SECT. II.

THE first proposition, THAT TO INCULCATE THE DOCTRINE of a

FUTURE STATE OF REWARDS AND PUNISHMENTS, IS NECESSARY TO THE

WELLBEING OF CIVIL SOCIETY, I shall endeavour to prove, from the nature of man, and the genius of civil society.

indispensable to

The general appetite of self-preservation being most every animal, nature hath made it the strongest of all. And though, in the rational, this faculty alone might be supposed sufficient to answer the end, for which that appetite is bestowed on the others, yet, the better to secure that end, nature hath given man, likewise, a very considerable share of the same instinct, with which she hath endowed brutes so admirably to provide for their preservation. Now whether it was some plastic nature that was here in fault, which Bacon says, "knows not how to keep a mean,' or, that it was all owing to the perverse use of human liberty, certain it is, that, borne away with the lust of gratifying this appetite, man, in a state of nature, soon ran into very violent excesses; and never thought he had sufficiently provided for his own being, till he had deprived his fellows of the free enjoyment of theirs. Hence, all those evils of mutual violence, rapine, and slaughter, which, in a state of nature, where all are equal, must needs be abundant. Because, though man, in this state, was not without a law, which exacted punishment on evil doers, yet, the administration of that law not being in common hands, but either in the person offended, who being a party would be apt to enforce the punishment to excess; or else in the hands of every one, as the offence was against all, and affected the good of each not immediately or directly, would be executed remissly. And very often, where both these executors of the law of nature were disposed, the one to be impartial, and the other not remiss in the administration of justice, they would yet want sufficient power to enforce it. Which together would so much inflame the evils above-mentioned, that they would soon become as general, and as intolerable, as the Hobbeist represents them in that state to be, were it not for the restraining principle of religion, which kept men from running into the confusion necessarily consequent on the principle of inordinate self-love. But yet religion could not operate with sufficient efficacy, for want, as we observed before, of a common arbiter, who had impartiality fairly to apply the rule of right, and power to enforce its operations. So that these two principles were in endless jar: in which justice generally came by the worst. It was therefore found necessary to call in the civil magistrate as the ally of religion, to turn the balance.

* Modum tenere nescia est. Augm, Scient.

"Jura inventa metu injusti, fateare necesse est,

Tempora si fastosque velis evolvere mundi."

Thus was society invented for a remedy against injustice; and a magistrate, by mutual consent, appointed to give a sanction "to that common measure, to which, reason teaches us, that creatures of the same rank and species, promiscuously born to the same advantages of nature and to the use of the same faculties, have all an equal right."* Where it is to be observed, that though society provides for all those conveniencies and accommodations of a more elegant life, which man must have been content to have lived without, in a state of nature; yet it is more than probable that these were never thought of when society was first established; but they were the mutual violences and injustices, at length become intolerable, which set men upon contriving this generous remedy: because evil felt hath a much stronger influence on the mind than good imagined; and the means of removing the one is much easier discovered, than the way to procure the other. And this, by the wise disposition of the Creator; the avoiding pain being necessary to our nature; not so, the procuring pleasure. Besides, the idea of those unexperienced conveniencies would be, at best, very obscure: and how unable men would be, before trial, to judge that society would bestow them, we may guess by observing, how little, even now the generality of men, who enjoy these blessings, know or reflect that they are owing to society, or how it procures them; because it doth it neither immediately nor directly. But they would have a very lively sense of evils felt; and could see that society was the remedy, because the very definition of the word would teach them how it becomes so. Yet because civil society so greatly improves human life, this improvement may be called, and not unaptly, the secondary end of that convention. Thus, as Aristotle accurately observes in the words below, that which was at first constituted for the sake of living, is carried on for the sake of happy living.

This is further seen from fact. For we find those savage nations, which happen to live peaceably out of society, have never once entertained a

* Locke.

+ Though the judicious Hooker thinks those advantages were principally intended, when man first entered into society: "this was the cause," says he, "of men's uniting themselves at first into politique societies." Eccl. Pol. 1. i. sect. 10. p. 25. 1. 1. His master Aristotle, though extremely concise, seems to hint, that this was but the secondary end of civil society, and that that was the first, which we make to be so. His words are: γινομένη μὲν οὖν τοῦ Sāv Ivexer, ovoa di To so v. Pol. lib. i. cap. 2. p. 396. B. tom. iii. Paris, 1639. fol. See sect. V. iv. 2. where it is shown, how it might happen that men, in a state of nature, might live together in peace; though we have there given the reasons why they very rarely do.

thought of coming into it, though they perceive all the advantages of that improved condition, in their civilized neighbours, round about them. Civil society thus established, from this time, as the poet sings,

"Absistere bello

Oppida cœperunt munire, et ponere leges,

Ne quis fur esset, neu latro, neu quis adulter."

But as before bare religion was no preservative against moral disorders; so now society alone would be equally unable to prevent them.

I. 1. For, first, its laws can have no further efficacy than to restrain men from open transgression; while what is done amiss in private, though equally tending to the public hurt, escapes their animadversion; and man, since his entering into society, would have greatly improved his practice in this secret way of mischief. For now an effectual security being provided against open violence, and the inordinate principle of self-love being still the same, secret craft was the art to be improved; and the guards of society invited men to a careless security, what advantages this would afford to those hidden mischiefs which civil laws could not censure, is easy to conceive.

