MORAL PHILOSOPHY.^[1. This Treatise seems to have been compiled for the second edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; and, with the addition of a short preliminary view of the History of Ethics, which it received in the third, it has been reprinted in all the subsequent editions. To have republished this historical portion, after the extensive dissertation on the same subject, prefixed to the present edition, would have been worse than useless; but, though that dissertation touches upon almost all the principal doctrines of Ethics, it seemed advisable to reprint the rest; because a sample, at least, of Systematic Ethics, was evidently required in a work of this kind, and the present treatise may be useful in that view, though not in all respects what we could have wished to offer to our readers. ] Moral Philosophy is the science of manners or duty, which it traces from man’s nature and condition, and shows to terminate in his happiness; in other words, it is the knowledge of our duty and felicity or the art of being virtuous and happy.

It is denominated an art, as it contains a system of rules for becoming virtuous and happy; and whoever practises these rules, attains an habitual power or facility of becoming virtuous and happy. It is likewise called a science, as it deduces those rules from the principles and connections of our nature, and proves that the observance of them is productive of our happiness. It is an art and a science of the highest dignity, importance, and use. Its object is man’s duty, or his conduct in the several moral capacities and connections which he sustains. Its office is to direct our conduct; to show whence our obligations arise, and where they terminate. Its use, or end, is the attainment of happiness; and the means it employs are rules for the right conduct of our moral powers.

Moral Philosophy has this in common with Natural Philosophy, that it appeals to nature or fact; it depends on observation, and it builds its reasonings on plain uncontrovertible experiments, or upon the fullest induction of particulars of which the subject will admit. We must observe, in both these sciences, how nature is affected, and what her conduct is in such and such circumstances. In other words, we must collect the appearances of nature in any given instance; trace them to some general principles or laws of operation; and then apply these principles or laws to the explanation of other phenomena.

The history of this branch of Philosophy having been largely discussed in the Preliminary Dissertations, we shall here proceed to consider it in a systematic form.

PART I.

CHAP. I.—OF MAN AND HIS CONNECTIONS.

Man is born a weak, helpless, delicate creature, unprovided with food, clothing, and whatever else is necessary for subsistence or defence. And yet, exposed as the infant is to numberless wants and dangers, he is utterly incapable of supplying the one, or securing himself against the other. But, though thus feeble and exposed, he finds immediate and sure resources in the affection and care of his parents, who refuse no labours, and forego no dangers, to nurse and rear up the tender babe. By these powerful instincts, as by some mighty chain, does nature link the parent to the child, and form the strongest moral connection on his part, before the child has the least apprehension of its nature. Hunger and thirst, with all the sensations which accompany or are connected with them, explain themselves by a language strongly expressive, and irresistibly moving. As the several senses furnish notices and informations of surrounding objects, we may perceive in the young spectator early signs of a growing wonder and admiration. Bright objects and striking sounds are beheld -and heard with a sort of commotion and surprise. But, without resting on any, he eagerly passes on from object to object, still pleased with whatever is newest. Thus the love of novelty is formed, and the passion of wonder kept awake. By degrees he becomes acquainted with the most familiar objects, his parents, his brethren, and those of the family who are most conversant with him. He contracts a fondness for them, is uneasy when they are gone, and charmed to see them again. These feelings become the foundation of a moral attachment on his side; and by this reciprocal sympathy he forms the domestic alliance with his parents, brethren, and other members of the family. Hence he becomes interested in their concerns, and feels joy or grief, hope or fear, on their account, as well as his own. As his affections now point beyond himself to others, he is denominated a good or ill creature, as he stands well or ill affected towards them. These, then, are the first links of the moral chain; the early rudiments, or outlines, of his character, and his first rude essays towards agency, freedom, manhood.

When he begins to make excursions from the nursery, and extends his acquaintance abroad, he forms a little circle of companions, engages with them in play, or in quest of adventures; and leads, or is led by them, as his genius is more or less aspiring. Although this is properly the season in which appetite and passion have the ascendant, yet his imagination and intellectual powers open apace; and as the various images of things pass before the mental eye, he forms variety of tastes, relishes some things, and dislikes others, as his parents and companions, whilst a thousand other circumstances lead him to combine agreeable or disagreeable sets of ideas, or represent to him objects in alluring or odious lights.

As his views are enlarged, his active and social powers expand themselves in proportion; the love of action, of imitation, and of praise; emulation, curiosity, docility, a passion for command, and fondness of change. His passions are quick, variable, and pliant to every impression; his attachments and disgusts quickly succeed each other. He compares things, distinguishes actions, judges of characters, and loves or hates them, as they appear well or ill affected to himself, or to those he holds dear. Meanwhile he soon grows sensible of the consequences of his own actions, as they attract applause, or bring contempt; he triumphs in the former, and is ashamed of the latter, wants to hide them, and blushes when they are discovered. By means of these powers he becomes a fit subject of culture, the moral tie is drawn closer, he feels that he is accountable for his conduct to others as well as to himself, and thus is gradually ripening for society and action.

As man advances from childhood to youth, his passions as well as perceptions take a more extensive range. New senses of pleasure invite him to new pursuits; he grows sensible to the attractions of beauty, feels a peculiar sympathy with the sex, and forms a more tender kind of attachment than he has yet experienced. This becomes the cement of a new moral relation, and gives a softer turn to his [7:15:457]passions and behaviour. In this turbulent period he enters more deeply into a relish of friendship, company, exercises, and diversions; the love of truth, of imitation, and of design, grows upon him; and as his connections spread amongst his neighbours, fellow-citizens, and countrymen, his thirst of praise, emulation, and social affections grows more intense and active. Meanwhile, it is impossible for him to have lived thus long without having become sensible of those more august impressions of order, wisdom, and goodness, which are stamped on the visible creation, and of those strong suggestions within himself of a parent mind, the source of all intelligence and beauty; an object as well as source of that activity and those aspirations which sometimes rouse his inmost frame, and carry him out of himself to an almighty and all-governing power. Hence arise those sentiments of reverence, and those affections of gratitude, resignation, and love, which link the soul with the Author of Nature, and form that most sublime and godlike of all connections.

Man having now reached his prime, either new passions succeed, or the former set are wound up to a higher pitch. For, growing more sensible of his connections with the public, and that particular community to which he more immediately belongs, and taking withal a larger prospect of human life, and its various wants and enjoyments, he forms more intimate friendships, grasps at power, courts honour, lays down cooler plans of interest, and becomes more attentive to the concerns of society; he enters into family connections, and indulges those charities which arise therefrom. The reigning passions of this period powerfully prompt him to provide for the decays of life; whilst compassion and gratitude exert their influence in urging the man, now in full vigour, to requite the affection and care of his parents, by supplying their wants and alleviating their infirmities.

At length human life verges downwards, and old age creeps on apace, with its anxiety, love of ease, interestedness, fearfulness, foresight, and love of offspring. The experience of the aged is formed to direct, and their coolness to temper, the heat of youth; the former teaches them to look back on past follies, and the latter to look forward into the consequences of things, and provide against the worst. Thus every age has its peculiar genius and set of passions corresponding to that period, and most conducive to the prosperity of the rest; and thus are the wants of one period supplied by the capacities of another, and the weaknesses of one age tally with the passions of another.

Besides these, there are other passions and affections of a less ambulatory nature, not peculiar to one period, but belonging to every age, and acting more or less in every breast throughout life. Such are self-love, benevolence, love of life, honour, shame, hope, fear, desire, aversion, joy, sorrow, anger, and the like. The two first are affections of a cooler strain; one pointing to the good of the individual, the other to that of the species: joy and sorrow, hope and fear, seem to be only modifications, or different exertions, of the same original affections of love and hatred, desire and aversion, arising from the different circumstances or position of the object desired or abhorred, as it is present or absent. From these likewise arise other secondary or occasional passions, which, as far as regards their existence and several degrees, depend upon the original affections being gratified or disappointed; as anger, complacence, confidence, jealousy, love, hatred, dejection, exultation, contentment, disgust, which do not form leading passions, but rather hold of them.

By these simple but powerful springs, whether periodical or fixed, the life of man, weak and indigent as he is, is preserved and secured, and the creature is prompted to a constant round of action, even to supply his own numerous and ever-returning wants, and to guard against the various dangers and evils to which he is obnoxious. By these links men are connected with each other, formed into families, drawn into particular communities, and all united as if by a common league into one system or body, the members of which feel and sympathise one with another. By this admirable adjustment of the constitution of man to his actual state, and the gradual evolution of his powers, order is maintained, society upheld, and human life filled with that variety of passion and action which at once enlivens and diversifies it.

This is a short sketch of the principal movements of the human mind. Yet these movements are not the whole of man; they impel to action, but do not direct it; they need a regulator to guide their motions, to measure and apply their forces; and accordingly they have one which naturally superintends and directs their action. We are conscious of a principle within us, which examines, and compares, and weighs things; notes the differences, observes the forces, and foresees the consequences, of affections and actions. By this power we look back on past times, and forward into futurity; gather experiences; estimate the real aryl comparative value of objects; layout schemes; contrive means to execute them; and settle the whole order and economy of life. This power we commonly distinguish by the name of reason or reflection, the business of which is not to suggest any original notices or sensations, but to canvass, range, and make deductions from them.

We are also intimately conscious of a principle within us, which approves of certain sentiments, passions, and actions,, and disapproves of their contraries. In consequence of the decisions of this inward judge, we denominate some actions and principles of conduct right, honest, good; and others wrong, dishonest, evil. The former of these excite our esteem, moral complacence, and affection, immediately and originally of themselves, without regard to their consequences, and whether they affect our interest or not; and the latter do as naturally and necessarily call forth our contempt, scorn, and aversion. That power by which we perceive this difference in affections and actions, and feel a consequent relish or dislike, is commonly called conscience, or the moral sense.

That there is such a power as this in the mind of every man of sound understanding, is a fact which cannot be controverted; but whether it be an instinctive power, or the result of early and deep-rooted associations, has been long and ably debated. The question is of importance in the science of human nature, as well as in ascertaining the standard of practical virtue; but to us it appears that the contending parties have carried their respective opinions to dangerous extremes.

When it is affirmed, as it sometimes has been, that reason has nothing to do in ethical science, but that in every possible situation our duty is pointed out and the performance of it enforced by mere sentiment, the consequence seems to be, that virtue and vice are nothing permanent in themselves, but change their nature according to local circumstances. Certain it is, that sentiment has in similar situations approved of very different practices in different ages and different nations. At present this sentiment in Europe approves of the universal practice of justice, and of parents protecting their children, whether well or ill formed, whether strong or weak; but in Sparta we know that theft, if dexterously practised, was approved, and not unfrequently rewarded; and that the exposition of lame and deformed children was not only permitted, but abso lutely enjoined. There is nothing which our conscience or moral sense condemns with greater severity, or views as a crime of a deeper dye, than the unkind treatment by children of their aged parents; yet there are savages, amongst whom instincts of all kinds ought to prevail in greater purity than in civilized nations, whose moral sense permits them to put their aged and decrepid parents to [7:15:458] death. If this sense be instinctive, and the sole judge of right and wrong, how comes it to decide so differently on the same line of conduct in different ages and in distant countries? The instinct of brutes, in similar circumstances, prompts uniformly to-similar actions in every age and in every region where the species is found; and the external senses of man afford in all nations the same unvaried evidence concerning their respective objects. To these observations we may add, that instincts must be calculated for the state of nature, whatever that state may be, and therefore cannot be supposed capable of directing our steps throughout all the labyrinths of polished society, in which duties are to be performed which in a state of nature would never have been thought of.

But although for these reasons it is apparent that mere sentiment, whether called conscience or the moral sense, would alone be a very unsafe guide to virtue in every individual case that may occur, we think that those who resolve all such sentiment into habit and the effect of education, without giving any part of it to nature, advance an opinion which is equally ill founded and not less dangerous. There are, indeed, men who affirm that all benevolence is hypocrisy, friendship a cheat, public spirit a farce, fidelity a snare to procure trust and confidence; and that whilst all of us at bottom pursue only our private interest, we wear those fair disguises in order to put those off their guard with whom we have to deal, and to expose them the more to our wiles and machinations. Others, again, too virtuous to accuse themselves and the rest of mankind of direct knavery, yet insist, that whatever affection one may feel, or imagine he feels, for others, no passion is or can be disinterested; that the most generous friendship, however sincere, is only a modification of self-love; and that, even unknown to ourselves, we seek our own gratification, whilst we appear the most deeply engaged in schemes for the liberty and the happiness of mankind.

Surely the mildest of these representations is an exaggerated picture of the selfishness of man. Self-love is indeed a very powerful as well as an essential principle in human nature; but that we have likewise an instinctive principle of benevolence, which, without any particular regard to our own interest, makes us feel pleasure in the happiness of other men, is a fact which we think admits of very complete proof. For, as Mr Hume well argues, “when a man grieves for a friend who could be of no service to him, but, on the contrary, stood in need of his constant patronage and protection, how is it possible to suppose that such passionate tenderness arises from self-interest, which has no foundation in nature? What interest,”asks the same profound thinker, “can a fond mother have in view, who loses her health by her assiduous attendance on her sick child, and afterwards languishes and dies of grief when freed by its death from the slavery of attendance? Have we no. satisfaction,” continues he, “in one man’s company above another’s, and no desire of the welfare of our friend, even though absence or death should prevent us from all participation in it? Or what is it commonly that gives us any participation in it, even while alive and present, but our affection and regard to him?” Nor is it to contemporaries and individuals alone, that, independently of all interest, we feel a benevolent attachment. We constantly bestow praise upon actions calculated to promote the good of mankind, though performed in ages very distant and in countries the most remote; and he who was the author of such actions is the object of our esteem and affection. There is not perhaps a man alive, however selfish in his disposition, who does not applaud the sentiment of that emperor who, recollecting at supper that he had done nothing in that day for any one, exclaimed with regret, that the day had been lost; yet the utmost subtilty of imagination can discover no appearance of interest that we can have in the genero sity of Titus, or find any connection of our present happiness with a character removed so far from us both in time and in place. But, as Mr Hume justly observes, if we even feign a character consisting of all the most generous and beneficent qualities, and give instances in which these display themselves, after an eminent and most extraordinary manner, for the good of mankind, we shall instantly engage the esteem and approbation of all our audience, who will never so much as inquire in what age or country the accomplished person lived.

These are facts which cannot be controverted; and they are wholly unaccountable, if there be not in human nature an instinctive sentimentof benevolence or sympathy which feels a disinterested pleasure in the happiness of mankind. But an end in which we feel such pleasure we are naturally prompted to pursue; and therefore the same sentiment impels every man, with greater or less force, to promote the happiness of other men, which by means of it becomes in reality his own good, and is afterwards pursued from the combined motives of benevolence and self-enjoyment For in obeying this sentiment we all feel an inward complacency, self-approbation, or consciousness of worth or merit; and in disobeying it, which cannot be done but with reluctance, we feel remorse, or a consciousness of unworthiness or demerit. It appears, however, from history, that the sentiment, as it is instinctive, points only to the good of mankind, without informing us how that good is to be promoted. The means proper for this purpose must be discovered by reason; and when they are brought into view, the sentiment called conscience or moral sense instantly shows us that it is our duty to pursue them.

Hence we see how different lines of conduct may in similar circumstances be approved of as virtuous in different nations. When the Spartan exposed his sickly and deformed child, and when the savage put his aged parents to death, neither the one nor the other erred from want of sentiment, or from having sentiments originally different from ours. Their errors resulted from a defect in reasoning. They both imagined that they were obeying the law of benevolence by preventing misery; for a weak and deformed person was very ill qualified to exist with any degree of comfort under the military constitution of Sparta, where all were soldiers, and under the necessity of enduring the greatest hardships; and in a state where the people have no fixed habitations, and where the precarious chase supplies the necessaries of life, an aged and infirm person is in danger of perishing through hunger, by one of the most cruel and lingering of deaths. The theft allowed in Sparta, if theft it may be called, was still less a deviation from the instinctive law of benevolence. Boys were taught to slip as cunningly as they could into the gardens and public halls, in order to steal away herbs or meat; and if they were caught in the fact, they were punished for their want of dexterity. This kind of theft, since it was authorized by the law and the consent of the citizens, was no robbery; and the intention of the legislator in allowing it, was to inspire the Spartan youth, who were all designed for war, with the greater boldness, subtlety, and address; to inure them betimes to the life of a soldier; and to teach them to shift for themselves, and to live upon little. That the Spartan legislator did wrong in giving his countrymen a constitution, of which successful war was the ultimate object; and that savages, rather than kill their aged parents, or suffer them to die of hunger, ought to cultivate the ground, and abandon the chase, is readily granted; but the faults of the one as well as of the other arose not from any improper decision of the moral sense, but from a defect in their reasoning powers, which were not able to estimate the advantages and disadvantages of different modes of life. In moral decisions, therefore, conscience and reason mutually aid each other. The former principle, when [7:15:459]separated from the latter, is defective, enjoining only the good of mankind, but unable to point out the means by which it can be most effectually promoted; and the latter principle, when separated from the former, only directs a man to do what is most prudent, but cannot give him a conception of duty.

These two powers of reason and conscience, then, are evidently principles different in nature and kind from the passions and affections. For the passions are mere force or power, blind impulses acting violently and without choice, and ultimately tending each to their respective objects, without regard to the interest of the others, or of the whole system. Whereas the directing and judging powers distinguish and ascertain the different forces, mutual proportions and relations, which the passions bear to each other, and to the whole, recognise their several degrees of merit, and judge of the whole temper and conduct, as they respect either the individual or the species, and are capable of directing or restraining the blind impulses of passion in a due consistency one with the other, and a regular subordination to the whole system.

This is some account of the constituent principles of our nature, which, according to their different mixtures, degrees, and proportions, mould our character and sway our conduct in life. In reviewing that large train of affections which fills up the different stages of human life, we perceive this obvious distinction amongst them, that some of them respect the good of the individual, and others carry us beyond ourselves to promote the good of the species or kind. The former have therefore been called private, and the latter public affections. Of the former sort are love of life, of pleasure, of power, and the like. Of the latter are compassion, gratitude, friendship, natural affection, and the like. Of the private passions, some respect merely the security and defence of the creature, such as resentment and fear; whereas others aim at some positive advantage or good, as wealth, ease, and fame. The former sort, therefore, because of this difference of objects, may be termed defensive passions; they answer to our dangers, and prompt us to avoid them if we can, or boldly to encounter them when we cannot.

The other class of private passions, which pursue private and positive good, may be called appetitive ; but we shall, nevertheless, retain the name of private in contradistinction to the defensive passions. Man has a great variety of wants to supply, and is capable of many enjoyments, according to the several periods of his life, and the different situations in which he is placed. To these, therefore, correspond a suitable train of private passions, which engage him in the pursuit of whatever is necessary for his subsistence or welfare.

Our public or social affections are adapted to the several social connections and relations which we bear to others, by making us sensible of their dangers, and interesting us in their wants, and so prompting us to secure them against the one and to supply the other.

This is the first step, then, to discover the duty and destination of man; the having analysed the principles of which he is composed. It is necessary, in the next place, to consider in what order, proportion, and measure, of those inward principles, virtue, or a sound moral temper and right conduct, consists, that we may discover whence moral obligation arises.

CHAP. II OF DUTY, OR MORAL OBLIGATION.

It is by the end or the design of any power or movement that we must direct its motions, and estimate the degree of force necessary to its just action. If it want the force requisite for the obtaining of its end, we reckon it defective; if it has too much, so as to be carried beyond it, we say it is overcharged; and in either case it is imperfect and ill contrived. If it has just enough to reach the scope aimed at, we esteem it right and as it should be. Let us apply this reasoning to the passions.

The defence and security of the individual being the great aim of the defensive passions, that security and defence must be the measure of their strength or indulgence. If they are so weak as to prove insufficient for that end, or if they carry us beyond it, that is, raise unnecessary commotions, or continue longer than is needful, they are unfit to answer their original design, and therefore are in an unsound and unnatural state. The exercise of fear or of resentment has nothing desirable in it, nor can we give way to either without painful sensations. Without a certain degree of them, we remain naked and exposed; with too high a proportion of them, we are miserable, and often injurious to others. Thus cowardice or timidity, which is the excess of fear, instead of saving us amidst danger, gives it too formidable an appearance, makes us incapable of attending to the best means of preservation, and disarms us of courage, our natural armour. Foolhardiness, which is the want of a due measure of fear, leads us heedlessly into danger, and lulls us into a pernicious security. Revenge, or excessive resentment, by the violence of its commotion, robs us of that presence of mind which is often the best safeguard against injury, and inclines us to pursue the aggressor with more severity than self-defence requires. Pusillanimity, or the want of a just indignation against wrong, leaves us quite unguarded, and tends to sink the mind into a passive enervated tameness. Therefore, to keep the defensive passions duly proportioned to our dangers, is their natural pitch and tenor.

The private passions naturally lead us to pursue some positive species of private good; that good, therefore, which is the object and end of each, must be the measure of their respective force, and direct their operation. If they are too weak or sluggish to engage us in the pursuit of their several objects, they are evidently deficient; but if they defeat their end by their impetuosity, then are they strained beyond the just tone of nature. Thus vanity, or an excessive passion for applause, betrays us into such meannesses and little arts of popularity, as make us forfeit the honour which we so anxiously court. On the other hand, a total indifference about the esteem of mankind removes a strong guard and spur to virtue, and lays the mind open to the most abandoned prostitutions. Therefore, to keep our private passions and desires proportioned to our wants, is the just measure and pitch of this class of affections.

The defensive and private passions do all agree in general, in their tendency or conduciveness to the interest or the good of the individual. Therefore, when there is a collision of interest, as may sometimes happen, that aggregate of good or happiness which is composed of the particular goods to which they respectively tend, must be the common standard by which their comparative degrees of strength are to be measured; that is to say, if any of them, in the degree in which they prevail, are incompatible with the greatest aggregate of good or most extensive interest of the individual, then are they unequal and disproportionate. For in judging of a particular system or constitution of powers, we call that the supreme or principal end, in which the aims of the several parts or powers coincide, and to which théy are subordinate; and reckon them in due proportion to each other, and right with regard to the whole, when they maintain that subordination of subserviency. Therefore, to proportion our defensive and private passions in such measure to our dangers and wants as best to secure the individual, and obtain the greatest aggregate of private good or happiness, is their just balance or comparative standard in case of competition.
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In like manner, as the public or social affections point at the good of others, that good must be the measure of their force. When a particular social affection, as gratitude, or . friendship, which belongs to a particular social connection, as that of a benefactor, or of a friend, is too feeble to make us act the grateful or friendly part, that affection, being insufficient to answer its end, is defective and unsound. If, on the other hand, a particular passion of this class counteract or defeat the interest it is designed to promote, by its violence or disproportion, then is that passion excessive and irregular. Thus natural affection, if it degenerate into a passionate fondness, not only hinders the parents from judging coolly of the interest of their offspring, but often leads them into a most partial and pernicious indulgence.

As every kind affection points at the good of its particular object, it is possible there may sometimes be a collision of interests or goods. Thus the regard due to a friend may interfere with that which we owe to a community. In such a competition of interests, it is evident that the greatest is to be chosen; and that is the greatest interest which contains the greatest sum or aggregate of public good, greatest in quantity as well as in duration. This, then, is the common standard by which the respective forces and subordinations of the social affections must be adjusted. Therefore we conclude that this class of affections are sound and regular when they prompt us to pursue the interest of individuals in“an entire consistency with the public good; or, in other words, when they are duly proportioned to the dangers and wants of others, and to the various relations in which we stand to individuals or to society.

Thus we have found, by an induction of particulars, the natural pitch or tenor of the different orders of affection, considered apart by themselves. Now, as the virtue or perfection of every creature lies in following its nature, or in acting suitably to the just proportion and harmony of its several powers, therefore the virtue of a creature endowed with such affections as man must consist in observing or acting agreeably to their natural pitch and tenor.

