and confide in the wisdom and fidelity of the legislators to make such new ones as the circumstances of the community may require.
And while the guardians of THIS PEOPLE are intent upon securing their rights and promoting their happiness, in every wise and laudable method, liberal support should be granted, great honors done, and cheerful obedience yielded to them.
Our safety and happiness must always arise from the united exertions of rulers and ruled to the same salutary purposes. The security of our liberty and property by the fundamental laws of our civil constitution is the strongest motive to maintain an inviolable attachment to it; and to exert ourselves to promote the interest of the nation to which we belong. Every well-directed effort to support the constitution on which the happiness [65] of the whole depends, and to augment the wealth and strength of the British empire, as our duty and interest, should be readily made by us. To multiply settlements on the uncultivated lands, and reduce the wilderness to a fruitful field, by emigration from our older towns, and especially by the introduction of foreigners not unfriendly to our constitution—to make greater improvements in agriculture and in every useful art evidently tends to the general welfare.
Arbitrary and oppressive measures in the state would indeed dispirit the people and weaken the nerves of industry, and in their consequences lead to poverty and ruin; but a mild and equitable administration, will encourage their hearts and strengthen their hands to execute with vigor those measures which promote the strength and safety of the whole.
To lay a foundation of greater security to ourselves is indeed a laudable motive [66] to such efforts; and may be justified by the principle of self-preservation: But the advantages of such improvements will not be confined to ourselves—the more populous and opulent we grow, the more able we shall be to defend this important part of the British dominions—the more our nation will be a terror to her enemies—and the better able shall we be to make remittance for what we shall necessarily want of her manufactures.
By a proper attention to the general interest, and vigorous pursuits of measures that tend to promote it, things may be put into such a situation as to be of mutual advantage. The growth and prosperity of her colonies must be of real advantage to Great-Britain.—The means for exportation being increased in them, will be so to the colonies, by which they may sink their present heavy debts, and more easily defray necessary public charges.
The same attention, with a little prudence, would lead us to retrench extravagant [67] expences, and to promote frugality, good order, and industry, that we might give a seasonable check to increasing debility, enjoy what we possess to more advantage and widen the foundation of future felicity. Under greater advantages we may receive monitory and directive hints, by turning our eye to the provident ant, which having no guide, overseer or ruler provides her meat in the summer and gathereth her food in the harvest.
We are now reaping the happy fruits of our Fathers hard labor and ineffable sufferings; and shall not a concern for future generations warm our hearts—produce some acts of self denial, and closer application for their sakes? or shall we do nothing for our posterity when the first renowned settlers, here, did so much for theirs? Could they look down—or rather be permitted in flesh to visit their dear-bought country, with what astonishment would they behold the ungrateful neglect—with what severity reprove the prostitution of patrimonial [68] privileges, and chide the criminal want of philanthropy, in their degenerate offspring: and with what ardor would they urge them to perfect the work they had nobly begun, and thereby make room for millions yet unborn quietly to enjoy their natural, their civil, and religious liberties.
In fine. To secure his own, and to promote the happiness of others, is the part of every one in this great assembly. To this end were we born, and for this cause came we into the world. We were placed in that rank of being, and under those circumstances, which the infinitely wise and good Creator saw proper. And as we are moral agents, and accountable; it is of great importance to us in every station, to keep in view the end of our being called into existence.
This is but the bud of being—we are candidates for a succeeding state; into which, we are assured by the gospel of the Son of God, the consequences of our actions in this, will follow us. Nor in [69] the constitution of things have we long to continue here, but mortality will soon translate us to the state of retribution. With what care then should we avoid every action debasing to the mind, and with what assiduity pursue those that tend to raise it to nobler heights.
By inattention and vice we may forfeit the blessings of creation and redemption, and by a continued course of sordid and unworthy actions, dishonorary to God and unfriendly to mankind, we may finish the ruins of our nature; and put ourselves into such a state, that it would have been good for us if we had never been born. But by a diligent improvement of the talents committed to our trust in exercises of piety towards God, and charity to men, we may enoble the mind, and qualify it for the sublime happiness for which it was originally designed. Having therefore acted our part with fidelity in the service of God and our generation, we shall quit this imperfect state with dignity and honor, and rise superior to the highest grandeur and felicity in these [70] regions of mortality; and by the immerited munificence of the Creator
————walk—
High in Salvation, and the Climes of Bliss.*
THE END
Theory of Agency: Or, An Essay on the Nature, Source and Extent of Moral Freedom
Perkins was a physician of Lynn, Massachusetts, who authored a number of pamphlets on earthquakes, comets, and other natural phenomena. This present essay is the only instance where he is known to have taken on political matters in print. Americans during the founding era frequently had a deeper philosophical or theological basis for their understanding of concepts like freedom and equality than is apparent from their political writing. Such theoretical assumptions and underpinnings were frequently taken for granted. Perkins here lays out the basis for consent—a concept central to American politics but rarely analyzed philosophically.
PREFACE
The consideration of the subject of Liberty has been, not only an agreeable amusement to the Author, but really interesting; he having formerly been carried away by the metaphysical, and very specious reasonings of the Necessitarians, into a favourable opinion of their notion.
What gave him lately an occasion of considering the matter, was, the reading an Essay entitled PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY, written as it seems, to establish the doctrine of Fatalism. In that piece, the author represents the strong sense, or feeling, as he calls it, of Liberty, so universal in mankind, as a deceitful idea. That in want of power to confer liberty, the Divinity was oblig’d to impress our minds with this fallacious perception, to dispose us to perform the part assigned us. This was too striking to pass without attention: It had the effect; and but for this, the Author of the following pages had probably remain’d quiet, and secure, in the Necessitarian tenets. In examining the matter, he put down his thoughts in writing, as they occurr’d [4] not indeed as any answer to that piece, but for his own information, and in the most impartial manner he was capable of; if possible to find on which side of the question the truth lay. In this way he became assured of the reality of Liberty, particularly by a discovery of what it consisted in, and how it originated in the operations of the mind. This is what he has in the following pages endeavour’d to explain. Upon the whole, he thinks a Theory of Liberty practicable, and accordingly leaves the consideration