CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
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 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028958853 
 
A GENERAL VIEW 
 
 OF THE 
 
 PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 CHIEFLY DCHING THE 
 
 SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES. 
 
 BY THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 
 
 SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH, LL.D. F.R.S. M.P. 
 
 CAREY AND LEA— CHESNUT STREET. 
 1832. 
 
Philadelphia : 
 
 Printed by James Kay, Jun. & Co. 
 
 Printers (o the American Philosophical Society. 
 
 No. 4, Minor Street. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Introduction, 
 
 Page 
 
 I 
 
 SECTION I. 
 
 Preliminary Observations, 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Heti-ospect of Ancient Ethics, 
 
 16 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Retrospect of Scliolastic Etliics, 
 
 33 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Modern Ethics, 
 Hobbes, 
 
 52 
 55 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Controversies concerning the Moral Faculties and the Social Affections, 70 
 Cumberland, . . . . .70 
 
 Cudworth, • • . . . 73 
 
 Clarke, . . . . .78 
 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, • . . . 88 
 
 Fenelon, . . . . .95 
 
 Bossuet, • ■ . . , 96 
 
 Leibnitz, . . .100 
 
 MaJebranche, .... 106 
 
 Jonathan Edwards, . . .108 
 
 Buffier, ... -110 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 
 Foundations of a more just Theoi-y of Ethics, 
 Butler, . . . 
 
 Hutcheson, 
 Berkeley, 
 David Hume, 
 Adam Smith, 
 Richard Price, 
 David Hartley, 
 Abraham Tucker, 
 William Paley, 
 Jeremy Bentham, 
 Dugald Stewart, 
 Thomas Brown, 
 
 Pag-e 
 112 
 113 
 125 
 129 
 134 
 147 
 156 
 157 
 
 ire 
 
 180 
 189 
 212 
 
 230 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 General Remarks, 
 
 243 
 
 Notes and Illustrations, 
 
 283 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The inadequacy of the words of ordinary language 
 for the purposes of philosophy, is an ancient and frequent 
 complaint; of which the justness will be felt by all who 
 consider the state to which some of the most important 
 arts would be reduced, if the coarse tools of the common 
 labourer were the only instruments to be employed in 
 the most delicate operations of manual expertness. The 
 watchmaker, the optician, and the surgeon, are pro- 
 vided with instruments, which are fitted, by careful 
 ingenuity, to second their skill; the philosopher alone is 
 doomed to use the rudest tools for the most refined pur- 
 poses. He must reason in words of which the looseness 
 and vagueness are suitable, and even agreeable, in the 
 usual intercourse of life, but which are almost as 
 remote from the extreme exactness and precisioa re- 
 quired, not only in the conveyance, but in the search of 
 truth, as the hammer and the axe would be unfit for the 
 finest exertions of skilful handiwork; for it is not to be 
 forgotten, that he must himself think in these gross 
 words as unavoidably as he uses them in speaking to 
 others. He is in this respect in a worse condition than 
 an astronomer who looked at the heavens only with the 
 naked eye, whose limited and partial observation, how- 
 ever it might lead to error, might not directly, and 
 would not necessarily deceive. He might be more 
 justly compared to an arithmetician compelled to em- 
 ploy numerals not only cumbrous, but used so irregu- 
 A 
 
2 INXRODUCTION. 
 
 liirly to denote diiferent quantities, that they not only 
 often deceived others, but himself. 
 
 The Natural Philosopher and Mathematician have in 
 some degree the privilege of framing their own terms 
 of art ; though that liberty is daily narrowed by the 
 happy diffusion of these great branches of knowledge, 
 which daily mixes their language with the general voca- 
 bulary of educated men. The cultivator of Mental and 
 Moral Philosophy can seldom do more than mend the 
 faults of his words by definition; a necessary but very 
 inadequate expedient, in a great measure defeated in 
 practice by the unavoidably more frequent recurrence 
 of the terms in their vague than in their definite accep- 
 tation; in consequence of which the mind, to which the 
 definition is faintly and but occasionally present, natu- 
 rally suffers, in the ordinary state of attention, the sci- 
 entific meaning to disappear from remembrance, and 
 insensibly ascribes to the word a great part, if not the 
 whole, of that popular sense which is so very much more 
 familiar even to the most veteran speculator. The ob- 
 stacles which stood in the way of Lucretius and Cicero, 
 when they began to translate the subtile philosophy of 
 Greece into their narrow and barren tongue, are always 
 felt by the philosopher when he struggles to express, 
 with the necessary discrimination, his abstruse reason- 
 ings in words which, though those of his own language, 
 he must take from the mouths of those to whom his dis- 
 tinctions would be without meaning. 
 
 The Moral Philosopher is in this respect subject to 
 peculiar difiiculties. His statements and reasonings of- 
 ten call for nicer discriminations of language than those 
 which are necessary in describing or discussing the 
 purely intellectual part of human nature; but his free- 
 dom in the choice of words is more circumscribed. As 
 he treats of matters on which all men are disposed to 
 form a judgment, he can as rarely hazard glaring inno- 
 
INTRODUCTION. 3 
 
 vations in diction, at least in an adult and mature language 
 like ours, as the orator or the poet. If he deviates from 
 common use, he must atone for his deviation by hiding 
 it, and can only give a new sense to an old word by so 
 skilful a position of it as to render the new meaning so 
 quickly understood that its novelty is scarcely perceived. 
 Add to this, that in those most difficult inquiries for 
 which the utmost coolness is not more than sufficient, he 
 is often forced to use terms commonly connected with 
 warm feeling, with high praise, with severe reproach; 
 which excite the passions of his readers when he most 
 needs their calm attention and the undisturbed exercise of 
 their impartial judgment. There is scarcely a neutral 
 term left in Ethics; so quickly are such expressions en- 
 listed on the side of praise or blame, by the address of 
 contending passions. A true philosopher must not even 
 desire that men should less love virtue or hate vice, in 
 order to fit them for a more unprejudiced judgment on 
 his speculations. 
 
 There are perhaps not many occasions where the 
 penury and laxity of language are more felt than in en- 
 tering on the history of sciences where the first measure 
 must be to mark out the boundary of the whole subject 
 with some distinctness. But no exactness in these im- 
 portant operations can be approached without a new 
 division of human knowledge, adapted to the present 
 stage of its progress, and a reformation of all those 
 barbarous, pedantic, unmeaning, and (what is worse) 
 wrong-meaning names which continue to be applied to 
 the greater part of its branches. Instances are needless 
 where nearly all the appellations are faulty. The 
 term Metaphysics afl'ords a specimen of all the 
 faults which the name of a science can combine. To 
 those who know only their own language, it must, at 
 their entrance on the study, convey no meaning. It 
 points their attention to nothing. If they examine the 
 
4 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 language in which its parts are significant, they will be 
 misled into the pernicious error of believing that it seeks 
 something more than the interpretation of nature. It 
 is only by examining the history of ancient philosophy 
 that the probable origin of this name will be found, in 
 the application of it, as the running title of several essays 
 of Aristotle, which were placed in a collection of the 
 manuscripts of that great philosopher, after his treatise 
 on Physics. It has the greater fault of an unsteady and 
 fluctuating signification; denoting one class of objects in 
 the seventeenth century, and another in the eighteenth 
 — even in the ninteenth not quite of the same import in 
 the mouth of a German, as in that of a French or English 
 philosopher; to say nothing of the farther objection that 
 it continues to be a badge of undue pretension among 
 some of the followers of the science, while it has become 
 a name of reproach and derision among those who alto- 
 gether decry it. 
 
 The modern name of the very modern science called 
 Political Economy, \\ion^ deliberately bestowed on it 
 by its most eminent teachers, is perhaps a still more nota- 
 ble sample of the like faults. It might lead the ignorant 
 to confine it to retrenchment in national expenditure; 
 and a consideration of its etymology alone would lead into 
 the more mischievous error of believing it to teach, that 
 national wealth is best promoted by the contrivance and 
 interference of lawgivers, in opposition to its surest doc- 
 trine, which it most justly boasts of having discovered 
 and enforced. 
 
 It is easy to conceive an exhaustive analysis of Human 
 Knowledge, and a consequent division of it into parts 
 corresponding to all the classes of objects to which it 
 relates: — a representation of that vast edifice, contain- 
 ing a picture of what is finished, a sketch of what is 
 building, and even a conjectural outline of what, though 
 required by completeness and convenience, as well as 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 symmetry, is yet altogether untouched. A system of 
 names might also be imagined derived from a few roots, 
 indicating the objects of each part, and showing the 
 relation of the parts to each other. An order and a 
 language somewhat resembling those by which the ob- 
 jects of the sciences of Botany and Chemistry have, in 
 the eighteenth century, been arranged and denoted, are 
 doubtless capable of application to the sciences generally, 
 when considered as parts of the system of knowledge. 
 The attempts, however, which have hitherto been made 
 to accomplish the analytical division of knowledge which 
 must necessarily precede a new nomenclature of the 
 sciences, have required so prodigious a superiority of 
 genius in the single instance of approach to success by 
 Bacon, as to discourage rivalship nearly as much as the 
 frequent examples of failure in subsequent times* The 
 nomenlature itself is attended with great difficulties, not 
 indeed in its conception, but in its adoption and useful- 
 ness. In the Continental languages to the south of the 
 Rhine, the practice of deriving the names of science 
 from Greek must be continued; which would render the 
 new names for a while unintelligible to the majority of 
 men. Even in Germany, where a flexible and fertile 
 language affords unbounded liberty of derivation and 
 composition from native roots or elements, and where 
 the newly derived and compounded words would thus be 
 as clear to the mind, and almost as little startling to the 
 ear of every man, as the oldest terms in the language, 
 yet the whole nomenclature would be unintelligible to 
 other nations. The intercommunity of the technical 
 terms of science in Europe has been so far broken down 
 by the Germans, and the influence of their literature and 
 philosophy is so rapidly increasing in the greater part 
 of the Continent, that though a revolution in scientific 
 nomenclature be probably yet far distant, the foundation 
 of it may be considered as already prepared. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 But although so great an undertaking must be re- 
 served for a second Bacon and a future generation, it is 
 necessary for the historian of any branch of knowledge 
 to introduce his work by some account of the limits and 
 contents of the sciences of which he is about to trace the 
 progress; and though it will be found impossible to trace 
 throughout the treatise a distinct line of demarcation, 
 yet a general and imperfect sketch of the boundaries of 
 the whole, and of the parts of our present subject, may 
 be a considerable help to the reader, as it has been a 
 useful guide to the writer. 
 
 There is no distribution of the parts of knowledge 
 more ancient than that of the Physical and Moral Sci- 
 ences, which seems liable to no other objection, than that 
 it does not exhaust the subject. Even this division, 
 however, cannot be safely employed, without warning 
 the reader, that no science is entirely insulated, and that 
 the principles of one are often only the conclusions and 
 results of another. Every branch of knowledge has its 
 root in the theory of the understanding, from which 
 even the mathematician must learn what can be known 
 of his magnitude and his numbers; and Moral Science is 
 founded on that other hitherto unnamed part of philoso- 
 phy of human nature (to be constantly and vigilantly dis- 
 tinguished from /?2ife//ec/M«/ Philosophy), which contem- 
 plates the laws of sensibility, of emotion, of desire and 
 aversion, of pleasure and pain, of happiness and misery; 
 and on which arise the august and sacred landmarks that 
 stand conspicuous along the frontier between right and 
 wrong. 
 
 But however multiplied the connexions of the Moral 
 and Physical Sciences are, it is not difficult to draw a 
 general distinction between them. The purpose of the 
 Physical Sciences throughout all their provinces, is to 
 answer the question What is? They consist only of 
 facts arranged according to their likeness, and expressed 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 by general names given to every class of similar facts. 
 The purpose of the Moral Sciences is to answer the 
 question What ought to be? They aim at ascertaining 
 the rules which ought to govern voluntary action, and 
 to which those habitual dispositions of mind which are 
 the source of voluntary actions ought to be adapted. 
 
 It is obvious that will, action, habit, disposition, 
 are terms denoting facts in human nature, and that an 
 explanation of them must be sought in Mental Philoso- 
 phy; which, if knowledge be divided into Physical and 
 Moral, must be placed among physical sciences; though 
 it essentially differs from them all in having for its chief 
 object those laws of thought which alone render any 
 other sort of knowledge possible. But it is equally cer- 
 tain that the word ought introduces the mind into a 
 new region, to which nothing physical corresponds. 
 However philosophers may deal with this most import- 
 ant of words, it is instantly understood by all who do not 
 attempt to deJBne it. No civilized speech, perhaps no 
 human language, is without correspondent terms. It 
 would be as reasonable to deny that space and green- 
 ness are significant words, as to affirm that ought, right, 
 duty, virtue, are sounds without meaning. It would 
 be fatal to an Ethical Theory that it did not explain 
 them, and that it did not comprehend all the conceptions 
 and emotions which they call up. There never yet was 
 a theory which did not attempt such an explanation. 
 
SECTION I. 
 
 Preliminary Observations. 
 
 There is no man who, in a case where he was a calm 
 by- slander, would not look with more satisfaction on acts 
 of kindness than on acts of cruelty. No man, after the 
 first excitement of his mind has subsided, ever whisper- 
 ed to himself with self-approbation and secret joy that he 
 had been guilty of cruelty or baseness. Every criminal 
 is strongly impelled to hide these qualities of his actions 
 from himself, as he would do from others, by clothing 
 his conduct in some disguise of duty or of necessity. 
 There is no tribe so rude as to be without a faint per- 
 ception of a diiference between right and wrong. There 
 is no subject on which men of all ages and nations coin- 
 cide in so many points as in the general rules of conduct, 
 and in the qualities of the human character which de- 
 serve esteem. Even the grossest deviations from the 
 general consent will appear, on close examination, to be 
 not so much corruptions of moral feeling, as either ig- 
 norance of facts ; or errors with respect to the conse- 
 quences of action ; or cases in which the dissentient party 
 is inconsistent with other parts of his own principles, 
 which destroys the value of his dissent; or where each 
 dissident is condemned by all the other dissidents, which 
 immeasurably augments the majority against him. In 
 the first three cases he may be convinced by argument, 
 that his moral judgment should be changed on principles 
 which he recognises as just : and he can seldom, if ever, 
 B 
 
10 PBOGBESS OF 
 
 be condemned at the same time by the body of mankind 
 who agree in their moral systems, and by those who on 
 some other points dissent from that general code, with- 
 out being also convicted of error by inconsistency with 
 himself. The tribes who expose new-born infants, con- 
 demn those who abandon their decrepit parents to de- 
 struction. Those who betray and murder strangers, are 
 condemned by the rules of faith and humanity which 
 they acknowledge in their intercourse with their coun- 
 trymen. Mr Hume, in a dialogue in which he ingeni- 
 ously magnifies the moral heresies of two nations so po- 
 lished as the Athenians and the French, has very satis- 
 factorily resolved his own difficulties. '' In how many 
 circumstances would an Athenian and a Frenchman of 
 merit certainly resemble each other ? — Humanity, fidel- 
 ity, truth, justice, courage, temperance, constancy, dig- 
 nity of mind. The principles upon which men reason 
 in morals are always the same, though their conclusions 
 are often very different."* He might have added, that 
 almost every deviation which he imputes to each nation 
 is at variance with some of the virtues justly esteemed 
 by both; and that the reciprocal condemnation of each 
 other's errors which appears in his statement entitles us 
 on these points to strike out the suffrages of both, when 
 collecting the general judgment of mankind. If we 
 bear in mind that the question relates to the coincidence 
 of all men in considering the same qualities as virtues, 
 and not to the preference of one class of virtues by some 
 and of a different class by others, the exceptions from 
 the agreement of mankind, in their system of practical 
 morality, will be reduced to absolute insignificance ; and 
 we shall learn to view them as no more affecting the 
 harmony of our moral faculties, than the resemblance of 
 the limbs and features is affected by monstrous conforma- 
 
 * Philosophical Works, Vol. IV. p. 420, 422 Etlinb. 1826. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 11 
 
 tions, or by the unfortunate effects of accident and dis- 
 ease in a very few individuals.* 
 
 It is very remarkable, however, that though all men ' 
 agree that there are acts which ought to be done, and 
 acts which ought not to be done; though the far greater 
 part of mankind agree in their list of virtues and duties, 
 of vices and crimes; and though the whole race, as it ad- 
 vances in other improvements, is as evidently tending 
 towards the moral system of the most civilized nations, 
 as children in their growth tend to the opinions as much 
 as to the experience and strength of adults; yet there 
 are no questions in the circle of inquiry to which an- 
 swers more various have been given than — How men 
 have thus come to agree in the rule of life ; Whence 
 arises their general reverence for it; and What is meant 
 by affirming that it ought to be inviolably observed ? It 
 is singular, that where we are most nearly agreed re- 
 specting rules, we should perhaps most diifer as to the 
 causes of our agreement, and as to the reasons which 
 justify us for adhering to it. The discussion of these 
 subjects composes what is usually called the Theory of 
 Morals, in a sense not in all respects coincident with 
 what is usually considered as theory in other sciences. 
 When we investigate the causes of our moral agreement, 
 
 * " On convient le plus souvent de ces instincts de la conscience. La plus 
 grande et la plus saine parlie du genre humain leui- rend t^moignage . Les 
 Orientaux, et les Grecs, et les Roraains conviennent en cela; et il faudroit fetre 
 aussi abruti que les sauvages Am^ricains pour approuver leurs coutumes, 
 pleines d'une cruaute qui passe m6me celle des betes. Cependant ces mimes 
 sauvages sentent bien ce que c'est que lajustice en d'autres occasions; et quoique 
 il n'y ait point de mauvaise pratique peut-^tre qui ne soit autoris^e quelque 
 part, il y en a peu pourtant qui ne soient condamndes le plus souyent, et 
 par la plus grande partie des hommes." (Leibmitz, (Euvres JPhilosophiques, 
 p. 49. Amst. et Leipz. 1765, 4to.) 
 
 There are some admirable observations on this subject in Hartley, espe- 
 cially in the development of the 49th Proposition. " The ruk of life drawn 
 from the practice and opinions of mankind corrects and improves itself perpetu- 
 ally, till at last it determines entirely for virtue, and excludes all kinds and de- 
 grees of vice." (Observations on Man, 1. 207) ■ 
 
12 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the term Theory retains its ordinary scientific sense ; 
 but when we endeavour to ascertain the reasons of it, 
 we rather employ the term as importing the theory of 
 the rules of an art. In the first case, Theory denotes, 
 as usual, the most general laws to which certain facts can 
 be reduced; whereas in the second, it points out the 
 efficacy of the observance, in practice, of certain rules, 
 for producing the effects intended to be produced in 
 the art. These reasons also may be reduced under the 
 general sense by stating the question relating to them 
 thus: — What are the causes why the observance of cer- 
 tain rules enables us to execute certain purposes? An 
 account of the various answers attempted to be made to 
 these inquiries, properly forms the History of Ethics. 
 
 The attentive reader may already perceive, that these 
 momentous inquiries relate to at least two perfectly dis-^ 
 tinct subjects: 1. The nature of the distinction between 
 right and wrong in human conduct, and, 2. The nature 
 of those feelings with which right and wrong are contem- 
 plated by human beings. The latter constitutes what 
 has been called the Theory of Moral Sentiments; the 
 former consists in an investigation into the Criterion of 
 Morality in action. Other most important questions arise 
 in this province. But the two problems which have 
 been just stated, and the essential distinction between 
 them, must be clearly apprehended by all who are de- 
 sirous of understanding the controversies which have 
 prevailed on ethical subjects. The discrimination has 
 seldom been made by moral philosophers; the diflterence 
 between the two problems has never been uniformly ob- 
 served by any of them: and it will appear, in the sequel, 
 that they have been not rarely altogether confounded by 
 very eminent men, to the destruction of all just concep- 
 tion and of all correct reasoning in this most important, 
 and perhaps most difficult of sciences. 
 
 It may therefore be allowable to deviate so far from 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 13 
 
 historical order, as to illustrate the nature and to prove 
 the importance of the distinction, by an example of the 
 eifects of neglecting it, taken from the recent works of 
 justly celebrated writers; in which they discuss questions 
 much agitated in the present age, and therefore probably 
 now familiar to most readers of this dissertation. 
 
 Dr Paky represents the principle of a moral sense as 
 being opposed to that of utility.* Now, it is evident 
 that this representation is founded on a confusion of the 
 two questions which have been stated above. That we 
 are endued with a moral sense, or, in other words, a 
 feculty which immediately approves what is right and 
 condemns what is wrong, is only a statement of the feel- 
 , ings with which we contemplate actions. But to affirm 
 that right actions are those which conduce to the well- 
 being of mankind, is a proposition concerning the out- 
 ward effects by which fight actions themselves may be 
 recognised- As these affirmations relate to different 
 subjects, they cannot be opposed to each other, any 
 more than the solidity of earth is inconsistent with the 
 fluidity of water; and a very little reflection will show it 
 to be easily conceivable that they may be both true. 
 Man may be so constituted as instantaneously to approve 
 certain actions without any reference to their consequen- 
 ces ; and yet reason may nevertheless discover, that a 
 tendency to produce general happiness is the essential 
 characteristic of such actions. Mr Bentham also con- 
 trasts the principle of utility with that of sympathy, of 
 which he considers the moral sense of being one of the 
 forms.t It is needless to repeat, that propositions 
 which affirm or deny any thing as different subjects, can- 
 not contradict each other. As these celebrated persons 
 have thus inferred or implied the non-existence of a 
 
 * Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy . Compare book i. chap, 
 r.-with book ii. chap. vi. 
 
 t Introduction to the Principles ofJ\&rality and Legislation, chap. ii. 
 
14 PKOGEESS OF 
 
 moral sense, from their opinion that the morality of ac- 
 tions depends upon their usefulness, so other philoso- 
 phers of equal name have concluded, that the utility of 
 actions cannot be the priterion of their morality, because 
 perception of that utility appears to them to form a faint 
 and inconsiderable part of our moral sentiments, if in- 
 deed it be at all discoverable in them.* These errors 
 are the more remarkable, because the like confusion of 
 perceptions with their objects, of emotions with their 
 causes, or even the omission to mark the distinctions, 
 would, in every other subject, be felt to be a most seri- 
 ous fault in philosophizing. If, for instance, an element 
 were discovered to be common to all bodies which our 
 taste perceives to be sweet, and to be found in no other 
 bodies, it is apparent that this discovery, perhaps im- 
 portant in other respects, would neither affect our per- 
 ception of sweetness, nor the pleasure which attends it. 
 Both would continue to be what they have been since 
 the existence of mankind. Every proposition concern- 
 ing that element would relate to sweet bodies, and be- 
 long to the science of Chemistry; while every proposi- 
 tion respecting the perception or pleasure of sweetness 
 would relate either to the body or mind of man, and ac- 
 cordingly belong either to the science of Physiology, or 
 to that of Mental Philosophy. During the many ages 
 which passed before the analysis of the sun's beams had 
 proved them to be compounded of different colours, 
 white objects were seen, and their whiteness was some- 
 times felt to be beautiful, in the very same manner as since 
 that discovery. The qualities of light are the object 
 of Optics; the nature of beauty can be ascertained only 
 by each man's observation of his own mind; the changes 
 
 • Smith's Theory of Moral Stntiments, Part iv. Even Hume, in the 
 third book of his Treatise of Human Nature, the most precise, perhaps, of 
 his philosophical writings, uses the following as the title of one of the sec- 
 tions: " MoBAL DisTiNCTioss icrived fiom a Moral Sense." 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 15 
 
 in the living frame which succeed the refraction of light 
 in the eye, and precede mental operation, will, if they 
 are ever to be known by man, constitute a part of 
 Physiology. But no proposition relating to one of these 
 orders of phenomena can contradict or support a pro- 
 position concerning another order. 
 
 The analogy of this latter case will justify another 
 preliminary observation. In the case of the pleasure 
 derived from bea^uty, the question whether that pleasure 
 be original or derived, is of secondary importance. It 
 has been often observed that the same properties which 
 are admired as beautiful in the horse, contribute also to 
 his safety and speed ; and they who infer that the admi- 
 ration of beauty was originally founded on the conve- 
 nience of fleetness and firmness, if they at the same time 
 hold that the usefulness is gradually effaced, and that 
 the admiration of a certain shape at length rises instan- 
 taneously without reference to any purpose, may, with 
 perfect consistency, regard a sense of beauty as an inde- 
 pendent and universal principle of human nature. The 
 laws of such a feeling of beauty are discoverable only by 
 self observation. Those of the qualities which call it 
 forth are ascertained by examination of the outward things 
 which are called beautiful. But it is of the utmost im- 
 portance to bear in mind, that he who contemplates the 
 beautiful proportions of a horse, as the signs and proofs 
 of security or quickness, and has in view these conve- 
 nient qualities, is properly said to prefer the horse for 
 his usefulness, not for his beauty ; though he may chose 
 him from the same outward appearance which pleases 
 the admirer of the beautiful animal. He alone who de- 
 rives immediate pleasure from the appearance itself, 
 without reflection on any advantages which it may promise, 
 is truly said to feel the beauty. The distinction, however, 
 manifestly depends, not on the origin of the emotion, but 
 on its object and nature when completely formed. Many 
 
16 PROGRESS OF 
 
 of our most important perceptions through the eye are 
 universally acknowledged to be acquired. But they are 
 as general as the original perceptions of that organ j 
 they arise as independently of our will, and human na- 
 ture would be quite as imperfect without them. An 
 adult who did not immediately see the different distances 
 of objects from his eye, would be thought by every one to 
 be as great a deviation from the ordinary state of man as 
 if he were incapable of distinguishing the brightest sun- 
 shine from the darkest midnight. Acquired perceptions 
 and sentiments may therefore be termed natural, as much 
 as those which are more commonly so called, if they be 
 as rarely found wanting. Ethical theories can never be 
 satisfactorily discussed by those who do not constantly 
 bear in mind, that the question concerning the existence 
 of a moral faculty in man which immediately approves 
 or disapproves without reference to any further object, 
 is perfectly distinct, on the one hand, from that which 
 inquires into the qualities thus approved or disapproved ; 
 and on the other, from an inquiry whether that faculty 
 be derived from other parts of our mental frame, or be 
 itself one of the ultimate constituent principles of human 
 nature. 
 
 SECTION II. 
 
 Retrospect of Ancient Ethics. 
 
 Inquiries concerning the nature of mind, the first 
 principles of knowledge, the origin and government of 
 the world, appear to have been among the earliest objects 
 which employed the understanding of civilized men. 
 Fragments of such speculation are handed down from 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 17 
 
 the legendary age of Greek philosophy. In the remain- 
 ing monuments of that more ancient form of civilization 
 which sprung up in Asia, we see clearly that the Bra- 
 minical philosophers, in times perhaps before the dawn of 
 western history, had run round that dark and little circle 
 of systems which an unquenchable thirst of knowledge 
 has since urged both the speculators of ancient Greece 
 and those of Christendom to retrace. The wall of ada- 
 mant which bounds human inquiry has scarcely ever 
 been discovered by any adventurer, until he was roused 
 by the shock which drove him back. It is otherwise 
 with the theory of morals. No controversy seems to 
 have arisen regarding it in Greece, till the rise and con- 
 flict of the Stoical and Epicurean schools ; and the ethi- 
 cal disputes of the modern world originated with the 
 writings of Hobbes about the middle of the seventeenth 
 century. Perhaps the longer abstinence from debate 
 on this subject may have sprung from reverence for mo- 
 rality. Perhaps also, where the World were unanimous 
 in their practical opinions, little need was felt of exact 
 theory. The teachers of morals were content with par- 
 tial or secondary principles, with the combination of 
 principles not always reconcilable, even with vague but 
 specious phrases which in any degree explained or seem- 
 ed to explain the rules of the art of life — which seemed 
 at once too evident to need investigation, and too venera- 
 ble to be approached by controversy. 
 
 Perhaps the subtile genius of Greece was in part 
 withheld from indulging itself in ethical controversy by 
 the influence of Socrates, who was much more a teacher 
 of virtue than even a searcher after truth — 
 
 Whom, well inspired, the oraiple pronounced 
 Wisest of men. 
 
 It was doubtless because he chose that better part that 
 he was thus spokeii of by the man whose commendation 
 C 
 
18 PROGRESS OF 
 
 is glory, and who, from the loftiest eminence of moral ge- 
 nius ever reached by a mortal, was perhaps alone wor- 
 thy to place a new crown on the brow of the martyr of 
 virtue. 
 
 Aristippus indeed, a wit and a worldling, borrowed 
 nothing from the conversations of Socrates but a few max- 
 ims for husbanding the enjoyments of sense. Antisthenes 
 also, a hearer but not a follower, founded a school of pa- 
 I'ade and exaggeration, which caused his master to dis- 
 own him by the ingenious rebuke, '' I see your vanity 
 through your threadbare cloak."* The modest doubts 
 of the most sober of moralists, and his indisposition to fruit- 
 less abstractions, were in process of time employed as the 
 foundation of systematic scepticism ; the most presump- 
 tuous, inapplicable, and inconsistent of all the results 
 of human meditation. But though his lessons were thus 
 distorted by the perverse ingenuity of some who heard 
 him, the authority of his practical sense may be traced 
 in the moral writings of those most celebrated philosophers 
 who were directly or indirectly his disciples. Plato, the 
 most famous of his scholars, the most eloquent of Gre- 
 cian writers, and the earliest moral philosopher whose 
 writings have come down to us, employed his genius 
 in the composition of dialogues, in which his master per- 
 formed the principal part. These beautiful conversa- 
 tions would have lost their charm of verisimilitude, of 
 dramatic vivacity, of picturesque representation of char- 
 acter, if they had been subjected to the constraint of 
 method. They necessarily presuppose much oral in- 
 struction. They frequently quote, and doubtless of- 
 tener allude to the opinions of predecessors and con- 
 temporaries whose works have perished, and of whose 
 doctrines only some fragments are preserved. 
 
 In these circumstances, it must be difficult for the most 
 
 • Dioo. I.AERT. vi. ^lian. ix. 35. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 19 
 
 learned and philosophical of his commentators to give a 
 just representation of his doctrines, if he really framed 
 or adopted a system. The moral part of his works is 
 more accessible.* The vein of thought which runs 
 through them is always visible. The object is to inspire 
 the love of truth, of wisdom, of beauty, especially of 
 goodness, the highest beauty, and of that supreme and 
 eternal mind, which contains all truth and wisdom, all 
 beauty and goodness. By the love or delightful con- 
 templation and pursuit of these transcendant aims for 
 their own sake only, he represented the mind of man as 
 raised from low and perishable objects, and prepared 
 for those high destinies which are appointed for all those 
 who are capable of them. 
 
 The application to moral qualities of terms which de- 
 note outward beauty, though by, him perhaps carried to 
 excess, is an illustrative metaphor, as well warranted by 
 the poverty of language as any other employed to signi- 
 fy the acts or attributes of mind.f The beautiful in his 
 language denoted all that of which the mere contemplation 
 is in itself delightful, without any admixture of organic 
 pleasure, and without being regarded as the means of 
 attaining any farther end. The feeling which belongs 
 to it he called love / a word which, as comprehending 
 complacency, benevolence, and affection, and reaching 
 
 • Heusde, Initia Phihsoph. Plat. 1827 ; a hitherto incomplete work of 
 great perspicuity and elegance, in which we must excuse the partiality 
 which belongs to a laboui' of love. 
 
 f The most probable etymology of xaxof seems to be from nau to burn. 
 What burns commonly shines. Scliiin, in German, which means beautiful, 
 is derived from scheinen, to shine. The word khms was used for right, so 
 early as the Homeric Poems. iZ. xvii- 19. In the philosophical age it be- 
 came a technical term, with little other remains of the metaphorical sense 
 than what the genius and art of a fine writer might sometimes rekindle. 
 Hanestum, the term by which Cicero translates the h-cimi, being derived 
 from outward honours, is a less happy metaphor. In our language, the 
 terms being from foreign roots, contribute nothing to illustrate the progress 
 of thought. 
 
20 PROGRESS OF 
 
 from the neighbourhood of the senses to the most sub- 
 lime of human thoughts, is foreign from the colder and 
 more exact language of our philosophy ; but which per- 
 haps then happily served to lure both the lovers of poetry 
 and the votaries of superstition to the school of truth and 
 goodness in the groves of the academy. He enforced these 
 lessons by an inexhaustable variety of just and beautifol il- 
 lustrations, — sometimes striking from their familiarity, 
 sometimes subduing by their grandeur ; and his works 
 are the storehouse from which moralists have from age 
 to age borrowed the means of rendering moral instruc- 
 tion easier and more delightful. Virtue he represented 
 as the harmony of the whole soul ; — as a peace between 
 all its principles and desires, assigning to each as much 
 space as they can occupy, without encroaching on each 
 other ; — as a state of perfect health, in which every func- 
 tion was performed with ease, pleasure, and vigour ; — as a 
 well-ordered commonwealth, where the obedient pas- 
 sions executed with energy the laws and commands of 
 reason. The vicious mind presented the odious charac- 
 ter, sometimes of discord, of war ; sometimes of disease ; 
 always of passions warring with each other in eternal 
 anarchy. Consistent with himself, and at peace with his 
 fellows, the good man felt in the quiet of his conscience a 
 foretaste of the approbation of God. " Oh what ardent 
 love would virtue inspire if she coidd be seen." ''If 
 the heart of a tyrant could be laid bare, we should see 
 how it was cut and torn by its own evil passions and 
 by an avenging conscience."* 
 
 Perhaps in every one of these illustrations, an eye 
 trained in the history of Ethics may discover the germ 
 
 • Let it not be forgotten, that for this terrible description, Socrates, to 
 whom it b ascribed by Plato {Be Rep. ix.) is called " Prsesiantissimua sapien- 
 tite," by a writer of the most masculine understanding, the least subject to 
 be transported by enthusiasm. (Tac. Ann. vi. 6.) " Quse eulnara .'" says 
 Cicero, in alluding to the same passage. {De OfficUs, iii. 21.) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 21 
 
 of the whole or of a part of some subsequent theory. 
 But to examine it thus would not be to look at it with the 
 eye of Plato. His aim was as practical as that of Socrates. 
 He employed every topic, without regard to its place in 
 a system, or even always to its force as argument, which 
 could attract the small portion of the community then 
 accessible to cultivation ; who, it should not be forgotten, 
 had no moral instructor but the philosopher, unaided, 
 if not thwarted, by the reigning superstition ; for reli- 
 gion had not then, besides her own discoveries, brought 
 down the most awful and the most beautiful forms of 
 moral truth to the humblest station in human society.* 
 
 Ethics retained her sober spirit in the hands of his 
 great scholar and rival Aristotle, who, though he cer- 
 tainly surpassed all men in acute distinction, in subtile 
 argument, in severe method, in the power of analyzing 
 what is most compounded, and of reducing to simple 
 principles the most various and unlike appearances, yet 
 appears to be still more raised above his fellows by the 
 prodigious faculty of laying aside these extraordinary 
 endowments whenever his present purpose required it ; 
 as in his History of Animals, in his Treatises on Philoso- 
 phical Criticism, arid in his Practical Writings, political 
 as well as moral. Contrasted as his genius was to that 
 of Plato, not only by its logical and metaphysical attri- 
 butes, but by the regard to experience and observation of 
 
 * There can hardly be a finer example of Plato's practical morals than 
 his observations on the treatment of slaves. Genuine humanity and real 
 probity, says he, are brought to the test, by the behaviour of a man to slaves, 
 whom he may wrong with impunity. A/a<f»xo; ya.^ o <fv<ni icai /m vxavrac 
 Ti^m TMV imav, fAivm tfe oi'Tac to etcT/xov sv touto/? Tav avflgaarav v) ois aunrto 
 futiov aSmuv. (Piato de Legihus, lib, vi. edit. Bipont. VIII. 303.) 
 
 That Plato was considered as the fountain of ancient morals, would be 
 sufficiently evident from Cicero alone. " Ex hoc igitur Platonis, quasi 
 quodam sancto augustoque fonte, nostra omnis manabit oratio." {Tusc. 
 Qxst. V. 13.) Perhaps the sober Quintilian meant to mingle some cen- 
 sure with the highest praise : "Plato, qui eloquendi facultate divina qua- 
 darn etHomerica, multum supra prosam orationem surgit." {Inst. Orai. x. 1.) 
 
22 PROGRESS OF 
 
 nature which, in him perhaps alone, accompanied them ; 
 — though they may be considered as the original repre- 
 sentatives of the two antagonist tendencies of philosophy 
 — that which would ennoble man, and that which seeks 
 rather to explain nature ; yet opposite as they are in 
 other respects, the master and the scholar combine to 
 guard the Rule of Life against the licentious eruptions of 
 the Sophists. 
 
 In Ethics alone their systems diifered more in words 
 than in things.* That happiness consisted in virtuous 
 pleasure, chiefly dependent on the state of mind, but 
 not unaifected by outward agents, was the doctrine of 
 both. Both would with Socrates have called happi- 
 ness '^unrepented pleasure." Neither distinguished 
 the two elements which they represented as constituting 
 the supreme good from each other 5 partly, perhaps, from 
 a fear of appearing to separate them. Plato more habitu- 
 ally considered happiness as the natural fruit of virtue ; 
 Aristotle oftener viewed virtue as the means of attaining 
 happiness. The celebrated doctrine of the peripatetics, 
 which placed all virtues in a medium between opposite 
 vices, was probably suggested by the Platonic represen- 
 tation of its necessity to keep up harmony between the 
 different parts of our nature. The perfection of a com- 
 pound machine is attained where all its parts have the 
 fullest scope for action. Where one is so far exerted as to 
 repress others, there is a vice of excess. When any one 
 has less activity than it might exert without disturbing 
 others, there is a vice of defect. The point which all 
 reach without collision against each other, is the medioc- 
 rity in which the Peripatetics placed virtue. 
 
 * " Una et consentiens duobus vocabulis philosophic forma instituta est, 
 Academicorum et Peripateticorum; qui rebus congruentes, nominibus diffe- 
 rebant." (Cic. .5ca(Z. Quasrf. i. 4.) Bot/^jrai (AjiirTOTCMit) ifwToir f/v«< mv 
 K<tT« ifix.ca'o<ffa.v xoycvrov fitv v^aiiTiKCV, rov it Biu^UTiniiy. xm Ttu jr^anTtnou, 
 T0» Ti nStxoy xo-i a-oMT/KOV Tou it iiu^nriKoi/, rev *• ^orix.ov *a.i hoyiKoy. 
 (Dioo. Laxrt. v. 28. ) 
 
ETHICAL tHILOSOPHT. 23 
 
 It was not till near a century after the death of Plato 
 that ethics became the scene of philosophical contest 
 between the adverse schools of Epicurus and Zeno ; 
 whose errors aiford an instructive example, that in the 
 formation of theory, partial truth is equivalent to abso- 
 lute falsehood. As the astronomer who left either the 
 centripetal or the centrifugal force of the planets out of his 
 view, would err as completely as he who excluded both, 
 so the Epicureans and Stoics, who each confined them- 
 selves to real but not exclusive principles in morals, de- 
 parted as widely from the truth as if they had adopted 
 no part of it. Every partial theory is indeed directly 
 false, inasmuch as it ascribes to one or few causes what 
 is produced by more. As the extreme opinions of one 
 if not both of these schools have been often revived with 
 variations and refinements in modern times, and are still 
 not without influence on ethical systems, it may be al- 
 lowable to make some observations on this earliest of mo- 
 ral controversies. 
 
 "■ All other virtues," said Epicurus, " grow from 
 prudence, which teaches that we cannot live pleasurably 
 without living justly and virtuously, nor live justly and 
 virtuously without living pleasurably."* • The illus- 
 tration of this sentence formed the whole moral discipline 
 of Epicurus. To him we owe the general concurrence 
 of reflecting men in succeeding times, in the important 
 truth, that men cannot be happy without a virtuous frame 
 of mind and course of life ; a truth of inestimable value, 
 not peculiar to the Epicureans, but placed by their ex- 
 aggerations in a stronger light ; — a truth, it must be added, 
 of less importance as a motive to right conduct than to 
 the completeness of Moral Theory, which, however, it 
 is very far from solely constituting. With that truth the 
 
 • Epic. Epist. ad Menxc. apud Diog. Laekt. lib. x. edit. Leibom. I. 658, 
 659. 
 
24 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Epicureans blended another position, which indeed is 
 contained in the first word of the above statement; 
 namely, that because virtue promotes happiness, every 
 act of virtue must be done in order to promote the hap- 
 piness of the agent. They and their modern followers 
 tacitly assume, that the latter position is the consequence 
 of the former ; as if it were an inference from the neces- 
 sity of food to life, that the fear of death should be sub- 
 stituted for the appetite of hunger as a motive for eating. 
 "Friendship" says Epicurus, "is to be pursued by 
 the wise man only for its usefulness, but he will begin as 
 he sows the field in order to reap."* It is obvious that 
 if these words be confined to outward benefits, they may 
 be sometimes true, but never can be pertinent ; for out- 
 ward acts sometimes show kindness, but never compose 
 it. If they be applied to kind feeling they would in- 
 deed be pertinent, but they would be^vidently and to- 
 tally false ; for it is most Certain that no man acquires 
 an affection merely from his belief that it would be agree- 
 able or advantageous to feel it. Kindness cannot indeed 
 be pursued on account of the pleasure which belongs to 
 it ; for man can no more know the pleasure till he has 
 felt the affection, than he can form an idea of colour 
 without the sense of sight. The moral character of 
 Epicurus was excellent ; no man more enjoyed the plea- 
 sure or better performed the duties of friendship. The 
 letter of his system was no more indulgent to vice than 
 that of any other moralist.f Although, therefore, he 
 has the merit of having more strongly inculcated the con- 
 
 * Tav <fi\iiiv tia. vm ;t§s«5. (Diog. Laebt. ibid.) "Hie est locus," Gas- 
 sendi confesses, " ob quem Epicurus non parum vexatur, quando nemo 
 non reprehendit, paraii amicltiam non sui, sed utilitatis gratia." 
 
 t It is due to him to observe, that he treated humanity towards slaves as 
 one of the characteristics of a wise man. Ovte Knxac-iiy oiKtrtu, t\i>iirut /ttv 
 rat, xttt a-uyy^aifim tin l^iiv ray a-Tfovfctiut. (Dios. Laeht. ibid. 653.) It is 
 not unworthy of remark, that neither Plato nor Epicurus thought it neces- 
 sary to abstdn from these topics in a city full of slaves, many of whom were 
 men not destitute of knowledge. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 25 
 
 nexion of virtue with happiness, perhaps by the faulty 
 excess of treating it as an exclusive principle ; yet his 
 doctrine was justly charged with indisposing the mind 
 to those exalted and generous sentiments, without which 
 no pure, elevated, bold, generous, or tender virtues 
 can exist.* 
 
 As Epicurus represented the tendency of virtue, 
 which is a most important truth in ethical theory, as the 
 sole inducement to virtuous practice; so Zeno, in his 
 disposition towards the opposite extreme, was inclined 
 to consider the moral sentiments which are the motives 
 of right conduct, as being the sole principles of moral 
 science. The confusion was equally great in a philoso- 
 phical view; but that of Epicurus was more fatal to in- 
 terests of higher importance than those of philosophy. 
 Had the Stoics been content with affirming that virtue 
 is the source of all that part of our happiness which de- 
 pends on ourselves, they would have taken a position 
 from which it would have been impossible to drive them; 
 they would have laid down a principle of as great com- 
 prehension in practice as their wider pretensions; a sim- 
 ple and incontrovertible truth, beyond which everything 
 is an object of mere curiosity to man. Our information, 
 however, about the opinions of the more celebrated 
 Stoics is very scanty. None of their own writings are 
 preserved. We know little of them but from Cicero, 
 the translator of Grecian philosophy, and from the Greek 
 compilers of a later age; authorities which would be im- 
 perfect in the history of facts, but which are of far less 
 value in the history of opinions, where a right concep- 
 tion often depends upon the minutest distinctions be- 
 tween words. We know that Zeno was more simple, 
 and that Chrysippus, who was accounted the prop of the 
 Stoic Porch, abounded more in subtile distinction and 
 
 * "Nil generosum, nil magnificum sapit." CrcEno. 
 
 D 
 
26 PROGRESS OF 
 
 systematic spirit.* His power was attested as much by 
 the antagonists whom he called forth, as by the scholars 
 whom he formed. " Had there been no Chrysippus, there 
 would have been no Carneades," was the saying of the 
 latter philosopher himself; as it might have been said 
 in the eighteenth century, *'Had there been no Hume, 
 there would have been no Kant and no Reid." Clean- 
 thes, when one of his followers would pay court to him 
 by laying vices to the charge of his most formidable op- 
 ponent, Arcesilaus the academic, answered with a justice 
 and candour unhappily too rare, " Silence, — do not 
 malign him;— though he attacks virtue by his arguments, 
 he confirms its authority by his life." Arcesilaus, whe- 
 ther modestly or churlishly, replied, " I do not choose 
 to be flattered." Cleanthes, with a superiority of re- 
 partee, as well as charity, replied, " Is it flattery to say 
 that you speak one thing and do another?" It would 
 be vain to expect that the fragments of the professors 
 who lectured in the stoic school for five hundred years, 
 should be capable of being moulded into one consistent 
 system; and we see that in Epictetus at least, the exag- 
 geration of the sect was lowered to the level of reason, by 
 confining the sufficiency of virtue to those cases only 
 where happiness is attainable by our voluntary acts. It 
 ought to be added, in extenuation of a noble error, that 
 the power of habit and character to struggle against out- 
 ward evils has been proved by experience to be in some 
 instances so prodigious, that no man can presume to fix 
 the utmost limit of its possible increase. 
 
 The attempt, however, of the Stoics to stretch the 
 bounds of their system beyond the limits of nature, pro- 
 duced the inevitable inconvenience of dooming them to 
 
 • " Chrysippus, qui fiilcire putatur porticum Stoicoram." Cicbko.' 
 Elsewhere, "Acutissiraus, sed in scribendo exilis et jejunus, scripsitrhetori- 
 cam seu potius obmutescendl artem;" nearly as we should speak of a school- 
 man. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 27 
 
 fluctuate between a wild fanaticism on the one hand, and, 
 on the other, concessions which left their differences 
 from other philosophers purely verbal. Many of their 
 doctrines appear to be modifications of their original 
 opinions, introduced as opposition became more formida- 
 ble. In this manner they were driven to the necessity 
 of admitting that the objects of our desires and appetites 
 are worthy of preference, though they are denied to be 
 constituents of happiness. It was thus that they were 
 obliged to invent a double morality; one for mankind at 
 large, from whom was expected no more than the K^tBuxcv, 
 — which seems principally to have denoted acts of duty 
 done from inferior or mixed motives ; and the other, 
 which they appear to have hoped from their ideal wise 
 man, is aaTogSa^a, or perfect observance of rectitude, — 
 which consisted only in moral acts done for mere rever- 
 ence for morality, unaided by any feelings; all which 
 (without the exception of pity) they classed among the 
 enemies of reason and the disturbers of the human soul. 
 Thus did they shrink from their proudest paradoxes into 
 verbal evasions. It is remarkable that men so acute did 
 not perceive and acknowledge, that if pain were not an 
 evil, cruelty would not be a vice; and that if patience 
 were of power to render torture indifferent, virtue must 
 expire in the moment of victory. There can be no 
 more triumph when there is no enemy left to conquer.* 
 The influence of men's opinions on the conduct of their 
 lives is checked and modified by so many causes — it so 
 much depends on the strength of conviction, on its ha- 
 bitual combination with feelings, on the concurrence or 
 resistance of interest, passion, example, and sympathy 
 — that a wise man is not the most forward in attempting 
 
 • " Patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill." But as soon as the ill was 
 really " transmuted" into good, it is evident that there was no longer any 
 scope left for the exercise of patience. 
 
28 PBOGKESS OF 
 
 to determine the power of its single operation over hu- 
 man actions. In the case of an individual it becomes 
 altogether uncertain. But when the experiment is made 
 on a large scale, when it is long continued and varied in 
 its circumstances, and especially when great bodies of 
 men are for ages the subject of it, we cannot reasonably 
 reject the consideration of the inferences to which it ap- 
 pears to lead. The Roman Patriciate, trained in the 
 conquest and government of the civilized world, in spite 
 of the tyrannical vices which sprung from that training, 
 were raised by the greatness of their objects to an ele- 
 vation of genius and character unmatched by any other 
 aristocracy; at the moment when, after preserving their 
 power by a long course of wise compromise with the 
 people, they were betrayed by the army and the popu- 
 lace into the hands of a single tyrant of their own order 
 — the most accomplished of usurpers, and, if humanity 
 and justice could for amoment be silenced, one of themost 
 illustrious of men. There is no scene in history so 
 memorable as that in which CsBsar mastered a nobility 
 of which LucuUus and Hortensius, Sulpicius andCatulus, 
 Pompey and Cicero, Brutus and Cato, were members. 
 This renowned body had from the time of Scipio sought 
 the Greek philosophy as an amusement or an ornament. 
 Some few, " in thought more elevate," caught the love 
 of truth, and were ambitious of discovering a solid 
 foundation for the Rule of Life. The influence of the 
 Grecian systems was tried by their effect on a body of 
 men of the utmost originality, energy, and variety of 
 character, during the five centuries between Carneades 
 and Constantine, in their successive positions of rulers 
 of the world, and of slaves under the best and under the 
 worst of uncontrolled masters. If we had found this in- 
 fluence perfectly uniform, we should have justly suspect- 
 ed our own love of system of having in part bestowed 
 that appearance on it. Had there been no trace of such 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 29 
 
 an influence discoverable in so great an experiment, we 
 must have acquiesced in the papdox, that opinion does 
 not at all affect conduct. The result is the more satis- 
 factory, because it appears to illustrate general tendency 
 without excluding very remarkable exceptions. Though 
 Cassius was an Epicurean, the true representative of that 
 school was the accomplished, prudent, friendly, good- 
 natured timeserver Atticus, the pliant slave of every 
 tyrant, who could kiss the hand of Antony, imbrued as it 
 was in the blood of Cicero. The pure school of Plato 
 sent forth Marcus Brutus, the signal humanity of whose 
 life was both necessary and sufficient to prove that his 
 daring breach of venerable rules flowed only from that 
 dire necessity which left no other means of upholding 
 the most sacred principles. The Roman orator, though 
 in speculative questions he embraced that mitigated 
 doubt which allowed most ease and freedom to his genius, 
 yet in those moral writings where his heart was most 
 deeply interested, followed the severest sect of philoso- 
 phy, and became almost a Stoic. If any conclusion may 
 be hazarded from this trial of systems, the greatest which 
 history has recorded, we must not refuse our decided 
 though not undistinguishing preference to that noble 
 school which preserved great souls untainted at the court 
 of dissolute and ferocious tyrants; which exalted the slave 
 of one of Nero's courtiers to be a moral teacher of after- 
 times; which for the first, and hitherto for the only time, 
 breathed philosophy and justice into those rules of law 
 which govern the ordinary concerns of every man; and 
 which, above all, has contributed, by the examples of 
 Marcus Porcius Cato and of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, 
 to raise the dignity of our species, to keep alive a more 
 ardent love of virtue, and a more awful sense of duty, 
 throughout all generations.* 
 
 * of all testimonies to the character of the Stoics, perhaps the most de- 
 cisive is the speech of the vile sycophant Capito, in the mock impeachment 
 
30 PROGRESS OF 
 
 The result of this short review of the practical philo- 
 sophy of Greece seems to be, that though it was rich in 
 rules for the conduct of life, and in exhibitions of the 
 beauty of virtue, and though it contains glimpses of just 
 theory and fragments of perhaps every moral truth, yet 
 it did not leave behind any precise and coherent system; 
 unless we except that of Epicurus, who purchased con- 
 sistency, method, and perspicuity too dearly by the sacri- 
 fice of truth, and by narrowing and lowering his views of 
 human nature, so as to enfeeble, if not extinguish, all the 
 vigorous motives to arduous virtue. It is remarkable, 
 that while of the eight professors who taught in the 
 porch, from Zeno to Posidonius, every one either soft- 
 ened or exaggerated the doctrines of his predecessor; 
 and while the beautiful and reverend philosophy of Plato 
 had, in his own academy, degenerated into a scepticism 
 which did not spare morality itself, the system of Epi- 
 curus remained without change; and his disciples con- 
 tinued for ages to show personal honours to his memory, 
 in a manner which may seem unaccountable among those 
 who were taught to measure propriety by a calculation 
 of palpable and outward usefulness. This steady adhe- 
 rence is in part doubtless attributable to the portion of 
 truth which the doctrine contains; in some degree per- 
 haps to the amiable and unboastful character of Epicu- 
 rus ; not a little, it may be, to the dishonour of deserting 
 an unpopular cause; but probably most of all to that 
 mental indolence which disposes the mind to rest in a 
 simple system, comprehended at a glance, and easily fall- 
 ing in, both with ordinary maxims of discretion, and with 
 
 of Thrasea Pxtus, before a senate of slaves: " Ut quondam C. Cacsarem et 
 M. Catonem, ita nunc te, Nero, et Thraaeam, avida (iscordiarum civitas lo- 
 quitur. ..Ista secta Tuberones et Favonios, veteri quoque rei-publica ing^ta 
 nomina, genuit" (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 22.) 
 See Notes and Illustrations, note A. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 31 
 
 the vulgar commonplaces of satire on human nature.* 
 When all instruction was conveyed by lectures, and 
 when one master taught the whole circle of the sciences 
 in one school, it was natural that the attachment of pu- 
 pils to a professor should be more devoted than when, 
 as in our times, he can teach only a small portion of a 
 knowledge spreading towards infinity, and even in his 
 own little province finds a rival in every good writer 
 who has treated the same subject. The superior at- 
 tachment of the Epicureans to their master is not with- 
 out some parallel among the followers of similar princi- 
 ples in our own age, who have also revived some part of 
 that indifference to eloquence and poetry which may be 
 imputed to the habit of contemplating all things in rela- 
 tion to happiness, and to (what seems its uniform effect) 
 the egregious miscalculation which leaves a multitude of 
 mental pleasures out of the account. It may be said, 
 indeed, that the Epicurean doctrine has continued with 
 little change to the present day; at least it is certain that 
 no other ancient doctrine has proved so capable of being 
 restored in the same form among the moderns; and it 
 may be added, that Hobbes and Gassendi, as well as 
 some of our own contemporaries, are as confident in their 
 opinions, and as intolerant of scepticism, as the old Epi- 
 cureans. The resemblance of modern to ancient opin- 
 ions, concerning some of those questions upon which 
 ethical controversy must always hinge, may be a sufii- 
 cient excuse for a retrospect of the Greek morals; which 
 it is hoped will simplify and shorten subsequent obser- 
 
 • The progress of commonplace satire on sexes or professions, and (he 
 might have added) on nations, has been exquisitely touched by Gray in his 
 Remarks on Lydgate; a fragment containing passages as finely thought and 
 written as any in English prose. (Ghat's WorJcs, Matthias's edition, vol. L 
 p. 55. ) General satire on mankind is still more absurd; for no invective can 
 be so unreasonable as that wljich is founded on falling short of an ideal 
 standard. 
 
32 PROGRESS OF 
 
 vation on those more recent disputes which form the 
 proper subject of this discourse. 
 
 The genius of Greece fell with liberty. The Grecian 
 philosophy received its mortal wound in the contests 
 between scepticism and dogmatism which occupied the 
 schools in the age of Cicero. The Sceptics could only 
 perplex, and confute, and destroy. Their occupation was 
 gone as soon as they succeeded. They had nothing to sub- 
 stitute for what they overthrew; and they rendered their 
 own art of no further use. They were no more than 
 venomous animals, who stung their victims to death, but 
 also breathed their last into the wound. A third age of 
 Grecian literature indeed arose at Alexandria, under the 
 Macedonian kings of Egypt; laudably distinguished by 
 exposition, criticism and imitation, sometimes abused for 
 the purposes of literary forgery, still more honoured by 
 some learned and highly-cultivated poets, as well as by 
 diligent cultivators of history and science; among whom 
 some began about the first preaching of Christianity to 
 turn their minds once more to that high philosophy 
 which seeks for the fundamental principles of human 
 knowledge. Philo, a learned and philosophical Hebrew, 
 one of the flourishing colony of his nation established in 
 that city, endeavoured to reconcile the Platonic Philoso- 
 phy with the Mosaic Law and the Sacred Books of the 
 Old Testament. About the end of the second century, 
 when the Christians, Hebrews, Pagans, and various other 
 sects of semi or Pseudo-Christian Gnostics appear to have 
 studied in the same schools, the almost inevitable ten- 
 dency of doctrines, however discordant, in such circum- 
 stances to amalgamate, produced its full effect under Am- 
 monius Saccas; a celebrated professor, who, by selection 
 from the Greek systems, the Hebrew books, the oriental 
 religions, and by some of that concession to the rising 
 spirit of Christianity, of which the Gnostics had set the 
 example, composed a very mixed system, commonly de- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 33 
 
 signaled as the Eclectic Philosophy. The controversies 
 between his contemporaries and followers, especially 
 those of Clement and Origen, the victorious champions of 
 Christianity, with Plotinus and Porphyry, who endea- 
 voured to preserve Paganism by clothing it in a disguise 
 of philosophical Theism, are, from the eifects towards 
 which they contributed, the most memorable in the his- 
 tory of human opinion.* But their connexion with 
 modern ethics is too faint to warrant any observation in 
 this place, on the imperfect and partial memorials of them 
 which have reached us. The death of Boethius in the 
 west, and the closing of the Athenian schools by Justi- 
 nian, may be considered as the last events in the history 
 of ancient philosophy.f 
 
 SECTION III. 
 
 Retrospect of Scholastic Ethics. 
 
 An interval of a thousand years elapsed between the 
 close of ancient and the rise of modern philosophy; the 
 
 * The change attempted by Julian, Porphyry, and their friends, by which 
 Theism would have become the popular religion, may be estimated by the 
 memorable passage of Tacitus on the Theism of the Jews. In the midst of 
 all the obloquy and opprobrium with which he loads that people, his tone 
 suddenly rises when he comes to contemplate them as the only nation who 
 paid religious honours to the supreme and eternal mind alone, and his style 
 swells at the sight of so sublime and wonderful a scene. " Summum illud 
 atque leternum, neque mutabile neque interiturum." 
 
 f The punishment of death was inflicted on Pagans by a law of Constan- 
 tius. " Volumus cunctos sacrificiis abstinere. Si aliquid hujusmodi perpe- 
 traverint, gladio ultore stemantur." (Cod. I. tit. xi. de Paganis, A.D. 343 
 or 346.) From the authorities cited by Gibbon, (note, chap, xi.) as well 
 as from some research, it should seem that the edict for the suppression of 
 the Atlienian schools was not admitted into the vast collection of laws en- 
 acted or systematized by Justinian. 
 
 E 
 
34 PBOGHESS OF 
 
 most unexplored, yet not the least instructive portion of 
 the history of European opinion. In that period the 
 sources of the institutions, the manners, the charac- 
 teristic distinctions of modern nations, have been traced 
 by a series of philosophical inquirers from Montesquieu 
 to Hallam; and there also, it may be added, more than 
 among the ancients, are the wellspriugs of our specula- 
 tive doctrines and controversies. Far from being inac- 
 tive, the human mind, during that period of exaggerated 
 darkness, produced discoveries in science, inventions in 
 art, and contrivances in government, some of which, 
 perhaps, were rather favoured than hindered by the 
 disorders of society, and by the twilight in which 
 men and things were seen. Had Boethius, the last of the 
 ancients, foreseen, that within two centuries of his death, 
 in the province of Britain, then a prey to all the horrors 
 of barbaric invasion, a chief of one of the fiercest tribes 
 of barbarians should translate into the jargon of his free- 
 booters the work on The Consolations of Philosophy, 
 of which the composition had soothed the cruel imprison- 
 ment of the philosophical Roman himself, he must, even 
 amidst his sufferings, have derived some gratification 
 from such an assurance of the recovery of mankind from 
 ferocity and ignorance. But had he been allowed to 
 revisit the earth in the middle of the sixteenth century, 
 with what wonder and delight might he have contem- 
 plated the new and fairer order which was beginning to 
 disclose its beauty, and to promise more than it revealed. 
 He would have seen personal slavery nearly extinguish- 
 ed, and women, first released from oriental imprison- 
 ment by the Greeks, and raised to a higher dignity among 
 the Romans,* at length fast approaching to due equality; 
 
 • The steps of this important progress, as far as relates to Athens and 
 Rome , are well remarked by one of the finest of the Roman writers. " Quem 
 enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere inconvivium? aut cujus materia- 
 rallias non primum locum tenet xdium, atque in celebritate versatur ? quod 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 35 
 
 two revolutions the most signal and beneficial since the 
 dawn of civilization. He would have seen the disco- 
 very of gunpowder, which for ever guarded civilized 
 society against barbarians, while it transferred military 
 strength from the few to the many; of paper and print- 
 ing, which rendered a second destruction of the reposi- 
 tories of knowledge impossible, as well as opened a way 
 by which it was to be finally accessible to all mankind; 
 of the compass, by means of which navigation had as- 
 certained the form of the planet, and laid open a new 
 continent more extensive than his world. If he had 
 turned to civil institutions, he might have learned that 
 some nations had preserved an ancient, simple, and 
 seemingly rude mode of legal proceeding, which threw 
 into the hands of the majority of men a far larger share 
 of judicial power than was enjoyed by them in any an- 
 cient democracy. He would have seen everywhere the 
 remains of that principle of representation, the glory of 
 the Teutonic race, by which popular government, 
 anciently imprisoned in cities, became capable of being 
 strengthened by its extension overvast countries, to which 
 experience cannot even now assign any limits; and which, 
 in times still distant, was to exhibit, in the newly- disco- 
 vered continent, a republican confederacy, likely to 
 surpass the Macedonian and Roman empires in. extent, 
 greatness, and duration, but gloriously founded on the 
 equal rights, not like them on the universal subjection, 
 of mankind. In one respect, indeed, he might have 
 lamented that the race of man had made a really retro- 
 grade movement; that they had lost the liberty of 
 philosophizing; that the open exercise of their highest 
 faculties was interdicted. But he might also have per- 
 
 multo fit aliter in Gracia; nam neque in convivium adhibetur, nisi propin- 
 quomm, neque sedet lysi in interiore parte sdium, qua Gynseconitis ap-pel- 
 latur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinqua cognatione conjunctus. " (Coekel. 
 Nefo* in Prsefat.) 
 
36 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ceived that this giant evil had received a mortal wound 
 from Luther, who in his warfare against Rome had 
 struck a blow against all human authority, and uncon- 
 sciously disclosed to mankind that they were entitled, or 
 rather bound, to form and utter their own opinions, and 
 most of all on the most deeply interesting subjects : for 
 although this most fruitful of moral truths was not yet 
 so released from its combination with the wars and pas- 
 sions of the age as to assume a distinct and visible form, 
 its action was already discoverable in the divisions among 
 the Reformers, and in the fears and struggles of civil 
 and ecclesiastical oppressors. The Council of Trent, 
 and the Courts of Paris, Madrid, and Rome, had before 
 that time foreboded the emancipation of reason. 
 
 Though the middle age be chiefly memorable as that 
 in which the foundations of a new order of society were 
 laid, uniting the stability of the oriental system, without 
 its inflexibility, to the activity of the Hellenic civiliza- 
 tion, without its disorder and inconstancy, yet it is not 
 unworthy of notice, on account of the subterranean cur- 
 rent which flows through it, from the speculations of an- 
 cient to those of modern times. That dark stream must 
 be uncovered before the history of the European un- 
 derstanding can be thoroughly comprehended. It was 
 lawful for the emancipators of reason in their first strug- 
 gles to carry on mortal war against the schoolmen. 
 The necessity has long ceased ; they are no longer dan- 
 gerous ; and it is now felt by philosophers that it is time 
 to explore and estimate that vast portion of the history 
 of philosophy from which we have scornfully turned our 
 eyes.* A few sentences only can be allotted to the 
 
 * TEifNEMAN, Geschichte der Philosophie, VIII. Band. 1811. Consiir, 
 Cours de I'Hisloire de la Philos. p. 29. PiU'is, 1828. My esteem for this 
 admirable writer encourages me to say, that the beauty of his diction has 
 sometimes the same effect on his thoughts that a sunny haze produces on 
 outward objects; and to submit to his serious consideration, whether the 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 37 
 
 subject in this place. In the first moiety of the middle 
 age, the darkness of Christendom was faintly broken 
 by a few thinly-scattered lights. Even then, Moses 
 Ben Maimon taught philosophy among the persecuted 
 Hebrews, whose ancient schools had never perhaps been 
 wholly interrupted; and a series of distinguished Maho- 
 metans, among whom two are known to us by the names 
 of Avicenna and Averroes, translated the Peripatetic 
 writings into their own language, expounded their 
 doctrines in no servile spirit to their followers, and 
 enabled the European Christians to make those versions 
 of them from Arabic into Latin, which in the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries gave birth to the scholastic philo- 
 sophy. 
 
 The schoolmen were properly theologians, who employ- 
 ed philosophy only to define and support that system 
 of Christian belief which they and their contemporaries 
 had embraced. The founder of that theological system 
 was Aurelius Augustinus,* (called by us Augustin) bishop 
 of Hippo, in the province of Africa; a man of great ge- 
 nius and ardent character, who adopted at diiferent pe- 
 riods of his life the most various, but at all times the most 
 decisive and systematic, as well as daring and extreme opin- 
 ions. This extraordinary man became, after some strug- 
 gles, the chief Doctor, and for ages almost the sole oracle 
 of the Latin church. It happened by a singular accident, 
 that the schoolmen of the twelfth century, who adopted 
 his theology, instead of borrowing their defensive weapons 
 
 allurements of Schelling's system have not betrayed him into a too frequent 
 forgetfulness that principles, equally adapted to all phenomena, furnish in 
 speculation no possible test of their truth, and lead, in practice, to total in- 
 difference and inactivity respecting human affairs. I quote with pleasure 
 an excellent observation from this work. " Le moyen kge n'est pas autre 
 chose que la formation p^nible, lente et sanglante, de tons les el^mens de la 
 civilisation moderne; je dis la formation, et non leur d^veloppement." 
 (P. 27.) 
 * Notes and Illustrations, note B. 
 
38 PROGRESS OF 
 
 from Plato, the favourite of their master, had recourse 
 for the exposition and maintenance of their doctrines to 
 the writings of Aristotle, the least pious of philosophical 
 theists. The Augustinean doctrines of original sin, pre- 
 destination, and grace> little known to the earlier Chris- 
 tian writers, who appear indeed to have adopted oppo- 
 site and milder opinions, were espoused by Augustin 
 himself in his old age ; when by a violent spring from his 
 youthful Manicheism, which divided the sovreignty of the 
 world between two adverse beings, he did not shrink, in 
 his pious solicitude for tracing the power of God in all 
 events, from presenting the most mysterious parts of the 
 moral government of the universe, in their darkest colours 
 and their sternest shape, as articles of faith, the objects of 
 the habitual meditation and practical assent of mankind. 
 The principles of his rigorous system, though not vsith all 
 their legitimate consequences, were taught in schools ; 
 respectfully promulgated rather than much inculcated 
 by the western church (for in the east these opinions 
 seem to have been unknown) ; scarcely perhaps distinct- 
 ly assented to by the majority of the clergy ; and seldom 
 heard of by laymen till the systematic genius and fervid 
 eloquence of Calvin rendered them a popular creed in 
 the most devout and moral portion of the Christian world. 
 Anselm,* the Piedmontese archbishop of Canterbury 
 was the earliest reviver of the Augustinean opinions. 
 Aquinas-j- was their most redoubted champion. To them, 
 however, the latter joined others of a different spirit. 
 Faith, according to him, was a virtue, not in the sense in 
 which it denotes the things believed, but in that in which 
 it signifies the state of mind which leads to right belief. 
 Goodness he regarded as the moving principle of the 
 Divine government; justice as a modification of good- 
 
 • Died in 1109. 
 
 t Born in 1224 , died in 12r9. Notes and lUustrations, note C. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 39 
 
 ness; and, with all his zeal to magnify the sovreignty of 
 God, he yet taught, that though God always wills what 
 is just, nothing is just solely because he wills it. Sco- 
 tus,* the most subtile of doctors, recoils from the Augus- 
 tinean rigour, though he rather intimates than avows his 
 doubts. He was assailed for his tendency towards the 
 Pelagian or Anti-Augustinean doctrines by many oppo- 
 nents, of whom the most famous in his time was Thomas 
 Bradwardine,t archbishop of Canterbury, formerly con- 
 fessor of Edward III., whose defence of predestination 
 was among the most noted works of that age. He reviv- 
 ed the principles of the ancient philosophers, who, from 
 Plato to Marcus Aurelius, taught that error of judgment, 
 being involuntary, is not the proper subject of moral dis- 
 approbation ; which indeed is implied in Acquina's ac- 
 count of faith. J But he apppars to have been the first 
 whose language inclined towards that most pernicious of 
 moral heresies, which represents morality to be founded 
 on will.§ William of Ockham, the most justly celebrated 
 of English schoolmen, went so far beyond this inclination 
 of his master, as to affirm, that " if God had commanded 
 his creatures to hate himself, the hatred of God would 
 ever be the duty of man ;" a monstrous hyperbole, into 
 
 • Born about 1265 ; died at Cologne (where his grave is still shown) in 
 1308. whether he was a native of Dunstun in Northumberland, or of 
 Dunse in Berwickshire,, or of Down in Ireland, was a question long and 
 warmly contested, but which seems to be settled by his biographer, Luke 
 Wadding, who quotes a passage of Scotus's commentary on Aristotle's 
 Metaphysics, where he illustrates his author thus: " As in the definition of 
 St Francis, or St Patrick, man is necessarily presupposed." (Scoti Opera, 
 I. 3.) As Scotus was a Franciscan, the mention of St Patrick seems to show 
 that he was an Irishman. Notes and Illustrations, note D. 
 
 ■[■ Born about 1290 ; died in 1349 ; the contemporary of Chaucer, and 
 probably a fellow student of Wicliffe and Roger Bacon. His principle 
 work was entitled, De Causa Dd contra Pehgium, et de Virtute causarum, 
 Libri III 
 
 t Notes and Illustrations, note E. 
 
 § Notes and Illustrations, note F. 
 
