Sermons : sermons I, II, III, upon human nature, or man considered as a moral agent

and fit >

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Otieolodkal Collection,
of the-

HANDBOOKS

FOR

BIBLE CLASSES

AND PRIVATE STUDENTS.

EDITED BY

REV. MARCUS DODS, D.D.,

AND

REV. ALEXANDER WHYTE, D.D.

THREE SERMONS BY BISHOP BUTLER,

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.

PRINTED BY MORRISON AND OIBB
FOR

T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.

LONDON, .... HAMILTON, ADAMS, AND CO.

DUBLIN, . . . GEORGE HERBERT.

NEW YORK, .... SCRIBNER AND WELFORD.

SERMONS

BY THE RIGHT REVEREND FATHER IN GOD

JOSEPH BUTLER, D. C. L.,

LATE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM.

SERMONS /., //., ///.

UPON HUMAN NATURE, OR MAN CONSIDERED
AS A MORAL AGENT.

Introduction anti

BY THE

REV. THOMAS B. KILPATRICK, B.D.,

MINISTER AT FERRYHILL, ABERDEEN.

EDINBURGH:
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET.

PREFACE.

THE aim of this little book is twofold. In the first place, an effort is
made so to explain and illustrate Butler's Three Sermons on Human
Nature that they shall be made intelligible and attractive to readers
who may feel themselves repelled by a style which is at times obscure
and unpleasant. In the second place, the hope is entertained of
engaging and directing in a course of ethical study some who may
not yet have seriously considered the interest and importance of such
a pursuit. No attempt is made to be exhaustive or even systematic.
The aim of the book will be amply realized, if readers have their
interest in the subject of ethics awakened, and arise to make for
themselves a more competent and satisfactory study.

It may be objected that ethical study is far too abstruse and.
difficult for those whom the editors chiefly have in view in issuing
their series of Bible Class Handbooks. The difficulty may be
granted ; and to those who believe that no good thing can be got

without efforl. the difficulty of the subject will be no reason agamsT
its being taught to all who are gifted with ordinary intelligence, even
though they may not have received a scientific training. The charge
of want of interest or of remoteness from practical life must be
earnestly repudiated. What can lie nearer to our interest, what can
be more profitable for all who seek nobility of life, than the study

of those principles which mould the character and determine the

&

6 PREFACE.

conduc^ If ever there was a time when ethical study was needed,
not only among the cultured few, but among the unphilosophic
multitude, it is now. Social life is becoming more complex, its
problems deeper and more hard of solution. Political life is wider,
and political responsibilities rest upon well-nigh every individual in
the state, however poor or ill-educated. Never was there a time
when moral fallacies spread so swiftly, or were fraught with more
disastrous consequences. If the democracy is to rule in righteous-
ness, it must be educated in true notions of what right is. The
young men and maidens who pass through clerical hands for instruc
tion hold in their power the moral destinies of the empire. Most
needful is it, therefore, that pains be taken to aid them to think
clearly and truly on moral subjects, so that their decisions on the
moral problems presented to them in their individual, social, or
political life, should be clear, definite, and true. It may be objected,
further, that such a study is at least non-religious. Many good men
object to it as placing too high a value on " mere morality." It is
rather hard to have to meet such an objection. It ought not to be
necessary to refer such objectors to the New Testament, that they
may see for themselves the place which ethical teaching holds there.
There is a Sermon on the Mount, there are maxims and parables,
surely enough to prove the value our Lord puts upon morality. The
Epistles in like manner abound in special and careful treatment
bestowed on moral subjects. Nothing is more striking than the zest
with which the Apostle Paul rises from the highly doctrinal to the
intensely practical, and his evident anxiety that no doctrine shall
seem to hang in the air merely, without firm footing on the plane of
actual life and conduct. Let the proportions of the New Testament
be observed, and ethical study has nothing to fear in the way of being
undervalued or restricted. Besides, if there be a truth at all in this
sneer at " mere morality," it is one which no Christian moralist has
ever overlooked. It has been often observed, and in this little book

PREFACE. 7

it shall be specially emphasized, that the true basis of ethics is
religion^ Morality, falsely abstracted and held apart from religion, is |
indeed " mere morality," mere failure. Morality, having its springs
in religion, looking to religion for its crown and^Dnsummation, is the
interpretation of religion, its translation into terms of daily life, its I
fullest vindication, its noblest apologetic. Let those who hastily -
condemn writing or preaching as being merely moral beware of what
they are doing. There is no deadlier heresy than the separation
of religion and morality. Language, therefore, which would even

suggest that they were separable is most dangerous, and imperils the
whole truth of the Gospel. These things ought ye to have done, and
not to have left the other undone. Were religious writings and
evangelical sermons to contain more ethical teaching than they com
monly do, it would not make them the less religious and evangelical,
and it would make them far more adequate to scriptural and divine
truth, and would bring them into far closer connection with the needs
of man. With the aim, then, of reviving and spreading abroad
among the people an interest in ethical study, several methods might
be adopted. A handbook might be prepared which would deal with
the whole range of ethics, and give at least the outline of a system.
A most useful textbook would be one which should confine itself
strictly to New Testament ethics, and examine the various moral
ideas to be found in the teaching of Christ, and in other parts of the
New Testament. The method adopted by the editors has been to
take an English author whose views are contained in brief compass,
and make him a door of entrance, as it were, into the subject. The
author they have chosen is Joseph Butler, whose sermons on Human
Nature contain the gist of his teaching. In using this author in this
way, several things naturally occur as necessary to be done. It will
be necessary to recall the main features of the man's life ; for as a
man lives, so will his thinkingbe. It will be requisite also to note his
place in the history of thought, and to see whom he succeeded and

8 PREFACE.

by whom he was surrounded in this department of study. A com
pendious statement of his views will be useful ; as also an estimate of
them in the light of later developments. These things are attempted
in the Introduction. The Notes form a kind of commentary. They
try to explain the author's meaning where that seems obscure. They
offer a few illustrations and examples from literature of ideas occur
ring in the text. In some cases also they take up suggestions
and seek to develop them constructively. It has not been possible
to avoid altogether technicalities in language, or turns of thought
more familiar to the student than to the general reader. Where
such difficulties belong not to the subject but to its treatment, the
notes are of course faulty, and of their deficiency in this and
manifold other respects the writer is keenly aware. It is hoped,

'however, that with all its defects, this little book may be helpful
in deepening in the minds of others an interest which the writer has
profoundly at heart.

T. B. K.
ABERDEEN, ist May 1888.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION, . .... 11-50

§ r. Biographical Sketch, . ... 11-15

§ 2. The Aim and Value of Ethical Study, . . . 15-20
§ 3. The Rise of Modern (British) Ethical Study : Thomas

Hobbes, ...... 20-23

§ 4. Answers to Hobbes : Shaftesbury and Hutcheson, . 24-26

§ 5. Butler's Ethical Doctrine : Standpoint and Method, . 26-30

§ 6. Butler's Ethical Doctrine : Statement, . . . 30-37

§ 7. Butler's Ethical Doctrine : Estimate, . . . 37~43

§ 8. Concluding Remarks, ..... 43-50

TEXT AND NOTES, . . . . . . 51-123

INTRODUCTIO N.,

§ I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.

THE incidents of Butler's life are very few, and may be told very
briefly. The future bishop was the son of a shopkeeper, and
was born at Wantage, in Berkshire, in the year 1692. His father, who
was a Presbyterian, destined him for the ministry ; and, after a few
years spent in the grammar school, he was sent to a Nonconformist
academy, then situated in Gloucester, but soon after removed to
Tewkesbury. Here he remained till past his twenty-second year.
The only remarkable feature of his career so far is the correspond
ence which took place between him and Dr. Clarke, the author of
A Demonstration of the Being and Attributes of God^ which was
published in 1704. The criticisms which Butler then offered on
Clarke's work he afterwards withdrew ; but his having ventured to
make them at all shows the meditative cast of his mind displaying
itself thus early. About this time he determined to abandon the non
conformity in which he had been reared, and to conform to the
Established Church of England. We might be disposed, in view of
the worldly success which afterwards befell him, to question the purity
of his motives in taking this step. In his whole life, however, we see
only deep quietude and even lethargy of spirit, to which active self-
seeking and restless ambition were utterly uncongenial. We shall
find the true explanation to lie, on the one hand, in the decadent
spirituality of the Nonconformist bodies of the time, which rendered
them incapable of commanding the enthusiastic loyalty even of their

own members ; and, on the other, in the tone and temper of Butler's

u

f
,

12 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

mind, which, at once meditative and devout, found itself attracted by
the ceremonial worship of Episcopacy, and the mystical theology
often, though by no means always or necessarily, characteristic of it.
It is interesting to note that Thomas Seeker, a school companion of
Butler's, and his life-long friend, made the same transition, and
ultimately attained the highest position the Church could afford, the
Archbishopric of Canterbury. In 1714, Butler entered Oxford as a
student of Oriel College, and in 1717 received ordination. At Oxford
he made a friendship to which he was afterwards indebted for pro
motion, that of Edward Talbot, whose father was then Bishop of
Salisbury, and afterwards Bishop of Durham. Through this powerful
influence he was appointed preacher at the Rolls Chapel in 1718 ;
rector of Haughton-le-Skerne, near Darlington, in 1722 ; and, in 1725,
rector of Stanhope, a benefice so rich that it obtained the name of
the " golden rectory." In the following year he resigned his post as
preacher at the Rolls Chapel, and published fifteen of the sermons
which he had preached during his tenure of office. Most of these
directly develop his ethical theory, as their titles indicate : " Upon
Human Nature, or man considered as a Moral Agent " (i., ii., iii.),
" Upon Compassion " (v., vi.), " Upon Resentment and Forgiveness
of Injuries " (viii., ix.), " Upon the Love of our Neighbour " (xi., xii.).
Others are more incidental in their character : " Upon the Govern
ment of the Tongue " (iv.), " Upon the Character of Balaam " (vii.),
" Upon Self-Deceit " (x.), " Upon the Ignorance of Man " (xv.). Two
are of unique interest and special importance for a full study of his
thought : " Upon Piety, or the Love of God " (xiii., xiv.). In no
sense do these sermons constitute a system. His views are there, but
in disjointed, sermonic form ; a fact which doubtless helped to dis
guise from the author himself their occasional mutual inconsistencies.
His own remark in concluding the preface is : " It may be proper first
to advertise the reader, that he is not to look for any particular reason
for the choice of the greatest part of these discourses ; their being
taken from amongst many others, preached in the same place,
through a course of eight years, being in great measure accidental.
Neither is he to expect to find any other connection between them
than that uniformity of thought ancLdgsign which will jilwavs be

INTRODUCTION. 13

found in the writings oJLthe same person^
simplicity and in earnest." Whatever may be said of the literary
merit of these sermons, the style of which is often obscure through
too great compression, or oflEe" value of their ethical theory, which
may afford grounds for criticism^ the " simplicity " of the author's
motive and the ^earnestness " of his purpose are sufficiently obvious,
and are worthy of truest respect and admiration. One would like
to know if the services were well attended, and if any of the audience,
who may have come through custom or curiosity, left with the throb
of rising nobility of purpose beating in their bosoms. For six yearsX
he remained at Stanhope immersed in the train of thought which V
issued in the famous Analogy. Queen Caroline, who had heard of J \
him from his old friend Seeker, and had been surprised to learn
that he was still living, remarked on another occasion to a Church
dignitary that she had imagined Mr. Butler was dead. " No,
madam," was the reply, " he is not dead, but he is buried." The
resurrection very speedily took place. He was made chaplain to the
Lord Chancellor ; and on his way to London he visited Oxford, where
he received the degree of Doctor of Law. This period seems to
have been more full of living interest than any other in his unevent
ful life. In 1736 he received a prebend in the church of Rochester.
In the same year he was made Clerk of the Closet, and became a
regularly invited guest at those supper parties at which Queen
Caroline assembled the leading divines of the day and listened with
interest, and we may hope with intelligence, to their discussions upon
theological subjects. In this year also he published his Analogy of
Religion, Natural and Revealed, to the Constitution and Course of
Nature, a wbrk which has, perhaps too exclusively, guided the lines.
^long which the defence of Christian truth has proceeded down to
the present day, and tHe fame o? which has somewhat cast into the
shaoTeThe real value of the sermons. With this year Butler's literary
history ends. In 1738 he was made a bishop, and amid the cares of
such an office he probably lacked the leisure, and perhaps even lost
the capacity, for fresh literary effort. His first see was Bristol, which
he held for eleven years. In 1750 he was translated to Durham.
The first and only charge which he addressed to his clergy attracted

14 BUTLERS THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

considerable attention, and provoked some hostility by expressions
which to the unsophisticated minds of the day savoured of a tendency
towards Roman superstitions. For two years he continued to dis
charge the duties and dispense the charities of his magnificent but
most onerous position. His health, however, gave way under the
strain, and he died at Bath, June 16, 1752. His last thoughts seem
to have gathered round his boyhood's friend Seeker, who was then
Bishop of Oxford. He was buried in his old cathedral of Bristol.
After his death an attempt was made to revive the charge of
Romanism which had been brought against him during his life. It
was even asserted that he had died in the communion of the Church
of Rome. These suspicions were finally disposed of through the
testimony of Seeker, now Archbishop of Canterbury, who thus
rendered a last service to the friend whose career had been so
strangely parallel to his own.

A man's thought, if it be true and genuine, is the expression of his
character, from which it derives its distinctive peculiarities. Between
' y Butler's ethical theory, accordingly, and his life there is an obvious
f and striking resemblance. He stands in marked contrast to the men
\ among whom he lived and worked. He is pure in his own practice ;
\ quiet, reflective, unenergetic in his disposition ; absorbed in studies
I of human nature, brooding over questions of right and duty. Around
/ him seethes a world of scheme, and ambition, and intrigue, which
-<^ knows no higher standard than temporal benefit, and no loftier
\ motive than selfishness more or less disguised. In like manner, his
moral teaching is directly opposed to the prevailing conceptions of
the day. It vindicates the claim of duty against theories which
laboured to elevate to the rank of a speculative truth and a practical
guide the demand of self to be supreme and uncontrolled. It is
remarkable that the world made no atternp^o persecute the man
^ v whose words, illustrated as these were by his personal character, so
C fully condemned it. It was stirred to no resentment, and heaped its
\ highest honours on one whom it recognised to be wholly unlike itself.
Bagehot's explanation of the phenomenon is given with his usual
keenness of expression : " We may admire what we cannot share ;
/ reverence what we do not imitate. At any rate, so thought the

INTRODUCTION. 15

contemporaries of Butler. They did, as a Frenchman would say,
' their possible ' for a good man ; at least they made him a bishop "
(Literary Studies, vol. ii. p. 60). It is less remarkable that Butler did /
not perceive the full extent of his difference from prevailing views on \ A
moral subjects. It has often happened that a thinker has missed the i j
central position of his own thought ; and while preparing the way for I/
further developments, has not himself perceived the full consequences j
of his own teaching.

§ 2. THE AIM AND VALUE OF ETHICAL STUDY.

There are three great relationships in which, as human beings, we
stand, toward nature, toward our fellow-men, and toward God. In
these, broadly speaking, our lives are spent, and through these our I
natures are developed on their various sides, physical, moral, and |
spiritual. We may live in these spheres of being, and occupy our-N
selves abundantly in their activities, and become through such \
exercise strong in physical frame, sound in moral constitution, \
reverent and devout in soul, long before the reflective faculty fully
awakes and prompts us to ask definitely what is the nature and value I
of the life we have been living so busily, and what is the source and /
truth of the principles whose validity we have taken for granted, while /
we unquestioningly guided our conduct by them. Life necessarily/
precedes thought ; and it is, of course, possible to live almost without

thought. Some are found, also, who make a boast of living without
troubling themselves as to any questions which lie beyond the range
of their immediate practical concerns, and deliberately undervalue the
importance of natural science, or moral philosophy, or theology. It
is obvious, however, that this is to be untrue to our constitution^ as .
rational beings, endowed with the faculty of reflection, and possessed J
of the thirst for truth, which, however much it may be ignored for the I
sake of mere material concerns, cannot be wholly quenched. It will be I
found, too, that those who deny the importance of thought injpame of
the supreme interest of life, in the end fail to do justice to that very
life in which they absorb themselves to the exclusion of all interest in
the work of thought. The work of thought, accordingly, is to investi-

1 6 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

gate the relationships in which we stand, and^through our place in
which we are what we are^f to discover the principles which bear sway
in the different departments of our life ; and to perceive how, by their
means, our fragmentary and incidental experiences are woven into the
completeness of perfect and well-developed manhood./y (i) We live in
lj the world of nature. It shines upon us in its loveliness. It awes us
with its might. It ministers to us out of its abundance. Upon the
vast multitude of details thus presented to our observation, thought
proceeds to operate, discerning the laws and principles that are at
work amid all these various elements, and thus out of the chaos of
isolated facts constructing a realm of order and harmony. The result
of this work of thought is to show us nature, not as an alien power to
/which we must submit as an irrational fact, but as itself the product
I and manifestation of that which constitutes our own being, viz. mind
\or spirit. The special sciences are each labouring at some particular
department of this mighty task ; while it is the work of philosophy
or metaphysics to examine the principles and methods of each science,
to compare the conclusions of all, and to reach a standpoint higher
than that which is possible to any one of them. Thought, therefore,
sets us free in the presence of nature, enables us to adjust the
methods of our life to the great laws that govern the material uni
verse, and sometimes even to anbdue to our own ends the mighty
forces which are there at work./ (2) We live in the world of human
fellowship. This world touone<T us yet more nearly than that of
nature. That was always in some sense beyond us. But of this we
are ourselves essential parts. We are members of families. We
belong to social communities, larger or smaller. We are citizens of
the State. In all these capacities our private life is bound up with
that of our fellows. Every deed of ours, however personal, has its
, issues in the surrounding social sphere ; while nothing takes place

X/V-— I there which does not in some shape or form modify our con-
(js Jdition or direct our conduct. No man, how much soever he may
desire to seclude himself from the world, can live and act at all with
out influencing for weal or woe some other human being, and without
in turn being influenced by persons whom, it may be, he never saw, or
by actions in which he bore no individual part. The social fabric to

* — Uo

INTRODUCTION. 1 7

which we belong is built up, accordingly, out of innumerable parts, /
whose combination and interdependence is of the most complex and (
delicate description. One shudders .to think how easily chaos and *>^
disorder might penetrate into the sphere of our social life, and sink it |
lower than that of the brutes, which, amid all their savagery and /
unreason, acknowledge the constraint of certain natural ties. The '
Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, or the condition of
some parts of Ireland in our own day, show what terrible results may
follow from ignorance of the constitution of the moral world, and
defiance of the fundamental principles which should regulate the
relations of man to man. Here, therefore, lies the task of thought,
which has to perform for the world of human relationships what it \
does for the world of nature. It has to inquire how the social fabric \.
has been erected, what laws and principles underlie its endless
variety, and by what means it may be maintained in permanence and
integrity. The determination of points like these is, at the same time,
the discovery for the individual of those facts and laws by the
recognition and observance of which his own moral character is
developed and his own highest good attained. He finds that the moral
world, like the world of nature, is not an alien sphere where he has to
fight for his independent existence, with the perpetual chance of sink
ing in the struggle, but is the revelation of that which constitutes his
own true being, affording for him, therefore, a home in which, through
obedience to the laws which obtain there, he may attain the full
freedom and joy of life. ' This division of the work of thought,
accordingly, is committed to moral philosophy or ethics. The latter
term is derived from ^o?, " character ; " and we may accept the defini
tion of this study as "the doctrine of character." We must remember, N
however, that the character of the individual cannot be described by \
reference to himself alone. We must always take into consideration /
the society of which he forms a part. There is no true moral
excellence for man in isolation from his fellows. The principles by
loyal adherence to which he reaches the perfection of his own being
are those which are creative of the moral organism in which he lives
and moves and has his being. To discern these principles, to exhibit
the extent of their application, to vindicate their authority and func-

1 8 BUTLER'S THREE SERMOjMHoN HUMAN NATURE.

tion as at once the law of duty for the individual and the means of his
attaining the highest excellence/of which he is capable, is the aim of
ethical study. (3) We live in the world of God's grace. We are
the objects of a purpose of mercy, operative amid the daily bene
ficences of food and raiment and comfort, amid the discipline and
teaching of our experience of life, and amid higher and more direct
influences that touch our souls. To comprehend that purpose, to
trace its historical unfolding from first dawn of promise to fulfilment
in the crowning deed of infinite Love, and to grasp, however im
perfectly, its issues in world-wide victory and personal holiness, is the
task of theology. Here thejmergy of thought reaches the highest
exercise of which it is capable under the conditions in which we
"know in part." The moral sphere, accordingly, holds a middle
position. On the one hand is the world of physical nature, which
enters into the moral sphere, in so far as it presents a field for the
development of many of the qualities which go to form the complete
ness of moral character. On the other hand is the realm of grace,
within which the moral sphere is itself comprehended, and from which
it derives the ultimate interpretation and vindication of its principles.
In other words, we may say that morality includes within the scope
of its influence and judgment the physical activities of man, giving to
them dignity and worth, and estimating them by moral standards ;
while it is itself included in religion, and derives from it its highest
conceptions of right and its mightiest impii1?^? qf_actionA In pursuing
the study of ethics, therefore, we must admit and recognise the work
of thought in other departments, and must be ready to harmonize the
results to which we are led in the moral sphere with those established
by the natural sciences on the one side and theology on the other.
At the same time, it is perfectly possible, and for purposes of method
necessary, to leave science and theology without much explicit refer
ence to them, and to fix the attention upon the moral sphere alone,
making a special and in part separate study of ethics.

The value of such a study is apparent when we realize its aim.
We are accustomed to say that "knowledge is power;" and we
illustrate this remark by pointing to the wonderful achievements ot
science by which man has been enabled to overcome the most stu-

INTRODUCTION. 19

pendous physical obstacles, and well-nigh annihilate space and time.
The same remark applies to the moral sphere. Every endeavour
which sets before us the constitution of the moral world, and makes
plain to us the principles on which it is framed, and by which our ^v-v^V
moral nature grows, will aid us to live more worthily in it. /It is not
meant that a talented and learned man is necessarily a better man
than one less highly endowed or less advantageously situated, or
that in difficult and perplexing circumstances he will act more
conformably to right and duty. It is true, however, that all men,
moral and responsible agents, are required to face all the moral facts
of life, and to seek, by every effort of mind and soul, to solve the
F moral problems which present themselves on every hand. Ignorancj^
1 of facts which is produced by ?ignoringL.-tkemr incapacity to solve
' problems which is begotten of unwillingness to face them, are moral
J faults, and tend to lower the moral tone of a community which may be-
! otherwise fairly cultured, and will blunt the conscience and degrade
the practice of individuals who may be^ competent men of science, or,
painful as it is to contemplate, trained theologians. The maintenance
of a high standard of public opinion, the moral elevation of the com
munity, the perfecting of individual rectitude, cannot be entrusted to
intentions, instincts, feelings. Knowledge is required ; and the com
munity, or Church, or individual which wilfully declines its acquisition,
will assuredly pay the penalty of moral deterioration. Medical men
tell us that much of the misery and disease which exist among certain
strata of society is due to the ignorance which prevails there as
to the elemental facts regarding health. Medical science, therefore,
is devoting itself more and more to teaching the fundamental rules of
physical wellbeing. We may add that much of the inconsistency too
often remarked among those men who make a high Christian pro
fession, and many of the sad lapses into immorality or crime, are due
to the prevailing habit of ignoring the elemental facts regarding;
righteousness. It is awfully-possible to be acquainted with the*
doctrines of grace, and even to have passed through various phases of
religious experience, without having grasped the fundamental distinc- )
tions of right and wrong, and without exhibiting so high a moral tone, 7
as those who it may be never heard of those doctrines or passed/

20 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

through these experiences. Let it be understood that we are citizens
of the moral world ; and let it be realized that to live worthily in it we
must know it. Patient study of the facts to be observed amid the
complex phenomena of social life will make keen our perception of
moral distinctions, will make clear and definite the utterances of
conscience, and will give added force to our pursuit of righteousness.
In this broad sense it is true, according to the ancient saying, that
"virtue is knowledge." To live well requires an effort of thought,
from the obligation of which we cannot escape by any amount of fine
feeling. Moral philosophy, of course, will not produce moral men.
Though this be true, however, the value of ethical study in clearing
our thoughts and deepening our convictions on moral questions is
neither remote nor small.

§ 3. THE RISE OF MODERN BRITISH ETHICAL STUDY:
THOMAS HOBBES.

Throughout the period of the Middle Ages, every department of
thought and life lay in strict subjection to the authority of the Church.
At the Reformation this despotism was destroyed, and men were
forced to seek a surer ground of truth, and a mightier impulse for
action, than the mere dictates of an outward power. In the spiritual
sphere, a human priesthood, wielding the instruments of a cumbrous
and enslaving ritual, had long stood between the soul and God.
Now, men learned to seek in personal fellowship with Christ Himself
the reconciliation with God which was their deepest need. The great
principle of the Reformation, expressed in the doctrine of justification
by faith, is simply the rest of the human spirit upon God as He is
revealed in Christ. From Christ alone, without any human mediation,
there is obtained that freedom from condemnation, and that power
for righteousness, in which spiritual life truly consists. In the in
tellectual sphere, the only material upon which human thought had
for centuries been allowed to exercise itself consisted of the dogmas
of the Church ; and the only method it was permitted to employ was
the logic of Aristotle. Now, however, we find Descartes pushing his
way through doubt after doubt, till he reaches the certainty of self-

INTRODUCTION. 2 1

consciousness, and finds there the basis both of being and of thought ;
and we find Bacon directing men to look to experience for the source
of truth, and thus inaugurating that development of physical science
of which our century has seen such marvellous issues. In the moral
sphere the same process repeats itself. The Church theologians
elaborated a body of laws for the regulation of conduct. The admini
stration and application of these was the work of priests in the
confessional, as so-called directors of the conscience. Morality
was identified with submission to the laws thus framed and admini
stered. Ethical study, therefore, resolved itself into casuistry, or
the discussion, illustration, and manipulation of these laws, with the
practical result of wholly befogging the conscience and providing
justification for any conduct, however defiant of truth and righteous
ness. It was inevitable, therefore, 'that, when in this department also
the despotism of an external authority was discarded, men should
seek for a reliable ground of moral conduct, a trustworthy standard of
action, an adequate source of righteous impulse. The man with whom,
in England, this line of inquiry originated was Thomas Hobbes (born
at Malmesbury 1588, died at Hardwick 1679). It is impossible to
understand the subsequent course of British ethical study, and in
particular the place which Butler holds as a writer on ethical subjects,
without noting, at least in outline, the results reached by Hobbes.
His views seemed to suit the society of his day, whose opinions and
practice they largely influenced. His method was employed even by
those who disagreed with him. His conclusions, even when they
were not accepted, formed the starting-point of further discussion, and
thus originated the very theories in which they were contradicted and
opposed. Briefly, then, the two essential points of his theory are his
doctrine of human nature and his doctrine of society, (i) Man's
primary condition is that of appetite, sense of want, or desire. His
first endeavour is to satisfy his needs and gratify his desires. All
man's natural tendencies, therefore, are "self-regarding." Hobbes
wavers a little as to the end which man naturally seeks, making it
sometimes pleasure and sometimes mere self-preservation. In any
case, his position is that man naturally seeks and can seek only
selfish ends. The Right of Nature (Jus Naturale) " is the liberty each

22 BUTLERS THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

man hath to use his own power as he will himself for the preservation
of his own nature, that is to say, of his own life." The state of
nature, accordingly, is that condition of affairs in which every man
seeks his own individual satisfaction, irrespective of the needs of his
fellow-men. The inevitable consequence is universal strife. The
state of nature in complete form and universal prevalence is pre
historic ; but in scarcely diminished form we see it among savages,
or in the relation of the European Powers ; and we find traces of it
even in civilised society. Hobbes brings out with great power the
miseries attendant on such a mode of existence. " In such a con
dition there is no place for industry, because the fruit thereof is
uncertain, and consequently no culture of the earth, no navigation
nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea, no com
modious building, no instruments of moving and removing such
things as require much force, no knowledge of the face . of the earth,
no account of time, no arts, no letters, no society, and, which is worst
of all, continual fear and danger of violent death, and the life of man,
solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. . . It is consequent also to
the same conditions that there be no propriety, no dominion, no mine
and thine distinct, but only that to be every man's that he can get and
for so long as he can keep it." (2) This state of matters, of course,
proves unsupportable ; and man, aiming as he does and can only do
at self-satisfaction, casts about forthwith for means of emergence
from it. His nature prompts him to seek pleasure, or, at least, self-
preservation. Reason is the faculty by which he is enabled to devise
the means best calculated to procure the ends to which his nature
impels him. This calculating faculty, accordingly, prescribes to him,
as on the whole the best means of attaining his ends as an individual,
deference to the wishes and desires of the many. Man, therefore, has
no natural affection for his fellows. His "social affections" are the
original " self- regarding " affections, taught by bitter experience to see
that the attainment of their own ends requires the furtherance of the
interests of others. " Because the condition of man is a condition of
war of every one against every one ... it followeth, that in such a
condition, every man has a right to everything, even to one another's
body. And, therefore, as long as this natural right of every man to

INTRODUCTION. 23

everything endureth, there can be no security to any man (how strong
and wise soever he be) of living out the time which nature ordinarily
alloweth men to live. And consequently it is a precept or general
rule of Reason, That every man ought to endeavour Peace. . . . From
this ... is derived this second law, That a man be willing, when
others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he
shall think it necessary, to lay down his right to all things, and be
contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow
other men against himself." Reason, however, has in itself no power
to create such social conditions as shall make it profitable for men
thus to practise mutual forbearance. The only guarantee for the
maintenance of such a state is a strong government, by the terror of
whose power the natural passions, which reason alone is too weak to
control, may be kept in strict subjection. It is necessary, therefore,
for the individuals of which society is composed " to confer all their
power and strength upon one Man or Assembly of Men, that may
reduce all their wills, by plurality of Voices, unto one Will." There must
be, of course, entire reciprocity in this surrender of right. Each man
must in effect say to his fellow, " I authorize and give up my right of
governing myself to this Man, or to this Assembly of Men, on this
condition, that thou give up thy right to him, and authorize all his
actions in like manner." Thus by mutual consent there is generated
" that great leviathan, that mortal god, to which we owe under the
immortal God our power and defence." It matters not whether the
force of government be monarchical or republican, if only it possess
the indispensable requisite. Men are free not to erect this power
over themselves ; but once it is erected, the first duty of man is sub
mission, the most heinous of crimes is rebellion. Hobbes illustrated
this doctrine throughout his life in a way which, if not quite honourable,
was at least logically consistent. Under Charles I. he maintained a
high doctrine of absolute monarchy. When the government of
Cromwell seemed likely to be permanent, he made his peace with it.
And when the Restoration took place, he reverted without difficulty
to his monarchical views. •

24 BUTLERS THREE SFRMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

§ 4. ANSWERS TO HOBBES : SHAFTESBURY AND HUTCHESON.

