Joseph Butler

“ Every one feels, at least sometimes, that he is not complete in himself for the production of happiness; and so looks round for that which may fit his wants, and supply what he cannot produce from within. Hence amusements, of a thousand kinds, are resorted to, and still more, society. Society is a want of the mind; as food is of the body. Society, such as perfectly suits our real nature, and calls out, in a right manner, its every attribute, would secure our perfect happiness. ”

“ Neither does there appear any reason to wish self-love were weaker in the generality of the world than it is.—The influence which it has, seems plainly owing to its being constant and habitual, which it cannot but be, and not to the degree or strength of it. Every caprice of the imagination, every curiosity of the understanding, every affection of the heart, is perpetually showing its weakness, by prevailing over it. Men daily, hourly, sacrifice the greatest known interest to fancy, inquisitiveness, love or hatred, any vagrant inclination. ”

“ How many instances are there in which men feel, and own, and cry aloud under the chains of vice with which they are enthralled, and which yet they will not shake off! How many instances, in which persons manifestly go through more pain and self-denial to gratify a vicious passion, than would have been necessary to the conquest of it! To this is to be added, that when virtue is become habitual, when the temper of it is acquired, what was before confinement ceases to be so, by becoming choice and delight. ”

“ We seem, I say, sufficiently sensible of the value of our civil liberty. It is our daily boast, and we are in the highest degree jealous of it. Would to God we were somewhat more judicious in our jealousy of it, so as to guard against its chief enemy, one might say, the only enemy of it we have at present to fear, I mean licentiousness: which has undermined so many free governments, and without whose treacherous help no free government, perhaps, ever was undermined. This licentiousness, indeed, is not only dangerous to liberty, but it is actually a present infringement of it in many instances. ”

“ It is indeed a very unhappy way these people are in; they in a manner cut themselves out from all advantage of conversation, except that of being entertained with their own talk: their business in coming into company not being at all to be informed, to hear, to learn, but to display themselves, or rather to exert their faculty, and talk without any design at all. And if we consider conversation as an entertainment, as somewhat to unbend the mind, as a diversion from the cares, the business, and the sorrows of life, it is of the very nature of it that the discourse be mutual. ”

“ The greatness and perfection of Thy Nature is infinitely beyond all possible comprehension, but in proportion to our capacities we would endeavour to have a true conception of Thy Divine Majesty, and to live under a just sense and apprehension of it: that we may fear Thee and hope in Thee as we entirely depend upon Thee: that we may love Thee as supremely good, and have our wills conformed to Thy will in all righteousness and truth: that we may be thankful to Thee for every thing we enjoy, as the gift of Thine hand, and be patient under every affliction as what Thou sendest or permittest. ”

“ It is unfairness, it is dishonesty, it is falseness of heart, and is, therefore, so far from extenuating guilt, that it is itself the greatest of all guilt in proportion to the degree it prevails; for it is a corruption of the whole moral character in its principle. Our understanding, and sense of good and evil, is the light and guide of life: "If, therefore, this light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness?" ”

“ Blessed is the man whom thou choosest, and receivest unto thee: he shall dwell in thy court, and shall be satisfied with the pleasures of thy house, even of the holy temple. Blessed is the people, O Lord, that can rejoice in thee: they shall walk in the light of thy countenance. Their delight shall be daily in thy name; and in thy righteousness shall they make their boast. For thou art the glory of their strength; and in thy loving-kindness they shall be exalted. As for me, I will behold thy presence in righteousness ”

“ And such is our make, and that of the world about us, that anything may become the instrument of pain and sorrow to us. Thus, almost any one man is capable of doing mischief to any other, though he may not be capable of doing him good; and if he be capable of doing him some good, he is capable of doing him more evil. And it is, in numberless cases, much more in our power to lessen the miseries of others, than to promote their positive happiness, any otherwise than as the former often includes the latter; ease from misery occasioning, for some time, the greatest positive enjoyment. ”

“ First, That vice is indeed of ill desert, and must finally be punished. Why should men dispute concerning the reality of virtue, and whether it be founded in the nature of things, which yet surely is not matter of question; but why should this, I say, be disputed, when every man carries about him this passion, which affords him demonstration that the rules of justice and equity are to be the guide of his actions ? For every man naturally feels an indignation upon seeing instances of villany and baseness, and therefore cannot commit the same without being self-condemned. ”

