will ensue utter confusion, if good christen princes meued with zeale do nat shortely prouide to extincte utterly all suche opinions. CHAPTER III. The thre noble counsayles of reason, societie, and knowlege. VERELY the knowlege of Justyce is nat so difficile or harde to be attayned unto by man as it is communely supposed, if he wolde nat willingly abandone the excellencie of his propre nature, and folisshely applicate him selfe to the nature of creatures unreasonable, in the stede of reason embrasinge sensualitie, and for societie and beneuolence folowinge wilfulnesse and malice, and for knowlege, blynde ignoraunce and forgetfulnesse. Undoughtedly reason, societie called company, and knowlege remayninge, Justice is at hande, and as she were called for, ioyneth her selfe to that company, which by her feloship is made inseperable; wherby hapneth (as I mought nesian war, we read that οἱ μὲν ἐστεφανώσαντό τε καὶ τὰ ἱερὰ περιῆλθον ὡς ἠλευθε pwuévol.-Thucyd. lib. iv. cap. 80. • The view held by Hume was that this virtue (Justice) derives its existence entirely from its necessary use to the intercourse and social state of mankind,' but this notion is now generally rejected. That justice is highly useful and necessary in society, and, on that account, ought to be loved and esteemed by all that love mankind, will readily be granted. And as justice is a social virtue, it is true also, that there could be no exercise of it, and perhaps we should have no conception of it, without society. But this is equally true of the natural affections of benevolence, gratitude, friendship, and compassion, which Mr. Hume makes to be the natural virtues.'-Reid's Works, vol. ii. p. 652, ed. 1863. Mr. Hume, in arguing that public utility is the sole origin of justice, supposes a state of human nature in which all society and intercourse between man and man is cut off, and thence infers that so solitary a being would be as much incapable of justice as of social discourse and conversation,' but the answer to this is that a being so situated would be equally incapable of all such virtues of the affections as friendship, generosity, compassion. If this argument,' says Dr. Reid, prove justice to be an artificial virtue, it will, with equal force, prove every social virtue to be artificial.'-Works, vol. ii. p. 660, ed. 1863. saye) a vertuous and moste blessed conspiracie. And in thre very shorte preceptes or aduertisementes man is persuaded to receyue and honoure iustyce. Reason bedynge him do the same thinge to an other that thou woldest haue done to the.b Societie (without which mannes lyfe is unpleasaunt and full of anguisshe) sayeth, Loue thou thy neighbour as thou doest • This is in accordance with the theory of Plato, who by analogy to the constitution of the perfect state before alluded to, considered the soul as tripartite, and composed of three faculties or elements: (1) Reason, the governing principle; (2) Energy or the irascible passions; (3) Appetite, or the concupiscible passions. When each of these three faculties of the mind confined itself to its proper office, without attempting to encroach upon that of any other; when Reason governed, and the Passions obeyed, then the result was that complete virtue which Plato denominated Justice. Καὶ ἀνδρεῖον δὴ, οἶμαι, τούτῳ τῷ μέρει καλοῦμεν ἕνα ἕκαστον, ὅταν αὐτοῦ τὸ θυμοειδές διασώζῃ διά τε λυπῶν καὶ ἡδονῶν τὸ ὑπὸ τοῦ λόγου παραγγελθὲν δεινόν τε καὶ μή. Ορθώς γ', ἔφη. Σοφόν δέ γε ἐκείνῳ τῷ σμικρῷ μέρει τῷ ὅ ἦρχε τ' ἐν αὐτῷ καὶ ταῦτα παρήγγελλεν, ἔχον αὖ κἀκεῖνο ἐπιστήμην ἐν αὑτῷ τὴν τοῦ ξυμφέ ροντος ἑκάστῳ τε καὶ ὅλῳ τῷ κοινῷ σφῶν αὐτῶν τριῶν ὄντων. Πάνυ μὲν οὖν. Τί δέ ; σώφρονα οὐ τῇ φιλίᾳ καὶ ξυμφωνίᾳ τῇ αὐτῶν τούτων, ὅταν τό τε ἄρχον καὶ τὰ ἀρχομένω τὸ λογιστικὸν ὁμοδοξῶσι δεῖν ἄρχειν καὶ μὴ στασιάζωσιν αὐτῷ ; Σωφροσύνη γοῦν, ἦ δ' ὅς, οὐκ ἄλλο τί ἐστιν, ἢ τοῦτο, πολεώς τε καὶ ἰδιώτου. ̓Αλλὰ μὲν δὴ δίκαιός γε, ᾧ πολλάκις λέγομεν, τούτῳ καὶ οὕτως ἔσται. Πολλὴ ἀνάγκη, Τί οὖν ; εἶπον ἐγώ μή πη ἡμῖν ἀπαμβλύνεται ἄλλο τι δικαιοσύνη δοκεῖν εἶναι, ἢ ὅπερ ἐν τῇ πόλει ἐφάνη ; Οὐκ ἔμοιγε, ἔφη, δοκεῖ. De Rep. lib. iv. cap. 16. The idea contained in this sentence was expanded by Hobbes in the following manner. 'There is an easy rule to know upon a sudden, whether the action I be to do, be against the law of nature or not. And it is but this, That a man imagine himself in the place of the party with whom he hath to do, and reciprocally him in his. Which is no more but changing (as it were) of the scales. For every man's passion weigheth heavy in his own scale, but not in the scale of his neighbour. And this rule is very well known and expressed in this old dictate: 'Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris.'