There are two considerations which seem necessary to be attended to in abridging any author; the size of the work, rendering it inaccessible to the generality of readers, and the merit of the work, rendering it desirable that it should be within every one’s reach. It is easy to perceive, that these two conditions are not always united: there are some works whose only merit seems to be, that they are so large that nobody can read them; whose ponderous bulk, and formidable appearance, happily serve as a barrier to keep out the infection of their dulness.
The work, of which the following is an abridgment, notwithstanding its excellence, has been little read. A philosophical work in seven large volumes presents no very great attractions to the indolent curiosity of most readers. Even the seven volumes of Clarissa, and Sir Charles Grandison, are at present viewed with doubtful looks by the eye of taste, and reluctantly engaged in: and our modern novelists, that happily privileged race of authors, whose works ‘not sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,’ are exempt from the charge of dulness or ennui, have been obliged to contract the boundless scenes of their imagination within four slender volumes, where the diminutive page vies in vain with the luxuriant margin. As to the studious and recluse reader, there is generally another obstacle which prevents him from gratifying his curiosity with respect to works of this extent, however valuable or important.
Again, there are works of great length, which cannot, however, be reduced into a less compass, ‘without suffering loss and diminution.’ Though vast, there is nothing useless, nothing superfluous in them; and nothing can be taken away or displaced, without destroying the symmetry and connection of the whole. This is certainly not the case with the writings of Abraham Tucker: they are encumbered and weighed down with a load of unnecessary matter. Not that there are any great inequalities in them, nor any parts which, taken separately, are not entertaining and valuable; but the work is swelled out with endless repetitions of itself. The same thing is said over and over again; the same subjects discussed in a different shape, till the reader is tired, and his attention quite distracted. This radical defect, which is certainly a drawback on the usefulness of the work, appears evidently to have arisen from the manner of composing it. The author was a private gentleman, who wrote at his ease, and for his own amusement: he had nothing to do but to take his time, and follow the whim of the moment. He wrote without any regular plan, and without foreseeing or being concerned about the deviations, the shiftings and windings, and the intricate cross-movements in which he should be entangled. He had leisure on his hands; and provided he got out of the labyrinth at last, he was satisfied—no matter how often he had lost his way in it. When a subject presented itself to him, he exhausted all he had to say upon it, and then dismissed it for another. The chapter was thrown aside, and forgotten. If the same subject recurred again in a different connection, he turned it over in his thoughts afresh; as his ideas arose in his mind, he committed them to paper; he repeated the same things over again, or inserted any new observation or example that suggested itself to him in confirmation of his argument; and thus by the help of a new title, and by giving a different application to the whole, a new chapter was completed. By this means, as he himself remarks, his writings are rather a tissue of loose essays than a regular work; and indeed the leaves of the Sybils could not be more loose and unconnected. It is so far then from being an injury, that it must be rather an advantage to the original work to expunge its repetitions, and confine its digressions, if this could be done properly.
This is, in fact, what I have attempted to do: whenever I came to a passage that was merely a repetition of a former one, I struck it out: and at the same time, I endeavoured to abridge those detailed parts of the work which were the longest, and the least interesting, and to correct the general redundance of the style. I have not, however (that I know of), omitted any thing essential to the merit of the work. All the singular observations, all the fine illustrations, I have given nearly in an entire state to the reader: I was afraid to touch them, lest I should spoil them. The rule that I went by was, to give every thing that I thought would strike the attention in reading the work itself, and to leave out every thing (except what was absolutely necessary to the understanding of the subject), that would be likely to make no lasting impression on the mind. A good abridgment ought to contain just as much as we should wish to recollect of a book; it should give back (only in a more perfect manner) to a reader well acquainted with the original, ‘the image of his mind,’ so that he would miss no favourite passage, none of the prominent parts, or distinguishing features of the work. How far I have succeeded, must be left to the decision of others: and perhaps in some respects one is less a judge of the execution of a work like this, than of an original performance. The same deception takes place here, as, I have been told by painters, sometimes happens in copying a fine picture. Your mind is full of the original, and you see the imitation through this borrowed medium; you transfuse its grace and spirit into the copy; you connect its glowing tints and delicate touches with a meagre outline, and a warm fancy sheds its lustre over that which is little better than a blank: but when the original impression is faded, and you have nothing left but the copy for the imagination to feed on, you find the spirit evaporated, the expression gone, and you wonder at your own mistake. I can only say, that I have done my best to prevent my copy of the Light of Nature from degenerating into a mere caput mortuum. As to the pains and labour it has cost me, or the time I have devoted to it, I shall say nothing. However, if any one should be scrupulous on that head, I might answer, as Sir Joshua Reynolds is said to have done to some person who cavilled at the price of a picture, and desired to know how long he had been doing it, ‘All my life.’
