in consequence of which we class them together, and form for the whole class one comprehensive name. Such are the generic words, justice, injustice, malevolence, benevolence. To these generic words, which, if distinguished from the number of separate actions denoted by them, are mere words invented by ourselves, we gradually, from the influence of association in the feelings that have attended the particular cases to which the same name has been applied, attach one mixed notion, a sort of compound, or modified whole, of the various feelings which the actions separately would have excited, more vivid, therefore, than what would have arisen on the contemplation of some of these actions, less vivid than what others might have excited. It is enough that an action is one of a class which we term unjust-we feel instantly not the mere emotion which the action of itself would originally have excited, but we feel also that emotion which has been associated with the class of actions to which the particular action belongs; and though the action may be of a kind, which, if we had formed no general arrangement, would have excited but slight emotion, as implying no very great injury produced or intended, it thus excites a far more vivid feeling, by borrowing, as it were, from other analogous and more atrocious actions, that are comprehended under the same general term, the feeling which they would originally have excited. It is quite evident, for example, that, in a civilized country, in which property is largely possessed, and complicated in its tenure, and in the various modes in which it may be transferred, the infringement of property must be an object of peculiar importance, and what is most commonly termed justice, in regard to it, be a virtue of essential value, and injustice a crime against which it is necessary to prepare many checks, and which is thence regarded as of no slight delinquency. The offence of the transgressor is estimated, in such a case, not by the little evil which in any particular case he may intentionally have occasioned to another individual, but, in a great degree also, by the amount of evil which would arise in a system of society constituted as that of the great nations of Europe is constituted, if all men were to be equally regardless of the right of property in others. When we read, therefore, of the tendency to theft, in many barbarous islanders of whom navigators tell us, and of the very little shame which they seemed to feel on detection of their petty larcenies, we carry along with us our own classes of actions, and the emotions to which our own general rules, resulting from our own complicated social state, have given rise. We forget, that to those who consider an action simply as it is, the guilt of an action is an object that is measured by the mere amount of evil intentionally produced in the particular case,-and that the theft which they contemplate, is not, therefore, in its moral aspect, the same VOL. III.-R offence that is contemplated by us. I need not trace out, in other cases, the influence of general rules, which you must be able to trace with sufficient precision for yourselves. Such, then, is one of the modes in which association operates. But it is not in general rules alone that the influence of the associating principle is to be traced. It extends in some degree to all our moral feelings. There is no education, indeed, which can make the pure benevolence of others hateful to us, unless by that very feeling of our own inferiority which implies in envy itself our reverence, and consequently, our moral approbation of what we hate, no education which can make pure deliberate malice in others an object of our esteem. But, if there be any circumstance accompanying the benevolence and malice, which tend to the disparagement of the one, and the elevation of the other, the influence of association may be excited powerfully, in this way, by fixing our attention more vividly on these slight accompanying circumstances. The fearlessness which often attends vice, may be raised into an importance beyond its merit, in savage ages, in which fearlessness is more important for the security of the state, and in which power and glory seem to wait on it; the yielding gentleness of benevolence may, in such circumstances, appear timidity, or, at least, a degree of softness unworthy of the perfect man. In like manner, when a vice is the vice of those whom we love,-of a friend, a brother, a parent, the influence of association may lessen, and overcome our moral disapprobation, not by rendering the vice in itself an object of our esteem, but by rendering it impossible for us to feel a vivid disapprobation of those whom we love, and mingling, therefore, some portion of this very regard in our contemplation of all their actions. It is because we have the virtue of loving our benefactor, or friend, or parent, that we seem not to feel, in so lively a manner, the unworthiness of that vice, which is partly lost to our notice, in the general emotion of our gratitude. But when we strip away these illusions, or when the vice is pure intentional malice, which no circumstance of association can embellish, it is equally impossible for us to look upon it with esteem, as it is impossible for us to turn away with loathing from him whose whole existence seems to be devoted to the happiness of others, and to rejoice, as we look upon him, that we are not what he is. "Ite ipsi in vestræ penetralia mentis et intus Ergo omnes una in vita cum lege creati I have made these limitations, because it appears to me that much confusion, on the subject of morals, has arisen from inattention to these, and from the too great claims which have sometimes been made by the assertors of what they have termed immutable morality. The