40 PROGHES9 OF 
 
 which he was perhaps betrayed by his denial of the 
 doctrine of general ideas, the pre- existence of which in the 
 the Eternal intellect was commonly regarded as the foun- 
 dation of the immutable nature of morality. The doc- 
 trine of Ockham, which by necessary implication refuses 
 moral attributes to the Deity, and contradicts the exis- 
 tence of a moral government, is practically equivalent to 
 atheism.* As all devotional feelings have moral quali- 
 ties for their sole object ; as no being can inspire love or 
 reverence otherwise than by those qualities which are 
 naturally amiable or venerable, this doctrine would, if 
 men were consistent, extinguish piety, or, in other words, 
 annihilate religion. Yet so astonishing are the contra- 
 dictiotas of human nature, that this most impious of all 
 opinions probably originated in a pious solicitude to mag- 
 nify the sovreignty of God, and to exalt his authority 
 even above his own goodness. Hence we may under- 
 stand its adoption by John Gerson, the oracle of the Coun- 
 cil of Constance, and the great opponent of the spiritual 
 monarchy of the Pope ; a pious mystic, who placed re- 
 ligion in devout feeling.f In further explanation, it may 
 be added, that Gerson was of the sect of the Nominalists, 
 of which Ockham was the founder ; and that he was the 
 more ready to follow his master, because they both cou- 
 rageously maintained the independence of the state on 
 the church, and the authority of the church over the 
 Pope. The general opinion of the schools was, how- 
 ever, that of Aquinas, who, from the native soundness 
 of his own understanding, as well as from the excellent 
 example of Aristotle, was averse from all rash and ex- 
 
 •A passage to this effect, from Ockham, with nearly the same remark, 
 has, since the text was written, been discovered on a re-perusal of Cud- 
 worth's Immutahle Morality. See p. 10. 
 
 f Remitto ad quod Occam de hac materia in Lib. Sentent. dicit, in qua 
 explicatione si rudis judicetur, nescio quid appellabitur subtilitas." (Gkb- 
 SOF de Vita Spirit Op. Ill 14. Hag. Com. 1728. 
 
ETHICAL PIIILOSOrHY. 4! 
 
 treme dogmas on questions which had any relation, how- 
 ever distant, to the duties of life. 
 
 It is very remarkable, though hitherto unobserved, 
 that Aquinas anticipated those controversies respecting 
 perfect disinterestedness in the religious affections which 
 occupied the most illustrious members of his communion* 
 four hundred years after his death ; and that he discuss- 
 ed the like question respecting the other aifections of 
 human nature with a fulness and clearness, and exactness 
 of distinction, and a justness of determination, scarcely 
 surpassed by the most acute of modern philosophers.f 
 It ought to be added, that, according to the most natural 
 and reasonable construction of his words, he allowed to 
 the church a control only over spiritual concerns, and 
 recognised the supremacy of the civil powers in all tem- 
 poral affairs. J 
 
 It has already been stated that the scholastic sys- 
 tem was a collection of dialectical subtilties, contrived 
 for the support of the corrupted Christianity of that age, 
 by a succession of divines, whose extraordinary powers 
 of distinction and reasoning were morbidly enlarged in 
 the long meditation of the cloister, by the exclusion of 
 every other pursuit, and the consequent palsy of every 
 other faculty ; who were cut off from all the materials on 
 which the mind can operate, and doomed for ever to 
 toil in defence of what they must never dare to examine ; 
 to whom their age and their condition denied the means 
 of acquiring literature, of observing nature, or of study- 
 ing mankind. The few in whom any portion of ima- 
 
 • Bossuet and Fenelon. 
 
 j- See AaciwAs. Comm. in Hi. Lih. Sentent. distinctio xxix. qujest. i. art. 
 3. "Utrum Ueus sit super omnia dilig^endus ex charitate." Art. 4. 
 " Utrum in dilectione Dei possit haberi respectus ad aliquam mercedem." 
 (Opej-a, IX. 322, 325.) Some illustrations of this memorable anticipation, 
 which has escaped the research even of the industrious Tenneman, will be 
 found in the Notes and Illustrations, note G. 
 
 if Notes and Illustrations, note H. 
 
 F 
 
42 PROGRESS OF 
 
 gination and sensibility survived this discipline, retired 
 from the noise of debate, to the contemplation of pure 
 and beautiful visions. They were called Mystics. The 
 greater part, driven back on themselves, had no better 
 employment than to weave cobwebs out of the terms of 
 art which they had vainly, though ingeniously, multi- 
 plied. The institution of clerical celibacy, originating 
 in an enthusiastic pursuit of purity, promoted by a mis- 
 take in moral prudence, which aimed at raising religious 
 teachers in the esteem of their fellows, and at concentra- 
 ting their whole minds on professional duties, at last, en- 
 couraged by the ambitious policy of the see of Rome, 
 desirous of detaching them from all ties but her own, had 
 the effect of shutting up all the avenues which Provi- 
 dence has opened for the entrance of social affection and 
 virtuous feeling into the human heart. Though this in- 
 stitution perhaps prevented knowledge from becoming 
 once more the exclusive inheritance of a sacerdotal caste; 
 though the rise of innumerable laymen, of the lowest con- 
 dition, to the highest dignities of the church, was the 
 grand democratical principle of the middle age, and one 
 of the most powerful agents in impelling mankind to- 
 wards a better order ; yet celibacy must be considered 
 as one of the peculiar infelicities of these secluded phi- 
 losophers ; not only as it abridged their happiness, nor 
 even solely, though chiefly, as it excluded them from 
 the school in which the heart is humanized, but also 
 (an inferior consideration, but more pertinent to our pre- 
 sent purpose) because the extinction of these moral feel- 
 ings was as much a subtraction from the moralist's store 
 of facts and means of knowledge, as the loss of sight or 
 of touch could prove to those of the naturalist. 
 
 Neither let it be thought that to have been destitute 
 of letters was to them no more than a want of ornament 
 and a curtailment of gi'atification. Every poem, every 
 history, every oration, every picture, every statue is an 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 43 
 
 experiment on human feeling, the grand object of inves- 
 tigation by the moralist. Every work of genius in 
 every department of ingenious art and polite literature, 
 in proportion to the extent and duration of its sway over 
 the spirits of men, is a repository of ethical facts, of 
 which the moral philosopher cannot be deprived by his 
 own insensibility or by the iniquity of the times, with- 
 out being robbed of the most precious instruments and 
 invaluable materials of his science. Moreover, letters, 
 which are closer to human feeling than science can ever 
 be, have another influence on the sentiments with which 
 the sciences are viewed, on' the activity with which 
 they are pursued, on the safety with which they are 
 preserved, and even on the mode and spirit in which 
 they are cultivated : they are the channels by which 
 ethical science has a constant intercourse with general 
 feeling. As the arts called useful maintain the popular 
 honour of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure 
 the world into the neighbourhood of the sciences of 
 mind and of morals. Whenever the agreeable vehicles 
 of literature do not convey their doctrines to the public, 
 they are liable to be interrupted by the dispersion of a 
 handful of recluse doctors, and the overthrow of their 
 barren and unlamented seminaries. Nor is this all : 
 these sciences themselves suifer as much when they are 
 thus released from the curb of common sense and natural 
 feeling, as the public loses by the want of those aids to 
 right practice, which moral knowledge in its sound state 
 is qualified to aiford. The necessity of being intelligible 
 at least to all persons who join superior understanding 
 to habits of reflection, who are themselves in constant 
 communication with the far wider circle of intelligent 
 and judicious men, which slowly but surely forms gene- 
 ral opinion, is the only effectual check on the natural 
 proneness of metaphysical speculations to degenerate 
 into gaudy dreams or a mere war of words. The dis- 
 
44 PROGRESS OF 
 
 putants who are set free from the wholesome check of 
 sense and feeling, generally carry their dogmatism so 
 far as to rouse the sceptic, who from time to time is pro- 
 voked to look into the flimsiness of their cobwebs, and 
 rushes in with his besom to sweep them and their sys- 
 tems into oblivion. It is true that literature, which 
 thus draws forth moral science from the schools into the 
 world, and recalls h^r from thorny distinctions to her 
 natural alliance with the intellect and sentiments of man- 
 kind, may, in ages and nations otherwise situated, pro- 
 duce the contrary evil of rendering Ethics shallow, 
 declamatory, and inconsistent. Europe at this moment 
 afifords, in different countries, specimens of these oppo- 
 site and alike-mischievous extremes. But we are now 
 concerned only with the temptations and errors of the 
 scholastic age. 
 
 We ought not so much to wonder at the mistakes of 
 men so situated, as that they, without the restraints of 
 the general understanding, and with the clogs of system 
 and establishment, should in so many instances have 
 opened questions untouched by the more unfettered an- 
 cients, and veins of speculation since mistakenly sup- 
 posed to have been first explored in more modern times. 
 Scarcely any metaphysical controversy agitated among 
 recent philosophers was unknown to the schoolmen, un- 
 less we except that which relates to liberty and necessity, 
 which would be an exception of doubtful propriety ; 
 for the disposition to it is clearly discoverable in the 
 disputes of the Thomists and Scotists respecting the 
 Augustinian and Pelagian doctrines,* although restrained 
 from the avowal of legitimate consequences on either 
 side by the theological authority which both parties 
 acknowledged. The Scotists steadily affirmed the 
 blamelessness of erroneous opinion ; a principle which 
 is the only effectual security for conscientious inquiry, 
 
 " Notes and llluatrations, note 1. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 45 
 
 for mutual kindness, and for public quiet. The contro- 
 versy between the Nominalists and realists, treated by 
 some modern writers as an example of barbarous wrang- 
 ling, was in truth an anticipation of that modern dispute 
 which still divides metaphysicians, whether the human 
 mind can form general ideas, and whether the words 
 which are supposed to convey such ideas be not general 
 terms, representing only a number of particular percep- 
 tions ? — questions so far from frivolous, that they deeply 
 concern both the nature of reasoning and the structure 
 of language ; — on which Hobbes, Berkeley, Hume, 
 Stewart, and Tooke, have followed the Nominalists ; 
 and Descartes, Locke, Reid, and Kant, have, with va- 
 rious modifications and some inconsistencies, adopted the 
 doctrine of the Realists.* With the schoolmen appears 
 to have originated the form, though not the substance, 
 of the celebrated maxim, which, whether true or false, 
 is pregnant with systems, " There is nothing in the un- 
 derstanding which was not before in the senses."! Ock- 
 hamj the Nominalist first denied the Peripatetic doc- 
 trine of the existence of certain species (since the time 
 of Descartes called ideas) as the direct objects of per- 
 ception and thought, interposed between the mind and 
 outward objects ; the modern opposition to which by 
 Dr Reid has been supposed to justify the allotment of 
 so high a station to that respectable philosopher. He 
 
 • Locke speaks on this subject inconsistently ; Eeid calls himself a Con- 
 ceptualist ;, Kant uses tei-ms so different that he ought perhaps to be con- 
 sidered as of neither party. Leibnitz, varying in some measure from the 
 general spirit of his speculations, warmly panegyrizes the Nominalists : 
 " Secta Nominalium, omnium inter scholasticos profundissima, et hodiernsc 
 reformatje philosophandi rationi congruentissima. " (Leibit. Op. IV. Pars 
 i.p.59.) 
 
 •j- Nil est in intellectu quod non priusfuit in sensu. 
 
 t " Maximi vir ingenii, et eruditionis pro illo aevo summse, Wilhelmus 
 Occam, Anglus." (Leibn. ibid. p. 60.) The writings of Ockham, which 
 are very rare, I have never seen. I owe my knowledge of them to Tennre- 
 man, who however quotes the words of Ockham, and of his disciple Biel. 
 
46 PROGRESS OF 
 
 taught also that we know nothing of mind but its acts, 
 of which we are conscious. More inclination towards an 
 independent philosophy is to be traced among the school- 
 men than might be expected from their circumstances. 
 Those who follow two guides will sometimes choose for 
 themselves, and may prefer the subordinate on some oc- 
 casions. Aristotle rivalled the church ; and the church 
 herself safely allowed considerable latitude to the philo- 
 sophical reasonings of those who were only heard or 
 read in colleges or cloisters, on condition that they 
 neither impugned her authority, nor dissented from her 
 worship, nor departed from the language of her creeds. 
 The Nominalists were a freethinking sect, who, notwith- 
 standing their defence of kings against th& court of 
 Rome, were persecuted by the civil power. It should 
 not be forgotten that Luther was a Nominalist.* 
 
 If not more remarkable, it is more pertinent to our 
 purpose, that the ethical system of the schoolmen, or, 
 to speak more properly, of Aquinas, as the moral master 
 of Christendom for three centuries, was in its practical 
 part so excellent as to leave little need of extensive 
 change, with the inevitable exception of the connection 
 of his religious opinions with his precepts and counsels. 
 His rule of life is neither lax nor impracticable. His 
 grounds of duty are solely laid in the nature of man, and 
 in the wellbeing of society. Such an intruder as sub- 
 tilty seldom strays into his moral instructions. With a 
 most imperfect knowledge of the Peripatetic writings, he 
 came near the great master, by abstaining, in practical 
 philosophy, from the unsuitable exercise of that faculty 
 of distinction, in which he would probably have shown 
 that he was little inferior to Aristotle if he had been 
 equally unrestrained. His very frequent coincidence 
 
 • " In Martini Lutheri scriptis prioribus amor Nominalium satis elucet, 
 donee in omnes monachos Ecquallter affectus esse coepit." (Lzibk.IV. 
 Parsi. p. 60.) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 47 
 
 with modern moralists is doubtless to be ascribed chiefly 
 to the nature of the subject ; but ip part also to that un- 
 broken succession of teachers and writers, which pre- 
 served the observations contained in what had been long 
 the text-book of the; European schools, after the books 
 themselves had been for ages banished and forgotten. 
 The praises bestowed on Aquinas by every one of the 
 few great men who appear to have examined his writings 
 since the downfal of his power, among whom may be 
 mentioned Erasmus, Grotius and Leibnitz, are chiefly, 
 though not solely, referable to his ethical works.* 
 
 Though the schoolmen had thus anticipated many 
 modern controversies of a properly metaphysical sort, 
 they left untouched most of those questions of ethical 
 theory which were unknown to, or neglected by the 
 ancients. They do not appear to have discriminated be- 
 tween the nature of moral sentiments, and the criterion 
 of moral acts ; to have considered to what faculty of our 
 mind moral approbation is referable ; or to have inquired 
 whether our moral faculty, whatever it may be, is im- 
 planted or acquired. Those who measure only by pal- 
 pable results, have very consistently regarded the me- 
 taphysical and theological controversies of the schools as 
 a mere waste of intellectual power. But the contem- 
 plation of the athletic vigour and versatile skill manifested 
 by the European understanding, at the moment when it 
 emerged from this tedious and rugged discipline, leads, 
 if not to approbation, yet to more qualified censure. 
 What might have been theresult of a different combina- 
 tion of circumstances, is an inquiry which, on a large 
 scale, is beyond human power. We may however ven- 
 ture to say, that no abstract science, unconnected with 
 religion, was likely to be respected in a barbarous age ; 
 and we maybe allowed to doubt whether any knowledge, 
 
 " See especially the excellent Preface of Leibnitz to Nizolius, sect. 37. 
 
48 PROGRESS OF 
 
 dependent directly on experience, and applicable to 
 immediate practice, would have so trained the European 
 mind as to qualify it for that series of inventions, and 
 discoveries, and institutions, which begins with the six- 
 teenth century, and of which no end can now be foreseen 
 but the extinction of the race of man. 
 
 The fifteenth century was occupied by the disputes 
 of the Realists with the Nominalists, in which the scho- 
 lastic doctrine expired. After its close no schoolman of 
 note appeared. The sixteenth may be considered as 
 the age of transition from the scholastic to the modern 
 philosophy. The former, indeed, retained possession of 
 the Universities, and was long after distinguished by all 
 the ensigns of authority. But the mines were already 
 prepared. The revolution in opinion had commenced. 
 The moral writings of the preceding times had generally 
 been commentaries on that part of the Summa Theolo- 
 gise of Aquinas which relates to Ethics. Though these 
 still continued to be published, yet the most remarkable 
 moralists of the sixteenth century indicated the ap- 
 proach of other modes of thinking, by the adoption of 
 the more independent titles of Treatises on Justice and 
 Law. These titles were suggested, and the spirit, 
 contents, and style of the writings themselves, were ma- 
 terially aifected by the improved cultivation of the Ro- 
 man law, by the renewed study of ancient literature, 
 and by the revival of various systems of Greek philosophy, 
 now studied in the original, which at once mitigated and 
 rivalled the scholastic doctors, and while they rendered 
 philosophy more free, re-opened its communications 
 with society and affairs. The speculative theology 
 which had arisen under the French governments of Paris 
 and London in the twelfth century, which flourished in 
 the thirteenth in Italy in the hands of Aquinas, which 
 was advanced in the British islands by Scotus and Ock- 
 ham in the fourteenth, was, in the sixteenth, with una- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 49 
 
 bated acuteness, but with a clearness and elegance un- 
 known before the restoration of letters, cultivated by 
 Spain, in that age the most powerful and magnificent of 
 the European nations. 
 
 Many of these writers treated the law of war and the 
 practice of hostilities in a j uridical form .* Francis Vic- 
 toria, who began to teach at Valladolid in 1525, is said 
 to have first expounded the doctrines of the schools in 
 the language of the age of Leo the Tenth. Dominic 
 Soto,t ^ Dominican, the confessor of Charles V., and the 
 oracle of the council of Trent, to whom that assembly 
 were indebted for much of the precision and even ele- 
 gance for which their doctrinal decrees are not unjustly 
 commended, dedicated his treatise on Justice and Law 
 to Don Carlos; in terms of praise which, used by a writer 
 who is said to have declined the high dignities of the 
 church, lead us to hope that he was unacquainted with 
 the brutish vices of that wretched prince. It is a con- 
 cise and not inelegant compound of the scholastic ethics, 
 which continued to be of considerable authority for more 
 than a century. J Both he and his master Victoria de- 
 serve to be had in everlasting remembrance, for the 
 
 * Many of the separate[dissertations, on points of this nature, are contained 
 In the immense collection entitled Tractaius Tractatuum, published at Ven- 
 ice in 1584, under the patronage of the Roman see. There are three de 
 Bello; one by Lupus of Segovia when Francis I. was prisoner in Spain; 
 another, more celebrated, by Francis Arias, who, on the 11th June 1532, 
 discussed before the College of Cardinals the legitimacy of a war by the 
 Emperor against the Pope. There are two de Pace ; and others dePotestate 
 Regia, de Poena Mortis, &c. The most ancient and scholastic is that of J. 
 de Lignano of Milan de Bello. The above writers are mentioned in the 
 Prolegomena to Grotius deJwre Belli. Pietro Belloni (Counsellor of the 
 Duke of ^xvoy) de Re Militari, tceais his subject with the minuteness of 
 a judge-advocate, and has more modern examples, chiefly Italian, than 
 Grotius. 
 
 ■j- Bom in 1494; died in 1560. (Antoitii Bibliotheca Hispana Nova.) The 
 opinion of Soto's knowledge entertjuned by his contemporaries is expressed 
 in a jingle. Qui sdt Sotum scit totum. 
 
 X Notes and Illustrations, note K. 
 
 G 
 
50 PROGRESS OF 
 
 part which they took on behalf of the natives of America 
 and of Africa, against the rapacity and cruelty of the 
 Spaniards. Victoria pronounced war against the 
 Americans for their vices or for their paganism to be 
 unjust.* Soto was the authority chiefly consulted by 
 Chales V., on occasion of the conference held before him 
 at Valladolid in 1542, between Sepulveda, an advocate 
 of the Spanish colonists, and Las Casas, the champion 
 of the unhappy Americans ; of which the result was a 
 very imperfect edict of reformation in 1543, which, 
 though it contained little more than a recognition of the 
 principle of justice, almost excited a rebellion in Mexico. 
 Sepulveda, a scholar and a reasoner, advanced many 
 maxims which were specious, and in themselves reasona- 
 ble, but which practically tended to defeat even the 
 scanty and almost illusive reform which ensued. Las 
 Casas was a passionate missionary, whose zeal, kindled 
 by the long and near contemplation of cruelty, prompted 
 him to exaggerations of fact and argument ;t yet, with 
 all its errors, it afforded the only hope of preserving the 
 natives of America from extirpation. The opinion of 
 Soto could not fail to be conformable to his excellent prin- 
 ciple, that " there can be no difference between Chris- 
 tians and Pagans, for the law of nations is equal to all 
 nations.''^ To Soto belongs the signal honour of being 
 the first writer who condemned the African slave-trade. 
 " It is affirmed," says he, " that the unhappy Ethiopians 
 are by fraud or force carried away and sold as slaves. 
 If this is true, neither those who have taken them, nor 
 those who purchased them, nor those who hold them 
 in bondage, can ever have a quiet conscience till they 
 
 • " Indis non dehere auferri imperium, ideo qma sunt peccatores, vel 
 ideo quia non sunt Christiani," were the words of Victoria. 
 
 f Notes and Illustrations, note L. 
 
 * "Neque discrepantia (ut reor) est inter Christianos etinfideles, quoniam 
 ius gentium cunctis gentibus xquale est." 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 51 
 
 emancipate them, even if no compensation should be ob- 
 tained."* As the work which contains this memorable 
 condemnation of man-stealing and slavery was the sub- 
 stance of lectures many years delivered at Salamanca, 
 philosophy and religion appear, by the hand of their 
 faithful ministerj to have thus smitten the monsters in 
 their earliest infancy. It is hard for any man of the pre- 
 sent age to conceive the praise which is due to the ex- 
 cellent monks who courageously asserted the rights of 
 those whom they never saw, against the prejudices of 
 their order, the supposed interest of their religion, the 
 ambition of their government, the avarice and pride of 
 their countrymen, and the prevalent opinions of their 
 time. 
 
 Francis Suare2,t a Jesuit, whose voluminous works 
 amount to twenty-four volumes in folio, closes the list of 
 writers of his class . His work on Laws, and God the 
 Lawgiver, may be added to the above treatise of Soto, 
 as exhibiting the most accessible and perspicuous abridg- 
 ment of the theological philosophy in its latest form. 
 
 Grotius, who, though he was the most upright and 
 candid of men, could not have praised a Spanish Jesuit 
 beyond his deserts, calls Suarez the most acute of philo- 
 sophers and divines. J On a practical matter, which 
 may be naturally mentioned here, though in strict me- 
 thod it belongs to another subject, the merit of Suarez 
 is conspicuous. He first saw that international law was 
 composed not only of the simple principles of justice 
 applied to the intercourse between states, but of those 
 usages, long observed in that intercourse by the Euro- 
 pean race, which have since been more exactly distin- 
 guished as the consuetudinary law acknowledged by the 
 
 • Soto de Justitia ei Jure, lib. iv. quxst. ii. art. 2. 
 ■j- Bom in 1538 ; died in 16ir. 
 
 f " Tants subtilitatis philosophum et theologum, ut vix quemquam ha- 
 beat parem." (GaoTii Epiat. apud Astoii. Bibl. Hisp. Nova.) 
 
52 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Christian nations of Europe and America.* On this im- 
 portant point his views are more clear than those of his 
 contemporary Alberico Gentili.f It must even be owned 
 that the succeeding intimation of the same general doc- 
 trine by Grotius is somewhat more dark, perhaps from 
 his excessive pursuit of concise diction 4 
 
 SECTION IV. 
 
 Modern Ethics. 
 
 The introduction to the great work of Grotius,§ com- 
 posed in the first years of his exile, and published at 
 Paris in 1625, contains the most clear and authentic 
 statement of the general principles of morals prevalent 
 in Christendom after the close of the schools, and before 
 the writings of Hobbes had given rise to those ethical 
 controversies which more peculiarly belong to modern 
 times. That he may lay down the fundamental princi- 
 ples of Ethics, he introduces Carneades on the stage as 
 denying altogether the reality of moral distinctions; 
 teaching that law and morality are contrived by power- 
 ful men for their own interest ; that they vary in differ- 
 ent countries, and change in successive ages ; that there 
 
 • "Nunquam enim civitates sunt sibi tam sufficientes quin indigeant mu- 
 tuo juvamine et societate, interdum admajoremutilitatem,interdum ob ne- 
 cessitatem moralem. Hac igitur ratione indigent aliquo jure quo dirigantur 
 et recte ordinentur in hoc genere societatis. Et quamvis magna ex parte 
 hoc fiat per rationem naturalem, non tamen sufficienter et immediate quoad 
 omnia, ideogue spedalia jura poterant usu earundem gentium introduci." 
 (SuAHEz de Legihus, lib. ii. cap. ii. 9. et seq.) 
 
 f Born in the March of Ancona in 1550; died at London in 1608. 
 
 ^ Grotivs de Jure Belli, lib. i. cap. i. sect. 14. 
 
 § Prolegomena. His letter to Vossius, of 1st August 1625, determines 
 the exact period of the publication of this famous work. Gkoth Epiit. 74. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 53 
 
 can be no natural law, since nature lead's men as well as 
 other animals to prefer their own interest to every other 
 object; that therefore there is either no justice, or if 
 there be, it is another name for the height of folly, inas- 
 much as it is a fond attempt to persuade a human being 
 to injure himself for the unnatural purpose of benefiting 
 his fellow- men.* 
 
 To this Grotius answered, that even inferior animals, 
 under the powerful though transient impulse of parental 
 love, prefer their young to their own safety or life ; that 
 gleams of compassion, and, he might have added, of gra- 
 titude and indignation, appear in the human infant long 
 before the age of moral discipline ; that man at the pe- 
 riod of maturity is a social animal, who delights in the so- 
 ciety of his fellow creatures for its own sake, indepen- 
 dently of the help and accommodation which it yields ; 
 that he is a reasonable being, capable of framing and pur- 
 suing general rules of conduct, of which he discerns that 
 the observance contributes to a regular, quiet, and hap- 
 py intercourse between all the members of the commu- 
 nity ; and that from these considerations all the precepts 
 of morality, and all the commands and prohibitions of 
 just law, may be derived by impartial reason. " And 
 these principles," says the pious philosopher, " would 
 have their weight, even if it were to be granted (which 
 could not be conceded without the highest impiety) that 
 there is no God, or that he exercises no moral govern- 
 ment over human aifairs."f Natural law is the dictate 
 
 * The same commonplace pai^adoxes were retailed by the Sophists, whom 
 Socrates is introduced as chastising in the Dialogues of Plato. They were 
 common enough to be put by the historian into the mouth of an ambassa- 
 dor in a public speech. Anfji (fi Tu^nvtee u froKu aj;t»v i^tuo-ri min aKoycv 
 ti ^u/tifsgov . (Thuoid. vi. 85.) 
 
 f " Et haec quidem locum aliquem haberent, etiamsi daretur (quod sine 
 summo scelere dari nequit) non esse Deum, aut non curari ab eo negotia 
 humana." (Proleg.ll.) And in another place, " Jus naturale est diotatum 
 recta rationis, indicans actui alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disconvenien- 
 
54 PROGRESS OF 
 
 of right reason, pronouncing that there is in some actions 
 a moral obligation, and in other actions a moral deformity, 
 arising from their respective suitableness or repugnance 
 to the reasonable and social nature ; and that conse- 
 quently such acts are either forbidden or enjoined by 
 God, the author of nature. Actions which are the sub- 
 ject of this exertion of reason, are in themselves lawful 
 or unlawful, and are therefore as such necessarily com- 
 manded or prohibited by God." 
 
 Such was the state of opinion respecting the first prin- 
 ciples of the moral sciences, when, after an imprisonment 
 of a thousand years in the cloister, they began once more 
 to hold intercourse with the general understanding of 
 mankind. It will be seen in the laxity and confusion, 
 as well as in the prudence and purity of this exposition, 
 that some part of the method and precision of the schools 
 was lost with their endless subtilties and their barbarous 
 language. It is manifest that the latter paragraph is a 
 proposition, not what it affects to be, a definition ; that 
 as a proposition it contains too many terms very necessary 
 to be defined; that the purpose of the excellent writer 
 is not so much to lay down a first principle of raorals, as 
 to exert his unmatched power of saying much in few 
 words, in order to assemble within the smallest compass 
 the most weighty inducements, and the most effectual 
 persuasions to welldoing. 
 
 This was the condition in which ethical theory was 
 found by Hobbes, with whom the present Dissertation 
 should have commenced, if it had been possible to state 
 modern controversies in a satisfactory manner, without 
 a retrospect of the revolutions in opinion from which 
 they in some measure flowed. 
 
 tia cum ipsa natura rationali et sociali, inesse moralem turpitudinem aut ne- 
 cessitatem moralem, ac consequenter ab auctore naturae Deo talem actum 
 aut vetari aut prscipi. Actus de quibus tale exstat dictatum, debiti sunt 
 autilliciti per se, atque ideo a Deo necessaJ-io prscepti aut vetiti intelligun- 
 tur." (Lib. i. cap. i. sect. 10.) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 55 
 
 HOBBES.* 
 
 Thoraas Hobbes of Malmesbury may be numbered 
 among those eminent persons born in the latter half of 
 the sixteenth century, who gave a new character to 
 European philosophy in the succeeding age.f He wa^ 
 one of the late writers and late learners. It was not till 
 he was nearly thirty that he supplied the defects of his 
 early education, by classical studies so successfully pro- 
 secuted, that he wrote well in the Latin then used by 
 his scientific contemporaries; and made such proficiency 
 in Greek as, in his earliest work, the Translation of 
 Thucydides, published when he was forty, to afford a 
 specimen of a version still valued for its remarkable 
 fidelity; though written with a stiffness and constraint 
 very opposite to the masterly facility of his original 
 compositions. It was after forty that he learned the 
 first rudiments of geometry (so miserably defective was 
 his education) ; but yielding to the paradoxical disposi- 
 tion apt to infect those who begin to learn after the na- 
 tural age of commencement, he exposed himself, by ab- 
 surd controversies with the masters of a science which 
 looks down with scorn on the Sophist. A considerable 
 portion of his mature age was passed on the Continent, 
 where he travelled as tutor to two successive Earls of 
 Devonshire; a family with whom he seems to have pass- 
 ed near half a century of his long life. In France his 
 reputation, founded at that time solely on personal inter- 
 course, became so great, that his observations on the 
 
 * Born in 1588; died in 1679. 
 
 ■j- Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Grotlus. The writings of the first are 
 atill as delightful and wonderful as they ever were, and his authority will 
 have no end. Descartes forms an era in the history of Metaphysics, of 
 Physics, of Mathematics. The controversies excited by Grotius have long 
 ceased, but the powerful influence of his works will be doubted by those 
 only who are unacquainted with the disputes of the seventeenth century. 
 
56 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Meditations of Descartes were published in the works 
 of that philosopher, together with those of Gassendi and 
 Arnauld.* It was about his sixtieth year that he be- 
 gan to publish those philosophical writings which contain 
 his peculiar opinions; — 'Which set the understanding of 
 Europe into general motion, and stirred up controversies 
 among metaphysicians and moralists, not even yet deter- 
 mined. At the age of eighty-seven he had the boldness 
 to publish metrical versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, 
 which the greatness of his name, and the singularity of 
 the undertaking, still render objects of curiosity, if not 
 of criticism. He owed his influence to various causes; 
 at the head of which may be placed that genius for 
 system, which, though it cramps the growth of know- 
 ledge,! perhaps finally atones for that mischief, by the 
 zeal and activity which it rouses among followers and 
 opponents, who discover truth by accident, when in 
 pursuit of weapons for their warfare. A system which 
 attempts a task so hard as that of subjecting vast pro- 
 vinces of human knowledge to one or two principles, if 
 it presents some striking instances of conformity to su- 
 perficial appearances, is sure to delight the framer; and, 
 for a time, to subdue and captivate the student too en- 
 tirely for sober reflection and rigorous examination. 
 The evil does not indeed very frequently recur. Per- 
 haps Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant, are the only persons 
 who united in the highest degree the great faculties of 
 
 • Theprevalenceoffreethinking under Louis XIII., to a far greater de- 
 gree than it was avowed, appears not only from the complaints of Mersenne 
 and of Grotius, but from the disclosures of Guy Patin; who, in his Letters, 
 describes his own conversations with Gassendi and Naud^, so as to leave no 
 doubt of their opinions. 
 
 t " Another error," says the Master of Wisdom, " is the over-early and 
 peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods, from which 
 time commonly receives small augmentation." (Bacoh's Mvancement of 
 Learning, book i. ) " Method," says he, " canying a show of total and 
 perfect knowledge, has a tendency to generate acquiescence." What 
 pregnant words ! 
 
ETHICAL P^HILOSOPHY. 57 
 
 comprehension and discrimination which compose the 
 Xrenius pf System. Of the three, Aristotle alone could 
 throw it oif where it was glaringly unsuitable ; and it is 
 deserving of observation, that the reign of system seems, 
 from these examples, progressively to shorten in pro- 
 portion as reason is cultivated and knowledge advances. 
 But, in the first instance, consistency passes for truth. 
 When principles in some instances have proved suffi- 
 cient tojgive an unexpected explanation of facts, the de- 
 lighted reader is content to accept as true all other de- 
 ductions from the principles. Specious premises being 
 assumed to be true, nothing more can be required than 
 logical inference. Mathematical forms pass current as 
 the equivalent of mathematical certainty. The unwary 
 admirer is satisfied with the completeness and symmetry 
 of the plan of his house — unmindful of the need of ex- 
 amining the firmness of the foundation and the soundness 
 of the materials. The system-maker, like the conqueror, 
 long dazzles and overawes the world; but when their 
 sway is past, the vulgar herd, unable to measure their 
 astonishing faculties, take revenge by trampling on fallen 
 greatness. 
 
 The dogmatism of Hobbes was, however unjustly, 
 one of the sources of his fame. The founders of systems 
 deliver their novelties with the undoubting spirit of 
 discoverers; and their followers are apt to be dogmatical, 
 because they can see nothing beyond their own ground. 
 It might seem incredible, if it were not established by 
 the experience of all ages, that those who differ most 
 from the opinions of their fellow men, are most confident 
 of the truth of their own. But it commonly requires 
 an overweening conceit of the superiority of a man^s own 
 judgment, to make him espouse very singular notions ; 
 and when he has once embraced them, they are endear- 
 ed to him by the hostility of those whom he contemns as 
 the prejudiced vulgar. The temper of Hobbes must 
 H 
 
58 PROGRESS OF 
 
 h^ve been originally haughty. The advanced agfe at 
 which he published his obnoxious opinions, rendered 
 hini more impatient of the acrimonious opposition which 
 they necessarily provoked; until at length a strong sense 
 of the injustice of the punishment impending over his 
 head, for the publication of what he believed to be 
 ttuth, co-operated with the peevishness and timidity of 
 hisyiears, to render him the most imperious and morose 
 of dogmatists. His dogmatism has indeed one quality 
 more offensive than that of most others. Propositions 
 the most adverse to the opinions of mankind, and the 
 most abhorrent from their feelifigs, are introduced into 
 the course of his argument with mathematical coldness. 
 He presents them as demonstrated conclusions, without 
 deigning to explain to his fellow- creatures how they all 
 happened to believe the opposite absurdities ; without 
 even the compliment of once observing' how widely his 
 distoveries were at variance with the most ancient and 
 universal judgments of the human understanding. The 
 same quality in Spinoza indicates a recluse's ignorance 
 of the World. In Hobbes it is the arrogance: of a man 
 who knows mankind and despises them. 
 
 A permanent foundation of his fame' consists in his 
 admirable style, which seems to be the very perfection 
 Of didactic language. Short, clear, precisej, pithy, his 
 langu%e never has more than one meaning, which never 
 requires a second thought to find. iBy the help of his 
 exact method, it fakes so firm a hold on the mind, that 
 it will not allow attention to slacken. His little tract on 
 Human JVature has Scarcely an ambiguous or a needless 
 word. He has so great a power of always choosing' the 
 most significant term, that he never is reduced to the 
 poor expedient of using many in its stead. He had so 
 thoroughly studied the genius of the language, and knew 
 so well to steer between pedantry and vulgarity, that 
 two centuries haye not superannuated probably more 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 3y 
 
 than a dozen of his words. His expressions are so 
 luminous, that he is clear without the help of illustration. 
 Perhaps no writer of any age or nation, on subjects so 
 abstruse, has manifested an equal power of engraving 
 his thoughts on the mind of his readers. He seems 
 never to have taken a word for ornament or pleasure ; 
 and he deals with eloquence and poetry as the natural 
 philosopher who explains the mechanism of children's 
 toys, or deigns to contrive them. Yet his style so stimu- 
 lates attention, that it never tires ; and to those who ai-e 
 acquainted with the subject, appears to have as much 
 spirit as can be safely blended with reason. He com- 
 presses his thoughts so unaffectedly, and yet so tersely, 
 as to produce occasionally maxims which excite the 
 same agreeable surprise with wit, and have become a 
 sort of philosophical proverbs 5 the success of which he 
 partly owed to the suitableness of such forms of express- 
 ion to his dictatorial nature. His words have such an 
 appearance of springing from his thoughts, as to im- 
 press on the reader a strong opinion of his originality, 
 and indeed to prove that he was not conscious of bor- 
 rowing; though conversation with Gassendi must have 
 influenced his mind ; and it is hard to believe that his 
 coincidence with Ockham should have been purely acci- 
 dental, on points so important as the denial of general 
 ideas, the reference of moral distinctions to superior 
 power, and the absolute thraldom of religion under the 
 civil power, which he seems to have thought necessary, 
 to maintain that independence of the state on the church 
 with which Ockham had been contented. 
 
 His philosophical writings might be read without re- 
 minding any one that the author was more than an in- 
 tellectual machine. They never betray a feeling except 
 that insupportable arrogance which looks down on men 
 as a lower species of beings; whose almost unanimous 
 hostility is so far from shaking the firmness of his 
 
60 PROGRESS OF 
 
 conviction, or even ruffling the calmness of his contempt, 
 that it appears too petty a circumstance to require ex- 
 planation, or even to merit notice. Let it not be for- 
 gotten, that part of his renown depends on the applica- 
 tion of his admirable powers to expound truth when he 
 meets it. This great merit is conspicuous in that part 
 of his treatise of Human JYature which relates to the 
 percipient and reasoning faculties. It is also very re- 
 markable in many of his secondary principles on the 
 subject of government and law, which, while the first 
 principles are false and dangerous, are as admirable for 
 truth as for his accustomed and unrivalled propriety of 
 expression.* In many of these observations he even 
 shows a disposition to soften his paradoxes, and to con- 
 form to the common sense of mankind. f 
 
 It was with perfect truth observed by my excellent 
 friend Mr Stewart, that " the ethical principles of Hobbes 
 are completely interwoven with his political system."! 
 He might have said, that the whole of Hobbes's system, 
 moral , religious, and in part philosophical, depended on 
 his political scheme ; not indeed logically, as conclusions 
 depend on premises, but (if the word may be excused) 
 psychologically, as the formation of one opinion may be 
 influenced by a disposition to adapt it to previously 
 cherished opinions. The translation of Thucydides, as 
 
 • See De. Corpore Politico, Parti, chap. ii. ill. Iv. a^nd Leviathan, part i. 
 chap. xiv. XV. for remarks of this sort, full of sagacity. 
 
 ■j- "The laws of nature are immutable and eternal; for injustice, irigrati- 
 tude, arrogance, pride, iniquity^ acception of persons, and tlie rest, can 
 never be made lawful. For it can never be that wai- shall preserve life, and 
 peace destroy it." (Leviathan, Parti, chap. xv. See also Part ii. chap, 
 xxvi. xxviii. on Laws, and on Punishments.) 
 
 + See Dissertation First, p. 42. The political state of England is indeed 
 said by himself to have occasioned his first philosophical publication. 
 Nascitur interea scelus execrabile belli. 
 
 • • Horreo spectans, 
 
 Meque ad dilectam confero Lutetiam, 
 
 i'ostque duos annos edo De Cive Libellum. ( Vita Hobbesii. ) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 61 
 
 he himself boasts, was published to show the evils of 
 popular government.* Men he represented as being 
 originally equal, and having an equal right to all things, 
 but as being taught by reason to sacrifice this right for 
 the advantages of peace, and to submit to a common au- 
 thority, which can preserve quiet, only by being the 
 sole depositary of force, and must therefore be absolute 
 and unlimited. The supreme authority cannot be suffi- 
 cient for its purpose, unless it be wielded by a single 
 hand ; nor even then, unless his absolute power extends 
 over religion, which may prompt men to discord by the 
 fear of an evil greater than death. The perfect state of 
 a community, according to him, is where law prescribes 
 the religion and morality of the people, and where the 
 will of an absolute sovereign is the sole fountain of law. 
 Hooker had inculcated the simple truth, that " to live 
 by one man's will, is the cause of many men's misery." 
 Hobbes embraced the daring paradox, that to live by 
 one man's will is the only means of all men's happiness. 
 Having thus rendered religion the slave of every human 
 tyrant, it was an unavoidable consequence, that he should 
 be disposed to lower her character, and lessen her power 
 over men ; that he should regard atheism as the most ef- 
 fectual instrument of preventing rebellion ; at least that 
 species of rebellion which prevailed in his time, and had 
 excited his alarms. The formidable alliance of religion 
 with liberty haunted his mind, and urged him to the 
 bold attempt of rooting out both these mighty principles ; 
 which, when combined with interests and passions, when 
 debased by impure support, and provoked by unjust re- 
 sistance, have indeed the power of fearfully agitating so - 
 
 • The speech of Euphemus, in the 6th book of that historian, and the 
 conference between the ministers irom_Athens and the Melean chiefs, in the 
 5th book, exhibit an undisguised Hobhism, which was veiy dramatically put 
 into the mouth of Athenian statesmen at a time when, as we learn from 
 Plato and Aristophanes, it was preached by the Sophists. 
 
62 PROGRESS OF 
 
 dety ; but which are, nevertheless> in their own nature, 
 and as far as they are unmixed and undisturbed, the 
 fountains of justice, of order, of peace, as well as of those 
 moral hopes, and of those glorious aspirations after 
 higher excellence, which encourage and exalt the soul in 
 its passage through misery and depravity. A Hobbist is 
 the only consistent persecutor ; for he alone considers 
 himself as bound, by whatever conscience he has remain- 
 ing, to conform to the religion of the sovereign. He 
 claims from others no more than he is himself ready to 
 yield to any master ;* while the religionist who per- 
 secutes a member of another communion, exacts the 
 sacrifice of conscience and sincerity, though professing 
 that, rather than make it himself, he is prepared to die. 
 
 KEMARKS. 
 
 The fundamental errors on which the ethical system 
 of Hobbes is built are not peculiar to him ; though he 
 has stated them with a bolder precision, and placed them 
 in a more conspicuous station in the van of his main force, 
 than any other of those who have either frankly avowed 
 or tacitly assumed them, from the beginning of specula- 
 tion to the present moment. They may be shortly stated 
 as follows. 
 
 1. The first and most inveterate of these errors is, that 
 
 * Spinoza adopted precisely the same first principle with Hobbes, that 
 all men have a natural right to all things. ( Tractatus Politicus, cap . ii. sect. 
 3.) He even avows the absurd and detestable maxim, that states are not 
 bound to observe their treaties longer than the interest or danger which first 
 formed the treaties continues. But on the internal constitution of states he 
 embraces opposite opinions. Servitutis enim non pacts interest omnem po- 
 testatem ad unum transferre. {Ibid. cap. vi. sect. 4. ) Limited monarchy 
 he considers as the only tolerable example of that species of government. 
 An aristocracy nearly approaching to the Dutch system during the suspen- 
 sion of the Stadtholdership, he seems to prefer. He speaks favourably of 
 democracy, butthe chapter on thatsubjectisleftunfinished. "NuUaplane 
 teihpla urbium sumptibus sedificanda, nee jura de opinionibus statuenda." 
 He was the first l^publican atheist of modern times, and probably the ear- 
 liest irreligious opponent of an ecclesiastical establishment. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 63 
 
 he does not distinguish thought frofli feeling, or rather 
 that he in. express words confounds them. The mere 
 perception of an object, according to him, differs from 
 the pleasure or pain which that perception may occa- 
 sion, no otherwise than as they affect different organs of 
 the bodily frame. The action of the mind in perceiv- 
 ing or conceiving an object is precisely the same with 
 that of feeling the agreeable or disagreeable.* The 
 necessary result of this original confusion is, to extend 
 the laws of the intellectual part of our nature over that 
 other part of it, hitherto without any adequate name, 
 which feels, and desires, and loves, and hopes, and wills. 
 In consequence of this long confusion, or want of dis- 
 tinction, it has happened that, while the simplest act of 
 the merely intellectual part has many names, (such as 
 sensation, perception, impression, &c.) the correspon- 
 dent act of the other not less important portion of man is 
 not denoted by a technical term in philosophical systems ; 
 nor by a convenient, word in common language. Sen- 
 sation has another more common sense. Emotion is 
 too warm for a generic term. Feeling has some degree 
 of the same fault, besides its liability to confusion with 
 the sense of touch. Pleasure and pain represent only 
 two properties of this act, which render its repetition 
 the object of desire or aversion; which last states of 
 
 • This doctrine is explained hy \a& Ax&ct on Human Nature, c. vii. — x. 
 " Conception is a motion in some internal substance of the head, which pro- 
 ceeding' to the heart, when it helpeth the motion there, it is called pleasure,- 
 when it wjeakeneth or hindereth the motion, it is called pain." The samp 
 matter is handled more cursorily, agreeably to the practical purpose of the 
 work, in Leviathan, Part i. chap. vi. These passages are here referred to 
 as proofs of the statement in the text. With the materialism of it we have 
 here no concern. If the multiplied suppositions were granted, we should 
 not advance one step towards understanding what they profess to explain. 
 The first four words are as unmeaning as if one were to say that greatness is 
 very loud. It is obvious that many motions which promote the motion of 
 the heart are extremely painful. 
 
64 PKOGRESS OF 
 
 iTiind presuppose the act. Of these words, emotioti 
 seems to be the least objectionable, since it has no abso- 
 lute double meaning, and does not require so much vigi- 
 lance in the choice of the accompanying words as would 
 be necessary if we were to prefer feeling ; which, how- 
 ever, being a more familiar word, may, with due caution, 
 be also sometimes employed. Every man who attends 
 to the state of his own mind will acknowledge, that these 
 words, emotion and. feeling, thus used, are perfectly sim- 
 ple, and as incapable of further explanation by words as 
 sight or hearing ; which may indeed be rendered into 
 synonymous words, but never can be defined by any 
 more simple or more clear. Reflection will in like man- 
 ner teach that perception, reasoning, and judgment may 
 be conceived to exist without being followed by emotion. 
 Some men hear music without gratification : one may 
 distinguish a taste without being pleased or displeased by 
 it ; or at least the relish or disrelish is often so slight, 
 without lessening the distinctness of the sapid qualities^ 
 that the distinction of it from the perception cannot be 
 doubted. 
 
 The multiplicity of errors which have flowed into 
 moral science from this original confusion is very great. 
 They have spread over many schools of philosophy; and 
 many of them are prevalent to this day. Hence the 
 laws of the understanding have been applied to the 
 affections ; virtuous feelings have been considered as 
 just reasoning ; evil passions represented as mistaken 
 judgments ; and it has been laid down as a principle, that 
 the will always follows the last decision of the practical 
 intellect.* 
 
 2. By this great error, Hobbes was led to represent 
 all the variety of the desires of men, as being only so 
 many instances of objects deliberately and solely pursued; 
 
 • " Voluntas semper scquituv ultimum indicium intellectus practici." 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 65 
 
 because they were the means, and at the time perceived 
 to be so, of directly or indirectly procuring organic 
 gratification to the individual.* The human passions 
 are described as if tTiey reasoned accurately, deliberated 
 coolly, and calculated exactly. It is assumed that, in 
 performing these operations, there is and can be no act 
 of life in which a man does not bring distinctly before his 
 eyes the pleasure which is to accrue to himself from the 
 act. From this single and simple principle, all human 
 conduct may, according to him, be explained and even 
 foretold. 
 
 The true laws of this part of our nature (so totally 
 different from those of the percipient part) were, by this 
 grand mistake, entirely withdrawn from notice. Simple 
 as the observation is, it seems to have escaped not only 
 Hobbes, but many, perhaps most philosophers, that our 
 desires seek a great diversity of objects; that the attain- 
 ment of these objects is indeed followed by, or rather 
 called pleasures ; but that it could not be so, if the ob- 
 jects had not been previously desired. Many besides 
 him have really represented self as the ultimate object 
 of evCry action ; but none ever so hardily thrust forward 
 the selfish system in its harshest and coarsest shape. The 
 mastery which he shows over other metaphysicalsubjects, 
 forsakes him on this. He does not scruple, for the sake of 
 this system, to distort facts of which all men are conscious; 
 and to do violence to the langitage in which the result 
 of their uniform experience is conveyed. " Acknowledg- 
 ment of power is called honour."t His explanations 
 are frequently suf&eient confutations of the doctrine 
 which required them. " Pity is the imagination of future 
 calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense (obser- 
 
 • See the passages before quoted, 
 
 ■j- Hxtman Nature, chap.viii. The ridiculous explanation of the admiration 
 of personal beauty, "as a sign of power generative," shows the difficulties 
 to which this extraordinary man was reduced by a false system. 
 I 
 
66 PROGRESS OF 
 
 vation) of another man's calamity." " Laughter is oc- 
 casioned by sudden glory in our eminence, or in com- 
 parison with the infirmity of others." Every man who 
 ever wept or laughed, may determine whether this be 
 a true account of the state of his mind on either occasion. 
 " Love is a conception of his need of the one person de- 
 sired ;" a definition of love, which, as it excludes kind- 
 ness, might perfectly well comprehend the hunger of a 
 cannibal, provided that it were not too ravenous to ex- 
 clude choice. " Good- will, or charity, which containeth 
 the natural affection of parents to their children, consists 
 in a man's conception that he is able not only to accom- 
 plish his own desires, but to assist other men in theirs:" 
 from which it follows, as the pride of power is felt in 
 destroying as well as in saving men, that cruelty and 
 kindness are the same passion.* 
 
 Such were the expedients to which a man of the 
 highest class of understanding was driven, in order to 
 evade the admission of the simple and evident truth, 
 that there are in our nature perfectly disinterested pas- 
 sions, which seek the wellbeing of others as their object 
 and end, without looking beyond it to self, or pleasure, 
 or happiness. A proposition, from which such a man 
 could attempt to escape only by such means, may be 
 strongly presumed to be true. 
 
 3. Hobbes having thus struck the affections out of his 
 map of human nature, and having totally misunderstood 
 (as will appear in a succeeding part of this Dissertation) 
 the nature even of the appetites, it is no wonder that we 
 should find in it not a trace of the moral sentiments. Moral 
 goodf he considers merely as consisting in the signs of a 
 
 • Ibid. chap. ix. I forbear to quote the passage on Platonic love, which 
 immediately follows. But, considering Hobbes's blameless and honourable 
 character, that passage is perhaps the most remarkable instance of'tlie 
 shifts to which his selfish system reduced him. 
 
 t Which he calls ihe: pulchrum, for want, as he says, of an English word 
 to express it. {Leviaihan, Part i, c. vl. ) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 67 
 
 power to produce pleasure ; and repentance is no more 
 than regret at having missed the way: so that, according 
 to this system, a disinterested approbation of, and rever- 
 ence for virtue, are no more possible than disinterested 
 affections towardsour fellow creatures. There is no sense 
 of duty, no compunction for our own offences, no indig- 
 nation against the crimes of others, unless they affect our 
 own safety ; no secret cheerfulness shed over the heart 
 by the practice of welldoing. From his philosophical 
 writings it would be impossible to conclude that there 
 are in itian a set of emotions, desires, and aversions, of 
 which the sole and final objects are the voluntary actions 
 and habitual dispositions of himself and of all other vol- 
 untary agents ; which are properly called Moral Senti- 
 ments; and which, though they vary more in degree, 
 and depend more on cultivation, than some other parts 
 of human nature, are as seldom as most of them found to 
 be entirely wanting. 
 
 4. A theory of man which comprehends in its expla- 
 nations neither the social affections, nor the moral senti- 
 ments, must be owned to be suflBlciently defective. It is 
 a consequence, or rather a modification of it, that Hob- 
 bes should constantly represent the deliberate regard to 
 personal advantage, as the only possible motive of human 
 action ; and that he should altogether disdain to avail 
 himself of those refinements of the selfish scheme which 
 allow the pleasures of benevolence and morality, them- 
 selves, to be a most important part of that interest which 
 reasonable beings pursue. 
 
 5. Lastly, though Hobbes does in effect acknowledge 
 the necessity of morals to society, and the general coinci- 
 dence of individual with public interest — truths so pal- 
 pable that they never have been excluded from any 
 ethical system — he betrays his utter want of moral sensi- 
 bility by the coarse and odious form in which he has 
 presented the first of these great principles; and his 
 
68 PROGRESS OF 
 
 view of both, leads him most strongly to support that 
 common and pernicious error of moral reasoners, that a 
 perception of the tendency of good actions to preserve 
 the being and promote the wellbeing of the community, 
 and a sense of the dependence of our own happiness 
 upon the general security, either are essential constitu- 
 ents of our moral feelings, or are ordinarily mingled with 
 the most-effectual motives to right conduct. 
 
 The court of Charles II. were equally pleased with 
 Hobbes's poignant brevity, and his low estimate of 
 hurtian motives. His ethical epigrams became the cur- 
 rent coin of profligate wits. Sheffield, Duke of Buck- 
 inghamshire, who represented the class still more per- 
 fectly in his morals than in his faculties, has expressed 
 their opinion in verses, of which one line is good enough 
 to be quoted. 
 
 Fame bears no fruit till the vain planter dies. 
 
 Dryden speaks of *' the philosopher and poet (for such 
 is the condescending term employed) of Malmesbury," 
 as resembling Lucretius in haughtiness. But Lucretius, 
 though he held many of the opinions of Hobbes, had the 
 sensibility as well as genius of a poet. His dogmatism 
 is full of enthusiasm ; and his philosophical theory of so- 
 ciety discovers occasionally as much tenderness as can be 
 shown without reference to individuals. He was a Hob- 
 bist in only balf his nature. 
 
 The moral and political system of Hobbes was a palace 
 of ice, transparent, exactly proportioned, majestic, ad- 
 mired by the unwary as a delightful dwelling ; but 
 gradually undermined by the central warmth of human 
 feeling, before it was thawed into muddy water by the 
 sunshine of true philosophy. 
 
 When Leibnitz, in the beginning of the eighteenth 
 century, reviewed the moral writers of modern times, 
 his penetrating eye saw only two who were capable of 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 69 
 
 reducing morals and jurisprudence to a science. " So 
 great an enterprise," says he " might have been executed 
 by the deep-searching genius of Hobbes, if he had not 
 set out from evil principles ; or by the judgment and 
 learning of the incomparable Grotius, if his powers had 
 not been scattered over many subjects, and his mind 
 distracted by the cares of an agitated life."* Perhaps in 
 this estimate, admiration of the various and excellent 
 qualities of Grotius may have overrated his purely philo- 
 sophical powers, great as they unquestionably were- 
 Certainly the failure of Hobbes was owing to no inferior- 
 ity in strength of intellect. Probably his fundamental 
 errors may be imputed, in part, to the faintness of his 
 moral sensibilities, insufficient to make him familiar with 
 those sentiments and affections which can be known only 
 by being felt; — a faintness perfectly compatible with 
 his irreproachable life, but which obstructed, and at 
 last obliterated, the only channel through which the most 
 important materials of ethical science enter into the 
 mind. , 
 
 Against Hobbes, says Warburton, the whole church 
 militant took up arms. The answers to the Leviathan 
 would form a library. But the far greater part have 
 followed the fate of all controversial pamphlets. Sir 
 Robert Filmer was jealous of any rival theory of servi- 
 tude. Harrington defended liberty, and Clarendon the 
 church, against a common enemy. His philosophical 
 antagonists were, Cumberland, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, 
 Clarke, Butler, and Hutcheson. Though the last four 
 writers cannot be considered as properly polemics, their, 
 labours were excited, and their doctrines modified, by 
 the stroke from a vigorous arm which seemed to shake 
 
 * " Et tale aliquid potuisset velab incomparabilis Grotii judicio et doc- 
 trina, vel a profufldo Hobbii ingenio praestari; irisi ilium multa distraxissent; 
 hie vero prava constituisset piincipia." (Leibkitii Epist ad Molanum ; 
 IV. Pars iii. p. 276.) 
 
70 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Ethics to its foundation. They lead us far into the eigh- 
 teenth century; and their works, occasioned by the doc- 
 trines of Hobbes, sowed the seed of the ethical writing 
 of Hume, Smith, Price, Kant^ and Stewart; in a less de- 
 gree, also, of those of Tucker and Paley : not to men- 
 tion Mandeville, the buffoon and sdphister of the ale- 
 house; or Helvetius, an ingenious but flimsy writer, the 
 low and loose moralist of the vain, the selfish, and the 
 sensual. 
 
 SECTION V. 
 
 Controversies concerning the Moral Faculties and the 
 Social Affections. 
 
 CUMBERLAND CUDWORTH — CLARKE SHAFTESBURY 
 
 BOSSUET FENELON LEIBNITZ — MALEBRANCHE 
 
 — EDWARDS— BUFFIER. 
 
 Dr Richard Cumberland,* raised to the see of 
 Peterborough after the revolution of 1688, was the only 
 professed answerer of Hobbes. His work on the Law 
 of JVature still retains a place on the shelf, though 
 not often on the desk. The philosopliical epigrams of 
 Hobbes form a contrast to the verbose, prolix, and 
 languid diction of his answerer. The forms of scho- 
 lastic argument serve more to encumber his style than 
 to insure his exactness. But he has substantial me- 
 rits. He justly observes, that all men can only be 
 said to have had originally a right to all things> in a 
 sense in which right has the same meaning with power. 
 He shows that Hobbes is at variance with himself; inas- 
 
 • Born in 1632, died in inS. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 71 
 
 much as the dictates of right reason, which, by his own 
 statement, teach men for their own safety to forego tlie 
 exercise of that right, and which he calls Laws of JSTa- 
 ture, are coeval with it ; and that mankind perceive the 
 moral limits of their power as clearly and as soon as they 
 are conscious of its existence. He enlarges the intima- 
 tions of Grotius on the social feelings, which prompt 
 men to the pleasures of pacific intercourse, as certainly 
 as the apprehension of danger and destruction urges 
 them to avoid hostility. The fundamental principle of 
 his ethics is, that " the greatest benevolence of every 
 rational agent to all others is the happiest state of each 
 individual, as well as of the whole."* The happiness 
 accruing to each man from the observance and cultiva- 
 tion of benevolence, he considers as appended to itby the 
 supreme Ruler; through which he sanctions it as his law, 
 and reveals it to the mind of every reasonable creature. 
 Froni this principle he deduces the rules of morality, 
 which he calls the Laws of Mature. The surest, or rather 
 only mark that they are the commandments of God, 
 is, that their observance promotes the happiness of man: 
 for that reason alone could they be imposed by that Being 
 whose essence is love. As our moral faculties must to us 
 be the measure of all moral excellence, he infers that the 
 moral attributes of the Divinity must in their nature be 
 only a transcendent degree of those qualities which we 
 most approve, love, and revere, in those moral agents with 
 whom we are familiar.f He had a momentary glimpse 
 of the possibility that some human actions might be per- 
 formed with a view to the happiness of others, without 
 any consideration of the pleasure reflected back on our- 
 selves. J But it is too faint and transient to be worthy 
 
 • CuMpERiAiTD (feie^'SiM iVa<«ra!, cap. i. sect. 12,firstpublishedinLon- 
 don, 1672, and then so popular as to be reprinted at Lubeck in 1683. 
 ■j- Ibid. cap. V. sect. 19. 
 i Ibid. cap. ii. sect 20. 
 
73 PROGRESS OF 
 
 of observation, otherwise than as a new proof how often 
 great truths must flit before the understanding, before 
 they can be firmly and finally held in its grasp. His 
 only attempt to explain the nature of the moral faculty, 
 is the substitution of practical reason (a phrase of the 
 schoolmen, since become celebrated from its renewal by 
 Kant) for right reason;* and his definition of the first, 
 as that which points out the ends and means of action. 
 Throughout his whole reasoning, he adheres to the ac- 
 customed confusion of the quality which renders actions 
 virtuous, with the sentiments excited in us by the con- 
 templation of them. His language on the identity of gen- 
 eral and individual interest is extremely vague ; though 
 it be, as he says, the foundation-stone of the Temple of 
 Concord among men. 
 
 It is little wonder that Cumberland should not have 
 disembroiled this ancient and established confusion, since 
 Leibnitz himself, in a passage where he reviews the the- 
 ories of morals which had gone before him, has done his 
 utmost to perpetuate it. "It is a question," says he, 
 " whether the preservation of human society be the first 
 principle of the law of nature. This our author denies, 
 in opposition to Grotius, who laid down sociability to be 
 so; to Hobbes, who ascribed that character to mutual 
 fear ; and to Cumberland, who held that it was mutual 
 benevolence ; which are all three only different names 
 for the safety and welfare of society."t Here the great 
 
 * whoever determines his judgment and his will by right reason, must 
 agree with all others who judge according to right reason in the same mat- 
 ter." (^Ibid. cap- ii. sect 8. ) This is in one sense only a particular instance 
 of the identical proposition, that two things which agree with a third thing 
 must agree with each other in that in which they agree with the third. 
 But the difficulty entirely consists in the particular third thing here intro- 
 duced, namely, " right reason," the nature of which not one step is made to 
 explain. The position is curious, t\s coinciding with " the universal cate- 
 gorical imperative," adopted as a first principle by Kant. 
 
 f Leibit. IV. Pars iii. p. 271. The unnamed work which occasioned 
 these remarks (perhaps one of Thomasius) appeared in 1699. How long 
 after this Leibnitz's Dissertation was written, does not appear. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 73 
 
 philosopher considered benevolence or fear, two feelings 
 of the human mind, to be the first principles of the law 
 of nature ; in the same sense in which the tendency of 
 certain actions to the well being of the community may 
 be so regarded. The confusion, however, was then 
 common to him with many, as it even now is with most. 
 The comprehensive view was his own. He perceives 
 the close resemblance of these various and even conflict- 
 ing opinions, in that important point of view in which 
 they relate to the effects of moral and immoral actions 
 on the general interest. The tendency of virtue to pre- 
 serve amicable intercourse was enforced by Grotius ; its 
 tendency to prevent injury was dwelt on by Hobbes; its 
 tendency to promote an interchange of benefits was in- 
 culcated by Cumberland. 
 
 cOdworth.* 
 
 Cud WORTH, one of the eminent men educated or pro- 
 moted in the English Universities during the Puritan 
 rule, was one of the most distinguished of the Latitudi- 
 narian or Arminian party who came forth at the Resto- 
 ration, with a love of liberty imbibed from their Calvi- 
 nistic masters, as well as from the writings of antiquity, 
 yet tempered by the experience of their own agitated 
 age ; and with a spirit of religious toleration more im- 
 partial and mature, though less systematic and professed- 
 ly comprehensive, than that of the Independents, the first 
 sect who preached that doctrine. Taught by the errors 
 of their time, they considered religion as consisting, not 
 in vain efforts to explain unsearchable mysteries, but in 
 purity of heart exalted by pious feelings, and manifested 
 by virtuous conduct.f The government of the church 
 
 • Bom in 161/; died in 1688. 
 
 f See the beautiful account of them by Hurnet, {ffist, I. 321, Oxford 
 edit. 1823) who was himself one of the most distinguished of this excellent 
 body; with whom may be classed, notwithstanding some shades of doctrinal 
 
 K 
 
74 PROGRESS OF 
 
 was placed in their hands by the revolution, and their 
 influence was long felt among its rulers and luminaries. 
 The first generation of their scholars turned their atten- 
 tion too much from the cultivation of the heart to the 
 mere government of outward action ; and in succeeding 
 times the tolerant spirit, not natural to an establishment, 
 was with difficulty kept up by a government whose ex- 
 istence depended on discouraging intolerant pretensions. 
 No sooner had the first sketch of the Hobbian philoso- 
 phy* been privately circulated at Paris, than Cudworth 
 seized the earliest opportunity of sounding the alarm 
 against the most justly odious of the modes of thinking 
 which it cultivates, or forms of expression which it would 
 introduce ;f the prelude to a war which occupied the 
 remaining forty years of his life. The Intellectual Sys- 
 tem, his great production, is directed against the atheis- 
 tical opinions of Hobbes : it touches ethical questions 
 but occasionally and incidentally. It is a work of stu- 
 pendous erudition, of much more acuteness than at first 
 appears, of frequent mastery over diction and illustration 
 on subjects where it is most rare ; and it is distinguished, 
 perhaps beyond any other volume of controversy, by 
 that best proof of the deepest conviction of the truth of 
 a man's principles, a fearless statement of the most for- 
 midable objections to them ; a fairness rarely practised 
 but by him who is conscious of his power to answer them. 
 
 difference, his early master, Leighton, bishop of Dunblane, a beautiful wri- 
 ter, and one of the best of men. The earliest account of them is in a curi- 
 ous contemporaiy pamphlet, entitled, An Account of the new Sect of Latitude- 
 men at Cambridge, republished in the collection of tracts entitled, Phoenix 
 Britannicus. Jeremy Taylor deserves the highest and perhaps the earliest 
 place among them. But Cudworth's excellent sermon befoi-e the House of 
 Commons (31st March 1647) in the year of the publication of Taylor's lAh- 
 erty of Propheaying, may be compared even to Taylor in charity, piety, and 
 the most liberal toleration. 
 
 * Be Cive, 1642. 
 
 f Dantur boni et mali rationes xiernw et indispensabiles. TJiesis for the 
 degree of B. D. at Cambridge in 1644. (Birch's Life of Cudworth, pre^xed. 
 to his edition of the Intellectual System, p. vii. Lond. 1743, 2 vols. 4to.) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 75 
 
 In all his writings, it must be owned, that his learning 
 obscures his reasonings, and seems even to oppress his 
 powerful intellect. It is an unfortunate eifect of the re- 
 dundant fulness of his mind, that it overflows in endless 
 digressions, which break the chain of argument, and turn 
 aside the thoughts of the reader from the main object. 
 He was educated before usage had limited the naturali- 
 zation of new words from the learned languages ; before 
 the failure of those great men, from Bacon to Milton, 
 who laboured to follow a Latin order in their sentences, 
 — and the success of those men of inferior powers, from 
 Cowley to Addison, who were content with the order, 
 as well as the words, of pure and elegant conversation, 
 — had, as it were, by a double series of experiments, as- 
 certained that the involutions andinversions of the ancient 
 languages are seldom reconcilable with the genius of 
 ours ; and, unless skilfully, as well as sparingly introduc- 
 ed, are at variance with the natural beauties of our prose 
 composition. His mind was more thaA of an ancient than 
 of a modern philosopher. He often' indulged in that 
 sort of amalgamation of fancy with speculation, the de- 
 light of the Alexandrian doctors, with whom he was most 
 familiarly conversant ; and the Intellectual System, both 
 in thought and expression, has an old and foreign air, 
 not unlike a translation from the work of a late Plato- 
 nist. Large ethical works of this eminent writer are 
 extant in manuscript in the British Museum.* One pos- 
 thumous volume on morals was published by Dr Chandler, 
 bishop of Durham, entitled, A Treatise concerning Eter- 
 nal and Immutable Morality. ■\ But there is the more 
 reason to regret (as far as relates to the history of opin- 
 ion) that the larger treatises are still unpublished, be- 
 cause the above volume is not so much an ethical trea- 
 
 • A cvirious account of the history of these MSS. by Dr Kippis, i» to be 
 found in the Biographia Britannica, IV. 549. 
 f London, IfSl, 8vq. 
 
76 PROGRESS OF 
 
 tise as an introduction to one. Protagoras of old, and 
 Hobbes then alive, having concluded that right and 
 wrong were unreal, because they were not perceived 
 by the senses, and because all human knowledge consists 
 only in such perception, Cudworth endeavours to refute 
 them, by disproving that part of their premises which 
 forms the last-stated proposition. The mind has many 
 conceptions (vo»^!ct«) which are not cognizable by the 
 senses; and though they are occasioned by sensible ob- 
 jects, yet could not be formed but by a faculty superior 
 to sense. The conceptions of justice and duty he places 
 among them. The distinction of right from wrong is 
 discerned by reason ; and as soon as these words are de- 
 fined, it becomes evident that it would be a contradic- 
 tion in terms to affirm that any power, human or divine, 
 could change their nature ; or, in other words, make the 
 same act to be just and unjust at the same time. They 
 had existed eternally, in the only mode in which truths 
 can be said to be eternal, in the Eternal Mind; and they 
 were indestructible and unchangeable like that Supreme 
 Intelligence.* 
 
 Whatever judgment may be formed of this reasoning, 
 it is manifest that it relates merely to the philosophy of 
 the understanding, and does not attempt any explanation 
 of what constitutes the very essence of morality, its re- 
 lation to the will. That we perceive a distinction be- 
 tween right and wrong as much as between a triangle and 
 
 • "There are many objects of our mind which we can neither see, hear, 
 feel, smell, nor taste, and which never did enter into it by any sense; and 
 therefore we can have no sensible pictures or ideas of them, drawn by the 
 pencil of that inward limner or painter which borrows all his colours from 
 sense, which we call Fancy: and if we reflect on our own cogitations of 
 these thing;s, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not phantastical, but 
 noematical: as, for example, justice, equity, duty and oblig'ation, cogitation, 
 opinion, intellection, volition, memory, verity, falsity, cause, effect, genus, 
 species, jiuUity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, and innumerable 
 others." [Eternal and Immutable Morality, p. 140.) We have here an an- 
 ticipation of Kant. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 77 
 
 a square, is indeed true; and may possibly lead to an ex- 
 planation of the reason why men should adhere to the one 
 and avoid the other. But it is not that reason. A com- 
 mand or a precept is not a proposition. It cannot be 
 said that either is true or false. Cudworth, as well as 
 many who succeeded him, confounded the mere appre- 
 hension by the understanding that right is different from 
 wrong, with the practical authority of these important 
 conceptions, exercised over voluntary actions, in a totally 
 distinct province of the human soul. 
 
