All motions to good or evil are in the soul. Out ward objects are but second causes; and though, it is true, separating the man from the object is the way to make any act impossible to be committed, yet where the guilt does not lie in the act only, but in the intention or desire to commit it, that separation is nothing at all, and effects nothing at all. There may be as much adultery committed in a monastery, where a woman never comes, as in any other place, and perhaps is so. The abstaining from evil, therefore, depends not only and wholly upon limiting or confining the man’s actions, but upon the man’s limiting and confining his desires; seeing to desire to sin is to sin; and the fact which we would commit if we had opportunity is really committed, and must be answered for as such. What, then, is there of religion, I say, in forced retirements from the world, and vows of silence or solitude? They are all nothing. ‘Tis a retired soul that alone is fit for contemplation, and it is the conquest of our desires to sin that is the only human preservative against sin.

It was a great while after I came into human society that I felt some regret at the loss of the solitary hours and retirements I had in the island; but when I came to reflect upon some ill-spent time, even in my solitudes, I found reason to see what I have said above – that a man may sin alone several ways, and find subject of repentance for his solitary crimes as well as he may in the midst of a populous city.

The excellency of any state of life consists in its freedom from crime; and it is evident to our experience that some society may be better adapted to a rectitude of life than a complete solitude and retirement. Some have said that next to no company, good company is best; but it is my opinion, that next to good company, no company is best; for as it is certain that no company is better than bad company, so ‘tis as certain that good company is much better than no company.

In solitude a man converses with himself, and as a wise man said, he is not always sure that he does not converse with his enemy; but he that is in good company is sure to be always among his friends.

The company of religious and good men is a constant restraint from evil, and an encouragement to a religious life. You have there the beauty of religion exemplified; you never want as well instruction in, as example for, all that is good; you have a contempt of evil things constantly recommended, and the affections moved to delight in what is good by hourly imitation. If we are alone we want all these, and are led right or led wrong, as the temper of the mind, which is sometimes too much the guide of our actions as well as thoughts, happens to be constituted at that time. Here we have no restraint upon our thoughts but from ourselves, no restraint upon our actions but from our own consciences, and nothing to assist us in our mortifications of our desires, or in directing our desires, but our own reflections, which, after all, may often err, often be prepossessed.

If you would retreat from the world, then be sure to retreat to good company, retreat to good books, and retreat to good thoughts; these will always assist one another, and always join to assist him that flies to them in his meditations, direct him to just reflections, and mutually encourage him against whatever may attack him from within him or without him; whereas to retreat from the world, as it is called, is to retreat from good men, who are our best friends. Besides, to retreat, as we call it, to an entire perfect solitude, is to retreat from the public worship of God, to forsake the assemblies, and, in a word, is unlawful, because it obliges us to abandon those things which we are commanded to do.

Solitude, therefore, as I understand by it, a retreat from human society, on a religious or philosophical account, is a mere cheat; it neither can answer the end it proposes, or qualify us for the duties of religion, which we are commanded to perform, and is therefore both irreligious in itself, and inconsistent with a Christian life many ways. Let the man that would reap the advantage of solitude, and that understands the meaning of the word, learn to retire into himself. Serious meditation is the essence of solitude; all the retreats into woods and deserts are short of this; and though a man that is perfectly master of this retirement may be a little in danger of quietism, that is to say, of an affectation of reservedness, yet it may be a slander upon him in the main, and he may make himself amends upon the world by the blessed calm of his soul, which they perhaps who appear more cheerful may have little of.

Retiring into deserts in the first days of religion, and into abbeys and monasteries since, what have they been, or what have they been able to do, to wards purchasing the retirement I speak of? They have indeed been things to be reckoned among austerities and acts of mortification, and so far might be commendable; but I must insist upon it, that a retired soul is not affected with them any more than with the hurries of company and society. When the soul of a man is powerfully engaged in any particular subject, ‘tis like that of St. Paul, wrapt up, whether it be into the third heaven, or to any degree of lower exaltation. Such a man may well say with the apostle above, u Whether I was in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell.” It was in such a wrapt-up state, that I conceived what I call my vision of the angelical world, of which I have here subjoined a very little part.

Is it rational to believe, that a mind exalted so far above the state of things with which we ordinarily converse, should not be capable of a separation from them, which, in a word, is the utmost extent of solitude? Let such never afflict themselves that they cannot retreat from the world; let them learn to retreat in the world, and they shall enjoy a perfect solitude, as complete, to all intents and purposes, as if they were to live in the cupola of St. Paul’s, or as if they were to live upon the top of Cheviot Hill in Northumberland.

