; that men in their
natural state, antecedent to all compacts, are not obliged to universal benevo-
lence, nor to any moral duty whatsoever; but are in a state of war, and have
every one a right to do whatever he has power to do; and that, in civil
societies, it depends wholly upon positive laws or the will of governours to
define what shall be just or unjust. The contrary to all which, having been
already fully demonstrated, there is no need of being large in further disprov-
ing and confuting particularly these assertions themselves. . . .
II. Though these eternal moral obligations are indeed of themselves incum-
bent on all rational beings, even antecedent to the consideration of their being
the positive will and command of God, yet that which most strongly confirms
and in practice most effectually and indispensably enforces them upon us, is
this: that both from the perfections of God and the nature of things, and from
several other collateral considerations, it appears that as God is himself neces-
sarily just and good in the exercise of his infinite power in the government of
the whole world, so he cannot but likewise positively require that all his
rational creatures should in their proportion be so too, in the exercise of each
of their powers in their several and respective spheres. . . .
This proposition is very evident, and has little need of being particularly
proved.
For first, the same reasons which prove to us that God must of necessity be
himself infinitely holy, and just, and good manifestly prove, that it must also
be his will that all his creatures should be so likewise, according to the propor-
tions and capacities of their several natures. . . .
3. The same thing may likewise further appear from the following consider-
ation. Whatever tends directly and certainly to promote the good and happi-
ness of the whole and (as far as is consistent with that chief end) to promote
also the good and welfare of every particular part of the creation must needs
be agreeable to the will of God; .. .
Now that the exact observance of all those moral obligations which have
before been proved to arise necessarily from the nature and relations of
things . . . is the certainest and directest means to promote the welfare and
happiness as well of every man in particular, both in body and mind, as of all
men in general considered with respect to society, is so very manifest, that
310 Samuel Clarke
even the greatest enemies of all religion, who suppose it to be nothing more
than a worldly or state policy, do yet by that very supposition confess thus
much concerning it. . . .
III. Though the fore-mentioned eternal moral obligations are incumbent
indeed on all rational creatures, antecedent to any respect of particular re-
ward or punishment, yet they must certainly and necessarily be attended with
rewards and punishments. Because the same reasons which prove God him-
self to be necessarily just and good, and the rules of justice, equity, and
goodness, to be his unalterable will, law, and command, to all created beings,
prove also that he cannot but be pleased with and approve such creatures as
imitate and obey him by observing those rules, and be displeased with such as
act contrary thereto; and consequently that he cannot but some way or other,
make a suitable difference in his dealings with them. . . .
This proposition also is in a manner self-evident.
[VII. On the need for a revelation]
1. There was plainly wanting a divine revelation to recover mankind out of
their universal corruption and degeneracy; and without such a revelation, it
was not possible that the world should ever be effectually reformed. For
if (as has been before particularly shown) the gross and stupid ignorance,
the innumerable prejudices and vain opinions, the strong passions and appe-
tites of sense, and the many vicious customs and habits which the generality
of mankind continually labour under make it undeniably too difficult a work
for men of all capacities to discover every one for himself, by the bare light
of nature, all the particular branches of their duty; but most men, in the
present state of things, have manifestly need of much teaching and particular
instruction;
if those who were best able to discover the truth and instruct others therein,
namely the wisest and best of the philosophers, were themselves unavoidably
altogether ignorant of some doctrines, and very doubtful and uncertain of
others, absolutely necessary to the bringing about that great end, the reforma-
tion of mankind;
if those truths which they were themselves very certain of they were not yet
able to prove and explain clearly enough to vulgar understandings;
if even those things which they proved sufficiently and explained with all
clearness, they had not yet authority enough to enforce and inculcate upon
men's minds with so strong an impression as to influence and govern the
general practice of the world, nor pretended to afford men any supernatural
assistance, which yet was very necessary to so great a work; and
if, after all, in the discovery of such matters as are the great motives of
religion, men are apt to be more easily worked upon and more strongly
affected by good testimony, than by the strictest abstract argument, so that,
upon the whole, 'tis plain the philosophers were never by any means well
qualified to reform mankind with any considerable success;
Then there was evidently wanting some particular revelation, which might
supply all these defects. . . .
 Editor's Notes 311
It may here perhaps be pretended by modern deists that the great ignorance
and undeniable corruptness of the whole heathen world has always been
owing, not to any absolute insufficiency of the light of nature itself, but merely
to the fault of the several particular persons in not sufficiently improving that
light; and that deists now, in places where learning and right reason are
cultivated, are well able to discover and explain all the obligations and mo-
tives of morality without believing anything of revelation. But this, even
though it were true . . . that all the obligations and motives of morality could
possibly be discovered and explained clearly by the mere light of nature alone,
yet even this would not at all prove that there is no need of revelation.
For whatever the bare natural possibility was, 'tis certain in fact the wisest
philosophers of old never were able to do it to any effectual purpose, but
always willingly acknowledged that they still wanted some higher assis-
tance. . . . the clearness of moral reasonings was much improved, and the
regard to a future state very much increased, even in heathen writers, after
the coming of Christ. And almost all the things that are said wisely and truly
by modern deists, are plainly borrowed from that revelation which they refuse
to embrace; and without which they could never have been able to have said
the same things.
Now, indeed, when our whole duty with its true motives is clearly revealed
to us, its precepts appear plainly agreeable to reason; and conscience readily
approves what is good, as it condemns what is evil. Nay, after our duty is thus
made known to us, 'tis easy not only to see its agreement with reason, but also
to begin and deduce its obligation from reason. But had we been utterly
destitute of all revealed light, then to have discovered our duty in all points,
with the true motives of it, merely by the help of natural reason, would have
been a work of nicety, pains and labour; like groping for an unknown way in
the obscure twilight. . . .
'Tis one thing to see that those rules of life which are beforehand plainly
and particularly laid before us are perfectly agreeable to reason; and another
thing to find out those rules merely by the light of reason, without their having
first been any otherwise made known. We see that even many of those who
profess to govern their lives by the plain written rule of an instituted and
revealed religion are yet most miserably ignorant of their duty; and how can
any man be sure he should have made so good improvement of his reason as
to have understood it perfectly in all its parts, without any such help?

Editor's Notes
1. In Leviathan, chap. 31, Hobbes said, "The right of nature, whereby God reigneth
over men . . . is to be derived, not from his creating them, as if he required
obedience as of gratitude for his benefits, but from his irresistible power." The
reader will be able to see Hobbes's view of duties toward men in the selections
from Hobbes in Part I.
2. See the section on "Stoicism and Epicureanism" in the introduction to this
anthology.
312 Samuel Clarke

Further Reading
There is no modern edition of Clarke's complete works or of the lectures containing his
moral philosophy. His exchange with Leibniz is available in H. G. Alexander, ed., The
Leibniz—Clarke Correspondence (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press,
1956). On this topic, also see A. Rupert Hall, Philosophers at War: The Quarrel
Between Newton and Leibniz (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
1980). Relatively little has been written about Clarke, and even less about his ethics.
James P. Ferguson, Dr. Samuel Clarke: An Eighteenth Century Heretic (Kineton, En-
gland: Roundwood Press, 1976), is a general study of Clarke's life and religious contro-
versies. Ferguson also wrote The Philosophy of Dr. Samuel Clarke and Its Critics (New
York: Vantage, 1974). John H. Gay, "Matter and Freedom in the Thought of Samuel
Clarke," Journal of the History of Ideas 24 (1963), bears on Clarke's ethics indirectly.
Howard M. Ducharme, "Personal Identity in Samuel Clarke," Journal of the History of
Philosophy 24 (1986): 359-83, examines some of Clarke's less widely read works that
pertain to his ethics. Clarke is discussed briefly at several points in Norman Fiering,
Jonathan Edwards's Moral Thought and Its British Context (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1981); consult the index. There also is an attack on Clarke's
moral philosophy in John Finnis, Natural Law and Natural Rights (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1980), pp. 36-42. Otherwise, despite his considerable importance in his own
time and despite Sidgwick's admiration of him, Clarke remains well known but little
discussed.
 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Introduction
Leibniz, born in 1646 in Leipzig, was a child of an academic family. During his early
years he read widely, and although he studied law, he never confined his interests to
any single subject. After finishing his formal education, he spent some time carrying
out diplomatic and legal functions for a minor German prince. Leibniz then spent four
years in Paris and in 1676 attached himself to the ruling family of Hanover. He spent
the rest of his life in the service of successive Hanoverian rulers. The last one he
served, Georg Ludwig, became the king of England in 1714. Leibniz, deeply interested
in European unity and harmony, saw the reunification of Protestant and Catholic
confessions as necessary for that accomplishment. He hoped his own philosophical
work might help, by producing a generally acceptable religious view. He carried out
extensive historical research for his masters, worked on increasing cooperation of
scientists of all nations, kept up with advances in technology, and, in addition to all
this, did fundamentally important work in mathematics, logic, and metaphysics. Leib-
niz published a variety of papers but only one book, the Theodicy (1710), which was an
attempt to resolve the problem of evil. When he died in 1716, he left behind a vast
mass of manuscripts from which selections have gradually been published and of which
no complete edition yet exists.
A man of astonishing versatility, intellectual power, and originality, Leibniz was also
in many respects quite conservative. His desire to harmonize and unify the warring
nations and sects of Europe found a counterpart in his philosophy, which aimed to
show that the new science was not at odds with religion, that explanations involving
mechanical or efficient causes did not exclude explanations involving purposes or final
causes, and that a better understanding of physics would lead to a better understanding
of God. To achieve all this, Leibniz propounded an ingenious metaphysical theory.
The created world, Leibniz held, consists of indivisible substances that are essen-
tially centers of force or activity. Each of the indefinitely large number of these cen-
ters, which Leibniz called monads, is created by God and has built into its nature all its
properties, including what we think of as its relations to others. Hence, whatever
occurs during the history of a monad is always present in it. It follows that monads do
not really interact. What looks like interaction to us is the correlation that God has set
up among the unfolding inner natures of each monad. Leibniz called this correlation
the "preestablished harmony of the monads." When I am programmed to shove, you
are programmed to fall; so it will look as if my shove made you fall, when in fact God
had arranged from the very beginning that at the time of my shove .you would topple.
Leibniz opposed materialism and held that all monads perceive. But perception

313
314 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
occurs on a continuum, from the extremely obscure and confused to the very clear and
distinct. Inanimate objects are composed of monads with the most confused percep-
tions; animals have clearer perceptions; and humans, who have perceptions ranging
from the most obscure to the very clear, also have perceptions of themselves as having
perceptions; hence we are self-conscious. The perceptions of each monad contain
counterparts of the perceptions of every other, Leibniz claimed, so that a change
anywhere in the universe has its echo, however obscure, in every other part. We all
thus are parts of a single community ruled by its creator, God.
When God created the universe, he was faced, so to speak, with a choice. He could
see, before anything was actual, what combinations of what kinds of beings were
possible. Some possible combinations would contain more kinds of things, some fewer;
some would organize them by simple laws, some by complex laws. God created the
world as an expression of himself, and so he chose to make real the possible world that
best expressed his nature. It contains the largest possible variety of kinds of being
organized in the simplest way and (because God is good) enjoying their existence as
much as possible. It is — in the phrase Voltaire made famous with his satire on it in
Candide — the best of all possible worlds. An all-powerful, perfectly just, all-knowing,
and benevolent God could choose no other.
In action, on Leibniz's view, we strive for perfection, and our feeling pleasure is a
sign to us of the attainment of some perfection, which we may not clearly and distinctly
understand. Each of us is necessarily moved to strive for his or her own perfection, and
in that sense voluntary action is always self-interested. For Leibniz, however, self-
interest did not entail selfishness. Through love we can find pleasure in increasing the
perfection of others. Because we obtain pleasure for ourselves in this way, the more
perfection we can bring to others, the more we ourselves will benefit.
What virtuous Leibnizian agents must know, then, is the various amounts of perfec-
tion that might be brought about by the actions among which they must choose.
Choosing what is more perfect is choosing in accordance with the degree of perfection
that God built into the universe. And to know what those degrees of perfection are,
the agents should, ideally, understand not only the details of the laws of physics and
psychology and their implications but also their metaphysical presuppositions. A per-
fectly virtuous agent would know Leibniz's system and see all of its entailments.
Leibniz did not tell us much about how everyone is to attain this knowledge or how
those who lack it are to be guided. He was more interested in explaining the basic
concepts of morality, particularly those needed to develop a system of law. These
thoughts he presented in various manuscript notes and in a number of published
papers. Leibniz's own reputation among the learned added weight to his often acute
criticisms of other theorists, and enough of his own theory was known to enable those
who found it attractive to develop it further. It was mainly through a systematic
development of his various suggestions — worked out by the German philosopher
Christian Wolff — that Leibnizian ideas on morality came to be widely known.
The following selections come from several different sources. The first is from "The
Principles of Nature and of Grace," written in 1714 for a prince who wanted a general
introduction to Leibniz's metaphysical views. Next comes a paper, "On Wisdom,"
probably written in the last decade of the seventeenth century. Both selections are
from Leroy E. Loemker, ed. and trans., Leibniz: Philosophical Papers and Letters
(Dordrecht: Reidel, 1969), copyright © 1969, D. Reidel Co, Dordrecht, The Nether-
lands. Reproduced by permission of Kluwer Academic Publishers. The short paper
"Felicity" was written in the early 1690s, and the "Meditation on the Common Con-
 The Principles of Nature and Grace 315
cept of Justice" was written later, in 1702-3. The next excerpt is from the preface
Leibniz wrote for a large collection of medieval legal documents pertaining to contem-
porary politics, published in 1693. Finally, Leibniz's criticism of Pufendorf, originally
written in 1706 as a letter, was translated into French by Barbeyrac and appended in
1718 to an edition of his translation of Pufendorf's short handbook The Duty of Man
and Citizen. All of these selections are from Patrick Riley, trans. and ed., The Political
Writings of Leibniz (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988), re-
printed by permission of the Cambridge University Press.

The Principles of Nature and of Grace, Based on Reason

7. So far we have been speaking simply as natural scientists; now we must

rise to metaphysics and make use of the great, but not commonly used, princi-
ple that nothing takes place without a sufficient reason; in other words, that
nothing occurs for which it would be impossible for someone who has enough
knowledge of things to give a reason adequate to determine why the thing is as
it is and not otherwise. This principle having been stated, the first question
which we have a right to ask will be, "Why is there something rather than
nothing?" For nothing is simpler and easier than something. Further, assum-
ing that things must exist, it must be possible to give a reason why they should
exist as they do and not otherwise.
8. Now this sufficient reason for the existence of the universe cannot be
found in the series of contingent things, that is to say, of bodies and their
representations in souls. For since matter is in itself indifferent to motion or
rest, and to one motion rather than to another, one cannot find in it a reason
for motion and still less for some particular motion. Although the present
motion in matter arises from preceding motion, and that in turn from motion
which preceded it, we do not get further however far we may go, for the same
question always remains. The sufficient reason, therefore, which needs no
further reason, must be outside of this series of contingent things and is found
in a substance which is the cause of this series or which is a necessary being
bearing the reason for its existence within itself; otherwise we should not yet
have a sufficient reason with which to stop. This final reason for things is
called God.
9. This simple primary substance must include eminently' the perfections
contained in the derivative substances which are its effects. Thus it will have
perfect power, knowledge, and will; that is to say, it will have omnipotence,
omniscience, and sovereign goodness. And since justice, taken in its most
general sense is nothing but goodness conforming with wisdom, there is also
necessarily a sovereign justice in God. The reason which has made things exist
through him has also made them depend on him for their existence and
operation, and they are continually receiving from him that which causes
them to have some perfection. But whatever imperfection remains with them
comes from the essential and original limitation of the created beings.
10. It follows from the supreme perfection of God that he has chosen the
316 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
best possible plan in producing the universe, a plan which combines the
greatest variety together with the greatest order; with situation, place, and
time arranged in the best way possible; with the greatest effect produced by
the simplest means; with the most power, the most knowledge, the greatest
happiness and goodness in created things which the universe could allow. For
as all possible things have a claim to existence in God's understanding in
proportion to their perfections, the result of all these claims must be the most
perfect actual world which is possible. Without this it would be impossible to
give a reason why things have gone as they have rather than otherwise.
11. The supreme wisdom of God has made him choose especially those laws
of motion which are best adjusted and most fitted to abstract or metaphysical
reasons. There is conserved the same quantity of total and absolute force or of
action, also the same quantity of relative force or of reaction, and finally, the
same quantity of directive force. Furthermore, action is always equal to reac-
tion, and the entire effect is always equal to its full cause. It is surprising that
no reason can be given for the laws of motion which have been discovered in
our own time, and part of which I myself have discovered by a consideration
,2

of efficient causes or of matter alone. For I have found that we must have
recourse to final causes and that these laws do not depend upon the principle
of necessity as do the truths of logic, arithmetic, and geometry, but upon the
principle of fitness, that is to say, upon the choice of wisdom. This is one of the
most effective and obvious proofs of the existence of God for those who can
probe into these matters thoroughly.
12. It follows also from the perfection of the supreme Author, not only that
the order of the entire universe is the most perfect possible, but also that each
living mirror which represents the universe according to its own point of view,
that is, each monad or each substantial center, must have its perceptions and
its appetites regulated in the best way compatible with all the rest. From this it
also follows that souls, that is to say, the most dominant monads, or rather
animals themselves, cannot fail to awake from the state of stupor into which
death or some other accident may place them.
13. For everything has been regulated in things, once for all, with as much
order and agreement as possible; the supreme wisdom and goodness cannot
act except with perfect harmony. The present is great with the future; the
future could be read in the past; the distant is expressed in the near. One could
learn the beauty of the universe in each soul if one could unravel all that is
rolled up in it but that develops perceptibly only with time. But since each
distant perception of the soul includes an infinity of confused perceptions
which envelop the entire universe, the soul itself does not know the things
which it perceives until it has perceptions which are distinct and heightened.
And it has perfection in proportion to the distinctness of its perceptions.
Each soul knows the infinite, knows everything, but confusedly. Thus when
I walk along the seashore and hear the great noise of the sea, I hear the
separate sounds of each wave but do not distinguish them; our confused
perceptions are the result of the impressions made on us by the whole uni-
 The Principles of Nature and Grace 317

verse. It is the same with each monad. Only God has a distinct knowledge of
everything, for he is the source of everything. It has been very well said that
he is everywhere as a center but that his circumference is nowhere, since
everything is immediately present to him without being withdrawn at all from
this center.
14. As for the reasonable soul or spirit, there is something more in it than in
monads or even in simple souls. It is not only a mirror of the universe of
creatures but also an image of divinity. The spirit not only has a perception of
the works of God but is even capable of producing something which resembles
them, though in miniature. For not to mention the wonders of dreams in
which we invent, without effort but also without will, things which we should
have to think a long time to discover when awake, our soul is architectonic
also in its voluntary actions and in discovering the sciences according to which
God has regulated things (by weight, measure, number, etc.). In its own
realm and in the small world in which it is allowed to act, the soul imitates
what God performs in the great world.
15. For this reason all spirits, whether of men or of higher beings [genies],
enter by virtue of reason and the eternal truths into a kind of society with God
and are members of the City of God, that is to say, the most perfect state,
formed and governed by the greatest and best of monarchs. Here there is no
crime without punishment, no good action without a proportionate reward,
and finally, as much virtue and happiness as is possible. And this takes place,
not by a dislocation of nature, as if what God has planned for souls could
disturb the laws of bodies, but by the very order of natural things itself, by
virtue of the harmony pre-established from all time between the realms of
nature and of grace, between God as architect and God as monarch, in such a
way that nature leads to grace, and grace perfects nature by using it.
16. Thus, though reason cannot teach us the details of the great future,
these being reserved for revelation, we can be assured by this same reason
that things are arranged in a way which surpasses our desires. God being also
the most perfect, the happiest, and therefore the most lovable of substances,
and true pure love consisting in the state which causes pleasure to be taken in
the perfections and the felicity of the beloved, this love must give us the
greatest pleasure of which one is capable, since God is its object.
17. And it is easy to love him as we ought if we know him as I have said. For
though God is not visible to our external senses, he is nonetheless most love-
worthy and gives very great pleasure. We see how much pleasure honors give
to men, although they do not consist of qualities which appear to the external
senses. Martyrs and fanatics, though the affection of the latter is not well
ordered, show what power the pleasure of the spirit has. What is more, even
the pleasures of sense are reducible to intellectual pleasures, known con-
fusedly. Music charms us, although its beauty consists only in the agreement
of numbers and in the counting, which we do not perceive but which the soul
nevertheless continues to carry out, of the beats or vibrations of sounding
bodies which coincide at certain intervals. The pleasures which the eye finds
318 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
in proportions are of the same nature, and those caused by other senses
amount to something similar, although we may not be able to explain them so
distinctly.
18. It may even be said that the love of God already gives us, here and now,
a foretaste of future felicity. And although it is disinterested, by itself it
constitutes our greatest good and interest, even when we do not seek these in
it and when we consider only the pleasure it gives and disregard the utility it
produces. For it gives us a perfect confidence in the goodness of our Author
and Master, and this produces a true tranquillity of spirit, not such as the
Stoics have who resolutely force themselves to be patient, but by a present
contentment which itself assures us of future happiness. And apart from the
present pleasure, nothing could be more useful for the future, for the love of
God also fulfils our hopes and leads us in the way of supreme happiness,
since, by virtue of the perfect order established in the universe, everything is
done in the best possible way, as much for the general good as for the greatest
particular good of those who are convinced of it and are satisfied by the divine
government. This cannot fail to be true of those who know how to love the
source of all good. It is true that the supreme happiness (with whatever
beatific vision or knowledge of God it may be accompanied) cannot ever be
full, because God, being infinite, cannot ever be known entirely. Thus our
happiness will never consist, and ought never to consist, in complete joy,
which leaves nothing to be desired and which would stupefy our spirit, but in a
perpetual progress to new pleasures and new perfections.

On Wisdom
Wisdom is merely the science of happiness or that science which teaches us to
achieve happiness.
Happiness is a state of permanent joy. The happy man does not, it is true,
feel this joy at every instant, for he sometimes rests from his contemplation,
and usually also turns his thoughts to practical affairs. But it is enough that he
is in a state to feel joy whenever he wishes to think of it and that at other times
there is a joyousness in his actions and his nature which arises from this.
Present joy does not make happy if it has no permanence; indeed, he is
rather unhappy who falls into a long wretchedness for the sake of a brief joy.
Joy is a pleasure which the soul feels in itself. Pleasure is the feeling of a
perfection or an excellence, whether in ourselves or in something else. For the
perfection of other beings also is agreeable, such as understanding, courage,
and especially beauty in another human being, or in an animal or even in a
lifeless creation, a painting or a work of craftsmanship, as well. For the image
of such perfection in others, impressed upon us, causes some of this perfection
to be implanted and aroused within ourselves. Thus there is no doubt that he
who consorts much with excellent people or things becomes himself more
excellent.
Although the perfections of others sometimes displease us — as for exam-
 On Wisdom 319
ple, the understanding or the courage of any enemy, the beauty of a rival, or
the luster of another's virtue which overshadows or shames us — this is not
because of the perfection itself but because of the circumstance which makes
it inopportune for us, so that the sweetness of our first perception of this
perfection in someone else is exceeded and spoiled by the consequent bitter-
ness of our afterthoughts.
We do not always observe wherein the perfection of pleasing things con-
sists, or what kind of perfection within ourselves they serve, yet our feelings
[Gemuth] perceive it, even though our understanding does not. We commonly
say, "There is something, I know not what, that pleases me in the matter."
This we call "sympathy." But those who seek the causes of things will usually
find a ground for this and understand that there is something at the bottom of
the matter which, though unnoticed, really appeals to us.
Music is a beautiful example of this. Everything that emits a sound contains
a vibration or a transverse motion such as we see in strings; thus everything
that emits sounds gives off invisible impulses. When these are not confused,
but proceed together in order but with a certain variation, they are pleasing;
in the same way, we also notice certain changes from long to short syllables,
and a coincidence of rhymes in poetry, which contain a silent music, as it were,
and when correctly constructed are pleasant even without being sung. Drum
beats, the beat and cadence of the dance, and other motions of ,this kind in
measure and rule derive their pleasurableness from their order, for all order is
an aid to the emotions. And a regular though invisible order is found also in
the artfully created beats and motions of vibrating strings, pipes, bells, and
indeed, even of the air itself, which these bring into uniform motion. Through
our hearing, this creates a sympathetic echo in us, to which our animal spirits
respond. This is why music is so well adapted to move our minds, even though
this main purpose is not usually sufficiently noticed or sought after.
There can be no doubt that even in touch, taste, and smell, sweetness
consists in a definite though insensible order and perfection or a fitness, which
nature has put there to stimulate us and the animals to that which is otherwise
needed, so that the right use of all pleasurable things is really brought about in
us, even though these things may give rise to a far greater harm through abuse
and intemperance.
I call any elevation of being a perfection. Just as illness is a debasement, as it
were, and a decline from health, so perfection is something which rises above
health. But health itself stands balanced in the middle and lays the foundation
for perfection. Now illness comes from an injury to action, as medical men
rightly observe. Just so perfection shows itself in great freedom and power of
action; since all being consists in a kind of power; and the greater the power,
the higher and freer the being.
The greater any power is, moreover, the more there is found in it the many
revealed through the one and in the one, in that the one rules many outside of
itself and represents them in itself. Now unity in plurality is nothing but
harmony [Ubereinstimmung], and since any particular being agrees with one
320 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
rather than another being, there flows from this harmony the order from
which beauty arises, and beauty awakens love.
Thus we see that happiness, pleasure, love, perfection, being, power, free-
dom, harmony, order, and beauty are all tied to each other, a truth which is
rightly perceived by few.
Now when the soul feels within itself a great harmony, order, freedom,
power, or perfection, and hence feels pleasure in this, the result is joy, as these
explanations show. Such joy is permanent and cannot deceive, nor can it
cause a future unhappiness if it arises from knowledge and is accompanied by
a light which kindles an inclination to the good in the will, that is, virtue. But
when pleasure and joy are directed toward satisfying the senses rather than
the understanding, they can as easily lead us to unhappiness as to bliss, just as
a food which tastes good can be unwholesome. So the enjoyment of the senses
must be used according to the rules of reason, like a food, medicine, or
exercise. But the pleasure which the soul finds in itself through understanding
is a present joy such as can conserve our joy for the future as well.
It follows from this that nothing serves our happiness better than the illumi-
nation of our understanding and the exercise of our will to act always accord-
ing to our understanding, and that this illumination is to be sought especially
in the knowledge of such things as can bring our, understanding ever further
into a higher light. For there springs from such knowledge an enduring prog-
ress in wisdom and virtue, and therefore also in perfection and joy, the advan-
tage of which remains with the soul even after this life. . . .

Felicity
1. Virtue is the habit of acting according to wisdom. It is necessary that
practice accompany knowledge.
2. Wisdom is the science of felicity, [and] is what must be studied above all
other things.
3. Felicity is a lasting state of pleasure. Thus it is good to abandon or
moderate pleasures which can be injurious by causing misfortunes or by block-
ing [the attainment of] better and more lasting pleasures.
4. Pleasure is a knowledge or feeling of perfection, not only in ourselves,
but also in others, for in this way some further perfection is aroused in us.
5. To love is to find pleasure in the perfection of another.
6. Justice is charity or a habit of loving conformed to wisdom. Thus when
one is inclined to justice, one tries to procure good for everybody, so far as
one can, reasonably, but in proportion to the needs and merits of each: and
even if one is obliged sometimes to punish evil persons, it is for the general
good.
6a. Now it is necessary to explain the feeling or the knowledge of perfec-
tion. The confused perception of some perfection constitutes the pleasure of
sense, but this pleasure can be [productive] of greater imperfections which are
born of it, as a fruit with a good taste and a good odor can conceal a poison.
 Felicity 321
This is why one must shun the pleasures of sense, as one shuns a stranger, or,
sooner, a flattering enemy.
7. Knowledge is of two kinds, that of facts and that of reasons. That of facts
is perception, that of reasons is intelligence.
8. Knowledge of reasons perfects us because it teaches us universal and
eternal truths, which are manifested in the perfect Being. But knowledge of
facts is like that of the streets of a town, which serves us while we stay
there, [but] after [leaving] which we don't wish to burden our memory any
longer.
8a. The pleasures of sense which most closely approach pleasures of the
mind, and are the most pure and the most certain, are that of music and that
of symmetry, the former [being pleasure] of the ears, the latter of the eyes; for
it is easy to understand the principles [raisons] of harmony, this perfection
which gives us pleasure. The sole thing to be feared in this respect is to use it
too often.
9. One need not shun at all pleasures which are born of intelligence or of
reasons, as one penetrates the reason of the reason of perfections, that is to
say as one sees them flow from their source, which is the absolutely perfect
Being.
10. The perfect Being is called God. He is the ultimate reason of things, and
the cause of causes. Being the sovereign wisdom and the sovereign power, he
has always chosen the best and acts always in an orderly way.
11. One is happy when he loves God, and God, who has done everything
perfectly, cannot fail to arrange everything thus, to elevate created beings to
the perfection of which they are capable through union with him, which can
subsist only through the spirit.
12. But one cannot love God without knowing his perfections, or his
beauty. And since we can know him only in his emanations, these are two
means of seeing his beauty, namely in the knowledge of eternal truths (which
explain [their own] reasons in themselves), and in the knowledge of the Har-
mony of the Universe (in applying reasons to facts). That is to say, one must
know the marvels of reason and the marvels of nature.
13. The marvels of reason and of eternal truths which our mind discovers in
itself [are essential] in the sciences of reasoning about numbers, about figures,
about good and evil, about justice and injustice.
14. The marvels of physical nature are the system of the universe, the
structure of the bodies of animals, the causes of the rainbow, of magnetism, of
the ebb and flow [of the tides], and a thousand other similar things.
15. One must hold as certain that the more a mind desires to know order,
reason, the beauty of things which God has produced, and the more he is
moved to imitate this order in the things which God has left to his direction,
the happier he will be.
16. It is most true, as a result, that one cannot know God without loving
one's brother, that one cannot have wisdom without having charity (which is
the real touchstone of virtue), and that one even advances one's own good in
322 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
working for that of others: for it is an eternal law of reason and of the
harmony of things that the works of each [person] will follow it. Thus the
sovereign wisdom has so well regulated all things that our duty must also be
our happiness, that all virtue produces its [own] reward, and that all crime
punishes itself, sooner or later.

Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice

I
It is agreed that whatever God wills is good and just. But there remains the
question whether it is good and just because God wills it or whether God wills
it because it is good and just: in other words, whether justice and goodness are
arbitrary or whether they belong to the necessary and eternal truths about the
nature of things, as do numbers and proportions. The former opinion has
been followed by some philosophers, and by some Roman [Catholic] and
Reformed theologians: but present-day Reformed [theologians] usually reject
this doctrine, as do all of our theologians and most of those of the Roman
Church.
Indeed it [this view] would destroy the justice of God. For why praise him
because he acts according to justice, if the notion of justice, in his case, adds
nothing to that of action? And to say stat pro ratione voluntas, my will takes
the place of reason, is properly the motto of a tyrant. Moreover this opinion
would not sufficiently distinguish God from the devil. For if the devil, that is
to say an intelligent, invisible, very great and very evil power, were the master
of the world, this devil or this God would still be evil, even if it were necessary
to honor him by force, as some peoples honor such imaginary gods in the hope
of bringing them thereby to do less evil. . . .

It is a question, then, of determining the formal reason of justice and the

measure by which we should measure actions to know whether they are just or
not. After what has been said one can already foresee what this will be. Justice
is nothing else than that which conforms to wisdom and goodness joined
together: the end of goodness is the greatest good, but to recognize it wisdom
is needed, which is nothing else than knowledge of the good. Goodness is
simply the inclination to do good to everyone, and to arrest evil, at least when
it is not necessary for a greater good or to arrest a greater evil. Thus wisdom is
in the understanding and goodness in the will. And justice, as a consequence,
is in both. Power is a different matter, but if it is used it makes right become
fact, and makes what ought to be also really exist, in so far as the nature of
things permits. And this is what God does in the world.
But since justice tends to the good, and [since] wisdom and goodness, which
together form justice, relate to the good, one may ask what the true good is. I
answer that it is nothing else than that which serves in the perfection of
intelligent substances: from which it is clear that order, contentment, joy,
 Meditation on the Common Concept of Justice 323
wisdom, goodness and virtue are good things essentially and can never be evil;
that power is naturally a good, that is to say in itself, because, everything
being equal, it is better to have it than not to have it: but it does not become a
certain good until it is joined with wisdom and goodness: for the power of an
evil person serves only to plunge him farther into unhappiness sooner or later,
because it gives him the means to be more evil, and to merit a greater punish-
ment, from which he will not escape, since there is a perfectly just monarch of
the universe whose infinite penetration and sovereign power one cannot
avoid.
And since experience shows us that God permits, for reasons unknown to
us but doubtless very wise, and founded in a greater good, that there be many
evil [persons who are] happy in this life, and many good [persons who are]
unhappy, which would not conform to the rules of a perfect government such
as God's if it were not redressed, it follows necessarily that there will be
another life, and that souls do not perish at all with the visible body; otherwise
there would be unpunished crimes, and good actions without recompense,
which is contrary to order.
There are, besides, demonstrative proofs of the immortality of the soul,
because the principle of action and of consciousness could not come from a
purely passive extended thing indifferent to all movement, such as matter is:
thus action and consciousness must come from something simple or immate-
rial [and] without extension and without parts; which is called soul: now
everything which is simple or without parts, is not subject to dissolution, and
as a consequence cannot be destroyed. There are people who imagine that we
are too small a thing in the sight of an infinite God, for him to be concerned
with us; it is conceived that we are to God that which worms, which we crush
without thinking, are in relation to us. But this is to imagine that God is like a
man, and cannot think of everything. God, by the very fact that he is infinite,
does things without working by a species of result of his will, as it results from
my will and that of my friend, that we are in agreement, without needing a
new action to produce the accord after our resolutions are made. But if the
human race were not well governed, the universe would not be either, for the
whole consists of its parts. . . . the beauty and the justice of the divine govern-
ment have been partly concealed from our eyes, not only because it could not
be otherwise, without changing the whole harmony of the world, but also
because it is proper in order that there be more exercise of free virtue, of
wisdom and of a nonmercenary love of God, since rewards and punishments
are still outwardly invisible and appear only to the eyes of our reason or faith:
which I take here for the same thing, since true faith is founded in reason.
And since the marvels of nature make us find that the operations of God are
admirably beautiful, whenever we can envisage a whole in its natural context,
though this beauty is not apparent in looking at things detached or torn from
their wholes, we must conclude that everything which we cannot yet disentan-
gle or envisage as a whole with all its parts must have no less of justice and of
beauty. . . .
324 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz

Codex iuris gentium (Praefatio)

XI. . . . The doctrine of law, taken from nature's strict confines, presents
an immense field for human study. But the notions of law and of justice, even
after having been treated by so many illustrious authors, have not been made
sufficiently clear. Right is a kind of moral possibility, and obligation a moral
necessity. By moral I mean that which is equivalent to "natural" for a good
man: for as a Roman jurisconsult has well said, we ought to believe that we
are incapable of doing things which are contrary to good morals.' A good man
is one who loves everybody, in so far as reason permits. Justice, then, which is
the virtue [that] regulates that affection which the Greeks call 4likavec•orcCa
[philanthropy], will be most conveniently defined, if I am not in error, as the
charity of the wise man, that is, charity which follows the dictates of wisdom.
So that assertion which is attributed to Carneades, that justice is supreme
folly, because it commands us to consider the interests of others while we
neglect our own, is born of ignorance of the definition of justice. 4
Charity is a universal benevolence, and benevolence the habit of loving or
of willing the good. Love then signifies rejoicing in the happiness of another,
or, what is the same thing, converting the happiness of another into one's
own. With this is resolved a difficult question, of great moment in theology as
well: in what way disinterested love is possible, independent of hope, of fear,
and of regard for any question of utility.' In truth, the happiness of those
whose happiness pleases us turns into our own happiness, since things which
please us are desired for their own sake. And since the contemplation of the
beautiful is pleasant in itself, and a painting of Raphael affects a sensitive
person who understands it, although it brings him no [material] gain, so that
he keeps it in his [mind's] eye, as the image of a thing which is loved; when the
beautiful thing is itself capable of happiness, this affection passes over into
pure love. But the divine love excels all other loves, because God can be loved
with the greatest result [Deus cum maximo successu amari potest], since noth-
ing is happier than God, and nothing more beautiful or more worthy of
happiness can be conceived. And since he possesses supreme power and
supreme wisdom, his happiness does not simply become ours (if we are wise:
that is, if we love him), but even creates ours. But since wisdom ought to
guide charity, it will be necessary to define it [wisdom]. I believe that we can
best render the concept that men have of it, if we say that wisdom is nothing
but the science of happiness itself. Once again we return to the concept of
happiness, which this is not the place to explain.
XII. Now from this source flows natural right [ius naturae], of which there
are three degrees: strict right [ius strictum] in commutative justice; equity (or,
in the narrower sense of the term, charity) in distributive justice; and, finally,
piety (or probity) in universal justice: hence come the most general and
commonly accepted principles of right — to injure no one, to give to each his
due, and to live honestly (or rather piously); . . . The precept of mere or strict
right is that no one is to be injured, so that he will not be given a motive for a
 Codex iuris gentium (Praefatio) 325
legal action within the state, nor outside the state a right of war. From this
arises the justice which philosophers call commutative, 6 and the right which
Grotius calls a legal claim [facultas].7 The higher degree I call equity or, if you
prefer, charity (that is, in the narrower sense), and this I extend beyond the
rigor of strict right to [include] those obligations which give to those whom
they affect no ground for [legal] action in compelling us to fulfill them, such as
gratitude and alms-giving — to which, as Grotius says, we have a moral claim
[aptitudo], not a legal claim [facultas]. And as [the principle of] the lowest
degree of right is to harm no one, so [that of] the middle degree is to do good
to everybody; but only so far as befits each one or as much as he deserves; for
it is impossible to favor everyone. It is, then, here that distributive justice
belongs, and the precept of the law which commands us to give to each his
due. And it is here that the political laws of a state belong, which assure the
happiness of its subjects and make it possible that those who had a merely
moral claim acquire a legal claim; that is, that they become able to demand
what it is equitable for others to perform. In the lowest degree of right, one
does not take account of differences among men, except those which arise
from each particular case, and all men are considered equal; but now on the
higher level merits are weighed, and thus privileges, rewards and punishment
have their place. This difference between the two degrees of right was nicely
suggested by Xenophon, 8 in his example of the boy Cyrus, who was chosen to
judge between two boys, the stronger of whom had forcibly exchanged gar-
ments with the other because he found that the other's coat fitted him and his
own fitted the other better. Cyrus pronounced in favor of the robber; but he
was admonished by his teacher that in this case it was not a question of
deciding whom the coat fitted better, but only to whom it belonged, and that
the other manner of judging might more properly be used only when he
himself had coats to distribute. Equity itself demands strict right, or the
equality of men, in our dealings, except when an important consideration of a
greater good makes us depart from it. What is called respect of persons,
however, has its place, not in exchanging goods with others, but in distributing
our own or the public goods.
XIII. The highest degree of right I have called probity, or rather piety. What
I have said thus far can be interpreted as limited to the relations within mortal
life. Simple or strict right is born of the principle of the conservation of peace;
equity or charity strives for something higher — [namely] that while each bene-
fits others as much as he can, he may increase his own happiness in that of the
other. And, to say it in a word, strict right avoids misery, while the higher right
tends toward happiness, but only such as is possible in this life. But that we
ought to hold this life itself and everything that makes it desirable inferior to
the great advantage of others, and that we should bear the greatest pains for
the sake of those near us: all this is [merely] taught with noble words by
philosophers, rather than proved by solid demonstration. For the dignity and
glory, and our mind's sense of joy on account of virtue, to which they appeal
under the name of honor [honestas], are certainly goods of thought or of the
326 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
mind and are, indeed, great ones, but not such as to prevail with all [men], nor
to overcome all the bitterness of evils, since not all men are equally moved by
the imagination; especially those who have not become accustomed to the
thought of virtue or to the appreciation of the goods of the mind, whether
through a liberal education or a noble way of living, or the discipline of life or
of a sect. In order really to establish by a universal demonstration that every-
thing honorable is useful and everything base is damned, one must assume the
immortality of the soul, and God as ruler of the universe. In this way we can
think of all men as living in the most perfect state, under a monarch who can
neither be deceived in his wisdom nor eluded in his power; and who is also so
worthy of love that it is happiness [itself] to serve such a master. Thus whoever
expends his soul in the service of Christ will regain it. 9 The divine providence
and power cause all right to become fact, and [assure that] no one is injured
except by himself, that no good action goes unrewarded, and no sin unpun-
ished. Because, as we are divinely taught by Christ, all our hairs are num-
bered, 19 and not even a drink of water is given to the thirsty in vain;" nothing
is neglected in the state of the universe. It is on this ground that justice is
called universal, and includes all the other virtues; for duties that do not seem
to concern others, as, for example, not to abuse our own bodies or our own
property, though they are beyond [the power of] human laws, are still prohib-
ited by natural law, that is, by the eternal laws of the divine monarchy, since
we owe ourselves and everything we have to God. Now, if it is of interest to
the state, of how much more interest is it to the universe that no one use badly
what is his? So it is from this that the highest precept of the law receives its
force, which commands us to live honorably (that is, piously). It is in this
sense that learned men have rightly held, among things to be desired, that the
law of nature and of the nations [ius naturae et gentium] should follow the
teachings of Christianity, that is, the sublime things, the divine things of the
wise, according to the teaching of Christ. Thus I think that I have interpreted
the three precepts of the [Roman] law, 12 or the three degrees of justice, in the
most fitting way, and have indicated the sources of the natural law.
XIV. Besides the eternal right [or law] of rational nature, flowing from the
divine source, there is also held to be voluntary right, derived from custom or
made by a superior. And in the state the civil law [ius civile] indeed receives its
force from him who has the supreme power; outside of the state, or among
those who participate in the supreme power (of whom there may be more
than one, even in the same state), is the sphere of the voluntary law of
nations, originating in the tacit consent of peoples. It is not necessary that this
be the agreement of all peoples or for all times; for there have been many
cases in which one thing was considered right in India and another in Europe,
and even among us it has changed with the passage of centuries, as this very
work will show. . . .
XV. But Christians have yet another common tie, the divine positive law
contained in the sacred Scriptures. To these can be added the sacred canons
accepted in the whole Church and, later, in the West, the pontifical legisla-
 The Principles of Pufendorf 327
tion, to which kings and peoples submit themselves. And in general before the
schism of the last century, it seems to have been accepted for a long time (and
not without reason) that a kind of common republic of Christian nations must
be thought of, the heads of which were the Pope in sacred matters, and the
Emperor in temporal matters, who preserved as much of the power of the
ancient Roman emperors as was necessary for the common good of Christen-
dom, saving [without prejudicing] the rights of kings and the liberty of
princes. . . .

The Principles of Pufendorf

IV
So much for what regards the end and the object [of natural law]; it remains
now to treat the efficient cause of this law, which our author does not correctly
establish. He, indeed, does not find it in the nature of things and in the
precepts of right reason which conform to it, which emanate from the divine
understanding, but (what will appear to be strange and contradictory) in the
command of a superior. Indeed, Book I, chapter I, part I, defines duty as "the
human action exactly conforming to the prescriptions of the laws in virtue of
an obligation." And soon chapter II, part 2, defines law as "a command by
which the superior obliges the subject to conform his actions to what the law
itself prescribes." 13 If we admit this, no one will do his duty spontaneously;
also, there will be no duty when there is no superior to compel its observance;
nor will there be any duties for those who do not have a superior. And since,
according to the author, duty and acts prescribed by justice coincide (because
his whole natural jurisprudence is contained in the doctrine of duty), it follows
that all law is prescribed by a superior. This paradox, brought out by Hobbes
above all, who seemed to deny to the state of nature, that is [a condition] in
which there are no superiors, all binding justice whatsoever (although even he
is inconsistent), is a view to which I am astonished that anyone could have
adhered. Now, then, will he who is invested with the supreme power do
nothing against justice if he proceeds tyrannically against his subjects; who
arbitrarily despoils his subjects, torments them, and kills them under torture;
who makes war on others without cause? .. .
It is without doubt most true, that God is by nature superior to all; all the
same the doctrine itself, which makes all law derivative from the command of
a superior, is not freed of scandal and errors, however one justifies it. Indeed,
not to mention that which Grotius justly observed, namely that there would
be a natural obligation even on the hypothesis — which is impossible — that
God does not exist," or if one but left the divine existence out of consider-
ation; since care for one's own preservation and well-being certainly lays on
men many requirements about taking care of others, as even Hobbes per-
ceives in part (and this obligatory tie bands of brigands confirm by their
example, who, while they are enemies of others, are obliged to respect certain
328 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
duties among themselves — although, as I have observed, a natural law based
on this source alone would be very imperfect); to pass over all this, one must
pay attention to this fact: that God is praised because he is just. There must
be, then, a certain justice — or rather a supreme justice — in God, even though
no one is superior to him, and he, by the spontaneity of his excellent nature,
accomplishes all things well, such that no one can reasonably complain of him.
Neither the norm of conduct itself, nor the essence of the just, depends on his
free decision, but rather on eternal truths, objects of the divine intellect,
which constitute, so to speak, the essence of divinity itself; and it is right that
our author is reproached by theologians when he maintains the contrary;
because, I believe, he had not seen the wicked consequences which arise from
it. Justice, indeed, would not be an essential attribute of God, if he himself
established justice and law by his free will. And, indeed, justice follows cer-
tain rules of equality and of proportion [which are] no less founded in the
immutable nature of things, and in the divine ideas, than are the principles of
arithmetic and of geometry. So that no one will maintain that justice and
goodness originate in the divine will, without at the same time maintaining
that truth originates in it as well: an unheard-of paradox by which Descartes''
showed how great can be the errors of great men. . . .

V
. . . Nor do I see how the author, acute as he is, could easily be absolved of the
contradiction into which he falls, when he makes all juridical obligations
derivative from the command of a superior (which we have shown through
citations of him), while afterwards in Book I, chapter II, part 5, he states that
in order that one have a superior it is necessary that they [superiors] possess
not only the force [necessary] to exercise coercion, but also that they have a
just cause to justify their power over my person. Consequently the justice of
the cause is antecedent to this same superior, contrary to what had been
asserted. Well, then, if the source of law is the will of a superior and, inversely
a justifying cause of law is necessary in order to have a superior, a circle is
created, than which none was ever more manifest. From what will the justice
of the cause derive, if there is not yet a superior, from whom, supposedly, the
law may emanate? And it would be strange that so acute a person could take
such measures against himself, if we did not know that to those who under-
take to maintain paradoxes it happens easily that, when good sense prevails in
them, they forget their own doctrines. . . .
But whoever examines carefully what he says, will not fail to notice that he
is neither consistent, nor resolves the difficulty. Indeed, if neither coercion
without reasons, nor the latter without force is sufficient, why — I ask — when
force ceases and reason alone remains, shall I not return to that liberty which
it is said I had when, before the application of force, reason alone was pres-
ent? What the author says, in fact — that, failing fear, no one can stop me from
behaving according to my own will rather than according to someone else's —
 Editor's Notes 329
would be valid even if reasons existed. On the other hand, if reasons restrain
even by themselves, why did they not already restrain by themselves, before
fear arose? And what force, I pray you, can fear give to reasons, except
itself — which it would not itself provide even without reasons? Or will this not
very durable sentiment impress some indelible character on unwilling minds?
Suppose that a man who owes obedience to another solely in virtue of rea-
sons, is afterwards also constrained by force on the part of the other, and that
he persists nonetheless in his soul's original disposition, by which he does not
want to obey any more than he is constrained [to do]; I do not see why, once
constrained, he ought to remain in submission in perpetuity. Supposing, for
example, that a Christian who is ill falls into the power of a Turkish doctor, by
whom he is made to practice hygienic precepts that he already knew [to be
efficacious] for some time, but which are now imposed on him coercively;
when, afterwards, he is offered an occasion to escape, would he be obliged to
[observe] temperance more than he had before his imprisonment? One or the
other, then: either reasons oblige prior to force, or they do not obligate any
longer when force fails.
The things [which I have indicated] show sufficiently that the author is
lacking sound principles on which to found the true reasons for laws, about
which he himself has arbitrarily supposed principles which cannot be main-
tained. For the rest, the foundations of jurisprudence, whether common to all
law (even to that which is derived solely from equity), or proper to law in a
narrow sense (which involves a superior), have been indicated by us else-
where. To summarize, we shall say in general that: the end of natural law is
the good of those who observe it; its object, all that which concerns others and
is in our power; finally, its efficient cause in us is the light of eternal reason,
kindled in our minds by the divinity.

Editor's Notes
1. What is contained "eminently" in God is analogous to what is contained "for-
mally" in created beings, but it exists in a fuller and more perfect way.
2. Leibniz and Newton were rivals for the honor of discovering the infinitesimal
calculus. Leibniz was also critical of various aspects of Newton's physics. For an
account of their controversies, see A. Rupert Hall, Philosophers at War (Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1980).
3. Leibniz was referring to the Roman jurist Papinian.
4. Grotius attacked Carneades (c. 213-128 B.C.E.), a leader of the Platonic Academy
and a major skeptical thinker, on the same point. See the "Prolegomena," §5, in
the Grotius selections in Part I of this anthology.
5. The possibility of totally disinterested love was a topic of heated theological
debate in France during the late seventeenth century.
6. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 1130b.
7. Or perfect right. See Grotius, Law of War and Peace, I.i.4, in the selections in Part
I of this anthology.
8. The story is told in Xenophon, Cyropaedia, 1.3. 17; Grotius used it to illustrate the
difference between perfect and imperfect rights.
9. Matt. 10:39.
330 Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz
10. Luke 12:7.
11. Matt. 10:42.
12. That is, to injure no one, to give each his due, and to live honestly (or piously) —
precepts summarizing justice as given at the beginning of Justinian's Institutes.
13. For these views of Pufendorf and those to which Leibniz later referred, see the
selections from Pufendorf's Law of Nature and of Nations in Part I of this anthology.
14. See the selections from Grotius in Part I of this anthology. Leibniz was referring to
the "Prolegomena" to the Law of War and Peace, §11.
15. For Descartes's voluntarism, see the selections from the "Replies to Objections"
in Part II of this anthology.

Further Reading
More of Leibniz's work on1. oral
1 and political issues is contained in the two volumes
from which the selectionsgiven here were taken. The reader may also wish to consult
Leibniz's chapter-by-chapter commentary on John Locke, New Essays on Human
Understanding, trans. and ed. Peter Remnant and Jonathan Bennett (Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1982). For every passage in which Locke said
something about ethics, there is a corresponding passage in Leibniz, and in some but
not all of them he developed positive views of his own.
G. MacDonald Ross, Leibniz (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), is a brief
introduction to Leibniz's thought, with a helpful bibliography. Other general studies of
Leibniz are H. W. B. Joseph, Lectures on the Philosophy of Leibniz, ed. J. L. Austin
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1947); Nicholas Rescher, Leibniz: An Introduction
to His Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1979); and Stuart Brown, Leib-
niz (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984).
There is one book in English on Leibniz's ethics: John Hostler, Leibniz's Moral
Philosophy (London: Duckworth, 1975). G. H. R. Parkinson's monograph Leibniz on
Human Freedom (Wiesbaden, West Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1970) (Studia
Leibnitiana Sonderheft 2) is a helpful analysis of a topic important to his ethics.
For a general study of Leibniz in the context of seventeenth-century thought, see
Leroy E. Loemker, Struggle for Synthesis: The Seventeenth Century Background of
Leibniz's Synthesis of Order and Freedom (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1972), which examines the moral issues of that time. R. W. Meyer, Leibnitz and
the Seventeenth Century Revolution, trans. J. P. Stern (Cambridge, England: Bowes &
Bowes, 1952), also relates Leibniz's thought to the general problems of his era.
 Christian Wolff

Introduction
Christian Wolff was born in Breslau, Germany, in 1679. He studied theology and
mathematics and in 1706 was appointed professor of mathematics and natural science
at the University of Halle. An early essay of his on the application of mathematical
method to practical philosophy won Leibniz's admiration. Leibniz thereafter corre-
sponded with him and sponsored him for various positions, and the philosophy Wolff
developed became known as the "Leibniz—Wolff" philosophy. In 1713, while Latin was
still the dominant language of the learned world, Wolff began to publish philosophical
works in German. The first concerned the powers of the human understanding; it was
followed by volumes explaining metaphysics, ethics, politics, cosmology, and teleology
(the study of the ends or reasons for the existence of different kinds of things).
With these early German works, Wolff established his reputation as an important
systematic thinker, and he also introduced into the German language many philosophi-
cal terms that are still in use. Having developed his system in German, Wolff then
proceeded to expand and refine it, publishing Latin expositions six or seven volumes
long on each of the subjects that he had covered in German in only one volume. He
wrote on many other subjects as well. Even in his own lifetime Wolff was reproached
for his verbosity, but his Latin works were nonetheless widely read and gave Wolff an
international reputation. Indeed, the fact that a long French summary of his work was
written especially for women suggests that it was important in fashionable circles, and
not only at the universities, to know something about his views.
In 1721 as rector of the University of Halle, Wolff gave an address in which he
argued that Chinese morals and European morals were so similar that it could be
concluded that morality can be learned from reason alone and, consequently, that
religion is not necessary for happiness and decent living. He had already aroused a
good deal of opposition among the Pietistic members of the university faculty, who
were less rationalistic and more orthodox than he was. Wolff's speech led to a move-
ment that resulted in the Prussian king's ordering him in 1723 to leave Halle within
forty-eight hours. One account states that the king was finally moved to give this order
by the claim that, according to Wolff, soldiers who ran away from battle could not help
themselves and therefore could not be held responsible. When Frederick the Great
came to the throne in 1740, he recalled Wolff, who from then until his death in 1754
continued to teach and write in Halle.
The aim of philosophy, Wolff held, is to give a definitive account of the abstract
possibilities of things. What is actual must be learned from experience, but whatever is
actual must be possible, and the philosopher's task is to explain why there are the

331
332 Christian Wolff
possibilities there are and no others. The philosopher must do this for all subjects.
Wolff started with the basic concept of being and worked through the concepts in-
volved in the constitution of the natural world and human psychology to the most
detailed expositions of the proper arrangement of political and personal life, showing
how the concepts needed to structure these fields arise from or are made possible by
the principle of sufficient reason and the principle of identity. God is the sole being
whose existence is necessary, but although the existence of every other kind of entity is
contingent, the essences that those entities exemplify are necessarily connected
through an intricate web of possibilities and impossibilities.
Wolff divided philosophy into two parts. Theoretical philosophy relates to our
capacity for knowledge as such. Practical philosophy relates to our appetitive faculty,
giving scientific direction to our capacity for choosing good and avoiding evil. Practical
philosophy itself has three main parts. Ethics deals with people before the existence of
any political organization. It considers people as they live in the company of others
but not under any political superior. Economics explains the management of life in
small societies or groups in which there is some authority, such as the family, regarding
which Wolff demonstrated that the father is naturally the head. Politics refers to the
direction of life in political society, which has a supreme authority all must obey.
Although there are principles for each of these subdivisions, there also are universal
principles of practical philosophy. These universal principles direct all free action in
pursuit of good (or avoidance of evil, as Wolff always insisted on adding), and the
principles within each of the more specialized realms only exemplify the universal
directives.
Although Wolff's basic ideas about the essence of humanity and about human action
are Leibnizian, their elaboration into a full and coherent system is his own. On a
number of important matters, such as the nature of obligation, Wolff gave more detail
than Leibniz did, thereby raising the question of whether Leibniz would have agreed
with him on all these points. And in other respects, the social and political aims that
provided some of Wolff's motivation led him to positions that we cannot clearly
identify in Leibniz.
Wolff was eager to spread the Enlightenment to the general population, and it was
no accident that he believed the human good to lie in the constant increase of knowl-
edge. To enable people to be happier and better, he held, we must educate them. He
approved of the many German magazines that imitated the English Spectator of the
early eighteenth century and that were extremely popular in Wolff's Germany. The
"middle brow" culture and the models of politeness they were spreading were an
improvement over what merchants and shopkeepers and wealthier artisans had previ-
ously had available. They made known an alternative to the style of the courtier, which
had been the dominant pattern of manners for those who had enough money and
leisure to improve themselves. Wolff believed that the systematic knowledge contained
in his universal practical philosophy would do more to help people become cultivated,
polite, and thoughtful than would unsystematic moral instruction. As he demon-
strated, he felt that he owed it to his fellows to help them improve themselves; and if
we bear in mind the generally backward state of culture and economy in Germany at
that time, we can see past the elitism of his remarks to a genuine concern for human
betterment.
Evident in Wolff's work, moreover, is a strong interest in human self-direction. In
his view, we can learn what to do by reason alone, without revelation; God himself
cannot order us to do anything except what the rational laws of nature bid us do; we do
 Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men 333
not need to be bribed or coerced into obedience by threats of punishment or offers of
reward. We are, in short, autonomous moral agents — or we can be if we are suffi-
ciently educated. The difficulty Wolff faced was that it did not seem obvious that
everyone could be sufficiently educated to reach the stage of perceiving clearly and
distinctly that happiness is to be attained only through virtue. And those who did not
see this could be brought to a decent course of behavior only by the threat of punish-
ment. Wolff's intellectualist theory of the good did not allow him to underwrite the
kind of universal ascription of self-directive capacities that he wanted to support. If he
showed us how far a Leibnizian view can go in this direction, he also made clear just
where it must stop.
I have translated the following selections from Wolff's Verniinftige Gedancken von
der Menschen Tun und Lassen zu Beforderung ihrer Gluckseeligkeit, first published in
1720. I have used the text of the Olms reprint of the fourth edition of 1733. In the notes
I have added some passages from the "German metaphysics," Verniinftige Gedancken
von Gott, der Welt, und der Seele des Menschen (Reasonable thoughts about God, the
world, and the human soul), also first published in 1720, to help explain some of the
terms Wolff used in his ethics.

Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men, for the Promotion of

Their Happiness

Foreword to Second Edition

. . . I treat here a part of philosophy,' namely, that which explains the acts and
omissions of man. Whoever does not want these words to mean other than
what the subject calls for must, in such an endeavor, show what is possible
through man's will and how it is possible that a man can determine himself to
do certain actions and omit others. A philosopher shows the reason from
which one can see that something is possible rather than impossible and
explains accordingly in any given case why one determines oneself to this
rather than that act. . . . I have accordingly investigated for all cases how
actions must be constituted so that one can will them and how they must be if
one is averse to them, once one fully sees their constitution. And thereby I
have shown conceptually that human actions are in themselves necessarily
good or evil and that in no way do they become good or evil only through the
command or prohibition of a superior. . . .
I have further shown how it is possible to obligate a man to do or omit
something, and especially I have placed natural obligation in an unexpected
light, which previously could more easily be named than explained. And
precisely from this it follows that virtue can exist with natural obligation
alone; everything beyond that works simply as an outer compulsion. Because
in ethics [in der Moral] it should be shown how man arrives at virtue, what
matters most is to show how to begin to satisfy one's natural obligations. In
this kind of obligation, man remains wholly free in his actions, and he is never
freer than when he acts in accordance with it. In all other obligation, on the
contrary, a sort of force is encountered, which is necessary for those who are
334 Christian Wolff
not able to see correctly the properties of their actions. Men of understanding
and reason need no obligation beyond the natural. But dull and unreasonable
men are in need of another. The servile fear of the force and might of a
superior must restrain them from doing what they would like to do.
Accordingly, if one wishes to guide man, one can do it in two ways: one
guides him either through compulsion, like a beast, or through the aid of
reason, like a reasonable creature. With the former I have, in ethics, nothing
to do; for through it no one is brought to virtue but only to an outer habit of
goodness, or even to a sham being in which there is no truth. Only the other is
my work, as I have allowed myself to take on the task of making virtue more
acceptable among men. . . .

PART I: OF HUMAN ACTION AND OMISSION IN GENERAL

Chapter 1: Of the Universal Rule of Human Action and the

Law of Nature
1. We find from experience that some thoughts of the soul as well as move-
ments of the body are originated by the will of the soul; others, however, are
not subordinated to it. . . . Now because what our will originates has its
ground in the will, and therefore in ourself' — whereas the movements of the
body that are subordinated to the will have their ground in the condition of
the body — both the thoughts of the mind and the movements of the body that
depend on the will belong to our actions. And because the will is free to
choose from among the possible things the one that pleases us most, this
action of man is free and [so] is called free action.'
2. . . . The inner and outer conditions of the soul and the body, which are
sustained with the aid of our free actions, either agree with the essence of the
soul and the body and with their previous condition or are contrary to them.
Because the proof of this goes too deeply into the most subtle truths . . . I will
here content myself by merely calling on experience and a few examples to
explain the proposition.
Man is suited by nature to know truth. 4 The more truth he recognizes, the
more fit he is to know it. So the condition of soul in which it is kept aware of
truth through its free actions, that is, its manifold strivings for knowledge,
agrees with its natural condition and in no way opposes it. Suppose there is a
man in good bodily condition without pain: if he eats and drinks a great deal,
he will find himself dull and have pains in his head and perhaps in other parts
of his body. The present condition of his body is contrary to the previous one;
even his soul is at odds with the previous condition. For although his soul was
previously capable of thinking over a subject with pleasure and contemplating
what it chose, now it is vexed and cannot keep its thoughts together for long.
Earlier it was peaceful and joyful; now through pain and other disagreeable
feelings it is restless and disturbed. . . .
Now, if the present condition agrees with the previous and the following
 Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men 335
conditions, and all of them together agree with the essence and nature of man,
then the condition of man is perfect; and the greater the agreement is, the
more perfect the condition will be. 5 By contrast, if the past condition dis-
agrees with the present, or the present with the future . . . then the condition
of man is imperfect. In this way, man's free actions promote either the perfec-
tion or the imperfection of his inner and outer condition.
3. What makes our inner and outer conditions perfect is good; by contrast,
what makes them less perfect is bad. Hence man's free actions are either good
or bad.
5. Man's free actions become good or bad through their consequences .. .
and what follows from them must necessarily follow and cannot remain unreal-
ized. They are therefore in and of themselves good or bad and are not first
made so by God's will. Thus if it were possible that there were no God and the
present connection of things still subsisted, the free acts of man would remain
good or bad. . . .
6. The knowledge of good is a motive [Bewegungsgrund] of the will. 6 Who-
ever distinctly conceives' those free acts of man that are good in and of
themselves will recognize that they are good. And therefore the good w
perceive in them is a motive for us to will them. Now, because it is not possible
for something to be a motive both to will and not to will, it cannot happen th4t
one does not will an inherently good act if one distinctly conceives it. . . . So if
we do not will [such acts], there is no other cause than that we do not recog-
nize them [as good]. To have an aversion to them we must represent them as
different from what they are.
7. In the same way, the knowledge of evil is a motive for not willing or for
aversion from a thing. . . .
8. To obligate [verbinden] someone to do or omit something is only to
connect a motive of willing or not willing to it.' For example, the magistrate
obligates a subordinate to omit thievery through the penalty of the noose
attached to it. Because through his power and force this punishment is at-
tached to thievery and it will certainly follow that whoever is caught stealing
will hang, anyone who wants to steal will know that stealing is bad because it
brings the gallows, and from this he will acquire an aversion to theft. . . .
Whatever gives a motive to will or not to will an act obligates us to do or not
do it.
How from this concept all obligation in all cases can be shown, and how
fruitful it is for the derivation of other truths, will be explained fully not only
in this book but also in the next, on the social life of man.
9. Now, because whatever follows from human actions and makes them
either good or bad arises from their essence and from nature and because the
good and bad that we meet in actions are the ground of willing or not willing
them, it follows that nature has connected motives with men's inherently good
and bad actions. And in this way the nature of things and of ourselves obli-
gates us to do the inherently good and omit the inherently bad.
12. . . . Because good actions make our inner and outer conditions more
336 Christian Wolff

perfect, and wicked ones make them less perfect, nature obligates us to do
what makes us and our condition, or (what is the same thing) our inner and
outer conditions, more perfect. . . . And therefore we have a rule by which
we should direct the free actions that we have in our power, namely, Do what
makes you and your condition, or that of others, more perfect; omit what
makes it less perfect.
16. A rule according to which we are obligated to direct our free actions is
called a law. Hence, because we are obligated to act according to the universal
rule of free action, this rule is a law.
17. A rule is specifically called a law of nature if nature obligates us to direct
our free actions according to it, just as we call a divine law a rule according to
which God obligates us to direct our free actions, and again, a human law is a
rule according to which men obligate us to direct our actions.
19. Because nature obligates us to do what makes us and our condition
more perfect . . . the rule "Do what makes you and your condition more
perfect, and omit what makes you and your condition less perfect" is a law of
nature. Because this rule covers all free human actions, there is no need of
any other law of nature, but all special laws must be derived from it. . . . So
this rule is the entire ground of all natural laws.
20. Again, because this rule is a law because it obligates, and the obligation
comes from nature, the law of nature is validated by nature itself and would
hold even if man had no superior who could obligate him to it. In fact it would
hold even if there were no God.
21. And so those are in error who imagine that an atheist may live as he
will . . . this holds only if the atheist is uncomprehending and does not rightly
see the properties of actions. . . .
23. Because our free actions are good or bad because of what necessarily
follows from them, either simply or under certain conditions, to judge them
we need insight into the connections of things. Now, insight into the connec-
tions of things is reason. So good and bad are known through reason. Accord-
ingly, reason teaches us what we should and should not do; that is, reason is
the schoolmistress of the law of nature.
24. He who directs his action according to reason, that is, acts reasonably,
lives according to the law of nature, and insofar as he is reasonable, he cannot
act against the law of nature. Because we know through reason what the law
of nature requires, a reasonable man needs no further law, for because of his
reason he is a law unto himself. 9
25. Because inherently good acts are necessarily good and inherently bad
ones are necessarily bad, neither can be altered. The law of nature requires
that we do the one and do not do the other, and therefore it is unalterable.
26. Moreover, what is necessary is eternal; because the law of nature is
necessary, it is also an eternal law.
27. This eternal law extends to all actions of man in all cases. . . .
29. Because the divine understanding makes all things possible and through
 Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men 337

[God's] will brings the possible to reality, so it has also become possible
through the understanding of God that the free actions of men can affect the
perfection or imperfection of themselves and their condition, and through
[God's] counsel it is so in reality. Because the representation of this perfection
is the motive for doing the acts . . . it follows that God has connected the
motives with the actions, and accordingly he obligates men to do what the law
of nature requires. . . . In this way simultaneously, natural obligation is divine
obligation, and the law of nature is a divine law. It follows at once from this
that God can give men no other law than the law of nature, and never a law
that conflicts with the law of nature.
34. Because God obligates men to just what nature obligates them to .. .
whoever directs his life according to the law of nature directs it also according
to God's will and lives according to his will. . . .
38. Because a reasonable man is a law unto himself and, besides natural
obligation, needs no other, neither rewards nor punishments are, for him,
motives to do good acts and avoid bad ones. So the reasonable man does good
acts because they are good and does not do wicked ones because they are
wicked. In this case he becomes like God, who has no superior who can
obligate him to do what is good or not do what is wicked, but does the one and
not the other simply because of the perfection of his nature.
39. An unreasonable man, on the other hand, will need, besides natural
obligation, another if he is to live according to the law of nature. For him,
rewards and punishments are motives for doing good actions. . . . Hence the
unreasonable man does the good and omits the evil out of fear of punishment
and hope of reward; in this he is like a child. . . .
40. Because through our actions we preserve the perfection of ourselves
and our condition, the perfection of ourselves and our condition is the aim of
our action, or the actions are the means through which we achieve our aims.
Hence, because all free acts are directed at this aim, it is the final aim of all
our free acts and the main aim of our whole life.
42. I shall not here explain that the perfection of our nature and our own
condition is radically different from self-interest (Eigen-nutz], but I shall re-
call only this, which will be made clear as the sun in what follows, that
included in the perfection of our nature are the honoring of God and the
service of the common good. . . .
43. And therefore we do not approve the opinions of those who make self-
interest the basis of the law of nature. Whoever is selfish looks only to himself
and seeks his own benefit, even at the expense of others . . . by contrast,
whoever seeks to make himself as perfect as possible seeks also what others
seek and desires nothing at their expense. . . .
44. Because the greatest perfection is really God and no creature can par-
take of it, it is also not possible that a man, even if he daily uses all his
strength, should ever attain it. He can therefore achieve no more than to
progress from one perfection to another and, increasingly, to avoid imperfec-
338 Christian Wolff

tion. And this is the highest good he can attain, so that the highest good of
man or his blessedness is rightly explained as an unhindered progress to
greater perfections.
45. Because man will progress to always greater perfection if he directs his
acts according to the law of nature, it is through observation of the law of
nature that the highest good or blessedness is attained; hence its observation
is the means through which we attain the highest good or blessedness of which
we are capable on earth.
49. He who progresses unhampered from one perfection to another and
avoids imperfection, and is aware of this, has an intuitive awareness of perfec-
tion. Intuitive knowledge of perfection affords pleasure or enjoyment; so he
has a continuous pleasure. So the highest good or blessedness of man is
connected with continuous pleasure.
52. The condition of continuous pleasure constitutes happiness. Now, be-
cause the highest good or blessedness is connected with continuous pleasure,
the man who possesses it is in the condition of continuous pleasure. And
therefore the highest good is connected with happiness.
56. It is certainly true that a man can be displeased by a true good, just as he
can be pleased by a specious good, if he does not recognize either of them or
harbors some other error about them. . . . But because both the displeasure
and the pleasure come from our error, I cannot say that the true good dis-
pleases me and the specious good pleases me, so that the one makes me
unhappy and the other makes me happy. For I cannot attribute to things that I
do not recognize and about which I harbor errors what comes from my igno-
rance and error. . . .
57. Because true goods rest on a true perfection in man or his condition but
specious goods do not, only that can make man happy that rests on a true
perfection. . . . Hence because we preserve the perfection of ourselves and
our outer condition through observation of the law of nature, the law of
nature is the means to preserve our happiness.
64. Readiness to direct one's actions according to the law of nature is what
we usually call virtue. . . . Human weakness is the natural inability to act in
accordance with the law of nature. I say: natural inability. For whoever owes
the inability to himself cannot attribute his failings to natural weakness. . . .
65. Because the law of nature is required for the perfection of ourselves
and others, virtue is a readiness to perfect oneself and others as much as
possible.
66. The observation of the law of nature is what makes man happy. Because
readiness to live in accordance with the law of nature is virtue, virtue makes
man happy. And accordingly, one cannot call happy anyone without virtue.

Chapter 2: Of Conscience
73. The judgment of whether our actions are good or bad is called con-
science. Insofar as man is capable of judging the consequences of his actions
 Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men 339
as to whether his inner or outer condition or the inner or outer condition of
another is more perfect, so far he has a conscience.
77. The judgment of an action made befo\ce it is done is called the anteced-
ent conscience, and that made when it has bOn done is called the consequent
conscience.
78. If we judge an action before it is done or omitted, then we judge only
whether it is good or bad or whether we ought to do it or not. . . . In the first
case I call the conscience a "theoretical conscience"; in the second, a "practi-
cal conscience." 1° For in the first case, conscience merely gives us information
about the constitution of the action. In the second, however, it moves us to do
the action.
81. The pleasure and pain that we anticipate or receive from something
usually mix in with motives, as do the feelings that either affect us or will
affect us because of it. 11 If we do not rely on clear knowledge, we will become
accustomed to distinguish the good through the pleasure it offers us. . . . But
then man is in the condition of slavery, and so he is not really free. 12 Therefore
one must distinguish whether the last judgment on which one relies occurs in
the condition of complete freedom or, instead, in a condition of slavery. In the
first case we call the conscience free, in the second, hampered.
83. If we note an action without the particular circumstances that can occur
in special cases in which there is an opportunity to do or omit it, the conse-
quences of the act can not only seem but also be different from what they
would be if these circumstances did not have to be taken into account. Be-
cause we have to judge from the consequences whether acts are good or bad,
better or worse, it can happen that under certain circumstances we have to
recognize an act as bad that otherwise we would see to be good. . . . Now in
such a case the practical conscience differs from the theoretical conscience,
but we act according to the practical conscience. Then we act against the
theoretical conscience.
And so it is clear that and when one can act against the theoretical con-
science. We recognize the good, but when the opportunity comes to do it, we
fail to do it. . . . Cause: because of special circumstances, we take the good
for bad. 13
90. Conscience is man's judgment of whether acts are good or bad.
Whether acts are good or bad is judged by what consequences they bring
concerning what is changeable in our or another's inner or outer circum-
stances. To know this, we need insight into the connection of truths. Because
reason consists of insight into the connection of truths, it follows that con-
science comes from reason. Man has a conscience because he has reason.
94. If we wish to be certain that our judgment agrees with other truths,
nothing more will be needed than our putting the proof into rational form and
earnestly investigating whether the matter and the form are correct. And in
case some propositions are accepted from experience, when reason is not
competent, we must assure ourselves of the experience. So demonstration is
the means to decide whether or not conscience is right.
340 Christian Wolff

96. Thus it is possible to settle the question as to whose conscience is right,

although this is difficult, as it is not an easy thing to obtain facility in demon-
stration. One can see immediately that this will not work for all people. For
whoever cannot understand demonstrations will not be convinced by them.
One can see also how necessary it is that those who should judge matters of
conscience attain facility in demonstration. . . . If one reflects on the misery
that erring consciences cause today, one will find what I say confirmed by
experience.
97. Admittedly it is true that no one can get so far as to be able to judge
good and bad in all cases, particularly under special circumstances; so occa-
sionally probability will have to be enough. Only now do we recognize that up
to this time no one has a right conscience in these matters. So as long as we
cannot determine the degree of probability more precisely, without having a
rational art of the probable, we must leave each to his own conscience. And
because it is often a question of probability when we have to judge human
actions, particularly under special circumstances, we can see how important it
is to peace of conscience that the rational art of probability be brought into
good condition.
112. Pangs of conscience are the unease that the consequent conscience
gives us. The consequent conscience cannot make us uneasy except when it
contradicts the antecedent conscience. But it cannot contradict except when
the antecedent conscience is erroneous and uncertain. To avoid pangs of
conscience, therefore, we must strive to act according to a right and certain
conscience, or at least to one so attentive to probability that conscience ex-
cuses us.
136. Because conscience gives us considerable pain when we have done
something bad and gives us pleasure and peace when we have done something
good, and because pleasure and pain are among the motives, our conscience
connects motives to good and bad actions. Consequently, it obliges us to do
good acts and omit bad ones, that is, to do what makes us and our condition
more perfect.
137. Now, because the law of nature also demands that we do what makes
us and our condition more perfect, our conscience obligates us to direct our
actions according to the law of nature. And so we can call the law of nature a
law of conscience. But because conscience comes from reason, this law of
conscience — and consequently the law of nature — is what our reason teaches.
Hence the law of nature is called an expression of reason.

Chapter 3: Of the Way in Which Man Can Attain the Highest Good or
His Blessedness on Earth
139. The law of nature is the means by which man attains the happiness of
which he is capable through his natural powers in this life. Now, because the
law of nature requires the perfection of us and our condition and because this
perfection is the final goal of all free action, man, wanting the happiness he
 Reasonable Thoughts About the Actions of Men 341
can achieve through his natural powers in this life, must set as the final goal of
all his free actions the perfection of his inner and outer conditions. Hence he
must not undertake anything but what leads immediately or mediately to this
end, that is, what is a means to this goal.
140. In order not to undertake anything but what leads immediately or
mediately to his final goal, he not only must have a certain goal in all his
actions but must also connect all his special goals so that one is always a means
to another and all together are a means to the main goal.
141. Because this knowledge is wisdom, 14 the man who connects his goals in
the way described, plans wisely. . . .
146. Now, because man must direct his action so that everything can be seen
as a means serving the perfection of his inner and outer conditions, he must be
able to judge in every case whether or not his action serves this perfection. To
be fit for this, it is necessary that he put all the perfections of man, that is, of
soul and body, including his outer condition, into orderly classes, dividing
them into genera and species. Similarly, all free actions, whether thoughts of
the soul or motions of the body, and all outer things that man needs must be
classified into genera and species. Moreover, he must investigate — from clear
concepts of perfections and of acts and things for which he strives — those acts
and things that forward the perfection of man. And finally, he must commit to
memory the rules arising from this. . . .
148. If one is to derive rules from these grounds, one must have an aptitude
for drawing unknown truths from known ones. The art of discovery is needed
to do this, and because that art cannot operate without wit and understanding
and especially ability at inference, all these also are needed.
150. Perhaps someone will wonder how it will go with the pursuit of good
and the omission of bad if so much is required in order to distinguish good
from bad. Here it will do to respond that we are now speaking only of those
who are to generate from their own reflections the rules according to which
men are to judge their free actions in the different conditions of life, that is, of
the discoverers of the truths that belong to a doctrine of morals. But it is not
necessary that all men be discoverers. It is enough if some among the learned
devote themselves to discovery, whose findings the others can afterward
learn, which is much easier.
The ingenuity necessary for discovery need not be all in one man but can be
divided among different discoverers who live in quite different ages. This
happens in all sorts of discoveries. In fact, if we in our time discover some-
thing new, it does not happen only through our ingenuity. Rather, the ingenu-
ity of those who preceded us and discovered other things, on which our
discoveries are based, also has a part in our discoveries and often a larger part
than we ourselves have.
We shall, however, to the extent the present circumstances allow, permit
ourselves to be directed to this work.
164. . . . The highest good is attained through observation of the law of
nature. Consequently, whoever wants to attain it must have a powerful
348 Christian Wolff
agreements and contracts we make with them, we must be just and also show
ourselves to be good and wise. And thus it will no longer be hard, as it may
appear to be if we consider goodness alone. Goodness also will not mislead us
so that we deny someone something that belongs to him. This is because love,
from which goodness comes, makes us bestow all good on each person, but
wisdom makes us give good to those to whom it belongs and forget neither
ourselves for others nor others for ourselves. Thus justice gives to each what is
his and is his due, regardless of the person. From this one can see that justice
is nothing but goodness directing itself according to wisdom. For everyone
recognizes that it is proper to justice that each should keep his own. 19 But this
cannot occur through man's free will without external force, including the fear
of punishment, except when man is good with wisdom, as I have shown.
1024. We see, accordingly, that he who wants to be just must act not only
according to upright love but also according to wisdom and so according to
knowledge. The more that love and wisdom come together, the greater will be
the justice. The two must exist together. When love exists alone, much often
happens that is unjust. Those we love obtain good and also what is properly
others'. Love also leads us to do what is not proper and to omit what should
be done. When wisdom is added, we no longer act through the mere drive of
love, but we attend to the grounds for each act. We look at the constitution of
things and not elsewhere for the grounds for our having this or that attitude
toward people. Because I have shown throughout this work what sorts of
grounds the actions of man have, and have thereby pointed toward an upright
love, I do not doubt that through it one may achieve justice, which I wish to
everyone from my heart!

Editor's Notes
1. Wolff's term is Weltweisheit ("worldly wisdom"), which he usually contrasts with
Gottesgelehrtheit ("learning about God," or "theology"). Wolff's work appeals
only to natural reason, not to revelation. It is for theologians to show how this
treatment of morality is to be interpreted by Christians.
2. In the Metaphysics §197 Wolff explained that whatever belongs to thought belongs
to the self and that nothing else does. For Wolff, thought includes confused as well
as clear ideas, and perceptions and feelings are confused ideas.
3. Wolff explained freedom in the Metaphysics. Several conditions combine to make
an action free: "§514 . . . 1. that we understand or distinctly conceive the constitu-
tion of the action. . . . §515. . . . 2. that the actions that we call free are not simply
necessary, because what is contrary to them is equally possible. . . §518 . . . 3.
that the soul has within itself the ground of actions that we usually called volun-
tary. For the representations that it needs as motives are contained in it and come
from it, and it inclines itself through its own power toward the thing that pleases
it §519. If we take all this together, it will be clear that freedom is nothing but
the power of the soul through its will to choose what most pleases it, from two
equally possible things, to neither of which it is determined by either its own
nature or by something external." Wolff added in §521 that "it is not to be denied
that a man who recognizes something as better cannot possibly prefer the worse;
 Editor's Notes 349

so it necessarily occurs that he chooses the better. But this necessity does not
oppose freedom. For the man is not forced by it to choose the better, because he
could choose the worse if he wished, as both are possible in themselves. . . . And
from my Thoughts About the Actions of Men . . . it can be seen that without this
sort of necessity (which has been called moral necessity) there would be no hope
for certainty in morality."
4. What lies behind this claim is Wolff's Leibnizian belief that all of the contents of
the mind are ideas, of varying degrees of clarity and distinctness. Even feelings
and desires are ideas; they are indistinct representations of good and bad. The will
is also ideational. Because the soul or mind is what is distinctive about man, and
the soul can do nothing but know — more or less clearly — a teleological argument
assuming that our distinctive features show us what God meant us to do leads to
the conclusion that our function is to know.
5. In Metaphysics §157 Wolff defined perfection: "The agreement of the manifold
constitutes perfection. For example, we judge the perfection of a watch by its
ability to show correctly the hour and its divisions. It [the watch] is made of many
parts assembled together, and these as well as the assembly are aimed at enabling
the hands to tell correctly the hour and its divisions. Thus in a watch we find a
multitude of things all of which agree with one another. . . . The conduct of man
consists of many actions, and if these all agree with one another, so that they all
are finally grounded in one general goal, then the conduct of man will be perfect."
6. In Metaphysics §496 Wolff observed that there must be a sufficient reason for
anything to occur or fail to occur. In the case of an act of will the reason, or
ground, is the perception of good or evil. Hence such perceptions are what move
the will.
7. A technical notion. Wolff explained it in the Metaphysics §206 ff.: We have a
distinct idea of something when we can distinguish its parts, so that if asked we can
explain them to another. The more parts within parts that we discover, the higher
the degree of distinctness our idea will have.
8. One could also say that a motive binds someone to do something or that through a
motive one is bound to do it, but for consistency I use the word "obligate"
throughout this translation.
9. Wolff here refers to Rom. 2:14-15.
10. In German, these would be a "teaching" and a "moving" conscience, but Wolff
gives Latin equivalents for his German in an appendix, and I have followed the
Latin.
11. Pleasure, pain, and feelings are confused ideas. Wolff here is showing how con-
- fused ideas come into our motivation, along with clear ideas of the constitution of
an action.
12. In the Metaphysics §491 Wolff stated: "In emotion man does not think what he is
doing, and so he does not have his actions in his control. He is, as it were, forced
to do what he otherwise would not do. Because the emotions come from the
senses and imagination, the mastery of the senses, imagination, and emotions is
the slavery of man. And one calls slaves those who let their emotions rule and who
remain with the unclear knowledge of the senses and imagination."
13. Wolff went on to spell out several other ways in which one can act against con-
science in its various aspects.
14. Wolff is referring us to his Metaphysics, §914, where he defined wisdom as the
knowledge of how to connect goals so that one serves as means to another, and of
how to choose means so that they lead to our ends.
15. Having earlier discussed the difficulties of obtaining precise rules that will cover
widely varying circumstances, in the rest of this chapter Wolff talks about ways of
keeping one's desire clear and strong for the ultimate goal.
350 Christian Wolff

16. Wolff is referring us to the Metaphysics §337, where he explained that we form
rules about classes of cases, by generalizing from one case and then seeing that we
can apply the generalization to another.
17. Love is defined in the Metaphysics §449 as "readiness to receive pleasure from
another's happiness."
18. Wolff is referring here to §9: his thought is that because we should bring about
good, we should do so regardless of our promise to bring about the good.
19. Wolff gives here his account of the commonplace that justice is the constant will to
give each his own (suum cuique tribuere), a formula derived from Roman law.

Further Reading
To the best of my knowledge there is nothing in English on Wolff's practical philoso-
phy or his ethics. There is, indeed, relatively little in English about any of Wolff's
thought. The best general review of his philosophy is that by Lewis White Beck, Early
German Philosophy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1969), which con-
tains a bibliography of secondary material. Wolff is treated briefly in John Herman
Randall, The Career of Philosophy, vol. 2 (New York: Columbia University Press,
1965), and in Frederick Coplestone S.J., A History of Philosophy, vol. 6 (New York:
Doubleday, 1964). Richard J. Blackwell translated Wolff's Preliminary Discourse on
Philosophy in General (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1963), which will give the reader
a good idea of Wolff's vision of the way in which philosophy should be systematic and
of the place in his system for practical philosophy. Blackwell also wrote a useful article
on this subject: "The Structure of Wolffian Philosophy," The Modern Schoolman, 38
(1961):203-18.
 Part III.
Epicureans and Egoists
 Pierre Gassendi

Introduction
To most contemporary philosophers Pierre Gassendi is known, if at all, as the author
of the "Fifth Set of Objections" to Descartes's Meditations. In his own time he was
considered a major intellectual figure: philosopher, scientist, historian, and moralist, a
leader around whom the opposition to Descartes gathered. Gassendi was born in 1592
in a little town in the south of France. He took a doctorate in theology at Aix in 1614
and was ordained two years earlier. Instead of becoming a parish priest, however, he
obtained a chair at the local university and taught philosophy there until 1622. His dis-
satisfaction with the Aristotelian views he was forced to teach eventually led him to
write his first major book. Dissertations in the Form of Paradoxes Against the
Aristotelians, of which part was published in 1624. Gassendi then added scientific work
to his philosophical inquiries, publishing a number of essays on astronomy as well as
some polemical writings in philosophy. He also worked on a study of the philosophy
of Epicurus, which he had become determined to discuss and defend as a whole. Some
of his Epicurean views were published in 1647 as Eight Books on the Life and
Character of Epicurus. In 1649 appeared the Commentary on the Tenth Book of Dio-
genes Laertius, a massive discussion of Diogenes Laertius's summary of Epicurus's
doctrines. All this was preliminary to Gassendi's crowning work, the Syntagma philo-
sophicum (Philosophical Synopsis), which was still unfinished when he died in 1655.
It was completed from his drafts and notes by his friends and was published in his
Complete Works in 1658.
Gassendi published only in Latin; his major works were extremely long and not
exactly lively; his scientific achievements were minor; and unlike later thinkers who
accepted atomism as a scientific hypothesis, he did not use mathematics to develop his
view in a fruitful way. He played an important part in winning acceptance of atomism
and was a significant advocate of empiricism before Locke, possibly influencing him.
The later elaboration of views similar to his made his own cumbersome and often
hesitant formulations unhelpful, and by the eighteenth century Gassendi no longer
seemed a philosopher worth discussing. Yet he cannot be ignored if we wish to under-
stand the development of thought in the seventeenth century.
The Syntagma philosophicum contains Gassendi's Epiciirean systematization of
the domain of human knowledge: logic, natural science generally, and morals. It pro-
vides canons for reasoning intended to mitigate skepticism, systematizes all knowledge
on the basis of an empiricist atomism, and propounds an ethics of self-interested pleas-
ure seeking as a guide to life. Why was Gassendi so attracted to the Epicurean outlook?
He was, after all, a Catholic priest and in all probability a serious believer, and

353
354 Pierre Gassendi
Epicurus's views are hardly Christian. Epicurus did believe that there are gods, but he
thought that they are indifferent to our affairs and do not intervene in them. The world
as we live in it arose from a chance erratic motion among the atoms that compose it.
Life is thus a pattern of moving atoms, and when the atoms that compose us cease to
move in that pattern, we are no more. Hence death is not to be feared. It is nothing but
the dark after the candle goes out. Pleasure is the only thing we seek, and the only
good there is. Why would a good Christian take up such views?
Gassendi was one of a group of advanced thinkers known as "libertines." Although
this term carried implications of sexual license and loose living entirely inappropriate
to Gassendi and his friends, at the time it referred primarily to those who wished to
free themselves from conventional thinking, particularly conventional Christian think-
ing. Gassendi was strongly inclined toward philosophical skepticism, and this, com-
bined with his interest in the new science and his dislike of the schools' Aristote-
lianism, made him acceptable to others seeking a new way of understanding the world
and themselves. Epicurus, furthermore, was no Aristotelian. He did not appeal to final
causes or combinations of form and matter to explain the world. Instead, he believed
matter in motion could explain everything. To Gassendi, who corresponded on warm
terms with the elderly Galileo, this theory must have been welcome. If one could treat
atomism as a hypothesis rather than as a certainty and if one could consider experience
as showing us only how things appear and then investigate the appearances, then
science might proceed even if Pyrrhonian skepticism seemed unanswerable.
The problem, therefore, was to reconcile Epicureanism with Christian doctrine. In
ethics the matter was particularly pressing. Epicurus had been said even by some
Romans to advocate a pig's philosophy; Christian thinkers had criticized him for
centuries; and his name had become a popular byword for anyone who lived selfishly
and for bodily pleasure alone. Gassendi set out to rectify this image, making part of his
strategy a scholarly one. On page after page he proclaimed (quite accurately) that
Epicurus did not recommend beastly pleasures, did not live loosely, and was not a
monster of impiety. A second part of Gassendi's strategy was to confine himself to
secular matters, not to appeal to revelation, and to claim that in such matters Epicu-
rus's views could be a reliable guide to life. But he added that Epicureanism teaches us
to practice all the virtues and so would be compatible with those that religion requires
of us. Finally, Gassendi simply dropped certain Epicurean views. We are immortal, he
announced — though not the part of us that desires and feels and is dependent on the
body. God does look after the world, and he has made pleasurable everything he wants
us to do, so that he can achieve his ends through natural means. There will no doubt be
a Last Judgment, but we are not to fear death. Modified Epicureanism turned out to be
compatible with Christianity — of a sort.
Gassendi's presentation of an Epicurean ethics in the third division of the Syntagma
philosophicum is in three books: Of Happiness; Of Virtue; and Of Freedom, Fortune,
Fate, and Divination. They repeat the vindication of Epicurus that Gassendi had given
in his two earlier works on the subject and also discuss a number of other issues.
Gassendi assumed that all pleasures and pains are comparable, so that we can figure
out how to attain the greatest preponderance of the one over the other. He tried to
explain the value we place on "honesty" — he used the term in the broad Latin sense to
mean a constant regard for principle — which we seem to think is independent of any
pleasure the agent will get from being honest. Gassendi offered an Epicurean account
of justice, adding to it a concern for individual rights that is not in his classical sources.
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 355

And he ended with an effort to show how the maxim of doing to others as you would
have done to yourself fits in with his doctrine.
In teaching that a life of self-interested, moderate enjoyment is perfectly acceptable.
Gassendi made plain his belief that we can think about moral matters without concern-
ing ourselves with religion. He suggested that laypersons can answer moral questions
as well as, or better than, clergy. Because he did not draw from his egoistic psychology
the authoritarian implications that Hobbes drew, Gassendi presented an Epicureanism
that might lead to politically acceptable conclusions. In all this he brought into the
modern conversation about morality several questions that later writers would answer
with more care.
The following selections are from an abridgment of the Syntagma philosophicum
made by Gassendi's faithful disciple Francois Bernier, who between 1674 and 1678
summarized the work in French in several volumes. Bernier's final volume, on the
ethics, was translated into English and published in 1699. The translator's name is not
given. I have altered the capitalization and some spelling and punctuation.

Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty

OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY IN GENERAL

Mankind having a natural inclination to be happy, the main bent and design of
all his actions and endeavors tend chiefly that way. It is therefore an undeni-
able truth that happiness, or a life free from pain and misery, are such things
as influence and direct all our actions and purposes to the obtaining of them.
And though several persons who want neither the necessities nor conve-
niences of life, possessing great riches, promoted to dignities and honors,
blessed with a beautiful and hopeful offspring, in a word who want nothing
that may seem requisite to their present happiness; though, I say, we find
many who have all these advantages, yet they lead an anxious and uneasy life,
disquieted with cares, troubles, and perpetual disturbances. From whence the
wiser sort of mankind have concluded that the source of this evil proceeds
from ignorance of the cause wherein our true happiness consists, and of the
last end which everyone should propose to himself in all his actions, which
being neglected we are led blindfold by our passions, and forsake honesty,
virtue, and good manners, without which it is impossible to live happily. For
this reason they have undertaken to instruct us wherein true happiness con-
sists; and to propose such useful precepts for the due regulation of our pas-
sions, whereby our minds may be less liable to be disturbed. This collection of
precepts, reflections and reasonings they name "the art of living" or "the art
of leading an happy life." And which they commonly call "Moral Philosophy,"
because it comprehends such doctrines as relate to the manners' of men; that
is to say, the accustomed and habitual actions of life.
From whence we may understand that this part of philosophy is not only
speculative and rests in the bare contemplation of its object, but proceeds to
action, and that [it] is, as we usually say, active and practical; for it directs and
356 Pierre Gassendi
governs our manners, rendering them regular and agreeable with the rules of
justice and honesty. So that in this respect, it may be said to be the science, or
if this term be scrupled at, the art of doing well. . . .
. . . Democritus, Epicurus, 2 and divers others of no small eminence have
had so high an esteem for moral philosophy that they have judged the natural
[philosophy] to be no further regarded, than only as it was found useful in
freeing us from certain errors and mistakes in our understanding which might
disturb the repose and tranquillity of our life and wherein it might be service-
able to moral philosophy, or to the better obtaining of that knowledge which
teaches us to live happily and comfortably.' .. .

THE FIRST BOOK, CONCERNING HAPPINESS

Chapter I: What Happiness Is

Though felicity or happiness be properly the enjoyment of the sovereign or
chief good and therefore the most blessed estate that can be desired, yet
because this estate of enjoyment comprehends this sovereign good, it is for
that reason called by this name. It is also termed the chief or ultimate happi-
ness, the end of all ends, or The End, for its excellency, because all other
things are sought for its sake. And lastly, that it is desired alone for its own
sake. . . . But here we may make two considerable remarks.
The first is that we don't concern ourselves here with that happiness men-
tioned by the sacred penmen when they tell us how happy that man is who
being assisted with the divine influences betakes himself entirely to the service
of God, and being filled with faith and hope, and inflamed with charity,
spends his life in peace and tranquillity. . . .
The second is that by this natural felicity that we here treat of is not to be
understood such a state of life as we can't imagine a better, a more pleasant
and desirable; in the which we cannot comprehend any evil nor think of any
good thing which we shall not possess, nor of anything that we have a desire to
do but we shall be able to accomplish it, and that it shall remain fixed and
unchangeable. But we understand such a certain state of life in which we may
be as happy as is possible, in which there are abundance of good things and
very few of any sort evil, and in which consequently we may lead as easy,
quiet, and undisturbed a life as the condition of the country, the society we
converse with, the constitution of our bodies, the manner of our life, our age
and other circumstances will permit. For to propose to ourselves more than
this, or to affect during the course of our natural life the highest felicity is not
to acknowledge but rather forget ourselves to be men, that is to say, weak and
feeble animals who by the laws of nature are subject to an infinite number of
mischiefs and evils. . . .
As to Epicurus we shall speak more at large, that he makes happiness to
consist in the ease of the body and the tranquillity of mind. . . . Therefore
designing to treat afterwards of happiness, he earnestly exhorts to consider
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 357
thoroughly of the things that conduce to it. And because amongst those things
the chief is that the mind may be disengaged from certain mistakes which
cause continual disturbances and vain fears, he mentions several particulars,
which he believes to be of that importance, that when well examined will
settle the mind and procure to it a real and solid happiness.
The first particular is the knowledge and fear of God. . . . though Epicurus
delivers some notions that are very just and reasonable, yet he hath others
that are not to be entertained by pious men . . . when he denies Provi-
dence . . . and when he thinks that it is not consisting with the highest felicity,
as if God had no particular care of men; 4 that the just are to expect nothing
from his goodness and the wicked are not to dread his justice, are such
opinions that our reason and religion will not permit us to entertain.
The second particular relates to death. For as Aristotle observes, death is
looked upon as the most dreadful evil because none is exempted, [itj being
unavoidable. Therefore Epicurus judges that we ought to accustom ourselves
to think upon it, that we might learn by that means as much as is possible to
free ourselves from such fears of death as might disturb our tranquillity and
consequently the happiness of our life.' And for that reason he endeavors to
persuade us that it is so far from being the most dreadful of evils that in itself it
is no evil at all. . . .
Epicurus hath very good reason to say that in death there is nothing to be
feared that may injure the sight, the hearing, the smell, the taste, or the sense of
feeling; for all these senses cannot be without the body and then the body ceases
to be or is dissolved. But that which we are not to allow is what he affirms
elsewhere, that death is also the privation or extinction of the spirit or under-
standing.' . . . Therefore that we may not be hindered by this impiety . . . let
us proceed to give a check to the extraordinary apprehensions of death and to
those fears that frequently disturb all the peace and quiet of our lives.' .. .

Chapter II: What Sort of Pleasure It Is That Epicurus Recommends as

the End of a Happy Life
'Tis strange that the word "pleasure" should have blasted the reputation of
Epicurus . . . for it is certain that this word comprehends the honest pleasures
as well as the loose and debauched. I say it is certain; for Plato, Aristotle, and
all other ancient philosophers as well as their disciples speak in express words
that amongst the pleasures some are innocent, others impure; some are of the
mind, others are of the body; some true, others false. . . . I mention this only
because some imagine that this word "pleasure" cannot nor ought not to be
taken but in an ill sense. Therefore when Epicurus says that pleasure is the
chief end, they fancy that he cannot and ought not to be understood but of
sordid and forbidden pleasures. . .
But let us examine this business from the bottom, and first let us begin with
the accusation which they bring against him. And as amongst those who allow
other pleasures than of the body there are some that will have what he says to
358 Pierre Gassendi
be understood only of bodily pleasures, let us weigh his own words as they are
found in Laertius. 8 . . . "The end of a happy life," says he, "is nothing else but
the health of the body and the tranquillity of the soul. Because all our actions
aim and tend to this end, that we may be free from pain and trouble." And
because this end he styles by the name of pleasure, some took occasion from
thence to scandalize him, saying that hereby he understood the mean and
sordid pleasures of the body. Therefore he makes his own apology and clears
himself from this calumny by declaring plainly what kind of pleasure he means
and what not. For after having made it his main business to recommend a
sober life, which is satisfied with plain food and easy to be got, you shall hear
what he says next.
When we say that pleasure is the main end, we mean neither the pleasure of debauch-
ery, nor the other sensual delights which terminate in the very moment of enjoyment
and by which the senses are only gratified and pleased. . . . But we understand this, to
feel no pain in the body and to have no trouble in the soul. For 'tis not the pleasure of
continual eating and drinking, nor the pleasure of love . . . that make a pleasant life;
but a sound judgment assisted by sobriety and consequently by a serenity and tranquil-
lity of mind which thoroughly inquires into the causes why we ought to embrace or
avoid anything and that drives away all mistaken opinion or false notions of things
which might raise much perplexity in the sou1. 9 .. .

But this ingenuous and plain declaration is sufficient to justify him from the
slanderous accusations of his enemies. . . .
What shall we say then to those who charge him with a contrary opinion?
Nothing else but . . . that the Stoics who very much hated him . . . have not
only misunderstood his opinion, but they have also forged and published in
his name scandalous books, whereof they themselves were the authors, that
they might the more easily gain credit to their malicious insinuations, and
fasten upon him their calumnies without suspicion. Now one of the causes of
their hatred against him was that Zeno, their principal leader, was naturally
melancholy, austere, rude and severe, and his disciples following their guide
affected the same air, and a severe mien. This has caused the virtue of the
Stoics or their wisdom to be represented as some very austere and reserved
thing; and in regard that caused them to be admired and respected by the
common people, and that we suffer ourselves willingly to be carried away to
vainglory and to be puffed up with pride if we don't take heed to prevent it,
they fancied themselves to be the only possessors of wisdom. And therefore
they boasted that he alone was the wise man whose soul was strengthened and
fortified with the virtue of the Stoics, that he alone was fit to be a king, a
captain. . . . And that such a one never repents, is not touched with remorse,
cannot receive affronts, is ignorant of nothing, never doubts of anything, is
free from passion, is always at liberty, full of joy and content like God him-
self. . . . But Epicurus on the contrary was of a sweeter and more candid
temper, and as he acted with sincerity and plain-dealing he could not endure
this vanity and ostentation. So that when he considered besides the weak-
nesses of our human nature and what it was capable of undergoing and what
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 359
not, he quickly understood that all those great boastings which made such
noise in the schools of the Stoics were but vain fictions when the glory and the
pride of their words were removed.
Therefore he proposed to himself a virtue that he knew our human nature
capable of. And because he observed that men in all their proceedings were
naturally carried to some pleasure, and after he had well inquired into all the
several kinds of pleasure, there was none more universal, more firm, more
constant and more desirable than that which consists in the health of the body
and the tranquillity of the mind. He therefore declared that to be the chief end
of all delights, and that virtue alone was the best means to obtain it, and
consequently that a wise or a virtuous man did by his sobriety and chastity —
that is to say, by the virtue of temperance — preserve the health of his body, as
far as his natural constitution would permit; and that being assisted by moral
virtues, by which he appeases the passions of lust, gluttony, covetousness and
ambition he endeavors chiefly to preserve likewise as much as he is able the
tranquillity of his thoughts. . . .
Now Zeno and the Stoics, understanding this simplicity of manners and
doctrine and seeing that many men of parts were undeceived and made no
account of their great and glorious words and promises, conceived so great a
prejudice against him that they sought always how to defame him, taking
occasion from the word "pleasure," and affirming that he thereby understood
sensual and debauched pleasure and excess.
We are not therefore too easily to assent to what they say, nor too readily
give credit to the report of others, who being imposed upon by their mistakes
have exclaimed against him. . . .
. . . we have plainly made it appear that the pleasure meant by Epicurus is
not that soft, sensual and debauched pleasure . . . but that which he intends is
quite contrary, pure and undefiled, viz., an indolency 1° of the body and the
tranquillity of the mind, but chiefly the latter. So that this kind of pleasure
cannot hinder any from seeking after virtue, seeing that it is in this only that
felicity or happiness of life consists; and that Epicurus proposes no more than
the Stoics themselves do who affirm that virtue is sufficient to procure a
pleasant and a happy life.
And truly this maxim alone does sufficiently evince that what shift or excuse
soever they may seem to frame, yet they suppose virtue designed for no other
end but to live well and happily. So that a happy life is desirable for itself, but
virtue is not so much desirable for itself as for an happy life.

Chapter III: Wherein a Happy Life Consists

What we have already discoursed of tends to little else than to make a plain
discovery of Epicurus's opinion. But now we must come closer to the matter
and strictly examine whether he had sufficient ground to say that pleasure is
the main end.
Here we must weigh two of his chief maxims, first, that all pleasure is of
360 Pierre Gassendi
itself and of its own nature a real good; and on the contrary that all grief and
pain is an evil. The second is that notwithstanding sometimes we must prefer
some sort of pains before some sort of pleasures."

Whether all pleasure be good of itself?

