ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY ON THE PROGRESS OF ETHICAL PHILOSOPHY BY SIR JAMES MACKINTOSH LL.D., F.R.S. EDITED BY WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D. LATE MASTER OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE CORRESPONDING MEMBER OF THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE FOURTH EDITION EDINBURGH ADAM AND CHARLES BLACK 1872 [All rijhts reserved.] Printed by R. CLARK, Edinburgh. NOTICE. THIS Edition is simply a reprint, in an altered form, of the previous edition in demy octavo, edited by the late Professor Whewell in 1862. At the same time, while passing through the press, the opportunity has been taken to correct a few typographical errors which had inadvertently crept in, and to add to the work a General Index. EDINBURGH, January 1872. CONTENTS. PAGE ADVERTISEMENT (Biographical) . . . . . vii NOTE TO THE EDITION OF 1862 . . . . . x EDITOR'S PREFACE ....... xiii I. The Affections are not Selfish xv II. Existence and Supremacy of the Moral Faculty . xxii III. The Sentiments are formed by Association . xxxix IV. Mackintosh's Theory of Conscience . . . xlii V. Moral Faculty and greatest Happiness agree . xliv VI. Relation of Morality and Religion . . . xlv VII. Moral Explanation of Free-will . . . xlvi THE DISSERTATION. INTRODUCTION ........ 1 Section 1. Preliminary Observations .... 8 2. Retrospect of Ancient Ethics . . . .16 3. Retrospect of Scholastic Ethics . . ..33 4. Modern Ethics . . . . . .52 GROTIUS ...... 52 HOBBES ...... 54 Remarks . 62 vi CONTENTS. MM Section 5. Controversies concerning the Moral Faculties and the Social Affections . . . .70 CUMBERLAND . . . . .70 CUDWORTH 73 CLARKE ... ... 78 Remarks ...... 81 SHAFTESBURT ..... 88 F^NELON BOSSUET . . . .96 LEIBNITZ . . . . . .100 Eemarks ...... 102 MALEBRANCHE . . . . 105 EDWARDS . . . . . .107 BUFFIER . . . . . .110 6. Foundations of a more just Theory of Ethics . 112 BUTLER 113 Eemarks . . . . . .118 HUTCHESON . . . . . 124 ^ BERKELEY 128 1 HUME 133 SMITH .' 146 Remarks . . . . , .150 PRICE . . . . . . .155 HARTLEY . . . . . .156 TUCKER ...... 174 PALEY . . . . .179 BENTHAM ...... 187 STEWART ...... 210 BROWN . . . . . 227 7. General Remarks . . . . . ' . 241 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS . . . . ... 279 INDEX 305 ADVEKTISEMENT. THE following Dissertation forms one of a series of similar Pieces, intended to exhibit a view of the History of the Sciences, and which compose the first or intro- ductory volume of the eighth edition of the Encyclo- paedia Britannica. In presenting it to the world detached from that work, the proprietors have complied with a wish very frequently expressed for its separate publication ; and they think themselves fortunate in being enabled to accompany it with a Preface which presents a succinct and comprehensive view of its leading objects and doctrines. As allusion is there made to the "irregular and interrupted manner" in which it was written, and to the want of any notice of the recent Ethical speculations of the Continental Philosophers, it may be proper, in justice to the very eminent author, to lay before the reader the following history of its com- position, as given in the interesting Memoirs of his Life, published by his Son. " The late Mr. Dugald Stewart and Mr. Playfair had agreed to furnish Dissertations, the one on the history of Metaphysical, Ethical, and Political Philosophy, the other on the history of Mathematical and Physical Science, to be prefixed to the Supplement to the Encyclo- VI 11 ADVERTISEMENT. pccdia Britannica. The design was not completed by either of those illustrious writers. Both died before their respective portions of it were finished. The history of the mathematical and physical sciences, by the latter, was brought down to the period marked by the dis- coveries of Newton and Leibnitz ; and the history of metaphysical philosophy was, by the former, brought down to the close of the last century. In treating this great branch of his subject, Mr. Stewart has occasionally adverted to the kindred branches of etliics and politics ; but there was wanting to the completion of his design a full view of the progress of opinion in those sciences, particularly during the eighteenth century. In 1828, a new and improved edition of the Encyclopcedia, being the seventh, was projected, and it was a part of the Editor's plan for the improvement of this edition, to continue the magnificent historical Dissertations that had been published with the Supplement, and to prefix the whole, in their completed form, to this edition of the principal work. A proposal to write a Dissertation in continuation of that of Mr. Stewart upon the Ethical and Political Philosophy of the last century, was, in August 1828, accordingly made to Sir James, by the Editor, Mr. Macvey Napier. Having already resolved to devote the remainder of his labours to British history, he had con- siderable difficulty in acceding to the proposal But his love of the subject, his natural wish to preserve some of his early reading and reflections, and the entreaties of Mr. Napier, who had a few years before been introduced to him by Mr. Stewart, and with whom he was in the habit of corresponding, prevailed over his scruples, and ADVERTISEMENT. IX an agreement in consequence took place for' the execution of an historical Dissertation, embracing this object, and extending over the period that had been left untouched by his predecessor. It had originally been agreed, as above stated, that the Dissertation should include political as well as ethical philosophy, but the author's uncertain health, and the parliamentary duties of an interesting crisis, occasioned the abandonment of this part of the plan, and even obliged him to omit the history of the ethical philosophy of the Continent. "In a letter to Mr. Napier, dated in January 1829, he says, ' I am now reconciled to my labour by a new rising hope, that it may enable me to make some of the contributions to Ethics which, in more ambitious days, I presumed to expect would have been more extensive.' And in another letter, written about the same time, he thus expresses himself: 'You will see I have made some (I hope useful) additions to one of the sections, and I would have made more, if I could have afforded the time. But alas ! I have none to spare ; otherwise, I like this sort of work much better than any other.' Speaking of his progress, a little afterwards, he says, ' I begin to hope well of my discourse, which I endeavour to make a- development of ethical principles, as they historically arose a new attempt in our language.' "Again, he thus adverts to the section on Bishop Butler then just finished : ' The part in which I think I have done most service is that in which I have endeavoured to slip in a foundation under Butler's doctrine of the supremacy of conscience, which he left baseless.' "When he came, in April 1829, to fear that X ADVERTISEMENT. it would be necessary to abandon all notice, not only of the progress of political philosophy, but also of the ethical philosophy of the Continent, he expressed great regret at the probable omission of this last section. ' I shall be quite sorry,' he said, ' if time should require the omission of the continental part, which would be the newest of the whole.' " No one could be more thoroughly aware than him- self of the imperfections that must attach to a work on such a subject, written by snatches, and amidst such frequent and sometimes distressing interruptions ; and he accordingly mentions that it was very earnestly his wish ' to leave an edition of it, with such improvements as time, criticism, conversation, and reflection might suggest.' This very natural wish he unfortunately did not Jive long enough to have an opportunity afforded him of carrying into execution." NOTE TO THIS EDITION. The Dissertation of Sir James Mackintosh was circu- lated among his friends before it was regularly published in the Encyclopaedia. Mr. James Mill hereupon wrote some remarks upon it, which he says were written " with that severity of reprehension which the first feelings of indignation against an evil-doer inspire." From unavoidable circumstances the publication of these Remarks was delayed till the death of Sir James. They were then published (in 1835) with the title "A Fragment on Mackintosh : " this title being imitated from Bentham's first work, A Fragment on Government, ADVERTISEMENT. XI which was a severe critique on the early part of Black- stone's Commentaries, then recently published. The remarks on Mackintosh's Dissertation appeared to me erroneous in their principles ; but more especially worthy of blame as an attempt to lower the reputation of the author by captiousness, contumely, and buffoonery. This view of the nature of the attack led me to wish to say something in defence of Mackintosh ; and it was therefore that I proposed to the editors to publish a separate edition of the Dissertation with remarks of mine. To this proposal they agreed ; and the Disser- tation was published in 1836, with the following Preface. W. W. CAMBRIDGE, 1862. PREFACE. THE publication of Sir James Mackintosh's "Disserta- tion on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy," detached from the voluminous work of which it originally appeared as part,* will probably be acceptable to a large portion of the English public. The author's extensive acquaint- ance with the literature of the subject, his comprehensive and philosophical views, his sagacity as a critic, and his skill as a writer, have long been generally acknowledged. The work now before the reader afforded a favourable field for the exercise of his talents, and cannot fail to attract attention from all who feel any interest in him or his subject. A History of the Philosophy of Morals may, for many purposes, be considered as forming a large portion of the Philosophy itself ; and probably, to most readers, the portion which is by far the most agreeable. The writer of such a history, if it be worthy the name, must present all that has been done by the moralists of pre- ceding times as steps in a progress ; and must thus be led to point out the ultimate position which the subject has in his own day assumed. The history of ethical speculations which the follow- ing Dissertation contains, has, however, not only the merit of exhibiting the present condition of ethical philo- sophy, but has also a peculiar advantage in the point * The Encyclopaedia Britannica. XIV PREFACE. of view from which the subject is regarded ; since the author's opinions were, in the main, those to which the most moderate and popular writers of his own country had generally been led, and which had therefore most influenced general literature and common reasonings. A view of Moral Philosophy written in such a spirit escapes, and may in some measure correct, the exagger- ations and paradoxes of new and immature theories. Some of Mackintosh's views were peculiarly his own, but much of his system of opinions was adopted from the doctrines of the great philosophers whom he here reviews. Perhaps some light may be thrown on the following Dissertation, by stating the main points of both kinds, as they may be collected from the work itself; and this will be in some measure done in the present preface. Also, as the ethical system embraced by Mackintosh included some tenets which have in our own time been the subject of much controversy, and on which it appears to me that errors have been widely prevalent, I have ventured to make a few remarks, such as I thought most fitted to put the doctrines in their proper point of view. I may add, that as my author's survey is in a great measure restricted to British writers, I have not thought myself called on to take note of the direction which ethical speculations have recently assumed in France and Germany, or of the indications which have appeared in the literature of our own country of the influence of these foreign impulses. The views which Mackintosh entertained, and which were peculiarly the result of his own reasonings, are delivered in various parts of the Dissertation, but will PREFACE. XV perhaps become more intelligible by being stated as they are to be collected from the whole. The work was written in an irregular and interrupted manner ; a circumstance which introduced many repetitions, and a mixture of the didactic with the historical portions, which may have given rise to some confusion. I. The first main point in Mackintosh's view of ethics, is his opinion, that those which are usually termed the benevolent affections (as, for example, parental love and compassion) are properly described as disinterested. This doctrine he notices as one of the valuable truths which Butler brought clearly into view (p. 116) ; and he attaches to it so much consequence, that, in concluding his Dissertation (p. 277), he declares himself ready to relinquish his theory, if it be proved to be at variance with the reality of the social affections, which he there speaks of as the most indisputable and the most important part of human nature. Opinions opposite to this have been asserted in various forms ; some, for instance, have said, that the affections are all merely forms of self-love ; or that they are selfish ; or that they really regard self; or have professed to deduce them from some selfish principle, as Hobbes from the love of power. A few remarks may here suffice on each of these modifications of the selfish system. (1.) Butler, and after him other writers, as well as Mackintosh, wish, for the sake of clearness, to confine the application of the term self-love to that cool and prudential regard to our own welfare which weighs and XVI PREFACE. estimates the chances and means of happiness ; and which is thus distinct from the passions and affections which impel us to action immediately, without inter- vening reflection or calculation of consequences. It will probably be universally allowed, that gratitude or pity, friendship or filial love, are clearly distinct from self-love, in this sense. The term self-love has been objected to altogether by some persons, and Mackin- tosh himself appears to be dissatisfied with it. Yet it seems to be not inapt to describe that state of mind in which we regard ourselves as external and detached objects of solicitude, and provide for our own well-being, as we would do for that of a friend whose passions we can resist, and whose future and permanent good we try to secure, without losing our calmness of feeling and clearness of view. The self-love which aims at our own welfare in such a temper may make us do kind actions ; but it is, in itself, broadly dis- tinguished from kindness and love of other persons. But further, it is argued by Butler and Mackintosh, that not only the benevolent affections, but the appetites also are clearly distinguishable from this self-love. A man may, as Butler says, eat from self-love, out of a regard to his health ; he may also eat from the appetite of hunger ; but the grounds of action are plainly different in the two cases, The gratification which results from the act does not make it an act of self-love. And just as little, they urge, does the gratification which accom- panies the exercise of the domestic, or any other bene- volent affections, justify us in ascribing them to such self-love as we have described. PREFACE. XV11 (2.) As the object of the appetites is something different from ourselves and our own feelings, the object of the benevolent desires is so too. As food is the object of hunger, the gratification or the well-being of the child is the object of parental affection. The pleasure which results when the object is attained is not the aim of the agent, for it does not enter into his con- templation ; nor could we derive pleasure from the attain- ment of such objects except the desire had previously existed (p. 119). In conformity with this view, it is maintained by the writers of this school, that neither the appetites nor the desires can properly be called selfish. (Stewart, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 86.) The term selfish, which is, I think, not. used by Butler in the part of his works now referred to, is, however, that about which the controversy on this subject has generally raged most hotly. In opposition to the opinion just stated, it has often been said, that the desire of power, of wealth, of superiority, of esteem, are selfish principles. If it be contended that these desires (and the bene- volent affections for the same reason) are selfish because they are felt by self, Mackintosh answers (p. 119), that acts of the understanding, and processes of reasoning, might be called selfish on the same ground. But it is easily seen that something different from this is usually meant by the assertion. When it is popularly con- tended that the love of fame, for instance, is a selfish principle of action, it is generally implied that this affection is more selfish than to common eyes it appears. The assertor gives himself credit for having analysed the motive in question into elements not immediately XV111 PREFACE. obvious ; for discerning that a feeling, which at first appears to have an elevated and exterior aim, has in fact, latently, a reflex view and a lower object. The disposition which men have to be pleased with such attempts at the dissection of motives into baser ele- ments, is widely prevalent : it is this disposition, for instance, which has given to the Maxims of La Koche- foucauld their charm and their popularity. But the flashes of the epigrammatist, whatever applause they may excite, are not likely to be of much use as a light to the philosophical reasoner ; and the question, What motives can properly be called selfish ? as a point of moral philosophy, must be decided in a very different -spirit. Now, the popular disposition to detect selfishness in human motives is obviously ac- companied by a depreciating estimate of the feelings in which this taint is perceived. But this disapproval, in spite of the conceit and ill-nature in which it may originate, manifestly implies a belief that men's feelings may be, and ought to be, other than selfish ; for how can we contemn a person for having selfish feelings only, if human nature admits of no others ? The com- mon application of the term selfish, implies a moral disapprobation as well as a metaphysical analysis. We endeavour in vain to dissolve this association ; and yet, so long as it subsists, it is plain that the condemna- tion which we pronounce in some cases, implies the possibility of cases in which it is not deserved. If we despise the love of fame as a selfish motive, we reserve our admiration for motives of a different class. The emphasis with which we apply the term, implies that PREFACE. XIX it is not universally applicable. But when we assert, as a universal philosophical truth, that all our affections are selfish, we employ the word in a technical manner, distinct from its common use. Now, where is the advantage to philosophy of telling us that our love of parents and friends, that our gratitude and compassion, are selfish feelings, if the assertion be true only when the word is used in a sense different from the common one ? The paradox startles us ; when explained, it ceases to shock ; but why incur the necessity of such an explanation ? It must be allowed that such affec- tions as I have just mentioned deserve and attract our love and approbation as much as any feelings can do ; why, then, use terms which seem fitted only to direct towards them our disapproval and aversion ? We may add, with Brown (Lectures, vol. iv. p. 63), that if the benevolent and virtuous affections are to be called selfish, it will be necessary to form two divisions of selfish actions ; one containing those selfish actions in which self is the direct object ; the other containing those very different selfish actions which are usually called disinterested. Till it is seen what advantage would be gained by this new nomenclature, it is surely better to use terms in their usual sense. It is not easy to fix precise limits to the use of the term selfish, which thus denotes, not a positive philo- sophical attribute, but a comparative quality, to which some blame inevitably clings. Mackintosh says well that " The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of the private desires, properly constitute selfishness." And Stewart (Outlines, p. 114) gives XX PREFACE. nearly the same account of this word, which he illus- trates by saying, " Though we apply the epithet selfish to avarice, and to low and private sensuality, we never apply it to the desire of knowledge, or to the pursuits of virtue, which are certainly sources of more exquisite pleasures than riches or sensuality can bestow." (3.) That the benevolent affections, in their usual form, have not self for their immediate object, is so evident that it needs hardly to be insisted on. In what sense can the mother who unhesitatingly exposes her life to save that of her child, be said to regard her- self, of whom she never once thinks ? In what way does Desdemona act from self-regard, when, in the very article of death, she endeavours to shelter the reputation of the husband who murders her ?* To speak of self as the object of the regard or contemplation of the person acting in such instances, or in any instances in which the action proceeds directly from the benevolent affections, is to deprive words and phrases of all distinct and intelligible meaning and use. (4.) When any particular theory is propounded, by which the results of the benevolent affections are traced to some remote interested principle, a refutation of the theory is readily suggested by a consideration of the common characteristic circumstances of the affections. Thus, with regard to Hobbes' system that the affec- tions have their origin in the love of power- Butler * Desdemona. A guiltless death I die. Emilie. who hath done This deed ? Desdemona. Nobody ; I myself ; farewell ; Commend me to my kind lord ; farewell. (Dies.) PREFACE. XXI answers briefly, but satisfactorily, that such an hypo- thesis does not lead us to anything at all resembling the known state of the case ; that we wish good to others quite independently of our being ourselves the authors of it ; that we make distinctions among the objects of our good-will, where the love of power would make no difference ; that the love of power would be gratified by doing harm as well as good, and that thus cruelty and benevolence would be the same affection. (Sermon I., Note ; and the following Dissertation, p. 116.) And if it were proposed to reduce the benevo- lent affections to any other system of original principles and associations of thought, it might be answered that if these supposed original principles involve the desire of any besides physical pleasures (as the desire of wealth, power, dignity), they themselves require ana- lysis, at least as much as the affections. It is, at least, as possible to love a father as it is to desire his estate ; and the greatest good that the estate can procure us can hardly consist of anything more intelligible than filial love. Nor would such an hypothesis avail us ; for the affections are, in the greater number of cases, far stronger than any aggregation of such supposed elements would make them. To what purpose do we associate ideas with the desire of wealth, power, and dignity, in order to form the family affections, if we are compelled to allow that the whole feeling thus produced is greater than the sum of all its parts ? To claim philosophical merit for such an analysis of the disinterested emotions into the effects of association of ideas, is to deprive the terms Association and Analysis of all meaning. Or XX11 PREFACE. how are our benevolent affections accounted for by the need we have of our friends as means, if this regard to the means be both much stronger and much more dis- tinctly inteDigible than the regard to the ends can ever become ? Does not this show that, in fact, the hypothe- tical end is not our end ? On such grounds, Mackintosh and other writers appear to do well in arranging the benevolent affections as a class of principles of action distinct from the desire of power, superiority, and the like. Those are not cap- able of being analysed into these, and we are sensible of an unsurmountable incongruity when the two classes are brought into comparison. If the love of a parent be a compound of love, of power, and similar ingre- dients, will it not follow, that if we expect to gain power by sacrificing a parent rather than by serving him, it is consistent with the nature of our best affec- tions that we should do so ? And is not this a conclu- sion too monstrous to be accepted by any moralist ? The benevolent and family affections, and the desire of power, appear, then, to differ in some other way than in being modifications of the same elements ; and, even if we choose (unphilosophically as it has appeared) to call the latter class of principles selfish, the former must be arranged in a different group, which we cannot designate better than by calling them disinterested. II. The next leading principles of Mackintosh's philosophy are, the independent existence and the supremacy of the conscience or moral faculty. Here also he ascribes to Butler the merit of having first PREFACE. XXlli brought these doctrines into a clear light (p. 122) ; though Hutcheson, who had somewhat of a steadier view of this faculty, gave it the name of the moral sense. The question of the moral sense has been much discussed since Butler's time. It is not necessary here to go fully into this controversy, but I may be allowed to make a few remarks on some of the arguments con- nected with the following Dissertation. (1.) In the first place, as to the existence of the moral faculty. It is allowed on all sides that we have a concep- tion of moral obligation ; and the question is, Whether this conception can be resolved into some operation of the intellectual faculties, as the perception of general utility ; or whether, on the contrary, it is incapable of being thus re- solved, and must properly be ascribed to a separate faculty ? It will readily appear that the discussion of this question must be attended by great difficulties, for we cannot easily find a test to determine, or terms to ex- press, the identity or the difference of our perceptions of the useful and the right These internal perceptions can only be described by means of analogical and meta- phorical language ; and this must discharge its office very imperfectly. Even with respect to external senses, where the meaning of our terms is naturally much more clear and palpable, an exact treatment of such questions is far from easy. We cannot, by mere language, convey a conception of the difference of sights and sounds. Is the perception of form a dif- ferent faculty from the perception of colour? This question has been found extremely perplexing ; we may therefore be certain that the question of the dis- XXIV PREFACE. tinct existence of the moral faculty will require great clearness and steadiness of thought for its solution. But still the question does not seem to be incapable of answer. Do we mean the same thing when we say that an action is right, and when we say that it is, on the whole, and taken in all its consequences, useful ? It must be observed, that the question is not, "Whether right actions are, on the whole, useful ? for that we will suppose to be granted ; but it is, Whether, by describing them as right, we mean nothing more than that we believe them to be useful ? If by right, and by equivalent words, we intend some quality and attri- bute which useful and similar terms do not express, we must have the faculty of conceiving such a quality ; and this faculty is the moral sense. Such a faculty Butler, and after him many modern writers, including Mackintosh, hold to be part of human nature. The following are some of the grounds for his opinion : (2.) The words which express what is morally right, and the related ideas, cannot be replaced by any different set of terms. Right, duty, what we ought to do, are not expressed to the satisfaction of any one by any phraseology borrowed from the consideration of consequences. They are as untranslatable into the language which contemplates utility alone, as the names of colours are incapable of being expressed by those denoting the properties of space. When I say that an act is my duty, that it is right, I give an entire assent to the rule which commands me to do it, what- ever be the consequences* It may be true that all * Whewell's Elements of Morality, Art. 73. (2d Edition.) PREFACE. XXV acts of duty are, taken in all their consequences, useful ; but assuredly this is not what we mean, this is not the quality we ascribe to them, by the use of such terms. Perhaps the most distinctive of these terms is the word ought, and the corresponding words which occur in all languages. It is universally felt that when we say, in a moral sense, that we ought to do any action, we mean something different from saying it is advan- tageous in its consequences. This word ought, which, as Mackintosh says, " most perfectly denotes duty," appears to be the simplest and most universal expres- sion of the moral sense. (3.) The impossibility of wresting this word, ought, to the side of the utilitarian theory, may, I think, be inferred from the amusing vehemence with which Mr. Bentham endeavours to expel it from his territory. " The talisman of arrogance, indolence, and ignorance, is to be found in a single word, an authoritative impos- ture, which in these pages it will be frequently neces- sary to unveil. It is the word ' ought,' ' ought or ought not/ as circumstances may be. In deciding you ought to do this, you ought not to do it, is not every question of morals set at rest ? " If the use of the word be admissible at all, it ' ought' to be banished from the vocabulary of morals." (Deontology, vol. i. p. 32.) * Till this is done, he proposes to neutralise this obnoxious term by the use of another potent word " why ? " * The title of this book is "Deontology, etc., from the MSS. of Jeremy Bentham ;" but recently I have been blamed in a Review for citing it as his. (1862.) XXVI PREFACE. It is clear that the reason why the word so fre- quently occurs to excite Mr. Bentham's displeasure is, that it refers to a universal and unavoidable aspect of actions, which men constantly recognise, and cannot help expressing in the words they familiarly employ. And Mr. Bentham's " why" involves an assumption no less dogmatical than that of which he complains ; for by it he intends to prescribe that the answer shall be in no other language than that of the utilitarian theory. (4.) The unavoidable occurrence of the conception implied in the word ought, notwithstanding that it resists the attempt at analysis of which we have just spoken, may be inferred from its use by those whose theoretical views would lead them to reject it ; as, for example, Mr. Bentham himself. He supposes a con- troversy between an ancient and a modern moralist. (Deont., vol. i. p. 72.) " The modern, as probably he will keep neither his principles nor his temper, says to the ancient, ' Your moral sense is nothing to the pur- pose ; yours is corrupt, abominable, detestable ; all nations cry out against you.' ' No such thing,' replies the ancient ; ' and if they did, it would be nothing to the purpose : our business was to inquire, not what people think, but what they ought to think'" And this " ought " of the ancients is supposed to terminate the controversy, so far as dialogue is concerned.* * Perhaps the reader may be amused by Mr. Bentham's mode of winding up the scene : " Thereupon the modern kicks the ancient, or spits in his face ; or, if he is strong enough, throws him behind the fire. One can think of no other method that is at once natural and consistent, of continuing the debate." It is satisfactory to see that Mr. Bentham does not seem to have thought the use of the word ought by the one party, though very provoking, justified the extreme measures which he describes on the other side. PREFACE. XXV11 (5.) It is, indeed, expressly allowed by Mr. Bentham himself, that the word utility, and its conjugates, do not express our judgment in cases of moral conduct. "The mind will not be satisfied," he says (vol. i p. 35), " with such phrases as ' it is useless to commit murder/ or ' it would be useful to prevent it.'" Surely we may be allowed to say that the reason why men are not satisfied with such phrases is, that they do not express their meaning. The repugnance and indignation with which we regard crimes and vices is something distinct from the perception of their results ; and no word which ex- presses the transgression of utility satisfies us, except it also express the transgression of rectitude. Murder is harmful to society, but it is also wicked. The former expression states the view of our understanding as to the consequences of the act ; the latter expression conveys the feeling of our moral nature as to its moral quality ; the utilitarian scheme of Mr. Bentham appears to aim at confounding these assertions. (6.) But the same recognition of the difference of duty and usefulness in common apprehension, which Mr. Bentham has made in the passage just quoted, appears also in other circumstances ; as, for instance, in the title of the work already quoted, Deontology, and in the reasons assigned for coining such a name. This term is professedly chosen because " utilitarianism offers too vague and undefined an impression to the mind." (Vol. i. p. 34) If the word from which Deontology is derived had borrowed its meaning from the notion of utility alone, it is not likely that it would have become more intelligible by being translated out * XXV111 PREFACE. of Latin into Greek. But the term Deontology ex- presses Moral Science (and expresses it well), precisely because it signifies the Science of Duty, and contains no reference to utility. It is a term well chosen, to describe a system of ethics founded on any other than Mr. Bentham's principle. Mackintosh, who held that r6 d'eov, what men ought to do, was the fundamental notion of morality, might very properly have termed the science Deontology. The system of which Mr. Bentham is the representative that of those who make morality dependent on the production of happi- ness, has long being designated in Germany by the term Eudemonism, derived from the Greek word for happi- ness (gu8a/itt<.a.v \oyov rov /j,ev irpaKriKov, rov 5e BtvprjTiKOv. xai TOV irpaKTiKov, rov re rjdiKov /cat iroXtrtKov. rov Se dewpi^TiKov, rov re i\tav Sia TTJS xP eia *' (Diog. Laert. ibid.) "Hie est locus," Gassendi confesses, " ob quern Epicurus non parum vexatur, quando nemo non reprehendit, parari amicitiam non sui, sed utilitatis gratia." 24 EETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS : gent to vice than that of any other moralist.* Although, therefore, he has the merit of having more strongly inculcated the connection of virtue with happiness, perhaps by the faulty excess of treating it as an exclusive principle ; yet his doctrine was justly charged with indisposing the mind to those exalted and generous sentiments, without which no pure, elevated, bold, generous, or tender virtues can exist, -f- As Epicurus represented the tendency of virtue, which is a most important truth in ethical theory, as the sole induce- ment to virtuous practice ; so Zeno, in his disposition towards the opposite extreme, was inclined to consider the moral sentiments which are the motives of right conduct as being the sole principles of moral science. The confusion was equally great in a philosophical view ; but that of Epicurus was more fatal to interests of higher importance than those of philosophy. Had the Stoics been content with affirming that virtue is the source of all that part of our happiness which depends on ourselves, they would have taken a position from which it would have been impossible to drive them : they would have laid down a principle of as great comprehen- sion in practice as their wider pretensions ; a simple and incontrovertible truth, beyond which everything is an object of mere curiosity to man. Our information, however, about the opinions of the more celebrated Stoics is very scanty. None of their own writings are preserved. We know little of them but from Cicero, the translator of Grecian philosophy, and from the Greek compilers of a later age ; authorities which would be imperfect in the history of facts, but which * It is due to him to observe that he treated humanity towards slaves as one of the characteristics of a wise man. Owe KoXafciv ot/ceras, f\erjafa> fiev TOI, /ecu ffvyyvufj-ijv TIVI fi-eiv TUV ffTrovSaiuv. (Diog. Laert ibid. 653.) It is not unworthy of remark that neither Plato nor Epicurus thought it necessary to abstain from these topics in a city full of slaves, many of whom were men not destitute of knowledge. + " Nil generosum, nil magnificum sapit." (Cicero.) GREECE. 25 are of far less value in the history of opinions, where a right conception often depends upon the minutest distinctions between words. "We know that Zeno was more simple, and that Chrysippus, who was accounted the prop of the Stoic Porch, abounded more in subtile distinctions and systematic spirit.* His power was attested as much by the antagonists whom he called forth, as by the scholars whom he formed. " Had there been no Ghrysippus, there would have been no Carneades," was the saying of the latter philosopher himself ; as it might have been said in the eighteenth century, " Had there been no Hume, there would have been no Kant and no Eeid." Cleanthes, when one of his followers would pay court to him by laying vices to the charge of his most formidable opponent, Arcesilaus the academic, answered with a justice and candour unhappily too rare, "Silence, do not malign him ; though he attacks virtue by his arguments, he confirms its authority by his life." Arcesilaus, whether modestly or churlishly, replied, " I do not choose to be nattered." Clean- thes, with a superiority of repartee, as well as charity, replied, "Is it flattery to say that you speak one thing and do another ? " It would be vain to expect that the fragments of the Professors who lectured in the Stoic School for five hundred years should be capable of being moulded into one consistent system ; and we see that in Epictetus at least, the exaggeration of the sect was lowered to the level of reason, by confining the sufficiency of virtue to those cases only where happiness is attainable by our voluntary acts. It ought to be added, in extenuation of a noble error, that the power of habit and character to struggle against outward evils has been proved by experience to be in some instances so prodigious, * " Chrysippus, qui fulcire putatur porticum Stoicorum." (Cicero.) Elsewhere, " Acutissimus, sed in scribendo exilis et jejunus, scripsit rhetoricam seu potius obmutescendi artem ; " nearly as we should speak of a Schoolman. 26 RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS : that no man can presume to fix the utmost limit of its possible increase. The attempt, however, of the Stoics to stretch the bounds of their system beyond the limits of nature produced the inevitable inconvenience of dooming them to fluctuate between a wild fanaticism on the one hand, and, on the other, conces- sions which left their differences from other philosophers purely verbal. Many of their doctrines appear to be modifi- cations of their original opinions, introduced as opposition became more formidable. In this manner they were driven to the necessity of admitting that the objects of our desires and appetites are worthy of preference, though they are denied to be constituents of happiness. It was thus that they were obliged to invent a double morality; one for mankind at large, from whom was expected no more than the xadqxov, which seems principally to have denoted acts of duty done from inferior or mixed motives ; and the other, which they appear to have hoped from their ideal wise man, is Karogdupa, or perfect observance of rectitude, which consisted only in moral acts done from mere reverence for morality, unaided by any feelings ; all which (without the exception of pity) they classed among the enemies of reason and the disturbers of the human soul. Thus did they shrink from their proudest paradoxes into verbal evasions. It is remarkable that men so acute did ^iot perceive and acknowledge that if pain were not an evil, cruelty would not be a vice ; and that if patience were of power to render torture indiiferent, virtue must expire in the moment of victory. There can be no more triumph when there is no enemy left to conquer.* The influence of men's opinions on the conduct of their lives is checked and modified by so many causes it so much * " Patience, sovereign o'er transmuted ill." But as soon as the ill was really "transmuted" into good, it is evident that there was no longer any scope left for the exercise of patience. "GREECE. 27 depends on the strength of conviction, on its habitual combi- nation and feelings, on the concurrence or resistance of interest, passion, example, and sympathy that a wise man is not the most forward in attempting to determine the power of its single operation over human actions. In the case of an individual it becomes altogether uncertain. But when the experiment is made on a large scale, when it is long continued and varied in its circumstances, and especially .when great bodies of men are for ages the subject of it, we cannot reasonably reject the consideration of the inferences to which it appears to lead. The Roman Patriciate, trained in the conquest and govern- ment of the civilised world, in spite of the tyrannical vices which sprang from that training, were raised by the greatness of their objects to an elevation of genius and character un- matched by any other aristocracy ; at the moment when, after preserving their power by a long course of wise compromise with the people, they were betrayed by the army and the populace into the hands of a single tyrant of their own order the most accomplished of usurpers, and, if humanity and justice could for a moment be silenced, one of the most illus- trious of men. There is no scene in history so memorable as that in which Caesar mastered a nobility of which Lucullus and Hortensius, Sulpicius and Catulus, Pompey and Cicero, Brutus and Cato, were members. This renowned body had, from the time of Scipio, sought the Greek philosophy as an amusement or an ornament. Some few, "in thought more elevate," caught the love of truth, and were ambitious of dis- covering a solid foundation for the Rule of Life. The influ- ence of the Grecian systems was tried by their effect on a body of men of the utmost originality, energy, and variety of cha- racter, during the five centuries between Carneades and Con- stantine, in their successive positions of rulers of the world, and of slaves under the best and under the worst of uncon- 28 RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS : trolled masters. If we had found this influence perfectly uniform, we should have justly suspected our own love of system of having in part bestowed that appearance on it. Had there been no trace of such an influence discoverable in so great an experiment, we must have acquiesced in the paradox, that opinion does not at all affect conduct. The result is the more satisfactory, because it appears to illustrate general tendency without excluding very remarkable excep- tions. Though Cassius was an Epicurean, the true representa- tive of that school was the accomplished, prudent, friendly, good-natured timeserver Atticus, the pliant slave of every tyrant, who could kiss the hand of Antony, imbrued as it was in the blood of Cicero. The pure school of Plato sent forth Marcus Brutus, the signal humanity of whose life was both necessary and sufficient to prove that his daring breach of venerable rules flowed only from that dire necessity which left no other means of upholding the most sacred principles. The Roman orator, though in speculative questions he em- braced that mitigated doubt which allowed most ease and freedom to his genius, yet in those moral writings where his heart was most deeply interested, followed the severest sect of philosophy, and became almost a Stoic. If any conclusion may be hazarded from this trial of systems, the greatest which history has recorded, we must not refuse our decided though not undistinguishing preference to that noble school which preserved great souls untainted at the court of dissolute and ferocious tyrants ; which exalted the slave of one of Nero's courtiers to be a moral teacher of aftertimes ; which for the first, and hitherto for the only time, breathed philosophy and justice into those rules of law which govern the ordinary concerns of every man ; and which, above all, has contributed, by the examples of Marcus Porcius Cato, and of Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, to raise the dignity of our species, to GREECE. 29 keep alive a more ardent love of virtue, and a more awful sense of duty, throughout all generations.* The result of this short review of the practical philosophy of Greece seems to be, that though it was rich in rules for the conduct of life, and in exhibitions of the beauty of virtue, and though it contains glimpses of just theory, and fragments of perhaps every moral truth, yet it did not leave behind any precise and coherent system ; unless we except that of Epicurus, who purchased consistency, method, and perspicuity, too dearly by the sacrifice of truth, and by narrowing and lowering his views of human nature, so as to enfeeble, if not extinguish, all the vigorous motives to arduous virtue. It is remarkable, that while of the eight Professors who taught in the Porch, from Zeno to Posidonius, every one either softened or exaggerated the doctrines of his predecessor; and while the beautiful and reverend philosophy of Plato had, in his own Academy, degenerated into a scepticism which did not spare morality itself, the system of Epicurus remained with- out change; and his disciples continued for ages to show personal honours to his memory, in a manner which may seem unaccountable among those who were taught to measure propriety by a calculation of palpable and outward usefulness. This steady adherence is in part doubtless attributable to the portion of truth which the doctrine contains ; in some degree perhaps to the amiable and unboastful character of Epicurus ; not a little, it may be, to the dishonour of deserting an unpopular cause ; but probably most of all to that mental indolence which disposes the mind to rest in a simple system, * Of all testimonies to the character of the Stoics, perhaps the most decisive is the speech of the vile sycophant Capito, in the mock im- peachment of Thrasea Psetus, before a senate of slaves : " Ut quondam G. Csesarem et M. Catonem, ita nunc te, Nero, et Thraseam, avida dis- cordiarum civitas loquitur. . . . Ista secta Tuberones et Favonios, veteri quoque reipublicse ingrata nomina, genuit." (Tacit. Ann. xvi. 22.) See Notes and Illustrations, Note A. 30 RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS : comprehended at a glance, and easily falling in, both with ordinary maxims of discretion, and with the vulgar common- places of satire on human nature.* When all instruction was conveyed by lectures, and when one master taught the whole circle of the sciences in one school, it was natural that the attachment of pupils to a Professor should be more devoted than when, as in our times, he can teach only a small portion of a knowledge spreading towards infinity, and even in his own little province finds a rival in every good writer who has treated the same subject. The superior attachment of the Epicureans to their master is not without some parallel among the followers of similar principles in our own age, who have also revived some part of that indifference to eloquence and poetry, which may be imputed to the habit of contemplating all things in relation to happiness, and to (what seems its uniform effect) the egregious miscalculation which leaves a multitude of mental pleasures out of the account. It may be said, indeed, that the Epicurean doctrine has continued with little change to the present day ; at least it is certain that no other ancient doctrine has proved so capable of being restored in the same form among the moderns ; and it may be added that Hobbes and Gassendi, as well as some of our own contem- poraries, are as confident in their opinions, and as intolerant of scepticism, as the old Epicureans. The resemblance of modern to ancient opinions, concerning some of those ques- tions upon which ethical controversy must always hinge, may be a sufficient excuse for a retrospect of the Greek morals \ which, it is hoped, will simplify and shorten subsequent obser- * The progress of commonplace satire on sexes or professions, and (he might have added) on nations, has been exquisitely touched by Gray iu his remarks on Lydgate ; a Fragment containing passages as finely thought and written as any in English prose. (Gray's Works, Matthias's edition, vol. i. p. 55.) General satire on mankind is still more absurd ; for no invective can be so unreasonable as that which is founded on falling short of an ideal standard. GREECE. 31 vation on those more recent disputes which form the proper subject of this discourse. The genius of Greece fell with liberty. The Grecian philosophy received its mortal wound in the contests between scepticism and dogmatism which occupied the schools in the age of Cicero. The Sceptics could only perplex, and confute, and destroy. Their occupation was gone as soon as they succeeded. They had nothing to substitute for what they overthrew ; and they rendered their own art of no further use. They were no more than venomous animals, who stung their victims to death, but also breathed then- last into the wound. A third age of Grecian literature indeed arose at Alexandria, under the Macedonian kings of Egypt ; laudably distinguished by exposition, criticism, and imitation, sometimes abused for the purposes of literary forgery, still more honoured by some learned and highly-cultivated poets, as well as by diligent cultivators of history and science ; among whom some began, about the first preaching of Christianity, to turn their minds once more to that high philosophy which seeks for the funda- mental principles of human knowledge. Philo, a learned and philosophical Hebrew, one of the flourishing colony of his nation established in that city, endeavoured to reconcile the Platonic Philosophy with the Mosaic Law and the Sacred Books of the Old Testament. About the end of the second century, when the Christians, Hebrews, Pagans, and various other sects of semi- or pseudo-Christian Gnostics appear to have studied in the same schools, the almost inevitable tend- ency of doctrines, however discordant, in such circumstances to amalgamate, produced its full effect under Ammonius Saccas; a celebrated Professor, who, by selection from the Greek systems, the Hebrew books, the oriental religions, and by some of that concession to the rising spirit of Christianity, of which the Gnostics had set the example, composed a very mixed system, commonly designated as the Eclectic Philo- 32 RETROSPECT OF ANCIENT ETHICS : sophy. The controversies between his contemporaries and followers, especially those of Clement and Origen, the victori- ous champions of Christianity, with Plotinus and Porphyry, who endeavoured to preserve Paganism by clothing it in a disguise of philosophical Theism, are, from the effects towards which they contributed, the most memorable in the history of human opinion.* But their connection with modern ethics is too faint to warrant any observation in this place, on the imperfect and partial memorials of them which have reached us. The death of Boethius in the west, and the closing of the Athenian schools by Justinian, may be considered as the last events in the history of ancient philosophy.t * The change attempted by Julian, Porphyry, and their friends, by which Theism would have become the popular religion, may be esti- mated by the memorable passage of Tacitus on the Theism of the Jews. In the midst of all the obloquy and opprobrium with which he loads that people, his tone suddenly rises when he comes to contemplate them as the only nation who paid religious honours to the supreme and eternal Mind alone, and his style swells at the sight of so sublime and wonderful a scene. " Summum illud atque seternum, neque mutabile neque interiturum." J- The punishment of death was inflicted on Pagans by a law of Constantius. " Volumus cunctos sacrificiis abstinere. Si aliquid hujus- modi perpetraverint, gladio ultore sternantur." (Cod. I. tit. xi. de Paganis, A.D. 343 or 346.) From the authorities cited by Gibbon (note, chap, xi.), as well as from some research, it should seem that the edict for the suppression of the Athenian schools was not admitted into the vast collection of laws enacted or systematised by Justinian. RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. 