"Interest Will Not Lie": A Seventeenth-Century Political Maxim

Author(s): J. A. W. Gunn
Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 29, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1968), pp. 551-564
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE"
Political Maxim
A Seventeenth-Century

BY J. A. W. GUNN

Much of what passes for political wisdom has been expressedin

maxims and proverbs, and this was never more true than in the
early modern period. In the seventeenth century, the regimen prin-
cipis genrehad yet to run its course.This literatureteemed with wise
saws and moderninstances for the guidanceof the ruler and his chief
functionaries, although much of the advice was too general to be
very useful and often suffered from the characteristic failing of
proverbialwisdom in offering contradictorydirectives. One maxim,
emergingnear the middle of the seventeenth century, was of greater
import than the well-known dicta about princely virtue, the arts of
war, or the management of court factions. Looking to the most in-
clusive of all categoriesof social behavior,interest, it brought a mes-
sage that could not be hidden in the cabinets of kings.
The word, "interest,"has a special place in the growth of modern
political vocabulary.' The most fashionable political concept in the
seventeenth century, it enjoyed an international reputation, first as
a hallmark of Machiavellian ruthlessness and later as a necessary
tool for the descriptionof human designs. One must agree with that
Dutch writer who observed that
almostall the peoplein Europe,as the Spaniards,Italians,French,etc.,
do expressthe sameby the wordInterest ...2
Significantly,he failed to explain just what people did mean by in-
terest (a sensible move for a term so ambiguous) nor did he see fit
to mention that the English shared the continental preoccupation
with interest. This omissionwas a pity, becausethe brilliant and vol-
atile world of seventeenth-century English politics employed the
word in ways for which there was no precedent.
Then, as now, interest had no single meaning but certainly its
associationswere vastly extended in the period of the Civil War and
the Commonwealth.From a term that had usually entered public
life within the context of legal matters and discussions of positive
rights, interest came to refer to all designs and concerns,whether or
not sanctioned by legal recognition; furthermore,it also began to
1 Felix Raab, The English Face of Machiavelli (London, 1964), 157-168,
246-253.
2John de Witt (really Pieter de la Court), The True Interest and Political
Maximsof the Republickof Hollandand West-Friesland,translationof 1669 Dutch
edition (London,1702), 1.
551

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552 J. A. W. GUNN

be applied to those groups that shared certain concerns.3The age of

interests,in the sense familiarto modernpolitical science,had arrived.
In the years during which the term was being enriched,men wrote
and spoke of "legal interests,"4as opposed to those for which there
was no warrantin law, and some of the Levellers referredto "pro-
priety of interest,"5an expressionthe exact meaning of which is now
difficult to fathom. However complex the development of interest
and its manifold meanings, the maxim which embodied it had a
clearerhistory.
The Huguenot Influence
The maxim (bornin the rumblingsof the Civil War) seemsto have
had no currencybefore1640.The likely sourcewas the Duke of Rohan,
the great Huguenot statesman and general.6Rohan was a major in-
fluenceon a numberof areas of English thought. His Memoires pro-
vided Englishmen with a selective history of religious struggles on
the continent and was much read, while his more technical handbook
on generalshipprobably had a smaller public, but was also read in
England even before its translation.A friend sent a copy to Thomas
Wentworth,embattledLordDeputy of Ireland,in 1637.7But Rohan's
greatest literary impact was made by his little book on the princes
of Europe and their interests. It was publishedin 1638, and the first
two printings of the English version appearedwithin the next three
years.8The book was intended as advice to all princeson the conduct
of foreignpolicy. Putting aside both irrationalpassions and whimsies
and the advice of unreliable councillors,they were to pursue their
goals as defined by the objective requirementsof national preserva-
8
By 1650, English pamphleteers commonly referred to the City, the army,
and various religiousparties as "interests."Referencesto the landed and monied
interests began later in the century.
4Anon., Certain Queries Upon the Dissolving of the Late Parliament (1659),
7 (BM:E 980). This symbol refers to the volume numberin the Thomasontracts,
British Museum. It seemed useful to include this informationto assist in identi-
fying anonymousworks for which there was no generally accepted author.
5 For the latter
expression, see John Lilburne, The Charters of London or
the Second Part of London's Liberty in Chains Discovered (London, 1646), 43
and Thomas Johnson, A Plea for Free-Mens Liberties . . . (London, 1645), 2.
Since Lilburnementions Johnson in some of his writings, the latter was perhaps
associated with the Leveller cause.
6 For his life, see Auguste Laugel, Henry de Rohan: Son Role Politique et
Militaire sous Louis XIII (Paris, 1889).
7William Knowler ed., The Earl of Strafford'sLetters and Dispatches (Lon-
don, 1739), II, 45.
8A Treatise of the Interest of the Princes and States of Christendome,trans.
Henry Hunt (London, 1640, 1641). It was reprinted in 1663.