In respect of the first maxim, it is not without ground that Epicurus asserts
that all pleasure is of itself good, . . . for all creatures are of themselves so
inclinable to pleasure and delight that it is the first and chief thing that they
naturally covet; nor do they willingly reject any pleasure that is offered them,
unless it chance to be accompanied by some evil that may after procure a pain
and so cause us to repent of its first acceptance. And truly as it is the nature of
good to invite and persuade the appetite to love and embrace it, so we can
give no reason why all pleasure should not be of itself lovely and to be desired,
seeing there is none but in itself is pleasing and desirable, and which does of
itself incline our appetites. So that if we refuse any, we refuse them not as
pleasures, but because of some inconveniences that are annexed. . . .
Now to illustrate this more plainly by an example, there is no person but
will allow honey to be naturally sweet. Yet if poison happens to be mixed with
it, whereby the poison doth also become sweet, we shall then have a real
aversion for the sweetness of the honey. But this is by accident, for the honey
is naturally sweet and pleasing to our taste. . . . Now adjust any pleasure
whatsoever to this example, and you will easily perceive it to be never other-
wise. For we shall always eschew the evil but not the pleasure itself. . . .
. . . Is it not manifest that all pain in general is of itself evil and hurtful and by
consequence every animal hath naturally an aversion against it? So that if at any
time it is called good it is only by accident, in regard it hath some good thing that
is joined to it which obliges us to love and desire it. But if you remove from pain
all hopes or expectation of obtaining any good thing, either honest or profitable
or pleasant, there is no man so foolish as to wish for it or seek after it. As this is
undeniable so it is apparent that if all pain be of itself evil . . . all pleasure being
contrary to pain is of itself good and an evil by accident.

Whether at any time pain ought to be preferred before pleasure

. . . if any pleasure offer itself which might hinder us from obtaining a
greater, or which will be attended by a pain that may cause us to repent the
suffering ourselves to be drawn to it, or if a pain offer itself which may turn
away a greater, or which may be followed by a pleasure very great, there is no
reason can persuade us against the shunning such a pleasure and embracing
such a pain. . . . Any wise man will decline pleasure and embrace pain if he
sees that repentance will follow [the pleasure] or that by admitting a little pain
he may avoid a greater.

Of the first good that nature has in its view

. . . let us examine if this pleasure understood in a general sense be
really . . . the first and chief good that Nature goes in quest of, for it remains a
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 361
great question among the philosophers. And it seems [that] as in the order of
good things that are desirable, there is one thing that is the ultimate and chief,
so ought there to be one thing first, which may be the beginning of all our
desires. Some, says Cicero, "conceive pleasure or delight to be the first good,
others an exemption or a freedom from pain; for as soon as any creature is
born it naturally desires and labors after an indolence or freedom from
pain." 2 Others place the first good things of nature amongst those which they
call our being, life, perfection, the preservation of all our'members entire and
in health, our senses, strength, beauty, and such like.
Now among these opinions the first and second are included in that of
Epicurus, for he places our exemption from pain among those things we call
pleasures. The third opinion, being that of the Stoics, is less probable. For
though we may say that every creature desires to have its being, life, health,
perfection and preservation of its several parts, etc., nevertheless we must
observe that all these things are desired because it is pleasant to enjoy them.
And therefore if these things are desirable for being pleasant, doubtless plea-
sure is the first good thing or holds the chief place among those things that are
desired.
This plainly discovers to us two things. First, that though we commonly
reckon three sorts of good things, viz., the honest, the profitable, and the
pleasant, the pleasant or pleasurable, which is nothing else but pleasure itself,
is so intermixed with the rest that it doesn't seem to be a distinct species of
itself but part of the common stock which renders the others good and desir-
able; as if that which is honest and useful were only to be desired because it is
pleasing and agreeable. Secondly, that pleasure being common unto all sensi-
ble creatures and so fixed and settled in our very first desires, that we have not
a liberty of refusing it, seems verily that this should be the first good that we
wish for or desire. . . .
From hence therefore we may infer that "good" and "pleasant" are but
different names for the same thing, and that good is good, and described to be
what all creatures desire, only because it is grateful and pleasing; and by
consequence that that good which is pleasing is desired for the pleasure it
affords.

That things profitable and useful are sought after for the sake of pleasure
Now there is no difficulty to prove that things profitable and useful relate to
what is grateful or to the pleasure which we receive from them. For it is manifest
that things useful are not desired merely because they are useful but for some-
thing else, which is either pleasure itself or what relates to pleasure. . . .

That those good things which we call honest have the nearest relation to
pleasure
This seems a little more difficult to be made out. Bonum honestum, or
honest good, seems to carry its own intrinsic worth and to be desired only for
itself. . . . The word "honest" among the Latins is said to be so from the
362 Pierre Gassendi

honor that action deserves . . . for if you please you may interpret it not only
"honest" but also "beautiful," "honorable," and "praiseworthy," etc. And
you will find that it is not so in respect of itself but in respect of men who allow
it to be so, and consequently it appears to them beautiful and honorable and
of whom it is and ought to be praised. . . . Epicurus will agree . . . that
honest men don't propose to themselves any profit or advantage, such as
money and the like low mean things; but they propose to themselves some
other benefits, as praise, glory, honor, renown, etc. . . .
But in conclusion, to speak one word to the purpose in reference to that
honesty which relates to pleasure, we must observe that this relation hinders
not but that honesty in one sense may be said to be desired for itself or for its
own sake, because it is desired . . . all profit being laid aside. . . . For some
may desire honor, learning and virtue, not because they may thereby advance
gain or increase wealth, but for the renown and satisfaction that will arise
from the enjoyment of a clear and enlightened understanding . . . and all this
nevertheless because it is pleasant to be honored, learned and virtuous and to
enjoy a soul calm and serene.

Chapter IV: What Advantage Moral Virtue Procures

. . . it is not without great reason that we compare virtue to a plant whose root
is bitter but the fruit very sweet . . . nor is that story without ground, where
pleasure and virtue are supposed to meet in a double way and each of them to
use the strongest motives to incline Hercules ° to follow them in their different
paths. For that confirms the truth of the rules that are before alleged, when we
took notice that we ought to shun that pleasure which is attended with a greater
mischief, as we ought to embrace those labors and toils which will procure us
greater advantages and delights. I know very well how they have represented
Hercules rejecting pleasure, that is to say an easy and effeminate life, to pursue
virtue, which is a life full of labor and difficulty. Nevertheless Maximus of Tyre
says very well that "when he was under the greatest labors, he felt or had a
prospect of wonderful pleasures. You see," says he, "in Hercules extraordinary
labors, but you see not the incredible pleasures that either attend or succeed
them." Whosoever takes away pleasure from virtue takes from it all strength
and efficacy; for were it not for pleasure men would never undertake any great
matter . . . we are apt to give divers names to the cause that first moves us to
undertake . . . great things; as for instance that which put Achilles upon dying
voluntarily for Patrocles' 4 we call friendship; that which inclined Agamemnon' s
toenriadcywrithsomucaendfigwsthcareo
preserving his kingdom. . . . All these several terms are but other names for
pleasure. . . .
. . . the philosophers themselves who have declared open war with plea-
sure ° . . . don't differ so much from Epicurus in the thing, as in the
name. . . . And truly these are their own expressions, so often celebrated
among them, "that virtue is sufficient of itself to make us happy." Or as Cicero
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 363
says, that to live happily, we need only be virtuous. Now if we rightly under-
stand this maxim we must necessarily perceive thereby that virtue itself is not
the chief good but a means that contributes in such a manner to obtain it, that
it is alone sufficient for that purpose. . . .
. . . notwithstanding some do so much talk and glory of acting by princi-
ples out of love to virtue, yet upon a strict inquiry we shall find that pleasure is
their chief motive. For they that expose themselves to hazards and dangers for
the sake of a friend or for the deliverance of their country, and that defy even
death itself, which they know to be unavoidable, do all this in expectation of
some pleasure or satisfaction which they shall enjoy after death. But still it is
present pleasure which excites and animates them when they think that the
actions which they are going about shall procure liberty to their relations,
friends or countrymen, or perpetuate their memory and make their genera-
tions famous in after ages. It is, I say, the thoughts of being rendered famous
to posterity that thus animates and transports them.

Chapter V: Of Life and Active Felicity

. . . there are two kinds of life, and likewise two kinds of felicities, the one in
contemplation, the other in action. Wise men have still preferred a contempla-
tive before an active life. However this does not hinder those whom either
their birth, genius or necessity of affairs have engaged in business from enjoy-
ing tranquillity of mind. For whosoever undertakes this does not go blindfold
to work, but after he hath for some time seriously considered and taken a due
prospect of the state of human affairs, not as from the midst of the crowd but
as from a higher station, and understands that in the active course of life there
may happen many accidents that all the wisdom of man cannot foresee; .. .
such a one is always upon his guard, ready to take advice upon all sudden
emergencies. He knows that he can command what is in himself but cannot
govern what depends not on his free will. He acts according to his power and
does what becomes the duty of an honest man; and afterwards, whatever
happens, he thinks he ought to be content and satisfied. . . .
But after all that can be said in commendation of an active felicity, Aristotle
had reason to prefer a speculative. For contemplation exerts the most excel-
lent and divine part of our selves, and besides this sort of action is the most
noble, innocent and lasting, and the most easily set on work. . . .

BOOK II

Chapter 1: Of Virtue in General

Now to speak something concerning the mutual relation of moral virtues, it is
to be collected from two particulars. First, that they are all united with pru-
dence, as all the members with the body, the streams of water with the
fountain from whence they run. Secondly, that prudence and all the rest are
364 Pierre Gassendi
inseparable from a pleasant life, for life cannot be pleasant without virtue,
and wherever virtue resides there life must needs be pleasant. From hence it
appears that the consequence of this mutual conjunction of the virtues is
grounded upon this maxim, "that things that are united in any third thing are
united among themselves." Now 'tis not needful to speak of the second par-
ticular, for we shall understand this matter sufficiently hereafter when we
consider the saying of Epicurus, "that virtue is not desirable for its own sake
but for the sake of pleasure."

Chapter VIII: Of Justice, Equity, and the Laws

There remains yet the fourth virtue" for us to discourse of, namely, justice,
which consists in rendering to everyone that which belongs to him. Therefore
'tis of a very large extent and esteemed as the source and root of all other
duties. . . . Justice is a kind of goodness, or an inclination full of sincerity and
desire of doing right in all the world. For that reason there is nothing men
respect, reverence and love more than justice. For this cause men have always
given to it the name of a most precious possession, and in all times it is
acknowledged to be the ligament of societies, as Cicero calls it, that is to say,
that tie without which society cannot possibly subsist. . . .
But this virtue is sometimes taken more generally, sometimes more strictly.
For there be many that look upon it as the complexion of all the other virtues,
because there is no virtue but justice prescribes its functions and offices. As
for instance, in the practice of fortitude, when we are in a fight, it orders us to
keep our rank and forbids us to run away or throw away our weapons. In the
practice of temperance it prohibits adultery; in that of gentleness it commands
us to strike nobody nor so much as speak evil of them; and so of the rest.
But not to insist too long upon this, it is not to be questioned but that the
two chief offices or general duties of justice consist in hurting or doing wrong
to nobody and in giving or rendering to everyone that which he may lawfully
claim. . . . This hath given occasion to the lawyers'" to define justice [as) "a
constant and perpetual will or resolution to give or restore to everyone his
right," that is to say, what justly belongs to him. This definition causes us to
make two observations. First, that 'tis not without reason that it is named a
will or resolution. . . . For to deserve commendation for this virtue, 'tis not
sufficient to perform some just acts, seeing that he who may do them without
knowledge, or for fear or for a friend's sake or for gain . . . cannot therefore
be just nor be said to do justly, because the end ceasing, he would act other-
wise. But to be just he must proceed willingly of his own accord for the sake of
justice. . . .
Secondly, that 'tis also not without reason that they add "to render every-
one his right," because these words comprehend the function and the proper
act of justice. . . .
As this part of the definition . . . obliges us to understand and seek more at
large what this right is and from whence derives its original, let us consider
 Three Discourses of Happiness, Virtue, and Liberty 365
first that this word being taken in several senses, its primitive signification is
that right is a faculty to do something, to have something, to enjoy and to do
oneself right in something. . . . 'Tis also from hence that the law by a meta-
phor is called "right," because it declares and prescribes what belongs to
everyone as his right, what authority, power and command everyone hath
over anything. . . .
. . . Right seems by consequence to be originally more ancient than justice.
For as justice is the same thing with that affection or habitual desire or
inclination which we have to wrong nobody and that everyone may enjoy their
right as we enjoy ours, 'tis certain that this justice supposes that there is in
other men a right not depending on it and which nevertheless would be,
though itself were not in being. . . . But because Epicurus, whom both many
of the ancient and modern authors have followed, hath derived the very
beginning of right and whatever is agreeable with equity from utility or profit,
let us listen to what he says' 9 .. .
As justice is a virtue by which we render unto everyone that which is his due and by
which we take heed not to wrong anybody, 'tis certain that in this respect it relates to
and respects other men, and that it is convenient for man as he is a member and lives in
society, it being the common tie, without which 'tis impossible a society should subsist.
It hath this also in common with other virtues, viz., prudence, temperance, and
fortitude, that 'tis not to be separated from pleasure, not only because it injures
nobody but also because it settles the mind at rest. . . .
As justice hath been contrived and appointed for the public good. it must needs
follow that the right and equity which it chiefly respects is good for each individual
person that constitutes a society. And because everyone desires naturally that which is
good for himself, it must needs be that what is right or just is according to nature and
by consequence must be styled natural.
Now 'tis not without reason that I mention this, because it sometimes happens that
in the government of societies some things are ordered as right and just which neverthe-
less are not good, nor the true interest of a society; and consequently not being
natural, but against nature, ought not to be reputed just, but only nominally so. or by
mistake:" . . . Therefore to speak properly, right or natural equity is nothing else but
what is marked out by utility or profit which by common agreement hath been ap-
pointed that men might not injure one another nor receive any wrong, but live in
security, which is a real good and therefore naturally desired of everyone.
I suppose therefore that which is profitable and that which is good to be but one and
the same thing. And therefore to the making up of what is just and right, two things
are prerequisite. The first, that it be useful or that it hath usefulness on its side. The
second, that it be prescribed and ordained by the common consent of the society. For
there is nothing perfectly just but what the society by common agreement or approba-
tion hath thought fit to be observed. -I

. . . the laws according to Epicurus's judgment being established for the

public benefit of mankind, that everyone might enjoy his right, might live
peaceably and securely; and seeing there is nothing more agreeable to Nature
than this, I think none has reason to upbraid him that he separated from
Nature the laws and right, seeing that he had rather joined them inseparably
together by the tie of common interest, which is the firmest bond according to
the rules of Nature. Nor does there seem any reason to blame him because he
366 Pierre Gassendi
hath rather derived the laws and right from profit than from Nature, seeing he
could never have derived them from profit but at the same time he must needs
derive them from Nature. Nay, let us go further. What cause have we to
reprove him, seeing there is no person but will allow that both the primitive
and modern legislators had always this thing of profit or public advantage still
in their eye, and that no laws can be just and useful but what tend to the public
benefit and advantage? .. .
. . . though from what has been said we may conclude that to speak prop-
erly there is no law of nations and subsequently no right of nations, because
there never hath been any covenant or agreement between all nations, never-
theless we may say that this common precept, "Thou shalt not do to another
what thou wilt not that another should do to thee," ought to be esteemed as
the first natural law, or according to nature; not only because there is nothing
more natural or more according to nature than society, and society being not
able to subsist without this precept it ought also to be esteemed natural; but
also because God seems to have imprinted it in the hearts of all men, and that
this law contains in such a full manner all the other laws of society that no man
can invade the right of another but he must violate this law. Therefore this law
alone ought to be looked upon as the rule of all our actions that concern our
neighbor.
And truly as everyone desires that his right may be religiously preserved to
him, so that no man may attempt upon it, he need but think the same thing of
others and to put himself in their place and condition to understand what he
ought or what he ought not to do.
Therefore as there is nothing nearer at hand and more ready nor more
infallible than our own conscience, everyone may consult himself and he
alone may be his own proper and true casuist. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. Gassendi used the Latin mores, meaning "customs" or "usages," the etymological
root of "moral," to point to its true meaning.
2. Democritus (c. 460-370 B.c.E.) is associated with Epicurus (341-270 B.c.E.) be-
cause both adhered to an atomistic and materialistic theory of the ultimate con-
stituents of reality. What little we know of Democritus's ethical views suggests that
he advocated a position similar to that of Epicurus. In particular he denied any
important role to religious sanctions.
Even in his systematic account of Epicurean ethics, Gassendi drew heavily on
the Greek writer Diogenes Laertius (third century c.E.), who inserted into his
account of the life and thought of Epicurus the longest writings by him to have
survived. They include his "Letter to Menoeceus." the chief statement of his
ethical views.
Diogenes Laertius's Lives of the Eminent Philosophers is available in English
translation by R. D. Hicks, in the Loeb Classical Library, London and New York,
1925. Book X, the life of Epicurus, is in the second volume. Further references to
Epicurus will be to this edition, abbreviated DL.
For more material on Epicureanism, see A. A. Long and D. N. Sedley, The
 Further Reading 367
Hellenistic Philosophers, vol. 1 (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University
Press, 1987), pp. 102-39.
3. DL X.85-86, p. 615.
4. DL X.76-77, p. 607; 97-98, p. 625; 123, p. 649.
5. DL X.124-5, p. 651; 139, p. 665.
6. Gassendi distinguished two aspects of the soul. One, which animals also share,
operates only through the images of things. The other, not shared with animals,
enables us to think without images. although the materials for our thought come
from images. It is through this second aspect of the soul that we are immortal.
7. Gassendi goes on to provide a number of commonplace reflections designed to
decrease the fear of death.
8. That is, Diogenes Laertius. The following quotation is fairly close to the text: DL
X.128, pp. 653-5.
9. DL X.131-2, p. 657.
10. Absence of pain.
11. DL X.129-30, p. 655.
12. Cicero, De finibus (Of ends), trans. H. Rackham, Loeb Classical Library, 1971,
1.29.30, p. 33.
13. The story of "the choice of Hercules," between the life of pleasure and the life of
virtue, goes back to Xenophon, Socratic Memorabilia, 11.1.21-34. It was discussed
by many of the ancients, one of whom Gassendi cited, and provided a theme for
much art and literature well into the eighteenth century.
14. In the Iliad, the favorite companion of Achilles.
15. Leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War.
16. The Stoics.
17. Gassendi discussed prudence, fortitude, and temperance at length, arguing that
these virtues are desirable only because they lead to pleasure.
18. The codifiers of Roman law and the lawyers who worked from the materials they
provided.
19. The following is a considerable expansion of material in DL X.150-3, pp. 675-7.
20. DL X.152, pp. 675-7.
21. In DL X.151, p. 675, Epicurus spoke of the social compact and asserted that
justice exists only because of such a compact or agreement among men.

Further Reading
The only readily accessible work by Gassendi is his criticism of Descartes, the "Fifth
Set of Objections," available in John Cottingham et al., trans., The Philosophical
Writings of Descartes (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 1984), vol.
2. pp. 179-240, and elsewhere. Craig Brush translated some of Gassendi's writings,
but nothing concerning ethics, in Selected Works of Pierre Gassendi (New York: John-
son Reprint, 1972). There is no modern edition of the parts of Gassendi's work that
concern ethics, nor have they been translated into English.
Studies of Gassendi have generally concerned his atomism, his work in science and
its history, and his philosophy's epistemological aspects. Howard Jones, Pierre Gas-
sendi 1592-1655 (Nieuwkoop, Netherlands: B. deGraaf, 1981), gives a useful biogra-
phy of its subject, followed by helpful accounts of the development of Gassendi's
thought and an overview of his major works insofar as they discuss logic and physics,
but Jones says nothing about Gassendi's ethics. The excellent study by Lynn Sumida
Joy. Gassendi the Atomist (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1987),
gives the reader a good idea of a number of Gassendi's ideas and activities and of his
368 Pierre Gassendi
general historical approach to philosophy. Richard Popkin discussed Gassendi at sev-
eral places in his History of Scepticism, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press, 1979); see especially pp. 99-109 and 141-6.
Gassendi's view of morality is discussed in J. S. Spink, French Free Thought from
Gassendi to Voltaire (London: Athlone, 1960). There are two good articles on Gas-
sendi by Lisa T. Sarasohn: "The Ethical and Political Thought of Pierre Gassendi,"
Journal of the History of Philosophy 20 (1982): 239-60; and "Motion and Morality:
Pierre Gassendi, Thomas Hobbes, and the Mechanical World-View," Journal of the
History of Ideas 46 (1985): 363-70.
 Pierre Nicole

Introduction
Pierre Nicole (1625-95) was a French essayist, religious controversialist, and educator.
His whole adult life was bound up with a French religious group known as the
Jansenists and with the passionate theological controversies in which its members
engaged. Although he spent much of his time teaching in and organizing Jansenist
schools for the children of pious members of the aristocracy, it was his marked talents
as a scholar and a polemical writer that made him indispensable to the movement.
Nicole helped the great mathematician and religious thinker Blaise Pascal prepare the
Provincial Letters (1656-7), a series of attacks on Jesuit casuistry that did more to
destroy the credibility of that form of moral counseling than did any other single piece
of work. With the Jansenist apologist Antoine Arnauld, Nicole composed the Port-
Royal Logic (1662), a textbook used for generations. He also helped Arnauld prepare
many defenses of Jansenism and himself against attacks by Jesuits and other defenders
of orthodoxy. And from 1675 on, Nicole published ever-growing editions of his Moral
Essays, a series of writings exhortative, analytical, or polemical by turn, some long,
some short, dealing with innumerable aspects of people's relations with God and with
one another.
The religious movement that so engrossed Nicole was named after Cornelis Jansen,
the bishop of Ypres (1585-1638) who expounded his views on grace and salvation in a
lengthy book entitled Augustinus, published in 1640 after his early death from the
plague. The book presents extreme versions of Saint Augustine's doctrines of grace
and predestination. (See the section "Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas" in the Intro-
duction to this anthology.) Although the Augustinian belief that no one can do any-
thing to merit salvation and that therefore grace must come from God before one
deserves it was common in Protestant groups, it was opposed by the Catholic Church.
Indeed, in 1653 four of five propositions said to characterize Jansenism were declared
heretical, and the fifth was declared false.
This controversy extended beyond abstract theological matters. On the basis of their
views, Jansen and his followers attacked the less rigorous views held by the Jesuits.
Pascal's critique of casuistry was only the most famous of many devastating assaults on
the beliefs of that order, which was then the dominant teaching order in France. The
Jesuits considered Jansenism to be not only false but also harmful to efforts to convert
unbelievers and discouraging to those attempting to improve their lives. Because the
Jesuits were actively involved in politics, they had many friends and at least as many
enemies. Jansen himself had been deeply involved in controversies with the Jesuits,
and his views had been shaped by these battles. His legacy remained a central issue in

369
370 Pierre Nicole
complex struggles for power in the French church and around the French throne that
lasted well into the eighteenth century. Pascal and Arnauld were thus Jansenism's
intellectual leaders, and Nicole was their closest collaborator.
This was hardly the kind of situation that breeds abstract philosophical analysis —
and Nicole did not write his essays as a philosopher. Yet while attempting to defend
Jansenism, often by softening its positions and then asserting that it was itself the
orthodoxy that its opponents claimed to be defending, he produced some extremely
interesting ideas, not the least interesting of which are those spelled out in the essay
excerpted here.
Nicole had read Hobbes and had seen how very Augustinian Hobbes's view of
human motivation is. Hobbes, he might have thought, regarded Augustine's vision of
fallen man as a simple description of what everyone would be like if there were no
political authority able to make men repress their vicious desires. But Hobbes had no
vision of what a man might be if he were given grace. Well, if in fact most men are not
given grace, as Jansenius claimed, will we not be forced to accept Hobbes's political
conclusions? But these were unacceptable to Nicole, because they placed the church
and its teachings wholly under the control of the person who happens to be the
sovereign. And not only was this contrary to Catholic teaching, but it also put the
Jansenists at great risk in France, as the favor of the throne was anything but certain.
What Nicole argued, therefore, is that Hobbes failed to see everything that followed
from his thesis of the dominance of self-love in our psychology. He did not see that —
because of a providence that is benevolent, no matter how few souls are actually
saved — self-love mimics the work of grace-given charity so perfectly that we are never
in a position to say from which motive an action springs, not even an action of our
own. But if selfishness is nearly the same as Christian love, in regard to observable
behavior, then forms of government less authoritarian than Hobbes would allow can
be sufficient to guarantee public order and civic decency.
In presenting his case, Nicole relied — he was one of the first to do so — on the
unintended consequences of actions. My intention may be to become rich and power-
ful, no matter what the cost to others. But to do so, I realize, I must accommodate
myself to others in innumerable ways. Unintentionally, then, while pursuing my selfish
ends, I contribute to others' well-being. The idea was used by many later theorists.
The following excerpts are from one of the Moral Essays, "De la charity et de
l'amour-propre," translated especially for this volume by Elborg Forster from the text
in C. Jourdain, ed., Oeuvres philosophiques et morales de Nicole, Paris, 1845.

Of Charity and Self-Love

CHAPTER I

Charity and self-love similar in their effects. What we must understand by the
word self-love. That it is hatred for the self-love of others that obliges it to
disguise itself
Nothing is more different from charity, which relates everything to God,
than self-love, which relates everything to itself; yet nothing is so similar to
the effects of charity as those of self-love, which follows the same paths so
closely that there is virtually no better means to ascertain where charity
should lead us than to uncover the paths taken by an enlightened self-love that
 Of Charity and Self-Love 371
knows how to recognize its true interests and pursues the goals it has set for
itself by reason.
This conformity of effects springing from such different principles will not
seem strange to anyone who has properly understood the nature of self-love.
But if we are to know it, we must first examine self-love as to its essence and
its original tendencies, so that we can subsequently see how it disguises itself
in order to avoid attracting the world's attention.
The word self-love is not sufficient to make us understand its nature, for one
can love itself in many different ways. We must add other characteristics in
order to form a true idea of it. These are that corrupt man not only loves
himself but loves himself beyond measure, loves only himself, and relates
everything to himself. He wants every kind of property, honor, and pleasure,
and he wants them only for himself. Placing himself at the center of every-
thing, he would like to rule over everything and wishes that all creatures were
occupied with nothing but pleasing him, praising him, and admiring him. This
tyrannical disposition, being firmly implanted deep in the hearts of all men,
makes them violent, unjust, cruel, ambitious, obsequious, envious, insolent,
and quarrelsome. In a word, it carries within it the seeds of all man's crimes
and profligacies, from the slightest to the most heinous. This is the monster
we carry in our bosom; it lives and reigns absolutely within us, unless God has
destroyed its reign by filling our hearts with a different kind of love. It is the
principle of all actions that are untouched by anything but corrupt nature; and
we, far from being horrified by it, love and hate all things outside ourselves
only according to whether they conform to or contradict these inclinations.
Yet if we love this principle in ourselves, we are not about to treat it in the
same way when we perceive it in others. In that case, on the contrary, it
appears to us in its natural shape, and indeed the more we love ourselves the
more we hate it, because the self-love of others thwarts all the desires of our
own. We would like all others to love us, to admire us, to submit to us, to be
occupied only with trying to please us. And yet they not only have no desire to
do so; they even find us ridiculous for thinking that this is our due and are
ready to do their utmost, not only to prevent us from succeeding in our
desires, but indeed to subject us to theirs and demand the same submission
from us. This is why we see all men at loggerheads with one another; and if
the person' who said that men are born in a state of war and that every man is
by nature the enemy of all others had said this only to show the disposition of
men's hearts toward one another, without claiming that this was legitimate
and just, what he said would correspond to truth and experience as much as
his actual contention is contrary to reason and justice.

CHAPTER II

How self-love has been able to unite men in one society. Description of these
societies formed through self-love.
One does not immediately understand how it has been possible to form
372 Pierre Nicole
societies, republics, and kingdoms out of this mass of people so full of passions
that do not allow unity and only strive to destroy one another; but the very
self-love that is the cause of that war will also find the means to make people
live in peace. It loves to dominate; it loves to subjugate everyone; but even
more it loves life and possessions; and more than domination it loves the
comforts of life; furthermore, it sees clearly that the rest of the world, far from
being willing to let itself be dominated, is ready to take away from every
individual's self-love what it loves most. Everyone thus realizes that he is
unable to attain by force the goals suggested by his ambition and indeed has
reason to fear that the violence of others will cause him to lose his most
essential possessions. It is therefore necessary, first and foremost, to concen-
trate on one's own preservation, and the only means to achieve that is to unite
with other men in order to fight off those who would attempt to rob [people]
of life or property. And in order to consolidate this union, laws are made and
punishments are ordered for those who break them. In this manner torture
wheels and gibbets set up by the community serve to repress the schemes and
the tyrannical designs of each individual's self-love.
The fear of death is thus the first tie that binds together civil society and the
first check on self-love; this is what forces men, whatever they may say, to
obey the law and makes them forget those grand schemes of domination to
the point that in most people they almost cease to arise, as it is obvious that
they cannot possibly succeed.
Open violence being thus out of the question, men have no choice but to
search for other means and to use artifice instead of force; and all they can do
is to attempt to satisfy the self-love of those whom they need, instead of
tyrannizing it.
Some try to serve [self-love's] interests; others use flattery to win it over.
One gives in order to be given. This is the mainspring and foundation of all
business transacted among men, which is now taking a thousand forms; for
trade is not only a matter of merchandise given for other merchandise or for
money but also one of labor, services, attentions, and civilities; all of this is
exchanged either for things of the same nature or for more concrete goods, as,
for instance, when one obtains actual advantages through mere friendly
words.
By means of this trade, then, all of life's needs are somehow met without
involving charity. Hence there is no reason that in states that have no place for
charity because the true religion is banished from them one would not live as
peacefully, safely, and comfortably as if one were in a republic of saints.
Not that this tyrannical inclination, which makes them wish to dominate
others by force, is not always alive in men's hearts; but realizing that they are
powerless to satisfy this desire, they are compelled to dissimulate it until,
having won over other men through acts of kindness, they have become
strong enough to subject yet others by force. Everyone therefore immediately
aims to occupy the highest positions of the society to which he belongs; and if
he cannot reach them, he tries for the next-lower ones. In a word, everyone
 Of Charity and Self-Love 373
rises as high as he can and humbles himself only under constraint. Whatever
one's estate or condition, one always tries to acquire some kind of preemi-
nence, authority, supervisory capacity, consideration, and jurisdiction and to
extend one's power as far as possible. . . .
Nothing is more apt to represent this spiritual world shaped by concupis-
cence than the material world shaped by nature, that is, the assembly of
bodies that make up the universe; for there too one sees that every part of
matter naturally tends to move, to expand, and to break out of its place but
that, being pressed upon by other bodies, it is reduced to a kind of prison,
from which it will escape as soon as it has become stronger than the surround-
ing matter. This is the very image of the constraint imposed on the self-love of
every individual by that of others, which does not allow him to take up as
much room as he would like to have. . . .

CHAPTER III

That the most widespread impulse to arise from self-love is the desire to be
loved.
In its quest for domination, two things self-love craves particularly are that
we be considered great and powerful by others and that we provoke in their
hearts feelings of respect and humility in keeping with these notions; but
although these are the impressions most pleasing to self-love, they are not the
only ones on which it feeds. It loves all feelings that are favorable to it, such as
admiration, respect, trust, and, above all, love. There are many people who
make little effort to do what it takes to be loved, but there is no one who is not
happy to be loved and who does not take pleasure in seeing the inclination of
others' hearts toward himself, which is what we call love. Whenever it appears
that someone does not make an effort to attract this kind of love, it is because
he likes even more to use his grandeur to impart feelings of fear and lowliness
or else because, trying too passionately to please some people, he takes less
care to please others.
Yet this does not mean that even those who, carried away by stronger
passions, behave in a manner unlikely to arouse love, do not wish to be loved,
and do not feel ill at ease when they perceive in the minds of others stirrings of
hatred and aversion. There are even many people in whom the inclination to
make themselves loved is stronger than the desire to dominate, and who fear
the hatred and aversion of men and the judgments that produce them more
than they love to be rich and powerful and great. And finally, whereas few are
powerful, and indeed not many can even aspire to power, making oneself
loved is within everyone's reach.
If the desire to be loved is thus not the strongest passion to be born from
self-love, it is at least the most common. Considerations of self-interest, ambi-
tion, and pleasure often attenuate its effects, but they never stifle it alto-
gether; it always remains alive in the depths of our hearts, and as soon as it is
given free rein it will not fail to act and to prompt us to do our utmost to
374 Pierre Nicole
attract the love of our fellow men, just as it causes us to avoid those things that
we imagine will bring us their aversion. It is true that one can make mistakes
in ascertaining the things that will attract love or hate and that in this matter
some people have much better judgment than others do. But regardless of
whether or not one is mistaken, the same passion is always at work and makes
us avoid or seek certain things. Indeed, to some degree there is a discernment
common to all men; that is, up to some point everyone knows that certain
actions provoke hatred and others love.

CHAPTER IV

That self-love imitates charity in several respects, particularly in hiding itself

Wherein consists human honnetete. 2
There is no need to go further in the description of the ways of self-love to
make it clear how closely it imitates charity. Suffice it to say that self-love,
which prevents us from breaking the law through fear of punishment, thereby
removes from us the external appearance of all crime, making us look out-
wardly like those who avoid crime out of charity; that just as charity ministers
to the needs of others according to the commands of God, who wants us to
acknowledge his kindness by serving our fellow man, so self-love ministers to
them according to the commands of its own interest; and finally that there is
virtually no deed inspired by charity for the sake of pleasing God that self-love
could not prompt us to perform for the sake of pleasing men.
Self-love thus tends by means of these three endeavors to ape charity; yet it
must be granted that the last of these comes closest and that it is much more
widespread than the two others are, for there are many occasions in which
neither fear nor self-interest is involved, and it is often quite easy to distin-
guish what is being done out of fear of other men or out of vulgar self-interest
from what is done out of charitable impulse; but this is not the case when it
comes to the pursuit of men's love and esteem. This inclination is so cunning
and so subtle, and at the same time so pervasive, that there is no action into
which it cannot creep; and it knows so well how to assume the appearances of
charity that it is almost impossible to know clearly what distinguishes the two;
for by pursuing the same course and producing the same effects it obliterates
with marvelous canniness all traces and all marks of the self-love that has
given rise to it, knowing full well that it would not obtain any of the things it
desires if they were noticed. The reason is that nothing attracts as much
aversion as self-love does and that it could not possibly show itself without
arousing it. We ourselves feel aversion for the self-love of others. We will not
tolerate it whenever we uncover it, and this makes it easy for us to judge that
others will not be more favorably disposed toward our own self-love when
they uncover it.
This is what prompts those who are sensitive to the hatred of others and do
not like to expose themselves to it to try their very best to hide their self-love
from the sight of others, to disguise it, never to show it in its natural form, and
 Of Charity and Self-Love 375
to imitate the conduct of those who would be entirely free from it, that is,
people who, inspired by the spirit of charity, would act only out of charity.
It is this suppression of self-love that in fact creates human honnetete, which
consists of just that; this is also what caused a great mind of our century' to say
that Christian virtue destroys and annihilates self-love and that human
honnetete hides and suppresses it.
This honnetete, then, which the pagan sages idolized, is actually just a more
intelligent and more adroit self-love than that of the world at large. Steering
clear of what might harm its designs, it pursues its aims, which is the esteem
and the love of men, by following a more direct and reasonable route. It is
easy to make everyone see this by showing how self-love imitates the principal
actions of charity.

CHAPTER V

How self-love imitates humility.

It is not difficult to understand in which manner charity makes us humble;
for by making us love justice, which is God himself, it makes us hate injustice,
which offends him. Now of course it is a most obvious injustice that, being as
full of faults and guilty of as many sins as we are, we yet want to be honored
by men and that we claim to deserve their praise, either because of our
human — and hence vain and frivolous — qualities or because of talents we
have received from God, which do not belong to us at all. Not only is it not
just that the sinner be honored, it is also just that he be brought low and
humbled. Thus it is ordained by the eternal law, and charity not only accepts
this law but loves it and, because of this love, joyfully embraces every humilia-
tion and every abasement; it makes us hate everything that smacks of pride
and vanity, and just as it condemns these impulses when they arise in our
hearts, so it prevents them from showing outwardly in our words and deeds,
thus reducing them to a decent modesty.
But there is nothing in this that self-love does not imitate perfectly; for
seeing every man's heart turned entirely toward himself, and naturally hostile
to the elevation of others, it is very careful not to incur their annoyance or
spite.
Anyone who praises himself and displays to the world what he believes to
be his good points thereby hopes to attach others to himself; this almost
amounts to asking them outright to give him praise and look upon him with
esteem and love. But in truth, few demands seem as improper and as trouble-
some to men's self-love as this one. It reacts with irritation and is most
unlikely to respond with anything other than mockery and contempt. Those
who are cunning enough to know the ways of self-love therefore avoid making
such demands; that is, they usually steer clear of anything that smacks of
vanity, anything liable to attract attention and display.their advantages, try-
ing, on the contrary, to appear indifferent to them and unaware that they
possess them. This, then, is the kind of modesty that honnetete can provide.
376 Pierre Nicole
Honnetete not only causes us to avoid indulging in base and coarse vanity
and openly praising ourselves; it also, knowing that the self-love of others is
admirably cunning in uncovering the detours we might take to show off the
thing we would like the world to know, relinquishes these little artifices and
earnestly endeavors to avoid them. Indeed, honnetete would rather have us
speak of ourselves plainly and openly than make us use these paltry tricks, for
it is always in fear of being caught in them and knows that if they are found
out the world will take even greater pleasure in holding them up to ridicule.
Therefore nothing is simpler or more humble than its speech. It does not
dramatize itself or show off in any manner and makes it a rule that we must
never speak of ourselves or do so with more coldness and indifference than we
show in speaking of others. . . .
But beyond the fear of honnetete that it might bring upon itself the natural
aversion all men have for the vanity of others, there may also be in its conduct
a subtler and more delicate conception of the pride that is born with man and
never forsakes him. Those people whom we see so obsessed with the few
occasions on which they have distinguished themselves that they continually
harp on them, as Cicero used to do with his consulate, show by doing so that
virtue is not natural to them and that great efforts were required to hoist up
their souls to the state where they are so happy to show themselves. Yet it is
much grander not to mention one's greatest accomplishments, thereby mak-
ing it seem that we have forgotten about them and that they arise so naturally
from the disposition of our soul that it is not even aware of them. This degree
of virtue is surely much more heroic, and human honnetete at its highest point
may, without explicitly trying to do so, convey the same idea, or else it may
imitate it with skill and calculation because it is not perfect, fashioned by
reason rather than by nature.

CHAPTER VI

Both honnetete and charity make us eschew affectation, above all with respect
to things that do not befit our condition.
Who could fail to love the honnete homme whom a great man of our century
has painted so beautifully:
Society, he says, does not consider us knowledgeable about verses unless we have hung
out a poet's shingle, nor clever in mathematics unless we display that of the mathemati-
cian. But the true honnetes gens do not like shingles and make little distinction be-
tween the craft of the poet and that of the embroiderer. They are not called poets or
geometers, but they can judge all of these. One cannot guess what they are. They will
speak of the things that were being discussed when they entered the room. One does
not notice in them one quality more than another, unless they are called upon to use it
but then one does realize it, for it is also part of this characterization that one does not
say of them that they speak well if language is not being discussed and that one does
say so when it is being discussed. It is therefore false praise if one says of a man as he
enters the room that he knows all about poetry, and it is a bad sign if one calls upon
him only when verses are to be judged. Man is full of needs. He loves only those who
 Of Charity and Self-Love 377

can satisfy them. "He is a good mathematician," it will be said. "Yes, but I don't need
mathematics." "He is a man who knows about war"; "yes, but I don't want to go to war
against anyone." What we need, therefore, is an honnete homme who can meet all of
our needs. °
It is impossible not to love a man of this kind, but why do we love him? It is
because he seems made for others and not for himself. He does not upset our
self-love by a tiresome affectation. He does not mean to force us to praise him
by showing off qualities in him that we do not want to see. If he does show us
his good points, it is for our benefit, not for his. In this manner honnetete, by
making us aware of these judgments and of the favorable impressions left by
such conduct in the minds of others, will endeavor to deserve them by adopt-
ing it.
Now if honnetete generally eschews all forms of affectation, it is even more
careful to shun what tends to attract attention by qualities or manners that do
not befit our condition or our profession, knowing that the self-love of other
men, which is always offended by it, will not fail to turn it into ridicule and will
be proud indeed if, having reason on its side, it can use it to curb a misplaced
vanity. . . .
There is no need to prove that charity is even farther from affectation than
is simple honnetete; for because charity loves others and does not love itself, it
need only follow its natural impulses to act with perfect honnetete. And it does
so all the better because it is more sincere and because there is nothing within
it to contradict its actions, whereas honnetete, being impelled by self-love, is
not usually as unmixed. If it represses self-love in one place, it may well crop
up in another and thus leave those who watch it very carefully somewhat
disgusted with themselves. But because this happens involuntarily, self-love is
ashamed when it becomes aware of it or, rather, when it senses that others
become aware of it.

CHAPTER VII
That self-love gives the same answer as charity does to most questions we can
ask of it.
Prompted by reason to seek the esteem and affection of men, self-love so
perfectly imitates charity that if we consult it on how to conduct our outward
actions, it will give us the same advice as charity will and launch us on the
same course.
For if we ask charity what attitude we should adopt, for instance, toward
our own faults, it will tell us that we must be extremely wary concerning our
understanding of even those we do not believe we have and that we need a
general awareness of our blindness on this point so that we will be ready to
give more credence to the views of others than to our own; but that concern-
ing the faults of which we are certain, it would be utterly wrong to try to deny
and destroy, as it were, the understanding of God himself by attempting to
justify what it condemns and that therefore the least we can do to avoid such
378 Pierre Nicole
criminal pride is to admit our faults sincerely and to acknowledge them hum-
bly before God and man.
Now if we ask the same question of self-love, we will see that although it
does not speak the same language deep in its heart, it nonetheless gives the
same answer. Although it is painful, it will say, to acknowledge one's faults
and even though one would wish to efface them from the memory of others
as well as one's own, it is nonetheless clear that it is impossible to hide them.
The harder one tries to conceal them from others, the more ingenious they
will be in uncovering them and the more malicious in pointing them out. The
very desire to hide them will be considered the greatest of our faults, and
trying to conceal or to justify them will bring us nothing but the world's
aversion and contempt. 'One must therefore by necessity take a completely
different route. . . .
It is on such considerations that honnetete models its conduct, and it is this
that prompts a man to state openly that he sincerely seeks to acknowledge all
of his faults and does not object to others' noticing them. In this manner the
honnete homme acquires the reputation of an amiable impartiality that en-
ables him to judge himself without blindness and passion, of being someone
who knows how to do justice to himself and with whom one can agree without
having to provide outward testimony of approval for something of which one
does not approve.
From this it is easy to judge that charity and self-love must be exactly alike
in their manner of receiving blame and reprimands and that very different
considerations and motives must be at the root of the same outward conduct.
We know very well what charity will lead us to do; for because it looks on
these reprimands as a great benefit and as a useful means of delivering us from
our faults, it receives them not only with joy but truly with eagerness. It
welcomes the very bitterness that comes with them, as it procures us the
blessing of humility and weakens our self-love, which charity considers its
greatest foe. Far from treating those who procure us this blessing with loath-
ing and acrimony, charity will therefore make every effort to show them
gratitude, to allay their fear that they have offended us, to encourage them to
do us this favor often, and to relieve them of all fears that might render them
reluctant and create a lingering sense of embarrassment and constraint.
Deep down, to be sure, self-love is always very far from this attitude. It
certainly does not want others to notice our faults, and even less to be repri-
manded for them. But for all that, it acts outwardly as charity does; for as
soon as it learns from the reprimands we receive that we make a bad impres-
sion on others, reason leads it to conclude that it must make an effort to
mitigate that impression, or at least not to strengthen it. By watching the
attitude of others in order to find out how this can be achieved, self-love easily
realizes that nothing annoys people more than the pride of those who cannot
tolerate being reprimanded for any of their faults, revolt against the truth
however clear it may be, and would want the rest of the world to close its eyes
to their faults or to repress all but its favorable feelings about them. . . .
 Of Charity and Self-Love 379
It is obvious that such conduct directly fosters the aim of self-love, which is
to win the esteem and friendship of men. That is why human honnetete never
fails to adopt it and, indeed, often adheres to it more closely than true piety
does when it is not perfect; for because charity is often less effectual than self-
love is, it can happen that pious persons appear more sensitive and touchier
than worldly people do when reprimanded for faults that others find in their
conduct or in their works, the reason being that charity has little part in such
matters and that pious people lack the enlightened self-love that shapes out-
ward actions in its absence.

CHAPTER VIII

That self-love adopts the same conduct as charity does regarding unjust suspi-
cion and enemies.
The conduct that charity causes righteous people to pursue when they are
subject to false suspicions and unreasonable impressions is not to engage in
reproaches or to express displeasure and acrimony but, rather, to justify
themselves modestly by indicating that, being human, they are not surprised
that they have been suspected of human faults. In a word, instead of complain-
ing about these suspicions, honorable people do their best to remedy them,
because unjust suspicions must be regarded as dangerous ills for those who
have conceived them and because the means of delivering such people is not
to reproach them before they are persuaded that they are wrong but gently to
show them the falseness of their suspicions and thereby oblige them to con-
demn them of their own accord.
If on such occasions we follow the first impulses of our self-love, we will, to
be sure, be very far from such moderation, for it will bring nothing but
outbursts of resentment and anger. But if we consult reason, determined as
we are to follow it in order to reach our stated goal, which is to efface these
harmful suspicions and to restore our reputation in the minds of those who
have conceived them, we must take the same route; for anything that smacks
of outbursts and passion can only strengthen the bad notions that others have
conceived against us; and whereas this suspicion often affects only people's
minds, outbursts and passion will bring acrimony to the will itself and prompt
it to second the impressions of the mind. Foreseeing this bad effect, self-love
therefore has no choice but to imitate as best it can the gentle and moderate
conduct prescribed by charity.
But who could ever believe that self-love, even if it is intended to discredit
its enemies, to render them hateful, and to make everyone condemn them for
baseness and injustice, could find no better means to succeed than to follow in
the footsteps of charity? Yet this is very often the case. For usually there is no
better way to expose base and dishonorable proceedings used against us than
to meet them with moderation and honnetete. In doing so, one exposes the
difference between these opposite forms of conduct and sheds a brighter light
on both of them. Honnetete will appear more beautiful, on the one hand; and
380 Pierre Nicole
the lack of it, more disgraceful, on the other. And in this manner self-love
obtains exactly what it seeks, which is a means to elevate ourselves and to
abase those who have troubled us. . . .

CHAPTER IX
That self-love adopts the same attitude as charity does toward the good and bad
qualities of others.
It is not difficult to judge from all that has been said so far, that the attitude
of honnetete toward the good and bad qualities of others cannot be different
from that of self-love. It is easy to see where charity leads us with respect to
the good it notices in others. Rejoicing about it inwardly, it will display that
joy outwardly in every manner it can find and, far from tending to obscure it,
will do its very best to find and give it all its due. The good that is in others is
its own because of the love it has for them, and it will dwell on it even more
happily than on its own, because in doing so it does not have to fear compla-
cency and vanity.
Self-love, on the contrary, far from having such kindness and such tender
feelings for others, is by nature malicious, jealous, envious, full of venom and
bile; what elevates others incommodes and chagrins it, and one would never
see it sincerely pleased with praise given to others, unless it could extract
some advantage from it or use it as a stepping-stone to elevate itself; nonethe-
less anyone who considers the impression he would make on the minds of
others by openly showing these impulses will immediately conclude that he
must hide them. It is obvious that to show them would cause him to be
considered a public enemy, to become the object of everyone's hatred and
loathing, and that he would be hateful not only to those against whom he had
directed his malice but even to those whom he had spared, for no one could be
assured of receiving justice from someone who had exhibited this evil disposi-
tion, and everyone would be justifiably fearful of becoming the next object of
his jealousy. Honnetete therefore makes us adopt precisely the opposite
stance, prompting us to display to the world a show of extreme impartiality, to
praise willingly what deserves to be praised, to give every possible due to all
the good qualities of others, and not to deny even our enemies the marks of
esteem they deserve; and in this manner one can succeed in making oneself
loved, acquiring friends, mollifying one's enemies, and being on terms with all
and sundry.
It is from these same considerations that self-love exhibits extreme indul-
gence for the faults of others. . . .

CHAPTER X
Resemblance between charity and self-love with respect to other virtues.
One only has to go through the other virtues to discover several additional
resemblances between charity and self-love; for if charity patiently endures
 Of Charity and Self-Love 381
offenses, thereby hoping to soften the acrimony of those who insult us, if it
makes us suffer with joy all kinds of bad treatment in order to satisfy God's
justice, and if it convinces us that we deserve even harsher treatment, self-
love also has a patience born of self-interest and vanity that outwardly pro-
duces the same effects. It prevents us from wanting to appear proud and
presumptuous, teaches us that it is always best not to render people more
acrimonious than they already are, and, for these reasons, makes us resolve
not to acknowledge the offenses we receive.
If charity is beneficent from a sincere desire to serve others, self-love too
wants us to act in this manner in order to win them over and to profit from the
impulses that kindness arouses in them.
If charity tries to be secretive about doing good to others so as not to
attribute anything to itself, self-love does the same thing in order to render
those whom it obliges even more indebted, for one feels all the more obliged
if those who have done us good have not drawn attention to their acts.
If charity extends its kindness to those from whom it has nothing to expect,
and indeed to its very enemies because it looks only to their advantage and
not to its own interest, self-love acts likewise, knowing that the more its
kindnesses appear disinterested and free of all self-seeking, the more they will
attract the attention of the world, as they afford everyone the hope of receiv-
ing similar kindnesses.
If charity is grateful to everyone because its gratitude to God extends to all
the instruments he uses to bestow his gifts upon us, self-love prompts us to
feign gratitude so as not to displease the self-love of others, which takes
offense when we fail to show it.
Finally, if charity makes us loyal to everyone from a sincere love of righ-
teousness, self-love makes us practice the same loyalty in order to attract
men's confidence.
Charity, as the apostle says,' is not ambitious, for those who are filled with
it have little use for the human honors and the temporal grandeurs that
ambition seeks; indeed, they fear them more than they seek them and are
always content in the place where God has placed them. The same cannot be
said of honnetete and to judge it by its essence, it is not only not free from
ambition, it is altogether nothing but a subtle and delicate ambition. Nonethe-
less, here too, honnetete outwardly imitates the conduct of charity; for it
knows so well how to hide its ambitious desires, fearful that they might be
thwarted by the always-watchful self-love of others, that one might believe
that it has no ends of its own, thinks only of others, and is oblivious of itself. If
it plans to rise in the world, it does so without eagerness and without baseness,
creating the impression that good fortune has come to it of its own accord and
that there was no need for initiatives or self-promotion designed to attract it.
In some people, self-love goes even further, actually removing them from
great fortune and great positions, even though they could have risen to them.
The repose of a restful and tranquil life in which one enjoys the company of
many illustrious friends — and one does render services to people of quality
382 Pierre Nicole
and merit if, unprompted by self-interest and without being dependent, one
settles for being known in society as a civil, obliging, disinterested person and
a good friend — such a life, I say, has charms that may make a man prefer it to
all the grandeurs of the world by dint of a wise and enlightened self-love that
knows how to compare the disadvantages of the various estates. . . .
It is easy to see as well that because charity removes us from sensuous
pleasures because it is in command of the soul and does not permit it to attach
itself to anything but God alone, honnetete must act in the same manner,
because subservience to the pleasures of the body always has about it some-
thing base and contemptible that cheapens and disfigures the idea of ourselves
that our self-love would like to impress upon the mind of others.
There is even good reason not to trust those who are dominated by their
pleasures and to expect every kind of baseness and injustice from them; for
what assurance do we have that their passion will not gain the upper hand
when it comes into conflict with their duty toward men, seeing that it so often
gains the upper hand over what they owe to God?
Honnetete, which above all wants to preserve its reputation for inviolable
loyalty and unassailable firmness, therefore makes it a point to appear exempt
from this passion for pleasure, which is the cause of such justifiable distrust.
But I do not wish to pursue this conformity between charity and self-love to
the point of tedious detail and will therefore merely add to what I have said
that self-love can indeed imitate all the actions of charity, sometimes even
creeping into those in which one would hardly expect it to be involved,
namely, those designed to mortify and destroy it.
Self-love sometimes can make members of religious communities fast, or at
least alleviate some of the pain of their fasting. Sackcloth, hair shirts, and
scourging are sometimes put to its use, and there is almost no act of humilia-
tion that it is not capable of performing. And although there is less room for it
in solitude, silence, and secret austerities than anywhere else, there are none-
theless certain hidden conduits, certain subterranean channels by which it
might find its way even into these. Indeed, it is even capable of making us
suffer death joyfully. . . .
Yet there is a difference between virtuous actions that are hard, painful, and
humiliating and those that are all ostentation without being painful, and it lies
in the fact that if self-love inspires people to humility, patience, and suffering,
it has fallen into a kind of extravagance and derangement; for it is quite
obvious, for instance, that the way to attain the natural ends that self-love
pursues is not to hide away in solitude where one does not converse with
anyone or hears only about one's sins and faults. It is therefore rather unlikely
that there will be people who embrace and persist in these ways of living that
are so contrary to their natural inclinations for motives other than their salva-
tion, but this is not true for most of the virtuous deeds one can carry out in the
sight of the world. Self-love can only further its aims by performing them. It
cannot forgo them without straying from its end and therefore would have to
 Of Charity and Self-Love 383
be carried away by some unreasonable passion against its own interest to take
any different course.

CHAPTER XI
Enlightened self-love could correct all the outward faults of the world and make
for a very well regulated society. That it would be useful to keep this in mind
when educating the powerful.
One can conclude from everything that has been said that what would be
needed to reform the world entirely, that is, to banish from it all the vices and
all the most glaring disorders and to make humans happy even in this life,
would be nothing more than to instill in all of them, in the absence of charity,
an enlightened self-love that would know how to discern its true interests and
pursue them in the ways pointed out by right reason. However corrupt this
society might be inwardly and in the eyes of God, outwardly nothing would be
more orderly, courteous, just, peaceful, honorable, and generous; moreover,
it would be an excellent thing that, everything being inspired and driven only
by self-love, self-love would not show itself and that, society being entirely
without charity, what one would see everywhere would be only the forms and
the outward marks of charity. It might not be useless for those who are
charged with the education of the powerful to keep this firmly in mind so that,
if they should be unable to inspire in them the sense of charity they would like
to develop, they will try at least to shape their self-love and to teach them that
most of the routes they take to satisfy it are quite wrong, inappropriate, and
contrary to their true interests and that they could very easily take different
routes that would lead them without effort to honor and glory and afford them
the affection, esteem, and admiration of the world. By such means they would
not succeed, to be sure, in rendering their pupils useful to themselves, but at
least they would render them useful to others and also help them enter a path
closer, at any rate, to the road to heaven than that on which they are engaged,
as they would have to do little more than change their ends and their inten-
tions to become as pleasing to God for their truly Christian virtue as they
would be to men for the luster of the human honnetete that would have been
imparted to them.

CHAPTER XII
That it is very difficult to discern in ourselves whether we act from charity or
from self-love. Three reasons for this difficulty.
It would not matter much that these two entirely different principles, one of
which bears the fruits of life and the other the fruits of death, meld together in
outward actions, if at least it were easy for each individual to discern which
one makes him act, so that he would be in a position to judge his own actions
and the state of his soul. Moreover, it is strange that this melding and this
384 Pierre Nicole
confusion often begin in our very hearts, so that we are unable to distinguish
whether we are acting from charity or from self-love, whether it is God or
ourselves that we seek, whether it is for heaven or for hell that we work. ° This
obscurity has various causes, and I shall expose the three principal ones.
The first is that the attention given to men's judgment and to turning their
hearts toward us, which is the very measure, mainspring, and object of human
honnetete, is not always accompanied by precise and explicit reflections and
that the impulses it produces in us are often not yet perceptible. The mind
sometimes needs only a quick glance and certain passing thoughts to steer it
almost surreptitiously toward the judgment that others will form of us; as for
the heart, it will need only certain hidden inclinations to turn it gently into this
direction; which is to say that one does not expressly reflect on either this
inclination or the thought that produces it, even though this is what sets our
outward actions in motion and is the principle that informs them.
The second cause is that in many cases, even when one is in fact stirred by
the fear of displeasing men or by the desire to please them, one has absolutely
no awareness or distinct understanding of either one or the other motivation,
the reason being that one often acts without distinct knowledge and from
mere habit, which is guided only by a confused understanding. By dint of
constantly regarding certain actions as capable of bringing us public infamy
and the aversion of good people, we form in our mind a confused notion
representing them to us as hateful, although the mind fails to unravel why it
should be so, and this notion is sufficient to arouse in the heart an impulse of
aversion and avoidance. Yet these confused notions and the impulses to which
they give rise are so close to the true considerations of charity, which make us
hate evil actions because of the injustice they contain, that there is almost no
one but God who is able to discriminate between them.
The third cause, finally, is that even when we have charity in our hearts and
even when it directs us toward goals that are in keeping with it, it may
nevertheless happen that because cupidity often walks the same paths and
toward the same goals, albeit from different motives, we find our hearts and
minds subjected to a mixture of these two kinds of considerations and im-
pulses, without being able to find out with certainty which of them has gained
the upper hand and is the true principle of our actions. We seek God and the
world by the same action; the heart is happy to please both, not knowing
whether it is God that it means by God,' for this is a judgment that can be
made only by delving into a certain depth within the heart that is known
clearly to no one but God alone.

CHAPTER XIII
That our ignorance as to whether we act from charity or from self-love is useful
to us in several respects.
This, then, is the ordinary condition of humans in this life, even if they are
God's own. Self-love acts more crudely in some than in others, but it lives and
 Of Charity and Self-Love 385
acts in all of them to some degree; and they can rarely be assured that any
specific action will be entirely free of all self-seeking. But even though this
situation is a great cause of sorrow and fear to them, it can also afford them
great comfort if they think about why God permits them to remain in it and
does not elevate them to a higher degree of virtue.
It is obvious, first of all, that God's design to hide the heavenly kingdom
that he came to establish in this world demands that the righteous be out-
wardly indistinguishable from the wicked and that they not be set apart by
clear and perceptible signs; for if the faithful whom he inspires and in whom
he dwells as in a temple were a certain species of humanity separated from all
others, and like a nation set apart that the world could recognize by actions
never to be found in others, they all would become public, continual, and
lasting miracles, which would destroy the practice of the faith through which
God intends to save humankind. The wicked who would find themselves
incapable of following their example would thereby clearly understand that
nature can never attain the state of the righteous. It is therefore necessary that
there be purely human actions that so closely resemble supernatural and
divine ones that the difference between them is imperceptible. And because
the righteous do not commit crimes and hence cannot be confused with the
wicked, it is necessary that the wicked be in a position to imitate the virtuous
actions of the righteous and indeed perform some that outwardly resemble the
former so closely that no one can detect the difference between them.
But it is not only by an effect of God's justice that he has hidden the
treasures of grace that he has placed into the righteous from the sight of the
wicked; it is also through his mercy toward the righteous themselves. It is
useful to them not to know themselves and not to see the righteousness that is
in them. This sight would be capable of causing them to backslide, for man is
so weak even in his strength that he would be unable to carry this great
weight; and owing to a strange reversal that springs from the corruption of his
heart, it is more dangerous to him to know his virtues than his faults, even
though his happiness consists in possessing the virtues and his suffering, in
being full of faults. The knowledge that he is humble makes him proud, and
the knowledge that he is proud makes him humble. He is strong when he
realizes that he is weak, and he is weak when he believes that he is strong. In
the same manner, the obscurity that prevents him from discerning clearly
whether he acts from charity or from self-love, far from harming him, is
salutary, for it does not take away his virtues but only prevents him from
losing them by keeping him always in a state of humility and fear and by
causing him to distrust all of his works and to rely on God's mercy alone.
This is the great utility of the outward resemblance between actions
prompted by self-love and those prompted by charity. Yet several of its other
aspects are of considerable value as well.
It often happens that charity is weak in certain souls, and in this state of
weakness it would be easily extinguished by violent temptations if God did not
permit these to be weakened and counterbalanced, as it were, by certain human
386 Pierre Nicole
motives that curb their impetus and allow the soul to follow its instinctive
craving for grace. The fear of men's judgments is one of these motives, and few
others make a more powerful impression on the mind. By itself, to be sure, this
fear is not sufficient to overcome temptations in a Christian manner, consider-
ing that it springs from vanity alone; but it does suspend the temptations, and if
by chance the soul has as much as one spark of true charity, it will thereby be
enabled to follow its commands. It is for this reason that the saintly legislators
of religious orders have not disdained such human means and have sanctioned
certain transgressions with punishments that cause embarrassment before men,
intending that the fear of human embarrassment should render the members of
the community more careful to avoid them. This was not, of course, meant to
be the only means; the intention was to provide it as a defense against negli-
gence in the expectation that this human fear would serve as a weapon and a
tool to charity in the effort to resist the inclinations of nature.
It is therefore not useless for men, considering their state of weakness, to be
kept away from vice not only by charity but also by the kind of self-love that is
called honnetete, so that whenever charity languishes, this honnetete can sus-
tain the spirit and prevent it from falling into dangerous excesses. . . .
And is it not also a considerable advantage for the righteous to be able to
hide from others by means of the obscurity that prevents the world from
distinguishing true piety from self-love and allows certain actions of charity to
pass in the opinion of the world as prompted by simple honnetete? Would it
not be most dangerous and troublesome for them if all their good deeds were
noticed and if they were immediately rewarded by the praise they would
attract? If this were the case, they would be obliged to withdraw altogether
from human intercourse, whereas under the cover of this obscurity they have
a little more liberty for dealing with the world and following the impulses of
their charity, secure in the thought that they will be taken for mere civility.
Thus it can be said that just as honnetete is delighted to be taken for charity
and does its utmost to borrow its form and its qualities, so charity in turn is
happy to pass for honnetete; and even though it does not directly contribute to
that impression, it also makes no effort to undo it, both because it is not
absolutely certain that it is not partially true and because it is to its advantage
that others believe it to be so.
Lastly, is it not a powerful incentive to practice the virtues to tell ourselves
that it would be a wretched thing to stray from the path to which both charity
and self-interest have directed us and in doing so make ourselves hateful to
both God and man? Is it not cause for praising God that he has wanted most
of the profligate acts that he prohibits to be contrary to human righteousness
even in this life and that we will avoid them for reasons of purely human self-
interest? And finally, does it not afford us a better understanding of the
strange corruption of nature and the violence of our passions to see that they
make us forget not only what we owe to God but also what we owe to
ourselves and that they make us wretched in both this world and the next? For
if there is less glory and less merit in serving God when doing so serves our
 Further Reading 387
self-interest, surely there is greater profligacy and disorder in not serving him
if by doing so we also deprive ourselves of what our very interest prompts us
to desire and pursue for our own advantage.

Editor's Notes
1. Hobbes.
2. The French term honnetete has no exact English equivalent. As a rendition of the
Latin honestas, it may be taken to mean "decent," as when we say that someone is
a thoroughly decent person. In the latter half of the seventeenth century, the ideal
of the honnete homme came to be important in court and aristocratic circles in
France. Such a person was polite, observing the proprieties and pleasing others in
his own search for an enjoyable life. Thus the term can mean, as Nicole intended it
to mean, a merely superficial or behavioral decency without genuine inner worth.
The meaning of this term was much discussed among French writers of the time,
and the translator here has appropriately left the term untranslated.
3. Nicole did not report the remark exactly as it is attributed to Pascal. See Blaise
Pascal, Pensees, trans. A. J. Krailsheimer (London: Penguin, 1966), p. 356: "Chris-
tian piety annihilates the human self, and human civility conceals and suppresses
it." This is number 1006 in the Lafuma numbering.
4. Pascal, Pensees; Nicole quoted together two sections which in modern editions are
given separately, Lafuma number 587 and number 605, which begins with "Man is
full of needs." See Krailsheimer, trans., Pensies, pp. 227, 232.
5. Saint Paul, 1 Cor. 13, the famous "hymn" to charity or Christian love, which
should be read in conjunction with the whole of Nicole's essay and particularly
with this chapter.
6. Nicole here took a stand against those Protestant sects that held that one could
have full assurance about one's own salvation and that one could form a church
composed only of the elect.
7. That is, not knowing whether it seeks God or an image of God made to suit
earthly interests.

Further Reading
There is nothing in English discussing Nicole specifically in relation to the traditions or
problems of moral philosophy. E. D. James, Pierre Nicole: Jansenist and Humanist
(The Hague: Nijhoff, 1972), is a general study. Nigel Abercrombie, Origins of
Jansenism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), is the best introduction to the thought of
the religious party for which Nicole wrote much of his work. There are two interesting
chapters on Jansenism in Paul Benichou, Man and Ethics, trans. E. Hughes (New
York: Doubleday, 1971). The treatment of Nicole's political views in Nannerl 0.
Keohane, Philosophy and the State in France (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1980), is most useful, as is the book generally for those interested in the context
of French moral thought. A. W. S. Baird, Studies in Pascal's Ethics (The Hague:
Nijhoff, 1975), is informative regarding the thought of the great figure in whose
shadow Nicole worked. The Port Royal Logic, which Nicole wrote with Antoine
Arnauld, has been translated by James Dickoff and Patricia James as The Art of
Thinking (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1964). J. S. Spink, French Free-Thought from
Gassendi to Voltaire (London: Athlone, 1960), reviews the various skeptical, Epicu-
rean, Stoic, and antireligious movements of thought in France of which Nicole would
have been well aware.
 Bernard Mandeville

Introduction
Born in Rotterdam in 1670, Bernard de Mandeville (he dropped the "de" in later life)
studied philosophy at Leyden and then turned to medicine, which he practiced for
some years. Travels took him to England. He liked that country, stayed, learned the
language, married, and made his reputation there. Although his books were extremely
successful and his fame considerable, little is known about the details of his life, but he
seems to have had some connections with the nobility and to have been good company.
He died in 1733.
Mandeville is best known for one work, The Fable of the Bees. The book began as a
poem called "The Grumbling Hive: or, Knaves Turned Honest," which was first ped-
dled in the streets in 1705 as a little pamphlet. The poem tells of a prosperous beehive,
with a government neither tyrannical nor democratic, with developed sciences, indus-
tries, armies, and arts.
Vast numbers thronged the fruitful hive.
Yet those vast numbers made them thrive:
Millions endeavoring to supply
Each other's lust and vanity .. .

Some of the bees were openly crooked — the forgers, pimps, thieves, and quacks — but
there were cheats secretly at work in every trade, calling, and profession.
Justice herself, famed for fair dealing
By blindness had not lost her feeling.
Her left hand, which the scales should hold.
Had often dropped them, bribed with gold .. .

Although everyone was similarly trying to make as much money and have as much
enjoyment as possible, the result was that everyone was busy. productive, and more or
less contented:
Thus every part was full of vice.
Yet the whole mass a paradise .. .

Mandeville went on to show what happened to the hive when Jove suddenly got tired
of hearing the endless grumbling among the bees about the wickedness of avarice,
luxuriousness, sexual indulgence, and gambling. For punishment he made all of them
honest, and disaster struck. They all gave up their vices. There was no more demand
for luxury goods, fancy food, or alcoholic drinks. The merchants who imported or sold
these and the workers who made them sank into poverty. There was nothing for the

388
 Introduction 389

lawyers, the courts, and the jails to do, and so they closed down, putting many more
out of work. Physicians admitted their inability to cure, and the manufacturers of
quack medicines gave up. Throughout the hive, the standard of living sank. No one
could pay taxes, and so there was hardly any army to defend against foreigners. When
they invaded, what army there was fought valiantly, driving out the enemy, but at great
cost to life. The few remaining bees went off to live in a hollow tree.
Mandeville drew the moral of his fable quite clearly:
Then leave complaints: fools only strive
To make a great an honest hive
To enjoy the world's conveniences.
Be famed in war yet live in ease
Without great vices, is a vain
Utopia seated in the brain .. .
Bare virtue can't make nations live
In splendor: they that would revive
A golden age must be as free
For acorns as for honesty.
In 1714 Mandeville reissued the poem, accompanied by a commentary in prose and
a substantial number of footnotes, calling it all The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices,
Public Benefits. More editions, further expanded, followed. The Fable's popularity led
a grand jury to denounce it as a public nuisance in 1723 — and in later editions
Mandeville included his defense as well as other material. The edition of 1725, the last
for which Mandeville made significant changes, was a substantial two-volume treatise,
introduced by the original poem. What began as a mild joke became a work that was
translated into French and German and that eventually stimulated a great deal of
serious and illuminating discussion of morality, economics, and the sociology of histori-
cal change.
Mandeville's work began to be noticed widely when the edition of 1723 was pub-
lished, winning thereafter considerable international renown. But the response was
overwhelmingly hostile. Mandeville was read as a cynical reincarnation of Hobbes,
discarding faith in God and undermining our confidence in our fellow humans. He was
understood as praising vice and condemning virtue, as obviously a paradoxer, a frivo-
lous vain posturer, anything but a serious thinker. Readers living in a society in which
the importance of doing good was increasingly being preached found it difficult to
know what to make of him. Was he saying that what Christianity stigmatized as vices
really were not vices? Because good results came from them at least as much as from
the traditional virtues and because good results were the test of virtue, could we
withhold approval from the traditional vices? Or was Mandeville a more austere
Christian than most, seeing depravity and corruption caused by original sin where most
people averted their eyes from it and holding firm to the Christian insistence that
virtue comes only from unadulterated love of others? His contemporaries also raised
the issue of the accuracy of his views. Must there not be something wrong with a
portrayal of social processes that led to his paradoxical results? Was his depiction of
human selfishness and corruption correct? Replies to Mandeville filled the press with
optimistic portrayals of human beings as kindly, sympathetic. generous. in a word
benevolent — everything that he had doubted we are. Refuting Mandeville — and the
Hobbes who, though unnamed, lurked behind him — became a small industry.
And yet Mandeville's views would not disappear. Despite his flippant phraseology,
he was seriously proposing a model of social order that made God superfluous and that
390 Bernard Mandeville
attributed the constitution of society to human ingenuity, capitalizing on human traits
undeniably present in everyone or nearly everyone. He did not have to place political
reliance on generous attributes that in a tough, rapidly changing commercial society it
would be difficult to suppose dominant in everyone's behavior. At the heart of this
model was the thought that out of actions performed by people, each of whom intends
only his or her own crassest private benefit, there can flow results that benefit every-
one in the society, and that the unintended consequences of intentional actions can
diverge markedly and in highly significant ways from the intended consequences.
Society may benefit more from our selfish behavior than people have been willing to
admit.
The first selections here come from The Fable of the Bees. 1 have used the fourth
edition, published in 1725, modernizing the text somewhat. Next are a few pages from
the Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, of 1732 (again with minor changes in orthogra-
phy), in which Mandeville indicated a little about the standpoint from which he was
able to condemn our selfish motives as vices.

The Fable of the Bees

THE PREFACE

Laws and government are to the political bodies of civil societies what the vital
spirits and life itself are to the natural bodies of animated creatures; and as
those that study the anatomy of dead carcasses may see that the chief organs
and nicest springs more immediately required to continue the motion of our
machine are not hard bones, strong muscles and nerves, nor the smooth white
skin that so beautifully covers them, but small trifling films and little pipes that
are either overlooked, or else seem inconsiderable to vulgar eyes; so they that
examine into the nature of man, abstract from art and education, may observe
that what renders him a sociable animal consists not in his desire of company,
good nature, pity, affability, and other graces of a fair outside; but that his
vilest and most hateful qualities are the most necessary accomplishments to fit
him for the largest, and, according to the world, the happiest and most flour-
ishing societies. . . .

THE INTRODUCTION
One of the greatest reasons why so few people understand themselves is that
most writers are always teaching men what they should be, and hardly ever
trouble their heads with telling them what they really are. As for my part,
without any compliment to the courteous reader or myself I believe man
(besides skin, flesh, bones, etc. that are obvious to the eye) to be a compound
of various passions, that all of them, as they are provoked and come upper-
most, govern him by terms whether he will or no. To show that these qualifica-
tions, which we all pretend to be ashamed of, are the great support of a
flourishing society, has been the subject of the foregoing poem.' But there
being some passages in it seemingly paradoxical, I have in the Preface prom-
 The Fable of the Bees 391
ised some explanatory remarks on it; which to render more useful, I have
thought fit to enquire how man, no better qualified, might yet by his own
imperfections be taught to distinguish between virtue and vice. And here I
must desire the reader once for all to take notice that when I say men, I mean
neither Jews nor Christians; but mere man, in the state of nature and igno-
rance of the true deity.

AN ENQUIRY INTO THE ORIGIN OF MORAL VIRTUE

All untaught animals are only solicitous of pleasing themselves, and naturally
follow the bent of their own inclinations without considering the good or harm
that from their being pleased will accrue to others. This is the reason that in
the wild state of nature those creatures are fittest to live peaceably together in
great numbers that discover the least of understanding and have the fewest
appetites to gratify; and consequently no species of animals is, without the
curb of government, less capable of agreeing long together in multitudes than
that of man; yet such are his qualities, whether good or bad I shall not
determine, that no creature besides himself can ever be made sociable. But
being an extraordinarily selfish and headstrong as well as cunning animal,
however he may be subdued by superior strength, it is impossible by force
alone to make him tractable, and receive the improvements he is capable of.
The chief thing, therefore, which lawgivers and other wise men, that have
laboured for the establishment of society, have endeavoured has been to make
the people they were to govern believe that it was more beneficial for every-
body to conquer than indulge his appetites, and much better to mind the
public than what seemed his private interest. As this has always been a very
difficult task, so no wit or eloquence has been left untried to compass it; and
the moralists and philosophers of all ages employed their utmost skill to prove
the truth of so useful an assertion. But whether mankind would have ever
believed it or not, it is not likely that anybody could have persuaded them to
disapprove of their natural inclinations, or prefer the good of others to their
own, if at the same time he had not shewed them an equivalent to be enjoyed
as a reward for the violence which by so doing they of necessity must commit
upon themselves. Those that have undertaken to civilize mankind were not
ignorant of this; but being unable to give so many real rewards as would
satisfy all persons for every individual action, they were forced to contrive an
imaginary one that as a general equivalent for the trouble of self-denial should
serve on all occasions, and without costing anything either to themselves or
others be yet a most acceptable recompence to the receivers.
They thoroughly examined all the strength and frailties of our nature, and
observing that none were either so savage as not to be charmed with praise, or
so despicable as patiently to bear contempt, justly concluded that flattery
must be the most powerful argument that could be used to human creatures.
Making use of this bewitching engine, they extolled the excellency of our
nature above other animals, and setting forth with unbounded praises the
392 Bernard Mandeville
wonders of our sagacity and vastness of understanding bestowed a thousand
encomiums on the rationality of our souls, by the help of which we were
capable of performing the most noble achievement. Having by this artful way
of flattery insinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct
them in the notions of honour and shame; representing the one as the worst of
all evils, and the other as the highest good to which mortals could aspire:
Which being done, they laid before them how unbecoming it was the dignity
of such sublime creatures to be solicitous about gratifying those appetites,
which they had in common with brutes, and at the same time unmindful of
those higher qualities that gave them the pre-eminence over all visible beings.
They indeed confessed that those impulses of nature were very pressing; that
it was troublesome to resist, and very difficult wholly to subdue them. But this
they only used as an argument to demonstrate how glorious the conquest of
them was on the one hand, and how scandalous on the other not to attempt it.
To introduce moreover an emulation amongst men, they divided the whole
species into two classes, vastly differing from one another. The one consisted
of abject, low-minded people, that always hunting after immediate enjoy-
ment, were wholly incapable of self-denial, and without regard to the good of
others, had no higher aim than their private advantage; such as being enslaved
by voluptuousness, yielded without resistance to every gross desire, and made
no use of their rational faculties but to heighten their sensual pleasure. These
vile grovelling wretches, they said, were the dross of their kind, and having
only the shape of men, differed from brutes in nothing but their outward
figure. But the other class was made up of lofty high-spirited creatures, that
free from sordid selfishness, esteemed the improvement of the mind to be
their fairest possessions; and setting a true value upon themselves, took no
delight but in embellishing that part in which their excellency consisted; such
as despising whatever they had in common with irrational creatures, opposed
by the help of reason their most violent inclinations; and making a continual
war with themselves, to promote the peace of others aimed at no less than the
public welfare and the conquest of their own passions. . . . These they called
the true representatives of their sublime species, exceeding in worth the first
class by more degrees than that itself was superior to the beasts of the field.
As in all animals that are not too imperfect to discover pride we find that
the finest and such as are the most beautiful and valuable of their kind have
generally the greatest share of it, so in man, the most perfect of animals, it is
so inseparable from his very essence (how cunningly soever some may learn to
hide or disguise it) that without it the compound he is made of would want one
of the chiefest ingredients: Which, if we consider, it is hardly to be doubted
but lessons and remonstrances, so skillfully adapted to the good opinion man
has of himself as those I have mentioned must, if scattered amongst a multi-
tude, not only gain the assent of most of them as to the speculative part, but
likewise induce several, especially the fiercest, most resolute, and best among
them, to endure a thousand inconveniences and undergo as many hardships,
that they may have the pleasure of counting themselves men of the second
 The Fable of the Bees 393
class and consequently appropriating to themselves all the excellencies they
have heard of it.
From what has been said we ought to expect in the first place that the
heroes who took such extraordinary pains to master some of their natural
appetites and preferred the good of others to any visible interest of their
own would not recede an inch from the fine notions they had received
concerning the dignity of rational creatures; and having ever the authority of
the government on their side, with all imaginable vigour assert the esteem
that was due to those of the second class, as well as their superiority over the
rest of their kind. In the second, that those who wanted a sufficient stock of
either pride or resolution to buoy them up in mortifying of what was dearest
to them, [and who] followed the sensual dictates of nature, would yet be
ashamed of confessing themselves to be those despicable wretches that be-
longed to the inferior class and were generally reckoned to be so little
removed from brutes; and that therefore in their own defence they would
say as others did, and hiding their own imperfections as well as they could,
cry up self-denial and public-spiritedness as much as any. For it is highly
probable, that some of them, convinced by the real proofs of fortitude and
self-conquest they had seen, would admire in others what they found want-
ing in themselves; others be afraid of the resolution and prowess of those of
the second class; and that all of them were kept in awe by the power of their
rulers, wherefore it is reasonable to think that none of them (whatever they
thought in themselves) would dare openly contradict what by everybody else
was thought criminal to doubt of.
This was (or at least might have been) the manner after which savage man
was broke; from whence it is evident that the first rudiments of morality
broached by skilful politicians to render men useful to each other as well as
tractable were chiefly contrived that the ambitious might reap the more benefit
from, and govern, vast numbers of them with the greater ease and security. This
foundation of politics being once laid, it is impossible that man should long
remain uncivilized. For even those who strove to gratify their appetites, being
continually crossed by others of the same stamp, could not but observe that
whenever they checked their inclinations or but followed them with more
circumspection, they avoided a world of troubles and often escaped many of the
calamities that generally attended the too eager pursuit after pleasure.
First, they received, as well as others, the benefit of those actions that were
done for the good of the whole society, and consequently could not forbear
wishing well to those of the superior class that performed them. Secondly, the
more intent they were in seeking their own advantage, without regard to
others, the more they were hourly convinced, that none stood so much in
their way as those that were most like themselves.
It being the interest then of the very worst of them, more than any, to
preach up public-spiritedness, that they might reap the fruits of the labour and
self-denial of others, and at the same time indulge their own appetites with
less disturbance, they agreed with the rest to call everything, which, without
394 Bernard Mandeville
regard to the public, man should commit to gratify any of his appetites, Vice;
if in that action there could be observed the least prospect, that it might either
be injurious to any of the society, or ever render himself less serviceable to
others: And to give the name of Virtue to every performance by which man,
contrary to the impulse of nature, should endeavour the benefit of others or
the conquest of his own passions out of a rational ambition of being good.
It shall be objected, that no society was ever any ways civilized before the
major part had agreed upon some worship or other of an over-ruling power,
and consequently that the notions of good and evil, and the distinction be-
tween Virtue and Vice, were never the contrivance of politicians, but the pure
effect of religion. Before I answer this objection, I must repeat what I have
said already, that in this Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue, I speak
neither of Jews or Christians, but man in his state of nature and ignorance of
the true deity; and then I affirm, that the idolatrous superstitions of all other
nations, and the pitiful notions they had of the supreme being, were incapable
of exciting man to virtue, and good for nothing but to awe and amuse a rude
and unthinking multitude. It is evident from history that in all considerable
societies, how stupid or ridiculous soever people's received notions have been
as to the deities they worshipped, human nature has ever exerted itself in all
its branches, and that there is no earthly wisdom or moral virtue, but at one
time or other men have excelled in it in all monarchies and commonwealths
that for riches and power have been any ways remarkable.
The Egyptians, not satisfied with having deified all the ugly monsters they
could think on, were so silly as to adore the onions of their own sowing; yet at
the same time their country was the most famous nursery of arts and sciences
in the world, and themselves more eminently skilled in the deepest mysteries
of nature than any nation has been since.
No states or kingdoms under heaven have yielded more or greater patterns
in all sorts of moral virtues than the Greek and Roman empires, more espe-
cially the latter; and yet how loose, absurd and ridiculous were their senti-
ments as to sacred matters? For without reflecting on the extravagant number
of their deities, if we only consider the infamous stories they fathered upon
them, it is not to be denied but that their religion, far from teaching men the
conquest of their passions and the way to virtue seemed rather contrived to
justify their appetites and encourage their vices. But if we would know what
made them excel in fortitude, courage and magnanimity, we must cast our
eyes on the pomp of their triumphs, the magnificence of their monuments and
arches; their trophies, statues, and inscriptions; the variety of their military
crowns, their honours decreed to the dead, public encomiums on the living,
and other imaginary rewards they bestowed on men of merit; and we shall
find that what carried so many of them to the utmost pitch of self-denial was
nothing but their policy in making use of the most effectual means that human
pride could be flattered with.
It is visible then that it was not any heathen religion or other idolatrous
superstition that first put man upon crossing his appetites and subduing his
 The Fable of the Bees 395
dearest inclinations, but the skilful management of wary politicians; and the
nearer we search into human nature, the more we shall be convinced that the
moral virtues are the political offspring which flattery begot upon pride.
There is no man of what capacity of penetration soever that is wholly proof
against the witchcraft of flattery, if artfully performed and suited to his abili-
ties. Children and fools will swallow personal praise, but those that are more
cunning must be managed with greater circumspection; and the more general
the flattery is, the less it is suspected by those it is levelled at. What you say in
commendation of a whole town is received with pleasure by all the inhabit-
ants. Speak in commendation of letters in general, and every man of learning
will think himself in particular obliged to you. You may safely praise the
employment a man is of, or the country he was born in; because you give him
an opportunity of screening the joy he feels upon his own account under the
esteem which he pretends to have for others.
It is common among cunning men that understand the power which flattery
has upon pride, when they are afraid that shall be imposed upon, to enlarge
though much against their conscience upon the honour, fair dealing and integ-
rity of the family, country, or sometimes the profession of him they suspect;
because they know that men often will change their resolution and act against
their inclination, that they may have the pleasure of continuing to appear in
the opinion of some what they are conscious not to be in reality. Thus saga-
cious moralists draw men like angels, in hopes that the pride at least of some
will put them upon copying after the beautiful originals which they are repre-
sented to be. . . .
But here I shall be told that besides the noisy toils of war and public bustle
of the ambitious, there are noble and generous actions that are performed in
silence; that virtue being its own reward, those who are really good have a
satisfaction in their consciousness of being so, which is all the recompense
they expect from the most worthy performances; that among the heathens
there have been men who, when they did good to others, were so far from
coveting thanks and applause that they took all imaginable care to be for
ever concealed from those on whom they bestowed their benefits, and conse-
quently that pride has no hand in spurring man on to the highest pitch of
self-denial.
In answer to this I say that it is impossible to judge of a man's performance,
unless we are thoroughly acquainted with the principle and motive from which
he acts. Pity, though it is the most gentle and the least mischievous of all our
passions, is yet as much a frailty of our nature as anger, pride, or fear. The
weakest minds have generally the greatest share of it, for which reason none
are more compassionate than women and children. It must be owned that of
all our weaknesses it is the most amiable, and bears the greatest resemblance
to virtue; nay, without a considerable mixture of it the society could hardly
subsist. But as it is an impulse of nature that consults neither the public
interest nor our own reason, it may produce evil as well as good. It has helped
to destroy the honour of virgins, and corrupted the integrity of judges; and
396 Bernard Mandeville
whoever acts from it as a principle, what good soever he may bring to the
society, has nothing to boast of but that he has indulged a passion that has
happened to be beneficial to the public. There is no merit in saving an inno-
cent babe ready to drop into the fire. The action is neither good nor bad, and
what benefit soever the infant received, we only obliged ourselves; for to have
seen it fall, and not strove to hinder it, would have caused a pain which self-
preservation compelled us to prevent: Nor has a rich prodigal, that happens to
be of a commiserating temper and loves to gratify his passions, greater virtue
to boast of when he relieves an object of compassion with what to himself is a
trifle.
But such men as without complying with any weakness of their own can part
from what they value themselves, and from no other motive but their love of
goodness perform a worthy action in silence; such men, I confess, have ac-
quired more refined notions of virtue than those I have hitherto spoke of; yet
even in these (with which the world has yet never swarmed) we may discover
no small symptoms of pride, and the humblest man alive must confess, that
the reward of a virtuous action, which is the satisfaction that ensues upon it,
consists in a certain pleasure he procures to himself by contemplating on his
own worth: Which pleasure, together with the occasion of it, are as certain
signs of pride, as looking pale and trembling at any imminent danger, are the
symptoms of fear.
If the too scrupulous Reader should at first view condemn these notions
concerning the origin of moral virtue, and think them perhaps offensive to
Christianity, I hope he'll forbear his censures, when he shall consider that
nothing can render the unsearchable depth of the divine wisdom more con-
spicuous than that man, whom providence had designed for society, should
not only by his own frailties and imperfections be led into the road to tempo-
ral happiness, but likewise receive, from a seeming necessity of natural
causes, a tincture of the knowledge in which he was afterwards to be made
perfect by the true religion, to his eternal welfare.

An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour

THE PREFACE

It is taken for granted that a Christian is not bound to believe anything to have
been of divine institution 2 that has not been declared to be such in Holy Writ.
Yet great offence has been taken at an essay in the First Part of The Fable of
the Bees, called "An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue"; notwithstand- .

ing the great caution it is wrote with. Since then, it is thought criminal to
surmise that even heathen virtue was of human invention, and the reader, in
the following dialogues, will find me to persist in the opinion that it was. I beg
his patience to peruse what I have to say for myself on this head, which is all I
shall trouble him with here.
The word "morality" is either synonymous with "virtue" or signifies that
 An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour 397
part of philosophy which treats of it and teaches the regulation of manners;
and by the words "moral virtue" I mean the same thing which I believe
everybody else does. I am likewise fully persuaded that to govern ourselves
according to the dictates of reason is far better than to indulge the passions
without stop or control, and consequently that virtue is more beneficial than
vice, not only for the peace and real happiness of society but likewise for the
temporal felicity of every individual member of it, abstract from the consider-
ation of a future state, I am moreover convinced that all wise men ever were
and ever will be of this opinion; and I shall never oppose anybody who shall
be pleased to call this an eternal truth. . . .
. . . But to call virtue itself eternal cannot be done without a strangely
figurative way of speaking. There is no doubt but all mathematical truths are
eternal, yet they are taught; and some of them are very abstruse, and the
knowledge of them was never acquired without great labor and depth of
thought. Euclid had his merit, and it does not appear that the doctrine of
fluxions3 was known before Sir Isaac Newton invented that concise way of
computation; and it is not impossible that there should be another method as
yet unknown, still more compendious, that may not be found out these thou-
sand years.
All propositions not confined to time or place that are once true are always
true, must be always so, even in the silliest and most abject things in the
world; as for example, "It is wrong to underroast mutton for people who love
to have their meat well done." The truth of this, which is the most trifling
thing I can readily think on, is as much eternal as that of the sublimest virtue.
If you ask me where this truth was before there was mutton or people to dress
or eat it, I answer, in the same place where chastity was before there were any
creatures that had an appetite to procreate their species. . . .
There is no virtue that has a name but it curbs, regulates, or subdues some
passion that is peculiar to human nature; and therefore to say that God has all
the virtues in the highest perfection wants as much the apology that it is an
expression accommodated to vulgar capacities as that he has hands and feet
and is angry. For as God has not a body nor anything that is corporeal
belonging to his essence, so he is entirely free from passions and frailties.
With what propriety then can we attribute anything to him that was invented,
or least signifies a strength or ability, to conquer or govern passions and
frailties? The holiness of God and all his perfections, as well as the beatitude
he exists in, belong to his nature, and there is no virtue but what is acquired. It
signifies nothing to add that God has those virtues in the highest perfection.
Let them be what they will as to perfection, they must still be virtues, which,
for the aforesaid reasons it is impertinent to ascribe to the deity. . . .
I recommend the foregoing paragraph to the consideration of the advocates
for the eternity and divine original of virtue, assuring them that if I am mistaken
it is not owing to any perverseness of my will but want of understanding.
The opinion that there can be virtue without self-denial is more advanta-
geous to society than the contrary doctrine, which is a vast inlet to hypoc-
398 Bernard Mandeville

risy. . . . Yet I am willing to allow that men may contract a habit of virtue so as
to practise it without being sensible of self-denial, and even that they may take
pleasure in actions that would be impracticable to the vicious. But then it is
manifest that this habit is the work of art, education and custom, and it never
was acquired where the conquest over the passions had not already been
made. There is no virtuous man of forty years but he may remember the
conflict he had with some natural appetites before he was twenty. How natural
seem all civilities to be to a gentleman! Yet time was that he would not have
made his bow if he had not been bid. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. "The Grumbling Hive," on which the present essay is a commentary.
2. That is, commanded or initiated by God.
3. The calculus, which Newton invented.

Further Reading
The modern edition of Mandeville's Fable of the Bees is by F. B. Kaye, 2 vols. (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1924). It has an extensive commentary and contains all of
Mandeville's writings directly related to the Fable. There is also a modern edition of
An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, by M. M. Goldsmith (London: Cass, 1971).
M. M. Goldsmith, Private Vices, Public Benefits: Bernard Mandeville's Social and
Political Thought (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1985), is an
excellent study, with a full bibliography of both Mandeville's works and the literature
concerning him. Irwin Primer, ed., Mandeville Studies (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1975),
contains essays on many aspects of Mandeville's thought, its context, and its influence,
including some bearing directly on his ethics. D. H. Monro, The Ambivalence of
Mandeville (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), is a valuable study. John Colman, "Ber-
nard Mandeville and the Reality of Virtue," Philosophy 47 (1972): 125-39, offers a
careful philosophical discussion of the ethics. F. A. Hayek, "Dr. Bernard Mandeville,"
Proceedings of the British Academy 52 (1967), is informed by deep knowledge of the
history of thought and of economics. Mandeville is treated in passing in the fascinating
book by Albert 0. Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests: Political Arguments for
Capitalism Before Its Triumph (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1977).
Finally, a distinguished anthropologist, Louis Dumont, considers Mandeville in his
From Mandeville to Marx (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), chap. 5.
 John Gay

Introduction
John Gay was born in 1699 and died in 1745. He taught briefly at Cambridge and spent
most of his life as pastor in a country parish. His dissertation "Concerning the Funda-
mental Principle of Virtue or Morality" was published in 1731 as a preface to a
translation of a Latin treatise on the problem of evil. Although Gay wrote one other
philosophical essay, it is for the dissertation that he is remembered.
Gay's essay is an attempt to solve a problem concerning morality and our motivation
to act as morality requires. Like Gassendi, Hobbes (in some of his statements),
Mandeville, and many others, Gay thought that all voluntary actions are undertaken
for the sake of some benefit to the agent. With Hutcheson, however, he believed that
virtue requires us to act for the sake of the good of others. He also accepted
Hutcheson's antiegoistic claim about the way our motivation at least seems to us: that
we do in fact sometimes act for the sake of bringing good to others. Thus Gay's
psychology apparently makes virtue impossible and contradicts the plain facts about
human motivation. Would it not be reasonable, then, to abandon the theory? Gay,
however, did something more interesting.
He agreed with Hutcheson's data regarding how our motivation seems to us but
denied that they were ultimate. Our apparently disinterested motivation therefore can
be analyzed into self-interest as it is affected by special circumstances leading us to
associate the idea of helping others with the idea of attaining our own good. Because
we can see that it pays us to help others, we find ourselves constantly thinking of our
own good when we think of helping others. In time the two ideas become associated
and then blended. Then we think that we are immediately desirous of helping others.
It is like the miser's love of money. He loves it initially for what it can buy, but then the
love becomes associated directly with the thought of the money, the idea of purchasing
drops out, and the love is transformed into love of the money itself.
For empiricists working with the Lockean distinction between simple and complex
ideas, Gay's version of associationism seemed to open the way to a more fully scientific
psychology than Locke alone enabled them to produce. In Gay's view, the distinction
between simple and complex ideas did not have to be an introspectively obvious one.
Moreover, complex ideas might have some features that the simple ideas of which they
consist do not have and that are produced by the blending of the simple constituents.
We could explain these emergent and apparently simple features of complex ideas by
tracing their genesis through time.
Gay's essay was remarkably influential in the development of both psychological
and ethical theory. A full associationist psychology was first developed by David

399
400 John Gay
Hartley (1705-57), who, after acknowledging a great debt to Gay, tried to show that
association can explain a whole range of ideas that seemed to philosophers to be simple
but that reveal themselves as complex once their genesis is studied. The moral theories
of both Paley and Bentham also have points in common with Gay's view. James Mill
worked out his own psychology along associationist lines; John Stuart Mill accepted
essentially the same kind of theory; and both of the Mills used their psychology to
defend and support their utilitarian moral theories. The tie between utilitarianism and
associationism became so common that in the nineteenth century they seemed to be
inseparable. It was not until the work of Henry Sidgwick in the last quarter of the
century that British utilitarianism broke definitively with Gay's model.
The following is almost the whole of Gay's dissertation. The text is that of the fifth
edition, 1781, with some changes in the spelling, capitalization, and punctuation.

Concerning the Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality

Though all writers of morality have in the main agreed what particular actions
are virtuous and what otherwise, yet they have, or at least seem to have
differed very much, both concerning the criterion of virtue, viz., what it is
which denominates any action virtuous; or, to speak more properly, what it is
by which we must try any action to know whether it be virtuous or no; and
also concerning the principle, or motive, by which men are induced to pursue
virtue.
As to the former, some have placed it in acting agreeably to nature, or
reason; others in the fitness of things; others in a conformity with truth; others
in promoting the common good; others in the will of God, etc. This disagree-
ment of moralists concerning the rule or criterion of virtue in general, and at
the same time their almost perfect agreement concerning the particular
branches of it, would be apt to make one suspect, either that they had a
different criterion (though they did not know or attend to it) from what they
professed; or (which perhaps is the true as well as the more favorable opinion)
that they only talk a different language, and that all of them have the same
criterion in reality, only they have expressed it in different words.
And there will appear the more room for this conjecture, if we consider the
ideas themselves about which morality is chiefly conversant, viz., that they are
all mixed modes, or compound ideas, arbitrarily put together, having at first
no archetype or original existing, and afterwards no other than that which
exists in other men's minds. Now since men, unless they have these their
compound ideas, which are signified by the same name, made up precisely of
the same simple ones, must necessarily talk a different language; and since
this difference is so difficult, and in some cases impossible to be avoided, it
follows that greater allowance and indulgence ought to be given to these
writers than any other: and that (if we have a mind to understand them) we
should not always take their words in the common acceptation. but in the
sense in which we find that particular author which we are reading used them.
And if a man interpret the writers of morality with this due candor, I believe
their seeming inconsistencies and disagreements about the criterion of virtue,
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 401
would in a great measure vanish; and he would find that acting agreeably to
nature, or reason, (when rightly understood) would perfectly coincide with
the fitness of things; the fitness of things (as far as these words have any
meaning) with truth; truth with the common good; and the common good
with the will of God.
But whether this difference be real, or only verbal, a man can scarce
avoid observing from it, that mankind have the ideas of most particular
virtues, and also a confused notion of virtue in general, before they have
any notion of the criterion of it; or ever did, neither perhaps can they,
deduce all or any of those virtues from their idea of virtue in general, or
upon any rational grounds shew how those actions (which the world call
moral, and most, if not all men evidently have ideas of) are distinguished
from other actions, or why they approve of those actions called moral ones,
more than others.
However, since the idea of virtue among all men (notwithstanding their
difference in other respects) includes either tacitly or expressly, not only the
idea of approbation as the consequence of it; but also that it is to everyone,
and in all circumstances, an object of choice; it is incumbent on all writers of
morality, to shew that [that] in which they place virtue, whatever it be, not
only always will or ought to meet with approbation, but also that it is always
an object of choice; which is the other great dispute among moralists, viz.,
what is the principle or motive by which men are induced to pursue virtue.
For some have imagined that that is the only object of choice to a rational
creature, which upon the whole will produce more happiness than misery to
the chooser; and that men are, and ought to be guided wholly by this princi-
ple; and farther, that virtue will produce more happiness than misery, and
therefore is always an object of choice: and whatever is an object of choice,
that we approve of.
But this, however true in theory, is insufficient to account for matter of fact,
i.e., that the generality of mankind do approve of virtue, or rather virtuous
actions, without being able to give any reason for their approbation; and also,
that some pursue it without knowing that it tends to their own private happi-
ness; nay even when it appears to be inconsistent with and destructive of their
happiness.
And that this is a matter of fact, the ingenious author of the Enquiry into the
Original of Our Idea of Virtue' has so evidently made appear by a great
variety of instances, that a man must either be very little acquainted with the
world, or a mere Hobbist in his temper, to deny it.
And therefore to solve these two difficulties, this excellent author has sup-
posed (without proving, unless by shewing the insufficiency of all other
schemes) a moral sense to account for the former, and a public or benevolent
affection for the latter: And these, viz., the moral sense and public affection,
he supposes to be implanted in us like instincts, independent of reason, and
previous to any instruction; and therefore his opinion is, that no account can
be given, or ought to be expected of them, any more than we pretend to
402 John Gay
account for the pleasure or pain which arises from sensation; i.e., why any
particular motion produced in our bodies should be accompanied with pain
rather than pleasure, and vice versa.
But this account seems still insufficient, rather cutting the knot than untying
it; and if it is not akin to the doctrine of innate ideas, yet I think it relishes too
much of that of occult qualities. This ingenious author is certainly in the right
in his observations upon the insufficiency of the common methods of account-
ing for both our election and approbation of moral actions, and rightly infers
the necessity of supposing a moral sense (i.e., a power or faculty whereby we
may perceive any action to be an object of approbation, and the agent of love)
and public affections, to account for the principal actions of human life. But
then by calling these instincts, I think he stops too soon, imagining himself at
the fountain-head, when he might have traced them much higher even to the
true principle of all our actions, our own happiness.
And this will appear by shewing that our approbation of morality, and all
affections whatsoever, are finally resolved into reason pointing out private
happiness, and are conversant only about things apprehended to be means
tending to this end; and that whenever this end is not perceived, they are to be
accounted for from the association of ideas and may properly enough be
called habits.
For if this be clearly made out, the necessity of supposing a moral sense or
public affections to be implanted in us, since it ariseth only from the insuffi-
ciency of all other schemes to account for human actions, will immediately
vanish. . . .

SECTION I: CONCERNING THE CRITERION OF VIRTUE

The criterion of anything is a rule or measure by a conformity with which
anything is known to be of this or that sort, or of this or that degree. And in
order to determine the criterion of anything, we must first know the thing
whose criterion we are seeking after. For a measure presupposes the idea of
the thing to be measured, otherwise it could not be known, whether it was fit
to measure it or no (since what is the proper measure of one thing is not so of
another). Liquids, cloth, and flesh have all different measures; gold and silver
different touchstones. This is very intelligible and the method of doing it
generally clear, when either the quantity, or kind of any particular substance is
thus ascertained.
But when we extend our inquiries after a criterion for abstract, mixed
modes,2 which have no existence but in our minds, and are so very different in
different men; we are apt to be confounded, and search after a measure for we
know not what. For unless we are first agreed concerning the thing to be
measured, we shall in vain expect to agree in our criterion of it, or even to
understand one another.
But it may be said, if we are exactly agreed in any mixed mode, what need of
any criterion? Or what can we want farther? What we want farther, and what
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 403
we mean by the criterion of it, is this; viz., to know whether any particular thing
do belong to this mixed mode or no. And this is a very proper inquiry. For let a
man learn the idea of intemperance from you never so clearly, and if you please
let this be the idea, viz., the eating or drinking to that degree as to injure his
understanding or health; and let him also be never so much convinced of the
obligation to avoid it; yet it is a very pertinent question in him to ask you, how
shall I know when I am guilty of intemperance?
And if we examine this thoroughly, we shall find that every little difference
in the definition of a mixed mode will require a different criterion, e.g., if
murder is defined the willful taking away the life of another, it is evident, that
to inquire after the criterion of murder, is to inquire how we shall know when
the life of another is taken away willfully; i.e., when one who takes away the
life of another does it with that malicious design which is implied by willful-
ness. But if murder be defined the guilty taking away the life of another, then
to inquire after the criterion of murder, is to inquire how it shall be known
when guilt is contracted in the willful taking away the life of another. So that
the criterion of murder, according to one or other of these definitions, will be
different. For willfulness perhaps will be made the criterion of guilt; but
willfulness itself, if it want any, must have some farther criterion; it being
evident that nothing can be the measure of itself.
If the criterion is contained in the idea itself, then it is merely nominal, e.g.,
if virtue is defined, the acting agreeably to the will of God: to say the will of
God is the criterion of virtue, is only to say, what is agreeable to the will of
God is called virtue. But the real criterion, which is of some use, is this, how
shall I know what the will of God is in this respect?
From hence it is evident, that the criterion of a mixed mode is neither the
definition of it, nor contained in it. For, as has been shewn, the general idea is
necessarily to be fixed; and if the particulars comprehended under it are fixed
or known also, there remains nothing to be measured; because we measure
only things unknown. The general idea then being fixed, the criterion which is
to measure or determine inferiors, must be found out and proved to be a
proper rule or measure, by comparing it with the general idea only, indepen-
dent of the inferior things to which it is to be applied. For the truth of the
measure must be proved independently of the particulars to be measured,
otherwise we shall prove in a circle.
To apply what has been said in general to the case in hand. Great inquiry is
made after the criterion of virtue; but it is to be feared that few know dis-
tinctly what it is they are inquiring after; and therefore this must be clearly
stated. And in order to this, we must (as has been shewn) first fix our idea of
virtue, and that exactly; and then our inquiry will be, how we shall know this
or that less general or particular action to be comprehended under virtue. For
unless our idea of virtue is fixed, we inquire after the criterion of we know not
what. And this our idea of virtue, to give any satisfaction, ought to be so
general, as to be conformable to that which all or most men are supposed to
have. And this general idea, I think, may be thus expressed.
404 John Gay
Virtue is the conformity to a rule of life, directing the actions of all rational
creatures with respect to each other's happiness; to which conformity every-
one in all cases is obliged: and everyone that does so conform, is or ought to
be approved of, esteemed and loved for so doing. What is here expressed, I
believe most men put into their idea of virtue.
For virtue generally does imply some relation to others: where self is only
concerned, a man is called prudent (not virtuous) and an action which relates
immediately to God, is styled religious.
I think also that all men, whatever they make virtue to consist in, yet always
make it to imply obligation and approbation.
The idea of virtue being thus fixed, to inquire after the criterion of it, is to
inquire what that rule of life is to which we are obliged to conform; or how
that rule is to be found out which is to direct me in my behavior towards
others, which ought always to be pursued, and which, if pursued, will or ought
to procure me approbation, esteem, and love.
But before I can answer this inquiry I must first see what is meant by
obligation.

