The English philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), now best known as a proponent of utilitarianism, wrote on a variety of social and political subjects including religion. George Grote (1794-1871), besides his fame as a historian of ancient Greece, was an English radical in the same tradition as Bentham. Together these thinkers produced a book called Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion Upon the Temporal Happiness of Mankind (1822); it was published under the pseudonym Philip Beauchamp. The book was put together by Grote using a large number of Bentham’s manuscripts. According to scholar Catherine Fuller, ‘A fair summation of Grote’s work as a whole is that it echoes Bentham’s text and summaries, but it is rewritten to accommodate Grote’s own thoughts, and in his own style.’
The Analysis solely considers the utility of religious belief, not its truth. It tests religion against the greatest happiness principle and finds that it does more harm than good. John Stuart Mill read the Analysis as a young man and comments on it in his autobiography: ‘I owe it to mention a book (written on the foundation of some of Bentham’s manuscripts and published under the pseudonyme of Philip Beauchamp) entitled Analysis of the Influence of Natural Religion on the Temporal Happiness of Mankind. This was an examination not of the truth, but of the usefulness of religious belief, in the most general sense, apart from the peculiarities of any special revelation; which, of all the parts of the discussion concerning religion, is the most important in this age, in which real belief in any religious doctrine is feeble and precarious, but the opinion of its necessity for moral and social purposes almost universal; and when those who reject revelation, very generally take refuge in an optimistic Deism, a worship of the order of Nature, and the supposed course of Providence, at least as full of contradictions, and perverting to the moral sentiments, as any of the forms of Christianity, if only it is as completely realized. Yet very little, with any claim to a philosophical character, has been written by sceptics against the usefulness of this form of belief. The volume bearing the name of Philip Beauchamp had this for its special object. Having been shown to my father in manuscript, it was put into my hands by him, and I made a marginal analysis of it as I had done of the Elements of Political Economy. Next to the Traiti de Ligislation, it was one of the books which by the searching character of its analysis produced the greatest effect upon me. On reading it lately after an interval of many years, I find it to have some of the defects as well as the merits of the Benthamic modes of thought, and to contain, as I now think, many weak arguments, but with a great overbalance of sound ones, and much good material for a more completely philosophic and conclusive treatment of the subject.’
While reading the Analysis I was deeply impressed by the quality of its arguments and the seemingly irresistible strength of its logic. I found it very instructive in demonstrating how to think about an abstract subject rigorously. Below I share my notes on part I of the text; all quotations are from the Analysis. My notes are not a substitute for reading the book, nor can they capture its extended argumentative clarity. I will post my notes on part II, which deals with the discrete harms of natural religion to the individual and society, later on.
Chapter 1 – Preliminary statements and definition.
To say that religion is always good while it is superstition that is bad is an attempt to erase any bad consequences of religion: ‘By the use of a thing, is meant the good which it produces; by the abuse, the evil which it occasions. To pronounce upon the merits of the thing under discussion, previously erasing from the reckoning all the evil which it occasions, is most preposterous and unwarrantable.’ Such reasoning prevents any evaluation of the general effect of an institution.
Religion is defined as the belief in an almighty Being who dispenses pains and pleasures to man in an infinite future state of existence.
Chapter 2 – The expectations of posthumous pain and pleasure, which natural religion holds out, considered simply and in themselves.
Posthumous expectations will tend to be terrifying because we have no knowledge of what such a posthumous state is like. Knowledge is key to overcoming fear. Pain leaves a stronger impression on us than pleasure, and pain is therefore more likely to shape our expectations of the future. Hence we are likely to fear posthumous torments as we near the end of our lives, exacerbating our suffering.
Chapter 3 – The expectations of posthumous pain and pleasure, which natural religion holds out, considered as conditional, and as exercising influence upon human conduct.
(1) Natural religion furnishes no directive rule (unlike revealed religion)
(2) Natural religion indirectly suggests, and applies her inducements to the observance of a rule of action very pernicious to the temporal interests of mankind.
The immense power of the Deity will cause people to be extremely fearful. Furthermore, since the agency of the Deity in natural religion is incomprehensible, the Deity is comparable to someone capricious or insane.
Such a Deity is not a perfectly malevolent being, because good still exists in the world; but they are not a perfectly benevolent being either, because evil still exists in the world. In short, the Deity is incomprehensible, which will increase our fear of it.
