man. It is on the knowledge of his nature that the science of his duty
must be founded.[15] It is impossible to approach the threshold of moral
philosophy, without a previous examination of the faculties and habits
of the human mind. Let no reader be repelled from this examination, by
the odious and terrible name of _metaphysics_; for it is, in truth,
nothing more than the employment of good sense, in observing our own
thoughts, feelings, and actions; and when the facts which are thus
observed, are expressed as they ought to be, in plain language, it is,
perhaps, above all other sciences, most on a level with the capacity and
information of the generality of thinking men. When it is thus
expressed, it requires no previous qualification, but a sound judgment,
perfectly to comprehend it; and those who wrap it up in a technical and
mysterious jargon, always give us strong reason to suspect that they are
not philosophers but impostors. Whoever thoroughly understands such a
science, must be able to teach it plainly to all men of common sense.
The proposed course will therefore open with a very short, and, I hope,
a very simple and intelligible account of the powers and operations of
the human mind. By this plain statement of facts, it will not be
difficult to decide many celebrated, though frivolous, and merely verbal
controversies, which have long amused the leisure of the schools, and
which owe both their fame and their existence to the ambiguous obscurity
of scholastic language. It will, for example, only require an appeal to
every man's experience, to prove that we often act purely from a regard
to the happiness of others, and are therefore social beings; and it is
not necessary to be a consummate judge of the deceptions of language,
to despise the sophistical trifler, who tells us, that, because we
experience a gratification in our benevolent actions, we are therefore
exclusively and uniformly selfish. A correct examination of facts will
lead us to discover that quality which is common to all virtuous
actions, and which distinguishes them from those which are vicious and
criminal. But we shall see that it is necessary for man to be governed
not by his own transient and hasty opinion upon the tendency of every
particular action, but by those fixed and unalterable rules, which are
the joint result of the impartial judgment, the natural feelings, and
the embodied experience of mankind. The authority of these rules is,
indeed, founded only on their tendency to promote private and public
welfare; but the morality of actions will appear solely to consist in
their correspondence with the rule. By the help of this obvious
distinction we shall vindicate a just theory, which, far from being
modern, is, in fact, as ancient as philosophy, both from plausible
objections, and from the odious imputation of supporting those absurd
and monstrous systems which have been built upon it. Beneficial tendency
is the foundation of rules, and the criterion by which habits and
sentiments are to be tried. But it is neither the immediate standard,
nor can it ever be the principal motive of action. An action, to be
completely virtuous, must accord with moral rules, and must flow from
our natural feelings and affections, moderated, matured, and improved
into steady habits of right conduct.[16] Without, however, dwelling
longer on subjects which cannot be clearly stated, unless they are fully
unfolded, I content myself with observing, that it shall be my object,
in this preliminary, but most important part of the course, to lay the
foundations of morality so deeply in human nature, as may satisfy the
coldest inquirer; and, at the same time, to vindicate the paramount
authority of the rules of our duty, at all times, and in all places,
over all opinions of interest and speculations of benefit, so
extensively, so universally, and so inviolably, as may well justify the
grandest and the most apparently extravagant effusions of moral
enthusiasm. If, notwithstanding all my endeavours to deliver these
doctrines with the utmost simplicity, any of my auditors should still
reproach me for introducing such abstruse matters, I must shelter myself
behind the authority of the wisest of men. "If they (the ancient
moralists), before they had come to the popular and received notions of
virtue and vice, had staid a little longer upon the inquiry concerning
_the roots of good and evil_, they had given, in my opinion, a great
light to that which followed; and specially if they had consulted with
nature, they had made their doctrines less prolix, and more
profound."--_Bacon. Dign. and Adv. of Learn._ book ii. What Lord Bacon
desired for the mere gratification of scientific curiosity, the welfare
of mankind now imperiously demands. Shallow systems of metaphysics have
given birth to a brood of abominable and pestilential paradoxes, which
nothing but a more profound philosophy can destroy. However we may,
perhaps, lament the necessity of discussions which may shake the
habitual reverence of some men for those rules which it is the chief
interest of all men to practise, we have now no choice left. We must
either dispute, or abandon the ground. Undistinguishing and unmerited
invectives against philosophy, will only harden sophists and their
disciples in the insolent conceit, that they are in possession of an
undisputed superiority of reason; and that their antagonists have no
arms to employ against them, but those of popular declamation. Let us
not for a moment even appear to suppose, that philosophical truth and
human happiness are so irreconcilably at variance. I cannot express my
opinion on this subject so well as in the words of a most valuable,
though generally neglected writer: "The science of abstruse learning,
when completely attained, is like Achilles's spear, that healed the
wounds it had made before; so this knowledge serves to repair the damage
itself had occasioned, and this perhaps is all it is good for; it casts
no additional light upon the paths of life, but disperses the clouds
with which it had overspread them before; it advances not the traveller
one step in his journey, but conducts him back again to the spot from
whence he wandered. Thus the land of Philosophy consists partly of an
open champaign country, passable by every common understanding, and
partly of a range of woods, traversable only by the speculative, and
where they too frequently delight to amuse themselves. Since then we
shall be obliged to make incursions into this latter tract, and shall
probably find it a region of obscurity, danger, and difficulty, it
behoves us to use our utmost endeavours for enlightening and smoothing
the way before us."[17] We shall, however, remain in the forest only
long enough to visit the fountains of those streams which flow from it,
and which water and fertilise the cultivated region of Morals, to become
acquainted with the modes of warfare practised by its savage
inhabitants, and to learn the means of guarding our fair and fruitful
land against their desolating incursions. I shall hasten from
speculations, to which I am naturally, perhaps, but too prone, and
proceed to the more profitable consideration of our practical duty.
