No More Learning

It may perhaps be said that the world is yet so young, so completely in
its infancy, that it ought not to be expected that any difference
should appear so soon.

If this be the case, there is at once an end of all human science. The
whole train of reasonings from effects to causes will be destroyed. We
may shut our eyes to the book of nature, as it will no longer be of any
use to read it. The wildest and most improbable conjectures may be
advanced with as much certainty as the most just and sublime theories,
founded on careful and reiterated experiments. We may return again to
the old mode of philosophising and make facts bend to systems, instead
of establishing systems upon facts. The grand and consistent theory of
Newton will be placed upon the same footing as the wild and eccentric
hypotheses of Descartes. In short, if the laws of nature are thus
fickle and inconstant, if it can be affirmed and be believed that they
will change, when for ages and ages they have appeared immutable, the
human mind will no longer have any incitements to inquiry, but must
remain fixed in inactive torpor, or amuse itself only in bewildering
dreams and extravagant fancies.

The constancy of the laws of nature and of effects and causes is the
foundation of all human knowledge, though far be it from me to say that
the same power which framed and executes the laws of nature may not
change them all 'in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye. ' Such a
change may undoubtedly happen. All that I mean to say is that it is
impossible to infer it from reasoning. If without any previous
observable symptoms or indications of a change, we can infer that a
change will take place, we may as well make any assertion whatever and
think it as unreasonable to be contradicted in affirming that the moon
will come in contact with the earth tomorrow, as in saying that the sun
will rise at its usual time.

With regard to the duration of human life, there does not appear to
have existed from the earliest ages of the world to the present moment
the smallest permanent symptom or indication of increasing
prolongation. The observable effects of climate, habit, diet, and other
causes, on length of life have furnished the pretext for asserting its
indefinite extension; and the sandy foundation on which the argument
rests is that because the limit of human life is undefined; because you
cannot mark its precise term, and say so far exactly shall it go and no
further; that therefore its extent may increase for ever, and be
properly termed indefinite or unlimited. But the fallacy and absurdity
of this argument will sufficiently appear from a slight examination of
what Mr Condorcet calls the organic perfectibility, or degeneration, of
the race of plants and animals, which he says may be regarded as one of
the general laws of nature.

I am told that it is a maxim among the improvers of cattle that you may
breed to any degree of nicety you please, and they found this maxim
upon another, which is that some of the offspring will possess the
desirable qualities of the parents in a greater degree. In the famous
Leicestershire breed of sheep, the object is to procure them with small
heads and small legs. Proceeding upon these breeding maxims, it is
evident that we might go on till the heads and legs were evanescent
quantities, but this is so palpable an absurdity that we may be quite
sure that the premises are not just and that there really is a limit,
though we cannot see it or say exactly where it is. In this case, the
point of the greatest degree of improvement, or the smallest size of
the head and legs, may be said to be undefined, but this is very
different from unlimited, or from indefinite, in Mr Condorcet's
acceptation of the term. Though I may not be able in the present
instance to mark the limit at which further improvement will stop, I
can very easily mention a point at which it will not arrive. I should
not scruple to assert that were the breeding to continue for ever, the
head and legs of these sheep would never be so small as the head and
legs of a rat.

It cannot be true, therefore, that among animals, some of the offspring
will possess the desirable qualities of the parents in a greater
degree, or that animals are indefinitely perfectible.

The progress of a wild plant to a beautiful garden flower is perhaps
more marked and striking than anything that takes place among animals,
yet even here it would be the height of absurdity to assert that the
progress was unlimited or indefinite.

One of the most obvious features of the improvement is the increase of
size. The flower has grown gradually larger by cultivation. If the
progress were really unlimited it might be increased ad infinitum, but
this is so gross an absurdity that we may be quite sure that among
plants as well as among animals there is a limit to improvement, though
we do not exactly know where it is. It is probable that the gardeners
who contend for flower prizes have often applied stronger dressing
without success. At the same time it would be highly presumptuous in
any man to say that he had seen the finest carnation or anemone that
could ever be made to grow. He might however assert without the
smallest chance of being contradicted by a future fact, that no
carnation or anemone could ever by cultivation be increased to the size
of a large cabbage; and yet there are assignable quantities much
greater than a cabbage. No man can say that he has seen the largest ear
of wheat, or the largest oak that could ever grow; but he might easily,
and with perfect certainty, name a point of magnitude at which they
would not arrive. In all these cases therefore, a careful distinction
should be made, between an unlimited progress, and a progress where the
limit is merely undefined.

It will be said, perhaps, that the reason why plants and animals cannot
increase indefinitely in size is, that they would fall by their own
weight. I answer, how do we know this but from experience? --from
experience of the degree of strength with which these bodies are
formed. I know that a carnation, long before it reached the size of a
cabbage, would not be supported by its stalk, but I only know this from
my experience of the weakness and want of tenacity in the materials of
a carnation stalk. There are many substances in nature of the same size
that would support as large a head as a cabbage.

The reasons of the mortality of plants are at present perfectly unknown
to us. No man can say why such a plant is annual, another biennial, and
another endures for ages. The whole affair in all these cases, in
plants, animals, and in the human race, is an affair of experience, and
I only conclude that man is mortal because the invariable experience of
all ages has proved the mortality of those materials of which his
visible body is made:

What can we reason, but from what we know?

Sound philosophy will not authorize me to alter this opinion of the
mortality of man on earth, till it can be clearly proved that the human
race has made, and is making, a decided progress towards an illimitable
extent of life. And the chief reason why I adduced the two particular
instances from animals and plants was to expose and illustrate, if I
could, the fallacy of that argument which infers an unlimited progress,
merely because some partial improvement has taken place, and that the
limit of this improvement cannot be precisely ascertained.

