Another spring of our constitution, that brings a great addition of force to moral sentiment, is Love of Fame. The pursuit of a character, name, and reputation in the world, leads to a habit of surveying our own actions, begets a reverence for self as well as others, and is thus the guardian of every virtue. Humanity and Love of Reputation combine to form the highest type of morality yet conceived.

The nature of moral approbation being thus solved, there remains the nature of obligation; by which the author means to enquire, if a man having a view to his own welfare, will not find his best account in the practice of every moral virtue. He dwells upon the many advantages of social virtue, of benevolence and friendship, humanity and kindness, of truth and honesty; but confesses that the rule that 'honesty is the best policy' is liable to many exceptions. He makes us acquainted with his own theory of Happiness. How little is requisite to supply the necessities of nature? and what comparison is there between, on the one hand, the cheap pleasures of conversation, society, study, even health, and, on the other, the common beauties of nature, with self-approbation; and the feverish, empty amusements of luxury and expense?

Thus ends the main treatise; but the author adds, in an Appendix, four additional dissertations.

The first takes up the question started at the outset, but postponed, how far our moral approbation is a matter of reason, and how far of sentiment. His handling of this topic is luminous and decisive.

If the utility of actions be a foundation of our approval of them, reason must have a share, for no other faculty can trace the results of actions in their bearings upon human happiness. In Justice especially, there are often numerous and complicated considerations; such as to occupy the deliberations of politicians and the debates of lawyers.

On the other hand, reason is insufficient of itself to constitute the feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation. Reason shows the means to an end; but if we are otherwise indifferent to the end, the reasonings fall inoperative on the mind. Here then a sentiment must display itself, a delight in the happiness of men, and a repugnance to what causes them misery. Reason teaches the consequences of actions; Humanity or Benevolence is roused to make a distinction in favour of such as are beneficial.

He adduces a number of illustrations to show that reason alone is insufficient to make a moral sentiment. He bids us examine Ingratitude, for instance; good offices bestowed on one side, ill-will on the other. Reason might say, whether a certain action, say the gift of money, or an act of patronage, was for the good of the party receiving it, and whether the circumstances of the gift indicated a good intention on the part of the giver; it might also say, whether the actions of the person obliged were intentionally or consciously hurtful or wanting in esteem to the person obliging. But when all this is made out by reason, there remains the sentiment of abhorrence, whose foundations must be in the emotional part of our nature, in our delight in manifested goodness, and our abhorrence of the opposite.

He refers to Beauty or Taste as a parallel case, where there may be an operation of the intellect to compute proportions, but where the elegance or beauty must arise in the region of feeling. Thus, while reason conveys the knowledge of truth and falsehood, sentiment or emotion must give beauty and deformity, vice and virtue.

Appendix No. II. is a discussion of SELF-LOVE. The author adverts first to the position that benevolence is a mere pretence, a cheat, a gloss of self-love, and dismisses it with a burst of indignation. He next considers the less offensive view, that all benevolence and generosity are resolvable in the last resort into self-love. He does not attribute to the holders of this opinion any laxity in their own practice of virtue, as compared with other men. Epicurus and his followers were no strangers to probity; Atticus and Horace were men of generous dispositions; Hobbes and Locke were irreproachable in their lives. These men all allowed that friendship exists without hypocrisy; but considered that, by a sort of mental chemistry, it might be made out self-love, twisted and moulded by a particular turn of the imagination. But, says Hume, as some men have not the turn of imagination, and others have, this alone is quite enough to make the widest difference of human characters, and to stamp one man as virtuous and humane, and another vicious and meanly interested. The analysis in no way sets aside the reality of moral distinctions. The question is, therefore, purely speculative.

As a speculation, it is open to these objections. (1) Being contrary to the unprejudiced notions of mankind, it demands some very powerful aid from philosophy. On the face of things, the selfish passions and the benevolent passions are widely distinguished, and no hypothesis has ever yet so far overcome the disparity as to show that the one could grow out of the other; we may discern in the attempts that love of simplicity, which has done so much harm to philosophy.

The Animals are susceptible of kindness; shall we then attribute to them, too, a refinement of self-interest? Again, what interest can a fond mother have in view who loses her health in attendance on a sick child, and languishes and dies of grief when relieved from the slavery of that attendance?

(2) But farther, the real simplicity lies on the side of independent and disinterested benevolence. There are bodily appetites that carry us to their objects before sensual enjoyment; hunger and thirst have eating and drinking for their end; the gratification follows, and becomes a secondary desire. [A very questionable analysis.] So there are mental passions, as fame, power, vengeance, that urge us to act, in the first instance; and when the end is attained, the pleasure follows. Now, as vengeance may be so pursued as to make us neglect ease, interest, and safety, why may we not allow to humanity and friendship the same privileges? [This is Butler, improved in the statement.]

Appendix III. gives some farther considerations with regard to JUSTICE. The point of the discussion is to show that Justice differs from Generosity or Beneficence in a regard to distant consequences, and to General Rules. The theme is handled in the author's usual happy style, but contains nothing special to him. He omits to state what is also a prime attribute of Justice, its being indispensable to the very existence of society, which cannot be said of generosity apart from its contributing to justice.

Appendix IV. is on some VERBAL DISPUTES. He remarks that, neither in English nor in any other modern tongue, is the boundary fixed between virtues and talents, vices and defects; that praise is given to natural endowments, as well as to voluntary exertions. The epithets intellectual and moral do not precisely divide the virtues; neither does the contrast of head and heart; many virtuous qualities partake of both ingredients. So the sentiment of conscious worth, or of its opposite, is affected by what is not in our power, as well as by what is; by the goodness or badness of our memory, as well as by continence or dissoluteness of conduct. Without endowments of the understanding, the best intentions will not procure esteem.

The ancient moralists included in the virtues what are obviously natural endowments. Prudence, according to Cicero, involved sagacity or powers of judgment. In Aristotle, we find, among the virtues, Courage, Temperance, Magnanimity, Modesty, Prudence, and manly Openness, as well as Justice and Friendship. Epictetus puts people on their guard against humanity and compassion. In general, the difference of voluntary and involuntary was little regarded in ancient ethics. This is changed in modern times, by the alliance of Ethics with Theology. The divine has put all morality on the footing of the civil law, and guarded it by the same sanctions of reward and punishment; and consequently must make the distinction of voluntary and involuntary fundamental.

Hume also composed a dialogue, to illustrate, in his light and easy style, the great variety, amounting almost to opposition, of men's moral sentiments in different ages. This may seem adverse to his principle of Utility, as it is to the doctrine of an Intuitive Sense of Right and Wrong. He allows, however, for the different ways that people may view Utility, seeing that the consequences of acting are often difficult to estimate, and people may agree in an end without agreeing in the means. Still, he pays too little attention to the sentimental likings and dislikings that frequently overbear the sense of Utility; scarcely recognizing it, except in one passage, where he dwells on the superstitions that mingle with a regard to the consequences of actions in determining right.

We shall now repeat the leading points of Hume's system, in the usual order.

I.—The Standard of Right and Wrong is Utility, or a reference to the Happiness of mankind. This is the ground, as wall as the motive, of moral approbation.

II.—As to the nature of the Moral Faculty, he contends that it is a compound of Reason, and Humane or Generous Sentiment.

He does not introduce the subject of Free-will into Morals.

He contends strongly for the existence of Disinterested Sentiment, or Benevolence; but scarcely recognizes it as leading to absolute and uncompensated self-sacrifice. He does not seem to see that as far as the approbation of benevolent actions is concerned, we are anything but disinterested parties. The good done by one man is done to some others; and the recipients are moved by their self-love to encourage beneficence. The regard to our own benefactor makes all benefactors interesting.

III.—He says little directly bearing on the constituents of Human Happiness; but that little is all in favour of simplicity of life and cheap pleasures. He does not reflect that the pleasures singled out by him are far from cheap; 'agreeable conversation, society, study, health, and the beauties of nature,' although not demanding extraordinary wealth, cannot be secured without a larger share of worldly means than has ever fallen to the mass of men in any community.

IV.—As to the substance of the Moral Code, he makes no innovations. He talks somewhat more lightly of the evils of Unchastity than is customary; but regards the prevailing restraints as borne out by Utility.

The inducements to virtue are, in his view, our humane sentiments, on the one hand, and our self-love, or prudence, on the other; the two classes of motives conspiring to promote both our own good and the good of mankind.

V.—The connexion of Ethics with Politics is not specially brought out. The political virtues are moral virtues. He does not dwell upon the sanctions of morality, so as to distinguish the legal sanction from the popular sanction. He draws no line between Duty and Merit.

VI.—He recognizes no relationship between Ethics and Theology. The principle of Benevolence in the human mind is, he thinks, an adequate source of moral approbation and disapprobation; and he takes no note of what even sceptics (Gibbon, for example) often dwell upon, the aid of the Theological sanction in enforcing duties imperfectly felt by the natural and unprompted sentiments of the mind.