33 SECTION III RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS. AN interval of a thousand years elapsed between the close of ancient and the rise of modern philosophy ; the most unex- plored, yet not the least instructive portion of the history of European opinion. In that period the sources of the institu- tions, the manners, the characteristic distinctions of modern nations, have been traced by a series of philosophical inquirers from Montesquieu to Hallam ; and there also, it may be added, more than among the ancients, are the well-springs of our speculative doctrines and controversies. Far from being inactive, the human mind, during that period of exaggerated darkness, produced discoveries in science, inventions in art, and contrivances in government, some of which, perhaps, were rather favoured than hindered by the disorders of society, and by the twilight in which men and things were seen. Had Boethius, the last of the ancients, foreseen that within two centuries of his death, in the province of Britain, then a prey to all the horrors of barbaric invasion, a chief of one of the fiercest tribes of barbarians should translate into the jargon of his freebooters the work on The Consolations of Philosophy, of which the composition had soothed the cruel imprisonment of the philosophic Eoman himself, he must, even. amid his sufferings, have derived some gratification from such an assur- ance of the recovery of mankind from ferocity and ignorance. But had he been allowed to revisit the earth in the middle of the sixteenth century, with what wonder and delight might he have contemplated the new and fairer order which was D 34 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS: beginning to disclose its beauty, and to promise more than it revealed. He would have seen personal slavery nearly extin- guished, and women, first released from oriental imprisonment by the Greeks, and raised to a higher dignity among the Romans,* at length fast approaching to due equality ; two revolutions the most signal and beneficial since the dawn of civilisation. He would have seen the discovery of gunpowder, which for ever guarded civilised society against barbarians, while it transferred military strength from the few to the many ; of paper and printing, which rendered a second destruction of the repositories of knowledge impossible, as well as opened a way by which it was to be finally accessible to all mankind ; of the compass, by means of which navigation had ascertained the form of the planet, and laid open a new continent more extensive than his world. If he had turned to civil institutions, he might have learned that some nations had preserved an ancient, simple, and seemingly rude mode of legal proceeding, which threw into the hands of the majority of men a far larger share of judicial power than was enjoyed by them in any ancient democracy. He would have seen everywhere the remains of that principle of representation, the glory of the Teutonic race, by which popular government, anciently imprisoned in cities, became capable of being strengthened by its extension over vast countries, to which experience cannot even now assign any limits ; and which, in times still distant, was to exhibit, in the newly-discovered continent, a republican confederacy, likely to surpass the * The steps of this important progress, as far as relates to Athens and Rome, are well remarked by one of the finest of the Roman writers. " Quern enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in convivium ? ant cujus materfamilias non primum locum tenet sedium, atque in celehri- tate versatur ? quod multo fit aliter in Graecia ; nam neque in convi- vium adhibetur, nisi propinquorum, neque sedet nisi in interiore parte ffidium, quae (h/nceconitis appellatur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinqua cognatione conjunctus." (Cornel. Nepos in Prcefat.) MIDDLE AGE. 35 Macedonian and Eoman empires in extent, greatness, and duration, but gloriously founded on the equal rights, not like them on the universal subjection, of mankind. In one respect, indeed, he might have lamented that the race of man had made a really retrograde movement ; that they had lost the liberty of philosophising ; that the open exercise of their highest faculties was interdicted. But he might also have perceived that this giant evil had received a mortal wound from Luther, who in his warfare against Eome had struck a blow against all human authority, and unconsciously disclosed to mankind that they were entitled, or rather bound, to form and utter their own opinions, and most of all on the most deeply interesting subjects : for although this most fruitful of moral truths was not yet so released from its combination with the wars and passions of the age as to assume a distinct and visible form, its action was already discoverable in the divisions among the Eeformers, and in the fears and struggles of civil and ecclesiastical oppressors. The Council of Trent, and the Courts of Paris, Madrid, and Eome, had before that tune foreboded the emancipation of reason. Though the middle age be chiefly memorable as that in which the foundations of a new order of society were laid, uniting the stability of the oriental system, without its inflexi- bility, to the activity of the Hellenic civilisation, without its disorder and inconstancy, yet it is not unworthy of notice, on account of the subterranean current which flows through it, from the speculations of ancient to those of modern times. That dark stream must be uncovered before the history of the European understanding can be thoroughly comprehended. It was lawful for the emancipators of reason in their first struggles to carry on mortal war against the Schoolmen. The necessity has long ceased ; they are no longer dangerous ; and it is now felt by philosophers that it is tune to explore and estimate that vast portion of the history of philosophy from 36 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : which we have scornfully turned our eyes.* A few sentences only can be allotted to the subject in this place. In the first moiety of the middle age, the darkness of Christendom was faintly broken by a few thinly-scattered lights. Even then, Moses Ben Maimon taught philosophy among the persecuted Hebrews, whose ancient schools had never perhaps been wholly interrupted; and a series of distinguished Mahometans, among whom two are known to us by the names of Avicenna and Averroes, translated the Peripatetic writings into their own language, expounded their doctrines in no servile spirit to their followers, and enabled the European Christians to make those versions of them from Arabic into Latin, which in the eleventh and twelfth centuries gave birth to the scholastic philosophy. The Schoolmen were properly theologians, who employed philosophy only to define and support that system of Christian belief which they and their contemporaries had embraced. The founder of that theological system was Aurelius Augus- tinus t (called by us Augustin), bishop of Hippo, in the pro- vince of Africa ; a man of great genius and ardent character, who adopted at different periods in his life the most various, but at all times the most decisive and systematic, as well as daring and extreme opinions. This extraordinary man became, * Tenneman, Geschichte der Philosophic, viii. Band. 1811. Cousin, Cours de I'Histoire de la Philos. p. 29 ; Paris, 1828. My esteem for this admirable writer encourages me to say, that the beauty of his diction has sometimes the same effect on his thoughts that a sunny haze produces on outward objects ; and to submit to his serious consideration, whether the allurements of Schelling's system have not betrayed him into a too frequent forgetfulness that principles, equally adapted to all phenomena, furnish in speculation no possible test of their truth, and lead, in practice, to total indifference and inactivity respecting human affairs. I quote with pleasure an excellent observation from this work. " Le moyen age n'est pas autre chose que la formation penible, lente et sanglante, de tous les Siemens de la civilisation moderne ; je dis la formation, et non leur developpement." (P. 27.) + Notes and Illustrations, Note B. THE SCHOOLMEN. 37 after some struggles, the chief Doctor, and for ages almost the sole oracle, of the Latin church. It happened by a singu- lar accident that the Schoolmen of the twelfth century, who adopted his theology, instead of borrowing their defensive weapons from Plato, the favourite of their master, had recourse for the exposition and maintenance of their doctrines to the writings of Aristotle, the least pious of philosophical theists. The Augustinian doctrines of original sin, predesti- nation, and grace, little known to the earlier Christian writers, who appear indeed to have adopted opposite and milder opinions, were espoused by Augustin himself in his old age ; when by a violent swing from his youthful Manicheism, which divided the sovereignty of the world between two adverse beings, he did not shrink, in his pious solicitude for tracing the power of God in all events, from presenting the most mysterious parts of the moral government of the universe, in their darkest colours and their sternest shape, as articles of faith, the objects of the habitual meditation and practical assent of mankind. The principles of his rigorous system, though not with all their legitimate consequences, were taught in the schools ; respectfully promulgated rather than much inculcated by the western church (for in the east these opinions seem to have been unknown); scarcely perhaps distinctly assented to by the majority of the clergy; and seldom heard of by laymen till the systematic genius and fervid eloquence of Calvin rendered them a popular creed in the most devout and moral portion of the Christian world. Anselm,* the Piedmontese archbishop of Canterbury, was the earliest reviver of the Augustinian opinions. Aquinas f was their most redoubted champion. To them, however, the latter joined others of a different spirit. Faith, according to him, was a virtue, not in the sense in which it denotes the things * Died in 1109. f Born in 1224 ; died in 1279. Notes and Illustrations, Note C. 38 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : believed, but in that in which it signifies the state of mind which leads to right belief. Goodness he regarded as the moving principle of the Divine government ; justice, as a modification of goodness ; and, with all his zeal to magnify the sovereignty of God, he yet taught, that though God always wills what is just, nothing is just solely because he wills it. Scotus,* the most subtile of doctors, recoils from the Augustinian rigour, though he rather intimates than avows his doubts. He was assailed for his tendency towards the Pelagian or anti-Augustinian doctrines by many opponents, of whom the most famous in his time was Thomas Bradwar- dine,t archbishop of Canterbury, formerly confessor of Edward III., whose defence of predestination was among the most noted works of that age. He revived the principles of the ancient philosophers, who, from Plato to Marcus Aurelius, taught that error of judgment, being involuntary, is not the proper subject of moral disapprobation ; which indeed is implied in Aquinas's account of faith. { But he appears to have been the first whose language inclined towards that most pernicious of moral heresies, which represents morality to be founded on [divine] will. William of Ockham, the * Born about 1265 ; died at Cologne (where his grave is still shown) in 1308. Whether he was a native of Dunston in Northumberland, or of Dunse in Berwickshire, or of Down in Ireland, was a question long and warmly contested ; but which seems to be settled by his biographer, Luke Wadding, who quotes a passage of Scotus's Commentary on Aris- totle's Metaphysics, where he illustrates his author thus : " As in the definition of St. Francis, or St. Patrick, man is necessarily presupposed." (Scoti Opera, 1, 3.) As Scotus was a Franciscan, the mention of St. Patrick seems to show that he was an Irishman. Notes and Illustra- tions, Note D. t Born about 1290, died in 1349 ; the contemporary of Chaucer, and probably a fellow-student of Wickliffe and Roger Bacon. His principal work was entitled De Causa Dei contra Pelagium, et de Virtute Causarum, Libri III. Notes and Illustrations, Note E. Ibid. Note F. THE SCHOOLMEN. 39 most justly celebrated of English schoolmen, went so far beyond this inclination of his master, as to affirm, that, "if God had commanded his creatures to hate himself, the hatred of God would ever be the duty of man ; " a monstrous hyper- bole, into which he was perhaps betrayed by his denial of the doctrine of general ideas, the pre-existence of which in the Eternal intellect was commonly regarded as the foundation of the immutable nature of morality. The doctrine of ^t)ck- ham, which, by necessary implication, refuses moral attributes to the Deity, and contradicts the existence of a moral govern- ment, is practically equivalent to Atheism.* As all devotional feelings have moral qualities for their sole object ; as no being can inspire love or reverence otherwise than by those qualities which are naturally amiable or venerable, this doctrine would, if men were consistent, extinguish piety, or, in other words, annihilate religion. Yet so astonishing are the contradictions of human nature, that this most impious of all opinions pro- bably originated in a pious solicitude to magnify the sove- reignty of God, and to exalt his authority even above his own goodness. Hence we may understand its adoption by John Gerson, the oracle of the Council of Constance, and the great opponent of the spiritual monarchy of the Pope ; a pious mystic, who placed religion in devout feeling, t In further explanation, it may be added, that Gerson was of the sect of the Nominalists, of which Ockham was the founder ; and that he was the more ready to follow his master, because they both courageously maintained the independence of the State on the church, and the authority of the church over the Pope. The general opinion of the schools was, however, that of Aquinas, * A passage to this effect, from Ockham, with nearly the same re- mark, has, since the text was written, been discovered on a re-perusal of Cudworth's Immutable Morality. See p. 10. t " Remitto ad quod Occam de hac materia in Lib. Sentent. dicit in qua explicatione si rudis judicetur, nescio quid appellabitur sub- tilitas." (Gerson de vita Spirit. Op. iii. 14. Hag. Com. 1728.) 40 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : who, from the native soundness of his own understanding, as well as from the excellent example of Aristotle, was averse from all rash and extreme dogmas on questions which had any relation, however distant, to the duties of life. It is very remarkable, though hitherto unobserved, that Aquinas anticipated those controversies respecting perfect disinterestedness in the religious affections which occupied the aost illustrious members of his communion* four hundred years after his death ; and that he discussed the like question respecting the other affections of human nature with a fulness and clearness, an exactness of distinction, and a justness of determination, scarcely surpassed by the most acute of modern philosophers, t It ought to be added, that, according to the most natural and reasonable construction of his words, he allowed to the church a control only over spiritual concerns, and recognised the supremacy of the civil powers in all temporal affairs.^ It has already been stated that the scholastic system was a collection of dialectical subtilties, contrived for the support of the corrupted Christianity of that age by a succession of divines, whose extraordinary powers of distinction and reason- ing were morbidly enlarged in the long meditation of the cloister, by the exclusion of every other pursuit, and the con- sequent palsy of every other faculty ; who were cut off from all the materials on which the mind can operate, and doomed for ever to toil in defence of what they must never dare to examine ; to whom their age and their condition denied the * Bossuet and Fenelon. t See Aquinas, Comm. in iii. Lib. Sentent. distinctio xxix. queest. i. art. 3. " Utrum Deus sit super crania diligendus ex charitate." Art. 4. " Utrum in dilectione Dei possit haberi respectus ad aliquani mer- cedem." (Opera, ix. 322, 325.) Some illustrations of this memorable anticipation, which has escaped the research even of the industrious Tenneman, will be found in the Notes and Illustrations, Note G. Notes and Illustrations, Note H. THE SCHOOLMEN. 41 means of acquiring literature, of observing nature, or of studying mankind. The few in whom any portion of imagi- nation and sensibility survived this discipline, retired from the noise of debate to the contemplation of pure and beautiful visions. They were called Mystics. The greater part, driven back on themselves, had no better employment than to weave cobwebs out of the terms of art which they had vainly, though ingeniously, multiplied. The institution of clerical celibacy, originating in an enthusiastic pursuit of purity, promoted by a mistake in moral prudence, which aimed at raising religious teachers in the esteem of their fellows, and at concentrating their whole minds on professional duties, at last encouraged by the ambitious policy of the See of Rome, desirous of detaching them from all ties but her own, had the eifect of shutting up all the avenues which Providence has opened for the entrance of social affection and virtuous feeling into the human heart. Though this institution perhaps prevented knowledge from becoming once more the exclusive inheritance of a sacerdotal caste ; though the rise of innumerable laymen, of the lowest condition, to the highest dignities of the church, was the grand democratical principle of the middle age, and one of the most powerful agents in impelling mankind towards a better order ; yet celibacy must be considered as one of the peculiar infelicities of these secluded philosophers ; not only as it abridged their happi- ness, nor even solely, though chiefly, as it excluded them from the school in which the heart is humanised, but also (an inferior consideration, but more pertinent to our present purpose) because the extinction of these moral feelings was as much a subtraction from the moralist's store of facts and means of knowledge, as the loss of sight or of touch could prove to those of the naturalist. Neither let it be thought that to have been destitute of letters was to them no more than a want of ornament, and a 42 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : curtailment of gratification. Every poem, every history, every oration, every picture, every statue, is an experiment on human feeling, the grand object of investigation by the moralist. Eveiy work of genius, in every department of ingenious art and polite literature, in proportion to the extent and duration of its sway over the spirits of men, is a repository of ethical facts, of which the moral philosopher cannot be deprived by his own insensibility or by the iniquity of the times, without being robbed of the most precious instruments and invaluable materials of his science. Moreover, letters, which are closer to human feeling than science can ever be, have another influence on the sentiments with which the sciences are viewed, on the activity with which they are pur- sued, on the safety with which they are preserved, and even on the mode and spirit in which they are cultivated : they are the channels by which ethical science has a constant inter- course with general feeling. As the arts called useful maintain the popular honour of physical knowledge, so polite letters allure the world into the neighbourhood of the sciences of mind and of morals. Whenever the agreeable vehicles of literature do not convey their doctrines to the public, they are liable to be interrupted by the dispersion of a handful of recluse doctors, and the overthrow of their barren and unlamented seminaries. Nor is this all : these sciences themselves suffer as much When they are thus released from the curb of common sense and natural feeling, as the public loses by the want of those aids to right practice which moral knowledge in its sound state is qualified to afford. The necessity of being intelligible at least to all persons who join superior under- standing to habits of reflection, who are themselves in constant communication with the far wider circle of intelligent and judicious men, which slowly but surely forms general opinion, is the only effectual check on the natural proneness of meta- physical speculations to degenerate into gaudy dreams or a THE SCHOOLMEN. 43 mere war of words. The disputants who are set free from the wholesome check of sense and feeling, generally carry their dogmatism so far as to rouse the sceptic, who from time to time is provoked to look into the flimsiness of their cobwebs, and rushes in with his besom to sweep them and their systems into oblivion. It is true that literature, which thus draws forth moral science from the schools into the world, and recalls her from thorny distinctions to her natural alliance with the intellect and sentiments of mankind, may, in ages and nations otherwise situated, produce the contrary evil of rendering Ethics shallow, declamatory, and inconsistent. Europe at this moment affords, in different countries, specimens of these opposite and alike mischievous extremes. But we are now concerned only with the temptations and errors of the scholastic age. We ought not so much to wonder at the mistakes of men so situated, as that they, without the restraints of the general understanding, and with the clogs of system and establish- ment, should in so many instances have opened questions untouched by the more unfettered ancients, and veins of specu- lation since mistakenly supposed to have been first explored in more modern times. Scarcely any metaphysical controversy agitated among recent philosophers was unknown to the School- men, unless we except that which relates to liberty and necessity, which would be an exception of doubtful propriety ; for the disposition to it is clearly discoverable in the disputes of the Thomists and Scotists respecting the Augustinian and Pelagian doctrines,* although restrained from the avowal of legitimate consequences on either side by the theological authority which both parties acknowledged. The Scotists steadily affirmed the blamelessness of erroneous opinion a principle which is the only effectual security for conscientious inquiry, for mutual kindness, and for public quiet. The con- * Notes and Illustrations, Note I. 44 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : troversy between the Nominalists and Realists, treated by some modern writers as an example of barbarous wrangling, was in truth an anticipation of that modern dispute which still divides metaphysicians, whether the human mind can form general ideas, and' whether the words which are supposed to convey such ideas be not general terms, representing only a number of particular perceptions? questions so far from frivolous, that they deeply concern both the nature of reason- ing and the structure of language ; on which Hobbes, Berke- ley, Hume, Stewart, and Tooke, have followed the Nominalists ; and Descartes, Locke, Eeid, and Kant, have, with various modifications and some inconsistencies, adopted the doctrine of the Realists.* With the Schoolmen appears to have originated the form, though not the substance, of the cele- brated maxim, which, whether true or false, is pregnant with systems, " There is nothing in the understanding which was not before in the senses." t Ockham : the Nominalist first denied the Peripatetic doctrine of the existence of certain species (since the time of Descartes called ideas) as the direct objects of perception and thought, interposed between the mind and outward objects ; the modern opposition to which by Dr. Reid has been supposed to justify the allotment of so high a station to that respectable philosopher. He taught also * Locke speaks on this subject inconsistently ; Eeid calls himself a conceptualist ; Kant uses terms so different that he ought perhaps to he considered as of neither party. Leibnitz, varying in some measure from the general spirit of his speculations, warmly panegyrises the Nominalists ; " Secta Nominalium, omnium inter scholasticos profund- issima, et hodiernse reformats philosophandi rationi congruentissima. " (Leibn. Op. iv. Pars i. p. 59.) t Nil est in intellectu quod non priusfutt in sensu. J " Maximi vir ingenii, et eruditionis pro illo ajvo summae, Wilhel- mus Occam, Anglus." (Leibn. ibid. p. 60.) The writings of Ockham, which are very rare, I have never seen. I owe my knowledge of them to Tenneman, who, however, quotes the words of Ockham, and of his disciple BieL THE SCHOOLMEN. 45 that we know nothing of mind but its acts, of which we are conscious. More inclination towards an independent philosophy is to be traced among the Schoolmen than might be expected from their circumstances. Those who follow two guides will sometimes choose for themselves, and may prefer the subordinate on some occasions. Aristotle rivalled the church ; and the church herself safely allowed considerable latitude to the philosophical reasonings of those who were only heard or read in colleges or cloisters, on condition that they neither impugned her authority, nor dissented from her worship, nor departed from the language of her creeds. The Nominalists were a freethinking sect, who, notwithstanding their defence of kings against the court of Eome, were perse- cuted by the civil power. It should not be forgotten that Luther was a Nominalist.* If not more remarkable it is more pertinent to our pur- pose, that the ethical system of the Schoolmen, or, to speak more properly, of Aquinas, as the moral master of Christen- dom for three centuries, was in its practical part so excellent as to leave little need of extensive change, with the inevitable exception of the connection of his religious opinions with his precepts and counsels. His rule of life is neither lax nor im- practicable. His grounds of duty are solely laid in the nature of man, and in the well-being of society. Such an intruder as subtilty seldom strays into his moral instructions. With a most imperfect knowledge of the Peripatetic writings, he came near the great master, by abstaining in practical philo- sophy from the unsuitable exercise of that faculty of distinc- tion, in which he would probably have shown that he was little inferior to Aristotle, if he had been equally unrestrained. His very frequent coincidence with modern moralists is * " In Martini Lutheri scriptis prioribus amor Nominalium satis elucet, donee in omnes monachos sequaliter affectus esse crepit." (Leibn. iv. Pars i p. 60.) 46 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : doubtless to be ascribed chiefly to the nature of the subject, but in part also to that unbroken succession of teachers and writers, which preserved the observations contained in what had been long the text-book of the European Schools, after the books themselves had been for ages banished and for- gotten. The praises bestowed on Aquinas by every one of the few great men who appear to have examined his writ- ings since the downfall of his power, among whom may be mentioned Erasmus, Grotius, and Leibnitz, are chiefly, though not solely, referable to his ethical works.* Though the Schoolmen had thus anticipated many modern controversies of a properly metaphysical sort, they left un- touched most of those questions of ethical theory which were unknown to or neglected by the ancients. They do not appear to have discriminated between the nature of moral sentiments and the criterion of moral acts ; to have con- sidered to what faculty of our mind moral approbation is referable ; or to have inquired whether our moral faculty, whatever it may be, is implanted or acquired. Those who measure only by palpable results have very consistently re- garded the metaphysical and theological controversies of the schools as a mere waste of intellectual power. But the con- templation of the athletic vigour and versatile skill manifested by the European understanding at the moment when it emerged from this tedious and rugged discipline, leads, if not to approbation yet to more qualified censure. What might have been the result of a different combination of circum- stances, is an inquiry which, on a large scale, is beyond human power. We may, however, venture to say, that no abstract science, unconnected with religion, was likely to be respected in a barbarous age ; and we may be allowed to doubt whether any knowledge, dependent directly on experi- * See especially the excellent Preface 01 Leibnitz to Nizolius, sect. 37. THE SCHOOLMEN. 47 ence, and applicable to immediate practice, would have so trained the European mind as to qualify it for that series of inventions, and discoveries, and institutions, which begins with the sixteenth century, and of which no end can now be foreseen but the extinction of the race of man. The fifteenth century was occupied by the disputes of the Eealists with the Nominalists, in which the scho- lastic doctrine expired. After its close no Schoolman of note appeared. The sixteenth may be considered as the age of transition from the scholastic to the modern philosophy. The former, indeed, retained possession of the Universities, and was long after distinguished by all the ensigns of authority. But the mines were already prepared. The revolution in opinion had commenced. The moral writings of the pre- ceding times had generally been commentaries on that part of the Sumrna Theologice of Aquinas which relates to Ethics. Though these still continued to be published, yet the most remarkable moralists of the sixteenth century indicated the approach of other modes of thinking, by the adoption of the more independent titles of Treatises on Justice and Law. These titles were suggested, and the spirit, contents, and style of the writings themselves were materially affected, by the improved cultivation of the Eoman law, by the renewed study of ancient literature, and by the revival of various systems of Greek philosophy, now studied in the original, which at once mitigated and rivalled the scholastic doctors, and, while they rendered philosophy more free, reopened its communications with society and affairs. The speculative theology which had arisen under the French governments of Paris and London in the twelfth century, which flourished in the thirteenth in Italy in the hands of Aquinas, which was advanced in the British Islands by Scotus and Ockham in the fourteenth, was in the sixteenth, with unabated acuteness, but with a clearness and elegance unknown before the restoration of letters, culti- 48 RETKOSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS : vated by Spain, in that age the most powerful and magnificent of the European nations. Many of these writers treated the law of war and the practice of hostilities in a juridical form.* Francis Victoria, who began to teach at Valladolid in 1525, is said to have first expounded the doctrines of the schools in the language of the age of Leo the Tenth. Dominic Soto,t a Dominican, the con- fessor of Charles V., and the oracle of the Council of Trent, to whom that assembly were indebted for much of the pre- cision and even elegance for which their doctrinal decrees are not unjustly commended, dedicated his treatise on Justice and Law to Don Carlos, in terms of praise which, used by a writer who is said to have declined the high dignities of the church, lead us to hope that he was unacquainted with the brutish vices of that wretched prince. It is a concise and not inelegant compound of the scholastic Ethics, which con- tinued to be of considerable authority for more than a cen- tury.J Both he and his master Victoria deserve to be had in everlasting remembrance for the part which they took, on behalf of the natives of America and of Africa, against the * Many of the separate dissertations, on points of this nature, are contained in the immense collection entitled fradatus Tractatuum, published at Venice, in 1584, under the patronage of the Roman See. There are three de Bello ; one by Lupus of Segovia when Francis I. was prisoner in Spain ; another, more celebrated, by Francis Arias, who, on the llth June 1532, discussed before the College of Cardinals the legitimacy of a war by the Emperor against the Pope. There are two de Pace ; and others de Potestate Hegia, de Pcena Mortis, etc. The most ancient and scholastic is that of J. de Lignano of Milan de Bello. The above writers are mentioned in the Prolegomena to Grotius de Jure Belli. Pietro Belloni (Councillor of the Duke of Savoy), de Re Militari, treats his subject with the minuteness of a Judge-Advocate, and has more modern examples, chiefly Italian, than Grotius. f Born in 1494 ; died in 1560. (Antonii Bibliotheca Hispana Nova.) The opinion of Soto's knowledge entertained by his contem- poraries is expressed in a jingle, Qui scit Sotum scit totum. Notes and Illustrations, Note K. THE SCHOOLMEN. 49 rapacity and cruelty of the Spaniards. Victoria pronounced war against the Americans for their vices or for their paganism to be unjust.* Soto was the authority chiefly consulted by Charles V., on occasion of the conference held before him at Valladolid in 1542, between Sepulveda, an advocate of the Spanish colonists, and Las Casas, the champion of the unhappy Americans ; of which the result was a very imperfect edict of reformation in 1543, which, though it contained little more than a recognition of the principle of justice, almost excited a rebellion in Mexico. Sepulveda, a scholar and a reasoner, advanced many maxims which were specious, and in themselves reasonable, but which practically tended to defeat even the scanty and almost illusive reform which ensued. Las Casas was a passionate mission- ary, whose zeal, kindled by the long and near contemplation of cruelty, prompted him to exaggerations of fact and argument ;t yet, with all its errors, it afforded the only hope of preserving the natives of America from extirpation. The opinion of Soto could not fail to be conformable to his excellent principle, that "there can be no difference between Christians and Pagans, for the law of nations is equal to all nations." J To Soto belongs the signal honour of being the first writer who con- demned the African slave-trade. " It is affirmed," says he, " that the unhappy Ethiopians are by fraud or force carried away and sold as slaves. If this is true, neither those who have taken them, nor those who purchased them, nor those who hold them in bondage, can ever have a quiet conscience till they emancipate them, even if no compensation should be obtained." As the work which contains this memorable * " Indis non debere auferri imperium, ideo quia sunt peccatores, vel ideo quia non sunt Christiani," were the words of Victoria. t Notes and Illustrations, Note L. "Neque discrepantia (ut reor) est inter Christianos et infideles, quoniam ius gentium cunctis gentibus aequale est." Soto de Justitia et Jure, lib. iv. quaest. ii. art. 2. E 50 RETROSPECT OF SCHOLASTIC ETHICS: condemnation of man-stealing and slavery was the substance of lectures many years delivered at Salamanca, philosophy and religion appear, by the hand of their faithful minister, to have thus smitten the monsters in their earliest infancy. It is hard for any man of the present age to conceive the praise which is due to the excellent monks who courageously asserted the rights of those whom they never saw, against the prejudices of their order, the supposed interest of their religion, the ambition of their government, the avarice and pride of their countrymen, and the prevalent opinions of their time. Francis Suarez,* a Jesuit, whose voluminous works amount to twenty-four volumes in folio, closes the list of writers of his class. His work on Laws, and on God the Lawgiver, may be added to the above treatise of Soto, as exhibiting the most accessible and perspicuous abridgment of the theological philosophy in its latest form. Grotius, who, though he was the most upright and candid of men, could not have praised a Spanish Jesuit beyond his deserts, calls Suarez the most acute of philosophers and di vines. t On a practical matter, which may be naturally mentioned here, though in strict method it belongs to another subject, the merit of Suarez is conspicuous. He first saw that international law was composed not only of the simple principles of justice applied to the intercourse between states, but of those usages, long observed in that intercourse by the European race, which have since been more exactly dis- tinguished as the consuetudinary law acknowledged by the Christian nations of Europe and America.^ On this im- * Born in 1538 ; died in 1617. t " Tantse subtilitatis philosophum et theologum, ut vix quemquam habeat parem." (Grotii Epist. apud Anton. Bibl. Hisp. Nova.) J "Nunquam enim civitates sunt sibi tarn sufficientes quin indi- geant mutuo juvamine et societate, interdum ad majorem utilitatera, interdum ob necessitatem moralem. Hac igitur ratione indigent aliquo jure quo dirigantur et recte ordinentur in hoc genere societatis. Et THE SCHOOLMEN. 51 portant point his views are more clear than those of his con- temporary Alberico Gentili.* It must even be owned, that the succeeding intimation of the same general doctrine by Grotius is somewhat more dark, perhaps from his excessive pursuit of concise diction .t quamvis magna ex parte hoc fiat per rationem naturalem, non tamen sufficienter et immediate quoad omnia, ideoque specialia jura poterant usu earundem gentium introduci." (Suarez de Legibus, lib. ii. cap. ii. 9 ct seq.) * Born in the March of Ancona in 1550 ; died at London in 1608. t Grotius de Jure Belli, lib. i. cap. i. sect. 14. [Jus gentium in its wider sense : id est quod gentium omnium, aut multarum voluntate vim obligandi accepit. Multarum addidi, quia vix ullum jus referitur extra jus naturale quod ipsum quoque [jus] gentium dici solet omnibus gentibus commune.] 52 MODERN ETHICS : SECTION IV. MODERN ETHICS. GROTIUS. Born 1583 died 1645. THE introduction to the great work of Grotius,* composed in the first years of his exile, and published at Paris in 1625, contains the most clear and authentic statement of the general principles of morals prevalent in Christendom after the close of the schools, and before the writings of Hobbes had given rise to those ethical controversies which more peculiarly belong to modern times. That he may lay down the fundamental principles of Ethics he introduces Carneades on the stage as denying altogether the reality of moral distinctions ; teaching that law and morality are contrived by powerful men for their own interest; that they vary in different countries, and change in successive ages ; that there can be no natural law, since nature leads men as well as other animals to prefer their own interest to every other object ; that therefore there is either no justice, or if there be, it is another name for the height of folly, inasmuch as it is a fond attempt to persuade a human being to injure himself for the unnatural purpose of benefiting his fellow-men .t * Prolegomena. His letter to Vossius, of 1st August 1625, deter- mines the exact period of the publication of this famous work. Grotii Epist. 74. f The same commonplace paradoxes were retailed by the Sophists, whom Socrates is introduced as chastising in the Dialogues of Plato. They were common enough to be put by the historian into the mouth of an ambassador in a public speech. AvSpi Se rvpawtf t\ iroXei a.px"n v exovtpov. (Thncyd. vi. 85. ) GROTIUS. 53 To this Grotius answered, that even inferior animals, under the powerful though transient impulse of parental love, prefer their young to their own safety or life ; that gleams of com- passion, and, he might have added, of gratitude and indigna- tion, appear in the human infant long before the age of moral discipline ; that man at the period of maturity is a social animal, who delights in the society of his fellow-creatures for its own sake, independently of the help and accommodation which it yields ; that he is a reasonable being, capable of] framing and pursuing general rules of conduct, of which he/ discerns that the observance contributes to a regular, quiet, \ and happy intercourse between all the members of the com- I munity ; and that, from these considerations, all the precepts I of morality, and all the commands and prohibitions of just I law, may be derived by impartial reason. " And these prin- ciples," says the pious philosopher, "would have their weight, even if it were to be granted (which could not be conceded without the highest impiety) that there is no God, or that he exercises no moral government over human affairs." * " Natural law is the dictate of right reason, pronouncing that there is in some actions a moral obligation, and in other actions a moral deformity, arising from their respective suitableness or repugnance to the reasonable and social nature ; and that con- sequently such acts are either forbidden or enjoined by God, the author of nature. Actions which are the subject of this exertion of reason, are in themselves lawful or unlawful, and * "Et haec quidem locum aliquem haberent, etiamsi daretur (quod sine summo scelere dari nequit) non esse Deum, aut non curari ab eo negotia humana. " (Proleg. 11.) And in another place, " Jus naturale est dietatum rectse rationis, indicans actui alicui, ex ejus convenientia aut disconvenientia cum ipsa natura rational! et Sociali, inesse moralem turpitudinem aut necessitatem moralem, ac consequenter ab auctore naturse Deo talem actum aut vetari aut prsecipi. Actus de quibus tale extat dictatum, debiti sunt aut illicit! per se, atque ideo a Deo neces- sario praecepti aut vetiti intelliguntur. " (Lib. i. cap. i. sect. 10.) 54 MODERN ETHICS : are therefore as such necessarily commanded or prohibited by God." Such was the state of opinion respecting the first prin- ciples of the moral sciences, when, after an imprisonment of a thousand years in the cloister, they began once more to hold intercourse with the general understanding of mankind. It will be seen in the laxity and confusion, as well as in the prudence and purity of this exposition, that some part of the method and precision of the schools was lost with their end- less subtilties and their barbarous language. It is manifest that the latter paragraph is a proposition, not what it affects to be, a definition ; that as a proposition, it contains too many terms very necessary to be defined ; that the purpose of the excellent writer is not so much to lay down a first principle of morals, as to exert his unmatched power of saying much in few words, in order to assemble within the smallest compass the most weighty inducements, and the most effectual persua- sions, to well-doing. This was the condition in which ethical theory was found by Hobbes, with whom the present Dissertation should have commenced, if it had been possible to state modern contro- versies in a satisfactory manner, without a retrospect of the revolutions in opinion from which they in some measure flowed. HOBBES. Born 1588 died 1679. THOMAS HOBBES of Malmesbury may be numbered among those eminent persons born in the latter half of the sixteenth century, who gave a new character to European philosophy in the succeeding age.* He was one of the late writers and late learners. It was not till he was nearly thirty that he supplied * Bacon, Descartes, Hobbes, and Grotius. The writings of the first are still as delightful and wonderful as they ever were, and his HOBBES. 55 the defects of his early education by classical studies, so successfully prosecuted, that he wrote well in the Latin then used by his scientific contemporaries ; and made such pro- ficiency in Greek as, in his earliest work, the Translation of Thucydides, published when he was forty, to afford a specimen of a version still valued for its remarkable fidelity ; though written with a stiffness and constraint very opposite to the masterly facility of his original compositions. It was after forty that he learned the first rudiments of geometry (so miserably defective was his education) ; but yielding to the paradoxical disposition apt to infect those who begin to learn after the natural age of commencement, he exposed himself by absurd controversies with the masters of a science which looks down with scorn on the Sophist. A considerable por- tion of his mature age was passed on the Continent, where he travelled as tutor to two successive Earls of Devonshire ; a family with whom he seems to have passed near half-a- century of his long life. In France his reputation, founded at that time solely on personal intercourse, became so great, that his observations on the Meditations of Descartes were published in the works of that philosopher, together with those of Gassendi and Arnauld.* It was about his sixtieth year that he began to publish those philosophical writings which contain his peculiar opinions ; which set the under- standing of Europe into general motion, and stirred up con- troversies among metaphysicians and moralists not even yet authority will have no end. Descartes forms an era in the history of Metaphysics, of Physics, of Mathematics. The controversies excited by Grotius have long ceased, but the powerful influence of his works will be doubted by those only who are unacquainted with the disputes of the seventeenth century. * The prevalence of freethinking under Louis XIII., to a far greater degree than was avowed, appears not only from the complaints of Mersenne and of Grotius, but from the disclosures of Guy Patin, who, in his Letters, describes his own conversations with Gassendi and Naude, so as to leave no doubt of their opinions. 56 MODERN ETHICS : determined. At the age of eighty-seven he had the boldness to publish metrical versions of the Iliad and Odyssey, which the greatness of his name, and the singularity of the under- taking, still render objects of curiosity, if not of criticism. He owed his influence to various causes ; at the head of which may be placed that genius for system, which though it cramps the growth of knowledge,* perhaps finally atones for that mischief, by the zeal and activity which it rouses among followers and opponents, who discover truth by acci- dent, when in pursuit of weapons for their warfare. A system which attempts a task so hard as that of subjecting vast provinces of human knowledge to one or two principles, if it presents some striking instances of conformity to superficial appearances, is sure to delight the framer ; and, for a time, to subdue and captivate the student too entirely for sober reflec- tion and rigorous examination. The evil does not indeed very frequently recur. Perhaps Aristotle, Hobbes, and Kant, are the only persons who united in the highest degree the great faculties of comprehension and discrimination which compose the Genius of System. Of the three, Aristotle alone could throw it off where it was glaringly unsuitable ; and it is deserving of observation, that the reign of system seems, from these examples, progressively to shorten in proportion as reason is cultivated and knowledge advances. But, in the first instance, consistency passes for truth. When principles in some instances have proved sufficient to give an unexpected explanation of facts, the delighted reader is content to accept as true all other deductions from the principles. Specious premises being assumed to be true, nothing more can be * "Another error," says the Master of Wisdom, "is the over-early and peremptory reduction of knowledge into arts and methods, from which time commonly receives small augmentation." (Bacon's Advance- ment of Learning, book i.) "Method," says he, "carrying a show of total and perfect knowledge, has a tendency to generate acquiescence." What pregnant words ! , HOBBES. 57 required than logical inference. Mathematical forms pass current as the equivalent of mathematical certainty. The unwary admirer is satisfied with the completeness and sym- metry of the plan of his house unmindful of the need of examining the firmness of the foundation and the soundness of the materials. The system-maker, like the conqueror, long dazzles and overawes the world ; but when their sway is past, the vulgar herd, unable to measure their astonishing faculties, take revenge by trampling on fallen greatness. The dogmatism of Hobbes, was, however unjustly, one of the sources of his fame. The founders of systems deliver their novelties with the undoubting spirit of discoverers ; and their followers are apt to be dogmatical, because they can see nothing beyond their own ground. It might seem incredible, if it were not established by the experience of all ages, that those who differ most from the opinions of their fellow-men are most confident of the truth of their own. But it commonly requires an overweening conceit of the superiority of a man's own judgment, to make him espouse very singular notions ; and when he has once embraced them, they are endeared to him by the hostility of those whom he contemns as the pre- judiced vulgar. The temper of Hobbes must have been originally haughty. The advanced age at which he published his obnoxious opinions rendered him more impatient of the acrimonious opposition which they necessarily provoked; until at length a strong sense of the injustice of the punish- ment impending over his head, for the publication of what he believed to be truth, co-operated with the peevishness and timidity of his years, to render him the most imperious and morose of dogmatists. His dogmatism has indeed one quality more offensive than that of most others. Propositions the most adverse to the opinions of mankind, and the most abhorrent from their feelings, are introduced into the course of his argument with mathematical coldness. He presents 58 MODERN ETHICS : . them as demonstrated conclusions, without deigning to explain to his fellow-creatures how they all happened to believe the opposite absurdities ; without even the compliment of once observing how widely his discoveries were at variance with the most ancient and universal judgments of the human understanding. The same quality in Spinoza indicates a recluse's ignorance of the world. In Hobbes it is the arro- gance of a man who knows mankind and despises them. A permanent foundation of his fame consists in his admirable style, which seems to be the very perfection of didactic language. Short, clear, precise, pithy, his language never has more than one meaning, which never requires a second thought to find. By the help of his exact method it takes so firm a hold on the mind, that it will not allow atten- tion to slacken. His little tract on Human Nature has scarcely an ambiguous or a needless word. He has so great a power of always choosing the most significant term, that he never is reduced to the poor expedient of using many in its stead. He had so thoroughly studied the genius of the language, and knew so well to steer between pedantry and vulgarity, that two centuries have not superannuated probably more than a dozen of his words. His expressions are so luminous, that he is clear without the help of illustration. Perhaps no writer of any age or nation, on subjects so abstruse, has manifested an equal power of engraving his thoughts on the mind of his readers. He seems never to have taken a word for ornament or pleasure ; and he deals with eloquence and poetry as the natural philosopher who explains the mechanism of children's toys, or deigns to contrive them. Yet his style so stimulates attention that it never tires ; and, to those who are acquainted with the subject, appears to have as much spirit as can be safely blended with reason. He compresses his thoughts so unaffectedly, and yet so tersely, as to produce occasionally maxims which excite the same agree- " HOBBES. 