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MORAL
PRINCIPLES / PRIESTCRAFT
A coalition of sentiments is not for the
interest of the printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal
they can kindle, and the schisms they can create. It is contest of
opinion in politics as well as religion which makes us take great
interest in them, and bestow our money liberally on those who
furnish food to our appetite. The mild and simple principles of the
Christian philosophy would produce too much calm, too much
regularity of good, to extract from its disciples a support from a
numerous priesthood, were they not to sophisticate it, ramify it,
split it into hairs, and twist its texts till they cover the divine
morality of its author with mysteries, and require a priesthood to
explain them. The Quakers seem to have discovered this. They have no
priests, therefore no schisms. They judge of the text by the
dictates of common sense and common morality. So the printers can
never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion. They
would be no longer useful, and would have to go to the plough.
|
Elbridge
Gerry
29 Mar 1801 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / REFLECTIONS ON THE QUALITY OF LIFE
You ask, if I would agree to live my seventy or
rather seventy-three years over again? To which I say, yea I think
with you, that it is a good world on the whole; that it has been
framed on a principle of benevolence, and more pleasure than pain
dealt out to us. There are, indeed, (who might say nay) gloomy and.
hypochondriac minds, inhabitants of diseased bodies, disgusted with
the present, and despairing of the future; always counting that the
worst will happen, because it may happen. To these I say, how much
pain have cost us the evils which have never happened! My
temperament is sanguine. I steer my bark with Hope in the head,
leaving Fear astern. My hopes, indeed, sometimes fail; but not
oftener than the forebodings of the gloomy. There are, I
acknowledge, even in the happiest life, some terrible convulsions,
heavy set-offs against the opposite page of the account. I have
often wondered for what good end the sensations of grief could be
intended. All our other passions, within proper bounds, have an
useful object. And the perfection of the moral character is, not in
a stoical apathy, so hypocritically vaunted, and so untruly too,
because impossible, but in a just equilibrium of all the passions. I
wish the pathologists then would tell us what is the use of grief in
the economy, and of what good it is the cause, proximate or remote.
|
John
Adams
8 Apr 1816 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / RELIGION AND TRUTH
My dear and ancient friend, An acquaintance of
fifty-two years, for I think ours dates from 1764, calls for an
inter-change of notice now and then, that we remain in existence,
the monuments of another age, and examples of a friendship
unaffected by the jarring elements by which we have been surrounded,
of revolutions of government, of party and of Opinion. I am reminded
of this duty by the receipt, through our friend Doctor Patterson, of
your synopsis of the four Evangelists. I had procured it as soon as
I saw it advertised, and had become familiar with its use; but this
copy is the more valued as it comes from your hand. This work bears
the stamp of that accuracy which marks everything from you, and will
be useful to those who, not taking things on trust, recur for
themselves to the fountain of pure morals. I, too, have made a
wee-little book from the same materials, which I call the Philosophy
of Jesus; it is a paradigma of his doctrines, made by cutting the
texts out of the book, and arranging them on the pages of a blank
book, in a certain order of time or subject. A more beautiful or
precious morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in
proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a disciple
of the doctrines of Jesus, very different from the Platonists, who
call me infidel and themselves Christians and preachers of the
Gospel, while they draw all their characteristic dogmas from what
its author never said nor saw. They have compounded from the heathen
mysteries a System beyond the comprehension of man, of which the
great reformer of the vicious ethics and deism of the Jews, were he
to return on earth, would not recognize one feature. If I had time I
would add to my little book the Greek, Latin and French texts, in
columns side by side. And I wish I could subjoin a translation of
Gassendi's Syntagma of the doctrines of Epicurus, which,
notwithstanding the calumnies of the Stoics and caricatures of
Cicero, is the most rational system remaining of the philosophy of
the ancients, as frugal of vicious indulgence, and fruitful of
virtue as the hyperbolical extravagances of his rival sects. |
Charles
Thomson
9 Jan 1816 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / RIGHT TO PROPERTY
A right to property is founded in our natural
wants, in the means with which we are endowed to satisfy these