RICHARD PRICE. (1723-1791.)

Price's work is entitled, 'A Review of the principal questions in Morals; particularly those respecting the Origin of our Ideas of Virtue, its Nature, Relation to the Deity, Obligation, Subject-matter, and Sanctions.' In the third edition, he added an Appendix on 'the Being and Attributes of the Deity.'

The book is divided into ten chapters.

Chapter I. is on the origin of our Ideas of Right and Wrong. The actions of moral agents, he says, give rise in us to three different perceptions: 1st, Right and Wrong; 2nd, Beauty and Deformity; 3rd, Good or Ill Desert. It is the first of these perceptions that he proposes mainly to consider.

He commences by quoting Hutcheson's doctrine of a Moral Sense, which he describes as an implanted and arbitrary principle, imparting a relish or disrelish for actions, like the sensibilities of the various senses. On this doctrine, he remarks, the Creator might have annexed the same sentiments to the opposite actions. Other schemes of morality, such as Self-love, Positive Laws and Compacts, the Will of the Deity, he dismisses as not meeting the true question.

The question, as conceived by him, is, 'What is the power within us that perceives the distinctions of Right and Wrong?' The answer is, The UNDERSTANDING.

To establish this position, he enters into an enquiry into the distinct provinces of Sense and of Understanding in the origin of our ideas. It is plain, he says, that what judges concerning the perceptions of the senses, and contradicts their decisions, cannot itself be sense, but must be some nobler faculty. Likewise, the power that views and compares the objects of all the senses cannot be sense. Sense is a mere capacity of being passively impressed; it presents particular forms to the mind, and is incapable of discovering general truths. It is the understanding that perceives order or proportion; variety and regularity; design, connexion, art, and power; aptitudes, dependence, correspondence, and adjustment of parts to a whole or to an end. He goes over our leading ideas in detail, to show that mere sense cannot furnish them. Thus, Solidity, or Impenetrability, needs an exertion of reason; we must compare instances to know that two atoms of matter cannot occupy the same space. Vis Inerticae is a perception of the reason. So Substance, Duration, Space, Necessary Existence, Power, and Causation involve the understanding. Likewise, that all Abstract Ideas whatsoever require the understanding is superfluously proved. The author wonders, therefore, that his position in this matter should not have been sooner arrived at.

The tracing of Agreement and of Disagreement, which are functions of the Understanding, is really the source of simple ideas. Thus, Equality is a simple idea originating in this source; so are Proportion, Identity and Diversity, Existence, Cause and Effect, Power, Possibility and Impossibility; and (as he means ultimately to show) Right and Wrong.

Although the author's exposition is not very lucid, his main conclusion is a sound one. Sense, in its narrowest acceptation, gives particular impressions and experiences of Colour, Sound, Touch, Taste, Odour, &c. The Intellectual functions of Discrimination and Agreement are necessary as a supplement to Sense, to recognize these impressions as differing and agreeing, as Equal or Unequal; Proportionate or Disproportionate; Harmonious or Discordant. And farther, every abstract or general notion,—colours in the abstract, sweetness, pungency, &c.—supposes these, powers of the understanding in addition to the recipiency of the senses.

To apply this to Right and Wrong, the author begins by affirming [what goes a good way towards begging the question] that right and wrong are simple ideas, and therefore the result of an immediate power of perception in the human mind. Beneficence and Cruelty are indefinable, and therefore ultimate. There must be some actions that are in the last resort an end in themselves. This being assumed, the author contends that the power of immediately perceiving these ultimate ideas is the Understanding. Shaftesbury had contended that, because the perception of right and wrong was immediate, therefore it must reside in a special Sense. The conclusion, thinks Price, was, to say the least of it, hasty; for it does not follow that every immediate perception should reside in a special sensibility or sense. He puts it to each one's experience whether, in conceiving Gratitude or Beneficence to be right, one feels a sensation merely, or performs an act of understanding. 'Would not a Being purely intelligent, having happiness within his reach, approve of securing it for himself? Would he not think this right; and would it not be right? When we contemplate the happiness of a species, or of a world, and pronounce on the actions of reasonable beings which promote it, that they are right, is this judging erroneously? Or is it no determination of the judgment at all, but a species of mental taste [as Shaftesbury and Hutcheson supposed]? [As against a moral sense, this reasoning may be effective; but it obviously assumes an end of desire,—happiness for self, or for others—and yet does not allow to that end any share in making up the sense of right and wrong.] Every one, the author goes on to say, must desire happiness for himself; and our rational nature thenceforth must approve of the actions for promoting happiness, and disapprove of the contrary actions. Surely the understanding has some share in the revulsion that we feel when any one brings upon himself, or upon others, calamity and ruin. A being flattered with hopes of bliss and then plunged into torments would complain justly; he would consider that violence had been done to a perception of the human understanding.

He next brings out a metaphysical difficulty in applying right and wrong to actions, on the supposition that they are mere effects of sensation. All sensations, as such, are modes of consciousness, or feelings, of a sentient being, and must be of a nature different from their causes. Colour is in the mind, not an attribute of the object; but right and wrong are qualities of actions, of objects, and therefore must be ideas, not sensations. Then, again, there can be nothing true or untrue in a sensation; all sensations are alike just; while the moral rectitude of an action is something absolute and unvarying. Lastly, all actions have a nature, or character; something truly belonging to them, and truly affirmable of them. If actions have no character, then they are all indifferent; but this no one can affirm; we all strongly believe the contrary. Actions are not indifferent. They are good or bad, better or worse. And if so, they are declared such by an act of judgment, a function of the understanding.

The author, considering his thesis established, deduces from it the corollary, that morality is eternal and immutable. As an object of the Understanding, it has an invariable essence. No will, not even Omnipotence, can make things other than they are. Right and wrong, as far as they express the real characters of actions, must immutably and necessarily belong to the actions. By action, is of course understood not a bare external effect, but an effect taken along with its principle or rule, the motives or reasons of the being that performs it. The matter of an action being the same, its morality reposes upon the end or motive of the agent. Nothing can be obligatory in us that was not so from eternity. The will of God could not make a thing right that was not right in its own nature.

The author closes his first chapter with a criticism of the doctrine of Protagoras—that man is the measure of all things—interpreting it as another phase of the view that he is combating.

Although this chapter is but a small part of the work, it completes the author's demonstration of his ethical theory.

Chapter II. is on 'our Ideas of the Beauty and Deformity of Actions.' By these are meant our pleasurable and painful sentiments, arising from the consideration of moral right and wrong, expressed by calling some actions amiable, and others odious, shocking, vile. Although, in this aspect of actions, it would seem that the reference to a sense is the suitable explanation, he still contends for the intervention of the Understanding. The character of the Deity must appear more amiable the better it is known and understood. A reasonable being, without any special sensibilities, but knowing what order and happiness are, would receive pleasure from the contemplation of a universe where order prevailed, and pain from a prospect of the contrary. To behold virtue is to admire her; to perceive vice is to be moved to condemnation. There must always be a consideration of the circumstances of an action, and this involves intellectual discernment.

The author now qualifies his doctrine by the remark, that to some superior beings the intellectual discernment may explain the whole of the appearances, but inferior natures, such as the human, are aided by instinctive determinations. Our appetites and passions are too strong for reason by itself, especially in early years. Hence he is disposed to conclude that 'in contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have both a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart;' but that this feeling of the heart, while partly instinctive, is mainly a sense of congruity and incongruity in actions. The author therefore allows something to innate sense, but differs from Shaftesbury, who makes the whole a matter of intuitive determination.

Chapter III. relates to the origin of our Desires and Affections, by which he means more especially Self-love and Benevolence. His position here is that Self-love is the essence of a Sensible being, Benevolence the essential of an Intelligent being. By the very nature of our sensitive constitution, we cannot but choose happiness for self; and it is only an act of intellectual consistency to extend the same measure to others. The same qualification, however, is made as to the insufficiency of a mere intellectual impulse in this matter, without constitutional tendencies. These constitutional tendencies the author considers as made up of our Appetites and Passions, while our Affections are founded on our rational nature. Then follow a few observations in confirmation of Butler's views as to the disinterested nature of our affections.

Chapter IV. is on our Ideas of good and ill Desert. These are only a variety of our ideas of right and wrong, being the feelings excited towards the moral Agent. Our reason determines, with regard to a virtuous agent, that he ought to be the better for his virtue. The ground of such determination, however, is not solely that virtuous conduct promotes the happiness of mankind, and vice detracts from it; this counts for much, but not for all. Virtue is in itself rewardable; vice is of essential demerit. Our understanding recognizes the absolute and eternal rectitude, the intrinsic fitness of the procedure in both aspects.

