The principles of moral and political philosophy

Front matter

J\iijri-;r<-i-a l>rJ.Bajji KcUti^

WILLIAM PALEY D.D

THE

BOOK II. Moral Obligation

Chap. I. The Question, Why am /obliged to keep my word?

considered, 42 II. What we mean, when we say a man is obliged to do

a thing, ... 44

III. The Question, Why am /obliged to keep my word ?

resumed, - - - 45

IV. The Will of God, . - - 48 V. The Divine Benevolence, - - 50

VL Utility, ... 53 VII. The Necessity of General Rules, - - 56 VIII. The Consideration of General Consequences pursued, - - 59 IXl Of Right, - 62 X. The Division of Rights, 64 XI. The General Rights of Mankind, - 71

Vlll CONTENTS.

i

Part I. OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE DETERMINATE

Chap. I. Of Property, 79

II. The Use of the Institution of Property, 80

III. The History of Property, - - 83

IV. In what the Right of Property is founded, 85 V. Promises, - - - 92

VI. Contracts, - - - 106

VII. Contracts of Sale, - - 107

VIII. Contracts of Hazard, - - 112

IX. Contracts of Lending of Inconsumable Property, 114

X. Contracts concerning the Lending of Money, 116

XI. Contracts of Labour — Service, - 122

XII. Contracts of Labour — Commissions, - 12/

XIII. Contracts of Labour — Partnership, - 130

XIV. Contracts of Labour— Offices, - - 132 XV. Lies, - - - - 135

XVII. Oath in Evidence, - 147

XVIII. Oath of Allegiance, - - 149 XIX. Oath against Bribery in the Election of Members

of Parliament, - - " - 153

XX. Oath against Simony, - - 154

XXI. Oaths to observe Local Statutes, - 157

XXII. Subscription to Articles of Religion, 159

XXIII. Wills, - - 161

CONTENTS. IX

BOOK HL Part II.

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH ARE INDETERMINATE, AND OF THE CRIMES OPPOSITE TO THESE.

Chap. I. Charity, - - - 169 II. Charity — The Treatment of our Domestics and

Dependants, - - 170

III. Slavery, - - - - 172

IV. Charity — Professional Assistance, - 175 V. Charity — Pecuniary Bounty, - - 178

VI. Resentment, - - - 189

VIII. Revenge, - lp3

IX. Duelling, - - - - 1Q8

X. Litigation, - - - 201

XI. Gratitude, 205

XII. Slander, - - - - 207

BOOK III.

Part III

OF RELATIVE DUTIES WHICH RESULT FROM THE CONSTI- TUTION OF THE SEXES, AND OF THE CRIMES OPPOSED TO THESE.

Chap. I. Of the public Use of Marriage Institutions, 210

II. Fornication, - - - 212

III. Seduction, - - - 218

IV. Adultery, - - - 221

V. Incest, - - - 227 VI. Polygamy, '- - - 228

VII. ^Divorce, - - - 233

VlII. Marriage, - - * 242

IX. Of the Duty of Parents, - - 247

X. The Rights of Parents, - - 264

XI. The Duty of Children, - - 266

X CONTENTS.

Book IV. Duties To Ourselves, And The Crimes Opposite To These

Chap. I. The Rights of Self -Defence, - - 272

II. Drunkenness, - 275 III. Suicide, - - 282

Book V. Duties Towards God

Chap. I. Division of these Duties, - - 292

II. Of the Duty and of the Efficacy of Prayer, so far

as the same appear from the Light of Nature, 293

III. Of the Duty and Efficacy of Prayer, as repre-

sented in Scripture, - - - 301

IV. Of Private Prayer, Family Prayer, and Public

V. Of Forms of Prayer in Public Worship, - 312 VI. Of the Use of Sabbatical Institutions, - 320

VII. Of the Scripture Account of Sabbatical Institutions, - 323 VIII. By what Acts and Omissions the Duty of the

Christian Sabbath is violated, - 338

IX. Of reverencing the Deity, - - 341

BOOK VI. Elements of Political Knowledge

Chap. 1. Of the Origin of Civil Government, - 352

II. How Subjection to Civil Government is maintained, - - - 358

III. The Duty of Submission to Civil Government ex-

plained, - - - 3 65

IV. Of the Duty of Civil Obedience, as stated in the

Christian Scriptures, - - 381

V. Of Civil Liberty, - - - 391

VI. Of different Forms of Government, - 397

CONTENTS. XI

Chap. VII. Of the British Constitution, - - 410

VIII. Of the Administration of Justice, - 443

IX. Of Crimes and Punishments, - - 470

X. Of Religious Establishments, and of Toleration, 497 XI. Of Population and Provision; Gnd of Agriculture and Commerce, as subservient thereto, 530 XII. Of War, and of Military Establishments, 5J&

