CHAPTER IV.

CONTINUATION OF THE REMARKS ON THE OBJECTIONS STATED BY DIFFERENT WRITERS TO THE REALITY AND IMMUTABILITY OF MORAL DISTINCTIONS, AND TO THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE MORAL FACULTY AMONG MANKIND.

THE doctrines on this subject which I have hitherto been endeavouring to refute, (how erroneous soever in their principles, and dangerous in their consequences,) have been maintained by some writers who certainly were not unfriendly in their views to the interests of virtue and of mankind. In proof of this, I need only mention the name of Mr. Locke, who, in the course of a long and honourable life, distinguished himself no less by the exemplary worth of his private character, and by his ardent zeal for civil and religious liberty, than by the depth and originality of his philosophical speculations. His errors, however, ought not, on these accounts, to be treated with reverence; but, on the contrary, they require a more careful and severe examination, in consequence of the high authority they derive from his genius and his virtues. And, accordingly, I have enlarged on such of his opinions as seemed to me favourable to sceptical views concerning the foundation of morals, at much greater length than the ingenuity or plausibility of his reasonings in support of them may appear to some to have merited.

To these opinions of Locke, Lord Shaftesbury has alluded in various parts of his works with a good deal of indignation; and particularly in the following passage of his Advice to an Author. "One would imagine that our philosophical writers, who pretend to treat of morals, should far outdo our poets in recommending virtue, and representing what is fair and amiable in

human actions. One would imagine, that, if they turned their eyes towards remote countries, (of which they affect so much to speak,) they should search for that simplicity of manners, and innocence of behaviour, which has been often known among mere savages, ere they were corrupted by our commerce, and, by sad example, instructed in all kinds of treachery and inhumanity. Twould be of advantage to us to hear the cause of this strange corruption in ourselves, and be made to consider of our deviation from nature, and from that just purity of manners which might be expected, especially from a people so assisted and enlightened by religion. For who would not naturally expect more justice, fidelity, temperance, and honesty from Christians than from Mahometans or mere Pagans? But so far are our modern moralists from condemning any unnatural vices or corrupt manners, whether in our own or foreign climates, that they would have vice itself appear as natural as virtue; and, from the worst examples, would represent to us, 'that all actions are naturally indifferent; that they have no note or character of good or ill in themselves, but are distinguished by mere fashion, law, or arbitrary decree.' Wonderful philosophy! raised from the dregs of an illiterate mean kind, which was ever despised among the great ancients, and rejected by all men of action or sound erudition; but, in these ages, imperfectly copied from the original, and, with much disadvantage, imitated and assumed in common, both by devout and indevout attempters in the moral kind."*

Besides these incidental remarks on Locke, which occur in different parts of Shaftesbury's writings, there is a letter of his addressed to a student at the university, which relates almost entirely to the opinion we have been considering, and contains some excellent observations on the subject.

In this letter Lord Shaftesbury observes, that "all those called free writers now-a-days have espoused those principles which Mr. Hobbes set a-foot in this last age."—" Mr. Locke," he continues," as much as I honour him on account of other writings, (on government, policy, trade, coin, education, tolera* [Part III. sect. iii.—Characteristics, Vol. I. p. 350, ed. 1711.]

tion, &c.,) and as well as I knew him, and can answer for his sincerity as a most zealous Christian and believer, did however go in the self-same track, and is followed by the Tindals, and all the other ingenious free authors of our time.

""Twas Mr. Locke that struck the home-blow; for Mr. Hobbes's character and base slavish principles of government took off the poison of his philosophy. 'Twas Mr. Locke that struck at all fundamentals, threw all order and virtue out of the world, and made the very ideas of these (which are the same with those of GOD) unnatural, and without foundation in our minds. Innate is a word he poorly plays upon; the right word, though less used, is connatural. For what has birth, or progress of the foetus out of the womb, to do in this case? The question is not about the time the ideas entered, or the moment that one body came out of the other, but whether the constitution of man be such, that, being adult and grown up, at such or such a time, sooner or later, (no matter when,) the idea and sense of order, administration, and a God, will not infallibly, inevitably, necessarily spring up in him.”*

In this last remark, Lord Shaftesbury appears to me to place the question concerning innate ideas upon the right and only philosophical footing, and to afford a key to all the confusion which runs through Locke's argument on the subject. The observations which follow are not less just and valuable; but I must not indulge myself in any farther extracts at present.1

[See Letters to a Student at the University, Letter viii.]