The views of Hobbes were so startling, and in many respects so
repellent, that students of ethics felt themselves bound to prepare
replies to his conclusions, and to establish a theory which might be
more in harmony with the instincts of humanity. Among those who
devoted themselves to this purpose the most important is Lord
Shaftesbury (1671-1713). His works were published in 1711 under
the title of Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times. The
second volume . contains his chief ethical treatise, the Enquiry con
cerning Virtue and Merit. It is important to notice that his method
is almost identically that of Hobbes. Instead of coming down upon
Hobbes out of some heavenly region of abstract thought, Shaftesbury
and his followers invaded the realm where Hobbes had proclaimed
himself master, and undertook his defeat with his own weapons. He
had devoted himself to the study of human nature ; so would they,
but with greater minuteness. He had employed that method of
observation which Bacon had bequeathed to his countrymen as the
instrument of research in respect both of things material and things
spiritual ; so would they, but with more thorough application. Thus
it was that, while substantially agreeing with Hobbes as to standpoint
and method, and, indeed, being indebted to him for them, they differed
from him in the results they reached by these means, and claimed to
have found an answer to his conclusions in the very field in which he
believed himself to have established them.

i. In the first place, therefore, we remember the central point of
Hobbes' doctrine of human nature. He allowed only one class of natural
tendencies ; they all alike aim at self-gratification, or, at least, self-pre
servation. Shaftesbury replies by instituting a more searching analysis.
There are two classes of natural tendencies instead of only one. Some
are directed to the good of others, and some are directed to the good
of self. That is to say, he meets Hobbes' doctrine, that man is only and
altogether selfish, by pointing out that man possesses instincts which
are not selfish but social. 'He does not say, however, that the social
affections are all good, or the selfish affections all evil. Good lies

INTRODUCTION. 25

rather in the proper adjustment of the relations between the social
and the selfish affections. When a true harmony or balance between
these different tendencies has been reached, the character which
exhibits this balance is good. Not only so, but happiness also is
produced by the same process. That individual is truly happy who
will permit neither the social nor the selfish affections to obtain the
mastery, but maintains them both in a state of harmonious inter
action. 2. In the second place, we remember that Hobbes, in his
doctrine of society, insisted that the tendency to self-gratification,
even in order to attain its own ends, must be held in strict subjection
to the authority of the State. The ultimate standard of morality
and the supreme rule of conduct, therefore, are to be found in
the command of the civil ruler. Shaftesbury, however, dis
tinguishes between two classes of natural tendencies, the social
and the selfish, and places goodness in their proper proportion. He
attributes, therefore, to man a faculty of detecting this proportion.
To this faculty he gives the name of "moral sense." This
faculty, accordingly, affords the standard of right and wrong,
provides the guidance of conduct, and becomes the impulse of
action. Just as we instinctively discern the beauty of a natural
scene or work of art, so we are sensible of goodness when it is
presented to us in some act or character ; and just as in such a
matter as dress or etiquette we are guided by our native good
taste, so in matters of moral conduct we are led by a certain tact,
taste, or sense to pursue that path in which is to be found the
balance of affections which constitutes goodness and true happiness.
This moral taste also, like a taste in art, is a source of pleasure in
itself, and enhances our delight in goodness, and the eagerness with
which we pursue it.

A writer who followed Shaftesbury's lead is Hutcheson (1694-
1 747). His Enquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and
Virtue appeared in 1720. His completed System of Moral Philosophy
was published posthumously in 1755. He pursues the same method
as Shaftesbury, and adds but little to his conclusions. He dis
tinguishes, very much as Shaftesbury had done, between self-love
and benevolence, though he identifies all virtue with benevolence in

26 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

a more absolute way than Shaftesbury would have adopted. The
moral sense appears as arbiter when the other affections seek to
compete with benevolence. The approval of this sense adds to
the pleasures of goodness. These are elaborately discussed, and
Hutcheson comes to the conclusion that " the whole sum of interest
lies upon the side of virtue, public spirit, and honour. To forfeit
these pleasures, in whole or in part, for any other enjoyment is the
most foolish bargain ; and, on the contrary, to secure them with the
sacrifice of all others is the truest gain."

§ 5. BUTLER'S ETHICAL DOCTRINE : STANDPOINT AND METHOD.

Two theories, accordingly, occupied the field of ethical study when
Butler entered it : i. That of Hobbes, according to which, (i) man
was regarded as wholly selfish in every impulse and motive, (2) the
absolute authority of the State was held to be the ultimate rule of
conduct ; 2. That of Shaftesbury, according to which, (i) benevolent
as well as selfish instincts were attributed to man, (2) the ultimate
rule of conduct was referred to a moral sense. Butler's own theory
arises as the correction of the errors and defects of these two
theories. It must be well understood, however, that, in proceeding
to the task of constructing a truer doctrine, he does not abandon the
standpoint occupied by the writers whom he criticises. He does not
attack the presupposition upon which they proceeded ; nor does he
adopt a different method from that which they employed. His
contention rather is that the presupposition has not been fairly dealt
with, and that the method has been badly handled. The pre-
siipposition is that moral facts may be accurately and adequately
studied as they lie within the compass of the individual mind or
heart. The method of study is that of simple observation of the facts
which will reveal themselves to any who will patiently look for them.
He proposes to be true to the presupposition, and to be thorough in
his use of the method. In the Preface he unfolds with great clearness
the plan he means to pursue and the conception of human nature
which he hopes to establish. " There are two ways," he says, " in
which the subject of morals may be treated. One begins from

INTRODUCTION. 27

inquiring into the abstract relations of things ; l the other from a
matter of fact, namely, what the particular nature of man is, its
several parts, their economy or constitution ; from whence it proceeds
to determine what course of life it is which is correspondent to this
whole nature. In the former method the conclusion is expressed
thus, that vice is contrary to the nature and reason of things ; in the
latter, that it is a violation or breaking in upon our own nature. . . .
The first seems the most direct formal proof, and in some respects
the least liable to cavil and dispute ; the latter is in a peculiar manner
adapted to satisfy a fair mind, and is more easily applicable to the
several particular relations and circumstances in life." " The follow
ing discourses," he goes on, " proceed chiefly in this latter method.
The first three wholly. They were intended to explain what is meant
by the nature of man, when it is said that virtue consists in following,
and vice in deviating" from it ; and by explaining to show that the
assertion is true." Such being the "method of- study, what now is the
material to be studied ? It is human nature. But what precisely is
meant by the nature of a thing ? What exactly is " the idea of a
system, economy, or constitution of any particular nature " ? " Let us
instance," he says, " in a watch— suppose the several parts of it taken
to pieces, and placed apart from each other : let a man have ever so
exact a notion of these several parts, unless he considers the respects
and relations which they have to each other, he will not have any
thing like the idea of a watch. Suppose these several parts brought
together and anyhow united : neither will he yet, be the union ever
so close, have an idea which will bear any resemblance to that of a
watch. But let him view those several parts put together, or let him
consider them as to be put together in the manner of a watch ; let
him form a notion of the relations which those several parts have to

1 This method was employed by Cudworth (1617-1688). He held that there
were " intelligible ideas " existing in the divine mind and communicated to the
mind of man by the operation of the Spirit of God. His lofty but somewhat
unpractical theory is a reflection of his life. " He spans, by his term of life, the
whole period of the Stuart troubles and the Commonwealth ; yet his writings
might have been produced in a lonely silent monastery, instead of amid the rage
of factions and the reverberation of Naseby guns.'' Martineau, Types, etc.,
vol. ii. p. 427.

28 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

each other — all conducive in their respective ways to this purpose,
showing the hour of the day ; and then he has the idea of a watch.
Thus it is with regard to the inward frame of man. Appetites,
passions, affections, and the principle of reflection, considered merely
as parts of our inward nature, do not at all give us an idea of the
system or constitution of this nature ; because the constitution is
formed by somewhat not yet taken into consideration, namely, by the
relations which these several parts have to each other ; the chief of
which is the authority of reflection and conscience. It is from con
sidering the relations which the several appetites and passions in the
inward frame have to each other, and, above all, the supremacy of
reflection or conscience, that we get the idea of the system or con
stitution of human nature. And from the idea itself it will as fully
appear, that this our nature, i.e. constitution, is adapted to virtue, as
from the idea of a watch it appears that its nature, i.e. constitution or
system, is adapted to measure time." Of course, as Butler observes,
a watch may get out of order and keep time badly, but that is no
argument against the real design of the watch. That men often, as a
matter of fact, are vicious, is, therefore, no argument against the real
design of their nature, which is virtue. The only difference between
the man and the watch is that the watch is inanimate and passive,
while the man is charged, so to speak, with keeping the machinery in
good order, and is accountable for any disorder and consequent
error. Butler's great aim, accordingly, is to establish this conception
of human nature. When once it is clearly seen what human nature
truly is, it will be seen at the same time that vice is in the strictest
sense unnatural. " Thus nothing can possibly be more contrary to
nature than vice ; meaning by nature not only the several parts of our
internal frame, but also the constitution of it. Poverty and disgrace,
tortures and death, are not so contrary to it. Misery and injustice
are indeed equally contrary to some different parts of our nature
taken singly ; but injustice is, moreover, contrary to the whole con
stitution of the nature." From this point of view we can understand
his criticism on the two great reigning ethical theories of the day.
They are alike defective in their enumeration of the elements which
constitute human nature, (i) Hobbes had maintained that man had

INTRODUCTION. 29

no instincts save those which led to his own private good. Against
this Butler maintains the existence of other instincts leading " directly
and immediately to the good of the community." The theory of
Hobbes he condemns as a " partial inadequate notion of human
nature." (2) Butler's study of human nature leads him to observe the
presence of one principle which is superior to all others, viz. con
science, which claims absolute authority. Virtue, accordingly, is not
a matter of taste or fine feeling. It is to be interpreted wholly by
reference to this principle of authority. " The very constitution of
our nature requires that we bring our whole conduct before this
superior faculty ; wait its determination ; enforce upon ourselves its
authority, and make it the business of our lives, as it is absolutely the
whole business of a moral agent, to conform ourselves to it." Here
then is the fault which Butler finds with Shaftesbury's view of human
nature, "the not taking into consideration this authority, which is
implied in the idea of reflex approbation, or disapprobation." All
that Shaftesbury has to urge in favour of virtue is that it tends best to
produce happiness. But suppose, argues Butler, the case of a sceptic
who should honestly disbelieve in the coincidence of virtue and
happiness, how would Shaftesbury meet such a man? Plainly, he
could not meet him at all. Indeed, it might be said such a man was
under the obligation to be vicious ; for in the absence of any other
obligation, it is a man's duty to seek his own interest. Introduce,
however, the principle of authority, and the case is fully met. Here
suppose it should be proved that misery will follow virtue, it remains
always right and necessary to do right. " Take in then that authority
and obligation, which is a constituent part of this reflex approbation,
and it will undeniably follow, though a man should doubt of every
thing else, yet, that he would still remain under the nearest and most
certain obligation to the practice of virtue ; an obligation implied in
the very idea of virtue, in the very idea of reflex approbation."

Having thus ascertained in general the standpoint and method of
Butler's doctrine, let us follow it out more in detail. We shall find
that Butler's ethical teaching gathers itself up into three leading
thoughts. The first is Benevolence. The second is Conscience.
The third is the Love of God, which passes over from the sphere of

30 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

morality into that of religion. In what follows of this introduction
we shall, first of all, endeavour to summarize Butler's teaching on
these points, and in so doing we shall present an abstract of the
sermons bearing on these topics. Secondly, we shall exhibit certain
deficiencies in Butler's views on these subjects, endeavouring to trace
these to his general ethical and religious position. Finally, we shall
add a few concluding remarks in which these ideas are dealt with in
a more positive way.

§ 6. BUTLER'S ETHICAL DOCTRINE : STATEMENT.
A. — Benevolence.

Sermon I. is devoted to the discussion of this theme, and is an
attempt to vindicate the disinterested character of benevolence. The
thesis is that " there are as real and the same kind of indications in
human nature, that we are made for society and to do good to our
fellow-creatures, as that we were intended to take care of our own
life, and health, and private good, and that the same objections lie
against one of these assertions as against the other." His proof lies
in mapping out the domain of human nature, and so exhibiting the
independent position of benevolence, (i) He appeals to facts, the
realities of friendship, compassion, paternal and filial affections, and
all affections that terminate in the good of another. These are in
disputable evidence that there is in man a principle of benevolence,
as natural to him as self-love. In a long note he criticises Hobbes'
reduction of benevolence to love of power, and shows conclusively
that mere love of power might as easily determine the agent to cruelty
as goodwill. Whether or no man possesses this principle is to be
decided as any matter of natural history is decided ; and by this
method the result is too obvious to be missed. Man does possess
this principle, although it requires cultivation and development.
" This is our work : this is virtue and religion." (2) He pushes his
analysis still further, and points out that there are "passions or
appetites distinct from benevolence, whose primary use and intention
is the security and good of society," while there are also " passions

INTRODUCTION. 3 1

distinct from self-love, whose primary intention and design is the
security and good of the individual." In an interesting note he
illustrates the distinction between the general principle of self-love
and the particular passions. In the rush of some special desire a
man may defy the injunctions of self-love and plunge into utter ruin.
Again, acting under the 'counsels of long-sighted self-love, directed to
some distant reward, a man may crush down many of his strongest
instincts. In another note he gives instances of the passions of which
he speaks. Hunger is mere appetite for food, and in no sense is
identical with self-love, and yet it tends to the preservation of the
individual. Desire of esteem is in no sense benevolence, and yet it
contributes to the good of society. In short, apart from our desire or
intention, we are so constituted that in following our instinctive ten
dencies we become the instruments of social as well as private good.
(3) He singles out that element which had been omitted in the
analysis of preceding psychologists, the "principle of reflection in
men by which they distinguish between, approve and disapprove, their
own actions." The evidence for the existence of this principle is the
same as for the existence of benevolence. The facts of life prove it.
A father cares for his children from love to them, but in addition to
the mere feeling he is governed by conscience. A man acts
generously in .one instance, meanly in another; would he, coolly
reflecting on his actions without considering their consequences to
himself, make no moral distinction between them ? " There is there
fore this principle of reflection or conscience in mankind." The
conclusion of the whole matter, therefore, is that man was made for
society as much as (curious that Butler never gets the length of
saying "more than") for private good, and this is the root of all
loyalty and patriotism. It might be asked, indeed, if man had no
instincts which lead him to do evil to others. A sufficient answer to
this would be the counter question, if man had no instincts which
lead him to do evil to himself. The true solution of the puzzle is that
men are sometimes so mastered by passion that they will not merely
do injury to their neighbours, but will also act in manifest contra
diction of their own interests. Injustice and oppression, treachery
and ingratitude, are not native instincts of the soul. They are the

32 BUTLERS THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

issue of eager desire after certain good things, which even wicked
people would prefer to obtain by innocent methods, if these should
prove equally easy. Emulation, for instance, is " the desire and hope
of equality with, or superiority over others, with whom we compare
ourselves," and is a perfectly lawful sentiment. Envy, when strictly
examined, is seen to have precisely the same end, only, in order to
attain this end, it employs mischievous means, such as lowering the
reputation of those who are our superiors, and in this consists its
unlawfulness. Shame, in like manner, may prompt men to commit
some crime to hide another of which they have been guilty. But
obviously shame, in the first instance, tends to the welfare of the
individual by keeping him back from shameful deeds. In closing this
sermon, Butler illustrates with great force the truth, that so far from
men always acting from dictates of self-love, they more frequently
trespass on their own welfare than on that of society. Men, accord
ingly, have two sides to their nature, one self-regarding and another
social. To neither are they perfectly true. " They are as often unjust
to themselves as to others, and for the most part are equally so to

both by the same actions."

f-

B. — Conscience.

Sermons II., III., expound Butler's views upon conscience. His
sermons are in no sense textual, but in this case he takes as starting-
point the words of Paul in Rom. ii. 14, " For when the Gentiles, which
have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these,
having not the law, are a law unto themselves." (i) In the outset he
remarks that, while it is difficult, owing to the diversity which pre
vails among men as to right and wrong, and the inexactness of their
analysis of what passes within, to determine absolutely the purpose or
standard of human nature, it is, notwithstanding, possible to lay down
general lines of conduct as consonant with the constitution of man.
Thus, as has been pointed out in the previous sermon, there are
certain principles, propensions, or instincts which lead men to do
good, and these receive the sanction of conscience. Here, however,
the objection might be raised that as human nature consists of various

INTRODUCTION. 33

parts, a man would be acting according to his nature, and therefore
according to the intention of his being, by following that particular
part which happened to be at the time most imperative in its demands.
Thus a man who obeyed conscience would not be morally better than
the man who obeyed passion, and would have no right to blame him.
The answer lies in determining more particularly what is meant by
nature when we speak of following it. Two meanings are soon
excluded, any principle or prompting whatever, and those which are
strongest and most influence our actions. The third and true mean
ing is that indicated by Paul in the words which follow the text,
" Which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile
accusing or else excusing one another." To follow nature, accord
ingly, is not to obey any merely natural instinct, whether it be toward
good or evil, but to obey the highest principle of our constitution,
which alone can be a law to us. This " superior principle of reflection
or conscience" has its seat in the heart of every man, and there gives
forth " magisterial " sentence upon all human action. " It is by this
faculty, natural to man, that he is a moral agent, that he is a law to
himself." (2) To the vindication of the supremacy of this principle
Butler now addresses himself. A brute creature gratifies its natural
passion by snatching at the bait laid for it ; and even though it destroys
itself in the act, we say it acted according to its nature. A man
gratifies some passion with the consequence of ruin to himself, and
we say the act was unnatural, i.e. more precisely, there is a dispropor
tion between this act and the whole nature of man. The reason of
this disproportion is, that the principle of rational self-love is in itself
superior to the mere temporary appetite ; and so we see that among
the principles which exist together in human nature, one may be
naturally superior to another, and that irrespective of its mere strength.
Now, apply this to conscience. A man's desire leads him to its
object, even at the cost of injury to others. Conscience steps
forward and, in the interest of that wider good, forbids the action.
Why then is it to be obeyed ? Not because of its greater strength,
but because of its higher authority. The prevalence of any other
principle would be a case of usurpation, and would do violence to

c

34 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

the constitution. Supremacy, in fact, belongs to the very idea of
conscience. Thus, in words which are most memorable, Butler pro
claims his witness against an age of moral indolence and degeneracy:
" Had it strength, as it has right ; had it power, as it has manifest
authority, it would absolutely govern the world." Think what the
issue would be were we destitute of such a governor within. Then
we should have to pronounce blasphemy and reverence, parricide and
filial piety, equally permissible, because equally consonant with human
nature, differing from each other only in respect of strength of impulse.
(3) Now, at last, we have reached an adequate notion of what human
nature is, and can understand what is meant when it is said that
virtue consists in following it, and vice in deviating from it. Human
nature resembles a civil State. It has its various departments, and
these are related to one another through their common subjection to
the supreme authority of conscience. If any one of these lower
principles were to claim independence of conscience, and to prevail
against it, this would be the violation of the constitution of man. In
a note Butler admits that perfect harmony of all the parts in subjec
tion to conscience is unattainable. All he expects is, that conscience
will, on the whole, maintain its authority, and if this be done, "the
character, the man, is good, worthy, virtuous." In a word, man has
" the rule of right within ; what is wanting is only that he honestly
attend to it." Does this rule never fail? Is conscience never per-
plexed ? To this Butler gives a very characteristic answer. He says
that in a question as to whether some particular action is right or
wrong, a correct decision would be given " by almost any fair man, in
V almost any circumstances." Conscience, therefore, thus established
in man's heart is the source of moral obligation. It carries its own
authority with it, is the guide given us by the Author of our being,
and is to be obeyed always and at any cost. One could have wished
that Butler's third sermon had closed with these deep-toned utterances.
The closing paragraphs are an attempt to meet the spirit of the age
with its own arguments. " Why should we impose restraints upon
ourselves ? Why should we be virtuous ? " For answer Butler falls
back on, " Because you cannot get your own good without submitting
to restraint ; and because, when you come to examine the matter, the

J\

INTRODUCTION. 35

highest pleasures belong to virtue, especially when it has become
habitual." Conscience and self-love, duty and interest, agree in
recommending the same course of life ; and the man who has
surrendered for conscience' sake much that the world would have
called his interest, will find in the end that he "has infinitely
better provided for himself, and secured his own interest and
happiness."

C. — The Love of God.

Matthew Arnold has drawn a very suggestive parallel between
Butler and the poet Gray (1716-1771). To the question why Gray,
possessed as he undoubtedly was of true poetic faculty, produced so
little poetiy, he gives this answer : " Gray, a born poet, fell upon an
age of prose. He fell upon an age whose task was such as to call
forth in general men's powers of understanding, wit and cleverness,
rather than their deepest powers of mind and soul. . . . Gray, with
the qualities of mind and soul of a genuine poet, was isolated in his
century. Maintaining and fortifying them by lofty studies, he yet
could not fully educe and enjoy them ; the want of a genial atmo
sphere, the failure of sympathy in his contemporaries, were too great."
"The same thing is to be said of his great contemporary, Butler,
the author of the Analogy. In the sphere of religion, which touches
that of poetry, Butler was impelled by the endowment of his nature to
strive for a profound and adequate conception of religious things
which was not pursued by his contemporaries, and which, at that
time and in that atmosphere of mind, was not fully attainable. . . .
A sort of spiritual east wind was at that time blowing ; neither
Butler nor Gray could flower." In the three sermons on Human
Nature, and in most of the others, we seem to feel this spiritual chill.
The speaker's interest is wholly on the side of nobility and truth. He
is labouring after higher views of life than those entertained by his
audience. But he feels himself restrained by their want of sympathy.
He forces himself to use their language, and to appeal to their domi
nant motives. His spirit, accordingly, rarely reaches fulness of
utterance. In two sermons (XIII., XIV.), however, he does attain to

36 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

some measure of freedom. His theme is the Love of God, and in dealing
with it he reaches conceptions higher than the age could appreciate,
higher even than the level of his own ordinary thought. Butler is
here at his best ; and we begin to understand the effect he produced
on those who, if they could not imitate him, expressed their admira
tion of his goodness by crowning him with earthly honour. Besides
virtuous affections themselves, such as justice, goodness, righteous
ness, there is an affection for these affections " when they are reflected
upon." This is the source of our love and admiration of good men.
Suppose, then, a Being of perfect goodness, of vast purposes, our
friend and governor, " we should, with joy, gratitude, reverence, love,
trust, and dependence, appropriate the character as what we had a right
in ; and make our boast in such our relation to it." But God is such a
Being, as present to us, though "unseen, as our friends and neighbours."
To Him, then, this affection is due. " Religion does not demand new
affections, but only claims the direction of those you already have,
those affections you daily feel ; though unhappily confined to objects
not altogether unsuitable, but altogether unequal to them." Thus,
with respect to the love of God, " we only offer and represent the
highest object of an affection supposed already in your mind. Some
degree of goodness must be previously supposed : this always implies
the love of itself, an affection to goodness: the highest, the adequate
object of this affection is perfect goodness ; which, therefore, we are
to love with all our heart, with all oitr soul, and with all our
strength? The love of God involves also fear, without, however, any
trace of servility, and hope ; and these three, fear, hope, love, may be
summed up in one word which expresses the true attitude of man the
creature toward God the Creator — Resignation. Butler's language
here takes leave of the eighteenth century, and recalls the glowing
words of the mediaeval mystic, and indeed of all who in any age have
sought to realize union with God as the truth of human life. "Resigna
tion to the will of God is the whole of piety : it includes in it all that
is good, and is a source of the most settled quiet and composure of
mind. . . . How many of our cares should we by this means be
disburdened of! ... How open to every gratification would that
mind be which was clear of these encumbrances ! " Such a temper

INTRODUCTION. 37

of mind is peculiarly suited to those who are still "in a state of
imperfection." It is the highest impulse toward perfection which can
be experienced by " creatures- in a progress of being towards some
what further." This "our resignation to the will of God may be said
to be perfect when our will is lost and resolved up into His ; when
we rest in His will as our end, as being itself most just, and right, and
good." And if this be so under present conditions, what shall it be
when we shall see face to face^ and know as we are known? For
Butler, as for all other reverent souls, speech fails to comprehend
what things God has prepared for them that love Him. He takes
refuge in language which, though " first used in the early days of God's
revelation," is never too old for the freshest experience of His grace :
"As for me, I will behold Thy presence in righteousness : and when
I awake up after Thy likeness, I shall be satisfied with it " (Ps. xvii.
1 6, Prayer-Book Version).

§ 7. BUTLER'S ETHICAL DOCTRINE : ESTIMATE.

The value of Butler's work is to be estimated by reference to the
tone of public opinion prevalent in his day. The spirit of the age in
which he lived could not be more clearly described than in his own
words. It can "scarce be doubted," he says, in the opening sentences
of Sermon XI. upon the Love of our Neighbour, " that vice and folly
takes different turns ; and some particular kinds of it are more open
and avowed in some ages than in others.: and, I suppose, it may be
spoken of as very much the distinction of the present to profess a
contracted spirit, and greater regards to self-interest than appears to
have been done formerly." Against this spirit his writings are a
protest, not less earnest because calmly and even coldly expressed.
His aim is not that of a scientific investigator, but of a moral teacher,
being, as he himself expresses it in his preface, " to obviate that scorn
which one sees rising upon the faces of people who are said to
know the world, when mention is made of a disinterested, generous,
or public-spirited action." This ignoble temper is not confined to
the eighteenth century, though it may have been its predominant
characteristic ; and under whatever circumstances it emerges again,

38 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

Butler's witness on behalf of a good and right that are independent of
personal consequences will always remain a moral and spiritual
porwer. If in these happier days there is a public sentiment in favour
of unselfishness, if the " scorn " which troubled the preacher at the
Rolls Chapel when he spoke of disinterested benevolence has given
way to a sympathetic appreciation of every philanthropic effort and
all forms of self-sacrifice, if instead of a cynical disbelief in any
absolute good there has awakened an enthusiasm for righteousness,
it is not too much to say that to these results Butler's unostentatious
witness to benevolence and conscience and the love of God has con
tributed in no insignificant degree. While admitting and maintaining
this, however, it is necessary to remark that throughout his protest
against the spirit of the age he remains under the dominion of its pre
suppositions and its method. Between these and his own higher
interests and beliefs there is a continual though unacknowledged con
flict. This introduces into his teaching an element of confusion and
contradiction, from which, as it was unperceived, he never wholly
frees himself. He is often on the way to a higher standpoint, but
the shackles of the bondage, which he himself has done much to
break, are upon him, and he fails to reach the fuller and more adequate
thought.

Hobbes had taught that man was, and never could be anything else
than, selfish, though for obvious reasons it was his interest to sub
ordinate in many things his private desires. This teaching found
congenial soil in the generation that arose under the restored Stuart
kings. It thus became an inherited conviction that man is an isolated
individual self, capable of pursuing those interests alone which centre
in himself, and minister to his own private advantage. A man's
interest or advantage was held to be the limit of his moral horizon,
beyond which he could not see, far less travel. A selfish view of man
was, so to speak, in the air, just as we may say an unselfish view
of man is at this present day. Disinterested benevolence was then
regarded as a step away from man's true being, and explanations
were offered to show that a man could not take this step, however much
appearances might indicate that he actually did so. Disinterested
benevolence now-a-days is treated as a step toward man's true being,

INTRODUCTION. 39

and the writings of moralists are chiefly occupied with indicating how
it is to be taken. The curious feature of Butler's position is that, while
his whole practical interest is in the vindication of unselfishness and
disinterestedness, he yet never questions the prevailing theory of man
as an individual enclosed within the limits of his own private interest.
His theory, which he held in common with his generation, or which
at least he never offered to criticise, is continually thwarting his
practical aim. His aim is to prove that man may be, and ought to be,
unselfish. Immediately he is confronted by his own theory. A man
must always be himself vfasm he acts. If, then, he is, and cannot but
be, shut up to the narrow circle of his mere individuality, his acts
cannot escape the clinging taint of selfishness. When he helps his
neighbour, when he acts the part of a good citizen, when he worships
God, he remains the same rigid, self-contained individual ; and all
his acts, since they are his, remain in the last resort selfish still. In
short, taking the then prevalent view of self, wherever self is present,
there must also be selfishness. Self, however, must always be present,
at least in all acts for which a man is responsible, even if these acts
claim to be disinterested. Selfishness, therefore, must be universal, and
self-love must be the supreme lord of human nature, and the source
of all morality and religion. Against this conclusion Butler fights,
without ever seeing that it is inevitable on the theory presupposed.
All through his teaching, accordingly, self-love intervenes to disturb
and perplex. Let us take each of his great ideas in turn, and
endeavour to adjust them to self-love, and observe the confusion that
inevitably follows.

i. Benevolence and Self-love. Butler vindicates the disinterested
character of Benevolence in two ways, (i) He makes it a "blind
propension." It makes for the good of our fellow-men, just as the
appetite of hunger makes for food. This in Sermon I. is his answer
to Hobbes, and the same view is taken in Sermons VI., VII., on
Compassion. Here it is evident that Butler has saved the existence
of Benevolence by robbing it of all moral quality whatever. We
cannot pronounce anything good or bad which has not been the result
of will to do that thing. A mere instinct is no more moral than
any other mere instinct, e.g. the instinct to drink when we are thirsty,

40 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE. .

even supposing its object happen to be the good of others. If giving
to the poor be on a par with eating when we are hungry, obviously
we have degraded Benevolence from the position of a moral quality.
Many men, and perhaps more women, pride themselves on their
Benevolence, while really they might as well go in to dinner with
a high sense of moral rectitude for their faithfulness in doing so.
Here Butler's analysis fails. -He never points out the presence and
operation of the will in giving moral character to our acts. (2) Butler,
however, does not always regard Benevolence as a "blind propen-
sion." It is with him also a " principle of virtue." That is to say, it is
a principle of action reflected upon, and consciously adopted by man.
This brings him, accordingly, at once into conflict with the rival
" principle " of Self-love. He wavers between two views of the relation
between these two principles. In the first place, he sets them side
by side on the same platform. " The proportion," he says in Sermon
XII., " which the two general affections, benevolence and self-love, bear
to each other . . . denominates men's character as to virtue. . . . Love
of our neighbour, then, must bear some proportion to self-love, and
virtue, to be sure, consists in the due proportion." To this conception
of virtue as a balance or proportion he does not, however, strictly
adhere. In the second place, accordingly, we find him treating
Benevolence as superior to Self-love. Benevolence regarded " as a
principle in reasonable creatures, and so to be directed by their
reason," is "the sum of virtue." "From hence it is manifest
that the common virtues and the common vices of mankind may
be traced up to benevolence, or the want of it." Thus, however,
he comes face to face with that conception of man as an indi
vidual which he has never questioned. Even benevolent acts are
the acts of one who is himself in them. If that is the case, then
even benevolent acts are selfish, so long as our only conception
of man is that of a being, confined to the rigidly closed circle of
his individual interest. Thus Butler's view of Self-love deprives
his contentions on behalf of Benevolence of their real weight.
Viewed "as a principle," Benevolence cannot escape the net of
selfishness which the prevailing theory of man, as an individual,
casts round all his actions. Its disinterestedness can be defended

INTRODUCTION. 41

only by depriving it of any real moral worth, namely, by reducing it to
a " blind propension."

