Скачать книгу
difficulty from this principle, that according to our constitution, and the frame of things, the distribution of goods internal or external, is not promiscuous; but every purchase is the reward of industry. If we own a blind fortuitous dispensation of goods, and much more, if we own a malignant dispensation of them, or a dispensation of them more in favour of vice than of virtue, we deny a providence, or assert bad administration. There is no possibility of reconciling bad government with wisdom and goodness; or irregularity and disorder with wisdom and good intelligent design, by any future reparation. But the alledgeance is false; for in fact, the universe is governed by excellent general laws, among which this is one, “That industry shall be the purchaser of goods, and shall be generally successful.” And that being the fact, the objection which supposes promiscuous, fortuitous, or bad government, is founded upon a falsity in fact. In fine, there is no way of proving providence, but by proving good government by good general laws; and where all is brought about according to good general laws, nothing is fortuitous, promiscuous or bad. And not to mention any of the other general laws in the government of the world, constituting the order according to which effects are brought about; and consequently the means for obtaining ends to intelligent active creatures; what better general law can we conceive with regard to intelligent active beings, than the general law of industry; or can we indeed conceive intelligent agency and dominion without such a law? Are not the two <198> inseparable, or rather involved in one another? But where that law obtains, there is no dispensation or distribution properly speaking; for industry is the sole general purchaser, in consequence of means uniformly operative towards ends. But having elsewhere fully insisted upon this law of industry, in order to vindicate the ways of God to man; let me observe, 3. in the third place, Mr. Harrington is the first who hath taken notice, or at least fully cleared up the consequences of this general law of industry with respect to politics, that is, with respect to the natural procreation of government, and the natural source of changes in government. Every thing hangs beautifully and usefully together in nature. There must be manifold mutual dependencies among beings made for society, and for the exercise of benevolence, love and friendship; that is, there must be various superiorities and inferiorities; for all is giving and receiving. But dependence, which supposes in its notion superiority and inferiority, must either be dependence in respect of internal, or in respect of external goods; the former of which Mr. Harrington calls hanging on the lips, and the other hanging on the teeth. Now the law of industry obtaining amongst men placed in various circumstances (and all cannot be placed in the same) will naturally produce these dependencies. A greater share of wisdom and virtue will naturally procreate authority, and the dependence on the lips. [This perhaps is the meaning of that ancient saying of Democritus mentioned by Stobaeus, serm. 27.“φὺσει τὸ ἄρχειν ὀικήιον τω κρεισσονι,” “Authority falls naturally to the share of the better, more excellent or superior.”] And a greater share of external goods, or of property, naturally begets power, and the other dependence on the teeth. And hence it will and must always hold as a general law, That dominion will follow property, or that changes in property will beget certain proportional changes in government: and this consequently is the natural seed, principle or cause of procreation and vicissitude in government, as Mr. Harrington has demonstrated fully and accurately.
9 I only mention these things here, because we shall have occasion to have recourse to them afterwards, when our Author comes to treat of government. The conclusion that more properly belongs to our present purpose is, 4. in the fourth place, It must necessarily have happened soon after the world was peopled that all was, must have been appropriated by possession and industry: and therefore, at present, our business is to determine how, things being divided and appropriated, the duties of mankind stand. But it is clear, 1. in the first place, that suppose the world just beginning to be peopled, or suppose a considerable number of men just cast ashore upon a desart country (setting aside all compacts and regulations previously agreed upon) every one will have a right to the purchase of his industry; to the fruits of his labour; to improve his mind, and to all the natural benefits and rewards of that culture; and to the fruits of his skill, ingenuity and labour, to get <199> riches, with all the natural benefits and rewards of them; but yet every one will be obliged, in consequence of what hath been already said of the law of love and benevolence, to exercise his abilities, and to use his purchases in a benevolent way, or with tender regard to others. This must be the case with regard to our right and obligation, previous to all compacts, conventions or regulations. 2. And where lands are already appropriated, and civil government settled, this is a true principle still, that one has a right to all the purchases of his industry, with respect either to external or internal riches, (if I may so speak) consistent with the law of benevolence, or the law of not injuring any one, but of doing all the good to every one in our power; and hence it is, that every one in formed society hath a right to his purchases by the arts of manufacture and commerce, &c. Tho’ a state, to fix the balance of dominion or of government, may fix the balance of property in land, and likewise make regulations about money, (as in the Commonwealths of Israel, Lacedemon, Athens, Rome, Venice, &c. in different manners) in consequence of the natural connexion between the balance of property and the balance of dominion: Tho’ this may be done in forming or mending government by consent, yet even where an Agrarian law obtains, this principle must hold true and be untouched, that every one has a right to the purchases of his industry, in the sense above limited: For otherwise, there would be no encouragement to industry, nay, all must run into endless disorder and confusion. 3. And therefore universally, whether in a state of nature, or in constituted civil governments, this must be a just, a necessary principle, that industry gives a right to its purchases, and all the benefits and rewards attending them. 4. And therefore, fourthly, it can never be true, that a person may not, as far as is consistent with benevolence, endeavour to have both power and authority. If we consider what would be the consequences of denying this principle, that is, of setting any other bounds to the purchases of industry but what the law of benevolence sets, we will soon see that this must be universally true. And if we attend to our frame, and reason from it to final causes, as we do in other cases, it is plain, that there is in our constitution naturally, together with a principle of benevolence, and a sense of public good, a love of power (of principatus, as Cicero calls it in the beginning of his first book of offices) without which our benevolence could not produce magnanimity and greatness of mind, as that desire of power would, without benevolence and a sense of public good, produce a tyrannical, overbearing and arrogant temper. Some moralists do not seem to attend to this noble principle in our nature, the source of all the great virtues, while others ascribe too much to it (as Hobbes), and consider it as the only principle in our nature, without taking our benevolence and sense of public good, which are as natural to us, into the account. (See what I have said on this head in my Principles of Moral <200> Philosophy.)
10 But both principles belong to our constitution; and therefore our virtue consists in benevolent desire of, and endeavour to have authority and power in order to do good. 5. It is in consequence of this principle, that it is lawful to have dependents or servants, and that it is lawful to endeavour to raise ourselves, or to exert ourselves to encrease our power and authority. The great, sweet, the natural reward of superiority in parts and of riches, and consequently the great spur to industry, is the dependence upon us it procreates and spreads. And why should this noble ambition acknowledge any other bounds but what benevolence sets to it: Any other limits but what the Author of nature intended should be set to it, or rather actually sets to it, by making the exercises of benevolence so agreeable to us, as that no other enjoyments are equal to them in the pleasure they afford, whether in immediate exercise, or upon after reflection; and in making mankind so dependent every one upon another, that without the aid and assistance of others, and consequently without doing what he can to gain the love and friendship of mankind, none can be happy, however superior in parts or in property he may be to all about him. Every man stands in need of man; in that sense all men are equal; all men are dependent one upon another; or every man is subjected to every man. This observation is so much the more necessary, that while some moral writers assert, that man has a right to all things and persons to which his power of subjecting them to his use can extend or be extended; others speak of our natural equality in such a manner as if nature had not designed any superiorities among mankind, and as if all desire of, or endeavours after power or authority were unlawful; which last must result in asserting, that all culture of the mind, and all industry are unlawful, because the natural consequence of the one is superiority in parts, and the natural
Скачать книгу
