History of European Morals From Augustus to Charlemagne Volume I Part 10

The Decian persecution is remarkable in Christian archaeology as being, it is believed, the first occasion in which the Christian catacombs were violated. Those vast subterranean corridors, lined with tombs and expanding very frequently into small chapels adorned with paintings, often of no mean beauty, had for a long period been an inviolable asylum in seasons of persecution. The extreme sanct.i.ty which the Romans were accustomed to attach to the place of burial repelled the profane, and as early, it is said, as the very beginning of the third century, the catacombs were recognised as legal possessions of the Church.(883) The Roman legislators, however unfavourable to the formation of guilds or a.s.sociations, made an exception in favour of burial societies, or a.s.sociations of men subscribing a certain sum to ensure to each member a decent burial in ground which belonged to the corporation. The Church is believed to have availed itself of this privilege, and to have attained, in this capacity, a legal existence. The tombs, which were originally the properties of distinct families, became in this manner an ecclesiastical domain, and the catacombs were, from perhaps the first, made something more than places of burial.(884) The chapels with which they abound, and which are of the smallest dimensions and utterly unfit for general worship, were probably mortuary chapels, and may have also been employed in the services commemorating the martyrs, while the ordinary worship was probably at first conducted in the private houses of the Christians. The decision of Alexander Severus, which I have already noticed, is the earliest notice we possess of the existence of buildings specially devoted to the Christian services; but we cannot tell how long before this time they may have existed in Rome.(885) In serious persecution, however, they would doubtless have to be abandoned; and, as a last resort, the catacombs proved a refuge from the persecutors.

The reign of Decius only lasted about two years, and before its close the persecution had almost ceased.(886) On the accession of his son Gallus, in the last month of A.D. 251, there was for a short time perfect peace; but Gallus resumed the persecution in the spring of the following year, and although apparently not very severe, or very general, it seems to have continued to his death, which took place a year after.(887) Two Roman bishops, Cornelius, who had succeeded the martyred Fabia.n.u.s, and his successor Lucius, were at this time put to death.(888) Valerian, who ascended the throne A.D. 254, at first not only tolerated, but warmly patronised the Christians, and attracted so many to his Court that his house, in the language of a contemporary, appeared "the Church of the Lord."(889) But after rather more than four years his disposition changed.

At the persuasion, it is said, of an Egyptian magician, named Macria.n.u.s, he signed in A.D. 258 an edict of persecution condemning Christian ecclesiastics and senators to death, and other Christians to exile, or to the forfeiture of their property, and prohibiting them from entering the catacombs.(890) A sanguinary and general persecution ensued. Among the victims were Sixtus, the Bishop of Rome, who perished in the catacombs,(891) and Cyprian, who was exiled, and afterwards beheaded, and was the first Bishop of Carthage who suffered martyrdom.(892) At last, Valerian, having been captured by the Persians, Gallienus, in A.D. 260, ascended the throne, and immediately proclaimed a perfect toleration of the Christians.(893)

The period from the accession of Decius, in A.D. 249, to the accession of Gallienus, in A.D. 260, which I have now very briefly noticed, was by far the most disastrous the Church had yet endured. With the exception of about five years in the reigns of Gallus and Valerian, the persecution was continuous, though it varied much in its intensity and its range. During the first portion, if measured, not by the number of deaths, but by the atrocity of the tortures inflicted, it was probably as severe as any upon record. It was subsequently directed chiefly against the leading clergy, and, as we have seen, four Roman bishops perished. In addition to the political reasons that inspired it, the popular fanaticism caused by great calamities, which were ascribed to anger of the G.o.ds at the neglect of their worship, had in this as in former periods a great influence.

Political disasters, which foreshadowed clearly the approaching downfall of the Empire, were followed by fearful and general famines and plagues.

St. Cyprian, in a treatise addressed to one of the persecutors who was most confident in ascribing these things to the Christians, presents us with an extremely curious picture both of the general despondency that had fallen upon the Empire, and of the manner in which these calamities were regarded by the Christians. Like most of his co-religionists, the saint was convinced that the closing scene of the earth was at hand. The decrepitude of the world, he said, had arrived, the forces of nature were almost exhausted, the sun had no longer its old l.u.s.tre, or the soil its old fertility, the spring time had grown less lovely, and the autumn less bounteous, the energy of man had decayed, and all things were moving rapidly to the end. Famines and plagues were the precursors of the day of judgment. They were sent to warn and punish a rebellious world, which, still bowing down before idols, persecuted the believers in the truth. "So true is this, that the Christians are never persecuted without the sky manifesting at once the Divine displeasure." The conception of a converted Empire never appears to have flashed across the mind of the saint;(894) the only triumph he predicted for the Church was that of another world; and to the threats of the persecutors he rejoined by fearful menaces. "A burning, scorching fire will for ever torment those who are condemned; there will be no respite or end to their torments. We shall through eternity contemplate in their agonies those who for a short time contemplated us in tortures, and for the brief pleasure which the barbarity of our persecutors took in feasting their eyes upon an inhuman spectacle, they will be themselves exposed as an eternal spectacle of agony." As a last warning, calamity after calamity broke upon the world, and, with the solemnity of one on whom the shadow of death had already fallen, St. Cyprian adjured the persecutors to repent and to be saved.(895)

