The Religion of Nature Delineated

Translator’s Note

The Religion of Nature Delineated, being a book in great esteem with her late majesty Queen Caroline, she was pleased to command me to translate the notes into English for her own use: And there being a demand for a new edition, it was thought proper to publish this translation, as these notes are illustrations and confirmations of the sentiments of the learned author; and therefore I have consented to the publishing of them.

Editor’s Note

Wollaston usually gave very brief, obscurely-abbreviated sources for the quotations in his footnotes. John Clarke translated these notes, but left their sources obscure. In many cases I have been able to track these down and expand them (thanks in part to Alexander Altmann, who identified many of the Hebrew sources in a 1948 paper for the Jewish Historical Society of England).

Because of this, a note that originally read merely:

“Ubi virtus, si nihil situm est in ipsis nobis? Cic. הוא עמוד התורה והמצוה … רשות לכל אדם נתונה אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך טובה Maim. הרשות היא הבחירה Nahh. Ab.”

Now reads, more helpfully:

“Ubi virtus, si nihil situm est in ipsis nobis? ‘Where is virtue then, if there be nothing within our own power?’ (Cicero, Academica). הוא עמוד התורה והמצוה … רשות לכל אדם נתונה אם רצה להטות עצמו לדרך טובה ‘There is a power given to every man, if he be but willing to incline himself to the way that is good … This is the support of the law and the commandments.’ (Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilkot Teshubah, V, 1, 3). הרשות היא הבחירה ‘This power is what we call free will’ (Isaac Abravanel, Nahalot Abot).”

And this cryptic note:

“As that Βλιτρι ap. Diog. L. in v. Zen.”

Becomes the more legible:

“As that word Βλιτρι (Blitri) in Diogenes Laërtius’s Life of Zeno, which word has no meaning at all.”

I do not know Greek, Latin, Hebrew, or Arabic, so it’s very likely that I have let some typos slip into these notes as I have transcribed them. I apologize and invite you to report any errors you find to the Standard Ebooks team so that they may be corrected.

I have also made some changes to the original text in this edition: I have modernized archaic spellings and Americanized some English ones, have expanded some abbreviations, have adjusted punctuation and italicization to better conform to the expectations of modern readers, have added a few additional translations of non-English phrases, and have altered cross-references to use hyperlinks instead of page numbers.

Foreword

To A. F., Esq.

I was much surprised, sir, when (some time ago) you so importunately desired my thoughts upon these questions:

1. Is there really any such thing as natural religion, properly and truly so called?

2. If there is, what is it?

3. How may a man qualify himself, so as to be able to judge for himself of the other religions professed in the world, to settle his own opinions in disputable matters, and then to enjoy tranquility of mind, neither disturbing others, nor being disturbed at what passes among them?

With what view you did this—whether in expectation of some little degree of satisfaction, or merely to try my abilities, or (which I rather think) out of kindness to amuse me at a time when I wanted something to divert melancholy reflections—I shall not venture to guess. I shall only say that, could I have foreseen in due time that such a task was to be imposed upon me, I might have been better prepared for it. I might have marked what was suitable to my purpose in those books which I have read but shall scarce ever return to read any more; many more I might have read too, which, not wanting them for my own conviction, I have neglected, and now have neither leisure nor patience to peruse. I might have noted what the various occurrences and cases that happen in life suggested, and, in general, I might have placed more of my time on such parts of learning as would have been directly serviceable to me on the present occasion.

However, as I have not spent my days without thinking and reflecting seriously within myself upon the articles and duties of natural religion, and they are my thoughts which you require, I have attempted, by recollecting old meditations, and consulting a few scattered papers in which I had formerly, for my own use, set down some of them (briefly, and almost solecistically), to give an answer to the two first of your questions, together: though I must own, not without trouble in adjusting and compacting loose sentiments, filling up vacuities, and bringing the chaos into the shape of something like a system.

Notwithstanding what I have said, in a treatise of natural religion, a subject so beaten and exhausted in all its parts by all degrees of writers, in which many notions will inevitably occur that are no one’s property, and so many things require to be proved which can scarce be proved by any other but the old arguments (or not so well), you must not expect to find much that is new. Yet something perhaps you may. That which is advanced in the following papers, concerning the nature of moral good and evil, and is the prevailing thought that runs through them all, I never met with anywhere. And even as to those matters in which I have been prevented by others, and which perhaps may be common, you have them, not as I took them from anybody, but as they used to appear to me in my walks and solitudes. So that they are indeed my thoughts, such as have been long mine, which I send you; without any regard to what others have or have not said: as I persuade myself you will easily perceive. It is not hard to discern whether a work of this kind be all of a piece, and to distinguish the genuine hand of an author from the false wares and patchwork of a plagiary. Though after all, it would be madness in a man to go out of his right way, only because it has been frequented by others, or perhaps is the high road.

Sensible how unfinished this performance is, I call it only a delineation, or rude draft. Where I am defective, or trip, I hope you will excuse a friend who has now passed the threshold of old age, and is, upon that and other accounts, not able to bear much study or application. And thus I commit to your candor what follows: which, for the sake of order and perspicuity, I have divided into sections and propositions.

