The political duties which result from the Law of Nature, it is not our present business to investigate; but it may be observed here, that a very limited appeal to facts is sufficient to evince, that by many political institutions the Rights of Nature have been grievously sacrificed; and that if those Rights had been sufficiently regarded, many of these vicious institutions would never have been exhibited in the world.

It appears worth while at the conclusion of this chapter to remark, that a person when he speaks of Nature," should know distinctly what he means. The word carries with it a sort of indeterminate authority; and he who uses it amiss, may connect that authority with rules or actions which are little entitled to it. There are few senses in which the word is used, that do not refer, however obscurely, to God; and it is for that reason that the notion of authority is connected with the word. "The very

"Na

name of nature implies, that it must owe its birth to some prior agent, or, to speak properly, signifies in itself nothing." ""* Yet, unmeaning as the term is, it is one of which many persons are very fond;whether it be that their notions are really indistinct, or that some purposes are answered by referring to the obscurity of nature rather than to God. ture has decorated the earth with beauty and magnificence," -"Nature has furnished us with joints and limbs," '—are phrases sufficiently unmeaning; and yet I know not that they are likely to do any other harm than to give currency to the common fiction. But when it is said, that "Nature teaches us to adhere to truth,"-" Nature condemns us for dishonesty or deceit," --" Men are taught by nature that they are responsible beings," there is considerable danger that we have both fallacious and injurious notions of the authority which thus teaches or condemns us. Upon this subject it were well to take the advice of Boyle: " Nature," he says, "is sometimes, indeed commonly, taken for a kind of semi-deity. In this sense it is best not to use it at all." It is dangerous to induce confusion into our ideas respecting our relationship with God.

A law of nature is a very imposing phrase; and it might be supposed, from the language of some persons, that nature was an independent legislatress, who had sat and framed laws for the government of mankind. Nature is nothing: yet it would seem that men do sometimes practically imagine, that a "law of nature" possesses proper and independent authority; and it may be suspected that with some the notion is so palpable and strong, that they set up the authority of "the law of nature" without reference to the will of God, or perhaps in opposition to it. Even if notions like these float in the mind only with vapoury indistinctness, a correspondent indistinctness of moral notions is likely to ensue. Every man should make to himself the rule, never to employ the word Nature when he speaks of ultimate moral authority. A law possesses no authority; the authority rests only in the legislator: and as nature makes no laws, a law of nature involves no obligation but that which is imposed by the Divine Will.

CHAPTER III.

UTILITY.

Obligations resulting from Expediency-Limits to these obligations.

THAT in estimating our duties in life we ought to pay regard to what is useful and beneficial-to what

Milton: Christian Doct. p. 14.

Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received Notions of Nature.

is likely to promote the welfare of ourselves and of others-can need little argument to prove. Yet, if it were required, it may be easily shown that this regard to Utility is recommended or enforced in the expression of the Divine Will. That Will requires the exercise of pure and universal benevolence ;which benevolence is exercised in consulting the interests, the welfare, and the happiness of mankind. The dictates of Utility, therefore, are frequently no other than the dictates of benevolence.

Or, if we derive the obligations of Utility from considerations connected with our reason, they do not appear much less distinct. To say that to consult Utility is right, is almost the same as to say, it is right to exercise our understandings. The daily and hourly use of reason is to discover what is fit to be done; that is, what is useful and expedient: and since it is manifest that the Creator, in endowing us with the faculty, designed that we should exercise it, it is obvious that in this view also a reference to expediency is consistent with the Divine Will.

When (higher laws being silent) a man judges that of two alternatives one is dictated by greater utility, that dictate constitutes an obligation upon him to prefer it. I should not hold a landowner innocent, who knowingly persisted in adopting a bad mode of raising corn; nor should I hold the person innocent who opposed an improvement in shipbuilding, or who obstructed the formation of a turnpike road that would benefit the public. These are questions, not of prudence merely, but of morals also.