59 able surprise with wit, and have become a sort of philosophical proverbs ; the success of which he partly owed to the suitable- ness of such forms of expression to his dictatorial nature. His words have such an. appearance of springing from his thoughts, as to impress on the reader a strong opinion of his originality, and indeed to prove that he was not conscious of borrowing ; though conversation with Gassendi must have influenced his mind ; and it is hard to believe that his coinci- dence with Ockham should have been purely accidental, on points so important as the denial of general ideas, the refer- ence of moral distinctions to superior power, and the absolute thraldom of religion under the civil power, which he seems to have thought necessary, to maintain that independence of the state on the Church with which Ockham had been contented. His philosophical writings might be read without remind- ing any one that the author was more than an intellectual machine. They never betray a feeling except that insupport- able arrogance which looks down on men as a lower species of beings ; whose almost unanimous hostility is so far from shaking the firmness of his conviction, or even ruffling the calmness of his contempt, that it appears too petty a circum- stance to require explanation, or even to merit notice. Let it not be forgotten that part of his renown depends on the application of his admirable powers to expound truth when he meets it. This great merit is conspicuous in that part of his treatise of Human Nature which relates to the percipient and reasoning faculties. It is also very remarkable in many of his secondary principles on the subject of government and law, which, while the first principles are false and dangerous, are as admirable for truth as for his accustomed and unrivalled propriety of expression.* In many of these observations he * See De Corpore Politico, Part i. chap. ii. iii. iv., and Leviathan, Part i. chap. xiv. XT., for remarks of this sort, full of sagacity. 60 MODERN ETHICS : even shows a disposition to soften his paradoxes, and to con- form to the common sense of mankind.* It was with perfect truth observed by my excellent friend Mr. Stewart, that " the ethical principles of Hobbes are com- pletely interwoven with his political system."t He might have said that the whole of Hobbes's system, moral, religious, and in part philosophical, depended on his political scheme ; not indeed logically, as conclusions depend on premises, but (if the word may be excused) psychologically, as the formation of one opinion may be influenced by a disposition to adapt it to previously cherished opinions. The Translation of Thucy- dides, as he himself boasts, was published to show the evils of popular government. J Men he represented as being originally equal, and having an equal right to all things, but as being taught by reason to sacrifice this right for the advantages of peace, and to submit to a common authority, which can pre- serve quiet only by being the sole depositary of force, and must therefore be absolute and unlimited. The supreme authority cannot be sufficient for its purpose, unless it be wielded by a single hand ; nor even then, unless his absolute power extends over religion, which may prompt men to discord by the fear * " The laws of nature are immutable and eternal ; for injustice, ingratitude, arrogance, pride, iniquity, acception of persons, and the rest, can never be made lawful. For it can never be that war shall preserve life, and peace destroy it. " (Leviathan, Part L chap. xv. See also Part ii. chap. xxvi. xxviiL, on Laws and on Punishments.) f See Dissertation First, p. 42. The political state of England is indeed said by himself to have occasioned his first philosophical publi- cation. Nascitur Interea scelus execrahile belli. Horreo spectans, Meque ad dilectam confero Lutetiam, Postque duos annos edo De Cive Libellum. (Vita HobbesiL) J The speech of Euphemus in the sixth book of that historian, and the conference between the ministers from Athens and the Melian chiefs, in the fifth book, exhibit an undisguised Hobbism, which was very dramati- cally put into the mouth of Athenian statesmen at a time when, as we learn from Plato and Aristophanes, it was preached by the Sophists. HOBBES. 61 of an evil greater than death. The perfect state of a com- munity, according to him, is where law prescribes the religion and morality of the people, and where the will of an absolute sovereign is the sole fountain of law. Hooker had inculcated the simple truth, that " to live by one man's will is the cause of many men's misery." Hobbes embraced the daring para- dox, that to live by one man's will is the only means of all men's happiness. Having thus rendered religion the slave of every human tyrant, it was an unavoidable consequence that he should be disposed to lower her character, and lessen her power over men ; that he should regard atheism as the most effectual instrument of preventing rebellion; at least that species of rebellion which prevailed in his time, and had excited his alarm. The formidable alliance of religion with liberty haunted his mind, and urged him to the bold attempt of rooting out both these mighty principles ; which, when combined with interests and passions, when debased by impure support, and provoked by unjust resistance, have indeed the power of fearfully agitating society ; but which are, nevertheless, in their own nature, and as far as they are unmixed and undisturbed, the fountains of justice, of order, of peace, as well as of those moral hopes, and of those glorious aspirations after higher excellence, which encourage and exalt the soul in its passage through misery and depravity. A Hobbist is the only consistent persecutor ; for he alone con- siders himself as bound, by whatever conscience he has remaining, to conform to the religion of the sovereign. He claims from others no more than he is himself ready to yield to any master ;* while the religionist who persecutes a member * Spinoza adopted precisely the same first principles with Hobbes, that all men have a natural right to all things. (Tradatus Politicus, cap. ii. sect. 3.) He even avows the absurd and detestable maxim, that States are not bound to observe their treaties longer than the interest or danger which first formed the treaties continues. But on the internal constitution of States he embraces opposite opinions. Servitutis enim 62 MODERN ETHICS : of another communion exacts the sacrifice of conscience and sincerity, though professing that rather than make it himself he is prepared to die. Remarks. The fundamental errors on which the ethical system of Hobbes is built are not peculiar to him ; though he has stated them with a bolder precision, and placed them in a more conspicuous station in the van of his main force, than any other of those who have either frankly avowed or tacitly assumed them, from the beginning of speculation to the present moment. They may be shortly stated as follows : 1. The first and most inveterate of these errors is, that he does not distinguish thought from feeling, or rather that he in express words confounds them. The mere perception of an object, according to him, differs from the pleasure or pain which that perception may occasion, no otherwise than as they affect different organs of the bodily frame. The action of the mind in perceiving or conceiving an object is precisely the same with that of feeling the agreeable or disagreeable.* The non pads interest omnem potcstatem ad unum transferre. (Ibid. cap. vi. sect. 4.) Limited monarchy he considers as the only tolerable example of that species of government. An Aristocracy nearly approaching to the Dutch system during the suspension of the Stadtholdership, he seems to prefer. He speaks favourably of Democracy, but the chapter on that subject is left unfinished. " Nulla plane templa urbium sump- tibus sedificanda, nee jura de opinionibus statuenda." He was the first republican atheist of modern times, and probably the earliest irreligious opponent of an ecclesiastical establishment. * This doctrine is explained in his tract on Human Nature, c. vii.-x, " Conception is a motion in some internal substance of the head, which proceeding to the heart, when it helpeth the motion there, it is called pleasure ; when it weakeneth or hindereth the motion it is called pain." The same matter is handled more cursorily, agreeably to the practical purpose of the work, in Leviathan, Part i. chap. vi. These passages are here referred to as proofs of the statement in the text- With the materialism of it we have here no concern. If the multiplied suppositions were granted, we should not advance one step towards understanding what they profess to explain. The first four words are HOBBES. 63 necessary result of this original confusion is to extend the laws of the intellectual part of our nature over that other part of it, hitherto without any adequate name, which feels, and desires, and loves, and hopes, and wills. In consequence of this long confusion, or want of distinction, it has happened that, whilst the simplest act of the merely intellectual part has many names (such as sensation, perception, impression, etc.), the correspondent act of the other not less important por- tion of man is not denoted by a technical term in philosophi- cal systems ; nor by a convenient word in common language. Sensation has another more common sense. Emotion is too warm for a generic term. Feeling has some degree of the same fault, besides its liability to confusion with the sense of touch. Pleasure and pain represent only two properties of this act, which render its repetition the object of desire or aversion ; which last states of mind presuppose the act. Of these words emotion seems to be the least objectionable,* since it has no absolute double meaning, and does not require so much vigilance in the choice of the accompanying words as would be necessary if we were to prefer feeling ; which, how- ever, being a more familiar word, may, with due caution, be also sometimes employed. Every man who attends to the state of his own mind will acknowledge, that these words, emotion and feeling, thus used, are perfectly simple, and as incapable of further explanation by words as sight or hearing ; which may indeed be rendered into synonymous words, but never can be defined by any more simple or more clear. as unmeaning as if one were to say that greenness is very loud. It is obvious that many motions which promote the motion of the' heart are extremely painful. * [" The part of our nature," of which the author here speaks, has often been described by the compound phrase, " the desires and affec- tions." The proposal to call these " the Emotions " has not been gene- rally accepted; but the adjective "emotional" is not unfrequently used. W. W.] 64 MODERN ETHICS : Eeflection will in like manner teach that perception, reason- ing, and judgment, may be conceived to exist without being followed by emotion. Some men hear music without .gratifi- cation ; one may distinguish a taste without being pleased or displeased by it ; or at least the relish or disrelish is often so slight, without lessening the distinctness of the sapid qualities, that the distinction of it from the perception cannot be doubted. The multiplicity of errors which have flowed into Moral Science from this original confusion is very great. They have spread over many schools of philosophy ; and many of tbem are prevalent to this day. Hence the laws of the understand- ing have been applied to the affections ; virtuous feelings have been considered as just reasonings ; evil passions repre- sented as mistaken judgments ; and it has been laid down as a principle, that the will always follows the last decision of the practical intellect.* 2. By this great error, Hobbes was led to represent all the variety of the desires of men as being only so many instances of objects deliberately and solely pursued, because they were the means, and at the time perceived to be so, of directly or indirectly procuring organic gratification to the individual^ The human passions are described as if they reasoned accurately, deliberated coolly, and calculated exactly. It is assumed that, in performing these operations, there is and can be no act of life in which a man does not bring distinctly before his eyes the pleasure which is to accrue to himself from the act. From this single and simple principle, all human conduct may, according to him, be explained and even foretold. The true laws of this part of our nature (so totally different from those of the percipient part) were, by this grand mistake, * " Voluntas semper sequitur ultimum indicium intellectus practici." t See the passages before quoted. HOBBES. 65 entirely withdrawn from notice. Simple as the observation is, it seems to have escaped not only Hobbes, but many, per- haps most philosophers, that our desires seek a great diversity of objects ; that the attainment of these objects is indeed followed by, or rather called, Pleasure ; but that it could not be so, if the objects had not been previously desired. Many besides him have really represented self as the ultimate object of every action ; but none ever so hardily thrust forward the selfish system in its harshest and coarsest shape. The mastery which he shows over other metaphysical subjects forsakes him on this. He does not scruple, for the sake of this system, to distort facts of which all men are conscious ; and to do violence to the language in which the result of their uniform experience is conveyed, " Acknowledgment of power is called Honour."* His explanations are frequently sufficient con- futations of the doctrine which required them. " Pity is the imagination of future calamity to ourselves, proceeding from the sense (observation) of another man's calamity." " Laughter is occasioned by sudden glory in our eminence, or in compari- son with the infirmity of others." Every man who ever wept or laughed may determine whether this be a true account of the state of his mind on either occasion. " Love is a concep- tion of his need of the one person desired ; " a definition of love, which, as it 'excludes kindness, might perfectly well com- prehend the hunger of a cannibal, provided that it were not too ravenous to exclude choice. " Good- will, or charity, which containeth the natural affection of parents to their children, consists in a man's conception that he is able not only to accomplish his own desires, but to assist other men in theirs : " from which it follows, as the pride of power is felt in destroy- * Human Nature, chap. viii. The ridiculous explanation of the admiration of personal beauty, " as a sign of power generative," shows the difficulties to which this extraordinary man was reduced by a false system. F 66 MODERN ETHICS : ing as well as in saving men, that cruelty and kindness are the same passion.* Such were the expedients to which a man of the highest class of understanding was driven, in order to evade the ad- mission of the simple and evident truth, that there are in our nature perfectly disinterested passions, which seek the well- being of others as their object and end, without looking be- yond it to self, or pleasure, or happiness. A proposition, from which such a man could attempt to escape only by such means, may be strongly presumed to be true. 3. Hobbes having thus struck the affections out of his map of human nature, and having totally misunderstood (as will appear in a succeeding part of this work) the nature even of the appetites, it is no wonder that we should find in it not a trace of the moral sentiments. Moral goodt he con- siders merely as consisting in the signs of a power to produce pleasure ; and repentance is no more than regret at having missed the way ; so that, according to this system, a disin- terested approbation of and reverence for virtue, are no more possible than disinterested affections towards our fellow- creatures. There is no sense of duty, no compunction for our own offences, no indignation against the crimes of others, un- less they affect our own safety ; no secret cheerfulness shed over the heart by the practice of well-doing. From his philosophical writings it would be impossible to conclude that there are in man a set of emotions, desires, and aver- sions, of which the sole and final objects are the voluntary actions and habitual dispositions of himself and of all other * Human Nature, chap. ix. I forbear to quote the passage on Pla- tonic love, which immediately follows. But, considering Hobbes's blameless and honourable character, that passage is perhaps the most remarkable instance of the shifts to which his selfish system reduced him. f Which he calls the pulchrum, for want, as he says, of an English word to express it. (Leviathan, Part L c. vi) HOBBES. 67 voluntary agents ; which are properly called Moral Senti- ments ; and which, though they vary more in degree, and depend more on cultivation, than some other parts of human nature, are as seldom as most of them found to he entirely wanting. 4. A theory of man which comprehends in its explanations neither the social affections nor the moral sentiments, must be owned to be sufficiently defective. It is a consequence, or rather a modification of it, that Hobbes should constantly represent the deliberate regard to personal advantage as the only possible motive of human action ; and that he should altogether disdain to avail himself of those refinements of the selfish scheme which allow the pleasures of benevolence and of morality, themselves, to be a most important part of that interest which reasonable beings pursue. 5. Lastly, though Hobbes does in effect acknowledge the necessity of morals in society, and the general coincidence of individual with public interest truths so palpable, that they never have been excluded from any ethical system he be- trays his utter want of moral sensibility by the coarse and odious form in which he has presented the first of these great principles ; and his view of both leads him most strongly to support that common and pernicious error of moral reasoners, that a perception of the tendency of good actions to preserve the being and promote the well-being of the community, and a sense of the dependence of our own happiness upon the general security, either are essential constituents of our moral feelings, or are ordinarily mingled with the most effectual motives to right conduct. The Court of Charles II. were equally pleased with Hobbes's poignant brevity, and his low estimate of human motives. His ethical epigrams became the current coin of pro- fligate wits. Sheffield, Duke of Buckinghamshire, who repre- sented the class still more perfectly in his morals than in his 68 MODERN ETHICS : faculties, has expressed their opinion in verses, of which one line is good enough to be quoted : Fame bears no fruit till the vain planter dies. Dryden speaks of " the philosopher and poet (for such is the condescending term employed) of Malmesbury," as resembling Lucretius in haughtiness. But Lucretius, though he held many of the opinions of Hobbes, had the sensibility as well as genius of a poet. His dogmatism is full of enthusiasm ; and his philosophical theory of society discovers occasionally as much tenderness as can be shown without reference to in- dividuals. He was a Hobbist in only half his nature. The moral and political system of Hobbes was a palace of ice, transparent, exactly proportioned, majestic, admired by the unwary as a delightful dwelling ; but gradually under- mined by the central warmth of human feeling, before it was thawed into muddy water by the sunshine of true philosophy. When Leibnitz, in the beginning of the eighteenth cen- tury, reviewed the moral writers of modern times, his pene- trating eye saw only two who were capable of reducing morals and jurisprudence to a science. " So great an enterprise," says he, " might have been executed by the deep-searching genius of Hobbes, if he had not set out from evil principles ; or by the judgment and learning of the incomparable Grotius, if his powers had not been scattered over many subjects, and his mind distracted by the cares of an agitated life."* Per- haps, in this estimate, admiration of the various and excellent qualities of Grotius may have overrated his purely philosophical powers, great as they unquestionably were. Certainly the failure of Hobbes was owing to no inferiority in strength of intellect. Probably his fundamental errors may be imputed, * " Et tale aliquid potuisset vel ab incomparabilis Grotii judicio et doctrina, vel a profundo Hobbii ingenio praestari ; nisi ilium multa dis- traxissent ; hie vero prava constituisset principia." (Leibnitii Epi&t. ad Molanum; iv. Pars iii. p. 276.) HOBBES. 69 in part, to the faintness of his moral sensibilities, insufficient to make him familiar with those sentiments and affections which can be known only by being felt : a faintness per- fectly compatible with his irreproachable life, but which ob- structed, and at last obliterated, the only channel through which the most important materials of ethical science enter into the mind. Against Hobbes, says "YVarburton, the whole church- militant took up arms. The answers to the Leviathan would form a library. But the far greater part have followed the fate of all controversial pamphlets. Sir Eobert Filmer was jealous of any rival theory of servitude. Harrington defended liberty, and Clarendon the church, against a common enemy. His philosophical antagonists were, Cumberland, Cudworth, Shaftesbury, Clarke, Butler, and Hutcheson. Though the last four writers cannot be considered as properly polemics, their labours were excited, and their doctrines modified by, the stroke from a vigorous arm which seemed to shake Ethics to its foundation. They lead us far into the eighteenth century ; and their works, occasioned by the doctrines of Hobbes, sowed the seed of the ethical writings of Hume, Smith, Price, Kant, and Stewart ; in a less degree, also, of those of Tucker and Paley : not to mention Mandeville, the buffoon and sophister of the ale-house ; or Helvetius, an ingenious but flimsy writer, the low and loose moralist of the vain, the selfish, and the sensuaL 70 MODERN ETHICS : SECTION V. CONTROVERSIES CONCERNING THE MORAL FACULTIES AND THE SOCIAL AFFECTIONS. Cumberland Cudworth Clarke Shaftesbury Bossuet Fenelon Leibnitz Malebranche Edwards Buffier. DR. RICHARD CUMBERLAND. Born 1632 died 1718. EAISED to the see of Peterborough after the Eevolution of 1688, Cumberland was the only professed answerer of Hobbes.* His work on The Law of Nature still retains a place on the shelf, though not often on the desk. The philo- sophical epigrams of Hobbes form a contrast to the verbose, prolix, and languid diction of his answerer. The forms of scholastic argument serve more to encumber his style than to insure his exactness. But he has substantial merits. He justly observes that all men can only be said to have had originally a right to all things in a sense in which right has the same meaning with power. He shows that Hobbes is at variance with himself; inasmuch as the dictates of right reason, which, by his own statement, teach men for their own safety to forego the exercise of that right, and which he calls Laws of Nature, are coeval with it ; and that mankind per- ceive the moral limits of their power as clearly and as soon as they are conscious of its existence. He enlarges the inti- mations of Grotius on the social feelings, which prompt men to the pleasures of pacific intercourse, as certainly as the * [Answers to Hobbes were published also by Clarendon, Tenison, Bramhall, Sharrock, as I have noticed in my Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy in England. Lectures II. and III. "W. W.] CUMBERLAND. 71 apprehension of danger and destruction urges them to avoid hostility. The fundamental principle of his Ethics is, that " the greatest benevolence of every rational agent to all others is the happiest state of each individual, as well as of the whole."* The happiness accruing to each man from the ob- servance and cultivation of benevolence, he considers as appended to it by the Supreme Ruler ; through which he sanctions it as his law, and reveals it to the mind of every reasonable creature. From this principle he deduces the rules of morality, which he calls the Laws of Nature. The surest, or rather only mark that they are the commandments of God, is, that their observance promotes the happiness of man : for that reason alone could they be imposed by that Being whose essence is love. As our moral faculties must to us be the measure of all moral excellence, he infers that the moral attributes of the Divinity must in their nature be only a transcendent degree of those qualities which we most approve, love, and revere, in those moral agents with whom we are familiar, t He had a momentary glimpse of the pos- sibility that some human actions might be performed with a view to the happiness of others, without any consideration of the pleasure reflected back on ourselves. J But it is too faint and transient to be worthy of observation, otherwise than as a new proof how often great truths must flit before the un- derstanding, before they can be firmly and finally held in its grasp. His only attempt to explain the nature of the moral faculty, is the substitution of practical reason (a phrase of the schoolmen, since become celebrated from its renewal by Kant) for right reason ; and his definition of the first, as that * Cumberland, De Legibus Naturae, cap. i. sect. 12, first published in London, 1672, and then so popular as to be reprinted at Lubeck in 1683. t M6L. cap. v. sect. 19. J Ibid. cap. ii. sect. 20. " Whoever determines his judgment and his will by right reason must agree with all others who judge according to right reason in the 72 MODERN ETHICS : which points out the ends and means of action. Throughout his whole reasoning, he adheres to the accustomed confusion of the quality which renders actions virtuous, with the senti- ments excited in us by the contemplation of them. His language on the identity of general and individual interest is extremely vague ; though it be, as he says, the foundation- stone of the Temple of Concord among men. It is little wonder that Cumberland should not have dis- embroiled this ancient and established confusion, since Leib- nitz himself, in a passage where he reviews the theories of morals which had gone before him, has done his utmost to perpetuate it. " It is a question," says he, " whether the pre- servation of human society be the first principle of the law of nature. This our author denies, in opposition to Grotius, who laid down sociability to be so ; to Hobbes, who ascribed that character to mutual fear ; and to Cumberland, who held that it was mutual benevolence ; which are all three only different names for the safety and welfare of society." * Here the great philosopher considered benevolence or fear, two feelings of the human mind, to be the first principles of the law of nature ; in the same sense in which the tendency of certain actions to the well-being of the community may be so regarded. The confusion, however, was then common to him with many, as it even now is with most. The comprehensive view was his own. He perceives the close resemblance of same matter." (Cumberland, DC Legibus Naturae, cap. ii. sect. 8. ) This is in one sense only a particular instance of the identical proposition, that two things which agree with a third thing must agree with each other in that in which they agree with the third. But the difficulty entirely consists in the particular third thing here introduced, namely, " right reason," the nature of which not one step is made to explain. The position is curious, as coinciding with " the universal categorical imperative," adopted as a first principle by Kant. * Leibn. iv. Pars iii. p. 271. The unnamed work, which occasioned these remarks (perhaps one of Thomasius), appeared in 1699. How lng after this Leibnitz's Dissertation was written does not appear. CUMBERLAND CUDWORTH. 73 these various and even conflicting opinions, in that important point of view in which they relate to the effects of moral and immoral actions on the general interest. The tendency ofj virtue to preserve amicable intercourse was enforced Grotius ; its tendency to prevent injury was dwelt on bj Hobbes ; its tendency to promote an interchange of benefits was inculcated by Cumberland. CUDWORTH. Born 1617 died 1688. CUDWORTH, one of the eminent men educated or promoted in the English Universities during the Puritan rule, was one of the most distinguished of the Latitudinarian or Arminian party who came forth at the Eestoration, with a love of liberty imbibed from their Calvinistic masters, as well as from the writings of antiquity, yet tempered by the experience of their own agitated age ; and with a spirit of religious toleration more impartial and mature, though less systematic and profes- sedly comprehensive, than that of the Independents, the first sect who preached that doctrine. Taught by the errors of their time, they considered religion as consisting not in vain efforts to explain unsearchable mysteries, but in purity of heart, exalted by pious feelings, and manifested by virtuous conduct.* The government of the church was placed in their * See the beautiful account of them by Burnet (Hist. i. 321, Oxford edit. 1823), who was himself one of the most distinguished of this excellent body ; with whom may be classed, notwithstanding some shades of doctrinal difference, his early master, Leighton; Bishop of Dunblane, a beautiful writer, and one of the best of men. The earliest account of them is in a curious contemporary pamphlet, entitled, An Account of the new Sect of Latitude-men at Cambridge, republished in the collection of tracts entitled Phoenix firitannicus. Jeremy Taylor deserves the highest and perhaps the earliest place among them. But Ouflworth's excellent sermon before the House of Commons (31st March 74 MODERN ETHICS : hands by the Revolution, and their influence was long felt among its rulers and luminaries. The first generation of their scholars turned their attention too much from the cultivation of the heart to the mere government of outward action ; and in succeeding times the tolerant spirit, not natural to an establishment, was with difficulty kept up by a government whose existence depended on discouraging intolerant preten- sions. "No sooner had the first sketch of the Hobbian philosophy* been privately circulated at Paris, than Cudworth seized the earliest opportunity of sounding the alarm against the most justly odious of the modes of thinking which it cultivates, or forms of expression which it would introduce ;t the prelude to a war which occupied the remaining forty years of his life. The Intellectual System, his great production, is directed against the atheistical opinions of Hobbes ; it touches ethical questions but occasionally and incidentally. It is a work of stupendous erudition, of much more acuteness than at first appears, of frequent mastery over diction and illustra- tion on subjects where it is most rare; and it is distinguished, perhaps beyond any other volume of controversy, by that best proof of the deepest conviction of the truth of a man's principles, a fearless statement of the most formidable objec- tions to them ; a fairness rarely practised but by him who is conscious of his power to answer them. In all his writings, it must be owned that his learning obscures his reasonings, and seems even to oppress his powerful intellect. It is an unfortunate effect of the redundant fulness of his mind, that 1647) in the year of the publication of Taylor's Liberty of Prophesying, may be compared even to Taylor in charity, piety, and the most liberal toleration. * De Cive, 1642. t Dantur boni el mali rationes ceternce et indispensabiles. Thesis for the degree of B.D. at Cambridge in 1644. (Birch's Life of Cudworth, prefixed to his edition of the Intellectual System, p. vii. Lond. 1743, 2 vols. 4to.) CUDWORTH. 75 it overflows in endless digressions, which break the chain of argument, and turn aside the thoughts of the reader from the main object. He was educated before usage had limited the naturalisation of new words from the learned languages ; before the failure of those great men, from Bacon to Milton, who laboured to follow a Latin order in their sentences, and the success of those men of inferior powers, from Cowley to Addison, who were content with the order, as well as the words, of pure and elegant conversation, had, as it were, by a double series of experiments, ascertained that the involu- tions and inversions of the ancient languages are seldom re- concilable with the genius of ours ; and, unless* skilfully as well as sparingly introduced, are at variance with the natural beauties of our prose composition. His mind was more that of an ancient than of a modern philosopher. He often in- dulged in that sort of amalgamation of fancy with speculation, the delight of the Alexandrian doctors, with whom he was most familiarly conversant ; and the Intellectual System, both in thought and expression, has an old and foreign air, not unlike a translation from the work of a later Platonist. Large ethical works of this eminent Writer are extant in manuscript in the British Museum.* One posthumous volume on morals was published by Dr. Chandler, Bishop of Durham, entitled, A Treatise concerning Eternal and Immutable Morality.^ But there is the more reason to regret (as far as relates to the history of opinion) that the larger treatises are still unpublished, because the above volume is not so much an ethical treatise as an introduction to one. Protagoras of old, and Hobbes then alive, having concluded that right and wrong were unreal, because they were not perceived by the senses, and because all human knowledge consists only in such perception, Cudworth * A curious account of the history of these MSS., by Dr. Kippis, is to be found in the Biographia Britannica, iv. 549. f London, 1731, 8vo. 76 MODERN ETHICS : endeavours to refute them, by disproving that part of their premises which forms the last-stated proposition. The mind has many conceptions (voq/j,ara) which are not cognisable by the senses ; and though they are occasioned by sensible objects, yet could not be formed but by a faculty superior to sense. The conceptions of justice and duty he places among them. The distinction of right from wrong is discerned by reason; and as soon as these words are denned, it becomes evident that it would be a contradiction in terms to affirm that any power, human or divine, could change their nature ; or, in other words, make the same act to be just and unjust at the same time. They had existed eternally in the only mode in which truths can be said to be eternal, in the eternal Mind ; and they were indestructible and unchangeable like that Supreme Intelligence.* Whatever judgment may be formed of this reasoning, it is manifest that it relates merely to the philosophy of the understanding, and does not attempt any explanation of what constitutes the very essence of morality, its relation to the will. That we perceive a distinction between right and wrong as much as between a triangle and a square, is indeed true ; and may possibly lead to an explanation of the reason why men should adhere to the one and avoid the other. But it is not that reason. A command or a precept is not a pro- position. It cannot be said that either is true or false. Cud- * " There are many objects of our mind which we can neither see, hear, feel, smell, nor taste, and which did never enter into it by any sense ; and therefore we can have no sensible pictures or ideas of them, drawn by the pencil of that inward limner or painter which borrows all his colours from sense, which we call Fancy : and if we reflect on our own cogitations of these things, we shall sensibly perceive that they are not phantastical but noematical : as, for example, justice, equity, duty and obligation, cogitation, opinion, intellection, volition, memory, verity, falsity, cause, effect, genus, species, nullity, con- tingency, possibility, impossibility, and innumerable others." (Eternal and Immutable Morality, p. 140.) We have here an anticipation of Kant. CUDWORTH. 77 worth, as well as many who succeeded him, confounded the mere apprehension by the understanding that right is different from wrong, with the practical authority of these important conceptions, exercised over voluntary actions, in a totally dis- tinct province of the human soul. , Though his life was devoted to the assertion of divine Providence, and though his philosophy was imbued with the religious spirit of Platonism,* yet he had placed Christianity too purely in the love of God and man to be considered as having much regard for. those controversies about rites and opinions with which zealots disturb the world. They re- presented him as having fallen into the same heresy with Milton and with Clarke ;t and some of them even charged him with atheism, for no other reason than that he was not afraid to state the atheistic difficulties in their fullest force. As blind anger heaps inconsistent accusations on each other, they called him at least an " Arian, a Socinian, or a Deist." J The courtiers of Charles II., who were delighted with every part of Hobbes but his integrity, did their utmost to decry his antagonist. They turned the railing of the bigots into a sarcasm against religion ; as we learn from him who repre- sented them with unfortunate fidelity. " He has raised," says Dryden, "such strong objections against the being of God, that many think he has not answered them ;" "the common fate," as Lord Shaftesbury tells us, " of those who dare to appear fair authors. " He had, indeed, earned the * Eu a/cpws xpumavifci. Be pious, my son, for piety is the sum of Christianity. (Motto affixed to the sermon above mentioned. ) f The following doctrine is ascribed to Cudworth by Nelson, -a man of good understanding and great worth : "Dr. Cudworth maintained that the Father, absolutely speaking, is the only supreme God ; the Son and Spirit being God only by his concurrence with them, and their subordination and subjection to him. " (Nelson's Life of Bull, p. 339. ) J Turner's Discourse on the Messiah, p. 335. Moralists, Part ii. sect. iii. 78 MODERN ETHICS : hatred of some theologians, better than they could know from the writings published during his life ; for in his posthumous work he classes with the ancient atheists those of his con- temporaries, whom he forbears to name, who held " that God may command what is contrary to moral rules ; that he has no inclination to the good of his creatures ; that he may justly doom an innocent being to eternal torments ; and that whatever God does will, for that reason is just, because he wills it."* It is an interesting incident in the life of a philosopher, that Cudworth's daughter, Lady Masham, had the honour to nurse the infirmities and to watch the last breath of Mr. Locke, who was opposed to her father in specu- lative philosophy, but who heartily agreed with him in the love of truth, liberty, and virtue. CLARKE. Bora 1675 died 1729. CONNECTED with Cudworth by principle, though separated by some interval of time, was Dr. Samuel Clarke, a man eminent at once as a divine, a mathematician, a metaphysical philo- sopher, and a philologer ; who, as the interpreter of Homer and Caesar, the scholar of Newton, and the antagonist of Leibnitz, approved himself not unworthy of correspondence with the * Eternal and Immutable Morality, p. 11. He names only one book published at Franeker. He quotes Ockham as having formerly main- tained the same monstrous positions. To many, if not to most, of these opinions or expressions, ancient and modern, reservations are adjoined, which render them literally reconcilable with practical morals. But the dangerous abuse to which the incautious language of ethical theories is liable, is well illustrated by an anecdote related in Plutarch's Life of Alexander. A sycophant named Anaxarchas consoled that monarch for the murder of Clitus, by assuring him that every act of a ruler must be just. Hav TO irpaydev viro TOV Kparovvros SIKCUOV. (Plut. Oper. i. 639, Franc. 1599.) CLARKE. 79 highest order of human spirits. Eoused by the prevalence of the doctrines of Spinoza and Hobbes, he endeavoured to demonstrate the being and attributes of God from a few axioms and definitions, in the manner of Geometry; an attempt in which, with all his powers of argument, it must be owned that he is compelled sometimes tacitly to assume what the laws of reasoning required him to prove ; and that, on the whole, his failure may be regarded as a proof that such a mode of argument is beyond the faculties of man.* Justly considering the moral attributes of the Deity as what alone renders him the object of religion, and to us constitutes the difference between theism and atheism, he laboured with the utmost zeal to place the distinctions of right and wrong on a more solid foundation ; and to explain the conformity of morality to reason, in a manner calculated to give a precise and scientific signification to that phraseology which all philosophers had, for so many ages, been content to employ, without thinking themselves obliged to define. It is one of the most rarely successful efforts of the human mind, to place the understanding at a point from which a philosopher takes the views that compose his system; to recollect constantly his purposes ; to adopt for a moment his previous opinions and prepossessions ; to think in his words and to see with his eyes ; especially when the writer widely dissents from the system which he attempts to describe, and after a general change in the modes of thinking and in the use of terms. Every part of the present work requires * This admirable person had so much candour as in effect to own his failure, and to recur to those other arguments in support of this great truth, which have in all ages satisfied the most elevated minds. In proposition viii. (Being and Attributes of God, p. 47) which affirms that the first cause must be " intelligent " (where, as he truly states, " lies the main question between us and the atheists"), he owns that the proposition cannot be demonstrated strictly and properly a priori. See Notes and Illustrations, Note M. 80 MODERN ETHICS : such an excuse ; but perhaps it may be more necessary in a case like that of Clarke, where the alterations in both respects have been so insensible, and in some respects appear so limited, that they may escape attention, than after those total revolu- tions in doctrine, where the necessity of not measuring other times by our own standard must be apparent to the most undistinguishing. The sum of his moral doctrine may be stated as follows. Man can conceive nothing without at the same time conceiving its relations to other things. He must ascribe the same law of perception to every being to whom he ascribes thought. He cannot therefore doubt that all the relations of all things to all must have always been present to the Eternal Mind. The relations in this sense are eternal, however recent the things may be between which they subsist. The whole of these relations constitute truth. The knowledge of them is omniscience. These eternal different relations of things involve a consequent eternal fitness or unfit-ness in the application of things one to another; with a regard to which the will of God always chooses, and which ought likewise to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings. These eternal differences make it fit and reasonable for the creatures so to act ; they cause it to be their duty, or lay an obligation on them so to do, separate from the will of God,* and antecedent to any prospect of advantage or reward, f Nay, wilful wicked- ness is the same absurdity and insolence in morals, as it would ! be in natural things to pretend to alter the relations of num- bers, or to take away the properties of mathematical figures.;}: * " Those who found all moral obligation on the will of God must recur to the same thing, only they do not explain how the nature and will of God is good and just." (Being and Attributes of God, Proposi- tion xii.) } Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 4, sixth edit. Lond. 1724. J Ibid. p. 42. CLARKE. 81 " Morality," says one of his most ingenious scholars, " is the practice of reason."* Clarke, like Cudworth, considered such a scheme as the only security against Hobbism, and probably against the Calvinistic theology from which they were almost as averse. Not content, with Cumberland, to attack Hobbes on ground which was in part his own, they thought it necessary to build on entirely new foundations. Clarke more especially, instead of substituting social and generous feeling for the selfish appetites, endeavoured to bestow on morality the highest dignity, by thus deriving it from reason. He made it more than disinterested ; for he placed its seat in a region where interest never enters, and passion never disturbs. By ranking her principles with the first truths of science, he seemed to render them pure and impartial, infallible and unchangeable. It might be excusable to regret the failure of so noble an attempt, if the indulgence of such regrets did not betray an unworthy apprehension that the same excellent ends could only be attained by such frail means : and that the dictates of the most severe reason would not finally prove reconcilable with the majesty of virtue. Remarks. The adoption of mathematical forms and terms was, in England, a prevalent fashion among writers on moral subjects during a large part of the eighteenth century. The ambition of mathematical certainty, on matters concerning which it is not given to man to reach it, is a frailty from which the disciple of Newton ought in reason to have been withheld, but to which he was naturally tempted by the example of his master. Nothing but the extreme difficulty of detaching assent from forms of expression to which it has been long wedded, can explain the fact that the incautious expression above cited, into which Clarke was hurried by his * Lowman on the Unity and Perfections of God, p. 29. Lond. 1737. G 82 MODERN ETHICS: moral sensibility, did not awaken him to a sense of the error into which he had fallen. As soon as he had said that " a wicked act was as absurd as an attempt to take away the properties of a figure," he ought to have seen that principles which led logically to such a conclusion were untrue. As it is an impossibility to make three and three cease to be six, it ought, on his principles, to be impossible to do a wicked act. To act without regard to the relations of things, as if a man were to choose fire for cooling, or ice for heating, would be the part either of a lunatic or an idiot. The murderer who poisons by arsenic, acts agreeably to his knowledge of the power of that substance to kill, which is a relation between two things ; as much as the physician who employs an emetic after the poison, acts upon his belief of the tendency of that remedy to preserve life, which is another relation between two things. All men who seek a good or bad end by good or bad means, must alike conform their conduct to some relation between their actions as means and their object as an end. All the relations of inanimate things to each other are undoubtedly observed as much by the criminal as by the man of virtue. It is therefore singular that Dr. Clarke suffered himself to be misled into the representation that virtue is a conformity with the relations of things universally, vice a universal dis- regard of them, by the certain, but here insufficient truth, that the former necessarily implied a regard to certain parti- cular relations, which were always disregarded by those who chose the latter. The distinction between right and wrong, can, therefore, no longer depend on relations as such, but on a particular class of relations. And it seems evident that no relations are to be considered except those in which a living, intelligent, and voluntary agent is one of the beings related. His acts may relate to a law, as either observing or infringing it ; they may relate to his own moral sentiments and those of CLARKE. 83 his fellows, as they are the objects of approbation or disappro- bation ; they may relate to his own welfare, by increasing or abating it ; they may relate to the well-being of other sentient beings, by contributing to promote or obstruct it ; but in all these, and in all supposable cases, the inquiry of the moral philosopher must be, not whether there be a relation, but what the relation is ; whether it be that of obedience of law, or agreeableness to moral feeling, or suitableness to prudence, or coincidence with benevolence. The term relation itself, on which Dr. Clarke's system rests, being common to right and wrong, must be struck out of the reasoning. He himself incidentally drops intimations which are at variance with hia system. " The Deity," he tells us, " acts according to the eternal relations of things, in order to the welfare of the whole universe ; " and subordinate moral agents ought to be governed by the same rules, "for the good of the public."* No one can fail to observe that a new element is here introduced the well-being of communities of men, and the general happiness of the world which supersedes the consideration of abstract relations and fitnesses. There are other views of this system, however, of a more general nature, and of much more importance, because they extend in a considerable degree to all systems which found moral distinctions or sentiments, solely or ultimately, upon reason. A little reflection will discover an extraordinary vacuity in this system. Supposing it were allowed that it satisfactorily accounts for moral judgments, there is still an important part of our moral sentiments which it passes by without an attempt to explain them. Whence, on this scheme, the pleasure or pain with which we review our own actions, or survey those of others ? What is the nature of remorse 1 Why do we feel shame ? Whence is indignation against injustice ? These are surely no exercise * Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion, p. 4. 84 MODERN ETHICS: of reason. Nor is the assent of reason to any other class of propositions followed or accompanied by emotions of this nature, by any approaching them, or indeed necessarily by any emotion at all. It is a fatal objection to a moral theory that it contains no means of explaining the most conspicuous, if not the most essential, parts of moral approbation and dis- approbation. But to rise to a more general consideration : Perception and emotion are states of mind perfectly distinct ; and an emotion of pleasure or pain differs much more from a mere perception, than the perceptions of one sense do from those of another. The perceptions of all the senses have some qualities in common. But an emotion has not necessarily anything in common with a perception, but that they are both states of mind. We perceive exactly the same qualities in coffee when we may dislike it, as afterwards when we come to like it. In other words, the perception remains the same when the sensation of pain is changed into the opposite sen- sation of pleasure. The like change may occur in every case where pleasure or pain (in such instances called sensations) enter the mind with perceptions through the eye or the ear. The prospect or the sound which was disagreeable may become agreeable, without any alteration in our idea of the objects. We can easily imagine a percipient and thinking being with- out a capacity of receiving pleasure or pain. Such a being might perceive what we do ; if we could conceive him to reason, he might reason justly ; and if he were to judge at all, there seems no reason why he should not judge truly. But what could induce such a being to will or to act ? It seems evident that his existence could only be a state of passive contemplation. Eeason, as reason, can never be a. motive to action. It is only when we superadd to such a being sensibility, or the capacity of emotion or sentiment (or what in corporeal cases is called sensation), of desire and CLARKE. 