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  chapter 1 of a dissertation concerning the nature of true virtue this is the LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by expatriate in Bangor Maine a dissertation concerning the nature of true virtue by Jonathan Edwards. Chapter 1. Whatever controversies and variety of

  opinions there are about the nature of virtue yet all accepting some skeptics who deny any real difference between virtue and vice mean by it something beautiful or rather some kind of beauty or excellency. It is not all beauty that is called virtue for instance not the beauty of a building of a flower or of the rainbow but some beauty belonging to beings that have perception and will.

  It is not all beauty of mankind that is called virtue for instance not the external beauty of the countenance or shape gracefulness of motion or harmony of voice but it is a beauty that has its original seat in the mind but yet perhaps not everything that may be called the beauty of mind is properly called virtue there is a beauty of understanding and speculation. There is

  something in the ideas and conceptions of great philosophers and statesmen that may be called beautiful which is a different thing from what is most commonly meant by virtue but virtue is the beauty of those qualities and acts of the mind that are of a moral nature that is such as are attended with dessert or worthiness of praise or blame things of this it is generally agreed so far as

  I know are not anything belonging merely to speculation but to the disposition and will or to use a general word I suppose commonly well understood to the heart therefore I suppose I shall not depart from the common opinion when I say that virtue is the beauty of the qualities and exercises of the heart or those actions which proceed from them so that when it is inquired what is the

  nature of true virtue this is the same as to inquire what that is which renders any habit disposition or exercise of the heart truly beautiful I use the phrase true virtue and speak of things truly beautiful because I suppose it will generally be allowed that there is a distinction to be made between some things which are truly virtuous and others which only seem to be virtuous

  through a partial and imperfect view of things as some actions and dispositions appear beautiful if considered partially and superficially or with regard to some things belonging to them and in some of their circumstances and tendencies which would appear otherwise in a more extensive and comprehensive view wherein they are seen clearly in their whole nature and the extent of their

  connections in the universality of things there is a general and a particular beauty by a particular beauty I mean that by which a thing appears beautiful when considered only with regard to its connection with and tendency to some particular things within a limited and as it were a private sphere and a general beauty is that by which a thing appears beautiful when

  viewed most perfectly comprehensively and universally with regard to all its tendencies and its connections with everything it stands related to the former may be without and against the latter as a few notes in a tune taken only by themselves and in their relation to one another may be harmonious which when considered with respect to all the notes in the tune or the entire series

  of sounds they are connected with may be very discordant and disagreeable of afterwards that only therefore is what I mean by true virtue which is that belonging to the heart of an intelligent being that is beautiful by a general beauty or beautiful in a comprehensive view as it is in itself and as related to everything that it stands in connection with and therefore when we

  are inquiring concerning the nature of true virtue that is wherein this true and general beauty of the heart does most essentially consist this is my answer to the inquiry true virtue most essentially consists in benevolence to being in general or perhaps to speak more accurately it is that consent propensity and union of heart to being in general that is immediately exercised

  in a general goodwill the things which were before observed of the nature of true virtue naturally lead us to such a notion of it if it has it see in the heart and is the general goodness and beauty of the disposition and exercise of that in the most comprehensive view considered with regard to its universal tendency and as related to everything that it stands in connection with what

  can it consist in but a consent and goodwill to being in general beauty does not consist in discord and dissent but in consent and agreement and if every intelligent being is some way related to being in general and is a part of the universal system of existence and so stands in connection with a whole what can its general and true beauty be but its union and consent with a great whole

  if any such thing can be supposed as an union of heart to some particular being or number of beings disposing it to benevolence to a private circle or system of beings which are but a small part of the whole not implying a tendency to end union with a great system and not at all inconsistent with enmity towards being in general this I suppose not to be of the nature of true

  virtue although it may in some respects be good and may appear beautiful in a view of things but of this more afterwards it is abundantly plain by the Holy Scriptures and generally allowed not only by Christian divines but by the more considerable deists that virtue most essentially consists in love and I suppose it is owned by the most considerable writers to consist in

  general love of benevolence or kind affection though it seems to me the meaning of some in this affair is not sufficiently explained which perhaps occasions some error or confusion in discourses on this subject when I say true virtue consists in love to being in general I shall not be likely to be understood that no one act of the mind or exercise of love is of the nature of

  true virtue but what has being in general or the great system of universal existence for its direct and immediate object so that no exercise of love or kind affection to any one particular being that is but a small part of this whole as anything of the nature of true virtue but that the nature of true virtue consists in a disposition to benevolence towards being in general

  though from such a disposition may arise exercises of love to particular beings as objects are presented and occasions arise no wonder that he who is of a generally benevolent disposition should be more disposed than another to have his heart moved with benevolent affection to particular persons whom he is acquainted and conversant with and from whom arise the greatest and most

  frequent occasions for exciting his benevolent temper but my meaning is that no affections towards particular persons or beings are of the nature of true virtue but such as arise from a generally benevolent temper or from that habit or frame of mind wherein consists a disposition to love being in general and perhaps it is needless for me to give notice to my readers that when I

  speak of an intelligent beings having a heart united and benevolently disposed to being in general I thereby mean intelligent being in general not in animate things or beings that have no perception or will which are not properly capable objects of benevolence love is commonly distinguished into love of benevolence and love of complacence love of benevolence is that affection or

  propensity of the heart to any being which causes it to incline to its well-being or disposes it to desire and take pleasure in its happiness and if I mistake not tis agreeable to the common opinion that beauty in the object is not always the ground of this propensity but that there may be such a thing as benevolence or a disposition to the welfare of those that are not considered

  as beautiful unless mere existence be accounted a beauty and benevolence or goodness in the divine being is generally supposed not only to be prior to the beauty of many of its objects but to their existence so as to be the ground both of their existence and their beauty rather than they the foundation of God's benevolence as to suppose that it is God's goodness which moved him to

  give them both being and beauty so that if all virtue primarily consists in that affection of heart to being which is exercised in benevolence or an inclination to its good then God's virtue is so extended as to include a propensity not only to being actually existing and actually beautiful but to possible being so as to incline him to give being beauty and happiness but not

  now to insist particularly on this what I would have observed at present is that it must be allowed benevolence doth not necessarily presuppose beauty in its object what is commonly called love a complacence presupposes beauty for it is no other than delight in beauty or complacence in the person or being beloved for his beauty if virtue be the beauty of an intelligent being and

  virtue consists in love then it is a plain inconsistence to suppose that virtue primarily consists in any love to its object for its beauty either in a love of complacence which is delight in a being for his beauty or in a love of benevolence that has the beauty of its object for its foundation but that would be to suppose that the beauty of intelligent beings primarily consists in

  love to beauty or that their virtue first of all consists in their love to virtue which is an inconsistence and going in a circle because it makes virtue or beauty of mind the foundation or first motive of that love wherein virtue originally consists or wherein the very first virtue consists or it supposes the first virtue to be the consequence and effect of virtue so that

  virtue is originally the foundation and exciting cause of the very beginning or first being of virtue which makes the first virtue both the ground and the consequence both cause and effect of itself doubtless virtue primarily consists in something else besides any effect or consequence of virtue if virtue consists primarily in love to virtue then virtue

  the thing loved is the love of virtue so that virtue must consist in the love of the love of virtue and if it be inquired what that virtue is which virtue consists in the love of the love of it must be answered just the love of virtue so that there must be the love of the love of the love of virtue and so on in infinitum for there is no end of going back in a circle we never come to any

  beginning or foundation for tis without beginning and hangs on nothing therefore if the essence of virtue or beauty of mind lies in love or a disposition to love it must primarily consist in something different both from complacence which is a delight in beauty and also from any benevolence that has the beauty of its object for its foundation because tis absurd to say

  that virtue is primarily and first of all the consequence of itself where this makes virtue primarily prior to itself nor can virtue primarily consist in gratitude or one being's benevolence to another for his benevolence to him because this implies the same inconsistent for it supposes a benevolence prior to gratitude that is the cause of gratitude therefore the

  first benevolence or that benevolence which has none prior to it can't be gratitude therefore there is room left for no other conclusion that that the primary object of virtuous love is being simply considered or that true virtue primarily consists not in love to any particular beings because of their virtue or beauty nor in gratitude because they love us but in a propensity

  and union of heart to being simply considered exciting absolute benevolence if I may so call it to being in general I say true virtue primarily consists in this for I am far from asserting that there is no true virtue in any other love than this absolute benevolence but I would express what appears to me to be the truth on this subject in the following particulars the first object

  of a virtuous benevolence is being simply considered and if being simply considered be its object then being in general is its object and the thing it has an ultimate propensity to is the highest good of being in general and it will seek the good of every individual being unless it be conceived as not consistent with the highest good of being in general in which case the good

  of a particular being or some beings may be given up for the sake of the highest good of being in general and particularly if there be any being that is looked upon as statedly and irreclaimably opposite and an enemy to being in general then consent and adherence to being in general will induce the truly virtuous heart to forsake that being and to oppose it and

  further if being simply considered be the first object of a truly virtuous benevolence then that being who has most of being or has the greatest share of existence other things being equal so far as such a being is exhibited to our faculties or set in our view will have the greatest share of the propensity and benevolent affection of the heart I say other things being equal especially

  because there is a secondary object of virtuous benevolence that I shall take notice of presently which is one thing that must be considered as the ground or motive to a purely virtuous benevolence pure benevolence in its first exercise is nothing else but beings uniting consent or propensity to being appearing true and pure by its extending to being in general and in

  climbing to the general highest good and to each being whose welfare is consistent with the highest general good in proportion to the degree of existence understand other things being equal the second object of a virtuous propensity of heart is benevolent being a secondary ground of pure benevolence is virtuous benevolence itself in its object when anyone under the influence

  of general benevolence sees another being possessed of the like general benevolence this attaches his heart to him and draws forth greater love to him than merely his having existence because so far as the being beloved as love to being in general so far his own being is as it were enlarged extends to and in some sort comprehends being in general and therefore he that is governed by

  love to being in general must have necessity have complacence in him and the greater degree of benevolence to him as it were out of gratitude to him for his love to general existence that his own heart is extended and united to and so looks on its interest as its own just because his heart is that united to being in general that he looks on a benevolent propensity to being in

  general wherever he sees it as the beauty of the being in whom it is an excellency that renders him worthy of esteem complacence and the greater goodwill but several things may be noted more particularly concerning this secondary ground of a truly virtuous love one that loving a being on this ground necessarily arises from pure benevolence to being in general and

  comes to the same thing for he that has a simple and pure goodwill to general entity or existence must love that temper and others that agrees and conspires with itself a spirit of consent to being must agree with consent to being that which truly and sincerely seeks the good of others must approve of and love that which joins with him in seeking the good of others to this which

  has now been mentioned as a secondary ground of virtuous love is the thing wherein true moral or spiritual beauty primarily consists yay spiritual beauty consists wholly in this and the various qualities and exercises of mind which proceed from it and the external actions which proceed from these internal qualities and exercises and in these things consists all true virtue that is

  in this love of being and the qualities and acts which arise from it three as all spiritual beauty lies in these virtuous principles and acts so tis primarily on this account they are beautiful that is that they imply consent and union with being in general this is the primary and most essential beauty of everything that can justly be called by the name of virtue or is any

  moral excellency in the eye of one that has a perfect view of things I say the primary and most essential beauty because there is a secondary and inferior sort of beauty which I shall take notice of afterwards for this spiritual beauty that is but a secondary ground of a virtuous benevolence is the ground not only of benevolence but complacence and is the primary ground of the latter that

  is when the complacence is truly virtuous love to us in particular and kindness received may be a secondary ground but this is the primary objective foundation of it five it must be noted that the degree of the amiableness or valuableness of true virtue primarily consisting in consent and a benevolent propensity of heart to being in general in the eyes of one that is influenced by

  such a spirit is not in the simple proportion of the degree of benevolent affection seen but in a proportion compounded of the greatness of the being or the degree of being and the degree of benevolence one that loves being in general will necessarily value goodwill to being in general wherever he sees it but if he sees the same benevolence in two beings he will value

  it more in two than in one only because it is a greater thing more favorable to being in general to have two beings to favor it than only one of them for there is more being that favors being both together having more being than one alone so if one being be as great as two has as much existence as both together and has the same degree of general benevolence it is more favorable to

  being in general than if there were general benevolence in a being that had but half that share of existence as a large quantity of gold with the same degree of preciousness that is with the same excellent quality of matter is more valuable than a small quantity of the same metal six it is impossible that anyone should truly relish this beauty consisting in general benevolence who

  has not that temper himself I have observed that if any being is possessed of such a temper he will unavoidably be pleased with the same temper in another and it may in like manner be demonstrated that tis such a spirit and nothing else which will relish such a spirit for if a being destitute of benevolence should love benevolence to being in general it would

  prize and seek that which it had no value for because to love an inclination to the good of being in general would imply a loving and prizing the good of being in general for how should one love and value a disposition to a thing or a tendency to promote a thing and for that very reason because it tends to promote it when the thing itself is what he is regardless of and has no value for no

  desires to have promoted end of chapter 1 recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine

• 02 - Chapter 02

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  CHAPTER II. SHOWING HOW THAT LOVE WHEREIN TRUE VIRTUE CONSISTS RESPECTS THE DIVINE BEING AND CREATED BEINGS. From what has been said, it is evident that true virtue must chiefly consist in love to God, the being of beings, infinitely the greatest and best of beings.

  This appears whether we consider the primary or secondary ground of virtuous love. It was observed that the first objective ground of that love wherein true virtue consists is being, simply considered, and as a necessary consequence of this, that being who has the most of being, or the greatest share of universal existence, has proportionably the greatest share of virtuous benevolence, so far as such a being is exhibited to the faculties of

  our minds, other things being equal. But God has infinitely the greatest share of existence, or is infinitely the greatest being, so that all other being, even that of all created things whatsoever throughout the whole universe, is as nothing in comparison of the divine being. And if we consider the secondary ground of love, that is beauty or moral excellency,

  the same thing will appear. For as God is infinitely the greatest being, so he is allowed to be infinitely the most beautiful and excellent, and all the beauty to be found throughout the whole creation is but the reflection of the diffused beams of that being who hath an infinite fullness of brightness and glory.

  God's beauty is infinitely more valuable than that of all other beings upon both those accounts mentioned. That is, the degree of his virtue and the greatness of the being possessed of this virtue. And God has sufficiently exhibited himself in his being, his infinite greatness and excellency, and has given us faculties whereby we are capable of plainly discovering immense superiority

  to all other beings in these respects. Therefore, he that has true virtue, consisting in benevolence to being in general, and in that complacence in virtue or moral beauty, and benevolence to virtuous being, must necessarily have a supreme love to God, both of benevolence and complacence. And all true virtue must radically and essentially, and as it were summarily, consist in this.