But as there are no independent affections in the fabric of the mind, no passion that stands by itself without some relation to the rest, we cannot pronounce of any one, considered apart, that it is either too strong or too weak. Its strength and just proportion must be measured not only by its subserviency to its own immediate end, but by the respect it bears to the whole system of affections. Therefore we say a passion is too strong, not only when it defeats its own end, but when it impairs the force of other passions, which are equally necessary to form a temper of mind suited to a certain economy or state; and too weak, not merely on account of its insufficiency to answer its end, but because it cannot sustain its part or office in the balance of the whole system. Thus the love of life may be too strong when it takes from the regard due to one’s country, and will not allow one bravely to encounter dangers, or even death, on its account. Again, the love of fame may be too weak when it throws down the fences which render virtue more secure, or weakens the incentives which make it more active and public spirited.

If it be asked, how far may the affections towards private good or happiness be indulged? One limit was before fixed for the particular indulgence of each, namely, their subordination to the common aggregate of good to the private system. In these, therefore, a due regard is always supposed to be had to health, reputation, fortune, the freedom of action, the unimpaired exercise of reason, and the calm enjoyment of one’s self, which are all private goods. Another limit now results from the balance of affection just named, namely, the security and happiness of others; or, to express it more generally, a private affection may be safely indulged, when, by that indulgence, we do not violate the obligations which result from our higher relations or public connections. A just respect, therefore, being had to these boundaries which nature has fixed in the breast of every man, what should limit our pursuits of private happiness? Is nature sullen and penurious? or, does the God of nature envy the happiness of his offspring?

Whether there is ever a real collision of interests between the public and private system of affections, or the ends which each class has in view, will be afterwards considered; but where there is no collision, there is little or no danger of carrying either, but especially the public affections, to excess, provided both kinds are kept subordinate to a discreet and cool self-love, and to a calm and universal benevolence, principles which stand as guards at the head of each system.

This, then, is the conduct of the passions, considered as particular and separate forces, carrying us out to their respective ends; and this is their balance or economy, considered as compound powers, or powers mutually related, acting in conjunction towards a common end, and consequently as forming a system or whole.

Now, whatever adjusts or maintains this balance, whatever in the human constitution is formed for directing the passions so as to keep them from defeating their own end or interfering with each other, must be a principle of a superior nature to them, and ought to direct their measures and govern their proportions. But it was found that reason or reflection is such a principle, which points out the tendency of our passions, weighs their influence upon private and public happiness, and shows the best meansof attaining either. It having been likewise found that there is another directing or controlling principle, denominated conscience or the moral sense, which, by a native kind of authority, judges of affections and actions, pronouncing some just and good, and others unjust and evil; it follows that the passions, which are mere impulse or blind forces, are principles inferior and subordinate to this judging faculty. Therefore, if we would follow the order of nature, that is, observe the mutual respects and the subordination which the different parts of the human constitution bear one to another, the passions ought to be subjected to the direction and authority of the leading or controlling principles. We conclude, therefore, from this induction, that the constitution or just economy of human nature consists in a regular subordination of the passions and affections to the authority of conscience and the direction of reason.

That subordination is regular, when the proportion formerly mentioned is maintained; that is to say, when the defensive passions are kept proportioned to our dangers; when the private passions are proportioned to our wants; and when the public affections are adapted to our public connections, and proportioned to the wants and dangers of others.

But the natural state, or the sound and vigorous constitution of any creature, or the just economy of its powers, we consider its health and perfection; and the acting agreeably to these, its virtue or goodness. Therefore, the health and perfection of man must lie in the aforesaid supremacy of conscience and reason, and in the subordination of the passions to their authority and direction; and his virtue or goodness must consist in acting agreeably to that order or economy. That such an ornament of the mind, and such a conduct of its powefs and passions, will stand the test of reason, cannot admit of any dispute. For, upon a fair examination into the consequences of things, or the relations and aptitudes of means to ends, reason evidently demonstrates, and experience confirms it, that, to have our defensive passions duly proportioned to our dangers, [7:15:461]is the surest way to avoid or get clear of them, and obtain the security we seek after. To proportion our private passions to our wants is the best means to supply them; and to adapt our public affections to our social relations and the good of others, is the most effectual method of fulfilling the one and procuring the other. In this sense, therefore, virtue may be said to be a conduct conformable to reason, as reason discovers an apparent aptitude, in such an order and economy of powers and passions, to answer the end for which they are naturally formed.

If the idea of moral obligation is to be deduced merely from this aptitude or connection between certain passions, or a certain order and balance of passions, and certain ends obtained or to be obtained by them, then is reason or reflection, which perceives that aptitude or connection, the proper judge of moral obligation; and on this supposition it may be defined, as has been done by some, the connection between the affection and the end, or, which is the same thing, between the action and the motive; for the end is the motive or the final cause, and the affection is the action, or its immediate natural cause. A man, from mere self-love, may be induced to fulfil that obligation which is founded on the connection between the defensive passions and their ends, or that of the private passions and their ends; because in that case his own interest will prompt him to indulge them in the due proportion required. But if he has no affections which point beyond himself, no principle but self-love, or some subtile modification of it, what shall interest him in the happiness of others, where there is no connection between it and his own? or what sense can he have of moral obligation to promote it? Upon this scheme, therefore, without public or social affection, there could be no motive, and consequently no moral obligation, to a beneficent disinterested conduct.

But if the mere connection between certain passions or a certain order of passions, and certain ends, is what constitutes or gives us the idea of moral obligation, then why may not the appositeness of any temper or conduct, nay, of any piece of machinery, to obtain its end, form an equally strict moral obligation? for the connection and aptitude are as strong and invariable in the latter instances as in the former. But as this is confounding the most obvious differences of things, we must trace the idea of moral obligation to another and a more natural source.

Let us appeal, therefore, to our inmost sense and experience, how we stand affected to those different sets of passions, in the just measure and balance of which we found a right temper to consist. For this is entirely a matter of experience, in which we must examine, as in any other natural inquiry, what are the genuine feelings and operations of nature, and what affections or symptoms of them appear in the given instance.

The defensive passions, as anger and fear, give us pain radier than pleasure, yet we cannot help feeling them when provoked by injury, or exposed to harm. We account the creature imperfect that wants them, because they are necessary to his defence. Nay, we should in some measure condemn ourselves, did we want the necessary degree of resentment and caution. But if our resentment exceeds the wrong received, or our caution the evil dreaded, we then blame ourselves for having overacted our part. Therefore, whilst we are in danger, to be totally destitute of them we reckon a blameable defect, and to feel them in a just, that is, necessary measure, we approve, as suited to the nature and the condition of such a creature as man. But our security obtained, to continue to indulge them, we not only disapprove as hurtful, but condemn as unmanly, unbecoming, and mean spirited. Nor will such a conduct afford any self-approving joy when we coolly reflect upon it.

With regard to the private passions, such as love of life, pleasure, ease, and the like, as these aim at private good, and are necessary to the perfection and the happiness of the individual, we should reckon any creature defective, and even blameable, that was destitute of them. Thus, we condemn the man who imprudently ruins his fortune, impairs his health, or exposes his life; we not only pity him as an unfortunate creature, but feel a kind of moral indignation and contempt of him, for having made himself such. On the other hand, though a discreet self-regard does not attract our esteem and veneration, yet we approve of it in some degree, in a higher and different degree from what we would regard a well-contrived machine, as necessary to constitute a finished creature, nay, to complete the virtuous character, as exactly suited to our present indigent state. There are some passions respecting private good, towards which we feel higher degrees of approbation, as the love of knowledge, of action, of honour, and the like. We esteem them as marks of an ingenuous mind; and cannot help thinking the character in which they are wanting remarkably stupid, and in some degree immoral.

With regard to the social affections, as compassion, natural affection, friendship, benevolence, and the like, we· approve, admire, and love them in ourselves, and, in all in whom we discover them, with an esteem and approbation, if not different in kind, yet surely far superior in degree, to that which we feel towards the other passions. These we reckon necessary, just, and excellently fitted to our structure and state; and the creature which wants them we consider defective and ill constituted, a kind of abortion. But the public affections we esteem self-worthy, as originally and eternally amiable.

But amongst the social affections we make an obvious and constant distinction, viz. between those particular passions which urge us with a sudden violence, and uneasy kind of sensation, to pursue the good of their respective objects, as pity, natural affection, and the like, and those calm dispassionate affections and desires which prompt us more steadily and uniformly to promote the happiness of others. The former we generally call passions, to distinguish them from the other sort, which go more commonly by the name of affections or calm desires. The one kind we approve, indeed, and delight in; but we feel still higher degrees of approbation and moral complacence towards the other, and towards all limitation of the particular instincts, by the principle of universal benevolence. The more objects the calm affections take in, and the worthier these objects are, their dignity rises in proportion, and with this our approbation keeps an exact pace. A character, on the other hand, which is quite divested of these public affections, and which feels no love for the species, but instead of it entertains malice, rancour, and ill will, we reckon totally immoral and unnatural.

Such, then, are the sentiments and dispositions which we feel when these several orders of affections pass before the mental eye. 'Therefore, that state in which we feel ourselves moved, in the manner above described, towards those affections and passions, as they come under the mind’s review, and in which we are, instantaneously and independently of our choice or volition, prompted to a correspondent conduct, we call a state of moral obligation. Let us suppose, for instance, a parent, a friend, a benefactor, reduced to a condition of the utmost indigence and distress, and that it is in our power to give them immediate relief. To what conduct are we obliged? what duty does nature dictate and require in such a case? Attend to nature, and nature will tell, with a voice irresistibly audible and commanding to the human heart, with an authority which no man can silence without being self-condemned, and which no man can elude except at his peril, that immediate relief ought to be given. Again, let a friend, a neighbour, or even a stranger, have lodged a deposit in [7:15:462]our hands, and after some time reclaim it; no sooner do these ideas of the confidence reposed in us, and of property not transferred, but deposited, occur, than we immediately and unavoidably feel and recognise the obligation to restore it. In both these cases we should condemn and even loathe ourselves if we acted otherwise, as having done, or omitted doing, what we ought not, as having acted beneath the dignity of our nature, and contrary to our most intimate sense of right and wrong; we should accuse ourselves as guilty of ingratitude, injustice, and inhumanity, and be conscious of deserving the censure, and therefore dread the resentment, of all rational beings. But in complying with the obligation, we feel joy and self-approbation, are conscious of an inviolable harmony between our nature and duty, and think ourselves entitled to the applause of every impartial spectator of our conduct.

To describe, therefore, what we cannot perhaps define, a state of moral obligation is that state in which a creature, endued with such senses, powers, and affections as man, would condemn himself, and think he deserved the condemnation of all others, should he refuse to fulfil it; but would approve himself, and expect the approbation of all others, upon complying with it.

And we call him a moral agent who is in such a state, or who is subject to moral obligation. Therefore, as man’s structure and connections often subject him to such a state of moral obligation, we conclude that he is a moral agent. But as man may sometimes act without knowing what he does, as in cases of frenzy or disease, or in many natural functions; or, knowing what he does, he may act without choice or affection, as in cases of necessity or compulsion; therefore, to denominate an action moral, namely, approveable or blameable, it must be done knowingly and willingly, or from affection and choice. A morally good action, then, consists in fulfilling a moral obligation knowingly and willingly; and a morally bad action, or an immoral action, is to violate a moral obligation knowingly and willingly. . . . . í

As not an action, but a series of actions, constitute a character; as not an affection, but a series of affections, constitute a temper; and as we denominate things by the gross, a fortiori, or by the qualities which chiefly prevail in them; therefore we call that a morally good character in which a series of morally good actions prevail, and that a morally good temper in which a series of morally good affections have the ascendant. A bad character and bad temper are the reverse. But where the above-mentioned order or proportion of passions is maintained, there a series of morally good affections and actions will prevail. Therefore, to maintain that order and proportion, is to have a morally good temper and character. But a morally good temper and character is moral rectitude, integrity, virtue, or the completion of duty.

If it be asked, after all, how we come by the idea of moral obligation or duty, we may answer, that we come by it in the same way as by our other original and primary perceptions. We receive them all from nature, or the great Author of nature. For this idea of moral obligation is not a creature of the mind, nor dependent on any previous act of volition, but arises on certain occasions, or when certain other ideas are presented to the mind, as necessarily, instantaneously, and unavoidably, as pain does upon too near approach to the fire, or pleasure from the fruition of any good. It does not, for instance, depend upon our choice whether we shall feel the obligation to succour a distressed parent, or to restore a deposit intrusted to us when it is recalled. We cannot denominate this a compound idea, made up of one ormore simple ideas. We may, indeed, nay we must, have some ideas antecedent to it, as, for instance, that of a parent in distress, of a child able to relieve, of the relation of the one to the other, of a trust, of right, and the like. But none of these ideas constitute the perception of obligation. This is an idea quite distinct from, and something supperadded to, the ideas of the correlatives, or the relation subsisting between them. These, indeed, by a law of our nature, are the occasion of suggesting it; but they are as totally different from it as colours are from sounds. By sense of reflection we perceive the correlatives; our memory recalls the favoursor deposit which we received; the various circumstances of the case are matters of fact or experience; but some delicate inward organ or power, or call it what we please, does, by certain instantaneous sympathy, antecedent to the cool deductions of reason, and independently of previous instruction or volition, perceive the moral harmony, the living, irresistible charms, of moral obligation, which immediately interests the correspondent passions, and prompts us to fulfil its lawful dictates.

We need not apprehend any danger from the quickness of its decisions, nor be frightened because it looks like instinct, and has been called so. Would we approve one for deliberating long, or reasoning the matter much at leisure, whether he should relieve a distressed parent, feed a starving neighbour, or restore the trust committed to him? should we not suspect the reasoner of knavery, or of very weak affections towards virtue? We employ reason, and worthily employ it, in examining the condition, relations, and other circumstances of the agent or patient, or of those with whom either of them is connected, that is, in other words, the state of the case; and in complicated cases, where the circumstances are many, it may require no small attention to find the true state of the case; but when the relations of the agent or patient, and the circumstances of the action, are obvious, or come out such after a fair trial, we should scarcely approve him who demurs on the obligation to that conduct which the case suggests.

From what has been said, it is evident that it is not the pleasure or agreeable sensations which accompany the exercise of the several affections, nor those consequent on the actions, that constitute moral obligation, or excite in us the idea of it. That pleasure is posterior to the idea of obligation; and we are frequently obliged, and acknowledge ourselves under an obligation, to such affections and actions as. are attended with pain; as in the trials of virtue, where we are obliged to sacrifice private to public good, or a present pleasure to a future interest. We have pleasure in serving an aged parent, but it is neither the perception nor prospect of that pleasure which gives us the idea of obligation to that conduct.

CHAP. III. THE FINAL CAUSES OF OUR MORAL FACULTIES OF PERCEPTION AND AFFECTION.

We have now taken a general prospect of man, and of his moral powers and connections, and on these erected a scheme of duty or moral obligation, which seems to be confirmed by experience, consonant to reason, and approved by his most inward and most sacred senses. It may be proper, in the next place, to take a more particular view of the final causes of those delicate springs by which he is impelled to action, and of those clogs by which he is restrained from it. By this detail we shall be able to judge of their aptitude to answer their end, in a creature endowed with his capacities, subject to his wants, exposed to his dangers, and susceptible of his enjoyments; and from thence we shall be in a condition to pronounce concerning the end of his whole structure, its harmony with its state, and consequently its subserviency to answer the great and benevolent intentions of its Author.

The Supreme Being has seen fit to blend in the whole [7:15:463]of things a prodigious variety of discordant and contrary principles, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, good and evil. There are multifarious natures, higher and lower, and many intermediate ones between the widely-distant extremes. These are differently situated, variously adjusted, and subjected to each other, and all of them subordinate to the order and perfection of the whole. We may suppose man placed as in a centre amidst those innumerable orders of beings, by his outward frame drawing to the material system, and by his inward connected with the intellectual or moral, and of course affected by the laws which govern both, or affected by that good and that ill which result from those laws. In this infinite variety of relations with which he is surrounded, and of contingencies to which he is liable, he feels strong attractions to the good, and violent repulsions or aversions to the ill. But as good and ill are often blended, and wonderfully complicated one with the other; as they sometimes immediately produce and run up into each other, and at other times lie at great distances, yet by means of intervening links introduce one another; and as these effects are often brought about in consequence of hidden relations and general laws, of the energy of which he is an incompetent judge; it is easy for him to mistake good for evil, and evil for good, and consequently he may be frequently attracted by such things as are destructive, or repel such as are salutary. Thus, by the tender and complicated frame of his body, he is subjected to a great variety of ills, to sickness, cold, heat, fatigue, and innumerable wants. Yet his knowledge is so narrow withal, and his reason so weak, that in many cases he cannot judge, in the way of investigation or reasoning, of the connections of those effects with their respective causes, or of the various latent energies of natural things, ∏e is therefore informed of this connection by the experience of certain senses or organs of perception, which, by a mechanical instantaneous motion, feel the good and the ill, receiving pleasure from the one and pain from the other. By these, without any reasoning, he is taught to attract or choose what tends to his welfare, and to repel and avoid what tends to his ruin. Thus, by his senses of taste and smell, or by the pleasure he receives from certain kinds of food, he is admonished which kind agrees with his constitution; and by an opposite sense of pain he is informed which sort disagrees, or is destructive of it; but he is not by means of this instructed in the inward nature and constitution of things.

. Some of those senses are armed with strong degrees of uneasiness or pain, in order to urge him to seek after such objects as are suited to them; and these respect his more immediate and pressing wants, as the sense of hunger, thirst, cold, and the like; which, by their painful importunities, compel him to provide food, drink, raiment, shelter. Those instincts by which we are thus prompted with some kind of commotion or violence to attract and pursue good, or to repel and avoid evil, we call appetites and passions. By our senses, then, we are informed of what is good or ill to the private system, or the individual; and by our private appetites and passions we are impelled to the one, and restrained from the other.

In consequence of this machinery, and the great train of wants to which our nature subjects us, we are engaged in a continued series of occupations, which often require much application of thought, or great bodily labour, or both. The necessaries of life, food, clothes, shelter, and the like, must be provided; conveniences must be acquired to render life still more easy and comfortable. In order to obtain these, arts, industry, manufactures, and trade are necessary; and to secure to us the peaceable enjoyment of their fruits, civil government, policy, and laws must be contrived, and the various business of public life carried on. Thus, whilst man is concerned and busied in making provision or obtaining security for himself, he· is by degrees engaged in connections with a family, friends, neighbours, a community, or a commonwealth. Hence arise new wants, new interests, new cares, and new employments. The passions of one man interfere with those of another; interests are opposed; competitions arise, contrary courses are taken; disappointments happen, distinctions are made, and parties formed. This opens a vast scene of distraction and embarrassment, and introduces a mighty train of good and ill, both public and private. Yet, amidst all this confusion and hurry, plans of action must be laid, consequences foreseen or guarded against, inconveniences provided for; and frequently particular resolutions must be taken, and schemes executed, without reasoning or delay. Now what provision has the Author of our nature made for this necessitous condition? how has he fitted the actor, man, for playing his part in this perplexed and busy scene? Our Supreme Parent, watchful of the whole, has not left himself without a witness here neither, and has made nothing imperfect, but all things are double one against the other. He has not left man to be informed only by the cold notices of reason, of the good or evil, the happiness or misery, of his fellow-creatures. He has made him sensible of their good and happiness, but especially of their ill and misery, by an immediate sympathy, or quick feeling of pleasure and of pain.

The latter we denominate pity or compassion. For the: former, though every one who is not quite divested of humanity feels it in some degree, we have not got a name, unless we call it congratulation or joyful sympathy, or that good humour which arises on seeing others pleased or happy. Both these feelings have been called in general the public or common sense, κοινη μνημοσύνη, by which we feel for others, and are interested in their concerns as really as, though perhaps less sensibly than, in our own.

When we see our fellow-creatures unhappy through the fault or injury of others, we feel resentment or indignation against those who have unjustly caused that misery. If we are conscious that it has happened through our fault or injurious conduct, we feel shame; and both these classes of senses and passions, regarding misery and wrong, are armed with such sharp sensations of pain, as not only prove a powerful guard and security to the species, or public system, against those evils it may, but serve also to lessen or remove those evils it does, suffer. Compassion draws us out of ourselves to bear a part of the misfortunes of others, powerfully solicits us in their favour, melts us at the sight of their distress, and makes us in some degree unhappy till they are relieved from it. It is peculiarly well adapted to the condition of human life, because it is much more and oftener in our power to do mischief than good, and to prevent or lessen misery than to communicate positive happiness; and therefore it is an admirable restraint upon the more selfish passions, or those violent impulses which carry us to the hurt of others.

There are other particular instincts or passions which interest us in the concerns of others, even whilst we are most busy about our own, and which are strongly attractive of good, and repulsive of evil to them. Such are natural affection, friendship, love, gratitude, desire of fame, love of society, of one’s country, and others that might be named. Now as the private appetites and passions were found to be armed with strong sensations of desire and uneasiness, to prompt man the more effectually to sustain labours, and to encounter dangers in pursuit of those goods which are necessary to the preservation and welfare of the individual, and to avoid those evils which tend to his destruction; in like manner, it was necessary that this other class of desires and affections should be prompted with as quick sensations of pain, not only to counteract the strength of their antagonists, but to engage us in a virtuous activity[7:15:464] for our relations, families, friends, neighbours, country. Indeed our sense of right and wrong will admonish us that it is our duty, and reason and experience further assure us that it is both our interest and best security, to promote the happiness of others; but that sense, that reason, and that experience, would frequently prove very weak and ineffectual prompters to such a conduct, especially in cases of danger and hardship, and amidst all the importunities of nature, and that constant hurry in which the private £ assions involve us, without the aid of those particular ind affections which mark out to us particular spheres of duty, and engage and fix us down to them as it were with an agreeable violence.

It is evident, therefore, that those two classes of affection, the private and public, are set one against the other, and designed to control and limit each other’s influence, and thereby to produce a just balance in the whole.^[2. Vide Hutcheson’s Conduct of the Passions, treat, i. sect. 2. ] In general, the violent sensations of pain and uneasiness which accompany hunger, thirst, and the other private appetites, or too great fatigue of mind as well as of body, prevent the individual from running to great excesses in the exercise of the higher functions of the mind, as too intense thought in the search of truth, violent application to business of any kind, and different degrees of romantic heroism. On the other hand, the finer senses of perception, and those generous desires and affections which are connected with them, the love of action, of imitation, of truth, honour, public virtue, and the like, are wisely placed in the Opposite scale, in order to prevent us from sinking into the dregs of the animal life, and debasing the dignity of man below the condition of brutes. So that, by the mutual reaction of those opposite powers, the bad effects are prevented that would naturally result from their acting singly and apart, and the good effects are produced which each are severally formed to produce.

The same wholesome opposition appears likewise in the particular counter-workings of the private and public affections one against the other. Thus compassion is adapted to counterpoise the love of ease, of pleasure, and of life, and to disarm or to set bounds to resentment; and resentment of injury done to ourselves, or to our friends who are dearer than ourselves, prevents an effeminate compassion or consternation, and gives us a noble contempt of labour, pain, and death. Natural affection, friendship, love of one’s country, nay zeal for any particular virtue, are frequently more than a match for the whole train of selfish passions. On the other hand, without that intimate overruling passion of self-love, and those private desires which are connected with it, the social and the tender instincts of the human heart would degenerate into the wildest dotage, the most torturing anxiety, and downright frenzy.

But not only are the different orders or classes of affection checks upon one another, but passions of the same classes are mutual clogs. Thus, how many are withheld from the violent outrages of resentment by fear; and how easily is fear controlled in its turn, whilst mighty wrongs awaken a mighty resentment. The private passions often interfere, and therefore moderate the violence of each other; and a calm self-love is placed at their head, to direct, to influence, and to control their particular attractions and repulsions. The public affections likewise restrain one another; and all of them are put under the control of a calm dispassionate benevolence, which ought in like manner to direct and limit their particular motions. Thus most part, if not all the passions, have a twofold aspect, and serve a twofold end. In one view they may be considered as powers, impelling mankind to a certain course, with a force proportioned to the apprehended amount of the good they aim at. In another view they appear as weights, balancing the action of the powers, and controlling the violence of their impulses. By means of these powers and weights a natural equipoise is settled in the human breast by its all-wise Author, by which the creature is kept tolerably steady and regular in his course, amidst that variety of stages through which he must pass.

