BOOK FOURTH.

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW

CREATURES.

UNDER this title it is not proposed to give a complete enumeration of our social duties, but only to point out some of the most important, chiefly with a view to show the imperfections of those systems of morals which attempt to resolve the whole of virtue into one particular principle. Among these, that which resolves virtue into benevolence is undoubtedly the most amiable; but even this system will appear, from the following remarks, to be not only inconsistent with truth, but to lead to dangerous consequences.

CHAPTER FIRST.

OF BENEVOLENCE.

BENEFICENCE is so important a branch of virtue that it has been supposed by some moralists to constitute the whole of it. According to these writers good will to mankind is the only immediate object of moral approbation; and the obligation of all our other moral duties arises entirely from their apprehended tendency to promote the happiness of society.

Among the most eminent partisans of this system in modern times, Mr Smith mentions particularly Dr Ralph Cudworth, Dr Henry More, and Mr John Smith of Cambridge; "but of all its patrons," he observes," ancient or modern, Dr Francis Hut"cheson was undoubtedly beyond all comparison “the most acute, the most distinct, the most philosophical, and what is of the greatest consequence "of all, the soberest and most judicious." *

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In favour of this system Mr Smith acknowledges that there are many appearances in human nature

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part vii. Sect. ii. 6th edit.

which at first sight seem strongly to support it, and of some of these appearances Dr Hutcheson avails himself with much acuteness and plausibility. 1st, Whenever in any action, supposed to proceed from benevolent affections, some other motive is discovered, our sense of the merit of this action is just so far diminished as this motive is believed to have influenced it. 2d, When those actions, on the contrary, which are commonly supposed to proceed from a selfish motive are discovered to have arisen from a benevolent one, it generally enhances our sense of their merit. Lastly, it was urged by Dr Hutcheson, that in all casuistical disputes concerning the rectitude of conduct, the ultimate appeal is uniformly made to utility. In the later debates, for example, about passive obedience and the right of resistance, the sole point in controversy among men of sense was, whether universal submission would probably be attended with greater evils than temporary insurrections when privileges were invaded. Whether what, upon the whole, tended most to the happiness of mankind was not also morally good, was never once made a question.

Since benevolence, therefore, was the only motive which could bestow upon any action the character of virtue, the greater the benevolence which was evidenced by any action, the greater the praise which must belong to it.

Indirecting all our actions to promote the greatest possible good, in submitting all inferior affections to the desire of the general happiness of mankind,— in regarding one's-self as but one of the many whose

prosperity was to be pursued no farther than it was consistent with, or conducive to that of the whole, consisted the perfection of virtue.

Dr Hutcheson held farther, that self-love was a principle which could never be virtuous in any degree or in any direction. This maxim he carried so far as to assert, that even a regard to the pleasure of self-approbation, to the comfortable applauses of our own consciences, diminishes the merit of a benevolent action. "In the common judg"ments of mankind, however," says Mr Smith, "this regard to the approbation of our own minds " is so far from being considered as what can in any respect diminish the virtue of any action, that it " is rather looked upon as the sole motive which "deserves the appellation of virtuous.”

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Of the truth and correctness of these principles Dr Hutcheson was so fully convinced, that, in conformity to them, he has offered some algebraical formulas for computing mathematically the morality of actions. Of this very extraordinary attempt the following axioms which he premises to his formulas may serve as a sufficient specimen.

1. The moral importance of any agent, or the quantity of public good produced by him, is in a compound ratio of his benevolence and abilities, or M (moment of good) = B × A.

2. In like manner the moment of private good or interest produced by any person to himself is in a compound ratio of his self-love and ability, or I = SX A.

3. When in comparing the virtue of two agents the abilities are equal, the moment of public good produced by them in like circumstances is as the benevolence, or M = B x 1.

4. When benevolence in two agents is equal, and other circumstances alike, the moment of public good is as the abilities, or M = A x 1.

5. The virtue, then, of agents, or their benevolence, is always directly as the moment of good produced in like circumstances, and inversely as their abilities, or B

=

M
A⚫

As Dr Hutcheson's example in the use of these formulas has not been followed by any of his successors, it is unnecessary to employ any arguments to expose the absurdity of this unsuccessful innovation in the usual language of ethics. * It is of more consequence to direct our attention to the substance of the doctrine which it was the great object of the ingenious author to establish.

ness.

And, in the first place, the necessary and obvious consequences to which this account of virtue leads seem to furnish a satisfactory proof of its unsoundFor if the merit of an action depends on no other circumstance than the quantity of good intended by the agent, then the rectitude of an action can in no case be influenced by the mutual relations of the parties; a conclusion contradicted by the uni

* Dr Hutcheson's attempt to introduce the language of mathematics into morals gave occasion to a valuable Essay on Proper and Improper Quantity by the late Dr Reid. This essay may be found in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London for the year 1748.