inclination, and this only I call a positive exercise of free will.

It is true there is such a thing as acting contrary to an inclination without an exercise of free will; but this is where one inclination overcomes another; and where, consequently, the weaker ceases to be the inclination; and the agent, in acting contrary to it, still acts spontaneously, and, to all intents and purposes, according to inclination. A man will pass through the fire, to save his life or that of his children. A mother will persist in tending her sick infant in spite of pain, fatigue, and privation. Yet, in such cases, so far is inclination from being overcome by an effort, that it would require an effort to act differently. Even the inferior animals will incur sacrifices in this manner. There is obviously nothing, then, in such instances, of the nature of self-control, selfdenial; nothing resembling what a rational agent does in opposing temptation from virtuous principle, or in restraining some urgent desire, affection or emotion, from a belief that it will conduce to some distant, and perhaps dimly conceived advantage.

To an agent, then, who wills to do what he ought, not being otherwise disposed to do so than merely that he wills it, we ascribe the attribute of merit, or desert of reward.

Further, we have a distinct conception of a volition's being strong or weak; and the reward we

perceive to be due to an agent for willing what is obligatory, is in proportion to the strength of the volition he makes. Now, from the nature of the things considered, it must appear that a volition is stronger, first, Where the agent wills the fulfilment of a smaller obligation, than where he only wills the fulfilment of a greater: and, secondly Where he wills the performance of obligation against a stronger, than only against a weaker opposing motive. In plainer words, we do not attribute so much merit to a man for choosing to fulfil a great obligation, or one which costs him little difficulty, as we would in the contrary of each case respectively.

At first sight, and previously to experience, we might suppose that a rational agent would always be inclined to act with a regard to his own greatest good, and consequently that he could never, by present sacrifices incurred with that view, acquire merit. The fact, however, we know to be otherwise. The question in regard to such cases is simply this Is the prospect of the future greater good sufficient to move him spontaneously, and without any effort of free will, to sacrifice the present inclination, in the same way as it would be if both were equally present? If it is not, he may have merit for the volition. A man may be quite convinced that, by submitting at present to a painful surgical operation, he will save himself a greater quantity of pain afterwards. He will of course

feel that he ought to submit to it, nay, may be anxious that he could bring himself to submit ; yet this submission may be so far from spontaneous, that it may require the greatest effort of resolution; and, I repeat, there is a plain distinction (on the neglect of which hangs the doctrine of necessity) between a man's doing a thing, because it is his inclination, and because it is his will.

Nor does it necessarily remove, though it may lessen the merit, that a reward may be promised for submitting to some present pain. The prospect of this reward either makes the submission spontaneous, or it does not. If an affort of will is still required, there will still be merit.

And though the merit of an agent is of so far an inferior kind, as the effort of will is made merely with a view to his own good, yet in respect that very great difficulty may attend such effort, the merit may, on the whole, be far from inconsiderable. The employment of active exertion then by an agent, for his own good, admits, from this circumstance, of a superior estimation to what can belong to self-love, considered merely as a disposition. Indeed in whatever way, or for whatever purpose, a strong exertion of the will is made, it proper of itself to excite some degree of respect

is

and admiration.

I have already had occasion* to distinguish the perception of merit and demerit in an agent, from Vol. I. page 80.

the mere affections of love and dislike towards him; and also from a knowledge of the uses of reward and punishment in promoting virtue and restraining vice. Reward and punishment, in the proper notion of them, are something fitly due to an agent in regard to past conduct, and to that of itself, independently of all other considerations. It is obvious that no advantage that could arise from the view of the punishment of an individual, could possibly make that punishment just, unless he were the guilty individual; and that, if he were guilty, his punishment might be just, even if tending to no advantage.

We must, however, always perceive a fitness why any living being, merely as such, should be happy rather than miserable. This so far opposes the other perception of the fitness that a guilty agent should suffer, that the latter cannot well maintain itself abstractedly from the view of some good produced by such suffering, either to the sufferer or to others: but this, whether the good is produced by the actual suffering, endured or beheld, in any particular case, or by the general constitution by which suffering is connected with moral guilt.

SECT. II.

On the Distinction between Virtue and Merit.

We shall now be enabled to discover the relation which virtue and merit mutually bear to each other.

The virtue of an agent is his disposition, independently of any exercise of will or choice, to do what he ought to do. - This disposition we can easily imagine any number of agents to be formed with originally, or to receive or to acquire afterwards, in different degrees: and in whatever degree each agent may possess such disposition, he is virtuous.

The merit of an agent, on the other hand, belongs to him for willing or choosing to do what he ought, independently of disposition or inclination to do so and in proportion to the strength or energy with which he so wills, is his merit.

Now it is obvious that, other things being the same, the greater a man's disposition is, the more he is inclined spontaneously to do what he ought, the less must be his exertion of will employed for that purpose. Virtue and merit then are so far from being the same, that they are essentially exclusive of one another. And if an agent's sensibility to moral obligation is so great that he will spontaneously act upon it whatever other inclinations may oppose, that is, if regard to what he