The constant pressure of distress on man, from the principle of
population, seems to direct our hopes to the future - State of
trial inconsistent with our ideas of the foreknowledge of God -
The world, probably, a mighty process for awakening matter into
mind - Theory of the formation of mind - Excitements from the
wants of the body - Excitements from the operation of general
laws - Excitements from the difficulties of life arising from the
principle of population.
THE view of human life which results from the contemplation of
the constant pressure of distress on man from the difficulty of
subsistence, by shewing the little expectation that he can
reasonably entertain of perfectibility on earth, seems strongly
to point his hopes to the future. And the temptations to which he
must necessarily be exposed, from the operation of those laws of
nature which we have been examining, would seem to represent the
world in the light in which it has been frequently considered, as
a state of trial and school of virtue preparatory to a superior
state of happiness. But I hope I shall be pardoned if I attempt
to give a view in some degree different of the situation of man
on earth, which appears to me to be more consistent with the
various phenomena of nature which we observe around us and more
consonant to our ideas of the power, goodness, and foreknowledge
of the Deity.
It cannot be considered as an unimproving exercise of the
human mind to endeavour to 'vindicate the ways of God to man' if
we proceed with a proper distrust of our own understandings and a
just sense of our insufficiency to comprehend the reason of all
we see, if we hail every ray of light with gratitude, and, when
no light appears, think that the darkness is from within and not
from without, and bow with humble deference to the supreme wisdom
of him whose 'thoughts are above our thoughts' 'as the heavens
are high above the earth.'
In all our feeble attempts, however, to 'find out the
Almighty to perfection', it seems absolutely necessary that we
should reason from nature up to nature's God and not presume to
reason from God to nature. The moment we allow ourselves to ask
why some things are not otherwise, instead of endeavouring to
account for them as they are, we shall never know where to stop,
we shall be led into the grossest and most childish absurdities,
all progress in the knowledge of the ways of Providence must
necessarily be at an end, and the study will even cease to be an
improving exercise of the human mind. Infinite power is so vast
and incomprehensible an idea that the mind of man must
necessarily be bewildered in the contemplation of it. With the
crude and puerile conceptions which we sometimes form of this
attribute of the Deity, we might imagine that God could call into
being myriads and myriads of existences, all free from pain and
imperfection, all eminent in goodness and wisdom, all capable of
the highest enjoyments, and unnumbered as the points throughout
infinite space. But when from these vain and extravagant dreams
of fancy, we turn our eyes to the book of nature, where alone we
can read God as he is, we see a constant succession of sentient
beings, rising apparently from so many specks of matter, going
through a long and sometimes painful process in this world, but
many of them attaining, ere the termination of it, such high
qualities and powers as seem to indicate their fitness for some
superior state. Ought we not then to correct our crude and
puerile ideas of infinite Power from the contemplation of what we
actually see existing? Can we judge of the Creator but from his
creation? And, unless we wish to exalt the power of God at the
expense of his goodness, ought we not to conclude that even to
the great Creator, almighty as he is, a certain process may be
necessary, a certain time (or at least what appears to us as
time) may be requisite, in order to form beings with those
exalted qualities of mind which will fit them for his high
purposes?
A state of trial seems to imply a previously formed existence
that does not agree with the appearance of man in infancy and
indicates something like suspicion and want of foreknowledge,
inconsistent with those ideas which we wish to cherish of the
Supreme Being. I should be inclined, therefore, as I have hinted
before, to consider the world and this life as the mighty process
of God, not for the trial, but for the creation and formation of
mind, a process necessary to awaken inert, chaotic matter into
spirit, to sublimate the dust of the earth into soul, to elicit
an ethereal spark from the clod of clay. And in this view of the
subject, the various impressions and excitements which man
receives through life may be considered as the forming hand of
his Creator, acting by general laws, and awakening his sluggish
existence, by the animating touches of the Divinity, into a
capacity of superior enjoyment. The original sin of man is the
torpor and corruption of the chaotic matter in which he may be
said to be born.
It could answer no good purpose to enter into the question
whether mind be a distinct substance from matter, or only a finer
form of it. The question is, perhaps, after all, a question
merely of words. Mind is as essentially mind, whether formed from
matter or any other substance. We know from experience that soul
and body are most intimately united, and every appearance seems
to indicate that they grow from infancy together. It would be a
supposition attended with very little probability to believe that
a complete and full formed spirit existed in every infant, but
that it was clogged and impeded in its operations during the
first twenty years of life by the weakness, or hebetude, of the
organs in which it was enclosed. As we shall all be disposed to
agree that God is the creator of mind as well as of body, and as
they both seem to be forming and unfolding themselves at the same
time, it cannot appear inconsistent either with reason or
revelation, if it appear to be consistent with phenomena of
nature, to suppose that God is constantly occupied in forming
mind out of matter and that the various impressions that man
receives through life is the process for that purpose. The
employment is surely worthy of the highest attributes of the
Deity.