 Though his life was devoted to the assertion of divine 
 Providence, and though his philosophy was imbued with 
 the religious spirit of Platonism,* yet he had placed 
 Christianity too purely in the love of God and man to be 
 considered as having much regard for those controversies 
 about rites and opinions with which zealots disturb the 
 world. They represented him as having fallen into the 
 same heresy with Milton and with Clarke;t and some of 
 them even charged him with atheism, for no other rea- 
 son than that he was was not afraid to state the atheistic 
 difla.culties in their fullest force. As blind anger heaps 
 inconsistent accusations on each other, they called him at 
 least ''an Arian, a Socinian, or a Deist."$ The cour- 
 tiers of Charles II., who were delighted with every part 
 of Hobbes but his integrity, did their utmost to decry 
 his antagonist. They turned the railing of the bigots 
 into a sarcasm against religion ; as we learn from him who 
 represented them with unfortunate fidelity. " He has 
 raised," saysDryden, " such strong objections against the 
 
 * Evt^i^u, a nriKVoVf o yctg iva-a/iatv etK^as x^io'TiAVi^ti. Be pious, my son, for 
 piety is the sum of Christiamty. (Motto affixed to the sermon above men- 
 tioned. ) 
 
 f The following doctrine is ascribed to Cudworth by Nelson, a man of 
 good understanding and great worth : "Dr Cudworth maintained that the 
 Father, absolutely speaking, is the only supreme God; the Son and Spii-it 
 being God only by his concurrence with them, and theii- subordination and 
 subjection to Um." (Nelson's Life of Bull, p. 339.) 
 
 J Tuhnbh'b Diacmirse on the Messiah, p. 335.) 
 
78 PROGRESS OF 
 
 being of God, that many think he has not answered them;" 
 — " the common fate," as Lord Shaftesbury tells us, 
 " of those who dare to appear fair authors."* He 
 had, indeed, earned the hatred of some theologians, bet- 
 ter than they could know from the writings published 
 during his life; for in his posthumous work he classes 
 with the ancient atheists those of his contemporaries, 
 whom he forbears to name, who held ' ' that God may 
 command what is contrary to moral rules; that he has no 
 inclination to the good of his creatures ; that he may just- 
 ly doom an innocent being to eternal torments; and that 
 whatever God does will, for that reason is just, because 
 he wills it."t It is an interesting incident in the life of 
 a philosopher, that Cudworth's daughter, Lady Masham, 
 had the honour to nurse the infirmities and to watch the 
 last breath of Mr Locke, who was opposed to her father 
 in speculative philosophy, but who heartily agreed with 
 him in the love of truth, liberty and virtue. 
 
 CLARKE. t 
 
 Connected with Cudworth by principle, though se- 
 parated by some interval of time, was Dr Samuel Clarke, 
 a man eminent at once as a divine, a mathematician, a 
 metaphysical philosopher, aind a philologer ; who, as the 
 interpreter of Homer and Caesar, the scholar of Newton, 
 and the antagonist of Leibnitz, approved himself not un- 
 worthy of correspondence with the highest order of hu- 
 
 • Moralists, Part ii. sect. 3 . 
 
 f Eternal and Immutable Morality, p. II- He names only one book pub- 
 lished at Franeker. He quotes Ockham as having formerly maintained the 
 same monstrous positions. To many, if not to most of these opinions or 
 expressions, ancient and modern, reservations are adjoined, which render 
 them literally reconcilable with practical morals. But the dangerous abuse 
 to which the incautious language of ethical theories is liable, is well illustrat- 
 ed by an anecdote related in Plutarch's Life of Alexander. A sycophant 
 named Anaxarchas consoled that monarch for the murder of Clitus, by as- 
 suring him that every act of a ruler must be just Ha.* to B-janflir ua-o t«u 
 ugarcwm (fiKtttot. (Purr. Oper. I. 639. Franc. 1599.) 
 
 * Bom in 1675; died in 1729. 
 
 fe- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 79 
 
 man spirits. Roused by the prevalence of the doctrines 
 of Spinoza and Hobbes, he endeavoured to demonstrate 
 the being and attributes of God, from a few axioms and 
 definitions, in the manner of geometry; an attempt in 
 which, with all his powers of argument, it must be own- 
 ed that he is compelled sometimes tacitly to assume what 
 the laws of reasoning required him to prove ; and that, 
 on the whole, his failure may be regarded as a proof that 
 such a mode of argument is beyond the faculties of man.* 
 Justly considering the moral attributes of the Deity as 
 what alone renders him the object of religion, and to us 
 constitutes the difference between theism and atheism, 
 he laboured with the utmost zeal to place the distinctions 
 of right and wrong on a more solid foundation ; and to 
 explain the conformity of morality to reason, in a manner 
 calculated to give a precise and scientific signification to 
 that phraseology which all philosophers had, for so many 
 ages, been content to employ, without thinking them- 
 selves obliged to define. 
 
 It is one of the most rarely successful efforts of the hu- 
 man mind, to place the understanding at the point from 
 which a philosopher takes the views that compose his sys- 
 tem, to recollect constantly his purposes, to adopt for a 
 moment his previous opinions and prepossessions, to think 
 in his words and to see with his eyes ; especially when 
 the writer widely dissents from the system which he at- 
 tempts to describe, and after a general change in the 
 modes of thinking and in the use of terms. Every part 
 of the present Dissertation requires such an excuse ; but 
 
 ' This admirable person had so much candour as in effect to own his fail- 
 ure, and to recur to those other arguments in support of this great truth, 
 which have in all ages satisfied the most elevated minds. In Proposition 
 viii. {Being and Attributes of Ood, p. 47) which affirms that the first cause 
 must be " intelligent" (where, as he truly states, " lies the main question 
 between us and the atheists") he owns, that the proposition cannot be dem- 
 onstrated strictly and properly a priori. 
 
 See notes and Illustrations, note M. 
 
80 PROGRESS OP 
 
 perhaps it may be more necessary m a case like that of 
 Clarke, where the alterations in both respects have been 
 so insensible, and in some respects appear so limited, that 
 they may escape attention, than after those total revolu- 
 tions in doctrine, wliere the necessity of not measuring 
 other times by our own standard must be apparent to the 
 most undistinguishing. 
 
 The sum of his moral doctrine may be stated as fol- 
 lows. Man can conceive nothing without at the same 
 time conceiving its relations to other things. He must 
 ascribe the same law of perception to every being to 
 whom he ascribes thought. He cannot therefore doubt 
 that all the relations of all things to all must have always 
 been present to the Eternal Mind. The relations in this 
 sense are eternal, however recent the things may be be- 
 tween wh6m they subsist. The whole of these relations 
 constitute truth. The knowledge of them is omniscience. 
 These eternal different relations of things involve a con- 
 sequent eternal fitness or unfitness in the application of 
 things one to another | with a regard to which, the will 
 of God always chooses, and which ought likewise to de- 
 termine the wills of all subordinate rational beings. These 
 eternal differences make it fit and reasonable for the crea- 
 tures so to act; they cause it to be their duty, or lay an 
 obligation on them so to do, separate from the will of 
 God,* and antecedent to any prospect of advantage or 
 reward. t Nay, wilful wickedness is the same absurdity 
 and insolence in morals, as it would be in natural things 
 to pretend to alter the i-elations of numbers, or to take 
 away the properties of mathematical figures. J "Mo- 
 rality," says one of his most ingenious scholars, " is the 
 practice of reason. "§ 
 
 * " Those who found all moral obligation on the will of God must recur 
 to the same thing, only when they do not explain how the nature and will 
 of God is good and just." {Being and MUnbutes of Ood, Proposition xii.) 
 
 t Evidence of Natural andUevealed Religion, p. 4, 6th edit. Lond. Ij'a4. 
 
 % Ibid. p. 42. 
 
 § LowMAs on the Unity and Perfections of God, p. 29. Lond. X7j7. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 81 
 
 Clarke, like Cudworth, considered such a scheme as 
 the only security against Hobbism, and probably against 
 the Calvinistic theology, from which they were almost as 
 averse. Not content, with Cumberland, to attack Hbb- 
 bes on ground which was in part his own, they thought 
 it necessary to build on entirely new foundations. Clarke 
 more especially, instead of substituting social and gene- 
 rous feeling for the selfish appetites, endeavoured to be- 
 stow en morality the highest dignity, by thus deriving 
 it from reason. He made it more than disinterested ; for 
 he placed its seat in a region where interest never enters, 
 and passion never disturbs. By ranking her principles 
 with the first truths of science, he seemed to render them 
 pure and impartial, infallible and unchangeable. It 
 might be excusable to regret the failure of so noble an 
 attempt, if the indulgence of such regrets did not betray 
 an unworthy apprehension that the same excellent ends 
 could only be attained by such frail means; and that the 
 dictates of the most severe reason would not finally prove 
 reconcilable with the majesty of virtue. ' 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 The adoption of mathematical forms and terms was, in 
 England, a prevalent fashion among writers on moral 
 subjects during a large part of the eighteenth century. 
 The ambition of mathematical certainty, on matters con- 
 cerning which it is not given to man to reach it, is a frail- 
 ty from which the disciple of Newton ought in reason 
 to have been withheld, but to which he was naturally 
 tempted by the example of his master. Nothing but the 
 extreme difficulty of detaching assent from forms of ex- 
 pression to which it has been long wedded, can explain 
 the fact^ that the incautious expressions above cited, into 
 which Clarke was hurried by his moral sensibility, did not 
 awaken him to a sense of the error into which he had fallen. 
 As soon as he had said that '' a wicked act was as absurd 
 L 
 
83 PROGRESS OF 
 
 as an attempt to take away the properties of a figure," 
 he ought to have seen, that principles which led logical- 
 ly to such a conclusion were untrue. As it is an impos- 
 sibility to make three and three cease to be six, it ought, 
 on his principles, to be impossible to do a wicked act. 
 To act without regard to the relations of things, as if a 
 man were to choose fire for cooling, or ice for heating, 
 would be the part either of a lunatic or an ideot. The 
 murderer who poisons by arsenic, acts agreeably to his 
 knowledge of the power of that substance to kill, which 
 is a relation between two things ; as much as the physi- 
 cian who employs an emetic after the poison, acts upon 
 his belief of the tendency of that remedy to preseve life, 
 which is another relation between two things. All men 
 who seek a good or bad end by good or bad means, must 
 alike conform their conduct to some relation between 
 their actions as means and their object as an end. All the 
 relations of inanimate things tff^each other are undoubt- 
 edly observed as much by the criminal as by the man of 
 virtue. 
 
 It is therefore singular that Dr Clarke suffered himself 
 to be misled into the representation, that virtue is a 
 conformity with the relations of things universally, vice 
 a universal disregard of them, by the certain, but here 
 insufficient truth, that the former necessarily implied a 
 regard to certain particular relations, which were always 
 disregarded by those who chose the latter. The dis- 
 tinction between right and wrong can, therefore, no 
 longer depend on relations as such, but on a particular 
 class of relations. And it seems evident that no relations 
 are to be considered, except those in which a living, in- 
 telligent, and voluntary agent is one of the beings related. 
 His acts may relate to a law, as either observing or in- 
 fringing it ; they may relate to his own moral sentiments 
 and those of his fellows, as they are the objects of appro- 
 bation or disapprobation ; they may relate to his own 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 83 
 
 welfare, by increasing or abating it ; they may relate to 
 the wellbeing of other sentient beings, by contributing 
 to promote or obstruct it : but in all these, and in all 
 supposable cases, the inquiry of the moral philosopher 
 must be, not whether there be a relation, but what the 
 relation is ; Whether it be that of obedience of law, or 
 agreeableness to moral feeling, or suitableness to pru- 
 dence, or coincidence with benevolence. The term 
 relation itself, on which Dr Clarke's system rests, being 
 common to right and wrong, must be struck out of the 
 reasoning. He himself incidentally drops intimations 
 which are at variance with his system. " The Deity," 
 he tells us, "■ acts according to the eternal relations of 
 things, in order to the welfare of the whole universe ;" 
 and subordinate moral agents ought to be governed by 
 the same rules, '^for the good of the public."* No one 
 can fail to observe that a new element is here introduced 
 — the wellbeing of communities of men, and the general 
 happiness of the world — ^which supersedes the conside- 
 ration of abstract relations and fitnesses. 
 
 There are other views of this system, however, of a 
 more general nature, and of much more importance, be- 
 cause they extend in a considerable degree to all systems 
 which found moral distinctions or sentiments, solely or 
 ultimately, upon reason. A little reflection will discover 
 an extraordinary vacuity in this system. Supposing it 
 were allowed that it satisfactorily accounts for moral 
 judgments, there is still an important part of our moral 
 sentiments which it passes by without an attempt to ex- 
 plain them. Whence, on this scheme, the pleasure or 
 p^in with which we review our own actions ; or survey 
 those of others ? What is the nature of remorse ? Why 
 do we feel shame ? Whence is indignation against in- 
 justice ? These are surely no exercise of reason. Nor 
 
 * Evidence of Natural and Reveakd Religion, p. 4. 
 
84 PROGRESS OF 
 
 is the assent of reason to any other class of propositions 
 followed or accompanied by emotions of this nature, by 
 any approaching them, or indeed necessarily by any 
 emotion at all. It is a fatal objection to a moral theory, 
 that it contains no means of explaining the most conspi- 
 cuous, if not the most essential, parts of moral approba- 
 tion and disapprobation. 
 
 But to rise to a more general consideration : Percep- 
 tion and emotion are states of mind perfectly distinct ; 
 and an emotion of pleasure or pain differs much more 
 from a mere perception, than the perceptions of one 
 sense do from those of another. The perceptions of all 
 the senses have some qualities in common. But an emo- 
 tion has not necessarily anything in common with a per- 
 ception, but that they are both states of mind. We 
 perceive exactly the same qualities in coifee when we 
 may dislike it, as afterwards when we come to like it. 
 In other words, the perception remains the same when 
 the sensation of pain is changed into the opposite sensa- 
 tion of pleasure. The like change may occur in every 
 ease where pleasure or pain (in such instances called 
 sensations) enter the mind with perceptions through the 
 eye or the ear. The prospect or the sound which was 
 disagreeable may become agreeable, without any alter- 
 ation in our idea of the objects. We can easily 
 imagine a percipient and thinking being without a capa- 
 city of receiving pleasure or pain. Such a being might 
 perceive what we do ; if we could conceive him to rea- 
 son, he might reason justly ; and if he were to judge at 
 all, there seems no reason why he should not judge truly. 
 But what could induce such a being to ivill or to act P 
 It seems evident that his existence could only be a state 
 of passive contemplation. Reason, as reason, can never 
 be a motive to action. It is only when we superadd to 
 such a being sensibility, or the capacity of emotion or 
 sentiment, (or what incorporeal cases is called sensation) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 85 
 
 of desire and aversion, that we introduce him into the 
 world of action. We then clearly discern, that when 
 the conclusion of a process of reasoning presents to his 
 mind an object of desire, or the means of obtaining it, 
 a motive of action begins to operate ; and reason may 
 then, but not till then, have a powerful though indirect 
 influence on conduct. Let any argument to dissuade a 
 man from immorality be employed, and the issue of it 
 will always appear to be an appeal to a feeling. You 
 prove that drunkenness will probably ruin health. No 
 position founded on experience is more certain. Most 
 persons with whom you reason must be as much convinced 
 of it as you are. But your hope of success depends on 
 the drunkard's fear of ill health ; and he may always 
 silence your argument by telling you that he loves wine 
 more than he dreads sickness. You speak in vain of 
 the infamy of an act to one who disregards the opinion 
 of others ; or of its imprudence to a man of little feeling 
 for his own future condition. You may truly, but vainly, 
 tell of the pleasures of friendship to one who has little 
 affection. If you display the delights of liberality to a 
 miser, he may always shut your mouth by answering, 
 ** the spendthrift may prefer such pleasures ; I love 
 money more." If you even appeal to a man's conscience, 
 he may answer you, that you have clearly proved the 
 immorality of the act, and that he himself knew it be- 
 fore; but that now, when you had renewed and freshened 
 his conviction, he was obliged to own, that his love of 
 virtue, even aided by the fear of dishonour, remorse, 
 and punishment, was not so powerful as the desire which 
 hurried him into vice. 
 
 Nor is it otherwise, however confusion of ideas may 
 cause it to be so deemed, with that calm regard to the 
 welfare of the agent, to which philosophers have so 
 grossly misapplied the hardly intelligible appellation of 
 self-love. The general tendency of right conduct to 
 
86 PROGRESS OF 
 
 permanent wellbeing is indeed one of the most evident 
 of all truths. But the success of persuasive or dissuasives 
 addressed to it, must always be directly proportioned, 
 not to the clearness with which the truth is discerned, 
 but to the strength of the principle addressed, in the 
 mind of the individual ; and to the degree in which he 
 is accustomed to keep an eye on its dictates. A strange 
 prejudice prevails, which ascribes to what is called self- 
 love an invariable superiority over all the other motives 
 of human action. If it were to be called by a more fit 
 name, such as foresight, prudence, or, what seems most 
 exactly to describe its nature, a sympathy with the fu- 
 ture feelings of the agent, it would appear to every ob- 
 server to be, very often, too languid and inactive, always 
 of late appearance, and, sometimes, so faint as to be 
 scarcely perceptible. Almost every human passion in 
 its turn prevails over self-love. 
 
 It is thus apparent that the influence of reason on the 
 will is indirect, and arises only from its being one of the 
 channels by which the objects of desire or avefsion are 
 brought near to these springs of voluntary action. It is 
 only one of these channels. There are many other modes 
 of presenting to the mind the proper objects of the emo- 
 tions which it is intended to excite, whether of a calmer 
 or of a more active nature ; so that they may influence 
 conduct more powerfully than when they reach the will 
 through the channel of conviction. The distinction be- 
 tween conviction and persuasion would indeed be other- 
 wis^e without a meaning : to teach the mind would be 
 the same thing as to move it ; and eloquence would be 
 nothing but logic, although the greater part of the power 
 of the former is displayed in the direct excitement of 
 feeling ; — on condition, indeed, (for reasons foreign to 
 our present purpose) that the orator shall never appear 
 to give counsel inconsistent with the duty or the lasting 
 welfare of those whom he would persuade. In like 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 87 
 
 manner it is to be observed, that though reasoning be 
 one of the instruments of education, yet education is not 
 a proof of reasoning, but a wise disposal of all the cir- 
 cumstances which influence character, and of the means 
 of producing those habitual dispositions which insure 
 welldoing, of which reasoning is but one. Very similar 
 observations are applicable to the great arts of legislation 
 and government ; which are here only alluded to as 
 forming a strong illustration of the present argument. 
 
 The abusive extension of the term Reason to the 
 moral faculties, one of the predominant errors of ancient 
 and modern times, has arisen from causes which it is not 
 difficult to discover. Reason does in truth perform a 
 great part in every case of moral sentiment. To reason 
 often belong the preliminaries of the act ; to reason al- 
 together belongs the choice of the means of execution. 
 The operations of reason, in both cases, are comparatively 
 slow and lasting ; they are capable of being distinctly 
 recalled by memory. The emotion which intervenes 
 between the previous and the succeeding exertions of 
 reason is often faint, generally transient, and scarcely 
 ever capable of being reproduced by an effort of the 
 mind. Hence the name of reason is applied to this 
 mixedstate of mind; more especiailly when thefeeling, be- 
 ing of acold arid general nature, and scarcely ruffling the 
 surface of the soul, such as those of prudence and of or- 
 dinary kindness and propriety, almost passes unnoticed, 
 and is irretrievably forgotten. Hence the mind is, in 
 such conditions, said by moralists to act from reason, in 
 contradistinction to its more excited and disturbed state, 
 when it is said to act from passion. The calmness of 
 reason gives to the whole compound the appearance of 
 unmixed reason. The illusion is further promoted by a 
 mode of expression used in most languagies. A man is 
 said to act reasonably, when his conduct is such as may 
 be reasonably expected. Amidst the disorders of a 
 
88 PROGRESS OF 
 
 vicious mind, it is difficult to form a reasonable conjecture 
 concerning future conduct; but the quiet and well- 
 ordered state of virtue renders the probable acts of her 
 fortunate votaries the object of very rational expectation. 
 As far as it is not presumptuous to attempt a distinction 
 between modes of thinking foreign to the mind which 
 makes the attempt, and modes of expression scarcely 
 translatable into the only technical language in which 
 that mind is wont to think, it seems that the systems of 
 Cudworth and Clarke, though they appear very similar, 
 are in reality different in some important points of view. 
 The former, a Platonist, sets out from those ideas (a 
 word, in this acceptation of it, which has no correspond- 
 ing term in English) the eternal models of created things, 
 which, as the Athenian master taught, pre-existed in 
 the everlasting intellect, and, of right, rule the will of 
 every inferior mind. The illustrious scholar of Newton, 
 with a manner of thinking more natural to his age and 
 school, considered primarily the very relations of things 
 themselves ; cenceived indeed by the eternal mind, but 
 which, if such inadequate language may be pardoned, 
 are the law of its will, as well as the model of its works.* 
 
 Earl of SnAFTESBURY.t 
 Lord Shaftesbury, the author of the Characteristics y 
 was the grandson of Sir Antony Ashley Cooper, created 
 Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the master spirits of the Eng- 
 
 • Mr Wollaston's system, that morality consisted in acting according to 
 truth, seems to coincide with that of Dr Clarke. The murder of Cicero by 
 Popilius Lenas, was, according to lum, a practical falsehood ; for Cicero 
 had been his benefactor, but Popilius acted as if that were untrue. If the 
 truth spoken of be, that gfratdtude is due for benefits, the reasoning is evi- 
 dently a circle. If any truth be meant, indifierently, it is plain that the 
 assassin acted in perfect conformity to'several certain truths ; such as the 
 malig^ty of Antony, the ingratitude and venality of Popilius, and the prob- 
 able impunity of his crime, when law was suspended, and good men with- 
 out power. 
 
 t Born in 1671 ; died in iri3. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 89 
 
 lish nation, whose vices, the bitter fruits of the insecurity 
 of a troublous time, succeeded by the corrupting habits 
 of an inconstant, venal, and profligate court, have led 
 an ungrateful posterity to overlook his wisdom, and dis- 
 interested perseverance, in obtaining for the English na- 
 tion the unspeakable benefits of the Habeas Corpus act. 
 The fortune of the Characteristics has been singular. 
 For a time the work was admired more undistinguish- 
 ingly than its literary character warrants. In the suc- 
 ceeding period it was justly criticised, but too severely 
 condemned. Of late, more unjustly than in either of the 
 former cases, it has been generally neglected. It seemed 
 to have the power of changing the temper of its critics. 
 It provoked the amiable Berkeley to a harshness equally 
 unwonted and unwarranted ;* while it softened the 
 rugged Warburton so far as to dispose the fierce yet not 
 altogether ungenerous polemic to praise an enemy in the 
 very heat of conflict-t 
 
 Leibnitz, the most celebrated of continental philoso- 
 phers, warmly applauded the Charactei-istics, and, 
 (what was a more certain proof of admiration) though at 
 an advanced age, criticised that work minutely. J Le 
 
 • BEEKEtEx's MretttePAJfosopAcr, Dialogue iii.; but especially his Theory 
 of Vision Vindicated, Lond. 1733, (not republished in the quarto edition of 
 his works) where this most excellent man sinks for a moment to the level 
 of a raiUng polemic. 
 
 f It is remarkable that the most impure passages of Warburton's compo- 
 sition are those in which he lets loose his controversial zeal, and that he is 
 a fine writer principally where he writes from generous feeling. " Of all 
 the virtues which were so much in this noble writer's heart and in his 
 writings, there was not one he more revered than the love of public liberty. 
 — The noble author of the Characteristics had many excellent qualities, both 
 as a man and a writer. He was temperate, chaste, honest, and a lover of 
 his country. In his writings he has shown how much he has imbibed the 
 deep sense, and how naturally he could copy the gracious manner of Plato." 
 (Dedication to the Freethinkers, prefixed to the Divine Legation.) War- 
 burton, however, soon relapses, but not without excuse; for he thought 
 himself vindicating the memory of Locke. 
 + Opera, torn. IH. p. 39-56. 
 
 M 
 
90 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Clerc, who had assisted the studies of the author, con- 
 tributed to spread its reputation by his Journal, then 
 the most popular in Europe. Locke is said to have 
 aided in his education, probably rather by counsel than 
 by tuition. The author had indeed been driven from 
 the regular studies of his country by the insults with 
 which he was loaded at Winchester school, when he was 
 only twelve years old, immediately after the death of his 
 grandfather ; a choice of time which seemed not so much 
 to indicate anger against the faults of a great man, as 
 triumph over the principles of liberty, which seemed at 
 that time to have fallen for ever. He gave a genuine 
 proof of respect for freedom of thought, by preventing 
 the expulsion, from Holland, of Bayle, (with whom he 
 differs in every moral, political, and, it may be truly 
 added, religious opinion) when, it must be owned, the 
 right of asylum was, in strict justice, forfeited by the 
 secret services which the philosopher had rendered to 
 the enemy of Holland and of Europe. In the small part 
 of his short life which premature infirmities allowed him 
 to apply to public affairs, he co-operated zealously with 
 the friends of freedom ; but, as became a moral philoso- 
 pher, he supported, even against them, a law to allow 
 those who were accused of treason to make their defence 
 by counsel, although the parties first to benefit from 
 this act of imperfect justice were conspirators to assasin- 
 ate King William, and to re-enslave their country. On 
 that occasion it is well known with what admirable quick- 
 ness he took advantage of the embarrassment which 
 seized him, when he rose to address the House of Com- 
 mons. '' If I," said he, " who rise only to give my 
 opinion on this bill, am so confounded that I cannot say 
 what I intended, what must the condition of that man be, 
 who, without assistance, is pleading for his own life!" He 
 was the friend of Lord Somers; and the tribute paid to 
 his personal character by Warburton, who knew many 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 91 
 
 of his contemporaries and some of his friends, may be 
 considered as evidence of its excellence. 
 
 His fine genius and generous spirit shine through his 
 writings ; but their lustre is often dimmed by peculiari- 
 ties, and, it must be said, by affectations, which, originat- 
 ing in local, temporary, or even personal circumstances, 
 are particularly fatal to the permanence of fame. There 
 is often a charm in the egotism of an artless writer, or of 
 an actor in great scenes. But other laws are imposed on 
 the literary artist. Lord Shaftesbury, instead of hiding 
 himself behind his work, stands forward with too fre- 
 quent marks of self-complacency, as a nobleman of pol- 
 ished manners, with a mind adorned by the fine arts, 
 and instructed by ancient philosophy; shrinking with a 
 somewhat effeminate fastidiousness from the clamour and 
 prejudices of th^multitude, whom he neither deigns to 
 conciliate nor puts forth his strength to subdue. The 
 enmity of the majority of churchmen to the government 
 established at the Revolution, was calculated to fill his 
 mind with angry feelings ; which overflow too often, if 
 not upon Christianity itself, yet upon representations of 
 it, closely intertwined with those religious feelings to 
 which, in other forms, his own philosophy ascribes sur- 
 passing worth. His small, and occasional writings, of 
 which the main fault is the want of an object or a plan, 
 have many passages remarkable for the utmost beauty 
 and harmony of language. Had he imbibed the simpli- 
 city, as well as copied the expression and cadence of the 
 greater ancients, he would have done more justice to his 
 genius ; and his works, like theirs, would have been pre- 
 served by that quality, without which but a very few 
 writings, of whatever mental power, have long survived 
 their writers. Grace belongs only to natural movements ; 
 and Lord Shaftesbury, notwithstanding the frequent 
 beauty of his thoughts and language, has rarely attained 
 it. He is unfortunately prone to pleasantry, which is 
 
92 PKOGRESS OF 
 
 obstinately averse from constraint, and which he had no 
 interest in raising to be the test of truth. His affectation 
 of liveliness as a man of the world, tempts him sometimes 
 to overstep the indistinct boundaries which separate fa- 
 miliarity from vulgarity. Of his two more considerable 
 writings, the Moralists, on which he evidently most val- 
 ued himself, and which is spoken of by Leibnitz with 
 enthusiasm, is by no means the happiest. Yet perhaps 
 there is scarcely any composition in our language more 
 lofty in its moral and religious sentiments, and more ex- 
 quisitely elegant and musical in its diction, than the Pla- 
 tonic representation of the scale of beauty and love, in 
 the speech to Palemon, near the close of the first part.* 
 Many passages might be quoted, which in some measure 
 justify the enthusiasm of the septuagenarian geometer. 
 Yet it is not to be concealed that, as a Whole, it is heavy 
 and languid. It is a modern antique. The dialogues 
 of Plato are often very lively representations of conver- 
 sations which might take place daily at a great universi- 
 tj', full, like Athens, of rival professors and eager disci- 
 ples, — between men of various character, and great fame 
 as well as ability. Socrates runs through them all. His 
 great abilities, his still more venerable virtues, his cruel 
 fate, especially when joined to his very characteristic 
 peculiarities, — to his grave humour, to his homely sense, 
 to his assumed humility, to the honest sliness with which 
 he ensnared the Sophists, and to the intrepidity with 
 which he dragged them to justice, gave unity and dra- 
 matic interest to these dialogues as a whole. But Lord 
 Shaftesbury's dialogue is between fictitious personages, 
 and in a tone at utter variance with English conversa- 
 tion. He had great power of thought and command 
 o^er words. But he had no talent for inventing charac- 
 ter and bestowing life on it. The Inquiry concerning 
 
 ' Characleristics, Treatise v. The MvraKMs, Part i. sect. 3. 
 
ETHICAL PHiLOSOl'HY. 93 
 
 Virtue* is nearly exempt from the faulty peculiarities of 
 the author; the method is perfect, the reasoning just, the 
 style precise and clear. The writer has no purpose hut 
 that of honestly proving his principles ; he himself alto- 
 gether disappears ; and he is intent only on earnestly en- 
 forcing what he truly, conscientiously, and reasonably 
 believes. Hence the charm of simplicity is revived in this 
 production, which is unquestionably entitled to a place 
 in the first rank of English tracts on Moral Philosophy. 
 The point in which it becomes especially pertinent to 
 the subject of this Dissertation is, that it contains more 
 intimations of an original and important nature on the 
 Theory of Ethics than perhaps any preceding work of 
 modern times.f It is true that they are often but inti- 
 mations, cursory, and appearing almost to be casual ; so 
 that many of them have escaped the notice of most rea- 
 ders, and even writers on these subjects. That the con- 
 sequences of some of them are even yet not unfolded, 
 must be owned to be a proof that they are inadequate- 
 ly stated ; and may be regarded as a presumption that 
 the author did not closely examine the bearings of 
 his own positions. Among the most important of these 
 suggestions is, the existence of dispositions in man, by 
 which he takes pleasure in the wellbeing of others, with- 
 out any further view ; a doctrine, however, to all the con- 
 sequences of which he has not been faithful in his other 
 writings. $ Another is, that goodness consists in the 
 
 * Ibid. Treatise iv. 
 
 ■j- 1 am not without suspicion that I have overlooked the claims of Dr Henry 
 More, who, notwithstanding some uncouthness of language, seems to have 
 given the first intimations of a distinct moral faculty, which he calls "the 
 Boniform Faculty;" a phrase against which an outcry would now be raised 
 as German. Happiness, according to him, consists in a. constant satisfac- 
 tion, £v Tai nyA^mfu ths -^vxi!- (Enchiridion Eihicum, lib. i. cap. ii. 
 
 if " It is the height of wisdom no doubt to be rightly selfish." {Charac. 
 I. 121.) The observation seems to be taken from what Aristotle says of 
 inKmrm: Tcv ftsv ayitSov iu <pi\a.vrtv tivtti. (Aeist. Ethic, ix. c. viii.) The 
 chapter is admirable, and the assertion of Aristotle is very capable of a good 
 sense- 
 
94 PROGRESS OF 
 
 prevalence of love for the system of which we are a part, 
 over the passions, pointing to our individual welfare ; a 
 proposition which somewhat confounds the motives of 
 right acts with their tendency, and seems to favour the 
 melting of all particular affections into general benevo- 
 lence, because the tendency of these affections is to gen- 
 eral good. The next, and certainly the most original, 
 as well as important, is, that there are certain affections 
 of the mind which, being contemplated by the mind itself 
 through what he calls a reflex sense, become the objects 
 of love, or the contrary, according to their nature. So 
 approved and loved, they constitute virtue or merit, as 
 distinguished from mere goodness, of which there are 
 traces in animals who do not appear to reflect on the state 
 of their own minds, and who seem, therefore, destitute of 
 what he elsewhere calls a moral sense. These state- 
 ments are, it is true, far too short and vague. He no- 
 where inquires into the origin of the reflex sense. What 
 is a much more material defect, he makes no attempt to 
 ascertain in what state of mind it consists. We discover 
 only by implication, and by the use of the term sense, 
 that he searches for the fountain of moral sentiments, not 
 in mere reason, where Cudworth and Clarke had vainly 
 sought for it, but in the heart, whence the main branch 
 of them assuredly flows. It should never be forgotten, 
 that we owe to these hints the reception, into ethical the- 
 ory, of a moral sense ; which, whatever may be thought 
 of its origin, or in whatever words it may be described, 
 must always retain its place in such theory as a main prin- 
 ciple of our moral nature. 
 
 His demonstration of the utility of virtue to the indi- 
 vidual, far surpasses all attempts of the same nature; be- 
 ing founded, not on a calculation of outward advantages 
 or inconveniences, alike uncertain, precarious, and de- 
 grading, but on the unshaken foundation of the delight, 
 which is of the very essence of social affection and virtu- 
 ous sentiment ; on the dreadful agony inflicted by all ma- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 95 
 
 levolent passions, upon every soul that harbours the 
 hellish inmates ; on the all-important truth, that to love 
 is to be happy, and to hate is to be miserable, — that af- 
 fection is its own reward, and ill-will its own punishment ; 
 or, as it has been more simply and more affectingly, as 
 well as with more sacred authority, taught, that to give 
 is more blessed than to receive, and that to love one an- 
 other is the sum of all human virtue. 
 
 The relation of religion to morality, as far as it can be 
 discovered by human reason, was never more justly or 
 more beautifully stated.* If he represented the mere 
 hope of reward and dread of punishment as selfish, and 
 therefore inferior motives to virtue and piety, he dis- 
 tinctly owns their efficacy in reclaiming from vice, in 
 rousing from lethargy, and in guarding a feeble peni- 
 tence ; in all which he coincides with illustrious and zeal- 
 ous Christian writers. " If by the hope of reward be 
 understood the love and desire of virtuous enjoyment, 
 or of the very practice and exercise of virtue in another 
 life ; an expectation or hope of this kind is so far from 
 being derogatory from virtue, that it is an evidence of 
 our loving it the more sincerely and /or its own sake."\ 
 
 • Characteristics, Inquiry concerning Virtue. 
 
 t Jbid. 
 
 So Jeremy Taylor: " He that is grown in gp-ace pursues virtue purely 
 and simply for its own interest. When persons come to that height of 
 grace, and love God for himself, that is but heaven in another sense." 
 (SerTnon on Growth in Grdce.) So before him the once celebrated Mr John 
 Smith of Cambridge: " The happiness which good men shall partake is not 
 distinct from their godlike nature. Happiness and holiness are but two 
 several notions of one thing. Hell is rather n nature than a place, and 
 heaven cannot be so well defined by any thing tuithout us, as by something 
 within us." {Select Discourses, 2d edit. Cambridge, 1673.) 
 
 In accordance with these old authorities is the recent language of a most 
 ingenious as well as benevolent and pious writer. " The holiness of hea- 
 ven is still more attractive to the Christian than its happiness. The desire 
 of doing that which is right for its own sake is a part of his desire after hea- 
 ven." (Unconditional freeness of the Gospel, byT. Ebskine, Esq. p. 32, 33. 
 Edinb. 1828.) 
 
 See also the Appendix to Ward's lAfe of Henry More, 247-27'l. This 
 
96 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Fenelon* BoSSUET.f 
 
 As the last question, though strictly speaking theolo- 
 gical, is yet in truth dependent on the more general 
 question, which relates to the reality of disinterested af- 
 fections in human nature, it seems not foreign from the 
 present purpose to give a short account of a dispute on 
 the subject in France, between two of the most eminent 
 persons of their time ; namely, the controversy between 
 Fenelon and Bossuet, concerning the possibility of men 
 being influenced by the pure and disinterested love of 
 God. Never were two great men more unlike. Fene- 
 lon in his writings exhibits more of the qualities which 
 predispose to religious feelings, than any other equally 
 conspicuous person ; — a mind so pure as steadily to con- 
 template supreme excellence ; a heart capable of being 
 touched and affected by the contemplation ; a gentle and 
 modest spirit, not elated by the privilege, but seeing its 
 own want of worth as it came nearer to such brightness, 
 and disposed to treatwith compassionate forbearance those 
 errors in others, of which it felt a humbling conscious- 
 ness. Bossuet was rather a great minister in the eccle- 
 siastical commonwealth; employing knowledge, elo- 
 quence, argument, the energy of his character, the in- 
 fluence, and even the authority of his station, to vanquish 
 opponents, to extirpate revolters, and, sometimes with a 
 patrician firmness, to withstand the dictatorial encroach- 
 
 account of that ingenious and amiable philosopher (Lond. 1/10) contsuns an 
 interesting view of his opinions, and many beautiful passages of his writings, 
 but unfortunately very few particulars of the man. His letters on Disinter- 
 ested Piety (see the Appendix to Mr Ward's work)^ his boundless charity, his 
 zeal for the utmost toleration, and his hope of general improvement from 
 " a pacific and perspicacious posterity," place him high in the small num- 
 ber of true philosophers who, in their estimate of men, value dispositions 
 more than opinions, and in their search for good, more often look forward 
 than backward- 
 
 • Born in 1651 ; died in 1715. 
 
 t Morn in 1627 ; died in 1704. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 97 
 
 ment of the Roman Pontiff on the spiritual aristocracy of 
 France. Fenelon had been appointed tutor to the Duke 
 of Burgundy. He had all the qualities which fit a man 
 to be the preceptor of a prince, and which most disable 
 him to get or to keep the office. Even birth, and 
 urbanity, and accomplishment, and vivacity, were an in- 
 sufficient atonement for his genius and virtue. Louis 
 XIV. distrusted sS fine a spirit, and appears to have 
 early suspected, that a fancy moved by such benevolence 
 might imagine examples for his grandson which the 
 World would consider as a satire on his own reign. 
 Madame de Maintenon, indeed, favoured him ; but he 
 was generally believed to have forfeited her good graces 
 by discouraging her projects for at leasta nearer approach 
 to a seat on the throne. He offended her by obeying 
 her commands, in laying before her an account of her 
 faults, and some of those of her royal husband, which 
 was probably the more painfully felt for -its mildness, 
 justice, and refined observation.* An opportunity for 
 driving such an intruder from a court presented itself 
 somewhat strangely, in the form of a subtile controversy 
 on one of the most abstruse questions of metaphysical 
 theology. Molinos, a Spanish priest, reviving and per- 
 haps exaggerating the maxims of the ancient mystics, 
 had recently taught, that Christian perfection consisted 
 in the pure love of God, without hope of reward or fear 
 of punishment. This offence he expiated by seven years 
 imprisonment in the dungeons of the Roman Inquisition. 
 His opinions were embraced by Madame Guyon, a pious 
 French lady of strong feeling and active imagination, 
 who appears to have expressed them in a hyperbolical 
 language, not infrequent in devotional exercises, espe- 
 cially in those of otherwise amiable persons of her sex 
 and character. In the fervour of her zeal, she disre- 
 
 • BirssET, Histoire de Fenelon, I. 252. 
 
 N 
 
98 PROGRESS OF 
 
 garded the usages of the world and the decorums im- 
 posed on females. She left her family, took a part in 
 public conferences, and assumed an independence scarcely 
 reconcilable with the more ordinary and more pleasing 
 virtues of women. Her pious effusions were examined 
 with the rigour which might be exercised on theological 
 propositions. She was falsely charged by Harlay, the 
 dissolute archbishop of Paris, with personal licentious- 
 ness. For these crimes she was dragged from convent 
 to convent, imprisoned for years in the Bastile, and, as 
 an act of mercy, confined during the latter years of her 
 life to a provincial town, as a prison at large. A piety 
 thus pure and disinterested could not fail to please Fene- 
 lon. He published a work in justification of Madame 
 Guyon's character, and in explanation of the degree in 
 which he agreed with her. Bossuet, the oracle and 
 champion of the church, took up arms against him. It 
 would be painful to suppose that a man of so great powers 
 was actuated by mean jealousy, and it is needless. The 
 union of zeal for opinion with the pride of authority, is 
 apt to give sternness to the administration of controver- 
 sial bishops ; to say nothing of the haughty and inflexi- 
 ble character of Bossuet himself. He could not brook 
 the independence of him who was hitherto so docile a 
 scholar and so gentle a friend. He was jealous of nov- 
 elties, and dreaded a fervour of piety likely to be un- 
 governable, and perhaps to excite movements of which 
 no man could foresee the issue. It must be allowed that 
 he had reason to be displeased with the indiscretion and 
 turbulence of the innovators, and might apprehend that, 
 in preaching motives to virtue and religion which he 
 thought unattainable, the coarser but surer foundations 
 of common morality might be loosened. A controversy 
 ensued, in which he employed the utmost violence of 
 polemical or factious contest. Fenelon replied with 
 brilliant success, and submitted his book to the judgment 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 99 
 
 of Rome. After a long examination, the commission of 
 ten Cardinals appointed to examine it were equally 
 divided, and he seemed in consequence about to be ac- 
 quitted. But Bossuet had in the mean time easily gained 
 Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon betrayed Fenelon's 
 confidential correspondence ; and he was banished to his 
 diocese, and deprived of his pensions and official apart- 
 ments in the palace. Louis XIV. regarded the slightest 
 differences from the authorities of the French church as 
 rebellion against himself. Though endowed with much 
 natural good sense, he was too grossly ignorant to be made 
 to comprehend one of the terms of the question in dis- 
 pute. He did not, however, scruple to urge the Pope 
 to the condemnation of Fenelon. Innocent XII, (Pigna- 
 telli) an aged and pacific pontiff, was desirous of avoiding 
 such harsh ttieasures. He said that "■ the archbishop of 
 Cambray might have erred from excess in the love of 
 God, but the bishop of Meaux had sinned by a defect 
 of the love of his neighbour."* But he was compelled 
 to condemn a series of propositions, of which the first 
 was, ''there is an habitual state of love to God, which is 
 pure from every motive of personal interest, and in 
 which neither the fear of punishment nor the hope of re- 
 ward has any part.''t Fenelon read the bull which 
 condemned him in his own cathedral, and professed as 
 humble a submission as the lowest of his flock. In some 
 of the writings of his advanced years, which have been 
 recently published, we observe with regret that, when 
 wearied out by his exile, ambitious to regain a place at 
 court through the Jesuits, or prejudiced against the Cal- 
 vinising doctrines of the Jansenists, the strongest anti- 
 papal party amongst Catholics, or somewhat detached 
 from a cause of which his great antagonist had been the 
 victorious leader, he made concessions to the absolute 
 
 * Batisset, Histoire de Fenelon, II. 220, note. 
 
 t (Euwes de Bossuet, VIII. 308. Liege, 176/, 8vo. 
 
100 PROGRESS OF 
 
 monarchy of Rome, which did not become a luminary of 
 the Gallican cliurch.* 
 
 Bossuet, in his writings on this occasion, besides tra- 
 dition and authorities, relied mainly on the supposed 
 principle of philosphy, that man must desire his own 
 happiness, and cannot desire anything else, otherwise 
 than as a means towards it ; which renders the contro- 
 versy an incident in the history of ethics. It is imme- 
 diately connected with the preceding part of this Dis- 
 sertation, by the almost literal coincidence between 
 Bossuet's foremost objection to the disinterested piety 
 contended for by Fenelon, and the fundamental position 
 of a very ingenious and once noted divine of the English 
 church, in his attack on the disinterested affections, be- 
 lieved by Shaftesbury to be a part of human nature.f 
 
 Leibnitz. t 
 There is a singular contrast between the form of 
 Leibnitz's writings and the character of his mind. The 
 latter was systematical, even to excess. It was the vice 
 of his prodigious intellect, on every subject of science 
 where it was not bound by geometrical chains, to confine 
 
 • Be Summi Pontijicis Aucioriiate JDisgerialio : (Euvres ifeJFEirELOii, tome 
 II. Versailles, 1820, 
 
 j- " Hzec est natura voluntatis humanje, ut et beatltudinem, et ea quo- 
 rum necessaria conneslo cum beatitudine clare intelligitur, necessario appetat 
 
 Nullus est actus ad quem revera non impeUimur motiyo beatitudinis, 
 
 expliclte vel implidte ;" meaning by the latter that it may be concealed 
 from ourselves, as he says, for a short time, by a nearer object. {(Euvres de 
 BossnET, A''III. 80.) " The only motive by which individuals can be induced 
 to the practice of virtue, musibe the feeling or the prospect of private hap- 
 piness." (Bec-wn's Essays on the Characteristics, ^. 159. Lond. 1752.) 
 It must, however, be owned, that the selfishness of the Warburtonian is 
 more rigid ; making no provision for tlie object of one's own happiness 
 slipping out of view for a moment. It is due to the very ingenious author 
 of this forgotten book to add, that it is full of pr^e ofhis adversary, which, 
 though just, was in the answer generous ; and that it contains an assertion 
 ot the unbounded right of pubUc discussion, unusual even at tlie tolerant 
 period of its appearance. 
 
 i Born in 1646; died in 1716. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 101 
 
 liis view to those most general principles, so well called 
 by Bacon " merely notional;" which render it, indeed, 
 easy to build a system, but, only because they may be alike 
 adapted to every state of appearances, and become thereby 
 really inapplicable to any. Though his genius was thus 
 naturally turned to system, his writings were, generally, 
 occasional and miscellaneous. The fragments of his 
 doctrines are scattered in Reviews ; or over a volumin- 
 ous Literary Correspondence ; or in the Prefaces and 
 Introductions to those compilations to which this great 
 philosopher was obliged by his situation to descend. 
 This defective and disorderly mode of publication arose 
 partly from the jars between business and study, inevi- 
 table in his course of life ; but probably yet more from 
 the nature of his system, which, while it widely deviates 
 from the most general principles of former philosophers, 
 is ready to embrace their particular doctrines under its 
 own generalities, and thus to reconcile them to each 
 other, as well as to accommodate itself to popular or 
 established opinions, and compromise with them, accord- 
 ing to his favourite and oft-repeated maxim, " that most 
 received doctrines are capable of a good sense ;^^* by 
 which last words our philosopher meant a sense re- 
 concilable with his own principles. Partial and occa- 
 sional exhibitions of these principles suited better than 
 constant negotiation with opinions, establishments, and 
 prejudices, to which extreme generalities are well 
 adapted, than a full and methodical statement of the 
 whole at once. It is the lot of every philosopher who 
 attempts to malje his principles extremely flexible, that 
 they become like those tools which bend so easily as to 
 penetrate nothing. Yet his manner of publication per- 
 
 • Nouvmux Essais sur I'Entendement Humain, liv. i. chap. ii. p. 57, 
 These Essays, which form the greater part of the publication entitled (Euvres 
 Philosophiques, edited by Easpe, Amst. et Leipz, 1765, are not included in 
 Dutens's edition of Leibnitz's works. 
 
102 PROGRESS OF 
 
 haps led him to those wide intuitions, as comprehensive 
 as those of Bacon, of which he expressed the result as 
 briefly and pithily as Hobbes. The fragment which 
 contains his ethical principles is the preface to a collec- 
 tion of documents illustrative of international law, pub- 
 lished at Hanover in 1693 ;* to which he often referred 
 as his standard afterwards, especially when he speaks of 
 Lord Shaftesbury, or of the controversy between the 
 two great theologians of France. " Right," says he, 
 "■ is moral power; obligation moral necessity. By moral, 
 I understand what with a good man prevails as much as 
 if it were physical. A good man is he who loves all 
 men as far as reason allows. Justice is the benevolence of 
 a wise man. To love is to be pleased with the happi- 
 ness of another; or, in other words, to convert the 
 happiness of another into a part of one^s own. Hence 
 is explained the possibility of a disinterested love. 
 When we are pleased with the happiness of any being, 
 his happiness becomes one of our enjoyments. Wisdom 
 is the science of happiness."! 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 It is apparent from the above passage, that Leibnitz 
 had touched the truth on the subject of disinterested 
 affection ; and that he was more near clinging to it than 
 any modern philosopher, except Lord Shaftesbury. It 
 is evident, however, from the latter part of it, that, like 
 Shaftesbury, he shrunk from his own just conception; 
 under the influence of that most ancient and far-spread 
 prejudice of the schools, which assumed that such an 
 abstraction as Happiness could be the object of love, 
 and that the desire of so faint, distant, and refined an 
 object, was the first principle of all moral nature, of 
 which every other desire was only a modification or a 
 
 * Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus. Hanov. 1695. 
 ■j- See Notes and Illustrations, note N. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 103 
 
 fruit. Both he and Shaftesbury, however, when they 
 relapsed into the selfish system, embraced it in its most 
 refined form ; considering the benevolent affections as 
 valuable parts of our own happiness, not in consequence 
 of any of their effects or extrinsic advantages, but of that 
 intrinsic delightfulness which was inherent in their very 
 essence. But Leibnitz considered this refined pleasure 
 as the object in the view of the benevolent man ; an ab- 
 surdity, or rather a contradiction, which, at least in the 
 Inquiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury avoids. It 
 will be seen from Leibnitz's limitation, taken together 
 with his definition of Wisdom, that he regarded the dis- 
 tinction of the moral sentiments from the social affections, 
 and the just subordination of the latter, as entirely 
 founded on the tendency of general happiness to in- 
 crease that of the agent, not merely as being real, but 
 as being present to the agent's mind when he acts. In 
 a subsequent passage he lowers his tone not a little. 
 " As for the sacrifice of life, or the endurance of the 
 greatest pain for others, these things are rather gener- 
 ously enjoined than solidly demonstrated by philoso- 
 phers. For honour, glory, and self-congratulation, to 
 w^hich they appeal under the name of virtue, are indeed 
 mental pleasures, and of a high degree, but not to all, 
 nor outweighing every bitterness of suffering ; since all 
 cannot imagine them with equal vivacity, and that 
 power is little possessed by those whom neither educa- 
 tion, nor situation, nor the doctrines of religion or philo- 
 sophy, have taught to value mental gratifications."* 
 He concludes very truly, that morality is completed by 
 a belief of moral government. But the Inquiry con- 
 cerning Virtue had reached that conclusion by a better 
 road. It entirely escaped his sagacity, as it has that of 
 nearly all other moralists, that the coincidence of mor- 
 
 * Ibid, note N. 
 
104 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ality with well- understood interest in our outward ac- 
 tions, is very far from being the most important part of 
 the question 5 for these actions flow from habitual dis- 
 positions, from aifections and sensibilities, which deter- 
 mine their nature. There may be, and there are many 
 immoral acts, which, in the sense in which words are 
 commonly used, are advantageous to the actor. But the 
 whole sagacity and ingenuity of the world may be safely 
 challenged to point out a case in which virtuous disposi- 
 tions, habits, and feelings, are not conducive in the 
 highest degree to the happiness of the individual ; or to 
 maintain that he is not the happiest, whose moral senti- 
 ments and aifections are such as to prevent the possibility 
 of the prospect of advantage through unlawful means from 
 presenting itself to his mind. It would indeed have been 
 impossible to prove to Regulus that it was his interest to 
 return to a death of torture in Africa. But what if the 
 proof had been easy ? The most thorough conviction 
 on such a point would not hav« enabled him to set this 
 example, if he had not been supported by his own in- 
 tegrity and generosity, by love of his country, and re- 
 verence for his pledged faith. What could the conviction 
 add to that greatness of soul, and to these glorious attri- 
 butes? With such virtues he could not act otherwise than 
 he didi Would a fatheralfectionately interested in a son's 
 happiness, of very lukewarm feelings of morality, but of 
 good sense enough to weigh gratifications and sufferings 
 exactly, be really desirous that his son should have these 
 virtues in a less degree than Regulus, merely because 
 they might expose him to the fate which Regulus chose? 
 On the coldest calculation he would surely perceive, 
 that the high and glowing feelings of such a mind dur- 
 ing life, altogether throw into shade a few hours of 
 agony in leaving it. And, if he himself were so unfortu- 
 nate that no more generous sentiment arose in his mind 
 to silence such calculations, would it not be a reproach to 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 105 
 
 his understanding not to discovep, that though in one 
 case out of millions such a character might lead a Regu- 
 lus to torture, yet, in the common course of nature, it is 
 the source not only of happiness in life, but of quiet and 
 honour in death. A case so extreme as that of Regulus 
 will not perplex, if we bear in mind, that though we 
 cannot prove the act of heroic virtue to be conducive to 
 the interest of the hero, yet we may perceive at once, 
 that nothing is so conducive to his interest as to have a 
 mind so formed that it could not shrink from it, but 
 must rather embrace it with gladness and triumph. 
 Men of vigorous health are said sometimes to suffer most 
 in a pestilence. No man was ever so absurd as for that 
 reason to wish that he were more infirm. The distemper 
 might return once in a century. If he were then alive, 
 he might escape it ; and even if he fell, the balance of 
 advantage would be in most cases greatly on the side of 
 robust health. In estimating beforehand the value of a 
 strong bodily frame, a man of sense would throw the 
 small chance of a rare and short evil entirely out of the 
 account. So must the coldest and most selfish moral 
 calculator, who, if he be sagacious and exact, must pro- 
 nounce, that the inconveniences to which a man may 
 be sometimes exposed by a pure and sound mind, are no 
 reasons for regretting that we do not escape them by 
 possessing minds more enfeebled and distempered. 
 Other occasions will call our attention, in the sequel, to 
 this important part of the subject. But the great name 
 of Leibnitz seemed to require that his degrading state- 
 ment should not be cited without warning the reader 
 against its egregious fallacy. 
 
 
106 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Malebhanche.* 
 
 This ingenious philosopher and beautiful writer is 
 the only celebrated Cartesian who has professedly han- 
 dled the Theory of Morals.f His theory has in some 
 points of view a conformity to the doctrine of Clarke ; 
 while in others it has given occasion to his English fol- 
 lower NorrisJ to say, that if the Quakers understood 
 their own opinion of the illumination of all men, they 
 would explain it on the principles of Malebranche. 
 " There is," says he, " one parent virtue, the universal 
 virtue, the virtue which renders us just and perfect, 
 the virtue which will one day render us happy. It is 
 the only virtue. It is the love of the universal order, 
 as it eternally existed in the Divine reason, where every 
 created reason contemplates it. This order is composed 
 of practical as well as speculative truth. Reason per- 
 ceives the moral superiority of one being over another, 
 as immediately as the equality of the radii of the same 
 circle. The relative perfection of beings is that part 
 of the immovable order to which men must conform their 
 minds and their conduct. The love of order is the 
 whole of virtue, and conformity to order constitutes the 
 morality of actions." It is not difficult to discover, that 
 in spite of the singular skill employed in weaving this 
 web, it answers no other purpose than that of hiding the 
 whole difficulty. The love of universal order, says 
 Malebranche, requires that we should value an animal 
 more than a stone, because it is more valuable ; and love 
 God infinitely more than man, because he is infinitely 
 better. But ^fixihoxxt presupposing the reality of moral 
 
 • Bom in 1638; died in 1715. 
 
 t TraM de Morale. Rotterdam, 1684. 
 
 t Author of the Theory of the Ideal World, who well copied, though he 
 did not equal, the clearness and choice of expression which belonged to his 
 master. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 107 
 
 distinctions, and the power of moral feelings, the two 
 points to be proved, how can either of these propositions 
 be evident, or even intelligible ? To say that a love of 
 the eternal order will produce the love and practice of 
 every virtue, is an assertion untenable unless we take 
 morality for granted, and useless if we do. 
 
 In his work on Morals, all the incidental and secon- 
 dary remarks are equally well considered and well ex- 
 pressed. The manner in which he applied his princi- 
 ple to the particulars of human duty, is excellent. He 
 is perhaps the first philosopher who has precisely laid 
 down and rigidly adhered to the great principle, that 
 virtue consists in pure intentions and dispositions of 
 minrf, without which, actions, however conformable to 
 rules, are not truly moral ; a truth of the highest im- 
 portance, which, in the theological form, may be said to 
 have been the main principle of the first Protestant Re- 
 formers. The ground of piety, according to him, is the 
 conformity of the attributes of God to those moral quali- 
 ties which we irresistibly love and revere.* '* Sove- 
 reign princes," says he, '^ have no right to use their 
 authority without reason. Even God has no such mise- 
 rable right."! His distinction between a religious soci- 
 ety and an established church, and his assertion of the 
 right of the temporal power alone to employ coercion, 
 are worthy of notice, as instances in which a Catholic, 
 at once philosophical and orthodox, could thus speak, 
 not only of the nature of God, but of the rights of the 
 church. 
 
 • " II faut sumer I'Etre infiniment parfait, et non pas un fantome ^pou- 
 vantable, un Dieu injuste, absolu, J)uissant, mais sans bonte et sans sagesse. 
 S'il y avoit un tel Dieu, le vrai Dieu nous d^fendroit de I'adorer et de Pal- 
 mer. II y a peut-6tre plus de danger d'offenser Dieu lorsqu'on lui donne 
 une forme si horrible, que de m^priser ce fantdme." ( Draite de Morale, 
 chap, vai.) 
 
 t iJirf. chap. xxii. 
 
108 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Jonathan Edwards.* 
 
 This remarkable man, the metaphysician of America, 
 was formed among the Calvinists of New England, when 
 their stern doctrine retained its rigorous authority.f 
 His power of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, 
 certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in some 
 of the ancient Mystics, with a character which raised 
 his piety to fervour. He embraced their doctrine, 
 probably without knowing it to be theirs. " True re- 
 ligion," says he, " in a great measure consists in holy 
 afTections. A love of divine things, for the beauty and 
 sweetness of their moral excellency, is the spring of all 
 holy aiFections."^ Had he suffered this noble principle 
 to take the right road to all its fair consequences, he 
 would have entirely concurred with Plato, with Shaftes- 
 bury, and Malebranche, in devotion to " the first good, 
 first perfect, and first fair." But he thought it 
 necessary afterwards to limit his doctrine to his own 
 persuasion, by denying that such moral excellence could 
 be discovered in divine things by those Christians who 
 did not take the same view with him of their religion. 
 All others, and some who hold his doctrines with a more 
 enlarged spirit, may adopt his principle without any 
 limitation. His ethical theory is contained in his Dis- 
 sertation on the JYature of True Virtue ; and in ano- 
 ther. On God^s Chief End in the Creation, published 
 in London thirty years after his death. True virtue, 
 according to him, consists in benevolence, or love to 
 being " in general," which he afterwards limits to ^' in- 
 telligent being," though sentient would have involved a 
 more reasonable limitation. This good-will is felt to- 
 
 * Bom in 1703, at Windsor in Connecticut; died in 1758, at Princeton in 
 New Jersey. 
 
 f Notes and Illustrations, note O. 
 
 t Edwards on Religious Sffections, p. 4, 187. Lond. 1796. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 109 
 
 wards a particular being, first in proportion to his de- 
 gree of existence (for, says he '' that which is great has 
 more existence, and is farther from nothing, than that 
 which is little;") and secondly, in proportion to the de- 
 gree in which that particular being feels benevolence 
 to others. Thus God, having infinitely more existence 
 and benevolence than man, ought to be infinitely more 
 loved; and for the same reason, God must love himself 
 infinitely more than he does all other beings.* He can 
 act only from regard to himself, and his end in creation 
 can only be to manifest his whole nature, which is called 
 acting for his own glory. 
 
 As far as Edwards confines himself to created beings, 
 and while his theory is perfectly intelligible, it coincides 
 with that of universal benevolence, hereafter to be con- 
 sidered. The term being is a mere incumbrance, which 
 serves indeed to give it a mysterious outside, but brings 
 with it from the schools nothing except their obscurity. 
 He was betrayed into it by the cloak which it threw 
 over his really unmeaning assertion or assumption, that 
 there are degrees of existence ; without which that part 
 of his system which relates to the Deity would have ap- 
 peared to be as baseless as it really is. When we try 
 such a phrase by applying it to matters within the sphere 
 of our experience, we see that it means nothing but de- 
 grees of certain faculties and powers. But the very ap- 
 plication of the term being to all things, shows that the 
 least perfect has as much being as the most perfect ; or 
 rather that there can be no difference, so far as that 
 word is concerned, between two things to whiqh it is 
 alike applicable. The justness of the compound propor- 
 
 • The coincidence of Malebranche with this part of Edwards, is remark- 
 able. Speaking of the Supreme Being, hesays, " II s'aimeinvinciblemeni." 
 He adds another more startling expression, " Certainement Dieu ne pent 
 agir que pour luimSme: il n'a point d'autre motif que son amour propre." 
 (Traite de Morale, chap, xvii.) 
 
110 PROGKESS OF 
 
 tion on which human virtue is made to depend, is capa- 
 ble of being tried by an easy test. If we suppose the 
 greatest of evil spirits to have a hundred times the bad 
 passions of Marcus Aurelius, and at the same time a 
 hundred times his faculties, or, in Edward's language, 
 a hundred times his quantity of being, it follows from 
 this moral theory, that we ought to esteem and love the 
 devil exactly in the same degree as we esteem and love 
 Marcus Aurelius. 
 
 The chief circumstance which justifies so much being 
 said on the last two writers, is their concurrence in a 
 point to words which Ethical Philosophy had been slowly 
 approaching, from the time of the controversies raised up 
 by Hobbes. They both indicate the increase of this 
 tendency, by introducing an element into their theory, 
 foreign from those cold systems of ethical abstraction, 
 with which they continued in other respects to have 
 much in common. Malebranche makes virtue consist in 
 the love of order, Edwards in the love of being. In this 
 language we perceive a step beyond the representation 
 of Clarke, which made it a conformity to the relations of 
 things ; but a step which cannot be made without pass- 
 ing into a new province ; — without confessing, by the 
 use of the word love, that not only perception and reason, 
 but emotion and sentiment, are among the fundamental 
 principles of morals. They still, however, were so 
 wedded to scholastic prejudice, as to choose two of the 
 most aerial abstractions which can be introduced into 
 argument, — being and order, — to be the objects of those 
 strong active feelings which were to govern the human 
 mind. 
 
 BUFFIER.* 
 
 The same strange disposition to fix on abstractions as 
 
 • Born in 1661 ; died in 1737. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. Ill 
 
 the objects of our primitive feelings, and the end sought 
 by our warmest desires, manifests itself in the ingenious 
 writer with whom this part of the Dissertation closes, 
 under a form of less dignity than that which it assumes 
 in the hands of Malebranche and Clarke. Buffier, the 
 only Jesuit whose name has a place in the history of Ab- 
 stract Philosophy, has no peculiar opinions which would 
 have required any mention of him as a moralist, were it 
 not for the just reputation of his treatise on First Truths, 
 with which Dr Reid so remarkably, though unaware of 
 its existence, coincides, even in the misapplication of so 
 practical a term as common sense to denote the faculty 
 which recognises the truth of first principles. His philoso- 
 phical writings* are remarkable for that perfect clearness 
 of expression which, since the great examples of Descartes 
 and Pascal, has been so generally diffused as to have be- 
 come one of the enviable peculiarities of French philo- 
 sophical style, and almost of the French language. His 
 ethical doctrine is that most commonly received among 
 philosophers, from Aristotle to Paley and Bentham : 
 " I desire to be happy ; but as I live with other men, I 
 cannot be happy without consulting their happiness :" a 
 proposition perfectly true indeed, but far too narrow, as 
 inferring, that in the most benevolent acts a man must 
 pursue only his own interest, from the fact that the 
 practice of benevolence does increase his happiness, and 
 that because a virtuous mind is likely to be the happiest, 
 our observation of that property of virtue is the cause of 
 our love and reverence for it. 
 
 • Cmirs de Sciences. Paris, \73% folio. 
 
112 PROGRESS OF 
 
 SECTION VI. 
 Foundations of a more just Theory of Ethics . 
 
 B UTLE R HUT C HES ON — BERKELEY HUME SMIT H 
 
 PRICE HARTLEY TUCKER PALEY BENTHAM^ — 
 
 STEWART BROWN. 
 
 From the beginning of ethical controversy to the 
 eighteenth century, it thus appears, that the care of the 
 individual for himself, and his regard for the things 
 which preserve self, were thought to form the first, and, 
 in the opinion of most, the earliest of all the prmciples 
 which prompt men and other animals to activity ; that 
 nearly all philosophers regarded the appetites and de- 
 sires, which look only to self-gratification, as modifica- 
 tions of this primary principle of self-love ; and that a 
 very numerous body considered even the social affections 
 themselves as nothing more than the produce of a more 
 latent and subtile operation of the desire of interest, and 
 of the pursuit of pleasure. It is true, they often spoke 
 otherwise ; but it was rather from the looseness and 
 fluctuation of their language, than from distrust in their 
 doctrine. It is true, also, that perhaps all represented 
 the gratifications of virtue as more unmingled, more se- 
 cure, more frequent, and more lasting, than other plea- 
 sures ; without which they could neither have retained 
 a hold on the assent of mankind, nor reconciled the prin- 
 ciples of their systems with the testimony of their hearts. 
 We have seen how some began to be roused from a lazy 
 acquiescence in this ancient hypothesis, by the monstrous 
 consequences which Hobbes had legitimately deduced 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 113 
 
 from it. A few, of pure minds and great intellect, la- 
 boured to render morality disinterested, by tracing it to 
 reason as its source ; without considering that reason, 
 elevated indeed far above interest, is also separated by 
 an impassable gulf, from feeling, affection, and passion. 
 At length it was perceived by more than one, that 
 through whatever length of reasoning the mind may pass 
 in its advances towards action, there is placed at the end 
 of any avenue through which it can advance, some prin- 
 ciple wholly unlike mere reason, — some emotion or 
 sentiment which must be touched, before the springs of 
 will and action can be set in motion. Had Lord Shaftes- 
 bury steadily adhered to his own principles — had Leib- 
 nitz not recoiled from his statement — the truth might 
 have been regarded as promulged, though not unfolded. 
 The writings of both prove, at least to us, enlightened 
 as we are by what followed, that they were skilful in 
 sounding, and that their lead had touched the bot- 
 tom. But it was reserved for another moral philosopher 
 to determine this hitherto unfathomed depth.* 
 
 BUTLER. t 
 
 Butler, who was the son of a Presbyterian trader, 
 
 * The doctrine of the Stoics Is thus put by Cicero into the mouth of 
 Cato: "Placet his, Inqult, quorum ratio mihi probatur, simul atque na- 
 tum sit animal, (hinc enim est ordidenum) ipsum sibl concUIari et commen- 
 dariad se conservandum, et ad suumstatum, et adea qua conservantia sunt 
 ejus status dUIgenda ; alienari autem ab Interltu, ilsque rebus quae interitum 
 videantur afferre. Id Ita esse sic probant, quod, antequam voluptas aut 
 dolor attlgerit, salutaria appetant parvi, aspernenturque contraiia. Quod 
 non fieret, nisi statum suum diligerent, interitum timerent. Fieri autem 
 mm posset ut appeterent aliquid, nisi sensum lioberent tui, eogue se et sua 
 diligerent. Ex auo inteiiigi debet, pkihcipium dcctdm esse a se diii- 
 GENDi." {De Finihus, lib. ill. cap. v.) We are told that diligendo is the 
 reading of an ancient MS. Perhaps the omission of 'a' would be the easiest 
 and most reasonable emendation. 
 
 The above passage Is perhaps the fullest and plainest statement of the 
 doctrines prevalent till the time of Butler. 
 
 t Bom in 1692; died in 175% 
 P 
 
114 PROGRESS OF 
 
 early gave such promise, as to induce his father to fit 
 him, by a proper education, for being a minister of that 
 persuasion. He was educated at one of their seminaries 
 under Mr Jones of Gloucester, where Seeker, afterwards 
 archbishopof Canterbury, was his fellow-student. Though 
 many of the dissenters had then begun to relinquish Cal- 
 vinism, the uniform effect of that doctrine, in disposing 
 its adherents to metaphysical speculation, long survived 
 the opinions which caused it, and cannot be doubted to 
 have influenced the mind of Butler. When a student 
 at the academy of Gloucester, he wrote private letters to 
 Dr Clarke on his celebrated Demonstration, suggesting 
 objections that were really insuperable, and which are 
 marked by an acuteness which neither himself nor any 
 other ever surpassed. Clarke, whose heart was as well 
 schooled as his head, published the letters, with his own 
 answers, in the next edition of his work; and, by his 
 good offices with his friend and follower. Sir Joseph Je- 
 kyll, obtained for the young philosopher an early oppor- 
 tunity of making his abilities and opinions known, by 
 the appointment of preacher at the Chapel of the Master 
 of the Rolls. He was afterwards raised to one of the 
 highest seats on the episcopal bench, through the philo- 
 sophical taste of Queen Caroline, and her influence over 
 the mind of her husband, which continued long after 
 her death. " He was wafted,'' says Horace Walpole, 
 '' to the see of Durham, on a cloud of Metaphysics,"* 
 Even in the fourteenth year of his widowhood, George 
 II. was desirous of inserting the name of the Queen's 
 metaphysical favourite in the Regency Bill of seventeen 
 hundred and fifty-one. 
 
 His great work on the Analogy of Religion to 
 the Course of JVature, though only a commentary 
 on the singularly original and pregnant passage of 
 
 • Waipoii's Memoirt, 
 
EXmCAL PHILOSOPHY. 115 
 
 Origen, which is so honestly prefixed to it as a motto, 
 is, notwithstanding, the most original and profound 
 work extant in any language on the Philosophy of 
 Religion. It is entirely beyond our present scope. 
 His ethical discussions are contained in those deep and 
 sometimes dark Dissertations which he preached at the 
 Chapel of the Rolls, and afterwards published under the 
 name of Sermons, while he was yet fresh from the 
 schools, and full of that courage with which youth often 
 delights to exercise its strength in abstract reasoning, 
 and to push its faculties into the recesses of abstruse 
 speculation. But his youth was that of a sober and ma- 
 ture mind, early taught by nature to discern the bounda- 
 ries of knowledge, and to abstain from fruitless efforts to 
 reach inaccessible ground. In these sermons,* he has 
 taught truths more capable of being exactly distinguished 
 from the doctrines of his predecessors, more satisfacto- 
 rily established by him, more comprehensively applied 
 to particulars, more rationally connected with each other, 
 and therefore more worthy of the name of discovery, 
 than any with which we are acquainted; if we ought not, 
 with some hesitation, to except the first steps of the Gre- 
 cian philosophers towards a Theory of Morals. It is a 
 peculiar hardship, that the extreme ambiguity of lan- 
 guage, an obstacle which it is one of the chief merits of 
 an ethical philosopher to vanquish, is one of the circum- 
 stances which prevent men from seeing the justice of 
 applying to him so ambitious a term as discovery. But- 
 ler owed more to Lord Shaftesbury than to all other wri- 
 ters besides. He is just and generous towards that phi- 
 losopher; yet, whoever carefully compares their writings, 
 will without difficulty distinguish the two builders, and 
 
 • See Sermons i. li. and lii. On Human Nature; v. On Compassion; viii. 
 On Resentment; ix. On Forgiveness; xi. and xii. On the Love of our Neigh- 
 bour; and xiii. On the Love of God; together with the excellent Preface. 
 
