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

itself; and that which every intelligent being may be supposed to aim at, in general.114 For happiness is some quantity of true pleasure: and that pleasure which I call “true,” may be considered by itself, and so will be justly desirable (according to propositions II, and III). On the contrary, unhappiness is certainly to be avoided, because being a quantity of mere pain, it may be considered by itself as a real, mere evil, etc., and because if I am obliged to pursue happiness, I am at the same time obliged to recede, as far as I can, from its contrary. All this is self-evident. And hence it follows, that,

X. We cannot act, with respect to either ourselves or other men, as being what we and they are, unless both are considered as beings susceptive of happiness and unhappiness, and naturally desirous of the one and averse to the other. Other animals may be considered after the same manner in proportion to their several degrees of apprehension.

But, that the nature of happiness and the road to it, which is so very apt to be mistaken, may be better understood⁠—and true pleasures more certainly distinguished from false⁠—the following propositions must still be added:

XI. As the true and ultimate happiness of no being can be produced by anything that interferes with truth and denies the natures of things, so neither can the practice of truth make any being ultimately unhappy. For that which contradicts nature and truth, opposes the will of the Author of nature (whose existence, etc., I shall prove afterwards); and to suppose that an inferior being may, in opposition to His will, break through the constitution of things, and by so doing make himself happy, is to suppose that being more potent than the Author of nature, and consequently more potent than the author of the nature and power of that very being himself, which is absurd. And as to the other part of the proposition, it is also absurd to think that, by the constitution of nature and will of its author, any being should be finally miserable only for conforming himself to truth, and owning things and the relations lying between them to be what they are. It is much the same as to say God has made it natural to contradict nature, or unnatural, and therefore punishable, to act according to nature and reality. If such a blunder (excuse the boldness of the word) could be, it must come either through a defect of power in Him to cause a better and more equitable scheme, or from some delight which he finds in the misery of his dependents. The former cannot be ascribed to the First cause, who is the fountain of power; nor the latter to Him who gives so many proofs of his goodness and beneficence. Many beings may be said to be happy, and there are none of us all who have not many enjoyments;115 whereas, did he delight in the infelicity of those beings which depend upon Him, it must be natural to Him to make them unhappy, and then not one of them would be otherwise in any respect. The world in that case, instead of being such a beautiful, admirable system, in which there is only a mixture of evils, could have been only a scene of mere misery, horror, and torment.

That either the enemies of truth (wicked men) should be ultimately happy, or the religious observers of it (good men) ultimately unhappy, is such injustice, and an evil so great, that sure no Manichean will allow such a superiority of his evil principle over the good, as is requisite to produce and maintain it.

XII. The genuine happiness of every being must be something that is not incompatible with, or destructive of, its nature,116 or the superior or better part of it, if it be mixed. For instance, nothing can be the true happiness of a rational being, that is inconsistent with reason. For all pleasure, and therefore be sure all clear pleasure and true happiness, must be something agreeable (proposition I): and nothing can be agreeable to a reasoning nature, or (which is the same) to the reason of that nature, which is repugnant and disagreeable to reason. If anything becomes agreeable, to a rational being, which is not agreeable to reason, it is plain his reason is lost, his nature depressed, and that he now lists himself among irrationals, at least as to that particular. If a being finds pleasure in anything unreasonable, he has an unreasonable pleasure; but a rational nature can like nothing of that kind without a contradiction to itself. For to do this would be to act as if it was the contrary to what it is. Lastly, if we find hereafter that whatever interferes with reason, interferes with truth, and to contradict either of them is the same thing, then what has been said under the former proposition does also confirm this: as what has been said in proof of this, does also confirm the former.

XIII. Those pleasures are true, and to be reckoned into our happiness, against which there lies no reason. For when there is no reason against any pleasure, there is always one for it,117 included in the term. So when there is no reason for undergoing pain (or venturing it), there is one against it.

Observation: There is therefore no necessity for men to torture their inventions in finding out arguments to justify themselves in the pursuits after worldly advantages and enjoyments, provided that neither these enjoyments, nor the means by which they are attained, contain the violation of any truth, by being unjust, immoderate, or the like.118 For in this case there is no reason why we should not desire them, and a direct one why we should, viz. because they