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

When the question was asked, “Whose sheep are these?” the answer was, “Ægon’s: for he committed them to my care”17 (he uses and disposes of them as his). By this act Damœtas understood them to be his; and if they had not been his, but Alphondas’s or Melibœus’s, Ægon, by an act very intelligible to Damœtas, had expressed what was not true. What is said here is the stronger, because he who has the use and disposal of anything, has all that he can have of it; and, vice versa, he who has the all (or property) of anything, must have all the use and disposal of it. So that a man cannot more fully proclaim anything to be his than by using it, etc. But of this something more hereafter.

In the Jewish history, we read that when Abimelech saw Isaac sporting18 with Rebecca, and taking conjugal liberties,19 he presently knew her to be Isaac’s wife; and if she had not been his wife, the case had been as in the preceding instance. If it be objected that she might have been his mistress or a harlot, I answer that so she might have been though Isaac had told him by words that she was his wife. And it is sufficient for my purpose, and to make acts capable of contradicting truth, if they may be allowed to express things as plainly and determinately as words can. Certainly Abimelech gave greater credit to that information which passed through his eye, than to that which he received by the ear;20 and to what Isaac did, than to what he said. For Isaac had told him that she was not his wife, but his sister.21

A certain author22 writes to this purpose: “If a soldier, who had taken the oath to Caesar, should run over to the enemy, and serve him against Caesar, and after that be taken; would he not be punished as a deserter, and a perjured villain? And if he should plead for himself that he never denied Caesar, would it not be answered that with his tongue he did not deny him, but with his actions (or by facts) he did?” And in another place, “Let us (says he) suppose some tyrant command a Christian to burn incense to Jupiter, without adding anything of a verbal abnegation of Christ: if the Christian should do this, would it not be manifest to all that by that by that very act he denied him;” (and I may add: consequently denied those propositions which affirm him to be the Christ, a teacher of true religion, and the like)?23

When a man lives as if he had the estate which he has not, or was in other regards (all fairly cast up) what he is not, what judgment is to be passed upon him? Does not his whole conduct breathe untruth? May we not say (if the propriety of language permits), that he lives a lie?24

In common speech we say some actions are insignificant, which would not be sense if there were not some that are significant, that have a tendency and meaning. And this is as much as can be said of articulate sounds: that they are either significant or insignificant.25

It may not be improperly observed, by the way, that the significance here attributed to men’s acts, proceeds not always from nature, but sometimes from custom and agreement among people,26 as that of words and sounds mostly does. Acts of the latter kind may, in different times and places, have different or even contrary significations. The generality of Christians, when they pray, take off their hats; the Jews, when they pray27 or say any of their Berakhot, put them on. The same thing which among Christians denotes reverence, imports irreverence among the Jews. The reason is because covering the head with a hat (if it has no influence upon one’s health) is in itself an indifferent thing, and people by usage or consent may make it interpretable either way. Such acts seem to be adopted into their language, and may be reckoned part of it. But acts of the former kind, such as I chiefly here intend, have an unalterable signification, and can by no agreement or force ever be made to express the contrary to it. Ægon’s treating the flock, and disposing of it as if it was his, can by no torture be brought to signify that it was not his. From whence it appears that facts express, more strongly even than words themselves;28 or, to contradict any proposition by facts is a fuller and more effectual contradiction than can possibly be made by words only.29 Words are but arbitrary signs30 of our ideas, or indications of our thoughts (that word, which in one language denotes “poverty,”31 in another denotes “riches”32): but facts may be taken as the effects of them, or rather as the thoughts themselves produced into act; as the very conceptions of the mind, brought forth and grown to maturity; and therefore as the most natural and express representations of them. And, besides this, they bear certain respects to things which are not arbitrary, but as determinate and immutable as any ratios are in mathematics. For the facts, and the things they respect, are just what they are, as much as any two given quantities are; and therefore the respects interceding between those must be as fixed as the ratio is, which one of these bears to the other: that is, they must remain the same, and always speak the same language, till things cease to be what they are.

I lay this down then as a