Dr Johnson on Men without Principles

On the morning of Thursday, 21 July 1763, when James Boswell observed that a certain gentleman’s ‘principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer’, Dr Johnson remarked, among other things:

Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. (James Boswell, Esq., The Life of Samuel Johnson L.L.D. [NY: The Modern Library, n.d.], p. 268)

I love this line, and to my 21st-c. sensibilities, Johnson’s wit is always made the more acerbic by his frequent use of the address, ‘Sir’. I think I first came across this in Constantine Cavarnos’s Orthodoxy and Philosophy [Belmont, MA: Institute for Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 2003], p. 181, where Cavarnos quotes it while criticising modern Western European philosophy. Then, I found it again in a wonderful article by Rodney Delasanta in First Things called ‘Hume, Austen, and First Impressions’ (First Things, No. 134, June/July 2003, pp. 24-9).

But I only just tonight tracked down this quote in its context in Boswell’s Life, and I was struck perhaps even more by the comments which immediately precede this line. The paragraph begins:

Next morning I found him alone, and have preserved the following fragments of his conversation. Of a gentleman who was mentioned, he said, ‘I have not met with any man for a long time who has given me such general displeasure. He is totally unfixed in his principles, and wants to puzzle other people.’ I said his principles had been poisoned by a noted infidel writer, but that he was, nevertheless, a benevolent good man. Johnson. ‘We can have no dependance upon that instinctive, that constitutional goodness which is not founded upon principle. I grant you that such a man may be a very amiable member of society. I can conceive him placed in such a situation that he is not much tempted to deviate from what is right; and as every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts, I can conceive him doing nothing wrong. But if such a man stood in need of money, I should not like to trust him; and I should certainly not trust him with young ladies, for there there is always temptation. (Boswell, p. 268)

Now, this reminds me of many people, and a few in particular. In fact, I was most astonished to find how closely it resembled some comments I made about an acquaintance not so long ago at all. But interestingly, I often find myself suspended between Boswell’s optimism—‘He’s still a good man’—and Johnson’s clear certitude—‘We can’t count on natural goodness without the firm foundation of principle.’ I’m afraid my moral vision is not typically stern enough to find myself in a state of ‘general displeasure’ at a person. Still, I hope the acquaintance in question doesn’t read this, because I’m afraid he might know exactly who he is!