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On February 27, he delivered to another audience at the American Philosophical Society what was to become the major medical paper of his career, An Enquiry into the Influence of Physical Causes upon the Moral Faculty. He had reflected on the ideas in the paper not for three weeks but for twelve years or more, his interest in the subject dating back to at least 1774 when he and Granville Sharp argued over man's knowledge of good and evil, and Rush directed discussion to a topic that, said Sharp, "You very properly call the 'moral faculty? "
The concept of a moral faculty did not originate with Rush. A number of eighteenth-century philosophers accepted it under a variety of names -moral sense (Francis Hutcheson), sympathy (Adam Smith), moral instinct (Rousseau). Rush preferred the term "moral faculty," which had been coined by the Scottish poet-philosopher James Beattie, "because I conceive it conveys, with the most perspicuity, the idea of a capacity in the mind of choosing good and evil." More accurately, he wanted to use a term invented by a man whose work he admired rather than one accepted by philosophers tainted with deism. Beattie had published in 1770 an Essay on the Nature and Immutability of Truth, in Opposition to Sophistry and Skepticism, which attacked David Hume and left a deep impression on Rush. “I cannot think of him without fancying that I see Mr. Hume prostrate at his feet,” Rush said later. “He was the David who slew that giant of Infidelity.”
At the start Rush added little to Beattie's discussion of the subject. He distinguished between the moral faculty ("a lawgiver") and the conscience ("the witness that accuses or excuses us, of a breach of the law written in our hearts"). He noted that "the state of moral faculty is visible in actions, which affect the well-being of society." He argued that the moral faculty is as important in men's makeup as the faculty of meren or of judgment. It is unrelated to reason and can flourish in the duer person. All this had been said before. From this point Rush began t expound some fresh ideas.
He pointed out that mental derangement occurs when one or no: of a person's faculties are impaired. The loss of memory is called amnesia, the loss of judgment upon one subject is called melancholia and upon all subjects mania. Those who suffer from these impairments "are considered very properly, as subjects of medicine; and there are many cases upon record that prove that their diseases have yielded to the healing art." Impairment of the moral faculty can also be healed, said Rush, once it becomes apparent that it, like the mind of the mentally deranged, is influenced by the physical environment.
Rush, after confessing that he stepped "upon untrodden ground here, pushed ahead. He gave, with accompanying illustrations, seventeen examples of physical causes that can weaken or strengthen the moral faculty among them climate, diet, certain drinks, extreme hunger, diseases idleness, and excessive sleep (more than six hours a night did more harm than good). The climate of the middle latitudes Pennsylvania's, for example-"has been generally remarked for producing gentleness and benero-fence:" A vegetable diet calms tempers, and water "is the universal sedatie of turbulent passions." The moral faculty can be strengthened in certain ways: by cleanliness, solitude at least for those "who are irreclaimable by rational or moral remedies"), silence, music, eloquence from the pulpit, light ("how often do the peevish complaints of the night in sickness give way to the composing rays of the light of the morning!"), and particular medicines.
These outside forces are "the principal causes which act mechanically upon morals." There are others, such as the people one associates with and those matters that affect one's sensibility, that are of a compound nature, or, in modern language, psychological. Rush did not have much to say about these. He ended the essay, as might be expected, on a note of optimism, elaborating his favorite phrase "all will end well" into a paragraph:
"Should the same industry and ingenuity, which have produced these triumphs of medicine over disease and death, be applied to the moral science, it is highly probable that most of those baneful vices, which deform the human breast, and convulse the nations of the earth, might be banished from the world. ... I am fully persuaded that from the combined action of causes, which operate at once upon the reason, the moral faculty, the passions, the senses, the brain, the nerves, the blood and the heart, it is possible to produce such a change in his moral character, as shall raise him to a resemblance of angels-nay more, to the likeness of GOD himself."
Rush believed his essay the first to consider "the moral education of poth upon new and mechanical principles." It did much more. In one mop he had virtually equated vice with disease, and in the process cracked open the door to psychiatry. All those failings of humans that lead to riche now found traceable to physical causes. "It is vain to attack these nices with lectures upon morality," he said. They are curable if the physical or psychological environment is adjusted.
The reception accorded to the address by the philosophical society's endience persuaded Rush almost immediately to have it printed. It was published as delivered, except for toning down what Benjamin Franklin called "that most extravagant encomium on your friend Franklin, which hurt me exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and will mortify me beyond conception if it should appear from the press."
The first printing sold out quickly and a second was ordered before the year ended. Rush, who still looked to England for accolades, persuaded Dilly to bring out a reprint in London, then turned to friends there to watch over his child. "As it contains some new opinions in religion and morals, as well as in physic, it will stand in need of the protection of my friends in London to preserve it from the rage of criticism," he wrote Richard Price. "If political prejudice blends itself with literature, I shall find no mercy from British reviewers. I have avoided everything that could awaken an idea of the folly of Great Britain in the late war. In science of every kind, men should consider themselves as citizens of the whole world."
He worried needlessly about the British reception. A year later Dilly reported that "the demand has been very small—not fifty of the impressions have been sold."
"Benjamin Rush: Revolutionary Gadfly. By David Freeman Hawke. (Indianapolis and New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, 1971. pp 327-329Note Type
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From Benjamin Rush (unpublished) to BF
Friday Evening March 3rd: 1786.
Much honoured and dear Sir
All your requests ever have, and ever shall have with me, the force of commands. The Address to your Excellency was composed before I knew the Society was to be honoured with your presence on Monday evening. Upon my being informed of this, I waited upon my friend Mr. Rittenhouse upon whose excellent judgement I could depend more than upon my own, and read to him the conclusion of the Oration, and at the same time asked him, if he thought there would be any impropriety in delivering it in your presence. He answered “by no means,” and his last words to me were “not to suffer any person to persuade me to Alter one word of it.”
With the greatest respect, with the most unalterable Attachment, and affection, I have the honor to be honoured and Dear Sir your ever grateful friend and humble Servant
Benjn: Rush
Endorsed: Dr RushNote Type
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BR to BF
Saturday Eveng: March 11th 1786.
Honoured and dear Sir
Agreeably to your request I have Suppressed the conclusion of my Oration, but I cannot bear to think of sending it out of our State, or to Europe, without connecting it with your name. I have therefore taken the liberty of inscribing it to you, by a simple dedication, of which the enclosed is a copy. And as you have never in the course of our long Acquaintance refused me a single favor, I must earnestly insist upon your adding to my great and numerous Obligations to you, the permission which I now solicit, to send my last, as I did my first publication into the world, under the patronage of your name. With the greatest respect I have the honor to be honoured and dear Sir your sincere friend and ever grateful humble ServantNote Type
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BF to BR
Philadelphia [March 1786]
My dear Friend,
During our long acquaintance you have shown many instances of your regard for me, yet I must now desire you to add one more to the number, which is, that if you publish your ingenious discourse on the moral senses, you will totally omit and suppress that most extravagant encomium on your friend Franklin, which hurt me exceedingly in the unexpected hearing, and will mortify me beyond conception, if it should appear from the press.
Confiding in your compliance with this earnest request, I am ever my dear friend, yours most affectionately,
B. Franklin.