prevent it. To this class belongs the obligations of duty, of honor, of justice, of prudence, of the laws of the land, and of fashion: the attachment to professions, application to business, preservation of our persons and properties, checks of conscience, and the greatest part of the influence of our moral senses. For whenever we do so or so because we must, whether the obligation be laid upon us by our own fondness for particular objects, or by the judgments of reason, we are actuated by the apprehension of some mischief attendant upon the forbearing it. Conscience particularly acts as a monitor, like Socrates' demon, never exhorting to anything, but restraining our desires from the course they would otherwise take, informing us what is right, no otherwise than by warning us against what is wrong and moral senses, when young and newly acquired, operate by the dread of that compunction we should feel upon transgressing their dictates. The very term Must implies that we should have acted otherwise, had matters been left to our choice, and indicates a desire subsisting in the mind, which unavoidably degenerates into want upon our being obliged to thwart when we cannot stifle it. Therefore, want being an uneasy passion, necessity always throws the mind into a state of suffering, greater or less in proportion to the degree of want urging us to the course we must not take. But men frequently misapply the term, using it as a pretence to justify what they really like and might have omitted without the least inconvenience or when there is a real necessity, ascribing their action to that, though they were in fact pre-engaged by other motives. For we must remember the motive of action is always something actually in the scale; not every good reason that might move us if its help were wanted, but some object in view, and weighing with us at the instant time of acting. So that we cannot certainly conclude people uneasy when we hear them talk of being obliged to such a particular proceeding: for perhaps there was no obligation, and they only amused themselves, or meant to amuse us, with the pretence of one; or if they were, perhaps they had nothing less in their thoughts, but proceeded upon other grounds. What is more necessary than eating? yet which of us sits down to table upon that motive? we do not need to be told that without victuals we cannot sustain life nor keep our bodies in health, and this consideration might have sufficient influence to bring us to them, if there were nothing else: but appetite engages us beforehand, and sets our jaws at work long before necessity can heave itself into the scale. On the contrary, physic, having no other recommendation, will not go down with us, until we throw in the heavy weight of necessity. And in this as well as all other cases wherein the cogency of necessity gives the real turn to our activity, there is an uneasiness corresponding to the reluctance we feel against complying with it. But as this uneasiness proceeds from the opposition of contrary desires, if that which occasioned the reluctance can be totally silenced, necessity changes its nature, and becomes a matter of choice, having no competitor to struggle against it for as when driven by necessity, we should have acted otherwise if that necessity had not occurred, so we should have readily complied with it as a thing desirable, if we had had no contrary inclination which must be thwarted by it. Therefore persons well practised in the ways of honor, take delight in performing the obligations of it, and fulfilling the rules of duty and justice for though these ties were obligations at first, and still retain the name, they no longer act as obligations, but as objects of desire, nor does the party influenced by them once think of any mischief that would ensue, or any pleasure he might lose upon transgressing them. 3. The bate exemption from evil, often suffices to touch us with a sensible pleasure. The testimony of a good conscience, although implying no more than a clearness from offence, has been ever held a continual feast to the mind, And in common cases, the avoidance of mischief does not operate as a motive of necessity, where there is nothing to raise a reluctance against the measures to be taken for preventing it. We bar up our doors and windows every night to secure them against robbers; we provide fuel against winter, and send down stores into the country for our summer occasions: there is no pleasure in all this, nor should we do it unless necessary; yet being familiarized to the practice, we do it as a thing customary without thinking of that necessity. The essence of necessary action consists in an unwillingness to perform it; take away that unwillingness and the necessity is gone. There are persons of so happy temper as to bring their minds into a ready compliance with what must be done, and upon discerning that, whatever desires they might have had before for doing otherwise instantly vanish: if we could attain a perfect acquiesence in whatever the present circumstances require, we should escape the iron hand of necessity, we might see which way it drives, and lay our measures accordingly, but should always elude its grasp, and take the gentler guidance of expedi ence. Nevertheless, since our desires will not always lie down quiet at the word of command, we can only restrain them from mischief by contemplating the necessity of so doing, and inculcating that idea so strongly as to drive us into the performance of what we could not do willingly for though it will throw us into an uneasy situation, we must submit to it for the good fruits expectant thereupon; the road to ease and pleasure lying frequently through trouble and uneasiness. It is by this way we first come within the influence of honor, prudence and justice; and the moral senses, as we observed before, begin their operation in this manner, though by a long and steady practice they get the better of all opponent inclinations, and become themselves the sources of desire, which would then prevail with us if there were no necessity to enforce them. But as necessity by good management may be refined into pleasure, so pleasure by indiscretion may be corrupted into necessity; a constant indulgence of our appetites increases their cravings while it lessens and at last totally destroys the gust we had in gratifying them; so that desire, whose office it is to solace and delight us, changes into the tormenting passion of want. It has been often said that hunger is the best sauce to our meat, but this the voluptuary never finds in his