physical and moral, must be placed among physical sciences, though it essentially differs from them all in having for its chief object those laws of thought which alone render any other sort of knowledge possible. But it is equally certain that the word "ought" introduces the mind into a new region, to which nothing physical corresponds. However philosophers may deal with this most important of words, it is instantly understood by all who do not attempt to define it. No civilised speech, perhaps no human language, is without correspondent terms. It would be as reasonable to deny that "space" and "greenness" are significant words, as to affirm that " ought," right," "duty," "virtue," are sounds without meaning. It would be fatal to an ethical theory that it did not explain them, and that it did not comprehend all the conceptions and emotions which they call up. There never yet was a theory which did not attempt such an explanation.

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SECTION I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS.

THERE is no man who, in a case where he was a calm bystander, would not look with more satisfaction on acts of kindness than on acts of cruelty. No man, after the first excitement of his mind has subsided, ever whispered to himself with self-approbation and secret joy that he had been guilty of cruelty or baseness. Every criminal is strongly impelled to hide these qualities of his actions from himself, as he would do from others, by clothing his conduct in some disguise of duty, or of necessity. There is no tribe so rude as to be without a faint perception of a difference between Right and Wrong. There is no sub

so many points as in the general rules of conduct, and in the qualities of the human character which deserve esteem. Even the grossest deviations from the general consent will appear, on close examination, to be not so much corruptions of moral feeling, as ignorance of facts; or errors with respect to the consequences of action; or cases in which the dissentient party is inconsistent with other parts of his own principles, which destroys the value of his dissent; or where each dissident is condemned by all the other dissidents, which immeasurably augments the majority against him. In the first three cases he may be convinced by argument that his moral judgment should be changed on principles which he recognises as just; and he can seldom, if ever, be condemned at the same time by the body of mankind who agree in their moral systems, and by those who on some other points dissent from that general code, without being also convicted of error by inconsistency with himself. The tribes who expose new-born infants, condemn those who abandon their decrepit parents to destruction: those who betray and murder strangers, are condemned by the rules of faith and humanity which they acknowledge in their intercourse with their countrymen. Mr. Hume, in a dialogue in which he ingeniously magnifies the moral heresies of two nations so polished as the Athenians and the French, has very satisfactorily resolved his own difficulties: "In how many circumstances would an Athenian and a Frenchman of merit certainly resemble each other! — Humanity, fidelity, truth, justice, courage, temperance, constancy, dignity of mind." "The principles upon which men reason in Morals are always the same though the conclusions which they draw are often very different.”* He might have added, that almost every deviation which he imputes to each nation is at variance with some of the virtues justly esteemed by

* Philosophical Works (Edinb. 1826), vol. iv. pp. 420. 422.

both, and that the reciprocal condemnation of each other's errors which appears in his statement entitles us, on these points, to strike out the suffrages of both when collecting the general judgment of mankind. If we bear in mind that the question relates to the coincidence of all men in considering the same qualities as virtues, and not to the preference of one class of virtues by some, and of a different class by others, the exceptions from the agreement of mankind, in their system of practical morality, will be reduced to absolute insignificance; and we shall learn to view them as no more affecting the harmony of our moral faculties, than the resemblance of our limbs and features is affected by monstrous conformations, or by the unfortunate effects of accident and disease in a very few individuals.*

It is very remarkable, however, that though all men agree that there are acts which ought to be done, and acts which ought not to be done; though the far greater part of mankind agree in their list of virtues and duties, of vices and crimes; and though the whole race, as it advances in other improvements, is as evidently tending towards the moral system of the most civilised nations, as children in their growth

*"On convient le plus souvent de ces instincts de la conscience. La plus grande et la plus saine partie du genre humain leur rend témoignage. Les Orientaux, et les Grecs, et les Romains conviennent en cela; et il faudroit être aussi abruti que les sauvages Américains pour approuver leurs coutumes, pleines d'une cruauté qui passe même celle des bêtes. Cependant ces mêmes sauvages sentent bien ce que c'est que la justice en d'autres occasions; et quoique il n'y ait point de mauvaise pratique peut-être qui ne soit autorisée quelque part, y en a peu pourtant qui ne soient condamnées le plus souvent, et par la plus grande partie des hommes."- Leibnitz, Euvres Philosophiques (Amst. et Leipz. 1765, 4to.), p. 49. There are some admirable observations on this subject in Hartley, especially in the development of the 49th Proposition:- The rule of life drawn from the practice and opinions of mankind corrects and improves itself perpetually, till at last it determines entirely for virtue, and excludes all kinds and

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tend to the opinions, as much as to the experience and strength, of adults; yet there are no questions in the circle of inquiry to which answers more various have been given than-How men have thus come to agree in the 'Rule of Life?' Whence arises their general reverence for it? and What is meant by affirming that it ought to be inviolably observed? It is singular, that where we are most nearly agreed respecting rules, we should perhaps most widely differ as to the causes of our agreement, and as to the reasons which justify us for adhering to it. The discussion

of these subjects composes what is usually called the "Theory of Morals," in a sense not in all respects coincident with what is usually considered as theory in other sciences. When we investigate the causes of our moral agreement, the term "theory" retains its ordinary scientific sense; but when we endeavour to ascertain the reasons of it, we rather employ the term as importing the theory of the rules of an art. In the first case, "theory" denotes, as usual, the most general laws to which certain facts can be reduced; whereas, in the second, it points out the efficacy of the observance, in practice, of certain rules, for producing the effects intended to be produced in the art. These reasons also may be reduced under the general sense by stating the question relating to them thus:- What are the causes why the observance of certain rules enables us to execute certain purposes? An account of the various answers attempted to be made to these inquiries, properly forms the history of Ethics.

The attentive reader may already perceive, that these momentous inquiries relate to at least two perfectly distinct subjects:-1. The nature of the distinction between Right and Wrong in human conduct, and 2. The nature of those feelings with which Right and Wrong are contemplated by human beings. The latter constitutes what has been called the " Theory of Moral Sentiments;" the former consists in an investigation into the criterion of Morality in action. Other

most important questions arise in this province: but the two problems which have been just stated, and the essential distinction between them, must be clearly apprehended by all who are desirous of understanding the controversies which have prevailed on ethical subjects. The discrimination has seldom been made by moral philosophers; the difference between the two problems has never been uniformly observed by any of them and it will appear, in the sequel, that they have been not rarely altogether confounded by very eminent men, to the destruction of all just conception and of all correct reasoning in this most important, and, perhaps, most difficult, of sciences.

It may therefore be allowable to deviate so far from historical order, as to illustrate the nature, and to prove the importance, of the distinction, by an example of the effects of neglecting it, taken from the recent works of justly-celebrated writers; in which they discuss questions much agitated in the present age, and therefore probably now familiar to most readers of this Dissertation.

Dr. Paley represents the principle of a Moral Sense as being opposed to that of Utility. Now, it is evident that this representation is founded on a confusion of the two questions which have been stated above. That we are endued with a Moral Sense, or, in other words, a faculty which immediately approves what is right, and condemns what is wrong, is only a statement of the feelings with which we contemplate actions. But to affirm that right actions are those which conduce to the well-being of mankind, is a proposition concerning the outward effects by which right actions themselves may be recognised. these affirmations relate to different subjects, they cannot be opposed to each other, any more than the solidity of earth is inconsistent with the fluidity of

As

*Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. Compare