This view of the state of man on earth will not seem to be
unattended with probability, if, judging from the little
experience we have of the nature of mind, it shall appear upon
investigation that the phenomena around us, and the various
events of human life, seem peculiarly calculated to promote this
great end, and especially if, upon this supposition, we can
account, even to our own narrow understandings, for many of those
roughnesses and inequalities in life which querulous man too
frequently makes the subject of his complaint against the God of
nature.
The first great awakeners of the mind seem to be the wants of
the body. (It was my intention to have entered at some length
into this subject as a kind of second part to the Essay. A long
interruption, from particular business, has obliged me to lay
aside this intention, at least for the present. I shall now,
therefore, only give a sketch of a few of the leading
circumstances that appear to me to favour the general supposition
that I have advanced.) They are the first stimulants that rouse
the brain of infant man into sentient activity, and such seems to
be the sluggishness of original matter that unless by a peculiar
course of excitements other wants, equally powerful, are
generated, these stimulants seem, even afterwards, to be
necessary to continue that activity which they first awakened.
The savage would slumber for ever under his tree unless he were
roused from his torpor by the cravings of hunger or the pinchings
of cold, and the exertions that he makes to avoid these evils, by
procuring food, and building himself a covering, are the
exercises which form and keep in motion his faculties, which
otherwise would sink into listless inactivity. From all that
experience has taught us concerning the structure of the human
mind, if those stimulants to exertion which arise from the wants
of the body were removed from the mass of mankind, we have much
more reason to think that they would be sunk to the level of
brutes, from a deficiency of excitements, than that they would be
raised to the rank of philosophers by the possession of leisure.
In those countries where nature is the most redundant in
spontaneous produce the inhabitants will not be found the most
remarkable for acuteness of intellect. Necessity has been with
great truth called the mother of invention. Some of the noblest
exertions of the human mind have been set in motion by the
necessity of satisfying the wants of the body. Want has not
unfrequently given wings to the imagination of the poet, pointed
the flowing periods of the historian, and added acuteness to the
researches of the philosopher, and though there are undoubtedly
many minds at present so far improved by the various excitements
of knowledge, or of social sympathy, that they would not relapse
into listlessness if their bodily stimulants were removed, yet it
can scarcely be doubted that these stimulants could not be
withdrawn from the mass of mankind without producing a general
and fatal torpor, destructive of all the germs of future
improvement.
Locke, if I recollect, says that the endeavour to avoid pain
rather than the pursuit of pleasure is the great stimulus to
action in life: and that in looking to any particular pleasure,
we shall not be roused into action in order to obtain it, till
the contemplation of it has continued so long as to amount to a
sensation of pain or uneasiness under the absence of it. To avoid
evil and to pursue good seem to be the great duty and business of
man, and this world appears to be peculiarly calculated to afford
opportunity of the most unremitted exertion of this kind, and it
is by this exertion, by these stimulants, that mind is formed. If
Locke's idea be just, and there is great reason to think that it
is, evil seems to be necessary to create exertion, and exertion
seems evidently necessary to create mind.
The necessity of food for the support of life gives rise,
probably, to a greater quantity of exertion than any other want,
bodily or mental. The Supreme Being has ordained that the earth
shall not produce good in great quantities till much preparatory
labour and ingenuity has been exercised upon its surface. There
is no conceivable connection to our comprehensions, between the
seed and the plant or tree that rises from it. The Supreme
Creator might, undoubtedly, raise up plants of all kinds, for the
use of his creatures, without the assistance of those little bits
of matter, which we call seed, or even without the assisting
labour and attention of man. The processes of ploughing and
clearing the ground, of collecting and sowing seeds, are not
surely for the assistance of God in his creation, but are made
previously necessary to the enjoyment of the blessings of life,
in order to rouse man into action, and form his mind to reason.
To furnish the most unremitted excitements of this kind, and
to urge man to further the gracious designs of Providence by the
full cultivation of the earth, it has been ordained that
population should increase much faster than food. This general
law (as it has appeared in the former parts of this Essay)
undoubtedly produces much partial evil, but a little reflection
may, perhaps, satisfy us, that it produces a great overbalance of
good. Strong excitements seem necessary to create exertion, and
to direct this exertion, and form the reasoning faculty, it seems
absolutely necessary, that the Supreme Being should act always
according to general laws. The constancy of the laws of nature,
or the certainty with which we may expect the same effects from
the same causes, is the foundation of the faculty of reason. If
in the ordinary course of things, the finger of God were
frequently visible, or to speak more correctly, if God were
frequently to change his purpose (for the finger of God is,
indeed, visible in every blade of grass that we see), a general
and fatal torpor of the human faculties would probably ensue;
even the bodily wants of mankind would cease to stimulate them to
exertion, could they not reasonably expect that if their efforts
were well directed they would be crowned with success. The
constancy of the laws of nature is the foundation of the industry
and foresight of the husbandman, the indefatigable ingenuity of
the artificer, the skilful researches of the physician and
anatomist, and the watchful observation and patient investigation
of the natural philosopher. To this constancy we owe all the
greatest and noblest efforts of intellect. To this constancy we
owe the immortal mind of a Newton.