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 553

tion and the maintenanceof the European balance of power.9These

goals were assumed to be compatible with the prince's personal in-
terest and, indeed, indistinguishablefrom it, a reasonableassumption
at a time of dynastic ambition. Rohan has been called a Machiavel-
lianl? for his detached advice to all ruling houses as to the optimum
policy for each. Only his genuine concernfor Protestantism and the
prevailingnotion of a balance of power, that might be sustained to
the benefit of all, gave his message a quality somewhat removed
from cynicism. It was conceivableto his readersthat there might be
a point of equilibriumconduciveto the interests of all powers.Occa-
sionally, though, Rohan prescribedstrategiesfor opposedprincesthat
were mutually incompatible,hence the Machiavellianlabel for a man
whose career shows more selfless loyalty than ruthless calculation.l1
Rohan's Machiavellianside was best displayed in his infallible guide
for princes: "l'interestseul ne peut jamais manquer."12
Everything about Rohan's book, except perhaps the dedication
to Richelieu,recommendedit to Englishmento an uncommondegree.
Rohan was already known in England, having visited the nation as
early as 1600.13To the Royalists, he was a relative of the king whose
cause had been neglected but not disavowed in 1628. Quite as im-
portant, he was a Protestant stalwart who addressed himself to
monarchs,not to parliaments,and who thought of Europe as the field
where princes matched interests and honor. His celebration of the
prince'sinterest could do no harm to an English king trying to rule
on the pretext of emergencypowers to combat foreign invasion. To
Parliament men, Rohan seems to have become scarcely less accept-
able, particularlyto those who sought an alliance of Protestant pow-
9 "The princes command the people, and the (sic) interest commands the
prince." Treatise, 1. The too-literal translation probably reflects the fact that
Englishmen were accustomed to thinking of having an interest in something,
but less frequently spoke of "interest"without an article.
10By Friedrich Meinecke. See his Machiavellism,trans. D. Scott (London,
1957), 162-195, for an excellent discussionof Rohan and his political ideas.
11For evidence of his
character,see Laugel, op. cit., 219, 335.
12De l'Interest des Princes et Estates de la Chrestiente
(Paris, 1638), 1. This
was renderedin English as "the interest alone can never faile." Treatise, 1. Later
statements by Englishmenabout interest not lying may have arisen from a mis-
understandingof the word "manquer"in the original text.
13 Voyage du Duc de Rohan fait en l'an 1600 en . . . Angleterre et Ecosse
(Amsterdam,1646). A letter from Rohan to James I, written after the loss of
Rochel, is the only document by a foreignercontained in a contemporarycollec-
tion of diplomatic letters. Scrina, Sacra Secrets of Empire . . . (London, 1654)
210. Even before his main political work appeared, Rohan's dicta on politics
were taken seriously in England. An early discourse of his on European affairs
was appended to a letter of 1631 from Sir Isaac Wake to Viscount Dorchester,
then chief ministerof state. See Public RecordsOffice,S.P., 78/89ff., 238-240.

