Читать книгу A Methodical System of Universal Law - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius - Страница 22

CHAPTER VIII

Concerning our imperfect duties towards others.

SECTION CCXIII

The order and connexion.

We think our obligation not to hurt any person, and the nature of injury have been sufficiently cleared and demonstrated. The next thing would be to explain with equal care our obligation to render to every one his own, and the nature of that duty (§175); were not the nature of our hypothetical duties such, that they could not be explained <154> without having first considered the nature of our imperfect absolute duties. But this being the case, it is proper to begin with them; and this premonition is sufficient to skreen us against being charged with the crime reckoned so capital among the critics of this age (ne ὕστερον πρότερον) transgressing order designedly, and with evil intention.

SECTION CCXIV

The foundation and division of imperfect duties.

The source of all these duties is love of humanity or beneficence (§84), by which we cheerfully render him whom we love, not merely what we owe him by strict and perfect right, but whatever we think may conduce to his happiness. But because humanity commands us to be as good to others as we can be without detriment to ourselves; and beneficence commands us to do good to others even with detriment to ourselves (§83); therefore our imperfect duties are of two kinds, and may be divided into those of humanity, or unhurt utility, and those of beneficence or generosity. Both are, for many reasons, or on the account of many wants, so necessary, that it is impossible for men to live agreeably or conveniently without them.

SECTION CCXV

Axioms concerning them.

Since there can be no other measure with respect to these duties but the love of ourselves, and therefore we are obliged to love others as ourselves, (§93); the consequence is, that whatever we would have others to do to us, we ought to do the same to them (§88); whence above, in premising a certain principle to which all our duties to others might be reduced, we laid down this rule, Man is obliged to love man no less than himself, and not to do to any other what he would think inexcusable if done to himself, (from which principle we have deduced our perfect duties); but, on the contrary, to do to others what he would desire others to do to him (§93). Now <155> hence we shall see that all our imperfect duties may be clearly inferred.

SECTION CCXVI

Our obligation to the duties which may be done to others without detriment to ourselves.

First of all, none would have those things denied to him by others which they can render to him without hurting themselves; wherefore every one is obliged liberally to render such good offices to another; and consequently it is justly reckoned most inhuman for one, when it is in his power, not to assist another by his prudence, his counsel and aid; or not to do all in his power to save his neighbour’s goods; not to direct a wanderer into the right road; to refuse running water to the thirsty; fire to the cold; shade to those who languish with excessive heat; or to exact any thing from another to his detriment, which can more easily, either without hurting ourselves or any other, be procured some other way. This kind of benignity is so small and trivial, that either by law or custom, the duties of this class have passed almost every where into duties of perfect obligation.^*

SECTION CCXVII

It extends to those things with which we abound.

It belongs to the same class of unhurt utility to communicate such things to others as we can, <156> (such is our abundance), spare them without any loss or hurt to ourselves; and to dispense among others things which would otherwise be lost and perish with us; insomuch, that they are very inhuman who suffer things to corrupt and spoil, who destroy in the fire, throw into the sea, or bury under ground things on purpose that no other may be the better for them.^*

SECTION CCXVIII

What if our humanity would be hurtful to ourselves?

But since we are bound to render such good offices to others from the love we are obliged to entertain towards others by the law of an infinitely good and merciful God (§215), and yet none is obliged to love another more than himself (§93); the consequence is, that we may deny these good offices to others, if we foresee the doing them may be detrimental to ourselves or our friends; which, since <157> it may easily happen in a state of nature, where there is no common magistracy to protect and secure us, if we readily render these good offices even to our manifest enemies; there is therefore a plain reason why the good offices, even of harmless use, may be refused to an enemy in that state, as being ill disposed towards us; whereas in a civil state to deny them rashly to others under that pretext, would be very blameable.^*

SECTION CCXIX

Humanity is due to enemies.

Yea rather, since the love which is the source of all these duties, is due, not for the merits of others, but on account of the equality of nature (§88), it is very evident, that even to enemies those things in which we abound, and which we can give them without any hurt to ourselves, ought to be given. And this humanity is so much the more splendid <158> and noble, the less hope there is of our ever returning into great friendship with the enemy to whom such services are rendered.^*

SECTION CCXX

The degrees of relation and affinity ought to be considered.

But because this love of humanity, from which these duties flow as their fountain or source, ought to have prudence for its director, which is that faculty by which things conducive to our own happiness and that of others is discerned; hence it is conspicuous, that regard ought to be had not only to persons, but to the necessities they labour under; and therefore in like circumstances, if it be not in our power to satisfy all, greater humanity is due to a good man than to a scelerate; more is owing to a friend than to an enemy; more to a kinsman and relative than to a stranger; and more to him who is in greater, than to him who is in less indigence of our assistance; and therefore so far the illustrious Leibnitz defines very justly, justice to be the love of a wise man.^* <159>

SECTION CCXXI

Our obligation to beneficence.