2. Conscience and Self-love. Recall what is said in Sermon I. of
the nature of conscience. " The mind can take a view of what
passes within itself, its propensions, aversions, passions, affections, as
respecting such objects, and in such degrees ; and of the several
actions consequent thereupon." This faculty of the mind is con
science. It is thus a faculty of judging upon the material presented
to it, whether the inner motive or the consequent act. Till such
material is presented to it, conscience cannot act, and has indeed
nothing to do. And when the material is provided, conscience has
no power to carry into effect the decisions to which, after having
sifted and examined the material before it, it may have arrived.
Mighty storms have raged while armies engaged in battle, without
the combatants having been even aware of the fact. So also impulses
contend, and passions meet in deadly strife, while overhead roll the
thunders of conscience, unheeded in the empty air. " If it had only
power as it has authority," is Butler's longing cry. But what is the
value even of the authority of a faculty which has no power of
originating action, which can present to the agent no object of
pursuit ? Surely the authority of such a helpless faculty is necessarily
meaningless and unreal. What power is there which does present
ends of action ? To this there is no other answer in Butler than self-
love. " Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness,
always lead us the same way." That is to say, man seeks and can
seek only his own happiness. This is the highest end of all his
actions. With reference to this, accordingly, conscience gives its
decisions. This is its standard of right, its ideal good. Conscience,
accordingly, in guiding men toward this goal, is acting at the behest
of Self-love. And if we could conceive it possible, which it is not, that
Conscience could direct men to any other end .than that presented by
Self-love, it would have to give way. " Religion," he remarks in
Sermon XL, " is so far from disowning the principle of self-love, that
it often addresses itself to that very principle, and always to the mind
in that state when reason presides ; and there can no access be had
to the understanding, but by convincing men that the course of life

42 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

we would persuade them to is not contrary to their interest. It may
be allowed, without any prejudice to the cause of virtue and religion,
that our ideas of happiness and misery are of all ideas the nearest and
most important to us ; that they will, nay, if you please, that they
ought, to prevail over those of order, and beauty, and harmony, and
proportion, if there should ever be, as it is impossible there ever
should be, any inconsistence between them ; though those last too,
as expressing the fitness of actions, are real as truth itself. Let it be
allowed, though virtue or moral rectitude does indeed consist in
affection to and pursuit of what is right and good as such ; yet, that
when we sit down in a cool hour, we can neither justify to ourselves
this or any other pursuit, till we are convinced that it will be for our
happiness, or at least not contrary to it." One is amazed to find so
close an approximation to Hume's paradoxical formula, "Reason
is and ought to be only the slave of the passions." From this
the last result of his own logic Butler's strong moral sympathy
restrained him ; and we are left with the rough division of human
nature into two parts, Self-love and Conscience, of which the former
separated from the latter becomes a non-moral instinct, the latter
separated from the former becomes the empty abstraction described
above.

3. Self-love and the Love of God. Here at last, when dealing with
the Love of God, we breathe an atmosphere free from all confusion
and contradictions. In his sermons on this theme, Butler has
escaped from the narrow limits of popular theories, to walk on moun
tain heights of unclouded vision. It is due, of course, in great measure
to the detached sermonic form in which he has presented his results,
that he rarely brings his thoughts together to weave them into
systematic completeness. This is due in part to the fact of which he
advertises the reader — p. 12 — that no particular order was observed
in selecting the sermons for publication. The want of connection,
however, is due not merely to the manner in which he presents
his thoughts, but to their nature. When he writes of the Love
of God, he has forgotten the place which he has claimed for Self-
love, Benevolence, and Conscience as independent principles of
human nature, and devotes himself to the vindication of a principle

INTRODUCTION. 43

which, had he made it the standpoint whence to review the others,
might have enabled him to give to each a new interpretation, and to
adjust harmoniously their mutual relations. He has not sought
harmony in this way. But neither has he sought it in the opposite
direction, by interpreting what is noblest in man from the point of
view of what is lowest in him. Herein precisely lies his interest and
value as an ethical teacher. If he could not rise above the theoretic
standpoint of his age, he could at least refuse its issues. The
very contradictions which his teaching contains are an implicit
criticism upon that standpoint, and suggest the quest for a higher ;
while his own higher thoughts are anticipation of success in such a
pursuit.

§ 8. CONCLUDING REMARKS.

We have seen that the conception of man which prevailed in
Butler's day was never theoretically criticized by him, while his
practical conclusions wholly contradict it, and that, accordingly, his
thought is rendered on certain points inadequate and confused. We
have seen, too, that in some of his sermons he reaches a plane of
spiritual and speculative thought far above that of the theories which
he accepted, or at least did not explicitly controvert. The transition
from the three sermons on Human Nature to those upon the Love of
God is indeed the transition from the sphere of morality to that
of religion. Conjecture naturally arises whether, had Butler ever
reviewed the statements of the three sermons from the point of view
reached in the other two on the Love of God, he would not have
found it necessary to restate some of his conclusions, and so clear
them from the confusions we have found to exist in them. It may
prove interesting and helpful as an exercise in ethical study to deal
very briefly with the three leading ideas of Butler's teaching, using by
way of standpoint the suggestions contained in the higher reaches of
his thought.

i. The Love of God as Ethical Motive. Individualism is not only
a theory, it is an element in all human experience. The child, in the
joyous life of home, has scarcely thought of himself as separate from

44 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

the loved persons with whom his life is identified. The transition
from childhood to manhood is marked by an intense consciousness of
separation, in which the individual, often assertively and disagreeably,
vindicates his independence and claims his rights. The unconscious
unity of the child-life is broken. The man knows himself as a distinct
individual, standing in the might of his self-assertion over against
nature, humanity, God. When he realizes his position at its point
of deepest significance, namely, in relation to God, he finds it to be
not merely pain, but sin. He ought to be at one with this God from
whom he is keenly aware he is separate. He knows in his inmost
soul that his separation from God, and all consequent acts of trespass
against God, are his own doing, the burden of whose guilt lies upon
his own head alone. He knows, too, that his utmost efforts to regain
union with God are necessarily ineffective, for the reason which
becomes obvious on reflection, namely, that he is himself separate
from God, and that to all his actions there clings the taint of this
state of separation, which is a state of sin. Action conducted within
the sphere of mere morality is, at best, merely an approximation,
never an attainment. Morality, per se, is endless process, and that
means ceaseless dissatisfaction. The very sense of failure, however,
contains the germ of hope ; for, obviously, only a being meant for
union with God could feel pain in separation from Him. Union
with God is at once the expectation and the latent presupposition of
morality. It is also the fundamental fact of religion, the proclamation
of which constitutes " glad tidings " to all who labour under the weight
of an unrealized and unrealizable ideal of goodness. The life of
Christ is not merely a display of sinlessness, it is the positive achieve
ment of righteousness in the very sphere wherein man has already
hopelessly failed. The death of Christ has accomplished the recon
ciliation with God which is the goal of the human spirit, and starting
from which alone man can advance to a victorious solution of the
moral problem. There exists, therefore, as actual fact a life which is
the union of God and man, after which man has yearned. Here the
contradictions and dissatisfactions of man's moral effort are seen to
be absent ; in their place, a perfect harmony of the human will and
the divine. If, however, that life lay wholly beyond the sinner, a

INTRODUCTION. 45

spectacle to be gazed at by him with longing eyes, while he felt
himself debarred for ever from its appropriation, it would merely add
to his misery. The question therefore remains, How can he make it
his own? Butler's answer is, "By resignation." More fully and
adequately the answer may be given, " By surrender." What keeps
you from Christ, and union with God in Him ? Nothing but Self, to
which you live, and in whose limits you are shut up as in a living
death. Die, then, to that Self which is death, and so for the first time
begin to live. Yield yourself a living sacrifice to God. Accept that
will of God which was fulfilled for you on the Cross, and this you
cannot truly do without yourself also dying on that Cross. Thus, to
die with Christ is at the same time to rise with Him into newness of
life. Whereas once to you to live was Self, now that Self is dead, and
to you to live is Christ. That Self is dead. It is no longer yours nor
you. It was sin - laden and under condemnation ; now you have
escaped the imputation of its guilt. It was toiling at an impossible
task, seeking through individual effort to reach a goodness that for
ever fled before it ; now you have arrived at that " blessed goal."
Christ speaks in gracious -assurance, "You are delivered from failure.
Goodness is your heritage -in me. Go forth, no more in weariness,
but gladly, triumphantly, restfully, to achieve in the world that which
is already yours." Reconciliation is the " basis of ethics." The Love ,
of God, fulfilled in redemption, and waking in man a glad response,
is the only adequate ethical motive.

2. Conscience as Power and Authority. Butler in his teaching on
Conscience is the prophet of the eighteenth century, proclaiming to a
cynical and selfish generation the supremacy of the rule of right within.
In two respects, however, as we have seen, the claim which he makes for
Conscience is invalidated. First, it is confessed that conscience has no
power. It is a mere faculty of judgment. It depends upon other faculties
to present the material upon which it is to judge. It cannot of itself, apart
from the material thus presented to it, fix any end of pursuit for man.
Second, this involves further that the faculty, which has no power, can
have no real authority. It acts, and sometimes Butler admits, can act,
only in the interest of self-love, and selects only the ends which self-
love proposes. Its supposed supremacy, therefore, becomes practical

46 .BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

servitude. All this is inevitable from the point of view of that
psychology which was Butler's unquestioned presupposition, the
logical issues of which are presented in Hume. If all elements of
knowledge, and all ends of actions, are presented in sensations, which
it is the work of thought merely to compare and combine, we shall
soon be brought to see that knowledge is no more than the aggregate
of associated sensations, and virtue is obedience to the strongest
passions. And when we see this we shall be brought to question the
presupposition which has led us to this conclusion, and we shall ask once
more the " tyro's question," How is experience possible ? and we shall
seek new conditions both of knowledge and morality. If Butler did
not put this question to himself, he at least, as we have seen, made a
fore-grasp at the answer. From the religious standpoint which he
reaches in some of his sermons we gather that the good is not the
calculated result of a process of comparison and abstraction carried
on by the faculty of conscience. It is the will of God, whose end
may be variously expressed as His own glory or the good of men.
We are good when we are identified with this Supreme Will, when our
wills are lost and resolved into it. This includes "all that is of
good." Will not such a conception significantly modify that view
of Conscience which Butler has elsewhere taught, and to which it
is noteworthy he does not recur in his sermons on the Love of
God?

i. Conscience will be quite other than a faculty of judgment,
exercised on a material given to us from without. The purpose of
God, as it moves towards its divine event, realizes itself in various
spheres of ethical conduct, e.g. the family, the State, etc., and is
therein so far revealed. Man, however, is more than the theatre
whereon this purpose is to be displayed. His perfection is indeed
the end aimed at, and this can be achieved only as he recognises the
good, and devotes himself to it freely as its instrument. The good,
therefore, is revealed not only in and by man, but also to him. It is
in fact his deepest consciousness, that with which, when he knows
himself, he will know himself to be one. It is impossible, therefore,
to speak of^conscience as a bit of man, a " part " of human nature,
one "faculty" among others. It is the man himself, as he responds

INTRODUCTION. 47

to the good which is present to him even when he fails to recognise
it, and which constitutes his true nature. Or, what is the same thing
frnm t^e other side, it is the Spirit itself bearing witness with our
spirits _that we are citizens and heirs ot the kingdom which is
righteousness, and therefore peace and joy.

2. Hence, also, the authority of conscience must be differently con
ceived. Its authority does not belong to itself as a mere faculty, but to
the good of which it is the apprehension. In hearkening to conscience,
therefore, we are not listening to the deliverances of any faculty of ours,
but to the voice of God, who, as He has revealed Himself in the
manifold fulness of the world, which is the sphere of moral attainment,
thus also bears witness to Himself in our consciousness. In obeying
conscience we are not acknowledging the mere issue of a calculation,
we are identifying ourselves with that will which has created the ends
which it proposes for our pursuit, and which as we yield ourselves to
it becomes in us the energy of their attainment. We need not\
therefore, with Butler regret the disparity between the authority of )
conscience and its power. As a mere faculty it has neither one nor
other. As the presence to our spirits of the Supreme Will, which has
created the moral universe, and through us seeks the fulfilment of its
infinite design, it is the highest authority, the most absolute power.
In acting according to conscience, we are rising above the region of
moral paralysis in which we for ever balance feeling against feeling,
vainly seeking the good in the product, and are entering through
surrender into union with the good which claims us for itself, whose
organs and instruments we become, and whose victory is our certain
heritage. Conscience, accordingly, may in this respect be compared )
to faith, as its character has been defined in Reformation theology. ^
Faith is no independent faculty with authority or power of its
own. It has in itself no saving efficacy. In believing, we I
receive Christ, and are made one with Him ; then He saves aruf
sanctifies. Even so, conscience is no independent faculty, and has, \
as Butler truly says, no power whatever to produce moral conduct. \
In acting according to conscience, we receive the will of God, and
become one with it ; then He commands, and is Himself the energy /
of obedience. It is interesting to notice the parallel between Butler5

48 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

view of conscience and his view of faith, as this incidentally appears
in a conversation with Wesley. The subject of discussion is the
doctrine of justification, and Butler remarks, "Why, sir, our faith itself
is a good work ; it is a virtuous temper of mind." The individual,
therefore, is the architect of his own fortunes, even in matters spiritual,
and Butler shrinks from any view of the touch of the Divine Spirit
upon the human as tending to delusion. In this conversation he
further remarked that "the pretending to extraordinary revelations
and gifts of the Holy Spirit was a horrid thing — a very horrid
thing." Conscience and faith alike, therefore, are independent
faculties, by the expertise of which the individual achieves moral and
spiritual wellbeing for himself. From this it follows that the failure
of Conscience to select what is right among many possible ends of
action, and the failure of Faith to choose Christ as the object of
worship and service, are cases of mere failure for which the man
cannot be held responsible, any more than for short-sightedness or any
other instance of an imperfect faculty. Where, however, we deprive
Conscience and Faith of their fancied dignity as faculties, and regard
them simply as expressions of man's spiritual energy, laying hold in
the one case on the will of God, in the other on the Person of His
Son, we begin to realize the tremendous imperative of duty, the
infinite claim of Christ. In action we have to do, not with the
inference of a faculty, but the presence of an Almighty Will revealing
itself to the soul. "To him," therefore, "that knoweth to do good
and doeth it not, to him it is sin ; " not mistake or failure merely, but
trespass against the Supreme Will in devotion to which our moral
wellbeing consists. In belief, in like manner, we are not concerned
with any intellectual propositions or logical demonstrations, but with
the claim of a Person who is present to our spirits as truth and light.
Faith in Christ, therefore, is not intellectual accuracy, therefore also
rejection of Christ is not intellectual error ; it is the failure to yield to
One who is claiming us for Himself, is endowing us with His own
perfect manhood. To violate Conscience and to reject Christ are acts
destructive of our moral and spiritual wellbeing. They cannot truly
be estimated in terms of our limited understanding. The blame and
the loss are alike infinite.

INTRODUCTION. 49

3. Benevolence as Virtue. The question which the popular senti
ment of the day put to Butler was, How can a man seek any
good save his own? We have seen that Butler, in endeavour
ing to vindicate the reality of Benevolence as a principle of human
nature, is hampered by his narrow and individualistic conception
of self. As long as this conception is retained, and a man's self
is regarded as a circle rounded upon itself and exclusive of all
other individualities, it will be a ceaseless puzzle how a man can get
out of himself to identify himself with anything beyond himself. The
answer comes only on lines to which Butler introduces us when, for
getting his psychological presuppositions, he rises to the thought of
God, and so for the first time begins to apprehend human nature.
With the first dawn of the consciousness of self there wakes the
demand for self-satisfaction. But the self which thus claims the world
for its own, while at the same time it refuses to go forth of itself, is
not our true self. As we yield to it and do it homage and seek to
satisfy its ceaseless craving, it is our false self, the evil genius of our
life, continually dragging us into sin, and denial of our true nature.
We come to ourselves only when this false self is slain. By death we
are born again. Our true self rises in Him with whom through
surrender we are one. The man Christ Jesus is the truth of human
nature. Our own good is now to be interpreted by reference to Him
who is our true self. The good for us is the attainment of that
supreme purpose with which we are now identified, and in whose
service we find perfect freedom. But that purpose has for its goal
salvation, that is to say, the elevation of men to the highest excellence
of which their nature, physical, social, spiritual, is capable. It is, in a
word, " goodwill to men." It is therefore to the extent in which he
makes this his aim, and seeks to achieve the good of his fellow-man,
that a man finds his own. So far, therefore, from its being impossible
for a man to seek any good save his own, he can only find his own in
the pursuit of that of others. That is his good ; for he is much more
than a centre, of private interest. His true nature finds its issues
along all the lines of the love of God. By every deed in which self is
crucified to rise again in service that seeks no reward, in suffering that
knows no murmur, he becomes more truly himself, and reaches

50 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

toward that ideal of humanity which is real in Christ, and will be
realized in all who are one with Him.

In closing, we learn from Butler that the supreme principle of
human nature is the will of God, and by this we interpret each special
aspect of it, and adjust their relations with one another. This, as we
receive it in deep surrender, wakes in us as a passion which becomes
the impulse and the energy of all ethical attainment. This, as it
bears witness to itself in us through conscience, commands us with
that absolute authority which belongs only to a law that is the expres
sion of infinite love. This, as we yield ourselves its servants, reaches
a result in which the good of our fellow-men and that of ourselves
are achieved together in indissoluble unity of thought and fact. It is
true, indeed, that at any point of present attainment there open upon
us visions of profounder surrender, more perfect obedience, more
Christ-like charity. When such revelations break upon our soul there
cannot be but pain, but there must not be despair. Our pain is the
throb within us of that living will which is bearing us toward its own
divine event, and which cannot fail us till it has purged away from us
every discordant element, and made of us with itself one infinite
harmony. Thus, amid the anguish of crucifixion we enjoy His peace
who gives not as the world giveth, and amid the darkness of a vision
that sees not yet sub specie eternitatis, can rest in confidence on His
word.

" O living will that shalt endure,

When all that seems shall suffer shock

Rise in the spiritual rock,
Flow through our deeds and make them pure.
That we may lift from out of dust

A cry as unto Him that hears,

A cry above the conquered years,
To one that with us works and trust,
With faith that comes of self-control,

The truths that never can be proved,

Until we close with all we loved,
And all we flow from, soul in soul."

THREE SERMONS.

SERMON I.

UPON HUMAN NATURE.

' ' For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the
same office ; so we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members
one of another." — ROM. xii. 4, 5.

'TTVHE Epistles in the New Testament have all of them a
particular reference to the condition and usages of the
Christian world at the time they were written. Therefore, as
they cannot be thoroughly understood unless that condition
and those usages are known and attended to, so, further, though
they be known, yet, if they be discontinued or changed, ex
hortations, precepts, and illustrations of things, which refer to
such circumstances now ceased or altered, cannot at this time
be urged in that manner and with that force which they were
to the primitive Christians. Thus the text now before us, in its
first intent and design, relates to the decent management of
those extraordinary gifts1 which were then in the Church (i Cor.

1 Decent management of those extraordinary gifts. Chapters xii., xiii.,
xiv. of the First Epistle to the Corinthians deal with the subject of the
charismata or special gifts of the early Christian Church. Abuses
soon crept in. The Glossolalia, or gift of tongues, was specially liable
to abuse. In their frenzy the worshippers fell into strange intellectual
and spiritual confusion, and might even be heard blaspheming the
blessed name of the Saviour (i Cor. xii. 3). Paul seeks to check these
hideous extravagances by pointing out that however varied the gifts
might be in their distribution and exercise, their service and aim were
one. All alike are gifts of the same Spirit, who, through them all,
carries on His holy operations (vers. 4-1 1). This Paul then illustrates

52 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

xii.), but which are now totally ceased. And even as to the
allusion that " we are one body in Christ," though what the
apostle here intends is equally true of Christians in all circum
stances, and the consideration of it is plainly still an additional
motive, over and above moral considerations, to the discharge of
the several duties and offices of a Christian ; yet it is manifest
this allusion must have appeared with much greater force to
those who, by the many difficulties they went through for the
sake of their religion, were led to keep always in view the rela
tion they stood in to their Saviour who had undergone the
same ; to those who, from the idolatries of all around them
and their ill-treatment, were taught to consider themselves
as not of the world in which they lived, but as a distinct
society of themselves, with laws, and ends, and principles
of life and action quite contrary to those which the world pro
fessed themselves at that time influenced by. Hence the rela
tion of a Christian was by them considered as nearer than that
of affinity and blood, and they almost literally esteemed them
selves as members one of another.2 It cannot, indeed, possibly

by the analogy of the body and the members. The members are
many, and have various functions ; but they are members of one body,
and work together in perfect harmony and mutual dependence (vers.
12-27). Butler's aim in this sermon is to vindicate the independence
and importance of benevolence. He finds, accordingly, a convenient
starting-point in this conception of a variety, which does not lead
to rivalry or disunion, being controlled by a higher principle of
unity.

2 They almost literally esteemed themselves as members one of another.
The words of Jesus (Matt, xxiii. 8), " One is your Master, even Christ ;
and all ye are brethren," are not a metaphor or hyperbole. They
express the literal fact. Sin, separating as it does man and God, does
thereby also separate man from man. Redemption, uniting as it does
man and God, does thereby also unite man and man. The brotherhood
of man can be fully understood only through the conception of redemp
tion, and is practically recognised only by that religion which rests
upon the fact of the accomplished redemption of the world. Christ,
accordingly, announces His task as the foundation of the kingdom of
God, which tolerates no external distinctions of race or rank, and
comprehends humanity in the privilege and obligation of brotherhood.
" Here," i.e. in the kingdom, " the Gentile met the Jew, whom he had
been accustomed to regard as the enemy of the human race ; the
Roman met the lying Greek sophist ; the Syrian slave the gladiator
born beside the Danube. In brotherhood they met, the natural birth

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 53

be denied that our being God's creatures, and virtue being the
natural law we are born under, and the whole constitution of
man being plainly adapted to it, are prior obligations to piety
and virtue 3 than the consideration that God sent His Son into
the world to save it, and the motives which arise from the
peculiar relations of Christians as members one of another
under Christ our head However, though all this be allowed,
as it expressly is by the inspired writers, yet it is manifest that
Christians, at the time of the Revelation, and immediately after,
could not but insist mostly upon considerations of this latter
kind.

These observations show the original particular reference of
the text, and the peculiar force with which the thing intended
by the allusion in it must have been felt by the primitive Chris-

and kindred of each forgotten, the baptism alone remembered in which
they had been born again to God and to each other." Ecce Homo>
p. 128, I4th ed.

3 Prior obligations to piety and virtue. Butler's defence of benevolence
is pervaded by a thoroughly Christian interest. He is, however, so
penetrated by the spirit of his age that he seeks, apart from religion,
for grounds and motives of those very virtues which religion chiefly
inculcates. We have also always to remember in reading Butler,
when we are tempted to complain of his cold and "moderate"
language, that he is dealing with those over whom Christianity as a
faith had ceased to exert any influence. His conscious purpose,
therefore, is to establish virtue on a basis of its own apart from the
support of religion. Yet he himself leads us to see that morality is
complete in religion alone, and that from the standpoint of religion
alone it can be satisfactorily vindicated. It may seem, indeed, an
intellectual subtlety to say that religion is the basis of morality, when
so many people who make no religious profession live thoroughly
moral lives. It is plain, however, that there is a distinction between
acting morally and being moral. We may act morally, under the
constraint of law, whether it be the law of public opinion or the law
of God, and yet between our wills and the law there may be no real
union. But we can be moral only when our wills are in thorough
harmony with the law, that is to say, when they are one with the
supreme will which utters itself in the law. We now act as the organs
of that higher will which works in us " to will and to do." Our moral
action is now the issue of our religious life. To be truly moral is
possible only when we are truly religious, i.e. when our wills are
surrendered to and mastered by the supreme will. To those who love
morality, Christ is offered as the one condition on which they can
have their noblest ambitions satisfied.

54 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

tian world. They likewise afford a reason for treating it at this
time in a more general way.

The relation which the several parts or members of the natural
body have to each other and to the whole body, is here com
pared to the relation which each particular person in society
has to other particular persons and to the whole society ; and
the latter is intended to be illustrated by the former. And if
there be a likeness between these two relations, the consequence
is obvious : That the latter shows us we were intended to do
good to others, as the former shows us that the several members
of the natural body were intended to be instruments of good to
each other and to the whole body. But as there is scarce any
ground for a comparison between society and the mere material
body,4 this without the mind being a dead, inactive thing ; much
less can the comparison be carried to any length. And since

4 Comparison between society and the mere material body. Herbert
Spencer would not agree with Butler's statement that the comparison
could not be "carried to any length." He himself goes great lengths
in such a comparison, basing his procedure on the thesis that " the
permanent relations among the parts of a society are analogous to the
permanent relations among the parts of a living body." Apart from
Spencer's use of the comparison, it is one which certainly will often
be found useful in illustrating the characteristics of a society. The
living body presents the picture of a unity prevailing amid many
diverse parts ; and this is precisely the kind of unity which exists in
society, the individuals composing it being " members one of another."
In the case of the living body, however, the unity is imperfect,
since the parts still remain physically separate from one another.
In society the unity is of a higher order, for here each part, i.e.
each individual, lives in the whole of which he is a member, and
is what he is by his place in it ; while only in so far as he lives
for it, and makes the welfare of the whole and of each member his
own individual purpose, does he attain the fulness of his own being.
Even in various types of society we notice an advance toward the
perfect harmonization of whole and part. The family is such a type.
The State is another. The kingdom of God is the highest and only
perfect type. The child lives in and for the family, but does so uncon
sciously. The citizen of the State lives in and for the community ; but
inasmuch as no earthly community, however well regulated, is perfect,
he lives also a life apart from it. Only in the kingdom of God does
man find for every power of body, soul, and spirit full and satisfactory
exercise, and for his whole being an entire consecration which leaves
no room for self, while at the same time his personality is not thereby
endangered, but developed in richest contents and noblest proportions.

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 55

the apostle speaks of the several members as having distinct
offices, which implies the mind, it cannot be thought an allow
able liberty, instead of the body and its members, to substitute the
•whole nature of man, and all the variety of internal principles
which belong to it. And then the comparison will be 5 between
the nature of man as respecting self, and tending to private good,
his own preservation and happiness ; and the nature of man as
having respect to society, and tending to promote public good,
the happiness of that society. These ends do indeed perfectly
coincide ; and to aim at public and private good are so far from
being inconsistent, that they mutually promote each other ; yet,
in the following discourse, they must be considered as entirely
distinct ; otherwise the nature of man, as tending to one or
as tending to the other, cannot be compared. There can no
comparison be made without considering the things compared
as distinct and different.

From this review and comparison of the nature of man as
respecting self and as respecting society, it will plainly appear
that there are as real and the same kind of indications in human
nature that we were made for society and to do good to our fellow-
creatures, as that we were intended to take care of our own life, and
health, and private good ; and that the same objections lie against
one of these assertions as against the other. For —

5 And then the comparison will be. Butler is afraid to press the
analogy of the body and its members too far. He accordingly fixes
his attention on " the whole nature of man." In this are to be observed
two aspects, " the nature of man as respecting self," and " the nature
of man as having respect to society." Between these he proposes to
institute a comparison, the issue of which he here states as the doctrine
to be developed through detailed examination. It is true that in the
end Butler hopes to show that man's private interest is bound up in,
and indeed is identical with, the public good. In the meantime, how
ever, he regards these two aspects of human nature as distinct.
Jevons has the following remarks on comparison and analogy. Com
parison is " the action of mind by which we judge whether two objects
of thought are the same or different in certain points." Analogy,
strictly defined, " is not an identity of one thing with another, but an
identity of relations. In the case of numbers, 7 is not identical with
10, nor 14 with 20, but the ratio of 7 to 10 is identical with the ratio of
14 to 20, so that there is an analogy between these numbers. In
ordinary language, however, analogy has come to mean any resem
blance between things which enables us to believe of one what we
know of the other."

56 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

First, There is a natural principle of benevolence (a) 6 in man,

(a) Suppose a man of learning to be writing a grave book upon
human nature, and to show in several parts of it that he had an insight
into the subject he was considering ; amongst other things, the
following one would require to be accounted for : the appearance of
benevolence or goodwill in men towards each other in the instances
of natural relation and in others.1 Cautious of being deceived with
outward show, he retires within himself to see exactly what that is in

6 A natural principle of benevolence. We have in Butler no proper
doctrine of the will, and without this much of his contending on behalf
of virtue must fall to the ground. A principle which is merely natural,
just as it is natural to eat when we are hungry, can scarcely be
characterized as good or bad. Only when our natural tendencies are
taken up and employed by our wills are the actions which result
capable of being estimated in terms of good or bad, or ourselves as
agents capable of being either approved or condemned. The dis
tinction appears, quaintly and forcibly expressed in Sir Thomas
Browne's Religio Medici. Speaking of this very principle of benevo
lence, the amiable physician declares that he is "delineated and
naturally framed to such a piece of virtue." » " This general and in
different temper of mine," he proceeds, "doth more nearly dispose
me to this noble virtue ; . . . yet if we are directed only by our particular
natures, . . . we are but moralists ; divinity will still call us heathens.
Therefore this great work of charity must have other motives, ends,
and impulsions. I give no alms only to satisfy the hunger of my
brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my
God ; I draw not my purse for his sake who demands it, but for His
that enjoy ned it. I relieve no man upon the rhetorik of his miseries,
nor to content mine own commiserating disposition ; for this is still
but moral charity, and an act that oweth more to passion than to
reason. He that relieves another upon the bare suggestion and
bowels of pity, doth not this so much for his sake as for his own, and
so, by relieving them, we relieve ourselves also." Of course it is not
meant that we are not good when we do good, if we happen to take
pleasure in it. Feeling as such has nothing to do with goodness.
There is nothing good save a will which recognises the good that is
revealed to it, and yields itself up to that in heartiest surrender. The
. claim of Christianity is that the service of Christ includes the highest
possible good for man. It accordingly addresses itself specially to
those who love goodness, and bids them yield their wills to Christ,
that their lives may be the systematic achievement of goodness, not
the spasmodic pursuit of mere instincts and "natural principles" of
virtue.

1 [Hobbes, On Human Nature, c. ix. § 7.]

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 57

which is in some degree to society what self-love is to the indi-

the mind of man from whence this appearance proceeds, and, upon
deep reflection, asserts the principle in the mind to be only the love
of power,7 and delight in the exercise of it. Would not everybody
think here was a mistake of one word for another ? That the philo
sopher was contemplating and accounting for some other human
actions, some other behaviour of man to man ? And could any one
be thoroughly satisfied that what is commonly called benevolence or
goodwill was really the affection meant, but only by being made to
understand that this learned person had a general hypothesis to which
the appearance of goodwill could no otherwise be reconciled ? That
what has this appearance is often nothing but ambition ; that delight
in superiority often (suppose always) mixes itself with benevolence,
only makes it more specious to call it ambition than hunger of the
two ; but in reality that passion does no more account for the whole
appearance of goodwill than this appetite does. Is there not often
the appearance of one man's wishing that good to another which he
knows himself unable to procure him ; and rejoicing in it, though
bestowed by a third person ? And can love of power any way possibly
come in to account for this desire or delight? Is there not often the
appearance of men's distinguishing between two or more persons,
preferring one before another to do good to, in cases where love of
power cannot in the least account for the distinction and preference ?
For this principle can no otherwise distinguish between objects than
as it is a greater instance and exertion of power to do good to one
rather than to another. Again, suppose goodwill in the mind of man
to be nothing but delight in the exercise of power : men might indeed
be restrained by distant and accidental considerations ; but these
restraints being removed, they would have a disposition to and delight
in mischief as an exercise and proof of power. And this disposition
and delight would arise from, or be the same principle in the mind as,
a disposition to and delight in charity. Thus cruelty, as distinct from
envy and resentment, would be exactly the same in the mind of man
as goodwill : that one tends to the happiness, the other to the misery
of our fellow-creatures, is, it seems, merely an accidental circumstance,
which the mind has not the least regard to. These are the absurdities
which even men of capacity run into when they have occasion to belie

7 The love of power. This is the form which self-interest usually
takes in Hobbes. He applies it in different directions to explain the
various phases of moral experience. Pity is "the imagination or
fiction of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense of
another man's calamity." Laughter is " nothing else but sudden glory
from some sudden conception of some eminency in ourselves, by com
parison with the infirmity of others, or with our own formerly."
Consistently with this, religion is defined as " fear of power invisible."

58 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.
vidual. And if there lie in mankind any disposition to friendship : 8

their nature, and will perversely disclaim that image of God which
was originally stamped upon it ; the traces of which, however faint,
are plainly discernible upon the mind of man.