Preface

In the treatises that I have met with upon the subject of morals, I appear to myself to have remarked the following imperfections ; — either that the principle was erroneous, or that it was indistinctly explained, or that the rules deduced from it were not sufficiently adapted to real life and to actual situations. The writings of Grotius, and the larger work of PufTendorfF, are of too forensic a cast, too much mixed up with the civil law and with the jurisprudence of Germany, to answer precisely the design of a system of ethics — the direction of private consciences in the general conduct of human life. Perhaps, indeed, they are not to be regarded as institutes of morality calculated to instruct an individual in his duty, so much as a species of law books and law authorities, suited to the practice of those courts of justice, whose decisions are regulated by general principles of natural equity, in conjunction with the maxims of the Roman code ; of which kind, I understand, there are many upon the Continent. To which may be added, concerning both these authors, that they are more occupied in describing the rights and usages of independent communities, than is necessary in a work which professes not to adjust the correspondence of nations, but to delineate the offices of domestic life. The profusion also of classical quotations with which many of their pages abound, seems to me a fault from which it will not be easy to excuse them. If these extracts be intended as decorations of style, the composition is overloaded with ornaments of one kino 1 . To any thing more than ornament they can make no claim. To propose them as serious arguments; gravely to attempt to establish or fortify a moral duty by the testimony of a Greek or Roman poet, is to trifle with the attention of the reader, or rather to take it off from all just principles of reasoning in morals.

XIV PREFACE.

Of our own writers in this branch of philosophy, I find none that I think perfectly free from the three objections which I have stated. There is likewise a fourth property observable in almost all of them, namely, that they divide too much the law of Nature from the precepts of Revelation ; some authors industriously declining the mention of Scripture authorities, as belonging to a different province; and others reserving them for a separate volume: which appears to me much the same defect, as if a commentator on the laws of England should content himself with stating upon each head the common law of the land, without taking any notice of acts of parliament; or should choose to give his readers the common law in one book, and the statute law in another. " When the obligations 4t of morality are taught/' says a pious and celebrated writer, " let the sanctions of Christianity never be for- " gotten : by which it will be shewn that they give " strength and lustre to each other : religion will ap- " pear to be the voice of reason, and morality the will "of God/'*

The manner also in which modern writers have treated of subjects of morality, is, in my judgment, liable to much exception. It has become of late a fashion to deliver moral institutes in strings or series of detached propositions, without subjoining a continued argument or regular dissertation to any of them. This sententious apophthegmatizing style, by crowding propositions and paragraphs too fast upon the mind, and by carrying the eye of the reader from subject to subject in too quick a succession, gains not a sufficient hold upon the attention, to leave either the memory furnished, or the understanding satisfied. However useful a syllabus of topics or a series of propositions may be in the hands of a lecturer, or as a guide to a student, who is supposed to consult other books, or to institute upon each subject researches of his

* Preface to " The Preceptor," by Dr Johnson, 15

PREFACE. XV

own, the method is by no means convenient for ordinary readers ; because few readers are such thinkers as to want only a hint to set their thoughts at work upon ; or such as will pause and tarry at every proposition, till they have traced out its dependency, proof, relation, and consequences, before they permit themselves to step on to another, A respectable writer of this class* has comprised his doctrine of slavery in the three following propositions : —

" No one is born a slave ; because every one is born " with all his original rights."

" No one can become a slave ; because no one from " being a person can, in the language of the Roman law, " become a thing, or subject of property."

" The supposed property of the master in the slave, u therefore, is matter of usurpation, not of right."

It may be possible to deduce from these few adages such a theory of the primitive rights of human nature, as will evince the illegality of slavery ; but surely an author requires too much of his reader, when he expects him to make these deductions for himself; or to supply, perhaps from some remote chapter of the same treatise, the several proofs and explanations which are necessary to render the meaning and truth of these assertions intelligible.

There is a fault, the opposite of this, which some mo* ralists who have adopted a different, aud I think a better plan of composition, have not always been careful to avoid ; namely, the dwelling upon verbal and elementary distinctions with a labour and prolixity proportioned much more to the subtlety of the question, than to its value and importance in the prosecution of the subject. A writer upon the law of nature,+ whose explications in every part of philosophy, though always diffuse, are often very successful, has employed three long sections in en-

* Dr Ferguson, author of " Institutes of Moral Philosophy," 1767. f Dr Rutherforth, author of " Institutes of Natural Law."

