CLEOMENES.
It excels every thing; it is extremely rich without being luscious, and I know nothing to which I can compare the taste of it: to me it seems to be a collection of different fine flavours, that puts me in mind of several delicious fruits, which yet are all outdone by it.
Hor. I am glad it pleased you.
Cleo. The scent of it likewise is wonderfully reviving. As you was paring it, a fragrancy, I thought, perfumed the room that was perfectly cordial.
Hor. The inside of the rhind has an oiliness of no disagreeable smell, that upon handling of it sticks to ones fingers for a considerable time; for though now I have washed and wiped my hands, the flavour of it will not be entirely gone from them by to-morrow morning.
Cleo. This was the third I ever tasted of our own growth; the production of them in these northern climates, is no small instance of human industry, and our improvements in gardening. It is very elegant to enjoy the wholesome air of temperate regions, and at the same time be able to raise fruit to its highest maturity, that naturally requires the sun of the Torrid Zone.
Hor. It is easy enough to procure heat, but the great art consists in finding out, and regulating the degrees of it at pleasure; without which it would be impossible to ripen an ananas here, and to compass this with that exactness, as it is done by the help of thermometers, was certainly a fine invention.
Cleo. I do not care to drink any more.
Hor. Just as you please; otherwise I was going to name a health, which would not have come mal à propos.
Cleo. Whose is that, pray?
Hor. I was thinking on the man to whom we are in a great measure obliged for the production and culture of the exotic, we were speaking of, in this kingdom; Sir Matthew Decker, the first ananas or pine-apple, that was brought to perfection in England, grew in his garden at Richmond.
Cleo. With all my heart; let us finish with that; he is a beneficent, and, I believe, a very honest man.
Hor. It would not be easy to name another, who, with the same knowledge of the world, and capacity of getting money, is equally disinterested and inoffensive.
Cleo. Have you considered the things we discoursed of yesterday?
Hor. I have thought on nothing else since I saw you: This morning I went through the whole Essay, and with more attention than I did formerly: I like it very well; only that passage which you read yesterday, and some others to the same purpose, I cannot reconcile with the account we have of man’s origin from the Bible: Since all are descendants from Adam, and consequently of Noah and his posterity, how came savages into the world?
Cleo. The history of the world, as to very ancient times, is very imperfect: What devastations have been made by war, by pestilence, and by famine; what distress some men have been drove to, and how strangely our race has been dispersed and scattered over the earth since the flood, we do not know.
Hor. But persons that are well instructed themselves, never fail of teaching their children; and we have no reason to think, that knowing, civilized men, as the sons of Noah were, should have neglected their offspring; but it is altogether incredible, as all are descendants from them, that succeeding generations, instead of increasing in experience and wisdom, should learn backward, and still more and more abandon their broods in such a manner, as to degenerate at last to what you call the state of nature.
Cleo. Whether you intend this as a sarcasm or not, I do not know; but you have raised no difficulty that can render the truth of the sacred history suspected. Holy writ has acquainted us with the miraculous origin of our species, and the small remainder of it after the deluge: But it is far from informing us of all the revolutions that have happened among mankind since: The Old Testament hardly touches upon any particulars that had no relation to the Jews; neither does Moses pretend to give a full account of every thing that happened to, or was transacted by our first parents: He names none of Adam’s daughters, and takes no notice of several things that must have happened in the beginning of the world, as is evident from Cain’s building a city, and several other circumstances; from which it is plain, that Moses meddled with nothing but what was material, and to his purpose; which, in that part of his history, was to trace the descent of the Patriarchs, from the first man. But that there are savages is certain: Most nations of Europe have met with wild men and women in several parts of the world, that were ignorant of the use of letters, and among whom they could observe no rule or government.
Hor. That there are savages, I do not question; and from the great number of slaves that are yearly fetched from Africa, it is manifest, that in some parts there must be vast swarms of people, that have not yet made a great hand of their sociableness: But how to derive them from all the sons of Noah, I own, is past my skill.
Cleo. You find it as difficult to account for the loss of the many fine arts, and useful inventions of the ancients, which the world has certainly sustained. But the fault I find with Sir William Temple, is in the character of his savage. Just reasoning, and such an orderly way of proceeding, as he makes him act in, are unnatural to a wild man: In such a one, the passions must be boisterous, and continually jostling, and succeeding one another; no untaught man could have a regular way of thinking, or pursue any one design with steadiness.
Hor. You have strange notions of our species: But has not a man, by the time that he comes to maturity, some notions of right and wrong, that are natural?
Cleo. Before I answer your question, I would have you consider, that, among savages, there must be always a great difference as to the wildness or tameness of them. All creatures naturally love their offspring whilst they are helpless, and so does man: But in the savage state, men are more liable to accidents and misfortunes than they are in society, as to the rearing of their young ones; and, therefore, the children of savages must very often be put to their shifts, so as hardly to remember, by the time that they are grown up, that they had any parents. If this happens too early, and they are dropt or lost before they are four or five years of age, they must perish; either die for want, or be devoured by beasts of prey, unless some other creature takes care of them. Those orphans that survive, and become their own masters very young, must, when they are come to maturity, be much wilder than others, that have lived many years under the tuition of parents.
Hor. But would not the wildest man you can imagine, have from nature some thoughts of justice and injustice?
Cleo. Such a one, I believe, would naturally, without much thinking in the case, take every thing to be his own that he could lay his hands on.
Hor. Then they would soon be undeceived, if two or three of them met together.
Cleo. That they would soon disagree and quarrel, is highly probable; but I do not believe they ever would be undeceived.
Hor. At this rate, men could never be formed into an aggregate body: How came society into the world?
Cleo. As I told you, from private families; but not without great difficulty, and the concurrence of many favourable accidents; and many generations may pass before there is any likelihood of their being formed into a society.
Hor. That men are formed into societies, we see: But if they are all born with that false notion, and they can never be undeceived, which way do you account for it?
Cleo. My opinion concerning this matter, is this: Self-preservation bids all creatures gratify their appetites, and that of propagating his kind never fails to affect a man in health, many years before he comes to his full growth. If a wild man and a wild woman would meet very young, and live together for fifty years undisturbed, in a mild wholesome climate, where there is plenty of provisions, they might see a prodigious number of descendants: For, in the wild state of nature, man multiplies his kind much faster, than can be allowed of in any regular society: No male at fourteen would be long without a female, if he could get one; and no female of twelve would be refractory, if applied to, or remain long uncourted, if there were men.