116 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the larger as well as more regular and laboured part of 
 the edifice, which is due to Butler. 
 
 Mankind have various principles of action; some lead- 
 ing directly to the private good, some immediately to 
 the good of the community. But the private desires 
 are not self-love, or any form of it ; for self-love is the 
 desire of a man's own happiness, whereas the object of 
 an appetite or passion is some outward thing. Self-love 
 seeks things as means of happiness; the private appetites 
 seek things, not as means, but as ends. A man eats 
 from hunger, and drinks from thirst ; and though he 
 knows that these acts are necessary to life, that know- 
 ledge is not the motive of his conduct. No gratifica- 
 tion can indeed be imagined without a previous desire. 
 If all the particular desires did not exist independently, 
 self-love would have no object to employ itself about; 
 for there would be no happiness, which, by the very sup- 
 position of the opponents, is made up of the gratifica- 
 tions of various desires. No pursuit could be selfish or 
 interested, if there were not satisfactions first gained by 
 appetites which seek their own outward objects without 
 regard to self; which satisfactions compose the mass which 
 is called a man's interest. 
 
 In contending, therefore, that the benevolent afltec- 
 tions are disinterested, no more is claimed for them than 
 must be granted to mere animal appetites and to malevo- 
 lent passions. Each of these principles alike seeks its 
 own object, for the sake simply of obtaining it. Plea- 
 sure is the result of the attainment, but no separate part 
 of the aim of the agent. The desire that another per- 
 son may be gratified, seeks that outward object alone, 
 according to the general course of human desire. Re- 
 sentment is as disinterested as gratitude or pity, but not 
 more so. Hunger or thirst may be, as much as the pu- 
 rest benevolence, at variance with self-love. A regard 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 117 
 
 to our own general happiness is not a vice,' but in itself 
 an excellent quality. It were well if it prevailed more 
 generally over craving and short-sighted appetites. 
 The weakness of the social affections, and the strength 
 of the private desires, properly constitute selfishness ; a 
 vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who 
 harbours it, and as such condemned by self-love. There 
 are as few who attain the greatest satisfaction to them- 
 selves, as who do the greatest good to others. It is ab- 
 surd to say with some, that the pleasure of benevolence 
 is selfish because it is felt by self. Understanding and 
 reasofiing are acts of self, for no man can think by proxy; 
 but no one ever called them selfish. Why ? Evidently 
 because they do not regard self. Precisely the same 
 reason applies to benevolence. Such an argument is a 
 gross confusion of self, as it is a subject of feeling or 
 thought, with self considered as the o&/ec# of either. It 
 is no more just to refer the private appetites to self-love 
 because they commonly promote happiness, than it would 
 be to refer them to self-hatred in those frequent cases 
 where their gratification obstructs it. 
 
 But, besides the private or public desires, and besides 
 the calm regard to our own general welfare, there is a 
 principle in man, in its nature supreme over all others. 
 This natural supremacy belongs to the faculty which 
 surveys, approves, or disapproves the several aifec- 
 tions of our minds and actions of our lives. As self- 
 love is superior to the private passions, so conscience 
 is superior to the whole of man. Passion implies nothing 
 Hit an inclination to follow it ; and in that respect pas- 
 sions differ only in force. But no notion can be form- 
 ed of the principle of reflection, or conscience, which 
 does not comprehend judgment, direction, superinten- 
 dency. Authority over all other principles of action is 
 a constituent part of the idea of conscience, and cannot 
 be separated from it. Had it strength as it has right, it 
 
118 PROGHESS OF 
 
 would govern the world. The passions would have their 
 power but according to their nature, which is to be sub- 
 ject to conscience. Hence we may understand the pur- 
 pose at which the ancients, perhaps confusedly, aimed, 
 when they laid it down, that virtue consisted in follow- 
 ing nature. It is neither easy, nor, for the main object 
 of the moralist, important, to render the doctrines of the 
 ancients by modern language. If Butler returns to this 
 phrase too often, it was rather from the remains of undis- 
 tihguishing reverence for antiquity, than because he 
 could deem its employment important to his own opin- 
 ions. 
 
 The tie which holds together Religion and Morality, 
 is, in the system of Butler, somewhat different from the 
 common representations, but not less close. Conscience, 
 or the faculty of approving or disapproving, necessarily 
 constitutes the bond of union. Setting out from the be- 
 lief of Theism, and combining it, as he had entitled him- 
 self to do, with the reality of conscience, he could not 
 avoid discovering, that the being who possessed the high- 
 est moral qualities, is the object of the highest moral 
 affections. He contemplates the deity through the moral 
 nature of man. In the case of a being who is to be per- 
 fectly loved, *' goodness must be the simple actuating 
 principle within him ; this being the moral quality which 
 is the immediate object of love." ''The highest, the 
 adequate object of this affection, is perfect goodness ; 
 which, therefore, we are to love with all our heart, with 
 all our soul, and with all our strength." " We should 
 refer ourselves implicitly to him, and cast ourselves ef- 
 tirely upon him. The whole attention of life should be 
 to obey his commands."* Moral distinctions are thus 
 presupposed before a step can be made towards religion : 
 virtue leads to piety ', God is to be loved, because good- 
 
 * Sermon xiii. On the Love of God. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 119 
 
 ness is the object of love ; and it is only after the mind 
 rises through human morality to divine perfection, that 
 all the virtues and duties are seen to hang from the 
 throne of God. 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 There do not appear to be any errors in the ethical 
 principles of Butler. The following remarks are intend- 
 ed to point out some defect in his scheme; and even that 
 attempt is made with the unfeigned humility of one who 
 rejoices in an opportunity of doing justice to that part 
 of the writings of a great philosopher which has not been 
 so clearly understood, nor so justly estimated by the gen- 
 erality, as his other works. 
 
 1 . It is a considerable defect, though perhaps unavoid- 
 able in a sermon, that he omits all inquiry into the nature 
 and origin of the private appetites which first appear in 
 human nature. It is implied, but it is not expressed in 
 his reasonings, that there is a time before the child can 
 be called selfish, any more than social, when these appe- 
 tites seem as it were separately to pursue their distinct 
 objects, long antecedent to the state of mind in which all 
 their gratifications are regarded as forming the mass call- 
 ed happiness. It is hence that they are likened to in- 
 stincts, in contradiction to their subsequent distinction, 
 which requires reason and experience.* 
 
 2. Butler shows admirably well, that unless there were 
 principles of action independent of self, there could be 
 no pleasures and no happiness for self-love to watch over. 
 A step farther would have led him to perceive, that self- 
 love is altogether a secondary formation ; the result of 
 the joint operation of reason and habit upon the primary 
 principles. It could not have existed without presup- 
 
 * The very able work ascribed to Mr Hazlitt, entitled Sssay on the Prin- 
 dplea of Human Action, Lond. 1805, contains original views on this subject. 
 
120 PROGRESS OF 
 
 posing original appetites and organic gratifications. Had 
 he considered this part of the subject, he would have 
 strengthened his case by showing that self-love is as truly 
 a derived principle, not only as any of the social affec- 
 tions, but as any of the most confessedly acquired pas- 
 sions. It would appear clear, that as self-love is not di- 
 vested of its self- regarding character by considering it as 
 acquired, so the social affections do not lose any part 
 of their disinterested character, if they be considered as 
 formed from simpler elements. Nothing would more 
 tend to root out the old prejudice which treats a regard 
 to self as analogous to a self-evident principle, than the 
 proof, that self-love is itself formed from certain original 
 elements, and that a living being long subsists before its 
 appearance.* 
 
 3. It must be owned that those parts of Butler's dis- 
 courses which relate to the social affections are more sat- 
 isfactory than those which handle the question concerning 
 the moral sentiments. It is not that the real existence of 
 the latter is not as well made out as that of the former. 
 In both cases he occupies the unassailable ground of an 
 appeal to consciousness. All men (even the worst) feel 
 that they have a conscience and disinterested affections. 
 But he betrays a sense of the greater vagueness of his no- 
 tions on this subject. He falters as he approaches it. 
 He makes no attempt to determine in what state of mind 
 the action of conscience consists. He does not venture 
 steadily to denote it by a name. He fluctuates between 
 different appellations, and multiplies the metaphors of 
 authority and command, without a simple exposition of 
 that mental operation which these metaphors should only 
 have illustrated. It commands other principles. But 
 the question recurs, why, or how? 
 
 Some of his own hints, and some fainter intimations of 
 
 * Compare this statement with the Stoical doctrine expl^ned by Cicero 
 in the book de Finibua, quoted above, of which it is the direct opposite. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 121 
 
 Shaftesbury, might have led him to what appears to be 
 the true solution ; which, perhaps from its extreme sim- 
 plicity, has escaped him and his successors. The truth 
 seems to be, that the moral sentiments in their mature 
 state, are a class of feelings which have no other object 
 but the mental dispositions leading to voluntary action, 
 and the voluntary actions which flow from these dispo- 
 sitions. We are pleased with some dispositions and ac- 
 tions, and displeased with others, in ourselves and our 
 fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions, and to 
 perform the actions, which we contemplate with satisfac- 
 tion. These objects, like all those of human appetite or 
 desire, are sought for their own sake. The peculiarity 
 of these desires is, that their gratification requires the 
 use of no means. Nothing (unless it be a volition) is 
 interposed between the desire and the voluntary act. It 
 is impossible, therefore, that these passions should under- 
 go any change by transfer from the end to the means, as 
 is the case with other practical principles. On the other 
 hand, as soon as they are fixed on these ends, they can- 
 not regard any further object. When another passion 
 prevails over them, the end of the moral faculty is con- 
 verted into a means of gratification. But volitions and 
 actions are not themselves the end, or last object in view, 
 of any other desire or aversion. Nothing stands between 
 the moral sentiments and their object. They are, as it 
 were, in contact with the will. It is this sort of mental 
 position, if the expression may be pardoned, that ex- 
 plains, or seems to explain, those characteristic properties 
 which true philosophers ascribe to them, and which all 
 reflecting men feel to belong to them. Being the only 
 desires, aversions, sentiments, or emotions, which re- 
 gard dispositions and actions, they necessarily extend to 
 the whole character and conduct. Among motives to 
 action, they alone are justly considered, as universal. 
 They may and do stand between any other practical prin- 
 
 Q 
 
122 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ciple and its object ; while it is absolutely impossible that 
 another shall intercept their connexion with the will. 
 Be it observed, that though many passions prevail over 
 them, no other can act beyond its own appointed and 
 limited sphere ; and that the prevalence itself, leaving 
 the natural order undisturbed in any other part of the 
 mind, is perceived to he a disorder, when seen in another 
 man, and felt to be so by the mind disordered, when the 
 disorder subsides. Conscience may forbid the will to 
 contribute to the gratification of a desire. No desire 
 ever forbids will to obey conscience. 
 
 This result of the peculiar relation of conscience to the 
 will, justifies those metaphorical expressions which as- 
 cribe to it authority and the right of universal com- 
 mand. It is immutable J for, by the law which regulates 
 all feelings, it must rest on action, which is its object, 
 and beyond which it cannot look ; and as it employs no 
 means, it never can be transferred to nearer objects, in 
 the way in which he who first desires an object as a means 
 of gratification, may come to seek it as his end. Another 
 remarkable peculiarity is bestowed on the moral feelings 
 by the nature of their object. As the objects of all other 
 desires are outward, the satisfaction of them may be frus- 
 trated by outward causes. The moral sentiments may 
 always be gratified, because voluntary actions and moral 
 dispositions spring from within. No external circum- 
 stance affects them. Hence their independence. As 
 the moral sentiment needs no means, and the desire is 
 instantaneously followed by the volition, it seems to be 
 either that which first suggests the relation between 
 command and obedience, or at least that which affords the 
 simplest instance of it. It is therefore with the most 
 rigorous precision that authority and universality are as- 
 cribed to them. Their only unfortunate property is 
 their too frequent weakness ; but it is apparent that it is 
 from that circumstance alone that their failure arises. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 123 
 
 Thus considered, the language of Butler concerning con- 
 science, that, " had it strength as it has right, it would 
 govern the world," which may seem to be only an effu- 
 sion of generous feeling, proves to be a just statement of 
 the nature and action of the highest of human faculties. 
 The union of universality, and immutability, and inde- 
 pendence, with direct action on the will, which distin- 
 guishes the moral sense from every other part of our 
 practical nature, renders it scarcely metaphorical lan- 
 guage to ascribe to it unbounded sovereignty and awful 
 authority over the whole of the world within; — shows 
 that attributes, well denoted by terms significant of com- 
 mand and control, are, in fact, inseparable from it, or 
 rather constitute its very essence ; — -justifies those an- 
 cient moralists who represent it as alone securing, if not 
 forming the moral liberty of man ; and finally, when re- 
 ligion rises from its roots in virtuous feeling, it clothes 
 conscience with the sublime character of representing 
 the divine purity and majesty in the human soul. Its 
 title is not impaired by any number of defeats ; for every 
 defeat necessarily disposes the disinterested and dispas- 
 sionate by-stander to wish that its force were strength- 
 ened: and though it may be doubted whether, consistent- 
 ly with the present constitution of human nature, it could 
 be so invigorated as to be the only motive to action, yet 
 every such by-stander rejoices at all accessions to its force; 
 and would own, that man becomes happier, more excel- 
 lent, more estimable, more venerable, in proportion as 
 conscience acquires a power of banishing malevolent pas- 
 sions, of strongly curbing all the private appetites, of in- 
 fluencing and guiding the benevolent affections them- 
 selves. 
 
 Let it be carefully considered whether the same ob- 
 servations could be made w^ith truth, or with plausibili- 
 ty, on any other part or element of the nature of man. 
 They are entirely independent of the question, whether 
 
124 PEOGRESS OF 
 
 conscience be an inherent or an acquired principle. If 
 it be inherent, that circumstance is, according to the 
 common modes of thinking, a sufficient proof of its title 
 to veneration. But if provision be made in the consti- 
 tution and circumstances of all men, for uniformly pro- 
 ducing it, by processes similar to those which produce 
 other acquired sentiments, may not our reverence be 
 augmented by admiration of that supreme wisdom which, 
 in such mental contrivances, yet more brightly than in 
 the low^er world of matter, accomplishes mighty purposes 
 by instruments so simple? Should these speculations be 
 thought to have any solidity by those who are accustom- 
 ed to such subjects, it would be easy to unfold and apply 
 them so fully, that they may be thoroughly apprehend- 
 ed by every intelligent person. 
 
 4. The most palpable defect of Butler's scheme is, 
 that it affords no answer to the question, " What is the 
 distinguishing quality common to all right actions?" If 
 it were answered, " Their criterion is, that they are ap- 
 proved and commanded by conscience," the answerer 
 would find that he was involved in a vicious circle ; for 
 conscience itself could be no otherwise defined than as 
 the faculty which approves and commands right actions. 
 
 There are few circumstances more remarkable than 
 the small number of Butler's followers in Ethics 5 and it 
 is perhaps still more observable, that his opinions were 
 not so much rejected as overlooked. It is an instance 
 of the importance of style. No thinker so great was 
 ever so bad a writer. Indeed, the ingenious apologies 
 which have been lately attempted for this defect, amount 
 to no more than that bis power of thought was too much 
 for his skill in language. How general must the recep- 
 tion have been of truths so certain and momentous as 
 those contained in Butler's Discourses, — with how much 
 more clearness must they have appeared to his own great 
 understanding, if he had possessed the strength and dis- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 125 
 
 tinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood, 
 or the unspeakable charm of that transparent diction 
 which clothed the unfruitful paradoxes of Berkeley ! 
 
 HUTCHESON.* 
 
 This ingenious writer began to try his own strength 
 by private Letters, written in his early youth to Dr 
 Clarke, the metaphysical patriarch of his time ; on whom 
 young philosophers seem to have considered themselves 
 as possessing a claim, which he had too much goodness to 
 reject. His correspondence with Hutcheson is lost ; but 
 we may judge of its spirit by his answers to Butler, and 
 by one to Mr Henry Home,t afterwards Lord Karnes, 
 then a young adventurer in the prevalent speculations. 
 Nearly at the same period with Butler's first publica- 
 tion,! the writings of Hutcheson began to show coinci- 
 dences with him, indicative of the tendency of moral the- 
 ory to a new form, to which an impulse had been given 
 by Shaftesbury, and which was roused to activity by the 
 adverse system of Clarke. Lord Molesworth, the friend 
 of Shaftesbury, patronised Hutcheson, and even criticis- 
 ed his manuscript. Though a Presbyterian, he was be- 
 friended by King, archbishop of Dublin, himself a meta- 
 physician ; and he was aided by Mr Synge, afterwards a 
 bishop, to whom speculations somewhat similar to his own 
 had occurred. 
 
 Butler and Hutcheson coincided in the two impor- 
 tant positions, that disinterested aifections, and a distinct 
 moral faculty, are essential parts of human nature. Hut- 
 
 * Born ill Ireland in 1694; died at Glasgow in 174J'. 
 
 f Woodhouseiee's Life of Lord Kames, Vol. I. Append. No. .3. 
 
 % The first edition of Butler's Sermons was published in 1726, in which 
 year also appeared the second edition of Hutcheson's Inquiry into Beauty 
 and Virtue. The Sermons had been preached some years before, thoug-h 
 there is no likelihood that the contents could have reachfcd a young teacher 
 at Dublin. The place of Hutcheson's birth is not mentioned in any ac- 
 count known to me. Ireland may be truly said to be " incuriosa suarum." 
 
126 PROGRESS OF 
 
 cheson is a chaste and simple writer, who imhibed the 
 opinions, without the literary faults of his master, Shaftes- 
 bury. He has a clearness of expression, and fulness of 
 illustration, which are wanting in Butler. But he is in- 
 ferior to both these writers in the appearance at least of 
 originality, and to Butler especially in that philosophi- 
 cal courage which, when it discovers the fountains of 
 truth and falsehood, leaves others to follow the streams. 
 He states as strongly as Butler, that " the same cause 
 which determines us to pursue happiness for ourselves, 
 determines us both to esteem and benevolence on their 
 proper occasions — even the very frame of our nature."* 
 It is vain, as he justly observes, for the patrons of a re- 
 fined selfishness to pretend that we pursue the happiness 
 of others for the sake of the pleasure which we derive 
 from it ; since it is apparent that there could be no such 
 pleasure if there had been no previous afiection. <' Had 
 we no afiection distinct from self-love, nothing could 
 raise a desire of the happiness of others, but when view- 
 ed as a mean of our own."f He seems to have been the 
 first who entertained just notions of the formation of the 
 secondary desires, which had been overlooked by But- 
 ler. " There must arise, in consequence of our origi- 
 nal desires, secondary desires of every thing useful to 
 gratify the primary desire. Thus, as soon as we ap- 
 prehend the use of wealth or power to gratify our 
 original desires, we also desire them. From their uni- 
 versality as means arises the general prevalence of these 
 desires of wealth and power."f Proceeding farther 
 in his zeal against the selfish system than Lord Shaftes- 
 bury, who seems ultimately to rest the reasonableness 
 of benevolence on its subserviency to the happiness of 
 the individual, he represents the moral faculty to be, 
 
 * Inquiry, p. 152. 
 
 t Essay on the Passions, p. 17. 
 
 t Ibid. p. 8. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 127 
 
 as well as self-love and benevolence, a calm general im- 
 pulse, which may and does impel a good man to sacrifice 
 not only happiness, but even life itself, to virtue. 
 
 As Mr Locke had spoken of an internal sensation, — 
 Lord Shaftesbury once or twice of a reflex sense, and 
 once of a moral sense, — Hutcheson, who had a steadier, 
 if not a clearer view of the nature of conscience than But- 
 ler, calls it a Moral Sense; a name which quickly be- 
 came popular, and continues to be a part of philosophi- 
 cal language. By sense, he understood a capacity of 
 receiving ideas, together with pleasures and pains, from 
 a class of objects. The term moral was used to describe 
 the particular class in question. It implied only that 
 conscience was a separate element in our nature, and that 
 it was not a state or act of the understanding. Accord- 
 ing to him, it also implied that it was an original and im- 
 planted principle ; but every other part of his theory 
 might be embraced by those who hold it to be derivative. 
 
 The object of moral approbation, according to him, 
 is general benevolence ; and he carries this generous 
 error so far as to deny that prudence, as long as it re- 
 gards ourselves, can be morally approved ; — an assertion 
 contradicted by every man's feelings, and to which we 
 owe the Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue which But- 
 ler annexed to his Analogy. By proving that all virtuous 
 actions produce general good, he fancied that he had 
 proved the necessity of regarding the general good in 
 every act of virtue ; — an instance of that confusion of 
 the theory of moral sentiments with the criterion of 
 moral actions, against which the reader was warned at 
 the opening of this Dissertation, as fatal to Ethical Philo- 
 sophy. He is chargeable, like Butler, with a vicious 
 circle, in describing virtuous acts as those vs^hich are 
 approved by the moral sense, while he at the same time 
 describes the moral sense as the faculty which perceives 
 and feels the morality of actions. 
 
128 PROGRESS OF 
 
 He was the father of speculative philosophy in Scot- 
 land, at least in modern times ; for though in the begin- 
 ning of the sixteenth century the Scotch are said to have 
 been known throughout Europe by their unmeasured 
 passion for dialectical subtilties,* and though this me- 
 taphysical taste was nourished by the controversies 
 which followed the Reformation, yet it languished, with 
 every other intellectual taste and talent, from the Resto- 
 ration, first silenced by civil disorders, and afterwards 
 repressed by an exemplary but unlettered clergy, till 
 the philosophy of Shaftesbury was brought by Hutche- 
 son from Ireland. We are told by the writer of his 
 Life (a fine piece of philosophical biography), that '^ he 
 had a remarkable degree of rational enthusiasm for 
 learning, liberty, religion, virtue, and human happi- 
 ness ;"t that he taught in public with persuasive elo- 
 quence ; that his instructive conversation was at once 
 lively and modest ; that he united pure manners with a 
 kind disposition. What wonder that such a man should 
 have spread the love of knowledge and virtue around 
 him, and should have rekindled in his adopted country 
 a relish for the sciences which he cultivated! To him 
 
 • The character given of the Scotch by the famous and unfortunate 
 Servetus, in his edition of Ptolemy, (1533), is in many respects curious. 
 " Gallis amicissimi, Anglorumque regi maxime infesti. Subita ingenia, at 
 in ultionem prona, ferociaque. In hello fortes, inedise, vigiliae, algoris pa- 
 tientissimi, decent! forma sed cultu negligentiori; invidi natura et csterorum 
 mortalium contemptores; ostentant^/iM nimio noUlitatem suam, et in summa 
 etiam egestate suum genus ad regiam stirpem referunt, nec kos biaiecticis 
 AKGUTiis siBi BLAHDiuNTua. " — Subita ingenta is an expression equivalent 
 to the "Praefervidum Scotorum ingenium" of Buchanan. Churchill almost 
 agrees in words with Servetus: 
 
 Whose lineage springs 
 From great and glorious, though forgotten kings. 
 And the strong antipathy of the late King George III. to what he called 
 " Scotch Metaphysics," proves the permanency of the last part of the na- 
 tional character. 
 
 t Life by Dr LExcEMAjr, prefixed to Hutchssos's System of Moral Phi- 
 losophy, 1755. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 129 
 
 may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate 
 and original principles in human nature, which charac- 
 terized the Scottish School till the second extinction of 
 a passion for metaphysical speculation in Scotland. A 
 careful perusal of the writings of this now little studied 
 philosopher will satisfy the well-qualified reader, that 
 Dr Adam Smith's ethical speculations are not so unsug- 
 gested as they are beautiful. 
 
 BERKELEY.* 
 
 This great metaphysician was so little a moralist, that 
 it requires the attraction of his name to excuse its intro- 
 duction here. His Theory of Vision contains a great 
 discovery in mental philosophy. His immaterialism is 
 chiefly valuable as a touchstone of metaphysical sagacity; 
 showing those to be altogether without it, who, like John- 
 son and Beattie, believed that his speculations were 
 sceptical, that they implied any distrust in the senses, 
 or that they had the smallest tendency to disturb reason- 
 ing or alter conduct. Ancient learning, exact science, 
 polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, 
 contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this accom- 
 plished man. All his contemporaries agreed with the 
 satirist in ascribing 
 
 To Berkeley every virtue under heaven. 
 
 Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in lov- 
 ing, admiring, and contributing to advance him. The 
 severe sense of Swift endured his visions; the modest 
 Addison endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his ambi- 
 tious speculations. His character converted the satire of 
 Pope into fervid praise. Even the discerning, fastidi- 
 ous, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an interview 
 with him, " So much understanding, so much know- 
 
 • Born near Thomastown in Ireland, in 1684; died at Oxford in 1753. 
 
 R 
 
130 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not 
 think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw 
 this gentleman."* " Lord Bathurst told me, that the 
 Members of the Seriblerus Club being met at his house 
 at dinner, they agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also 
 his guest, on his scheme at Bermudas. Berkeley, hav- 
 ing listened to the many lively things they had to say, 
 begged to be heard in his turn, and displayed his plan 
 with such an astonishing and animating force of eloquence 
 and enthusiasm, that they were struck dumb, and after 
 some pause, rose all up together, with earnestness ex- 
 claiming, " Let us set out with him imniediately."t It 
 was when thus beloved and celebrated that he conceived, 
 at the age of forty -five, the design of devoting his life to 
 reclaim and convert the natives of North America ; and 
 he employed as much influence and solicitation as common 
 men do for their most prized objects, in obtaining leave 
 to resign his dignities and revenues, to quit his accom- 
 plished and affectionate friends, and to bury himself in 
 what must have seemed an intellectual desert. After 
 four years' residence at Newport in Rhode Island, he 
 was compelled, by the refusal of Government to furnish 
 him with funds for his College, to forego his work of he- 
 roic, or rather godlike benevolence; though not without 
 some consoling forethought of the fortune of the country 
 where he had sojourned. 
 
 Westward the course of empire takes ils way. 
 
 The first four acts abeady past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day. 
 
 Time's nobiest oiispriho is its iast. 
 
 Thus disappointed in his ambition of keeping a school 
 for savage children, at a salary of a hundred pounds by 
 the year, he was received, on his return, with open. 
 
 • Ddncombe's Letters, 106, 107. 
 ■f Wabton on Pope. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. X31 
 
 arms by the philosophical queen, at whose metaphysical 
 parties he made one with Sherlock, who, as well as Smal- 
 ridge, was his supporter, and with Hoadley, who, fol- 
 lowing Clarke, was his antagonist. By her influence he 
 was made bishop of Cloyne. It is one of his highest 
 boasts, that though of English extraction, he was a true 
 Irishman, and the first eminent Protestant, after the un- 
 happy contest at the Revolution, who avowed his love 
 for all his countrymen*. He asked, "Whether their 
 habitations and furniture were not more sordid than 
 those of the savage Americans?"* " Whether a scheme 
 for the welfare of this nation should not take in the 
 whole inhabitants ?" and, *' Whether it was a vain at- 
 tempt, to project the flourishing of ourProtestant gentry, 
 exclusive of the bulk of the natives F"f He proceeds to 
 promote the reformation suggested in this pregnant ques- 
 tion by a series of queries, intimating, with the utmost 
 skill and address, every reason that proves the necessity, 
 and the safety, and the wisest mode of adopting his sug^ 
 gestion. He contributed, by a truly Christian address 
 to the Roman Catholics of his diocese, to their perfect 
 quiet during the rebellion of 1745 ; and soon after pub- 
 lished a letter to the clergy of that persuasion, beseech- 
 ing them to inculcate industry among their flocks, for 
 which he received their thanks. He tells them, that it 
 was a saying among the negro slaves, ''if negro were not 
 negro, Irishman would be negro." It is difficult to read 
 these proofs of benevolence and foresight without emo- 
 tion, at the moment when, J after the lapse of near a cen- 
 tury, his suggestions have been at length, at the close of 
 a struggle of twenty-five years, adopted by the admis- 
 sion of the whole Irish nation to the privileges of the 
 British Constitution. The patriotism of Berkeley was 
 
 • See his Querist, 358; published in 1735- 
 t Ibid. 255. 
 
 * April 1829. 
 
132 PROGKKSS OF 
 
 not, like that of Swift, tainted by disappointed ambition ; 
 nor was it, like Swift's, confined to a colony of English 
 Protestants. Perhaps the Querist contains more hints, 
 then original, still unapplied in legislation and political 
 economy, than are to be found in any equal space. From 
 the writings of his advanced years, when he chose a medi- 
 cal Tract,* to be the vehicle of his philosophical reflec- 
 tions, though it cannot be said that he relinquished his 
 early opinions, it is at least apparent that his mind had 
 received a new bent, and was habitually turned from 
 reasoning towards contemplation. His immaterialism in- 
 deed modestly appears, but only to purify and elevate our 
 thoughts, and to fix them on Mind, the paramount and 
 primeval principle of all things. " Perhaps," says he, 
 «'the truth about innate ideas maybe, that there are pro- 
 perly no ideas or passive objects in the mind but what are 
 derived from sense, but that there are also, besides these, 
 her own acts and operations — such are notions;" a state- 
 ment which seems once more to admit general concep- 
 tions, and which might have served, as well as the par- 
 allel passage of Leibnitz, as the basis of the modern phi- 
 losophy of Germany. From these compositions of his old 
 age, he appears then to have recurred with fondness to 
 Plato and the later Platonists ; writers from whose mere 
 reasonings an intellect so acute could hardly hope for 
 an argumentative satisfaction of all its difficulties, and 
 whom he probably rather studied as a means of inuring 
 his mind to objects beyond the visible diurnal sphere, 
 and of attaching it, through frequent meditation, to that 
 perfect and transcendent goodness to which his moral 
 feelings always pointed, and which they incessantly 
 strove to grasp. His mdnd, enlarging as it rose, at length 
 receives every theist, however imperfect his belief, to a 
 communion in its philosophic piety. " Truth," he beau- 
 
 * Siris, or Reflections on Tar Water. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 133 
 
 tifully concludes, " is the cry of all, but the game of a 
 few. Certainly, where it is the chief passion, it does 
 not give way to vulgar cares, nor is it contented with a 
 little ardour in the early time of life ; active perhaps to 
 pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that 
 would make a real progress in knowledge, must dedicate 
 his age as well as youth, the later growth as well as first 
 fruits, at the altar of Truth." So did Berkeley, and 
 such were almost his latest words. 
 
 His general principles of ethics may be shortly stated 
 in his own words : — " As God is a being of infinite good- 
 ness, his end is the good of his creatures. The general 
 wellbeing of all men of all nations, of all ages of the world, 
 is that which he designs should be procured by the con- 
 curring actions of each individual." Having sfated that 
 this end can be pursued only in one of two ways — either 
 by computing the consequences of each action, or by 
 obeying rules which generally tend to happiness — and 
 having shown the first to be impossible, he rightly infers, 
 *' that the end to which God requires the concurrence 
 of human actions, must be carried on by the observation 
 of certain determinate and universal rules or moral pre- 
 cepts, which in their own nature have a necessary 
 tendency to promote the wellbeing of mankind, taking 
 in all nations and ages, from the beginning to the end of 
 the world."* A romance, of which a journey to an 
 Utopia, in the centre of Africa, forms the chief part, 
 called The Adventures of Signor Gaudentio di Lucca, 
 has been commonly ascribed to him ; probably on no 
 other ground than its union of pleasing invention with 
 benevolence and elegance, f Of the exquisite grace and 
 beauty of his diction, no man accustomed to English com- 
 position can need to be informed. His works are, be- 
 yond dispute, the finest models of philosophical style 
 
 * Sermon in Trinity College Chapel, on Passive Obedience, 1712. 
 I Gentleman's Magazine, January 1777. 
 
134 PROGRESS OF 
 
 since Cicero. Perhaps they surpass those of the orator, 
 in the wonderful art by which the fullest light is thrown 
 on the most minute and evanescent parts of the most 
 subtile of human conceptions. Perhaps he also surpass- 
 ed Cicero in the charm of simplicity, a quality eminently 
 found in Irish writers before the end of the eighteenth 
 century; conspicuous in the masculine severity of Swift, 
 in the Platonic fancy of Berkeley, in the native tender- 
 ness and elegance of Goldsmith, and not withholding its 
 attractions from Hutcheson and Leland , writers of clas- 
 sical taste, though of inferior power. The two Irish 
 philosophers of the eighteenth century may be said to 
 have co-operated in calling forth the metaphysical ge- 
 nius of Scotland ; for though Hutcheson spread the taste, 
 and furnished the principles, yet Berkeley undoubtedly 
 produced the scepticism of Hume, which stimulated the 
 instinctive school to activity, and was thought incapa- 
 ble of confutation, otherwise than by their doctrines. 
 
 David Hume.* 
 
 The Life of Mr Hume, written by himself, is remark- 
 able above most, if not all writings of that sort, for hitting 
 the degree of interest between coldness and egotism which 
 becomes a modest man in speaking of his private history. 
 Few writers, whose opinions were so obnoxious, have 
 more perfectly escaped every personal imputation. 
 Very few men ^^f so calm a character have been so 
 warmly beloved. That he approached to the character 
 of a perfectly good and wise man, is an affectionate ex- 
 aggeration, for which his friend Dr Smith, in the first 
 moments of his sorrow, may well be excused.f But such 
 a praise can never be earned without passing through 
 either of the extremes of fortune ; without standing the 
 
 • Born at Edinburgh in Ifll; died there in 1776. 
 
 t Dr Smith's Letter to Mr Strahan, annexed to the Life of Hume. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 13i) 
 
 test of temptations, dangers and sacrifices. It maj be 
 said with truth, that the private character df Mr Hume 
 exhibited all the virtues which a man of reputable sta- 
 tion, under a mild government, in the quiet times of a 
 civilized country, has often the opportunity to practise. 
 He showed no want of the qualities which fit men for 
 more severe trialsl Though others had warmer affec- 
 tions, no man was a kinder relation, a more unwearied 
 friend, or more free from meanness and malice. His 
 character was so simple, that he did not even affect mo- 
 desty ; but neither his friendships nor his deport- 
 ment were changed by a fame which filled all Eu- 
 rope. His good nature, his plain manners, and his 
 active kindness, procured him at Paris the enviable 
 name of the good David, from a society not so alive 
 to goodness, as without reason to place it at the head of 
 the qualities of a celebrated man.* His whole charac- 
 ter is faithfully and touchingly represented in the story 
 of La Roche,t where Mr Mackenzie, without conceal- 
 ing Mr Hume's opinions, brings him into contact with 
 scenes of tender piety, and yet preserves the interest in- 
 spired by genuine and unalloyed, though moderated 
 feelings and affections. The amiable and venerable pa- 
 triarch of Scottish literature was averse from the opin- 
 ions of the philosopher on whom he has composed this 
 best panegyric. He tells us that he read the manu- 
 script to Dr Smith, " who declared he -did not find a 
 sjllable to object to, but added, with his characteristic 
 absence of mind, that he was surprised he had never 
 heard of the anecdote before."$ So lively was the de- 
 lineation thus sanctioned by the most natural of all testi- 
 monies. Mr Mackenzie indulges his own religious feel- 
 ings by modestly intimating, that Dr Smith's answer 
 seemed to justify the last words of the tale, "that there 
 
 • See Notes and Illustrations, note P. 
 
 f Mirror, Nos. 42, 43, 44. 
 
 t Mackehzie's Life of John Home, p. 21- 
 
136 PROGRESS OF 
 
 were moments when the philosopher recalled to his mind 
 the venerable figure of the good La Roche, and wished 
 that he had never doubted." To those who are stran- 
 gers to the seductions of paradox, to the intoxication of 
 fame, and to the bewitchment of prohibited opinions, it 
 must be unaccountable, that he who revered benevolence 
 should, without apparent regret, cease to see it on the 
 Throne of the Universe. It is a matter of wonder that 
 his habitual esteem for every fragment and shadow of 
 moral excellence should not lead him to envy those who 
 contemplated its perfection in that living and paternal 
 character which gives it a power over the human heart. 
 
 On the other hand, if we had no experience of the 
 power of opposite opinions in producing irreconcilable 
 animosities, we might have hoped that those who retained 
 such high privileges would have looked with more com- 
 passion than dislike on a virtuous man who had lost them. 
 
 In such cases it is too little remembered, that repug- 
 nance to hypocrisy, and impatience of long concealment, 
 are the qualities of the best formed minds ; and that, if 
 the publication of some doctrines proves often painful 
 and mischievous, the habitual suppression of opinion is 
 injurious to reason, and very dangerous to sincerity. 
 Practical questions thus arise, so diflSicult and perplexing, 
 that their determination generally depends on the bold- 
 ness or timidity of the individual, — on his tenderness 
 for the feelings of the good, or his greater reverence 
 for the free exercise of reason. The time is not yet 
 come when the noble maxim of Plato, " that every soul 
 is unwillingly deprived of truth," will be practically 
 and heartily applied by men to the honest opponents 
 who differ from them most widely. 
 
 In his twenty-seventh year he published at London 
 the Treatise of Human J^Tature, the first systematic at- 
 tack on all the principles of knowledge and belief, and 
 the most formidable, if universal scepticism could ever 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 137 
 
 be more than a mere exercise of ingenuity.* This 
 memorable work was reviewed in a Journal of that time,t 
 in a criticism not distinguished by ability, which affects 
 to represent the style of a very clear writer as unintel- 
 ligible — sometimes from a purpose to insult, but oftener 
 from sheer dulness — which is unaccountably silent res- 
 pecting the consequences of a sceptical system ; and 
 which concludes with a prophecy so much at variance 
 with the general tone of the article, that it would seem 
 to be added by a different hand. '^ It bears incontesta- 
 ble marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but 
 young, and not yet thoroughly practised. Time and 
 use may ripen these qualities in the author, and we shall 
 probably have reason to consider this, compared with 
 his later productions, in the same light as we view the 
 juvenile works of Milton, or the first manner of 
 Raphael." 
 
 The great speculator did not, in this work, amuse 
 himself, like Bayle, with dialectical exercises, which 
 only inspire a disposition towards doubt, by showing in 
 detail the uncertainty of most opinions. He aimed at 
 proving, not that nothing was known, but that nothing 
 could be known ; — from the structure of the understand- 
 ing to demonstrate, that we are doomed for ever to dwell 
 in absolute and universal ignorance. It is true that such 
 a system of universal scepticism never can be more than 
 
 * Sextus, a physician of the empirical, i. e. anti-theoretical school, who 
 lived at Alexandria in the reign of Antonius Pius, has preserved the reason- 
 ings of the ancient Sceptics as they were to be found in their most improved 
 state, in the writings of ^nesidemus, a Cretan, who was a Professor in the 
 same city, soon after the reduction of Egypt into a Eoman province. The 
 greater part of the grounds of doubt are very shallow and popular. There 
 are, among them, intimations of the argument against a necessary connexion 
 of causes with effects, afterwards better presented by Glanville in his Scep- 
 sis Scientifica. See Notes and Illustrations, note Q,. 
 
 + History of the Works of the Learned, November and December 1739, p. 
 353-404. This Review is attributed by some (Chaimbbs, Biographical 
 Dictionary) to Warburton, but certainly without foundation. 
 
 s 
 
138 PROGEESS OF 
 
 an intellectual amusement, an exercise of subtilty ; of 
 which the only use is to check dogmatism, but which 
 perhaps oftener provokes and produces that much more 
 common evil. As those dictates of experience which 
 regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objec- 
 tions which attack them in common with the principles 
 of reasoning must be utterly ineffectual. Whatever at- 
 tacks every principle of belief can destroy none. As 
 long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to re- 
 main on the same level (be it called of certainty or un- 
 certainty) with the maxims of life, the whole system of 
 human conviction must continue undisturbed. When 
 the sceptic boasts of having involved the results of ex- 
 perience and the elements of geometry in the same ruin 
 with the doctrines of religion and the principles of phi- 
 losophy, he may be answered, That no dogmatist ever 
 claimed more than the same degree of certainty for 
 these various convictions and opinions; and that his 
 scepticism, therefore, leaves them in the relative condi- 
 tion in which it found them. No man knew better, or 
 owned more frankly than Mr Hume, that to this answer 
 there is no serious reply. Universal scepticism involves 
 a contradiction in terms. It is a belief that there can 
 he no belief. It is an attempt of the mind to act without 
 its structure, and by other laws than those to which its 
 nature has subjected its operations. To reason without 
 assenting to the principles on which reasoning is found- 
 ed, is not unlike an effort to feel without nerves, or to 
 move without muscles. JVb man can be allowed to be 
 an opponent in reasoning, who does not set out with 
 admitting all the principles, without the admission 
 of which it is impossible to reason.* It is indeed a 
 
 • This maxim, which contains a suflBcient answer to all universal scepti- 
 cism, or, in other words, to all scepticism properly so called, is significantly 
 conveyed in the quaint title of an old and rare book, entitled, Sdvi, sive 
 Sceptices et Scepiicorum a Jure Dtsputationts JSxclusio, by Thomas Whiti, 
 the metaphysician of the English Catholics in modem times " Fortunate- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 139 
 
 puerile, nay, in the eye of wisdom, a childish play, to 
 attempt either to establislt or to confute principles by 
 argument, which every step of that argument must pre- 
 suppose. The only difference between the two cases is, 
 that he who tries to prove them can do so only by first 
 taking them for granted ; and that he who attempts to 
 impugn them falls at the very first step into a contradic- 
 tion, from which he never can rise. 
 
 It must, however, be allowed, that universal scepti- 
 cism has practical consequences of a very mischievous 
 nature. This is because its universality is not steadily 
 kept in view, and constantly borne in mind. If it were, 
 the above short and plain remark would be an effectual 
 antidote to the poispn. But in practice, it is an armoury 
 froiti which weapons are taken to be employed against 
 some opinions, while it is hidden from notice that the 
 same weapon would equally cut down every other con- 
 viction. It is thus that Mr Hume's theory of causation 
 is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of 
 the Deity, without warning the reader that it would 
 equally lead him not to expect that the sun will rise to- 
 morrow. It must also be added, that those who are 
 early accustomed to dispute first principles are never 
 likely to acquire, in a sufficient degree, that earnestness 
 and that sincerity, that strong love of truth, and that 
 conscientious solicitude for the formation of just opinions, 
 which are not the least virtues of men, but of which the 
 cultivation is the more especial duty of all who call them- 
 selves philosophers.* 
 
 ly," says the illustrious sceptic himself, " since Reason is incapahk of dis- 
 pelling these chads. Nature herself suffices far that purpose, and cures me of 
 this philosophical delirium." {Treatise of Human Nature, I. 4,67); almost in 
 the sublime and immortal words of Pascal: La Eaison confond les Dogma- 
 tistes, et la Nature les Sceptiques. 
 
 * It would be an act of injustice to those readers who are not acquainted 
 with that valuable volume entitled, Essays on tite Formation of Opinions, 
 not to refer them to it as enforcing that neglected part of moi-ality. To it 
 
140 . PROGRESS OF 
 
 It is not an uninteresting fact, that Mr Hume, having 
 been introduced by LordKames (then Mr Henry Home) 
 to Pr Butler, sent a copy of his Treatise to that philo- 
 sopher at the moment of his preferment to the bishopric 
 of Durham ; and that the- perusal of it did not deter the 
 philosophic prelate from "everywhere recommending Mr 
 Hume's Moral and Political JEssays,^'* published two 
 years afterwards ; — Essays which it would indeed have 
 been unworthy of such a man not to have liberally com- 
 mended, for they, and those which followed them, what- 
 ever may be thought of the contents of some of them, 
 must be ever regarded as the best models in any lan- 
 guage, of the short but full, of the clear and agreeable, 
 though deep discussion of difficult questions. 
 
 Mr Hume considered his Enquiry concerning the 
 Principles of Morals as the best of his writings. It is 
 very creditable to his character, that he should have 
 looked back with most complacency on a Tract the least 
 distinguished by originality, and the least tainted with 
 paradox, among his philosophical works ; but deserving 
 of all commendation for the elegant perspicuity of the 
 style, and the novelty of illustration and inference with 
 which he unfolded to general readers a doctrine too sim- 
 ple, too certain, and too important, to remain till his 
 time undiscovered among philosophers. His diction 
 has, indeed, neither the grace of Berkeley nor the 
 strength of Hobbes ; but it is without the verbosity of the 
 former, or the rugged sternness of the latter. His man- 
 ner is more lively, more easy, more ingratiating, and, if 
 the word may be so applied, more amusing, than that 
 of any other metaphysical writer.f He knew himself 
 
 may be added a masterly article in the Westminster Hemew, occasioned by 
 the Essays. 
 
 • Woodhouselee's Life of Karnes, I. 86, 104. 
 
 f These commendations are so far from being at variance with the re- 
 marks of the late most ingenious Dr Thomas Brownj on Mr Hume's "mode 
 of writing," (Enquiry into the Relation of Cattse andEffect, 3d ed. 327) that 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 141 
 
 too well to be, as Dr Johnson asserted, an imitator of 
 Voltaire ; who, as it were, embodied in his own per- 
 son all the wit and quickness and versatile ingenuity 
 of a people which surpasses other nations in these bril- 
 liant qualities. If he must be supposed to have had 
 an eye on any French writer, it would be a more 
 plausible guess, that he sometimes copied, with a tem- 
 perate hand, the unexpected thoughts and familiar 
 expressions of Fontenelle. Though he carefully weeded 
 his writings in their successive editions, yet they still 
 contain Scotticism and Gallicisms enough to employ the 
 successors of such critics as those who exulted over the 
 Patavinity of the; Roman Historian. His own great and 
 modest mind would have been satisfied with the praise 
 which cannot be withheld from him, that there is no wri- 
 ter in our language who, through long works, is more 
 agreeable ; and it is no derogation from him, that, as a 
 Scotsman, he did not reach those native and secret beau- 
 ties, characteristical of a language, which are never at- 
 tained, in elaborate composition, but by a very small 
 number of those who familiarly converse in it from in- 
 fancy. 
 
 The Enquiry affords perhaps the best specimen of his 
 style. In substance, its chief merit is the proof, from 
 an abundant enumeration of particulars, that all the qual- 
 ities and actions of the mind which are generally ap- 
 proved by mankind agree in the circumstance of being 
 useful to society. In the proof (scarcely necessary), 
 that benevolent affections and actions have that tendency, 
 he asserts the real existence of these affections with un- 
 usual warmth ; and he well abridges some of the most 
 forcible arguments of Butler,* whom it is remarkable 
 
 they may rathei- be regai'ded as descriptive of those excellencies of which 
 the excess produced the faults of Mr Hume as a mere searcher and teacher; 
 justly, though perhaps severely, animadverted on by Dr Brown. 
 
 • Enquiry, sect. ii. part i., especially the concluding paragraphs; those 
 which precede being more his own. 
 
142 PROGRESS OF 
 
 that he does not mention. To show the importance of 
 his principle, he very unnecessarily distinguishes the 
 comprehensive duty of justice, from other parts of mo- 
 rality, as an artificial virtue, for which our respect is 
 solely derived from notions of utility. If all things were 
 in such plenty that there could never be a want, or if 
 men were so benevolent as to provide for the wants of 
 others as much as for their own, there would, says he, in 
 neither case be any justice, because there would be no 
 need for it. But it is evident that the same reasoning 
 is applicable to every good affection and right action. 
 None of them could exist if there were no scope for 
 their exercise. If there were no suffering, there could 
 be no pity and no relief. If there were no offences, there 
 could be no placability. If there were no crimes, there 
 could be no mercy. Temperance, prudence, patience, 
 magnanimity, are qualities of which the value depends 
 on the evils by which they are respectively exercised.* 
 On purity of manners, it must be owned that Mr 
 Hume, though he controverts no rule, yet treats vice 
 with too much indulgence. It was his general disposi- 
 tion to distrust virtues which are liable to exaggeration, 
 and may be easily counterfeited. The ascetic pursuit of 
 purity, and hypocritical pretences to patriotism, had too 
 
 • " Si nobis, cum ex hao vita migraverimus, in beatorum insuUs, ut fab- 
 ulse ferunt, immortale xvum degere liceret, quid opus esset eloquentia, cum 
 judicia nulla fierent? aut ipsis etiam virtutibus? Nee enim fortitudine indi- 
 geremus, nuUo proposito aut labore aut periculo; necjitstitia, cum esset nihil 
 quod appeteretur alieni; nee temperantia, quje regeret eas qua nulla assent- 
 libidines: ne prudenlia quidem egeremus, nullo proposito deleetubonorum 
 et malorum. Una igitur essemus beati cognitione rerum et scientia." 
 {Frag. Cic. Hortens. apud Augtjstiw. de Trinitate.) Cicero is more exten- 
 sive, and therefore more consistent, than Hume; but his enumeration errs 
 both by excess and defect. He supposes knowledge to render beingshappy 
 in this imaginary state, without stopping to inquire how. He omits a vir- 
 tue which might well exist in it, though we cannot conceive its formation 
 in such a state — the delight in each other's weU-being; and he omits a con- 
 ceivable though unknown vice, that of unmixed ill-will, which would ren- 
 der such a state a hell to the wretch who harboured the malevolence. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 143 
 
 much withdrawn the respect of his equally calm and sin- 
 cere nature from these excellent virtues; more especially 
 as severity in both these respects was often at apparent 
 variance with aifection, which can neither be long as- 
 sumed, nor ever overvalued. Yet it was singular that 
 he who, in his Essay on Polygamy and Divorce,"^ had so 
 well shown the connexion of domestic ties with the out- 
 ward order of society, should not have perceived their 
 deeper and closer relation to all the social feelings of hu- 
 man nature. It cannot be enough regretted,, that, in an 
 Enquiry written with a very moral purpose, his habitof 
 making truth attractive, by throwing over her the dress 
 of paradox, should have given him for a moment the ap- 
 pearance of weighing the mere amusements of society 
 and conversation against domestic fidelity, which is the 
 preserver of domestic affection, the source of parental 
 fondness and filial regard, and, indirectly, of all the kind- 
 ness which exists between human beings. That families 
 are schools where the infant heart learns to love, and 
 that pure manners are the cement which alone holds 
 these schools together, are truths so certain, that it is 
 wonderful he should not have betrayed a stronger sense 
 of their importance. No one could so well have prov- 
 ed that all the virtues of that class, in their viarious or- 
 ders and degrees, minister to the benevolent affections ; 
 and that every act which separates the senses from the 
 affections tends, in some degree, to deprive kindness of 
 its natural auxiliary, and to lessen its prevalence in the 
 world. It did not require his sagacity to discover that 
 the g^entlest and tenderest feelings flourish only under 
 the stern guardianship of these severe virtues. Per- 
 haps his philosophy was loosened, though his life was un- 
 tainted, by that universal and undistinguishing profliga- 
 cy which prevailed on the Continent, from the regency 
 
 • Essays and TVeatises, Vol. I. 
 
144 PROGRESS OF 
 
 of the Duke of Orleans to the French revolution ; the 
 most dissolute period of European history, at least since 
 the Roman emperors.* At Rome, indeed, the connex- 
 ion of licentiousness with cruelty, which, though scarce- 
 ly traceable in individuals, is generally very observable 
 in large masses, bore a fearful testimony to the value of 
 austere purity. The alliance of these remote vices seem- 
 ed to be broken in the time of Mr Hume. Pleasure, in 
 a more improved state of society, seemed to return to 
 her more natural union with kindness and tenderness, as 
 well as with refinement and politeness. Had he lived 
 fourteen years longer, however, he would have seen, that 
 the virtues which guarded the natural seminaries of the 
 aifections are their only true and lasting friends. The 
 demand of all well-informed men for the improvement of 
 civil institutions — the demand of classes of men, growing 
 in intelligence, to be delivered from a degrading inferi- 
 ority, and admitted to a share of political power propor- 
 tioned to their new importance, being feebly yet violently 
 resisted by those ruling Castes who neither knew how to 
 yield nor how to withstand — being also attended by very 
 erroneous principles of legislation, having suddenly brok- 
 en down the barriers (imperfect as these were) of law 
 and government, led to popular excesses, desolating wars, 
 and a military dictatorship, which for a long time threat- 
 ened to defeat the reformation, and to disappoint the 
 hopes of mankind. This tremendous convulsion threw a 
 fearful light on the ferocity which lies hid under the arts 
 and pleasures of corrupted nations ; as earthquakes and 
 volcanoes disclose the layers which compose the deeper 
 parts of our planet, beneath a fertile and flowery surface. 
 A part of this dreadful result may be ascribed, not im- 
 probably, to that relaxation of domestic ties, unhappily 
 natural to the populace of vast capitals, and at that time 
 
 * See Notes and lUusti-ations, note R. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 145 
 
 countenanced and aggravated by the example of their 
 superiors. Another part doubtless arose from the bar- 
 barizing power of absolute government, or, in other 
 words, of injustice in high places. A very large por- 
 tion attests, as strongly as Roman history, though in a 
 somewhat diiferent manner, the humanizing efficacy of 
 the family virtues, by the consequences of the want of 
 them in the higher classes, whose profuse and ostenta- 
 tious sensuality inspired the laborious and suffering por- 
 tion of mankind with contempt, disgust^ envy, and 
 hatred. 
 
 The Enquiry is disfigured by another speck of more 
 frivolous paradox. It consists in the attempt to give 
 the name of virtue to qualities of the understanding; and 
 it would not have deserved the single remark about to 
 be made on it, h^d it been the paradox of an inferior 
 man. He has altogether omitted the circumstance on 
 which depends the difference of our sentiments regard- 
 ing moral and intellectual qualities. We admire intel- 
 lectual excellence, but we bestow no moral approbation 
 on it. Such approbation has no tendency directly to 
 increase it, because it is not voluntary. We cultivate 
 our natural disposition to esteem and love benevolence 
 and justice, because these moral sentiments, and the ex- 
 pression of them, directly and materially dispose others, 
 as well as ourselves, to cultivate these two virtues. We 
 cultivate a natural anger against oppression, which guards 
 ourselves against the practice of that vice, and because 
 the manifestation of it deters others from its exercise. 
 The first rude resentment of a child is against every in- 
 strument of hurt. We confine it to intentional hurt, 
 when we are taught by experience that it prevents only 
 that species of hurt ; and at last it is still further limited 
 to wrong done to ourselves or others, and in that case 
 becomes a purely moral sentiment. We morally ap- 
 prove industry, desire of knowledge, love of truth, and 
 T 
 
146 PROGRESS OF 
 
 all the habits by which the understanding is strength- 
 ened and rectified, because their formation is subject to 
 the will.* But we do not feel a moral anger against 
 folly or ignorance, because they are involuntary. No 
 one but the religious persecutor, a mischievous and over- 
 grown child, wreaks his vengeance on involuntary, inevi- 
 table, compulsory acts or states of the understanding, 
 which are no more aifected by blame than the stone 
 which the foolish child beats for hurting him. Reasona- 
 ble men apply to every thing which they wish to move, 
 the agent which is capable of moving it ; — force to out- 
 ward substances, arguments to the understanding, and 
 blame, together with all other motives, whether moral or 
 personal, to the will alone. It is as absurd to entertain an 
 abhorrence of intellectual inferiority or error, however 
 extensive or mischievous, as it would be to cherish a 
 warm indignation against earthquakes or hurricanes. It 
 is singular that a philosopher who needed the most lib- 
 eral toleration should, by representing states of the under- 
 standing as moral or immoral, have offered the most phi- 
 losophical apology for persecution. 
 
 That general utility constitutes a uniform ground of 
 moral distinctions, is a part of Mr Hume's ethical theory 
 which never can be impugned, until some example can 
 be produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or of a 
 vice generally beneficial. The religious philosopher 
 who, with Butler, holds that benevolence must be the 
 actuating principle of the divine mind, will, with Ber- 
 keley, maintain that pure benevolence can prescribe no 
 rules of human conduct but such as are beneficial to men- 
 thus bestowing on the theory of Moral Distinctions the 
 certainty of demonstration in the eyes of all who believe 
 in God. 
 
 • "In hac qusstione primas tenet Voluntas, qua, ut ait Augustlnus,;)ec- 
 catur, et rede viviiur." (Hyperaspistes, Diatribe adverms Senmm Arbitrium 
 Mahtiki LuTHEKi.^jej- Desidbhium Euasmcm Rotterdamensem. ) 
 
ETHICAL, PHILOSOPHY, 147 
 
 The other question of moral philosophy which relates 
 to the theory of Moral Approbation, has been by no 
 means so distinctly and satisfactorily handled by Mr 
 Hume. His general doctrine is, that an interest in the 
 wellbeing of others, implanted by nature, which he calls 
 Sympathy in his Treatise of Human Mature, and much 
 less happily Benevolence in his subsequent Enquiry,* 
 prompts us to be pleased with all generally beneficial 
 actions. In this respect his doctrine nearly resembles that 
 of Hutcheson. He does not trace his principle through 
 the variety of forms which our moral sentiments assume. 
 There are very important parts of them, of which it af- 
 fords no solution. For example, though he truly rep- 
 resents our approbation, in others, of qualities useful to 
 the individual, asaproof Of benevolence, he makes no at- 
 tempt to explain our moral approbation of such virtues as 
 temperance and fortitude in ourselves. He entirely 
 overlooks that consciousness of the rightful supremacy 
 of the moral faculty over every other principle of hu- 
 man action, without an explanation of which, ethical 
 theory is wanting in one of its vital organs. 
 
 Notwithstanding these considerable defects, his proof 
 from induction of the beneficial tendency of virtue, his 
 conclusive arguments for human disinterestedness, and 
 his decisive observations on the respective provinces of 
 reason and sentiment in morals, concur in ranking the 
 Enquiry with the ethical treatises of the highest taerit 
 in our language, — with Shaftesbury's Enquiry concern- 
 ing Virtue, Butler's Sermons, and Smith's Theory of 
 Moral Sentiments. 
 
 Adam SMiTH.f 
 
 The great name of Adam Smith rests upon the En- 
 quiry into the J^ature and Causes of the Wealth of 
 
 * Essays and Treatises, Vol. II. 
 t Born in 1723; (lied in 1790. 
 
148 PROGRESS OF 
 
 JSTations ; perhaps the only book which produced an 
 immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of 
 the most important parts of the legislation of all civilized 
 states. The works of Grotius, of Locke, and of Montes- 
 quieu, which bear a resemblance to it in character, and 
 had no inconsiderable analogy to it in the extent of 
 their popular influence, were productive only of a gene- 
 ral amendment, not so conspicuous in particular instances, 
 as discoverable, after a time, in the improved condition 
 of humari affairs.* The work of Smith, as it touched 
 those matters which may be numbered, and measured, 
 and weighed, bore more visible and palpable fruit. In 
 a few years it began to alter laws and treaties, and has 
 made its way, throughout the convulsions of revolution 
 and conquest, to a due ascendant over the minds of men, 
 with far less than the average obstructions of prejudice 
 and clamour, which choak the channels through which 
 truth flows into practice. The most eminent of those 
 who have since cultivated and improved the science will 
 be the foremost to address their immortal master, 
 
 Tenebris tantis tarn clarum extollere lunien 
 
 Qui primus potuisti, iniustbans commoda vitib, 
 Tesequor! (Lucbbt. lib. iii.) 
 
 In a science more difficult, because both ascending to 
 more simple general principles, and running down 
 through more minute applications, though the success of 
 Smith has been less complete, his genius is not less con- 
 spicuous. Perhaps there is no ethical vyorks since 
 Cicero's Offices, of which an abridgement enables the 
 reader so inadequately to estimate the merit, as the 
 Theory of Moral Sentiments. This is not chiefly owing 
 to the beauty of diction, as in the case of Cicero ; but to 
 the variety of explanations of life and manners which 
 embellish the book often more than they illuminate the 
 
 • Notes and Illustrations, note S. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 149 
 
 theory. Yet, on the other hand, it must be owned that, 
 for purely philosophical purposes, few books more need 
 abridgement: for the most careful reader frequently 
 loses sight of principles buried under illustrations. The 
 naturally copious and flowing style of the author is gen- 
 erally redundant, and the repetition of certain formula- 
 ries of the system is, in the later editions, so frequent as 
 to be wearisome, and sometimes ludicrous. Perhaps 
 Smith and Hobbes may be considered as forming the two 
 extremes of good style in our philosophy ; the first of 
 graceful fulness falling into flaccidity ; while the mas- 
 terly concision of the second is oftener tainted by dictato- 
 rial dryness. Hume and Berkeley, though they are 
 nearer the extreme of abundance,* are probably the 
 least distant from perfection. 
 
 That mankind are so constituted as to sympathize 
 with each other's feelings, and to feel pleasure in the ac- 
 cordance of these feelings, are the only facts required by 
 Dr Smith, and they certainly must be granted to him. 
 To adopt the feelings of another, is to approve them. 
 When the sentiments of another are such as would be 
 excited in us by the same objects, we approve them as 
 morally proper. To obtain this accord, it becomes 
 necessary for him who enjoys or suffers, to lower his ex- 
 pression of feeling to the point to which the by-stander 
 can raise his fellow-feelings ; on which are founded all 
 the high virtues of self-denial and self-command ; and it 
 is equally necessary for the by-stander to raise his sym- 
 pathy as near as he can to the level of the original feel- 
 ing. In all unsocial passions, such as anger, we have a 
 divided sympathy between him who feels them and those 
 who are the objects of them. Hfence the propriety of 
 extremely moderating them. Pure malice is always to 
 
 • Tliis remark is chiefly applicable to Hume's Essays. His Treatise of 
 Human Nature is more Hobbian in its general tenor, though it has Cice- 
 ronian passages. 
 
150 PROGRESS OF 
 
 be concealed or disguised, because all sympathy is 
 arrayed against it. In the private passions, where there 
 is only a simple sympathy — that with the original pas- 
 sion — the expression has more liberty. The benevolent 
 affections, where there is a double sympathy — with 
 those who feel them, and those who are their objects — 
 are the most agreeable, arid may be indulged with the 
 least apprehension of finding no echo in other breasts. 
 Sympathy with the gratitude of those who are benefited 
 by good actions, prompts us to consider them as deserv- 
 ing of reward, and forms the sense of m.erit ; as fellow- 
 feeling with the resentment of those wlfo art injured by 
 crimes leads us to look on them as worthy of punishment, 
 and constitutes the sense of demerit. These sentiments 
 require not only beneficial actions, but benevolent mo- 
 tives for them ; being compounded, in the case of merit, 
 of a direct sympathy with the good disposition of the 
 benefactor, and an indirect sympathy with the persons 
 benefited ; in the opposite case, with the precisely 
 opposite sympathies. He who does an act of wrong 
 to another to gratify his own passions, must not expect 
 that the spectators, who have none of his undue partial- 
 ity to his own interest, will enter into his feelings. In 
 such a case, he knows that they will pity the person 
 wronged, and be full of indignation against him. When 
 he is cooled, he adopts the sentiments of others on his 
 own crime, feels shame at the impropriety of his former 
 passion, pity for those who have suffered by him, and a 
 dread of punishment from general and just resentment. 
 Such are the constituent parts of remorse. 
 
 Our moral sentiments respecting ourselves arise from 
 those which others feel concerning us. We feel a self-ap- 
 probation whenever we believe that the general feeling 
 of mankind coincides with that state of mind in which we 
 ourselves were at a given time. '^ We suppose ourselves 
 the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 151 
 
 imagine what effect it would in this light produce in us." 
 We must view our own conduct with the eyes of others 
 before we can judge it. The sense of duty arises from 
 putting ourselves in the place of others, and adopting 
 their sentiments respecting our own conduct. In utter 
 solitude there could have been no self-approbation. The 
 rules of morality are a summary of those sentiments ; and 
 often beneficially stand in their stead when the self-delu- 
 sions of passion would otherwise hide from us the non- 
 conformity of our state of mind with that which, in the 
 circumstances, can be entered into and approved by im- 
 partial by-standers. It is hence that we learn to raise our 
 mind above local or temporary clamour, and to fix our 
 eyes on the surest indications of the general and lasting 
 sentiments of human nature. " When we approve of any 
 character or action, our sentiments are derived from four 
 sources : first, we sympathise with the motives of the 
 agent; secondly, ■we enter into the gratitude of those 
 who have been benefited by his actions ; thirdly, we ob- 
 serve that his conduct has been agreeable to the general 
 rules by which those two sympathies generally act ; and, 
 last of all, when we consider such actions as forming part 
 of a system of behaviour which tends to promote the hap- 
 piness either of the individual or of society, they appear 
 to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which 
 we ascribe to any well contrived machine."* 
 
 REMARKS. 
 
 That Smith is the first who has drawn the attention of 
 philosophers to one of the most curious and important 
 parts of human nature — who has looked closely and stea- 
 dily into the workings of Sympathy, its sudden action 
 and reaction, its instantaneous conflicts and its emotions, 
 its minute play and varied illusions — is sufficient to place 
 him high among the cultivators of mental philosophy^ 
 
 * Theory of Moral Sentiments, II. Zdi EcUnb.1801. 
 
152 PROGRESS OF 
 
 He is very original in applications and explanations ; 
 though, for his principle, he is somewhat indebted to 
 Butler, more to Hutcheson, and most of all to Hume. 
 These writers, except Hume, in his original work, had 
 derived sympathy, or great part of it, from benevolence.* 
 Smith, with deeper insight, inverted the order. The 
 great part performed by various sympathies in moral ap- 
 probation was first unfolded by him ; and besides its in- 
 trinsic importance, it strengthened the proofs against 
 those theories which ascribe that great function to Rea- 
 son. Another great merit of the theory of sympathy is, 
 that it brings into tlie strongest light that most important 
 characteristic of the moral sentiments which consists in 
 their being the only principles leading to action, and 
 dependent on emotion or sensibility, with respect to the 
 objects of which, it is not only possible but natural for- 
 all mankind to agree. f 
 
 The main defects of this theory seem to be the follow- 
 ing- 
 
 1. Though it is not to be condemned for decliningin- 
 
 quiry into the origin of our fellow^-feeling, which, being 
 one of the most certain of all facts, might well be assum- 
 ed as ultimate in speculations of this nature, it is evident 
 that the circumstances to which some speculators ascribe 
 the formation of sympathy at least contribute to strength- 
 en or impair, to contract or expand it. It will appear, 
 more conveniently, in the next article, that the theory 
 of sympathy has suffered from the omission of these cir- 
 cumstances. For the present, it is enough to observe 
 how much our compassion for various sorts of animals, 
 
 * There is some confusion regarding this point in Butler's first sermon on 
 Compassion. 
 
 •j- The feelings of beauty, grandeur, and whatever else is comprehended 
 under the name of Taste, form no exception, for they do not lead to action, 
 but terminate in delightful contemplation; which constitutes the essential 
 distinction between them and the moral sentiments; to which, in some points 
 of view, they may doubtless be likened. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 153 
 
 and our fellow-feeling with various races of men, are pro- 
 portioned to the resemblance which they bear to our- 
 selves, to the frequency of our intercourse with them, 
 and to other causes which, in the opinion of some, afford 
 evidence that sympathy itself is dependent on a more 
 general law. 
 
 2. Had Smith extended his view beyond the mere 
 play of sympathy itself, and taken into account all its pre- 
 liminaries, and accompaniments, and consequences, it 
 seems improbable that he should have fallen into the 
 great error of representing the sympathies in their pri- 
 mitive state, without undergoing any transformation, as 
 continuing exclusively to constitute the moral sentiments. 
 He is not content with teaching that they are the roots 
 out of which these sentiments grow, the stocks on which 
 they are grafted, the elements of which they are com- 
 pounded ; doctrines to which nothing could be objected 
 but their unlimited extent. He tacitly assumes, that if 
 a sympathy in the beginning caused or formed a moral 
 approbation, so it must ever continue to do. He pro- 
 ceeds like a geologist who should tell us that the layers of 
 this planet had always been ia the same state, shutting his 
 eyes to transition states and secondary formations ; or like a 
 chemist who should inform us that no compound substance 
 can possess new qualities entirely different from those 
 which belong to its materials. His acquiescence in this 
 old and still general error is the more remarkable, be- 
 cause Mr Hume's beautiful Dissertation on the Passions* 
 had just before opened a striking view of some of the com- 
 positions and decompositions which render the mind of a 
 formed man as different from its original state, as the or- 
 ganization of a complete animal is from the condition of 
 the first dim speck of vitality. It is from this oversight 
 (ill supplied by moral rules, a loose stone in his building) 
 
 * J&ssays and Treatises, vol. II. 
 
 u 
 
154 PROGRESS OF 
 
 that he has exposed himself to objections founded on ex- 
 perience, to which it is impossible to attempt any an- 
 swer. For it is certain that in many, nay in most cases 
 of moral approbation, the adult man approves the action 
 or disposition merely as right, and with a distinct con- 
 sciousness that no process of sympathy intervenes be- 
 tween the approval and its object. It is certain that an 
 unbiassed person would call it moral approbation, only 
 as far as it excluded the interposition of any reflection 
 between the conscience and the mental state approved. 
 Upon the supposition of an unchanged state of our active 
 principles, it would follow that sympathy never had any 
 share in the greater pkrt of them. Had he admitted the 
 sympathies to be only elements entering into the forma- 
 tion of Conscience, their disappearance, or their appear- 
 ance only as auxiliaries, after the mind is mature, would 
 have been no more an objection to his system, than the 
 conversion of a substance from a transitional to a perma- 
 nent state is a perplexity to the geologist. It would per- 
 fectly resemble the destruction of qualities, which is the 
 ordinary effect of chemical composition. 
 