But this is not all the provision which God has made for the hurry and perplexity of the scene in which man is destined to act. Amidst those infinite attractions and repulsions towards private and public good and evil, mankind either cannot often foresee the consequences or tendencies of all their actions towards one or other of these, especially where those tendencies are intricate and point different ways, or those consequences remote and complicated; or, though, by careful and cool inquiry, and a due improvement of their rational powers, they might find them out, yet, distracted as they are with business, amused with trifles, dissipated by pleasure, and disturbed by passion, they neither have found nor can find any leisure to attend to those consequences, or to examine how far this or that conduct is productive of private or public good on the whole. Therefore, were it left entirely to the slow and sober deductions of reason to trace those tendencies, and make out those consequences, it is evident, that in many particular instances the business of life must stand still, and many important occasions of action be lost, or perhaps the grossest blunders be committed. On this account, the Deity, besides that general approbation which we bestow on every degree of kind affection, has moreover implanted in man many particular perceptions or determinations to approve of certain qualities or actions, which, in effect, tend to the advantage of society, and are connected with private good, though he does not always see that tendency, nor mind that connection. And these perceptions or determinations do, without reasoning, point out, and, antecedent to views of interest, prompt to a conduct beneficial to the public, and useful to the private system. Such is that sense of candour and veracity, that abhorrence of fraud and falsehood, that sense of fidelityjustice, gratitude, greatness of mind, fortitude, clemency, decorum, and that disapprobation of knavery, injustice, ingratitude, meanness of spirit, cowardice, cruelty, and indecorum, which are natural to the human mind. The former of those dispositions, and the actions flowing from them, are approved, and those of the latter kind disapproved, by us, even abstracted from the view of their tendency or conduciveness to the happiness or misery of others or of ourselves. In one we discern a beauty, a superior excellency, a congruity to the dignity of man; in the other a deformity, a littleness, a debasement, of human nature.

There are other principles also connected with the good of society, or the happiness and perfection of the individual, though that connection is not immediately apparent, which we behold with real complacency and approbation, though perhaps inferior in degree, if not in kind, such as gravity, modesty, simplicity of deportment, temperance, prudent economy; and we feel some degree of contempt and dislike where they are wanting, or where the opposite qualities prevail. These and the like perceptions or feelings are either different modifications of the moral sense, or subordinate to it, and plainly serve the same important purpose, being, in the several emergencies of a various and distracted life, expeditious monitors of what is right, what is wrong, what is to be pursued, and what avoided; and, by the pleasant or painful consequences which attend them, exerting their influence as powerful prompters to a suitable conduct.
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From a slight inspection of the above-named principles, it is evident that they all carry a friendly aspect to society and the individual, and have a more immediate or a more remote tendency to promote the perfection or good of both. This tendency cannot be always foreseen, and would be often mistaken or seldom attended to by a weak, busy, short-sighted creature like man, both rash and variable in his opinions, a dupe to his own passions or to the designs of others, and liable to sickness, to want, and to error. Principles, therefore, which are so nearly linked with private security and public good, by directing him, without operose reasoning, where to find the one, and how to promote the other, and by prompting him to a conduct conducive to both, are admirably adapted to the exigencies of his present state, and wisely calculated to obtain the ends of universal benevolence.

It were easy, by considering the subject in another light, to show, in a curious detail of particulars, how wonderfully the inner part of man, or that astonishing train of moral powers and affections with which he is endowed, is fitted to the several stages of that progressive and probationary state through which he is destined to pass. As our faculties are narrow and limited, and rise from very small and imperfect beginnings, they must be improved by exercise, by attention, and by repeated trials. And this holds true, not only of our intellectual, but also of our moral and active powers. The former are liable to errors in speculation, the latter to blunders in practice, and both often terminate in misfortunes and pains; and those errors and blunders are generally owing to our passions, or to our too forward and warm admiration of those partial goods they naturally pursue, or to our fear of those partial evils they naturally repel. Those misfortunes, therefore, lead us back to consider where our misconduct lay, and whence our errors flowed; and consequently they are salutary pieces of trial, which tend to enlarge our views, to correct and refine our passions, and consequently to improve both our intellectual and moral powers. Our passions, then, are the rude materials of our virtue, which Heaven has given us to work up, and to refine and polish into a harmonious and divine piece of workmanship. They furnish out the whole machinery, the calms and storms, the lights and shadows, of human life. They show mankind in every attitude and variety of character, and give to virtue both its struggles and its triumphs. To conduct them well in every state, is merit; to abuse or misapply them, is demerit.

The different sets of senses, powers, and passions, which unfold themselves in these successive stages, are both necessary and adapted to that rising and progressive state. Enlarging views and growing connections require new passions and new habits; and thus the mind, by these continually expanding and finding a progressive exercise, rises to higher improvements, and pushes forward towards maturity and perfection.

In this beautiful economy and harmony of our structure, both outward and inward, with that state, we may at once discern the great lines of our duty traced out in the fairest and brightest characters, and contemplate with admiration a more august and marvellous scene of divine wisdom and goodness laid in the human breast, than we shall perhaps find in the whole compass of nature.

From this detail, then, it appears that man, by his original frame, is made for a temperate, compassionate, benevolent, active, and progressive state. He is strongly attractive of the good and repulsive of the evils which befall others as well as himself. He feels the highest approbation and moral complacence in those affections, and in those actions, which immediately and directly respect the good of others, and the highest disapprobation and abhorrence of the contrary. Besides these, he has many particular perceptions or instincts of approbation, which, though perhaps not of the same kind with the others, yet are accompanied with correspondent degrees of affection, proportioned to their respective tendencies to the public good. Therefore, by acting agreeably to these principles, man acts agreeably to his structure, and fulfils the benevolent intentions of its Author. But we call a thing good when it answers its end, and a creature good when he acts in a conformity to his constitution; consequently man must be denominated good or virtuous when he acts suitably to the principles and destination of his nature.

PART II.

CHAP. I.—THE PRINCIPAL DISTINCTIONS OF DUTY OR VIRTUE.

We have now considered the constitution and the connections of man, and upon these erected a general system of duty or moral obligation, consonant to reason, approved by his most sacred and intimate sense, suitable to his mixed condition, and confirmed by the experience of mankind. We have also traced the final causes of his moral faculties and affections to those noble purposes they serve, with regard both to the private and the public system. From this induction it is evident, that there is one order or class of duties which man owes to himself; another to society; and a third to God.

The duties he owes to himself are founded chiefly upon the defensive and private passions, which prompt him to pursue whatever tends to private good or happiness, and to avoid or ward off whatever tends to private evil or misery. Amongst the various goods which allure and solicit him, and the various evils which attack or threaten him, to be intelligent and accurate in selecting the one and rejecting the other, or in preferring the most excellent goods, and avoiding the most terrible evils, when there is a competition amongst either, and to be discreet in using the best means to attain the goods and to avoid the evils, is what we call prudence. This, in our inward frame, corresponds to sagacity, or quickness of sense, in our outward. To proportion our defensive passions to our dangers, we call fortitude; which always implies a just mixture of calm resentment or animosity, and well-governed caution; and this firmness of mind answers to the strength and muscular energy of the body. And duly to adjust our private passions to our wants, or to the respective importance of the good we affect or pursue, we call temperance ; which does therefore always imply, in this large sense of the word, a just balance or command of the passions.

The second class of duties arises from the public or social affections, the just harmony or proportion of which to the dangers and wants of others, and to the several relations we bear, commonly goes by the name of justice. This includes the whole of our duty to society, to our parents, and to the general polity of nature, particularly gratitude, friendship, sincerity, natural affection, benevolence, and the other social virtues; which being the noblest temper and fairest complexion of the soul, corresponds to the beauty and fine proportion of the person. The virtues comprehended under the former class, especially prudence and fortitude, may likewise be transferred to this; and, according to the various circumstances in which the are placed, and the more confined or more extensive sphere in which they operate, may be denominated private, economical, or civil prudence, fortitude, &c. These direct our [7:15:466]conduct with regard to the wants and dangers of those lesser or greater circles with which they are connected.

The third class of duties respects the Deity, and arises from the public affections, and the several glorious relations which he sustains to us as our Creator, Benefactor, Lawgiver, Judge, &c. We choose to consider this set of duties in the last place; because, though prior in dignity and excellency, they seem to be last in order of time, it being the most simple and easy method to follow the gradual progress of nature, as it takes its rise from individuals, and spreads through the social system, and still ascends upwards, until at length it stretches to its almighty Parent and Head, and so terminates in those duties which are highest and best.

. The duties resulting from these relations are, reverence, gratitude, love, resignation, dependence, obedience, worship, praise; which, according to the model of our fine capacities, must maintain some sort of proportion to the grandeur and perfection of the object whom we venerate, love, and obey. This proportion or harmony is expressed by the general name of piety or devotion, which is always stronger or weaker, according to the greater or less apprehended excellency of its object. This sublime principle of virtue is the enlivening soul which animates the moral system, and that cement which binds and sustains the other duties which man owes to himself or to society.

This, then, is the general temper and constitution of virtue, and these are the principal lines or divisions of duty. To those good dispositions which respect the several objects of our duty, and to all actions which flow from such dispositions, the mind gives its sanction or testimony; and this sanction or judgment concerning the moral quality, or the goodness of actions or dispositions, moralists call conscience. When it judges of an action which is to be performed, it is called an antecedent conscience; and when it passes sentence on an action which is performed, it is called a subsequent conscience. The tendency of an action to produce happiness, or its external conformity to a law, is termed its material goodness; but the good dispositions from which an action proceeds, or its conformity to law in every respect, constitutes its formal goodness.

When the mind is ignorant or uncertain about the character of an action, or its tendency to private or public good; or when there are several circumstances in the case, some of which, being doubtful, render the mind dubious concerning the morality of the action, that is called a doubtful or scrupulous conscience; if it mistakes concerning these, it is called an erroneous conscience. If the error or ignorance be involuntary or invincible, the action proceeding from that error, or from that ignorance, is reckoned innocent, or not imputable. If the error or ignorance be supine or affected, that is, the effect of negligence, or of affectation and wilful inadvertence, the conduct flowing from such error, or such ignorance, is criminal and imputable. Not to follow one’s conscience, though erroneous and ill informed, is criminal, as it is the guide of life; and to counteract it, shows a depraved and incorrigible spirit. Yet to follow an erroneous conscience is likewise criminal, if that error which misled the conscience was the effect of inattention, or any criminal passion.^[3. Hutcheson’s Moral Inst., lib. ii. c. 3. ]

If it be asked, how an erroneous conscience shall be rectified, since it is supposed to be the only guide of life, and judge of morals; we answer, in the very same way that we would rectify reason if at anv time it should judge wrong, as it often does, viz. by giving it proper and sufficient materials for judging right, that is, by inquiring into the whole state of the case, the relations, connections, and several obligations of the actor, the consequences and other circumstances of the action, or the surplusage of private or public good which results, or is likely to result, from the action, or from the omission of it. If those circumstances, are fairly and fully stated, the conscience will be just and impartial in its decision; for, by a necessary law of our nature, it approves and is well affected towards the moral form; and if it seems to approve of vice or immorality, it is always under the notion or mask of some virtue.” So that, strictly speaking, it is not conscience which errs; for its sentence is always conformable to the view of the case which lies before it, and is just, upon the supposition that the case is truly such as it is represented to be. All the fault is to be imputed to the agent, who neglects to be better informed, or who, through weakness or wickedness, hastens to pass sentence from imperfect evidence.

chap. ii. — of man’s duty to himself, and of the nature OF GOOD, AND THE CHIEF GOOD.

Every creature, by the constitution of his nature, is determined to love himself; to pursue whatever tends to his preservation and happiness, and to avoid whatever tends to his hurt and misery. Being endowed with sense and perception, he must necessarily receive pleasure from some objects, and pain from others. Those objects which give pleasure are called good; and those which give pain, evil. To the former he feels that attraction or motion which we call desire or love ; to the latter, that impulse which we call aversion or hatred. To objects which suggest neither pleasure nor pain, and are conceived to be of no use to procure the one or ward off the other, we feel neither desire noraver-sion; and such objects are called indifferent. Those objects which do not of themselves produce pleasure or pain, but are the means of procuring either, we call useful or noxious. Towards them we are affected in a subordinate manner, or with an indirect and reflective rather than a direct and immediate affection. All the original and particular affections of our nature lead us out to and ultimately rest in the first kind of objects, viz. those which give immediate pleasure, and which we therefore consider as directly good. The calm affection of self-love alone is conversant about such objects as are only consequentially good, or merely useful to ourselves.

But, besides those sorts of objects which we call good; merely and solely as they give pleasure, or are the means of procuring it, there is a higher and nobler species of good, towards which we feel that peculiar movement we call approbation or moral complacency ; and which we therefore denominate moral good. Such are our affections, and the actions consequent on them. The perception of this is, as has been already observed, quite distinct in kind from the perception of other species; and though it may be connected with pleasure or advantage by the benevolent constitution of nature, yet it constitutes a good independent of that pleasure and that advantage, and far superior, not only in degree, but in dignity, to both. The other, viz. the natural good, consists in obtaining those pleasures which are adapted to the peculiar senses and passions susceptible of them, and is as various as are those senses and passions. This moral good consists in the right conduct of the several senses and passions, or their just proportion and accommodation to their respective objects and relations, and is of a more simple and invariable kind.

By our several senses we are capable of a great variety of pleasing sensations. These constitute distinct ends or objects ultimately pursuable for their own sake. To these ends, or ultimate objects, correspond peculiar appetites or [7:15:467] affections, which prompt the mind to pursue them. When these ends are attained, there it rests, and looks no farther. Whatever therefore is pursuable, not on its own account, but as subservient or necessary to the attainment of something else which is intrinsically valuable for its own sake, be that value ever so great or ever so small, we call a mean, and not an end ; so that ends and means constitute the materials or the very essence of our happiness. Consequently happiness, that is, human happiness, cannot be one simple uniform thing in creatures constituted as we are, with such various senses of pleasure, and such different capacities of enjoyment. Now the same principle or law of our nature which determines us to pursue any one end or species of good, prompts us to pursue every other end or species of good of which we are susceptible, or to which our Maker has adapted an original propensity. But, amidst the great multiplicity of ends or goods which form the various ingredients of our happiness, we perceive an evident gradation, or subordination suited to that gradation, of senses, powers, and passions, which prevails in our mixed and various constitution, and to that ascending series of connections which open upon us in the different stages of our progressive state.

Thus the goods of the body, or of the external senses, seem to hold the lowest rank in this gradation or scale of goods. These we have in common with the brutes; and though many men are grovelling enough to pursue the goods of the body with a more than brutal fury, yet, when at any time they come in competition with goods of an higher order, the unanimous verdict of mankind, by giving the last the preference, condemns the first to the meanest place. Goods consisting in exterior social connections, as fame, fortune, power, civil authority, seem to succeed next, and are chiefly valuable as the means of procuring natural or moral good, but principally the latter. Goods of the intellect are still superior, as taste, knowledge, memory, judgment, and so forth. The highest are moral goods of the mind, directly and ultimately regarding ourselves, as command of the appetites and passions, prudence, fortitude, benevolence, and the like. These are the great objects of our pursuit, and the principal ingredients of our happiness. Let us consider each of them as they rise one above the other in this natural series or scale, and then touch briefly upon our obligations to pursue them.

Those of the body are health, strength, agility, hardiness, and patience of change, neatness, and decency.

Good health, and a regular easy flow of spirits, arc in themselves sweet natural enjoyments, a great fund of pleasure, and indeed the proper seasoning which gives a flavour and poignancy to every other pleasure. The want of health unfits us for most duties of life, and is especially an enemy to the social and humane affections, as it generally renders the unhappy sufferer peevish and sullen, disgusted with the allotments of Providence, and consequently apt to entertain suspicious and gloomy sentiments of its author. It obstructs the free exercise and full improvement of our reason, and makes us a burden to our friends, and useless to society; whereas the uninterrupted enjoyment of good health is a constant source of good humour, and good humour is a great friend to openness and benignity of heart; enabling us to encounter the various evils and disappointments of life with more courage, or to sustain them with more patience, and conducing much, if we are otherwise duly qualified, to our acting our part in every exigency of life with more firmness, consistency, and dignity. It therefore imports us much to preserve and improve a habit or enjoyment, without which every other external entertainment is tasteless, and most other advantages of little avail; and this is best done by a strict temperance in diet and regimen, by regular exercise, and by keeping the mind serene and unruffled by violent passions, and unsubdued by intense and constant labours, which greatly impair and gradually destroy the strongest constitutions.

Strength, agility, hardiness, and patience of change, suppose health, and are unattainable without it; but they imply something more, and are necessary to guard it, to give us the perfect use of our lives and limbs, and to secure us against many otherwise unavoidable evils. The exercise of the necessary manual, and of most of the elegant arts of life, depends on strength and agility of body; personal dangers, private and public dangers, the demands of our friends, our families, and country, require them; they are necessary in war, and ornamental in peace; fit for the employment of a country and a town life, and they exalt the entertainments and diversions of both. They are chiefly obtained by moderate and regular exercise.

Few are so much raised above want and dependence, or so exempted from business and care, as not to be often exposed to inequalities and changes of diet, exercise, air, climate, and other irregularities. Now, what can be so effectual to secure one against the mischiefs arising from such unavoidable alterations, as hardiness, and a certain versatility of constitution which can bear extraordinary labours, and submit to great changes, without any sensible uneasiness or bad consequences. This is best attained, not by an over great delicacy and minute attention to forms, or by an invariable regularity in diet, hours, and way of living, but rather by a bold and discreet latitude of regimen. Besides, deviations from established rules and forms of living, if kept within the bounds of sobriety and reason, are friendly to thought and original sentiments, animate the dull scene of ordinary life and business, and agreeably stir the passions, which stagnate or breed ill humour in the calms of life.

Neatness, cleanliness, and decency, to which we may add dignity of countenance and demeanour, sectn to have something refined and moral in them, at least we generally esteem them indications of an orderly, genteel, and well-governed mind, conscious of an inward worth, and the respect due to one’s nature; whereas nastiness, slovenliness, awkwardness, and indecency, are shrewd symptoms of something mean, careless, and deficient, and betray a mind untaught, illiberal, and unconscious of what is due to one’s self or to others. How much cleanliness conduces to health needs hardly to be mentioned; and how necessary it is to maintain one’s character and rank in life, and to render us agreeable to others as well as to ourselves, is as evident. There are certain motions, airs, and gestures, which become the human countenance and form, in which we perceive a comeliness, openness, simplicity, and gracefulness; and there are others which, to our sense of decorum, appear uncomely, affected, disingenuous, and awkward, quite unsuitable to the native dignity of our face and form. The first are in themselves the most easy, natural, and commodious, give one boldness and presence of mind, a modest assurance, an address both dignified and alluring; they bespeak candour and greatness of mind, raise the most agreeable prejudices in one’s favour, render society engaging, command respect and often love, and give weight and authority both in conversation and business; in fine, they are the colouring of virtue, which show it to the greatest advantage in whomsoever it exists, and not only imitate, but in some measure supply it where it is wanting. Whereas the last, viz. rudeness, affectation, indecorum, and the like, have all the contrary effects; they are burdensome to one’s self, a dishonour to our nature, and a nuisance in society. The former qualities or goods are best attained by a liberal education, by preserving a just sense of the dignity of our nature, by keeping the best and politest company, and, above all, by acquiring those virtuous and ennobling habits of mind which are decency in per [7:15:468]fection, which give an air of unaffected grandeur, and spread a lustre truly engaging over the whole form and deportment.

We are next to consider those goods which consist in exterior social connections, as fame, fortune, civil k authority, and power.

The first has a twofold aspect, as a good pleasant in itself, or gratifying to an original passion, and then as expedient or useful towards a further end. Honour from the wise and good, on account of virtuous conduct, is regaling to a good man, for then his heart re-echoes to the grateful sound. There are few persons quite indifferent even to the commendation of the vulgar. Though we cannot approve that conduct which proceeds from this principle, and not from good affection or love of the conduct itself, yet, as it is often a guard and additional motive to virtue in creatures imperfect as we are, and often distracted by interfering passions, it might be dangerous to suppress it altogether, however wise it may be to restrain it within due bounds, and however laudable to use it only as a scaffolding to our virtue, which may be taken down when that glorious structure is finished, but hardly till then. To pursue fame for itself, is innocent; to regard it only as an auxiliary to virtue, is noble; to seek it chiefly as an engine of public usefulness, is still more noble, and highly praiseworthy. For though the opinion and breath of men are transient and fading things, often obtained without merit, and lost without cause, yet as our business is with men, and as our capacity of serving them is generally increased in proportion to their esteem of us, therefore sound and well-established moral applause may and will be modestly, not ostentatiously, sought after by the good; not indeed as a solitary refined sort of luxury, but as a public and proper instrument to serve and bless mankind. At the same time they will learn to despise that reputation which is founded on rank, fortune, and any other circumstances or accomplishments which are foreign to real merit, or to useful services done to others, and think that praise of little avail which is purchased without desert, and bestowed without judgment.

Fortune, power, and civil authority, or whatever is called influence and weight amongst mankind, are goods of the second division, that is, valuable and pursuable only as they are useful, or as means to a further end, namely, procuring or preserving the immediate objects of enjoyment or happiness to ourselves or others. Therefore to love such goods on their own account, and to pursue them as the ends, not the means, of enjoyment, must be highly preposterous and absurd. There can be no measure, no limit, to such pursuit; all must be whim, caprice, extravagance. Accordingly, such appetites, unlike all the natural ones, are increased by possession, and whetted by enjoyment. They are always precarious, and never without fears, because the objects lie without one’s self; they are seldom without sorrow and vexation, because no accession of wealth or of power can satisfy them. But if those goods are considered only as the materials or means of private or public happiness, then the same obligations which bind us to pursue the latter, bind us likewise to pursue the former. We may, and no doubt we ought to, seek such a measure of wealth as is necessary to supply all our real wants, to raise us above servile dependence, and to provide us with such conveniences as are suited to our rank and condition in life. To be regardless of this measure of wealth, is to expose ourselves to all the temptations of poverty and corruption, to forfeit our natural independence and freedom, to degrade, and consequently to render the rank we hold, and the character we sustain, in society, useless, if not contemptible. When these important ends are secured, we ought not to murmur or repine that we possess not more; yet we are not secluded by any obligation, moral or divine, from seeking more, in order to give us that happiest and most godlike of all powers, the power of doing good. A supine indolence in this respect is both absurd and criminal; absurd, as it robs us of an inexhaustible fund of the most refined and durable enjoyments; and criminal, as it renders us so far useless to the society to which we belong. That pursuit of wealth which goes beyond the former end, viz. the obtaining the necessaries, or such conveniences, of life, as, in the estimation of reason, not of vanity or passion, are suited to our rank and condition, and yet is not directed to the latter, namely, the doing good, is what we call avarice. And that pursuit of power which, after securing one’s self, that is, having attained the proper independence and liberty of a rational social creature, is not directed to the good of others, is what we call ambition, or the lust of power.· To what extent the strict measures of virtue will allow us to pursue either wealth or power, and civil authority, it is not perhaps possible precisely to determine. That must be left to prudence, and the peculiar character, condition, and other circumstances, of each man. Only thus far a limit may be set, that the pursuit of either must not encroach upon any other duty or obligation which we owe to ourselves, to society, or to its parent and head. The same reasoning is to be applied to power as to wealth. It is only valuable as an instrument of our own security, and of the free enjoyment of those original goods it may, and often does, administer to us, and as an engine of more extensive happiness to our friends, our country, and mankind.

Now the best, and indeed the only way to obtain a solid and lasting fame, is an uniform inflexible course of virtue; the employing one’s ability and wealth in supplying the wants, and using one’s power in promoting or securing the happiness, the rights and liberties, of mankind, jolned to an universal affability and politeness of manners. And surely one will not mistake the matter much, who thinks the same course conducive to the acquiring greater accessions both of wealth and power; especially if he add to those qualifications a vigorous industry, a constant attention to the characters and wants of men, to the conjunctures of times, and continually varying genius of affairs; and a steady, intrepid honesty, that will neither yield to the allurements, nor be overawed with the terrors, of that corrupt and corrupting scene in which we live. We have sometimes heard indeed of other ways and means, as fraud, dissimulation, servility, and prostitution, and the like ignoble arts, by which the men of the world (as they are called), shrewd politicians, and persons of address, amass wealth and procure power; but as we want rather to form a man of virtue, an honest, contented, happy man, we leave to the men of the world their own ways, and permit them, unenvied and unimitated by us, to reap the fruit of their doings.

