SECTION IV.

Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the practical rules of morality.

IT was obferved in the third part of this discourse,

that the rules of justice are the only rules of morality which are precise and accurate; that those of all the other virtues are loose, vague, and indeterminate ; that the first may be compared to the rules of grammar; the others to those which critics lay down for the attainment of what is fublime and elegant in compofition, and which prefent us rather with a general idea of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible directions for acquiring it.

As the different rules of morality admit fuch different degrees of accuracy, thofe authors who have endeavoured to collect and digeft them into fystems have done it in two different manners; and one fet has followed thro' the whole that loofe method to which they were naturally directed by the confideration of one species of virtues; while another has as univerfally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts that fort of accuracy of which only fome of them are susceptible. The firft have wrote like critics, the second like grammarians.

I. The

I. The first, among whom we may count all the ancient moralifts, have contented themselves with defcribing in a general manner the different vices and virtues, and with pointing out the deformity and mifery of the one difpofition as well as the propriety and happiness of the other, but have not affected to lay down many precise rules that are to hold good unexceptionably in all particular cafes. They have only endeavoured to ascertain, as far as language is capable of afcertaining, firft, wherein confifts the fentiment of the heart, upon which each particular virtue is founded, what fort of internal feeling or emotion it is which conftitutes the effence of friendship, of humanity, of generolity, of juftice, of magnanimity, and of all the other virtues, as well as of the vices which are opposed tn them and, fecondly, What is the general way of acting, the ordinary tone and tenour of conduct to which each of thofe fentiments would direct us, or how it is that a friendly, a generous, a brave, a juft, and a humane man, would, upon ordinary occafions, chufe to act.

To characterize the fentiment of the heart, upon which each particular virtue is founded, though it requires both a delicate and accurate pencil, is a task, however, which may be executed with fome degree of exactness. It is impoffible, indeed, to exprefs all the variations which each fentiment either does or ought to undergo, according to every poffible variation of circumstances. They are endless, and language wants names to mark them by. The fentiment of friendship, for example, which we feel for an old man is different from that which we feel for a young:

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a young that which we entertain for an auftere man different from that which we feel for one of fofter and gentler manners: and that again from what we feel for one of gay vivacity and spirit. The friendship which we conceive for a man is different from that with which a woman affects us, even where there is no mixture of any groffer paffion. What author could enumerate and afcertain thefe and all the other infinite varieties which this fentiment is capable of undergoing? But ftill the general fentiment of friendship and familiar attachment which is common to them all, may be ascertained with a fufficient degree of accuracy. The picture which is drawn of it, though it will always be in many refpects incomplete, may, however, have fuch a refemblance. as to make us know the original when we meet with it, and even diftinguish it from other fentiments to which it has a confiderable refemblance, fuch as goodwill, refpect, efteem, admiration.

To defcribe, in a general manner, what is the ordinary way of acting to which each virtue would prompt us, is ftill more eafy. It is, indeed, fcarce poffible to describe the internal fentiment or emotion upon which it is founded, without doing fomething of this kind. It is impoffible by, language to exprefs, if I may fay fo, the invifible features of all the different modifications of paffion as they show themselves within. There is no other way of marking and diftinguishing them from one another, but by defcribing the effects which they produce without, the aletrations which they occafion in the countenance, in the air and external behaviour, the refolutions they fuggeft, the actions they prompt to. It is thus that Cicero, in the first book of his OfBb fices,

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fices, endeavours to direct us to the practice of the four cardinal virtues, and that Ariftotle in the practical parts of his Ethics, points out to us the different habits by which he would have us regulate our behaviour, fuch as liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, and even jocularity and good humour, qualities, which that indulgent philofopher has thought worthy of a place in the catalogue of the virtues, though the lightness of that approbation which we naturally beftow upon them, fhould not feem to entitle them to fo venerable a name.

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Such works prefent us with agreeable and lively pictures of manners. By the vivacity of their defcriptions they inflame our natural love of virtue, and increase our abhorrence of vice: by the juftnefs as well as delicacy of their obfervations they may often help both to correct and to ascertain our natural fentiments with regard to the propriety of conduct, and fuggefting many nice and délicate attentions, form us to a more exact juftness of behaviour, than what, without fuch inftruction, we fhould have been apt to think of. In treating of the rules of morality, in this manner, confifts the fcience which is properly called Ethics, a science, which though like criticifm, it does not admit of the moft accurate precifion, is, however, both highly useful and agreeable. It is of all others the most fufceptible of the embellishments of eloquence, and by means of them of beftowing, if that be poffible, a new importance upon the fmalleft rules of duty. Its precepts, when thus dreffed and adorned, are capable of producing upon the flexibility of youth, the nobleft and moft lafting impreffions, and as they fall in with the natural magnanimity of that gene

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rous age, they are able to infpire, for a time at least, the most heroic refolutions, and thus tend both to establish and confirm the best and most useful habits of which the mind of man is fufceptible. Whatever precept and exhortation can do to animate us to the practice of virtue, is done by this fcience delivered in this manner.

II. The fecond fet of moralifts, among whom we may count all the cafuifts of the middle and latter ages of the chriftian church, as well as all those who in this and in the preceding century have treated of what is called natural jurifprudence, do not content themselves with characterizing in this general manner that tenour of conduct which they would recommend to us, but endeavour to lay down exact and precife rules for the direction of every circumstance of our behaviour. As juftice is the only virtue with regard to which fuch exact rules can properly be given; it is this virtue, that has chiefly fallen under the confideration of those two different fets of writers. They treat of it, however, in a very different manner.

Those who write upon the principles of jurifprudence, confider only what the person to whom the obligation is due, ought to think himself entitled to exact by force; what every impartial fpectator would approve of him for exacting, or what a judge or arbiter, to whom he had fubmitted his cafe, and who had undertaken to do him justice, ought to oblige the other person to fuffer or to perform. The cafuifts, on the other hand, do not fo much examine what it is, that might properly be exacted by force, as what it is, that the perfon who owes the obligation ought

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