The Book of Mormon Site
Plan of happiness
The non-Biblical phrase plan of happiness traces back to as early as 1776 (View of the Internal Evidence of the Christian Religion). Later republished in 1790’s collection of The Works of Soame Jenyns, Esq., vol. 4, p.17-19 (bold emphasis added):
But although this object, and the principle on which it is founded were new, and perhaps undiscoverable by reason, yet when discovered they are so consonant to it, that we cannot but readily assent to them. For the truth of this principle, that the present life is a state of probation, and education to prepare us for another, is confirmed by every thing which we see around us: it is the only key which can open to us the designs of Providence in the economy of human affairs, the only clue, which can guide us through that pathless wilderness, and the only plan on which this world could possibly have been formed, or on which the history of it can be comprehended or explained. It could never have been formed on a plan of happiness: because it is every where overspread with innumerable miseries; nor of misery, because it is interspersed with many enjoyments: it could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little more than a detail of their follies and wickedness: nor of vice, because that is no plan at all, being destructive of all existence, and consequently of its own. But on this system all that we here meet with, may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, necessarily refults from a state of probation and education; as probation implies trials, sufferings, and a capacity of offending, and education a propriety of chaftisement for those offences. In the next place, the doctrines of this religion are equally new with the object; and contain ideas of God, and of man, of the present, and of a future life; … (then quotes 1 Cor. 15:53, “For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality.”)
Soame Jenyns (1704–1787) was an English write and Member of Parliament. However widely circulated this text was, in the English speaking world, Jenyn’s work met the attention of Samuel Johnson and it was read enough to be mentioned/quoted in full (“Jenyn’s Int. Evid.”) in 1794 by Richard Joseph Sulivan, A View of Nature, p.92 (bold emphasis added):
Mortal existence, it is very clear, could never have been formed on a plan of happiness; because it is every where overspread with innumerable miseries; nor on a plan of misery, because it is every where interspersed with manifold enjoyments. It could not have been constituted for a scene of wisdom and virtue, because the history of mankind is little else than a detail of their follies and wickedness; nor for a scene of vice, because vice is inconsistent in its nature, and is in reality destructive of every existence, and consequently of its own. But on a system of free agency, all that we meet with may be easily accounted for; for this mixture of happiness and misery, of virtue and vice, necessarily results from a state of probation and education; as probation implies trials, suffer-ings, and a capacity of offending; and education supposes a chastisement for the commission of offences.
Lest we assume this phrase plan of happiness never made its way across the pond to America, we find Vol. 1 of Moral and Politcal Philosophy by William Payley (of watchmaker analogy fame), published in 1827 in Boston, p.39, ch. “Human Happiness” (bold emphasis added):
By the reason of the original diversity of taste, capacity, and constitution, observable in the human species, and the still greater variety which habit and fashion have introduced in these particulars, it is impossible to propose any plan of happiness which will succeed to all, or any method of life which is universally eligible or practicable.
It also shows up in The Christian Messenger, Philadephia, 1821, in response to an article “Divine Punishment,” by Rev. George C. Potts (bold emphasis added):
How can Mr. P. reconcile this with the doctrine he advocates, which teaches that some of God’s creatures shall be eternally miserable ;—and to whom his law and his purposes shall not be a plan of happiness.—Either in laying the plan, there must have been some want of wisdom, or some defect of power in carrying it into execution, or its effect, the happiness of man, must be produced.
See the Google Ngram Viewer showing the use of the phrase in extant literature from the period.
(To be clear, the evidence that this phrase made its way to upstate New York by 1829 is that it shows up in the text of the Book of Mormon!)
- See also Plan of … and State of Probation.