CHRISTIAN POLITICS. PART II. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, BOTH , TO SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL; WITH REFLECTIONS ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS AND TOLERATION. SECTION I. On the Importance of Religion, both to SOME late pretended philosophers, in order to set aside the importance of religion, have endeavoured to establish an opinion, that a wise legislation is all that is necessary to make the world virtuous and happy; and, consequently, that all the evils which mankind have hitherto laboured un subjects of religious teaching as the untutored savage; arising indeed not from literature or philosophy, in themselves, but from that presumption with which they are so apt to swell the mind, and indispose it to that doctrine whose first and last instruction is humility. Thus every just view of man, whether he is considered in his individual or social capacity, leads us to the famous apothegm of the Grecian sage Cleobulus, and which the wise and moderate of every succeeding generation have chosen for their motto— Mfyov apgjov, a medium is best. For though mediocrity is not the standard of true virtue, as Aristotle supposed, it is best, however, in respect to those circumstances which relate merely to our present state. Hence the care of government should be to place and secure a people in that situation, in which the fewest individuals possible are in extreme wealth or indigence; and in which the arts and sciences are no further encouraged, than as they are calculated to increase or preserve useful knowledge, to furnish employment, and minister to the CHRISTIAN POLITICS. PART II. ON THE IMPORTANCE OF RELIGION, BOTH , TO SOCIETY AND THE INDIVIDUAL; WITH REFLECTIONS ON RELIGIOUS ESTABLISHMENTS AND TOLERATION. SECTION I. On the Importance of Religion, both to SOME late pretended philosophers, in order to set aside the importance of religion, have endeavoured to establish an opinion, that a wise legislation is all that is necessary to make the world virtuous and happy; and, consequently, that all the evils which mankind have hitherto laboured un fection of their political institutions. Nowv allowing that whatever evils have arisen from bad government are capable of correction by the contrary, still it may be true, that such as made their way into the world, previous to all civil government whatsoever, may require remedies which no human means can provide or apply. Let us, however, for a moment, listen to these political sages. Virtue, according to their great doctor Helvetius, consists in the knowledge (why "not the practice ?) of those duties we owe one to another, and therefore supposes the formation of societies. "A man/' says he, "born in a desert isle, and abandoned to himself, would remain without vice and without virtue." "What then," he proceeds, "must we understand by the words virtuous and vicious, but actions either useful or injurious to the public*?" The same is held by others of * "Vertu—consistc dans la eonnoissance de ce que Ies hommes se doivent les uns aux autres—elle suppose par consequent la formation des societes. Ne dans une isle deserte, abandonne a moi-meme, J'y vis sans vice et sans vertu—Que faut il done entendre par ces mots verthis philosophic school: I shall only subjoin a passage from Ray nail: "Since society," he observes, "should be useful to all its members, they ought every one in return to be useful to society: so, to be virtuous is to be useful, and to be vicious is to be useless or hurtful: behold, the sum of morality*." Hence it is but supposing that virtue and vice relate only to society, and that the state of society depends only upon the laws, and the conclusion follows, That nothing is tvanting to reform the world but a wise legislation. What such writers mean by being useful to society, we may collect from their ideas of human happiness. "I maintain," says Helvetius, "that man, from his very frame titeuses et vicieuses? Les actions utiles ou nuisible u la societe." Hely. de l'homme, sect. ii. eh. xvi. (note 9.) * "Puisque la societe doit etre utile a chacun de ses membres, il est de la justice que chacun de ses membres soit utile a la societe. Ainsi etre vertueux, c'est €tre utile; etre vicieux, c'est etre inutile ou nuisible. Voila la morale." |