Chapter V

Shewing that all the mutability of our tempers, the disorders of our passions, the corruption of our hearts, all the reveries of the imagination, all the contradictions and absurdities that are to be found in human life, and human opinions, are in effect the mutability, disorders, corruption, and absurdities of human reason.

IT is the intent of this chapter to shew, that altho’ common language ascribes a variety of faculties and principles to the soul, imputing this action to the blindness of our passions, that to the inconstancy of our tempers; one thing to the heat of our imagination, another to the coolness of our reason; yet, in strictness of truth, every thing that is done by us, is the action and operation of our reason, and is to be ascribed to it, as the sole principle from whence it proceeded, and by which it is governed and effected.

And the different degrees of reason are in men, as the different degrees of love and aversion; as the different degrees of wit, parts, good nature, or ill nature, are in man.

And as all men have naturally more or less of these qualities, so all men have naturally more or less reason: and the bulk of mankind are as different in reason, as they are in these qualities.

As love is the same passion in all men, yet is infinitely different; as hatred is the same passion in all men, yet with infinite differences; so reason is the same faculty in all men, yet with infinite differences.

And as our passions not only make us different from other men, but frequently and almost daily different from ourselves, loving and hating under great inconstancy; so our reason is not only different from the reason of other men, but is often different from itself; by a strange inconstancy, setting up first one opinion, and then another.

So that when we talk of human reason, or a reason common to mankind, we talk of as various, uncertain, and unmeasurable a thing, as when we talk of a love, an aversion, a good nature, or ill nature, common to mankind; for these qualities admit of no variation, uncertainty, or mutability, but such as they directly receive from the reason of mankind.

For it is as much the reason of man that acts in all these tempers, and makes them to be just what they are, as it is the reason of man that demonstrates a mathematical proposition.

Was our reason steady, there would be just the same steadiness and regularity in our tempers; did not reason fall into follies and absurdities, we should have nothing foolish or absurd in our love or aversion. For every humour, every kind of love or aversion, is as strictly the action or operation of our reason, as judgment is the act of our reason.

And the tempers and passions of a child, differ only from the tempers and passions of a man, as the reason of a child differs from the reason of man.

So that our passions and tempers, are the natural real effects of our reason, and have no qualities, either good or bad, but such as are to be imputed to it.

A laudable good nature, or a laudable aversion, is only reason acting in a certain manner: a criminal good nature, or a criminal aversion, is nothing else but reason acting in another certain manner.

But still it is reason, or our understanding that is the only agent in our bad passions, as well as good passions; and as much the sole agent in all our passions and tempers, as in things of mere speculation.

So that the state of reason in human life, is nothing else but the state of human tempers and passions; and right reason in morality, is nothing else but right love, and right aversion.

All that therefore which we commonly call the weakness, blindness, and disorder of our passions, is in reality the weakness, blindness, and disorder of our reason. For a right love, or wrong love, denotes only reason acting in a certain, particular manner.

So that if any thing can be said of love, aversion, good nature, or ill nature, as common to mankind; the same may be said of reason, as common to mankind.

For the distinction of our reason from our passions, is only a distinction in language, made at pleasure; and is no more real than the desire and inclination are really different from the will. All therefore that is weak and foolish in our passions, is the weakness and folly of our reason; all the inconstancy and caprice of our humours and tempers, is the caprice and inconstancy of our reason.

It is not properly avarice that makes men sordid; it is not ambition that makes them restless; it is not bribery that makes men sell their consciences; it is not interest that makes them lye, and cheat, and perjure themselves. What is it therefore? Why it is that absolutely perfect faculty, which our author sets up as the unerring standard of all that is wise, holy, and good; it is reason, the use of reason, human reason, that does all this.

For whether any thing be fit to be done, it is as he says, “reason alone which must judge; as the eye is the sole judge of what is visible, the ear of what is audible, so reason of what is reasonable.”

Every thing therefore that is done, every thing that is chosen in human life before any thing else, is as strictly chosen by reason, as every thing that is seen, is seen by the eye; and every thing that is heard, is heard by the ear.

To suppose that reason permits itself to be governed by passions or tempers, but is not the immediate agent of all that is done by them, is as absurd, as to suppose that reason permits itself to be governed by the hand when it is writing falsly, or the tongue, when it is talking profanely, but it is not the immediate, direct agent of all that is written and spoken by them.

* Brutes are incapable of immorality, because none of their actions are the actions of reason: every thing therefore that is immorality, baseness, or villainy in us, must be the act of our reason, otherwise it could no more be immoral, than the actions of brutes.

* If therefore, as this author often saith, reason be the only faculty that distinguisheth us from brutes; it necessarily follows, that those irregularities, whether of humour, passions, or tempers, which cannot be imputed to brutes, must be solely attributed to that faculty by which we are distinguished from brutes; and consequently, every thing that is foolish, vain, shameful, false, treacherous, and base, must be the acts of our reason; since if they were the acts of any thing else, they could have no more vanity, falseness, or baseness, than hunger and thirst.