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554 J. A. W. GUNN

ers against Catholicism and despotism. To all Englishmen, Rohan

brought a message more relevant than might ordinarily be expected
from a continental politician, for he recognized the unique position
of England. Addressing himself to other nations, he dwelt on war
and diplomacy, while to England he gave special intelligence appro-
priate to its physical isolation. It was to be the balancer of Europe
and leader of the Protestant Interest.14 No learned Englishman since
Camden's time needed to be told that the nation might hold the
European balance; English policy had long reflected this ambition.
However, Rohan had also claimed that more than other nations Eng-
land had to remain united in order to be effective; and especially if
it were to use its natural advantages to secure itself, it must be
purged of all internal disorder. It was "a mighty animal which can
never die except it kill itself."'5 While Elizabeth I may also have
said this, when Englishmen of the 1640's sought authority for the
claim that the nation was invulnerable except through self-destruc-
tion, they appealed to Rohan. And of course all parties could make
this appeal, for it was not only Cavaliers who might eschew faction
and civil war; each party in turn insisted that all others were
factious and that its own triumph would signal a return to national
unity founded on sound principles. It was this theme of Rohan's that
attracted attention in such disparate places as the wearying scholar-
ship of William Prynne and Harrington's Oceana.l6 It is very likely
that the expression the "interest of England" owes its popularity to
Rohan. One writer on the Interest of England quoted the Huguenot
leader six times,17 and few who treated the subject failed to mention
him. He continued to be quoted in this connection into the eighteenth
century.
Nor was Rohan's appeal limited to people concerned with the
relationship between foreign and domestic events: political theorists
attempting to assess the qualities of the various forms of govern-
ment also drew on his opinions.l8 Meanwhile, his maxim regarding

Treatise, 53-58.
14 15 bid., 55.
16See Prynne, The Soveraigne Power of Parliaments and Kingdomes
(London,
1643), Part IV, 208 and Harrington, Oceana and Other Works (London, 1747),
189. The argument by S. B. Liljegren for an Italian source for this passage in
Harrington is unconvincing. See "James Harrington's Oceana Edited with Notes,"
Venetenskaps-Socienteten I (Heidelberg, 1924), 355-56.
17See Richard Hawkins, A Discourse of the National Excellencie of England
(London, 1657), Part II.
18 Anon., Antitheta, or Political Reasonings (1657), 6. I have treated both
the question of Rohan's influence and the significance of the word "interest" in
more detail in Politics and the Public Interest in the Seventeenth Century (London,

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 555

"interest" was taken up by the polemicists of the civil war. Sir John
Suckling, most prominent of the court poets, who fled to France in
the face of war in England, was perhaps the first to introduce the
Duke's notions about interest into the struggle. Writing to his friend,
Henry Jermyn, he said: "Kings may be mistaken and councillors
corrupted, but true interest alone (said the Duke of Rohan) cannot
err."'9 The message remained one intended for the king but was now
directed solely to the internal affairs of England. The man most closely
identified with Rohan's maxim was Marchamont Nedham, notorious
for always landing on his feet no matter what the political fortunes
of England. In 1647, he was already well known as one of the chief
"interest-mongers" in the land.20 He earned this title for a famous
tract of that year in which he feigned neutrality in the following
words:
I suppose none can take offence, since I state the interests of all indiffer-
ently, pointing out to each the way to advance and preserve their own
party, and I shall commendto them what the Duke of Rohan saith of
the states of Europe, that accordingas they follow their proper interests,
they thrive or fail in success, so the parties now on foot in the kingdom
must looke to stand or fall upon the same ground.21
Here the rational self-interest formerly expected of sovereign princes
was transferred to the various competing factions in a particularly
chaotic period in English history. Interest had taken its first steps
from the council chamber to the public at large.
The Maxim and its Meanings
If the champions of the Parliament, and later of the Common-
wealth, were more reluctant than Royalists to cite Rohan's maxim,
this was surely because it smacked of that very prerogative against
which they had rebelled. But it was becoming increasingly difficult
to discuss politics without referring to interest, and so the enemies
of kingship were carried with the times. Nedham's cheerful change of
colors and emergence as an apologist for the new government must
have assisted in the process of assimilating the vocabulary of royal
1968). In dealing with such matters here, I have tried to find new examples,and
this accounts,in part, for the reconditenature of some of these sources.
19A Letter From Sir John Suckling to Mr. Henry German,in the Beginning
of the Late Long Parliament Anno 1640 (nd), 2.
20Anon., Anti-Machiavell: or Honesty Against Policy (London, 1647), 19
(BM: E 396). William Prynne also referred to "new Nedham interest law" in
A Brief Necessary Vindicationof the Old and New Secluded Members (London,
1959), 18.
21 The Case of the Kingdom . . . (London, 1647), sig. A2.