Obligations resulting from Utility possess great extent of application to political affairs. There are, indeed, some public concerns in which the Moral Law, antecedently, decides nothing. Whether a duty shall be imposed, or a charter granted, or a treaty signed, are questions which are perhaps to be determined by expediency alone: but when a public man is of the judgment that any given measure will tend to the general good, he is immoral if he opposes that measure. The immorality may indeed be made out by a somewhat different process:—such a man violates those duties of benevolence which religion imposes: he probably disregards, too, his sense of obligation; for if he be of the judgment that a given measure will tend to the general good, conscience will scarcely be silent in whispering that he ought not to oppose it.

and

It is sufficiently evident, upon the principles which have hitherto been advanced, that considerations of Utility are only so far obligatory as they are in accordance with the Moral Law. Pursuing, however, the method which has been adopted in the two last chapters, it may be observed, that this subserviency of Utility to the Divine Will, appears to be required by the written revelation. That habitual preference of futurity to the present time, which Scripture exhibits, indicates that our interests here should be held in subordination to our interests hereafter as these higher interests are to be consulted by the means which revelation prescribes, it is manifest that those means are to be pursued, whatever we may suppose to be their effects upon the present welfare of ourselves or of other men. "If in this life only we have hope in God, then are we of all men most miserable." It certainly is not, in the usual sense of the word, expedient to be most miserable. And why did they thus sacrifice expediency? Because the communicated Will of God required that course of life by which human interests were apparently sacrificed. It will be perceived that these considerations result from the truth, (too little regarded in talking of " Expediency" and " General Benevolence,") that Utility, as it respects mankind, cannot be properly consulted without taking into account our interests

in futurity. "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow | we die," is a maxim of which all would approve if we had no concerns with another life. That which might be very expedient if death were annihilation, may be very inexpedient now.

"If ye say, We will not dwell in this land, neither obey the voice of the Lord your God, saying, No; but we will go into the land of Egypt, where we shall see no war;" "nor have hunger of bread; and there will we dwell; it shall come to pass, that the sword, which ye feared, shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, whereof ye were afraid, shall follow close after you in Egypt; and there ye shall die."*" We will burn incense unto the queen of heaven, and pour out drink-offerings unto her; for then had we plenty of victuals, and were well, and saw no evil. But since we left off, we have wanted all things, and have been consumed by the sword, and by the famine."-Therefore, "I will watch over them for evil, and not for good." These reasoners argued upon the principle of making expediency the paramount law; and it may be greatly doubted whether those who argue upon that principle now, have better foundation for their reasoning than those of old. Here was the prospect of advantage founded, as they thought, upon experience. One course of action had led (so they reasoned) to war and famine, and another to plenty, and health, and general well-being: yet still our Universal Lawgiver required them to disregard all these conclusions of expediency, and simply to conform to His will.

After all, the general experience is, that what is most expedient with respect to another world, is most expedient with respect to the present. There may be cases, and there have been, in which the Divine Will may require an absolute renunciation of our present interests; as the martyr who maintains his fidelity, sacrifices all possibility of advantage now. But these are unusual cases; and the experience of the contrary is so general, that the truth has been reduced to a proverb. Perhaps in nineteen cases out of twenty, he best consults his present welfare, who endeavours to secure it in another world. "By the wise contrivance of the Author of nature, virtue is upon all ordinary occasions, even with regard to this life, real wisdom, and the surest and readiest means of obtaining both safety and advantage."‡ Were it however otherwise, the truth of our principles would not be shaken. Men's happiness, and especially the happiness of good men, does not consist merely in external things. The promise of a hundred fold in this present life may still be fulfilled in mental felicity; and if it could not be, who is the man that would exclude from his computations the prospect, in the world to come, of life everlasting?

In the endeavour to produce the greatest sum of happiness, or which is the same thing, in applying the dictates of Utility to our conduct in life, there is one species of utility that is deplorably disregarded both in private and public affairs-that which respects the religious and moral welfare of mankind. If you hear a politician expatiating upon the good tendency of a measure, he tells you how greatly it will promote the interests of commerce, or how it will enrich a colony, or how it will propitiate a powerful party, or how it will injure a nation whom he dreads; but you hear probably not one word of enquiry whether it will corrupt the character of those who execute the measure, or whether it will introduce vices into the colony, or whether it will present new temptations to the virtue of the public. And yet these considerations are perhaps by far the most + Jer. xliv.

