WILLIAM WOLLASTON'S

RELIGION OF NATURE.

When a man cares not what sufferings he causes to others, and especially if he delights in other men's sufferings and makes them his sport, this is cruelty. And not to be affected with the sufferings of other people, though they proceed not from us, but from others, or from causes in which we are not concerned, is unmercifulness. Mercy and humanity are the reverse of these.

He, who religiously regards truth and Nature, will not only be not unjust, but (more) not unmerciful, and much less cruel. Not to be affected with the afflictions of others, so far as we know them, and in proportion to the several degrees of them, though we are not the causes of them, is the same as to consider the afflicted as persons not in affliction; that is, as being not what they are, or (which is the same) as being what they are not.

One can scarcely know the sufferings of another without having at least some image of them in his mind: nor can one have these images without being conscious of them, and as it were feeling them. Next to suffering itself is to carry the representation of it about with one. So that he, who is not affected with the calamities of others, so far as they fall within his knowledge, may be said to know and not to know; or at least to cancel his knowledge, and contradict his own conscience.

There is something in human nature resulting from our very make and constitution, while it retains its genuine form, and is not altered by vicious habits; not perverted by transports of revenge or fury, by ambition, company, or false philosophy; nor oppressed by stupidity and neglecting to observe what happens to others; I say, there is something which renders us obnoxious to the pains of others, causes us to sympathize with them, and almost comprehends us in their case. It is grievous to see or hear (and almost to hear of) any man, or even any animal whatever in torment. This compassion appears eminently in them, who upon other accounts are justly reckoned among the best of men: in some degree it appears in almost all; nay, even sometimes, when they more coolly

attend to things, in those hardened and execrable monsters of cruelty themselves, who seem just to retain only the least possible tincture of humanity. The Pheræan tyrant, [Alexander,] who had never wept over any of those murders he had caused among his own citizens, wept when he saw a tragedy but acted in the theatre: the reason was, his attention was caught here, and he more observed the sufferings of Hecuba and Andromache, than ever he had those of the Pheræans; and more impartially, being no otherwise concerned in them but as a common spectator. Upon this occasion the principle of compassion, implanted in human nature, appeared, overcame his habits of cruelty, broke through his petrifaction, and would show that it could not be totally eradicated. It is therefore according to Nature to be affected with the sufferings of other people: and the contrary is inhuman and unnatural.

Such are the circumstances of mankind, that we cannot (or but very few of us, God knows) make our way through this world without encountering dangers and suffering many evils: and therefore since it is for the good of such as are so exposed, or actually smarting under pain or troubles, to receive comfort and assistance from others, without which they must commonly continue to be miserable, or perish, it is for the common good and welfare of the majority at least of mankind, that they should compassionate and help each other. To do the contrary must therefore be contrary to Nature, and wrong. And besides, it is by one's behavior and actions to affirm, that the circumstances of men in this world are not what they are; or that peace, and health, and happiness, and the like, are not what they are.

Let a man substitute himself into the room of some poor creatures dejected with invincible poverty, distracted with difficulties, or groaning under the pangs of some disease, or the anguish of some hurt or wound, and without help abandoned to want and pain. In this distress what reflections can he imagine he should have, if he found that every body neglected him, no body so much as pitying him, or vouchsafing to take notice of his calamitous and sad condition? It is certain, that what it would

be reasonable or unreasonable for others to do in respect of him, he must allow to be reasonable or unreasonable for him to do in respect of them, or deny a manifest truth.

If unmercifulness, as before defined, be wrong, no time need to be spent in proving that cruelty is so. For all that is culpable in unmercifulness is contained in cruelty, with additions and aggravations. Cruelty not only denies due regard to the sufferings of others, but causes them; or perhaps delights in them, and (which is the most insolent and cruel of all cruelties) makes them a jest and subject of raillery. If the one be a defect of humanity, the other is diametrically opposite to it. If the one does no good, the other does much evil. And no man, how cruel soever in reality he was, has ever liked to be reckoned a cruel man: such a confession of guilt does Nature extort; so universally doth it reject, condemn and abhor this character.