Of the work itself, I can speak with more confidence. I do not know of any work in the shape of a philosophical treatise that contains so much good sense so agreeably expressed. The character of the work is, in this respect, altogether singular. Amidst all the abstruseness of the most subtle disquisitions, it is as familiar as Montaigne, and as wild and entertaining as John Buncle. To the ingenuity and closeness of the metaphysician, he unites the principal knowledge of the man of the world, and the utmost sprightliness, and even levity of imagination. He is the only philosopher who appears to have had his senses always about him, or to have possessed the enviable faculty of attending at the same time to what was passing in his own mind, and what was going on without him. He applied every thing to the purposes of philosophy; he could not see any thing, the most familiar objects or the commonest events, without connecting them with the illustration of some difficult problem. The tricks of a young kitten, or a little child at play, were sure to suggest to him some useful observation, or nice distinction. To this habit, he was, no doubt, indebted for what Paley justly calls ‘his unrivalled power of illustration.’ To be convinced that he possessed this power in the highest degree, it is only necessary to look into almost any page of his writings: at least, I think it impossible for any one not to perceive the beauty, the naiveté, the force, the clearness, and propriety of his illustrations, who has not previously had his understanding strangely overlaid with logic and criticism.[[67]]—If he was surpassed by one or two writers in logical precision and systematic profundity, there is no metaphysical writer who is equal to him in clearness of apprehension, and a various insight into human nature. Though he excelled greatly in both, yet, he excelled more in what is called the method of induction, than that of analysis: he convinces the reader oftener by shewing him the thing in dispute, than by defining its abstract qualities; as the philosopher is said to have proved the existence of motion by getting up and walking. I do not, for my own part, look up with all that awe and admiration to the grave professors of abstract reasoning that it is usual to do. They are so far from being men of great comprehension of mind, (if by this we are to understand comprehending the whole of every subject) that the contrary is generally the case. They are persons of few ideas, of slow perceptions, of narrow capacities, of dull but retentive feelings, who cannot seize or enter into the infinite variety and rapid succession of natural objects, and are only susceptible of those impressions of things, which being common to all objects, and constantly repeated, come at length to fix those lasting traces in the mind, which nothing can ever alter or wear out. By attending only to one aspect of things, and that the same, and by leaving out always those minute differences and perplexing irregularities which disturb the sluggish uniformity of our ideas, and give life and motion to our being, men of formal understandings are sometimes able to pursue their inquiries with a steadiness and certainty that are incompatible with a more extensive range of thought. Abstraction is a trick to supply the defect of comprehension. The moulds of the understanding may be said not to be large enough to contain the gross concrete objects of nature, but will still admit of their names, and descriptions, and general forms, which lie flatter and closer in the brain, and are more easily managed. The most perfect abstraction is nothing more than the art of making use of only one half of the understanding, and never seeing more than one half of a subject, in the same manner as we find that those persons have the acutest perceptions, who have lost some one of their senses. A man, therefore, who disdains the use of common sense, and thinks to arrive at the highest point of philosophy, by thus denaturalizing his understanding, is like a person who should deprive himself of the use of his eye-sight, in order that he might be able to grope his way better in the dark!