Nevertheless, the Deity will be praised, because praise is deployed by the weak in order to encourage good behaviour toward them; in other words, praise is remuneratory.
Blame is punitory, and used to indicate our dissatisfaction and unwillingness to tolerate harm to ourselves; it is used by the powerful.
Praise is used by the weaker party or between equal parties; blame is used by the stronger party or between equal parties.
Since the Deity is extremely powerful, he will be praised by men even though (from the perspective of natural religion) he is a ‘capricious despot’. We will also praise the Deity to seek his favour.
‘the same incomprehensible power, which would cause the Deity to be conceived as a capricious despot, would also occasion him to be spoken of only under titles of the loftiest eulogy. For language is not the sign of the idea actually existing in the mind of the speaker – but of that which he desires to convey to the hearer. In the present case these two ideas are completely at variance, as they must uniformly be where there is an excessive disparity of power.’
The main passion of a despot is the love of dominion and desire for its increase. There is a corresponding desire that the despot’s subjects should feel helpless and fearful.
The Deity will give greatest esteem to those who disseminate his influence (the priests). The Deity will hate those who refuse to believe in him, are careless of him, or want man to be independent of him. Below priests, the Deity will love those who extol him and degrade themselves by abstaining from pleasures and performing useless rituals. All this will tend to cause human happiness to decrease:
‘It is the essence of power to exact obedience; and obedience involves privation and suffering on the part of the inferior. The Deity having power over all mankind, exacts an obedience co-extensive with his power; therefore all mankind must obey him, or, in other words, immolate to his supremacy a certain portion of their happiness. He loves human obedience; that is, he is delighted with human privations and pain, for these are the test and measure of obedience. He is pleased, when his power is felt and acknowledged: That is, he delights to behold a sense of abasement, helplessness, and terror, prevalent among mankind.’
But isn’t the Deity a beneficent judge? ‘Why is the judge beneficent? Because his power is derivative, dependent and responsible. Why does he impose upon individuals no farther sacrifices than are necessary to ensure the well being of the society? Because all the compulsory force which he can employ is borrowed from the society, who will not permit it to be used for other purposes. Suppose these circumstances altered, and that the judge possesses himself of independent and unresponsible power: The result is, that he becomes a despot, and ceases altogether to be beneficent. It is only when thus strengthened and unshackled that he becomes a proper object of comparison with the Deity – and then, instead of a judge, he degenerates invariably into an oppressor and a tyrant.’
Hence natural religion encourages actions pernicious to man and agreeable to the Deity.
Chapter 4 – Farther considerations on the temporal usefulness of that rule of action, which the inducements of natural religion enforce.
Suppose all belief in God and a future state disappears: ‘But the sources of pleasure and pain, in this community, would still remain unaltered with regard to the present life, even in the state of impiety into which they had just plunged. What had been useful or pernicious to them before, would still continue to be so. They would have precisely the same motive to encourage the former and to repress the latter … There will still, therefore, remain in the bosom of each individual, ample motive to behaviour beneficial to society – ample motive against conduct injurious to it.’
Since the practices of natural religion disappear when natural religion disappears, it follows that these practices are not beneficial at all in this world: ‘he who would maintain that pious works are temporally beneficial, must also affirm, that there would be motive enough to perform them, supposing our earthly existence to terminate in annihilation.’
If the practices of natural religion were beneficial, it would require the same actions everywhere. But someone’s religion does not tell us of their moral qualities or conduct; they may be good or bad: ‘Consequently an adherence to the injunctions of religion is something entirely different from an habitual performance of beneficial actions. For the latter are every where uniform and identical, while the mandates of religion are infinitely various’.
If religion merely demanded actions that increased temporal happiness, then it would be exactly coincident with human laws. But religion affects many areas legislators do not touch.
Religion distinguishes between duty to God and duty to man. The duty to God is harmful to human temporal happiness; it deducts from the happiness encompassed in duty to man.
Chapter 5 – Efficiency of the inducements held out by natural religion. How far super-human expectations can be regarded as likely to prove influential, where no human inducements would be influential.
The need to repress misconduct with superhuman inducements merely means human laws are defective and need amendment.
But grades of guilt and innocence are not all comprehensible to humans – hence the need for superhuman inducements. But if a case is so intricate that a legislator cannot define guilt, neither can the agent concerned discern their guilt or innocence, hence superhuman punishment could not affect their action.
