Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography/Volume 3/Wollaston, William

by James Frederick Ferrier

WOLLASTON, William, the author of the "Religion of Nature Delineated," was born at Cotton Clanford in Staffordshire in 1659. He was sprung from a good old family, although the branch of it to which he belonged was in a somewhat impoverished condition. He was educated at Sidney college, Cambridge. After leaving Cambridge he became assistant-master in a school at Birmingham, in addition to which he obtained a small lectureship in a chapel about two miles from that town. His means, however, were very straitened, until he was unexpectedly, in 1688, left an ample estate by his cousin, Mr. Wollaston of Shenton, who was the head of the flourishing branch of his family. This gentleman had been so much impressed with the merits of his kinsman, both from what he knew of him personally and from the reports which had reached him, that he bequeathed to him his entire estate to the exclusion of his more direct heirs. Wollaston now married and settled in London, where eleven children were born to him. His habits were studious, and he lived in strict retirement. His house was in Charter-house Square, and how uneventful his life must have been is attested by the circumstance that he never once slept out of this house during a period of thirty years. He died in 1724. "The Religion of Nature Delineated" is a treatise on natural religion, which passes at once into an inquiry respecting the foundation of morals. The transition is easily traced. All religion has its origin in the fact that there is a difference in human actions: some are good, some bad, some indifferent. Hence the question arises. What is it that makes some actions good, and others bad? Can we detect in the good ones any common quality, which may enable us to separate them from the bad ones as distinguished by the opposite quality? Wollaston answers, Yes; all right conduct is conduct in which truth is observed—all wrong conduct is conduct in which truth is violated. We can declare truths or falsehoods by our actions no less than by our words. Actions speak—they utter truths or falsehoods—no less than the tongue. All virtue is thus reduced by him to a species of truth-telling, just as all vice is reduced to a species of lying. For example, why is temperance right and intemperance wrong? Because it is a true proposition, that a man should at all times preserve, so far as he can, the use of his faculties. The temperate man acts in conformity with this proposition; his conduct asserts its truth; hence he is virtuous. The intemperate man practically denies its truth. He virtually asserts what is false; hence he is vicious. So the man who steals says virtually, This is not yours, but mine; but that is a lie. So the man who ill-uses his parents or children affirms, in so doing, that they are not his parents and children, but strangers and enemies. His crime consists in asserting that things are not what they are. On the other hand, to respect the property of others, and to behave with kindness in our family relations, is to admit things to be what they are—such truthfulness is virtue. Moral obligation is explained on the same principle. As rational beings we are bound to acknowledge, by our conduct, that things are what they are, and not to declare that they are different from what they are. If we are assured, for instance, that a person is in distress, we are bound to do what we can to relieve him, otherwise our behaviour would be equivalent to a declaration that the person was not in distress; but that would be false, and a breach of our obligation to assert on all occasions the truth. Our happiness, too, no less than our virtue, consists in acting in conformity with truth. For it is only by acting in accordance with the nature with which we have been endowed, and in accordance with the laws of the universe, that our true well-being can be secured. In the inordinate pursuit of pleasure, our true happiness suffers, because it is false that our nature was solely designed for the pursuit and attainment of pleasure. We impair our happiness by acting a falsehood, just as we promote it by adhering to what is true. And finally, natural religion, and an obedience to the will of God, are explained by this system as consisting in our practical admission that he has ordained what he has ordained, and that his purposes are what they are; in other words, in our discovery and recognition of the truths which he has established for the guidance of man and of nature, and in our determination to maintain these truths not only in our words, but practically in our whole life and conversation.—J. F. F.