But the question I am now examining is this, whether in principle the religious sanction goes to confirm the natural sanction, or whether the natural sanction goes for nothing in presence of the religious sanction, and should give way to the latter when they come into collision.
Now, if I am not mistaken, the tendency of ministers of religion is to pay little attention to the natural sanction. For this they have an unanswerable reason: “God has ordained this; God has forbidden that.” There is no longer any room left for reasoning, for God is infallible and omnipotent. Although the act should lead to the destruction of the world, we must march on like blind men, just as we would do if God addressed us personally, and showed us heaven and hell.
It may happen, even in the true religion, that actions in themselves innocent are forbidden by Divine authority. To exact interest for money, for example, has been pronounced sinful. Had mankind given obedience to that prohibition, the race would long since have disappeared from the face of the earth. For without interest the accumulation of capital is impossible; without capital there can be no co-operation of anterior and present labour; without this co-operation there can be no society; and without society man cannot exist.
On the other hand, on examining the subject of interest more nearly, we are convinced that not only is it useful in its general effects, but that there is in it nothing contrary to charity and truth—certainly not more than there is in the stipend of a minister of religion, and less than in certain perquisites belonging to his office.
Thus, all the power of the Church has not been able for an [p480] instant to supersede, in this respect, the nature of things. The most which has been accomplished is to cause to be disguised one of the forms, and that the least usual form, of exacting interest, in a number of very trifling transactions.
In the same way, as regards precepts; when the Gospel says, “Unto him who smiteth thee on the one cheek, offer also the other,” it gives a precept which, if taken literally, would destroy the right of legitimate defence in the individual, and consequently in society. Now, without this right, the existence of the human race is impossible.
And what has happened? For eighteen hundred years this saying has been repeated as a mere conventionalism.
But there is a still graver consideration. There are false religions in the world. These necessarily admit precepts and prohibitions which are in antagonism with the natural sanctions attached to certain acts. Now, of all the means which have been given us to distinguish, in a matter so important, the true from the false, that which emanates from God from that which proceeds from imposture, none is more certain, more decisive, than an examination of the good or bad consequences which a doctrine is calculated to have on the advancement and progress of mankind—a fructibus eorum cognoscetis eos.
Legal sanction.—Nature having prepared a system of punishments and rewards, in the shape of the effects which necessarily proceed from each act and from each habit, what is the province of human law? There are only three courses it can take—to allow Responsibility to act, to chime in with it, or to oppose it.
It seems to me beyond doubt that when a legal sanction is brought into play, it ought only to be to give more force, regularity, certainty, and efficacy to the natural sanction. These two powers should co-operate, and not run counter to each other.