The accession of Gallienus introduced the Church to a new period of perfect peace, which, with a single inconsiderable exception, continued for no less than forty years. The exception was furnished by Aurelian, who during nearly the whole of his reign had been exceedingly favourable to the Christians, and had even been appealed to by the orthodox bishops, who desired him to expel from Antioch a prelate they had excommunicated for heresy,(896) but who, at the close of his reign, intended to persecute. He was a.s.sa.s.sinated, however, according to one account, when he was just about to sign the decrees; according to another, before they had been sent through the provinces; and if any persecution actually took place, it was altogether inconsiderable.(897) Christianity, during all this time, was not only perfectly free, it was greatly honoured. Christians were appointed governors of the provinces, and were expressly exonerated from the duty of sacrificing. The bishops were treated by the civil authorities with profound respect. The palaces of the emperor were filled with Christian servants, who were authorised freely to profess their religion, and were greatly valued for their fidelity. The popular prejudice seems to have been lulled to rest; and it has been noticed that the rapid progress of the faith excited no tumult or hostility. s.p.a.cious churches were erected in every quarter, and they could scarcely contain the mult.i.tude of worshippers.(898) In Rome itself, before the outburst of the Diocletian persecution, there were no less than forty churches.(899) The Christians may still have been outnumbered by the Pagans; but when we consider their organisation, their zeal, and their rapid progress, a speedy triumph appeared inevitable.

But before that triumph was achieved a last and a terrific ordeal was to be undergone. Diocletian, whose name has been somewhat unjustly a.s.sociated with a persecution, the responsibility of which belongs far more to his colleague Galerius, having left the Christians in perfect peace for nearly eighteen years, suffered himself to be persuaded to make one more effort to eradicate the foreign creed. This emperor, who had risen by his merits from the humblest position, exhibited in all the other actions of his reign a moderate, placable, and conspicuously humane nature, and, although he greatly magnified the Imperial authority, the simplicity of his private life, his voluntary abdication, and, above all, his singularly n.o.ble conduct during many years of retirement, displayed a rare magnanimity of character. As a politician, he deserves, I think, to rank very high.

Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius had been too fascinated by the traditions of the Republic, and by the austere teaching and retrospective spirit of the Stoics, to realise the necessity of adapting inst.i.tutions to the wants of a luxurious and highly civilised people, and they therefore had little permanent influence upon the destinies of the Empire. But Diocletian invariably exhibited in his legislation a far-seeing and comprehensive mind, well aware of the condition of the society he ruled, and provident of distant events. Perceiving that Roman corruption was incurable, he attempted to regenerate the Empire by creating new centres of political life in the great and comparatively unperverted capitals of the provinces; and Nicomedia, which was his habitual residence, Carthage, Milan, and Ravenna, all received abundant tokens of his favour. He swept away or disregarded the obsolete and inefficient inst.i.tutions of Republican liberty that still remained, and indeed gave his government a somewhat Oriental character; but, at the same time, by the bold, and, it must be admitted, very perilous measure of dividing the Empire into four sections, he abridged the power of each ruler, ensured the better supervision and increased authority of the provinces, and devised the first effectual check to those military revolts which had for some time been threatening the Empire with anarchy. With the same energetic statesmanship, we find him reorganising the whole system of taxation, and attempting, less wisely, to regulate commercial transactions. To such an emperor, the problem presented by the rapid progress and the profoundly anti-national character of Christianity must have been a matter of serious consideration, and the weaknesses of his character were most unfavourable to the Church; for Diocletian, with many n.o.ble qualities of heart and head, was yet superst.i.tious, tortuous, nervous, and vacillating, and was too readily swayed by the rude and ferocious soldier, who was impetuously inciting him against the Christians.