The next species of objects in the scale of good, are the goods of the intellect, as knowledge, memory, judgment, taste, sagacity, docility, and whatever else we call intellectual virtues. Let us consider them a little, and the means as well as obligations to improve them.

As man is a rational creature, capable of knowing the differences of things and actions; as he not only sees and feels what is present, but remembers what is past, and often foresees what is future; as he advances from small beginnings by slow degrees, and with much labour and difficulty, towards knowledge and experience; as his opinions sway his passions, as his passions influence his conduct, and as his conduct draws consequences after it which extend not only to the present, but to the future time, and is therefore the principal source of his happiness or misery; it is evident that he is formed for intellectual improvements, and that it must be of the utmost consequence for him to imnrove and cultivate his intellectual powers, on [7:15:469]which these opinions, those passions, and that conduct, entirely depend.^[4. Philo t. Sinic. Confuc. lib. i. sect. 3, 4, &c. ]

But besides the future consequences and importance of improving our intellectual powers, their immediate exercise on their proper objects yields the most rational and refined pleasures. Knowledge, and a right taste in the arts of imitation and design, as poetry, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, afford not only an innocent, but a most sensible and sublime entertainment. By these the understanding is instructed in ancient and modern life, the history of men and things, the energies and effects of the passions, the consequences of virtue and vice; by these the imagination is at once entertained and nourished with the beauties of nature and art, lighted up and spread out with the novelty, grandeur, and harmony of the universe; and, in fine, the passions are agreeably roused, and suitably engaged, by the greatest and most interesting objects which can fill the human mind. He who has a taste formed for those ingenious delights, and plenty of materials to gratify it, can never want the most agreeable exercise and entertainment, nor once have reason to make that fashionable complaint of the tediousness of time. Nor can he want a proper subject for the discipline and improvement of his heart. For, being daily conversant with beauty, order, and design, in inferior subjects, he bids fair for growing in due time an admirer of that which is fair and well-proportioned in the conduct of life and the order of society, the latter being only order and design exerted in their highest subject. He will learn to transfer the numbers of poetry to the harmony of the mind and of well-governed passions; and, from admiring the virtues of others in moral paintings, come to approve and imitate them himself. To cultivate a true and correct taste, therefore, must be both our interest and our duty, when the circumstances of our station give leisure and opportunity for it, and when the doing of it is not inconsistent with our higher obligations or engagements to society and mankind.

It is best attained by reading the best books, where good sense has more the ascendant than learning, and which pertain more to practice than to speculation; by studying the best models, or those which profess to imitate nature most, and approach the nearest to it; and by conversing with men of the most refined taste, and the greatest experience in life.

As to the other intellectual goods, what a fund of entertainment must it be to investigate the truth and various relations of things, to trace the operations of nature to general laws, to explain by these its manifold phenomena, to understand that order by which the universe is upheld, and that economy by which it is governed; to be acquainted with the human mind, the connections, subordinations, and uses of its powers, and to mark their energy in life: how agreeable to the ingenious inquirer, to observe the manifold relations and combinations of individual minds in society, to discern the causes why they flourish or decay, and thence to ascend, through the vast scale of beings, to that general Mind which presides over all, and operates unseen in every system and in every age, throughout the whole compass and progression of nature. Devoted to such entertainments as these, the contemplative have abandoned every other pleasure, retired from the body, so to speak, and sequestered themselves from social intercourse; for these, the busy have often preferred to the hurry and the din of life the calm retreats of contemplation; for these, when once they came to taste them, even the gay and voluptuous have thrown up the lawless pursuits of sense and appetite, and acknowledged these mental enjoyments to be the most refined, and indeed the only luxury. Besides, by a just and enlarged knowledge of nature, we recognise the perfections of its Author; and thus piety, and all those pious affections which depend on just sentiments of his character, are awakened and confirmed; whilst a thousand superstitious fears, which arise from partial views of his nature and works, will of course be excluded. An extensive prospect of human life, and of the periods and revolutions of human things, will conduce much to impart a certain greatness of mind, and a noble contempt of those little competitions about power, honour, and wealth, which disturb and divide the bulk of mankind; and promote a calm endurance of those inconveniences and evils which are the common appendages of humanity. Add to all this, that a just knowledge of human nature, and of those hinges upon which the business and fortunes of men turn, will prevent our thinking either too highly or too meanly of our fellow-creatures; give no small scope to the exercise of friendship, confidence, and good will; and at the same time brace the mind with a proper caution and distrust (those nerves of prudence), and give a greater mastery in the conduct of private as well as public life. By cultivating our intellectual abilities, therefore, we shall best promote and secure our interest, and be qualified for acting our part in society with more honour to ourselves, as well as advantage to mankind. It is consequently our duty to improve them to the utmost of our power; they are talents committed to us by the Almighty Head of society, and we are accountable to him for the use of them.

The intellectual virtues are best improved by accurate and impartial observation, extensive reading, and unconfined converse with men of all characters, especially with those who to private study have joined the widest acquaintance with the world, and the greatest practice in affairs; but, above all, by being much in the world, and having large dealings with mankind. Such opportunities contribute much to divest one of prejudices and a servile attachment to crude systems, to open one’s views, and to give that experience upon which the most useful because the most practical knowledge is built, and from which the surest maxims for the conduct of life are deduced.

The highest goods which enter into the composition of human happiness are moral goods of the mind, directly and ultimately regarding ourselves; such as command of the appetites and passions, prudence and caution, magnanimity, fortitude, humility, love of virtue, love of God, resignation, and the like. These sublime goods are goods by way of eminence, goods recommended and enforced by the most intimate and awful sense and consciousness of our nature; goods which constitute the quintessence, the very temper, of happiness, and form that complexion of soul which renders us approveable and lovely in the sight of God; goods, in fine, which are the elements of all our future perfection and felicity.

Most of the other goods which we have considered depend partly upon ourselves, and partly on accidents which we can neither foresee nor prevent, and result from causes which we cannot influence or alter. They are such goods as we may possess to-day and lose to-morrow, and which require a felicity of constitution and talents to attain them in full vigour and perfection, and a felicity of conjunctures to secure the possession of them. Therefore, did our happiness depend altogether or chiefly on such transitory and precarious possessions, it were itself most precarious, and the highest folly, to be anxious about it. But although creatures constituted as we are cannot be indifferent about such goods, and must even suffer in some degree, and consequently have our happiness incomplete, without them, yet [7:15:470]they weigh but little in the scale when compared with moral goods. By the benevolent constitution of our nature, the latter are placed within the sphere of our activity, so that no man can be destitute of them unless he is first wanting to himself. Some of the wisest and best of mankind have wanted most of the former goods, and all the external kind, and felt most of the opposite evils, such at least as arise from without; yet, by possessing the latter, viz. the moral goods, have declared they were happy, and to the conviction of the most impartial observers have appeared to be happy. The worst of men have been surrounded with every outward good and advantage of fortune, and have possessed great parts; yet, from vyant of moral rectitude, have been, and have confessed themselves to be, notoriously and exquisitely miserable. The exercise of virtue has supported its votaries, and made them exult in the midst of tortures almost intolerable; nay, how often has some false form or shadow of it sustained even the greatest villains and bigots under the same exigencies.^[5. As Ravaillac, who assassinated Henry IV. of France; and Balthasar Gerard, who murdered William I. prince of Orange. ] But no external goods, no goods of fortune, have been able to alleviate the agonies or expel the fears of a guilty mind, conscious of the deserved hatred and reproach of mankind, and the just displeasure of Almighty God.

As the present condition of human life is wonderfully chequered with good and evil, and as no height of station, no affluence of fortune, can absolutely insure the good, or secure against the evil, it is evident that a great part of the comfort and serenity of life must lie in having our minds duly affected with regard to both, that is, rightly attempered to the loss of one and the sufferance of the other. For it is certain that outward calamities derive their chief malignity and pressure from the inward dispositions with which we receive them. By managing these rightly, we may greatly abate that malignity and pressure, and consequently diminish the number and weaken the force of the evils of life, if we should not have it in our power to obtain a large share of its goods. There are particularly three virtues which go to the forming of this right temper towards evil, and which are of singular efficacy, if not totally to remove, yet wonderfully to alleviate, the calamities of life. These are fortitude or patience, humility, and resignation.

Fortitude is that calm and steady habit of mind which either moderates our fears, and enables us bravely to encounter the prospect of evil, or renders the mind serene and invincible under its immediate pressure. It lies equally distant from rashness and cowardice; and, though it does not hinder us from feeling, yet it prevents our complaining or shrinking under the stroke. It always includes a generous contempt of, or at least a noble superiority to, those precarious goods of which we can insure neither the possession nor the continuance. The man, therefore, who possesses this virtue in this ample sense of it, stands upon an eminence, and sees human things below him; the tempest indeed may reach him, but he stands secure and collected against it, upon the basis of conscious virtue, which the severest storms can seldom shake, and never overthrow.

Humility is another virtue of high rank and dignity, although often mistaken by proud mortals for meanness and pusillanimity. It is opposed to pride, which commonly includes in it a false or exaggerated estimation of our own merit, an ascription of it to ourselves as its only and original cause, an undue comparison of ourselves with others, and, in consequence of that supposed superiority, an arrogant preference of ourselves, and a supercilious contempt of them. Humility, on the other hand, seems to denote that modest and ingenuous temper of mind, which arises from a just and equal estimate of our own advantages compared with those of others, and from a sense of our deriving all originally from, the Author of our being. Its ordinary attendants are mildness, a gentle forbearance, and an easy unassuming humanity with regard to the imperfections and faults of others; virtues rare, indeed, but of the fairest complexion, the proper offspring of so lovely a parent, the best ornaments of such imperfect creatures as we are, precious in the sight of God, and all-powerful over the hearts of men.

Resignation is that mild and heroic temper of mind which arises from a sense of an infinitely wise and good providence, and enables us to acquiesce with cordial affection in its just appointments. This virtue has something very particular in its nature, as well as sublime in its efficacy; for it teaches us to bear evil, not only with patience, and as being unavoidable, but it transforms, as it were, evil into good, by leading us to consider it, and every event which has the least appearance of evil, as a divine dispensation, a wise and benevolent temperament of things, subservient to universal good, and of course including that of every individual, especially of such as calmly stoop to it. In this light, the administration itself, nay every act of it, becomes an object of affection, and the evil disappears, or is converted into a balm which both heals and nourishes the mind. For although the first unexpected access of evil may surprise the soul into grief, yet that grief, when the mind calmly reviews its object, changes into contentment, and is by degrees exalted into veneration and a divine composure. Our private will is lost in that of the Almighty, and our security against every real evil rests on the same bottom as the throne of him who lives and reigns for ever.

Before we finish this section, it may be fit to observe, that as the Deity is the supreme and inexhaustible source of good, on whom the happiness of the whole creation depends; as he is the highest object in nature, and the only object who is fully proportioned to the intellectual and moral powers of the mind, in whom they ultimately rest, and find their most perfect exercise and completion; he is therefore termed the chief good of man, objectively considered. And virtue, or the proportioned and vigorous exercise of the several powers and affections towards their respective objects, as above described, is, in the schools, termed the chief good, formally considered, or its formal idea, being the inward temper and native constitution of human happiness.

From the detail which we have thus gone through, the following important corollaries may be deduced :—1. It is evident that the happiness of such a progressive creature as man can never be at a stand, or continue a fixed invariable thing. His finite nature, let it rise ever so high, admits still higher degrees of improvement and perfection; and his progression in improvement or virtue always makes way for a progression in happiness: so that no possible point can be assigned in any period of his existence in which he is perfectly happy, that is, so happy as to exclude higher degrees of happiness. All his perfectionis only comparative. 2. It appears that many things must conspire to complete the happiness of so various a creature as man, subject to so many wants, and susceptible of such different pleasures. 3. As his capacities of pleasure cannot be all gratified at the same time, and must often interfere with each other in such a precarious and fleeting state as human life, or be frequently disappointed, perfect happiness, that is, the undisturbed enjoyment of the several pleasures of which we are capable, is unattainable in our present state. 4. That state is most to be sought after, in which the fewest competitions and disappointments can happen, which least of all impairs any sense of [7:15:471]pleasure, and which opens an inexhaustible source of the most refined and lasting enjoyments. 5. That state which is attended with all these advantages, is a state or course of virtue; and therefore, a state of virtue, in which the moral goods of the mind are attained, is the happiest state.

CHAP. III. DUTIES OF SOCIETY.

Sect. I.— Filial and Fraternal Duty.

As we have followed the order of nature in tracing the history of man, and those duties which he owes to himself, it seems reasonable to observe the same method respecting those he owes to society, which constitute the second class of his obligations.

1 His parents are amongst the earliest objects of his attention; he becomes soonest acquainted with them, reposes a peculiar confidence in them, and seems to regard them with a fond affection, the early prognostics of his future piety and gratitude. Thus does nature dictate the first lines of filial duty, even before a just sense of the connection is formed. But when the child is grown up, and has attained to such a degree of understanding as to comprehend the moral tie, and be sensible of the obligations he is under to his parents; when he looks back on their tender and disinterested affection, their incessant cares and labours in nursing, educating, and providing for him, during that state in which he had neither prudence nor strength to care and provide for himself; he must be conscious that he owes to them these peculiar duties.

To reverence and honour them, as the instruments of nature in introducing him to life, and to that state of comfort and happiness which he enjoys; and therefore to esteem and imitate their good qualities, to alleviate and bear with, and spread, as much as possible, a decent veil over their faults and weaknesses. To be highly grateful to them for those favours which it can hardly ever be in his power fully to repay: to show this gratitude by a strict attention to their wants, and a solicitous care to supply them; by a submissive deference to their authority and advice, especially by paying great regard to it in the choice of a wife, and of an occupation; by yielding to, rather than peevishly contending with, their humours, as remembering how often they have been persecuted by his; and, in fine, by soothing their cares, lightening their sorrows, supporting the infirmities of age, and making the remainder of their life as comfortable and joyful as possible.

As his brethren and sisters are the next with whom the creature forms a social and moral connection, to them he .owes a fraternal regard; and with them ought he to enter into a strict league of friendship, mutual sympathy, advice, assistance, and a generous intercourse of kind offices, remembering their relation to common parents, and that brotherhood of nature which unites them into a closer community of interest and affection.

Sect. II.— Concerning Marriage.

When man arrives at a certain age, he becomes sensible of a peculiar sympathy and tenderness towards the other sex; the charms of beauty engage his attention, and call forth new and softer dispositions than he has yet felt. The many amiable qualities exhibited by a fair outside, or by the mild allurement of female manners, or which the prejudiced spectator without much reasoning supposes those to include, with several other circumstances both natural and accidental, point his view and affection to a particular object, and of course contract that general rambling regard, which was lost and useless amongst the undistinguished crowd, into a peculiar and permanent attachment to one woman, which ordinarily terminates in the most important, venerable, and delightful connection in life.

The state of the brute creation is very different from that of human creatures. The former are clothed and generally armed by their structure, easily find what is necessary to their subsistence, and soon attain their vigour and maturity; so that they need the care and aid of their parents but for a short while, and therefore we see that nature has assigned to them vagrant and transient amours. The connection being purely natural, and merely for propagating and rearing their offspring, no sooner is that end answered, than the connection dissolves of course. But the human race are of a more tender and defenceless constitution; their infancy and nonage continue longer; they advance slowly to strength of body and maturity of reason; they need constant attention, and a long series of cares and labours, in order to train them up to decency, virtue, and the various arts of life. Nature has, therefore, provided them with the most affectionate and anxious tutors, to aid their weakness, to supply their wants, and to accomplish them in those necessary arts, even their own parents, upon whom she has devolved this mighty charge, rendered agreeable by the most alluring and powerful of all ties, parental affection. But unless both concur in this grateful task, and continue their joint labours until they have reared up and planted out their young colony, it must become a prey to every rude invader, and the purpose of nature in the original union of the human pair must be defeated. Therefore our structure as well as condition is an evident indication that the human sexes are destined for a more intimate, that is, for a moral and lasting union. It appears, likewise, that the principal end of marriage is not to propagate and nurse up an offspring, but to educate and form minds for the great duties and extensive destinations of life. Society must be supplied from this original nursery with useful members, and its fairest ornaments and supports.

The mind is apt to be dissipated in its views· and acts of friendship and humanity, unless the former be directed to a particular object, and the latter employed in a particular province. When men once indulge in this dissipation, there is no stopping their career; they grow insensible to moral attractions; and, by obstructing or impairing the decent and regular exercise of the tender and generous feelings of the human heart, they in time become unqualified for, or averse to, the forming a moral union of souls, which is the cement of society, and the source of the purest domestic joys. But a rational and undepraved love, and its fair companion, marriage, collect a man’s views, guide his heart to its proper object, and, by con fining his affection to that object, do really enlarge its influence and use. Besides, it is but too evident, from the conduct of mankind, that the common ties of humanity are too feeble to engage and interest the passions of the generality in the affairs of society. The connections of neighbourhood, acquaintance, and general intercourse, arc too wide a field of action for many, and those of a public or community are so for more; a field in which they either care not or know not how to exert themselves. Therefore nature, ever wise and benevolent, by implanting that strong sympathy which reigns between the individuals of each sex, and by urging them to form a particular moral connection, the spring of many domestic endearments, has measured out to each pair a particular sphere of action, proportioned to their views, and adapted to their respective capacities. Besides, by interesting them deeply in the concerns of their own little circle, she has connected them more closely with society, which is composed of particular families, and bound them down to their good behaviour in that particular community to which they belong.
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This moral connection is marriage, and this sphere of action is a family.

Of the conjugal alliance the following are the natural laws. First, mutual fidelity to the marriage-bed. Disloyalty defeats the very end of marriage; dissolves the natural cement of the relation; weakens the moral tie, the chief strength of which consists in the reciprocation of affection; and, by making the offspring uncertain, diminishes the care and attachment necessary to their education. Secondly, a conspiration of counsels and endeavours to promote the common interest of the family, and to educate their common offspring. In order to observe these laws, it is necessary to cultivate, both before and during the married state, the strictest decency and chastity of manners, and a just sense of what becomes their respective characters. Thirdly, the union must be inviolable, and for life. The nature of friendship, and particularly of this species of it, the education of their offspring, and the order of society and of successions, which would otherwise be extremely perplexed, all equally require this. To preserve the union in question, and render the matrimonial state more harmonious and comfortable, a mutual esteem and tenderness, a mutual deference and forbearance, a communication of advice, and assistance, and authority, are absolutely necessary. If both parties keep within their proper departments, there need be no disputes about power or superiority, and there will be none. They have no opposite, no separate interests, and therefore there can be no just ground for opposition of conduct.

From this detail, and the present state of things, in which there is pretty nearly a parity of numbers of both sexes, it is evident that polygamy is an unnatural state; and though it should be granted to be more fruitful of children, which, however, it is not found to be, yet it is by no means so fit for rearing minds; which seems to be as much, if not more, the intention of nature than the propagation of bodies.

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Sect. III.— Of Parental Duty.

The connection of parents with their children is a natural consequence of the matrimonial connection; and the duties which the parents owe them result as naturally from that connection. The feeble state of children, subject to so many wants and dangers, requires their incessant care and attention; their ignorant and uncultivated minds demand continual instruction and culture. Had human creatures come into the world with the full strength of men, but the weakness of reason and the vehemence of passions which prevail in children, they would have been too strong or too stubborn to submit to the government and instruction of their parents. But as they were designed for a progression in knowledge and virtue, it was proper that the growth of their bodies should keep pace with that of their minds, lest the purposes of this progression should have been defeated. Amongst other admirable purposes which this gradual expansion of their outward as well as inward structure serves, this is one: that it affords ample scope for the exercise of many tender and generous affections, which fill up the domestic life with a beautiful variety of duties and enjoyments, and are of course a noble discipline for the heart, and a hardy kind of education for the more honourable and important duties of public life.

The above-mentioned weak and ignorant state of children seems plainly to invest their parents with such authority and power as is necessary to their support, protection, and education; but such authority and power cannot be construed to extend farther than is necessary to answer those ends, nor to last longer than that weakness and ignorance continue; wherefore, the foundation or reason of the authority and power having ceased, they cease of course. Whatever power or authority, then, it may be necessary or lawful for parents to exercise during the nonage of their children, to assume or usurp the same when they have attained the maturity or full exercise of their strength and reason would be tyrannical and unjust. Hence it is evident, that parents have no right to punish the persons of their children more severely than the nature of their wardship requires, much less to invade their lives, to encroach upon their liberty, or to transfer them as their property to any master whatsoever.

The first class of duties which parents owe to their children respect their natural life; and these comprehend protection, nurture, provision, introducing them into the world in a manner suitable to their rank and fortune, and the like. The second order of duties regards the intellectual and moral life of their children, or their education in such arts and accomplishments as are necessary to qualify them for performing the duties they owe to themselves and to others. As this was found to be the principal design of the matrimonial alliance, so the fulfilling that design is the most important and dignified of all the parental duties. In order, therefore, to fit the child for acting his part wisely and worthily as a man, as a citizen, and as a creature of God, both parents ought to combine their joint wisdom, authority, and power, and each apart should employ those talents which are the peculiar excellency and ornament of their respective sex. The father ought to lay out and superintend their education, the mother should execute and manage the detail of which she is capable. The former should direct the manly exertion of the intellectual and the moral powers of his child. His imagination, and the manner of those exertions, are the peculiar province of the latter. The former should advise, protect, command, and, by his experience, masculine vigour, and that superior authority which is commonly ascribed to his sex, brace and strengthen his pupil for active life, for gravity, integrity, and firmness in suffering. The business of the latter is to bend and soften her male pupil, by the charms of her conversation, and the softness and decency of her manners, for social life, for politeness of taste, and the elegant decorums and enjoyments of humanity; and to improve and refine the tenderness and modesty of her female pupil, and form her for all those mild domestic virtues which are the peculiar characteristics and ornaments of her sex. To conduct the opening minds of their sweet charge through the several periods of their progress; to assist them in each period, in throwing out the latent seeds of reason and ingenuity, and in gaining fresh accessions of light and virtue; and at length, with all these advantages, to produce the young adventurers upon the great theatre of human life, to play their several parts in the sight of their friends, of society, and mankind; are equally incumbent on both Sect. IV— Herile and Servile Duty.

In the natural course of human affairs, it must necessarily happen that some of mankind will live in plenty and opulence, and others be reduced to a state of indigence and poverty. The former need the labours of the latter, and the latter provision and support from the former. This mutual necessity is the foundation of that connection, whether we call it moral or civil, which subsists between masters and servants. He who feeds another has a right to some equivalent, viz. the labour of him whom he maintains, and the fruits of it; and he who labours for another has a right to expect that he should support him. But as the labours of a man of ordinary strength are certainly of greater value than mere food and clothing, because they would actually produce more, even the maintenance of a family, were the labourer to employ them in his own be [7:15:473]half, therefore he has an undoubted right to rate and dispose of his service for certain wages above mere maintenance; and if he have incautiously disposed of it for the latter only, yet the contract being of the onerous kind, he may equitably claim a supply of that deficiency. If the service be specified, the servant is bound to that only; if not, then he is to be construed as bound only to such services as are consistent with the laws of justice and humanity. By the voluntary servitude to which he subjects himself, he forfeits no rights but such as are necessarily included in that servitude, and is obnoxious to no punishment but such as a voluntary failure in the service may be supposed reasonably to require. The offspring of such servants have a right to that liberty which neither they nor their parents have forfeited.

As to those who, by reason of some heinous offence, or for some notorious damage, which they cannot otherwise compensate, are condemned to perpetual service, they do not, on that account, forfeit all the rights of men, but only those the loss of which is necessary to secure society against the like offences for the future, or to repair the damage which they have done.