Hor. Considering that consanguinity would be no bar among these people, the progeny of two savages might soon amount to hundreds: All this I can grant you; but as parents, no better qualified, could teach their children but little, it would be impossible for them to govern these sons and daughters when they grew up, if none of them had any notions of right or wrong; and society is as far off as ever; the false principle, which you say all men are born with, is an obstacle never to be surmounted.
Cleo. From that false principle, as you call it, the right men naturally claim to every thing they can get, it must follow, that man will look upon his children as his property, and make such use of them as is most consistent with his interest.
Hor. What is the interest of a wild man that pursues nothing with steadiness.
Cleo. The demand of the predominant passion for the time it lasts.
Hor. That may change every moment, and such children would be miserably managed.
Cleo. That is true; but still managed they would be; I mean they would be kept under, and forced to do as they they were bid, at least till they were strong enough to resist. Natural affection would prompt a wild man to love and cherish his child; it would make him provide food, and other necessaries for his son, till he was ten or twelve years old, or perhaps longer: But this affection is not the only passion he has to gratify; if his son provokes him by stubbornness, or doing otherwise than he would have him, this love is suspended; and if his displeasure be strong enough to raise his anger, which is as natural to him as any other passion, it is ten to one but he will knock him down: If he hurts him very much, and the condition he has put his son in, moves his pity, his anger will cease; and, natural affection returning, he will fondle him again, and be sorry for what he has done. Now, if we consider that all creatures hate and endeavour to avoid pain, and that benefits beget love in all that receive them, we shall find, that the consequence of this management would be, that the savage child would learn to love and fear his father: These two passions, together with the esteem which we naturally have for every thing that far excels us, will seldom fail of producing that compound which we call reverence.
Hor. I have it now; you have opened my eyes, and I see the origin of society, as plain as I do that table.
Cleo. I am afraid the prospect is not so clear yet as you imagine.
Hor. Why so? The grand obstacles are removed: Untaught men, it is true, when they are grown up, are never to be governed; and our subjection is never sincere where the superiority of the governor is not very apparent: But both these are obviated; the reverence we have for a person when we are young, is easily continued as long as we live; and where authority is once acknowledged, and that acknowledgment well established, it cannot be a difficult matter to govern. If thus a man may keep up his authority over his children, he will do it still with greater ease over his grand-children: For a child that has the least reverence for his parents, will seldom refuse homage to the person to whom he sees his father pay it. Besides, a man’s pride would be a sufficient motive for him to maintain the authority once gained; and, if some of his progeny proved refractory, he would leave no stone unturned, by the help of the rest to reduce the disobedient. The old man being dead, the authority from him would devolve upon the eldest of his children, and so on.
Cleo. I thought you would go on too fast. If the wild man had understood the nature of things, and been endued with general knowledge, and a language ready made, as Adam was by miracle, what you say might have been easy; but an ignorant creature that knows nothing but what his own experience has taught him, is no more fit to govern than he is fit to teach the mathematics.
Hor. He would not have above one or two children to govern at first; and his experience would increase by degrees, as well as his family. This would require no such consummate knowledge.
Cleo. I do not say it would: An ordinary capacity of a man tolerably well educated, would be sufficient to begin with; but a man who never had been taught to curb any of his passions, would be very unfit for such a task. He would make his children, as soon as they were able, assist him in getting food, and teach them how and where to procure it. Savage children, as they got strength, would endeavour to imitate every action they saw their parents do, and every sound they heard them make; but all the instructions they received, would be confined to things immediately necessary. Savage parents would often take offence at their children, as they grew up, without a cause; and as these increased in years, so natural affection would decrease in the other. The consequence would be, that the children would often suffer for failings that were not their own. Savages would often discover faults in the conduct of what was past; but they would not be able to establish rules for future behaviour, which they would approve of themselves for any continuance; and want of foresight would be an inexhaustible fund for changes in their resolutions. The savage’s wife, as well as himself, would be highly pleased to see their daughters impregnated and bring forth; and they would both take great delight in their grand-children.
Hor. I thought, that in all creatures the natural affection of parents had been confined to their own young ones.
Cleo. It is so in all but man; there is no species but ours, that are so conceited of themselves, as to imagine every thing to be theirs. The desire of dominion is a never-failing consequence of the pride that is common to all men; and which the brat of a savage is as much born with as the son of an emperor. This good opinion we have of ourselves, makes men not only claim a right to their children, but likewise imagine, that they have a great share of jurisdiction over their grandchildren. The young ones of other animals, as soon as they can help themselves, are free; but the authority which parents pretend to have over their children, never ceases: How general and unreasonable this eternal claim is naturally in the heart of man, we may learn from the laws; which, to prevent the usurpation of parents, and rescue children from their dominion, every civil society is forced to make; limiting paternal authority to a certain term of years. Our savage pair would have a double title to their grandchildren, from their undoubted property in each parent of them; and all the progeny being sprung from their own sons and daughters, without intermixture of foreign blood, they would look upon the whole race to be their natural vassals; and I am persuaded, that the more knowledge and capacity of reasoning this first couple acquired, the more just and unquestionable their sovereignty over all their descendants would appear to them, though they should live to see the fifth or sixth generation.
Hor. Is it not strange that nature should send us all into the world with a visible desire after government, and no capacity for it at all?
Cleo. What seems strange to you, is an undeniable instance of Divine Wisdom. For, if all had not been born with this desire, all must have been destitute of it; and multitudes could never have been formed into societies, if some of them had not been possessed of this thirst of dominion. Creatures may commit force upon themselves, they may learn to warp their natural appetites, and divert them from their proper objects: but peculiar instincts, that belong to a whole species, are never to be acquired by art or discipline; and those that are born without them, must remain destitute of them for ever. Ducks run to the water as soon as they are hatched; but you can never make a chicken swim any more than you can teach it to suck.
Hor. I understand you very well. If pride had not been innate to all men, none of them could ever have been ambitious: And as to the capacity of governing, experience shows us, that it is to be acquired; but how to bring society into the world, I know no more than the wild man himself. What you have suggested to me of his unskilfulness, and want of power to govern himself, has quite destroyed all the hopes I had conceived of society from this family. But would religion have no influence upon them? Pray, how came that into the world?
Cleo. From God, by miracle.