The extreme pa.s.sion which Galerius displayed on this subject is ascribed, in the first instance, to the influence of his mother, who was ardently devoted to the Pagan worship. He is himself painted in dark colours by the Christian writers as a man of boundless and unbridled sensuality, of an imperiousness that rose to fury at opposition, and of a cruelty which had long pa.s.sed the stage of callousness, and become a fiendish delight, in the infliction and contemplation of suffering.(900) His strong attachment to Paganism made him at length the avowed representative of his party, which several causes had contributed to strengthen. The philosophy of the Empire had by this time fully pa.s.sed into its Neoplatonic and Pythagorean phases, and was closely connected with religious observances. Hierocles and Porphyry, who were among its most eminent exponents, had both written books against Christianity, and the Oriental religions fostered much fanaticism among the people. Political interests united with superst.i.tion, for the Christians were now a very formidable body in the State. Their interests were supposed to be represented by the Caesar Constantius Chlorus, and the religion was either adopted, or at least warmly favoured, by the wife and daughter of Diocletian (the latter of whom was married to Galerius(901)), and openly professed by some of the leading officials at the Court. A magnificent church crowned the hill facing the palace of the emperor at Nicomedia. The bishops were, in most cities, among the most active and influential citizens, and their influence was not always exercised for good. A few cases, in which an ill-considered zeal led Christians to insult the Pagan worship, one or two instances of Christians refusing to serve in the army, because they believed military life repugnant to their creed, a scandalous relaxation of morals, that had arisen during the long peace, and the fierce and notorious discord displayed by the leaders of the Church, contributed in different ways to accelerate the persecution.(902)

For a considerable time Diocletian resisted all the urgency of Galerius against the Christians, and the only measure taken was the dismissal by the latter sovereign of a number of Christian officers from the army. In A.D. 303, however, Diocletian yielded to the entreaties of his colleague, and a fearful persecution, which many circ.u.mstances conspired to stimulate, began. The priests, in one of the public ceremonies, had declared that the presence of Christians prevented the entrails from showing the accustomed signs. The oracle of Apollo, at Miletus, being consulted by Diocletian, exhorted him to persecute the Christians. A fanatical Christian, who avowed his deed, and expiated it by a fearful death, tore down the first edict of persecution, and replaced it by a bitter taunt against the emperor. Twice, after the outburst of the persecution, the palace at Nicomedia, where Diocletian and Galerius were residing, was set on fire, and the act was ascribed, not without probability, to a Christian hand, as were also some slight disturbances that afterwards arose in Syria.(903) Edict after edict followed in rapid succession. The first ordered the destruction of all Christian churches and of all Bibles, menaced with death the Christians if they a.s.sembled in secret for Divine worship, and deprived them of all civil rights. A second edict ordered all ecclesiastics to be thrown into prison, while a third edict ordered that these prisoners, and a fourth edict that all Christians, should be compelled by torture to sacrifice. At first Diocletian refused to permit their lives to be taken, but after the fire at Nicomedia this restriction was removed. Many were burnt alive, and the tortures by which the persecutors sought to shake their resolution were so dreadful that even such a death seemed an act of mercy. The only province of the Empire where the Christians were at peace was Gaul, which had received its baptism of blood under Marcus Aurelius, but was now governed by Constantius Chlorus, who protected them from personal molestation, though he was compelled, in obedience to the emperor, to destroy their churches. In Spain, which was also under the government, but not under the direct inspection, of Constantius, the persecution was moderate, but in all other parts of the Empire it raged with fierceness till the abdication of Diocletian in 305. This event almost immediately restored peace to the Western provinces,(904) but greatly aggravated the misfortunes of the Eastern Christians, who pa.s.sed under the absolute rule of Galerius.

Horrible, varied, and prolonged tortures were employed to quell their fort.i.tude, and their final resistance was crowned by the most dreadful of all deaths, roasting over a slow fire. It was not till A.D. 311, eight years after the commencement of the general persecution, ten years after the first measure against the Christians, that the Eastern persecution ceased. Galerius, the arch-enemy of the Christians, was struck down by a fearful disease. His body, it is said, became a ma.s.s of loathsome and ftid sores-a living corpse, devoured by countless worms, and exhaling the odour of the charnel-house. He who had shed so much innocent blood, shrank himself from a Roman death. In his extreme anguish he appealed in turn to physician after physician, and to temple after temple. At last he relented towards the Christians. He issued a proclamation restoring them to liberty, permitting them to rebuild their churches, and asking their prayers for his recovery.(905) The era of persecution now closed. One brief spasm, indeed, due to the Caesar Maximian, shot through the long afflicted Church of Asia Minor;(906) but it was rapidly allayed. The accession of Constantine, the proclamation of Milan, A.D. 313, the defeat of Licinius, and the conversion of the conqueror, speedily followed, and Christianity became the religion of the Empire.

