Mr Godwin's conjecture concerning the future extinction of the
passion between the sexes - Little apparent grounds for such a
conjecture - Passion of love not inconsistent either with reason
or virtue.
WE have supported Mr Godwin's system of society once completely
established. But it is supposing an impossibility. The same
causes in nature which would destroy it so rapidly, were it once
established, would prevent the possibility of its establishment.
And upon what grounds we can presume a change in these natural
causes, I am utterly at a loss to conjecture. No move towards the
extinction of the passion between the sexes has taken place in
the five or six thousand years that the world has existed. Men in
the decline of life have in all ages declaimed against a passion
which they have ceased to feel, but with as little reason as
success. Those who from coldness of constitutional temperament
have never felt what love is, will surely be allowed to be very
incompetent judges with regard to the power of this passion to
contribute to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Those
who have spent their youth in criminal excesses and have prepared
for themselves, as the comforts of their age, corporeal debility
and mental remorse may well inveigh against such pleasures as
vain and futile, and unproductive of lasting satisfaction. But
the pleasures of pure love will bear the contemplation of the
most improved reason, and the most exalted virtue. Perhaps there
is scarcely a man who has once experienced the genuine delight of
virtuous love, however great his intellectual pleasure may have
been, that does not look back to the period as the sunny spot in
his whole life, where his imagination loves to bask, which he
recollects and contemplates with the fondest regrets, and which
he would most wish to live over again. The superiority of
intellectual to sensual pleasures consists rather in their
filling up more time, in their having a larger range, and in
their being less liable to satiety, than in their being more real
and essential.
Intemperance in every enjoyment defeats its own purpose. A
walk in the finest day through the most beautiful country, if
pursued too far, ends in pain and fatigue. The most wholesome and
invigorating food, eaten with an unrestrained appetite, produces
weakness instead of strength. Even intellectual pleasures, though
certainly less liable than others to satiety, pursued with too
little intermission, debilitate the body, and impair the vigour
of the mind. To argue against the reality of these pleasures from
their abuse seems to be hardly just. Morality, according to Mr
Godwin, is a calculation of consequences, or, as Archdeacon Paley
very justly expresses it, the will of God, as collected from
general expediency. According to either of these definitions, a
sensual pleasure not attended with the probability of unhappy
consequences does not offend against the laws of morality, and if
it be pursued with such a degree of temperance as to leave the
most ample room for intellectual attainments, it must undoubtedly
add to the sum of pleasurable sensations in life. Virtuous love,
exalted by friendship, seems to be that sort of mixture of
sensual and intellectual enjoyment particularly suited to the
nature of man, and most powerfully calculated to awaken the
sympathies of the soul, and produce the most exquisite
gratifications.
Mr Godwin says, in order to shew the evident inferiority of
the pleasures of sense, 'Strip the commerce of the sexes of all
its attendant circumstances, and it would be generally despised'
(Bk. I, ch. 5; in the third edition, Vol. I, pp. 71-72). He might
as well say to a man who admired trees: strip them of their
spreading branches and lovely foliage, and what beauty can you
see in a bare pole? But it was the tree with the branches and
foliage, and not without them, that excited admiration. One
feature of an object may be as distinct, and excite as different
emotions, from the aggregate as any two things the most remote,
as a beautiful woman, and a map of Madagascar. It is 'the
symmetry of person, the vivacity, the voluptuous softness of
temper, the affectionate kindness of feelings, the imagination
and the wit' of a woman that excite the passion of love, and not
the mere distinction of her being female. Urged by the passion of
love, men have been driven into acts highly prejudicial to the
general interests of society, but probably they would have found
no difficulty in resisting the temptation, had it appeared in the
form of a woman with no other attractions whatever but her sex.
To strip sensual pleasures of all their adjuncts, in order to
prove their inferiority, is to deprive a magnet of some of its
most essential causes of attraction, and then to say that it is
weak and inefficient.
In the pursuit of every enjoyment, whether sensual or
intellectual, reason, that faculty which enables us to calculate
consequences, is the proper corrective and guide. It is probable
therefore that improved reason will always tend to prevent the
abuse of sensual pleasures, though it by no means follows that it
will extinguish them.
I have endeavoured to expose the fallacy of that argument
which infers an unlimited progress from a partial improvement,
the limits of which cannot be exactly ascertained. It has
appeared, I think, that there are many instances in which a
decided progress has been observed, where yet it would be a gross
absurdity to suppose that progress indefinite. But towards the
extinction of the passion between the sexes, no observable
progress whatever has hitherto been made. To suppose such an
extinction, therefore, is merely to offer an unfounded
conjecture, unsupported by any philosophical probabilities.
It is a truth, which history I am afraid makes too clear,
that some men of the highest mental powers have been addicted not
only to a moderate, but even to an immoderate indulgence in the
pleasures of sensual love. But allowing, as I should be inclined
to do, notwithstanding numerous instances to the contrary, that
great intellectual exertions tend to diminish the empire of this
passion over man, it is evident that the mass of mankind must be
improved more highly than the brightest ornaments of the species
at present before any difference can take place sufficient
sensibly to affect population. I would by no means suppose that
the mass of mankind has reached its term of improvement, but the
principal argument of this essay tends to place in a strong point
of view the improbability that the lower classes of people in any
country should ever be sufficiently free from want and labour to
obtain any high degree of intellectual improvement.