Hor. Obscurum per obscurius. I do not understand miracles, that break in upon, and subvert the order of nature; and I have no notion of things that come to pass, en dépit de bon sens, and are such; that judging from sound reason and known experience, all wise men would think themselves mathematically sure that they could never happen.
Cleo. It is certain, that by the word miracle, is meant an interposition of the Divine Power, when it deviates from the common course of nature.
Hor. As when matters, easily combustible, remain whole and untouched in the midst of a fire fiercely burning, or lions in vigour, industriously kept hungry, forbear eating what they are most greedy after. These miracles are strange things.
Cleo. They are not pretended to be otherwise; the etymology of the word imports it; but it is almost as unaccountable, that men should disbelieve them, and pretend to be of a religion that is altogether built upon miracles.
Hor. But when I asked you that general question, why did you confine yourself to revealed religion?
Cleo. Because nothing, in my opinion, deserves the name of religion, that has not been revealed: The Jewish was the first that was national, and the Christian the next.
Hor. But Abraham, Noah, and Adam himself, were no Jews, and yet they had religion.
Cleo. No other than what was revealed to them. God appeared to our first parents, and gave them commands immediately after he had created them: The same intercourse was continued between the Supreme Being and the Patriarchs; but the father of Abraham was an idolater.
Hor. But the Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Romans had religion, as well as the Jews.
Cleo. Their gross idolatry, and abominable worship, I call superstition.
Hor. You may be as partial as you please, but they all called their worship religion, as well as we do ours. You say, man brings nothing with him, but his passions; and when I asked you, how religion came into the world, I meant what is there in man’s nature that is not acquired, from which he has a tendency to religion; what is it that disposes him to it?
Cleo. Fear.
Hor. How! Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor; Are you of that opinion?
Cleo. No man upon earth less: But that noted Epicurean axiom, which irreligious men are so fond of, is a very poor one; and it is silly, as well as impious to say, that fear made a God; you may as justly say, that fear made grass, or the sun and the moon: but when I am speaking of savages, it is not clashing either with good sense, nor the Christian religion, to assert, that, whilst such men are ignorant of the true Deity, and yet very defective in the art of thinking and reasoning, fear is the passion that first gives them an opportunity of entertaining some glimmering notions of an invisible Power; which afterwards, as by practice and experience they grow greater proficients, and become more perfect in the labour of the brain, and the exercise of their highest faculty, will infallibly lead them to the certain knowledge of an Infinite and Eternal Being; whose power and wisdom will always appear the greater, and more stupendous to them, the more they themselves advance in knowledge and penetration, though both should be carried on to a much higher pitch, than it is possible for our limited nature ever to arrive at.
Hor. I beg your pardon for suspecting you; though I am glad it gave you an opportunity of explaining yourself. The word fear, without any addition, sounded very harsh; and even now I cannot conceive how an invisible cause should become the object of a man’s fear, that should be so entirely untaught, as you have made the first savage: which way can any thing invisible, and that affects none of the senses, make an impression upon a wild creature?
Cleo. Every mischief and every disaster that happens to him, of which the cause is not very plain and obvious; excessive heat and cold; wet and drought, that are offensive; thunder and lightning, even when they do no visible hurt; noises in the dark, obscurity itself, and every thing that is frightful and unknown, are all administering and contributing to the establishment of this fear. The wildest man that can be conceived, by the time that he came to maturity, would be wise enough to know, that fruits and other eatables are not to be had, either always, or every where: this would naturally put him upon hoarding, when he had good store: his provision might be spoiled by the rain: he would see that trees were blasted, and yielded not always the same plenty: he might not always be in health, or his young ones might grow sick, and die, without any wounds or external force to be seen. Some of these accidents might at first escape his attention, or only alarm his weak understanding, without occasioning much reflection for some time; but as they come often, he would certainly begin to suspect some invisible cause; and, as his experience increased, be confirmed in his suspicion. It is likewise highly probable, that a variety of different sufferings, would make him apprehend several such causes; and at last induce him to believe, that there was a great number of them, which he had to fear. What would very much contribute to this credulous disposition, and naturally lead him into such a belief, is a false notion we imbibe very early, and which we may observe in infants, as soon as by their looks, their gestures, and the signs they make, they begin to be intelligible to us.
Hor. What is that, pray?
Cleo. All young children seem to imagine, that every thing thinks and feels in the same manner as they do themselves; and, that they generally have this wrong opinion of things inanimate, is evident, from a common practice among them; whenever they labour under any misfortune, which their own wildness, and want of care have drawn upon them. In all such cases, you see them angry at and strike, a table, a chair, the floor, or any thing else, that can seem to have been accessary to their hurting themselves, or the production of any other blunder, they have committed. Nurses we see, in compliance to their frailty, seem to entertain the same ridiculous sentiments; and actually appease wrathful brats, by pretending to take their part: Thus you will often see them very serious, in scolding at and beating, either the real object of the baby’s indignation, or something else, on which the blame of what has happened, may be thrown, with any show of probability. It is not to be imagined, that this natural folly should be so easily cured in a child, that is destitute of all instruction and commerce with his own species, as it is in those that are brought up in society, and hourly improved by conversing with others that are wiser than themselves; and I am persuaded, that a wild man would never get entirely rid of it whilst he lived.
Hor. I cannot think so meanly of human understanding.
Cleo. Whence came the Dryades and Hama-Dryades? How came it ever to be thought impious to cut down, or even to wound large venerable oaks or other stately trees; and what root did the Divinity spring from, which the vulgar, among the ancient heathens, apprehended to be in rivers and fountains?
Hor. From the roguery of designing priests, and other impostors, that invented those lies, and made fables for their own advantage.
Cleo. But still it must have been want of understanding; and a tincture, some remainder of that folly which is discovered in young children, that could induce, or would suffer men to believe those fables. Unless fools actually had frailties, knaves could not make use of them.
Hor. There may be something in it; but, be that as it will, you have owned, that man naturally loves those he receives benefits from; therefore, how comes it, that man, finding all the good things he enjoys to proceed from an invisible cause, his gratitude should not sooner prompt him to be religious, than his fear?