A man may set up for a system-maker, upon a single idea: he cannot write a sensible book without a great many. I do not deny that one idea may often involve, and be the parent of many others: but I do not see how knowledge is at all the worse, because it brings us immediately acquainted with the very form of truth, instead of serving merely as an index, or clue to direct us in the search of it. If the one method tends more effectually to sharpen the understanding, the other enriches it more. The one method puts you upon exerting your own faculties; the other, meeting you half way, wisely saves you from the necessity of taking all that pains and trouble in the search after truth, which few persons are disposed to take, and is therefore more generally useful. The great merit of our author’s writings is undoubtedly that sound, practical, comprehensive good sense, which is to be found in every part of them. What is I believe the truest test of fine sense, is that affecting simplicity in his observations, which proceeds from their extreme truth and liveliness. Whatever recalls strongly to our remembrance the common feelings of human nature, and marks distinctly the changes that take place in the human breast, must always be accompanied with some sense of emotion; for our own nature can never be indifferent to us.
If there is any fault in his practical reasonings, it is that they are too discursive, and without a determinate object. No difficulty ever escapes his penetration; every view of his subject, every consequence of his principles is stated and examined with scrupulous exactness, and the weak sides and inconveniences of every rule are pointed out, till a sort of sceptical uncertainty is introduced, and the mind sinks into a passive indifference. This kind of reasoning is certainly not calculated to rouse the energy of our active powers; but I believe it is that which generally accompanies much dispassionate inquiry. I am afraid the most patient thinkers are those who have the most doubts and the fewest violent prejudices; and perhaps, after all, we shall be forced to acknowledge with Sterne, as the truest philosophy, ‘that there is not so much difference between good and evil as the world are apt to imagine.’ A writer, indeed, who has a system to support, is not likely to fall into this error; but then, if it is only because he has a system to support, what is the value of that confidence in his opinions, which is the result of wilful blindness? A man’s living much in retirement (as was the case with our author) where his thoughts have a calm and even course to flow in, may also contribute much to this indecision of mind. There is many a champion who would soon sink into silent scepticism, if he was not urged on by the necessity of maintaining opinions which he has once avowed, and had nobody to dispute against but himself. The spirit of contradiction is the great source of dogmatism and pertinacity of opinion. I am aware, that a habit of much disputing also produces the contrary effect. But even where it renders men sceptical, it does not render them candid. It is therefore in great cities, in literary clubs, that you meet with the fewest sincere opinions, and the most extravagant assertions.
As to his system of belief on the subject of religion, I am unable to say what it was: and perhaps he did not know himself. I have however no doubt, that he was sincere in his professions of attachment to the established doctrines, or that he was habitually accustomed to look upon them as true. Still there is a distinction, which is not always attended to, between that kind of assent which is merely habitual, or the effect of choice, which depends upon a disposition to regard any object in a certain point of view, and that internal conviction, in which the will has no concern, which is the result of a free and unbiassed judgment, and which a man retains in spite of himself. Subtle distinctions are not always the most palpable; and therefore sometimes require the aid of violent suppositions to render them intelligible. I can conceive, that a person may all his life live in the belief of a certain notion, without once suspecting the contrary; yet, that if the case could be put to him, to declare his opinion freely to the best of his judgment, for that, if he were mistaken, his life must answer for it, he would instantly find by what slender threads his former opinion hung. The sense of convenience, humour, or vanity, are sufficient to blind the understanding, and determine our opinions in speculative points, and matters of indifference. Common compliance, or good-nature, or personal regard, may lead them to give credit to, and defend the truth of a story told by a friend, which yet, if I were put to my oath, I could not do. So that we, in fact, very often believe that to be true, which we know to be false.[[68]] The atheist is no longer an atheist on a sickbed; and a violent thunderstorm has been known not only to clear the air, but to cure the freethinker of his affected scruples with respect to the proofs of a superintending Providence. But the difference of our conclusions in such cases does not arise from any new evidence, or farther investigation of the subject, but from the greater interest we have to examine carefully into the real state of our opinions, and to throw off all disguises that conceal them from ourselves. Now this ultimate test cannot very well be applied to a man’s religious professions, because the power of denouncing ‘pains and penalties’ is already lodged in other hands; but I cannot help suspecting, that if this test could have been applied to some of our author’s notions, his external and internal, or, to use his own expressions, his exoteric and esoteric creed, would not have been found to coalesce perfectly together. It is amusing to observe with what gravity he sets himself to inveigh against freethinkers and free-thinking; when he himself, as to his mode of reasoning, is one of the greatest of freethinkers. He seems to have been willing to keep the game entirely in his own hands; or else to have supposed that the liberal exercise of reason was only proper for gentlemen of independent fortune; and that none but those who were in the commission of the peace, should be allowed to censure vulgar errors. This was certainly a weakness.