“ Hunger is to be considered as a private appetite; because the end for which it was given us is the preservation of the individual. Desire of esteem is a public passion; because the end for which it was given us is to regulate our behaviour towards society. The respect which this has to private good is as remote as the respect that it has to public good; and the appetite is no more self-love, than the passion is benevolence. ”

“ Indeed, the destruction of a free constitution of government, though men see or fancy many defects in it, and whatever they design or pretend, ought not to be thought of without horror. For the design is in itself unjust, since it is romantic to suppose it legal; it cannot be prosecuted without the most wicked means, nor accomplished but with the present ruin of liberty, religious as well as civil: for it must be the ruin of its present security. ”

“ For, as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists, or whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars; yet, in general, there is in reality a universally acknowledged standard of it. It is that, which all ages and all countries have made profession of in public: it is that, which every man you meet puts on the show of: it is that, which the primary and fundamental laws of all civil constitutions over the face of the earth make it their business and endeavor to enforce the practice of upon mankind: namely, justice, veracity, and regard to common good. ”

“ If the make and constitution of man, the circumstances he is placed in, or the reason of things, affords the least hint or intimation that virtue is the law he is born under, scepticism itself should lead him to the most strict and inviolable practice of it: that he may not make a dreadful experiment of leaving the course of life marked out for him by nature, whatever that nature be, and entering paths of his own, of which he can know neither the dangers nor the end. For, though no danger be seen, yet darkness, ignorance, and blindness are no manner of security. ”

“ That we can do one with greater success than we can the other is no proof that one is less a violation of nature than the other. Compassion is a call, a demand of nature, to relieve the unhappy as hunger is a natural call for food. This affection plainly gives the objects of it an additional claim to relief and mercy, over and above what our fellow-creatures in common have to our goodwill. Liberality and bounty are exceedingly commendable; and a particular distinction in such a world as this, where men set themselves to contract their heart, and close it to all interests but their own. ”

“ And must he, who is so much more intimately connected with us, that "in him we live and move and have our being," be thought too distant to be the object of our affections? We own and feel the force of amiable and worthy qualities of our fellow-creatures; and can we be insensible to the contemplation of perfect goodness? Do we reverence the shadows of greatness here below? are we solicitous about honour, and esteem, and the opinion of the world? and shall we not feel the same with respect to him, whose are wisdom and power in their original ”

“ Let us then value our civil constitution, not because it leaves us the power of acting as mere humour and passion carries us, in those respects in which governments less free lay men under restraints, but for its equal laws, by which the great are disabled from oppressing those below them. Let us transfer, each of us, the equity of this our civil constitution to our own personal character; and be sure to be as much afraid of subjection to mere arbitrary will and pleasure in ourselves, as to the arbitrary will of others. ”

“ A machine is inanimate and passive: but we are agents. Our constitution is put in our power; we are charged with it, and therefore are accountable for any disorder or violation of it.
Thus nothing can possibly be more contrary to nature than vice; meaning by nature, not only the several parts of our internal frame, but also the constitution of it. Poverty and disgrace, tortures and death, are not so contrary to it. Misery and injustice are indeed equally contrary to some different parts of our nature, taken singly: but injustice is moreover contrary to the whole constitution of the nature. ”

“ Some degree of goodness must be previously supposed; this always implies the love of itself, an affection to goodness: the highest, the adequate object of this affection, is perfect goodness; which therefore we are to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength. “Must we then, forgetting our own interest, as it were go out of ourselves, and love God for His own sake?” No more forget your own interest, no more go out of yourselves, than when you prefer one place, one prospect, the conversation of one man to that of another. ”

“ There is no need of abstruse reasonings and distinctions, to convince an unprejudiced understanding, that there is a God who made and governs the world, and will judge it in righteousness; though they may be necessary to answer abstruse difficulties, when once such are raised: when the very meaning of those words, which express most intelligibly the general doctrine of religion, is pretended to be uncertain; and the clear truth of the thing itself is obscured by the intricacies of speculation. To an unprejudiced mind, ten thousand thousand instances of design cannot but prove a designer. ”

“ Devotion is retirement, from the world he has made, to him alone: it is to withdraw from the avocations of sense, to employ our attention wholly upon him as upon an object actually present, to yield ourselves up to the influence of the Divine presence, and to give full scope to the affections of gratitude, love, reverence, trust, and independence; of which infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, is the natural and only adequate object. ”