The capacity of improvement in plants and animals, to a certain degree,
no person can possibly doubt. A clear and decided progress has already
been made, and yet, I think, it appears that it would be highly absurd
to say that this progress has no limits. In human life, though there
are great variations from different causes, it may be doubted whether,
since the world began, any organic improvement whatever in the human
frame can be clearly ascertained. The foundations, therefore, on which
the arguments for the organic perfectibility of man rest, are unusually
weak, and can only be considered as mere conjectures. It does not,
however, by any means seem impossible that by an attention to breed, a
certain degree of improvement, similar to that among animals, might
take place among men. Whether intellect could be communicated may be a
matter of doubt: but size, strength, beauty, complexion, and perhaps
even longevity are in a degree transmissible. The error does not seem
to lie in supposing a small degree of improvement possible, but in not
discriminating between a small improvement, the limit of which is
undefined, and an improvement really unlimited. As the human race,
however, could not be improved in this way, without condemning all the
bad specimens to celibacy, it is not probable that an attention to
breed should ever become general; indeed, I know of no well-directed
attempts of this kind, except in the ancient family of the
Bickerstaffs, who are said to have been very successful in whitening
the skins and increasing the height of their race by prudent marriages,
particularly by that very judicious cross with Maud, the milk-maid, by
which some capital defects in the constitutions of the family were
corrected.

It will not be necessary, I think, in order more completely to shew the
improbability of any approach in man towards immortality on earth, to
urge the very great additional weight that an increase in the duration
of life would give to the argument of population.

Many, I doubt not, will think that the attempting gravely to controvert
so absurd a paradox as the immortality of man on earth, or indeed, even
the perfectibility of man and society, is a waste of time and words,
and that such unfounded conjectures are best answered by neglect. I
profess, however, to be of a different opinion. When paradoxes of this
kind are advanced by ingenious and able men, neglect has no tendency to
convince them of their mistakes. Priding themselves on what they
conceive to be a mark of the reach and size of their own
understandings, of the extent and comprehensiveness of their views,
they will look upon this neglect merely as an indication of poverty,
and narrowness, in the mental exertions of their contemporaries, and
only think that the world is not yet prepared to receive their sublime
truths.

On the contrary, a candid investigation of these subjects, accompanied
with a perfect readiness to adopt any theory warranted by sound
philosophy, may have a tendency to convince them that in forming
improbable and unfounded hypotheses, so far from enlarging the bounds
of human science, they are contracting it, so far from promoting the
improvement of the human mind, they are obstructing it; they are
throwing us back again almost into the infancy of knowledge and
weakening the foundations of that mode of philosophising, under the
auspices of which science has of late made such rapid advances. The
present rage for wide and unrestrained speculation seems to be a kind
of mental intoxication, arising, perhaps, from the great and unexpected
discoveries which have been made of late years, in various branches of
science. To men elate and giddy with such successes, every thing
appeared to be within the grasp of human powers; and, under this
illusion, they confounded subjects where no real progress could be
proved with those where the progress had been marked, certain, and
acknowledged. Could they be persuaded to sober themselves with a little
severe and chastised thinking, they would see, that the cause of truth,
and of sound philosophy, cannot but suffer by substituting wild flights
and unsupported assertions for patient investigation, and well
authenticated proofs.

Mr Condorcet's book may be considered not only as a sketch of the
opinions of a celebrated individual, but of many of the literary men in
France at the beginning of the Revolution. As such, though merely a
sketch, it seems worthy of attention.




CHAPTER 10

Mr Godwin's system of equality--Error of attributing all the vices of
mankind to human institutions--Mr Godwin's first answer to the
difficulty arising from population totally insufficient--Mr Godwin's
beautiful system of equality supposed to be realized--Its utter
destruction simply from the principle of population in so short a time
as thirty years.


In reading Mr Godwin's ingenious and able work on political justice, it
is impossible not to be struck with the spirit and energy of his style,
the force and precision of some of his reasonings, the ardent tone of
his thoughts, and particularly with that impressive earnestness of
manner which gives an air of truth to the whole. At the same time, it
must be confessed that he has not proceeded in his inquiries with the
caution that sound philosophy seems to require. His conclusions are
often unwarranted by his premises. He fails sometimes in removing the
objections which he himself brings forward. He relies too much on
general and abstract propositions which will not admit of application.
And his conjectures certainly far outstrip the modesty of nature.

The system of equality which Mr Godwin proposes is, without doubt, by
far the most beautiful and engaging of any that has yet appeared. An
amelioration of society to be produced merely by reason and conviction
wears much more the promise of permanence than any change effected and
maintained by force. The unlimited exercise of private judgement is a
doctrine inexpressibly grand and captivating and has a vast superiority
over those systems where every individual is in a manner the slave of
the public. The substitution of benevolence as the master-spring and
moving principle of society, instead of self-love, is a consummation
devoutly to be wished. In short, it is impossible to contemplate the
whole of this fair structure without emotions of delight and
admiration, accompanied with ardent longing for the period of its
accomplishment. But, alas! that moment can never arrive. The whole is
little better than a dream, a beautiful phantom of the imagination.
These 'gorgeous palaces' of happiness and immortality, these 'solemn
temples' of truth and virtue will dissolve, 'like the baseless fabric
of a vision', when we awaken to real life and contemplate the true and
genuine situation of man on earth. Mr Godwin, at the conclusion of the
third chapter of his eighth book, speaking of population, says:

There is a principle in human society, by which population is
perpetually kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. Thus
among the wandering tribes of America and Asia, we never find through
the lapse of ages that population has so increased as to render
necessary the cultivation of the earth.

This principle, which Mr Godwin thus mentions as some mysterious and
occult cause and which he does not attempt to investigate, will be
found to be the grinding law of necessity, misery, and the fear of
misery.

The great error under which Mr Godwin labours throughout his whole work
is the attributing almost all the vices and misery that are seen in
civil society to human institutions. Political regulations and the
established administration of property are with him the fruitful
sources of all evil, the hotbeds of all the crimes that degrade
mankind. Were this really a true state of the case, it would not seem a
hopeless task to remove evil completely from the world, and reason
seems to be the proper and adequate instrument for effecting so great a
purpose. But the truth is, that though human institutions appear to be
the obvious and obtrusive causes of much mischief to mankind, yet in
reality they are light and superficial, they are mere feathers that
float on the surface, in comparison with those deeper seated causes of
impurity that corrupt the springs and render turbid the whole stream of
human life.

Mr Godwin, in his chapter on the benefits attendant on a system of
equality, says:

The spirit of oppression, the spirit of servility, and the spirit of
fraud, these are the immediate growth of the established administration
of property. They are alike hostile to intellectual improvement. The
other vices of envy, malice, and revenge are their inseparable
companions. In a state of society where men lived in the midst of
plenty and where all shared alike the bounties of nature, these
sentiments would inevitably expire. The narrow principle of selfishness
would vanish. No man being obliged to guard his little store or provide
with anxiety and pain for his restless wants, each would lose his
individual existence in the thought of the general good. No man would
be an enemy to his neighbour, for they would have no subject of
contention, and, of consequence, philanthropy would resume the empire
which reason assigns her. Mind would be delivered from her perpetual
anxiety about corporal support, and free to expatiate in the field of
thought, which is congenial to her. Each would assist the inquiries of
all.