Cleo. There are several substantial reasons, why it does not. Man takes every thing to be his own, which he has from nature: sowing and reaping, he thinks, deserve a crop, and whatever he has the least hand in, is always reckoned to be his. Every art, and every invention, as soon as we know them, are our right and property; and whatever we perform by the assistance of them, is, by the courtesy of the species to itself, deemed to be our own. We make use of fermentation, and all the chemistry of nature, without thinking ourselves beholden to any thing but our own knowledge. She that churns the cream, makes the butter; without inquiring into the power by which the thin lymphatic particles are forced to separate themselves, and slide away from the more unctuous. In brewing, baking, cooking, and almost every thing we have a hand in, nature is the drudge that makes all the alterations, and does the principal work; yet all, forsooth, is our own. From all which, it is manifest, that man, who is naturally for making every thing centre in himself, must, in his wild state, have a great tendency, and be very prone to look upon every thing he enjoys as his due; and every thing he meddles with, as his own performance. It requires knowledge and reflection; and a man must be pretty far advanced in the art of thinking justly, and reasoning consequentially, before he can, from his own light, and without being taught, be sensible of his obligations to God. The less a man knows, and the more shallow his understanding is, the less he is capable either of enlarging his prospect of things, or drawing consequences from the little which he does know. Raw, ignorant, and untaught men, fix their eyes on what is immediately before, and seldom look further than, as it is vulgarly expressed, the length of their noses. The wild man, if gratitude moved him, would much sooner pay his respects to the tree he gathers his nuts from, than he would think of an acknowledgment to him who had planted it; and there is no property so well established, but a civilized man would suspect his title to it sooner, than a wild one would question the sovereignty he has over his own breath. Another reason, why fear is an elder motive to religion than gratitude, is, that an untaught man would never suspect that the same cause, which he received good from, would ever do him hurt; and evil, without doubt, would always gain his attention first.
Hor. Men, indeed, seem to remember one ill turn, that is served them, better than ten good ones; one month’s sickness better than ten years health.
Cleo. In all the labours of self-preservation, man is intent on avoiding what is hurtful to him; but in the enjoyment of what is pleasant, his thoughts are relaxed, and he is void of care: he can swallow a thousand delights, one after another, without asking questions; but the least evil makes him inquisitive whence it came, in order to shun it. It is very material, therefore, to know the cause of evil; but to know that of good, which is always welcome, is of little use; that is, such a knowledge seems not to promise any addition to his happiness. When a man once apprehends such an invisible enemy, it is reasonable to think, that he would be glad to appease, and make him his friend, if he could find him out; it is highly probable, likewise, that in order to this, he would search, investigate, and look every where about him; and that finding all his inquiries upon earth in vain, he would lift up his eyes to the sky.
Hor. And so a wild man might; and look down and up again long enough before he would be the wiser. I can easily conceive, that a creature must labour under great perplexities, when it actually fears something, of which it knows neither what it is, nor where it is; and that, though a man had all the reason in the world to think it invisible, he would still be more afraid of it in the dark, than when he could see.
Cleo. Whilst a man is but an imperfect thinker, and wholly employed in furthering self preservation in the most simple manner, and removing the immediate obstacles he meets with in that pursuit, this affair, perhaps, affects him but little; but when he comes to be a tolerable reasoner, and has leisure to reflect, it must produce strange chimeras and surmises; and a wild couple would not converse together long, before they would endeavour to express their minds to one another concerning this matter; and, as in time they would invent and agree upon, certain sounds of distinction for several things, of which the ideas would often occur, so I believe, that this invisible cause would be one of the first, which they would coin a name for. A wild man and a wild woman would not take less care of their helpless brood than other animals; and it is not to imagined, but the children that were brought up by them, though without instruction or discipline, would, before they were ten years old, observe in their parents this fear of an invisible cause. It is incredible likewise, considering, how much men differ from one another in features, complexion, and temper, that all should form the same idea of this cause; from whence it would follow, that as soon as any considerable number of men could intelligibly converse together, it would appear, that there were different opinions among them concerning the invisible cause: the fear and acknowledgment of it being universal, and man always attributing his own passions to every thing, which he conceives to think, every body would be solicitous to avoid the hatred and ill-will, and, if it was possible, to gain the friendship of such a power. If we consider these things, and what we know of the nature of man, it is hardly to be conceived, that any considerable number of our species could have any intercourse together long, in peace or otherwise, but wilful lies would be raised concerning this power, and some would pretend to have seen or heard it. How different opinions about invisible power, may, by the malice and deceit of impostors, be made the occasion of mortal enmity among multitudes, is easily accounted for. If we want rain very much, and I can be persuaded, that it is your fault we have none, there needs greater cause to quarrel; and nothing has happened in the world, of priestcraft or inhumanity, folly or abomination, on religious accounts, that cannot be solved or explained, with the least trouble, from these data, and the principle of fear.
Hor. I think I must yield to you, that the first motive of religion, among savages, was fear; but you must allow me in your turn, that from the general thankfulness that nations have always paid to their gods, for signal benefits and success; the many hecatombs that have been offered after victories; and the various institutions of games and festivals; it is evident, that when men came to be wiser, and more civilized, the greatest part of their religion was built upon gratitude.
Cleo. You labour hard, I see, to vindicate the honour of our species; but we have no such cause to boast of it: and I shall demonstrate to you, that a well-weighed consideration, and a thorough understanding of our nature, will give us much less reason to exult in our pride, than it will furnish us with, for the exercise of our humility. In the first place, there is no difference between the original nature of a savage, and that of a civilized man: they are both born with fear, and neither of them, if they have their senses about them, can live many years, but an invisible Power, will, at one time or other, become the object of that fear; and this will happen to every man, whether he be wild and alone, or in society, and under the best discipline. We know by experience, that empires, states, and kingdoms, may excel in arts and sciences, politeness, and all worldly wisdom, and at the same time be slaves to the grossest idolatry, and submit to all the inconsistencies of a false religion. The most civilized people have been as foolish and absurd in sacred worship as it is possible for any savages to be; and the first have often been guilty of studied cruelties, which the latter would never have thought of. The Carthaginians were a subtle flourishing people, an opulent and formidable nation, and Hannibal had half conquered the Romans, when still to their idols they sacrificed the children of their chief nobility. And, as to private persons, there are innumerable instances in the most polite ages of men of sense and virtue, that have entertained the most miserable, unworthy, and extravagant notions of the Supreme Being. What confused and unaccountable apprehensions must not some men have had of Providence, to act as they did! Alexander Severus, who succeeded Heliogabalus, was a great reformer of abuses, and thought to be as good a prince as his predecessor was a bad one: In his palace he had an oratory, a cabinet set aside for his private devotion, where he had the images of Appollonius Tyanæus, Orpheus, Abraham, Jesus Christ, and such like gods, says his historian. What makes you smile?