influence of temporary passion,-of the complication of good with evil, and of evil with good, in one mixed result, and of general or individual associations, that mingle with these complex results some new elements of remembered pain or pleasure, dislike or regard, it seems to me absurd to attempt to deny. But, admitting these indisputable influences, it seems to me equally unreasonable not to admit the existence of that original susceptibility of moral emotion, which precedes the momentary passion, and outlasts it,-which, in admiring the complex result of good and evil, admires always some form of good, and which is itself the source of the chief delights or sorrows which the associations of memory furnish as additional elements in our moral estimate. LECTURE LXXV. RETROSPECT OF LAST LECTURE-THE PRIMARY DISTINCTIONS OF MORALITY IMPLANTED IN EVERY HUMAN HEART, AND NEVER COMPLETELY EFFACED. GENTLEMEN, having traced, in a former Lecture, our notions of virtue, obligation, merit, to one simple feeling of the mind,— a feeling of vivid approval of the frame of mind of the agent,which arises on the contemplation of certain actions, and the capacity of which is as truly essential to our mental constitution, as the capacity of sensation, memory, reason, or of any of the other feelings of which our mind is susceptible,—I considered, in my last Lecture, the arguments in opposition to this principle, as an original tendency of the mind, drawn from some apparent irregularities of moral sentiment in different ages and countries. For determining the force of such instances, however, as objections to the original distinctions of morality, it was necessary to consider precisely, what is meant by that general accordance of moral sentiment, which the world may be considered as truly exhibiting. It is only by contending for more than the precise truth, that, in many instances, we furnish its opponents with the little triumphs, which seem to them like perfect victory. We give to the truth itself an appearance of doubtfulness, because we have combined it with what is doubtful, or, perhaps, altogether false. In the first place, the language which the assertors of virtue are in the habit of employing, when they speak of the eternity and absolute immutability of moral truth, might almost lead to the belief of something self-existing, which could not vary in any circumstances, nor be less powerful at any moment, than at any other moment. Virtue, however, it is evident, is nothing in itself, but is only a general name for certain actions, which excite, when contemplated by us, certain emotions. It is a felt relation to certain emotions, and nothing more, with no other universality, therefore, than that of the minds, in which, on the contemplation of the same actions, the same emotions arise. We speak always of what our mind is formed to admire or hate, -not of what it might have been formed to estimate differently; and the supposed immutability, therefore, has regard only to the existing constitution of things under that Divine Being, who has formed our social nature as it is, and who, in thus forming it, may be considered as marking his own approbation of that virtue which we love, and his own disapprobation of that vice, which he has rendered it impossible for us not to view with indignation or disgust. Such is the moderate sense of the absolute immutability of virtue, for which alone we can contend; a sense in which virtue itself is supposed to become known to us as an object of our thought only, in consequence of certain emotions which it excites, and with which it is coextensive and commensurable; but, even in this moderate sense, it was necessary to make some limitations of the uniformity of sentiment supposed; since it is abundantly evident, that the same actions,-that is to say, the same agents, in the same circumstances, willing and producing the same effects, -are not regarded by all mankind with feelings precisely the same, nor even with feelings precisely the same by the same individual in every moment of his life. The first limitation which I made relates to the moments, in which the mind is completely occupied and absorbed in other feelings, when, for example, it is under the temporary influence of extreme passion, which incapacitates the mind for perceiving moral distinctions, as it incapacitates it for perceiving distinctions of every sort. Virtue, though lost to our perception for a moment, however, is immediately perceived again with distinct vision as before, as soon as the agitation subsides :-It is like the image of the sky on the bosom of a lake, which vanishes, indeed, while the waters are ruffled, but which reappears more and more distinctly, as every little wave sinks gradually to rest, -till the returning calm shows again in all its purity the image of that Heaven, which has never ceased to shine on it. The influence of passion, then, powerful as it unquestionably is in obstructing those peculiar emotions in which our moral discernment consists, is limited to the short period during which the passion rages. We are then as little capable of perceiving moral differences, as we should be, in the same circumstances, of distinguishing the universal truths of geometry; and in both cases, from the same law of the mind,-that general law, by which one very vivid feeling of any sort lessens in proportion the vividness of any other feeling that may coexist with it, or, in other cases, prevents the rise of feelings that are not accordant with the prevailing emotion, by inducing, in more ready suggestion, the feelings that are accordant with it. The next limitation which we made is of more consequence, as being far more extensive, and operating, therefore, in some degree, in almost all the moral estimates which we form. This se |