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556 J. A. W. GUNN

statecraft. Now the chief advocate of interest was a commonwealth-

man. In the decade following the execution of Charles I, there were
many indications that "interest"had assumed a large place in the
languageof politics.22CharlesHerle, late the prolocutorof the West-
minster Assembly of Divines, commentedthat
the word interest is a word of late much come into use among us, and in
the ordinaryuse of it . . . it implies in one two things, concernmentand
importance.23
Herle separatedhis discussionof self-love which, in its extreme form,
he warnedmen against, and interest, which was deemed to be "the
centre of every things safety." He then quoted the maxim, "interest
will not lye," which he attributedto the French and interpretedit as
meaning "if a man know what is his true interest, hee is undoubted
true to it."24The maxim served to bulwark his contention that a
Parliament drawn from men of property would seek the interest of
its members,which would serve the good of the nation. Herle did
not explicitly affirmthat all men would see their own interests; the
literal meaning of the maxim was simply that in all conceivablecir-
cumstancesa man would do the best he could for himself. While this
entailed no assumptionthat each man could discernhis true interest,
the argumentcould still assist the case for populargovernment.Kings
had claimed great capacity in policy-making and had spoken mys-
teriously of their interests; Herle was now saying that all men had
such interests and that one need not fear that any group would be
negligent of such considerations.This might seem to be an obvious
enough observation,one not needing any emphasis,but at this time
the case for popular governmentstill had to be made and the suit-
ability of private men to handle arcana imperii was very much an
open question.
As with Rohan, the maxim remained a somewhat unhelpful
analytical proposition saying what interest meant. One's interest
could never lead one astray because a failure simply established
that the course of action undertakenhad actually not been in one's
true interest. The maxim neither accepted each person's declared
interest at face value, nor imputed anotherto him. Embracingneither
the subjective nor the objective view of interests, it withheld judg-
ment pendingthe outcomeof events. This was distressingin a maxim
purportingto say something new, and to give the expressionmuch
point it was necessaryto pursue the analysis one stage further.There
22Anon., No Interest Beyond the Principal or the Court Camisado (London,
1648), 2 (BM: E 437), where the author complainedthat the word interest "is
now the only idol that men fall down and worship."
23 Wisdomes Tripos . . . (London, 1655), 169. 24 Ibid., 170.

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 557

was indeed some value in stressing, as Herle had, that the guide for
princes might be, and in fact was, the same as that for all human
beings. An anonymous book from the late Commonwealth had made
the same point when it claimed to lay open the principles of policy
to all.25However, the maxim still seemed tautologous and incomplete.
Again, it was Marchamont Nedham who supplied the necessary
insight. His tract, Interest Will Not Lie, firmly established the maxim
in English thought while simultaneously extending its meaning. He
found that the expression was used by "politicians" in a twofold
sense. One meaning had already been explained by Herle:
if a man state his own interest aright, and keep close by it, it will not lie
to him or deceive him, in the prosecutionof his aim and ends of good unto
himself, nor suffer him to be misled or drawn aside by specious pretenses
to serve the ends and purposesof other men.
More important was the corollary to this necessary truth:
if you can apprehendwherein a man's interest to any particular game on
foot doth consist, you may surely know, if the man be prudent,whereabout
to have him, that is, how to judge of his design.26
The emphasis on rational calculation on the part of each political
actor thus allowed the observer to anticipate the direction of events.
This would not have required emphasis, had political oratory not so
frequently assumed that participants were moved by considerations
that were primarily altruistic. It would certainly not have surprised
the mercantilist economists of the day to learn that men might more
safely be assumed to be self-interested than the opposite. Whatever
was once believed on this question, it now appears certain that the
model of economic man predated Adam Smith by well over a cen-
tury.27 Those who were anxious to make accurate predictions about
economic behavior could assume no other pattern that offered com-
parable results. But politics had, in some measure, been different, at
least in terms of prevailing rhetoric. The most uncompromising of
moralists had to admit that self-love did the world's work:
25Anon., The Compleat Politician . . . wherein the Principles of Policy are
Laid Open to the View of All (1656). The title gives a very good idea of the
contents. This is a scarce book; the copy used is in the library of Christ Church
College, Oxford.
26Interest Will Not Lie or a View of England's True Interest (London, 1659),
3. Here, he made no mention of Rohan, but Nedham remainedmuch impressed
by the messageof the "little, but weighty book." See a late work, Christianissimus
Christiandusor, Reasons for the Reduction of France to a more ChristianState
in Europe (London, 1678), 67.
27See Jacob Viner's remarks on the common misconceptionthat the notion
dated only from the time of the classical economists,in Studies in the Theory
of International Trade (New York, 1937), 93.

