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

health or unkind fortune, give the truest title to praise) lie disregarded. Thirst after glory, when that is desired merely for its own sake, is founded in ambition and vanity;307 the thing itself is but a dream and imagination; since, according to the differing humors and sentiments of nations and ages, the same thing may be either glorious or inglorious, the effect of it, considered still by itself, is neither more health, nor estate, nor knowledge, nor virtue to him who has it, or, if that be anything, it is but what must cease when the man308 dies, and, after all, as it lives but in the breath of the people, a little sly envy or a new turn of things extinguishes it,309 or perhaps it goes quite out of itself.310 Men please themselves with notions of immortality, and fancy a perpetuity of fame secured to themselves by books and testimonies of historians; but, alas! it is a stupid delusion when they imagine themselves present, and enjoying that fame at the reading of their story after their death. And besides, in reality the man is not known ever the more to posterity, because his name is transmitted to them: he does not live because his name does. When it is said Julius Caesar subdued Gaul, beat Pompey, changed the Roman commonwealth into a monarchy, etc., it is the same thing as to say, the conqueror of Pompey, etc., was Caesar: that is, Caesar and the conqueror of Pompey are the same thing; and Caesar is as much known by the one designation as by the other. The amount then is only this: that the conqueror of Pompey conquered Pompey; or somebody conquered Pompey; or rather, since Pompey is as little known now as Caesar, somebody conquered somebody.311 Such a poor business is this boasted immortality,312 and such as has been here described is the thing called “glory” among us! The notion of it may serve to excite them who, having abilities to serve their country in time of real danger or want, or to do some other good, have yet not philosophy enough to do this upon principles of virtue, or to see through the glories of the world (just as we excite children by praising them, and as we see many good inventions and improvements proceed from emulation and vanity); but to discerning men this fame is mere air, and the next remove from nothing:313 what they despise, if not shun. I think there are two considerations which may justify a desire of some glory or honor, and scarce more. When men have performed any virtuous actions, or such as sit easy upon their memories, it is a reasonable pleasure to have the testimony of the world added to that of their own consciences, that they have done well:314 and more than that, if the reputation acquired by any qualification or action may produce a man any real comfort or advantage (if it be only protection from the insolencies and injustice of mankind, or if it enables him to do by his authority more good to others), to have this privilege must be a great satisfaction, and what a wise and good man may be allowed, as he has opportunity, to propose to himself. But then he proposes it no farther than it may be useful; and it can be no farther useful than he wants it. So that upon the whole, glory, praise, and the like, are either mere vanity, or only valuable in proportion to our defects and wants. If then those words are understood according to the import and value they have among men, how dares anyone think that the Supreme being can propose such a mean end to himself as our praises? He can neither want nor value them. Alexander, according to his taste of things, it may well be supposed would have been proud to have heard that he should be the subject of some second Homer,315 in whose sheets his name might be embalmed for ages to come, or to have been celebrated at Athens, the mother of so many wits and captains⁠—but sure even he, with all his vanity, could not propose to himself as the end of all his fatigues and dangers only to be praised by children, or rather by worms and insects, if they were capable of showing some faint sense of his greatness.316 And yet how far short is this comparison! In conclusion therefore, though men have been accustomed to speak of the Deity in terms taken from princes, and such things as they have, in their weakness, admired; though these are now incorporated into the language of Divines; and though, considering what defects there are in our ways of thinking and speaking, we cannot well part with them all; yet we must remember to exalt the sense of them, or annex some mental qualification to the use of them. As, if God be said to do things for His own glory, the meaning I humbly conceive must be that the transcendent excellence of His nature may be collected from the form of the world and administration of things in it, where there occur such marks of inexpressible wisdom and power that He needed not to have given us greater, had He only intended His own glory: or something to this purpose. Or, if the glory of what we do be ascribed to Him, by this must be signified that no glory is due to us, who have no powers but what originally depend upon Him, and that we desire therefore to acknowledge Him to be the true author of all that which is laudable in us.317

When we thank God for any deliverance or enjoyment, this must not be so understood as if He could