Chapter V. is entitled 'Of the Reference of Morality to the Divine Nature; the Rectitude of our Faculties; and the Grounds of Belief.' The author means to reply to the objection that his system, in setting up a criterion independent of God, is derogatory to the Divine nature. He urges that there must be attributes of the Deity, independent of his will; as his Existence, Immensity, Power, Wisdom; that Mind supposes Truth apart from itself; that without moral distinctions there could be no Moral Attributes in the Deity. Certain things are inherent in his Nature, and not dependent on his will. There is a limit to the universe itself; two infinities of space or of duration are not possible. The necessary goodness of the divine nature is a part of necessary truth. Thus, morality, although not asserted to depend on the will of the Deity, is still resolvable into his nature. In all this, Price avowedly follows Cudworth.

He then starts another difficulty. May not our faculties be mistaken, or be so constituted as to deceive us? To which he gives the reply, made familiar to us by Hamilton, that the doubt is suicidal; the faculty that doubts being itself under the same imputation. Nay, more, a being cannot be made such as to be imposed on by falsehood; what is false is nothing. As to the cases of actual mistake, these refer to matters attended with some difficulty; and it does not follow that we must be mistaken in cases that are clear.

He concludes with a statement of the ultimate grounds of our belief. These are, (1) Consciousness or Feeling, as in regard to our own existence, our sensations, passions, &c.; (2) Intuition, comprising self-evident truths; and (3) Deduction, or Argumentation. He discusses under these the existence of a material world, and affirms that we have an Intuition that it is possible.

Chapter VI. considers Fitness and Moral Obligation, and other prevailing forms of expression regarding morality. Fitness and Unfitness denote Congruity or Incongruity, and are necessarily a perception of the Understanding.

The term Obligation is more perplexing. Still, it is but another name for Rightness. What is Right is, by that very fact, obligatory. Obligation, therefore, cannot be the creature of law, for law may command what is morally wrong. The will of God enforced by rewards and punishments cannot make right; it would only determine what is prudent. Rewards and punishments do not make obligation, but suppose it. Rectitude is a LAW, the authoritative guide of a rational being. It is Supreme, universal, unalterable, and indispensable. Self-valid and self-originated, it stands on immovable foundations. Being the one authority in nature, it is, in short, the Divine authority. Even the obligations of religion are but branches of universal rectitude. The Sovereign Authority is not the mere result of his Almighty Power, but of this conjoined with his necessary perfections and infinite excellence.

He does not admit that obligation implies an obliger.

He takes notice of the objection that certain actions may be right, and yet we are not bound to perform them; such are acts of generosity and kindness. But his answer throws no farther light on his main doctrine.

In noticing the theories of other writers in the same vein, as Wollaston, he takes occasion to remark that, together with the perception of conformity or fitness, there is a simple immediate perception urging us to act according to that fitness, for which no farther reason can be assigned. When we compare innocence and eternal misery, we are struck with the idea of unsuitableness, and are inspired in consequence with intense repugnance.

Chapter VII. discusses the Heads or Divisions of Virtue; under which he enquires first what are virtuous actions; secondly, what is the true principle or motive of a virtuous agent; and thirdly, the estimate of the degrees of virtue.

He first quotes Butler to show that all virtue is not summed up in Benevolence; repeating that there is an intrinsic rectitude in keeping faith; and giving the usual arguments against Utility, grounded on the supposed crimes that might be committed on this plea. He is equally opposed to those that would deny disinterested benevolence, or would resolve beneficence into veracity. He urges against Hutcheson, that, these being independent and distinct virtues, a distinct sense would be necessary to each; in other words, we should, for the whole of virtue, need a plurality of moral senses.

His classification of Virtue comprehends (1) Duty to God, which he dilates upon at some length. (2) Duty to Ourselves, wherein he maintains that our sense of self-interest is not enough for us. (3) Beneficence, the Good of others. (4) Gratitude. (5) Veracity, which he inculcates with great earnestness, adverting especially to impartiality and honesty in our enquiries after truth. (6) Justice, which he treats in its application to the Rights of Property. He considers that the difficulties in practice arise partly from the conflict of the different heads, and partly from the different modes of applying the same principles; which he gives as an answer to the objection from the great differences of men's moral sentiments and practices. He allows, besides, that custom, education, and example, may blind and deprave our intellectual and moral powers; but denies that the whole of our notions and sentiments could result from education. No amount of depravity is able utterly to destroy our moral discernment.

Chapter VIII. treats of Intention as an element in virtuous action. He makes a distinction between Virtue in the Abstract and Virtue in Practice, or with reference to all the circumstances of the agent. A man may do abstract wrong, through mistake, while as he acts with his best judgment and with upright intentions, he is practically right. He grounds on this a powerful appeal against every attempt at dominion over conscience. The requisites of Practical Morality are (1) Liberty, or Free-will, on which he takes the side of free-agency. (2) Intelligence, without which there can be no perception of good and evil, and no moral agency. (3) The Consciousness of Rectitude, or Righteous Intention. On this he dwells at some length. No action is properly the action of a moral agent unless designed by him. A virtuous motive is essential to virtue. On the question—Is Benevolence a virtuous motive? he replies: Not the Instinctive benevolence of the parent, but only Rational benevolence; which he allows to coincide with rectitude. Reason presiding over Self-love renders it a virtuous principle likewise. The presence of Reason in greater or less degree is the criterion of the greater or less virtue of any action.

Chapter IX. is on the different Degrees of Virtue and Vice, and the modes of estimating them; the Difficulties attending the Practice of Virtue; the use of Trials, and the essentials of a good or a bad Character. The considerations adduced are a number of perfectly well-known maxims on the practice of morality, and scarcely add anything to the elucidation of the author's Moral Theory. The concluding chapter, on Natural Religion, contains nothing original.

To sum up the views of Price:—

I.—As regards the Moral Standard, he asserts that a perception of the Reason or the Understanding,—a sense of fitness or congruity between actions and the agents, and all the circumstances attending them,—is what determines Right and Wrong.

He finds it impracticable to maintain his position without sundry qualifications, as we have seen. Virtue is naturally adapted to please every observing mind; vice the contrary. Right actions must be grateful, wrong ungrateful to us. To behold virtue is to admire her. In contemplating the actions of moral agents, we have both a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart. He thus re-admits an element of feeling, along with the intellect, in some undefined degree; contending only that all morality is not to be resolved into feeling or instinct. We have also noticed another singular admission, to the effect that only superior natures can discover virtue by the understanding. Reason alone, did we possess it in a high degree, would answer all the ends of the passions. Parental affection would be unnecessary, if parents were sufficiently alive to the reasons of supporting the young, and were virtuous enough to be always determined by them.

Utility, although not the sole ground of Justice, is yet admitted to be one important reason or ground of many of its maxims.

II.—The nature of the Moral Faculty, in Price's theory, is not a separate question from the standard, but the same question. His discussion takes the form of an enquiry into the Faculty:—'What is the power within us that perceives the distinctions of Right and Wrong?' The two questions are mixed up throughout, to the detriment of precision in the reasoning.

With his usual facility of making concessions to other principles, he says it is not easy to determine how far our natural sentiments may be altered by custom, education, and example: while it would be unreasonable to conclude that all is derived from these sources. That part of our moral constitution depending on instinct is liable to be corrupted by custom and education to almost any length; but the most depraved can never sink so low as to lose all moral discernment, all ideas of just and unjust; of which he offers the singular proof that men are never wanting in resentment when they are themselves the objects of ill-treatment.

As regards the Psychology of Disinterested Action, he provides nothing but a repetition of Butler (Chapter III.) and a vague assertion of the absurdity of denying disinterested benevolence.

III.—On Human Happiness, he has only a few general remarks. Happiness is an object of essential and eternal value. Happiness is the end, and the only end, conceivable by us, of God's providence and government; but He pursues this end in subordination to rectitude. Virtue tends to happiness, but does not always secure it. A person that sacrifices his life rather than violate his conscience, or betray his country, gives up all possibility of any present reward, and loses the more in proportion as his virtue is more glorious.

Neither on the Moral Code, nor in the relations of Ethics to Politics and to Theology, are any further remarks on Price called for.

ADAM SMITH. [1723-90.]

The 'Theory of the Moral Sentiments' is a work of great extent and elaboration. It is divided into five Parts; each part being again divided into Sections, and these subdivided into Chapters.

PART I. is entitled, OF THE PROPRIETY OF ACTION. Section I. is, 'Of the Sense of Propriety.' Propriety is his word for Rectitude or Right.

