Chapter XXXI: Paley. 1743-1805

With the exception of Joseph Butler, perhaps the ablest and most interesting of English orthodox theologians. As one of the very few of this numerous class of writers who seem seriously to be impressed with the difficulty of reconciling orthodox _dietetics_ with the higher moral and religious instincts, Paley has for social reformers a title to remembrance, and it is as a moral philosopher that he has a claim upon our attention.

The son of a country curate, Paley began his career as tutor in an academy in Greenwich. He had entered Christ’s College, Cambridge, as “sizar.” Being senior wrangler of his year, he was afterwards elected a Fellow of his college. His lectures on moral philosophy at the University contained the germs of his most useful writing. After the usual previous stages, finally he received the preferment of the Archdeaconry of Carlisle. The failure of the most eminent of the modern apologists of dogmatic Christianity to attain the highest rewards of ecclesiastical ambition, and the refusal of George III. to promote “pigeon” Paley when it was proposed to that reactionary prince to make so skilful a controversialist a bishop--a refusal founded on the famous apology for monarchy in the _Moral and Political Philosophy_--is well known.

The most important, by far, of his writings, is the _Elements of Moral and Political Philosophy_ (1785). He founds moral obligation upon principles of utility. In politics he asserts the grounds of the duties of rulers and ruled to be based upon the same far-reaching consideration, and upon this principle he maintains that as soon as any Government has proved itself corrupt or negligent of the public good, whatever may have been the alleged legitimacy of its original authority, the right of the governed to put an end to it is established. “The final view of all national politics,” he affirms, “is [ought to be] to produce the greatest quantity of happiness.” The comparative boldness, indeed, of certain of his disquisitions on Government alarmed not a little the political and ecclesiastical dignitaries of the time. His adhesion to the programme of Clarkson and the anti-slavery “fanatics” (as that numerically insignificant band of reformers was styled) did not tend, it may be presumed, to counteract the damaging effects of his political philosophy.

In his _Natural Theology_ (1802), his best theological production, he labours to establish the fact of benevolent design from observation of the various phenomena of nature and life. Whatever estimate may be formed of the success of this undertaking, there can be no question of the ability and eloquence of the accomplished pleader; and the book proves him, at least, to have acquired a surprising amount of physiological and anatomical knowledge. It is justly described by Sir J. Mackintosh as “the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it.” Of the _Evidences_ (1790-94)--the most popularly known of his writings--the considerable literary merit is in somewhat striking contrast, in regard to clearness and simplicity of style, with the ordinary productions of the evidential school.

We are concerned now with the _Moral and Political Philosophy_. It has been already stated that it is based upon the principles of utilitarianism. As for personal moral conduct, he justly considered it to be vastly influenced by early custom; or, as he expresses it, the art of life consists in the right “setting of our habits.”

On the subjoined examination of the question of the lawfulness or otherwise of flesh-eating, his ultimate refuge in an alleged biblical authority (forced upon him, apparently, by the necessity of his position rather than by personal inclination) confirms rather than weakens his preceding candid _admissions_, which sufficiently establish our position:--

“A right to the flesh of animals. This is a _very different claim_
from the former [‘a right to the fruits or vegetable produce of
the earth’]. _Some_ excuse seems necessary for the pain and loss
which we occasion to [other] animals by restraining them of their
liberty, mutilating their bodies, and, at last, putting an end to
their lives for our pleasure or convenience.

“The reasons alleged in vindication of this practice are the
following--that the several species of animals being created to
prey upon one another[187] affords a kind of analogy to prove that
the human species were intended to feed upon them; that, if let
alone, they would overrun the earth, and exclude mankind from the
occupation of it;[188] that they are requited for what they suffer
at our hands by our care and protection.

“Upon which reasons I would observe that the analogy contended
for _is extremely lame_, since [the carnivorous] animals have no
power to support life by any other means, and _since we have, for
the whole human species might subsist entirely upon fruit, pulse,
herbs, and roots, as many tribes of Hindus[189] actually do_. The
two other reasons may be valid reasons, as far as they go, for,
no doubt, if men had been supported entirely by vegetable food a
great part of those animals who die to furnish our tables would
never have lived[190] but they by no means justify our right over
the lives of other animals to the extent to which we exercise it.
What danger is there, _e.g._, of fish interfering with us in the
occupation of their element, or what do we contribute to their
support or preservation?