It is not my intent to condemn our common language, which talks of reason and the passions, as if they were as different as a governor and his subjects.

These forms of speech are very intelligible and useful, and give great life and ornament to all discourses upon morality.

But when persons ascribe to reason, as a distinct faculty of human nature, I know not what absolute perfection, making it as immutable, and incapable of any addition or improvement, as God himself: it is necessary to consider reason, not as it is represented in common language, but as it is in reality in itself.

Notwithstanding therefore in common language, our passions, and the effects of them, are usefully distinguished from our reason, I have here ventured to shew, that all the disorders of human nature, are in effect the disorders of human reason, and that all the perfection or imperfection of our passions is the perfection or imperfection of our reason.

Our follies and absurdities of every kind are as necessarily to be ascribed to our reason, as the first immediate cause of them, as our wisdom and discretion are to be ascribed to it in that degree.

The difference between reason assenting to the properties of a square, and reason acting in motions of desire or aversion, is only this, that in the latter case, it is reason acting under a sense of its own good or evil, in the former case, it is reason acting under a sense of magnitude.

And as the relations of magnitude, as they are the objects of our reason, are only the objects of its assent or dissent; so good and evil, as they are objects of our reason, are only the objects of its desire or aversion: and as the assent or dissent, in matters of speculation, whether right or wrong, is solely the act of our reason; so desire or aversion, in human life, whether right or wrong, is equally the act of our reason.

We often say, that our passions deceive us, or persuade us; but this is no more strictly so, than when we say, our interest deceived, or a bribe blinded us. For bribes and interest are not active principles, nor have any power of deception; it is only our reason that gives them a false value, and prefers them to a greater good.

It is just so in what we call the deceit of our passions: they meddle with us no more than bribes meddle with us; but that pleasurable perception, which is to be found in certain enjoyments, is by our reason preferred to that better good, which we might expect from self-denial.

We say again, that our passions paint things in false colours, and present to our minds vain appearances of happiness.

But this is no more strictly true, than when we say, ♦our imagination forms castles in the air. For the imagination signifies no distinct faculty from our reason, but only reason acting upon our own ideas.

So when our passions are said to give false colours to things, or present vain appearances of happiness, it is only our reason acting upon its own ideas of good and evil, just as it acts upon its own ideas of architecture, in forming castles in the air.

So that all that which we call different faculties, tempers, and passions, strictly speaking, means nothing else, but the various acts of one and the same rational principle, which has different names, according to the objects that it acts upon, and the manner of its acting.

In some things it is called speculative, in others it is called practical reason. And we may as justly think our speculative reason is a different faculty from our practical reason, as that our aversions, or likings, are not as fully to be ascribed to our reason, as syllogisms and demonstrations.

* It was truly reason that made Medea kill her children, that made Cato kill himself, that made Pagans offer human sacrifices to idols; that made Epicurus deny a providence, Mahomet pretend a revelation; that made some men sceptics, others bigots; some enthusiasts, others profane; that made Hobbes assert all religion to be human invention, and Spinosa to declare trees, and stones, and animals to be parts of God; that makes free-thinkers deny freedom of will, and fatalists exhort to a reformation of manners; that made Vaux a conspirator, and Ludlow a regicide; that made Muggleton a fanatic; and Rochester a libertine. It was as truly reason that did all these things, as it is reason that demonstrates mathematical propositions.

Medea and Cato acted as truly according to the judgment of their reason at that time, as the confessor that chuses rather to suffer, than deny his faith.

Had not Medea and Cato thought it best to do what they did, at the time they did it, they would no more have done it than the confessor would chuse to suffer rather than deny his faith, unless he had judged best so to do.

And when we say reason governs the passions, it means no more, than that reason governs itself; that it acts with deliberation and attention, does not yield to its first judgments, but uses second, and third thoughts.

So that guarding against the passions, is only guarding against its own first judgments and opinions; that is guarding against itself.

To all this may, perhaps, be objected, that our passions arise from bodily motions, and depend upon the state of our blood and animal spirits, and therefore what we do under their commotions, cannot be attributed to our reason.

It is readily granted, that the body has this share in our passions and tempers: but then the same thing must be granted of the body, in all the acts and operations of the mind. So that if our desires and aversions cannot be imputed to our reason, because of the joint operation of the animal spirits in them; no more can syllogisms and demonstrations be attributed to our reason, because the operation of bodily spirits concurreth in the forming of them.

For the most abstract thought, and speculation of the mind, has as truly the conjunct operation of bodily spirits, as our strongest desires or aversions. And it is as much owing to the state of the body, that such speculations are what they are, as it is owing to the state of the body, that such passions are what they are.