“ Can anything be more manifest than that the happiness of life consists in these possessed and enjoyed only to a certain degree; that to pursue them beyond this degree is always attended with more inconvenience than advantage to a man’s self, and often with extreme misery and unhappiness? Whence, then, I say, is all this absurdity and contradiction? Is it really the result of consideration in mankind, how they may become most easy to themselves, most free from care, and enjoy the chief happiness attainable in this world? ”

“ It must ever be regarded as among the highest instances of God’s bringing good out of evil, that this outrageous rampancy of infidelity brought out a host of champions for the truth of His word; who boldly met the odium of discipleship, and waged battle in such style that the Deistical controversy was settled forever. Never was a dispute more determined on both sides, and never was victory more complete. Literary infidelity not only recoiled, but was routed; and can never again prevail. Henceforth, no scholar will ever treat the evidences of Christianity as a subject of ridicule or contempt. ”

“ That what has this appearance is often nothing but ambition; that delight in superiority often (suppose always) mixes itself with benevolence, only makes it more specious to call it ambition than hunger, of the two: but in reality that passion does no more account for the whole appearances of good-will than this appetite does. Is there not often the appearance of one man’s wishing that good to another, which he knows himself unable to procure him; and rejoicing in it, though bestowed by a third person? And can love of power any way possibly come in to account for this desire or delight? ”

“ Total ignorance of a subject precludes argument, but partial ignorance does not. We may, in various degrees, know a man’s character, and the way he is likely to pursue certain ends; and yet not know how he ought to act to gain those ends. In this case objections to his mode of pursuing ends may be answered by our ignorance, though that he does act in a certain manner is capable of proof. So we may have evidence of God’s character and aims, and yet not be competent judges as to his measures. Our ignorance is a good answer to the difficulties of religion, but no objection to religion itself. ”

“ How open to every gratification would that mind be which was clear of these encumbrances!
Our resignation to the will of God may be said to be perfect when our will is lost and resolved up into His: when we rest in His will as our end, as being itself most just and right and good. And where is the impossibility of such an affection to what is just, and right, and good, such a loyalty of heart to the Governor of the universe as shall prevail over all sinister indirect desires of our own? ”

“ Now I say, virtue in a society has a like tendency to procure superiority and additional power: whether this power be considered as the means of security from opposite power, or of obtaining other advantages. It has this tendency, by rendering public good, an object and end, to every member of the society; by putting every one upon consideration and diligence, recollection and self-government, both in order to see what is the most effectual method, and also in order to perform their proper part, for obtaining and preserving it; by uniting a society within itself, and so increasing its strength ”

“ If we have no affections which rest in what are called their objects, then what is called affection, love, desire, hope, in human nature, is only an uneasiness in being at rest; an unquiet disposition to action, progress, pursuit, without end or meaning. But if there be any such thing as delight in the company of one person, rather than of another; whether in the way of friendship, or mirth and entertainment, it is all one, if it be without respect to fortune, honour, or increasing our stores of knowledge, or anything beyond the present time ”

“ For, may it not be said of any person upon his being born into the world, he may behave so as to be of no service to it, but by being made an example of the woeful effects of vice and folly? That he may, as any one may, if he will, incur an infamous execution from the hands of civil justice, or in some other course of extravagance shorten his days; or bring upon himself infamy and diseases worse than death? ”

“ So that a good or charitable man of superior rank in wisdom, fortune, authority, is a common blessing to the place he lives in: happiness grows under his influence. This good principle in inferiors would discover itself in paying respect, gratitude, obedience, as due. It were therefore, methinks, one just way of trying one’s own character to ask ourselves, am I in reality a better master or servant, a better friend, a better neighbour, than such and such persons, whom, perhaps, I may think not to deserve the character of virtue and religion so much as myself? ”

“ Thus fear and compassion would be the same idea, and a fearful and a compassionate man the same character, which every one immediately sees are totally different. Further, to those who give any scope to their affections, there is no perception or inward feeling more universal than this: that one who has been merciful and compassionate throughout the course of his behaviour should himself be treated with kindness, if he happens to fall into circumstances of distress. Is fear, then, or cowardice, so great a recommendation to the favour of the bulk of mankind? ”