  With God is not only infinitely greater and more excellent than all other beings, but he is the head of the universal system of existence, the foundation and fountain of all being and all beauty, from whom all is perfectly derived, and on whom all is most absolutely and perfectly dependent, of whom and through whom and to whom is all being and all perfection, and whose being and beauty is, as it were, the sum and comprehension

  of all existence and excellence, much more than the sun is the fountain and summary comprehension of all the light and brightness of the day. If it should be objected that virtue consists primarily in benevolence, but that our fellow creatures and not God seem to be the most proper objects of our benevolence, inasmuch as our goodness extendeth not to God, and we cannot be profitable to him.

  To this I answer, one, a benevolent propensity of heart is exercised not only in seeking to promote the happiness of the being towards whom it is exercised, but also in rejoicing in his happiness. Even as gratitude for benefits received will not only excite endeavors to requite the kindness we receive by equally benefiting our benefactor, but also if he be above any need of us or

  we have nothing to bestow and are unable to repay his kindness, it will dispose us to rejoice in his prosperity. Two, though we are not able to give anything to God, which we have of our own independently, yet we may be the instruments of promoting his glory, in which he takes a true and proper delight, as was shown at large in the former treatise on God's end in Creating the World,

  Chapter 1, Section 4. Further I must refer the reader for a more full answer to this objection. Whatever influence such an objection may seem to have on the minds of some, yet is there any that owns the being of a God who will deny that any love or benevolent affection is due to God and proper to be exercised towards him?

  If no benevolence is to be exercised towards God because we cannot profit him, then for the same reason neither is gratitude to be exercised towards him for his benefits to us because we cannot requite him. But where is the man who believes a God in a providence that will say this? There seems to be an inconsistence in some writers on morality in this respect that they

  don't wholly exclude a regard to the deity out of their schemes of morality, but yet mention it so slightly that they leave me room and reason to suspect they esteem it a less important and a subordinate part of true morality, and insist on benevolence to the created system in such a manner as would naturally lead one to suppose they look upon that as by far the most important and essential thing in their scheme.

  But why should this be? If true virtue consists partly in a respect to God, then doubtless it consists chiefly in it. If true morality requires that we should have some regard, some benevolent affection to our Creator as well as to his creatures, then doubtless it requires the first regard

  to be paid to him, and that he be every way the supreme object of our benevolence. If his being above our reach and beyond all capacity of being profited by us don't hinder, but that nevertheless he is the proper object of our love, then it don't hinder that he should be loved according to his dignity, or according to the degree in which he has those things wherein worthiness of regard consists so far as we are capable of it.

  But this worthiness none will deny consists in these two things, greatness and moral goodness, and those that own a God don't deny that he infinitely exceeds all other beings in these. If the deity is to be looked upon as within that system of beings which properly terminates our benevolence, or belonging to that whole, certainly he is to be regarded as the head of the system and the chief part of it.

  If it be proper to call him a part who is infinitely more than all the rest, and in comparison of whom and without whom all the rest are nothing, either as to beauty or existence. And therefore certainly unless we will be atheists, we must allow that true virtue does primarily and most essentially consist in a supreme love to God, and that where this is wanting there can be no true virtue.

  But this being a matter of the highest importance, I shall say something further to make it plain that love to God is most essential to true virtue, and that no benevolence whatsoever to other beings can be of the nature of true virtue without it. And therefore let it be supposed that some beings by natural instinct or by some other means have a determination of mind to union and benevolence to a particular person or

  private system, which is but a small part of the universal system of being, and that this disposition or determination of mind is independent on or not subordinate to benevolence to being in general. Such a determination, disposition, or affection of mind is not of the nature of true virtue. This is allowed by all with regard to self-love, in which good will is confined to one single

  person only. And there are the same reasons why any other private affection or good will, though extending to a society of persons independent of and unsubordinate to benevolence to the universality, should not be esteemed truly virtuous. Therefore notwithstanding it extends to a number of persons, which taken together are

  more than a single person, yet the whole falls infinitely short of the universality of existence, and if put in the scales with it, has no greater proportion to it than a single person. However, it may not be amiss more particularly to consider the reasons why private affections or good will limited to a particular circle of beings falling infinitely short of the whole existence and not dependent upon it nor subordinate to general benevolence cannot

  be of the nature of true virtue. One, such a private affection detached from general benevolence and independent on it, as the case may be, will be against general benevolence or of a contrary tendency and will set a person against general existence and make him an enemy to it. As it is with selfishness, or when a man is governed by a regard to his own private interest,

  independent of regard to the public good, such a temper exposes a man to act the part of an enemy to the public, as in every case wherein his private interest seems to clash with the public, or in all those cases wherein such things are presented to his view that suit his personal appetites or private inclinations but are inconsistent with the good of the public, on which account a selfish, contracted, narrow spirit is generally abhorred and is

  esteemed base and sordid. But if a man's affection takes in half a dozen more and his regards extend so far beyond his own single person as to take in his children and family, or if it reaches further still to a larger circle but falls infinitely short of the universal system and is exclusive of being in general, his private affection exposes him to the same thing, videlisat, to pursue

  the interest of his particular object in opposition to general existence, which is certainly contrary to the tendency of true virtue, yea, directly contrary to the main and most essential thing in its nature, the thing on account of which chiefly its nature and tendency is good. For the chief and most essential good that is in virtue is its favoring being in general. Now certainly, if private affection to a limited system had in itself the essential nature

  of virtue, it would be impossible that it should in any circumstance whatsoever have a tendency and inclination directly contrary to that wherein the essence of virtue chiefly consists. Private affection, if not subordinate in general affection, is not only liable, as the case may be, to issue in enmity to being in general, but has a tendency to it, as the case certainly

  is and must necessarily be. For he that is influenced by private affection, not subordinate to regard to being in general, sets up its particular or limited object above being in general, and this most naturally tends to enmity against the latter, which is by right the great supreme ruling and absolutely sovereign object of our regard.

  Even as the setting up another prince as supreme in any kingdom, distinct from the lawful sovereign, naturally tends to enmity against the lawful sovereign. Wherever it is sufficiently published that the supreme, infinite, and all-comprehending being requires a supreme regard to himself and insists upon it, that our respect to him should universally rule in our hearts, and every other affection be subordinate to it,

  and this under the pain of his displeasure, as we must suppose it is in the world of intelligent creatures, if God maintains a moral kingdom in the world, then a consciousness of our having chosen and set up another prince to rule over us and subjected our hearts to him, and continuing in such an act, must unavoidably excite enmity and fix us in a stated opposition to the supreme being.

  This demonstrates that affection to a private society or system, independent on general benevolence, cannot be of the nature of true virtue, for this would be absurd that it has the nature and essence of true virtue, and yet at the same time has a tendency opposite to true virtue. 3.

  Not only would affection to a private system, unsubordinate to regard to being in general, have a tendency to opposition to the supreme object of virtuous affection as its effect and consequence, but would become itself in opposition to that object. Considered by itself in its nature, detached from its effects, it is an instance of great opposition to the rightful supreme object of our respect, for it exalts its private

  object above the other great and infinite object, and sets that up as supreme in opposition to this. It puts down being in general, which is infinitely superior in itself and infinitely more important, in an inferior place, yea subjects the supreme general object to this private infinitely inferior object, which is to treat it with great contempt and truly to act in opposition

  to it, and to act in opposition to the true order of things and in opposition to that the supreme interest, making this supreme and infinitely important interest as far as in us lies to be subject to and dependent on an interest infinitely inferior. This is to act against it, and to act the part of an enemy to it. He that takes a subject and exalts him above his prince, sets him as supreme instead of

  the prince, and treats his prince wholly as a subject, therein acts the part of an enemy to his prince. From these things, I think, it is manifest that no affection limited to any private system not dependent on, nor subordinate to, being in general, can be of the nature of true virtue. And this, whatever the private system be, let it be more or less extensive, consisting

  of a greater or smaller number of individuals, so long as it contains an infinitely little part of universal existence, and so bears no proportion to the great all-comprehending system, and consequently that no affection whatsoever to any creature or any system of created beings which is not dependent on, nor subordinate to, a propensity or union of the heart to God, the supreme and infinite being, can be of the nature of true virtue.

  From hence also it is evident that the divine virtue, or the virtue of the divine mind, must consist primarily in love to himself, or in the mutual love and friendship which subsists eternally and necessarily between the several persons in the Godhead, or that infinitely strong propensity there is in these divine persons one to another. There is no need of multiplying words to prove that it must be thus, on a supposition that

  virtue in its most essential nature consists in benevolent affection or propensity of heart towards being in general, and so flowing out to particular beings in a greater or lesser degree according to the measure of existence and beauty which they are possessed of. It will also follow from the foregoing things that God's goodness and love to created beings is derived from and subordinate to his love to himself.

  In what manner it is so, I have endeavored in some measure to explain in the preceding discourse of God's end in creating the world. With respect to the manner in which a virtuous love in created beings one to another is dependent on and derived from love to God, this will appear by a proper consideration of what has been said, that it is sufficient to render love to any created being virtuous if it arise

  from the temper of mind wherein consists a disposition to love God supremely. Because it appears from what has been already observed, all that love to particular beings which is the fruit of a benevolent propensity of heart to being in general is virtuous love. But as has been remarked, a benevolent propensity of heart to being in general and a temper or disposition to love God supremely are in effect the same thing.

  Therefore, if love to a created being comes from that temper or propensity of the heart, it is virtuous. However, every particular exercise of love to a creature may not sensibly arise from any exercise of love to God or an explicit consideration of any similitude, conformity, union or relation to God in the creature beloved.

  The most proper evidence of love to a created being, it's arising from that temper of mind wherein consists a supreme propensity of heart to God seems to be the agreeableness of the kind and degree of our love to God's end in our creation and in the creation of all things, and the coincidence of the exercises of our love in their manner, order and measure with the manner in which God Himself exercises love to the creature in the creation and government

  of the world, and the way in which God as the first cause and supreme disposer of all things has respect to the creature's happiness in subordination to Himself as His own supreme end. For the true virtue of created beings is doubtless their highest excellency and their true goodness and that by which they are especially agreeable to the mind of their Creator.

  But the true goodness of a thing, as was observed before, must be its agreeableness to its end or its fitness to answer the design for which it was made. Or at least, this must be its goodness in the eyes of the workman. Therefore they are good moral agents whose temper of mind or propensity of heart is agreeable to the end for which God made moral agents.

  But as has been shown, the last end for which God has made moral agents must be the last end for which God has made all things, it being evident that the moral world is the end of the rest of the world, the inanimate and unintelligent world being made for the rational and moral world as much as a house is prepared for the inhabitants. By these things it appears that a truly virtuous mind, being as it were under the sovereign

  dominion of love to God, does above all things seek the glory of God and makes this His supreme governing and ultimate end, consisting in the expression of God's perfections in their proper effects and in the manifestation of God's glory to created understandings and the communications of the infinite fullness of God to the creature, in the creature's highest esteem of God, love to God, and joy in God, and in the proper exercises and expressions

  of these. And so far as a virtuous mind exercises true virtue in benevolence to created beings, it chiefly seeks the good of the creature, consisting in its knowledge or view of God's glory and beauty, its union with God in conformity to Him, love to Him, and joy in Him. And that temper or disposition of heart, that consent, union, or propensity of mind to being

  in general, which appears chiefly in such exercises, is virtue, truly so called, or in other words, true grace and real holiness. And no other disposition or affection but this is of the nature of true virtue. Corollary, hence it appears that these schemes of religion or moral philosophy, which however well in some respects they may treat of benevolence to mankind and other virtues depending on

  it, yet have not a supreme regard to God and love to Him, laid in the foundation and all other virtues handled in a connection with this and in a subordination to this, are no true schemes of philosophy, but are fundamentally and essentially defective. And whatever other benevolence or generosity towards mankind and other virtues or moral qualifications which go by that name, any are possessed of that are not attended with

  a love to God, which is altogether above them and to which they are subordinate and on which they are dependent, there is nothing of the nature of true virtue or religion in them. And it may be asserted in general that nothing is of the nature of true virtue, in which God is not the first and the last, or which, with regard to their exercises in general, have not their first foundation and source in apprehensions of God's supreme dignity

  and glory, and in answerable esteem and love of Him, and have not respect to God as the supreme end.