With regard to captives taken in war, it is barbarous and inhuman to reduce them to perpetual slavery, unless some peculiar and aggravated circumstances of guilt have attended their hostility. The bulk of the subjects of any government engaged in war may be fairly esteemed innocent enemies, and therefore they have a right to that clemency which is consistent with the common safety of mankind, and the particular security of that society against which they are engaged. Though ordinary captives have a grant of their lives, yet to pay their liberty as an equivalent is much too high a price. There are other ways of acknowledging or returning the favour than by surrendering that which is far dearer than life itself.^[6. Hutcheson, Mor. Inst. Phil. lib. iii. c. 3. ] To those who, under pretext of the necessities of commerce, drive the unnatural trade of bargaining for human flesh, and consigning their innocent but unfortunate fellow-creatures to eternal servitude and misery, we may address the words of a fine writer: “Let avarice defend it as it will, there is an honest reluctance in humanity against buying and selling, and regarding those of our own species as our wealth and possessions.”

Sect. V.— Social Duties of the Private Kind.

Hitherto we have considered only the domestic economical duties, because these are first in the progress of nature. But as man passes beyond the little circle of a family, he forms connections with relations, friends, neighbours, and others; whence results a new train of duties of the more private social kind, as friendship, chastity, courtesy, good neighbourhood, charity, forgiveness, hospitality.

Man is admirably formed for particular social attachments and duties. There is a peculiar and strong propensity in his nature to be affected with the sentiments and dispositions of others. Men, like certain musical instruments, are set to each other, so that the vibrations or notes excited in one raise correspondent notes and vibrations in the others. The impulses of pleasure or pain, joy or sorrow, made upon one mind, are by an instantaneous sympathy of nature communicated in some degree to all, especially when hearts are, as a humane writer expresses it, in unison of kindness; the joy that vibrates in one communicates to the other also. We may add, that although joy thus imparted swells the harmony, yet grief vibrated to the heart of a friend, and rebounding from thence in sympathetic notes, melts, as it were, and almost dies away. All the passions, but especially those of the social kind, are contagious; and when the passions of one man mingle with those of another, they increase and multiply prodigiously. There is a most moving eloquence in the human countenance, air, voice, and gesture, wonderfully expressive of the most latent feelings and passions of the soul, which darts them like a subtile flame into the hearts of others, and there raises correspondent feelings. Friendship, love, good humour, joy, spread through every feature, and particularly shoot from the eyes their softer and fiercer fires with an irresistible energy; and, in like manner, the opposite passions of hatred, enmity, ill humour, melancholy, diffuse a sullen and saddening air over the face, and, flashing from eye to eye, kindle a train of similar passions. By these, and other admirable pieces of machinery, men are formed for society and the delightful interchange of friendly sentiments and duties, to increase the happiness of others by participation, and their own by rebound; and to diminish, by dividing, the common stock of their misery.

The first emanations of the social principle beyond the bounds of a family lead us to form a nearer conjunction of friendship or good will with those who are anywise connected with us by blood or domestic alliance. To them our affection does commonly exert itself in a greater or less degree, according to the nearness or distance of the relation. And this proportion is admirably suited to the extent of our powers and the indigence of our state; for it is only within those lesser circles of consanguinity or alliance that the generality of mankind are able to display their abilities or benevolence, and consequently to uphold their connection with society, and subserviency to a public interest. Therefore it is our duty to regard these closer connections as the next department to that of a family, in which nature has marked out for us a sphere of activity and usefulness; and to cultivate the kind affections which are the cement of these endearing alliances.

Frequently the view of distinguishing moral qualities in some of our acquaintance may give birth to that more nobleconnection which we call friendship, which is far superior to the alliances of consanguinity. For these are of a superficial, and often of a transitory nature, of which, as they hold more of instinct than of reason, we cannot give such a rational account. But friendship derives all its strength and beauty, and the only existence which is durable, from the qualities of the heart, or from virtuous and lovely dispositions; or should these be wanting, they or some shadow of them must be supposed present. Therefore friendship may be described to be the union of two souls by means of virtue, the common object and cement of their mutual affection. Without virtue, or the supposition of it, friendship is only a mercenary league, an alliance of interest, which must dissolve of course when that interest decays or subsists no longer. It is not so much any particular passion, as a composition of some of the noblest feelings and passions of the mind. Good sense, a just taste and love of virtue, a thorough candour and benignity of heart, or what we usually call a good temper, and a generous sympathy of sentiments and affections, are the necessary ingredients of this virtuous connection. When it is grafted on esteem, strengthened by habit, and mellowed by time, it yields infinite pleasure, ever new and ever growing; is a noble support amidst the various trials and vicissitudes of life; and constitutes a high seasoning to most of our other enjoyments. To form and cultivate virtuous friendship, must be very improving to the temper, as its principal object is virtue, set off with all the allurement of [7:15:474]countenance, air, and manners, shining forth in the native graces of manly honest sentiments and affections, and rendered visible as it were to the friendly spectator in a conduct unaffectedly great and good; and as its principal exercises are the very energies of virtue, or its effect and emanations, so, wherever this amiable attachment prevails, it will exalt our admiration and attachment to virtue, and, unless impeded in its course by unnatural prejudices, will run out into a friendship to the human race. For as no one can merit, and no one ought to usurp, the sacred name of friend, who hates mankind; so, whoever trulyloves them, possesses the most essential quality of a true friend.

The duties of friendship are a mutual esteem of each other, unbribed by interest, and independent of it; a generous confidence, as far distant from suspicion as from reserve; an inviolable harmony of sentiments and dispositions, of designs and interests; a fidelity unshaken by the changes of fortune; a constancy unalterable by distance of time or place; a resignation of one’s personal interest to those of one’s friend; and a reciprocal, unenvious, unreserved exchange of kind offices. But, amidst all the exertions of this moral connection, humane and generous as it is, we must remember that it operates within a narrow sphere, and its immediate operations respect only the individual; and therefore its particular impulses must still be subordinate to a more public interest, or be always directed and controlled by the more extensive connections of our nature.

When our friendship terminates on any of the other sex, in whom beauty or agreeableness of person and external gracefulness of manners conspire to express and heighten the moral charm of a tender honest heart, and sweet, ingenuous, modest temper, lighted up by good sense, it generally grows into a more soft and endearing attachment. When this attachment is improved by a growing acquaintance with the worth of its object, is conducted by discretion, and issues at length, as it ought to do, in the moral connection formerly mentioned, it becomes the source of many amiable duties, of a communication of passions and interests, of the most refined decencies, and of a thousand nameless, deep-felt joys of reciprocal tenderness and love, flowing from every look, word, and action. Here friendship acts with double energy, and the natural conspire with the moral charms to strengthen and secure the love of virtue. As the delicate nature of female honour and decorum, and the inexpressible grace of a chaste and modest behaviour, are the surest and indeed the only means of kindling at first, and ever afterwards keeping alive, this tender and elegant flame, and accomplishing the excellent ends designed by it; to attempt by fraud to violate the one, or, under pretence of passion, to sully and corrupt the other, and, by so doing, to expose the too often credulous and unguarded object, with a wanton cruelty, to the hatred of her own sex and the scorn of ours, and to the lowest infamy of both, is a conduct not only base and criminal, but inconsistent with that truly rational and refined enjoyment, the spirit and quintessence of which are derived from the bashful and sacred charms of virtue kept untainted, and therefore ever alluring to the lover’s heart.

Courtesy, good neighbourhood, affability, and the like duties, which are founded upon our private social connections, are no less necessary and obligatory on creatures united to society, and supporting and supported by each other in a chain of mutual want and dependence. They do not consist in a smooth address, an artificial or obsequious air, fawning adulations, or a polite servility of manners, but in a just and modest sense of our own dignity and that of others, and of the reverence due to mankind, especially to those who hold the higher links of the social chain; in a discreet and manly accommodation of ourselves to the foibles and humours of others; in a strict observance of the rules of decorum and civility; but, above all, in a frank obliging carriage, and a generous interchange of good deeds rather than words. Such a conduct is of great use and advantage, as it is an excellent security against injury, and the best claim and recommendation to the esteem, civility, and universal respect of mankind. This inferior order of virtues unites the particular members of society more closely, and forms the lesser pillars of the civil fabric; which, in many instances, supply the unavoidable defects of laws, and maintain the harmony and decorum of social intercourse, where the more important and essential lines of virtue are wanting.

Charity and forgiveness are truly amiable and useful duties of the social kind. There is a twofold distinction of rights commonly taken notice of by moral writers, namely, perfect and imperfect. To fulfil the former is necessary to the being and support of society; to fulfil the latter is a duty equally sacred and obligatory, and tends to the improvement and prosperity of society; but as the violation of them is not equally prejudicial to the public good, the fulfilling of them is not subjected to the cognizance of law, but left to the candour, humanity, and gratitude of individuals. By this means ample scope is afforded to exercise all the generosity, and display the genuine merit and lustre, of virtue. Thus the wants and misfortunes of others call for our charitable assistance and seasonable supplies. And the good man, unconstrained by law, and uncontrolled by human authority, will cheerfully acknowledge and generously satisfy this mournful and moving claim; a claim supported by the sanction of heaven, of whose bounties he is honoured to be the grateful trustee. If his own perfect rights are invaded by the injustice of others, he will not therefore reject their imperfect right to pity and forgiveness, unless his grant of these should be inconsistent with the more extensive rights of society, or the public good. In that case he will have recourse to public justice and the laws; and even then he will prosecute the injury with no unnecessary severity, but rather with mildness and humanity. When the injury is merely personal, and of such a nature as to admit of alleviations, and the forgiveness of which would be attended with no worse consequences, especially of a public kind, the good man will generously forgive his offending brother; and it is his duty to do so, rather than to take private revenge, or to retaliate evil for evil. For though resentment of injury is a natural passion, and implanted, as was observed above,^[7. See part i. chap. 2 and 4. ] for wise and good ends, yet, considering the manifold partialities which most men have for themselves, were every one to act as judge in his own cause, and to execute the sentence dictated by his own resentment, it is but too evident that mankind would pass all bounds in their fury, and the last sufferer would be provoked in his turn to make full reprisals; so that evil, thus encountering with evil, would produce one continued series of violence and misery, and render society intolerable, if not impracticable. Therefore, where the security of the individual, or the good of the public, does not require a proportional retaliation, it is agreeable to the general law of benevolence, and to the particular end of the passion, which is to prevent injury and the misery occasioned by it, to forgive personal injuries, or not to return evil for evil. This duty is indeed one of the noble refinements which Christianity has made upon the general maxims and practice of mankind, and enforced, with a peculiar strength and beauty, by sanctions no less alluring than awful. And indeed[7:15:475] the practice of it is generally its own reward; by expelling from the mind the most dreadful intruders upon its repose, those rancorous passions which are begotten and nursed by resentment; and by disarming and even subduing every enemy one has, except such as have nothing left of men but the outward form.

The most enlarged and humane connection of the private kind seems to be the hospitable alliance, from which flow the amiable and disinterested duties we owe to strangers. If th’e exercise of passions of the most private and instinctive kind is beheld with moral approbation and delight, how lovely and venerable must those appear which result from a calm philanthropy, are founded in the common rights and connections of society, and embrace men, not of a particular sect, party, or nation, but all in general, without distinction, and without any of the little partialities of self-love.

Sect. VI.— Social Duties of the Commercial Kind.

The next order or class of connections are those which arise from the wants and weakness of mankind, and from the various circumstances in which their different situations place them. These we may call commercial connections, and the duties which result from them commercial duties; as justice, fair-dealing, sincerity, fidelity to compacts, and the like.

Although nature is perfect in all her works, yet she has observed a manifest and eminent distinction amongst them. To all such as lie beyond the reach of human skill and power, and are properly of her own department, she has given the finishing hand. These man may afterwards design and imitate; but he can never rival them, nor add to their beauty or perfection. Such are the forms and structure of vegetables, animals, and many of their productions, as the honey-comb, the spider’s web, and the like. There are others ofher works which she has intentionally left unfinished, as it were, in order to exercise the ingenuity and power of man. She has presented to him a rich profusion of materials of every kind for his convenience and use; but they are rude and unpolished, or not to be come at without art and labour. These therefore he must needs apply, in order to adapt them to his use, and to enjoy them in perfection. Thus nature has given him an infinite variety of herbs, grains, fossils, minerals, woods, water, earth, air, and a thousand other crude materials, to supply his numerous wants; but he must sow, plant, dig, refine, polish, build, and, in short, manufacture the various produce of nature, in order to obtain even the necessaries, and much more the conveniencies and elegancies, of life. These, then, are the price of his labour and industry, and without that nature will sell him nothing. But as the wants of mankind are many, and the single strength of individuals small, they could hardly find the necessaries, and much less the conveniencies, of life, without uniting their ingenuity and their strength in acquiring these, and without a mutual intercourse of good offices. Some men are better formed for some kinds of ingenuity and labour, and others for other kinds; and different soils and climates are enriched with different productions; so that men, by exchanging the produce of their respective labours, and supplying the wants of one country with the superfluities of another, do in effect diminish the labours of each, and increase the abundance of all. This is the foundation of all commerce, or exchange of commodities and goods, one with another; in order to facilitate which, men have contrived different species of coin, or money, as a common standard by which to estimate the comparative values of their respective goods. But to render commerce sure and effectual, justice, fair-dealing, sincerity, and fidelity to compacts, are absolutely necessary.

Justice, or fair-dealing, or, in other words, a disposition to treat others as we would be treated by them, is a virtue of the first importance, and inseparable from the virtuous character. It is the cement of society, or that pervading spirit which connects its members, inspires its various relations, and maintains the order and subordination of each part of the whole. Without it society would become a den of thieves and banditti, hating and hated, devouring and devoured, by one another.

And here it may be proper to take a view of Mr Hume’s supposed case of the sensible knave and the worthless miser, and consider what would be the duty of the former according to the theory of those moralists who hold the will of God to be the criterion or rule, and everlasting happiness the motive, of human virtue.

It has already been observed, and the truth of the observation cannot be controverted, that, by secretly purloining from the coffers of a miser, part of that gold which there lies useless, a man might in particular circumstances promote the good of society, without doing any injury to a single individual; and it was hence inferred, that, in such circumstances, it would be no duty to abstain from theft, were local utility, arising from particular consequences, the real criterion or standard of justice. Very different, however, is the conclusion which must be drawn by those who consider the natural tendency of actions, if universally performed, as the criterion of their merit or demerit in the sight of God. Such philosophers attend, not to the particular consequences of a single action in any given case, but to the general consequences of the principle from which it flows, if that principle were universally adopted. You cannot, say they, permit one action and prohibit another, without showing a difference between them. The same sort of actions, therefore, must be generally permitted or generally forbidden. But were every man allowed to ascertain for himself the circumstances in which the good of society would be promoted, by secretly abstracting the superfluous wealth of a worthless miser, it is plain that no property could be secure; that all incitements to industry would be at once removed; and that, whatever might be the immediate consequences of any particular theft, the general and necessary consequences of the principle by which it was authorized must soon prove fatal. Were one man to purloin part of the riches of areal miser, and to consider his conduct as vindicated by his intention to employ those riches in acts of generosity, another might, by the same sort of casuistry, think himself authorized to appropriate to himself part of his wealth; and thus theft would spread through all orders of men, till society were resolved into separate, hostile, and savage families, mutually dreading and shunning each other. The general consequences, therefore, of encroaching upon private property tend evidently and violently to universal misery.

On the other hand, indeed, the particular and immediate consequences of that principle which considers every man’s property as sacred, may in some cases, such as that supposed, be in a small degree injurious to a few families in the neighbourhood of the miser and the knave. But that injury can never be of long duration; and it is infinitely more than counterbalanced by the general good consequences of the principle from which it accidentally results, since these consequences extend to all nations and to all ages. Without a sacred regard to property, there could neither be arts nor industry nor confidence amongst men, and happiness would be for ever banished from this world. But the communication of happiness being the end which God had in view when he created the world, and all men standing in the same relation to him, it is impossible to suppose that he does not approve, and will not ultimately reward, those voluntary actions of which the natural tendency[7:15:476] is to increase the sum of human happiness; or that he does not disapprove, and will not ultimately punish, those which naturally tend to aggravate human misery. The conclusion is, that a strict adherence to the principle of justice is universally, and in all possible circumstances, a duty from which we cannot deviate without offending our Creator, and ultimately bringing misery upon ourselves.

Sincerity, or veracity, in our words and actions, is another virtue or duty of great importance to society, being one of the great bands of mutual intercourse, and the foundation of mutual trust. Without it society would be the dominion of mistrust, jealousy, and fraud, and conversation a traffic of lies and dissimulation. It includes in it a conformity of our words with our sentiments, a correspondence between our actions and dispositions, a strict regard to truth, and an irreconcilable abhorrence of falsehood. It does not indeed require that we should expose our sentiments indiscreetly, or tell all the truth in every case; but certainly it does not and cannot admit the least violation of truth, or contradiction to our sentiments. For if these bounds are once passed, no possible limit can be assigned where the violation shall stop, and no pretence of private or public good can possibly counterbalance the ill consequences of such a violation.

Fidelity to promises, and compacts, and engagements, is likewise a duty of such importance to the security of commerce and interchange of benevolence amongst mankind, that society would soon grow intolerable without the strict observance of it. Hobbes, and others who follow the same track, have taken a wonderful deal of pains to puzzle this subject, and to make all the virtues of this sort merely artificial, and not at all obligatory, antecedent to human conventions. No doubt compacts suppose people who make them, and promises persons to whom they are made; and therefore both suppose some society, more or less, between those who enter into such mutual engagements. But is not a compact or promise binding, till men have agreed that they shall be binding? or are they only binding because it is our interest to be bound by them, or to fulfil them? Do not we highly approve the man who fulfils them, even though they should prove to be against his interest? and do not we condemn him as a knave who violates them on that account? A promise is a voluntary declaration by words, or by an action equally significant, of our resolution to do something in behalf of another, or for his service. When it is made, the person who makes it is by all supposed under an obligation to perform it; and he to whom it is made may demand the performance as his right. That perception of obligation is a simple idea, and is on the same footing as our other moral perceptions, which may be described by instances, but cannot be defined. Whether we have a perception of such obligation quite distinct from the interest, either public or private, that may accompany the fulfilment of it, must be referred to the conscience of every individual; and whether the mere sense of that obligation, apart from its concomitants, is not a sufficient inducement or motive to keep one’s promise, without having recourse to any selfish principle of our nature, must likewise be appealed to the conscience of every honest man.

It may, however, be not improper to remark, that in this, as in all other instances, our chief good is combined with our duty. Men act from expectation. Expectation is in most cases determined by the assurances and engagements which we receive from others. If no dependence could be placed upon these assurances, it would be altogether impossible to know what judgment to form of many future events, or how to regulate our conduct with respect to them. Confidence, therefore, in promises is essential to the intercourse of human life, because without it the greatest part of our conduct would proceed upon chance. But there could be no confidence in promises, if men were not obliged to perform them. Those, therefore, who allow not to the perceptions of the moral sense all that authority which we attribute to them, must still admit the obligation to perform promises, because such performance may be shown to be agreeable to the will of God, in the very same manner in which, upon their principles, we have shown the uniform practice of justice to be so.

Fair-dealing and fidelity to compacts require that we should take no advantage of the ignorance, passion, or incapacity of others, from whatever cause these defects may arise; that we should be explicit and candid in making bargains, just and faithful in fulfilling our part of them. And if the other party violates his engagements, redress is to be sought from the laws, or from those who are intrusted with the execution of them. In fine, the commercial virtues and duties require that we not only do not invade, but maintain the rights of others; that we be fair and impartial in transferring, bartering, or exchanging property, whether in goods or service; and be inviolably faithful to our word and our engagements, where the matter of them is not criminal, and where they are not extorted by force.

Sect. VII.— Social Duties of the Political Kind

We have now arrived at the last and highest order of duties respecting society, which result from the exercise of the most generous and heroic affections, and are founded on our most enlarged connections.

The social principle in man is of such an expansive nature, that it cannot be confined within the circuit of a family, of friends, or of a neighbourhood; it spreads into wider systems, and draws men into larger confederacies, communities, and commonwealths. It is in those only that the higher powers of our nature attain the greatest improvement and perfection of which they are capable. These principles hardly find objects in the solitary state of nature. There the principle of action rises no higher than natural affection towards one’s offspring. There personal or family wants entirely engross the creature’s attention and labour, and allow no leisure, or, if they do, no exercise, for views and affections of a more enlarged kind. In solitude all are employed in the same way, in providing for the animal life. And even after their utmost labour and care, single and unaided by the industry of others, they find but a sorry supply of their wants, and a feeble, precarious security against dangers from wild beasts; from inclement skies and seasons; from the mistakes or petulant passions of their fellow-creatures; from their preference of themselves to their neighbours; and from all the little exorbitances of self-love. But in society, the mutual aids which men give and receive shorten the labours of each, and the combined strength and reason of individuals give security and protection to the whole body. There is both a variety and subordination of genius amongst mankind. Some are formed to lead and direct others; to contrive plans of happiness for individuals, and of government for communities; to take in a public interest, invent laws and arts, and superintend their execution; and, in short, to refine and civilize human life. Others, who have not such good heads, may have as honest hearts, a truly public spirit, love of liberty, hatred of corruption and tyranny, a generous submission to law’s, order, and public institutions, and an extensive philanthropy; and others, who have none of those capacities either of heart or head, may be well formed for manual exercise and bodily labour. The former of these principles have no scope in solitude, where a man’s thoughts and concerns do all either centre in himself or extend no farther than a family, into which [7:15:477]little circle all the duty and virtue of the solitary mortal is crowded. But society finds proper objects and exercises for every genius, and the noblest objects and exercises for the noblest geniuses, and for the highest principles in the human constitution; particularly for that warmest and most divine passion which God has kindled in our bosoms, the inclination of doing good, and reverencing our nature, which may find here both employment and the most exquisite satisfaction. In society, a man has not only more leisure, but better opportunities of applying his talents with much greater perfection and success, especially as he is furnished with the joint advice and assistance of his fellow-creatures, who are now more closely united one with the other, and sustain a common relation to the same moral system or community. This, then, is an object proportioned to his most enlarged social affections; and in serving it he finds scope for the exercise and refinement of his highest intellectual and moral powers. Therefore society, or a state of civil government, rests on these two principal pillars, that in it we find security against those evils which are unavoidable in solitude; and obtain those goods, some of which cannot be obtained at all, and others not so well, in that state where men depend solely on their individual sagacity and industry.

From this short detail it appears, that man is a social creature, and formed for a social state; and that society, being adapted to the higher principles and destinations of his nature, must of necessity be his natural state.

The duties suited to that state, and resulting from those principles and destinations, or, in other words, from our social passions and social connections, or relation to a public system, are, love of our country, resignation and obedience to the laws, public spirit, love of liberty, sacrifice of life and all to the public, and the like.

Love of our country is one of the noblest passions that can warm and animate the human breast. It includes all the limited and particular affections to our parents, friends, neighbours, fellow-citizens, countrymen. It ought to direct and limit our more confined and partial actions within their proper and natural bounds, and never let them encroach upon those sacred and first regards we owe to the great public to which we belong. Were we solitary creatures, detached from the rest of mankind, and without any capacity of comprehending a public interest, or without affections leading us to desire and pursue it, it would not be our duty to mind it, nor criminal to neglect it. But as we are parts of the public system, and are not only capable of taking in large views of its interests, but by the strongest affections connected with it, and prompted to take a share of its concerns, we are under the most sacred ties to prosecute its security and welfare with the utmost ardour, especially in times of public trial. This love of our country does not import an attachment to any particular soil, climate, or spot of earth, where perhaps we first drew our breath, though those natural ideas are often associated with the fnoral ones, and, like external signs or symbols, help to ascertain and bind them; but it imports an affection to that moral system or community, which is governed by the same laws and magistrates, and whose several parts are variously connected one with the other, and all united upon the foundation of a common interest. Perhaps indeed every member of the community cannot comprehend so large an object, especially if it extends through large provinces, and over vast tracts of land; and still less can he form such an idea, if there is no public, that is, if all are subject to the caprice and unlimited will of one man; but the preference i the generality show to their native country, the concern and longing after it which they express when they have been long absent from it; thelaboursthey undertake and the sufferings they endure to save or serve it, and the peculiar attachment they have to their countrymen; evidently de monstrate that the passion is natural, and never fails to exert itself when it is fairly disengaged from foreign clogs, and is directed to its proper object. Wherever it prevails in its genuine vigour and extent, it swallows up all sordid and selfish regards; it conquers the love of ease, power, pleasure, and wealth; nay, when the amiable partialities of friendship, gratitude, private affection, or regards to a family, come in competition with it, it will teach us bravely to sacrifice all, in order to maintain the rights, and promote or defend the honour and happiness, of our country.