SECTION II: CONCERNING OBLIGATION

Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting any action in order to be

happy: i.e., when there is such a relation between an agent and an action that
the agent cannot be happy without doing or omitting that action, then the
agent is said to be obliged to do or omit that action. So that obligation is
evidently founded upon the prospect of happiness, and arises from that neces-
sary influence which any action has upon present or future happiness or
misery. And no greater obligation can be supposed to be laid upon any free
agent without an express contradiction.
This obligation may be considered four ways, according to the four differ-
ent manners in which it is induced: First, that obligation which ariseth from
perceiving the natural consequences of things, i.e. the consequences of things
acting according to the fixed laws of nature, may be called natural. Secondly,
that arising from merit or demerit, as producing the esteem and favor of our
fellow creatures, or the contrary, is usually styled virtuous. Thirdly, that aris-
ing from the authority of the civil magistrate, civil. Fourthly, that from the
authority of God, religious.
Now from the consideration of these four sorts of obligation (which are the
only ones) it is evident that a full and complete obligation which will extend to
all cases, can only be that arising from the authority of God; because God
only can in all cases make a man happy or miserable: and therefore, since we
are always obliged to that conformity called virtue, it is evident that the
immediate rule or criterion of it, is the will of God.
The next inquiry, therefore, is, what that will of God in this particular is, or
what it directs me to do?
Now it is evident from the nature of God, viz. His being infinitely happy in
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 405
Himself from all eternity, and from His goodness manifested in His works,
that He could have no other design in creating mankind than their happiness;
and therefore He wills their happiness; therefore the means of their happi-
ness; therefore that my behavior, as far as it may be a means of the happiness
of mankind, should be such. Here then we are got one step farther, or to a
new criterion: not to a new criterion of virtue immediately, but to a criterion
of the will of God. For it is an answer to the inquiry, how shall I know what the
will of God in this particular is? Thus the will of God is the immediate
criterion of virtue, and the happiness of mankind the criterion of the will of
God; and therefore the happiness of mankind may be said to be the criterion
of virtue, but once removed.
And since I am to do whatever lies in my power towards promoting the
happiness of mankind, the next inquiry is, what is the criterion of happiness,
i.e. how shall I know what in my power is, or is not, for the happiness of
mankind?
Now this is to be known only from the relations of things, (which relations,
with respect to our present inquiry some have called their fitness and unfit-
ness). For some things and actions are apt to produce pleasure, others pain;
some are convenient, others inconvenient for a society; some are for the good
of mankind; others tend to the detriment of it; therefore those are to be
chosen which tend to the good of mankind, the others to be avoided.
Thus then we are got one step farther, viz. to the criterion of the happi-
ness of mankind. And from this criterion we deduce all particular virtues
and vices.
The next inquiry is, how shall I know that there is this fitness and unfitness
in things? or if there be, how shall I discover it in particular cases? And the
answer is, either from experience or reason. You either perceive the inconve-
niences of some things and actions when they happen; or you foresee them by
contemplating the nature of the things and actions.
Thus the criterion of the fitness or unfitness of things may in general be said
to be reason: which reason, when exactly conformable to the things existing,
i.e. when it judges of things as they are, is called right reason. And hence also
we sometimes talk of the reason of things, i.e. properly speaking, that relation
which we should find out by our reason, if our reason was right.
And from hence we may perceive the reason of what I suggested in the
beginning of this treatise, viz. that the dispute between moralists about the
criterion of virtue is more in words than meaning; and that this difference
between them has been occasioned by their dropping the immediate criterion,
and choosing some a more remote, some a less remote one. And from hence we
may see also the inconvenience of defining any mixed mode by its criterion. For
that in a great measure has occasioned all this confusion; as may easily be made
Ito] appear in all the pretended criteria of virtue above mentioned.
Thus those who either expressly exclude, or don't mention the will of God,
making the immediate criterion of virtue to be the good of mankind, must
either allow that virtue is not in all cases obligatory (contrary to the idea which
406 John Gay
all or most men have of it) or they must say that the good of mankind is a
sufficient obligation. But how can the good of mankind be any obligation to
me, when perhaps in particular cases, such as laying down my life, or the like,
it is contrary to my happiness? .. .
What has been said concerning the criterion of virtue as including our
constant obligation to it, may perhaps be allowed to be true; but still it will be
urged, that it is insufficient to account for matter of fact, viz. that most
persons, who are either ignorant of, or never considered these deductions, do
however pursue virtue themselves, and approve of it in others. I shall in the
next place therefore give some account of our approbations and affections.

SECTION III: CONCERNING APPROBATION AND AFFECTION

Man is not only a sensible creature; not only capable of pleasure and pain, but
capable also of foreseeing this pleasure and pain in the future consequences of
things and actions; and as he is capable of knowing, so also of governing or
directing the causes of them, and thereby in a great measure enabled to avoid
the one and to procure the other: whence the principle of all action. And
therefore, as pleasure and pain are not indifferent to him, nor out of his
power, he pursues the former and avoids the latter; and therefore also those
things which are causes of them are not indifferent, but he pursues or avoids
them also, according to their different tendency. That which he pursues for its
own sake, which is only pleasure, is called an end; that which he apprehends
to be apt to produce pleasure, he calls good, and approves of, i.e., judges a
proper means to attain his end, and therefore looks upon it as an object of
choice; and that which is pregnant with misery he disapproves of and styles
evil. And this good and evil are not only barely approved of, or the contrary;
but whenever viewed in imagination (since man considers himself as existing
hereafter, and is concerned for his welfare then as well as now) they have a
present pleasure or pain annexed to them, proportionable to what is appre-
hended to follow them in real existence; which pleasure or pain arising from
the prospect of future pleasure or pain is properly called passion, and the
desire consequent thereupon, affection.
And as by reflecting upon pleasure there arises in our minds a desire of it;
and on pain, an aversion from it (which necessarily follows from supposing us
to be sensible creatures, and is no more than saying, that all things are not
physically indifferent to us) so also by reflecting upon good or evil, the same
desires and aversions are excited, and are distinguished into love and hatred.
And from love and hatred variously modified, arise all those other desires and
aversions which are promiscuously styled passions or affections; and are gener-
ally thought to be implanted in our nature originally, like the power of receiv-
ing sensitive pleasure or pain. And when placed on inanimate objects, are
these following: hope, fear, despair and its opposite, for which we want a
name.
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 407

SECTION IV: APPROBATION AND AFFECTION CONSIDERED

WITH REGARD TO MERIT, OR THE LAW OF ESTEEM
If a man in the pursuit of pleasure or happiness (by which is meant the sum
total of pleasure) had to do only with inanimate creatures, his approbation
and affections would be as described in the foregoing section. But, since he is
dependent with respect to his happiness, not only on these, but also on all
rational agents, creatures like himself, which have the power of governing or
directing good and evil, and of acting for an end; there will arise different
means of happiness, and consequently different pursuits, though tending to
the same end, happiness; and therefore different approbations and affections,
and the contrary; which deserve particularly to be considered.
That there will arise different means of happiness, is evident from hence,
viz. that rational agents, in being subservient to our happiness, are not pas-
sive, but voluntary. And therefore since we are in pursuit of that, to obtain
which we apprehend the concurrence of their wills necessary, we cannot but
approve of whatever is apt to procure this concurrence. And that can be only
the pleasure or pain expected from it by them. And therefore as I perceive
that my happiness is dependent on others, I cannot but judge whatever I
apprehend to be proper to excite them to endeavor to promote my happiness,
to be a means of happiness, i.e. I cannot but approve it. And since the
annexing pleasure to their endeavors to promote my happiness is the only
thing in my power to this end, I cannot but approve of the annexing pleasure
to such actions of theirs as are undertaken upon my account. Hence to ap-
prove of a rational agent as a means of happiness, is different from the
approbation of any other means; because it implies an approbation also of an
endeavor to promote the happiness of that agent, in order to excite him and
others to the same concern for my happiness for the future.
And because what we approve of we also desire (as has been shewn above)
hence also we desire the happiness of any agent that has done us good. And
therefore love or hatred, when placed on a rational object, has this difference
from the love and hatred of other things, that it implies a desire of, and
consequently a pleasure in the happiness of the object beloved; or if hated,
the contrary.
The foundation of this approbation and love (which, as we have seen,
consists in this voluntary contributing to our happiness) is called the merit of
the agent so contributing, i.e. that whereby he is entitled (upon supposition
that we act like rational, sociable creatures; like creatures, whose happiness is
dependent on each other's behavior) to our approbation and love: demerit the
contrary.
And this affection or quality of any action which we call merit, is very
consistent with a man's acting ultimately for his own private happiness. For
any particular action that is undertaken for the sake of another, is meritori-
ous, i.e. deserves esteem, favor, and approbation from him for whose sake it
408 John Gay
was undertaken, towards the doer of it. Since the presumption of such es-
teem, etc. was the only motive to that action; and if such esteem, etc. does not
follow, or is presumed not to follow it, such a person is reckoned unworthy of
any favor, because he shews by his actions that he is incapable of being
obliged by favors.
The mistake which some have run into, viz. that merit is inconsistent with
acting upon private happiness, as an ultimate end, seems to have arisen from
hence, viz. that they have not carefully enough distinguished between an infe-
rior, and ultimate end; the end of a particular action, and the end of action in
general: which may be explained thus. Though happiness, private happiness, is
the proper or ultimate end of all our actions whatever, yet this particular means
of happiness which any particular action is chiefly adapted to procure, or the
thing chiefly aimed at by that action; the thing which, if possessed, we would
not undertake that action, may [bet and generally is called the end of that
action. As therefore happiness is the general end of all actions, so each particu-
lar action may be said to have its proper and peculiar end: thus the end of a
beau' is to please by his dress; the end of study, knowledge. But neither pleasing
by dress, nor knowledge, are ultimate ends, they still tend or ought to tend to
something farther; as is evident from hence, viz. that a man may ask and expect
a reason why either of them are pursued: now to ask the reason of any action or
pursuit, is only to inquire into the end of it: but to expect a reason, i.e. an end, to
be assigned for an ultimate end, is absurd. To ask why I pursue happiness, will
admit of no other answer than an explanation of the terms.
Why inferior ends, which in reality are only means, are too often looked
upon and acquiesced in as ultimate, shall be accounted for hereafter.
Whenever therefore the particular end of any action is the happiness of
another (though the agent designed thereby to procure to himself esteem and
favor, and looked upon that esteem and favor as a means of private happi-
ness) that action is meritorious. And the same may be said, though we design
to please God, by endeavoring to promote the happiness of others. But when
an agent has a view in any particular action distinct from my happiness, and
that view is his only motive to that action, though that action promote my
happiness to never so great a degree, yet that agent acquires no merit, i.e. he
is not thereby entitled to any favor or esteem. . . .
But it is far otherwise when my happiness is the sole end of that particular
action, i.e. (as I have explained myself above) when the agent endeavors to
promote my happiness as a means to procure my favor, i.e. to make me
subservient to his happiness as his ultimate end: though I know he aims at my
happiness only a means of his own, yet this lessens not the obligation.
Now from the various combinations of this which we call merit, and its
contrary, arise all those various approbations and aversions; all those likings
and dislikings which we call moral.
As therefore from considering those beings which are the involuntary
means of our happiness or misery, there were produced in us the passions or
affections of love, hatred, hope, fear, despair and its contrary: so from consid-
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 409
ering those beings which voluntarily contribute to our happiness or misery,
there arise the following. Love and hatred (which are different from that love
or hatred placed on involuntary beings; that placed on involuntary beings
being only a desire to possess or avoid the thing beloved or hated; but this on
voluntary agents being a desire to give pleasure or pain to the agent beloved
or hated), gratitude, anger, (sometimes called by one name, resentment)
generosity, ambition, honor, shame, envy, benevolence: and if there be any
other, they are only, as these are, different modifications of love and hatred.
Love and hatred, and the foundation of them (viz. the agent beloved or
hated being apprehended to be instrumental in our happiness) I have ex-
plained above. Gratitude is that desire of promoting the happiness of another
upon account of some former kindness received. Anger, that desire of thwart-
ing the happiness of another, on account of some former diskindness or injury
received. Both these take place, though we hope for, or fear nothing farther
from the objects of either of them, and this is still consistent with acting upon
a principle of private happiness.
For though we neither hope for, nor fear anything farther from these par-
ticular beings; yet the disposition shewn upon these occasions is apprehended
to influence the behavior of other beings towards us; i.e. other beings will be
moved to promote our happiness or otherwise, as they observe how we resent
favors or injuries.
Ambition is a desire of being esteemed. Hence a desire of being thought an
object of esteem; hence of being an object of esteem; hence of doing laud-
able, i.e. useful actions. Generosity and benevolence are species of it. Ambi-
tion in too great a degree is called pride, of which there are several species.
The title to the esteem of others, which ariseth from any meritorious action, is
called honor. The pleasure arising from honor being paid to us, i.e. from
others acknowledging that we are entitled to their esteem, is without a name.
Modesty is the fear of losing esteem. The uneasiness or passion which ariseth
from a sense that we have lost it, is called shame. So that ambition, and all
those other passions and affections belonging to it, together with shame, arise
from the esteem of others: which is the reason why this tribe of affections
operate more strongly on us than any other, viz. because we perceive that as
our happiness is chiefly dependent on the behavior of others, so we perceive
also that this behavior is dependent on the esteem which others have con-
ceived of us; and consequently that our acquiring or losing esteem, is in effect
acquiring or losing happiness, and in the highest degree. And the same may
be said concerning all our other affections and passions, to enumerate which,
what for want of names to them, and what by the confusion of language about
them, is almost impossible.
Envy will be accounted for hereafter, for a reason which will then be
obvious.
Thus having explained what I mean by obligation and approbation; and
shewn that they are founded on and terminate in happiness: having also
pointed out that the difference between our approbations and affections as
410 John Gay
placed on involuntary and voluntary means of happiness; and farther proved
that these approbations and affections are not innate or implanted in us by
way of instinct, but are all acquired, being fairly deducible from supposing
only sensible and rational creatures dependent on each other for their happi-
ness, as explained above: I shall in the next place endeavor to answer a grand
objection to what has here been said concerning approbations and affections
arising from a prospect of private happiness.
The objection is this.
The reason or end of every action is always known to the agent; for nothing
can move a man but what is perceived; but the generality of mankind love and
hate, approve and disapprove, immediately, as soon as any moral character
either occurs in life, or is proposed to them, without considering whether their
private happiness is affected with it or not: or if they do consider any moral
character in relation to their own happiness, and find themselves, as to their
private happiness, unconcerned in it; or even find their private happiness
lessened by it in some particular instance, yet they still approve the moral
character, and love the agent: nay they cannot do otherwise. Whatever reason
may be assigned by speculative men why we should be grateful to a benefac-
tor, or pity the distressed; yet if the grateful or compassionate mind never
thought of that reason, it is no reason to him. The inquiry is not why he ought
to be grateful, but why he is so. These after-reasons therefore rather shew the
wisdom and providence of our Maker, in implanting the immediate powers of
these approbations (i.e. in Mr. Hutcheson's language, a moral sense) and
these public affections in us, than give any satisfactory account of their origin.
And therefore these public affections, and this moral sense, are quite indepen-
dent on private happiness, and in reality act upon us as mere instincts.
Answer.
The matter of fact contained in this argument, in my opinion, is not to be
contested; and therefore it remains either that we make the matter of fact
consistent with what we have before laid down, or give up the cause.
Now, in order to shew this consistency, I beg leave to observe, that as in the
pursuit of truth we do not always trace every proposition whose truth we are
examining, to a first principle or axiom, but acquiesce, as soon as we perceive
it deducible from some known or presumed truth; so in our conduct we do not
always travel to the ultimate end of our actions, happiness: but rest contented,
as soon as we perceive any action subservient to a known or presumed means
of happiness. And these presumed truths and means of happiness, whether
real or otherwise, always influence us after the same manner as if they were
real. The undeniable consequences of mere prejudices are as firmly adhered
to as the consequences of real truths or arguments; and what is subservient to
a false (but imagined) means of happiness, is as industriously pursued as what
is subservient to a true one.
Now every man, both in his pursuit after truth, and in his conduct, has
settled and fixed a great many of these in his mind, which he always acts upon,
as upon principles, without examining. And this is occasioned by the narrow-
 The Fundamental Principle of Virtue or Morality 411
ness of our understandings: we can consider but a few things at once; and
therefore, to run everything to the fountainhead would be tedious, through a
long series of consequences: to avoid this we choose out certain truths and
means of happiness, which we look upon as resting places, in which we may
safely acquiesce, in the conduct both of our understanding and practice; in
relation to the one, regarding them as axioms; in the other, as ends. And we
are more easily inclined to this, by imagining that we may safely rely upon
what we call habitual knowledge, thinking it needless to examine what we are
already satisfied in. And hence it is that prejudices, both speculative and
practical, are difficult to be rooted out, viz. few will examine them.
These resting places are so often used as principles, that at last, letting that
slip out of our minds which first inclined us to embrace them, we are apt to
imagine them, not as they really are, the substitutes of principles, but, princi-
ples themselves.
And from hence, as some men have imagined innate ideas, because they
forget how they came by them; so others have set up almost as many distinct
instincts as there are acquired principles of acting. And I cannot but wonder
why the pecuniary sense, a sense of power and party, etc. were not men-
tioned, as well as the moral, that of honor, order, and some others.
The case is really this. We first perceive or imagine some real good, i.e.
fitness to promote our natural happiness, in those things which we love and
approve of. Hence (as was above explained) we annex pleasure to those
things. Hence those things and pleasure are so tied together and associated in
our minds, that one cannot present itself, but the other will also occur. And
the association remains even after that which at first gave them the connection
is quite forgot, or perhaps does not exist; but the contrary. An instance or two
may perhaps make this clear. How many men are there in the world who have
as strong a taste for money as others have for virtue; who count so much
money, so much happiness; nay, even sell their happiness for money; or to
speak more properly, make the having money, without any design or thought
of using it, their ultimate end? But was this propensity to money, born with
them, or rather, did not they at first perceive a great many advantages from
being possessed of money, and from thence conceive a pleasure of having it,
thence desire it, thence endeavor to obtain it, thence receive an actual plea-
sure in obtaining it, thence desire to preserve the possession of it? Hence by
dropping the intermediate steps between money and happiness, they join
money and happiness immediately together, and content themselves with the
fantastical pleasure of having it, and make that which was at first pursued only
as a means, be to them a real end, and what their real happiness or misery
consists in. Thus the connection between money and happiness remains in the
mind; though it has long since ceased between the things themselves.
The same might be observed concerning the thirst after knowledge, fame,
etc., the delight in reading, building, planting, and most of the various exer-
cises and entertainments of life. These were at first entered on with a view to
some farther end, but at length became habitual amusements; the idea of
412 John Gay

pleasure is associated with them, and leads us on still in the same eager pursuit
of them, when the first reason is quite vanished, or at least out of our minds.
Nay, we find this power of association so great as not only to transport our
passions and affections beyond their proper bounds, both as to intenseness
and duration; as is evident from daily instances of avarice, ambition, love,
revenge, etc., but also that it is able to transfer them to improper objects, and
such as are of a quite different nature from those to which our reason had at
first directed them. Thus being accustomed to resent an injury done to our
body by a retaliation of the like to him that offered it, we are apt to conceive
the same kind of resentment, and often express it in the same manner, upon
receiving hurt from a stock or a stone; whereby the hatred which we are used
to place on voluntary beings, is substituted in the room of that aversion which
belongs to involuntary ones. The like may be observed in most of the other
passions above mentioned.
From hence also, viz. from the continuance of this association of ideas in
our minds, we may be enabled to account for that (almost diabolical) passion
called envy, which we promised to consider.
Mr. Locke observes,' and I believe very justly, that there are some men
entirely unacquainted with this passion. For most men that are used to
reflection, may remember the very time when they were first under the
dominion of it.
Envy is generally defined to be that pain which arises in the mind from
observing the prosperity of others: not of all others indefinitely, but only of
some particular persons. Now the examining who those particular persons
whom we are apt to envy are, will lead us to the true origin of this passion.
And if a man will be at the pains to consult his mind, or to look into the world,
he'll find that these particular persons are always such as upon some account
or other he has had a rivalship with. For when two or more are competitors
for the same thing, the success of the one must necessarily tend to the detri-
ment of the other, or others: hence the success of my rival and misery or pain
are joined together in my mind; and this connection or association remaining
in my mind, even after the rivalship ceases, makes me always affected with
pain whenever I hear of his success, though in affairs which have no manner of
relation to the rivalship; much more in those that bring that to my remem-
brance, and put me in mind of what I might have enjoyed had it not been for
him.
Thus also we are apt to envy those persons that refuse to be guided by our
judgments, and persuaded by us. For this is nothing else than a rivalship about
the superiority of judgment; and we take a secret pride, both to let the world
see, and in imagining ourselves, that we are in the right.
There is one thing more to be observed in answer to this objection, and that
is, that we do not always (and perhaps not for the most part) make this
association ourselves, but learn it from others, i.e., that we annex pleasure or
pain to certain actions because we see others do it, and acquire principles of
action by imitating those whom we admire, or whose esteem we would pro-
 Further Reading 413
cure: Hence the son too often inherits both the vices and the party of his
father, as well as his estate: Hence national virtues and vices, dispositions and
opinions: and from hence we may observe how easy it is to account for what is
generally called the prejudice of education; how soon we catch the temper
and affections of those whom we daily converse with; how almost insensibly
we are taught to live, admire or hate; to be grateful, generous, compassionate
or cruel, etc.
What I say then in answer to the forementioned objection is this: That
though it be necessary in order to solve the principal actions of human life to
suppose a moral sense (or what is signified by that name) and also public
affections; yet I deny that this moral sense, or these public affections, are
innate or implanted in us. They are acquired either from our own observation
or the imitation of others.

Editor's Notes
1. Francis Hutcheson; for selections, see Part IV.
2. A Lockean notion, mixed modes are complex ideas formed by the mind itself by
actively assembling several simple ideas it has passively received from experience.
The unity of an idea that is a mixed mode comes only from the act of the mind and
is generally signified by giving one name to the complex. As instances. Locke gives
obligation, drunkenness, and hypocrisy. See John Locke. An Essay Concerning
Human Understanding, bk. II, chap. XXII.
3. A fop or dandy. one who loves to show off his fine clothing.
4. In the Essay, bk. II. chap. XX, §14.

Further Reading
There is a brief discussion of Gay in Ernest Albee, A History of English Utilitarianism
(London: Allen & Unwin, 1901). Otherwise there seems to be no extended discussion
of him. Gay is mentioned in Elie Halevy, The Growth of Philosophical Radicalism,
trans. Mary Morris (London: Faber & Faber, 1928), and he receives passing notice in
histories of psychology.
 Claude Adrien Helvetius

Introduction

Helvetius was born in 1715 into a family of physicians. His grandfather had become
wealthy through a Parisian practice, and his father had treated Louis XIV and Louis
XV and was physician to the queen. In 1738 family connections enabled Helvetius to
obtain a lucrative post as tax collector. He acquired a small fortune within a decade
and thereupon retired to devote himself to writing and to companionship with the
advanced intellectuals of the day. From about 1750 until 1757 he worked painstakingly
on De l'Esprit (On the Mind), which was published in 1758. The book caused a storm
of criticism. Personal, philosophical, religious, and political attacks were launched
against Helvetius, and it was only thanks to his official and family connections that he
escaped prison or worse. He thought for a time of abandoning his writing, but returned
to it after a while, eventually completing a second work, De l'Homme (On Man),
which was published in 1772, a year after his death.
On the Mind is divided into four sections: the first lays out a general psychology and
epistemology; the second concerns ethics and politics; the third explains Helvetius's
ideas on education; and the final section offers a miscellany of thoughts. largely about
aesthetics.
In his psychology, which he learned from a number of French contemporaries who
drew much of their inspiration from Locke, Helvetius held that all our ideas come from
bodily sensations. Judgment, or combining of ideas, is the act of comparing remem-
bered sensations; the emotions spring from our reactions of pleasure or pain to what
we perceive or think. Because he regarded sensation as bodily feeling, Helvetius tacitly
implied that there is no need for any notion of a separate soul or mind. Other views of
his that were offensive to established religious opinion were slipped in (in Chapter VII
of Essay I), on the excuse that he was showing how misleading language can be. Thus
Helvetius criticized la Rochefoucauld's Augustinian attack on self-love as "pride and
vanity," by noting that the term "self-love" means "nothing more than a sentiment
implanted in us by nature" that, depending on the circumstances, can produce either
pride or modesty. And he dismissed discussion of free will by saying that the idea of
liberty is easy to explain. "A man at liberty," he observed, "is a person neither in
chains, under confinement, nor intimidated like a slave by the fear of punishment."
But the term has no other meaning. In particular, "no idea can be formed of the word
Liberty, when applied to the will." The theory behind this is Hobbesian, but Hobbes
would not have agreed that the fear of punishment limits freedom.
If these were not particularly original ideas, neither were the elements of what
Helvetius had to say about morality. He presented an egoistic psychology, wavering a

414
 Introduction 415
little about whether all voluntary action is necessarily self-interested or whether there
might be some extraordinary people who are genuinely disinterested. And he offered
an egoistic morality. Agents pursue what they take to be good for themselves, and no
other good is a reasonable object of individual pursuit. Hence what we praise as virtue
or moral goodness is always what we think is useful to us. Nicole had said as much, and
similar conclusions can be drawn from Mandeville. But Helvetius had something new
to add.
This novelty hinges first on Helvetius's view of what we take to be in our own
interest. People tend to think of themselves not as isolated individuals but as members
of groups. Initially we identify with small groups, but we can come to identify ourselves
through our membership in larger groups and can even see ourselves mainly as mem-
bers of our nation. If we reach this point, what we take to be good for ourselves will be
whatever is good for the whole nation. (Helvetius thought it impossible to identify with
a group comprising everyone in the world.)
On the basis of his sensationist psychology, Helvetius argued that all people are
equal in innate mental ability, differing only as a result of their experiences. Education
in a broad sense is the most important of these formative experiences, and Helvetius
contended that it is possible to educate people so that everyone identifies with the
nation and knows what is useful to the nation as a whole. In this way education can
form people who would act virtuously, that is, in a way that, because it benefits
everyone else in the country as well as themselves, would be praised by everyone.
What stands in the way of increasing human happiness without limit, then, is igno-
rance and identification with small groups. Helvetius was particularly concerned with
the small groups that already have power. They find it in their own interest to prevent
the masses from being given a proper education, as such a system would ultimately
deprive them of the group power in which they could find their own good. Those who
already identify with the good of the whole nation must therefore break the hold of
these narrower groups and institute a new mode of education. As Helvetius did not
hesitate to make clear — and in a Catholic country like France, where the Jesuits
dominated the educational system, it could hardly have been overlooked had he not
done so — the church was the prime culprit. But the nobility was not far behind.
These ideas were not likely to win Helvetius much favor with his highly placed
erstwhile friends, and in the climate of the time they seemed much more dangerous
than he perhaps intended them to be. In January 1757 there had been an attempt to
assassinate Louis XV, and in the aftermath it was proclaimed that anyone who was
convicted of having written anything critical of religion or of the state would be
punished with death. Accordingly, Helvetius managed to publish his book only after
complicated maneuvers with the censors, and the outraged response to it from those in
power affected others besides himself. Because he was closely associated with Diderot
and the other enlightened philosophes who were producing the great Encyclopedia
—whicasdegntoprcifknwledgaup-toscilhg
everyone — publication of the Encyclopedia was halted, persecution and prosecution
of its editors and their friends ran rampant, and on both sides everyone was furious at
Helvetius. After all, the philosophes asserted, we all publish anonymously and se-
cretly; why couldn't Helvetius have done so as well?
The uproar passed without having any lasting effect, but this was not true of
Helvetius's ideas. His view that people could be made virtuous only by political
changes — not by the church, not by grace — and that political changes would have to
augment the happiness people experience here and now if they were to be effective in
416 Claude Adrien Helvitius

increasing virtue was taken up three decades later by Jeremy Bentham, a lawyer and
philosopher who was also a practical reformer. If Helvetius's moral theory did not
survive in the form in which he proposed it, it nonetheless lived on in a theory that is
still influential.
The following selections are from De /'Esprit or Essays on the Mind, an anonymous
translation originally issued in 1759 and republished in 1810.

On the Mind

PREFACE

The subject I propose to examine in this work is new and interesting. People
have hitherto considered the Mind only under some of its views: for great
writers have no more than cast a rapid glance over it; and this has emboldened
me to treat of the subject.
The knowledge of the Mind, when we consider it in its utmost extent, is so
closely connected with the knowledge of the heart, and of the passions of
men, that it was impossible to write on this subject, without treating of that
part of morality at least, which is common to men of all nations, and which in
all governments can have no other object in view than the public advantage.
The principles I establish on this subject are, I think, conformable to the
general interest, and to experience. It is by facts that I have ascended to .

causes. I imagined that morality ought to be treated like all the other sciences,
and founded on experiment, as well as natural philosophy. I have adhered to
this idea, from the persuasion that all morality, where its principles are of use
to the public, is necessarily conformable to the morals of religion, which are
only the perfection of human morals. For the rest, if I am deceived, and if,
contrary to my expectation, some of my principles are not conformable to the
general interest, this proceeds from an error of my judgment, and not of my
heart; and I declare, beforehand, that I disown them.

ESSAY 11

Chapter II: Of Probity Relatively to an Individual

It is not real Probity; that is Probity, with regard to the public, that I consider
in this chapter; but merely Probity, considered relatively to each individual.'
In this point of view, I say, that each individual calls Probity in another only
the habitude of actions which are useful to him: I say habitude, because it is
not one single honest action, more than one single ingenious idea, that will
gain us the title of virtuous and witty. There is not that penurious wretch on
earth which has not once behaved with generosity; nor a liberal person who
has not once been parsimonious; no villain who has not done a good action;
no person so stupid who has not uttered one smart sentence; and, in fine, no
 On the Mind 417
man who, on inspecting certain actions of his life, will not seem possessed of
all the opposite virtues and vices. A greater uniformity in the behaviour of
men would suppose in them a continuity of attention which they are incapable
of; differing from one another only more or less. The man of absolute unifor-
mity has no existence; for that no perfection, either with regard to vice or
virtue, is to be found on the earth.
It is therefore to the habitude of actions advantageous to him, that an
individual gives the name of Probity: I say of actions, because we cannot
judge of intentions. How is it possible? It is seldom or never that action is the
effect of a sentiment; we ourselves are often ignorant of the motives by which
we are determined. A rich man bestows a comfortable subsistence on a wor-
thy man reduced to poverty. Doubtless he does a good action; but is this
action simply the effect of a desire of rendering a man happy? Pity, the hopes
of gratitude, vanity itself, all these different motives, separately or aggre-
gately, may they not, unknown to himself, have determined him to that com-
mendable action? Now if a man be, in general, ignorant himself of the motives
of his generous action, how can the public be acquainted with them? Thus it is
only from the actions of men, that the public can judge of their probity. A
man, for instance, has twenty degrees of passion for virtue; but he has thirty
degrees of love for a woman; and this woman would instigate him to be guilty
of murder. Upon this supposition, it is certain, that this person is nearer guilt
than he, who, with only ten degrees of passion for virtue, has only five degrees
of love for so wicked a woman. Hence I conclude, that of two men, the more
honest in his actions has sometimes the less passion for virtue.
Every philosopher also agrees, that the virtue of men greatly depends on
the circumstances in which they are placed. Virtuous men have too often sunk
under a strange series of unhappy events.
He who will warrant his virtue in every possible situation, is either an
impostor or a fool; characters equally to be mistrusted.
After determining the idea I affix to this word Probity, considered in rela-
tion to every individual, we must, to assure ourselves of the propriety of this
definition, have recourse to observation; and this will inform us, that there are
men whom a happy disposition, a strong desire of glory and esteem, inspire
with the same love for justice and virtue, which men in general have for riches
and honours.
The actions personally advantageous to these virtuous men are so truly just,
that they tend to promote the general welfare, or, at least, not to lessen it.
But the number of these men is so small, that I only mention them in
honour of humanity. And the most numerous class, which alone comprehends
the far greater part of mankind, is that of men so entirely devoted to their own
interest, that they never consider the welfare of the whole. Concentrated, if I
may be allowed the expression, in their own happiness; these men call those
actions only honest, which are advantageous to themselves. A judge acquits a
criminal, a minister prefers an unworthy person; yet both are just, if those
418 Claude Adrien Helvetius

they have favoured may be credited. But should the judge punish, and the
minister refuse, the criminal, and the party denied, will always consider them
as unjust. . . .
In effect, what man, if he sacrifices the pride of stiling himself more virtuous
than others, to the pride of being more sincere; and if, with a scrupulous
attention, he searches all the recesses of his soul; will not perceive that his
virtues and vices are wholly owing to the different modifications of personal
interest;* that all equally tend to their happiness; that it is the diversity of the
passions and tastes, of which some are agreeable, and others contrary to the
public interest, which terms our actions either virtues or vices? Instead of
despising the vicious man, we should pity him, rejoice in our own happy disposi-
tion, thank heaven for not having given us any of those tastes and passions,
which would have forced us to have sought our happiness in the misery of
another. For, after all, interest is always obeyed; hence the injustice of all our
judgments, and the appellations of just and unjust are lavished on the same
actions, according to the advantage resulting from them to particulars.
If the physical universe be subject to the laws of motion, the moral universe
is equally so to those of interest. Interest is, on earth, the mighty magician,
which to the eyes of every creature changes the appearance of all objects. . . .
This principle is so agreeable to experience, that, without entering into a
farther discussion, I think myself warranted to conclude, that personal inter-
est is the only and universal estimator of the merit of human actions; and
therefore, that Probity, with regard to an individual is, according to my defini-
tion, nothing more than the habitude of actions personally advantageous to
this individual.

Chapter V: Of Probity in Relation to Private Societies

Under this point of view, I say, that probity is only a more or less distinguished
habit of performing actions particularly useful to this little society. Certain
virtuous societies indeed frequently appear to lay aside their own interest to
judge the actions of men, in conformity to the interest of the public; but in this
they only gratify the passion which an enlightened pride gives them for virtue;
and consequently, like all other societies, obey the law of personal interest.
What other motive can determine men to generous actions? It is as impossible
to love virtue for the sake of virtue as to love vice for the sake of vice.*
• The humane man is he to whom the sight of another's misfortunes is insupportable, and who, to
remove this afflicting spectacle, is, as it were, forced to relieve the wretched. The cruel man, on
the contrary, is he to whom the sight of another's misfortunes gives a secret pleasure; and it is to
prolong that pleasure, that he refuses all relief to the wretched. Now these two persons, so very
opposite, both equally tend to their pleasures, and are actuated by the same spring. . . .
The continual declamations of moralists against the malignity of mankind are a proof of their
knowing but little of human nature. Men are not cruel and perfidious, but carried away by their
own interest. The declamations of the moralist will certainly make no change in this moral
spring of the universe. They ought not therefore to complain of the wickedness of mankind, but
of the ignorance of the legislators, who have always placed private interest in opposition to the
general interest. . . .
 On the Mind 419

Chapter VI: Of the Means of Securing Virtue

A man is just when all his actions tend to the public welfare. Doing well is not all
that is requisite to merit the title of virtuous. A prince has a thousand places to
bestow; he must fill them up; and he cannot avoid rendering a thousand people
happy. Here then his virtue depends only on the justice and injustice of his
choice. If, when a place of importance is vacant, he gives it from friendship,
from weakness, from solicitation, or from indolence, to a man of moderate
abilities, in preference to another of superior talents, he ought to be considered
as unjust, whatever praises others may bestow on his probity.
In the affair of probity, he ought only to consult and listen to the public
interest, and not to the men by whom he is surrounded; for personal interest
too often leads him into an illusion.
We ought then, in order to be virtuous, to blend the light of knowledge with
greatness of soul. Whoever assembles within himself these different gifts of
nature, always directs his course by the compass of the public utility. This
utility is the principle on which all human virtues are founded, and the basis of
all legislations. It ought to inspire the legislator with the resolution to force
the people to submit to his laws; to this principle, in short, he ought to
sacrifice all his sentiments, and even those of humanity itself.
Public humanity is sometimes void of pity for individuals. When a vessel is
surprised by long calms, and famine has, with an imperious voice, com-
manded the mariners to draw lots for the unfortunate victim who is to serve as
a repast to his companions, they kill him without remorse: this vessel is the
emblem of a nation; every thing becomes lawful, and even virtuous, that
procures the public safety.
The conclusion of what I have just said is, that in the case of probity counsel
is not to be taken from private connections, but only from the interest of the
public: he who constantly consults it will have all his actions directed either
immediately to the public utility, or to the advantage of individuals, without
their being detrimental to the state.

Chapter XI: Of Probity in Relation to the Public

I shall not in this chapter treat of Probity, with respect to a particular person,
or a private society; but of true probity; of probity considered in relation to
the public. This kind of probity is the only one that really merits, and has in
general obtained the name. It is only considering it in this point of view, that
we can form clear ideas of honesty, and discover a guide to virtue.
Now, under this aspect, I say that the public, like particular societies, is only
determined in its judgments by motives of interest; that it does not give the
name of noble to great and heroic actions, but to those that are of public use;
and that the esteem of the public, for such and such an action, is not propor-
tioned to the degree of strength, courage, or generosity, necessary to execute it,
but to the importance of that action, and the public advantage derived from it.
420 Claude Adrien Helvetius
In fact, when encouraged by the presence of an army, one man alone fights
three men who are wounded: this is doubtless a brave action; but it is what a
thousand of our grenadiers are capable of, and for which they will never be
mentioned in history; but when the safety of an empire formed to subdue the
universe, depends on the success of this battle, Horatius is an hero,'' he is the
admiration of his fellow-citizens, and his name, celebrated in history, is
handed down to the most distant ages.
Two persons threw themselves into a gulf; this was an action common to
Sappho' and Curtius; 4 but the first did it to put an end to the torments of love,
and the other to save Rome; Sappho was therefore a fool, and Curtius a hero.
In vain have some philosophers given the name of folly to each of these
actions; the public sees clearer than they, and never gives the name of fool to
those from whom it receives advantage.

Chapter XIII: Of Probity in Relation to Various Ages and Nations

In all ages and nations, probity can be only an habit of performing actions that
are of use to our country. However certain this proposition may be, to render
this truth the more evident, I shall endeavor to give a clear and full idea of this
virtue.
To this purpose, I shall examine two sentiments on this subject, that have
hitherto divided the moralists.
Some maintain, that we have an idea of virtue absolutely independent of
different ages and governments; and that virtue is always one and the same.
The others maintain, on the contrary, that every nation forms a different idea
of it.
The first bring, in proof of their opinions, the ingenious, but unintelligible
dreams of the Platonists. Virtue, according to them, is nothing but the idea of
order, harmony, and essential beauty. But this beauty is a mystery of which
they can convey no fixed ideas: they therefore do not establish their system on
the knowledge which history affords us of the human heart, and the powers of
the mind.
The second, and amongst them Montaigne, 5 with arms more strangely tem-
pered than those of reasoning, that is, with facts, attack the opinion of the
first; prove that an action virtuous in the north, is vicious in the south; and
from thence conclude, that the idea of virtue is merely arbitrary.
Such are the opinions of these two sects of philosophers. Those, from their
not having consulted history err, in a metaphysical labyrinth of words: these,
from their not having examined with sufficient depth the facts presented by
history, have thought that caprice alone decided the goodness or turpitude of
human actions. These two philosophical sects are deceived; but they would
both have escaped error, had they, with an attentive eye, considered the
history of the world. They would then have perceived, that time must necessar-
ily produce, in the physical and moral world, revolutions that change the face
of empires; that, in the great catastrophes of kindgoms, the people always
 On the Mind 421
experience great changes; that the same actions may successively become
useful and prejudicial, and consequently, by turns, assume the name of virtu-
ous and vicious.
If, in consequence of this observation, they would have been willing to form
a mere abstract idea of virtue, independent of practice, they would have
acknowledged, that, by the word Virtue can only be understood, a desire of
general happiness; that, consequently, the public welfare is the object of
virtue; and that the actions it enjoins, are the means it makes use of to
accomplish that end; that, therefore, the idea of virtue is not arbitrary; that, in
different ages and countries, all men, at least those who live in society, ought
to form the same idea of it; and, in short, if the people represent it under
different forms, it is because they take for virtue the various means they
employ to accomplish the end.
This definition of virtue, I think, gives an idea of it that is at once clear,
simple, and conformable to experience; a conformity that alone can establish
the truth of an opinion. . . .
However stupid we suppose mankind, it is certain that, enlightened by their
own interest, they have not, without motives, adopted the ridiculous customs
we find estabished amongst some of them; the fantasticalness of these customs
proceed, then, from the diversity of the interests of different nations; and, in
fact, if they have always, though confusedly, understood by the word virtue
the desire of the public happiness; if they have consequently given the name
of honesty only to actions useful to the nation; and if the idea of utilty has
always been secretly connected with the idea of virtue, we may assert, that the
most ridiculous, and even the most cruel customs, have always had, for their
foundation, as I am going to shew by some examples, either a real or apparent
utility with respect to the public welfare.

Chapter XV: Of the Use Accruing to Morality, from the Knowledge of

the Principles Laid Down in the Preceding Chapters
If morality hitherto has little contributed to the happiness of mankind, it is not
owing to any want of perspicuity or beauty of stile, or propriety and loftiness
of sentiment, in the moralists: but amidst all their superior talents, it must be
owned, that they have not often enough considered the different vices of
nations as necessarily resulting from the different form of their government;
yet, it is only by considering morality in this point of light, that it can become
of any real use to men. What have hitherto been the effects of all the splendid
maxims of morality? If some individuals have been corrected by them of faults
which perhaps they reproached themselves with, no change in the manners of
nations have been produced. What is this to be imputed to? It is because the
vices of a people, if I may presume to say so, always lie at the bottom of its
legislation. There he must search, who would pluck up the root whence its
vices arise. He who wants either penetration, or courage, for such an under-
taking, is, in this respect, of little or no use to the universe. To attempt
422 Claude Adrien Helvetius
extinguishing the vices annexed to the legislation of a people, without making
any change in this legislation, is no less than rejecting the just consequences
after admitting the principles. . . .
From what I have said, it follows that no change in the ideas of a people is
to be hoped for, till after a change in its legislation; that the reformation of
manners is to be begun by the reformation of laws, and declamations against a
vice useful in the present form of government, would politically be detrimen-
tal, were they not found fruitless. But so they will always be, for it is only the
force of the laws that can ever act on the bulk of a nation. Besides, let me be
allowed cursorily to observe, that, among the moralists there are very few
who, by setting our passions at variance, know how to avail themselves of
them, so as to procure their opinions to be adopted. Most of their admonitions
are too dogmatical and imperious; yet they should be sensible that invectives
will never prevail against sentiments; that it is only a passion which can get the
better of a passion. . . .
By thus substituting the soft language of interest, instead of the peremptory
clamour of invective, the moralists may establish their maxims. I shall not
enlarge farther on this head, but return to my subject; and I say, that all men
tend only towards their happiness; that it is a tendency from which they
cannot be diverted; that the attempt would be fruitless, and even the success
dangerous; consequently, it is only by incorporating personal and general
interest, that they can be rendered virtuous. This being granted, morality is
evidently no more than a frivolous science, unless blended with policy and
legislation: whence I conclude that, if philosophers would be of use to the
world, they should survey objects from the same point of view as the legisla-
tor. Though not invested with the same power, they are to be actuated by the
same principle. The moralist is to indicate the laws, of which the legislator
insures the execution, by stamping them with the seal of his authority.
Among the moralists, there are doubtless but few duly impressed with this
truth, even of those whose minds are capable of the most exalted ideas; many
in the study of morality and the portraits of vices are animated only by
personal interest and private contentions; consequently they confine them-
selves only to the representations of such vices as molest society; and their
mind gradually contracting itself within the narrow circle of their interest,
soon loses the force necessary for soaring to sublime ideas. In the science of
morality, the elevation of the thought often depends on the elevation of the
soul. To fix on such moral truths as are of real advantage to men, there must
be a warm passion for the general good; and unhappily morality, like religion,
is not without hypocrites.

Chapter XVII: Of the Advantages That Result from

the Principles Above Established
I pass with rapidity over the advantages that would be obtained by individu-
als; these would consist in their having clear ideas of morality; the principles
 On the Mind 423
of which have been hitherto so ambiguous and contradictory, that they permit-
ted the most senseless persons constantly to justify the folly of their conduct
by some of its maxims.
Besides, the individual being better informed of his duties, would be less
dependent on the opinion of his friends. Sheltered from the injustice wherein,
unknown to himself, he might be frequently involved by those with whom he
converses, he would be freed from the puerile fear of ridicule; a phantom that
banishes reason, and is the terror of those timid and ignorant souls who
sacrifice their inclinations, their pleasures, their repose, and sometimes even
their virtues, to the humour and caprice of those splenetic mortals whose
criticism we cannot escape, when we have the misfortune to be known.
A person solely subject to reason and virtue might then brave every preju-
dice, and arm himself with those manly and courageous sentiments that form
the distinguishing character of a virtuous man; sentiments desirable in every
citizen, and which we have a right to expect from the great. How shall the
person, raised to the highest posts, remove the obstacles to the general wel-
fare, which certain prejudices raise against it, and resist the menaces and
cabals of men in power, often interested in the public misfortune, if his soul is
not inaccessible to all kinds of solicitations, fears, and prejudices?
It appears then that the knowledge of the above principles procures at least
these advantages to the individual; it gives him a clear and certain idea of
honesty; saves him from all inquietude on this subject, secures the peace of his
conscience, and consequently procures him the inward secret pleasure blended
with the practice of virtue.
As to the advantages the public would derive from it, they would doubtless
be more considerable. In consequence of these principles, we might, if I may
venture to use the expression, compose a catechism of probity, the maxims of
which being simple, true, and level to all understandings, would teach the
people that virtue, though invariable in the object it proposes, is not so in the
means it makes use of; that, consequently, we ought to consider actions as
indifferent in themselves; to be sensible, that it is the business of the state to
determine those that are worthy of esteem or contempt; and, in fine, that it is
the office of the legislator to fix, from his knowledge of the public interest, the
instant when an action ceases to be virtuous, and becomes vicious.
These principles being once received, with what facility would the legislator
extinguish the torches of fanaticism and superstition, suppress abuses, reform
barbarous customs, perhaps useful at their establishment, but since become
fatal to the world? Customs that subsist only from the fear of not being able to
abolish them, without causing an insurrection among people, who are always
accustomed to take the practice of certain actions for virtue itself, without
kindling long and bloody wars; and in short, without occasioning those sedi-
tions which are always dangerous to the common people, and can really be
neither foreseen nor subdued but by men of firmness and great abilities.
It is then by weakening the stupid veneration of the people for ancient laws
and customs, that sovereigns would be enabled to purge the earth of most of
424 Claude Adrien Helvitius
the evils that lay it waste, and be furnished with the means of securing the
possession of their crowns.

Chapter XXIII: Of the Causes That Have Hitherto Retarded

the Progress of Morality
If poetry, geometry, astronomy, and, in general, all the sciences, advance
more or less rapidly towards perfection, while morality seems scarcely to have
left its cradle, it is because men, being forced to unite in society, and to give
themselves laws, were obliged to form a system of morality before they had
learnt, from observation, its true principles. The system being formed, no
farther notice was taken of it; thus we have, in a manner, the morals of the
world in its infancy, and how shall it be brought to perfection?
The progress of a science does not solely depend on its being of use to the
public: every citizen of which a nation is composed ought to reap some advan-
tage from its improvement. Now in the revolutions that have taken place
among all the nations of the earth, the public interest, which is that of the
majority, among whom the principles of sound morality ought to find its
support, not being always agreeable to the interest of those most in power, the
latter being indifferent with respect to the progress of all sciences, must effec-
tually oppose that of morality.
The ambitious man, who is raised above his fellow-citizens; the tyrant who
tramples them under his feet; and the fanatic, who keeps them prostrate; all
these several scourges of the human race, all these different kinds of flagitious
men, forced by their private interest to establish laws contrary to the general
good, have been very sensible, that their power had no other foundation than
the ignorance and weakness of mankind: they have therefore imposed silence
on whosoever, by discovering to the people the true principles of morality,
would have opened their eyes with respect to their misfortunes and their
rights, and have armed them against injustice.
But, it is replied, if in the first ages of the world, when despotic princes held
the nations in subjection, and ruled them with a rod of iron, it was then their
interest to conceal from the people the true principles of morality; principles,
which by animating them against tyrants, would have made revenge the duty
of each citizen; yet now, when the sceptre is not purchased with guilt, but
placed by unanimous consent in the hand of a prince, and supported by the
love of the people; when the glory and happiness of a nation, reflecting on the
sovereign, adds to his grandeur and felicity; what enemies of the human race
are there still to oppose the progress of morality?
This is no longer done by kings, but by two other sorts of men in power. The
first are the fanatics, whom I shall not confound with the men truly pious.
These last support the maxims of religion, and the others are their destroyers:
the one are the friends of humanity; the other, who are outwardly mild but
within barbarous, have the voice of Jacob and the hands of Esau: they are
indifferent with respect to worthy actions; they judge virtuous not what is
 On the Mind 425

done, but what is believed; and the credulity of men is, according to them, the
only standard of their probity. They mortally hate, said queen Christina,' all
who are not their dupes; and to this they are led by their interest. Being
ambitious, hypocritical, and artful, they imagine that, to enslave the people
they ought to put out their eyes: thus, these impious wretches are incessantly
setting up the cry of impiety against every man born to enlighten the nations:
every new truth is suspected by them, and they resemble infants that are
terrified at every thing in the dark.
The second species of men in power who oppose the progress of morality
are the half-politicians.• Among these are some naturally disposed to truth,
who are enemies to newly discovered truths only from their indolence, and
their being unwilling to apply the attention necessary to examine them.
There are others animated by dangerous motives, and these are most to be
feared. These are the men whose minds are without abilities, and whose
souls are destitute of virtues; they want not the courage of being greatly
wicked; and, incapable of new and elevated views, they believe that their
importance demands a weak or dissembled respect for all the received opin-
ions and errors countenanced by them. Furious against every man who
would stagger the empire, they arm against him even those passions and
prejudices which they despise; and, without ceasing, terrify weak minds with
the cry of novelty.
But may we not make the nations sensible of the advantages they would
obtain from an excellent system of morality? and might we not hasten the
progress of that science, by conferring greater honours on those who improve
it? Considering the importance of this subject, I shall run the hazard of a
digression, in order to treat it more fully.

Chapter XXIV: Of the Mewis of Perfecting Morality

It would be sufficient for this purpose to remove the obstacles placed against
its progress by the two kinds of men I have mentioned. The only means of
succeeding in this, is to pull off their masks, and to shew that the protectors of
ignorance are the most cruel enemies of human beings; to shew the nations,
that men are in general more stupid than wicked; that, in curing them of their
errors, we should cure them of most of their vices; and that opposing their
cure is committing the crime of treason against human nature.
Every man, who considers the picture of public miseries exhibited in his-
tory, soon perceives that ignorance, which is still more barbarous than self-
love, has caused most of the calamities that have overflowed the earth. Struck
with this truth, we are ready to cry out, Happy the nation where the citizens
are permitted to perpetrate only the crimes that flow from self-love! How are
they multiplied by ignorance, and what blood has been spilt on its altars!
However, man is made to be virtuous; and, in fact, if force essentially reside in
the greater number, and justice consist in the practice of actions useful to the
greater number, it is evident that justice is in its own nature always armed with
426 Claude Adrien Helvedus
a power sufficient to suppress vice, and place men under the necessity of being
virtuous.
If audacious and powerful wickedness so often puts justice and virtue in
chains, and oppresses the nations, this is only done by the assistance of igno-
rance, which conceals from every nation its true interest, hinders the action
and union of its strength, and by that means shields the guilty from the sword
of justice.
To what contempt ought he to be condemned, who would hold the people in
the darkness of ignorance? This truth has not hitherto been insisted upon with
sufficient force: no, all the altars of error must one day be overthrown. I know
with what precaution we ought to advance a new opinion. I know, that in
destroying prejudices, we ought to treat them with respect; and that, before
we attack an error generally received, we ought to send, like the doves from
the ark, some truths on the discovery, to see if the deluge of prejudices does
not yet cover the face of the earth; if error begins to subside, and if there can
be perceived here and there some isles where virtue and truth may find rest
for their feet, and communicate themselves to mankind.
But so many precautions are only to be taken with those prejudices that are
not very dangerous. What respect do we owe to the man who, jealous of
dominion, would besot the people, in order to tyrannize over them? We must
with a bold hand break the talisman of imbecility, to which is attached the
power of these malevolent genii; to discover to nations the true principles of
morality; to teach them that, being insensibly drawn towards happiness, ei-
ther apparent or real, grief and pleasure are the only movers of the moral
universe; and that the sensation of self-love is the only basis on which we can
place the foundations of an useful morality. . . .
It is then only by good laws that we can form virtuous men. All the art
therefore of the legislator consists in forcing them by self-love to be always
just to each other. Now, in order to compose such laws, it is necessary that the
human heart should be known, and in the first place, that we should be
convinced that men having sensibility for themselves, and indifference with
respect to others, are neither good nor bad, but ready to be either, according
as a common interest unites or divides them; that self-love, a sensation neces-
sary to the preservation of the species, is engraven by Nature in a manner not
to be erased; that a physical sensibility has produced in us a love of pleasure
and a hatred of pain; that pleasure and pain have at length produced and
opened in all hearts the buds of self-love, which by unfolding themselves give
birth to the passions, whence spring all our virtues and vices.
By contemplating these preliminary ideas, we learn why the passions, of
which the forbidden tree is, according to some, only an ingenious image, bear
equally on it branches of good and evil fruit; we perceive the mechanism
employed by them in the production of our virtues and vices; and, in short, a
legislator discovers the means of laying men under a necessity of being virtu-
ous, and causing the passions to bear no other fruit than probity and wisdom.
Now, if the examination of these ideas, so proper to render men virtuous,
 On the Mind 427
be forbidden by the two species of men in power above-mentioned, the only
means of hastening the progress of morality will be, as I have already said, to
shew that these protectors of stupidity are the most cruel enemies of human
nature, and to snatch from their hands the sceptre of ignorance, by which they
are authorized to command a stupid people. Upon which I shall observe, that
this, simple and easy as it appears in speculation, is extremely difficult in the
execution. Indeed, there are men who have great and judicious minds, united
to the virtue and strength of soul: there are men, who, being persuaded that a
citizen without courage is also without virtue, are sensible that the fortune,
and even the life of every individual is not his own, but is in a manner a
deposit, which he ought always to be ready to deliver up when the safety of
the public makes it necessary; but the number of such men is always too few
for them to enlighten the public: besides, virtue must ever be of little weight,
when the manners of an age fix upon it the rust of ridicule. Thus morality and
the legislation, which I consider as one and the same science, can only make
an insensible progress.

ESSAY III

Chapter XVI: To What Cause Ought We to Attribute the Indifference of

Certain Nations with Regard to Virtue?
. . . The most exalted virtue, as well as the most shameful vice, is the effect of
the greater or less intenseness of the pleasure it affords us.
Thus we can form no exact idea of the degree of our virtue, till we have
discovered, by a scrupulous examination, the number and degrees of those
pains which a passion, as for instance, the love of justice or of glory, may
enable us to support. The person to whom esteem is every thing, and life
nothing, will, like Socrates, submit rather to suffer death, than meanly to beg
for life. He who is become the soul of a republican state, in which pride and
glory render him passionately desirous of the public welfare, will, like Cato,'
prefer death to the mortification of seeing himself and his country submit to
the yoke of arbitrary power. But such actions are the effect of the greatest
love of glory. This is the highest pitch to which the strongest passions can
attain, and here nature has fixed the bounds of human virtue.
In vain would we deceive ourselves; we necessarily become the enemies of
men, when we can no otherwise be happy than by their misfortunes. It is the
pleasing conformity we find between our own interest and that of the public, a
conformity generally produced by the desire of esteem, that gives us those
tender sentiments that are rewarded by their affection. He who to be virtuous
must always conquer his inclinations, must necessarily be a wicked man. The
meritorious virtues are never certain and infallible virtues. It is impossible in
practice for a man to deliver himself up, in a manner, daily to a war with the
passions, without losing many battles.
Being always forced to yield to the most powerful interest some of that love
428 Claude Adrien Helvetius
for esteem, we never sacrifice any great pleasure to it, but those it procures.
If, on certain occasions, sacred personages have sometimes exposed them-
selves to the contempt of the public, it is because they would not sacrifice their
salvation to their glory; and if some women resist the solicitations of a prince,
it is because they believe, that his conquest would not recompence them for
the loss of their esteem: thus, there are few insensible to the love of a king,
who is young and charming; and none who resist such beneficent, amiable,
and powerful, beings as we paint the sylphs and genii, who, by a thousand
allurements, can at once intoxicate all the senses of a mortal.
This truth, founded on self-love, is not only known, but even acknowl-
edged, by the legislators.
Convinced that self-love is, in general, the strongest passion of mankind,
the legislators have never pronounced it criminal, for a man to kill another in
his own defence, nor blamed a citizen for not devoting himself to death, like
Decius8 for the preservation of his country.
The virtuous man is not then he who sacrifices his pleasures, habits, and
strongest passions, to the public welfare, since it is impossible that such a man
should exist; but he whose strongest passion is so conformable to the general
interest, that he is almost constantly necessitated to be virtuous. For this
reason, he approaches nearer to perfection, and has a greater claim to the
name of being a virtuous man, who requires stronger motives of pleasure, and
a more powerful interest, in order to determine him to do a bad action, than
are necessary to his performing a good one, and consequently supposes that
he has a greater passion for virtue than for vice. . . .
We are on the contrary less virtuous, as less powerful motives lead us to the
commission of a crime. . . .
This is what distinguishes the virtuous from the vicious man, in a manner
the most clear, precise, and conformable, to experience; on this plan the
public might make an exact thermometer, which would shew the various
degrees of virtue and vice in each citizen, if, by penetrating to the bottom of
the heart, we could discover there the value that each sets on his virtue. But
the impossibility of arriving at this knowledge forces us to judge of men only
by their actions — a judgment extremely faulty in every particular, but on the
whole sufficiently conformable to the general interest, and almost as useful as
if it were just.
After having inquired into the influence of the passions, and explained the
cause of that mixture of virtue and vice observable in all men; having stated
the limits of virtue, and at length fixed the idea that belongs to the word
virtuous; we are now at liberty to judge, if we ought to attribute the indiffer-
ence of certain nations for virtue to nature, or to a particular legislation.
If pleasure be the only object of man's pursuit, we need only imitate nature,
in order to inspire a love of virtue. Pleasure informs us of what she would have
done, and pain what she forbids, and man will readily obey her mandates.
Why may not the legislature, armed with the same power, produce the same
 Editor's Notes 429
effects? Were men without passions, there would be no means of producing a
reformation; but the love of pleasure, against which men, possessed of a
probity more venerable than enlightened, have constantly exclaimed, is a
bridle by which the passions of the individuals might always be directed to the
public good. The hatred most men have for virtue is not then the effect of the
corruption of their nature, but of the imperfection of the legislation. It is the
legislation, if I may venture to say so, that excites us to vice, by mingling it
with pleasure; the great art of the legislator is that of separating them, and
making no proportion between the advantage the villain can receive from his
crime, and the pain to which he exposes himself. If among the rich men, who
are often less virtuous than the indigent, we see few robbers and assassins, it is
because the profit obtained by robbery is never to a rich man proportionable
to the hazard of a capital punishment: but this is not the case with respect to
the indigent; for the disproportion falling infinitely short of being so great
with respect to him, virtue and vice are in a manner placed in an equilibrium.
Not that 1 would here pretend to insinuate, that men ought to be driven as
with a rod of iron. In an excellent legislation, and among a virtuous people,
contempt, which deprives man of all consolation, and leaves him desolate in
the midst of his native country, is a motive sufficient to form virtuous minds.
Every other kind of punishment renders men timid, inactive, and stupid. The
kind of virtue produced by the fear of punishment resembles its origin; this
virtue is pusillanimous, and without knowledge; or rather fear, which only
smothers vice, but produces no virtues. True virtue is founded on the love of
esteem and glory, and the fear of contempt, which is more terrible than death
itself.

Editor's Notes
I. Helvetius uses the term probite, meaning "integrity." as a general term for a
morally praiseworthy disposition.
2. Horatius is the hero of a Roman legend. During the Roman struggle against the
Etruscans, toward the end of the sixth century H.C.E.. Horatius single-handedly
held a bridge against the Etruscan army.
3. The Greek poetess, who according to one legend threw herself off a rock into the
sea because of thwarted love.
4. The soldier Marcus Curtius, according to Roman legend. leapt with his horse and
all his weapons into a chasm that opened in the Roman forum, in order to do what
the soothsayers indicated was needed to save Rome.
5. Montaigne's skeptical outlook is most folly expressed in his "Apology for Ray-
mond Sebond." selections from which are given in the Prolegomena in Volume 1
of this anthology.
6. Queen Christina of Sweden (1626-89), regarded as an enlightened ruler: she
corresponded with Descartes and brought him to Sweden to teach her philosophy.
7. Cato of Utica (95-46 B.c.E.), often held up as embodying the ideal of the Stoic
sage, took his own life on seeing that his political cause was lost.
8. Roman emperor (c. 200-51) who died after valiantly defending his country against
invaders.
430 Claude Adrien Helvetius

Further Reading
There are no recent translations of Helvetius, but the old translations of On the Mind
and of On Man are adequate.
Two books by Lester Crocker discuss Helvetius in the general context of French
Enlightenment thought: An Age of Crisis, Man and World in Eighteenth Century
French Thought (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959); and Nature and
Culture: Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Uni-
versity Press, 1963). The former examines metaphysical issues including free will, and
the latter looks at moral issues; mention of Helvetius is scattered throughout both. Ira
0. Wade comments on Helvetius at various places in his two-volume study The Struc-
ture and Form of the French Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1977); see especially vol. 2, pp. 262-97, which summarizes Helvetius's main
work and Diderot's criticism.
Ian Cumming, Helvetius: His Life and Place in the History of Educational Thought
(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1955), studies an issue of considerable importance
to Helvetius but does not give adequate attention to his ethics. Irving L. Horowitz,
Claude Helvetius: Philosopher of Democracy and Enlightenment (New York: Paine—
Whitman, 1954), is a more general treatment from a Marxist perspective. There is an
excellent study of the background of, and response to, On Man in D. W. Smith,
Helvetius, a Study in Persecution (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). which also covers
the philosophy.
 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach

Introduction

Holbach was born in 1723 in a small town in Germany and named Paul Heinrich
Dietrich. A wealthy uncle provided for his education, brought him to Paris. and left
him a fortune and the title under which he became famous — or notorious — as the
most persistent and outspoken opponent of religion among the Enlightenment writers.
Educated as a chemist and fluent in several languages, Holbach was brought into
contact with the advanced thinkers of Paris by Diderot. who wanted him to write
scientific articles for the Encyclopedia. Holbach wrote several hundred of them and
then branched out into other fields. His views were so radical for his times that they
could not be published openly. Consequently, he had many of his manuscripts pub-
lished in Holland, either anonymously or under assumed names. Holbach translated
numerous anti-Christian books from English, wrote many others, and supported the
authors of still other works that, like his, supported materialism, atheism, and hedo-
nism and attacked the power of organized religion.
No one is quite sure exactly what or how much Holbach wrote himself, but a number
of works are commonly assumed to be his. One of the earliest is Christianity Unveiled
(1761). It was followed by, among others, The Sacred Contagion; or Natural History of
Superstition (1768) and Critical History of Jesus Christ (1770). In 1770 Holbach also
published his major philosophical work, the System of Nature; or On the Laws of the
Physical World and the Moral World. He ended this book with a moral exhortation to
man, the general message of which was expanded in a series of volumes including The
Social System; or Natural Principles of Morality and Politics (1773) and Universal
Morality; or The Duties of Man, Founded on His Nature (1776). Many of these vol-
umes were immediately translated into English.
Holbach was not only an indefatigable writer and organizer of propagandistic writ-
ings by others; he was also the center of a group of intellectuals who met regularly at
his house for dinner and discussion. Diderot, Rousseau, Grimm, Helvetius, Con-
dorcet, Turgot, and d'Alembert were among those who attended regularly, and among
the many foreigners who came were Gibbon, Hume. Adam Smith. Laurence Sterne,
Beccaria, and Benjamin Franklin. If the group was not a consciously controlled secret
society of advanced thinkers, it certainly was a forum for exchange of radical ideas and
for untrammeled criticism of existing institutions.
For all his radicalism, Holbach was happily married, fond of his children, comfort-
able with his great wealth, and happy to be a generous patron to those in need.
Although his books aroused considerable outcry. he managed to escape punishment

431
432 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
and busily continued undermining the credibility of established French institutions
until his death in 1789.
The moral philosophy Holbach propagated was simple and unoriginal. We are self-
interested in all our actions; the best means to achieve our own good is to work for the
good of everyone; but ignorance keeps us from doing so, and ignorance is itself
sustained by those in power. who fear losing their superiority over others. This view is
built on naturalism. Matter in motion is all that exists; humans are simply a part of
nature; their bodies are machines; and their thoughts are determined by their move-
ments. For these ideas Holbach drew not only on Hobbes. Spinoza. and Hume but also
on several French writers, such as Diderot and La Mettrie, who held similar views.
Although Holbach was perhaps more systematic in his exposition of some of these
themes than others were, he was also more repetitive and far more rhetorical. He was
animated by an inexhaustible passion against religion — Christianity first and foremost.
but by no means exclusively — and he saw his ideas and his systems as providing the
secular standpoint that must replace it if human happiness is ever to be achieved.
I have included Holbach in this anthology so that the reader can see at first hand
something of the anger that religion could inspire in its Enlightenment enemies. In
turn, this anger helps us understand the meaning of the appeals to nature and to self-
interest that pervade so much of the writing of this period. Nature is what is not
supernatural. Self-interest is what does not postpone human happiness to another life:
for these writers it was not, as it was for some, what enables us to defer our reward
until we reach another world. Materialism is the refusal to believe in a self divided in
ways that would warrant both the postponement of happiness and the hegemony of a
privileged spiritual elite entitled to direct us in the meantime.
In his preface to the System of Nature Holbach observed that -the most important of
our duties is to seek means by which we may destroy delusions that can never do more
than mislead us." To a greater extent than his enlightened French allies. Holbach
believed that philosophical ideas systematically organized and disseminated to as large
an audience as possible provide those means. It is worth seeing just how he tried to
work this out.
For the first selection here I have translated parts of Holbach's Universal Morality,
which outlines his moral philosophy with — for him — unusual concision. The second
selection is from Chapter IX of the System of Nature, showing Holbach's attitude
toward religion. The writer to whom the book was attributed on its first publication
was M. de Mirabaud," a member of the French Academy who had been dead for a
decade. The translation is by Samuel Wilkinson.

Universal Morality; or, The Duties of Man, Founded on Nature

FIRST SECTION: GENERAL PRINCIPLES AND DEFINITIONS

Chapter I: Of Morality, Duties, Moral Obligation

Morality [la morale] is the science of the relations among men and of the
duties that flow from these relations. Or, if you wish, morality is the knowl-
edge of what must necessarily be done or avoided by intelligent and reason-
able beings who wish to preserve themselves and to live happily in society.
To be universal, morality should be formed according to the nature of man
 Universal Morality 433
in general, that is, founded on his essence, on the properties and qualities
constantly found in all beings of the species and by which it is distinguished
from other animals. From this we see that morality presupposes the science of
human nature.
Science can only be the fruit of experience. To know something is to have
experienced the effects it produces, the manner in which it acts, and the
different points of view from which one may envisage it. The science of
manners [des moeursj, in order to be certain, should be nothing but the
consequence of constant, reiterated, invariable experiences, which alone can
provide true knowledge of the relations among beings of the human species.
The relations among men are the different ways in which they act on one
another or by which they influence their reciprocal well-being.
The duties of morality are the means that a being who is intelligent and
susceptible to experience should use in order to gain the happiness toward
which his nature ceaselessly forces him to move. Walking is a duty for who-
ever wishes to go from one place to another; to be useful is a duty for whoever
wishes to deserve the affection and esteem of his fellowmen; to abstain from
doing ill is a duty for whoever fears to draw on himself the hatred and resent-
ment of those whom he knows can contribute to his own happiness. In a word,
duty is the fitness of means to the end that one proposes for oneself; wisdom
consists in proportioning the means to this end, that is, employing them
usefully to obtain the happiness that man is made to desire.
Moral obligation is the necessity of doing or avoiding certain actions for the
sake of the well-being that we seek in social life. He who wills the end should
will the means. Every being who wants to make himself happy is obliged to
follow the route best suited to lead him to happiness and to avoid the one that
leads away from his goal, on pain of being unhappy. Knowledge of that route
or of the means is the fruit of experience, which alone can let us know the goal
we should set ourselves and the surest ways of arriving there.
The bonds that unite men to one another are nothing but the obligations
and the duties to which they are submitted in accordance with the relations
among them. These obligations and duties are the conditions without which
they cannot reciprocally make themselves happy. Such are the bonds that
unite fathers and children, sovereigns and subjects, society and its members,
and so forth.
These principles suffice to convince us that man does not bring with him
from birth the knowledge of the duties of morality and that nothing is more
chimerical than the opinion of those who attribute innate moral sentiments to
man. The ideas he has of good and ill, of pleasure and pain, of the objects he
should seek or flee, desire or fear, can only be the consequence of experience,
and he cannot rely on his experiences except when they are constant, reiter-
ated, and accompanied by judgment, reflection, and reason.
On entering the world, man brings with him only the faculty of sensing [de
sentirj, and from his sensibility there flow all the faculties called intellectual.
To say that we have moral ideas anterior to experience of the good or ill that
434 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
objects make us experience is to say that we know the causes without having
felt their effects.

Chapter 11: Of Man and His Nature

Man is a sensible, intelligent, reasonable, sociable being who at every instant
of his life seems uninterruptedly to preserve his existence and render it
agreeable.
However prodigious the variety found among individuals of the human
species, they have a common nature that never deceives. There is no man who
does not propose some good at every moment of his life, none who, using the
means he thinks most appropriate, does not seek happiness for himself and to
secure himself against pain. We deceive ourselves often about both the goal
and the means, because we either lack experience or are not in a condition to
use what we have learned. Ignorance and error are the true causes of men's
wanderings and of the unhappiness that they draw on themselves. . . .

Chapter IV: Of Pleasure and Pain; of Happiness

. . . Among the impressions or sensations that man receives from the objects
that impinge on him, some please him by their conformity with the nature of
his machine,' and others displease him by the trouble and disarray that they
convey to it. As a result, he approves of the one and wishes it would continue
or renew itself in him, whereas he disapproves of the other and wishes it to
vanish. . . .
To love an object is to desire its presence, to want it to continue to
produce on our senses impressions suitable to our nature. . . . We love a
friend because his presence, his conversation, his estimable qualities cause
us pleasure. . . .
Every agreeable sensation or movement excited in us that we want to persist
is called "good" or "pleasure," and the object producing that impression in us is
called "good," "useful," or "agreeable." Every sensation that we desire to end
because it troubles and disturbs the order of our machine is called "bad" or
"pain," and the object that excites it is called "bad," "harmful," "wicked," or
"disagreeable." Durable and continued pleasure is called "happiness," "well-
being, or "felicity"; continued pain is called "unhappiness" or "misfortune."
Happiness is thus a state of continued acquiescence in modes of feeling and
being that we find agreeable or conforming to our nature.
Man by his nature must necessarily love pleasure and hate pain. . . .
Pleasure ceases to be a good and becomes an evil as soon as it produces in
us, either immediately or by its consequences, effects harmful to conservation
and contrary to our permanent well-being. . . .
Only experience can teach us to distinguish the pleasures to which we may
yield ourselves without fear or that we should prefer from those that have
dangerous consequences for us. . . .
 Universal Morality 435

Chapter VI: Of. Interest, or of Love of Self

Our desires, excited by real or imaginary needs, constitute interest, a term
that designates in general what each man desires because he believes it
useful or necessary for his own well-being — in a word, the object in the
enjoyment of which each takes his pleasure or happiness to consist. The
interest of the voluptuary is in sensual pleasure; the miser places his in the
possession of his treasures; . . . the interest of the man of letters consists in
deserving glory. . . .
It is thus indubitable that every individual of the human species acts and can
only act out of interest. The word "interest," like the word "pleasure," pre-
sents to the mind only the love of good, the desire of happiness. One cannot
blame men for being interested (which means only having needs and passions)
except when they have interests, passion, or needs that are harmful either to
themselves or to beings with interests with which theirs do not accord.
It is according to their interests that men are good or evil. . . .
If sometimes love of self seems to have no part in our actions, it is when the
heart is troubled, enthusiasm intoxicates, one does not reason, one does not
calculate; and in the disorder in which he finds himself he is capable of
sacrificing himself for the object with which he was taken only because he
found his happiness there. That is how a sincere friend can be brought some-
times to wish to perish for his friend. . . .

Chapter VII: Of the Usefulness of the Passions

. . . Nothing is more useless than to declaim against the passions; nothing,
more impractical than the project of destroying them. The moralist should
explain the advantages of virtue and the unsuitability of vice. The task of the
legislator is to invite, to interest, to compel each individual, out of his own
interest, to contribute to the general interest. . . .

Chapter XII: Of Habit, Instruction, Education

. . . Man, becoming what he is only with the aid of his own experience or of that
with which others furnish him, education can modify him. From a mass that
only senses and an almost inactive machine, he becomes, little by little, with the
aid of culture, an experimenting being who knows truth and who, depending on
how his first matter is altered, shows in the event more or less reason. . . .
Men's opinions are only the true or false associations of ideas that become
habitual by being reiterated in their brains. If from infancy onward the idea of
virtue is presented only as joined with ideas of pleasure, happiness, esteem,
and veneration; if sad examples do not upset this association of ideas, there is
every reason to believe that a child educated in this manner will become a
man of good deeds, an estimable citizen. . . .
Reason is only the acquired habit of judging things healthily and of separat-
436 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
ing promptly what is fitting or harmful to our happiness. What is called moral
instinct is the faculty of judging promptly and without hesitation, without
reflection making part of our judgment. That instinct or that promptness in
judging is due to a habit acquired by frequent exercise. In physical matters we
behave instinctively toward objects that can give pleasure to our senses; in
moral matters we experience a prompt sentiment of esteem, admiration, love
toward virtuous actions, and horror of criminal acts whose tendency and goal
we see in an instant.
The quickness with which this instinct or moral tact is exercised by enlight-
ened and virtuous persons has made many moralists believe that the faculty is
inherent in man from birth. It is the fruit, however, of reflection, of habitua-
tion, of culture. . . . In morality, as in the arts, the taste or aptitude for
judging human actions well is a faculty acquired by exercise; it does not exist
in the majority of men. The man without cultivation, the savage, and the man
of the people have neither the instinct nor the moral taste of which we speak;
on the contrary, they commonly judge very badly. . . .
These reflections make us feel the importance of a good education. It alone
can form reasonable beings, virtuous by habituation, capable of making them-
selves happy and of contributing to the happiness of others. . . .

Chapter XIII: Of Conscience

. . . An enlightened conscience is the guide of the moral man. It can only be
the fruit of extensive experience, perfect knowledge of truth, cultivated rea-
son, and an education that has suitably modified a temperament suited to
receive cultivation. A conscience of that stamp, far from being the effect in
man of an inherent moral sense, far from being common to all the members of
our species, is infinitely rare and is found only in a small number of select
men, well born, provided with a lively imagination or a sensible heart, and
fittingly modified. . . .
In most men, one finds only erroneous conscience, that is, one that judges
in a manner little in accord with the nature of things or with truth. This
comes from the false opinions one has formed or received from others,
which make one attach the idea of goodness to actions one would find
harmful if one examined them more thoroughly. Many people do ill and
even commit crimes with assurance of conscience, because their conscience
is falsified by prejudices. . . .

SECOND SECTION: THE DUTIES OF MAN IN THE STATE OF

NATURE AND IN THE STATE OF SOCIETY;
OF THE SOCIAL VIRTUES

Chapter III: Of Virtue in General

Virtue in general is a disposition or habitual and permanent will to contribute
to the constant happiness of the beings with whom we live in society. This
 System of Nature 437

disposition can be solidly founded only on experience, reflection, and truth,

with the help of which we know our true interests and the interests of those
with whom we have relations. . . .

Chapter IV: Of Justice

Morality, properly speaking, has only one virtue to propose to men. The
unique duty of a sociable being is to be just. Justice is the paradigmatic virtue.
It serves as the basis of all the others. It may be defined as a habitual and
permanent will or disposition to maintain men in the enjoyment of their rights
and to do for them all that we wish they would do for us.
The rights of men consist in the free use of their wills and their faculties to
procure the objects necessary for their own happiness. In the state of nature,
isolated man has the right to take all the means he judges suitable to conserve
and procure his well-being. . . .
In society, the rights of men, or the liberty of acting, are limited by justice,
which shows them that they should act only in a manner suiting the well-being
of the society, which is constructed to interest them because they are members
of it. Everyone living in society would be unjust if the exercise of his own
rights or his liberty were harmful to the rights, liberty, and well-being of those
with whom he finds himself associated. Thus the rights of man in society
consist in the use of his liberty in conformity with the justice he owes his
associates. . . .

System of Nature

Chapter IX: Theological Notions Cannot Be the Basis of Morality —

Comparison Between Theological Ethics and Natural Morality —
Theology Prejudicial to the Human Mind
. . . Let us examine, without prejudice, if the theological ideas of the Divinity
have ever given the solution to any one difficulty. Has the human understand-
ing progressed a single step by the assistance of this metaphysical science? Has
it not, on the contrary, had a tendency to obscure the more certain science of
morals? Has it not, in many instances, rendered the most essential duties of
our nature problematical? Has it not in a great measure confounded the
notions of virtue and vice, of justice and injustice? Indeed, what is virtue, in
the eyes of the generality of theologians? They will instantly reply, "that which
is conformable to the will of the incomprehensible beings who govern na-
ture." But may it not be asked, without offence to the individual opinions of
any one, what are these beings, of whom they are unceasingly talking, without
having the capacity to comprehend them? How can we acquire a knowledge
of their will? They will forthwith reply, with a confidence that is meant to
strike conviction on uninformed minds, by recounting what they are not,
without even attempting to inform us what they are. If they do undertake to
furnish an idea of them, they will heap upon their hypothetical beings a
438 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
multitude of contradictory, incompatible attributes, with which they will form
a whole, at once impossible for the human mind to conceive; or else they will
refer to oracles, by which they insist their intentions have been promulgated
to mankind. If, however, they are requested to prove the authenticity of these
oracles, which are at such variance with each other, they will refer to miracles
in support of what they assert: these miracles, independent of the difficulty
there must exist to repose in them our faith, when, as we have seen, they are
admitted even by the theologians themselves to be contrary to the intelli-
gence, the immutability, to the omnipotency of their immaterial substances,
are, moreover, warmly disputed by each particular sect, as being impositions,
practised by the others for their own individual advantage. As a last resource,
then, it will be necessary to accredit the integrity, to rely on the veracity, to
rest on the good faith of the priests, who announce these oracles. On this
again, there arise two almost insuperable difficulties: in the first place, who
shall assure us of their actual mission? are we quite certain none of them may
be mistaken? how shall we be justified in giving credence to their powers? are
they not these priests themselves, who announce to us that they are the
infallible interpreters of a being whom they acknowledge they do not at all
know? In the second place, which set of these oracular developments are we
to adopt? For to give currency to the whole, would, in point of fact, annihilate
them entirely; seeing that no two of them run in unison with each other. This
granted, the priests, that is to say, men extremely suspicious, but little in
harmony with each other, will be the arbiters of morality; they will decide
(according to their own uncertain knowledge, after their various passions, in
conformity to the different perspectives under which they view these things)
on the whole system of ethics; upon which absolutely rests the repose of the
world — the sterling happiness of each individual. Would this be a desirable
state? .. .
No! Arbitrary, inconclusive, contradictory notions, abstract, unintelligible
speculations, can never be the sterling bases of the ethical science! They must
be evident, demonstrable principles, deduced from the nature of man,
founded upon his wants, inspired by rational education, rendered familiar by
habit, made sacred by wholesome laws, that will flash conviction on our mind,
render systems useful to mankind, make virtue dear to us — that will people
nations with honest men — fill up the ranks with faithful subjects — crowd
them with intrepid citizens. Incomprehensible beings can present nothing to
our imagination, save vague ideas, which will never embrace any common
point of union amongst those who shall contemplate them. . . .
It must be concluded from this, that however these systems are viewed, in
whatever manner they are considered, they cannot serve for the basis of
morality, which in its very nature is formed to be invariably the same. Irascible
systems are only useful to those who find an interest in terrifying the igno-
rance of mankind, that they may advantage themselves of his fears — profit by
his expiations. The nobles of the earth, who are frequently men not gifted
with the most exemplary morals — who do not on all occasions exhibit the
 System of Nature 439
most perfect specimens of self-denial — who would not, perhaps, be at all
times held up as mirrors of virtue, will not see these formidable systems, when
they shall be inclined to listen to their passions; to lend themselves to the
indulgence of their unruly desires: they will, however, feel no repugnance to
make use of them to frighten others, to the end that they may preserve
unimpaired their superiority; that they may keep entire their prerogatives;
that they may more effectually bind them to servitude. Like the rest of man-
kind, they will see their God under the traits of his benevolence; they will
always believe him indulgent to those outrages they may commit against their
fellows, provided they shew due respect for him themselves; superstition will
furnish them with easy means to turn aside his wrath; its ministers seldom
omit a profitable opportunity, to expiate the crimes of human nature.
Morality is not made to follow the caprices of the imagination, the fury of
the passions, the fluctuating interests of men: it ought to possess stability; to
be at all times the same, for all the individuals of the human race; it ought
neither to vary in one country, nor in one age from another: neither supersti-
tion, nor religion, has a privilege to make its immutability subservient to the
changeable laws of their systems. There is but one method to give ethics this
solidity; it has been more than once pointed out in the course of this work; it is
only to be founded upon the nature of man, bottomed upon his duties, rested
upon the relations subsisting between intelligent beings, who are in love with
their happiness, who are occupied with their own preservation, who live
together in society that they may with greater facility ascertain these ends. In
short, we must take for the basis of morality the necessity of things.
In weighing these principles, which are self-evident, confirmed by constant
experience, approved by reason, drawn from nature herself, we shall have an
undeviating tone of conduct; a sure system of morality, that will never be in
contradiction with itself. Man will have no occasion to recur to theological
speculations to regulate his conduct in the visible world. We shall then be
capacitated to reply to those who pretend that without them there can be no
morality. If we reflect upon the long tissue of errors, upon the immense chain
of wanderings, that flow from the obscure notions these various systems hold
forth — of the sinister ideas which superstition in all countries inculcates; it
would be much more conformable to truth to say, that all sound ethics, all
morality, either useful to individuals or beneficial to society, is totally incom-
patible with systems which never represent their gods but under the form of
absolute monarchs, whose good qualities are continually eclipsed by danger-
ous caprices. Consequently, we shall be obliged to acknowledge, that to estab-
lish morality upon a steady foundation, we must necessarily commence by at
least quitting those chimerical systems upon which the ruinous edifice of
supernatural morality has hitherto been constructed, which during such a
number of ages, has been so uselessly preached up to a great portion of the
inhabitants of the earth.
Whatever may have been the cause that placed man in his present abode,
that gave him the faculties he possesses; whether the human species be consid-
440 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
ered as the work of nature, or whether it be supposed that he owes his
existence to an intelligent being, distinguished from nature; the existence of
man, such as he is, is a fact; we behold in him a being who thinks, who feels,
who has intelligence, who loves himself, who tends to his own conservation,
who in every moment of his duration strives to render his existence agreeable;
who, the more easily to satisfy his wants and to procure himself pleasure,
congregates in society with beings similar to himself; of whom his conduct can
either conciliate the favour, or draw upon him the disaffection. it is, then,
upon these general sentiments, inherent in his nature, which will subsist as
long as his race shall endure, that we ought to found morality; which is only a
science embracing the duties of men living together in society.
These duties have their spring in our nature, they are founded upon our
necessities, because we cannot reach the goal of happiness, if we do not
employ the requisite means: these means constitute the moral science. To be
permanently felicitous, we must so comport ourselves as to merit the affec-
tion, so act as to secure the assistance of those beings with whom we are
associated; these will only accord us their love, lend us their esteem, aid us in
our projects, labour to our peculiar happiness, but in proportion as our own
exertions shall be employed for their advantage. It is this necessity. flowing
naturally out of the relations of mankind, that is called MORAL OBLIGATION. It is
founded upon reflection, rested upon those motives competent to determine
sensible, intelligent beings to pursue that line of conduct which is best calcu-
lated to achieve that happiness towards which they are continually verging.
These motives in the human species, never can be other than the desire,
always regenerating, of procuring good and avoiding evil. Pleasure and pain,
the hope of happiness, or the fear of misery, are the only motives suitable to
have an efficacious influence on the volition of sensible beings. To impel them
towards this end, it is sufficient these motives exist and be understood; to have
a knowledge of them, it is only requisite to consider our own constitution:
according to this, we shall find we can only love those actions, approve that
conduct, from whence result actual and reciprocal utility; this constitutes
VIRTUE. In consequence, to conserve ourselves, to make our own happiness,
to enjoy security, we are compelled to follow the routine which conducts to
this end; to interest others in our own preservation, we are obliged to display
an interest in theirs; we must do nothing that can have a tendency to interrupt
that mutual co-operation which alone can lead to the felicity desired. Such is
the true establishment of moral obligation.
Whenever it is attempted to give any other basis to morality than the nature
of man, we shall always deceive ourselves. . . .
The morality of nature is clear, it is evident even to those who outrage it. It is
not thus with superstitious morality; this is as obscure as the systems which
prescribe it; or rather as fluctuating as the passions, as changeable as the
temperaments, of those who expound them; if it was left to the theologians,
ethics ought to be considered as the science of all others the most problemati-
cal, the most unsteady, the most difficult to bring to a point; it would require the
 System of Nature 441
most profound, penetrating genius, the most active, vigorous mind, to discover
the principles of those duties man owes to himself, that he ought to exercise
towards others; this would render the sources of the moral system attainable by
a very small number of individuals; would effectually lock them up in the
cabinets of the metaphysicians; place them under the treacherous guardianship
of priests: to derive it from those systems, which are in themselves undefinable,
with the foundations of which no one is actually acquainted, which each contem-
plates after his own mode, modifies after his own peculiar ideas, is at once to
submit it to the caprice of every individual; it is completely to acknowledge, we
know not from whence it is derived, nor whence it has its principles. Whatever
may be the agent upon whom they make nature, or the beings she contains, to
depend; with whatever power they may suppose him invested, it is very certain
that man either does, or does not exist; but as soon as his existence is acknowl-
edged, as soon as it is admitted to be what it actually is, when he shall be allowed
to be a sensible being living in society. in love with his own felicity, they cannot
without either annihilating him, or new modelling him, cause him to exist
otherwise than he does. Therefore, according to his actual essence, agreeable
to his absolute qualities, conformable to these modifications which constitute
him a being of the human species, morality becomes necessary to him, and the
desire of conserving himself will make him prefer virtue to vice, by the same
necessity that he prefers pleasure to pain. If, following up the doctrine of the
theologians. "that man hath occasion for supernatural grace to enable him to do
good," it must be very injurious to sound principles of morality; because he will
always wait for "the call from above," to exercise that virtue, which is indispens-
able to his welfare. . . .
Every thing that has been advanced evidently proves, that superstitious
morality is an infinite loser when compared with the morality of nature, with
which, indeed, it is found in perpetual contradiction. Nature invites man to
love himself, to preserve his existence, to incessantly augment the sum of his
happiness: superstition teaches him to be in love only with formidable doc-
trines, calculated to generate his dislike; to detest himself; to sacrifice to his
idols his most pleasing sensations — the most legitimate pleasures of his heart.
Nature counsels man to consult reason, to adopt it for his guide: superstition
portrays this reason as corrupted, as a treacherous director, that will infallibly
lead him astray. Nature warns him to enlighten his understanding, to search
after truth, to inform himself of his duties; superstition enjoins him not to
examine any thing, to remain in ignorance, to fear truth; it persuades him
there are no relations so important to his interest, as those which subsist
between himself and systems which he can never understand. Nature tells the
being who is in love with his welfare, to moderate his passions. to resist them
when they are found destructive to himself, to counteract them by substantive
motives collected from experience; superstition desires a sensible being to
have no passions, to he an insensible mass, or else to combat his propensities
by motives borrowed from the imagination, which arc as variable as itself.
Nature exhorts man to be sociable, to love his fellow creatures, to be just,
442 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
peaceable, indulgent, benevolent, to permit his associates to freely enjoy their
opinions; superstition admonishes him to fly society, to detach himself from
his fellow mortals, to hate them when their imagination does not procure
them dreams conformable to his own; to break through the most sacred
bonds, to maintain his own opinions, or to frustrate those of his neighbour; to
torment, to persecute, to massacre, those who will not be mad after his own
peculiar manner. Nature exacts that man in society should cherish glory,
labour to render himself estimable, endeavour to establish an imperishable
name, to be active, courageous, industrious; superstition tells him to be ab-
ject, pusillanimous, to live in obscurity, to occupy himself with ceremonies; it
says to him, be useless to thyself, and do nothing for others. Nature proposes
to the citizen, for his model, men endued with honest, noble, energetic souls,
who have usefully served their fellow citizens; superstition recommends to his
imitation mean, cringing sycophants; extols pious enthusiasts, frantic peni-
tents, zealous fanatics, who for the most ridiculous opinions have disturbed
the tranquility of empires. . . .
Superstition corrupts princes; these corrupt the law, which, like themselves,
becomes unjust; from thence institutions are perverted; education only forms
men who are worthless, blinded with prejudice, smitten with vain objects,
enamoured of wealth, devoted to pleasures, which they must obtain by iniqui-
tous means: thus nature, mistaken, is disdained; virtue is only a shadow
quickly sacrificed to the slightest interest, while superstition, far from remedy-
ing these evils to which it has given birth, does nothing more than render them
still more inveterate; or else engenders sterile regrets which it presently ef-
faces: thus, by its operation, man is obliged to yield to the force of habit, to
the general example, to the stream of those propensities, to those causes of
confusion, which conspire to hurry all his species, who are not willing to
renounce their own welfare, on to the commission of crime.
Here is the mode by which superstition, united with politics, exert their
efforts to pervert, abuse, and poison the heart of man; the generality of
human institutions appear to have only for their object to abase the human
character, to render it more flagitiously wicked. Do not then let us be at all
astonished if morality is almost every where a barren speculation, from which
every one is obliged to deviate in practice, if he will not risk the rendering
himself unhappy. Man can only have sound morals, when, renouncing his
prejudices, he consults his nature; but the continued impulse which his soul is
every moment receiving, on the part of more powerful motives, quickly com-
pels him to forget those ethical rules which nature points out to him. He is
continually floating between vice and virtue; we behold him unceasingly in
contradiction with himself; if, sometimes, he justly appreciates the value of an
honest, upright conduct, experience very soon shews him, that this cannot
lead him to any thing which he has been taught to desire; on the contrary, that
it may be an invincible obstacle to the happiness which his heart never ceases
for an instant to search after. In corrupt societies it is necessary to become
corrupt, in order to become happy.
 System of Nature 443
Citizens, led astray at the same time both by their spiritual and temporal
guides, neither knew reason nor virtue. The slaves both of their superstitious
systems, and of men like themselves, they had all the vices attached to a
slavery; kept in a perpetual state of infancy, they had neither knowledge nor
principles; those who preached virtue to them, knew nothing of it themselves,
and could not undeceive them with respect to those baubles in which they had
learned to make their happiness consist. In vain they cried out to them to stifle
those passions which every thing conspired to unloose: in vain they made the
thunder of the gods roll to intimidate men whose tumultuous passions ren-
dered them deaf. It was soon discovered that the gods of the heavens were
much less feared than those of the earth; that the favour of the latter procured
a much more substantive welfare than the promises of the former; that the
riches of this world were more tangible than the treasures reserved for favor-
ites in the next; that it was much more advantageous for men to conform
themselves to the views of visible powers than to those of powers who were
not within the compass of their visual faculties.
Thus society, corrupted by its priests, guided by their caprice, could only
bring forth a corrupt offspring. It gave birth to avaricious, ambitious, jealous,
dissolute citizens, who never saw any thing happy but crime; who beheld
meanness rewarded; incapacity honoured; wealth adored; debauchery held in
esteem; who almost every where found talents discouraged; virtue neglected;
truth proscribed; elevation of soul crushed; justice trodden under foot; mod-
eration languishing in misery; liberality of mind obligated to groan under the
ponderous bulk of haughty injustice. . . .
If the nature of man was consulted in his politics, which supernatural ideas
have so woefully depraved, it would completely rectify those false notions that
are entertained equally by sovereigns and by subjects; it would contribute
more amply than all the superstitions existing, to render society happy, power-
ful, and flourishing under rational authority. Nature would teach man, it is for
the purpose of enjoying a greater portion of happiness, that mortals live
together in society; that it is its own preservation, its own immediate felicity,
that society should have for its determinate, unchangeable object: that with-
out equity, a nation only resembles a congregation of enemies; that his most
cruel foe, is the man who deceives him in order that he may enslave him; that
the scourges most to be feared, are those priests who corrupt his chiefs, who,
in the name of the gods assure them of impunity for their crimes: she would
prove to him that association is a misfortune under unjust, negligent, destruc-
tive governments. . . .
It is, then, I repeat it, only by re-conducting man to nature, that we can
procure him distinct notions, evident opinions, certain knowledge; it is only
by shewing him his true relations with his fellows, that we can place him on
the road to happiness. The human mind, blinded by theology, has scarcely
advanced a single step. Man's superstitious systems have rendered him
sceptical on the most demonstrable truths. Superstition, while it pervaded
every thing, while it had an universal influence, served to corrupt the whole:
444 Paul Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach
philosophy, dragged in its train, although it swelled its triumphant procession,
was no longer any thing but an imaginary science: it quitted the real world to
plunge into the sinuosities of the ideal, inconceivable labyrinths of metaphys-
ics; it neglected nature, who spontaneously opened her book to its examina-
tion, to occupy itself with systems filled with spirits, with invisible powers,
which only served to render all questions more obscure; which, the more they
were probed, the more inexplicable they became: which took delight in pro-
mulgating that which no one was competent to understand. In all difficulties it
introduced the Divinity; from thence things only became more and more
perplexed, until nothing could be explained. Theological notions appear only
to have been invented to put man's reason to flight; to confound his judg-
ment; to deceive his mind; to overturn his clearest ideas in every science. In
the hands of the theologian, logic, or the art of reasoning, was nothing more
than an unintelligible jargon, calculated to support sophism, to countenance
falsehood, to attempt to prove the most palpable contradictions. Morality, as
we have seen, became wavering and uncertain, because it was founded on
ideal systems, never in harmony with themselves, which, on the contrary,
were continually contradicting their own most positive assertions. Politics, as
we have elsewhere said, were cruelly perverted by the fallacious ideas given to
sovereigns of their actual rights. Jurisprudence was determinately submitted
to the caprices of superstition, which shackled labour, chained down human
industry, controlled activity, and fettered the commerce of nations. Every
thing, in short, was sacrificed to the immediate interests of these theologians:
in the place of every rational science, they taught nothing but an obscure,
quarrelsome metaphysics, which but too often caused the blood of those
unhappy people to flow copiously who were incapable of understanding its
hallucinations. . . .
Let us then conclude, that theology with its notions, far from being useful to
the human species, is the true source of all those sorrows which afflict the
earth; of all those errors by which man is blinded; of those prejudices which
benumb mankind; of that ignorance which renders him credulous; of those
vices which torment him; of those governments which oppress him. Let us be
fully persuaded that those theological, supernatural ideas, with which man is
inspired from his infancy, are the actual causes of his habitual folly; are the
springs of his superstitious quarrels; of his sacred dissensions; of his inhuman
persecutions. Let us, at length, acknowledge, that they are these fatal ideas
which have obscured morality; corrupted politics; retarded the progress of the
sciences; annihilated happiness; banished peace from the bosom of mankind.
Then let it be no longer dissimulated, that all those calamities, for which man
turns his eyes towards heaven, bathed in tears, have their spring in the imagi-
nary systems he has adopted; let him, therefore, cease to expect relief from
them; let him seek in nature, let him search in his own energies, those re-
sources, which superstition, deaf to his cries, will never procure for him. Let
him consult the legitimate desires of his heart, and he will find that which he
oweth to himself, also that which he oweth to others; let him examine his own
 Further Reading 445

essence, let him dive into the aim of society, from thence he will no longer be a
slave; let him consult experience, he will find truth, and he will discover, that
error can never possibly render him happy.

Editor's Note
I. That is. his body.

Further Reading
There are no recent editions or translations of Holbach's works, and the secondary
literature on him is scanty. Virgil W. Topazio, D'Holbach's Moral Philosophy (Ge-
neva: Institut et Musee Voltaire. 1956), summarizes English and French writers who
influenced Holbach and reviews his antireligious and moral thought. The two volumes
by Lester Crocker. An Age of Crisis: Man and World in Eighteenth Century French
Thought (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1959) and Nature and Culture:
Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 1963). contain discussions of Holbach's views on metaphysical and moral issues.
Ira 0. Wade, The Structure and Form of the French Enlightenment (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1977), also examines Holbach; see especially vol. 2. pp.
298-320. A. C. Kors, D'Holbach's Coterie (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press, 1976). provides a good study of Holbach's group of friends and their regular
discussions.
 William Paley

Introduction
William Paley was not a very original thinker. The philosophical part of his treatise on
ethics is an assemblage of ideas developed by others and is presented to be learned by
students rather than to be debated by colleagues. But this lack of originality did not
stand in the way of Paley's success. His Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy
(1785) was a required text at Cambridge University until the 1830s and was widely
taught elsewhere in Britain and in the United States. Most of the book is taken up by
detailed discussion of our duties to God, ourselves, and others. The opening part gives
the fullest account available of the position generally known as theological utilitarian-
ism, and as such it is still worthy of study.
Paley was born in 1743 and died in 1805. He studied at Cambridge, graduating in
1763 with great distinction. He taught at a small school near London until he was called
back to Cambridge, where for some years he gave instruction in moral philosophy,
divinity, and the Greek testament. Through personal connections Paley obtained vari-
ous positions in the Church of England, the highest of which was that of archdeacon of
Carlisle. His Moral and Political Philosophy was based on lectures he had given at
Cambridge, and his later works were defenses of Christianity. The View of the Evi-
dences of Christianity (1794) defended the credibility of miracles. The Natural Theol-
ogy (1802) is an elaborate restatement of the argument from design, the claim that
empirically observable features of the world in which we live show so many marks of
having been designed for a purpose that we cannot resist the conclusion that the
universe must have been created by a superior intelligence. Hume had written a
devastating attack on all such arguments many years before Paley published, but Paley
did not try to reply to it. His theological books, however, were popular with the clergy,
were widely read and taught, and brought him further profitable positions in the
church.
It is worth noting that Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy was published before
Bentham's Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Indeed, Paley's
success is said to have finally stirred Bentham to publish his book, which had been
written some years earlier. For decades, moreover, Bentham's work went unnoticed
and Paley was accepted as the orthodox representative of utilitarianism.
The Moral and Political Philosophy opens with the declaration that "Moral Philoso-
phy, Morality, Ethics, Casuistry, Natural Law, all mean the same thing; namely, that
science which teaches men their duty and the reasons of it." As this suggests, and as
the reader will see, Paley was not much interested in the subtleties of the science. But
he did make some noteworthy points. His attack on all possible positions other than

446
 Moral and Political Philosophy 447

utilitarianism is similar in outline to a kind of criticism that Bentham worked out more
fully and that is still used by contemporary utilitarians, and Paley paid considerable
attention to the importance of rules in a utilitarian ethic — a matter concerning which
he seems to have had more sophisticated views than Bentham did.
Paley based his moral principle on theological considerations that Bentham did not
use. And there are differences in addition to this one in the versions of utilitarianism
that the two developed. Most notably, Paley did not share Bentham's total rejection of
the language of rights. Rather, he simply adopted the natural law vocabulary, attribut-
ing a wide variety of rights to humankind but making no attempt to show that this
attribution was directed by his utilitarian principle.
Paley's acceptance of rights did not lead him to political and social views that were
consistently reformist. He was strongly opposed to the slave trade and argued — before
it was fashionable to do so — that it should be abolished. Paley also produced a once-
notorious image of property that sounds as if it should have caused him to be quite
radical in his thoughts on ownership. In the chapter entitled "Of Property," which
opens Book HI of his Moral and Political Philosophy, he wrote:
If you should see a flock of pigeons in a field of corn; and if (instead of each picking where and
what it liked . . . ) you should see ninety-nine of them gathering all they got into a heap, reserving
nothing for themselves but the chaff and refuse; keeping this heap for one, and that the weakest,
perhaps the worst, pigeon of the flock; sitting round, and looking on, all the winter, whilst this
one was devouring, throwing about, and wasting it; and if a pigeon more hardy or hungry than the
rest, touched a grain of the hoard, all the others flying upon it, and tearing it to pieces; if you
should see this, you would see nothing more than is every day practised and established among
men.

Nonetheless, Paley drew no radical conclusions. He gave utilitarian reasons for holding
that the distribution of property must simply accord with the positive laws of each
country, and he wrote a pamphlet during the French Revolution entitled "Reasons for
Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public," urging British
working-class pigeons not to emulate their French counterparts. The reader may wish
to ask what, if anything, this shows about the usefulness of the principle of utility for
morals and politics.
The following selections are from the Moral and Political Philosophy.

Moral and Political Philosophy

BOOK I: PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

Chapter V: The Moral Sense

Upon the whole, it seems to me, either that there exist no such instincts as
compose what is called the moral sense, or that they are not now to be
distinguished from prejudices and habits; on which account they cannot be
depended upon in moral reasoning: I mean that it is not a safe way of arguing,
to assume certain principles as so many dictates, impulses, and instincts of
nature, and then to draw conclusions from these principles, as to the rectitude
or wrongness of actions, independent of the tendency of such actions, or of
any other consideration whatever.
448 William Paley
Aristotle lays down, as a fundamental and self-evident maxim, that nature
intended barbarians to be slaves;' and proceeds to deduce from this maxim a
train of conclusions, calculated to justify the policy which then prevailed. And
I question whether the same maxim be not still self-evident to the company of
merchants trading to the coast of Africa.
Nothing is so soon made as a maxim; and it appears from the example of
Aristotle, that authority and convenience, education, prejudice, and general
practice, have no small share in the making of them; and that the laws of
custom are very apt to be mistaken for the order of nature.
For which reason, I suspect, that a system of morality, built upon instincts,
will only find out reasons and excuses for opinions and practices already
established, — will seldom correct or reform either.
But further, suppose we admit the existence of these instincts; what, it may
be asked, is their authority? No man, you say, can act in deliberate opposition
to them, without a secret remorse of conscience. But this remorse may be
borne with: and if the sinner chuse to bear with it, for the sake of the pleasure
or the profit which he expects from his wickedness; or finds the pleasure of the
sin to exceed the remorse of conscience, of which he alone is the judge, and
concerning which, when he feels them both together, he can hardly be mis-
taken, the moral-instinct man, so far as I can understand, has nothing more to
offer.
For if he allege that these instincts are so many indications of the will of
God, and consequently presages of what we are to look for hereafter; this, I
answer, is to resort to a rule and a motive ulterior to the instincts themselves,
and at which rule and motive we shall by-and-by arrive by a surer road: — I say
surer, so long as there remains a controversy whether there be any instinctive
maxims at all; or any difficulty in ascertaining what maxims are instinctive.
The celebrated question therefore becomes in our system a question of pure
curiosity; and as such, we dismiss it to the determination of those who are
more inquisitive, than we are concerned to be, about the natural history and
constitution of the human species.