Such, so far as we can trace it, is the outline of the last and most terrible persecution inflicted on the early Church. Unfortunately we can place little reliance on any information we possess about the number of its victims, the provocations that produced it, or the objects of its authors. The ecclesiastical account of these matters is absolutely unchecked by any Pagan statement, and it is derived almost exclusively from the history of Eusebius, and from the treatise "On the Deaths of the Persecutors," which is ascribed to Lactantius. Eusebius was a writer of great learning, and of critical abilities not below the very low level of his time, and he had personal knowledge of some of the events in Palestine which he has recorded; but he had no pretensions whatever to impartiality.

He has frankly told us that his principle in writing history was to conceal the facts that were injurious to the reputation of the Church;(907) and although his practice was sometimes better than his principle, the portrait he has drawn of the saintly virtues of his patron Constantine, which we are able to correct from other sources, abundantly proves with how little scruple the courtly bishop could stray into the paths of fiction. The treatise of Lactantius, which has been well termed "a party pamphlet," is much more untrustworthy. It is a hymn of exultation over the disastrous ends of the persecutors, and especially of Galerius, written in a strain of the fiercest and most pa.s.sionate invective, and bearing on every page unequivocal signs of inaccuracy and exaggeration.

The whole history of the early persecution was soon enveloped in a thick cloud of falsehood. A notion, derived from prophecy, that ten great persecutions must precede the day of judgment, at an early period stimulated the imagination of the Christians, who believed that day to be imminent; and it was natural that as time rolled on men should magnify the sufferings that had been endured, and that in credulous and uncritical ages a single real incident should be often multiplied, diversified, and exaggerated in many distinct narratives. Monstrous fictions, such as the crucifixion of ten thousand Christians upon Mount Ararat under Trajan, the letter of Tiberia.n.u.s to Trajan, complaining that he was weary of ceaselessly killing Christians in Palestine, and the Theban legion of six thousand men, said to have been ma.s.sacred by Maximilian, were boldly propagated and readily believed.(908) The virtue supposed to attach to the bones of martyrs, and the custom, and, after a decree of the second Council of Nice, in the eighth century, the obligation, of placing saintly remains under every altar, led to an immense multiplication of spurious relics, and a corresponding demand for legends. Almost every hamlet soon required a patron martyr and a local legend, which the nearest monastery was usually ready to supply. The monks occupied their time in composing and disseminating innumerable acts of martyrs, which purported to be strictly historical, but which were, in fact, deliberate, though it was thought edifying, forgeries; and pictures of hideous tortures, enlivened by fantastic miracles, soon became the favourite popular literature. To discriminate accurately the genuine acts of martyrs from the immense ma.s.s that were fabricated by the monks, has been attempted by Ruinart, but is perhaps impossible. Modern criticism has, however, done much to reduce the ancient persecutions to their true dimensions. The famous essay of Dodwell, which appeared towards the close of the seventeenth century, though written, I think, a little in the spirit of a special pleader, and not free from its own exaggerations, has had a great and abiding influence upon ecclesiastical history, and the still more famous chapter which Gibbon devoted to the subject rendered the conclusions of Dodwell familiar to the world.