Hor. To think how industrious priests are in concealing a man’s failings, when they would have you think well of him. What you say of Severus, I had read before; when looking one day for something in Moreri, I happened to cast my eye on the article of that emperor, where no mention is made either of Orpheus or Appollonius! which, remembering the passage in Lampridius, I wondered at; and thinking that I might have been mistaken, I again consulted that author, where I found it, as you have related it. I do not question but Moreri left this out on purpose to repay the civilities of the emperor to the Christians, whom, he tells us, Severus had been very favourable to.
Cleo. That is not impossible in a Roman Catholic. But what I would speak to, in the second place, is the festivals you mentioned, the hecatombs after victories, and the general thankfulness of nations to their gods. I desire you would consider, that in sacred matters, as well as all human affairs, there are rites and ceremonies, and many demonstrations of respect to be seen, that to outward appearance seem to proceed from gratitude, which, upon due examination, will be found to have been originally the result of fear. At what time the floral games were first instituted, is not well known: but they never were celebrated every year constantly, before a very unseasonable spring put the senate upon the decree that made them annual. To make up the true compound of reverence or veneration, love and esteem are as necessary ingredients as fear; but the latter alone is capable of making men counterfeit both the former; as is evident from the duties that are outwardly paid to tyrants, at the same time that inwardly they are execrated and hated. Idolators have always behaved themselves to every invisible cause they adored, as men do to a lawless arbitrary power; when they reckon it as captious, haughty, and unreasonable, as they allow it to be sovereign, unlimited, and irresistible. What motive could the frequent repetitions of the same solemnities spring from, whenever it was suspected that the least holy trifle had been omitted? You know, how often the same farce was once acted over again, because after every performance there was still room to apprehend that something had been neglected. Do but consult, I beg of you, and call to mind your own reading; cast your eyes on the infinite variety of ideas men have formed to themselves, and the vast multitude of divisions they have made of the invisible cause, which every one imagines to influence human affairs: run over the history of all ages; look into every considerable nation, their straits and calamities, as well as victories and successes; the lives of great generals, and other famous men, their adverse fortune and prosperity: mind at which times their devotion was most fervent; when oracles were most consulted, and on what accounts the gods were most frequently addressed. Do but calmly consider every thing you can remember relating to superstition, whether grave, ridiculous, or execrable, and you will find, in the first place, that the heathens, and all that have been ignorant of the true Deity, though many of them were persons otherwise of great knowledge, fine understanding, and tried probity, have represented their gods, not as wise, benign, equitable, and merciful; but, on the contrary, as passionate, revengeful, capricious, and unrelenting beings; not to mention the abominable vices and gross immoralities, the vulgar were taught to ascribe to them: In the second, that for every one instance that men have addressed themselves to an invisible cause, from a principle of gratitude, there are a thousand in every false religion to convince you, that divine worship, and men’s submission to Heaven, have always proceeded from their fear. The word religion itself, and the fear of God, are synonymous; and had man’s acknowledgment been originally founded in love, as it is in fear, the craft of impostors could have made no advantage of the passion; and all their boasted acquaintance with gods and goddesses, would have been useless to them, if men had worshipped the immortal powers, as they called their idols, out of gratitude.
Hor. All lawgivers and leaders of people gained their point, and acquired what they expected from those pretences, which is reverence; and which to produce, you have owned yourself, love and esteem to be as requisite as fear.
Cleo. But from the laws they imposed on men, and the punishments they annexed to the breach and neglect of them, it is easily seen which of the ingredients they most relied upon.
Hor. It would be difficult to name a king, or other great man, in very ancient times, who attempted to govern an infant nation that laid no claim to some commerce or other with an invisible power, either held by himself or his ancestors. Between them and Moses, there is no other difference, than that he alone was a true prophet, and really inspired, and all the rest were impostors.
Cleo. What would you infer from this?
Hor. That we can say no more for ourselves, than what men of all parties and persuasions have done in all ages, every one for their cause, viz. That they alone were in the right, and all that differed from them in the wrong.
Cleo. Is it not sufficient that we can say this of ourselves with truth and justice, after the strictest examination; when no other cause can stand any test, or bear the least inquiry? A man may relate miracles that never were wrought, and give an account of things that never happened; but a thousand years hence, all knowing men will agree, that nobody could have wrote Sir Isaac Newton’s Principia, unless he had been a great mathematician. When Moses acquainted the Israelites with what had been revealed to him, he told them a truth, which nobody then upon earth knew but himself.
Hor. You mean the unity of God, and his being the Author of the universe.
Hor. But is not every man of sense capable of knowing this from his reason?
Cleo. Yes, when the art of reasoning consequentially is come to that perfection, which it has been arrived at these several hundred years, and himself has been led into the method of thinking justly. Every common sailor could steer a course through the midst of the ocean, as soon as the use of the loadstone, and the mariners compass were invented. But before that, the most expert navigator would have trembled at the thoughts of such an enterprise. When Moses acquainted, and imbued the posterity of Jacob with this sublime and important truth, they were degenerated into slaves, attached to the superstition of the country they dwelled in; and the Egyptians, their masters, though they were great proficients in many arts and sciences, and more deeply skilled in the mysteries of nature than any other nation then was, had the most abject and abominable notions of the Deity, which it is possible to conceive; and no savages could have exceeded their ignorance and stupidity, as to the Supreme Being, the invisible cause that governs the world. He taught the Israelites à priori; and their children, before they were nine or ten years old, knew what the greatest philosophers did not attain to, by the light of nature, till many ages after.
Hor. The advocates for the ancients will never allow, that any modern philosophers have either thought or reasoned better, than men did in former ages.