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558 J. A. W. GUNN

self it is that ruleth in city and country . . . self it is that keeps the plow;
self it is that milks the cow.28
But even after the Restoration it was not uncommon to find writers
who contrasted the self-interest that was apparent in "neighbourhood
and private commerce"29with the ethic expected of the citizen in his
political relations. Of course, the assumption was easier to make in
economic life, since men notoriously and predictably strove for the
tokens that constituted wealth; in politics it was more difficult to
say what the rewards were, hence correspondingly more difficult to
reduce the activity to a clear pattern of motivation. Furthermore, the
great majority of men were involved in the economy, but even in
the most popular governments of the day little was asked of the
ordinary citizen but a selfless loyalty.
Nedham's principle came to be considered the prime mover in
human affairs, and while it is difficult to find writers who stressed
his point before 1659, instances abound in succeeding years. Another
tract of that year, an excerpt translated from a work of Cardinal
de Retz, took the same view with only a slight qualification:
The most infallible maxime for to judg wholesomly of the actions of men,
is to examen their interests, which commonly are the rules they prescribe
to their actions, and the delicatest politician doth not absolutely reject
the conjectureswhich might be drawn from their passions, being often
mingled together and running almost insensibly into these powers, which
gives motion to the most important affaires.30
Normally people distinguished between interests, born of calculation,
and passions, based on impulse.31This writer was presumably keeping
a place for the latter while advising the careful observer to watch the
former. Samuel Butler saw no need for any qualification at all in his
insistence that
he that keepes a watchfull or vigilant eye upon that man's interest whom
he is to treate withall, and observes it as the cumpasse that generally
all men steare by, shall hardly be deceivedwith fair pretenses.32
He did allow, though, that one virtue to be accorded an unskilled
politician was that it was more difficult for an opponent to anticipate
28Thomas Collier, A Doctrinal Discourse of Self-Denial (London, 1691), 36.
29Anon., The Demeanour of a Good Subject in Order to Acquiring and Es-
tablishing Peace (1681), 32.
80 France No Friend to England . . . (1659), 12 (BM: E 986).
81Rohan had done this, as did some clergymen.Thus Thomas Manton advised
people to "bewareof passion in your interests."See Meate out of the Eater . ..
a Sermon Preached before the House of Commons (London, 1647), 38.
2 Charactersand Passages from Note-Books, ed. A. R. Waller (Cambridge,
1908), 383. 8 Ibid., 394.