If any person can in earnest doubt whether there be such a thing
as goodwill in one man towards another (for the question is not con
cerning either the degree or extensiveness of it, but concerning the
affection itself), let it be observed that whether man be thus or other
wise constituted, what is the inward frame in this particular is a mere
question of fact or natural history, not provable immediately by reason.
It is therefore to be judged of and determined in the same way as
other facts or matters of natural history are : By appealing to the
external senses or inward perceptions respectively as the matter under
consideration is cognizable by one or the other : by arguing from
acknowledged facts and actions ; for a great number of actions of the
same kind in different circumstances, and respecting different objects,
will prove to a certainty what principles they do not, and, to the
greatest probability, what principles they do proceed from. And,
lastly, by the testimony of mankind. Now, that there is some degree
of benevolence amongst men may be as strongly and plainly proved
in all these ways as it could possibly be proved, supposing there was
this affection in our nature. And should any one think fit to assert
that resentment in the mind of man was absolutely nothing but
reasonable concern for our own safety, the falsity of this, and what' is
the real nature of that passion, could be shown in no other ways than
those in which it may be shown that there is such a thing, in some
degree, as real goodwill in man towards man. It is sufficient that the
seeds of it be implanted in our nature by God. There is, it is owned,
much left for us to do upon our own heart and temper ; to cultivate,
to improve, to call it forth, to exercise it in a steady, uniform manner.
This is our work, this is virtue and religion.

8 Friendship. The reality of such a position is proved, not only by
the existence of such classic examples as David and Jonathan, or
Damon and Pythias, but by the universal experience of the race.
Sacred are the ties of blood, by which those born into the circle of
one family are held together ; yet they often prove powerless against
the accident of separation, or the strain of diverse temperaments, and
brothers drift into utter strangeness. In a very obvious sense it is
true that "there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother."
Friendship, being the deliberate choice of two independent personali
ties, by which each renders the other love and trust and service, will
sometimes be found more enduring and more rich in spiritual mean
ing than any mere natural relationship. Holy and beautiful are the
bonds of love in which two become " one flesh ; " yet such love, by
the very fact that it exists between two who are one, has lost the

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 59

if there be any such thing as compassion,9 for compassion is

quality of disinterestedness. Friendship, standing on a lower plane,
existing between those who are still separate in their way of life, and
yet maintaining a loving trust, and rejoicing in service and surrender,
holds a position of unique dignity and excellence. It is a test of the
quality of love, being indeed, as has been said, " love, without either
flowers or veil." He who is incapable of genuine friendship cannot
be true either in brotherhood or in the marriage relationship ; while
the truer a man is to his friends, the better will he fulfil the obligations
of all other ties. Friendship in its highest exercise of surrender forms
the type of a love that is more than human. " Greater love hath no
man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." When
such love has been exhibited in act, there could be no higher honour
than to be introduced into its fellowship. " Henceforth," says One in
whom this love dwelt in its fulness, " I call you not servants ; . . .
but I have called you friends."

9 Compassion. Literally, according to its derivation, " a suffering with
another." Butler in his fifth sermon thus analyses our state of mind
in presence of human misery. "There are often three distinct
perceptions or inward feelings upon the sight of persons in distress :
real sorrow or concern for the misery of our fellow-creatures ; some
degree of satisfaction from a consciousness of our freedom from that
misery ; and as the mind passes on from one thing to another, it is
not unnatural from such an occasion to reflect upon our own liable-
ness to the same or other calamities." It is this last feeling
which Hobbes has singled out and made the whole of compassion.
Commenting on the words, " Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and
weep with them that weep," Butler remarks that " though men do not
universally rejoice with all whom they see rejoice, yet, accidental
circumstances removed, they naturally compassionate all, in some
degree, whom they see in distress, so far as they have any real
perception or sense of that distress : insomuch that words expressing
this latter, pity, compassion, frequently occur ; whereas we have
scarcely any single one by which the former is distinctly expressed."
The function of compassion he describes in Sermon VI. as that of an
" advocate within us," " to gain the unhappy admittance and access,
to make their case attended to." " Pain and sorrow and misery have
a right to our assistance : compassion puts us in mind of the debt,
and that we owe it to ourselves as well as to the distressed." There are
three words whose close relations and precise distinctions it is interest
ing to note, though difficult to state accurately : compassion, oUrippo; ;
mercy, eteos ; grace, %*pis. They form an ascending scale of dignity
and moral beauty. Compassion is, as Butler here says, " momentary
love ; " or, in Martineau's words, " the feeling that springs forth at
the spectacle of suffering," arising instantly " at the mere inspection
of misery." The object of compassion is misery as such, irrespective

60 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

momentary love ; if there be any such thing as the paternal or
filial affections ; 10 if there be any affection in human nature, the

of how it has been produced ; and is felt by us merely as human
beings identifying ourselves with a fellow-creature's woe. Mercy, in
like manner, has regard to misery, disaster, or loss ; but it is distin
guished from compassion in that the misery is regarded as the con
sequence of the sufferer's act. A bystander may compassionate the
plight of an accused person ; but it belongs to the judge or the
prosecutor to have mercy on him. Mercy is the prerogative of one
to whom Law or Right or Might has conferred power over another.
" Blessed are the merciful : for they shall obtain mercy." Happy
those who, in the power of love, rose above bare law or force, and so
dealt with their fellow-men, as they shall wish they had dealt when
they themselves stand helpless at the bar of infinite justice. Verily
they shall not be disappointed. Grace is distinguished from com-
passioii and mercy by the position of him who displays it in relation
to those upon whom it is conferred. Grace implies that the person
displaying it is not compelled to his acts of benevolence by any out
ward necessity. He is absolutely free to give or to withhold as seems
good to him. Such freedom is chiefly to be found in persons of
exalted rank. We speak thus most naturally of the grace 'of a king.
To speak of grace in the conduct of one who is our social equal, we
feel to be an exaggeration, tolerable only in moments of impassioned
feeling. The word, accordingly, belongs by first right to God. He
alone is free in the true sense ; for He acts by the inner necessity of
His love. His grace is bestowed upon those who have no right or
title to it. Exalted above them in His holiness, He yet freely bestows
His grace upon them in their sin. God's grace looks upon men as
sinners, "who forgiveth all our iniquities." His mercy deals with
them as miserable by consequence of their sin, " who healeth all our
diseases." His compassion is the throb of infinite love at sight of
the need of man ; hence this word occurs with exquisite monotony in
the narrative of the ministry of Jesus.

10 Paternal or filial affections. The Family does, indeed, supply
magnificent proof of the essentially social nature of man. In his
recent work on Social Aspects of Christianity, Canon Westcott has
given accurate and beautiful expression to this thought : " Man, in a
word, is made by and made for fellowship. The Family and not the
individual is the unit of mankind. This fact is the foundation of
human life, to which we must look for the broad lines of its harmonious
structure. And we shall not look in vain. For the Family exhibits,
in the simplest and most unquestionable types, the laws of dependence
and trust, of authority and obedience, of obligation and helpfulness,
by which every form of true activity is regulated. The Family
enables us to feel that the destination of all our labours, the crown of
all our joys, the lightening of all our sorrows, the use of all our

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 6 1

object and end of which is the good of another : this is itself
benevolence, or the love of another. Be it ever so short, be it
ever so low a degree, or ever so unhappily confined, it proves
the assertion, and points out what we were designed for as really
as though it were in a higher degree and more extensive. I
must, however, remind you that though benevolence and self-
love11 are different, though the former tends most directly to

endowments, is social. ... In the Family, as has been nobly said,
living for others becomes the strict corollary of the patent fact that
we live by others? The special idea of Fatherhood, he proceeds,
is "the correlative responsibilities of government and devotion
hallowed by love." " Fatherhood is, I have said, the pattern, or, to
repeat the phrase I have used before, the original sacrament of
authority ; sonship, of reverence and obedience. The necessity of the
relation lies in the harmony of our constitution. If it were not so,
and we must face the alternative, order could only be maintained by
selfish fear, or by no less selfish hope."

11 Benevolence and self-love. Sermon XI. deals with this subject of
the coincidence of benevolence and self-love. Butler there maintains
that benevolence is a " particular passion," and stands in this respect
on the same footing with ambition, revenge, and all other " particular
passions." "Thus it appears that there is no peculiar contrariety
between self-love and benevolence ; no greater competition between
these than between any other particular affections and self-love."
The only question can be, " whether there be any peculiar contrariety
between the respective courses of life which these affections lead to ;
whether there be any greater competition between the pursuit of
private and of public good, than between any particular pursuits and
that of private good." Butler then proceeds to examples : " Thus
one man's affection is to honour as his end ; in order to obtain which
he thinks no pains too great. Suppose another, with such a singu
larity of mind, as to have the same affection to public good as his
end, which he endeavours with the same labour to obtain. In case
of success, surely the man of benevolence hath as great enjoyment as
the man of ambition ; they both equally having the end their affec
tions, in the same degree, tended to : but in case of disappointment,
the benevolent man has clearly the advantage ; since endeavouring
to do good, considered as a virtuous pursuit, is gratified by its own
consciousness, i.e. is in a degree its own reward." Viewed, further,
"as forming a general temper," he asks, "is benevolence less the
temper of tranquillity and freedom than ambition or covetousness ?
Does the benevolent man appear less easy with himself, from his love
to his neighbour? Does he less relish his being? Is there any
peculiar gloom seated on his face? Is his mind less open to enter
tainment, to any particular gratification ? Nothing is more manifest

62 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

public good and the latter to private, yet they are so perfectly
coincident, that the greatest satisfactions to ourselves depend upon
our having benevolence in a due degree ; and that self-love is one
chief security of our right behaviour towards society. It may
be added that their mutual coinciding,12 so that we can scarce

than that being in good humour, which is benevolence whilst it lasts,
is itself the temper of satisfaction and enjoyment." Looking, there
fore, to these and other sources of gratification peculiar to the bene
volent, " self-love," he adds, " methinks should be alarmed. May she
not possibly pass over greater pleasures than those she is so wholly
taken up with ? " The comparison of self-love and benevolence as to
the amount of enjoyment procurable from each, leaves benevolence
at least not behind self-love. The only real competition between the
two, or interference of the one with the other, relates " much more to
the materials or means of enjoyment, than to enjoyment itself." And
even here benevolence has not much to fear. " Thus as to riches : so
much money as a man gives away, so much less will remain in his
possession. Here is a real interfering. But though a man cannot
possibly give without lessening his fortune, yet there are multitudes
might give without lessening their own enjoyment ; because they may
have more than they can turn to any real use or advantage to them
selves." We have already had occasion to remark that this proof of
the coincidence of self-love and benevolence, while useful as a mere
reply to selfishness, is not the strength of Butler's position, and rather
weakens than helps his vindication of conscience.

12 Their mutual coinciding. Mere coincidence does indeed bring us
no further than this, that we are made both for social and for private
ends. Butler, however, himself helps us to go farther. Our highest
good and the satisfaction of our true nature is attained when we have
died to our mere separate self, and when we have yielded ourselves
to the will of God, which is the good of man. Not only, therefore,
do self-love and benevolence coincide, but self-love satisfies itself only
in benevolence. Not only are we made for social as well as private
good, but we reach private good only by living for social good. The
effort to live for private good alone is in fact suicidal ; not the attain
ment, but the destruction of our own welfare. "He that findeth his
life shall lose it ; and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it."
All experience is an education in this great idea. We are members
of the Family ; and there, by a sweetly unconscious training, we learn
the lesson of that surrender which is our truest weal. We are
members of Society ; and in the duties of friendship and neighbour
hood we learn more consciously to identify ourselves with our fellow-
men, and in their good to seek our own. By an extension of the same
discipline we learn that our lives are bound up with those of all who
with us are children of humanity, and that our good is but part of a
universal heritage. This good is no shadowy abstraction. It is a

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 63

promote one without the other, is equally a proof that we were
made for both.

Secondly, This will further appear from observing that the
several passions and affections which are distinct (a) both from

(a) Everybody makes a distinction between self-love and the several
particular passions,13 appetites, and affections ; and yet they are often
confounded again. That they are totally different will be seen by
any one who will distinguish between the passions and appetites
themselves, and endeavouring after the means of their gratification.
Consider the appetite of hunger, and the desire of esteem ; these
being the occasion both of pleasure and pain, the coolest self-love, as
well as the appetites and passions themselves, may put us upon
making use of the proper methods of obtaining that pleasure and
avoiding that pain ; but the feelings themselves, the pain of hunger
and shame, and the delight from esteem, are no more self-love than
they are anything in the world. Though a man hated himself, he
would as much feel the pain of hunger as he would that of the gout ;
and it is plainly supposable there may be creatures with self-love in

purpose committed to the hands of a Redeemer, and by Him fulfilled.

The discipline of life, therefore, leads to the love of Christ as the

interpretation of all its enigmas, and the inspiration of all noble

endeavour.

" Life with all it yields of joy and woe,
And hope and fear,

Is just our chance o' the prize of learning love,
How love might be, hath been indeed, and is."

13 Self-love and the several particular passions. The distinction thus
stated is much insisted on by Butler. In this note he first points out
the distinction between the particular passions, simply as feelings,
and self-love. A man who hated himself would be distressed if he
suffered the pain of hunger. There have been found those in whom
self-love was so developed that they were indifferent to the praise or
blame of their fellows. The " particular passions " of hunger and the
desire of esteem are thus seen to be wholly distinct from self-love.
He then remarks on the difference in the actions which result from
particular passions and from self-love respectively. The man who
yields himself up to the particular passion of strong drink, and who
is led thereby to destroy his home, wreck his prospects, and under
mine his health, is manifestly not acting from self-love. He is
obviously his own worst enemy. A man who, in hope of some great
reward, of the special nature of which he is ignorant, devotes himself
to laborious toil, is manifestly not acting under the impulse of some
particular passion. He is obviously impelled by the general principle
of self-love.

64 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.
benevolence and self-love, do, in general, contribute and lead us

them to the highest degree, who may be quite insensible and in
different (as men in some cases are) to the contempt and esteem of
those upon whom their happiness does not in some further respects
depend. And that self-love and the several particular passions and
appetites are in themselves totally different, so that some actions
proceed from one and some from the other, will be manifest to any
who will observe the two following very supposable cases : One man
rushes upon certain ruin for the gratification of a present desire ;
nobody will call the principle of this action self-love. Suppose another
man to go through some laborious work upon the promise of a great
reward, without any distinct knowledge what the reward would be ;
this course of action cannot be ascribed to any particular passion.
The former of these actions is plainly to be imputed to some particular
passion or affection, the latter as plainly to the general affection or
principle of self-love. That there are some particular pursuits or
actions concerning which we cannot determine how far they are
owing to one and how far to the other, proceeds from this, that the
two principles are frequently mixed together, and run into each other.
The distinction is further explained in the eleventh sermon.14

14 Explained in the eleventh sermon. The relative passage is as fol
lows : " Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness, and
likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites,
to particular external objects. The former proceeds from or is self-
love, and seems inseparable from all sensible creatures who can
reflect upon themselves and their own interest or happiness, so as
to have that interest an object to their minds : what is to be said of
the latter is, that they proceed from, or together make up, that
particular nature according to which man is made. What the
former pursues is somewhat internal, our own happiness, enjoyment,
satisfaction ; whether we have, or have not, a distinct, particular
perception of what it is, or wherein it consists : the objects of the
latter are this or that particular external thing which the affections
tend towards, and of which it hath always a particular idea or per
ception. The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external
for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good :
particular affections rest in the external things themselves. One
belongs to man as a reasonable creature reflecting upon his own
interest or happiness. The others, though quite distinct from reason,
are as much a part of human nature." The use which Butler makes
of this distinction in the eleventh sermon is to defend the disinterested
nature of benevolence. As a particular affection it tends toward and
rests in its object, viz. the good of others. It does so as a mere
instinct. Self-love has no more connection with benevolence than
with any other instinct. It will naturally suggest the propriety of

SERMON I.— UPON HUMAN NATURE. 65

to public good as really as to private. It might be thought too
minute and particular, and would carry us too great a length, to
distinguish between, and compare together, the several passions
or appetites, distinct from benevolence, whose primary use and
intention is the security and good of society ; and the passions
distinct from self-love, whose primary intention and design is the
security and good of the individual (a). It is enough to the

(a) If any desire to see this distinction and comparison 15 made in
a particular instance, the appetite and passion now mentioned may
serve for one. Hunger is to be considered as a private appetite ;
because the end for which it was given us is the preservation of the
individual. Desire of esteem is a public passion ; because the end
for which it was given us is to regulate our behaviour towards society.
The respect which this has to private good is as remote as the respect
that it has to public good ; and the appetite is no more self-love than the
passion is benevolence. The object and end of the former is merely
food ; the object and end of the latter is merely esteem ; but the
latter can no more be gratified without contributing to the good of
society, than the former can be gratified without contributing to the
preservation of the individual.

gratifying- this instinct as well, e.g., as that for food. In the above
note Butler is seeking to show in general that there are certain
instincts in our nature which carry us, without our intention, to the
good of others ; so that, by the very framework of our constitution, it
is evident that we are meant for public as well as private good. It is
in passages like the above that we feel most keenly the want in Butler
of a doctrine of the will, or any proper conception of self-determina
tion. Benevolence as a mere instinct has no higher moral worth than
hunger. Benevolence is a virtue only when, being fully conscious of
ourselves, we freely yield ourselves to the service of others. Mere
instinct has no place in action which can be pronounced good or bad,
for which we can be praised or blamed. When we act we must be
ourselves, either the self clung to in its isolation, which is a false, bad
self, or the self surrendered to a good beyond itself, and therefore
found therein in truth and fulness. We can scarcely blame Butler,
however, for the deficiencies of a psychology in which he had been
bred, and out of which he has had his own share in leading us.

15 This distinction and comparison. Among the various instincts and
particular passions which make up no inconsiderable part of human
nature, there are some which tend to private good, and yet cannot be
identified with self-love ; and there are others which tend to public good,
and yet cannot be identified with benevolence. The appetite of hunger
is quite distinct from self-love ; and yet it tends toward the preservation
of individual life. The desire of esteem is quite distinct from benevo
lence ; and yet it tends to developing the common weal. The conclusion

E

66 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

present argument that desire of esteem from others, contempt
and esteem of them, love of society as distinct from affection to
the good of it, indignation against successful vice, that these
are public affections or passions, have an immediate respect to
others, naturally lead us to regulate our behaviour in such a
manner as will be of service to our fellow-creatures. If any or
all of these may be considered likewise as private affections, as
tending to private good, this does not hinder them from being
public affections too, or destroy the good influence of them upon
society, and their tendency to public good. It may be added,
that as persons without any conviction from reason of the
desirableness of life would yet, of course, preserve it merely from
the appetite of hunger; so, by acting merely from regard
(suppose) to reputation, without any consideration of the good of
others, men often contribute to public good. In both these
instances they are plainly instruments in the hands of another
— in the hands of Providence — to carry on ends, the preservation
of the individual and good of society, which they themselves
have not in their view or intention. The sum is, men have
various appetites, passions, and particular affections, quite
distinct, both from self-love and from benevolence \ all of these
have a tendency to promote both public and private good, and
may be considered as respecting others and ourselves equally
and in common ; but some of them seem most immediately to
respect others, or tend to public good ; others of them most

which Butler draws from this psychological study is that, simply as we
are constituted, and apart from any conscious purpose of ours, we are
meant to serve, and actually do serve, a public as well as a private
end. It is necessary to note a confusion which occurs in Butler's
representations of benevolence. In the eleventh sermon, as the
passage quoted above shows, he ranks benevolence among the
instincts and particular affections which are all alike to be dis
tinguished from self-love. In this section of the first sermon he
classes self-love and benevolence together as conscious regulative
principles of action, and contrasts with them certain instincts which,
while distinct from them, tend to the advantage of the individual or
the good of society. Which is benevolence, then, an instinct or a
principle ? And if the latter, how is it related to its rival self-love ?
From these difficulties the individualistic conception of man, which
Butler never questioned, permits no escape. Butler only casts them
aside when, forgetting his individualism, he rises to the conception of
a supreme will, surrender to which is our first duty, and the necessary
condition of our self-realization.

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 67

immediately to respect self, or tend to private good. As the
former are not benevolence, so the latter are not self-love ;
neither sort are instances of our love either to ourselves or
others, but only instances of our Maker's care and love both of
the individual and the species, and proofs that He intended we
should be instruments of good to each other, as well as that we
should be so to ourselves.

Thirdly ', There is a principle of reflection 16 in men, by which

16 A principle of reflection. The term " reflection " is part of the philo
sophical terminology of John Locke (1632-1704), whose Essay con
cerning Human Understanding was published in 1690. According to
Locke, all the ideas which we have in our minds are derived from one
or other of two sources : sensation, which is the perception of out
ward objects by means of the senses ; or reflection, which is the per
ception of what is present in the soul. Reflection has nothing to do
with the objects presented to it beyond noting and classifying them.
It has no originative power whatever. This, which as Locke used it
was chiefly a theory of knowledge, is taken over by Butler without
question, and applied to morals. Just as, according to Locke, the
mind simply observes the objects of knowledge presented to it ; so,
according to Butler, the mind " takes a view " of the material of
motive and desire, the propensions, aversions, etc., which offer them
selves before it. In this case, as in the other, the mind is wholly
unoriginative. It can neither create ends of action nor modify them
when they are presented to it. It can only approve one, disapprove
another, and with respect to a third remain in the paralysis of indiffer
ence. Hence Butler is forced to lament that with all its authority
conscience is powerless.

Obviously our theory of knowledge and our theory of morals must
go hand in hand. Any imperfection we may discover in the one will
suggest a corresponding deficiency in the other. Any modification
we may make in the one will suggest a corresponding correction in
the other. If we are dissatisfied with Locke's theory of knowledge,
we are forced to see the deficiency of Butler's doctrine of conscience.
If we are led, say by Butler himself, to a higher view of our moral
constitution, we must seek in consistency another conception of
knowledge. If, in knowledge, the mind clothes the objects presented
to it in its own forms, and so creates the intellectual world in which
we live, then, in action, it will have the same creative energy, will
frame the objects of our endeavour into its own image, and will lead
us to their triumphant realization. The world of things knowable and
the world of moral action are alike the revelation of mind, spirit, God.
We enter the kingdom of truth and the kingdom of righteousness
alike sub persona infantis. Yielding the false independence of
thought and will, we reach the vision of the true, we become organs

68 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

they distinguish between, approve, and disapprove their own
actions. We are plainly constituted such sort of creatures as
to reflect upon our own nature. The mind can take a view of
what passes within itself, its propensions, aversions, passions,
affections,17 as respecting such objects, and in such degrees, and
of the several actions consequent thereupon. In this survey it
approves of one, disapproves of another, and towards a third is
affected in neither of these ways, but is quite indifferent.18 This

and instruments of the good. When this surrender is complete, we
know as we are known, we are perfect as our Father in heaven is
perfect.

17 Propensions, aversions, passions, affections. The first two of these
terms imply an instinctive tendency of nature acting from within, and
finding in outward objects no more than a mere occasion. Thus the
desire of food is a propension, the need arising apart from the object,
though, when the object is presented, there is an immediate forth-
going of our nature toward it. An aversion is in like manner an
instinctive shrinking of our nature from some external object. In the
case of passions and affections, however, the outward object is more
than the mere occasion of the feeling, and is rather the cause.
Passions and affections are indeed literally the modes in which we
suffer something from outward objects, or are affected by them. In
the case of passions, the objects repel us ; in the case of affections,
they attract. Fear is a passion. Love is an affection.

18 Is quite indifferent. Is this possible ? Are there any actions of
which we cannot say that they are right or wrong ? Butler's view of
conscience as a faculty of calculation leads him to say that there are.
Conscience sitting in judgment, with what goes on in the mind before
it, declares of some of these propensions, aversions, etc., and the
actions that proceed from them, that they conduce to the good of the
individual or of society. Of others it declares that they have a ten
dency to the opposite effect. Of a third class it can say nothing,
because they appear to have no bearing whatever upon the good of
the individual or of society. If, however, conscience has a position
at once more glorious and more humble, if it be no independent
faculty, but the revelation in consciousness of the Highest Good, the
supreme Will of God, which omits nothing from its sway, but pene
trates through every department of the moral sphere, we see that
toward no action can conscience be indifferent, because there is none
in which the Highest Good may not be done or the Will of God not be
honoured. Hence follows the duty of conscientious self-examination.
Every action, however incidental or habitual, ought to be scrutinized
to see whether and how far in it the Will of God is being done. It is
possible, of course, to make our very conscientiousness a sin, and to be
so very careful that we should be good, that the good itself remains

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 69

principle in man, by which he approves or disapproves his heart,

undone. Instead of this morbid feeling, we admire the wholesome
disregard of self shown in those who seek noble ends, and forget to
count over their faults and failings as they follow on.

" Time was, I shrank from what was right,

From fear of what was wrong ;
I would not brave the sacred fight,
Because the foe was strong.

But now I cast that finer sense

And sorer shame aside.
Such dread of sin was indolence,

Such aim at heaven was pride.

So when my Saviour calls, I rise,

And calmly do my best ;
Leaving to Him, with silent eyes

Of hope and fear, the rest.

I step, I mount where He has led ;

Men count my haltings o'er ; —
I know them ; yet, though self I dread,

I love His precept more."

JOHN HENRY NEWMAN.

Apart from any such marked misuse, the discipline of self-scrutiny
is of inestimable value in the development of character. It leads us
to do things which no one would have blamed us for leaving undone.
Those things which constitute our ordinary tasks we do "not with
eye-service, as men-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, as unto the
Lord," and therefore we reach an excellence of workmanship im
possible otherwise. We create new obligations for ourselves as we
see new means of extending the good whose nature we now more
perfectly apprehend. Above all, the disparity, which our growth in
goodness only makes more apparent to us, between our imperfect
attainment and God's mighty purpose, is the impulse of a profounder
surrender to Him, a more complete dedication to His service. When
this process of examination has been completed with respect to any
particular action, the judgment at which we arrive can only be one or
other of two things. It has been right ; or, it 'has been wrong ; in
either case, infinitely. It has been right ; then we know it not to
have been our individual deed, and therefore we can claim no merit
for it. It was the deed of that righteous purpose to which we have
yielded ourselves, and which works through us as instruments.
" Without me ye can do nothing," is the Divine Voice to us. " Not
unto us, O Lord, not unto us," is the answer of our spirits. Or, it has
been wrong ; then we know it to be our act, our very own, done by us
in defiance of the Good which claimed us. From the point of view of
the moral judgment, there is no distinction of greater or less in

70 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

temper, and actions, is conscience;19 for this is the strict sense of
the word, though sometimes it is used so as to take in more.
And that this faculty tends to restrain men from doing mischief
to each other, and leads them to do good,20 is too manifest to need

respect to wrong. There is but one standard, and that is the highest ;
and every act, however trifling, is an occasion in which we may or
may not comply with this standard. It was our testing time, when
we might have shown our loyalty to Good and God. If we failed,
there lies upon us the whole guilt of antagonism to the Good, of
rebellion against God. Any transgression is in its own nature
infinite. Repentance, therefore, must be in like manner measureless.
Therefore also any wrong present in the moral world is an absolute
barrier in the way of the final achievement of good. Wrong as such
can neither be overlooked nor amended. It demands to be dealt
with by way of atonement. Then follows forgiveness and amendment.

19 Conscience. Conscience is fundamentally knowledge. The object
of this knowledge is the Good, or the Will of God. The occasion
upon which this knowledge awakes is some action which we perform.
The sentence in which we express our knowledge is that our action
has or has not conformed to the Good which ought to have been
achieved in it. This knowledge may be obscured by passion or self-
will. At length the Good which has been seeking to penetrate the
mists which wrapped us round, breaks upon us like the sun through
a bank of clouds ; and we see things clearly — the ideal of good as it
shines upon us, our act in its failure to reach the ideal, ourselves in
our personal responsibility. Thus Peter blundered on, from cowardly
evasion to downright lying and rudest blasphemy, till that Look fell
upon his soul which filled it with an awful light of judgment. Then
he saw the Good he had disowned, his deed in its foul ingratitude,
himself laden with unspeakable transgression. If, then, Conscience
is to perform for us its destined function, we must not treat it as a
lonely oracle which of itself will always give a true response. It
needs to be ceaselessly developed and educated through constant
study of the Good or Will of God in all its manifestations. Such
manifestations are to be found in the history of the race, and specially
in the history of grace whose record is in the Scriptures, in the con
stitution and government of the society of which we are members, in
the providences, engagements, and tasks of our daily life, in the
immediate voice of God through His Spirit to our souls. By reverent
study of the Will of God thus revealed, Conscience becomes purged
from error, and permits us to look over the field of life with calm and
certain gaze.

20 Leads them to do good. Conscience, when brought to bear on acts
of natural impulse, has a twofold result. In the first place, it binds
the isolated and spasmodic acts into the unity of a fixed habit, so that
there is now a continuous operation on behalf of what is good. In

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 71

being insisted upon. Thus a parent has the affection of love
to his children : this leads him to take care of, to educate, to
make due provision for them. The natural affection leads to
this ; but the reflection that it is his proper business, what
belongs to him, that it is right and commendable so to do : this
added to the affection, becomes a much more settled principle,
and carries him on through more labour and difficulties for the
sake of his children than he would undergo for that affection
alone, if he thought it, and the course of action it led to, either
indifferent or criminal. This, indeed, is impossible, — to do
that which is good, and not to approve of it ; for which reason
they are frequently not considered as distinct, though they really
are : for men often approve of the actions of others, which they
will not imitate, and likewise do that which they approve not.
It cannot possibly be denied that there is this principle of
reflection or conscience in human nature. Suppose a man to
relieve an innocent person in great distress ; suppose the same
man afterwards, in the fury of anger, to do the greatest mischief
to a person who had given no just cause of offence ; to aggravate
the injury, add the circumstances of former friendship and
obligation from the injured person : let the man who is sup-
trie second place, the habit thus formed, when it is conscientiously
maintained, elevates the ideal of good and strengthens the impulse
toward it, and thus inspires the performance of yet higher and
nobler actions. Thus, to take Butler's example, a father feels for his
children a natural impulse of affection. As mere impulse, it acts
spasmodically, irrationally. Suppose conscience to awake. Then,
first, his occasional acts are welded into a habit, and in this way are
freed from the errors of their spasmodic appearance, and are made to
tell directly and continuously on the welfare of his family. And,
second, this formation of a habit of attending to his children's
interests does not destroy the impulse of his affection ; rather does it,
under the guidance of Conscience, give to his fatherly love deeper
intensity and nobler aim, and so render him capable of deeds of self-
sacrifice which his first undisciplined instinct had been too weak to
achieve. According to one ancient saying, " Virtue is Knowledge ; "
according to another, " Virtue is Habit." Both are true. Virtue is
Knowledge ; knowledge of the Good, and surrender to it. Virtue is
Habit ; in so far as the principle of good enters into the raw material
of instinct and desire, and forms it into an organized body of orderly
and habitual good conduct ; and this habit in turn forms a platform
for a nearer and fuller vision of the ideal, a starting-point for its yet
more earnest pursuit.