That degree of love, which we called above love of beneficence (§214), is of a sublimer kind, because it excites us to exert ourselves to the utmost, and even with detriment to ourselves, to promote the good of others. Now, since what we would desire to be done to us by others we are obliged to do to them (§88), and many cases happen in which we ourselves would be very unhappy unless others should liberally bestow upon us what we want, and there is none who does not desire that others should so treat him; the consequence is, that we are obliged, in such cases, to supply others liberally with what they stand in need of, even with some detriment to ourselves.^† <160>

SECTION CCXXII

What is meant by beneficent, and what by officious.

A benefit is a service rendered to one without hope of restitution or retribution; and therefore readiness to render such services we call beneficence; as readiness to do good offices, to lay on obligation of restoring or compensating by services to one’s self is called officiousness by Sidon. Apollin. 23. v. 478.¹ But tho’ such services be not properly called benefits; yet they ought to be highly valued, and gratefully received, if they are greater than to admit of payment, or are rendered to us by one whom the nature of the good office did not oblige to do it.^*

SECTION CCXXIII

Beneficence ought to proceed from inclination to be useful to others.

Since therefore beneficence is readiness to render such offices to others as we have reason to think will be serviceable to them (§222), every one must <161> see that they have no title to the praise of beneficence, who, as the servant in Terence, Hecyr. 5. 4. v. 39. “do more good ignorantly and imprudently, than ever they did knowingly, and with design (§48),” or who do good with an intention to hurt; or who do good only, because they think the benefit will turn more to their own advantage than to that of the receiver. From all which it is manifest, that in judging of benefits the mind and intention of the benefactor are more to be considered than the act or effect itself.^*

SECTION CCXXIV

Benefits ought to be dispensed with prudence.

Since benefits flow from love, which is always joined with prudence (§83), it is plain that whatever is not agreeable to reason is profusion, and any thing rather than liberality: nor are those offices deserving of the name of benefits, which proceed from ambition and vain-glory, more than from love, and are bestowed upon the more opulent, and not the indi-<162>gent;^† upon unworthy persons preferably to men of merit; or, in fine, which are done contrary to that natural order founded in natural kindred and relation, of which above (§220).

SECTION CCXXV

Benefits ought to be proportioned to the necessity and condition of persons.

Besides, because benefits ought to be advantageous to persons (§222), it is evident from hence, that benefits ought to be suited to every one’s condition and necessities; and therefore that those are not benefits which do no good to a person; much less such as do him great hurt, or at least are attended with considerable inconvenience to him.^* <163>

SECTION CCXXVI

The degrees of kindred and connexion are to be considered.

Since that love of humanity and beneficence which binds to render good offices, extends even to enemies (§219), it is clear that those have a much better title to our love, who have done us all the kindnesses they had in their power; and that they are the worst of men, nay, more hard-hearted than the most savage brutes, who are not won to love by favours: they are so much the more unjust that it cannot be denied, that by accepting favours, we bind ourselves to mutual love (§221).

SECTION CCXXVII

The obligation to gratitude.

Love to benefactors is called a grateful mind or gratitude; wherefore, seeing one is obliged to love him from whom he hath received favours, the consequence is, that every one is obliged to shew gratude in every respect: yet this duty is imperfect, and therefore one cannot be compelled to perform it; an ungrateful person cannot be sued for his ingratitude in human courts, unless the laws of the state have expressly allowed such an action. Some such thing we have an example of in Xenophon’s institution of Cyrus, 1. 2. 7. p. 9. Edit. Oxon.^*2 <164>

SECTION CCXXVIII

The rules relating to it.

Seeing gratitude is love to a benefactor (§227), it follows, that one is obliged to delight in the perfection and happiness of his benefactor; to commend and extol his beneficence by words, and to make suitable returns to his benefits; not always indeed the same, or equal, but to the utmost of his power; but if the ability be wanting, a grateful disposition is highly laudable.

SECTION CCXXIX

The obligation to the other.

In fine, since we are obliged, even to our own detriment, and without any hope of restitution or retribution, to do good to others (§221), the consequence is, that we ought much less to refuse favours to any one which he desires with the promise of restitution or retribution; and therefore every one is obliged to render to another what we called above officiousness (§222), provided this readiness to help others be not manifestly detrimental to ourselves (§93).