XVI PREFACE.

deavouring to Drove that " permissions are not laws." The discussion of this controversy, however essential it might he to dialectic precision, was certainly not necessary to the progress of a work designed to describe the duties and obligations of civil life. The reader becomes impatient when he is detained by disquisitions which have no other object than the settling of terms and phrases ; and, what is worse, they for whose use such books are chiefly intended, will not be persuaded to read them at all.

I am led to propose these strictures not by any propensity to depreciate the labours of my predecessors, much less to invite a comparison between the merits of their performances and my own ; but solely by the consideration, that when a writer offers a book to the public, upon a subject on which the public are already in possession of many others, he is bound by a kind of literary justice to inform his readers, distinctly and specifically, what it is he professes to supply, and what he expects to improve. The imperfections above enumerated, are those which I have endeavoured to avoid or remedy. Of the execution the reader must judge : but this was the design.

Concerning the principle of morals it would be premature to speak ; but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have somewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience of nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the universities, and in that department of education to which these chapters relate, afforded me frequent occasion to observe, that in discoursing to young minds upon topics of morality, it required much more pains to make them perceive the difficulty, than to understand the solution ; that, unless the subject was so drawn up to a point, as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon ; — in other words, unless some curiosity was excited before it was attempted to be satisfied, the labour of the teacher was

PREFACE* XVU

lost. When information was not desired, it was seldom., I found, retained. I have made this observation my ginde in the following work : that is, upon each occasion I have endeavoured, before I suffered myself to proceed in the disquisition, to put the reader in complete possession of tbe question ; and to do it in the way that I thought most likely to stir up his own doubts and solicitude about it.

In pursuing the principle of morals through the detail of cases to which it is applicable, 1 have had in view to accommodate botb the choice of the subjects, and the manner of handling them, to the situations which arise in the life of an inhabitant of this country in these times. This is the thing that I think to be principally wanting in former treatises; and perhaps the chief advantage which will be found in mine. I have examined no doubts, I have discussed no obscurities, I have encountered no errors, I have adverted to no controversies, but what I have seen actually to exist. If some of the questions treated of appear to a more instructed reader minute or puerile, I desire such reader to be assured that I have found them occasions of difficulty to young minds; and what 1 have observed in young minds, I should expect to meet with, in all who approach these subjects for the first time. Upon each article of human duty, I have combined with the conclusions of reason the declarations of Scripture, when they are to be had, as of co-ordinate authority, and as both terminating in the same sanctions.

In the manner qf the work, I have endeavoured so to attemper the opposite plans above animadverted upon, as that the reader may not accuse me either of too much haste or of too much delay. I have bestowed upon each subject enough of dissertation to give a body and substance to the chapter in which it is treated or", as well as coherence and perspicuity ; on the other hand, I have seldom, I hope, exercised the patience of the reader by the length and prolixity of my essays, or disappointed that patience at last by the tenuity and unimportance of the conclusion.

b

XV11I PREFACE.

There are two particulars in the following work, for which it may be thought necessary that I should offer some excuse. The first of which is, that I have scarcely ever referred to any other book, or mentioned the name of the author whose thoughts, and sometimes, possibly, whose very expressions I have adopted. My method of writing has constantly been this ; to extract what I could from my own stores and my own reflections in the first place; to put down that, and afterwards to consult upon each subject such readings as fell in my way : which order, I am convinced, is the only one whereby any person can keep his thoughts from sliding into other men's trains. The effect of such a plan upon the production itself will be, that, whilst some parts in matter or manner may be new, others will be little else than a repetition of the old. I make no pretensions to perfect originality : I claim to be something more than a mere compiler. Much, no doubt, is borrowed ; but the fact is, that the notes for this work having been prepared for some years, and such things having been from time to time inserted in them as appeared, to me worth preserving, and such insertions made commonly without the name of the author from whom they were taken, I should, at this time, have found a difficulty in recovering these names with sufficient exactness to be able to render to every man his own. .Nor, to speak the truth, did it appear to me worth while to repeat the search merely for this purpose. When authorities are relied upon, names must be produced : when a discovery has been made in science, it may be unjust to borrow the invention without acknowledging the author. But in an argumentative treatise, and upon a subject which allows no place for discovery or invention, properly so called ; and in which all that can belong to a writer is his mode of reasoning or his judgment of probabilities ; I should have thought it superfluous, had it been easier to me than it w r as, to have interrupted my text, or crowded my margin with refe-

PREFACE. XIX

yences to every author whose sentiments I have made use of. There is, however, one work to which I owe so much, that it would be ungrateful not to confess the obligation : I mean the writings of the late Abraham Tucker, Esq. part of which were published by himself, and the remainder since his death, under the title of " The Light of Nature pursued, by Edward Search, Esq." I have found in this writer more original thinking and observation upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand, than in any other, not to say, than in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. But his thoughts are diffused through a long, various, and irregular work. I shall account it no mean praise, if I have been sometimes able to dispose into method, to collect into heads and articles, or to exhibit in more compact and tangible masses, what, in that otherwise excellent performance, is spread over too much surface.