72 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

posed to have done these two different actions coolly reflect
upon them afterwards, without regard to. their consequences to
himself; — to assert that any common man21 would be affected in
the same way towards these different actions, that he would
make no distinction between them, but approve or disapprove
them equally, is too glaring a falsity to need being confuted.
There is therefore this principle of reflection or conscience in
mankind. It is needless to compare the respect it has to private
good with the respect it has to public ; since it plainly tends as
much to the latter as to the former, and is commonly thought to
tend chiefly to the latter. This faculty is now mentioned merely
as another part of the inward frame of man, pointing out to us
in some degree what we are intended for, and as what will
naturally and of course have some influence. The particular
place assigned to it by nature, what authority it has, and how
great influence it ought to have, shall be hereafter considered.
From this comparison of benevolence and self-love, of our
public and private affections, of the courses of life they lead to,
and of the principle of reflection or conscience as respecting
each of them, it is as manifest that we were made for society and
to promote the happiness of it, as that we were intended to take
care of our own life and health, for private good. And from this
whole review must be given a different draught of human nature22

21 Any common man. Any common man in this age and country
would condemn the conduct Butler describes. Yet we cannot infer
from this that in every man, savage and civilised, pagan and Chris
tian, there exists a faculty capable of declaring at once with respect to
any action whether it be right or wrong. In the history of the race
there has been a growing revelation of righteousness ; and conscience
as the witness in man to this righteousness has grown with the grow
ing revelation. In estimating the morality of a past stage of this
development we are neither to condemn it, because it fails to reach
our standard, nor so to twist its record that it shall seem to reach our
standard. Conscience, therefore, will approve at one stage what it
will condemn at another. Yet these differences between the con
scientious convictions of one age or people and those of another do
not discredit the existence or the reliability of conscience. There is
conscience in man, the witness in man to that good which he is
meant to reach ; and this witness has become fuller and clearer as
the good has been increasingly revealed through the medium of
growing experience.

22 A different draught of human nature. The three great facts of
Benevolence, and those instincts which apart from Benevolence

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 73

from what we are often presented with. Mankind are by nature
so closely united, there is such a correspondence between the
inward sensations of one man and those of another, that dis
grace is as much avoided as bodily pain, and to be the object of
esteem and love as much desired as any external goods : and,
in many particular cases, persons are carried on to do good to
others, as the end their affections tend to and rest in ; and
manifest that they find real satisfaction' and enjoyment in this
course of behaviour. There is such a natural principle of
attraction in man towards man, that having trod the same
track of land, having breathed in the same climate, barely having
been born in the same artificial district or division, becomes the
occasion of contracting acquaintances and familiarities many
years after ; for anything may serve the purpose. Thus
relations, merely nominal, are sought and invented, not by
governors, but by the lowest of the people ; which are found
sufficient to hold mankind together in little fraternities and
copartnerships : weak ties indeed, and what may afford fund
enough for ridicule, if they are absurdly considered as the real
principles of that union ; but they are, in truth, merely the
occasions, as anything may be of anything, upon which our
nature carries us on according to its own previous bent and bias ;
which occasions, therefore, would be nothing at all were there not
this prior disposition and bias of nature. Men are so much one
body 23 that in a peculiar manner they feel for each other shame,

make for the good of others, and Conscience, have thus led Butler to
a conception of human nature directly the reverse of that which had
been expounded by Hobbes, and which formed the ordinary basis of
popular philosophizing-. Hobbes' " draught of human nature " was a
sufficiently terrible one. Cf. his description of the state of nature,
quoted in the Introduction, p. 22.

25 So much one body. Hobbes had regarded men as a heap of
warring atoms requiring to be reduced into order by the strong
compulsion of authority. Butler regards men as united after the
similitude of a body, all the parts being mutually interdependent,
sharing a common experience, living for and by a common weal. It
must have been strong meat for his hearers at the Rolls Chapel, this
powerful statement, not of the criminality, though that is, of course,
implied, but of the absurdity of selfishness. It is indeed not the
highest tone that might be assumed. Nevertheless in dealing with
those who glory in their shame and are impervious to higher impulse,
it is legitimate to urge that selfishness, judged even by its own
standard, does not and cannot pay. A man may, if he will, refuse the

74 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

sudden danger, resentment, honour, prosperity, distress ; one or
another, or all of these, from the social nature in general, from
benevolence, upon the occasion of natural relation, acquaintance,
protection, dependence ; each of these being distinct cements of
society. And, therefore, to have no restraint from, nor regard
to others in our behaviour, is the speculative absurdity of con
sidering ourselves as single and independent, as having nothing
in our nature which has respect to our fellow-creatures, reduced
to action and practice. And this is the same absurdity as to
suppose a hand, or any part, to have no natural respect to any
other, or to the whole body.

But allowing all this, it may be asked, " Has not man disposi
tions and principles within which lead him to do evil to others as
well as to do good? Whence come the many miseries else
which men are the authors and instruments of to each other ? "
These questions, as far as they relate to the foregoing discourse,
may be answered by asking, " Has not man also dispositions and
principles within which lead him to do evil to himself as well as
good? Whence come the many miseries else, sickness, pain,
and death, which men are the instruments and authors of- to
themselves ? "

It may be thought more easy to answer one of these questions
than the other, but the answer to both 24 is really the same : that

exercise of benevolence, the obligations of kinship or acquaintance.
It may be impossible to convict him of wrong- ; but he ought at least
to understand that his conduct has not the excuse of self-interest, and
that his course of action is fatal to that very individual benefit for the
sake of which he declines to help his fellow. Selfishness is, in fact, as
Butler points out, not less a blunder than a crime, which long ago
St. Paul expressed in a parable which supplies Butler in this passage
with his leading metaphor. " As the body is one, and hath many
members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one
body : so also is Christ. . . . The eye cannot say unto the hand, I
have no need of thee : nor again the head to the feet, I have no need
of you. . . . And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer
with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it "
(i Cor. xii. 12, 27).

24 The answer to both. Butler now meets a supposed objection :
" Men, as a matter of fact, do evil to one another ; how then are they
meant for social good ?" To this Butler retorts : " Men, as a matter
of fact, do evil to themselves ; will it therefore be urged that they are
not meant for self-love?" The true solution of the difficulty lies in
this, that men have passions which they insist on gratifying, without

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 75

mankind have ungoverned passions which they will gratify at any
rate, as well to the injury of others as in contradiction to known
private interest ; but that as there is no such thing as self-hatred,
so neither is there any such thing as ill-will in one man towards
another, emulation and resentment being away, whereas there is
plainly benevolence or good-will ; there is no such thing as love
of injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude, but only eager

considering how such conduct will affect others or even themselves.
Butler is thus led to the position that there is in man no natural
tendency to do evil to others. This position he then supports by
instancing and briefly examining certain instincts or tendencies which
might seem to imply an innate impulse in man to do evil to his fellow,
i. Ill-will. According to a recent writer, we have an original in
stinct of antipathy, which is not in itself morally evil. Let this be
fostered and indulged, however, and it becomes a fixed determination
of the will, accompanied by a settled flow of feeling, and issuing in
habitual lines of action. The mere instinctive antipathy is now Ill-
will or Malice. Its ordinary expression is Censoriousness. One of
its commonest products is Slander. " The original antipathy, whose
indulgence matures into this type of malice, may have only the most
trivial excuse ; yet be none the less bitter for beginning with dislike
of some petty personal peculiarity of physiognomy, or speech, or
manner, — a curve in the nose, a colour of the hair, a sniffle in the
voice, a smile too much, or an address too curt. The subject of such
aversions becomes the slave of his own prejudices. He enjoys the
idea of the objectionable person in ridiculous positions, or caught in
contemptible actions ; and is ready to seize this enjoyment on the
faintest hint of an hypothesis, so as to pass without scruple from
supposition to belief, and from belief to assertion. This is probably
the natural history of the great majority of slanders. They are born
of the malice of prejudice more often than from the deliberate pur
pose of supplanting a rival or avenging a defeat" (Martineau, Types
of Ethical ' Theory, vol. ii. p. 173). 2. Injustice. The legal definition
of justice is, " constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi ;"
and law will define this swim in detail for each case submitted to its
decision. The man, however, who rises above the mere prescription
of law will recognise that his neighbour has a claim upon him apart
from the terms of some special legal contract, a general claim to have
his welfare considered when his fellows are laying plans to secure their
own. Hence there arises, as the late Prof. Green has pointed out, a
"refinement" in the sense of justice, which leads the lover of justice to
inquire " as to any action that may suggest itself to him, whether the
benefit he might gain by it for himself, or for some one in whom he
is interested, would be gained at the expense of any one else, however
indifferent to him personally, however separated from him in family,

7 6 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

desires after such and such external goods, which, according to a
very ancient observation, the most abandoned would choose to
obtain by innocent means if they were as easy and as effectual to

status, or nation" (Prolegomena, p. 224). The essence of injustice,
accordingly, is disregard of our neighbour's claim to be considered.
The love of injustice would be a positive zest for depriving our neigh
bour of his rights, and for so acting that he would suffer loss.
Oppression, treachery, ingratitude, are all forms of injustice, in so far
as they all involve disregard of that good which, though it be that of
another, ought to be the object of our sacred care. Our neighbour's
freedom is to be defended as our own ; his purposes are to be guarded
by our loyalty ; his love is to have the response of our own. That
men naturally delight in violating one another's sanctity in these
respects is what Butler denies. His view is that men do eagerly
desire to attain certain objects for themselves, and that this desire,
cherished till it become an irresistible passion, will sweep them into
deeds of wrong foreign to their natural disposition. The question
whether men naturally delight to do evil is theological rather than
ethical. There can be no doubt, however, that the natural history of
many famous crimes has been such as Butler here sketches. First,
there is the eager desire for some object of ambition. Second, there
is the perception or suggestion of some deed of cruelty or wrong as
necessary to secure the wished-for prize, and in many instances this
has been accompanied by a shock of surprise and indignation as the
better spirit of the man recoiled from the idea. Then there ensues
a more or less prolonged period of struggle in which the intense
desire for the object gradually extinguishes all lingering compunctions,
till finally the deed is done from which at first there had been so much
shrinking. The classical example in literature is Macbeth as por
trayed by the master-hand of Shakespeare. He wishes the crown.
He sees the deed which is necessary to procure it for him, the murder
of King Duncan ; but would rather, in some impossible way, his own
hands should be clean. His wife, prior to the deed at any rate, has
far fewer " compunctious visitings " than he, and sketches his cha
racter for him with pitiless analysis : —

1 ' Thou wouldst be great ;
Art not without ambition, but without
The illness should attend it : what thou wouldst highly,
That wouldst thou holily ; wouldst not play false,
And yet wouldst wrongly win : thou'dst have, great G]amis,
That which cries, 'Thus thou must do, if t]iou have it /'
And that which rather thou dost fear to do,
Than wishes t should be undone"

3. Emulation and envy. Butler has in view the definition given by
Hobbes, which is as follows : " Griefe for the successe of a competitor,
if joyned with endeavours to enforce our own abilities to equal or excel

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 77

their end ; that even emulation and resentment by any one who
will consider what these passions really are in nature (a), will be
found nothing to the purpose of this objection, and that the

(a) Emulation is merely the desire and hope of equality with, or
superiority over others, with whom we compare ' ourselves. There
does not appear to be any other grief in the natural passion, but only
that want which is implied in desire. However, this may be so strong
as to be the occasion of great grief. To desire the attainment of this
equality or superiority by the particular means of others being brought
down to our own level, or below it, is, I think, the distinct notion of
envy. From whence it is easy to see that the real end which the
natural passion, emulation, and which the unlawful one, envy, aims at,
is exactly the same, namely, that equality or superiority ; and conse
quently, that to do mischief is not the end of envy, but merely the
means it makes use of to attain its end. As to resentment, see the
eighth sermon.

him, is emulation ; if joyned with endeavours to supplant or hinder,
envie." In opposition to this, Butler denies that there is any grief
occasioned by the success of a competitor. All that man naturally
feels under such circumstances is the desire to equal or excel him.
If, however, we seek to attain to this equality or superiority, not
by our own legitimate effort, but by reducing others to our own level
or below it, this is envy. Here in this case, however, our aim is not
to do mischief to others. The mischief we do -them is simply the
means we use to equal or excel them. That man is moved by emula
tion or even by envy does not prove, therefore, according to Butler,
that he has any innate grief at his neighbour's good, or any innate
desire to diminish it. 4. Resentment. The following passages from
Sermon VIII. contain an outline of Butler's views on this topic: —
"Resentment is of two kinds: hasty or sudden, or settled and
deliberate. . . . Sudden anger, upon certain occasions, is mere instinct ;
as merely so as the disposition to close our eyes upon the apprehen
sion of somewhat falling into them, and no more necessarily implies
any degree of reason. ... It is opposition, sudden hurt, violence
which naturally excites the passion ; and the real demerit or fault of
him who offers that violence, or is the cause of that opposition or
hurt, does not, in many cases, so much as come into thought. . . .
But from this deliberate anger, or resentment, is essentially dis
tinguished, as the latter is not naturally excited by or intended to
prevent mere harm without appearance of wrong or injustice."
Resentment proper, therefore, is felt with respect to injurious persons,
and as such " is one of the common bonds by which society is held
together ; a fellow-feeling which each individual has in behalf of the
whole species as well as of himself. . . . The natural object or

78 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

principles and passions in the mind of men, which are distinct
both from self-love and benevolence, primarily and most directly
lead to right behaviour with regard to others as well as himself,
and only secondarily and accidentally to what is evil. Thus
though men, to avoid the shame of one villany, are sometimes

occasion of settled resentment then being injury, as distinct from
pain or loss, it is easy to see, that to prevent and to remedy such
injury, and the miseries arising from it, is the end for which this
passion was implanted in man. It is to be considered as a weapon,
put into our hands by nature, against injury, injustice, and cruelty."
Of course it is liable to abuses, which Butler further particularizes.
Still, its existence in human nature is no proof that we naturally do
hurt to one another ; rather is it one of those primary instincts which
tend to regulate social life in justice and equity. "Anger," it has
been said, " is one of the sinews of the soul ; he that wants it hath a
maimed mind, and with Jacob, sinew-shrunk in the hollow of his
thigh, must needs halt. Nor is it good to converse with such as
cannot be angry."

Anger becomes criminal where it is divorced from its real function,
and is directed, not against violations of justice and goodness, but
against injuries levelled as we suppose at our individual self. Resent
ment thus indulged seeks not the vindication of outraged right, but
vengeance upon the insolent being who has wounded our pride. In
this sense it is identical with murder, according to the teaching of the
New Testament : " He that hateth his brother is a murderer." For
such sin the most profound ethical teachers have marked out the most
fearful punishment as no more than well deserved. It startles us to
hear from the lips of Christ that "whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall
be in danger of hell-fire," till we reflect that the sin implied is a
murderous assault upon the brother's spiritual manhood. Quite in
the same vein of ethical estimate of sin, Dante, we find, beneath the
abodes of the licentious, the gluttonous, the prodigal, and the avari
cious, in the foul waters of the Stygian lake, places the wrathful and
the gloomy, the former condemned to brutish strife, the latter to a
misery whose only utterance is voiceless sighing : —

" Intent I stood

To gaze, and in the marish sunk descried
A miry tribe all naked, and with looks
Betokening rage. They with their hands alone
Struck not, but with the head, the breast, the feet,
Cutting each other piecemeal with their fangs.

' This for certain know, that underneath
The water dwells a multitude, whose sighs
Into these bubbles make the surface heave,
As thine eye tells thee wheresoe'er it turn.' "

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 79

guilty of a greater, yet it is easy to see that the original tendency
of shame is to prevent the doing of shameful actions, and its
leading men to conceal such actions when done is only in conse
quence of their being done, i.e. of the passion's not having
answered its first end. If it be said that there are persons in
the world who are in great measure without the natural affections
towards their fellow-creatures, there are likewise instances of
persons without the common natural affections to themselves.
But the nature of man is not to be judged of by either of
these, but what appears in the common world, in the bulk of
mankind.

5. Shame. The description of shame given by Novalis illustrates
Butler's position : " Shame is a feeling of profanation. Friendship,
love, and piety ought to be handled with a sort of mysterious secrecy ;
they ought to be spoken of only in the rare moments of perfect confi
dence, to be mutually understood in silence. Many things are too
delicate to be thought, many more to be spoken." The "original
tendency " of such a feeling is evidently the prevention of shameful
actions. It is intended to guard those things which we are meant to
hold most sacred. Suppose, however, that a man's conscience should
become so depraved, his pride and self-love so overweening, that he
mistakes altogether the nature of true sanctity, and reckons his own
security or advantage more sacred than truth or right. Obviously in
such a case the sense of shame will be so perverted as to promote
what it was intended to prevent. He does wrong ; and shame leads
him to conceal the fact, even at the expense of further wrong. He is
summoned by every sense of duty to do that which is right, for the
doing of which, however, he may be called upon to endure mockery
or loss of reputation ; and shame leads him to evade the duty, and
side with the mocking world. With shame of this latter sort, every
one who has sought the path of duty has been beset. It is this which
Bunyan has personified in his great dream, with characteristic insight
assigning Shame as a special assailant of Faithful : " Yes, I met
with Shame ; but of all the men that I met with in my pilgrimage, he,
I think, bears the wrong name. The other would be said nay, after a
little argumentation (and somewhat else), but this bold-faced Shame
would never have done. . . . Yea, he did hold me to it ... that it
was a shame to sit whining and mourning under a sermon, and
a shame to come sighing and groaning home ; that it was a shame to
ask my neighbour forgiveness for petty faults, or to make restitu
tion where I had taken from any. He said also that Religion made
a man grow strange to the great, because of a few vices (which
he called by finer names), and made him own and respect the base,
because of the same Religious Fraternity. And is not this, said he,
a shame ? "

8o BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

I am afraid it would be thought very strange 25 if, to confirm the
truth of this account of human nature, and make out the justness
of the foregoing comparison, it should be added that from what
appears, men in fact as much and as often contradict that part of
their nature which respects self, and which leads them to their
own private good and happiness, as they contradict that part of
it which respects society ', and tends to public good ; that there are
as few persons who attain the greatest satisfaction and enjoyment
which they might attain in the present world as who do the
greatest good to others which they might do ; nay, that there are
as few who can be said really and in earnest to aim at one as at
the other. Take a survey of mankind, the world in general, the
good and bad, almost without exception, equally are agreed, that
were religion out of the case, the happiness of the present life
would consist in a manner wholly in riches, honours, sensual
gratifications, insomuch that one scarce hears a reflection made
upon prudence, life, conduct, but upon this supposition. Yet, on
the contrary, that persons in the greatest affluence of fortune ane
no happier than such as have only a competency ; that the cares
and disappointments of ambition for the most part far exceed the
satisfactions of it ; as also the miserable intervals of intemperance
and excess, and the many untimely deaths occasioned by a dis
solute course of life ; these things are all seen, acknowledged, by
every one acknowledged, but are thought no objections against,
though they expressly contradict this universal principle, that the
happiness of the present life consists in one or other of them.

25 It would be thought very strange. This whole paragraph is an
argumentum ad hominem addressed to those who, both in theory and
practice, hold that man is meant to live for private and not for public
benefit. You say, he says in effect, that happiness consists in riches,
honours, sensual gratifications. Yet it is notorious matter of fact that
the pursuit of these things is often fraught with manifold and untold
miseries. This you admit ; and still you persist in holding that in these
things happiness consists. Whence this contradiction ? Manifestly,
from your not having seriously considered wherein true happiness is to
be found, or from your not acting on the result of your consideration.
In plain words, passion has prevailed over a calm sense of what is
best for you. The inference follows, therefore, that men violate their
own best interests as often as those of their fellow-men. The con
clusion of the whole matter, accordingly, is that men are meant to
pursue the good of others as well as their own. They do not, in either
respect, come up to the ideal excellence of life ; but this is no proof
that in such issues their life was not meant to find its consummation.

SERMON I. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 8 1

Whence is all this absurdity and contradiction? Is not the
middle way obvious ? Can anything be more manifest than that
the happiness of life consists in these, possessed and enjoyed only
to a certain degree; that to pursue them beyond this degree is
always attended with more inconvenience than advantage to man's
self, and often with extreme misery and unhappiness? Whence
then, I say, is all this absurdity and contradiction ? Is it really
the result of consideration in mankind, how they may become
most easy to themselves, most free from care, and enjoy the chief
happiness attainable in this world ? or is it not manifestly owing
either to this, that they have not cool and reasonable concern
enough for themselves to consider wherein their chief happiness
in the present life consists? or else, if they do consider it,
that they will not act conformably to what is the result of that
consideration? i.e. reasonable concern for themselves, or cool
self-love, is prevailed over by passion and appetite. So that, from
what appears, there is no ground to assert that those principles in
the nature of man which most directly lead to promote the good
of our fellow-creatures are more generally or in a greater degree
violated than those which most directly lead us to promote our
own private good and happiness. The sum of the whole is plainly
this. The nature of man, considered in his single capacity, and
with respect only to the present world, is adapted and leads him
to attain the greatest happiness he can for himself in the present
world. The nature of man, considered in his public or social
capacity, leads him to a right behaviour in society, to that course
of life which we call virtue. Men follow or obey their nature in
both these capacities and respects to a certain degree, but not
entirely ; their actions do not come up to the whole of what their
nature leads them to in either of these capacities or respects, and
they often violate their nature in both ; i.e. as they neglect the
duties they owe to their fellow-creatures, to which their nature
leads them, and are injurious, to which their nature is abhorrent,
so there is a manifest negligence in men of their real happiness
or interest in the present world, when that interest is inconsistent
with a present gratification for the sake of which they negligently,
nay, even knowingly, are the authors and instruments of their
own misery and ruin. Thus they are as often .unjust to them
selves as to others, and for the most part are equally so to both
by the same actions.

SERMON IT.

UPON HUMAN NATURE.

" For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things
contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves." —
ROM. ii. 14.

A S speculative truth admits of different kinds of proof, so
_/~\_ likewise moral obligations may be shown by different
methods. If the real nature of any creature leads him, and is
adapted to such and such purposes only, or more than to any
other; this is a reason to believe the author of that nature
intended it for those purposes. Thus there is no doubt the eye
was intended for us to see with.1 And the more complex any

1 The eye was intended for us to see with. Butler here makes use, for
purposes of ethical study, of the argument from design, whose ordinary
application is in the field of theology, to demonstrate the being of a
God. In the preface he has used the illustration of a watch, from the
relations of whose parts fitly arranged we gather that its end is to
mark time. So, he argues, observe the parts which constitute human
nature, and you shall learn what is the chief end of man. Butler is
perfectly confident of the success of his method, though he points out
in the sequel some of its difficulties. A later age has not been quite
so assured. It has been informed by modern physical and socio
logical science of so many things which seem to throw doubt on the
presence of design and a Designer, that it holds somewhat timidly the
faith that "good will be the final goal of ill." The truth is that in our
study both of the world and of man, the end we seek to reach must
be in a certain sense our starting-point. The " far-off divine event "
must be present all through to our thought, else we shall never be able
to justify to ourselves the belief that to it "the whole creation moves."
We must know God, if we are ever to know nature or man. God is
not the conclusion of a syllogism, but the necessary presupposition
as well of knowing as of being. " Know thyself" is an old and
venerable moral precept. When, however, we seek to know ourselves,
we find that we are forced beyond ourselves to Another who is the

82

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 83

constitution is, and the greater variety of parts there are, which
thus tend to some end, the stronger is the proof that such end
was designed. However, when the inward frame of man is con
sidered as any guide in morals, the utmost caution2 must be used,
that none make peculiarities in their own temper, or anything

source and interpretation of our whole being. Only when we know
Him can we understand the true end of human nature ; only thus can
we see how all the " variety of parts " which exists within us is welded
into a perfect spiritual unity. As it is within ourselves, so is it with
the wider world of which we are parts. The varied elements in it are
elements of an organic whole, and only from this point of view can
they be understood, and their mutual relations adjusted. The world is
intelligible only from a point of view which shows us at the same
time that it is a world in which good is triumphant.

2 The utmost caution. The difficulties in the way of self-knowledge
are indeed great. Two things, Butler mentions, have to be guarded
against ; mistaking the peculiarity of an individual or the custom of a
class for a characteristic quality of man as such ; and omitting the
principle which regulates every other element in man's nature. So
many differences exist in regard to the nature of the moral sense, and
such close and careful scrutiny is required in studying human nature,
that the work of introspection is made exceedingly complicated
and delicate. Difficulties like these have thrown discredit on the
whole process of self-knowledge, and have sent Carlyle into a
characteristic paradox of contradiction. " The latest gospel in this
world is, know thy work and do it. ' Know thyself ; ' long enough
has that poor ' self of thine tormented thee ; thou wilt never get
to ' know ' it, I believe ! Think it not thy business, this of knowing
thyself ; thou art an unknowable individual : know what thou canst
work at, and work at it like a Hercules ! That will be thy better
plan." It is true that self cannot be known where it is held apart in
unreal isolation. It can be known only through and in the moral and
spiritual realm of which it is an integral part. But it is known in
this way. It is not lost or absorbed in the immensity of the whole.
In God we find ourselves and know ourselves ; and any effort to
ignore self or proceed without self-knowledge will lead to intellectual
error and moral shipwreck. The ultimate good is a good in which we
have a part, and of which ive must possess ourselves. The individual
ism which concentrates all interest on the " self," the reaction from
individualism which attempts to ignore the self and deny its claims,
are alike one-sided and false. There is a "more excellent way" than
either. This is seen in actual fact amid the numbers of those who, in
unknown heroism and lowly self-sacrifice, have lost their lives and so
truly found them. We need a philosophy which shall be adequate to
the rich fulness of this fact. The terms "self," "individual," "person,"
await fuller discussion and more perfect comprehension.

84 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

which is the effect of particular customs, though observable in
several, the standard of what is common to the species ; and,
above all, that the highest principle be not forgot or excluded,
that to which belongs the adjustment and correction of all other
inward movements and affections ; which principle will, of course,
have some influence, but which, being in nature supreme, as
shall now be shown, ought to preside over and govern all the rest.
The difficulty of rightly observing the two former cautions, the
appearance there is of some small diversity amongst mankind
with respect to this faculty, with respect to their natural sense of
moral good and evil, and the attention necessary to survey with any
exactness what passes within, have occasioned that it is not so
much agreed what is the standard of the internal nature of man,
as of his external form. Neither is this last exactly settled.
Yet we understand one another when we speak of the shape of
a human body ; so likewise we do when we speak of the heart
and inward principles,3 how far soever the standard is from
being exact or precisely fixed. There is therefore ground for
an attempt of showing men to themselves, — of showing them
what course of life and behaviour their real nature points out,
and would lead them to. Now, obligations of virtue shown, and
motives to the practice of it enforced, from a review of the nature
of man, are to be considered as an appeal to each particular
person's heart and natural conscience; as the external senses

3 The heart and inward principles. Butler's argument is that, from
what man z>, we may learn what he is meant to be. He insists that,
spite of the difficulties which attend self-knowledge, it is possible to
attain a generally trustworthy estimate of " the heart and inward
principles." Thus " showing men to themselves," we may address
their " natural conscience " with convincing persuasion in favour of
virtue. The converse of this position is, however, the higher truth.
We learn what man is from consideration of what he is meant to be.
We contemplate the good to which he is meant to attain, and with
which he is meant to be identified ; and thus we discover the mean
ing and purpose of the varied elements of his nature. We " show
men to themselves " most truly when we present to them the picture
of that perfect humanity which was revealed in the man Christ Jesus.
This, the presentation of the manhood of Christ, is the mightiest
appeal which can be addressed to the conscience, for, seeing Christ,
men see at once what they were meant to be, and what they are in
comparison with this standard, and are moved to imitation by the
sense that this is their true self. Nay, by His Spirit they become what
they truly are.

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 85

are appealed to for the proof of things cognizable by them.
Since, then, our inward feelings, and the perceptions we receive
from our external senses, are equally real, to argue from the
former to life and conduct is as little liable to exception, as
to argue from the latter to absolute speculative truth. A man
can as little doubt whether his eyes were given him to see with,
as he can doubt of the truth of the science of optics, deduced
from ocular experiments. And allowing the inward feeling,
shame, a man can as little doubt whether it was given him to
prevent his doing shameful actions, as he can doubt whether his
eyes were given him to guide his steps. And as to these inward
feelings themselves; that they are real — that man has in his
nature passions and affections, can no more be questioned than
that he has external senses. Neither can the former be wholly
mistaken, though to a certain degree liable to greater mistakes
than the latter.

There can be no doubt but that several propensions or
instincts, several principles in the heart of man, carry him to
society, and to contribute to the happiness of it, in a sense and a
manner in which no inward principle leads him to evil. These
principles, propensions, or instincts, which lead him to do good,
are approved of by a certain faculty within, quite distinct from
these propensions themselves. All this hath been fully made out
in the foregoing discourse.

But it may be said, What is all this, though true, to the
purpose of virtue and religion ? 4 These require not only that we

4 Virtue and religion. Butler supposes himself to be now confronted
with a serious objection. The supposed opponent argues thus :
You have indeed proved that man has instincts which lead him to do
good to his fellows. You have even proved that he has a conscience.
With all this, however, you have failed to lay a firm basis for
morality or religion. These require, not only that man should have
certain principles which may at times be stronger than others, but
that his whole character should be always under the control of some
determinate rule. As far, therefore, as the mere possession of certain
instincts goes, even with conscience superadded, it does not appear
that man is one whit different from the brutes. They follow their
strongest impulse, and so act according to the nature which God has
given them. Man obeys his strongest impulse, be it passion or con
science, and in either case he, too, is acting according to his nature,
and is fulfilling the end of his existence. This is the kind of language
which vice borrowed from the prevailing philosophy of the day in
order to gain for itself some sort of justification. If the view of

86 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

do good to others when we are led this way, by benevolence
or reflection happening to be stronger than other principles,
passions, or appetites ; but likewise that the whole character be
formed upon thought and reflection; that every action be
directed by some determinate rule, some other rule than the
strength and prevalence or any principle or passion. What sign
is there in our nature (for the inquiry is only about what is to be
collected from thence) that this was intended by its Author ? or
how does so various and fickle a temper as that of man appear
adapted thereto ? It may indeed be absurd and unnatural for
men to act without any reflection ; nay, without regard to that
particular kind of reflection which you call conscience ; because
this does belong to our nature. For, as there never was a
man but who approved one place, prospect, building, before
another, so does it not appear that there ever was a man who
would not have approved an action of humanity rather than of
cruelty ; interest and passion being quite out of the case. But
interest and passion do come in, and are often too strong for,
and prevail over, reflection and conscience. Now, as brutes

human nature taken by some philosophers be true, and man's
primary instincts are for sensual gratification, the practical inference
can only be, let him by all means gratify himself. The restraints
which society puts upon him are purely artificial, and their disregard
involves no fault. If, indeed, there are such instincts as benevolence,
or if there be such a thing as conscience, let those follow them who
list ; but let not such persons blame those who follow other equally
natural tendencies. The type of philosophizing to which this language
most nearly approximates is that of Bernard de Mandeville, whose
Fable of the Bees was published in 1723. His view was that men
had no motive powers save their passions ; that morality is an
artificial product, the invention of clever persons who for their own
private ends conspired to induce men to give up their self-interest,
and submit to the yoke imposed on them. The instrument of
persuasion was flattery, and thus " the rnoral virtues are the political
offspring which flattery' begot upon pride." Butler replies to this
strain of argument, that it implies that men follow nature as much
when they yield to the promptings of desire as when, in obedience to
a different impulse, they conquer them. If "nature" mean merely
what pleases us, then in a sense, of course, we always follow nature.
In this sense, however, the phrase would have no ethical significance.
The whole difficulty will be met by considering the various senses in
which "nature" is to be understood. This will bring out the true
meaning of the phrase when it is sought to establish it as the guide of
life, " that by which men are a guide to themselves."