* Jer. xlii.

Dr Smith: Theo. Mor. Sent.

It is

important in the view even of enlightened expediency; for it is a desperate game to endeavour to benefit a people by means which may diminish their virtue. Even such a politician would probably assent to the unapplied proposition, "the virtue of a people is the best security for their welfare." the same in private life. You hear a parent who proposes to change his place of residence, or to engage in a new profession or pursuit, discussing the comparative conveniences of the proposed situation, the prospect of profit in the new profession, the pleasures which will result from the new pursuit ; but you hear probably not one word of enquiry whether the change of residence will deprive his family of virtuous and beneficial society which will not be replaced-whether the contemplated profession will not tempt his own virtue or diminish his usefulness--or whether his children will not be exposed to circumstances that will probably taint the purity of their minds. And yet this parent will acknowledge, in general terms, that "nothing can compensate for the loss of religious and moral character." Such persons surely make very inaccurate computations of Expediency.

As to the actual conduct of political affairs, men frequently legislate as if there was no such thing as religion or morality in the world; or as if, at any rate, religion and morality had no concern with affairs of state. I believe that a sort of shame (a false and vulgar shame no doubt) would be felt by many members of senates, in directly opposing religious or moral considerations to prospects of advantage. our own country, those who are most willing to do this receive, from vulgar persons, a name of contempt for their absurdity! How inveterate must be the impurity of a system, which teaches men to regard as ridiculous that system which only is sound!

CHAPTER IV.

THE LAW OF NATIONS. THE LAW OF HONOur.

In

Although the subjects of this chapter can scarcely be regarded as constituting rules of life, yet we are induced briefly to notice them in the present Essay, partly, on account of the importance of the affairs which they regulate, and partly, because they will afford satisfactory illustration of the principles of Morality.

SECTION I.

THE LAW OF NATIONS.

Obligations and authority of the Law of Nations-Its abuses, and the limits of its authority-Treaties.

THE Law of Nations, so far as it is founded upon the principles of morality, partakes of that authority which those principles possess; so far as it is founded merely upon the mutual conventions of states, it possesses that authority over the contracting parties which results from the rule, that men ought to abide by their engagements. The principal considerations which present themselves upon the subject, appear to be these:

1-That the Law of Nations is binding upon those states who knowingly allow themselves to be regarded as parties to it :

2 That it is wholly nugatory with respect to those states which are not parties to it:

3-That it is of no force in opposition to the Moral Law:

I. The obligation of the Law of Nations upon those who join in the convention, is plain-that is, it rests, generally, upon all civilized communities which have intercourse with one another. A tacit engagement only is, from the circumstances of the case, to be expected; and if any state did not choose to conform to the Law of Nations, it should publicly express its dissent. The Law of Nations is not wont to tighten the bonds of morality; so that probably most of its positive requisitions are enforced by the Moral Law: and this consideration should operate as an inducement to a conscientious fulfilment of these requisitions. In time of war, the Law of Nations prohibits poisoning and assassination, and it is manifestly imperative upon every state to forbear them; but whilst morality thus enforces many of the requisitions of the Law of Nations, that law frequently stops short, instead of following on to whither morality would conduct it. This distinction between assassination and some other modes of destruction that are practised in war, is not perhaps very accurately founded in considerations of morality nevertheless, since the distinction is made, let it be made, and let it by all means be regarded. Men need not add arsenic and the private dagger to those modes of human destruction which war allows. The obligation to avoid private murder is clear, even though it were shown that the obligation extends much further. Whatever be the reasonableness of the distinction, and of the rule that is founded upon it, it is perfidious to violate that rule.