II. The first and most simple part of ethics is that which regards the
duties of private men towards each other, when they are considered apart
from the sanction of positive laws. I say, _apart_ from that sanction,
not _antecedent_ to it; for though we _separate_ private from political
duties for the sake of greater clearness and order in reasoning, yet we
are not to be so deluded by this mere arrangement of convenience as to
suppose that human society ever has subsisted, or ever could subsist,
without being protected by government and bound together by laws. All
these relative duties of private life have been so copiously and
beautifully treated by the moralists of antiquity, that few men will now
choose to follow them who are not actuated by the wild ambition of
equalling Aristotle in precision, or rivalling Cicero in eloquence.
They have been also admirably treated by modern moralists, among whom it
would be gross injustice not to number many of the preachers of the
Christian religion, whose peculiar character is that spirit of universal
charity, which is the living principle of all our social duties. For it
was long ago said, with great truth, by Lord Bacon, "that there never
was any philosophy, religion, or other discipline, which did so plainly
and highly exalt that good which is communicative, and depress the good
which is private and particular, as the Christian faith."[18] The
appropriate praise of this religion is not so much, that it has taught
new duties, as that it breathes a milder and more benevolent spirit over
the whole extent of morals.
On a subject which has been so exhausted, I should naturally have
contented myself with the most slight and general survey, if some
fundamental principles had not of late been brought into question,
which, in all former times, have been deemed too evident to require the
support of argument, and almost too sacred to admit the liberty of
discussion. I shall here endeavour to strengthen some parts of the
fortifications of morality which have hitherto been neglected, because
no man had ever been hardy enough to attack them. Almost all the
relative duties of human life will be found more immediately, or more
remotely, to arise out of the two great institutions of property and
marriage. They constitute, preserve, and improve society. Upon their
gradual improvement depends the progressive civilization of mankind; on
them rests the whole order of civil life. We are told by Horace, that
the first efforts of lawgivers to civilise men consisted in
strengthening and regulating these institutions, and fencing them round
with rigorous penal laws.
Oppida coeperunt munire et ponere leges
Neu quis fur esset, neu quis latro, neu quis adulter.
1 _Serm._ iii. 105.
A celebrated ancient orator, of whose poems we have but a few fragments
remaining, has well described the progressive order in which human
society is gradually led to its highest improvements under the
guardianship of those laws which secure property and regulate marriage.
Et leges sanctas docuit, et chara jugavit
Corpora conjugiis; et magnas condidit urbes.
_Frag. C. Licin. Calvi._
These two great institutions convert the selfish as well as the social
passions of our nature into the firmest bands of a peaceable and orderly
intercourse; they change the sources of discord into principles of
quiet; they discipline the most ungovernable, they refine the grossest,
and they exalt the most sordid propensities; so that they become the
perpetual fountain of all that strengthens, and preserves, and adorns
society; they sustain the individual, and they perpetuate the race.
Around these institutions all our social duties will be found at various
distances to range themselves; some more near, obviously essential to
the good order of human life, others more remote, and of which the
necessity is not at first view so apparent; and some so distant, that
their importance has been sometimes doubted, though upon more mature
consideration they will be found to be outposts and advanced guards of
these fundamental principles: that man should securely enjoy the fruits
of his labour, and that the society of the sexes should be so wisely
ordered as to make it a school of the kind affections, and a fit nursery
for the commonwealth.