Chapter VII: Virtue

Virtue is "the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for
the sake of everlasting happiness."
According to which definition, "the good of mankind" is the subject; the
"will of God," the rule; and "everlasting happiness," the motive, of human
virtue.
Virtue has been divided by some moralists into benevolence, prudence,
fortitude, and temperance. Benevolence proposes good ends; prudence sug-
gests the best means of attaining them; fortitude enables us to encounter the
difficulties, danger, and discouragements, which stand in our way in the pur-
suit of these ends; temperance repels and overcomes the passions that obstruct
it. Benevolence, for instance, prompts us to undertake the cause of an op-
 Moral and Political Philosophy 449
pressed orphan; prudence suggests the best means of going about it; fortitude
enables us to confront the danger, and bear up against the loss, disgrace, or
repulse, that may attend our undertaking; and temperance keeps under the
love of money, of ease, or amusement, which might divert us from it.
Virtue is distinguished by others into two branches only, prudence and
benevolence: prudence, attentive to our own interest; benevolence, to that of
our fellow-creatures: both directed to the same end, the increase of happiness
in nature; and taking equal concern in the future as in the present.
The four CARDINAL virtues are, prudence, fortitude, temperance, and justice.
But the division of virtue, to which we are in modern times most accus-
tomed, is into duties: —
Towards God; as piety, reverence, resignation, gratitude, &c.
Towards other men (or relative duties); as justice, charity, fidelity, loyalty,
&c.
Towards ourselves; as chastity, sobriety, temperance, preservation of life,
care of health, &c.
More of these distinctions have been proposed, which it is not worth while
to set down.

BOOK II: MORAL OBLIGATION

Chapter 1: The Question, "Why Am I Obliged to Keep My Word?"

Considered
Why am I obliged to keep my word?
Because it is right, says one. — Because it is agreeable to the fitness of
things, says another. — Because it is conformable to reason and nature, says a
third. — Because it is conformable to truth, says a fourth. — Because it pro-
motes the public good, says a fifth. — Because it is required by the will of God,
concludes a sixth.
Upon which different accounts, two things are observable: —
First, that they all ultimately coincide.
The fitness of things means their fitness to produce happiness; the nature of
things means that actual constitution of the world, by which some things, as
such and such actions, for example, produce happiness, and others misery.
Reason is the principle, by which we discover or judge of this constitution:
truth is this judgment expressed or drawn out into propositions. So that it
necessarily comes to pass, that what promotes the public happiness, or happi-
ness on the whole, is agreeable to the fitness of things, to nature, to reason,
and to truth: and such (as will appear by and by) is the divine character, that
what promotes the general happiness is required by the will of God, and what
has all the above properties must needs be right; for right means no more than
conformity to the rule we go by, whatever that rule be.
And this is the reason that moralists, from whatever different principles
they set out, commonly meet in their conclusions; that is, they enjoin the
450 William Paley
same conduct, prescribe the same rules of duty, and, with a few exceptions,
deliver upon dubious cases the same determinations.
Secondly, it is to be observed, that these answers all leave the matter short;
for the inquirer may turn round upon his teacher with a second question, in
which he will expect to be satisfied, namely, Why am I obliged to do what is
right; to act agreeably to the fitness of things; to conform to reason, nature, or
truth; to promote the public good, or to obey the will of God?
The proper method of conducting the inquiry is, First, to examine what we
mean, when we say a man is obliged to do anything; and then to show why he
is obliged to do the thing which we have proposed as an example, namely, "to
keep his word."

Chapter II: What We Mean When We Say a Man Is "Obliged" to

Do a Thing
A man is said to be obliged, "when he is urged by a violent motive resulting
from the command of another."
I. "The motive must be violent." If a person, who has done me some little
service, or has a small place in his disposal, ask me upon some occasion for my
vote, I may possibly give it to him, from a motive of gratitude or expectation:
but I should hardly say that I was obliged to give it him; because the induce-
ment does not rise high enough. Whereas if a father or a master, any great
benefactor, or one on whom my fortune depends, require my vote, I give it
him of course: and my answer to all who ask me why I voted so and so is, that
my father or my master obliged me; that I had received so many favours from,
or had so great a dependence upon, such a one, that I was obliged to vote as
he directed me.
Secondly, "It must result from the command of another." Offer a man a
gratuity for doing anything, for seizing, for example, an offender, he is not
obliged by your offer to do it; nor would he say he is; though he may be
induced, persuaded, prevailed upon, tempted. If a magistrate or the man's
immediate superior command it, he considers himself as obliged to comply,
though possibly he would lose less by a refusal in this case than in the
former.
will not undertake to say that the words obligation and obliged are used
uniformly in this sense, or always with this distinction: nor is it possible to tie
down popular phrases to any constant signification: but wherever the motive
is violent enough, and coupled with the idea of command, authority, law, or
the will of a superior, there, 1 take it, we always reckon ourselves to be
obliged.
And from this account of obligation it follows, that we can be obliged to
nothing, but what we ourselves are to gain or lose something by; for nothing
else can be a "violent motive" to us. As we should not be obliged to obey the
laws, or the magistrate, unless rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain,
somehow or other, depended upon our obedience; so neither should we,
 Moral and Political Philosophy 451
without the same reason, be obliged to do what is right, to practise virtue, or
to obey the commands of God.

Chapter III: The Question, "Why Am I Obliged to Keep My Word?"

Resumed
Let it be remembered, that to be obliged, is "to be urged by a violent motive,
resulting from the command of another."
And then let it be asked, Why am I obliged to keep my word? and the
answer will be, "because I am urged to do so by a violent motive" (namely the
expectation of being after this life rewarded, if I do, or punished for it if I do
not), "resulting from the command of another" (namely of God).
This solution goes to the bottom of the subject, as no further question can
reasonably be asked.
Therefore, private happiness is our motive, and the will of God our rule.
When I first turned my thoughts to moral speculations, an air of mystery
seemed to hang over the whole subject; which arose, I believe, from hence, —
that I supposed, with many authors whom I read, that to be obliged to do a
thing, was very different from being induced only to do it; and that the
obligation to practise virtue, to do what is right, just, &c., was quite another
thing, and of another kind, than the obligation which a soldier is under to
obey his officer, a servant his master; or any of the civil and ordinary obliga-
tions of human life. Whereas, from what has been said it appears, that moral
obligation is like all other obligations; and that obligation is nothing more
than an inducement of sufficient strength, and resulting, in some way, from the
command of another.
There is always understood to be a difference between an act of prudence
and an act of duty. Thus, if I distrust a man who owed me a sum of money, I
should reckon it an act of prudence to get another person bound with him; but
I should hardly call it an act of duty. On the other hand, it would be thought a
very unusual and loose kind of language to say, that, as I had made such a
promise, it was prudent to perform it; or that, as my friend, when he went
abroad, placed a box of jewels in my hands, it would be prudent in me to
preserve it for him till he returned.
Now in what, you will ask, does the difference consist? inasmuch as, accord-
ing to our account of the matter, both in the one case and the other, — in acts
of duty as well as acts of prudence, — we consider solely what we ourselves
shall gain or lose by the act.
The difference, and the only difference, is this; that in the one case, we
consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world: in the other case, we
consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come.
They who establish a system of morality, independent of a future state,
must look out for some different idea of moral obligation, unless they can
show that virtue conducts the possessor to certain happiness in this life, or to a
much greater share of it than he could attain by a different behaviour.
452 William Paley
To us there are two great questions:
I. Will there be after this life any distribution of rewards and punishments at
all?
II. If there be, what actions will be rewarded, and what will be punished?
The first question comprises the credibility of the Christian religion, to-
gether with the presumptive proofs of a future retribution from the light of
nature. The second question comprises the province of morality. Both ques-
tions are too much for one work. The affirmative therefore of the first, al-
though we confess that it is the foundation upon which the whole fabric rests,
must in this treatise be taken for granted.

Chapter IV: The Will of God

As the will of God is our rule; to inquire what is our duty, or what we are
obliged to do, in any instance, is, in effect, to inquire what is the will of
God in that instance? which consequently becomes the whole business of
morality.
Now there are two methods of coming at the will of God on any point:
I. By his express declarations, when they are to be had, and which must be
sought for in Scripture.
II. By what we can discover of his designs and disposition from his works;
or, as we usually call it, the light of nature.

And here we may observe the absurdity of separating natural and revealed
religion from each other. The object of both is the same, — to discover the will
of God, — and, provided we do but discover it, it matters nothing by what
means.
An ambassador, judging by what he knows of his sovereign's disposition,
and arguing from what he has observed of his conduct, or is acquainted with
of his designs, may take his measures in many cases with safety, and presume
with great probability how his master would have him act on most occasions
that arise: but if he have his commission and instructions in his pocket, it
would be strange not to look into them. He will be directed by both rules:
when his instructions are clear and positive, there is an end to all further
deliberation (unless indeed he suspect their authenticity); where his instruc-
tions are silent or dubious, he will endeavour to supply or explain them, by
what he has been able to collect from other quarters, of his master's general
inclination or intentions.
Mr. Hume, in his fourth Appendix to his Principles of Morals,'- has been
pleased to complain of the modern scheme of uniting Ethics with the christian
Theology. They who find themselves disposed to join in this complaint, will do
well to observe what Mr. Hume himself has been able to make of morality
without this union. And for that purpose, let them read the second part of the
ninth section of the above essay; which part contains the practical application
of the whole treatise, — a treatise which Mr. Hume declares to be "incompara-
 Moral and Political Philosophy 453
bly the best he ever wrote." When they have read it over, let them consider,
whether any motives there proposed are likely to be found sufficient to with-
hold men from the gratification of lust, revenge, envy, ambition, avarice; or to
prevent the existence of these passions. Unless they rise up from this cele-
brated essay with stronger impressions upon their minds than it ever left upon
mine, they will acknowledge the necessity of additional sanctions. But the
necessity of these sanctions is not now the question. If they be in fact estab-
lished, if the rewards and punishments held forth in the Gospel will actually
come to pass, they must be considered. Such as reject the christian Religion,
are to make the best shift they can to build up a system, and lay the foundation
of morality, without it. But it appears to me a great inconsistency in those who
receive Christianity, and expect something to come out of it, to endeavour to
keep all such expectations out of sight in their reasonings concerning human
duty.
The method of coming at the will of God concerning any action, by the light
of nature, is to inquire into "the tendency of the action to promote or diminish
the general happiness." This rule proceeds upon the presumption, that God
Almighty wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures; and, consequently,
that those actions, which promote that will and wish, must be agreeable to
him; and the contrary.
As this presumption is the foundation of our whole system, it becomes
necessary to explain the reasons upon which it rests.

Chapter V: The Divine Benevolence

When God created the human species, either He wished their happiness, or
He wished their misery, or He was indifferent and unconcerned about both.
If He had wished our misery, He might have made sure of his purpose, by
forming our senses to be so many sores and pains to us, as they are now
instruments of gratification and enjoyment; or by placing us amidst objects so
ill-suited to our perceptions, as to have continually offended us, instead of
ministering to our refreshment and delight. He might have made, for exam-
ple, everything we tasted, bitter; everything we saw, loathsome; everything
we touched, a sting; every smell, a stench; and every sound, a discord.
If He had been indifferent about our happiness or misery, we must impute
to our good fortune (as all design by this supposition is excluded) both the
capacity of our senses to receive pleasure, and the supply of external objects
fitted to produce it. But either of these (and still more both of them) being too
much to be attributed to accident, nothing remains but the first supposition,
that God, when He created the human species, wished their happiness; and
made for them the provision which He has made, with that view, and for that
purpose.
The same argument may be proposed in different terms, thus: Contrivance
proves design; and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the
disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances: and all the
454 William Paley
contrivances which we are acquainted with, are directed to beneficial pur-
poses. Evil, no doubt, exists; but is never, that we can perceive, the object of
contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache; their aching now and
then, is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it: or even, if
you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it.
This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing
implements of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle, that it is made to
cut the reaper's fingers, though from the construction of the instrument, and
the manner of using it, this mischief often happens. But if you had occasion to
describe instruments of torture or execution, this engine, you would say, is to
extend the sinews; this to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to
scorch the soles of the feet. Here, pain and misery are the very objects of the
contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature.
We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No
anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain
and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said, this is to
irritate; this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this
gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout: if by chance he come at a
part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say is, that it is useless: no
one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment.
Since then God hath called forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and
provide for our happiness, and the world appears to have been constituted
with this design at first; so long as this constitution is upholden by Him, we
must in reason suppose the same design to continue.
The contemplation of universal nature rather bewilders the mind than af-
fects it. There is always a bright spot in the prospect, upon which the eye rests;
a single example, perhaps, by which each man finds himself more convinced
than by all others put together. I seem, for my own part, to see the benevo-
lence of the Deity more clearly in the pleasures of very young children, than in
anything in the world. The pleasures of grown persons may be reckoned partly
of their own procuring; especially if there has been any industry, or contriv-
ance, or pursuit, to come at them; or if they are founded, like music, painting,
&c. upon any qualification of their own acquiring. But the pleasures of a
healthy infant are so manifestly provided for it by another, and the benevo-
lence of the provision is so unquestionable, that every child I see at its sport,
affords to my mind a kind of sensible evidence of the finger of God, and of the
disposition which directs it.
But the example, which strikes each man most strongly, is the true example
for him: and hardly two minds hit upon the same; which shows the abundance
of such examples about us.
We conclude, therefore, that God wills and wishes the happiness of his
creatures. And this conclusion being once established, we are at liberty to go
on with the rule built upon it, namely, "that the method of coming at the will
of God, concerning any action by the light of nature, is to inquire into the
tendency of that action to promote or diminish the general happiness."
 Moral and Political Philosophy 455

Chapter VI: Utility

So then actions are to be estimated by their tendency.* Whatever is expedient,
is right. It is the utility of any moral rule alone, which constitutes the obliga-
tion of it.
But to all this there seems a plain objection, viz. that many actions are
useful, which no man in his senses will allow to be right. There are occasions,
in which the hand of the assassin would be very useful. The present possessor
of some great estate employs his influence and fortune, to annoy, corrupt, or
oppress, all about him. His estate would devolve, by his death, to a successor
of an opposite character. It is useful, therefore, to dispatch such a one as soon
as possible out of the way; as the neighbourhood will exchange thereby a
pernicious tyrant for a wise and generous benefactor. It might be useful to rob
a miser, and give the money to the poor: as the money, no doubt, would
produce more happiness, by being laid out in food and clothing for half a
dozen distressed families, than by continuing locked up in a miser's chest. It
may be useful to get possession of a place, a piece of preferment, or of a seat
in parliament, by bribery or false swearing: as by means of them we may serve
the public more effectually than in our private station. What then shall we
say? Must we admit these actions to be right, which would be to justify
assassination, plunder, and perjury; or must we give up our principle, that the
criterion of right is utility?
It is not necessary to do either.
The true answer is this; that these actions, after all, are not useful, and for
that reason, and that alone, are not right.
To see this point perfectly, it must be observed that the bad consequences of
actions are twofold, particular and general.
The particular bad consequence of an action, is the mischief which that
single action directly and immediately occasions.
The general bad consequence is, the violation of some necessary or useful
general rule.
Thus, the particular bad consequence of the assassination above described,
is the fright and pain which the deceased underwent; the loss he suffered of
life, which is as valuable to a bad man, as to a good one, or more so; the
prejudice and affliction, of which his death was the occasion, to his family,
friends, and dependents.
The general bad consequence is the violation of this necessary general rule,
that no man be put to death for his crimes but by public authority.
Although, therefore, such an action have no particular bad consequences, or
greater particular good consequences, yet it is not useful, by reason of the gen-
* Actions in the abstract are right or wrong, according to their tendency; the agent is virtuous or
vicious, according to his design. Thus, if the question be. Whether relieving common beggars
he right or wrong? we inquire into the tendency of such a conduct to the public advantage or
inconvenience. If the question be. Whether a man remarkable for this sort of bounty is to he
esteemed virtuous for that reason? we inquire into his design, whether his liberality sprang
from charity or from ostentation? It is evident that our concern is with actions in the abstract.
456 William Paley
eral consequence, which is of more importance, and which is evil. And the same
of the other two instances, and of a million more which might be mentioned.
But as this solution supposes, that the moral government of the world must
proceed by general rules, it remains that we show the necessity of this.

Chapter VII: The Necessity of General Rules

You cannot permit one action and forbid another, without showing a differ-
ence between them. Consequently, the same sort of actions must be generally
permitted or generally forbidden. Where, therefore, the general permission
of them would be pernicious, it becomes necessary to lay down and support
the rule which generally forbids them.
Thus, to return once more to the case of the assassin. The assassin knocked
the rich villain on the head, because he thought him better out of the way than
in it. If you allow this excuse in the present instance, you must allow it to all
who act in the same manner, and from the said motive; that is, you must allow
every man to kill any one he meets, whom he thinks noxious or useless;
which, in the event, would be to commit every man's life and safety to the
spleen, fury, and fanaticism, of his neighbour; — a disposition of affairs which
would soon fill the world with misery and confusion; and ere long put an end
to human society, if not to the human species.
The necessity of general rules in human government is apparent: but
whether the same necessity subsist in the divine economy, — in that distribu-
tion of rewards and punishments to which a moralist looks forward, — may be
doubted.
I answer, that general rules are necessary to every moral government: and
by moral government I mean any dispensation, whose object is to influence
the conduct of reasonable creatures.
For if, of two actions perfectly similar, one be punished, and the other be
rewarded or forgiven, which is the consequence of rejecting general rules, the
subjects of such a dispensation would no longer know either what to expect or
how to act. Rewards and punishments would cease to be such, — would be-
come accidents. Like the stroke of a thunderbolt, or the discovery of a mine,
like a blank or a benefit-ticket in a lottery, they would occasion pain or
pleasure when they happened; but, following in no known order, from any
particular course of action, they could have no previous influence or effect
upon the conduct.
An attention to general rules, therefore, is included in the very idea of
reward and punishment. Consequently, whatever reason there is to expect
future reward and punishment at the hand of God, there is the same reason to
believe, that He will proceed in the distribution of it by general rules.

Before we prosecute the consideration of general consequences any further, it

may be proper to anticipate a reflection, which will be apt enough to suggest
itself, in the progress of our argument.
 Moral and Political Philosophy 457

As the general consequence of an action, upon which so much of the guilt of

a bad action depends, consists in the example; it should seem, that if the
action be done with perfect secrecy, so as to furnish no bad example, that part
of the guilt drops off. In the case of suicide, for instance, if a man can so
manage matters, as to take away his own life, without being known or sus-
pected to have done so, he is not chargeable with any mischief from the
example; nor does his punishment seem necessary, in order to save the author-
ity of any general rule.
In the first place, those who reason in this manner do not observe, that they
ire setting up a general rule, of all others the least to be endured; namely, that
ecrecy, whenever secrecy is.practicable, will justify any action.
Were such a rule admitted, for instance, in the case above produced; is
there not reason to fear that people would be disappearing perpetually?
In the next place, I would wish them to be well satisfied about the points
proposed in the following queries:
1. Whether the Scriptures do not teach us to expect that, at the general
judgment of the world, the most secret actions will be brought to light.
2. For what purpose can this be, but to make them the objects of reward
and punishment?
3. Whether, being so brought to light, they will not fall under the operation
of those equal and impartial rules, by which God will deal with his creatures?
They will then become examples, whatever they be now; and require the
same treatment from the judge and governor of the moral world, as if they
had been detected from the first.

Chapter IX: Of Right

Right and obligation are reciprocal; that is, wherever there is a right in one
person, there is a corresponding obligation upon others. If one man has a
"right" to an estate; others are "obliged" to abstain from it: — If parents have
a "right" to reverence from their children; children are "obliged" to reverence
their parents: — and so in all other instances.
Now, because moral obligation depends, as we have seen, upon the will of
God; right, which is correlative to it, must depend upon the same. Right
therefore signifies, consistency with the will of God.
But if the divine will determine the distinction of right and wrong, what else
is it but an identical proposition to say of God, that He acts right? or how is it
possible to conceive even that He should act wrong? Yet these assertions are
intelligible and significant. The case is this: By virtue of the two principles,
that God wills the happiness of his creatures, and that the will of God is the
measure of right and wrong, we arrive at certain conclusions; which conclu-
sions become rules; and we soon learn to pronounce actions right or wrong,
according as they agree or disagree with our rules, without looking any fur-
ther: and when the habit is once established of stopping at the rules, we can go
back and compare with these rules even the divine conduct itself: and yet it
458 William Paley
may be true (only not observed by us at the time) that the rules themselves are
deduced from the divine will.
Right is a quality of persons or of actions.
Of persons; as when we say, such a one has a "right" to this estate; parents
have a "right" to reverence from their children; the king to allegiance from his
subjects; masters have a "right" to their servants' labour; a man has not a
"right" over his own life.
Of actions; as in such expressions as the following: it is "right" to punish
murder with death; his behaviour on that occasion was "right"; it is not "right"
to send an unfortunate debtor to gaol; he did or acted "right," who gave up his
place rather than vote against his judgment.
In this latter set of expressions, you may substitute the definition of right
above given, for the term itself: e.g. it is "consistent with the will of God" to
punish murder with death; — his behaviour on that occasion was "consistent
with the will of God" — it is not "consistent with the will of God" to send an
unfortunate debtor to gaol; — he did, or acted, "consistently with the will of
God," who gave up his place rather than vote against his judgment.
In the former set, you must vary the construction a little, when you intro-
duce the definition instead of the term. Such a one has a "right" to this estate,
that is, it is "consistent with the will of God" that such a one should have it; —
parents have a "right" to reverence from their children, that is, it is "consis-
tent with the will of God" that children should reverence their parents; — and
the same of the rest.

Editor's Notes
1. In the Politics 1.5, Aristotle stated that it is not difficult to answer the question
whether some men are intended by nature to be slaves. Just as there is a natural
and expedient rule of the soul over the body, and of the male over the female, so
when one man is as superior to another as the soul is to the body, "the lower sort
are by nature slaves, and it is better for them as for all inferiors that they should be
under the rule of a master" (1254b20-21, Jowett translation).
2. David Hume, Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals, app. IV, in which
Hume debated whether talents and moral virtues are to be sharply distinguished.
He held that the distinction is merely verbal, that theological ethics, with its
insistence on rewards and punishments, made more of a distinction between talent
and virtue than was warranted.

Further Reading
Paley's works, though reprinted innumerable times in the nineteenth century, have not
been dignified with a modern edition, and relatively little has been written about him.
M. L. Clark, Paley (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1974), is a good general
study of his philosophy and theology. D. L. LeMahieu, The Mind of William Paley
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976), concentrates on his natural theology.
His moral theory figures here and there in Elie HaItvy, The Growth of Philosophic
Radicalism, trans. Mary Morris (London: Faber & Faber, 1928). and Paley shares a
 Further Reading 459

chapter with Bentham in Ernest Albee, A History of English Utilitarianism (London:

Allen & Unwin, 1902). Somewhat more attention is paid to Paley's ethics in J. B.
Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1977); consult the index. Sir Ernest Barker has a chapter. "Paley and His
Political Philosophy," in Traditions of Civility (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1948).
 Jeremy Bentham

Introduction

Born in 1748 into a prosperous middle-class family, Jeremy Bentham was sent to
Oxford when he was only twelve (he never got over his dislike of, and contempt for,
the mindless life there), and by the time he was twenty-one he was a full-fledged
lawyer. Bentham did not intend to practice law; rather, he intended to provide a
rational basis for law as a whole. He had a small private income and so was able to
devote himself to his chosen task. In 1776 he published A Fragment on Government.
which brought him to the attention of political leaders. Thereafter he mixed political
activity with incessant writing, publishing much but writing so much more that neither
he nor his many disciples and followers could prepare it all for the press during his
lifetime. Books assembled from his manuscripts were translated into many languages,
earning him honors abroad, and his practical projects and those of the Benthamites
who worked with him earned him notoriety at home. One of his most devoted and
most influential followers was James Mill, whose son John Stuart Mill was trained to be
a Benthamite and at the age of seventeen edited a massive treatise by Bentham on
constitutional law. Bentham died in 1832.
Bentham was a reformer, proposing changes in the laws of England, the courts, the
colonial system, the Church of England, the schools, the banks, the prisons, and
innumerable matters of daily life, ranging from grammar to sewage. To support his
proposals he used a clear and simple test by which ordinary people as well as politi-
cians could judge whether an action was right or an institution or law justified. The test
was what Bentham called "utility," which meant usefulness. Usefulness, then, for
what? For human happiness: whatever hinders human happiness more than it ad-
vances it is wrong; whatever advances it more than it hinders it is right. With this
simple test Bentham thought he could justify the reforms that he quite correctly
believed were needed in much of English life. His moral philosophy was thus his
attempt to explain and support this principle and to spell out its bearing on reform.
Many of Bentham's ideas led to significant changes, thanks in large part to the
energetic, intelligent, and devoted group of followers who developed and carried out
his suggestions. His philosophy also attracted followers, who, like John Austin and
James Mill, wanted to extend and improve it. The controversies caused by his practical
reforms have long since died down. The controversies aroused by his philosophy are
still with us.
The problem with England, Bentham held, was that too many of its institutions and
customs were unreasonable. Humans aim at happiness; laws, courts, and social institu-
tions generally therefore should serve to bring about happiness, but too often they do

460
 Introduction 461

not. Most people would not accept these unreasonable arrangements if they clearly
understood how detrimental they were. Moreover, rationality serves everyone alike,
whereas custom and superstition serve only the hidden interests of powerful minori-
ties. Bentham wanted to make society rational. He thought a philosophy would help
him do this, because he believed that the irrationality of vested interests masked itself
behind philosophical as well as religious slogans.
To clear the philosophical way for his reforms, Bentham developed a way of under-
mining the claims of his opponents. He attacked their positions using a theory of
meaning. Like Hobbes before him and the logical positivists after him, Bentham
thought that much damage was done by failure to pay attention to language. Lan-
guage, he held, can be used to mystify and sanctify legal and political institutions. We
must be able to see them for what they are if we are to make them serve the interests of
everyone alike. A method of analyzing words to see what they really mean is therefore
needed, and Bentham had one.
His method was not a new one. It had originated with John Locke. When you want
to know what a word means, Bentham held, find out what in our experience it refers
to. Whatever is real is something we can experience with our senses, and the names for
such things are those of realities. Our immediate perceptions — the images, tastes, and
feelings we receive through our senses, and our inner sensations such as pain or
pleasure — have the best claim to be called "real." Everything else we can mean must
somehow relate to them. We need to talk about much else besides these perceptions.
But anything we wish to talk or think about in addition to what we directly experience
should be considered a fictitious entity. It is in fact made up of some combination of
sensory experiences. But it is given a name that makes it seem to be an existing entity
all by itself, and then we are puzzled, as we cannot tell just what sort of entity it is. To
clarify the name of a fictitious entity, therefore, what we must do is find the percep-
tions to which it refers. If there are none, the name is nonsense.
Bentham applied this method to clarifying the fictions central to the discussion of
law and morals. Among the central ones are "good" and "obligation." If we clarify
them, we will see that moral language is really about pleasure and pain. We all want
whatever is good. But "good" can mean only "pleasure and the absence of pain," and
this is all that "happiness" can mean as well. The fictional name "obligation" can refer
only to some act we are directed to do, under the condition that if we fail to do it we
will suffer some pain. So pleasure and pain are the realities underlying both "obliga-
tion" and "good," and the pursuit of pleasure must thus be the core of morality.
Bentham applied his reductive technique to all the traditional theories that dis-
agreed with his view, thereby attempting to show that none of them can provide a
rational way of settling moral issues. His own principle, he asserted, offers just such a
procedure. It tells us to maximize pleasure and minimize pain for as many people as
possible, that is, to bring about the greatest happiness for the greatest number.
Bentham believed his principle to have an advantage lacking in any other. Because
everyone wants happiness and because Bentham's principle directs us to maximize it,
he held that we all have a motive for doing what his principle directs. He could not see
how we could be motivated to follow any other principle. And because a principle that
no one can follow is entirely pointless, he thought that the confluence of his motiva-
tional theory with his moral principle was yet another argument for the thorough
rationality of his position.
Philosophers before Bentham had offered to explain morality in terms of its condu-
civeness to happiness. Bentham himself saw David Hume as the first to make utility
462 Jeremy Bentham
the basic notion in an account of morality, and Helvetius, Hartley, and Priestley as
other forerunners. But Bentham clearly made the principle of utility into a directive to
be used in conscious deliberation about what to do, and this was a radical departure
from Hume. In fact, what distinguishes Bentham's moral outlook is precisely its unre-
mitting insistence on testing every act and every institution by the principle of utility,
together with its assurance that a quantitatively based answer to any moral question
can always be attained.
The claim that we can deliberately direct all our moral decisions by methodically
using a formula had not previously been made so powerfully. At about the time
Bentham was working out his views, Kant in Germany was developing his. Like
Bentham, Kant thought he had found a directive that anyone could use to make moral
decisions and that each of us always has a motive to obey. Kant's views were con-
structed independently of Bentham's and were antithetical to his. But the radical
difference of their principles accompanies an underlying commonality of belief, that it
is the task of moral philosophy to show that there is a method that each person can use
to arrive at justified moral decisions, and to show how we are motivated to act accord-
ingly. They were arguing, albeit in quite different ways, that it is possible for humans to
be autonomous moral agents.
The first set of selections given here is from Bentham's Introduction to the Principles
of Morals and Legislation, set in type in 1781 but not published until 1789. I have
omitted some of the footnotes; those I have left contain some important points. The
second set of selections comes from Bentham's Theory of Legislation (London, 1864),
a work assembled and translated into French from Bentham's own manuscripts by a
Genevan disciple, Etienne Dumont, and translated back into English by an American
follower, Richard Hildreth. In the first part of the book, "Principles of Legislation,"
Bentham repeats, sometimes word for word, much of the material published in the
earlier Introduction, but he gives a better and sometimes fuller exposition of certain
moral aspects of his theory.

An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation

CHAPTER 1: OF THE PRINCIPLE OF UTILITY

I. Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign mas-
ters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do,
as well as to determine what we shall do. On the one hand the standard of
right and wrong, on the other the chain of causes and effects, are fastened to
their throne. They govern us in all we do, in all we say, in all we think: every
effort we can make to throw off our subjection, will serve but to demonstrate
and confirm it. In words a man may pretend to abjure their empire: but in
reality he will remain subject to it all the while. The principle of utility
recognises this subjection, and assumes it for the foundation of that system,
the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of
law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in
caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light.
But enough of metaphor and declamation: it is not by such means that
moral science is to be improved.
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 463
H. The principle of utility is the foundation of the present work: it will be
proper therefore at the outset to give an explicit and determinate account of
what is meant by it. By the principle of utility is meant that principle which
approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the ten-
dency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the
party whose interest is in question: or, what is the same thing in other words,
to promote or to oppose that happiness. I say of every action whatsoever; and
therefore not only of every action of a private individual, but of every mea-
sure of government.
III. By utility is meant that property in any object, whereby it tends to
produce benefit, advantage, pleasure, good, or happiness, (all this in the
present case comes to the same thing) or (what comes again to the same thing)
to prevent the happening of mischief, pain, evil, or unhappiness to the party
whose interest is considered: if that party be the community in general, then
the happiness of the community: if a particular individual, then the happiness
of that individual.
IV. The interest of the community is one of the most general expressions
that can occur in the phraseology of morals: no wonder that the meaning of it
is often lost. When it has a meaning, it is this. The community is a fictitious
body,' composed of the individual persons who are considered as constituting
as it were its members. The interest of the community then is, what? — the
sum of the interests of the several members who compose it.
V. It is in vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understand-
ing what is the interest of the individual. * A thing is said to promote the
interest, or to be for the interest, of an individual, when it tends to add to the
sum total of his pleasures: or, what comes to the same thing, to diminish the
sum total of his pains.
VI. An action then may be said to be conformable to the principle of utility,
or, for shortness sake, to utility, (meaning with respect to the community at
large) when the tendency it has to augment the happiness of the community is
greater than any it has to diminish it.
VII. A measure of government (which is but a particular kind of action,
performed by a particular person or persons) -' may be said to be conformable
to or dictated by the principle of utility, when in like manner the tendency
which it has to augment the happiness of the community is greater than any
which it has to diminish it.
VIII. When an action, or in particular a measure of government, is sup-
posed by a man to be conformable to the principle of utility, it may be
convenient, for the purposes of discourse, to imagine a kind of law or dictate,
called a law or dictate of utility: and to speak of the action in question, as
being conformable to such law or dictate.
IX. A man may be said to be a partizan of the principle of utility, when the
approbation or disapprobation he annexes to any action, or to any measure, is
* Interest is one of those words. which not having any superior genus, cannot in the ordinary way
he defined.
464 Jeremy Bentham
determined by and proportioned to the tendency which he conceives it to have
to augment or to diminish the happiness of the community: or in other words,
to its conformity or unconformity to the laws or dictates of utility.
X. Of an action that is conformable to the principle of utility one may
always say either that it is one that ought to be done, or at least that it is not
one that ought not to be done. One may say also, that it is right it should be
done; at least that it is not wrong it should be done: that it is a right action; at
least that it is not a wrong action. When thus interpreted, the words ought,
and right and wrong, and others of that stamp, have a meaning: when other-
wise, they have none.
XI. Has the rectitude of this principle been ever formally contested? It
should seem that it had, by those who have not known what they have been
meaning. Is it susceptible of any direct proof? it should seem not: for that
which is used to prove every thing else, cannot itself be proved: a chain of
proofs must have their commencement somewhere. To give such proof is as
impossible as it is needless.
XII. Not that there is or ever has been that human creature breathing,
however stupid or perverse, who has not on many, perhaps on most occasions
of his life, deferred to it. By the natural constitution of the human frame. on
most occasions of their lives men in general embrace the principle, without
thinking of it: if not for the ordering of their own actions, yet for the trying of
their own actions, as well as of those of other men. There have been, at the
same time, not many, perhaps, even of the most intelligent, who have been
disposed to embrace it purely and without reserve. There are even few who
have not taken some occasion or other to quarrel with it, either on account of
their not understanding always how to apply it, or on account of some preju-
dice or other which they were afraid to examine into, or could not bear to part
with. For such is the stuff that man is made of: in principle and in practice, in a
right track and in a wrong one, the rarest of all human qualities is consistency.
XIII. When a man attempts to combat the principle of utility, it is with
reasons drawn, without his being aware of it, from that very principle itself.
His arguments, if they prove any thing, prove not that the principle is wrong,
but that, according to the applications he supposes to be made of it, it is
misapplied. Is it possible for a man to move the earth? Yes; but he must first
find out another earth to stand upon.
XIV. To disprove the propriety of it by arguments is impossible; but, from
the causes that have been mentioned, or from some confused or partial view
of it, a man may happen to be disposed not to relish it. Where this is the case,
if he thinks the settling of his opinions on such a subject worth the trouble, let
him take the following steps, and at length, perhaps, he may come to recon-
cile himself to it.
1. Let him settle with himself, whether he would wish to discard this princi-
ple altogether; if so, let him consider what it is that all his reasonings (in
matters of politics especially) can amount to?
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 465
2. If he would, let him settle with himself, whether he would judge and act
without any principle, or whether there is any other he would judge and act
by?
3. If there be, let him examine and satisfy himself whether the principle
he thinks he has found is really any separate intelligible principle; or
whether it be not a mere principle in words, a kind of phrase, which at
bottom expresses neither more nor less than the mere averment of his own
unfounded sentiments; that is, what in another person he might be apt to
call caprice?
4. If he is inclined to think that his own approbation or disapprobation,
annexed to the idea of an act, without any regard to its consequences, is a
sufficient foundation for him to judge and act upon, let him ask himself
whether his sentiment is to be a standard of right and wrong, with respect to
every other man, or whether every man's sentiment has the same privilege of
being a standard to itself?
5. In the first case, let him ask himself whether his principle is not des-
potical, and hostile to all the rest of [the] human race?
6. In the second case, whether it is not anarchial, and whether at this rate
there are not as many different standards of right and wrong as there are men?
and whether even to the same man, the same thing, which is right to-day, may
not (without the least change in its nature) be wrong to-morrow? and whether
the same thing is not right and wrong in the same place at the same time? and
in either case, whether all argument is not at an end? and whether, when two
men have said, "I like this," and "I don't like it," they can (upon such a
principle) have any thing more to say?
7. If he should have said to himself, No: for that the sentiment which he
proposes as a standard must be grounded on reflection, let him say on what
particulars the reflection is to turn? if on particulars having relation to the
utility of the act, then let him say whether this is not deserting his own
principle, and borrowing assistance from that very one in opposition to which
he sets it up: or if not on those particulars, on what other particulars?
8. If he should be for compounding the matter, and adopting his own
principle in part, and the principle of utility in part, let him say how far he will
adopt it?
9. When he has settled with himself where he will stop, then let him ask
himself how he justifies to himself the adopting it so far? and why he will not
adopt it any farther?
10. Admitting any other principle than the principle of utility to be a right
principle, a principle that it is right for a man to pursue; admitting (what is not
true) that the word right can have a meaning without reference to utility, let
him say whether there is any such thing as a motive that a man can have to
pursue the dictates of it: if there is, let him say what that motive is, and how it
is to be distinguished from those which enforce the dictates of utility: if not,
then lastly let him say what it is this other principle can be good for?
466 Jeremy Bentham

CHAPTER II: OF PRINCIPLES ADVERSE TO THAT OF UTILITY

I. If the principle of utility be a right principle to be governed by, and that in
all cases, it follows from what has been just observed, that whatever principle
differs from it in any case must necessarily be a wrong one. To prove any other
principle, therefore, to be a wrong one, there needs no more than just to show
it to be what it is, a principle of which the dictates are in some point or other
different from those of the principle of utility: to state it is to confute it.
II. A principle may be different from that of utility in two ways: 1. By being
constantly opposed to it: this is the case with a principle which may be termed
the principle of asceticism.' 2. By being sometimes opposed to it, and some-
times not, as it may happen: this is the case with another, which may be
termed the principle of sympathy and antipathy.
III. By the principle of asceticism I mean that principle, which, like the
principle of utility, approves or disapproves of any action, according to the
tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the
party whose interest is in question; but in an inverse manner: approving of
actions in as far as they tend to diminish his happiness; disapproving of them
in as far as they tend to augment it.
IV. It is evident that any one who reprobates any the least particle of
pleasure, as such, from whatever source derived, is pro tanto a partizan of the
principle of asceticism. It is only upon that principle, and not from the princi-
ple of utility, that the most abominable pleasure which the vilest of malefac-
tors ever reaped from his crime would be to be reprobated, if it stood alone.
The case is, that it never does stand alone; but is necessarily followed by such
a quantity of pain (or, what comes to the same thing, such a chance for a
certain quantity of pain) that the pleasure in comparison of it, is as nothing:
and this is the true and sole, but perfectly sufficient, reason for making it a
ground for punishment.
V. There are two classes of men of very different complexions, by whom
the principle of asceticism appears to have been embraced; the one a set of
moralists, the other a set of religionists. Different accordingly have been the
motives which appear to have recommended it to the notice of these differ-
ent parties. Hope, that is the prospect of pleasure, seems to have animated
the former: hope, the aliment of philosophic pride: the hope of honour and
reputation at the hands of men. Fear, that is the prospect of pain, the latter:
fear, the offspring of superstitious fancy: the fear of future punishment at
the hands of a splenetic and revengeful Deity. I say in this case fear: for of
the invisible future, fear is more powerful than hope. These circumstances
characterize the two different parties among the partizans of the principle
of asceticism; the parties and their motives different, the principle the
same. . . .
VIII. The principle of asceticism, however, with whatever warmth it may
have been embraced by its partizans as a rule of private conduct, seems not to
have been carried to any considerable length, when applied to the business of
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 467
government. In a few instances it has been carried a little way by the philo-
sophical party: witness the Spartan regimen. Though then, perhaps, it may be
considered as having been a measure of security: and an application, though a
precipitate and perverse application, of the principle of utility. Scarcely in any
instances, to any considerable length, by the religious: for the various monas-
tic orders, and the societies of the Quakers, Dumplers, Moravians, 4 and other
religionists, have been free societies, whose regimen no man has been
astricted to without the intervention of his own consent. Whatever merit a
man may have thought there would be in making himself miserable, no such
notion seems ever to have occurred to any of them, that it may be a merit,
much less a duty, to make others miserable: although it should seem, that if a
certain quantity of misery were a thing so desirable, it would not matter much
whether it were brought by each man upon himself, or by one man upon
another.
IX. The principle of asceticism seems originally to have been the reverie
of certain hasty speculators, who having perceived, or fancied, that certain
pleasures, when reaped in certain circumstances, have, at the long run, been
attended with pains more than equivalent to them, took occasion to quarrel
with every thing that offered itself under the name of pleasure. Having then
got thus far, and having forgot the point which they set out from, they
pushed on, and went so much further as to think it meritorious to fall in
love with pain. Even this, we see, is at bottom but the principle of utility
misapplied.
X. The principle of utility is capable of being consistently pursued; and it is
but tautology to say, that the more consistently it is pursued, the better it must
ever be for humankind. The principle of asceticism never was, nor ever can
be, consistently pursued by any living creature. Let but one tenth part of the
inhabitants of this earth pursue it consistently, and in a day's time they will
have turned it into a hell.
XI. Among principles adverse to that of utility, that which at this day seems
to have most influence in matters of government, is what may be called the
principle of sympathy and antipathy. By the principle of sympathy and antipa-
thy, I mean that principle which approves or disapproves of certain actions,
not on account of their tending to augment the happiness, nor yet on account
of their tending to diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in
question, but merely because a man finds himself disposed to approve or
disapprove of them: holding up that approbation or disapprobation as a suffi-
cient reason for itself, and disclaiming the necessity of looking out for any
extrinsic ground. Thus far in the general department of morals: and in the
particular department of politics, measuring out the quantum (as well as
determining the ground) of punishment, by the degree of the disapprobation.
XII. It is manifest, that this is rather a principle in name than in reality: it is
not a positive principle of itself, so much as a term employed to signify the
negation of all principle. What one expects to find in a principle is something
that points out some external consideration, as a means of warranting and
468 Jeremy Bentham
guiding the internal sentiments of approbation and disapprobation: this expec-
tation is but ill fulfilled by a proposition, which does neither more nor less
than hold up each of those sentiments as a ground and standard for itself.
XIII. In looking over the catalogue of human actions (says a partizan of this
principle) in order to determine which of them are to be marked with the seal
of disapprobation, you need but to take counsel of your own feelings: what-
ever you find in yourself a propensity to condemn, is wrong for that very
reason. For the same reason it is also meet for punishment: in what propor-
tion it is adverse to utility, or whether it be adverse to utility at all, is a matter
that makes no difference. In that same proportion also is it meet for punish-
ment: if you hate much, punish much: if you hate little, punish little: punish as
you hate. If you hate not at all, punish not at all: the fine feelings of the soul
are not to be overborne and tyrannized by the harsh and rugged dictates of
political utility.
XIV.The various systems that have been formed concerning the standard of
right and wrong, may all be reduced to the principle of sympathy and antipa-
thy.' One account may serve for all of them. They consist all of them in so
many contrivances for avoiding the obligation of appealing to any external
standard, and for prevailing upon the reader to accept of the author's senti-
ment or opinion as a reason for itself. The phrases different, but the principle
the same.*
It is curious enough to observe the variety of inventions men have hit upon. and the variety of
phrases they have brought forward, in order to conceal from the world, and, if possible. from
themselves, this very general and therefore very pardonable self-sufficiency.
1. One man says, he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong;
and that it is called a moral sense: and then he goes to work at his ease, and says, such a thing is
right, and such a thing is wrong - why? - because my moral sense tells me it is."
2. Another man comes and alters the phrase: leaving out moral, and putting in common, in
the room of it. He then tells you, that his common sense teaches him what is right and wrong. as
surely as the other's moral sense did: meaning by common sense, a sense of some kind or other,
which, he says. is possessed by all mankind: the sense of those, whose sense is not the same as
the author's, being struck out of the account as not worth taking. This contrivance does better
than the other; for a moral sense, being a new thing, a man may feel about him a good while
without being able to find it out: but common sense is as old as the creation: and there is no
man but would be ashamed to be thought not to have as much of it as his neighbours. It has
another great advantage: by appearing to share power, it lessens envy: for when a man gets up
upon this ground, in order to anathematize those who differ from him, it is not by a sic volo sic
jubeo, but by a velitis jubeatis.
3. Another man comes, and says, that as to a moral sense indeed, he cannot find that he has
any such thing: that however he has an understanding, which will do quite as well. This
understanding, he says, is the standard of right and wrong: it tells him so and so. All good and
wise men understand as he does: if other men's understandings differ in any point from him, so
much the worse for them: it is a sure sign they are either defective or corrupt.
4. Another man says, that there is an eternal and immutable Rule of Right: that that rule of
right dictates so and so: and then he begins giving you his sentiments upon any thing that comes
uppermost: and these sentiments (you are to take for granted) are so many branches of the
eternal rule of right.
5. Another man, or perhaps the same man (it's no matter) says. that there are certain
practices conformable, and others repugnant, to the Fitness of Things; and then he tells you, at
his leisure, what practices are conformable and what repugnant: just as he happens to like a
practice or dislike it.
6. A great multitude of people are continually talking of the Law of Nature; and then they go
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 469
XV. It is manifest, that the dictates of this principle will frequently coincide
with those of utility, though perhaps without intending any such thing. Proba-
bly more frequently than not: and hence it is that the business of penal justice
is carried on upon that tolerable sort of footing upon which we see it carried
on in common at this day. For what more natural or more general ground of
hatred to a practice can there be, than the mischievousness of such practice?
What all men are exposed to suffer by, all men will be disposed to hate. It is
far yet, however, from being a constant ground: for when a man suffers, it is
not always that he knows what it is he suffers by. A man may suffer grievously,
for instance, by a new tax, without being able to trace up the cause of his
sufferings to the injustice of some neighbour, who has eluded the payment of
an old one.
XVI. The principle of sympathy and antipathy is most apt to err on the
side of severity. It is for applying punishment in many cases which deserve
none: in many cases which deserve some, it is for applying more than they
deserve. There is no incident imaginable, be it ever so trivial, and so remote
from mischief, from which this principle may not extract a ground of punish-
ment. Any difference in taste: any difference in opinion: upon one subject as
well as upon another. No disagreement so trifling which perseverance and
altercation will not render serious. Each becomes in the other's eyes an
enemy, and, if laws permit, a criminal. This is one of the circumstances by
on giving you their sentiments about what is right and what is wrong: and these sentiments. you
are to understand, are so many chapters and sections of the Law of Nature. . . .
The mischief common to all these ways of thinking and arguing (which, in truth, as we have
seen, are but one and the same method, couched in different forms of words) is their serving as
a cloke, and pretence, and aliment, to despotism: if not a despotism in practice. a despotism
however in disposition: which is but too apt. when pretence and power offer, to show itself in
practice. The consequence is, that with intentions very commonly of the purest kind, a man
becomes a torment either to himself or his fellow-creatures. If he he of the melancholy cast, he
sits in silent grief, bewailing their blindness and depravity: if of the irascible, he declaims with
fury and virulence against all who differ from him: blowing up the coals of fanaticism, and
branding with the charge of corruption and insincerity, every man who does not think, or
profess to think, as he does.
If such a man happens to possess the advantages of style. his book may do a considerable
deal of mischief before the nothingness of it is understood.
These principles, if such they can be called, it is more frequent to see applied to morals than
to politics: but their influence extends itself to both. In politics, as well as morals. a man will he
at least equally glad of a pretence for deciding any question in the manner that best pleases
him, without the trouble of inquiry. If a man is an infallible judge of what is right and wrong in
the actions of private individuals, why not in the measures to he observed by public men in the
direction of those actions? accordingly (not to mention other chimeras) I have more than once
known the pretended law of nature set up in legislative debates, in opposition to arguments
derived from the principle of utility.
- But is it never, then, from any other considerations than those of utility, that we derive our

notions of right and wrong?" I do not know: I do not care. Whether a moral sentiment can he
originally conceived from any other source than a view of utility, is one question: whether upon
examination and reflection it can, in point of fact, be actually persisted in and justified on any
other ground, by a person reflecting within himself, is another: whether in point of right it can
properly be justified on any other ground. by a person addressing himself to the community, is
a third. The two first are questions of speculation: it matters not, comparatively speaking, how
they are decided. The last is a question of practice: the decision of it is of as much importance as
that of any can be. . .
470 Jeremy Bentham
which the human race is distinguished (not much indeed to its advantage)
from the brute creation.
XVII. It is not, however, by any means unexampled for this principle to err
on the side of lenity. A near and perceptible mischief moves antipathy. A
remote and imperceptible mischief, though not less real, has no effect. . . .
XVIII. It may be wondered, perhaps, that in all this while no mention has
been made of the theological principle; meaning that principle which professes
to recur for the standard of right and wrong to the will of God. But the case is,
this is not in fact a distinct principle. It is never any thing more or less than one
or other of the three before-mentioned principles presenting itself under an-
other shape. The will of God here meant cannot be his revealed will, as
contained in the sacred writings: for that is a system which nobody ever thinks
of recurring to at this time of day, for the details of political administration:
and even before it can be applied to the details of private conduct, it is
universally allowed, by the most eminent divines of all persuasions, to stand in
need of pretty ample interpretations; else to what use are the works of those
divines? And for the guidance of these interpretations, it is also allowed, that
some other standard must be assumed. The will then which is meant on this
occasion, is that which may be called the presumptive will: that is to say, that
which is presumed to be his will on account of the conformity of its dictates to
those of some other principle. What then may be this other principle? it must
be one or other of the three mentioned above: for there cannot, as we have
seen, be any more. It is plain, therefore, that, setting revelation out of the
question, no light can ever be thrown upon the standard of right and wrong,
by any thing that can be said upon the question, what is God's will. We may be
perfectly sure, indeed, that whatever is right is conformable to the will of
God: but so far is that from answering the purpose of showing us what is right,
that it is necessary to know first whether a thing is right, in order to know from
thence whether it be conformable to the will of God.*
XIX. There are two things which are very apt to be confounded, but which
it imports us carefully to distinguish: — the motive or cause, which, by operat-
ing on the mind of an individual, is productive of any act: and the ground or
reason which warrants a legislator, or other by-stander, in regarding that act

* The principle of theology refers every thing to God's pleasure. But what is God's pleasure? God
does not, he confessedly does not now, either speak or write to us. How then are we to know
what is his pleasure? By observing what is our own pleasure. and pronouncing it to be his.
Accordingly, what is called the pleasure of God. is and must necessarily be (revelation apart)
neither more nor less than the good pleasure of the person. whoever he be, who is pronouncing
what he believes, or pretends, to be God's pleasure. How know you it to be God's pleasure that
such or such an act should be abstained from? whence come you even to suppose as much?
"Because the engaging in it would. I imagine. be prejudicial upon the whole to the happiness of
mankind"; says the partizan of the principle of utility: "Because the commission of it is
attended with a gross and sensual, or at least with a trifling and transient satisfaction"; says the
partizan of the principle of asceticism: "Because I detest the thoughts of it; and I cannot,
neither ought I to be called upon to tell why"; says he who proceeds upon the principle of
antipathy. In the words of one or other of these must that person necessarily answer (revelation
apart) who professes to take for his standard the will of God.
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 471
with an eye of approbation. When the acts happens, in the particular instance
in question, to be productive of effects which we approve of, much more if we
happen to observe that the same motive may frequently be productive, in
other instances, of the like effects, we are apt to transfer our approbation to
the motive itself, and to assume, as the just ground for the approbation we
bestow on the act, the circumstance of its originating from that motive. It is in
this way that the sentiment of antipathy has often been considered as a just
ground of action. Antipathy, for instance, in such or such a case, is the cause
of an action which is attended with good effects: but this does not make it a
right ground of action in that case, any more than in any other. Still farther.
Not only the effects are good, but the agent sees beforehand that they will be
so. This may make the action indeed a perfectly right action: but it does not
make antipathy a right ground of action. For the same sentiment of antipathy,
if implicitly deferred to, may be, and very frequently is, productive of the very
worst effects. Antipathy, therefore, can never be a right ground of action. No
more, therefore, can resentment, which, as will be seen more particularly
hereafter, is but a modification of antipathy. The only right ground of action,
that can possibly subsist, is, after all, the consideration of utility, which, if it is
a right principle of action, and of approbation, in any one case, is so in every
other. Other principles in abundance, that is, other motives, may be the
reasons why such and such an act has been done: that is, the reasons or causes
of its being done: but it is this alone that can be the reason why it might or
ought to have been done. Antipathy or resentment requires always to be
regulated, to prevent its doing mischief: to be regulated by what? always by
the principle of utility. The principle of utility neither requires nor admits of
any other regulator than itself.

CHAPTER III: OF THE FOUR SANCTIONS OR SOURCES OF PAIN

AND PLEASURE

I. It has been shown that the happiness of the individuals, of whom a

community is composed, that is their pleasures and their security, is the end
and the sole end which the legislator ought to have in view: the sole standard,
in conformity to which each individual ought, as far as depends upon the
legislator, to be made to fashion his behaviour. But whether it be this or any
thing else that is to be done, there is nothing by which a man can ultimately be
made to do it, but either pain or pleasure. Having taken a general view of
these two grand objects (viz. pleasure, and what comes to the same thing,
immunity from pain) in the character of final causes; it will be necessary to
take a view of pleasure and pain itself, in the character of efficient causes or
means.
II. There are four distinguishable sources from which pleasure and pain are
in use to flow: considered separately, they may be termed the physical, the
political, the moral, and the religious: and inasmuch as the pleasures and pains
472 Jeremy Bentham
belonging to each of them are capable of giving a binding force to any law or
rule of conduct, they may all of them be termed sanctions.*
III. If it be in the present life, and from the ordinary course of nature, not
purposely modified by the interposition of the will of any human being, nor by
any extraordinary interposition of any superior invisible being, that the plea-
sure or the pain takes place or is expected, it may be said to issue from or to
belong to the physical sanction.
IV. If at the hands of a particular person or set of persons in the community,
who under names correspondent to that of judge, are chosen for the particular
purpose of dispensing it, according to the will of the sovereign or supreme
ruling power in the state, it may be said to issue from the political sanction.
V. If at the hands of such chance persons in the community, as the party in
question may happen in the course of his life to have concerns with, according
to each man's spontaneous disposition, and not according to any settled or
concerted rule, it may be said to issue from the moral or popular sanction.
VI. If from the immediate hand of a superior invisible being, either in the
present life, or in a future, it may be said to issue from the religious sanction.
VII. Pleasures or pains which may be expected to issue from the physical,
political, or moral sanctions, must all of them be expected to be experienced,
if ever, in the present life: those which may be expected to issue from the
religious sanction, may be expected to be experienced either in the present life
or in a future.
VIII. Those which can be experienced in the present life, can of course be
no others than such as human nature in the course of the present life is
susceptible of: and from each of these sources may flow all the pleasures or
pains of which, in the course of the present life, human nature is susceptible.
With regard to these then (with which alone we have in this place any con-
cern) those of them which belong to any one of those sanctions, differ not
ultimately in kind from those which belong to any one of the other three: the
only difference there is among them lies in the circumstances that accompany
their production. A suffering which befalls a man in the natural and spontane-
ous course of things, shall be styled, for instance, a calamity; in which case, if
it be supposed to befall him through any imprudence of his, it may be styled a
punishment issuing from the physical sanction. Now this same suffering, if
* Sancti°, in Latin, was used to signify the act of binding, and, by a common grammatical
transition, any thing which serves to bind a man: to wit, to the observance of such or such a
mode of conduct. According to a Latin grammarian, the import of the word is derived by rather
a far-fetched process (such as those commonly are, and in a great measure indeed must be, by
which intellectual ideas are derived from sensible ones) from the word sanguis, blood: because,
among the Romans, with a view to inculcate into the people a persuasion that such or such a
mode of conduct would be rendered obligatory upon a man by the force of what I call the
religious sanction (that is. that he would be made to suffer by the extraordinary interpolation of
some superior being. if he failed to observe the mode of conduct in question) certain ceremo-
nies were contrived by the priests: in the course of which ceremonies the blood of victims was
made use of.
A Sanction then is a source of obligatory powers or motives that is. of pains and pleasures;
which. according as they are connected with such or such modes of conduct, operate. and are
indeed the only things which can operate, as motives. . . .
 The Principles of Morals and Legislation 473
inflicted by the law, will be what is commonly called a punishment; if incurred
for want of any friendly assistance, which the misconduct, or supposed miscon-
duct, of the sufferer has occasioned to be withholden, a punishment issuing
from the moral sanction; if through the immediate interposition of a particular
providence, a punishment issuing from the religious sanction. . . .
XI. Of these four sanctions the physical is altogether, we may observe, the
ground-work of the political and the moral: so is it also of the religious, in as far
as the latter bears relation to the present life. It is included in each of those
other three. This may operate in any case, (that is, any of the pains or pleasures
belonging to it may operate) independently of them: none of them can operate
but by means of this. In a word, the powers of nature may operate of them-
selves; but neither the magistrate, nor men at large, can operate, nor is God in
the case in question supposed to operate, but through the powers of nature.
XII. For these four objects, which in their nature have so much in common,
it seemed of use to find a common name. It seemed of use, in the first place,
for the convenience of giving a name to certain pleasures and pains, for which
a name equally characteristic could hardly otherwise have been found: in the
second place, for the sake of holding up the efficacy of certain moral forces,
the influence of which is apt not to be sufficiently attended to. Does the
political sanction exert an influence over the conduct of mankind? The moral,
the religious sanctions do so too. In every inch of his career are the operations
of the political magistrate liable to be aided or impeded by these two foreign
powers: who, one or other of them, or both, are sure to be either his rivals or
his allies. Does it happen to him to leave them out in his calculations? he will
be sure almost to find himself mistaken in the result. Of all this we shall find
abundant proofs in the sequel of this work. It behoves him, therefore, to have
them continually before his eyes; and that under such a name as exhibits the
relation they bear to his own purposes and designs.

CHAPTER IV: VALUE OF A LOT OF PLEASURE OR PAIN,

How TO BE MEASURED
I. Pleasures then, and the avoidance of pains, are the ends which the legisla-
tor has in view: it behoves him therefore to understand their value. Pleasures
and pains are the instruments he has to work with: it behoves him therefore to
understand their force, which is again, in other words, their value.
II. To a person considered by himself the value of a pleasure or pain
considered by itself, will be greater or less, according to the four following
circumstances:
1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
III. These are the circumstances which are to be considered in estimating a
pleasure or a pain considered each of them by itself. But when the value of
474 Jeremy Bentham
any pleasure or pain is considered for the purpose of estimating the tendency
of any act by which it is produced, there are two other circumstances to be
taken into the account; these are,
5. Its fecundity, or the chance it has of being followed by sensations of the
same kind: that is, pleasures, if it be a pleasure: pains, if it be a pain.
6. Its purity, or the chance it has of not being followed by sensations of the
opposite kind: that is, pains, if it be a pleasure: pleasures, if it be a pain.
These two last, however, are in strictness scarcely to be deemed properties
of the pleasure or the pain itself; they are not, therefore, in strictness to be
taken into the account of the value of that pleasure or that pain. They are in
strictness to be deemed properties only of the act, or other event, by which
such pleasure or pain has been produced; and accordingly are only to be taken
into the account of the tendency of such act or such event.
IV. To a number of persons, with reference to each of whom the value of a
pleasure or a pain is considered, it will be greater or less, according to seven
circumstances: to wit, the six preceding ones; viz.
1. Its intensity.
2. Its duration.
3. Its certainty or uncertainty.
4. Its propinquity or remoteness.
5. Its fecundity.
6. Its purity.
And one other; to wit:
7. Its extent; that is, the number of persons to whom it extends; or (in other
words) who are affected by it.
V. To take an exact account then of the general tendency of any act, by
which the interests of a community are affected, proceed as follows. Begin
with any one person of those whose interests seem most immediately to be
affected by it: and take an account,
1. Of the value of each distinguishable pleasure which appears to be pro-
duced by it in the first instance.
2. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it in the first
instance.
3. Of the value of each pleasure which appears to be produced by it after the
first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pleasure and the impurity of the
first pain.
4. Of the value of each pain which appears to be produced by it after the
first. This constitutes the fecundity of the first pain, and the impurity of the
first pleasure.
5. Sum up all the values of all the pleasures on the one side, and those of all
the pains on the other. The balance, if it be on the side of pleasure, will give the
good tendency of the act upon the whole, with respect to the interests of that
individual person; if on the side of pain, the bad tendency of it upon the whole.
6. Take an account of the number of persons whose interests appear to be
concerned; and repeat the above process with respect to each. Sum up the
number expressive of the degrees of good tendency, which the act has, with
 Theory of Legislation 475
respect to each individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is good upon
the whole: do this again with respect to each individual, in regard to whom the
tendency of it is good upon the whole: do this again with respect to each
individual, in regard to whom the tendency of it is bad upon the whole. Take
the balance; which, if on the side of pleasure, will give the general good
tendency of the act, with respect to the total number or community of individu-
als concerned; if on the side of pain, the general evil tendency, with respect to
the same community.
VI. It is not to be expected that this process should be strictly pursued
previously to every moral judgment, or to every legislative or judicial opera-
tion. It may, however, be always kept in view: and as near as the process
actually pursued on these occasions approaches to it, so near will such process
approach to the character of an exact one.
VII. The same process is alike applicable to pleasure and pain, in whatever
shape they appear: and by whatever denomination they are distinguished: to
pleasure, whether it be called good (which is properly the cause or instrument
of pleasure) or profit (which is distant pleasure, or the cause or instrument of
distant pleasure,) or convenience, or advantage, benefit, emolument, happi-
ness, and so forth: to pain, whether it be called evil, (which corresponds to
good) or mischief or inconvenience, or disadvantage, or loss, or unhappiness,
and so forth.
VIII. Nor is this a novel and unwarranted, any more than it is a useless
theory. In all this there is nothing but what the practice of mankind, whereso-
ever they have a clear view of their own interest, is perfectly conformable to.
An article of property, an estate in land, for instance, is valuable, on what
account? On account of the pleasures of all kinds which it enables a man to
produce, and what comes to the same thing the pains of all kinds which it
enables him to avert. But the value of such an article of property is universally
understood to rise or fall according to the length or shortness of the time
which a man has in it: the certainty or uncertainty of its coming into posses-
sion: and the nearness or remoteness of the time at which, if at all, it is to
come into possession. As to the intensity of the pleasures which a man may
derive from it, this is never thought of, because it depends upon the use which
each particular person may come to make of it; which cannot be estimated till
the particular pleasures he may come to derive from it, or the particular pains
he may come to exclude by means of it, are brought to view. For the same
reason, neither does he think of the fecundity or purity of those pleasures. . . .

Theory of Legislation

CHAPTER XII: THE LIMITS WHICH SEPARATE

MORALS FROM LEGISLATION

Morality in general is the art of directing the actions of men in such a way as to
produce the greatest possible sum of good.
476 Jeremy Bentham

Legislation ought to have precisely the same object.

But although these two arts, or rather sciences, have the same end, they
differ greatly in extent. All actions, whether public or private, fall under the
jurisdiction of morals. It is a guide which leads the individual, as it were, by
the hand through all the details of his life, all his relations with his fellows.
Legislation cannot do this; and, if it could, it ought not to exercise a continual
interference and dictation over the conduct of men.
Morality commands each individual to do all that is advantageous to the
community, his own personal advantage included. But there are many acts
useful to the community which legislation ought not to command. There are
also many injurious actions which it ought not to forbid, although morality
does so. In a word, legislation has the same centre with morals, but it has not
the same circumference.
There are two reasons for this difference: 1st. Legislation can have no
direct influence upon the conduct of men, except by punishments. Now
these punishments are so many evils, which are not justifiable except so far
as there results from them a greater sum of good. But, in many cases in
which we might desire to strengthen a moral precept by a punishment, the
evil of the punishment would be greater than the evil of the offence. The
means necessary to carry the law into execution would be of a nature to
spread through society a degree of alarm more injurious than the evil in-
tended to be prevented.
2nd. Legislation is often arrested by the danger of overwhelming the inno-
cent in seeking to punish the guilty. Whence comes this danger? From the
difficulty of defining an offence, and giving a clear and precise idea of it. For
example, hard-heartedness, ingratitude, perfidy, and other vices which the
popular sanction punishes, cannot come under the power of the law, unless
they are defined as exactly as theft, homicide, or perjury.
But, the better to distinguish the true limits of morals and legislation, it will
be well to refer to the common classification of moral duties.
Private morality regulates the actions of men, either in that part of their
conduct in which they alone are interested, or in that which may affect the
interests of others. The actions which affect a man's individual interest com-
pose a class called, perhaps improperly, duties to ourselves; and the quality or
disposition manifested in the accomplishment of those duties receives the
name of prudence. That part of conduct which relates to others composes a
class of actions called duties to others. Now there are two ways of consulting
the happiness of others: the one negative, abstaining from diminishing it; the
other positive, labouring to augment it. The first constitutes probity; the
second is beneficence.
Morality upon these three points needs the aid of the law; but not in the
same degree, nor in the same manner.
I. The rules of prudence are almost always sufficient of themselves. If a man
fails in what regards his particular private interest, it is not his will which is in
fault, it is his understanding. If he does wrong, it can only be through mistake.
 Theory of Legislation 477
The fear of hurting himself is a motive of repression sufficiently strong; it
would be useless to add to it the fear of an artificial pain.
Does any one object, that facts show the contrary? That excesses of play,
those of intemperance, the illicit intercourse between the sexes, attended so
often by the greatest dangers, are enough to prove that individuals have not
always sufficient prudence to abstain from what hurts them?
Confining myself to a general reply, I answer, in the first place, that, in the
greater part of these cases, punishment would be so easily eluded, that it
would be inefficacious; secondly, that the evil produced by the penal law
would be much beyond the evil of the offence. . . .
As a general rule, the greatest possible latitude should be left to individuals,
in all cases in which they can injure none but themselves, for they are the best
judges of their own interests. If they deceive themselves, it is to be supposed
that the moment they discover their error they will alter their conduct. The
power of the law need interfere only to prevent them from injuring each
other. It is there that restraint is necessary; it is there that the application of
punishments is truly useful, because the rigour exercised upon an individual
becomes in such a case the security of all.
II. It is true that there is a natural connection between prudence and pro-
bity; for our own interest, well understood, will never leave us without mo-
tives to abstain from injuring our fellows.
Let us stop a moment at this point. I say that, independently of religion and
the laws, we always have some natural motives — that is, motives derived from
our own interest for consulting the happiness of others. 1st. The motive of
pure benevolence, a sweet and calm sentiment which we delight to experi-
ence, and which inspires us with a repugnance to be the cause of suffering.
2nd. The motives of private affection, which exercise their empire in domestic
life, and within the particular circle of our intimacies. 3rd. The desire of good
repute, and the fear of blame. This is a sort of calculation of trade. It is
paying, to have credit; speaking truth, to obtain confidence; serving, to be
served. It is thus we must understand that saying of a wit, that, if there were no
such thing as honesty, it would be a good speculation to invent it, as a means of
making one's fortune.
A man enlightened as to his own interest will not indulge himself in a secret
offence through fear of contracting a shameful habit, which sooner or later
will betray him; and because the having secrets to conceal from the prying
curiosity of mankind leaves in the heart a sediment of disquiet, which corrupts
every pleasure. All he can acquire at the expense of security cannot make up
for the loss of that; and, if he desires a good reputation, the best guarantee he
can have for it is his own esteem.
But, in order that an individual should perceive this connection between the
interests of others and his own, he needs an enlightened spirit and a heart free
from seductive passions. The greater part of men have neither sufficient light,
sufficient strength of mind, nor sufficient moral sensibility to place their hon-
esty above the aid of the laws. The legislator must supply the feebleness of this
478 Jeremy Bentham
natural interest by adding to it an artificial interest, more steady and more
easily perceived.
More yet. In many cases morality derives its existence from the law; that is,
to decide whether the action is morally good or bad, it is necessary to know
whether the laws permit or forbid it. It is so of what concerns property. A
manner of selling or acquiring, esteemed dishonest in one country, would be
irreproachable in another. It is the same with offences against the state. The
state exists only by law, and it is impossible to say what conduct in this behalf
morality requires of us before knowing what the legislator has decreed. There
are countries where it is an offence to enlist into the service of a foreign
power, and others in which such a service is lawful and honourable.*
HI. As to beneficence some distinctions are necessary. The law may be
extended to general objects, such as the care of the poor; but, for details, it is
necessary to depend upon private morality. Beneficence has its mysteries, and
loves best to employ itself upon evils so unforeseen or so secret that the law
cannot reach them. Besides, it is to individual free-will that benevolence owes
its energy. If the same acts were commanded, they would no longer be bene-
fits, they would lose their attraction and their essence. It is morality, and
especially religion, which here form the necessary complement to legislation,
and the sweetest tie of humanity.
However, instead of having done too much in this respect, legislators have
not done enough. They ought to erect into an offence the refusal or the
omission of a service of humanity when it would be easy to render it, and
when some distinct ill clearly results from the refusal; such, for example, as
abandoning a wounded man in a solitary road without seeking any assistance
for him; not giving information to a man who is ignorantly meddling with
poisons; not reaching out the hand to one who has fallen into a ditch from
which he cannot extricate himself; in these, and other similar cases, could any
fault be found with a punishment, exposing the delinquent to a certain degree
of shame, or subjecting him to a pecuniary responsibility for the evil which he
might have prevented?
I will add, that legislation might be extended further than it is in relation to
the interests of the inferior animals. I do not approve the laws of the Hindus
on this subject. There are good reasons why animals should serve for the
nourishment of man, and for destroying those which incommode us. We are
the better for it, and they are not the worse; for they have not, as we have,
long and cruel anticipations of the future; and the death which they receive at
our hands may always be rendered less painful than that which awaits them in
the inevitable course of nature. But what can be said to justify the useless
torments they are made to suffer; the cruel caprices which are exercised upon
• Here we touch upon one of the most difficult of questions. If the law is not what it ought to be if it
openly combats the principle of utility; ought we to obey it? Ought we to violate it? Ought we to
remain neuter between the law which commands an evil. and morality which forbids it? The
solution of this question involves considerations both of prudence and benevolence. We ought to
examine if it is more dangerous to violate the law than to obey it; we ought to consider whether
the probable evils of obedience are less or greater than the probable evils of disobedience.
 Further Reading 479
them? Among the many reasons which might be given for making criminal
such gratuitous cruelties, I confine myself to that which relates to my subject.
It is a means of cultivating a general sentiment of benevolence, and of render-
ing men more mild; or at least of preventing that brutal depravity, which, after
fleshing itself upon animals, presently demands human suffering to satiate its
appetite.

Editor's Notes
1. Bentham thought that the word "community" stood for a fiction because it may
mislead us into thinking that there is some existing entity called the "community"
which is other than the group of perceptible people who really are all that there is
to a community.
2. Here "measure of government" is treated as a fiction.
3. An ascetic is one who practices severe self-denial, denying satisfaction of desires
and needs. Bentham added a polemical footnote about monks who live ascetically
in the hope of being rewarded many times over in heaven.
4. Bentham treated these sects as if they were Protestant counterparts of the Catholic
monks he so disliked.
5. In the next footnote, Bentham dismissed the bulk of previous Western moral phi-
losophy as resting on the objectionable principle of sympathy and antipathy. Most
of the views he rejected are represented in these volumes, although Bentham's
description does not always identify a specific author.

Further Reading
Modern editions of Bentham's writings are appearing in J. H. Burns, John Dinwiddy.
and F. Rosen, eds., The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press 1968— ). The only previous attempt at a complete edition is the unsatis-
factory Works edited by John Bowring, 1843. Bentham elaborated his views on moral-
ity in a late work, the Deontology, now available in Amnon Goldworth, ed., Collected
Works (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983). This book contains Bentham's
thoughts on virtue and his ideas on other topics not covered in the Introduction to the
Principles of Morals and Legislation, but it is a frustrating and rather eccentric work.
For Bentham's views of language, the best work to consult is C. K. Ogden. ed.,
Bentham's Theory of Fictions (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 1932).
The literature on Bentham, Benthamism, and utilitarianism is immense. One of the
best places to begin is the brilliant essay "Bentham" by his sometime disciple John
Stuart Mill, in Mill's Collected Works, vol. 10, ed. John M. Robson (Toronto: Univer-
sity of Toronto Press, 1969). The first volume of Sir Leslie Stephen, The English
Utilitarians (London: Duckworth, 1900), devoted to Bentham, is still worth reading.
For the development of Bentham's thought, the great work by Elie Halevy, The
Growth of Philosophical Radicalism, trans. Mary Morris (London: Faber & Faber.
1928), is indispensable.
John Dinwiddy, Bentham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), gives a concise
survey, taking advantage of recent research. Ross Harrison, Bentham (London: Rout-
ledge & Kegan Paul, 1983), is especially good on Bentham's theory of meaning. David
Lyons, In the Interest of the Governed (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973), proposes an
interesting but controversial reading. David Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of
480 Jeremy Bentham
Today (Princeton N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1952), is a long and diffuse study
that draws on much manuscript material.
H. L. A. Hart's Essays on Bentham (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1982) —
though primarily about Bentham on jurisprudence and political theory — is of great
value to the student of Bentham's ethics. Gerald J. Postema, Bentham and the Com-
mon Law Thadition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), studies Bentham's legal
theory in its jurisprudential context. James Steintrager. Bentham (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cor-
nell University Press, 1977), is helpful on Bentham's political thought.
Finally, the journal Utilitas publishes studies of Bentham and of the utilitarian
tradition generally.
 Part IV.
Autonomy and Responsibility
 The Earl of Shaftesbury

Introduction
Anthony Ashley Cooper, who became the third earl of Shaftesbury upon the death of
his father in 1699, was born in 1671. His grandfather. the first earl, was a central figure
in the Whig party during the seventeenth century. The first earl took charge of his
grandson's education, placing him under the tutelage of John Locke. who was the
household physician and adviser to the whole family. As a young man, Cooper trav-
eled on the Continent for several years. and in 1695 he was elected to a seat in
Parliament. He served for three years and continued to attend sessions when he was
elevated to the House of Lords, but his poor health made it necessary for him to stay
away from London as much as possible. Eventually he was forced to move to Italy in
the hope that he could survive in the warmer climate. But in 1713 he died in Naples,
leaving behind a widow and one son.
His chief work is a series of essays, collected first in three volumes under the title
Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times (1711). The most overtly philosophi-
cal of these essays is the one of most significance in the history of ethics, the Inquiry
Concerning Virtue or Merit. The other essays deal with art, morals, religion, literature,
politics, and the proper manner of living. In an elaborate style, often playful, often
mocking, sometimes exhortative, sometimes biting and trenchant, they expose the
reader not so much to a system as to a personality. Their influence was enormous.
They made Shaftesbury the founder of a distinctive school of ethical thought. the
moral sense, or sentimentalist, school. And in art and literature the essays. translated
into French and German, were a major factor in forming subsequent sensibilities on
the Continent as well as in Britain.
The problems of politics, inseparable from religious issues during the seventeenth
century, were a part of Shaftesbury's life from its beginning. In addition to this family
inheritance, a number of other influences helped shape his mind. Shaftesbury was
educated after childhood by John Locke. Although Shaftesbury admired Locke person-
ally, he came to dislike profoundly his views of morality, in particular Locke's
voluntarism, his belief that God is perfectly free to establish for us any moral laws he
pleases, as there is no measure of morality other than God's will. Hobbes, Shaftesbury
thought, had held similar views, but he had had too low a character to exercise any real
influence, whereas Locke had to be taken seriously and opposed. This opposition is
evident in much of Shaftesbury's work.
In Amsterdam in 1698 Shaftesbury met the great skeptical writer Pierre Bayle.
Bayle, a Huguenot refugee living in Holland, was one of the first to argue that a society
of atheists could be as virtuous as a society of religious believers. Our actions are

483
484 The Earl of Shaftesbury
determined by our feelings rather than by our opinions, Bayle believed, and feelings
left to themselves would not divide us as opinion does. Hence there are no practical
grounds for persecuting those who do not accept orthodox views. And because we
have no absolute knowledge of religious truth, we have no theoretical basis for sup-
pressing what we believe are mistaken opinions. Consequently, we should be tolerant
of diversity of belief, in the assurance that religious beliefs by themselves make little or
no real difference to morality. Shaftesbury himself later championed religious toler-
ance and developed a moral psychology in which feelings play a major role.
Shaftesbury was associated with a group of politically influential noblemen who
advocated the theories that Harrington had proposed in his Oceana in 1656. One of
Shaftesbury's closest friends was Robert Viscount Molesworth, a leader of the group
trying to make the ideas of classical republicanism into an effective political program.
(See the section "The Classical Republic" in the Introduction to this anthology.)
Shaftesbury was also connected with a free-lance political writer and pamphleteer
named John Toland, who edited Harrington's works and was responsible for the first
publication of a draft of Shaftesbury's first long essay on morals. It appeared in 1699
under the title An Inquiry Concerning Virtue, without naming its author — but possibly
with his assent. The classical republic could be a reality only if its citizens were con-
cerned about sustaining the common good. Shaftesbury's interest in showing how
people can have this concern may have one of its roots here.
Finally, Shaftesbury knew the work of the Cambridge Platonists. (For a brief sketch
of their views, see the introduction to the selections from Ralph Cudworth in Part II of
this anthology.) In fact, Shaftesbury's first publication was an edition of sermons by
their most admired member, Benjamin Whichcote, from a manuscript that Shaftes-
bury owned. Shaftesbury's preface makes clear his detestation of Hobbes and his
contempt for those who, as he put it, portray humans as mean and selfish in order to
show that there is need for a religious revelation to set them straight. Whichcote, he
commented, saw that men are naturally sociable and loving, that Christianity is preemi-
nently the religion in which love is enjoined, not one whose basis of morality is law
backed by terror. Views like these occupied a central place in Shaftesbury's own
mature thinking.
Shaftesbury did not, however, express his views in a Christian vocabulary. Rather,
he looked back to classical antiquity for his language — not to Epicureanism, which was
too close to Hobbes's position to be acceptable. but to Stoicism, a suitable outlook for
the politically active man of integrity, the citizen of a classical republic. Virtue will lead
one to act for the general good; virtue is sufficient as an end, as it consists in having
one's inner life in proper order, and happiness itself is no more than such order. One
can therefore act as one sees fit, regardless of the political consequences for oneself.
There is a God, for Shaftesbury, but he is rather aloof, not a God from whom to expect
miraculous help but a God who simply ensures the good order of the universe and who
does not need to intervene to make things go well. People can be left to run their lives
by themselves.
Shaftesbury used the phrase "moral sense" to identify the mental ability that guides
us, but he did not use it often; still less did he worry about exactly how that sense
functions — whether it gives us knowledge or provides us with a feeling. He was more
concerned with showing that the object of the moral faculty is itself something inner,
that is, our own feelings and desires or motives. Shaftesbury was a sentimentalist in
morals not simply because of the presence of a moral sense in his theory but also
because he trusted human sentiments to move us to act appropriately and relied on our
 An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour 485
reflexive awareness of those sentiments as a sufficient guide to what is or is not
appropriate. Inner order, for him, is not constituted by conformity to what external
laws or perfections require. It exists when our active principles are in an harmonious
relation to one another, as judged by the moral faculty. Bringing oneself into moral
order is like composing a work of art; each of us must he an independent artist.
In the following selections I have given most of the space to excerpts from the
Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit, which Shaftesbury first published under his own
name and in its present form in the 1711 edition of the Characteristics. These selections
are preceded by short excerpts from two other essays, "Sensus communis: An Essay on
the Freedom of Wit and Humour" (1709) and "Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author"
(1710). These passages indicate, however inadequately, something of Shaftesbury's
broader aims and interests. The texts are from John M. Robertson's edition of the
Characteristics, 2 vols., London. 19(X).

Sensus communis: An Essay on the Freedom of Wit and Humour

A public spirit can come only from a social feeling or sense of partnership with
human kind. Now there are none so far from being partners in this sense, or
sharers in this common affection, as they who scarcely know an equal, nor
consider themselves as subject to any law of fellowship or community. And
thus morality and good government go together. There is no real love of
virtue, without the knowledge of public good. And where absolute power is,
there is no public.
They who live under a tyranny, and have learnt to admire its power as
sacred and divine, are debauched as much in their religion as in their morals.
Public good, according to their apprehension, is as little the measure or rule of
government in the universe as in the State. They have scarce a notion of what
is good or just, other than as mere will and power have determined. Omnipo-
tence, they think, would hardly be itself, were it not at liberty to dispense with
the laws of equity, and change at pleasure the standard of moral rectitude.'
But notwithstanding the prejudices and corruptions of this kind, 'tis plain
there is something still of a public principle, even where it is most perverted
and depressed. The worst of magistracies, the mere despotic kind, can show
sufficient instances of zeal and affection towards it. Where no other govern-
ment is known, it seldom fails of having that allegiance and duty paid it which
is owing to a better form. The Eastern countries, and many barbarous na-
tions, have been and still are examples of this kind. The personal love they
bear their prince, however severe towards them, may show how natural an
affection there is towards government and order among mankind. If men have
really no public parent, no magistrate in common to cherish and protect them,
they will still imagine they have such a one; and, like new-born creatures who
have never seen their dam, will fancy one for themselves, and apply (as by
Nature prompted) to some like form, for favour and protection. In the room
of a true foster-father and chief, they will take after a false one; and in the
room of a legal government and just prince, obey even a tyrant, and endure a
whole lineage and succession of such.
486 The Earl of Shaftesbury
As for us Britons, thank Heaven, we have a better sense of government
delivered to us from our ancestors. We have the notion of a public, and a
constitution; how a legislative and how an executive is modelled. We under-
stand weight and measure in this kind, and can reason justly on the balance of
power and property. The maxims we draw from hence, are as evident as those
in mathematics. Our increasing knowledge shows us every day, more and
more, what common sense is in politics; and this must of necessity lead us to
understand a like sense in morals, which is the foundation.

Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author

Thus is every one convinced of the reality of a better self, and of the cult or
homage which is due to it. The misfortune is, we are seldom taught to compre-
hend this self by placing it in a distinct view from its representative or counter-
feit. In our holy religion, which for the greatest part is adapted to the very
meanest capacities, 'tis not to be expected that a speculation of this kind
should be openly advanced. 'Tis enough that we have hints given us of a
nobler self than that which is commonly supposed the basis and foundation of
our actions. Self-interest is there taken as it is vulgarly conceived. Though on
the other side there are, in the most sacred characters, examples given us of
the highest contempt of all such interested views, of a willingness to suffer
without recompense for the sake of others, and of a desire to part even with
life and being itself on account of what is generous and worthy. But in the
same manner as the celestial phenomena are in the sacred volumes generally
treated according to common imagination and the then current system of
Astronomy and Natural Science, so the moral appearances are in many places
preserved without alteration, according to vulgar prejudice and the general
conception of interest and self-good. Our real and genuine self is sometimes
supposed that ambitious one which is fond of power and glory, sometimes that
childish one which is taken with vain show, and is to be invited to obedience
by promise of finer habitations, precious stones and metals, shining garments,
crowns, and other such dazzling beauties, by which another earth or material
city is represented. . . .
But whatever may be the proper effect or operation of religion, 'tis the
known province of philosophy to teach us ourselves, keep us the self-same
persons, and so regulate our governing fancies, passions, and humours, as to
make us comprehensible to ourselves, and knowable by other features than
those of a bare countenance. For 'tis not certainly by virtue of our face merely
that we are ourselves. 'Tis not we who change when our complexion or shape
changes. But there is that, which being wholly metamorphosed and con-
verted, we are thereby in reality transformed and lost.
. . . When from a noted liberality we change perhaps to as remarkable a
parsimony; when from indolence and love of rest we plunge into business, or
from a busy and severe character, abhorrent from the tender converse of the
fair sex, we turn on a sudden to a contrary passion, and become amorous or
 Soliloquy; or, Advice to an Author 487
uxorious; we acknowledge the weakness, and charging our defect on the
general want of philosophy we say (sighing) "that, indeed, we none of us truly
know ourselves." And thus we recognise the authority and proper object of
philosophy; so far at least, that though we pretend not to be complete philoso-
phers, we confess "that as we have more or less of this intelligence or compre-
hension of ourselves we are accordingly more or less truly men, and either
more or less to be depended on in friendship, society, and the commerce of
life."
The fruits of this science are indeed the fairest imaginable, and upon due
trial are found to be as well relished and of as good favour with mankind. . . .
This is the philosophy which by Nature has the pre-eminence above all
other science or knowledge. Nor can this surely be of the sort called vain or
deceitful, since it is the only means by which I can discover vanity and
deceit.' This is not of that kind which depends on genealogies or traditions,'
and ministers questions and vain jangling.' It has not its name, as other
philosophies, from the mere subtlety and nicety of the speculation, but by
way of excellence, from its being superior to all other speculations, from its
presiding over all other sciences and occupations, teaching the measure of
each, and assigning the just value of everything in life. By this science
religion itself is judged, spirits are searched, prophecies proved, miracles
distinguished: the sole measure and standard being taken from moral recti-
tude, and from the discernment of what is sound and just in the affections.
For if the tree is known only by its fruits, my first endeavour must be to
distinguish the true taste of fruits, refine my palate, and establish a just
relish in the kind. So that to bid me judge authority by morals, whilst the
rule of morals is supposed dependent on mere authority and will, is the same
in reality as to bid me see with my eyes shut, measure without a standard,
and count without arithmetic.
And thus Philosophy, which judges both of herself and of everything be-
sides, discovers her own province and chief command, teaches me to distin-
guish between her person and her likeness, and shows me her immediate and
real self, by that sole privilege of teaching me to know myself and what
belongs to me. She gives to every inferior science its just rank; leaves some to
measure sounds, others to scan syllables, others to weigh vacuums, and define
spaces and extensions; but reserves to herself her due authority and majesty,
keeps her state and ancient title of vitae dux, virtutis indagatrix,' .. .
Should a writer upon music, addressing himself to the students and lovers of
the art, declare to them "that the measure or rule of harmony was caprice or
will, humour or fashion," 'tis not very likely he should be heard with great
attention or treated with real gravity. For harmony is harmony by nature, let
men judge ever so ridiculously of music. So is symmetry and proportion
founded still in nature, let men's fancy prove ever so barbarous, or their
fashions ever so Gothic in their architecture, sculpture, or whatever other
designing art. 'Tis the same case where life and manners arc concerned.
Virtue has the same fixed standard. The same numbers, harmony, and propor-
488 The Earl of Shaftesbury

tion will have place in morals, and are discoverable in the characters and
affections of mankind; in which are laid the just foundations of an art and
science superior to every other of human practice and comprehension.
This, I suppose therefore, is highly necessary that a writer should compre-
hend. For things are stubborn and will not be as we fancy them, or as the
fashion varies, but as they stand in nature. Now whether the writer be poet,
philosopher, or of whatever kind, he is in truth no other than a copyist after
nature.

An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit

BOOK I

Part II

Section I
When we reflect on any ordinary frame or constitution either of Art or
Nature, and consider how hard it is to give the least account of a particular
part without a competent knowledge of the whole, we need not wonder to
find ourselves at a loss in many things relating to the constitution and frame of
Nature herself. For to what end in Nature many things, even whole species of
creatures, refer, or to what purpose they serve, will be hard for any one justly
to determine; but to what end the many proportions and various shapes of
parts in many creatures actually serve, we are able, by the help of study and
observation, to demonstrate with great exactness.
We know that every creature has a private good and interest of his own,
which Nature has compelled him to seek, by all the advantages afforded him
within the compass of his make. We know that there is in reality a right and a
wrong state of every creature, and that his right one is by nature forwarded
and by himself affectionately sought. There being therefore in every creature
a certain interest or good, there must be also a certain end to which everything
in his constitution must naturally refer. To this end if anything, either in his
appetites, passions, or affections, be not conducing but the contrary, we must
of necessity own it ill to him. And in this manner he is ill with respect to
himself, as he certainly is with respect to others of his kind, when any such
appetites or passions make him anyway injurious to them. Now, if by the
natural constitution of any rational creature, the same irregularities of appe-
tite which make him ill to others, make him ill also to himself, and if the same
regularity of affections which causes him to be good in one sense, causes him
to be good also in the other, then is that goodness by which he is thus useful to
others a real good and advantage to himself. And thus virtue and interest may
be found at last to agree.
If therefore in the structure of this or any other animal, there he anything
which points beyond himself, and by which he is plainly discovered to have
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 489
relation to some other being or nature besides his own, then will this animal
undoubtedly be esteemed a part of some other system. For instance, if an
animal has the proportions of a male, it shows he has relation to a female.
And the respective proportions both of the male and female will be allowed,
doubtless, to have a joint relation to another existence and order of things
beyond themselves. So that the creatures are both of them to be considered as
parts of another system, which is that of a particular race or species of living
creatures, who have some one common nature, or are provided for by some
one order or constitution of things subsisting together, and co-operating to-
wards their conservation and support.
In the same manner, if a whole species of animals contribute to the exis-
tence or well-being of some other, then is that whole species, in general, a part
only of some other system. . . .
Now, if the whole system of animals, together with that of vegetables, and
all other things in this inferior world, be properly comprehended in one
system of a globe or earth, and if, again, this globe or earth itself appears to
have a real dependence on something still beyond, as, for example, either on
its sun, the galaxy, or its fellow-planets, then is it in reality a part only of some
other system. And if it be allowed that there is in like manner a system of all
things, and a universal nature, there can be no particular being or system
which is not either good or ill in that general one of the universe; for if it be
insignificant and of no use, it is a fault or imperfection, and consequently ill in
the general system.
Therefore if any being be wholly and really ill, it must be ill with respect to
the universal system; and then the system of the universe is ill or imperfect.
But if the ill of one private system be the good of others; if it makes still to the
good of the general system (as when one creature lives by the destruction of
another; one thing is generated from the corruption of another; or one plane-
tary system or vortex may swallow up another), then is the ill of that private
system no real ill in itself, any more than the pain of breeding teeth is ill in a
system or body which is so constituted that, without this occasion of pain, it
would suffer worse by being defective.
So that we cannot say of any being that it is wholly and absolutely ill, unless
we can positively show and ascertain that what we call ill is nowhere good
besides, in any other system, or with respect to any other order or economy
whatsoever.
But were there in the world any entire species of animals destructive to
every other, it may be justly called an ill species, as being ill in the animal
system. And if in any species of animals (as in men, for example) one man is
of a nature pernicious to the rest, he is in this respect justly styled an ill man.
We do not, however, say of any one that he is an ill man because he has the
plague-spots upon him, or because he has convulsive fits which make him
strike and wound such as approach him. Nor do we say on the other side that
he is a good man when, having his hands tied up, he is hindered from doing
the mischief he designs; or (which is in a manner the same) when he abstains
490 The Earl of Shaftesbury

from executing his ill purpose through a fear of some impending punishment,
or through the allurement of some exterior reward.
So that in a sensible creature that which is not done through any affection at
all makes neither good nor ill in the nature of that creature, who then only is
supposed good when the good or ill of the system to which he has relation is
the immediate object of some passion or affection moving him.
Since it is therefore by affection merely that a creature is esteemed good or
ill, natural or unnatural, our business will be to examine which are the good
and natural, and which the ill and unnatural affections.

Section III
But to proceed from what is esteemed mere goodness. and lies within the
reach and capacity of all sensible creatures, to that which is called virtue or
merit, and is allowed to man only.
In a creature capable of forming general notions of things, not only the
outward beings which offer themselves to the sense are the objects of the
affection, but the very actions themselves, and the affections of pity, kindness,
gratitude, and their contraries, being brought into the mind by reflection,
become objects. So that, by means of this reflected sense, there arises another
kind of affection towards those very affections themselves, which have been
already felt, and are now become the subject of a new liking or dislike.
The case is the same in the mental or moral subjects as in the ordinary
bodies or common subjects of sense. The shapes, motions, colours, and pro-
portions of these latter being presented to our eye, there necessarily results a
beauty or deformity, according to the different measure, arrangement, and
disposition of their several parts. So in behaviour and actions, when presented
to our understanding, there must be found, of necessity, an apparent differ-
ence, according to the regularity or irregularity of the subjects.
The mind, which is spectator or auditor of other minds, cannot be without
its eye and ear, so as to discern proportion, distinguish sound, and scan each
sentiment or thought which comes before it. It can let nothing escape its
censure. It feels the soft and harsh, the agreeable and disagreeable in the
affections; and finds a foul and fair, a harmonious and a dissonant, as really
and truly here as in any musical numbers or in the outward forms or represen-
tations of sensible things. Nor can it withhold its admiration and ecstasy, its
aversion and scorn, any more in what relates to one than to the other of these
subjects. So that to deny the common and natural sense of a sublime and
beautiful in things, will appear an affectation merely, to any one who consid-
ers duly of this affair.
Now as in the sensible kind of objects the species or images of bodies,
colours, and sounds are perpetually moving before our eyes, and acting on
our senses even when we sleep; so in the moral and intellectual kind, the
forms and images of things are no less active and incumbent on the mind, at
all seasons, and even when the real objects themselves arc absent.
In these vagrant characters or pictures of manners, which the mind of
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 491
necessity figures to itself and carries still about with it, the heart cannot
possibly remain neutral; but constantly takes part one way or other. However
false or corrupt it be within itself, it finds the difference, as to beauty and
comeliness, between one heart and another, one turn of affection, one behav-
iour, one sentiment and another; and accordingly, in all disinterested cases,
must approve in some measure of what is natural and honest, and disapprove
what is dishonest and corrupt.
Thus the several motions, inclinations, passions, dispositions, and conse-
quent carriage and behaviour of creatures in the various parts of life, being in
several views or perspectives represented to the mind, which readily discerns
the good and ill towards the species or public, there arises a new trial or
exercise of the heart, which must either rightly and soundly affect what is just
and right, and disaffect what is contrary, or corruptly affect what is ill and
disaffect what is worthy and good.
And in this case alone it is we call any creature worthy or virtuous, when it
can have the notion of a public interest, and can attain the speculation or
science of what is morally good or ill, admirable or blamable, right or wrong.
For though we may vulgarly call an ill horse vicious, yet we never say of a
good one, nor of any mere beast, idiot, or changeling, 6 though ever so good-
natured, that he is worthy or virtuous.
So that if a creature be generous, kind, constant, compassionate, yet if he
cannot reflect on what he himself does, or sees others do, so as to take notice
of what is worthy or honest, and make that notice or conception of worth and
honesty to be an object of his affection, he has not the character of being
virtuous; for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of having a sense of right or
wrong, a sentiment or judgment of what is done through just, equal, and good
affection, or the contrary.
Whatsoever is done through any unequal affection is iniquitous, wicked,
and wrong. If the affection be equal, sound, and good, and the subject of the
affection such as may with advantage to society be ever in the same manner
prosecuted or affected, this must necessarily constitute what we call equity
and right in any action. For wrong is not such action as is barely the cause of
harm (since at this rate a dutiful son aiming at an enemy, but by mistake or ill
chance happening to kill his father, would do a wrong), but when anything is
done through insufficient or unequal affection (as when a son shows no con-
cern for the safety of a father; or, where there is need of succour, prefers an
indifferent person to him) this is of the nature of wrong.
Neither can any weakness or imperfection in the senses be the occasion of
iniquity or wrong; if the object of the mind itself be not at any time absurdly
framed, nor any way improper, but suitable, just, and worthy of the opinion
and affection applied to it. For if we will suppose a man who, being sound and
entire both in his reason and affection, has nevertheless so depraved a consti-
tution or frame of body that the natural objects are, through his organs of
sense, as through ill glasses, falsely conveyed and misrepresented, 'twill be
soon observed, in such a person's case, that since his failure is not in his
492 The Earl of Shaftesbury
principal or leading part, he cannot in himself be esteemed iniquitous or
unjust.
Tis otherwise in what relates to opinion, belief, or speculation. For as the
extravagance of judgment or belief is such that in some countries even mon-
keys, cats, crocodiles, and other vile or destructive animals have been es-
teemed holy, and worshipped even as deities; should it appear to any one of
the religion or belief of those countries that to save such a creature as a cat,
preferably to a parent, was right, and that other men who had not the same
religious opinion were to be treated as enemies till converted; this would be
certainly wrong and wicked in the believer; and every action, grounded on this
belief, would be an iniquitous, wicked, and vicious action.
And thus whatsoever causes a misconception or misapprehension of the
worth or value of any object, so as to diminish a due, or raise any undue,
irregular or unsocial affection, must necessarily be the occasion of wrong. . . .
A mistake therefore, in fact, being no cause or sign of ill affection, can be no
cause of vice. But a mistake of right being the cause of unequal affection, must
of necessity be the cause of vicious action in every intelligent or rational being.
But as there are many occasions where the matter of right may even to the
most discerning part of mankind appear difficult, and of doubtful decision, 'tis
not a slight mistake of this kind which can destroy the character of a virtuous
or worthy man. But when, either through superstition or ill custom, there
come to be very gross mistakes in the assignment or application of the affec-
tion; when the mistakes are either in their nature so gross, or so complicated
and frequent, that a creature cannot well live in a natural state, nor with due
affections, compatible with human society and civil life; then is the character
of virtue forfeited.
And thus we find how far worth and virtue depend on a knowledge of right
and wrong, and on a use of reason, sufficient to secure a right application of
the affections; that nothing horrid or unnatural, nothing unexemplary, noth-
ing destructive of that natural affection by which the species or society is
upheld, may on any account, or through any principle or notion of honour or
religion, be at any time affected or prosecuted as a good and proper object of
esteem. For such a principle as this must be wholly vicious; and whatsoever is
acted upon it can be no other than vice and immorality. And thus if there be
anything which teaches men either treachery, ingratitude, or cruelty, by divine
warrant or under colour and pretence of any present or future good to man-
kind; if there be anything which teaches men to persecute their friends
through love, or to torment captives of war in sport, or to offer human
sacrifice, or to torment, macerate, or mangle themselves in a religious zeal
before their God, or to commit any sort of barbarity or brutality as amiable or
becoming; be it custom which gives applause, or religion which gives a sanc-
tion; this is not, nor ever can be, virtue of any kind, or in any sense, but must
remain still horrid depravity, notwithstanding any fashion, law, custom or
religion which may be ill and vicious itself, but can never alter the eternal
measures and immutable independent nature of worth and virtue.
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 493
Section IV
Upon the whole. As to those creatures who are only capable of being
moved by sensible objects, they are accordingly good or vicious as the sensible
affections stand with them. 'Tis otherwise in creatures capable of framing
rational objects of moral good. For in one of this kind, should the sensible
affections stand ever so much amiss, yet if they prevail not, because of those
other rational affections spoken of, 'tis evident the temper still holds good in
the main, and the person is with justice esteemed virtuous by all men. . . .

Part II!

Section 1
. . . 'Tis impossible to suppose a mere sensible creature originally so ill-
constituted and unnatural as that, from the moment he comes to be tried by
sensible objects, he should have no one good passion towards his kind, no
foundation either of pity, love, kindness, or social affection. 'Tis full as impos-
sible to conceive that a rational creature coming first to be tried by rational
objects, and receiving into his mind the images or representations of justice,
generosity, gratitude, or other virtue, should have no liking of these or dislike
of their contraries, but be found absolutely indifferent towards whatsoever is
presented to him of this sort. A soul, indeed, may as well be without sense as
without admiration in the things of which it has any knowledge. Coming
therefore to a capacity of seeing and admiring in this new way, it must needs
find a beauty and a deformity as well in actions, minds, and tempers, as in
figures, sounds, or colours. If there be no real amiableness or deformity in
moral acts, there is at least an imaginary one of full force. Though perhaps the
thing itself should not be allowed in Nature, the imagination or fancy of it
must be allowed to be from Nature alone. Nor can anything besides art and
strong endeavour, with long practice and meditation, overcome such a natural
prevention' or prepossession of the mind in favour of this moral distinction.
Sense of right and wrong therefore being as natural to us as natural affec-
tion itself, and being a first principle in our constitution and make, there is no
speculative opinion, persuasion, or belief, which is capable immediately or
directly to exclude or destroy it. That which is of original and pure nature,
nothing beside contrary habit and custom (a second nature) is able to dis-
place. And this affection being an original one of earliest rise in the soul or
affectionate part, nothing beside contrary affection, by frequent check and
control, can operate upon it, so as either to diminish it in part or destroy it in
the whole. . . .

Section II
. . . For whoever thinks there is a God, and pretends formally to believe
that he is just and good, must suppose that there is independently such a thing
as justice and injustice, truth and falsehood, right and wrong, according to
494 The Earl of Shaftesbury
which he pronounces that God is just, righteous, and true. If the mere will,
decree, or law of God he said absolutely to constitute right and wrong, then
are these latter words of no significancy at all. For thus, if each part of a
contradiction were affirmed for truth by the Supreme Power, they would
consequently become true. Thus if one person were decreed to suffer for
another's fault, the sentence would be just and equitable. And thus, in the
same manner, if arbitrarily and without reason some beings were destined to
endure perpetual ill, and others as constantly to enjoy good, this also would
pass under the same denomination. But to say of anything that it is just or
unjust on such a foundation as this, is to say nothing, or to speak without a
meaning.
And thus it appears that where a real devotion and hearty worship is paid to
a Supreme Being, who in his history or character is represented otherwise
than as really and truly just and good, there must ensue a loss of rectitude, a
disturbance of thought, and a corruption of temper and manners in the be-
liever. His honesty will of necessity be supplanted by his zeal, whilst he is thus
unnaturally influenced, and rendered thus immorally devout.
To this we need only add, that as the ill character of a God does injury to the
affections of men, and disturbs and impairs the natural sense of right and
wrong, so, on the other hand, nothing can more highly contribute to the fixing
of right apprehensions, and a sound judgment or sense of right and wrong,
than to believe a God who is ever and on all accounts represented such as to
be actually a true model and example of the most exact justice and highest
goodness and worth. Such a view of divine providence and bounty extended
to all, and expressed in a constant good affection towards the whole, must of
necessity engage us, within our compass and sphere, to act by a like principle
and affection. And having once the good of our species or public in view, as
our end or aim, 'tis impossible we should be misguided by any means to a false
apprehension or sense of right or wrong. . . .

Section III
. . . That it is possible for a creature capable of using reflection to have a
liking or dislike of moral actions, and consequently a sense of right and wrong,
before such time as he may have any settled notion of a God, is what will
hardly be questioned; it being a thing not expected, or any way possible, that
a creature such as man, arising from his childhood slowly and gradually to
several degrees of reason and reflection, should at the very first be taken up
with those speculations or more refined sort of reflections, about the subject
of God's existence.
Let us suppose a creature who, wanting reason and being unable to re-
flect, has notwithstanding many good qualities and affections, as love to his
kind, courage, gratitude, or pity. 'Tis certain that if you give to this creature
a reflecting faculty, it will at the same instant approve of gratitude, kindness,
and pity; be taken with any show or representation of the social passion, and
think nothing more amiable than this, or more odious than the contrary.
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 495
And this is to be capable of virtue, and to have a sense of right and
wrong. . . .

