1 PART qualities of right, laudable, and virtuous, and Law, it was juftly obferved by Dr. Cudworth *, could not be the original fource of those distinctions; fince upon the fuppofition of fuch a law, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to difobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it, or difobeyed it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed or dif obeyed, could not, it was evident, be the fource of thofe diftinctions; neither could that which it was right to obey and wrong to disobey, fince even this ftill fuppofed the antecedent notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the law was conformable to the idea of right, and difobedience to that of wrong. Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of thofe diftinctions antecedent to all law, it seemed neceffarily to follow, that it derived this notion from reafon, which pointed out the difference between right and wrong, in the fame manner in which it did that between truth and falfehood and this conclufion, which, though true in fome refpects, is rather hafty in others, was more eafily received at a time when the abstract fcience of human nature was but in its infancy, and before the diftinct offices and powers of the different faculties of the human mind had been carefully examined and distinguished from one another. When this controverfy with * Immutable Morality, I. 1. Mr. III. Mr. Hobbes was carried on with the greateft S E C T. warmth and keennefs, no other faculty had been thought of from which any fuch ideas could poffibly be fuppofed to arife. It became at this time, therefore, the popular doctrine, that the effence of virtue and vice did not confift in the conformity or difagreement of human actions with the law of a fuperior, but in their conformity or difagreement with reafon, which was thus confidered as the original fource and principle of approbation and difapprobation. That virtue confifts in conformity to reafon, is true in fome refpects, and this faculty may very juftly be confidered as, in fome fenfe, the fource and principle of approbation and difapprobation, and of all folid judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason that we difcover thofe general rules of juftice by which we ought to regulate our actions: and it is by the fame faculty that we form those more vague and indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is generous or noble, which we carry conftantly about with us, and according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenor of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all other general maxims, from experience and induction. We obferve in a great variety of particular cafes what pleases or difpleafes our moral faculties, what thefe approve or difapprove of, and, by induction from this experience, we establish thofe general rules. VII. PART But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of reafon. From reafon, therefore, we are very properly faid to derive all those general maxims and ideas. It is by these, however, that we regulate the greater part of our moral judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious if they depended altogether upon what is liable to fo many vari ations as immediate fentiment and feeling, which the different ftates of health and humour are capable of altering fo effentially. As our most folid judgments, therefore, with regard to right and wrong, are regulated by maxims and ideas derived from an induction of reafon, virtue may very properly be faid to confift in a conformity to reafon, and fo far this faculty may be confidered as the fource and principle of approbation and disapprobation. But though reason is undoubtedly the fource of the general rules of morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form by means of them; it is altogether abfurd and unintelligible to fuppofe that the firft perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reafon, even in thofe particular cafes upon the experience of which the general rules are formed. These first perceptions, as well as all other experiments upon which any general rules are founded, cannot be the object of reafon, but of immediate fenfe and feeling. It is by finding in a vast variety of inftances that one tenor of conduct conftantly pleases in a certain manner, and that III. that another as conftantly difpleafes the mind, SEC T. that we form the general rules of morality. But reafon cannot render any particular object either agreeable or difagreeable to the mind for its own fake. Reafon may fhow that this object is the means of obtaining fome other which is naturally either pleasing or displeasing, and in this manner may render it either agreeable or difagreeable for the fake of fomething elfe. But nothing can be agreeable or disagreeable for its own fake, which is not rendered fuch by immediate fenfe and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular inftance, neceffarily pleases for its own fake, and if vice as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reafon, but immediate fenfe and feeling, which, in this manner, reconciles us to the one, and alienates us from the other. Pleasure and pain are the great objects of defire and averfion: but thefe are diftinguished not by reason, but by immediate fenfe and feeling. If virtue, therefore, be defirable for its own fake, and if vice be, in the fame manner, the object of averfion, it cannot be reafon which originally diftinguishes thofe different qualities, but immediate fenfe and feeling. As reafon, however, in a certain fense, may juftly be confidered as the principle of approbation and difapprobation, thefe fentiments were, through inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from the operations of this faculty. Dr. Hutchefon had the merit of being the first who diftinguished with any degree of precifion PART in what refpect all moral diftinctions may be VII. faid to arife from reafon, and in what refpect they are founded upon immediate fenfe and feeling. In his illuftrations upon the moral fense he has explained this fo fully, and, in my opinion, fo unanswerably, that, if any controverfy is ftill kept up about this fubject, I can impute it to nothing, but either to inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a fuperftitious attachment to certain forms of expreffion, a weakness not very uncommon among the learned, efpecially in fubjects fo deeply interefting as the prefent, in which a man of virtue is often loath to abandon, even the propriety of a fingle phrafe which he has been accustomed to. CHAP. III. Of thofe Systems which make Sentiment the Principle of Approbation. TH HOSE fyftems which make fentiment the principle of approbation may be divided into two different claffes. I. According to fome the principle of approbation is founded upon a fentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; fome of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a difagree 2 |