ring standard which the legislator should keep in view in all his positive institutions. "Ces lois" (says Quesnai) "forment ensemble ce qu'on appelle la loi "naturelle. Tous les hommes et toutes les puissan

66

ces humaines doivent être soumis à ces lois souve"raines, instituées par l'Etre Suprème: Elles sont "immuables et irrefragables, et les meilleures lois pos

sibles; et par conséquent la base du gouvernement "le plus parfait, et la regle fondamentale de toutes "les lois positives; car les lois positives ne sont que "des lois de manutention relatives à l'ordre naturel "èvidemment le plus avantageux au genre humain.” I do not speak at present of the justness of those opinions; I wish only to remark, that, in the statement of them given by their original authors, it is assumed as a truth self-evident and indisputable, not merely that benevolent design is manifested in all the physical and moral arrangements connected with this globe, but that the study of these arrangements is indispensably necessary to lay a solid foundation for political science.

66

The same principles appear to have led Mr Smith into that train of thinking which gave birth to his inquiries concerning National Wealth. "Man" (he observes in one of his oldest manuscripts now extant)" is generally considered by statesmen and projectors as the materials of a sort of political "mechanics. Projectors disturb nature in the course of her operations in human affairs; and " it requires no more than to let her alone, and give "her fair play in the pursuit of her own designs." And in another passage: "Little else is requisite

66

35

"to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence "from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, " and a tolerable administration of justice; all the "rest being brought about by the natural course "of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another "channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unna"tural, and to support themselves are obliged to "be oppressive and tyrannical." Various other passages of a similar import might be quoted both from his Wealth of Nations and from his Theory of Moral Sentiments.

66

This doctrine of Mr Smith's and of Quesnay's, which tends to simplify the theory of legislation by exploding the policy of those complicated checks and restraints which swell the municipal codes of most nations, has now, I believe, become the prevailing creed of thinking men all over Europe; and, as commonly happens with prevailing creeds, has been pushed by many of its partizans far beyond the views and intentions of its original authors. Such, too, is the influence of fashion on the one hand, and of obnoxious phrases on the other, that it has found some of its most zealous abettors and propagators among writers who would reject, without a moment's hesitation, as superstitious and puerile, every reference to final causes in a philosophical discussion. *

* See Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind, Vol. II. Chap. iv. sect. 6.

PRELIMINARY INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES

OF NATURAL RELIGION.

CHAPTER THIRD.

OF THE MORAL ATTRIBUTES OF THE DEITY.

THE observations made in the last article contain some of the principal heads of the argument for the existence of God, and also for his unity, for his power, and for his wisdom. Of the two last of these attributes, we justly say that they are infinite; that is, that our conceptions of them always rise in proportion as our faculties are cultivated, and as our knowledge of the universe becomes more extensive. The writers on natural religion commonly give a particular enumeration of attributes, which they divide into the natural, the intellectual, and the moral; and of which they treat at length in a systematical manner. This view of the subject, whatever may be its advantages, could not be adopted with propriety here. The remarks which follow are confined to the evidences of the Divine goodness and justice; those attributes which con

stitute the moral perfections of the Deity, and which render him the proper object of religious worship.

In applying to the Deity the phrase moral attributes, I express myself in conformity to common language; but the object of the following speculations will be better understood when I say, that the scope of my reasonings is to show, in the first place, that there are evidences of benevolent design in the universe; and secondly, that there are evidences of a moral government exercised over man by means of rewards and punishments; or, in other words, that the constitution of the human mind, and the course of human affairs, prove that the reward of virtue, and the punishment of vice, is the aim of the general laws by which the world is governed.

SECTION I.

Of the Evidences of Benevolent Design in the Universe.

In entering on this subject we may lay it down as a fundamental principle, that our ideas of the moral attributes of God must be derived from our own moral perceptions. It is only by attending to these that we can form a conception of what his attributes are; and it is in this way we are furnished with the strongest proofs that they really belong to him.

In the course of our inquiries into the principles

of morals, it formerly appeared that the power of distinguishing right from wrong is one of the most remarkable circumstances which raise man above the brutes; and indeed, I apprehend, it is chiefly this modification of reason we have in view, when we employ that word to express the exclusive characteristic of the human race among the various inhabitants of the globe. I endeavoured farther to show, that to act in conformity to this sense of rectitude is the highest excellence which man is capable of attaining; insomuch, that, in comparison of moral worth, the most splendid intellectual endowments appear insignificant and contemptible. Nor do these ideas apply only to our own species. I before showed that the constitution of our nature determines us to conceive the distinction between right and wrong as eternal and immutable; not as arising from an arbitrary accommodation of our frame to the qualities of external objects, like the distinction between agreeable and disagreeable tastes or smells, but as a distinction necessary and essential, and independent of the will of any being whatever, analogous in this respect to that between mathematical truth and falsehood. We are justified, therefore, in drawing inferences from our own moral judgments with respect to the moral administration of the Deity, on the same ground on which we conclude that what appears to us to be demonstrably true must appear in the same light to all other intelligent beings. And as moral worth is the highest excellence competent to our