• 03 - Chapter 03

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  3. Concerning the Secondary and Inferior Kind of Beauty. Though this which has been spoken of alone is justly esteemed the true beauty of moral agents or spiritual beings, this alone being what would appear beautiful in them, upon a clear and comprehensive view of things, and therefore alone is the moral amiableness of beings that have understanding and will in the eyes of him that perfectly sees all things as they are. Yet there are

  other qualities, other sensations, propensities and affections of mind and principles of action that often obtain the epithet of virtuous, and by many are supposed to have the nature of true virtue, which are entirely of a distinct nature from this and have nothing of that kind, and therefore are erroneously confounded with real virtue, as may particularly and fully appear from things which will be observed in this and the following chapters. That consent, agreement or

  union of being to being which has been spoken of, Videlis said the union or propensity of minds to mental or spiritual existence, may be called the highest and first or primary beauty that is to be found among things that exist, being the proper and peculiar beauty of spiritual and moral beings, which are the highest and first part of the universal system for whose sake all the rest has existence. Yet there is another inferior secondary beauty which is some image of this,

  and which is not peculiar to spiritual beings, but is found even in inanimate things, which consists in a mutual consent and agreement of different things in form, manner, quantity and visible end or design, called by the various names of regularity, order, uniformity, symmetry, proportion, harmony, etc., such as the mutual agreement of the various sides of a square or equilateral triangle or of a regular polygon, such as, as it were, the mutual consent of the

  different parts of the periphery of a circle or surface of a sphere and of the corresponding parts of an ellipse, such as the agreement of the colors, figures, dimensions and distances of the different spots on a chessboard, such as the beauty of the figures on a piece of chintz or brocade, such as the beautiful proportion of the various parts of an human body or countenance, and such as the sweet mutual consent and agreement of the various notes of a melodious tune. This is

  the same that Mr. Hutchison, in his Treatise on Beauty, expresses by uniformity in the midst of variety, which is no other than the consent or agreement of different things in form, quantity, etc. He observes that the greater the variety is in equal uniformity, the greater the beauty, which is no more than to say the more there are of different mutually agreeing things, the greater is the beauty. And the reason of that is because tis more considerable to have

  many things consent one with another than a few only. The beauty which consists in the visible fitness of a thing to its use and unity of design is not a distinct sort of beauty from this, for it is to be observed that one thing which contributes to the beauty of the agreement and proportion of various things is their relation one to another, which connects them and introduces them together into view and consideration, and whereby one suggests the other to the mind,

  and the mind is led to compare them and so to expect and desire agreement. Thus the uniformity of two or more pillars, as they may happen to be found in different places, is not an equal degree of beauty as that uniformity in so many pillars in the corresponding parts of the same building. So means and an intended effect are related one to another. The answerableness of a thing to its use is only the proportion, fitness, and agreeing of a cause or means to a visibly designed effect,

  and so an effect suggested to the mind by the idea of the means. This kind of beauty is not entirely different from that beauty which there is in fitting a mortise to its tenon. Only when the beauty consists in unity of design or the adaptedness of a variety of things to promote one intended effect in which all conspire as the various parts of an ingenious complicated machine, there is a double beauty, as there is a twofold agreement and conformity. First,

  there is the agreement of the various parts to the designed end. Secondly, through this, the delicit, the designed end or effect, all the various particulars agree one with another as the general medium of their union, whereby they being united in this third, they thereby are all united one to another. The reason or at least one reason why God has made this kind of mutual consent and agreement of things beautiful and grateful to those intelligent beings that perceive it probably

  is that there is in it some image of the true spiritual original beauty which has been spoken of consisting in beings consent to being or the union of minds or spiritual beings in a mutual propensity and affection of heart. The other is an image of this because by that uniformity diverse things become as it were one as it is in this cordial union and it pleases God to observe analogy in his works as is manifest in fact in innumerable instances and especially to

  establish inferior things in an analogy to superior. Thus in how many instances has he formed brutes in analogy to the nature of mankind and plants in analogy to animals with respect to the manner of their generation, nutrition, etc. And so he has constituted the external world in an analogy to things in the spiritual world in numberless instances as might be shown if it were necessary and here were proper place and room for it. Why such analogy in God's

  works pleases him it is not needful now to inquire. It is sufficient that he makes an agreement or consent of different things in their form, manner, measure, etc. to appear beautiful because here is some image of an higher kind of agreement and consent of spiritual beings. It has pleased him to establish a law of nature by virtue of which the uniformity and mutual correspondence of a beautiful plant and the respect which the various parts of a regular building seem to have one to

  another and their agreement and union and the consent or concord of the various notes of a melodious tune should appear beautiful because therein is some image of the consent of mind of the different members of a society or system of intelligent beings sweetly united in a benevolent agreement of heart. And here by the way I would further observe probably tis with regard to this image or resemblance which secondary beauty has of true spiritual beauty that God has so constituted

  nature that the presenting of this inferior beauty especially in those kinds of it which have the greatest resemblance of the primary beauty as the harmony of sounds and the beauties of nature have a tendency to assist those whose hearts are under the influence of a truly virtuous temper to dispose them to the exercises of divine love and enliven in them a sense of spiritual beauty. From what has been said we may see that there are two sorts of agreement or consent of one thing to another. One,

  there is a cordial agreement that consists in concord and union of mind and heart which if not attended viewing things in general with more discord than concord is true virtue and the original or primary beauty which is the only true moral beauty. Two, there is a natural union or agreement which though some image of the other is entirely a distinct thing the will disposition or affection of the heart having no concern in it but consisting only in uniformity and consent

  of nature form quantity etc. as before described wherein lies an inferior secondary sort of beauty which may in distinction from the other be called natural beauty. This may be sufficient to let the reader know how I shall hereafter use the phrases of cordial and natural agreement and moral spiritual divine and primary original beauty and secondary or natural beauty. Concerning this latter inferior beauty the following things may be observed. One, the cause why secondary beauty is grateful to men

  is only a law of nature which God has fixed or an instinct he has given to mankind and not their perception of the same thing which God is pleased to have regard to as the ground or rule by which he has established such a law of nature. This appears in two things. One, that which God has respect to as the rule or a ground of this law of nature he has given us whereby things have a secondary beauty are made grateful to men is their mutual agreement and proportion in measure form

  etc. But in many instances persons that are gratified and have their minds affected in presenting this beauty don't reflect on that particular agreement and proportion which according to the law of nature is the ground and rule of beauty in the case, yea are ignorant of it. Thus a man may be pleased with the harmony of the notes in a tune and yet know nothing of that proportion or adjustment of the notes which by the law of nature is the ground of the melody. He knows not

  that the vibrations in one note regularly coincide with the vibrations in another, that the vibrations of a note coincide in time with two vibrations of its octave and that two vibrations of a note coincide with three of its fifth etc. Yea, he may not know that there are vibrations of the air in the case or any corresponding motions in the organs of hearing in the auditory nerve or animal spirits. So a man may be affected and pleased with a beautiful proportion of the features in a face

  and yet not know what that proportion is or what measures, quantities, and distances it consists in. In this a sensation of secondary beauty differs from a sensation of primary and spiritual beauty consisting in a spiritual union and agreement. What makes the latter grateful is perceiving the union itself. It is the immediate view of that wherein the beauty fundamentally lies that is pleasing to the virtuous mind. Two, as was observed before, God in establishing such a law that mutual

  natural agreement of different things in form, quantity, etc. should appear beautiful or grateful to men seems to have had regard to the image and resemblance there is in such a natural agreement of that spiritual cordial agreement wherein original beauty consists as one reason why he established such a law. But it is not any reflection upon or perception of such a resemblance of this to spiritual beauty that is the reason why such a form or state of objects appears beautiful to

  men. But their sensation of pleasure on a view of this secondary beauty is immediately owing to the law God has established or the instinct he has given. Two, another thing observable concerning this kind of beauty is that it affects the mind more, other things being equal, when taken notice of in objects which are of considerable importance than in little trivial matters. Thus the symmetry of the parts of a human body or countenance affects the mind more than the beauty of a flower,

  so the beauty of the solar system more than as great and as manifold in order and uniformity in a tree, and the proportions of the parts of a church or a palace more than the same proportions in some little slight compositions made to please children. Three, it may be observed which was hinted before that not only uniformity and proportion etc. of different things is requisite in order to this inferior beauty, but some relation or connection of the things thus agreeing one with

  another. As the uniformity or likeness of a number of pillars scattered hither and thither does not constitute beauty or at least by no means in an equal degree as uniformity in pillars connected in the same building in parts that have relation one to another. So if we see things unlike and very disproportioned in distant places which have no relation to each other, this excites no such idea of deformity as disagreement and inequality or disproportion in things related and connected.

  And the nearer the relation and the stricter the connection, so much the greater and more disgustful is the deformity consisting in their disagreement. Four, the secondary kind of beauty consisting in uniformity and proportion not only takes place in material and external things but also in things immaterial and is in very many things plain and sensible in the latter as well as the former. And when it is so, there is no reason why it should not be grateful to them that

  behold it in these as well as the other by virtue of the same sense or the same determination of mind to be gratified with uniformity and proportion. If uniformity and proportion be the things that affect and appear agreeable to this sense of beauty, then why should not uniformity and proportion affect the same sense in immaterial things as well as material, if there be equal capacity of discerning it in both? And indeed more in spiritual things, keteris paribus,

  as these are more important than things merely external and material. This is not only reasonable to be supposed but is evident in fact in numberless instances. There is a beauty of order in society besides what consists in benevolence or can be referred to it which is of the secondary kind, as when the different members of society have all their appointed office, place, and station according to their several capacities and talents and everyone keeps his place and continues in his

  proper business. In this there is a beauty not of a different kind from the regularity of a beautiful building or piece of skillful architecture where the strong pillars are set in their proper place, the pilasters in a place fit for them, the square pieces of marble in the pavement in a place suitable for them, the panels in the walls and partitions in their proper places, the cornices in places proper for them, etc. As the agreement of a variety in one common design of the parts

  of a building or complicated machine is one instance of that regularity which belongs to the secondary kind of beauty, so there is in the same kind of beauty in immaterial things and what is called wisdom, consisting in the united tendency of thoughts, ideas, and particular volitions to one general purpose which is a distinct thing from the goodness of that general purpose as being useful and benevolent. So there is a beauty in the virtue called justice which

  consists in the agreement of different things that have relation to one another in nature, manner, and measure and therefore is the very same sort of beauty with that uniformity and proportion which is observable in those external and material things that are esteemed beautiful. There is a natural agreement and adaptedness of things that have relation one to another and then harmonious corresponding of one thing to another that he which from his will does evil to others

  should receive evil from the will of others or from the will of him or them whose business it is to take care of the injured and to act in their behalf and that he should suffer evil in proportion to the evil of his doings. Things are in natural regularity and mutual agreement not in a metaphorical but literal sense when he whose heart opposes the general system should have the hearts of that system or the heart of the head and ruler of the system against him and that in

  consequence he should receive evil in proportion to the evil tendency of the opposition of his heart. So there is a like agreement in nature and measure when he that loves has the proper returns of love when he that from his heart promotes the good of another as his good promoted by the other as there is a kind of justice in a becoming gratitude. Indeed most of the duties incumbent on us if well considered will be found to partake of the nature of justice. There is some

  natural agreement of one thing to another, some adaptedness of the agent to the object, some answerableness of the act to the occasion, some equality and proportion in things of a similar nature and of a direct relation one to another. So it is in relative duties, duties of children to parents and the parents to children, duties of husbands and wives, duties of rulers and subjects, duties of friendship and good neighborhood and all duties that we owe to God

  are creator, preserver and benefactor and all duties whatsoever considered as required by God and as branches of our duty to him and also considered as what are to be performed with the regard to Christ as acts of obedience to his precepts and as testimonies of respect to him and of our regard to what he has done for us, the virtues and temper of mind he has exercised towards us and the benefits we have or hope for there from. It is this secondary kind of

  beauty which belongs to the virtues and duties required of us that Mr. Walliston seems to have had in his eye when he resolved all virtue into an agreement of inclinations, volitions and actions with truth. He evidently has respect to the justice there is in the virtues and duties that are proper to be in one being towards another, which consists in one being's expressing such affections and using such a conduct towards another as hath a natural agreement and proportion to

  what is in them and what we receive from them, which is as much a natural conformity of affection and action with its ground, object and occasion as that which is between a true proposition and the things spoken of in it. But there is another and higher beauty in true virtue and in all truly virtuous dispositions and exercises than what consists in any uniformity or similarity of various things. Videlis it the union of heart to being in general or to God the being of beings,

  which appears in those virtues in which those virtues when true are the various expressions or effects of. Benevolence to being in general or to being simply considered is entirely a distinct thing from uniformity in the midst of variety and is a superior kind of beauty. Tis true that benevolence to being in general when a person hath it will naturally incline him to justice or proportion in the exercises of it. He that loves beings simply considered will naturally

  as was observed before other things being equal love particular beings in a proportion compounded of the degree of being in the degree of virtue or benevolence to being which they have and that is to love beings in proportion to their dignity. For the dignity of any being consists in those two things. Respect to being in this proportion is the first and most general kind of justice which will produce all the subordinate kinds so that after benevolence to being in general exists

  the proportion which is observed in objects may be the cause of the proportion of benevolence to those objects. But no proportion is the cause or ground of the existence of such a thing as benevolence to being. The tendency of objects to excite that degree of benevolence which is proportionable to the degree of being etc. is the consequence of the existence of benevolence and not the ground of it. Even as a tendency of bodies one to another by mutual attraction in proportion

  to the quantity of matter is the consequence of the being of such a thing as mutual attraction and not attraction the effect of proportion. By this it appears that just affections and acts have a beauty in them distinct from and superior to the uniformity and equality there is in them for which he that has a truly virtuous temper relishes and delights in them and that is the expression and manifestation there is in them of benevolence to being in general. And besides this there is the

  agreement of justice to the will and command of God and also something in the tendency and consequences of justice that is agreeable to general benevolence the delicate as in many respects it tends to the glory of God and the general good which tendency also makes it beautiful to a truly virtuous mind so that the tendency of general benevolence to produce justice also the tendency of justice to produce effects agreeable to general benevolence both render justice pleasing

  to a virtuous mind and it is on these accounts chiefly that justice is grateful to a virtuous taste or a truly benevolent heart but though it be true there is that in the uniformity and proportion there is in justice which is grateful to a benevolent heart as this uniformity and proportion tends to the general good yet that is no argument that there is no other beauty in it but it's agreeing with benevolence for so the external regularity and order of the natural world

  gratifies benevolence as it is profitable and tends to the general good but that is no argument that there is no other sort of beauty in external uniformity and proportion but only it's suiting benevolence by tending to the general good from all that has been observed concerning the secondary kind of beauty it appears that that disposition or sense of the mind which consists in determination of mine to approve and be pleased with this beauty considered simply and by itself as nothing of the

  nature of true virtue and is entirely a different thing from a truly virtuous taste for it has been shown that this kind of beauty is entirely diverse from the beauty of true virtue whether it takes place in material or immaterial things and therefore it will follow that a taste of this kind of beauty is entirely a different thing from a taste of true virtue who will affirm that a disposition to approve of the harmony of good music or the beauty of a square or equilateral

  triangle is the same with true holiness or a truly virtuous disposition of mind tis a relish of uniformity and proportion that determines the mind to approve these things and if this be all there is no need of anything higher or if anything in any respect diverse to determine the mind to approve and be pleased with equal uniformity and proportion among spiritual things which are equally discerned just virtuous to love true virtue as that denotes an agreement of the heart with

  virtue but it argues no virtue for the heart to be pleased with that which is entirely distinct from it though it be true there is some analogy in it to spiritual and virtuous beauty as much as material things can have analogy to things spiritual of which they can have no more than a shadow yet as has been observed men do not approve it because of any such analogy perceived and not only reason but experience plainly shows that men's approbation of this sort of beauty does

  not spring from any virtuous temper and has no connection with virtue for otherwise men's delight in the beauty of squares and cubes and regular polygons in the regularity of buildings and the beautiful figures in a piece of embroidery would increase in proportion to men's virtue and would be raised to a great height in some eminently virtuous or holy men but would be almost wholly lost in some others that are very vicious and lewd it is evident in fact that a relish of these

  things does not depend on general benevolence or any benevolence at all to any being whatsoever any more than a man's loving the taste of honey or his being pleased with the smell of a rose a taste of this inferior beauty in things immaterial is one thing which has been mistaken by some moralists for a true virtuous principle implanted naturally in the hearts of all mankind end of chapter 3 recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine

• 04 - Chapter 04

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  CHAPTER IV. OF SELF-LOVE AND ITS VARIOUS INFLUENCE TO CAUSE LOVE TO OTHERS OR THE CONTRARY. Many assert that all love arises from self-love. In order to determine this point, it should be clearly determined what is meant by self-love. Self-love, I think, is generally defined as a man's love of his own happiness, which

  is short and may be thought very plain, but indeed is an ambiguous definition, as the pronoun his own is equivocal and liable to be taken in two very different senses. For a man's own happiness may either be taken universally for all the happiness or pleasure which the mind is in any regard the subject of, or whatever is grateful and pleasing to man, or it may be taken for the pleasure a man takes in his own proper, private, and

  separate good. And so self-love may be taken two ways. One, self-love may be taken for the same as his loving whatsoever is grateful or pleasing to him, which comes only to this, that self-love is a man's liking and being suited and pleased in that which he likes and which pleases him, or that tis a man's loving what he loves.