This would, indeed, be a happy state. But that it is merely an
imaginary picture, with scarcely a feature near the truth, the reader,
I am afraid, is already too well convinced.

Man cannot live in the midst of plenty. All cannot share alike the
bounties of nature. Were there no established administration of
property, every man would be obliged to guard with force his little
store. Selfishness would be triumphant. The subjects of contention
would be perpetual. Every individual mind would be under a constant
anxiety about corporal support, and not a single intellect would be
left free to expatiate in the field of thought.

How little Mr Godwin has turned the attention of his penetrating mind
to the real state of man on earth will sufficiently appear from the
manner in which he endeavours to remove the difficulty of an
overcharged population. He says:

The obvious answer to this objection, is, that to reason thus is to
foresee difficulties at a great distance. Three fourths of the
habitable globe is now uncultivated. The parts already cultivated are
capable of immeasurable improvement. Myriads of centuries of still
increasing population may pass away, and the earth be still found
sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants.

I have already pointed out the error of supposing that no distress and
difficulty would arise from an overcharged population before the earth
absolutely refused to produce any more. But let us imagine for a moment
Mr Godwin's beautiful system of equality realized in its utmost purity,
and see how soon this difficulty might be expected to press under so
perfect a form of society. A theory that will not admit of application
cannot possibly be just.

Let us suppose all the causes of misery and vice in this island
removed. War and contention cease. Unwholesome trades and manufactories
do not exist. Crowds no longer collect together in great and pestilent
cities for purposes of court intrigue, of commerce, and vicious
gratifications. Simple, healthy, and rational amusements take place of
drinking, gaming, and debauchery. There are no towns sufficiently large
to have any prejudicial effects on the human constitution. The greater
part of the happy inhabitants of this terrestrial paradise live in
hamlets and farmhouses scattered over the face of the country. Every
house is clean, airy, sufficiently roomy, and in a healthy situation.
All men are equal. The labours of luxury are at end. And the necessary
labours of agriculture are shared amicably among all. The number of
persons, and the produce of the island, we suppose to be the same as at
present. The spirit of benevolence, guided by impartial justice, will
divide this produce among all the members of the society according to
their wants. Though it would be impossible that they should all have
animal food every day, yet vegetable food, with meat occasionally,
would satisfy the desires of a frugal people and would be sufficient to
preserve them in health, strength, and spirits.

Mr Godwin considers marriage as a fraud and a monopoly. Let us suppose
the commerce of the sexes established upon principles of the most
perfect freedom. Mr Godwin does not think himself that this freedom
would lead to a promiscuous intercourse, and in this I perfectly agree
with him. The love of variety is a vicious, corrupt, and unnatural
taste and could not prevail in any great degree in a simple and
virtuous state of society. Each man would probably select himself a
partner, to whom he would adhere as long as that adherence continued to
be the choice of both parties. It would be of little consequence,
according to Mr Godwin, how many children a woman had or to whom they
belonged. Provisions and assistance would spontaneously flow from the
quarter in which they abounded, to the quarter that was deficient. (See
Bk VIII, ch. 8; in the third edition, Vol II, p. 512) And every man
would be ready to furnish instruction to the rising generation
according to his capacity.

I cannot conceive a form of society so favourable upon the whole to
population. The irremediableness of marriage, as it is at present
constituted, undoubtedly deters many from entering into that state. An
unshackled intercourse on the contrary would be a most powerful
incitement to early attachments, and as we are supposing no anxiety
about the future support of children to exist, I do not conceive that
there would be one woman in a hundred, of twenty-three, without a
family.

With these extraordinary encouragements to population, and every cause
of depopulation, as we have supposed, removed, the numbers would
necessarily increase faster than in any society that has ever yet been
known. I have mentioned, on the authority of a pamphlet published by a
Dr Styles and referred to by Dr Price, that the inhabitants of the back
settlements of America doubled their numbers in fifteen years. England
is certainly a more healthy country than the back settlements of
America, and as we have supposed every house in the island to be airy
and wholesome, and the encouragements to have a family greater even
than with the back settlers, no probable reason can be assigned why the
population should not double itself in less, if possible, than fifteen
years. But to be quite sure that we do not go beyond the truth, we will
only suppose the period of doubling to be twenty-five years, a ratio of
increase which is well known to have taken place throughout all the
Northern States of America.

There can be little doubt that the equalization of property which we
have supposed, added to the circumstance of the labour of the whole
community being directed chiefly to agriculture, would tend greatly to
augment the produce of the country. But to answer the demands of a
population increasing so rapidly, Mr Godwin's calculation of half an
hour a day for each man would certainly not be sufficient. It is
probable that the half of every man's time must be employed for this
purpose. Yet with such, or much greater exertions, a person who is
acquainted with the nature of the soil in this country, and who
reflects on the fertility of the lands already in cultivation, and the
barrenness of those that are not cultivated, will be very much disposed
to doubt whether the whole average produce could possibly be doubled in
twenty-five years from the present period. The only chance of success
would be the ploughing up all the grazing countries and putting an end
almost entirely to the use of animal food. Yet a part of this scheme
might defeat itself. The soil of England will not produce much without
dressing, and cattle seem to be necessary to make that species of
manure which best suits the land. In China it is said that the soil in
some of the provinces is so fertile as to produce two crops of rice in
the year without dressing. None of the lands in England will answer to
this description.

Difficult, however, as it might be to double the average produce of the
island in twenty-five years, let us suppose it effected. At the
expiration of the first period therefore, the food, though almost
entirely vegetable, would be sufficient to support in health the
doubled population of fourteen millions.

During the next period of doubling, where will the food be found to
satisfy the importunate demands of the increasing numbers? Where is the
fresh land to turn up? Where is the dressing necessary to improve that
which is already in cultivation? There is no person with the smallest
knowledge of land but would say that it was impossible that the average
produce of the country could be increased during the second twenty-five
years by a quantity equal to what it at present yields. Yet we will
suppose this increase, however improbable, to take place. The exuberant
strength of the argument allows of almost any concession. Even with
this concession, however, there would be seven millions at the
expiration of the second term unprovided for. A quantity of food equal
to the frugal support of twenty-one millions, would be to be divided
among twenty-eight millions.

