The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

have here explained it, the distinction seems to be settled in a manner undeniable, intelligible, practicable. For as what is meant by a true proposition and matter of fact is perfectly understood by everybody; so will it be easy for anyone, so far as he knows any such propositions and facts, to compare not only words, but also actions with them. A very little skill and attention will serve to interpret even these, and discover whether they speak truth or not.88

X. If there be moral good and evil, distinguished as before, there is religion, and such as may most properly be styled natural. By “religion” I mean nothing else but an obligation to do (under which word I comprehend acts both of body and mind. I say, to do) what ought not to be omitted, and to forbear what ought not to be done. So that there must be religion if there are things of which some ought not to be done, some not to be omitted. But, that there are such, appears from what has been said concerning moral good and evil: because that which to omit would be evil, and which therefore being done would be good or well done, ought certainly by the terms to be done; and so that which being done would be evil, and implies such absurdities and rebellion against the supreme being as are mentioned under proposition IV, ought most undoubtedly not to be done. And then, since there is religion, which follows from the distinction between moral good and evil; since this distinction is founded in the respect which men’s acts bear to truth; and since no proposition can be true which expresses things otherwise than as they are in nature: since things are so, there must be religion, which is founded in nature, and may upon that account be most properly and truly called the “religion of nature” or “natural religion;” the great law of which religion, the law of nature, or rather (as we shall afterwards find reason to call it) of the Author of nature is,

XI. That every intelligent, active, and free being should so behave himself as by no act to contradict truth; or, that he should treat everything as being what it is.89

Objections, I am sensible, may be made to almost anything;90 but, I believe, none to what has been here advanced, but such as may be answered. For to consider a thing as being something else than what it is, or (which is the same) not to consider it as being what it is, is an absurdity indefensible. However, for a specimen, I will set down a few. Let us suppose some gentleman who has not sufficiently considered these matters, amidst his freedoms, and in the gaiety of humor, to talk after some such manner as this: “If everything must be treated as being what it is, what rare work will follow? For,

“To treat my enemy as such is to kill him, or revenge myself soundly upon him.

“To use a creditor who is a spendthrift, or one that knows not the use of money, or has no occasion for it, as such, is not to pay him. Nay further,

“If I want money, don’t I act according to truth if I take it from somebody else, to supply my own wants? And more, do not I act contrary to truth if I do not?

“If one, who plainly appears to have a design of killing another, or doing him some great mischief, if he can find him, should ask me where he is, and I know where he is; may not I, to save life, say I do not know, though that be false?

“At this rate I may not, in a frolic, break a glass, or burn a book, because forsooth to use these things, as being what they are, is to drink out of the one, not to break it; and to read the other, not burn it.

“Lastly, how shall a man know what is true: and if he can find out truth, may he not want the power of acting agreeably to it?”

To the first objection it is easy to reply from what has been already said. For if the objector’s enemy, whom we will call E, was nothing more than his enemy, there might be some force in the objection; but since he may be considered as something else besides that, he must be used according to what he is in other respects, as well as in that from which he is denominated the objector’s (or O’s) enemy. For E, in the first place, is a man; and as such may claim the benefit of common humanity, whatever that is: and if O denies it to him, he wounds truth in a very sensible part. And then, if O and E are fellow-citizens, living under the same government and subject to laws, which are so many common covenants, limiting the behavior of one man to another, and by which E is exempt from all private violence in his body, estate, etc., O cannot treat E as being what he is, unless he treats him also as one who, by common consent, is under such a protection. If he does otherwise, he denies the existence of the foresaid laws and public compacts, contrary to truth. And besides, O should act with respect to himself as being what he is: a man himself, in such or such circumstances, and one who has given up all right to private revenge (for that is the thing meant here). If truth, therefore, be observed, the result will be this: O must treat E as something compounded of a man, a fellow-citizen, and an enemy, all three; that is, he must only prosecute him in such a way as is agreeable to the statutes and methods which the society have obliged themselves to observe. And even as