REMARKS on This Chapter

It is not improper to subjoin the few following observations upon our Author’s reasoning in this chapter.

1. When duty is defined to be something enjoined by the divine will under a sanction, duties cannot be distinguished into perfect and imperfect in any other sense but this: “That some precepts of God give a right to all mankind to exact certain offices or duties from every one. But other precepts do not give any such right.” Thus the precept of God not to hurt any one, but to render to every one his due, gives every one a right to exact his due, and to repel injuries. But the precept to be generous and bountiful, gives no man a right to exact acts of generosity and bounty, tho’ it lays every man under an obligation to be generous and bountiful, to the utmost of his power. So that he who sins against the former is more criminal, or is guilty of <165> a higher crime than he who does not act conformably to the other. This is the only sense in which duties can be called, some perfect, and others imperfect, when duty is considered, with our Author, as an obligation arising from the divine will commanding or forbidding. For all such obligation is equally perfect, equally full. The distinction takes its rise from the consideration of what crimes do, and what crimes do not admit of a civil action, consistently with the good order of society; and it is brought from the civil law into the law of nature. But it would, in my opinion, be liable to less ambiguity in treating of the law of nature, instead of dividing duties into those of perfect and those of imperfect obligation, to divide them into greater or lesser duties, i.e. duties, the transgression of which is a greater crime, and duties the omission of which is a lesser crime: or, in other words, duties the performance of which may be lawfully exacted, nay compelled; and duties the performance of which cannot be compelled or even exacted. But our Author’s terms mean the same thing, and cannot, if his definitions be attended to, create any ambiguity. However, we may see from his reasoning in this chapter, the necessity (as we observed in our preceeding remarks) of having recourse to internal obligation (as our Author calls it) or the intrinsic goodness and pravity of actions, in deducing and demonstrating human duties.

2. Since our Author’s reasoning wholly turns upon the reasonableness of this maxim, “Do as you would be done by; and do not to another what you would not have done by any one to you in like circumstances.” Perhaps some may have expected from him demonstration of the reasonableness of this maxim. Now this truth, which is indeed as self-evident as any axiom in any science, as for instance, “That two things equal to some common third thing, are equal to one another”: and which therefore, it is as hard to reason about as it is to demonstrate any axiom, for the very same reason, viz. that it does not in the nature of the thing require or stand in need of any reasoning to prove it: This truth may however be illustrated several ways, in order to make one feel its evidence and reasonableness. As with Pufendorff, law of nature, &c. B. 3. cap. 2. §4.³ thus: “It as much implies a contradiction to determine differently in my own case and another’s, when they are precisely parallel, as to make contrary judgments on things really the same. Since then every man is well acquainted with his own nature, and as well, at least, as to general inclinations, with the nature of other men, it follows, that he who concludes one way as to his own right, and another way as to the same right of his neighbour, is guilty of a contradiction in the plainest matter: an argument of a mind unsound in no ordinary degree. For no good reason can be given, why what I esteem just for myself, I should reckon unjust for another in the same circumstances. Those therefore are most properly sociable creatures who grant the same privilege to others which they desire should be allowed themselves; <166> and those, on the other hand, are most unfit for society, who imagining themselves a degree above vulgar mortals, would have a particular commission to do whatever they please.” He observes in another place, B. 2. c. 3. §13. “For the easy knowledge of what the law of nature dictates, Hobbes himself commends the use of this rule (De civ. c. 3. §26.)⁴when a man doubts whether what he is going to do to another be agreeable to the law of nature, let him suppose himself in the other’s room. For by this means, when self-love, and the other passions which weighed down one scale, are taken thence and put into the contrary scale, ’tis easy to guess which way the balance will turn.” He afterwards shews us it was a precept of Confucius, and of Ynca Manco Capace, the founder of the Peruvian empire, as well as of our Saviour. And in answer to Dr. Sharrock, who is of opinion (De off. ch. 2. n. 2.)⁵ “That this rule is not universal, because if so, a judge must needs absolve the criminals left to his sentence, in as much as he would certainly spare his own life, were he in their place; and I must needs give a poor petitioner what sum soever he desires, because I should wish to be thus dealt with, if I was in his condition, &c.” He replies, “The rule will still remain unshaken, if we observe, that not one scale only, but both are to be observed; or that I am not only to weigh and consider what is agreeable to me, but likewise what obligation or necessity lies on the other person, and what I can demand of him without injuring either of our duties.” Thus Pufendorff reasons about this principle. But both he and our Author seem to consider it not as a fundamental or primary principle of the law of nature, but rather as a Corollary of that law, which obliges us, To hold all men equal with ourselves. But it cannot be so properly said to be a Corollary from that principle, as to be the principle itself in other words. For what is the meaning of this rule, To hold all men equal with ourselves, but to hold ourselves obliged to treat all men as we think they are obliged to treat us? The equality of mankind means equality of obligation common to all mankind, with regard to their conduct one towards another. Now, if any one seeks a proof of the reasonableness of holding all men equal in this sense, that it is reasonable for us to do to others what it is reasonable for them to do, or for us to expect they should do to us in like circumstances; if any one, I say, should seek a proof of this maxim, he really seeks a proof to shew, that like judgments ought to be given of like cases, i.e. that like cases are like cases;—and if, owning the truth of the proposition, he asks why it ought to be a rule of action, does he not ask a reason why a reasonable rule should be admitted as a reasonable rule; or why reason is reason, as we had occasion to observe in another remark?