—Works, p. 46, ed. 1750. According to Gibbon this maxim of justice was promulgated, four hundred years before the publication of the Gospel, in a moral treatise of Isocrates : ἅ πάσχοντες ὑφ' ἑτέρων ὀργίζεσθε, TaÛTA TOîs bλλOIS μǹ Tоieîтe. —See Decline and Fall of Rom. Emp. vol. vii. p. 61, note, ed. 1855. • 'Man,' says the writer so often quoted, 'is a gregarious, or more properly a social animal. He is nowhere found, nor can he exist, in any other state than in Society of some form or other . . . Men desire to act, and are fitted to act, in common; declaring and enforcing rules by which the conduct of all shall be governed they thus act as governors, legislators, judges, subjects, citizens. Without such community of action, and such common rules really enforced, there can be no tolerable comfort, peace, or order. Without civil society, man cannot : act as man.'-Whewell, El. of Mor. pp. 36, 37. Mat. xxi. thy selfe. And that sentence or precept came from heuyn, whan societie was firste ordayned of god, and is of suche autoritie that the onely sonne of god beinge demaunded of a doctor of lawe whiche is the great commaundement in the lawe of god, aunswered, Thou shalte loue thy lorde god with all thy harte, and in all thy soule, and in all thy mynde, that is the firste and great commaundement. The seconde is lyke to the same Thou shalte loue thy neyghbour as thy selfe. In these two commaundementes do depende all the lawe and prophetes. Beholde howe our sauiour Christe ioyneth beneuolence with the loue of god, and nat onely maketh it the seconde precept, but also resembleth it unto the firste? That this Knowlege also, as a perfeyte instructrice and mastresse, in a more briefe sentence than yet hath ben spoken, declareth by what meane the sayd preceptes of reason and societie may be well understande, and therby iustice finally executed. The words be these in latine, Nosce te ipsum, whiche is in englysshe, know thy selfe. This sentence is of olde writars supposed for to be firste spoken by Chilo or some other of the seuen auncient Greekes called in latin Sapientes, in englysshe sages or wise men. Other knowlege do accomodate it to Apollo, whome the paynimes ho- of iustyce. See Matt. xxii. 35-40. sentence nosce te ipsum knowe thy selfe induceth to the verye By the expression 'knowledge,' or 'self-knowledge,' the author probably intended to designate Conscience or a Moral Sense or Moral Faculty. So interpreted, the explanation of Justice given in the text would seem to anticipate the definition of that virtue proposed by modern intuitive moralists. Thus Dr. Reid says, 'It may be granted to Mr. Hume, that men have no conception of the virtue of justice till they have lived some time in society. It is purely a moral conception, and our moral conceptions and moral judgments are not born with us. They grow up by degrees, as our reason does. Nor do I pretend to know how early, or in what order, we acquire the conception of the several virtues. The conception of justice supposes some exercise of the moral faculty, which, being the noblest part of the human constitution, and that to which all its other parts are subservient, appears latest.'-Works, vol. ii. p. 653, ed. 1863. Rursus mortales oraculorum societatem dedere Chiloni Lacedæmonio, tria præcepta ejus Delphis consecrando, aureis literis, quæ sunt hæc: Nosse se quemque ; et nihil nimium cupere; comitemque æris alieni atque litis esse miseriam.'-Plin. noured for god of wisedome. But to saye the trouthe, were it Apollo that spake it, or Chilo, or any other, suerly it proceded of god, as an excellent and wonderfull sentence.b By this counsaile man is induced to understande the other two preceptes, and also wherby is accomplisshed nat onely the seconde parte, but also all the residue of Justyce, whiche I before haue rehersed. For a man knowinge him selfe shall knowe that which is his owne and pertayneth to him selfe. But what is more his owne than his soule? or what thynge more appertayneth to hym thanne his body? His soule is undoughtedly and frely his owne. And none other persone may by any meane possede it or clayme it. His body so pertayneth unto him, that none other without his consent may vendicate therein any propretie. Of what Nat. Hist. lib. vii. cap. 32. But Diogenes Laertius attributes the saying to Thales : Τούτου ἐστὶ τὸ Γνῶθι σαυτόν, ὅπερ Αντισθένης ἐν ταῖς Διαδοχαῖς Φημονόης εἶναί φησιν, ἐξιδιοποιήσασθαι δὲ ἀυτὸ Χείλωνα. — Thales, 13. A 'Est illud quidem vel maximum, animo ipso animum videre: et nimirum hanc habet vim præceptum Apollinis, quo monet, ut se quisque noscat.'