The Principles of Moral and Christian Philosophy. George Turnbull
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With choice we fix, with simpathy we burn,
Each virtue in each passion takes its turn;
And still new needs, new helps, new habits rise,
That graft benevolence on charities.
Still as one brood, and as another rose,
These nat’ral love maintain’d, habitual those;
The last scarce ripen’d into perfect man,
Saw helpless him from whom their life began:
Mem’ry and forecast, just returns engage,
That pointed back to youth, this on to age:
While pleasure, gratitude, and hope combin’d
Still spread the int’rest, and preserv’d the kind.
Essay on man, Epist. 3.74
The necessary dependence of social happiness and perfection on right social union.
Some states are adjusted to one end, some to another.
Every moral end, as well as every natural one, hath its natural and necessary means, by which alone it can be accomplished.
Hence it is that politics is a science.
IV. I shall now take notice of something that is yet more particularly the result of our social make, or of our being formed to promote common happiness by joint endeavours. And it is, that in consequence of such an end, and of the make proper to that end, the perfection and happiness of human society must depend on the aptitude of the union into which it is formed, that is, upon its fitness and propriety to promote that end. If happiness must be promoted by joint endeavours, or united application, as social happiness must be according to the very definition of it, then is uniting necessary to it: but joining or uniting in one method, or according to one form, cannot be so proper to promote the end of union, which is public<199> happiness, as joining or uniting in another form. Need I stay to prove what is as evident, as that there may be a better and a worse mechanism for the end of a watch? Yet if this be true, it evidently follows, that the greatest common happiness and perfection of society cannot be effected, but in proportion to the fitness of the form in which society is constituted, to procure that end. Accordingly, the most remarkable differences among societies are such as result from their political forms, or from the natural tendency of their laws, government, and civil policies. There are, indeed, other differences, as with regard to climate, soil, and other such things depending on physical causes. But are not the chief differences confessed to be such as result from civil constitutions, or the various forms of government? If, for example, the flourishing of all the ingenious arts, of philosophy in all its branches, of poetry, statuary, painting, sculpture, architecture, &c. constitute a very considerable part of the happiness and grandeur of society, as being the properest methods for employing men’s noblest faculties, and all the wealth that may be purchased by commerce: If it be true, that it is the polite arts which give taste and lustre to human life, or add elegance and a due polish to it; that they are the grandeur and grace,a and comely pride of mankind, without which wealth rots a nusance: if this be true, it is at the same time equally certain, that one form of government is fit for promoting these arts, and another is quite the reverse. “Hence it is that these arts have been delivered down to us in such perfection by free nations, who from the nature of their government, as from a proper soil, produced the generous plants; whilst the mightiest bodies and vastest empires, governed by force and despotic power, could, after ages of peace and leisure, produce no other than what was deformed and barbarous<200> of the kind.”75 It was in consequence of this natural fitness or unfitness of certain moral means with respect to certain moral ends, that the laws of Lycurgus, according to the confession of Aristotle, Plato, and other wise and observing politicians, tended to make men ferocious, and to prevent their being civilized and polished by the humanizing arts: there was no provision made by that institution for their culture and advancement; but, on the contrary, all was calculated to exclude them; and therefore they could not possibly be engendered, far less could they come to perfection in such a state: whilst, on the other hand, at Athens they flourished, because every thing concurred to promote them. But it is not my business now to examine different forms of government. All that belongs to our present purpose is, to remark that men are capable of a very great degree of grandeur and happiness, as we feel by experience, in consequence of our own most happy constitution, and its aptitude to promote public spirit, virtue, and arts, beyond any other in the world: and that the perfection and happiness of mankind must depend upon the natural fitness of the form of government they live under, or of their civil and religious constitution, in order to produce that end, is as certain as that there are proper and improper means with relation to any end; or that no end can be accomplished, but by the means fit to attain it: an universal self-evident truth in moral as well as natural mechanism, or with respect to moral ends as well as natural ones. In consequence of which it is that the science of politics consists in judging of the propriety and fitness, moral and political, of means to bring about and promote the sole end of government, the happiness of subjects. And hence it is accordingly that philosophers and politicians have been able, in many instances, to form such true judgments of the different forms of government, laws and policies, as<201> (like Polybius,a with regard to the Roman republic) to foretel the revolutions and changes of government which must happen, merely from the exact knowledge of the necessary effects of moral causes. Here, as well as in the natural world, effects may be with certainty inferred from their causes; for in both cases, from a certain concurrence of circumstances or causes, certain consequences necessarily result. To be satisfied of this, one needs only look into the political reasonings of any good writer on politics, Aristotle, Polybius, or our own Harrington. So that we may lay down all that is requisite for our purpose to make out as an indisputable truth. That such is the natural dependence of men upon each other, that they cannot attain to the perfection and happiness for which they are intended by nature, but by their uniting together, in order to promote it by their joint application: and that there are in the nature of things, improper and proper means of acting for obtaining that end. We are certainly intended by nature for whatever happiness and perfection we are qualified to pursue and attain to, whether singly or by united force. But all means and manners of uniting together, can no more be equally proper for attaining to an end in moral combinations of powers or qualities, than in natural<202> ones. And the wisdom and goodness of our Author clearly appears in making us social, and reciprocally dependent; in fitting us for attaining to a very great degree of happiness and perfection in that way; in prompting us by our natural benevolence, and other dispositions, to establish ourselves into the best form for that end; and in directing us to find it out by our moral sense.
Nature could not have dealt more kindly with us than it hath done, by making us social creatures, and by pointing and prompting us to right union by our natural disposition to society, and by our moral sense.
Conclusion.
This is all the provision nature could make for uniting us together in the properest form, consistently with making our chief interest dependent on ourselves, or happiness to be our own acquisition. And thus nature appears to be exceeding kind, especially when we call to mind, that though social happiness makes social dependence absolutely necessary; yet at the same time, the chief happiness of every private man, as far as it can be acquired singly, or independently of society rightly constituted and modelled, consists in the exercise of the same virtuous temper, which fits for and points to the proper manner of uniting, in order to promote general happiness or perfection; it being in every one’s power, considered as one individual, to regulate his affections according to the real nature of things or truth; from which government of opinions and affections no unhappiness results; but from it, on the contrary, do many goods naturally spring, in comparison of which, all other enjoyments are of very little consideration or importance, equally gross and unsatisfactory, as has been already observed. “Thus, then, it plainly appears that we are excellently formed for procuring to ourselves