Chapter I., entitled, 'Of Sympathy,' is a felicitous illustration of the general nature and workings of Sympathy. He calls in the experience of all mankind to attest the existence of our sympathetic impulses. He shows through what medium sympathy operates; namely, by our placing ourselves in the situation of the other party, and imagining what we should feel in that case. He produces the most notable examples of the impressions made on us by our witnessing the actions, the pleasurable and the painful expression of others; effects extending even to fictitious representations. He then remarks that, although on some occasions, we take on simply and purely the feelings manifested in our presence,—the grief or joy of another man, yet this is far from the universal case: a display of angry passion may produce in us hostility and disgust; but this very result may be owing to our sympathy for the person likely to suffer from the anger. So our sympathy for grief or for joy is imperfect until we know the cause, and may be entirely suppressed. We take the whole situation into view, as well as the expression of the feeling. Hence we often feel for another person what that person does not feel for himself; we act out our own view of the situation, not his. We feel for the insane what they do not feel; we sympathize even with the dead.

Chapter II. is 'Of the Pleasure of Mutual Sympathy.' It contains illustrations of the delight that we experience in the sympathy of others; we being thereby strengthened in our pleasures and relieved in our miseries. He observes that we demand this sympathy more urgently for our painful emotions than for such as are pleasurable; we are especially intolerant of the omission of our friends to join in our resentments. On the other hand, we feel pleasure in the act of sympathizing, and find in that a compensation for the pain that the sight of pain gives us. Still, this pleasure may be marred if the other party's own expression of grief or of joy is beyond what we think suitable to the situation.

Chapter III. considers 'the manner of our judging of the propriety of other men's affections by their consonance with our own,' The author illustrates the obvious remark, that we approve of the passions of another, if they are such as we ourselves should feel in the same situation. We require that a man's expression and conduct should be suitable to the occasion, according to our own standard of judging, namely, our own procedure in such cases.

Chapter IV. continues the subject, and draws a distinction between two cases; the case where the objects of a feeling do not concern either ourselves or the person himself, and the case where they do concern one or other. The first case is shown in matters of taste and science, where we derive pleasure from sympathy, but yet can tolerate difference. The other case is exemplified in our personal fortunes; in these, we cannot endure any one refusing us their sympathy. Still, it is to be noted that the sympathizer does not fully attain the level of the sufferer; hence the sufferer, aware of this, and desiring the satisfaction of a full accord with his friend, tones down his own vehemence till it can be fully met by the other; which very circumstance is eventually for his own good, and adds to, rather than detracts from, the tranquillizing influence of a friendly presence. We sober down our feelings still more before casual acquaintance and strangers; and hence the greater equality of temper in the man of the world than in the recluse.

Chapter V. makes an application of these remarks to explain the difference between the Amiable and the Respectable Virtues. The soft, the gentle, and the amiable qualities are manifested when, as sympathizers, we enter fully into the expressed sentiments of another; the great, the awful and respectable virtues of self-denial, are shown when the principal person concerned brings down his own case to the level that the most ordinary sympathy can easily attain to. The one is the virtue of giving much, the other of expecting little.

Section II. is 'Of the Degrees of the different passions which are consistent with propriety.' Under this head he reviews the leading passions, remarks how far, and why, we can sympathize with each.

Chapter I. is on the Passions having their origin in the body. We can sympathize with hunger to a certain limited extent, and in certain circumstances; but we can rarely tolerate any very prominent expression of it. The same limitations apply to the passion of the sexes. We partly sympathize with bodily pain, but not with the violent expression of it. These feelings are in marked contrast to the passions seated in the imagination: wherein our appetite for sympathy is complete; disappointed love or ambition, loss of friends or of dignity, are suitable to representation in art. On the same principle, we can sympathize with danger; as regards our power of conceiving, we are on a level with the sufferer. From our inability to enter into bodily pain, we the more admire the man that can bear it with firmness.

Chapter II. is on certain Passions depending on a peculiar turn of the Imagination. Under this he exemplifies chiefly the situation of two lovers, with whose passion, in its intensity, a third person cannot sympathize, although one may enter into the hopes of happiness, and into the dangers and calamities often flowing from it.

Chapter III. is on the Unsocial Passions. These necessarily divide our sympathy between him that feels them and him that is their object. Resentment is especially hard to sympathize with. We may ourselves resent wrong done to another, but the less so that the sufferer strongly resents it. Moreover, there is in the passion itself an element of the disagreeable and repulsive; its manifestation is naturally distasteful. It may be useful and even necessary, but so is a prison, which is not on that account a pleasant object. In order to make its gratification agreeable, there must be many well known conditions and qualifications attending it.

Chapter IV. gives the contrast of the Social Passions. It is with the humane, the benevolent sentiments, that our sympathy is unrestricted and complete. Even in their excess, they never inspire aversion.

Chapter V. is on the Selfish Passions. He supposes these, in regard to sympathy, to hold a middle place between the social and the unsocial. We sympathize with small joys and with great sorrows; and not with great joys (which dispense with our aid, if they do not excite our envy) or with small troubles.

Section III. considers the effects of prosperity and adversity upon the judgments of mankind regarding propriety of action.

Chapter I. puts forward the proposition that our sympathy with sorrow, although more lively than our sympathy with joy, falls short of the intensity of feeling in the person concerned. It is agreeable to sympathize with joy, and we do so with the heart; the painfulness of entering into grief and misery holds us back. Hence, as he remarked before, the magnanimity and nobleness of the man that represses his woes, and does not exact our compassionate participation.

Chapter II. inquires into the origin of Ambition, and of the distinction of Ranks. Proceeding upon the principle just enounced, that mankind sympathize with joy rather than with sorrow, the author composes an exceedingly eloquent homily on the worship paid to rank and greatness.

Chapter III., in continuation of the same theme, illustrates the corruption of our moral sentiments, arising from this worship of the great. 'We frequently see the respectful attentions of the world more strongly directed towards the rich and the great, than towards the wise and the virtuous.' 'The external graces, the frivolous accomplishments of that impertinent and foolish thing called a man of fashion, are commonly more admired than the solid and masculine virtues of a warrior, a statesman, a philosopher, or a legislator.'

PART II. is OF MERIT AND DEMERIT; OR OF THE OBJECTS OF REWARD AND PUNISHMENT. It consists of three Sections.

Section I. is, Of the Sense of Merit and Demerit.

Chapter I. maintains that whatever appears to be the proper object of gratitude, appears to deserve reward; and that whatever appears to be the proper object of resentment, appears to deserve punishment. The author distinguishes between gratitude and mere love or liking; and, obversely, between resentment and hatred. Love makes us pleased to see any one promoted; but gratitude urges us to be ourselves the instrument of their promotion.

Chapter II. determines the proper objects of Gratitude and Resentment, these being also the proper objects of Reward and Punishment respectively. 'These, as well as all the other passions of human nature, seem proper, and are approved of, when the heart of every impartial spectator entirely sympathizes with them, when every indifferent by-stander entirely enters into, and goes along with them.' In short, a good moral decision is obtained by the unanimous vote of all impartial persons.

This view is in accordance with the course taken by the mind in the two contrasting situations. In sympathizing with the joy of a prosperous person, we approve of his complacent and grateful sentiment towards the author of his prosperity; we make his gratitude our own: in sympathizing with sorrow, we enter into, and approve of, the natural resentment towards the agent causing it.

Chapter III. remarks that where we do not approve of the conduct of the person conferring the benefit, we have little sympathy with the gratitude of the receiver; we do not care to enter into the gratitude of the favourites of profligate monarchs.

Chapter IV. supposes the case of our approving strongly the conduct and the motives of a benefactor, in which case we sympathize to a corresponding degree with the gratitude of the receiver.

Chapter V. sums up the analysis of the Sense of Merit and of Demerit thus:—The sense of Merit is a compound sentiment, made up of two distinct emotions; a direct sympathy with the sentiments of the agent (constituting the propriety of the action), and an indirect sympathy with the gratitude of the recipient. The sense of Demerit includes a direct antipathy to the sentiments of the agent, and an indirect sympathy with the resentment of the sufferer.

Section II. is Of Justice and Beneficence.

Chapter I. compares the two virtues. Actions of a beneficent tendency, from proper motives, seem alone to require a reward; actions of a hurtful tendency, from improper motives, seem alone to deserve punishment. It is the nature of Beneficence to be free; the mere absence of it does not expose to punishment. Of all the duties of beneficence, the one most allied to perfect obligation is gratitude; but although we talk of the debt of gratitude (we do not say the debt of charity), we do not punish ingratitude.

Resentment, the source of punishment, is given for defence against positive evil; we employ it not to extort benefits, but to repel injuries. Now, the injury is the violation of Justice. The sense of mankind goes along with the employment of violence to avenge the hurt done by injustice, to prevent the injury, and to restrain the offender. Beneficence, then, is the subject of reward; and the want of it is not the subject of punishment. There may be cases where a beneficent act is compelled by punishment, as in obliging a father to support his family, or in punishing a man for not interfering when another is in danger; but these cases are immaterial exceptions to the broad definition. He might have added, that in cases where justice is performed under unusual difficulties, and with unusual fidelity, our disposition would be not merely to exempt from punishment, but to reward.

Chapter II. considers the sense of Justice, Remorse, and the feeling of Merit.