So it is with those maxims of the Law of Nations which require that prisoners should not be enslaved, and that the persons of ambassadors should be respected. Not that I think the man who sat down, with only the principles of morality before him, would easily be able to show, from those principles, that the slavery was wrong whilst other things which the Law of Nations allows are right-but that, as these principles actually enforce the maxims, as the observance of them is agreed on by civilized states, and as they tend to diminish the evils of war, it is imperative on states to observe them. Incoherent and inconsistent as the Law of Nations is, when it is examined by the Moral Law, it is pleasant to contemplate the good tendency of some of its requisitions. In 1702, previous to the declaration of war by this country, a number of the anticipated 66 enemy's" ships had been seized and detained. When the declaration was made, these vessels were released, "in pursuance," as the proclamation stated, "of the Law of Nations." Some of these vessels were perhaps shortly after captured, and irrecoverably lost to their owners: yet though it might perplex the Christian moralist to show that the release was right and that the capture was right too, still he may rejoice that men conform, even in part, to the purity of virtue.

Attempts to deduce the maxims of international law as they now obtain, from principles of morality, will always be vain. Grotius seems as if he would countenance the attempt when he says, "Some writers have advanced a doctrine which can never be admitted, maintaining that the Law of Nations authorizes one power to commence hostilities against another, whose increasing greatness awakens her alarms. As a matter of expediency," says Grotius, "such a measure may be adopted; but the principles of justice can never be advanced in its favour."* Alas! if principles of justice are to decide what the Law of Nations shall authorize, it will be needful to

* Rights of War and Peace.

establish a new code to-morrow. A great part of the code arises out of the conduct of war; and the usual practices of war are so foreign to principles of justice and morality, that it is to no purpose to attempt to found the code upon them. Nevertheless, let those who refer to the Law of Nations, introduce morality by all possible means; and if they think they cannot appeal to it always, let them appeal to it where they can. If they cannot persuade themselves to avoid hostilities when some injury is committed by another nation, let them avoid them when "another nation's greatness merely awakens their alarms."

II. That the Law of Nations is wholly nugatory with respect to those states which are not parties to it, is a truth which, however sound, has been too little regarded in the conduct of civilized nations. The state whose subjects discover and take possession of an uninhabited island, is entitled by the Law of Nations quietly to possess it. And it ought quietly to possess it not that in the view of reason or of morality, the circumstance of an Englishman's first visiting the shores of a country, gives any very intelligible right to the King of England to possess it rather than any other prince, but that, such a rule having been agreed upon it, it ought to be observed; but by whom? By those who are parties to the agreement. For which reason, the discoverer possesses no sufficient claim to oppose his right to that of a people who were not parties to it. So that he who, upon pretence of discovery, should forcibly exclude from a large extent of territory a people who knew nothing of European politics, and who in the view of reason possessed an equal or a greater right, undoubtedly violates the obligations of morality. It may serve to dispel the obscurity in which habit and self-interest wrap our perceptions, to consider, that amongst the states which were nearest to the newly-discovered land, a law of nations might exist which required that such land should be equally divided amongst them. Whose law of nations ought to prevail? That of European states, or that of states in the Pacific or South Sea? How happens it that the Englishman possesses a sounder right to exclude all other nations, than surrounding nations possess to partition it amongst them?

Unhappily, our law of nations goes much further; and by a monstrous abuse of power, has acted upon the same doctrine with respect to inhabited countries; for when these have been discovered, the law of nations has talked, with perfect coolness, of setting up a standard, and thenceforth assigning the territory to the nation whose subjects set it up; as if the previous inhabitants possessed no other claim or right than the bears and wolves. It has been asked (and asked with great reason,) what we should say to a canoe-full of Indians who should discover England, and take possession of it in the name of their chief?

Civilized states appear to have acted upon the maxim, that no people possess political rights but those who are parties to the law of nations; and accordingly the history of European settlements has been, so far as the aborigines were concerned, too much a history of outrage, and treachery, and blood. Penn acted upon sounder principles: he perfectly well knew that neither an established practice, nor the Law of Nations, could impart a right to a country which was justly possessed by former inhabitants; and therefore, although Charles II. "granted" him Pennsylvania, he did not imagine that the gift of a man in London, could justify him in taking possession of a distant country without the occupiers' consent. What was 66 granted" therefore by his sovereign, he purchased of the owners; and the