Mischief II.—Perverting the Popular Opinion—Corrupting Moral Sentiment—Sanctifying Antipathy—Producing Aversion to Improvement.

To ensure on the part of every individual a preference page 77 of actions favourable to the happiness of the community, it is essentially requisite that that community should themselves be able to recognise what is conducive to their happiness—that they should manifest a judgment sufficiently precise and untainted to separate virtue from vice. The reason why the popular sanction is generally mentioned as an encouragement to good and a restraint upon bad conduct, is, because the major part of the society are supposed in most cases to know what benefits and what injures them—and that they are disposed to love and recompense the former behaviour, to hate and punish the latter. Now the efficacy of the public hate, considered as a restraint upon misdeeds, depends upon its being constantly and exclusively allied with the real injury of the public—upon its being uniformly called forth whenever their happiness is endangered, and never upon any mistaken or imaginary alarms. Whatever, therefore, tends to make men hate that which does not actually hurt them, contributes to distort or disarm public opinion, in its capacity of a restraint upon injurious acts—for the public sentiment is only the love or hatred of all or most of the individuals in the society.

Now religion has been shown to create a number of factitious antipathies—that is, to make men hate a number of practices which they would not have hated had their views been confined simply to the present life. But if men would not naturally have hated these practices, this is a proof that they are not actually hurtful. Religion, therefore, attaches the hatred of mankind to actions not really injurious to them, and thus seduces it from its only legitimate and valuable function, that of deterring individuals from injurious conduct.

By this distortion from its true purpose, the efficacy of the popular censure is also weakened on those occasions when it is most beneficially and indispensably called for, as a guardian of human happiness. It is dissipated over an unnecessary extent of defensible ground, and thus becomes less efficient at every particular point; and it is deprived of that unity of design, and that reference to a distinct and assignable end, which marks all provisions exclusively destined for securing the public happiness. The different actions, to page 78 which the public odium is attached, appear entirely unconnected and heterogeneous in their tendencies, and its application is thus involved in darkness and confusion.

Besides, hatred from one man towards another, is a feeling decidedly noxious, and no friend of humanity could suffer a single drop of it to exist, were it not required to prevent a greater evil—to obviate a still larger destruction of happiness. Unless sanctified by this warrant, the affection of hatred becomes nothing better than unredeemed malignity. It is by exciting and keeping alive this malignity, that religion enforces her causeless prohibitions; and, therefore her influence is injurious, not only by obstructing an innocuous gratification, but by all the malice and animosity which she plants in the human bosom in order to effect her purpose. A pernicious restriction is thus completed by still more pernicious means.

Though this is the most mischievous species of corruption with which the popular opinion can be infected, it is not, however, the only one. Its encouragements, as well as its restraints, may be seduced and misapplied. To promote, its true aim, the public favour and esteem ought to be as inseparably and exclusively annexed to beneficial practices, as its hatred to acts of a contrary tendency. But religion never fails to conciliate a very material share of credit for practices, which, however meritorious with reference to a posthumous state, cannot be affirmed to produce any temporal advantage, and therefore would never have been esteemed had our views been confined to the present life. She thus draws off a portion of the popular favour, from its legitimate task of encouraging acts conducive to human felicity: She cheats the public into the offer of a reward for conduct always useless, sometimes injurious—and embezzles part of the fund consecrated to the national service, for bribery on the personal behalf of the monarch.

The popular sanction, thus misapplied both in its encouraging and restrictive branches, may become the unconscious instrument of evil to almost any extent. It may criminate and interdict any number of innocent enjoyments, like the eating of pork—or any acts however extensively useful, like loans of money upon interest. And it may heap profuse veneration on monastic stripes and self-denial, or page 79 ratify the cruelty which persecution inflicts upon the unhappy dissenter.