 3, The same error has involved him in another diffi- 
 culty, perhaps still more fatal. The sympathies have 
 nothing more of an imperative character than any other 
 emotions. They attract or repel like other feelings, ac- 
 cording to their intensity. If, then, the sympathies con- 
 tinue in mature minds to constitute the whole of con- 
 science, it becomes utterly impossible to explain the 
 character of command and supremacy, which is attested 
 by the unanimous voice of mankind to belong to that 
 faculty, and to form its essential distinction. Had he 
 adopted the other representation, it would be possible 
 to conceive, perhaps easy to explain, that conscience 
 should possess a quality which belonged to none of its 
 elements. 
 
 4. It is to this representation that Smith's theory 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 155 
 
 owes that unhappy appearance of rendering the rule of 
 our conduct dependent on the notions and passions of 
 those who surround us, of which the utmost efforts of 
 the most refined ingenuity have not been able to divest 
 it. This objection or topic is often ignorantly urged; 
 the answers are frequently solid ; but to most men they 
 must always appear to be an ingenious and intricate con- 
 trivance of cycles and epicycles, which perplex the 
 mind too much to satisfy it, and seem devised to evade 
 difilculties which cannot be solved. All theories which 
 treat conscience as built up by circumstances inevitably 
 acting on all human minds, are, indeed, liable to some- 
 what of the same misconception ; unless they place in the 
 strongest light (what Smith's theory excludes) the total 
 destruction of the scaffolding which was necessary only 
 to the erection of the building, after the mind is adult 
 and mature, and warn the hastiest reader, that it then 
 rests on its own foundation alone. 
 
 5. The constant reference of our own dispositions and 
 actions to the point of view from which they are esti- 
 mated by others, seems to be rather an excellent expe- 
 dient for preserving our impartiality, than a fundamental 
 principal of Ethics. But impartiality, which is no more 
 than a removal of some hinderance to right judgment, 
 supplies no materials for its exercise, and no rule, or 
 even principle, for its guidance. It nearly coincides 
 with the Christian precept of doing unto others as we 
 would they should do unto us ; an admirable practical 
 maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said truly, intended only as 
 a correction of self-partiality. 
 
 6. Lastly, this ingenious system renders all morality 
 relative, — by referring it to the pleasure of an agree- 
 ment of our feelings with those of others, by confining 
 itself entirely to the question of moral approbation, and 
 by providing no place for the consideration of that qual- 
 ity which distinguishes all good from all bad actions ;— 
 
156 PROGRESS OF 
 
 a defect which will appear in the sequel to be more im- 
 mediately fatal to a theorist of the sentimental, than to 
 one of the intellectual school. Smith shrinks from con- 
 sidering utility in that light as soon as it presents itself, 
 or very strangely ascribes its power over our moral feel- 
 ings to admiration of the mere adaptation of means to ends, 
 — ^which might surely be as well felt for the production 
 of wide-spread misery, by a consistent system of wicked 
 conduct, — instead of ascribing it to benevolence, with 
 Hutcheson and Hume, or to an extension of that very 
 sympathy which is his own first principle. 
 
 RicHARB Price.* 
 
 About the same time with the celebrated work of 
 Smith, but with a popular reception very different, Dr 
 Richard Price, an excellent and eminent non-conformist 
 minister, published ^3. Review of the principal Questions 
 in Morals;^ — an attempt to revive the intellectual theory 
 of moral obligation, which seemed to have fallen under the 
 attacks of Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume, even before 
 Smith. It attracted little observation at first ; but be- 
 ing afterwards countenanced by the Scottish School, 
 may seem to deserve some notice, at a moment when the 
 kindred speculations of the German metaphysicians have 
 effected an establishment in France, and are no longer 
 unknown in England. 
 
 The understanding itself is, according to Price, an in- 
 dependent source of simple ideas. "The various kinds 
 of agreement and disagreement between our ideas, spoken 
 of by Locke, are so many new simple ideas." "■ This is 
 true of our ideas of proportion, of our ideas of identity 
 and diversity, existence, connection, cause and effect, 
 power, possibility, and of our ideas of right and wrong." 
 "The first relates to quantity, the last to actions, the 
 
 • Born in 1723; died in 1791- 
 
 I The third edition was published at London in 1787. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 157 
 
 rest to all things." " Like all other simple ideas, they 
 are undefinable." 
 
 It is needless to pursue this theory farther, till an an- 
 swer shall be given to the observation made before, that 
 as no perception or judgment, or other unmixed act of 
 understanding, merely as such, and without the agency 
 of some intermediate emotion^ can affect the will, the 
 account given by Dr Price of perceptions or judgments 
 respecting moral subjects, does not advance one step to- 
 wards the explanation of the authority of conscience over 
 the will, which is the matter to be explained. Indeed, 
 this respectable writer felt the difficulty so much as to 
 allow, " that in contemplating the acts of moral agents, 
 we have both a perception of the understanding and a 
 feeling of the heart." He even admits, that it would 
 have been highly pernicious to us if our reason had been 
 left without such support. But he has not shown how, 
 on such a supposition, we could have acted on a mere 
 opinion ; nor has he given any proof that what he calls 
 support is not, in truth, the whole of what directly pro- 
 duces the conformity of voluntary acts to morality.* 
 
 David Hartley.! 
 The work of Dr Hartley, entitled Observations on 
 Man,X is distinguished by an uncommon union of origi- 
 nality with modesty, in unfolding a simple and fruitful 
 
 * The following sentences will illustrate the text, and are in truth ap- 
 plicable to all moral theories on merely intellectual principles: — "Reason 
 alone, did we possess it in a higher degree, would answer all the ends of tlie 
 passions. Thus there would be no need of parental affection, were all 
 parents sufficiently acquainted with the reasons for taking upon them the 
 guidance and support of those whom nature has placed under their care, 
 and were they virtuous enough to be always determined by those reasons." 
 (Pbice's Review, 121.) A very slight consideration wiU show, that without 
 the last words the preceding part would be utterly false, and with them it 
 is utterly insignificant. 
 
 t Born in 1705; died in 1757. 
 
 % London, 1749. 
 
158 PROGRESS OF 
 
 principle of human nature. It is disfigured by the ab- 
 surd affectation of mathematical forms then prevalent ; 
 and it is encumbered and deformed by a mass of physio- 
 logical speculations, groundless, or at best uncertain, 
 wholly foreign from its proper purpose, which repel the 
 inquirer into mental philosophy from its perusal, and 
 lessen the respect of the physiologist for the author's 
 judgment. It is an unfortunate example of the disposi- 
 tion predominant among undistinguishing theorists to 
 class together all the appearances which are observed at 
 the same time, and in the immediate neighbourhood of 
 each other. At that period, chemical phenomena were 
 referred to mechanical principles ; vegetable and animal 
 life were subjected to mechanical or chemical laws ; and 
 while some physiologists* ascribed the vital functions 
 to the understanding, the greater part of metaphysicians 
 were disposed, with a grosser confusion, to derive the 
 intellectual operations from bodily causes. The error 
 in the latter case, though less immediately perceptible, 
 is deeper and more fundamental than in any other ; since 
 it overlooks the primordial and perpetual distinction be- 
 tween the being which thinks and the thing which is 
 thought of; — not to be lost sight of, by the mind's eye, 
 even for a twinkling, without involving all nature in 
 darkness and confusion. Hartley and Condillac,t who, 
 much about the same time, but seemingly without any 
 knowledge of each other's speculations, J began in a very 
 
 * G. B. Stahl, born in 1660; died in 1734; a German physician and 
 chemist of deserved eminence. 
 
 t Born in 1715; died in 1780 . 
 
 i Traits sur I'Origine des Connoissances JSumaines, 1746; TraiU des 
 Systemes, 1749; Traite des Sensations, 1754. Foreign books were then lit- 
 tle and slowly known in England. Hartley's reading, except on theology, 
 seems confined to the physical and mathematical sciences; and his whole 
 manner of thinking and writing is so different from that of Condillac, that 
 there is not the least reason to suppose the work of the one to have been 
 known to the other. 
 
 The work of Hartley, as we learn from the sketch of his life by lus son, 
 prefixed to the edition of 1791, was begun in 1730, and finished in 1746. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 159 
 
 similar mode to simplify, but also to mutilate the system 
 of Locke, stopped short of what is called Materialism, 
 which consummates the confusion, but touched its 
 threshold. Thither, it must be owned, their philoso- 
 phy pointed, and thither their followers proceeded. 
 Hartley and Bonnet,* still more than Condillac, suffer- 
 ed themselves, like most of their contemporaries, to 
 overlook the important truth, that all the changes 
 in the organs which can be likened to other material 
 phenomena, are nothing more than antecedents and 
 prerequisites of perception, bearing not the faintest 
 likeness to it ; as much outward in relation to the think- 
 ing principle, as if they occurred in any other part of 
 matter ; and of which the entire comprehension, if it 
 were attained, would not bring us a step nearer to the 
 nature of a thought. They who would have been the 
 first to exclaim against the mistake of a sound for a co- 
 lour, fell into the more unspeakable error of confound- 
 ing the perception of objects, as outward, with the con- 
 sciousness of our own mental operations. Locke's 
 doctrine, that Reflection was a separate source of 
 ideas, left room for this greatest of all dis tinctions, — 
 though with much unhappiness of expression, and with 
 no little variance from the course of his own specula- 
 tions. Hartley, Condillac, and Bonnet, in hewing away 
 this seeming deformity from the system of their master, 
 unwittingly struck off the part of the building which, 
 however unsightly, gave it the power of yielding some 
 shelter and guard to truths, of which the exclusion ren- 
 dered it utterly untenable. They became consistent 
 Nominalists ; a controversy on which Locke expresses 
 himself with confusion and contradiction ; but on this 
 subject they added nothing to what had been taught by 
 Hobbes and Berkeley. Both Hartley and Condillact 
 
 • Born in 1720; died in ir93. 
 
 + The following' note of Condillac will sjjow how much he differed from 
 
160 PROGRESS OF 
 
 have the merit of having been unseduced by the tempta- 
 tions either of scepticism o^ of useless idealism ; whichy 
 even if Berkeley and Hume could have been unknown 
 to them, must have been within sight. Both agree 
 in referring all the intellectual operations to the asso- 
 ciation of ideas, and in representing that association as 
 reducible to the single law, that ideas which enter the 
 mind at the same time, acquire a tendency to call upon 
 each other, which is in direct proportion to the fre- 
 quency, of their having entered together. In this im- 
 portant part of their doctrine they seem, whether uncon- 
 sciously or otherwise, to have only repeated, and very 
 much expanded, the opinion of Hobbes.* In its sim- 
 plicity it is more agreeable than the system of Mr Hume, 
 who admitted five independent laws of association ; and 
 it is in conprehension far superior to the views of the 
 same subject by Mr Locke, whose ill-chosen name still 
 retains its place in our nomenclature, but who only ap- 
 peals to the principle as explaining some fancies and 
 whimsies of the human mind. The capital fault of Hart- 
 ley is that of a rash generalization, which may prove 
 imperfect, and which is at least premature. All at- 
 tempts to explain instinct by this principle have hither- 
 to been unavailing. Many of the most important pro- 
 cesses of reasoning have not hitherto been accounted for 
 by it.f It would appear by a close examination, that 
 
 Hartley in his mode of considering' the Newtonian hypothesis of vibrations, 
 and how far he was in that respect superior to him. " Je suppose ici et 
 ailleurs que les perceptions de I'ame ont pour cause physique I'^branlement 
 des fibres du cerveau; nan que je regarde cette hypothese comme dimontrief 
 mais parcegu' elk est la plus commode pour expliquer ma pensie." {(Euvres 
 de CoNDitLAC, I. 60. Paris, 1798.) 
 
 * Human Nature, chap. iv. v. vi. For more ancient statements, see 
 Notes and Illustrations, note T. 
 
 ■j- " Ce que les logiciens ont dit des raisonnements dans bien des volumes, 
 me paroit entiferement superflu, et de nul usage" (Condiilac, I. 115); an 
 assertioivof which the gross absurdity will be apparent to the readers of Dr 
 Whately's Treatise on Logic, one of tlie most important works of the pre- 
 sent age, « 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 161 
 
 even this theory, simple as it appears, presupposes 
 many facts relating to the mind, of which its authors 
 do not seem to have suspected the existence. How 
 many ultimate facts of that nature, for example, are con- 
 tained and involved in Aristotle's celebrated compari- 
 son of the mind in its first state to a sheet of unwritten 
 paper!* The texture of the paper, even its colour, 
 the sort of instrument fit to act on it, its capacity to^re- 
 ceive and to retain impressions, all its differences, from 
 steel on the one hand to water on the other, certainly 
 presupposes some facts, and may imply many, without 
 a distinct statement of which, the nature of writing could 
 not be explained to a person wholly ignorant of it. 
 How many more, as well as greater laws, may be neces- 
 sary to enable mind to perceive outward objects! If 
 the power of perception may be thus dependent, why 
 may not what is called the association of ideas, the at- 
 traction between thoughts, the power of one to suggest 
 another, be affected by mental laws hitherto unexplored, 
 perhaps unobserved ? 
 
 But to return from digression into the intellectual part 
 of man : It becomes proper to say, that the difference 
 between Hartley and Condillac, and the immeasurable 
 superiority of the former, are chiefly to be found in the 
 application which Hartley first made of the law of asso- 
 ciation to that other unnamed portion of our nature with 
 which morality more immediately deals ; that which feels 
 pain and pleasure, is influenced by appetites and loath- 
 ings, by desires and aversions, by affections and repug- 
 nances. Condillac's Treatise on Sensation, published 
 five years after the work of Hartley, reproduces the doc- 
 trine of Hobbes with its root, namely, that love and hope 
 are but transformed sensations,! by which he means per- 
 
 * See Notes and Illustrations, Hote U. 
 
 t CoiroiiiiAc, HI. 21; more especially Traiti des Sensations, part ii. 
 chap. vi. " Its love for outward objects is only an effect of love for itself " 
 
 V 
 
162 PBOGBESS OF 
 
 ception« of the senses ; and its wide-spread branches, 
 consisting in desires and positions, which are only modi- 
 fications of self-love. ' ' The words goodness and beau- 
 ty," says he, almost in the very words of Hobbes, '' ex- 
 press those qualities of things by which they contribute 
 to our pleasures."* In the whole of his philosophical 
 Wflrks, we find no trace of any desire produced by asso- 
 ciation, of any disinterested principle, or indeed of any 
 distinction between the percipient and what, perhaps, 
 we may now venture to call the emotive or the pathe- 
 rnatic part of human nature, until some more convenient 
 and agreeable name shall be hit on by some luckier or 
 more skilful adventurer, in such new terms as seem to be 
 absolutely necessary. 
 
 To the ingenious, humble, and anxiously conscien- 
 tious character of Hartley, we owe the knowledge that, 
 about the year 1730, he was informed that the Rev Mr 
 Gay of Sidney College, Cambridge, then living in the 
 west of England, asserted the possibility of deducing all 
 our intellectual pleasures and pains from association ; that 
 this led him (Hartley) to consider the power of associa- 
 tion ; and that about that time Mr Gay published his sen- 
 timents on this matter in a dissertation prefixed to Bishop 
 Law's Translation of King's Origin of Evil.\ No wri- 
 ter deserves more the praise of abundant fairness than 
 Hartley in this avowal. The dissertation of which he 
 speaks is mentioned by no philosopher but himself. It 
 suggested nothing apparently to any other reader. The 
 general texture of it is that of homespun selfishness. The 
 writer had the merit to see and to own that Hutcheson 
 had established as a fact the reality of moral sentiments 
 
 • Traite des Satsaticms, part iv. chap. iii. 
 
 t Hartley's Preface to the Observations on Man. The word intellectual 
 is too narrow. Even mental would be of veiy doubtful propriety. The 
 theory in its fiill extent requires a word such as inorganic, (if no better can 
 be discovered) extending'to all gratification, not distinctly referred to some 
 specific organ, or at least to some assignable part of the bodily fraise. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 163 
 
 and disinterested aifections. He blames, perUaps justly, 
 that most ingenious man,* for assuming that these senti- 
 ments and affections are implanted, and partake of the 
 nature of instincts. The object of iiis dissertation is to 
 reconcile the mental appearances described by Hutche- 
 son with the first principle of the selfish system, that 
 " the true pinnciple of all our actions is our own happi- 
 ness." Moral feelings arid social affections are, accord- 
 ing to him, " resolvable into reason, pointing out our 
 private happiness ; and whenever this end is not perceived, 
 they are to be accounted for from the association of ideas." 
 Even in the single passage in which he shows a glimpse 
 of the truth, he begins with confusion, advances with hes- 
 itation, and after holding in his grasp for an instant the 
 principle which sheds so strong a light around it, sud- 
 denly drops it from his hand. Instead of receiving the 
 statements of Hutcheson (his silence relating to Butler is 
 unaccountable) as enlargements of the science of man, he 
 deals with them merely as difficulties to be reconciled 
 with the received system of universal selfishness. In the 
 conclusion of his fourth section, he well exemplifies the 
 power of association in forming the love of money, of 
 fame, of power, &c.; but he still treats theSe effects of 
 association as aberrations and infirmities, the fruits of our 
 forgetfuhiess and short-sightedness, arid not at all as the 
 great process employed to sow and rear the most impor- 
 tant principles of a social and moral nature. 
 This precious mine may therefore be truly said to have 
 
 " It has not been mentioned in its proper place, that Hutcheson appears 
 nowhere to greater, advantage than in Letters on tlia Fable of the Bees, 
 pubUshed when he was very young, at Dublin, in a publication called Hi- 
 bemicus. "Private vices public benefits," says he, " may signify any one 
 of these five distinct propositions: 1. They are in themselves public bene- 
 fits; or, 2. They naturally produce public happiness; or, 3. They may be 
 made to produce it; or, 4. They may naturally flow from it; or, 5. At least 
 they may probably flow fromit in our infirm nature." (See astnall volume 
 containing Thoughts on Laughter, and Observations on the.Fabk of the Bees, 
 Glasgow, 175S, in which these letters are republished. ) 
 
164 PROGRESS OF 
 
 beeti opened by Hartley; for he who did such super- 
 abundant justice to the hints of Gay, would assuredly not 
 have withheld the like tribute from Hutcheson, had he 
 observed the happy expression of '"secondary passions," 
 which ought to have led that philosopher himself farther 
 than he ventured to advance. The extraordinary value 
 of this part of Hartley's system has been hidden by va- 
 rious causes, which have also enabled writers who bor- 
 row from it to- decry it. The influence of his medical 
 habits renders many of his examples displeasing, and 
 sometimes disgusting. He has none of that knowledge 
 of the world, of that familiarity of literature, of that de- 
 licate perception of the beauties of nature and art, which 
 not only supply the most agreeable illustrations of mental 
 philosophy, but aiford the most obvious and striking in- 
 stances of its happy application to subjects generally in- 
 teresting. His particular applications of the general law 
 are often mistaken, and seldom more than brief notes and 
 hasty suggestions ; the germs of theories which, while 
 some might adopt them without detection, others might 
 discover without being aware that they were anticipated. 
 To which it may be added, that in spite of the imposing 
 forms of geometry, the work is not really distinguished 
 by good method, or even uniform adherence to that which 
 had been chosen. His style is entitled to no praise but 
 that of clearness, and a simplicity of diction, through 
 which is visible a singular simplicity of mind. No book 
 perhaps exists, which, with so few of the common allure- 
 ments, comes at last so much to please by the picture 
 it presents of the writer's character, — a character which 
 kept him pure from the pursuit, often from the conscious- 
 ness of novelty, and rendered him a discoverer in spite 
 of his own modesty. In those singular passages in which, 
 amidst the profound internal tranquillity of all the Euro- 
 pean nations, he foretells approaching convulsions, to be 
 followed by the overthrow of states and churches, his 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 165 
 
 quiet and gentle spirit, elsewhere almost ready to incul- 
 cate passive obedience for the sake of peace, is supported 
 under its awful forebodings by the hope of that general 
 progress in virtue and happiness which he saw through 
 the preparatory confusion. A meek piety, incliningto- 
 wards mysticism, and sometimes indulging in visions 
 which borrow a lustre from his fervid benevolence, was 
 beautifully, and perhaps singularly, blended in him with 
 zeal for the most unbounded freedom of inquiry, flowing 
 both from his own conscientious belief and his unmingled 
 love of truth. Whoever can so far subdue his repug- 
 nance to petty or secondary faults as to bestow" a careful 
 perusal on the work, must be unfortunate if he does not 
 see, feel, and own, that the writer was a great philoso- 
 pher and a good man. 
 
 To those who thus study the work, it will be apparent 
 that Hartley, like other philosophers, either overlooked, 
 or failed explicitly to announce, that distinction between 
 perception and emotion, without which no system of 
 mental philosophy is complete. Hence arose the par- 
 tial and incomplete view of truth conveyed by the use of 
 the phrase " association of ideas." If the word associa- 
 tion, which rather indicates the connection between se- 
 parate things, than the perfect combination and fusion 
 which occur in many operations of the mind, must, not- 
 withstanding its inadequacy, still be retained, the phrase 
 ought at least to be " association of thoughts with emo- 
 tions, as well as with each other." With that enlarge- 
 ment an objection to the Hartleian doctrine would have 
 been avoided, and its originality, as well as superiority 
 over that of Condillac, would have appeared indisputa- 
 ble. The examples of avarice and other factitious pas- 
 sions are very well chosen; first, because few will be 
 found to suppose that they are original principles of hu- 
 man nature;* secondly) because the process by which 
 
 • A very ingenious man, Lord Kames, whose works had a great effect in 
 rousing the mind of his contemporaries and countrymen, has indeed fancied 
 
166 PROGRESS OF 
 
 thejrare generated, being subsequent to the age of at- 
 tention and recollection, may be brought home to the un- 
 derstanding of all men ; and, thirdly, because they afford 
 the most striking instance of secondary passions, which 
 not only become independent of the primary principles 
 from which they are derived, but hostile to them, and so 
 superior in strength as to be capable of overpowering 
 their parents. As soon as the mind becomes familiar with 
 the frequent case of the man who first pursued money to 
 purchase pleasure, but at last, when he becomes a miser, 
 loves his hoard better than all that it could purchase, 
 and sacrifices all pleasures for its increase, we are pre- 
 pared to admit that, by a like process, the aifections> 
 when they are fixed on the happiness of others as their 
 ultimate object, without any reflection on self, may not 
 only be perfectly detached from self-regard or private 
 desires, but may subdue these, and every other antago- 
 nist passion A\'hich can stand in their way; As the raiser 
 loves money for its own sake, so may the benevolent man 
 delight in the wellbeing of his fellows. His good-will 
 becomes as disinterested as if it had been implanted and 
 underived. The like process applied to what is called 
 self-love, or the desire of permanent wellbeing, clearly 
 explains the mode in which that principle is gradually 
 formed from the separate appetites, without whose pre- 
 vious existence no notion of wellbeing could be obtained. 
 In like manner, sympathy, perhaps itself the result of a 
 transfer of our own personal feelings by association to 
 other sentient beings, and of a subsequent transfer of 
 their feelings to our own minds, engeridfers the various 
 social affections, which at last generate in most mindS 
 some regard to the wellbeirig of our country, of mankind, 
 of all creatures capable of pleasure. Rational self-love 
 
 that there is " a hoarding instinct' ' in man and otlier animals . Itut such con- 
 clusions are not so much objects of confutation, as ludicrous proofs of the 
 absurditj' of the premises which lead to them. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 167 
 
 controls and guides those far keener self-regarding pas- ^ 
 sions of which it is the child, in the same manner as gen- 
 eral benevolence balances and governs the variety of 
 much warmer social aifections from which it springs. It 
 is an ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to rep- 
 resent these two calm principles as being the source of 
 the impelling passions and affections, instead of being 
 among the last results of them. Each of them exercises 
 a sort of authority in its sphere, but the dominion of nei- 
 ther is co-existent with the whole nature of man. Though 
 they have the power to quicken and check, they are 
 both too feeble to impel ; and if the primary principles 
 were extinguished, they would both perish from want of 
 nourishment. If indeed all appetites and desires were 
 destroyed, no subject would exist on which either of 
 these general principles could act. 
 
 The affections, desires, and emotions, having for their 
 ultimate object the dispositions and actions of voluntary 
 agents, which alone, from the nature of their object, are 
 co-extensive with the whole of our active nature, are, 
 according to the same philosophy, necessarily formed in 
 every human mind by the transfer of feeling which is ef- 
 fected by the principle of association. Gratitude, pity, 
 resentment, and shame, seem to be the simplest, the most 
 active, and the most uniform elements in their composi- 
 tion. 
 
 It is easy to perceive how the complacency inspired by 
 a benefit may be transferred to a benefactor, thence to 
 all beneficent beings and acts. The well-chosen instance 
 of the nurse familiarly exemplifies the manner in which 
 the child transfers his complacency from the gratifica- 
 tion of his senses to the cause of it, and thus learns an 
 affection for her who is the source of his enjoyment. 
 With tWs simple process concur, in the case of a tender 
 nurse, and far more of a mother, a thousand acts of relief 
 and endearment, of which the complacency is fixed on 
 
168 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the person from whom they flow, and in some degree ex- 
 tended by association to all who resembled that person. 
 So much of the pleasure of early life depends on others, 
 that the like process is almost constantly repeated. 
 Hence the origin of benevolence may be understood, and 
 the disposition to approve all benevolent, and disapprove 
 all malevolent acts. Hence also the same approbation 
 and disapprobation are extended to all acts which we 
 clearly perceive to promote or obstruct the happiness of 
 men. When the complacency is extended to action, be- 
 nevolence may be said to be transformed into a part of 
 conscience. The rise of sympathy may probably be ex- 
 plained by the process of association, which transfers the 
 feelings of others to ourselves, and ascribes our own feel- 
 ings to others ; — at first, and in some degree, always in 
 proportion as the resemblance of ourselves to others is 
 complete. The likeness in the outward signs of emotion 
 is one of the widest channels in this commerce of hearts. 
 Pity thereby becomes one of the grand sources of be- 
 nevolence, and perhaps contributes more largely than 
 gratitude. It is indeed one of the first motives to the 
 conferring of those benefits which inspire grateful affec- 
 tion. Sympathy with the sufferer, therefore, is also 
 transformed into a real sentiment, directly approving be- 
 nevolent actions and dispositions, and more remotely all 
 actions that promote happiness. The anger of the suf- 
 ferer, first against all causes of pain, afterwards against 
 all intentional agents who produce it, and finally against 
 all those in whom the infliction of pain proceeds from a 
 mischievous disposition, when it is communicated to 
 others by sympathy, and is so far purified by gradual 
 separation from selfish and individual interest as to be 
 equally felt against all wrong- doers, whether the wrong 
 be done against ourselves, our friends, or our enemies, 
 is the root out of which springs that which is commonly 
 and well called a Sense of Justice-'the most indispensa- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 169 
 
 ble, perhaps of all the component parts of the moral facul- 
 ties. It is the main guard against wrong. It relates to 
 that portion of morality where many of the outward acts 
 are capable of being reduced under certain rules, of 
 which the violations, wherever the rule is sufficiently 
 precise, and the mischief sufficiently great, may be guard- 
 ed against by the terror-of punishment. In the observa- 
 tion of the rules of justice consists duty; breaches of them 
 we denominate crimes. An abhorrence of crimes, espe- 
 cially of those which indicate the absence of benevolence, 
 as well as of regard to justice, is peculiarly strong ; be- 
 cause well-framed penal laws, being the lasting declara- 
 tion of the moral indignation of many generations of man- 
 kind, exceedingly strengthen the same feeling in every 
 individual, as long as they remain in unison with the 
 sentiments of the age and country for which they are 
 destined, and, indeed, wherever the laws do not so much 
 deviate from the habitual feelings as to produce a strug- 
 gle between law and sentiment, in which it is hard to 
 say on which side success is most deplorable. A man 
 who performs his duties may be esteemed, but is not ad- 
 mired ; because it requires no more than ordinary virtue 
 to act well where it is shameful and dangerous to do 
 otherwise. The righteousness of those who act solely 
 from such inferior motives, is little better than that *' of 
 the Scribes and Pharisees." Those only are just in the 
 eye of the moralist who act justly from a constant dispo- 
 sition to render to every man his own.* Acts of kindness, 
 of generosity, of pity, of placability, of humanity, when 
 they are long continued, can hardly fail mainly to flow 
 from the pure fountain of an excellent nature. They 
 
 • ' ' Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribuendi;" an 
 excellent definition in the mouth of the Stoical moralists, from whom it is 
 borrowed, but altogether misplaced by the Roman Jurists in a body of laws 
 which deal only with outward acts in their relation to the order and interest 
 of society. 
 
 w 
 
170 PROGRESS OF 
 
 are not reducible to rules ; and the attempt to enforce 
 them by punishment would destroy them. They are 
 virtues of which the essence consists in a good disposi- 
 tion of mind. As we gradually transfer our desire from 
 praise to praiseworthiness, this principle also is adopted 
 into consciousness. On the other hand, when we are 
 led by association to feel a painful contempt for those 
 feelings and actions of our past self which we despise in 
 others, there is developed in our hearts another element 
 of that moral sense. It is a remarkable instance of the 
 power of the law of association, that the contempt or ab- 
 horrence which we feel for the bad actions of others may 
 be transferred by it, in any degre of strength, to our own 
 past actions of the like kind. And as the hatred of bad 
 actions is transferred to the agent, the same transfer may 
 occur in our own case in a manner perfectly similar to 
 that of which we are conscious in our feelings towards 
 our fellow creatures. There are many causes which 
 render it generally feebler ; but it is perfectly evident 
 that it requires no more than a sufficient strength of mo- 
 ral feeling to make it equal; and that the most apparently 
 hyperbolical language used by penitents, in describing 
 their remorse, may be justified by the principle of asso- 
 ciation. 
 
 At this step in our progress, it is proper to observe, 
 that a most important consideration has escaped Hartley, 
 as well as every other philosopher.* The language of 
 all mankind implies that the moral faculty, whatever it 
 may be, and from what origin soever it may spring, is 
 intelligibly and properly spoken of as One. It is as 
 common in mind as in matter for a compound to have 
 properties not to be found in any of its constituent parts. 
 The truth of this proposition is as certain in the human 
 feelings as in any material combination. It is therefore 
 
 • See tupra, section on Butler. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 171 
 
 easily understood, that originally separate feelings may 
 be so perfectly blended by a process performed in every 
 mind, that they can no longer be disjoined from each 
 other, but must always co-operate, and thus reach the 
 only union which we can conceive. The sentiment of 
 Moral approbation, formed by association out of antece- 
 dent affections, may become so perfectly independent 
 of them, that we are no longer conscious of the means by 
 which it was formed, and never can in practice repeat, 
 though we may in theory perceive, the process by which 
 it was generated. It is in that mature and sound state 
 of our nature that our emotions at the view of Right and 
 Wrong are ascribed to Conscience. But why, it may 
 be asked, do these feelings, rather than others, run into 
 each other, and constitute Conscience? The answer 
 seems to be what has already been intimated in the ob- 
 servations on Butler. The affinity between these feel- 
 ings consists in this, that while all other feelings relate 
 to outward objects, they alone contemplate exclusively 
 the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. 
 When they are completely transferred from objects, and 
 even persons, to dispositions and actions, they are fitted, 
 by the perfect coincidence of their aim, for combining 
 to form that one faculty which is directed only to that 
 aim. 
 
 The words Duty and Virtue, and the word Ought, 
 which most perfectly denotes Duty, but is also connect- 
 ed with Virtue, in every well-constituted mind, in this 
 state become the fit language of the acquired, perhaps, but 
 universally and necessarily acquired, faculty of Con- 
 science. Some account of its peculiar nature has been 
 attempted in the remarks on Butler; — for others a fitter 
 occasion will occur hereafter. Some light may however 
 now be thrown on the subject by a short statement of 
 the hitherto unobserved distinction between the moral 
 sentiments and another class of feelings with which they 
 
172 PROGRESS OF 
 
 have some qualities in common. The pleasures (so call- 
 ed) of Imagination appear, at least in most cases, to ori- 
 ginate in association. But it is not till the original cause 
 of the gratification is obliterated from the mind, that they 
 acquire their proper character. Order and proportion 
 may be at first chosen for their convenience : it is not un- 
 til they are admired for their own sake that they become 
 objects of taste. Though all the proportions for which 
 a horse is valued may be indications of speed, safety, 
 strength, and health, it is not the less true that they only 
 can be said to admire the animal for his beauty, who 
 leave such considerations out of the account while they 
 admire. The pleasure of contemplation in these par- 
 ticulars of nature and art becomes universal and immedi- 
 ate, being entirely detached from all regard to indivi- 
 dual beings. It contemplates neither use nor interest. 
 In this important particular the pleasures of imagination 
 agree with the moral sentiments. Hence the application 
 of the same language to both in ancient and modern times. 
 Hence also it arises that they may contemplate the very 
 same qualities and objects. There is certainly much 
 beauty in the softer virtues — much grandeur in the soul 
 ofaHeroor a Martyr. But the essential distinction 
 still remains. The purest moral taste contemplates these 
 qualities only with quiescent delight or reverence. It 
 has no further view; — it points towards no action. 
 Conscience, on the contrary, containing in it a pleasure 
 in the prospect of doing right, and an ardent desire to 
 act well, having for its sole object the dispositions and 
 acts of voluntary agents, is not, like moral taste, satisfied 
 with passive contemplation, but constantly tends to act 
 on the will and conduct of the man. Moral taste may 
 aid it, may be absorbed into it, and usually contributes 
 its part to the formation of the moral faculty; but it is 
 distinct from that faculty, and may be dispraportioned to 
 it. Conscience, being by its nature confined to mental 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 173 
 
 dispositions and voluntary acts, is of necessity excluded 
 from the ordinary consideration of all things antecedent 
 to these dispositions. The circumstances from which 
 such states of mind may arise, are most important objects 
 of consideration for the understanding ; but they are with- 
 out the sphere of conscience, which never ascends be- 
 yond the heart of the man. It is thus that in the eye of 
 conscience man becomes amenable to its authority for all 
 his inclinations as well as deeds; that some of them are 
 approved, loved, and revered ; and that all the outward 
 effects of disesteem, contempt, or moral anger, are felt to 
 be the just lot of others. 
 
 But, to return to Hartley, from this perhaps intru- 
 sive statement of what does not properly belong to him : 
 He represents all the social affections of gratitude, vene- 
 ration, and love, inspired by the virtues of our fellow- 
 men, as capable of being transferred by association to 
 the transcendent and unmingled goodness of the Ruler 
 of the world, and thus to give rise to piety, to which he 
 gives the nameof the theopathetic affection. This prin- 
 ciple, like all the former in the mental series, is gradu- 
 ally detached from the trunk on which it grew : it takes 
 separate root, and may altogether overshadow the pa- 
 rent stock. As such a being cannot be conceived with- 
 out the most perfect and constant reference to his good- 
 ness, so piety may not only become a part of conscience, 
 but its governing and animating principle, which, after 
 long lending its own energy and authority to every other, 
 is at last described by our philosopher as swallowing up 
 all of them in order to perform the same functions more 
 infallibly. 
 
 In every stage of this progress we are taught by Dr 
 Hartley that a new product appears, which becomes 
 perfectly distinct from the elements which formed it, 
 which may be utterly dissimilar to them, and may at- 
 tain any degree of vigour, however superior to theirs. 
 
174 PROGRESS OF 
 
 Thus the objects of the private desires disappear when 
 we are employed in the pursuit of our lasting welfare ; 
 that which was first sought only as a means, may come 
 to be pursued as an end, and preferred to the original 
 end ; the good opinion of our fellows becomes more va- 
 lued than the benefits for which it was first courted ; a 
 man is ready to sacrifice his life for him who has shown 
 generosity, even to others ; and persons otherwise of 
 common character are capable of clieerfully marching 
 in a forlorn hope, or of almost instinctively leaping into 
 the sea to save the life of an entire stranger. These last 
 acts, often of almost unconscious virtue, so familiar to the 
 soldier and the sailor, so unaccountable on certain sys- 
 tems of philosophy, often occur without a thought of ap- 
 plause and reward ; too quickly for the thought of the 
 latter, too obscurely for the hope of the former ; and 
 they are of such a nature that no man could be impell- 
 ed to them by the mere expectation of either. 
 
 The gratitude, sympathy, resentment, and shame, 
 which are the principal constituent parts of the Moral 
 Sense, thus lose their separate agency, and constitute an 
 entirely new faculty, co-extensive with all the disposi- 
 tions and actions of voluntary agents ; though some of 
 them are more predominant in particular cases of moral 
 sentiment than others, and though the aid of all contin- 
 ues to be necessary in their original character, as sub- 
 ordinate but distinct motives of action. Nothing more 
 evidently points out the distinction of the Hartleian 
 system from all systems called selfish, not to say its su- 
 periority in respect to disinterestedness over all moral 
 systems before Butler and Hutcheson, than that excel- 
 lent part of it which relates to the Rule of Life. The 
 various principles of human action rise in value accord- 
 ing to the order in which they spring up after each 
 other. We can then only be in a state of as much enjoy- 
 ment as we are evidently capable of attaining, when we 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 175 
 
 prefer interest to the original gratifications — honour to 
 interest — the pleasures of imagination to those of sense 
 — the dictates of conscience to pleasure, interest, and 
 reputation — the well-being of fellow-creatures to our 
 own indulgences ; in a word, when we pursue moral 
 good and social happiness chiefly and for their own sake. 
 " With self-interest," says Hartley, somewhat inaccu- 
 rately in language, "man must begin. He may end in 
 self-annihilation. Theopathy, or piety, although the 
 last result of the purified and exalted sentiments, may 
 at length swallow up every other principle, and absorb 
 the whole man." Even if this last doctrine should be 
 an exaggeration unsuited to our present condition, it 
 will the more strongly illustrate the compatibility, or 
 rather the necessary connection, of this theory with the 
 existence and power of perfectly disinterested princi- 
 ples of human action. 
 
 It is needless to remark on the secondary and auxili- 
 ary causes which contribute to the formation of moral 
 sentiment ; education, imitation, general opinion, laws 
 and government. They all presuppose the moral fac- 
 ulty : in an improved state of society they contribute 
 powerfully to strengthen it, and on some occasions they 
 enfeeble, distort, and maim it ; but in all cases they 
 must themselves be tried by the test of an ethical stan- 
 dard. 
 
 The value of this doctrine will not be essentially 
 affected by supposing a greater number of original prin- 
 ciples than those assumed by Dr Hartley. The princi- 
 ple of association applies as much to a greater as to a 
 smaller number. It is a quality common to it with all 
 theories, that the more simplicity it reaches consistently 
 with truth, the more perfect it becomes. Causes are 
 not to be multiplied without necessity. If by a consi- 
 derable multiplication of primary desires the law of as- 
 sociation were lowered nearly to the level of an auxili- 
 
176 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ary agent, the philosophy of human nature would still 
 be under indelible obligations to the philosopher who, 
 by his fortunate error, rendered the importance of that 
 great principle obvious and conspicuous. 
 
 Abraham Tucker.* 
 
 It has been the remarkable fortune of this writer to 
 have been more prized by the cultivators of the same 
 subjects, and more disregarded by the generality even 
 of those who read books on such matters, than perhaps 
 any other philosopher.f He had many of the qualities 
 which might be expected in an affluent country gentle- 
 man, living in a privacy undisturbed by political zeal, 
 and with a leisure unbroken by the calls of a profession, 
 at a time when England had not entirely renounced her 
 old taste for metaphysical speculation. He was natu- 
 rally endowed, not indeed with more than ordinary 
 acuteness or sensibility, nor with a high degree of reach 
 and range of mind, but with a singular capacity for care- 
 ful observation and original reflection, and with a fancy 
 perhaps unmatched in producing various and happy 
 illustration. The most observable of his moral qualities 
 appear to have been prudence and cheerfulness, good 
 nature and easy temper. The influence of his situation 
 and character is visible in his writings. Indulging his 
 own tastes and fancies, like most English squires of his 
 time, he became, like many of them, a sort of humourist. 
 Hence much of his originality and independence ; hence 
 
 • Bom in 1705; died in 1774. 
 
 t " I have found in this writer more original thinking and obsetration 
 upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand than in any other, not 
 to say than in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is un- 
 rivalled." (Paiet, Preface to Moral and Political Philoaophy.) Seethe 
 excellent preface to an abridgement, by Mr Hazlitt, of Tucker's work, pub- 
 lished in London in 1807. May I venture to refer also to my own discourse 
 on the Law of Nature and Nations, London, 1799. Mr Stewart treats 
 Tucker and Hartley with unwonted harshness. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 177 
 
 the boldness with which he openly employs illustrations 
 from homely objects. He wrote to please himself more 
 than the public. He had too little regard for readers, 
 either to sacrifice his sincerity to them, or to curb his 
 own prolixity, repetition, and egotism, from the fear of 
 fatiguing them. Hence he became as loose, as rambling, 
 and as much an egotist as Montaigne ; but not so agree- 
 ably so, notwithstanding a considerable resemblance of 
 genius ; because he wrote on subjects where disorder and 
 egotism are unseasonable, and for readers whom they dis- 
 turb instead of amusing. His prolixity at last increased 
 itself, when his work became so long, that repetition in 
 the latter parts partly arose from forgetfulness of the 
 former ; and though his freedom from slavish deference 
 to general opinion is very commendable, it must be own- 
 ed, that his want of a wholesome fear of the public ren- 
 ders the perusal of a work which is extremely interest- 
 ing, and even amusing in most of its parts, on the whole 
 a laborious task. He was by early education a believer 
 in Christianity, if not by natural character religious. 
 His calm good sense and accommodating temper led him 
 rather to explain established doctrines in a manner agree- 
 able to his philosophy, than to assail them. Hence he 
 was represented as a time server by free-thinkers, and as 
 a heretic by the orthodox.* Living in a country where 
 the secure tranquillity flowing from the Revolution was 
 gradually drawing forth all mental activity towards prac- 
 tical pursuits and outward objects, he hastened from the 
 rudiments of mental and moral philosophy, to those 
 branches of it which touch the business of men.f Had 
 
 ' This disposition to compromise and accommodation, which is discover- 
 able in Paley, was carried to its utmost leng'th by Mr Hey, a man of much 
 acuteness, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. 
 
 f Perhaps no pliilosopher ever stated more justly, more naturally, or 
 more modestly than Tucker, the ruling maxim of his life. ' • My thoughts," 
 says he, " have taken a turn from my earliest youth towards searching into 
 the foundations and measures of right and wrong; my love for retirement 
 
 X 
 
178 PROGRESS OF 
 
 he recast without changing his thoughts, — had he de- 
 tached those ethical observations for which he had so 
 peculiar a vocation, from the disputes of his country and 
 his day, — he might have thrown many of his chapters 
 into their proper form of essays, which might have been 
 compared, though not likened, to those of Hume. But 
 the country gentleman, philosophic as he was, had too 
 much fondness for his own humours to engage in a course 
 of drudgery and deference. It may, however, be confi- 
 dently added, on the authority of all those who have 
 fairly made the experiment, that whoever, unfettered by 
 a previous system, undertakes the labour necessary to 
 discover and relish the high excellencies of this meta- 
 physical Montaigne, will find his toil lightened as he pro- 
 ceeds, by a growing indulgence, if not partiality, for the 
 foibles of the humourist ; and at last rewarded, in a greater 
 degree perhaps than by any other writer on mixed and 
 applied philosophy, by being led to commanding stations 
 and new points of view, whence the mind of a moralist 
 can hardly fail to catch some fresh prospects of nature 
 and duty. 
 
 It is in mixed, not in pure philosophy, that his supe- 
 riority consists. In the part of his work which relates 
 to the intellect, he has adopted much from Hartley, 
 hiding but aggravating the offence by a change of tech- 
 nical terms ; and he was ungrateful enough to counte- 
 nance the vulgar sneer which involves the mental analy- 
 sis of that philosopher in the ridicule to which his phy- 
 siological hypothesis is liable.* Thus, for the Hartleian 
 
 has furnished me with continual leisure; and the exercise of my reason has 
 been my daily employment. 
 
 * Light of Nature, I. c. xvill. of which the conclusion may be pointed 
 out as a specimen of perhaps unmatched fruitfulness, vivacity, and felicity 
 of illustration. The admirable sense of the conclusion of chap. xxv. seems 
 to have suggested Paley's good chapter on Happiness. The alteration of 
 Plato's comparison of reason to a charioteer, and the passions to the horses, 
 in chap, xxvi. is of characteristic and transcendent excellence. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 179 
 
 term Association he substitutes that of Translation, when 
 he adopts the same theory of the principles which move 
 the mind to action. In the practical and applicable part 
 of that inquiry he indeed far surpasses Hartley; and it is 
 little to addj that he unspeakably exceeds that bare and 
 naked thinker in the useful as well as admirable faculty 
 of illustration. In the strictly theoretical part his expo- 
 sition is considerably fuller ; but the defect of his genius 
 becomes conspicuous when he handles a very general 
 principle. The very term Translation ought to have 
 kept up in his mind a steady conviction that the secon- 
 dary motives to action become as independent, and seek 
 their own objects as exclusively, as the primary princi- 
 ples. His own examples are rich in proofs of this im- 
 portant truth. But there is a slippery descent in the 
 Theory of Human Nature, by which he, like most of his 
 forerunners, slid unawares into selfishness. He was not 
 preserved from this fall by seeing that all the deliberate 
 principles which have self for their object are themselves 
 of secondary formation; and he was led to the general 
 error by the notion that Pleasure, or, as he calls it, Satis- 
 faction, was the original and sole object of all appetites 
 and desires ; confounding this with the true but very dif- 
 ferent proposition, that the attainment of all the objects 
 of appetite and desire is productive of pleasure. He did 
 not see that, without presupposing Desires, the word 
 Pleasure would have no signification ; and that the repre- 
 sentations by which he was seduced would leave only one 
 appetite or desire in human nature. He had no adequate 
 and constant conception, that the translation of Desire 
 from the end to the means occasioned the formation of a 
 new passion, which is perfectly distinct from, and alto- 
 gether independent of, the original desire. Too fre- 
 quently (for he was neither obstinate nor uniform in er- 
 ror) he considered these translations as accidental defects 
 in human nature, not as the appointed means of supply- 
 
180 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ing it with its variety of active principles. He was too 
 apt to speak as if the selfish elements were not destroyed 
 in the new combination, but remaining still capable of 
 being recalled, when convenient, like the links in a chain 
 of reasoning, which we pass over from forgetful ness, or 
 for brevity. Take him all in all, however, the neglect 
 of his writings is the strongest proof of the disinclination 
 of the English nation, for the last half century, to Meta- 
 physical Philosophy.* 
 
 William PALEY.f 
 This excellent writer, who, after Clarke and Butler, 
 ought to be ranked among the brightest ornaments of the 
 English church in the eighteenth century, is, in the his- 
 tory of philosophy, naturally placed after Tucker, to 
 whom, with praiseworthy liberality, he owns his extensive 
 obligations. It is a mistake to suppose that he owed his 
 system to Hume, a thinker too refined, and a writer per- 
 haps too elegant, to have naturally attracted him. A co- 
 incidence in the principle of utility, common to both with 
 so many other philosophers, aifords no sufiicient ground 
 for the supposition. Had he been habitually influenced 
 by Mr Hume, who has translated so many of the dark 
 and crabbed passages of Butler into his own transparent 
 as well as beautiful language, it is not possible to suppose 
 that such a mind as that of Paley should have fallen into 
 
 • Much of Tucker's chapter on Pleasure, and of Paley's on Happiness 
 (hoth of which are invaluable), is contained in the passage of The Traveller, 
 of which the following; couplet expresses the main object: 
 
 " Unknown to them when sensual pleasures cloy, 
 " To fill the languid pause with finer joy." 
 
 "An honest man," says Mr Hume, "has the fl'equent satisfaction of see- 
 ing knaves betrayed by their own maxims." {Enquiry into Morals.) 
 
 " I used often to laugh at your honest simple neighbour Flamborough, 
 and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the 
 honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still 
 continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor, without the consolation of 
 being honest." ( Vicar of Wakefield, chap, xxvi.) 
 
 t Born in 1743; died in 1805. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 181 
 
 those principles of gross selfishness of which Mr Hume 
 is a uniform zealous antagonist. 
 
 The natural frame of Paley's understanding fitted it 
 more for business and the world than for philosophy; and 
 he accordingly enjoyed with considerable relish the few 
 opportunities which the latter part of his life afforded of 
 taking a part in the affairs of his county as a magistrate. 
 Penetration and shrewdness, firmness and coolness, a vein 
 of pleasantry, fruitful though somewhat unrefined, with 
 an original homeliness and significancy of expression, 
 were perhaps more remarkable in his conversation than 
 the restraints of authorship and profession allowed them 
 to be in his writings. Grateful remembrance brings this 
 assemblage of qualities with unfaded colours before the 
 mind at the present moment, after the long interval of 
 twenty- eight years. His taste for the common business 
 and ordinary amusements of life fortunately gave a zest to 
 the company which his neighbourhood chanced to yield, 
 without rendering him insensible to (he pleasures of inter- 
 course with more enlightened society. The practical bent 
 of his nature is visible in the language of his writings, 
 which, on practical matters, is as precise as the nature of 
 the subject requires, but, in his rare and reluctant efforts 
 to rise to first principles, becomes indeterminate and un- 
 satisfactory; though no man's composition was more free 
 from the impediments which hinder a writer's meaning 
 from being quickly and clearly seen. He seldom distin- 
 guishes more exactly than is required for palpable and 
 direct usefulness. He possessed that chastised acuteness 
 of discrimination, exercised on the affairs of men, and 
 habitually looking to a purpose beyond the mere increase 
 of knowledge, which forms the character of a lawyer's 
 understanding, and which is apt to render a mere law- 
 yer too subtile for the management of affairs, and yet too 
 gross for the pursuit of general truth. His style is as 
 near perfection in its kind as any in our language. Per- 
 
182 PROGRESS OF 
 
 haps no words were ever more expressive and illustra- 
 tive than those in which he represents the art of life to 
 be that of rightly " setting our habits." 
 
 The most original and ingenious of his writings is the 
 Horde Paulinx. The Evidences of Christianity are 
 formed out of an admirable translation of B utler's Anal- 
 ogy, and a most skilful abridgement of Lardner's Credi- 
 bility of the Oospel History. He may be said to have 
 thus given value to two works, of which the first was 
 scarcely intelligible to most of those w^ho were most de- 
 sirous of profiting by it ; and the second soon wearies 
 out the greater part of readers, though the few who are 
 more patient have almost always been gradually won 
 over to feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, probity, 
 charity and meekness, unmatched by an avowed advo- 
 cate in a case deeply interesting his warmest feelings. 
 His J^Tatural Theology is the wonderful work of a man 
 who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write 
 it ; and it could only have been surpassed by a man who, 
 to great originality of conception and clearness of ex- 
 position, added the advantage of a high place in the first 
 class of physiologists.* 
 
 It would be unreasonable here to say much of a work 
 which is in the hands of so many as his Moral and Po- 
 litical Philosophy. A very few remarks on one or two 
 parts of it may be sulBicient to estimate his value as a 
 moralist, and to show his defects as a metaphysician. 
 His general account of virtue may indeed be chosen for 
 both purposes. The manner in which he deduces the 
 necessary tendency of all virtuous actions to the general 
 happiness, from the goodness of the Divine Lawgiver, 
 though the principle be not, as has already more than 
 once appeared, peculiar to him, but rather common to 
 
 • See Animal Mechanics, by Mr Charles Bell, published by the Society 
 for Useful Knowledge. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 183 
 
 most religious philosophers, is characterized by a clear- 
 ness and vigour which have never been surpassed. It 
 is indeed nearly, if not entirely, an identical proposition, 
 that a Being of unmixed benevolence will prescribe 
 those laws only to his creatures which contribute to 
 their wellbeing. When we are convinced that a course 
 of conduct is generally beneficial to all men, we cannot 
 help considering it as acceptable to a benevolent Deity. 
 The usefulness of actions is the mark set on them by the 
 Supreme Legislator, by which reasonable beings discover 
 it to be His will that such actions should be done. In 
 this apparently unanswerable deduction it is partly ad- 
 mitted, and universally implied, that the principles of 
 right and wrong may be treated apart from the manifes- 
 tation of them in the Scriptures. If it were otherwise, 
 how could men of perfectly different religions, deal or 
 reason with each other on moral subjects ? How could 
 they regard rights and duties as subsisting between 
 them ? To what common principles could they appeal 
 in their differences ? Even the Poly theists themselves, 
 those worshippers of 
 
 Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust. 
 Whose attributes are rage, revenge, or lust, 
 
 by a happy inconsistency are compelled, however irre- 
 gularly and imperfectly, to ascribe some general enforce- 
 ment of the moral code to their divinities. If there 
 were no foundation for morality antecedent to revealed 
 religion, we should want that important test of the con- 
 formity of a revelation to pure morality, by which its 
 claim to a divine origin is to be tried. The internal 
 evidence of religion necessarily presupposes such a stand- 
 ard. The Christian contrasts the precepts of the Koran 
 with the pure and benevolent morality of the Gospel. 
 The Mahometan claims, with justice, a superiority over 
 the Hindoo, inasmuch as the Mussulman religion incul- 
 
184 PROGRESS OF 
 
 cates the moral perfection of one Supreme Ruler of the 
 world. The ceremonial and exclusive character of 
 Judaism has ever heen regarded as an indication that it 
 was intended to pave the way for a universal religion, — 
 a morality seated in the heart, and a worship of sublime 
 simplicity. These discussions would be impossible, un- 
 less morality were previously proved or granted to exist. 
 Though the science of ethics is thus far independent, it 
 by no means follows that there is any equality, or that 
 there may not be the utmost inequality, in the moral 
 tendency of religious systems. The most ample scope 
 is still left for the zeal and activity of those who seek to 
 spread important truth. But it is absolutely essential 
 to ethical science that it should contain principles, the 
 authority of which must be recognised by men of every 
 conceivable variety of religious opinion. 
 
 The.peculiarities of Paley's mind are discoverable in 
 the comparison, or rather contrast, between the practi- 
 cal chapter on Happiness, and the philosophical portion 
 of the chapter on Virtue. <' Virtue is the doing good 
 to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for 
 the sake of everlasting happiness."* It is not perhaps 
 very important to observe, that these words, which he 
 offers as "a definition," ought in propriety to have been 
 called a proposition ; but it is much more necessary to 
 say that they contain a false account of virtue. Ac- 
 cording to this doctrine, every action not done fm' the 
 sake of the agent's happiness is vicious. Now, it is 
 plain that an act cannot be said to be done for the sake 
 of any thing which is not present to the mind of the 
 agent at the moment of action. It is a contradiction in 
 terms to afRrm that a man acts for the sake of any object, 
 of which, however it may be the necessary consequence 
 of his act, he is not at the time fully aware. The un- 
 
 " Palet, book i. chap. yii. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 185 
 
 felt consequences of his act can no more influence his 
 will than its unknown consequences. Nay, further, a 
 man is only with any propriety said to act for the sake 
 of his chief object ; nor can he with entire correctness 
 be said to act for the sake of any thing but his sole ob- 
 ject. So that it is a necessary consequence of Paley's 
 proposition, that every act which flows from generosity 
 or benevolence is a vice. So also of every act of obedi- 
 ence to the will of God, if it arises from any motive but 
 a desire of the reward which he will bestow. Any act 
 of obedience influenced by gratitude, and affection, and 
 veneration towards supreme benevolence and perfection, 
 is so far imperfect ; and if it arises solely from these 
 motives it becomes a vice. It must be owned, that this 
 excellent and most enlightened man has laid the founda- 
 tions of religion and virtue in a more intense and exclu- 
 sive selfishness than was avowed by the Catholic enemies 
 of Fenelon, when they persecuted him for his doctrine 
 of a pure and disinterested love of God. 
 
 In another province^ of a very subordinate kind, the 
 disposition of Paley to limit his principles to his own 
 time and country, and to look at them merely as far as 
 they are calculated to amend prevalent vices and errors, 
 betrayed him into narrow aiid false views. His chapter 
 on what he calls the Law of Honour is unjust, even in 
 its own small sphere, because it supposes honour to al- 
 low what it does not forbid; though the truth be, that 
 the vices enumerated by him are only not forbidden by 
 honour, because they are not within its jurisdiction. 
 He considers it as " a system of rules constructed by peo- 
 ple of fashion ;" — a confused and transient mode of ex- 
 pression, which may be understood with dif&culty by 
 our posterity, and which cannot now be exactly ren- 
 dered perhaps in any other language. 
 
 The subject, however, thus narrowed and lowered, is 
 neither unimportant in practice, nor unworthy of the 
 Y 
 
186 PROGRESS OF 
 
 consideration of the moral philosopher. Though all 
 mankind honour virtue and despise vice, the degree of 
 respect or contempt is often far from being proportioned 
 to the place which virtues and vices occupy in ,a just 
 system of Ethics. Wherever higher honour is bestowed 
 on one moral quality than on others of equal or greater 
 moral value, what is called a point of honour may be 
 said to exist. It is singular that so shrewd an observer 
 as Paley should not have observed a law of honour far 
 more permanent than that which attracted his notice, in 
 the feelings of Europe respecting the conduct of men and 
 women. Cowardice is not so immoral as cruelty, nor in- 
 deed so detestable, but it is more despicable and dis- 
 graceful. The female point of honour forbids indeed a 
 great vice, but one not so great as many others by which 
 it is not violated. It is easy enough to see, that where 
 we are strongly prompted to a virtue by a natural im- 
 pulse, we love the man who is constantly actuated by 
 the amiable sentiment, but we do not consider that 
 which is done without difficulty as requiring or deserv- 
 ing admiration and distinction. The kind aifections are 
 their own rich reward, and they are the object of affec- 
 tion to others. To encourage kindness by praise would 
 be to insult it, besides its effect in producing counter- 
 feits. It is for the conquest of fear, it would be stilt 
 more for the conquest of resentment, if that were not, 
 wherever it is real, the cessation of a state of mental 
 agony, that the applause of mankind is reserved. Ob- 
 servations of a similar nature will easily occur to every 
 reader respecting the point of honour in the other sex. 
 The conquest of natural frailties, especially in a case of 
 far more importance to mankind than is at first sight ob- 
 vious, is well distinguished as an object of honour, and 
 the contrary vice is punished by shame. Honour is not 
 wasted on those who abstain from acts which are punish- 
 ed by the law. These acts may be avoided without a 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 187 
 
 pure motive. Wherever a virtue is easily performed 
 by good men — wherever it is its nature to be attended 
 by delight — wherever its outward observance is so ne- 
 cessary to society as to be enforced by punishment — it 
 is not the proper object of honour. Honour and shame, 
 therefore, may be reasonably dispensed, without being 
 strictly proportioned to the intrinsic morality of actions, 
 if the inequality of their distribution contributes to the 
 general equipoise of the whole moral system. 
 
 A wide disproportion, however, or indeed any dis- 
 proportion not justifiable on moral grounds, would be a 
 depravation of the moral principle. Duelling is among 
 US a disputed case, though the improvement of manners 
 has rendered it so much more infrequent, that it is likely 
 in time to lose its support from opinion. Those who ex- 
 cuse individuals for yielding to a false point of honour, 
 as in the suicides of the Greeks and Romans, may con- 
 sistently blame the faulty principle, and rejoice in its 
 destruction. The shame fixed on a Hindoo widow of 
 rank who voluntarily survives her husband, is regarded 
 by all other nations with horror. 
 
 There is room for great praise and some blame in 
 other parts of Paley's works. His political opinions 
 were tbose generally adopted by moderate whigs in his 
 own age. His language on the Revolution of 1688 may 
 be very advantageously compared, both in precision and 
 in generous boldness,* to that of Blackstone, a great 
 master of classical and harmonious composition, but a 
 
 • " Government may be too secure. The greatest tyrants have been those 
 whose titles were the most unquestioned. Whenever, therefore, the opi- 
 nion of right becomes too predominant and supei-stltious, it is abated by 
 breaking the custom. Thus the Tievolution broke the custom of succession, 
 and thereby moderated, both in the prince and in the people, those lofty 
 notions of hereditary right, which in the one were become a continual in- 
 centive to tyranny, and disposed the other to invite servitude, by undue 
 ^compliances and dangerous concessions. " (Paiet, book vi. chap, ii,) 
 
188 PROGRESS OF 
 
 feeble reasoner and a confused thinker, whose writings 
 are not exempt from the taint of slavishness. 
 
 It cannot be denied that Paley was sometimes rather 
 a lax moralist, especially on public duties. It is a sin 
 which easily besets men of strong good sense, little en- 
 thusiasm, and much experience. They are naturally 
 led to lower their precepts to the level of their expecta- 
 tions. They see that higher pretensions often produce 
 less good, to say nothing of the hypocrisy, extravagance, 
 and turbulence, to which they lend some colour. As 
 those who claim more from men often gain less, it is 
 natural for more sober and milder casuists to present a 
 more accessible virtue to their followers. It was thus 
 that the Jesuits began, till, strongly tempted by their 
 perilous station as the moral guides of the powerful, some 
 of them by degrees fell into that absolute licentiousness 
 for which all, not without injustice, have been cruelly 
 immortalized by Pascal. Indulgence, which is a great 
 virtue in judgment concerning the actions of others, is 
 too apt, when blended in the same system with the pre- 
 cepts of morality, to be received as a licence for our own 
 offences. Accommodation, without which society would 
 be painful, and arduous affairs would become impracti- 
 cable, is more safely imbibed from temper and experi- 
 ence, than taught in early and systematic instruction. 
 The middle region between laxity and rigour is hard to 
 be fixed, and it is still harder steadily to remain within 
 its boundaries. Whatever may be thought of Paley's 
 observations on political influence and ecclesiastical sub- 
 scription, as temperaments and mitigations which may 
 preserve us from harsh judgment, they are assuredly not 
 well qualified to form a part of that discipline which 
 ought to breathe into the opening souls of youth, at the 
 critical period of the formation of character, those ines- 
 timable virtues of sincerity, of integrity, of indepen- 
 dence, which will even guide them more safely through 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 189 
 
 life than mere prudence, while they provide an inward 
 fountain of pure delight, immeasurably more abundant 
 than all the outward sources of precarious and perisha- 
 ble pleasure. 
 
 Jeremy Bentham. 
 
 The general scheme of this Dissertation would be a 
 sufficient reason for omitting the name of a living writer. 
 The devoted attachment . and invincible repugnance 
 which an impartial estimate of Mr Bentham has to en- 
 counter on either side, are a strong inducement not to 
 deviate from that scheme in his case. But the most 
 brief sketch of ethical controversy in England would be 
 imperfect without it ; and perhaps the utter hopeless- 
 ness of any expedient for satisfying his followers, or 
 softening his opponents, may enable a writer to look 
 steadily and solely at what he believes, to be the dictates 
 of truth and justice. He who has spoken of formerphi- 
 losophers with unreserved freedom, ought perhaps to 
 subject his courage and honesty to the severest test by 
 an attempt to characterize such a contemporary. Should 
 the very few who are at once enlightened and unbiassed 
 be of opinion that his firmness and equity have stood 
 this trial, they will be the more disposed to trust his 
 fairness where the exercise of that quality is more easy. 
 
 The disciples of Mr Bentham are more like the hear- 
 ers of an Athenian philosopher than the pupils of a mo- 
 dern professor, or the cool proselytes of a modern writer. 
 They are in general men of competent age, of superior un- 
 derstanding, who voluntarily embrace the laborious study 
 of useful and noble sciences; who derive their opinions 
 not so much from the cold perusal of his writings, as 
 from familiar converse with a master from whose lips 
 these opinions are recommended by simplicity, dis- 
 interestedness, originality, and vivacity; aided rather 
 than impeded by foibles not unamiable, enforced of late 
 
190 PROGRESS OF 
 
 by the growing authority of years and of fame, and at all 
 times strengthened by that undoubting reliance on his 
 own judgment which mightily increases the ascendant 
 of such a man over those who approach him. As he 
 and they deserve the credit of braving vulgar prejudices, 
 so they must be content to incur the imputation of fall- 
 ing into the neighbouring vices of seeking distinction by 
 singularity ; of clinging to opinions because they are ob- 
 noxious ; of wantonly wounding the most respectable 
 feelings of mankind ; of regarding an immense display of 
 method and nomenclature as a sure token of a corres- 
 ponding increase of knowledge ; and of considering them- 
 selves as a chosen few, whom an initiation into the most 
 secret mysteries of philosophy entitles to look down with 
 pity, if not contempt, on the profane multitude. View- 
 ed with aversion or dread by tbe public, they become 
 more bound to- each other and to their master ; while 
 they are provoked into the use of language which 
 more and moi-e exasperates'opposition to them. A her- 
 mit in the greatest of cities, seeing only his disciples, 
 and indignant that systems of government and law which 
 he believes to be perfect are disregarded at once by the 
 many and the powerful, Mr Bentham has at length been 
 betrayed into the most unphilosophical hypothesis, 
 that all the ruling bodies who guide the community 
 have conspired to stifle and defeat his discoveries. 
 He is too little acquainted with doubts to believe the 
 honest doubts of others, and he is too angry to make 
 allowance for their prejudices and habits. He has em- 
 braced the most extreme party in practical politics; 
 manifesting more dislike and contempt towards those 
 who are more moderate supporters of popular princi- 
 ples than towards their most inflexible opponents. To 
 the unpopularity of his philosophical and political doc- 
 trines he has added the more general and lasting obloquy 
 which arises from an unseemly treatment of doctrines and 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 191 
 
 principles which, if there were no other motives for re- 
 verential deference, even a regard to the feelings of the 
 best men requires to be approached with decorum and 
 respect. 
 
 Fifty-three years have passed since the publication of 
 Mr Bentham's first work, A Fragment on Government, 
 — a considerable octavo volume, employed in the exam- 
 ination of a short paragraph of Blackstone, — unmatched 
 in acute hypercriticism, but conducted with a severity 
 which leads to an unjust estimate of the writer criticised, 
 till the like experiment be repeated on other writings. 
 It was a waste of extraordinary power to employ it in 
 pointing out flaws and patches in the robe occasionally 
 stolen fi'om the philosophical schools, which hung loosely 
 and unbecomingly on the elegant commentator. This 
 volume, and especially the preface, abounds in fine, ori- 
 ginal, and just observation ; it contains the germs of most 
 of his subsequent productions, and it is an early example 
 of that disregard for the method, proportions, and occa- 
 sion of a writing which, with all common readers, deeply 
 affects its power of interesting or instructing. Two 
 years after, he published a most excellent tract on The 
 Hard Labour Bill, which, concurring with the spirit 
 excited by Howard's inquiries, laid the foundation of 
 just reasoning on Reformatory Punishment. The Let- 
 ters on Usury^ are perhaps the best specimen of the ex- 
 haustive discussion of a moral or political question, leav- 
 
 • They were addressed to Mr George Wilson, who retired from the En- 
 glish bar to his native country, and died at Edinburgh in 1816; an early 
 friend of Mr Bentham, and afterwards an intimate friend of Lord EUenbo- 
 rough, Sir Vicary Gibbs, and of all the most eminent of his professional 
 contemporaries. The rectitude of judgment, purity of heart, elevation of 
 honour, the sternness only in integrity, the scorn of baseness, and indul- 
 gence towards weakness, which were joined in him with a gravity exclu- 
 sive neither of feeling nor of pleasantry, contributed still more than his 
 abilities and attainments of various sorts, to a moral authority with his 
 friends, and in his profession, which few men more amply possessed, or 
 more usefully exercised. The same character, somewhat softened, and 
 the same influence, distinguished his closest friend, the late Mr Lens. Both 
 were inflexible and incorruptible friends of civil and religious liberty, and 
 
192 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ing no objection, however feeble, unanswered, and no 
 difficulty, however small, unexplained ; remarkable also 
 for the clearness and spirit of the style, for the full ex- 
 position which suits them to all intelligent readers, for 
 the tender and skilful hand with which prejudice is 
 touched, and for the urbanity of his admirable apology 
 for projectors, addressed to Dr Smith, whose temper 
 and manner he seems for a time to have imbibed. The 
 Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Politics, 
 printed before the Letters, but published after them, 
 was the first sketch of his system, and is still the only 
 account of it by himself.-, 
 
 The great merit of this work, and of his other writ- 
 ings in relation to Jurisprudence properly so called, is 
 not within our present scope. To the Ronvan jurists 
 belongs the praise of having allotted a separate portion 
 of their Digest to the signification of the words of most 
 frequent use in law and legal discussion.* Bentham 
 not only first perceived and taught the great value 
 of an introductory section, composed of definitions of 
 general terms, as subservient to brevity and precision 
 in every part of a code, but he also discovered the un- 
 speakable importance of natural arrangement in juris- 
 prudence, by rendering the mere place of a proposed 
 law in such an arrangement a short and easy test of 
 the fitness of the proposal. f But here he does not 
 
 both knew how to reconcile the warmest zeal for that sacred cause, with a 
 charity towards their opponents, which partisans, often more violent than 
 steady, treated as lukewarm. The present writer hopes that the good-na- 
 tured reader will excuse him for having thus, perhaps unseasonably, be- 
 stowed heartfelt commendation on those who were above the pursuit of 
 praise, and the remembrance of whose good opinon and good-will help to 
 support him under a deep sense of faults and vices. 
 
 * Digest, lib. 1. tit. 16. De Verhwum Significatione. 
 
 j- See a beautiful article on Codification, in the Edinburgh Review, vol. 
 XXIX. p. 217. It need no longer be concealed that it was contributed by 
 Sir Samuel Romilly. The steadiness with which he held the balance in 
 weighing the merits of his friend against his unfortunate defects, is an ex- 
 ample of his union of the most commanding moral principle with a sensi- 
 bility so warm, that, if it had been released from that stern authority, it 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 198 
 
 distinguish between the value of arrangement as scaffold- 
 ing, and the inferior convenience of its being the very 
 frame-work of the structure. Mr Bentham, indeed, is 
 much more remarkable for laying down desirable rules 
 for the determination of rights, and the punishment of 
 wrongs, in general, than for weighing the various cir- 
 cumstances which require them to be modified in differ- 
 ent countries and times in order to render them either 
 more useful, more easily introduced, more generally 
 respected, or more certainly executed. The art of legis- 
 lation consists in thus applying the principles of juris- 
 prudence to the situation, wants, interests, feelings, 
 opinions, and habits, of each distinct community at any 
 given time. It bears the same relation to jurisprudence 
 which the mechanical arts bear to pure Mathematics. 
 Many of these considerations serve to show, that the 
 sudden establishment of new codes can seldom be prac- 
 ticable or effectual for their purpose ; and that reforma- 
 tions, though founded on the principles of jurisprudence, 
 ought to be not only adapted to the peculiar interests of 
 a people, but engrafted on their previous usages, and 
 brought into harmony with those national dispositions on 
 which the execution of laws depends.* The Romans, 
 under Justinian, adopted at least the true principle, if 
 they did not apply it with sufficient freedom and bold. 
 
 would not so long have endured the coarseness and roughness of human 
 concerns. From the tenderness of his feelings, and from an anger never 
 roused but by cruelty and baseness, as much as from his genius and his pure 
 taste, sprung that original and characteristic eloquence, which was the hope 
 of the afflicted as well as the terror of the oppressor. If his oratory had 
 not flowed so largely from this moral source, which years do not dry up, 
 he would not perhaps have been the only example of an orator who, after 
 the age of sixty, daily increased in polish, in vigour, and in splendour. 
 