wants, and the right to what we acquire by those means without
violating the similar rights of other sensible beings; that no one
has a right to obstruct another exercising his faculties innocently
for the relief of sensibilities made a part of his nature
|
Pierre
Samuel Dupont de Nemours
24 Apr 1816 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / SOCRATES AND JESUS CHRIST
While on a short visit lately to Monticello, I
received from you a copy of your comparative view of Socrates and
Jesus, and I avail myself of the first moment of leisure after my
return to acknowledge the pleasure I had in the perusal of it, and
the desire it excited to see you take up the subject on a more
extended scale. In consequence of some conversation with Dr. Rush,
in the year 1798-99, I had promised some day to write him a letter
giving him my view of the Christian system. I have reflected often
on it since, and even sketched the outlines in my own mind. I should
first take a general view of the moral doctrines of the most
remarkable of the ancient philosophers, of whose ethics we have
sufficient information to make an estimate, say Pythagoras,
Epicurus, Epictetus, Socrates, Cicero, Seneca, Antoninus. I should
do justice to the branches of morality they have treated well; but
point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I
should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and
show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they
presented of a reformation. I should proceed to a view of the life,
character, and doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of
their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them
to the principles of a pure deism, and juster notions of the
attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard
of reason, justice and philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of
a future state. This view would purposely omit the question of his
divinity, and even his inspiration. To do him justice, it would be
necessary to remark the disadvantages his doctrines had to
encounter, not having been committed to writing by himself, but by
the most unlettered of men, by memory, long after they had heard
them from him; when much was forgotten, much misunderstood, and
presented in every paradoxical shape. Yet such are the fragments
remaining as to show a master workman, and that his system of
morality was the most benevolent and sublime probably that has been
ever taught, and consequently more perfect than those of any of the
ancient philosophers. His character and doctrines have received
still greater injury from those who pretend to be his special
disciples, and who have disfigured and sophisticated his actions and
precepts, from views of personal interest, so as to induce the
unthinking part of mankind to throw off the whole system in disgust,
and to pass sentence as an impostor on the most innocent, the most
benevolent, the most eloquent and sublime character that ever has
been exhibited to man.
This is the outline; but I have not the time, and still less the
information which the subject needs. It will therefore rest with me
in contemplation only. You are the person of all others would do it
best, and most promptly. You have all the materials at hand, and you
put together with ease. I wish you could be induced to extend your
late work to the whole subject. I have not heard particularly what
is the state of your health; but as it has been equal to the journey
to Philadelphia, perhaps it might encourage the curiosity you must
feel to see for once this place, which nature has formed on a
beautiful scale, and circumstances destine for a great one. As yet
we are but a cluster of villages; we cannot offer you the learned
society of Philadelphia; but you will have that of a few characters
whom you esteem, and a bed and hearty welcome with one who will
rejoice in every opportunity of testifying to you his high
veneration and affectionate attachment. |
Joseph
Priestley
9 Apr 1803 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / STRUGGLE ON BEHALF OF
I hope and firmly believe that the whole world
will, sooner or later, feel benefit from the issue of our assertion
of the rights of man. Although the horrors of the French Revolution
have damped for awhile the ardor of the patriots in every country,
yet it is not extinguished -- it will never die. The sense of right
has been excited in every breast, and the spark will be rekindled by
the very oppressions of that detestable tyranny employed to quench
it. The errors of the honest patriots of France, and the crimes of
her Dantons and Robespierres, will be forgotten in the more
encouraging contemplation of our sober example, and steady march to
our object. Hope will strengthen the presumption that what has been
done once may be done again. |
Benjamin
Galloway
2 Feb 1812 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / STUDY OF
To compare the morals of the Old, with those of