I

Of Moral Good and Evil

The foundation of religion lies in that difference between the acts of men, which distinguishes them into good, evil, indifferent. For if there is such a difference, there must be religion; and contra. Upon this account it is that such a long and laborious inquiry has been made after some general idea,1 or some rule,2 by comparing the foresaid acts with which, it might appear to which kind they respectively belong.3 And though men have not yet agreed upon any one, yet one certainly there must be.4 That, which I am going to propose, has always seemed to me not only evidently true, but withal so obvious and plain, that perhaps for this very reason it has not merited the notice of authors. And the use and application of it is so easy, that if things are but fairly permitted to speak for themselves their own natural language, they will, with a moderate attention, be found themselves to proclaim their own rectitude or obliquity; that is, whether they are disagreeable to it or not. I shall endeavor by degrees to explain my meaning.

I. That act which may be denominated morally good or evil, must be the act of a being capable of distinguishing, choosing, and acting for himself:5 or more briefly, of an intelligent and free agent. Because, in proper speaking, no act at all can be ascribed to that which is not endowed with these capacities. For that which cannot distinguish, cannot choose: and that which has not the opportunity, or liberty, of choosing for itself and acting accordingly from an internal principle, acts, if it acts at all, under a necessity incumbent ab extra. But that which acts thus, is in reality only an instrument in the hand of something which imposes the necessity; and cannot properly be said to act, but to be acted. The act must be the act of an agent, therefore not of his instrument.

A being under the abovementioned inabilities is, as to the morality of its acts, in the state of inert and passive matter, and can be but a machine: to which no language or philosophy ever ascribed ἤθη or mores.

II. Those propositions are true, which express things as they are: or, truth is the conformity of those words or signs, by which things are expressed, to the things themselves. Definition.

III. A true proposition may be denied, or things may be denied to be what they are, by deeds, as well as by express words or another proposition. It is certain there is a meaning in many acts and gestures. Everybody understands weeping,6 laughing, shrugs, frowns, etc.; these are a sort of universal language. Applications are many times made, and a kind of dialogue maintained, only by casts of the eye and motions of the adjacent muscles.7 And we read of feet that speak;8 of a philosopher who answered an argument by only getting up and walking;9 and of one who pretended to express the same sentence as many ways by gesticulation, as even Cicero himself could by all his copia of words and eloquence.10 But these instances do not come up to my meaning. There are many acts of other kinds, such as constitute the character of a man’s conduct in life, which have in nature, and would be taken by any indifferent judge, to have a signification and to imply some proposition, as plainly to be understood as if it was declared in words: and therefore if what such acts declare to be, is not, they must contradict truth, as much as any false proposition or assertion can.

If a body of soldiers, seeing another body approach, should fire upon them, would not this action declare that they were enemies? And if they were not enemies, would not this military language declare what was false? No, perhaps it may be said: this can only be called a mistake, like that which happened to the Athenians in the attack of Epipolæ,11 or to the Carthaginians in their last encampment against Agathocles in Africa.12 Suppose then, instead of this firing, some officer to have said they were enemies, when indeed they were friends: would not that sentence affirming them to be enemies be false, notwithstanding he who spoke it was mistaken? The truth or falsehood of this affirmation does not depend upon the affirmer’s knowledge or ignorance, because there is a certain sense affixed to the words, which must either agree or disagree to that concerning which the affirmation is made. The thing is the very same still, if into the place of words be substituted actions. The salute here was in nature the salute of an enemy, but should have been the salute of a friend: therefore it implied a falsity. Any spectator would have understood this action as I do: for a declaration that the other were enemies. Now, what is to be understood has a meaning, and what has a meaning may be either true or false, which is as much as can be said of any verbal sentence.

When Popilius Lænas solicited to have Cicero proscribed, and that he might find him out and be his executioner,13 would not his carriage have sufficiently signified, to anyone who was ignorant of the case, that Tully14 either was some very bad man and deserved capital punishment, or had some way grievously injured this man (or at least had not saved his life, nor had as much reason to expect his service and good offices upon occasion, as he ever had to expect Tully’s)? And all these things being false, were not his behavior and actions expressive of that which was false, or contradictions to truth? It is certain he acted as if those things had been true which were not true, and as if those had not been true which were true (in this consisted the fault of his ingratitude); and if he in words had said they were true or not true, he had done no more than talk as if they were so. Why then should not to act as if they were true or not true, when they were otherwise, contradict truth as much as to say they were so, when they were not so?15

A pertinacious objector may perhaps still say: it is the business of soldiers to defend themselves and their country from enemies, and to annoy them as opportunity permits; and self-preservation requires all men not only barely to defend themselves against aggressors, but many times also to prosecute such, and only such, as are wicked and dangerous: therefore it is natural to conclude that they are enemies against whom we see soldiers defending themselves, and those men wicked and dangerous whom we see prosecuted with zeal and ardor. Not that those acts of defending and prosecuting speak or signify so much, but conjectures are raised upon the common sense which mankind has of such proceedings. Answer: If it be natural to conclude anything from them, do they not naturally convey the notice of something to be concluded? And what is conveying the notice of anything, but notifying or signifying that thing? And then again, if this signification is natural and founded in the common principles and sense of mankind, is not this more than to have a meaning which results only from the use of some particular place or country, as that of language does?