was attacked from all quarters, and by all forts of weapons, by fober reafon as well as by furious declamation.

In order to confute fo odious a doctrine, it was neceffary to prove, that antecedent to all law or pofitive inftitution, the mind was naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it diftinguished in certain actions and affections, the qualities of right, laudable, and virtuous, and in others those of wrong, blameable, and vicious.

Law, it was juftly obferved by Dr. Cudworth, * could not be the original fource of those diftinctions; fince upon the fuppofition of fuch a law, it must either be right to obey it, and wrong to disobey it, or indifferent whether we obeyed it, or difobeyed it. That law which it was indifferent whether we obeyed or disobeyed, could not, it was evident, be the fource of those distinctions; neither could that which it was right to obey and wrong to disobey, fince even this still supposed the antecedent notions or ideas of right and wrong, and that obedience to the law was conformable to the idea of right, and difobedience to that of wrong.

Since the mind, therefore, had a notion of those diftinctions antecedent to all law, it seemed neceffarily to follow, that it derived this notion from reafon, which pointed out the difference between right and wrong, in the fame manner in which it did that between truth and falfehood: and this conclufion, which though true in fome refpects, is rather hafty

*Immutable Morality, 1. 1.

in

3

in others, was more eafily received at a time when the abftract fcience of human nature was but in its infancy, and before the diftinct offices and powers of the different faculties of the human mind had been carefully examined and diftinguifhed from one another. When this controverfy with Mr. Hobbes was carried on with the greatest warmth and keennefs, no other faculty had been thought of from which any fuch ideas could poffibly be fupposed to arife. It became at this time, therefore, the popular doctrine, that the effence of virtue and vice did not confift in the conformity or difagreement of human actions with the law of a fuperior, but in their conformity or difagreement with reafon, which was thus confidered as the original fource and principle of approbation and disapprobation.

That virtue confifts in conformity to reafon, is true in fome refpects, and this faculty may very juftly be confidered, as in fome fenfe, the fource and principle of approbation and difapprobation, and of all folid judgments concerning right and wrong. It is by reason that we difcover thofe general rules of juftice by which we ought to regulate our actions and it is by the fame faculty that we form thofe more vague and indeterminate ideas of what is prudent, of what is decent, of what is generous or noble, which we carry conftantly about with us, and according to which we endeavour, as well as we can, to model the tenour of our conduct. The general maxims of morality are formed, like all other general maxims, from experience and induction. We obferve in a great variety of particular cafes what pleases or difpleafes our moral faculties, what these approve or disapprove of, and, by induction from this experi

Part VI. ence, we establish thofe general rules. But induction is always regarded as one of the operations of reafon. From reason, therefore, we are very properly faid to derive all thofe general maxims and ideas. It is by these, however, that we regulate the greater part of our moral judgments, which would be extremely uncertain and precarious if they depended altogether upon what is liable to fo many variations as immediate fentiment and feeling, which the different states of health and humour are capable of altering fo effentially. As our moft folid judgments, therefore, with regard to right and wrong, are regulated by maxims and ideas derived from an induction of reafon, virtue may very properly be said to confift in a conformity to reason, and fo far this faculty may be confidered as the fource and principle of approbation and difapprobation.

But though reafon is undoubtedly the fource of the general rules of morality, and of all the moral judgments which we form by means of them; it is altogether abfurd and unintelligible to suppose that the first perceptions of right and wrong can be derived from reason, even in those particular cafes upon the experience of which the general rules are formed. These first perceptions, as well all other experiments upon which any general rules are founded, cannot be the object of reason, but of immediate sense and feeling. It is by finding in a vaft variety of inftances that one tenour of conduct conftantly pleases in a certain manner, and that another as conftantly dif pleases the mind, that we form the general rules of morality. But reafon cannot render any particular object either agreeable or difagreeable to the mind for its own fake. Reafon may fhow that this object

is the means of obtaining fome other which is naturally either pleafing or difpleafing, and in this manner may render it either agreeable or difagreeable for the fake of fomething elfe. But nothing can be agreeable or difagreeable for its own fake, which is not rendered fuch by immediate fenfe and feeling. If virtue, therefore, in every particular inftance, neceffarily pleases for its own fake, and if vice as certainly displeases the mind, it cannot be reason, but immediate sense and feeling, which, in this manner, reconciles us to the one, and alienates us from the other.

Pleasure and pain are the great objects of defire and averfion but thefe are diftinguished not by reafon, but by immediate sense and feeling. If virtue, therefore, is defirable for its own fake, and if vice is, in the fame manner, the object of averfion, it cannot be reafon which originally distinguishes those different qualities, but immediate fenfe and feeling.

As reason, however, in a certain fenfe, may juftly be confidered as the principle of approbation and difapprobation, these fentiments were, through inattention, long regarded as originally flowing from the operations of this faculty. Dr. Hutchefon had the merit of being the first who diftinguished with any degree of precifion in what refpect all moral diftinctions may be faid to arife from reason, and in what respect they are founded upon immediate sense and feeling. In his illuftrations upon the moral fenfe he has explained this fo fully, and, in my opinion, fo unanswerably, that, if any controversy is still kept up about this fubject, I can impute it to nothing,

356 but either to inattention to what that gentleman has written, or to a fuperftitious attachment to certain forms of expreffion, a weakness not very uncommon among the learned, especially in fubjects fo deeply interesting as the prefent, in which a man of virtue is often loth to abandon, even the propriety of a fingle phrase which he has been accustomed to.

CHAP. III.

Of thofe fyftems which make fentiment the principle of approbation.

THOSE fyftems which make fentiment the principle of approbation may be divided into two different claffes.

I. According to fome the principle of approbation is founded upon a fentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a particular power of perception exerted by the mind at the view of certain actions or affections; fome of which affecting this faculty in an agreeable and others in a difagreeable manner, the former are stampt with the characters of right, laudable, and virtuous; the latter with those of wrong, blameable and vicious. This fentiment being of a peculiar nature diftinct from every other, and the effect of a particular power of perception, they give it a particular name, and call it a moral fenfe.

II. According to others, in order to account for the principle of approbation, there is no occafion for supposing any new power of perception which

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