Notwithstanding the great knowledge and critical ac.u.men displayed in this chapter, few persons, I imagine, can rise from its perusal without a feeling both of repulsion and dissatisfaction. The complete absence of all sympathy with the heroic courage manifested by the martyrs, and the frigid and, in truth, most unphilosophical severity with which the historian has weighed the words and actions of men engaged in the agonies of a deadly struggle, must repel every generous nature, while the persistence with which he estimates persecutions by the number of deaths rather than by the amount of suffering, diverts the mind from the really distinctive atrocities of the Pagan persecutions. He has observed, that while the anger of the persecutors was at all times especially directed against the bishops, we know from Eusebius that only nine bishops were put to death in the entire Diocletian persecution, and that the particular enumeration, which the historian made on the spot, of all the martyrs who perished during this persecution in Palestine, which was under the government of Galerius, and was therefore exposed to the full fury of the storm, shows the entire number to have been ninety-two. Starting from this fact, Gibbon, by a well-known process of calculation, has estimated the probable number of martyrs in the whole Empire, during the Diocletian persecution, at about two thousand, which happens to be the number of persons burnt by the Spanish Inquisition during the presidency of Torquemada alone,(909) and about one twenty-fifth of the number who are said to have suffered for their religion in the Netherlands in the reign of Charles V.(910) But although, if measured by the number of martyrs, the persecutions inflicted by Pagans were less terrible than those inflicted by Christians, there is one aspect in which the former appear by far the more atrocious, and a truthful historian should suffer no false delicacy to prevent him from unflinchingly stating it. The conduct of the provincial governors, even when they were compelled by the Imperial edicts to persecute, was often conspicuously merciful. The Christian records contain several examples of rulers who refused to search out the Christians, who discountenanced or even punished their accusers, who suggested ingenious evasions of the law, who tried by earnest and patient kindness to overcome what they regarded as insane obstinacy, and who, when their efforts had proved vain, mitigated by their own authority the sentence they were compelled to p.r.o.nounce. It was only on very rare occasions that any, except conspicuous leaders of the Church, and sometimes persons of a servile condition, were in danger; the time that was conceded them before their trials gave them great facilities for escaping, and, even when condemned, Christian women had usually full permission to visit them in their prisons, and to console them by their charity. But, on the other hand, Christian writings, which it is impossible to dispute, continually record barbarities inflicted upon converts, so ghastly and so hideous that the worst horrors of the Inquisition pale before them. It is, indeed, true that burning heretics by a slow fire was one of the accomplishments of the Inquisitors, and that they were among the most consummate masters of torture of their age. It is true that in one Catholic country they introduced the atrocious custom of making the spectacle of men burnt alive for their religious opinions an element in the public festivities.(911) It is true, too, that the immense majority of the acts of the martyrs are the transparent forgeries of lying monks; but it is also true that among the authentic records of Pagan persecutions there are histories which display, perhaps more vividly than any other, both the depth of cruelty to which human nature may sink, and the heroism of resistance it may attain. There was a time when it was the just boast of the Romans, that no refinements of cruelty, no prolongations of torture, were admitted in their stern but simple penal code. But all this was changed. Those hateful games, which made the spectacle of human suffering and death the delight of all cla.s.ses, had spread their brutalising influence wherever the Roman name was known, had rendered millions absolutely indifferent to the sight of human suffering, had produced in many, in the very centre of an advanced civilisation, a relish and a pa.s.sion for torture, a rapture and an exultation in watching the spasms of extreme agony, such as an African or an American savage alone can equal. The most horrible recorded instances of torture were usually inflicted, either by the populace, or in their presence, in the arena.(912) We read of Christians bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their half-consumed flesh rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others who were torn to the very bone by sh.e.l.ls, or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the l.u.s.t of the gladiator, or to the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to the mines, each with the sinews of one leg severed by a red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped from its socket; of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their agonies; of bodies torn limb from limb, or sprinkled with burning lead; of mingled salt and vinegar poured over the flesh that was bleeding from the rack; of tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. For the love of their Divine Master, for the cause they believed to be true, men, and even weak girls, endured these things without flinching, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings. No opinion we may form of the proceedings of priests in a later age should impair the reverence with which we bend before the martyr's tomb.

FOOTNOTES

1 The opinions of Hume on moral questions are grossly misrepresented by many writers, who persist in describing them as substantially identical with those of Bentham. How far Hume was from denying the existence of a moral sense, the following pa.s.sages will show:-"The final sentence, it is probable, which p.r.o.nounces characters and actions amiable or odious, praiseworthy or blameable ... depends on some internal sense or feeling which nature has made universal in the whole species."-_Enquiry Concerning Morals_, -- 1. "The hypothesis we embrace ... defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to the spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation."-Ibid. Append. I. "The crime or immorality is no particular fact or relation which can be the object of the understanding, but arises entirely from the sentiment of disapprobation, which, by the structure of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehension of barbarity or treachery."-Ibid. "Reason instructs us in the several tendencies of actions, and humanity makes a distinction in favour of those which are useful and beneficial."-Ibid. "As virtue is an end, and is desirable on its own account without fee or reward, merely for the immediate satisfaction it conveys, it is requisite that there should be some sentiment which it touches, some internal taste or feeling, or whatever you please to call it, which distinguishes moral good and evil, and which embraces the one and rejects the other."-Ibid.

The two writers to whom Hume was most indebted were Hutcheson and Butler. In some interesting letters to the former (Burton's _Life of Hume_, vol. i.), he discusses the points on which he differed from them.