“_It seems to me that it would be difficult to defend this right
by any arguments which the light and order of Nature afford_, and
that we are beholden for it to the permission recorded in Scripture
(_Gen._ ix., 1, 2, 3). To Adam and his posterity had been granted,
at the creation, ‘every green herb for meat,’ and nothing more.
In the last clause of the passage now produced the old grant is
recited and extended to the flesh of animals--‘even as the green
herb, have I given you all things.’ But this was not until after
the Flood. The inhabitants of the antediluvian world had therefore
no such permission that we know of. Whether they actually refrained
from the flesh of animals is another question. Abel, we read, was
a keeper of sheep, and for what purpose he kept them, except for
food, is difficult to say (unless it were sacrifice). Might not,
however, some of the stricter sects among the antediluvians be
scrupulous as to this point? And might not Noah and his family
be of this description? For, it is not probable that God should
publish a permission to authorise a practice which had never been
disputed.”[191]

Thus far as regards the _moral_ aspect of the subject. Dealing with the social and economical view, Paley, untrammelled by professional views, is more decided. In his chapter, _Of Population and Provision, &c._, he writes:--

“The natives of Hindustan being confined, by the laws of their
religion, to the use of vegetable food, and requiring little except
rice, which the country produces in plentiful crops; and food, in
warm climates, composing the only want of life, these countries are
populous under all the injuries of a despotic, and the agitations
of an unsettled, Government. If any revolution, or what would be
called perhaps _refinement of manners (!)_, should generate in
these people a taste for the flesh of animals, similar to what
prevails amongst the Arabian hordes--should introduce flocks and
herds into grounds which are now covered with corn--should teach
them to account a certain portion of this species of food amongst
the necessaries of life--the population from this single change
would suffer in a few years a great diminution, and this diminution
would follow in spite of every effort of the laws, or even of any
improvement that might take place in their civil condition. In
Ireland the simplicity of living alone maintains a considerable
degree of population under great defects of police, industry,
and commerce.... Next to the mode of living, we are to consider
‘the quantity of provision suited to that mode, which is either
raised in the country or imported into it,’ for this is the order
in which we assigned the causes of population and undertook to
treat of them. Now, if we measure the quantity of provision by the
number of human bodies it will support in due health and vigour,
this quantity, the extent and quality of the soil from which it
is raised being given, will depend greatly upon the _kind_. For
instance, a piece of ground capable of supplying animal food
sufficient for the subsistence of ten persons _would sustain, at
least, the double of that number with grain, roots, and milk_.

“The first resource of savage life is in the flesh of wild animals.
Hence the numbers amongst savage nations, compared with the tract
of country which they occupy, are universally small, because this
species of provision is, of all others, supplied in the slenderest
proportion. The next step was the invention of pasturage, or the
rearing of flocks and herds of tame animals. This alteration
added to the stock of provision much. But the last and _principal
improvement was to follow, viz., tillage, or the artificial
production of corn, esculent plants, and roots_. This discovery,
whilst it changed the quality of human food, augmented the quantity
in a vast proportion.

“So far as the state of population is governed and limited by
the quantity of provision, perhaps there is no single cause that
affects it so powerfully as the kind and quality of food which
chance or usage hath introduced into a country. In England,
notwithstanding the produce of the soil has been of late
considerably increased by the enclosure of wastes and the adoption,
in many places, of a more successful husbandry, yet we do not
observe a corresponding addition to the number of inhabitants, the
reason of which appears to me to be the more general consumption
of animal food amongst us. Many ranks of people whose ordinary
diet was, in the last century, prepared almost entirely from milk,
roots, and vegetables, now require every day a considerable portion
of the flesh of animals. _Hence a great part of the richest lands
of the country are converted to pasturage._ Much also of the
bread-corn, which went directly to the nourishment of human bodies,
now only contributes to it by fattening the flesh of sheep and
oxen. _The mass and volume of provisions are hereby diminished_,
and what is gained in the amelioration of the soil is lost in the
quality of the produce.

“This consideration teaches us that tillage, as an object of
national care and encouragement, is universally preferable to
pasturage, because the kind of provision which it yields goes
much farther in the sustentation of human life. Tillage is also
recommended by this additional advantage--that it _affords
employment to a much more numerous peasantry_. Indeed pasturage
seems to be the art of a nation, either imperfectly civilised, as
are many of the tribes which cultivate it in the internal parts
of Asia, or of a nation, like Spain, declining from its summit by
luxury and inactivity.”[192]

Elsewhere Paley asserts that “luxury in dress or furniture is universally preferable to luxury _in eating_, because the articles which constitute the one are more the production of human art and industry than those which supply the other.”