Every man is recommended by nature to his own care, being fitter to take care of himself than of another person. We approve, therefore, of each one seeking their own good; but then it must not be to the hurt of any other being. The primary feeling of self-preservation would not of itself, however, be shocked at causing injury to our fellows. It is when we pass out of this point of view, and enter into the mental state of the spectator of our actions, that we feel the sense of injustice and the sting of Remorse. Though it may be true that every individual in his own breast prefers himself to mankind, yet he dares not look mankind in the face, and avow that he acts on this principle. A man is approved when he outstrips his fellows in a fair race; he is condemned when he jostles or trips up a competitor unfairly. The actor takes home to himself this feeling; a feeling known as Shame, Dread of Punishment, and Remorse.

So with the obverse. He that performs a generous action can realize the sentiments of the by-stander, and applaud himself by sympathy with the approbation of the supposed impartial judge. This is the sense of Merit.

Chapter III. gives reflections upon the utility of this constitution of our nature. Human beings are dependent upon one another for mutual assistance, and are exposed to mutual injuries. Society might exist without love or beneficence, but not without mutual abstinence from injury. Beneficence is the ornament that embellishes the building; Justice the main pillar that supports it. It is for the observance of Justice that we need that consciousness of ill-desert, and those terrors of mental punishment, growing out of our sympathy with the disapprobation of our fellows. Justice is necessary to the existence of society, and we often defend its dictates on that ground; but, without looking to such a remote and comprehensive end, we are plunged into remorse for its violation by the shorter process of referring to the censure of a supposed spectator [in other words, to the sanction of public opinion].

Section III.—Of the influence of Fortune upon the sentiments of mankind, with regard to the Merit and the Demerit of actions.

Every voluntary action consists of three parts:—(1) the Intention or motive, (2) the Mechanism, as when we lift the hand, and give a blow, and (3) the Consequences. It is, in principle, admitted by all, that only the first, the Intention, can be the subject of blame. The Mechanism is in itself indifferent. So the Consequences cannot be properly imputed to the agent, unless intended by him. On this last point, however, mankind do not always adhere to their general maxim; when they come to particular cases, they are influenced, in their estimate of merit and demerit, by the actual consequences of the action.

Chapter I. considers the causes of this influence of Fortune. Gratitude requires, in the first instance, that some pleasure should have been conferred; Resentment pre-supposes pain. These passions require farther that the object of them should itself be susceptible of pleasure and pain; they should be human beings or animals. Thirdly, It is requisite that they should have produced the effects from a design to do so. Now, the absence of the pleasurable consequences intended by a beneficent agent leaves out one of the exciting causes of gratitude, although including another; the absence of the painful consequences of a maleficent act leaves out one of the exciting causes of resentment; hence less gratitude seems due in the one, and less resentment in the other.

Chapter II. treats of the extent of this influence of Fortune. The effects of it are, first, to diminish, in our eyes, the merit of laudable, and the demerit of blameable, actions, when they fail of their intended effects; and, secondly, to increase the feelings of merit and of demerit beyond what is due to the motives, when the actions chance to be followed by extraordinary pleasure or pain. Success enhances our estimate of all great enterprises; failure takes off the edge of our resentment of great crimes.

The author thinks (Chapter III.) that final causes can be assigned for this irregularity of Sentiments. In the first place, it would be highly dangerous to seek out and to resent mere bad intentions. In the next place, it is desirable that beneficent wishes should be put to the proof by results. And, lastly, as regards the tendency to resent evil, although unintended, it is good to a certain extent that men should be taught intense circumspection on the point of infringing one another's happiness.

PART III. is entitled OF THE FOUNDATION OF OUR JUDGMENTS CONCERNING OUR OWN SENTIMENTS AND CONDUCT, AND OF THE SENSE OF DUTY.

Chapter I. is 'Of the Principle of Self-approbation and of Self-disapprobation.' Having previously assigned the origin of our judgments respecting others, the author now proceeds to trace out our judgments respecting ourselves. The explanation is still the same. We approve or disapprove of our own conduct, according as we feel that the impartial spectator would approve or disapprove of it.

To a solitary human being, moral judgments would never exist. A man would no more think of the merit and demerit of his sentiments than of the beauty or deformity of his own face. Such criticism is exercised first upon other beings; but the critic cannot help seeing that he in his turn is criticised, and he is thereby led to apply the common standard to his own actions; to divide himself as it were into two persons—the examiner or judge, and person examined into, or judged of. He knows what conduct of his will be approved of by others, and what condemned, according to the standard he himself employs upon others; his concurrence in this approbation or disapprobation is self-approbation or self-disapprobation. The happy consciousness of virtue is the consciousness of the favourable regards of other men.

Chapter II. is 'Of the love of Praise, and of Praise-worthiness; the dread of Blame, and of Blame-worthiness;' a long and important chapter. The author endeavours to trace, according to his principle of sympathy, the desire of Praise-worthiness, as well as of Praise. We approve certain conduct in others, and are thus disposed to approve the same conduct in ourselves: what we praise as judges of our fellow-men, we deem praise-worthy, and aspire to realize in our own conduct. Some men may differ from us, and may withhold that praise; we may be pained at the circumstance, but we adhere to our love of the praise-worthy, even when it does not bring the praise. When we obtain the praise we are pleased, and strengthened in our estimate; the approbation that we receive confirms our self-approbation, but does not give birth to it. In short, there are two principles at work within us. We are pleased with approbation, and pained by reproach: we are farther pleased if the approbation coincides with what we approve when we are ourselves acting as judges of other men. The two dispositions vary in their strength in individuals, confirming each other when in concert, thwarting each other when opposed. The author has painted a number of striking situations arising out of their conflict. He enquires why we are more pained by unmerited reproach, than lifted up by unmerited approbation; and assigns as the reason that the painful state is more pungent than the corresponding pleasurable state. He shows how those men whose productions are of uncertain merit, as poets, are more the slaves of approbation, than the authors of unmistakeable discoveries in science. In the extreme cases of unmerited reproach, he points out the appeal to the all-seeing Judge of the world, and to a future state rightly conceived; protesting, however, against the view that would reserve the celestial regions for monks and friars, and condemn to the infernal, all the heroes, statesmen, poets, and philosophers of former ages; all the inventors of the useful arts; the protectors, instructors, and benefactors of mankind; and all those to whom our natural sense of praise-worthiness forces us to ascribe the highest merit and most exalted virtue.

Chapter III. is 'On the influence and authority of Conscience;' another long chapter, occupied more with moral reflections of a practical kind than with the following out of the analysis of our moral sentiment. Conceding that the testimony of the supposed impartial spectator does not of itself always support a man, he yet asserts its influence to be great, and that by it alone we can see what relates to ourselves in the proper shape and dimensions. It is only in this way that we can prefer the interest of many to the interest of one; the interest of others to our own. To fortify us in this hard lesson two different schemes have been proposed; one to increase our feelings for others, the other to diminish our feelings for ourselves. The first is prescribed by the whining and melancholy moralists, who will never allow us to be happy, because at every moment many of our fellow-beings are in misery. The second is the doctrine of the Stoics, who annihilate self-interest in favour of the vast commonwealth of nature; on that the author bestows a lengthened comment and correction, founded on his theory of regulating the manifestations of joy or grief by the light of the impartial judge. He gives his own panacea for human misery, namely, the power of nature to accommodate men to their permanent situation, and to restore tranquillity, which is the one secret of happiness.

Chapter IV. handles Self-Deceit, and the Origin and Use of General Rules. The interference of our passions is the great obstacle to our holding towards ourselves the position of an impartial spectator. Prom this notorious fact the author deduces an argument against a special moral faculty, or moral sense; he says that if we had such a faculty, it would surely judge our own passions, which are the most clearly laid open to it, more correctly than the passions of others.

To correct our self-partiality and self-deceit is the use of general rules. Our repeated observations on the tendency of particular acts, teach us what is fit to be done generally; and our conviction of the propriety of the general rules is a powerful motive for applying them to our own case. It is a mistake to suppose, as some have done, that rules precede experience; on the contrary, they are formed by finding from experience that all actions of a certain kind, in certain circumstances, are approved of. When established, we appeal to them as standards of judgment in right and wrong, but they are not the original judgments of mankind, nor the ultimate foundations of moral sentiment.

Chapter V. continues the subject of the authority and influence of General Rules, maintaining that they are justly regarded as laws of the Deity. The grand advantage of general rules is to give steadiness to human conduct, and to enable us to resist our temporary varieties of temper and disposition. They are thus a grand security for human duties. That the important rules of morality should be accounted laws of the Deity is a natural sentiment. Men have always ascribed to their deities their own sentiments and passions; the deities held by them in special reverence, they have endowed with their highest ideal of excellence, the love of virtue and beneficence, and the abhorrence of vice and injustice. The researches of philosophical inquiry confirmed mankind in the supposition that the moral faculties carry the badge of authority, that they were intended as the governing principles of our nature, acting as the vicegerents of the Deity. This inference is confirmed by the view that the happiness of men, and of other rational creatures, is the original design of the Author of nature, the only purpose reconcilable with the perfections we ascribe to him.

