J. BUTLER.
Hamlin’s Coffee-house,
Tuesday Morning.
II.
The original of this Letter with the answer, which is roughly written on the blank leaf, is, I believe, now in the library of Oriel College, Oxford. I am indebted for my copy to the kindness of the Rev. J. H. Newman, D.D., formerly of that College.
Rev. Sir,
I had long resisted an Inclination to desire your Thoughts upon the difficulty mentioned in my last, till I considered that the trouble in answering it would be only carrying on the general purpose of your Life, and that I might claim the same right to your Instructions with others; notwithstanding which, I should not have mentioned it to you had I not thought (which is natural when one fancies one sees a thing clearly) that I could easily express it with clearness to others. However I should by no means have given you a second trouble upon the subject had I not had your particular leave. I thought proper just to mention these things that you might
not suspect me to take advantage from your Civility to trouble you with any thing, but only such objections as seem to me of Weight, and which I cannot get rid of any other way. A disposition in our natures to be influenced by right motives is as absolutely necessary to render us moral Agents, as a Capacity to discern right motives is. These two are I think quite distinct perceptions, the former proceeding from a desire inseparable from a Conscious Being of its own happiness, the latter being only our Understanding, or Faculty of seeing Truth. Since a disposition to be influenced by right motives is a sine quâ non to Virtuous Actions, an Indifferency to right motives must incapacitate us for Virtuous Actions, or render us in that particular not moral agents. I do indeed think that no Rational Creature is strictly speaking Indifferent to Right Motives, but yet there seems to be somewhat which to all intents of the present question is the same, viz. a stronger disposition to be influenced by contrary or wrong motives, and this I take to be always the Case when any vice is committed. But since it may be said, as you hint, that this stronger disposition to be influenced by Vicious Motives may have been contracted by repeated Acts of Wickedness, we will pitch upon the first Vicious Action any one is guilty of. No man would have committed this first Vicious Action if he had not had a stronger (at least as strong) disposition in him to be influenced by the Motives of the Vicious Action, than by the motives
of the contrary Virtuous Action; from whence I infallibly conclude, that since every man has committed some first Vice, every man had, antecedent to the commission of it, a stronger disposition to be influenced by the Vicious than the Virtuous motive. My difficulty upon this is, that a stronger natural disposition to be influenced by the Vicious than the Virtuous Motive (which every one has antecedent to his first vice), seems, to all purposes of the present question, to put the Man in the same condition as though he was indifferent to the Virtuous Motive; and since an indifferency to the Virtuous Motive would have incapacitated a Man from being a moral Agent, or contracting guilt, is not a stronger disposition to be influenced by the Vicious Motive as great an Incapacity? Suppose I have two diversions offered me, both of which I could not enjoy, I like both of them, but yet have a stronger inclination to one than to the other, I am not indeed strictly indifferent to either, because I should be glad to enjoy both; but am I not exactly in the same case, to all intents and purposes of acting, as though I was absolutely indifferent to that diversion which I have the least inclination to? You suppose Man to be endued naturally with a disposition to be influenced by Virtuous Motives, and that this Disposition is a sine quâ non to Virtuous Actions, both which I fully believe; but then you omit to consider the natural Inclination to be influenced by Vicious Motives, which, whenever a Vice is committed, is at least equally strong with the
other, and in the first Vice is not affected by Habits, but is as natural, and as much out of a man’s power as the other. I am much obliged to your offer of writing to Mr. Laughton, which I shall very thankfully accept of, but am not certain when I shall go to Cambridge; however, I believe it will be about the middle of the next month.
I am, Rev. Sir,
Your most obliged humble Servant,