 * An excellent medium between those who absolutely require new codes, 
 and those who obstinately adhere to ancient usages, has been pointed out 
 by M. Meyer, in his most justly celebrated work. Institutions Judiciaires det 
 Principaux Pays de I'Europe, tome I. Introduction, p. 8, 9. La Haye et 
 Amst. 1819-23, 6 vols. 8vo. 
 
194 PROGRESS OF 
 
 ness. They considered the multitude of occasional laws, 
 and the still greater mass of usages, opinions, and deter- 
 minations, as the materials of legislation, not precluding, 
 but demanding a systematic arrangement of the whole 
 by the supreme authority. Had the arrangement been 
 more scientific, bad there been a bolder examination 
 and a more free reform of many particular branches, a 
 model would have been offered for liberal imitation by 
 modern lawgivers. It cannot be denied, without injus- 
 tice and ingratitude, that Mr Bentham has done more 
 than any other writer to rouse the spirit of juridical re- 
 formation, which is now gradually examining every part 
 of law, and, when further progress is facilitated by 
 digesting the present laws, will doubtless proceed to the 
 improvement of all. Greater, praise it is given to few 
 to earn. It ought to satisfy Mr Bentham, for the dis- 
 appointment of hopes which were not reasonable, that 
 Russia should receive a code from him, or that North 
 America could be brought to renounce the variety of 
 her laws and institutions, on the single authority of a 
 foreign philosopher, whose opinions had not worked 
 their way either into legislation or into general recep- 
 tion in his own country. It ought also to dispose his 
 followers to do fuller justice to the Romillys and Broug- 
 hams, without whose prudence and energy, as well as 
 reason and eloquence, the best plans of reformation must 
 have continued a dead letter, — for whose sake it might 
 have been fit to reconsider the obloquy heaped on their 
 profession, and to show more general indulgence to all 
 those whose chief offence seems to consist in their doubts 
 whether sudden changes, almost always imposed by vio- 
 lence on a community, be the surest road to lasting im- 
 provement. 
 
 It is unfortunate that ethical theory, with which we 
 are now chiefly concerned, is not the province in which 
 Mr Bentham has reached the most desirable distinction. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 195 
 
 It may be remarked, both in ancient and in modern 
 times, that whatever modifications prudent followers 
 may introduce into the system of an innovator, the prin- 
 ciples of the master continue to mould the habitual dis- 
 positions, and to influence the practical tendency of the 
 school. Mr Bentham preaches the principle of utility 
 with the zeal of a discoverer. Occupied more in reflec- 
 tion than in reading, he knew not, or forgot, how often 
 it had been the basis, and how generally an essential part, 
 of moral systems.* That in which he really dififers 
 from others, is in the necessity which he teaches, and 
 the example which he sets, of constantly bringing that 
 principle before us. This peculiarity appears to us to 
 be his radical error. In an attempt, of which the con- 
 stitution of human nature forbids the succes, he seems to 
 us to have been led into fundamental errors in moral 
 theory, and to have given to his practical doctrine a 
 dangerous taint. 
 
 The confusion of moral approbation with the moral 
 qualities which are its objects, common to Mr Bentham 
 with many other philosophers, is much more uniform 
 and prominent in him than in most others. This general 
 error, already mentioned at the opening of this Disser- 
 tation, has led him more than others to assume, that be- 
 cause the principle of utility forms a necessary part of 
 every moral theory, it ought therefore to be the chief 
 motive of human conduct. Now it is evident that this 
 assumption, rather tacitly than avowedly made, is wholly 
 gratuitous. No practical conclusion can be deduced 
 from the principle, but that we ought to cultivate those 
 habitual dispositions which are the most effectual mo- 
 tives to useful actions. But before a regard to our own 
 interest, or a desire to promote the welfare of men in 
 general, be allowed to be the exclusive, or even the 
 chief regulators of human conduct, it must be shown 
 
 * See Notes and Illustrations, note V. 
 
196 PROGRESS OF 
 
 that they are the most effectual motives to such useful 
 actions. It is demonstrated l*y experience that they 
 are not. It is even owned by the most ingenious writers 
 of Mr Bentham's school, that desires which are pointed 
 to general and distant objects, although they have their 
 proper place and their due value, are commonly very 
 faint and ineffectual inducements to action. A theory 
 founded on utility, therefore, requires that we should 
 cultivate, as excitements to practice, those other habit- 
 ual dispositions which we know by experience to be ge- 
 nerally the source of actions beneficial to ourselves and 
 our fellows ; habits of feeling productive of habits of vir- 
 tuous conduct, and in their turn strengthened by the 
 re-action of these last. What is the result of experi- 
 ence on the choice of the objects of moral culture? Be- 
 yond all dispute, that we should labour to attain that 
 state of min4 in which all the social affections are felt 
 with the utmost warmth, giving birth to more compre- 
 hensive benevolence, but not supplanted by it ; when 
 the moral sentiments most strongly approve what is right 
 and good, without being perplexed by a calculation of 
 consequences, though not incapable of being gradually 
 rectified by reason, whenever they are decisively prov- 
 ed by experience not to correspond in some of their 
 parts to the universal and perpetual effects of conduct. 
 It is a false representation of human nature to affirm that 
 ** courage" is only *' prudence."* They coincide in 
 their effects, and it is always prudent to be courageous. 
 But a man who fights because he thinks it more hazar- 
 dous to yield, is not brave. He does not become brave 
 
 • Mr Mill's Amtlysia of the Human Mind, vol, n. p. 237. It would be 
 unjust not to say that tliis book, partly perhaps from a larger adoption of 
 the principles of Hartley, holds out fairer opportunities of negotiation with 
 natural feelings and the doctrines of former philosophers, than any other 
 production of the same school. But this very assertion about courage 
 clearly shows at least a forgetfiilness that courage, even if it were the off. 
 spring of prudence, would not for that reason be a species of it. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 197 
 
 till he feels cowardice to be base and painful, and till he 
 is no longer in need of any aid from prudence. Even if 
 it were the interest of every man to be bold, it is clear 
 that so cold a consideration cannot prevail over the fear 
 of danger. Where it seems to do so, it must be by the 
 unseen power either of the fear of shame, or of some 
 other powerful passion, to which it lends its name. It 
 was long ago with striking justice observed by Aristotle, 
 that he who abstains from present gratification, under a 
 distinct apprehension of its painful consequences, is only 
 prudent, and that he must acquire a disrelish for excess 
 on its own account, before he deserves the name of a 
 temperate man. It is only when the means are firmly 
 and unalterably converted into ends, that the process of 
 forming the mind is completed. Courage may then seek, 
 instead of avoiding danger. Temperance may prefer 
 abstemiousness to indulgence. Prudence itself may 
 choose an orderly government of conduct, according to 
 certain rules, without regard to the degree in which it 
 promotes welfare. Benevolence must desire the happi- 
 ness of others, to the exclusion of the consideration how 
 far it is connected with that of the benevolent agent ; 
 and those alone can be accounted just who obey the dic- 
 tates of justice from having thoroughly learned an ha- 
 bitual veneration for its strict rules and for its larger 
 precepts. In that complete state the mind possesses no 
 power of dissolving the combinations of thought and feel- 
 ing which impel it to action. Nothing in this argument 
 turns on the diiference between implanted and acquired 
 principles. As no man can cease, by any act of his, to 
 see distance, though the power of seeing it be univer- 
 sally acknowledged to be an acquisition, so no man has 
 the power to extinguish the affections and the moral sen- 
 timents, however much they may be thought to be ac- 
 quired, any more than that of eradicating the bodily ap- 
 petites. The best writers of Mr Bentham's school over- 
 
198 PROGRESS OF 
 
 look the indissolubility of these associations, and appear 
 not to bear in mind that their strength and rapid action 
 constitute the perfect state of a moral agent. 
 
 The pursuit of our own general welfare, or of that of 
 mankind at large, though from their vagueness and cold- 
 ness they are unfit habitual motives and unsafe ordinary 
 guides of conduct, yet perform functions of essential im- 
 portance in the moral system. The former, which we 
 call self-love, preserves the balance of all the active 
 principles which regard ourselves ultimately, and con- 
 tributes to subject them to the authority of the moral 
 principles.* The latter, which is general benevolence, 
 regulates in like manner the equipoise of the narrower 
 affections; quickens the languid, and checks the en- 
 croaching ; borrows strength from pity, and even from 
 indignation ; receives some compensation, as it enlarges, 
 in the addition of beauty and grandeur, for the weak- 
 ness which arises from dispersion ; enables us to look on 
 all men as brethren, and overflows on every sentient be- 
 ing. The general interest of mankind, in truth, almost 
 solely affects us through the affections of benevolence 
 and sympathy ; for the coincidence of general with in- 
 dividual interest, even where it is certain, is too dimly 
 seen to produce any emotion which can impel to, or re- 
 strain from action. As a general truth, its value con- 
 sists in its completing the triumph of morality, by de- 
 monstrating the absolute impossibility of forming any 
 theory of human nature which does not preserve the 
 superiority of virtue over vice ; a great, though not a 
 directly practical advantage. 
 
 The followers of Mr Bentham have carried to an un- 
 usual extent the prevalent fault of the more modern ad- 
 vocates of utility, who have dwelt so exclusively on the 
 outward advantages of virtue as to have lost sight of the 
 
 * See Notes and Illustrations, note W. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 199 
 
 delight which is a part of virtuous feeling, and of the 
 beneficial influence of good actions upon the frame of 
 the mind. '' Benevolence towards others," says Mr 
 Mill, ''produces a return of benevolence from them."* 
 The fact is true, and ought to be stated. But how un- 
 important is it in comparison with that which is passed 
 over in silence, the pleasure of the affection itself, 
 which, if it could become lasting and intense, would 
 convert the heart into a heaven ! No one who has ever 
 felt kindness, if he could accurately recall his feelings, 
 could hesitate about their infinite superiority. The 
 cause of the general neglect of this consideration is, that 
 it is only when a gratification is something distinct from 
 a state of mind, that we can easily learn to consider it as 
 a pleasure. Hence the great error respecting the affec- 
 tions, where the inherent delight is not duly estimated, 
 on account of that very peculiarity of being a part of a 
 state of mind, which renders it unspeakably more valua- 
 ble as independent of every thing without. The social 
 affections are the only principles of human nature which 
 have no direct pains. To have any of these desires is 
 to be in a state of happiness. The malevolent passions 
 have properly no pleasures ; for that attainment of their 
 purpose which is improperly so called, consists only in 
 healing or assuaging the torture which envy, jealousy, 
 and malice, inflict on the malignant mind. It might with 
 as much propriety be said that the toothache and the 
 stone have pleasures, because their removal is followed 
 by an agreeable feeling. These bodily disorders, in- 
 deed, are often cured by the process which removes the 
 sufferings ; but the mental distempers of envy and re- 
 venge are nourished by every act of odious indulgence 
 which for a moment suspends their pain. 
 The same observation is applicable to every virtuous 
 
 * Analysis of the Hurtlan Mind, vol. II. 
 
300 PROGRESS OF 
 
 disposition, though not so obviously as to the benevolent 
 affections. That a brave man is, on the wholfe, far less 
 exposed to danger than a coward, is not the chief advan- 
 tage of a courageous temper. Great dangers are rare ; 
 but the constant absence of such painful and mortifying 
 sensations as those of fear, and the steady consciousness 
 of superiority to what subdues ordinary men, are a per- 
 petual source of inward enjoyment. No man who has 
 ever been visited by a gleam of magnanimity can place 
 any outward advantage of fortitude in comparison with 
 the feeling of being always able fearlessly to defend a 
 righteous cause.* Even Humility, in spite of first ap- 
 pearances, is a remarkable example. It has of late been 
 unwarrantably used to signify that painful consciousness 
 of inferiority which is the first stage of envy.f It is a 
 term consecrated in Christian ethics to denote that dispo- 
 sition which, by inclining towards a modest estimate of 
 our qualities, corrects the prevalent tendency of human 
 nature to overvalue our merits and to overrate our claims. 
 What can be a less doubtful or a much more considera- 
 ble blessing than this constant sedative, which soothes 
 and composes the irritable passions of vanity and pride ? 
 What is more conducive to lasting peace of mind than 
 the consciousness of proficiency in that most delicate spe- 
 cies of equity which, in the secret tribunal of conscience, 
 labours to be impartial in the comparison of ourselves 
 with others? What can so perfectly assure us of the pu- 
 rity of our moral sense, as the habit of contemplating, not 
 that excellence which we have reached, but that which 
 
 • According- to Cicei-o's definition of fortitude, " Virtus pugnans pro 
 xquitate." The remains of the orig'inal sense of Virtus, Manhood, give a 
 beauty and force to these expressions, which cannot be preserved in our 
 language. The Greek AgsT», and the German Tugend, originally denoted 
 Strength, afterwards Courage, and at last Virtue. But the happy derivation 
 of Virtus from Vir gives an energy to the phrase of Cicero, which illustrate* 
 the use of etymology in the hands of a skilful writer. 
 
 f Mr Mill's Analt/sia of the Human Mind, vol. II. p. 222. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 201 
 
 is Still to be pursued ;* of not considering how far we 
 may outrun others, but how far we are from the goal ? 
 
 Virtue has often outward advantages, and always in- 
 ward delights ; but the second, though constant, strong, 
 inaccessible, and inviolable, are not easily considered by 
 the common observer as apart from the virtue with which 
 they are blended. They are so subtile and evanescent 
 as to escape the distinct contemplation of all but the very 
 few who meditate on the acts of mind. The outward 
 advantageSf on the other hand, cold, uncertain, depen- 
 dent, and precarious as they are, yet stand out to the 
 sense and to the memory, may be handled and counted, 
 and are perfectly on a level with the general apprehen- 
 sion. Hence they have become the almost exclusive 
 theme of all moralists who profess to follow reason. There 
 is room for suspecting that a very general illusion pre- 
 vails on this subject. Probably the smallest part of the 
 pleasure of virtue, because it is the most palpable, has 
 become the sign and mental representative of the whole. 
 The outward and visible sign suggests insensibly the in- 
 ward and mental delight. Those who display the ex- 
 ternal benefits of magnanimity and kindness, would speak 
 with far less fervour, and perhaps less confidence, if 
 their feelings were not unconsciously affected by the men- 
 tal state which they overlook in their statements, though 
 they feel some part of it when they write or speak on it. 
 When they speak of what is without, they feel what was 
 within, and their words excite the same feeling in others. 
 Is it not probable that much of our love of praise may be 
 thus ascribed to humane and sociable pleasure in the 
 sympathy of others with us ? Praise is the symbol which 
 represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly sub- 
 stitutes for it in recollection and in language. Does not 
 the desire of posthumous fame, in like manner, manifest 
 
 • For a description of vanity, by a great orator, see the Rev. R. HA.u'a 
 Sermon on Modem Infidelity. 
 
 2 A 
 
202 PROGRESS OF 
 
 an ambition for the fellow-feeling of our race, when it is 
 perfectly unproductive of any advantage to ourselves? 
 In this point of view, it may be considered as the passion 
 of which the very existence proves the mighty power of 
 disinterested desire. Every other pleasure from, sympa- 
 thy is confined to the men who are now alive> The love 
 of fame alone seeks the sympathy of unborn generations, 
 and stretches the chain which binds the race of man to- 
 gether, to an extent to which hope sets no bounds. There 
 is a noble, even if unconscious, union of morality with 
 genius in the mind of him who sympathizes with the mas- 
 ters who lived twenty centuries before him, in order that 
 he may learn to command the sympathies of the count- 
 less generations who are to come. 
 
 In the most familiar, as well as in the highest instan- 
 ces, it would seem, that the inmost thoughts and senti- 
 ments of men are more pure than their language. Those 
 who speak of " a regard to character," if they be serious, 
 generally infuse into that word, unawares, a large portion 
 of that sense in which it denotes the frame of the mind. 
 Those who speak of "honour" very often mean a more 
 refined and delicate sort of conscience, which ought to 
 render the more educated classes of society alive to such 
 smaller wrongs as the laborious and the ignorant can 
 scarcely feel. What heart does not warm at the noble ex- 
 planation of the ancient poet: " Who is pleased by false 
 honour, or frightened by lying infamy, but he who is false 
 and depraved !" Every uncorrupted mind feels unmer- 
 ited pain as a bitter reproach, and regards a conscious- 
 ness of demerit as a drop of poison in the cup of honour. 
 How different is the applause which truly delights us all, 
 a proof that the consciences of others are in harmony 
 with our own ! " What," says Cicero, " is glory but the 
 concurring praise of the good, the unbought approbation 
 of those who judge aright of excellent virtue 1" A far 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 203 
 
 greater than Cicero rises from the purest praise of man, 
 to more sublime contemplations. 
 
 Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil. 
 But lives and spreads aloft, by those pure eyes 
 And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. 
 
 Those who have most inculcated the doctrine Of utility 
 have given another notahle example of the very vulgar 
 prejudice which treats the unseen as insignificant. Tuc- 
 ker is the only one of them who occasionally considers 
 that most important effect of human conduct which con- 
 sists in its action on the frame of the mind, by fitting its 
 faculties and sensibilities for their appointed purpose. 
 A razor or a penknife would well enough cut cloth or 
 meat ; but if they were often so used, they would be en- 
 tirely spoiled. The same sort of observation is much 
 more strongly applicable to habitual dispositions, which, 
 if they be spoiled., we have no certain means of replacing 
 or mending. Whatever act, therefore, discomposes the 
 moral machinery of mind, is more injurious to the wel- 
 fare of the agent than most disasters from without can be ; 
 for the latter are commonly limited and temporary; the 
 evil of the former spreads through the whole of life. 
 Health of mind, as well as of body, is not only produc- 
 tive in itself of a greater sum of enjoyment than arises 
 from other sources, but is the only condition of our frame 
 in which we are capable of receiving pleasure from with- 
 out. Hence it appears how incredibly absurd it is to 
 prefer, on grounds of calculation, a present interest to 
 the preservation of those mental habits on which our 
 wellbeing depends. When they are most moral, they 
 may often prevent us from obtaining advantages. It 
 would be as absurd to desire to lower them for that rea- 
 son, as it would be to weaken the body, lest its strength 
 should render it more liable to contagious disorders of 
 rare occurrence. 
 
204 PKOGBESS OF 
 
 It is, on the other hand, impossible to combine the 
 benefit of the general habit with the advantages of occa- 
 sional deviation ; for every such deviation either pro- 
 duces remorse, or weakens the habit, and prepares the 
 way for its gradual destruction. He who obtains a for- 
 tune by the undetected forgery of a will, may indeed be 
 honest in his other acts; but if he had such a scorn of 
 fraud before as he must himself allow to be generally use- 
 ful, he must suffer a severe punishment from contrition ; 
 and he will be haunted with the fears of one who has 
 lost his own security for his good conduct. In all cases, 
 if they be well examined, his loss by the distemper of his 
 mental frame will outweigh the profits of his vice. 
 
 By repeating the like observation on similar occasions, 
 it will be manifest that the infirmity of recollection, ag- 
 gravated by the defects of language, gives an appearance 
 of more selfishness to man than truly belongs to his nature ; 
 and that the effect of active agents upon the habitual 
 state of mind, one of the considerations to which the 
 epithet " sentimental" has of late been applied in deri- 
 sion, is really among the most serious and reasonable ob- 
 jects of moral philosophy. When the internal pleasures 
 and pains which accompany good and bad feelings, or 
 rather form a part of them, and the internal advantages 
 and disadvantages which follow good and bad actions, 
 are sufliciently considered, the comparative importance 
 of outward consequences will be more and more nar- 
 rowed ; so that the Stoical philosopher may be thought 
 almost excusable for rejecting it altogether, were it not 
 an indispensably necessary consideration for those in whom 
 right habits of feeling are not sufficiently strong. They 
 alone are happy, or even truly virtuous, who have little 
 need of it. 
 
 The later moralists who adopt the principle of utility, 
 have so misplaced it, that in their hands it has as great a 
 tendency as any theoretical error can have, to lessen the 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 205 
 
 intrinsic pleasure of virtue, and to unfit our habitual feel- 
 ings for being the most eifectual inducements to good 
 conduct. This is the natural tendency of a discipline 
 which brings utility too closely and frequently into con- 
 tact with action. By this habit, in its best state, an es- 
 sentially weaker motive is gradually substituted for others 
 which must always be of more force. The frequent ap- 
 peal to utility as the standard of action tends to introduce 
 an uncertainty with respect to the conduct of other men, 
 which would render all intercourse insupportable. It 
 affords also so fair a disguise for selfish and malignant 
 passions, as often to hide their nature from him who is 
 their prey. Some taint of these mean and evil princi- 
 ples will at least creep in, and by their venom give an 
 animation not its own to the cold desire of utility. The 
 moralists who take an active part in those affairs which 
 often call out unamiable passions, ought to guard with 
 peculiar watchfulness against self-delusions. The sin that 
 must most easily beset them, is that of sliding from gen- 
 eral to particular consequences, — that of trying single 
 actions, instead of dispositions, habits, and rules, by the 
 standard of utility, — that of authorising too great a lati- 
 tude for discretion and policy in moral conduct, — that of 
 readily allowing exceptions to the most important rules, 
 — that of too lenient a censure of the use of doubtful 
 means when the end seems to them good, — and that of 
 believing unphilosophicaliy, as well as dangerously, that 
 there can be any measure or scheme so useful to the 
 world as the existence of men who would not do a base 
 thing for any public advantage. It was said of Andrew 
 Fletcher, '' he would lose his life to serve his country, 
 but would not do a base thing to save it." Let those 
 preachers of utility who suppose that such a man sacri- 
 fices ends to means, consider whether the scorn of base- 
 ness be not akin to the contempt of danger, and whether 
 a nation composed of such men would not be invincible. 
 
206 PROGRESS OF 
 
 But theoretical principles are counteracted by a thousand 
 causes, which confine their mischief as well as circum- 
 scribe their benefits. Men are never so good or so bad 
 as their opinions. All that can be with reason appre- 
 hended is, that they may always produce some part of 
 their natural evil, and that the mischief will be greatest 
 among the many who seek excuses for these passions. 
 Aristippus found in the Socratic representation of the 
 union of virtue and happiness a pretext for sensuality ; 
 and many Epicureans became voluptuaries in spite of 
 the example of their master ; easily dropping by degrees 
 the limitations by which he guarded his doctrines. In 
 proportion as a man accustoms himself to be influenced 
 by the utility of particular acts, without regard to rules, 
 he approaches to the casuistry of the Jesuits, and to the 
 practical maxims of Caesar Borgia. 
 
 Injury on this as on other occasions has been suffered 
 by Ethics, from its close afiinity to Jurisprudence. The 
 true and eminent merit of Mr Bentham is that of a re- 
 former of jurisprudence. He is only a moralist with a 
 view to being a jurist ; and he sometimes becomes for a 
 few hurried moments a metaphysician with a view to 
 laying the foundation of both the moral sciences. Both 
 he and his followers have treated ethics too juridically. 
 They do not seem to be aware, or at least they do not 
 bear constantly in mind, that there is an essential differ- 
 ence in the subjects of these two sciences. 
 
 The object of law is the prevention of actions injuri- 
 ous to the community. It considers the dispositions from 
 which they flow only indirectly^ to ascertain the like- 
 lihood of their recurrence, and thus to determine the 
 necessity and the means of preventing them. The di- 
 rect object of ethics is only mental disposition. It con- 
 siders actions indirectly as the signs by which such dis- 
 positions are manifested. If it were possible for the 
 mere moralist to see that a moral and amiable temper 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 207 
 
 was the mental source of a bad action, he could not 
 cease to approve and love the temper, as we sometimes 
 presume to suppose may be true of the judgments of 
 the Searcher of Hearts. Religion necessarily coincides 
 with morality in this respect ; and it is the peculiar dis- 
 tinction of Christianity that it places the seat of virtue 
 in the heart. Law and ethics are necessarily so much 
 blended, that in many intricate combinations the dis- 
 tinction becomes obscure. But in all strong cases the 
 difference is evident. Thus, law punishes the most sin- 
 cerely repentant ; but wherever the soul of the penitent 
 can be thought to be thoroughly purified, religion and 
 morality receive him with open arms. 
 
 It is needless, after these remarks, to observe, that 
 those whose habitual contemplation is directed to the 
 rules of action, are likely to underrate the importance of 
 feeling and disposition ; an error of very unfortunate con- 
 sequences, since the far greater part of human actions 
 flow from these neglected sources ; while the law inter- 
 poses only in cases which may be called exceptions, which 
 are now rare, and ought to be less frequent. 
 
 The coincidence of Mr Bentham's school with the an- 
 cient Epicureans in the disregard of the pleasures of taste 
 and of the arts dependent on imagination, is a proof both 
 of the inevitable adherence of much of the popular sense 
 of the words '^interest" and "pleasure," to the same 
 words in their philosophical acceptation, and of the per- 
 nicious influence of narrowing " utility" to mere visible 
 and tangible objects, to the exclusion of those which form 
 the larger part of human enjoyment. 
 
 The mechanical philosophers who, under Descartes 
 and Gassendi, began to reform Physics in the seventeenth 
 century, attempted to explain all the appearances of na- 
 ture by an immediate reference to the figure of particles 
 of matter impelling each other in various directions, and 
 with unequal force, but in all other points alike. The 
 
208 PROGRESS OF 
 
 communication of motion by impulse they conceived to be 
 perfectly simple and intelligible. It never occurred to 
 them, that the movement of one ball when another is 
 driven against it, is a fact of which no explanation can be 
 given which will amount to more than a statement of its 
 constant occurrence. That no body can act where it is 
 not, appeared to them as self-evident as that the whole 
 is equal to all the parts. By this axiom they understood 
 that no body moves another without touching it. They 
 did not perceive, that it was only self-evident where it 
 means that no body can act where it has not the power 
 of acting ; and that if it be understood more largely, it 
 is a mere assumption of the proposition on which their 
 whole system rested. Sir Isaac Newton reformed Phy- 
 sics, not by simplfying that science, but by rendering it 
 much more complicated. He introduced into it the force 
 of attraction, of which he ascertained many laws, but 
 which even he did not dare to represent as being as in- 
 telligible and as conceivably ultimate as impulsion itself. 
 It was necessary for Laplace to introduce intermediate 
 laws, and to calculate disturbing forces, before the phe- 
 nomena of the heavenly bodies could be reconciled even 
 to Newton's more complex theory. In the present state 
 of physical and chemical knowledge, a man who should 
 attempt to refer all the immense variety of facts to the 
 simple impulse of the Cartesians, would have no chance 
 of serious confutation. The number of laws augments 
 with the progress of knowledge. The speculations of 
 the followers of Mr Bentham are not unlike the unsuc- 
 cessful attempt of the Cartesians. Mr Mill, for exam- 
 ple, derives the whole theory of Government* from the 
 single fact, that every man pursues his interest when he 
 knows it; which he assumes to be a sort of self-evident 
 practical principle, if such a phrase be not contradictory. 
 
 • Essay on Government, originally printed in the Supplement to the 
 fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopsdia Britannica. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 209 
 
 That a man's pursuing the interest of another, or in- 
 deed any other object in nature, is just as ^conceivable 
 as that he should pursue his own interest, is a proposi- 
 tion which seems never to have occurred to this acute 
 and ingenious writer. Nothing, however, can be more 
 certain than its truth, if the terra" interest" be employ- 
 ed in its proper sense of general wellbeing, which is the 
 only acceptation in which it can serve the purpose of 
 his arguments. If, indeed, the term be employed to 
 denote the gratification of a predominant desire, his pro- 
 position is self-evident, but wholly unserviceable in his 
 argument ; for it is clear that individuals and multitudes 
 often desire what they know to be most inconsistent with 
 their general welfare. A nation, as much as an indi- 
 vidual, and sometimes more, may not only mistake its in- 
 terest, but, perceiving it clearly, may prefer the grati- 
 fication of a strong passion to it.* The whole fabric of 
 his political reasoning seems to be overthrown by this 
 single observation ; and instead of attempting to explain 
 the immense variety of political facts by the simple 
 principle of a contest of interests, we are reduced to the 
 necessity of once more referring them to that variety of 
 passions, habits, opinions, and prejudices, which we dis- 
 cover only by experience. Mr Mill's Essay on Educa- 
 tion\ affords another example of the inconvenience of 
 leaping at once from the most general laws, to a multi- 
 plicity of minute appearances. Having assumed, or at 
 least inferred from insufl5.cient premises, that the intel- 
 lectual and moral character is entirely formed by cir- 
 cumstances, he proceeds, in the latter part of the essay, 
 as if it were a necessary consequence of that doctrine, 
 that we might easily acquire the power of combining 
 and directing circumstances in such a manner as to pro- 
 
 * The same mode of reasoning has been adopted by the writer of a late 
 criticism on Mr Miil's Essay. See Edinburgh Review, No. 97, March 1829, 
 t In the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 
 
 2 B 
 
210 PROGRESS OF 
 
 duce the best possible character. Without disputing 
 for the present the theoretical proposition, let us con- 
 sider what would be the reasonableness of similar expec- 
 tations in a more easily intelligible case. The general 
 theory of the winds is pretty well understood; we know 
 that they proceed from the rushing of air from those 
 portions of the atmosphere which are more condensed, 
 into those which are more rarefied; but how great a 
 chasm is there between that simple law and the great 
 variety of facts which experience teaches us respecting 
 winds ! The constant winds between the tropics are 
 large and regular enough to be in some measure capa- 
 ble of explanation ; but who can tell why, in variable 
 climates, the wind blows to-day from the east, to-morrow 
 from the west? Who can foretell what its shiftingsand 
 variations are to be ? Who can account for a tempest on 
 one day, and a calm on another? Even if we could fore- 
 tell the irregular and infinite variations, how far might 
 we not still be from the power of combining and guiding 
 their causes? No man but the lunatic in the story of 
 Rasselas ever dreamt that he could command the 
 weather. The difiiculty plainly consists in the multi- 
 plicity and minuteness of the circumstances which act on 
 the atmosphere. Are those which influence the forma- 
 tion of the human character likely to be less minute and 
 multiplied ? 
 
 The style of Mr Bentham underwent a more remark- 
 able revolution than perhaps befell that of any other cele- 
 brated writer. In his early works, it was clear, free, spir- 
 ited, often and seasonably eloquent. Many passages of his 
 later writings retain the inimitable stamp of genius; but 
 he seems to have been oppressed by the vastness of his 
 ;^rojected works, — to have thought that he had no lon- 
 ger more than leisure to preserve the heads of them, — to 
 have been impelled by a fruitful mind to new plans be- 
 fore he had completed the old. In this state of things. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 211 
 
 he gradually ceased to use words for conveying his 
 thoughts to others, but merely employed them as a short- 
 hand to preserve his meaning for his own purpose. It 
 was no wonder that his language "should thus become 
 obscure and repulsive. Though many of his technical 
 terms are in themselves exact and pithy, yet the over- 
 flow of his vast nomenclature was enough to darken his 
 whole diction. 
 
 It was at this critical period that the arrangement and 
 translation of his manuscripts were undertaken by M. 
 Dumont, a generous disciple, who devoted a genius 
 formed for original and lasting works, to diffuse the 
 principles and promote the fame of his master. He 
 whose pen Mirabeau did not disdain to borrow, — ^who, 
 in the same school with Romilly, had studiously pursued 
 the grace as well as the force of composition, — was per- 
 fectly qualified to strip of its uncouthness a philosophy 
 which he understood and admired. As he wrote in a 
 general language, he propagated its doctrines through- 
 out Europe, where they were beneficial to jurispru- 
 dence, but perhaps injurious to the cause of reformation 
 in government. That they became more popular abroad 
 than at home, is partly to be ascribed to the taste and 
 skill of M. Dumont; partly to that tendency towards 
 free speculation and bold reform which was more preva- 
 lent among nations newly freed, or impatiently aspiring 
 to freedom, than in a people long satisfied with the pos- 
 session of a system of government like that which others 
 were struggling to maintain, and not yet aware of the im- 
 perfections and abuses in their laws, to the amendment 
 of which a cautious consideration of Mr Bentham's works 
 will undoubtedly most materially contribute. 
 
212 PROGRESS OF 
 
 DuQALD Stewart.* 
 
 Manifold are the discouragements rising up at 
 every step at that part of this Dissertation which extends 
 to very recent times. No sooner does the writer escape 
 from the angry disputes of the living, than he may feel 
 his mind clouded by the name of a departed friend. 
 But there are happily men whose fame is brightened by 
 free discussion, and to whose memory an appearance of 
 belief that they needed tender treatment would be a 
 grosser injury than it could suffer from a respectable an- 
 tagonist. 
 
 Dugald Stewart was the son of Dr Matthew Stewart, 
 Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edin- 
 burgh ; a station immediately before filled by Maclaurin, 
 on the recommendation of Newton. Hence the poet 
 spoke of "the philosophic sire and son."f He was 
 educated at Edinburgh, and he heard the lectures of 
 Reid at Glasgow. He was early associated with his 
 father in the duties of the Mathematical Professorship ; 
 and during the absence of Dr Adam Ferguson as Sec- 
 retary to the Commissioners sent to conclude a peace 
 with North America, he occupied the chair of Moral 
 Philosophy. He was appointed to the Professorship on 
 the resignation of Ferguson, not the least distinguished 
 among the modern moralists inclined to the Stoical 
 school. 
 
 This office, filled in immediate succession by Fergu- 
 guson, Stewart, and Brown, received a lustre from their 
 names, which it owed in no degree to its modest exterior 
 or its limited advantages ; and was rendered by them 
 the highest dignity, in the humble, but not obscure, es- 
 tablishments of Scottish literature. The lectures of Mr 
 
 * Bom in 1753; died in 1828. 
 t Burns. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 213 
 
 Stewart, for a quarter of a century, rendered it famous 
 through every country where the 1 ight of reason was 
 allowed to penetrate. Perhaps few men ever lived, who 
 poured into the breasts of youth a more fervid and yet 
 reasonable love of liberty, of truth, and of virtue. How 
 many are still alive, in different countries, and in every 
 rank to which education reaches, who, if they accurately 
 examined their own minds and lives, would not ascribe 
 much of whatever goodness and happiness they possess, 
 to the early impressions of his gentle and persuasive elo- 
 quence! He lived to see his disciples distinguished 
 among the lights and ornaments of the council and the 
 senate.* He had the consolation to be sure that no 
 words of his promoted the growth of an impure taste, of 
 an exclusive prejudice, of a malevolent passion. With- 
 out derogation from his writings, it may be said that his 
 disciples were among his best works. He, indeed, who 
 may justly be said to have cultivated an extent of mind 
 
 • As an example of Mr Stewart's school may be mentioned Francis Hor- 
 ner, a favourite pupil, and, till his last moment, an affectionate friend. The 
 short life of this excellent person is worthy of serious contemplation, by 
 those more especially, who, in circumstances like his, enter on the slippery 
 path of public affairs. Without the aids of birth or fortune, in an assembly 
 where aristocratical propensities prevail, — by his understanding, industry, 
 pure taste, and useful information, — still more by modest independence, by 
 steadiness and sincerity, joined to moderation, — by the stamp of unbending 
 integi-ity, and by the conscientious considerateness which breathed through 
 his well-chosen language, — he raised himself, at thg early age of thirty-six, 
 to a moral authority which, without these qualities, no brilliancy of talents 
 or power of reasoning could have acquired. No eminent speaker in Parlia- 
 ment owed so much of his success to his moral character. His high place 
 was therefore honourable to his audience and to his country. Regret for 
 his death was expressed with touching unanimity from every part of a divided 
 assembly, unused to manifestations of sensibility, abhorrent from theatrical 
 display, and whose tribute on such an occasion derived its peculiar value 
 from their general coldness and sluggishness. The tears of those to whom 
 he was unknown were shed over him; and at the head of those by whom he 
 was "pi-aised, wept, and honoured," was one, whose commendation would 
 have been more enhanced in the eye of Mr Horner, by his discernment and 
 veracity, than by the signal proof of the concurrence of all orders, as well 
 as parties, which was afforded by the name of Howard. 
 
214 PROGRESS OF 
 
 which would otherwise have lain barren, and to have 
 contributed to raise virtuous dispositions where the na- 
 tural growth might have been useless or noxious, is not 
 less a benefactor of mankind, and may indirectly be a 
 larger contributor to knowledge, than the author of great 
 works, or even the discoverer of important truths. The 
 system of conveying scientific instruction to a large audi- 
 ence by lectures, from which the English universities 
 have in a great measure departed, renders his qualities 
 as a lecturer a most important part of his merit in a Scot- 
 tish university which still adheres to the general method 
 of European education. Probably no modern ever ex- 
 ceeded him in that species of eloquence which springs 
 from sensibility to literary beauty and moral excellence ; 
 which neither obscures science by prodigal ornament, 
 nor disturbs the serenity of patient attention ; but though 
 it rather calms and soothes the feelings, yet exalts the ge- 
 nius, and insensibly inspires a reasonable enthusiasm for 
 whatever is good and fair. 
 
 He embraced the philosophy of Dr Reid, a patient, mo- 
 dest, and deep thinker,* who, in his first work {En- 
 
 • Those who may doubt the justice of this description will do well to 
 weigh the words of the most competent of judges, who, though candid and 
 even indulgent, was not prodigal of praise. " It is certainly very rare that 
 a piece so deeply philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, and aifords so 
 much entertainment to the reader. Whenever I enter into your ideas, no 
 man appears to express himself with greater perspicuity. Your style is so 
 correct and so good English, that I found not any thing worth the remark- 
 ing. I beg my compliments to my friendly adversaries Dr Campbell and Dr 
 Gerard, and also to Dr Gregory, whom I suspect to be of the same disposi- 
 tion, though he has not openly declared himself such." (Letter from Mr 
 Hume to Dr Reid: Stewaht's Biographical Memoirs, p. 417.) 
 
 The latter part of the above sentences (written after a perusal of the 
 proof-sheets of Dr Reid's Enquiry, but before its publication) sufficiently 
 shows, that Mr Hume felt no displeasure against Reid and Campbell, un- 
 doubtedly his most formidable antagonists, however he might resent the 
 language of Dr Seattle, an amiable man, an elegant and tender poet, and a 
 good writer on miscellaneous literature in prose, but who, in his Essay on 
 Truth — an unfair appeal to the multitude on philosophical questions — in- 
 dulged himself in the personalities and invectives of a popular pamphleteer. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 215 
 
 quiry into the Human Mind), deserves a commendation 
 more descriptive of a philosopher than that bestowed by 
 Professor Cousin — of having made " a vigorous protest 
 against scepticism on behalf of common sense." His ob- 
 servations on suggestion, on natural signs, on the connec- 
 tion between what he calls sensation and perception, 
 though perhaps occasioned by Berkeley, whose idealism 
 Reid had once adopted, are marked by the genuine 
 spirit of original observation. As there are too many 
 who seem more wise than they are, so it was the more 
 uncommon fault of Reid to appear less a philosopher 
 than he really was. Indeed his temporary adoption of 
 Berkeleianism is a proof of an unprejudiced and acute 
 mind. Perhaps no man ever rose finally above the se- 
 ductions of that simple and ingenious system, who had 
 not sometimes tried their full effect by surrendering his 
 whole mind to them. 
 
 But it is never with entire impunity that philosophers 
 borrow vague and inappropriate terms from vulgar use. 
 Never did man afford a stronger instance of the danger 
 than Reid, in his two most unfortunate terms. Common 
 Sense and Instinct. Common Sense is that average por- 
 tion of understanding, possessed by most men, which, as it 
 is nearly always applied to conduct, has acquired an 
 almost exclusively practical sense. Instinct is the habit- 
 ual power of producing effects like contrivances of rea- 
 son, yet so far beyond the intelligence and experience of 
 the agent, as to be utterly inexplicable by reference to 
 them. No man, if he had been in search of improper 
 words, could have discovered any more unfit than these 
 two, for denoting that law, or state, ov faculty of mind, 
 which compels us to acknowledge certain simple and 
 very abstract truths, not being identical propositions, to 
 lie at the foundation of all reasoning, and to be the ne- 
 cessary ground of all belief. 
 
 Long after the death of Dr Reid, his philosophy was 
 
216 PROGRESS OF 
 
 taught at Paris by M. Royer Collard,* who, on the res- 
 toration of free debate, became the most philosophical 
 orator of his nation, and now fills, with impartiality and 
 dignity, the chair of the Chamber of Deputies. His in- 
 genious and eloquent scholar. Professor Cousin, dissat- 
 isfied with what he calls " the sage and timid" doctrines 
 of Edinburgh, which he considered as only a vigorous 
 protest, on behalf of common sense, against the scepti- 
 cism of Hume, sought in Germany for a philosophy of 
 " such a masculine and brilliant character as might com- 
 mand the attention of Europe, and be able to struggle 
 with success on a great theatre, against the genius of the 
 adverse school."t It may be questioned whether he 
 found in Kant more than the same vigorous protest, un- 
 der a more systematic forin, with an immense nomencla- 
 ture, and constituting a philosophical edifice of equal 
 symmetry and vastness. The preference of the more 
 boastful system, over a philosophy thus chiefly blamed 
 for its modest pretensions, does not seem to be entirely 
 justified by its permanent authority in the country which 
 gave it birth ; where, however powerful its influence still 
 continues to be, its doctrines do not appear to have now 
 many supporters: and, indeed, the accomplished Profes- 
 sor himself rapidly shot through Kantianism, and now ap- 
 pears to rest or to stop at the doctrines of Schelling and 
 Hegel, at a point so high, that it is hard to descry from 
 it any distinction between objects, — even that indispen- 
 sable distinction between Reality and Illusion. As the 
 works of Reid, and those of Kant, otherwise so different, 
 appear to be simultaneous efforts of the conservative 
 power of philosophy to expel the mortal poison of scep- 
 ticism, so the exertions of M. Royer Collard and M. 
 
 • Fragments of his lectures have been recently publbhed in a French 
 translation of Dr Reid, by M. Jonffroy: (Euvres Compkies de Thomas KEra, 
 vol. rv. Paris, 1828. 
 
 t Cours de Phihsophk, par M. Cotrsiir, legon xii. Paris, 1828. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 317 
 
 Cousin, however at variance in metaphysical principles^ 
 seem to have been chiefly roused by the desire of deliv- 
 ering Ethics from that fatal taint of personal, and, indeed 
 gross interest, which that science had received in France 
 from the followers of Condillac, especially Helvetius, St 
 Lambert and Cabanis. The success of these attempts to 
 render Speculative Philosophy once more popular in the 
 country of Descartes, has already been considerable. 
 The French youth, whose desire of knowledge and love 
 of liberty afford an auspicious promise of the succeeding 
 age, have eagerly received doctrines, of which the moral 
 part is so much more agreeable to their liberal spirit, 
 than the selfish theory, generated in the stagnation of a 
 corrupt, cruel, and dissolute tyranny. 
 
 These agreeable prospects bring us easily back to our 
 subject; for though the restoration of Speculative Phi- 
 losophy in the country of Descartes is due to the precise 
 statement and vigorous logic of M. Royer Collard, the 
 modifications introduced by him into the doctrine of 
 Reid coincide with those of Mr Stewart, and would 
 have appeared to agree more exactly, if the forms of the 
 French philosopher had not been more dialectical, and the 
 composition of Mr Stewart had retained less of that ora- 
 torical character, which belonged to a justly celebrated 
 speaker. Amidst excellencies of the highest order, his 
 writings, it must be confessed, leave some room for criti- 
 cism . He took precautions against oifence to the feelings 
 of his contemporaries, more anxious and frequent than 
 the impatient searcher for truth may deem necessary. 
 For the sake of promoting the favourable reception of 
 philosophy itself, he studies perhaps too visibly to 
 avoid whatever might raise up prejudices against it. 
 His gratitude and native modesty dictated a superabun- 
 dant care in softening and excusing his dissent from those 
 who had been his own instructors, or who were the ob- 
 jects of general reverence. Exposed by his station, both 
 2 C 
 
218 PROGRESS OF 
 
 to the assaults of political prejudice, and to the religious 
 animosities of a country where a few sceptics attacked the 
 slumbering zeal of a Calvinistic people, it would have been 
 wonderful if he had not betrayed more wariness than would 
 have been necessary or becoming in a very diiferent posi- 
 tion. The fulness of his literature seduced him too much 
 into multiplied illustrations. Too many of the expedients 
 happily used to allure the young may unnecessarily swell 
 his volumes. Perhaps a successive publication in sepa- 
 rate parts made him more voluminous than he would have 
 been if the whole had been at once before his eyes. A 
 peculiar susceptibility and delicacy of taste produced 
 forms of expression, in themselves extremely beautiful, 
 but of which the habitual use is not easily reconcilable 
 with the condensation desirable in works necessarily so 
 extensive. If, however, it must be owned that the cau- 
 tion incident to his temper, his feelings, his philosophy, 
 and his station, has somewhat lengthened his composition, 
 it is not less true, that some of the same circumstances 
 have contributed towards those peculiar beauties which 
 place him at the head of the most adorned writers on 
 philosophy in our language. 
 
 Few writers rise with more grace from a plain ground- 
 work, to the passages which require greater animation or 
 embellishment. He gives to narrative, according to the 
 precept of Bacon, the colour of the time, by a selection 
 of happy expressions from original writers. Among the 
 secret arts by which he diffuses elegance over his dic- 
 tion, may be remarked the skill which, by deepening or 
 brightening a shade in a secondary term, by opening par- 
 tial or preparatory glimpses of a thought to be afterwards 
 unfolded, unobservedly heightens the import of a word, 
 and gives it a new meaning, without any offence against 
 old use. It is in this manner that philosophical origi- 
 nality may be renonciled to purity and stability of speech, 
 — that we may avoid new terms, which are the easy re- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 219 
 
 source of the unskilful or the indolent, and often a char- 
 acteristic mark of writers who love their language too 
 little to feel its peculiar excellencies, or to study the art 
 of calling forth its powers. 
 
 He reminds us not unfrequently of the character given 
 by Cicero to one of his contemporaries, '^ who express- 
 ed refined and abstruse thought, in soft and transparent 
 diction," His writings are a proof that the mild senti- 
 ments have their eloquence as well as the vehement pas- 
 sions. It would be difficult to name works in which so 
 much refined philosophy is joined with so fine a fancy, 
 — so much elegant literature, with such a delicate per- 
 ception of the distinguishing excellencies of great writers, 
 and with an estimate in general so just of the services 
 rendered to knowledge by a succession of philosophers. 
 They are pervaded by a philosophical benevolence, 
 which keeps up. the ardour of his genius, without dis- 
 turbing the serenity of his mind, — which is felt in his 
 reverence for knowledge, in the generosity of his praise, 
 and in the tenderness of his censure. It is still more 
 sensible in the general tone with which he relates the 
 successful progress of the human understanding, among 
 many formidable enemies. Those readers are not to be 
 envied who limit their admiration to particular parts, or 
 to excellencies merely literary, without being warmed by 
 the glow of that honest triumph in the advancement of 
 knowledge, and of that assured faith in the final preva- 
 lence of truth and justice, which breathe through every 
 page of them, and give the unity and dignity of a moral 
 purpose to the whole of these classical works. 
 
 He has often quoted poetical passages, of which some 
 throw much light on our mental operations. If he some- 
 times prized the moral common-places of Thomson and 
 the speculative fancy of Akenside more highly than the 
 higher poetry of their betters, it was not to be wondered 
 at that tlie metaphysician and the moralist should some- 
 
220 PROGRESS OF 
 
 times prevail over the lover of poetry. His natural sen- 
 sibility was perhaps occasionally cramped by the cold 
 critisism of an unpoetical age ; and some of his remarks 
 may be thought to indicate a more constant and exclu- 
 sive regard to diction than is agreeable to the men of a 
 generation v?ho have been trained by tremendous events 
 to a passion for daring inventions, and to an irregular en- 
 thusiasm, impatient of minute elegancies and refinement. 
 Many of those beauties which his generous criticism de- 
 lighted to magnify in the works of his contemporaries, 
 have already faded under the scorching rays of a fiercer 
 sun. 
 
 Mr Stewart employed more skill in contriving, and 
 more care in concealing, his very important reforms of 
 Reid's doctrines, than others exert to maintain their 
 claims to originality. Had his well-chosen language of 
 '^ laws of human thought or belief" been at first adopt- 
 ed in that school, instead of " instinct" and " common 
 sense," it would have escaped much of the reproach 
 (which Dr Reid himself did not merit) of shallowness and 
 popularity. Expressions so exact, employed in the open- 
 ing, could not have failed to influence the whole system, 
 and to have given it, not only in the general estimation, 
 but in the minds of its framers, a more scientific com- 
 plexion. In those parts of Mr Stewart's speculations in 
 which he most departed from his general principles, he 
 seems sometimes, as it were, to be suddenly driven back 
 by what he unconsciously shrinks from as ungrateful 
 apostacy; and to be desirous of making amends to his 
 master, by more harshness, than is otherwise natural to 
 him, towards the writers whom he has insensibly ap- 
 proached. Hence perhaps the unwonted severity of his 
 language towards Tucker and Hartley. It is thus at the 
 very time when he largely adopts the Principle of Asso- 
 ciation in his excellent Essay on the Beautiful,* that he 
 
 • Stewaht's Philosophical Essays, part ii. essay i. especially chap. vi. 
 The condensation, if not omission, of the discussion of the theories of Buf- 
 
ETHICAL, PHILOSOPHY. 221 
 
 treats most rigidly the latter of these writers, to whom, 
 though neither the discoverer nor the sole advocate of 
 that principle, it surely owes the greatest illustration and 
 support. 
 
 In matters of far other importance, causes perhaps 
 somewhat similar may have led to the like mistake. 
 When he absolutely contradicts Dr Reid, by truly stat- 
 ing that '^ it is more philosophical to resolve the power 
 of habit into the association of ideas, than to resolve the 
 association of ideas into habit,'** he, in the sequel of the 
 same volume,! refuses to go farther than to own, that 
 " the theory of Hartley concerning the origin of our 
 affections, and of the moral sense, is a most ingenious re- 
 finement on the selfish system, and tliat by means of it the 
 force of many of the common reasonings against that sys- 
 tem is eluded f' though he somewhat inconsistently al- 
 lows, that " active principles which^ arising from circum- 
 stances in which all the situations of mankind must agree, 
 are therefore common to the whole species, at whatever 
 period of life they may appear, are to be regarded as a 
 part of human nature, no less than the instinct of suction ; 
 in the same manner as the acquired perception of dis- 
 tance, by the eye, is to be ranked among the perceptive 
 powers of man, no less than the original perceptions of 
 the other senses."f In another place also he makes a 
 remark on mere beauty, which might have led him to a 
 more just conclusion respecting the theory of the origin 
 of the affections and the moral sense: ^'It is scarcely 
 necessary for me to observe, that, in those instances 
 where association operates in heightening (or he might 
 have said creates) the pleasures we receive from sight, 
 
 fier, Reynolds, Burke, and Price, in this essay, \vould have lessened that 
 temporary appearance which is unsuitable to a scientific work. 
 
 * Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. i. p. 281, edit. 
 jr92, 4to. 
 
 t Ibid, p. 383. 
 
 f Ibid, p. 385. 
 
222 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the pleasing emotion continues still to appear, to our 
 consciousness, simple and uncompounded."* To this re- 
 mark he might have added, that until all the separate 
 pleasures be melted into one, — as long as any of them are 
 discerned and felt as distinct from each other, — the as- 
 sociations are incomplete, and the qualities which gratify 
 are not called by the name of beauty. In like manner, 
 as has been repeatedly observed, it is only when all the 
 separate feelings, pleasurable and painful, excited by the 
 contemplation of voluntary action, are lost in the gene- 
 ral sentiments of approbation or disapprobation,— when 
 these general feelings retain no trace of the various emo- 
 tions which originally attended different actions, — when 
 they are held in a state of perfect fusion by the habitual 
 use of the words used in every language to denote them, 
 — that conscience can be said to exist, or that we can 
 be considered as endowed with a moral nature. The 
 theory which thus ascribes the uniform formation of 
 the moral faculty to universal and paramount laws, is not 
 a refinement of the selfish system, nor is it any modifica- 
 tion of that hypothesis. The partisans of selfishness 
 maintain, that in acts of will the agent must have a view 
 to the pleasure or happiness which he hopes to reap 
 from it. The philosophers who regard the social affec- 
 tions and the moral sentiments as formed by a process 
 of association, on the other hand, contend that these affec- 
 tions and sentiments must work themselves clear from 
 every particle of self-regard, before they deserve the 
 names of benevolence and of conscience. In the actual 
 state of human motives, the two systems are not to be 
 likened, but to be contrasted to each other. It is re- 
 markable that Mr Stewart, who admits the "■ question 
 respecting the origin of the affections to be rather curi- 
 
 * Phihsophkal Essays, part ii, essay i. chap, vi- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOrHY. 223 
 
 ous than important,"* should have held a directly con- 
 trary opinion respecting the moral sense ;f to which these 
 words, in his sense of them, seem to be equally applicable. 
 His meaning in the former affirmation is, that if the affec- 
 tions be acquired, yet they are justly called natural; 
 and if their origin be personal, yet their nature may and 
 does become disinterested. What circumstance distin- 
 guishes the former from the latter case? With respect 
 to the origin of the affections, it must not be overlooked 
 that his language is somewhat contradictory. For if the 
 theory on that subject from which he dissents were 
 merely "a refinement on the selfish system," its truth or 
 falsehood could not be represented as subordinate, since 
 the controversy would continue to relate to the existence 
 of disinterested motives of human conduct.^ It may 
 also be observed, that he uniformly represents his oppo- 
 nents as deriving the affections from self-love, which, 
 in its proper sense, is not the source to which they refer 
 even avarice ; and which is itself derived from other an- 
 tecedent principles, some of which are inherent, and some 
 acquired. If the object of this theory of the rise of the 
 most important feelings of human nature were, as our phi- 
 losopher supposes, '* to e/wJe objections against the sel- 
 fish system" it would be at best worthless. Its positive 
 merits are several. It affirms the actual disinterested- 
 ness of human motives, as strongly as Butler himself. 
 The explanation of the mental law, of which benevo- 
 lence and conscience are formed habitually, when it is 
 contemplated deeply, impresses on the mind the truth 
 
 * Outlines of Mfrral Philosophy, p. 93. 
 
 f Outlines, p. 117. " This is the most important question that can be 
 stated with respect to the Theory of Morals. " 
 
 i In the Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man (vol. i. p. 164), 
 Mr Stewart has done more manifest injustice to the Hartleian theory, by 
 calling' it " a doctrine fundamentally the same" with the selfish system, and 
 especially by representing Hai-tley, who ought to be rather classed with 
 Butler and Hume, as agreeing with Gay, Tucker, and Paley. 
 
224 PROGRESS OF 
 
 that they not only are but must be disinterested. It 
 confirms, as it were, the testimony of consciousness, by 
 exhibiting to the understanding the means employed to 
 insure the production of disinterestedness. It aifords 
 the only effectual answer to the prejudice against the 
 disinterested theory, from the multiplication of ultimate 
 facts and implanted principles, which, under all its other 
 forms, it seems to require. No room is left for this pre- 
 judice by a representation of disinterestedness, which 
 ultimately traces its formation to principles almost as 
 simple as those of Hobbes himself. Lastly, every step 
 in just generalization is an advance in philosophy. No 
 one has yet shown, either that man is not actually disin- 
 terested, or that he may not have been destined to be 
 come so by such a process as has been described: — the 
 cause to which the effects are ascribed is a real agent, 
 which seems adequate to the appearance ; and if future 
 observation should be found to require that the theory 
 shall be confined within narrower limits, such a limitation 
 will not destroy its value. 
 
 The acquiescence of Mr Stewart in Dr Reid's gene- 
 ral representation of our mental constitution, led him to 
 indulge more freely the natural bent of his understand- 
 ing, by applying it to theories of character and manners, 
 of life and literature, of taste and the arts, more than to 
 the consideration of those more simple principles which 
 rule over human nature under every form. His chief 
 work, as he frankly owns, is indeed rather a collection 
 of such theories, pointing toward the common end of 
 throwing light on the structure and functions of the 
 mind, than a systematic treatise, such as might be ex- 
 pected from the title of " Elements." It is in essays of 
 this kind that he has most surpassed other cultivators of 
 mental philosophy. His remarks on the effects of casual 
 associations may be quoted as a specimen of the most 
 original and just thoughts, conveyed in the best man- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 225 
 
 ner.* In this beautiful passage, he proceeds from their 
 power of confusing speculation, to that of disturbing ex- 
 perience and of misleading practice; and ends with 
 their extraordinary effect in bestowing on trivial, and 
 even ludicrous circumstances, some portion of the dig- 
 nity and sanctity of those sublime principles with which 
 they are associated. The style, at first only clear, after- 
 wards admitting the ornaments of a calm and grave 
 elegance, at last rising to as high a strain as philosophy 
 will endure, and of which all the parts (various as their 
 nature is) are held together by an invisible thread of 
 gentle transition, affords a specimen of adaptation of man- 
 ner to matter which it willl be hard to match in any 
 philosophical writer. Another very fine remark, which 
 seems to be as original as it is just, may be quoted as a 
 sample of those beauties with which his writings abound. 
 " The apparent coldness and selfishness of mankind may 
 be traced, in a great measure, to a want of attention and 
 a want of imagination. In the case of those misfortunes 
 which happen to ourselves or our near connections, 
 neither of these powers is necessary to make us acquaint- 
 ed with our situation. But without an uncommon degree 
 of both, it is impossible for any man to comprehend com- 
 pletely the situation of his neighbour, or to have an idea 
 of the greater part of the distress which exists in the 
 world. If we feel more for ourselves than for others, 
 in the former case the facts are more fully before us than 
 they can be in the latter."t Yet several parts of his 
 writings afford the most satisfactory proof, that his absti- 
 nence from what is commonly called metaphysical spec- 
 ulation, arose from no inability to pursue it with signal 
 success. As examples, his observations on General 
 Terms, and on Causation, may be appealed to with 
 
 • Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mnd, vol. I. p. 340-352. 
 t Ibid. vol. I. p. 502. 
 
 2 D 
 
226 PROGUESS OF 
 
 perfect confidence. In the first two Dissertations of the 
 volume bearing the title of Phihsophical Essays, he 
 with equal boldness and acuteness grapples with the 
 most extensive and abstruse questions of mental philoso- 
 phy, and points out both the sources and the uttermost 
 boundaries of human knowledge with a Verulamean hand, 
 lu another part of his writings, he calls what are de- 
 nominated first principles of experience, "fundamental 
 laws of human belief, or primary elements of human 
 reason;^'* which last form of expression has so close a 
 resemblance to the language of Kant, that it should have 
 protected the latter from the imputation of writing 
 jargon. 
 
 Mr Stewart's excellent volume entitled Outlines of 
 Moral Philosophy ,-\ though composed only as a text- 
 book for the use of his hearers, is one of the most deci- 
 sive proofs that he was perfectly qualified to unite pre- 
 cision with ease, to be brief with the utmost clearness, 
 and to write with becoming elegance in a style where 
 the meaning is not overladen by ornaments. This vol- 
 ume contains his properly Ethical Theory,X which is 
 much expanded, but not substantially altered, in his 
 Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers,^ — a work 
 almost posthumous, and composed under circumstances 
 which give it a deeper interest than can be inspired by 
 any desert in science. Though, with his usual modesty, 
 he manifests an anxiety to fasten his ethical theory to the 
 kindred speculations of other philosophers of the Intel- 
 lectual School, especially to those of Cudworth, recently 
 clothed in more modern phraseology by Price, yet he 
 still shows that independence and originality which all 
 his aversion from parade could not entirely conceal. 
 
 * Ekments of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, vol. II. p. ST- 
 
 \ Edinburgh, 1794, 8vo. 
 
 i P. 76-148. 
 
 § Two vols, 8vo. Edinburgh, 1828. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 227 
 
 Right, duty, virtue, moral obligation, and the like or 
 the opposite forms of expression, represent, according 
 to him, certain thoughts, which arise necessarily and 
 instantaneously in the mind (or in the reason, if we take 
 that word in the large sense in which it denotes all that 
 is not emotive) at the contemplation of actions, and 
 which are utterly incapable of all resolution, consequently 
 of all explanation, and which can be known only by 
 being experienced. These thoughts or ideas, or by 
 whatever other name they may be called, are followed 
 as inexplicably, but as inevitably, by pleasurable and 
 painful emotions, which suggest the conception of moral 
 beauty ; a quality of human actions distinct from their 
 adherence to or deviation from rectitude, though gene- 
 rally coinciding with it. The question which a reflect- 
 ing reader will here put is^ whether any purpose is 
 served by the introduction of the intermediate mental 
 process between the particular thoughts and the moral 
 emotions. How would the view be darkened or con- 
 fused, or indeed in any degree changed, by withdraw- 
 ing that process, or erasing the words which attempt to 
 express it? No advocate of the intellectual origin of 
 the moral faculty has yet stated a case in which a mere 
 operation of reason or judgment, unattended by emotion, 
 could, consistently with the universal opinion of man- 
 kind, as it is exhibited by the structure of language, be 
 said to have the nature or to produce the effects of Con- 
 science. Such an example would be equivalent to an 
 experimentum cruets on the side of that celebrated the- 
 ory. The failure to produce it, after long challenge, is 
 at least a presumption against it, nearly approaching to 
 that sort of decisively discriminative experiment. It 
 would be vain to restate what has already been too often 
 repeated, that all the objections to the selfish philosophy 
 turn upon the actual nature, not upon the original source, 
 of our principles of action ; and that it is by a confusion 
 
238 PEOGRESS OF 
 
 of these very distinct questions alone that the confuta- 
 tion of Hobbes can be made apparently to involve Hart- 
 ley. Mr Stewart appears, like most other metaphysi- 
 cians, to have blended the inquiry into the nature of our 
 moral sentiments with that other which only seeks a cri- 
 terion to distinguish moral from immoral habits of feeling 
 and actions ; for he considers the appearance of moral 
 sentiment at an early age, before the general tendency 
 of actions could be ascertained, as a decisive objection to 
 the origin of these sentiments in association,— an objec- 
 tion which assumes that, if utility be the criterion of 
 morality, associations with utility must be the mode by 
 which the moral sentiments are formed, which no skilful 
 advocate of the theory of association will ever allow. 
 That the main, if not sole object of conscience is to go- 
 vern our voluntary exertions, is manifest. But how 
 could it perform this great function if it did not impel 
 the will? and how could it have the latter effect as a 
 mere act of reason, or indeed in any respect otherwise 
 than as it is made up of emotions, by which alone its 
 grand aim could in any degree be attained ? Judgment 
 and reason are therefore preparatory to conscience, not 
 properly a part of it. That the exclusion of reason re- 
 duces virtue to be a relative quality, is another instance 
 of the confusion of the two questions in moral theory j 
 for though a fitness to excite approbation may be only a 
 relation of objects to our susceptibility, yet the proposi- 
 tion that all virtuous actions are beneficial, is a proposi- 
 tion as absolute as any other within the range of our un- 
 derstanding. 
 
 A delicate state of health, and an ardent desire to devote 
 himself exclusively to study and composition, induced 
 Mr Stewart, while in the full blaze of his reputation as 
 a lecturer, to retire, in 1810, from the labour of public 
 instruction. This retirement, as he himself describes it, 
 was that of a quiet but active life. Three quarto and 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 229 
 
 two octavo volumes, besides the magnificent Dissertations 
 prefixed to this Encyclopajdia, were among its happy 
 fruits. These dissertations are, perhaps, the most pro- 
 fusely ornamented of any of his compositions; a peculi- 
 arity which must in part have arisen from a principle of 
 taste, which regarded decoration as more suitable to the 
 history of philosophy than to philosophy itself. But the 
 memorable instances of Cicero, of Milton, and still more 
 those of Dryden and Burke, seem to show that there is 
 some natural tendency in the fire of genius to burn more 
 brightly, or to blaze more fiercely in the evening than 
 in the morning of human life. Probably the materials 
 which long experience supplies to the imagination, the 
 boldness with which a more established reputation arms 
 the mind, [and the silence of the low but formidable 
 rivals of the higher principles, may concur in producing 
 this unexpected and little observed effect. 
 
 It was in the last years of his life, when suffering un- 
 der the effects of a severe attack of palsy, with which 
 he had been afflicted in 1822, that Mr Stewart most 
 plentifully reaped the fruits of long virtue and a well- 
 ordered mind. Happily for him, his own cultivation 
 and exercise of every kindly affection had laid up for 
 him a store of that domestic consolation which none who 
 deserve it ever want, and for the loss of which, nothing 
 beyond the threshold can make amends. The same phi- 
 losophy which he had cultivated from his youth upward 
 employed his dying hand. Aspirations after higher and 
 brighter scenes of excellence, always blended with his 
 elevated morality, became more earnest and deeper as 
 worldly passions died away, and earthly objects vanished 
 from his sight. 
 
230 PROGRESS OF 
 
 THOMAS BROWN.* 
 
 A WRITER, as he advances in life, ought to speak with 
 diffidence of systems which he had only begu n to consi- 
 der with care after the age in which it becomes hard for 
 his thoughts to flow into new channels. A reader can- 
 not be said practically to understand a theory, till he has 
 acquired the power of thinking, at least for a short time 
 with the theorist. Even a hearer, with all the helps of 
 voice in the instructor, of countenance from him and from 
 fellow-hearers, finds it difficult to perform this necessary 
 process without either being betrayed into hasty and un- 
 distinguishing assent, or falling, while he is in pursuit of 
 an impartial estimate of opinions, intoan indiiference about 
 their truth. I have felt this difficulty in reconsidering 
 ancient opinions : but it is perhaps more needful to own its 
 power, and to warn the reader against its eifects, in the case 
 of a philosopher well known to me, and with whom com- 
 mon friendships stood in the stead of much personal in- 
 tercourse, as a cement of kindness. 
 
 I very early read Brown's Observations on the Zoo- 
 nomia of Dr Darwin, the perhaps unmatched work of a 
 boy in the eighteenth year of his age.f His first tract 
 on Causation appeared to me the finest model of discus- 
 sion in mental philosophy since Berkeley and Hume ; 
 with this superiority over the latter, that its aim is that 
 of a philosopher who seeks to enlarge knowledge, not 
 that of a sceptic, the most illustrious of whom have no 
 
 * Born in 1778; died in 1820. 
 
 f Welsh's Life of Brown, p. 43; a pleasingly affectionate work, full of 
 analytical spirit and metaphysical reading, — of such merit, in short, that I 
 could wish to have found in it no phrenology. Objections a priori in a case 
 dependent on facts are indeed inadmissible. Even the allowance of pre- 
 sumptions of that nature would open so wide a door for prejudices, that at 
 most they can be considered only as maxims of logical prudence, which 
 fortify the watchfulness of the individual. The fatal objection to phrenology 
 seems to me to be, that what is new in it, or peculiar to it, has no approach 
 to an adequate foundation in experience. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 231 
 
 better end than that of displaying their powers in con- 
 founding and darkening every truth ; so that their very 
 happiest efforts cannot be more leniently described than 
 as brilliant fits of mental debauchery.* From a diligent 
 perusal of his succeeding works at the time of their pub- 
 lication, I was prevented by pursuits and duties of a 
 very different nature. These causes, together with ill 
 health and growing occupation, hindered me from read- 
 ing his Lectures with due attention, till it has now be- 
 come a duty to consider with care that part of them which 
 relates to Ethics. 
 
 Dr Brown was born in one of those families of minis- 
 ters in the Scottish church who, after a generation or 
 two of a humble life spent in piety and usefulness, with 
 no more than needful knowledge, have more than once 
 sent forth a man of genius from their cool and quiet 
 shade, to make his fellows wiser or better by tongue or 
 pen, by head or hand. Even the scanty endowments 
 and constant residence of that church, by keeping her 
 ministers far from the objects which awaken turbulent 
 passions and disperse the understanding on many pur- 
 suits, afforded some of the leisure and calm of monastic 
 life, without the exclusion of the charities of family 
 and kindred. It may be well doubted whether this un- 
 dissipated retirement, which during the eighteenth cen- 
 tury was very general in Scotland, did not make full 
 amends for the loss of curious and ornamental know- 
 ledge, by its tendency to qualify men for professional 
 duty, by the cultivation of reason among a considerable 
 
 * " Bayle, a writer who, pervading human nature at his ease, struck into 
 the province of paradox as an exercise for the un weai-ied vigour of his mind; 
 who, with a soul superior to the sharpest attacks of fortune, and a heart 
 practised to the best philosophy, had not enough of real greatness to over- 
 come that last foible of superior minds, the temptation of honour which the 
 academic exercise of wit is conceived to bring to its professor. " So War- 
 burton {Divine Legation, book i. sect. 4), speaking of Bayle, but perhaps 
 in part excusing himself— in a noble strain, of which it would have been 
 more agreeable to find the repetition than the contrast in his language to- 
 wards Hume. 
 
232 PROGRESS OF 
 
 number, and by those opportunities for high meditation, 
 and for the unchangeable concentration of mind on wor- 
 thy objects, to the few who had the natural capacity for 
 such exertions.* 
 
 An authentic account of the early exercises of Brown's 
 mind is preserved by his biographer. f At the age of 
 nineteen he took a part with others, some of whom be- 
 came the most memorable men of their time, in the foun- 
 dation of a private society in Edinburgh, under the 
 name of ''the Academy of Physics.":}: 
 
 The character of Dr Brown is very attractive, as an 
 example of one in whom the utmost tenderness of affec- 
 tion, and the indulgence of a flowery fancy, were not re- 
 pressed by the highest cultivation, and by a perhaps 
 excessive refinement of intellect. His mind soared and 
 roamed through every region of philosophy and poetry; 
 but his untravelled heart clung4?ito the hearth of his 
 father, to the children who shared it with him, and after 
 
 • See Sin H. MoKCREirf's Life of the Reverend Dr ErsMne. 
 