the New Testament, would require an attentive study of the former, a
search through all its books for its precepts, and through all its
history for its practices, and the principles they prove. As
commentaries, too, on these, the philosophy of the Hebrews must be
inquired into, their Mishna, their Gemara, Cabbala, Jezirah, Sohar,
Cosri, and their Talmud, must be examined and understood, in order
to do them full justice. Brucker, it would seem, has gone deeply
into these repositories of their ethics, and Enfield his epitomizer,
concludes in these words: "Ethics were so little understood
among the Jews, that in their whole compilation called the Talmud,
there is only one treatise on moral subjects. Their books of morals
chiefly consisted in a minute enumeration of duties. From the law of
Moses were deduced six hundred and thirteen precepts, which were
divided into two classes, affirmative and negative, two hundred and
forty-eight in the former, and three hundred and sixty-five in the
latter. It may serve to give the reader some idea of the low state
of moral philosophy among the Jews in the middle age, to add that of
the two hundred and forty-eight affirmative precepts, only three
were considered as obligatory upon women, and that in order to
obtain salvation, it was judged sufficient to fulfill any one single
law in the hour of death; the observance of the rest being deemed
necessary, only to increase the felicity of the future life. What a
wretched depravity of sentiment and manners must have prevailed,
before such corrupt maxims could have obtained credit It is
impossible to collect from these writings a consistent series of
moral doctrine." . . . It was the reformation of this "wretched
depravity" of morals which Jesus undertook. In extracting the
pure principles which he taught, we should have to strip off the
artificial vestments in which they have been muffled by priests, who
have travestied them into various forms, as instruments of riches
and power to themselves. We must dismiss the Platonists and
Plotinists, the Stagyrites and Gamalielites, the Eclectics, the
Gnostics and Scholastics, their essences and emanations, their logos
and demiurgos, aeons and daemons, male and female, with a long train
of … or, shall I say at once, of nonsense. We must reduce our
volume to the simple evangelists, select, even from them, the very
words only of Jesus, paring off the amphibologisms into which they
have been led, by forgetting often, or not understanding, what had
fallen from him, by giving their own misconceptions as his dicta,
and expressing unintelligibly for others what they had not
understood themselves. There will be found remaining the most
sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to
man. I have performed this operation for my own use, by cutting
verse by verse out of the printed book, and arranging the matter
which is evidently his, and which is as easily distinguishable as
diamonds in a dunghill. The result is an octavo of forty-six pages,
of pure and unsophisticated doctrines, such as were professed and
acted on by the unlettered Apostles, the Apostolic Fathers,
and the Christians of the first century. Their Platonizing
successors, indeed, in after times, in order to legitimate the
corruptions which they had incorporated into the doctrines of Jesus,
found it necessary to disavow the primitive Christians, who had
taken their principles from the mouth of Jesus himself, of his
Apostles, and the Fathers contemporary with them. They
excommunicated their followers as heretics, branding them with the
opprobrious name of Ebionites or Beggars.
For a comparison of the Grecian philosophy with that of Jesus,
materials might be largely drawn from the same source. Enfield gives
a history and detailed account of the opinions and principles of the
different sects. These relate to the Gods, their natures, grades,
places and powers; the demi-Gods and daemons, and their agency with
man; the universe, its structure, extent and duration; the origin of
things from the elements of fire, water, air and earth; the human
soul, its essence and derivation; the summum bonum and finis
bonorum; with a thousand idle dreams and fancies on these and
other subjects, the knowledge of which is withheld from man; leaving
but a short chapter for his moral duties, and the principal section
of that given to what he owes himself, to precepts for rendering him
impassible, and unassailable by the evils of life, and for
preserving his mind in a state of constant serenity.
Such a canvas is too broad for the age of seventy, and especially
of one whose chief occupations have been in the practical business
of life. We must leave, therefore, to others, younger and more
learned than we are, to prepare this euthanasia for Platonic
Christianity, and its restoration to the primitive simplicity of its
founder. I think you give a just outline of the theism of the three
religions, when you say that the principle of the Hebrew was the
fear, of the Gentile the honor, and of the Christian the love of
God.
