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

Having now considered the man and woman between themselves, I proceed in the order of nature to consider them as parents, and to see (in a few propositions following) how things will be carried between them and their children, as also between other relations, coming at first from the same bed, if truth and matters of fact (to be named, where the argument shall call for them) are not denied.

V. Parents ought to educate their children, take the best care of them they can, endeavor to provide for them, and be always ready to assist them. Because otherwise they do not carry themselves towards their children as being what they are: children and theirs; they do not do what they would desire to have done to themselves, were they again to pass through that feeble and tender state, or perhaps what has been done to them;450 and besides, they transgress the law established by nature for the preservation of the race, which, as things are, could not without a parental care and affection be continued⁠—a law which is in force among all the other tribes of animals, so far as there is occasion for it.

Not to do what is here required, is not barely to act against truth and nature, not only such an omission as is mentioned in section I, proposition V, but a heinous instance of cruelty. If anyone can deny this, let him better consider the case of an infant, neglected, helpless, and having nothing so much as to solicit for him but his cries and (that which will do but little in this world) his innocence; let him think what it would be to turn a child, though a little grown up, out of doors, destitute of everything, not knowing whither to fly,451 or what to do; and whether it is not the same thing if he be left to be turned out by anybody else hereafter, or (in general) to conflict with want and misery⁠—let him reflect a while upon the circumstances of poor orphans452 left unprovided for, to be abused by everybody,453 etc.⁠—and then let him say whether it is possible for a parent to be so void of bowels as not to be moved with these considerations, or what epithet he deserves if he is not. If any of them who have been thus abandoned and turned adrift have done well, those instances ought to be placed among particular providences: as when a vessel at sea, without pilot or sailor, happens to be blown into the port.

Not only the care, but the early care of parents is required, lest death should prevent them: death, which skips none, and surprises many. Not to remember this, and act accordingly, is in practice to contradict one of the most certain and obvious of all truths.

VI. In order to the good of children, their education, etc., there must be some authority over them lodged by nature in the parents: I mean, the nature of the case is such, as necessarily requires there should be in the parents an authority over their children in order to their good. At first if somebody did not nurse, feed, clothe, and take care of children, the interval between their first and last breath would be very short. They on whom it is incumbent to do this are undoubtedly their parents; to do this is their duty, by the foregoing proposition. But then they must do it as they can, and according to their judgment; and this is plainly an act of authority, to order and dispose of another according to one’s judgment, though it be done according to the best of one’s judgment.

As the child grows up, the case is still the same in some degree or other, till he arrives at the age reckoned mature (and very often longer). He is become able perhaps to walk by himself, but what path to choose he knows not⁠—cannot distinguish his safety and his danger, his advantages and disadvantages, nor, in general, good and evil⁠—he must be warned, and directed, and watched still by his parents, or somebody entrusted by them, or else it might have been possibly much better for him to have expired under the midwife’s hands, and prevented the effects of his own ignorance.

When he not only runs about, but begins to fancy himself capable of governing himself: by how much the more he thinks himself capable, by so much the less capable may he be, and the more may he want to be governed. The avenues of sense are opened, but the judgment and intellectual faculties are not ripened but with time and much practice. The world is not easily known by persons of adult abilities, and, when they become tolerably acquainted with it, yet they find things in it so intricate, dubious, difficult, that it is many times hard for them to resolve what measures are fittest to be taken: but they who are not (or but lately) past their nuts, cannot be supposed to have any extent of knowledge, or to be, if they are left to themselves, anything else but a prey to the villain who first seizes upon them. Instead of judgment and experience, we find commonly in youth such things as are remotest from them⁠—childish appetites, irregular passions, peevish and obstinate humors⁠—which require to be subdued, and taught to give way to wholesome counsels. Young people are not only obnoxious to their own humors and follies, but also to those of their companions. They are apt to hearken to them, and to imitate one and anothers misconduct; and thus folly mingles with folly, and increases prodigiously. The judgment, therefore, of the parents must still interpose, and preside, and guide through all these stages of infancy, childhood, and youth; according to their power, improving the minds of their children, breaking the strength of their inordinate