 ■j- Welsh's ZAfe of Brown, p. 77, and App. p. 498. 
 
 % A part of the first day's minutes is here borrowed from Mr Welsh: — 
 " 7th January 179?'. — Present, Mr Erskine, President, — Mr Brougham, Mr 
 Reddie, Mr Brown, Mr Birbeck, MrLeyden," &c. who were afterwards 
 joined by -Lord Webb Seymour, Messrs Horner, Jeffrey, Smyth, &c. Mr 
 Erskine, who thus appears at the head of so remarkable an association, and 
 whom diffidence and untoward circumstances have hitherto withheld from 
 the full manifestation of his powers, continued to be the bosom friend of 
 Brown to the last, and showed the constancy of his friendship for others by 
 converting all his invaluable preparations for a translation of Sultan Saber's 
 Commentaries (perhaps the best, certainly the most European work of 
 modern eastern prose) into the means of completing' the imperfect attempt 
 of Leyden; with a regard equally generous to the fame of his early friend, 
 and to the comfort of that friend's surviving relations. The review of Ba- 
 ber's Commentaries, by M. Silvestre de Sacy, in the Journal des Savons for 
 May and June 1829, is perhaps one of the best specimens extant of the 
 value of literary commendation when it is bestowed with conscientious 
 calmness, and without a suspicion of bias, by one of the greatest oriental- 
 ists, in a case where he pronounces every thing to have been done by Mr 
 Erskine "which could have been performed by the most learned and the 
 most scrupulously conscientious of editors and translators." 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 233 
 
 them, first to the other partners of his childish sports, 
 and then almost solely to those companions of his youth- 
 ful studies who continued to be the friends of his life. 
 Speculation seemed to keep his kindness at home. It is 
 observable, that though sparkling with fancy, he does 
 not seem to have been deeply or durably touched by 
 those aiFections which are lighted at its torch, or at least 
 tinged with its colours. His heart sought little abroad, 
 but contentedly dwelt in his family and in his study. 
 He was one of those men of genius who repaid the ten- 
 der care of a mother by rocking the cradle of her repos- 
 ing age. He ended a life spent in searching for truth, 
 and exercising love, by desiring that he should be bu- 
 ried in his native parish, with his " dear father and mo- 
 ther." Some of these delightful qualities were perhaps 
 hidden from the casual observer in general society, by 
 the want of that perfect simplicity of manner which is 
 doubtless their natural representative. Manner is a 
 better mark of the state of a mind, than those large and 
 deliberate actions which form what is called conduct. 
 It is the constant and insensible transpiration of char- 
 acter. In serious acts a man may display himself. In 
 the thousand nameless acts which compose manner, the 
 mind betrays its habitual bent. But manner is then 
 only an index of disposition, when it is that of men who 
 live at ease in the intimate familiarity of friends and 
 equals. It may be diverted from simplicity by causes 
 which do not reach so deep as the character ; by bad 
 models, or by a restless and wearisome anxiety to shine, 
 arising from many circumstances, none of which are pro- 
 bably more common than the unseasonable exertions of 
 a recluse student in society, and the unfortunate attempts 
 of some others, to take by violence the admiration of 
 those with whom they do not associate with ease. The 
 association with unlike or superior companions which 
 least distorts manners, is that which takes place with 
 2 E 
 
234 PROGRESS OF 
 
 those classes whose secure dignity generally renders 
 their own manners easy ; with whom the art of pleasing 
 or of not displeasing each other in society is a serious con- 
 cern ; who have leisure enough to discover the positive 
 and negative parts of the smaller moralities ; and who, 
 being trained to a watchful eye on what is ludicrous, 
 apply the lash of ridicule to affectation, the most ridicu- 
 lous of faults. The busy in every department of life 
 are too respectably occupied to form these manners or 
 to bestow them. They are the frivolous work of polish- 
 ed idleness ; and perhaps their most serious value con- 
 sists in the war which they wage against affectation ; 
 though even there they betray their nature in punishing 
 it, not as a deviation from nature, but as a badge of vul- 
 garity. 
 
 The prose of Dr Brown is brilliant to excess. It 
 must not be denied that its beauty is sometimes woman- 
 ly ; that it too often melts down precision into elegance ; 
 that it buries the main idea under a load of illustration, 
 of which every part is expanded and adorned with such 
 a visible labour, as to withdraw the mind from attention 
 to the thoughts which it professes to introduce more 
 easily into the understanding. It is darkened by exces- 
 sive brightness ; it loses ease and liveliness by over- 
 dress ; and, in the midst of its luscious sweetness, we 
 wish for-the striking and homely illustrations of Tucker, 
 and for the pithy and sinewy sense of Paley, either of 
 whom, by a single short metaphor from a familiar, per- 
 haps a low object, could at one blow set the two worlds 
 of reason and fancy in movement. 
 
 It would be unjust to censure severely the declama- 
 tory parts of his Lectures ; they are excusable in the 
 first warmth of composition. They might even be jus- 
 tifiable allurements in attracting young hearers to ab- 
 struse speculations. Had he lived, he would probably 
 have taken his thoughts out of the declamatory forms of 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 235 
 
 spoken address, and given to them the appearance, as 
 well as the reality, of deep and subtle discussion. The 
 habits indeed of so successful a lecturer, and the natural 
 luxuriancy of his mind, could not fail to have somewhat 
 tinctured all his compositions ; but though he might still 
 have fallen short of simplicity, he certainly would have 
 avoided much of the diffusion, and even common-place, 
 which hang heavily on original and brilliant thoughts ; 
 for it must be owned, that though, as a thinker, he is 
 unusually original, yet when he falls among the declaim- 
 ers, he is infected by their common-places. 
 
 In like manner, he would assuredly have shortened or 
 left out many of the poetical quotations which he loved 
 to recite, and which hearers even beyond youth hear 
 with delight. There are two very different sorts of pas- 
 sages of poetry to be found in works on philosophy, 
 which are as far asunder from each other in value as in 
 matter. A philosopher will admit some of those won- 
 derful lines or words which bring to light the infinite 
 varieties of character, the furious bursts or wily work- 
 ings of passion, the winding approaches of temptation, 
 the slippery path to depravity, the beauty of tender- 
 ness, the grandeur of what is awful and holy in man. 
 In every such quotation, the moral philosopher, if he 
 be successful, uses the best materials of his science ; for 
 what are they but the results of experiment and obser- 
 vation on the human heart, performed by artists of far 
 other skill and power than his ? They are facts which 
 could have only been ascertained by Homer, by Dante, 
 by Shakspeare, by Cervantes, by Milton. Every year 
 of admiration since the unknown period when the Iliad 
 first gave delight, has extorted new proofs of the just- 
 ness of the picture of human nature, from the respond- 
 ing hearts of the admirers. Every strong feeling which 
 these masters have excited is a successful repetition of 
 their original experiment, and a continually growing 
 
236 PROGRKSS OF 
 
 eviilence of the greatness of their discoveries. Quota- 
 tions of this nature may be the most satisfactory, as well 
 as the most delightful, proofs of philosophical positions. 
 Others of inferior merit are not to be interdicted : a 
 pointed maxim, especially when familiar, pleases, and is 
 recollected. I cannot entirely conquer my passion for 
 the Roman and Stoical declamation of some passages in 
 I^ucan and Akenside. But quotations from those who 
 have written on philosophy in verse, or, in other words, 
 from those who generally are inferior philosophers, and 
 voluntarily deliver their doctrines in the most disadvan- 
 tageous form, seem to be unreasonable. It is agreeable, 
 no doubt, to the philosopher, still more to the youthful 
 student, to meet his abstruse ideas clothed in the sonorous 
 verse of Akenside. The surprise of the unexpected 
 union of verse with science is a very lawful enjoyment. 
 But such slight and momentary pleasures, though they 
 may tempt the writer to display them, do not excuse a 
 vain effort to obtrude them on the sympathy of the 
 searcher after truth in after- times. It is peculiarly un- 
 lucky that Dr Brown should have sought supposed or- 
 nament from the moral common-places of Thomson, 
 rather than from that illustration of philosophy which is 
 really to be found in his picturesque strokes. 
 
 Much more need not be said of Dr Brown's own 
 poetry, somewhat voluminous as it is, than that it indi- 
 cates fancy and feeling, and rose at least to the rank of 
 an elegant accomplishment. It may seem a paradox, but 
 it appears to me that he is really most poetical in those 
 poems and passages which have the most properly meta- 
 physical character. For every various form of life and 
 nature, when it is habitually contemplated, may inspire 
 feeling; and the just representation of these feelings may 
 be poetical. Dr Brown observed man, and his wider 
 world, with the eye of a metaphysician; and the dark 
 results of such contemplations, when he reviewed them, 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 237 
 
 often filled his soul with feelings which, being both grand 
 and n\elancholy, were truly poetical. Unfortunately, 
 however, few readers can be touched with fellow-feeling. 
 He sings to few, and must be content with sometimes 
 moving a string in the soul of the lonely visionary, who, 
 in the day-dreams of youth, has felt as well as meditated 
 on the mysteries of nature. His heart has produced 
 charming passages in all his poems ; but, generally speak- 
 ing, they are only beautiful works of art and imitation. 
 The choice of Akenside as a favourite and a model may, 
 without derogation from that writer, be considered as no 
 proof of a poetically formed mind.* There is more 
 poetry in many single lines of Cowper than in volumes 
 of sonorous verses such as Akenside's. Philosophical 
 poetry is very different from versified philosophy. The 
 former is the highest exertion of genius, the latter cannot 
 be ranked above the slighter amusements of ingenuity. 
 Dr Brown's poetry was, it must be owned, composed 
 either of imitations, which, with some exceptions, may 
 be produced and read without feeling, or of effusions of 
 such feelings only as meet a rare and faint echo in the 
 human breast. 
 
 A few words only can here be bestowed on the intel- 
 lectual part of his philosophy. It is an open revolt 
 against the authority of Reid ; and, by a curious concur- 
 rence, he began to lecture nearly at the moment when 
 the doctrines of that philosopher came to be taught with 
 applause in France. Mr Stewart had dissented from 
 the language of Reid, and had widely departed from his 
 opinions on several secondary theories. Dr Brown re- 
 jected them entirely. He very justly considered the 
 
 * His accomplished friend Mi- Erskine confesses that Brown's poems 
 " are not written in the lang'uag'e of plain and gross emotion. The string 
 touched is too delicate for general sympathy. They are in an unknown 
 tongue to one half" (he might have said nineteen twentieths) " of the read- 
 ing part of the community." (Weish's Life of Brown, p. 431.) 
 
238 PROGRESS OF 
 
 claim of Reid to the merit of detecting the universal de- 
 lusion which had betrayed philosophers into the belief 
 that ideas which were the sole objects of knowledge had 
 a separate existence, as a proof of his having mistaken 
 their illustrative language for a metaphysical opinion ;* 
 but he does not do justice to the service which Reid 
 really rendered to mental science, by keeping the atten- 
 tion of all future speculators in a state of more constant 
 watchfulness against the transient influence of such an 
 illusion. His choice of the term feeling\ to denote the 
 operations which we usually refer to the understanding, 
 is evidently too wide a departure from its ordinary use, 
 to have any probability of general adoption. No defini- 
 tion can strip so familiar a word of the thoughts and 
 emotions which have so long accompanied it, so as to fit 
 it for a technical term of the highest abstraction. If we 
 can be said to have a feeling ''of the equality of the an- 
 gle of forty-five degrees to half the angle of ninety de- 
 grees,"$ we may call Geometry and Arithmetic sciences 
 of feeling. He has very forcibly stated the necessity of 
 assuming " the. primary universal intuitions of direct 
 belief, ^^ which, in their nature, are incapable of all proof. 
 They seem to be accurately described as notions which 
 cannot be conceived separately, bat without which no- 
 thing can be conceived. They are not only necessary 
 to reasoning and to belief, but to thought itself. It is 
 equally impossible to prove or to disprove them. He 
 has very justly blamed the school of Reid for ''an ex- 
 travagant and ridiculous" multiplication of those princi- 
 ples which he truly represcjits as inconsistent with sound 
 philosophy. To philosophize is indeed nothing more 
 than to simplify securely. § 
 
 * Buown's Lectures, vol. II. p. 1-49. 
 
 f Ibid. vol. I. p. 220, &c. 
 
 i Ibid. vol. I. p. 1222. 
 
 § Dr Brown always expresses himself best where he is short and familiar. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 239 
 
 The substitution oi suggestion for the former phrase, 
 association of ideas, would hardly deserve notice in so 
 cursory a view, if it had not led him to a serious mis- 
 conception of the doctrines and deserts of other philoso- 
 phers. The fault of the latter phrase is rather in the 
 narrowness of the last, than in the inadequacy of the first 
 word. Association presents the fact in the light of a 
 relation between two mental acts. Suggestion denotes 
 rather the power of the one to call up the other. But 
 whether we say that the sight of ashes suggests fire, or 
 that the ideas of fire and ashes are associated, we mean 
 to convey the same fact ; and, in both cases, an exact 
 thinker means to accompany the fact with no hypothesis. 
 Dr Brown has supposed the word association as intended 
 to affirm that there was some *' intermediate process"* 
 between the original succession of the mental acts, and 
 the power which they acquired therefrom of calling up 
 each other. This is quite as much to raise up imaginary 
 antagonists for the honour of conquering them, as he 
 justly reprehends Dr Reid for doing in the treatment of 
 preceding philosophers. He falls into another more im- 
 portant and unaccountable error, in representing his own 
 reduction of Mr Hume's principles of association (re- 
 semblance, contrariety, causation, contiguity in time or 
 place) to the one principle of contiguity, as a discovery 
 of his own, by which his theory is distinguished from 
 " the universal opinion of philosophers."! Nothing but 
 too exclusive a consideration of the doctrines of the 
 Scottish school could have led him to speak thus of what 
 
 "An hypothesis is nothing' more than a reason for making one experiment 
 or observation rather than another." (Lectures, -vol. \. -p. 170.) In 1812, 
 as the present writer observed to him that Eeid and Hume differed more in 
 words than in opinion, he answered, "Yes, Reid bawled out, we must be- 
 lieve an outward world; but added in a whisper, we can give no reason for 
 our belief, Hume cries out, we can give no reason for such a notion; and 
 whispers, I own we cannot get rid of it." 
 
 ' Brown's Lectures, vol. II. p. 335 — 347. 
 
 t Ibid- vol. II. p. 349. 
 
240 PROGRESS OF 
 
 was hinted by Aristotle, distinctly laid down by Hobbes, 
 and fully unfolded both by Hartley and Condillac. He 
 has, however, extremely enlarged the proof and the 
 illustration of this law of mind, by the exercise of " a 
 more subtile analysis," and the disclosure of " a finer 
 species of proximity."* As he has thus aided and con- 
 firmed, though he did not discover the general law, so 
 he has rendered a new and very important service to 
 mental science, by what he properly calls "secondary 
 laws of suggestion"! or association, — circumstances which 
 modify the action of the general law, and must be dis- 
 tinctly considered, in order to explain its connection 
 with the phenomena. The enumeration and exposition 
 are instructive, and the example is worthy of commenda- 
 tion. For it is in this lower region of science that most 
 remains to be discovered ; it is that which rests most on 
 observation, and least tempts to controversy ; it is by im- 
 provements in that part of knowledge that the founda- 
 tions are secured, and the whole building so repaired as 
 to rest steadily on them. The distinction of common 
 language between the head and the heart, which, as we 
 have seenj is so often overlooked or misapplied by meta- 
 physicians, is, in the system of Brown, signified by the 
 terms " mental states" and " emotions." It is unlucky 
 that no single word could be found for the former, and 
 that the use of "feeling," as the generic term, should 
 disturb its easy comprehension when it is applied more 
 naturally. 
 
 In our more proper province he has followed Butler, 
 who appears to have been chiefly known to him through 
 Mr Stewart, in the theory of the social affections. Their 
 disinterestedness is enforced by the arguments of both 
 these philosophers as well as of Hutcheson.t It is ob- 
 
 • BnowN's Lectures, vol. n. p. 218, &c. 
 t Ibid. vol. II. p. 270. 
 4: Ibid. vol. III. p. 248. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 241 
 
 servable, however, that he applies the principle of sug- 
 gestion or association boldly to this part of human nature, 
 and seems inclined to refer to it even sympathy itself.* 
 It is hard to understand how, with such a disposition on 
 the subject of a principle so generally thought ultimate 
 as Sympathy, he should, inconsistently with himself, fol- 
 low Mr Stewart in representing the theory which de- 
 rives the affections from association as " a Modification 
 of the Selfish System."-\- He mistakes that theory by 
 stating, that it derives the affections from our experience 
 that our own interest was connected with that of others; 
 while in truth it considers our regard to our own interest 
 as formed from the same original pleasures by association, 
 which, by the like process, may and do directly generate 
 affections towards others, without passing through the 
 channel of regard to our general happiness. But, says 
 he, this is only an hypothesis, since the formation of these 
 affections is acknowledged to belong to a time of which 
 there is no remembrance ;J — an objection fatal to every 
 theory of any mental function, — subversive, for example, 
 of Berkeley's disco-very of required visual perception, 
 and most strangely inconsistent in the mouth of a philoso- 
 pher whose numerous simplifications of mental theory are 
 and must be founded on occurrences which precede ex- 
 perience. It is in all other cases, and it must be in this, 
 sufficient that the principle of the theory is really exist- 
 ing, that it explains the appearances, that its supposed 
 action resembles what we know to be its action in those 
 similar cases of which we have direct experience. Last- 
 ly, he in express words admits that, according to the 
 theory to which he objects, we have affections which are 
 at present disinterested. § Is it not a direct contradic- 
 
 * Bkown's Lectures, vol. III. p. 282. 
 t Ibid. vol. IV. p. 82, et seq. 
 t Ibid. vol. IV. p. 87. 
 § Ibid. vol. IV. p. 87. 
 2 F 
 
242 PROGRESS OF 
 
 tion in terms to call such a theory " a modification of the 
 selfish system?" His language in the sequel clearly in- 
 dicates a distrust of his own statement, and a suspicion 
 that he is not only inconsistent, hut altogether mistaken.* 
 
 As we enter more deeply into the territory of Ethics, 
 we at length discover in Brown a distinction, the neglect 
 of which by preceding speculatoj-s we have more than 
 once lamented as productive of obscurity and confusion : 
 — " The moral affections," says he, " which I consider 
 at present, I consider rather physiologically" (or, as he 
 elsewhere better expresses it, '' psychologically") " than 
 ethically, as parts of our mental constitutwn, not as in- 
 volving \he fulfilment or violation of duties."\ He im- 
 mediately, however, loses sight of this distinction, and 
 reasons inconsistently with it, instead of following it to 
 its proper consequences in his explanation of conscience. 
 Perhaps, indeed, (for the words are capable of more than 
 one sense,) he meant to distinguish the virtuous affec- 
 tions from those sentiments which have morality exclu- 
 sively in view, rather than to distinguish the theory of 
 moral sentiment from the attempt to ascertain the char- 
 acteristic quality of right action. Friendship is conform- 
 able in its dictates to morality; but it may and does exist, 
 without any view to it. He who feels the affections, 
 and performs the duties of friendship, is the object of 
 that distinct emotion which is called moral approbation. 
 
 It is on the subject of conscience that, in imitation of 
 Mr Stewart, and with no other arguments than his, he 
 makes his chief stand against the theory which considers 
 the formation of that master faculty itself as probably 
 referable to the necessary and universal operation of those 
 laws of human nature to which he himself ascribes almost 
 every other state of mind. On both sides of this question 
 the supremacy of conscience is alike held to be venerable 
 
 " Brown's Lectures, vol. IV. p. 94-97. 
 t Ibid. vol. in. p. 231. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 243 
 
 and absolute. Once more, be it reinemberedj that the 
 question is purely philosophical, and is only whether, 
 from the impossibility of explaining its formation by more 
 general laws, we are reduced to the necessity of consid- 
 ering it as an original fact iu human nature, of which no 
 further account can be given. Let it, however, be also 
 remembered, that we are not driven to this supposition 
 by the mere circumstance, that no satisfactory explana- 
 tion has yet appeared ; for there are many analogies in 
 an unexplained state of mind to states already explained, 
 which may justify us in believing that the explanation 
 requires only more accurate observation, and more patient 
 meditation, to be brought to that completeness which it 
 probably will attain. 
 
 SECTION VII. 
 
 GENERAL REMARKS. 
 
 Having thus again premised an already often repeat- 
 ed warning, it remains that we should offer a few obser- 
 vations on the questions so understood, which naturally 
 occur on the consideration of Dr Brown's argument in 
 support of the proposition, that moral approbation is not 
 only in its mature state independent of and superior to 
 any other principle of human nature, regarding which 
 there is no dispute, but that its origin is altogether inex- 
 plicable, and that its existence is an ultimate fact in men- 
 tal science. Though these observations are immediately 
 occasioned by the perusal of Brown, they are yet, in the 
 main, of a general nature, and might have been made 
 without reference to any particular writer. 
 
 The term Suggestion, which might be inoffensive in 
 
244 PROGRESS OF 
 
 describing merely intellectaal associations, becomes pe- 
 culiarly unsuitable when it is applied to those combina- 
 tions of thought with emotion, and to those unions of 
 feeling, which compose the emotive nature of man. Its 
 common sense of a sign recalling the thing signified, 
 always embroils the new sense vainly forced upon it. No 
 one can help owning, that if it were consistently pursued, 
 so as that we were to speak oi suggesting a feeling or pas- 
 sion, the language would be universally thought absurd. 
 To suggest love or hatred is a mode of expression so 
 manifestly incongruous, that most readers would choose 
 to understand it as suggesting reflections on the subject 
 of these passages. Suggest would not be understood by 
 any common reason as synonymous with revive or re- 
 kindle. Defects of the same sort may indeed be found in 
 the parallel phrases of most if not all philosophers, and 
 all of them proceed from the same source, — namely, the 
 erroneous but prevalent notion, that the law of associa- 
 tion produces only such a close union of a thought and a 
 feeling, as gives one the power of reviving the other ; 
 instead of the truth, that it forms them into a new com- 
 pound, in which the properties of the component parts 
 are no longer discoverable, and which may itself become 
 a substantive principle of human nature. They supposed 
 the condition, produced by its power, to resemble that 
 of material substances in a state of mechanical diffusion j 
 whereas in reality it may be better likened to a chemical 
 combination of the same substances, from which a totally 
 new product arises. The language involves a confusion 
 of the question which relates to the origin of the prin- 
 ciples of human activity, with the other and far more 
 important question which relates to their nature^ and as 
 soon as this distinction is hidden, the theorist is either 
 betrayed into the selfish system by a desire of clearness 
 and simplicity, or tempted to the needless multiplication 
 of ultimate facts by mistaken anxiety for what he sup- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 245 
 
 poses to be the guards of our social and moral nature. 
 The defect is common to Brown with his predecessors, 
 but in him less excusable ; for he saw the truth and re- 
 coiled from it. 
 
 It is the main defect of the term association itself, 
 that it does not, without long habit, convey the notion 
 of a perfect union, but rather leads to that of a combina- 
 tion which may be dissolved, if not at pleasure, at least 
 with the help of care and exertion ; which is utterly and 
 dangerously false in the important cases where such 
 unions ai'e considered as constituting the most essential 
 principles of human nature. Men can no more dissolve 
 these unions than they can disuse their habit of judging 
 of distance by the eye, and often by the ear. But sug- 
 gestion implies, that what suggests is separate from what 
 is suggested, and consequently negatives that unity in an 
 active principle > which the whole analogy of nature, as 
 well as our own direct consciousness, shows to be per- 
 fectly compatible with its origin in composition. 
 
 Large concessions are, in the first place, to be remark- 
 ed, which must be stated, because they very much nar- 
 row the matter in dispute. Those who, before Brown, 
 contended against beneficial tendency as the standard of 
 morality, have either shut their eyes on the connexion 
 of virtue with general utility ; or carelessly and obscurely 
 allowed, without further remark, a connexion which is 
 at least one of the most remarkable and important of 
 ethical facts. He acts more boldly, and avowedly dis- 
 cusses " the relation of virtue to utility." He was com- 
 pelled by that discussion to make those concessions which 
 so much abridge this controversy. '^ Utility and virtue 
 are so related, that there is perhaps no action generally 
 felt to be virtuous, which it would not be beneficial that 
 all men in similar circumstances should imitate."* '' In 
 
 * Lectures, vol. IV. p. 45. The unphilosophical word "perhaps" must 
 
246 PROGHESS OF 
 
 every case of benefit or injury willingly done, there arise 
 certain emotions of moral approbation and disapproba- 
 tion."* " The intentional produce of evil, as pure evil, 
 is always hated; and that of good, as pure good, always 
 loved."t All virtuous acts are thus admitted to be uni- 
 versally beneficial ; morality and the general benefit are 
 acknowledged always to coincide. It is hard to say, 
 then, why they should not be reciprocally tests of each 
 other, though in a very different way; — the virtuous 
 feelings, fitted as they are by immediate appearance, by 
 quick and powerful action, being sufiicient tests of mo- 
 rality in the moment of action, and for all practical pur- 
 poses ; while the consideration of tendency to general 
 happiness, a more obscure and slowly discoverable 
 quality, should be applied in general reasoning, as a test 
 of the sentiments and dispositions themselves. It has 
 been thus employed, and no proof has been attempted, 
 that it has ever deceived those who used it in the proper 
 place. It has uniformly served to justify our moral con- 
 stitution, and to show how reasonable it is for us to be 
 guided in action by our higher feelings. At all events 
 it should be, but has not been considered, that from these 
 concessions alone it follows, that beneficial tendency is at 
 least one constant property of virtue. Is not this, in ef- 
 fect, an admission that beneficial tendency does distin- 
 guish virtuous acts and dispositions from those which we 
 call vicious? If the criterion be incomplete or delusive, 
 let its faults be specified, and let some other quality be 
 pointed out, which> either singly or in combination with 
 
 be struck out of the proposition, unless the whole be considered as a mere 
 conjecture. It limits no aifirmation, but destroys it, by converting it into a 
 guess. See the like concession, vol. IV. p. 33, with some words interlarded, 
 which betray a sort of reluctance and fluctuation, indicative of the difficulty 
 with which Brown struggled to withhold his assent from truths which he 
 unreasonably dreaded. 
 
 * Lectures, vol. III. p. 56r. 
 
 t Ibid. vol. in. p. 621. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 247 
 
 beneficial tendency, may more perfectly indicate the dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 But let us not be assailed by arguments which leave 
 untouched its value as a test, and are in truth directed 
 only against its fitness as an immediate incentive and 
 guide to right action. To those who contend for its 
 use in the latter character, it must be left to defend, if 
 they can, so untenable a position. But all others must re- 
 gard as pure sophistry the use of arguments against it as 
 a test, which really show nothing more than its acknow- 
 ledged unfitness to be a motive. 
 
 When voluntary benefit and voluntary injury are 
 pointed out as the main, if not the sole objects of moral 
 approbation and disapprobation, — when we are told truly, 
 that the'production of good, as good, is always loved, and 
 that of evil, as such, always hated, — can we require a 
 more clear, short, and unanswerable proof, that benefi- 
 cial tendency is an essential quality of virtue? It is in- 
 deed an evidently necessary consequence of this state- 
 ment, that if benevolence be amiable in itself, our affec- 
 tion for it must increase with its extent ; and that no man 
 can be in a perfectly right state of mind, who, if he con- 
 sider general happiness at all, is not ready to acknow- 
 ledge that a good man must regard it as being in its own 
 nature the most desirable of all objects, however the 
 constitution and circumstances of human nature may ren- 
 der it unfit or impossible to pursue it directly as the 
 object of life. It is at the same time apparent 
 that no such man can consider any habitual disposi- 
 tion, clearly discerned to be in its whole result at 
 variance with general happiness, as not unworthy of be- 
 ing cultivated, or as not fit to be rooted out. It is mani- 
 fest that, if it were otherwise, he would cease to be be- 
 nevolent. As soon as we conceive the sublime idea of 
 a Being who not only foresees, but commands, all the 
 consequences of the actions of all voluntary agents, this 
 
248 PROGRESS OF 
 
 scheme of re asoning appears far more clear. In such a 
 ca^e, if our moral sentiments remain the same, they com- 
 pel us to attribute his whole government of the world to 
 benevolence. The consequence is as necessary as in any 
 process of reason ; for if our moral nature be supposed, 
 it will appear self-evident, that it is as much impossible 
 for us to love and revere such a Being, if we ascribe to 
 him a mixed or imperfect benevolence, as to believe the 
 most positive contradiction in terms. Now, as religion 
 consists in that love and reverence, it is evident that it 
 cannot subsist without a belief in benevolence as the sole 
 principle of divine government. It is nothing to tell us 
 that this is not a process of reasoning, or, to speak more 
 exactly, that the first propositions are assumed. The 
 first propositions in every discussion relating to intel- 
 lectual operations must likewise be assumed. Conscience 
 is not reason, but it is not less an essential part of human 
 nature than reason. Principles which are essential to 
 all its operations are as much entitled to immediate and 
 implicit assent, as those principles which stand Jn the 
 same relation to the reasoning faculties. The laws pre- 
 scribed by a benevolent Being to his creatures must ne- 
 cessarily be founded on the principle of promoting their 
 happiness. It would be singular indeed, if the proofs of 
 the goodness of God, legible in every part of nature, 
 should not, above all others, be most discoverable and 
 conspicuous in the beneficial tendency of his moral laws. 
 But we are asked, if tendency to general welfare be 
 the standard of virtue, why is it not always present to 
 the contemplation of every man who does or prefers a 
 virtuous action ? Must not utility be in that case " the 
 felt essence of virtue?"* Why ai'e other ends, besides 
 general happiness, fit to be morally pursued ? 
 
 " Lectures, vol. IV. p. 38. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 249 
 
 These questions, which are all founded on that confu- 
 sion of the theory of actions with the theory of senti- 
 ments, against which the reader was so early warned,* 
 might be dismissed with no more than a reference to 
 that distinction from the forgetfulness of which they 
 have arisen. By those advocates of utility, indeed, who 
 hold it to be a necessary part of their system, that some 
 glimpse at least of tendency to personal or general well- 
 being is an essential part of the motives which render an 
 action virtuous, these questions cannot be satisfactorily 
 answered. Against such they are arguments of irresis- 
 tible force ; but against the doctrine itself, rightly un- 
 derstood and justly bounded, they are altogether pow- 
 erless. The reason why there may, and must be, many 
 ends morally more fit to be pursued in practice than ge- 
 neral happiness, is plainly to be found in the limited ca- 
 pacity of man. A perfectly good Being, who foresees 
 and commands all the consequences of action, cannot in- 
 deed be conceived by us to have any other end in view 
 than general wellbeing. Why evil exists under that 
 perfect government, is a question towards the solution of 
 which the human understanding can scarcely advance a 
 single step. But all who hold the evil to exist only for 
 good, and own their inability to explain why or how, 
 are perfectly exempt from any charge of inconsistency 
 in their obedience to the dictates of their moral nature. 
 The measure of the faculties of man renders it absolutely 
 necessary for him to have many other practical ends ; the 
 pursuit of all of which is moral, when it actually tends 
 to general happiness, though that last end never entered 
 into the contemplation of the agent. It is impossible for 
 us to calculate the effects of a single action, any more 
 than the chances of a single life. But let it not be has- 
 tily concluded, that the calculation of consequences is 
 
 " See supra, p. 8 — 16. 
 
 2 G 
 
230 PROGRESS OF 
 
 impossible in moral subjects. To calculate the general 
 tendency of every sort of human action, is a possible, 
 easy, and common operation. The general good effects 
 of temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, benevolence, 
 gratitude, veracity, fidelity, — of the affections of kin- 
 dred, and of love for our country, — are the subjects of 
 calculations which, taken as generalities, are absolutely 
 unerring. They are founded on a larger and firmer ba- 
 sis of more uniform experience, than any of those ordi- 
 nary calculations which govern prudent men in the whole 
 business of life. An appeal to these daily and familiar 
 transactions furnishes at once a decisive answer, both to 
 those advocates of utility who represent the considera- 
 tion of it as a necessary ingredient in virtuous motives, 
 as well as moral approbation, and to those opponents who 
 turn the unwarrantable inferences of unskilful advocates 
 into proofs of the absurdity into which the doctrine leads. 
 
 The cultivation of all the habitual sentiments from 
 which the various classes of virtuous actions flow — the 
 constant practice of such actions — the strict observance 
 of rules in all that province of Ethics which can be sub- 
 jected to rules — the watchful care of all the outworks of 
 every part of duty, of that descending series of useful 
 habits which, being securities to virtue, become them- 
 selves virtues, — are so many ends which it is absolutely 
 necessary for man to pursue and to seek for their own sake. 
 
 <' I saw D'Alembert," says a very late writer, ^' con- 
 gratulate a young man very coldly, who brought him a 
 solution of a problem. The young man said, ' I have 
 done this in order to have a seat in the Academy.' ' Sir,' 
 answered D'Alembert, ' with such dispositions you ne- 
 ver will earn one. Science must be loved for its own 
 sake, and not for the advantage to be derived. No 
 other principle will enable a man to make progress in 
 the Sciences.' "* It is singular that D'Alembert should 
 
 ' Memoires de MontUtiier, vol. I. p. SO. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 251 
 
 not perceive the extensive application of this truth to 
 the whole nature of man. No man can make progress 
 in a virtue who does not seek it for its own sake. No 
 man is a friend, a lover of his country, a kind father, a 
 dutiful son, who does not consider the cultivation of 
 affection and the performance of duty in all these cases 
 respectively as incumbent on him for their own sake, 
 and not for the advantage to be derived from them. Who- 
 ever serves another with a view of advantage to himself 
 is universally acknowledged not to act from affection. 
 But the more immediate application of this truth to our 
 purpose is, that in the case of those virtues which are 
 the means of cultivating and preserving other virtues, 
 it is necessary to acquire love and reverence for the se- 
 condary virtues for their own sake, without which they 
 never will be effectual means of sheltering and strength- 
 ening those intrinsically higher qualities to which they 
 are appointed to minister. Every moral act must be 
 considered as an end, and men must banish from their 
 practice the regard to the most naturally subordinate 
 duty as a means. Those who are perplexed by the sup- 
 position that secondary virtues, making up by the extent 
 of their beneficial tendency for what in each particular 
 instance they may want in magnitude, may become of 
 as great importance as the primary virtues themselves, 
 would do well to consider a parallel though very homely 
 case. A house is useful for many purposes : many of 
 these purposes are in themselves, for the time, more 
 important than shelter. The destruction of the house 
 may, nevertheless, become a greater evil than the defeat 
 of several of these purposes, because it is permanently 
 convenient, and indeed necessary to the execution of 
 most of them. A floor is made for warmth, for dryness 
 — to support tables, chairs, beds, and all the household 
 implements which contribute to accommodation and to 
 pleasure. The floor is valuable only as a means ; but, 
 
252 PROGRESS OF 
 
 as the only means by which many ends are attained, it 
 may be much more valuable than some of them. The 
 table might be, and generally is, of more valuable tim- 
 ber than the floor ; but the workman who should for 
 that reason take more pains in making the table strong 
 than the floor secure would not long be employed by 
 customers of common sense. The connection of that 
 part of morality which regulates the intercourse of the 
 sexes with benevolence, aifords the most striking instance 
 of the very great importance which may belong^ to a 
 virtue, in itself secondary, but on which the general cul- 
 tivation of the highest virtues permanently depends. 
 Delicacy and modesty may be thought chiefly worthy of 
 cultivation, because they guard purity ; but they must 
 be loved for their own sake, without which they can- 
 not flourish. Purity is the sole school of domestic fidel- 
 ity, and domestic fidelity is the only nursery of the affec- 
 tions between parents and children, from children to- 
 wards each other, and, through these affections, of all 
 the kindness which renders the world habitable. At 
 each step in the progress, the appropriate end must be 
 loved for its own sake ; and it is easy to see how the 
 only means of sowing the seeds of benevolence, in all its 
 forms, may become of far greater importance than many 
 of the modifications and exertions even of benevolence 
 itself. To those who will consider this subject, it will 
 not long seem strange that the sweetest and most gentle 
 affections grow up only under the apparently cold and 
 dark shadow of stern duty. The obligation is strength- 
 ened, not weakened, by the consideration that it arises 
 from human imperfection ; which only proves it to be 
 founded on the nature of man. It is enough that the 
 pursuit of all these separate ends leads to general well- 
 being, the promotion of which is the final purpose of 
 the creation. 
 
 The last and most specious argument against benefi- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 253 
 
 cial tendency, even as a test, is conveyed in the ques- 
 tion, why moral approbation is not bestowed on every 
 thing beneficial, instead of being confined, as it confes- 
 sedly is, to voluntary acts. It may plausibly be said, 
 that the establishment of the beneficial tendency of all 
 those voluntary acts which are the objects of moral ap- 
 probation is not sufficient, since, if such tendency be the 
 standard, it ought to follow, that whatever is useful 
 should also be morally approved. To answer, as has 
 before been done,* that experience -gradually limits 
 moral approbation and disapprobation to voluntary acts, 
 by teaching us that they influence the will, but are 
 wholly wasted if they be applied to any other object, — 
 though the fact be true, and contributes somewhat to the 
 result, is certainly not enough. It is at best a par- 
 tial solution. Perhaps, on reconsideration, it is entitled 
 only to a secondary place. To seek a foundation for 
 universal, ardent, early, and immediate feelings, in pro- 
 cesses of an intellectual nature, has, since the origin of 
 philosophy, been the grand error of ethical inquirers 
 into human nature. To seek for such a foundation in 
 association, an early and insensible process, which con- 
 fessedly mingles itself with the composition of our first 
 and simplest feelings, and which is common to both parts 
 of our nature, is not liable to the same animadversion. 
 If conscience be uniformly produced by the regular and 
 harmonious co-operation of many processes of associa- 
 tion, the objection is in reality a challenge to produce a 
 complete theory of it, founded on that principle, by ex- 
 hibiting such a full account of all these processes as may 
 satisfactorily explain why it proceeds thus far and no far- 
 ther. This would be a very arduous attempt, and per- 
 haps it may be premature. But something may be more 
 
 * See supra, p. 145 — 14/. 
 
254 PROGRESS OF 
 
 modestly tried towards an outline, which, though it 
 might leave many particulars unexplained, may justify 
 a reasonable expectation that they are not incapable of 
 explanation ; and may even now assign such reasons for 
 the limitation of approbation to voluntary acts, as may 
 convert the objection derived from that fact into a cor- 
 roboration of the doctrines to which it has been opposed 
 as an insurmountable difficulty. Such an attempt will 
 naturally lead to the close of the present Dissertation. 
 The attempt has indeed been already made,* but not 
 without great apprehensions on the part of the author 
 that he has not been clear enough, especially in those 
 parts which appeared to himself to owe most to his own 
 reflection. He will now endeavour, at the expense of 
 some repetition, to be more satisfactory. 
 
 There must be primary pleasures, pains, and even ap- 
 petites, which arise from no prior state of mind, and 
 which, if explained at all, can be derived only from 
 bodily organization ; for if there were not, there could 
 be no secondary desires. What the number of the un- 
 derived principles may be, is a question to which the 
 answers of philosophers have been extremely various, 
 and of which the consideration is not necessary to our 
 present purpose. The rules of philosophizing, however, 
 require that causes should not be multiplied without 
 necessity. Of two explanations, therefore, which give 
 an equally satisfactory account of appearances, that the- 
 ory is manifestly to be preferred which supposes the 
 smaller number of ultimate and inexplicable principles. 
 This maxim, it is true, is subject to three indispensable 
 conditions. 1. That the principles employed in the 
 explanation should be known really to exist : in which 
 consists the main distinction between hypothesis and 
 theory. Gravity is a principle universally known to 
 
 * See supra, p. 120—124, 163—174. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 255 
 
 exist ; ether and a nervous fluid are mere suppositions. 
 2. That these principles should be known to produce 
 effects like those which are ascribed to them in the the- 
 ory. This is a further distinction between hypothesis 
 and theory ; for there are an infinite number of degrees 
 of likeness, from the faint resemblances which have led 
 some to fancy that the functions of the nerves depend on 
 electricity, to the remarkable coincidences between the 
 appearances of projectiles on earth, and the movements 
 of the heavenly bodies, which constitutes the Newtonian 
 system ; a theory now perfect, though exclusively 
 founded on analogy, and in which one of the classes of 
 phenomena brought together by it is not the subject of 
 direct experience. 3. That it should correspond, if 
 not with all the facts to be explained, at least with so 
 great a majority of them as to render it highly probable 
 that means will in time be found of reconciling it to all. 
 It is only on this ground that the Newtonian system 
 justly claimed the title of a legitimate theory during 
 that long period when it was unable to explain many 
 celestial appearances, before the labours of a century, 
 and the genius of Laplace, at length completed the the- 
 ory, by adapting it to all the phenomena. A theory 
 may be just before it is complete. 
 
 In the application of these canons to the theory which 
 derives most of the principles of human action from the 
 transfer of a small number of pleasures, perhaps organic, 
 by the law of association to a vast variety of new objects, 
 it cannot be denied, Is^, That it satisfies the first of the 
 above conditions, inasmuch as association is really one of 
 the laws of human nature ; 2dli/, That it also satisfies 
 the second, for association certainly produces effects like 
 those which are referred to it by this theory, otherwise 
 there woiild be no secondary desires, no acquired re- 
 lishes and dislikes; — facts universally acknowledged, 
 which are and can be explained only by the principle 
 
256 PROGRESS OF 
 
 called byHobbes mental discourse ; — by Locke, Hume, 
 Hartley, Condillac, and the majority of speculators, as 
 well as in common speech, association ; — by Tucker, 
 translation; — and by Brown, suggestion. The facts 
 generally referred to the principle resemble those which 
 are claimed for it by the tlieory in this important par- 
 ticular, that in both cases equally, pleasure becomes 
 attached to perfectly new things, so that the derivative 
 desires become perfectly independent on the primary. 
 The great dissimilarity of these two classes of passions 
 has been supposed to consist in this, that^the former always 
 regards the interest of the individual, while the latter 
 regards the welfare of others. The philosophical world 
 has been almost entirely divided into two sects ; the par- 
 tisans of selfishness, comprising mostly all the predeces- 
 sors of Butler, and the greater part of his successors; 
 and the advocates of benevolence, who have generally 
 contended that the reality of disinterestedness depends 
 on its being a primary principle. Enough has been said 
 by Butler against the more fatal heresy of selfishness. 
 Something has already been said against the error of the 
 advocates of disinterestedness, in the progress of this at- 
 tempt to develope ethical truths historically, in the order 
 in which inquiry and controversy brought them out with 
 increasing brightness. The analogy of ihe material world 
 is indeed faint, and often delusive ; yet we dare not utterly 
 reject that on which the whole technical language of 
 mental and moral science is necessarily grounded. The 
 whole creation teems with instances where the most pow- 
 erful agents and the most lasting bodies are the acknow- 
 ledged results of the composition, sometimes of a few, 
 often of many elements. These compounds often in their 
 turn become the elements of other substances ; and it is 
 with them that we are conversant chiefly in the pursuits 
 of knowledge, solely in the concerns of life. No man 
 ever fancied, that because they were compounds, they 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 257 
 
 were therefore less real. It is impossible to confound 
 them with any of the separate elements which contribute 
 towards their formation. But a much more close resem- 
 blance presents itself. Every secondary desire, or ac- 
 quired relish, involves in it a transfer of pleasure to some- 
 thing which was before indifferent or disagreeable. Is 
 the new pleasure the less real for being acquired ? Is it 
 not often preferred to the original enjoyment? Are not 
 many of these secondary pleasures indestructible ? Do 
 not many of them survive primary appetites ? Lastly, 
 the important principle of regard to our own general 
 welfare, which disposes us to prefer it to immediate plea- 
 sure, unfortunately called self-love (as if, in any intelli- 
 gible sense of the term love, it were possible for a man to 
 love himself), is perfectly intelligible if its origin be as- 
 cribed to association, but utterly incomprehensible if it 
 be considered as prior to the appetites and desires, which 
 alone furnish it with materials. As happiness consists of 
 satisfactions, self-love presupposes appetites and desires 
 which are to be satisfied. If the order of time were im- 
 portant, the affections are formed at an earlier period 
 than many self-regarding passions, and they always pre- 
 cede the formation of self-love. 
 
 Many of the later advocates of the disinterested sys- 
 tem, though recoiling from an apparent approach to the 
 selfishness into which the purest of their antagonists had 
 occasionally fallen, were gradually obliged to make con- 
 cessions to the derivative system, though clogged with 
 the contradictory assertion, that it was only a refinement 
 of selfishness : and we have seen that Brown, the last and 
 not the least in genius of them, has nearly abandoned the 
 greater, though not indeed the most important part of the 
 territory in dispute, and scarcely contends for any unde- 
 rived principle but the moral faculty. 
 
 In this state of opinion among the very small number 
 in Great Britain who still preserve some remains of a 
 2 H 
 
258 PROGRESS OF 
 
 taste for such speculationSj it is needless here to trace the 
 application of the law of association to the formation of 
 the secondary desires, whether private or social. For 
 our present purposes, the explanation of their origin may 
 be assumed to be satisfactory. In what follows, it must, 
 however, be steadily borne in mind, that this concession 
 involves an admission that the pleasure derived from low 
 objects may be transferred to the most pure ; that from a 
 part of a self-regarding appetite such a pleasure may be- 
 come a portion of a perfectly disinterested desire; and 
 that the disinterested nature and absolute independence 
 of the latter are not in the slightest degree impaired by 
 the consideration, that it is formed by one of those grand 
 mental processes to which the formation of the other 
 habitual states of the human mind have been, with great 
 probability, ascribed. 
 
 When the social affections are thus formed, they are 
 naturally followed in every instance by the will to do 
 whatever can promote their object. Compassion excites 
 a voluntary determination to do whatever relieves the per- 
 son pitied. The like process must occur in every case 
 of gratitude, generosity, and affection. Nothing so uni- 
 formly follows the kind disposition as the act of will, 
 because it is the only means by which the benevolent de- 
 sire can be gratified. The result of what Brown justly 
 calls "a finer analysis," shows a mental contiguity of the 
 affection to the volition to be much closer than appears 
 on a coarser examination of this part of our nature. No 
 wonder, then, that the strongest association, the most 
 active power of reciprocal suggestion, should subsist be- 
 tween them. As all the affections are delightful, so the 
 volitions, voluntary acts which are the only means of their 
 gratification, become agreeable objects of contemplation 
 to the mind. The habitual disposition to perform them 
 is felt in ourselves, and observed in others, with satisfac- 
 tion. As these feelings become more lively, the absence 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 259 
 
 of them may be viewed in ourselves as a pain, in others 
 with an alienation capable of indefinite increase. They 
 become entirely independent sentiments ; still, however, 
 receiving constant supplies of nourishment from their 
 parent affections, which, in well-balanced minds, recip- 
 rocally strengthen each other ; unlike the unkind pas- 
 sions, which are constantly engaged in the most angry 
 conflicts of civil war. In this state we desire to expe- 
 rience these beneficent volitions, to cultivate a disposi- 
 tion towards them, and to do every correspondent vol- 
 untary act. They are for their own sake the objects of 
 desire. They thus constitute a large portion of those 
 emotions, desires, and aifections, which regard certain 
 dispositions of the mind and determinations of the will as 
 their sole and ultimate end. These are what are called 
 the moral sense, the moral sentiments, or best though 
 most simply, by the ancient name of Conscience ; which 
 has the merit, in our language, of being applied to no 
 other purpose, which peculiarly marks the strong work- 
 ing of these feelings on conduct, and which, from its 
 solemn and sacred character, is well adapted to denote 
 the venerable authority of the highest principle of human 
 nature. 
 
 Nor is this all : It has already been seen that not only 
 sympathy with the sufferer, but indignation against the 
 wrong-doer, contributes a large and important share 
 towards the moral feelings. We are angry at those who 
 disappoint our wish for the happiness of others. We 
 make the resentment of the innocent person wronged our 
 own. Our moderate anger approves all well-propor- 
 tioned punishment of the wrong-doer. We hence ap- 
 prove those dispositions and actions of voluntary agents 
 which promote such suitable punishment, and disapprove 
 those which hinder its infliction or destroy its effect ; at 
 the head of which may be placed that excess of punish- 
 ment beyond the average feelings of good men which 
 
260 PROGRESS OF 
 
 turns the indignation of the calm by-stander against the 
 culprit into pity. In this state, when anger is duly 
 moderated, — when it is proportioned to the wrong, — 
 when it is detached from personal considerations, — when 
 dispositions and actions are its ultimate objects,— it he- 
 comes a sense of justice, and is so purified as to be fitted 
 to be a new element of conscience. There is no part of 
 morality which is so directly aided by a conviction of the 
 necessity of its observance to the general interest, as 
 justice. The connection between them is discoverable 
 by the most common understanding. All public delibera- 
 tions profess the public welfare to be their object; all 
 laws propose it as their end. This calm principle of 
 public utility serves to mediate between the sometimes 
 repugnant feelings which arise in the punishment of 
 criminals, by repressing undue pity on one hand, and 
 reducing resentment to its proper level on the other. 
 Hence the unspeakable importance of criminal laws as a 
 part of the moral education of mankind. Whenever 
 they carefully conform to the moral sentiments of the age 
 and country,— -when they are withheld from approach- 
 ing the limits within which the disapprobation of good 
 men would confine punishment, they contribute in the 
 highest degree to increase the ignominy of crimes, to 
 make men recoil from the first suggestions of criminality, 
 and to nourish and mature the sense of justice, which 
 lends new vigour to the conscience with which it has 
 been united. 
 
 Other contributary streams present themselves. Qua- 
 lities which are necessary to virtue, but may be subser- 
 vient to vice, may, independently of that excellence or 
 of that defect, be in themselves admirable. Courage, 
 energy, decision, are of this nature. In their wild state 
 they are often savage and destructive. When they are 
 tamed by the society of the affections, and trained up in 
 obedience to the moral faculty, they become virtues of 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 261 
 
 the highest order, and, by their name of magnanimity, 
 proclaim the general sense of mankind that they are the 
 chairacteristic qualities of a great soul. They retain 
 whatever was admirable in their unreclaimed state, to- 
 gether with all that they borrow from their new associate 
 and their high ruler. Their nature, it must be owned, 
 is prone to evil ; but this propensity does not hinder 
 them from being rendered capable of being ministers of 
 good, in a state where the gentler virtues require to be 
 vigorously guarded against the attacks of daring de- 
 pravity. It is thus that the strength of the well-edu- 
 cated elephant is sometimes employed in vanquishing 
 the fierceness of the tiger, and sometimes used as a 
 means of defence against the shock of his brethren of the 
 same species- The delightful contemplation, however, 
 of these qualities, when purely applied, becomes one of 
 the sentiments of which the dispositions and actions of 
 voluntary agents are the direct and final object. By 
 this resemblance they are associated with the other moral 
 principles, and with them contribute to form Conscience, 
 which, as the master faculty of the soul, levies such large 
 contributions on every province of human nature. 
 
 It is important, in this point of view, to consider also 
 the moral approbation which is undoubtedly bestowed 
 on those dispositions and actions of voluntary agents 
 which terminate in their own satisfaction, security, and 
 wellbeing. They have been called duties to ourselves, 
 as absurdly as a regard to our own greatest happiness is 
 called self-love. But it cannot be reasonably doubted, 
 that intemperance, improvidence, timidity, even when 
 considered only in relation to the individual, are not 
 only regretted as imprudent, but blamed as morally 
 wrong. It was excellently observed by Aristotle, that 
 a man is not commended as temperate, so long as it costs 
 him efforts of self-denial to persevere in the practice of 
 temperance, but only when he prefers that virtue for its 
 
262 PROGRESS OF 
 
 own sake. He is not meek, nor brave, as long as the 
 most vigorous self-command is necessary to bridle his 
 anger or his fear. On the same principle, he may be 
 judicious or prudent ; but he is not benevolent if he con- 
 fers benefits with a view to his own greatest happiness. 
 In like manner, it is ascertained by experience, that all 
 the masters of science and of art — that all those who 
 have successfully pursued truth and knowledge — love 
 them for their own sake, without regard to the generally 
 imaginary dower of interest, or even to the dazzling 
 crown which fame may place on their heads.* But it 
 may still be reasonably asked, why these useful qualities 
 are morally improved, and how they become capable of 
 being combined with those public and disinterested senti- 
 ments which principally constitute conscience? The 
 answer is, because they are entirely conversant with 
 volitions and voluntary actions, and in that respect re- 
 semble the other constituents of conscience, with which 
 they are thereby fitted to mingle and coalesce. Like 
 those other principles, they may be detached from what 
 is personal and outward, and fixed on the dispositions 
 and actions, which are the only means of promoting their 
 ends. The sequence of these principles and acts of will 
 becomes so frequent, that the association between both 
 
 * See the Pursuit of Knowledge under Difficulties, a discourse forming 
 the first part of the third volume of the Library of Entertaining Knowledge, 
 London, 1829. The author of this Essay, for it can be no other than Mr 
 Brougham, will by others be placed at the head of those who, in the midst 
 of arduous employments, and surrounded by all the allurements of society, 
 yet find leisure for exerting the unwearied vigour of their minds in every 
 mode of rendering permanent service to the human species; more especially 
 in spreading a love of knowledge, and diffusing useful truth among all 
 classes of men. These voluntary occupations deserve our attention still less 
 as examples of prodigious power tlian as proofs of an intimate conviction, 
 which binds them by unity of purpose with his public duties, that (to use 
 the almost dying words of an excellent person) " man can neither be happy 
 without virtue, nor actively virtuous without liberty, nor securely free with. 
 out rational knowledge." (Close of Sir W, Jofes's last Discourse to the 
 ■isiatic Society of Calcutta. ) 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 263 
 
 may be as firm as in the former cases. All those senti- 
 ments of which the final object is a state of the will, be- 
 come thus intimately and inseparably blended ; and of 
 that perfect state of solution (if such words may be al- 
 lowed) the result is Conscience — the judge and arbiter 
 of human conduct ; which, though it does not supersede 
 ordinary motives of virtuous feelings and habits, which 
 are the ordinary motives of good actions, yet exercises a 
 lawful authority even over them, and ought to blend 
 with them. Whatsoever actions and dispositions are 
 approved, by conscience acquire the name of virtues or 
 duties : they are pronounced to deserve commendation ; 
 and we are justly considered as under a moral obligation 
 to practise the actions and cultivate the dispositions. 
 
 The coalition of the private and public feelings is very 
 remarkable in two points of view, from which it seems 
 hitherto to have been scarcely observed. First, It illus- 
 trates very forcibly all that has been here offered to prove, 
 that the peculiar character of the moral sentiments consists 
 in their exclusive reference to states of will, and that every 
 feeling which has that quality, when it is purified from 
 all admixture with different objects, becomes capable of 
 being absorbed into Conscience, and of being assimilated 
 to it, so as to become a part of it. For no feelings can 
 be more unlike each other in their object than the pri- 
 vate and the social ; and yet, as both employ voluntary 
 actions as their sole immediate means, both may be trans- 
 ferred by association to states of the will, in which case 
 they are transmuted into moral sentiments. No exam- 
 ple of the coalition of feelings in their general nature 
 less widely asunder, could afford so much support to this 
 position. Secondly, By raising qualities useful to our- 
 selves to the rank of virtues, it throws a strong light on 
 the, relation of virtue to individual interest; very much 
 as justice illustrq,tes the relation of morality to general 
 interest. The coincidence of morality with individual 
 
264 PROGRESS OF 
 
 interest is an important truth in Ethics. It is most 
 manifest in that part of Ethics which we are now consi- 
 dering. A calm regard to our general interest is indeed 
 a faint and infrequent motive of action. Its chief ad- 
 vantage is, that it is regular, and that its movements may 
 be calculated. In deliberate conduct it may often be 
 relied on, though perhaps never safely without know- 
 ledge of the whole temper and character. But in moral 
 reasoning at least, the coincidence is of unspeakable ad- 
 vantage. If there be a miserable man who has cold 
 affections, a weak sense of justice, dim perceptions of 
 right and wrong, and faint feelings of them ; — if, still 
 more wretched, his heart be constantly torn and de- 
 voured by malevolent passions — the vultures of the soul j 
 — we have one resource still left, even in cases so dread- 
 ful. Even he still retains a human principle, to which 
 we can speak. He must own that he has some wish for 
 his own lasting welfare. We can prove to him that his 
 state of mind is inconsistent with it. It may be impos- 
 sible indeed to show, that while his disposition contin- 
 ues the same, he can derive any enjoyment from the 
 practice of virtue. - But it may be most clearly shown, 
 that every advance in the amendment of that disposi- 
 tion is a step towards even temporal happiness. If he 
 do not amend his character, we may compel him to own 
 that he is at variance with himself, and offends against 
 a principle of which even he must recognise the reason- 
 ableness. 
 
 The formation of Conscience from so many elements, 
 and especially the combination of elements so unlike as 
 the private desires and the social affections, early con- 
 tributes to give it the appearance of that simplicity and 
 independence which in its mature state really distinguish 
 it. It becomes, from these circumstances, more diffi- 
 cult to distinguish its separate principles ; and it is im- 
 possible to exhibit them in separate action. The affinity 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 265 
 
 of these various passions to each other^ which consists in 
 their having no object but states of the ivill, is the only- 
 common property which strikes the mind. Hence the 
 facility with which the general terms, first probably 
 limited to the relations between ourselves and others, 
 are gradually extended to all voluntary acts and dispo- 
 sitions. Prudence and temperance become the objects 
 of moral approbation. When imprudence is immedi- 
 ately disapproved by the by stander, without deliberate 
 consideration of its consequences, it is not only displeas- 
 ing, as being pernicious, but it is blamed as wrong, 
 though with a censure so much inferior to that bestowed 
 on inhumanity and injustice, as may justify those writers 
 who use the milder term improper. At length, when 
 the general words come to signify the objects of moral 
 approbation, and the reverse, they denote merely the 
 power to excite feelings which are as independent as if 
 they were underived, and which coalesce the more per- 
 fectly, because they are detached from objects so various 
 and unlike as to render their return to their primitive 
 state very difficult. 
 
 The question,* why we do not morally approve the 
 useful qualities of actions which are altogether involun- 
 tary, may now be shortly and satisfactorily answered : 
 because conscience is in perpetual contact, as it were, 
 with all the dispositions and actions oi voluntary agents, 
 and is by that means indissolubly associated with them 
 exclusively. It has a direct action on the will, and a 
 constant mental contiguity to it. It has no such mental 
 contiguity to involuntary changes. It has never per- 
 haps been observed, that an operation of the conscience 
 precedes all acts deliberate enough to be in the highest 
 sense voluntary, and does so as much when it is defeat- 
 ed as when it prevails. In either case the association is 
 
 • See supra, p. 124. 
 2 I 
 
266 PROGRESS OF 
 
 repeated. It extends to the whole of the active man. 
 AH passions have a definite outward object to which 
 they tend, and a limited sphere within which they act. 
 But conscience has no object but a state of will ; and as 
 an act of will is the sole means of gratifying any passion, 
 conscience is co-extensive with the whole man, and with- 
 out encroachment curbs or aids every feeling, even 
 within the peculiar province of that feeling itself. As 
 will is the universal means, conscience, which regards 
 will, must be a universal principle. As nothing is in- 
 terposed between conscience and the will when the mind 
 is in its healthy state, the dictate of conscience is follow- 
 ed by the determination of the will, with a promptitude 
 and exactness which very naturally is likened to the 
 obedience of an inferior to the lawful commands of those 
 whom he deems to be rightfully placed over him. It 
 therefore seems clear, that on the theory which has been 
 attempted, moral approbation must be limited to volun- 
 tary operations, and conscience must be universal, inde- 
 pendent, and commanding. 
 
 One remaining difficulty may perhaps be objected to 
 the general doctrines of this Dissertation, though it does 
 not appear at any time to have been urged against other 
 modifications of the same principle. '^ If moral appro- 
 bation," it may be said, " involve no perception of be- 
 neficial tendency, whence arises the coincidence be- 
 tween that principle and the moral sentiments?" It 
 may seem, at first sight, that such a theory rests the 
 foundation of morals upon a coincidence altogether mys- 
 terious, and apparently capricious and fantastic. Waiv- 
 ing all other answers, let us at once proceed to that 
 which seems conclusive. It is true that conscience 
 rarely contemplates so distant an object as the welfare 
 of all sentient beings. But to what point is every one 
 of its elements directed ? What, for instance, is the 
 aim of all the social affections? Nothing but the pro- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY, 267 
 
 duction of larger or smaller masses of happiness among 
 those of our fellow-creatures who are the objects of 
 these aifections. In every case these affections promote 
 happiness, as far as their foresight and their power ex- 
 tend. What can be more conducive, or even necessary, 
 to the being and wellbeing of society, than the rules of 
 justice ? Are not the angry passions themselves, as far 
 as they are ministers of morality, employed in removing 
 hinderances to the welfare of ourselves and others, 
 which is indirectly promoting it? The private pas- 
 sions terminate indeed in the happiness of the individual, 
 which, however, is a part of general happiness, and the 
 part over which we have most power. Every principle 
 of which conscience is composed has some portion of 
 happiness for its object. To that point they all con- 
 verge. General happiness is not indeed one of the na- 
 tural objects of conscience, because our voluntary acts 
 are not felt and perceived to aifect it. But how small 
 a step is left for reason. It only casts up the items of 
 the account. It has only to discover that the acts of 
 those who labour to promote separate portions of hap- 
 piness must increase the amount of the whole. It may 
 be truly said, that if observation and experience did not 
 clearly ascertain that beneficial tendency is the constant 
 attendant and mark of all virtuous dispositions and ac- 
 tions, the same great truth would be revealed to us by 
 the voice of conscience. The coincidence, instead of 
 being arbitrary, arises necessarily from the laws of hu- 
 man nature, and the circumstances in which mankind 
 are placed. We perform and approve virtuous actions, 
 partly beca^ise conscience regards them as right, partly 
 because we are prompted to them by good affections. 
 AH these affections contribute towards general wellbe- 
 ing, though • it were not necessary, nor would it be fit, 
 that the agent should be distracted by the contempla- 
 tion of that vast and remote object. 
 
268 PROGRESS OF 
 
 The various relations of conscience to religion we have 
 already been led to consider on the principles of Butler, 
 of Berkeley, of Paley, and especially of Hartley, who was 
 led by his own piety to contemplate as the last and high- 
 est stage of virtue and happiness, a sort of self annihila- 
 tion, which, however unsuitable to the present condition 
 of mankind, yet places in the strongest light the disin- 
 terested character of the system, of which it is a conceiva- 
 ble though perhaps not attainable result. The com- 
 pleteness and rigour acquired by conscience, when all 
 its dictates are revered as the commands of a perfectly 
 wise and good being, are so obvious, that they cannot be 
 questioned by any reasonable man, however extensive 
 his incredulity may be. It is thus that conscience can 
 add the warmth of an affection to the inflexibility of 
 principle and habit. It is true that, in examining the 
 evidence of the divine original of a religious system, in 
 estimating an imperfect religion, or in comparing the 
 demerits of religions of human origin, conscience must 
 be the standard chiefly applied. But it follows with 
 equal clearness, that those who have the happiness to 
 find satisfaction and repose in divine revelation, are 
 bound to consider all those precepts for the government 
 of the will, delivered by it, which are manifestly univer- 
 sal, as the rules to which all their feelings and actions 
 should conform. The true distinction between con- 
 science and a taste for moral beauty has already been 
 pointed out ;* a distinction which, notwithstanding its 
 simplicity, has been unobserved by philosophers, per- 
 haps on account of the frequent co-operation and inter- 
 mixture of the two feelings. Most speculators have 
 either denied the existence of the taste, or kept it out of 
 view in their theory, or exalted it to the place which is 
 rightfully filled only by conscience. Yet it is perfectly 
 
 • See supra, p. 170 — 173. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 269 
 
 obvious that, like all the other feelings called pleasures 
 of imagination, it terrainatee in delightful contemplation, 
 while the moral faculty always aims exclusively at volun- 
 tary action. Nothing can more clearly show that this 
 last quality is the characteristic of conscience, than its 
 being thus found to distinguish that faculty from the sen- 
 timents which most nearly resemble it, most frequently 
 attend it, and are most easily blended with it. 
 
 Some attempt has now been made to develope the fun- 
 damental principles of ethical theory, in that historical 
 order in which meditation and discussion brought them 
 successively into a clearer light. That attempt, as far 
 as it regards Great Britain, is at least chronologically 
 complete. The spirit of bold speculation, conspicuous 
 among the English of the seventeenth century, languish- 
 ed after the earlier part of the eighteenth, and seems, 
 from the time of Hutcheson, to have passed into Scotland, 
 where it produced Hume, the greatest of sceptics, and 
 Smithj the most eloquent of modern moralists ; besides 
 giving rise to that sober, modest, perhaps timid Philoso- 
 phy, which is commonly called Scotch, — which has the 
 singular merit of having first strongly and largely incul- 
 cated the absolute necessity of admitting certain princi- 
 ples as the foundation of all reasoning, and as being the 
 indispensable conditions of thought itself. In the eye of 
 the moralist, all the philosophers of Scotland, Hume and 
 Smith as much as Reid, Campbell, and Stewart, have 
 also the merit of having avoided the selfish system ; and 
 of having, under whatever variety of representation, 
 alike maintained the disinterested nature of the social 
 aifections and the supreme authority of the moral senti- 
 ments. Brown reared the standard of revolt against the 
 masters of the Scottish School, and in reality, still more 
 than in words, adopted those very doctrines against which 
 his predecessors, after their war against scepticism, 
 uniformly combated. The law of association, though 
 
270 PROGRESS OF 
 
 expressed in other language, became the nearly uni- 
 versal principle of his system; and perhaps it would 
 have been absolutely universal if he had not been re- 
 strained rather by respectful feelings than by cogent rea- 
 sons. With him the love of speculative philosophy, as 
 a pursuit, appears to have expired in Scotland, There 
 are some symptoms, yet however very faint, of the revival 
 of a taste for it among the English youth. It was re- 
 ceived with approbation in France from M. Royer Col- 
 lard, the scholar of Stewart more than of Reid, and with 
 enthusiasm from his pupil and successor M. Cousin, who 
 has clothed the doctrines of the Schools of Germany in 
 an unwonted eloquence, which always adorns, but some- 
 times disguises them. 
 
 The history of Political Philosophy, even if its^xtent 
 and subdivisions were better defined, would, it is mani- 
 fest, have occupied another Dissertation, at least equal in 
 length to the present. The most valuable parts of it be- 
 long to Civil History. It is too often tainted by a tur- 
 bulent and factious spirit to be easily combined with 
 the calmer history of the progress of science, or even of 
 the revolutions of speculation. In no age of the world 
 were its principles so interwoven with political events, 
 and so deeply imbued with the passions and divisions ex- 
 cited by them; as in the eighteenth centviry. 
 
 It was at one time the purpose, or rather perhaps hope, 
 of the writer, to close this discoarse by an account of 
 the ethical systems which have prevailed in Gei'many 
 during the last half century ; which, maintaining the same 
 spirit amidst great changes of technical language, and 
 even of speculative principle, have now exclusive pos- 
 session of Europe to the north of the Rhine, have been 
 welcomed by the French youth with open arms, have 
 roused in some measure the languishing genius of Italy, 
 but are still little known and unjustly estimated by the 
 mere English reader. He found himself, however, soon 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 271 
 
 reduced to the necessity of either being superficial, and 
 by consequence uninstructive ; or of devoting to that sub- 
 ject a far longer time than he can now spare, and a much 
 larger space than the limits of this work would probably 
 allow. The majority of readers will indeed be more dis- 
 posed to require an excuse for the extent of what has 
 been done, than for the relinquishment of projected addi- 
 tions. All readers must agree that this is peculiarly a sub- 
 ject on which it is better to be silent than to say too little. 
 A very few observations, however, on the German 
 Philosophy, as far as relates to its ethical bearings and 
 influence, may perhaps be pardoned. These remarks 
 are not so much intended to be applied to the moral doc- 
 trines of that school, considered in themselves, as to 
 those apparent defects in the prevailing systems of Ethics 
 throughout Europe, which seem to have suggested the 
 necessity of their adoption. Kant has himself acknow- 
 ledged that his whole theory of the percipient and intel- 
 lectual faculty was intended to protect the first princi- 
 ples of human knowledge against the assaults of Hume, 
 la like manner, his ethical system is evidently framed 
 for the purpose of guarding certain principles, either 
 directly governing, or powerfully affecting practice, 
 which seemed to him to have been placed on unsafe foun- 
 dations by their advocates, and which were involved in 
 perplexity and confusion, especially by those who adopt- 
 ed the results of various and sometimes coritradictory 
 systems to the taste of multitudes, more eager to know 
 than prepared to be taught. To the theoretical reason 
 he superadded the practical reason, which had peculiar 
 laws and principles of its own, from which all the rules 
 of morals may be deduced. The practical reason cannot 
 be conceived without these laws 5 therefore they are 
 inherent. It perceives them to be necessary and univer- 
 sal. Hence, by a process not altogether dissimilar, at 
 least in its gross results, to that which was employed for 
 
272 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the like purpose by Cudworth and Clarke, by Price, and 
 in some degree by Stewart, he raises the social affections, 
 and still more the moral sentiments, above the sphere of 
 enjoyment, and beyond that series of enjoyments which 
 is called happiness. The performance of duty, not the 
 pursuit of happiness, is in this system the chief end of 
 man. By the same intuition we discover that virtue de- 
 serves happiness ; and as this desert is not uniformly so 
 requited in the present state of existence, it compels 
 us to believe a moral government of the world, and 
 a future state of existence, in which all the condi- 
 tions of the practical reason will be realized ; — truths, 
 of which, in the opinion of Kant, the argumentative 
 proofs were at least very defective, but of which the 
 revelations of the practical reason afforded a more con- 
 clusive demonstration than any process of reasoning 
 could supply. The understanding, he owned, saw no- 
 thing in the connection of motive with volition different 
 from what it discovered in every other uniform sequence 
 of a cause and an effect. But as the moral law deliver- 
 ed by the practical reason issues peremptory and inflex- 
 ible commands, the power of always obeying them is im- 
 plied in their very nature. All individual objects, all 
 outward things, must indeed be viewed in the relation 
 of cause and effect. They are necessary conditions of all 
 reasoning. But the acts of the faculty which wills, of 
 which we are immediately conscious, belong to another 
 province of mind, and are not subject to these laws of 
 the theoretical reason. The mere intellect must still re- 
 gard them as necessarily connected ; but the practical 
 reason distinguishes its own liberty from the necessity of 
 nature, conceives volition without at the same time con- 
 ceiving an antecedent to it, and regards all moral beings 
 as the original authors of their own actions. 
 