An expression in your letter of September the 14th, that "the
human understanding is a revelation from its maker," gives the
best solution that I believe can be given of the question, "what
did Socrates mean by his Daemon?" He was too wise to believe,
and too honest to pretend, that he had real and familiar converse
with a superior and invisible being. He probably considered the
suggestions of his conscience, or reason, as revelations or
inspirations from the Supreme mind, bestowed, on important
occasions, by a special superintending Providence. |
John
Adams
13 Oct 1813 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / TRUTH AND VIRTUE
Of all the theories on this question, the most
whimsical seems to have been that of Wollaston, who considers truth
as the foundation of morality. The thief who steals your guinea does
wrong only inasmuch as he acts a lie in using your guinea as if it
were his own. Truth is certainly a branch of morality, and a very
important one to society. But presented as its foundation, it is as
if a tree taken up by the roots had its stem reversed in the air,
and one of its branches planted in the ground. Some have made the
love of God the foundation of morality. This, too, is but a
branch of our moral duties, which are generally divided into duties
to God and duties to man. If we did a good act merely from the love
of God and a belief that it is pleasing to Him, whence arises the
morality of the atheist? It is idle to say, as some do, that no such
being exists. We have the same evidence of the fact as of most of
those we act on, to wit: their own affirmations, and their
reasonings in support of them. I have observed, indeed, generally,
that while in Protestant countries the defections from the Platonic
Christianity of the priests is to Deism, in Catholic countries they
are to Atheism. Diderot, D'Alembert, D'Holbach, Condorcet, are known
to have been among the most virtuous of men. Their virtue, then,
must have had some other foundation than the love of God.
…Self-interest, or rather self-love, or egoism, has
been more plausibly substituted as the basis of morality. But I
consider our relations with others as constituting the boundaries of
morality. With ourselves we stand on the ground of identity, not of
relation, which last, requiring two subjects, excludes self-love
confined to a single one. To ourselves, in strict language, we can
owe no duties, obligation requiring also two parties. Self-love,
therefore, is no part of morality. Indeed it is exactly its
counterpart. It is the sole antagonist of virtue, leading us
constantly by our propensities to self-gratification in violation of
our moral duties to others. Accordingly, it is against this enemy
that are erected the batteries of moralists and religionists, as the
only obstacle to the practice of morality. Take from man his selfish
propensities, and he can have nothing to seduce him from the
practice of virtue. Or subdue those propensities by education,
instruction or restraint, and virtue remains without a competitor.
Egoism, in a broader sense, has been thus presented as the source of
moral action. It has been said that we feed the hungry, clothe the
naked, bind up the wounds of the man beaten by thieves, pour oil and
wine into them, set him on our own beast and bring him to the inn,
because we receive ourselves pleasure from these acts. So Helvetius,
one of the best men on earth, and the most ingenious advocate of
this principle, after defining "interest" to mean not
merely that which is pecuniary, but whatever may procure us pleasure
or withdraw us from pain, [De l'esprit 2, 1,] says, [ib. 2,
2,] " the humane man is he to whom the sight of misfortune is
insupportable, and who to rescue himself from this spectacle, is
forced to succor the unfortunate object." This indeed is true.
But it is one step short of the ultimate question. These good acts
give us pleasure, but how happens it that they give us pleasure?
Because nature hath implanted in our breasts a love of others, a
sense of duty to them, a moral instinct, in short, which prompts us
irresistibly to feel and to succor their distresses, and protests
against the language of Helvetius, [ib. 2, 5,] "what other
motive than self-interest could determine a man to generous actions?
It is as impossible for him to love what is good for the sake of
good, as to love evil for the sake of evil." The Creator would
indeed have been a bungling artist, had he intended man for a social
animal, without planting in him social dispositions. It is true they
are not planted in every man, because there is no rule without
exceptions; but it is false reasoning which converts exceptions into
the general rule. Some men are born without the organs of sight, or
of hearing, or without hands. Yet it would be wrong to say that man
is born without these faculties, and sight, hearing, and hands may
with truth enter into the general definition of man. |
Thomas
Law
13 Jun 1814 |
MORAL
PRINCIPLES / UNIVERSAL
Reading, reflection and time have convinced me
that the interests of society require the observation of those moral
precepts only in which all religions agree, (for all forbid us to
murder, steal, plunder, or bear false witness,) and that we should
not intermeddle with the particular dogmas in which all religions
differ, and which are totally unconnected with morality. In all of
them we see good men, and as many in one as another. The varieties
in the structure and action of the human mind as in those of the
body, are the work of our Creator, against which it cannot be a
religious duty to erect the standard of uniformity. The practice of
morality being necessary for the well-being of society, he has taken
care to impress its precepts so indelibly on our hearts that they
shall not be effaced by the subtleties of our brain. We all agree in
the obligation of the moral precepts of Jesus, and nowhere will they
be found delivered in greater purity than in his discourses. It is,
then, a matter of principle with me to avoid disturbing the
tranquillity of others by the expression of any opinion on the
innocent questions on which we schismatize. |
James
Fishback
27 Sep 1809 |
MORAL
SENSE
He who made us would have been a pitiful
bungler, if he had made the rules of our moral conduct a matter of
science. For one man of science, there are thousands who are not.