Alas! what becomes of the picture where men lived in the midst of
plenty, where no man was obliged to provide with anxiety and pain for
his restless wants, where the narrow principle of selfishness did not
exist, where Mind was delivered from her perpetual anxiety about
corporal support and free to expatiate in the field of thought which is
congenial to her. This beautiful fabric of imagination vanishes at the
severe touch of truth. The spirit of benevolence, cherished and
invigorated by plenty, is repressed by the chilling breath of want. The
hateful passions that had vanished reappear. The mighty law of
self-preservation expels all the softer and more exalted emotions of
the soul. The temptations to evil are too strong for human nature to
resist. The corn is plucked before it is ripe, or secreted in unfair
proportions, and the whole black train of vices that belong to
falsehood are immediately generated. Provisions no longer flow in for
the support of the mother with a large family. The children are sickly
from insufficient food. The rosy flush of health gives place to the
pallid cheek and hollow eye of misery. Benevolence, yet lingering in a
few bosoms, makes some faint expiring struggles, till at length
self-love resumes his wonted empire and lords it triumphant over the
world.

No human institutions here existed, to the perverseness of which Mr
Godwin ascribes the original sin of the worst men. (Bk VIII, ch. 3; in
the third edition, Vol. II, p. 462) No opposition had been produced by
them between public and private good. No monopoly had been created of
those advantages which reason directs to be left in common. No man had
been goaded to the breach of order by unjust laws. Benevolence had
established her reign in all hearts: and yet in so short a period as
within fifty years, violence, oppression, falsehood, misery, every
hateful vice, and every form of distress, which degrade and sadden the
present state of society, seem to have been generated by the most
imperious circumstances, by laws inherent in the nature of man, and
absolutely independent of it human regulations.

If we are not yet too well convinced of the reality of this melancholy
picture, let us but look for a moment into the next period of
twenty-five years; and we shall see twenty-eight millions of human
beings without the means of support; and before the conclusion of the
first century, the population would be one hundred and twelve millions,
and the food only sufficient for thirty-five millions, leaving
seventy-seven millions unprovided for. In these ages want would be
indeed triumphant, and rapine and murder must reign at large: and yet
all this time we are supposing the produce of the earth absolutely
unlimited, and the yearly increase greater than the boldest speculator
can imagine.

This is undoubtedly a very different view of the difficulty arising
from population from that which Mr Godwin gives, when he says, 'Myriads
of centuries of still increasing population may pass away, and the
earth be still found sufficient for the subsistence of its inhabitants. '

I am sufficiently aware that the redundant twenty-eight millions, or
seventy-seven millions, that I have mentioned, could never have
existed. It is a perfectly just observation of Mr Godwin, that, 'There
is a principle in human society, by which population is perpetually
kept down to the level of the means of subsistence. ' The sole question
is, what is this principle? is it some obscure and occult cause? Is it
some mysterious interference of heaven which, at a certain period,
strikes the men with impotence, and the women with barrenness? Or is it
a cause, open to our researches, within our view, a cause, which has
constantly been observed to operate, though with varied force, in every
state in which man has been placed? Is it not a degree of misery, the
necessary and inevitable result of the laws of nature, which human
institutions, so far from aggravating, have tended considerably to
mitigate, though they never can remove?

It may be curious to observe, in the case that we have been supposing,
how some of the laws which at present govern civilized society, would
be successively dictated by the most imperious necessity. As man,
according to Mr Godwin, is the creature of the impressions to which he
is subject, the goadings of want could not continue long, before some
violations of public or private stock would necessarily take place. As
these violations increased in number and extent, the more active and
comprehensive intellects of the society would soon perceive, that while
population was fast increasing, the yearly produce of the country would
shortly begin to diminish. The urgency of the case would suggest the
necessity of some mediate measures to be taken for the general safety.
Some kind of convention would then be called, and the dangerous
situation of the country stated in the strongest terms. It would be
observed, that while they lived in the midst of plenty, it was of
little consequence who laboured the least, or who possessed the least,
as every man was perfectly willing and ready to supply the wants of his
neighbour. But that the question was no longer whether one man should
give to another that which he did not use himself, but whether he
should give to his neighbour the food which was absolutely necessary to
his own existence. It would be represented, that the number of those
that were in want very greatly exceeded the number and means of those
who should supply them; that these pressing wants, which from the state
of the produce of the country could not all be gratified, had
occasioned some flagrant violations of justice; that these violations
had already checked the increase of food, and would, if they were not
by some means or other prevented, throw the whole community in
confusion; that imperious necessity seemed to dictate that a yearly
increase of produce should, if possible, be obtained at all events;
that in order to effect this first, great, and indispensable purpose,
it would be advisable to make a more complete division of land, and to
secure every man's stock against violation by the most powerful
sanctions, even by death itself.

It might be urged perhaps by some objectors that, as the fertility of
the land increased, and various accidents occurred, the share of some
men might be much more than sufficient for their support, and that when
the reign of self-love was once established, they would not distribute
their surplus produce without some compensation in return. It would be
observed, in answer, that this was an inconvenience greatly to be
lamented; but that it was an evil which bore no comparison to the black
train of distresses that would inevitably be occasioned by the
insecurity of property; that the quantity of food which one man could
consume was necessarily limited by the narrow capacity of the human
stomach; that it was not certainly probable that he should throw away
the rest; but that even if he exchanged his surplus food for the labour
of others, and made them in some degree dependent on him, this would
still be better than that these others should absolutely starve.

It seems highly probable, therefore, that an administration of
property, not very different from that which prevails in civilized
states at present, would be established, as the best, though
inadequate, remedy for the evils which were pressing on the society.

The next subject that would come under discussion, intimately connected
with the preceding, is the commerce between the sexes.
It would be
urged by those who had turned their attention to the true cause of the
difficulties under which the community laboured, that while every man
felt secure that all his children would be well provided for by general
benevolence, the powers of the earth would be absolutely inadequate to
produce food for the population which would inevitably ensue; that even
if the whole attention and labour of the society were directed to this
sole point, and if, by the most perfect security of property, and every
other encouragement that could be thought of, the greatest possible
increase of produce were yearly obtained; yet still, that the increase
of food would by no means keep pace with the much more rapid increase
of population; that some check to population therefore was imperiously
called for; that the most natural and obvious check seemed to be to
make every man provide for his own children; that this would operate in
some respect as a measure and guide in the increase of population, as
it might be expected that no man would bring beings into the world, for
whom he could not find the means of support; that where this
notwithstanding was the case, it seemed necessary, for the example of
others, that the disgrace and inconvenience attending such a conduct
should fall upon the individual, who had thus inconsiderately plunged
himself and innocent children in misery and want.