85 aversion, 'that we introduce him into the world of action. We then clearly discern, that when the conclusion of a pro- cess of reasoning presents to his mind an object of desire, or the means of obtaining it, a motive of action begins to operate ; and reason may then, but not till then, have a powerful though indirect influence on conduct. Let any argument to dissuade a man from immorality be employed, and the issue of it will always appear to be an appeal to a feeling. You prove that drunkenness will probably ruin health. No position founded on experience is more certain. Most persons with whom you reason must be as much convinced of it as you are. But your hope of success depends on the drunkard's fear of ill health ; and he may always silence your argument by telling you that he loves wine more than he dreads sickness. You speak in vain of the infamy of an act to one who disregards the opinion of others ; or of its imprudence to a man of little feeling for his own future condition. You may truly, but vainly, tell of the pleasures of friendship to one who has little affection. If you display the delights of liberality to a miser, he may always shut your mouth by answering, " The spendthrift may prefer such pleasures ; I love money more." If you even appeal to a man's conscience, he may answer you, that you have clearly proved the immorality of the act, and that he himself knew it before ; but that now when you had renewed and freshened his conviction, he was obliged to own, that his love of virtue, even aided by the fear of dishonour, remorse, and punishment, was not so powerful as the desire which hurried him into vice. Nor is it otherwise, however confusion of ideas may cause it to be so deemed, with that calm regard to the welfare of the agent, to which philosophers have so grossly misapplied the hardly intelligible appellation of self-love. The general tendency of right conduct to permanent well-being is indeed one of the most evident of all truths. But the success of persuasives or dissuasives addressed to it, must always be 86 MODERN ETHICS: directly proportioned not to the clearness with which the truth is discerned, hut to the strength of the principle addressed, in the mind of the individual ; and to the degree in which he is accustomed to keep an eye on its dictates. A strange pre- judice prevails, which ascribes to what is called self-love an invariable superiority over all the other motives of human action. If it were to be called by a more fit name, such as foresight, prudence, or, what seems most exactly to describe its nature, a sympathy with the future feelings of the agent, it would appear to every observer to be, very often, too languid and inactive, always of late appearance, and sometimes so faint as to be scarcely perceptible. Almost every human passion in its turn prevails over self-love. It is thus apparent that the influence of reason on the will is indirect, and arises only from it being one of the channels by which the objects of desire or aversion are brought near to these springs of voluntary action. It is only one of these channels. There are many other modes of presenting to the mind the proper objects of the emotions which it is intended to excite, whether of a calmer or of a more active nature ; so that they may influence conduct more powerfully than when they reach the will through the channel of conviction. The distinction between conviction and persuasion would indeed be otherwise without a meaning ; to teach the mind would be the same thing as to move it ; and eloquence would be nothing but logic, although the greater part of the power of the former is displayed in the direct excitement of feeling ; on condition, indeed (for reasons foreign to our present purpose), that the orator shall never appear to give counsel inconsistent with the duty or the lasting welfare of those whom he would persuade. In like manner it is to be observed, that though reasoning be one of the instruments of education, yet education is not a proof of reasoning, but a wise disposal of all the circumstances which influence character, and of the means of producing CLARKE. 87 those habitual dispositions which insure well-doing, of which reasoning is but one. Very similar observations are applicable to the great arts of legislation and government ; which are here only alluded to as forming a strong illustration of the present argument. The abusive extension of the term Reason to the moral faculties, one of the predominant errors of ancient and modern times, has arisen from causes which it is not difficult to dis- cover. Eeason does in truth perform a great part in every case of moral sentiment. To reason often belong the prelimi- naries of the act ; to reason altogether belongs the choice of the means of execution. The operations of reason, in both cases, are comparatively slow and lasting ; they are capable of being distinctly recalled by memory. The emotion which intervenes between the previous and the succeeding exertions of reason is often faint, generally transient, and scarcely ever capable of being reproduced by an effort of the mind. Hence the name of reason is applied to this mixed state of mind ; more especially when the feeling, being of a cold and general nature, and scarcely ruffling the surface of the soul, such as those of prudence and of ordinary kindness and propriety, almost passes unnoticed, and is irretrievably forgotten. Hence the mind is, in such conditions, said by moralists to act from reason, in contradistinction to its more excited and disturbed state, when it is said to act from passion. The calmness of reason gives to the whole compound the appearance of unmixed reason. The illusion is further promoted by a mode of expression used in most languages. A man is said to act reasonably, when his conduct is such as may be. reasonably expected. Amidst the disorders of a vicious mind, it is diffi- cult to form a reasonable conjecture concerning future conduct; but the quiet and well-ordered state of virtue renders the probable acts of her fortunate votaries the object of very rational expectation. 88 MODERN ETHICS: As far as it is not presumptuous to attempt a distinction between modes of thinking foreign to the mind which makes the attempt, and modes of expression scarcely translatable into the only technical language in which that mind is wont to think, it seems [to me] that the systems of Cudworth and Clarke, though they appear very similar, are in reality different in some important points of view. The former, a Platonist, sets out from those IDEAS (a word, in this acceptation of it, which has no corresponding term in English), the eternal models of created things, which, as the Athenian master taught, pre- existed in the everlasting intellect, and, of right, rule the will of every inferior mind. The illustrious scholar of Newton, with a manner of thinking more natural to his age and school, considered primarily the very relations of things themselves ; conceived indeed by the Eternal Mind, but which, if such inadequate language may be pardoned, are the law of its will, as well as the model of its works.* EARL OF SHAFTESBURY. Born 1671 died 1713. LORD SHAFTESBURY, the author of the Characteristics, was the grandson of Sir Anthony Ashley Cooper, created Earl of Shaftesbury, one of the master spirits of the English nation, whose vices, the bitter fruits of the insecurity of a troublous time, succeeded by the corrupting habits of an inconstant, * Mr. Wollaston's system, that morality consisted in acting accord- ing to truth, seems to coincide with that of Dr. Clarke. The murder of Cicero by Popilius Lenas, was, according to him, a practical falsehood ; for Cicero had been his benefactor, but Popilius acted as if that were untrue. If the truth spoken of be, that gratitude is due for benefits, the reasoning is evidently a circle. If any truth be meant, indifferently, it is plain that the assassin acted in perfect conformity to several certain truths : such as the malignity of Antony, the ingratitude and venality of Popilius, and the probable impunity of his crime, when law was sus- pended, and good men without power. SHAFTESBURY. 89 venal, and profligate court, have led an ungrateful posterity to overlook his wisdom and disinterested perseverance, in obtain- ing for the English nation the unspeakable benefits of the Habeas Corpus Act. The fortune of the Characteristics has been singular. For a time the work was admired more undis- tinguishingly than its literary character warrants. In the succeeding period it was justly criticised, but too severely condemned. Of late, more unjustly than in either of the former cases, it has been generally neglected. It seemed to have the power of changing the temper of its critics. It pro- voked the amiable Berkeley to a harshness equally unwonted and unwarranted .;* while it softened the rugged Warburton so far as to dispose the fierce yet not altogether ungenerous polemic to praise an enemy in the very heat of conflict, t * Berkeley's Minute Philosopher, Dialogue iii. ; but especially his Theory of Vision Vindicated, Lond. 1733 (not republished in the quarto edition of his works), where this most excellent man sinks for a moment to the level of a railing polemic. [As I have said in Lecture VIII. of my Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy, this expression is far too strong. What Berkeley says is, " So long as we apprehend no judgment, harbour no fears, and cherish no hopes of a future state, but laugh at all these things with the author of the Characteristics, and those whom he esteems the liberal and polished part of mankind, how can we be said to be religious in any sense ? or what is here that an Atheist may not find his account in as well as a Theist ? " W. W.] t It is remarkable that the most impure passages of "Warburton's composition are those in which he lets loose his controversial zeal, and that he is a fine writer principally where he writes from generous feel- ing. ' ' Of all the virtues which were so much in this noble writer's heart and in his writings, there was not one he more revered than the love of public liberty. . . . The noble author of the Characteristics had many excellent qualities, both as a man and a writer. He was tempe- rate, chaste, honest, and a lover of his country. In his writings he has shown how much he has imbibed the deep sense, and how naturally he could copy the gracious manner, of Plato." (Dedication to the Free- thinkers, prefixed to the Divine Legation. ) Warburton, however, soon relaxes, but not without excuse ; for he thought himself vindicating the memory of Locke. 90 MODERN ETHICS: Leibnitz, the most celebrated of Continental philosophers, warmly applauded the Characteristics, and (what was a more certain proof of admiration), though at an advanced age, criti- cised that work minutely.* Le Clerc, who had assisted the studies of the author, contributed to spread its reputation by his Journal, then the most popular in Europe. Locke is said to have aided in his education, probably rather by counsel than by tuition. The author had indeed been driven from the regular studies of his country by the insults with which he was loaded at Winchester school, when he was only twelve years old, immediatetly after the death of his grand- father ; a choice of time which seemed not so much to indicate anger against the faults of a great man, as triumph over the principles of liberty, which seemed at that time to have fallen for ever. He gave a genuine proof of respect for freedom of thought, by preventing the expulsion, from Holland, of Bayle (with whom he differs in every moral, political, and, it may be truly added, religious opinion), when, it must be owned, the right of asylum was, in strict justice, forfeited by the secret services which the philosopher had rendered to the enemy of Holland and of Europe. In the small part of his short life which premature infirmities allowed him to apply to public affairs, he co-operated zealously with the friends of freedom ; but, as became a moral philosopher, he supported, even against them, a law to allow those who were accused of treason to make their defence by counsel, although the parties first to benefit from this act of imperfect justice were con- spirators to assassinate King "William, and to re-enslave their country. On that occasion,. it is well known with what admirable quickness he took advantage of the embarrassment which seized him, when he rose to address the House of Com- mons. " If I," said he, " who rise only to give my opinion on this bill, am so confounded that I cannot say what I in- * Opera, torn. iii. pp. 39-56. SHAFTESBURY. 91 tended, what must the condition of that man be, who, without assistance, is pleading for his own life !" He was the friend of Lord Somers ; and the tribute paid to his personal character by Warburton, who knew many of his contemporaries and some of his friends, may be considered as evidence of its excellence. His fine genius and generous spirit shine through his writings; but their lustre is often dimmed by peculiarities, and, it must be said, by affectations, which, originating in local, temporary, or even personal circumstances, are par- ticularly fatal to the permanence of fame. There is often a charm in the egotism of an artless writer, or of an actor in great scenes. But other laws are imposed on the literary artist. Lord Shaftesbury, instead of hiding himself behind his work, stands forward with too frequent marks of self- complacency, as a nobleman of polished manners, with a mind adorned by the fine arts, and instructed by ancient philosophy ; shrinking with a somewhat effeminate fastidiousness from the clamour and prejudices of the multitude, whom he neither deigns to conciliate nor puts forth his strength to subdue. The enmity of the majority of churchmen to the government established at the Eevolution was calculated to fill his mind with angry feelings ; which overflow too often, if not upon Christianity itself, yet upon representations of it, closely inter- twined with those religious feelings to which, in other forms, his own philosophy ascribes surpassing worth. His small and occasional writings, of which the main fault is the want of an object or a plan, have many passages remarkable for the utmost beauty and harmony of language. Had he imbibed the sim- plicity, as well as copied the expression and cadence, of the greater ancients, he would have done more justice to his genius ; and his works, like theirs, would have been preserved by that quality, without which but a very few writings, of whatever mental power, have long survived their writers. Grace belongs 92 MODERN ETHICS: only to natural movements ; and Lord Shaftesbury, notwith- standing the frequent beauty of his thoughts and language, has rarely attained it. He is unfortunately prone to pleasantry, which is obstinately averse from constraint, and which he had no interest in raising to be the test of truth. His affecta- tion of liveliness as a man of the world, tempts him sometimes to overstep the indistinct boundaries which separate familiarity from vulgarity. Of his two more considerable writings, The Moralists, on which he evidently most valued himself, and which is spoken of by Leibnitz with enthusiasm, is by no means the happiest. Yet perhaps there is scarcely any com- position in our language more lofty in its moral and religious sentiments, and more exquisitely elegant and musical in its diction, than the Platonic representation of the scale of beauty and love, in the speech to Palemon, near the close of the first part.* Many passages might be quoted, which in some measure justify the enthusiasm of the septuagenarian geometer. Yet it is not to be concealed that, as a whole, it is heavy and languid. It is a modern antique. The dialogues of Plato are often very lively representations of conversations which might take place daily at a great university, full, like Athens, of rival professors and eager disciples between men of various character, and great fame as well as ability. Socrates runs through them all. His great abilities, his still more venerable virtues, his cruel fate, especially when joined to his very characteristic peculiarities, to his grave humour, to his homely sense, to his assumed humility, to the honest slyness with which he ensnared the Sophists, and to the intrepidity with which he dragged them to justice, gave unity and dra- matic interest to these dialogues as a whole. But Lord Shaftesbury's dialogue is between fictitious personages, and in a tone at utter variance with English conversation. He had great power of thought and command over words. But * Characteristics, Treatise v. The Moralists, Part i. sect. 3. SHAFTESBURY. 93 he had no talent for inventing character and bestowing life on it. The Inquiry concerning Virtue* is nearly exempt from the faulty peculiarities of the author ; the method is perfect, the reasoning just, the style precise and clear. The writer has no purpose but that of honestly proving his principles ; he himself altogether disappears ; and he is intent only on earnestly enforcing what he truly, conscientiously, and reason- ably believes. Hence the charm of simplicity is revived in this production, which is unquestionably entitled to a place in the first rank of English tracts on Moral Philosophy. The point on which it becomes especially pertinent to the subject of this volume is, that it contains more intima- tions of an original and important nature on the Theory of Ethics, than perhaps any preceding work of modern times, t It is true that they are often but intimations, cursory, and appearing almost to be casual ; so that many of them have escaped the notice of most readers, and even writers on these subjects. That the consequences of some of them are even yet not unfolded, must be owned to be a proof that they are inadequately stated ; and may be regarded as a presumption that the author did not closely examine the bearings of his own positions. Among the most important of these suggestions is, the existence of dispositions in man, by which he takes pleasure in the well-being of others, without any further view ; a doctrine, however, to all the consequences of which he has not been faithful in his other writings.^ Another is, * Characteristics, Treatise iv. t I am not without suspicion that I have overlooked the claims of Dr. Henry More, who, notwithstanding some uncouthness of language, seems to have given the first intimations of a distinct moral faculty, which he calls "the Boniform Faculty;" a phrase against which an outcry would now be raised as German. Happiness, according to him, consists in a constant satisfaction, ev ry ayaBoeiSei TIJS ^vx^- (Enchi- ridion Ethicum, lib. i. cap. ii.) J "It is the height of wisdom, no doubt, to be rightly selfish." Charac. I. 121.) The observation seems to be taken from what 94 MODERN ETHICS: that goodness consists in the prevalence of love for the system of which we are a part, over the passions pointing to our indi- vidual welfare ; a proposition which somewhat confounds the motives of right acts with their tendency, and seems to favour the melting of all particular affections into general benevolence, because the tendency of these affections is to general good. The next, and certainly the most original, as well as im- portant, is, that there are certain affections of the mind which, being contemplated by the mind itself through what he calls a reflex sense, become the objects of love, or the contrary, according to their nature. So approved and loved, they constitute virtue or merit, as distinguished from mere good- ness, of which there are traces in animals who do not appear to reflect on the state of their own minds, and who seem, therefore, destitute of what he elsewhere calls a moral sense. These statements are, it is true, far too short and vague. He nowhere inquires into the origin of the reflex sense. What is a much more material defect, he makes no attempt to ascertain in what state of mind it consists. We discover only by implication, and by the use of the term sense, that he searches for the fountain of moral sentiments, not in mere reason, where Cudworth and Clarke had vainly sought for it, but in the heart, whence the main branch of them assuredly flows. It should never be forgotten that we owe to these hints the reception, into ethical theory, of a moral sense, which, whatever may be thought of its origin, or in whatever words it may be described, must always retain its place in such theory as a main principle of our moral nature. His demonstration of the utility of virtue to the indi- vidual far surpasses all attempts of the same nature ; being founded, not on a calculation of outward advantages or in- conveniences, alike uncertain, precarious, and degrading, but Aristotle says of ftAoima : Tov fiev ayaBov Set i\avrov eivai. (Arist. Ethic, i. x. ; c. viii.) The chapter is admirable, and the assertion of Aristotle is very capable of a good sense. SHAFTESBURY. 95 on the unshaken foundation of the delight, which is of the ', very essence of social affection and virtuous sentiment ; on the dreadful agony inflicted by all malevolent passions upon every soul that harbours the hellish inmates, on the all-im-j I y portant truth that to love is to be happy, and to hate is to be \ miserable, that affection is its own reward, and ill-will its own punishment ; or, as it has been more simply and more affectingly, as well as with more sacred authority, taught, that to give is more blessed than to receive, and that to love one another is the sum of all human virtue. The relation of religion to morality, as far as it can be discovered by human reason, was never more justly or more beautifully stated. * If he represented the mere hope of reward and dread of punishment as selfish and therefore inferior motives to virtue and piety, he distinctly owns their efficacy in reclaiming from vice, in rousing from lethargy, and in guarding a feeble penitence ; in all which he coincides with illustrious and zealous Christian writers. " If by the hope of reward be understood the love and desire of virtuous enjoyment, or of the very practice and exercise of virtue in another life : an expectation or hope of this kind is so far from being derogatory from virtue, that it is an evidence of our loving it the more sincerely, and for its own sake." f * Characteristics, Inquiry concerning Virtue. t Ibid. So Jeremy Taylor : "He that is grown in grace pursues virtue purely and simply for its own interest. When persons come to that height of Grace, and love God for himself, that is but heaven in another sense." (Sermon on Growth in Grace.) So before him the once cele- brated Mr. John Smith of Cambridge : "The happiness which good men shall partake is not distinct from their Godlike nature. Happi- ness and Holiness are but two several notions of the same thing. Hell is rather a nature than a place, and Heaven cannot be so well defined by anything without us, as by something within us. " (Select Discourses, 2d edit. Cambridge, 1673.) In accordance with these old authorities is the recent language of a most ingenious as well as benevolent and pious writer. " The holiness 96 MODERN ETHICS: FNLON BOSSUET. Fenelon, born 1651 died 1715. Bossuet, born 1627 died 1704. As the last question, though strictly speaking theological, is yet in truth dependent on the more general question, which relates to the reality of disinterested affections in human nature, it seems not foreign from the present purpose to give a short account of a dispute on the subject in France, between two of the most eminent persons of their time ; namely, the controversy between Fe"nelon and Bossuet, concerning the possibility of men being influenced by the pure and dis- interested love of God. Never were two great men more unlike. Fenelon, in his writings, exhibits more of the qualities which predispose to religious feelings than any other equally conspicuous person ; a mind so pure as steadily to contemplate supreme excellence ; a heart capable of being touched and affected by the contemplation ; a gentle and modest spirit, not elated by the privilege, but seeing its own want of worth as it came nearer to such brightness, and dis- posed to treat with compassionate forbearance those errors in others, of which it felt a humbling consciousness. Bossuet of heaven is still more attractive to the Christian than its happiness. The desire of doing that which is right for its own sake is a part of his desire after heaven." (Unconditional Freeness of the Gospel, by T. Erskine, Esq., pp. 32, 33. Edin. 1828.) See also the Appendix to Ward's Life of Henry More, 247-271. This account of that ingenious and amiable philosopher (Lond. 1710) contains an interesting view of his opinions, and many beautiful pass- ages of his writings, but unfortunately very few particulars of the man. His letters on Disinterested Piety (see the appendix to Mr. Ward's work), his boundless charity, his zeal for the utmost toleration, and his hope of general improvement from " a pacific and perspicacious posterity," place him high in the small number of true philosophers who, in their estimate of men, value dispositions more than opinions, and, in their search for good, more often look forward than backward. FENELON BOSSUET. 97 P was rather a great minister in the ecclesiastical common- wealth ; employing knowledge, eloquence, argument, the energy of his character, the influence, and even the authority of his station, to vanquish opponents, to extirpate revolters, and, sometimes with a patrician firmness, to withstand the dictatorial encroachment of the Roman Pontiff on the spiritual aristocracy of France. Fenelon had been appointed tutor to the Duke of Burgundy. He had all the qualities which fit a man to be the preceptor of a prince, and which most disable him to get or to keep the office. Even birth and urbanity, and accomplishment and vivacity, were an insufficient atone- ment for his genius and virtue. Louis XIV. distrusted so fine a spirit, and appears to have early suspected that a fancy moved by such benevolence might imagine examples for his grandson which the world would consider as a satire on his own reign. Madame de Maintenon, indeed, favoured him ; but he was generally believed to have forfeited her good graces by discouraging her projects for at least a nearer ap- proach to a seat on the throne. He offended her by obeying , her commands, in laying before her an account of her faults, and some of those of her royal husband, which was probably the more painfully felt for its mildness, justice, and refined observation.* An opportunity for driving such an intruder from a court presented itself somewhat strangely, in the form of a subtile controversy on one of the most abstruse questions of metaphysical theology. Molinos, a Spanish priest, reviving and perhaps exaggerating the maxims of the ancient Mystics, had recently taught that Christian perfection consisted in the I pure love of God, without hope of reward or fear of punish- I ment. This offence he expiated by seven years' imprison- ment in the dungeons of the Eoman Inquisition. His opinions were embraced by Madame Guyon, a pious French lady of strong feeling and active imagination, who appears to * Bausset, ffistoire de Ftntlon, i. 252. H 98 MODERN ETHICS : have expressed them in a hyperbolical language, not infre- quent in devotional exercises, especially in those of otherwise amiable persons of her sex and character. In the fervour of her zeal she disregarded the usages of the world and the de- corums imposed on females. She left her family, took a part in public conferences, and assumed an independence scarcely reconcilable with the more ordinary and more pleasing virtues of women. Her pious effusions were examined with the rigour which might be exercised on theological propositions. She was falsely charged by Harlay, the dissolute archbishop of Paris, with personal licentiousness. For these crimes she was dragged from convent to convent, imprisoned for years in the Bastile, and, as an act of mercy, confined during the latter years of her life to a provincial town, as a prison at large. A piety thus pure and disinterested could not fail to please Fene"lon. He published a work in justification of Madame Guyon's character, and in explanation of the degree in which he agreed with her. Bossuet, the oracle and champion of the church, took up arms against him. It would be painful to suppose that a man of so great powers was actuated by mean jealousy, and it is needless. The union of zeal for opinion with the pride of authority, is apt to give sternness to the ad- ministration of controversial bishops ; to say nothing of the haughty and inflexible character of Bossuet himself. He could not brook the independence of him who was hitherto so docile a scholar and so gentle a friend. He was jealous 01 novelties, and dreaded a fervour of piety likely to be un- governable, and perhaps to excite movements of which no man could foresee the issue. It must be allowed that he had reason to be displeased with the indiscretion and turbulence of the innovators, and might apprehend that, in preaching motives to virtue and religion which he thought unattainable, the coarser but surer foundations of common morality might be loosened. A controversy ensued, in which he employed BOSSUET. 99 the utmost violence of polemical or factious contest. Fene- lon replied with brilliant success, and submitted his book to the judgment of Koine. After a long examination, the com- mission of ten Cardinals appointed to examine it were equally divided, and he seemed in consequence about to be acquitted. But Bossuet had in the meantime easily gained Louis XIV. Madame de Maintenon betrayed FSnelon's confidential corre- spondence ; and he was banished to his diocese, and deprived of his pensions and official apartments in the palace. Louis XIV. regarded the slightest differences from the authorities of the French church as rebellion against himself. Though endowed with much natural good sense, he was too grossly ignorant to be made to comprehend one of the terms of the question in dispute. He did not, however, scruple to urge the Pope to the condemnation of Fenclon. Innocent XII. (Pig- natelli), an aged and pacific Pontiff, was desirous of avoiding such harsh measures. He said that " the archbishop of Cam- bray might have erred from excess in the love of God, but the bishop of Meux had sinned by a defect of the love of his neighbour."* But he was compelled to condemn a series of propositions, of which the first was, "There is an habitual state of love to God, which is pure from every motive of personal interest, and in which neither the fear of punish- ment nor the hope of reward has any part." t Fe"nelon read the bull which condemned him in his own cathedral, and professed as humble a submission as the lowest of his flock In some of the writings of his advanced years, which have been recently published, we observe with regret that, when wearied out by his exile, ambitious to regain a place at court through the Jesuits, or prejudiced against the Calvinising doctrines of the Jansenists, the strongest anti-papal party among Catholics, or somewhat detached from a cause of * Bausset, 'Histoire de Fin&lon, ii. 220, note. t (Euvres de Bossuet, viii. 308. Liege, 1767, 8vo. 100 MODERN ETHICS : which his great antagonist had been the victorious leader, he made concessions to the absolute monarchy of Rome which did not become a luminary of the Gallican Church. * Bossuet, in his writings on this occasion, besides tradition and authorities, relied mainly on the supposed principle of philosophy, that man must desire his own happiness, and can- not desire anything else, otherwise than as a means towards it ; which renders the controversy an incident in the history of Ethics. It is immediately connected with the preceding part of this work by the almost literal coincidence between Bossuet's foremost objection to the disinterested piety con- tended for by Fenelon, and the fundamental position of a very ingenious and once noted divine of the English church, in his attack on the disinterested affections, believed by Shaftes- bury to be a part of human nature, t LEIBNITZ. Born 1646 died 1716. THERE is a singular contrast between the form of Leibnitz's writings and the character of his mind. The latter was * De summi Pontificis Auctoritate Dissertatio : (Euvres de Fenelon, tome ii. Versailles, 1820. t " Hsec est natura voluntatis humanse, ut et beatitudinem, et ea quorum necessaria connexio cum beatitudine clare intelligitur, neces- sario appetat. . . . Nullus est- actus ad quem revera non impellimur motivo beatitudinis, explicite vel implicite ; " meaning by the latter that it may be concealed from ourselves, as he says, for a short time, by a nearer object. ((Euvres de Bossuet, viii. 80.) "The only motive by which individuals can be induced to the practice of virtue, must be the feeling or the prospect of private happiness. " (Brown's Essays on the Characteristics, p. 159. Loud. 1752.) It must, however, be owned, that the selfishness of the "Warburtonian is more rigid ; making no pro- vision for the object of one's own happiness slipping out of view for a moment. It is due to the very ingenious author of this forgotten book to add, that it is full of praise of his adversary, which, though just, was in the answerer generous ; and that it contains an assertion of the unbounded right of public discussion, unusual even at the tolerant period of its appearance. LEIBNITZ. 101 systematical, even to excess. It was the vice of his pro- digious intellect, on every subject of science where it was not bound by geometrical chains, to confine his view to those most general principles, so well called by Bacon "merely notional;" which render it, indeed, easy to build a system, but only because they may be alike adapted to every state of appearances, and become thereby really inapplicable to any. Though his genius was thus naturally turned to system, his writings were, generally, occasional and miscellaneous. The fragments of his doctrines are scattered in Eeviews ; or over a voluminous Literary Correspondence ; or in the Prefaces and Introductions to those compilations to which this great philosopher was obliged by his situation to descend. This defective and disorderly mode of publication arose partly from the jars between business and study, inevitable in his course of life ; but probably yet more from the nature of his system, which, while it widely deviates from the most general prin- ciples of former philosophers, is ready to embrace their parti- cular doctrines under its own generalities, and thus to reconcile them to each other, as well as to accommodate itself to popular or established opinions, and compromise with them according to his favourite and oft-repeated maxim, that most received doctrines are capable of a good sense;"* by which last words our philosopher meant a sense reconcilable with his own principles. Partial and occasional exhibitions of these prin- ciples suited better that constant negotiation with opinions, establishments, and prejudices, to which extreme generalities are well adapted, than a full and methodical statement of the whole at once. It is the lot of every philosopher who attempts to make his principles extremely flexible, that they * Nouveaux Essais sur V Entendement ffumain, liv. i. chap. ii. p. 57. These Essays, which form the greater part of the publication en- titled CEuvres Philosophiqiies, edited by Raspe, Amst. et Leipz. 1765, are not included in Dutens's edition of Leibnitz's works. 102 MODERN ETHICS : become like those tools which bend so easily as to penetrate nothing. Yet his manner of publication perhaps led him to those wide intuitions, as comprehensive as those of Bacon, of which he expressed the result as briefly and pithily as Hobbes. The fragment which contains his ethical principles is the Pre- face to a collection of documents illustrative of international law, published at Hanover in 1693;* to which he often referred as his standard afterwards, especially when he speaks of Lord Shaftesbury, or of the controversy between the two great theologians of France. "Eight," says he, "is moral power ; obligation, moral necessity. By moral, I understand what with a good man prevails as much as if it were physical. A good man is he who loves all men as far as reason allows. , Justice is the benevolence of a wise man. To love is to be Ivleased with the happiness of another ; or, in other words, to ^convert the happiness of another into a part of one's own. Hence is explained the possibility of a disinterested love. When we are pleased with the happiness of any being, his happiness becomes one of our enjoyments. Wisdom is the science of happiness, "f Remarks. It is apparent from the above passage, that Leibnitz had touched the truth on the subject of disinterested affection ; and that he was more near clinging to it than any modern philosopher, except Lord Shaftesbury. It is evident, however, from the latter part of it, that, like Shaftesbury, he shrunk from his own just conception ; under the influence of that most ancient and far-spread prejudice of the schools, which assumed that such an abstraction as Happiness could be the object of love, and that the desire of so faint, distant, and refined an object, was the first principle of all moral nature, of which every other desire was only a modification or * Codex Juris Gentium Diplomaticus. Hanov. 1695. t See Notes and Illustrations, Note N. LEIBNITZ. 103 a fruit. Both he and Shaftesbury, however, when they relapsed into the selfish system, embraced it in its most refined form ; considering the benevolent affections as valuable parts of our own happiness, not in consequence of any of their effects or extrinsic advantages, but of that intrinsic delightfulness which was inherent in their very essence. But Leibnitz considered this refined pleasure as the object in the view of the bene- volent man ; an absurdity, or rather a contradiction, which, at least in the Inquiry concerning Virtue, Shaftesbury avoids. It will be seen from Leibnitz's limitation, taken together with his definition of Wisdom, that he regarded the distinction of the moral sentiments from the social affections, and the just subordination of the latter, as entirely founded on the tend- ency of general happiness to increase that of the agent, not merely as being real, but as being present to the agent's mind when he acts. In a subsequent passage he lowers his tone not a little. " As for the sacrifice of life, or the endurance of the greatest pain for others, these things are rather generously enjoined than solidly demonstrated by philosophers. For honour, glory, and self- congratulation, to which they appeal under the name of Virtue, are indeed mental pleasures, and of a high degree, but not to all, nor outweighing every bitterness of suffering ; since all cannot imagine them with equal vivacity, and that power is little possessed by those whom neither education, nor situation, nor the doctrines of religion or philo- sophy, have taught to value mental gratifications."* He con- cludes very truly, that morality is completed by a belief of moral government. But the Inquiry concerning Virtue had reached that conclusion by a better road. It entirely escaped his sagacity, as it has that of nearly all other moralists, that the coincidence of morality with well-understood interest in our outward actions, is very far from being the most important part of the question ; for these actions flow from habitual * See Notes and Illustrations, Note N. 104 MODERN ETHICS : dispositions, from affections and sensibilities, which determine their nature. There may he, and there are, many immoral acts, which, in the sense in which words are commonly used, are advantageous to the actor. But the whole sagacity and ingenuity of the world may he safely challenged to point out a case in which virtuous dispositions, habits, and feelings, are not conducive in the highest degree to the happiness of the individual ; or to maintain that he is not the happiest, whose moral sentiments and affections are such as to prevent the possibility of the prospect of advantage through unlawful means from presenting itself to his mind. It would indeed have been impossible to prove to Eegulus that it was his interest to return to a death of torture in Africa. But what if the proof had been easy 1 The most thorough conviction on such a point would not have enabled him to set this example, if he had not been supported by his own integrity and generosity, by love of his country, and reverence for his pledged faith. What could the conviction add to that great- ness of soul, and to these glorious attributes ? With such virtues he could not act otherwise than he did. Would a father, affectionately interested in a son's happiness, of very lukewarm feelings of morality, but of good sense enough to weigh gratifications and sufferings exactly, be really desirous that his son should have these virtues in a less degree than Eegulus, merely because they might expose him to the fate which Eegulus chose ? On the coldest calculation he would surely perceive that the high and glowing feelings of such a mind during life, altogether throw into shade a few hours of agony in leaving it. And, if he himself were so unfortunate that no more generous sentiment arose in his mind to silence such calculations, would it not be a reproach to his under- standing not to discover, that though, in one case out of millions, such a character might lead a Eegulus to torture, yet, in the common course of nature, it is the source not only of LEIBNITZ MALEBRANCHE. 105 happiness in life, but of quiet and honour in death ? A case so extreme as that of Regulus will not perplex, if we bear in mind, that though we cannot prove the act of heroic virtue to be conducive to the interest of the hero, yet we may perceive at once that nothing is so conducive to his interest as to have a mind so formed that it could not shrink from it, but must rather embrace it with gladness and triumph. Men of vigorous health are said sometimes to suffer most in a pestilence. No man was ever so absurd as for that reason to wish that he were more infirm. The distemper might return once in a century. If he were then alive, he might escape it ; and even if he fell, the balance of advantage would be, in most cases, greatly on the side of robust health. In estimating beforehand the value of a strong bodily frame, a man of sense would throw the small chance of a rare and short evil entirely out of the account. So must the coldest and most selfish moral calculator, who, if he be sagacious and exact, must pro- nounce that the inconveniences to which a man may be sometimes exposed by a pure and sound mind, are no reasons for regretting that we do not escape them by possessing minds more enfeebled and distempered. Other occasions will call our attention, in the sequel, to this important part of the sub- ject. But the great name of Leibnitz seemed to require that his degrading statement should not be cited without warning the reader against its egregious fallacy. MALEBRANCHE. Born 1638 died 1715. THIS ingenious philosopher and beautiful writer is the only celebrated Cartesian who has professedly handled the Theory of Morals.* His theory has in some points of view a con- formity to the doctrine of Clarke ; while in others it has * Traite de Morale. Kotterdam, 1634. 106 MODERN ETHICS : given occasion to his English follower Norris * to say, that if the Quakers understood their own opinion of the illumination of all men, they would explain it on the principles of Male- branche. " There is," says he, " one parent virtue, the uni- versal virtue, the virtue which renders us just and perfect, the virtue which will one day render us happy. It is the only virtue. It is the love of the universal order, as it eternally existed in the Divine reason, where every created reason con- templates it. This order is composed of practical as well as speculative truth. Eeason perceives the moral superiority of one being over another, as immediately as the equality of the radii of the same circle. The relative perfection of beings is that part of the immovable order to which men must conform their minds and their conduct. The love of order is the whole of virtue, and conformity to order constitutes the morality of actions." It is not difficult to discover, that in spite of the singular skill employed in weaving this web, it answers no other purpose than that of hiding the whole difficulty. The love of universal order, says Malebranche, requires that we should value an animal more than a stone, because it is more valuable ; and love God infinitely more than man, because he is infinitely better. But without presupposing the reality of moral distinctions, and the power of moral feelings, the two points to be proved, how can either of these proposi- tions be evident, or even intelligible ? To say that a love of the eternal order will produce the love and practice of every virtue, is an assertion untenable unless we take morality for granted, and useless if we do. In his work on Morals, all the incidental and secondary remarks are equally well considered and well expressed. The manner in which he applied his principle to the particulars * Author of the Theory of the Ideal World, who well copied, though he did not equal, the clearness and choice of expression which belonged to his master. MALEBRANCHE EDWARDS. 107 of human duty is excellent. He is perhaps the first philo- sopher who has precisely laid down and rigidly adhered to the great principle that virtue consists in pure intentions and f dispositions of mind, without which, actions, however con- ' formable to rules, are not truly moral ; a truth of the highest importance, which, in the theological form, may be said to have been the main principle of the first Protestant Reformers. The ground of piety, according to him, is the conformity of the attributes of God to those moral qualities which we irre- sistibly love and revere.* "Sovereign princes," says he, "have no right to use their authority without reason. Even God has no such miserable right." t His distinction between a religious society and an established church, and his assertion of the right of the temporal power alone to employ coercion, are worthy of notice, as instances in which a Catholic, at once philosophical and orthodox, could thus speak, not only of the nature of God, but of the rights of the church. JONATHAN EDWARDS. Born 1703, at Windsor, Connecticut died 1758, at Princetown, New Jersey. THIS remarkable man, the metaphysician of America, was formed among the Calvinists of New England, when their stern doctrine retained its rigorous authority .| His power of subtile argument, perhaps unmatched, certainly unsurpassed among men, was joined, as in some of the ancient Mystics, with a character which raised his piety to fervour. He embraced their doctrine, probably without knowing it to be * "II faut aimer 1'Etre infiniraent parfait, et non pas un fant6me epouvantable, un Dieu injuste, absolu, puissant, mais sans bonte et sans sagesse. S'il y avoit un tel Dieu, le vrai Dieu nous defendroit de 1'adorer et de 1' aimer. II y a peut-etre plus de danger d'offenser Dieu lorsqu'on lui donne une forme si horrible, que de mepriser ce fantome." (TraitS de Morale, chap, viii.) f Ibid. chap. xxii. Notes and Illustrations, Note 0. 108 MODERN ETHICS : theirs. " True religion," says he, " in a great measure consists in holy affections. A love of divine things, for the beauty and sweetness of their moral excellency, is the spring of all holy affections."* Had he suffered this noble principle to take the right road to all its fair consequences, he would have entirely concurred with Plato, with Shaftesbury, and Male- branche, in devotion to " the first good, first perfect, and first fair." But he thought it necessary afterwards to limit his doctrine to his own persuasion, by denying that such moral excellence could be discovered in divine things by those Christians who did not take the same view with him of their religion. All others, and some who hold his doctrines with a more enlarged spirit, may adopt his principle without any limitation. His ethical theory is contained in his Disserta- tion on the Nature of True Virtue ; and in another, On God's Chief End in the Creation, published in London thirty years after his death. True virtue, according to him, consists in benevolence, or love to being "in general," which he after- wards limits to "intelligent being," though sentient would have involved a more reasonable limitation. This good-will _is felt towards a particular being, first in proportion to his \ degree of existence (for, says he, " that which is great has more existence, and is farther from nothing, than that which is little"); and secondly, in proportion to the degree in which I that particular being feels benevolence to others. Thus God, having infinitely more existence and benevolence than man, ought to be infinitely more loved ; and for the same reason, God must love himself infinitely more than he does all other beings.t He can act only from regard to himself, and his * Edwards on Religious Affections, pp. 4, 187. Lond. 1796. + The coincidence of Malebranche with this part of Edwards is remarkable. Speaking of the Supreme Being, he says, " II s'aime in- vinciblement. " He adds another more startling expression, " Certaine- ment Dieu ne pent agir que pour lui-meme : il n'a point d'autre motif que son amour propre." (TraiU de Morale, chap, xvii.) EDWARDS. 109 end in creation can only be to manifest his whole nature, which is called acting for his own glory. As far as Edwards confines himself to created beings, and while his theory is perfectly intelligible, it coincides with that of universal benevolence, hereafter to be considered. The term being is a mere encumbrance, which serves indeed to give it a mysterious outside, but brings with it from the schools nothing except their obscurity. He was betrayed into it by the cloak which it threw over his really unmeaning assertion or assumption, that there are degrees of existence ; without which that part of his system which relates to the Deity would have appeared to be as baseless as it really is. When we try such a phrase by applying it to matters within the sphere of our experience, we see that it means nothing but degrees of certain faculties and powers. But the very application of the term being to all things, shows that the least perfect has as much being as the most perfect ; or rather that there can be no difference, so far as that word is concerned, between two things to which is it alike applicable. The just- ness of the compound proportion on which human virtue is made to depend, is capable of being tried by an easy test. If we suppose the greatest of evil spirits to have a hundred times the bad passions of Marcus Aurelius, and at the same time a hundred times his faculties, or, in Edwards's language, a hundred times his quantity of being, it follows, from this moral theory, that we ought to esteem and love the devil exactly in the same degree as we esteem and love Marcus Aurelius. The chief circumstance which justifies so much being said on the last two writers, is their concurrence in a point towards which Ethical Philosophy had been slowly approaching from the time of the controversies raised up by Hobbes. They both indicate the increase of this tendency, by introducing an element into their theory, foreign from those cold systems 110 MODERN ETHICS : of ethical abstraction, with which they continued in other respects to have much in common. Malebranche makes virtue consist in the love of order, Edwards in the love of being. In this language we perceive a step beyond the representation of Clarke, which made it a conformity to the relations of things ; but a step which cannot be made without passing into a new province ; without confessing by the use of the word love, that not only perception and reason, but emotion and sentiment, are among the fundamental prin- ciples of morals. They still, however, were so wedded to scholastic prejudice, as to choose two of the most aerial abstractions which can be introduced into argument being and order to be the objects of those strong active feelings which were to govern the human mind. " BUTTIER. Born 1661 died 1737. THE same strange disposition to fix on abstractions as the objects of our primitive feelings, and the end sought by our warmest desires, manifests itself in the ingenious writer with whom this part of the present work closes, under a form of less dignity than that which it assumes in the hands of Malebranche and Clarke. Buffier, the only Jesuit whose name has a place in the history of Abstract Philosophy, has no peculiar opinions which would have required any mention of him as a moralist, were it not for the just reputation of his treatise on First Truths, with which Dr. Reid so remarkably, though unaware of its existence, coincides, even in the mis- application of so practical a term as common sense to denote the faculty which recognises the truth of First Principles. His philosophical writings * are remarkable for that perfect clearness of expression, which, since the great examples of * Cours de Sciences. Paris, 1732, folio. ! BUFFIER. Ill Descartes and Pascal, has been so generally diffused as to have become one of the enviable peculiarities of French philoso- phical style, and almost of the French language. His ethical doctrine is that most commonly received among philosophers, from Aristotle to Paley and Bentham : " I desire to be happy ; but, as I live with other men, I cannot be happy without consulting their happiness : " a proposition perfectly true indeed, but far too narrow, as inferring that in the most benevolent acts a man must pursue only his own interest, from the fact that the practice of benevolence does increase his happiness ; and that because a virtuous mind is likely to be the happiest, our observation of that property of virtue is the cause of our love and reverence for it. 112 MODERN ETHICS SECTION VI. FOUNDATIONS OF A MORE JUST THEORY OF ETHICS. Butler Hutcheson Berkeley Hume Smith Price Hartley Tucker Paley Bentham Stewart Brown. FROM the beginning of ethical controversy to the eighteenth century, it thus appears that the care of the individual for himself, and his regard for the things which preserve self, were thought to form the first, and in the opinion of most, the earliest of all the principles which prompt men and other animals to activity ; that nearly all philosophers regarded the appetites and desires, which look only to self-gratification, as modifications of this primary principle of self-love ; and that a very numerous body considered even the social affections themselves as nothing more than the produce of a more latent and subtile operation of the desire of interest, and of the pursuit of pleasure. It is true, they often spoke otherwise ; but it was rather from the looseness and fluctuation of their language, than from distrust in their doctrine. It is true, also, that perhaps all represented the gratifications of virtue as more unmingled, more secure, more frequent, and more lasting, than other pleasures ; without which they could neither have retained a hold on the assent of mankind, nor reconciled the principles of their systems with the testimony of their hearts. We have seen how some began to be roused from a lazy acquiescence in this ancient hypothesis by the monstrous consequences which Hobbes had legitimately deduced from it. A few, of pure minds and great intellect, laboured to render morality disinterested, by tracing it to reason as its source ; without considering that reason, elevated BUTLER. 