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

not in man’s power to promise absolutely. He can only promise as one who may be disabled by the weight and incumbency of truths not then existing.

I could here insert many instances of partial thinking which occur in authors, but I shall choose only to set down one in the margin.53

In short, when things are truly estimated, persons concerned, times, places,54 ends intended,55 and effects that naturally follow, must be added to them.

VII. When any act would be wrong, the forbearing that act must be right; likewise when the omission of anything would be wrong, the doing of it (i.e. not omitting it) must be right. Because contrariorum contraria est ratio.

VIII. Moral good and evil are coincident with right and wrong. For that cannot be good, which is wrong; nor that evil, which is right.

IX. Every act therefore, of such a being as is before described, and all those omissions which interfere with truth (i.e. deny any proposition to be true, which is true; or suppose anything not to be what it is, in any regard)56 are morally evil, in some degree or other; the forbearing such acts, and the acting in opposition to such omissions are morally good; and when anything may be either done, or not done, equally without the violation of truth, that thing is indifferent.

I would have it to be minded well, that when I speak of acts inconsistent with truth, I mean any truth: any true proposition whatsoever, whether containing matter of speculation, or plain fact. I would have everything taken to be what in fact and truth it is.57

It may be of use, also, to remember that I have added those words in some degree or other. For neither all evil nor all good actions are equal.58 Those truths which they respect, though they are equally true, may comprise matters of very different importance;59 or more truths may be violated one way than another:60 and then the crimes committed by the violation of them may be equally (one as well as the other) said to be crimes, but not equal crimes.61 If A steals a book from B which was pleasing and useful to him, it is true A is guilty of a crime in not treating the book as being what it is: the book of B, who is the proprietor of it, and one whose happiness partly depends upon it; but still if A should deprive B of a good estate, of which he was the true owner, he would be guilty of a much greater crime. For if we suppose the book to be worth to him one pound, and the estate £10,000, that truth which is violated by depriving B of his book, is in effect violated 10,000 times by robbing him of his estate. It is the same as to repeat the theft of one pound 10,000 times over; and therefore if 10,000 thefts (or crimes) are more and all together greater than one, one equal to 10,000 must be greater too: greater than that which is but the 10,000th part of it, sure. Then, though the convenience and innocent pleasure that B found in the use of the book was a degree of happiness, yet the happiness accruing to him from the estate, by which he was supplied not only with necessaries but also with many other comforts and harmless enjoyments, vastly exceeded it. And therefore the truth violated in the former case was, “B had a property in that, which gave him such a degree of happiness:” that violated in the latter, “B had a property in that, which gave him a happiness vastly superior to the other.” The violation therefore in the latter case is upon this account a vastly greater violation than in the former. Lastly, the truths violated in the former case might end in B, those in the latter may perhaps be repeated in them of his family, who subsist also by the estate and are to be provided for out of it. And these truths are very many in respect of every one of them, and all their descendents. Thus the degrees of evil or guilt are as the importance and number of truth violated.62 I shall only add, on the other side, that the value of good actions will rise at least in proportion to the degrees of evil in the omission of them: and that therefore they cannot be equal, any more than the opposite evil omissions.

But let us return to that which is our main subject: the distinction between moral good and evil. Some have been so wild as to deny there is any such thing: but from what has been said here, it is manifest that there is as certainly moral good and evil as there is true and false; and that there is as natural and immutable a difference between those as between these, the difference at the bottom being indeed the same.63 Others acknowledge that there is indeed moral good and evil, but they want some criterion, or mark, by the help of which they might know them apart. And others there are who pretend to have found that rule, by which our actions ought to be squared and may be discriminated, or that ultimate end, to which they ought all to be referred:64 but what they have advanced is either false, or not sufficiently guarded, or not comprehensive enough, or not clear and firm,65 or (so far as it is just) reducible to my rule. For

They, who reckon nothing to be good but what they call honestum,66 may denominate actions according as that is, or is not, the cause67 or