The institution of marriage, or at least, of some express or implied
obligation on every man to support his own children, seems to be the
natural result of these reasonings in a community under the
difficulties that we have supposed.

The view of these difficulties presents us with a very natural origin
of the superior disgrace which attends a breach of chastity in the
woman than in the man. It could not be expected that women should have
resources sufficient to support their own children. When therefore a
woman was connected with a man, who had entered into no compact to
maintain her children, and, aware of the inconveniences that he might
bring upon himself, had deserted her, these children must necessarily
fall for support upon the society, or starve. And to prevent the
frequent recurrence of such an inconvenience, as it would be highly
unjust to punish so natural a fault by personal restraint or
infliction, the men might agree to punish it with disgrace. The offence
is besides more obvious and conspicuous in the woman, and less liable
to any mistake. The father of a child may not always be known, but the
same uncertainty cannot easily exist with regard to the mother. Where
the evidence of the offence was most complete, and the inconvenience to
the society at the same time the greatest, there it was agreed that the
large share of blame should fall. The obligation on every man to
maintain his children, the society would enforce, if there were
occasion; and the greater degree of inconvenience or labour, to which a
family would necessarily subject him, added to some portion of disgrace
which every human being must incur who leads another into unhappiness,
might be considered as a sufficient punishment for the man.

That a woman should at present be almost driven from society for an
offence which men commit nearly with impunity, seems to be undoubtedly
a breach of natural justice. But the origin of the custom, as the most
obvious and effectual method of preventing the frequent recurrence of a
serious inconvenience to a community, appears to be natural, though not
perhaps perfectly justifiable. This origin, however, is now lost in the
new train of ideas which the custom has since generated. What at first
might be dictated by state necessity is now supported by female
delicacy, and operates with the greatest force on that part of society
where, if the original intention of the custom were preserved, there is
the least real occasion for it.

When these two fundamental laws of society, the security of property,
and the institution of marriage, were once established, inequality of
conditions must necessarily follow. Those who were born after the
division of property would come into a world already possessed. If
their parents, from having too large a family, could not give them
sufficient for their support, what are they to do in a world where
everything is appropriated? We have seen the fatal effects that would
result to a society, if every man had a valid claim to an equal share
of the produce of the earth. The members of a family which was grown
too large for the original division of land appropriated to it could
not then demand a part of the surplus produce of others, as a debt of
justice. It has appeared, that from the inevitable laws of our nature
some human beings must suffer from want. These are the unhappy persons
who, in the great lottery of life, have drawn a blank. The number of
these claimants would soon exceed the ability of the surplus produce to
supply. Moral merit is a very difficult distinguishing criterion,
except in extreme cases. The owners of surplus produce would in general
seek some more obvious mark of distinction. And it seems both natural
and just that, except upon particular occasions, their choice should
fall upon those who were able, and professed themselves willing, to
exert their strength in procuring a further surplus produce; and thus
at once benefiting the community, and enabling these proprietors to
afford assistance to greater numbers. All who were in want of food
would be urged by imperious necessity to offer their labour in exchange
for this article so absolutely essential to existence. The fund
appropriated to the maintenance of labour would be the aggregate
quantity of food possessed by the owners of land beyond their own
consumption. When the demands upon this fund were great and numerous,
it would naturally be divided in very small shares. Labour would be ill
paid. Men would offer to work for a bare subsistence, and the rearing
of families would be checked by sickness and misery. On the contrary,
when this fund was increasing fast, when it was great in proportion to
the number of claimants, it would be divided in much larger shares. No
man would exchange his labour without receiving an ample quantity of
food in return. Labourers would live in ease and comfort, and would
consequently be able to rear a numerous and vigorous offspring.

On the state of this fund, the happiness, or the degree of misery,
prevailing among the lower classes of people in every known state at
present chiefly depends. And on this happiness, or degree of misery,
depends the increase, stationariness, or decrease of population.

And thus it appears, that a society constituted according to the most
beautiful form that imagination can conceive, with benevolence for its
moving principle, instead of self-love, and with every evil disposition
in all its members corrected by reason and not force, would, from the
inevitable laws of nature, and not from any original depravity of man,
in a very short period degenerate into a society constructed upon a
plan not essentially different from that which prevails in every known
state at present; I mean, a society divided into a class of
proprietors, and a class of labourers, and with self-love the
main-spring of the great machine.

In the supposition I have made, I have undoubtedly taken the increase
of population smaller, and the increase of produce greater, than they
really would be. No reason can be assigned why, under the circumstances
I have supposed, population should not increase faster than in any
known instance. If then we were to take the period of doubling at
fifteen years, instead of twenty-five years, and reflect upon the
labour necessary to double the produce in so short a time, even if we
allow it possible, we may venture to pronounce with certainty that if
Mr Godwin's system of society was established in its utmost perfection,
instead of myriads of centuries, not thirty years could elapse before
its utter destruction from the simple principle of population.

I have taken no notice of emigration for obvious reasons. If such
societies were instituted in other parts of Europe, these countries
would be under the same difficulties with regard to population, and
could admit no fresh members into their bosoms. If this beautiful
society were confined to this island, it must have degenerated
strangely from its original purity, and administer but a very small
portion of the happiness it proposed; in short, its essential principle
must be completely destroyed, before any of its members would
voluntarily consent to leave it, and live under such governments as at
present exist in Europe, or submit to the extreme hardships of first
settlers in new regions. We well know, from repeated experience, how
much misery and hardship men will undergo in their own country, before
they can determine to desert it; and how often the most tempting
proposals of embarking for new settlements have been rejected by people
who appeared to be almost starving.




CHAPTER 11

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.




CHAPTER 12

Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the indefinite prolongation of human
life--Improper inference drawn from the effects of mental stimulants on
the human frame, illustrated in various instances--Conjectures not
founded on any indications in the past not to be considered as
philosophical conjectures--Mr Godwin's and Mr Condorcet's conjecture
respecting the approach of man towards immortality on earth, a curious
instance of the inconsistency of scepticism.


