Jean Barbeyrac on the Virtues which all free Men should have (1718)
About this Quotation:
Jean Barbeyrac is important not only for making available to 18th century readers translations of important 17th century thinkers such as Grotius and Pufendorf, but also for providing extensive notes to these translation in which he expanded the ideas of the men he was translating. The quotation above is a good example of this.
Other quotes from this week:
- 2009: St. John, private property, and the Parable of the Wolf and the Good Shepherd (2ndC AD)
- 2008: Alexander Hamilton denounces the British for imposing “oppressive taxes” on the colonists which amount to tyranny, a form of slavery, and vassalage to the Empire (1774)
- 2007: Augustin Thierry laments that the steady growth of liberty in France had been disrupted by the cataclysm of the French Revolution (1859)
- 2006: John Millar argues that as a society becomes wealthier domestic freedom increases, even to the point where slavery is thought to be pernicious and economically inefficient (1771)
- 2005: Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that freedom was the “Grand and Indispensable Condition” (1792)
Other quotes about Philosophy:
- 2010: Wollaston on crimes against person or property as contradictions of fundamental truths (1722)
- 2008: Plato believed that great souls and creative talents produce “offspring” which can be enjoyed by others: wisdom, virtue, poetry, art, temperance, justice, and the law (340s BC)
- 2008: Aristotle insists that man is either a political animal (the natural state) or an outcast like a “bird which flies alone” (4thC BC)
- 2006: J.S. Mill’s great principle was that “over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign” (1859)
- 2005: Wilhelm von Humboldt argued that freedom was the “Grand and Indispensable Condition” (1792)
- 2005: Thomas Hobbes sings a hymn of praise for Reason as “the pace”, scientific knowledge is “the way”, and the benefit of mankind is “the end” (1651)
- 2005: Voltaire lampooned the excessively optimistic Leibnitzian philosophers in his philosophic tale Candide by exposing his characters to one disaster after another, like a tsunami in Lisbon, to show that this was not “the best of all possible worlds” (1759)
26 July, 2004
 | Jean Barbeyrac on the Virtues which all free Men should have (1718) |
In his translation of Samuel Pufendorf’s treatise on natural law, The Whole Duty of Man (1691, 1718), Jean Barbeyrac included a number of essays and commentaries. In one, a “Discourse on the Benefits Conferred by the Laws”, he made the following observation:
There are other virtues which, while free from all constraint, nonetheless carry a clear and imperative obligation… humanity, compassion, charity, beneficence, liberality, generosity, patience, gentleness, love of peace, these are not empty names, nor are they indifferent things… they are sentiments which all reasonable persons in all times have counted among their duties…
The full passage from which this quotation was taken can be be viewed below (front page quote in bold):
If men are men, if they act as reasonable creatures, if they wish to conform to what their nature demands, if they are of a mind to show themselves worthy members of that universal society of which God is the author and protector, it is absolutely necessary that they be religious observers of justice, but not of justice alone. There are other virtues which, while free from all constraint, nonetheless carry a clear and imperative obligation. Conversely, this obligation is all the stronger for being free of coercion, since the man who imposes it thereby relies more on one’s willingness to fulfil the obligation. Yes, humanity, compassion, charity, beneficence, liberality, generosity, patience, gentleness, love of peace, these are not empty names, nor are they indifferent things; they are not even new commandments contained in the Gospel. Rather, they are sentiments which all reasonable persons in all times have counted among their duties; they are dispositions that one cannot but admire and praise in others, even in an enemy, though one may not feel them in one’s own heart nor wish to make the effort to install them there. Human laws, far from exempting us from such virtues, furnish a thousand occasions for their practice. Let us indicate some of these.