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The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 35

Chapter V

Chapter V.

Of the Efficiency of the Inducements held out by Natural Religion. How far super-human Expectations can be regarded as likely to prove influential, where no human Inducements would be influential.

There is some difficulty in estimating exactly the extent of influence which the super-human inducements, held out by natural religion, actually exercise over mankind. They appear always intermixed and confounded among that crowd of motives, which in every society submitted to our experience, impel human conduct in various directions. For the solution of the present inquiry, however, it is indispensably requisite to detach from this confused assemblage the inducements of natural religion, and to measure the force of the impulse which they communicate.

There are two modes of determining this point. 1. By analysing the nature and properties of these super-human inducements, and comparing them with those human motives which commonly actuate our conduct. We shall thus discover how far those elements, which constitute and measure the force and efficiency of all human expectations, are to be found in the super-human. 2. By examining those cases where accident places them in a state of single and unassisted agency, and thus fortifying the preceding analysis with the direct certificate of experience, so far as that is attainable.

Before, however, we embark in this investigation, it will be important to examine in what degree the super-human expectations, supposing their influence purely beneficial, can be considered as indispensable instruments in the production of happiness in this life; or in other words, what is the number and importance of those cases, in which human inducements would be inapplicable and inoperative, and in page 44 which posthumous expectations would effectually supply the defect.

It will be easy to see that such cases are comparatively neither numerous nor important. For wherever the legislator can distinguish what actions it is desirable either to encourage or to prevent, he can always annex to them a measure of temporal reward or punishment commensurate to the purpose. It is only necessary that he should be able to distinguish and define such actions. To affirm therefore the necessity of a recurrence to super-human agency for the repression of any definable mode of conduct, is merely to say that human laws are defective and require amendment. If this be true, let them be amended, and there will remain no ground for the complaint.

The gradations (you urge) by which guilt passes into innocence are often so nice as to be undiscoverable by the human eye, and to require the searching gaze of Omnipotence to detect their real point of separation. But if this be the case, how is it possible for the agent himself to know when he is acting well, and when he is verging towards evil? The two are undistinguishable to all men besides; why should they be otherwise to him? He knows his own intention, indeed, perfectly: It is to perform a certain action, of which no one can tell whether the tendency is beneficial or injurious. He himself cannot tell either; it is possible that he may suspect the action to be mischievous, and still intend to commit it. But he may be in error on this point, even after the most accurate consideration, and where the distinction between good and evil is so completely unassignable, the chances of error are as great as those of truth. Expectation of punishment, in case of wrong decision, could only render him more attentive in weighing the consequences, and even after this, it appears, he would be just as likely to decide wrong as right. Consequently the expectation of punishment produces no benefit whatever. Besides, if he can judge correctly, the foundations of such a judgment may be comprehended, and the offence defined, by the legislator. In all cases therefore in which guilt cannot be defined, and thence, no punishment awarded by the legislator, the apprehension of punishment from any foreign source is un-productive of any advantage.

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But there are cases in which an individual may commit an act expressly forbidden by the law, relying on the impossibility or difficulty of detection. Doubtless there are such: And it is impossible to deny that on those occasions the apprehension of a posthumous verdict, from which there was no escape, might possibly supply an unavoidable defect in the reach of human laws. Secret crimes, however, are the only cases in which the super-human inducements can be pretended to effect an end to which human motives would be inadequate. In all other occasions, the inefficacy of human laws is merely a reproach to the legislator, who neglects to remedy a known defect. And even in the case of hidden delinquency, how frequently is the escape of the criminal owing to mistakes perfectly corrigible, such as an unskilful police, exclusion of evidence, barbarity in the punishment awarded, and other circumstances which tend to unnerve the arm of the law! Supposing these imperfections to be removed,—suppose the penal code to be comprehensive and methodical, and its execution cheap, speedy, and vigilant, it would scarcely be practicable for the criminal to escape detection, when it was known that the crime had been committed.

It is only, therefore, when a crime is known, and the criminal undiscoverable, that super-human inducements can be vindicated as indispensably necessary for the maintenance of good conduct. And as these cases must, under a well-contrived system, be uncommonly rare, the necessity and importance of such inducements must be restricted within very narrow limits.

This is a point of some consequence. For if it should appear that these posthumous expectations are on many occasions of injurious tendency, the immediate inquiry must be, what exclusive benefit this mode of operating upon human conduct presents, in preference to any other. In reply to which, we have just demonstrated, that those cases in which beneficial influence is derivable solely from this source and not from any other, are few and inconsiderable. The extent of evil in this life would therefore be trifling, were super-human inducements entirely effaced from the human bosom, and earthly institutions ameliorated according to the progress of philosophy. The pernicious tendency, page 46 which the former manifest on many occasions, will thus be compensated only by a very slender portion of essential and exclusive benefit.

These considerations also evince, that if it were practicable to supply the defect of human restrictions by recourse to a foreign world, we should be anxious to import active and faithful informers—to purchase such a revelation as would render our inferences of criminality more easy, precise, and extensive, in order that guilt might never escape our detection. We should not desire to introduce instruments for multiplying and protracting human torture. With these we are abundantly provided, if it were prudent or desirable to employ them. No earthly legislator, therefore, would attempt, if in his power, to perfect the efficacy of temporal enactments in the mode by which it is pretended that posthumous expectations accomplish this beneficial end.