2 "The chief thing therefore which lawgivers and other wise men that have laboured for the establishment of society have endeavoured, has been to make the people they were to govern believe that it was more beneficial for everybody to conquer than to indulge his appet.i.tes, and much better to mind the public than what seemed his private interest ... observing that none were either so savage as not to be charmed with praise, or so despicable as patiently to bear contempt, they justly concluded that flattery must be the most powerful argument that could be used to human creatures. Making use of this bewitching engine, they extolled the excellency of our nature above other animals ... by the help of which we were capable of performing the most n.o.ble achievements. Having, by this artful flattery, insinuated themselves into the hearts of men, they began to instruct them in the notions of honour and shame, &c."-_Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue._

3 "I conceive that when a man deliberates whether he shall do a thing or not do it, he does nothing else but consider whether it be better for himself to do it or not to do it."-Hobbes _On Liberty and Necessity._ "Good and evil are names that signify our appet.i.tes and aversions."-Ibid. _Leviathan_, part i. ch. xvi. "Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting any action in order to be happy."-Gay's dissertation prefixed to King's _Origin of Evil_, p.

36. "The only reason or motive by which individuals can possibly be induced to the practice of virtue, must be the feeling immediate or the prospect of future private happiness."-Brown _On the Characteristics_, p. 159. "En tout temps, en tout lieu, tant en matiere de morale qu'en matiere d'esprit, c'est l'interet personnel qui dicte le jugement des particuliers, et l'interet general qui dicte celui des nations.... Tout homme ne prend dans ses jugements conseil que de son interet."-Helvetius _De l'Esprit_, discours ii.

"Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do.... The principle of utility recognises this subjection, and a.s.sumes it for the foundation of that system, the object of which is to rear the fabric of felicity by the hands of reason and of law. Systems which attempt to question it, deal in sounds instead of sense, in caprice instead of reason, in darkness instead of light."-Bentham's _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. i. "By the principle of utility is meant that principle which approves or disapproves of every action whatsoever, according to the tendency which it appears to have to augment or diminish the happiness of the party whose interest is in question."-Ibid. "Je regarde l'amour eclaire de nous-memes comme le principe de tout sacrifice moral."-D'Alembert quoted by D. Stewart, _Active and Moral Powers_, vol. i. p. 220.

4 "Pleasure is in itself a good; nay, even setting aside immunity from pain, the only good; pain is in itself an evil, and, indeed, without exception, the only evil, or else the words good and evil have no meaning."-Bentham's _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. x.

5 "Good and evil are nothing but pleasure and pain, or that which occasions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil then is only the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the law maker, which good and evil, pleasure or pain, attending our observance or breach of the law by the decree of the law maker, is that we call reward or punishment."-Locke's _Essay_, book ii. ch. xxviii. "Take away pleasures and pains, not only happiness, but justice, and duty, and obligation, and virtue, all of which have been so elaborately held up to view as independent of them, are so many empty sounds."-Bentham's _Springs of Action_, ch.

i. -- 15.

6 "Il lui est aussi impossible d'aimer le bien pour le bien, que d'aimer le mal pour le mal."-Helvetius _De l'Esprit_, disc. ii. ch.

v.

7 "Even the goodness which we apprehend in G.o.d Almighty, is his goodness to us."-Hobbes _On Human Nature_, ch. vii. -- 3. So Waterland, "To love G.o.d is in effect the same thing as to love happiness, eternal happiness; and the love of happiness is still the love of ourselves."-_Third Sermon on Self-love._

8 "Reverence is the conception we have concerning another, that he hath the power to do unto us both good and hurt, but not the will to do us hurt."-Hobbes _On Human Nature_, ch. viii. -- 7.

9 "The pleasures of piety are the pleasures that accompany the belief of a man's being in the acquisition, or in possession of the goodwill or favour of the Supreme Being; and as a fruit of it, of his being in the way of enjoying pleasures to be received by G.o.d's special appointment either in this life or in a life to come."-Bentham's _Principles of Morals and Legislation_, ch. v. "The pains of piety are the pains that accompany the belief of a man's being obnoxious to the displeasure of the Supreme Being, and in consequence to certain pains to be inflicted by His especial appointment, either in this life or in a life to come. These may be also called the pains of religion."-Ibid.

10 "There can be no greater argument to a man of his own power, than to find himself able not only to accomplish his own desires, but also to a.s.sist other men in theirs; and this is that conception wherein consisteth charity."-Hobbes _On Hum. Nat._ ch. ix. -- 17. "No man giveth but with intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary acts, the object to every man is his own good."-Hobbes' _Leviathan_, part i. ch. xv. "Dream not that men will move their little finger to serve you, unless their advantage in so doing be obvious to them. Men never did so, and never will while human nature is made of its present materials."-Bentham's _Deontology_, vol. ii. p. 133.

11 "Pity is imagination or fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of another man's calamity. But when it lighteth on such as we think have not deserved the same, the compa.s.sion is greater, because there then appeareth more probability that the same may happen to us; for the evil that happeneth to an innocent man may happen to every man."-Hobbes _On Hum. Nat._ ch. ix.

