CHAPTER VIII: THE RELATION OF RELIGION TO MORALITY
The relation which, in Adam Smith's system, religion bears to ethics has been already indicated in the last chapter. Although he regards morality as quite independent of religion, as intelligible and possible without it, religion nevertheless stands out visibly in the background of his theory, and is appealed to as a strong support of virtuous conduct, and as lending additional sanctity to the authority of moral rules.
These moral rules, though sufficiently sanctioned by the same feelings of human approbation or disapprobation which originally gave rise to them, derive an additional sanction from natural religion. It was too important for the happiness of mankind, that the natural sense of duty should thus be enforced by the terrors of religion, "for nature to leave it dependent upon the slowness and uncertainty of philosophical researches."
This identification therefore of the rules of morality with the rules of religion was first impressed upon mankind by nature, and then afterwards confirmed by philosophy. Naturally led as men everywhere are, and were, to ascribe to those beings, which in any country happen to be the objects of religious fear, all their own sentiments and passions, it could not but arise, that as they ascribed to them those passions which do least honour to our own speciessuch as lust, avarice, envy, or revengethey should also ascribe to them those qualities which are the great ornaments of humanitythe love of virtue and beneficence, and the hatred of vice and injustice. The injured man would call on Jupiter to witness his wrong, never doubting but that it would be beheld by him with the same indignation that would actuate the meanest of mankind against it; whilst the man, who did the wrong, transferred to the same omnipresent and irresistible being the resentment he was also conscious of in mankind. "These natural hopes, and fears, and suspicions, were propagated by sympathy, and confirmed by education; and the gods were universally represented and believed to be the rewarders of humanity and mercy, and the avengers of perfidy and injustice. And thus religion, even in its rudest form, gave a sanction to the rules of morality, long before the age of artificial reasoning and philosophy."
Reasoning, when applied, confirmed the original anticipations of nature. For from the recognition of the fact, already noticed, that our moral faculties were intended to be the governing principles of our nature, it became clear that the rules they formulated, in compliance with such an intention, might be regarded as the laws of the Deity, who set up those moral faculties as His "vicegerents within us."
Another consideration confirms this reasoning. As by obeying the rules prescribed to us by our moral faculties, we pursue the most effectual means for promoting the happiness of mankind, and as the happiness of mankind seems to be the original purpose intended by the Author of Nature, it is evident that by obeying the moral rules we in some sense co- operate with the Deity, and advance, as far as is in our power, the plan of Providence. As also by acting otherwise we obstruct in some measure His scheme, we declare ourselves in some measure the enemies of God, so we are naturally encouraged to look for His favour and reward in the one case, and to dread His vengeance and punishment in the other.
Moreover, although virtue and vice, as far as they can be either rewarded or punished by the sentiments and opinions of mankind, meet even here, according to the common course of things, with their deserts, we are compelled by the best principles of our nature, by our love of virtue and our abhorrence of vice and injustice, to look to a future life for the rectification of occasional results of virtue or vice which shock all our natural sentiments of justice. The indignation we feel when we see violence and artifice prevail over sincerity and justice, the sorrow we feel for the sufferings of the innocent, the resentment we feel and often cannot satisfy against the oppressor, all prompt us to hope "that the great Author of our nature will Himself execute hereafter, what all the principles which He has given us for the direction of our conduct prompt us to attempt even here; that He will complete the plan which He Himself has thus taught us to begin; and will, in a life to come, render to every one according to the works which he has performed in this world."
When, therefore, the general rules of morality which determine the merit or demerit of actions come thus to be regarded, says Adam Smith, as the laws of an all-powerful Being, who watches over our conduct, and who, in a life to come, will reward the observance and punish the breach of them, they necessarily acquire a new sacredness. The sense of propriety, which dictates obedience to the will of the Deity as the supreme rule of our conduct, is confirmed by the strongest motives of self-interest. For it is an idea, well capable of restraining the most headstrong passions, that however much we may escape the observation or the punishment of mankind, we can never escape the observation nor the punishment of God.