Mr Godwin's conjecture respecting the future approach of man towards
immortality on earth seems to be rather oddly placed in a chapter which
professes to remove the objection to his system of equality from the
principle of population. Unless he supposes the passion between the
sexes to decrease faster than the duration of life increases, the earth
would be more encumbered than ever. But leaving this difficulty to Mr
Godwin, let us examine a few of the appearances from which the probable
immortality of man is inferred.

To prove the power of the mind over the body, Mr Godwin observes, "How
often do we find a piece of good news dissipating a distemper? How
common is the remark that those accidents which are to the indolent a
source of disease are forgotten and extirpated in the busy and active?
I walk twenty miles in an indolent and half determined temper and am
extremely fatigued. I walk twenty miles full of ardour, and with a
motive that engrosses my soul, and I come in as fresh and as alert as
when I began my journey. Emotion excited by some unexpected word, by a
letter that is delivered to us, occasions the most extraordinary
revolutions in our frame, accelerates the circulation, causes the heart
to palpitate, the tongue to refuse its office, and has been known to
occasion death by extreme anguish or extreme joy. There is nothing
indeed of which the physician is more aware than of the power of the
mind in assisting or reading convalescence. "

The instances here mentioned are chiefly instances of the effects of
mental stimulants on the bodily frame. No person has ever for a moment
doubted the near, though mysterious, connection of mind and body. But
it is arguing totally without knowledge of the nature of stimulants to
suppose, either that they can be applied continually with equal
strength, or if they could be so applied, for a time, that they would
not exhaust and wear out the subject. In some of the cases here
noticed, the strength of the stimulus depends upon its novelty and
unexpectedness. Such a stimulus cannot, from its nature, be repeated
often with the same effect, as it would by repetition lose that
property which gives it its strength.

In the other cases, the argument is from a small and partial effect, to
a great and general effect, which will in numberless instances be found
to be a very fallacious mode of reasoning. The busy and active man may
in some degree counteract, or what is perhaps nearer the truth, may
disregard those slight disorders of frame which fix the attention of a
man who has nothing else to think of; but this does not tend to prove
that activity of mind will enable a man to disregard a high fever, the
smallpox, or the plague.

The man who walks twenty miles with a motive that engrosses his soul
does not attend to his slight fatigue of body when he comes in; but
double his motive, and set him to walk another twenty miles, quadruple
it, and let him start a third time, and so on; and the length of his
walk will ultimately depend upon muscle and not mind. Powell, for a
motive of ten guineas, would have walked further probably than Mr
Godwin, for a motive of half a million. A motive of uncommon power
acting upon a frame of moderate strength would, perhaps, make the man
kill himself by his exertions, but it would not make him walk a hundred
miles in twenty-four hours. This statement of the case shews the
fallacy of supposing that the person was really not at all tired in his
first walk of twenty miles, because he did not appear to be so, or,
perhaps, scarcely felt any fatigue himself. The mind cannot fix its
attention strongly on more than one object at once. The twenty thousand
pounds so engrossed his thoughts that he did not attend to any slight
soreness of foot, or stiffness of limb. But had he been really as fresh
and as alert, as when he first set off, he would be able to go the
second twenty miles with as much ease as the first, and so on, the
third, &c. Which leads to a palpable absurdity. When a horse of spirit
is nearly half tired, by the stimulus of the spur, added to the proper
management of the bit, he may be put so much upon his mettle, that he
would appear to a standerby, as fresh and as high spirited as if he had
not gone a mile. Nay, probably, the horse himself, while in the heat
and passion occasioned by this stimulus, would not feel any fatigue;
but it would be strangely contrary to all reason and experience, to
argue from such an appearance that, if the stimulus were continued, the
horse would never be tired. The cry of a pack of hounds will make some
horses, after a journey of forty miles on the road, appear as fresh,
and as lively, as when they first set out. Were they then to be hunted,
no perceptible abatement would at first be felt by their riders in
their strength and spirits, but towards the end of a hard day, the
previous fatigue would have its full weight and effect, and make them
tire sooner. When I have taken a long walk with my gun, and met with no
success, I have frequently returned home feeling a considerable degree
of uncomfortableness from fatigue. Another day, perhaps, going over
nearly the same extent of ground with a good deal of sport, I have come
home fresh, and alert. The difference in the sensation of fatigue upon
coming in, on the different days, may have been very striking, but on
the following mornings I have found no such difference. I have not
perceived that I was less stiff in my limbs, or less footsore, on the
morning after the day of the sport, than on the other morning.

In all these cases, stimulants upon the mind seem to act rather by
taking off the attention from the bodily fatigue, than by really and
truly counteracting it. If the energy of my mind had really
counteracted the fatigue of my body, why should I feel tired the next
morning? if the stimulus of the hounds had as completely overcome the
fatigue of the journey in reality, as it did in appearance, why should
the horse be tired sooner than if he had not gone the forty miles? I
happen to have a very bad fit of the toothache at the time I am writing
this. In the eagerness of composition, I every now and then, for a
moment or two, forget it. Yet I cannot help thinking that the process,
which causes the pain, is still going forwards, and that the nerves
which carry the information of it to the brain are even during these
moments demanding attention and room for their appropriate vibrations.
The multiplicity of vibrations of another kind may perhaps prevent
their admission, or overcome them for a time when admitted, till a
shoot of extraordinary energy puts all other vibration to the rout,
destroys the vividness of my argumentative conceptions, and rides
triumphant in the brain. In this case, as in the others, the mind seems
to have little or no power in counteracting or curing the disorder, but
merely possesses a power, if strongly excited, of fixing its attention
on other subjects.

I do not, however, mean to say that a sound and vigorous mind has no
tendency whatever to keep the body in a similar state. So close and
intimate is the union of mind and body that it would be highly
extraordinary if they did not mutually assist each other's functions.
But, perhaps, upon a comparison, the body has more effect upon the mind
than the mind upon the body. The first object of the mind is to act as
purveyor to the wants of the body. When these wants are completely
satisfied, an active mind is indeed apt to wander further, to range
over the fields of science, or sport in the regions of. Imagination, to
fancy that it has 'shuffled off this mortal coil', and is seeking its
kindred element. But all these efforts are like the vain exertions of
the hare in the fable. The slowly moving tortoise, the body, never
fails to overtake the mind, however widely and extensively it may have
ranged, and the brightest and most energetic intellects, unwillingly as
they may attend to the first or second summons, must ultimately yield
the empire of the brain to the calls of hunger, or sink with the
exhausted body in sleep.

