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

the present, supposed to be such as it will appear by and by to be) the adulterer denies the property a husband has in his wife by compact, the most express and sacred that can possibly be made; he does that which tends to subvert the peace of families, confounds relation, and is altogether inconsistent with the order and tranquility of the world and therefore with the laws of human nature; he does what no man in his wits could think reasonable, or even tolerable, were he the person wronged;387 briefly, he impudently treats a woman as his own woman (or wife388), who is not his but another’s, contrary to justice, truth, and fact.389 Nor is this simple injustice only, but injustice for which no reparation can be made, if the injured man thinks so, as he generally does (see section II, proposition I, observation 4)⁠—injustice accompanied with the greatest cruelty, so complicated as scarce any other can be. The husband is forever robbed of all that pleasure and satisfaction which arises from the wife’s fidelity and affection to him,390 presuming upon which he took her to be not only the partner of his bed, but the companion of his life and sharer in all his fortunes;391 and into the room of them succeed painful and destructive passions. The poor woman392 herself, though she may be deluded,393 and not see at present her guilt or the consequences of it, usually pays dear for her security and want of guard, the husband becoming cold394 and averse to her, and she full of apprehensions and fears,395 with a particular dread of his further resentment. And their affairs, in this disjointed and distracted condition, are neglected: innocent children slighted, and left unprovided for, without so much as the comfort of any certain relations to pity them,396 etc.

The adulterer may not be permitted to extenuate his crime by such impertinent similes and rakish talk as are commonly used for that purpose.397 When anyone wrongs another of his property, he wrongs him of what it is to him, the proprietor: and the value must be set according to what he esteems it to be, not what the injurer⁠—who perhaps has no taste of virtuous pleasures⁠—may think it to be. (See section II, proposition 1, observations 3 and 4.) Nor may these thefts be excused from their secrecy:

For the injustice of the fact is the same in itself, whether known or not. In either case truth is denied, and a lie is as much a lie when it is whispered as when it is proclaimed at the market-cross.

It has been shown (section II) that the rectitude of our actions and way to happiness are coincident, and that such acts as are disagreeable to truth, wrong in themselves, tend to make men ultimately unhappy.398 Things are so ordered and disposed by the Author of nature, or such a constitution of things flows from him, that it must be so. And since no retreat can be impervious to his eye, no corner so much out of the way as not to be within his plan, no doubt there is to every wrong and vicious act a suitable degree of unhappiness and punishment annexed, which the criminal will be sure to meet with same time or other.399 For his own sake, therefore, he ought not to depend upon the darkness of the deed.

But lastly, it can hardly be but that it must be discovered.400 People generally rise in vice, grow impudent and vain and careless, and discover themselves;401 the opportunities contrived for it must be liable to observation; some confidents must be trusted, who may betray the secret, and upon any little distaste probably will do it; and besides, love is quick of apprehension.402

It will be easily perceived, from what has been said, that if to murder, rob, etc. are unjust and crimes of a heinous nature, all those things which have any tendency toward them, or affinity with them, or any way countenance them, must be in their degree criminal403 because they are of the same complexion with that which they tend to, though not of the same growth, nor matured into the gross act, or perhaps do not operate so presently, apparently, or certainly. Envy, malice, and the like, are conatus toward the destruction or ruin of the person who is the object of these unhappy passions. To throw dust404 upon a man’s reputation by innuendos, ironies, etc. may not indeed sully it all at once, as when dirt is thrown, or gross calumnies, yet it infects the air, and may destroy it by a lingering poison. To expose another by the strength of a jesting talent, or harder temper of face, is to wound him, though it be in an invisible place.405 Many freedoms and reputed civilities of barbarian extract, and especially gallantries,406 that proceed not to consummate wickedness, nor perhaps are intended to be carried so far, may yet divert people’s affections from their proper object, and debauch the mind.407 By stories or insinuations to sow the seeds of discord and quarrels between men is to murder or hurt them by another hand. Even for men to intermeddle in other people’s affairs, as busybodies and ἀλλοτριοεπίσκοποι408 do, is to assume a province which is not theirs; to concern themselves with things in which they are not concerned; to make that public which in itself is private; and perhaps to rob the person, into whose business they intrude themselves, of his quiet, if of nothing else. For