  For whatever a man loves, that thing is grateful and pleasing to him, whether that be his own peculiar happiness or the happiness of others. And if this be all that they mean by self-love, no wonder they suppose that all love may be resolved into self-love. For it is undoubtedly true that whatever a man loves, his love may be resolved into his

  loving what he loves, if that be proper speaking. If by self-love is meant nothing else but a man's loving what is grateful or pleasing to him, and being averse to what is disagreeable, this is calling that self-love, which is only a general capacity of loving or hating, or a capacity of being either pleased or displeased, which is the same thing as a man's having a faculty of will.

  For if nothing could be either pleasing or displeasing, agreeable or disagreeable to a man, then he could incline to nothing and will nothing. But if he is capable of having inclination, will, and choice, then what he inclines to and chooses is grateful to him, whatever that be, whether it be his own private good, the good of his neighbors, or the glory of God.

  And so far as it is grateful or pleasing to him, so far it is a part of his pleasure, But if this be what is meant by self-love, there is an impropriety and absurdity even in the putting of the question, whether all our love or our love to each particular object of our love don't arise from self-love. For that would be the same as to inquire whether the reason why our love is fixed on such and

  such particular objects is not that we have a capacity of loving some things. This may be a general reason why men love or hate anything at all, and therein differ from stones and trees which love nothing and hate nothing. But it can never be a reason why men's love is placed on such and such objects, that a man in general loves and is pleased with happiness, or, which is the same thing, has a capacity

  of enjoying happiness, cannot be the reason why such and such things become his happiness, as for instance why the good of his neighbor or the happiness and glory of God is grateful and pleasing to him, and so becomes a part of his happiness. Or if what they mean, who say that all love comes from self-love, be not that our loving such and such particular persons and things arises from our love to happiness in general,

  but from a love to love our own happiness, which consists in these objects. So the reason why we love benevolence to our friends or neighbors is because we love our happiness, consisting in their happiness which we take pleasure in. Still the notion is absurd, for here the effect is made the cause of that of which it is the effect.

  Our happiness, consisting in the happiness of the person beloved, is made the cause of our love to that person, whereas the truth plainly is that our love to the person is the cause of our delighting or being happy in his happiness. How comes our happiness to consist in the happiness of such as we love, but by our hearts being first united to them in affection, so that as it were we look on them as ourselves

  and so on their happiness as our own? Men who have benevolence to others have pleasure when they see others happiness, because seeing their happiness gratifies some inclination that was in their hearts before. They before incline to their happiness, which was by benevolence or goodwill, and therefore when they see their happiness their inclination is suited and they are pleased.

  But the being of inclinations and appetites is prior to any pleasure in gratifying these appetites." 2. Self-love, as the phrase is used in common speech, most commonly signifies a man's regard to his confined private self, or love to himself with respect to his private interest.

  By private interest I mean that which most immediately consists in those pleasures or pains that are personal, though there is a comfort and a grief that some have in others pleasures or pains, which are in others originally but are derived to them or in some measure become theirs, by virtue of a benevolent union of heart with others. And there are other pleasures and pains that are originally our own, and not what we have

  by such a participation with others which consist in perceptions agreeable or contrary to certain personal inclinations implanted in our nature, such as the sensitive appetites and aversions. Such also is the disposition or the determination of the mind to be pleased with external beauty, and with all inferior secondary beauty, consisting in uniformity, proportion, etc., whether in

  things external or internal, and to dislike the contrary deformity. Such also is the natural disposition in men to be pleased in a perception of their being the objects of the honor and love of others, and displeased with others' hatred and contempt. For pleasures and uneasinesses of this kind are doubtless as much owing to an immediate determination of the mind by a fixed law of our nature, as any of the pleasures or pains

  of external sense. And these pleasures are properly of the private and personal kind, being not by any participation of the happiness or sorrow of others through benevolence, tis evidently mere self-love that appears in this disposition. It is easy to see that a man's love to himself will make him love love to himself and hate

  hatred to himself. And as God has constituted our nature, self-love is exercised in no one disposition more than in this. Men probably are capable of much more pleasure and pain through this determination of the mind than by any other personal inclination or aversion whatsoever.

  Though perhaps we don't so very often see instances of extreme suffering by this means as by some others, yet we often see evidences of men's dreading the contempt of others more than death, and by such instances may conceive something what men would suffer if universally hated and despised, and may reasonably infer something of the greatness of the misery that would arise under a sense of universal abhorrence, in a great view of intelligent

  being in general, or in a clear view of the deity, as incomprehensibly and immensely great so that all other beings are as nothing in vanity, together with a sense of his immediate continual presence and an infinite concern with him and dependence upon him, and living constantly in the midst of most clear and strong evidences and manifestations of his hatred and contempt and wrath.

  But to return, these things may be sufficient to explain what I mean by private interest, in regard to which self-love, most properly so called, is immediately exercised. And here I would observe that if we take self-love in this sense, so love to some others may truly be the effect of self-love, that is according to the common method and order which is maintained in the laws of nature.

  For no created thing has power to produce and effect any otherwise than by virtue of the laws of nature. Thus, that a man should love those that are of his party, when there are different parties contending one with another and that are warmly engaged on his side and promote his interests, this is the natural consequence of a private self-love.

  Indeed, there is no metaphysical necessity in the nature of things, that because a man loves himself and regards his own interests, he therefore should love those that love him and promote his interests. That is to suppose it to be otherwise implies no contradiction. It will not follow from any absolute metaphysical necessity that because bodies have solidity,

  cohesion and gravitation towards the center of the earth, therefore a weight suspended on the beam of a balance should have greater power to counterbalance a weight on the other side when at a distance from the fulcrum than when it is near. It implies no contradiction that it should be otherwise, but only as it contradicts that beautiful proportion and harmony which the author of Nature observed and the laws of

  nature he has established. Neither is there any absolute necessity, the contrary implying a contradiction, that because there is an internal mutual attraction of the parts of the earth or any other sphere, whereby the whole becomes one solid coherent body, therefore other bodies that are around it should also be attracted by it, and those that are nearest be attracted most.

  But according to the order and proportion generally observed in the laws of nature, one of these effects is connected with the other, so that it is justly looked upon as the same power of attraction in the globe of the earth, which draws bodies about the earth towards its center with that which attracts the parts of the earth themselves one to another, only exerted under different circumstances.

  By a like order of nature, a man's love to those that love him is no more than a certain expression or effect of self-love. No other principle is needful in order to the effect if nothing intervenes to countervail the natural tendency of self-love. Therefore there is no more virtue in a man's thus loving his friends merely from self-love

  than there is in self-love itself, the principle from whence it proceeds. So a man's being disposed to hate those that hate him or to resent injuries done him arises from self-love in like manner as the loving those that love us and being thankful for kindness shown us. But it is said by some that, tis apparent, there is some other principle concerned in

  exciting the passions of gratitude and anger besides self-love. Vidalis said a moral sense, or sense of moral beauty and deformity, determining the minds of all mankind to approve of and be pleased with virtue, and to disapprove of vice and behold it with displeasance. And that their seeing or supposing this moral beauty or deformity in the kindness of a benefactor

  or opposition of an adversary is the occasion of these affections of gratitude or anger. Otherwise, why are not these affections excited in us towards inanimate things that do us good or hurt? Why don't we experience gratitude to a garden or fruitful field? And why are we not angry with a tempest or blasting mildew or an overflowing stream?

  We are very differently affected towards those that do us good from the virtue of generosity or hurt us from the vice of envy and malice, then towards things that hurt or help us which are destitute of reason and will. Now concerning this, I would make several remarks. 1. Those who thus argue that gratitude and anger can't proceed from self-love might

  argue in the same way and with equal reason that neither can these affections arise from love to others, which is contrary to their own scheme. They say that the reason why we are affected with gratitude and anger towards men rather than things without life is moral sense, which they say is the effect of that principle of benevolence or love to others or love to the public, which is naturally in the hearts

  of all mankind. But now I might say, according to their own way of arguing, gratitude and anger cannot arise from love to others or love to the public or any sense of mind that is the fruit of public affection. For how differently are we affected towards those that do good or hurt to the public from

  understanding and will and from a general public spirit or public motive? I say how differently affected are we towards these from what we are towards such inanimate things as the sun and the clouds that do good to the public by enlightening and enlivening beams and refreshing showers or mildew and an overflowing stream that does hurt to the public by destroying the fruits of the earth?

  Yea, if such a kind of argument be good, it will prove that gratitude and anger cannot arise from the united influence of self-love and public love or moral sense arising from public affection. For if so, why are we not affected towards inanimate things that are beneficial or injurious both to us and the public in the same manner as to them that are profitable or hurtful

  to both on choice and design and from benevolence or malice? Two, on the supposition of its being indeed so, that men love those who love them and are angry with those who hate them from the natural influence of self-love, it is not at all strange that the author of Nature who observes order, uniformity, and harmony in establishing its laws should so order that it should be natural for self-love to cause

  the mind to be affected differently towards exceedingly different objects and that it should cause our heart to extend itself in one manner towards inanimate things which self-love without sense or will and in another manner towards beings which we look upon as having understanding and will like ourselves and exerting these faculties in our favor and promoting our interest from love to us.

  No wonder seeing we love ourselves that it should be natural to us to extend something of that same kind of love which we have for ourselves to them who are the same kind of beings as ourselves and comply with the inclinations of our self-love by expressing the same kind of love towards us. Three, if we should allow that to be universal, that in gratitude and anger there is the exercise

  of some kind of moral sense, as tis granted there is something that may be so called. All the moral sense that is essential to those affections is a sense of desert which is to be referred to that sense of justice before spoken of consisting in an apprehension of secondary kind of beauty that lies in uniformity and proportion which solves all the difficulty in the objection.

  This or some appearance of it to a narrow private view indeed attends all anger and gratitude. Others love and kindness to us or their ill will and injuriousness appears to us to deserve our love or our resentment. Or in other words it seems to us no other than just that as they love us and do us good

  we also should love them and do them good. And so it seems just that when others hearts oppose us and they from their hearts do us hurt our heart should oppose them and that we should desire they themselves may suffer in like manner as we have suffered. That is there appears to us to be a natural agreement, proportion and adjustment between

  these things which is indeed a kind of moral sense or sense of a beauty in moral things. But as was before shown it is a moral sense of a secondary kind and is entirely different from a sense or relish of the original essential beauty of true virtue and may be without any principle of true virtue in the heart. Therefore doubtless is a great mistake in any to suppose all that moral sense which

  appears in its exercise in a sense of desert is the same thing as a love of virtue or a disposition and determination of mind to be pleased with true virtuous beauty consisting in public benevolence which may be further confirmed if it be considered that even with respect to a sense of justice or desert consisting in uniformity and agreement between others actions towards us and our actions towards them in a way of well-doing or of ill-doing

  is not absolutely necessary to the being of these passions of gratitude and anger that there should be any notion of justice in them in any public or general view of things as will appear by what shall be next observed for those authors who hold that that moral sense which is natural to all mankind consists in a natural relish of the beauty of virtue and so arises from a principle of true virtue implanted by nature in the hearts of all they

  hold that true virtue consists in public benevolence therefore if the affections of gratitude and anger necessarily implies such a moral sense as they suppose then these affections implies some delight in the public good and an aversion of the mind to public evil and if this were so then every time any man feels anger for opposition he meets with or gratitude for any favor there must be at least a supposition of a tendency to public injury in that opposition

  and a tendency to public benefit in the favor that excites his gratitude but how far is this from being true as in such instances as these which I presume none will deny to be possible or unlike to anything that ever happens among mankind a ship's crew enter into a conspiracy against the master to murder him and run away with the ship and turn pirates but before they bring their matters to a ripeness for execution one of them repents and opens the

  whole design whereupon the rest are apprehended and brought to justice the crew are enraged with him that has betrayed them and earnestly seek opportunity to revenge themselves upon him and for an instance of gratitude a gang of robbers that have long infested the neighboring country have a particular house whether they resort and where they meet from time to time to divide their booty or prey and hold their consultations for carrying on their pernicious designs the magistrates

  and officers of the country after many fruitless endeavors to discover their secret haunt and place of resort at length by some means are well informed where it is and are prepared with sufficient force to surprise them and seize them all at the place of rendezvous at an hour appointed when they understand they will all be there a little before the arrival of the appointed hour while the officers with their bands are approaching some person is so kind to these robbers as to give

  them notice of their danger so as just to give them opportunity to escape they are thankful to him and give him a handful of money for his kindness now in such instances I think it is plain that there is no supposition of a public injury in that which is the occasion of their anger yea they know the contrary nor is there any supposition of public good in that which excites their gratitude neither has public benevolence or moral sense consisting in a

  determination to approve of what is for the public good any influence at all in the affair and though there be some affection besides a sense of uniformity and proportion that has influence in such anger and gratitude it is not public affection or benevolence but private affection yea that affection which is to the highest degree private consisting in a man's love of his own person five the passion of anger in particular seems to have been unluckily chosen as a medium

  to prove a sense and determination to delight in virtue consisting in benevolence natural to all mankind for if that moral sense which is exercised in anger where that which arose from a benevolent temper of heart being no other than a sense or relish of the beauty of benevolence one would think a disposition to anger should increase at least in some proportion as a man had more of a sweet benign and benevolent temper which seems something disagreeable to reason as well as

  contrary to experience which shows that the less men have of benevolence and the more they have of a contrary temper the more are they disposed to anger and deep resentment of injuries and though gratitude be that which many speak of as a certain noble principle of virtue which God has implanted in the hearts of all mankind and though it be true there is a gratitude that is truly virtuous and the want of gratitude or an ungrateful temper is truly vicious and argues an abominable

  depravity of heart as I may have particular occasion to show afterwards yet I think what has been observed may serve to convince such as impartially considerate not only that not all anger or hating those which hate us but also that not all gratitude or loving those which love us arises from a truly virtuous benevolence of heart another sort of affections which may be properly referred to self-love as its source in which might be expected to be the fruit of it according to the