Hence may be deduced the heinousness of all such crimes, as murder, or even hurting the person of another any how, when our own necessary defence does not require it (it being not possible, that any thing should be more his, than his own person, life and limbs ;) robbing, stealing, cheating, betraying, defamation, detraction, adultery, &c. with all the approaches and tendencies to them. For these are not only comprised within the definition of injustice, and are therefore violations of it; but commonly, and most of them always, come also within the description of cruelty.

Bodily inclinations and passions when they observe their due subordination to reason are of admirable use in life, and tend many times to noble ends. So far are they, if rightly managed, from being mere infirmities. And certainly the philosopher who pretends to absolute apathy, maims Nature and sets up for a half man or I know not what. When the stoics say that a wise man may relieve one who wants his help without pitying him; I own indeed he may, but I very much doubt whether he would. If he had not some compassion, and in some measure felt the ails or wants of the other, I scarce know how he should come to take him for an object of his charity.

Man must labor to improve his rational faculties by such means as are (fairly) practicable by him, and consistent with his circumstances. If it be a disadvantage to be obnoxious to error and act in the dark, it is an advantage to know such truths as may prevent this; if so, it is a greater advantage to know or to capable of knowing more such truths, and then again not to endeavor to improve those faculties by which these truths are apprehended, is to shut them out as being not what they are. No rational

animal can act according to truth, the true nature of himself, and the idea of a crime, if he doth not endeavor not to commit it, and when it is committed to repair it if he can, or at least show himself to be penitent.

FRANCIS S. M. FENELON.

Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, joined the Knight Templars, in 1699; after him (1703) came Massillon, the prince, afterwards Frederic II, Dupuis, author of "the origin of all worship," M. Isambert, &c. It may not be useless here to quote the profession of faith relative to God, by the Templars.

"God is all that exists, each part of that which is, is a part of God, but it is not God. Unchangeable in his essence, God is changeable in his parts, which, after having existed under the laws of certain combinations, more or less complicated, revive under the laws of new combinations. All is uncreated."

A rigorous consequence of this definition is, that the order of Nature is immutable, consequently all the doctrines which we would support by a change of her laws, are founded only on error.-Gregoire's Hist. of Rel. Sects, The Templars, Vol. 2, p. 401, 9.

Fenelon, then, in joining the order of the Templars, acknowledged that the doctrine which as a Catholic priest, he preached, and in the name of which as a zealous catholic, he persecuted; a doctrine, to whose support he adduced miracles, was false. It is remarkable that in his "Treatise on the existence and attributes of God," Fenelon has defined "the Being," par excellence, in terms savoring of Pantheism.

"God is truly in himself, all that is real and positive in the mind, all that is real and positive in the bcdy, all that is real and positive in the essences of all other possible creatures, of which I have not a distinct idea. He has all the existence of the body, without being limited to the body, all the existence of the spirit without being limited to the spirit, and the same of all other possible essences. He is all being, in such a way, that he has all the being of each creature; but in removing the boundary which restrains them. Remove all boundary, remove all difference which confines being in the species, and there remains the universality of being, and consequently the infinite perfection of being by itself. Hence it follows, that the infinite being, cannot be limited by any species. God is no more spirit than body, nor body than spirit; to speak properly, he is neither the one nor the other; for to say there are two sorts of substance, is to express a precise difference of being, and consequently a limit, which can never suit a universal being."-Treatise on the Being of God, Vol. I. Sect. 66.

This passage which the preceding editors have thought it a duty to modify by discreet variations, the Sulpicians boast of having reëstablished, "from a copy revised and corrected in many places by Fenelon himself."-De Potter's History of Christianism. Vol. VIII. Page 309.