With respect to his metaphysical system, he must be considered as the founder of his own school; or at least, the opinions of different sects are so mingled up in him, that he cannot be considered as belonging to any party. He professes himself indeed, and seems anxious to be thought, a disciple of Locke, but this is evidently very much against the grain; and he is perpetually put to it to reconcile the differences between them on the most essential points.—I know but of two sorts of philosophy; that of those who believe what they feel, and endeavour to account for it, and that of those who only believe what they understand, and have already accounted for. The one is the philosophy of consciousness, the other that of experiment; the one may be called the intellectual, the other the material philosophy. The one rests chiefly on the general notions and conscious perceptions of mankind, and endeavours to discover what the mind is, by looking into the mind itself; the other denies the existence of every thing in the mind, of which it cannot find some rubbishly archetype, and visible image in its crucibles and furnaces, or in the distinct forms of verbal analysis. The first of these is the only philosophy that is fit for men of sense, the other should be left to chymists and logicians. Of this last kind is the philosophy of Locke; though I would be understood to speak of him rather as having laid the foundation, on which others have built absurd conclusions, than of what he was in himself. He was a man of much studious thought and reflection; and if everything by being carried to extremes, were not converted into abuse, his writings might have been of lasting service to his country and mankind. He staggered under the ‘petrific mace’ of Hobbes’s philosophy, which he had not strength to resist, but yet he attempted to make some stand; and was not quite overpowered by the gripe of that demon of the understanding. He took for his basis a bad simile, that the mind is like a blank sheet of paper, equally adapted to receive every kind of external impression. Or at least, if this illustration was proper for the purpose to which he applied it (which was to overturn the doctrine of innate ideas), a very bad use has been made of it since; as if it was meant to prove, that the mind is nothing in itself, nor the cause of any thing, never acting, but always acted upon, the mere receiver and passive instrument of whatever impressions are made upon it; so that being fairly gutted of itself, and of all positive qualities, it in fact resembles the bare walls and empty rooms of an unfurnished lodging, into which you bring whatever furniture you please; and which never contains any thing more than what is brought into it through the doors of the senses. Hence all those superadded feelings and ideas, all those operations and modifications which our impressions undergo from the active powers and independent nature of the mind itself, are treated as chimerical and visionary notions by the profound adepts in this clear-sighted philosophy.[[69]] The object of the German philosophy, or the system of professor Kant, as far as I can understand it, is to explode this mechanical ignorance, to take the subject out of the hands of its present possessors, and to admit our own immediate perceptions to be some evidence of what passes in the human mind. It takes for granted the common notions prevalent among mankind, and then endeavours to explain them; or to shew their foundation in nature, and the universal relations of things. This, at least, is a modest proposal, and worthy of a philosopher. The understanding here pays a proper deference to the other parts of our being, and knows its own place: whereas our modern sophists, meddling, noisy, and self-sufficient, think that truth is only made to be disputed about; that it exists no where but in their experiments, demonstrations, and syllogisms; and leaving nothing to the silent operations of nature and common sense, believe that all our opinions, thoughts, and feelings, are of no value, till the understanding, like a pert commentator, comes forward to enforce and explain them; as if a book could be nothing without notes, or as if a picture had no meaning in it till it was pointed out by the connoisseur! Tucker was certainly an arrant truant from the system he pretends to adopt, and one of the common sense school. Thus he believed with professor Kant in the unity of consciousness, or ‘that the mind alone is formative,’ that fundamental article of the transcendental creed; in the immateriality of the soul, etc. His chapter on consciousness is one of the best in the whole work; and is perhaps as close an example of reasoning as is any where to be met with. I would recommend it to the serious perusal of all our professed reasoners, but that they are so thoroughly satisfied with the profession of the thing, so fortified and wrapped up in the mere name, that it is impossible to make any impression upon them with the thing itself. On some other questions, which form the great leading outlines of the two creeds, as that of self-love, for instance, his opinions seem to have been more unsettled and wavering. I have already offered what I have to say on this subject in a little work published by Mr. Johnson; and I shall therefore say the less about it here.[[71]] However, as I may not soon have an opportunity of recurring to the same subject, and as there is a part of that work with which I am not very well satisfied, the subject of which is also treated of in the following pages, it may not perhaps be altogether impertinent to add a few observations for the further clearing of it up.