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 87

have various instincts by which they are carried on to the end
the Author of their nature intended them for, is not man in the
same condition, with this difference only, that to his instincts
(i.e. appetites and passions) is added the principle of reflection
or conscience ? And as brutes act agreeably to their nature, in
following that principle, a particular instinct, which for the present
is strongest in them ; does not man likewise act agreeably to his
nature, or obey the law of his creation, by following that principle,
be it passion or conscience, which for the present happens to be
strongest in him ? Thus, different men are by their particular nature
hurried on to pursue honour, or riches, or pleasure ; there are also
persons whose temper leads them in an uncommon degree to kind
ness, compassion, doing good to their fellow-creatures ; as there
are others who are given to suspend their judgment, to weigh and
consider things, and to act upon thought and reflection. Let
every one -then quietly follow his nature ; as passion, reflection,
appetite, the several parts of it, happen to be the strongest ; but
let not the man of virtue take upon him to blame the ambitious,
the covetous, the dissolute ; since these, equally with him, obey
and follow their nature. Thus, as in some cases, we follow our
nature in doing the works contained in the law; so, in other cases,
we follow our nature in doing contrary. Now all this licentious
talk entirely goes upon a supposition, that men follow their nature,
in the same sense, in violating the known rules of justice and
honesty for the sake of a present gratification, as they do in
following those rules when they have no temptation to the con
trary. And if this were true, that could not be so which St.
Paul asserts, that men are " by nature a law to themselves." If
by following nature were meant only acting as we please, it
would indeed be ridiculous to speak of nature as any guide in
morals : nay, the very mention of deviating from nature would
be absurd ; and the mention of following it, when spoken by
way of distinction, would absolutely have no meaning. For, did
ever any one act otherwise than as he pleased ? And yet the
ancients speak of deviating from nature as vice ; and of follow
ing nature5 so much as a distinction, that, according to them, the

5 Following nature. The " ancients " whose ethical teaching was
summed up in the precept " Follow nature " were the Greek Stoics ;
and Butler, endorsing as he does their teaching on this point, is a
Stoic among British moralists. The founder of the Stoic school was
Zeno, who was born about 340 B.C. His immediate successors were

88 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

perfection of virtue consists therein. So that language itself
should teach people another sense to the words following nature.

Cleanthes and Chrysippus, the latter of whom died about 208 B.C.
The philosophy of Aristotle had regarded the world as constituted by
two elements, mind, vw$, and matter, fay. Aristotle had not been
able to indicate any point of view from which these two principles
might be seen to express a deeper unity. It remained, accordingly,
for later thinkers who were dissatisfied with the Aristotelian partition
of the world into two parts or elements, to adopt one or other of these
principles, and make it supreme. The Stoics chose the former, the
spiritual principle ; the Epicureans the latter, the material principle.
The Stoics held the world to be a vast living body of which God is
the life or rational soul. Of this great whole, man is a part. His
true nature is that reason which animates and regulates the world.
From this view of man follows their great ethical principle, " Follow
nature," or "live in agreement with nature," or more particularly,
" Follow thine own rational nature ; make reason, which is thy true
nature, thy guide ; and follow not thine own selfish desire, which is
indeed unreason." Hence, according to the Stoics, as Butler says,
"the perfection of virtue consists" in following nature. Stoicism
proved an immense practical power in the ancient world. When the
imperial despotisms of Alexander, and later of Rome, broke up the
ancient civic life in which a high degree of moral development had
been possible, men required a refuge in which their souls might be
secure from the oppression and dissatisfaction of a world where they
were now no longer free, but the bond-slaves of an iron will. Stoicism
proclaimed Reason as such a refuge. In obeying reason, man was
made master of his fate, competent to defy all the ills of the world.
Beyond the individual characters which Stoicism made strong and
brave, results of quite unspeakable value for the future of civilisation
were secured by the entrance of Stoic principles into the domain of
law. If the true worth of man be not the outward circumstance of
birth or rank, but his personality as a rational being, then every man
has the same value through the principle of reason which is common
to all. Thus was established the great principle of the value of man
as such, which Christianity appropriated and vivified, by which
slavery has been crushed and tyranny overcome, and which is to-day
winning fresh triumphs in the enfranchisement of the poorest and the
humblest. Stoicism, considered as a general attitude of soul, has
been strongest, as well as most valuable, where institutions in which
men once found satisfaction have been destroyed, and in their place
has come a time of despotism or of anarchy. Then the individual
retreating into the citadel of his own spirit has been strong to defy the
world even when it crushed him. Thus the mediaeval mystics sought
refuge in individual communion with infinite Light and Love from the
tyranny of Rome. This also is the gospel which Butler preaches to a

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 89

than barely acting as we please. Let it, however, be observed,
though the words human nature are to be explained, yet the real
question of this discourse is not concerning the meaning of the
words, any otherwise than as the explanation of them may be
needful to make out and explain the assertion, that every man is
naturally a law to himself, that every one may find within himself
the rule of right, and obligations to follow it. This St. Paul
affirms in the words of the text, and this the foregoing objection
really denies, by seeming to allow it. And the objection will be
fully answered, and the text before us explained, by observing,
that nature is considered in different views, and the word used
in different senses ; and by showing in what view it is con
sidered, and in what sense the word is used, when intended to
express and signify that which is the guide of life, that by which
men are a law to themselves. I say, the explanation of the term 6

disorganized society where virtue and religion were openly derided.
Obey nature, he cries, thine own true constitution, and thus rise
superior to the solicitations of desire, the importunity or persecution
of the world, the delusions and enthusiastic dreamings of superstition.
6 The explanation of the term. Proceeding now to discuss the term
nature, Butler notices three senses in which it may be understood.
I. " Some principle in man without regard either to the kind or
degree of it." In this use of the term no moral quality is implied. In
this sense nature cannot be that by which we are a guide to our
selves. Our nature in this aspect is simply the instinctive basis of
character that is beneath moral qualification. In ordinary language,
however, we do sometimes impart into the phrase some moral
estimate. Thus we employ it in excuse or in approbation ; " it was
but natural he should act in such a manner," " he acted naturally and
unaffectedly." II. " Those passions which are strongest and most
influence the actions." Butler's account of man as "vicious by
nature " is given from the non-theological, natural history standpoint,
which he never abandons in these three sermons. As a mere matter
of observation, therefore, he points out that the passions which are
strongest are vicious. His use of Scripture, accordingly, is scarcely
in accordance with sound interpretation. In the passage which he
quotes much more is meant than the mere observation that men's
strongest passions are vicious. The New Testament uses language
with respect to man which justifies the strongest statements of
theology as to the corruption of man's whole nature ; and these state
ments will not be resented by those who know the disease of their
own hearts. Scripture and experience, therefore, concur in describing
man as by nature sinful. Both alike, however, assert that this is not
man's true nature. His perfect manhood is in Christ ; he is himself

90 BUTLERS THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

will be sufficient, because from thence it will appear that, in
some senses of the word nature cannot be, but that in another
sense it manifestly is, a law to us.

when he is like Him. To speak of man as naturally sinful does not
therefore imply any excuse for his being so, as though it were his
nature, and he could not help it ; but really conveys a tremendous
moral censure. This indeed is your nature ; but it is yours only to be
crucified, that, through the death of nature, you may reach that
nature which is yours in another, and in which for the first time you
attain your true nature. So long, therefore, as you remain in sin, you
are not only dishonouring God and His law, you are desecrating the
glory of your true being. III. " The Gentiles do by nature the things
contained in the law." Butler thus finds a scriptural authority for that
particular sense of " nature " in which it is a moral guide. The New
Testament indicates three stages in man's realization of goodness or
righteousness. I. Nature. At this stage the Gentiles stand. Good
ness here appears as impulse, rising within the heart of man with
a force and authority that remain unquestioned. Man does not
hold himself apart from this impulse, to criticize it, and then de
liberately to accept and follow it. He knows nothing about it. He
only feels it, and acts on its inspiration. There is a singular beauty
in such virtue. It is unquestioning as a child's, and the breath of
thought has not dimmed the clear surface in which we see fair
images of truth, and love, and constancy. Thus also it is occasional,
incidental, passing into act at the call of some special instinct.
Antigone represents the almighty instinct of family love, when in
opposition to the authority of the State she performs in tears the
sacred rites over the body of her brother, appealing as she does so
to a law higher than that of the State, unwritten yet eternal :

" It is not of to-day, nor yesterday,
It lives for ever, none knows whence it is."

Achilles and Patroclus, Orestes and Pylades, Damon and Pythias,
are examples of the love which raises the friendship of antiquity
almost to an equality, in respect of faithfulness and devotion, with
marriage under Christian influence. The love of country awakes in
the citizen's heart as a capacity of infinite sacrifice ; and for this
sacred cause he can face with Leonidas mighty odds and inevitable
death, or perish with Regulus amid unspeakable tortures. Such
things, contained in the Law, the Gentiles do by Nature. The
question here arises as to the relation of this statement to that
which Butler has just quoted, that men are " by nature children of
wrath." How can men do by nature the things contained in the Law,
and yet be by nature children of wrath? The difficulty has been
solved by saying that " the virtues of the heathen are splendid vices,"

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 91

I. By nature is often meant no more than some principle in
man, without regard either to the kind or degree of it. Thus
the passion of anger, and the affection of parents to their
children, would be called equally natural. And as the same
person hath often contrary principles, which at the same time
draw contrary ways, he may by the same action both follow and
contradict his nature in this sense of the word ; he may follow
one passion and contradict another.

II. Nature is frequently spoken of as consisting in those
passions which are strongest, and most influence the actions ;
which being vicious ones, mankind is in this sense naturally
vicious, or vicious by nature. Thus St. Paul says of the Gentiles,
who were dead in trespasses and sins, and walked according to the

and so depriving them of all moral value. In this statement, how
ever, it is presupposed that good works are the ground of man's accept
ance with God. Then, with respect to those who are not accepted,
it follows as a logical consequence that they can have no good
works, and what appear to be so must be regarded as splendida mtia.
The truth is, that men stand to God in a twofold relation by nature,
(i) They are made in His image, meant for His service, designed
for His fellowship, in which alone they can find true satisfaction.
But they have debased that image, declined that service, despised
that fellowship. Thus they have lost the perfection of their own
being, and abide now " under His wrath and curse." Such are all
men "by nature." (2) They are His children, never cast off, loved
ivith the infinite passion of a God who is also Father. Their years
are spent under His providence and His discipline. The instincts of
family, friendship, country, and all other impulses after righteousness,
are part of the revelation in them and to them of the good for which
He has created them, some of the means by which He seeks to bring
them thither. Their deeds of devotion, heroism, etc., they do, accord
ingly, " by nature," which is only another name for the mercy of the
Father, who thus gathers His lost children to Himself. The virtues
of the heathen are not meritorious, but they are not on that
account valueless. No good works have the value of merit
with God. All virtues, in Gentile and Christian alike, are the
consequence of a Witness to the Good, and a Power of seeking it,
which the Father withholds from none of His children. 2. Law.
Natural virtues we have described as instinctive in their motive
and incidental in their exercise. In the transition from Nature
to Law these characteristics are left behind. The motive of moral
conduct is now obedience to an authority imposed from without.
There is lost, accordingly, the spontaneity and freedom which makes
natural goodness so beautiful ; while there is gained that sense of

92 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

spirit of disobedience, that they were by nature the children of wrath
(Eph. ii. 3). They could be no otherwise children of wrath by
nature, than they were vicious by nature.

Here then are two different senses of the word nature, in
neither of which men can at all be said to be a law to them
selves. They are mentioned only to be excluded ; to prevent
their being confounded, as the latter is in the objection, with
another sense of it, which is now to be inquired after and ex
plained.

III. The apostle asserts, that the Gentiles do by nature the
things contained in the law. Nature is indeed here put by way of
distinction from revelation, but yet it is not a mere negative.
He intends to express more than that by which they did not
than by which they did the works of the law, namely, by nature.

personal obligation to the claim of righteousness which is the con
dition of moral growth. The exercise of virtue becomes now
systematic. Righteousness is not left to occasional incidents to
suggest its exercise. It lays its grasp upon the whole of life, and
seeks to bring every action under some detailed obligation. There
awakens, accordingly, the sense of sin, of trespass upon obligation,
which is wholly absent from the era of natural goodness. Along
with this, the sense of the infinitude of the Law's demands, and the
utter incapacity of man to comply with them, deepens in every
earnest soul ; and Law breeds a despair which requires a gospel
to redeem it from moral death. 3. Grace. The sunshine of
nature has passed through gloomy shades of Law to emerge
now in a clearer and sweeter light. The infinite inaccessibility
of righteousness disappears. It is brought near to man, " closer
than breathing, nearer than hands or feet." It is the quality
of the new life upon which through death he has entered. It
is his, not by imputation alone, but as the energy of his being, in
Christ who is his life. The righteousness of grace, therefore, gathers
into itself the qualities of both previous stages. It fulfils the right
eousness of the law, but in doing so it preserves those features which
gave beauty to natural virtue. Its motive is not obedience to external
authority, but the upspringing of an inner fountain of love rising
toward that source of good from whence it came, seeking with the
intensity of personal devotion the glory of the Christ who first evoked
it. It therefore retains the spontaneity and freedom of nature. It is,
in fact, nature born again. Its exercise is not adherence to a system
of rules, however elaborate or complete, but the ceaseless outgoing of
a power which, under all the circumstances and amid all the emergen
cies of this complex human life, endeavours to do the will of God
and establish that kingdom which is righteousness, and peace, and

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 93

It is plain the meaning of the word is not the same in this
passage as in the former, where it is spoken of as evil ; for in
the latter it is spoken of as good ; as that by which they acted,
or might have acted virtuously. What that is in man by which
he is naturally a law to himself? is explained in the following
words: which shows the work of the law written in their hearts ;
their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean
while accusing or else excusing one another. If there be a dis
tinction to be made between the works written in their hearts
and the witness of 'conscience -, by the former must be meant the
natural disposition to kindness and compassion, to do what is of
good report, to which the apostle often refers ; that part of the
nature of man, treated of in the foregoing discourse, which, with
very little reflection and of course, leads him to society, and by

joy. It has lost, accordingly, all tinge of the Pharisaic spirit well-
nigh inseparable from life under law. It makes no professions, but
continually, as every incident of life forms occasion, it performs
without ostentation the will with which it is altogether one. Paul's
spiritual biography illustrates what has just been said. First, he lives
a life of natural unconscious goodness. " I was alive without the law
once." Then he falls under the bondage of law. " When the com
mandment came, sin revived, and I died." The horrors of the
situation, in which goodness remained unattainable, and how to
perform that which was good he found not, he paints in dark colours.
Finally came that dark hour, which, however, by God's mercy, pre
ceded the dawn. " O wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver
me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord." And now, possessing a life whose features are " no con
demnation," " the Spirit dwelling in us," " the spirit of adoption,^ he
stands forth more than a conqueror, and is persuaded of his inalien
able inheritance in the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord
(see Rom. vii. and viii. passim}.

7 Naturally a law to himself. Having dismissed the two previous
meanings, Butler now seeks to establish the correct interpretation of
nature, according to which it may be taken as the guide of life. In
the text which he quotes, " Nature" is analysed into " works written
in their hearts? and " the witness of conscience? The former Butler
identifies with merely natural impulses to goodness. But as some
natural impulses tend, though indirectly, to evil, and as we cannot
determine the proportion in which these two kinds of impulses stand
to one another, we cannot from them derive the guide of life. There
remains, accordingly, the witness of conscience. To live according
to nature, therefore, is to live according to conscience. In this sense
of the term man is a law to himself.

94 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

means of which he naturally acts a just and good part in it,
unless other passions or interests lead him astray. Yet since
other passions and regards to private interest, which lead us
(though indirectly, yet lead us) astray, are themselves in a
degree equally natural, and often most prevalent ; and since
we have no method of seeing the particular degrees in which
one or the other is placed in us by nature, it is plain the former,
considered merely as natural, good and right as they are, can no
more be a law to us than the latter. But there is a superior
principle of reflection or conscience in every man ; which dis
tinguishes between the internal principles of his heart, as well as
his external actions ; which passes judgment upon himself and
them ; pronounces determinately some actions to be in them
selves just, right, good ; others to be in themselves evil, wrong,
unjust ; which, without being consulted, without being advised
with, magisterially exerts itself,8 and approves or condemns him,
the doer of them, accordingly ; and which, if not forcibly stopped,
naturally and always, of course, goes on to anticipate a higher and
more effectual sentence,9 which shall hereafter second and affirm

8 Magisterially exerts itself. The figure of the court - room as
applied to conscience is familiar in literature. Every man bears about

" A silent court of justice in his breast,
Himself the judge and jury, and himself
The prisoner at the bar, ever condemned ;
And that drags down his life."

TENNYSON, Sea Dreams.

" But 't is not so above ;
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compell'd
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence."

Hamlet, Act iii. Scene 3.

" My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree,
Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree ;
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all,— Guilty ! Guilty ! "

K. Richard III., Act v. Scene 3.

9 A higher and more effectual sentence. " View the conscience and
thoughts, with their self-reflecting abilities, wherein the soul retires
into itself, and sits concealed from all eyes but His that made it,
judging its own actions and censuring its estate ; viewing its face in

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 95

its own. But this part of the office of conscience is beyond my
present design explicitly to consider. It is by this faculty
natural to man that he is a moral agent, that he is a law to
himself : by this faculty, I say, not to be considered merely as a
principle in his heart which is to have some influence as well as
others ; but considered as a faculty, in kind and in nature,
supreme over all others, and which bears its own authority of
being so.

This prerogative, this natural supremacy™ of the faculty which

its own glass, and correcting the indecencies it discovers there. Things
of greatest moment and importance are silently transacted in its
council chamber betwixt the soul and God. Here it impleads, con
demns, and acquits itself as at a privy session, with respect to the
judgment of the great day : here it meets with the best of comforts,
and with the worst of terrors." — Flavel. " Conscience is the judg
ment of man upon himself, as he is subject to the judgment of God.
. . . Conscience, therefore, is a high and awful power, it is solo Deo
minor; next, and immediately under God our Judge ; riding, as
Joseph did, in the second chariot. ... Its consolations are of all the
most sweet, and its condemnations (only excepting those by the mouth
of Christ in the last judgment) most terrible. . . . Wherever you go,
conscience accompanies you ; whatever you say, do, or but think, it
registers and records, in order to the day of account. When all
friends forsake thee, yea, when thy soul forsakes thy body, conscience
will not, cannot forsake thee. When thy body is weakest and dullest,
thy conscience is most vigorous and active. Never more life in the
conscience than when death makes its nearest approach to the body.
When it smiles, cheers, acquits, and comforts, oh, what a heaven doth
it create within a man ! And when it frowns, condemns, and terrifies,
how doth it becloud, yea, benight all the pleasures, joy, and delights
of this world ! ... It is certainly the best of friends, or the worst of
enemies in the whole creation." — Flavel.

" When a man has done any villainous act, though under coun
tenance of the highest place and power, and under covert of the
closest secrecy, his conscience, for all that, strikes him like a clap of
thunder, and depresses him to a perpetual trepidation, horror, and
poorness of spirit. ... And all this because he has heard a condemn
ing sentence from within, which the secret forebodings of his mind
tell him will be ratified by a sad and certain execution from above :
on the other side, what makes a man so cheerful, so bright and con-
.fident in his comforts, but because he finds himself acquitted by God's
high commissioner and deputy?" — South.

10 This prerogative, this natural supremacy. Having thus shown the
true idea of nature, and having exhibited the function of conscience
though without entering into details, Butler devotes the rest of this

96 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

surveys, approves, or disapproves the several affections of our
mind and actions of our lives, being that by which men are a
law to themselves, their conformity or disobedience to which law
of our nature renders their actions, in the highest and most
proper sense, natural or unnatural; it is fit it be further ex
plained to you : and I hope it will be so, if you will attend to the
following reflections.

Man may act 11 according to that principle or inclination which
for the present happens to be strongest, and yet act in a way
disproportionate to, and violate his real proper nature. Suppose
a brute creature, by any bait, to be allured into a snare by
which he is destroyed, he plainly followed the bent of his nature,

sermon to vindicating the authority or natural supremacy of conscience.
His argument is elaborated with redundant care.

11 (i.) Man may act. The first stage of the argument establishes
the distinction between man and the brutes with respect to in
stinctive action. A brute always follows its instincts, and in so
doing is acting according to its natural constitution, even when the
consequences of the action are fatal to itself. A man, however, who
should gratify a strong impulse, in reckless disregard of consequences,
is acting in an utterly unnatural way, for the mere impulse, however
strong, is a wholly subordinate part of human nature, and to obey it,
therefore, is to introduce disproportion and disharmony into the whole
of life and character.

Probably the truest notion we can form of the life of one of the
lower animals is that it is governed by a number of blind impulses,
which are never brought by the animal itself into the focus of one
all-embracing end or purpose, though in the case of some of the
higher domestic animals an external and artificial unity is given to
the life through subjection to the authority of a master. It is equally
natural, therefore, for the animal to follow any one of these impulses
in any direction whatever. It is sometimes discussed whether there
are in man any instincts properly so called. However that may be,
the distinguishing characteristic of man is his faculty of comprehend
ing the various tendencies and impulses of his being in their relation
to some end in the attainment of which his true nature is satisfied.
For him, therefore, to follow an impulse because it happened to be
strong, without considering its bearing upon the end of life, would be
in the highest degree unnatural and wrong. Consciousness of an end
in view is thus the distinction between instinctive and non-moral and
rational and moral action. " The fundamental difference," according
to Martineau, Types of Ethical Theory, vol. ii. p. 139, is "that human
habit sets agoing the instrumental links of an end in view, while
animal instinct institutes and follows out the means to an end which
is out of view?

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 97

leading him to gratify his appetite ; there is an entire correspond
ence between his whole nature and such an action ; such action
therefore is natural. But suppose a man, foreseeing the same
danger of certain ruin, should rush into it for the sake of a
present gratification; he in this instance would follow his
strongest desire, as did the brute creature, but there would be as
manifest a disproportion between the nature of man and such an
action, as between the meanest work of art and the skill of the
greatest master in that art ; which disproportion arises, not from
considering the action singly in itself, or in its consequences, but
from the comparison of it with the nature of the agent. And
since such an action is utterly disproportionate to the nature of
man, it is in the strictest and most proper sense unnatural ; this
word expressing that disproportion. Therefore, instead of the
words disproportionate to his nature, the word unnatural may now
be put, this being more familiar to us ; but let it be observed,
that it stands for the same thing precisely.

Now, what is it 12 which renders such a rash action unnatural ?
Is it that he went against the principle of reasonable and cool
self-love, considered merely as a part of his nature ? No ; for
if he had acted the contrary way, he would equally have gone

12 (2.) Now, what is it. In the second place, on comparing some
particular instinct with the general principle of self-love, we are led
to see that the difference between them does not lie in the degree of
strength possessed by each. The difference lies in the fact that the
principle of self-love is in nature and kind superior to any mere
passion. Accordingly, to thwart a passion under the guidance of
enlightened self-love is right and rational ; while to defy self-love at
the dictate of some passion is to upset the whole constitution of
human nature. Thus there is established a difference of kind among
the parts of human nature.

The exhibition of vice as unnatural, being, so to speak, the madness
of human nature, constitutes a mighty dissuasive from it. It is indeed
not the highest ground which may be taken ; and if it were used in a
merely selfish interest, as who should say, "Don't do that, or it will be
the worse for you," it would be an immoral argument in favour of
morality. But if we regard morality as the achievement of the highest
end for which human nature is adapted, then it is fair to stimulate
men to abandon certain courses of action by pointing out their con
sequences for time and for eternity. The Bible uses this argument,
though sparingly. It warns men that "he that soweth to the flesh
shall of the flesh reap corruption ; " and it entreats men to " flee from
the wrath to come." Writers who do not stand at the Christian point
of view, or who desire to appeal to those who would decline the

G

98 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

against a principle or part of his nature, namely, passion or
appetite. But to deny a present appetite from foresight that the
gratification of it would end in immediate ruin or extreme misery,
is by no means an unnatural action ; whereas to contradict or
go against cool self-love for the sake of such gratification is so
in the instance before us. Such an action, then, being unnatural,
and its being so not arising from a man's going against that
principle or desire barely, nor in going against that principle or
desire which happens for the present to be strongest ; it neces
sarily follows that there must be some other difference or dis
tinction to be made between these two principles, passion and
cool self-love, than what I have yet taken notice of. And
this difference, not being a difference in strength or degree, I
call a difference in nature and in kind. And since, in the
instance still before us, if passion prevails over self-love, the
consequent action is unnatural ; but if self-love prevails over
passion, the action is natural ; it is manifest that self-love is in
human nature a superior principle to passion. This may be
contradicted without violating that nature, but the former cannot.
So that, if we will act conformably to the economy of man's
nature, reasonable self-love must govern. Thus, without par
ticular consideration of conscience, we may have a clear con
ception of the superior nature of one inward principle to another ;
and see that there really is this natural superiority, quite distinct

highest arguments, have eloquently asserted the unnaturalness and
misery of vice, —

'* The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to scourge us."

King Lear, Act v. Scene 2.

" The expense of spirit in a waste of shame

Is lust in action ; and till action, lust

Is perjur'd, murderous, bloody, full of blame,

Savage, extreme, rude, cruel, not to trust ;

Enjoy 'd no sooner but despised straight ;

Past reason hunted ; and no sooner had,

Past reason hated, as the swallow'd bait,

On purpose laid to make the taker mad :

Mad in pursuit, and in possession so ;

Had, having, and in quest to have, extreme ;

A bliss in proof, — and proved, a very woe ;

Before, a joy propos'd ; behind, a dream.

All this the world well knows ; yet none knows well
To shun the heaven that leads men to this hell."

SHAKESPEARE'S Sonnets, No. 129.

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 99

from degrees of strength and prevalency. Let us now take a
view 13 of the nature of man as consisting partly of various appe
tites, passions, affections, and partly of the principle of reflection,
or conscience, leaving quite out all consideration of the different
degrees of strength in which either of them prevail ; and it will
further appear that there is this natural superiority of one
inward principle to another, or that it is even part of the idea
of reflection or conscience. Passion or appetite implies a direct
simple tendency towards such and such objects without distinc
tion of the means by which they are to be obtained. Conse
quently, it will often happen there will be a desire of particular

13 (3.) Let us now take a view. In the case of passion and self-
love, it has been seen that self-love has a natural superiority over
passion. Now, in the third place, take conscience, and it will be seen
to be gifted with this characteristic of superiority, and to be supreme
over every other part of human nature. Passion, for instance, leads
us to conduct which involves injury to others. Conscience imperiously
forbids us to follow this leading. It claims to be obeyed, not because
it is stronger as an impulse, but because it is endowed with a superior
authority. If passion prevails, it will be because it has usurped a
position which does not belong to it. In a civil State, mere power
must bow to rightful authority. So in the state and constitution of
man, conscience bears sway, not by its power, but by its natural
authority. This indeed is its peculiarity, that it occupies a position of
such supremacy that, if it had power to enforce its decisions, it would
be master of the world.

The figure which Butler here presents to us is that of a State or a
kingdom. Its lawful head is conscience, which is naturally and right
fully supreme over every department of the State. Its decisions are
law for the community of impulses and desires over which it presides.
While thus strong, nay almighty, as a judicial authority, Conscience is
unfortunately very weak in the executive department, nay, it possesses
no executive powers whatever. Subject to Conscience, are the
passions and appetites which possess just that quality of strength
which conscience lacks. It occasionally happens, therefore, that the
passions and appetites make head against the decrees of Conscience,
and, by dint of mere force, thrust themselves into a position of
supremacy, —

"And the state of man,
Like to a little kingdom, suffers then
The nature of an insurrection."

Destitute though Conscience be of force, however, it is not there
fore a roi faineant. It bears sway throughout the moral world by virtue

ioo BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

objects, in cases where they cannot be obtained without manifest
injury to others, reflection or conscience comes in and disapproves
the pursuit of them in these circumstances, but the desire re-

of its inherent right, and through its decree order and harmony
prevail.

"Stern daughter of the voice of God !
O Duty ! If that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod
To check the erring, and reprove ;
Thou who art victory and law
When empty terrors overawe ;
From vain temptations dost set free,
And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity !

Stern Lawgiver ! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace ;
Nor know we anything so fair
As is the smile upon thy face :
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads ;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong ;
And the most ancient heavens, through Thee, are fresh and strong."

WORDSWORTH'S Ode to Duty.

And though it may have no power of its own, yet no power on
earth ^can control it. " This vicegerent of God has one prerogative
above' all God's other earthly vicegerents ; to wit, that it can never
be deposed. Such a strange, sacred, and inviolable majesty has
God imprinted on this faculty ; not indeed as upon an absolute,
independent sovereign, yet with so great a communication of some
thing next to sovereignty, that while it keeps within its proper com
pass, it is controllable by no mortal power on earth. For not the
greatest monarch in the world can countermand conscience so far as
to make it condemn where it would otherwise acquit, or acquit where
it would otherwise condemn ; no, neither sword nor sceptre can come
at it ; but it is above and beyond the reach of both." — South. Power
less it may be in the sense that it cannot compel actions according to
its decisions. The impress of its authority, however, is so profound
and constant, as to amount practically to compulsion or prohibition.
And even where action has been committed in defiance of its warn
ing, it haunts the soul with the sense of inevitable judgment. Hamlet
finds the way barred which led out of insupportable trouble through
the avenue of self-slaughter.

' ' Thus conscience does make cowards of us all ;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought ;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. IOI

mains. Which is to be obeyed, appetite or reflection ? Cannot
this question be answered from the economy and constitution
of human nature merely without saying which is strongest ? or
need this at all come into consideration? Would not the ques
tion be intelligibly and fully answered by saying that the principle
of reflection or conscience being compared with the various
appetites, passions, and affections in men, the former is mani
festly superior and chief without regard to strength ? And how
often soever the latter happens to prevail, it is mere usurpation.
The former remains in nature and in kind its superior ; and
every instance of such prevalence of the latter is an instance of
breaking in upon, and violation ofy the constitution of man.

All this is no more than the distinction which everybody is
acquainted with between mere power and authority ; only, instead
of being intended to express the difference between what is
possible and what is lawful in civil government, here it has
been shown applicable to the several principles in the mind of
man. Thus, that principle by which we survey, and either
approve or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not
only to be considered as what is in its turn to have some in-

The murderers of Clarence find it a troublesome impediment in
the way of their greed.

" 2 Murd. Faith, some certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

1 Murd. Remember pur reward, when the deed's done.

2 Murd. Come, he dies : I had forgot the reward.

1 Murd. Where's thy conscience now ?

2 Murd. In the Duke of Gloster's purse.

1 Murd. So, when he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience
flies out.

2 Murd. 'Tis no matter ; let it go : there's few or none will entertain it.

1 Murd. What, if it come to thee again ?

2 Murd. I'll not meddle with it, it is a dangerous thing ; it makes a man a
coward ; a man cannot steal, but it accuseth him ; a man cannot swear, but it
checks him ; . . . 'Tis a blushing shame-faced spirit, that mutinies in a man's
bosom ; it fills one full of obstacles ; it made me once restore a purse of gold that
by chance I found ; it beggars any man that keeps it : it is turned out of all
towns and cities for a dangerous thing ; and every man that means to live well,
endeavours to trust to himself, and live without it. "

In short, we have " a thing within us called conscience" (Titus
Andronicus, Act v. Scene i), which is "a deity in the bosom"
(Tempest, Act ii. Scene i), and, even when disobeyed, overshadows
us with the terror of its broken law. The conclusion, therefore, is not
merely that conscience has some degree of influence over human
nature, but that it is supreme ; and the rebellion of passion, though
too often successful, does not diminish this natural superiority.

102 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

fluence, which may be said of every passion of the lowest appe
tites ; but likewise as being superior, as from its very nature
manifestly claiming superiority over all others, insomuch that you
cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking
in judgment, direction, superintendency. This is a constituent
part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself; and to preside and
govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs
to it. Had it strength, as it has right ; had it power, as it has
manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world.