-Cic. Tusc. Quast. lib. I. cap. 22. This was the opinion of Juvenal : • Ε coelo descendit Γνώθι σεαυτὸν, Figendum, et memori tractandum pectore, sive Esse velis.' Sat. xi. 27–30. The Soul is the central and fundamental unity in which all the internal elements of human action inhere, reside, act upon each other, and are moulded and modified by all which happens to the man.'-Whewell, Elem. of Mor. p. 45. d It is curious to note this expression in favour of liberty of conscience, and as a straw serves to show the direction of the current, we may view it as a not unimportant symptom of the temper of the times. We may compare it with the utterances of a great modern writer. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.'--Mill, On Liberty, Introduct. p. 22, ed. 1864. Yet this statement, though theoretically true, was not practically recognised even in this country in the author's lifetime. The ancient condition of villenage expired about the commencement of the seventeenth century; and no other form of slavery was recognised by our laws. In Scotland, however, negro slaves continued to be sold as chattels, until late in the last century; and, startling as it may sound, the slavery of native Scotchmen soules and valour or price his soule is, the similitude where unto it was made, the immortalitie and lyfe euerlastynge, and the powars and qualities therof, abundauntly do declare. And of The equalthat same mater and substaunce that his soule is of, ite in be all other soules that nowe are, and haue ben, and corporall euer shall be, without singularitie or preeminence of substaunce. nature. In semblable astate is his body, and of no better claye (as I mought frankely saye) is a gentilman made than a carter, and of libertie of wille as moche is gyuen of god to the poore herdeman, as to the great and mighty emperour. Than in knowinge the condicion of his soule and body, he knoweth continued to be recognised, in that country, to the very end of last century. The colliers and salters were unquestionably slaves. They were bound to continue their service during their lives, were fixed to their places of employment, and sold with the works to which they belonged. So completely did the law of Scotland regard them as a distinct class, not entitled to the same liberties as their fellow subjects, that they were excepted from the Scotch Habeas Corpus Act of 1701. But at length, in 1799, their freedom was absolutely established by law. The last vestige of slavery was now effaced from the soil of Britain; but not until the land had been resounding for years with outcries against the African slave trade. Seven years later that odious traffic was condemned; and at length colonial slavery itself, so long encouraged and protected by the legislature, gave way before the enlightened philanthropy of another generation.'-May's Constit. Hist. of Eng., vol. ii. pp. 284-287, ed. 1865. . The notions of the ancients were very various with regard to the seat of the soul. Since it has been discovered, by the improvements in anatomy, that the nerves are the instruments of perception, and of the sensations accompanying it, and that the nerves ultimately terminate in the brain, it has been the general opinion of philosophers that the brain is the seat of the soul; and that she perceives the images that are brought there, and external things, only by means of them.'-Reid's Works, vol. i. p. 255. So Bishop Pilkington, who was one of the most zealous promoters of the Reformation, said: 'All the difference that is betwixt us is this: that one is higher in authority, better clad or fed, hath a prouder coat or a softer bed, or more store of money, lands, or servants than another hath ; which thing helps not to salvation. . . . If the poor and rich man's blood were both in one basin, how should the one be known to be better than the other, seeing we crack so much of it?'Works, pp. 124-126, ed. 1842. Parker Soc. Though in fact men are not born equal, they are all born with a capacity for being moral agents: and this Idea is the basis of all Morality. And we may lay it down as a universal principle, from which we may hereafter reason, that All men are moral beings.'-Whewell, Elem. of Mor., p. 224. |