We are told, that sympathy is only self-love disguised in another form, that it is a mere mechanical impulse or tendency to our own gratification. It is asked, Do we not attach ourselves to the idea of another’s welfare, because it is pleasing to us, and do we not feel an aversion or dislike to certain objects, whether relating to ourselves or others, merely because they are disagreeable to us; and is not this self-love? I answer no. Because, in this logical way of speaking, it is a misnomer to call my attachment to any particular object or idea by a name that implies my attachment to a general principle, or to any thing beyond itself. Numerically and absolutely speaking, the particular idea or modification which produces any given action, is as much a distinct, individual, independent thing in nature, and has no more to do with myself, that is, with other objects, and ideas which have no immediate concern in producing it, than one individual has to do with another. The notion that our motives are blind mechanical impulses, if it proves anything, proves, that instead of being always governed by self-love, there is in reality no such thing. So that, as far as this argument goes, it is no less absurd to trace our love of others to self-love, than it would be to account for a man’s love of reading from his fondness for bread and butter, or to say that his having an ear for music arose from his relish for port wine. It is therefore necessary to suppose, that when we attempt to resolve all our motives into self-love, we only mean to refer them to a certain class, and to say, that they all agree in having some circumstance in common which brings them under the same general denomination. Now, there is one way in which this has been attempted, by proving that they are all ours, that they all belong to the same being, and are therefore all equally selfish. This is as bad as Soame Jenyns’s argument, that all men may be said to be born equal, because they are equally born. So, if it is contended, that sympathy is a part of our nature, and therefore selfish; that the imagination and understanding are real efficient causes of action, and therefore operate mechanically; that our ideas of all external existences, of other persons, their names, qualities and feelings, are only impressions existing in our own minds, and are therefore properly selfish, and ought to be called so; I shall have nothing to object to this kind of reasoning, but that it is taking a great deal of perverse pains to no purpose. The question stands just where it did, it is not moved a jot further. For what difference can be made in the question, by our calling benevolence selfishness, or sympathy self-love, I cannot discover, except that we should lose the advantage of having a distinct word to express those affections and feelings which confessedly have nothing to do with sympathy. The question therefore is, whether all our affections are of this latter class, or whether the two words do not express a distinction which has no real foundation in nature. This is in fact what must be meant by saying that sympathy is self-love in disguise; for this must imply that sympathy does not operate as such, that it is only the ostensible motive, the accidental circumstance, the form or vehicle that serves to transmit the efficacy of another principle lying hid beneath it, and that has no power but what it derives from its connection with something else. But, in order to establish this mechanical theory of self-love, it appears to me necessary to exhibit sympathy as it were abstracted from itself, to resolve it into another principle, and to shew that it would still produce exactly the same effects as it does at present. Now there are two ways in which I can conceive that this might be satisfactorily made out, viz. if it could be shewn, first, that our concern for others only affects the mind as connected with physical or bodily uneasiness; or, 2ndly, as abstract uneasiness. Suppose, for instance, that the imaginary feeling of what other persons suffer, as far as it is confined to the mind only, does not affect me at all, or produce the least disposition in my mind or wish to relieve them, but that the idea of what they suffer gives me a pain in the head, or produces an uneasiness at my stomach, and that then, for the first time, I begin to feel some concern for them, and try to relieve them, in order to get rid of my own uneasiness, because I do not like the head-ach or the stomach-ach; this, I grant, would not entitle me to the character of much disinterestedness, but however I might attempt to gloss the matter over by an affectation of sensibility, and make a virtue of necessity, would be downright, unequivocal selfishness. This first supposition, however, is not true. To prove this, I need only appeal to every one’s own breast, or at least to our observation of human nature; for it must be clear to every person, in one or other of these ways, that our interest in the pleasures and pains of others is not excited in the manner here described. Besides, how should the mind communicate an uneasiness to the body, which it does not feel itself? We must