The subject of _property_ is of great extent. It will be necessary to
establish the foundation of the rights of acquisition, alienation, and
transmission, not in imaginary contracts or a pretended state of nature,
but in their subserviency to the subsistence and well-being of mankind.
It will not only be curious, but useful, to trace the history of
property from the first loose and transient occupancy of the savage,
through all the modifications which it has at different times received,
to that comprehensive, subtle, and anxiously minute code of property
which is the last result of the most refined civilization.
I shall observe the same order in considering the society of the sexes
as it is regulated by the institution of marriage.[19] I shall
endeavour to lay open those unalterable principles of general interest
on which that institution rests: and if I entertain a hope that on this
subject I may be able to add something to what our masters in morality
have taught us, I trust, that the reader will bear in mind, as an excuse
for my presumption, that _they_ were not likely to employ much argument
where they did not foresee the possibility of doubt. I shall also
consider the history[20] of marriage, and trace it through all the
forms which it has assumed, to that decent and happy permanency of
union, which has, perhaps above all other causes, contributed to the
quiet of society, and the refinement of manners in modern times. Among
many other inquiries which this subject will suggest, I shall be led
more particularly to examine the natural station and duties of the
female sex, their condition among different nations, its improvement in
Europe, and the bounds which Nature herself has prescribed to the
progress of that improvement; beyond which, every pretended advance will
be a real degradation.
III. Having established the principles of private duty, I shall proceed
to consider man under the important relation of subject and sovereign,
or, in other words, of citizen and magistrate. The duties which arise
from this relation I shall endeavour to establish, not upon supposed
compacts, which are altogether chimerical, which must be admitted to be
false in fact, which if they are to be considered as fictions, will be
found to serve no purpose of just reasoning, and to be equally the
foundation of a system of universal despotism in Hobbes, and of
universal anarchy in Rousseau; but on the solid basis of general
convenience. Men cannot subsist without society and mutual aid; they can
neither maintain social intercourse nor receive aid from each other
without the protection of government; and they cannot enjoy that
protection without submitting to the restraints which a just government
imposes. This plain argument establishes the duty of obedience on the
part of citizens, and the duty of protection on that of magistrates, on
the same foundation with that of every other moral duty; and it shews,
with sufficient evidence, that these duties are reciprocal; the only
rational end for which the fiction of a contract could have been
invented. I shall not encumber my reasoning by any speculations on the
origin of government; a question on which so much reason has been wasted
in modern times; but which the ancients[21] in a higher spirit of
philosophy have never once mooted. If our principles be just, the origin
of government must have been coeval with that of mankind; and as no
tribe has ever yet been discovered so brutish as to be without some
government, and yet so enlightened as to establish a government by
common consent, it is surely unnecessary to employ any serious argument
in the confutation of a doctrine that is inconsistent with reason, and
unsupported by experience. But though all inquiries into the origin of
government be chimerical, yet the history of its progress is curious and
useful. The various stages through which it passed from savage
independence, which implies every man's power of injuring his neighbour,
to legal liberty, which consists in every man's security against wrong;
the manner in which a family expands into a tribe, and tribes coalesce
into a nation; in which public justice is gradually engrafted on private
revenge, find temporary submission ripened into habitual obedience; form
a most important and extensive subject of inquiry, which comprehends all
the improvements of mankind in police, in judicature, and in
legislation.
I have already given the reader to understand that the description of
liberty which seems to me the most comprehensive, is that of _security
against wrong_. Liberty is therefore the object of all government. Men
are more free under every government, even the most imperfect, than they
would be if it were possible for them to exist without any government
at all: they are more secure from wrong, _more undisturbed in the
exercise of their natural powers, and therefore more free, even in the
most obvious and grossest sense of the word_, than if they were
altogether unprotected against injury from each other. But as general
security is enjoyed in very different degrees under different
governments, those which guard it most perfectly, are by way of eminence
called _free_. Such governments attain most completely the end which is
common to all government. A free constitution of government and a good
constitution of government are therefore different expressions for the
same idea.
Another material distinction, however, soon presents itself. In most
civilised states the subject is tolerably protected against gross
injustice from his fellows by impartial laws, which it is the manifest
interest of the sovereign to enforce. But some commonwealths are so
happy as to be founded on a principle of much more refined and provident
wisdom. The subjects of such commonwealths are guarded not only against
the injustice of each other, but (as far as human prudence can
contrive) against oppression from the magistrate. Such states, like all
other extraordinary examples of public or private excellence and
happiness, are thinly scattered over the different ages and countries of
the world. In them the will of the sovereign is limited with so exact a
measure, that his protecting authority is not weakened. Such a
combination of skill and fortune is not often to be expected, and indeed
never can arise, but from the constant though gradual exertions of
wisdom and virtue, to improve a long succession of most favourable
circumstances.