-- 10. "La pitie est souvent un sentiment de nos propres maux dans les maux d'autrui. C'est une habile prevoyance des malheurs ou nous pouvons tomber. Nous donnons des secours aux autres pour les engager a nous en donner en de semblables occasions, et ces services que nous leur rendons sont, a proprement parler, des biens que nous nous faisons a nous-memes par avance."-La Rochefoucauld, _Maximes_, 264.

Butler has remarked that if Hobbes' account were true, the most fearful would be the most compa.s.sionate nature; but this is perhaps not quite just, for Hobbes' notion of pity implies the union of two not absolutely identical, though nearly allied, influences, timidity and imagination. The theory of Adam Smith, though closely connected with, differs totally in consequences from that of Hobbes on this point. He says, "When I condole with you for the loss of your son, in order to enter into your grief, I do not consider what I, a person of such a character and profession, should suffer if I had a son, and if that son should die-I consider what I should suffer if I was really you. I not only change circ.u.mstances with you, but I change persons and characters. My grief, therefore, is entirely upon your account.... A man may sympathise with a woman in child-bed, though it is impossible he should conceive himself suffering her pains in his own proper person and character."-_Moral Sentiments_, part vii. ch. i. --3.

12 "Ce que les hommes ont nomme amitie n'est qu'une societe, qu'un menagement reciproque d'interets et qu'un echange de bons offices.

Ce n'est enfin qu'un commerce ou l'amour-propre se propose toujours quelque chose a gagner."-La Rochefoucauld, _Max._ 83. See this idea developed at large in Helvetius.

13 "La science de la morale n'est autre chose que la science meme de la legislation."-Helvetius _De l'Esprit_, ii. 17.

14 This doctrine is expounded at length in all the moral works of Hobbes and his school. The following pa.s.sage is a fair specimen of their meaning:-"Moral philosophy is nothing else but the science of what is good and evil in the conversation and society of mankind.

Good and evil are names that signify our appet.i.tes and aversions, which in different tempers, customs, and doctrines of men are different ... from whence arise disputes, controversies, and at last war. And therefore, so long as man is in this condition of mere nature (which is a condition of war), his private appet.i.te is the measure of good and evil. And consequently all men agree in this, that peace is good, and therefore also that the ways or means of peace, (which, as I have showed before) are justice, grat.i.tude, modesty, equity, mercy, and the rest of the laws of nature are good ... and their contrary vices evil."-Hobbes' _Leviathan_, part i. ch.

xvi. See, too, a striking pa.s.sage in Bentham's _Deontology_, vol.

ii. p. 132.

15 As an ingenious writer in the _Sat.u.r.day Review_ (Aug. 10, 1867) expresses it: "Chast.i.ty is merely a social law created to encourage the alliances that most promote the permanent welfare of the race, and to maintain woman in a social position which it is thought advisable she should hold." See, too, on this view, Hume's _Inquiry concerning Morals_, -- 4, and also _note_ x.: "To what other purpose do all the ideas of chast.i.ty and modesty serve? Nisi utile est quod facimus, frustra est gloria."

16 "All pleasure is necessarily self-regarding, for it is impossible to have any feelings out of our own mind. But there are modes of delight that bring also satisfaction to others, from the round that they take in their course. Such are the pleasures of benevolence.

Others imply no partic.i.p.ation by any second party, as, for example, eating, drinking, bodily warmth, property, and power; while a third cla.s.s are fed by the pains and privations of fellow-beings, as the delights of sport and tyranny. The condemnatory phrase, selfishness, applies with especial emphasis to the last-mentioned cla.s.s, and, in a qualified degree, to the second group; while such terms as unselfishness, disinterestedness, self-devotion, are applied to the vicarious position wherein we seek our own satisfaction in that of others."-Bain _On the Emotions and Will_, p. 113.

17 "Vice may be defined to be a miscalculation of chances, a mistake in estimating the value of pleasures and pains. It is false moral arithmetic."-Bentham's _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 131.

18 "La recompense, la punition, la gloire et l'infamie soumises a ses volontes sont quatre especes de divinites avec lesquelles le legislateur peut toujours operer le bien public et creer des hommes ill.u.s.tres en tous les genres. Toute l'etude des moralistes consiste a determiner l'usage qu'on doit faire de ces recompenses et de ces punitions et les secours qu'on peut tirer pour lier l'interet personnel a l'interet general."-Helvetius _De l'Esprit_, ii. 22. "La justice de nos jugements et de nos actions n'est jamais que la rencontre heureuse de notre interet avec l'interet public."-Ibid.

ii. 7. "To prove that the immoral action is a miscalculation of self-interest, to show how erroneous an estimate the vicious man makes of pains and pleasures, is the purpose of the intelligent moralist. Unless he can do this he does nothing; for, as has been stated above, for a man not to pursue what he deems likely to produce to him the greatest sum of enjoyment, is, in the very nature of things, impossible."-Bentham's _Deontology_.