It is on account of the additional sanction which religion thus confers upon the rules of morality that so great confidence is generally placed in the probity of those who seem deeply impressed with a sense of religion. They seem to act under an additional tie to those which regulate the conduct of others. For regard to the propriety of action and to reputation, regard to the applause of his own breast as well as to that of others, are motives which have the same influence over the religious man as over the man of the world; but the former acts under another restraint, that of future recompense, and accordingly greater trust is reposed in his conduct.
Nor is this greater trust unreasonably placed in him. For "wherever the natural principles of religion are not corrupted by the factious and party zeal of some worthless cabal; wherever the first duty which it requires is to fulfil all the obligations of morality; wherever men are not taught to regard frivolous observances as more immediate duties of religion than acts of justice and beneficence; and to imagine, that by sacrifices, and ceremonies, and vain supplications, they can bargain with the Deity for fraud, and perfidy, and violence, the world undoubtedly judges right in this respect, and justly places a double confidence in the rectitude of the religious man's behaviour."
At the same time Adam Smith resents strongly the doctrine that religious principles are the only laudable motives of action, the doctrine, "that we ought neither to reward from gratitude nor punish from resentment, that we ought neither to protect the helplessness of our children, nor afford support to the infirmities of our parents, from natural affection; but that we ought to do all things from the love of the Deity, and from a desire only to render ourselves agreeable to Him, and to direct our conduct according to His will." It should not be the sole motive and principle of our conduct in the performance of our various duties that God has commanded us to perform them, though that it should be our ruling and governing principle is the precept of philosophy and common sense no less than it is of Christianity.
In the same way that Adam Smith regards religion as an additional sanction to the natural rules of morality, does he regard it as the only effectual consolation in the case of a man unjustly condemned by the world for a crime of which he is innocent. To such an one, that humble philosophy which confines its view to this life can afford but little com- fort. Deprived of everything that could make either life or death respectable, condemned to death and to everlasting infamy, the view of another world, where his innocence will be declared and his virtue rewarded, can alone compensate him for the misery of his situation.
"Our happiness in this life is thus, upon many occasions, dependent upon the humble hope and expectation of a life to comea hope and expectation deeply rooted in human nature, which can alone support its lofty ideas of its own dignity, can alone illumine the dreary prospect of its continually approaching mortality, and maintain its cheerfulness under all the heaviest calamities to which, from the disorders of this life, it may sometimes be exposed. That there is a world to come, where exact justice will be done to every man.... is a doctrine, in every respect so venerable, so comfortable to the weakness, so flattering to the grandeur of human nature, that the virtuous man who has the misfortune to doubt of it can- not possibly avoid wishing most earnestly and anxiously to believe it."
This doctrine, Adam Smith thinks, could never have fallen into disrepute, had not a doctrine been asserted of a future distribution of rewards and punishments, at total variance with all our moral sentiments. The preference of assiduous flattery to merit or service, which is regarded as the greatest reproach even to the weakness of earthly sovereigns, is often ascribed to divine perfection; "and the duties of devotion, the public and private worship of the Deity, have been represented, even by men of virtue and abilities, as the sole virtues which can either entitle to reward, or exempt from punishment, in the life to come."
There is the same absurdity in the notion, which had even its advocate in a philosopher like Massillon, that one hour or day spent in the mortifications of a monastery has more merit in the eye of God than a whole life spent honourably in the profession of a soldier. Such a doctrine is surely contrary to all our moral sentiments, and the principles by which we have been taught by nature to regulate our admiration or contempt. "It is this spirit, however, which, while it has reserved the celestial regions for monks and friars, or for those whose conduct or conversation resembled those of monks and friars, has condemned to the infernal all the heroes, all the statesmen and lawyers, all the poets and philosophers of former ages; all those who have invented, improved, or excelled in the arts which contribute to the subsistence, to the conveniency, or to the ornament of life; all the great protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind; all those to whom our natural sense of praiseworthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and the most exalted virtue. Can we wonder that so strange an application of this most respectable doctrine should sometimes have exposed it to derision and contempt?"