Cleo. Let them believe their eyes: What you say every man of sense may know, by his own reason, was in the beginning of Christianity contested, and denied with zeal and vehemence by the greatest men in Rome. Celsus, Symmachus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and other famous rhetoricians, and men of unquestionable good sense, wrote in defence of idolatry, and strenuously maintained the plurality and multiplicity of their gods. Moses lived about fifteen hundred years before the reign of Augustus. If in a place where I was very well assured that nobody understood any thing of colouring or drawing, a man should tell me, that he had acquired the art of painting by inspiration, I should be more ready to laugh at him than to believe him; but if I saw him draw several fine portraits before my face, my unbelief would cease, and I should think it ridiculous any longer to suspect his veracity. All the accounts that other lawgivers and founders of nations have given of the deities, which they or their predecessors conversed with, contained ideas that were unworthy of the Divine Being; and by the light of nature only, it is easily proved, that they must have been false: But the image which Moses gave the Jews of the Supreme Being, that He was One, and had made heaven and earth, will stand all tests, and is a truth that will outlast the world. Thus, I think, I have fully proved, on the one hand, that all true religion must be revealed, and could not have come into the world without miracle; and, on the other, that what all men are born with towards religion, before they receive any instruction, is fear.
Hor. You have convinced me many ways, that we are poor creatures by nature; but I cannot help struggling against those mortifying truths, when I hear them started first. I long to hear the origin of society, and I continually retard your account of it myself with new questions.
Cleo. Do you remember where we left off?
Hor. I do not think we have made any progress yet; for we have nothing towards it but a wild man, and a wild woman, with some children and grandchildren, which they are not able either to teach or govern.
Cleo. I thought that the introduction of the reverence, which the wildest son must feel, more or less, for the most savage father, if he stays with him, had been a considerable step.
Hor. I thought so too, till you destroyed the hopes I had conceived of it yourself, by showing me the incapacity of savage parents to make use of it: And since we are still as far from the origin of society as ever we were, or ever can be, in my opinion, I desire, that before you proceed to that main point, you would answer what you have put off once already, which is my question concerning the notions of right and wrong: I cannot be easy before I have your sentiments on this head.
Cleo. Your demand is very reasonable, and I will satisfy you as well as I can. A man of sense, learning, and experience, that has been well educated, will always find out the difference between right and wrong in things diametrically opposite; and there are certain facts, which he will always condemn, and others which he will always approve of: To kill a member of the same society that has not offended us, or to rob him, will always be bad; and to cure the sick, and be beneficent to the public, he will always pronounce to be good actions: and for a man to do as he will be done by, he will always say is a good rule in life; and not only men of great accomplishments, and such as have learned to think abstractly, but all men of middling capacities, that have been brought up in society, will agree in this, in all countries and in all ages. Nothing likewise seems more true to all, that have made any tolerable use of their faculty of thinking, than that out of the society, before any division was made, either by contract or otherwise, all men would have an equal right to the earth: But do you believe that our wild man, if he had never seen any other human creature but his savage consort and his progeny, would ever have entertained the same notions of right and wrong?
Hor. Hardly; his small capacity in the art of reasoning, would hinder him from doing it so justly; and the power he found he had over his children, would render him very arbitrary.
Cleo. But without that incapacity, suppose that at threescore he was, by a miracle, to receive a fine judgment, and the faculty of thinking and reasoning consequentially, in as great a perfection as the wisest man ever did, do you think he would ever alter his notion of the right he had to every thing he could manage, or have other sentiments in relation to himself and his progeny, than from his behaviour it appeared he entertained, when he seemed to act almost altogether by instinct?
Hor. Without doubt: For, if judgment and reason were given him, what could hinder him from making use of those faculties, as well as others do?
Cleo. You seem not to consider, that no man can reason but à posteriori, from something that he knows, or supposes to be true: What I said of the difference between right and wrong, I spoke of persons who remembered their education, and lived in society; or, at least, such as plainly saw others of their own species, that were independent of them, and either their equals or superiors.
Hor. I begin to believe you are in the right: But at second thoughts, why might not a man, with great justice, think himself the sovereign of a place, where he knew no human creature but his own wife, and the descendents of both?
Cleo. With all my heart: But may there not be an hundred such savages in the world with large families, that might never meet, nor ever hear of one another?
Hor. A thousand, if you will, and then there would be so many natural sovereigns.
Cleo. Very well: what I would have you observe, is, that there are things which are commonly esteemed to be eternal truths, that an hundred or a thousand people of fine sense and judgment, could have no notion of. What if it should be true, that every man is born with this domineering spirit, and that we cannot be cured of it, but by our commerce with others, and the experience of facts, by which we are convinced that we have no such right? Let us examine a man’s whole life, from his infancy to his grave, and see which of the two seems to be most natural to him; a desire of superiority, and grasping every thing to himself, or a tendency to act according to the reasonable notions of right and wrong; and we shall find, that, in his early youth, the first is very conspicuous; that nothing appears of the second before he has received some instructions, and that this latter will always have less influence upon his actions, the more uncivilized he remains: From whence I infer, that the notions of right and wrong are acquired; for if they were as natural, or if they affected us as early as the opinion, or rather the instinct we are born with, of taking every thing to be our own, no child would ever cry for his eldest brother’s play-things.
Hor. I think there is no right more natural, nor more reasonable, than that which men have over their children; and what we owe our parents can never be repaid.
Cleo. The obligations we have to good parents for their care and education, is certainly very great.
Hor. That is the least. We are indebted to them for our being; we might be educated by an hundred others, but without them we could never have existed.
Cleo. So we could have no malt liquor, without the ground that bears the barley: I know no obligations for benefits that never were intended. Should a man see a fine parcel of cherries, be tempted to eat, and devour them accordingly with great satisfaction, it is possible he might swallow some of the stones, which we know by experience do not digest: If twelve or fourteen months after, he should find a little sprig of a cherry-tree growing in a field, where nobody would expect it, if he recollected the time, he had been there before, it is not improbable that he might guess at the true reason how it came there. It is possible, likewise, that for curiosity’s sake, this man might take up this plant, and take care of it; I am well assured, that whatever became of it afterwards, the right he would have to it from the merit of his action, would be the same which a savage would have to his child.
Hor. I think there would be a vast difference between the one and the other: the cherry-stone was never part of himself, nor mixed with his blood.
Cleo. Pardon me; all the difference, as vast as you take it to be, can only consist in this, That the cherry-stone was not part of the man who swallowed it, so long, nor received so great an alteration in its figure, whilst it was, as some other things which the savage swallowed, were, and received in their figure, whilst they stayed with him.
Hor. But he that swallowed the cherry-stone, did nothing to it; it produced a plant as a vegetable, which it might have done as well without his swallowing it.