113 indeed far a"bove interest, is also separated by an impassable I gulf from feeling, affection, and passion. At length it was perceived by more than one, that through whatever length of reasoning the mind may pass in its advances towards action, there is placed at the end of any avenue through which it can advance, some principle wholly unlike mere reason some emotion or sentiment which must be touched, before the springs of will and action can be set in motion. Had Lord Shaftesbury steadily adhered to his own principles had Leibnitz not recoiled from his statement the truth might have been regarded as promulged, though not unfolded. The writings of both prove, at least to us, enlightened as we are by what followed, that they were skilful in. sounding, and that their lead had touched the bottom. But it was reserved for another moral philosopher to determine this hitherto unfathomed depth.* BUTLER. Bom 1692 died 1752. BUTLER, who was the son of a Presbyterian trader, early gave such promise, as to induce his father to fit him, by a proper * The doctrine of the Stoics is thus put by Cicero into the mouth of Cato : " Placet his, inquit, quorum ratio mihi probatur, simul atque natum sit animal (hinc enim est ordiendum) ipsum sibi conciliari et commendari ad se conservandum, et ad suum statum, et ad ea quse conservantia sunt ejus status diligenda ; alienari autem ab interitu, iisque rebus quae interitum videantur afferre. Id ita esse sic probant, quod, antequam voluptas aut dolor attigerit, salutaria appetant parvi, aspernenturque contraria. Quod non fieret, nisi statum suum diligerent, interitum timerent. Fieri autem non posset utt appeterent aliquid, nisi sensum haberent sui, eoque se, et sua diligerent. Ex QUO INTELLIGI DEBET, PRINCIPIUM DUCTUM ESSE A SE DILIGENDI. " (De Finibus, lib. iii. cap. v.) We are told that diligendo is the reading of an ancient MS. Perhaps the omission of "a" would be the easiest and most reasonable emendation. The above passage is perhaps the fullest and plainest statement of the doctrines prevalent till the time of Butler. I 114 MODERN ETHICS : education, for being a minister of that persuasion. He was educated at one of their seminaries, under Mr. Jones of Gloucester, where Seeker, afterwards Archbishop of Canter- bury, was his fellow-student. Though many of the dissenters had then begun to relinquish Calvinism, the uniform effect of that doctrine, in disposing its adherents to metaphysical speculation, long survived the opinions which caused it, and cannot be doubted to have influenced the mind of Butler. When a student at the academy of Gloucester, he wrote private letters to Dr. Clarke on his celebrated Demonstration, suggesting objections which were really insuperable, and which are marked by an acuteness which neither himself nor any other ever surpassed. Clarke, whose heart was as well schooled as his head, published the letters, with his own answers, in the next edition of his work ; and, by his good offices with his friend and follower, Sir Joseph Jekyll, obtained for the young philosopher an early opportunity of making his abilities and opinions known, by the appointment of preacher at the Chapel of the Master of the Rolls. He was afterwards raised to one of the highest seats on the Episcopal bench, through the philosophical taste of Queen Caroline, and her influence over the mind of her husband, which continued long after her death. " He was wafted," says Horace Walpole, " to the see of Durham, on a cloud of Metaphysics."* Even in the fourteenth year of his widowhood, George II. was desirous of inserting the name of the Queen's metaphysical favourite in the Regency Bill of 1751. His great work on the Analogy of Religion to the Course of Nature, though only a commentary on the singularly original and pregnant passage of Origen, which is so honestly prefixed to it as a motto, is, notwithstanding, the most original and profound work extant in any language on the Philosophy of Religion. It is entirely beyond our present scope. His * Walpole's Memoirs. BUTLER. 115 ethical discussions are contained in those deep and sometimes dark dissertations which he preached at the Chapel of the Rolls, and afterwards published under the name of Sermons, while he was yet fresh from the schools, and full of that courage with which youth often delights to exercise its strength in abstract reasoning, and to push its faculties into the recesses of abstruse speculation. But his youth was that of a sober and mature mind, early taught by nature to discern the bound- aries of knowledge, and to abstain from fruitless efforts to reach inaccessible ground. In these sermons,* he has taught truths more capable of being exactly distinguished from the doc- trines of his predecessors, more satisfactorily established by him, more comprehensively applied to particulars, more rationally connected with each other, and therefore more worthy of the name of discovery, than any with which we are acquainted ; if we ought not, with some hesitation, to except the first steps of the Grecian philosophers towards a Theory of Morals. It is a peculiar hardship that the extreme ambiguity of language, an obstacle which it is one of the chief merits of an ethical philosopher to vanquish, is one of the circumstances which prevent men from seeing the justice of applying to him so ambitious a term as discovery. Butler owed more to Lord / Shaftesbury than to all other writers besides. He is just and ' generous towards that philosopher; yet, whoever carefully compares their writings, will without difficulty distinguish the two builders, and the larger as well as more regular and laboured part of the edifice, which is due to Butler. Mankind have various principles of action ; some leading directly to the private good, some immediately to the good of the community. But the private desires are not self-love, or * See Sermons i. ii. and iii. on Human Nature ; v. on Compassion ; viii. on Resentment ; ix. on Forgiveness ; xi. and xii. on the Love of our Neighbour ; and xiii. on the Love of God ; together with the excel- lent Preface. 116 MODEKN ETHICS : any form of it ; for self-love is the desire of a man's own happiness, whereas the object of an appetite or passion is some outward thing. Self-love seeks things as means of happiness ; the private appetites seek things, not as means, but as ends. A man eats from hunger, and drinks from thirst ; and though he knows that these acts are necessary to life, that knowledge is not the motive of his conduct. No gratification can indeed be imagined without a previous desire. If all the particular desires did not exist independently, self- love would have no object to employ itself about ; for there would be no happiness, which, by the very supposition of the opponents, is made up of the gratifications of various desires. No pursuit could be selfish or interested, if there were not satisfactions first gained by appetites which seek their own outward objects without regard to self; which satisfactions compose the mass which is called a man's interest. In contending, therefore, that the benevolent affections are disinterested, no more is claimed for them than must be granted to mere animal appetites and to malevolent passions. Each of these principles alike seeks its own object, for the sake simply of obtaining it. Pleasure is the result of the attainment, but no separate part of the aim of the agent. The desire that another person may be gratified, seeks that outward object alone, according to the general course of human desire. Resentment is as disinterested as gratitude or pity, but not more so. Hunger or thirst may be, as much as the purest benevolence, at variance with self-love. A regard to our own general happiness is not a vice ; but in itself an excellent quality. It were well if it prevailed more generally over craving and short-sighted appetites. The weakness of the social affections, and the strength of the private desires, properly constitute selfishness ; a vice utterly at variance with the happiness of him who harbours it, and, as such, condemned by self-love. There are as few who attain the greatest satisfac- BUTLEE. 117 tion to themselves, as who do the greatest good to others. It is absurd to say, with some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish, because it is felt by self. Understanding and reason- ing are acts of self, for no man can think by proxy ; but no one ever called them selfish. Why ? Evidently because they do not regard self. Precisely the same reason applies to benevolence. Such an argument is a gross confusion of self, as it is a subject of feeling or thought, with self considered as the object of either. It is no more just to refer the private appetites to self-love because they commonly promote happi- ness, than it would be to refer them to self-hatred in those frequent cases where their gratification obstructs it. But besides the private or public desires, and besides the calm regard to our own general welfare, there is a principle 1 in man, in its nature supreme over all others. -This natural supremacy belongs to the faculty which surveys, approves, or disapproves, the several affections of our minds and actions of our lives. As self-love is superior to the private passions, so conscience is superior to the whole of man. Passion implies nothing but an inclination to follow it ; and in that respect passions differ only in force. But no notion can be formed of the principle of reflection, or conscience, which does not comprehend judgment, direction, superintendence Autho- rity over all other principles of action is a constituent part of the idea of conscience, and cannot be separated from it. Had it strength as it has right, it would govern the world. ; The passions would have their power but according to their nature, which is to be subject to conscience. Hence we may understand the purpose at which the ancients, perhaps con- fusedly, aimed when they laid it down that virtue consisted in following nature. It is neither easy, nor, for the main object to the moralist, important, to render the doctrines of the ancients by modern language. If Butler returns to this phrase too often, it was rather from the remains of undistin- 118 MODERN ETHICS : guishing reverence for antiquity than because he could deem its employment important to his own opinions. The tie which holds together Eeligion and Morality is, in the system of Butler, somewhat different from the common representations, but not less close. Conscience, or the faculty of approving or disapproving, necessarily constitutes the bond of union. Setting out from the belief of Theism, and com- bining it, as he had entitled himself to do, with the reality of conscience, he could not avoid discovering that the being who possessed the highest moral qualities is the object of the highest moral affections. He contemplates the Deity through the moral nature of man. In the case of a being who is to be perfectly loved, " goodness must be the simple actuating prin- ciple within him ; this being the moral quality which is the immediate object of love." " The highest, the adequate object of this affection, is perfect goodness ; which therefore we are to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength." " We should refer ourselves implicitly to him, and cast ourselves entirely upon him. The whole attention of life should be to obey his commands."* Moral distinctions are thus presupposed before a step can be made towards religion : virtue leads to piety ; God is to be loved, because goodness is the object of love ; and it is only after the mind rises through human morality to divine perfection, that all the virtues and duties are seen to hang from the throne of God. Remarks. There do not appear to be any errors in the ethical principles of Butler. The following remarks are intended to point out some defects in his scheme ; and even that attempt is made with the unfeigned humility of one who rejoices in an opportunity of doing justice to that part of the writings of a great philosopher which has not been so clearly * Sermon xiii. On the Love of God. BUTLER. 119 understood, nor so justly estimated by the generality, as his other works. 1. It is a considerable defect, though perhaps unavoidable in a sermon, that he omits all inquiry into the nature and origin of the private appetites, which first appear in human nature. It is implied, but it is not expressed in his reason- ings, that there is a time before the child can be called selfish, any more than social, when those appetites seem as it were separately to pursue their distinct objects, long antecedent to the state of mind in which all their gratifications are regarded as forming the mass called happiness. It is hence that they are likened to instincts, in contradiction to their subsequent distinction, which requires reason and experience.* 2. Butler shows admirably well, that unless there were principles of action independent of self, there could be no pleasures and no happiness for self-love to watch over. A step farther would have led him to perceive that self-love is , altogether a secondary formation ; the result of the joint I operation of reason and habit upon the primary principles. | It could not have existed without presupposing original appetites and organic gratifications. Had he considered this part of the subject, he would have strengthened his case by showing that self-love is as truly a derived principle, not only as any of the social affections, but as any of the most con- fessedly acquired passions. It would appear clear, that as self-love is not divested of its self-regarding character by con- sidering it as acquired, so the social affections do not lose any part of their disinterested character, if they be considered as formed from simpler elements. Nothing would more tend to root out the old prejudice which treats a regard to self as analogous to a self-evident principle, than the proof, that self- * The very able work ascribed to Mr. Hazlitt, entitled Essay on the Principles of Human Action, Lond. 1805, contains original views on thfs subject. 120 MODERN ETHICS : love is itself formed from certain original elements, and that a living being long subsists before its appearance.* 3. It must be owned that those parts of Butler's discourses which relate to the social affections are more satisfactory than those which handle the question concerning the moral senti- ments. It is not that the real existence of the latter is not as well made out as that of the former. In both cases he occupies the unassailable ground of an appeal to consciousness. All men (even the worst) feel that they have a conscience and disinterested affections. But he betrays a sense of the greater vagueness of his notions on this subject. He falters as he approaches it. He makes no attempt to determine in what state of mind the action of conscience consists. He does not venture steadily to denote it by name. He fluc- tuates between different appellations, and multiplies the meta- phors of authority and command, without a simple exposition of that mental operation which these metaphors should only have illustrated. It commands other principles. But the question recurs, why or how ? Some of his own hints, and some fainter intimations of Shaftesbury, might have led him to what appears to be the true solution; which, perhaps from its extreme simplicity, has escaped him and his successors. The truth seems to be that the moral sentiments, in their mature state, are a class of feelings which have no other object but the mental dispositions leading to voluntary action, and. the voluntary actions which flow from these dispositions. We are pleased with some dispositions and actions, and displeased with others, in our- selves and our fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions, and to perform the actions, which we contemplate with satisfaction. These objects, like all those of human appetite * Compare this statement with the Stoical doctrine explained by Cicero in the book de Finibus, quoted above, of which it is the direct opposite. BUTLER. . 121 or desire, are sought for their own sake. The peculiarity of these desires is, that their gratification requires the use of no means. Nothing (unless it be a volition) is interposed between the desire and the voluntary act. It is impossible, therefore, that these passions should undergo any change by transfer from the end to the means, as is the case with other practical principles. On the other hand, as soon as they are fixed on these ends, they cannot regard any further object. When another passion prevails over them, the end of the moral faculty is converted into a means of gratification. But voli- tions and actions are not themselves the end, or last object in view, of any other desire or aversion. Nothing stands between the moral sentiments and their object. They are, as it were, in contact with the will. It is this sort of mental position, if the expression may be pardoned, that explains, or seems to explain, those characteristic properties which true philosophers ascribe to them, and which all reflecting men feel to belong to them. Being the only desires, aversions, sentiments, or emotions, which regard dispositions and actions, they neces- sarily extend to the whole character and conduct. Among motives to action, they alone are justly considered as universal. They may and do stand between any other practical principle and its object ; while it is absolutely impossible that another shall intercept their connection with the will. Be it observed, that though many passions prevail over them, no other can act beyond its own appointed and limited sphere ; and that the prevalence itself, leaving the natural order undisturbed in any other part of the mind, is perceived to be a disorder, when seen in another man, and felt to be so by the mind disordered, when the disorder subsides. Conscience may forbid the will to contribute to the gratification of a desire. No desire ever forbids will to obey conscience. This result of the peculiar relation of conscience, to the will justifies those metaphorical expressions which ascribe to 122 MODERN ETHICS : it autlwrity and the right of universal command. It is immutable; for by the law which regulates all feelings, it must rest on action, which is its object, and beyond which it cannot look ; and as it employs no means, it never can be transferred to nearer objects, in the way in which he who first desires an object, as a means of gratification, may come to seek it as his end. Another remarkable peculiarity is bestowed on the moral feelings by the nature of their object. As the objects of all other desires are outward, the satisfaction of them may be frustrated by outward causes. The moral sentiments may always be gratified, because voluntary actions and moral dispositions spring from within. No external circumstance affects them. Hence their independence. As the moral sentiment needs no means, and the desire is instan- taneously followed by the volition, it seems to be either that which first suggests the relation between command and obedi- ence, or at least that which affords the simplest instance of it. It is therefore with the most rigorous precision that authority and universality are ascribed to them. Their only unfortunate property is their too frequent weakness ; but it is apparent that it is from that circumstance alone that their failure arises. Thus considered, the language of Butler concerning conscience, that, " had it strength as it has right, it would govern the world," which may seem to be only an effusion of generous feeling, proves to be a just statement of the nature and action of the highest of human faculties. The union of universality, immutability, and independence, with direct action on the will, which distinguishes the moral sense from every other part of our practical nature, renders it scarcely metaphorical language to ascribe to it unbounded sovereignty and awful authority over the whole of the world within ; shows that attributes, well denoted by terms significant of command and control, are in fact inseparable from it, or rather constitute its very essence ; justifies those ancient moralists BUTLER. 123 who represent it as alone securing, if not forming, the moral liberty of man ; and finally, when religion rises from its roots in virtuous feeling, it clothes conscience with the sublime character of representing the divine purity and majesty in the human soul. Its title is not impaired by any number of defeats ; for every defeat necessarily disposes the disinterested and dispassionate bystander to wish that its force were strengthened : and though it may be doubted whether, con- sistently with the present constitution of human nature, it could be so invigorated as to be the only motive to action, yet every such bystander rejoices at all accessions to its force ; and would own, that man becomes happier, more excellent, more estimable, more venerable, in proportion as conscience acquires a power of banishing malevolent passions, of strongly curbing all the private appetites, of influencing and guiding the benevolent affections themselves. Let it be carefully considered whether the same observa- tions could be made with truth, or with plausibility, on any other part or element of the nature of man. They are entirely independent of the question, whether conscience be an inherent or an acquired principle. If it be inherent, that circumstance is, according to the common modes of thinking, a sufficient proof of its title to veneration. But if provision be made in the constitution and circumstances of all men, for uniformly producing it, by processes similar to those which produce other acquired sentiments, may not our reverence be augmented by admiration of that supreme wisdom which, in such mental contrivances, yet more brightly than in the lower world of matter, accomplishes mighty purposes by instruments so simple ? Should these speculations be thought to have any solidity by those who are accustomed to such subjects, it would be easy to unfold and apply them so fully, that they may be thoroughly apprehended by every intelligent person. 4. The most palpable defect of Butler's scheme is, that it 124 MODERN ETHICS : affords no answer to the question, " What is the distinguishing quality common to all right actions ? " If it were answered, " Their criterion is, that they are approved and commanded by conscience," the answerer would find that he was involved in a vicious circle ; for conscience itself could be no otherwise defined than as the faculty which approves and commands right actions. There are few circumstances more remarkable than the small number of Butler's followers in Ethics ; and it is per- haps still more observable, that his opinions were not so much rejected as overlooked. It is an instance of the importance of style. No thinker so great was ever so bad a writer. Indeed, the ingenious apologies which have been lately attempted for this defect amount to no more than that his power of thought was too much for his skill in language. How general must the reception have been of truths so certain and momentous as those contained in Butler's Discourses, with how much more clearness must they have appeared to his own great understanding, if he had possessed the strength and distinctness with which Hobbes enforces odious falsehood, or the unspeakable charm of that transparent diction which clothed the unfruitful paradoxes of Berkeley ! HUTCHESON. Born in Ireland, 1694 died at Glasgow, 1747. THIS ingenious writer began to try his own strength by pri- vate letters, written in his early youth to Dr. Clarke, the metaphysical patriarch of his time ; on whom young philo- sophers seem to have considered themselves as possessing a claim, which he had too much goodness to reject. His corre- spondence with Hutcheson is lost ; but we may judge of its spirit by his answers to Butler, and by one to Mr. Henry HUTCHESON. 125 Home,* afterwards Lord Kames, then a young adventurer in the prevalent speculations. Nearly at the same period with Butler's first publication,t the writings of Hutcheson began to show coincidences with him, indicative of the tendency of moral theory to a new form, to which an impulse had been given by Shaftesbury, and which was roused to activity by the adverse system of Clarke. Lord Molesworth, the friend of Shaftesbury, patronised Hutcheson, and even criticised his manuscript. Though a Presbyterian, he was befriended by King, archbishop of Dublin, himself a metaphysician ; and he was aided by Mr. Synge, afterwards a bishop, to whom specu- lations somewhat similar to his own had occurred. Butler and Hutcheson coincided in the two important positions, that disinterested affections, and a distinct moral faculty, are essential parts of human nature. Hutcheson is a chaste and simple writer, who imbibed the opinions without the literary faults of his master, Shaftesbury. He has a clear- ness of expression, and fulness of illustration, which are wanting in Butler. But he is inferior to both these writers in the appearance at least of originality, and to Butler espe- cially in that philosophical courage which, when it discovers the fountains of truth and falsehood, leaves others to follow the streams. He states as strongly as Butler, that "the same cause which determines us to pursue happiness for ourselves determines us both to esteem and benevolence on their pro- per occasions even the very frame of our nature." J It is vain, as he justly observes, for the patrons of a refined selfish- * Woodhouselee's Life of Lord Kames, vol. i. Append. No. 3. f The first edition of Butler's Sermons was published in 1726, in which year also appeared the second edition of Hutcheson's Inquiry into Beauty and Virtue. The Sermons had been preached some years before, though there is no likelihood that the contents could have reached a young teacher at Dublin. The place of Hutcheson's birth is not mentioned in any account known to me. Ireland may be truly said to be " incuriosa suorum." J Inquiry, p. 152. 126 MODERN ETHICS : \ ness to pretend that we pursue the happiness of others for \the sake of the pleasure which we derive from it ; since it is ./apparent that there could be no such pleasure if there had ibeen no previous affection. "Had we no affection distinct from self-love, nothing could raise a desire of the happiness of others but when viewed as a mean of our own." * He seems to have been the first who entertained just notions of the for- mation of the secondary desires, which had been overlooked by Butler. " There must arise, in consequence of our original 1 desires, secondary desires of everything useful to gratify the primary desire. Thus, as soon as we apprehend the use of wealth or power to gratify our original desires, we also desire them. From their universality as means arises the general prevalence of these desires of wealth and power." t Proceed- ing farther in his zeal against the selfish system than Lord Shaftesbury, who seems ultimately to rest the reasonableness of benevolence on its subserviency to the happiness of the individual, he represents the moral faculty to be, as well as self-love and benevolence, a calm general impulse, which may and does impel a good man to sacrifice not only happiness, but even life itself, to virtue. As Mr. Locke had spoken of an internal sensation, Lord Shaftesbury once or twice of a reflex sense, and once of a moral sense, Hutcheson, who had a steadier, if not a clearer view of the nature of conscience than Butler, calls it a Moral Sense ; a name which quickly became popular, and continues to be a part of philosophical language. By sense he under- ! stood a capacity of receiving ideas, together with pleasures and pains, from a class of objects. The term moral was used \ to describe the particular class in question. It implied only I that conscience was a separate element in our nature, and that it was not a state or act of the understanding. According to him it also implied that it was an original and implanted * Essay on the Passions, p. 17. t Ibid. p. 8. HUTCHESON. 127 principle ; but every other part of his theory might be em- braced by those who hold it to be derivative. The object of moral approbation, according to him, is general benevolence ; and he carries this generous error so far as to deny that prudence, as long as it regards ourselves, can be morally approved ; an assertion contradicted by every man's feelings, and to which we owe the Dissertation on the .Nature of Virtue, which Butler annexed to his Analogy. By proving that all virtuous actions produce general good, he fancied that he had proved the necessity of regarding the general good in every act of virtue ; an instance of that confusion of the theory of moral sentiments with the criterion of moral actions, against which the reader was warned at the opening of this work, as fatal to Ethical Philosophy. He is chargeable, like Butler, with a vicious circle, in describ- ing virtuous acts as those which are approved by the moral sense, while he at the same time describes the moral sense as the faculty which perceives and feels the morality of actions. He was the father of speculative philosophy in Scotland, at least in modern times ; for though in the beginning of the sixteenth century the Scotch are said to have been known throughout Europe by their unmeasured passion for dialec- tical subtilties,* and though this metaphysical taste was * The character given of the Scotch by the famous and unfortunate Servetus, in his edition of Ptolemy (1533), is in many respects curious. ' ' Gallis amicissimi, Anglorumque regi maxime infesti. Subita ingenia, et in ultionem prona, ferociaque. In bello fortes, inedise, vigilise, algoris patientissimi, decenti forma sed cultu negligentiori ; invidi natura et cseterorum mortalium contemptores ; ostentant pliis nimio nobilitatem suam et in summa etiam egestate suum gernts ad regiam stir- pern referunt, NEC NON DIALECTICIS ARGUTIIS SIBI BLAND ItTNTUR." Subita ingenia is an expression equivalent to the ' ' Praefervidum Scoto- rum ingenium " of Buchanan. Churchill almost agrees in words with Servetus : Whose lineage springs From great and glorious though forgotten kings. And the strong antipathy of the late King George III. to what he called 128 MODERN ETHICS : nourished by the controversies which followed the Eeforma- tion, yet it languished with every other intellectual taste and talent, from the Kestoration, first silenced by civil disorders, and afterwards repressed by an exemplary but unlettered clergy, till the philosophy of Shaftesbury was brought by Hutcheson from Ireland. We are told by the writer of his life (a fine piece of philosophical biography) that " he had a remarkable degree of rational enthusiasm for learning, liberty, religion, virtue, and human happiness ; * that he taught in public with persuasive eloquence ; that his instructive c6n- versation was at once lively and modest ; that he united pure manners with a kind disposition. What wonder that such a man should have spread the love of knowledge and virtue around him, and should have rekindled in his adopted country a relish for the sciences which he cultivated ! To him may also be ascribed that proneness to multiply ultimate and original principles in human nature, which characterised the Scottish School till the second extinction of a passion for metaphysical speculation in Scotland. A careful perusal of the writings of this now little studied philosopher will satisfy the well-qualified reader that Dr. Adam Smith's ethical speculations are not so unsuggested as they are beautiful. BERKELEY. Born near Thomastown in Ireland, 1684 died at Oxford, 1753. THIS great metaphysician was so little a moralist, that it requires the attraction of his name to excuse its introduction here. His Theory of Vision contains a great discovery in mental philosophy. His immaterialism is chiefly valuable as a touchstone of metaphysical sagacity ; showing those to be " Scotch Metaphysics," proves the permanency of the last part of the national character. * Life by Dr. Leechman, prefixed to Hutcheson's System of Moral Philosophy, 1755. BERKELEY. 129 altogether without it, who, like Johnson and Beattie, believed that his speculations were sceptical, that they implied any dis- trust in the senses, or that they had the smallest tendency to disturb reasoning or alter conduct. Ancient learning, exact science, polished society, modern literature, and the fine arts, contributed to adorn and enrich the mind of this accomplished man. All his contemporaries agreed with the satirist in ascribing To Berkeley every virtue under Heaven. Adverse factions and hostile wits concurred only in loving, admiring, and contributing to advance him. The severe sense of Swift endured his visions ; the modest Addison endeavoured to reconcile Clarke to his ambitious speculations. His character converted the satire of Pope into fervid praise. Even the discerning, fastidious, and turbulent Atterbury said, after an interview with him, " So much understanding, so much knowledge, so much innocence, and such humility, I did not think had been the portion of any but angels, till I saw this gentleman."* "Lord Bathurst told me that the Members of the Scriblerus Club being met at his house at dinner, they agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his guest, on his scheme at Bermudas. Berkeley, having listened to the many lively things they had to say, begged to be heard in his turn, and displayed his plan with such an astonishing and animating force of eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were struck dumb, and after some pause, rose all up together, with earnestness exclaiming, 'Let us set out with him im- mediately.' "t It was when thus beloved and celebrated that he conceived, at the age of forty-five, the design of devoting his life to reclaim and convert the natives of North America ; and he employed as much influence and solicitation as common men do for their most prized objects, in obtaining leave to re- sign his dignities and revenues, to quit his accomplished and * Buncombe's Letters, 106, 107. t Warton on Pope. K 130 MODERN ETHICS : affectionate friends, and to bury himself in what must have seemed an intellectual desert. After four years' residence at Newport in Ehode Island, he was compelled, by the refusal of Government to furnish him with funds for his college, to forego his work of heroic, or rather godlike benevolence ; though not without some consoling forethought of the fortune of the country where he had sojourned. Westward the course of empire takes its way, The first four acts already past, A fifth shall close the drama with the day, TIME'S NOBLEST OFFSPRING IS ITS LAST. Thus disappointed in his ambition of keeping a School for savage children, at a salary of a hundred pounds by the year, he was received, on his return, with open arms by the philosophical queen, at whose metaphysical parties he made one, with Sherlock, who, as well as Smalridge, was his sup- porter, and with Hoadley, who, following Clarke, was his antagonist. By her influence he was made bishop of Cloyne. It is one of his highest boasts, that though of English extrac- tion, he was a true Irishman, and the first eminent Protestant, after the unhappy contest at the Revolution, who avowed his love for all his countrymen. He asked, "Whether their habitations and furniture were not more sordid than those of the savage Americans 1" ' " Whether a scheme for the wel- fare of this nation should not take in the whole inhabitants ?" and, " Whether it teas a vain attempt to project the flourishing of our Protestant gentry, exclusive of the bulk of the natives ?"t He proceeds to promote the reformation suggested in this preg- nant question by a series of Queries, intimating, with the utmost skill and address, every reason that proves the necessity and the safety, and the wisest mode of adopting his suggestion. He contributed, by a truly Christian address to the Roman Catholics of his diocese, to their perfect quiet during the re- * See his Querist, 358 ; published in 1735. t Ibid. 255. BERKELEY. 131 bellion of 1745 ; and soon after published a letter to the clergy of that persuasion, beseeching them to inculcate industry among their flocks, for which he received their thanks. He tells them that it was a saying among the negro slaves, "If negro were not negro, Irishman would be negro." It is difficult to read these proofs of benevolence and foresight without emotion, at the moment when,* after a lapse of near a century, his suggestions have been at length, at the close of a struggle of twenty-five years, adopted, by the admission of the whole Irish nation to the privileges of the British Constitution. The patriotism of Berkeley was not, like that of Swift, tainted by disappointed ambition ; nor was it, like Swift's, confined to a colony of English Protestants. Perhaps the Querist contains more hints, then original, still unapplied in legislation and political economy, than are to be found in any equal space. From the writings of his advanced years, when he chose a medical tract t to be the vehicle of his philosophical reflections, though it cannot be said that he relinquished his early opinions, it is at least apparent that his mind had received a new bent, and was habitually turned from reasoning towards contem- plation. His immaterialism, indeed, modestly appears, but only to purify and elevate our thoughts, and to fix them on Mind, the paramount and primeval principle of all things. " Perhaps," says he, " the truth about innate ideas may be, that there are properly no ideas or passive objects in the mind but what are derived from sense, but that there are also, be- sides these, her own acts and operations such are notions ;" a statement which seems once more to admit general con- ceptions, and which might have served, as well as the parallel passage of Leibnitz, as the basis of the modern philosophy of Germany. From these compositions of his old age, he appears then to have recurred with fondness to Plato and the later Platonists ; writers from whose mere reasonings an intellect * April 1829. t Siris, or Reflections on Tar Water. 132 MODERN ETHICS : so acute could hardly hope for an argumentative satisfaction of all its difficulties, and whom he probably rather studied as a means of inuring his mind to objects beyond the visible diurnal sphere, and of attaching it, through frequent medi- tation, to that perfect and transcendent goodness, to which his moral feelings always pointed, and which they incessantly strove to grasp. His mind, enlarging as it rose, at length re- ceives every, theist, however imperfect his belief, to a com- munion in its philosophic piety. "Truth," he beautifully concludes, " is the cry of all, but the game of a few. Certainly, where it is the chief passion, it does not give way to vulgar cares, nor is it contented with a little ardour in the early time of life ; active perhaps to pursue, but not so fit to weigh and revise. He that would make a real progress in knowledge, must dedicate his age as well as youth, the latter growth as well as first fruits, at the altar of Truth." So did Berkeley, and such were almost his latest words. His general principles of Ethics may be shortly stated in his own words : "As God is a being of infinite goodness, his end is the good of his creatures. The general well-being of all men of all nations, of all ages of the world, is that which he designs should be procured by the concurring actions of each individual" Having stated that this end can be pursued only in one of two ways either by computing the consequences of each action, or by obeying the rules which generally tend to happiness and having shown the first to be impossible, he rightly infers, "that the end to which God requires the concurrence of human actions must be carried on by the observation of certain determinate and universal rules or moral precepts, which in their own nature have a necessary tendency to promote the well-being of man- kind, taking in all nations and ages, from the beginning to the end of the world."* A romance, of which a journey to * Sermon in Trinity College Chapel, on Passive Obedience, 1712. BERKELEY HUME. 133 an Utopia, in the centre of Africa, forms the chief part, called The Adventures of Signor Qaudentio di Lucca, has been com- monly ascribed to him ; probably on no other ground than its union of pleasing invention with benevolence and elegance.* Of the exquisite grace and beauty of his diction, no man accustomed to English composition can need to be informed. His works are, beyond dispute, the finest models of philoso- phical style since Cicero. Perhaps they surpass those of the orator, in the wonderful art by which the fullest light is thrown on the most minute and evanescent parts of the most subtile of human conceptions. Perhaps he also surpassed Cicero in the charm of simplicity, a quality eminently found in Irish writers before the end of the eighteenth century ; conspicuous in the masculine severity of Swift, in the Pla- tonic fancy of Berkeley, in the native tenderness and ele- gance of Goldsmith, and not withholding its attractions from Hutcheson and Leland, writers of classical taste, though of inferior power. The two Irish philosophers of the eighteenth century may be said to have co-operated in calling forth the metaphysical genius of Scotland ; for, though Hutcheson spread the taste, and furnished the principles, yet Berkeley undoubtedly produced the scepticism of Hume, which stimu lated the instinctive school to activity, and was thought in- capable of confutation, otherwise than by their doctrines. DAVID HUME. Born at Edinburgh, 1711 died there, 1776. THE Life of Mr. Hume, written by himself, is remarkable above most, if not all, writings of that sort, for hitting the degree of interest between coldness and egotism which be- comes a modest man in speaking of his private history. Few writers, whose opinions were so obnoxious, have more per- * Gentleman's Magazine, January 1777. 134 MODERN ETHICS : fectly escaped every personal imputation. Very few men of so calm a character have been so warmly beloved. That he approached to the character of a perfectly good and wise man, is an affectionate exaggeration, for which his friend Dr. Smith, in the first moments of his sorrow, may well be excused.* But such a praise can never be earned without passing through either of the extremes of fortune ; without standing the test of temptations, dangers, and sacrifices. It may be said with truth that the private character of Mr. Hume exhibited all the virtues which a man of reputable station, under a mild government in the quiet times of a civilised country, has often the opportunity to practise. He showed no want of the qualities which fit men for more severe trials. Though others had warmer affections, no man was a kinder relation, a more unwearied friend, or more free from meanness and malice. His character was so simple, that he did not even affect modesty ; but neither his friend- ships nor his deportment were changed by a fame which filled all Europe. His good nature, his plain manners, and his active kindness, procured him at Paris the enviable name of the good David, from a society not so alive to goodness, as without reason to place it at the head of the qualities of a celebrated man.t His whole character is faithfully and touchingly represented in the story of La Roche, J where Mr. Mackenzie, without concealing Mr. Hume's opinions, brings him into contact with scenes of tender piety, and yet preserves the interest inspired by genuine and unalloyed, though moderated, feelings and affections. The amiable and venerable patriarch of Scottish Literature was averse from the opinions of the philosopher on whom he has composed this best panegyric. He tells us that he read the manuscript to * Dr. Smith's Letter to Mr. Strahan, annexed to the Life of Hume. t See Notes and Illustrations, Note P. J Mirror, Nos. 42, 43, 44. HUME. 135 Dr. Smith, " who declared he did not find a syllable to object to, but added, with his characteristic absence of mind, that he was surprised he had never heard of the anecdote before."* So lively was the delineation thus sanctioned by the most natural of all testimonies. Mr. Mackenzie indulges his own religious feelings by modestly intimating, that Dr. Smith's answer seemed to justify the last words of the tale, "that there were moments when the philosopher recalled to his mind the venerable figure of the good La Eoche, and wished that he had never doubted." To those who are strangers to the seductions of paradox, to the intoxication of fame, and to the bewitchment of prohibited opinions, it must be unaccount- able, that he who revered benevolence should, without ap- parent regret, cease to see it on the Throne of the Universe. It is a matter of wonder that his habitual esteem for every fragment and shadow of moral excellence should not lead him to envy those who contemplated its perfection in that living and paternal character which gives it a power over the human heart. On the other hand, if we had no experience of the power of opposite opinions in producing irreconcilable animosities, we might have hoped that those who retained such high pri- vileges would have looked with more compassion than dislike on a virtuous man who had lost them. In such cases it is too little remembered that repugnance to hypocrisy, and impa- tience of long concealment, are the qualities of the best formed minds ; and that, if the publication of some doctrines proves often painful and mischievous, the habitual siippression of opinion is injurious to reason, and very dangerous to sin- cerity. Practical questions thus arise, so difficult and per- plexing, that their determination generally depends on the boldness or timidity of the individual, on his tenderness for the feelings of the good, or his greater reverence for the * Mackenzie's Life of John Home, p. 21. 1 36 MODERN ETHICS : free exercise of reason. The time is not yet come when the noble maxim of Plato, " that every soul is unwillingly deprived of truth," will he practically and heartily applied hy men to the honest opponents who differ from them most widely. In his twenty-seventh year he published, at London, the Treatise of Human Nature, the first systematic attack on all the principles of knowledge and belief, and the most formi- dable, if universal scepticism could ever be more than a mere exercise of ingenuity.* This memorable work was reviewed in a Journal of that time,t in a criticism not distinguished by ability, which affects to represent the style of a very clear writer as unintelligible sometimes from a purpose to insult, but oftener from sheer dulness ; which is unaccountably silent respecting the consequences of a sceptical system ; and which concludes with a prophecy so much at variance with the general tone of the article, that it would seem to be added by a different hand. " It bears incontestable marks of a great capacity, of a soaring genius, but young, and not yet thoroughly practised. Time and use may ripen these qualities in the author, and we shall probably have reason to consider this, compared with his later productions, in the same light as we view the juvenile works of Milton, or the first manner of Kaphael." The great speculator did not, in this work, amuse himself, * Sextus, a physician of the empirical, i.e. anti-theoretical school, who lived at Alexandria in the reign of Antoninus Pius, has preserved the reasonings of the ancient Sceptics as they were to be found in their most improved state, in the writings of ^nesidemus, a Cretan, who was a Professor in the same city, soon after the reduction of Egypt into a Roman province. The greater part of the grounds of doubt are very shallow and popular. There are, among them, intimations of the argument against a necessary connection of causes with effects, after- wards better presented by Glanville in his Scepsis Scientifica. See Notes and Illustrations, Note Q. t History of the Works of the Learned, November and December 1739, pp. 353-404. This Review is attributed by some (Chalmers, Bio- graphical Dictionary) to Warburton, but certainly without foundation. HUME. 137 like Bayle, with dialectical exercises, which only inspire a disposition towards doubt, by showing in detail the un- certainty of most opinions. He aimed at proving, not that nothing was known, but that nothing could be known ; from the structure of the understanding to demonstrate that \ we are doomed for ever to dwell in absolute and universal ignorance. It is true that such a system of universal scepticism never can be more than an intellectual amusement, an exercise of subtilty ; of which the only use is to check dogmatism, but which perhaps oftener provokes and produces that much more common evil. As those dictates of experience which regulate conduct must be the objects of belief, all objections which attack them in common with the principles of reasoning must be utterly ineffectual Whatever attacks every principle of belief can destroy none. As long as the foundations of knowledge are allowed to remain in the same level (be it called of certainty or uncertainty) with the maxims of life, the whole system of human conviction must continue undisturbed. When the sceptic boasts of having involved the results of experience and the elements of geometry in the same ruin with the doc- trines of religion and the principles of philosophy, he may be answered, That no dogmatist ever claimed more than the same degree of certainty for these various convictions and opinions ; and that his scepticism, therefore, leaves them in the relative condition in which it found them. No man knew better, or owned more frankly, than Mr. Hume, that to this answer there is no serious reply. Universal scepticism involves a contradiction in terms. It is a belief that there can be no belief. It is an attempt of the mind to act without its structure, and by other laws than those to which its nature has subjected its operations. To reason without assenting to the principles on which reasoning is founded, is not unlike an effort to feel without nerves, or to move without muscles. No man can be allowed to be an opponent in reasoning, who i 138 MODERN ETHICS : I does not set out with admitting all the principles, without the I admission of which it is impossible to reason* It is indeed a puerile, nay, in the eye of wisdom, a childish play, to attempt either to establish or to confute principles by argument, which every step of that argument must presuppose. The only difference between the two cases is, that he who tries to prove them can do so only by first taking them for granted ; and that he who attempts to impugn them, falls at the very first step into a contradiction, from which he never can rise. It must, however, be allowed, that universal scepticism has practical consequences of a very mischievous nature. This is because its universality is not steadily kept in view, and constantly borne in mind. If it were, the above short and plain remark would be an effectual antidote to the poison. But in practice it is an armoury from which weapons are taken to be employed against some opinions, while it is hidden from notice that the same weapon would equally cut down every other conviction. It is thus that Mr. Hume's theory of causation is used as an answer to arguments for the existence of the Deity, without warning the reader that it would equally lead him not to expect that the sun will rise to-morrow. It must also be added, that those who are early accustomed to dispute first principles are never likely to acquire, in a sufficient degree, that earnestness and that sincerity, that strong love of truth, and that conscientious solicitude for the formation of just * This maxim, which contains a sufficient answer to all universal scepticism, or, in other words, to all scepticism properly so called, is significantly conveyed in the quaint title of an old and rare book, entitled, Scivi, sive Sceptices et scepticorum a Jure Disputationis Exclusio, by Thomas White, the metaphysician of the English Catholics in modern times. "Fortunately," says the illustrious sceptic himself, "since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices for that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical delirium " ( Treatise of Human Nature, i. 467) ; almost in the sublime and immortal words of Pascal : La raison confond les Dogmatistes, et la Nature les Sceptiques. HUME. 139 opinions, which are not the least virtues of men, but of which the cultivation is the more especial duty of all who call them- selves philosophers.