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SECTION X - Johann Gottlieb Heineccius, A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations [1738]

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A Methodical System of Universal Law: Or, the Laws of Nature and Nations, with Supplements and a Discourse by George Turnbull. Translated from the Latin by George Turnbull, edited with an Introduction by Thomas Albert and Peter Schröder (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2008).

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


SECTION X

The second particular law that appears from the consideration of human nature, and the circumstances in which man-kind are placed, is the law of sociality.But another special characteristic of our proper pursuits, in consequence of our frame, and the connexions of nature relative to our happiness, will immediately appear, if we reflect how strictly mankind are bound together; by how many close ties and dependencies they are cemented; ties arising from mutual wants, and ties arising from certain affections common to mankind, exactly corresponding to their mutual wants. First of all, it is evident, that we can attain to no goods of whatever kind, external or internal, by our single industry, or without social assistances. Nothing can be more manifest than this. 2. Nor is it less evident, that there is no enjoyment, of which mankind are capable, which does not, as our excellent poet very happily expresses it, Some may lean and hearken to our kind.5 If we separate communication and participation from all our pleasures of whatever kind, we really abstract from them the main ingredient that gives them relish. Take all of the social kind away from sensitive gratifications, and what remains but mere allay to some raging appetite, mere relief from pain? And as for all our other pleasures, what are they but participation, or communicating and sharing with our fellow creatures? Such is the joy of relieving the distressed, or of promoting the happiness of the deserving. Such is a sense of merited esteem; such is gratitude to a benefactor; such is creating dependence upon us, &c. And as for knowledge, however pleasant it is in itself, yet is it not doubly agreeable, when considered as qualifying us to be useful, and as procuring us authority and regard? In short, the chief article in all our pleasures, in consequence of our make, consists in mutually giving and receiving; it is of a social kind. And we are formed, and placed as we are, that there might be variety of exercise to our social affections. Nature hath so framed us, that our chief happiness must be sought from communication and participation with others; and so placed us, that all such dependencies might arise as were necessary to gratify our social appetites and affections. This will more fully appear afterwards, when we come to consider some of the principal dependencies by which mankind are united and cemented together; which, tho’ they be objected against by narrow thinkers,6 will be found to be in reality so many proofs of nature’s kind care about us; or to make proper provision for the exercises, from which alone our social happiness, or gratification to our social affections can arise, since it must consist in mutual giving and receiving, which cannot take place but where there are mutual dependencies. Mean time, let it only be observed, 1. That such is the constitution of things with respect to mankind, that no man can attain to any considerable share of the goods either of the body or of the mind by his single endeavours; but he must, in order to that, engage many others to help and assist him: nay, such is the constitution of things, that no man can subsist in any convenient, not to say comfortable degree or manner, without receiving many services and good offices from others. Mankind are therefore, by the necessity of nature, obliged to seek mutual assistances from one another, to unite together, and to com-municate their industry. But, 2. Mankind are so framed, that this union and communication is in itself as agreeable as it is necessary. Our best enjoyments are acts of social communication. Assisting, relieving, herding, concerting, confederating, and such like social dealings, are all of them in themselves most pleasing and agreeable exercises. So that there is something in them that rewards them, and invites to them independently of their necessity to our having any of the conveniencies or comforts of life. Need I stay to prove this to any one who hath ever felt any of the generous emotions and workings of the soul? or to any one who can reflect upon his having at any time done a good office? For nothing is more certain, than that it is only acts of compassion, humanity, friendship, gratitude, benevolence, that afford any considerable satisfaction to the mind upon reflexion; or that it is the generous mind alone that can reiterate its actions in its reflexion, memory, or conscience, (let it be called what you will) with thorough delight; and thus feast most agreeably upon them after they are past. Indeed so social is our make, that the highest entertainment even the poetic art or ingenious fictions can give us, is by exciting generous benevolent emotions in our minds, and deeply interesting us in the affairs of others. For of the satisfaction we receive in this way, which we so readily own to be preferable to any mere sensitive enjoyment, no other account can be given but this; “Homo sum, & nihil humanum a me alienum puto.”7 Whatever concerns man, tenderly interests every man in it, in consequence of the human make. We are therefore formed by nature for social exercises; for the pursuit of public good; for offices of benevolence or charity, and for uniting together in the interchange of various acts of kindness and sociality.

