RICHARD CRUTTWELL, ST. JAMES'S-STREET, BATH AND SOLD BY MURRAY, ALBEMARLE-STREET, LONDON,, 1815- COLLECTIONS ON CHARITY, &c. UR duty towards our neighbour, the knowledge of which is called the Science of Ethics, is founded on our duty towards GOD. From his conftitution of our being we derive our fympathy, our benevolence, our sense of fitness, or of justice, or of truth; our prudence, our felf-love, our reason, and whatever elfe the partial views of theorists can poffibly affign as the fundamental principle of moral action. From his conftitution of our being proceed all moral as well as all phyfical relations. We clearly perceive, no doubt, the relation between our lungs and the air, between our muscles and our bones, between those of the jaw and the teeth, between these and the organs of deglutition, of digeftion, of fecretion, of abforption; between veins and arteries, arteries and lungs, between all and the heart. The relations between perceptions and fenfations, between the latter and appetites, between these and the affections of pleasure and difpleasure, between thofe and memory, between memory and emotions, paffions, habits, tempers, faculties, and energies, are not lefs manifeft. Our neceffary dependence on each other for our general well-being; the relations between appetites, emotions, and fexual attractions, between B beauty and love, between the love of parents and the love of children and of kindred, between the love of thefe and that of birth-place and of country, are Innumerable are the relations equally apparent. between wants and qualities adapted to fatisfy them. Varieties of fituation, of condition, of habit, are attended with various and even oppofite wants; yet these supply to each clafs both impulfe and facility to relieve those of another. The weak require the aid of the strong; but the continued gentle operation of the weak has often a value above force. The flow have need of the active; but deliberative perseverance may prevail over vehemence. The refolute needs the devices of the ingenious; the quick combiner, the calm fcrutiny of the patient investigator. The rich and the poor have very different wants, and poffefs mutual means of contributing to the welfare and happiness of each other. Society is the pre-ordained and inevitable refult of the reagencies of mutual wants. The inequality of conditions in fociety may be inferred, argumentatively, as the neceffary confequence, or deduced, historically, as the known refult of the inequality of bodily and mental powers. The great Being who ordained thofe mutual wants by which reafoning creatures are impelled to focial union, has alfo ordained the modes of action. requifite to the production of that beneficial result which is fought to be attained by fuch union. It is generally expedient, that each fhould fo contribute to promote the well-being of another, that the welfare of all may result from fuch combined exertion. In what manner each may best exert his faculties to the promotion of the general welfare, in conformity to the laws of his Creator, natural or revealed, is a queftion extending to all moral relations; one branch |