As for superhuman inducements preventing secret crimes, these crimes are often preventable by better human effort.
Superhuman inducements can have an effect in the rare circumstances when the criminal is undiscoverable, but compared with the injurious effects of posthumous expectations this is a small benefit. It would be better if we had superhuman information to give precise judgement about crimes rather than tormenting people with fear through posthumous expectations.
Chapter 6 – Efficiency of super-human inducements to produce temporal evil. Their inefficiency to produce temporal good.
Inducements are expectations of pleasure or pain. The comparative strength of human motives is determined by their intensity, duration, certainty, and propinquity.
Posthumous expectations are deficient in propinquity to the highest degree; they are extremely remote.
They are also deficient in certainty: they are to be awarded altogether after many years, and it is impossible to ascertain whether we will be rewarded or not because we would have to sum every single action we’ve ever done. Plus, we are likely to exaggerate our own goodness.
But posthumous pleasures and pains are also intense and durable to the utmost extent. Yet this intensity and duration is imaginary, and therefore cannot have the same effect on us as real events. Our ideas of pleasure and pain are derived from experience.
We would constantly live in terror if the intensity and duration of posthumous expectations made up for the remoteness and uncertainty of posthumous pains and pleasures. But we don’t live in constant terror: ‘sufferings so remote and so uncertain as those of a posthumous life, whatever may be their fancied intensity, can scarcely affect the mind at all, in its natural state.’
But the mind is likely to be affected by such expectations in times of distress, e.g. close to death.
On posthumous expectations: ‘the only benefit which they are calculated to accomplish would be the repression of crimes. To this purpose it has been shewn that they are wholly inadequate; for during the influence of temptation, the only season in which a man commits crime, they find no place in the mind, and therefore can interpose no barrier. On the other hand, they act with the highest effect at a period when they cannot by possibility produce any temporal benefit – that is, at the close of life: and the extent of their influence is always in an inverse ratio to the demand for it.’
Chapter 7 – Analysis of the source from whence the real efficiency of super-human enjoyments is almost wholly derived.
The Deity delights in the debasement of man. We don’t want to debase ourselves, but it is no harm to us if others are debased. Hence we zealously encourage piety.
There is public antipathy against impiety and approval of piety. Public opinion therefore becomes ‘the real actuating motive to religious observances on the part of each individual.’ Hence we must endure the hostility of men as well as God if we don’t observe religious rituals.
Nevertheless, to really seem religious, we must disguise our being motivated by public opinion, and appear to be solely driven by fear of the Deity. We will deceive ourselves about our motive, and this will eventually become sincere, and we will make the unconscious error of committing ourselves to piety.
Moral conduct comes from the wants and interests of man: we have no motive to carry out religious acts in terms of inherent benefit. ‘But every man has something to gain by being active in enforcing upon others the performance of these acts – inasmuch as this is a co-operation with the views of God, which may have the effect of partially discharging, or at least of lightening, his own obligations.’ This then affects all society. The spread of religion also means non-conformists will be targeted out of envy.
Chapter 8 – Proof of the inefficiency of super-human inducements, when unassisted by, or at variance with, public opinion.
Some examples of impieties that are regularly committed because public opinion allows them: duelling; fornication; simony; perjury (the violation of oaths).
But what about those religious acts associated with no public esteem? ‘[W]hen the associations of credit have once linked themselves with any course of behaviour, by conversation with a peculiar class, by strong personal affection, or any other cause – when the feeling of self-respect has become attached to that course – an individual will not unfrequently persevere in it, though the harvest he reaps may not actually gratify and realise the association.’
Superhuman inducements can be effective (for example, they can drive people insane with fear of posthumous torment) but only in peculiar cases. They are generally impotent.
Recapitulation
- ‘in the absence of any authorised directive rule, the class of actions which our best founded inference would suggest as entitling the performer to post-obituary reward, is one not merely useless, but strikingly detrimental, to mankind in the present life; while the class conceived as meriting future punishment, is one always innocuous, often beneficial, to our fellow creatures on earth.’
- ‘from the character and properties of posthumous inducements, they infallibly become impotent for the purpose of resisting any temptation whatever, and efficient only in the production of needless and unprofitable misery.’
- ‘the influence exercised by these inducements is, in most cases, really derived from the popular sanction, which they are enabled to bias and enlist in their favour.’
Hence natural religion is incalculably more injurious than beneficial.
Notes in the Margins of the Days 