This gives us a further view of the nature of man ; shows us
what course of life we were made for, not only that our real
nature leads us to be influenced in some degree by reflection
and conscience, but likewise in what degree we are to be in
fluenced by it, if we will fall in with and act agreeably to> the
constitution of our nature ; that this faculty was placed within
to be our proper governor; to direct and regulate all under
principles, passions, and motives of action. This is its right and
office ; thus sacred is its authority. And how often soever men
violate and rebelliously refuse to submit to it for supposed in
terest which they cannot otherwise obtain, or for the sake of
passion which they cannot otherwise gratify, this makes no
alteration as to the natural right and office of conscience.

Let us now turn this whole matter another way,14 and suppose

14 (4.) Let us now turn this whole matter another way. The con
clusion thus positively established is, in the fourth place, set in a
clearer light by supposing its opposite to be the truth. Instead of
one principle being supreme over the others, all will now be on the
same footing, varying only in strength. Now, see to what inferences
this would lead. Consider man's actions with respect (i) to himself,
(2) to his neighbour, (3) to God. If they are determined by the mere
strength of impulse, then (i) and (2) have no limits save these, viz.
that no man naturally seeks misery for himself or evil to his neigh
bour ; while (3) has " absolutely no bounds at all." The question,
accordingly, is, will any action be congruous with the nature of man,
and therefore moral, if it be the product of a sufficiently strong-
impulse ? Will blasphemy be as congruous, and therefore as good
and right, as reverence ? Will such a deed as parricide be as con
gruous, and therefore as proper and dutiful, as filial service ? The
very question reveals the absurdity of the presupposition ; and thus
we are the more strongly forced back on the position to which we
have been led, that conscience has a natural supremacy, and that
those actions only are in accordance with human nature of which
conscience approves.

SERMON II. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 103

there was no such thing at all as this natural supremacy of con
science ; that there was no distinction to be made between one
inward principle and another, but only that of strength, and see
what would be the consequence.

Consider, then, what is the latitude and compass of the actions
of man with regard to himself, his fellow-creatures, and the
Supreme Being ? What are their bounds besides that of natural
power ? With respect to the first two, they are plainly no other
than these : no man seeks misery as such for himself; and no
one provoked does mischief to another for its own sake. For
in every degree within these bounds, mankind knowingly, from
passion or wantonness, bring ruin and misery upon themselves
and others ; and impiety and profaneness, I mean what every one
would call so who believes the being of God, have absolutely
no bounds at all. Men blaspheme the Author of nature, for
mally and in words renounce their allegiance to their Creator.
Put an instance, then, with respect to any one of these three.
Though we should suppose profane swearing,15 and in general
that kind of impiety now mentioned, to mean nothing, yet it
implies wanton disregard and irreverence towards an infinite

15 Profane swearing. Man is meant for the fellowship of God ;
and the deepest utterance of his spiritual being is prayer. The
incongruity of this vice with our true nature is practically evinced in
this, that it makes prayer an impossibility. " The wise man tells us
(Prov. xviii. 10), 'The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the
righteous runneth into it, and is safe.' But, alas ! what comfort
canst thou find in the name of God in thy greatest necessities, since it
is the same name thou hast used and worn out before in the meanest
and most trivial concerns? Thou hast already talked away the strength
and virtue of it, and wilt hardly find more support from it in thy
tribulation, than thou gavest reverence unto it in thy conversation "
(Hopkins). The same evil effect is seen in a more extended way in
the degradation of the whole tone of character, and in the gradually
increasing incapacity for and unbelief in things noble and true.
" This is what I call debasing the moral currency : lowering the
value of every inspiring fact and tradition so that it will command
less and less of the spiritual products, the generous motives which
sustain the charm and elevation of our social existence — the some
thing besides bread by which man saves his soul alive. . . . Let that
moral currency be emptied of its value — let a greedy buffoonery debase
all historic beauty, majesty, and pathos, and the more you heap up
the desecrated symbols the greater will be the lack of the ennobling
emotions which subdue the tyranny of suffering, and make ambition
one with social virtue." Theophrastus Such.

104 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

Being, our Creator ; and is this as suitable to the nature of man
as reverence and dutiful submission of heart towards that
Almighty Being ? Or suppose a man guilty of parricide,16 with
all the circumstances of cruelty which such an action can admit
of, this action is done in consequence of its principle being for
the present strongest ; and if there be no difference between
inward principles but only that of strength, the strength being
given, you have the whole nature of the man given, so far as it
relates to this matter. The action plainly corresponds to the
principle, the principle being in that degree of strength it was ;
it therefore corresponds to the whole nature of the man. Upon
comparing the action and the whole nature, there arises no
disproportion, there appears no unsuitableness between them.
Thus the murder of a father and the nature of man correspond
to each other as the same nature and an act of filial duty. If
there be no difference between inward principles, but only that
of strength, we can make no distinction between these two
actions, considered as the actions of such a creature, but in our
coolest hours must approve or disapprove them equally : than
which nothing can be reduced to a greater absurdity.

16 Parricide. Murders, our Lord says, proceed " out of the heart "
(Matt. xv. 19). Paul reckons murders among the "works of the
flesh" (Gal. v. 21). That is to say, they have their seat in the
impulses and passions of human nature, which, uncontrolled by the
authority of a good will, sweep man into the most unnatural and
extravagant wickedness. In this sense, that these passions tend to
usurp the supremacy of human nature, it is said (i Tim. i. 9) that the
law is not for the righteous, i.e. those who are at one with the will
expressed in the law, but for " the lawless and disobedient," i.e. those
who suffer the lower part of their natures to revolt against conscience,
among whom are numbered " murderers of fathers and murderers of
mothers " as examples of the possible consequences of such revolt.

SERMON III.

^ I ^HE natural supremacy of reflection or conscience being
J_ thus established, we may from it form a distinct notion of
what is meant by human nature^ when virtue is said to consist in
following it, and vice in deviating from it. As the idea of a civil
constitution 1 implies in it united strength, various subordinations
under one direction, that of supreme authority, the different
strength of each particular member of the society not coming into
the idea ; whereas, if you leave out the subordination, the union,

1 The idea of a civil constitution. In this paragraph Butler
reverts to that conception of human nature which he has established
in the preceding sermon. It is not a mere aggregate of appetites,
passions, and affections. It is an ordered realm, a civil constitution,
or kingdom whose members dwell together under the supremacy of
their head, by which their activities are directed and their mutual
relations adjusted. That head is conscience. Its authority cannot be
defied without the disturbance and threatened dissolution of the
commonwealth.

It is interesting to note, as an illustration of the limits of eighteenth
century thought, that, while Butler thus treats the individual as
a realm or organism, and applies this truth to the practical guidance
of life, he does not extend the idea to society as a whole. Yet surely,
if man as an individual is a kingdom, the thought which suggests
itself immediately is that man in relation to his fellows is member of a
kingdom, organ in the wider organism of society. The rule of his
life will therefore be that he fulfil this function, and perform the
duties of his station, considering others as possessed of similar
functions and under the obligation of similar duties. Hence we get
the maxim in which Kant summed up moral duty, " to treat others as
members of a possible kingdom of ends." It is true indeed that
society is not a perfect kingdom, and that we have not done all
that is required of us when we have done our duty as good citizens.
There is a wider and higher realm, the spiritual sphere which Jesus

io6 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

and the one direction, you destroy and lose it ; so reason, several
appetites, passions, and affections, prevailing in different degrees
of strength, is not that idea or notion of human nature ; but that
nature consists in these several principles considered as having a
natural respect to each other, in the several passions being natu
rally subordinate to the one superior principle of reflection or
conscience. Every bias, instinct, propension within is a real part
of our nature, but not the whole ; add to these the superior
faculty whose office it is to adjust, manage, and preside over
them, and take in this, its natural superiority, and you complete
the idea of human nature. And as in civil government the con
stitution is broken in upon and violated by power and strength
prevailing over authority, so the constitutional man is broken in
upon and violated by the lower faculties or principles within pre
vailing over that which is in its nature supreme over them all.
Thus, when it is said by ancient writers that tortures and death
are not so contrary to human nature as injustice,2 by this, to be
sure, is not meant that the aversion to the former in mankind
is less strong and prevalent than their aversion to the » latter,

called " the Kingdom of God," whose foundations are laid in the
Cross. Thus we get three great departments in which the fulfilment
of the prayer " Thy kingdom come " is to be realized ; the " little
kingdom" of the individual man, the wider sphere of society, and
highest of all, the kingdom of God. They are closely connected, —
the kingdom of God includes them all, — so that the kingdom
has not perfectly come in one till God's will is done in the others
also. Conscience is the witness in and to the individual of the
divine will which is supreme throughout the whole sphere of spiritual
being.

2 Injustice. The deep harmony between justice and human
nature, even amid the presence of pain and misery ; the utter in
congruity between injustice and human nature, amid whatever
circumstances of external happiness or prosperity, may be illustrated
from a well-known passage in Plato's Republic. Two pictures are
presented, the just man who is deemed unjust, the unjust man who
has the reputation of justice. The former "will be scourged, racked,
bound, will have his eyes burnt out, and at last, after suffering every
kind of evil, he will be impaled." The latter "bears rule in the city ;
he can marry whom he will, and give in marriage to whom he will ;
also he can trade and deal where he likes, and always to his own
advantage, because he has no misgivings as to injustice ; " and
possesses numerous other similar advantages (Republic, Book ii.,
Jowett's translation). It needs no proof which of these is true to
human nature, or in whom is realized the soul's true harmony.

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 1 07

but that the former is only contrary to our nature, considered
in a partial view, and which takes in only the lowest part of
it, that which we have in common with the brutes, whereas the
latter is contrary to our nature, considered in a higher sense,
as a system and constitution, contrary to the whole economy of
man (a).

(a) Every man in his physical nature is one individual single agent.
He has likewise properties and principles, each of which may be con
sidered separately and without regard to the respects which they have
to each other. Neither of these are the nature we are taking a view
of. But it is the inward frame of man, considered as a system or con
stitution, whose several parts are united, not by a physical principle
of individuation, but by the respects they have to each other ; the
chief of which is the subjection which the appetites, passions, and
particular affections have to the one supreme principle of reflection or
conscience. The system or constitution is formed by, and consists in,
these respects and this subjection. Thus the body is a system or
constitution j so is a tree, so is every machine.3 Consider all the

3 The body ... a tree, a machine. These are each an illustration
of what is meant by a system or constitution, and aid in completing
our notion of human nature as itself such a constitution. We might
place them in an ascending scale ; a machine in which the parts are
adjusted by application of external force and skill ; a tree, which is a
unity in so far as with its branches, etc., it makes one living whole,
but which exhibits little variety or complexity of structure ; a body, in
which this variety and complexity reaches a high pitch of develop
ment, while all the various parts are yet held within the unity of the
organism ; human nature, in which we have a subtlety of distinction
and elaboration of parts unknown in the physical world, and, at the
same time, a unity likewise in these lower stages unknown, the unity
of self-conscious personality or of conscience. So far the • analogy
is helpful. But when Butler proceeds to infer that " some degree
of disorder" must be looked for in such a creature as man, the use of
the figure is questionable. A superiority maintained in a position of
unstable equilibrium, threatened with continual deposition, would be
a very imperfect basis of morality, and would be apt to produce a
scepticism of good that might easily prove productive of tolerance
of evil. To be good, we must have a guarantee that good is; and in
doing good, we must know ourselves the instruments of a good already
perfected. To a good which is already victorious, and has been
wrought out for us, conscience testifies. Thus the commands which
it imposes upon us are at the same time prophecies of their perfect
fulfilment by us, and all our tasks, as we yield to the will of God, are

io8 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

And from all these things put together, nothing can be more
evident than that, exclusive of revelation, man cannot be con
sidered as a creature left by his Maker to act at random, and
live at large up to the extent of his natural power, as passion,
humour, wilfulness happen to carry him, which is the condition
brute creatures are in ; but that, from his make, constitution, or
nature, he is, in the strictest and most proper sense, a law to him
self. He hath the rule of right within ; 4 what is wanting is only
that he honestly attend to it.

several parts of a tree, without the natural respects they have to each
other, and you have not at all the idea of a tree ; but add these
respects and this gives you the idea. The body may be impaired by
sickness, a tree may decay, a machine be out of order, and yet the
system and constitution of them not totally dissolved. There is
plainly somewhat which answers to all this in the moral constitution
of man. Whoever will consider his own nature will see that the
several appetites, passions, and particular affections have different
respects among themselves. They are restraints upon, and are in
proportion to each other. This proportion is just and perfect *when
all those under principles are perfectly coincident with conscience, so
far as their nature permits, and in all cases under its absolute and
entire direction. The least excess or defect, the least alteration of
the due proportions amongst themselves, or of their coincidence with
conscience, though not proceeding into action, is some degree of
disorder in the moral constitution. But perfection, though plainly
intelligible and supposable, was never attained by any man. If the
higher principle of reflection maintains its place, and, as much as it
can, corrects that disorder, and hinders it from breaking out into
action, that is all that can be expected in such a creature as man.
And though the appetites and passions have not their exact due
proportion to each other, though they often strive for mastery with
judgment or reflection ; yet, since the superiority of this principle to
all others is the chief respect which forms the constitution, so far as
this superiority is maintained, the character, the man, is good, worthy,
virtuous.

performed with an infinite energy of good which is destined to obtain
complete fulfilment.

4 The rule of right within. In considering the statement which
Butler here makes, we must remember his theory of the nature of
conscience, whose inadequacy and inconsistency with other and
higher ideas to be found in his writings we have endeavoured to
point out in the Introduction. He regards conscience as a faculty to
be found in man, about which you can say no more than just that it
is there. This faculty provides " the rule of right," and men will do

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 1 09

The inquiries which have been made by men of leisure after
some general rule, the conformity to, or disagreement from which,

right, and be moral and virtuous, if they obey the dictates of this
faculty. He was able, therefore, to regard conscience as an in
dependent authority, competent in its own right to produce virtuous
characters. He could, accordingly, appeal to those who rejected
revelation, and offer to them conscience as of itself sufficient to lead
them into virtue. He says in effect, "You will admit surely that
virtue is the best course of life. Revelation prescribes it ; but
unhappily you do not believe in revelation. Conscience, quite in
dependently of religion, prescribes the same thing. Attend honestly
to what conscience says, and you will attain virtue." We have seen,
however, being taught in part by Butler himself, that this view of
conscience, and of the consequent relation of morality and religion, is
inadequate and misleading. Conscience is not an independent and
self-sufficient faculty, and morality is not an alternative to religion as
a means of producing virtue. Conscience is the faculty, if we like to
put it so, by which we apprehend what is good or right when pre
sented to us as a possible end of action ; and this, when we pursue
it with deliberate intent, secures the satisfaction and harmony of our
being. Or, what is the same thing from the other side, it is the good
witnessing for itself in a nature which was meant for its pursuit.
The highest good for man is the will or purpose of God. Conscience,
therefore, testifies to man regarding the purpose in fulfilling which
man is realizing his true self. " The rule of right " is not " within,"
but without in the will of God. What is right is not determined by
the ipse dixit of an independent faculty which when interrogated will
always give the same oracular responses in all ages and under all
conditions. We learn what we ought to do, just as we learn other
facts, from observation of the various forms in which God reveals His
mind to us. Conscience descends from its proud position as an
infallible teacher, and becomes itself a humble learner in the school of
a divine education. In the education of conscience we may note
three stages or classes, so to speak, (i) The institutions of society,
the sacred rights of life, honour, property, repute, with all the detailed
obligations to which these give rise. We cannot slip this class and
pass at once to some higher department. Admitting and maintain
ing that morality is not sufficient to itself, we must remember that
our higher aims and aspirations will not be justified unless we have
"travelled the common highway of reason — the life of the good
neighbour and honest citizen ; " and we " can never forget " that we are
" still only on a further stage of the same journey " (Green's Introduc
tion to Hume, vol. ii. p. 71). To neglect these things is to obscure
the testimony of conscience, and to make it dumb in the great moral
crises of life. (2) The record of God's special dealings with man
contained in the Bible. Apart from any particular theory of inspira-

no BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

should denominate our actions good or evil, are in many respects
of great service. Yet let any plain, honest man, before he
engages in any course of action, ask himself, Is this I am
going about right, or is it wrong ? 5 Is it good, or is it evil ? I

tion, it will be generally admitted that the history of Israel and the
life of Christ constitute the highest expression of God's purpose for
man. Conscience, therefore, we may boldly say, will be inarticulate
or misleading, save as we read ourselves into the heart of the Bible,
and conform to the "rule of right" therein contained. (3) The
immediate dealing of God's Spirit with the human soul. Of the
forms and occasions of such tuition it is impossible to speak in
general terms. No human being lives who has not been thus
divinely tutored. At such times conscience, the "soul's large
window," is lifted high, and we gaze with open eye into the will
of God. In these ways then is conscience educated, and thus in
formed testifies to us of that good and right which in these ways is
revealed. " The rule of right," to the apprehension of which we are
thus brought, is no imposition from an alien sphere. It is the
revelation of what in ideal truth we are. When apprehended in loyal
obedience, it becomes the energy by which we reach this the goal of
our being. For we are not under law, but under grace.

5 Is this I am going about right, or is it wrong ? Do there really
arise circumstances in which this question could not be answered ?
Do we ever find ourselves inextricably fixed on the horns of a moral
dilemma ? Can there be such a thing as a conscience which finds
itself unable to give a direct and satisfactory decision? In consider
ing the subject of perplexity of conscience, we must be careful to
distinguish cases of apparent from those of real perplexity, (i) There
is one case which Butler has here noted, and which needs only to be
stated to be exposed, viz. " partiality to ourselves." Here the verdict
of conscience is in itself quite clear and distinct, but is opposed by
strong passion or imperious self-interest, which clamorously demands
to be obeyed. This is obviously no genuine perplexity of conscience.
The perplexity is caused by the evil impulse. The worst thing to do
in such a case is to discuss it. This means no more than dallying
with sin and ultimately yielding to it. What an evil conscience will
thus do in an individual case, casuistry seeks to reduce to a system
of universal applicability. Casuistry holds the rule of right to be
embodied in a code containing an elaborate series of regulations.
The sole question which it asks with respect to any possible action
is, Can it be reduced under one or other of these regulations?
Suppose, then, a man wants very much to do something which is
forbidden, or to evade something which is prescribed, in some one of
these rules, the ingenuity of the casuist is devoted to finding some
peculiarity in the circumstances which will permit the act to be
referred to some other rule, according to which permission is granted

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. Ill

do not in the least doubt but that this question would be

to do it or not to do it, as the case may be. The famous Provincial
Letters of Pascal are full of instances of casuistical reasoning by
which lying, thieving, killing, etc., are under certain circumstances
pronounced lawful. (2) Sometimes cases occur in which the clear
testimony of conscience is confronted with some instinct of the soul,
itself true and noble. Such a case is that of Jeanie Deans, in the
Heart of Midlothian. Conscience imposes on her the duty of un
swerving truthfulness. Love to her sister pleads that she ought to
tell one slight falsehood and so save her sister's life. Here there is
genuine perplexity, though still not of conscience. Conscience speaks
calmly and clearly. In such a case we have to note such points as
these : — I. We are in duty bound to take all possible pains to satisfy
the demand of conscience. We must take care that our perplexity
is not really reluctance to undergo the pains of vindicating the right,
a desire to escape trouble by soaring away on wings of sentiment,
instead of climbing the steep path of duty. Jeanie was too honest
to justify falsehood by giving it a fine name. She could not tell
a lie, but she could walk barefoot to London to save her sister.
2. We are to consider whether, in holding to the testimony of con
science, even at the expense of dire consequences to those whom our
instinct teaches us to rescue from all pains and penalties, we are not
in truth seeking their highest welfare. Would it not be better for
them to endure the suffering rather than miss the discipline ? We
are to think, too, not of individuals but of humanity, for whose sake
we are bound to preserve inviolate the conditions of worthy living.
The rigour of Angelo, though falsified by his after conduct, makes
noble justification of itself when Isabella pleads with him to show
mercy :

" I show it most of all, when I show justice ;

For then I pity those I do not know,

Which a dismissed offence would after gall ;

And do him right, that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another."

Measure for Measure, Act ii. Scene 2

(3) " Perplexity of conscience, properly so called, seems always to
arise from conflict between different formulas for expressing the ideal
of good in human conduct, or between different institutions for
furthering its realization, which have alike obtained authority over
men's minds without being intrinsically entitled to more than a
partial and relative obedience ; or from the incompatibility of some
such formula or institution on the one side, with some moral impulse
of the individual on the other, which is really an impulse towards
the attainment of human perfection, but cannot adjust itself to
recognised rules and established institutions" (Green's Prolegomena,
p. 342. The whole chapter is a masterly exposition of the function
of conscience, and contains the soundest and loftiest ethical teaching).

ii2 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

answered agreeably to truth and virtue by almost any fair man in
almost any circumstance. Neither do there appear any cases which

A man may be perplexed as to whether he is to obey the Church or
the State when their commands conflict, both of which claim an
absolute, though entitled only to a relative, obedience. Or he may be
perplexed as to whether he is to obey either Church or State when
against one or other of them his convictions of right rise in revolt.
In all this there is no conflict of duty. Duty under all circumstances
is always one. He is perplexed to know what his duty is. Whence
shall light arise upon his darkness? No categorical answer is
possible. Life would lose its moral significance if there were some
oracle which could take the task of decision in such cases out of our
hands altogether. We are prepared for such crises by faithfulness to
plain duty maintained habitually. Obedience is the organ of moral
no less than of spiritual enlightenment. "The only safeguard of
virtue is the healthy prompting of a nature accustomed to act rightly,
and sincerely desirous of doing so" (Mackintosh, Christ and the
Jewish Law, p. 48. The whole chapter, entitled " Christ's criticism
of the Pharisees," is helpful in studying the effects of all external
systems of ethics). To the question, " How am I to know what is
right? the answer must be, By the otieQwrt; of the (ppoytpos "
(Bradley^ Ethical Studies, p. 177) ; and the (ppovipos is the man
who has learned God's will by habitually doing it. The man who is
thus educated by obedience has reached a standpoint from which he
can estimate the value of the authorities that claim his submission.
He can distinguish between them when they compete, as the Roman
Catholics of England did in the great Armada conflict, when they
fought for the Queen against the Pope. He can even transgress
them in name of a higher authority, whose voice he has heard behind
him saying, This is the way, as when those oppressed have risen
against their oppressors. The highest vindication of such rebellion
against authority is when the principle which inspired the revolt
becomes the authority of the generation following. Thus the ideal
of truth grows from age to age, the authority, which was for a time
its expression, becoming its tyrant, till those who know and love the
truth set it free to express itself in higher and fuller forms.

There is no such thing, therefore, as an ultimate perplexity of
conscience. Conscience will always testify to the highest good. But
if we are to hear its deliverances aright, and not to mingle with them
the importunities of desire or the impetuosities of self-will, we must
have learned always to prefer the good, and in the manifold details
of life to do the will of God. It is on such presupposition of habitual
obedience that we can trust our heart, and say with the hero whom
Wordsworth has idealized, —

" That tells me what to do."

Rob Roy's Grave.

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 113

look like exceptions to this, but those of superstition and of par
tiality to ourselves. Superstition may, perhaps, be somewhat of an
exception ; but partiality to ourselves is not ; this being itself dis
honesty. For a man to judge that to be the equitable, the moderate,
right part for him to act, which he would see to be hard, unjust,
oppressive in another ; this is plain vice, and can proceed only
from great unfairness of mind. But, allowing that mankind
hath the rule of right within himself, yet it may be asked, " What
obligations are we under 6 to attend and follow it ? " I answer :
it has been proved, that man by his nature is a law to himself,
without the particular distinct consideration of the positive
sanctions of that law ; the rewards and punishments 7 which we

6 What obligations are we under ? The mere statement of this
question makes us feel instinctively that it ought not to be put.
Morality we feel is an end in itself. It must be pursued for its own
sake. If we performed an action, in itself good, for the sake of some
result which was not in itself good, we could claim no credit for the
doing of it. It would not be, so far as we are concerned, a virtuous
action. But underlying the question, "Why must I do what is
right ? " there is the unexpressed theory that we can be induced or
compelled to do what is right only on grounds that lie outside the
consideration of what is right ; or, what comes to the same thing,
that morality has a claim upon us only as a means to some end
beyond itself. And this our moral sense resents as a degradation of
morality. The man who should ask, " What good shall I get, or
what evil shall I escape, by being moral ? " we should see had not
reached a truly moral standpoint, even if we did not already suspect
him of being immoral. The only question we can legitimately put is,
"What is the end proposed in morality?" And this is the question
of the first efforts of the human spirit as it seeks a practical solution
to the problem of life. The question is, " What is the chief end of
man ? " That determined, there is no further question of " Why ? "

7 Eewards and punishments. Butler here denies that the motives
for observing the rule of right are the rewards and punishments
annexed to it. The theory which asserts what Butler here denies is
to be found in the moral system of Paley (1743-1805). Virtue,
according to his well-known definition, is " the doing good to man
kind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting
happiness." The law or rule of right, accordingly, is the will of God,
and the motive for obedience to it is derived from consideration of
the rewards and punishments which are annexed to it, and which are
bestowed in a future state. He asks precisely the question which we
have just seen ought not to be put, and in a particular instance
discusses the question, "Why am I obliged to keep my word?"
The answer to which is, in accordance with his conception of virtue,

H

1 14 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

feel, and those which, from the light of reason, we have ground
to believe are annexed to it. The question, then, carries its own
answer along with it. Your obligation to obey 8 this law, is its

" The pains and penalties which would be inflicted on me if I broke
it, the reward held out to me if I kept it." This brutally plain appeal
to the lowest and most selfish motives strikes us at once as most
repulsive and utterly false to the character of God and the facts of
human nature. Besides, if pressed as the sole reason why we should
be moral, it leaves the whole basis of morality in a most precarious
state. Suppose a man — and he would not be an ignoble man either,
such an one as the Gothic chief who refused Christian baptism when
he heard his heathen ancestors were in hell, saying he would not be
separated from the heroes of his race — were to defy the whole scheme
of reward and punishment, and say, " I care nothing for your heaven,
and I will risk your hell rather than do the things required in your
law ; " what more have you to say to him, what further appeal to
urge? You have played your last card, and he walks away the
victor. Of course this is no proof that there are not rewards and
punishments in a future state. But it is sufficient proof that they
cannot be made the sole motives for righteousness. Rewards and
punishments are indeed the illustration in the sphere of after event
of what right and wrong in themselves inherently are. Penalty is
not arbitrarily attached to sin, but is its inevitable recoil upon the
sinner's head. It cannot therefore be used as a mere threat, " Take
carej or — ; " it can only be used as an exhibition to the sinner of
what his sin is ; i.e. penalty must always be conceived in reference to
the moral consciousness of man, and never in relation to his mere
selfish instinct for avoiding unpleasant consequences. Terror is,
indeed, used in Scripture as an argument, but it is the terror of the
Lord, the dread of trespassing the law of eternal right, not the
coward fear of torment. The whole passage in which the phrase
occurs is as far removed as possible from appeal to baser feelings,
and is thoroughly ethical : " Knowing therefore the terror of the
Lord, we persuade men ; but we are made manifest unto God ; and
I trust also are made manifest in your consciences" (2 Cor. v. 11).
The same passage has also higher motives still : " The love of Christ
constraineth us" (ver. 14) ; and " if any man be in Christ, he is a new
creature" (ver. 17). The terror of violated right, the love of the
redeemed, the ambition of the renewed will, determined on achieving
God's own ideal for man, form an ascending scale of motive leading
towards holy living.

8 Your obligation to obey. Whence then comes the obligation to
obey, if not from the rewards and punishments annexed to the rule of
right ? Butler answers, from the rule itself. It carries its obligation
with it. Authenticated as it is by the facts of human nature, it comes
to us with an authority which is ultimate and unquestionable. It

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 115

being the law of your nature. That your conscience approves of
and attests to such a course of action, is itself alone an obliga
tion. Conscience does not only offer itself to show us the way
we should walk in, but it likewise carries its own authority with
it, that it is our natural guide, the guide assigned us by the

remains for us to follow the path of duty thus indicated, steep and
rough though it be, with no sidelong glances at some by-way which
might conduct to ends of pleasure without seeming to deviate to a
dangerous extent from the straight line of right. Such language as
Butler here uses rings true, and stands in noble contrast to the
constant quest for motive which characterizes a different school of
ethical teachers. Every loyal heart responds to the sentiment that
we must do our duty for duty's sake, asking no question about self-
interest. It is possible, however, so to state this principle as to
involve ourselves in a onesidedness the opposite of that criticised in
the preceding note ; and perhaps a lurking sense of this led Butler
to his vindication of the identity of virtue and self-interest which
occupies the concluding sections of this Sermon, and which jars on
us after the purity and loftiness of his last utterances. On the one
side is the theory mentioned above, which traces all ethical motive to
individual pleasure and pain. On the other is the theory of Butler,
which is very much that of Kant in a later day, which declares that
action alone to be good which is done under the sheer sense of a categori
cal imperative, " Thou shalt," " Thou shalt not." Rigorously carried
out, this would end in a gloomy asceticism, whose sole attitude towards
the right is that of awe and dread, and which seeks to expel from
the motives of action all taint of delight, and to reduce them to the
one principle of fear. Hence, as has been pointed out, follows the
ridiculous consequence that, properly speaking, we can never be said
to do right, except when we do it reluctantly and against our will.
We rise above both these abstract theories, when we ask what is the
right whose command, intimated to us by conscience, we are bound
to obey ? The answer to which Butler himself, in the Sermons to
which reference has been made in the Introduction, conducts us, is
that good will or love of God which has created the sphere in which
we achieve the ideal of our nature, with its ever widening circles of
interest, the family, civil society, the state, and whatever wider
domain of action is open to man. This, then, comes to us with the
stern imperative of law only when it remains above, beyond, or
against us, something with which we are not yet thoroughly at one.
When, however, we do surrender to it heart and soul, it is no longer
an external force operative against our will ; it is an inner impulse
with which our wills are one, whose operation is the joy of our whole
being. The Cross of Christ, when taken up in the same spirit of self-
denial in which He bore it to Calvary, becomes for us, through His
grace, a yoke that is easy, a burden that is light.

n6 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

author of our nature. It therefore belongs to our condition of
being : it is our duty to walk in that path, and follow this guide,
without looking about to see whether we may not possibly
forsake them with impunity. However, let us hear what is to be
said against obeying this law of our nature. And the sum is no
more than this : " Why should we be concerned 9 about any
thing out of and beyond ourselves ? If we do find within our
selves regards to others, and restraints of we know not how
many different kinds ; yet these being embarrassments, and
hindering us from going the nearest way to our own good, why
should we not endeavour to suppress and get over them ? "

Thus people go on with words, which, when applied to
human nature, and the condition in which it is placed in this
world, have really no meaning. For does not all this kind of
talk go upon supposition that our happiness in this world con
sists in somewhat quite distinct from regards to others, and that
it is the privilege of vice to be without restraint10 or confinement ?

