But there is another still more sure and efficacious,—experience. When the act is once done, the consequences follow inevitably. The first effect is good; for it is precisely to obtain that result that the act is done. But the second may inflict suffering, the third still greater suffering, and so on.
Then men’s eyes are opened, and light begins to appear. That action is not repeated; we sacrifice the good produced by the first [p477] and immediate consequence, for fear of the still greater evil which the subsequent consequences entail. If the act has become a habit, and if we have not power to give it up, we at least give way to it with hesitation and repugnance, and after an inward conflict. We do not recommend it; on the contrary, we blame it, and persuade our children against it; and we are certainly on the road of progress.
If, on the other hand, the act is one which is useful, but from which we refrain, because its first, and only known, consequence is painful, and we are ignorant of the favourable ulterior consequences, experience teaches us the effects of abstaining from it. A savage, for instance, has had enough to eat. He does not foresee that he will be hungry to-morrow. Why should he labour to-day? To work is present pain—no need of foresight to know that. He therefore continues idle. But the day passes, another succeeds, and as it brings hunger, he must then work under the spur of necessity. This is a lesson which, frequently repeated, cannot fail to develop foresight. By degrees idleness is regarded in its true light. We brand it; we warn the young against it. Public opinion is now on the side of industry.
But in order that experience should afford us this lesson, in order that it should fulfil its mission, develop foresight, explain the series of consequences which flow from our actions, pave the way to good habits, and restrain bad ones—in a word, in order that experience should become an effective instrument of progress and moral improvement—the law of Responsibility must come into operation. The bad consequences must make themselves felt, and evil must for the moment chastise us.
Undoubtedly it would be better that evil had no existence; and it might perhaps be so if man was constituted differently from what he is. But taking man as he is, with his wants, his desires, his sensibility, his free will, his power of choosing and erring, his faculty of bringing into play a cause which necessarily entails consequences which it is not in our power to elude as long as the cause exists; in such circumstances, the only way of removing the cause is to enlighten the will, rectify the choice, abandon the vicious act or the vicious habit; and nothing can effect this but the law of Responsibility.
We may affirm, then, that man being constituted as he is, evil is not only necessary but useful. It has a mission, and enters into the universal harmony. Its mission is to destroy its own cause, to limit its own operation, to concur in the realization of good, and to stimulate progress. [p478]
We may elucidate this by some examples which the subject which now engages us—Political Economy—presents.
Frugality. Prodigality.
Monopolies.
Population.[111] . . . .