Chapter VI. is on the cases where the Sense of Duty should be the sole motive of conduct; and on those where it ought to join with other motives. Allowing the importance of religion among human motives, he does not concur with the view that would make religious considerations the sole laudable motives of action. The sense of duty is not the only principle of our conduct; it is the ruling or governing one. It may be a question, however, on what occasions we are to proceed strictly by the sense of duty, and on what occasions give way to some other sentiment or affection. The author answers that in the actions prompted by benevolent affections, we are to follow out our sentiments as much as our sense of duty; and the contrary with the malevolent passions. As to the selfish passions, we are to follow duty in small matters, and self-interest in great. But the rules of duty predominate most in cases where they are determined with exactness, that is, in the virtue of Justice.

PART IV. OF THE EFFECT OF UTILITY UPON THE SENTIMENT OF APPROBATION.

Chapter I. is on the Beauty arising out of Utility. It is here that the author sets forth the dismal career of 'the poor man's son, whom heaven in the hour of her anger has curst with ambition,' and enforces his favourite moral lesson of contentment and tranquillity.

Chapter II. is the connexion of Utility with Moral Approbation. There are many actions possessing the kind of beauty or charm arising from utility; and hence, it may be maintained (as was done by Hume) that our whole approbation of virtue may be explained on this principle. And it may be granted that there is a coincidence between our sentiments of approbation or disapprobation, and the useful or hurtful qualities of actions. Still, the author holds that this utility or hurtfulness is not the foremost or principal source of our approbation. In the first place, he thinks it incongruous that we should have no other reason, for praising a man than for praising a chest of drawers. In the next place, he contends at length that the usefulness of a disposition of mind is seldom the first ground of our approbation. Take, for example, the qualities useful to ourselves—reason and self-command; we approve the first as just and accurate, before we are aware of its being useful; and as to self-command, we approve it quite as much for its propriety as for its utility; it is the coincidence of our opinion with the opinion of the spectator, and not an estimate of the comparative utility, that affects us. Regarding the qualities useful to others—humanity, generosity, public spirit and justice—he merely repeats his own theory that they are approved by our entering into the view of the impartial spectator. The examples cited only show that these virtues are not approved from self-interest; as when the soldier throws away his life to gain something for his sovereign. He also puts the case of a solitary human being, who might see fitness in actions, but could not feel moral approbation.

PART V. THE INFLUENCE OF CUSTOM ON THE MORAL SENTIMENTS.

The first chapter is a pleasing essay on the influence of custom and fashion on manners, dress, and in Fine Art generally. The second chapter makes the application to our moral sentiments. Although custom will never reconcile us to the conduct of a Nero or a Claudius, it will heighten or blunt the delicacy of our sentiments on right and wrong. The fashion of the times of Charles II. made dissoluteness reputable, and discountenanced regularity of conduct. There is a customary behaviour that we expect in the old and in the young, in the clergyman and in the military man. The situations of different ages and countries develop characteristic qualities—endurance in the savage, humanity and softness in the civilized community. But these are not the extreme instances of the principle. We find particular usages, where custom has rendered lawful and blameless actions, that shock the plainest principles of right and wrong; the most notorious and universal is infanticide.

PART VI. THE CHARACTER OF VIRTUE.

Section I. is on Prudence, and is an elegant essay on the beau ideal of the prudential character. Section II. considers character as affecting other people. Chapter I. is a disquisition on the comparative priority of the objects of our regard. After self, which must ever have the first place, the members of our own family are recommended to our consideration. Remoter connexions of blood are more or less regarded according to the customs of the country; in pastoral countries clanship is manifested; in commercial countries distant relationship becomes indifferent. Official and business connexions, and the association of neighbourhood, determine friendships. Special estimation is a still preferable tie. Favours received determine and require favours in return. The distinction of ranks is so far founded in nature as to deserve our respect. Lastly, the miserable are recommended to our compassion. Next, as regards societies (Chap. II.), since our own country stands first in our regard, the author dilates on the virtues of a good citizen. Finally, although our effectual good offices may not extend beyond our country, our good-will may embrace the whole universe. This universal benevolence, however, the author thinks must repose on the belief in a benevolent and all-wise governor of the world, as realized, for example, in the meditations of Marcus Antoninus.

Section III. Of Self-command. On this topic the author produces a splendid moral essay, in which he describes the various modes of our self-estimation, and draws a contrast between pride and vanity. In so far as concerns his Ethical theory, he has still the same criterion of the virtue, the degree and mode commended by the impartial spectator.

PART VII. OF SYSTEMS OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

On this we need only to remark that it is an interesting and valuable contribution to the history and the criticism of the Ethical systems.[23]

The Ethical theory of Adam Smith may be thus summed up:—

I.—The Ethical Standard is the judgment of an impartial spectator or critic; and our own judgments are derived by reference to what this spectator would approve or disapprove.

Probably to no one has this ever appeared a sufficient account of Right and Wrong. It provides against one defect, the self-partiality of the agent; but gives no account whatever of the grounds of the critic's own judgment, and makes no provision against his fallibility. It may be very well on points where men's moral sentiments are tolerably unanimous, but it is valueless in all questions where there are fundamental differences of view.

II.—In the Psychology of Ethics, Smith would consider the moral Faculty as identical with the power of Sympathy, which he treats as the foundation of Benevolence. A man is a moral being in proportion as he can enter into, and realize, the feelings, sentiments, and opinions of others.

Now, as morality would never have existed but for the necessity of protecting one human being against another, the power of the mind that adopts other people's interests and views must always be of vital moment as a spring of moral conduct; and Adam Smith has done great service in developing the workings of the sympathetic impulse.

He does not discuss Free-will. On the question of Disinterested Conduct, he gives no clear opinion. While denying that our sympathetic impulses are a refinement of self-love, he would seem to admit that they bring their own pleasure with them; so that, after all, they do not detract from our happiness. In other places, he recognizes self-sacrifice, but gives no analysis of the motives that lead to it; and seems to think, with many other moralists, that it requires a compensation in the next world.

III.—His theory of the constituents of Happiness is simple, primitive, and crude, but is given with earnest conviction. Ambition he laughs to scorn. 'What, he asks, can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?' Again, 'the chief part of happiness consists in the consciousness of being beloved, hence, sudden changes of fortune seldom contribute to happiness.' But what he dwells upon most persistently, as the prime condition of happiness, is Contentment, and Tranquillity.

IV.—On the Moral Code, he has nothing peculiar. As to the means and inducements to morality, he does not avail himself of the fertility of his own principle of Sympathy. Appeals to sympathy, and the cultivation of the power of entering into the feelings of others, could easily be shown to play a high part in efficacious moral suasion.

V.—He affords little or no grounds for remarking on the connexion of Morality with Politics. Our duties as citizens are a part of Morality, and that is all.

VI.—He gives his views on the alliance of Ethics with Religion. He does not admit that we should refer to the Religious sanction on all occasions. He assumes a benevolent and all-wise Governor of the world, who will ultimately redress all inequalities, and remedy all outstanding injustice. What this Being approves, however, is to be inferred solely from the principles of benevolence. Our regard for him is to be shown, not by frivolous observances, sacrifices, ceremonies, and vain supplications, but by just and beneficent actions. The author studiously ignores a revelation, and constructs for himself a Natural Religion, grounded on a benevolent and just administration of the universe.

In Smith's Essay, the purely scientific enquiry is overlaid by practical and hortatory dissertations, and by eloquent delineations of character and of beau-ideals of virtuous conduct. His style being thus pitched to the popular key, he never pushes home a metaphysical analysis; so that even his favourite theme, Sympathy, is not philosophically sifted to the bottom.

DAVID HARTLEY. [1705-1757.]

The 'Observations on Man' (1749) is the first systematic effort to explain the phenomena of mind by the Law of Association. It contains also a philosophical hypothesis, that mental states are produced by the vibration of infinitesimal particles of the nerves. This analogy, borrowed from the undulations of the hypothetical substance aether, has been censured as crude, and has been entirely superseded. But, although an imperfect analogy, it nevertheless kept constantly before the mind of Hartley the double aspect of all mental phenomena, thus preventing erroneous explanations, and often suggesting correct ones. In this respect, Aristotle and Hobbes are the only persons that can be named as equally fortunate.

The ethical remarks contained in the 'Observations,' relate only to the second head of summary, the Psychology of Ethics. We shall take, first, the account of disinterestedness, and, next, of the moral sense.

