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

for in books we meet with it commonly following, or rather adhering to, that of worshipping the Deity.466 In laying children under this obligation, they have all conspired, though scarce in anything else.467

The admonitions of a parent must be of the greatest weight with his children, if they do but remember that he has lived longer, and had repeated occasions to consider things and observe events; has cooler passions as he advances in years, and sees things more truly as they are; is able in a manner to predict what they themselves will desire to have done when they shall arrive at his age; may upon these accounts, ordinarily, be presumed to be a more competent judge than themselves;468 and lastly, from his relation to them must be more sincerely inclined to tell them truth than any other person in the world can be supposed to be.469 I say, if young people reflect well upon these things, they cannot in prudence, or even kindness to themselves, but pay the utmost deference to the advertisements and directions of a parent.

And to conclude: if parents want the assistance of their children, especially in the declension of their age and when they verge towards a helpless condition again, they cannot deny or withhold it, but they must at the same time deny to requite the care and tenderness shown by their parents towards them in their helpless and dangerous years; that is, without being ungrateful, and that is, without being unjust, if there be injustice in ingratitude.470 Nor (which is more still) can they do this without denying what they may in their turn require of their children.471 In effect, they do thus, by their actions, deny that to have been, which has been, and those things to be possible, which may be hereafter.

Not only bodily infirmities of parents, but such decays of their minds as may happen, ought to be pitied⁠—their little hastinesses and mistakes dissembled, and their defects supplied, decently.472

IX. That στοργὴ or affection on both sides, which naturally and regularly is in parents towards their children, and vicissim,473 ought to be observed and followed, when there is no reason to the contrary.

We have seen before, and it is evident from the terms, that sense ought to govern when reason does not interpose, i.e. when there is no reason why it should not. If then this στοργὴ or mutual affection be an inward sense of the case between parents and children, which, without much thinking upon it, is felt by them and sits upon their natures,474 it may be comprised in propositions XIV and XV of section III. But whether it is or not, the same may be said (which must be repeated in another place) of every affection, passion, inclination in general. For when there is no reason why we should not comply with them, their own very solicitation, and the agreeableness we apprehend to be in complying, are preponderating arguments. This must be true, if something is more than nothing, or that ought to be granted which there is no reason to deny. So that if this στοργὴ be only taken as a kind of attraction, or tendence, in the mere matter of parents and children, yet still this physical motion or sympathy ought not to be overruled, if there be not a good reason for it. On the contrary, it ought to be taken as a suggestion of nature, which should always be regarded when it is not superseded by something superior, that is, by reason. But further, here reason does not only not gainsay, by its silence and consent, and so barely leave its right of commanding to this bodily inclination; but it comes in strongly to abet and enforce it, as designed for a reasonable end: and therefore, not to act according to it is not to act according to reason, and to deny that to be which is,

X. The same is true of that affection which other relations naturally have, in some proportion or other, each for other. To this they ought to accommodate themselves where reason does not prohibit. The proof of this assertion is much the same with that of the foregoing mutatis mutandis.

The foundation of all natural relation is laid in marriage.475 For the husband and wife having solemnly attached themselves each to other, having the same children, interests, etc., become so intimately related as to be reckoned united: one flesh, and in the laws of nations many times, one person.476 Certainly they are such with respect to the posterity, who proceed from them jointly.477 The children of this couple are related between themselves by the mediation of the parents. For every one of them being of the same blood with their common parents, they are all of the same blood (truly consanguinei), the relations which they respectively bear to their parents meeting there as in their center. This is the nearest relation that can be,478 next to those of man and wife, parents and their children, who are immediately related by contact or rather continuity of blood, if one may speak so. The relation between the children of these children grows more remote and dilute, and in time wears out. For at every remove the natural tincture or sympathy may be supposed to be weakened, if for no other reason, yet for this: Every remove takes off half the common blood derived from the grandparents. For let C be the son of A and B, D the son of C, E of D, F of E; and let the relation of C to A and B be as 1: then the