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 559

his reactions, while wiser men might be foiled because they followed
their interests in a rational way.33Politicians and cynics were not the
only ones to emphasize the theme. Dr. John Owen, one time vice-
chancellor of Oxford, used it as an essential part of his plea for re-
ligious liberty. Protestants, once granted the free enjoyment of their
religion, would be bound by their "interest" to remain loyal citizens
and
conscience,interest, sense of obligation, the only safe rules amongst men
to judge of future events, all plead an expectation of the highest tran-
quility.34
Nor was there any doubt as to which of these considerations gave
the surest guarantees:
to surmisethe acting of multitudes, contrary to their own interests . . . is
to take away all assuranceout of human affairs.35
Here then was an understanding of "interest" that offered something
of value to those who wished to understand public business. The in-
terest which would not lie came to be viewed by Restoration England
as a force that governed the world. Sometimes, employing the mech-
anistic metaphor then current, they saw interest as the great "wheel"
moving all affairs;36endlessly they asserted its power, in all contexts
and among all ranks of men.37
True, the advocates of a commonwealth were now more ready
to celebrate the power of interest than were supporters of Stuart
absolutism. Thus Slingsby Bethel, widely believed to have had re-
publican sympathies, was careful to say that
34 A Peace-Offeringin an Apology and Humble Plea for Liberty of Conscience,
(London, 1667), 33. The toleration controversyin the reigns of Charles II and
James II saw numerous examples of the political use of Rohan's maxim. Most
of the pamphleteersemploying it are no longer rememberedand quoting them
at length would be pointless.A tract attributedto Halifax, the Trimmer,is typical
in its ambiguous insistence that interest would not lie. See Anon., A Second
Letter to a Dissenter Upon Occasionof his Majestie's Late GraciousDeclaration
of Indulgence (London, 1687), 12.
35Owen, op. cit., 33.
36Anon.,Sir Henry Vane'sPolitiks ... (London,1661), 2 and Joseph Hill, The
Interest of These United Provinces . . . (Middelburg,1673), preface.
37 The dictum that interest ruled the world, though more general than Rohan's
maxim, had roughly the same meaning. It may have been of Italian origin; see
J. M. (John Mapletoft) ed., Select Proverbs . . . Chiefly Moral (London, 1707),
40. It was soon naturalized,however. See Oswald Dykes, English Proverbs with
Moral Reflections (London, 1709), 22. For other examples of its currency, see
F. J. Powicke ed., The Rev. Richard Baxter's Last Treatise (Manchester, 1926),
54 and Sir Thomas Pope Blount's Essays on Several Moral Subjects, 3rd ed.
(London, 1697), Essay I "That Interest Governs the World," 1-49.

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 560 J. A. W. GUNN

although the notion that interest cannot lye is true, yet it is not (in sub-
jects) singly to be trusted.38
A position more in keeping with emerging Whiggism was the com-
ment that it was
the interest, and thereforethe presumedwill of the people, that the king-
dom should remain undivided.39
This carried the implication both that people knew their interests
and that they might safely follow them. The growing tendency for
advocates of popular governmentto make claims of this sort served
to cast the maxim into disreputein some quarters.Thus John Dryden
employed it to satirize the supposedly dangerous opinions of the
Whigs:
The reason's obvious; int'rest never lies,
The most still have their int'rest in their eyes,
The pow'r is always theirs, and pow'r is ever wise.40
Perhapsone of the factors contributingto the Whiggishargument
from the reliability of interests was the adoption of the maxim by
writerson commerce.These most unphilosophicalpeople could see no
purpose in the observationthat all men, once apprised of their in-
terests, would follow them. We have alreadyseen that this point was
less in need of emphasis with respect to economic life, because less
disputed.Thus writerson trade took the maxim to mean that people
would indeed see their interests. Often they appealed to groups of
tradesmento appreciatewhat their interests were. With this in mind,
William Carter gave Rohan's dictum the status of a proverb and
complained that those who put forward schemes obviously to the
detriment of the English people were determinedto "cross,"or con-
tradict, the proverb that interest could not lie.41 Whatever reserva-
tions lingered in political literature, commentatorson economic life
were certain that most people would see their interests. Sometimes
mankind'scapacity to perceive what was best for them was a source
of concern,for an appreciationof the power of rational self-interest
38 The Present Interest of England Stated (London, 1671), sig. A2V.
9 Anon., The Great and Weighty ConsiderationsRelating to the Duke
of
York . .. (London, 1680), 33.
40"The Medall,"lines 88-90, The Poems of John Dryden, ed. J. Kinsley (Ox-
ford, 1958), I, 256.
41Anon., The Proverb Crossed, or a new Paradox Maintained
(viz.) that it
is not at all times true that interest cannot lye . . . (London, 1677). Carter was
certainly the author and he later included it in a collection of his writings on
the wool trade. Before long, the expressioncame to be thought of as an English
proverb, a claim made by John Bunyan, among others. For this and other
examples, see M. P. Tilly, A Dictionary of the Proverbs in England in the Six-
teenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, 1950), 341.