What would have become of them? Man was destined for society. His
morality, therefore, was to be formed to this object. He was endowed
with a sense of right and wrong merely relative to this. This sense
is as much a part of his nature, as the sense of hearing, seeing,
feeling; it is the true foundation of morality... The moral sense,
or conscience, is as much a part of man as his leg or arm. It is
given to all human beings in a stronger or weaker degree, as force
of members is given them in a greater or less degree. It may be
strengthened by exercise, as may any particular limb of the body.
This sense is submitted indeed in some degree to the guidance of
reason; but it is a small stock which is required for this: even a
less one than what we call Common sense. State a moral case to a
ploughman and a professor. The former will decide it as well, and
often better than the latter, because he has not been led astray by
artificial rules. |
Peter
Carr
1787 |
MORAL
SENSE / OF RIGHT AND WRONG
The want or imperfection of the moral sense in
some men, like the want or imperfection of the senses of sight and
hearing in others, is no proof that it is a general characteristic
of the Species. When it is wanting, we endeavor to supply the defect
by education, by appeals to reason and calculation, by presenting to
the being so unhappily conformed, other motives to do good and to
eschew evil, such as the love, or the hatred, or rejection of those
among whom he lives, and whose society is necessary to his happiness
and even existence; demonstrations by sound calculation that honesty
promotes interest in the long run; the rewards and penalties
established by the laws; and ultimately the prospects of a future
state of retribution for the evil as well as the good done while
here. These are the correctives which are supplied by education, and
which exercise the functions of the moralist, the preacher, and
legislator; and they lead into a course of correct action all those
whose disparity is not too profound to be eradicated. Some have
argued against the existence of a moral sense, by saying that if
nature had given us such a sense, impelling us to virtuous actions,
and warning us against those which are vicious, then nature would
also have designated, by some particular ear-marks, the two sets of
actions which are, in themselves, the one virtuous and the other
vicious. Whereas, we find, in fact, that the same actions are deemed
virtuous in one country and vicious in another. The answer is that
nature has constituted utility to man the standard and best
of virtue. Men living in different countries, under different
circumstances, different habits and regimens, may have different
utilities; the same act, therefore, may be useful, and consequently
virtuous in one country which is injurious and vicious in another
differently circumstanced. I sincerely, then, believe with you in
the general existence of a moral instinct. I think it the brightest
gem with which the human character is studded, and the want of it as
more degrading than the most hideous of the bodily deformities. I am
happy in reviewing the roll of associates in this principle which
you present in your second letter, some of which I had not before
met with. To these might be added Lord Kames,* one of the ablest of
our advocates, who goes so far as to say, in his Principles of
Natural Religion, that a man owes no duty to which he is not urged
by some impulsive feeling. This is correct, if referred to the
standard of general feeling in the given case, and not to the
feeling of a single individual. Perhaps I may misquote him, it being
fifty years since I read his book. |
Thomas
Law
13 Jun 1814 |
MORAL
SENSE / OF RIGHT AND WRONG
Assuming the fact that the earth has been
created in time and consequently the dogma of final causes, we
yield, of course, to this short syllogism: Man was created for
social intercourse; but social intercourse cannot be maintained
without a sense of justice; then man must have been created with a
sense of justice. |
Francis
Gilmer
1816 |
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