Although, then, Adam Smith considers that reason corroborates the teaching of natural religion regarding the existence of God and the life hereafter, he nowhere recognizes any moral obligation in the belief of one or the other; and they occupy in his system a very similar position to that which they occupy in Kant's, who treats the belief in the existence of God and in immortality as Postulates of the Practical Reason, that is to say, as assumptions morally necessary, however incapable of speculative proof. Adam Smith, however, does not approach either subject at all from the speculative side, but confines himself entirely to the moral basis of both, to the arguments in their favour which the moral phenomena of life afford, such as have been already indicated.
But besides the argument in favour of the existence of God derived from our moral sentiments, the only argument he employs is derived, not from the logical inconceivability of a contrary belief, but from the incompatibility of such a contrary belief with the happiness of the man so believing. A man of universal benevolence or boundless goodwill can enjoy no solid happiness unless he is convinced that all the inhabitants of the universe are under the immediate care of that all-wise Being, who directs all the movements of nature, and who is compelled, by His own unalterable perfections, to maintain in it at all times the greatest possible quantity of happiness. To a man of universal benevolence, "the very suspicion of a fatherless world must be the most melancholy of all reflections; from the thought that all the unknown regions of infinite and incomprehensible space may be filled with nothing but endless misery and wretchedness. All the splendour of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dread- ful an idea must necessarily overshadow the imagination; nor, in a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary system."
It was a well-known doctrine of the Stoic philosophy, that a man should resign all his wishes and interests with perfect confidence to the benevolent wisdom which directs the universe, and should seek his happiness chiefly in the contemplation of the perfection of the universal system. With this conception of resignation Adam Smith very closely agrees, in his description of the sentiments which become the wise and virtuous man with regard to his relation to the great sum of things. Just as he should be willing to sacrifice his own interest to that of his own order, and that of his own order again to that of his country, so he should be willing to sacrifice all those inferior interests "to the greater interest of the universe, to the interest of that great society of all sensible and intelligent beings, of which God Himself is the immediate administrator and director. If he is deeply impressed with the habitual and thorough conviction that this benevolent and all-wise Being can admit into the system of His government no partial evil which is not necessary for the universal good, he must consider all the misfortunes which may befall himself, his friends, his society, or his country, as necessary for the prosperity of the universe, and therefore as what he ought not only to submit to with resignation, but as what he himself, if he had known all the connexions and dependencies of things, ought sincerely and devoutly to have wished for."
A wise man should be capable of doing what a good soldier is always ready to do. For the latter, when ordered by his general, will march with alacrity to the forlorn station, knowing that he would not have been sent there but for the safety of the whole army and the success of the war, and he will cheerfully sacrifice his own little system to the welfare of a greater. But "no conductor of an army can deserve more unlimited trust, more ardent and zealous affection, than the great Con- ductor of the universe. In the greatest public as well as private disasters, a wise man ought to consider that he himself, his friends and countrymen, have only been ordered upon the forlorn station of the universe; that had it not been necessary for the good of the whole, they would not have been so ordered; and that it is their duty, not only with humble resignation to submit to this allotment, but to endeavour to embrace it with alacrity and joy."
To the question, how far a man should seek his highest happiness in the contemplation of the system of the universe; or, in other words, whether the contemplative or the practical life is the higher and better, Adam Smith replies hesitatingly in favour of the latter. The most sublime object of human contemplation is "the idea of that Divine Being, whose benevolence and wisdom have from all eternity contrived and conducted the immense machine of the universe, so as at all times to produce the greatest possible quantity of happiness." A man believed to be chiefly occupied in this sublime contemplation seldom fails of the highest veneration; and even though his life should be altogether contemplative, is often regarded with a sort of religious respect far higher than is generally bestowed on the most useful and active citizen. Marcus Antoninus has, perhaps, received more admiration for his meditations on this subject than for all the different transactions of his just and beneficent reign.
Nevertheless, the care of the universe not being the concern of man, but only the care of his own happiness, or that of his family, friends, or country, he can never be justified in neglecting the more humble department of affairs because he is engaged in the contemplation of the higher. He must not lay himself open to the charge which was brought against Marcus Antoninus, that whilst he was occupied in contemplating the prosperity of the universe lie neglected that of the Roman empire. "The most sublime speculation of the contemplative philosopher can scarce compensate the neglect of the smallest active duty."
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Author: James Anson Farrer
