Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the future extinction of the passion
between the sexes--Little apparent grounds for such a
conjecture--Passion of love not inconsistent either with reason or
virtue.
We have supported Mr Godwin's system of society once completely
established. But it is supposing an impossibility. The same causes in
nature which would destroy it so rapidly, were it once established,
would prevent the possibility of its establishment. And upon what
grounds we can presume a change in these natural causes, I am utterly
at a loss to conjecture. No move towards the extinction of the passion
between the sexes has taken place in the five or six thousand years
that the world has existed. Men in the decline of life have in all ages
declaimed against a passion which they have ceased to feel, but with as
little reason as success. Those who from coldness of constitutional
temperament have never felt what love is, will surely be allowed to be
very incompetent judges with regard to the power of this passion to
contribute to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Those who have
spent their youth in criminal excesses and have prepared for
themselves, as the comforts of their age, corporeal debility and mental
remorse may well inveigh against such pleasures as vain and futile, and
unproductive of lasting satisfaction. But the pleasures of pure love
will bear the contemplation of the most improved reason, and the most
exalted virtue. Perhaps there is scarcely a man who has once
experienced the genuine delight of virtuous love, however great his
intellectual pleasure may have been, that does not look back to the
period as the sunny spot in his whole life, where his imagination loves
to bask, which he recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets,
and which he would most wish to live over again. The superiority of
intellectual to sensual pleasures consists rather in their filling up
more time, in their having a larger range, and in their being less
liable to satiety, than in their being more real and essential.
Intemperance in every enjoyment defeats its own purpose. A walk in the
finest day through the most beautiful country, if pursued too far, ends
in pain and fatigue. The most wholesome and invigorating food, eaten
with an unrestrained appetite, produces weakness instead of strength.
Even intellectual pleasures, though certainly less liable than others
to satiety, pursued with too little intermission, debilitate the body,
and impair the vigour of the mind. To argue against the reality of
these pleasures from their abuse seems to be hardly just. Morality,
according to Mr Godwin, is a calculation of consequences, or, as
Archdeacon Paley very justly expresses it, the will of God, as
collected from general expediency. According to either of these
definitions, a sensual pleasure not attended with the probability of
unhappy consequences does not offend against the laws of morality, and
if it be pursued with such a degree of temperance as to leave the most
ample room for intellectual attainments, it must undoubtedly add to the
sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Virtuous love, exalted by
friendship, seems to be that sort of mixture of sensual and
intellectual enjoyment particularly suited to the nature of man, and
most powerfully calculated to awaken the sympathies of the soul, and
produce the most exquisite gratifications.
Mr Godwin says, in order to shew the evident inferiority of the
pleasures of sense, 'Strip the commerce of the sexes of all its
attendant circumstances, and it would be generally despised' (Bk. I,
ch. 5; in the third edition, Vol. I, pp. 71-72). He might as well say
to a man who admired trees: strip them of their spreading branches and
lovely foliage, and what beauty can you see in a bare pole? But it was
the tree with the branches and foliage, and not without them, that
excited admiration. One feature of an object may be as distinct, and
excite as different emotions, from the aggregate as any two things the
most remote, as a beautiful woman, and a map of Madagascar. It is 'the
symmetry of person, the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of temper,
the affectionate kindness of feelings, the imagination and the wit' of
a woman that excite the passion of love, and not the mere distinction
of her being female. Urged by the passion of love, men have been driven
into acts highly prejudicial to the general interests of society, but
probably they would have found no difficulty in resisting the
temptation, had it appeared in the form of a woman with no other
attractions whatever but her sex. To strip sensual pleasures of all
their adjuncts, in order to prove their inferiority, is to deprive a
magnet of some of its most essential causes of attraction, and then to
say that it is weak and inefficient.
In the pursuit of every enjoyment, whether sensual or intellectual,
reason, that faculty which enables us to calculate consequences, is the
proper corrective and guide. It is probable therefore that improved
reason will always tend to prevent the abuse of sensual pleasures,
though it by no means follows that it will extinguish them.
I have endeavoured to expose the fallacy of that argument which infers
an unlimited progress from a partial improvement, the limits of which
cannot be exactly ascertained. It has appeared, I think, that there are
many instances in which a decided progress has been observed, where yet
it would be a gross absurdity to suppose that progress indefinite. But
towards the extinction of the passion between the sexes, no observable
progress whatever has hitherto been made. To suppose such an
extinction, therefore, is merely to offer an unfounded conjecture,
unsupported by any philosophical probabilities.
It is a truth, which history I am afraid makes too clear, that some men
of the highest mental powers have been addicted not only to a moderate,
but even to an immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of sensual love.
But allowing, as I should be inclined to do, notwithstanding numerous
instances to the contrary, that great intellectual exertions tend to
diminish the empire of this passion over man, it is evident that the
mass of mankind must be improved more highly than the brightest
ornaments of the species at present before any difference can take
place sufficient sensibly to affect population. I would by no means
suppose that the mass of mankind has reached its term of improvement,
but the principal argument of this essay tends to place in a strong
point of view the improbability that the lower classes of people in any
country should ever be sufficiently free from want and labour to obtain
any high degree of intellectual improvement.