  general analogy of nature's laws is affections to such as are near to us by the ties of nature that we look upon as those whose beings we have been the occasions of and that we have a very peculiar propriety in and whose circumstances even from the very beginning of their existence do many ways lead them as it were necessarily to and high esteem of us and to treat us with great dependence submission and compliance in whom the Constitution of the world makes to be united in interest and

  accordingly to act as one in innumerable affairs with a communion in each other's affections desires cares friendships enmities and pursuits which is the case of men's affection to their children and in like manner self-love will also be get in man some degree of affections towards others with whom he has connection in any degree parallel as to the opinion of those that describe the natural affection there is between parents and children to a particular instinct of nature I shall take

  notice of it afterwards and as men may love persons and things from self-love so may love to qualities and characters arise from the same source some represent as though there were need of a great degree of metaphysical refining to make it out that men approve of others from self-love whom they hear of at a distance or read of in history or see represented on the stage from whom they expect no profit or advantage but perhaps it is not considered that what we approve of in the

  first place is the character and from the character we approve the person and is it a strange thing that men should from self-love like a temper or character which in its nature and tendency falls in with the nature and tendency of self-love and which we know by experience in self-evidence without metaphysical refining in the general tends to men's pleasure and benefit and on the contrary should dislike what they see tends to men's pain and misery is there need of a great

  degree of subtlety and abstraction to make it out that a child which has heard and seen much strongly to fix an idea of the pernicious deadly nature of the rattlesnake should have aversion to that species or form from self-love so as to have a degree of this aversion and disgust excited by seeing even the picture of that animal and that from the same self-love it should be pleased and entertained with a lively figure and representation of some pleasant fruit which

  it has often tasted the sweetness of or with the image of some bird which it has always been told is innocent and whose pleasant singing it has often been entertained with though the child neither fears being bitten by the picture of the snake nor expects to eat of the painted fruit or to hear the figure of the bird saying I suppose none will think it difficult to allow that such an approbation or disgust of a child may be accounted for from its natural delight in the pleasures of

  taste and hearing and its aversion to pain and death through self-love together with the habitual connection of these agreeable or terrible ideas with the form and qualities of these objects the ideas of which are impressed on the mind of the child by their images and where is the difficulty of allowing that a child or man may hate the general character of a spiteful and malicious man for the like reason as he hates the general nature of a serpent knowing from reason instruction

  and experience that malice in men is pernicious to mankind as well as spite or poison in a serpent and if a man may from self-love disapprove the vices of malice envy and others of that sort which naturally tend to the herd of mankind why may he not from the same principle approve the contrary virtues of meekness peaceableness benevolence charity generosity justice and the social virtues in general which he as easily and clearly knows naturally tend to the good of mankind it is

  undoubtedly true that some have a love to these virtues from a higher principle but yet I think it as certainly true that there is generally in mankind a sort of approbation of them which arises besides what has been already said the same thing further appears from this that men commonly are most affected towards and do most highly approve those virtues which agree with their interest most according to their various conditions in life we see that persons of low condition are especially

  enamored with a condescending accessible affable temper in the great not only in those whose kind ascension has been exercised towards themselves but they will be peculiarly taken with such a character when they have accounts of it from others or when they meet with it in history or even in romance the poor will most highly approve and commend liberality the weaker sex who especially need assistance and protection will peculiarly esteem and applaud fortitude and generosity in

  those of the other sex they read or hear of or have presented to them on a stage as I think it plain from what has been observed that men may approve and be disposed to commend a benevolent temper from self-love so the higher the degree of benevolence is the more may they approve of it which will account for some kind of approbation from this principle even of love to enemies the daily set as a man's loving his enemies is an evidence of a high degree of benevolence of temper

  the degree of it appearing from the obstacles it overcomes and it may be here observed that the consideration of the tendency and influence of self-love may show how men in general may approve of justice from another ground besides that approbation of the secondary beauty there is in uniformity and proportion which is natural to all men from their infancy see the necessity of it not only that it is necessary for others or for human society but they find the necessity of it

  for themselves in instances that continually occur which tends to prejudice them in its favor and to fix and habitual approbation of it from self-love and again that for mentioned approbation of justice and dessert arising from a sense of the beauty of natural agreement and proportion will have a kind of reflex and indirect influence to cause men to approve benevolence and disapprove malice as men see that he who hates and injures others deserves to be hated and punished

  and that he who is benevolent and loves others and does them good deserves himself also to be loved and rewarded by others as they see the natural congruity or agreement and mutual adaptedness of these things and having always seen this malevolence becomes habitually connected in the mind with the idea of being hated and punished which is disagreeable to self-love and the idea of benevolence is habitually connected and associated with the idea of being loved and rewarded by

  others which is grateful to self-love and by virtue of this association of ideas benevolence itself becomes grateful and the contrary displeasing some vices may become in a degree odious by the influence of self-love through an habitual connection of ideas of contempt with it content being what self-love abhors so it may often be with drunkenness gluttony saddishness cowardice sloth niggardliness the idea of contempt becomes associated with the idea of such vices both because

  we're used to observe that these things are commonly objects of contempt and also find that they excite contempt in ourselves some of them appear marks of littleness that is of small abilities and weakness of mind and insufficiency for any considerable effects among mankind by others men's influence is contracted into a narrow sphere and by such means persons become of less importance and more insignificant among mankind and things of little importance are naturally

  little accounted of and some of these ill qualities are such as mankind find it their interest to treat with contempt as they are very hurtful to human society there are no particular moral virtues whatsoever but what in some or other of these ways and most of them in several of these ways come to have some kind of approbation from self-love without the influence of a truly virtuous principle nor any particular vices but what by the same means meet with some disapprobation this

  kind of approbation and dislike through the joint influence of self-love and association of ideas is in very many vastly heightened by education as this is the means of a strong close and almost irrefragable association in innumerable instances of ideas which have no connection any other way than by education and of greatly strengthening that association or connection which persons are led into by other means as anyone would be convinced perhaps more effectually than in

  most other ways if they had opportunity of any considerable acquaintance with American savages and their children end of chapter 4 recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine

• 05 - Chapter 05

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  CHAPTER V. OF NATURAL CONSCIENCE IN THE MORAL SENSE. There is yet another disposition or principle of great importance natural to mankind, which, if we consider the consistency and harmony of nature's laws, may also be looked upon as in some sort arising from self-love or self-union. And that is a disposition in man to be uneasy in a consciousness of being inconsistent with

  himself and, as it were, against himself in his own actions. This appears particularly in the inclination of the mind to be uneasy in the consciousness of doing that to others, which he should be angry with them for doing to him if they were in his case and he in theirs, or of forbearing to do that to them, which he would be displeased with them for neglecting to do to him.

  I have observed from time to time that in pure love to others, that is, love not arising from self-love, there is a union of the heart with others, a kind of enlargement of the whereby it so extends itself as to take others into a man's self, and therefore it implies a disposition to feel, to desire, and to act as though others were one with ourselves. So self-love implies an inclination to feel and act as one with ourselves, which naturally

  renders a sensible inconsistence with ourselves and self-opposition in what we ourselves choose and do to be uneasy to the mind, which will cause uneasiness of mind to be the consequence of a malevolent and unjust behavior towards others in a kind of disapprobation of acts of this nature and an approbation of the contrary, to do that to another which we should be angry with him for doing to us and to hate a person for doing that to us which we should incline

  to and insist on doing to him if we were exactly in the same case is to disagree with ourselves and contradict ourselves. It would be for ourselves both to choose and adhere to and yet to refuse and utterly reject as it were the very same thing. No wonder this is contrary to nature.

  No wonder that such a self-opposition, an inward war with a man's self, naturally begets unquietness and raises disturbance in his mind. A thus approving of actions because we therein act as in agreement with ourselves or as one with ourselves and a thus disapproving and being uneasy in the consciousness of disagreeing and being inconsistent with ourselves in what we do is quite a different thing from approving

  or disapproving actions because in them we agree and are united with being in general, which is loving or hating actions from a sense of the primary beauty of true virtue and odiousness of sin. The former of these principles is private. The latter is public and truly benevolent in the highest sense.

  The former, that is an inclination to agree with ourselves is a natural principle. But the latter, that is an agreement or union of heart to the great system and to God the head of it who is all and all in it is a divine principle. In that uneasiness now mentioned consists very much of that inward trouble men have from reflections of conscience and when they are free from this uneasiness and are conscious

  to themselves that in what they have acted towards others they have done the same which they should have expected from them in the same case, then they have what is called peace of conscience with respect to these actions and there is also an approbation of conscience of the conduct of others towards ourselves. As when we are blamed, condemned, or punished by them and are conscious to ourselves that

  if we were in their case and they in ours we should in like manner blame, condemn, and punish them and thus men's consciences may justify God's anger and condemnation. When they have the ideas of God's greatness, their relation to him, the benefits they have received from him, the manifestations he has made of his will to them, etc., strongly impressed on their minds, a consciousness is excited within them of those resentments which would

  be occasioned in themselves by an injurious treatment in any wise parallel. There is such a consciousness as this often times within men implied in the thoughts and views of the mind which perhaps on reflection they could hardly give an account of. Unless men's consciences are greatly stupefied it is naturally and necessarily suggested and does habitually, spontaneously, instantaneously, and as it were, insensibly arise in the mind.

  And then more so for this reason, Videli said that we have not nor ever had from our infancy any other way to conceive of anything which other persons act or suffer, or of anything about intelligent moral agents, but by recalling and exciting the ideas of what we ourselves are conscious of in the acts, passions, sensations, volitions, etc., which we have found in our own minds, and by putting the ideas which we obtain by this means in the place of another,

  or as it were substituting ourselves in their place. Thus we have no conception in any degree what understanding, perception, love, pleasure, pain, or desire are in others, but by putting ourselves as it were in their stead, or transferring the ideas we obtain of such things in our own minds by consciousness into their place, making such an alteration as to degree and circumstances as what we observe of them requires.

  Tis thus in all moral things that we conceive of in others, which are all mental and not corporeal things, and everything that we conceive of belonging to others more than shape, size, complexion, situation, and motion of their bodies. And this is the only way that we come to be capable of having ideas of any perception or act, even of the Godhead.

  We never could have any notion what understanding or volition, love or hatred are, either in created spirits or in God, if we had never experienced what understanding and volition, love and hatred are in our own minds. Understanding what they are by consciousness we can add degrees and deny limits, and remove changeableness and other imperfections and ascribe them to God, which is the only way

  we come to be capable of conceiving of anything in the Deity. But though it be so, that men in thinking of others do, as it were, put themselves in their place, they do it so naturally or rather habitually, instantaneously and without set purpose, that they do it insensibly and can scarce give any account of it, and many would think it strange if they were told of it.

  So it may be in men substituting themselves in others' place in such exercises of conscience as have been spoken of, and the former substitution leads to the latter in one whose conscience is not greatly stupefied. For in all his thoughts of the other person, in whatever he apprehends or conceives of his moral conduct to others or to himself, if it be in loving or hating him, approving

  or condemning him, rewarding or punishing him, he necessarily, as it were, puts himself in his stead for the aforementioned reason, and therefore the more naturally, easily and quietly sees whether he being in his place should approve or condemn, be angry or pleased as he is. Moral conscience consists in these two things, one, in that which has now been spoken of,

  that disposition to approve or disapprove the moral treatment which passes between us and others, from a determination of the mind to be easy or uneasy, and a consciousness of our being consistent or inconsistent with ourselves. Hereby we have a disposition to approve our own treatment of another when we are conscious to ourselves that we treat him so as we should expect to be treated by him or he in our case

  and we in his, and to disapprove of our own treatment of another when we are conscious that we should be displeased with the like treatment from him if we were in his case. So we in our consciences approve of another's treatment of us if we are conscious to ourselves that if we were in his case and he in ours, we should think it just to treat him as he treats us, and disapprove his treatment of us when we are conscious that we should think

  it unjust if we were in his case. Thus men's consciences approve or disapprove the sentence of their judge by which they are acquitted or condemned. But this is not all that is in natural conscience. Besides this approving or disapproving from uneasiness as being inconsistent with ourselves,

  there is another thing that must precede it and be the foundation of it. As for instance, when my conscience disapproves my own treatment of another being conscious to myself that were I in his case I should be displeased and angry with him for so treating me, the question might be asked, but what would be the ground of that supposed disapprobation, displeasure and anger which I am conscious would be in me in that case?

  That disapprobation must be on some other grounds. Therefore, too, the other thing which belongs to the approbation or disapprobation of natural conscience is the sense of desert which was spoken of before, consisting as was observed in a natural agreement, proportion and harmony between malevolence or injury and resentment and punishment, or between loving and being loved, between showing kindness and being

  rewarded, etc. Both these kinds of approving or disapproving concur in the approbation or disapprobation of conscience, the one founded on the other. Thus, when a man's conscience disapproves of his treatment of his neighbor, in the first place he is conscious that if he were in his neighbor's stead he should resent such treatment

  from a sense of justice or from a sense of uniformity and equality between such treatment and resentment and punishment as before explained. And then in the next place he perceives that therefore he is not consistent with himself in doing what he himself should resent in that case, and hence disapproves it as being naturally averse to opposition to himself.

  Approbation and disapprobation of conscience, in the sense now explained, will extend to all virtue and vice, to everything whatsoever that is morally good or evil in a mind which does not confine its view to a private sphere, but will take things in general into its consideration and is free from speculative error. For, as all virtue or moral good may be resolved into love to others, either God or creatures,

  so men easily see the uniformity and natural agreement there is between loving others and being accepted and favored by others. And all vice, sin, or moral evil, summarily consisting in the want of this love to others, or in the contrary, be daily set hatred or malevolence, so men easily see the natural agreement there is between hating and doing ill to others and being hated by them and

  suffering ill from them, or from him that acts for all and has the care of the whole system. And as this sense of equality and natural agreement extends to all moral good and evil, so this lays a foundation of an equal extent with the other kind of approbation and disapprobation which is grounded upon it, arising from an aversion to self-inconsistence and opposition.

  For in all cases of benevolence or the contrary towards others, we are capable of putting ourselves in the place of others and are naturally led to do it, and so of reflecting or being conscious to ourselves how we should like or dislike such treatment from others. Thus natural conscience, if the understanding be properly enlightened, and errors and blinding stupefying prejudices are removed, concurs with the law of God, and is of equal extent

  with it, and joins its voice with it in every article. And thus in particular we may see in what respect this natural conscience that has been described extends to true virtue, consisting in union of heart to being in general and supreme love to God, for although it sees not or rather does not taste its primary and essential beauty, that is it tastes no sweetness and benevolence to being in general simply

  considered, or loves it not for being in general's sake, for nothing but general benevolence itself can do that. Yet this natural conscience common to mankind may approve of it from that uniformity, equality and justice which there is in it, and the demerit which is seen in the contrary, consisting in the natural agreement between the contrary and being hated of being in general.