Resignation and obedience to the laws and orders of the society to which we belong are political duties necessary to its very being and security, without which it must soon degenerate into a state of licentiousness and anarchy. The welfare, nay, the nature of civil society, requires that there should be a subordination of orders, or diversity of ranks and conditions in it; that certain men, or orders of men, should be appointed to superintend and manage such affairs as concern the public safety and happiness; that all have their particular provinces assigned them; that such a subordination be settled among them as that none of them may interfere with another; and finally, that certain rules or common measures of action be agreed on, by which each is bound to discharge his respective duty to govern or be governed, and all may concur in securing the order, and promoting the felicity, of the whole political body. Those rules of action are the laws of the community; and those different orders are the several officers or magistrates appointed by the public to explain them, and superintend or assist in their execution. In consequence of this settlement of things, it is the duty of each individual to obey the laws enacted; to submit to the executors of them with all due deference and homage, according to their respective ranks and dignity, as to the keepers of the public peace, and the guardians of public liberty; to maintain his own rank, and perform the functions of his own station, with diligence, fidelity, and incorruption. The superiority of the higher orders, or the authority with which the state has invested them, entitle them, especially if they employ their authority well, to the obedience and submission of the lower, and to a proportional honour and respect from all. The subordination of the lower ranks claims protection, defence, and security from the higher; and the laws, being superior to all, require the obedience and submission of all, being the last resort, beyond which there is no decision or appeal.

Public spirit, heroic zeal, love of liberty, and the other political duties, do, above all others, recommend those who practise them to the admiration and homage of mankind; because, as they are the offspring of the noblest minds, so are they the parents of the greatest blessing to society. Yet, exalted as they are, it is only in equal and free governments where they can be exercised and have their due effect; for there only does a true public spirit prevail, and there only is the public good made the standard of the civil constitution. As the end of society is the common interest and welfare of the people associated, this end must of necessity be the supreme law or common standard by which the particular rules of action of the several members of the society towards each other are to be regulated. But a common interest can be no other than that which is the result of the common reason or common feelings of all. Private men, or a particular order of men, have interests and feelings peculiar to themselves, and of which they may be good judges; but these may be separate from, and often contrary to, the interests and feelings of the rest of the society, and therefore they can have no right to make, and much less to impose, laws on their fellow-citizens, inconsistent with, and opposite to, those interests and those feelings. Therefore, a society, a government, or real public, truly worthy the name, and not a confederacy of banditti, [7:15:478]a clan of lawless savages, or a band of slaves under the whip of a master, must be such a one as consists of freemen, choosing or consenting to laws themselves; or, since it often happens that they cannot assemble and act in a collective body, delegating a sufficient number of representatives, that is, such a number as shall most fully comprehend, and most equally represent, their common feelings and common interests, to digest and vote laws for the conduct and control of the whole body, the most agreeable to those common feelings and common interests.

A society which is thus constituted by common reason, and formed on the plan of a common interest, becomes immediately an object of public attention, public veneration, public obedience, a public and inviolable attachment, which ought neither to be seduced by bribes, nor awed by terrors; an object, in fine, of all those extensive and important duties which arise from so glorious a confederacy. To watch over such a system; to contribute all he can to promote its good, by his reason, his ingenuity, his strength, and every other ability, whether natural or acquired; to resist, and, to the utmost of his power, to defeat every encroachment upon it, whether carried on by a secret corruption or open violence; and to sacrifice his ease, his wealth, his power, nay, life itself, and, what is dearer still, his family and friends, to defend or save it, is the duty, the honour, the interest, and the happiness of every citizen. It will make him venerable and beloved whilst he lives, be lamented and honoured if he falls in so glorious a cause, and transmit his name with immortal renown to the latest posterity.

As the people are the fountain of all power and authority, the original seat of majesty, the authors of laws, and the creators of officers to execute them; if they shall find the power they have conferred abused by their trustees, their majesty violated by tyranny or by usurpation, their authority prostituted to support violence or screen corruption, the laws grown pernicious through accidents unforeseen or unavoidable, or rendered ineffectual through the infidelity and corruption of the executors of them; then it is their right, and what is their right is their duty, to resume that delegated power, and call their trustees to an account; to resist the usurpation, and extirpate the tyranny; to restore their sullied majesty and prostituted authority; to suspend, alter, or abrogate those laws, and to punish their unfaithful and corrupt officers. Nor is this the duty only of the united body; but every member of it ought, according to his respective rank, power, and weight in the community, to concur in advancing and supporting these glorious designs.

Resistance, therefore, being undoubtedly lawful in extraordinary emergencies, the question, amongst good reasoners, can only be with regard to the degree of necessity which can justify resistance, and render it expedient or commendable. And here we must acknowledge, that, with Mr Hume, we shall always incline to their side who draw the bond of allegiance very close, and who consider an infringement of it as the last refuge in desperate cases, when the public is in the highest danger from violence and tyranny. “For, besides the mischiefs of a civil war, which commonly attends insurrection, it is certain, that where a disposition to rebellion appears among any people, it is one chief cause of tyranny in the rulers, and forces them into many violent measures, which, had every one been inclined to submission and obedience, they would never have embraced. Thus the tyrannicide, or assassination approved of by ancient maxims, instead of keeping tyrants and usurpers in awe, made them ten times more fierce and unrelenting; and is now justly abolished on that account by the laws of nations, and universally condemned, as a base and treacherous method of bringing to justice those disturbers of society.”

CHAP. IV.—DUTY TO GOD.

Of all the relations which the human mind sustains, that which subsists between the Creator and his creatures, the Supreme Lawgiver and his subjects, is the highest and the best. This relation arises from the nature of a creature in general, and the constitution of the human mind in particular; the noblest powers and affections of which point to an universal mind, and would be imperfect and abortive without such a direction. How lame, then, must that system of morals be, which leaves a Deity out of the question; how disconsolate, and how destitute of its firmest support.

It does not appear, from the history or experience of the mind’s progress, that any man, by any formal deduction of his discursive power, ever reasoned himself into the belief of a God. Whether such a belief is only some natural anticipation of soul, or is derived from father to son, and from one man to another, in the way of tradition, or is suggested to us in consequence of an immutable law of nature, on beholding the august aspect and beautiful order of the universe, we shall not pretend to determine. What seems most agreeable to experience is, that a sense of its beauty and grandeur, and the admirable fitness of one thing to another in its vast apparatus, leads the mind necessarily and unavoidably to a perception of a design, or of a designing cause, the origin of all, by a progress as simple and natural as that by which a beautiful picture or a fine building suggests to us the idea of an excellent artist. For it seems to hold universally true, that wherever we discern a tendency or co-operation of things towards a certain end, or producing a common effect, there, by a necessary law of association, we apprehend design, and a designing energy or cause. No matter whether the objects are natural or artificial, still that suggestion is unavoidable, and the connection between the effect and its adequate cause obtrudes itself on the mind, and it requires no nice search or elaborate deduction of reason to trace or prove that connection. We are particularly satisfied of its truth in the subject before us by a kind of direct intuition; and we do not seem to attend to the maxim we learn in schools, that there cannot be an infinite series of causes and effects, producing and produced by one another. That maxim is familiar only to metaphysicians; but all men of sound understanding are led to believe the existence of a God. We are conscious of our existence, of thought, sentiment, and passion, and sensible withal that these came not of ourselves; therefore we immediately recognise a parent mind, an original intelligence, from whom we borrowed those little portions of thought and activity. And whilst we not only feel kind affections in ourselves, and discover them in others, but likewise behold around us such a number and variety of creatures, endowed with natures nicely adjusted to their several stations and economies, supporting and supported by each other, and all sustained by a common order of things, and sharing different degrees of happiness according to their respective capacities, we are naturally and necessarily led up to the Father of such a numerous offspring, the fountain of such wide-spread happiness. As we conceive this Being before all, above all, and greater than all, we naturally, and without reasoning, ascribe to him every kind of perfection, wisdom, power, and goodness without bounds, existing through all time, and pervading all space. We apply to him those glorious epithets of our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, the Supreme Lord and Lawgiver of the whole society of rational and intelligent creatures. Not only the imperfections and wants of our being and condition, but some of the noblest instincts and affections of our minds, connect us with this great and universal nature. The mind, in its progress from object to object, from one character and prospect of [7:15:479]beauty to another, finds some blemish or deficiency in each, and soon exhausts or grows weary and dissatisfied with its subject; it sees no character of excellence amongst men equal to that pitch of esteem which it is capable of exerting; no object within the compass of human things adequate to the strength of its affection; nor can it stay anywhere in this self-expansive progress, or find repose after its highest flights, till it arrives at a Being of unbounded greatness and worth, on whom it may employ its most sublime powers without exhausting the subject, and give scope to the utmost force and fulness of its love without satiety or disgust. It follows that the nature of this Being corresponds to the nature of man; nor can his intelligent and moral powers obtain their entire end, but on the supposition of such a Being, and without a real sympathy and communication with him. The native propensity of the mind to reverence whatever is great and wonderful in nature, finds a proper object of homage in him who spread out the heavens and the earth, and who sustains and governs the whole. The admiration of beauty, the love of order, and the complacency we feel in goodness, must rise to the highest pitch, and attain the full vigour and joy of their operations, when they unite in him who is the sum and source of all perfection.

It is evident, from the slightest survey of morals, that how punctual soever one maybe in performing the duties which result from our relations to mankind, yet to be quite deficient in performing those which arise from our relation to the Almighty, must argue a strange perversion of reason or depravity of heart. If imperfect degrees of worth attract our veneration, and if the want of it would imply an insensibility, or, which is worse, an aversion to merit, what lameness of affection or immorality of character must it be to be unaffected with, and, much more, to be ill affected to, a Being of superlative worth. To love society, or particular members of it, and yet to have no sense of our connection with its Head, no affection to our common Parent and Benefactor; to be concerned about the approbation or censure of our fellow-creatures, and yet to feel nothing of this kind towards him who sees and weighs our actions with unerring wisdom and justice, and can fully reward or punish them, betrays equal madness and partiality of mind. It is plain, therefore, beyond all doubt, that some regards are due to the great Father of all, in whom every lovely and adorable quality combines to inspire veneration and homage.

As it has been observed already that our affections depend on our opinions of their objects, and generally keep pace with them, it must be of the highest importance, and seems to be amongst the first duties we owe to the Author of our being, to form the least imperfect, since we cannot form perfect, conceptions of his character and administration. For such conceptions, thoroughly imbibed, will render our religion rational, and our dispositions refined. If our opinions are diminutive and distorted, our religion will be superstitious, and our temper abject. Thus, if we ascribe to the Deity that false majesty which consists in the unbenevolent and sullen exercise of mere will or power, or suppose him to delight in the prostrations of servile fear, or as servile praise, he will be worshipped with mean adulation and a profusion of compliments. Again, if he be looked upon as a stern and implacable Being, delighting in vengeance, he will be adored with pompous offerings, sacrifices, or whatever else may be thought proper to soothe and mollify him. But if we believe perfect goodness to be the character of the Supreme Being, and that he loves those most who resemble him most, the worship paid him will be rational and sublime, and his worshipperswill seek to please him by imitating that goodness which they adore. The foundation, then, of all true religion is a rational faith, and of a rational faith these seem to be the chief articles: to believe that an infinite, all-perfect Mind exists, who has no opposite nor any separate interest from that of his creatures; that he superintends and governs all creatures and things; that his goodness extends to all his creatures, in different degrees, indeed, according to their respective natures, but without any partiality or envy; that he does every thing for the best, or in a subserviency to the perfection and happiness of the whole, particularly that he directs and governs the affairs of men, inspects their actions, distinguishes the good from the bad, loves and befriends the former, is displeased with and pities the latter in this world, and will, according to their respective deserts, reward one and punish the other in the next; that, in fine, he is always carrying on a scheme of virtue and happiness through an unlimited duration, and is ever guiding the universe, through its Successive stages and periods, to higher degrees of perfection and felicity. This is true Theism, the glorious scheme of divine faith; a scheme exhibited in all the works of God, and executed throughout his whole administration.

This faith, well founded and deeply felt, is nearly connected with a true moral taste, and has a powerful efficacy on the temper and manners of the theist. He who admires goodness in others, and delights in the practice of it, must be conscious of a reigning order within, a rectitude and candour of heart, which disposes him to entertain favourable apprehensions of men, and, from an impartial survey of things, to presume that good order and good meaning prevail in the universe; and if good meaning and good order, then an ordering, an intending mind, who is no enemy, no tyrant to his creatures, but a friend, a benefactor, an indulgent sovereign. On the other hand, a bad man, having nothing goodly or generous to contemplate within, no right intentions nor honesty of heart, suspects every person and every thing; and, beholding nature through the gloom of a selfish and guilty mind, is either averse to the belief of a reigning order, or, if he cannot suppress the unconquerable anticipations of a governing mind, he is prone to tarnish the beauty of nature, and to impute malevolence, or blindness and impotence at least, to the Sovereign Ruler. He turns the universe into a forlorn and horrid waste, and transfers his own character to the Deity, by ascribing to him that uncommunicative grandeur, that arbitrary or revengeful spirit, which he affects or admires in himself. As such a temper of mind naturally leads to atheism, or to a superstition fully as bad, therefore, as far as that temper depends on the unhappy creature on whom it prevails, the propensity to atheism, or superstition consequent thereto, must be immoral. Further, if it be true that the belief or sense of a Deity is natural to the mind, and the evidence of his existence reflected from his works so full as to strike even the most superficial observer with conviction, then the supplanting or corrupting that sense, or the want of due attention to that evidence, and, in consequence of both, a supine ignorance or affected unbelief of a Deity, must argue a bad temper or an immoral turn of mind. In the case of invincible ignorance, or a very bad education, although nothing can be concluded directly against the character, yet whenever ill passions and habits pervert the judgment, and by perverting thejudgment terminate in atheism, then the case becomes plainly criminal.

But let casuists determine this as they will, a true faith in the divine character and administration is generally the consequence of a virtuous state of mind. The man who is truly and habitually good, feels the love of order, of beauty, and goodness, in the strongest degree; and therefore cannot be insensible to those emanations of them which appear in all the works of God, nor help loving their supreme source and model. He cannot but think, [7:15:480]that he who has poured such beauty and goodness over all his works, must himself delight in beauty and goodness, and what he delights in must be both amiable and happy. Some indeed there are, and it is pity there should be any such, who, through the unhappy influence of a wrong education, have entertained dark and unfriendly thoughts of the Deity and his administration, though otherwise of a virtuous temper themselves. However, it must be acknowledged that such sentiments have, for the most part, a bad effect on the temper; and when they have not, it is because the undepraved affections of an honest heart are more powerful in their operation than the speculative opinions of an ill-informed head.

But wherever right conceptions of the Deity and his providence prevail, when he is considered as the inexhaustible source of light, and love, and joy, as acting in the joint character of a Father and Governor, imparting an endless variety of capacities to his creatures, and supplying them with every thing necessary to their full completion and happiness, what veneration and gratitude must such conceptions, thoroughly believed, excite in the mind. How natural and delightful must it be to one whose heart is open to the perception of truth, and of every thing fair, great, and wonderful in nature, to contemplate and to adore him who is the first fair, the first great, and first wonderful; in whom wisdom, power, and goodness dwell vitally, essentially, originally, and act in perfect concert. What grandeur is here to fill the most enlarged capacity, what beauty to engage the most ardent love, what a mass of wonders in such exuberance of perfection to astonish and delight the human mind through an unfailing duration.

If the Deity be considered as our Supreme Guardian and Benefactor, as the Father of Mercies, who loves his creatures with infinite tenderness, and in a particular manner all good men, nay all who delight in goodness, even in its most imperfect degrees; what resignation, what dependence, what generous confidence, what hope in God and his all-wise providence, must arise in the soul that is possessed of such amiable views of Him. All those exercises of piety, and, above all, a superlative esteem and love, are directed to God as to their natural, their ultimate, and indeed their only adequate object; and though the immense obligations we have received from him may excite in us more lively feelings of divine goodness than a general and abstracted contemplation of it, yet the affections of gratitude and love are of themselves of the generous, disinterested kind, not the result of self-interest, or views of reward. A perfect character, in which we always suppose infinite goodness, guided by unerring wisdom, and supported by almighty power, is the proper object of perfect love; which, as such, we are forcibly drawn to pursue and to aspire after. In the contemplation of the divine nature and attributes, we find at last what the ancient philosophers sought in vain, the supreme and sovereign good, from which all other goods arise, and in which they are all contained. The Deity, therefore, challenges our supreme and sovereign love, a sentiment which, whosoever indulges, must be confirmed in the love of virtue, in a desire to imitate its all-perfect pattern, and in a cheerful security that all his great concerns, those of his friends and of the universe, shall be absolutely safe under the conduct of unerring wisdom and unbounded goodness. It is in his care and providence alone that the good man, who is anxious for the happiness of all, finds perfect serenity; a serenity neither ruffled by partial ill, nor soured by private disappointment.

When we consider the unstained purity and the absolute perfection of the divine nature, and reflect withal on the imperfection and various blemishes of our own, we must sink, or be convinced we ought to sink, into the deepest humility and prostration of soul before him who is so won derfully great and holy. When, further, we call to mind what low and languid feelings we have of the divine presence and majesty, what insensibility of his fatherly and universal goodness, nay, what ungrateful returns we have made to it, how far we come short of the perfection of his law, and the dignity of our own nature, how much we have indulged in selfish passions, and how little we have cherished the benevolent ones, we must be conscious that it is our duty to repent of a temper and conduct so unworthy our nature, and unbecoming our obligations to its Author, and to resolve and endeavour to act a wiser and better part for the future.

Nevertheless, from the character which his works exhibit of him, from those delays or alleviations of punishment which offenders often experience, and from the merciful tenor of his administration in many other instances, the sincere penitent may entertain good hopes that his Parent and Judge will not be strict to mark iniquity, but will be propitious and favourable to him, if he honestly endeavour to avoid his former practices, and subdue his former habits, and to live in a greater conformity to the divine will for the future. If any doubts or fears should still remain, how far it may be consistent with the rectitude and equity of the divine government to let his iniquities pass unpunished, yet he cannot think it unsuitable to his paternal clemency and wisdom to contrive a method of retrieving the penitent offender, which shall unite and reconcile the majesty and mercy of his government. If reason cannot of itself suggest such a scheme, it gives at least some ground to expect it. But although natural religion cannot let in moral light and assurance on so interesting a subject, yet it will teach the humble theist to wait with great submission for any further intimations it may please the Supreme Governor to give of his will; to examine with candour and impartiality whatever evidence shall be proposed to him of a divine revelation, whether that evidence is natural or supernatural; to embrace it with veneration and cheerfulness, if the evidence be clear and convincing; and, finally, if it bring to light any new relations or connections, natural religion will persuade its sincere votary faithfully to comply with the obligations and perform the duties which result from those relations and connections. This is theism, piety, the completion of morality.

We must further observe, that all those affections which we supposed to regard the Deity as their immediate and primary object, are vital energies of the soul, and consequently exert themselves in action, and, like all other energies, gain strength or greater activity by that exertion. It is therefore our duty, as well as highest interest, often, at stated times, and by decent and solemn acts, to contemplate and adore the great Original of our existence, the Parent of all beauty and of all good; to express our veneration and love by an awful and devout recognition of his perfections; and to evidence our gratitude by celebrating his goodness, and thankfully acknowledging all his benefits. It is likewise our duty, by proper exercises of sorrow and humiliation, to confess our ingratitude and folly; to signify our dependence on God, and our confidence in his goodness, by imploring his blessing and gracious concurrence in assisting the weakness and curing the corruptions of our nature; and, finally, to testify our sense of his authority, and our faith in his government, by devoting ourselves to do his will, and resigning ourselves to his disposal. These duties are not therefore obligatory because the Deity needs or can be profited by them; but as they are apparently decent and moral, suitable to the relations he sustains of our Creator, Benefactor, Lawgiver, and Judge; expressive of our state and obligations; and improving to our tempers, by making us more rational, social, god-like, and consequently more happy.

We have now considered internal piety, or the worship [7:15:481] of the mind, that which is in spirit and in truth; we shall conclude the section with a short account of that which is external. External worship is founded on the same principles as internal, and is of as strict moral obligation. It is either private or public. Devotion that is inward, or purely intellectual, is too spiritual and abstracted an operation for the bulk of mankind. The operations of their minds, such especially as are employed on the most sublime, immaterial objects, must be assisted by their outward organs, or by some help from the imagination; otherwise they will soon be dissipated by sensible impressions, or grow tiresome if too long continued. Ideas are such fleeting things, that they must be fixed; and so subtile, that they must be expressed and delineated, as it were, by sensible marks and images; otherwise we cannot attend to them, nor be much affected by them. Therefore, verbal adoration, prayer, praise, thanksgiving, and confession, are admirable aids to inward devotion; they fix our attention, compose and enliven our thoughts, impress us more deeply with a sense of the awful presence in which we are, and, by a natural and mechanical sort of influence, tend to heighten those devout feelings and affections which we ought to entertain, and after this manner reduce into formal and explicit acts.

This holds true in a higher degree in the case of public worship, where the presence of our fellow-creatures, and the powerful contagion of the social affections, conspire to kindle and spread the devout flame with greater warmth and energy. In fine, as God is the parent and head of the social system, as he has formed us for a social state, as by the one we find the best security against the ills of life, and in the other enjoy its greatest comforts, and as, by means of both, our nature attains its highest improvement and perfection; and, moreover, as there are public blessings and crimes in which we all in some degree share, and public wants and dangers to which all are exposed; it is therefore evident, that the various and solemn offices of public religion are duties of indispensable moral obligation, amongst the best cements of society, the firmest prop of government, and the fairest ornament of both.

PART III.

chap. i.— of “practical ethics, or the culture of THE MIND.

We have now gone through a particular detail of the several duties which we owe to ourselves, to society, and to God. In considering the first order of duties, we just touched on the methods of acquiring the different kinds of goods which we are led by nature to pursue; only we left the consideration of the methods of acquiring the moral goods of the mind to a chapter by itself, because of its singular importance. This chapter, then, will contain a brief enumeration of the arts of acquiring virtuous habits, and of eradicating vicious ones, as far as is consistent with the brevity of such a work; a subject of the utmost difficulty as well as importance in morals, to which, nevertheless, the least attention has been generally given by moral writers. This will properly follow a detail of duty, as it will direct us to such means or helps as are most necessary and conducive to the practice of it.

In the first part of this inquiry we traced the order in which the passions shoot up in the different periods of human life. That order is not accidental or dependent upon the caprice of men, or the influence of custom and education, but arises from the original constitution and laws of our nature; of which this is one, viz. that sensible objects make the first and strongest impressions on the mind. These, by means of our outward organs, being conveyed to the mind, become objects of its attention, on which it reflects when the outward objects are no longer present, or, in other words, when the impressions upon the outward organs cease. These objects of the mind’s reflection are called ideas or notions. Towards these, by another law of our nature, we are not altogether indifferent; but correspondent movements of desire or aversion, love or hatred, arise, according as the objects which they denote made an agreeable or disagreeable impression on our organs. Those ideas and affections which we experience in the first period of life, we refer to the body, or to sense; the 1 taste which is formed towards them, we call a sensible, or a merely natural taste, and the objects corresponding to them we in general call good or pleasant.