But the public never praise an action without thinking it to deserve praise, nor blame one without believing it to deserve blame. This misdirection, therefore, of praise and blame naturally and necessarily introduces a false apprehension of what is praiseworthy and blameworthy. The practices thus erroneously imagined to merit their esteem become enrolled in the catalogue of virtues—those falsely conceived to merit their censure are represented as vices. Thus the terms of moral approbation and blame are deceitfully transferred to actions which a regard to the public happiness would not legitimate, and the science of morality is cast into utter darkness and embarrassment, by the removal of that light which an unity of standard could alone have imparted.

This misapplication of terms is farther confirmed by the language used in addressing or characterizing the Deity. We have already shown that the Almighty, though always actually conceived by natural religion as a capricious despot, is yet never described except in epithets of the most superlative and unmingled praise. The practices, which he is supposed to approve or delight in, will of course be characterized in language the same as that which is applied to himself. What he loves, will be laudable or virtuous—what he dislikes, blame able or vicious. To sacrifice the life of a human being becomes thus entitled to the name of a good action, when enjoined (or supposed to be enjoined) by the Being whom every one calls all-beneficent and perfect. It matters not what the action is—so it be agreeable to the just and good Creator, it must itself be necessarily just and good.

By these two concurrent causes, the science of morality has been enveloped in a cloud of perplexity and confusion. Philosophers profess, by means of this science, to interpret and to reconcile the various applications of approving and disapproving terms. But the practices on which the same epithet of approbation is bestowed, appear so incurably opposite, that it has been found impossible to reduce them to one common principle, or to discover any constituent quality which universally attracts either praise or blame. page 80 The intellect has been completely bewildered and baffled in all attempts to explain the foundation of morality, or to find any unerring finger-post amidst a variety of diverging paths.

Hence the same misdirection of eulogy and censure, by which mankind have been deluded into favouring those who did them harm, and persecuting their benefactors, has given birth besides to another unhappy effect. The science of morality has become so doubtful and embarrassed, so destitute of all centre and foundation, as to lose all authority, and to be incapable either of rectifying current mistakes, or guarding against future ones. By the depravation of this all-important science, therefore, these misdirections not only secure themselves from all trial or scrutiny, but also ensure a similar success and immunity to any future prejudices. For the moralist, comparing the various actions to which praise or blame is awarded, and finding not the smallest analogy either in their nature or tendency, some being beneficial, others hurtful, others indifferent—is unable to range them under any common exponent, and accordingly sets them down in a catalogue one after another, as distinct and heterogeneous dictates of a certain blind and unaccountable impulse, which he terms a moral instinct or conscience. In cases where all men agree in approving or disapproving the same practice, he appeals to this universal consent as an invincible testimony to the justice of the feeling, and extols the uniformity of nature's voice: in cases where they differ, he compliments the particular sect or public, for whom he writes, as having singly adhered to the path of right and the dictates of nature, and bastardizes the rest of mankind as an outcast and misguided race.

The science of morality having been thus degraded into a mere catalogue of the reigning sentiments, without any trial or warrant, not only do the prejudices of to-day meet with adoption and licence, but a sanctuary is also provided for those of to-morrow. Morality cannot, in this state, either instruct or amend mankind, nor is it capable of progress or improvement, because the standard, by which alone its advance can be measured, has been cast away. To this stagnant and useless condition it has been reduced by the excessive misapplications of praise and blame, which page 81 religion has to so large an extent occasioned, though other causes have doubtless contributed to the same end.

We should not omit to remark, that as all means of distinguishing right from wrong disapprobation is obliterated, every one naturally endeavours to license and sanctify his own private antipathies, by placing them to the account of religion. By an artful transfer of terms, he attempts to slip his personal dislike into the moral code, and to found thereon the character of being zealously concerned for the honour of God and the interests of virtue. If he can succeed in procuring a few allies, his antipathy becomes gradually diffused and legalized, and is worshipped as a dictate of the moral sense. But in order to obtain these partisans, he is compelled to offer some service in return; and for this purpose he naturally stands forth as the champion of their antipathies, in the same manner as they second his. By this compromise, therefore, the whole band are leagued to endorse and accredit each other's enmities, and to vilify the actions which they dislike, as infringements of religion and of the law of nature.' The less hurtful the action—the less real necessity can be alleged for the dislike—the more loudly will they be obliged to appeal to religion and the moral instinct, as their only chance of shelter from the charge of absurd peculiarity. Those antipathies, therefore, which are the least defensible on the score of public utility, are the most commonly put forward to be stamped and sanctified by religion, and to pass current under the denomination of laws of nature.