  Men by natural conscience may see the justice or natural agreement there is in yielding God, as we receive all from God, and the justice there is in being His that has made us, and being willingly so, which is the same as being dependent on His will, and conformed to His will in the manner of our being as we are for our being itself, and in the conformity of our will to His will, on whose will we are universally and most perfectly dependent,

  and also the justice there is in our supreme love to God from His goodness, the natural agreement there is between our having supreme respect to Him who exercises infinite goodness to us and from whom we receive all well-being. Besides that disagreement and discord appears worse to natural sense, as was observed before, in things nearly related and of great importance, and therefore it must appear very ill as it

  respects the infinite being, and in that infinitely great relation which there is between the Creator and His creatures. And it is easy to conceive how that sense which is in natural conscience should see the dessert of punishment, which there is in the contrary of true virtue, the daily set opposition and enmity to being in general.

  Four, this is only to see the natural agreement there is between opposing being in general and being opposed by being in general, with a consciousness how that if we were infinitely great, we should expect to be regarded according to our greatness and should proportionably resent contempt. Thus, natural conscience, if well-informed, will approve of true virtue, and will disapprove

  and condemn the want of it and opposition to it, and yet without seeing the true beauty of it. Yea, if men's consciences were fully enlightened, if they were delivered from being confined to a private sphere and brought to view and consider things in general, and delivered from being stupefied by sensual objects and appetites as they will be at the day of judgment,

  they would approve nothing but true virtue, nothing but general benevolence and those affections and actions that are consistent with it and subordinate to it. For they must say that consent to being in general, in supreme respect to the being of beings, is most just, and that everything which is inconsistent with it and interferes with it, or flows from the want of it, is unjust and deserves the opposition of universal

  existence. Thus has God established and ordered that this principle of natural conscience, which though it implies no such thing as actual benevolence to being in general, nor any delight in such a principle simply considered, and so implies no truly spiritual sense or virtuous taste, yet should approve and condemn the same things that are approved and condemned

  by a spiritual sense or virtuous taste. That moral sense which is natural to mankind, so far as it is disinterested and not founded in association of ideas, is the same with this natural conscience that has been described. The sense of moral good and evil in that disposition to approve virtue and disapprove vice which men have by natural conscience is that moral sense so much insisted on in the writings

  of many of late, a misunderstanding of which seems to have been the thing that has misled those moralists who have insisted on a disinterested moral sense, universal in the world of mankind as an evidence of a disposition to true virtue, consisting in a benevolent temper naturally implanted in the minds of all men. Some of the arguments made use of by these writers do indeed prove that there is a moral

  sense or taste universal among men distinct from what arises from self-love. Though I humbly conceive there is some confusion in their discourses on the subject and not a proper distinction observed in the instances of men's approbation of virtue which they produce, some of which are not to their purpose being instances of that approbation of virtue that was described which arises from self-love.

  But other instances prove that there is a moral taste or sense of moral good and evil natural to all which don't properly arise from self-love. Yet I conceive there are no instances of this kind which may not be referred to natural conscience, and particularly to that which I have observed to be primary in the approbation of natural conscience to daily set a sense of dessert and approbation of that natural

  agreement there is in manner and measure in judgment. But I think it is plain from what has been said that neither this nor anything else wherein consists the sense of moral good and evil which there is in natural conscience is of the nature of a truly virtuous taste or determination of mind to relish and delight in the essential beauty of true virtue arising from a virtuous benevolence of heart.

  But it further appears from this if the approbation of conscience were the same with the approbation of the inclination of the heart or the natural disposition and determination of the mind to love and be pleased with virtue, then approbation and condemnation of conscience would always be in proportion to the virtuous temper of the mind, or rather the degree would be just the same.

  In that person who had a high degree of a virtuous temper, therefore, the testimony of conscience in favor of virtue would be equally full. But he that had but little would have as little a degree of the testimony of conscience for virtue and against vice. But I think the case is evidently otherwise.

  Some men, through the strength of vice in their hearts, will go on in sin against clearer light and stronger convictions of conscience than others. If conscience's approving duty and disapproving sin were the same thing as the exercise of a virtuous principle of the heart in loving duty and hating sin, then remorse or conscience will be the same thing as repentance.

  And just in the same degree as the sinner feels remorse of conscience for sin, in the same degree as his heart turned from the love of sin to the hatred of it, inasmuch as they are the very same thing. Christians have the greatest reason to believe from the scriptures that in the future day of the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, when sinners shall be called to answer

  before their judge and all their wickedness and all its aggravations brought forth and clearly manifested in the perfect light of that day, and God will reprove them and set their sins in order before them, their consciences will be greatly awakened and convinced, their mouths will be stopped, all stupidity of conscience will be at an end, and conscience will have its full exercise.

  And therefore their consciences will approve the dreadful sentence of the judge against them, and, seeing that they have deserved so great a punishment, will join with the judge in condemning them. And this, according to the notion I am opposing, would be the same thing as then being brought to the fullest repentance, their hearts being perfectly changed to hate sin and love holiness,

  and virtue or holiness of heart in them will be brought to the most full and perfect exercise. But how much otherwise have we reason to suppose it will then be? The daily said that the sin and wickedness of their heart will come to its highest dominion and completest exercise, that they shall be wholly left of God and given up to their wickedness even as the devils are.

  When God has done waiting on sinners and His Spirit done striving with them, He will not restrain their wickedness as He does now. But sin shall then rage in their hearts as a fire no longer restrained or kept under. It is proper for a judge, when he condemns a criminal, to endeavor so to set his guilt before him as to convince his conscience of the justice of the sentence.

  This the Almighty will do effectually and due to perfection, so as most thoroughly to awaken and convince the conscience. But if natural conscience and the disposition of the heart to be pleased with virtue were the same, then at the same time that the conscience was brought to its perfect exercise, the heart would be made perfectly holy, or would have the exercise of true virtue and holiness in

  perfect benevolence of temper. But instead of this, their wickedness will then be brought to perfection, and wicked men will become very devils, and accordingly will be sent away as cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels. But supposing natural conscience to be what has been described, all these difficulties

  and absurdities are wholly avoided. Sinners when they see the greatness of the being whom they have lived in contempt of, and in rebellion and opposition too, and have clearly set before them their obligations to him as their creator, preserver, benefactor, etc., together with the degree in which they have acted as enemies to him, may have a clear sense of the dessert of their sin, consisting

  in the natural agreement there is between such contempt and opposition of such a being, and his despising and opposing them, between their being and acting as so great enemies to such a god, and their suffering the dreadful consequences of his being and acting as their great enemy, and their being conscious within themselves of the degree of anger which would naturally arise in their own hearts in such a case, if they were in the place and state

  of their judge. In order to these things there is no need of a virtuous benevolent temper, relishing and delighting in benevolence, and loathing the contrary. The conscience may see the natural agreement between opposing and being opposed, between hating and being hated, without abhorring malevolence from a benevolent temper of mind,

  or without loving God from a view of the beauty of his holiness. These things have no necessary dependence one on the other.

• 06 - Chapter 06

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  Chapter 6 of A Dissertation Concerning the Nature of True Virtue by Jonathan Edwards. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by ex-patriot in Bangor, Maine. Chapter 6 of Particular Instincts of Nature Which in Some Respects Resemble Virtue. There are various dispositions and inclinations natural to men, which depend on particular laws of nature determining their minds to certain affections and actions towards particular objects,

  which laws seem to be established chiefly for the preservation of mankind, though not only for this, but also for their comfortably subsisting in the world. Which dispositions may be called instincts? Some of these instincts respect only ourselves personally. Such are many of our natural appetites and aversions. Some of them are not wholly personal, but more social and extend to others. Such are the mutual inclinations between the sexes, etc. Some of these dispositions are more

  external and sensitive. Such are some of our natural inclinations that are personal, as those that relate to meat and drink. And of this sort also are some dispositions that are more social and in some respects extend to others, as the more sensitive inclinations of the sexes towards each other. Besides these instincts of the sensitive kind, there are others that are more internal and mental, consisting in affections of the mind,

  which mankind naturally exercise towards some of their fellow creatures, or in some cases towards men in general. Some of these instincts that are mental and social are what may be called kind affections, as having something in them of benevolence or a resemblance of it. And others are of a different sort, having something in them that carries an angry appearance, such as the passion of jealousy between the sexes, especially in the male towards the female.

  It is only the former of these two last mentioned sorts that it is to my purpose to consider in this place, the daily set, those natural instincts which appear in benevolent affections, or which have the appearance of benevolence, and so in some respects resemble virtue. These I shall therefore consider, and shall endeavor to show that none of them can be of the nature of true virtue. That kind affection which is exercised towards those who are near

  one to another in natural relation, particularly the love of parents to their children called natural affection, is by many referred to instinct. I have already considered this sort of love as an affection that arises from self-love, and in that view, and in that supposition have shown, it cannot be of the nature of true virtue. But if any think that natural affection is more properly to be referred to a particular instinct of nature than to self-love as its cause, I shall not think

  at a point worthy of any controversy or dispute. In my opinion, both are true. The daily set that natural affection is owing to natural instinct, and also that it arises from self-love. It may be said to arise from instinct as it depends on a law of nature, but yet it may be truly reckoned as an affection arising from self-love, because though it arises from a law of nature, yet that is such a law as according to the order and harmony everywhere observed among the laws of nature,

  is connected with and follows from self-love as was shown before. However, it is not necessary to my present purpose to insist on this, for if it be so that natural affection to a man's children or family or near relations is not properly to be ascribed to self-love as its cause in any respect, but is to be esteemed an affection arising from a particular independent instinct of nature, which the Creator in His wisdom has implanted in men for the preservation and well-being of

  the world of mankind, yet it cannot be of the nature of true virtue. For it has been observed, and I humbly conceive proved before, that if any being or beings have by natural instinct or any other means a determination of mind to benevolence, extending only to some particular person's or private system, however large that system may be, or however great a number of individuals it may contain, so long as it contains but an infinitely small part of

  universal existence and so bears no proportion to this great and universal system, such limited private benevolence not arising from nor being subordinate to benevolence to being in general cannot have the nature of true virtue. However, it may not be amiss briefly to observe now that is evident to a demonstration those affections cannot be of the nature of true virtue from these two things. First, that they don't arise from a principle of virtue. A principle of virtue,

  I think, is owned by the most considerable of late writers on morality to be general benevolence or public affection, and I think it has been proved to be union of heart to being simply considered, which implies a disposition to benevolence to being in general. Now, by the supposition, the affections we are speaking of do not arise from this principle, in that whether we suppose they arise from self-love or from particular instincts, because

  either of those sources is diverse from a principle of general benevolence, and secondly, these private affections, if they do not arise from general benevolence and they are not connected with it in their first existence, have no tendency to produce it. This appears from what has been observed from being not dependent on it. Their detached and unsubordinate operation rather tends to and implies opposition to being in general than general benevolence, as everyone sees and

  owns with respect to self-love, and there are the very same reasons why any other private affection confined to limits infinitely short of universal existence should have that influence as well as love that is confined to a single person. Now, upon the whole, nothing can be plainer than that affections which do not arise from a virtuous principle and have no tendency to true virtue as their effect cannot be of the nature of true virtue. For the reasons which have been given,

  it is undeniably true that a person by any means come to have a benevolent affection limited to a party that is very large or to the country or nation in general of which they are apart, or the public community they belong to, though it be as large as the Roman Empire was of old. Yea, if there could be an instinct or other cause determining a person to benevolence towards the whole world of mankind, or even all created sensible natures throughout the universe exclusive

  of union of heart to general existence and of love to God, nor derived from that temper of mind which disposes to a supreme regard to him nor subordinate to such divine love, it cannot be of the nature of true virtue. If what is called natural affection arises from a particular natural instinct, so much more indisputably does that mutual affection which naturally arises between the sexes. I agree with Hutchison and Hume in this that there is a foundation laid in nature for kind

  affections between the sexes that are truly diverse from all inclinations to sensitive pleasure and don't properly arise from any such inclination. There is doubtless a disposition both to a mutual benevolence and mutual complacence that are not naturally and necessarily connected with any sensitive desires, but yet tis manifest such affections as are limited to opposite sexes are from a particular instinct, thus directing and limiting them and not arising from a principle

  of general benevolence, for this has no tendency to any such limitation. And though these affections don't properly arise from the sensitive desires which are between the sexes, yet they are implanted by the author of nature chiefly for the same purpose, Vidalis set the preservation or continuation of the world of mankind to make persons willing to forsake father and mother and all their natural relations in the families where they were born and brought up for the sake of a stated union with a

  companion of the other sex and to dispose to that union in bearing and going through with that series of labors anxieties and pains requisite to the being support and education of a family of children. Though not only for these ends but partly also for the comfort of mankind as united in a marriage relation, but I suppose few if any will deny that the peculiar natural dispositions there are to mutual affection between the sexes arise from an instinct or

  particular law of nature and therefore it is manifest from what has been said already that those natural dispositions cannot be of the nature of true virtue. Another affection which is owing to a particular instinct implanted in men for like purposes with other instincts is that pity which is natural to mankind when they see others in great distress it is acknowledged that such an affection is natural to mankind but I think it evident that the pity which is general

  and natural is owing to a particular instinct and is not of the nature of true virtue. I am far from saying that there is no such thing as a truly virtuous pity among mankind for I am far from thinking that all the pity or mercy which is anywhere to be found among them arises merely from natural instinct or that none is to be found which arises from that truly virtuous divine principle of general benevolence to sensitive beings. Yet at the same time I think this is not

  the case with all pity or with that disposition to pity which is natural to mankind in common. I think I may be bold to say this does not arise from general benevolence nor is truly of the nature of benevolence or properly called by that name. If all that uneasiness on the side of others extreme distress which we call pity were properly of the nature of benevolence then they who are the subjects of this passion must needs be in a degree of uneasiness in being sensible of the total want

  of happiness of all such as they would be disposed to pity in extreme distress but that certainly is the most direct tendency and operation of benevolence or goodwill to desire the happiness of its object. But now this is not the case universally where men are disposed to exercise pity. There are many men with whom that is the case in respect to some others in the world that it would not be the occasion of their being sensibly affected with any uneasiness to know

