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CHAPTER IV.

VIEW OF THE ORIGIN AND NATURE OF OUR MORAL JUDGMENTS and feelings, and of the related PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

SECT. I.

Of Judgments and Feelings strictly Moral.

HAVING thus endeavoured to vindicate the agency of reason in our moral determinations, I proceed - with a view to ascertain how far the supposition of such agency is, of itself, sufficient to explain the phenomena -to exhibit the particular modes and effects of its operation.

It is from the nature of pleasure and pain, happiness and misery, that all moral distinctions ultimately derive their origin: and as, among beings, if such could be imagined to exist, whose condition admitted of no diversity in this respect, no moral notions could possibly have birth; so, wherever pain and pleasure are experienced, and perceived to arise from the acts of animated beings, a variety of feelings, in relation to those two states, and the beings who are the instruments of producing them, will be the necessary result of a certain degree of the capacity of thought and

knowledge; and in the minds of those beings who may possess such capacity expanded into the faculty of reason, there will also ensue, in regard to those objects of thought, a variety of moral determinations properly so denominated.

Of the various pleasures and pains incident to an intelligent being, some may be said to result from the very nature of mind; others from the peculiar mental or bodily constitution, which it may have pleased the Creator to bestow. Of the first class, are the pleasures derived from the possession of knowledge, as opposed to ignorance or falsehood; from the possession of power; perhaps from that of the love and admiration of other beings: of the second class may be reckoned the emotions of taste, or at least some of those emotions; and the whole class of our bodily pains and pleasures.

But however arbitrary, in some cases, may be the connection between our pleasures and pains, and the sources from which they are respectively derived, there is nothing arbitrary in the connection between those pleasures and pains, and the emotions of hope and fear, joy and sorrow, to which they severally give birth. Why the touch of a burning body should give us pain rather than pleasure, no reason can be given; why certain sights, or tastes, or smells, should please rather than displease us, may perhaps be equally unaccountable but it is impossible that a pleasure,

obtained, or in prospect, should, as such, excite fear or sorrow, or vice versa with respect to pain. For we cannot even imagine a being, who should have the same feelings on being made to understand that he was about to undergo a great suffering, and to obtain a great enjoyment; or who should behold, with equal indifference, the approach of each. To say, as Dr. T. Brown has somewhere done, that "we know not why we have been so constituted by the Deity as to rejoice at prosperous, and grieve at unfortunate events," seems to me much the same as to say, that we know not why the Deity has made three and two to be equal to five; or the two sides of every triangle to be greater than the third.

Similar to the connection now described as subsisting between pleasure and pain and the emotions respectively related to each, is that between these states, and certain sentiments arising towards other beings, considered as the intentional producers of pleasure or pain. It is equally impossible for any being to be pleased with, or love another being, for causing him to endure pain, simply for the sake of doing so, as it is to be pleased with the pain itself, simply because it is such. It is impossible too that he should view the producer of pain, and the producer of pleasure, with similar sentiments, or with entire indifference in each case.

The principles of sympathy and benevolent af

fection towards other beings, do not, I apprehend, necessarily result from the nature of mind-at least of mind considered as unendued with reason; but if these principles have been implanted, the emotions of grief for the misery of others, joy on account of their happiness, love of those who benefit them, resentment towards those by whom they are injured, are not to be considered as what may or may not follow. Though the benevolent affections themselves may be merely the effect of positive constitution, the secondary emotions now enumerated flow of necessity from that constitution for if I possess an affection towards another being, it is a contradiction to suppose that I could rejoice at his suffering, or that I could fail to grieve at such suffering, and resent the infliction of it.

Thus then we account for certain emotions which a view of the actions of other beings excite in our minds and in doing so, we account for what very much resembles the sentiments of approbation and disapprobation, and what these sentiments are generally more or less mixed up with. Love to those who do us good, hatred to those who do us evil, are what must necessarily result from the very nature of mind. Love to those who do good to other beings for whom we entertain a benevolent affection, hatred towards those who injure them, are the necessary results of the possession of that affection.

There exists, then, in the very nature of mind, considered in its relation to the states of pleasure and pain, a necessary connection between these states and certain emotions peculiarly related to each. It is impossible to overlook the strong analogy, in kind, that subsists between these emotions and those of moral approbation and disapprobation; and we have thence the clearest warrant for forming the presumption, that, in the essential nature of mind also- mind in its higher and more developed capacities -we may find the source of moral perceptions in general.

Moral approbation has the closest possible affinity to hope, joy, gratitude; moral disapprobation to fear, grief, resentment. The former are all pleasing, the latter all painful emotions. Moral approbation, hope, joy, gratitude, have all a relation to pleasure or happiness as their object: with each of these emotions is more or less intermixed a feeling of love or desire. Moral disapprobation, fear, grief, resentment, have all a relation to pain or misery as their object: with each of these emotions again is more or less intermixed a feeling of hate or aversion. As surely then as any of these states of emotion have their origin in the essential nature of mind, so surely, we may presume, have the others; as surely as some of these emotions are not arbitrarily connected with their respective objects, so surely may we presume that none of them are arbitrarily connected.