Cleo. That is true; and I own, that as to the cause to which the plant owes its existence, you are in the right: but I plainly spoke as to the merit of the action; which in either case could only proceed from their intentions as free agents; and the savage might, and would in all probability act with as little design, to get a child, as the other had eat cherries in order to plant a tree. It is commonly said, that our children are our own flesh and blood: but this way of speaking is strangely figurative. However, allow it to be just, though rhetoricians have no name for it, what does it prove, what benevolence in us, what kindness to others in the intention?
Hor. You shall say what you please, but I think, that nothing can endear children to their parents more, than the reflection that they are their own flesh and blood.
Cleo. I am of your opinion; and it is a plain demonstration of the superlative value we have for our own selves, and every thing that comes from us, if it be good, and counted laudable; whereas, other things that are offensive, though equally our own, are in compliment to ourselves, industriously concealed; and, as soon as it is agreed upon that any thing is unseemly, and rather a disgrace to us than otherwise, presently it becomes ill manners to name, or so much as to hint at it. The contents of the stomach are variously disposed of, but we have no hand in that; and whether they go to the blood, or elsewhere, the last thing we did to them voluntarily, and with our knowledge, was swallowing them; and whatever is afterwards performed by the animal economy, a man contributes no more to, than he does to the going of his watch. This is another instance of the unjust claim we lay to every performance we are but in the least concerned in, if good comes of it, though nature does all the work; but whoever places a merit in his prolific faculty, ought likewise to expect the blame, when he has the stone, or a fever. Without this violent principle of innate folly, no rational creature would value himself on his free agency, and at the same time accept of applause for actions that are visibly independent of his will. Life in all creatures is a compound action, but the share they have in it themselves, is only passive. We are forced to breathe before we know it; and our continuance palpably depends upon the guardianship and perpetual tutelage of nature; whilst every part of her works, ourselves not excepted, is an impenetrable secret to us, that eludes all inquiries. Nature furnishes us with all the substance of our food herself, nor does she trust to our wisdom for an appetite to crave it; to chew it, she teaches us by instinct, and bribes us to it by pleasure. This seeming to be an action of choice, and ourselves being conscious of the performance, we perhaps may be said to have a part in it; but the moment after, nature resumes her care, and again withdrawn from our knowledge, preserves us in a mysterious manner, without any help or concurrence of ours, that we are sensible of. Since, then, the management of what we have eat and drank remains entirely under the direction of nature, what honour or shame ought we to receive from any part of the product, whether it is to serve as a doubtful means toward generation, or yields to vegetation a less fallible assistance? It is nature that prompts us to propagate as well as to eat; and a savage man multiplies his kind by instinct as other animals do, without more thought or design of preserving his species, than a new-born infant has of keeping itself alive, in the action of sucking.
Hor. Yet nature gave the different instincts to both, for those reasons.
Cleo. Without doubt; but what I mean, is, that the reason of the thing is as much the motive of action in the one, as it is in the other; and I verily believe, that a wild woman who had never seen, or not minded the production of any young animals, would have several children before she would guess at the real cause of them; any more than if she had the cholic, she would suspect that it proceeded from some delicious fruit she had eaten; especially if she had feasted upon it for several months, without perceiving any inconveniency from it. Children, all the world over, are brought forth with pain, more or less, which seems to have no affinity with pleasure; and an untaught creature, however docile and attentive, would want several clear experiments, before it would believe that the one could produce or be the cause of the other.
Hor. Most people marry in hopes, and with a design of having children.
Cleo. I doubt, not; and believe that there are as many that would rather not have children, or at least not so fast as often they come, as there are that wish for them, even in the state of matrimony; but out of it, in the amours of thousands, that revel in enjoyments, children are reckoned to be the greatest calamity that can befal them; and often what criminal love gave birth to, without thought more criminal pride destroys, with purposed and considerate cruelty. But all this belongs to people in society, that are knowing, and well acquainted with the natural consequences of things; what I urged, I spoke of a savage.
Hor. Still the end of love, between the different sexes, in all animals, is the preservation of their species.
Cleo. I have allowed that already. But once more the savage is not prompted to love from that consideration: he propagates before he knows the consequence of it; and I much question, whether the most civilized pair, in the most chaste of their embraces, ever acted from the care of their species, as a real principle. A rich man may, with great impatience, wish for a son to inherit his name and his estate; perhaps he may marry from no other motive, and for no other purpose; but all the satisfaction he seems to receive, from the flattering prospect of an happy posterity, can only arise from a pleasing reflection on himself, as the cause of those descendants. How much soever this man’s posterity might be thought to owe him for their being, it is certain, that the motive he acted from, was to oblige himself: still here is a wishing for posterity, a thought and design of getting children, which no wild couple could have to boast of; yet they would be vain enough to look upon themselves, as the principal cause of all their offspring and descendants, though they should live to see the fifth or sixth generation.
Hor. I can find no vanity in that, and I should think them so myself.
Cleo. Yet, as free agents, it would be plain, that they had contributed nothing to the existence of their prosperity.
Hor. Now surely, you have overshot the mark; nothing?
Cleo. No, nothing, even to that of their own children, knowingly; if you will allow that men have their appetites from nature. There is but one real cause in the universe, to produce that infinite variety of stupendous effects, and all the mighty labours that are performed in nature, either within, or far beyond the reach of our senses. Parents are the efficients of their offspring, with no more truth or propriety of speech, than the tools of an artificer, that were made and contrived by himself, are the cause of the most elaborate of his works. The senseless engine that raises water into the copper, and the passive mash-tub, have between them, as great a share in the art and action of brewing, as the liveliest male and female ever had in the production of an animal.
Hor. You make stocks and stones of us; is it not in our choice to act, or not to act?
Cleo. Yes, it is my choice now, either to run my head against the wall; or to let it alone; but, I hope, it does not puzzle you much to guess which of the two I shall choose.
Hor. But do not we move our bodies as we list; and is not every action determined by the will?
Cleo. What signifies that, where there is a passion that manifestly sways, and with a strict hand governs that will?
Hor. Still we act with consciousness, and are intelligent creatures.
Cleo. Not in the affair I speak of; where, willing or not willing, we are violently urged from within, and in a manner compelled not only to assist in, but likewise to long for, and, in spite of our teeth, be highly pleased with a performance that infinitely surpasses our understanding. The comparison I made is just, in every part of it; for the most loving, and, if you will, the most sagacious couple you can conceive, are as ignorant in the mystery of generation, nay, must remain, after having had twenty children together, as much uninformed, and as little conscious of nature’s transactions, and what has been wrought within them, as inanimate utensils are of the most mystic and most ingenious operations they have been employed in.