1. Disinterestedness. Under the name Sympathy, Hartley includes four kinds of feelings:—(1) Rejoicing at the happiness of others—Sociality, Good-will, Generosity, Gratitude; (2) Grieving for the misery of others—Compassion, Mercy; (3) Rejoicing at the misery of others—Anger, Jealousy, Cruelty, Malice; and (4) Grieving for the happiness of others—Emulation, Envy. All these feelings may be shown to originate in association. We select as examples of Hartley's method, Benevolence and Compassion. Benevolence is the pleasing affection that prompts us to act for the benefit of others. It is not a primitive feeling; but grows out of such circumstances as the following. Almost all the pleasures, and few, in comparison, of the pains, of children, are caused by others; who are thus, in the course of time, regarded with pleasure, independently of their usefulness to us. Many of our pleasures are enjoyed along with, and are enhanced by, the presence of others. This tends to make us more sociable. Moreover, we are taught and required to put on the appearance of good-will, and to do kindly actions, and this may beget in us the proper feelings. Finally, we must take into account the praise and rewards of benevolence, together with the reciprocity of benefits that we may justly expect. All those elements may be so mixed and blended as to produce a feeling that shall teach us to do good to others without any expectation of reward, even that most refined recompense—the pleasure arising from a beneficent act. Thus Hartley conceives that he both proves the existence of disinterested feeling, and explains the manner of its developement.

His account of Compassion is similar. In the young, the signs and appearances of distress excite a painful feeling, by recalling their own experience of misery. In the old, the connexion between a feeling and its adjuncts has been weakened by experience. Also, when children are brought up together, they are often annoyed by the same things, and this tends powerfully to create a fellow-feeling. Again, when their parents are ill, they are taught to cultivate pity, and are also subjected to unusual restraints. All those things conspire to make children desire to remove the sufferings of others. Various circumstances increase the feeling of pity, as when the sufferers are beloved by us, or are morally good. It is confirmatory of this view, that the most compassionate are those whose nerves are easily irritable, or whose experience of affliction has been considerable.

2.—The Moral Sense. Hartley denies the existence of any moral instinct, or any moral judgments, proceeding upon the eternal relations of things. If there be such, let instances of them be produced prior to the influence of associations. Still, our moral approbation or disapprobation is disinterested, and has a factitious independence. (1) Children are taught what is right and wrong, and thus the associations connected with the idea of praise and blame are transferred to the virtues inculcated and the vices condemned. (2) Many vices and virtues, such as sensuality, intemperance, malice, and the opposites, produce immediate consequences of evil and good respectively. (3) The benefits, immediate or (at least) obvious, flowing from the virtues of others, kindle love towards them, and thereafter to the virtues they exhibit. (4) Another consideration is the loveliness of virtue, arising from the suitableness of the virtues to each other, and to the beauty, order, and perfection of the world. (5) The hopes and fears connected with a future life, strengthen the feelings connected with virtue. (6) Meditation upon God and prayer have a like effect. 'All the pleasures and pains of sensation, imagination, ambition (pride and vanity), self-interest, sympathy, and theopathy (affection towards God), as far as they are consistent with one another, with the frame of our natures, and with the course of the world, beget in us a moral sense, and lead us to the love and approbation of virtue, and to the fear, hatred, and abhorrence of vice. This moral sense, therefore, carries its own authority with it, inasmuch as it is the sum total of all the rest, and the ultimate result from them; and employs the whole force and authority of the whole nature of man against any particular part of it that rebels against the determinations and commands of the conscience or moral judgment.'

Hartley's analysis of the moral sense is a great advance upon Hobbes and Mandeville, who make self-love the immediate constituent, instead of a remote cause, of conscience. Our moral consciousness may thus be treated as peculiar and distinguishable from other mental states, while at the same time it is denied to be unique and irresolvable.

THOMAS REID.[24] [1710-96.]

Reid's Ethical views are given in his Essays on the Active Powers of the Mind.

ESSAY III., entitled THE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION, contains (Part III.) a disquisition on the Rational Principles of Action as opposed to what Reid calls respectively Mechanical Principles (Instinct, Habit), and Animal Principles (Appetites, Desires, Affections).

The Rational Principles of Action are Prudence, or regard to our own good on the whole, and Duty, which, however, he does not define by the antithetical circumstance—the 'good of others.' The notion of Duty, he says, is too simple for logical definition, and can only be explained by synonymes—what we ought to do; what is fair and honest; what is approvable; the professed rule of men's conduct; what all men praise; the laudable in itself, though no man praise it.

Duty, he says, cannot be resolved into Interest. The language of mankind makes the two distinct. Disregard of our interest is folly; of honour, baseness. Honour is more than mere reputation, for it keeps us right when we are not seen. This principle of Honour (so-called by men of rank) is, in vulgar phrase, honesty, probity, virtue, conscience; in philosophical language, the moral sense, the moral faculty, rectitude.

The principle is universal in men grown up to years of understanding. Such a testimony as Hume's may be held decisive on the reality of moral distinctions. The ancient world recognized it in the leading terms, honestum and utile, &c.

The abstract notion of Duty is a relation between the action and the agent. It must be voluntary, and within the power of the agent. The opinion (or intention) of the agent gives the act its moral quality.

As to the Sense of Duty, Reid pronounces at once, without hesitation, and with very little examination, in favour of an original power or faculty, in other words, a Moral Sense. Intellectual judgments are judgments of the external senses; moral judgments result from an internal moral sense. The external senses give us our intellectual first principles; the moral sense our moral first principles. He is at pains to exemplify the deductive process in morals. It is a question of moral reasoning, Ought a man to have only one wife? The reasons are, the greater good of the family, and of society in general; but no reason can be given why we should prefer greater good; it is an intuition of the moral sense.

He sums up the chapter thus:—'That, by an original power of the mind, which we call conscience, or the moral faculty, we have the conceptions of right and wrong in human conduct, of merit and demerit, of duty and moral obligation, and our other moral conceptions; and that, by the same faculty, we perceive some things in human conduct to be right, and others to be wrong; that the first principles of morals are the dictates of this faculty; and that we have the same reason to rely upon those dictates, as upon the determinations of our senses, or of our other natural faculties.' Hamilton remarks that this theory virtually founds morality on intelligence.

Moral Approbation is the affection and esteem accompanying our judgment of a right moral act. This is in all cases pleasurable, but most so, when the act is our own. So, obversely, for Moral Disapprobation.

Regarding Conscience, Reid remarks, first, that like all other powers it comes to maturity by insensible degrees, and may be a subject of culture or education. He takes no note of the difficulty of determining what is primitive and what is acquired. Secondly, Conscience is peculiar to man; it is wanting in the brutes. Thirdly, it is evidently intended to be the director of our conduct; and fourthly, it is an Active power and an Intellectual power combined.

ESSAY IV. is OF THE LIBERTY OF MORAL AGENTS, which we pass by, having noticed it elsewhere. ESSAY V. is OF MORALS.

Chapter I. professes to enumerate the axiomatic first principles of Morals. Some of these relate (A) to virtue in general: as (1) There are actions deserving of praise, and others deserving blame; (2) the involuntary is not an object of praise or blame; (3) the unavoidable is not an object of praise or blame; (4) omission may be culpable; (5) we ought to inform ourselves as to duty; (6) we should fortify ourselves against temptation. Other principles relate (B) to particular virtues: (1) We should prefer a greater good to a less; (2) we should comply with the intention of nature, apparent in our constitution; (3) no man is born for himself alone; (4) we should judge according to the rule, 'Do to others,' &c.; (5) if we believe in God, we should venerate and submit to him. A third class of principles (C) settle the preference among opposing virtues. Thus, unmerited generosity should yield to gratitude, and both to justice.

Chapter II. remarks upon the growth and peculiar advantages of Systems of Morals. Chapter III. is on Systems of Natural Jurisprudence. The four subsequent chapters of the Essay he states to have been composed in answer to the Ethical doctrines of Hume.

Chapter IV. enquires whether a moral action must proceed from a moral purpose in the agent. He decides in the affirmative, replying to certain objections, and more especially to the allegation of Hume, that justice is not a natural, but an artificial virtue. This last question is pursued at great length in Chapter V., and the author takes occasion to review the theory of Utility or Benevolence, set up by Hume as the basis of morals. He gives Hume the credit of having made an important step in advance of the Epicurean, or Selfish, system, by including the good of others, as well as our own good, in moral acts. Still, he demands why, if Utility and Virtue are identical, the same name should not express both. It is true, that virtue is both agreeable and useful in the highest degree; but that circumstance does not prevent it from having a quality of its own, not arising from its being useful and agreeable, but arising from its being virtue. The common good of society, though a pleasing object to all men, hardly ever enters into the thoughts of the great majority; and, if a regard to it were the sole motive of justice, only a select number would ever be possessed of the virtue. The notion of justice carries inseparably along with it a notion of moral obligation; and no act can be called an act of justice unless prompted by the motive of justice.

