The Religion of Nature Delineated William Wollaston (my reading book .TXT) 📖

words and eloquence.10 But these instances do not come up to my meaning. There are many acts of other kinds, such as constitute the character of a man’s conduct in life, which have in nature, and would be taken by any indifferent judge, to have a signification and to imply some proposition, as plainly to be understood as if it was declared in words: and therefore if what such acts declare to be, is not, they must contradict truth, as much as any false proposition or assertion can.

If a body of soldiers, seeing another body approach, should fire upon them, would not this action declare that they were enemies? And if they were not enemies, would not this military language declare what was false? No, perhaps it may be said: this can only be called a mistake, like that which happened to the Athenians in the attack of Epipolæ,11 or to the Carthaginians in their last encampment against Agathocles in Africa.12 Suppose then, instead of this firing, some officer to have said they were enemies, when indeed they were friends: would not that sentence affirming them to be enemies be false, notwithstanding he who spoke it was mistaken? The truth or falsehood of this affirmation does not depend upon the affirmer’s knowledge or ignorance, because there is a certain sense affixed to the words, which must either agree or disagree to that concerning which the affirmation is made. The thing is the very same still, if into the place of words be substituted actions. The salute here was in nature the salute of an enemy, but should have been the salute of a friend: therefore it implied a falsity. Any spectator would have understood this action as I do: for a declaration that the other were enemies. Now, what is to be understood has a meaning, and what has a meaning may be either true or false, which is as much as can be said of any verbal sentence.

When Popilius Lænas solicited to have Cicero proscribed, and that he might find him out and be his executioner,13 would not his carriage have sufficiently signified, to anyone who was ignorant of the case, that Tully14 either was some very bad man and deserved capital punishment, or had some way grievously injured this man (or at least had not saved his life, nor had as much reason to expect his service and good offices upon occasion, as he ever had to expect Tully’s)? And all these things being false, were not his behavior and actions expressive of that which was false, or contradictions to truth? It is certain he acted as if those things had been true which were not true, and as if those had not been true which were true (in this consisted the fault of his ingratitude); and if he in words had said they were true or not true, he had done no more than talk as if they were so. Why then should not to act as if they were true or not true, when they were otherwise, contradict truth as much as to say they were so, when they were not so?15

A pertinacious objector may perhaps still say: it is the business of soldiers to defend themselves and their country from enemies, and to annoy them as opportunity permits; and self-preservation requires all men not only barely to defend themselves against aggressors, but many times also to prosecute such, and only such, as are wicked and dangerous: therefore it is natural to conclude that they are enemies against whom we see soldiers defending themselves, and those men wicked and dangerous whom we see prosecuted with zeal and ardor. Not that those acts of defending and prosecuting speak or signify so much, but conjectures are raised upon the common sense which mankind has of such proceedings. Answer: If it be natural to conclude anything from them, do they not naturally convey the notice of something to be concluded? And what is conveying the notice of anything, but notifying or signifying that thing? And then again, if this signification is natural and founded in the common principles and sense of mankind, is not this more than to have a meaning which results only from the use of some particular place or country, as that of language does?

If A should enter into a compact with B, by which he promises and engages never to do some certain thing, and after this he does that thing: in this case, it must be granted that his act interferes with his promise, and is contrary to it. Now it cannot interfere with his promise, but it must also interfere with the truth of that proposition which says there was such a promise made, or that there is such a compact subsisting. If this proposition be true, “A made such a certain agreement with B,” it would be denied by this, “A never made any agreement with B.” Why? Because the truth of this latter is inconsistent with the agreement asserted in the former. The formality of the denial, or that which makes it to be a denial, is this inconsistency. If, then, the behavior of A be inconsistent with the agreement mentioned in the former proposition, that proposition is as much denied by A’s behavior, as it can be by the latter, or any other, proposition. Or thus: If one proposition imports or contains that which is contrary to what is contained in another, it is said to contradict this other, and denies the existence of what is contained in it. Just so if one act imports that which is contrary to the import of another, it contradicts this other, and denies its existence. In a word: if A by his actions denies the engagements to which he has subjected himself, his actions deny them; just as we say, Ptolemy by his writings