Life & Wisdom Quote by Joseph Addison

Addison is doing a neat bit of moral judo: he grants authority its power without granting it its crown. In one sentence he draws a hard line between what makes an act right and what makes people behave. Authority, secular or religious, can punish, reward, shame, exile, even damn you - that is sanction. But sanction is leverage, not legitimacy. The trick is that he concedes the obvious (authorities can enforce) to sharpen the less comfortable claim (enforcement is not morality). That balance gives the line its bite: it sounds reasonable, almost administrative, while quietly undercutting the idea that obedience equals virtue.

The subtext is aimed at an audience surrounded by institutions insisting on moral ownership: church doctrine, monarchy, law, and the social machinery of reputation. Early 18th-century England lived with a thick weave of religious expectation and state power, and the post-Reformation question of where moral authority actually comes from was still hot. Addison, a polite moralist of the Spectator age, argues for internal conscience and rational ethics without needing to shout Enlightenment slogans. He’s also insulating morality from mere power: if morality depends on who holds the whip, then a change in regime changes right and wrong, which is absurd and politically dangerous.

What makes the sentence work is its surgical distinction. He uses the modest phrase “not to deny” to avoid sounding radical, then lands the word “sanction” like a cold accounting term. Morality, he implies, isn’t validated by fear - only incentivized by it.