BOOK II

Part I

Section 1
We have considered what virtue is and to whom the character belongs. It
remains to inquire, what obligation there is to virtue, or what reason to
embrace it.
We have found that, to deserve the name of good or virtuous, a creature
must have all his inclinations and affections, his dispositions of mind and
temper, suitable, and agreeing with the good of his kind, or of that system in
which he is included, and of which he constitutes a part. To stand thus well
affected, and to have one's affections right and entire, not only in respect of
oneself but of society and the public, this is rectitude, integrity, or virtue. And
to be wanting in any of these, or to have their contraries, is depravity, corrup-
tion, and vice. . . .
There being allowed therefore in a creature such affections as these to-
wards the common nature or system of the kind, together with those other
which regard the private nature or self-system, it will appear that in follow-
ing the first of these affections, the creature must on many occasions contra-
dict and go against the latter. How else should the species be preserved? Or
what would signify that implanted natural affection, by which a creature
through so many difficulties and hazards preserves its offspring and supports
its kind? .. .
Now that this is in reality quite otherwise, we shall endeavour to demon-
strate, so as to make appear that what men represent as an ill order and
constitution in the universe, by making moral rectitude appear the ill, and
depravity the good or advantage of a creature, is in Nature just the contrary.
That to be well affected towards the public interest and one's own is not only
consistent but inseparable; and that moral rectitude or virtue must accordingly
be the advantage, and vice the injury and disadvantage of every creature.

Section III
It has been shown before, that no animal can be said properly to act other-
wise than through affections or passions, such as are proper to an animal. For
in convulsive fits, where a creature strikes either himself or others, 'tis a
simple mechanism, an engine, or piece of clockwork, which acts, and not the
animal.
Whatsoever therefore is done or acted by any animal as such, is done only
through some affection or passion, as of fear, love, or hatred moving him.
And as it is impossible that a weaker affection should overcome a stronger,
496 The Earl of Shaftesbury
so it is impossible but that where the affections or passions are strongest in the
main, and form in general the most considerable party, either by their force or
number, thither the animal must incline: and according to this balance he must
be governed and led to action.
The affections or passions which must influence and govern the animal are
either —
1. The natural affections, which lead to the good of the public.
2. Or the self affections, which lead only to the good of the private.
3. Or such as are neither of these, nor tending either to any good of the
public or private, but contrariwise; and which may therefore be justly styled
unnatural affections.
So that according as these affections stand, a creature must be virtuous or
vicious, good or ill.
The latter sort of these affections, 'tis evident, are wholly vicious. The two
former may be vicious or virtuous according to their degree.
It may seem strange, perhaps, to speak of natural affections as too strong,
or of self affections as too weak. But to clear this difficulty we must call to
mind what has been already explained, "That natural affection may, in particu-
lar cases, be excessive, and in an unnatural degree." As when pity is so
overcoming as to destroy its own end, and prevent the succour and relief
required; or as when love to the offspring proves such a fondness as destroys
the parent, and consequently the offspring itself. . . .
And thus the affections towards private good become necessary and essen-
tial to goodness. For though no creature can be called good or virtuous merely
for possessing these affections, yet since it is impossible that the public good
or good of the system can be preserved without them, it follows that a crea-
ture really wanting in them is in reality wanting in some degree to goodness
and natural rectitude, and may thus be esteemed vicious and defective. . . .
But having shown what is meant by a passion's being in too high or in too
low a degree; and that to have any natural affection too high, or any self
affection too low, though it be often approved as virtue, is yet, strictly speak-
ing, a vice and imperfection; we come now to the plainer and more essential
part of vice, and which alone deserves to be considered as such; that is to say —
1. When either the public affections are weak or deficient.
2. Or the private and self affections too strong.
3. Or that such affections arise as are neither of these, nor in any degree
tending to the support either of the public or private system.
Otherwise than thus, it is impossible any creature can be such as we call ill
or vicious. So that if once we prove that it is really not the creature's interest
to be thus viciously affected, but contrariwise, we shall then have proved that
it is his interest to be wholly good and virtuous, since in a wholesome and
sound state of his affections, such as we have described, he cannot possibly be
other than sound, good, and virtuous in his action and behaviour.
Our business, therefore, will be to prove —
1. That to have the natural, kindly, or generous affections strong and power-
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 497
ful towards the good of the public, is to have the chief means and power of
self-enjoyment; and that to want them, is certain misery and ill.
2. That to have the private or self affections too strong, or beyond their
degree of subordinacy to the kindly and natural, is also miserable.
3. And that to have the unnatural affections (viz. such as are neither
founded on the interest of the kind or public, nor of the private person or
creature himself) is to be miserable in the highest degree.

Part II

Section I
To begin therefore with this proof, That to have the natural affections (such
as are founded in love, complacency, good-will, and in a sympathy with the
kind or species) is to have the chief means and power of self-enjoyment; and
that to want them is certain misery and ill. . . .
How much the social pleasures are superior to any other may be known by
visible tokens and effects. The very outward features, the marks and signs
which attend this sort of joy, are expressive of a more intense, clear, and
undisturbed pleasure than those which attend the satisfaction of thirst, hunger,
and other ardent appetites. But more particularly still may this superiority be
known from the actual prevalence and ascendency of this sort of affection over
all besides. Wherever it presents itself with any advantage, it silences and
appeases every other motion of pleasure. No joy, merely of sense, can be a
match for it. Whoever is judge of both the pleasures will ever give the prefer-
ence to the former. But to be able to judge of both, 'tis necessary to have a
sense of each. The honest man indeed can judge of sensual pleasure, and
knows its utmost force. For neither is his taste or sense the duller; but, on the
contrary, the more intense and clear on the account of his temperance and a
moderate use of appetite. But the immoral and profligate man can by no
means be allowed a good judge of social pleasure, to which he is so mere a
stranger by his nature. . . .
It may be considered, withal, as a thing impossible, that they who esteem or
love by any other rule than that of virtue, should place their affection on such
subjects as they can long esteem or love. 'Twill be hard for them, in the
number of their so beloved friends, to find any in whom they can heartily
rejoice, or whose reciprocal love or esteem they can sincerely prize and enjoy.
Nor can those pleasures be sound or lasting which are gathered from a self-
flattery and false persuasion of the esteem and love of others who are incapa-
ble of any sound esteem or love. It appears therefore how much the men of
narrow or partial affection must be losers in this sense, and of necessity fall
short in this second principal part of mental enjoyment.
Meanwhile entire affection has all the opposite advantages. It is equal,
constant, accountable to itself, ever satisfactory and pleasing. It gains ap-
plause and love from the best, and in all disinterested cases from the very
498 The Earl of Shaftesbury
worst of men. We may say of it with justice, that it carries with it a conscious-
ness of merited love and approbation from all society, from all intelligent
creatures, and from whatever is original to all other intelligence. And if there
be in Nature any such original, we may add that the satisfaction which attends
entire affection is full and noble in proportion to its final object, which con-
tains all perfection, according to the sense of theism above noted.' For this, as
has been shown, is the result of virtue. And to have this entire affection or
integrity of mind is to live according to Nature, and the dictates and rules of
supreme wisdom. This is morality, justice, piety, and natural religion. . . .
There are two things which to a rational creature must be horridly offensive
and grievous, viz. to have the reflection in his mind of any unjust action or
behaviour which he knows to be naturally odious and ill-deserving; or of any
foolish action or behaviour which he knows to be prejudicial to his own
interest or happiness.
The former of these is alone properly called Conscience, whether in a moral
or religious sense. For to have awe and terror of the Deity does not, of itself,
imply conscience. No one is esteemed the more conscientious for the fear of
evil spirits, conjurations, enchantments, or whatever may proceed from any
unjust, capricious, or devilish nature. Now to fear God any otherwise than as
in consequence of some justly blamable and imputable act, is to fear a devilish
nature, not a divine one. Nor does the fear of hell or a thousand terrors of the
Deity imply conscience, unless where there is an apprehension of what is
wrong, odious, morally deformed, and ill-deserving. And where this is the
case, there conscience must have effect, and punishment of necessity be appre-
hended, even though it be not expressly threatened.
And thus religious conscience supposes moral or natural conscience. And
though the former be understood to carry with it the fear of divine punish-
ment, it has its force however from the apprehended moral deformity and
odiousness of any act with respect purely to the Divine Presence, and the
natural veneration due to such a supposed being. For in such a presence the
shame of villainy or vice must have its force, independently on that further
apprehension of the magisterial capacity of such a being, and his dispensation
of particular rewards or punishments in a future state.
It has been already said, that no creature can maliciously and intentionally
do ill without being sensible at the same time that he deserves ill. And in this
respect, every sensible creature may be said to have conscience. For with all
mankind, and all intelligent creatures, this must ever hold, that what they
know they deserve from every one, that they necessarily must fear and expect
from all. And thus suspicious and ill apprehensions must arise, with terror
both of men and of the Deity. But besides this, there must in every rational
creature be yet farther conscience, viz. from sense of deformity in what is thus
ill-deserving and unnatural, and from a consequent shame or regret of incur-
ring what is odious and moves aversion.
There scarcely is, or can be, any creature whom consciousness of villainy, as
such merely, does not at all offend; nor anything opprobrious or heinously
 An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit 499
imputable move or affect. If there be such a one, 'tis evident he must be
absolutely indifferent towards moral good or ill. If this indeed be his case,
'twill be allowed he can be no way capable of natural affection; if not of that,
then neither of any social pleasure or mental enjoyment as shown above, but
on the contrary, he must be subject to all manner of horrid, unnatural, and ill
affection. So that to want conscience, or natural sense of the odiousness of
crime and injustice, is to be most of all miserable in life; but where conscience
or sense of this sort remains, there, consequently, whatever is committed
against it must of necessity, by means of reflection, as we have shown, be
continually shameful, grievous, and offensive. . . . And thus we have demon-
strated that as, on one side, to have the natural and good affections is to have
the chief means and power of self-enjoyment; so, on the other side, to want
them is certain misery and ill.

Section II
We are now to prove, that by having the self-passions too intense or strong,
a creature becomes miserable.
In order to [do] this we must, according to method, enumerate those home-
affections which relate to the private interest or separate economy of the
creature, such as love of life; resentment of injury; pleasure, or appetite
towards nourishment and the means of generation; interest, or desire of those
conveniences by which we are well provided for and maintained; emulation,
or love of praise and honour; indolence, or love of ease and rest. These are
the affections which relate to the private system, and constitute whatever we
call interestedness or self-love.
Now these affections, if they are moderate and within certain bounds, are
neither injurious to social life nor a hindrance to virtue; but being in an
extreme degree, they become cowardice, revengefulness, luxury, avarice, van-
ity and ambition, sloth; and as such are owned vicious and ill with respect to
human society. How they are ill also with respect to the private person, and
are to his own disadvantage as well as that of the public, we may consider as
we severally examine them. . . .

Conclusion
Thus have we endeavoured to prove what was proposed in the beginning. And
since in the common and known sense of vice and illness, no one can be
vicious or ill except either —
1. By the deficiency or weakness of natural affections;
Or, 2. By the violence of the selfish;
Or, 3. By such as are plainly unnatural;
It must follow that, if each of these are pernicious and destructive to the
creature, insomuch that his completest state of misery is made from hence, to
be wicked or vicious is to be miserable and unhappy.
And since every vicious action must in proportion, more or less, help to-
500 The Earl of Shaftesbury
wards this mischief and self-ill, it must follow that every vicious action must be
self-injurious and ill.
On the other side, the happiness and good of virtue has been proved from
the contrary effect of other affections, such as are according to Nature and the
economy of the species or kind. We have cast up all those particulars from
whence (as by way of addition and subtraction) the main sum or general
account of happiness is either augmented or diminished. And if there be no
article exceptionable in this scheme of moral arithmetic, the subject treated
may be said to have an evidence as great as that which is found in numbers or
mathematics. For let us carry scepticism ever so far, let us doubt, if we can, of
everything about us, we cannot doubt of what passes within ourselves. Our
passions and affections are known to us. They are certain, whatever the
objects may be on which they are employed. Nor is it of any concern to our
argument how these exterior objects stand: whether they are realities or mere
illusions; whether we wake or dream. For ill dreams will be equally disturb-
ing; and a good dream (if life be nothing else) will be easily and happily
passed. In this dream of life, therefore, our demonstrations have the same
force; our balance and economy hold good, and our obligation to virtue is in
every respect the same.
Upon the whole there is not, I presume, the least degree of certainty wanting
in what has been said concerning the preferableness of the mental pleasures to
the sensual; and even of the sensual, accompanied with good affection, and
under a temperate and right use, to those which are no ways restrained, nor
supported by anything social or affectionate.
Nor is there less evidence in what has been said of the united structure and
fabric of the mind, and of those passions which constitute the temper or soul,
and on which its happiness or misery so immediately depend. It has been
shown that in this constitution the impairing of any one part must instantly
tend to the disorder and ruin of other parts, and of the whole itself, through
the necessary connection and balance of the affections; that those very pas-
sions through which men are vicious are of themselves a torment and disease;
and that whatsoever is done which is knowingly ill must be of ill conscious-
ness; and in proportion as the act is ill must impair and corrupt social enjoy-
ment, and destroy both the capacity of kind affection and the consciousness of
meriting any such. So that neither can we participate thus in joy or happiness
with others, nor receive satisfaction from the mutual kindness or imagined
love of others, on which, however, the greatest of all our pleasures are
founded.
If this be the case of moral delinquency, and if the state which is consequent
to this defection from Nature be of all other the most horrid, oppressive, and
miserable, 'twill appear that to yield or consent to anything ill or immoral is a
breach of interest, and leads to the greatest ills, and that on the other side,
everything which is an improvement of virtue, or an establishment of right
affection and integrity, is an advancement of interest, and leads to the greatest
and most solid happiness and enjoyment.
 Further Reading 501
Thus the wisdom of what rules, and is first and chief in Nature, has made it
to be according to the private interest and good of every one to work towards
the general good, which if a creature ceases to promote, he is actually so far
wanting to himself, and ceases to promote his own happiness and welfare. He
is on this account directly his own enemy, nor can he any otherwise be good or
useful to himself than as he continues good to society, and to that whole of
which he is himself a part. So that virtue, which of all excellences and beauties
is the chief and most amiable; that which is the prop and ornament of human
affairs; which upholds communities, maintains union, friendship, and corre-
spondence amongst men; that by which countries, as well as private families,
flourish and are happy, and for want of which everything comely, conspicuous,
great, and worthy, must perish and go to ruin; that single quality, thus benefi-
cial to all society, and to mankind in general, is found equally a happiness and
good to each creature in particular, and is that by which alone man can be
happy, and without which he must be miserable.
And thus the virtue is the good, and vice the ill of every one.

Editor's Notes
1. Shaftesbury here is taking a slap at voluntarist theories of the divine origin of
morality.
2. Col. 2:8 — "Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit."
3. Titus 3:9.
4. 1 Tim. 1:4, 6.
5. Guide to life, investigator of virtue; a tag from Cicero.
6. Here in an archaic sense, meaning not a child substituted for another but an
imbecile or half-wit.
7. Here in the sense of "prejudice," an opinion coming before "art and strong endeav-
our."
8. In Part lli, Section II, Shaftesbury distinguished between an arbitrary and unjust
deity and a just and lovable one. The latter must be an object of love to the
virtuous person, and the latter, not the former, conforms to the theist's idea of
God.

Further Reading
A new edition of the works of Shaftesbury is in progress, edited by Gerd Hemmerich,
Wolfram Benda, and Ulrich SchOdlbauer. The volume containing the Inquiry Concern-
ing Virtue or Merit (giving the 1699 text as well as the later text) and several others are
published by Frommann-Holzboog, Stuttgart. Robert Voitle, The Third Earl of Shaftes-
bury, 1671-1713 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983), is an excel-
lent biography.
For a brief survey of Bayle's thought, see Elizabeth Labrousse, Bayle (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1983). Bayle's main book in defense of toleration, the Philo-
sophical Commentary, was translated by Arnie Goodman Tannenbaum (Bern: Peter
Lang, 1987).
Ernst Cassirer, The Platonic Renaissance in England, trans. James Pettegrove (Aus-
tin: University of Texas Press, 1953), accompanies a valuable study of the Cambridge
502 The Earl of Shaftesbury
Platonists with some discussion of Shaftesbury. Stanley Grean, Shaftesbury's Philoso-
phy of Religion and Ethics (Athens: Ohio University Press. 1967), has a good bibliogra-
phy up to its date. The first chapter of John Andrew Bernstein, Shaftesbury, Rousseau,
and Kant (London: Associated University Presses, 1980), is directly relevant. Two
articles by Ernest Tuveson help place Shaftesbury in his times: "The Origin of the
Moral Sense," Huntington Library Quarterly 11 (1947-8):241-59; and "The Impor-
tance of Shaftesbury," Journal of English Literary History 20 (1953): 267-79.
There is a brilliant discussion of Shaftesbury. shedding light on his ethics, in David
Marshall, The Figure of Theater (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). See
also John A. Dussinger, " 'The Lovely System of Lord Shaftesbury': An Answer to
Locke . . . ?" Journal of the History of Ideas 62 (1981); Bernard Peach, "Shaftesbury's
Moral Arithmeticks," The Personalist 39 (1958); Irwin Primer, "Mandeville and Shaftes-
bury: Some Facts and Problems," in Irwin Primer, ed., Mandeville Studies (The
Hague: Nijhoff, 1975); and Gregory Trianosky, "On the Obligation to Be Virtuous:
Shaftesbury and the Question, Why Be Moral?" Journal of the History of Philosophy
16 (1978).
 Francis Hutcheson

Introduction
Francis Hutcheson was born in 1694 into a family of Scottish emigres in northern
Ireland. Educated first in Ireland, he then studied theology in Glasgow and, like his
grandfather and father, became a Presbyterian minister. Hutcheson subsequently re-
turned to Ireland, where he spent some years in Dublin teaching in a Presbyterian
academy. He soon attracted the attention of several leaders of opinion, in particular
Robert Viscount Molesworth, one of the foremost advocates of classical republicanism
as a guide to current politics. (See the section "The Classical Republic" in the Introduc-
tion to this anthology.) Hutcheson spent much time in the Molesworth circle, and
Molesworth encouraged him to publish his first book, the Inquiry into the Original of
Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725).
In two later short works, published together in 1728 as An Essay on the Nature and
Conduct of the Passions, with Illustrations on the Moral Sense, Hutcheson elaborated
on his moral psychology, defended his views, and attacked opposing positions with
considerable acuity. He was then called to the professorship of philosophy at the
University of Glasgow, where he remained until his death in 1746. Hutcheson's early
preaching in Ireland had drawn protests against its unorthodoxy; more formal accusa-
tions of heresy were made while he was at Glasgow, but he was not officially censured.
He belonged to the moderate group in the Scottish church, taking a more lenient view
of grace and predestination than had been traditional and showing less concern about
abstruse points of the theology of the trinity.
Hutcheson's moral philosophy reflects both his departure from the sterner Calvin-
ism of his forebears and his abiding commitment to Christianity. It also shows the
marks of his philosophical education, which took place under the aegis of Gershom
Carmichael, one of Hutcheson's predecessors in the chair at Glasgow. Carmichael had
produced an annotated edition of Pufendorf's short version of his system of natural
law, the Duty of Man and Citizen, and had taught his students Locke. Both of these
philosophers were important to shaping Hutcheson's thought, as were the writings of
the third earl of Shaftesbury, who, like Hutcheson, had enjoyed a close friendship with
Molesworth.
Widely read in Britain during his lifetime, Hutcheson attracted a number of philo-
sophical followers and admirers. Not the least of these was David Hume, whose ethics
was much influenced by Hutcheson's. Adam Smith was a student of Hutcheson's at the
university, and Thomas Reid discussed him in his early work. Hutcheson's first book
was translated into French in 1749; his posthumous System of Moral Philosophy (1755)
was promptly translated into German by the great literary critic Lessing, and both his

503
504 Francis Hutcheson
earlier books appeared in German a few years later. Kant also read and admired
Hutcheson, referring to him regularly in his lectures as the most notable representative
of the moral sense school. In the British colonies in North America Hutcheson exer-
cised considerable influence, especially as a political thinker.
Although Shaftesbury spoke occasionally of a "moral sense," he gave no careful
account of what he meant by the phrase. Hutcheson, by contrast, made an account of
the moral sense one of the main points of his ethical theory. Locke's theory of the
origins of our ideas underlies Hutcheson's view. The Lockean holds that ideas must
ultimately be derived from experience, each kind of idea arising from a separate kind
of experience. Hutcheson argued at length that moral ideas are unique and irreducible
and concluded that there must be a special source of the experience from which the
ideas arise: our ideas of colors, sounds, and so on are attributed to the various external
senses; Locke attributed our ideas of mental operations and of feelings to reflexive
senses; and Hutcheson added a moral sense to be the source of our moral ideas.
What sort of idea do we get from the moral sense? The usual answer is that
Hutcheson was a "sentimentalist" in morals, one who held, as Shaftesbury was taken
to believe, that morality is ultimately a matter of feeling rather than of knowledge.
What we obtain from the moral sense is feelings of approval and disapproval, which
are special feelings of love for some people and of dislike for others. Morality is thus
fundamentally one of the ways that we feel about one another, rather than one of the
ways the mind obtains knowledge of the world.
The task of the scientific student of morals is, then, to say just what gives rise to our
feelings of approval and disapproval. Like Shaftesbury, Hutcheson took the answer to
be that it is, in the first instance, inner feelings and dispositions. He devoted much
argument to showing, against Hobbes and Mandeville, that we are moved by disinter-
ested benevolent feelings and not only by desires for our own good. Approval is aroused
by desires and dispositions that lead us to do good to others; disapproval, by motives that
lead us to harm others. Self-interested motives are considered by themselves to be
morally indifferent. Because benevolent concern for the good of others is real, there also
is a real foundation in our nature for morality. Hence, in Hutcheson's view, there is no
place for moral skepticism. Although moral approval is an affective response to the
world rather than itself a cognition of the world, it arises from cognition and is built into
our own nature. We are not left doubting what in general is amiable or odious in
behavior, nor are we without motives to do the one and avoid the other.
The Calvinists taught that original sin has so badly flawed our nature that we can
hope to act rightly only if grace transforms us, enabling us to escape the domination of
our feelings. Hutcheson rejected this doctrine and defended our natural passions,
instincts, and affections as sources of virtuous action. Reason shows us the way to
attain certain ends, but if the ends are not attractive to us, we will not act to obtain
them. A benevolent instinct is what makes the good of others attractive. Why should
not action from that instinct be counted as virtuous? In insisting that the appropriate
final end of human action must be something we are motivated to attain. Hutcheson
was repudiating the older Protestant notion that the law was established to show us
what we ought to do and at the same time to show us that we cannot do it. (See the
section "Luther and Calvin" in the Introduction to this anthology.) Both in making
benevolence the sole motive we approve and in construing approval as a form of love,
Hutcheson provided a philosophical equivalent of the gospel teaching that the law is
summed up in the commandment to love God above all else and one's neighbor as
oneself.
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 505

Hutcheson has long been considered to be a forerunner of utilitarianism. He was the

first to use a phrase that Bentham later made famous: "That action is best," Hutcheson
stated, "which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers" (Inquiry
3.viii). But he held that the moral judgment of motives is prior to the moral judgment
of actions or results, and he used the "greatest happiness" principle to explain our
approvals and disapprovals rather than to give us a procedure for making decisions.
On both these points his view is crucially different from the utilitarianism of Bentham
and his followers.
Recently, some scholars have argued that it is a mistake to regard Hutcheson as a
sentimentalist. Rather, they think, he was a moral realist, carrying on a natural law
tradition that goes back beyond Pufendorf to Hooker and ultimately to Saint Thomas.
And it is certainly true that Hutcheson tried to incorporate some natural law concepts
into his own view. He considered laws, obligations, and rights to be important to the
moral life, and in the Inquiry he offered accounts of them, in terms of the ideas
furnished us by the moral sense. Whether or not the realist and natural law readings of
Hutcheson can be sustained, they deserve serious attention (references to the main
sources are given in the list of further readings). They show at least that for a full
understanding of Hutcheson's views, and of the views of those whom he influenced,
knowledge of the Continental natural law tradition is indispensable.
The following selections are from Hutcheson's Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas
of Beauty and Virtue, in Two Treatises . . . II. Concerning Moral Good and Evil, 4th
ed., 1737. I have modernized some of the spelling and punctuation.

An Inquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue

II. CONCERNING MORAL GOOD AND EVIL

The Preface

. . . In reflecting upon our external senses, we plainly see that our percep-
tions' of pleasure or pain do not depend directly on our will. Objects do not
please us according as we incline they should. The presence of some objects
necessarily pleases us, the presence of others as necessarily displeases us. Nor
can we, by our will, any otherwise procure pleasure or avoid pain than by
procuring the former kind of objects and avoiding the latter. By the very
frame of our nature the one is made the occasion of delight and the other of
dissatisfaction.
The same observation will hold in all our other pleasures and pains. For
there are many other sorts of objects which please or displease us as necessar-
ily as material objects do when they operate upon our organs of sense. There
is scarcely any object which our minds are employed about which is not thus
constituted the necessary occasion of some pleasure or pain. Thus we find
ourselves pleased with a regular form, a piece of architecture or painting, a
composition of notes, a theorem, an action, an affection, a character. And we
are conscious that this pleasure necessarily arises from the contemplation of
the idea which is then present to our minds, with all its circumstances, al-
506 Francis Hutcheson
though some of these ideas have nothing of what we commonly call sensible
perception in them; and in those which have, the pleasure arises from some
uniformity, order, arrangement, imitation; and not from the simple ideas of
colour, or sound, or mode of extension separately considered.
These determinations to be pleased with any forms or ideas which occur to
our observation, the author2 chooses to call senses; distinguishing them from
the powers which commonly go by that name by calling our power of perceiv-
ing the beauty of regularity, order, harmony, an internal sense; and that
determination to apprOve affections, actions, or characters of rational agents,
which we call virtuous, he marks by the name of a moral sense.
His principal design is to shew that human nature was not left quite indiffer-
ent in the affair of virtue, to form to itself observations concerning the advan-
tage or disadvantage of actions and accordingly to regulate its conduct. The
weakness of our reason, and the avocations arising from the infirmities and
necessities of our nature are so great that very few men could ever have
formed those long deductions of reason which shew some actions to be in the
whole advantageous to the agent, and their contraries pernicious. The author
of nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous conduct than our moral-
ists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and powerful instructions as we have
for the preservation of our bodies. He has given us strong affections to be the
springs of each virtuous action; and made virtue a lovely form, that we might
easily distinguish it from its contrary, and be made happy by the pursuit of
it. . . .

Introduction
The word moral goodness, in this treatise, denotes our idea of some quality
apprehended in actions which procures approbation attended with desire of
the agent's happiness. Moral evil denotes our idea of a contrary quality, which
excites condemnation or dislike. Approbation and condemnation are proba-
bly simple ideas, which cannot be farther explained. We must be contented
with these imperfect descriptions until we discover whether we really have
such ideas, and what general foundation there is in nature for this difference
of actions as morally good or evil. These descriptions seem to contain an
universally acknowledged difference of moral good and evil, from natural. All
men who speak of moral good acknowledge that it procures approbation and
good-will toward those we apprehend possessed of it; whereas natural good
does not. In this matter men must consult their own breasts. How differently
are they affected toward these they suppose possessed of honesty, faith, gener-
osity, kindness; and those who are possessed of the natural goods, such as
houses, lands, gardens, vineyards, health, strength, sagacity? We shall find
that we necessarily love and approve the possessors of the former; but the
possession of the latter procures no approbation or good-will at all toward the
possessor, but often contrary affections of envy and hatred. In the same
manner, whatever quality we apprehend to be morally evil raises our dislike
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 507
toward the person in whom we observe it, such as treachery, cruelty, ingrati-
tude; whereas we heartily love, esteem, and pity many who are exposed to
natural evils, such as pain, poverty, hunger, sickness, death.
Now the first question on this subject is, whence arise these different ideas
of actions? .. .

Section I: Of the Moral Sense by Which We Perceive Virtue and Vice,

and Approve or Disapprove Them in Others
1. That the perceptions of moral good and evil are perfectly different from
those of natural good or advantage, every one must convince himself by
reflecting upon the different manner in which he finds himself affected when
these objects occur to him. Had we no sense of good distinct from the advan-
tage or interest arising from the external senses and the perceptions of beauty
and harmony, the sensations and affections toward a fruitful field or commodi-
ous habitation would be much the same with what we have toward a generous
friend or any noble character; for both are or may be advantageous to us. And
we should no more admire any action or love any person in a distant country
or age, whose influence could not extend to us, than we love the mountains of
Peru while we are unconcerned in the Spanish trade. We should have the same
sentiments and affections toward inanimate beings which we have toward
rational agents, which yet every one knows to be false. Upon comparison, we
say, "Why should we approve or love inanimate beings? They have no inten-
tion of good to us, or to any other person; their nature makes them fit for our
uses, which they neither know nor study to serve. But it is not so with rational
agents: they study the interest and desire the happiness of other beings with
whom they converse."
We are all then conscious of the difference between that approbation or
perception of moral excellence which benevolence excites toward the person
in whom we observe it, and that opinion of natural goodness which only raises
desire of possession toward the good object. Now what should make this
difference, if all approbation or sense of good be from prospect of advantage?
Do not inanimate objects promote our advantage as well as benevolent per-
sons who do us offices of kindness and friendship? Should we not then have
the same endearing approbation of both? or only the same cold opinion of
advantage in both? The reason why it is not so must be this, that we have a
distinct perception of beauty or excellence in the kind affections of rational
agents, whence we are determined to admire and love such characters and
persons.
Suppose we reap the same advantage from two men, one of whom serves us
from an ultimate desire of our happiness or good-will toward us, the other
from views of self-interest, or by constraint. Both are in this case equally
beneficial or advantageous to us, and yet we shall have quite different senti-
ments of them. We must then certainly have other perceptions of moral ac-
tions than those of advantage. And that power of receiving these perceptions
508 Francis Hutcheson
may be called a moral sense since the definition agrees to it, viz. a determina-
tion of the mind to receive any idea from the presence of an object which
occurs to us independent on our will. . . .
II. In our sentiments of actions which affect ourselves, there is indeed a
mixture of the ideas of natural and moral good which require some attention
to separate them. But when we reflect upon the actions which affect other
persons only, we may observe the moral ideas unmixed with those of natural
good or evil. For let it be here observed that those senses by which we
perceive pleasure in natural objects whence they are constituted advanta-
geous could never raise in us any desire of public good, but only of what was
good to ourselves in particular. Nor could they ever make us approve an
action merely because of its promoting the happiness of others. And yet as
soon as any action is represented to us as flowing from love, humanity, grati-
tude, compassion, a study of the good of others, and an ultimate desire of
their happiness, although it were in the most distant part of the world or in
some past age, we feel joy within us, admire the lovely action, and praise its
author. And on the contrary, every action represented as flowing from
desire of the misery of others without view to any prevalent good to the
public, or ingratitude, raises abhorrence and aversion.
It is true indeed that the actions we approve in others are generally imag-
ined to tend to the natural good of mankind or of some parts of it. But whence
this secret chain between each person and mankind? How is my interest
connected with the most distant parts of it? And yet I must admire actions
which show good-will toward them, and love the author. Whence this love,
compassion, indignation and hatred toward even feigned characters in the
most distant ages, and nations, according as they appear kind, faithful, com-
passionate, or of the opposite disposition, toward their imaginary contempo-
raries? If there is no moral sense which makes benevolent actions appear
beautiful; if all approbation be from the interest of the approver,
What's Hecuba to us, or we to Hecuba? 3 .. .
IV. Some moralists, who will rather twist self-love into a thousand shapes
than allow any other principle of approbation than interest, may tell us that
whatever profits one part without detriment to another profits the whole, and
then some small share will resound to each individual; that those actions
which tend to the good of the whole, if universally performed, would most
effectually secure to each individual his own happiness; and that consequently
we may approve such actions, from the opinion of their tending ultimately to
our own advantage.
We need not trouble these gentlemen to show by their nice train of conse-
quences and influences of actions by way of precedent in particular instances
that we in this age reap any advantage from Orestes' killing the treacherous
Aegysthus,4 or from the actions of Codrus5 or Decius.' Allow their reasonings
to be perfectly good, they only prove that after long reflection and reasoning
we may find out some ground to judge certain actions advantageous to us
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 509
which every man admires as soon as he hears of them; and that too under a
quite different conception.
Should any of our travellers find some old Grecian treasure, the miser who
hid it certainly performed an action more to the traveller's advantage, than
Codrus or Orestes; for he must have but a small share of benefit from their
actions, whose influence is so dispersed and lost in various ages and nations.
Surely then this miser must appear to the traveller a prodigious hero in virtue!
For self-interest will recommend men to us only according to the good they do
to our selves, and not give us high ideas of public good but in proportion to
our share of it. But must a man have the reflection of Cumberland or
Pufendorr to admire generosity, faith, humanity, gratitude? Or reason so
nicely to apprehend the evil in cruelty, treachery, ingratitude? Do not the
former excite our admiration and love and study of imitation, where-ever we
see them, almost at first view, without any such reflection, and the latter, our
contempt and abhorrence? Unhappy would it be for mankind if a sense of
virtue was of as narrow an extent, as a capacity for such metaphysics. . . .
It may perhaps be alleged that in those actions of our own which we call
good, there is this constant advantage, superior to all others, which is the
ground of our approbation, and the motive to them from self-love, viz. that
we suppose the deity will reward them. . . . At present it is enough to observe
that many have high notions of honour, faith, generosity, justice, who have
scarce any opinions about the deity or any thoughts of future regards; and
abhor any thing which is treacherous, cruel, or unjust, without any regard to
future punishments. . . .
This is the second thing to be considered: whether our sense of the moral
good or evil in the•actions of others can be overbalanced or bribed by views of
interest. Now I may indeed easily be capable of wishing that another would do
an action I abhor as morally evil, if it were very advantageous to me. Interest
in that case may overbalance my desire of virtue in another. But no interest to
myself will make me approve an action as morally good which without that
interest to myself would have appeared morally evil, if upon computing its
whole effects it appears to produce as great a moment of good in the whole,
when it is not beneficial to me, as it did before, when it was. In our sense of
moral good or evil, our own private advantage or loss is of no more moment
than the advantage or loss of a third person to make an action appear good or
evil. This sense therefore cannot be overbalanced by interest. How ridiculous
an attempt would it be to engage a man by rewards or threatenings into a good
opinion of an action which was contrary to his moral notions? We may procure
dissimulation by such means, and that is all. . . .
VII. If what is said makes it appear that we have some other amiable idea of
actions than that of advantageous to ourselves, we may conclude that this
perception of moral good is not derived from custom, education, example, or
study. These give us no new ideas. They might make us see private advantage
in actions whose usefulness did not at first appear, or give us opinions of some
tendency of actions to our detriment, by some nice deductions of reason or by
510 Francis Hutcheson
a rash prejudice, when upon the first view of the action we should have
observed no such thing: but they never could have made us apprehend actions
as amiable or odious without any consideration of our own advantage.
VIII. It remains then that as the Author of Nature has determined us to
receive, by our external senses, pleasant or disagreeable ideas of objects
according as they are useful or hurtful to our bodies, and to receive from
uniform objects the pleasures of beauty and harmony, to excite us to the
pursuit of knowledge and to reward us for it, or to be an argument to us of his
goodness, as the uniformity itself proves his existence, whether we had a sense
of beauty in uniformity or not; in the same manner he has given us a moral
sense to direct our actions, and to give us still nobler pleasures. So that while
we are only intending the good of others, we undesignedly promote our own
greatest private good.
We are not to imagine this moral sense, more than the other senses, sup-
poses any innate ideas, knowledge, or practical proposition. We mean by it
only a determination of our minds to receive the simple ideas of approbation
or condemnation from actions observed antecedent to any opinions of advan-
tage or loss to redound to ourselves from them; even as we are pleased with a
regular form or an harmonious composition without having any knowledge of
mathematics, or seeing any advantage in that form or composition, different
from the immediate pleasure. . . .

Section II: Concerning the Immediate Motive to Virtuous Actions

The motives of human actions, or their immediate causes, would be best
understood after considering the passions and affections; but here we shall
only consider the springs of the actions which we call virtuous, as far as it is
necessary to settle the general foundation of the moral sense.
I. Every action which we apprehend as either morally good or evil is always
supposed to flow from some affection toward sensitive natures; and whatever
we call virtue or vice is either some such affection or some action consequent
upon it. Or it may perhaps be enough to make an action or omission appear
vicious if it argues the want of such affection toward rational agents as we
expect in characters counted morally good. All the actions counted religious
in any country are supposed, by those who count them so, to flow from some
affections toward the deity; and whatever we call social virtue we still suppose
to flow from affections toward our fellow-creatures. For in this all seem to
agree, that external motions, when accompanied with no affections toward
God or man, or evidencing no want of the expected affections toward either,
can have no moral good or evil in them.
Ask, for instance, the most abstemious hermit if temperance of itself would
be morally good, supposing it showed no obedience toward the deity, made us
no fitter for devotion, or the service of mankind, or the search after truth,
than luxury; and he will easily grant that it would be no moral good, though
still it might be naturally good or advantageous to health. And mere courage
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 511
or contempt of danger, if we conceive it to have no regard to the defence of
the innocent, or repairing of wrongs or self-interest, would only entitle its
possessor to Bedlam." When such sort of courage is sometimes admired it is
upon some secret apprehension of a good intention in the use of it or as a
natural ability capable of an useful application. Prudence, if it was only em-
ployed in promoting private interest, is never imagined to be a virtue. And
justice, or observing a strict equality, if it has no regard to the good of man-
kind, the preservation of rights and securing peace, is a quality properer for its
ordinary gestamen, 9 a beam and scales, than for a rational agent. So that these
four qualities, commonly called cardinal virtues, obtain that name because
they are dispositions universally necessary to promote public good, and de-
note affections toward rational agents; otherwise there would appear no vir-
tue in them.
H. Now, if it can be made appear that none of these affections which we
approve as virtuous are either self-love, or desire or private interest; since all
virtue is either some such affections, or actions consequent upon them; it must
necessarily follow that virtue springs from some other affection than self-love,
or desire of private advantage. And where self-interest excites to the same
action, the approbation is given only to the disinterested principle.
The affections which are of most importance in morals are commonly in-
cluded under the names love and hatred. Now in discoursing of love, we need
not be cautioned not to include that love between the sexes, which, when no
other affections accompany it, is only desire of pleasure and is never counted a
virtue. Love toward rational agents is subdivided into love of complacence'
or esteem, and love of benevolence: And hatred is subdivided into hatred of
displicence ll or contempt, and hatred of malice. Complacence denotes appro-
bation of any person by our moral sense; and is rather a perception than an
affection; tho' the affection of good-will is ordinarily subsequent to it. Benevo-
lence is the desire of the happiness of another. Their opposites are called
dislike and malice. Concerning each of these separately we shall consider
whether they can be influenced by motives of self-interest. . . .
III. As to the love of benevolence, the very name excludes self-interest. We
never call that man benevolent who is in fact useful to others, but at the same
time only intends his own interest without any ultimate desire of the good of
others. If there be any benevolence at all, it must be disinterested; for the
most useful action imaginable loses all appearance of benevolence as soon as
we discern that it only flowed from self-love or interest. . . .
But it must be here observed that as all men have self-love, as well as
benevolence, these two principles may jointly excite a man to the same action;
and then they are to be considered as two forces impelling the same body to
motion; sometimes they conspire, sometimes are indifferent to each other,
and sometimes are in some degree opposite. Thus, if a man have such strong
benevolence as would have produced an action without any views of self-
interest, that such a man has also in view private advantage along with public
good as the effect of his action does no way diminish the benevolence of the
512 Francis Hutcheson
action. When he would not have produced so much public good, had it not
been for prospect of self-interest, then the effect of self-love is to be deducted,
and his benevolence is proportioned to the remainder of good which pure
benevolence would have produced. When a man's benevolence is hurtful to
himself then self-love is opposite to benevolence, and the benevolence is
proportioned to the sum of the good produced, added to the resistance of self-
love surmounted by it. In most cases it is impossible for men to know how far
their fellows are influenced by the one or other of these principles; but yet the
general truth is sufficiently certain, that this is the way in which the benevo-
lence of actions is to be computed. . . .
VI. If anyone should ask: . . . to what purpose serves our moral sense, our
sense of pleasure from the happiness of others? To what purpose serves the
wise order of nature, by which virtue is even made generally advantageous in
this life? To what end are eternal rewards appointed and revealed? The an-
swer to these questions was given partly already: all these motives may make
us desire to have benevolent affections, and consequently turn our attention
to those qualities in objects which excite them; they may overbalance all
apparent contrary motives and all temptations to vice. But farther, I hope it
will be still thought an end worthy of the deity to make the virtuous happy, by
a wise constitution of nature, whether the virtues were in every action intend-
ing to obtain this happiness or not. Beneficent actions tend to the public good;
it is therefore good and kind to give all possible additional motives to them,
and to excite men who have some weak degrees of good affection to promote
the public good more vigorously by motives of self-interest; or even to excite
those who have no virtue at all to external acts of beneficence, and to restrain
them from vice.
From the whole it may appear that there is in human nature a disinterested
ultimate desire of the happiness of others, and that our moral sense deter-
mines us to approve actions as virtuous which are apprehended to proceed
partly at least from such desire. . . .
X. Having removed these false springs of virtuous actions, let us next
establish the true one, viz. some determination of our nature to study the
good of others or some instinct, antecedent to all reason from interest, which
influences us to the love of others; even as the moral sense, above explained,
determines us to approve the actions which flow from this love in ourselves or
others. This disinterested affection may appear strange to men impressed with
notions of self-love as the sole spring of action, from the pulpit, the schools,
the systems, and conversations regulated by them: but let us consider it in its
strongest and simplest kinds, and when we see the possibility of it in these
instances, we may easily discover its universal extent.
An honest farmer will tell you that he studies the preservation and happi-
ness of his children, and loves them without any design of good to himself.
But, say some of our philosophers, "The happiness of their children gives
• . . . Whoever would appeal to the general strain of the Christian exhortation will find disinter-
ested love more inculcated and motives of gratitude more frequently suggested than any others.
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 513
parents pleasure, and their misery gives them pain; and therefore to obtain
the former and avoid the latter, they study, from self-love, the good of their
children." Suppose several merchants joined in partnership of their whole
effects. One of them is employed abroad in managing the stock of the com-
pany; his prosperity occasions gain to all, and his losses give them pain for
their share in the loss. Is this then the same kind of affection with that of
parents to their children? Is there the same tender, personal regard? I fancy
no parent will say so. In this case of merchants there is a plain conjunction of
interest; but whence the conjunction of interest between the parent and child?
Do the child's sensations give pleasure or pain to the parent? Is the parent
hungry, thirsty, sick, when his children are so? No; but his naturally implanted
desire of their good and aversion to their misery makes him be affected with
joy or sorrow from their pleasures or pains. This desire then is antecedent to
the conjunction of interest, and the cause of it, not the effect. It then must be
disinterested. "No," says another sophist, "children are parts of ourselves,
and in loving them we but love ourselves in them." A very good answer! Let
us carry it as far as it will go. How are they parts of ourselves? Not as a leg or
an arm: We are not conscious of their sensations. "But their bodies were
formed from parts of ours." So is a fly, or a maggot, which may breed in any
discharged blood or humour — very dear insects surely! There must be some-
thing else then which makes children parts of ourselves; and what is this but
that affection which nature determines us to have toward them? This love
makes them parts of ourselves, and therefore does not flow from their being
so before. This is indeed a good metaphor; and wherever we find a determina-
tion among several rational agents to mutual love, let each individual be
looked upon as a part of a great whole, or system, and concern himself in the
public good of it. . . .

Section III: The Sense of Virtue, and the Various Opinions About It,
Reducible to One General Foundation. The Manner of Computing the
Morality of Actions
I. If we examine all the actions which are counted amiable anywhere, and
inquire into the grounds upon which they are approved, we shall find that in
the opinion of the person who approves them they always appear as benevo-
lent, or flowing from good-will to others and a study of their happiness,
whether the approver be one of the persons beloved or profited or not, so that
all those kind affections which incline us to make others happy and all actions
supposed to flow from such affections appear morally good, if, while they are
benevolent towards some persons, they be not pernicious to others. Nor shall
we find any thing amiable in any action whatsoever where there is no benevo-
lence imagined; nor in any disposition, or capacity which is not supposed
applicable to, and designed for, benevolent purposes. Nay, as was before
observed, the actions which in fact are exceedingly useful shall appear void of
moral beauty if we know they proceeded from no kind intentions towards
514 Francis Hutcheson
others; and yet an unsuccessful attempt of kindness, or of promoting public
good, shall appear as amiable as the most successful if it flowed from as strong
benevolence.
II. Hence those affections which would lead us to do good to our benefactor
shall appear amiable, and the contrary affections odious, even when our
actions cannot possibly be of any advantage or hurt to him. Thus a sincere
love and gratitude toward our benefactor, a cheerful readiness to do whatever
he shall require, how burdensome soever, a hearty inclination to comply with
his intentions and contentment with the state he has placed us in, are the
strongest evidences of benevolence we can show to such a person; and there-
fore they must appear exceedingly amiable. And under these is included all
the rational devotion or religion toward a deity apprehended as good which
we can possibly perform. . . .
As to external performances of religion, they are no doubt very various in
different nations and ages; and education may give men opinions that certain
actions are pleasing and others displeasing to the deity. But then wherever any
external rite of worship is approved there also it is looked upon to proceed
from love toward the deity or some other affection necessarily joined with
love, as reverence, repentance, or sorrow to have offended. So that the gen-
eral principle of love is the foundation of all the apparent moral excellence,
even in the most fantastic rites of worship which were ever approved. For as
to rites designed only to appease a furious being, no mortal, I fancy, appre-
hends there is any virtue or excellence in them, but that they are chosen only
as the dishonourable means of avoiding a greater evil. Now as there are
various speculative opinions about what is acceptable to the deity, it necessar-
ily follows that, accordingly, practices and approbation must be various,
though all the moral goodness of actions is still presumed to flow from love.
III. Again, that we may see how benevolence is the foundation of all
apprehended excellence in social virtues, let us only observe that amidst the
diversity of sentiments on this head among various sects, this is still allowed to
be the way of deciding the controversy about any disputed practice, viz. to
inquire whether this conduct or the contrary will most effectually promote the
public good. The morality is immediately adjusted when the natural tendency
or influence of the action upon the universal natural good of mankind is
agreed upon. That which produces more good than evil in the whole is ac-
knowledged good; and what does not is counted evil. In this case we no other
way regard the good of the actor, or that of those who are thus inquiring, than
as they make a part of the great system. . . .
V. The actions which flow solely from self-love and yet evidence no want of
benevolence, having no hurtful effects upon others, seem perfectly indifferent
in a moral sense and neither raise the love or hatred of the observer. Our
reason can indeed discover certain bounds within which we may not only act
from self-love, consistently with the good of the whole; but every mortal's
acting thus within these bounds for his own good is absolutely necessary for
the good of the whole; and the want of such self-love would be universally
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 515
pernicious. Hence, he who pursues his own private good, with an intention
also to concur with that constitution which tends to the good of the whole, and
much more he who promotes his own good with a direct view of making
himself more capable of serving God, or doing good to mankind, acts not only
innocently but also honourably and virtuously. For in both these cases benevo-
lence concurs with self-love to excite him to the action. And thus a neglect of
our own good may be morally evil and argue a want of benevolence toward
the whole. But when self-love breaks over the bounds above-mentioned and
leads us into actions detrimental to others and to the whole, or makes us
insensible of the generous kind affections, then it appears vicious and is
disapproved. So also, when upon small injuries or sudden resentment or any
weak superstitious suggestions, our benevolence becomes so faint as to let us
entertain odious conceptions of men or any part of them without just ground,
as if they were wholly evil or malicious, or as if they were a worse sort of
beings than they really are, these conceptions must lead us into malevolent
affections or at least weaken our good ones and makes us really vicious.
VI. Here we must also observe that every moral agent justly considers
himself as a part of this rational system which may be useful to the whole; so
that he may be, in part, an object of his own benevolence. Nay, farther, as was
hinted above, he may see that the preservation of the system requires every
one to be innocently solicitous about himself. Hence he may conclude that an
action which brings greater evil to the agent than good to others, however it
may evidence strong benevolence or a virtuous disposition in the agent, yet it
must be founded upon a mistaken opinion of its tendency to public good,
when it has no such tendency: so that a man who reasoned justly and consid-
ered the whole would not be led into it, were his benevolence ever so
strong. . . .
VIII. In comparing the moral qualities of actions in order to regulate our
election among various actions proposed, or to find which of them has the
greatest moral excellency, we are led by our moral sense of virtue to judge
thus: that in equal degrees of happiness expected to proceed from the action
the virtue is in proportion to the number of persons to whom the happiness
shall extend (and here the dignity, or moral importance of persons, may
compensate numbers); and in equal numbers, the virtue is as the quantity of
the happiness or natural good; or that the virtue is in a compound ratio of the
quantity of good and number of enjoyers. In the same manner, the moral evil
or vice is as the degree of misery and number of sufferers; so that that action is
best, which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers; and that
worst, which in like manner occasions misery.
Again, when the consequences of actions are of a mixed nature, partly
advantageous and partly pernicious, that action is good whose good effects
preponderate" the evil by being useful to many, and pernicious to few, and
that evil, which is otherwise. Here also the moral importance of characters, or
dignity of persons may compensate numbers," as may also the degrees of
happiness or misery. For to procure an inconsiderable good to many, but an
516 Francis Hutcheson
immense evil to few, may be evil; and an immense good to few may preponder-
ate a small evil to many.
But the consequences which affect the morality of actions are not only the
direct and natural effects of the actions themselves, but also all those events
which otherwise would not have happened. For many actions which have no
immediate or natural evil effects, nay, which actually produce good effects,
may be evil, if a man foresees that the evil consequences which will probably
flow from the folly of others upon his doing of such actions are so great as to
overbalance all the good produced by those actions, or all the evils which
would flow from the omission of them. And in such cases the probability is to
be computed on both sides. Thus if an action of mine will probably, through
the mistake or corruption of others, be made a precedent in unlike cases to
very evil actions, or when my action, though good in itself, will probably
provoke men to very evil actions, upon some mistaken notion of their right;
any of these considerations foreseen by me may make such an action of mine
evil, whenever the evils which will probably be occasioned by the action are
greater than the evils occasioned by the omission.
And this is the reason that many laws prohibit actions in general even when
some particular instances of those actions would be very useful; because an
universal allowance of them, considering the mistakes men would probably
fall into, would be more pernicious than an universal prohibition; nor could
there be any more special boundaries fixed between the right and wrong
cases. In such cases, it is the duty of persons to comply with the generally
useful constitution; or if in some very important instances the violation of the
law would be of less evil consequence than obedience to it, they must pa-
tiently resolve to undergo those penalties which the state has, for valuable
ends to the whole, appointed. And this disobedience will have nothing crimi-
nal in it. . . .
XI. To find a universal rule to compute the morality of any actions, with all
their circumstances, when we judge of the actions done by ourselves or by
others, we must observe the following propositions or axioms.
1. The moral importance of any agent, or the quantity of public good he
produces, is in a compound proportion of his benevolence and abilities. For
'tis plain that his good offices depend upon these two jointly. In like manner,
the quantity of private good which any agent obtains for himself is in a like
compound proportion of his selfish principles and his abilities. We speak here
only of the external goods of this world, which one pursues from some selfish
principles. For as to internal goods of the mind, these are most effectually
obtained by the exercise of other affections than those called selfish, even
those which carry the agent beyond himself toward the good of others.
2. In comparing the virtues of different agents, when the abilities are equal.
the moments of public good are proportioned to the goodness of the temper
or the benevolence; and when the tempers are equal, the quantities of good
are as the abilities.
3. The virtue then or goodness of temper is directly as the moment of good
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 517

when other circumstances are equal, and inversely as the abilities. That is to
say, where the abilities are greatest, there is less virtue evidenced in any given
moment of good produced.
4. But as the natural consequences of our actions are various, some good to
ourselves and evil to the public, and others evil to ourselves and good to the
public, or either useful both to ourselves and others, or pernicious to both; the
entire spring of good actions is not always benevolence alone; or of evil,
malice alone (nay, sedate malice is rarely found); but in most actions we must
look upon self-love as another force, sometimes conspiring with benevolence
and assisting it, when we are excited by views of private interest as well as
public good; and sometimes opposing benevolence when the good action is
any way difficult or painful in the performance or detrimental in its conse-
quences to the agent.
These selfish motives . . . we may in general denote . . . by the word inter-
est, which when it concurs with benevolence in any action capable of increase
or diminution must produce a greater quantity of good than benevolence
alone in the same abilities; and therefore when the moment of good in an
action partly intended for the good is but equal to the moment of good in the
action of another agent influenced only by benevolence, the former is less
virtuous; and in this case the interest must be deducted to find the true effect
of the benevolence or virtue. In the same manner, when interest is opposite to
benevolence and yet is surmounted by it, this interest must be added to the
moment to increase the virtue of the action, or the strength of the benevo-
lence. By interest, in this last case, is understood all the advantage which the
agent might have obtained by omitting the action, which is a negative motive
to it; and this, when subtracted, becomes positive. . . .
The sixth axiom only explains the external marks by which men must judge,
who do not see into each other's hearts; for it may really happen in many cases
that men may have benevolence sufficient to surmount any difficulty and yet
they may meet with none at all. And in that case it is certain there is as much
virtue in the agent, though he does not give such proof of it to his fellow-
creatures, as if he had surmounted difficulties in his kind actions. And this too
must be the case with the deity, to whom nothing is difficult.
Since then in judging of the goodness of temper in any agent, the abilities
must come into computation, as is above-mentioned, and none can act be-
yond their natural abilities; that must be the perfection of virtue where the
moment of good produced equals the ability, or when the being acts to the
utmost of his power for the public good; and hence the perfection of virtue, in
this case, is as unity. . . .
From the preceding reasonings we shall only draw this one inference, which
seems the most joyful imaginable, even to the lowest rank of mankind, viz.
that no external circumstances of fortune, no involuntary disadvantages, can
exclude any mortal from the most heroic virtue. For how small soever the
moment of public good be which any one can accomplish, yet if his abilities
are proportionably small, the virtue may be as great as any whatsoever. Thus,
518 Francis Hutcheson

not only the prince, the statesman, the general, are capable of true heroism,
though these are the chief characters whose fame is diffused through various
nations and ages, but when we find in an honest trader, the kind friend, the
faithful prudent adviser, the charitable and hospitable neighbour, the tender
husband and affectionate parent, the sedate yet cheerful companion, the
generous assistant of merit, the cautious allayer of contention and debate, the
promoter of love and good understanding among acquaintances; if we con-
sider that these were all the good offices which his station in the world gave
him an opportunity of performing to mankind, we must judge this character
really as amiable as those whose external splendor dazzles an injudicious
world into an opinion that they are the only heroes in virtue. . . .

Section VI: Concerning the Importance of This Moral Sense to the

Present Happiness of Mankind, and Its Influence on Human Affairs
I. It may now probably appear that notwithstanding the corruption of man-
ners so justly complained of everywhere, this moral sense has a greater influ-
ence on mankind than is generally imagined, although it is often directed by
very partial imperfect views of public good, and often overcome by self-love.
But we shall offer some farther considerations to prove that it gives us more
pleasure and pain than all our other faculties. And to prevent repetitions, let
us observe that wherever any morally good quality gives pleasure from reflec-
tion, or from honour, the contrary evil one will give proportionable pain, from
remorse and shame. Now we shall consider the moral pleasures, not only
separately but as they are the most delightful ingredient in the ordinary plea-
sures of life.

All men seem persuaded of some excellency in the possession of good morals
which is superior to all other enjoyments; and on the contrary look upon a
state of moral evil as worse and more wretched than any other whatsoever.
We must not form our judgment in this matter from the actions of men; for
however they may be influenced by moral sentiments, yet it is certain that
self-interested passions frequently overcome them, and partial views of the
tendency of actions make us do what is really morally evil, apprehending it to
be good. But let us examine the sentiments which men universally form of the
state of others when they are no way immediately concerned; for in these
sentiments human nature is calm and undisturbed and shows its true face.
Now should we imagine a rational creature in a sufficiently happy state,
whose mind was without interruption wholly occupied with pleasant sensa-
tions of smell, taste, touch, etc. if at the same time all other ideas were
excluded? Should we not think the state low, mean, and sordid, if there were
no society, no love or friendship, no good offices? What then must that state
be wherein there are no pleasures but those of the external senses, with such
long intervals as human nature at present must have? Do these short fits of
pleasure make the luxurious happy? How insipid and joyless are the reflec-
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 519
tions on past pleasure! And how poor a recompense is the return of the
transient sensation for the nauseous satieties, and languors in the intervals!
This frame of our nature, so incapable of long enjoyments of the external
senses, points out to us that there must be some other more durable pleasure,
without such tedious interruptions, and nauseous reflections. . . .
II. Let us in the same manner examine our sentiments of the happiness of
others in common life. Wealth and external pleasures bear no small bulk in
our imaginations; but does there not always accompany this opinion of happi-
ness in wealth some supposed beneficent intention of doing good offices to
persons dear to us, at least to our families or kinsmen? And in our imagined
happiness from external pleasure, are not some ideas always included of some
moral enjoyments of society, some communication of pleasure, something of
love, of friendship, of esteem, of gratitude? Who ever pretended to a taste of
these pleasures without society? Or if any seem violent in pursuit of them,
how base and contemptible do they appear to all persons, even to those who
could have no expectation of advantage from their having a more generous
notion of pleasure?
Now, were there no moral sense, no happiness in benevolence, and did we
act from no other principle than self-love, sure there is no pleasure of the
external senses which we could not enjoy alone with less trouble and expense
than in society. But a mixture of the moral pleasures is what gives the alluring
relish; 'tis some appearance of friendship, of love, of communicating pleasure
to others, which preserves the pleasures of the luxurious from being nauseous
and insipid. And this partial imagination of some good morals, some benevo-
lence, in actions which have many cruel, inhuman, and destructive conse-
quences toward others, is what has kept vice more in countenance than any
other consideration.
But to convince us farther wherein the happiness of wealth and external
pleasure lies, let us but suppose malice, wrath, revenge, or only solitude,
absence of friendship, of love, of society, of esteem, joined with the posses-
sion of them; and all the happiness vanishes like a dream. And yet love,
friendship, society, humanity, though accompanied with poverty and toil, nay
even with smaller degrees of pain, such as do not wholly occupy the mind, are
not only the object of love from others but even of a sort of emulation; which
plainly shows that virtue is the chief happiness in the judgment of all man-
kind. . . .

Section VII: A Deduction of Some Complex Moral Ideas; Viz. of

Obligation, and Right, Perfect, Imperfect, and External, Alienable, and
Unalienable, from This Moral Sense
I. To conclude this subject, we may, from what has been said, see the true
original of moral ideas, viz. this moral sense of excellence in every appearance
or evidence of benevolence. It remains to be explained how we acquire more
particular ideas of virtue and vice, abstracting from any law, human, or divine.
520 Francis Hutcheson
If anyone ask, can we have any sense of obligation, abstracting from the
laws of a superior? We must answer according to the various senses of the
word obligation. If by obligation we understand a determination, without
regard to our own interest to approve actions and to perform them, which
determination shall also make us displeased with ourselves and uneasy upon
having acted contrary to it; in this meaning of the word obligation there is
naturally an obligation upon all men to benevolence; and they are still under
its influence even when by false or partial opinions of the natural tendency of
their actions, this moral sense leads them to evil; unless by long inveterate
habits it be exceedingly weakened; for it scarce seems possible wholly to
extinguish it. Or, which is to the same purpose, this internal sense and instinct
of benevolence will either influence our actions or make us very uneasy and
dissatisfied; and we shall be conscious that we are in a base unhappy state
even without considering any law whatsoever, or any external advantages lost,
or disadvantages impending from its sanctions. And farther, there are still
such indications given us of what is in the whole beneficent, and what not, as
may probably discover to us the true tendency of every action, and let us see,
some time or other, the evil tendency of what upon a partial view appeared
good. Or if we have no friends so faithful as to admonish us, the persons
injured will not fail to upbraid us. So that no mortal can secure to himself a
perpetual serenity, satisfaction, and self-approbation, but by a serious inquiry
into the tendency of his actions and a perpetual study of universal good
according to the justest notions of it.
But if, by obligation, we understand a motive from self-interest sufficient to
determine all those who duly consider it and pursue their own advantage
wisely to a certain course of actions; we may have a sense of such an obliga-
tion, by reflecting on this determination of our nature to approve virtue, to be
pleased and happy when we reflect upon our having done virtuous actions,
and to be uneasy when we are conscious of having acted otherwise; and also
by considering how much superior we esteem the happiness of virtue to any
other enjoyment. We may likewise have a sense of this sort of obligation by
considering those reasons which prove a constant course of benevolent and
social actions to be the most probable means of promoting the natural good of
every individual, as Cumberland and Pufendorf have proved. And all this
without relation to a law.
But farther, if our moral sense be supposed exceedingly weakened and the
selfish passions grown strong, either through some general corruption of
nature or inveterate habits; if our understanding be weak and we be often in
danger of being hurried by our passions into precipitate and rash judgments
that malicious actions shall promote our advantage more than beneficence;
in such a case, if it be inquired what is necessary to engage men to benefi-
cent actions or induce a steady sense of an obligation to act for the public
good; then, no doubt, a law with sanctions, given by a superior being of
sufficient power to make us happy or miserable, must be necessary to coun-
terbalance those apparent motives of interest, to calm our passions, and give
 The Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue 521
room for the recovery of our moral sense, or at least for a just view of our
interest.
II. Now the principal business of the moral philosopher is to shew, from
solid reasons, that universal benevolence tends to the happiness of the benevo-
lent, either from the pleasures of reflection, honour, natural tendency to
engage the good offices of men, upon whose aid we must depend for our
happiness in this world, or from the sanctions of divine laws discovered to us
by the constitution of the universe; that so no apparent views of interest may
counteract this natural inclination; but not to attempt proving that prospects
of our own advantage of any kind can raise in us the virtuous benevolence
toward others. Let the obstacles from self-love be only removed, and Nature
itself will incline us to benevolence. Let the misery of excessive selfishness be
only removed and all its passions be but once explained so that self-love may
cease to counteract our natural propensity to benevolence; and when this
noble disposition gets loose from these bonds of ignorance and false views of
interest, it shall be assisted even by self-love and grow strong enough to make
a noble virtuous character. Then he is to inquire by reflection upon human
affairs what course of action does most effectually promote the universal
good, what universal rules or maxims are to be observed, and in what circum-
stances the reason of them alters, so as to admit exceptions; that so our good
inclinations may be directed by reason and a just knowledge of the interests of
mankind. But virtue itself, or good dispositions of mind, are not directly
taught or produced by instruction; they must be originally implanted in our
nature by its great Author, and afterwards strengthened and confirmed by our
own cultivation.
HI. We are often told that there is no need of supposing such a sense of
morality given to men, since reflection and instruction would recommend the
same actions from arguments of self-interest, and engage us from the acknowl-
edged principle of self-love to the practice of them, without this unintelligible
determination to benevolence or the occult quality of a moral sense.
It is perhaps true that reflection and reason might lead us to approve the same
actions as advantageous. But would not the same reflection and reason likewise
generally recommend the same meats to us which our taste represents as pleas-
ant? And shall we thence conclude that we have no sense of tasting, or that such
a sense is useless? No, the use is plain in both cases. Notwithstanding the mighty
reason we boast of above other animals, its processes are too slow, too full of
doubt and hesitation, to serve us in every exigency, either for our own preserva-
tion, without the external senses, or to influence our actions for the good of the
whole, without this moral sense. Nor could we be so strongly determined at all
times to what is most conducive to either of these ends without these expedi-
tious monitors and importunate solicitors; nor so nobly rewarded when we act
vigorously in pursuit of these ends by the calm dull reflections of self-interest, as
by those delightful sensations. . . .
V. But that our first ideas of moral good depend not on laws may plainly
appear from our constant inquiries into the justice of laws themselves; and
522 Francis Hutcheson
that not only of human laws but of the divine. What else can be the meaning
of that universal opinion that the laws of God are just, and holy, and good?
Human laws may be called good because of their conformity to the divine.
But to call the laws of the supreme deity good, or holy, or just, if all goodness,
holiness, and justice be constituted by laws, or the will of a superior any way
revealed, must be an insignficant tautology, amounting to no more than this,
that God wills what he wills.
It must then first be supposed that there is something in actions which is
apprehended absolutely good; and this is benevolence, or desire of the public
natural happiness of rational agents; and that our moral sense perceives this
excellence. And then we call the laws of the deity good when we imagine that
they are contrived to promote the public good in the most effectual and impar-
tial manner. And the deity is called good, in a moral sense, when we apprehend
that his whole providence tends to the universal happiness of his creatures;
whence we conclude his benevolence, and desire [for] their happiness.
Some tell us that the goodness of the divine laws consists in their conformity
to some essential rectitude of his nature. But they must excuse us from assent-
ing to this, till they make us understand the meaning of this metaphor, essen-
tial rectitude; and till we discern whether any thing more is meant by it than a
perfectly wise, uniform, impartial benevolence.
Hence we may see the difference between constraint and obligation. There is
indeed no difference between constraint and the second sense of the word
obligation, viz. a constitution which makes an action eligible from self-interest,
if we only mean external interest distinct from the delightful consciousness
which arises from the moral sense. The reader need scarcely be told that by
constraint we do not understand an external force moving our limbs without
our consent; for in that case we are not agents at all; but that constraint which
arises from the threatening and presenting some evil in order to make us act in a
certain manner. And yet there seems an universally acknowledged difference
between even this sort of constraint and obligation. We never say we are
obliged to do an action which we count base, but we may be constrained to it.
We never say that the divine laws, by their sanctions, constrain us, but oblige us;
nor do we call obedience to the deity constraint, unless by a metaphor, though
many own they are influenced by fear of punishments. And yet supposing an
almighty evil being should require, under grievous penalties, treachery, cruelty,
ingratitude, we would call this constraint. The difference is plainly this. When
any sanctions co-operate with our moral sense in exciting us to actions which we
count morally good, we say we are obliged; but when sanctions of rewards or
punishments oppose our moral sense, then we say we are bribed or constrained.
In the former case we call the lawgiver good, as designing the public happiness;
in the latter we call him evil, or unjust, for the supposed contrary intention. But
were all our ideas of moral good or evil derived solely from opinions of private
advantage or loss in actions, I see no possible difference which could be made in
the meaning of these words.
VI. From this sense too we derive our ideas of rights. Whenever it appears
 Editor's Notes 523
to us that a faculty of doing, demanding, or possessing any thing, universally
allowed in certain circumstances, would in the whole tend to the general
good, we say that one in such circumstances has a right to do, possess, or
demand that thing. And according as this tendency to the public good is
greater or less, the right is greater or less. . . .
XII. If it be here inquired, "Could not the deity have given us a different or
contrary determination of mind, viz. to approve actions upon another founda-
tion than benevolence?" There seems nothing in this surpassing the natural
power of the deity. But, as in the first treatise," we resolved the constitution
of our present sense of beauty into the divine goodness, so with much more
obvious reason may we ascribe the present constitution of our moral sense to
his goodness. For if the deity be really benevolent, and desires the happiness
of others, he could not rationally act otherwise or give us a moral sense upon
another foundation without counteracting his own benevolent intentions. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. Hutcheson uses the term "perception" in a very broad sense, meaning by it
roughly what Locke meant by idea, that is, whatever is before the mind when the
mind thinks. Pleasure and pains are therefore perceptions, as are ideas of the
qualities of external objects and of the operations of our own minds, including
feeling, thinking, remembering, and the like.
2. Hutcheson here was speaking of himself in the third person.
3. A slight misquotation of Shakespeare's Hamlet, act 2, sc. 2. An actor has given a
passionate speech at Hamlet's request concerning Hecuba, who has lost a daugh-
ter; Hamlet wonders at the actor's ability to feign such passion.
4. Orestes, helped by his sister Electra, slew Aegysthus, who had seduced their
mother, Clytemnestra. while their father, Agamemnon, was leading the Greek
armies at Troy and then had joined Clytemnestra in murdering Agamemnon on
his return.
5. A legendary king of Athens, reputed to have sacrificed himself for his country in
order to save it from an invasion.
6. A Roman consul who saved his city by leading his troops to battle at the cost of his
own life.
7. For Cumberland and Pufendorf, see the selections in Part I of this anthology.
8. An asylum for the insane, originally called "Bethlehem," of which the word
"Bedlam" is a corruption.
9. Latin, "that which carries," as the balance — the "beam and scales" — symbolically
carries justice.
10. Its ordinary meaning was "satisfaction or pleasure in one's own condition," but
Hutcheson is giving it a broader sense, "satisfaction or pleasure in anyone's
condition."
11. Its usual meaning was "dissatisfaction or displeasure with one's condition," but, as
with "complacence," Hutcheson gives it a broader meaning.
12. Outweigh.
13. Hutcheson is saying that good done or evil avoided in regard to a very small
number of persons whose activity is important to a society (e.g.. a group of
military leaders in time of war) may outweigh good or evil involving larger num-
bers of persons of less importance to the society.
14. That is, the Inquiry Concerning the Original of Our Idea of Beauty, bound with
this treatise.
524 Francis Hutcheson

Further Reading
There is no good modern edition of Hutcheson's collected works, although eighteenth-
century copies of his writings have been reprinted. His important Illustrations on the
Moral Sense, 1728, was edited by Bernard Peach (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1971), with a good introduction. For his life, the study by W. R. Scott,
Francis Hutcheson (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. 1900). is still
indispensable. For Hutcheson and the classical republican tradition. see Caroline Rob-
bins, The Eighteenth Century Commonwealthman (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1959).
For Gershom Carmichael, Hutcheson's teacher, see James Moore and Michael Sil-
verthorne, "Gershom Carmichael and the Natural Jurisprudence Tradition in Eigh-
teenth Century Scotland," in Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Wealth and
Virtue (Cambridge. England: Cambridge University Press, 1983). There are several
essays pertaining to Hutcheson in R. H. Campbell and Andrew S. Skinner. eds., The
Origin and Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982).
William Frankena's important article "Hutcheson's Moral Sense Theory," Journal of
the History of Ideas 16 (1955), stimulated much of the recent discussion of the proper
interpretation of Hutcheson. William T. Blackstone, Francis Hutcheson and Contempo-
rary Moral Theory (Athens: University of Georgia Press. 1965), is analytical rather
than historical. Henning Jensen, Motivation and the Moral Sense in Francis Hutche-
son's Ethical Theory (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1971), contains some very controversial
interpretations. David Fate Norton initiated the reading of Hutcheson as a moral
realist. The second chapter of his book, David Hume (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton
University Press, 1982), argues for this position, drawing on his earlier publications.
"Hutcheson's Moral Sense Theory Reconsidered," Dialogue 13 (1974), and "Hutche-
son on Perception and Moral Perception," Archly far Geschichte der Philosophie 59
(1977). Norton argued in part against Frankena and in part against the influential
reading of Hutcheson given by Norman Kemp Smith in his Philosophy of David Hume
(London: Macmillan, 1941), chap. 2. Kenneth P. Winkler criticized Norton's position
in "Hutcheson's Alleged Realism," Journal of the History of Philosophy 23 (1985). and
Norton replied in a later issue of the same journal during the same year. See also Joel J.
Kupperman, "Francis Hutcheson: Morality and Nature," History of Philosophy Quar-
terly 2 (1985). In a series of important papers, Knud Haakonssen discussed the thesis
of Hutcheson's moral realism and built it into an impressive interpretation of the
course of moral and political thought from Pufendorf through Reid. See especially his
"Moral Philosophy and Natural Law: From the Cambridge Platonists to the Scottish
Enlightenment," Political Science 40 (1988), and "Natural Law and Moral Realism:
The Scottish Synthesis," in M. A. Stewart, ed., Oxford Studies in the History of
Philosophy, vol. 1: The Philosophy of the Scottish Enlightenment (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1989). Hutcheson figures importantly in both these essays, which will
steer the interested reader to additional secondary material.
There is a chapter on Hutcheson in Alasdair Maclntyre, Whose Justice? Which
Rationality? (Notre Dame. Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1988). The best
book on Hutcheson is Wolfgang Leidhold, Ethik and Politik bei Francis Hutcheson
(Munich: Verlag Karl Alber, 1985). which contains a good bibliography.
 Joseph Butler

Introduction
Joseph Butler, born in 1692 into a family of Dissenters — Protestants who were not
members of the Church of England — studied at a Dissenting academy until 1714.
During this time he corresponded with Samuel Clarke about the latter's proofs of the
existence of God; Clarke admired the letters enough to publish the exchange in later
editions of his own work. Butler then went to Oxford to prepare for ordination in the
Church of England. He became a priest soon after he graduated in 1718 and was
appointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel in London. It was here that he delivered the
Fifteen Sermons (1726) on which his importance as a moral philosopher rests. In 1736
he wrote a lengthy attack on deism, the view that a fully adequate religion can be
developed by natural reason without the aid of any revelation and that faith in the
distinctive doctrines of Christianity is not essential to religion. Butler's work The
Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and the Course of
Nature (1736) was used in the education of Church of England clergy through the
remainder of the eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth. It was generally
thought to have destroyed the deistic position and stopped it from gathering adherents.
Butler devoted the rest of his life to his work in the church. He was the bishop first of
Bristol and then, late in life, of Durham. He died in 1752.
The Sermons are among the most influential English writings on ethics. Although
they did not receive much acclaim when they were published, by mid-century they had
begun to be more widely noticed, and some of the most powerful of later moral
philosophers — in particular, Richard Price and Thomas Reid, in the eighteenth cen-
tury, and William Whewell and Henry Sidgwick. in the nineteenth — considered them-
selves to be, in one way or another, Butlerians. Densely written, the Sermons repay
the careful study they require.
It was characteristic of Butler to stress the complexity of human nature and the
moral life. Against Hobbes (and others of the period) he developed classic arguments
to show that human motivation cannot be reduced to any single desire or principle.
Egoistic psychology was his target because he supposed, rightly or wrongly, that
Hobbes held that all voluntary human actions are self-interested and because Mande-
ville had proposed a variant of that view. But Butler's arguments would apply to any
alleged reduction of all desires and impulses to a single motivation.
Butler also emphasized the complexities of the principles that guide us in deciding
which of our desires and passions to act on. He noted two kinds of complexity. The
first is that some practical principles are superior to others not simply in strength but
also in what Butler called "authority." Some principles claim the right to govern

525
526 Joseph Butler
others. For example. if fear prompts us to refuse to go the dentist, self-interest will
prompt us to go, and we will all agree, Butler thought, that we ought to go. It is only
reasonable to do so, even if the desire to stay away is stronger than the desire to go.
This illustrates the idea of authority, and Butler believed that we could then see that
conscience has a similar authority over all the other practical principles.
Principles are complex in another way. There ' no single rule or principle from
which we can obtain all the guidance we need. In fact, Butler asserted, no honest
person needs a rule (Sermon 111.4). Conscience gives us sufficient direction in each
case as it comes. But conscience ay be led astray, owing to personal failings, and if it
is. no abstract rule will set it right Butler particularly attacked the idea — proposed by
Hutcheson — that virtue might wholly contained in benevolence, so that the direc-
tive "Do as much good as possible" would suffice. A principle like that, Butler al-
lowed, might express the mode in which God works, but it cannot be our principle. In
resisting the Hutchesonian view, Butler presented some of the more incisive criticisms
of what much later came to be known as utilitarianism.
Conscience must thus be our final arbiter. Yet Butler did not give us a detailed
analysis of conscience. He ignored the Thomistic account of conscience as a synderesis,
or repository of rules, together with the power of applying the rules to instances,
although this account had been accepted by most of his predecessors in the Church of
England. And he put nothing definite in its place. Butler used a perplexing variety of
terms to refer to conscience, and consequently there has been considerable discussion
of whether he thought of it as a feeling or as an instrument of knowledge. The fact is
that he was not interested in theories about such matters. His concern was to remind us
that we all are aware of this source of inner guidance and its authority, however we
describe it. For practical purposes, we do not need any theory about it.
Yet another complexity in the moral life is emphasized in the Sermons. Butler held
that it is as appropriate to be concerned for one's own long-range good as it is to be
concerned for the good of others. Both self-interest and benevolence are reasonable
principles of action, but Butler declined to rank them in relation to each other or to
justice or veracity. The ordinary person is perfectly capable of seeing, in specific
contexts, what is to be done, and no more is needed.
In one of the first histories of moral philosophy in English. William Whewell said
that Butler had done more to make us aware of the facts of the moral life than had any
of his predecessors but that he had not developed an adequate theory to explain the
complex data he uncovered. Whewell plainly thought this a defect. But in refusing to
suppose that theory must play a practical part in daily life, Butler was making a
strongly Protestant reaffirmation of the immediate responsibility of all individuals for
their own actions and for the condition of their own character. His understanding of
morality grew from his religious beliefs. God, in Butler's view, has given each of us a
conscience that is adequate for our practical needs. Advice from a minister or confes-
sor is not necessary for ordinary people to live decent lives, and neither is philosophy.
Butler's strong assertion of our capacity for self-direction inevitably raises a question:
if we are capable of living decently without the guidance of other people, might not
conscience be adequate even without God? The reader will wish to consider how
important religious assumptions are to Butler's general outlook.
The selections from the Sermons reprinted here are from J. H. Bernard, ed., The
Works of Joseph Butler, London, 1900, vol. 1, which gives the text of the second
edition of 1729. The best way of referring to Butler's works is by sermon number and
paragraph number, and so I have included Bernard's numbering in brackets. The brief
 Sermons 527

excerpt from the "Dissertation on Virtue," published as an appendix to the Analogy of

Religion, is from the second volume of the same edition.

Sermons

SERMON I: UPON HUMAN NATURE

For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office:
so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.
(Rom. 12:4, 5)
[4.] The relation which the several parts or members of the natural body
have to each other and to the whole body, is here compared to the relation
which each particular person in society has to other particular persons and to
the whole society; and the latter is intended to be illustrated by the former.
And if there be a likeness between these two relations, the consequence is
obvious: that the latter shows us we were intended to do good to others, as the
former shews us that the several members of the natural body were intended
to be instruments of good to each other and to the whole body. . . .
[5.] From this review and comparison of the nature of man as respecting
self, and as respecting society, it will plainly appear, that there are as real and
the same kind of indications in human nature, that we were made for society
and to do good to our fellow-creatures; as that we were intended to take care
of our own life and health and private good: and that the same objections lie
against one of these assertions, as against the other. For,
[6.] First, There is a natural principle of benevolence* in man; which is in
* Suppose a man of learning to be writing a grave book upon human nature, and to chew in
several parts of it that he had an insight into the subject he was considering; amongst other
things. the following one would require to be accounted for; the appearance of benevolence or
good-will in men towards each other in the instances of natural relation, and in others (Hobbes,
Of Human Nature, c. ix. I) 7). Cautious of being deceived with outward show, he retires within
himself to see exactly, what that is in the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds;
and, upon deep reflection, asserts the principle in the mind to be only the love of power. and
delight in the exercise of it. Would not every body think here was a mistake of one word for
another? that the philosopher was contemplating and accounting for some other human ac-
tions, some other behaviour of man to man? And could any one be thoroughly satisfied, that
what is commonly called benevolence or good-will was really the affection meant, but only by
being made to understand that this learned person had a general hypothesis, to which the
appearance of good-will could no otherwise be reconciled? That what has this appearance is
often nothing but ambition; that delight in superiority often (suppose always) mixes itself with
benevolence, only makes it more specious to call it ambition than hunger, of the two: but in
reality that passion does no more account for the whole appearances of good-will, than this
appetite does. Is there not often the appearance of one man's wishing that good to another,
which he knows himself unable to procure him; and rejoicing in it, though bestowed by a third
person? And can love of power any way possibly come in to account for this desire or delight?
Is there not often the appearance of men's distinguishing between two or more persons,
preferring one before another, to do good to, in cases where love of power cannot in the least
account for the distinction and preference? For this principle can no otherwise distinguish
between objects, than as it is a greater instance and exertion of power to do good to one rather
than to another. Again, suppose good-will in the mind of man to be nothing but delight in the
exercise of power: men might indeed be restrained by distant and accidental considerations;
but these restraints being removed, they would have a disposition to, and delight in mischief as
 528 Joseph Butler
some degree to society, what self-love is to the individual. And if there be in
mankind any disposition to friendship; if there be any such thing as compas-
sion, for compassion is momentary love; if there be any such thing as the
paternal or filial affections; if there be any affection in human nature, the
object and end of which is the good of another; this is itself benevolence, or
the love of another:fly it ever so short, be it in ever so low a degree, or ever so
unhappily confined; it proves the assertion, and points out what we were
iYA de' ned for, as really as though it were in a higher degree and more exten-
sive. I must however remind you that though benevolence and self-love are
different; though the former tends most directly to public good, and the latter
to private{yet they are so perfectly coincident, that the greatest satisfactions
to ourselves depend upon our having benevolence in a due degree, and that
self-love is one chief security of our right behaviour towards society. It may be
added, that their mutual coinciding, so that we can scarce promote one with-
out the other, is equally a proof that we were made for botfit
[7.] Secondly, This will further appear, from observing that the several
passions and affections, which are distinct* both from benevolence and self-
an exercise and proof of power: and this disposition and delight would arise from, or be the
same principle in the mind, as a disposition to, and delight in charity. Thus cruelty, as distinct
from envy and resentment, would be exactly the same in the mind of man as good-will: that one
tends to the happiness, the other to the misery of our fellow-creatures, is, it seems, merely an
accidental circumstance, which the mind has not the least regard to. These are the absurdities
which even men of capacity run into, when they have occasion to belie their nature, and will
perversely disclaim that image of God which was originally stamped upon it, the traces of
which, however faint, are plainly discernible upon the mind of man.
If any person can in earnest doubt, whether there be such a thing as good-will in one man
towards another; (for the question is not concerning either the degree or extensiveness of it. but
concerning the affection itself:) let it be observed, that whether man be thus, or otherwise
constituted, what is the inward frame in this particular, is a mere question of fact or natural
history, not provable immediately by reason. It is therefore to be judged of and determined in the
same way other facts or matters of natural history are: by appealing to the external senses, or
inward perceptions, respectively, as the matter under consideration is cognizable by one or the
other: by arguing from acknowledged facts and actions; for a great number of actions in the same
kind, in different circumstances, and respecting different objects. will prove, to a certainty what
principles they do not, and, to the greatest probability, what principles they do proceed from: and
lastly, by the testimony of mankind. Now that there is some degree of benevolence amongst men.
may be as strongly and plainly proved in all these ways, as it could possibly be proved. supposing
there was this affection in our nature. And should any one think fit to assert, that resentment in
the mind of man was absolutely nothing but reasonable concern for our own safety. the falsity of
this, and what is the real nature of that passion, could be shewn in no other ways than those in
which it may be shewn, that there is such a thing in some degree as real good-will in man towards
man. It is sufficient that the seeds of it be implanted in our nature by God. There is. it is owned,
much left for us to do upon our own heart and temper; to cultivate. to improve, to call it forth, to
exercise it in a steady. uniform manner. This is our work: this is virtue and religion.
• Every body makes a distinction between self-love, and the several particular passions, appe-
tites, and affections; and yet they are often confounded again. That they are totally different,
will be seen by any one who will distinguish between the passions and appetites themselves, and
endeavouring after the means of their gratification. Consider the appetite of hunger, and the
desire of esteem: these being the occasion both of pleasure and pain, the coolest self-love, as
well as the appetites and passions themselves. may put us upon making use of the proper
methods of obtaining that pleasure, and avoiding that pain; but the feelings themselves, the
pain of hunger and shame, and the delight from esteem. are no more self-love than they are
anything in the world. Though a man hated himself, he would as much feel the pain of hunger
 Sermons 529
love, do in general contribute and lead us to public good as really as to private.
It might be thought too minute and particular, and would carry us too great a
length, to distinguish between and compare together the several passions or
appetites distinct from benevolence, whose primary use and intention is the
security and good of society; and the passions distinct from self-love, w se
primary intention and design is the security and good of the individual. t It is
enough to the present argument, that desire of esteem from others, contempt
and esteem of them, love of socie as distinct from affection to the good of it,
indignation against successful vice, that these are public affections or pas-
sions; have an immediate respec others, naturally lead us to regulate our
behaviour in such a manner as will be of service to our fellow-creatures. If any
or all of these may be considered likewise as private affections, as tending to
private good; this does not hinder them from being public affections too, or
destroy the good influence of them upon society, and their tendency to public
good. . . . The sum is, men have various appetites, passions, and particular
affections, quite distinct both from self-love and from benevolence: all of
these have a tendency to promote both public and private good, and may be
considered as respecting others and ourselves equally and in common: but
some of them seem most immediately to respect others, or tend to public
good; hers of them most immediately to respect self, or tend to private
good: as the former are not benevolence, so the latter are not -love:
neither sor are instances of our love either to ourselves or other ut only
instances of our Maker's care and love both of the individual an pecies,
and proofs that He intended we should be ls ' trum nts of good to each other,
as well as that we should be so to ourselves. awe
as he would that of the gout: and it is plainly supposable there may be creatures with self-love in
them to the highest degree, who may be quite insensible and indifferent (as men in some cases
are) to the contempt and esteem of those, upon whom their happiness does not in some further
respects depend. And as self-love and the several particular passions and appetites are in
themselves totally different; so, that some actions proceed from one, and some from the other,
will be manifest to any one who will observe the two following very supposable cases. One man
rushes upon certain ruin for the gratification of a present desire: nobody will call the principle
of this action self-love. Suppose another man to go through some laborious work upon promise
of a great reward, without any distinct knowledge what the reward will be: this course of action
cannot be ascribed to any particular passion. The former of these actions is plainly to be
imputed to some particular passion or affection, the latter as plainly to the general affection or
principle of self-love. That there are some particular pursuits or actions concerning which we
cannot determine how far they are owing to one, and how far to the other, proceeds from this.
that the two principles are frequently mixed together, and run up into each other. This distinc-
tion is further explained in the eleventh sermon.
t If any desire to see this distinction and comparison made in a particular instance, the appetite
and passion now mentioned may serve for one. Hunger is to be considered as a private
appetite; because the end for which it was given us is the preservation of the individual. Desire
of esteem is a public passion; because the end for which it was given us is to regulate our
behaviour towards society. The respect which this has to private good is as remote as the
respect that has to public good: and the appetite is no more self-love, than the passion is
benevolence. The object and end of the former is merely food; the object and end of the latter
is merely esteem: but the latter can no more be gratified, without contributing to the good of
society; than the former can be gratified, without contributing to the preservation of the
individual.
530 Joseph Butler
[8.] Thirdly, There is a principle of reflection' in men, by which they distin-
guish between, approve and disapprove their own actions. We are plainly
constituted such sort of creatures as to reflect upon our own nature. The mind
can take a view of what passes within itself, its propensions, aversions, pas-
sions, affections, as respecting such objects, and in such degrees; and of the
several actions consequent thereupon. In this survey it approves of one, disap-
proves of another, towards a third is affected in neither of these ways, but
is quite indifferent. This principle in man, by which he approves or disap-
proves his heart, to er, and actions, is conscience for this is the strict sense
of the word, though sometimes it is used so as to e in more. And that this
faculty tends to restrain men from doing mischief to each other, and leads
them to do good, is too manifest to need being insisted upon. . . . It cannot
possibly be denied, that there is this principle of reflection or conscience in
human nature. Suppose a man to relieve an innocent person in great distress;
suppose the same man afterwards, in the fury of anger, to do the greatest
mischief to a person who had given no just cause of offence; to aggravate the
injury, add the circumstances of former friendship, and obligation from the
injured person; let the man who is supposed to have done these two different
actions, coolly reflect upon them afterwards, without regard to their conse-
quences to himself: to assert that any common man would be affected in the
same way towards these different actionshat he would make no distinction
between them, but appro e or disapprove them equally, is too glaring a falsity
to need being confuted. There is therefore this principle of reflection or
conscience in mankin t is needless to compare the respect it has to private
good, with the respect it has to public since it plainly tends as much to e
latter as to the former, and is common y thought to tend chiefly to the latte
This faculty is now mentioned merely as another part in the inward fran e of
man, pointing out to us in some degree what we are intended for, and as what
will naturally and of course have some influence. The particular place as-
signed to it by nature, what authority it has, and how great influence it ought
to have, shall be hereafter considered.
[9.] From this comparison of benevolence and self-love, of our public and
private affections, of the courses of life they lead to, and of the principle of
reflection or conscience as respecting each of them, it is as manifest, that we
were made for society, and to promote the happiness of it; as that we were
intended to take care of our own life, and health, and private good.

SERMON II: UPON HUMAN NATURE

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in
the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. (Rom. 2:14)

[3.] But it may be said, "What is all this, though true, to the purpose of
virtue and religion? these require, not only that we do good to others, when
we are led this way, by benevolence or reflection, happening to be stronger
 Sermons 531
than other principles, passions, or appetites; but likewise that the whole char-
acter be formed upon thought and reflection; that every action be directed by
some determinate rule, some other rule than the strength and prevalency of
any principle or passion. What sign is there in our nature (for the inquiry is
only about what is to be collected from thence) that this was intended by its
Author? Or how does so various and fickle a temper as that of man appear
adapted thereto? It may indeed be absurd and unnatural for men to act
without any reflection; nay, without regard to that particular kind of reflection
which you call conscience; because this does belong to our nature. For as
there never was a man but who approved one place, prospect, building,
before another: so it does not appear that there ever was a man who would
not have approved an action of humanity rather than of cruelty; interest and
passion being quite out of the case. But interest and passion do come in, and
are often too strong for and prevail over reflection and conscience. Now as
brutes have various instincts, by which they are carried on to the end the
Author of their nature intended them for: is not man in the same condition;
with this difference only, that to his instincts (i.e., appetites and passions) is
added the principle of reflection or conscience? And as brutes act agreeably to
their nature, in following that principle or particular instinct which for the
present is strongest in them: does not man likewise act agreeably to his na-
ture, or obey the law of his creation, by following that principle, be it passion
or conscience, which for the present happens to be strongest in him? .. .
[4.J Now all this licentious talk entirely goes upon a supposition, that men
follow their nature in the same sense, in violating the known rules of justice
and honesty for the sake of a present gratification, as they do in following
those rules when they have no temptation to the contrary. And if this were
true, that could not be so which St. Paul asserts, that men are "by nature a law
to themselves." . . . the objection will be fully answered, and the text before
us explained, by observing that nature is considered in different views, and the
words used in different senses; and by shewing in what view it is considered,
and in what sense the word is used, when intended to express and signify that
which is the guide of life, that by which men are a law to themselves. I say, the
explanation of the term will be sufficient, because from thence it will appear,
that in some senses of the word nature cannot be, but that in another sense it
manifestly is, a law to us.
[5.1 I. By nature is often meant no more than some principle in man,
without regard either to the kind or degree of it. Thus the passion of anger,
and the affection of parents to their children, would be called equally natural.
And as the same person hath often contrary principles, which at the same time
draw contrary ways, he may by the same action both follow and contradict his
nature in this sense of the word; he may follow one passion and contradict
another.
[6.J II. Nature is frequently spoken of as consisting in those passions which
are strongest, and most influence the actions; which being vicious ones, man-
kind is in this sense naturally vicious, or vicious by nature. Thus St. Paul says
532 Joseph Butler
of the Gentiles, "who were dead in trespasses and sins, and walked according
to the spirit of disobedience, that they were by nature the children of wrath."'
They could be no otherwise children of wrath by nature, than they were
vicious by nature.
[7.] Here then are two different senses of the word nature, in neither of
which men can at all be said to be a law to themselves. They are mentioned
only to be excluded; to prevent their being confounded, as the latter is in the
objection, with another sense of it, which is now to be inquired after and
explained.
[8.] HI. . . . What that is in man by which he is naturally a law to himself is
explained in the following words: "which chew the work of the law written in
their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean-
while accusing or else excusing one another."' If there be a distinction to be
made between the works written in their hearts, and the witness of conscience;
by the former must be meant the natural disposition to kindness and compas-
sion, to do what is of good report, to which this apostle often refers: that part of
the nature of man, treated of in the foregoing discourse, which with very little
reflection and of course leads him to society, and by means of which he naturally
acts a just and good part in it, unless other passions or interest lead him astray.
Yet since other passions, and regards to private interest, which lead us (though
indirectly, yet they lead us) astray, are themselves in a degree equally natural,
and often most prevalent; and since we have no method of seeing the particular
degrees in which one or the other is placed in us by nature; it is plain the former,
considered merely as natural, good and right as they are, can no more be a law
to us than the latter. But there is a superior principle of reflection or conscience
in every man, which distinguishes between the internal principles of his heart,
as well as his external actions: which passes judgment upon himself and them;
pronounces determinately some actions to be in themselves just, right, good;
others to be in themselves evil, wrong, unjust; which, without being consulted,
without being advised with, magisterially exerts itself, and approves or con-
demns him the doer of them accordingly: and which, if not forcibly stopped,
naturally and always of course goes on to anticipate a higher and more effectual
sentence, which shall hereafter second and affirm its own. 4 But this part of the
office of conscience is beyond my present design explicitly to consider. It is by
this faculty, natural to man, that he is a moral agent, that he is a law to himself:
by this faculty, I say, not to be considered merely as a principle in his heart,
which is to have some influence as well as others; but considered as a faculty in
kind and in nature supreme over all others, and which bears its own authority of
being so.
[91 This prerogative, this natural supremacy, of the faculty which surveys,
approves or disapproves the several affections of our mind and actions of our
lives, being that by which men are a law to themselves, their conformity or
disobedience to which law of our nature renders their actions, in the highest
and most proper sense, natural or unnatural; it is fit it be further explained to
you: and I hope it will be so, if you will attend to the following reflections.
 Sermons 533
[10.1 Man may act according to that principle or inclination which for the
present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way disproportionate to, and
violate his real proper nature. Suppose a brute creature by any bait to be
allured into a snare, by which he is destroyed. He plainly followed the bent of
his nature, leading him to gratify his appetite: there is an entire correspon-
dence between his whole nature and such an action: such action therefore is
natural. But suppose a man, foreseeing the same danger of certain ruin,
should rush into it for the sake of a present gratification; he in this instance
would follow his strongest desire, as did the brute creature: but there would
be as manifest a disproportion, between the nature of a man and such an
action, as between the meanest work of art and the skill of the greatest master
in that art: which disproportion arises, not from considering the action singly
in itself or in its consequences; but from comparison of it with the nature of
the agent. And since such an action is utterly disproportionate to the nature of
man, it is in the strictest and most proper sense unnatural; this word express-
ing that disproportion. Therefore instead of the words disproportionate to his
nature, the word unnatural may now be put; this being more familiar to us: but
let it be observed, that it stands for the same thing precisely.
[11.1 Now what is it which renders such a rash action unnatural? Is it that
he went against the principle of reasonable and cool self-love, considered
merely as a part of his nature? No: for if he had acted the contrary way, he
would equally have gone against a principle, or part of its nature, namely,
passion or appetite. But to deny a present appetite, from foresight that the
gratification of it would end in immediate ruin or extreme misery, is by no
means an unnatural action: whereas to contradict or go against cool self-love
for the sake of such gratification, is so in the instance before us. Such an
action then being unnatural; and its being so not arising from a man's going
against a principle or desire barely, nor in going against that principle or
desire which happens for the present to be strongest; it necessarily follows,
that there must be some other difference or distinction to be made between
these two principles, passion and cool self-love, than what I have yet taken
notice of. And this difference, not being a difference in strength or degree, I
call a difference in nature and in kind. And since, in the instance still before
us, if passion prevails over self-love, the consequent action is unnatural; but
if self-love prevails over passion, the action is natural: it is manifest that self-
love is in human nature a superior principle to passion. This may be contra-
dicted without violating that nature; but the former cannot. So that, if we
will act conformably to the economy of man's nature, reasonable self-love
must govern. Thus, without particular consideration of conscience, we may
have a clear conception of the superior nature of one inward principle to
another; and see that there really is this natural superiority, quite distinct
from degrees of strength and prevalency.
[13.1 Passion or appetite implies a direct simple tendency towards such and
such objects, without distinction of the means by which they are to be ob-
tained. Consequently it will often happen there will be a desire of particular
534 Joseph Butler

objects, in cases where they cannot be obtained without manifest injury to

others. Reflection or conscience comes in, and disapproves the pursuit of
them in these circumstances; but the desire remains. Which is to be obeyed,
appetite or reflection? Cannot this question be answered, from the economy
and constitution of human nature merely, without saying which is strongest?
Or need this at all come into consideration? Would not the question be intelli-
gibly and fully answered by saying, that the principle of reflection or con-
science being compared with the various appetites, passions, and affections in
men, the former is manifestly superior and chief, without regard to strength?
And how often soever the latter happens to prevail, it is mere usurpation: the
former remains in nature and in kind its superior; and every instance of such
prevalence of the latter is an instance of breaking in upon and violation of the
constitution of man.
[14.] All this is no more than the distinction, which everybody is acquainted
with, between mere power and authority: only instead of being intended to
express the difference between what is possible, and what is lawful in civil
government; here it has been shewn applicable to the several principles in the
mind of man. Thus that principle, by which we survey, and either approve or
disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as
what is in its turn to have some influence; which may be said of every passion,
of the lowest appetites: but likewise as being superior; as from its very nature
manifestly claiming superiority over all others: insomuch that you cannot form
a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking in judgment, direction,
superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea, that is, of the faculty
itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of
man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right; had it power, as it has
manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world.

SERMON III: UPON HUMAN NATURE

For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in
the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves. (Rom. 2:14)

[1.] The natural supremacy of reflection or conscience being thus estab-

lished; we may from it form a distinct notion of what is meant by human
nature, when virtue is said to consist in following it, and vice in deviating
from it.
[2.] As the idea of a civil constitution implies in it united strength, various
subordinations, under one direction, that of the supreme authority; the differ-
ent strength of each particular member of the society not coming into the
idea; whereas, if you leave out the subordination, the union, and the one
direction, you destroy and lose it: so reason, several appetites, passions, and
affections, prevailing in different degrees of strength, is not that idea or notion
of human nature; but that nature consists in these several principles considered
as having a natural respect to each other, in the several passions being natu-
 Sermons 535
rally subordinate to the one superior principle of reflection or conscience.
Every bias, instinct, propension within, is a real part of our nature, but not the
whole: add to these the superior faculty, whose office it is to adjust, manage,
and preside over them, and take in this its natural superiority, and you com-
plete the idea of human nature. And as in civil government the constitution is
broken in upon, and violated by power and strength prevailing over authority;
so the constitution of man is broken in upon and violated by the lower facul-
ties or principles within prevailing over that which is in its nature supreme
over them all. Thus, when it is said by ancient writers, that tortures and death
are not so contrary to human nature as injustice; 5 by this to be sure is not
meant, that the aversion to the former in mankind is less strong and prevalent
than their aversion to the latter; but that the former is only contrary to our
nature considered in a partial view, and which takes in only the lowest part of
it, that which we have in common with the brutes; whereas the latter is
contrary to our nature, considered in a higher sense, as a system and constitu-
tion contrary to the whole economy of man.
[3.] And from all these things put together, nothing can be more evident,
than that, exclusive of revelation, man cannot be considered as a creature left
by his Maker to act at random, and live at large up to the extent of his natural
power, as passion, humour, wilfulness, happen to carry him; which is the
condition brute creatures are in: but that from his make, constitution, or
nature, he is in the strictest and most proper sense a law to himself. He hath
the rule of right within: what is wanting is only that he honestly attend to it.
[4.] The inquiries which have been made by men of leisure, after some
general rule, the conformity to, or disagreement from which, should denomi-
nate our actions good or evil, are in many respects of great service. Yet let any
plain honest man, before he engages in any course of action, ask himself, Is
this I am going about right, or is it wrong? Is it good, or is it evil? I do not in
the least doubt, but that this question would be answered agreeably to truth
and virtue, by almost any fair man in almost any circumstance. Neither do
there appear any cases which look like exceptions to this; but those of supersti-
tion, and of partiality to ourselves. Superstition may perhaps be somewhat of
an exception: but partiality to ourselves is not; this being itself dishonesty. For
a man to judge that to be the equitable, the moderate, the right part for him to
act, which he would see to be hard, unjust, oppressive in another; this is plain
vice, and can proceed only from great unfairness of mind.
[5.] But allowing that mankind hath the rule of right within himself, yet it
may be asked, "What obligations are we under to attend to and follow it?" I
answer: it has been proved that man by his nature is a law to himself, without
the particular distinct consideration of the positive sanctions of that law; the
rewards and punishments which we feel, and those which from the light of
reason we have ground to believe are annexed to it. The question then carries
its own answer along with it. Your obligation to obey this law, is its being the
law of your nature. That your conscience approves of and attests to such a
course of action, is itself alone an obligation. Conscience does not only offer
536 Joseph Butler
itself to shew us the way we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own
authority with it, that it is our natural guide; the guide assigned us by the
Author of our nature: it therefore belongs to our condition of being, it is our
duty to walk in that path, and follow this guide, without looking about to see
whether we may not possibly forsake them with impunity.