Then, again, good music and good cookery have the merit of utility, in procuring what is agreeable both to ourselves and to society, but they have never been denominated moral virtues; so that, if Hume's system be true, they have been very unfairly treated.

Reid illustrates his positions against Hume to a length unnecessary to follow. The objections are exclusively and effectively aimed at the two unguarded points of the Utility system as propounded by Hume; namely, first, the not recognizing moral rules as established and enforced among men by the dictation of authority, which does not leave to individuals the power of reference to ultimate ends; and, secondly, the not distinguishing between obligatory, and non-obligatory, useful acts.

Reid continues the controversy, with reference to Justice, in Chapter VI., on the Nature and Obligation of a Contract; and in Chapter VII. maintains, in opposition to Hume, that Moral approbation implies a Judgment of the intellect, and is not a mere feeling, as Hume seems to think. He allows the propriety of the phrase 'Moral Sentiment,' because 'Sentiment' in English means judgment accompanied with feeling. [Hamilton dissents, and thinks that sentiment means the higher feelings.] He says, if a moral judgment be no real judgment, but only a feeling, morals have no foundation but the arbitrary structure of the mind; there are no immutable moral distinctions; and no evidence for the moral character of the Deity.

We shall find the views of Reid substantially adopted, and a little more closely and concisely argued, by Stewart.

DUGALD STEWART. [1753-1828.]

In his 'Essays on the Active Powers of the Mind,' Stewart introduces the Moral Faculty in the same way as Reid. BOOK SECOND is entitled OUR RATIONAL AND GOVERNING PRINCIPLES OF ACTION. Chapter I., on Prudence or Self-love, is unimportant for our present purpose, consisting of some desultory remarks on the connexion of happiness with steadiness of purpose, and on the meanings of the words 'self-love' and 'selfishness.'

Chapter II. is on the Moral Faculty, and is intended to show that it is an original principle of the mind. He first replies to the theory that identifies Morality with Prudence, or Self-love. His first argument is the existence in all languages of different words for duty and for interest. Secondly, The emotions arising from, the contemplation of right and wrong are different from those produced by a regard to our own happiness. Thirdly, although in most instances a sense of duty, and an enlightened regard to our own happiness, would suggest to us the same line of conduct, yet this truth is not obvious to mankind generally, who are incapable of appreciating enlarged views and remote consequences. He repeats the common remark, that we secure our happiness best by not looking to it as tho one primary end. Fourthly, moral judgments appear in children, long before they can form the general notion of happiness. His examples of this position, however, have exclusive reference to the sentiment of pity, which all moralists regard as a primitive feeling, while few admit it to be the same as the moral sense.

He then takes notice of the Association Theory of Hartley, Paley, and others, which he admits to be a great refinement of the old selfish system, and an answer to one of his arguments. He maintains, nevertheless, that the others are untouched by it, and more especially the third, referring to the amount of experience and reflection necessary to discover the tendency of virtue to promote our happiness, which is inconsistent with the early period when our moral judgments appear. [It is singular that he should not have remarked that the moral judgments of that early age, if we except what springs from the impulses of pity, are wholly communicated by others.] He quotes Paley's reasoning against the Moral Sense, and declares that he has as completely mis-stated the issue, as if one were to contend that because we are not born with the knowledge of light and colours, therefore the sense of seeing is not an original part of the frame. [It would be easy to retort that all that Paley's case demanded was the same power of discrimination in moral judgments, as the power of discriminating light and dark belonging to our sense of sight.]

Chapter III. continues the subject, and examines objections. The first objection taken up is that derived from the influence of education, with which he combines the farther objection (of Locke and his followers) arising from the diversity of men's moral judgments in various nations. With regard to education, he contends that there are limits to its influence, and that however it may modify, it cannot create our judgments of right and wrong, any more than our notions of beauty and deformity. As to the historical facts relating to the diversity of moral judgments, he considers it necessary to make full allowance for three circumstances—I.—Difference of situation with regard to climate and civilization. II.—Diversity of speculative opinions, arising from difference of intellectual capacity; and, III.—The different moral import of the same action under different systems of behaviour. On the first head he explains the indifference to theft from there being little or no fixed property; he adduces the variety of sentiments respecting Usury, as having reference, to circumstances; and alludes to the differences of men's views as to political assassination. On the second head he remarks, that men may agree on ends, but may take different views as to means; they may agree in recognizing obedience to the Deity, but differ in their interpretations of his will. On the third point, as regards the different moral import of the same action, he suggests that Locke's instance of the killing of aged parents is merely the recognized mode of filial affection; he also quotes the exceeding variety of ceremonial observances.

Chapter IV. comments farther on the objections to the reality and immutability of moral distinctions and to the universal diffusion of the moral faculty. The reference is, in the first instance, to Locke, and then to what he terms, after Adam Smith, the licentious moralists—La Rochefoucauld and Mandeville. The replies to these writers contain nothing special to Stewart.

Chapter V. is the Analysis of our Moral Perceptions and Emotions. This is a somewhat singular phrase in an author recognizing a separate inborn faculty of Right. His analysis consists in a separation of the entire fact into three parts:—the perception of an action as right or wrong; (2) an emotion of pleasure or pain, varying according to the moral sensibility: (3) a perception of the merit or demerit of the agent. The first is of course the main question; and the author gives a long review of the history of Ethical doctrines from Hobbes downwards, interspersing reflections and criticisms, all in favour of the intuitive origin of the sense. As illustrative parallels, he adduces Personal Identity, Causation, and Equality; all which he considers to be judgments involving simple ideas, and traceable only to some primitive power of the mind. He could as easily conceive a rational being formed to believe the three angles of a triangle to be equal to one right angle, as to believe that there would be no injustice in depriving a man of the fruits of his labours.

On the second point—the pleasure and pain accompanying right and wrong, he remarks on the one-sidedness of systems that treat the sense of right and wrong as an intellectual judgment purely (Clarke, &c.), or those that treat it as a feeling purely (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume). His remarks on the sense of Merit and Demerit in the agent are trivial or commonplace.

Chapter VI. is 'Of Moral Obligation.' It is needless to follow him on this subject, as his views are substantially a repetition of Butler's Supremacy of Conscience. At the same time, it may be doubted whether Butler entirely and unequivocally detached this supremacy from the command of the Deity, a point peculiarly insisted on by Stewart. His words are these:—

'According to some systems, moral obligation is founded entirely on our belief that virtue is enjoined by the command of God. But how; it may be asked, does this belief impose an obligation? Only one of two answers can be given. Either that there is a moral fitness that we should conform our will to that of the Author and the Governor of the universe; or that a rational self-love should induce us, from motives of prudence, to study every means of rendering ourselves acceptable to the Almighty Arbiter of happiness and misery. On the first supposition We reason in a circle. We resolve our sense of moral obligation into our sense of religion, and the sense of religion into that of moral obligation.

'The other system, which makes virtue a mere matter of prudence, although not so obviously unsatisfactory, leads to consequences which sufficiently invalidate every argument in its favour. Among others it leads us to conclude, 1. That the disbelief of a future state absolves from all moral obligation, excepting in so far as we find virtue to be conducive to our present interest: 2. That a being independently and completely happy cannot have any moral perceptions or any moral attributes.

'But farther, the notions of reward and punishment presuppose the notions of right and wrong. They are sanctions of virtue, or additional motives to the practice of it, but they suppose the existence of some previous obligation.

'In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted by a regard to our situation in another life, how shall the existence of a future state be proved, or even rendered probable by the light of nature? or how shall we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity? The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a state is deduced from our natural notions of right and wrong; of merit and demerit; and from a comparison between, these and the general course of human affairs.'

In a chapter (VII.) entitled 'certain principles co-operating with our moral powers,' he discusses (1) a regard to character, (2) Sympathy, (3) the Sense of the Ridiculous, (4) Taste. The important topic is the second, Sympathy; which, psychologically, he would appear to regard as determined by the pleasure that it gives. Under this head he introduces a criticism of the Ethical theory of Adam Smith; and, adverting to the inadequacy of the theory to distinguish the right from the actual judgments of mankind, he remarks on Smith's ingenious fiction 'of an abstract man within the breast;' and states that Smith laid much greater stress on this fiction in the last edition of the Moral Sentiments published before his death. It is not without reason that Stewart warns against grounding theories on metaphorical expressions, such as this of Smith, or the Platonic Commonwealth of the Soul.

In Book IV. of the Active Powers, Stewart discusses our Duties to Men,—both our fellow-creatures and ourselves. Our duties to our fellows are summed up in Benevolence, Justice, and Veracity. He devotes a chapter to each. In Chapter I., on Benevolence, he re-opens the consideration of the Ethical systems founded on Benevolence or Utility, and argues against them; but merely repeats the common-place objections—the incompetency of individuals to judge of remote tendencies, the pretext that would be afforded for the worst conduct, and each one's consciousness that a sense of duty is different from enlightened benevolence.