  they were dead. Yea men who are not influenced by the consideration of a future state but view death as only a cessation of all sensibility and consequently an end of all happiness who yet would have been moved with pity towards the same persons if they had seen them under some very extreme anguish. Some men would be moved with pity by seeing a brute creature under extreme and long torments who yet suffer no uneasiness in knowing that many thousands of them every day cease to

  live and so have an end put to all their pleasure at butcher's shambles in great cities. Does the nature of true benevolence to desire and rejoice in the prosperity and pleasure of the object of it and that in some proportion to its degree of prevalence. But persons may greatly pity those that are in extreme pain whose positive pleasure they may still be very indifferent about. In this case a man may be much moved and affected with uneasiness who yet would be affected with no

  sensible joy in seeing signs of the same person's or being's enjoyment of very high degrees of pleasure. Yea pity may not only be without benevolence but may consist with true malevolence or with such ill will as shall cause men not only not to desire the positive happiness of another but even to desire his calamity. They may pity such and one when his calamity goes beyond their hatred. A man may have true malevolence towards another desiring no positive good for him but

  evil and yet his hatred not be infinite but only to a certain degree and when he sees the person whom he thus hates in misery far beyond his ill will he may then pity him because then the natural instinct begins to operate. For malevolence will not overcome the natural instinct inclining to pity others in extreme calamity any further than it goes or to the limits of the degree of misery it wishes to its object. Men may pity others under exquisite torment when yet they

  would have been grieved if they had seen their prosperity and some men have such a grudge against one or another that they would be far from being uneasy at their very death. They would even be glad of it and when this is the case with them tis manifest that their heart is void of benevolence towards such persons and under the power of malevolence yet at the same time they are capable of pitying even these very persons if they should see them under a degree of misery very much

  disproportion to their ill will. These things may convince us that natural pity is of a nature very different from true virtue and not arising from a disposition of hurt to general benevolence but is owing to a particular instinct which the creator has implanted in mankind for the same purposes as most other instincts Videlis set chiefly for the preservation of mankind though not exclusive of their well-being. The giving of this instinct is the fruit of God's mercy

  and an instance of his love of the world of mankind and an evidence that though the world be so sinful it is not God's design to make it a world of punishment and therefore has many ways made a merciful provision for men's relief in extreme calamities and among others has given mankind in general a disposition to pity the natural exercises whereof extend beyond those whom we are in a near connection with especially in case of great calamity because commonly in such

  cases men stand in need of the help of others besides their near friends and because commonly those calamities which are extreme without relief tend to men's destruction. This may be given as the reason why men are so made by the author of nature that they have no instinct inclining as much to rejoice at the sight of others great prosperity and pleasure as to be grieved at their extreme calamity but Videlis said because they don't stand in equal necessity of such an

  instinct as that in order to their preservation but a pure benevolence were the source of natural pity doubtless it would operate to as great a degree in congratulation in cases of others great prosperity as in compassion towards them in great misery the instincts God has given to mankind in this world which in some respects resemble a virtuous benevolence are agreeable to the state that God designed mankind for here where he intends their preservation and comfortable

  subsistence but in the world of punishment where the state of the wicked inhabitants will be exceeding different and God will have none of these merciful designs to answer there we have great reason to think will be no such thing as a disposition to pity in any case as also there will be no natural affection toward near relations and no mutual affection between opposite sexes to conclude what I have to say on the natural instinct disposing men to pity others in misery

  I would observe that this is a source of a kind of abhorrence in men of some vices as cruelty and oppression and so of a sort of approbation of the contrary virtues humanity mercy etc which aversion and approbation however so far as they arise from this cause only are not from a principle of true virtue end of chapter 6 recording by expatriate in bangor main

• 07 - Chapter 07

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  CHAPTER VII. The reason why those things that have been mentioned, which have not the essence of virtue, have yet by many been mistaken for true virtue. The first reason that may be given of this is that although they have not the specific and distinguishing nature and essence of virtue, yet they have something that belongs to the

  general nature of virtue. The general nature of true virtue is love. It is expressed both in love of benevolence and complacence, but primarily in benevolence to persons and beings, and consequently and secondarily in complacence and virtue as has been shown.

  There is something of the general nature of virtue in those natural affections and principles that have been mentioned in both those respects. In many of these natural affections, there is something of the appearance of love to persons. In some of them there appears the tendency and effect of benevolence.

  In part, others have truly a sort of benevolence in them, though it be a private benevolence, and in several respects falls short of the extent of true virtuous benevolence both in its nature and object. The last mentioned passion, natural to mankind in their present state, the daily set that of pity to others in distress, though not properly of the nature of love as has been

  demonstrated, yet has partly the same influence and effect with benevolence. One effect of true benevolence is to cause persons to be uneasy when the objects of it are in distress and to desire their relief. And natural pity has the same effect. Natural gratitude, though in every instance wherein it appears, it is not properly called

  love because persons may be moved with a degree of gratitude towards persons on certain occasions whom they have no real and proper friendship for, as in the instance of Saul towards David once and again after David sparing his life when he had so fair opportunity to kill him. Yet it has the same or like operation and effect with friendship in part for a season, and with regard to so much of the welfare of its object, as appears a deserved requital

  of kindness received. And in other instances it may have a more general and abiding influence, so as more properly to be called by the name of love, so that many times men from natural gratitude do really with a sort of benevolence love those who love them. From this, together with some other natural principles, men may love their near friends,

  love their own party, love their country, etc. The natural disposition there is to mutual affection between the sexes often operates by what may properly be called love. There is often times truly a kind both of benevolence and complacence, as there also is between parents and children.

  Thus these things have something of the general nature of virtue, which is love, and especially the thing last mentioned has something of a love of benevolence. What they are essentially defective in is that they are private in their nature. They don't arise from any temper of benevolence to being in general, nor have they a tendency to any such effect in their operation.

  But yet agreeing with virtue in its general nature, they are beautiful within their own private sphere. That is, they appear beautiful if we confine our views to that private system, and while we shut all other things they stand in any relation to out of our consideration. If that private system contained the sum of universal existence, then their benevolence

  would have true beauty or, in other words, would be beautiful all things considered. But now it is not so. These private systems are so far from containing the sum of universal being or comprehending all existence which we stand related to, that it contains but an infinitely small part of it.

  The reason why men are so ready to take these private affections for true virtue is the narrowness of their views, and above all that they are so ready to leave the divine being out of their view and to neglect him in their consideration, or to regard him in their thoughts as though he were not properly belonging to the system of real existence, but as a kind of shadowy, imaginary being.

  And though most men allow that there is a God, yet in their ordinary view of things his being is not apt to come into the account and to have the influence and effect of a real existence as tis with other beings which they see and are conversant with by their external senses. In their views of beauty and deformity, and in the inward sensations of displeasance and

  approbation which rise in their minds, it is not a thing natural to them to be under the influence of a view of the Deity as part of the system, and as the head of the system, and he who is all in all, in comparison of whom all the rest is nothing, and with regard to whom all other things are to be viewed, and their minds to be accordingly impressed and affected.

  Yea, we are apt through the narrowness of our views, in judging of the beauty of affections and actions, to limit our consideration to only a small part of the created system. When private affections extend themselves to a considerable number, we are very ready to look upon them as truly virtuous, and accordingly to applaud them highly. Thus it is with respect to love to a large party, or a man's love to his country, for

  though his private system contains but a small part even of the world of mankind, yet being a considerable number, through the contracted limits of the mind and the narrowness of his views, they are ready to fill his mind and engross his sight, and to seem as if they were all. Hence among the Romans, love to their country was the highest virtue, though this affection

  of theirs, so much extolled among them, was employed as it were for the destruction of the rest of the world of mankind. The larger the number is that private affection extends to, the more apt men are through the narrowness of their sight to mistake it for true virtue, because then the private system appears to have more of the image of the universal system.

  Whereas when the circle it extends to is very small, it is not so apt to be looked upon virtuous or not so virtuous, as a man's love to his own children. And this is the reason why self-love is by nobody mistaken for true virtue. For though there be something of the general nature of virtue in this, here is love in good will, yet the object is so private, the limit so narrow, that it by no means engrosses

  the view, unless it be of the person himself, who through the greatness of his pride may imagine himself as it were all. The minds of men are large enough to take in a vastly greater extent. And though self-love is far from being useless in the world, yea, to succeeding necessary to society, besides its directly and greatly seeking the good of one, yet everybody sees

  that if it be not subordinate to and regulated by another more extensive principle, it may make a man a common enemy to the system he is related to. And though this is as true of any other private affection notwithstanding its extent may be to a system that contains thousands of individuals, and those private systems bear no greater proportion to the whole of universal existence than one alone, yet they bear a greater proportion

  to the extent of the view and comprehension of men's minds, and are more apt to be regarded as if they were all, or at least as some resemblance of, the universal system. Thus I have observed how many of these natural principles which have been spoken of resemble virtue in its primary operation, which is benevolence. Many of them also have a resemblance of it in its secondary operation, which is its

  approbation of and complacence in virtue itself. Several kinds of approbation of virtue have been taken notice of as common to mankind, which are not of the nature of a truly virtuous approbation, consisting in a sense and relish of the essential beauty of virtue, consisting in a being's cordial union to being in general, from a spirit of love to being in general, as particularly the approbation of conscience

  from a sense of the inferior and secondary beauty which there is in virtue, consisting in uniformity and from a sense of dessert, consisting in a sense of the natural agreement of loving and being beloved, showing kindness and receiving kindness. So from the same principle there is a disapprobation of vice, from a natural opposition to deformity and disproportion, and a sense of evil dessert, or the natural agreement there is between

  hating and being hated, opposing and being opposed, etc., together with a painful sensation naturally arising in a sense of self-opposition and inconsistence. Approbation of conscience is the more readily mistaken for a truly virtuous approbation, because by the wise constitution of the great governor of the world, as was observed, when conscience is well informed and thoroughly awakened, it agrees with the latter fully

  and exactly as to the object approved, though not as to the ground and reason of approving. It approves all virtue and condemns all vice. It approves true virtue, and indeed approves nothing that is against it or that falls short of it, as was shown before. And indeed natural conscience is implanted in all mankind, there to be as it were in

  God's stead, and to be an internal judge or rule to all, whereby to distinguish right and wrong. It has also been observed how that virtue consisting in benevolence is approved and vice consisting in ill will is disliked from the influence of self-love, together with association of ideas in the same manner as men dislike those qualities in things without

  life or reason, with which they have always connected the ideas of hurtfulness, malignancy, perniciousness, but like those things with which they habitually connect the ideas of profit, pleasantness, comfortableness, etc. This sort of approbation or liking of virtue and dislike of vice is easily mistaken for true virtue, not only because those things are approved by it that have the nature of

  virtue and the things disliked have the nature of vice, but because here is much of resemblance of virtuous approbation, it being complacence from love. The difference only lying in this, that it is not from love to being in general, but from self-love. There is also, as has been shown, a liking of some virtues and dislike of some vices

  from the influence of the natural instinct of pity. This men are apt to mistake for the exercise of true virtue on many accounts. Here is not only a kind of complacence, and the objects of complacence are what have the nature of virtue, and the virtues indeed very amiable, such as humanity, mercy, tenderness of heart, etc., and the contrary very odious, but besides the approbation is not merely

  from self-love, but from compassion, an affection that respects others and resembles benevolence as has been shown. Another reason why the things which have been mentioned are mistaken for true virtue is that there is indeed a true negative moral goodness in them. By a negative moral goodness, I mean the negation or absence of true moral evil.

  They have this negative moral goodness because a being without them would be an evidence of a much greater moral evil. Thus, the exercise of natural conscience in such and such degrees wherein appears such a measure of an awakening or sensibility of conscience, though it be not of the nature of real positive virtue or true moral goodness, yet has a negative moral goodness, because

  in the present state of things, it is an evidence of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness which causes great insensibility or stupidity of conscience. For sin, as was observed, is not only against a spiritual and divine sense of virtue, but is also against the dictates of that moral sense which is in natural conscience. No wonder that this sense, being long opposed and often conquered, grows weaker.

  All sin has its source from selfishness or from self-love, not subordinate to regard to being in general. And natural conscience chiefly consists in a sense of desert or the natural agreement between sin and misery. But if self were indeed all and so more considerable than all the world besides, there would be

  no ill desert in his regarding himself above all and making all other interests give place to private interests. And no wonder that men by long acting from the selfish principle, and by being habituated to treat themselves as if they were all, increase in pride, and come as it were naturally to look on themselves as all, and so to lose entirely the sense of ill desert in their

  making all other interests give place to their own. And no wonder that men by often repeating acts of sin, without punishment or any visible of approaching punishment, have less and less sense of the connection of sin with punishment. That sense which an awakened conscience has of the desert of sin consists chiefly in a sense of its desert of resentment of the deity, the fountain and head of universal existence.

  But no wonder that by a long continued worldly and sensual life, men more and more lose all sense of the deity, who is a spiritual and invisible being. The mind being long involved in and engrossed by sensitive objects becomes sensual in all its operations, and excludes all views and impressions of spiritual objects, and is unfit for their contemplation.

  Thus, the conscience and general benevolence are entirely different principles, and sense of conscience differs from the holy complacence of a benevolent and truly virtuous heart. Yet wickedness may by long habitual exercise greatly diminish a sense of conscience, so that there may be negative moral goodness in sensibility of conscience, as it may be an argument of the absence of that higher degree of wickedness which causeth stupidity

  of conscience. So with respect to natural gratitude, though there may be no virtue merely in loving them that love us, yet the contrary may be an evidence of a great degree of depravity, as it may argue a higher degree of selfishness, so that a man has come to look upon himself as all and others as nothing, and so their respect and kindness as nothing.

  Thus an increase of pride diminishes gratitude. So does sensuality, or the increase of sensual appetites, and coming more and more under the power and impression of sensible objects tend by degrees to make the mind insensible to anything else, and those appetites take up the whole soul, and through habit and custom the water is all drawn out of other channels in which it naturally flows, and is all carried

  as it were into one channel. In like manner, natural affection and natural pity, though not of the nature of virtue, yet may be diminished greatly by the increase of those two principles of pride and sensuality. And as the consequence of this, being habitually disposed to envy, malice, etc., these lusts when they prevail to a high degree may overcome and diminish the exercise of those natural

  principles, even as they often overcome and diminish common prudence in a man as to seeking his own private interest in point of health, wealth, or honor. And yet no one will think it proves that a man's being cunning in seeking his own personal and temporal interest has anything of the nature and essence of true virtue. Another reason why these natural principles and affections are mistaken for true virtue

  is that in several respects they have the same effect which true virtue tends to, especially in these two ways. One, the present state of the world is so ordered and constituted by the wisdom and goodness of its supreme ruler that these natural principles for the most part tend to the good of the world of mankind.