* It is not an uninteresting fact, that Mr. Hume having been introduced by Lord Kames (then Mr. Henry Home) to Dr. Butler, sent a copy of his Treatise to that philosopher at the moment of his preferment to the bishopric of Durham ; and that the perusal of it did not deter the philosophic prelate from " everywhere recommending Mr. Hume's Moral and Political Essays," t published two years afterwards ; Essays which it would indeed have been unworthy of such a man not to have liberally commended, for they, and those which followed them, whatever may be thought of the con- tents of some of them, must be ever regarded as the best models in any language, of the short but full, of the clear and agreeable, though deep discussion of difficult questions. Mr. Hume considered his Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals as the best of his writings. It is very creditable to his character that he should have looked back with most complacency on a Tract the least distinguished by originality, and the least tainted with paradox, among his philosophical works ; but deserving of all commendation for the elegant perspicuity of the style, and the novelty of illustration and inference with which he unfolded to general readers a doctrine too simple, too certain, and too important, to remain till his time undiscovered among philosophers. His diction has, indeed, neither the grace of Berkeley nor the strength of Hobbes ; but it is without the verbosity of the former, or the rugged sternness of the latter. His manner is * It would be an act of injustice to those readers who are not ac- quainted with that valuable volume entitled, Essays mi the Formation of Opinions, not to refer them to it as enforcing that neglected part of morality. To it may be added a masterly article in the Westminster Review, occasioned by the Essays. t Woodhouselee's Life of Kames, i. 86, 104. 140 MODERN ETHICS : more lively, more easy, more ingratiating, and, if the word may be so applied, more amusing than that of any other metaphysical writer.* He knew himself too well to be, as Dr. Johnson asserted, an imitator of Voltaire ; who, as it were, embodied in his own person all the wit and quickness and versatile ingenuity of a people which surpasses other nations in these brilliant qualities. If he must be supposed to have had an eye on any French writer, it would be a more plausible guess that he sometimes copied, with a temperate hand, the unexpected thoughts and familiar expressions of Fontenelle. Though he carefully weeded his writings in their successive editions, yet they still contain Scotticisms and Gallicisms enough to employ the successors of such critics as those who exulted over the Patavinity of the Roman historian. His own great and modest mind would have been satisfied with the praise which cannot be withheld from him, that there is no writer in our language, who, through long works, is more agreeable ; and it is no derogation from him, that, as a Scotsman, he did not reach those native and secret beauties, characteristical of a language, which are never attained in elaborate composition, but by a very small number of those who familiarly converse in it from infancy. The Inquiry aifords perhaps the best specimen of his style. In substance, its chief merit is the proof, from an abundant enumeration of particulars, that all the qualities and actions of the mind which are generally approved by mankind agree in the circumstance of being useful to society. In the proof (scarcely necessary) that benevolent affections and actions have * These commendations are so far from being at variance with the remarks of the late most ingenious Dr. Thomas Brown, on Mr. Hume's "mode of writing " (Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect, 3d ed. 327), that they may rather be regarded as descriptive of those ex- cellences of which the excess produced the faults of Mr. Hume as a mere searcher and teacher ; justly, though perhaps severely, animad- verted on by Dr. Brown. HUME. 141 that tendency, he asserts the real existence of these affections with unusual warmth ; and he well abridges some of the most forcible arguments of Butler,* whom it is remarkable that he does not mention. To show the importance of his principle, he very unnecessarily distinguishes the comprehensive duty of justice, from other parts of morality, as an artificial virtue, for which our " respect is solely derived from notions of utility. If all things were in such plenty that there could never be a want, or if men were so benevolent as to provide for the wants of others as much as for their own, there would, says he, in neither case be any justice, because there would be no need for it. But it is evident that the same reasoning is applicable to every good affection and right action. None of them could exist if there were no scope for their exercise. If there were no suffering, there could be no pity and no relief. If there were no offences, there could be no placability. If there were no crimes, there could be no mercy. Tem- perance, prudence, patience, magnanimity, are qualities of which the value depends on the evils by which they are respectively exercised.t * Inquiry, sect, ii. part i., especially the concluding paragraphs ; those which precede being more his own, j- " Si nobis, cum ex hac vita migraverimus, in beatorum insulis, ut fabulae ferunt, immortale aevum degere liceret, quid opus esset elo- quentia, cum judicia nulla fierent ? aut ipsis etiam virtutibus ?, Nee enim fortitudine indigeremus, nullo proposito aut labore aut periculo ; nee justitid, cum esset nijiil quod appeteretur alieni ; nee temperantia, quee regeret eas quae nullse essent libidines : ne prudentia quidem egeremus, nullo proposito delectu bonorum et malorum. Una' igitur essemus beati cognitione rerum et scientia." (Cicero, Fragm. ap. Div. Augustin, Trinit. iv. 2. ) Cicero is more extensive, and therefore more consistent, than Hume ; but his enumeration errs both by excess and defect. He supposes knowledge to render beings happy in this imagi- nary state, without stooping to inquire how. He omits a virtue which might well exist in it, though we cannot conceive its formation in such a state the delight in each other's well-being ; and he omits a conceiv- able though unknown vice, that of unmixed ill-will, which would render such a state a hell to the wretch who harboured the malevolence. 142 MODERN ETHICS : On purity of manners, it must be owned that Mr. Hume, though he controverts no rule, yet treats vice with too much indulgence. It was his general disposition to distrust virtues which are liable to exaggeration, and may be easily counter- feited. The ascetic pursuit of purity, and hypocritical pre- tences to patriotism, had too much withdrawn the respect of his equally calm and sincere nature from these excellent vir- tues ; more especially as severity in both these respects was often at apparent variance with affection, which can neither be long assumed nor ever overvalued. Yet it was singular that he who, in his Essay on Polygamy and Divorce,* had so well shown the connection of domestic ties with the outward order of society, should not have perceived their deeper and closer relation to all the social feelings of human nature. It cannot be enough regretted, that, in an Inquiry written with a very moral purpose, his habit of making Truth attractive by throwing over her the dress of paradox, should have given him for a moment the appearance of weighing the mere amusements of society and conversation against domestic fidelity, which is the preserver of domestic affection, the source of parental fondness and filial regard, and, indirectly, of all the kindness which exists between human beings. That families are schools where the infant heart learns to love, and that pure manners are the cement which alone holds these schools together, are truths so certain, that it is wonderful he should not have betrayed a stronger sense of their importance. No one could so well have proved that all the virtues of that class, in their various orders and degrees, minister to the benevolent affections ; and that every act which separates the senses from the affections tends, in some degree, to deprive kindness of its natural auxiliary, and to lessen its prevalence in the world. It did not require his sagacity to discover that the gentlest and tenderest feelings * Ussays and Treatises, vol. i. HUME. 143 flourish only under the stern guardianship of these severe virtues. Perhaps his philosophy was loosened, though his life was untainted, by that universal and undistinguishing profligacy which prevailed on the Continent from the regency of the Duke of Orleans to the French revolution ; the most dissolute period of European history, at least since the Roman Emperors.* At Eome, indeed, the connection of licen- tiousness with cruelty, which though scarcely traceable in in- dividuals, is generally very observable in large masses, bore a fearful testimony to the value of austere purity. The alliance of these remote vices seemed to be broken in the time of Mr. Hume. Pleasure, in a more improved state of society, seemed to return to her more natural union with kindness and tenderness, as well as with refinement and politeness. Had he lived fourteen years longer, however, he would have seen that the virtues which guard the natural seminaries of the affections are their only true and lasting friends. The demand of all well-informed men for the im- provement of civil institutions the demand of classes of men growing in intelligence, to be delivered from a degrad- ing inferiority, and admitted to a share of political power pro- portioned to their new importance, being feebly yet violently resisted by those ruling Castes who neither knew how to yield nor how to withstand being also attended by very erroneous principles of legislation, having suddenly broken down the barriers (imperfect as these were) of law and govern- ment, led to popular excesses, desolating wars, and a mili- tary dictatorship, which for a long time threatened to defeat the reformation, and to disappoint the hopes of mankind. This tremendous convulsion threw a fearful light on the fero- city which lies hid under the arts and pleasures of corrupted nations ; as earthquakes and volcanoes disclose the layers which compose the deeper parts of our planet beneath a fer- * See Notes and Illustrations, Note R. 144 MODERN ETHICS : tile and flowery surface. A part of this dreadful result may be ascribed, not improbably, to that relaxation of domestic ties, unhappily natural to the populace of vast capitals, and at that time countenanced and aggravated by the example of their superiors. Another part doubtless arose from the bar- barisin^ powej of absolute government, or, in other words, of injustice in high places. A very large portion attests, as strongly as Eoman history, though in a somewhat different manner, the humanising efficacy of the family virtues, by the consequences of the want of them in the higher classes, whose profuse and ostentatious sensuality inspired the laborious and suffering portion of mankind with contempt, disgust, envy, and hatred. ' The Inquiry is disfigured by another speck of more frivo- lous paradox. It consists in the attempt to give the name of virtue to qualities of the understanding ; and it would not have deserved the single remark about to be made on it, had it been the paradox of an inferior man. He has altogether omitted the circumstance on which depends the difference of our sentiments regarding moral and intellectual qualities. We admire intellectual excellence, but we bestow no moral approbation on it. Such approbation has no tendency directly to increase it, because it is not voluntary. We cultivate our natural disposition to esteem and love benevolence and justice, because these moral sentiments, and the expression of them, directly and materially dispose others, as well as our- selves, to cultivate these two virtues. We cultivate a natural anger against oppression, which guards ourselves against the practice of that vice, and because the manifestation of it deters others from its exercise. The first rude resentment of a child is against every instrument of hurt. We confine it to intentional hurt, when we are taught by experience that it prevents only that species of hurt; and at last it is still further limited to wrong done to ourselves or others, and in that case becomes a purely moral sentiment. We morally HUME. 145 approve industry, desire of knowledge, love of truth, and all the habits by which the understanding is strengthened and rectified, because their formation is subject to the will.* But we do not feel a moral anger against folly or ignorance, because they are involuntary. No one but the religious per- secutor, a mischievous and overgrown child, wreaks his ven- geance on involuntary, inevitable, compulsory acts or states of the understanding, which are no more affected by blame than the stone which the foolish child beats for hurting him. Reasonable men apply to every thing which they wish to move the agent which is capable of moving it ; force to out- ward substances, arguments to the understanding, and blame, together with all other motives, whether moral or personal, to the will alone. It is as absurd to entertain an abhorrence of intellectual inferiority or error, however extensive or mis- chievous, as it would be to cherish a warm indignation against earthquakes or hurricanes. It is singular that a philosopher who needed the most liberal toleration should, by represent- ing states of the understanding as moral or immoral, have offered the most philosophical apology for persecution. That general utility constitutes a uniform ground of moral distinctions, is a part of Mr. Hume's ethical theory which never can be impugned, until some example can be produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or of a vice generally bene- ficial. The religious philosopher who, with Butler, holds that benevolence must be the actuating principle of the Divine mind, will, with Berkeley, maintain that pure benevolence can prescribe no rules of human conduct but such as are beneficial to men ; thus bestowing on the theory of Moral Distinctions the certainty of demonstration in the eyes of all who believe in God. The other question of moral philosophy which relates to * " In hac qusestione primas tenet Voluntas, qua, ut ait Angustinus, peccatur, et recte vivitur." (Hyperaspistes, Diatribe adversus Servum Arbitrium Martini Lutheri, per Desiderium Erasinum Rotterdamensem.) L 146 MODERN ETHICS : the theory of Moral Approbation, has been by no means so distinctly and satisfactorily handled by Mr. Hume. His general doctrine is, that an interest in the well-being of others, implanted by nature, which he calls Sympathy in his Treatise of Human Nature, and much less happily Benevolence in his subsequent Inquiry* prompts us to be pleased with all generally beneficial actions. In this respect his doctrine nearly resembles that of Hutcheson. He does not trace his principle through the variety of forms which our moral senti- ments assume. There are very important parts of them, of which it affords no solution. For example, though he truly represents our approbation, in others, of qualities useful to the individual, as a proof of benevolence, he makes no attempt to explain our moral approbation of such virtues as tem- perance and fortitude in ourselves. . He entirely overlooks that consciousness of the rightful supremacy of tlie moral faculty over every other principle of human action, without an explanation of which ethical theory is wanting in one if its vital organs. Notwithstanding these considerable defects, his proof from induction of the beneficial tendency of virtue, his con- clusive arguments for human disinterestedness, and his decisive observations on the respective provinces of reason and sentiment in morals, concur in ranking the Inquiry with the ethical treatises of the highest merit in our language, with Shaftesbury's Inquiry concerning Virtue, Butler's Ser- mons, and Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. ADAM SMITH. Born 1723 died 1790. THE great name of Adam Smith rests upon the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations ; perhaps * Essays and Treatises, vol. ii. SMITH. 147 the only book which produced an immediate, general, and irrevocable change in some of the most important parts of the legislation of all civilised States. The works of Grotius, of Locke, and of Montesquieu, which bear a resemblance to it in character, and had no inconsiderable analogy to it in the extent of their popular influence, were productive only of a general amendment, not so conspicuous in particular instances, as discoverable, after a time, in the improved condition of human affairs.* The work of Smith, as it touched those matters which may be numbered, and measured, and weighed, bore more visible and palpable fruit. In a few years it began to alter laws and treaties, and has made its way, throughout the convulsions of revolution and conquest, to a due ascend- ant over the minds of men, with far less than the average obstructions of prejudice and clamour, which choke the channels through which truth flows into practice. The most eminent of those who have since cultivated and improved the science will be the foremost to address their immortal master : Tenebris tantis tarn clarum extollere lumen Qui primus potuisti, ILLUSTKANS COMMODA VIT.E. Te sequel ! (Lucret. lib. iii. ) In a science more difficult, because both ascending to more simple general principles, and running down through more minute applications, though the success of Smith has been less complete, his genius is not less conspicuous. Perhaps there is no ethical work since Cicero's Offices, of which an abridg- ment enables the reader so inadequately to estimate the merit, as the Theory of Moral Sentiments. This is not chiefly owing to the beauty of diction, as in the case of Cicero ; but to the variety of explanations of life and manners, which embellish the book often more than they illuminate the theory. Yet, on the other hand, it must be owned that, for purely philoso- phical purposes, few books more need abridgment ; for the * Notes and Illustrations, Note S. 148 MODERN ETHICS : most careful reader frequently loses sight of principles buried under illustrations. The naturally copious and flowing style of the author is generally redundant, and the repetition of certain formularies of the system is, in the later editions, so frequent as to be wearisome, and sometimes ludicrous. Per- haps Smith and Hobbes may be considered as forming the two extremes of good style in our philosophy ; the first of graceful fulness falling into flaccidity ; while the masterly concision of the second is oftener tainted by dictatorial dryness. Hume and Berkeley, though they are nearer the extreme of abundance,* are probably the least distant from perfection. That mankind are so constituted as to sympathise with each other's feelings, and to feel pleasure in the accordance of these feelings, are the only facts required by Dr. Smith, and they certainly must be granted to him. To adopt the feelings of another, is to approve them. When the sentiments of another are such as would be excited in us by the same objects, we approve them as morally proper. To obtain this accord, it becomes necessary for him who enjoys or suffers to lower his expression of feeling to the point to which the by- stander can raise his fellow-feelings ; on which are founded all the high virtues of self-denial and self-command ; and it is equally necessary for the bystander to raise his sympathy as near as he can to the level of the original feeling. In all unsocial passions, such as anger, we have a divided sympathy between him who feels them and those who are the objects of them. Hence the propriety of extremely moderating them. Pure malice is always to be concealed or disguised, because all sympathy is arrayed against it. In the private passions, where there is only a simple sympathy that with the original * This remark is chiefly applicable to Hume's Essays. His Treatise of Human Nature is more Hobbian in its general tenor, though it has Ciceronian passages. SMITH. 149 passion the expression has more liberty. The benevolent affections, where there is a double sympathy with those who feel them, and those who are their objects are the most agreeable, and may be indulged with the least apprehension of finding no echo in other breasts. Sympathy with the gratitude of those who are benefited by good actions prompts us to consider them as deserving of reward, and forms the sense of merit ; as fellow-feeling with the resentment of those who are injured by crimes leads us to look on them as worthy of punishment, and constitutes the sense of demerit. These sentiments require not only beneficial actions, but benevolent motives for them ; being compounded, in the case of merit, of a direct sympathy with the good disposition of the bene- factor, and an indirect sympathy with the persons benefited ; in the opposite case, with precisely opposite sympathies. He who does an act of wrong to another to gratify his own passions must not expect that the spectators, who have none of his undue partiality to his own interest, will enter into his feelings. In such a case he knows that they will pity the person wronged, and be full of indignation against him. When he is cooled, he adopts the sentiments of others on his own crime, feels shame at the impropriety of his former passion, pity for those who have suffered by him, and a dread of punishment from general and just resentment. Such "kre the constituent parts of remorse. Our moral sentiments respecting ourselves arise from those which others feel concerning us. We feel a self-approbation whenever we believe that the general feeling of mankind coincides with that state of mind in which we ourselves were at a given time. "We suppose ourselves the spectators of our own behaviour, and endeavour to imagine what effect it would in this light produce in us." We must view our own conduct with the eyes of others before we can judge it. The sense of duty arises from putting ourselves in the place of 150 MODERN ETHICS : others, and adopting their sentiments respecting our own con- duct. In utter solitude there could have been no self-approba- 'tion. The rules of morality are a summary of those senti- ments ; and often beneficially stand in their stead when the self-delusions of passion would otherwise hide from us the nonconformity of our state of mind with that which, in the circumstances, can be entered into and approved by impartial bystanders. It is hence that we learn to raise our mind above local or temporary clamour, and to fix our eyes on the surest indications of the general and lasting sentiments of human nature. " When we approve of any character or action, our sentiments are derived from four sources : first, we sympathise with the motives of the agent ; secondly, we enter into the gratitude of those who have been benefited by his actions ; thirdly, we observe that his conduct has been agreeable to the general rules by which those two sympathies generally act ; and, last of all, when we consider such actions as forming part of a system of behaviour which tends to pro- mote the happiness either of the individual or of society, they appear to derive a beauty from this utility, not unlike that which we ascribe to any well-contrived machine." * Remarks. That Smith is the first who has drawn the attention of philosophers to one of the most curious and im- portant parts of human nature who has looked closely and steadily into the workings of Sympathy, its sudden action and reaction, its instantaneous conflicts and its emotions, its minute play and varied illusions is sufficient to place him high among the cultivators of mental philosophy. He is very original in applications and explanations ; though, for his principle, he is somewhat indebted to Butler, more to Hutcheson, and most of all to Hume. These writers, except Hume in his original work, had derived sympathy, or * Theory of Moral Sentiments, ii. 304. Edinb. 1801. SMITH. 151 great part of it, from benevolence.* Smith, with deeper in- sight, inverted the order. The great part performed by various sympathies in moral approbation was first unfolded by him ; and besides its intrinsic importance, it strengthened the proofs against those theories which ascribe that great function to Eeason. Another great merit of the theory of sympathy is, that it brings into the strongest light that most important characteristic of the moral sentiments which consists in their being the only principles leading to action, and dependent on emotion or sensibility, with respect to the objects of which it is not only possible but natural for all mankind to agree, t The main defects of this theory seem to be the follow- ing : 1. Though it is not to be condemned for declining inquiry into the origin of our fellow-feeling, which, being one of the most certain of all facts, might well be assumed as ultimate in speculations of this nature, it is evident that the circum- stances to which some speculators ascribe the formation of sympathy at least contribute to strengthen or impair, to con- tract or expand it. It will appear, more conveniently, in the next article, that the theory of sympathy has suffered from the omission of these circumstances. For the present, it is enough to observe how much our compassion for various sorts of animals, and our fellow-feeling with various races of men, are proportioned to the resemblance which they bear to our- selves, to the frequency of our intercourse with them, and to other causes which, in the opinion of some, afford evidence that sympathy itself is dependent on a more general law. * There is some confusion regarding this point in Butler's first sermon on Compassion. f The feelings of beauty, grandeur, and whatever else is compre hended under the name of Taste, form no exception, for they do not lead to action, but terminate in delightful contemplation ; which constitutes the essential distinction between them and the moral sentiments, to which, in some points of view, they may doubtless be likened. 1 52 MODERN ETHICS : 2. Had Smith extended his view beyond the mere play of sympathy itself, and taken into account all its preliminaries, and accompaniments, and consequences, it seems improbable that he should have fallen into the great error of representing the sympathies in their primitive state, without undergoing any transformation, as continuing exclusively to constitute the moral sentiments. He is not content with teaching that they are the roots out of which these sentiments grow, the stocks on which they are grafted, the elements of which they are compounded; doctrines to which nothing could be ob- jected but their unlimited extent. He tacitly assumes, that if a sympathy in the beginning caused or formed a moral approbation, so it must ever continue to do. He proceeds like a geologist who should tell us that the layers of this planet had always been in the same state, shutting his eyes to transition states and secondary formations ; or like a chemist who should inform us that no compound substance can possess new qualities entirely different from those which belong to its materials. His acquiescence in this old and still general error is the more remarkable, because Mr. Hume's beautiful Dissertation on the Passions* had just before opened a striking view of some of the compositions and decompositions which render the mind of a formed man as different from its original state, as the organisation of a complete animal is from the condition of the first dim speck of vitality. It is from this oversight (ill supplied by moral rules, a loose stone in his building) that he has exposed himself to objections founded on experience, to which it is impossible to attempt any answer. For it is certain that in many, nay in most cases of moral approbation, the adult man approves the action or disposition merely as right, and with a distinct consciousness that no process of sympathy intervenes between the approval and its object. It is certain that an unbiassed person would call * Essays and Treatises, vol. iL SMITH. 153 it moral approbation, only as far as it excluded the inter- position of any reflection between the conscience and the mental state approved. Upon the supposition of an unchanged state of our active principles, it would follow that sympathy never had any share in the greater part of them. Had he admitted the sympathies to he only elements entering into the formation of Conscience, their disappearance, or their ap- pearance only as auxiliaries, after the mind is mature, would have been no more an objection to his system than the con- version of a substance from a transitional to a permanent state is a perplexity to the geologist. It would perfectly re- semble the destruction of qualities, which is the ordinary effect of chemical composition. 3. The same error has involved him in another difficulty perhaps still more fatal. The sympathies have nothing more of an imperative character than any other emotions. They attract or repel like other feelings, according to their intensity. If, then, the sympathies continue in mature minds to consti- tute the whole of conscience, it becomes utterly impossible to explain the character of command and supremacy, which is attested by the unanimous voice of mankind to belong to that faculty, and to form its essential distinction. Had he adopted the other representation, it would be possible to con- ceive, perhaps easy to explain, that conscience should possess a quality which belonged to none of its elements. 4. It is to this representation that Smith's theory owes that unhappy appearance of rendering the rule of our conduct dependent on the notions and passions of those who surround us, of which the utmost efforts of the most refined ingenuity have not been able to divest it. This objection or topic is often ignorantly urged ; the answers are frequently solid ; but to most men they must always appear to be an ingenious and intricate contrivance of cycles and epicycles, which perplex the mind too much to satisfy it, and seem devised to 154 MODERN ETHICS : evade difficulties which cannot be solved. All theories which treat conscience as built up by circumstances inevitably acting on all human minds, are, indeed, liable to somewhat of the same misconception ; unless they place in the strongest light (what Smith's theory excludes) the total destruction of the scaffolding which was necessary only to the erection of the building, after the mind is adult and mature, and warn the hastiest reader that it then rests on its own foundation alone. 5. The constant reference of our own dispositions and actions to the point of view from which they are estimated by others, seems to be rather an excellent expedient for pre- serving our impartiality, than a fundamental principle of Ethics. But impartiality, which is no more than a removal of some hindrance to right judgment, supplies no materials for its exercise, and no rule, or even principle, for its guidance. It nearly coincides with the Christian precept of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us ; an admirable practical maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said truly, intended only as a correction of self-partiality. 6. Lastly, this ingenious system renders all morality relative by referring it to the pleasure of an agreement of our feelings with those of others, by confining itself entirely to the question of moral approbation, and by providing no place for the consideration of that quality which distinguishes all good from all bad actions ; a defect which will appear in the sequel to be more immediately fatal to a theorist of the sentimental, than to one of the intellectual school. Smith shrinks from considering utility in that light as soon as it presents itself, or very strangely ascribes its power over our moral feelings to admiration of the mere adaptation of means to ends which might surely be as well felt for the pro- duction of wide-spread misery, by a consistent system of wicked conduct instead of ascribing it to benevolence, with Hutcheson and Hume, or to an extension of that very sympathy which is his own first principle. PRICE. 155 RICHARD PRICE. Born 1723 died 1791. ABOUT the same time with the celebrated work of Smith, but with a popular reception very different, Dr. Eichard Price, an excellent and eminent nonconformist minister, published A Review of the principal Questions in Morals ; * an attempt to revive the intellectual theory of moral obligation, which seemed to have fallen under the attacks of Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume, even before Smith. It attracted little observation at first ; but, being afterwards countenanced by the Scottish School, may seem to deserve some notice, in connection with the kindred speculations of the German metaphysicians, which, having effected an establishment in France, became no longer unknown in England. The understanding itself is, according to Price, an inde-\ pendent source of simple ideas. " The various kinds of agree- ment and disagreement between our ideas, spoken of by Locke, are so many new simple ideas." " This is true of our ideas of proportion, of our ideas of identity, and diversity, existence, connection, cause and effect, power, possibility, and of our ideas of right and wrong." "The first relates to quantity, the last to actions, the rest to all things." " Like all other simple ideas, they are undefinable." It is needless to pursue this theory farther, till an answer shall be given to the observation made before, that as no perception or judgment, or other unmixed act of understand- ing, merely as such, and without the agency of some inter- mediate emotion, can affect the will, the account given by Dr. Price of perceptions or judgments respecting moral subjects does not advance one step towards the explanation of the authority of conscience over the will, which is the * The third edition was published at London in 1787. 156 MODERN ETHICS : matter to be explained. Indeed, this respectable writer felt the difficulty so much as to allow, "that, in contemplating the acts of moral agents, we have both a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart." He even admits that it would have been highly pernicious to us if our reason had been left without such support. But he has not shown how, on such a supposition, we could have acted on a mere opinion ; nor has he given any proof that what he calls support, is not, in truth, the whole of what directly produces the conformity of voluntary acts to morality.* DAVID HARTLEY. Born 1705 died 1757. THE work of Dr. Hartley, entitled Observations on Man,^ is distinguished by an uncommon union of originality with modesty, in unfolding a simple and fruitful principle of human nature. It is disfigured by the absurd affectation of mathe- matical forms then prevalent ; and it is encumbered and deformed by a mass of physiological speculations, groundless, or at best uncertain, wholly foreign from its proper purpose, which repel the inquirer into mental philosophy from its perusal, and lessen the respect of the physiologist for the author's judgment. It is an unfortunate example of the dis- position predominant among undistinguishing theorists to * The following sentences will illustrate the text, and are in truth applicable to all moral theories on merely intellectual principles : " Keason alone, did we possess it in a higher degree, would answer all the ends of the passions. Thus there would be no need of parental affection, were all parents sufficiently acquainted with the reasons for taking upon them the guidance and support of those whom nature has placed under their care, and were they virtuous enough to be always de- termined by those reasons. 1 ' (Price's fteview, 121.) A very slight con- sideration will show that without the last words the preceding part would be utterly false, and with them it is utterly insignificant. f London, 1749. HARTLEY. 157 class together all the appearances which are observed at the same time, and in the immediate neighbourhood of each other. At that period chemical phenomena were referred to mecha- nical principles ; vegetable and animal life were subjected to mechanical or chemical laws ; and while some physiologists* ascribed the vital functions to the understanding, the greater part of the metaphysicians were disposed, with grosser con- fusion, to derive the intellectual operations from bodily causes. The error in the latter case, though less immediately perceptible, is deeper and more fundamental than in any other ; since it overlooks the primordial and perpetual dis- tinction between the being which thinks and the thing which is thought of; not to be lost sight of, by the mind's eye, even for a twinkling, without involving all nature in darkness and confusion. Hartley and Condillac,t who, much about the same time, but seemingly without any knowledge of each other's speculations^ began in a very similar mode to simplify, but also to mutilate, the system of Locke, stopped short of what is called Materialism, which consummates the confusion, but touched its threshold. Thither, it must be owned, their philosophy pointed, and thither their followers proceeded. * G. E. Stahl, born in 1660 ; died in 1734 ; a German physician and chemist of deserved eminence. [Stahl ascribed the vital functions not to the understanding but to the soul. I have spoken of him as the founder of the Psychical School. See Phil, of the Med. Sc., B. ix. W. W.] t Born in 1715 died in 1780. J Traits sur I'Origine des Connoissances Humaines, 1746 ; Traite des Systemes, 1749 ; TraitS des Sensations, 1754. Foreign books were then little and slowly known in England. Hartley's reading, except on theology, seems confined to the physical and mathematical sciences ; and his whole manner of thinking and writing is so different from that of Condillac, that there is not the least reason to suppose the work of the one to have been known to the other. The work of Hartley, as we learn from the sketch of his life by his son, prefixed to the edition of 1791, was begun in 1730, and finished in 1746. 158 MODERN ETHICS : Hartley and Bonnet,* still more than Condillac, suffered them- selves, like most of their contemporaries, to overlook the im- portant truth, that all the changes in the organs which can be likened to other material phenomena, are nothing more than antecedents and prerequisites of perception, bearing not the faintest likeness to it ; as much outward in relation to the think- ing principle, as if they occurred in any other part of the matter ; and of which the entire comprehension, if it were attained, would not bring us a step nearer to the nature of thought. They who would have been the first to exclaim against the mistake of a sound for a colour, fell into the more unspeak- able error of confounding the perception of objects, as outward, with the consciousness of our own mental operations. Locke's doctrine, that REFLECTION was a separate source of ideas, left room for this greatest of all distinctions though with much unhappiness of expression, and with no little variance from the course of his own speculations. Hartley, Condillac, and Bonnet, in hewing away this seeming deformity from the system of their master, unwittingly struck off the part of the building which, however unsightly, gave it the power of yielding some shelter and guard to truths, of which the exclu- sion rendered it utterly untenable. They became consistent Nominalists ; a controversy on which Locke expresses himself with confusion and contradiction ; but on this subject they added nothing to what had been taught by Hobbes and Berkeley. Both Hartley and Condillac t have the merit of having been unseduced by the temptations either of scepticism * Born in 1720 died in 1793. + The following note of Condillac will show how much he differed from Hartley in his mode of considering the Newtonian hypothesis of vibrations, and how far he was in that respect superior to him. " Je suppose ici et ailleurs que les perceptions de 1'ame ont pour cause physique 1'ebranlement des fibres du cerveau ; non que je regard cette hypothese comme d&montrie, mais parcequ' elle est la plus commode pour expliquer ma pcmie." ((Euvres de Condillac, i. 60 ; Paris, 1798.) HARTLEY. 159 or of useless idealism ; which, even if Berkeley and Hume could have been unknown to them, must have been within sight. Both agree in referring all the intellectual operations to the association of ideas, and in representing that association as reducible to the single law, that ideas which enter the mind at the same time acquire a tendency to call up each other, which is in direct proportion to the frequency of their having entered together. In this important part of their doctrine they seem, whether unconsciously or otherwise, to have only repeated, and very much expanded, the opinion of Hobbes.* In its simplicity it is more agreeable than the system of Mr. Hume, who admitted five independent kws of association ; and it is in comprehension far superior to the views of the same subject by Mr. Locke, whose ill-chosen name still retains its place in our nomenclature, but who only appeals to the principle as explaining some fancies and whimsies of the human mind. The capital fault of Hartley is that of a rash generalisation, which may prove imperfect, and which is at least premature. All attempts to explain instinct by this principle have hitherto been unavailing. Many of the most important processes of reasoning have not hitherto been accounted for by it.t It would appear by close examination, that even this theory, simple as it appears, pre- supposes many facts relating to the mind, of which its authors do not seem to have suspected the existence. How many ultimate facts of that nature, for example, are contained and involved in Aristotle's celebrated comparison of the mind in its first state to a sheet of unwritten paper ! J The texture of * Human Nature, chaps, iv. v. vi. For more ancient statements, see Notes and Illustrations, Note T. t "Ce que les logiciens ont dit des raisonnements dans bien des volumes, me paroit entierement superflu, et de nul usage" (Condillac, i. 115) ; an assertion of which the gross absurdity will be apparent to the readers of Dr. Whately's Treatise on Logic, one of the most import- ant works of the present age. I See Notes and Illustrations, Note U. 1GO MODERN ETHICS : the paper, even its colour, the sort of instrument fit to act on it, its capacity to receive and to retain impressions, all its differences, from steel on the one hand to water on the other, certainly presuppose some facts, and may imply many, with- out a distinct statement of which the nature of writing could not be explained to a person wholly ignorant of it. How many more, as well as greater laws, may he necessary to en- able mind to perceive outward objects ! If the power of perception may be thus dependent, why may not what is called the association of ideas, the attraction between thoughts, the power of one to suggest another, be affected by mental laws hitherto unexplored, perhaps unobserved ? But to return from digression into the intellectual part of man : It becomes proper to say, that the difference between Hartley and Condillac, and the immeasurable superiority of the former, are chiefly to be found in the application which Hartley first made of the law of association to that other un- named portion of our nature with which morality more im- mediately deals ; that which feels pain and pleasure, is influenced by appetites and loathings, by desires and aversions, by affections and repugnances. Condillac's Treatise on Sensation, published five years after the work of Hartley, reproduces the doctrine of Hobbes with its root, namely, that love and hope are but transformed sensations,* by which he means perceptions of the senses and its wide-spread branches, consisting in desires and passions, which are only modifica- tions of self-love. "The words goodness and beauty" says he, almost in the very words of Hobbes, "express those qualities of things by which they contribute to our plea- sures.'^ In the whole of his philosophical works, we find no trace of any desire produced by association, of any disin- * Condillac, iii. 21 ; more especially TraiU des Sensations, part ii. chap. vi. "Its love for outward objects is only an effect of love for itself." t Traite des Sensations, part iv. chap. iii. HARTLEY. 161 terested principle, or indeed of any distinction between the percipient and what, perhaps, we may now venture to call the emotive or the pathematic part of human nature until some more convenient and agreeable name shall be hit on by some luckier or more skilful adventurer, in such new terms as seem to be absolutely necessary. To the ingenious, humble, and anxiously conscientious character of Hartley, we owe the knowledge that, about the year 1730, he was informed that the Eeverend Mr. Gay of Sydney College, Cambridge, then living in the west of England, asserted the possibility of deducing all our intellec- tual pleasures and pains from association; that this led him (Hartley) to consider the power of association ; and that about that time Mr. Gay published his sentiments on this matter in a dissertation prefixed to Bishop Law's Translation of King's Origin of Evil* No writer deserves more the praise of abundant fairness than Hartley in this avowal. The dis- sertation of which he speaks is mentioned by no philosopher but himself. It suggested nothing apparently to any other reader. The general texture of it is that of home-spun selfishness. The writer had the merit to see and to own that Hutcheson had established as a fact the reality of moral sentiments and disinterested affections. He blames, perhaps justly, that most ingenious man,t for assuming that these * Hartley's Preface, to the Observations on Man. The word intellec- tual is too narrow. Even mental would be of very doubtful propriety. The theory in its full extent requires a word such as inorganic (if no better can be discovered) extending to all gratification, not distinctly referred to some specific organ, or at least to some assignable part of the bodily frame. + It has not been mentioned in its proper place, that Hutcheson appears nowhere to greater advantage than in Letters on the Fable of the Bees, published when he was very young, at Dublin, in a publication called Hibernicus. " Private vices are public benefits," says he, " may signify any one of these five distinct propositions : 1. They are in them- selves public benefits ; or, 2. They naturally produce public happiness ; M 162 MODERN ETHICS : sentiments and affections are implanted, and partake of the nature of instincts. The object of his dissertation is to re- concile the mental appearances described by Hutcheson with the first principle of the selfish system, that " the true prin- ciple of all our actions is our own happiness." Moral feelings and social affections are, according to him, " resolvable into reason, pointing out our private happiness ; and whenever this end is not perceived they are to be accounted for from the association of ideas." Even in the single passage in which he shows a glimpse of the truth, he begins with confusion, advances with hesitation, and after holding in his grasp for an instant the principle which sheds so strong a light around it, suddenly drops it from his hand. Instead of receiving the statements of Hutcheson (his silence relating to Butler is unaccountable) as enlargements of the science of man, he deals with them merely as difficulties to be reconciled with the received system of universal selfishness. In the conclu- sion of his fourth section, he well exemplifies the power of association in forming the love of money, of fame, of power, etc. ; but he still treats these effects of association as aberra- tions and infirmities, the fruits of our forgetfulness and short- sightedness, and not at all as the great process employed to sow and rear the most important principles of a social and moral nature. This precious mine may therefore be truly said to have been opened by Hartley ; for he who did such superabundant justice to the hints of Gay, would assuredly not have with- held the like tribute from Hutcheson, had he observed the happy expression of "secondary passions," which ought to have led that philosopher himself farther than he ventured or, 3. They may be made to produce it ; or, 4. They may naturally flow from it ; or, 5. At least they may probably flow from it in our infirm nature." (See a small volume containing Thoughts on Laughter, and Observations on the Fable of the Bees, Glasgow, 1758, in which these letters are republished.) HARTLEY. 