It seems as if one might say with certainty that if a medicine could be
found to immortalize the body there would be no fear of its [not] being
accompanied by the immortality of the mind. But the immortality of the
mind by no means seems to infer the immortality of the body. On the
contrary, the greatest conceivable energy of mind would probably
exhaust and destroy the strength of the body. A temperate vigour of
mind appears to be favourable to health, but very great intellectual
exertions tend rather, as has been often observed, to wear out the
scabbard. Most of the instances which Mr Godwin has brought to prove
the power of the mind over the body, and the consequent probability of
the immortality of man, are of this latter description, and could such
stimulants be continually applied, instead of tending to immortalize,
they would tend very rapidly to destroy the human frame.

The probable increase of the voluntary power of man over his animal
frame comes next under Mr Godwin's consideration, and he concludes by
saying, that the voluntary power of some men, in this respect, is found
to extend to various articles in which other men are impotent. But this
is reasoning against an almost universal rule from a few exceptions;
and these exceptions seem to be rather tricks, than powers that may be
exerted to any good purpose. I have never heard of any man who could
regulate his pulse in a fever, and doubt much, if any of the persons
here alluded to have made the smallest perceptible progress in the
regular correction of the disorders of their frames and the consequent
prolongation of their lives.

Mr Godwin says, 'Nothing can be more unphilosophical than to conclude,
that, because a certain species of power is beyond the train of our
present observation, that it is beyond the limits of the human mind. ' I
own my ideas of philosophy are in this respect widely different from Mr
Godwin's. The only distinction that I see, between a philosophical
conjecture, and the assertions of the Prophet Mr Brothers, is, that one
is founded upon indications arising from the train of our present
observations, and the other has no foundation at all. I expect that
great discoveries are yet to take place in all the branches of human
science, particularly in physics; but the moment we leave past
experience as the foundation of our conjectures concerning the future,
and, still more, if our conjectures absolutely contradict past
experience, we are thrown upon a wide field of uncertainty, and any one
supposition is then just as good as another. If a person were to tell
me that men would ultimately have eyes and hands behind them as well as
before them, I should admit the usefulness of the addition, but should
give as a reason for my disbelief of it, that I saw no indications
whatever in the past from which I could infer the smallest probability
of such a change. If this be not allowed a valid objection, all
conjectures are alike, and all equally philosophical. I own it appears
to me that in the train of our present observations, there are no more
genuine indications that man will become immortal upon earth than that
he will have four eyes and four hands, or that trees will grow
horizontally instead of perpendicularly.

It will be said, perhaps, that many discoveries have already taken
place in the world that were totally unforeseen and unexpected. This I
grant to be true; but if a person had predicted these discoveries
without being guided by any analogies or indications from past facts,
he would deserve the name of seer or prophet, but not of philosopher.
The wonder that some of our modern discoveries would excite in the
savage inhabitants of Europe in the times of Theseus and Achilles,
proves but little. Persons almost entirely unacquainted with the powers
of a machine cannot be expected to guess at its effects. I am far from
saying, that we are at present by any means fully acquainted with the
powers of the human mind; but we certainly know more of this instrument
than was known four thousand years ago; and therefore, though not to be
called competent judges, we are certainly much better able than savages
to say what is, or is not, within its grasp. A watch would strike a
savage with as much surprise as a perpetual motion; yet one is to us a
most familiar piece of mechanism, and the other has constantly eluded
the efforts of the most acute intellects. In many instances we are now
able to perceive the causes, which prevent an unlimited improvement in
those inventions, which seemed to promise fairly for it at first. The
original improvers of telescopes would probably think, that as long as
the size of the specula and the length of the tubes could be increased,
the powers and advantages of the instrument would increase; but
experience has since taught us, that the smallness of the field, the
deficiency of light, and the circumstance of the atmosphere being
magnified, prevent the beneficial results that were to be expected from
telescopes of extraordinary size and power. In many parts of knowledge,
man has been almost constantly making some progress; in other parts,
his efforts have been invariably baffled. The savage would not probably
be able to guess at the causes of this mighty difference. Our further
experience has given us some little insight into these causes, and has
therefore enabled us better to judge, if not of what we are to expect
in future, at least of what we are not to expect, which, though
negative, is a very useful piece of information.

As the necessity of sleep seems rather to depend upon the body than the
mind, it does not appear how the improvement of the mind can tend very
greatly to supersede this 'conspicuous infirmity'. A man who by great
excitements on his mind is able to pass two or three nights without
sleep, proportionably exhausts the vigour of his body, and this
diminution of health and strength will soon disturb the operations of
his understanding, so that by these great efforts he appears to have
made no real progress whatever in superseding the necessity of this
species of rest.

There is certainly a sufficiently marked difference in the various
characters of which we have some knowledge, relative to the energies of
their minds, their benevolent pursuits, etc. , to enable us to judge
whether the operations of intellect have any decided effect in
prolonging the duration of human life. It is certain that no decided
effect of this kind has yet been observed. Though no attention of any
kind has ever produced such an effect as could be construed into the
smallest semblance of an approach towards immortality, yet of the two,
a certain attention to the body seems to have more effect in this
respect than an attention to the mind. The man who takes his temperate
meals and his bodily exercise, with scrupulous regularity, will
generally be found more healthy than the man who, very deeply engaged
in intellectual pursuits, often forgets for a time these bodily
cravings. The citizen who has retired, and whose ideas, perhaps,
scarcely soar above or extend beyond his little garden, puddling all
the morning about his borders of box, will, perhaps, live as long as
the philosopher whose range of intellect is the most extensive, and
whose views are the clearest of any of his contemporaries. It has been
positively observed by those who have attended to the bills of
mortality that women live longer upon an average than men, and, though
I would not by any means say that their intellectual faculties are
inferior, yet, I think, it must be allowed that, from their different
education, there are not so many women as men, who are excited to
vigorous mental exertion.