But as the mind moves forward in its course, it extends its views, and receives a new and more complex set of ideas, in which it observes uniformity, variety, similitude, symmetry of parts, reference to an end, novelty, grandeur. These compose a vast train and diversity of imagery, which the mind compounds, divides, and moulds into a thousand forms, in the absence of those objects which first introduced it. And this more complicated imagery suggests a new train of desires and affections, fully as sprightly and engaging as any which have yet appeared. This whole class of perceptions or impressions is referred to the imagination, and forms a higher taste than the sensible, and which has an immediate and mighty influence on the finer passions of our nature, and is commonly termed a fine taste. The objects which correspond to this taste we usually call beautiful, great, harmonious, or wonderful, or in general by the name of beauty.

The mind, still pushing onwards and increasing its stock of ideas, ascends from these to a higher species of objects, viz. the order and mutual relations of minds to each other, their reciprocal affections, characters, actions, and various aspects. In these it discovers a beauty, a grandeur, a decorum, more interesting and alluring than in any of the former kinds. These objects, or the notions of them, passing in review before the mind, do, by a necessary law of our nature, call forth another and nobler set of affections, as admiration, esteem, love, honour, gratitude, benevolence, and others of the like tribe. This class of perfections, and their correspondent affections, we refer, because of their objects (manners), to a moral sense, and call the taste or temper they excite moral ; and the objects which are agreeable to this taste or temper we denominate by the general name of moral beauty, in order to distinguish it from the other, which is termed natural.

These different sets of ideas or notions are the materials about which the mind employs itself, which it blends, ranges, and diversifies in ten thousand different ways. It feels a strong propension to connect and associate those ideas amongst which it observes any similitude or any aptitude, whether original and natural, or customary and artificial, to suggest each other. (See Metaphysics.)

But whatever the reasons are, whether similitude, coexistence, causality, or any other aptitude or relation, why any two or more ideas are connected by the mind at first, it is an established law of our nature, that when two or more ideas have often started in company, they form so strong an union, that it is very difficult ever after to separate them. Thus the lover cannot separate the idea of merit from his mistress; the courtier that of dignity from his title or ribbon; the miser that of happiness from his bags. It is these associations of worth or happiness with any of the different sets of objects or images before specified that form our taste or complex idea of good. By an [7:15:482]other law of our nature, our affections follow and are governed by this taste. And to these· affections our character and conduct are similar and proportioned, on the general tenor of which our happiness principally depends.

As all our leading passions, then, depend on the direction which our taste takes, and as it is always of the same strain with our leading associations, it is worth while to inquire a little more particularly how these are: formed, in order to detect the secret sources whence our passions derive their principal strength, their various rises and falls. For this will give us the true key to their management, and let us into the right method of correcting the bad and improving the good.

No kind of objects make so powerful an impression upon us as those which are immediately impressed upon our senses, or strongly painted upon our imaginations. Whatever is purely intellectual, as abstracted or scientific truths, the subtile relations and differences of things, has a fainter sort of existence in the mind, and, though it may exercise and whet the memory, the judgment, or the rea- ' soning power, gives hardly any impulse at all to the active powers, the passions, which are the mainsprings of motion. On the other hand, were the mind entirely under the direction of sense, and impressible only by such objects as are present, and strike some of the outward organs, we should then be precisely in the state of the brute creation, and be governed solely by instinct or appetite, and have no power to control whatever impressions are made upon us. Nature has therefore endowed us with a middle faculty, wonderfully adapted to our mixed state, which holds partly of sense and partly of reason; being strongly allied to the former, and the common receptacle in which all the notices that come from that quarter are treasured up, and yet greatly subservient and ministerial to the latter, by giving a body, a coherence, and a beauty to its conceptions. This middle faculty is called the imagination, one of the most busy and fruitful powers of the mind. Into this common storehouse are likewise carried all those moral forms which are derived from our moral faculties of perception; and there they often undergo new changes and appearances, by being mixed and wrought up with the ideas and forms of sensible or natural things. By this coalition of imagery, natural beauty is dignified and heightened by moral qualities and perfections, and moral qualities are at once exhibited and set off by natural beauty. The sensible beauty, or good, is refined from its dross by partaking of the moral; and the moral receives a stamp, a visible character and currency, from the sensible.

As we are first of all accustomed to sensible impressions and sensible enjoyments, we contract early a sensual relish or love of pleasure in the lower sense of the word. In order, however, to justify this relish, the mind, as it becomes open to higher perceptions of beauty and good, borrows from thence a noble set of images, as fine taste, generosity, social affections, friendship, good fellowship, and the like; and, by dressing out the old pursuits with these new ornaments, gives them an additional dignity and lustre. By these ways the desire of a table, love of finery, intrigue, and pleasure, are vastly increased beyond their natural pitch, having an impulse combined of the force of the natural appetites, and of the superadded strength of those passions which tend to the moral species. When the mind becomes more sensible to those objects or appearances in which it perceives beauty, uniformity, grandeur, and harmony, as fine clothes, elegant furniture, plate, pictures, gardens, houses, equipage, the beauty of animals, and particularly the attractions of the sex; to these objects the mind is led by nature or taught by custom, the opinion and example of others, to annex certain ideas of moral character, dignity, decorum, honour, liberality, tenderness, and active or social enjoyment. The consequence of this association is, that the objects to which these are annexed must rise in their value, and be pursued with proportionable ardour; the enjoyment of them is often attended with pleasure; and the mere possession of them, where that is wanting, frequently draws respect from one’s fellow-creatures. This respect is, by many, thought equivalent to the pleasure of enjoyment. Hence it happens that the idea of happiness is connected with the mere possession, which is therefore eagerly sought after, without any regard to the generous use or honourable enjoyment. Thus the passion, resting on the means, not the end, that is, losing sight of its natural object, becomes wild and extravagant.

In fine, any object, or external denomination, a staff, a garter, a cup, a crown, a title, may become a moral badge or emblem of merit, màgnificence, or honour, according as these distinctions have been found or thought, by the possessors or admirers of them, to accompany them; yet, by the deception formerly mentioned, the merit or the conduct which entitled, or should entitle, to those marks of distinction, shall be forgot or neglected, and the badges themselves be passionately affected or pursued, as including every excellence. If these are attained by any means, all the concomitants which nature, custom, or accidents have joined to them, will be supposed to follow of course. Thus, moral ends, with which the unhappy admirer is apt to colour over his passion and views, will, in his opinion, justify the most immoral means; as prostitution, adulation, fraud, treachery, and every species of knavery, whether more open or more disguised.

When men are once engaged in active life, and find that wealth and power, generally called interest, are the great avenues to every kind of enjoyment, they are apt to throw in many engaging moral forms to the object of their pursuit, in order to justify their passion, and varnish over the measures they take to gratify it, as independence on the vices or passions of others, provision and security to themselves and friends, prudent economy or well-placed charity, social communication, superiority to their enemies, who are all villains, honourable service, and many other ingredients of merit. To attain such capacities of usefulness or enjoyment, what arts, nay what meannesses, can be thought blameable by those cool pursuers of their own interest. Nor have they whom the gay World are pleased to indulge with the title of men of pleasure, their imaginations less pregnant with moral images, with which they never fail to ennoble, or, if they cannot do that, to palliate their gross pursuits. Thus admiration of wit, of sentiments and merit, friendship, love, generous sympathy, mutual confidence, giving and receiving pleasure, are the ordinary ingredients with which they season their gallantry and pleasurable entertainments, and by which they impose on themselves, and endeavour to impose on others, that their amours are the joint issue of good sense and virtue.

These associations, variously combined and proportioned by the imagination, form the leading private passions which govern the lives of the generality, as the love of action, of pleasure, power, wealth, and fame; they influence the defensive, and affect the public passions, and raise joy or sorrow as they arp gratified or disappointed; so that in effect these associations of good and evil, beauty and deformity, and the passions they raise, are the main hinges of life and manners, and the great sources of our happiness or misery. It is very evident, therefore, that the whole of moral culture must depend on giving a right direction to the leading passions, and duly proportioning them to the value of the objects or goods pursued, under what name soever they may appear.

Now, in order to give them this right direction and due proportion, it appears, from the foregoing detail, that those associations of ideas, upon which the passions depend, [7:15:483]must be duly regulated: that is to say, as an exorbitant passion for wealth, pleasure, or power, flows from an association or opinion, that more beauty and good, whether natural or moral, enters into the enjoyment or possession of them, than really belongs to either, therefore, in restoring those passions to their just proportion, we must begin with correcting the opinion, or breaking the false association; or, in other words, we must decompound the complex phantom of happiness or good, which we fondly admire; disunite those ideas which have no natural alliance; and separate the original idea of wealth, power, or pleasure, from the foreign mixtures incorporated with it, which enhance its value, or give it its chief power to enchant and seduce the mind. For instance, let it be considered how poor and inconsiderable a thing wealth is, if it be disjoined from real use, or from ideas of capacity in the possessor to do good, from independence, generosity, provision for a family or friends, and social communication with others. By this standard let its true value be fixed, let its misapplication or unbenevolent enjoyment be accounted sordid and infamous, and nothing worthy or estimable be ascribed to the mere possession of it which is not borrowed from its generous use.

If that complex form of good which is called pleasure engage us, le,t fit be analysed into its constituent principles, or those allurements it draws from the heart and imagination, in order to heighten the low part of the indulgence; let the separate and comparative import of each be distinctly ascertained and deduced from that gross part, and this remainder of the accumulated enjoyment will dwindle down into a poor, insipid, transitory thing. In proportion as the opinion of the good pursued abates, the admiration must decay, and the passions lose strength of course. One effectual way to lower the opinion, and consequently to weaken the habit founded upon it, is to practise lesser pieces of self-denial, or to abstain, to a certain pitch, from the pursuit or enjoyment of the favourite object; and, that this may be the more easily accomplished, one must avoid those occasions, that company, those places, and the other circumstances, that inflamed the one and endeared the other. And, as a counter-process, let higher or even different enjoyments be brought in view, other passions played upon the former, different places frequented, other exercises tried, company kept with persons of a different or more correct way of thinking both in natural and moral subjects.

As much depends on our setting out well in life, let the youthful fancy, which is apt to be very florid and luxuriant, be early accustomed, by instruction, example, and significant moral exercises, nay, by looks, gestures, and every other testimony of just approbation or blame, to annex ideas of merit, honour, and happiness, not to birth, dress, rank, beauty, fortune, power, popularity, and the like outward things, but to moral and truly virtuous qualities, and to those enjoyments which spring from a well-informed judgment and a regular conduct of the affections, especially those of the social and disinterested kind. Such dignified forms of beauty and good, often suggested, and by moving pictures and examples warmly recommended to the imagination, enforced by the authority of conscience, and demonstrated by reason to be the surest means of enjoyment, and the only independent, undeprivable, and durable goods, will be the best counterbalance to meaner passions, and the firmest foundation and security of virtue.

It is of great importance to the forming a just taste, or pure and large conceptions of happiness, to study and understand human nature well, to remember what a complicated system it is, particularly to have deeply imprinted on our mind that gradation of senses, faculties, and powers of enjoyment formerly mentioned, and the subordination of goods resulting from thence, which nature points out, and the experience of mankind confirms. Who, when they think seriously, and are not under the immediate influence of some violent prejudice or passion, prefer not the pleasures of action, contemplation, society, and most exercises and joys of the moral kind, as friendship, natural affection, and the like, to all sensual gratifications whatsoever? Where the different species of pleasure are blended into one complex form, let them be accurately distinguished, and be referred each to its proper faculty and sense, and examined apart what they have peculiar, what common with others, and what foreign and adventitious. Let wealth, grandeur, luxury, love, fame, and the like, be tried by this test, and their true alloy will be found out. Let it be further considered, whether the mind may not be easy and enjoy itself greatly, though it want many of those elegancies and superfluities of life which some possess, or that load of wealth and power which others eagerly pursue, and under which they groan. Let the difficulty of attaining, the precariousness of possessing, and the many abatements in enjoying, overgrown wealth and envied greatness, of which the weary possessors so frequently complain, as the hurry of business, the burden of company, of paying attendance to the few, and giving it to many, the cares of keeping, the fears of losing, and the desires of increasing what they have, and the other troubles which accompany this pitiful drudgery and pompous servitude; let these and the like circumstances be often considered, that are conducive to the removing or lessening the opinion of such goods, and the attendant passion or set of passions will decay of course.

Let the peculiar bent of our nature and character be observed, whether we are most inclined to form associations and relish objects of the sensible, intellectual, or moral kind. Let that which has the ascendant be particularly watched; let it be directed to right objects, be improved by proportioned exercises, and guarded by proper checks from an opposite quarter. Thus the sensible turn may be exalted by the intellectual, and a taste for the beauty of the fine arts, and both may be made subservient to convey and rivet sentiments highly moral and public-spirited. This inward survey must extend to the strength and weaknesses of one’s nature, conditions, connections, habitudes, fortunes, studies, acquaintance, and the other circumstances of life, from which every man will form the justest estimate of his own dispositions and character, and the best rules for correcting and improving them. And in order to do this with more advantage, let those times or critical seasons be watched when the mind is best disposed towards a change; and let them be improved by rigorous resolutions, promises, or whatever else will engage the mind to persevere in virtue. Let the conduct, in fine, be often reviewed, and the causes of its corruption or improvement be carefully observed.

It will greatly conduce to refine the moral taste and strengthen the virtuous temper, to accustom the mind to the frequent exercise of moral sentiments and determinations, by reading history, poetry, particularly of the picturesque and dramatic kind, the study of the fine arts; by conversing with the most eminent for good sense and virtue; and, above all, by frequent and repeated acts of humanity, compassion, friendship, politeness, and hospitality. It is exercise that gives health and strength. He who reasons most frequently becomes the wisest, and most enjoys the pleasures of wisdom. He who is most often affected by objects of compassion in poetry, history, or real life, will have his soul most open to pity, and its delightful pains and duties. So he also who practises most diligently the offices of kindness and charity, will by it cultivate that disposition whence must arise all his pretensions to personal merit, his present and his future happiness.

An useful and honourable employment in life will administer a thousand opportunities of this kind, and greatiy [7:15:484]strengthen a sense of virtue and good affections, which, as well as our understandings, must be nourished by light training. For such an employment, by enlarging one’s experience, giving a habit of attention and caution, or obliging one, from necessity or interest, to keep a guard over the passions, and to study the outward decencies and appearances of virtue, will by degrees produce a good habit, and at length insinuate the love of virtue and honesty for its own sake.

It is a great inducement to the exercise of benevolence to view human nature in a favourable light, to observe the characters and circumstances of mankind on the fairest sides, to put the best constructions they will bear on their actions, and to consider them as the result of partial and mistaken rather than ill affections, or, at worst, as the excesses of a pardonable self-love, seldom or never the effect of pure malice.

Above all, the nature and consequences of virtue and vice, such consequences being the law of our nature and will of Heaven, the light in which they appear to our Supreme Parent and Lawgiver, and the reception they will meet with from him, must be often attended to. The exercises of piety, as adoration and praise of the divine excellence, invocation of and dependence on his aid, confession, thanksgiving, and resignation, are habitually to be indulged, and frequently performed, not only as medicinal, but highly improving to the temper.

In fine, it will be of admirable efficacy towards eradicating bad habits, and implanting good ones, frequently to contemplate human life as the great nursery of our future and immortal existence, as that state of probation in which we are to be educated for a divine life; to remember that our virtues or vices will be as immortal as ourselves, and influence our future as well as our present happiness, and therefore, that every disposition and action is to be regarded as pointing beyond the present to an immortal duration. An habitual attention to this wide and important connection will give a vast compass and dignity to our sentiments and actions, a noble superiority to the pleasures and pains of life, and a generous ambition to render our virtue as immortal as our being.

CHAP. II MOTIVES TO VIRTUE FROM PERSONAL

HAPPINESS.

We have already considered our obligations to the practice of virtue, arising from the constitution of our nature, by which we are led to approve a certain order and economy of affections, and a certain course of action correspondent to it. But, besides this, there are several motives which strengthen and secure virtue, though not themselves of a moral kind. These are, its tendency to personal happiness, and the contrary tendency of vice. Personal happiness arises either from the state of a man’s own mind, or from the state and disposition of external causes towards him.

We shall first examine the tendency of virtue to happiness with respect to the state of a man’s own mind. .This is a point of the utmost consequence in morals, because, unless we can convince ourselves, or show to others, that, by doing our duty, or fulfilling our moral obligations, we consult the greatest satisfaction of our own mind, or our highest interest on the whole, it will raise strong and often unsurmountable prejudices against the practice of virtue, especially whenever there arise any appearances of opposition between our duty and our satisfaction or interest. To creatures so desirous of happiness, and so averse to misery, as we are, and often so oddly situated amidst contending passions and interests, it is necessary that virtue should appear not only in an honourable, but a pleasing and beneficent form; and in order to justify our choice to ourselves as well as to others, we must ourselves feel and be able to avow in the face of the whole world, that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and her paths the paths of peace. This will show, beyond all contradiction, that we not only approve what is good, but can give a sufficient reason for our own conduct.

Let any man in a cool hour, when he is disengaged from business, and undisturbed by passion (such cool hours will sometimes occur), sit down, and seriously reflect with himself what state or temper of mind he would choose to feel and indulge, in order to be easy and to enjoy himself. Would he choose, for that purpose, to be in a constant dissipation and hurry of thought; to be disturbed in the exercise of his reason; to have various and often interfering phantoms of good playing before his imagination, soliciting and distracting him by turns, now soothing him with amUsing hopes, then torturing him with anxious fears, and to approve this minute what he shall condemn the next? Would he choose to have a strong and painful sense of every petty injury; quick apprehensions of every impending evil; incessant and insatiable desires of power, wealth, honour, pleasure; an irreconcilable antipathy against all competitors and rivals; insolent and tyrannical dispositions to all below him; fawning, and at the same time envious, dispositions to all above him, with dark suspicions and jealousies of every mortal? Would he choose neither to love nor be beloved of any; to have no friend in whom to confide, or with whom to interchange his sentiments or designs; no favourite, on whom to bestow his kindness, or vent his passions; and to be conscious of no merit with mankind, no esteem from any creature, no good affection to his Maker, no concern for, nor hopes of, his approbation; but instead of all these, to hate, and know that he is hated, to condemn, and know that he is condemned, by all, by the good because he is so unlike, and by the bad because he is so like, themselves; to hate or to dread the very Being that made him; and, in short, to make his breast the seat of pride and passion, petulance and revenge, deep melancholy, cool malignity, and all the other furies that ever possessed and tortured mankind? Would our calm inquirer after happiness pitch on such a state, and such a temper of mind, as the most likely means to put him in possession of his desired ease and self-enjoyment?

Or would he rather choose a serene and easy flow of thought; a reason clear and composed; a judgment unbiassed by prejudice, and undistracted bypassion; a sober and well-governed fancy, which presents the images of things true and unmixed with delusive and unnatural charms, and therefore administers no improper or dangerous fuel to the passions, but leaves the mind free to choose or reject, as becomes a reasonable creature; a sweet and sedate temper, not easily ruffled by hopes or fears, prone neither to suspicion nor revenge, apt to view men and things in the fairest lights, and to bend gently to the humours of others rather than obstinately to contend with them? Would he choose such moderation and continence of mind, as neither to be ambitious of power, fond of honours, covetous of wealth, nor a slave to pleasure; a mind of course neither elated with success, nor dejected with disappointment; such a modest and noble spirit as supports power without insolence, wears honour without pride, uses wealth without profusion or parsimony, and rejoices more in giving than in receiving pleasure; such fortitude and equanimity as rises above misfortunes, or turns them into blessings; such integrity and greatness of mind as neither flatters the vices nor triumphs over the follies of men, as equally spurns· servitude and tyranny, and will neither engage in low designs, nor abet them in others? Would he choose, in fine, such mildness and benignity of heart as [7:15:485]takes part in all the joys, and refuses none of the sorrows, of others; stands well affected to all mankind; is conscious of meriting the esteem of all, and of being beloved by the best; a mind which delights in doing good without any show, and yet arrogates nothing on that account; rejoices in loving and being beloved by its Maker, acts ever under his eye, resigns itself to his providence, and triumphs in his approbation? Which of these dispositions would be his choice in order to become contented, serene, and happy? The former temper is vice, the latter virtue. Where one prevails, there misery prevails, and by the generality is acknowledged to prevail. Where the other reigns, there happiness reigns, and by the confession of mankind is acknowledged to reign. The perfection of either temper is misery or happiness in perfection. Therefore, every approach to either extreme is an approach to misery or to happiness, that is, every degree of vice or virtue is accompanied with a proportional degree of misery or happiness.

The principal alleviations of a virtuous man’s calamities are these: That though some of them may have been the effect of his imprudence or weakness, yet few of them are sharpened by a sense of guilt, and none of them by a consciousness of wickedness, which surely is their keenest sting; that they are common to him with the best of men; that they seldom or never attack him quite unprepared, but rather guarded with a consciousness of his own sincerity and virtue, with a faith and trust in Providence, and a firm resignation to its perfect orders; that they may be improved as means of correction, or materials to give scope and stability to his virtues; and, to say no more, that they are considerably lessened, and often sweetened to him, by the general sympathy of the wise and good.

His enjoyments are more numerous, or, if less numerous, yet more intense, than those of the bad man; for he shares in the joys of others by rebound, and every increase of general or particular happiness is a real addition to his own. It is true, his friendly sympathy with others subjects him to some pains which the hard-hearted wretch does not feel; yet to give a loose rein to it, is a kind of agreeable discharge. It is such a sorrow as he loves to indulge; a sort of pleasing anguish, which sweetly melts the mind, and terminates in a self-approving joy. Though the good man may want means to execute, or be disappointed in the success of his benevolent purposes, yet, as was formerly observed, he is still conscious of good affection, and that consciousness is an enjoyment of a more delightful savour than the greatest triumphs if successful vice. If the ambitious, covetous, or voluptuous, are disappointed, their passions recoil upon them with a fury proportioned to their opinion of the value of what they pursue, and their hope of success; whilst they have nothing within to balance the disappointment, unless it be an useless fund of pride, which, however, frequently turns mere accidents into mortifying affronts, and exalts grief into rage and frenzy. But the meek, humble, and benevolent temper is its own reward, and is satisfied from within; as it magnifies greatly the pleasure of success, so it wonderfully alleviates, and in a manner annihilates, all pain for the want of it.

As the good man is conscious of loving and wishing well to all mankind, he must be sensible of his deserving the esteem and good will of all; and this supposed reciprocation of social feelings is, by the very frame of our nature, made a source of very intense and enlivening joys. By this sympathy of affections and interests, he feels himself intimately united with the human race; and, being sensibly alive over the whole system, his heart receives and becomes responsive to every touch given to any part. Thus, as an eminent philosopher^[8. Shaftesbury, Inquiry into Virtue, book ii. ] finely expresses it, he gathers contentment and delight from the pleased and happy states of those around him; from accounts and relations of such happiness; from the very countenances, gestures, voices, and sounds, even of creatures foreign to our kind, whose signs of joy and contentment he can any way discern. Nor do those generous affections stop any other natural source of joy whatever, or deaden his sense of any innocent gratification. They rather keep the several senses and powers of enjoyment open and disengaged, intense and uncorrupted by riot or abuse; as is evident to anyone who considers the dissipated, unfeeling state of men of pleasure, ambition, or interest, and compares it with the serene and gentle state of a mind at peace with itself, and friendly to all mankind, unruffled by any violent emotion, and sensible to every good-natured and alluring joy.

It were easy, by going through the different sets of affections formerly mentioned, to show, that it is only by maintaining the proportion settled there, that the mind arrives at true repose and satisfaction. If fear exceeds that proportion, it sinks into melancholy and dejection. If anger passes just bounds, it ferments into rage and revenge, or subsides into a sullen corroding gloom, which embitters every good, and renders one exquisitely sensible to every ill. The private passions, the love of honour especially, the impulses of which are more generous, as itseffects are more diffusive, are instruments of private pleasure; but if they are disproportioned to our wants, or to the value of their several objects, or to the balance of other passions equally necessary and more amiable, they become instruments of intense pain and misery. For, being now destitute of that counterpoise which held them at a due pitch, they grow turbulent, peevish, and revengeful, the cause of constant restlessness and torment, sometimes flying out into a wild delirious joy, at other times settling in a deep splenetic grief. The concert between reason and passion is then broken; all is dissonance and distraction within. The mind is out of frame, and feels an agony proportioned to the violence of the reigning passion.