163 to advance. The extraordinary value of this part of Hart- ley's system has been hidden by various causes, which have also enabled writers who borrow from it to decry it. The influence of his medical habits renders many of his examples displeasing, and sometimes disgusting. He has none of that knowledge of the world, of that familiarity with literature, of that delicate perception of the beauties of nature and art, which not only supply the most agreeable illustrations of mental philosophy, but afford the most obvious and striking instances of its happy application to subjects generally in- teresting. His particular applications of the general law are often mistaken, and seldom more than brief notes and hasty suggestions ; the germs of theories which, while some might adopt them without detection, others might discover without being aware that they were anticipated. To which it may be added, that, in spite of the imposing forms of geometry, the work is not really distinguished by good method, or even uniform adherence to that which had been chosen. His style is entitled to no praise but that of clearness, and a simplicity of diction, through which is visible a singular simplicity of mind. No book perhaps exists, which, with so few of the common allurements, comes at last so much to please by the picture it presents of the writer's character a character which kept him pure from the pursuit, often from the consciousness, of novelty, and rendered him a discoverer in spite of his own modesty. In those singular passages in which, amidst the profound internal tranquillity of all the European nations, he foretells the approaching convulsions, to be followed by the overthrow of states and churches, his quiet and gentle spirit, elsewhere almost ready to inculcate passive obedience for the sake of peace, is supported under its awful forebodings by the hope of that general progress in virtue and happiness which he saw through the preparatory confusion. A meek piety, inclining towards mysticism, and sometimes indulging in 164 MODERN ETHICS : visions, which borrow a lustre from his fervid benevolence, was beautifully, and perhaps singularly, blended in him with zeal for the most unbounded freedom of inquiry, flowing both from his own conscientious belief and his unmingled love of truth. Whoever can so far subdue his repugnance to petty or secondary faults as to bestow a careful perusal on the work, must be unfortunate if he does not see, feel, and own, that the writer was a great philosopher and a good man. To those who thus study the work, it will be apparent that Hartley, like other philosophers, either overlooked, or failed explicitly to announce, that distinction between per- ception and emotion, without which no system of mental philosophy is complete. Hence arose the partial and incom- plete view of truth conveyed by the use of the phrase " associa- tion of ideas." If the word association, which rather indicates the connection between separate things, than the perfect com- bination and fusion which occur in many operations of the mind, must, notAvithstanding its inadequacy, still be retained, i the phrase ought at least to be " association of thoughts with 1 emotions, as well as with each other." With that enlarge- ment an objection to the Hartleian doctrine would have been avoided, and its originality, as well as superiority over that of Condillac, would have appeared indisputable. The examples of avarice and other factitious passions are very well chosen ; first, because few will be found to suppose that they are original principles of human nature ;* secondly, because the process by which they are generated, being subsequent to the age of attention and recollection, may be brought home to the un- derstanding of all men ; and thirdly, because they afford the most striking instance of secondary passions, which not only * A. very ingenious man, Lord Kames, whose works had a great effect in rousing the mind of his contemporaries and countrymen, has indeed fancied that there is a " hoarding instinct" in man and other animals. But such conclusions are not so much objects of confutation as ludicrous proofs of the absurdity of the premises which lead to them. HARTLEY. 165 become independent of the primary principles from which they are derived, but hostile to them, and so superior in strength as to be capable of overpowering their parents. As soon as the mind becomes familiar with the frequent case of the man who first pursued money to purchase pleasure, but at last, when he becomes a miser, loves his "hoard better than all that it could purchase, and sacrifices all pleasures for its increase, we are prepared to admit that, by a like process, the affections, when they are fixed on the happiness of others as their ultimate object, without any reflection on self, may not only be perfectly detached from self-regard or private desires, but may subdue these, and every other antagonist passion which can stand in their way. As the miser loves money for its own sake, so may the benevolent man delight in the well- being of his fellows. His good-will becomes as disinterested as if it had been implanted and underived. The like process applied to what is called self-love, or the desire of permanent well-being, clearly explains the mode in which that principle is gradually formed from the separate appetites, without whose previous existence no notion .of well-being could be obtained. In like manner, sympathy, perhaps itself the result of a transfer of our own personal feelings by association to other sentient beings, and of a subsequent transfer of their feelings to our own minds, engenders the various social affections, which at last generate in most minds some regard to the well- being of our country, of mankind, of all creatures capable of pleasure. Rational self-love controls and guides those far keener self-regarding passions of which it is the child, in the same manner as general benevolence balances and governs the variety of much warmer social affections from which it springs. It is an ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to repre- sent these two calm principles as being the source of the im- pelling passions and affections, instead of being among the last results of them. Each of them exercises a sort of authority 166 MODERN ETHICS : in its sphere, but the dominion of neither is co-existent with the whole nature of man. Though they have the power to quicken and check, they are both too feeble to impel ; and if the primary principles were extinguished, they would both perish from want of nourishment. If indeed all appetites and desires were destroyed, no subject would exist on which either of these general principles could act. The affections, desires, and emotions, having for their ultimate object the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents, which alone, from the nature of their object, are co- extensive with the whole of our active nature, are, according to the same philosophy, necessarily formed in every human mind by the transfer of feeling which is effected by the principle of association. Gratitude, pity, resentment, and shame, seem to be the simplest, the most active, and the most uniform elements in their composition. It is easy to perceive how the complacency inspired by a benefit may be transferred to a benefactor, thence to all beneficent beings and acts. The well-chosen instance of the nurse familiarly exemplifies the manner in which the child transfers his complacency from the gratification of his senses to the cause of it, and thus learns an affection for her who is the source of his enjoyment. "With this simple pro- cess concur, in the case of a tender nurse, and far more of a mother, a thousand acts of relief and endearment, of which the complacency is fixed on the person from whom they flow, and in some degree extended by association to all who resemble that person. So much of the pleasure of early life depends on others, that the like process is almost constantly repeated. Hence the origin of benevolence may be under- stood, and the disposition to approve all benevolent, and dis- approve all malevolent acts. Hence also the same approba- tion and disapprobation are extended to all acts which we clearly perceive to promote or obstruct the happiness of men. HARTLEY. 167 "When the complacency is extended to action, benevolence may be said to be transformed into a part of conscience. The rise of sympathy may probably be explained by the process of association, which transfers the feelings of others to our- selves, and ascribes our own feelings to others ; at first and in some degree, always in proportion as the resemblance of ourselves to others is complete. The likeness in the out- ward signs of emotion is one of the widest channels in this commerce of hearts. Pity thereby becomes one of the grand sources of benevolence, and perhaps contributes more largely than gratitude. It is indeed one of the first motives to the conferring of those benefits which inspire grateful affection. Sympathy with the sufferer, therefore, is also transformed into a real sentiment, directly approving benevolent actions and dispositions, and more remotely all actions that promote happiness. The anger of the sufferer, first against all causes of pain, afterwards against all intentional agents who pro- duce it, and finally against all those in whom the infliction of pain proceeds from a mischievous disposition, when it is communicated to others by sympathy, and is so far purified by gradual separation from selfish and individual interest as to be equally felt against all wrong-doers, whether the wrong be done against ourselves, our friends, or our enemies, is the root out of which springs that which is commonly and well called a Sense of Justice the most indispensable, perhaps, of all the component parts of the moral faculties. It is the main guard against wrong. It relates to that portion of morality where many of the outward acts are capable of being reduced under certain rules, of which the violations, wherever the rule is sufficiently precise, and the mischief sufficiently great, may be guarded against by the terror of punishment. In the observation of the rules of justice consists duty; breaches of them we denominate crimes. An abhorrence of crimes, especially of those which indicate the absence of 168 MODERN ETHICS : benevolence, as well as of regard to justice, is peculiarly strong ; because well-framed penal laws, being the lasting declaration of the moral indignation of many generations of mankind, exceedingly strengthen the same feeling in every individual, as long as they remain in unison with the senti- ments of the age and country for which they are destined, and indeed, wherever the laws do not so much deviate from the habitual feelings as to produce a struggle between law and sentiment, in which it is hard to say on which side success is most deplorable. A man who performs his duties may be esteemed, but is not admired ; because it requires no more than ordinary virtue to act well where it is shameful and dangerous to do otherwise. The righteousness of those who act solely from such inferior motives is little better than that "of the Scribes and Pharisees." Those only are just in the eye of the moralist who act justly from a constant disposition to render to every man his own.* Acts of kindness, of generosity, of pity, of placability, of humanity, when they are long continued, can hardly fail mainly to flow from the pure fountain of an excellent nature. They are not reducible to rules ; and the attempt to enforce them by punishment would destroy them. They are virtues of which the essence consists in a good disposition of mind. As we gradually transfer our desire from praise to praiseworthiness, this principle also is adopted into consciousness. On the other hand, when we are led by association to feel a painful contempt for those feelings and actions of our past self which we despise in others, there is developed in our hearts another element of that moral sense. It is a remarkable instance of the power of the law of association, that the contempt or abhorrence * " Justitia est constans et perpetua voluntas suum cuique tribu- endi ;" an excellent definition in the mouth of the stoical moralists, from whom it is borrowed, but altogether, misplaced by the Roman Jurists in a body of laws which deal only with outward acts in their relation to the order and interest of society. HARTLEY. 169 which we feel for the bad actions of others may be transferred by it, in any degree of strength, to our own past actions of the like kind. And as the hatred of bad actions is transferred to the agent, the same transfer may occur in our own case in a manner perfectly similar to that of which we are conscious in our feelings towards our fellow-creatures. There are many causes which render it generally feebler : but it is perfectly evident that it requires no more than a sufficient strength of moral feeling to make it equal ; and that the most apparently hyperbolical language used by penitents, in describing their remorse, may be justified by the principle of association. At this step in our progress, it is proper to observe that a most important consideration has escaped Hartley, as well as every other philosopher.* The language of all mankind implies that the moral faculty, whatever it may be, and from what origin soever it may spring, is intelligibly and properly spoken of as ONE. It is as common in mind as in matter for I a compound to have properties not to be found in any of its 1 constituent parts. The truth of this proposition is as certain in the human feelings as in any material combination. It is therefore easily understood, that originally separate feelings may be so perfectly blended by a process performed in every mind, that they can no longer be disjoined from each other, but must always co-operate, and thus reach the only union which we can conceive. The sentiment of Moral Approba- tion, formed by association out of antecedent affections, may become so perfectly independent of them, that we are no longer conscious of the means by which it was formed, and never can in practice repeat, though we may in theory perceive, the process by which it was generated. It is in that mature and sound state of our nature that our emotions at the view of Right and Wrong are ascribed to Conscience. But why, it may be asked, do these feelings, rather than others, run into * See supra, section on Butler. 170 MODERN ETHICS : each other, and constitute Conscience 1 The answer seems to be what has already been intimated in the observations on Butler. The affinity between these feelings consists in this, that while all other feelings relate to outward objects, they alone contemplate exclusively the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. When they are completely transferred from objects, and even persons, to dispositions and actions, they are fitted, by the perfect coincidence of their aim, for combining to form that one faculty which is directed only to that aim. The words Duty and Virtue, and the word Ought, which most perfectly denotes Duty, but is also connected with Virtue, in every well-constituted mind, in this state become the fit language of the acquired, perhaps, but universally and necessarily acquired, faculty of Conscience. Some account of its peculiar nature has been attempted in the remarks on Butler; for others a fitter occasion will occur hereafter. Some light may, however, now be thrown on the subject by a short statement of the hitherto unobserved distinction between the moral sentiments and another class of feelings with which they have some qualities in common. The plea- sures (so called) of Imagination appear, at least in most cases, to originate in association. But it is not till the original cause of the gratification is obliterated from the mind that they acquire their proper character. Order and proportion may be at first chosen for their convenience : it is not until they are admired for their own sake that they become objects of taste. Though all the proportions for which a horse is valued maybe indications of speed, safety, strength, and health, it is not the less true that they only can be said to admire the animal for his beauty, who leave such considerations out of the account while they admire. The pleasure of contemplation in these particulars of nature and art becomes universal and immediate, being entirely detached from all regard to indivi- HARTLEY. 171 dual beings. It contemplates neither use nor interest. In this important particular the pleasures of imagination agree with the moral sentiments. Hence the application of the same language to both in ancient and modern times. Hence also it arises that they may contemplate the very same quali- ties and objects. There is certainly much beauty in the softer virtues much grandeur in the soul of a hero or a martyr. But the essential distinction still remains. The purest moral taste contemplates these qualities only with quiescent delight or reverence. It has no further view ; it points towards no action. Conscience, on the contrary, containing in it a pleasure in the prospect of doing right, and an ardent desire to act well, having for its sole object the dispositions and acts of voluntary agents, is not, like moral taste, satisfied with passive contemplation, but constantly tends to act on the will and conduct of the man. Moral taste may aid it, may be absorbed into it, and usually contributes its part to the forma- tion of the moral faculty ; but it is distinct from that faculty, and may be disproportioned to it. Conscience, being by its nature confined to mental dispositions and voluntary acts, is of necessity excluded from the ordinary consideration of all things antecedent to these dispositions. The circumstances from which such states of mind may arise are most important objects of consideration for the understanding ; but they are without the sphere of conscience, which never ascends be- yond the heart of the man. It is thus that in the eye of conscience man becomes amenable to its authority for all his inclinations as well as deeds ; that some of them are approved, loved, and revered ; and that all the outward effects of dis- esteem, contempt, or moral anger, are felt to be the just lot of others. But, to return to Hartley, from this perhaps intrusive statement of what does not properly belong to him : he re- presents all the social affections of gratitude, veneration, and 172 MODERN ETHICS : love, inspired by the virtues of our fellow-men, as capable of being transferred by association to tbe transcendent and un- mingled goodness of the Ruler of the world, and thus to give rise to piety, to which he gives the name of the theopathetic affection. This principle, like all the former in the mental series, is gradually detached from the trunk on which it grew : it takes separate root, and may altogether overshadow the parent-stock. As such a being cannot be conceived without the most perfect and constant reference to his goodness, so piety may become not only a part of conscience, but its governing and animating principle, which, after long lending its own energy and authority to every other, is at last described by our philosopher as swallowing up all of them in order to perform the same functions more infallibly. In every stage of this progress we are taught by Dr. Hartley that a new product appears, which becomes perfectly distinct from the elements which formed it, which may be utterly dissimilar to them, and may attain any degree of vigour, however superior to theirs. Thus the objects of the private desires disappear when we are employed in the pursuit of our lasting welfare ; that which was first sought only as a means, may come to be pursued as an end, and pre- ferred to the original end ; the good opinion of our fellows becomes more valued than the benefits for which it was at first courted ; a man is ready to sacrifice his life for him who has shown generosity, even to others ; and persons other- wise of common character are capable of cheerfully marching in a forlorn hope, or of almost instinctively leaping into the sea, to save the life of an entire stranger. These last acts, often of almost unconscious virtue, so familiar to the soldier and the sailor, so unaccountable on certain systems of philosophy, often occur without a thought of applause and reward ; too quickly for the thought of the latter, too obscurely for the hope of the former ; and they are of such HARTLEY. 173 a nature that no man could be impelled to them by the mere expectation of either. The gratitude, sympathy, resentment, and shame, which are the principal constituent parts of the Moral Sense, thus lose their separate agency, and constitute an entirely new faculty, co-extensive with all the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents ; though some of them are more pre- dominant in particular cases of moral sentiment than others, and though the aid of all continues to be necessary in their original character, as subordinate but distinct motives of action. Nothing more evidently points out the distinction of the Hartleian system from all systems called selfish, not to say its superiority in respect to disinterestedness over all moral systems before Butler and Hutcheson, than that excellent part of it which relates to the Eule of Life. The various principles of human action rise in value according to the order in which they spring up after each other. We can then only be in a state of as much enjoyment as we are evi- dently capable of attaining, when we prefer interest to the original gratifications honour to interest the pleasures of imagination to those of sense the dictates of conscience to pleasure, interest, and reputation the well-being of fellow- creatures to our own indulgences ; in a word, when we pursue moral good and social happiness chiefly and for their own sake. " With self-interest," says Hartley, somewhat in- accurately in language, " man must begin. He may end in self-annihilation. Theopathy, or piety, although the last result of the purified and exalted sentiments, may at length swallow up every other principle, and absorb the whole man." Even if this last doctrine should be an exaggeration unsuited to our present condition, it will the more strongly illustrate the compatibility, or rather the necessary connection, of this theory with the existence and power of perfectly disinterested principles of human action. 174 MODERN ETHICS : It is needless to remark on the secondary and auxiliary causes which contribute to the formation of moral sentiment ; education, imitation, general opinion, laws and government. They all presuppose the moral faculty : in an improved state of society they contribute powerfully to strengthen it, and on some occasions they enfeeble, distort, and maim it ; but in all cases they must themselves be tried by the test of an ethical standard. The value of this doctrine will not be essentially affected by supposing a greater number of original principles than those assumed by Dr. Hartley. The principle of association applies as much to a greater as to a smaller number. It is a quality common to it with all theories, that the more simplicity it reaches consistently with truth, the more perfect it becomes. Causes are not to be multiplied without necessity. If, by a considerable multiplication of primary desires, the law of association were lowered nearly to the level of an auxiliary agent, the philosophy of human nature would still be under indelible obligations to the philosopher who, by his fortunate error, rendered the importance of that great principle obvious and conspicuous. ABRAHAM TUCKER. Born 1705 died 1774. IT has been the remarkable fortune of this writer to have been more prized by the cultivators of the same subjects, and more disregarded by the generality even of those who read books on such matters, than perhaps any other philosopher.* * " I have found in this writer more original thinking and observa- tion upon the several subjects that he has taken in hand than in any other, not to say than in all others put together. His talent also for illustration is unrivalled. " (PALEY, Preface to Moral aiul Political Phi- losophy.) See the excellent preface to an abridgment, by Mr. Hazlitt, of Tucker's work, published in London in 1807. May I venture to refer also to my own discourse on the Law of Nature and Nations, TUCKER. 175 He had many of the qualities which might be expected in an affluent country gentleman, living in a privacy undisturbed by political zeal, and with a leisure unbroken by the calls of a profession, at a time when England had not entirely renounced her old taste for metaphysical speculation. He was naturally endowed, not indeed with more than ordinary acuteness or sensibility, nor with a high degree of reach and range of mind, but with a singular capacity for careful observa- tion and original reflection, and with a fancy perhaps un- matched in producing various and happy illustration. The most observable of his moral qualities appear to have been prudence and cheerfulness, good nature and easy temper. The influence of his situation and character is visible in his writings. Indulging his own tastes and fancies, like most English squires of his time, he became, like many of them, a sort of humorist. Hence much of his originality and independence ; hence the boldness with which he openly employs illustrations from homely objects. He wrote to please himself more than the public. He had too little regard for readers, either to sacrifice his sincerity to them, or to curb his own prolixity, repetition, and egotism, from the fear of fatiguing them. Hence he became as loose, as rambling, and as much an egotist as Montaigne ; but not so agreeably so, notwithstanding a considerable resemblance of genius ; because he wrote on subjects where disorder and egotism are unseasonable, and for readers whom they disturb instead of amusing. His prolixity at last increased itself, when his work became so long, that repetition in the latter parts partly arose from forgetfulness of the former ; and though his freedom from slavish deference to general opinion is very commendable, it must be owned that his want of a wholesome fear of the public renders the perusal of a work London, 1799 ? Mr. Stewart treats Tucker and Hartley with unwonted harshness. 176 MODERN ETHICS : which is extremely interesting, and even amusing in most of its parts, on the whole a laborious task. He was by early education a believer in Christianity, if not by natural character religious. His calm good sense and accommodating temper led him rather to explain established doctrines in a manner agreeable to his philosophy, than to assail them. Hence he was represented as a time-server by free-thinkers, and as a heretic by the orthodox.* Living in a country where the secure tranquillity flowing from the Eevolution was gradually drawing forth all mental activity towards practical pursuits and outward objects, he hastened from the rudi- ments of mental and moral philosophy, to those branches of it which touch the business of men.f Had he recast without changing his thoughts had he detached those ethical observations for which he had so peculiar a vocation, from the disputes of his country and his day he might have thrown many of his chapters into their proper form of essays, which might have been compared, though not likened, to those of Hume. But the country gentleman, philosophic as he was, had too much fondness for his own humours to engage in a course of drudgery and deference. It may, however, be confidently added, on the authority of all those who have fairly made the experiment, that whoever, unfettered by a previous system, undertakes the labour necessary to discover and relish the high excellences of this metaphysical Montaigne, will find his toil lightened as he proceeds, by a growing indulgence, if not partiality, for the * This disposition to compromise and accommodation, which is dis- coverable in Paley, was carried to its utmost length by Mr. Hey, a man of much acuteness, Professor of Divinity at Cambridge. t Perhaps no philosopher ever stated more justly, more naturally, or more modestly, than Tucker, the ruling maxim of his life. " My thoughts," says he, " have taken a turn from my earliest youth towards searching into the foundations and measures of right and wrong ; my love for retirement has furnished me with continual leisure ; and the exercise of my reason has been my daily employment." TUCKER. 177 foibles of the humorist ; and at last rewarded, in a greater degree perhaps than by any other writer on mixed and applied philosophy, by being led to commanding stations and new points of view, whence the mind of a moralist can hardly fail to catch some fresh prospects of nature and duty. It is in mixed, not in pure philosophy, that this superiority consists. In the part of his work which relates to the intel- lect, he has adopted much from Hartley, hiding but aggravat- ing the offence by a change of technical terms ; and he was ungrateful enough to countenance the vulgar sneer which in- volves the mental analysis of that philosopher in the ridicule to which his physiological hypothesis is liable.* Thus, for the Hartleian term Association he substitutes that of Translation, when he adopts the same theory of the principles which move the mind to action. In the practical and applicable part of that inquiry, he indeed far surpasses Hartley ; and it is little to add, that he unspeakably exceeds that bare and naked thinker in the useful as well as admirable faculty of illustration. In the strictly theoretical part his exposition is considerably fuller ; but the defect of his genius becomes conspicuous when he handles a very general principle. The very term Translation ought to have kept up in his mind a steady conviction that the secondary motives to action become as independent, and seek their own objects as exclusively, as the primary principles. His own examples are rich in proofs of this important truth. But there is a slippery descent in the Theory of Human Nature, by which he, like most of his forerunners, slid unawares into selfishness. He was not pre- * Light of Nature, I. c. xviii., of which the conclusion may be pointed out as a specimen of perhaps unmatched fruitfulness, vivacity, and felicity of illustration. The admirable sense of the conclusion of chap. xxv. seems to have suggested Paley's good chapter on Happiness. The alteration of Plato's comparison of reason to a charioteer, and the passions to the horses, in chap, xxvi., is of characteristic and transcen- dent excellence. N 178 MODERN ETHICS : served from this fall by seeing that all the deliberate principles which have self for their object, are themselves of secondary formation; and he was led to the general error by the notion that Pleasure, or, as he calls it, Satisfaction, was the original and sole object of all appetites and desires, confounding this with the true but very different proposition, that the attain- ment of all the objects of appetite and desire is productive of pleasure. He did not see that without presupposing Desires, the word Pleasure would have no signification ; and that the representations by which he was seduced would leave only one appetite or desire in human nature. He had no adequate and constant conception, that the translation of Desire from the end to the means occasioned the formation of a new passion, which is perfectly distinct from, and altogether independent of, the original desire. Too frequently (for he was neither obstinate nor uniform in error) he considered these transla- tions as accidental defects in human nature, not as the appointed means of supplying it with its variety of active principles. He was too apt to speak as if the selfish elements were not destroyed in. the new combination, but remained still capable of being recalled, when convenient, like the links in a chain of reasoning, which we pass over from forgetfulness, or for brevity. Take him all in all, however, the neglect of his writings is the strongest proof of the disinclination of the English nation, for the last half-century, to Metaphysical Philosophy.* * Much of Tucker's chapter on Pleasure, and of Paley's on Happi- ness (both of which are invaluable), is contained in the passage of The Traveller, of which the following couplet expresses the main object : " Unknown to Ahem when sensual pleasures cloy, To fill the languid pause with finer joy." "An honest man," says Mr. Hume, " has the frequent satisfaction of seeing knaves betrayed by their own maxims." (Inquiry into Morals.) "I used often to laugh at your honest, simple neighbour Flambo- PALEY. 179 WILLIAM PALEY. Born 1743 died 1805. THIS excellent writer, who, after Clarke and Butler, ought to be ranked among the brightest ornaments of the English church in the eighteenth century, is, in the history of philoso- phy, naturally placed after Tucker, to whom, with praiseworthy liberality, he owns his extensive obligations; It is a mistake to suppose that he owed his system to Hume, a thinker too refined, and a writer perhaps too elegant, to have naturally attracted him. A coincidence in the principle of utility, common to both with so many other philosophers, affords no sufficient ground for the supposition. Had he been habitu- ally influenced by Mr. Hume, who has translated so many of the dark and crabbed passages of Butler into his own trans- parent as well as beautiful language, it is not possible to suppose that such a mind as that of Paley should have fallen into those principles of gross selfishness of which Mr. Hume is a uniform and zealous antagonist. The natural frame of Paley's understanding fitted it more for business and the world than for philosophy ; and he accordingly enjoyed with considerable relish the few oppor- tunities which the latter part of his life afforded, of taking a part in the affairs of his county as a magistrate. Penetration and shrewdness, firmness and coolness, a vein of pleasantry, fruitful though somewhat unrefined, with an original homeli- ness and significancy of expression, were perhaps more remark- able in his conversation than the restraints of authorship and profession allowed them to be in his writings. Grateful remembrance brings this assemblage of qualities with unfaded rough, and one way or another generally cheated him once a year. Yet still the honest man went forward without suspicion, and grew rich, while I still continued tricksy and cunning, and was poor without the consolation of being honest." (Vicar of Wakefield, chap, xxvi.) 180 MODERN ETHICS : colours before the mind at the present moment, after the long interval of twenty-eight years. His taste for the common business and ordinary amusements of life fortunately gave a zest to the company which his neighbourhood chanced to yield, without rendering him insensible to the pleasures of intercourse with more enlightened society. The practical bent of his nature is visible in the language of his writings, which, on practical matters, is as precise as the nature of the subject requires, but, in his rare and reluctant efforts to rise to first principles, becomes indeterminate and unsatisfactory ; though no man's composition was more free from the impedi- ments which hinder a writer's meaning from being quickly and clearly seen. He seldom distinguishes more exactly than is required for palpable and direct usefulness. He possessed that chastised acuteness of discrimination, exercised on the affairs of men, and habitually looking to a purpose beyond the mere increase of knowledge, which forms the character of a lawyer's understanding, and which is apt to render a mere lawyer too subtile for the management of affairs, and yet too gross for the pursuit of general truth. His style is as near per- fection in its kind as any in our language. Perhaps no words were ever more expressive and illustrative than those in which he represents the art of life to be that of rightly " setting our habits." The most original and ingenious of his writings is the Horce Paulince. The Evidences of Cliristianity are formed out of an admirable translation of Butler's Analogy, and a most skilful abridgment of Lardner's Credibility of the Gospel History. He may be said to have thus given value to two works, of which the first was scarcely intelligible to most of those who were most desirous of profiting by it ; and the second soon wearies out the greater part of readers, though the few who are more patient have almost always been gradu- ally won over to feel pleasure in a display of knowledge, PALEY. 181 probity, charity, and meekness, unmatched by an avowed advocate in a case deeply interesting his warmest feelings. His Natural Theology is the wonderful work of a man who, after sixty, had studied anatomy in order to write it ; and it could only have been surpassed by a man who, to great originality of conception and clearness of exposition, added the advan- tage of a high place in the first class of physiologists.* It would- be unreasonable here to say much of a work which is in the hands of so many as his Moral and Political Philosophy. A very few remarks on one or two parts of it may be sufficient to estimate his value as a moralist, and to show his defects as a metaphysician. His general account of virtue may indeed be chosen for both purposes. The manner in which he deduces the necessary tendency of all virtuous actions to the general happiness, from the goodness of the Divine Lawgiver, though the principle be not, as has already more than once appeared, peculiar to him, but rather common to most religious philosophers, is characterised by a clearness and vigour which have never been surpassed. It is indeed nearly, if not entirely, an identical proposition, that a being of unmixed benevolence will prescribe those laws only to his Creatures which contribute to their well-being. When we are convinced that a course of conduct is generally beneficial to all men, we cannot help considering it as acceptable to a benevolent Deity. The usefulness of actions is the mark set on them by the Supreme Legislator, by which reasonable beings discover it to be His will that such actions should be done. In this apparently unanswerable deduction, it is partly admitted, and universally implied, that the principles of right and wrong may be treated apart from the manifestation of them in the Scriptures. If it were otherwise, how could men of perfectly different religions deal or reason with each * See Animal Mechanics, by Mr. Charles Bell, published by the Society for Useful Knowledge. 182 MODERN ETHICS : other on moral subjects ? How could they regard rights and duties as subsisting between them ? To what common prin- ciples could they appeal in their differences? Even the Polytheists themselves, those worshippers of Gods partial, changeful, passionate, unjust, Whose attributes are rage, revenge, or lust, by a happy inconsistency are compelled, however irregularly and imperfectly, to ascribe some general enforcement of the moral code to their divinities. If there were no foundation for morality antecedent to revealed religion, we should want that important test of the conformity of a revelation to pure morality, by which its claim to a divine origin is to be tried. The internal evidence of religion necessarily presupposes such a standard. The Christian contrasts the precepts of the Koran with the pure and benevolent morality of the Gospel. The Mahometan claims, with justice, a superiority over the Hindoo, inasmuch as the Mussulman religion inculcates the moral perfection of one Supreme Euler of the world. The ceremonial and exclusive character of Judaism has ever been regarded as an indication that it was intended to pave the way for a universal religion a morality seated in the heart, and a worship of sublime simplicity. These discussions would be impossible unless morality were previously proved or granted to exist. Though the science of Ethics is thus far independent, it by no means follows that there is any equality, or that there may not be the utmost inequality, in the moral tendency of religious systems. The most ample scope is still left for the zeal and activity of those who seek to spread important truth. But it is absolutely essential to ethical science that it should contain principles, the authority of which must be recognised by men of every conceivable variety of religious opinion. The peculiarities of Paley's mind are discoverable in the comparison, or rather contrast, between the practical chapter PALEY. 183 on Happiness, and the philosophical portion of the chapter on Virtue. " Virtue is the doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of everlasting happiness."* It is not perhaps very important to observe, that these words, which he offers as " a definition," ought in propriety to have been called a proposition ; but it is much more necessary to say, that they contain a false account of virtue. According to this doctrine, every action not done for the sake of the agent's happiness is vicious. Now, it is plain, that an act cannot be said to be done for the sake of anything which is not present to the mind of the agent at the moment of action. It is a contradiction in terms to affirm that a man acts for the sake of any object, of which, however it may be the necessary con- sequence of his act, he is not at the time fully aware. The unfelt consequences of his act can no more influence his will than its unknown consequences. Nay, further, a man is only with any propriety said to act for the sake of his chief object ; nor can he with entire correctness be said to act for the sake of anything but his sole object. So that it is a necessary consequence of Paley's proposition, that every act which flows from generosity or benevolence is a vice. So also of every act of obedience to the will of GOD, if it arises from any motive but a desire of the reward which he will bestow. Any act of obedience influenced by gratitude and affection, and veneration towards supreme benevolence and perfection, is so far imper- fect ; and if it arises solely from these motives it becomes a vice. It must be owned that this excellent and most enlightened man has laid the foundations of religion and virtue in a more intense and exclusive selfishness than was avowed by the Catholic enemies of Fene"lon, when they per- secuted him for his doctrine of a pure and disinterested love of GOD. In another province, of a very subordinate kind, the dis- * PALEY, book i. chap. vii. 184 MODERN ETHICS : position of Paley to limit his principles to his own time and country, and to look at them merely as far as they are calcu- lated to amend prevalent vices and errors, betrayed him into narrow and false views. His chapter on what he calls the Law of Honour is unjust, even in its own small sphere, because it supposes honour to allow what it does not forbid ; though the truth be, that the vices enumerated by him are only not forbidden by honour, because they are not within its jurisdiction. He considers it as " a system of rules constructed by people of fashion ;" a confused and transient mode of expression, which may be understood with difficulty by our posterity, and which cannot now be exactly rendered perhaps in any other language. The subject, however, thus narrowed and lowered, is neither unimportant in practice, nor unworthy of the consider- ation of the moral philosopher. Though all mankind honour virtue and despise vice, the degree of respect or contempt is often far from being proportioned to the place which virtues and vices occupy in a just system of Ethics. "Wherever higher honour is bestowed on one moral quality than on others of equal or greater moral value, what is called a point of honour may be said to exist. It is singular that so shrewd an observer as Paley should not have observed a law of honour far more permanent than that which attracted his notice in the feelings of Europe respecting the conduct of men and women. Cowardice is not so immoral as cruelty, nor indeed so detestable, but it is more despicable and disgraceful. The female point of honour forbids indeed a great vice, but one not so great as many others by which it is not violated. It is easy enough to see, that where we are strongly prompted to a virtue by a natural impulse, we love the man who is constantly actuated by the amiable sentiment, but we do not consider that which is done without difficulty as requiring or deserving admiration and distinction. The kind affections are PALEY. 185 their own rich reward, and they are the object of affection to others. To encourage kindness by praise would be to insult it, besides its effect in producing counterfeits. It is for the conquest of fear, it would be still more for the conquest of resentment, if that were not, wherever it is real, the cessation of a state of mental agony, that the applause of mankind is reserved. Observations of a similar nature will easily occur to every reader respecting the point of honour in the other sex. The conquest of natural frailties, especially in a case of far more importance to mankind than is at first sight obvious, is well distinguished as an object of honour, and the contrary vice is punished by shame. Honour is not wasted on those who abstain from acts which are punished by the law. These acts may be avoided without a pure motive. Wherever a virtue is easily performed by good men wherever it is its nature to be attended by delight wherever its outward observ- ance is so necessary to society as to be enforced by punishment it is not the proper object of honour. Honour and shame, therefore, may be reasonably dispensed, without being strictly proportioned to the intrinsic morality of actions, if the ine- quality of their distribution contributes to the general equipoise of the whole moral system. A wide disproportion, however, or indeed any dispropor- tion not justifiable on moral grounds, would be a depravation of the moral principle. Duelling is among us a disputed case, though the improvement of manners has rendered it so much more infrequent, that it is likely in time to lose its support from opinion. Those who excuse individuals for yielding to a false point of honour, as in the suicides of the Greeks and Romans, may consistently blame the faulty principle, and rejoice in its destruction. The shame fixed on a Hindoo widow of rank who voluntarily survives her husband is regarded by all other nations with horror. There is room for great praise and some blame in other 186 MODERN ETHICS : parts of Paley's works. His political opinions were those generally adopted by moderate Whigs in his own age. His language on the Eevolution of 1688 may be very advantage- ously compared, both in precision and in generous boldness,* to that of Blackstone, a great master of classical and harmoni- ous composition, but a feeble reasoner and a confused thinker, whose writings are not exempt from the taint of slavishness. It cannot be denied that Paley was sometimes rather a lax moralist, especially on public duties. It is a sin which easily besets men of strong good sense, little enthusiasm, and much experience. They are naturally led to lower their precepts to the level of their expectations. They see that higher pretensions often produce less good, to say nothing of the hypocrisy, extravagance, and turbulence, to which they lend some colour. As those who claim more from men often gain less, it is natural for more sober and milder casuists to present a more accessible virtue to their followers. It was thus that the Jesuits began, till, strongly tempted by their perilous station as the moral guides of the powerful, some of them by degrees fell into that absolute licentiousness for which all, not without injustice, have been cruelly immor- talised by Pascal. Indulgence, which is a great virtue in judgment concerning the actions of others, is too apt, when blended in the same system with the precepts of morality, to be received as a license for our own offences. Accommoda- tion, without which society would be painful, and arduous aifairs would become impracticable, is more safely imbibed * " Government may be too secure. The greatest tyrants have been those whose titles were the most unquestioned. Whenever, therefore, the opinion of right becomes too predominant and superstitious it is abated by breaking the custom. Thus the Revolution broke the custom of succession, and thereby moderated, both in the prince and in the people, those lofty notions of hereditary right, which in the one were become a continual incentive to tyranny, and disposed the other to invite servitude, by undue compliances and dangerous concessions." (Paley, book vi. chap, ii.) PALEY BENTHAM. 187 from temper and experience, than taught in early and sys- tematic instruction. The middle region between laxity and rigour is hard to be fixed, and it is still harder steadily to remain within its boundaries. Whatever may be thought of Paley's observations on political influence and ecclesiastical subscription, as temperaments and mitigations which may preserve us from harsh judgment, they are assuredly not well qualified to form a part of that discipline which ought- to breathe into the opening souls of youth, at the critical period of the formation of character, those inestimable virtues of sincerity, of integrity, of independence, which will even guide them more safely through life than mere prudence, while they provide an inward fountain of pure delight, immeasur- ably more abundant than all the outward sources of precari- ous and perishable pleasure. JEREMY BENTHAM. Born 1748. THE general scheme of this Dissertation would be a sufficient reason for omitting the name of a living writer.* The devoted attachment and invincible repugnance which an impartial estimate of Mr. Bentham has to encounter on either side, are a strong inducement not to deviate from that scheme in his case. But the most brief sketch of ethical controversy, in England would be imperfect without it; and perhaps the utter hopelessness of any expedient for satisfying his followers, or softening his opponents, may enable a writer to look steadily and solely at what he believes to be the dictates of truth and justice. He who has spoken of former philosophers with unreserved freedom, ought perhaps to subject his courage and honesty to the severest test by an attempt to characterise such a contemporary. Should the very few who are at once * Since dead, 1832. 188 MODERN ETHICS I enlightened and unbiassed be of opinion that his firmness and equity have stood this trial, they will be the more dis- posed to trust his fairness where the exercise of that quality is more easy. The disciples of Mr. Bentham are more like the hearers of an Athenian philosopher than the pupils of a modern professor, or the cool proselytes of a modern writer. They are in general men of competent age, of superior understand- ing, who voluntarily embrace the laborious study of useful and noble sciences ; who derive their opinions not so much from the cold perusal of his writings as from familiar con- verse with a master from whose lips these opinions are recom- mended by simplicity, disinterestedness, originality, and viva- city ; aided rather than impeded by foibles not unamiable, enforced of late by the growing authority of years and of fame, and at all times strengthened by that undoubting reliance on his own judgment which mightily increases the ascendant of such a man over those who approach him. As he and they deserve the credit of braving vulgar prejudices,' so they must be content to incur the imputation of falling into the neighbouring vices of seeking distinction by singu- larity ; of clinging to opinions because they are obnoxious ; of wantonly wounding the most respectable feelings of man- kind ; of regarding an immense display of method and nomen- clature as a sure token of a corresponding increase of know- ledge ; and of considering themselves as a chosen few, whom an initiation into the most secret mysteries of philosophy entitles to look down with pity, if not contempt, on the profane multitude. Viewed with aversion or dread ty the public, they become more bound to each other and to their master ; while they are provoked into the use of language which more and more exasperates opposition to them. A hermit in the greatest of cities, seeing only his disciples, and indignant that systems of government and law which he BENTHAM. 