One consequence and manifestation of this principle is so important as to deserve particular notice. An aversion towards improvement is its decided effect—and where such a feeling previously existed, it is both aggravated in force, and hardened against all question and scrutiny.

The sequences and concatenation of phenomena, as presented to our senses, and subsequently compared and classified, form what is called the course of nature, supposed to be established by the Deity. All fresh facts, all acquisition and application of knowledge, introduce a change in these sequences, and therefore break in upon the laws of nature.

Now the laws of nature, conceived as they are to be the page 82 arrangements of the Deity, acquire a character of supreme holiness, and to infringe them is supposed to be an impious defeat and counteraction of the divine will. The same being, indeed, who originally set them on foot, may suspend or over-rule them, if he will; but any interference for this purpose, on the part of man, is presumptuous and unwarrantable in the highest degree. To counteract the course of nature, and to oppose a bar to the designs of the Deity, are in fact synonymous phrases, and therefore all alterations in the course of nature are so many obstacles, daringly presented by feeble man against the designs of his creator.

Agreeably to this, the epithet unnatural indicates perhaps the most severe, aggravated, and relentless odium ever harboured in the human bosom. It is perfectly self-justifying, nor does the accused dare to call for any proof or testimony in support of the charge: it is also quite irresistible, and no plea can be heard in mitigation of its effect.

Now all successive discoveries and their application to fact, constitute so many alterations of the laws of nature. But no discovery is ever applied except for the purpose of augmenting human comfort—for there is no other motive to employ it. Consequently all augmentation of human happiness, by an improved knowlege of facts, is unnatural, or contrary to the laws of nature: that is, it is an impious counteraction of the designs of God. It naturally therefore becomes the object of the bitterest religious antipathy, and all practical improvement is thus pre-extinguished and stifled in the birth, by the sweeping epithet of unnatural.

It is vain to urge, that the fact falsifies these conclusions—that the promotion of human comfort, by means of an augmented knowledge of the passing phenomena, is never proscribed and regarded as opposite to the divine will, except in a few particular cases; while in the greater number of instances no one ever introduces the supposition. It is sufficient for my purpose to show that this effect is produced in a certain number of cases; more in sonic climates and ages, fewer in others—that practices conducive to human happiness have been branded and repelled simply on the ground of being unnatural. For this is satisfactory evidence that natural religion has a tendency to page 83 engender an hostility to improvement; and that if the tendency does not manifest and realize itself in every particular instance, this is because other causes operate in counteraction of it.

The increase of light and wisdom throughout Europe has, indeed, happily tended to dispel this error, and to restrict the application of such an interdict against improvement to a comparatively small number of cases, wherein either peculiar prejudices, or injury to some powerful sinister interest, act with more than usual effect upon the antipathies of mankind. But still the interdict exists; and it is only the dissentient voice of public opinion which suspends its execution. For whenever sentence is passed against any particular mode of amelioration, it is always by virtue of the standing enactment against all—that is by accusations of contrariety to the laws of nature and the designs of the Deity; which would, if pursued consistently, prohibit all improvement whatever. And the only scheme for parrying such an accusation is borrowed from this inconsistency, and general non-execution of the enactment: "You do not object to an alteration of the laws of nature for purposes of human happiness, in such and such cases—Why awaken your sleeping restriction here, and attach so much criminality to this particular plan, simply on the score of being unnatural or an innovation upon the laws of Nature?"

There has been a period when religion was arrayed to silence the discoveries of Galileo, and to prohibit physical and medicinal improvements, such as the emetic. If such sentences are no longer hazarded now, it is not from any change in the spirit and tendency of the law, but from its progressive weakness and loss of dominion, the natural result of the diffusion of knowledge.