 Even those who are unacquainted with this compli- 
 cated and comprehensive system, will at once see the 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 273 
 
 slightness of the above sketch. Those who understand 
 it, will own that so brief an outline could not be other- 
 wise than slight. It will, however, be suf&cient for the 
 present purpose, if it render what follows intelligible. 
 
 With respect to what is called the practical reason, 
 the Kantian system varies from ours, in treating it as 
 having more resemblance to the intellectual powers than 
 to sentiment and emotion. Enough has already been 
 said on that question. At the next step, however, the 
 difference seems to resolve itself into a misunderstanding. 
 The character and dignity of the human race surely de- 
 pend, not on the state in which they are born, but on 
 that which they are all destined to attain or to approach. 
 No man would hesitate in assenting to this observation, 
 when applied to the intellectual faculties. Thus, the 
 human infant comes into the world imbecile and ignorant; 
 but a vast majority acquire some vigour of reason and 
 extent of knowledge. Strictly, the human infant is born 
 neither selfish nor social ; but the far greater part ac- 
 quire some provident regard to their own welfare, and 
 a number, probably not much smaller, feel some sparks 
 of afTection towards others. On our principles, there- 
 fore, as much as on those of Kant, human nature is capfi- 
 ble of disinterested sentiments. For we too allow and 
 contend that our moral faculty is a necessary part of hu- 
 man nature, — that it universally exists in human beings, 
 — that we cannot conceive any moral agents without 
 qualities which are either like, or produce the like 
 effects. It is necessarily regarded by us as co-extensive 
 with human, and even with moral nature. In what 
 other sense can universality be predicated of any propo- 
 sition not identical ? Why should it be tacitly assumed 
 that all these great characteristics of conscience should 
 necessarily presuppose its being unformed and unde- 
 rived ? What contradiction is there between them and 
 the theory of regular and uniform formation? 
 2 K 
 
274 PROGRESS OF 
 
 In this instance it should seem that a general assent to 
 truth is chiefly if not solely obstructed by an inveterate 
 prejudice, arising from the mode in which the questions 
 relating to the aflfections and the moral faculty have been 
 discussed among ethical philosophers. Generally speak- 
 ing those who contend that these parts of the mind are 
 acquired, have also held that they are, in their perfect 
 state, no more than modifications of self-love. On the 
 other hand, philosophers " of purer fire," who felt that 
 conscience is sovereign, and that affection is disinterest- 
 ed, have too hastily fancied that their ground was un- 
 tenable, without contending that these qualities were 
 inherent or innate, and absolutely underived from any 
 other properties of mind. If a choice were necessary 
 between these two systems as masses of opinion, without 
 any freedom of discrimination and selection, I should 
 unquestionably embrace that doctrine which places in 
 the clearest light the reality of benevolence and the au- 
 thority of the moral faculty. But it is surely easy to 
 apply a test which may be applied to our conceptions as 
 effectually as a decisive experiment is applied to material 
 substances. Does not he who, whatever he may think 
 of the origin of these parts of human nature, believes 
 that actually conscience is supreme, and affection ter- 
 minates in its direct object, retain all that for which the 
 partisans of the underived principles value and cling to 
 their system? " But they are made," these philosophers 
 may say, ^' by this class of our antagonists, to rest on in- 
 secure foundations. Unless they are underived, we can 
 see no reason for regarding them as independent." In 
 answer, it may be asked, how is the connection between 
 these two qualities established ? It is really assumed. It 
 finds its way easily into the mind under the protection 
 of another coincidence, which is of a totally different 
 nature. The great majority of those speculators who 
 have represented the moral and social feelings as ac- 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 275 
 
 quiredj have also considered them as being mere modi- 
 fications of self-love, and sometimes as being casually 
 formed and easily eradicated, like local and temporary 
 prejudices. But when the nature of our feelings is 
 thoroughly explored, is it not evident that this coinci- 
 dence is the result of superficial confusion ? The better 
 moralists observed accurately, and reasoned justly, on 
 the province of the moral sense and the feelings in the 
 formed and mature man. They reasoned mistakenly on 
 the origin of these principles. But the Epicureans 
 were by no means right, even on the latter question ; 
 and they were totally wrong on the other and far more 
 momentous part of the subject. Their error is more 
 extensive, and infinitely more injurious. But what 
 should now hinder an inquirer after truth from embrac- 
 ing but amending their doctrine where it is partially 
 true, and adopting without any change the just descrip- 
 tion of the most important principles of human nature 
 which we owe to their more enlightened as well as more 
 generous antagonists? 
 
 Though unwilling to abandon the arguments by which, 
 from the earliest times, the existence of the supreme and 
 eternal mind has been established, we, as well as the 
 German philosophers, are entitled to call in the help of 
 our moral nature to lighten the burden of those tremen- 
 dous difficulties which cloud his moral government. The 
 moral nature is an actual part of man, as much on our 
 scheme as on theirs. 
 
 Even the celebrated question of Liberty and Neces- 
 sity may perhaps be rendered somewhat less perplexing, 
 if we firmly bear in mind that peculiar relation of con- 
 science to will which we have attempted to illustrate. 
 It is impossible for reason to consider occurrences other- 
 wise than as bound together by the connection of cause 
 and effect ; and in this circumstance consists the strength 
 of the necessitarian system. But conscience, which is 
 
276 PROGRESS OF 
 
 equally a constituent part of the mind, has other laws. 
 It is composed of emotions and desires, which contem- 
 plate only those dispositions which depend on the will. 
 Now, it is the nature of an emotion to withdraw the 
 mind from the contemplation of every idea but that of 
 the object which excites it. Every desire exclusively 
 looks at the object which it seeks. Every attempt to 
 enlarge the mental vision alters the state of mind, weak- 
 ens the emotion or dissipates the desire, and tends to 
 extinguish both. If a man, while he was pleased with 
 the smell of a rose, were to reflect on the chemical com- 
 binations from which it arose, the condition of his mind 
 would be changed from an enjoyment of the senses to an 
 exertion of the understanding. If, in the view of a 
 beautiful scene, a man were suddenly to turn his thoughts 
 to the disposition of water, vegetables, and earths, on 
 which its appearance depended, he might enlarge his 
 knowledge of geology, but he must lose the pleasure of 
 the prospect. The anatomy and analysis of the flesh 
 and blood of a beautiful woman necessarily suspend 
 admiration and affection. Many analogies here present 
 themselves. When life is in danger either in a storm 
 or a battle, it is certain that less fear is felt by the com- 
 mander or the pilot, and even by the private soldier 
 actively engaged, or the common seaman laboriously 
 occupied, than by those who are exposed to the peril, 
 but not employed in the means of guarding against it. 
 The reason is not that the one class believe the danger 
 to be less. They are likely in many instances to per- 
 ceive it more clearly. But having acquired a habit of 
 instantly turning their thoughts to the means of counter- 
 acting the danger, their minds are thrown into a state 
 which excludes the ascendency of fear. Mental forti- 
 tude entirely depends on this habit. The timid horse- 
 man is haunted by the horrors of a fall. The bold and 
 skilful thinks only about the best way of curbing or 
 
ETHtCAL PHILOSOPHY. 277 
 
 supporting his horse. Even when all means are equally 
 unavailable, and his condition appears desperate to the by- 
 stander, he still owes to his fortunate habit that he does 
 not suffer the agony of the coward. Many cases have 
 been known where fortitude has reached fuch strength 
 that the faculties, instead of being confounded by danger, 
 are never raised to their highest activity by a less violent 
 stimulant. The distinction between such men and the 
 coward does not depend on difference of opinion about 
 the reality or extent of the danger, but on a state of mind 
 which renders it more or less accessible to fear. Though 
 it must be owned that the moral sentiments are very dif- 
 ferent from any other human faculty, yet the above ob- 
 servations seem to be in a great measure applicable to 
 every state of mind. The emotions and desires which 
 compose conscience, while they occupy the mind, must 
 exclude all contemplation of the cause in which the object 
 of these feelings may have originated. To their eye the 
 voluntary dispositions and actions, their sole object, 
 must appear to be the first link of a chain. In the view 
 of conscience they have no foreign original. The con- 
 science being so constantly associated with all volitions, 
 its view becomes habitual : — being always possessed of 
 some, and capable of intense warmth, it predominates 
 over the habits of thinking of those few who are employ- 
 ed in the analyses of mental occupations. The reader 
 who has in any degree been inclined to adopt the explana- 
 tions attempted above, of the imperative character of con- 
 science, may be disposed also to believe that they afford 
 some foundation for that conviction of the existence of a 
 power to obey its commands, which (it ought to be grant- 
 ed to the German philosophers) is irresistibly suggested 
 by the commanding tone of all its dictates. If such an 
 explanation should be thought worthy of consideration, 
 it must be very carefully distinguished from that illusive 
 sense by which some writers have laboured to reconcile 
 
278 PROGRESS OF 
 
 the feeling of liberty with the reality of necessity.* In 
 this case there is no illusion ; — nothing is required but 
 the admission, that every faculty observes its own laws, 
 and that when the action of the one fills the mind, that 
 of every other is suspended. The ear cannot see, nor 
 can the eye hear. Why then should not the greater 
 powers of reason and conscience have different habitual 
 modes of contemplating voluntary actions ? How strong- 
 ly do experience and analogy seem to require the arrange- 
 ment of motive and volition under the class of causes and 
 effects ! With what irresistible power, on the other hand, 
 do all our moral sentiments remove extrinsic agency from 
 view, and concentrate all feeling in the agent himself ! 
 The one manner of thinking may predominate among the 
 speculative few in their short moments of abstraction ; 
 the other will be that of all other men, and of the specu- 
 lator himself when he is called upon to act, or when his 
 feelings are powerfully excited by the amiable or odious 
 dispositions of his fellow-men. In these workings of 
 various faculties there is nothing that can be accurately 
 described as contrariety of opinion. An intellectual state, 
 and a feeling, never can be contrary to each other. They 
 are too utterly incapable of comparison to be the subject 
 of contrast. They are agents of a perfectly different 
 nature, acting in different spheres. A feeling can no 
 more be called true or false, than a demonstration, con- 
 sidered simply in itself, can be said to be agreeable or 
 disagreeable. It is true, indeed, that in consequence of 
 the association of all mental acts with each other, emo- 
 tions and desires may occasion habitual errors of judg- 
 ment ; — but liability to error belongs to every exercise 
 of human reason ; it arises from a multitude'of causes ; it 
 constitutes, therefore, no difficulty peculiar to the case 
 
 • LoKD Kames, in his Essays on Morality and Natural Bdigion, and in 
 his Sketches of the History of Main. 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 279 
 
 before us. Neither truth nor falsehood can be predi- 
 cated of the perceptions of the senses, but they lead to 
 false opinions. An object seen through different medi- 
 ums may by the inexperienced be thought to be no 
 longer the same. All men long concluded falsely, from 
 what they saw, that the earth was stationary, and the 
 sun in perpetual motion around it. The greater part of 
 mankind still adopt the same error. Newton and Laplace 
 used the same language with the ignorant, and conform- 
 ed (if we may not say to their opinion) at least to their 
 habits of thinking on all ordinary occasions, and during 
 the far greater part of their lives. Nor is this all : The 
 language which represents various states of mind is very 
 vague. The word which denotes a compound state is 
 often taken from its principal fact, from that which is 
 most conspicuous, most easily called to mind, most warm- 
 ly felt, or most frequently recurring. It is sometimes 
 borrowed from a separate, but, as it were, neighbour- 
 ing condition of mind. The grand distinction between 
 thought and feeling is so little observed, that we are pecu- 
 liarly liable to confusion on this subject. Perhaps when 
 we use language which indicates an opinion concerning 
 the acts of the will, we may mean little more than to 
 express strongly and warmly the moral sentiments which 
 voluntary acts alone call up. It would argue disrespect 
 for the human understanding, vainly employed for so 
 many centuries in reconciling contradictory opinions, to 
 propose such suggestions without peculiar diffidence; 
 but before they are altogether rejected, it may be well 
 to consider, whether the constant success of the advo- 
 cates of necessity on one ground, and of the partisans of 
 free-will on another, does not seem to indicate that the 
 two parties contemplate the subject from diiferent points 
 of view, that neither habitually sees more than one side 
 of it, and that they look at it through the medium of 
 diiferent states of mind. 
 
280 PROGRESS OF 
 
 It should be remembered that these hints of a possible 
 reconciliation between seemingly repugnant opinions are 
 proposed, not as perfect analogies, but to lead men's 
 minds into the inquiry, whether that which certainly 
 befalls the mind, in many cases on a small scale, may 
 not, under circumstances favourable to its development, 
 occur with greater magnitude, and more important con- 
 sequences. The coward and brave, as has been stated, 
 act differently at the approach of danger, because it pro- 
 duces exertion in the one and fear in the other. But 
 very brave men must, by the terms, be few. They have 
 little aid in their highest acts, therefore, from fellow- 
 feeling. They are often too obscure for the hope of 
 praise, and they have seldom been trained to cultivate 
 courage as a virtue. The very reverse occurs in the 
 different view taken by understanding and by conscience, 
 of the nature of voluntary actions. The conscientious 
 view must, in some degree, present itself to all mankind. 
 It is therefore unspeakably strengthened by general sym- 
 pathy. All men respect themselves for being habitually 
 guided by it. It is the object of general commendation ; 
 and moral discipline has no other aim but its cultivation. 
 Whoever does not feel more pain from his crimes than 
 from his misfortunes, is looked on with general aversion. 
 And when it is considered that a B eing of perfect wis- 
 dom and goodness estimates us according to the degree 
 in which conscience governs our voluntary acts, it is 
 surely no wonder that, in this most important discrepancy 
 between the great faculties of our nature, we should con- 
 sider the best habitual disposition to be that which the 
 coldest reason shows us to be most conducive to well- 
 doing and wellbeing. 
 
 On every other point, at least, it should seem that, 
 without the multiplied suppositions and immense appa- 
 ratus of the German School, the authority of morality 
 may be vindicated, the disinterestedness of human nature 
 
ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY. 281 
 
 asserted, the first principles of knowledge secured, and 
 the hopes and consolations of mankind preserved. Ages 
 may yet be necessary to give to ethical theory all the 
 forms and language of science, and to apply it to the 
 multiplied and complicated facts and rules which are 
 within its province. In the mean time, if any statement 
 of the opinions here unfolded or intimated shall be proved 
 to be at variance with the reality of social affections, and 
 with the feeling of moral distinction, the author of this 
 Dissertation will be the first to relinquish a theory which 
 will then show itself inadequate to explain the most indis- 
 putable, as well as by far the most important, parts of 
 human nature. If it shall be shown to lower the cha- 
 racter of man, to cloud his hopes, or to impair the sense 
 of duty, he will be grateful to those who may point out 
 his error, and deliver him from the poignant regret of 
 adopting opinions which lead to consequences so per- 
 nicious. 
 
 2 L 
 
im 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Note A, p. 30. 
 
 The remarks of Cicero on the Stoicism of Cato are perhaps the 
 most perfect specimen of that refined raillery which attains the 
 object of the orator without general injustice to the person whose 
 authority is for the moment to be abated. 
 
 " Accessit his doctrina non moderata, nee mitis, sed, ut mihi 
 videtur, pauIo asperior et durior quam aut Veritas aut natura 
 patiatur." After an enumeration of the Stoical paradoxes, he 
 adds : " Hsec homo ingeniosissimus M. Cato arripuit, neque dispu- 
 tandi causa, ut magna pars, sed ita vivendi. Nostri autem illi 
 (fatebor enim me quoque in adolescentia diffisum ingenio meo 
 quaesisse adjumenta doctrinse) nostri, inquam, illi a Platone atque 
 Aristotele moderati homines et temperati aiunt apud sapientem 
 
 valere aliquando gratium; viri boni esse misereri ; omnes 
 
 virtutes mediocritate quadam moderatas. Hos ad magistros si qua 
 te fortuna, Cato, cum ista natura detulisset, non tu quidem vir 
 melior esses, nee fortior, nee temperantior, nee justior (neque enim 
 esse posses), sed paulo ad lenitatem propensior." (Ciceeo fro 
 Murena. ) 
 
 Note B, p. 37. 
 
 The greater part of the following extract from Grotius's History 
 of the Netherlands is inserted as the best abridgement of the 
 ancient history of these still subsisting controversies known in our 
 time. I extract also the introduction as a model of the manner in 
 which an historian may state a religious dispute which has influenced 
 political affairs; but far more because it is an unparalleled example 
 of equity and forbearance in the narrative of a contest of which the 
 historian was himself a victim. 
 
 " Habuit hie annus (1608) haud spernendi quoque mali semina, 
 vix ut arma desierant, exorto publicae religionis dissidio, latentibus 
 initiis, sed ut paulatim in majiis erumperet. Lugduni sacras literas 
 
284 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 docebant viri eruditione prsBstantes Goraarus et Arminius, quorum 
 ille seterna Dei lege fixum memorabat, cui hominum salus destina- 
 retur, quis in exitium tenderet; inde alios ad pietatem trahi, et 
 tractos custodiri ne ekbantur; relinqui alios communi humanitatis 
 vitio et suiscriminibus involutos: hie vero contra integrum judicem, 
 sed eundem optimum patrem, id reorum fecisse discrimen, ut 
 peccandi pertsesis fiduciamque in Christum reponentibus veniam ac 
 vitam daret, contumacibus poenam; Deoque gratum, ut omnes 
 resipiscant, ac meliora edocti retineant; sed cogi neminem. Accusa- 
 bantque invicem; Arminius Gomarum, quod peccandi causas Deo 
 ascriberet, ac fati persuasione teneret immobiles animos; Gomarus 
 Arminium, quod longius ipsis Romanensium scitis hominem arro- 
 gantia impleret, nee pateretur soli Deo acceptamferri, rem maximam, 
 bonam mentem. Constat his queis cura legere veterum libros, 
 antiquos Christianorura tribuisse hominum voluntati vim liberam, 
 tam in acceptanda, quam in retinenda disciplina; unde sua prsmiis 
 ac suppliciis Eequitas. Neque iidem tamen omisere cuncta divinam 
 ad bonitatem referre, cujus munere salutare semen ad nos perve- 
 nisset, ac cujus singular! auxilio pericula nostra indigerent. Primus 
 omnium Augustinus, ex quo ipsi cum Pelagio et eum secutis 
 certamen (nam ante aliter et ipse senserat), acer disputandi, ita 
 libertatis vocem relinquere, ut ei decreta qua;dam Dei praeponeret, 
 quae vim ipsam destruere viderentur. At per Graeciam quidera 
 Asiamque retenta velus ilia ac simplicior sententia. Per occidentem 
 magnum Augustini nomen multos traxit in consensum, repertis 
 tamen per Galliam et alibi qui se opponerent. Posterioribus 
 sseculis, cum schola non alio magis quam Augustino doctore 
 uteretur, quis ipsi sensus, quis dexter pugnare visa conciliandi 
 modus, diu inter Francisci et Dorainici familiam disputato, doctis- 
 simi Jesuitarum, cura exactiori subtilitate nodum solvere laborassent, 
 Romas accusati aegre damnationem effugere. At Protestantium 
 princeps, Lutherus, egressus monasterio quod Augustini ut nomen, 
 ita sensus sequebatur, parte Augustini arrepta, id quod is reliquerat, 
 libertatis nomen, coepit exscindere; quod tam grave Erasmo visum, 
 ut cum caetera ipsius aut probaret aut silentio transmitteret, hie 
 objiciatsese: cujus argumentismotusPhilippusMeIanchthon,Lutheri 
 adjutor, quse prius scripserat immutavit, auctorque fuit Luthero, 
 quod multi volunt, certe quod constat Lutheranis, deserendi decreta 
 rigida et conditionera respuentia; sic tamen ut libertatis vocabuTum 
 quam rem magis perhorrescerent. At in altera Protestantium 
 parte dux Calvinus, primis Lutheri dictis in hac controversia inhae- 
 rescens, novis ea fulsit prassidiis, addiditque intactum Augustino, 
 
NOTES AND IILUSTRATIONS. ' ''?'' 285 
 
 veram ac salutarem fidem rem esse perpetuam et amitti nesciam: 
 cujus proinde qui sibi essent conscii, eos seternse felicitatis jam 
 nunc certos esse, quos interim in crimina, quantumvis gravia, 
 prolabi posse non diffitebatur. Auxit sententise rigorem Genevae 
 Beza, per Germaniam Zanchius, Ursinus, Piscator, saepe eo usque 
 provecti, ut, quod alii anxie vitaverant, apertius nonnunquam trade- 
 rent, etiam peccandi necessitatem a prima causa pendere: qux 
 ampla Lutheranis criminandi materia." (H. Grotii Hist. lib. xvii. 
 p. 562.) 
 
 Note C, p. 38. 
 
 The Calvinism, or rather Augustinianism, of Aquinas, is placed 
 beyond all doubt by the following passages : — " Prsedestinatio est 
 causa gratiaa et glorise." {Opera, VII. 366, edit. Paris. 1664.) 
 
 " Numerus prsedestinatorum certus est." {Ibid. 363.) 
 
 " Prsescientia meritorum nuUo mode est causa praedestinationis 
 divinse." (Ibid. 370.) 
 
 " Liberum arbitrium est facultas qua bonum eligitur, gratia 
 assistente, vel malum, eadem desistente." {Ibid. VIII. 222.) 
 
 " Deus inclinat ad bonum administrando virtutem agendi et 
 monendo ad bonum. Sed ad malum dicitur inclinare in quantum 
 gratiam non prsebet, per quam aliquis a malo retraheretur. " 
 {Ibid. 364.) 
 
 On the other side: 
 
 " Accipitur fides pro eo quo creditur, et est virtus, et pro eo 
 quod creditur, et non est virtus. Fides qua creditur, si cum caritate 
 sit, virtus est." {Ibid. IX. 236.) 
 
 " Divina bonitas est primum principium communicationis totius 
 quam Deus creaturis largitur." 
 
 " Quamvis omne quod Deus vult justum sit, non tamen ex hoc 
 justum dicitur quod Deus illud vult." {Ibid. 697.) 
 
 Note D, p. 39. 
 
 The Augustinian doctrine is, with some hesitation and reluctance, 
 acquiesced in by Scotus, in that milder form which ascribes election 
 to an express decree, and considers the rest of mankind as only 
 left to the deserved penalties of their transgressions. "In hujus 
 qusestionis solutione mallem alios audire quam docere.'' (Scoti 
 Opera, V. 1328. Lugd. 1639.) This modesty and prudence is 
 foreign from the dogmatical genius of a Schoolman; and these 
 qualities are still more apparent in the very remarkable language 
 
286 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 which he applies to the tremendous doctrine of reprobation. '^Eorum 
 autem non raiseretur (scil. Deus) quibus gratiam non praibendam 
 esse sequitate occultissima et ah humanis sensibus remotissima judi- 
 cat." (Ibid. 1329.) In the commentary on Scotus which follows, 
 it appears that his acute disciple Ockham disputed very freely 
 against the opinions of his master. " Mala fieri bonum est" is a 
 startling paradox, quoted by Scotus from Augustin. (Ibid. 1381.) 
 It appears that Ockham saw no difference between election and 
 reprobation, and considered those who embraced only the former as 
 at variance with themselves. (Ibid. 1313.) 
 
 Scotus, at great length, contends that our thoughts (consequently 
 our opinions) are not subject to the will. (VI, 1054 — 1056.) One 
 step more would have led him to acknowledge that all erroneous 
 judgment is involuntary, and therefore inculpable and unpunishable, 
 however pernicious. 
 
 His attempt to reconcile foreknowledge with contingency (V. 
 1300 — 1327), is a remarkable example of the power of human 
 subtlety to keep up the appearance of a struggle where it is impos- 
 sible to make one real effort. 
 
 But the most dangerous of all the deviations of Scotus from the 
 system of Aquinas is, that he opened the way to the opinion that 
 the distinction of right and wrong depends on the mere will of the 
 Eternal Mind. The absolute power of the Deity, according to 
 him, extends to all but contradictions. His regular power (ordinata) 
 is exercised conformably to an order established by himself; "si 
 PLACET voLtJNTATi, sub qua libera est, eecta est lex." (Scot. V. 
 1368, eisej.) 
 
 Note E, p. 39. 
 
 (PiAT. Soph. edit. Bip. II. 224.) 
 Iltto-av aitoi/triov a.[ji.a&iia mm. {Ibid. 227.) 
 
 Plato is quoted on this subject by Marcus Aurelius, in a manner 
 which shows, if there had been any doubt, the meaning to be, that 
 all error is involuntary. 
 
 Every mind is unwillingly led from truth. 
 
 (Epict. lib. i. cap. xxviii.) 
 Augustin closes the long line of ancient testimony to the involun- 
 tary character of error: " Quis est qui velit decipi? Fallere nolunt 
 boni; falli autem nee boni volunt nee mali." (Aug. Serm. de 
 Verba.) 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 287 
 
 Note F, p. 39. 
 
 From a long, able, and instructive dissertation by the commen- 
 tator on Scotus, it appears that this immoral dogma was propounded 
 in terms more bold and startling by Ockham, who openly affirmed, 
 that " moral evil was only evil because it was prohibited." " Oc- 
 hamus, qui putat quod nihil posset esse malum sine voluntate prohi- 
 bitiva Dei, hancque voluntatem esse liberam; sic ut posset eam non 
 habere, et consequenter ut posset fieri quod nulla prorsus essent 
 mala." (Scot. VII. p. 869.) But, says the commentator, "Dice 
 prlmo legem naturalem non consistere in jussione ulla quK sit actus 
 voluntatis Dei. Hbbc est communissima theologorum sententia." 
 (Scot. VII. p. 858.) And indeed the reason urged against Ock- 
 ham completely justifies this approach to unanimity. " For," he 
 asks, " why is it right to obey the will of God ? Is it because our 
 moral faculties perceive it to be right? But they equally perceive and 
 feel the authority of all the primary principles of morality; and if 
 this answer be made, it is obvious that those who make it do in effect 
 admit the independence of moral distinctions on the will of God." 
 
 "If God," said Ockham, "had commanded his creatures to hate 
 himself, hatred of God would have been praiseworthy." (Domin. 
 Soto de Justitia et Jure, lib. ii. quaest. 3, " Utrum prsscepta Deca- 
 logi sint dispensabilia ;" a book dedicated to Don Carlos, the son 
 of Philip II.) Suarez, the last scholastic philosopher, rejected the 
 Ockhamical doctrine, but allowed will to be a part'ot the founda- 
 tion of morality. " Voluntas Dei non est tota ratio bonitatis aut 
 malitise." (Suaeez de Legibus, lib. ii. 66, p. 71. edit. Lond. 1679.) 
 
 As the great majority of the Schoolmen supported their opinion 
 of this subject by the consideration of eternal and immutable ideas 
 of right and wrong in the divine intellect, it was natural that the 
 Nominalists, of whom Ockham was the founder, who rejected all 
 general ideas, should also have rejected those moral distinctions 
 which were then supposed to originate in such ideas. Gerson was 
 a celebrated Nominalist; and he was the more disposed to follow 
 the opinions of his master, because they agreed in maintaining the 
 independence of the State on the Church, and the superiority of 
 the Church over the Pope. 
 
 Note G, p. 41. 
 
 It must be premised that Charitas among the ancient divines 
 corresponded with Ejas of the Platonists, and with the ^aia. of later 
 philosophers, as comprehending the love of all that is loveworthy in 
 
288 NOTES AND IliLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 the Creator or his creatures. It is the theological virtue of charity, 
 and corresponds with no term in use among modern moralists. 
 " Cum objectum amoris sit bonum, dupliciter potest aliquis ten- 
 dere in bonum alicujus rei; uno modo, quod bonum illius rd ad 
 alterum referat, sicut amat quis vinum in quantum dulcedinem vini 
 peroptat; et hie amor vocatur a quibusdam amor concupiscentiae. 
 Amor autem isie non terminatur ad rem quae dicitur amari, aed reflec- 
 titur ad rem illam cuioptatur bonum illius rei. Alio modo amor fortior 
 in bonum alicujus rei, ita quod ad rem ipsam terminatur; et hie 
 est amor benevolentias. Qua bonum nostrum in Deo perfectum 
 est, sicut in causa universali bonorum; ideo bonum in ipso esse 
 magis naturaliler complacet quam in nobis ipsis: et ideo etiam amore 
 amiciti83 naturaliler Deus ab homine plus seipso diligitur." 
 
 The. above quotations from Aquinas will probably be suflScient for 
 those who are acquainted with these questions, and they will cer- 
 tainly be thought too large by those who are not. In the next ques- 
 tion he inquires, whether in the love of God there can be any view to 
 reward. He appears to consider himself as bound by authority to 
 answer in the affirmative; and he employs much ingenuity in recon- 
 ciling a certain expectation of reward with the disinterested charac- 
 ter ascribed by him to piety in common with all the affections which 
 terminate in other beings. " Nihil aliud est -merces nostra quam 
 perfrui Deo. Ergo charitas non solum non excludit, sed etiam 
 facit habere oculum ad mercedem." In this answer he seems to 
 have anticipated the representations of Jeremy Taylor (^Sermon on 
 Growth in Grace); of Lord Shaftesbury (^Inquiry concerning Virtue, 
 book i, part iii. sect. 3); of Mr T. Erskine {Free/iess of the Gospel, 
 Edinb. 1828); and more especially of Mr John Smith {Discourses, 
 Lond. 1660). No extracts could convey a just conception of the 
 observations which follow, unless they were accompanied by a 
 longer examination of the technical language of the Schoolmen 
 than would be warranted on this occasion. It is clear that he dis- 
 tinguishes well the affection of piety from the happy fruits, which, 
 as he cautiously expresses it, " are in the nature of a reward," just as 
 the consideration of the pleasures and advantages of friendship may 
 enter into the affection and strengthen it, though they are not its 
 objects, and never could inspire such a feeling. It seems to me 
 also that he had a dimmer view of another doctrine, by which we 
 are taught, that though our own happiness be not the end which 
 we pursue in loving others, yet it may be the final cause of the 
 insertion of disinterested affections into the nature of man. " Po- 
 nere mercedem aliquam finem amoris ex parte amati, est contra 
 
NOTES AND ILHISTKATIOKS. 289 
 
 rationem amicitise. Sed ponere mercedem esse finem amoris ex 
 parte amantis, non tamen ultimum, prout scilicet ipse amor est 
 quasdam operatio amantis, non est contra rationem amicitias. Pos- 
 sum operationem amoris amare propter aliquid aliud, salva amicitia. 
 Potest habeas charitaiem habere oculuvt ad mercedem, uii ponat 
 beatitudinem creatam Jmem amoris, non autem finem amati." Upon 
 the last words my interpretation chiefly depends. The immediately 
 preceding sentence must be owned to have been founded on a dis- 
 tinction between viewing the good fruits of our own affections as 
 enhancing their intrinsic pleasures, and feeling love for another on 
 account of the advantage to be derived from him; which last is 
 inconceivable. 
 
 Note H, p. 41. 
 
 " Potestas spiritualis et secularis utraque deducitur a potestate 
 divina; ideo in tantum secularis est sub spirituali, in quantum est a 
 Deo supposita; scilicet, in his quse ad salutem animae pertinent. In 
 his autem quae ad bonum civile spectant, est magis obediendum 
 potestati seculari; sicut illud Matthcei, ' Reddite quae sunt Caesaris 
 Csesari.' " What follows is more doubtful. " Nisi forte potestati 
 spirituali etiam potestas secularis conjungatur, ut in Papa, qui utri- 
 usque potestatis apicenv tenet." (VIII. 435.) Here, says the 
 French editor, it may be doubted whether Aquinas means the Pope's 
 temporal power in his own dominions, or a secular authority indi- 
 rectly extending over all for the sake of religion. My reasons for 
 adopting the more rational construction are shortly these: — 1. The 
 text of Matthew is so plain an assertion of the independence of both 
 powers, that it would be the height of extravagance to quote it as 
 an authority for the dependence of the state. At most it could only 
 be represented as reconcilable with such a dependence in one case. 
 2. The word forte seems manifestly to refer to the territorial sove- 
 reignty acquired by the Popes. If they have a general power in 
 secular affairs, it must be because it is necessary to their spiritual 
 authority; and in that case to call it fortuitous would be to ascribe 
 to it an adjunct destructive of its nature. 3. His former reasoning 
 on the same question seems to be decisive. The power of the Pope 
 over bishops, he says, is not founded merely in his superior nature, 
 but in their authority being altogether derived from his, as the pro- 
 consular power from the imperial. Therefore he infers that this 
 case is not analogous to the relation between the civil and spiritual 
 power, which are alike derived from God. 4. Had an Italian monk 
 2^M 
 
290 NOTES AND ILLUSTKATIONS. 
 
 of the twelfth century really intended to affirm the Pope's temporal 
 authority, he probably would have laid it down in terms more explicit 
 and more acceptable at Rome. Hesitation and ambiguity are here 
 indications of unbelief. Mere veneration for the apostolical see 
 might present a more precise determination against it, as it caused 
 the quotation which follows, respecting the primacy of Peter. (Aquin. 
 Opera, VJII. 434, 436.) 
 
 A mere abridgement of these very curious passages might excite 
 a suspicion that I had tinctured Aquinas unconsciously with a colour 
 of my own opinions. Extracts are very difficult, from the scho- 
 lastic method of stating objections and answers, as well as from the 
 mixture of theological authorities with philosophical reasons. 
 
 Note I, p. 44. 
 
 The debates in the first assembly of the Council of Trent (1546), 
 between the Dominicans who adhered to Aquinas, and the Fran- 
 ciscans who followed Scotus on original sin, justification, and grace, 
 are to be found in Fra Paolo, Istoria del Condlio Tridentino, lib. 
 ii. They show how much metaphysical controversy is hid in a theo- 
 logical form, how many disputes of our times are of no very ancient 
 origin, and how strongly the whole western church, through all the 
 divisions into which it has been separated, has manifested the same 
 unwillingness to avow the Augustinian system, and the same fear 
 of contradicting it. To his admirably clear and short statement of 
 these abstruse controversies, must be added that of his accomplished 
 opponent Cardinal Pallavicino (lib. vii. and viii.), who shows still 
 more evidently the strength of the Augustinian party, and the dispo- 
 sition of the Council to tolerate opinions almost Lutheran, if not 
 accompanied by revolt from the Church. A little more comprom- 
 ising disposition in the Reformers might have betrayed reason to a 
 prolonged thraldom. We must esteem Erasmus and Melanchthon, 
 but we should reserve our gratitude for Luther and Calvin. The 
 Scotists maintained their doctrine of merit of congruity, waived by 
 the Council, and soon after condemned by the Church of England; 
 by which they meant that they who had good dispositions always 
 received the divine grace, not indeed as a reward of which fhey 
 were worthy, but as aid which they were fit and willing to receive. 
 The Franciscans denied that belief was in the power of man. " I 
 Francescani lo negavano seguendo Scoto, qual vuole che siccome 
 dalle dimostrazioni per necessita nasce la scienza, cosi dalle per- 
 suasioni nasca la fede; e ch'essa e nelP intelletto, il quale e agente 
 naturale, e mosso naturalmente dall' oggetto. AUegavano I'esperi- 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 291 
 
 enza, che nessuno pud credere che vuole, ma quello che gli par 
 vero." (Fea Paolo, Istoria del Concilio Tridentino, I. 193. edit. 
 Helmstadt, 1763, 4to.) 
 
 Cardinal Sforza Pallaviciiio, a learned and very able Jesuit, was 
 appointed, according to his own account, in 1651, many years after 
 the death of Fra Paolo, to write a true history of the Council of 
 Trent, as a corrective of the misrepresentations of the celebrated 
 Venetian. Algernon Sidney, who knew this court historian at 
 Rome, and who may be believed when he speaks well of a Jesuit 
 and a Cardinal, commends the work in a letter to his father. Lord 
 Leicester. At the end of Pallavicino's work is a list of three hun- 
 dred and sixty errors in matters of fact, which the Papal party pre- 
 tend to have detected in the independent historian, whom they 
 charge with heresy or infidelity, and, in either case, with hypocrisy. 
 
 Note K, p. 49. 
 
 " Hoc tempore, Ferdinando et Isabella regnantibus, in academia 
 Salmantina jacta sunt robustioris theologise semina; ingentis enim 
 famas vir Franciscus de Victoria, non tam lucubrationibus editis, 
 quamvis hsec non magns molis at magni pretii sint, sed doctissimo- 
 rum theologorum educatione, quamdiu fuerit sacrae scientise honos 
 inter mortales, vehementer laudabitur." (Antonii Bibl. Hisp. 
 Nova,PrBe[. iv. Madrid, 1783.) " Si ad morum instructores res- 
 picias, Sotus iterum norainabitur." {Ibid.) 
 
 Note L, p. 60. 
 
 The title of the published account of the conference at Valladolid 
 is, " The controversy between the Bishop of Chiapa and Dr Sepul- 
 veda; in which the Doctor contended that the conquest of the Indies 
 from the natives was lawful, and the Bishop maintained that it was 
 unlawful, tyrannical, and unjust, in the presence of many theologians, 
 lawyers, and other learned men assembled by his Majesty." (An- 
 tonii Bibl. Hisp. Nova, torn. i. p. 192.) 
 
 Las Casas died in 1566, in the 92d year of his age; Sepulveda 
 died in 1571, in his 82d year. 
 
 Sepulveda was the scholar ofPomponatius, and a friend of Eras- 
 mus, Cardinal Pole, Aldus Manutius, &c. In his book De Justis 
 Belli Causis contra Indos suscepti, he contended only that the king 
 might justly " ad ditionem Indos, non herilem sed regiam et civilera, 
 lege belli redigere." (Antonius in voce Sepulveda: Bibl. Hisp. 
 N<ma, tom. i. p. 703,) 
 
292 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS, 
 
 But this smooth and specious language covered a poison. Had 
 it entirely prevailed, the cruel consequence of the defeat of the ad- 
 vocate of the oppressed would alone have remained; the limitations 
 and soflenings employed by their opponent to obtain success would 
 have been speedily disregarded and forgotten. 
 
 Covarruvias, another eminent Jurist, was sent by Philip II. to the 
 Council of Trent, at its renewal in 1560, and, with Cardinal Buon- 
 carapagni, drew up the decrees of reformation. Francis Sanchez, 
 the father of philosophical grammar, published his Minerva at Sala- 
 manca in 1587; so active was the cultivation of philosophy in Spain 
 in the age of Cervantes. 
 
 Note M, p. 79. 
 
 " Alors en repassant dans mon esprit les diverses opinions qui 
 m'avoient tour-a-tour entraine depuis ma naissance, jevis que bien 
 qu'aucune d'elles ne fut assez evidente pour produire immfediatement 
 la conviction, elles a voient divers degres de vraisemblance, et que I'as- 
 sentiment interieur s'y pretoit ou s'y refusoit a differentes mesures. 
 Sur cette premiere observation, comparent entr' elles toutes ces diffe- 
 rentes idees dans le silence des pr^juges, je trouvai que la pre- 
 miere, et la plus commune, etoit aussi la plus simple et la plus 
 raisonnable; et qu'il ne lui manquoit, pour reunir tous les suffrages, 
 que d'avoir ete propos^e la derniere. Imagines tous vos philoso- 
 phes anciens et modernes, ayant d'abord epuise leur bizarres sys- 
 temes de forces, de chances, de fatalite, de ndcessit6, d'atomes, de 
 monde anim^, de matiere vivante, de materialisme de toute espece; 
 et apres eux tous I'illustre Clarke, eclairant le monde, annon9ant 
 enfin I'Etre des ^tres, et le dispensateur des choses. Avec quelle 
 universelle admiration, avec quel applaudissement unanime n'eut 
 point 4t6 reju ce nouveau systeme si grand, si consolant, si sub- 
 lime, si propre a Clever I'ame, a donner une base a la vertu, et en 
 meme tems si frappant, si lumineux, si simple, et, ce me semble, 
 offrant moins de choses incomprehensibles k I'esprit huraain, qu'il 
 n'en trouve d'absurdes en tout autre systlme! Je me disois, les ob- 
 jections insolubles sont communes a tous, parceque I'esprit de 
 I'homme est trop borne pour les resoudre: elles ne prouvent done 
 rien contra aucun par pr<5ference, mais quelle difference entre les 
 preuves directes." — {Emile, tome III. livre iv. p. 26.) 
 
 Note, N, p. 102, 103. 
 " Est autem jus qusedam potentia moralis, et obligatio necessitas 
 
NOTES AND ILLrSTKATIONS. ' 293 
 
 moralis. Morakm autem intelligo, qua apud virum bonum sequi- 
 poUet natural!: Nam ut prseckre jurisconsultus Romanus ait, quas 
 contra bonos mores sunt, ea nee facere nos posse credendum est. 
 Vir bonus autem est, qui amat omnes, quantum ratio permittit. 
 Justitiam igitur, quse virtus est hujus aiiectus rectrix, quem <(></«»- 
 ^^umar Graeci vocant, comraodissime, ni fallor, definiemus caritatem 
 sapientis, hoc est, sequentem sapientise dictata. Itaque, quod Car- 
 neades dixisse fertur, justitiam esse summam stultitiam, quia alienis 
 utilitatibus consuli jubeat, neglectis propriis, ex ignorata ejus defi- 
 nitione natum est. Caritas est benevolentia universalis, et beneoo- 
 lentia amandi sive diligendi habitus. Amare autem sive diligere est 
 felicitate alterius delectari, vel, quod eodem redit, felicitatem alie- 
 nam adsciscere in suam. Unde diiBcilis nodus solvitur, magni etiam 
 in Theologia momenti, quomodo amor non mercenarius detur, qui 
 sit a spe metuque et omni utilitatis respectu separatus: scilicet, quo- 
 rum utilitas delectat, eorum felicitas nostram ingreditur, nam quK 
 delectant, per se expetuntur. Et uti pulchrorum contemplatio ipsa 
 jucunda est, pictaque tabula Raphaelis intelligentem afficit, etsi 
 nuUos census ferat^ adeo ut in oculis deliciisque feratur, quodam 
 simulacro amoris; ita quum res pulchra simul etiam felicitatis est 
 capax, transit afiectus in verum amorem. Superat autem divinus 
 amor alios amores, quos Deus cum maximo successu amare potest, 
 quando Deo simul et felicius nihil est, et nihil pulchrius felicitateque 
 dignius intelligi potest. Et quum idem sit potentiae sapientiseque 
 summee, felicitas ejus non tantum ingreditur nostram (si sapimus, 
 id est, ipsum amamus), sed et facit. Quia autem sapientia carita- 
 tem dirigere debet, hujus quoque definitione opus erit. Arbitror 
 autem notioni hominum optime satisfieri, si sapientiam nihil aliud 
 esse dicamus, quam ipsam scientiam felicitatis." (Leibnitii Opera, 
 tom. IV. pars iii. p. 294.) 
 
 " Et jus quidem merum sive strictum nascitur ex principio ser- 
 vandse pacis ; aequitas sive caritas ad majus aliquid contendit, ut, 
 dum quisque alteri prodest quantum potest, felicitatem suam augeat 
 in aliena ; et, ut verbo dtcam, jus strictum miseriam vitat, jus su- 
 perius ad felicitatem tendit, sed qualis in banc mortalitatem cadit. 
 Quod vero ipsam vitam, et quicquid banc vitam expetendam facit, 
 magno commodo alieno posthabere debeamus, ita ut maximos etiam 
 dolores in aliorum gratiam perferre oporteat ; magis pulchre prae- 
 cipitur a philosophis quam solide demonstratur. Nam decus et 
 gloriam, et animi sui virtute gaudentis sensum, ad quas sub hones- 
 tatis nomine provocant, cogitationis sive mentis bona esse constat, 
 magna quidem, sed non omnibus nee omni malorum acerbitati prae- 
 
294 NOTES AND ItLUSTHATIONS. 
 
 valitura, quando non omnes seque itnaginando afficiuntur ; praeser- 
 tim quos neque educatio liberalis, neque consuetudo vivendi ingenua, 
 vel vitcB sectaeve disciplina ad honoris KStimationem, vel anitni bona 
 sentienda assuefecit. Ut vero universal! denaonstratione conficiatur, 
 omne honestum esse utile, et omne turpe damnosuoi, assumenda est 
 immortalitas animee, et rector universi Deus. Ita fit, ut omnes in 
 civitate perfectissima vivere intelligamur, sub monarcha, qui nee ob 
 sapientiam falli, nee ob potentiam vitari potest ; idemque tam ama- 
 bilis est, ut felicitas sit tali domino servire. Huic igitur qui ani- 
 mam impendit, Christo docente, earn lueratur. Hujus potentia 
 providentiaque efficitur, ut omne jus in factum transeat, ut nemo 
 laedatur nisi a se ipso, ut nihil recte gestum sine praemio sit, nullum 
 peccatum sine poena." (Ibid. p. 296.) 
 
 Note O, p. 108. 
 
 The wrifer of this Discourse was led, on a former occasion, by a 
 generally prevalent notion, too nearly to confound the theological 
 doctrine of predestination with the philosophical opinion which sup- 
 posed the determination of the will to be, like other events, pro- 
 duced by adequate causes. (See a criticism on Mr Stewart's Dis- 
 sertation, Edinh. Review, XXXVI. 255.) More careful reflection 
 has corrected a confusion common to him with most writers on the 
 subject. What is called Suhlapsarian Calvinism, which was the 
 doctrine of the most eminent men, including Augustin and Calvin 
 himself, ascribed to God, and to man before the fall, what is called 
 free-will, which they even own still to exist in all the ordinary acts 
 of life, though it be lost with respect Jo religious morality. The 
 decree of election, on this scheme, arises from God's foreknowledge 
 that man was to fall, and that all men became thereby with justice 
 liable to eternal punishment. The election of some to salvation 
 was an act of divine goodness, and the pretention of the rest was 
 an exercise of holiness and justice. 
 
 This suhlapsarian predestination is evidently irreconcilable with 
 the doctrine of necessity, which considers free-will, or volitions not 
 caused by motives, as absolutely inconsistent with the definition of 
 an intelligent being, which is, that he acts from a motive, or, in 
 other words, with a purpose. 
 
 The supralapsarian scheme, which represents the fall itself as 
 fore-ordained, may indeed be built on necessitarian principles. But 
 on that scheme original sin seems wholly to lose that importance 
 which the former system gives it as a revolution in the state of the 
 world, requiring an interposition of divine power to remedy a part 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 2&5 
 
 of its fatal effects. It becomes no more than the first link in the 
 chain of predestined offences. Yet both Catholic and Protestant 
 predestinarians have borrowed the arguments and distinctions of 
 philosophical necessitarians. One of the propositions of Jansenius, 
 condemned by the bull of Innocent X. in 1653, is, that "to merit 
 or demerit in a state of lapsed nature, it is not necessary that there 
 should be in man a liberty free from necessity ; it is sufficient that 
 there be a liberty free from constraint." (Dupin, Histoire de 
 VE-glise en abrege, siecle xvii. livre iv. chap. viii. p. 193.) Lu- 
 ther, in his once famous treatise de Servo Arbitrio against Eras- 
 mus (printed in 1526), expresses himself as follows : " Hie est 
 fidei summus gradus, credere ilium esse clementem qui tam paucos 
 salvat, tam multos damnat ; credere justum qui sua voluntate nos 
 necessario damnabiles facit, ut videatur, ut Erasmus refert, delectari 
 cruciatibus miserorum, et odio potius quam amore dignus." My 
 copy of this stern and abusive book is not paged. In another pas- 
 sage, he states the distinction between co-action and necessity as 
 familiar a hundred and thirty years before it was proposed by Hob- 
 bes, or condemned in the Jansenists. "Necessario dico, non co- 
 acte, sed, ut illi dicunt, necessitate immutabilitatis, non coactionis ; 
 hoc est, homo, cum vocat Spiritus Dei, non quidem violentia, velut 
 raptus obtorto coUo, nolens facit malum, quemadmodum fur aut 
 latro nolens ad pcenam ducitur, sed sponte et libera voluntate facit." 
 He uses also the illustration of Hobbes, from the difference between 
 a streamybrced out of its course ssiA freely flowing in its channel. 
 
 P^TE P, p. 135. 
 
 Though some parts of the substance of the following letter have 
 already appeared in various forms, perhaps the account of Mr 
 Hume's illness, in the words of his friend and physician Dr CuUen, 
 will be acceptable to many readers. I owe it to the kindness of 
 Mrs Baillie, who had the goodness to copy it from the original, in 
 the collection of her late learned and excellent husband, Dr Baillie. 
 Some portion of what has been formerly published I do not think it 
 necessary to reprint. 
 
 From Dk Ctjilen to Dr Huntee. 
 
 " Mr Dear Friend, — I was favoured with yours by Mr Halket 
 on Sunday, and have answered some part of it by a gentleman whom 
 I was otherwise obliged to write by ; but as I was not certain how 
 soon that might come to your hand, I did not answer your post- 
 
296 NOTES AND ILLCSTKATIONS. 
 
 script ; in doing which, if I can oblige you, a part of the merit must 
 be that of the information being early, and I therefore give it you as 
 soon as I possibly could. You desire an account of Mr Hume's 
 last days, and I give it you with some pleasure ; for though I could 
 not look upon him in his illness without much concern, yet the 
 tranquillity and pleasantry which he constantly discovered did even 
 then give me satisfaction, and, now that the curtain is dropped, 
 allows me to indulge the less allayed reflection. He was truly an 
 example des grands hommes qui sont morts en plaisant. For many 
 weeks before his death he was very sensible of his gradual decay ; 
 and his answer to inquiries after his health was, several times, that 
 he was going as fast as his enemies could wish, and as easily as his 
 friends could desire. He was not, however, without a frequent re- 
 currence of pain and uneasiness; but he passed most part of the 
 day in his drawing-room, admitted the visits of his friends, and, with 
 his usual spirit, conversed with them upon literature, politics, or 
 whatever else was accidentally started. In conversation he seemed 
 to be perfectly at ease, and to the last abounded with that pleasan- 
 try, and those curious and entertaining anecdotes, which ever dis- 
 tinguished him. This, however, I always considered rather as an 
 effort to be agreeable ; and he at length acknowledged that it be- 
 came too much for his strength. For a few days before his death, 
 he became more averse to receive visits ; speaking became more 
 and more difficult for him, and for twelve hours before his death his 
 speech failed altogether. His senses and judgment did not fail till 
 the last hour of his life. He constantly discovered a strong sensi- 
 bility to the attention and care of his friends ; and, amidst great 
 uneasiness and languor, never betrayed any peevishness or impa- 
 tience. This is a general account of his last days ; but a particular 
 fact or two may perhaps convey to you a still better idea of them. 
 ******* 
 
 " About a fortnight before his death, he added a codicil to his 
 will, in which he fully discovered his attention to his friends, as well 
 as his own pleasantry. What little wine he himself drank was 
 generally port, a wine for which his friend the poet [John Homel 
 had ever declared the strongest aversion. David bequeaths to his 
 friend John one bottle of port; and, upon condition of his drinking 
 this even at two down-sittings, bestows upon him twelve dozen of 
 his best claret. He pleasantly adds, that this subject of wine was 
 the only one upon which they had ever differed. In the codicil 
 there are several other strokes of raillery and pleasantry, highly 
 expressive of the cheerfulness which he then enjoyed. He even 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTEATIONS. 297 
 
 turned his attention to some of the simple amusements with which 
 he had been formerly pleased. In the neighbourhood of his bro- 
 ther's house in Berwickshire is a brook, by which the access in time 
 of floods is frequently interrupted. Mr Hume bequeaths L.lOO for 
 building a bridge over this brook, but upon the express condition 
 that none of the stones for that purpose shall be taken from a quarry 
 in the neighbourhood, which forms part of a romantic scene in 
 which, in his earlier days, Mr Hume took particular delight. Other- 
 wise the money to go to the poor of the parish. 
 
 " These are a few particulars which may perhaps appear trifling; 
 but to me no particulars seem trifling that relate to so great a man. 
 It is perhaps from trifles that we can best distinguish the tranquillity 
 and cheerfulness of the philosopher, at a time when the most part ol" 
 mankind are under disquiet, anxiety, and sometimes even horror.... 
 I had gone so far Vhen I was called to the country; and I have 
 returned only so long before the post as to say, that I am most 
 affectionately yours, 
 
 " William Cullen. 
 
 " Edinburgh, nth September 1176." 
 
 Note Q, p. 137. 
 
 Pyrrho was charged with carrying his scepticism s6 far as not io 
 avoid a carriage if it was driven against him. ^nesidemus, the 
 most famous of ancient sceptics, With great probability vindicates 
 the more ancient doubter from such lunacy, of which indeed his 
 having lived to the age of ninety seems suiScient to acquit him. 
 
 Aiveriitiiftiis ft tpDO"/ ^iMroifelv /iit avrn nara Toy t»c es'ii;(;»c Myov, /xii fiitroi 
 },« asCgoojaTOis iKarra. vgnrfin. (DiOG. LaEET. lib. ix. sect. 62.) 
 
 Brief and imperfect as our accounts of ancient scepticism are, it 
 does appear that their reasoning on the subject of causation had 
 some resemblance to that of Mr Hume. Avcti^ouc-i ti to tarmv aSi- to 
 
 curtov TMV !rgos t/ urti, irjoj j/ag va> afnurmrai nrrr to. fs tt^os ri trnvoii'Ttti 
 juovoy v^a^^u Js ow tta.i to tt*T/ov ouv iTrtvootro av /jiovov. (Ibid, ix. sect. 
 97.) It is perhaps impossible to translate the important technical 
 expression t« a-go; t*. It comprehends two or more things as re- 
 lated to each other — both the relative and correlative taken together 
 as such. Fire considered as having the power of burning wood is 
 TO irgos T/. The words of Laertius may therefore be nearly rendered 
 into the language of modern philosophy as follows: " Causation they 
 take away thus. A cause is so only in relation to an effect. What 
 2N 
 
298 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 is relative is only conceived, but does not exist. Therefore cause is 
 a mere conception." 
 
 The first attempt to prove the necessity of belief in a divine reve- 
 lation, by demonstrating that natural reason leads to universal scep- 
 ticism, was made by Algazel, a professor at Bagdad, in the begin- 
 ning of the twelfth century of our era; whose work entitled The 
 Destruction of the Philosopher is known to us only by the answer 
 of Averroes, called Destruction of the Destruction. He denied a 
 necessary connexion between cause and effect; for of two separate 
 things, the affirmation of the existence of one does not necessarily 
 contain the affirmation of the existence of the other; and the same 
 may be said of denial. It is curious enough that this argument was 
 more especially pointed against those Arabian philosophers who, 
 from the necessary connexion of causes and effects, reasoned against 
 the possibility of miracles; thus anticipating one doctrine of Mr 
 Hume, to impugn another. (Tenneman, Gesch. der Phil. VIII. 
 387.) 
 
 The same attempt was made by the learned but unphilosophical 
 Huet, bishop of Awanches (^Qumstiones Alnetarue, Caen, 1690, and 
 Traits de la Foibtesse de I'Esprit Humain, Amsterdam, 1723). A 
 similar motive urged Berkeley to his attack on Fluxions. The 
 attempt of Huet has been lately renewed by the Abbe Lamennais, 
 in his treatise on Religious Indifference; a fine writer, whose ap- 
 parent reasonings amount to little more than well-varied assertions, 
 and well-disguised assumptions of the points to be proved. 
 
 To build religion upon scepticism is the most extravagant of all 
 attempts; for it destroys the proofs of a divine mission, and leaves 
 no natural means of distinguishing between revelation and imposture. 
 The Abb6 Lamennais represents authority as the sole ground of 
 belief. Why? If any reason can be given, the proposition must be 
 false; if none, it is obviously a mere groundless assertion. 
 
 Note R, p. 144. 
 
 Casanova, a Venetian doomed to solitary imprisonment in the 
 dungeons at Venice in 1765, thus speaks of the only books which 
 for a time he was allowed to read. The title of the first was La 
 Cite Mystique de Smur Marie de Jesus, appellee d'Agrada, 
 
 "J'ylustout ce que peut enfanter I'imagination exalt^e d'une 
 vierge Espagnole extravagamment devote, cloitree, m^lancholique, 
 ayant des directeurs de conscience, ignorans, faux, et devots. 
 Amoureuse et amie ^res intime de la Sainte Vierge, elle avait requ 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 299 
 
 ordre de Dieu meme d'^crire la vie de sa divine mere. Lea in- 
 structions n6cessaires lui avaient ^te fournies par le Sainl Esprit. 
 EUe commen^oit la vie de Marie, non pas du jour de sa naissance, 
 mais du tnoraent de son immaculee conception dans le sein de sa 
 mere Anne. Apres avoir narr4 en detail tout ce que sa divine 
 heroine fit les neuf mois qu'elle a passe dans le sein maternel, elle 
 nous apprend qu'i I'age de trois ans elle balayoit la maison, aidee 
 par neuf cents domestiques, tous anges, commandes par leur propre 
 Prince Michel. Ce qui frappe dans ce livre est I'assurance que 
 tout est dit de bonne foi. Ce sont les visions d'un esprit sublime, 
 qui, sans aucune ombre d'orgueil, ivre de Dieu, croit ne reveler que 
 ce que I'Bsprit Saint lui inspire." {Memoires de Casanova, IV. 
 343. Leipsic, 1827.) 
 
 A week's confinement to this volume produced such an eifect on 
 the author, v^ho, though an unbeliever and a debauchee, was then 
 enfeebled by melancholy, bad air, and bad food, that bis sleep was 
 haunted, and his waking hours disturbed by its horrible visions. 
 Many years after, passing through Agrada in Old Castile, he 
 charmed the old priest of that village by speaking of the biographer 
 of the virgin. The priest showed him all the spots which were 
 consecrated by her presence, and bitterly lamented that the Court 
 of Rome had refused to canonize her. It is the natural reflection 
 of the writer, that the book was well qualified to turn a solitary 
 prisoner mad, or to make a man at large an atheist. It ought not 
 to be forgotten, that the inquisitors of state at Venice, who pro- 
 scribed this book, were probably of the latter persuasion. It is a 
 striking instance of the infatuation of those who, in their eagerness 
 to rivet the bigotry of the ignorant, use means which infalhbly tend 
 to spread utter unbelief among the educated. The book is a dis- 
 gusting, but in its general outline seemingly faithful, picture of the 
 dissolute manners spread over the Continent of Europe in the mid- 
 dle of the eighteenth century. 
 
 Note S, p. 148. 
 
 " The Treatise on the Law of War and Peace, the Essay on 
 Human Understanding, the Spirit of Laws, and the Inquiry into the 
 Causes of the Wealth of Nations, are the works which have most 
 directly influenced the general opinion of Europe during the two 
 last centuries. They are also the most conspicuous landmarks in 
 the progress of the sciences to which they relate. It is remarkable 
 that the defects of all these great works are very similar. The 
 leading notions of none of them can, in the strictest sense, be said 
 
300 NOTES AND ILLVSTKATIONS. 
 
 to be original, though Locke and Smith in that respect surpass their 
 illustrious rivals. All of them employ great care in ascertaining 
 those laws which are immediately deduced from experience, or 
 directly applicable to practice; but apply metaphysical and abstract 
 principles with considerable negligence. None pursues the order 
 of science, beginning with first elements, and advancing to more 
 and more complicated conclusions; though Locke is perhaps less 
 defective in method than the rest. All admit digressions which, 
 though often intrinsically excellent, distract attention, and break the 
 chain of thought. None of them is happy in the choice, or constant 
 in the use, of technical terms; and in none do we find much of that 
 . rigorous precision which is the first beauty of philosophical language. 
 Grotius and Montesquieu were imitators of Tacitus, — the first with 
 more gravity, the second with more vivacity; but both were tempted 
 to forsake the simple diction of science, in pursuit of the poignant 
 brevity which that great historian has carried to a vicious excess. 
 Locke and Smith chose an easy, clear, and free, but somewhat 
 loose and verbose style-^-more concise in Locke— more elegant in 
 Smith, — in both exempt from pedantry, but not void of ambiguity 
 and repetition. Perhaps all these apparent defects contributed ia 
 some degree to the specific usefulness of these great works; and, by 
 rendering their contents more accessible and acceptable to the 
 majority of readers, have more completely blended their principles 
 with the common opinions of ma.n\iind."'-~Edinburgh Jteview, Vol. 
 XXXVL p. 244. 
 
 Note T, p. 160. 
 
 owsg a-v/^is-tivu iiri rav vou. (Aeist. de Anima., lib. iii. cap. v. Opera, 
 torn. II. p. 50. Paris, 1639.) 
 
 A little before, in the same treatise, appears a great part of the 
 substance of the famous maxim, iVi!7 est in intellectu quod nonprius 
 fuit in Sensu. ' HJs 'fnvrua-iu. kivho-is tti S'OKU uvea, kc^i ouk avsu a.KrSnu'im 
 ylynti-Stu. (^Ibid. 47.) 
 
 In the tract on Memory and Reminiscence we find his enumeration 
 of the principles of association. Aia. »«< to t<ji6|»5 6»gsui!/«sv, m^o-ouvrfc 
 a^ro Tov vvv » ct^xou rtyoSficxi tt<j>' o^otov n iVAV'Tiov, » vov avviyyvs- (Ibid, 
 II. 86.) If the latter word be .applied to time as well as space, and 
 considered as comprehending causation, the enumeration will coin- 
 cide with that of Hume. The term flagsuiB is as significant as if it 
 had been chosen by Hobbes. But it is to be observed, that these 
 principles are applied only to explain memory. 
 
 Something has been said on the subject, and something on the 
 
NOTES AKD ILLUSTRATIONS. 301 
 
 present writer, by Mr Coleridge, in his unfortunately unfinished work 
 called Biographia Literaria, chap, v., which seems to justify, if 
 not to require, a few remarks. That learned gentleman seems to 
 have been guilty of an oversight in quoting as a distinct work the 
 Parva Natwalia, which is the collective name given by the scholas- 
 tic translators to those treatises of Aristotle which form the second 
 volume of Duval's edition of his works, published at Paris in 1639. 
 I have already acknowledged the striking resemblance of Mr Hume's 
 principles of association to those of Ai-istotle. In answer, however, 
 to a remark of Mr Coleridge, I must add, that the manuscript of a 
 part of Aquinas which I bought many years ago (on the faith of a 
 bookseller's catalogue) as being written by Mr Hume, was not a 
 copy of the Commentary on the Parva Naturalia, but of Aquinas's 
 own Secunda Secundts ; and that, on examination, it proves not to 
 be the handwriting of Mr Hume, and to contain nothing written by 
 him. It is certain that, in the passages immediately preceding the 
 quotation, Aristotle explains recollection as depending on a general 
 law,— that the idea of an object will remind us of the objects which 
 immediately preceded or followed when originally perceived. But 
 what Mr Coleridge has not told us is, that the Stagyrite confines the 
 application of this law exclusively to the phenomena of recollection 
 alone, without any glimpse of a more general operation extending 
 to allconnexions of thought and feeling, — a wonderful proof, indeed, 
 even so limited, of the sagacity of the great philosopher, but which 
 for many ages continued barren of further consequences. The 
 illustrations of Aquinas throw light on the original doctrine, and 
 show that it was unenlarged in his time. " When we recollect 
 Socrates, the thought of Plato occurs ' as like him.' When we 
 remember Hector, the thought of Achilles occurs ' as contrary.' 
 The idea of a father is followed by that of a son ' as near.' " ( Aqtjin. 
 Opera, I. pars ii. p. 62, et seq.) Those of Ludovicus Vives, as 
 quoted by Mr Coleridge, extend no farther. 
 
 But if Mr Coleridge will compare the parts of Hobbes on Human 
 Nature which relate to this subject, with those which explain general 
 terms, he will perceive that the philosopher of Malmesbury builds 
 on these two foundations a general theory of the human understand- 
 ing, of which reasoning is only a particular case. In consequence 
 of the assertion of Mr Coleridge, that Hobbes was anticipated by 
 Descartes in his excellent and interesting discourse on Method, I 
 have twice reperused that work in quest of this remarkable antici- 
 pation, though, as I thought, well acquainted by my old studies with 
 the writings of that great philosopher. My labour has, however. 
 
302 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 been vain. I have discovered no trace of that or of any similar 
 speculation. My edition is in Latin by Elzevir, at Amsterdam, in 
 1650, the year of Descartes's death. I am obliged, therefore, to 
 conjecture that Mr Coleridge, having mislaid his references, has, 
 by mistake, quoted the discourse on Method^ instead of another 
 v/ork; which would affect his inference from the priority of Descartes 
 to Hobbes. It is not to be denied, that the opinion of Aristotle, 
 repeated by so many commentators, may have found its way into the 
 mind of Hobbes, and also of Hume; though neither might be aware 
 of its source, or even conscious that it was not originally his own. 
 Yet the very narrow view of association by Locke, his apparently 
 treating it as a novelty, and the silence of common books respecting 
 it, afford a presumption that the Peripatetic doctrine was so little 
 known, that it might have escaped the notice of these philosophers, 
 one of whom boasted that he was unread, and the other is not liable 
 to the suspicion of unacknowledged borrowing. 
 
 To Mr Coleridge, who distrusts his own power of building a bridge 
 by which his ideas may pass into a mind so differently trained as 
 mine, I venture to suggest, with that sense of his genius which no 
 circumstance has hindered me from seizing every fit occasion to 
 manifest, that more of my early years were employed in contem- 
 plations of an abstract nature, than of those of the majority of his 
 readers; that there are not, even now, many of them less likely to 
 be repelled from doctrines by singularity or uncouthness; more will- 
 ing to allow that every system has caught an advantageous glimpse 
 of some side or corner of the truth; more desirous of exhibiting this 
 dispersion of the fragments of wisdom by attempts to translate the 
 doctrine of one school into the language of another; — who, when 
 he cannot discover a reason for an opinion, considers it as important 
 to discover the causes of its adoption by the philosopher; believing, 
 in the most unfavourable cases, that one of the most arduous and 
 useful researches of mental philosophy is to explore the subtile 
 illusions which enable great minds to satisfy themselves by mere 
 words, before they deceive others by payment in the same counterfeit 
 coin. These habits, together with the natural influence of my age 
 and avocations, lead me to suspect that in speculative philosophy I 
 am nearer to indifference than to an exclusive spirit. I hope that 
 it can neither be thought presumptuous nor offensive in me to doubt, 
 whether the circumstance of its being found difficult to convey a 
 metaphysical doctrine to a person who, at one part of his life, 
 made such studies his chief pursuit, may not imply either error in 
 the opinion, or defect in the mode of communication. 
 
NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 303 
 
 Note V, p. 195. 
 
 A very late writer, who seems to speak for Mr Benthatn with 
 authority, tells us that " the first time the phrase of ' the principle 
 of utility' was brought decidedly into notice, was in the ' Essays, by 
 David Hume,' published about the year 1742. In that work it is 
 mentioned as the name of a principle which might be made the foun- 
 dation of a system of morals, in opposition to a system then in vogue, 
 which was founded on what was called the ' moral sense.' The 
 ideas, however, there attached to it, are vague, and defective in 
 practical application." (Westminster Review, No. xxi.) If these 
 few sentences were scrutinized with the severity and minuteness of 
 Bentham's Fragment on Government, they would be found to con- 
 tain almost as many misremembrances as assertions. Utility is not 
 " mentioned," but fully discussed, in Mr Hume's Discourse. It is 
 seldom spoken of by " name." Instead of charging it with " vague- 
 ness," it would be more just to admire the precision which it com- 
 bines with beauty. Instead of being " defective in practical applica- 
 tion," perhaps the desire of rendering it popular has crowded it with 
 examples and illustrations taken from life. To the assertion that 
 "it was opposed to the moral sense," no reply can be needful but 
 the following words extracted from the Discourse itself: " I am apt 
 to suspect that reason and sentiment concur in almost all moral de- 
 terminations and conclusions. TAe_yJnaZ senience which pronounces 
 characters and actions amiable or odious, probably depends on some 
 internal sense or feeling, which nature has made universal in the 
 whole species." {An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, 
 sect, i.) The phrase " made universal," which is here used instead 
 of the more obvious and common word " implanted," shows the 
 anxious and perfect precision of language, by which a philosopher 
 avoids the needless decision of a controversy not at the moment be- 
 fore him. 
 
 Note W, p. 198. 
 
 A writer of consummate ability, who has failed in little but the res- 
 pect due to the abilities and character of his opponents, has given 
 too much countenance to the abuse and confusion of language ex- 
 emplified in the well-known verse of Pope, 
 
 Modes of self-love the Passions we may call. 
 
 " We know," says he, " no universal proposition respecting human 
 
304 MOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 nature which is true but one — that men always act from self-inter- 
 est." (Edinburgh Review, March 1829.) It is manifest from 
 the sequel, that the writer is not the dupe of the confusion; but 
 many of liis readers may be so. If, indeed, the word self-interest 
 could with propriety be used for the gratification of every prevalent 
 desire, he has clearly shown that this change in the signification of 
 terms would be of no advantage to the doctrine which he contro- 
 verts. It would make as many sorts of self-interest as there are 
 appetites, and it is irreconcilably at variance with the system of as- 
 sociation embraced by Mr Mill. To the word self-love Hartley 
 properly assigns two significations: I. Gross self-love, which con- 
 sists in the pursuit of the greatest pleasures, from all those desires 
 which look to individual gratification ; or, 2. refined self-love, which 
 seeks the greatest pleasure which can arise from all the desires of 
 human nature, — the latter of which is an invaluable, though inferior 
 principle. The admirable writer whose language has occasioned 
 this illustration, who at an early age has mastered every species of 
 composition, will doubtless hold fast to simplicity, which survives 
 all the fashions of deviation from it, and which a man of a genius so 
 fertile has few temptations to forsake. 
 
 THE END.