  So do natural pity, gratitude, parental affection, etc. Herein they agree with the tendency of general benevolence, which seeks and tends to the general good. But this is no proof that these natural principles have the nature of true virtue. For self-love is a principle that is exceeding useful and necessary in the world of mankind.

  You are the natural appetites of hunger and thirst, etc. But yet nobody will assert that these have the nature of true virtue. Two, these principles have a like effect with true virtue in this respect that they tend several ways to restrain vice and prevent many acts of wickedness. So natural affection, love to our party or to particular friends tends to keep us from

  acts of injustice towards these persons, which would be real wickedness. Pity preserves from cruelty, which would be real and great moral evil. Natural conscience tends to restrain sin in general in the present state of the world. But neither can this prove these principles themselves to be of the nature of true virtue. For so is this present state of mankind ordered by a merciful God that men's self-love does

  in innumerable respects restrain from acts of true wickedness. And not only so, but puts men upon seeking true virtue, yet is not itself true virtue, but is the source of all the wickedness that is in the world. Another reason why these inferior affections, especially some of them, are accounted virtuous is that there are affections of the same denomination which are truly virtuous.

  Thus, for instance, there is a truly virtuous pity or a compassion to others under affliction or misery from general benevolence. Your benevolence would be sufficient to excite pity to another in calamity if there were no particular instinct or any other principle determining the mind thereto. It is easy to see how benevolence which seeks another's good should cause us to desire

  his deliverance from evil. And this is a source of pity far more extensive than the other. It excites compassion in cases that are overlooked by natural instinct. And even in those cases to which instinct extends, it mixes its influence with the natural principle and guides and regulates its operations.

  And when this is the case, the pity which is exercised may be called a virtuous compassion. So there is a virtuous gratitude or a gratitude that arises not only from self-love, but from a superior principle of disinterested general benevolence. As tis manifest that when we receive kindness from such as we love already, we are more disposed to gratitude and disposed to greater degrees of it than when the mind is destitute

  of any such friendly prepossession. Therefore, when the superior principle of virtuous love has a governing hand and regulates the affair, it may be called a virtuous gratitude. So there is a virtuous love of justice arising from pure benevolence to being in general as that naturally and necessarily inclines the heart that every particular being should

  have such a share of benevolence as is proportioned to its dignity, consisting in the degree of its being and the degree of its virtue, which is entirely diverse from an apprehension of justice from a sense of the beauty of uniformity in variety. This has been particularly shown already. And so it is easy to see how there may be a virtuous sense of dessert different from

  what is natural in common. And so a virtuous conscientiousness or a sanctified conscience. And as when natural affections have their operations mixed with the influence of virtuous benevolence and are directed and determined hereby, they may be called virtuous so that there may be a virtuous love of parents to children and between other near relatives

  a virtuous love of our town or country or nation, yea, and a virtuous love between the sexes as there may be the influence of virtue mingled with instinct and virtue may govern with regard to the particular manner of its operation and may guide it to such ends as are agreeable to the great ends and purposes of true virtue. Genuine virtue prevents that increase of the habits of pride and sensuality, which tend

  to overbear and greatly diminish the exercises of the four mentioned useful and necessary principles of nature. And a principle of general benevolence softens and sweetens the mind and makes it more susceptible of the proper influence and exercise of the gentler natural instincts and directs everyone into its proper channel and determines the exercise to the proper manner and measure

  and guides all to the best purposes.

• 08 - Chapter 08

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  chapter 8 of a dissertation concerning the nature of true virtue by Jonathan Edwards this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by expatriate in Bangor Maine chapter 8 in what respects virtue or moral good is founded in sentiment and how far it is founded in the reason and nature of things that which is called virtue is a certain kind of beautiful nature form or quality that

  is observed in things that form or quality is called beautiful to anyone beholding it to whom it is beautiful which appears in itself agreeable or comely to him or the view or idea of which is immediately pleasant to the mind I say agreeable in itself and immediately pleasant to distinguish it from things which in themselves are not agreeable nor pleasant but either

  indifferent or disagreeable which yet appear eligible and agreeable indirectly for something else that is the consequence of them or with which they are connected such a kind of indirect agreeableness or eligibility in things not for themselves but for something else is not what is called beauty but when a form or quality appears lovely pleasing and delightful in itself then

  it is called beautiful and this agreeable or gratefulness of the idea is what is called beauty it is evident therefore by this that the way we come by the idea or sensation of beauty is by immediate sensation of the gratefulness of the idea called beautiful and not by finding out by argumentation any consequences or other things that it stands connected with

  any more than tasting the sweetness of honey or perceiving the harmony of a tune is by argumentation on connections and consequences and this manner of being affected with the immediate presence of the beautiful idea depends not therefore on any reasonings about the idea after we have it before we can find out whether it be beautiful or not but on the frame of our minds whereby

  they are so made that such an idea as soon as we have it is grateful or beautiful therefore if this be all that is meant by them who affirm virtue is founded in sentiment and not in reason that they who see the beauty there is in true virtue don't perceive it by argumentation on its connections and consequences but by the frame of their own minds or a certain spiritual sense

  given them of God whereby the immediately perceived pleasure in the presence of the idea of true virtue in their minds or are directly gratified in the view or contemplation of this object this is certainly true but if thereby is meant that the frame of mind or inward sense given them by God whereby the mind is disposed to delight in the idea or view of true virtue is

  given arbitrarily so that if he had pleased he might have given a contrary sense and determination of mind which would have agreed as well with the necessary nature of things this I think is not true virtue as I have observed consists in the cordial consent or union of being to being in general and as has also been observed that frame of mind whereby it is disposed to relish and be

  pleased with the view of this is benevolence or union of heart itself to being in general or a universally benevolent frame of mind because he whose temper is to love being in general therein must have a disposition to approve and be pleased with love to being in general therefore now the question is whether God in giving this temper to a created mind whereby it

  unites to or loves being in general act so arbitrarily that there is nothing in the necessary nature of things to hinder but that a contrary temper might have agreed or consented as well with that nature of things as this and in the first place I observed that to assert this would be a plain absurdity and contrary to the very supposition for here to suppose that virtue in its very

  essence consists in agreement or consent of being to being now certainly agreement itself to being in general must necessarily agree better with general existence than opposition and contrariety to it I observed secondly that God in giving to the creature such a temper of mind gives that which is agreeable to what is by absolute necessity his own temper in nature for

  as has been often observed God himself is in effect being in general and without all doubt it is in itself necessary and impossible should be otherwise that God should agree with himself be united with himself or love himself and therefore when he gives the same temper to his creatures this is more agreeable to his necessary nature than the opposite temper yay the latter

  would be infinitely contrary to his nature let it be noted thirdly by this temper only can created beings be united to and agree with one another this appears because it consists in consent and union to being in general which implies agreement and union with every particular being except such as are opposite to being in general or accepting such cases wherein union with

  them is by some means inconsistent with union with general existence but certainly if any particular created being were of a temper to oppose being in general that would infer the most universal and greatest possible discord not only of creatures with their creator but of created beings one with another fourthly I observe there is no other temper but this that a man can

  have and agree with himself or be without self inconsistence that is without having some inclinations and relishes repugnant to others and that for these reasons every being that has understanding and will necessarily loves happiness for to suppose any being not to love happiness would be to suppose he did not love what was agreeable to him which is a contradiction or at least

  would imply that nothing was agreeable or eligible to him which is the same as to say that he has no such thing as choice or any faculty of will so that every being who has a faculty of will must of necessity have an inclination to happiness and therefore if he be consistent with himself and has not some inclination repugnant to others he must approve of those inclinations whereby

  beings desire the happiness of being in general and must be against the disposition to the misery of being in general because otherwise he would approve of opposition to his own happiness for if a temper inclined to the misery of being in general prevailed universally which is apparent it would tend to universal misery but he that loves a tendency to universal misery in

  effect loves a tendency to his own misery and as he necessarily hates his own misery he has then one inclination repugnant to another and besides it necessarily follows from self-love that men love to be loved by others because in this others love agrees with their own love but if men loved hatred to being in general they would in effect love the hatred of themselves and so

  would be inconsistent with themselves having one natural inclination contrary to another these things may help us to understand why that spiritual and divine sense by which those that are truly virtuous and holy perceive the excellency of true virtue is in the sacred scriptures called by the name of light knowledge understanding etc if this divine sense were a thing arbitrarily

  given without any foundation in the nature of things it would not properly be called by such names for if there were no correspondence or agreement in such a sense with the nature of things any more than there would have been in a diverse or contrary sense the idea we obtained by this spiritual sense could in no respect be said to be a knowledge or perception of anything besides what

  was in our own minds where this idea would be no representation of anything without but since it is otherwise since it is agreeable in the respects above mentioned to the nature of things and especially since tis the representation and image of the moral perfection and excellency of the divine being hereby we have a perception of that moral excellency of which we could have no true

  idea without it and it being so hereby persons have that true knowledge of God which greatly enlightens the mind in the knowledge of divine things in general and does as might be shown if it were necessary to the main purpose of this discourse in many respects assist persons to a right understanding of things in general to understand which our faculties were chiefly given us and

  which do chiefly concern our interest and assist us to see the nature of them and the truth of them in their proper evidence whereas the want of this spiritual sense and the prevalence of those dispositions that are contrary to it tends to darken and distract the mind and dreadfully to delude and confound men's understandings and as to that moral sense common to mankind which

  there is in natural conscience neither can this be truly said to be no more than a sentiment arbitrarily given by the Creator without any relation to the necessary nature of things but is established in an agreement with the nature of things so as no sense of mind that can be supposed of a contrary nature and tendency could be this will appear by these two things one this

  moral sense if the understanding be well informed and be exercised at liberty and in an extensive manner without being restrained to a private sphere approves the very same things which a spiritual and divine sense approves and those things only though not on the same grounds nor with the same kind of approbation therefore as that divine sense has been already shown to be

  agreeable to the necessary nature of things so this inferior moral sense being so far correspondent to that must also so far agree with the nature of things too it has been shown that this moral sense consists in approving the uniformity and natural agreement there is between one thing and another so that by the supposition it is agreeable to the nature of things for therein it

  consists the de la set a disposition of mine to consent to or like the agreement of the nature of things or the agreement of the nature in form of one thing with another and certainly such a temper of mind as likes the agreement of things to the nature of things is more agreeable to the nature of things than an opposite temper of mine here it may be observed as the use of language is

  for mankind to express their sentiments or ideas to each other so that those terms in language by which things of a moral nature are signified are to express those moral sentiments or ideas that are common to mankind therefore tis that moral sense which is in natural conscience that chiefly governs the use of language among mankind and is the mind's rule of language in these

  matters among mankind tis indeed the general natural rule which God has given to all men whereby to judge of moral good and evil by such words right and wrong good and evil when used in a moral sense is meant in common speech that which deserves praise or blame respect or resentment but as has been often observed mankind in general have a sense of dessert by this natural moral sense

  therefore here may arise a question which may deserve to be considered the daily set seeing it is thus that sentiment among mankind is the rule of language as to what is called by the name of good and evil worthy and unworthy tis apparent that sentiment at least as to many particulars by some means or other is different in different persons in different nations that being thought

  to deserve praise by one which by others is thought to be worthy of blame how therefore can virtue and vice be any other than arbitrary not at all determined by the nature of things but by the sentiments of men with relation to the nature of things in order to the answering this question with clearness it may be divided into two the daily set whether men's sentiments of moral

  good and evil are not arbitrary or rather casual and accidental and whether the way of their using words and what they call good and evil is not arbitrary without respect to any common sentiment in all conform to the nature of things as to the first I would observe that the general disposition or sense of mind exercised in a sense of dessert of esteem or resentment may be the same in

  all though as to particular objects and occasions with regard to which it is exercised it may be very various in different men or bodies of men through the partiality or error that may attend the view or attention of the mind in all a notion of dessert of love or resentment may consist in the same thing in general the daily set a suitableness or natural uniformity and agreement

  between the affections and acts of the agent and the affections and treatment of others some way concerned or the natural agreement between love or something that some way implies love or proceeds from it or tends to it and love a natural agreement between treating well and being well treated the natural agreement between hating or something that some way partakes of the nature of

  hatred and being hated etc. I say this general notion of dessert may be the same and yet occasions and objects through variety of apprehensions about these occasions and objects and the various manner in which they are viewed by reason of the partial attention of the mind may be extremely various and example custom education and association may have a hand in this in ways

  innumerable but is needless to dwell long on this since things which have been said by others mr. hutcheson in particular may abundantly show that the differences which are to be found among different persons and nations concerning moral good and evil are not inconsistent with a general moral sense common to all mankind nor secondly is the use of the words good and evil right

  and wrong when used in a moral sense altogether unfixed and arbitrary according to the variety of notions opinions and views that occasion the aforementioned variety of sentiment for though the signification of words is determined by use yet that which governs in the use of terms is general or common use and mankind and what they would signify by terms are obliged to aim at

  a consistent use because it is easily found that the end of language which is to be a common medium of manifesting ideas and sentiments cannot be obtained any other way than by a consistent use of words both that men should be consistent with themselves and one with another in the use of them but men can't call anything right or wrong worthy or ill deserving consistently any other way

  than by calling things so which truly deserve praise or blame that is things wherein all things considered there is most uniformity in connecting with them praise or blame there is no other way that they can use these terms consistently with themselves thus if thieves or traitors may be angry with informers that bring them to justice and call their behavior by odious names yet

  here and there inconsistent with themselves because when they put themselves in the place of those that have injured them they approve the same things they condemn and therefore such are capable of being convinced that they apply these odious terms in an abusive manner so a nation that prosecutes an ambitious design of universal empire by subduing other nations with fire and

  sword may affix terms that signify the highest degrees of virtue to the conduct of such as show the most engaged stable resolute spirit in this affair and do most of this bloody work but yet they are capable of being convinced that they use these terms inconsistently and abuse language in it and so having their mouths stopped and not only will men use such words inconsistently with

  themselves but also with one another by using them any otherwise than to signify true merit or ill-deserving as before explained where there is no way else wherein men have any notion of good or ill dessert that mankind in general can agree in mankind in general seem to suppose some general standard or foundation in nature for an universal consistency in the use of the terms

  whereby they express moral good and evil which none can depart from but through error and mistake this is evidently supposed in all disputes they may have one with another about right and wrong and in all endeavors used to events or prove that anything is either good or evil in a moral sense end of chapter 8 recording by expatriate in Bangor, Maine and of a dissertation

  concerning the nature of true virtue by Jonathan Edwards