Hor. I do not know any man more expert in tracing human pride, or more severe in humbling it than yourself; but when the subject comes in your way, you do not know how to leave it. I wish you would, at once, go over to the origin of society; which, how to derive, or bring about at all, from the savage family, as we left it, is past my skill. It is impossible but those children, when they grew up, would quarrel on innumerable occasions: if men had but three appetites to gratify, that are the most obvious, they could never live together in peace, without government: for though they all paid a deference to the father, yet if he was a man void of all prudence, that could give them no good rules to walk by, I am persuaded that they would live in a perpetual state of war; and the more numerous his offspring grew, the more the old savage would be puzzled between his desire and incapacity of government. As they increased in numbers, they would be forced to extend their limits, and the spot they were born upon would not hold them long: nobody would be willing to leave his native vale, especially if it was a fruitful one. The more I think upon it, and the more I look into such multitudes, the less I can conceive which way they could ever be formed into a society.
Cleo. The first thing that could make man associate, would be common danger, which unites the greatest enemies: this danger they would certainly be in, from wild beasts, considering that no uninhabited country is without them, and the defenceless condition in which men come into the world. This often must have been a cruel article, to prevent the increase of our species.
Hor. The supposition then, that this wild man, with his progeny, should for fifty years live undisturbed, is not very probable; and I need not trouble myself about our savages being embarrassed with too numerous an offspring.
Cleo. You say right; there is no probability, that a man and his progeny, all unarmed, should so long escape the ravenous hunger of beasts of prey, that are to live upon what animals they can get; that leave no place unsearched, nor pains untried, to come at food, though with the hazard of their lives. The reason why I made that supposition, was to show you, first, the improbability that a wild and altogether untaught man should have the knowledge and discretion which Sir William Temple gives him; secondly, that children who conversed with their own species, though they were brought up by savages, would be governable; and consequently, that all such, when come to maturity, would be fit for society, how ignorant and unskilful soever their parents might have been.
Hor. I thank you for it; for it has shown me, that the very first generation of the most brutish savages, was sufficient to produce sociable creatures; but that to produce a man fit to govern others, much more was required.
Cleo. I return to my conjecture concerning the first motive that would make savages associate: it is not possible to know any thing with certainty of beginnings, where men were destitute of letters; but I think, that the nature of the thing makes it highly probable, that it must have been their common danger from beasts of prey; as well such sly ones as lay in wait for their children, and the defenceless animals, men made use of for themselves, as the more bold, that would openly attack grown men and women. What much confirms me in this opinion is, the general agreement of all the relations we have, from the most ancient times, in different countries: for, in the infancy of all nations, profane history is stuffed with the accounts of the conflicts men had with wild beasts. It took up the chief labours of the heroes of remotest antiquity, and their greatest prowess was shown in killing of dragons, and subduing of other monsters.
Hor. Do you lay any stress upon sphinxes, basilisks, flying dragons, and bulls that spit fire?
Cleo. As much as I do on modern witches. But I believe that all those fictions had their rise from noxious beasts, the mischiefs they did, and other realities that struck terror into man; and I believe, that if no man had ever been seen on a horse’s back, we should never have heard of Centaurs. The prodigious force and rage that are apparent in some savage animals, and the astonishing power, which, from the various poisons of venomous creatures, we are sure must be hid in others; the sudden and unexpected assaults of serpents, the variety of them; the vast bulk of crocodiles; the irregular and uncommon shapes of some fishes, and the wings of others, are all things that are capable of alarming man’s fear; and it is incredible what chimeras that passion alone may produce in a terrified mind: the dangers of the day often haunt men at night with addition of terror; and from what they remember in their dreams, it is easy to forge realities. If you will consider, likewise, that the natural ignorance of man, and his hankering after knowledge, will augment the credulity which hope and fear first give birth to; the desire the generality have of applause, and the great esteem that is commonly had for the merveilleux, and the witnesses and relaters of it: If, I say, you will consider all these, you will easily discover, how many creatures came to be talked of, described, and formally painted, that never had any existence.
Hor. I do not wonder at the origin of monstrous figures, or the invention of any fables whatever; but in the reason you gave for the first motive, that would make men combine in one interest, I find something very perplexing, which I own I never thought of before. When I reflect on the condition of man, as you have set it before me, naked and defenceless, and the multitude of ravenous animals that thirst after his blood, and are superior to him in strength, and completely armed by nature, it is inconceivable to me, how our species should have subsisted.
Cleo. What you observe is well worthy our attention.
Hor. It is astonishing. What filthy, abominable beasts are lions and tigers!
Cleo. I think them to be very fine creatures; there is nothing I admire more than a lion.
Hor. We have strange accounts of his generosity and gratitude; but do you believe them?
Cleo. I do not trouble my head about them: What I admire is his fabric, his structure, and his rage, so justly proportioned to one another. There are order, symmetry, and superlative wisdom to be observed in all the works of nature; but she has not a machine, of which every part more visibly answers the end for which the whole was formed.
Hor. The destruction of other animals.
Cleo. That is true; but how conspicuous is that end, without mystery or uncertainty! that grapes were made for wine, and man for society, are truths not accomplished in every individual: but there is a real majesty stamped on every single lion, at the sight of which the stoutest animals submit and tremble. When we look upon and examine his massy talons, the size of them, and the laboured firmness with which they are fixed in, and fastened to that prodigious paw; his dreadful teeth, the strength of his jaws, and the width of his mouth equally terrible, the use of them is obvious; but when we consider, moreover, the make of his limbs, the toughness of his flesh and tendons, the solidity of his bones, beyond that of other animals, and the whole frame of him, together with his never-ceasing anger, speed, and agility; whilst in the desart he ranges king of beasts! When, I say, we consider all these things, it is stupidity not to see the design of nature, and with what amazing skill the beautiful creature is contrived for offensive war and conquest.
Hor. You are a good painter. But after all, why would you judge of a creature’s nature from what it was perverted to, rather than from its original, the state it was first produced in? The lion in Paradise was a gentle, loving creature. Hear what Milton says of his behaviour before Adam and Eve, “as they sate recline on the soft downy bank, damask’d with flowers:”