The case is much the same, or rather worse, when any of the particular kind affections are out of their natural order and proportion; as happens in the case of effeminate pity, exorbitant love, parental dotage, or any party passion, where the just regards to society are supplanted. The more social and disinterested the passion is, it breaks out into the wilder excesses, and makes the more dreadful havoc both within and abroad; as is but too apparent in those cases where a false species of religion, honour, zeal, or party rage, has seized on the natural enthusiasm of the mind, and worked it up to madness. It breaks through all ties natural and civil, disregards the most sacred and solemn obligations, silences every other affection whether public or private, and transforms the most gentle natures into the most savage and inhuman.

But the man who keeps the balance of affection even, is easy and serene in his motions, mild and yet affectionate, uniform and consistent with himself; he is not liable to disagreeable collisions of interests and passions; ^ives always place to the most friendly and humane affections, and never to dispositions or acts of resentment, but on high occasions, when the security of the private, or welfare of the public system, or the great interests of mankind, necessarily require a noble indignation, and even then he observes a just measure in wrath; and, last of all, he proportions every passion to the value of the object he affects, or to the importance of the end he pursues.

To sum up this part of the argument, the honest and good man has eminently the advantage of the knavish and selfish wretch in every respect. The pleasures which the last enjoys flow chiefly from external advantages and gratifications; they are superficial and transitory, dashed with [7:15:486]long intervals of satiety, and frequent returns of remorse and fear, dependent on favourable accidents and conjunctures, and subjected to the humours of men. But the good man is satisfied with himself; his principal possessions lie within, and therefore beyond the reach of the caprice of men or fortune; his enjoyments are exquisite and permanent, accompanied with no inward checks to damp them, and always with ideas of dignity and self-approbation, and they may be tasted at any time, and in any place. The gratifications of vice are turbulent and unnatural, generally arising from the relief of passions in themselves intolerable, and issuing in tormenting reflection; often irritated by disappointment, always inflamed by enjoyment, and yet ever cloyed with repetition. The pleasures of virtue are calm and natural, flowing from the exercise of kind affections, or delightful reflections in consequence of them; not only agreeable in the prospect, but in the present feeling, they never satiate nor lose their relish, nay, rather the admiration of virtue grows stronger every day; not only is the desire, but the enjoyment, heightened by every new gratification, and, unlike to most others, it is increased, not diminished, by sympathy and communication. In fine, the satisfactions of virtue maybe purchased without a bribe, and possessed in the humblest as well as in the most triumphant fortune; they can bear the strictest review, and do not change with circumstances, nor grow old with time. Force cannot rob, nor fraud cheat us of them; and, to crown all, instead of abating, they enhance every other pleasure.

But the happy consequences of virtue are seen not only in the internal enjoyments it affords a man, but in the favourable disposition of external causes towards him, to which it contributes. As virtue gives the sober possession of one’s self, and the command of one’s passions, the consequence must be heart’s ease, and a fine natural flow of spirits, which conduce more than any thing else to health and long life. Violent passions, and the excesses they occasion, gradually impair and wear down the machine. But the calm, placid state of a temperate mind, and the healthful exercises in which virtue engages her faithful votaries, preserve the natural functions in full vigour and harmony, and exhilarate the spirits, which are the chief instruments of action.

It may be thought odd by some to assert that virtue is no enemy to a man’s fortune in the present state of things. But if by fortune be meant a moderate or competent share of wealth, power, or credit, not overgrown degrees of them, what should hinder the virtuous man from obtaining that? He cannot cringe nor fawn, it is true, but he can be civil and obliging as well as the knave; and surely his civility is more alluring, because it has more manliness and grace in it than the mean adulation of the other. He cannot cheat nor undermine, but he may be cautious, provident, watchful of occasions, and equally prompt with the rogue in improving them. He scorns to prostitute himself as a pander to the passions or as a tool to the vices of mankind, but he may have as sound an understanding and as good capacities for promoting their real interests as the veriest court slave; and then he is more faithful and true to those who employ him. In the common course of business, he has the same chances with the knave of acquiring a fortune, and rising in the world. He may have equal abilities, equal industry, equal attention to business, and in other respects he has greatly the advantage of him. People love better to deal with him; they can trust him more; they know he will not impose upon them, nor take advantage of them, and they can depend more on his word than on the oath or strongest securities of others. But what is commonly called cunning·, which is the offspring of ignorance, and the constant companion of knavery, is not only a mean-spirited, but a very short-sighted talent, and a fundamental obstacle in the road of business. It may, indeed, procure immediate and petty gains; but it is attended with dreadful abatements, which do more than overbalance them, both as it sinks a man’s credit when discovered, and cramps that largeness of mind which extends to the remotest as well as the nearest interest, and takes in the most durable equally with the most transient gains. It is therefore easy to see how much a man’s credit and reputation, and consequently his success, depend upon his honesty and virtue.

With regard to security and peace with his neighbours, it may be thought perhaps that the man of a quiet forgiving temper, and an overflowing benevolence and courtesy, is much exposed to injury and affronts from every proud or peevish mortal who has the power or will to do mischief. If we suppose, indeed, this quietness and gentleness of nature accompanied with cowardice and pusillanimity, this may often be the case; but in reality the good man is as bold as a lion, and so much the bolder for being the calmer. Such a person will hardly become a butt to mankind. The ill natured will be afraid to provoke him, and the good natured will not incline to do it. Besides, true virtue, which is conducted by reason, and exerted gracefully and without parade, is a most insinuating and commanding thing; if it cannot disarm malice and resentment at once, it will wear them out by degrees, and subdue them at length. How many have, by favours and by prudently yielding, triumphed over an enemy, who would have been inflamed into tenfold rage by the fiercest opposition. In fine, goodness is the most universally popular thing that can be imagined.

In a word, the good man may have some enemies, but he will have more friends; and, having given so many marks of private friendship and public virtue, he can hardly be destitute of a patron to protect, or a sanctuary to entertain him, or to protect or entertain his children when he is gone. Though he should have little else to leave them, he bequeaths them the fairest, and generally the most unenvied inheritance of a good name, which, like good seed sown in the field of futurity, will often raise up unsolicited friends, and yield a benevolent harvest of unexpected charities. But should the fragrance of the parent’s virtue prove offensive to a perverse or envious age, or even draw persecution on the friendless orphans, there is One in heaven who will be more than a father to them, and recompense their parent’s virtues by showering down blessings on them.

CHAP. in. MOTIVES TO VIRTUE FROM THE BEING ANO

providence of god.

Besides the interesting incentive mentioned in the last chapter, there are two great motives to virtue strictly connected with human life, and resulting from the very constitution of the human mind. The first is the being and providence of God; the second is the immortality of the soul, with future rewards and punishments.

It appears (from chap. iv. of part ii.) that man, by the constitution of his nature, is designed to be a religious creature. He is intimately connected with the Deity, and necessarily dependent on him. From that connection and necessary dependence result various obligations and duties, without fulfilling which some of his most sublime powers and affections would be incomplete and abortive. If he be likewise an immortal creature, and if his present conduct shall affect his future happiness in another state as well as in the present, it is evident that we take only a partial view of the creature if we leave out this important property of bis nature, and make a partial estimate of human life if we strike out of the account, or overlook, that part of his duration which runs out into eternity.
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It is evident, from the above-mentioned chapter, that to have a respect to the Deity in our temper and conduct, to venerate and love his character, to adore his goodness, to depend upon and resign ourselves to his providence, to seek his approbation, and act under a sense of his authority, is a fundamental part of moral virtue, and the completion of the highest destination of our nature. But as piety is an essential part of virtue, so likewise it is a great support and enforcement to the practice of it. To contemplate and admire a being of such transcendent dignity and perfection as God, must naturally and necessarily open and enlarge the mind, give a freedom and ampleness to its powers, and a grandeur and elevation to its aims. For, as an excellent divine observes, the greatness of an object, and the excellency of the act of any agent about a transcendent object, doth mightily tend to the enlargement and improvement of his faculties. Little objects, mean company, mean cares, and mean business, cramp the mind, contract its views, and give it a creeping air and deportment. But when it soars above mortal cares and mortal pursuits, into the regions of divinity, and converses with the greatest and best of beings, it spreads itself into a wider compass, takes higher flights in reason and goodness, and becomes godlike in its air and manners. Virtue is, if one may say so, both the effect and the cause of enlargement of mind. It requires that one should think freely, and act nobly. Now what can conduce more to freedom of thought and dignity of action than to conceive worthily of God, to reverence and adore his unrivalled excellence. to imitate and transcribe that excellence into our own nature, to remember our relation to him, and that we are the images and representatives of his glory to the rest of the creation? Such feelings and exercises must and will make us scorn all actions which are base, unhandsome, or unworthy our state; and the relation we stand in to God will irradiate the mind with the light of wisdom, and ennoble it with the liberty and dominion of virtue.

The influence and efficacy of religion may be consider-! ed in another light. We all know that the presence of a friend, a neighbour, or any number of spectators, but especially an august assembly of them, operates as a considerable check upon the conduct of one who is not lost to all sense of honour and shame, and contributes to restrain many irregular sallies of passion. In the same manner, we may imagine, that the awe of some superior mind, who is supposed to be privy to our secret conduct, and armed with full power to reward or punish it, will impose a restraint on us in such actions as fall not under the control or animadversion of others. If we go still higher, and suppose our inmost thoughts and darkest designs, as well as our most secret actions, to lie open to the notice of the Supreme and Universal Mind, who is both the spectator and judge of human actions, it is evident that the belief of so august a presence, and such awful inspection, must carry a restraint and weight with it proportioned to the strength of that belief, and be an additional motive to the practice of many duties which would not have been performed without it.

It may be observed further, that to live under an habitual sense of the Deity and his great administration, is to be conversant with wisdom, order, and beauty, in the highest subjects, and to receive the delightful reflections and benign feelings which these excite whilst they radiate upon him from every scene of nature and providence. How improving must such views be to the mind, in dilating and exalting it above those puny interests and competitions which agitate and inflame the bulk of mankind against each other.

CHAP. IV.—MOTIVE TO VIRTUE FROM THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.

The other motive mentioned was the immortality of the soul, with future rewards and punishments. The metaphysical proofs of the soul’s immortality are commonly drawn from its simple, uncompounded, and indivisible nature, whence it is concluded that it cannot be corrupted or extinguished by a dissolution or destruction of its parts; from its having a beginning of motion within itself, whence it is inferred that it cannot discontinue and lose its motion; from the different properties of matter and mind, the sluggishness and inactivity of the one, and the immense activity of the other, its prodigious flight of thought and imagination, its penetration, memory, foresight, and anticipations of futurity, whence it is concluded that a being of so divine a nature cannot be extinguished. But as these metaphysical proofs depend upon intricate reasonings concerning the nature, properties, and distinctions of body and mind, with which we are not very well acquainted, they are not obvious to ordinary understandings, and are seldom so convincing even to those of higher reach, as not to leave some doubts behind them. Therefore perhaps it is not so safe to rest the proof of such an important article upon what many may call the subtilties of school learning. Those proofs which are brought from analogy, from the moral constitution and phenomena of the human mind, the moral attributes of God, and the present course of things, and which therefore are called the moral arguments, are the plainest and generally the most satisfying. We shall select only one or two from the rest.

In tracing the nature and destination of any being, we form the surest judgment from his powers of action, and the scope and limits of these, compared with his state, or with that field in which they are exercised. If this being passes through different states, or fields of action, and we find a succession of powers adapted to the different periods of his progress, we conclude that he was destined for those successive states, and reckon his nature progressive. If, besides the immediate set of powers which fit him for action in his present state, we observe another set which appear superfluous if he were to be confined to it, and which point to another or higher one, we naturally conclude, that he is not designed to remain in his present state, but to advance to that for which those supernumerary powers are adapted. Thus we argue, that the insect, which has wings forming or formed, and all the apparatus proper for flight, is not destined always to creep upon the ground, or to continue in the torpid state of adhering to a wall, but is designed in its season to take its flight in air. Without this fur∣ther destination, the admirable mechanism of wings and the other apparatus would be useless and absurd. The same kind of reasoning may be applied to man, whilst he lives only a sort of vegetative life in the womb. He is furnished even there with a beautiful apparatus of organs, eyes, ears, and other delicate senses, which receive nourishment, indeed, but are in a manner folded up, and have no proper exercise or use in their present confinement.^[9. Ludov. Viv. de Religione Christi, , lib. ii. ] Let us suppose some intelligent spectator, who never had any connection with man, nor the least acquaintance with human affairs, to see this odd phenomenon, a creature formed after such a manner, and placed in a situation apparently unsuitable to such various machinery: must he not be strangely puzzled about the use of his complicated structure, and reckon such a profusion of art and admirable workmanship lost on the subject; or reason by way of anticipation, that a creature endowed with such various yet unexerted capacities, was destined for a more enlarged [7:15:488]sphere of action, in which those latent capacities shall have full play? The vast variety and yet beautiful symmetry and proportions of the several parts and organs with which the creature is endowed, and their apt cohesion with, and dependence on, the curious receptacle of their life and nourishment, would forbid his concluding the whole to be the birth of chance, or the bungling effort of an unskilful artist; at-least would make him demur a while at so harsh a sentence. But if, whilst he is in this state of uncertainty, we suppose him to see the babe, after a few successful struggles, throwing off his fetters, breaking loose from his little dark prison, and emerging into open day, then unfolding his recluse and dormant powers, breathing air, gazing at light, admiring colours, sounds, and all the fair variety of nature, immediately his doubts clear up, the propriety and excellency of the workmanship dawn upon him with full lustre, and the whole mystery of the first period is unravelled by the opening of this new scene. Though in this second period the creature lives chiefly a kind of animal life, that is, a life of sense and appetite, yet by various trials and observations he gains experience, and by the gradual evolution of the powers of imagination he ripens apace for a higher life, for exercising the arts of design and imitation, and of those in which strength or dexterity are more requisite than acuteness or reach of judgment. In the succeeding rational or intellectual period, his understanding, which formerly crept in a lower, mounts into a higher sphere, canvasses the nature and judges of the relations of things, forms schemes, deduces consequences from what is past, and from present as well as past collects future events. By this succession of states, and of correspondent culture, he grows up at length into a moral, a social, and a political creature. This is the last period at which we perceive him to arrive in this his mortal career. Each period is introductory to the next succeeding one; each life is a field of exercise and improvement for the next higher one; the life of the foetus for that of the infant, the life of the infant for that of the child, and all the lower for the highest and best.^[10. Butler’s Analogy, part i. ] But is this the last period of nature’s progression? Is this the utmost extent of her plot, where she winds up the drama, and dismisses the actor into eternal oblivion? Or does he appear to be invested with supernumerary powers, which have not full exercise and scope even in the last scene, and reach not that maturity and perfection of which they are capable; and therefore point to some higher scene, where he is to sustain another and more important character than he has yet sustained? If any such there are, may we not conclude by analogy, or in the same way of anticipation as before, that he is destined for that after part, and is to be produced upon a more august and solemn stage, where his sublimer powers shall have proportioned action, and his nature attain its completion?

If we attend to that curiosity, or prodigious thirst of knowledge, which is natural to the mind in every period of its progress, and consider withal the endless round of business and care, and the various hardships, to which the bulk of mankind are chained down, it is evident, that in this present state it is impossible to expect the gratificà-tion of an appetite at once so insatiable and so noble. Our senses, the ordinary organs by which knowledge is let into the mind, are always imperfect, and often fallacious; the advantages of assisting or correcting them are possessed by few; the difficulties of finding out truth amidst the various and contradictory opinions, interests, and passions of mankind, are many; and the wants of the creature, and of those with whom he is connected, numerous and urgent; so that it may be said of most men, that their intellectual organs are as much shut up and secluded from proper nourishment and exercise in that little circle to which they are confined, as the bodily organs are in the womb. Nay, those who to an aspiring genius have added all the assistances of art, leisure, and the most liberal education, what narrow prospects can even they take of this unbounded scene of things from that little eminence on which they stand? and how eagerly do they still grasp at new discoveries, without any satisfaction or limit to their ambition?

But should it be said that man is made for action, and not for speculation, or fruitless searches after knowledge, we ask, for what kind of action? Is it only for bodily exercises, or for moral, political, and religious ones? Of all these he is capable; yet, by the unavoidable circumstances of his lot, he is tied down to the former, and has hardly any leisure to think of the latter, or, if he has, wants the proper instruments of exerting them. The love of virtue, of one’s friends and country, the generous sympathy with mankind, and heroic zeal of doing good, which are all so natural to great and good minds, and some traces of which are found in the lowest, are seldom united with proportional means or opportunities of exercising them; so that the moral spring, the noble energies • and impulses of the mind, can hardly find proper scope even in the most fortunate condition, but are much depressed in some, and almost entirely restrained in the generality, by the numerous clogs of an indigent, sickly, or embarrassed life. Were such mighty powers, such godlike affections, planted in the human breast to be folded up in the narrow womb of our present existence, never to be produced into a more perfect life, nor to expatiate in the ample career of immortality?

Let it be considered, at the same time, that no possession, no enjoyment, within the round of mortal things, is commensurate to the desires or adequate to the capacities of the mind. The most exalted condition has its abatements; the happiest conjuncture of fortune leaves many wishes behind; and, after the highest gratifications, the mind is carried forward in the pursuit of new ones without end. Add to all, the fond desire of immortality, the secret dread of non-existence, and the high unremitting pulse of the soul beating for perfection, joined to the improbability or the impossibility of attaining it here; and then judge whether this elaborate structure, this magnificent apparatus of inward powers and organs, does not plainly point out an hereafter, and intimate eternity to man. Does nature give the finishing touches to the lesser and ignoble instances of her skill, and raise every other creature to the maturity and perfection of his being; and shall she leave her principal workmanship unfinished? Does she carry the vegetative and animal life in man to their full vigour and highest destination; and shall she suffer the intellectual, moral, and divine life of man to fade away, and be for ever extinguished? Would such abortions in the moral world be congruous to that perfection of wisdom and goodness which upholds and adorns' the natural?

We must therefore conclude from this detail, that the present state, even at its best, is only the womb of man’s being, in which the noblest principles of his nature are in a manner fettered, or secluded from a correspondent sphere of action, and therefore destined for a future and unbounded state, where they shall emancipate themselves, and exert the fulness of their strength. The most accomplished mortal in this low and dark apartment of nature is only the rudiments of what he shall be when he takes his ethereal flight, and puts on immortality. Without a reference to that state, man were a mere abortion, a rude unfinished [7:15:489]embryo, a monster in nature. But this being once supposed, he still maintains his rank as the masterpiece of the creation; his latent powers are all suitable to the harmony and progression of nature; his noble aspirations, and the pains of his dissolution, are his efforts towards a second birth, the pangs of his delivery into light, liberty, and perfection; and death, his discharge from gaol, his separation from his fellow-prisoners, and introduction into the assembly of those heroic spirits who are gone before him, and the presence of their great eternal Parent. The fetters of his mortal coil being loosened, and his prison walls broken down, he will be bare and open on every side to the admission of truth and virtue, and their fair attendant, happiness; every vital and intellectual spring will evolve itself with a divine elasticity in the free air of heaven. He will not then peep at the universe and its glorious Author through a dark grating or a gross medium, nor receive the reflections of his glory through the strait openings of sensible organs, but will be all eye, all ear, all ethereal and divine feeling.^[11. Religion of Nature Delineated, sect. 9. ] Let one part, however, of the analogy be attended to. As in the womb we receive our original constitution, form, and the essential stamina of our being, which we carry along with us into the light, and which greatly affect the succeeding periods of our life; so our temper and condition in the future life will depend on the conduct we have observed, and the character we have formed, in the present state. We are here in miniature what we shall be at full length hereafter. The first rude sketch or outline of reason and virtue must be drawn at present, to be afterwards enlarged to the stature and beauty of angels.

This, if duly attended to, must prove not only a guard, but an admirable incentive, to virtue. For he who faithfully and ardently follows the light of knowledge, and pants after higher improvements in virtue, will be wonderfully animated and inflamed in that pursuit by a full conviction that the scene does not close with life; that his struggles, arising from the weakness of nature and the strength of habit, will be turned into triumphs; that his career in the track of wisdom and goodness will be both swifter and smoother; and those generous ardours with which he glows towards heaven, or the perfection and immortality of virtue, will find their adequate object and exercise in a sphere proportionally enlarged, incorruptible, immortal. On the other hand, what an inexpressible damp must it be to the good man to dread the total extinction of that light and virtue, without which life, nay, immortality itself, were not worth a single wish?

Many writers draw their proofs of the immortality of the soul, and of a future state of rewards and punishments, from the unequal distribution of these here. It cannot be dissembled that wicked men often escape the outward punishment due to their crimes, and do not feel the inward in that measure which their demerit seems to require, partly from the callousness induced upon their nature by the habits of vice, and partly from the dissipation of their minds abroad by pleasure or business; and sometimes good men do not reap all the natural and genuine fruits of their virtue, through the many unforeseen or unavoidable calamities in which they are involved. To the smallest reflection, however, it is obvious that the natural tendency of virtue is to produce happiness; that if it were universally practised, it would, in fact, produce the greatest sum of happiness of which human nature is capable; and that this tendency is defeated only by numerous individuals, who, forsaking the laws of virtue, injure and oppress those who steadily adhere to them. But the natural tendency of virtue is the result of that constitution of things which was established by God at the creation of the world. This being the case, we must either conclude, that there will be a future state, in which all the moral obliquities of the present shall be made straight; or else admit, that the designs of infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, can be finally defeated by the perverse conduct of human weakness. But this last supposition is so extravagantly absurd, that the reality of a future state, the only other possible alternative, may be pronounced to have the evidence of perfect demonstration.

Virtue has present rewards, and vice present punishments, annexed to them—such rewards and punishments as make virtue, in most cases that occur, far more eligible than vice; but, in the infinite variety of human contingencies, it may sometimes happen, that the inflexible practice of virtue shall deprive a man of considerable advantages to himself, his family, or friends, which he might gain by a well-timed piece of roguery; suppose by betraying his trust, voting against his conscience, selling his country, or any other crime where the security against discovery shall heighten the temptation. Or, it may happen, that a strict adherence to his honour, to his religion, to the cause of liberty and virtue,' shall expose him or his family to the loss of every thing, nay, to poverty, slavery, death itself, or to torments far more intolerable. Now, what shall secure a man’s virtue in circumstances of such trial? What shall enforce the obligations of conscience against the allurements of so many interests, the dread of so many and so terrible evils, and the almost unsurmountable aversion of human nature to excessive pain? The conflict is .the greater when the circumstances of the crime are such as easily admit a variety of alleviations from necessity, natural affection, love to one’s family or friends, perhaps in indigence; these will give it even the air of virtue. Add to all, that the crime may be thought to have few bad consequences, may be easily concealed, or imagined possible to be retrieved in a good measure by future good conduct. It is obvious to which side most men will lean in such a case; and how much need there is of a balance in the opposite scale, from the consideration of a God, of a Providence, and of an immortal state of retribution, to keep the mind firm and uncorrupted in those or similar instances of singular trial or distress.

But without supposing such peculiar instances, a sense of a governing Mind, and a persuasion that virtue is not only befriended by him here, but will be crowned by him hereafter with rewards suitable to its nature, vast in themselves, and immortal in their duration, must be not only a mighty support and incentive to the practice of virtue, but a strong barrier against vice. The thoughts of an Almighty Judge, and of an impartial future reckoning, are often alarming, indeed inexpressibly so, even to the stoutest offenders. On the other hand, how supporting must it be to the good man, to think that he acts under the eye of his friend, as well as judge. How improving, to consider the present state as connected with a future one, and every relation in which he stands as a school of discipline for his affections; every trial as the exercise of some virtue; and the virtuous deeds which result from both, as introductory to higher scenes of action and enjoymeut. Finally, how transporting is it to view death as his discharge from the warfare of mortality, and a triumphant entry into a state of freedom, and security, and perfection, in which knowledge and wisdom shall break in upon him from every quarter; where each faculty shall have its proper object; and where his virtue, which was often damped or defeated here, shall be enthroned in undisturbed and eternal empire.
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