19 "If the effect of virtue were to prevent or destroy more pleasure than it produced, or to produce more pain than it prevented, its more appropriate name would be wickedness and folly; wickedness as it affected others, folly as respected him who practised it."-Bentham's _Deontology_, vol. i. p. 142. "Weigh pains, weigh pleasures, and as the balance stands will stand the question of right and wrong."-Ibid. vol. i. p. 137. "Moralis philosophiae caput est, Faustine fili, ut scias quibus ad beatam vitam perveniri rationibus possit."-Apuleius, _Ad Doct. Platonis_, ii. "Atque ipsa utilitas, justi prope mater et aequi."-Horace, _Sat._ I. iii. 98.

20 "We can be obliged to nothing but what we ourselves are to gain or lose something by; for nothing else can be 'violent motive' to us.

As we should not be obliged to obey the laws or the magistrate unless rewards or punishments, pleasure or pain, somehow or other, depended upon our obedience; so neither should we, without the same reason, be obliged to do what is right, to practise virtue, or to obey the commands of G.o.d."-Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, book ii. ch.

ii.

21 See Ga.s.sendi _Philosophiae Epicuri Syntagma_. These four canons are a skilful condensation of the argument of Torquatus in Cicero, _De Fin._ i. 2. See, too, a very striking letter by Epicurus himself, given in his life by Diogenes Laertius.

22 "Sa.n.u.s igitur non est, qui nulla spe majore proposita, iis bonis quibus caeteri utuntur in vita, labores et cruciatus et miserias anteponat.... Non aliter his bonis praesentibus abstinendum est quam si sint aliqua majora, propter quae tanti sit et voluptates omittere et mala omnia sustinere."-Lactantius, _Div. Inst._ vi. 9. Macaulay, in some youthful essays against the Utilitarian theory (which he characteristically described as "Not much more laughable than phrenology, and immeasurably more humane than c.o.c.k-fighting"), maintains the theological form of selfishness in very strong terms.

"What proposition is there respecting human nature which is absolutely and universally true? We know of only one, and that is not only true but identical, that men always act from self-interest."-Review of Mill's _Essay on Government_. "Of this we may be sure, that the words 'greatest happiness' will never in any man's mouth mean more than the greatest happiness of others, which is consistent with what he thinks his own.... This direction (Do as you would be done by) would be utterly unmeaning, as it actually is in Mr. Bentham's philosophy, unless it were accompanied by a sanction. In the Christian scheme accordingly it is accompanied by a sanction of immense force. To a man whose greatest happiness in this world is inconsistent with the greatest happiness of the greatest number, is held out the prospect of an infinite happiness hereafter, from which he excludes himself by wronging his fellow-creatures here."-_Answer to the Westminster Review's Defence of Mill._

23 "All virtue and piety are thus resolvable into a principle of self-love. It is what Scripture itself resolves them into by founding them upon faith in G.o.d's promises, and hope in things unseen. In this way it may be rightly said that there is no such thing as disinterested virtue. It is with reference to ourselves and for our own sakes that we love even G.o.d Himself."-Waterland, _Third Sermon on Self-love_. "To risk the happiness of the whole duration of our being in any case whatever, were it possible, would be foolish."-Robert Hall's _Sermon on Modern Infidelity_. "In the moral system the means are virtuous practice; the end, happiness."- Warburton's _Divine Legation_, book ii. Appendix.

24 "There is always understood to be a difference between an act of prudence and an act of duty. Thus, if I distrusted a man who owed me a sum of money, I should reckon it an act of prudence to get another person bound with him; but I should hardly call it an act of duty.... Now in what, you will ask, does the difference consist, inasmuch as, according to our account of the matter, both in the one case and the other, in acts of duty as well as acts of prudence, we consider solely what we ourselves shall gain or lose by the act? The difference, and the only difference, is this: that in the one case we consider what we shall gain or lose in the present world; in the other case, we consider also what we shall gain or lose in the world to come."-Paley's _Moral Philosophy_, ii. 3.

25 "Hence we may see the weakness and mistake of those falsely religious ... who are scandalised at our being determined to the pursuit of virtue through any degree of regard to its happy consequences in this life.... For it is evident that the religious motive is precisely of the same kind, only stronger, as the happiness expected is greater and more lasting."-Brown's _Essays on the Characteristics_, p. 220.