therefore have recourse to the second supposition for resolving benevolence into a mere mechanical principle, or shewing that it is at bottom the same with, and governed by the same laws as our most selfish impulses. There is no contradiction in supposing, that however great a disposition there might be in the mind to be immediately affected by the pleasures and pains of others, yet the impression made upon us by them might be nothing more than a mere abstract sensation of pleasure or pain, a simple detached or insulated feeling, existing by itself, and operating as a motive to action no further than the individual was concerned, or than he was affected by it as a positive, momentary thing. This would still be a mechanical and selfish feeling. Compassion would in this case be an immediate repugnance or aversion of the mind to an actual impression, and a disposition to take the shortest way to escape from it, every thing else being a matter of perfect indifference. This account supposes the particles of individual feeling to be as it were drawn off by some metaphysical process, and thus disengaged from the lifeless unsubstantial forms, to which they were attached, to bend their whole force to remove every thing that may cause the least disturbance or detriment to the mind to which they belong. You must believe, on this hypothesis, that our gross material desires setting themselves free from the airy yoke of fancy, tend directly to the centre of self-interest, as the lead and iron work, when once disengaged from the body of the ship, no longer float on the surface of the water, borne about by the winds, but sink at once to the bottom. But I have already shewn at large, and the reader may easily perceive, that this description of the manner in which our motives operate, has not the least foundation in nature. Our ideas and feelings act in concert. The will cannot act without ideas, nor otherwise than as it is directed by them. The mind is not so loosely constructed, as that the different parts can disengage themselves at will from the rest of the system, and follow their own separate impulses. It is governed by many different springs united together, and acting in subordination to the same conscious power. It is formed, that if it could only wish to get rid of its own immediate uneasiness, it could never get rid of it at all, because it could not will the necessary means for that purpose, and would be perpetually tormented by ideal causes of pain, without being able to exert itself to remove them. The sore part might shrink, but the hand would not be stretched out to remove the object that irritated it. Without allowing an elastic power to the understanding; a power of collecting and concentrating its forces in any direction that seems necessary; and without supposing that our ideas have a power to act as relative representative things, connected together in a certain regular order, and not as mere simple pleasure and pain; the will would be entirely useless: indeed, there could be no such thing as volition, either with respect to our own affairs or those of others. But the fact is, that our ideas of certain things are interwoven into the finer texture of the mind, in a certain order and connection, as closely as the things themselves are joined in nature; and if, as they exist and are perceived there, they are true and efficient causes of action, I see no reason for asserting that they act mechanically, when, by this expression, if we affix any distinct idea to it, we must mean something entirely different; nor for ascribing those actions and motives to self-love, which neither take their rise from, nor are directed by, nor end in securing the exclusive interest of the individual as a numerical unit, a mere solitary existence. As the idea which influences the mind is not a detached idea starting up of its own accord, but an idea connected with other ideas and circumstances, presented involuntarily to the mind, and which cannot be separated from one another, or the whole of them banished from our thoughts, without overturning the foundation of all our habits of judging and reasoning, and deranging the understanding itself; it follows that the object of the mind, as an intelligent and rational agent, must be, not to remove the idea itself immediately as it is impressed on itself, but to remove those associated feelings and ideas which connect it with the world of external nature; that is, to make such an alteration in the relation of external objects, as, according to the necessary connection between certain objects and certain ideas, can alone produce the desired effect upon the mind. Our mechanical, and voluntary motives are not therefore the same, and it is absurd to attempt to reduce them under the same law. They do not move in concentric spheres, but are like the opposite currents of a river running many different ways at the same time. The springs that give birth to our social affections are, by means of the understanding, as much regulated by the feelings of others, as if they had a real communication and sympathy with them, and are swayed by an impulse that is altogether foreign to self-love.