Throughout the treatise Cumberland is concerned to oppose the two following related views of Hobbes regarding the Good: (1) that the [natural] Good for each man is merely what he wants; and (2) that, before the establishment of the state and the enacting of civil laws, there is no 'measure' of the Good.
We have already seen that, in opposition to Hobbes's doctrine that we call a thing good because we want it, Cumberland holds that we want it because first we believe it to be good.[1] As regards the view that in a 'state of nature' there is no 'common measure,' the author somewhat naïvely asserts that of course there is,—the Nature of Things.[2] In the same paragraph, however, he explicitly says: "Whatsoever proposition points out the true cause of preservation does at the same time show what is true good." Later in the treatise, Good is defined as: "that which preserves, or enlarges and perfects, the faculties of any one thing or of several." And a few lines further on: "that is good to man which preserves or enlarges the powers of the mind and body, or of either, without prejudice to the other."[3]
The first passage quoted may sound like Hobbes; but of course what Cumberland has in mind, when he speaks of preservation, is the preservation, not primarily of the individual, but of society,—the 'health of the social organism,' in Mr. Stephen's phrase. Another important difference is that Cumberland's idea of the Good, from this point of view, includes perfection as well as preservation. Indeed, the emphasis is certainly to be laid upon perfection. Man is not merely a bundle of egoistic appetites, but a being essentially rational,—a personality to be developed.
But in chapter v, we have an example of the other set of passages, even more numerous, which might be cited as showing that Cumberland's ideal was that of ordinary Hedonism.
- ↑ Connected with this is the question regarding the permanence of the Good. Cumberland holds that "Hobbes's fiction that good and evil are changeable is perfectly inconsistent with the necessary and immutable causes which he everywhere asserts of the being and preservation of man" (p. 62). It is to be doubted if this is at all conclusive against Hobbes.
- ↑ See p. 62.
- ↑ See p. 165.