dish; and likewise that novelty gives a relish to pleasures, but by hunting continually after a variety of them, we may bring novelty itself to be nothing new. Many run a perpetual round of diversions abroad only because they should be miserable at home; so that while they seem invited by pleasure, they are really lashed on by the scourge of necessity. Therefore if we wish to pass our time easily and agreeably, the worst thing we can do is to make a toil of a pleasure, and the best to make a virtue of necessity. CHAP. XXVI. REASON. THUS far we have been busied in laying our foundation, a toilsome and tedious work, but wherein diligence and an attention to minute particulars was requisite, because we were unwilling to leave any cracks or chasms unfilled, over which our future building might stand hollow: how well we have succeeded in the attempt, and whether we have worked the whole compact with a mutual dependence, and due coherence of parts, must be left to the judgment of others, whose decision in our favor I rather wish for than expect. For, to say truth, it has not answered my own : expectation, as wanting much of that complete workmanship I am well satisfied the materials were capable of: but with regard to the necessity and usefulness of all we have been laboring, I beg the determination of that may be suspended until it shall be seen what uses we can make of it. Let us now begin to raise the superstructure, wherein I hope to proceed with a little more ease to myself, and satisfaction to anybody that may deign to look upon me. We have examined how and upon what incitements men act, together with the tendencies and consequences of their action let us try to discover from thence how they ought to act. But I am not so fond as to imagine anything can be done this way so completely as to render all further care and consideration of other persons needless: if I can set up the main pillars of morality, and perform the offices of mason and carpenter in erecting the edifice, this is all can be required of me: I may leave it to each particular man to fit up the several apartments according to his circumstances and situation in life; for things calculated for general use, require some pains and circumspection in applying them to private convenience in the variety of cases that may happen. 2. We have seen how the actions of men are of two sorts, inadvertent and deliberate, the former prompted by imagination, and the others by understanding. To imagination belong our combinations and judgments, starting up immediately upon the appearance of objects, our spontaneous trains of thought, our passions, habits, and motives giving the present turn to our volition. Of what kind all these shall be, or when, or how they shall affect us, depends upon the impulse of external objects, upon experience, custom, and other prior causes: the mind has no share either in modelling or introducing them, and though she acts by her own power without their assistance to invigorate her, yet she shapes her motions according to the directions received from them. There remains only the understanding, in whose operations the mind acts as principal agent, comparing and marshalling her ideas, investigating those that lie out of sight, forming new judgments, and discovering motives that would not have arisen of themselves. It is therefore by the due use of our understanding, or reason alone, that we can help ourselves when imagination would take a wrong course, or proves insufficient for our purposes. To this then we must have recourse, if we would avail ourselves of anything we have learnt in the foregoing inquiry, because we must employ this to rectify whatever shall be found amiss elsewhere. 3. And in such employment consists principally, if not entirely, the benefit we may expect from reason, which is necessary to be noted, that we may know wherein she may prove serviceable: for some people require too much at her hands, more than she is able to perform; they want her to actuate every motion of their lives, which is impossible, for her power lies in her authority rather than her strength, she does little or nothing herself, but acts altogether by her inferior officers of the family of imagination: at least, till she takes them into her service, her efforts terminate in speculation alone, and do not extend to practice. Nor can she work, even in her own peculiar province, without continual supplies from elsewhere; for she works upon materials found in the repository of ideas. She never produces a judgment or a motive from her own fund, but holds the premises in view until they throw assent or satisfaction upon the conclusion. She is perpetually asking, Why is such a thing true? Why is it desirable? but former experience must suggest the grounds from whence the answer will result; for reason does not make the truth nor the desire, but only lays things together whereout either of them may grow. And when she has formed her decisions, she must deposit them with her partner for safe custody against future occasions; who proving ever so little unfaithful, all she has deposited will either be absolutely lost or so weakened in its colors as to become unserviceable. She runs very short lengths, sees very little way at once, therefore must establish rules and maxims for her own guidance, and makes over her treasures to imagination as she acquires them, that they may rise spontaneously to serve her afterwards in her further advances towards knowledge. But we ordinarily mistake the province of reason by supposing everything reasonable to lie within it, whereas that epithet implies no more than a thing that reason would not disapprove. But many very just and solid opinions we imbibe from education or custom, without any application to our reason at all: and those we do acquire for ourselves by the due exercise of that faculty, when firmly rooted become the property of imagination; conviction growing into persuasion. They then command our assent without contemplating the evidences whereon they were founded, and that full assurance wherewith they strike the mind instantly upon presenting themselves, is not an act of reason, but of habit or some moral or internal sense, which continue to influence, though consideration and understanding lie dormant. Were our faculty of reason to be suddenly taken from us, how unable soever we might find ourselves to make new acquisitions of knowledge or judgment, we should not necessarily lose those already gotten by former exercises of the faculty. 4. But if the office of reason lie within so narrow a compass |