As in these and similar instances, or to take a larger range, as in the
great diversity of characters that have existed during some thousand
years, no decided difference has been observed in the duration of human
life from the operation of intellect, the mortality of man on earth
seems to be as completely established, and exactly upon the same
grounds, as any one, the most constant, of the laws of nature. An
immediate act of power in the Creator of the Universe might, indeed,
change one or all of these laws, either suddenly or gradually, but
without some indications of such a change, and such indications do not
exist, it. Is just as unphilosophical to suppose that the life of man
may be prolonged beyond any assignable limits, as to suppose that the
attraction of the earth will gradually be changed into repulsion and
that stones will ultimately rise instead of fall or that the earth will
fly off at a certain period to some more genial and warmer sun.

The conclusion of this chapter presents us, undoubtedly, with a very
beautiful and desirable picture, but like some of the landscapes drawn
from fancy and not imagined with truth, it fails of that interest in
the heart which nature and probability can alone give.

I cannot quit this subject without taking notice of these conjectures
of Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet concerning the indefinite prolongation of
human life, as a very curious instance of the longing of the soul after
immortality. Both these gentlemen have rejected the light of revelation
which absolutely promises eternal life in another state. They have also
rejected the light of natural religion, which to the ablest intellects
in all ages has indicated the future existence of the soul. Yet so
congenial is the idea of immortality to the mind of man that they
cannot consent entirely to throw it out of their systems. After all
their fastidious scepticisms concerning the only probable mode of
immortality, they introduce a species of immortality of their own, not
only completely contradictory to every law of philosophical
probability, but in itself in the highest degree narrow, partial, and
unjust. They suppose that all the great, virtuous, and exalted minds
that have ever existed or that may exist for some thousands, perhaps
millions of years, will be sunk in annihilation, and that only a few
beings, not greater in number than can exist at once upon the earth,
will be ultimately crowned with immortality. Had such a tenet been
advanced as a tenet of revelation I am very sure that all the enemies
of religion, and probably Mr Godwin and Mr Condorcet among the rest,
would have exhausted the whole force of their ridicule upon it, as the
most puerile, the most absurd, the poorest, the most pitiful, the most
iniquitously unjust, and, consequently, the most unworthy of the Deity
that the superstitious folly of man could invent.

What a strange and curious proof do these conjectures exhibit of the
inconsistency of scepticism! For it should be observed, that there is a
very striking and essential difference between believing an assertion
which absolutely contradicts the most uniform experience, and an
assertion which contradicts nothing, but is merely beyond the power of
our present observation and knowledge. So diversified are the natural
objects around us, so many instances of mighty power daily offer
themselves to our view, that we may fairly presume, that there are many
forms and operations of nature which we have not yet observed, or
which, perhaps, we are not capable of observing with our present
confined inlets of knowledge. The resurrection of a spiritual body from
a natural body does not appear in itself a more wonderful instance of
power than the germination of a blade of wheat from the grain, or of an
oak from an acorn. Could we conceive an intelligent being, so placed as
to be conversant only with inanimate or full grown objects, and never
to have witnessed the process of vegetation and growth; and were
another being to shew him two little pieces of matter, a grain of
wheat, and an acorn, to desire him to examine them, to analyse them if
he pleased, and endeavour to find out their properties and essences;
and then to tell him, that however trifling these little bits of matter
might appear to him, that they possessed such curious powers of
selection, combination, arrangement, and almost of creation, that upon
being put into the ground, they would choose, amongst all the dirt and
moisture that surrounded them, those parts which best suited their
purpose, that they would collect and arrange these parts with wonderful
taste, judgement, and execution, and would rise up into beautiful
forms, scarcely in any respect analogous to the little bits of matter
which were first placed in the earth. I feel very little doubt that the
imaginary being which I have supposed would hesitate more, would
require better authority, and stronger proofs, before he believed these
strange assertions, than if he had been told, that a being of mighty
power, who had been the cause of all that he saw around him, and of
that existence of which he himself was conscious, would, by a great act
of power upon the death and corruption of human creatures, raise up the
essence of thought in an incorporeal, or at least invisible form, to
give it a happier existence in another state.

The only difference, with regard to our own apprehensions, that is not
in favour of the latter assertion is that the first miracle we have
repeatedly seen, and the last miracle we have not seen. I admit the
full weight of this prodigious difference, but surely no man can
hesitate a moment in saying that, putting Revelation out of the
question, the resurrection of a spiritual body from a natural body,
which may be merely one among the many operations of nature which we
cannot see, is an event indefinitely more probable than the immortality
of man on earth, which is not only an event of which no symptoms or
indications have yet appeared, but is a positive contradiction to one
of the most constant of the laws of nature that has ever come within
the observation of man.

When we extend our view beyond this life, it is evident that we can
have no other guides than authority, or conjecture, and perhaps,
indeed, an obscure and undefined feeling. What I say here, therefore,
does not appear to me in any respect to contradict what I said before,
when I observed that it was unphilosophical to expect any specifick
event that was not indicated by some kind of analogy in the past. In
ranging beyond the bourne from which no traveller returns, we must
necessarily quit this rule; but with regard to events that may be
expected to happen on earth, we can seldom quit it consistently with
true philosophy. Analogy has, however, as I conceive, great latitude.
For instance, man has discovered many of the laws of nature: analogy
seems to indicate that he will discover many more; but no analogy seems
to indicate that he will discover a sixth sense, or a new species of
power in the human mind, entirely beyond the train of our present
observations.

The powers of selection, combination, and transmutation, which every
seed shews, are truly miraculous. Who can imagine that these wonderful
faculties are contained in these little bits of matter? To me it
appears much more philosophical to suppose that the mighty God of
nature is present in full energy in all these operations. To this all
powerful Being, it would be equally easy to raise an oak without an
acorn as with one. The preparatory process of putting seeds into the
ground is merely ordained for the use of man, as one among the various
other excitements necessary to awaken matter into mind. It is an idea
that will be found consistent, equally with the natural phenomena
around us, with the various events of human life, and with the
successive revelations of God to man, to suppose that the world is a
mighty process for the creation and formation of mind. Many vessels
will necessarily come out of this great furnace in wrong shapes. These
will be broken and thrown aside as useless; while those vessels whose
forms are full of truth, grace, and loveliness, will be wafted into
happier situations, nearer the presence of the mighty maker.

I ought perhaps again to make an apology to my readers for dwelling so
long upon a conjecture which many, I know, will think too absurd and
improbable to require the least discussion. But if it be as improbable
and as contrary to the genuine spirit of philosophy as I own I think it
is, why should it not be shewn to be so in a candid examination?