The state of the poor: was Reasons for Contentment an argument, or a sermon addressed to the labouring poor on behalf of those who profited from their contentment?

William Paley, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

The condition of the labouring poor is compensated by advantages the rich do not possess — the pleasures of occupation, of rest earned, of hope — and the inequality of property is justified by its general consequences rather than by any natural right.1234

Sources

  1. Hence they lead a languid, fatiated exigence. Hardly any thing can amufe, or roufe, or gratify them. Whereas the poor man, if fomething ex¬ traordinary c 15 3 traordinary fall in his way, comes to the repaft with appetite; is pleafed and refrefhed; derives from his ufual courfe of moderation and tem¬ perance a quicknefs of perception and delight, which the unreftrained voluptuary knows nothing of.
    Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public
  2. Where this is the cafe, things are at their perfec¬ tion. They have reached their limit. Were the princes and nobility, the legislators and counfel- lors of the land, all of them the heft and wifefi men that ever lived, their united virtue and wif- dom could do no more than this. They, if any fuch there be, who would teach you to expect more, give you no inftance where more has ever been attained.
    Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public
  3. This may be looked forward to, and is pra&icable, by great numbers, in a ftate of pub¬ lic order and quiet, it is abfolutely impoflible in any other. If in comparing the different conditions of focial life we bring religion into the account, the argu¬ ment [ 21 ] ment is (till eafier. Religion fmooths all inequa¬ lities, becaufe it unfolds a profpe£t which makes all earthly diftin&ions nothing.
    Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public
  4. But I at prefent con- ftder the advantages of thofe laborious conditions of life, which compofe the great portion of every human community. And, firft, it is an ineftimable bleffing of fuch fituations, that they fupply a conftant train of em¬ ployment both to body and mind. A hufband- man, or a manufacturer, or a tradefman, never * goes to bed at night without having his bufinefs to rife up to in the morning.
    Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public

Where the argument is made

  • Reasons for Contentment, Addressed to the Labouring Part of the British Public (1792), written in the year of the Paris massacres and the prosecution of Paine
  • The Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy, Book III Part II (property), Book VI (the British constitution, population, the poor)

How the argument was received

A pamphlet written to answer Paine and widely read since as the least creditable thing he wrote.