As the reasons, therefore, for the constancy of the laws of
nature seem, even to our understandings, obvious and striking; if
we return to the principle of population and consider man as he
really is, inert, sluggish, and averse from labour, unless
compelled by necessity (and it is surely the height of folly to
talk of man, according to our crude fancies of what he might be),
we may pronounce with certainty that the world would not have
been peopled, but for the superiority of the power of population
to the means of subsistence. Strong and constantly operative as
this stimulus is on man to urge him to the cultivation of the
earth, if we still see that cultivation proceeds very slowly, we
may fairly conclude that a less stimulus would have been
insufficient. Even under the operation of this constant
excitement, savages will inhabit countries of the greatest
natural fertility for a long period before they betake themselves
to pasturage or agriculture. Had population and food increased in
the same ratio, it is probable that man might never have emerged
from the savage state. But supposing the earth once well peopled,
an Alexander, a Julius Caesar, a Tamberlane, or a bloody
revolution might irrecoverably thin the human race, and defeat
the great designs of the Creator. The ravages of a contagious
disorder would be felt for ages; and an earthquake might unpeople
a region for ever. The principle, according to which population
increases, prevents the vices of mankind, or the accidents of
nature, the partial evils arising from general laws, from
obstructing the high purpose of the creation. It keeps the
inhabitants of the earth always fully up to the level of the
means of subsistence; and is constantly acting upon man as a
powerful stimulus, urging him to the further cultivation of the
earth, and to enable it, consequently, to support a more extended
population. But it is impossible that this law can operate, and
produce the effects apparently intended by the Supreme Being,
without occasioning partial evil. Unless the principle of
population were to be altered according to the circumstances of
each separate country (which would not only be contrary to our
universal experience, with regard to the laws of nature, but
would contradict even our own reason, which sees the absolute
necessity of general laws for the formation of intellect), it is
evident that the same principle which, seconded by industry, will
people a fertile region in a few years must produce distress in
countries that have been long inhabited.
It seems, however, every way probable that even the
acknowledged difficulties occasioned by the law of population
tend rather to promote than impede the general purpose of
Providence. They excite universal exertion and contribute to that
infinite variety of situations, and consequently of impressions,
which seems upon the whole favourable to the growth of mind. It
is probable, that too great or too little excitement, extreme
poverty, or too great riches may be alike unfavourable in this
respect. The middle regions of society seem to be best suited to
intellectual improvement, but it is contrary to the analogy of
all nature to expect that the whole of society can be a middle
region. The temperate zones of the earth seem to be the most
favourable to the mental and corporal energies of man, but all
cannot be temperate zones. A world, warmed and enlightened but by
one sun, must from the laws of matter have some parts chilled by
perpetual frosts and others scorched by perpetual heats. Every
piece of matter lying on a surface must have an upper and an
under side, all the particles cannot be in the middle. The most
valuable parts of an oak, to a timber merchant, are not either
the roots or the branches, but these are absolutely necessary to
the existence of the middle part, or stem, which is the object in
request. The timber merchant could not possibly expect to make an
oak grow without roots or branches, but if he could find out a
mode of cultivation which would cause more of the substance to go
to stem, and less to root and branch, he would be right to exert
himself in bringing such a system into general use.
In the same manner, though we cannot possibly expect to
exclude riches and poverty from society, yet if we could find out
a mode of government by which the numbers in the extreme regions
would be lessened and the numbers in the middle regions
increased, it would be undoubtedly our duty to adopt it. It is
not, however, improbable that as in the oak, the roots and
branches could not be diminished very greatly without weakening
the vigorous circulation of the sap in the stem, so in society
the extreme parts could not be diminished beyond a certain degree
without lessening that animated exertion throughout the middle
parts, which is the very cause that they are the most favourable
to the growth of intellect. If no man could hope to rise or fear
to fall, in society, if industry did not bring with it its reward
and idleness its punishment, the middle parts would not certainly
be what they now are. In reasoning upon this subject, it is
evident that we ought to consider chiefly the mass of mankind and
not individual instances. There are undoubtedly many minds, and
there ought to be many, according to the chances out of so great
a mass, that, having been vivified early by a peculiar course of
excitements, would not need the constant action of narrow motives
to continue them in activity. But if we were to review the
various useful discoveries, the valuable writings, and other
laudable exertions of mankind, I believe we should find that more
were to be attributed to the narrow motives that operate upon the
many than to the apparently more enlarged motives that operate
upon the few.
Leisure is, without doubt, highly valuable to man, but taking
man as he is, the probability seems to be that in the greater
number of instances it will produce evil rather than good. It has
been not infrequently remarked that talents are more common among
younger brothers than among elder brothers, but it can scarcely
be imagined that younger brothers are, upon an average, born with
a greater original susceptibility of parts. The difference, if
there really is any observable difference, can only arise from
their different situations. Exertion and activity are in general
absolutely necessary in one case and are only optional in the
other.
That the difficulties of life contribute to generate talents,
every day's experience must convince us. The exertions that men
find it necessary to make, in order to support themselves or
families, frequently awaken faculties that might otherwise have
lain for ever dormant, and it has been commonly remarked that new
and extraordinary situations generally create minds adequate to
grapple with the difficulties in which they are involved.