189 believes to be perfect are disregarded at once by the many and the powerful, Mr. Benthara has at length been betrayed into the most unphilosophical hypothesis, that all the ruling bodies who guide the community have conspired to stifle and defeat his discoveries. He is too little acquainted with doubts to believe the honest doubts of others, and he is too angry to make allowance for their prejudices and habits. He has embraced the most extreme party in practical politics ; manifesting more dislike and contempt towards those who are more moderate supporters of popular principles than towards their most inflexible opponents. To the unpopularity of his philosophical and political doctrines he has added the more general and lasting obloquy which arises from an unseemly treatment of doctrines and principles, which, if there were no other motives for reverential deference, even a regard to the feelings of the best men requires to be approached with decorum and respect. In the year 1776 occurred the publication of Mr. Ben- tham's first work, A Fragment on Government a consider- able octavo volume, employed in the examination of a short paragraph of Blackstone unmatched in acute hypercriti- cism, but conducted with a severity which leads to an unjust estimate of the writer criticised, till the like experiment be repeated on other writings. It was a waste of extraordinary power to employ it in pointing out flaws and patches in the robe occasionally stolen from the philosophical schools, which hung loosely and unbecomingly on the elegant commentator. This volume, and especially the preface, abounds in fine, original, and just observation ; it contains the germs of most of his subsequent productions, and it is an early example of that disregard for the method, proportions, and occasion of a writing which, with all common readers, deeply affects its power of interesting or instructing. Two years after, he published a most excellent tract on The Hard Labour Bill % 1 90 MODEKN ETHICS : which, concurring with the spirit excited by Howard's in- quiries, laid the foundation of just reasoning on Reformatory Punishment. The Letters on Usury* are perhaps the hest specimen of the exhaustive discussion of a moral or political question, leaving no objection, however feeble, unanswered, and no difficulty, however small, unexplained ; remarkable also for the clearness and spirit of the style, for the full exposition which suits them to all intelligent readers, for the tender and skilful hand with which prejudice is touched, and for the urbanity of his admirable apology for projectors, addressed to Dr. Smith, whose temper and manner he seems for a time to have imbibed. The Introduction to the Prin- ciples of Morals and Politics, printed before the Letters, but published after them, was the first sketch of his system, and is still the only account of it by himself. The great merit of this work, and of his other writings in relation to Jurisprudence properly so called, is not within * They were addressed to Mr. George Wilson, who retired from the English bar to his native country, .and died at Edinburgh in 1816 ; an early friend of Mr. Bentham, and afterwards an intimate friend of Lord Ellenborough, Sir Vicary Gibbs, and of all the most eminent of his professional contemporaries. The rectitude of judgment, purity of heart, elevation of honour, the sternness only in integrity, the scorn of baseness, and indulgence towards weakness, which were joined in him with a gravity exclusive neither of feeling nor of pleasantry, contributed still more than his abilities and attainments of various sorts to a moral authority with his friends, and in his profession, which few men more amply possessed, or more usefully exercised. The same character, somewhat softened, and the same influence, distinguished his closest friend, the late Mr. Lens. Both were inflexible and incorruptible friends of civil and religious liberty, and both knew how to reconcile the wannest zeal for that sacred cause, with a charity towards their oppo- nents, which partisans, often more violent than steady, treated as luke- warm. The present writer hopes that the good-natured reader will excuse him for having thus, perhaps unseasonably, bestowed heartfelt commendation on those who were above the pursuit of praise, and the remembrance of whose good opinion and good-will helps to support him under a deep sense of faults and vices. BENTHAM. 191 our present scope. To the Roman jurists belongs the praise of having allotted a separate portion of their digest to the signification of the words of most frequent use in law and legal discussion.* Bentham not only first perceived and taught the great value of an introductory section, composed of definitions of general terms, as subservient to brevity and precision in every part of a code, but he also discovered the unspeakable importance of natural arrangement in juris- prudence, by rendering the mere place of a proposed law in such an arrangement a short and easy test of the fitness of the proposaLt But here he does not distinguish between the value of arrangement as scaffolding, and the inferior conveni- ence of its being the very framework of the structure. Mr. Bentham, indeed, is much more remarkable for laying down desirable rules for the determination of rights, and the punish- ment of wrongs, in general, than for weighing the various circumstances which require them to be modified in different countries and times, in order to render them either more useful, more easily introduced, more generally respected, or more certainly executed. The art of legislation consists in thus applying the principles of jurisprudence to the situation, * Digest, lib. 1. tit. 16. De Verborum Significations. \ See a beautiful article on Codification, in the Edinburgh Review, vol. xxix. p. 217. It needs no longer be concealed that it was contri- buted by Sir Samuel Romilly. The steadiness with which he held the balance in weighing the merits of his friend against his unfortunate de- fects, is an example of his union of the most commanding moral prin- ciple with a sensibility so warm, that, if it had been released from that stern authority, it would not so long have endured the coarseness and roughness of human concerns. From the tenderness of his feelings, and from an anger never roused but by cruelty and baseness, as much as from his genius and his pure taste, sprung that original and charac- teristic eloquence, which was the hope of the afflicted as well as the terror of the oppressor. If his oratory had not flowed so largely from this moral source, which years do not dry up, he would not perhaps have been the only example of an orator who, after the age of sixty, daily increased in polish, in vigour, and in splendour. 192 MODERN ETHICS : wants, interests, feelings, opinions, and habits of each distinct community at any given time. It bears the same relation to jurisprudence which the mechanical arts bear to pure mathe- matics. Many of these considerations serve to show that the sudden establishment of new codes can seldom be practicable or effectual for their purpose ; and that reformations, though founded on the principles of jurisprudence, ought to be not only adapted to the peculiar interests of a people, but en- grafted on their previous usages, and brought into harmony with those national dispositions on which the execution of laws depends.* The Romans, under Justinian, adopted at least the true principle, if they did not apply it with sufficient freedom and boldness. They considered the multitude of occasional laws, and the still greater mass of usages, opinions, and determinations, as the materials of legislation, not pre- cluding, but demanding a systematic arrangement of the whole by the supreme authority. Had the arrangement been more scientific, had there been a bolder examination and a more free reform of many particular branches, a model would have been offered for liberal imitation by modern lawgivers. It cannot be denied, without injustice and ingratitude, that Mr. Bentham has done more than any other writer to rouse the spirit of juridical reformation, which is now gradually examin- ing every part of law, and, when further progress is facili- tated by digesting the present laws, will doubtless proceed to the improvement of all. Greater praise it is given to few to earn. It ought to satisfy Mr. Bentham, for the disappoint- ment of hopes which were not reasonable, that Russia should receive a code from him, or that North America could be brought to renounce the variety of her laws and institutions, * An excellent medium between those who absolutely require new codes, and those who obstinately adhere to ancient usages, has been pointed out by II. Meyer, in his most justly celebrated work, Institutions Judiciaires des Principaux Pays de V Europe, tome L Introduction, pp. 8, 9. La Haye et Amst. 1819-23, 6 vols. 8vo. BENTHAM. 193 on the single authority of a foreign philosopher, whose opinions had not worked their way either into legislation or into general reception in his own country. It ought also to dispose his followers to do fuller justice to the Eomillys and Broughams, without whose prudence and energy, as well as reason and eloquence, the best plans of reformation must have continued a dead letter for whose sake it might have been fit to recon- sider the obloquy heaped on their profession, and to show more general indulgence to all those whose chief offence seems to consist in their doubts whether sudden changes, almost always imposed by violence on a community, be the surest road to lasting improvement. It is unfortunate that Ethical Theory, with which we are now chiefly concerned, is not the province in which Mr. Bentham has reached the most desirable distinction. It may be remarked, both in ancient and in modern times, that what- ever modifications prudent followers may introduce into the system of an innovator, the principles of the Master continue to mould the habitual dispositions, and to influence the practical tendency, of the School. Mr. Bentham preaches the principle of utility with the zeal of a discoverer. Occupied more in reflection than in reading, he knew not, or forgot, how often it had been the basis, and how generally an essential part, of moral systems.* That in which he really differs from others, is in the necessity which he teaches, and the example which he sets, of constantly bringing that principle before us. This peculiarity appears to us to be his radical error. In an attempt of which the constitution of human nature forbids the success, he seems to us to have been led into fundamental errors in moral theory, and to have given to his practical doctrine a dangerous taint. The confusion of moral approbation with the moral qualities which are its objects, common to Mr. Bentham with * See Notes and Illustrations, Note V. 194 MODERN ETHICS : many other philosophers, is much more uniform and pro- minent in him than in most others. This general error, already mentioned at the opening of this volume, has led him more than others to assume, that because the principle of utility forms a necessary part of every moral theory, it ought therefore to he the chief motive of human conduct. Now it is evident that this assumption, rather tacitly than avowedly made, is wholly gratuitous. No practical conclusion can be deduced from the principle, but that we ought to culti- vate those habitual dispositions which are the most effectual motives to useful actions. But before a regard to our own interest, or a desire to promote the welfare of men in general, be allowed to be the exclusive, or even the chief regulators of human conduct, it must be shown that they are the most effectual motives to such useful actions. It is demonstrated by experience that they are not. It is even owned by the most ingenious writers of Mr. Bentham's school, that desires which are pointed to general and distant objects, although they have their proper place and their due value, are com- monly very faint and ineffectual inducements to action. A theory founded on utility, therefore, requires that we should cultivate, as excitements to practice, those other habitual dispositions which we know by experience to be generally the source of actions beneficial to ourselves and our fellows ; habits of feeling, productive of habits of virtuous conduct, and in their turns strengthened by the reaction of these last. What is the result of experience on the choice of the objects of moral culture ? Beyond all dispute, that we should labour to attain that state of mind in which all the social affections are felt with the utmost warmth, giving birth to more com- prehensive benevolence, but not supplanted by it ; when the moral sentiments most strongly approve what is right and good, without being perplexed by a calculation of consequences, though not incapable of being gradually rectified by reason, BENTHAM. 195 whenever they are decisively proved by experience not to correspond in some of their parts to the universal and per- petual effects of conduct. It is a false representation of human nature to affirm that " courage " is only "prudence." * They coincide in their effects, and it is always prudent to be courageous. But a man who fights because he thinks it more hazardous to yield, is not brave. He does not become brave till he feels cowardice to be base and painful, and till he is no longer in need of any aid from prudence. Even if it were the interest of every man to be bold, it is clear that so cold a consideration cannot prevail over the fear of danger., Where it seems to do so, it must be by the unseen power either of the fear of shame, or of some other powerful passion, to which it lends its name. It was long ago, with striking justice, observed by Aristotle, that he who abstains from present gratification, under a distinct apprehension of its painful consequences, is only prudent, and that he must acquire a disrelish for excess on its own account, before he deserves the name of a temperate man. It is only when the means are firmly and unalterably converted into ends, that the process of forming the mind is completed. Courage may then seek, instead of avoiding danger. Temperance may prefer abstemi- ousness to indulgence. Prudence itself may choose an orderly government of conduct, according to certain rules, without regard to the degree in which it promotes welfare. Benevo- lence must desire the happiness of others, to the exclusion of the consideration how far it is connected with that of the * Mr. Mill's Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 237. It would be unjust not to say that this book, partly perhaps from a larger adop- tion of the principles of Hartley, holds out fairer opportunities of nego- tiation with natural feelings and the doctrines of former philosophers, than any other production of the same school. But this very assertion about courage clearly shows at least a forgetfulness that courage, even if it were the offspring of prudence, would not for that reason be a species of it. 196 MODERN ETHICS : benevolent agent ; and those alone can be accounted just who obey the dictates of justice from having thoroughly learned an habitual veneration for its strict rules and for its larger precepts. In that complete state the mind possesses no power of dissolving the combinations of thought and feeling which impel it to action. Nothing in this argument turns on the difference between implanted and acquired principles. As no man can cease, by any act of his, to see distance, though the power of seeing it be universally acknowledged to be an acquisition ; so no man has the power to extinguish the affections and the moral sentiments, however much they may be thought to be acquired, any more than that of eradicating the bodily appetites. The best writers of Mr. Bentham's school overlook the indissolubility of these associations, and appear not to bear in mind that their strength and rapid action constitute the perfect state of a moral agent. The pursuit of our own general welfare, or of that of man- kind at large, though from their vagueness and coldness they are unfit habitual motives and unsafe ordinary guides of conduct, yet perform functions of essential importance in the moral system. The former, which we call self-love, preserves the balance of all the active principles which regard ourselves ultimately, and contributes to subject them to the authority of the moral principles.* The latter, which is general bene- volence, regulates in like manner the equipoise of the narrower affections ; quickens the languid, and checks the encroaching ; borrows strength from pity, and even from indignation ; receives some compensation, as it enlarges, in the addition of beauty and grandeur, for the weakness which arises from dis- persion ; enables us to look on all men as brethren, and overflows on every sentient being. The general interest of mankind in truth almost solely affects us through the affec- tions of benevolence and sympathy ; for the coincidence of * See Notes and Illustrations, Note "W. BENTHAM. 197 general with individual interest, even where it is certain, is too dimly seen to produce any emotion which can impel to or restrain from action. As a general truth, its value consists in its completing the triumph of morality, by demonstrating the absolute impossibility of forming any theory of human nature which does not preserve the superiority of virtue over vice ; a great, though not a directly practical advantage. The followers of Mr. Bentham have carried to an unusual extent the prevalent fault of the more modern advocates of utility, who have dwelt so exclusively on the outward advan- tages of virtue as to have lost sight of the delight which is a part of virtuous feeling, and of the beneficial influence of good actions upon the frame of the mind. "Benevolence towards others," says Mr. Mill, "produces a return of benevolence from them." * The fact is true, and ought to be stated. But how unimportant is it in comparison with that which is passed over in silence, the pleasure of the affection itself, which if it could become lasting and intense, would convert the heart into a heaven ! No one who has ever felt kindness, if he could accurately recall his feelings, could hesitate about their infinite superiority. The cause of the general neglect of this consideration is, that it is only when a gratification is some- thing distinct from a state of mind, that we can easily learn to consider it as a pleasure. Hence the great error respecting the affections, where the inherent delight is not duly estimated, on account of that very peculiarity of being a part of a state of mind, which renders it unspeakably more valuable as independent of every thing without. The social affections are the only principles of human nature which have no direct pains. To have any of these desires is to be in a state of happiness. The malevolent passions have properly no plea- sures ; for that attainment of their purpose which is impro- perly so called, consists only in healing or assuaging the torture * Analysis of the Human Mind, vol. ii. 198 MODERN ETHICS : which envy, jealousy, and malice, inflict on the malignant mind. It might with as much propriety be said that the toothache and the stone have pleasures, because their removal is followed by an agreeable feeling. These bodily disorders, indeed, are often cured by the process which removes the suffering ; but the mental distempers of envy and revenge are nourished by every act of odious indulgence which for a moment suspends their pain. The same observation is applicable to every virtuous dis- position, though not so obviously as to the benevolent affec- tions. That a brave man is, on the whole, far less exposed to danger than a coward, is not the chief advantage of a courageous temper. Great dangers are rare ; but the constant absence of such painful and mortifying sensations as those of fear, and the steady consciousness of superiority to what subdues ordinary men, are the perpetual squrce of inward enjoyment. No man who has ever been visited by a gleam of magnanimity can place any outward advantage of fortitude in comparison with the feeling of being always able fearlessly to defend a righteous cause.* Even Humility, in spite of 1 first appearances, is a remarkable example. It has of late been unwarrantably used to signify that painful consciousness of inferiority which is the first stage of envy.t It is a term consecrated in Christian ethics to denote that disposition which, by inclining towards a modest estimate of our qualities, corrects the prevalent tendency of human nature to overvalue our merits and to overrate our claims. What can be a less * According to Cicero's definition of fortitude, " Virtus pugnans pro cequitate." The remains of the original sense of Virtus, Manhood, give a beauty and force to these expressions which cannot be preserved in our language. The Greek A.peri), and the German Tugend, originally denoted Strength, afterwards Courage, and at last Virtue. But the happy derivation of Virtus from Vir gives an energy to the phrase of Cicero, which illustrates the use of etymology in the hands of a skilful writer. t Mr. Mill's Analysis of tfie Human Mind, vol. ii. p. 222. BENTHAM. 199 doutful or a much more considerable blessing than this con- stant sedative, which soothes and composes the irritable passions of vanity and pride? What is more conducive to lasting peace of mind than the consciousness of proficiency in that most delicate species of equity which, in the secret tribunal of conscience, labours to be impartial in the com- parison of ourselves with others? What can so perfectly assure us of the purity of our moral sense, as the habit of contemplating, not that excellence which we have reached, but that which is 'still to be pursued;* of not considering how far we may outrun others, but how far we are from the goal? Virtue has often outward advantages, and always inward delights ; but the second, though constant, strong, inaccessible, and inviolable, are not easily considered by the common observer as apart from the virtue with which they are blended. They are so subtile and evanescent as to escape the distinct contemplation of all but the very few who meditate on the acts of mind. The outward advantages, on the other hand, cold, uncertain, dependent, and precarious as they are, yet stand out to the sense and to the memory, may be handled, and counted, and are perfectly on a level with the general apprehension. Hence they have become the almost exclusive theme of all moralists who profess to follow reason. There is room, for suspecting that a very general illusion prevails on this subject. Probably the smallest part of the pleasure of virtue, because it is the most palpable, has become the sign and mental representative of the whole. The outward and visible sign suggests insensibly the inward and mental delight. Those who display the external benefits of magnanimity and kindness, would speak with far less fervour, and perhaps less confidence, if their feelings were not unconsciously affected by * For a description of vanity by a great orator, see the Rev. R. Hall's Sermon on Modern Infidelity. 200 MODERN ETHICS : the mental state which they overlook in their statements, though they feel some part of it when they write or speak on it. When they speak of what is vnthout, they feel what was tcithin, and their words excite the same feeling in others. Is it not probable that much of our love of praise may be thus ascribed to humane and sociable pleasure in the sympathy of others with us ? Praise is the symbol which represents sympathy, and which the mind insensibly substitutes for it in recollection and in language. Does not the desire of posthumous fame, in like manner, manifest an ambition for the fellow-feeling of our race, when it is perfectly unproductive of any advantage to ourselves ? In this point of view it may be considered as the passion of which the very existence proves the mighty power of disinterested desire. Every other pleasure from sympathy is confined to the men who are now alive. The love of fame alone seeks the sympathy of unborn generations, and stretches the chain which binds the race of man together, to an extent to which hope sets no bounds. There is a noble, even if unconscious, union of morality with genius in the mind of him who sympathises with the masters who lived twenty centuries before him, in order that he may learn to command the sympathies of the countless generations who are to come. In the most familiar, as well as in the highest instances, it would seem that the inmost thoughts and sentiments of men are more pure than their language. Those who speak of "a regard to character," if they be serious, generally infuse into that word, unawares, a large portion of that sense in which it denotes the frame of the mind. Those who speak of " honour" very often mean a more refined and delicate sort of conscience, which ought to render the more educated classes of society alive to such smaller wrongs as the laborious and the ignorant can scarcely feel. What heart does not warm at the noble exclamation of the ancient poet : " Who is pleased BENTHAM. 201 by false honour, or frightened by lying infamy, but he who is false and depraved ! " Every uncorrupted mind feels unmerited praise as a bitter reproach, and regards a consciousness of de- merit as a drop of poison in the cup of honour. How differ- ent is the applause which truly delights us all, a proof that the consciences of others are in harmony with our own ! " What," says Cicero, " is glory but the concurring praise of the good, the unbought approbation of those who judge aright of excellent virtue ? " A far greater than Cicero rises from the purest praise of man, to more sublime contemplations. Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil, But lives and spreads aloft, by those pure eyes And perfect witness of all-judging Jove. Those who have most inculcated the doctrine of utility have given another notable example of the very vulgar pre- judice which treats the unseen as insignificant. Tucker is the only one of them who occasionally considers that most important effect of human conduct which consists in its action on the frame of the mind, by fitting its faculties and sensibili- ties for their appointed purpose. A razor or a penknife would well enough cut cloth or meat ; but if they were often so used, they would be entirely spoiled. The same sort of observation is much more strongly applicable to habitual dispositions, which, if they be spoiled, we have no certain means of replacing or mending. Whatever act, therefore, discomposes the moral machinery of mind, is more injurious to the welfare of the agent than most disasters from without can be, for the latter are commonly limited and temporary ; the evil of the former spreads through the whole of life. Health of mind as well as of body is not only productive in itself of a greater sum of enjoyment than arises from other sources, but it is the only condition of our frame in which we are capable of receiving pleasure from without. Hence it appears how incredibly absurd it is to prefer, on grounds of 202 MODERN ETHICS : calculation, a present interest to the preservation of those mental habits on which our well-being depends. When they are most moral, they may often prevent us from obtaining advantages. It would be as absurd to desire to lower them for that reason, as it would be to weaken the body, lest its strength should render it more liable to contagious disorders of rare occurrence. It is, on the other hand, impossible to combine the benefit of the general habit with the advantages of occasional devia- tion ; for every such deviation either produces remorse, or weakens the habit, and prepares the way for its gradual destruction. He who obtains a fortune by the undetected forgery of a will may indeed be honest in his other acts ; but if he had such a scorn of fraud before as he must himself allow to be generally useful, he must suffer a severe punish- ment from contrition ; and he will be haunted with the fears of one who has lost his own security for his good conduct. In all cases, if they be well examined, his loss by the distemper of his mental frame will outweigh the profits of his vice. By repeating the like observation on similar occasions, it will be manifest that the infirmity of recollection, aggravated by the defects of language, gives an appearance of more selfishness to man than truly belongs to his nature ; and that the effect of active agents upon the habitual state of mind, one of the considerations to which the epithet " senti- mental " has of late been applied in derision, is really among the most serious and reasonable objects of moral philosophy. When the internal pleasures and pains which accompany good and bad feelings, or rather form a part of them, and the internal advantages and disadvantages which follow good and bad actions, are sufficiently considered, the comparative im- portance of outward consequences will be more and more narrowed ; so that the Stoical philosopher may be thought almost excusable for rejecting it altogether, were it not an BENTHAM. 20:5 indispensably necessary consideration for those in whom right habits of feeling are not sufficiently strong. They alone are happy, or even truly virtuous, who have little need of it. The latter moralists who adopt the principle of utility, have so misplaced it, that in their hands it has as great a tendency as any theoretical error can have to lessen the intrinsic pleasure of virtue, and to unfit our habitual feelings for being the most effectual inducements to good conduct. This is the natural tendency of a discipline which brings utility too closely and frequently into contact with action. By this habit, in its best state, an essentially weaker motive is gradually substituted for others which must always be of more force. The frequent appeal to utility as the standard of action tends to introduce an uncertainty with respect to the conduct of other men, which would render all intercourse insupportable. It affords also so fair a disguise for selfish and malignant passions, as often to hide their nature from him who is their prey. Some taint of these mean and evil principles will at least creep in, and by their venom give an animation not its own to the cold desire of utility. The moralists who take an active part in those affairs which often call out unamiable passions, ought to guard with peculiar watchfulness against such self-delusions. The sin that must most easily beset them, is that of sliding from general to particular consequences that of trying single actions instead of dispositions, habits, and rules, by the standard of utility that of authorising too great a latitude for discretion and policy in moral conduct that of readily allowing exceptions to the most important rules that of too lenient a censure of the use of doubtful means when the end seems to them good and that of believing unphilosophically, as well as danger- ously, that there can be any measure or scheme so useful to the world as the existence of men who would not do a base thing for any public advantage. It was said of Andrew 204 MODERN ETHICS : Fletcher, "he would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save it." Let those preachers of utility who suppose that such a man sacrifices ends to means, consider whether the scorn of baseness be not akin to the contempt of danger, and whether a nation composed of such men would not be invincible. But theoretical principles are counteracted by a thousand causes, which confine their mischief as well as circumscribe their benefits. Men are never so good or so bad as their opinions. All that can be with reason apprehended is, that they may always produce some part of their natural evil, and that the mischief will be greatest among the many who seek excuses for these passions. Aristippus found in the Socratic representation of the union of virtue and happiness a pretext for sensuality ; and many Epicureans became voluptuaries in spite of the example of their master ; easily dropping by degrees the limitations by which he guarded his doctrines. In proportion as a man accustoms himself to be influenced by the utility of particular acts, without regard to rules, he approaches to the casuistry of the Jesuits, and to the practical maxims of Caesar Borgia. Injury on this as on other occasions has been suffered by Ethics, from its close affinity to Jurisprudence. The true and eminent merit of Mr. Bentham is that of a reformer of jurisprudence. He is only a moralist with a view to being a jurist ; and he sometimes becomes for a few hurried moments a metaphysician with a view to laying the foundation of both the moral sciences. Both he and his followers have treated Ethics too juridically. They do not seem to be aware, or at least they do not bear constantly in mind, that there is an essential difference in the subjects of these two sciences. The object of law is the prevention of actions injurious to the community. It considers the dispositions from which they flow only indirectly, to ascertain the likelihood of their re- currence, and thus to determine the necessity and the means BENTHAM. ^ 205 of preventing them. The direct object of Ethics is only mental disposition. It considers actions indirectly as the signs by which such dispositions are manifested. If it were possible for the mere moralist to see that a moral and amiable temper was the mental source of a bad action, he could not cease to approve and love the temper, as we sometimes presume to suppose may be true of the judgments of the Searcher of Hearts. Eeligion necessarily coincides with morality in this respect ; and it is the peculiar distinction of Christianity that it places the seat of virtue in the heart. Law and Ethics are necessarily so much blended, that in many intricate com- binations the distinction becomes obscure. But in all strong cases the difference is evident. Thus law punishes the most sincerely repentant ; but wherever the soul of the penitent can be thought to be thoroughly purified, religion and morality receive him with open arms. It is needless, after these remarks, to observe, that those whose habitual contemplation is directed to the rules of action are likely to underrate the importance of feeling and disposition ; an error of very unfortunate consequences, since the far greater part of human actions flow from these neglected sources ; while the law interposes only in cases which may be called exceptions, which are now rare, and ought to be less frequent. The coincidence of Mr. Bentham's school with the ancient Epicureans in the disregard of the pleasures of taste and of the arts dependent on imagination, is a proof both of the inevitable adherence of much of the popular sense of the words "interest" and "pleasure," to the same words in their philosophical acceptation, and of the pernicious influence of narrowing " utility" to mere visible and tangible objects, to the exclusion of those which form the larger part of human enjoyment. The mechanical philosophers who, under Descartes and Gassendi, began to reform Physics in the seventeenth century, 206 MODERN ETHICS I attempted to explain all the appearances of nature by an im- mediate reference to the figure of particles of matter impelling each other in various directions, and with unequal force, but in all other points alike. The communication of motion by impulse they conceived to be perfectly simple and intelligible. It never occurred to them, that the movement of one ball when another is driven against it, is a fact of which no explanation can be given which will amount to more than a statement of its constant occurrence. That no body can act where it is not, appeared to them as self-evident as that the whole is equal to all the parts. By this axiom they understood that no body moves another without touching it. They did not perceive that it was only self-evident where it means that no body can act where it has not the power of acting ; and that if it be understood more largely, it is a mere assumption of the pro- position on which their whole system rested. Sir Isaac Newton reformed Physics, not by simplifying that science, but by rendering it much more complicated. He introduced into it the force of attraction, of which he ascertained many laws, but which even he did not dare to represent as being as intelligible and as conceivably ultimate as impulsion itself. It was necessary for Laplace to introduce intermediate laws, and to calculate disturbing forces, before the phenomena of the heavenly bodies could be reconciled even to Newton's more complex theory.* In the present state of physical and chemical knowledge, a man who should attempt to refer all the immense variety of facts to the simple impulse of the Cartesians, would have no chance of serious confutation. The number of laws augments with the progress of know- ledge. The speculations of the followers of Mr. Bentham are * [This does not describe accurately the offices of Newton and La- place in the history of astronomical theory. Laplace did not introduce new intermediate laws or disturbing forces, but only new modes of cal- culating the effect of the laws and disturbing forces which Newton had discovered. W. W.] BENTHAM. 207 not unlike the unsuccessful attempt of the Cartesians. Mr. Mill, for example, derives the whole theory of Government* from the single fact, that every man pursues his interest when he knows it ; which he assumes to be a sort of self-evi- dent practical principle, if such a phrase be not contradictory. That a man's pursuing the interest of another, or indeed any other object in nature, is just as conceivable as that he should pursue his own interest, is a proposition which seems never to have occurred to this acute and ingenious writer. Nothing, how- ever, can be more certain than its truth, if the term "interest" be employed in its proper sense of general well-being, which is the only acceptation in which it can serve the purpose of his arguments. If, indeed, the term be employed to denote the gratification of a predominant desire, his proposition is self-evident, but wholly unserviceable in his argument ; for it is clear that individuals and multitudes often desire what they know to be most inconsistent with their general welfare. A nation, as much as an individual, and sometimes more, may not only mistake its interest, but, perceiving it clearly, may prefer the gratification of a strong passion to it. f The whole fabric of his political reasoning seems to be overthrown by this single observation ; and instead of attempting to ex- plain the immense variety of political facts by the simple principle of a contest of interests, we are reduced to the ne- cessity of once more referring them to that variety of passions, habits, opinions, and prejudices, which we discover only by experience. Mr. Mill's Essay on Education^, affords another example of the inconvenience of leaping at once from the most general laws to a multiplicity of minute appearances. * Essay on Government, originally printed in the Supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. + The same mode of reasoning has been adopted by the writer of a late criticism on Mill's Essay. [Written by Lord Macaulay. W. W.J See Edinburgh Review, No. 97, March 1829. t In the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. 208 MODERN ETHICS : Having assumed, or at least inferred from insufficient pre- mises, that the intellectual and moral character is entirely formed by circumstances, he proceeds in the latter part of the essay, as if it were a necessary consequence of that doctrine that we might easily acquire the power of combining and directing circumstances in such a manner as to produce the best possible character. Without disputing for the present the theoretical proposition, let us consider what would be the reasonableness of similar expectations in a more easily intel- ligible case. The general theory of the winds is pretty well understood ; we know that they proceed from the rushing of air from those portions of the atmosphere which are more condensed, into those which are more rarefied ; but how great a chasm is there between that simple law and the great variety of facts which experience teaches us respecting winds ! The constant winds between the Tropics are large and regu- lar enough to be in some measure capable of explanation ; but who can tell why, in variable climates, the wind blows to-day from the east, to-morrow from the west 1 Who can foretell what its shiftings and variations are to be 1 Who can account for a tempest on one day, and a calm on another ? Even if we could foretell the irregular and infinite variations, how far might we not still be from the power of combining and guiding their causes ? No man but the lunatic in the story of Kasselas ever dreamt that he could command the weather. The difficulty plainly consists in the multiplicity and minuteness of the circumstances which act on the atmo- sphere. Are those which influence the formation of the human character likely to be less minute and multiplied 1 The style of Mr. Bentham underwent a more remarkable revolution than perhaps befell that of any other celebrated writer. In his early works, it was clear, free, spirited, often and seasonably eloquent. Many passages of his later writings BENTHAM. 209 retain the inimitable stamp of genius ; but he seems to have been oppressed by the vastness of his projected works to have thought that he had no longer more than leisure to pre- serve the heads of them to have been impelled by a fruitful mind to new plans before he had completed the old. In this state of things, he gradually ceased to use words for convey- ing his thoughts to others, but merely employed them as a short-hand, to preserve his meaning for his own purpose. It was no wonder that his language should thus become obscure and repulsive. Though many of his technical terms are in themselves exact and pithy, yet the overflow of his vast nomenclature was enough to darken his whole diction. It was at this critical period that the arrangement and translation of his manuscripts were undertaken by M. Du- mont, a generous disciple, who devoted a genius formed for original and lasting works to diffuse the principles and pro- mote the fame of his master. He whose pen Mirabeau did not disdain to borrow who in the same school with Eomilly had studiously pursued the grace as well as the force of com- position was perfectly qualified to strip of its uncouthness a philosophy which he understood and admired. As he wrote in a general language, he propagated its doctrines throughout Europe, where they were beneficial to jurispru- dence, but perhaps injurious to the cause of reformation in government. That they became more popular abroad than, at home, is partly to be ascribed to the taste and skill of M. Dumont ; partly to that tendency towards free speculation and bold reform which was more prevalent among nations newly freed, or impatiently aspiring to freedom, than in a people long satisfied with the possession of a system of government like that which others were struggling to obtain, and not yet aware of the imperfections and abuses in their laws, to the amendment of which a cautious consideration of Mr. Ben- tham's works will undoubtedly most materially contribute. P 210 MODERN ETHICS : DUGALD STEWART. Born 1753 died 1828. MANIFOLD are the discouragements, rising up at every step in that part of this Dissertation which extends to very recent times. No sooner does the writer escape from the angry disputes of the living, than he may feel his mind clouded by the name of a departed friend. But there are happily men whose fame is brightened by free discussion, and to whose memory an appearance of belief that they needed tender treatment would be a grosser injury than it could suffer from a respectable antagonist. Dugald Stewart was the son of Dr. Matthew Stewart, Professor of Mathematics in the University of Edinburgh ; a station immediately before filled by Maclaurin, on the re- commendation of Newton. Hence the poet spoke of "the philosophic sire and son."* He was educated at Edinburgh, and he heard the lectures of Eeid at Glasgow. He was early associated with his father in the duties of the Mathematical Professorship ; and during the absence of Dr. Adam Ferguson as Secretary to the Commissioners sent to conclude a peace with North America, he occupied the chair of Moral Philo- sophy. He was appointed to the Professorship on the resig- nation of Ferguson, not the least distinguished among the modern moralists inclined to the Stoical school. This office, filled in immediate succession by Ferguson, Stewart, and Brown, received a lustre from their names, which it owed in no degree to its modest exterior, or its limited advantages ; and was rendered by them the highest dignity, in the humble, but not obscure, establishments of Scottish literature. The lectures of Mr. Stewart, for a quarter of a century, rendered it famous through every * Burns. STEWART. 211 country where the light of reason was allowed to penetrate. Perhaps few men ever lived, who poured into the breasts of youth a more fervid and yet reasonable love of liberty, of truth, and of virtue. How many are still alive, in different countries, and in every rank to which education reaches, who, if they accurately examined their own minds and lives, would ascribe much of whatever goodness and happiness they possess, to the early impressions of his gentle and persuasive eloquence ! He lived to see his disciples distinguished among the lights and ornaments of the council and the senate.* He had the consolation to be sure that no words of his promoted the growth of an impure taste, of an exclusive prejudice, of a malevolent passion. Without derogation from his writings, it may be said that his disciples were among his best works. * As an example of Mr. Stewart's school may be mentioned Francis Homer, a favourite pupil, and, till his last moment, an affectionate friend. The short life of this excellent person is worthy of serious con- templation, by those, more especially, who, in circumstances like his, enter on the slippery path of public affairs. Without the aids of birth or fortune, in an assembly where aristocratical propensities prevail by his understanding, industry, pure taste, and useful information still more by modest independence, by steadiness and sincerity, joined to moderation by the stamp of unbending integrity, and by the con- scientious considerateness which breathed through his well-chosen language he raised himself, at the early age of thirty-six, to a moral autJwrity which, without these qualities^ no brilliancy of talents or power of reasoning could have acquired. No eminent speaker in Parliament owed so much of his success to his moral character. His high place was therefore honourable to his audience and to his country. Kegret for his death was expressed with touching unanimity from every part of a divided assembly, unused to manifestations of sensibility, abhorrent from theatrical display, and whose tribute on such an occasion derived its peculiar value from their general coldness and sluggishness. The tears of those to whom he was unknown were shed over him : and at the head of those by whom he was " praised, wept, and honoured," was one, whose commendation would have been more enhanced in the eye of Mr. Horner, by his discernment and veracity, than by the signal proof of the concurrence of all orders, as well as parties, which was afforded by the name of Howard. 212 MODERN ETHICS : He, indeed, who may justly be said to have cultivated an extent of mind which would otherwise have lain barren, and to have contributed to raise virtuous dispositions where the natural growth might have been useless or noxious, is not less a benefactor of mankind, and may indirectly be a larger con- tributor to knowledge, than the author of great works, or even the discoverer of important truths. The system of conveying scientific instruction to a large audience by lectures, from which the English universities have in a great measure departed, renders his qualities as a lecturer a most important part of his merit in a Scottish university, which still adheres to the general method of European education. Probably no modern ever exceeded him in that species of eloquence which springs from sensibility to literary beauty and moral ex- cellence ; which neither obscures science by prodigal orna- ment, nor disturbs the serenity of patient attention; but though it rather calms and soothes the feelings, yet exalts the genius, and insensibly inspires a reasonable enthusiasm for whatever is good and fair. He embraced the philosophy of Dr. Reid, a patient, modest, and deep thinker,* who, in his first work (Enquiry * Those who may doubt the justice of this description will do well to weigh the words of the most competent of judges, who, though candid and even indulgent, was not prodigal of praise. " It is certainly very rare that a piece so deeply philosophical is wrote with so much spirit, and affords so much entertainment to the reader. Whenever I enter into your ideas, no man appears to express himself with greater perspicuity. Your style is so correct, and so good English, that I found not any thing worth the remarking. I beg my compliments to my friendly adversaries Dr. Campbell and Dr. Gerard, and also to Dr. Gregory, whom I suspect to be of the same disposition, though he has not openly declared himself such." (Letter from Mr. Hume to Dr. Reid: STEWART'S Biographical Memoirs, p. 417.) The latter part of the above sentences (written after a perusal of the proof-sheets of Dr. Reid's Enquiry, but before its publication) sufficiently shows that Mr. Hume felt no displeasure against Reid and Campbell, undoubtedly his most formidable antagonists, however he STEWART. 213 into the Human Mind], deserves a commendation more descriptive of a philosopher than that bestowed by Professor Cousin of having made " a vigorous protest against scepti- cism on behalf of common sense." His observations on sugges- tion, on natural signs, on the connection between what he calls sensation and perception, though perhaps occasioned by Berkeley, whose idealism Eeid had once adopted, are marked by the genuine spirit of original observation. As there are too many who seem more wise than they are, so it was the more uncommon fault of Reid to appear less a philosopher than he really was. Indeed his temporary adoption of Berke- leianism is a proof of an unprejudiced and acute mind. Perhaps no man ever rose finally above the seductions of that simple and ingenious system, who had not sometimes tried their full effect by surrendering his whole mind to them. But it is never with entire impunity that philosophers borrow vague and inappropriate terms from vulgar use. Never did man afford a stronger instance of the danger than Eeid, in his two most unfortunate terms, Common Sense and Instinct. Common Sense is that average portion of under- standing, possessed by most men, which, as it is nearly always applied to conduct, has acquired an almost exclusively practical sense. Instinct is the habitual power of producing effects like contrivances of reason, yet so far beyond the intelligence and experience of the agent, as to be utterly inexplicable by reference to them. ' No man, if he had been in search of im- proper words, could have discovered any more unfit than these two, for denoting that law, or state, or faculty of mind, which compels us to acknowledge certain simple and very abstract truths, not being identical propositions, to lie at the founda- might resent the language of Dr. Beattie, an amiable man, an elegant and tender poet, and a good writer on miscellaneous literature in prose, but who, in his Essay on Truth an unfair appeal to the multitude on philosophical questions indulged himself in the personalities and invectives of a public pamphleteer. 214 MODERN ETHICS : tion of all reasoning, and to be the necessary ground of all belief. Long after the death of Dr. Eeid, his philosophy was taught at Paris by M. Eoyer Collard,* who, on the restoration of free debate, became the most philosophical orator of his nation, and filled, with impartiality and dignity, the chair of the Chamber of Deputies. His ingenious and eloquent scholar, Professor Cousin, dissatisfied with what he calls " the sage and timid " doctrines of Edinburgh, which he considered as only a vigorous protest, on behalf of common sense, against the scepticism of Hume, sought in Germany for a philosophy of " such a masculine and brilliant character as might command the attention of Europe, and be able to struggle with success on a great theatre, against the genius of the adverse school." f It may be questioned whether he found in Kant more than the same vigorous protest, under a more systematic form, with an immense nomenclature, and consti- tuting a philosophical edifice of equal symmetry and vastness. The preference of the more boastful system, over a philo- sophy thus chiefly blamed for its modest pretensions, does not seem to be entirely justified by its permanent authority in the country which gave it birth : where, however power- ful its influence still continues to be, its doctrines do not ap- pear to have now many supporters ; and, indeed, the accom- plished Professor himself [Cousin] rapidly shot through Kantianism, and appears to rest or to stop at the doctrines of Schelling and Hegel, at a point so high, that it is hard to descry from it any distinction between objects even that indispensable distinction between Reality and Elusion. As the works of Eeid, and those of Kant, otherwise so different, * Fragments of his lectures have been published in a French trans- lation of Dr. Reid, by M. Jonffroy : CEuvres Completes de THOMAS REID, vol. iv. Paris, 1828. t Oours de Philosophie, par M. COUSIN, le