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 561

was quite consistent with a horror at the outcome of unrestrained

pursuit of satisfaction. However, it was quite as common for those
who wished to limit government control of the economy to invoke
the maxim, some cautiously as when Thomas Tryon suggested that
merchants were best prevented from cheating the public by "their
own interest, which is said never to lie."42Others,Thomas Houghton
for one, weremore ready to fend off interventionin the economywith
a cheery "interestwon't lie."43Thus, subjective and objective mean-
ings of interest came to be united in several spheres of activity. Of
course critics of the individualist's trust in self-interest remained
prominentas well.
Interest and Political Arithmetic
Interest and its ways had now been thoroughly spelled out-too
thoroughlyfor a number of the better philosophersof the next cen-
tury, who would spend much effort in weakening the claims of the
maxim by cataloguing the various forms of self-regard.One further
aspect of the intellectual milieu will help to give the maxim signifi-
cance. In bringingto the fore the idea that private men had interests
that were of importance,the age raised the question of gauging these
interests and relating them to the government'sdesire for stability.
Elections remainedas yet a poor means for doing this; for even when
Parliamentswere called, some of the more importantinterests of the
day, religious dissentersfor instance, were barredfrom participation.
But decisions still had to be taken with a view to the expected be-
havior of such groups.
Sir Peter Pett provided a good indication of the state of opinion
of this question at the Restoration. In proposing a measure of re-
ligious toleration, he noted that the weakness of most such schemes
was that they showed a distressing ignoranceof human nature and
the dominant role of "interest."44He then put forward his own
"model"based on the assumptionthat people would know their own
interests. In rejecting all suggestions that toleration might shatter
that very public order that it was meant to sustain, he insisted that
the various sects would be most unlikely to band together against
the government and established church because ignorance of the
strength of all competing sects would keep each one in a posture of
suspiciontowardsall others. Separatedby their doctrinal differences,
the sects would be unlikely to cooperateanyway, but the basic diffi-
42Tryon'sLetters Domestickand Foreign (London,1700), 207.
43A Collection for the Improvement of Husbandry and Trade, v. 14, no.
385 (Dec. 8, 1699).
44R.T. (identified in the Bodleian catalogue as Pett), A Discourse Concern-
ing Liberty of Conscience. . . (1661), 1 and 27.

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562 J. A. W. GUNN

culty of measuringthe power of each vis-a-vis the rest would lend

additional guarantees of orderly conduct. In this connection, Pett
introducedthe now-familiarnotion that it was an easier matter to
effect a balance among a numberof parties than between two groups
one of which was clearly a disadvantagedminority.45Here, peace was
predicated upon two factors-rational self-interest and a lack of
information about the strength of other groups.
Thought about this second factor was about to change. The Lon-
don mortality bills were already attracting attention and the year
after the appearanceof Pett's tract saw John Graunt's momentous
observationson them. Graunt'slast suggestion as to the use of such
studies was that a knowledge of the size and composition of the
population was necessary
in orderto good, certain and easie government,and even to balance parties,
and factions both in church and state. But whether the knowledge there
be necessary to many, or fit for others than the sovereign and his chief
ministers,I leave to consideration.46
Thus a new problem had been posed: assuming that people sought
to improve their own interests and knew what was best for them-
selves, should they also know the interests that were opposed, not
just qualitatively,but in terms of the potential numberof opponents
available to take the field?
Pett's friend, the great William Petty, had some qualms on this
point. He allowed, in the manner of Graunt, that statesmen would
benefit from a precise knowledge of various interests,47but he saw
the state of knowledge of the competing parties themselves as a
separate problem. Clearly one's answer to this question was likely
to vary with the circumstances,but in the one concreteinstance that
he felt compelledto deal with, Petty advocated public disclosureof
the state of all interests. The Catholic majority in Ireland would
not be renderedungovernableon learning of its numerical strength
(which its membersprobablyknew anyway) for the other side could
be shown to possess resourcesother than mere numbers,while at the
45Ibid., 22.
46Natural and Political Observations. . . Made upon the Bills of Mortality
(London, 1662), 74. It does not matter for present purposes whether Graunt or
Petty wrote this.
47The Petty Papers Some UnpublishedWritings of Sir William Petty, ed.
Marquis of Lansdowne (London, 1927), v. I, 28. Petty was very much con-
cerned with identifying and measuringinterests, as instanced by his perceptive
distinction between the "external and apparent" governmentof Ireland and the
"internal"governmentof those "who actually and immediatelygovern the people."
See "The Political Anatomy of Ireland" (1691) in Economic Writings of Sir
WilliamPetty, ed. C. H. Hull (Cambridge,1899), v. I, 164.

