IV.

upon experience of what, in particular inftances, C HA P. our moral faculties, our natural fenfe of merit and propriety, approve, or difapprove of. We do not originally approve or condemn particular actions; because, upon examination, they appear to be agreeable or inconfiftent with a certain general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, is formed, by finding from experience, that all actions of a certain kind, or circumstanced in a certain manner, are approved or disapproved of. To the man who firft faw an inhuman murder, committed from avarice, envy, or unjust refentment, and upon one too that loved and trufted the murderer, who beheld the laft agonies of the dying perfon, who heard him, with his expiring breath, complain more of the perfidy and ingratitude of his falfe friend, than of the violence which had been done to him, there could be no occafion, in order to conceive how horrible fuch an action was, that he fhould reflect, that one of the most facred rules of conduct was what prohibited the taking away the life of an innocent perfon, that this was a plain violation of that rule, and confequently a very blamable action. His deteftation of this crime, it is evident, would arise instantaneously and antecedent to his having formed to himself any fuch general rule. The general rule, on the contrary, which he might afterwards form, would be founded upon the deteftation which he felt neceffarily arise in his own breast, at the thought of this, and every other particular action of the fame kind.

When

PART

III.

When we read in hiftory or romance, the account of actions either of generofity or of bafenefs, the admiration which we conceive for the one, and the contempt which we feel for the other, neither of them arife from reflecting that there are certain general rules which declare all actions of the one kind admirable, and all actions of the other contemptible. Those general rules, on the contrary, are all formed from the experience we have had of the effects which actions of all different kinds naturally produce upon us.

An amiable action, a refpectable action, an horrid action, are all of them actions which naturally excite for the perfon who performs them, the love, the refpect, or the horror of the fpectator. The general rules which determine what actions are, and what are not, the objects of each of those fentiments, can be formed no other way than by obferving what actions actually and in fact excite them.

When these general rules, indeed, have been formed, when they are univerfally acknowledged and established, by the concurring sentiments of mankind, we frequently appeal to them as to the standards of judgement, in debating concerning the degree of praife or blame that is due to certain actions of a complicated and dubious nature. They are upon thefe occafions commonly cited as the ultimate foundations of what is juft and unjust in human conduct; and this circumftance feems to have mifled feveral very eminent authors, to draw up their fyftems

IV.

in fuch a manner, as if they had fuppofed that the CHA P. original judgments of mankind with regard to right and wrong, were formed like the decifions of a court of judicatory, by confidering first the general rule, and then, fecondly, whether the particular action under confideration fell properly within its comprehenfion.

Those general rules of conduct, when they have been fixed in our mind by habitual reflection, are of great ufe in correcting the mifreprefentations of felf-love concerning what is fit and proper to be done in our particular fituation. The man of furious refentment, if he was to liften to the dictates of that paffion, would perhaps regard the death of his enemy, as but a small compenfation for the wrong, he imagines, he has received; which, however, may be no more than a very flight provocation. But his obfervations upon the conduct of others, have taught him how horrible all fuch fanguinary revenges appear. Unless his education has been very fingular, he has laid it down to himfelf as an inviolable rule, to abstain from them upon all occafions. This rule preferves its authority with him, and renders him incapable of being guilty of fuch a violence. Yet the fury of his own temper nay be fuch, that had this been the firft time in which he confidered fuch an action, he would undoubtedly have determined it to be quite juft and proper, and what every impartial fpectator would approve of. But that reverence for the rule which past experience has impreffed upon him, checks the impetuofity of his paffion, and

VOL. I.

T

helps

III.

PART helps him to correct the too partial views which felf-love might otherwise fuggeft, of what was proper to be done in his fituation. If he fhould allow himself to be fo far tranfported by paffion as to violate this rule, yet, even in this case, he cannot throw off altogether the awe and respect with which he has been accustomed to regard it. At the very time of acting, at the moment in which paffion mounts the higheft, he hesitates and trembles at the thought of what he is about to do: he is fecretly confcious to himself that he is breaking through those measures of conduct which, in all his cool hours, he had refolved never to infringe, which he had never feen infringed by others without the highest disapprobation, and of which the infringement, his own mind forebodes, muft foon render him the object of the fame difagreeable sentiments. Before he can take the laft fatal refolution, he is tormented with all the agonies of doubt and uncertainty; he is terrified at the thought of violating fo facred a rule, and at the fame time is urged and goaded on by the fury of his defires to violate it. He changes his purpofe every moment; fometimes he refolves to adhere to his principle, and not indulge a paffion which may corrupt the remaining part of his life with the horrors of fhame and repentance; and a momentary calm takes poffeffion of his breast, from the profpect of that fecurity and tranquillity which he will enjoy when he thus determines not to expofe himself to the hazard of a contrary conduct. But immediately the paffion

roufes

IV.

roufes anew, and with fresh fury drives him on CHA P. to commit what he had the inftant before refolved to abftain from. Wearied and distracted with thofe continual irrefolutions, he at length, from a fort of despair, makes the laft fatal and irrecoverable ftep; but with that terror and amazement with which one flying from an enemy, throws himself over a precipice, where he is fure of meeting with more certain deftruction than from any thing that pursues him from behind. Such are his fentiments even at the time of acting; though he is then, no doubt, lefs fenfible of the impropriety of his own conduct than afterwards, when his paffion being gratified and palled, he begins to view what he has done in the light in which others are apt to view it; and actually feels, what he had only forefeen very imperfectly before, the ftings of remorfe and repentance begin to agitate and torment him.

CHAP. V.

Of the influence and authority of the general Rules of Morality, and that they are juftly regarded as the Laws of the Deity.

THE

HE regard to thofe general rules of con- c HA P. duct, is what is properly called a fenfe of duty, a principle of the greatest consequence in

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