1 Notwithstanding, however, the countenance which Locke's reasonings against innate practical principles have the appearance of giving to the philosophy of Hobbes, I have not a doubt that the difference of opinion between him and Lord Shaftesbury on this point was almost entirely verbal. Of this I have elsewhere produced ample proofs; but the following passage will suffice for my present purpose. "I would not be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none but po

sitive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law and a law of nature, between something inprinted on our minds in their very original, and something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forsake the truth, who, running into the contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, without the help of a positive revelation." -Locke's Works, Vol. I. p. 44. (Law's 8vo edit.) [Essay, B. I. ch. iii. sect. 13.]

These passages of Shaftesbury, in some of which the warmth of his temper has betrayed him into expressions disrespectful to Locke, have drawn on him a number of very severe animadversions, particularly from Warburton, in the preface to his Divine Legation of Moses. But although Shaftesbury's personal allusions to Locke cannot be justified, some allowance ought to be made for the indignation of a generous mind at a doctrine which (however well meant by the proposer) strikes at the very root of morality. In this instance, too, it is not improbable that the discussion of the general argument may have added to the asperity of his style, by reviving the memory of the private controversies which, it is presumable, had formerly been carried on between Locke and him on this important subject. It is well known that Shaftesbury was Locke's pupil, and also that their tempers and literary tastes were not suitable to each other. In this it is commonly supposed that the former was to blame; but, I presume, not wholly. Dr. Warton tells us, "that Mr. Locke affected to despise poetry, and that he depreciated the ancients; which circumstance," he adds, "as I am informed from undoubted authority, was the subject of perpetual discontent and dispute between him and his pupil Lord Shaftesbury."1 That Shaftesbury was not insensible to Locke's real merits, appears sufficiently from a passage in his first Letter to a Student at the University. "However, I am not sorry that I lent you Locke's Essay, a book that may as well qualify men for business and the world as for the sciences and the university. No one has done more towards the recalling of philosophy from barbarity into use and practice of the world, and into the company of the better and politer sort, who might well be ashamed of it in its other dress. No one has opened a better and clearer way to reasoning."

The theories concerning the origin of our moral ideas which we are now to consider, although they agree in many respects with that of Locke and his followers, have yet proceeded from very different views and intentions. They also involve some Essay on the Genius and Writings of Pope.

principles that are peculiar to themselves, and which, therefore, render a separate examination of them necessary for the complete illustration of this fundamental article of ethics. They have been distinguished by Mr. Smith by the name of the licentious systems of morals,*-a name which certainly cannot be censured as too harsh, when applied to those which maintain that the motives of all men are fundamentally the same, and that what we commonly call virtue is mere hypocrisy.

Among the licentious moralists of modern times, the most celebrated are, the Duke of la Rochefoucauld, author of the Maxims and Moral Reflections, and Dr. Mandeville, author of the Fable of the Bees. By the generality of our English philosophers, these two writers are commonly coupled together as advocates for the same system, although their views and their characters were certainly extremely different. In the first editions of Mr. Smith's Theory, he speaks of a licentious doctrine concerning morality, which, he says, "was first sketched by the delicate pencil of the Duke of la Rochefoucauld, and was afterwards enforced by the coarse but powerful eloquence of Dr. Mandeville." In the last [or sixth] edition of that work the name of La Rochefoucauld is omitted, from Mr. Smith's deliberate conviction that it was unjust to his memory to class him with an author whose writings tend directly to confound all our ideas of moral distinctions. On this point I speak from personal knowledge, having been requested by Mr. Smith, when I happened to be at Paris some years before his death, to express to the late excellent and unfortunate Duke of la Rochefoucauld his sincere regret for having introduced the name of his ancestor and that of Dr. Mandeville in the same sentence.

The Duke of la Rochefoucauld, author of the Maxims, was born in 1613, and died in 1680. The early part of his education was neglected; but the disadvantages he laboured under in consequence of this circumstance, he in a great measure overcame by the force of his own talents. According to Madam de Maintenon, who knew him well," he was possessed of a

* [Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VII. sect. ii. chap. 4.]