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 "INTEREST WILL NOT LIE" 563

same time enjoying a great preponderancein the four kingdomsas a

whole.48The more widely this sort of knowledge was diffused, the
better the chances for internal peace.
This same issue of the Catholic interest led Peter Pett to retreat
from his earlieridea that the relative strength of interests should not
be publicized.In his attempt to allay fears of a Catholic succession,
Pett produceda statistical analysis to display the relative positions
of Roman Catholics, Dissenters, and the Church of England. He
argued that the Catholics were much weaker than was generally
supposed and so would not be in a position to become aggressivein
the event that one of their faith became king.49The problems en-
tailed in making public the strength of various interests were also
raisedby the Earl of Anglesey, who congratulatedPett on his predic-
tions of the political state of England based upon "natural causes,"
these being the size and nature of the various interests in existence.
At the same time, he noted that the very claim that certain religious
groupswere growingnumericallyweakermight hasten the process:
the very praedictionof things,is often a naturalcause,in somedegree,of
mensbeing animatedto bringthem into effect.50
It was not for the nineteenth century to discover the power of the
self-fulfillingprophecy!
So it was that the age that first emphasizedthe need to discern
the direction of interests also sought to measure their numerical
strength. Political arithmetic was, of course, quite independent of
the currentconcernfor interests,but it did embracethe chief assump-
tion drawnfrom the expression"Interest will not lie." Petty, for in-
stance, was a follower of Hobbes, so his position was in accordwith
one accepted sense of the maxim. Since Petty was as original and as
little inclined to quotation as Hobbes himself, it is not surprising
that he never seems to have employed the exact words of concern
here. He did not have to; the point might be taken for granted. But
political arithmeticbuilt on the power of interest in a way in which
early writing on public affairshad not, for unless one assumed that
people sought their interests and that these subjective interests
might be successfullypredictedby an outside observer,the political
applicationsof early statistical knowledgefall to the ground.While
there was probablyno causal connectionbetween the phenomena,it
is equally true that the early statisticians' concern with behavior
in the mass well mirroredthe progressin English political assump-
48Petty Papers, 107.
49P.., The Happy Future State of England . . . (London, 1688), 141-43 and
passim.
50Memoirsof the Right Hon. Arthur, Earl of Anglesey,Late Lord Privy Seal
(London, 1693), 36-37.

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564 J. A. W. GUNN

tions from interest on the part of the prince to interest as the mover
of all political actors, and indeed all individuals.
Political practice was another thing, and one might well say,
as Bacon did of Machiavelli,that the championof interest only dared
to explain what people had in fact always done. The change recorded
here is not the discovery of self-love as a hitherto unknown conti-
nent, but its acceptance to the extent of formalizing its power in
laws describinghuman behavior. The notion of predicting behavior
on the basis of imputed interests meant that a change was taking
place in the conceptionof politics. To the Elizabethan moralist with
his concernfor order,self-interest (for subjects at least) was an un-
welcome intrusion into a stable pattern prescribedby duty and or-
ganic hierarchy.51Interest was the factor that destroyed the pre-
dictable nature of social relations,hence challengingan orderinfused
with transcendentalmeaning. Eventually, though, interest came to
be recognizednot merely as something disruptive of social peace but
as a force necessarily consideredfor the orderly fulfillment of ex-
pectations.
Queen's University, Canada.
51See W. H. Greenleaf, Order, Empiricism and Politics; Two Traditions of
English Political Thought, 1500-1700 (London, 1964), ch. 2 and E. W. Talbert,
The Problem of Order (Chapel Hill, 1962) p. [VII].

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