They that cannot be retired in this manner must not only retire from the world, but out of the world, before they can arrive to any true solitude. Man is a creature so formed for society, that it may not only be said that it is not good for him to be alone, but ‘tis really impossible he should be alone. We are so continually in need of one another, nay, in such absolute necessity of assistance from one another, that those who have pretended to give us the lives and manner of the solitaires, as they call them, who separated themselves from mankind, and wandered in the deserts of Arabia and Lybia, are frequently put to the trouble of bringing the angels down from heaven to do one drudgery or another for them, forming imaginary miracles to make the life of a true solitaire possible. Sometimes they have no bread, sometimes no water, for a long time together, and then a miracle is brought upon the stage, to make them live so long without food; at other times they have angels come to be their cooks, and bring them roast-meat; to be their physicians, to bring them physic, and the like. If St. Hilary comes in his wanderings to the river Nile, an humble crocodile is brought to carry him over upon his back; though they do not tell us whether the crocodile asked him to ride, or he asked the crocodile, or by what means they came to be so familiar with one another. And what is all this to the retirement of the soul, with which it converses in heaven in the midst of infinite crowds of men, and to whom the nearest of other objects is nothing at all, any more than the objects of mountains and deserts, lions and leopards, and the like, were to those that banished themselves to Arabia?

Besides, in a state of life where circumstances are easy, and provision for the necessaries of life, which the best saint cannot support the want of, is quietly and plentifully made, has not the mind infinitely more room to withdraw from the world, than when at best it must wander for its daily food, though it were but the product of the field?

Let no man plead he wants retirement, that he loves solitude, but cannot enjoy it because of the embarrassment of the world; ‘tis all a delusion; if he loves it, if he desires it, he may have it when, where, and as often as he pleases, let his hurries, his labours, or his afflictions be what they will; it is not the want of an opportunity for solitude, but the want of a capacity of being solitary, that is the case in all the circumstances of life.

I knew a poor but good man, who, though he was a labourer, was a man of sense and religion, who, being hard at work with some other men removing a great quantity of earth to raise a bank against the side of a pond, was one day so out of himself, and wrapt up in a perfect application of his mind to a very serious subject, that the poor man drove himself and his wheelbarrow into the pond, and could not recover himself till help came to him. This man was certainly capable of a perfect solitude, and perhaps really enjoyed it, for, as I have often heard him say, he lived alone in the world: (1) Had no family to embarrass his affections; (2) his low circumstances placed him below the observation of the upper degrees of mankind; (3) and his reserved meditations placed him above the wicked part, who were those in a sphere equal to himself, among whom, as he said, and is most true, it was very hard to find a sober man, much less a good man; so that he lived really alone in the world, applied himself to labour for his subsistence, had no other business with mankind but for necessaries of life, and conversed in heaven as effectually, and, I believe, every way as divinely, as St. Hilary did in the deserts of Lybia among the lions and crocodiles.

If this retirement, which they call solitude, consisted only of separating the person from the world – that is to say, from human society – it were itself a very mean thing, and would every way as well be supplied by removing from a place where a man is known to a place where he is not known, and there accustom himself to a retired life, making no new acquaintance, and only making the use of mankind which I have already spoken of, namely, for convenience and supply of necessary food; and I think of the two that such a man, or a man so retired, may have more opportunity to be an entire recluse, and may enjoy more real solitude than a man in a desert. For example: –

In the solitude I speak of, a man has no more to do for the necessaries of life than to receive them from the hands of those that are to furnish them, and pay them for so doing; whereas in the solitude of deserts and wandering lives, from whence all our monkish devotion springs, they had every day their food, such as it was, to seek, or the load of it to carry, and except where, as is said, they put Providence to the operation of a miracle to furnish it, they had frequently difficulties enough to sustain life; and if we may believe history, many of them were starved to death for mere hunger or thirst, and as often the latter as the former.

Those that had recourse to these solitudes merely as a mortification of their bodies, as I observed before, and delivering themselves from the temptations which society exposed them to, had more room for the pretence, indeed, than those who allege that they did it to give up themselves to prayer and meditation. The first might have some reason in nature for the fact, as men’s tempers and constitutions might lead; some having an inordinate appetite to crime, some addicted by nature to one ill habit, some to another, though the Christian religion does not guide us to those methods of putting a force upon our bodies to subdue the violence of inordinate appetite. The blessed apostle St. Paul seems to have been in this circumstance when being assaulted with what is called in the text “ a thorn in the flesh; “ be it what it will that is meant there, it is not to my purpose, but he prayed to the Lord thrice; that was the first method the apostle took, and thereby set a pious example to all those who are assaulted by any temptation. He did not immediately fly to austerities and bodily modifications, separating himself from mankind, or flying into the desert to give himself up to fasting, and a retreat from the world, which is the object of all private snare, but he applied himself by serious prayer to Him who had taught us to pray, “Lead us not into temptation.” And the answer likewise is instructing in the case; he was not driven out as Nebuchadnezzar into the desert – he was not commanded to retire into the wilderness that he might be free from the temptation; nothing less; but the answer was, “My grace is sufficient for thee” – sufficient without the help of artificial mortification.

So that even in the case of these forcible mortifications they are not required, much less directed, for helps to meditation; for if meditation could not be practised beneficially, and to all the intents and purposes for which it was ordained a duty, without flying from the face of human society, the life of man would be very unhappy.

But doubtless the contrary is evident, and all the parts of a complete solitude are to be as effectually enjoyed, if we please, and sufficient grace assisting, even in the most populous cities, among the hurries of conversation and gallantry of a court, or the noise and business of a camp, as in the deserts of Arabia and Lybia, or in the desolate life of an uninhabited island.