The next circumstance for which some apology may be expected, is the joining of moral and political philosophy together, or the addition of a book of politics to a system of ethics. Against this objection, if it be made one, I might defend myself by the example of many approved writers, who have treated de officiis hominis et civis, or, as some choose to express it, " of the rights and obligations of man, in his individual and social capacity," in the same book. I might allege, also, that the part a member of the commonwealth shall take in political contentions, the vote he shall give, the counsels he shall approve, the support he shall afford, or the opposition he shall make, to any system of public measures, — is as much a question of personal duty, as much concerns the conscience of the individual who deliberates, as the determination of any doubt which relates to the conduct of private life ; that consequently political philosophy is, properly speaking, a continuation of moral philosophy ; or rather indeed a part of it, supposing moral philosophy to have for its aim the information of the human conscience in every

XX PREFACE.

deliberation that is likely to come before it. I might avail myself of these excuses, if I wanted them ; but the vindication upon which I rely is the following. In stating the principle of morals, the reader will observe that I have employed some industry in explaining the theory, and shewing the necessity of general rules ; without the full and constant consideration of which, I am persuaded that no system of moral philosophy can be satisfactory or consistent. This foundation being laid, or rather this habit being formed, the discussion of political subjects, to which, more than to almost any other, general rules are applicable, became clear and easy. Whereas, had these topics been assigned to a distinct work, it would have been necessary to have repeated the same rudiments, to have established over again the same principles, as those which we had already exemplified, and rendered familiar to the reader, in the former parts of this. In a word, if there appear to any one too great a diversity, or too wide a distance between the subjects treated of in the course of the present volume, let him be reminded, that the doctrine of general rules pervades and connects the whole.

It may not be improper, however, to admonish- the reader, that, under the name of politics, he is not to look for those occasional controversies, which the occurrences of the present day, or any temporary situation of public affairs," may excite ; and most of which, if not beneath the dignity, it is beside the purpose of a philosophical institution to advert to. He will perceive that the several disquisitions are framed with a reference to the condition of this country, and of this government: but it seemed to me to belong to the design of a work like the following, not so much to discuss each altercated point with the particularity of a political pamphlet upon the subject, as to deliver those universal principles, and to exhibit that mode and train of reasoning in politics, by the due application of which every man might be enabled

PREFACE. XXI

to attain to just conclusions of his own. I am not ignorant of an objection that has been advanced against all abstract speculations concerning the origin, principle, or limitation of civil authority ; namely, that such speculations possess little or no influence upon the conduct either of the state or of the subject, of the governors or the governed ; nor are attended with any useful consequences to either; that in times of tranquillity they are not wanted ; in times of confusion they are never heard. This representation, however, in my opinion, is not just. Times of tumult, it is true, are not the times to learn; but the choice which men make of their side and party, in the most critical occasions of the commonwealth, may nevertheless depend upon the lessons they have received, the books they have read, and the opinions they have imbibed, in seasons of leisure and quietness. Some judicious persons, who were present; at Geneva during the troubles which lately convulsed that city, thought they perceived, in the contentions there carrying on, the operation of that political theory, which the writings of Rousseau, and the unbounded esteem in which these writings are held by his counti^men, had diffused amongst, the people. Throughout the political disputes that have within these few years taken place in Great Britain, in her sister kingdom, and in her foreign dependencies, it was impossible not to observe, in the language of party, in the resolutions of popular meetings, in debate, in conversation, in the general strain of those fugitive and diurnal addresses to the public which such occasions call forth, the prevalency of those ideas of civil authority which are displayed in the works of Mr Locke. The credit of that great name, the courage and liberality of his principles, the skill and clearness with which his arguments are proposed, no less than the weight of the arguments themselves, have given a reputation and currency to his opinions, of which 1 am persuaded, in any unsettled state of public affairs, the influence would be felt.

XXII PREFACE.