3. But in the third place, that we are made for benevolence because we have benevolent affections, and our principal happiness consists in the exercise of the social affections, or the social <167> virtues; and our greatest and best security for all outward enjoyments, and for having and possessing the love of others, is by being benevolent;—that upon these and many other accounts, we are made and intended for benevolence, is as evident as that a clock is made to measure time, and in consequence of the same way of reasoning, viz. the way we reason about any constitution, or any final cause. We see what sad shifts they are reduced to, who would explain away into certain selfish subtle reflexions, all that has the appearance of social, kindly and generous in our frame; and the perplexity and subtlety of such philosophy is the same argument against it, which is reckoned a very good one against complicated, perplexing hypotheses in natural philosophy, compared with more simple ones. (See some excellent observations on Hobbes’s account of pity in Dr. Butler’s excellent sermon on compassion, in a marginal note.)⁶ Who feels not that we are naturally disposed to benevolence, and what is the way in which our natural benevolence operates, and so points us to the proper exercises of it, while Cicero thus describes it: “There is nothing,” says he, “so natural, and at the same time so illustrious, and of so great compass, as the conjunction and society of men, including a mutual communication of conveniencies, and general love for mankind. This dearness begins immediately upon one’s birth, when the child is most affectionately beloved by the parent; from the family, it by degrees steals abroad into affinities, friendships, neighbourhoods; then amongst members of the same state; and amongst states themselves, united in interests and confederacies; and at length stretcheth itself to the whole human race. In the exercise of all these duties, we are farther disposed to observe what every man hath most need of, and what with our help he may, what without our help he cannot attain; so that in some cases the tye of relation must yield to the point of time; and some offices there are which we would rather pay to one relation than to another. Thus you ought sooner to help a neighbour with his harvest, than either brother or a familiar acquaintance; but, on the other side, in a suit at law, you ought to defend your brother or your friend before your neighbour, &c.” Cicero de fin. l. 5. c. 23. Who feels not that this is the language of nature; that thus our affections work; that thus nature moves, prompts and points us to work? And who can consider this natural tendency or course of our affections without perceiving by his reason, the advantage, the usefulness of this their natural tendency, with regard to ourselves and others equally; and consequently the fitness of our taking care that they should always continue to operate according to this rule, according to this their natural tendency? Or who does not feel that indeed this is the true account of human happiness, the happiness nature intended for us, our best and noblest happiness? <168>

Happier as kinder! in whate’er degree,

And heighth of bliss but heighth of charity.

Essay on Man, Ep. 4.⁷

But if nature points out this course, this regular course of our affections; if it is felt to be the state of mind that alone affords true happiness; and if the general happiness of mankind plainly requires this direction and course of our affections: If, in one word, nature dictates it, and reason must approve of it in every view we can take of it, in what sense can it be denied to be our natural duty and the will of our Creator? And is it any wonder, that this rule of conduct hath been known to thinking men in all ages (as we cannot look into ancient authors without clearly seeing it hath been) since every heart dictates it to itself? This rule, “Do as you would be done by,”⁸ is a rule of easy application, and it is universal, or it gives an easy, ready and clear solution in all cases. This appears from our Author’s preceding and following applications of it to cases: for it is from it alone he reasons throughout all his deductions of duties. And that it is an equal, just, or reasonable rule, cannot be denied without asserting this absurdity, That what is true and just in one case, is not always and universally true and just in all similar cases. Again, that we are made to love mankind, and to live in the exercise of love and benevolence, is plain from our make and frame, and the intention of our Maker thereby discovered to us, according to all the received rules of reasoning about final causes. And therefore the principles upon which our Author builds, are in every view of them beyond all dispute. He now proceeds to enquiries of a more complex nature; but he still continues to argue from the same self-evident truths.