And thus there appears another character of the happiness and the employment or industry we are intended for by nature: It is industry beneficial to mankind, for which we are framed and intended: Industry proper to make human life as comfortable and agreeable as it can be rendered. For this is the industry or employment, which, in consequence of our social make, gives us the greatest pleasure. And this industry alone can give a satisfying account of itself to our reason. For this also is found to be true by experience, that no sooner is the idea of industry beneficial to mankind, or of activity to relieve mankind from as many pains, and to give them as much pleasure as we can; no sooner is this idea presented to our reflexion, than our mind is necessarily determined to approve of it, and pronounce it the best part, nay the only commendable, worthy part one can act. And therefore we have now attained to a very distinguishing characteristic of the pleasures we ought to pursue, i.e. of those which are made by nature of the highest, the most uncloying, satisfactory and durable relish to us, viz. exercises of our abilities or powers, which tend to promote the public good. If it is said that there is no reasoning in all this deduction, but simply appeal to experience: let me ask how we can prove any quality, affection or power to belong to us, or any sensation to be pleasant, but from experience? What are all the conclusions of natural philosophers, but inductions from experience, the experience of our senses? And is outward experience a proper proof of matters of outward experience; and inward experience not a proper proof of matters of inward experience? If it is objected, that experience proves that some men have high pleasure in acts of cruelty and malice: to this I answer, the gradual degeneracy of the mind into savageness and malignity, can be accounted for from the laws according to which social affections, and a moral or public sense are impaired and corrupted. But that any degree of this state of mind cannot be happiness, is plain, since where there is a total apostacy, an absolute degeneracy from all candour, equity and trust, sociableness or friendship, there is none who will not acknowledge the absolute misery of such a temper of mind. For sure here, as in other distempers, the calamity must of necessity keep pace and hold proportion with the disease, the corruption. It is impossible that it can be complete misery, to be absolutely immoral and inhumane, and not be proportionable misery or ill, to be so in any however so small a degree. And indeed, tho’ there were no considerable ill in any single exercise of inhumanity and unsociality, yet it must be contrary to interest, as it necessarily tends, in consequence of the structure of our minds, that is, the dependence of our affections, and the law of habits, to bring on the habitual temper, which is so readily owned by every one to be consummate misery, and to render incapable of any enjoyment, even amidst the most luxurious circumstances of sensitive gratification. But having insisted very fully on this subject in another treatise;8 and chiefly, because it is impossible to set the sociability of our nature in a clearer and stronger light than my Lord Shaftsbury has done, in his Essay on virtue,9 I shall only add, that if it be really true (as I think he has demonstrated) that, in consequence of the constitution of the human mind, and of the connexions relative to our happiness, the affections which work towards public good do likewise work towards the greatest good of every individual, then are we by a necessity of nature under obligation to be social, humane, and well affectioned towards our kind: And consequently, sociality is a law of nature to us. For this being the case, in it hath nature, whose constitutions we cannot alter, placed our chief happiness. But this general truth will be yet more evident, when we consider the particular dependencies by which mankind are strictly linked and tied together.

[5 ] “Some may lean and hearken to our kind.” Turnbull uses a similar phrase in his Observations upon Liberal Education, 99.

[6 ] Presumably Turnbull has Thomas Hobbes in mind, since he denied that a natural sense of benevolence would allow for man’s security and happiness. See Leviathan, chap. 13.

[7 ] “I’m human, and I regard no human business as other people’s”: Terence, The Self-tormentor (Heauton timoroumenos), act 1, scene 1, line 77, in Terence, vol. 1.

[8 ] Turnbull, Principles of Moral Philosophy.

[9 ] Shaftesbury, An Enquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit [1699], in Shaftesbury, Characteristics of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times.