SERMON XI: UPON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR

And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying,

namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Rom. 13:9)

PI Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a
variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external
objects. The former proceeds from, or is self-love; and seems inseparable
from all sensible creatures, who can reflect upon themselves and their own
interest or happiness, so as to have that interest an object to their minds: what
is to be said of the latter is, that they proceed from, or together make up that
particular nature, according to which man is made. The object the former
pursues is somewhat internal, our own happiness, enjoyment, satisfaction;
whether we have, or have not, a distinct particular perception what it is, or
wherein it consists: the objects of the latter are this or that particular external
thing, which the affections tend towards, and of which it hath always a particu-
lar idea or perception. The principle we call self-love never seeks anything
external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good:
particular affections rest in the external things themselves. One belongs to
man as a reasonable creature reflecting upon his own interest or happiness.
The other, though quite distinct from reason, are as much a part of human
nature.
[6.] That all particular appetites and passions are towards external things
themselves, distinct from the pleasure arising from them, is manifested from
hence; that there could not be this pleasure, were it not for that prior suitable-
ness between the object and the passion: there could be no enjoyment or
delight from one thing more than another, from eating food more than from
swallowing a stone, if there were not an affection or appetite to one thing
more than another.
[7.] Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbour, is as really
our own affection, as self-love; and the pleasure arising from its gratification is
as much my own pleasure, as the pleasure self-love would have, from knowing
I myself should be happy some time hence, would be my own pleasure. And
if, because every particular affection is a man's own, and the pleasure arising
from its gratification his own pleasure, or pleasure to himself, such particular
affection must be called self-love; according to this way of speaking, no crea-
ture whatever can possibly act but merely from self-love; and every action and
every affection whatever is to be resolved up into this one principle. But then
this is not the language of mankind: or if it were, we should want words to
 Sermons 537
express the difference, between the principle of an action, proceeding from
cool consideration that it will be to my own advantage; and an action, suppose
of revenge, or of friendship, by which a man runs upon certain ruin, to do evil
or good to another. It is manifest the principles of these actions are totally
different, and so want different words to be distinguished by: all that they
agree in is, that they both proceed from, and are done to gratify an inclination
in a man's self. But the principle or inclination in one case is self-love; in the
other, hatred or love of another. There is then a distinction between the cool
principle of self-love, or general desire of our happiness, as one part of our
nature, and one principle of action; and the particular affections towards
particular external objects, as another part of our nature, and another princi-
ple of action. How much soever therefore is to be allowed to self-love, yet it
cannot be allowed to be the whole of our inward constitution; because, you
see, there are other parts or principles which come into it.
[8.] Further, private happiness or good is all which self-love can make us
desire, or be concerned about: in having this consists its gratification: it is an
affection to ourselves; a regard to our own interest, happiness, and private
good: and in the proportion a man hath this, he is interested, or a lover of
himself. Let this be kept in mind; because there is commonly, as I shall
presently have occasion to observe, another sense put upon these words. On
the other hand, particular affections tend towards particular external things:
these are their objects; having these is their end: in this consists their gratifica-
tion: no matter whether it be, or be not, upon the whole, our interest or
happiness. An action done from the former of these principles is called an
interested action. An action proceeding from any of the latter has its denomi-
nation of passionate, ambitious, friendly, revengeful, or any other, from the
particular appetite or affection from which it proceeds. Thus self-love as one
part of human nature, and the several particular principles as the other part,
are, themselves, their objects and ends, stated and shewn.
[11.] Self-love and interestedness was stated to consist in or be an affection
to ourselves, a regard to our own private good: it is therefore distinct from
benevolence, which is an affection to the good of our fellow-creatures. But
that benevolence is distinct from, that is, not the same thing with self-love, is
no reason for its being looked upon with any peculiar suspicion; because every
principle whatever, by means of which self-love is gratified, is distinct from it;
and all things which are distinct from each other are equally so. A man has an
affection or aversion to another: that one of these tends to, and is gratified by
doing good, that the other tends to, and is gratified by doing harm, does not in
the least alter the respect which either one or the other of these inward
feelings has to self-love. We use the word property so as to exclude any other
persons having an interest in that of which we say a particular man has the
property. And we often use the word selfish so as to exclude in the same
manner all regards to the good of others. But the cases are not parallel: for
though that exclusion is really part of the idea of property; yet such positive
exclusion, or bringing this peculiar disregard to the good of others into the
538 Joseph Butler
idea of self-love, is in reality adding to the idea, or changing it from what it
was before stated to consist in, namely, in an affection to ourselves. This being
the whole idea of self-love, it can no otherwise exclude good-will or love of
others, than merely by not including it, no otherwise, than it excludes love of
arts or reputation, or of anything else. Neither on the other hand does benevo-
lence, any more than love of arts or of reputation, exclude self-love. Love of
our neighbour then has just the same respect to, is no more distant from, self-
love, than hatred of our neighbour, or than love or hatred of anything
else. . . .
[12.] Thus it appears that there is no peculiar contrariety between self-love
and benevolence; no greater competition between these, than between any
other particular affections and self-love. This relates to the affections them-
selves. Let us now see whether there be any peculiar contrariety between the
respective courses of life which these affections lead to; whether there be any
greater competition between the pursuit of private and of public good, than
between any other particular pursuits and that of private good.
[16.] The short of the matter is no more than this. Happiness consists in the
gratification of certain affections, appetites, passions, with objects which are
by nature adapted to them. Self-love may indeed set us on work to gratify
these: but happiness or enjoyment has no immediate connexion with self-
love, but arises from such gratification alone. Love of our neighbour is one of
those affections. This, considered as a virtuous principle, is gratified by a
consciousness of endeavouring to promote the good of others; but considered
as a natural affection, its gratification consists in the actual accomplishment of
this endeavour. Now indulgence or gratification of this affection, whether in
that consciousness, or this accomplishment, has the same respect to interest,
as indulgence of any other affection; they equally proceed from or do not
proceed from self-love, they equally include or equally exclude this principle.
Thus it appears, that benevolence and the pursuit of public good hath at least
as great respect to self-love and the pursuit of private good, as any other
particular passions, and their respective pursuits.
[20.] And to all these things may be added, that religion, from whence
arises our strongest obligation to benevolence, is so far from disowning the
principle of self-love, that it often addresses itself to that very principle, and
always to the mind in that state when reason presides; and there can no access
be had to the understanding, but by convincing men, that the course of life we
would persuade them to is not contrary to their interest. It may be allowed,
without any prejudice to the cause of virtue and religion, that our ideas of
happiness and misery are of all our ideas the nearest and most important to
us; that they will, nay, if you please, that they ought to prevail over those of
order, and beauty, and harmony, and proportion, if there should ever be, as it
is impossible there ever should be, any inconsistence between them: though
these last too, as expressing the fitness of actions, are real as truth itself. Let it
be allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in affection
to and pursuit of what is right and good as such; yet, that when we sit down in
 Sermons 539
a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves this or any other pursuit, till we
are convinced that it will be for our happiness, or at least not contrary to it.

SERMON XII: UPON THE LOVE OF OUR NEIGHBOUR

And if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying,
namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. (Rom. 13:9)
[1.] Having already removed the prejudices against public spirit, or the love
of our neighbour, on the side of private interest and self-love; I proceed to the
particular explanation of the precept before us, by shewing, Who is our
neighbour: In what sense we are required to love him as ourselves: The
influence such love would have upon our behaviour in life: and lastly, How
this commandment comprehends in it all others.
[2.] I. The objects and due extent of this affection will be understood by
attending to the nature of it, and to the nature and circumstances of mankind
in this world. The love of our neighbour is the same with charity, benevolence,
or good-will: it is an affection to the good and happiness of our fellow crea-
tures. This implies in it a disposition to produce happiness: and this is the
simple notion of goodness, which appears so amiable wherever we meet with
it. From hence it is easy to see, that the perfection of goodness consists in love
to the whole universe. This is the perfection of Almighty God.
[3.] But as man is so much limited in his capacity, as so small a part of the
creation comes under his notice and influence, and as we are not used to
consider things in so general a way; it is not to be thought of, that the universe
should be the object of benevolence to such creatures as we are. . . .
For this reason moral writers also have substituted a less general object for
our benevolence, mankind. But this likewise is an object too general, and
very much out of our view. Therefore persons more practical have, instead of
mankind, put our country; and made the principle of virtue, of human virtue,
to consist in the entire uniform love of our country: and this is what we call a
public spirit; which in men of public stations is the character of a patriot. But
this is speaking to the upper part of the world. Kingdoms and governments
are large; and the sphere of action of far the greatest part of mankind is much
narrower than the government they live under: or however, common men do
not consider their actions as affecting the whole community of which they are
members. There plainly is wanting a less general and nearer object of benevo-
lence for the bulk of men, than that of their country. Therefore the Scripture,
not being a book of theory and speculation, but a plain rule of life for man-
kind, has with the utmost possible propriety put the principle of virtue upon
the love of our neighbour; which is that part of the universe, that part of
mankind, that part of our country, which comes under our immediate notice,
acquaintance, and influence, and with which we have to do.
[4.] This is plainly the true account or reason, why our Saviour places the
principle of virtue in the love of our neighbour; and the account itself shews
who are comprehended under that relation. . . .
540 Joseph Butler
[25.] IV. I proceed to consider lastly, what is affirmed of the precept now
explained, that it comprehends in it all others; i.e., that to love our neighbour
as ourselves includes in it all virtues.
[26.1 Now the way in which every maxim of conduct, or general speculative
assertion, when it is to be explained at large, should be treated, is, to shew
what are the particular truths which were designed to be comprehended under
such a general observation, how far it is strictly true; and then the limitations,
restrictions, and exceptions, if there be exceptions, with which it is to be
understood. But it is only the former of these; namely, how far the assertion in
the text holds, and the ground of the preeminence assigned to the precept of
it, which in strictness comes into our present consideration.
[271 However, in almost everything that is said, there is somewhat to be
understood beyond what is explicitly laid down, and which we of course
supply; somewhat, I mean, which would not be commonly called a restric-
tion, or limitation. Thus, when benevolence is said to be the sum of virtue, it
is not spoken of as a blind propension, but as a principle in reasonable
creatures, and so to be directed by their reason: for reason and reflection
comes into our notion of a moral agent. And that will lead us to consider
distant consequences, as well as the immediate tendency of an action: it will
teach us, that the care of some persons, suppose children and families, is
particularly committed to our charge by Nature and Providence; as also that
there are other circumstances, suppose friendship or former obligations,
which require that we do good to some, preferably to others. Reason, consid-
ered merely as subservient to benevolence, as assisting to produce the great-
est good, will teach us to have particular regard to these relations and circum-
stances; because it is plainly for the good of the world that they should be
regarded. And as there are numberless cases, in which, notwithstanding ap-
pearances, we are not competent judges, whether a particular action will
upon the whole do good or harm; reason in the same way will teach us to be
cautious how we act in these cases of uncertainty. It will suggest to our
consideration, which is the safer side; how liable we are to be led wrong by
passion and private interest; and what regard is due to laws, and the judg-
ment of mankind. All these things must come into consideration, were it only
in order to determine which way of acting is likely to produce the greatest
good. Thus, upon supposition that it were in the strictest sense true, without
limitation, that benevolence includes in it all virtues; yet reason must come in
as its guide and director, in order to attain its own end, the end of benevo-
lence, the greatest public good. Reason then being thus included, let us now
consider the truth of the assertion itself.
[28.] First, It is manifest that nothing can be of consequence to mankind or
any creature, but happiness. This then is all which any person can, in strict-
ness of speaking, be said to have a right to. We can therefore "owe no man
anything,"6 but only further and promote his happiness, according to our
abilities. And therefore a disposition and endeavour to do good to all with
whom we have to do, in the degree and manner which the different relations
 Sermons 541

we stand in to them require, is a discharge of all the obligations we are under

to them.
[29.] As human nature is not one simple uniform thing, but a composition
of various parts, body, spirit, appetites, particular passions, and affections; for
each of which reasonable self-love would lead men to have due regard, and
make suitable provision: so society consists of various parts, to which we stand
in different respects and relations; and just benevolence would as surely lead
us to have due regard to each of these, and behave as the respective relations
require. Reasonable good-will, and right behaviour towards our fellow-
creatures, are in a manner the same: only that the former expresseth the
principle as it is in the mind; the latter, the principle as it were become
external, i.e., exerted in actions.
[30.] And so far as temperance, sobriety, and moderation in sensual plea-
sures, and the contrary vices, have any respect to our fellow-creatures, any
influence upon their quiet, welfare, and happiness; as they always have a
real, and often a near influence upon it; so far it is manifest those virtues
may be produced by the love of our neighbour, and that the contrary vices
would be prevented by it. Indeed if men's regard to themselves will not
restrain them from excess; it may be thought little probable, that their love
to others will be sufficient: but the reason is, that their love to others is not,
any more than their regard to themselves, just, and in its due degree. There
are however manifest instances of persons kept sober and temperate from
regard to their affairs, and the welfare of those who depend upon them. And
it is obvious to every one, that habitual excess, a dissolute course of life,
implies a general neglect of the duties we owe towards our friends, our
families, and our country.
[31.] From hence it is manifest that the common virtues, and the common
vices of mankind, may be traced up to benevolence, or the want of it. And this
entitles the precept, "Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself," to the preemi-
nence given to it; and is a justification of the Apostle's assertion, that all other
commandments are comprehended in it; whatever cautions and restrictions§
* For instance: as we are not competent judges. what is upon the whole for the good of the world,
there may be other immediate ends appointed us to pursue, besides that one of doing good. or
producing happiness. Though the good of the creation be the only end of the Author of it, yet
He may have laid us under particular obligations, which we may discern and feel ourselves
under, quite distinct from a perception, that the observance or violation of them is for the
happiness or misery of our fellow-creatures. And this is in fact the case. For there are certain
dispositions of mind, and certain actions, which are in themselves approved or disapproved by
mankind, abstracted from the consideration of their tendency to the happiness or misery of the
world; approved or disapproved by reflection, by that principle within, which is the guide of
life, the judge of right and wrong. Numberless instances of this kind might be mentioned. There
are pieces of treachery, which in themselves appear base and detestable to every one. There are
actions, which perhaps can scarce have any other general name given them than indecencies.
which yet are odious and shocking to human nature. There is such a thing as meanness, a little
mind; which, as it is quite distinct from incapacity, so it raises a dislike and disapprobation quite
different from that contempt, which men are too apt to have, of mere folly. On the other hand:
what we call greatness of mind is the object of another sort of approbation. than superior
understanding. Fidelity, honour, strict justice, are themselves approved in the highest degree,
abstracted from the consideration of their tendency. Now, whether it be thought that each of
542 Joseph Butler
there are, which might require to be considered, if we were to state particu-
larly and at length what is virtue and right behaviour in mankind. But,
[32.] Secondly, it might be added, that in a higher and more general way of
consideration, leaving out the particular nature of creatures, and the particu-
lar circumstances in which they are placed, benevolence seems in the strictest
sense to include in it all that is good and worthy; all that is good, which we
have any distinct particular notion of. We have no clear conception of any
positive moral attribute in the Supreme Being, but what may be resolved up
into goodness. And, if we consider a reasonable creature or moral agent,
without regard to the particular relations and circumstances in which he is
placed; we cannot conceive anything else to come in towards determining
whether he is to be ranked in an higher or lower class of virtuous beings, but
the higher or lower degree in which that principle, and what is manifestly
connected with it, prevail in him.
[33.] That which we more strictly call piety, or the love of God, and which is
an essential part of a right temper, some may perhaps imagine no way con-
nected with benevolence: yet surely they must be connected, if there be
indeed in being an object infinitely good. Human nature is so constituted, that
every good affection implies the love of itself; i.e., becomes the object of a
new affection in the same person. Thus, to be righteous, implies in it the love
of righteousness; to be benevolent, the love of benevolence; to be good, the
love of goodness; whether this righteousness, benevolence, or goodness, be
viewed as in our own mind, or in another's: and the love of God as being
perfectly good, is the love of perfect goodness contemplated in a being or
person. Thus morality and religion, virtue and piety, will at last necessarily
coincide, run up into one and the same point, and love will be in all senses
"the end of the commandment."'

Dissertation on Virtue

OF THE NATURE OF VIRTUE

[8.] Fifthly, Without inquiring how far, and in what sense, virtue is resolvable
into benevolence, and vice into the want of it; it may be proper to observe,
that benevolence, and the want of it, singly considered, are in no sort the
whole of virtue and vice. For if this were the case, in the review of one's own
character, or that of others, our moral understanding and moral sense would
be indifferent to everything, but the degrees in which benevolence prevailed,
and the degrees in which it was wanting. That is, we should neither approve of
these are connected with benevolence in our nature, and so may be considered as the same
thing with it; or whether some of them be thought an inferior kind of virtues and vices.
somewhat like natural beauties and deformities; or lastly, plain exceptions to the general rule;
thus much however is certain, that the things now instanced in. and numberless others, are
approved or disapproved by mankind in general; in quite another view than as conducive to the
happiness or misery of the world.
 Editor's Notes 543
benevolence to some persons rather than to others, nor disapprove injustice
and falsehood upon any other account, than merely as an overbalance of
happiness was foreseen likely to be produced by the first, and of misery by the
second. But now, on the contrary, suppose two men competitors for anything
whatever, which would be of equal advantage to each of them; though nothing
indeed would be more impertinent, than for a stranger to busy himself to get
one of them preferred to the other; yet such endeavour would be virtue, in
behalf of a friend or benefactor, abstracted from all consideration of distant
consequences: as that examples of gratitude, and the cultivation of friendship,
would be of general good to the world. Again, suppose one man should, by
fraud or violence, take from another the fruit of his labour, with intent to give
it to a third, who he thought would have as much pleasure from it as would
balance the pleasure which the first possessor would have had in the enjoy-
ment, and his vexation in the loss of it; suppose also that no bad consequences
would follow: yet such an action would surely be vicious. Nay further, were
treachery, violence and injustice, no otherwise vicious, than as foreseen likely
to produce an overbalance of misery to society; then, if in any case a man
could procure to himself as great advantage by an act of injustice, as the whole
foreseen inconvenience, likely to be brought upon others by it, would amount
to; such a piece of injustice would not be faulty or vicious at all: because it
would be no more than, in any other case, for a man to prefer his own
satisfaction to another's in equal degrees. The fact then appears to be, that we
are constituted so as to condemn falsehood, unprovoked violence, injustice,
and to approve of benevolence to some preferably to others, abstracted from
all consideration, which conduct is likeliest to produce an overbalance of
happiness or misery. And therefore, were the Author of Nature to propose
nothing to Himself as an end but the production of happiness, were His moral
character merely that of benevolence; yet ours is not so. Upon that supposi-
tion indeed the only reason of His giving us the above-mentioned approbation
of benevolence to some persons rather than others, and disapprobation of
falsehood, unprovoked violence, and injustice, must be, that He foresaw this
constitution of our nature would produce more happiness, than forming us
with a temper of mere general benevolence. But still, since this is our constitu-
tion; falsehood, violence, injustice, must be vice in us, and benevolence to
some, preferably to others, virtue; abstracted from all consideration of the
overbalance of evil or good, which they may appear likely to produce.

Editor's Notes
1. "Reflection" is a Lockean term; it refers to an act of mind that presupposes the
presence in the mind of ideas or feelings and operates upon them. Ideas of percep-
tion, by contrast, comezdirectly from the senses or from inner bodily stimuli and
do not presuppose other ideas. For Butler, reflection presupposes the various
desires and passes judgment on them.
2. Eph. 2:3.
544 Joseph Butler

3. Rom. 2:15.
4. Butler here was hinting that conscience naturally tends to anticipate rewards and
punishments in a life after death.
5. For example, Cicero, De officiis111.v. 21: "Well then, for a man to take something
from his neighbour and to profit by his neighbour's loss is more contrary to Nature
than is death or poverty or pain or anything else that can affect either our person
or our property." This is standard Stoic teaching, but Butler gives his own meaning
to "nature."
6. Rom. 13:8.
7. I Tim. 1:5.

Further Reading
There is a substantial literature on Butler. E. C. Mossner, Bishop Butler and the Age of
Reason (New York: B. Blom, 1971), is a general study. The best philosophical book on
Butler is that by Terence Penelhum, Butler (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985),
which has a good bibliography. Penelhum's work is unusual in that it gives an extended
account of Butler's religious thought as well as of his ethics. C. D. Broad, in Five Types
of Ethical Theory (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930), and more reliably Austin
Duncan-Jones, in Butler's Moral Philosophy (London: Penguin, 1952). present analyti-
cal studies of Butler's ethics. T. A. Roberts, The Concept of Benevolence (London:
Macmillan, 1973), compares Butler's views on benevolence with those of Hutcheson
and Hume.
Butler provokes continued discussion. Of the many articles on Butler, the following
are noteworthy:

Jackson, R. "Bishop Butler's Refutation of Psychological Egoism." Philosophy 18

(1943).
Raphael, D. D. "Butler's View of Conscience." Philosophy 24 (1949).
Rorty. Amelie. "Butler on Benevolence and Conscience." Philosophy 53 (1978).
Scott-Taggart, M. J. "Butler on Disinterested Actions." Philosophical Quarterly 18
(1968).
Sturgeon, Nicholas. "Nature and Conscience in Butler's Ethics." Philosophical Review
85 (1976).
 David Hume

Introduction

Hume was born in Edinburgh in 1711. Educated at home and at the University of
Edinburgh, he came early to the decision that he wanted a career as a man of letters,
and not in a profession like the law. At the age of eighteen he became convinced that
he had an idea for a major philosophical work. He brooded constantly on this idea and
its ramifications, eventually moving to France in 1734 because there he could live on
his small independent income and devote himself to writing down his thoughts. Hume
returned to Scotland in 1737 with his book essentially complete. It was published in
three volumes in 1739-40 as A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume's hope that it would
bring him recognition in the literary world was disappointed, however. His book
received little attention, and of that most was unfavorable.
As a result. Hume rewrote his book, recasting the first part. which covered episte-
mology. into the Philosophical Essays Concerning Human Understanding (later enti-
tled An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding), published in 1748, and the third
part, on ethics, into An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (1751). He also
wrote a number of essays on politics, history. economics, aesthetics, and other topics.
These, with the rewritten versions of his philosophy, finally brought him literary recog-
nition. During the 1750s Hume wrote his other major philosophical work, the Dia-
logues Concerning Natural Religion, which was not published until 1779, after his
death. Its companion piece, the Natural History of Religion, was published in 1757.
Hume twice tried to get academic appointments but failed. From 1746 to 1749 he
served on a diplomatic mission to France. In 1752 he was appointed to direct a library
in Edinburgh; while in this post he began writing a many-volumed history of Britain,
completed in 1762, which was the most widely read of all his writings. He served in
several other political positions after leaving the library in 1757 and in his later years
spent much time revising his published works. After a brief illness he died in 1776.
The general aim of Hume's philosophical work was to show that we can explain
every facet of human existence without appealing to anything beyond the realm of
ordinary natural events related to one another in ways that can be discovered by means
of scientific investigation. At a time when the biblical narrative was still accepted as
literal history and when many people believed in divine intervention in individual lives.
this was a bolder venture than it would be now. Hume tried to explain not only our
political and social institutions but even our most basic thought processes and our
scientific, moral, and religious beliefs without calling on God, or soul, or any unique
mental substance different in kind from material substance. Hobbes had had a similar

545
546 David Hume

naturalistic ambition, but Hume carried out the program much more thoroughly and
with more sophistication.
Hume was long considered to be primarily a skeptic who aimed at demolishing our
confidence in all our ordinary beliefs. Certainly, skepticism is prominent in his major
philosophical works. In the first part of the Treatise he argued at length that ordinary
convictions, such as that the sun will rise tomorrow or that hitting a window with a rock
will make it break, cannot be proved. He concluded that reason is not the source of
these convictions, because if it were, we could give conclusive rational grounds for
them. In the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion Hume examined all the main
arguments to show that God exists and offered devastating criticisms of them. Once
again he concluded that reason is not the source of belief. Skeptical demonstrations
that we do not hold our factual or religious beliefs because we have good reasons for
them are not the end of the matter, however. They open the way to the question, What
makes us feel so certain of our convictions in these matters?
In answering this question Hume went beyond skepticism, offering a naturalistic
account of human belief. In the domain of facts, he held that regular patterns in our
experience of objects and the sequences in which they appear to us induce habits of
expectation. For example, as it gets less dark, we expect to see the sun; as the rock
nears the window, we expect to see shattered glass. These habits of expectation are
strongly reinforced by repeated experience, and they are at the core of our factual
beliefs. Religious beliefs, by contrast, Hume contended, arise not so much from the
observation, in experience, of constant conjunctions and sequences as from the desires
and fears that come when we do not have the settled beliefs about the future that we
usually call knowledge. We then try to control the future about which we are uncer-
tain, by treating the world and things in it as full of hopes and fears, that is, as
animated. We think that things about us will respond as people do to prayers and
offerings, and eventually we come to worship the beings that our imagination origi-
nally created in order to give us some way of diminishing our fears.
What science does, in Hume's view, is show us which beliefs about sequences of
events are reliable. As science shows us more and more of these, our certainties about
the world we live in will increase, and our need to make up for lack of them by
invoking spirits outside ourselves will diminish. Religious beliefs, in other words, will
be replaced by the much firmer factual beliefs that science provides. Religious beliefs
can no more be refuted than they can be proved, but in common with many thinkers of
the time who thought of themselves as forwarding the enlightenment of mankind,
Hume expected that they would slowly disappear.
Where, then, does this leave morality? Does it have a firm basis in experience, like
the ordinary factual convictions that we all share because we perceive the same pat-
terns of coexistence and sequence? Is it destined to vanish, like the different religious
beliefs that arise from widely varying hopes and fears? Or is it perhaps a matter of
rational knowledge?
As the reader will see, Hume began his discussion of morals with arguments to show
that we do not have moral knowledge in any strict sense and that morality is, as he put
it in the Treatise, "more properly felt than judged of." He then proceeded to ask — as
Hutcheson before him had asked — just what it is that explains our having the moral
feelings we have. Why do we approve and disapprove as we do? The answer consti-
tutes the rest of his ethical theory.
Like Hutcheson, Hume answered that we approve of what is useful or agreeable to
people — what increases the amount of good, of what people enjoy. He then tried to
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 547
make this answer more convincing than Hutcheson did, by going into considerable
detail about exactly how it explains our ordinary moral convictions. His treatment of
our beliefs about justice — which Hume took to center on our ideas about property — is
a prime example. Butler had argued that justice cannot rest on the principle of doing
good, because there are many cases in which justice requires us to act in a way that
does less good instead of more. One might give as an example that justice requires us
to restore money to a wealthy miser instead of leaving it with the worthy poor worker
who found it. In working out an answer to this objection, Hume developed a theory of
the nature and social function of justice that has not ceased to stimulate both critical
and creative thought. He offered similarly insightful and provocative accounts of many
of our other common moral beliefs. The reader must decide whether, by doing so, he
made his explanation satisfactory.
In a letter to Hutcheson dated March 16, 1740, Hume relayed a view he was about to
publish in the third volume of his Treatise, that "when you pronounce any action or
character to be vicious, you mean nothing but that from the particular constitution of
your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it,"
and commented: "I wish from my heart I could avoid concluding that, since morality,
according to your opinion as well as mine, is determined merely by sentiment, it
regards only human nature and human life." Hutcheson might have regretted this
implication of their shared opinion; it is doubtful that Hume did. Early in his life he
abandoned the religion in which he had been brought up. It was not a disappointment
to him that we must give up all claim to know that we are guided by external or divine
laws that hold for God and the angels as well as for human beings. It was a liberation
from what he took to be the stifling superstitions of the past.
The following selections are from An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals,
using the 1777 edition — the last one Hume revised — as that is given in Hume's Works,
edited by T. H. Green and T. H. Grose, London, 1874.

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals

SECTION 1: OF THE GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF MORALS

Disputes with men, pertinaciously obstinate in their principles, are, of all

others, the most irksome; except, perhaps, those with persons, entirely disin-
genuous, who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage in
controversy, from affectation, from a spirit of opposition, or from a desire of
showing wit and ingenuity, superior to the rest of mankind. The same blind
adherence to their own arguments is to be expected in both; the same con-
tempt of their antagonists; and the same passionate vehemence, in inforcing
sophistry and falsehood. And as reasoning is not the source, whence either
disputant derives his tenets; it is in vain to expect, that any logic, which speaks
not to the affections, will ever engage him to embrace sounder principles.
Those who have denied the reality of moral distinctions, may be ranked
among the disingenuous disputants; nor is it conceivable, that any human
creature could ever seriously believe, that all characters and actions were
alike entitled to the affection and regard of every one. The difference, which
nature has placed between one man and another, is so wide, and this differ-
548 David Hume
ence is still so much farther widened, by education, example, and habit, that,
where the opposite extremes come at once under our apprehension, there is
no scepticism so scrupulous, and scarce any assurance so determined, as
absolutely to deny all distinction between them. Let a man's insensibility be
ever so great, he must often be touched with the images of RIGHT and WRONG;
and let his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe, that others are
susceptible of like impressions. The only way, therefore, of converting an
antagonist of this kind, is to leave him to himself. For, finding that no body
keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable he will, at last, of himself,
from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason.
There has been a controversy started of late, much better worth examina-
tion, concerning the general foundation of MORALS; whether they be derived
from REASON, or from SENTIMENT; whether we attain the knowledge of them
by a chain of argument and induction, or by an immediate feeling and finer
internal sense; whether, like all sound judgment of truth and falsehood, they
should be the same to every rational intelligent being; or whether, like the
perception of beauty and deformity, they be founded entirely on the particular
fabric and constitution of the human species. . . .
It must be acknowledged, that both sides of the question are susceptible of
specious arguments. Moral distinctions, it may be said, are discernible by pure
reason: Else, whence the many disputes that reign in common life, as well as in
philosophy, with regard to this subject: The long chain of proofs often produced
on both sides; the examples cited, the authorities appealed to, the analogies
employed, the fallacies detected, the inferences drawn, and the several conclu-
sions adjusted to their proper principles. Truth is disputable; not taste: What
exists in the nature of things is the standard of our judgment; what each man
feels within himself is the standard of sentiment. Propositions in geometry may
be proved, systems in physics may be controverted; but the harmony of verse,
the tenderness of passion, the brilliancy of wit, must give immediate pleasure.
No man reasons concerning another's beauty; but frequently concerning the
justice or injustice of his actions. In every criminal trial the first object of the
prisoner is to disprove the facts alleged, and deny the actions imputed to him:
The second to prove, that, even if these actions were real, they might be
justified, as innocent and lawful. It is confessedly by deductions of the under-
standing, that the first point is ascertained: How can we suppose that a different
faculty of the mind is employed in fixing the other?
On the other hand, those who would resolve all moral determinations into
sentiment, may endeavour to show, that it is impossible for reason ever to
draw conclusions of this nature. To virtue, say they, it belongs to be amiable,
and vice odious. This forms their very nature or essence. But can reason or
argumentation distribute these different epithets to any subjects, and pro-
nounce before-hand, that this must produce love, and that hatred? Or what
other reason can we ever assign for these affections, but the original fabric
and formation of the human mind, which is naturally adapted to receive
them?
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 549
The end of all moral speculations is to teach us our duty; and, by proper
representations of the deformity of vice and beauty of virtue, beget correspon-
dent habits, and engage us to avoid the one, and embrace the other. But is this
ever to be expected from inferences and conclusions of the understanding,
which of themselves have no hold of the affections or set in motion the active
powers of men? They discover truths: But where the truths which they dis-
cover are indifferent, and beget no desire or aversion, they can have no
influence on conduct and behaviour. What is honourable, what is fair, what is
becoming, what is noble, what is generous, takes possession of the heart, and
animates us to embrace and maintain it. What is intelligible, what is evident,
what is probable, what is true, procures only the cool assent of the understand-
ing; and gratifying a speculative curiosity, puts an end to our researches.
Extinguish all the warm feelings and prepossessions in favour of virtue, and
all disgust or aversion to vice: Render men totally indifferent towards these
distinctions; and morality is no longer a practical study, nor has any tendency
to regulate our lives and actions.
These arguments on each side (and many more might be produced) are so
plausible, that I am apt to suspect, they may, the one as well as the other, be
solid and satisfactory, and that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral
determinations and conclusions. The final sentence, it is probable, which
pronounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praise-worthy or blame-
able; that which stamps on them the mark of honour or infamy, approbation
or censure; that which renders morality an active principle, and constitutes
virtue our happiness, and vice our misery: It is probable, I say, that this final
sentence depends on some internal sense or feeling, which nature has made
universal in the whole species. For what else can have an influence of this
nature? But in order to pave the way for such a sentiment, and give a proper
discernment of its object, it is often necessary, we find, that much reasoning
should precede, that nice distinctions be made, just conclusions drawn, dis-
tant comparisons formed, complicated relations examined, and general facts
fixed and ascertained. Some species of beauty, especially the natural kinds, on
their first appearance, command our affection and approbation; and where
they fail of this effect, it is impossible for any reasoning to redress their
influence, or adapt them better to our taste and sentiment. But in many
orders of beauty, particularly those of the finer arts, it is requisite to employ
much reasoning, in order to feel the proper sentiment; and a false relish may
frequently be corrected by argument and reflection. There are just grounds to
conclude, that moral beauty partakes much of this latter species, and demands
the assistance of our intellectual faculties, in order to give it a suitable influ-
ence on the human mind.
But though this question, concerning the general principles of morals, be
curious and important, it is needless for us, at present, to employ farther
care in our researches concerning it. For if we can be so happy, in the course
of this enquiry, as to discover the true origin of morals, it will then easily
appear how far either sentiment or reason enters into all determinations of
550 David Hume
this nature.* In order to attain this purpose, we shall endeavour to follow a
very simple method: We shall analyse that complication of mental qualities,
which form what, in common life, we call PERSONAL MERIT: We shall consider
every attribute of the mind, which renders a man an object either of esteem
and affection, or of hatred and contempt; every habit or sentiment or faculty,
which, if ascribed to any person, implies either praise or blame, and may enter
into any panegyric or satire of his character and manners. The quick sensibil-
ity, which, on this head is so universal among mankind, gives a philosopher
sufficient assurance, that he can never be considerably mistaken in framing
the catalogue, or incur any danger of misplacing the objects of his contempla-
tion: He needs only enter into his own breast for a moment, and consider
whether or not he should desire to have this or that quality ascribed to him,
and whether such or such an imputation would proceed from a friend or an
enemy. The very nature of language guides us almost infallibly in forming a
judgment of this nature; and as every tongue possesses one set of words which
are taken in a good sense, and another in the opposite, the least acquaintance
with the idiom suffices, without any reasoning, to direct us in collecting and
arranging the estimable or blameable qualities of men. The only object of
reasoning is to discover the circumstances on both sides, which are common to
these qualities; to observe that particular in which the estimable qualities
agree on the one hand, and the blameable on the other; and thence to reach
the foundation of ethics, and find those universal principles, from which all
censure or approbation is ultimately derived. As this is a question of fact, not
of abstract science, we can only expect success, by following the experimental
method, and deducing general maxims from a comparison of particular in-
stances. The other scientific method, where a general abstract principle is first
established, and is afterwards branched out into a variety of inferences and
conclusions, may be more perfect in itself, but suits less the imperfection of
human nature, and is a common source of illusion and mistake in this as well
as in other subjects. Men are now cured of their passion for hypotheses and
systems in natural philosophy, and will hearken to no arguments but those
which are derived from experience. It is full time they should attempt a like
reformation in all moral disquisitions; and reject every system of ethics, how-
ever subtile or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation.
We shall begin our enquiry on this head by the consideration of social
virtues, benevolence and justice. The explication of them will probably give
us an opening by which others may be accounted for.

SECTION OF BENEVOLENCE

Part 1
It may be esteemed, perhaps, a superfluous task to prove, that the benevo-
lent or softer affections are ESTIMABLE; and wherever they appear, engage
* See Appendix I. "Concerning Moral Sentiment."
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 551
the approbation, and good-will of mankind. The epithets sociable, good-
natured, humane, merciful, grateful, friendly, generous, beneficent, or their
equivalents, are known in all languages, and universally express the highest
merit, which human nature is capable of attaining. Where these amiable
qualities are attended with birth and power and eminent abilities, and dis-
play themselves in the good government or useful instruction of mankind,
they seem even to raise the possessors of them above the rank of human
nature, and make them approach in some measure to the divine. Exalted
capacity, undaunted courage, prosperous success; these may only expose a
hero or politician to the envy or of the public: But as soon as the
praises are added of humane and beneficent; when instances are displayed of
lenity, tenderness, or friendship: envy itself is silent, or joins the general
voice of approbation and applause.
. . . our object here being more the speculative, than the practical part of
morals, it will suffice to remark, (what will readily, I believe, be allowed) that
no qualities are more intitled to the general good-will and approbation of
mankind than benevolence and humanity, friendship and gratitude, natural
affection and public spirit, or whatever proceeds from a tender sympathy with
others, and a generous concern for our kind and species. These, wherever
they appear, seem to transfuse themselves, in a manner, into each beholder,
and to call forth, in their own behalf, the same favourable and affectionate
sentiments, which they exert on all around.

Part II
We may observe, that, in displaying the praises of any humane, beneficent
man, there is one circumstance which never fails to be amply insisted on,
namely, the happiness and satisfaction, derived to society from his intercourse
and good offices. To his parents, we are apt to say, he endears himself by his
pious attachment and duteous care, still more than by the connexions of
nature. His children never feel his authority, but when employed for their
advantage. With him, the ties of love are consolidated by beneficence and
friendship. The ties of friendship approach, in a fond observance of each
obliging office, to those of love and inclination. His domestics and dependants
have in him a sure resource; and no longer dread the power of fortune, but so
far as she exercises it over him. From him the hungry receive food, the naked
cloathing, the ignorant and slothful skill and industry. Like the sun, an inferior
minister of providence, he cheers, invigorates, and sustains the surrounding
world.
If confined to private life, the sphere of his activity is narrower; but his
influence is all benign and gentle. If exalted into a higher station, mankind
and posterity reap the fruit of his labours.
As these topics of praise never fail to be employed, and with success, where
we would inspire esteem for any one; may it not thence be concluded, that the
UTILITY, resulting from the social virtues, forms, at least, a part of their merit.
552 David Hume
and is one source of that approbation and regard so universally paid to
them? .. .
In all determinations of morality, this circumstance of public utility is ever
principally in view; and wherever disputes arise, either in philosophy or com-
mon life, concerning the bounds of duty, the question cannot, by any means,
be decided with greater certainty, than by ascertaining, on any side, the true
interests of mankind. If any false opinion, embraced from appearances, has
been found to prevail; as soon as farther experience and sounder reasoning
have given us juster notions of human affairs; we retract our first sentiment,
and adjust anew the boundaries of moral good and evil.
Giving alms to common beggars is naturally praised; because it seems to
carry relief to the distressed and indigent: But when we observe the encourage-
ment thence arising to idleness and debauchery, we regard that species of
charity rather as a weakness than a virtue.
Tyrannicide, or the assassination of usurpers and oppressive princes, was
highly extolled in ancient times; because it both freed mankind from many of
these monsters, and seemed to keep the others in awe, whom the sword or
poinard could not reach. But history and experience having since convinced
us, that this practice encreases the jealousy and cruelty of princes, a TIMOLEON
and a BRUTUS,' though treated with indulgence on account of the prejudices
of their times, are now considered as very improper models for imitation. . . .
Upon the whole, then, it seems undeniable, that nothing can bestow more
merit on any human creature than the sentiment of benevolence in an eminent
degree; and that a part, at least, of its merit arises from its tendency to
promote the interests of our species, and bestow happiness on human society.
We carry our view into the salutary consequences of such a character and
disposition; and whatever has so benign an influence, and forwards so desir-
able an end, is beheld with complacency and pleasure. The social virtues are
never regarded without their beneficial tendencies, nor viewed as barren and
unfruitful. The happiness of mankind, the order of society, the harmony of
families, the mutual support of friends, are always considered as the result of
their gentle dominion over the breasts of men.
How considerable a part of their merit we ought to ascribe to their utility,
will better appear from future disquisitions,* as well as the reason, why this
circumstance has such a command over our esteem and approbation.$

SECTION III: OF JUSTICE

Part I
That Justice is useful to society, and consequently that part of its merit, at
least, must arise from that consideration, it would be a superfluous undertak-
ing to prove. That public utility is the sole origin of justice, and that reflections
* Scct. 3d and 4th. "Of Justice" and Of Political Society."
t Sect. 5th. "Why Utility Pleases."
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 553
on the beneficial consequences of this virtue are the sole foundation of its
merit; this proposition, being more curious and important, will better deserve
our examination and enquiry.
Let us suppose, that nature has bestowed on the human race such profuse
abundance of all external conveniences, that, without any uncertainty in the
event, without any care or industry on our part, every individual finds him-
self fully provided with whatever his most voracious appetites can want, or
luxurious imagination wish or desire. His natural beauty, we shall suppose,
surpasses all acquired ornaments: The perpetual clemency of the seasons
renders useless all cloaths or covering: The raw herbage affords him the
most delicious fare; the clear fountain, the richest beverage. No laborious
occupation required: No tillage: No navigation. Music, poetry, and contem-
plation, form his sole business: Conservation, mirth, and friendship his sole
amusement.
It seems evident, that, in such a happy state, every other social virtue would
flourish, and receive tenfold encrease; but the cautious, jealous virtue of
justice would never once have been dreamed of. For what purpose make a
partition of goods, where every one has already more than enough? Why give
rise to property, where there cannot possibly be any injury? Why call this
object mine, when, upon the seizing of it by another, I need but stretch out my
hand to possess myself of what is equally valuable? Justice, in that case, being
totally USELESS, would be an idle ceremonial, and could never possibly have
place in the catalogue of virtues.
We see, even in the present necessitous condition of mankind, that, wher-
ever any benefit is bestowed by nature in an unlimited abundance, we leave it
always in common among the whole human race, and make no subdivisions of
right and property. Water and air, though the most necessary of all objects,
are not challenged as the property of individuals; nor can any man commit
injustice by the most lavish use and enjoyment of these blessings. In fertile
extensive countries, with few inhabitants, land is regarded on the same foot-
ing. And no topic is so much insisted on by those, who defend the liberty of
the seas, as the unexhausted use of them in navigation. Were the advantages,
procured by navigation, as inexhaustible, these reasoners had never had any
adversaries to refute; nor had any claims ever been advanced of a separate,
exclusive dominion over the ocean.
It may happen, in some countries, at some periods, that there be estab-
lished a property in water, none in land; if the latter be in greater abundance
than can be used by the inhabitants, and the former be found, with difficulty,
and in very small quantities.
Again; suppose, that, though the necessities of human race continue the
same as at present, yet the mind is so enlarged, and so replete with friendship
and generosity, that every man has the utmost tenderness for every man, and
feels no more concern for his own interest than for that of his fellows: It seems
evident, that the USE of justice would, in this case, be suspended by such an
extensive benevolence, nor would the divisions and barriers of property and
554 David Hume
obligation have ever been thought of. Why should I bind another, by a deed
or promise, to do me any good office, when I know that he is already
prompted, by the strongest inclination, to seek my happiness, and would, of
himself, perform the desired service; except the hurt, he thereby receives, be
greater than the benefit accruing to me? in which case, he knows, that, from
my innate humanity and friendship, I should be the first to oppose myself to
his imprudent generosity. Why raise land-marks between my neighbour's field
and mine, when my heart has made no division between our interests; but
shares all his joys and sorrows with the same force and vivacity as if originally
my own? Every man, upon this supposition, being a second self to another,
would trust all his interests to the discretion of every man; without jealousy,
without partition, without distinction. And the whole human race would form
only one family; where all would lie in common, and be used freely, without
regard to property; but cautiously too, with as entire regard to the necessities
of each individual, as if our own interests were most intimately concerned.
In the present disposition of the human heart, it would, perhaps, be difficult
to find compleat instances of such enlarged affections; but still we may ob-
serve, that the case of families approaches towards it; and the stronger the
mutual benevolence is among the individuals, the nearer it approaches; till all
distinction of property be, in a great measure, lost and confounded among
them. Between married persons, the cement of friendship is by the laws
supposed so strong as to abolish all division of possessions; and has often, in
reality, the force ascribed to it. And it is observable, that, during the ardour of
new enthusiasms, when every principle is inflamed into extravagance, the
community of goods has frequently been attempted: and nothing but experi-
ence of its inconveniences, from the returning or disguised selfishness of men,
could make the imprudent fanatics adopt anew the ideas of justice and of
separate property. So true is it, that this virtue derives its existence entirely
from its necessary use to the intercourse and social state of mankind.
To make this truth more evident, let us reverse the foregoing suppositions;
and carrying every thing to the opposite extreme, consider what would be the
effect of these new situations. Suppose a society to fall into such want of all
common necessaries, that the utmost frugality and industry cannot preserve
the greater number from perishing, and the whole from extreme misery: It
will readily, I believe, be admitted, that the strict laws of justice are sus-
pended, in such a pressing emergence, and give place to the stronger motives
of necessity and self-preservation. Is it any crime, after a shipwreck, to seize
whatever means or instrument of safety one can lay hold of, without regard to
former limitations of property? Or if a city besieged were perishing with
hunger; can we imagine, that men will see any means of preservation before
them, and lose their lives, from a scrupulous regard to what, in other situa-
tions, would be the rules of equity and justice? The USE and TENDENCY of that
virtue is to procure happiness and security, by preserving order in society: But
where the society is ready to perish from extreme necessity, no greater evil can
be dreaded from violence and injustice; and every man may now provide for
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 555

himself by all the means, which prudence can dictate, or humanity permit.
The public, even in less urgent necessities, opens granaries, without the con-
sent of proprietors; as justly supposing, that the authority of magistracy may,
consistent with equity, extend so far: But were any number of men to assem-
ble, without the tye of laws or civil jurisdiction; would an equal partition of
bread in a famine, though effected by power and even violence, be regarded
as criminal or injurious?
Suppose likewise, that it should be a virtuous man's fate to fall into the
society of ruffians, remote from the protection of laws and government;
what conduct must he embrace in that melancholy situation? He sees such a
desperate rapaciousness prevail; such a disregard to equity, such contempt of
order, such stupid blindness to future consequences, as must immediately
have the most tragical conclusion, and must terminate in destruction to the
greater number, and in a total dissolution of society to the rest. He, mean
while, can have no other expedient than to arm himself, to whomever the
sword he seizes, or the buckler, may belong: To make provision of all means
of defence and security: And his particular regard to justice being no longer
of USE to his own safety or that of others, he must consult the dictates of self-
preservation alone, without concern for those who no longer merit his care
and attention. . . .
Thus, the rules of equity or justice depend entirely on the particular state
and condition, in which men are placed, and owe their origin and existence to
that UTILITY, which results to the public from their strict and regular obser-
vance. Reverse, in any considerable circumstance, the condition of men:
Produce extreme abundance or extreme necessity: Implant in the human
breast perfect moderation and humanity, or perfect rapaciousness and malice:
By rendering justice totally useless, you thereby totally destroy its essence,
and suspend its obligation upon mankind.
The common situation of society is a medium amidst all these extremes.
We are naturally partial to ourselves, and to our friends; but are capable of
learning the advantage resulting from a more equitable conduct. Few enjoy-
ments are given us from the open and liberal hand of nature; but by art,
labour, and industry, we can extract them in great abundance. Hence the
ideas of property become necessary in all civil society: Hence justice derives
its usefulness to the public: And hence alone arises its merit and moral
obligation. . . .

Part II
If we examine the particular laws, by which justice is directed, and property
determined; we shall still be presented with the same conclusion. The good of
mankind is the only object of all these laws and regulations. Not only it is
requisite, for the peace and interest of society, that men's possessions should
be separated; but the rules, which we follow, in making the separation, are
such as can best be contrived to serve farther the interests of society. . . .
556 David Hume
Thus we seem, upon the whole, to have attained a knowledge of the force
of that principle here insisted on, and can determine what degree of esteem or
moral approbation may result from reflections on public interest and utility.
The necessity of justice to the support of society is the SOLE foundation of that
virtue; and since no moral excellence is more highly esteemed, we may con-
clude, that this circumstance of usefulness has, in general, the strongest en-
ergy, and most entire command over our sentiments. It must, therefore, be
the source of a considerable part of the merit ascribed to humanity, benevo-
lence, friendship, public spirit, and other social virtues of that stamp; as it is
the SOLE source of the moral approbation paid to fidelity, justice, veracity,
integrity, and those other estimable and useful qualities and principles. It is
entirely agreeable to the rules of philosophy, and even of common reason;
where any principle has been found to have a great force and energy 41 one
instance, to ascribe to it a like energy in all similar instances. This indeed is
NEWTON'S chief rule of philosophizing. 2

SECTION V: WHY UTILITY PLEASES

Part I
It seems so natural a thought to ascribe to their utility the praise, which we
bestow on the social virtues, that one would expect to meet with this principle
every where in moral writers, as the chief foundation of their reasoning and
enquiry. In common life, we may observe, that the circumstance of utility is
always appealed to; nor is it supposed, that a greater eulogy can be given to
any man, than to display his usefulness to the public, and enumerate the
services, which he has performed to mankind and society. What praise, even
of an inanimate form, if the regularity and elegance of its parts destroy not its
fitness for any useful purpose! And how satisfactory an apology for any dispro-
portion or seeming deformity, if we can show the necessity of that particular
construction for the use intended! .. .
From the apparent usefulness of the social virtues, it has readily been
inferred by sceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral distinctions arise
from education, and were, at first, invented, and afterwards encouraged, by
the art of politicians, in order to render men tractable, and subdue their
natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for society. This
principle, indeed, of precept and education, must so far be owned to have a
powerful influence, that it may frequently encrease or diminish, beyond their
natural standard, the sentiments of approbation or dislike; and may even, in
particular instances, create, without any natural principle, a new sentiment of
this kind; as is evident in all superstitious practices and observances: But that
all moral affection or dislike arises from this origin, will never surely be
allowed by any judicious enquirer. Had nature made no such distinction,
founded on the original constitution of the mind, the words, honourable and
shameful, lovely and odious, noble and despicable, had never had place in any
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 557

language; nor could politicians, had they invented these tems, ever have been
able to render them intelligible, or make them convey any idea to the audi-
ence. So that nothing can be more superficial than this paradox of the
sceptics; and it were well, if, in the abstruser studies of logic and metaphysics,
we could as easily obviate the cavils of that sect, as in the practical and more
intelligible sciences of politics and morals.
The social virtues must, therefore, be allowed to have a natural beauty and
amiableness, which, at first, antecedent to all precept or education, recom-
mends them to the esteem of uninstructed mankind, and engages their affec-
tions. And as the public utility of these virtues is the chief circumstance,
whence they derive their merit, it follows, that the end, which they have a
tendency to promote, must be some way agreeable to us, and take hold of
some natural affection. It must please, either from considerations of self-
interest, or from more generous motives and regards.
It has often been asserted, that, as every man has a strong connexion with
society, and perceives the impossibility of his solitary subsistence, he be-
comes, on that account, favourable to all those habits or principles, which
promote order in society, and insure to him the quiet possession of so inestima-
ble a blessing. As much as we value our own happiness and welfare, as much
must we applaud the practice of justice and humanity, by which alone the
social confederacy can be maintained, and every man reap the fruits of mutual
protection and assistance.
This deduction of morals from self-love, or a regard to private interest, is an
obvious thought, and has not arisen wholly from the wanton sallies and sport-
ive assaults of the sceptics. . . . yet . . . the voice of nature and experience
seems plainly to oppose the selfish theory.
We frequently bestow praise on virtuous actions, performed in very distant
ages and remote countries; where the utmost subtilty of imagination would
not discover any appearance of self-interest, or find any connexion of our
present happiness and security with events so widely separated from us.
A generous, a brave, a noble deed, performed by an adversary, commands
our approbation; while in its consequences it may be acknowledged prejudi-
cial to our particular interest. . . .
It is but a weak subterfuge, when pressed by these facts and arguments, to
say, that we transport ourselves, by the force of imagination, into distant ages
and countries, and consider the advantage, which we should have reaped from
these characters, had we been contemporaries, and had any commerce with
the persons. It is not conceivable, how a real sentiment or passion can ever
arise from a known imaginary interest; especially when our real interest is still
kept in view, and is often acknowledged to be entirely distinct from the
imaginary, and even sometimes opposite to it. . . .
Usefulness is agreeable, and engages our approbation. This is a matter of
fact, confirmed by daily observation. But, useful? For what? For some body's
interest, surely. Whose interest then? Not our own only: For our approbation
frequently extends farther. It must, therefore, be the interest of those, who
558 David Hume
are served by the character or action approved of; and these we may con-
clude, however remote, are not totally indifferent to us. By opening up this
principle, we shall discover one great source of moral distinctions.

Part 11
Self-love is a principle in human nature of such extensive energy, and the
interest of each individual is, in general, so closely connected with that of the
community, that those philosophers were excusable, who fancied, that all our
concern for the public might be resolved into a concern for our own happiness
and preservation. They saw every moment, instances of approbation or
blame, satisfaction or displeasure towards characters and actions; they de-
nominated the objects of these sentiments, virtues, or vices; they observed,
that the former had a tendency to encrease the happiness, and the latter the
misery of mankind; they asked, whether it were possible that we could have
any general concern for society, or any disinterested resentment of the welfare
or injury of others; they found it simpler to consider all these sentiments as
modifications of self-love; and they discovered a pretence, at least, for this
unity of principle, in that close union of interest, which is so observable
between the public and each individual.
But notwithstanding this frequent confusion of interests, it is easy to attain
what natural philosophers, after lord BACON have affected to call the experi-
,`

mentum crucis, or that experiment, which points out the right way in any
doubt or ambiguity. We have found instances, in which private interest was
separate from public; in which it was even contrary: And yet we observed the
moral sentiment to continue, notwithstanding this disjunction of interests.
And wherever these distinct interests sensibly concurred, we always found a
sensible encrease of the sentiment, and a more warm affection to virtue, and
detestation of vice, or what we properly call, gratitude and revenge. Com-
pelled by these instances, we must renounce the theory, which accounts for
every moral sentiment by the principle of self-love. We must adopt a more
public affection, and allow, that the interests of society are not, even on their
own account, entirely indifferent to us. Usefulness is only a tendency to a
certain end; and it is a contradiction in terms, that any thing pleases as means
to an end, where the end itself no wise affects us. If usefulness, therefore, be a
source of moral sentiment, and if this usefulness be not always considered
with a reference to self; it follows, that every thing, which contributes to the
happiness of society, recommends itself directly to our approbation and good-
will. Here is a principle, which accounts, in great part, for the origin of
morality: And what need we seek for abstruse and remote systems, when
there occurs one so obvious and natural?'
* It is needless to push our researches so far as to ask, why we have humanity or a fellow-feeling
with others. It is sufficient, that this is experienced to be a principle in human nature. We must
stop somewhere in our examination of causes; and there are, in every science. some general
principles, beyond which we cannot hope to find any principle more general. No man is
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 559
Have we any difficulty to comprehend the force of humanity and benevo-
lence? Or to conceive, that the very aspect of happiness, joy, prosperity, gives
pleasure; that of pain, suffering, sorrow, communicates uneasiness? .. .
A statesman or patriot, who serves our own country, in our own time, has
always a more passionate regard paid to him, than one whose beneficial
influence operated on distant ages or remote nations; where the good, result-
ing from his generous humanity, being less connected with us, seems more
obscure, and affects us with a less lively sympathy. We may own the merit to
be equally great, though our sentiments are not raised to an equal height, in
both cases. The judgment here corrects the inequalities of our internal emo-
tions and perceptions; in like manner, as it preserves us from error, in the
several variations of images, presented to our external senses. The same
object, at a double distance, really throws on the eye a picture of but half the
bulk; yet we imagine that it appears of the same size in both situations;
because we know, that, on our approach to it, its image would expand on the
eye, and that the difference consists not in the object itself, but in our position
with regard to it. And, indeed, without such a correction of appearances, both
in internal and external sentiment, men could never think or talk steadily on
any subject; while their fluctuating situations produce a continual variation on
objects, and throw them into such different and contrary lights and positions."
The more we converse with mankind, and the greater social intercourse we
maintain, the more shall we be familiarized to these general preferences and
distinctions, without which our conversation and discourse could scarcely be
rendered intelligible to each other. Every man's interest is peculiar to himself,
and the aversions and desires, which result from it, cannot be supposed to
affect others in a like degree. General language, therefore, being formed for
general use, must be moulded on some more general views, and must affix the
epithets of praise or blame, in conformity to sentiments, which arise from the
general interests of the community. And if these sentiments, in most men, be
not so strong as those, which have a reference to private good; yet still they
absolutely indifferent to the happiness and misery of others. The first has a natural tendency to
give pleasure; the second, pain. This every one may find in himself. It is not probable. that
these principles can be resolved into principles more simple and universal, whatever attempts
may have been made to that purpose. But if it were possible. it belongs not to the present
subject; and we may here safely consider these principles as original: Happy. if we can render
all the consequences sufficiently plain and perspicuous!
For a like reason, the tendencies of actions and characters, not their real accidental conse-
quences, are alone regarded in our determinations or general judgments; though in our real
feeling or sentiment, we cannot help paying greater regard to one whose station, joined to
virtue, renders him really useful to society, than to one, who exerts the social virtues only in
good intentions and benevolent affections. Separating the character from the fortune, by an
easy and necessary effort of thought. we pronounce these persons alike, and give them the
same general praise. The judgment corrects or endeavours to correct the appearance: But is
not able entirely to prevail over sentiment.
Why is this peach-tree said to be better than that other; but because it produces more or
better fruit? And would not the same praise be given it, though snails or vermin had destroyed
the peaches. before they came to full maturity? In morals too. is not the tree known by the fruit?
And cannot we easily distinguish between nature and accident, in the one case as well as in the
other?
560 David Hume
must make some distinction, even in persons the most depraved and selfish;
and must attach the notion of good to a beneficent conduct, and of evil to the
contrary. Sympathy, we shall allow, is much fainter than our concern for
ourselves, and sympathy with persons remote from us, much fainter than that
with persons near and contiguous; but for this very reason, it is necessary for
us, in our calm judgments and discourse concerning the characters of men, to
neglect all these differences, and render our sentiments more public and
social. Besides, that we ourselves often change our situation in this particular,
we every day meet with persons, who are in a situation different from us, and
who could never converse with us, were we to remain constantly in that
position and point of view, which is peculiar to ourselves. The intercourse of
sentiments, therefore, in society and conversation, makes us form some gen-
eral unalterable standard, by which we may approve or disapprove of charac-
ters and manners. And though the heart takes not part with those general
notions, nor regulates all its love and hatred, by the universal, abstract differ-
ences of vice and virtue, without regard to self, or the persons with whom we
are more intimately connected; yet have these moral differences a consider-
able influence, and being sufficient, at least, for discourse, serve all our pur-
poses in company, in the pulpit, on the theatre, and in the schools.
Thus, in whatever light we take this subject, the merit, ascribed to the social
virtues, appears still uniform, and arises chiefly from that regard, which the
natural sentiment of benevolence engages us to pay to the interests of man-
kind and society. . . .

SECTION VI: OF QUALITIES USEFUL TO OURSELVES

Part I
It seems evident, that where a quality or habit is subjected to our examination,
if it appear, in any respect, prejudicial to the person possessed of it, or such as
incapacitates him for business and action, it is instantly blamed, and ranked
among his faults and imperfections. Indolence, negligence, want of order and
method, obstinacy, fickleness, rashness, credulity; these qualities were never
esteemed by any one indifferent to a character; much less, extolled as accom-
plishments or virtues. The prejudice, resulting from them, immediately strikes
our eye, and gives us the sentiment of pain and disapprobation.
No quality, it is allowed, is absolutely either blameable or praiseworthy. It is
all according to its degree. A due medium, say the PERIPATETICS, 4 is the
characteristic of virtue. But this medium is chiefly determined by utility. A
proper celerity, for instance, and dispatch in business, is commendable. When
defective, no progress is ever made in the execution of any purpose: When
excessive, it engages us in precipitate and ill-concerted measures and enter-
prises: By such reasons, we fix the proper and commendable mediocrity in all
moral and prudential disquisitions; and never lose view of the advantages,
which result from any character or habit.
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 561

Now as these advantages are enjoyed by the person possessed of the char-
acter, it can never be self-love which renders the prospect of them ageeable to
us, the spectators, and prompts our esteem and approbation... .

SECTION IX: CONCLUSION

Part I
It may justly appear surprising, that any man, in so late an age, should find it
requisite to prove, by elaborate reasoning, that PERSONAL MERIT consists alto-
gether in the possession of mental qualities, useful or agreeable to the person
himself or to others. It might be expected, that this principle would have
occurred even to the first rude, unpractised enquirers concerning morals, and
been received from its own evidence, without any argument or disputation.
Whatever is valuable in any kind, so naturally classes itself under the division
of useful or agreeable, the utile or the dulce, that it is not easy to imagine, why
we should ever seek farther, or consider the question as a matter of nice
research or enquiry. And as every thing useful or agreeable must possess these
qualities with regard either to the person himself or to others, the compleat
delineation or description of merit seems to be performed as naturally as a
shadow is cast by the sun, or an image is reflected upon water. If the ground,
on which the shadow is cast, be not broken and uneven; nor the surface, from
which the image is reflected, disturbed and confused; a just figure is immedi-
ately presented, without any art or attention. And it seems a reasonable
presumption, that systems and hypotheses have perverted our natural under-
standing; when a theory, so simple and obvious, could so long have escaped
the most elaborate examination.
But however the case may have fared with philosophy; in common life,
these principles are still implicitly maintained, nor is any other topic of praise
or blame ever recurred to, when we employ any panegyric or satire, any
applause or censure of human action and behaviour. If we observe men, in
every intercourse of business or pleasure, in every discourse and conversa-
tion; we shall find them no where, except in the schools, at any loss upon this
subject. . . .
And as every quality, which is useful or agreeable to ourselves or others, is,
in common life, allowed to be a part of personal merit; so no other will ever be
received, where men judge of things by their natural, unprejudiced reason,
without the delusive glosses of superstition and false religion. Celibacy, fast-
ing, penance, mortification, self-denial, humility, silence, solitude, and the
whole train of monkish virtues; for what reason are they every where rejected
by men of sense, but because they serve to no manner of purpose; neither
advance a man's fortune in the world, nor render him a more valuable mem-
ber of society; neither qualify him for the entertainment of company, nor
increase his power of self-enjoyment? We observe, on the contrary, that they
562 David Hume
cross all these desirable ends; stupify the understanding and harden the heart,
obscure the fancy and sour the temper. We justly, therefore, transfer them to
the opposite column, and place them in the catalogue of vices; nor has any
superstition force sufficient among men of the world, to pervert entirely these
natural sentiments. A gloomy, harebrained enthusiast, after his death, may
have a place in the calendar; but will scarcely ever be admitted, when alive,
into intimacy and society, except by those who are as delirious and dismal as
himself.
It seems a happiness in the present theory, that it enters not into that vulgar
dispute concerning the degrees of benevolence or self-love, which prevail in
human nature; a dispute which is never likely to have any issue, both because
men, who have taken part, are not easily convinced, and because the phenom-
ena, which can be produced on either side, are so dispersed, so uncertain, and
subject to so many interpretations, that it is scarcely possible accurately to
compare them, or draw from them any determinate inference or conclusion.
It is sufficient for our present purpose, if it be allowed, what surely, without
the greatest absurdity, cannot be disputed, that there is some benevolence,
however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human
kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the
elements of the wolf and serpent. Let these generous sentiments be supposed
ever so weak; let them be insufficient to move even a hand or finger of our
body; they must still direct the determinations of our mind, and where every
thing else is equal, produce a cool preference of what is useful and serviceable
to mankind, above what is pernicious and dangerous. A moral distinction;
therefore, immediately arises; a general sentiment of blame and approbation;
a tendency, however faint, to the objects of the one, and a proportionable
aversion to those of the other. . . .

APPENDIX I: CONCERNING MORAL SENTIMENT

If the foregoing hypothesis 5 be received, it will now be easy for us to deter-
mine the question first started, concerning the general principles of morals;
and though we postponed the decision of that question, lest it should then
involve us in intricate speculations, which are unfit for moral discourses, we
may resume it at present, and examine how far either reason or sentiment
enters into all decisions of praise or censure.
One principal foundation of moral praise being supposed to lie in the useful-
ness of any quality or action; it is evident, that reason must enter for a
considerable share in all decisions of this kind; since nothing but that faculty
can instruct us in the tendency of qualities and actions, and point out their
beneficial consequences to society and to their possessor. In many cases, this
is an affair liable to great controversy: Doubts may arise; opposite interests
may occur; and a preference must be given to one side, from very nice views,
and a small overbalance of utility. This is particularly remarkable in questions
with regard to justice; as is, indeed, natural to suppose, from that species of
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 563
utility, which attends this virtue. Were every single instance of justice, like
that of benevolence, useful to society; this would be a more simple state of the
case, and seldom liable to great controversy. But as single instances of justice
are often pernicious in their first and immediate tendency, and as the advan-
tage to society results only from the observance of the general rule, and from
the concurrence and combination of several persons in the same equitable
conduct; the case here becomes more intricate and involved. The various
circumstances of society; the various consequences of any practice; the vari-
ous interests, which may be proposed: These, on many occasions, are doubt-
ful, and subject to great discussion and enquiry. The object of municipal laws
is to fix all the questions with regard to justice: The debates of civilians; the
reflections of politicians; the precedents of history and public records, are all
directed to the same purpose. And a very accurate reason or judgment is often
requisite, to give the true determination, amidst such intricate doubts arising
from obscure or opposite utilities.
But though reason, when fully assisted and improved, be sufficient to in-
struct us in the pernicious or useful tendency of qualities and actions; it is not
alone sufficient to produce any moral blame or approbation. Utility is only a
tendency to a certain end; and were the end totally indifferent to us, we
should feel the same indifference towards the means. It is requisite a sentiment
should here display itself, in order to give a preference to the useful above the
pernicious tendencies. This sentiment can be no other than a feeling for the
happiness of mankind, and a resentment of their misery; since these are the
different ends which virtue and vice have a tendency to promote. Here,
therefore, reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and human-
ity makes a distinction in favour to those which are useful and beneficial. . . .
I. It is easy for a false hypothesis to maintain some appearance of truth,
while it keeps wholly in generals, makes use of undefined terms, and employs
comparisons, instead of instances. This is particularly remarkable in that phi-
losophy, which ascribes the discernment of all moral distinctions to reason
alone, without the concurrence of sentiment. It is impossible that, in any
particular instance, this hypothesis can so much as be rendered intelligible;
whatever specious figure it may make in general declamations and discourses.
Examine the crime of ingratitude, for instance; which has place, wherever we
observe good-will, expressed and known, together with good-offices per-
formed, on the one side, and a return of or indifference, with ill-offices
or neglect on the other: Anatomize all these circumstances, and examine, by
your reason alone, in what consists the demerit or blame: You never will come
to any issue or conclusion.
Reason judges either of matter of fact or of relations. Enquire then, first,
where is that matter of fact, which we here call crime; point it out; determine
the time of its existence; describe its essence or nature; explain the sense of
faculty, to which it discovers itself. It resides in the mind of the person, who is
ungrateful. He must, therefore, feel it, and be conscious of it. But nothing is
there, except the passion of or absolute indifference. You cannot say,
564 David Hume
that these, of themselves, always, and in all circumstances, are crimes. No:
They are only crimes, when directed towards persons, who have before ex-
pressed and displayed good-will towards us. Consequently, we may infer, that
the crime of ingratitude is not any particular individual fact; but arises from a
complication of circumstances, which, being presented to the spectator, ex-
cites the sentiment of blame, by the particular structure and fabric of his mind.
This representation, you say, is false. Crime, indeed, consists not in a
particular fact, of whose reality we are assured by reason: But it consists in
certain moral relations, discovered by reason, in the same manner as we
discover, by reason, the truths of geometry or algebra. But what are the
relations, I ask, of which you here talk? In the case stated above, I see first
good-will and good-offices in one person; then and ill-offices in the
other. Between these, there is the relation of contrariety. Does the crime
consist in that relation? But suppose a person bore me or did me ill-
offices; and I, in return, were indifferent towards him, or did him good-
offices: Here is the same relation of contrariety; and yet my conduct is often
highly laudable. Twist and turn this matter as much as you will, you can never
rest the morality on relation; but must have recourse to the decisions of
sentiment.
When it is affirmed, that two and three are equal to the half of ten; this
relation of equality, I understand perfectly. I conceive, that if ten be divided
into two parts, of which one has as many units as the other; and if any of these
parts be compared to two added to three, it will contain as many units as that
compound number. But when you draw thence a comparison to moral rela-
tions, I own that I am altogether at a loss to understand you. A moral action, a
crime, such as ingratitude, is a complicated object. Does morality consist in
the relation of its parts to each other? How? After what manner? Specify the
relation: Be more particular and explicit in your propositions; and you will
easily see their falsehood.
No, say you, the morality consists in the relation of actions to the rule of
right; and they are denominated good or ill, according as they agree or dis-
agree with it. What then is this rule of right? In what does it consist? How is it
determined? By reason, you say, which examines the moral relations of ac-
tions. So that moral relations are determined by the comparison of actions to
a rule. And that rule is determined by considering the moral relations of
objects. Is not this fine reasoning?
All this is metaphysics, you cry: That is enough: There needs nothing more
to give a strong presumption of falsehood. Yes, reply I: Here are metaphysics
surely: But they are all on your side, who advance an abstruse hypothesis,
which can never be made intelligible, nor quadrate with any particular in-
stance or illustration. The hypothesis which we embrace is plain. It maintains,
that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever
mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approba-
tion; and vice the contrary. We then proceed to examine a plain matter of fact,
to wit, what actions have this influence: We consider all the circumstances, in
 An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals 565
which these actions agree: And hence endeavour to extract some general
observations with regard to these sentiments. If you call this metaphysics, and
find any thing abstruse here, you need only conclude, that your turn of mind is
not suited to the moral sciences.
V. It appears evident, that the ultimate ends of human actions can never, in
any case, be accounted for by reason, but recommend themselves entirely to
the sentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependance on the
intellectual faculties. Ask a man, why he uses exercise; he will answer, because
he desires to keep his health. If you then enquire, why he desires health, he will
readily reply, because sickness is painful. If you push your enquiries farther,
and desire a reason, why he hates pain, it is impossible he can ever give any.
This is an ultimate end, and is never referred to any other object.
Perhaps, to your second question, why he desires health, he may also reply,
that it is necessary for the exercise of his calling. If you ask, why he is anxious
on that head, he will answer, because he desires to get money. If you demand
Why? It is the instrument of pleasure, says he. And beyond this it is an absur-
dity to ask for a reason. It is impossible there can be a progress in infinitum;
and that one thing can always be a reason, why another is desired. Something
must be desirable on its own account, and because of its immediate accord or
agreement with human sentiment and affection.
Now as virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account, without fee or
reward, merely, for the immediate satisfaction which it conveys; it is requisite
that there should be some sentiment, which it touches; some internal taste or
feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and
evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other.
Thus the distinct boundaries and offices of reason and of taste are easily
ascertained. The former conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood: The
latter gives the sentiment of beauty and deformity, vice and virtue. The one
discovers objects, as they really stand in nature, without addition or diminu-
tion: The other has a productive faculty, and gilding or staining all natural
objects with the colours, borrowed from internal sentiment, raises, in a man-
ner, a new creation. Reason, being cool and disengaged, is no motive to
action, and directs only the impulse received from appetite or inclination, by
showing us the means of attaining happiness or avoiding the misery: Taste, as
it gives pleasure or pain, and thereby constitutes happiness or misery, be-
comes a motive to action, and is the first spring or impulse to desire and
volition. From circumstances and relations, known or supposed, the former
leads us to the discovery of the concealed and unknown: After all circum-
stances and relations are laid before us, the latter makes us feel from the
whole a new sentiment of blame or approbation. The standard of the one,
being founded on the nature of things, is eternal and inflexible, even by the
will of the Supreme Being: The standard of the other, arising from the internal
frame and constitution of animals, is ultimately derived from that Supreme
Will, which bestowed on each being its peculiar nature, and arranged the
several classes and orders of existence.
566 David Hume

Editor's Notes
1. Timoleon helped other citizens of Corinth assassinate his own brother in about 365
e.c.E. when his brother attempted to become a tyrant. Marcus Junius Brutus
joined in the conspiracy to kill his benefactor Julius Caesar in 44 B.c.E. when it was
felt that Caesar was becoming tyrannical.
2. In Book III of his Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, Newton gave
four rules for philosophizing, that is. for proceeding in a scientific treatment of any
subject. The first is that "we are to admit no more causes of natural things than
such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances." The second is
that "to the same effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes." I
quote from the Motte translation of 1729, in the edition by Florian Cajori (Berke-
ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1947), p. 398.
3. Sir Francis Bacon, Novum Organum II.xxxvi, discussed at length the use in sci-
ence of data of experience that enable one to decide to take one road or another at
a crossroads of thought. Such cases are called "instances of the fingerpost."
4. The Aristotelians, who place virtue in a "mean" between two extremes.
5. That is, the hypothesis that we feel moral approval when we perceive a useful trait
or disposition in someone.

Further Reading
The standard biography of Hume is that by Ernest C. Mossner, The Life of David
Hume, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980). His correspondence is avail-
able in J. Y. T. Greig, The Letters of David Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1932); and in Raymond Klibansky and Ernest C. Mossner, New Letters of David Hume
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954).
A.. J. Ayer, Hume (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1980), is a brisk and very brief
overview of Hume's entire philosophy. Terence Penelhum, Hume (New York: St.
Martin's Press, 1975), gives a more detailed study, as does Barry Stroud, Hume (Lon-
don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977). The starting point for modern Hume studies is
Norman Kemp Smith, The Philosophy of David Hume (London: Macmillan, 1941).
Some of Kemp Smith's views are controverted in David Fate Norton, David Hume:
Common-sense Moralist, Sceptical Metaphysician (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1982), which is itself a controversial study.
Discussion of Hume's philosophy tends to concentrate on the account given in the
Treatise of Human Nature. There are no separate commentaries on the Enquiry Con-
cerning the Principles of Morals, but examination of the ethics presented in the Treatise
illuminates the later version of the theory. J. L. Mackie, Hume's Moral Theory (Lon-
don: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980), is a sympathetic discussion of the main points of
Hume's moral psychology and ethics, set in context by brief reviews of his predecessors
and successors. Pall Ardal, Passion and Value in Hume's Treatise (Edinburgh: Edin-
burgh University Press, 1966) is a valuable study of the connection between Hume's
psychology and his ethics. Jonathan Harrison has written two books on the ethics, both
very analytical, frequently to the point of anachronism: Hume's Moral Epistemology
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1976). and Hume's Theory of Justice (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1981). Chapters 9 and 10 of Robert J. Fogelin, Hume's
Skepticism in the Treatise of Human Nature (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1985),
are concerned with his moral psychology and his ethics. For the historical setting of
Hume's moral philosophy, Duncan Forbes, Hume's Philosophical Politics (Cambridge,
 Further Reading 567
England: Cambridge University Press, 1975), is most valuable. The reader interested
in knowing more about the Scottish Enlightenment as the context for Hume should
look at two volumes: R. H. Campbell and Andrews S. Skinner, eds., The Origins and
Nature of the Scottish Enlightenment (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982); and Istvan Hont
and Michael Ignatieff, eds., Wealth and Virtue (Cambridge, England: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1983).
The periodical literature on Hume's ethics is very large. Here is a selective list of
articles:

Ardal, Pall. "Another Look at Hume's Account of Moral Evaluation." Journal of the
History of Philosophy 15 (1977).
Baier, Annette. "Frankena and Hume on Points of View." The Monist 64 (1981);
reprinted in her Postures of the Mind (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1985).
"Good Men's Women: Hume on Chastity and Trust." Hume Studies 5 (1979).
"Hume on Resentment." Hume Studies 6 (1980).
"Hume's Account of Our Absurd Passions." Journal of Philosophy 79 (1982).
Bricke, John. "Emotion and Thought in Hume's Treatise." Canadian Journal of Phi-
losophy 1 (supp.) (1974).
Cottle, Charles F. "Justice as an Artificial Virtue in Hume's Treatise." Journal of the
History of Ideas 40 (1979).
Davidson, Donald. "Hume's Cognitive Theory of Pride." In his Essays on Action and
Events (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980).
Falk, W. D., "Hume on Is and Ought." Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11 (1976).
"Flume on Practical Reason." Philosophical Studies 27 (1975).
Gauthier, David. "David Hume, Contractarian." Philosophical Review 88 (1979).
Maclntyre, Alasdair. "Hume on Is and Ought." Philosophical Review 67 (1959).
Norton. David F. "Hume's Moral Ontology." Hume Studies, 1985 supplement.
Snare, Frank. "The Argument from Motivation." Mind 84 (1975).
 Christian August Crusius

Introduction

Christian August Crusius was born in 1715. He studied theology. philosophy, and other
subjects at Leipzig, one of the more advanced of the enlightened German universities,
and in 1740 began to teach philosophy there. Between 1744 and 1749 he published his
main philosophical works. Among them are Anweisung, vernunftig zu leben (Guide to
Rational Living) (1744), Entwurf der nothwendigen Vernunft-Wahrheiten (Sketch of
Necessary Rational Truths) (1745), and Weg zur Gewissheit and Zuverlassigkeit der
menschlichen Erkenntniss (Way to the Certainty and Adequacy of Human Knowledge)
(1747). Thereafter he wrote only on religious and theological topics. Crusius moved to
the theological faculty while keeping a position in the philosophical faculty. A popular
teacher, he had a successful university career and achieved substantial recognition
outside the university. He died in 1775.
The dominant philosophy in Protestant Germany during Crusius's lifetime was that
of Christian Wolff. Crusius, a strongly Pietist Lutheran, was opposed to it on religious
grounds and came to be known as its most acute and effective critic. As a Pietist he saw
personal religious experience and feeling as more important than institutional prac-
tices and rituals, and he held that simple and uneducated people could have a richer
religious life than could those who were sophisticated and learned. Against Wolff's
intellectualism, therefore, which taught that humans are autonomous and which held
that the human good consists of the endless increase of knowledge, Crusius stressed
the importance of deliberate obedience to God's laws, of which everyone could be
aware through feeling, and of reliance on God to look after one's well-being.
In developing these themes Crusius did more than point out problems with Wolff's
own position. He began to push in new directions the conventional vocabulary of
obligation and moral necessity. established since the time of Pufendorf. One of his
aims was to show that each person is wholly responsible to God for his or her own
actions. Because Crusius thought Wolff's account of free will an utter failure, he tried
to develop a much more radical notion of freedom, and he connected it with the
important thought that the will has its own innate structure of laws. He also went
beyond previous thinkers in disconnecting moral obligation from the agent's concern
with his or her own good and in disconnecting it even from a concern with any good at
all. For Crusius, moral obligation — he called it the obligation of virtue — arises simply
from our awareness that there are laws that bind us as such, and we can comply with
them simply because they are valid laws for us.
Crusius's more general philosophical views stressed the limitations of human knowl-
edge, and the ways in which beliefs that we cannot give up we must accept as true even

568
 Guide to Rational Living 569

if we have no proof of them. Crusius was far more aware of the importance of probable
empirical evidence than the Wolffians were, and more appreciative of the advances of
the mechanistic understanding of the world than his Pietist philosophical forerunners
were. Crusius's ethics, in particular, is a vital part of the transition from the philosophy
of the earlier German enlightenment to the work of Kant. For in trying to explain how
we could be wholly dependent on God and also wholly responsible for our own
actions, he worked out some of the conceptual apparatus that Kant was to use for a
much stronger assertion of human autonomy than Wolff had presented.
If Crusius is now remembered mainly for his influence on Kant (who in his early
years admired Crusius), his work is worth reading for an understanding of the develop-
ment of the modern vocabulary of morality as well as for insight into the most impor-
tant of the philosophical controversies in German during the first half of the eighteenth
century.
I have translated selections from the Anweisung verniinftig zu Leben, using the
reprint edition by Giorgio Tonelli (Hildesheim: Olms, 1969). Like Wolff's - German
Ethics," this was a book intended for students. It was written in a compact and
undecorated style, full of cross-references to earlier and later paragraphs. Although I
have kept Crusius's paragraph numbers, I have omitted most of the cross-references
and eliminated most of the italicizations and capitalizations.

Guide to Rational Living

PSYCHOLOGY

Chapter I: Of Goals and of the Human Will

§2 By -will" I understand the power of a mind to act according to its ideas. I
mean that the will is the efficient cause, whereas the ideas are the model or
exemplary cause. One acts according to them when one makes represented
things real or tries to do so. . . . my explanation includes everything that
belongs to will according to ordinary language. For desire and aversion, in-
cluding all doing and omitting that come from them, are ascribed to will. In all
these cases it is clear that an act of the mind according to ideas comes
first. . . .
§4 All minds must have wills. If they had none, they could not act according
to their ideas, and these would then be useful neither to them nor to others
but quite in vain. But it is altogether contrary to God's perfection to create
something wholly useless and in vain.
§6. . . the will, in all finite beings, is a separate basic power, distinguished
from the understanding or, to speak more precisely, the essential part of
separate basic powers that on account of their common essence are conceived
together and called will. . . .
§9 A willing, through which we are moved to make something real that does
not yet exist or to bring about its union with ourselves, insofar as the willing is
considered an action within the willing mind, is called a desire. . . .
§13 Whatever a mind wants can be called a goal or end in the widest sense.
570 Christian August Crusius
In the narrower meaning, however, we understand by end only something
that one wants consciously and with clear knowledge. Whenever a mind
strives for an end, three aspects are to be distinguished in the striving. First of
all, there must be an effective willing, which is the efficient power moving us
toward something. I will call this the subjective end. . . . Further, a particular
thing must be conceived toward which one strives, which is called the objec-
tive end. Finally, we must think of a certain relation of that thing to the willing
mind seeking to bring it about and for the sake of which the action is under-
taken, which is called the formal end. For example, when Alexander went to
war against the Persians, the Persian Empire was his objective end. The
formal end was that he bring it under his control and rule it. Alexander's
desire for mastery was the subjective end. . . .
§22 A willing that one could omit or direct to something else even in
identical circumstances is called a free willing, and the power involved is
called freedom. The application of freedom to an existing situation, by which
one really wills, is called a resolution or decision. . . .
§24 The condition of our soul that arises from the satisfaction of a willing is
called pleasant and, if we recognize this consciously, enjoyment. . . .
§26 Whatever accords with the will of a mind we call to that extent good,
and likewise what is contrary to it we call to that extent an evil. Accordingly,
the goodnesses of things consist in their relation to a will with which they are
compared, just as truth rests in a relation to the understanding. If by contrast
we call something good that is in accordance with perfection, it is undeniable
that this happens because rational minds generally desire perfection in them-
selves and in other things and insofar as they desire it, as otherwise there
would be no reason that one should not also call the imperfect good. . . . The
perfection of a thing consists only in the relation of its condition to the sum of
the effects for which it is fit; and the more it is fit for and the more fit it is for
them, the more perfect it is. So goodness and perfection are not the same.
This concept of good can easily be fitted into the categories of good that
philosophers recognize. Insofar as something is found to agree with the natu-
ral goals of God — that is, insofar as it is found suited to those effects that God
has willed to make possible through the thing's created essence — so far it is
metaphysically good. So far as something agrees with the will of created
beings, it is physically good. . . . The morally good, however, is what is in
accordance with the moral designs of God, that is, those that he wills to have
forwarded through the reason and free wills of created minds or, to put it
otherwise, the morally good is what agrees with his laws.

Chapter 111: Of the Freedom of the Human Will

§38. . . According to ordinary notions, a free will is a will not outwardly
compelled and also not inwardly necessary. It should make man capable of
responsibility for his activity, so that one does not only ascribe it to him as the
efficient cause but also can think him open to praise or blame or to charges of
 Guide to Rational Living 571
guilt and can hold him worthy of punishment or reward because he acted this
way rather than that. Freedom must be what makes us fit to be subordinated
to a law and to obligation and fit for giving a reckoning of the direction of our
behavior. If we take together these presupposed properties, then a free being
can be nothing but a being who at one time and in one set of circumstances
can either do or omit something or in place of it do something else. The power
by means of which it is capable of this is called freedom. . . .
§39 Consequently, one may express the essence of freedom also through
this concept, that it is a power to determine oneself to an action, without
being determined by anything else, whether internal or external. . . .
§40 If one does not include this concept, there would never be an act done
without necessity. For even if one indicated an act to which the efficient
substance were determined through its own ideas and desires, which one
calls spontaneity or spiritual self-activity, still the act would not cease to be
necessary, because everything determined, insofar as it is determined, is
necessary. It makes no difference through what sort of ideas the effective
mind is determined, not even whether or not the determining motives in its
understanding are clearly conceived. In such a case, all our virtue would be
turned into a mere piece of luck, as it would come about if one had a good
nature or were put in such relations to things that one were determined to
do actions according with perfection. Vice would be mere misfortune, for
which no true guilt could arise, as it would not be up to the agent to improve
the situation, but everything would depend on the nature that the creator
had given him. . . .
Praise and blame sometimes mean only judgments about whether or not
certain properties of a thing agree with perfection. Still, there are two sorts of
praise and blame, first the nonmoral, which is nothing but a judgment of the
perfection or imperfection of the thing, and [second] the moral, when we hold
someone to be the free cause of a characteristic that we recognize as worthy of
praise or blame. I will show in what follows that many things that do not now
occur completely freely, or even that occur without freedom, can be awarded
truly moral praise or blame, because we have earlier brought about their
causes. Thus one can admittedly praise a naturally good property. But we
must not on that account deny that we are able to praise it on account of
voluntarily occasioned acts or properties, and we must not confuse the praise-
worthy qualities with one another. . . .
§41 If we reflect on how such a power as freedom, according to this concept
of it, is possible, it becomes clear that it must consist in a perfect inner activity.
It is a point to be shown in metaphysics that an action or activity must come
between an effect and its efficient cause but that the series cannot extend to
infinity. Consequently, one must come to first actions or basic activities, for
which it is not necessary that another activity of an efficient cause precede but
that arise immediately out of the essence of an active basic power. . . . The
freedom of the human will must be of this category. So we can determine its
concept more fully thus: freedom is the highest degree of activity in a will, by
572 Christian August Crusius

virtue of which it can itself begin, direct, and then break off its effectiveness,
regardless of all the necessary conditions, which only make it possible. . . .
§42 You will be convinced by the following that the same freedom that I
have explained from the use of language . . . is really present in our soul. We
are, first, conscious in many cases that in the same circumstances we can omit
an action or direct it otherwise. Therefore we really possess the power. For
example, I find within myself that while I write this I could stop and take up
another task or walk up and down in the room. . . .
It is further necessary that free minds must exist in any world whatever.
Otherwise God could not create any world, because he could have no end, on
his side, in doing so. For otherwise it would be as if God did everything
himself, and created beings would obtain through their reality no other rela-
tion to God than what they already had in the mere condition of possibility,
namely, that their being and essence depended on him. He would therefore
have had to make them real without the slightest formal end, which contra-
dicts the divine perfection. Now, because divine perfection is necessary, a
world without free minds is just as impossible as a four-sided circle or wooden
iron is.
Finally, whoever admits that true divine laws exist, whose certainty I will
show in its place, must admit also on that account that there is true freedom in
us, because that is the sole possible cause that puts us in the condition to be
subordinated to a law and to live according to it.
§43 Whenever we freely will something, we decide to do something for
which one or several desires already exist in us, and accordingly, the formal
end always consists of the relation that a thing has to one or several of our
drives. . . . herewith we discover the complete idea of freedom. Freedom
consists in an inner perfect activity of will, which is capable of connecting its
efficacy with one of the currently activated drives of the will, or of omitting
this connection and remaining inactive, or of connecting it with another drive
instead of the first one.
§46 . . . From what has been said, we can easily see the goal for whose sake
God gave freedom to humans. It should be the ruling power that directs the
other powers of soul, which are subordinated to it and are to serve it. Through
this the capacities of the soul are transformed into abilities that can be as-
cribed to the efficacious substance. And thereby the many desires are subordi-
nated to one another and are brought without compulsion or necessity into a
system in which exists the perfection that God intended. How much store God
sets on such a constitution of rational creatures can be inferred from this, that
otherwise he cannot create any world at all. . . .

Chapter V: Of Basic Desires

§89 A desire always has its ground in one or several other desires. But
because this series cannot continue to infinity, we must finally come to first
desires, which are not due to others and are the ground of all the rest.
 Guide to Rational Living 573
§92 Every act of will is an action according to ideas. But a desire is a
continuous striving to act in certain ways according to certain ideas. So if there
are basic desires, there are also innate ideas that belong to them and that must
be assumed to be presupposed and inseparable conditions of them. . . .
§93 The marks of a basic desire are accordingly the following: First, it must
not be wicked in and of itself, that is, conflict with divine or human perfection,
because otherwise God would not have built it into the human essence. . . .
Next, it must be universal. The proof of universality is drawn from experi-
ence. . . . Finally, it must not be derivable from any other. . . .

Chapter VI: Of Universal Properties of Desires That Are

Themselves Desires
§97 Every desire is a striving to bring certain ideas to reality. If this is to
happen, the idea of the desired object must be held vividly in mind. . . .
Consequently, all desires include a desire for the clear idea of the object and
an inclination to take pleasure in it.
§101 If we are to achieve what we wish, we must ourselves exist and
live. . . . Accordingly, all our drives include the desire for our own existence
or reality. . . .
§102 Every desire in a rational mind strives also for the assurance of its
object and thus is also a desire for the future. . . .
§106 When our desires are satisfied, pleasure ensues. We therefore desire
pleasure because we want the satisfaction of our desires. If our desires are not
satisfied, pain will ensue, which we therefore avoid. There thus arises out of
all desires taken together a longing to see them all satisfied with pleasure and
to be free from all pain, and this is called the drive for happiness. Now, we
have a desire to live and a desire for perfect assurance of the wanted object,
whose satisfaction is also the aim of the drive for happiness. Consequently,
the drive for happiness, taken comprehensively, is a drive for an endless life in
which all our wishes will continuously be pleasantly satisfied . . . and in which
no unhappiness is possible.
We see from this that the drive toward happiness is in fact directed toward an
infinite object, that is, toward one that will infinitely satisfy. Now, because the
achievement of this is not possible except through the will and power of our
creator, it is clear that the drive to happiness is always in error if man strives for
his happiness in any order other than that in which he seeks to make himself
pleasing to his creator in every part and is assured of grace. Thus the drive to
human happiness, rightly understood, always leads to God. . . .

Chapter VII: Of Basic Human Desires

§111 . . . The first basic human desire is the drive for our own perfection,
or the urge to see our condition in its appropriate perfection and to make it
always more perfect. . . .
574 Christian August Crusius
§122 The next of the basic human desires is the urge for union with objects
in which we perceive perfection, or think we perceive it. It is distinguished
from the preceding desire, in that through the former we seek our own perfec-
tion, but by means of this we seek union with perfection without any view to
ourselves or to the use that we could expect from it. . . .
§132 Finally, the third of the basic human drives is the natural drive to
recognize a divine moral law, that is, to believe a rule for human action in
which it is determined what God wants done or not done out of obedience
because of our dependence and otherwise will punish us. It is one of the
natural basic laws of human nature . . . that we compare the concepts of the
understanding with our desires to become aware of what in their objects is or
is not in conformity with the ideas. From this arises an inclination to judge the
morality of our acts, that is, their justice or injustice and, when they are not in
accordance with the law, to fear God's wrath and punishment on that account.
We call the judgment of the morality of our acts "conscience." So we shall
call the basic drive to recognize the divine moral law that is its ground the
"drive of conscience." That conscience is no mere theoretical judgment of the
understanding — but must have its ground in a drive of the will — can be seen
from the fact that it rejoices us and terrifies us. One should not confuse
conscience with consciousness in general or with the awareness of the perfec-
tion or imperfection of one's actions in general. For it is one thing to make
something a matter of conscience, another to be aware of an imperfection in
action and therefore to regret what one did because one is aware that it was in
vain or contrary to one's goal. . . .
§ 133 The motive of conscience is therefore merely a motive to recognize
certain indebtednesses [Schuldigkeiten], that is, such universal obligations
[Verbindlichkeiten]` as one must observe even if one does not wish to consider
the advantages and disadvantages deriving from them, whose transgression
God will punish and, if his law is not to be in vain, must punish. . . . Here I
shall . . . add that to the word indebtedness we attach, by the guidance of
nature, the concept I have given. This I shall make clear as follows:
We distinguish what lays an indebtedness on us from motives in general. If
we are inclined toward something through motives or are even fully deter-
mined to do it, it still does not follow that on that account we have an
indebtedness to do it. For there also are motives for evil and for indifferent
things.
Further, indebtedness is to be distinguished from all inner and outer compul-
sions. For whatever we are compelled to do, we have on that account no
indebtedness to do. We distinguish indebtedness further from what one does
out of fear or hope. For how much does one do from fear, to which one is not
obligated [verbunden], and how often do we say that this or that would be for
our own benefit, but it is also our indebtedness?
Finally, indebtedness is not identical with what is done out of love. For all
men agree on this: that an indebtedness may not be the sort of thing in which
it depends on our own preference whether or not we are to do it; I mean, so
 Guide to Rational Living 575
that the essence of indebtedness might disappear through just a change in our
will. There remains no alternative, therefore, but that an indebtedness is such
an act or omission as we should do out of obedience to God as our highest
lord, creator, and sustainer, for the sake of his will.
There exists, therefore, in the motive of conscience the genuine basic es-
sence of legal obligation [Verbindlichkeit]. For the obligation of law should be
what moves the subordinate to obey the commands of his lord. This, however,
can be nothing else but the idea of his dependence on the other. By depen-
dence, among minds, nothing else is to be understood than such a relation of
one to the other, that the one has certain goods from the will of the other in
such a way that if the will of the other ceased, the goods would also cease.
From this it is clear that we depend in all things on God. How could the idea
of dependence, all by itself, bring us to execute the commands of our lord, if
there were not a natural basic motive existing in us, leading us to act in
accordance with our dependence on God?
§134 It is thus not specially necessary to show that the drive of conscience is
distinct from the previously distinguished basic drives, as its object is so very
different from those of the other drives. It is just as superfluous to try to show
its goodness, as it is self-evident that nothing can be good without agreement
with divine law. . . .
§135 The universality of the drive of conscience does, however, need a
special proof, because owing to its many hindrances and suppressions, it may
look as if it is missing in many people. If one first assumes the reality of divine
law, which we shall prove later, then one will easily see an a priori reason that
there must be an innate drive of conscience. For because God has created
basic drives for many lesser ends, which usually serve their ends with consider-
able certainty, should he not have cared for virtue as his main end but have
left men in a condition in which it would be possible to eradicate any idea of a
true law of God?
Second, coming to know God and his will through proofs, and judging what
is told us by means of clear arguments, is for most people much too round-
about. Most scholars do not get far in doing so, and [so] how could the
unlearned get things completely right? But because all men are subordinated
to the divine law and will be judged by it hereafter, it is easy to infer that God
would create a shorter path to knowledge of it and would make his will
evident in such a way that it could come to everyone's knowledge.
§136 Experience agrees with this. All men recognize certain things as right
or wrong, proper or improper, under which words nothing but a dark idea of a
universal law lies buried. A man of moderate understanding will soon become
aware in the hardest and most confused actions of what would be right or
wrong, even without being able to give clearly any sufficient grounds for his
judgment or even to defend it. From this it is evident that there is a natural
sensation of justice and propriety in us that has something more than a mere
judgment of the understanding as its ground.
The majority who believe in a divine law can give no correct and unobjec-
576 Christian August Crusius
tionable proof of it. Indeed, few teachers of morals prove it thoroughly, and it
is a common but well-based complaint that one gets nowhere worse proofs
than in moral writings. The natural law is something that is contrary to our
common inclinations and directs their limitation and improvement. Now, I
would like to know whence it comes that whereas men laugh at and reject
other unproved claims running against our natural inclinations, nonetheless
all decent people approve the law of nature and do not reject it because of the
bad proofs of it that they find but, rather, feel themselves required to find
better ones. Do we not see here evidently a testimony that the truth of the law
is hidden within ourselves?
Scholars are still not agreed on the principle on which we must build natural
duties. About the most important duties, however, they all agree. . . . I am
convinced that philosophers mostly do not seek basic principles in order that
they may learn from them what is right or wrong. Their effort is, rather, only
this: to structure into an orderly theory the duties that nature teaches
humankind.. .
§137 Now, if there is a drive in us to recognize a divine law and to act
according to it, then there must also be in us an innate idea of the natural law,
which is the pattern according to which the drive of conscience strives to direct
human action. This need not be taken to imply that the concept of every single
duty is implanted in us. It suffices if God has given us a universal rule of action
from which the individual cases can be judged. If we pay attention a posteriori
to the material duties that conscience teaches, it will become clear that most of
them, at least, can be collected in this rule: do what is in accordance with the
perfection of God and your relations to him and further what accords with the
essential perfection of human nature, and omit the opposite. The acts of a mind
are said to be in accordance with perfection when one can see from their
direction that they recognize mind and keep an eye on it.
Accordingly, we can state the express concept of the drive of conscience
thus: the drive of conscience is a natural, basic drive that moves us to do what
conforms with divine and human perfection — out of obedience to God's will
because of our dependence on him — and, in the contrary case, to fear his
anger and punishment. We see here immediately that there must be an innate
idea of God.

ETHICS

Chapter 1: Of Virtue in General

§156 If we ask how the will should be constituted and wish to answer merely
according to the prescriptions of reason . . . we are asking either how the
human will should be constituted with a view to divine natural laws, which we
see as the ends of the creator, or how it should be constituted with a view to
the ends of humans, which they all desire, that is, with a view to the advance-
ment of their perfection and happiness.
 Guide to Rational Living 577

§157 I have deliberately linked the condition of perfection with that of

happiness. These two concepts speak of one and the same thing. For the
perfection of man exists when his condition agrees with all of his ends. Conse-
quently, all his desires must be satisfied as fully as possible. . . .
§159 Now, if we determine the idea of ethics first by saying that it is the
science of the rules that show the way to human happiness, we still will have to
investigate whether there really are divine laws. Suppose there were; then we
would fail to reach happiness if we did not concern ourselves with them. . . .
I can, accordingly, give a fuller description of the Guide to Rational Living
by saying that it is a science that explains rationally both the divine laws and
the rest of the general rules for the achievement of good ends and thus shows
the way as far as possible to attain human perfection and happiness.
§160 A "duty" [Pflicht], in the broad sense, is an act or omission in which a
moral necessity exists. A "moral necessity" is a relation of an act or omission
to certain ends such that a rational mind can understand that it should or
should not be done. The condition in which a moral necessity for something
exists is, in a broad sense, called "obligation" [ Verbindlichkeit]. Accordingly,
morals encompass duties and obligations.
§161 By "prudence" we understand the skill of choosing and applying good
means to one's ends. "Virtue," however, is the agreement of the moral condi-
tion of a mind with the divine laws. Hence we call each single part of it a
virtue. I do not overlook that at times the word "virtue" is used in a broader
sense for any praiseworthy property. But this meaning is not serviceable for
my purpose, as I want to keep apart essentially different things. I call moral all
that brings about its effect by means of a free will. . . .
§162 Now I can indicate the kinds of duties and obligations. . . . To wit, that
on which the moral necessity of an act or omission is grounded — I mean from
which it should be understood — is either to be sought only in certain ends
already desired by us; because we then have to look only at the ends that
according to the psychology are essential to human nature, which otherwise
one would not be able to achieve; then I will name the duty, insofar as it is
grounded on this, a duty of prudence, and similarly I can call the obligation
arising out of it the obligation of prudence. Or else the ground of the moral
necessity lies in a law and in our owing fulfillment of it; then I will name that
duty a duty of virtue. The obligation arising from it, however, can be called
legal obligation, or the obligation of virtue, or true obligation in a narrower
sense. Accordingly, the obligation of prudence, in ethics, is the relation of an
act or omission to certain goals that we desire because of our nature . . . such
that if we do not behave in certain ways we will not be able to attain our goal.
The obligation of virtue is the relation of an act or omission to a divine law,
such that if we do not behave in certain ways the law will be violated. A duty
of prudence exists where there is an obligation of prudence. A duty of virtue
exists where there is an obligation of virtue. Where an obligation of virtue
exists, one may also speak of an indebtedness.
§163 Although I have carefully distinguished duties and obligations of vir-
578 Christian August Crusius
tue and prudence, it should not be thought that in virtue itself both sorts of
obligation are not present, so that a duty of virtue is not also always a duty of
prudence. For because. as we shall see, the divine law orders the truest means
to our well-being, the essential desires of our soul will be fulfilled when we
obey the divine law. [Virtue and prudence) are, however, to be distinguished,
so that true legal obligation and the essence of virtue will not be destroyed by
the assumption that there is only the obligation of prudence — which, regretta-
bly, seems to occur all too often.
§165 A law is a universal will of a more powerful being who does not have
another more powerful being over him, through which an indebtedness spring-
ing from this will is imposed on those subordinate to him to do or omit
something. The more powerful being who gives the law is called a supe-
rior. . . . If one does the will of a superior because one is indebted to do so,
this is called obedience. Now all indebtedness is grounded on dependence. . . .
§166 . . . we can see how true moral dependence differs from the merely
overwhelming power of one over another, and thus what the difference is
between a superior whose will has an obligating power and a more powerful
being who can only compel to fulfillment of his will. For example, a highway-
man can compel us to give him our money, but no obligation to do so follows
from his will, which by contrast does take place with a true lawgiver. For we
have to thank a lawgiver for certain goods, which come merely from his will
because he has no superior over him. So not only does our benefit bid us obey
him, in order not to lose the goods and also our perfection, because resistance
would be in vain, which together make an obligation of prudence; but also
because of the drive of conscience, we feel an indebtedness to obedience and
naturally approve it, from which a legal obligation arises.
§ 168 . . . I presuppose here the existence and properties of God as demon-
strated by natural theology. [I similarly assume that man depends wholly on
God.)
§169 We can prove the certainty of divine natural laws first a posteriori from
the drive of conscience, which also shows their content. Because all other
basic drives have an existing object, likewise this drive must have one. In-
deed, it must have an object; otherwise God has put it into the soul in vain,
only to frighten men. . . .
§171 The necessity of divine laws and also their content can further be
proved a priori. I assume that God wills the necessary perfections of
things. . . . It follows from this that as soon as free beings are posited, God
must necessarily will that their free actions and what follows from them be in
accordance with the essential perfections of things. . . .
§172 . . . Now the natural relation in which we and all creatures stand to
God is that we depend on him alone and necessarily for all things. That is the
sole condition that is simply essential. All the rest are contingent. . . . Accord-
ingly, God necessarily wills that all free actions by rational creatures, and
what follows from them, be so directed that one can see from their direction
that they recognize full and necessary dependence on God. . . .
 Guide to Rational Living 579
§173 . . . it is not enough that we do what God wills, as his will, just out of
love. . . . For from the fact that a soul tries to make itself pleasing to another
out of love, it cannot be understood that the one recognizes his dependence
on the other . . . we must do everything that God wills to be done . . . out of
obedience to him as our creator, sustainer, and lawfully commanding superior
and lawgiver. For only from such a direction of our deeds can it be understood
that we recognize a dependence on God and have it in view. . . . Now, be-
cause God necessarily wills that we should act out of a sense of our depen-
dence on him, there is also necessarily a divine natural law, whose content is
here evident.
And just this necessary will of God is the ground of the morally good, from
which we see that the morally good, like all other goods, has its ground in a
will. Whether or not one could say that something might be in accordance
with perfection without attention to the will of God, one can certainly not
allow that without attention to it something could be morally good or bad. To
say this would be to contradict oneself or to alter unnecessarily the ordinary
notion of good and bad. Yet the morally good is not at all arbitrary, because
the will of God, in which the highest laws of nature have their ground, is not a
free but a necessary will.
§174 Here I have derived the highest natural law a priori, which previously,
in §137, I obtained only from experience and which is this: do out of obedi-
ence toward the command of your creator as your natural and necessary
superior everything that is in conformity with the perfection of God and the
essential perfection of your own nature and of all other creatures and the
relations of things to one another, and omit the opposite.
§176 The point is that obedience to God should be our unconditionally
highest subjective end, God himself the highest objective end, and compli-
ance with his will and command the highest formal end. . . . Then our happi-
ness will follow of itself from virtue and in the condition of virtue; which we
desire . . . but must not make the goal, because if we do, obedience will lose
its essence. In order that it may be possible for us to make the desire to act in
accordance with our dependence into our main end, the drive of conscience is
implanted in us, by means of which the sense of our dependence leads us to
obedience. . . . If the drive of conscience did not exist in us, then admittedly
neither obedience nor virtue would be possible, for because of our other
essential drives we would always make our own utility or pleasure our end or
at least would act only out of love, which is not yet obedience.
*177 . . . What a rational being does in conformity with the essential
perfection of things becomes virtue only when it is done out of obedience.
Consequently, we can call the intention of being obedient to God the form of
virtue. But an act or omission that taken in itself is in accordance with divine
or human perfection and is distinguished from obedience constitutes the mat-
ter of virtue. . . .
§178 From what has been shown, we can now obtain the natural principia
cognoscendi2 of the divine law, that is, the way to determine exactly how we
580 Christian August Crusius
come to know it. The first is a posteriori, namely, the natural drive of con-
science, when we attend to what — if our desires and feelings do not prevent —
it teaches us about good or evil, honorable or shameful, approvable or
disapprovable. From this source of knowledge not only the common people
but also the learned obtain the greatest part of their knowledge of duty, but
the latter look afterwards for clear proofs.
§ 179 There is indeed an erring and doubtful conscience. But the difficulties
must not be thought to be so great that on their account it is not possible for
the conscience to be able to be a sure source of a posteriori knowledge of
duty. . . . It is the same with sensation. Who would say that this is an uncer-
tain or unsuitable principium for obtaining truth, even though many alleged
experiences deceive? .. .
§181 The second way to come to knowledge of divine natural laws through
reason is the way of clear knowledge, in which one derives duties from the
nature of divine and human essential perfection by clear and valid arguments,
when one shows that something is in accordance with, or is opposed to, the
concept of the perfection of God or a thing in general, or that the intention of
God for the things of this world otherwise cannot be attained at all, or not
surely attained, and especially that the essentially human basic desires cannot
otherwise be satisfied. . . .
§184 A law is either a commanding law, saying that something is to happen,
or a forbidding law, saying that something is to be omitted. For what conflicts
with the essential perfection of things is forbidden, whereas what accords with
it is commanded. A forbidding law thus must always be followed. A command-
ing law, however, can speak of something that needs to happen only under
certain circumstances.
§185 What is neither commanded nor forbidden is permitted. We know a
posteriori that there are certain things that are merely permitted because
when omitting certain things we feel no pangs of conscience. . . .
§194 We should guard against the mistaken belief that divine punishments
and rewards are necessary so that the law may be obligatory, in that fear of the
former and hope of the latter would drive man to obedience and must be the
goal of obedience. For through this, all true legal obligation and also all true
obedience would be destroyed. Divine perfection demands that observance of
his laws be sustained in this way. Obligation under them, however, arises from
our dependence on him. . . .
§203 The core idea of all duties, of virtue discoverable by reason taken
together is called, in a broad sense, the law of nature. Now, because all duties
of virtue have their obligation from God, and must be done out of obedience
to divine command, the law of nature is in essence nothing but the practical
part of natural theology.
§204 . . . natural moral theology deals with immediate duties to God; the
law of nature, in the narrow sense, with the duties and authorizations of men
toward other men; and ethics, with the duties that immediately concern the
virtuous constitution of our own mind and condition, usually called duties to
 Guide to Rational Living 581
oneself. . . . There are indeed still other duties recognized by reason, namely,
duties in relation to nonrational and lifeless creatures. Because they are easily
understood from the universal basic law of virtue . . . they do not call for a
special part of the law of nature.
§205 One of the ethical duties is, as will be shown, the obligation to pru-
dence. Now, universal and useful rules of prudence can be given, which can be
used with all other ends, even those to which one has no obligation. These
must also be treated in moral theory. They do not, however, belong to the law
of nature. . . .