There is indeed scarce any society so wretched as to be destitute of
some sort of weak provision against the injustice of their governors.
Religious institutions, favourite prejudices, national manners, have in
different countries, with unequal degrees of force, checked or mitigated
the exercise of supreme power. The privileges of a powerful nobility, of
opulent mercantile communities, of great judicial corporations, have in
some monarchies approached more near to a control on the sovereign.
Means have been devised with more or less wisdom to temper the despotism
of an aristocracy over their subjects, and in democracies to protect the
minority against the majority, and the whole people against the tyranny
of demagogues. But in these unmixed forms of government, as the right of
legislation is vested in one individual or in one order, it is obvious
that the legislative power may shake off all the restraints which the
laws have imposed on it. All such governments, therefore, tend towards
despotism, and the securities which they admit against mis-government
are extremely feeble and precarious. The best security which human
wisdom can devise, seems to be the distribution of political authority
among different individuals and bodies, with separate interests and
separate characters, corresponding to the variety of classes of which
civil society is composed, each interested to guard their own order from
oppression by the rest; each also interested to prevent any of the
others from seizing on exclusive, and therefore despotic power; and all
having a common interest to co-operate in carrying on the ordinary and
necessary administration of government. If there were not an interest to
resist each other in extraordinary cases, there would not be liberty. If
there were not an interest to co-operate in the ordinary course of
affairs, there could be no government. The object of such wise
institutions which make the selfishness of governors a security against
their injustice, is to protect men against wrong both from their rulers
and their fellows. Such governments are, with justice, peculiarly and
emphatically called _free_; and in ascribing that liberty to the skilful
combination of mutual dependence and mutual check, I feel my own
conviction greatly strengthened by calling to mind, that in this opinion
I agree with all the wise men who have ever deeply considered the
principles of politics; with Aristotle and Polybius, with Cicero and
Tacitus, with Bacon and Machiavel, with Montesquieu and Hume.[22] It is
impossible in such a cursory sketch as the present, even to allude to a
very small part of those philosophical principles, political reasonings,
and historical facts, which are necessary for the illustration of this
momentous subject. In a full discussion of it I shall be obliged to
examine the general frame of the most celebrated governments of ancient
and modern times, and especially of those which have been most renowned
for their freedom. The result of such an examination will be, that no
institution so detestable as an absolutely unbalanced government,
perhaps ever existed; that the simple governments are mere creatures of
the imagination of theorists, who have transformed names used for the
convenience of arrangement into real polities; that, as constitutions of
government approach more nearly to that unmixed and uncontrolled
simplicity they become despotic, and as they recede farther from that
simplicity they become free.
By the constitution of a state, I mean "_the body of those written and
unwritten fundamental laws which regulate the most important rights of
the higher magistrates, and the most essential privileges[23] of the
subjects._ "Such a body of political laws must in all countries arise
out of the character and situation of a people; they must grow with its
progress, be adapted to its peculiarities, change with its changes; and
be incorporated into its habits. Human wisdom cannot form such a
constitution by one act, for human wisdom cannot create the materials of
which it is composed. The attempt, always ineffectual, to change by
violence the ancient habits of men, and the established order of
society, so as to fit them for an absolutely new scheme of government,
flows from the most presumptuous ignorance, requires the support of the
most ferocious tyranny, and leads to consequences which its authors can
never foresee; generally, indeed, to institutions the most opposite to
those of which they profess to seek the establishment.[24] But human
wisdom indefatigably employed for remedying abuses, and in seizing
favourable opportunities of improving that order of society which arises
from causes over which we have little control, after the reforms and
amendments of a series of ages, has sometimes, though very rarely,[25]
shewn itself capable of building up a free constitution, which is "the
growth of time and nature, rather than the work of human invention."
Such a constitution can only be formed by the wise imitation of "_the
great innovator_ TIME, which, indeed, innovateth greatly, but quietly,
and by degrees scarce to be perceived."[26] Without descending to the
puerile ostentation of panegyric, on that of which all mankind confess
the excellence, I may observe, with truth and soberness, that a free
government not only establishes an universal security against wrong, but
that it also cherishes all the noblest powers of the human mind; that it
tends to banish both the mean and the ferocious vices; that it improves
the national character to which it is adapted, and out of which it
grows; that its whole administration is a practical school of honesty
and humanity; and that there the social affections, expanded into public
spirit, gain a wider sphere, and a more active spring.