2. But, secondly, the influence of civil laws cannot, in all cases, be extended even thus far, namely, to restrain open transgression. It cannot then, when the severe prohibition of one irregularity threatens the bringing on a greater: and this will always be the case when the irregularity is owing to the violence of the sensual appetites. Hence it hath come to pass, that no great and opulent community could ever punish fornication in such a sort as its ill influence on society was confessed to deserve: because it was always found, that a severe restraint of this, opened the way to more flagitious lusts.

3. The very attention of civil laws to their principal object occasions a further inefficacy in their operations. To understand this we must consider that the care of the state is for the whole, under which individuals are considered but in the second place, as accessories only to that whole; the consequence of which is, that, for the sake of the aggregate, individuals are sometimes left neglected; which happens when general, rather than particular views engross the public attention. Now the care of religion is for particulars; and a whole has but the second place in its concern. But this is only touched upon to show, in passing, the natural remedy for the defects here explained.

4. But this was not all, there was a further inefficacy in human laws: the legislature, in inquiring into the mutual duties of citizens, arising from their equality of condition, found those duties to be of two kinds: the first they entitled the duties of perfect obligation; because civil laws

could readily and commodiously, and were, of necessity, required to enforce their observance. The other they called the duties of imperfect obligation; not that morality does not as strongly exact them, but because civil laws could not conveniently take notice of them; and, that they were supposed not so immediately and vitally to affect the being of society. Of this latter kind are gratitude, hospitality, charity, &c. Concerning such, civil laws, for these reasons, are generally silent. And yet, though it may be true, that these duties which human laws thus overlook, may not so directly affect society, it is very certain, that their violation brings on as fatal, though not so swift destruction, as that of the duties of perfect obligation. A very competent judge, and who also speaks the sentiment of antiquity in this matter, hath not scrupled to say: "Ut scias per se expetendam esse grati animi affectionem, per se fugienda res est ingratum esse: quoniam nihil æque concordiam humani generis dissociat ac distrahit quam hoc vitium.”

5. But still further, besides these duties both of perfect and imperfect obligation, for the encouraging and enforcing of which civil society was invented; society itself begot and produced a new set of duties, which are, to speak in the mode of the legislature, of imperfect obligation: the first and principal of which is that antiquated forgotten virtue called the "love of our country."

6. But, lastly, society not only introduced a new set of duties, but likewise increased and inflamed, to an infinite degree, those inordinate appetites, for whose correction it was invented and introduced: like some kind of powerful medicines, which, at the very time they are working a cure, heighten the malignity of the disease. For our wants increase in proportion as the arts of life advance. But in proportion to our wants so is our uneasiness,-to our uneasiness, so our endeavours to remove it, to our endeavours, so the weakness of human restraint. Hence it is evident, that in a state of nature, where little is consulted but the support of our being, our wants must be few, and our appetites in proportion weak; and that in civil society, where the arts of life are cultivated, our wants must be many, and our appetites in proportion strong.

II. Thus far concerning the imperfection of civil society, with regard to the administration of that power which it hath, namely, of punishing transgressors. We shall next consider its much greater imperfection with regard to that power which it wanteth, namely, of rewarding the obedient.

The two great sanctions of all law and command are reward and punishment. These are generally called the two hinges on which all kinds of government turn. And so far is certain, and apparent to the com

Seneca de Benef. lib. iv. cap. 18.

mon sense of mankind, that whatever laws are not enforced by both these sanctions, will never be observed in any degree sufficient to carry on the ends of civil society.

Yet, I shall now show, from the original constitution and nature of this society, that it neither had, nor could enforce the sanction of reward.

But, to avoid mistakes, I desire it may be observed, that by reward must needs here be meant, such as is conferred on every one for obeying the laws of his country; not such as is bestowed on particulars, for any eminent service: as by punishment we understand that which is inflicted on every one for transgressing the laws; not that which is imposed on particulars, for neglecting to do all the service in their power.

I make no doubt but this will be called a paradox; nothing being more common in the mouths of politicians,* than "that the sanctions of reward and punishment are the two pillars of civil government;" and all the modern Utopias and ancient systems of speculative politics derive the whole vigour of their laws from these two sources. In support then of my assertion, permit me to enforce the two following propositions:

I. That, by the original constitution of civil government, the sanction of rewards was not established by it.

II. That by the very nature of civil government they could not be established.

I. The truth of the first proposition appears from hence. On entering into society, it was stipulated between the magistrate and people, that protection and obedience should be the reciprocal conditions of each other. When therefore a citizen obeys the laws, that debt on society is discharged by the protection it affordeth him. But in respect to disobedience, the proceeding is not analogous; (though protection, as the condition of obedience, implies the withdrawing of it for disobedience;) and for these reasons: the effect of withdrawing protection must be either expulsion from the society, or the exposing the offender to all kind of license from others in it. Society could not practise the first without bringing the body politic into a consumption; nor the latter without throwing it into convulsions. Besides, the first is no punishment at all but by accident; it being only the leaving one society to enter into another: and the second is a very inadequate punishment; for though all obedience be the same, and so, uniform protection a proper return for it; yet disobedience being of various kinds and degrees, the withdrawing

Neque solum ut Solonis dictum usurpem, qui et sapientissimus fuit ex septem, et legum scriptor solus ex septem. Is rempublicam duabus rebus contineri dixit, præmio et pœná. -Cic. ad Brutum, Ep. 15. Edit. Oxon. 4to, tom. ix. pp. 85, 86.