As this is not a place for examining the truth or tendency of these doctrines, I would not be understood, by what I have said, to express any judgment concerning either. I mean only to remark, that such doctrines are not without effect ; and that it is of practical importance to have the principles from which the obligations of social union, and the extent of civil obedience, are derived, rightly explained, and well understood. Indeed, as far as I have observed, in political beyond ail other subjects, where men are without some fundamental and scientific principles to resort to, they are liable to have their understandings played upon by cant phrases and unmeaning terms, of which every party in every country possesses a, vocabulary. We appear astonished when we see the multitude led away by sounds : but we should remember, that if sounds work miracles, it is always upon ignorance. The influence of names is in exact proportion to the want of knowledge.

These are the observations with which I have judged it expedient to .prepare the attention of my reader. Concerning the personal motives which engaged me in the following . attempt, it is not necessary that I say much ; the nature of my academical situation, a great deal of leisure since my retirement from it, the recommendation of an honoured and excellent friend, the authority of the venerable prelate to whom these labours are inscribed, the not perceiving in what way I could employ my time or talents better, and my disapprobation in literary men of that fastidious indolence, which sits still because it disdains to do little, were the considerations that directed my thoughts to this design. Nor have I repented of the undertaking. Whatever be the fate or reception of this work, it owes its author nothing. In sickness and in health I have found in it that which can alone alleviate \he one, or give enjoyment to the other, — occupation and engagement.

SKETCH OF THE LIFE

OF

WILLIAM PALEY, D.D.

WlLLIAM Pa LEY was born at Peterborough in July 1743. His father, the younger son of a family possessing a small estate near Craven, was Vicar of Helpstone, and Head-Master of the Grammar-School at Giggleswick, where he resided. At this place young Paley was brought up under his- father's eye. Being an only son, no pains were spared on his education, and his own abilities seconded his father's care so well, that he outstript all his early class-fellows, and rose from class to class till he stood at the head of the highest. For some time, however, the superiority was contested with him by the son of the under Teacher; and it appears that the two Masters, who exchanged departments at stated times, became in some degree parties in the rivalship of their sons, for it was observed that each, when he had charge of the class, raised his own son to the head place. There is no reason to think, however, that young Paley owed much of the distinction he obtained at school to the undue partiality of his father; for his abilities and application were marked, even at this period, as superior to those of his school-fellows. A diligent rather than an enthusiastic scholar, he executed the tasks assigned him well and promptly, without seeking to distinguish himself by those gratuitous exercises in composition, which zealous scholars sometimes undertake.

Of his early years there is nothing peculiarly characteristic preserved. He.was liked by his school fellows for his good humour and amusing qualities, although he did not join in the pastimes peculiar to boys of his age, except angling, of which he continued to be fond during the course of his life. He was inexpert at bodily exercises, but under an indolent exterior he concealed an active mind, and a capacity for observation beyond his years. He was

XXIV SKETCH OF THE

extremely inquisitive with regard to curious pieces of mechanism, and never failed to put a great many questions to any tradesman, who could give him satisfactory information.

In \ovember 1758 he was admitted a sizer, or student of the lowest rank, at Cambridge, but did not take up his residence there till the following year. The interval was spent in acquiring a knowledge of the elementary parts of Algebra and Geometry under a teacher at Ditehford When he became a resident member of Christ's College in October 1759, he was only sixteen ; an age which he frequently mentioned afterwards, as too early to encounter the dangers of a College life. But his appearance indicated a more advanced age, and such *vas the maturity of his understanding in the opinion of his father, that he confidently predicted his son would become a very great man, for he had the clearest head he ever met with in his life.

Shortly after his removal to Cambridge he obtained three scholarships, which would considerably lighten the expense of his residence there. Besides attending the classes of Mathematics and Logic, he occasionally contributed mathematical articles to the Diaries and Magazines ; but he was so far from following any systematic course of study, that the books he read for the day were often determined by the tossing up of a halfpenny. Although indolent, he never failed to distinguish himself at the classes he attended, aud was much esteemed, both by his teachers, and the> more respectable part of his fellow students. On the other hand, Ins cheerful temper, and companionable qualities, made his room the resort of many of the thoughtless young men at the College, by whom, it would appear, he was for some time led into idle and expensive habits.

At the commencement of his third year, it is said, he was roused by the remonstrances of a companion, to break through his indolent habits, and apply more assiduously to his studies. Having attracted uotice as a disputant, he was encouraged to enter the lists as a candidate for the high honours of Senior Wrangler, and having prepared himself with extraordinary diligence, he succeeded in the face of a formidable competition.

Soon after obtaining his Bachelor's degree, he accepted of a situation as second assistant in a great Academy at Greenwich. Here it was ludicrously required as indispensable, that he should