 Individualism, a Reader, edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore, narrated by James Foster. 12. From Social Bliss Considered Peter Annett Social Bliss Considered in Marriage and Divorce, Cohabiting, Unmarried and Public Horing London, R. Rose, 1749. Spelling and Punctuation have been modernized. A consistent champion of freedom of religion, the deist Peter Annett, 1693 to 1769, transmitted the ideas of free thought to the common people of England. Among his many tracks were The Resurrection of Jesus Considered, History and Character of Saint Paul, and Judging for Ourselves, or Freethinking the Great Duty of Religion. If it not be fit to examine into truth, declared Annett in a passionate appeal common among deists, truth is not fit to be known. The British government disagreed. For attempting to diffuse and propagate irreligious and diabolical opinions in the minds of his Majesty's subjects and to shake the foundation of the Christian religion, Annett, at the advanced age of seventy, was pilloried with a paper on his forehead inscribed blasphemy and sentenced to a year of hard labour in prison. Our selection is from Annett's most provocative work, Social Bliss Considered, which was published in 1749 under the pseudonym Gideon Archer. Annett argues for the legalization of divorce, cohabitation and prostitution. In the passage excerpted here from the section titled Public Whoring, Annett argues for the right of adults to consensual sexual activity without governmental restrictions or punishments. This is an early formulation of the crucial libertarian distinction between vices and crimes. Human good and evil respects human creatures only and depend on their circumstances. No moral law is absolutely good or evil in all variety of cases, for as the case or circumstance varies, so the good or evil of the action will vary with it. We may not kill, to do it unlawfully as murder, but to kill a criminal or an enemy in war is lawful. It is not a crime to eat and drink unless we do it to excess and to hurt ourselves or devour the property of others and so do hurt to others. Moral good and evil being limited to the nature of man it must needs be that actions which are injurious to none of the human species and necessary to be done because the nature of man requires it are not evil actions. The action is not evil which has not evil consequences whatever the evil was that occasioned it. By their fruits you shall know them. What does not injure man cannot displease God, for God governs man by laws for the good of man. God himself is not benefited or injured by anything that is in the power of man to do because from man God receives nothing. From God man receives all things. Natural appetites that excite to the propagation and preservation of human life are not in their nature evil to man. Copulation is not an evil in its nature but in such circumstances as are attended with inconvenience and some natural bad consequences in body or mind as in these three particulars. One, when there is a natural unfitness in the bodily parts nature forbids to join together things unfit to be joined for it is communicating pain and injury instead of pleasure and gratification yet persons may be so unnaturally bound together by the sacred rights and so disagreeably fitted for the enjoyment of each other. Two, when there is a natural reluctance of one party to comply with the disposition of the other it is a prohibition of nature. Whatever is done by one contrary to the will of the other or not without full consent of both mars the felicity of enjoyment and is attended with sorrow and grief on one side as well as compunction and regret on the other in a temper possessed of humanity. Everything contrary to true harmony is a violation of love and not its offspring. Rape are of the most brutal nature and deserve severest punishment. To force a virgin should be esteemed a crime equal to robbing a house. Forced marriages against the good will of both parties is disagreeable it is an evil that produces lasting sorrow and unhappiness the yoking together adverse nature's nature forbids. There should be a fitness in body and mind to action to make it fit and agreeable. Three, by dishonorable solicitation fraudulent insinuation and false promises to debauch a mind to an action the natural consequence of which is injury and repentance is also criminal. To deflower a virgin under pretense of marriage and abandon her is a fraud and navery and is naturally productive of ill effects. These things are evil because of the injury committed but the case is different where none are injured and both parties are free and pleased with each other's actions and are under no engagements of restraint than their own nature and common prudence direct. I see no reason why persons that are at their own disposal have not as much natural right to dispose of their own persons according to their own pleasure as of their substance income or estate if the one be as much their property as the other. If it be not so then people dare not for their soul's sake say their bodies are their own but if it be so it is not evident why they ought to be punished for disposing of themselves as they please especially when matrimony as it now is is often worse or of more fatal consequence nor will it ever be esteemed honorable by those that are unhappy while the means of happiness are withheld. It is well known that in the satisfying of every natural desire of man especially those that give the most delight nature needs a bridle not a spur because more are injured by too great freedom than restraint. Therefore prudence steers the middle way and therefore reason is given to regulate our desires yet the moderate gratification of what nature makes necessary can be no crime when the property of none is invaded and none are injured by it. It is only the immoderate use of pleasure or seeking it to the detriment of others that makes it criminal. Therefore this can be no reason to use a muzzle instead of a bridle nor to make those actions criminal that are the incitements of innocent nature which she alone ripens man for and constrains his will to desire and he cannot help desiring what she fits him to enjoy and which not nature but custom makes criminal for how can they be culpable of committing evil to others who neither do nor intend any and man or woman cannot will evil to themselves for evil consists in grief and pain. The gratification of every sense contributes to the pleasure of life or man's well-being and every sense was given to man for that end to be enjoyed within the bounds of reason and proper circumstances and those circumstances are proper and reasonable that are by joint consent and hurtful to none. Pleasures enjoyed and communicated prudently within natural and reasonable bounds and with necessary regard to health and substance so as not to be attended with the apprehension of guilt or the fear of after pain are enjoyed with satisfaction. What makes pleasure the greater to an honest mind is to be satisfied with reason how it may be enjoyed so as not to disturb the mind's felicity by self-accusation or after reflections for the pleasures of sense are marred if the fruition is not with the full satisfaction of mind that a good understanding and a prudent conduct are always necessary to promote. As to eat to satisfy hunger makes not the action evil for were it not for this men would have no desire to eat nor find pleasure in eating consequently could not eat at all so the gratification of carnal lust to the injury of none is no evil nor is the lust or desire itself for were it not for that to which nature has joined love to the object to enforce it all procreation and the pleasures and virtues of a social life and family relations would be at an end therefore barely to look on a woman to lust after her without some other explanatory words is not committing adultery in heart it is not an evil because unavoidable and sometimes necessary if carnal lust be in itself an evil motive it must be so at all times or in all cases and consequently is so in a married state for in this case marriage doesn't change the motive to the action if it did it would either be not done at all or be very ill done it is not evil to gratify the natural lusts of sense by which life and being are supported and propagated but to do it to the prejudice of others where neither party injure each other but a man's natural appetite is satisfied by the use of an obliging courtesan if he is under no legal ties to another that ought in reason to restrain him but pleasure is mutually given and received I cannot see any evil to be in the action more than in the desire which desires being infused by nature for the good of man vigorous in the best and unavoidable in all whom they are which man's will or wisdom cannot prevent are not evil although through the mist of false divinity they be made to appear and be accounted so it is the forbidding it makes it criminal or rather to be esteemed as such for this desire does not arise from a vicious and corrupted mind but is the genuine offspring of pure nature in the purest minds this has been individualism a reader edited by George H. Smith and Marilyn Moore narrated by James Foster copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute production copyright 2015 by the Cato Institute