For the motions of the bodily spirits are inseparable from, and according to, the state and action of the mind: when reason is in speculation of a trifle, they concur but weakly; when reason speculates intensely, their operation is increased. And sometimes the attention of the mind is so great, and has so engaged and called in all the animal spirits to its assistance, that the operations of our senses are suspended, and we neither see, nor feel, till the attention of the mind has let the spirits return to all the parts of the body.

Now will any one say, that these intense thoughts are less the acts of the mind, because they have a greater concurrence of bodily spirits, than when it is acting with indifference, and so has a lesser quantity of bodily spirits?

Yet this might as well be said, as to say, that the assent or dissent, in speculation, is the act of our reason; but liking or disliking, loving or hating, are not the acts of our reason, because they have a greater concurrence of bodily spirits.

For, as the mind is in a different state when it desires good, or fears evil, from what it is when it only compares two triangles; so the motions of the bodily spirits, have only such a difference, as is correspondent to these two states of the mind. They act and join as much in comparing the triangles, as in the desire of good, or fear of evil. And the mind is just as much governed by the body, in its passions, as in its calmest contemplations.

For as the gentle operation of the animal spirits is then correspondent to the state and action of the mind; so in all our passions, the strong and increased motion of the animal spirits, is equally correspondent thereto.

So that reason is no more the agent, in our tempers and passions, than in our dry and sedate speculations.

It may happen, that a man may have as great an eagerness in solving a mathematical problem, as another hath to obtain any great good, or avoid any great evil.

But may it therefore be said, that it is not reason that solves the problem, because the bodily spirits are so active in it?

To draw now some plain consequences from the foregoing account.

First, If reason be the universal agent in the natural man; if all the difference among such men, is only such a difference as reason makes, then nothing can be more extravagant, than to affirm any thing concerning the degree of perfection, or imperfection of reason, as common to man. It is as wild and romantic, as to pretend to state the measure of folly and wisdom, of fear and courage, of pride and humility, of good humour and ill-humour, common to mankind: for as these states of the mind, are only so many different states of reason; so no uncertainty belongs to them, but what, in the same degree, belongs to reason.

Secondly, Granting that all matters of religion must be agreeable to right, unprejudiced reason; yet this could be no ground for receiving nothing in religion, but what human reason could prove to be necessary; for human reason is no more right, unprejudiced reason, than a sinner is sinless, or a man an angel.

Granting again, that a man may go a great way towards rectifying his reason, and laying aside its prejudices; yet no particular man can be a better judge of the rectitude of his own reason, than he is of the rectitude of his own self-love, the brightness of his own parts, and the depth of his own judgment.

For there is nothing to deceive him in self-love, in the opinion of his own merit, wit, and judgment, but what has the same power to deceive him, in the opinion of his own reason. And if, as our author says, “It be the fate of most sects to be the fondest of their ugliest brats.”¹ None seem so inevitably exposed to this fatality, as those whose religion is to have no form, but such as it receives from their own hearts.

¹ Page 184.

Thirdly, A man that has his religion to chuse, and with this precious privilege, that he need not allow any thing to be matter of religion, but what his own reason can prove to be so, is in as fair a way to be governed by his passions, as he that has his condition of life to chuse, with the liberty of taking that which his own reason directs him to.

Does any one suppose, that nothing but reason would direct him in the choice of his condition? Or that he would make the better choice, because he proceeded upon this maxim, that nothing could be right, but that which was agreeable to his own reason? Or that his tempers, his prejudices, his self-love, his passions, his partiality, would have no influence upon his choice, because he had resigned himself up to his own reason?

Now it is just the same in the choice of a religion, as in the choice of a condition of life: as it is not a matter of speculation, but of good and evil; so if it is left to be determined by our own reason, it rather appeals to our tempers, than employs our reason; and to resign ourselves up to our own reason, to tell us what ought, or ought not to be a matter of religion, is only resigning ourselves up to our tempers, ♦to take what we like, and refuse what we dislike in religion.

* In a word; when self-love is a proper arbitrator betwixt a man and his adversary; when revenge is a just judge of meekness; when pride is a true lover of humility; when falshood is a teacher of truth; when lust is a fast friend of chastity; when the flesh leads to the spirit; when sensuality delights in self-denial; when partiality is a promoter of equity; when the palate can taste the difference between sin and holiness; when the hand can feel the truth of a proposition; then may human reason be a proper arbitrator between God and man, the sole, final, just judge of all that ought, or ought not to be a matter of a holy, divine, and heavenly religion.

Lastly, If this be the state of reason, then to pretend, that our reason, is too perfect to be governed by any thing but its own light, is the same extravagance, as to pretend, that our love is too pure to be governed by any thing but its own inclinations, our hatred too just to be governed by any thing but its own motions. For if all that is base and criminal in love, all that is unjust and wicked in hatred, is to be imputed to our reason; then no perfection can be ascribed to our reason, but such as is to be ascribed to our love and hatred.