Chapter II: Of the End of Human Life

§208 The end of the world, as far as it concerns humans, is this: through
their common free efforts they increase the virtue in their souls, exercise it
and strengthen it, and consequently have permission to use the goods of the
world, with no detriment to virtue, for satisfaction and pleasure, whereupon
they shall be translated into another life in which the virtuous will be com-
pletely happy but the disobedient will be punished and in which the punish-
ments as well as the rewards will be in proportion to the virtue or vice. . . .
§210 We ask now about God's final objective ends. These must be made so
that they can know the world and enjoy it, because otherwise many goods that
could be enjoyed would exist in vain. Now only rational enjoyment counts as
true enjoyment. Hence the world must be made for rational minds, among
which humans belong. . . . A posteriori we find no others except humans on
earth. . . . So humans are God's final objective ends, and at least the earth
was created for their sake.
§211 . . . God's formal end for humans must be something served through
their free acts. We understand this a posteriori because God made men with
free will. The necessity thereof can be inferred a priori because otherwise the
world would be pointless in God's view. For it would be as if God himself did
everything. . . .
§212 We learn further a posteriori that God's end for humans must be
something that should be reached through their common efforts. For God
made men sociable, so that one always needs the help of another. . . .
§213 God's main goal in this life is virtue. . . . For in any world there must
be free acts. Further, God necessarily wills that these be directed in accor-
dance with virtue, upon which reward or punishment follows. Because of his
goodness, however, God wants rational minds to be happy. These assertions
fit together only if God first puts rational minds in the world in conditions in
which they can exercise free virtue, and afterward distributes happiness in
proportion to virtue. . . .
§216 . . . If virtue were not the end, it would have to be knowledge of
truth, or happiness. But knowledge cannot be the main goal. For the under-
standing, in accordance with its nature, can only be for the sake of the will,
that is, for an active being to be enabled through it to achieve certain ends.
582 Christian August Crusius
Happiness in this life also cannot be God's goal. For the arrangement of the
world is quite unsuited to this end. We are born with mere capacities. Nature
brings us the things we need raw and not manufactured; she hides her trea-
sures and mysteries from us. We can do nothing without sour toil and work.
What can we conclude except that the creator's aim is that we should make
,

ourselves toil and that humans should possess only as much readiness of wit
and as much satisfaction in worldly goods as they acquire through their own
strivings? And because God must desire that these strivings be directed in
accordance with perfection, we see that virtue is the goal of human life. And
anyone, in any walk of life, no matter what sort of work he does, can strive
toward this and serve it. . . .
§218 The divine end for humans goes further than this present life, and the
soul of man is immortal. [This is proved as follows:]
§220 We have shown, moreover, that God must reward all goodness in
proportion to its amount and punish all wickedness in due proportion. Experi-
ence shows that this happens not at all or only rarely in the present life; so
there must be another, which he has destined for the revelation of his reward-
ing and punishing justice. Because the rewards and punishments must be
endless, the other life must be a condition of real immortality. . . .
§221 . . . Do not be surprised that I have derived [immortality] from purely
moral grounds. These are the only ones fit for such a proof. Immortality
cannot be derived from the essence of the soul. For because our soul once did
not live, we see that life is contingent in it. . . .

Chapter III: On the Virtuous Direction of the Spirit

§239 We have the capacity to love God and . . . we owe him the highest
possible love. . . .
§240 Accordingly, the love of God above all things is the main virtue from
which all others must flow. Obedience considered in itself is still an indetermi-
nate duty, merely the formal aspect of virtue. Where virtue is really to exist,
there must also be a material aspect. The highest material virtue is thus the
love of God, which belongs to obedience as its first determination and, taken
with it, constitutes the determinate basic essence of virtue. The love of God
makes obedience voluntary, as obedience makes the love of God into a true
virtue. We can thus grasp the determinate concept of virtue as a disposition to
love God as our highest ruler above all things and to recognize ourselves as
bound to this.

THE LAW OF NATURE

Chapter 1: Of the Law of Nature in General

§362 We speak now of the law of nature in the narrower sense, which is the
core of natural duties of men toward other men. . . . The readiness to observe
one's duties toward other men is called justice in the narrower sense.
 Guide to Rational Living 583

§363 That there is a law of nature . . . is clear from this. God wills that we
always should do what is in accordance with the perfection of God, our own
being, and all other creatures, including also the connections he has made
among them, and do it out of obedience to his will. Consequently, we have to
follow this rule also in our acts and omissions concerning other humans.
§364 From this we see from what grounds we must derive the law of na-
ture. . . . we must consider the connection God has made among humans.
This consists first of sociability, that is, of that constitution of their condition
because of which their ends must be reached by common effort. . . . The
natural connection of men consists further in their having a natural love of
mankind and in their being unable to live satisfactorily outside human society.
There is finally another natural connection . . . by means of which humans
must take their origin from other humans through birth.
§365 From this there comes immediately the following basic law: We are
obligated [schuldig] (1) because of the love we owe to God, truly to love all
men, because they are loved by God and are seen as the final end. For
because we owe God the greatest possible love, we must also love those who
are loved by him, simply because they are loved by him. Otherwise there
would be no striving in love to make the ends of the beloved our own and to
become as much as possible like the beloved, which would contradict love. To
just this duty there is also an obligation [ Verbindlichkeit] of prudence, because
we make our own lives pleasant in this way and make others inclined to serve
us. All men are (2) obligated to live socially. . . . From these two it follows (3)
that men are obligated to provide comradely services to one another out of
upright love, indeed, from a love grounded on love of, and obedience to,
God, as all men are God's final end. Hence it comes with their perfection that
we should not view their welfare merely as a means for us but that we should
will it as a final end, and also that we should love them. . . . For if love is not
the motive for comradely services, they become uncertain. . . . Finally, .. .
we are (4) obligated to observe everything else that is in accordance with the
connection of men and their physical dependence on one another, from which
the duties of parents and children to one another will follow.
§366 If all men were virtuous and had the same earnestness in striving, all
would be equally loved by God. Then we would have to love all equally.
Because this is not so, even though the love of man that we owe is grounded
on love to God, we must love each by so much more as each is loved by God
for his virtue. Yet this much remains in addition, that we should see all as
absolute ends of God and really love them, and we should accord natural
rights to all equally; that is, we should conduct ourselves toward all as we — if
we put ourselves in their places — would think we could demand with right.
For these duties do not arise from the character of men but from their es-
sence. And that is the meaning of the saying that one should love all humans
as oneself. Love is taken, then, in a broader sense, as a mere "inclination to
serve the well-being of those we love, in which sense there is also a love of
oneself. We are then in two senses bound to love all as ourselves. First, it
584 Christian August Crusius
should happen that -- with just the same sort of inclination to serve their
greatest good as we have to forward our own — we should view their welfare
not as a mere means but as itself an end, because we want our own welfare in
the same way. . . . Second, we should accord all men certain rights, those to
which we would think ourselves justified if we were now in their position,
under the condition that we judge this rightly and impartially. . . .
§368 We have up to now shown how the main duties of natural law can be
derived from grounds through clear arguments. But because not all men have
the acuteness for this and the disunity among scholars is itself very great .. .
on this account the drive of conscience has been implanted in us as a ground of
knowledge of natural law a posteriori. We have, as a result, a natural sensa-
tion of what is right and proper, which does us good service with its quickness
in judging moral matters. But because the conscience, like other basic drives,
can err, we must transform its feelings, as far as possible, into clear conclu-
sions or at least beware lest self-love or other corrupt inclinations make us
partial.
§372 I know well that some think that the law of nature need not rest on the
will of God, but only on the social nature of man and his perfection and
happiness. This would have the advantage that it would bind the atheist as
well as the believer. But if one tries to do this, one must ground the obliga-
toriness of the rules of the law of nature on their being the sole or best means
to our own welfare and the continuing increase of our perfection. Now this is
indeed true. They are the sole means for the universal welfare of humankind,
and they are also the surest means for the welfare of individuals separately.
And to that extent an atheist must admit such rules as the nature of things
themselves and his own essential ends make binding. But one must not on that
account leave God and the obligatoriness of his will out of the law of nature.
We may indeed always note the obligation to which mere prudence would put
us under the rules of natural law. But if one were to give this out as the sole
obligation to them, the rules would cease to be true laws. And as soon as they
cease to be so, even the obligation of prudence will not block all the loopholes
in particular cases. I noted earlier that one might allow that it would be for the
best if all men observed the rules of natural law but that because few 3 do so,
one must go with the times, and as the saying is, a single swallow does not
make a summer. One can often bring this objection against the duties of
justice and honesty to others, and through special individual circumstances it
can often really seem as if by practicing certain injustices one would take the
certain [good] instead of the uncertain. . . . Admittedly, things do not always
go well for vicious people, but they are not always good for the virtuous
either. And one would probably find more examples of people making good
through falsehood and injustice than through strict virtue. At worst, one can
only lose one's life, and if that is really the end of everything, one will not
mind much. Loopholes like these cannot be blocked except through the cer-
tainty of divine command, and our obligation toward it, and through the
unalterable justice of God, which will be revealed in due time. . . .
 Further Reading 585

Editor's Notes
1. Crusius could not rely on an established vocabulary for the moral notions he is
trying to elaborate. For example, Crusius's paragraph here would read more
colloquially if the word "obligation" were substituted for "indebtedness," but I
have tried to give the reader some sense of Crusius's own problems by carefully
distinguishing "indebtedness" from "obligation."
2. Principle through which we can come to know.
3. Die wenigsten. literally "the fewest."

Further Reading
Crusius has not been studied much, and most of what has been written about him is in
German. Lewis White Beck, Early German Philosophy (Cambridge. Mass.: Harvard
University Press. 1969), chap. 16, discusses his epistemological and metaphysical
views. Crusius's importance to the development of Kant's ethics is analyzed in Josef
Schmucker, Die Urspriinge der Ethik Kants (Meisenheim am Glan, West Germany:
Verlag Anton Hain KG, 1961). The only full study of Crusius's own ethics of which 1
know is Magdelene Benden, Christian August Crusius: Wille and Verstand als Prin-
zipien des Handelns (Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, 1972), which has a good bibliography.
 Richard Price

Introduction

Richard Price was a Welsh Dissenting minister who, after writing a major work in
moral philosophy, made important contributions to understanding of the statistics
involved in life insurance, was active in the political and economic debates of his time,
and returned to philosophy to carry on a debate with Joseph Priestley about free will.
He was born in 1723, and he died in 1791. One of his last works was a defense of the
French Revolution, which prompted Edmund Burke's impassioned attack on it, the
Reflections on the Revolution in France. Price had earlier written in favor of the
American colonies in the dispute between them and Great Britain. His political de-
fense of the rights of individuals to determine the course of their own lives is of a piece
with his philosophical defense of free will and individual agency and with his religious
sense of the importance of each person's responsibility for his or her own actions.
Price's Review of the Principal Questions in Morals, first published in 1758 and
revised for later editions in 1769 and 1787, is one of the most remarkable of British
eighteenth-century treatises on ethics, bringing to some of the major controversies of
the time a new degree of sophistication and insight. It opens with a long attack on
Locke's claim that all ideas must come from sensation or reflection, contending that
the mind can be the source of ideas not derived from experience. The epistemological
involvement was forced on Price by the moral and religious positions he aimed to
defend. He believed that if we grant Locke's epistemology, there may be no way to
avoid the Lockean conclusion that morality is simply the result of God's arbitrary
command. And this, Price held, destroys the possibility of considering that God has
any comprehensible moral character, thereby ruling out any justification of God's ways
of treating us.
An opposition to voluntarism by means of an appeal to a rationalist epistemology
was not new. Price had read Cudworth and Clarke as well as the sentimentalist opposi-
tion to them. He added some new arguments in favor of the rationalist claim that
morality derives from reason rather than from feeling, and he spelled out more fully
than his predecessors did a way in which rationalists could understand the motivation
to act as our moral knowledge tells us we should. Price did not deny feeling a role in
morality. Like Shaftesbury he held that we all take right action to be morally beautiful,
and he interpreted this response as emotional. But, he argued, moral feeling is based
on cognitive awareness of the rightness of an action. It is a feeling that necessarily
arises when we see that an act is one that ought to be done. It is not simply an arbitrary
response due to our animal nature, which might have been otherwise. And although
the feeling of the beauty of an action helps move us to do it, moral knowledge taken by

586
 Introduction 587

itself is capable of giving us a sufficient motive for action. No additional motive, and
certainly no appeal to sanctions, is required. Our intellectual nature is active, not
simply contemplative. God gave us the capacity for moral feeling to assist reason, not
to be a substitute for it.
The intellectualist is always in danger of making morality so independent of God
that God's very existence becomes a matter of little moment to morality. Price's view
of the relations between virtue and happiness enabled him to guard against that
danger. Virtue, he insisted, cannot be reduced to following a single rule or principle.
"How unreasonable," Price exclaimed in a Butlerian vein, "is that love of uniformity
and simplicity which inclines men thus to seek them where it is so difficult to find
them" (Review, chap. 7). According to Price, there are many intuitively evident
principles that we are to obey. Benevolence is one of them, but so are truthfulness,
piety, justice, and others. Hence "it is not to be conceived, that promoting the happi-
ness of others should comprehend the whole of our duty." If virtue tends to produce
happiness in general, it has other tendencies as well. And if virtue need not make
others happy in every case, still less is it guaranteed to make its possessor happy in this
life. But there is a God, and we know something of his character. He sees the very
same moral truths that we see, and he has no temptation to act against them. Hence
God is benevolent, and our happiness is the reason he created the world. But God is
also just, and so we may infer that he rewards those who are deserving. Because he
does not do so on earth, we can be assured that he will do so elsewhere. If this does
not suffice to prove immortality, it at least opens the way to the revealed truth of the
matter. And this enables us to reflect with joy, Price stated, "that as certainly as God
exists, all is well."
Who, then, are the deserving? They are those who do as they ought simply because
it is what they ought to do. Sensation and feeling are as incapable of explaining all of
morality as they are of accounting for all of knowledge. Moral action must originate
from us as free, self-determining rational agents. It must show that we see what is right
and choose to do it because it is so. Action from feeling cannot have this character.
Price did not suppose that people are born ready to act virtuously. For him the moral
life is a life of education and discipline, a painful process in which we may either
develop virtue within ourselves or fail to do so. Our eternal happiness is at stake, but
we can attain it only if we become devoted to duty. Price's philosophical version of
Christian morality is as stern in its way as was the older Calvinist version of his
forebears. Obedience to law because it is the law is what is required. The eternal law is
an expression of God's nature, as God's will is, and so in doing our duty as such, we
are obeying God, albeit not in the way that Locke and the Calvinists thought we could
do so.
Price's views of the unanalyzability of obligation and of the psychology of dutiful
action are thus as much an articulation of a fundamental moral and religious outlook as
is his rejection of empiricist moral epistemology. They take Price further than his
rationalist predecessors had gone in showing what is involved in a morality of duty that
insists on the full responsibility of moral agents for their own character and actions. In
effect, Price worked out a striking account of what a morality looks like that in itself
has no need of a deity. His aim in doing so, however, was to show how we can be
independent, self-governing agents while acknowledging our dependence on a just and
loving God.
The following selections are from the edition of Price's Review of the Principal
Questions of Morals edited by D. D. Raphael (Oxford: Oxford University Press.
588 Richard Price
1948), reprinted by permission of the Oxford University Press. The text is that of the
third edition, 1787.

A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals

CHAPTER I: OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR IDEAS OF

RIGHT AND WRONG

Section 1: The Question Stated Concerning the Foundation of Morals

Some actions we all feel ourselves irresistibly determined to approve, and
others to disapprove. Some actions we cannot but think right, and others
wrong, and of all actions we are led to form some opinion, as either fit to be
performed or unfit; or neither fit nor unfit to be performed; that is, indiffer-
ent. What the power within us is, which thus determines, is the question to be
considered.
A late very distinguished writer, Dr. Hutcheson,' deduces our moral ideas
from a moral sense; meaning by this sense, a power within us, different from
reason, which renders certain actions pleasing and others displeasing to us. As
we are so made, that certain impressions on our bodily organs shall excite
certain ideas in our minds, and that certain outward forms, when presented to
us, shall be the necessary occasions of pleasure or pain. In like manner,
according to Dr. Hutcheson, we are so made, that certain affections and
actions of moral agents shall be the necessary occasions of agreeable or dis-
agreeable sensations in us, and procure our love or dislike of them. He has
indeed well shewn, that we have a faculty determining us immediately to
approve or disapprove actions, abstracted from all views of private advantage;
and that the highest pleasures of life depend upon this faculty. Had he pro-
ceeded no farther, and intended nothing more by the moral sense, than our
moral faculty in general, little room would have been left for any objections:
But then he would have meant by it nothing new, and he could not have been
considered as the discoverer of it. From the term sense, which he applies to it,
from his rejection of all the arguments that have been used to prove it to be an
intellectual power, and from the whole of his language on this subject; it is
evident, he considered it as the effect of a positive constitution of our minds,
or as an implanted and arbitrary principle by which a relish is given us for
certain moral objects and forms and aversion to others, similar to the relishes
and aversions created by any of our other senses. In other words; our ideas of
morality, if this account is right, have the same origin with our ideas of the
sensible qualities of bodies, the harmony of sounds, or the beauties of paint-
ing or sculpture; that is, the mere good pleasure of our Maker adapting the
mind and its organs in a particular manner to certain objects. Virtue (as those
who embrace this scheme say) is an affair of taste. Moral right and wrong,
signify nothing in the objects themselves to which they are applied, any more
than agreeable and harsh; sweet and bitter; pleasant and painful; but only
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 589
certain effects in us. Our perception of right, or moral good, in actions, is that
agreeable emotion, or feeling, which certain actions produce in us; and of
wrong, or moral evil, the contrary. They are particular modifications of our
minds, or impressions which they are made to receive from the contemplation
of certain actions, which the contrary actions might have occasioned, had the
Author of nature so pleased; and which to suppose to belong to these actions
themselves, is as absurd as to ascribe the pleasure or uneasiness, which the
observation of a particular form gives us, to the form itself. 'Tis therefore, by
this account, improper to say of an action, that it is right, in much the same
sense that it is improper to say of an object of taste, that it is sweet; or of pain,
that it is in fire.
The present enquiry therefore is: whether this be a true account of virtue or
not; whether it has or has not a foundation in the nature of its object; whether
right and wrong are real characters of actions, or only qualities of our minds;
whether, in short, they denote what actions are, or only sensations derived
from the particular frame and structure of our natures.

Section III: Of the Origin of Our Ideas of Moral Right and Wrong
Let us now return to our first enquiry, and apply the foregoing observations to
our ideas of right and wrong in particular.
'Tis a very necessary previous observation, that our ideas of right and wrong
are simple ideas,' and must therefore be ascribed to some power of immediate
perception in the human mind. He that doubts this, need only try to give
definitions of them, which shall amount to more than synonymous expres-
sions. Most of the confusion in which the question concerning the foundation
of morals has been involved has proceeded from inattention to this remark.
There are, undoubtedly, some actions that are ultimately approved, and for
justifying which no reason can be assigned; as there are some ends, which are
ultimately desired, and for chusing which no reason can be given. Were not
this true; there would be an infinite progression of reasons and ends, and
therefore nothing could be at all approved or desired.
Supposing then, that we have a power immediately perceiving right and
wrong: the point I am now to endeavour to prove, is, that this power is the
Understanding, agreeably to the assertion at the end of the first section. I cannot
but flatter myself, that the main obstacle to the acknowledgment of this, has
been already removed, by the observations made in the preceding section, to
shew that the understanding is a power of immediate perception, which gives
rise to new original ideas; nor do I think it possible that there should have been
many disputes on this subject had this been properly considered.
But, in order more explicitly and distinctly to evince what I have asserted
(in the only way the nature of the question seems capable of) let me,
First, Observe, that it implies no absurdity, but evidently may be true. It is
undeniable, that many of our ideas are derived from our INTUITION' of truth,
or the discernment of the natures of things by the understanding. This there-
590 Richard Price
fore may be the source of our moral ideas. It is at least possible, that right and
wrong may denote what we understand and know concerning certain objects,
in like manner with proportion and disproportion, connexion and repug-
nancy, contingency and necessity, and the other ideas before-mentioned. — I
will add, that nothing has been offered which has any tendency to prove the
contrary. All that can appear, from the objections and reasonings of the
Author of the Enquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, 4 is
only, what has been already observed, and what does not in the least affect the
point in debate: Namely, that the words right and wrong, fit and unfit, express
simple and undeniable ideas. But that the power perceiving them is properly a
sense and not reason; that these ideas denote nothing true of actions, nothing
in the nature of actions; this, he has left entirely without proof. He appears,
indeed, to have taken for granted, that if virtue and vice are immediately
perceived, they must be perceptions of an implanted sense. But no conclusion
could have been more hasty. For will any one take upon him to say, that all
powers of immediate perception must be arbitrary and implanted; or that
there can be no simple ideas denoting any thing besides the qualities and
passions of the mind? — In short. Whatever some writers have said to the
contrary, it is certainly a point not yet decided, that virtue is wholly factitious,
and to be felt not understood.
As there are some propositions, which, when attended to, necessarily deter-
mine all minds to believe them: And as (which will be shewn hereafter) there
are some ends, whose natures are such, that, when perceived, all beings
immediately and necessarily desire them: So is it very credible, that, in like
manner, there are some actions whose natures are such, that, when observed,
all rational beings immediately and necessarily approve them.
I do not at all care what follows from Mr. Hume's assertion, that all our
ideas are either impressions, or copies of impressions; or from Mr. Locke's
assertion that they are all deducible from SENSATION and REFLEXION. 3 The -

first of these assertions is, I think, destitute of all proof; supposes, when
applied in this as well as many other cases, the point in question; and, when
pursued to its consequences, ends in the destruction of all truth and the
subversion of our intellectual faculties. — The other wants much explication to
render it consistent with any tolerable account of the original of our moral
ideas: Nor does there seem to be any thing necessary to convince a person,
that all our ideas are not deducible from sensation and reflexion, except taken
in a very large and comprehensive sense, besides considering how Mr. Locke
derives from them our moral ideas. He places them among our ideas of
relations, and represents rectitude as signifying the conformity of actions to
some rules or laws; which rules or laws, he says, are either the will of God, the
decrees of the magistrate, or the fashion of the country: From whence it fol-
lows, that it is an absurdity to apply rectitude to rules and laws themselves; to
suppose the divine will to be directed by it; or to consider it as itself a rule and
law. But, it is undoubted, that this great man would have detested these
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 591
consequences; and, indeed, it is sufficiently evident, that he was strangely
embarrassed in his notions on this, as well as some other subjects. But,
Secondly, I know of no better way of determining this point, than by refer-
ring those who doubt it to common sense, and putting them upon considering
the nature of their own perceptions. — Could we suppose a person, who, when
he perceived an external object, was at a loss to determine whether he per-
ceived it by means of his organs of sight or touch; what better method could
be taken to satisfy him? There is no possibility of doubting in any such cases.
And it seems not more difficult to determine in the present case. . . .
It is true, some impressions of pleasure or pain, satisfaction or disgust,
generally attend our perceptions of virtue and vice. But these are merely their
effects and concomitants, and not the perceptions themselves, which ought no
more to be confounded with them, than a particular truth (like that for which
Pythagoras offered a Hecatomb)`' ought to be confounded with the pleasure
that may attend the discovery of it. Some emotion or other accompanies,
perhaps, all our perceptions; but more remarkably our perceptions of right
and wrong. And this, as will be again observed in the next chapter, is what has
led to the mistake of making them to signify nothing but impressions, which
error some have extended to all objects and knowledge; and thus have been
led into an extravagant and monstrous scepticism.
. . . if right and wrong denote effects of sensation, it must imply the great-
est absurdity to suppose them applicable to actions: That is; the ideas of right
and wrong and of action, must in this case be incompatible; as much so, as the
idea of pleasure and a regular form, or of pain and the collisions of bodies. —
All sensations, as such, are modes of consciousness, or feelings of a sentient
being, which must be of a nature totally different from the particular causes
which produce them. A coloured body, if we speak accurately, is the same
absurdity with a square sound. We need no experiments to prove that heat,
cold, colours, tastes, &c. are not real qualities of bodies; because the ideas of
matter and of these qualities, are imcompatible. — But is there indeed any
such incompatibility between actions and right? Or any such absurdity in
affirming the one of the other? — Are the ideas of them as different as the idea
of a sensation, and its cause?
On the contrary; the more we enquire, the more indisputable, I imagine, it
will appear to us, that we express necessary truth, when we say of some
actions, they are right; and of others, they are wrong. . . . In the last place; let
it be considered, that all actions, undoubtedly, have a nature. That is, some
character certainly belongs to them, and somewhat there is to be truly af-
firmed of them. This may be, that some of them are right, others wrong. But if
this is not allowed; if no actions are, in themselves, either right or wrong, or
any thing of a moral and obligatory nature, which can be an object to the
understanding; it follows, that, in themselves, they are all indifferent. This is
what is essentially true of them, and this is what all understandings, that
perceive right, must perceive them to be. But are we not conscious, that we
592 Richard Price
perceive the contrary? And have we not as much reason to believe the con-
trary, as to believe or trust at all our own discernment? .. .
The following important corollary arises from these arguments:
That morality is eternal and immutable.
Right and wrong, it appears, denote what actions are. Now whatever any
thing is, that it is, not by will, or decree, or power, but by nature and necessity.
Whatever a triangle or circle is, that it is unchangeably and eternally. It
depends upon no will or power, whether the three angles of a triangle and two
right ones shall be equal; whether the periphery of a circle and its diameter
shall be incommensurable; or whether matter shall be divisible, moveable,
passive, and inert. Every object of the understanding has an indivisible and
invariable essence; from whence arise its properties, and numberless truths
concerning it. Omnipotence does not consist in a power to alter the nature of
things, and to destroy necessary truth (for this is contradictory, and would
infer the destruction of all wisdom, and knowledge) but in an absolute com-
mand over all particular, external existences, to create or destroy them, or
produce any possible changes among them. — The natures of things then be-
ing immutable; whatever we suppose the natures of actions to be, they must
be immutably. If they are indifferent, this indifference is itself immutable, and
there neither is nor can be any one thing that, in reality, we ought to do rather
than another. The same is to be said of right and wrong, of moral good and
evil, as far as they express real characters of actions. They must immutably
and necessarily belong to those actions of which they are truly affirmed.
No will, therefore, can render any thing good and obligatory, which was not
so antecedently, and from eternity; or any action right, that is not so in itself;
meaning by action, not the bare external effect produced, but the ultimate
principle of conduct, or the determination of a reasonable being, considered
as arising from the perception of some motives and reasons and intended for
some end. According to this sense of the word action, whenever the principle
from which we act is different, the action is different, though the external
effects produced, may be the same. If we attend to this, the meaning and truth
of what I have just observed, will be easily seen.

CHAPTER II: OF OUR IDEAS OF THE BEAUTY AND

DEFORMITY OF ACTIONS
. . . Our intellectual faculties are in their infancy. The lowest degrees of
reason are sufficient to discover moral distinctions in general; because these
are self-evident, and included in the ideas of certain actions and characters.
They must, therefore, appear to all who are capable of making actions the
objects of their reflexion. But the extent to which they appear, and the accu-
racy and force with which they are discerned; and, consequently, their influ-
ence, must, so far as they are the objects of pure intelligence, be in proportion
to the strength and improvement of the rational faculties of beings and their
acquaintance with truth and the natures of things.
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 593
From hence, it must appear, that in men it is necessary that the rational
principle, or the intellectual discernment of right and wrong, should be aided
by instinctive determinations. — The dictates of mere reason, being slow, and
deliberate, would be otherwise much too weak. The condition in which we are
placed, renders many urgent passions necessary for us; and these cannot but
often interfere with our sentiments of rectitude. Reason alone, (imperfect as
it is in us) is by no means sufficient to defend us against the danger to which,
in such circumstances, we are exposed. Our Maker has, therefore, wisely
provided remedies for its imperfections; and established a due balance in our
frame by annexing to our intellectual perceptions sensations and instincts,
which give them greater weight and force.
In short. The truth seems to be that, "in contemplating the actions of moral
agents, we have both a perception of the understanding, and a feeling of the
heart; and that the latter, or the effects in us accompanying our moral percep-
tions, depend on two causes. Partly, on the positive constitution of our na-
tures: But principally on the essential congruity or incongruity between moral
ideas and our intellectual faculties."
It may be difficult to determine the precise limits between these two sources
of our mental feelings; and to say, how far the effects of the one are blended
with those of the other. It is undoubted, that we should have felt and acted
otherwise than we now do, if the decisions of reason had been left entirely
without support; nor is it easy to imagine how pernicious to us this would have
proved. On this account it cannot be doubted, but that both the causes I have
mentioned unite their influence: And the great question in morality is, not
whether we owe much to implanted senses and determinations; but whether
we owe all to them.
It was, probably, in consequence of not duly considering the difference I
have now insisted on between the honestum and pulchrum (the oixaiov and
xotkOv); 7 or of not carefully distinguishing between the discernment of the
mind, and the sensations attending it in our moral perceptions; that the Au-
thor of the Enquiry into the Original of Our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue, was
led to derive all our ideas of virtue from an implanted sense. Moral good and
evil, he every where describes, by the effects accompanying the perception of
them. The rectitude of an action is, with him, the same with its gratefulness to
the observer; and wrong, the contrary. But what can be more evident, than
that right and pleasure, wrong and pain, are as different as a cause and its
effect; what is understood, and what is felt; absolute truth, and its agreeable-
ness to the mind. — Let it be granted, as undoubtedly it must, that some
degree of pleasure is inseparable from the observation of virtuous actions: It is
just as unreasonable to infer from hence, that the discernment of virtue is
nothing distinct from the reception of this pleasure; as it would be to infer, as
some have done, that solidity, extension, and figure are only particular modes
of sensation; because attended, whenever they are perceived, with some sensa-
tions of sight or touch, and impossible to be conceived by the imagination
without them. . . .
594 Richard Price

CHAPTER OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR DESIRES

AND AFFECTIONS

. . . Each of our affections has its particular end. SELF-LOVE leads us to desire
and pursue private, and BENEVOLENCE, public happiness. AMBITION is the love
of fame, and distinction; and CURIOSITY is the love of what is new and uncom-
mon. The objects of these and all our other . affections, are desired for their
own sakes; and constitute so many distinct principles of action. What is not at
all desired for itself, but only as a means of something else, cannot, with any
propriety, be called the object of an affection. If, for example, according to
the opinion of some, we desire every thing merely as the means of our own
good, and with an ultimate view to it, then in reality we desire nothing but our
own good, and have only the one single affection of self-love.
As all moral approbation and disapprobation, and our ideas of beauty and
deformity, have been ascribed to an INTERNAL SENSE; meaning by this, not
"any inward power of perception," but "an implanted power, different from
reason"; so, all our desires and affections have, in like manner, been ascribed
to INSTINCT, meaning by instinct, not merely "the immediate desire of an ob-
ject," but "the reason of this desire; or an implanted propension." — The
former opinion I have already at large examined. I am now to examine the
latter.
"Is then all desire to be considered as wholly instinctive? Is it, in particular,
owing to nothing but an original bias given our natures, which they might have
either wanted or have received in a contrary direction; that we are at all
concerned for our own good, or for the good of others?"
As far as this enquiry relates to private good, we may without hesitation
answer in the negative. The desire of happiness for ourselves, certainly arises
not from INSTINCT. The full and adequate account of it, is, the nature of
happiness. It is impossible, but that creatures capable of pleasant and painful
sensations, should love and chuse the one, and dislike and avoid the other. No
being, who knows what happiness and misery are, can be supposed indifferent
to them, without a plain contradiction. Pain is not a possible object of desire;
nor happiness, of aversion. No power whatsoever can cause a creature, in the
agonies of torture and misery, to be pleased with his state, to like it for itself,
or to wish to remain so. Nor can any power cause a creature rejoicing in bliss
to dislike his state, or be afraid of its continuance. Then only can this happen,
when pain can be agreeable, and pleasure disagreeable; that is, when pain can
be pleasure; and pleasure, pain.
From hence I infer, that it is by no means, in general, an absurd method of
explaining our affections, to derive them from the natures of things and of
beings. For thus without doubt we are to account for one of the most impor-
tant and active of all our affections. To the preference and desire of private
happiness by all beings, nothing more is requisite than to know what it is.
public happiness? May not benevo-—"Andmaynothisbetru,likews,of
lence be essential to intelligent beings, as well as self-love to sensible beings?"
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 595
But to enter a little more minutely into the discussion of this point. Let us,
again, put the case of a being purely reasonable. It is evident, that (though by
supposition void of implanted byasses) he would not want all principles of
action, and all inclinations. It has been shown he would perceive VIRTUE, and
possess affection to it, in proportion to the degree of his knowledge. The
nature of happiness also would engage him to chuse and desire it for himself.
And is it credible that, at the same time, he would be necessarily indifferent
about it for others? Can it be supposed to have that in it, which would deter-
mine him to seek it for himself; and yet to have nothing in it, which could
engage him to approve of it for others? Would the nature of things, upon this
supposition, be consistent? Would he not be capable of seeing, that the happi-
ness of others is to them as important as his is to him; and that it is in itself
equally valuable and desirable, whoever possesses it?
Let us again enquire; would not this being assent to this proposition; "happi-
ness is better than misery?" — A definition has been asked of the word better
here. With equal reason might a definition be asked of the word greater, when
the whole is affirmed to be greater than a part. Both denote simple ideas, and
both truth. The one, what happiness is, compared with misery; and the other,
what the whole is, compared with a part. And a mind that should think happi-
ness not to be better than misery, would mistake as grossly, as a mind that
should believe the whole not to be greater than a part. It cannot therefore be
reasonably doubted, but that such a being, upon a comparison of happiness and
misery, would as unavoidably as he perceives their difference, prefer the one to
the other; and chuse the one rather than the other, for his fellow-beings. . . .
I cannot help, in this place, stepping aside a little to take notice of an
opinion already referred to; I mean, the opinion of those who will allow of no
ultimate object of desire besides private good. What has led to this opinion has
been inattention to the difference between desire, and the pleasure implied in
the gratification of it. The latter is subsequent to the former, and founded in
it: That is, an object, such as fame, knowledge, or the welfare of a friend, is
desired, not because we foresee that when obtained, it will give us pleasure;
but, vice versa; obtaining it gives us pleasure, because we previously desired it
or had an affection carrying us to it and resting in it. And, were there no such
affections, the very foundations of happiness would be destroyed. It cannot be
conceived, that obtaining what we do not desire, should be the cause of
pleasure to us; or that what we are perfectly indifferent to, and is not the end
of any affection, should, upon being possessed, be the means of any kind of
gratification.
Besides; if every object of desire is considered — merely as the cause of
pleasure; one would think, that, antecedently to experience, no one object
could be desired more than another; and that the first time we contemplated
fame, knowledge, or the happiness of others; or had any of the objects of our
natural passions and desires proposed to us, we must have been absolutely
indifferent to them, and remained so, till, by some means, we were convinced
of the connexion between them and pleasure.
596 Richard Price
For farther satisfaction on this point, nothing can be more proper than to
consider; whether, supposing we could enjoy the same pleasure without the
object of our desire, we should be indifferent to it. Could we enjoy pleasures
equivalent to those attending knowledge, or the approbation of others, with-
out them, or with infamy and ignorance, would we no longer wish for the one
or be averse to the other? Would a person lose all curiosity, and be indifferent
whether he stirred a step to gratify it, were he assured he should receive equal
sensations of pleasure by staying where he is? Did you believe, that the
prosperity of your nearest kindred, your friends or your country, would be the
means of no greater happiness to you, than their misery; would you lose all
love to them, and all desires of their good? — Would you not chuse to enjoy
the same quantity of pleasure with virtue, rather than without it? — An unbi-
assed mind must spurn at such enquiries; and any one, who would, in this
manner, examine himself, might easily find, that all his affections and appe-
tites (self-love itself excepted) are, in their nature, disinterested; and that,
though the seat of them be self and the effect of them the gratification of self
their direct tendency is always to some particular object different from private
pleasure, beyond which they carry not our view. So far is it from being true,
that, in following their impulses, we aim at nothing but our own interest; that
we continually feel them drawing us astray from what we know to be our
interest; and may observe men every day carried by them to actions and
pursuits, which they acknowledge to be ruinous to them.

CHAPTER V: OF THE RELATION OF MORALITY TO

THE DIVINE NATURE
. . . I shall conclude this chapter with a few observations on the general
grounds of belief and assent. These may be all comprehended under the three
following heads.
The first is immediate consciousness or FEELING. It is absurd to ask a reason
for our believing what we feel, or are inwardly conscious of. A thinking being
must necessarily have a capacity of discovering some things in this way. It is
from hence particularly we acquire the knowledge of our own existence, and
of the several operations, passions, and sensations of our minds. And it is also
under this head I would comprehend the information we derive from our
powers of recollection or memory.
The second ground of belief is INTUITION; by which I mean the mind's survey
of its own ideas, and the relations between them, and the notice it takes of
what is or is not true and false, consistent and inconsistent, possible and
impossible in the natures of things. It is to this, as has been explained at large
in the first chapter, we owe our belief of all self-evident truths; our ideas of the
general, abstract affections and relations of things; our moral ideas, and what-
soever else we discover, without making use of any process of reasoning. — It
is on this power of intuition, essential, in some degree or other, to all rational
minds, that the whole possibility of all reasoning is founded. To it the last
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 597
appeal is ever made. Many of its perceptions are capable, by attention, of
being rendered more clear; and many of the truths discovered by it, may be
illustrated by an advantageous representation of them, or by being viewed in
particular lights; but seldom will admit of proper proof. — Some truths there
must be, which can appear only by their own light, and which are incapable of
proof; otherwise nothing could be proved, or known; in the same manner as, if
there were no letters, there could be no words, or if there were no simple and
undefinable ideas, there could be no complex ideas. — I might mention many
instances of truths discernible no other way than intuitively, which learned men
have strangely confounded and obscured, by supposing them subjects of rea-
soning and deduction. One of the most important instances, the subject of this
treatise affords us; and another we have, in our notions of the necessity of a
cause of whatever begins to exist, and our general ideas of power and
connexion: And, sometimes, reason has been ridiculously employed to prove
even our own existence.' .. .

CHAPTER VI: OF FITNESS, AND MORAL OBLIGATION, AND THE

VARIOUS FORMS OF EXPRESSION, WHICH HAVE BEEN USED
BY DIFFERENT WRITERS IN EXPLAINING MORALITY

After the account that has been given of the nature and origin of our ideas of
morality; it will be easy to perceive the meaning of several terms and phrases,
which are commonly used in speaking on this subject.
Fitness and unfitness most frequently denote the congruity or incongruity,
aptitude or inaptitude of any means to accomplish an end. But when applied
to actions, they generally signify the same with right and wrong; nor is it often
hard to determine in which of these senses these words are to be understood.
It is worth observing, that fitness, in the former sense, is equally undefinable
with fitness in the latter; or, that it is as impossible to express, in any other
than synonymous words, what we mean, when we say of certain objects, "that
they have a fitness to one another; or are fit to answer certain purposes," as it
is when we say, "reverencing the Deity is fit, or beneficence is fit to be
practised." In the first of these instances, none can avoid owning the absurdity
of making an arbitrary sense the source of the idea of fitness, and of conclud-
ing that it signifies nothing real in objects, and that no one thing can be
properly the means of another. In both cases the term fit, signifies a simple
perception of the understanding.
Morally good and evil, reasonable and unreasonable, are epithets also com-
monly applied to actions, evidently meaning the same with right and wrong, fit
and unfit.
Approving an action is the same with discerning it to be right; as assenting to
a proposition is the same with discerning it to be true.
But Obligation is the term most necessary to be here considered; and to the
explication of it, the best part of this chapter shall be devoted.
Obligation to action, and rightness of action, are plainly coincident and
598 Richard Price
identical; so far so, that we cannot form a notion of the one, without taking in
the other. This may appear to any one upon considering, whether he can point
out any difference between what is right, meet or fit to be done, and what
ought to be done. It is not indeed plainer, that figure implies something
figured, solidity resistance, or an effect a cause, than it is that rightness implies
oughtness (if I may be allowed this word) or obligatoriness. And as easily can
we conceive of figure without extension, or motion without a change of place,
as that it can be fit for us to do an action, and yet that it may not be what we
should do, what it is our duty to do, or what we are under an obligation to
do. — Right, fit, ought, should, duty, obligation, convey, then, ideas necessar-
ily including one another. From hence it follows,
First, That virtue, as such, has a real obligatory power antecedently to all
positive laws, and independently of all will; for obligation, we see, is involved
in the very nature of it. To affirm, that the performance of that, which, to
omit, would be wrong, is not obligatory, unless conducive to private good or
enjoined by a superior power, is a manifest contradiction. It is to say, that it is
not true, that a thing is what it is; or that we are obliged to do what we ought
to do; unless it be the object of a command, or, in some manner, privately
useful. — If there are any actions fit to be done by an agent, besides such as
tend to his own happiness, those actions, by the terms, are obligatory, indepen-
dently of their influence on his happiness. — Whatever it is wrong to do, that it
is our duty not to do, whether enjoined or not by any positive law. — I cannot
conceive of any thing much more evident than this. — It appears, therefore,
that those who maintain that all obligation is to be deduced from positive
laws, the Divine will, or self-love, assert what (if they mean any thing contrary
to what is here said) implies, that the words right and just stand for no real and
distinct characters of actions; but signify merely what is willed and com-
manded, or conducive to private advantage, whatever that be; so that any
thing may be both right and wrong, morally good and evil, at the same time
and in any circumstances, as it may be commanded or forbidden by different
laws and wills; and any the most pernicious effects will become just, and fit to
be produced by any being, if but the smallest degree of clear advantage or
pleasure may result to him from them.
Those who say, nothing can oblige but the will of God, generally resolve the
power of this to oblige to the annexed rewards and punishments. And thus, in
reality, they subvert entirely the independent natures of moral good and evil;
and are forced to maintain, that nothing can oblige, but the prospect of
pleasure to be obtained, or pain to be avoided. If this be true, it follows that
vice is, properly, no more than imprudence; that nothing is right or wrong, just
or unjust, any farther than it affects self-interest; and that a being, indepen-
dently and completely happy, cannot have any moral perceptions. The just-
ness of these inferences cannot be denied by one, who will attend to the
coincidence here insisted on between obligation and virtue.
But to pursue this point farther; let me ask, would a person who either
believes there is no God, or that he does not concern himself with human
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 599
affairs, feel no moral obligations, and therefore not be at all accountable?
Would one, who should happen not to be convinced, that virtue tends to his
happiness here or hereafter, be released from every bond of duty and moral-
ity? Or, would he, if he believed no future state, and that, in any instance,
virtue was against his present interest, be truly obliged, in these instances, to
be wicked? — These consequences must follow, if obligation depends entirely
on the knowledge of the will of a superior, or on the connexion between
actions and private interest. —
Another observation worthy our notice in this place, is, that rewards and
punishments suppose, in the very idea of them, moral obligation, and are
founded upon it. They do not make it, but enforce it. They are the sanctions of
virtue, and not its efficients. A reward supposes something done to deserve it,
or a conformity to obligation subsisting previously to it; and punishment is
always inflicted on account of some breach of obligation. Were we under no
obligations, antecedently to the proposal of rewards and punishments, it
would be a contradiction to suppose us subjects capable of them. — A person
without any light besides that of nature, and supposed ignorant of a future
state of rewards and punishments and the will of the Deity, might discover
these by reasoning from his natural notions of morality and duty. But were the
latter dependent on the former, and not vice versa; this could not be said, nor
should we have any principles left, from which to learn the will of the Deity,
and the conditions of his favour to us.
Secondly, From the account given of obligation, it follows that rectitude is a
law as well as a rule to us; that it not only directs, but binds all, as far as it is
perceived. — With respect to its being a rule, we may observe, that a rule of
action signifying some measure or standard to which we are to conform our
actions, or some information we possess concerning what we ought to do,
there can, in this sense, be no other rule of action; all besides, to which this
name can be properly given, implying it, or signifying only helps to the discov-
ery of it. To perceive or to be informed how it is right to act, is the very notion
of a direction to act. And it must be added, that it is such a direction as implies
authority, and which we cannot disregard or neglect without remorse and
pain. Reason is the guide, the natural and authoritative guide of a rational
being. Where he has no discernment of right and wrong, there, and there
only, is he (morally speaking) free. But where he has this discernment, where
moral good appears to him, and he cannot avoid pronouncing concerning an
action, that it is fit to be done, and evil to omit it; here he is tied in the most
strict and absolute manner, in bonds that no power in nature can dissolve, and
from which he can at no time, or in any single instance, break loose, without
offering the most unnatural violence to himself; without making an inroad
into his own soul, and immediately pronouncing his own sentence.
Thirdly, From the account given of obligation, it appears how absurd it is to
enquire, what obliges us to practise virtue? as if obligation was no part of the
idea of virtue, but something adventitious and foreign to it; that is, as if what
was due, might not be our duty, or what was wrong, unlawful; or as if it might
600 Richard Price
not be true, that what it is fit to do we ought to do, and that what we ought to
do, we are obliged to do. — To ask, why are we obliged to practise virtue, to
abstain from what is wicked, or perform what is just, is the very same as to
ask, why we are obliged to do what we are obliged to do? — It is not possible to
avoid wondering at those, who have so unaccountably embarrassed them-
selves, on a subject that one would think was attended with no difficulty; and
who, because they cannot find any thing in virtue and duty themselves, which
can induce us to pay a regard to them in our practice, fly to self-love, and
maintain that from hence alone are derived all inducement and obligation.
Fourthly, From what has been observed, it may appear, in what sense
obligation is ascribed to God. It is no more than ascribing to him the percep-
tion of rectitude, or saying, that there are certain ends, and certain measures
in the administration of the world, which he approves, and which are better to
be pursued than others. — Great care, however, should be taken, what lan-
guage we here use. Obligation is a word to which many persons have affixed
several ideas, which should by no means be retained when we speak of God.
Our language and our conceptions, whenever he is the subject of them, are
always extremely defective and inadequate, and often very erroneous. —
There are many who think it absurd and shocking to attribute any thing of
obligation or law to a being who is necessarily sufficient and independent, and
to whom nothing can be prior or superior. How, I conceive, we are to frame
our apprehensions on this subject, has already, in some measure, appeared. It
should, methinks, be enough to satisfy such persons, that the obligations
ascribed to the Deity arise entirely from and exist in his own nature; and that
the eternal, unchangeable LAW, by which it has been said, he is directed in all
his actions, is no other than HIMSELF; his own infinite, eternal, all perfect
understanding.
Fifthly, What has been said also shews us, on what the obligations of reli-
gion and the Divine will are founded. They are plainly branches of universal
rectitude. Our obligation to obey God's will means nothing, but that obedi-
ence is due to it, or that it is right and fit to comply with it. What an absurdity
is it then, to make obligation subsequent to the Divine will, and the creature of
it? For why, upon this supposition, does not all will oblige equally? If there be
any thing which gives the preference to one will above another; that, by the
terms, is moral rectitude.

CHAPTER VIII: OF THE PRINCIPLE OF ACTION

IN A VIRTUOUS AGENT

In further explaining and proving what I have now in view, it will be proper to
shew, "that the perception of right and wrong does excite to action, and is
alone a sufficient principle of action"; after which we shall be better prepared
for judging, "how far, without it, there can be practical virtue."
Experience, and the reason of the thing, will, if we attentively consult them,
soon satisfy us about the first of these points. All men continually feel, that
 A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals 601
the perception of right and wrong excites to action; and it is so much their
natural and unavoidable sense that this is true, that there are few or none,
who, upon having it at first proposed to them, would not wonder at its being
questioned. There are many supposable cases and circumstances, in which it is
impossible to assign any other reason of action. Why would we, all circum-
stances on both sides being the same, help a benefactor rather than a stranger;
or one to whom we had given promises, and made professions of kindness,
rather than one to whom we were under no engagements? Why would any
good being chuse such methods to accomplish his end as were consistent with
faithfulness and veracity, -rather than such as implied deceit and falsehood;
though he knew the latter to be equally safe, or, in a great degree, even more
safe, more easy and expeditious? — Is it only for our own sakes, or out of a
view to public utility, that we obey and honour the Deity? — How are we to
account for a man's refraining from secret fraud, or his practising truth,
sincerity, equity, justice, and honour, in many particular instances of their
interfering, or seeming to interfere, with private and publick good, as well as
with his strongest natural desires? — Let any one, for example, try what rea-
sons he can find from benevolence or self-interest, why an honest man,
though in want, though sure of being never suspected, would not secure a
good estate, ease and plenty to himself, and relief and aid to his neighbours,
by secreting or interpolating a will by which it of right devolved on a worthless
person, already sufficiently provided for, and who, in all likelihood, would use
it only to make himself and others miserable? What could influence, in such
and many other like circumstances, besides a sense of duty and honesty? Or
what other universal motive can there be to the practice of justice?
But further, it seems extremely evident, that excitement belongs to the very
ideas of moral right and wrong, and is essentially inseparable from the appre-
hension of them. The account in a former chapter of obligation, is enough to
shew this. — When we are conscious that an action is fit to be done, or that it
ought to be done, it is not conceivable that we can remain uninfluenced, or
want a motive to action. It would be to little purpose to argue much with a
person, who would deny this; or who would maintain, that the becomingness
or reasonableness of an action is no reason for doing it; and the immorality or
unreasonableness of an action, no reason against doing it. An affection or
inclination to rectitude cannot be separated from the view of it.* The knowl-
* Those who own, that an action may not be less right, though certain to produce no overbalance
of private pleasure; and yet assert that nothing, but the prospect of this to be obtained, can
influence the will, must also maintain, that the mere rightness of an action, or the consideration
that it is tit to he done, apart from the consideration of the pleasure attending or following it,
would leave us quite uninclined, and indifferent to the performance or omission of it. This is so
inconceivable, that those whose principles oblige them to admit it. cannot, one would think.
really mean by right and wrong the same with the rest of mankind. That, supposing virtue to
denote any thing distinct from pleasure and independent of it. it is possible to conceive, that a
virtuous action may not produce an overbalance of private pleasure; or. which answers the
purpose as well, that an agent may believe this of an action to he done by him, which yet he
does not the less consider as virtuous, it would be trifling to say any thing to prove: But this it is
necessary those, whose opinion I have now in view, should deny.
602 Richard Price
edge of what is right, without any approbation of it, or concern to practise it,
is not conceivable or possible. And this knowledge will certainly be attended
with correspondent, actual practice, whenever there is nothing to oppose it.
Why a reasonable being acts reasonably; why he has a disposition to follow
reason, and is not without aversion to wrong; why he chuses to do what he
knows he should do, and cannot be wholly indifferent, whether he abstains
from that which he knows is evil and criminal, and not to be done, are ques-
tions which need not, and which deserve not to be answered.
Instincts, therefore, as before observed in other instances, are not neces-
sary to the choice of ends. The intellectual nature is its own law. It has,
within itself, a spring and guide of action which it cannot suppress or reject.
Rectitude is itself an end, an ultimate end, an end superior to all other ends,
governing, directing and limiting them, and whose existence and influence
depend on nothing arbitrary. It presides over all. Every appetite and faculty,
every instinct and will, and all nature are subjected to it. To act from affec-
tion to it, is to act with light, and conviction, and knowledge. But acting
from instinct is so far acting in the dark, and following a blind guide. Instinct
drives and precipitates; but reason commands. The impulses of instinct we
may resist, without doing any violence to ourselves. Our highest merit and
perfection often consist in this. The dictates of reason we can, in no instance,
contradict, without a sense of shame, and giving our beings a wound in their
most essential and sensible part. The experience we have of the operations
of the former, is an argument of our imperfection, and meanness, and low
rank. The other prevails most in the higher ranks of beings. It is the chief
glory of God, that he is removed infinitely from the possibility of any other
principle of action.
It being therefore apparent that the determination of our minds concerning
the nature of actions as morally good or bad, suggests a motive to do or avoid
them; it being also plain that this determination or judgment, though often
not the prevailing, yet is always the first, the proper, and most natural and
intimate spring and guide of the actions of reasonable beings: Let us now
enquire, whether it be not further the only spring of action in a reasonable
being, as far as he can be deemed morally good and worthy; whether it be not
the only principle from which all actions flow which engage our esteem of the
agents; or, in other words, whether virtue be not itself the end of a virtuous
agent as such.
If we consider that alone as most properly done by an agent, which he
designs to do, and that what was no way an object of his design is not strictly
imputable to him, or at least cannot give him any claim to merit or praise, it
will follow that he cannot be properly said to practise virtue who does not
design to practise it, to whom it is no object of regard, or who has it not at all
in his view. It seems indeed as evident as we can wish any thing to be, that an
action which is under no influence or direction from a moral judgment, cannot
be in the practical sense moral; that when virtue is not pursued or intended,
there is no virtue in the agent. Morally good intention, without any idea of
 Further Reading 603
moral good, is a contradiction. To act virtuously is to obey or follow reason:
But can this be done without knowing and designing it?
But it may be asked, "is not Benevolence a virtuous principle? And do we
not approve all actions proceeding from it?" — I answer, Benevolence, it has
been shewn, is of two kinds, rational and instinctive. Rational benevolence
entirely coincides with rectitude, and the actions proceeding from it, with the
actions proceeding from a regard to rectitude. And the same is to be said of all
those affections and desires, which would arise in a nature as intelligent. It is
not possible that endeavours to obtain an end which, as reasonable, we cannot
but love and chuse, should not be by reason approved; or that what is necessar-
ily desirable to all beings, should not be also necessarily right to be pursued.
But instinctive benevolence is no principle of virtue, nor are any actions
flowing merely from it virtuous. As far as this influences, so far something else
than reason and goodness influences, and so much I think is to be subtracted
from the moral worth of any action or character. This observation agrees
perfectly with the common sentiments and determinations of mankind. Wher-
ever the influence of mere natural temper or inclination appears, and a par-
ticular conduct is known to proceed from hence, we may, it is true, love the
person, as we commonly do the inferior creatures when they discover mild-
ness and tractableness of disposition; but no regard to him as a virtuous agent
will arise within us.

Editor's Notes
1. Much of Price's argument is directed against the moral philosophy of Francis
Hutcheson, whose work is represented in selections earlier in this book.
2. Like Hutcheson, Price distinguished between simple and complex ideas, without
arguing for or explaining the distinction.
3. Price explained what he meant by "intuition" in Chapter V.
4. Francis Hutcheson.
5. Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, I.I.i.; Locke, An Essay Concerning Human
Understanding, 11.1.2.
6. A hecatomb is a sacrifice to the gods of a hundred cattle, or any similarly large
offering of living animals. Pythagoras is traditionally said to have offered a
hecatomb in thanks for his discovery that the square of the hypotenuse of a right
triangle equals the sum of the squares of the two sides.
7. The just or decent and the beautiful or lovely. Price claimed that the Romans and
Greeks made the distinction he is making in this chapter.
8. The third ground of belief is argument, which Price thought we use when intuition
fails us, a very Cartesian view.

Further Reading
The only collected edition of Price's works is the one edited by William Morgan in
1815-16. Price's correspondence is now being edited by W. Bernard Peach and D. 0.
Thomas.
D. D. Raphael's "Introduction" to his edition of the Review of the Principal Ques-
tions of Morals, from which the selections here are taken, is a good survey of the main
604 Richard Price
points of Price's ethics. Three books offer analytic studies of Price's moral philosophy:
Lennart Aquist, The Moral Philosophy of Richard Price (Lund and Copenhagen:
CWK Gleerup and Ejnar Munksgaard, 1960); A. S. Cua, Reason and Virtue (Athens:
University of Ohio Press, 1966); and W. D. Hudson, Reason and Right (San Fran-
cisco: Freeman, 1970). Price is briefly discussed in the final chapter of Arthur Prior,
Logic and the Basis of Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1949); the entire
volume is useful in providing some of the context of Price's work. D. 0. Thomas, The
Honest Mind: The Thought and Work of Richard Price (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1977), provides a survey of the whole of Price's thought and contains a good
bibliography. Carl B. Cone, Torchbearer of Freedom: The Influence of Richard Price
on the Eighteenth Century (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1952), discusses
Price in relation to his times.
 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Introduction
In his later years Rousseau was proud of having been born a citizen of Geneva, but his
childhood there was unhappy. His mother died almost immediately after his birth on
June 28, 1712, and when he was sixteen he ran away from the home in which he had
not been given much attention. He was befriended by an older woman, Mme. de
Warens, through whose influence he converted to Roman Catholicism. While living
with her he read a great deal and studied music, at which he hoped to earn a living. In
1742 Rousseau made his way to Paris, where he eventually obtained a post as secretary
to the French ambassador to Venice. After losing his job because of a quarrel, he
returned to Paris. There he established a liaison with an uneducated woman by whom
he had five children, all of whom he sent to be raised in a home for foundlings.
In 1750 Rousseau won first prize in a contest with his Discourse on the Arts and
Sciences. An opera he had written was performed with great success as well. He had
been enlisted to write on music for the Encyclopedia, the repository of advanced
thinking and up-to-date science that became one of the principal vehicles of enlight-
ened throught, and he developed friendships with many of the other encyclopedists. In
1754 he rejoined his original Protestant church. The next years were a period of
intense creative activity. In 1755 Rousseau published a second discourse, On the Origin
of inequality; in 1761 his novel. Julie; or, The New Heloise, was published, winning
immense popular acclaim; and in 1762 there appeared both his book on education,
Emile, and his main political work, The Social Contract.
Emile was condemned for the dangerous religious views it contained, and conse-
quently Rousseau decided to flee Paris. For some years he led a restless life, haunted
by fears of persecution. He went to England at David Hume's invitation, only to
decide that Hume was part of a plot against him. He returned to France, finally settling
in Paris again. Isolated from the encyclopedists by his anxieties as well as by his
theories and protected by various wealthy patrons, Rousseau wrote an extraordinary
autobiography, Confessions (published posthumously), as well as autobiographical and
apologetic essays. After his death in 1778 he became a cult figure and popular hero,
and his works inspired many of those who instigated the French Revolution.
Was Rousseau a philosopher? It hardly seems to matter. He had carefully studied
the writers of modern natural law, and he knew much of the philosophy of his time. If
his own theories did not always appear in the form of philosophical treatises, they
nevertheless exerted a major influence on the philosophy that followed them. includ-
ing that of Kant. Rousseau had metaphysical and epistemological views, but his inter-
ests in moral personality and in politics were at the center of his thinking. In his fiction

605
606 Jean-Jacques Rousseau

as well as his more abstract writings, he presented a new vision of the self and its
changing relations to other individuals and to society. It is this vision that makes him a
significant figure for the history of moral thought.
Rousseau rejected the idea that the self exists and can be understood without taking
into account its social relations. Grotius, Hobbes, and Pufendorf all assumed that the
isolated individual in a state of nature has all the attributes needed to explain the
fundamentals of morality. But Rousseau found this absurd. Individuals in a state of
nature would be much more like animals than the natural lawyers supposed. Moved by
a form of love of self, which Rousseau called amour de soi, a concern for one's own
survival, such individuals would be mainly indifferent to the well-being of others and
would live without more than animal dependence on one another. In society as it now
is, people are, in addition, moved by another form of self-love, which Rousseau called
amour propre, a concern for recognition and esteem by others. Amour propre requires
moral relations, and until it develops, people are not ready for morality. Yet amour
propre may also lead to destructive forms of reliance on, and subordination to, others.
In the narrative Rousseau constructed of the passage from the state of nature to the
civilized state, he portrayed a transition to the kind of society he thought he saw
around him in France, in which the many are oppressed and miserable and the few are
powerful and contemptible. The question he raised is whether it is possible for there to
be any other kind of society.
The individual in the state of nature is good, Rousseau held; it is society that
corrupts, and only in society can we be corrupt. Yet he was not recommending a return
to the woods. The sexual relations through which the species is perpetuated are not the
only acceptable relations. What is needed is a form of society without involuntary
domination, a society that provides law and security and in which, therefore, authority
exists, yet in which authority does not involve the denial that everyone equally needs
and is entitled to recognition and esteem as a human being.
In the Social Contract Rousseau proposed his solution to this problem. He believed
that there can be a society in which everyone is free because everyone is subjected only
to laws that are self-imposed. The ruler would be someone we had ourselves willed to
rule. In obeying, therefore, we would be obeying only ourselves. Rousseau admired
the ancient classical republic and thought he saw its modern counterpart in his own
Geneva. (See the section "The Classical Republic" in the Introduction to this anthol-
ogy.) His moral psychology serves, among other things, the purpose of showing how
this form of government answers our need for society without subservience.
Whether Rousseau meant the narrative of the transformation from animallike
amour de soi to full-blown amour propre as a genuine historical report or as an
analytical device is less important than is his claim that morality comes into human
existence only when the material and social environment has brought human nature
into a condition that needs and can sustain it. Rousseau was interested in, and per-
plexed by, the relation between the physical aspect of our existence and the moral
aspect, and he did not profess to have a full account of their relations. Like Pufendorf,
he saw that morality is not something that can be directly derived from our physical
being or from anything else physical. Yet he did not think morality unnatural. On the
contrary, he insisted, as in Book IV of Emile, with a slap at Pufendorf's "moral
entities," that

the first voices of conscience arise out of the first movements of the heart . . . the first notions of
good and bad are born of the sentiments of love and hate. . . . justice and goodness are not
 The Origin and the Foundations of Inequality 607

merely abstract words — pure moral beings formed by the understanding — but are true affections
of the soul enlightened by reason, are hence only an ordered development of our primitive
affections.

The famous speech in Emile that Rousseau put in the mouth of a vicar from the
Swiss province of Savoy makes it clear that conscience is an essential part of our
nature. But Rousseau was not content with reasserting that ancient view. He wanted to
show as well how personal and social conditions must be structured in order that
conscience may speak to us effectively. What is needed is not individual book learning;
the simplest peasant can have a fully adequate conscience. What is needed is social
transformation. Rousseau's assumption is that it is at least possible for us to replace
our present corrupt society with one in which freedom and morality can be pervasive.
The following selections come from three different works: the first, from the Dis-
course on the Origin of Inequality; the second, from The Social Contract; and the third,
which is part of the speech by the Savoyard vicar, from Emile. For the first I have used
the translation in Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the First and Second Discourses, edited,
translated, and annotated by Victor Gourevitch. Copyright 1986 by Victor Goure-
vitch and reprinted by permission of Harper and Row, Publishers, Inc. The translation
of the second selection comes from Jean-Jacques Rousseau's On the Social Contract,
edited by Roger D. Masters and translated by Judith R. Masters (New York: St.
Martin's Press, and London: Macmillan). Copyright © 1978 by St. Martin's Press and
reprinted by permission of St. Martin's Press, Inc. The translation for the third selec-
tion is from Emile, or On Education, by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, introduction, transla-
tion, and notes by Allan Bloom. Foreword, introduction, English translation, and
notes, copyright 1979 by Basic Books, Inc. Reprinted by permission of Basic Books,
Inc., Publishers.

Discourse on the Origin and the Foundations of Inequality Among Men

[2] I conceive of two sorts of inequality in the human Species: one, which I
call natural or Physical, because it is established by Nature, and which consist
in differences of age, health, strengths of Body, and qualities of Mind or of
Soul; the other, which may be called moral, or political inequality because i
depends on a sort of convention and is established, or at least authorized by
Men's consent. It consists in the different Privileges which some enjoy to the
prejudice of the others, such as to be more wealthy, more honored, more
Powerful than they, or even to get themselves obeyed by them.
[4] What, precisely, then, is at issue in this Discourse? To mark, in the
progress of things, the moment when, Right replacing Violence, Nature was
subjected to Law; to explain by what succession of wonders the strong could
resolve to serve the weak, and the People to purchase the idea of repose at the
price of real felicity.
[5] The Philosophers who have examined the foundations of society have all
felt the necessity of going back as far as the state of Nature, but none of them
has reached it. Some have not hesitated to ascribe to Man in that state the
notion of the Just and the Unjust, without bothering to show that he had to
have that notion, or even that it would have been useful to him; Others have
 608 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
spoken of everyone's Natural Right to keep what belongs to him, without
explaining what they understood by belong; Others still, after first granting to
the stronger authority over the weaker, had Government arise straightway,
without giving thought to the time that must have elapsed before the language
of authority and of government could have meaning among Men: Finally, all
of them, continually speaking of need, greed, oppression, desires, and pride
transferred to the state of Nature ideas they had taken from society; they
spoke of Savage Man and depicted Civil man. It did not even enter the mind
of most of our philosophers to doubt that the state of Nature had existed,
whereas it is evident, from reading the Holy Scriptures, that the first Man,
having received some lights and Precepts immediately from God, was not
himself in that state, and that, if the Writings of Moses are granted the
credence owed them by every Christian Philosopher, it has to be denied that,
even before the Flood, Men were ever in the pure state of Nature, unless they
by some extraordinary Occurrence relapsed into it: a Paradox most embarrass-
ing to defend, and altogether impossible to prove.

PART I

[15] I see in any animal nothing but an ingenious machine to which nature
has given senses in order to wind itself up and, to a point, protect itself
against everything that tends to destroy or to disturb it. I perceive precisely
the same thing in the human machine, with this difference that Nature alone
ks does everything in the operations of the Beast, whereas man contributes to
i*.\) , his operations in his capacity as a free agent. The one chooses or rejects by
instinct, the other by an act of freedom; as a result the Beast cannot deviate
from the Rule prescribed to it even when it would be to its advantage to do
so, while man often deviates from it to his detriment. Thus a Pigeon would
starve to death next to a Bowl filled with the choicest meats, and a Cat atop
heaps of fruit or of grain, although each could very well have found nourish-
ment in the food it disdains if it had occurred to it to try some; thus dissolute
men abandon themselves to excesses which bring them fever and death;
because the Mind depraves the senses, and the will continues to speak when
Nature is silent.
[16]Every animal has ideas, since it has senses; up to a point it even combines
its ideas, and in this respect man differs from the Beast only as more does from
less: Some Philosophers have even suggested that there is a greater difference
between one given man and another than there is between a given man and a
given beast; it is, then, not so much the understanding that constitutes the
specific difference between man and the other animals, as it is his property of
being a free agent. Nature commands every animal, and the Beast obeys. Man
experiences the same impression, but recognizes himself free to acquiesce or to
resist; and it is mainly in the consciousness of this freedom that the spirituality
of his soul exhibits itself: for Physics in a way explains the mechanism of the
senses and the formation of ideas; but in the power of willing, or rather of
 The Origin and the Foundations of Inequality 609
choosing, and in the sentiment of this power are found purely spiritual acts
about which nothing is explained by the Laws of Mechanics.
[17] But even if the difficulties surrounding all these questions left some
room for disagreement about this difference between man and animal, there is
another very specific property that distinguishes between them and about
which there can be no argument, namely the faculty of perfecting oneself; a
faculty which, with the aid of circumstances, successively develops all the
others, and resides in us in the species as well as in the individual, whereas an
animal is at the end of several months what it will be for the rest of its life and
its species is after a thousand years what it was in the first year of those
thousand. Why is man alone liable to become an imbecile? Is it not that he
thus returns to his primitive state and that, whereas the Beast, which has
acquired nothing and also has nothing to lose, always keeps its instinct, man,
losing through old age or other accidents all that his perfectibility had made
him acquire, thus relapses lower than the Beast itself? It would be sad for us to
be forced to agree that this distinctive and almost unlimited faculty is the
source of all of man's miseries; that it is the faculty which, by dint of time,
draws him out of that original condition in which he would spend calm and
innocent days; that it is the faculty which, over the centuries, causes his enlight-
enment and his errors, his vices and his virtues to arise, and eventually makes
him his own and Nature's tyrant. It would be frightful to be obliged to praise as
a beneficent being him who first suggested to the inhabitant of the Banks of
the Orinoco the use of the Slats he ties to his Children's temples, and which
insure at least a measure of their imbecility and of their original happiness.
[35] Above all, let us not conclude with Hobbes' that because he has no
idea of goodness, man is naturally wicked, that he is vicious because he does
not know virtue, that he always refuses to those of his kind services which he
does not believe he owes them, or that by virtue of the right which he with
reason assigns himself to the things he needs, he insanely imagines himself to
be the sole owner of the entire Universe. Hobbes very clearly saw the defect
of all modern definitions of Natural right: but the conclusions he draws from
his own definition show that he understands it in a sense that is no less false.
By reasoning on the basis of the principles he established, this Author should
have said that, since the state of Nature is the state in which the care for our
own preservation is least prejudicial to the self-preservation of others, it
follows that this state was the most conducive to Peace and the best suited to
Mankind. He says precisely the contrary because he improperly included in
Savage man's care for his preservation the need to satisfy a multitude of
passions that are the product of Society and have made Laws necessary. A
wicked man is, he says a sturdy Child; it remains to be seen whether Savage
Man is a sturdy Child. Even if it were granted him that it is, what would he
conclude? That if this man were as dependent on others when he is sturdy as
he is dependent on them when weak, he would not stop at any kind of excess,
that he would strike his Mother if she were slow to give him the breast, that he
would strangle one of his young brothers if he inconvenienced him, that he
 610 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
would bite another brother's leg if he hurt or bothered him; but being sturdy
and being dependent are two contradictory assumptions in the state of Na-
ture; Man in weak when he is dependent, and he is emancipated before he is
sturdy. Hobbes did not see that the same cause that prevents the Savages from
using their reason, as our Jurists claim they do, at the same time prevents
them from abusing their faculties, as he himself claims they do; so that one
might say that Savages are not wicked precisely because they do not know
what it is to be good; for it is neither the growth of enlightenment nor the curb
of the Law, but the calm of the passions and the ignorance of vice that keep
them from evil-doing; so much more does the ignorance of vice profit these
than the knowledge of virtue profits those. There is, besides, another Principle
which Hobbes did not notice and which, having been given to man in order
under certain circumstances to soften the ferociousness of his vanity or of the
desire for self-preservation prior to the birth of vanity, tempers his ardor for
well-being with an innate repugnance to see his kind suffer. I do not believe I
need fear any contradiction in granting to man the only Natural virtue which
the most extreme Detractor of human virtues was forced to acknowledge. I
speak of Pity, a disposition suited to beings as weak and as subject to so many
ills as we are; a virtue all the more universal and useful to man as it precedes
the exercise of all reflection in him, and so Natural that the Beasts themselves
sometimes show evident signs of it. . . .
• [371 Mandeville2 sensed clearly that for all their morality, men would never

\ shave been anything but monsters if Nature had not given them pity in support
of reason: but he did not see that from this single attribute flow all the social
virtues he wants to deny men. Indeed, what are generosity, Clemency, Human-
ity, if not Pity applied to the weak, the guilty, or the species in general? Even
Benevolence and friendship, properly understood, are the products of a
steady pity focused on a particular object; for what else is it to wish that
someone not suffer, than to wish that he be happy? Even if it were true that
commiseration is nothing but a sentiment that puts us in the place of him who
suffers, a sentiment that is obscure and lively in Savage man, developed but
weak in Civil man., what difference could this idea make to the truth of what I
say, except to give it additional force? Indeed commiseration will be all the
more energetic in proportion as the Onlooking animal identifies more inti-
mately with the suffering animal: Now this identification must, clearly, have
been infinitely closer in the state of Nature than in the state of reasoning. It is
reason that engenders vanity, and reflection that reinforces it; It is what turns
man back upon himself; it is what separates him from everything that troubles
and afflicts him: It is Philosophy that isolates him; it is by means of Philosophy
that he secretly says at the sight of a suffering man, perish if you wish, I am
safe. Only dangers that threaten the entire society still disturb the Philoso-
pher's tranquil slumber, and rouse him from his bed. One of his kind can with
impunity be murdered beneath his window; he only has to put his hands over
his ears and to argue with himself a little in order to prevent Nature, which
rebels within him, from letting him identify with the man being assassinated.
 The Origin and the Foundatio s lneg ali 611
Savage man has not this admirable talent; and for want of wisdom and of
reason he is always seen to yield impetuously to the first sentiment of Human-
ity. In Riots, in Street-brawls, the Populace gathers, the prudent man with-
draws; it is the rabble, it is the Marketwomen who separate the combatants
and keep honest folk from murdering each other.
[38] It is therefore quite certain that pity is a natural sentiment which, by
moderating in every individual the activity of self-love, contributes to the
mutual preservation of the entire species. It is pity which carries us without
reflection to the assistance of those we see suffer; it is pity which, in the state
of Nature, takes the place of Laws, morals, and virtue, with the advantage
that no one is tempted to disobey its gentle voice; it is pity which will keep any
sturdy Savage from robbing a weak child or an infirm old man of his hard-won
subsistence if he hopes he can find his own elsewhere: It is pity which instead
of the sublime maxim of reasoned justice Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you inspires all Men with this other maxim of natural goodness,
much less perfect but perhaps more useful than the first: Do your good with
the least possible harm to others. It is, in a word, in this Natural sentiment
rather than in subtle arguments that one has to seek the cause of the repug-
nance to evil-doing which every human being would feel even independently
of the maxims of education. Although Socrates and Minds of his stamp may
be capable of acquiring virtue through reason, Mankind would long ago have
ceased to be if its preservation had depended solely on the reasonings of those
who make it up.
[39] With such sluggish passions and such a salutary curb, fierce rather than
wicked, and more intent on protecting themselves from the harm they might
suffer than tempted to do any to others, men were not prone to very danger-
ous quarrels: since they had no dealings of any kind with one another; since
they therefore knew neither vanity, nor consideration, nor esteem, nor con-
tempt; since they had not the slightest notion of thine and mine, or any
genuine idea of justice; since they looked on any violence they might suffer as
an easily repaired harm rather than as a punishable injury, and since they did
not even dream of vengeance except perhaps mechanically and on the spot
like the dog that bites the stone thrown at him; their disputes would seldom
have led to bloodshed if they had had no more urgent object than Food: but I
see one that is more dangerous, which it remains for me to discuss.' .. .
[46] Let us conclude that, wandering in the forests without industry, without
speech, without settled abode, without war, and without ties, without any
need of others of his kind and without any desire to harm them, perhaps even
without ever recognizing any one of them individually, subject to few passions
and self-sufficient, Savage man had only the sentiments and the enlighten-
ment suited to this state, that he sensed only his true needs, looked only at
what he believed it to be in his interest to see, and that his intelligence made
no more progress than his vanity. If he by chance made some discovery, he
was all the less in a position to communicate it as he did not recognize even his
Children. The art perished with the inventor; there was neither education nor
612 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
progress, generations multiplied uselessly; and as each one of them always
started at the same point, Centuries went by in all the crudeness of the first
ages. the species had already grown old, and man remained ever a child.

PART II

[1] The first man who, having enclosed a piece of ground, to whom it
occurred to say this is mine and found people sufficiently simple to believe
him, was the true founder of civil society. How many crimes, wars, murders,
how many miseries and horrors Mankind would have been spared by him
who, pulling up the stakes or filling in the ditch, had cried out to his kind:
Beware of listening to this impostor; you are lost if you forget that the fruits
are everyone's and the Earth no one's: But in all likelihood things had by then
reached a point where they could not continue as they were; for this idea of
property, depending as it does on many prior ideas which could only arise
successively, did not take shape all at once in man's mind: Much progress had
to have been made, industry and enlightenment acquired, transmitted, and
increased from one age to the next, before this last stage of the state of Nature
was reached. Let us therefore take up the thread earlier, and try to fit this
slow succession of events and of knowledge together from a single point of
view, and in their most natural order.
[18] But it must be noted that beginning Society and the already established
relations among men, required in them qualities different from those they
derived from their primitive constitution; that, since morality was beginning
to enter into human Actions and since, before there were Laws, everyone was
sole judge and avenger of the offenses he had received, the goodness suited to
the pure state of Nature was no longer the goodness suited to nascent Society;
that punishments had to become more severe in proportion as the opportuni-
ties to offend became more frequent, and that the terror of vengeance had to
take the place of the Laws' restraint. Thus, although men now had less endur-
ance, and natural pity had already undergone some modification, this period
in the development of human faculties, occupying a just mean between the
indolence of the primitive state and the petulant activity of our vanity, must
have been the happiest and the longest-lasting epoch. The more one reflects
on it, the more one finds that this state was the least subject to revolutions, the
best for man, and that he must have left it only by some fatal accident which,
for the sake of the common utility, should never have occurred. The example
of the Savages, almost all of whom have been found at this point, seems to
confirm that Mankind was made always to remain in it, that this state is the
genuine youth of the World, and that all subsequent progress has been so
many steps in appearance toward the perfection of the individual, and in
effect toward the decrepitude of the species.
[24] From the cultivation of land, its division necessarily followed; and from
property, once recognized, the first rules of justice necessarily followed: for in
order to render to each his own, it has to be possible for each to have some-
 The Origin and the Foundations of Inequality 613
thing; moreover, as men began to extend their views to the future and all saw
that they had some goods to lose, there was no one who did not have to fear
reprisals against himself for wrongs he might do to another. This origin is all
the more natural as it is impossible to conceive the idea of nascent property in
any other way than in terms of manual labor: for it is not clear what more than
his labor man can put into things he has not made, in order to appropriate
them. It is labor alone which, by giving the Cultivator the right to the product
of the land he has tilled, therefore also gives him a right to the land, at least
until the harvest, and so from one year to the next, which, as it makes for
continuous possession, is easily transformed into property. . . .
1271 Here, then, are all our faculties developed, memory and imagination
brought into play, vanity interested, reason become active, and the mind
almost at the limit of the perfection of which it is capable. Here are all natural
qualities set in action, each man's rank and fate set, not only in terms of the
quantity of goods and the power to benefit or harm, but also in terms of mind,
beauty, strength or skill, in terms of merit or talents, and, since these are the
only qualities that could attract regard, one soon had to have them or to affect
them; for one's own advantage one had to seem other than one in fact was. To
be and to appear became two entirely different things, and from this distinc-
tion arose ostentatious display, deceitful cunning, and all the vices that follow
in their train. Looked at in another way, man, who had previously been free
and independent, is now so to speak subjugated by a multitude of new needs
to the whole of Nature, and especially to those of his kind, whose slave he in a
sense becomes even by becoming their master; rich, he needs their services;
poor, he needs their help, and moderate means do not enable him to do
without them. He therefore constantly has to try to interest them in his fate
and to make them find their own profit, in deed or in appearance, in working
for his: which makes him knavish and artful with some, imperious and harsh
with the rest, and places him under the necessity of abusing all those he needs
if he cannot get them to fear him and does not find it in his interest to serve
them usefully. Finally, consuming ambition, the ardent desire to raise one's
relative fortune less out of genuine need than in order to place oneself above
others, instills in all men a black inclination to harm one another, a secret
jealousy which is all the more dangerous as it often assumes the mask of
benevolence in order to strike its blow in greater safety: in a word, competi-
tion and rivalry on the one hand, conflict of interests on the other, and alway
the hidden desire to profit at another's expense; all these evils are the first
effect of property, and the inseparable train of nascent inequality.
[29] Thus, as the most powerful or the most miserable claimed, on the basis
of their strength or of their needs, a kind of right to another's goods, equiva-
lent, according to them, to the right of property, the breakdown of equality
was followed by the most frightful disorder: thus the usurpations of the rich,
the Banditry of the Poor, the unbridled passions of all, stifling natural pity and
the still-weak voice of justice, made men greedy, ambitious, and wicked. A
perpetual conflict arose between the right of the stronger and the right of the
614 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
first occupant, which ended only in fights and murders. Nascent Society gave
way to the most horrible state of war: Mankind, debased and devastated, no
longer able to turn back or to renounce its wretched acquisitions, and working
only to its shame by the abuse of the faculties that do it honor, brought itself
to the brink of ruin.
Shocked by the novelty of the evil,
at once rich and miserable,
He seeks to escape his wealth, and
hates what he had just prayed for.'

[30] It is not possible that men should not at last have reflected on such a
miserable situation and the calamities besetting them. The rich, above all,
must soon have sensed how disadvantageous to them was a perpetual war of
which they alone bore the full cost, and in which everyone risked his life while
only some also risked goods. Besides, regardless of the color they might lend
to their usurpations, they realized well enough that they were only based on a
precarious and abusive right, and that since they had been acquired solely by
force, force could deprive them of them without their having any reason for
complaint. Even those whom industriousness alone had enriched could
scarcely base their property on better titles. No matter if they said: It is I who
built this wall; I earned this plot by my labor. Who set its boundaries for you,
they could be answered; and by virtue of what do you lay claim to being paid
at our expense for labor we did not impose on you? Do you not know that a
great many of your brothers perish or suffer from need for what you have in
excess, and that you required the express and unanimous consent of Mankind
to appropriate for yourself anything from the common subsistence above and
beyond your own? Lacking valid reasons to justify and sufficient strength to
defend himself; easily crushing an individual, but himself crushed by troops of
bandits; alone against all, and unable, because of their mutual jealousies, to
unite with his equals against enemies united by the common hope of plunder,
the rich, under the pressure of necessity, at last conceived the most well-
considered project ever to enter man's mind; to use even his attackers' forces
in his favor, to make his adversaries his defenders, to instill in them other
maxims and to give them different institutions, as favorable to himself as
natural Right was contrary to him.
[31] To this end, after exhibiting to his neighbors the horror of a situation
which armed all of them against one another, made their possessions as bur-
densome to them as their needs, and in which no one found safety in either
poverty or wealth, he easily invented specious reasons to bring them over to
his purpose: "Let us unite," he told them, "to protect the weak from oppres-
sion, restrain the ambitious, and secure for everyone the possession of what
belongs to him: Let us institute regulations of Justice and of peace to which all
are obliged to conform, which favor no one, and which in a way make up for
the vagaries of fortune by subjecting the powerful and the weak alike to
mutual duties. In a word, instead of turning our forces against ourselves, let us
 On the Social Contract 615

gather them into a supreme power that might govern us according to wise
Laws, protect and defend all the members of the association, repulse common
enemies, and keep us in eternal concord."
[32] Much less than the equivalent of this Discourse was needed to sway
crude, easily seduced men who, in any event, had too much business to sort
out among themselves to be able to do without arbiters, and too much gree
and ambition to be able to do for long without Masters. All ran toward thei
chains in the belief that they were securing their freedom; for while they had
enough reason to sense the advantages of a political establishment, they had
not enough experience to foresee its dangers; those most capable of anticipat-
ing the abuses were precisely those who counted on profiting from them, and
even the wise saw that they had to make up their mind to sacrifice one part of
their freedom to preserve the other, as a wounded man has his arm cut off to
save the rest of his Body.
[33] Such was, or must have been, the origin of Society and of Laws, which
gave the weak new fetters and the rich new forces, irreversibly destroyed
natural freedom, forever fixed the Law of property and inequality, trans-
formed a skillful usurpation into an irrevocable right, and for the profit of a
few ambitious men henceforth subjugated the whole of Mankind to labor,
servitude and misery. . . .

On the Social Contract

CHAPTER 1: SUBJECT OF THIS FIRST BOOK

Man was/is born free, and everywhere he is in chains.` One who believes
himself the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they. How did
this change occur? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? I believe I can
answer this question.
If I were to consider only force and the effect it produces, I would say that
as long as a people is constrained to obey and does so, it does well; as soon as
it can shake off the yoke and does so, it does even better. For in recovering its
freedom by means of the same right used to steal it, either the people is
justified in taking it back, or those who took it away were not justified in
doing so. But the social order is a sacred right that serves as a basis for all the
others. However, this right does not come from nature; it is therefore based
on conventions. The problem is to know what these conventions are. Before
coming to that, I should establish what I have just asserted.

CHAPTER II: ON THE FIRST SOCIETIES

The most ancient of all societies, and the only natural one, is that of the
family. Yet children remain bound to the father only as long as they need him
for self-preservation. As soon as this need ceases, the natural bond dissolves.
The children, exempt from the obedience they owed the father, and the
616 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
father, exempt from the care he owed the children, all return equally to
independence. If they continue to remain united, it is no longer naturally but
voluntarily, and the family itself is maintained only by convention.
This common freedom is a consequence of man's nature. His first law is to
attend to his own preservation, his first cares are those he owes himself; and as
soon as he has reached the age of reason, as he alone is the judge of the
proper means of preserving himself, he thus becomes his own master.
The family is therefore, so to speak, the prototype of political societies. The
leader is like the father, the people are like the children; and since all are born
equal and free, they only alienate their freedom for their utility. The entire
difference is that in the family, the father's love for his children rewards him
for the care he provides; whereas in the State, the pleasure of commanding
substitutes for this love, which the leader does not have for his people.
Grotiusb denies that all human power is established for the benefit of those
who are governed. He cites slavery as an example. His most persistent mode
of reasoning is always to establish right by fact. One could use a more rational
method, but not one more favorable to tyrants.
It is therefore doubtful, according to Grotius, whether the human race
belongs to a hundred men, or whether these hundred men belong to the
human race; and throughout his book he appears to lean toward the former
view. This is Hobbes's sentiment as well. Thus the human species is divided
into herds of livestock, each with its leader, who tends it in order to devour it.
. . . Before any of them, Aristotle too had said that men are not naturally
equal, but that some are born for slavery and others for domination.'
Aristotle was right, but he mistook the effect for the cause. Every man born
in slavery is born for slavery; nothing could be more certain. Slaves lose
everything in their chains, even the desire to be rid of them. They love their
servitude as the companions of Ulysses loved their brutishness." If there are
slaves by nature, therefore, it is because there have been slaves contrary to
nature. Force made the first slaves; their cowardice perpetuated them. . . .

CHAPTER III: ON THE RIGHT OF THE STRONGEST

The strongest is never strong enough to be the master forever unless he
transforms his force into right and obedience into duty. This leads to the right
of the strongest, a right that is in appearance taken ironically and in principle
really established. But won't anyone ever explain this word to us? Force is a
physical power. I do not see what morality can result from its effects. Yielding
to force is an act of necessity, not of will. At most, it is an act of prudence. In
what sense could it be a duty?
Let us suppose this alleged right for a moment. I say that what comes of it is
nothing but inexplicable confusion. For as soon as force makes right, the effect
changes along with the cause. Any force that overcomes the first one succeeds
to its right. As soon as one can disobey without punishment, one can do so
legitimately, and since the strongest is always right, the only thing to do is to
 On the Social Contract 617
make oneself the strongest. But what is a right that perishes when force ceases?
If it is necessary to obey by force, one need not obey by duty, and if one is no
longer forced to obey, one is no longer obligated to do so. It is apparent, then,
that this word right adds nothing to force. It is meaningless here.
Obey those in power. If that means yield to force, the precept is good, but
superfluous; I reply that it will never be violated. All power comes from God,
I admit, but so does all illness. Does this mean it is forbidden to call the
doctor? If a brigand takes me by surprise at the edge of a woods, must I not
only give up my purse by force; am I obligated by conscience to give it even if
I could keep it away? After all, the pistol he holds is also a power.
Let us agree, therefore, that might does not make right, and that one is only
obligated to obey legitimate powers. Thus my original question still remains.

CHAPTER IV: ON SLAVERY

Since no man has any natural authority over his fellow man, and since force
produces no right, there remain only conventions as the basis of all legitimate
authority among men.
If a private individual, says Grotius, can alienate his freedom and enslave
himself to a master, why can't a whole people alienate its freedom and subject
itself to a king? There are many equivocal words in this that need explaining,
but let us limit ourselves to the word alienate. To alienate is to give or to sell.
Now a man who makes himself another's slave does not give himself, he sells
himself, at the least for his subsistence. But why does a people sell itself? Far
from furnishing the subsistence of his subjects, a king derives his own only
from them, and according to Rabelais a king does not live cheaply. Do the
subjects give their persons, then, on condition that their goods will be taken
too? I do not see what remains for them to preserve.
It will be said that the despot guarantees civil tranquillity to his subjects.
Perhaps so, but what have they gained if the wars that his ambition brings on
them, if his insatiable greed, if the harassment of his ministers are a greater
torment than their dissensions would be? What have they gained, if this
tranquillity is one of their miseries? Life is tranquil in jail cells, too. Is that
reason enough to like them? The Greeks lived tranquilly shut up in the
Cyclops' cave as they awaited their turn to be devoured.
To say that a man gives himself gratuitously is to say something absurd and
inconceivable. Such an act is illegitimate and null, if only because he who does
so is not in his right mind. To say the same thing about an entire people is to
suppose a people of madmen. Madness does not make right.
Even if everyone could alienate himself, he could not alienate his children.
They are born men and free. Their freedom belongs to them; no one but
themselves has a right to dispose of it. Before they have reached the age of
reason, their father can, in their name, stipulate conditions for their preserva-
tion, for their well-being; but he cannot give them irrevocably and uncondition-
ally, because such a gift is contrary to the ends of nature and exceeds the rights
618 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
of paternity. For an arbitrary government to be legitimate, it would therefore
be necessary for the people in each generation to be master of its acceptance or
rejection. But then this government would no longer be arbitrary.
To renounce one's freedom is to renounce one's status as a man, the rights
of humanity and even its duties. There is no possible compensation for anyone
who renounces everything. Such a renunciation is incompatible with the na-
ture of man, and taking away all his freedom of will is taking away all morality
from his actions. Finally, it is a vain and contradictory convention to stipulate
absolute authority on one side and on the other unlimited obedience. Isn't it
clear that one is in no way engaged toward a person from whom one has the
right to demand everything, and doesn't this condition alone — without equiva-
lent and without exchange — entail the nullification of the act? For what right
would my slave have against me, since all he has belongs to me, and his right
being mine, my right against myself is a meaningless word?
With regard to the right of conquest, it has no basis other than the law of
the strongest. If war does not give the victor the right to massacre the van-
quished peoples, this right he does not have cannot establish the right to
enslave them. One only has the right to kill the enemy when he cannot be
made a slave. The right to make him a slave does not come, then, from the
right to kill him. It is therefore an iniquitous exchange to make him buy his
life, over which one has no right, at the cost of his freedom. By establishing
the right of life and death on the right of slavery, and the right of slavery on
the right of life and death, isn't it clear that one falls into a vicious circle?
Even assuming this terrible right to kill everyone, I say that a man enslaved
in war or a conquered people is in no way obligated toward his master, except
to obey for as long as he is forced to do so. In taking the equivalent of his life,
the victor has not spared it; rather than to kill him purposelessly, he has killed
him usefully. Therefore, far from the victor having acquired any authority over
him in addition to force, the state of war subsists between them as before; their
relation itself is its effect, and the customs of the right of war suppose that
there has not been a peace treaty. They made a convention, true; but that
convention, far from destroying the state of war, assumes its continuation.
Thus, from every vantage point, the right of slavery is null, not merely
because it is illegitimate, but because it is absurd and meaningless. These
words slavery and right are contradictory; they are mutually exclusive.
Whether it is said by one man to another or by a man to a people, the
following speech will always be equally senseless: 1 make a convention with
you that is entirely at your expense and entirely for my benefit; that 1 shall
observe for as long as 1 want, and that you shall observe for as long as 1 want.

CHAPTER V: THAT IT IS ALWAYS NECESSARY TO Go BACK

TO A FIRST CONVENTION

Even if I were to grant everything I have thus far refuted, the proponents of
despotism would be no better off. There will always be a great difference
 On the Social Contract 619
between subjugating a multitude and governing a society. If scattered men,
however many there may be, are successively enslaved by one individual, I
see only a master and slaves; I do not see a people and its leader. It is an
aggregation, if you wish, but not an association. It has neither public good nor
body politic. That man, even if he had enslaved half the world, is nothing but
a private individual. His interest, separate from that of the others, is still
nothing but a private interest. If this same man dies, thereafter his empire is
left scattered and without bonds, just as an oak tree disintegrates and falls into
a heap of ashes after fire has consumed it.
A people, says Grotius, can give itself to a king. According to Grotius, a
people is therefore a people before it gives itself to a king. This gift itself is a
civil act; it presupposes a public deliberation. Therefore, before examining
the act by which a people elects a king, it would be well to examine the act by
which a people becomes a people. For this act, being necessarily prior to the
other, is the true basis of society.
Indeed, if there were no prior convention, what would become of the
obligation for the minority to submit to the choice of the majority, unless the
election were unanimous; and where do one hundred who want a master get
the right to vote for ten who do not? The law of majority rule is itself an
established convention, and presupposes unanimity at least once.

CHAPTER VI: ON THE SOCIAL COMPACT

I assume that men have reached the point where obstacles to their self-
preservation in the state of nature prevail by their resistance over the forces
each individual can use to maintain himself in that state. Then that primitive
state can no longer subsist and the human race would perish if it did not
change its way of life.
Now since men cannot engender new forces, but merely unite and direct
existing ones, they have no other means of self-preservation except to form,
by aggregation, a sum of forces that can prevail over the resistance; set them
to work by a single motivation; and make them act in concert.
This sum of forces can arise only from the cooperation of many. But since
each man's force and freedom are the primary instruments of his self-
preservation, how is he to engage them without harming himself and without
neglecting the cares he owes to himself? In the context of my subject, this
difficulty can be stated in these terms:
"Find a form of association that defends and protects the person and goods
of each associate with all the common force, and by means of which each one,
uniting with all, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as be-
fore." This is the fundamental problem which is solved by the social contract.
The clauses of this contract are so completely determined by the nature of
the act that the slightest modification would render them null and void. So
that although they may never have been formally pronounced. they are every-
where the same, everywhere tacitly accepted and recognized, until the social
620 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
compact is violated, at which point each man recovers his original rights and
resumes his natural freedom, thereby losing the conventional freedom for
which he renounced it.
Properly understood, all of these clauses come down to a single one,
namely the total alienation of each associate, with all his rights, to the whole
community. For first of all, since each one gives his entire self, the condition is
equal for everyone, and since the condition is equal for everyone, no one has
an interest in making it burdensome for the others.
Furthermore, as the alienation is made without reservation, the union is as
perfect as it can be, and no associate has anything further to claim. For if
some rights were left to private individuals, there would be no common
superior who could judge between them and the public. Each man being his
own judge on some point would soon claim to be so on all; the state of
nature would subsist and the association would necessarily become tyranni-
cal or ineffectual.
Finally, as each gives himself to all, he gives himself to no one; and since
there is no associate over whom one does not acquire the same right one
grants him over oneself, one gains the equivalent of everything one loses, and
more force to preserve what one has.
If, then, everything that is not of the essence of the social compact is set
aside, one will find that it can be reduced to the following terms. Each of us
puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the
general will; and in a body we receive each member as an indivisible part of the
whole.
Instantly, in place of the private person of each contracting party, this act of
association produces a moral and collective body, composed of as many mem-
bers as there are voices in the assembly, which receives from this same act its
unity, its common self, its life, and its will. This public person, formed thus by
the union of all the others, formerly took the name City, and now takes that of
Republic or body politic, which its members call State when it is passive,
Sovereign when active, Power when comparing it to similar bodies. As for the
associates, they collectively take the name people; and individually are called
Citizens as participants in the sovereign authority, and Subjects as subject to
the laws of the State. But these terms are often mixed up and mistaken for one
another. It is enough to know how to distinguish them when they are used
with complete precision.

CHAPTER VII: ON THE SOVEREIGN

This formula shows that the act of association includes a reciprocal engage-
ment between the public and private individuals, and that each individual,
contracting with himself so to speak, finds that he is doubly engaged, namely
toward private individuals as a member of the sovereign and toward the
sovereign as a member of the State. But the maxim of civil right that no one
can be held responsible for engagements toward himself cannot be applied
 On the Social Contract 621
here, because there is a great difference between being obligated to oneself,
or to a whole of which one is a part.
It must further be noted that the public deliberation that can obligate all
of the subjects to the sovereign — due to the two different relationships in
which each of them is considered — cannot for the opposite reason obligate
the sovereign toward itself; and that consequently it is contrary to the nature
of the body politic for the sovereign to impose on itself a law it cannot
break. Since the sovereign can only be considered in a single relationship, it
is then in the situation of a private individual contracting with himself. It is
apparent from this that there is not, nor can there be, any kind of fundamen-
tal law that is obligatory for the body of the people, not even the social
contract. This does not mean that this body cannot perfectly well enter an
engagement toward another with respect to things that do not violate this
contract. For with reference to the foreigner, it becomes a simple being or
individual.
But the body politic or the sovereign, deriving its being solely from the
sanctity of the contract, can never obligate itself, even toward another, to do
anything that violates that original act, such as to alienate some part of itself
or to subject itself to another sovereign. To violate the act by which it exists
would be to destroy itself, and whatever is nothing, produces nothing.
As soon as this multitude is thus united in a body, one cannot harm one of
the members without attacking the body, and it is even less possible to harm
the body without the members feeling the effects. Thus duty and interest
equally obligate the two contracting parties to mutual assistance, and the
same men should seek to combine in this double relationship all the advan-
tages that are dependent on it.
Now the sovereign, formed solely by the private individuals composing it,
does not and cannot have any interest contrary to theirs. Consequently, the
sovereign power has no need of a guarantee toward the subjects, because it is
impossible for the body ever to want to harm all its members, and we shall see
later that it cannot harm any one of them as an individual. The sovereign, by
the sole fact of being, is always what it ought to be.
But the same is not true of the subjects in relation to the sovereign, which,
despite the common interest, would have no guarantee of the subjects' engage-
ments if it did not find ways to be assured of their fidelity.
Indeed, each individual can, as a man, have a private will contrary to or
differing from the general will he has as a citizen. His private interest can
speak to him quite differently from the common interest. His absolute and
naturally independent existence can bring him to view what he owes the
common cause as a free contribution, the loss of which will harm others less
than its payment burdens him. And considering the moral person of the State
as an imaginary being because it is not a man, he might wish to enjoy the
rights of the citizen without wanting to fulfill the duties of a subject, an
injustice whose spread would cause the ruin of the body politic.
Therefore, in order for the social compact not to be an ineffectual formula,
622 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
it tacitly includes the following engagement, which alone can give force to the
others: that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be constrained to
do so by the entire body; which means only that he will be forced to be free.
For this is the condition that, by giving each citizen to the homeland, guaran-
tees him against all personal dependence; a condition that creates the ingenu-
ity and functioning of the political machine, and alone gives legitimacy to civil
engagements which without it would be absurd, tyrannical, and subject to the
most enormous abuses.

CHAPTER VIII: ON THE CIVIL STATE

This passage from the state of nature to the civil state produces a remarkable
change in man, by substituting justice for instinct in his behavior and giving
his actions the morality they previously lacked. Only then, when the voice of
duty replaces physical impulse and right replaces appetite, does man, who
until that time only considered himself, find himself forced to act upon other
principles and to consult his reason before heeding his inclinations. Although
in this state he deprives himself of several advantages given him by nature, he
gains such great ones, his faculties are exercised and developed, his ideas
broadened, his feelings ennobled, and his whole soul elevated to such a point
that if the abuses of this new condition did not often degrade him beneath the
condition he left, he ought ceaselessly to bless the happy moment that tore
him away from it forever, and that changed him from a stupid, limited animal
into an intelligent being and a man.
Let us reduce the pros and cons to easily compared terms. What man loses
by the social contract is his natural freedom and an unlimited right to every-
thing that tempts him and that he can get; what he gains is civil freedom and
the proprietorship of everything he possesses. In order not to be mistaken
about these compensations, one must distinguish carefully between natural
freedom, which is limited only by the force of the individual, and civil free-
dom, which is limited by the general will; and between possession, which is
only the effect of force or the right of the first occupant, and property, which
can only be based on a positive title.
To the foregoing acquisitions of the civil state could be added moral free-
dom, which alone makes man truly the master of himself. For the impulse of
appetite alone is slavery, and obedience to the law one has prescribed for
oneself is freedom. But I have already said too much about this topic, and the
philosophic meaning of the word freedom is not my subject here.

CHAPTER IX: ON REAL ESTATE

. . . I shall end this chapter and this book with a comment that ought to serve
as the basis of the whole social system. It is that rather than destroying natural
equality, the fundamental compact on the contrary substitutes a moral and
legitimate equality for whatever physical inequality nature may have placed
 Emile 623
between men, and that although they may be unequal in force or in genius,
they all become equal through convention and by right.