9 Why should we be concerned. It is just possible, as has been
remarked above, that Butler feared lest his claim for virtue might
seem too high, abstract, and superhuman. Certainly it was a claim
which the votaries of pleasure would be little likely to acknowledge.
He may therefore have thought it incumbent upon him, as a moral
teacher, not to alienate if possible even the pleasure -seekers. He
endeavours accordingly, in these closing sections, to show that, after
all, virtue carries off the palm from all competitors as a mean toward
pleasure. It is, to say the least, a very precarious attempt, as much
so in success as in failure. Far better to allow virtue to defend itself,
and to leave the discovery of the satisfaction which it affords to those
who are willing to sacrifice all to this service, without pausing to
reflect that they will lose little or nothing by their decision. In the
words of a modern essayist, " We shall do well, I think, to avoid all
praises of the pleasantness of virtue. We may believe that it tran
scends all possible delights of vice, but it would be well to remember
that we desert a moral point of view, that we degrade and prosti
tute virtue, when to those who do not love her for herself, we bring
ourselves to recommend her for the sake of her pleasures. Against
the base mechanical fiavavoioi, which meets us on all sides, with its
'what is the use' of goodness, beauty, or truth, there is but one fitting
answer from the friends of science, or art, or religion and virtue, ' We do
not know, and we do not care'" (Bradley *s Ethical Studies, p. 57).

10 Privilege of vice to be without restraint. In the first place,
accordingly, Butler supposes the friends of pleasure to ask, "Why
should we submit to the restraints of virtue ? Why should we not
seek what we wish untrammelled by any restrictions?" To this

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 1 17

Whereas, on the contrary, the enjoyments, in a manner all the

Butler answers in effect, " If the question be of restraint, there is as
much restraint in vice as in virtue. The truth is, absolute freedom
from restraint is for us impossible, constituted as we are. Whatever
end we seek, even though it be a purely selfish one, we must submit
to the restraint of certain means. And it frequently happens that
unrestrained gratification of desire so obviously entails direful con
sequences, that even a wicked man will decline to pay such price for
liberty." Thus to defend virtue by the argument that it involves no
more restraint than vice, is, however, too low ground to take. A
truer answer might have been found by further consideration of what
freedom really means, and by properly distinguishing between liberty
and licence. If freedom means negation of restraint, then freedom
never was. Strip a man of all restraint, and what you have left is
something about which you can make no moral affirmation. It is
neither good nor bad, because moral action is impossible to it. Infamy
and honour, as Butler well observes, ambition, covetousness, the
disgrace of poverty, the reputation of riches, would, the one as little
as the other, evoke response ; for it would be deaf and blind to the
moral world in which men live and move and have their being. The
attempt to be free in this sense, therefore, would amount to an
endeavour after spiritual suicide. A man is what he is through the
relations in which he is situated, as father, brother, friend, etc. He
attains the ideal of his being, the determined purpose of God for him,
when, surrendering his private will, he lives in and for these relation
ships ; and then and then only is he free. As long as he resents
them and withholds from them his service, they are limits and restraints
of the most irksome kind. When, however, he accepts them and
makes his own the divine purpose expressed in them, they become
the conditions at once of his highest attainment and of his freedom.
Licence, therefore, when it breaks these bonds, and sets forth in the
career of self-will, is so far from being the freedom whose name it
vauntingly bears, that it is already inherently the opposite of freedom,
the bondage of the spirit, the effectual barrier in the way of all true
attainment ; and this it will soon exhibit in the sphere of outward
event, and will even in the eyes of the world terminate in the bondage
it claimed to have destroyed. The highest answer to Butlers
supposed antagonists is that true freedom is to be found in the
pursuit of virtue alone.

' ' Lucio. Why, how now, Claudio ? whence comes this restraint ?
Claudia. From too much liberty, my Lucio, liberty ;
As surfeit is the father of much fast,
So every scope by the immoderate use
Turns to restraint : Our natures do pursue
(Like rats that ravin down their proper bane)
A thirsty evil, and when we drink we die."

Measure for Measure, Act i. Scene 3.

n8 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

common enjoyments of life, even the pleasures of vice, depend
upon these regards of one kind or another to our fellow-creatures.
Throw off all regards to others, and we should be quite indifferent
to infamy and to honour : there could be no such thing at all
as ambition, and scarce any such thing as covetousness ; for we
should likewise be equally indifferent to the disgrace of poverty,
the several neglects and kinds of contempt which accompany
this state, and to the reputation of riches, the regard and
respect they usually procure. Neither is restraint by any
means peculiar to one course of life; but our very nature,
exclusive of conscience, and our condition, lays us under an
absolute necessity of it. We cannot gain any end whatever
without being confined to the proper means, which is often the
most painful and uneasy confinement. And, in numberless
instances, a present appetite cannot be gratified without such
apparent and immediate ruin and misery, that the most dissolute
man in the world chooses to forego the pleasure than endure the
pain.

Is the meaning, then, to indulge those regards to our fellow-
creatures, and submit to those restraints which, upon the whole,
are attended with more satisfaction than uneasiness, and get over
only those which bring more uneasiness and inconvenience than
satisfaction ? " Doubtless this was our meaning." n You have

11 Doubtless this was our meaning. Butler now, in the second place,
supposes his antagonist to contend that he did not mean to cast off
all restraint, but simply to choose such course of action as should be
attended with the least inconvenience and the greatest satisfaction.
" Precisely," says Butler, " that is what I wish you to do ; and the
course of action which yields the greatest satisfaction is virtue." It
has already been pointed out, that to make the advantages attendant
on virtue the chief argument for its pursuit, is a very precarious vindi
cation of its claims. As a statement of fact, however, Butler's remarks
in this section are unexceptionable. It is quite true that rage, envy, and
restraint are productive of misery ; compassion and benevolence of a
very pure delight ; that riches and power yield no such satisfaction
as justice, honesty, charity ; that virtue and a good mind spread
a peace through the soul unknown to the ambitious and the covetous.
It is most certain that vice is a hard taskmaster, under whose
thraldom many a sinner is groaning, hating the fetters he has fastened
on his soul ; while virtue, especially when it has become that habit
which is a second, and, in this case, our true nature, is the very ease
and energy of our being. These are aspects of the subject upon which
it is impossible to lay too much emphasis ; provided always it be

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 119

changed sides, then. — Keep to this : be consistent with your
selves, and you and the men of virtue are, in general, perfectly
agreed. But let us take care, and avoid mistakes. Let it not
be taken for granted that the temper of envy, rage, resentment,
yields greater delight than meekness, forgiveness, compassion, and
goodwill : especially when it is acknowledged that rage, envy,
resentment, are in themselves mere misery ; and the satisfaction
arising from the indulgence of them is little more than relief
from that misery; whereas the temper of compassion and
benevolence is itself delightful; and the indulgence of it, by
doing good, affords new positive delight and enjoyment. Let
it not be taken for granted that the satisfaction arising from
the reputation of riches and power, however obtained, and
from the respect paid to them, is greater than the satisfaction
arising from the reputation of justice, honesty, charity, and the
esteem which is universally acknowledged to be their due.
And if it be doubtful which of these satisfactions is the
greatest, as there are persons who think neither of them very
considerable, yet there can be no doubt concerning ambition and
covetousness, virtue, and a good mind, considered in themselves,
and as leading to different courses of life ; there can, I say, be
no doubt which temper and which course is attended with most
peace and tranquillity of mind, which with most perplexity,
vexation, and inconvenience. And both the virtues and vices
which have been now mentioned, do in a manner equally imply
in them regards of one kind or another to our fellow-creatures.
And with respect to restraint and confinement, whoever will

understood we are not thereby endeavouring to recommend virtue to
those who do not love her, as children are coaxed to swallow medicine
by promise of abundant sweets. We may admit that even in the
world duty seldom clashes with interest, honesty being, if we are to
believe what we are told, the best policy. We most distinctly hold
that, in the highest sense, duty and interest, man's best interest, are
one. The use of this truth, however, is 'not to bribe the immoral to
abandon their evil ways. Their case is not simply that of those who
have made a mistake. Vice is more than a blunder ; it is a crime.
To those who gaze upon her with reluctance, virtue wears the stern
aspect of law, and offers nothing as consolation for abandonment of
vice. To those who fall at her feet in reverence, she reveals herself
in gracious guise of Love, and bestows her treasures of peace and joy
freely upon those who, expecting nothing in return, give up all
for her. " Seekyfrj/ the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and
all these things shall be added unto you."

120 BUTLERS THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN NATURE.

consider the restraints from fear and shame, the dissimulation,
mean arts of concealment, servile compliances, one or other of
which belong to almost every course of vice, will soon be con
vinced that the man of virtue is by no means upon a disadvantage
in this respect. How many instances are there in which men
feel, and own, and cry aloud under the chains of vice with which
they are enthralled, and which yet they will not shake off ! How
many instances in which persons manifestly go through more
pain and self-denial to gratify a vicious passion than would have
been necessary to the conquest of it ! To this is to be added
that when virtue is become habitual, when the temper of it is
acquired, what was before confinement ceases to be so by be
coming choice and delight. Whatever restraint and guard upon
ourselves may be needful to unlearn any unnatural distortion or
odd gesture, yet in all propriety of speech, natural behaviour
must be the most easy and unrestrained. It is manifest that in
the common course of life there is seldom any inconsistency
between our duty and what is called interest ; it is much seldomer
that there is an inconsistency between duty and what is really
our present interest, meaning by interest, happiness and satis
faction. Self-love, then, though confined to the interests of the
present world, does in general perfectly coincide with virtue,
and leads us to one and the same course of life. But, whatever
exceptions there are to this, which are much fewer than they
are commonly thought, all shall be set right 12 at the final distri-

13 All shall be set right. The connection between a virtuous life
and "the hope of glory" is one which lies on the borderland between
morality and religion. All ethical teachers who have dealt profoundly
with their subject, have felt that its issues led into another world than
that of space and time, and have endeavoured in various ways to
trace the connecting lines between the two. Plato found that the
mighty distinctions of good and evil, justice and injustice, are not
sufficiently emphasized in ar^y finite experiences ; and thus in the
closing sections of the Republic seeks to find more adequate expres
sion for them in the judgment of another world. The Myth or
Vision of Er touches the highest point of Greek speculation, and in
beauty of form and depth of thought is worthy to be placed beside the
dream of him who followed Virgil through the shades. It ends
in these memorable words : " Wherefore my counsel is, that we
hold fast to the heavenly way, and follow after justice and virtue
always, considering that the soul is immortal, and able to endure
every sort of good and every sort of evil. Thus shall we live, dear to
one another and to the gods, both while remaining here, and when,

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 12 I

bution of things. It is a manifest absurdity to suppose evil
prevailing finally over good under the conduct and administration
of a perfect mind.

like conquerors in the games who go round to gather gifts, we
receive our reward. And it shall be well with us both in this life and
in the pilgrimage of a thousand years which we have been reciting."
The idea which the Greek found necessary to complete his system,
could scarcely be absent from theories that have felt the influence of
Christianity. Two forms of the connection between immortality and
virtue may be noticed : (i) That of Butler, in this place ; according to
which immortality is required to allow of the good man attaining
perfect happiness ; and (2) That of Kant, according to which im
mortality is required to allow of the man who wishes to be good
attaining perfect goodness. Neither theory can be regarded as
satisfactory. On Butler's theory, the happiness of a future state is
one of the incidental advantages of virtue. Even if interest should
not in this life be evidently on the side of virtue, this will be evident
afterwards, and the virtuous man will find himself in the position of a
successful speculator who has held on to his stock while others were
selling off, and now after a sudden and unexpected " rise" awakes a
millionaire, while they are bankrupt. But thus to present virtue as a
prosperous investment is to degrade its purity, and is beneath the
level of Butler's plainest teaching. Kant's theory is more profound,
and is at least not liable to this objection. The difficulty here lies as
to the nature of morality and the conditions of moral experience. If
it were possible for the individual confronted with the imperative of
duty ever fully to comply with its demands, and thus by unaided
effort to attain the goal of perfect righteousness ; then, in the case of
persons of sufficient strength of purpose, ij; would be enough to give
them ample time in order that they might reach the end of their
endeavour; and Kant's doctrine of immortality would stand. If,
however, this is not the case, — if from the point of view of mere
morality the moral life is an endless conflict between the command
of law and the revolt of passion, — if the goal of achieved goodness be
by the very statement of the terms of its pursuit an impossibility, —
then the matter is not mended by the most liberal allowance of time ;
and even endless time would be insufficient for the purpose. We are
therefore forced back to the question which, both in the Introduction
and in these Notes, has forced itself in various forms upon us, viz.
How is morality possible ? What is the true basis of Ethics ? The
answer, to which we have been conducted as it seems to us inevitably
by every pathway of reflection, is that morality grounds itself on
religion, which offers to us at the beginning what mere morality
faintly hopes for in the end, and that AVC can hope to live the moral
life only from the standpoint of a union, already effected through
surrender, between us and the will which is to be done in earth as in

122 BUTLER'S THREE SERMONS ON HUMAN MATURE.

The whole argument which I have been now insisting upon,
may be thus summed up and given you in one view. The
nature of man is adapted to some course of action or other.
Upon comparing some actions with this nature, they appear
suitable and correspondent to it ; from comparison of other
actions with the same nature, there arises to our view some
unsuitableness or disproportion. 'The correspondence of actions

heaven. A new view of the connection between immortality and
virtue now emerges. The connection is seen to be twofold, (i)
It appears at the starting-point of the moral life. That starting-
point is reconciliation, the union of our individual finite being with
the infinite and eternal being of God. When, dying to self, we rise in
Christ into newness of life, the life which we now possess is already
eternal, for He is the resurrection and the life. We can be virtuous,
therefore, only because ours in Christ is an eternal life. The notion of
time prolonged into endlessness disappears. Quantity gives way to
quality. We hope to achieve goodness because there works within
us the energy of a goodness that is infinite and unfailing. We may
say with Kant that we need eternity to make us good ; but it is an
eternity that is present and not merely the possibility of a hereafter.
(2) It appears at the goal of the experience which is limited to space
and time. We are under a discipline of incompleteness. As we lift
the broken threads of our life, we cry in great yearning for a time
when even these shall be woven into harmony. The literature of the
world is full of this cry, which is indeed but the earnest expectation of
the creature waiting for the manifestation of the sons of God. This,
which is the inarticulate prophecy of all pain and sorrow, is the
revelation of God in Christ. The completeness longed for is in
God's eternally finished purpose, and therefore shall be even in the
experience of these throbbing hearts. How perfect shall be the
attainment, how full and detailed the explanation, who shall say?
Browning, mourning over a fair life cut short, can say,

" But the time will come,— at last it will,

When, Evelyn Hope, what meant (1 shall say)
In the lower earth, in the years long still,

That body and soul so pure and gay ?
Why your hair was amber, I shall divine,

And your mouth of your own geranium's red,
And what you would do with me, in fine,

In the new life come in the old one's stead."

And not only physical beauty thus early blighted, but plans nobly
formed, tasks taken up in heroic self-denial, characters opening in
divine proportions, all things fair and goocf, which here have been left
broken and incomplete, shall then receive their interpretation and
fulfilment. Priceless is such " sure and certain hope." It stimulates

SERMON III. — UPON HUMAN NATURE. 123

to the nature of the agent renders them natural ; their dispro
portion to it, unnatural. That an action is correspondent to
the nature of the agent, does not arise from its being agree
able to the principle which happens to be the strongest; for
it may be so, and yet be quite disproportionate to the
nature of the agent The correspondence, therefore, or dis
proportion, arises from somewhat else. This can be nothing
but a difference in nature and kind (altogether distinct from
strength) between the inward principles. Some, then, are in
nature and kind superior to others. And the correspondence
arises from the action being conformable to the higher prin
ciple, and the unsuitableness from its being contrary to it.
Reasonable self-love and conscience are the chief or superior
principles in the nature of man, because an action may be suit
able to this nature, though all other principles be violated, but
becomes unsuitable if either of those are. Conscience and self-
love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the
same way. — Duty and interest are perfectly coincident ; for the
most part in this world, but entirely, and in every instance, if
we take in the future, and the whole ; this being implied in the
notion of a good and perfect administration of things. Thus,
they who have been so wise in their generation as to regard only
their own supposed interest at the expense and to the injury of
others, shall at last find that he who has given up all the ad
vantages of the present world rather than violate his conscience
and the relations of life, has infinitely better provided for himself,'
and secured his own interest and happiness.

our energies that flag under strain of unrewarded toil and depression
of continued disappointment. We feel that we can, and

1 ' Must still believe, for still we hope
That, in a world of larger scope,
What here is faithfully begun
Will be completed, not undone."

It shines above us as the morning star, amid deepest consciousness
of personal shortcoming and unworthiness. " It doth not yet appear
what we shall be ; but we know that when He shall appear we shall
be like Him, for we shall see Him as he is. And every man that hath
this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure."

THE END.

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4 The tone is reverent, the style is clear, the reasoning is careful. Its
capital type will recommend it to the weary sight of some to whom the 4< land
of distances " is no longer the land that is very far off.' — Church Bells.

4 Dr. Hamilton endeavours to tell in plain and popular language all that the
Bible reveals about the other life. The tone of the book is admirable ;
devout and modest throughout.' — London Quarterly Review.

T. and T. Claris Publications.

WORKS BY PROF. FRANZ DELITZSCH, P.P.

Just published, in 2 Vols., demy 8vo, price 21s.,

A NEW COMMENTARY ON GENESIS.

" Thirty-five years have elapsed since Prof. Delitzsch's Commentary on
Genesis first appeared ; fifteen years since the fourth edition was published in
1872. Ever in the van of historical and philological research, the venerable
author now comes forward with another fresh edition, in which he incorporates
what fifteen years have achieved for illustration and criticism of the text of
Genesis. . . . We congratulate Prof. Delitzsch on this new edition. By it,
not less than by his other Commentaries, he has earned the gratitude of every
lover of Biblical science, and we shall be surprised if, in the future, many do
not acknowledge that they have found in it a welcome help and guide.'—
Professor S. E. DRIVER in The Academy.

' Marked, like all others of the author's writings, by an undercurrent of
deep spirituality, which again and again comes to the surface in a full wave of
enthusiastic utterance.' — Record.

' By far the most learned Commentary on Genesis existing in the English,
and probably in any, language.' — Rock.

' The work of a reverent mind and a sincere believer ; and not seldom there
are touches of great beauty and of deep spiritual insight in it. The learning,
it is needless to say, is very wide and comprehensive.' — Guardian.

In crown 8vo, price 4s. 6d.,

OLD TESTAMENT HISTORY OF REDEMPTION.

' Few who will take the trouble to look into it will not readily acknowledge
that it is not only a masterly work, such as few men, if any, besides the
Leipzig professor could give, but that there is nothing to be compared with it
as a handbook for students." — Literary World.

In One Volume, 8vo, price 12s.,

A SYSTEM OF BIBLICAL PSYCHOLOGY.

'This admirable volume ought to be carefully read by every thinking
clergyman.' — Literary Churchman.

' An excellent work, clearly written, full of thought, rich in illustration, and
giving a most accurate view of the different parts which constitute our
nature.' — Churchman.

In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.,

COMMENTARY ON THE EPISTLE TO THE
HEBREWS.

KEIL AND DELITZSCH'S

COMMENTARIES ON, AND INTRODUCTION TO,
THE OLD TESTAMENT.

This Series (published in Clark's Foreign Theological Library) is now
completed in Twenty-seven Volumes, price £7, 2s. nett. Any Eight Volumes
are now supplied for £2, 2s., or more at same ratio.

Separate Volumes may be had, price 10s. Qd. each.

« Very high merit for thorough Hebrew scholarship, and for keen critical
sagacity, belongs to these Old Testament Commentaries. No scholar will
willingly dispense with them.'— British Quarterly Review.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

NEW WORK BY PROFESSOR DELITZSCH.

Just published, in post 8vo, price 6s.,

IRIS:

•Studies m Colour anti Calkg about Jlofoers.

BY PROFESSOR FEANZ DELITZSCH, D.D.
TRANSLATED BY EEV. ALEXANDER OUSIN, M.A., EDINBURGH.

CONTENTS:— CHAP. I. The Blue of the Sky.— II. Black and White.—
III. Purple and Scarlet. — IV. Academic Official Eobes and their Colours.
—V. The Talmud and Colours.— VI. Gossip about Flowers and their
Perfume.— VII. A Doubtful Nosegay.— VIII. The Flower-Kiddle of the
, Queen of Sheba.— IX. The Bible and Wine.— X. Dancing and Criticism
of the Pentateuch as mutually related. — XI. Love and Beauty. — XII.
Eternal Life : Eternal Youth.

EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE.

' The subjects of the following papers are old pet children, which have
grown up with me ever since I began to feel and think. ... I have collected
them here under the emblematical name of IRIS. The prismatic colours of
the rainbow, the brilliant sword-lily, that wonderful part of the eye which
gives to it its colour, and the messenger of heaven who beams with joy,
youth, beauty, and love, are all named Iris. The varied contents of my book
stand related on all sides to that wealth of ideas which are united in this
name.'— FRANZ DELITZSCH.

' A series of delightful lectures. . . . The pages sparkle with a gem-like
light. The thoughts on the varied subjects touched upon fascinate and
interest ; their mode of expression is full of beauty.'— Scotsman.

Now ready, SECOND EDITION, crown 8vo, price 6s.,

THE L OR D'S P R A Y E R:

& practical imitation,

BY EEV. NEWMAN HALL, LL.D.

CRITICAL NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION.

' Its devotional element is robust and practical. The thought is not thin,
and the style is clear. Thoroughly readable ; enriched by quotations and
telling illustrations.' — The Churchman.

Dr. THEODORE CUTLER, of Brooklyn, writes: — ' His keen and discriminating
spiritual insight insures great accuracy, and imparts a priceless value to the
work. ... It is the very book to assist ministers of the gospel in the study
of the Model Prayer; it is equally stimulating and quickening to private
Christians in their quiet hours of meditation and devotion.'

Mr. 0. H. SPURGEON writes: — 'Evangelical and practical through and
through. . . . Many sparkling images and impressive passages adorn the
pages ; but everywhere practical usefulness has been pursued.'

Dr. REYNOLDS, President of Cheshunt College, writes: — 'Not only range
but also depth of research. Some of the deepest questions of philosophical
theology are discussed with keen insight and admirable temper. Much
thought is compressed into small space, and even into few words, which burn
oftentimes with white heat.'

' The author's well-known catholicity, evangelical fervour, and firm
adherence to evangelical principles, are conspicuous features of this really
stimulating and suggestive exposition. An amount of freshness which is
wonderful.'— Christian.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

WORKS BY PROFESSOR A. B. BRUCE, P.P.

In demy 8vo, Fourth Edition, price 10s. 6d.,

THE TRAINING OF THE TWELVE;

OR,

EXPOSITION OF PASSAGES IN THE GOSPELS EXHIBITING

THE TWELVE DISCIPLES OP JESUS UNDER

DISCIPLINE FOR THE APOSTLESHIP.

BY A. B. BRUCE, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF DIVINITY, FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW.

' Here we have a really great book on an important, large, and attractive
subject — a book full of loving, wholesome, profound thoughts about the
fundamentals of Christian faith and practice.'— British and Foreign Evangelical

It is some five or six years since this work first made its appearance, and
now that a second edition has been called for, the author has taken the oppor
tunity to make some alterations which are likely to render it still more accept
able. Substantially, however, the book remains the same, and the hearty
commendation with which we noted its first issue applies to it at least as much
now.' — Rock.

' A great book, full of suggestion and savour. It should be the companion
of the minister, for the theme is peculiarly related to himself, and he would
find it a very pleasant and profitable companion, for its author has filled it
with good matter.' — Mr. SPURGEON in Sword and Trowel.

' A more wise, scholarly, and more helpful book has not been published
for many years past.' — Wesleyan Methodist Magazine.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

In demy 8vo, Third Edition, price 10s. 6d.,

THE HUMILIATION OF CHRIST,

IN ITS PHYSICAL, ETHICAL, AND OFFICIAL ASPECTS.
SIXTH SERIES OF CUNNINGHAM LECTURES.

' These lectures are able and deep-reaching to a degree not often found in
the religious literature of the day ; withal, they are fresh and suggestive. . . .
The learning and the deep and sweet spirituality of this discussion will com
mend it to many faithful students of the truth as it is in Jesus.' — Congrega-
tionalist.

' We have not for a long time met with a work so fresh and suggestive as
this of Professor Bruce. . . . We do not know -where to look at our English
Universities for a treatise so calm, logical, and scholarly.' — English Independent.

' The title of the book gives but a faint conception of the value and wealth
of its contents. . . . Dr. Bruce's work is really one of exceptional value ; and
no one can read it without perceptible gain in theological knowledge.' —
English Churchman.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

NEW WORK BY PROFESSOR A. B. BRUCE, P.P.

Just published, in post 8vo, price 7s. 6d.,

THE KINGDOM OF GOD;

OE, CHEIST'S TEACHING ACCOEDING TO THE
SYNOPTICAL GOSPELS.

BY A. B. BRUCE, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF NEW TESTAMENT EXEGESIS IN THE
FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW.

CONTENTS : — Critical Introduction. — CHAP. I. Christ's Idea of the King
dom. — II. Christ's Attitude towards the Mosaic Laws. — III. The
Conditions of Entrance. — IV. Christ's Doctrine of God. — V. Christ's
Doctrine of Man. — VI. The Eelation of Jesus to Messianic Hopes and
Functions.— VII. The Son of Man and the Son of God.— VIII. The
Eighteousness of the Kingdom— Negative Aspect. — IX. The Eight-
eousness of the Kingdom — Positive Aspect. — X. The Death of Jesus
and its Significance. — XL The Kingdom and the Church. — XII. The
Parousia and the Christian Era.— XIII. The History of the Kingdom
in Outline.— XIV. The End.— XV. The Christianity of Christ.— Index.

Just published, SECOND EDITION, crown 8vo, price 6s. (Eevised throughout),

STUDIES IN THE CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES.

BY REV. ALEXANDER MAIR, D.D.

PRESS NOTICES OF THE FIRST EDITION.

' Dr. Mair has made an honest study of Strauss, Eenan, Keim, and "Super
natural Eeligion," and his book is an excellent one to put into the hands of
doubters and inquirers.'— English Churchman^

' Will in every way meet the wants of the class for whom it is intended,
many of whom are " wayworn and sad," amid the muddled speculations of
the current day.' — Ecclesiastical Gazette.

' This book ought to become immensely popular. . . . That one chapter-
on " The Unique Personality of Christ" is a masterpiece of eloquent writing,
though it is scarcely fair to mention one portion where every part is excellent.
The beauties of the volume are everywhere apparent, and therefore will
again attract the mind that has been once delighted with the literary feast.
— The Rock.

' An admirable popular introduction to the study of the evidences. . . .
Dr. Mair has made each line of evidence his own, and the result is a
distinctly fresh and living book. The style is robust and manly ; the treat
ment of antagonists is eminently fair; and we discern throughout a soldierly
straightness of aim.'— The Baptist.

T. and T. ClarTe's Publications.

PROFESSOR GODET'S WORKS.

(Copyright, by arrangement with the Author.)

Just published, in Two Volumes, demy 8vo, price 21s.,

COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S FIRST EPISTLE
TO THE CORINTHIANS.

BY F. GODET, D.D.,

PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY, NEUCHATEL.

' A perfect masterpiece of theological toil and thought. . . . Scholarly,
evangelical, exhaustive, and able.' — Evangelical Review.

' To say a word in praise of any of Professor Godet's productions is almost
like "gilding refined gold." All who are familiar with his commentaries
know how full they are of rich suggestion. . . . This volume fully sustains
the high reputation Godet has made for himself as a Biblical scholar, and
devout expositor of the will of God. Every page is radiant with light, and
gives forth heat as well.' — Methodist New Connexion Magazine.

In Three Volumes, 8vo, price 31s. 6d.,

A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. JOHN.

A New Edition, Revised throughout by the Author.

'This work forms one of the battle-fields of modern inquiry, and is itself
so rich in spiritual truth, that it is impossible to examine it too closely ; and
we welcome this treatise from the pen of Dr. Godet. We have no more com
petent exegete ; and this new volume shows all the learning and vivacity for
which the author is distinguished.' — Freeman.

In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.,

A COMMENTARY ON THE GOSPEL OF ST. LUKE.

' Marked by clearness and good sense, it will be found to possess value and
interest as one of the most recent and copious works specially designed to
illustrate this Gospel.' — Guardian.

In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.,

A COMMENTARY ON ST. PAUL'S EPISTLE TO
THE ROMANS.

'We prefer this commentary to any other we have seen on the subject.
. . . We have great pleasure in recommending it as not only rendering
invaluable aid in the critical study of the text, but affording practical and
deeply suggestive assistance in the exposition of the doctrine.' — British and
Foreign Evangelical Review.

In crown 8vo, Second Edition, price 6s.,

DEFENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH.

TRANSLATED BY THE HON. AND REV. CANON LYTTELTON, M.A.,

RECTOR OF HAGLEY.

' There is trenchant argument and resistless logic in these lectures ; but
withal, there is cultured imagination and felicitous eloquence, which carry
home the appeals to the heart as well as the head.' — Sword and Trowel.

T. and T. Claris Publications.

Just published, in crown 8vo, price 6s. 6d.,

THE WAY,

THE NATURE, AND MEANS OF
REVELATION.

JOHN F. WEIR, M.A.,

DEAN OF THE DEPARTMENT OF FINE ARTS, YALE UNIVERSITY.

CONTENTS:— CHAP. I. The Beginning and the Ending.— II. The Seers
and Prophets.— III. The Old Testament in the Light of the New.— IV.
The Son of Man.— V. The Eisen Christ.— VI. The Holy Ghost.— VII.
Manifestations of the Holy Ghost.— VIII. The Spirit of Truth.

A NEW 'LIFE OF JONATHAN EDWARDS.'

Just published, in fcap. 8vo, price 5s.,

JONATHAN EDWARDS.

PROFESSOR ALEX. Y. G. ALLEN, D.D.,

CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

EXTRACT FROM THE PREFACE.

' I have endeavoured to reproduce Edwards from his books, making his
treatises, in their chronological order, contribute to his portraiture as a man
and as a theologian, a task which has not been hitherto attempted. I have
thought that something more than a mere recountal of facts was demanded in
order to justify the endeavour to rewrite his life. What we most desire to
know is, what he thought and how he came to think as he did.'

First Period.— The Parish Minister, 1703-1735.

Second Period. — The great Awakening, 1735-1750.

Third Period.— The Philosophical Theologian.

T. and T. Clark's Publications.

HERZOG'S ENCYCLOPEDIA.

Now Complete, in Three Volumes, imperial 8uo, price 24s. each

E N CYC LO P/E D I A

OR

DICTIONARY

OF

BIBLICAL, HISTORICAL, DOCTRINAL, AND
PRACTICAL THEOLOGY.

on tlje IfoakfEncfifttopSfcte of f^og, Iflttt, ano

EDITED BY

PROFESSOR PHILIP SCHAFF, D.D., LL.D.,

UNION THEOLOGICAL, SEMINARY, NEW YORK.

It is certain that this Encyclopaedia will fill a place in our theological
literature, in which, for a long time, it will have no rival.' — Prof. HODGE,
Princeton.

' This Encyclopaedia is exceedingly well done. . . . We hope that this new
enterprise will be successful, and. that no minister's library will long remain
without a copy of this work. . . To people in the country, far from libraries,
who cannot lay their hands on books, a work of this kind would simply be
invaluable.' — Daily Review.

'We have been delighted with its comprehensiveness. We have never
failed to find what we wanted.' — Edinburgh Courant.

'As a comprehensive work of reference, within a moderate compass, we
know nothing at all equal to it in the large department which it deals with.' —
Church Bells.

' The work will remain as a wonderful monument of industry, learning, and
skill. It will be indispensable to the student of specifically Protestant
theology ; nor, indeed, do we think that any scholar, whatever be his especial
line of thought or study, would find it superfluous on his shelves.' — Literary
Churchman.

' We commend this work with a touch of enthusiasm, for we have often
wanted such ourselves. It embraces in its range of writers all the leading
authors of Europe on ecclesiastical questions. A student may deny himself
many other volumes to secure this, for it is certain to take a prominent and
permanent place in our literature.' — Evangelical Magazine.

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