I shall conclude what I have to offer on government, by an account of
the constitution of England. I shall endeavour to trace the progress of
that constitution by the light of history, of laws, and of records, from
the earliest times to the present age; and to shew how the general
principles of liberty, originally common to it, with the other Gothic
monarchies of Europe, but in other countries lost or obscured, were in
this more fortunate island preserved, matured, and adapted to the
progress of civilization. I shall attempt to exhibit this most
complicated machine, as our history and our laws shew it in action; and
not as some celebrated writers have most imperfectly represented it, who
have torn out a few of its more simple springs, and, putting them
together, miscall them the British constitution. So prevalent, indeed,
have these imperfect representations hitherto been, that I will venture
to affirm, there is scarcely any subject which has been less treated as
it deserved than the government of England. Philosophers of great and
merited reputation[27] have told us that it consisted of certain
portions of monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy; names which are, in
truth, very little applicable, and which, if they were, would as little
give an idea of this government, as an account of the weight of bone, of
flesh, and of blood in a human body, would be a picture of a living man.
Nothing but a patient and minute investigation of the practice of the
government in all its parts, and through its whole history, can give us
just notions on this important subject. If a lawyer, without a
philosophical spirit, be unequal to the examination of this great work
of liberty and wisdom, still more unequal is a philosopher without
practical, legal, and historical knowledge; for the first may want
skill, but the second wants materials. The observations of Lord Bacon on
political writers, in general, are most applicable to those who have
given us systematic descriptions of the English constitution. "All
those who have written of governments have written as philosophers, or
as lawyers, _and none as statesmen_. As for the philosophers, they make
imaginary laws for imaginary commonwealths, and their discourses are as
the stars, which give little light because they are so high."--"_Haec
cognitio ad viros civiles proprie pertinet_," as he tells us in another
part of his writings; but unfortunately no experienced philosophical
British statesman has yet devoted his leisure to a delineation of the
constitution, which such a statesman alone can practically and perfectly
know.
In the discussion of this great subject, and in all reasonings on the
principles of politics, I shall labour, above all things, to avoid that
which appears to me to have been the constant source of political error:
I mean the attempt to give an air of system, of simplicity, and of
rigorous demonstration, to subjects which do not admit it. The only
means by which this could be done, was by referring to a few simple
causes, what, in truth, arose from immense and intricate combinations,
and successions of causes. The consequence was very obvious. The system
of the theorist, disencumbered from all regard to the real nature of
things, easily assumed an air of speciousness. It required little
dexterity to make his argument appear conclusive. But all men agreed
that it was utterly inapplicable to human affairs. The theorist railed
at the folly of the world, instead of confessing his own; and the men of
practice unjustly blamed philosophy, instead of condemning the sophist.
The causes which the politician has to consider are, above all others,
multiplied, mutable, minute, subtile, and, if I may so speak,
evanescent; perpetually changing their form, and varying their
combinations; losing their nature, while they keep their name;
exhibiting the most different consequences in the endless variety of men
and nations on whom they operate; in one degree of strength producing
the most signal benefit; and, under a slight variation of circumstances,
the most tremendous mischiefs. They admit indeed of being reduced to
theory; but to a theory formed on the most extensive views, of the most
comprehensive and flexible principles, to embrace all their varieties,
and to fit all their rapid transmigrations; a theory, of which the most
fundamental maxim is, distrust in itself, and deference for practical
prudence. Only two writers of former times have, as far as I know,
observed this general defect of political reasoners; but these two are
the greatest philosophers who have ever appeared in the world. The first
of them is Aristotle, who, in a passage of his Politics, to which I
cannot at this moment turn, plainly condemns the pursuit of a delusive
geometrical accuracy in moral reasonings as the constant source of the
grossest error. The second is Lord Bacon, who tells us, with that
authority of conscious wisdom which belongs to him, and with that power
of richly adorning truth from the wardrobe of genius which he possessed
above almost all men, "Civil knowledge is conversant about a subject
which, above all others, is most immersed in matter, and hardliest
reduced to axiom."[28]
IV. I shall next endeavour to lay open the general principles of civil
and criminal laws. On this subject I may with some confidence hope that
I shall be enabled to philosophise with better materials by my
acquaintance with the law of my own country, which it is the business of
my life to practise, and of which the study has by habit become my
favourite pursuit.