agreeable to a capacity of emotion in the Deity similar to ours. If the promotion of happiness, as an end or effect, is, in its nature,* an object calculated to excite this emotion in the divine mind, that such is its nature, must surely be something that the divine reason at least is capable of apprehending. The moral fitness of this effect then cannot depend on the mere fact of the emotion, but on the nature of the effect being such (i. e. on there being something of such a kind true concerning it) that it must excite this emotion. To grant this would be granting all that, for my own part, I feel much anxiety in contending for. To grant that something is thus true, in the nature of things, of the promotion of happiness, as an object or end, something which reason, in its nature (whatever particular degrees of it may be) is capable of discovering to be true, is to give up all that is material in the controversy. To deny this power to human reason would then be, to say the least, an entirely arbitrary determination. But indeed if moral good and evil be different things as regards the divine mind, from what they are as regards the human mind, there is an end of all speculation on this subject, and on every matter connected with natural and revealed religion. The divine goodness would be a phrase without meaning.

* If not, the case must, in some way, resolve into the first explanation.

Many other passages of a similar import to those now examined, might be produced from Dr. Brown's work. In like manner, Dr. Adam Smith, with his wonted elegance and justness of thought, exhibits, in a variety of instances, the utility, the final causes, of different parts of our moral constitution; and expatiates on the goodness of God, in forming that constitution as it is. We find, then, that those who place the essence of right and wrong in the feeling of the spectator, yet suppose that the capability of such feeling was not arbitrarily implanted in us, but implanted, by the goodness of our Creator, for the sake of our happiness, as a final cause. Now it seems to me that our very notion of a final cause, is that of a reason why any thing ought to be ordered as it is: a fit, or right purpose, end, or aim, to be answered, in its being so ordered. Unless the notion of a final cause involves that of an absolute and independent moral fitness, to show that a contrivance produces pain, would be assigning just as good a final cause for it, as that it produces pleasure; nor can we adequately describe or explain a final cause, but by terms expressive of moral notions, and consequently implying a moral faculty. In pretending then to assign a final cause for the existence of a moral sense, we assign a final cause for that part of our nature, without which we could not yet form the very notion of a final cause. When the authors I have been al

luding to, thus assign a final cause, can any one doubt that, in the very act, they make a moral determination, or doubt that this act is an act of their reason?

I before stated grounds for hazarding the assertion that the supporters of the theory I am opposing, really speak in the exercise of their reason, when they say that we ought to be guided by the supposed moral sense. On similar grounds I have now felt warranted in representing them as speaking in the exercise of their reason, when they determine that it was right we should receive such a sense, as being conducive to our happiness. To those who may think me justified in these representations, I need not point out the absurdity of supposing that reason can perceive it to be right that we should have such a sense, right that we should follow it, and yet that reason, without such sense, cannot at all determine between right and wrong.

Even then on the unnecessary, (as it appears to me,) though certainly not impossible supposition, that such a capacity of emotion, as that which has been specially denominated the moral sense, exists, I feel entitled to contend that it is not the determinations of this sense that make virtue or vice; that it may be a direction, and incentive to virtue; virtue, however, otherwise conceived of: so that actions would be essentially virtuous or vicious, even if there were no such sense, or a sense con

stituted on a different principle: and in short, that the implanting of such a sense by the Creator, presupposes that he perceived an intrinsic excellence in what the sense was given to lead us to ; without which no such sense would, to the best of our knowledge, have ever been given.

Certainly the existence of such a sense is an object about which our reason or understanding can be employed, as well as about the existence of our memory or imagination; and whether it was right that we should possess it, whether we ought to be guided by that sense or not, are questions which, do what we will, we cannot remove from the cognizance of reason; so that if a moral sense really existed, it could not yet be the ultimate judge of right and wrong, in so far as it may itself be an object about which such judgment is employed.

APPENDIX TO SECT. III.

Of the Nature of our Dependence on the Constancy of the Laws of Nature.

It appears to me that our belief in the constancy and uniformity of the laws of nature, is resolvable into our perception, that every effect (change) must have a cause: which implies, that we suppose every thing to remain the same as it once is, or has been, until there is a cause for change or alteration. The continuance then is the rule, the change, the exception; and we do not inquire

why a thing should have remained as it was, but why it should not have remained, if it has undergone any alteration. If I find a stone lying on the ground where I left it yesterday, I do not ask, how has it happened to remain there? but, if it has been removed, I ask, -how has it been removed? In like manner, if the stone continues of the same figure or colour, I do not imagine that this requires to be accounted for; but should its figure or colour have changed, this does require to be accounted for. All this seems very plain in respect to the figure or appearance of the stone; but suppose that any power has been once found to belong to it, such as that of exercising a particular chemical action on certain other substances, and we straightway ask, as something requiring to be explained, why we should expect this power to operate again, because we have seen it operate once? Just for the same reason, I should answer, that we expect to find the stone lying on the table where we had left it five minutes ago, and whence nobody has had an opportunity of removing it. The power here supposed to belong to the stone, is as much conceived to be permanent (bating the operation of other causes) as its size, figure, or position; and whatever reason exists for expecting it to continue unchanged in any one of these particulars, creates the same expectation in regard to any other.

It is evident, however, that this explanation