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

indeed this intermeddling looks like setting up a pretence to something further: like an unjust attack begun at a distance. All which declares what an enemy, and how irreconcilable to truth, this pragmatical humor is. And so on.

If these things are so, how guilty must they be who are designedly the promoters or instruments of injustice and wickedness, such as mercenary-swearers and false witnesses, traders in scandal, solicitors in vice, they who intend by their conversation to relax men’s principles too much, and (as it seems) prepare them for knavery, lewdness, or any flagitious enterprise.409

There are other crimes, such as infidelity to friends or them who entrust us with anything, ingratitude, all kinds of wilful perjury, and the like, which might have been mentioned in the proposition, being great instances of injustice; but because they are visibly such, and their nature cannot be mistaken, I comprise them in the et cetera there. Anyone may see that he who acts unfaithfully, acts against his promises and engagements, and therefore denies and sins against truth, does what it can never be for the good of the world should become a universal practice, does what he would not have done to himself, and wrongs the man who depends upon him of what he justly might expect. So the ungrateful man treats his benefactor as not being what be is, etc. And the false-swearer respects neither things, nor himself, nor the persons affected, nor mankind in general, nor God himself, as being what they are. All this is obvious.410

VII Truths Respecting Particular Societies of Men, or Governments

I. Man is a social creature: that is, a single man or family cannot subsist, or not well, alone out of all society. More things are necessary to sustain life, or at least to make it in any degree pleasant and desirable, than it is possible for any one man to make and provide for himself merely by his own labor and ingenuity. Meat, and drink, and clothing, and house, and that frugal furniture which is absolutely requisite, with a little necessary physic, suppose many arts and trades, many heads, and many hands. If he could make a shift, in time of health, to live as a wild man under the protection of trees and rocks, feeding upon such fruits, herbs, roots, and other things as the earth should afford and happen to present to him, yet what could he do in sickness, or old age, when he would not be able to stir out, or receive her beneficence.

If he should take from the other sex such a help as the common appetite might prompt him to seek, or he might happen to meet with in his walks, yet still if the hands are doubled the wants are doubled too⁠—nay, more: additional wants, and great ones, attending the bearing and education of children.

If we could suppose all these difficulties surmounted, and a family grown up and doing what a single family is capable of doing by itself: supporting themselves by gardening, a little agriculture, or a few cattle, which they have somehow got and tamed (though even this would be hard for them to do, having no markets where they might exchange the produce of their husbandry, or of their little flock or herd, for other things; no shops to repair to for tools; no servant or laborer to assist; nor any public invention, of which they might serve themselves in the preparation of their grain, dressing their meat, manufacturing their wool, and the like); yet still, it is only the cortex of the man which is provided for: what must become of the interior part, the minds of these people? How would those be fed and improved?411 Arts and sciences, so much of them as is necessary to teach men the use of their faculties and unfold their reason, are not the growth of single families so employed. And yet for men to lay out all their pains and time in procuring only what is proper to keep the blood and humors in circulation, without any further views or any regard to the nobler part of themselves, is utterly incongruous to the idea of a being formed for rational exercises.

If all the exceptions against this separate way of living could be removed, yet, as mankind increases, the little plots which the several families possess and cultivate must be enlarged or multiplied. By degrees they would find themselves straitened, and there would soon be a collision of interests, from whence disputes and quarrels would ensue. Other things, too, might minister matter for these. And besides all this, some men are naturally troublesome, vicious, thievish, pugnacious, rabid⁠—and these would always be disturbing and flying upon the next to them⁠—as others are ambitious, or covetous, and, if they happen to have any advantage or superiority in power, would not fail to make themselves yet greater or stronger by eating up their neighbors, till by repeated encroachments they might grow to be formidable.412

Under so many wants, and such apprehensions or present dangers, necessity would bring some families into terms of friendship with others for mutual comfort and defense; and this, as the reason of it increased, would become stronger, introduce stricter engagements, and at last bring the people to mix and unite. And then, the weak being glad to shelter themselves under the protection and conduct of the more able, and so naturally giving way for these to ascend, the several sorts would at length settle into their places, according to their several weights and capacities with respect to the common concern. And thus some form of a society must arise: men cannot subsist otherwise.

But if it was possible for a man to preserve life by himself, or with his petit company about him, yet nobody can deny that it would be infinitely better for him, and them, to