Emile
After having thus deduced the principal truths that it mattered for me to know
from the impression of sensible objects and from the inner sentiment that
leads me to judge of causes according to my natural lights, I still must investi-
gate what manner of conduct I ought to draw from these truths and what rules
I ought to prescribe for myself in order to fulfill my destiny on earth according
to the intention of Him who put me there. In continuing to follow my method,
I do not draw these rules from the principles of a high philosophy, but find
them written by nature with ineffaceable characters in the depth of my heart. I
have only to consult myself about what I want to do. Everything I sense to be
good is good; everything I sense to be bad is bad. The best of all casuists is the
conscience; and it is only when one haggles with it that one has recourse to the
subtleties of reasoning. The first of all cares is the care for oneself. Neverthe-
less how many times does the inner voice tell us that, in doing our good at
another's expense, we do wrong! We believe we are following the impulse of
nature, but we are resisting it. In listening to what it says to our senses, we
despise what it says to our hearts; the active being obeys, the passive being
commands. Conscience is the voice of the soul; the passions are the voice of
the body. Is it surprising that these two languages often are contradictory?
And then which should be listened to? Too often reason deceives us. We have
acquired only too much right to challenge it. But conscience never deceives; it
is man's true guide. It is to the soul what instinct is to the body; he who follows
conscience obeys nature and does not fear being led astray. This point is
important [continued my benefactor, seeing that I was going to interrupt him].
Allow me to tarry a bit to clarify it.
All the morality of our actions is in the judgment we ourselves make of
them. If it is true that the good is good, it must be so in the depths of our
hearts as it is in our works, and the primary reward for justice is to sense that
one practices it. If moral goodness is in conformity with our nature, man could
be healthy of spirit or well constituted only to the extent that he is good. If it is
not and man is naturally wicked, he cannot cease to be so without being
corrupted, and goodness in him is only a vice contrary to nature. If he were
made to do harm to his kind, as a wolf is made to slaughter his prey, a humane
man would be an animal as depraved as a pitying wolf, and only virtue would
leave us with remorse.
Let us return to ourselves, my young friend! Let us examine, all personal
interest aside, where our inclinations lead us. Which spectacle gratifies us
more — that of others' torments or that of their happiness? Which is sweeter
to do and leaves us with a more agreeable impression after having done it — a
beneficent act or a wicked act? In whom do you take an interest in your
theaters? Is it in heinous crimes that you take pleasure? Is it to their authors
624 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
when they are punished that you give your tears? It is said that we are
indifferent to everything outside of our interest; but, all to the contrary, the
sweetness of friendship and of humanity consoles us in our suffering; even in
our pleasures we would be too alone, too miserable, if we had no one with
whom to share them. If there is nothing moral in the heart of man, what is the
source of these transports of admiration for heroic actions, these raptures of
love for great souls? What relation does this enthusiasm for virtue have to our
private interest? Why would I want to be Cato, 9 who disembowels himself,
rather than Caesar triumphant? Take this love of the beautiful from our
hearts, and you take all the charm from life. He whose vile passions have
stifled these delicious sentiments in his narrow soul, and who, by dint of self-
centeredness, succeeds in loving only himself, has no more transports. His icy
heart no longer palpitates with joy; a sweet tenderness never moistens his
eyes; he has no more joy in anything. This unfortunate man no longer feels,
no longer lives. He is already dead.
But however numerous the wicked are on the earth, there are few of these
cadaverous souls who have become insensitive, except where their own inter-
est is at stake, to everything which is just and good. Iniquity pleases only to
the extent one profits from it; in all the rest one wants the innocent to be
protected. One sees some act of violence and injustice in the street or on the
road. Instantly an emotion of anger and indignation is aroused in the depths of
the heart, and it leads us to take up the defense of the oppressed; but a more
powerful duty restrains us, and the laws take from us the right of protecting
innocence. On the other hand, if some act of clemency or generosity strikes
our eyes, what admiration, what love it inspires in us! Who does not say to
himself, "I would like to have done the same"? It is surely of very little
importance to us that a man was wicked or just two thousand years ago;
nevertheless, we take an interest in ancient history just as if it all had taken
place in our day. What do Catiline's crimes"' do to me? Am I afraid of being
his victim? Why, then, am I as horrified by him as if he were my contempo-
rary? We do not hate the wicked only because they do us harm, but because
they are wicked. Not only do we want to be happy; we also wish for the
happiness of others. And when this happiness does not come at the expense of
our own, it increases it. Finally, in spite of oneself, one pities the unfortunate;
when we are witness to their ills, we suffer from them. The most perverse are
unable to lose this inclination entirely. Often it puts them in contradiction with
themselves. The robber who plunders passers-by still covers the nakedness of
the poor, and the most ferocious killer supports a fainting man.
We speak of the cry of remorse which in secret punishes hidden crimes and
so often brings them to light. Alas, who of us has never heard this importu-
nate voice? We speak from experience, and we would like to stifle this tyranni-
cal sentiment that gives us so much torment. Let us obey nature. We shall
know with what gentleness it reigns, and what charm one finds, after having
hearkened to it, in giving favorable testimony on our own behalf. The wicked
man fears and flees himself. He cheers himself up by rushing outside of
 Emile 625
himself. His restless eyes rove around him and seek an object that is entertain-
ing to him. Without bitter satire, without insulting banter, he would always be
sad. The mocking laugh is his only pleasure. By contrast, the serenity of the
just man is internal. His is not a malignant laugh but a joyous one; he bears its
source in himself. He is as gay alone as in the midst of a circle. He does not
draw his contentment from those who come near him; he communicates it to
them.
Cast your eyes on all the nations of the world, go through all the histories.
Among so many inhuman and bizarre cults, among this prodigious diversity of
morals and characters, you will find everywhere the same ideas of justice and
decency, everywhere the same notions of good and bad. Ancient paganism
gave birth to abominable gods who would have been punished on earth as
villains and who presented a picture of supreme happiness consisting only of
heinous crimes to commit and passions to satisfy. But vice, armed with a
sacred authority, descended in vain from the eternal abode; moral instinct
repulsed it from the heart of human beings. While celebrating Jupiter's de-
bauches, they admired Xenocrates' continence." The chaste Lucretia ° wor-
shiped the lewd Venus. The intrepid Roman sacrificed to fear. He invoked the
god who mutilated his father, and he himself died without a murmur at his
own father's hand. The most contemptible divinities were served by the great-
est men. The holy voice of nature, stronger than that of the gods, made itself
respected on earth and seemed to relegate crime, along with the guilty, to
heaven.
There is in the depths of souls, then, an innate principle of justice and virtue
according to which, in spite of our own maxims, we judge our actions and
those of others as good or bad. It is to this principle that I give the name
conscience.
But at this word I hear the clamor of those who are allegedly wise rising on
all sides: errors of childhood, prejudices of education, they all cry in a chorus.
Nothing exists in the human mind other than what is introduced by experience,
and we judge a thing on no ground other than that of acquired ideas. They go
farther. They dare to reject this evident and universal accord of all nations.
And in the face of this striking uniformity in men's judgment, they go and look
in the shadows for some obscure example known to them alone — as if all the
inclinations of nature were annihilated by the depravity of a single people, and
the species were no longer anything as soon as there are monsters. But what is
the use of the torments to which the skeptic Montaigne" subjects himself in
order to unearth in some corner of the world a custom opposed to the notions
of justice? Of what use is it to him to give to the most suspect travelers the
authority he refuses to give to the most celebrated writers? Will some uncer-
tain and bizarre practices, based on local causes unknown to us, destroy the
general induction drawn from the concurrence of all peoples, who disagree
about everything else and agree on this point alone? 0 Montaigne, you who
pride yourself on frankness and truth, be sincere and true, if a philosopher can
be, and tell me whether there is some country on earth where it is a crime to
626 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
keep one's faith, to be clement, beneficent, and generous, where the good
man is contemptible and the perfidious one honored?
It is said that everyone contributes to the public good for his own interest.
But what then is the source of the just man's contributing to it to his preju-
dice? What is going to one's death for one's interest? No doubt, no one acts
for anything other than for his good; but if there is not a moral good which
must be taken into account, one will never explain by private interest anything
but the action of the wicked. It is not even likely that anyone will attempt to
go farther. This would be too abominable a philosophy — one which is embar-
rassed by virtuous actions, which could get around the difficulty only by
fabricating base intentions and motives without virtue, which would be forced
to vilify Socrates and calumniate Regulus." If ever such doctrines could
spring up among us, the voice of nature as well as that of reason would
immediately be raised against them and would never leave a single one of
their partisans the excuse that he is of good faith.
It is not my design here to enter into metaphysical discussions which are out
of my reach and yours, and which, at bottom, lead to nothing. I have already
told you that I wanted not to philosophize with you but to help you consult
your heart. Were all the philosophers to prove that I am wrong, if you sense
that I am right, I do not wish for more.
For that purpose I need only to make you distinguish our acquired ideas
from our natural sentiments; for we sense before knowing, and since we do
not learn to want what is good for us and to flee what is bad for us but rather
get this will from nature, by that very fact love of the good and hatred of the
bad are as natural as the love of ourselves. The acts of the conscience are not
judgments but sentiments. Although all our ideas come to us from outside,
the sentiments evaluating them are within us, and it is by them alone that we
know the compatibility or incompatibility between us and the things we ought
to seek or flee.
To exist, for us, is to sense; our sensibility is incontestably anterior to our
intelligence, and we had sentiments before ideas. Whatever the cause of our
being, it has provided for our preservation by giving us sentiments suitable to
our nature, and it could not be denied that these, at least, are innate. These
sentiments, as far as the individual is concerned, are the love of self, the fear
of pain, the horror of death, the desire of well-being. But if, as cannot be
doubted, man is by his nature sociable, or at least made to become so, he can
be so only by means of other innate sentiments relative to his species; for if we
consider only physical need, it ought certainly to disperse men instead of
bringing them together. It is from the moral system formed by this double
relation to oneself and to one's fellows that the impulse of conscience is born.
To know the good is not to love it; man does not have innate knowledge of it,
but as soon as his reason makes him know it, his conscience leads him to love
it. It is this sentiment which is innate.
Thus I do not believe, my friend, that it is impossible to explain, by the
consequences of our nature, the immediate principle of the conscience inde-
 Emile 627
pendently of reason itself. And were that impossible, it would moreover not
be necessary; for, those who deny this principle, admitted and recognized by
all mankind, do not prove that it does not exist but are satisfied by affirming
that it does not; so when we affirm that it does exist, we are just as well
founded as they are, and we have in addition the inner witness and the voice
of conscience, which testifies on its own behalf. If the first glimmers of judg-
ment dazzle us and at first make a blur of objects in our sight, let us wait for
our weak eyes to open up again and steady themselves, and soon we shall see
these same objects again in the light of reason as nature first showed them to
us. Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain. Let us limit ourselves to the
first sentiments that we find in ourselves, since study always leads us back to
them when it has not led us astray.
Conscience, conscience! Divine instinct, immortal and celestial voice, cer-
tain guide of a being that is ignorant and limited but intelligent and free;
infallible judge of good and bad which makes man like unto God; it is you
who make the excellence of his nature and the morality of his actions. With-
out you I sense nothing in me that raises me above the beasts, other than the
sad privilege of leading myself astray from error to error with the aid of an
understanding without rule and a reason without principle.
Thank heaven, we are delivered from all that terrifying apparatus of philoso-
phy. We can be men without being scholars. Dispensed from consuming our
life in the study of morality, we have at less expense a more certain guide in
this immense maze of human opinions. But it is not enough that this guide
exists; one must know how to recognize it and to follow it. If it speaks to all
hearts, then why are there so few of them who hear it? Well, this is because it
speaks to us in nature's language, which everything has made us forget. Con-
science is timid; it likes refuge and peace. The world and noise scare it; the
prejudices from which they claim it is born are its cruelest enemies. It flees or
keeps quiet before them. Their noisy voices stifle its voice and prevent it from
making itself heard. Fanaticism dares to counterfeit it and to dictate crime in
its name. It finally gives up as a result of being dismissed. It no longer speaks
to us. It no longer responds to us. And after such long contempt for it, to
recall it costs as much as banishing it did.
How many times in my researches have I grown weary as a result of the
coldness I felt within me! How many times have sadness and boredom, spread-
ing their poison over my first meditations, made them unbearable for me! My
arid heart provided only a languid and lukewarm zeal to the love of truth. I
said to myself, "Why torment myself in seeking what is not? Moral good is
only a chimera. There is nothing good but the pleasures of the senses." 0,
when one has once lost the taste for the pleasures of the soul, how difficult it is
to regain it! How much more difficult gaining it is when one has never had it!
If there existed a man miserable enough to be unable to recall anything he had
done in all his life which made him satisfied with himself and glad to have
lived, that man would be incapable of ever knowing himself; and for want of
feeling the goodness suitable to his nature, he would necessarily remain
628 Jean-Jacques Rousseau
wicked and be eternally unhappy. But do you believe there is a single man on
the whole earth depraved enough never to have yielded in his heart to the
temptation of doing good? This temptation is so natural and so sweet that it is
impossible always to resist it, and the memory of the pleasure that it once
produced suffices to recall it constantly. Unfortunately it is at first hard to
satisfy. One has countless reasons to reject the inclination of one's heart. False
prudence confines it within the limits of the human 1; countless efforts of
courage are needed to dare to cross those limits. To enjoy doing good is the
reward for having done good, and this reward is obtained only after having
deserved it. Nothing is more lovable than virtue, but one must possess it to
find it so. Virtue is similar to Proteus in the fable: when one wants to embrace
it, it at first takes on countless terrifying forms and finally reveals itself in its
own form only to those who did not let go. . . .
I shall never be able to conceive that what every man is obliged to know is
confined to books, and that someone who does not have access to these
books, or to those who understand them, is punished for an ignorance which
is involuntary. Always books! What a mania. Because Europe is full of books,
Europeans regard them as indispensable, without thinking that in three-
quarters of the earth they have never been seen. Were not all books written by
men? Why, then, would man need them to know his duties, and what means
had he of knowing them before these books were written? Either he will learn
these duties by himself, or he is excused from knowing them.

Editor's Notes
1. For Hobbes, see Part I of this anthology. Hobbes did not draw the conclusion that
Rousseau here attributes to him.
2. For Mandeville, see Part III of this anthology.
3. Rousseau here turned to a discussion of sexuality, distinguishing the physical from
the moral in the feeling of love. Physical desire is common to us all; the moral
aspect of love is a cultural artifact that functions to focus physical desire on one
person. It uses notions of beauty that the savage does not have; hence imagination
does not stir him, and his passions are much cooler than those of civilized men. It
is only in society that love or sexual desire leads men to fight. The fact that male
animals fight over females is due to biological facts about their breeding cycles that
do not apply to humans. Hence sexuality does not disprove Rousseau's thesis
concerning the state of nature.
4. Ovid, Metamorphoses, XI, pp. 127ff.
5. The original French can be translated as either "Man is born free" or "Man was
born free," and the translator signals this important ambiguity in the translation.
6. For Grotius, see Part I of this anthology. Grotius did not think that slavery is
prohibited by the laws of nature.
7. Aristotle, Politics, 1.i i, 1252a; I.v—vi, 1254a-1255b.
8. Rousseau was referring to a dialogue by Plutarch, in which one of Ulysses' com-
panions, turned into an animal by Circe, argues that animals' souls are more
disposed to virtue than human souls are.
9. Cato of Utica (95-46 a.c.E.), often held up as a model of how the Stoic sage
should live, committed suicide when faced with political defeat.
 Further Reading 629

10. Catiline, in the first century B.C.E., tried to start a revolution in order to save his
own fortunes.
11. Xenocrates was a philosopher, a late leader of the Platonic Academy in Athens.
12. Lucretia, wife of a Roman leader, was raped, told her husband, and then commit-
ted suicide.
13. For Montaigne, see the Prolegomena to this anthology.
14. Captured by Rome's enemies, Regulus was allowed to go to Rome to seek the
city's surrender. He went, advised the Romans to continue to fight, returned to his
captors, and was put to death.

Further Reading
Rousseau's works are readily available in many translations. The best edition in
French is that edited by Bernard Gagnebin and Marcel Reymond, Oeuvres Completes
(Paris: Bibliotheque de la Pleiade), four volumes of which have been published.
Several good biographical studies of Rousseau are available, among them F. C.
Green, J. J. Rousseau (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1955); and
James Miller, Rousseau, Dreamer of Democracy (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University
Press, 1984).
There is much difference of opinion about the proper interpretation of Rousseau's
thought. A good place to begin is N. J. H. Dent, Rousseau (Oxford: Blackwell Pub-
lisher, 1988), which concentrates on making philosophical sense of the texts from
which excerpts are given in this book. David Gauthier, "The Politics of Redemption,"
in J. MacAdam, M. Neumann, and G. Lafrance, Trent Rousseau Papers, Revue de
l'Universite de Ottawa 49 (1980), also gives a convincing systematic reconstruction of
Rousseau's philosophy, which the reader may wish to compare with Dent's. Ronald
Grimsley, The Philosophy of Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1973), is a
good introduction. Judith Shklar, Men and Citizens: A Study of Rousseau's Social
Theory (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1969), is a fine study with
a chapter on Rousseau's moral psychology. John Charvet, The Social Problem in the
Philosophy of Rousseau (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1974). is
brief and rather critical of Rousseau, Roger D. Masters, The Political Philosophy of
Rousseau (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1968), is a comprehensive re-
view of its subject, and C. W. Hendel, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Moralist, 2nd ed.
(Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1962), a study of Rousseau's development, covers all of
his work concerning the individual and society.
Patrick Riley, The General Will Before Rousseau (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-
sity Press, 1986), discusses the prehistory of one of Rousseau's central ideas. Rousseau
figures largely in two volumes by Lester Crocker: An Age of Crisis, Man and World in
Eighteenth Century French Thought (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1959), and Nature and Culture, Ethical Thought in the French Enlightenment (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1963). The reader will need to consult the
index in each volume to find the specific places where Rousseau is discussed.
 Thomas Reid

Introduction

Reid was one of the creators of the Scottish Enlightenment. Born in 1710. he was a
younger contemporary of Hutcheson's, a year older than Hume and a dozen years
older than Adam Smith, but he outlived them all. We are apt to forget his close
intellectual and personal connections with many of these figures, because he published
his major works very late in his life. Reid studied in Aberdeen, was ordained in the
Presbyterian church in 1731, and from 1737 until 1751 served as parish minister in the
small town of New Machar. Thereafter he was a university professor, first at King's
College, Aberdeen, and from 1764 on at Glasgow. His Inquiry into the Human Mind
on the Principles of Common Sense (1764) is an epistemological study, directed against
Hume, of the nature of sensation and its role in our perception of the external world.
Throughout his career Reid was actively involved in various societies of intellectuals
and literary men trying to cope with Scotland's economic and social problems. An
effective and conscientious teacher, he published after his retirement in 1780 much of
the material from one course that he regularly gave as Essays on the Intellectual Powers
of Man in 1785 and material from another as Essays on the Active Powers of the Human
Mind in 1788. He died in 1796.
Unlike any of the other philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment, Reid became
the founder of a school. A number of Scottish thinkers from the end of the eighteenth
until the middle of the nineteenth century carried forward Reid's views in Britain. For
several decades after his death, he had enthusiastic disciples in France. And in the
United States his philosophy of common sense became almost an orthodoxy in eastern
universities, holding sway for half a century or more.
It was as a critic of Hume (admired by Hume himself) that Reid made his first major
appearance in print, and it was as a critic of Hume that he was chiefly remembered for
a long time. Hume's fatal misstep in epistemology, Reid held, was one he was not
alone in taking. It had been taken by Descartes and by just about every other philoso-
pher since then. The error lay in believing that in perception we are immediately aware
only of something — sensations, impressions, or. as Reid usually said, ideas — in our
own mind. Ideas are supposed to "represent" external objects, but that thesis cannot
be defended, for we cannot get outside or beyond the ideas to compare them with what
they are supposed to represent. Consequently, we cannot support any claim to knowl-
edge of what is past, future, or even present, beyond the content of our immediate
awareness. Hume, Reid thought, was the first to see the full consequences of this
theory of perception, though Berkeley had drawn some of the drastic conclusions it
entails. In his Intellectual Powers, accordingly, Reid went to great lengths to attack the

630
 Introduction 631

representative theory of perception and to replace it with a view according to which,

although sensation does indeed play a role in giving us knowledge of the external
world, so does a rational faculty of judgment.
The judgments involved are themselves direct and untaught. Sensations serve as
natural signs. Our ability to understand them reflects our possession of principles that
enable us to know what the signs mean and thereby to acquire knowledge of the
external world. These are the principles of common sense concerning matters of fact.
They can be stated with more or less precision, but the only defense they need or can
be given is to show that attacks on them, such as Hume's, rest on untenable presupposi-
tions. Because they are first or ultimate principles, all reasoned argument rests on
them, and no positive proof is to be expected.
One of Hume's errors regarding morals, Reid believed, was akin to his basic error
regarding knowledge: He reduced moral judgments to feelings within the agent, thus
denying them any objective standing. In reply, Reid produced the earliest version of
some now well-known arguments against the "subjectivist" interpretation of the mean-
ing of moral language. He also went beyond criticizing Hume on the meaning of moral
terms. Avowedly an admirer of Bishop Butler's, Reid gave a far fuller exposition of the
kind of position Butler sketched, filling in details about the standing and the content of
moral principles as well as about the moral psychology needed to sustain the position.
Butler had not made a decisive response to the question of whether or not morality
lies within the domain of knowledge, but Reid, like Price, clearly opted for a positive
answer. The first principles of morals, he claimed, are self-evident, as are the first
principles of theoretical knowledge. Ordinary people know them and are able to apply
them. Like Butler, Reid did not think they could be reduced to any single principle. He
offered a list of them, not because his readers need the list as moral agents but because
spelling out what everyone will find obvious is part of the defense of the claim that the
principles really are self-evident.
Butler had said little about free will and moral motivation; in Essay IV of his Essays
on the Active Powers, Reid gave a defense (which there is insufficient space to include
here) of the commonsense belief in free will and sketched a psychology according to
which we can be moved to act simply by recognizing the validity of moral principles.
Reid abandoned the age-old view that if we are not moved to pursue what seems to us
to be good, we are either perverse or irrational. He held that we can be moved to act as
moral principles require, simply because we see them to be binding on us as rational
agents and not because we see the good that complying with them will bring about or
because we fear punishment if we fail to comply.
Reid thus believed that it is consonant with common sense to portray us as fully
capable of self-direction and self-motivation in morality. He did not think this was in
any way incompatible with the teachings of Christianity. (Reid was a devout Chris-
tian.) Although the point is not stressed in his writings, the belief that we were made
by the Christian God lies behind Reid's general reliance on human cognitive capaci-
ties. His confidence that there can be no conflict between the principle that one ought
to be concerned for one's own good on the whole and the principles requiring us to be
concerned for justice and the good of others rests in the end on the belief that God
made the moral world as harmonious as he made the physical world. And Reid's belief
in our competence as moral agents was also in keeping with his understanding of his
faith. God will hold us each accountable for acting as morality requires. Reid observed
that God must therefore have made it possible for us each to know, without any theory,
what those requirements are and to act accordingly. In his view we are being respon-
632 Thomas Reid
sive to God's highest demand on us when we choose freely to do what we see for
ourselves to be right. Reid worked out one of the clearest and most influential portray-
als of moral autonomy to emerge in the eighteenth century, in order to show how it is
that we can be what God wishes us to be.
The following excerpts are from the Essays on the Active Powers of the Human
Mind. I have eliminated some of the italicization of the early editions.

Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind

ESSAY II: OF THE WILL

Chapter II: Of the Influence of Incitements and Motives upon the Will
Thus, I think, it appears, that the common sense of men, which, in matters of
common life, ought to have great authority, has led them to distinguish two
parts in the human constitution, which have influence upon our voluntary
determinations. There is an irrational part, common to us with brute animals,
consisting of appetites, affections, and passions; and there is a cool and rational
part. The first, in many cases, gives a strong impulse, but without judgment,
and without authority. The second is always accompanied with authority. All
wisdom and virtue consist in following its dictates; all vice and folly in disobey-
ing them. We may resist the impulses of appetite and passion, not only without
regret, but with self-applause and triumph; but the calls of reason and duty can
never be resisted, without remorse and self-condemnation. . . .
The reason of explaining this distinction here is, that these two principles
influence the will in different ways. Their influence differs, not in degree only,
but in kind. This difference we feel, though it may be difficult to find words to
express it. We may perhaps more easily form a notion of it by a similitude.
It is one thing to push a man from one part of the room to another; it is a
thing of a very different nature to use arguments to persuade him to leave his
place, and go to another. He may yield to the force which pushes him, without
any exercise of his rational faculties; nay, he must yield to it, if he do not
oppose an equal or a greater force. His liberty is impaired in some degree;
and, if he has not power sufficient to oppose, his liberty is quite taken away,
and the motion cannot be imputed to him at all. The influence of appetite or
passion seems to me to be very like to this. If the passion be supposed
irresistible, we impute the action to it solely, and not to the man. If he had
power to resist, but yields after a struggle, we impute the action, partly to the
man, and partly to the passion.
If we attend to the other case, when the man is only urged by arguments to
leave his place, this resembles the operation of the cool or rational principle.
It is evident, that, whether he yields to the arguments or not, the determina-
tion is wholly his own act, and is entirely to be imputed to him. Arguments,
whatever be the degree of their strength, diminish not a man's liberty; they
may produce a cool conviction of what we ought to do, and they can do no
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 633
more. But appetite and passion give an impulse to act and impair liberty, in
proportion to their strength.
With most men, the impulse of passion is more effectual than bare convic-
tion; and, on this account, orators, who would persuade, find it necessary to
address the passions, as well as to convince the understanding; and, in all
systems of rhetoric, these two have been considered as different intentions of
the orator, and to be accomplished by different means.

ESSAY OF THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION

Part III: Of the Rational Principles of Action

Chapter I: There are rational principles of action in man

. . . Whatever we believe, we think agreeable to reason, and, on that
account, yield our assent to it. Whatever we disbelieve, we think contrary to
reason, and, on that account, dissent from it. Reason therefore is allowed to
be the principle by which our belief and opinions ought to be regulated.
But reason has been no less universally conceived to be a principle, by
which our actions ought to be regulated.
To act reasonably, is a phrase no less common in all languages, than to judge
reasonably. We immediately approve of a man's conduct, when it appears that
he had good reason for what he did. And every action we disapprove, we
think unreasonable, or contrary to reason.
A way of speaking so universal among men, common to the learned and the
unlearned in all nations, and in all languages, must have a meaning. To
suppose it to be words without meaning, is to treat, with undue contempt, the
common sense of mankind.
Suppose this phrase to have a meaning, we may consider in what way
reason may serve to regulate human conduct, so that some actions of men are
to be denominated reasonable, and others unreasonable.
I take it for granted, that there can be no exercise of reason without judg-
ment, nor, on the other hand, any judgment of things abstract and general,
without some degree of reason.
If, therefore, there be any principles of action in the human constitution,
which, in their nature, necessarily imply such judgment, they are the princi-
ples which we may call rational, to distinguish them from animal principles,
which imply desire, and will, but not judgment.
Every deliberate human action must be done either as the means, or as an
end; as the means to some end, to which it is subservient, or as an end, for its
own sake, and without regard to any thing beyond it.
That it is a part of the office of reason to determine, what are the proper
means to any end which we desire, no man ever denied. But some philoso-
phers, particularly Mr. Hume, think that it is no part of the office of reason to
determine the ends we ought to pursue, or the preference due to one end
634 Thomas Reid
above another. This, he thinks, is not the office of reason, but of taste or
feeling.
If this be so, reason cannot, with any propriety, be called a principle of
action. Its office can only be to minister to the principles of action, by discover-
ing the means of their gratification. Accordingly, Mr. Hume maintains, that
reason is no principle of action; but that it is, and ought to be, the servant of
the passions.'
I shall endeavour to show, that, among the various ends of human actions,
there are some, of which, without reason, we could not even form a concep-
tion; and that, as soon as they are conceived, a regard to them is, by our
constitution, not only a principle of action, but a leading and governing princi-
ple, to which all our animal principles are subordinate, and to which they
ought to be subject.
These I shall call rational principles; because they can exist only in beings
endowed with reason, and because, to act from these principles, is what has
always been meant by acting according to reason.
The ends of human actions I have in view, are two, to wit, what is good for
us upon the whole, and what appears to be our duty. They are very strictly
connected, lead to the same course of conduct, and co-operate with each
other; and, on that account, have commonly been comprehended under one
name, that of reason. But as they may be disjoined, and are really distinct
principles of action, I shall consider them separately.

Chapter .11: Of regard to our good on the whole

It will not be denied, that man, when he comes to years of understanding, is
led by his rational nature, to form the conception of what is good for him upon
the whole.
How early in life this general notion of good enters into the mind, I cannot
pretend to determine. It is one of the most general and abstract notions we
form.
Whatever makes a man more happy, or more perfect, is good, and is an
object of desire as soon as we are capable of forming the conception of it.
The contrary is ill, and is an object of aversion. . . .
That which, taken with all its discoverable connections and consequences,
brings more good than ill, I call good upon the whole.
That brute animals have any conception of this good, I see no reason to
believe. And it is evident, that man cannot have the conception of it, till
reason be so far advanced, that he can seriously reflect upon the past, and
take a prospect of the future part of his existence.
It appears therefore, that the very conception of what is good or ill for us
upon the whole, is the offspring of reason, and can be only in beings endowed
with reason. And if this conception give rise to any principle of action in man,
which he had not before, that principle may very properly be called a rational
principle of action. . . .
I observe, in the next place, that as soon as we have the conception of what
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 635
is good or ill for us upon the whole, we are led, by our constitution, to seek
the good and avoid the ill; and this becomes, not only a principle of action,
but a leading or governing principle, to which all our animal principles ought
to be subordinate. . . .
To prefer a greater good, though distant, to a less that is present; to choose
a present evil, in order to avoid a greater evil, or to obtain a greater good, is,
in the judgment of all men, wise and reasonable conduct; and, when a man
acts the contrary part, all men will acknowledge, that he acts foolishly and
unreasonably. . . .
Thus, I think, it appears, that to pursue what is good upon the whole, and to
avoid what is ill upon the whole, is a rational principle of action, grounded
upon our constitution as reasonable creatures. . . .

Chapter V: Of the notion of duty, rectitude, moral obligation

A being endowed with the animal principles of action only, may be capable
of being trained to certain purposes by discipline, as we see many brute
animals are, but would be altogether incapable of being governed by law.
The subject of law must have the conception of a general rule of conduct,
which, without some degree of reason, he cannot have. He must likewise have
a sufficient inducement to obey the law, even when his strongest animal
desires draw him the contrary way.
This inducement may be a sense of interest, or a sense of duty, or both
concurring.
These are the only principles I am able to conceive which can reasonably
induce a man to regulate all his actions according to a certain general rule, or
law. They may therefore be justly called the rational principles of action, since
they can have no place but in a being endowed with reason, and since it is by
them only, that man is capable either of political or of moral government.
. . . there is a nobler principle 2 in the constitution of man, which, in many
cases, gives a clearer and more certain rule of conduct, than a regard merely
to interest would give, and a principle, without which man would not be a
moral agent.
A man is prudent when he consults his real interest, but he cannot be
virtuous, if he has no regard to duty.
I proceed now to consider this regard to duty as a rational principle of
action in man, and as that principle alone by which he is capable either of
virtue or vice.
I shall first offer some observations with regard to the general notion of
duty, and its contrary, or of right and wrong in human conduct; and then
consider how we come to judge and determine certain things in human con-
duct to be right, and others to be wrong.
With regard to the notion or conception of duty, I take it to be too simple to
admit of a logical definition.
We can define it only by synonymous words or phrases, or by its properties
and necessary concomitants; as when we say that it is what we ought to do,
636 Thomas Reid
what is fair and honest, what is approvable, what every man professes to be
the rule of his conduct, what all men praise, and what is in itself laudable,
though no man should praise it.
I observe, in the next place, that the notion of duty cannot be resolved into
that of interest, or what is most for our happiness.
Every man may be satisfied of this who attends to his own conceptions, and
the language of all mankind shows it. When I say this is my interest, I mean
one thing; when I say it is my duty, I mean another thing. And though the
same course of action, when rightly understood, may be both my duty and my
interest, the conceptions are very different. Both are reasonable motives to
action, but quite distinct in their nature.
I presume it will be granted, that in every man of real worth, there is a
principle of honor, a regard to what is honorable or dishonorable, very dis-
tinct from a regard to his interest. It is folly in a man to disregard his interest,
but to do what is dishonorable is baseness. The first may move our pity, or, in
some cases, our contempt, but the last provokes our indignation.
As these two principles are different in their nature, and not resolvable into
one, so the principle of honor is evidently superior in dignity to that of
interest.
No man would allow him to be a man of honor, who should plead his
interest to justify what he acknowledged to be dishonorable; but to sacrifice
interest to honor never costs a blush.
It likewise will be allowed by every man of honor, that this principle is not
to be resolved into a regard to our reputation among men, otherwise the man
of honor would not deserve to be trusted in the dark. He would have no
aversion to lie, or cheat, or play the coward, when he had no dread of being
discovered.
I take it for granted, therefore, that every man of real honor feels an
abhorrence of certain actions, because they are in themselves base, and feels
an obligation to certain other actions, because they are in themselves what
honor requires, and this, independently of any consideration of interest or
reputation.
This is an immediate moral obligation. This principle of honor, which is
acknowledged by all men who pretend to character, is only another name for
what we call a regard to duty, to rectitude, to propriety of conduct.' It is a
moral obligation which obliges a man to do certain things because they are
right, and not to do other things because they are wrong.
Ask the man of honor, why he thinks himself obliged to pay a debt of
honor? The very question shocks him. To suppose that he needs any other
inducement to do it but the principle of honor, is to suppose that he has no
honor, no worth, and deserves no esteem.
There is therefore a principle in man, which, when he acts according to it,
gives him a consciousness of worth, and when he acts contrary to it, a sense of
demerit.
From the varieties of education, of fashion, of prejudices, and of habits,
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 637
men may differ much in opinion with regard to the extent of this principle,
and of what it commands and forbids; but the notion of it, as far as it is
carried, is the same in all. It is that which gives a man real worth, and is the
object of moral approbation. . . .
All the ancient sects, except the Epicureans, distinguished the honestum
from the utile,' as we distinguish what is a man's duty from what is his
interest. . . .
This division of our active principles can hardly indeed be accounted a
discovery of philosophy, because it has been common to the unlearned in all
ages of the world, and seems to be dictated by the common sense of mankind.
What I would now observe concerning this common division of our active
powers, is, that the leading principle, which is called reason, comprehends
both a regard to what is right and honorable, and a regard to our happiness
upon the whole.
Although these be really two distinct principles of action, it is very natural
to comprehend them under one name, because both are leading principles,
both suppose the use of reason, and, when rightly understood, both lead to
the same course of life. They are like two fountains whose streams unite and
run in the same channel.
When a man, on one occasion, consults his real happiness in things not
inconsistent with his duty, though in opposition to the solicitation of appetite
or passion; and when, on another occasion, without any selfish consideration,
he does what is right and honorable, because it is so; in both these cases he
acts reasonably; every man approves of his conduct, and calls it reasonable, or
according to reason.
So that, when we speak of reason as a principle of action in man, it includes
a regard both to the honestum and to the utile. . . .
If we examine the abstract notion of duty, or moral obligation, it appears to
be neither any real quality of the action considered by itself, nor of the agent
considered without respect to the action, but a certain relation between the
one and the other.
When we say a man ought to do such a thing, the ought, which expresses the
moral obligation, has a respect, on the one hand, to the person who ought,
and, on the other, to the action which he ought to do. Those two correlates
are essential to every moral obligation; take away either, and it has no exis-
tence. So that, if we seek the place of moral obligation among the categories,
it belongs to the category of relation.
There are many relations of things, of which we have the most distinct
conception, without being able to define them logically. Equality and propor-
tion are relations between quantities, which every man understands, but no
man can define.
Moral obligation is a relation of its own kind, which every man under-
stands, but is perhaps too simple to admit of logical definition. Like all other
relations, it may be changed or annihilated by a change in any of the two
related things, I mean the agent or the action. . . .
638 Thomas Reid
Chapter VI: Of the sense of duty
We are next to consider, how we learn to judge and determine, that this is
right, and that is wrong.
The abstract notion of moral good and ill would be of no use to direct our
life, if we had not the power of applying it to particular actions, and determin-
ing what is morally good, and what is morally ill.
Some philosophers, with whom I agree, ascribe this to an original power or
faculty in man, which they call the moral sense, the moral faculty, conscience.
Others think, that our moral sentiments may be accounted for without suppos-
ing any original sense or faculty appropriated to that purpose, and go into
very different systems to account for them.
I am not, at present, to take any notice of those systems, because the
opinion first mentioned seems to me to be the truth, to wit, that, by an
original power of the mind, when we come to years of understanding and
reflection, we not only have the notions of right and wrong in conduct, but
perceive certain things to be right, and others to be wrong.
The name of the moral sense, though more frequently given to conscience
since lord Shaftesbury and Dr. Hutcheson wrote, is not new. The sensus recti
et honesti is a phrase not unfrequent among the ancients, neither is the sense
of duty among us.
It has got this name of sense, no doubt, from some analogy which it is
conceived to bear to the external senses. And if we have just notions of the
office of the external senses, the analogy is very evident, and I see no reason
to take offence, as some have done, at the name of the moral sense.
The offence taken at this name seems to be owing to this, that philosophers
have degraded the senses too much, and deprived them of the most important
part of their office.
We are taught, that by the senses, we have only certain ideas which we
could not have otherwise. They are represented as powers by which we have
sensations and ideas, not as powers by which we judge.
This notion of the senses I take to be very lame, and to contradict what
nature and accurate reflection teach concerning them!
A man who has totally lost the sense of seeing, may retain very distinct
notions of the various colours; but he cannot judge of colours, because he has
lost the sense by which alone he could judge. By my eyes I not only have the
ideas of a square and a circle, but I perceive this surface to be a square, that to
be a circle.
By my ear, I not only have the idea of sounds, loud and soft, acute and
grave, but I immediately perceive and judge this sound to be loud, that to be
soft, this to be acute, that to be grave. lIvo or more synchronous sounds I
perceive to be concordant, others to be discordant.
These are judgments of the senses. They have always been called and
accounted such, by those whose minds are not tinctured by philosophical
theories. They are the immediate testimony of nature by our senses; and we
are so constituted by nature, that we must receive their testimony, for no
other reason but because it is given by our senses.
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 639
In vain do skeptics endeavour to overturn this evidence by metaphysical
reasoning. Though we should not be able to answer their arguments, we
believe our senses still, and rest our most important concerns upon their
testimony.
If this be a just notion of our external senses, as I conceive it is, our moral
faculty may, I think, without impropriety, be called the moral sense.
In its dignity it is, without doubt, far superior to every other power of the
mind; but there is this analogy between it and the external senses, that, as by
them we have not only the original conceptions of the various qualities of
bodies, but the original judgments that this body has such a quality, that such
another; so by our moral faculty, we have both the original conceptions of
right and wrong in conduct, of merit and demerit, and the original judgments
that this conduct is right, that is wrong; that this character has worth, that,
demerit.
The testimony of our moral faculty, like that of the external senses, is the
testimony of nature, and we have the same reason to rely upon it.
The truths immediately testified by the external senses are the first princi-
ples from which we reason, with regard to the material world, and from which
all our knowledge of it is deduced.
The truths immediately testified by our moral faculty, are the first principles
of all moral reasoning, from which all our knowledge of our duty must be
deduced. . . .
All reasoning must be grounded on first principles. This holds in moral
reasoning, as in all other kinds. There must therefore be in morals, as in all
other sciences, first or self-evident principles, on which all moral reasoning is
grounded, and on which it ultimately rests. From such self-evident principles,
conclusions may be drawn synthetically with regard to the moral conduct of
life; and particular duties or virtues may be traced back to such principles,
analytically. But, without such principles, we can no more establish any conclu-
sions in morals, than we can build a castle in the air, without any foundation.
An example or two will serve to illustrate this.
It is a first principle in morals, that we ought not to do to another, what
we should think wrong to be done to us in like circumstances. If a man is
not capable of perceiving this in his cool moments, when he reflects seri-
ously, he is not a moral agent, nor is he capable of being convinced of it by
reasoning.
From what topic can you reason with such a man? You may possibly con-
vince him by reasoning, that it is his interest to observe this rule; but this is not
to convince him that it is his duty. To reason about justice with a man who sees
nothing to be just or unjust; or about benevolence with a man who sees
nothing in benevolence preferable to malice, is like reasoning with a blind
man about colour, or with a deaf man about sound. . . .
Thus we shall find that all moral reasonings rest upon one or more first
principles of morals, whose truth is immediately perceived without reasoning,
by all men come to years of understanding.
And this indeed is common to every branch of human knowledge that
640 Thomas Reid
deserves the name of science. There must be first principles proper to that
science, by which the whole superstructure is supported.
The first principles of all the sciences, must be the immediate dictates of our
natural faculties; nor is it possible that we should have any other evidence of
their truth. And in different sciences the faculties which dictate their first
principles are very different. . . .
The faculties which nature has given us, are the only engines we can use to
find out the truth. We cannot indeed prove that those faculties are not falla-
cious, unless God should give us new faculties to sit in judgment upon the old.
But we are born under a necessity of trusting them.
Every man in his senses believes his eyes, his ears, and his other senses. He
believes his consciousness, with respect to his own thoughts and purposes, his
memory, with regard to what is past, his understanding, with regard to ab-
stract relations of things, and his taste, with regard to what is elegant and
beautiful. And he has the same reason, and, indeed, is under the same neces-
sity of believing the clear and unbiassed dictates of his conscience, with regard
to what is honorable and what is base. . . .

Chapter VII: Of moral approbation and disapprobation

Our moral judgments are not, like those we form in speculative matters,
dry and unaffecting, but from their nature, are necessarily accompanied with
affections and feelings; which we are now to consider.
It was before observed, that every human action, considered in a moral
view, appears to us good, or bad, or indifferent. When we judge the action to
be indifferent, neither good nor bad, though this be a moral judgment, it
produces no affection nor feeling, any more than our judgments in speculative
matters.
But we approve of good actions, and disapprove of bad; and this approba-
tion and disapprobation, when we analyze it, appears to include, not only a
moral judgment of the action, but some affection, favourable or unfavour-
able, toward the agent, and some feeling in ourselves.
Nothing is more evident than this, that moral worth, even in a stranger, with
whom we have not the least connection, never fails to produce some degree of
esteem mixed with good will.
The esteem which we have for a man on account of his moral worth, is
different from that which is grounded upon his intellectual accomplishments,
his birth, fortune, and connection with us.
Moral worth, when it is not set off by eminent abilities, and external advan-
tages, is like a diamond in the mine, which is rough and unpolished, and
perhaps crusted over with some baser material that takes away its lustre.
But, when it is attended with these advantages, it is like a diamond cut,
polished, and set. Then its lustre attracts every eye. Yet these things which
add so much to its appearance, add but little to its real value.
We must further observe, that esteem and benevolent regard, not only
accompany real worth by the constitution of our nature, but are perceived to
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 641
be really and properly due to it; and that, on the contrary, unworthy conduct
really merits dislike and indignation.
There is no judgment of the heart of man more clear, or more irresistible,
than this, that esteem and regard are really due to good conduct, and the
contrary to base and unworthy conduct. Nor can we conceive a greater deprav-
ity in the heart of man, than it would be to see and acknowledge worth
without feeling any respect to it; or to see and acknowledge the highest
worthlessness without any degree of dislike and indignation.

ESSAY IV: OF THE LIBERTY OF MORAL AGENTS

Chapter XI: Of the Permission of Evil

The defenders of necessity,' to reconcile it to the principles of theism, find
themselves obliged to give up all the moral attributes of God, excepting that
of goodness, or a desire to produce happiness. This they hold to be the sole
motive of his making and governing the universe. Justice, veracity, faithful-
ness, are only modifications of goodness, the means of promoting its pur-
poses, and are exercised only so far as they serve that end. Virtue is accept-
able to him, and vice displeasing, only as the first tends to produce happiness
and the last misery. He is the proper cause and agent of all moral evil as well
as good; but it is for a good end, to produce the greater happiness to his
creatures. He does evil that good may come; and this end sanctifies the worst
actions that contribute to it. All the wickedness of men being the work of
God, he must, when he surveys it, pronounce it, as well as all his other works,
to be very good. . . .
If we form our notions of the moral attributes of the Deity from what we see
of his government of the world, from the dictates of reason and conscience, or
from the doctrine of revelation; justice, veracity, faithfulness, the love of
virtue and dislike of vice, appear to be no less essential attributes of his nature
than goodness.
In man, who is made after the image of God, goodness, or benevolence, is
indeed an essential part of virtue, but it is not the whole.
I am at a loss what arguments can be brought to prove goodness to be
essential to the Deity, which will not, with equal force, prove other moral
attributes to be so; or what objections can be brought against the latter, which
have not equal strength against the former, unless it be admitted to be an
objection against other moral attributes, that they do not accord with the
doctrine of necessity.

ESSAY V: OF MORALS

Chapter 1: Of the first principles of morals

Morals, like all other sciences, must have first principles, on which all moral
reasoning is grounded. . . .
642 Thomas Reid
I propose, therefore, in this chapter, to point out some of the first principles
of morals, without pretending to a complete enumeration.
The principles I am to mention, relate either to virtue in general, or to the
different particular branches of virtue, or to the comparison of virtues where
they seem to interfere.
1st, There are some things in human conduct, that merit approbation and
praise, others that merit blame and punishment; and different degrees either
of approbation or of blame, are due to different actions.
2ndly, What is in no degree voluntary, can neither deserve moral approba-
tion nor blame.
3dly, What is done from unavoidable necessity may be agreeable or dis-
agreeable, useful or hurtful, but cannot be the object either of blame or of
moral approbation.
4thly, Men may be highly culpable in omitting what they ought to have
done, as well as in doing what they ought not.
5thly, We ought to use the best means we can to be well informed of our
duty, by serious attention to moral instruction; by observing what we ap-
prove, and what we disapprove, in other men, whether our acquaintance, or
those whose actions are recorded in history; by reflecting often, in a calm
and dispassionate hour, on our own past conduct, that we may discern what
was wrong, what was right, and what might have been better; by deliberat-
ing cooly and impartially upon our future conduct, as far as we can foresee
the opportunities we may have of doing good, or the temptations to do
wrong; and by having this principle deeply fixed in our minds, that as moral
excellence is the true worth and glory of a man, so that knowledge of our
duty is to every man, in every station of life, the most important of all
knowledge.
6thly, It ought to be our most serious concern to do our duty as far as we
know it, and to fortify our minds against every temptation to deviate from it;
by maintaining a lively sense of the beauty of right conduct, and of its present
and future reward, of the turpitude of vice, and of its bad consequences here
and hereafter; by having always in our eye the noblest examples; by the habit
of subjecting our passions to the government of reason; by firm purposes and
resolutions with regard to our conduct; by avoiding occasions of temptation
when we can; and by imploring the aid of him who made us, in every hour of
temptation.
These principles concerning virtue and vice in general, must appear self-
evident to every man who has a conscience, and who has taken pains to
exercise this natural power of his mind. I proceed to others that are more
particular.
1st, We ought to prefer a greater good, though more distant, to a less; and a
less evil to a greater. . . .
2dly, As far as the intention of nature appears in the constitution of man, we
ought to comply with that intention, and to act agreeably to it.
The Author of our being has given us not only the power of acting within a
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 643
limited sphere, but various principles or springs of action, of different nature
and dignity, to direct us in the exercise of our active power.
From the constitution of every species of the inferior animals, and espe-
cially from the active principles which nature has given them, we easily per-
ceive the manner of life for which nature intended them; and they uniformly
act the part to which they are led by their constitution, without any reflection
upon it, or intention of obeying its dictates. Man only, of the inhabitants of
this world, is made capable of observing his own constitution, what kind of life
it is made for, and of acting according to that intention, or contrary to it. He
only is capable of yielding an intentional obedience to the dictates of his
nature, or of rebelling against them. . . .
The intention of nature, in the various active principles of man, in the
desires of power, of knowledge, and of esteem, in the affection to children, to
near relations, and to the communities to which we belong, in gratitude, in
compassion, and even in resentment and emulation, is very obvious, and has
been pointed out in treating of those principles. Nor is it less evident, that
reason and conscience are given us to regulate the inferior principles, so that
they may conspire, in a regular and consistent plan of life, in pursuit of some
worthy end.
3dly, No man is born for himself only. Every man, therefore, ought to
consider himself as a member of the common society of mankind, and of those
subordinate societies to which he belongs, such as family, friends, neighbour-
hood, country, and to do as much good as he can, and as little hurt to the
societies of which he is a part.
This axiom leads directly to the practice of every social virtue, and indi-
rectly to the virtues of self-government, by which only we can be qualified for
discharging the duty we owe to society.
4thly, In every case, we ought to act that part toward another, which we
would judge to be right in him to act toward us, if we were in his circumstances
and he in ours; or, more generally, what we approve in others, that we ought
to practise in like circumstances, and what we condemn in others we ought not
to do.
If there be any such thing as right and wrong in the conduct of moral agents,
it must be the same to all in the same circumstances.
We stand all in the same relation to Him who made us, and will call us to
account for our conduct: for with him there is no respect of persons. We stand
in the same relation to one another as members of the great community of
mankind. The duties consequent upon the different ranks, and offices, and
relations of men, are the same to all in the same circumstances. . . .
As the equity and obligation of this rule of conduct is self-evident to every
man who has a conscience; so it is, of all the rules of morality, the most
comprehensive, and truly deserves the encomium given it by the highest au-
thority, that it is the law and the prophets.
It comprehends every rule of justice without exception. It comprehends all
the relative duties, arising either from the more permanent relations of parent
644 Thomas Reid

and child, of master and servant, of magistrate and subject, of husband and
wife; or from the more transient relations of rich and poor, of buyer and
seller, of debtor and creditor, of benefactor and beneficiary, of friend and
enemy. It comprehends every duty of charity and humanity, and even of
courtesy and good manners.
Nay, I think, that, without any force or straining, it extends even to the
duties of self-government. For, as every man approves in others the virtues of
prudence, temperance, self-command and fortitude, he must perceive, that
what is right in others must be right in himself in like circumstances. . . .
It may be observed, that this axiom supposes a faculty in man by which he
can distinguish right conduct from wrong. It supposes also, that, by this fa-
culty, we easily perceive the right and the wrong in other men that are indiffer-
ent to us; but are very apt to be blinded by the partiality of selfish passions
when the case concerns ourselves. Every claim we have against others is apt to
be magnified by self-love, when viewed directly. A change of persons removes
this prejudice, and brings the claim to appear in its just magnitude.
5thly, To every man who believes the existence, the perfections, and the
providence of God, the veneration and submission we owe to him is self-
evident. Right sentiments of the Deity and of his works, not only make the
duty we owe to him obvious to every intelligent being, but likewise add the
authority of a divine law to every rule of right conduct.
There is another class of axioms in morals, by which, when there seems to
be an opposition between the actions that different virtues lead to, we deter-
mine to which the preference is due.
Between the several virtues, as they are dispositions of mind, or determina-
tions of will to act according to a certain general rule, there can be no opposi-
tion. They dwell together most amicably, and give mutual aid and ornament,
without the possibility of hostility or opposition, and, taken altogether, make
one uniform and consistent rule of conduct. But, between particular external
actions, which different virtues would lead to, there may be an opposition.
Thus, the same man may be in his heart, generous, grateful, and just. These
dispositions strengthen, but never can weaken one another. Yet it may hap-
pen, that an external action which generosity or gratitude solicits, justice may
forbid.
That in all such cases, unmerited generosity should yield to gratitude, and
both to justice, is self-evident. Nor is it less so, that unmerited beneficence to
those who are at ease should yield to compassion to the miserable, and exter-
nal acts of piety to works of mercy, because God loves mercy more than
sacrifice.
At the same time, we perceive, that those acts of virtue which ought to yield
in the case of a competition, have most intrinsic worth when there is no
competition. Thus, it is evident that there is more worth in pure and unmer-
ited benevolence than in compassion, more in compassion than in gratitude,
and more in gratitude than in justice.
I call these first principles, because they appear to me to have in themselves
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 645
an intuitive evidence which I cannot resist. I find I can express them in other
words. I can illustrate them by examples and authorities, and perhaps can
deduce one of them from another; but I am not able to deduce them from
other principles that are more evident. And I find the best moral reasonings of
authors I am acquainted with, ancient and modern, heathen and christian, to
be grounded upon one or more of them.
The evidence of mathematical axioms is not discerned till men come to a
certain degree of maturity of understanding. A boy must have formed the
general conception of quantity, and of more, and less, and equal; of sum, and
difference; and he must have been accustomed to judge of these relations in
matters of common life, before he can perceive the evidence of the mathemati-
cal axiom, that equal quantities, added to equal quantities, make equal sums.
In like manner, our moral judgment, or conscience, grows to maturity from
an imperceptible seed, planted by our Creator. When we are capable of
contemplating the actions of other men, or of reflecting upon our own calmly
and dispassionately, we begin to perceive in them the qualities of honest and
dishonest, of honorable and base, of right and wrong, and to feel the senti-
ments of moral approbation and disapprobation. . . .
From the principles above mentioned, the whole system of moral conduct
follows so easily, and with so little aid of reasoning, that every man of com-
mon understanding, who wishes to know his duty, may know it. The path of
duty is a plain path, which the upright in heart can rarely mistake. Such it
must be, since every man is bound to walk in it. There are some intricate cases
in morals which admit of disputation; but these seldom occur in practice; and,
when they do, the learned disputant has no great advantage: for the unlearned
man, who uses the best means in his power to know his duty, and acts accord-
ing to his knowledge, is inculpable in the sight of God and man. He may err,
but he is not guilty of immorality.

Chapter IV: Whether an action deserving moral approbation, must be done

with the belief of its being morally good
There is no part of philosophy more subtile and intricate than that which is
called the Theory of Morals. Nor is there any more plain and level to the
apprehension of man than the practical part of morals.
In the former, the Epicurean, the Peripatetic and the Stoic, had each his
different system of old; and almost every modern author of reputation has a
system of his own. At the same time, there is no branch of human knowledge
in which there is so general an agreement among ancients and moderns,
learned and unlearned, as in the practical rules of morals.
From this discord in the theory, and harmony in the practical part, we may
judge, that the rules of morality stand upon another and a firmer foundation
than the theory. And of this it is easy to perceive the reason.
For in order to know what is right and what is wrong in human conduct, we
need only listen to the dictates of our conscience, when the mind is calm and
unruffled, or attend to the judgment we form of others in like circumstances.
646 Thomas Reid
But, to judge of the various theories of morals, we must be able to analyze
and dissect, as it were, the active powers of the human mind, and especially to
analyze accurately that conscience or moral power, by which we discern right
from wrong. . . .
From this remarkable disparity between our decisions in the theory of
morals and in the rules of morality, we may, I think, draw this conclusion, that
where-ever we find any disagreement between the practical rules of morality,
which have been received in all ages, and the principles of any of the theories
advanced upon this subject, the practical rules ought to be the standard by
which the theory is to be corrected; and that it is both unsafe and unphilosophi-
cal to warp the practical rules, in order to make them tally with a favourite
theory.

Chapter VII: That moral approbation implies a real judgment

The approbation of good actions, and disapprobation of bad, are so familiar
to every man come to years of understanding, that it seems strange there
should be any dispute about their nature.'
Whether we reflect upon our own conduct, or attend to the conduct of
others with whom we live, or of whom we hear or read, we cannot help
approving of some things, disapproving of others, and regarding many with
perfect indifference.
These operations of our minds we are conscious of every day, and almost
every hour we live. Men of ripe understanding are capable of reflecting upon
them, and of attending to what passes in their own thoughts on such occa-
sions; yet, for half a century, it has been a serious dispute among philoso-
phers, what this approbation and disapprobation is, whether there be a real
judgment included in it, which, like all other judgments, must be true or false;
or, whether it include no more but some agreeable or uneasy feeling, in the
person who approves or disapproves. . . .
When I exercise my moral faculty about my own actions or those of other
men, I am conscious that I judge as well as feel. I accuse and excuse, I acquit
and condemn, I assent and dissent, I believe, and disbelieve, and doubt.
These are acts of judgment, and not feelings.
Every determination of the understanding, with regard to what is true or
false, is judgment. That I ought not to steal, or to kill, or to bear false witness,
are propositions, of the truth of which I am as well convinced as of any
proposition in Euclid. I am conscious that I judge them to be true proposi-
tions; and my consciousness makes all other arguments unnecessary, with
regard to the operations of my own mind.
That other men judge, as well as feel, in such cases, I am convinced,
because they understand me when I express my moral judgment, and express
theirs by the same terms and phrases.
Suppose that, in a case well known to both, my friend says, Such a man did
well and worthily; his conduct is highly approvable. This speech according to
all rules of interpretation, expresses my friend's judgment of the man's con-
 Essays on the Active Powers of the Human Mind 647
duct. This judgment may be true or false, and I may agree in opinion with
him, or I may dissent from him without offence, as we may differ in other
matters of judgment.
Suppose, again, that in relation to the same case, my friend says, The man's
conduct gave me a very agreeable feeling.
This speech, if approbation be nothing but an agreeable feeling, must have
the very same meaning with the first, and express neither more nor less. But
this cannot be, for two reasons.
1st, Because there is no rule in grammar or rhetoric, nor any usage in
language, by which these two speeches can be construed, so as to have the
same meaning. The first expresses plainly an opinion or judgment of the
conduct of the man, but says nothing of the speaker. The second only testifies
a fact concerning the speaker; to wit, that he had such a feeling.
Another reason why these two speeches cannot mean the same thing is, that
the first may be contradicted without any ground of offence, such contradic-
tion being only a difference of opinion, which, to a reasonable man, gives no
offence. But the second speech cannot be contradicted without an affront; for,
as every man must know his own feelings, to deny that a man had a feeling
which he affirms he had, is to charge him with falsehood.
If moral approbation be a real judgment, which produces an agreeable
feeling in the mind of him who judges, both speeches are perfectly intelligible,
in the most obvious and literal sense. Their meaning is different, but they are
related, so that the one may be inferred from the other, as we infer the effect
from the cause, or the cause from the effect. I know, that what a man judges
to be a very worthy action, he contemplates with pleasure; and what he
contemplates with pleasure, must, in his judgment, have worth. But the judg-
ment and the feeling are different acts of his mind, though connected as cause
and effect. He can express either the one or the other with perfect propriety;
but the speech which expresses his feeling is altogether improper and inept to
express his judgment, for this evident reason, that judgment and feeling,
though in some cases connected, are things in their nature different.
If we suppose, on the other hand, that moral approbation is nothing more
than an agreeable feeling, occasioned by the contemplation of an action, the
second speech above mentioned has a distinct meaning, and expresses all that
is meant by moral approbation. But the first speech either means the very
same thing, which cannot be, for the reasons already mentioned, or it has no
meaning.
Now, we may appeal to the reader, whether, in conversation upon human
characters, such speeches as the first are not as frequent, as familiar, and as
well understood, as any thing in language; and whether they have not been
common in all ages that we can trace, and in all languages?
This doctrine, therefore, that moral approbation is merely a feeling without
judgment, necessarily carries along with it this consequence, that a form of
speech, upon one of the most common topics of discourse, which either has no
meaning, or a meaning irreconcileable to all rules of grammar or rhetoric, is
648 Thomas Reid
found to be common and familiar in all languages, and in all ages of the world,
while every man knows how to express the meaning, if it have any, in plain
and proper language.
Such a consequence I think sufficient to sink any philosophical opinion on
which it hangs. . . .
All the words most commonly used, both by philosophers and by the vul-
gar, to express the operations of our moral faculty, such as decision, determina-
tion, sentence, approbation, disapprobation, applause, censure, praise, blame,
necessarily imply judgment in their meaning. When, therefore, they are used
by Mr. Hume, and others who hold his opinion, to signify feelings only, this is
an abuse of words. If these philosophers wish to speak plainly and properly,
they must, in discoursing of morals, discard these words altogether, because
their established signification in the language, is contrary to what they would
express by them.
They must likewise discard from morals the words ought and ought not,
which very properly express judgment, but cannot be applied to mere feel-
ings. Upon these words Mr. Hume has made a particular observation in the
conclusion of his first section above mentioned. I shall give it in his own
words, and make some remarks upon it.
"I cannot forbear adding to these reasonings, an observation which may,
perhaps, be found of some importance. In every system of morality which I
have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for
some time in the ordinary way of reasoning, and establishes the being of a
God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when, of a sudden, I
am surprised to find, that, instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is,
and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or
an ought not. This change is imperceptible, but is, however, of the last conse-
quence. For as this ought or ought not expresses some new relation or affirma-
tion, it is necessary that it should be observed and explained; and, at the same
time, that a reason should be given for what seems altogether inconceivable;
how this new relation can be a deduction from others which are entirely
different from it. But as authors do not commonly use this precaution, I shall
presume to recommend it to the readers; and I am persuaded that this small
attention would subvert all the vulgar systems of morality, and let us see, that
the distinction of vice and virtue, is not founded merely on the relations of
objects, nor is perceived by reason."'
We may here observe, that it is acknowledged, that the words ought and
ought not express some relation or affirmation; but a relation or affirmation
which Mr. Hume thought inexplicable, or, at least, inconsistent with his sys-
tem of morals. He must, therefore, have thought, that they ought not to be
used in treating of that subject.
He likewise makes two demands, and, taking it for granted that they cannot
be satisfied, is persuaded, that an attention to this is sufficient to subvert all
the vulgar systems of morals.
 Editor's Notes 649
The first demand is, that ought and ought not be explained.
To a man that understands English, there are surely no words that require
explanation less. Are not all men taught, from their early years, that they
ought not to lie, nor steal, nor swear falsely? But Mr. Hume thinks, that men
never understood what these precepts mean, or rather that they are unintelligi-
ble. If this be so, I think indeed it will follow, that all the vulgar systems of
morals are subverted.
Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, explains the word ought to signify, being
obliged by duty; and I know no better explication that can be given of it. The
reader will see what I thought necessary to say concerning the moral relation
expressed by this word, in Essay III. part 3. chap. 5.
The second demand is that a reason should be given why this relation
should be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.
This is to demand a reason for what does not exist. The first principles of
morals are not deductions. They are self-evident; and their truth, like that of
other axioms, is perceived without reasoning or deduction. And moral truths,
that are not self-evident, are deduced not from relations quite different from
them, but from the first principles of morals.
In a matter so interesting to mankind, and so frequently the subject of
conversation among the learned and the unlearned as morals is, it may surely
be expected that men will express both their judgments and their feelings with
propriety, and consistently with the rules of language. An opinion, therefore,
which makes the language of all ages and nations, upon this subject, to be
improper, contrary to all rules of language, and fit to be discarded, needs no
other refutation.

Editor's Notes
1. Hume's most striking presentation of his position occurs in the Treatise of Human
Nature, bk. II, part III, sec. III, where he says, "Reason is, and ought only to be,
the slave of the passions, and can never pretend to any other office than to serve
and obey them."
2. Than the principle of self-interest.
3. Reid seems here to take the term "honor" as having the broad meaning of the
Latin honestum.
4. The decent or honorable or proper, as contrasted with the useful or profitable.
5. In his Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man, Reid argued at length for the
epistemological position sketched here.
6. Reid was discussing here the problem of evil, in particular the question of why
God permits evil in the world.
7. Reid was attacking here Hume's theory that morality "is more properly felt than
judged of," for which Hume argued in the Treatise, bk. III, sec. I—II. The version
of this doctrine that Hume presented in the later Essay Concerning the Principles
of Morals (excerpts from which are given earlier in this section of the anthology) is
stated in a more conciliatory fashion, without giving up the main point of the
earlier version.
8. This is the final paragraph of Hume's Treatise, bk. HI, part I, sec. I.
650 Thomas Reid

Further Reading
The only complete edition of Reid's works is that edited in the nineteenth century by
Sir William Hamilton, in two volumes.
For general background, see Nicholas Phillipson, "The Scottish Enlightenment," in
Roy Porter and Mikulas Teich, eds., The Enlightenment in National Context (Cam-
bridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1981). The volume of essays, R. H.
Campbell and Andrew S. Skinner, eds., The Origins and Nature of the Scottish Enlight-
enment (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1982), provides valuable insights into the context of
Reid's work, although Reid himself is not extensively discussed.
For a careful analytic study, see Keith Lehrer, Thomas Reid (London: Routledge &
Kegan Paul, 1989). The literature on Reid's ethics is scanty. S. A. Grave, The Scottish
Philosophy of Common Sense (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1960), discusses the
epistemology of commonsense philosophy, paying a great deal of attention to Reid,
but only Chapter 7 concerns morality. J. B. Schneewind, Sidgwick's Ethics and Victo-
rian Moral Philosophy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977), examines Reid's
ethics and the theories of the nineteenth-century Scottish commonsense philosophers
who followed him. Knud Haakonssen, Thomas Reid: Practical Ethics (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1990), includes important manuscripts drawn from courses
that Reid taught,, giving us much insight into the importance of natural law thinking for
Reid's own views. Haakonssen also wrote a valuable introduction covering Reid's life
and philosophy.
The following essays also will be helpful:

Ardal, Pall S. "Hume and Reid on Promise, Intention, and Obligation." In V. Hope,
ed., Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University
Press, 1984.
Dalgarno, Melvin T. "Reid's Natural Jurisprudence: The Language of Rights and
Duties." In V. Hope, ed., Philosophers of the Scottish Enlightenment. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press, 1984.
Duggan, Timothy. "Active Power and the Liberty of Moral Agents." In Stephen F.
Barker and Tom L. Beauchamp, eds., Thomas Reid: Critical Interpretations. Phila-
delphia: University City Science Center, 1976.
Haakonssen, Knud. "Reid's Politics: A Natural Law Theory." Reid Studies 1 (1986-7).
Jensen, Henning. "Common Sense and Common Language in Thomas Reid's Ethical
Theory." The Monist 61 (1978):299-310.
Pritchard, Michael. "Reason and Passion: Reid's Reply to Hume." The Monist 61
(1978):283-98.
Weinstock, Jerome. "Reid's Definition of Freedom." In Stephen F. Barker and Tom L.
Beauchamp, eds., Thomas Reid: Critical Interpretations. Philadelphia: University
City Science Center, 1976.
 Immanuel Kant

Introduction

Immanuel Kant was born in 1724 in K6nigsberg (now called Kaliningrad) in the
eastern part of Prussia. A child of poor parents, he received scholarships that enabled
him to go to school and to the small university in his hometown. After graduation he
served as a tutor for wealthy local families and then obtained a position at the univer-
sity. There he taught until almost the end of his life, never traveling and never marry-
ing. He lectured on a wide variety of subjects (including the art of fortification, which
he taught to Russian officers when Konigsberg was occupied by Catherine the Great's
troops during the 1750s), generally attracting a large number of students. Kant kept up
with developments in science, literature, and world affairs; was one of the founders of
the discipline of physical geography; introduced a course on anthropology; and made
contributions to our understanding of the movement of the weather. His main work,
however, was in philosophy, and there, it is generally agreed, what he wrote was epoch
making.
Though Kant published several books and essays while he was young, his major
writings began to appear only when he was in his middle years. In 1781 he published
the Critique of Pure Reason, announcing a radical break with the epistemology and
metaphysics of the entire philosophical past. He then proceeded to elaborate the
implications of his new outlook for history, ethics, aesthetics, religion, and politics in a
series of books and articles that he continued to write until a year or two before his
death in 1804. His work was quickly seen to be of the utmost importance. It was widely
discussed during his lifetime, winning followers and arousing criticism, and has been
indispensable to philosophy ever since.
Kant's ethical theory was the most original contribution to moral philosophy to be
made during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The topics on which he wrote
were standard topics of the time, and some of the views he developed had been
anticipated by earlier writers, but no one had proposed a systematic ethic as fully and
radically at odds with all previous views as Kant did. He claimed that the central
principle of morality is one that makes the rightness or wrongness of actions altogether
independent of the goodness or badness of their consequences. He held that everyone
equally can apply this principle and that everyone can be motivated by knowledge of
its requirements. We can therefore be moved by a concern that is not a concern for
good or bad but is still rational. Only by accepting these points, he held, can we
understand how all human beings can be fully self-governing, or autonomous, sub-
jected to the rule of no one other than themselves in the most important choices we

651
652 Immanuel Kant
need to make and yet still bound by strict obligations. And he believed that only this
view of humanity was commensurate with our intrinsic dignity.
Morality and metaphysics are complexly blended in Kant's ethics. He considered the
categorical imperative — the basic principle of morality as we understand it — capable
of providing better moral guidance than any other principle ever proposed, and he
gave examples designed to show that its guidance accords more closely with moral
convictions that we all already have than does any alternative view. His principle also
requires, so Kant believed, that we think of ourselves as possessing free will in a very
strong sense of the term and that we regard our actions as wholly undetermined by
antecedent events. In order to defend this view, Kant appealed to the elaborate theory
about the limits of knowledge that he presented first in the Critique of Pure Reason.
Many people have thought that the categorical imperative or something like it must
be at the heart of morality but have resisted the metaphysical entanglements that it
entails in Kant's presentations. Critical questions must therefore be asked not only
about the moral adequacy of Kant's principle, which to many readers from his own
time to ours has seemed deeply misguided, but also about the extent to which the
principle can be detached from the rest of his philosophical system and used simply as a
test of the morality of our behavior.
Kant presented the classic exposition of the basic principle of his ethics in the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (1785). He elaborated the metaphysical
bearings of the principle in the Critique of Practical Reason (1788); in Religion Within
the Limits of Reason Alone (1794), he discussed the ways in which the principle leads
us to reasonable religious beliefs and practices; and in the Metaphysics of Morals
(1797) he spelled out some of its more detailed practical implications for politics and
for personal life.
From 1756 until 1794, Kant lectured on ethics quite regularly. Several sets of student
notes on these lectures have survived and been published, and it is generally agreed
that they give us a reasonably accurate account of what Kant said in class. What he
taught before the publication of the Groundwork was in many respects different from
what he said in the book, although he did expound some of the book's leading ideas.
We have one set of notes from lectures Kant gave after the Groundwork appeared that
contains an account of its ideas. But the fullest classroom exposition of his mature
moral philosophy was given the last time he taught the subject. The following selec-
tions are from the notes on these late lectures, delivered in 1793-4, on the subject of
metaphysics of morals. The notes were taken not by an undergraduate but by an older
man, a lawyer named Vigilantius who knew Kant personally. Kant spent most of his
time during this course on the applications of the categorical imperative, introducing
this subject by reviewing the main points contained in the Groundwork and in the
second Critique. These parts of the lectures, therefore, provide an adequate if sketchy
overview of the distinctive features of Kant's positions on the central topics of moral
philosophy.
The reader will find the lectures difficult to understand. But none of Kant's work is
easy. The Groundwork is one of the most difficult books ever written, and in the
excerpts presented here Kant is covering everything it covers and more besides. Only
by studying the published works on moral philosophy and by using the commentators
will the reader be able to grasp Kant's ethics fully, but I hope that these excerpts will
help by providing a first glimpse of his remarkable theory.
The text I have translated here is the Metaphysik der Sitten Vigilantius, in Kant's
Gesammelte Schriften, vol. XXVII.2.1 (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1975). I give in
 The Metaphysics of Morals 653
square brackets the page numbers of this edition, the so-called Akademie edition, as
they are the page numbers used in scholarly works on Kant.

Lectures of Mr. Kant on the Metaphysics of Morals (1793-4)

[479] DETERMINATION OF THE OBJECT

§1. Philosophical, and indeed systematic, knowledge coming from rational
concepts either concerns the form of thought (or logic) as the formal part of
philosophy or it relates to the objects [of thought] themselves and the laws
under which they stand. The latter constitutes the material part of philosophy,
whose objects must be reduced simply to
nature and freedom, and their laws and which divides thus into
a. the philosophy of laws of nature, or physics
b. the philosophy of laws of morality. . . .
The latter really concerns itself with developing the idea of freedom. . . . Both
[parts of philosophy] are grounded on pure or rational concepts.' Moreover,
the natural as well as the moral laws that are basic here are built on a priori
principles and thus make up the two objects of the part of philosophy called
metaphysics, as this judges objects according to pure (independent of all experi-
ence) basic propositions, in contrast with historical disciplines judged accord-
ing to empirical, conditioned, basic propositions given in experience. . . .
[481] §2(c). The laws of freedom are now either
1. simply necessary or objective. . . . These occur only in God
or
2. necessitating. These occur in humans and are objectively necessary but
subjectively contingent. For man has a drive to transgress these laws, even
when he recognizes them, and so the legality and morality 2 of his actions are
merely contingent. The necessitation through the moral law to act in accor-
dance with it is obligation. The action itself in accord with the moral law is
duty, and moral philosophy or theory of ethics is grounded on the theory of
duty. . . .
[485] §5. Morality has the rules of duty as its object. These rules are never
theoretical [rules] that contain only the conditions under which something is
but are always just practical [rules] that give only the conditions under which
something ought to occur, that is, those laws of reason that contain the suffi-
cient grounds determining to action and would move action to conform to the
laws of reason if reason had sufficient free strength to be effective.
The distinction in the rules is that some are laws of nature' and others [are
laws] of morality. The former never show that something ought to occur and
what [ought to occur] but show only the conditions under which something
does occur. Moral laws, by contrast, are always concerned with the will and its
freedom. Essentially these laws are presented by reason in such a way that if it
alone had influence and it alone contained the ground of the reality of action,
654 Immanuel Kant
there would never be a deviation from these laws. For instance, everyone
would, without admonition, pay his debts. Now man is obstructed from giving
the laws of reason free and unobstructed obedience, insofar as inclinations
opposed to them, sensuous drives, and ends aroused in connection with his
actions incline him toward transgression. Therefore, it is necessary that practi-
cal rules always be imperatives for humans — that is, rules to which their will
must be subordinated in order to determine what ought to happen. Conse-
quently, because men are indeed subordinated to the laws of reason but man
does not unconditionally follow reason, the moral actions of men are said to
be objectively necessary and subjectively contingent. It is therefore necessary
that man be necessitated to take morally free action. This necessitation is the
determination of the human will, by means of which the action becomes
necessary, and it is a moral necessitation because it comes about through
moral rules. This moral necessitation, which [486] is always expressed through
an imperative, is thus what is called "obligation." .. .
Now all imperatives are either
1. conditioned; and these are
a. problematic, that is, imperatives of skill;
b. pragmatic, that is, imperatives of prudence
or
2. unconditioned or categorical, that is, imperatives of morality, of duty.
Categorical imperatives are distinguished from problematic and pragmatic
[imperatives] essentially by the fact that the ground for determination of
action lies only in the law of moral freedom; but in the latter, by contrast, the
ends connected with them bring the action into being and are therefore the
condition of action.
Problematic [imperatives] are further distinguished from the pragmatic in
that the ends in the former are possible and contingent whereas in the latter
they are determinate.
Problematic imperatives are [imperatives yielding the solution of] all mathe-
matical problems, in which the laws for solving the problem constitute the
imperatives, as they prescribe what you must do if you want to solve the
problem, for example, to divide a straight line into two parts. . . .
[487] Pragmatic imperatives, by contrast, have only the universal happiness
of all humans as their object and indicate the means to help other men in the
service of their happiness. The goal is thus universally determined, namely, to
bring about the greatest sum of well-being, and the rules of skill necessary for
this are the pragmatic imperatives. But they are conditional, because one
needs these imperatives only if one wants to achieve this well-being in human
life, and so they will drop out if one abstracts from it. 5
In contrast, there are, finally, human actions that are necessary without any
end and to whose existence no goal or end is the motive [Tilebfeder]. These
are the moral actions, whose imperative thus attends to neither skill, wisdom,
happiness, nor any other end that could set the activity into motion; rather,
the necessitation to the action lies simply in the imperative alone. These are
 The Metaphysics of Morals 655
the categorically unconditioned imperatives, for example, to keep your prom-
ise, to speak the truth. A witness who in giving his testimony is counseled on
the one side by the duty of friendship and on the other by fear of punishment
and of revenge, decides on his deposition in a way contrary to duty. For
instead of determining himself through the imperative of duty, he merely
directs himself according to the consequence that his future condition will
have for his happiness, which certainly should have no influence on the cate-
gorical imperative. Therefore, those philosophers who thought that in order
to bring about moral action, the happiness of mankind is the necessary goal
and driving force have false views.
The rule of my will must, all by itself, also be the determining ground
[Bestimmungsgrund] of the will. The action must rest only on this uncondi-
tional imperative, without [4881 any end tied to it — whether profit or loss,
gain or sacrifice. Material grounds for a will of that sort simply do not belong
to the (so-named) formal determining grounds of moral actions. . . .
[489] Every "ought" expresses an objective necessity that nonetheless is at
the same time subjectively contingent. . . . These conflicting qualities of the
action contain together, under the expression "ought," the necessitation to
action. . . . Now, if this necessitation occurs through the moral law, that is, if
the action that would not be done from one's own desires is made necessary
by the moral law and the subject is necessitated to follow the law, it is obliga-
tion or being duty bound, and the action to which the subject is necessitated
through the moral law is duty. Necessitation is thus thinkable only when
contravention of the moral law is possible. Therefore, something can be mor-
ally necessary without being a duty. This is the case if the subject, without
necessitation, would always act according to the moral law. Then there would
be no duty or obligation to do it. So these do not hold for a morally perfect
being. . . . If there is no necessitation, there also is no moral imperative, no
obligation, duty, virtue, or ought. Because the moral laws presuppose a sub-
ject subordinated to natural impulses, they are called laws of duty. We can
think of God, in contrast, as a being who alone is holy, that is, who has the
property that the moral laws are followed by him without necessitation and
whose will is already conformed to the moral law; as alone blessed, that is,
who finds himself in complete possession and satisfied enjoyment of all goods;
as alone wise, that is, who not only sees the relation of his acts to the final goal
but also makes the goal the determining ground for his actions. . . .
[4911 It would be good if men were so perfect that they did their duty out of
free drives, without force and laws, but this is beyond the horizon of human
nature. 6
All conditioned or hypothetical imperatives are technical—practical impera-
tives. . . . they say only what I should do if I want this or that. They are
distinguished only according to the kind of end connected with them. . . . To
the technical—pragmatic imperatives are opposed the moral—practical or the
imperatives of morality, which determine simply what one must do, without
reference to the ends. . . .
656 Immanuel Kant
[493] §10. The determining ground of the power of choice is the causa
impulsiva of action, the cause of movements. . . .
The cause of movement is called either motive or stimulus, a distinction
that is noteworthy because of the dual nature of man: man has a natural being
and a free being.
1. A motive [motivum] is always a moral causa impulsiva or determining
ground, which determines his will according to the laws of freedom and so
addresses man as a free being. In contrast, the stimulus is the cause that
determines the will of men according to laws of nature and of the sensuous
drive. Natural cause, inclination, exists when, for example, someone is
brought to obedience to his parents or to industriousness through hunger or
physical suffering. Even with animals, these determining causes leading to
possible ends — to taming — can occur, and man in this is like them. . . .
[494]2. As a natural being, man can be affected by stimuli. In contrast, as a
free being, this means is quite fruitless. Insofar as sensuous drives affect man,
he is only passive: he must suffer these drives, as he cannot elude them.
Motives, by contrast, occur only when man is thought of as a free being. They
contain his activity and are therefore totally opposed to the condition that
depends on inclinations. They are grounded in the spontaneity of the human
will, which is led by representations of reason and thus merely by the moral
law, quite independently of all determining causes of nature.
3. Through stimuli, man can only be affected but never determined to
action. It is possible for him as a free being to omit all actions to which natural
drives tempt him and that he as a natural being would undertake.
4. So we can name the stimuli the "animal will" and the motives the "free
will." This distinction leads now
§11. to the concept of freedom, which consists negatively of the indepen-
dence of the power of choice from all determination by stimuli . . . positively
in spontaneity or the power to determine itself through reason, without need-
ing motives from nature.
The proof that the actions of man should occur only according to the law of
freedom will be given farther on.
§12. Now, because understanding and reason should determine the impera-
tive of moral action, we ask,
What is the determining ground of action, insofar as it [495] lies in rea-
son, from which arises a moral necessitation as the ground of obligation?
The basic categorical imperative is a morally practical [imperative], that is,
a law of freedom, and the determining cause, causa moralis. The latter there-
fore cannot lead man passively to action, as the laws of nature can; rather, he
must determine himself and his power of choice through his reason. Now if in
his action he took account of ends or means to reach them and were the
imperative to prescribe these, then the material of the law that the imperative
expresses, and the object of the law that is given for action, would be the
determining ground of action. For the end or the means in the action consti-
tute the material of the action. . . .
 The Metaphysics of Morals 657
This is impossible because the categorical imperative carries with it an
unconditioned moral necessitation, without having the end and goal of the
action as ground. There remains therefore only the form, which is the deter-
mining ground of free action. That is, moral actions must be carried out
according to the form of lawfulness, to which condition they are subordinated
in this way: their maxim' must accord with lawfulness. The maxim of action
differs from an objective principle in that the latter occurs only when the
possibility of the action according to certain grounds of reason is thought; the
former, however, in general includes all subjective grounds for action in itself
insofar as these are considered real. . . .
The formula of the universal imperative would thus be:
You ought to act according to the maxim that is qualified for universal
lawgiving; that is, you ought to act so that [496] the maxim of your action
may become a universal law,
would have to be universally recognized as a universal law, or act so that you
can present yourself through the maxim of your action as universally lawgiv-
ing, that is, so that the maxim of your action is fit for universal lawgiving. In
this form of moral action lies the determining ground of being bound by duty,
through which it attains lawful force.
The qualification of the maxim for universal legislation rests, however, on
the agreement of the action with the imperative of reason. For example: "You
should always tell the truth" is an imperative of reason and, in application, a
maxim that reason makes into a universal law. Suppose that someone followed
the maxim that he might tell a lie if thereby he could acquire a big profit. Then
ask whether this maxim could exist as a universal law. It is then to be assumed
that no one would tell the truth to his own loss, and in that case no one would
trust [anyone] anymore. The liar in that case could not come to be in a position
to deceive through his lie. The law would thus defeat itself by itself.
That is how it is with all perfect duties. 8 If the opposite [maxims] existed,
they would so determine action that it would contradict itself, which could
never be a universal law. This lies in the nature of the unconditioned necessita-
tion of the law, which — without end, goal, and [thought of] profit and loss —
commands fulfillment of duty. Thus every action is forbidden whose maxim is
not qualified for universal legislation.
It is quite different with the so-called imperfect duties. Here the action does
not immediately defeat itself through its contradictory law by itself. . . . But it
can never be the will of a person that the action become a universal law. For
example, [consider] the duty of love of mankind through beneficence toward
the suffering. If one wanted to act on a maxim that had indifference to the
necessities and needs of other humans as its basis, one could not say that such
a law would contradict the moral freedom of men. A human could attain all
his goals; only he could not make claims to the assistance of others. But this
latter — because every subject can come to be in a [497] similarly needy
situation — is the reason no one will be able to make this maxim into a univer-
sal law.
658 Immanuel Kant
If, then, the determining ground of moral action lies not in the material part
of the law, namely, the end of the law, but in its form of universal lawfulness,
then it is quite wrong to put the ground in the following:
a. in the individual happiness of men; for then
1. the categorical imperative would be conditioned and hypothetical, for it
would have to pay attention to the end of universal happiness and to the
means to attain it. But then it would be an imperative of prudence and
artfulness. But then it would not say that something ought to occur, entirely
unconditionally and simply, without attending to an end. And this is what the
categorical imperative should [say] if it is to convey to it duty and obligation
and necessitation. It cannot therefore be enunciated in the conditioned way.
2. Under this principle is really meant the principle of self-love, which
regards acquired skills as the means to make oneself — as the end connected
with them — happy through them. The condition of happiness consists of the
consciousness of satisfaction and of the possession of means to acquire any
ends, even merely possible ones, and through this to satisfy all [one's] wishes.
It is natural that because the ends may be different, the practical rules may be
different as well, that is, as inclination, sensibility, and personal bent require.
A universality of principle cannot, as such, be even thought of — but that is
what is sought.
3. To be happy is the universal will of man. But the decision whether
someone will be pleased or happy depends first of all on merely his resolution
and will. The ground of duty — moral necessitation — is lacking here, as is an
unconditioned imperative. Here the constraint that commands immediate
obligation is not thinkable. The imperative itself can relate only to the means
to bring oneself happiness.
b. The relation of our will to our moral feeling can just as little be the
ground of duty. Rather, the feeling presupposes this ground. Man is supposed
to be drawn to a certain material of the law, namely, complacency, 9 which
[498] is not happiness and not duty but is nonetheless moral. Now, the will is
affected by the feeling of pleasure and pain, and especially here, where the act
is to be moral, [it is affected] by the moral law. It should therefore feel
pleasure or pain after the law is satisfied or transgressed by it. This effect
cannot be conceived without assuming an idea of the concept of duty as its
ground. It must therefore have knowledge of the law and its obligation before
it can be filled with pleasure or pain because of following or transgressing it
and before it connects its action with self-satisfaction or dissatisfaction (for the
latter is the feeling of pleasure or pain). The moral feeling or the conscious-
ness that one has acquired self-satisfaction through following the moral law is
thus the end but not the ground of duty. . . .
c. Finally, not even the divine will can be considered the highest principle of
morality. Rather, it presupposes knowledge of our duty. . . .
N.B., and this would remain the case if it [the principle] were not the
principle of happiness or of moral feeling and also not the form of lawfulness
of action.
 The Metaphysics of Morals 659
One cannot think the will of God otherwise than as one that binds us. If it is
to make us duty bound, the idea of duty must already be available, so that we
can recognize that something is in accord with the will of God.
N.B., and we can really only conclude that something is in accord with the
will of God by recognizing it as a duty. . . .
[499] §13. Now if moral actions ought to be grounded in the form of lawful-
ness, then the moral laws must have their basic determination in a lawgiving
force that [said Kant] constitutes the legislation. Moral lawgiving is the lawgiv-
ing of human reason, which is the lawgiver for all laws and is so simply
through itself. This is the autonomy of reason, according to which it deter-
mines the laws of the free power of choice through its own independent
legislation, independent of all influence. The principle of autonomy is thus the
self-possessed legislation of the power of choice through reason. The opposite
would be heteronomy, that is, legislation resting on grounds other than the
freedom of reason.
If, for example, the principle of universal happiness were at the basis of the
determination of moral laws, then what would matter would be how far, by
following the laws, the entire sum of our needs would be satisfied. But the
laws of nature are involved in this, and the moral laws would have to be
subordinated to them. Moreover, reason would have to be obedient — and
necessarily so (for, according to our physical constitution, reason is so
anyhow) — to the laws of nature and sensibility. But this would plainly be an
abandonment of the autonomy of reason, and therefore heteronomy.
But that the determining grounds of the laws of duty cannot be built on
natural laws is already shown in the quality of these laws [of duty], that they
must be necessarily and universally valid. Now [500] natural laws as bases
would carry necessary consequences and effects with them, but they would
never be universally valid and thus not objectively necessary and uncondi-
tioned. For the determination of the means that will bring us happiness and
the satisfaction of our needs is plainly grounded in experience. The principle
derived from it would therefore be empirical. And because no empirical basic
proposition can yield more than the natural quality of things — though not the
basic determinations under which they are possible — they would never be-
come universal laws of moral duty. Experience itself contradicts this. For
example, the means to happiness are too different to allow us to determine
them before we have agreed on the way in which someone wants to be happy.
So different methods would be needed, for example, for the greedy, restless
businessman and for the peaceful, phlegmatic person. Still less is the moral
feeling or the principle of divine will qualified for the universal lawgiving of
morality, but this principle is grounded only in reason. It is the autonomy of
reason.
All autonomy of reason must therefore be independent of (a) all empirical
principles, that is, the principle of one's own happiness . . . (b) the aesthetic
principle or that of moral feeling, (c) all external will (theological [principle)).
§14. How, then, is a categorical necessitation to duty possible, and how can
660 Immanuel Kant
it be demonstrated? Not as easily as the conditioned imperatives and their
principles. For whether these are problematic or pragmatic, the necessitation
always rests on the end to be achieved, to which the imperative prescribes
means. Then, as soon as it is determined that I want this or that bit of culture
or that I seek my happiness in this or that manner, it follows of itself that I
must use the means leading to it. But the categorical imperative is uncondi-
tioned. . . . It can in no way be proved or illustrated, 10 but it must be thought
by every being that is aware of his freedom that he necessitates himself to duty
through the autonomy of his reason. Where this comes from and how it occurs
[501] cannot be determined, but that it is so can be exemplified in the follow-
ing manner:
1. If we suppose that a being has freedom of will or a free power of choice,
then this power of choice must be able to be determined by the mere form of
the lawfulness of its actions. From what has been said, one cannot assume that
the principle of the power of choice that is to be determined lies in an object of
purposive activity, sensibility, or an external will, without incurring hetero-
nomy. It [the principle] should be independent of all objects of the will; it
must therefore lie in the autonomy of the will. This, however, determines
itself categorically. Therefore, the principle of duty is connected with this
freedom through a categorical principle, and the necessitation to duty follows
entirely and unconditionally through the autonomy of reason. But freedom
must also be determined through existing grounds. These, however, cannot be
natural laws, as they contain the material of the laws, to which the free power
of choice pays no attention. They must be determined without an object and
thus through themselves, and this determination must rest on form alone.
2. Conversely, if man is under moral law, that is, if the mere form of
lawfulness is the determining ground of his actions and his will, he must be
entirely free, for the moral law involves a categorical imperative. It is thus not
like any material law, which would be a natural law; it is therefore indepen-
dent of natural laws in its relation to the determination of its morality. Its
determinations of duty follow, therefore, through reason, and thus through
itself, and so freely.
§15. Man, however, is simultaneously a natural being and subordinated to
the determining grounds of nature. In his actions he is thus entwined with the
grounds of nature, which, as a natural man, he must follow. For example, his
needs demand ends and actions in accordance with them. . . .
This relation in which man is tied to the means, effects, and causes of nature
is mechanism, natural necessity. In this connection his actions are directed
through natural determining grounds; his actions emerge from him as natural
man in a necessary way because each action [502] here follows only as an
effect that, like everything in nature, must have its causes . . . finally, all
actions that he undertakes as natural man are predetermined; that is, they are
to be viewed as effects of past causes. . . .
[504] §16. All actions fall under the principle of determinism; one can call
them predetermined only if the grounds of an action are to be found in
 The Metaphysics of Morals 661
preceding time. One must assume the opposite if the grounds of the action are
not predetermined but the agent is the source and complete cause of his act.
In the former case, the action is not in his power; in the latter case, the agent
determines himself to action all alone, without the addition of external causes.
Now, in the actions of man, both [sorts of] determining grounds are to be
found. Hence, in order for man to be thought of as free," he must be consid-
ered either
a. as a being of sense. Here he does not notice himself as he is but as he
appears. We call this side "phenomenon." He is taken into account here
insofar as he is aware of his existence and actions through his outer senses as
well as through his inner sense. The conditions of his sensibility [505] and the
constitution of his inner sense here provide the measure of his action.
b. as an intelligible being, that is, as a being who is made independent of all
influence of sensibility and who must be considered in this way. We call this
side "noumenal." In this quality the determining grounds of his action are
independent of all time and space, and the causality of his actions is given
simply through reason. In this quality alone man can be free, for then and
only then he has absolute spontaneity; his actions are grounded on the auton-
omy of reason, and their determination is categorical. . . .
There seems to be a clear contradiction in saying that a man determines
himself through himself and yet is already predetermined. This could not be
resolved if we were not compelled to consider man from two sides, namely
[506], as phenomenon, that is, as an appearance through his inner sense, and
as noumenon, that is, insofar as he is aware of himself through the moral law
itself. The question is whether we can be taught that we are free through
empirical psychology or only through morally practical principles and our
consciousness [of them]. From principles of the first [empirical] sort, we
would know ourselves only in the world of sense. Moreover, if we had no
moral laws, if there were in us no categorical imperative of duty, if instead our
actions fell only under natural conditions and our grounds of determination
were only hypothetical, then there would be no obligation, and all actions
would rest on technical, practical laws. Morality is therefore the sole means
for becoming aware of our freedom.
. . . You ought to act in such-and-such a way: this presupposes that I
recognize the duty and obligation according to which I must act. The duty is,
by its nature, absolute, unconditional, and necessary. But what is necessary
must also be possible. The consciousness of the dutiful execution of an action
must therefore not be immediate but be inferred from a moral imperative of
freedom. . . . To become conscious of freedom without being aware of duty
would be impossible. One would hold freedom to be absurd . . . for example,
consider a case in which I should tell the truth. Consider also, on the other
side, the loss to my friend, bodily pains, profits I could make. Regardless of
all evil [and] of all physical force, there is a necessitation to truthful testimony,
even though all the physical motives draw me to the opposite. I determine
myself now through my reason. This is freedom. But my reason determines
662 Immanuel Kant
itself according to a [507] moral law — precisely the one that necessitates me to
overcome the drives of nature. If what I say follows accordingly, then I act
freely, not out of immediate consciousness but because I have concluded from
the categorical imperative how I ought to act. There is therefore in me a
power to resist all sensuous motives as soon as a categorical imperative
speaks. Here we have freedom known through an inference (from the moral
law) and not immediately felt. . . . For no man is in a position to say ahead of
time that in a given case he would simply tell the truth, ignoring all physical
evil. He knows only that he ought to obey the categorical imperative. There-
fore he must be able to do so, and for this, a ground must be present, not an
immediate consciousness. Therefore, it is not possible to know freedom in a
psychological way; it is possible [to know itj only through the moral law. So it
is not worth the trouble to reply to all the objections to freedom. With this
determination of the consciousness of freedom, that is, through the categori-
cal imperative, the already noted main question is, How is such a categorical
imperative possible? This is the most difficult [point], as it can be neither
proved nor made conceivable.' The possibility rests only on the presupposi-
tion of freedom.
If man is free, he is not dependent on nature. Nonetheless, there must be a
ground for determining his moral actions. This must be a law of reason that
immediately commands and is therefore categorical. For if outside freedom or
the power of reason another end or the sum of all ends were to be the ground,
then the imperative would lie in an object of sensibility and so be sensuously
conditioned. But that is the opposite of the moral imperative. The latter is the
only thing that can have the possibility of freedom as its consequence. So the
latter must be a categorical imperative that necessitates man to action. And
this follows necessarily from it, that if in action one assumes a categorical
imperative, then man must be free.
[512] §20 Viewed as free actions, the actions of men stand under moral
laws. . . . [513] It follows that actions must be specially compared with the
moral laws but not that they must also be moral actions. For the laws do not
determine something about all human actions, and it would be, moreover, a
horrible limitation if for every act a command or prohibition were basic in
determining what I ought to do. For example, it is morally indifferent what I
eat, if it simply suits me. I might not even know whether it will harm me. . . .

Editor's Notes
1. The distinction between "pure" concepts and "empirical" concepts is central to
Kant's philosophical enterprises. Whereas most ordinary concepts are, he be-
lieves, derived from experience, some concepts are imposed by the mind on
experience. They are "prior" to it and give it its form. Philosophy does not con-
cern itself with empirical concepts, which are the business of the sciences and of
history. Instead, philosophy must explore the a priori concepts, explaining how it
is possible for such concepts to be valid and showing their connections with one
another. Thus philosophy does not deal with the specific details of physics, but it
 Editor's Notes 663
must explain how there can be laws of physics showing necessary connections
between events. And philosophy does not provide the empirical information
needed to apply the moral law in particular cases. But it does have to show how
there can be a moral law, a law imposing necessity on our free actions. Kant's
examples are intended to help one grasp this law, but strictly speaking, they are
not part of philosophy.
2. The "legality" of action is its behavioral conformity to what the moral law re-
quires. Its "morality" lies in its motivation. If it is motivated by respect for the law,
then it possesses morality as well as legality.
3. Here Kant was using this phrase in its contemporary sense; he did not mean by it
the kind of directive command that the natural law theorists had used it to mean.
4. Kant called both these kinds of imperative "hypothetical imperatives" because
they command only on the hypothesis that the agent desires the end to which they
indicate the means. Categorical imperatives, by contrast, command regardless of
the agent's ends.
5. Everyone, in fact, wants happiness, Kant held; hence pragmatic imperatives do in
fact hold for everyone. But not everyone wants to solve mathematical problems,
and so rules showing how to solve them do not hold for everyone.
6. Humans have obligations simply because by nature we are not only rational but
also needy beings, dependent, as God is not, on things outside ourselves for our
lives, and consequently driven by desire. Because everyone has needs and desires,
everyone can be tempted to transgress the moral law, and therefore morality
comes in the form of obligation for everyone.
7. There is disagreement over exactly what Kant meant by this term, but he did mean
at least this much: My maxim contains the reasons I have for acting as I am about
to (or did), so far as I am honestly aware of them. Of course, my reasons relate to
the actual circumstances in which I find myself, as well as to my needs and desires
and to my beliefs about the consequences of my action. Thus the categorical
imperative brings the form of law to the material contained in my maxim.
8. Kant here took up the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties that the
natural lawyers, especially Grotius and Pufendorf, had introduced and shows how
he can account for it.
9. That is, self-satisfaction because one is pleased with one's moral performance.
10. Kant cannot mean that the application of the categorical imperative cannot be
illustrated, as he has given some examples of its application. He did, however,
think that we can never be certain that we have acted solely for the sake of the
lawful form of our maxim, or solely out of respect for the law; nor can we ever be
certain that anyone else has done so. Our reasons for action are obscure to us,
Kant believed, and we like to deceive ourselves into thinking we are better than
we perhaps are. It is because we cannot point to a clear historical example of pure
moral motivation that the determination of action by the form of law cannot be
illustrated.
11. Here Kant is drawing on the distinction he elaborated in the Critique of Pure
Reason between the "phenomenal" world, or the world as we perceive it
through our senses in space and time, and the "noumenal" world, or the world
as it is in itself, regardless of anyone's perceiving or thinking about it. Because
Kant held that space and time are themselves modes in which human beings
perceive the world, the noumenal world is the world considered as not being in
time or space.
12. We cannot, Kant believed, explain how freedom is possible for beings who, in
addition to having a rational nature, are also part of a determined physical world.
Because the categorical imperative is binding only for free beings, and is binding
just because they are free, we cannot explain how the categorical imperative is
possible. In general, however, Kant argued, we can understand why it is impossi-
664 Immanuel Kant

ble to have knowledge of any aspect of the noumenal world. Briefly, knowledge
requires empirical perception as well as categories to organize the perceptions,
and the noumenal world is the world as it is, independent of perception. Because
there can be no knowledge of noumena, and freedom belongs to us as noumena,
we can understand why we cannot have knowledge of freedom and therefore why
we cannot demonstrate exactly how the categorical imperative is possible. But this
is the limit beyond which we cannot go.

Further Reading
There are good translations of all of Kant's major works and many of his essays. H. J.
Paton translated the Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals in The Moral Law
(London: Hutchinson, 1948), with a brief commentary. Lewis White Beck's translation
of the Critique of Practical Reason (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958), and the transla-
tion of Religion Within the Limits of Reason Alone by Theodore M. Greene and Hoyt
H. Hudson (New York: Harper Bros., 1960), are widely used. Translations of the
Metaphysics of Morals by John Ladd, by James Ellington, and by Mary Gregor also are
available.
The reader should consult Kant's other works as well as the writings directly con-
cerned with morality. Several general introductions are helpful guides. Ralph C. S.
Walker, Kant (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1978), is brisk and analytic, with a
good bibliography. 1Wo less demanding introductions, which, like Walker's, treat the
ethics only briefly, are S. Korner, Kant (London: Penguin, 1955), and John Kemp, The
Philosophy of Kant (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1968). A brief introduction to
the ethical theory is provided in H. B. Acton, Kant's Moral Philosophy (London:
Macmillan, 1970).
For more detailed discussion of Kant's moral philosophy, the reader may wish to
consult some of the following books: For an extensive commentary on Kant's Ground-
work, see H. J. Paton, The Categorical Imperative (London: Hutchinson, 1946). Lewis
White Beck has written a most helpful Commentary on Kant's Critique of Practical
Reason (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Mary Gregor, Laws of Freedom
(Oxford: Blackwell, 1963), is a study of Kant's late Doctrine of Virtue. Onora Nell,
Acting on Principle (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975), is the best study of
the problems involved in applying the categorical imperative to cases. T. C. Williams
studies Kant's principle generally in The Concept of the Categorical Imperative (Ox-
ford: Oxford University Press, 1968). Robert Paul Wolf, The Autonomy of Reason
(New York, Harper & Row, 1973), is a critical study of the Groundwork. Bruce Aune,
Kant's Theory of Morals (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1979), covers a
wide range of topics and offers a number of criticisms. Roger J. Sullivan, Immanuel
Kant's Moral Theory (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1989), is a
systematic presentation summarizing every aspect of Kant's moral thought. In Eckhart
FOrster, ed., Kant's Transcendental Deductions (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University
Press, 1988), are three valuable discussions of Kant's ethics, by John Rawls, Henry E.
Allison, and Barbara Herman.
The periodical literature on Kant is enormous and constantly growing. A special
journal, Kant-Studien, is devoted to Kant, publishing articles in English as well as
other languages and frequently giving extensive bibliographic reviews.
 Supplemental Bibliography

Brett, Annabel S. Liberty, Right and Nature. Cambridge, England: Cambridge

University Press, 1997.
Buckle, Stephen. Natural Law and the Theory of Property: Grotius to Hume.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Burns, J. H., ed. The Cambridge History of Political Thought 1450-1700. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Darwall, Stephen. The British Moralists and the Internal 'Ought.' Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Gallie, Roger D. Thomas Reid: Ethics, aesthetics, and the anatomy of the self Dordrecht:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998.
Garber, Daniel, and Michael Ayers, eds. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-
Century Philosophy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Vol.
II, Part VII.
Garrett, Don. "Spinoza's Ethical Theory." In Don Garrett, ed., The Cambridge Com-
panion to Spinoza. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,1996, pp.
267-314.
Garrett, Don. Cognition and Commitment in Hume's Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1997.
Haakonssen, Knud, ed. The Cambridge History of Eighteenth-Century Philosophy.
Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
Haakonssen, Knud. Natural Law and Moral Philosophy. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Herman, Barbara. The Practice of Moral Judgment. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1993.
Hochstrasser, T J. Natural Law Theories in the Early Enlightenment. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Hundert, E.J. The Enlightenment's Fable. Bernard Mandeville and the Discovery of
Society. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Hunter, Ian. Rival Enlightenments. Civil and Metaphysical. Philosophy in Early
Modern Germany. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Israel, Jonathan I. Radical Enlightenment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Jolley, Nicholas. The Cambridge Companion to Leibniz. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Klein, Lawrence E. Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Korsgaard, Christine. Creating the Kingdom of Ends. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1996.
Marshall, John. John Locke: Resistance, Religion and Responsibility. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1994. Part II.
Marshall, John. Descartes' Moral Theory. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1998.

665
666 Supplemental Bibliography
Mautner, Thomas, ed. Francis Hutcheson. Two texts on human nature. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Morgan, Vance. Foundations of Cartesian Ethics. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities
Press, 1994.
Neiman, Susan. The Unity of Reason. Rereading Kant. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1994.
Norton, David Fate, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Hume. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Rawls, John. Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, ed. Barbara Herman.
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2000.
Reath, Andrews, Barbara Herman, and Christine Korsgaard, eds. Reclaiming the
History of Ethics. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997.
Riley, Patrick. Leibniz' Universal Jurisprudence. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univer-
sity Press, 1996.
Riley, Patrick. "Malebranche's Moral Philosophy: Divine and Human Justice." In
Steven Nadler, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche. Cambridge,
England: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 220-61.
Rosenblatt, Helena. Rousseau and Geneva. Cambridge, England: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1997.
Sarasohn, Lisa T. Gassendi's Ethics. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1996.
Schneewind, J. B. The Invention of Autonomy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1998.
Tuck, Richard. Philosophy and Government 1572-1651. Cambridge, England:
Cambridge University Press, 1993.