In asserting the wide accordance of this moral voice, however, it was necessary to consider the objections to the harmony of sentiment which have been drawn, from some practices and institutions, that seem, at least as first considered, to be proofs of discord rather than harmony. That there are instances, and many instances, of such apparent anomaly, it would have been absurd to endeavour to disprove. But it might still be inquired, whether even these instances are really anomalous, or only seem so, from erroneous opinions of the nature of that modified agreement which alone is necessary to the supporter of the original tendencies,-distinctive emotions of vice and virtue. This consideration of the species of accordance which the moral phenomena might, from our knowledge of the general nature of the mind, be expected to indicate, on the supposition of an original principle of moral feeling, led us into some very interesting trains of inquiry; of which the result was the ascertainment of certain limits, within which remains, unaffected by the sophistries opposed to it, all that uniformity for which it is wisdom to contend,-limits that do not imply any defect of original tendency to certain moral emotions, but only the operation of other causes, that concur with this original influence; and that might, a priori, have been expected to have this modifying effect, if, without considering any of the objections urged, we had only reflected on the analogous phenomena of other principles of the mind, that are allowed to be essential to it and universal, and that are yet capable of similar modification. The limitations to which we were led were of three kinds,—first, the temporary influence of every feeling that completely occupies the mind, especially of every violent passion, which blinds us at the moment to moral distinctions,-that is to say, prevents, by its own vividness, the rise of the less vivid feelings of approbation or disapprobation; in the same manner as, in similar circumstances, it would blind to the discernment even of the universal truths of science, that is to say, would not allow us to perceive for the time the amplest and least mutable of all relations,-the proportions of number and quantity,-if an arithmetician or geometer, when we were under the influence of anger, sudden jealousy, or any other violent emotion, were to discourse to us calmly of square or cube roots, or of the properties of right angled trian gles. These arithmetical or geometrical properties we discover readily, when our passion has subsided; and, in like manner, we discover readily, when our passion has wholly subsided, the moral distinctions which we were incapable of perceiving before. A second limitation, which we found it necessary to form, arises from the complex results of good and evil, in a single action, the difficulty of calculating the preponderance of good or evil, according to which felt preponderance alone, our approbation or disapprobation arises,-and the various degrees of impor tance attached, and justly attached, in different ages and nations, to parts of the complex result, which are most in harmony with the spirit of the nation or the age,—that is to say, which tend, or are conceived to tend, most to the production of that particular national good, which it may have been an error in policy, indeed, to desire, but still was the object of a policy, wise or unwise. What we esteem evil upon the whole, others may esteem good upon the whole; because there is, in truth, a mixture of good and evil, the parts of which may be variously estimated, but of which no one loves the evil as evil, or hates the good as good. It is some form of good, which is present to the mind of the agent, when he regards as morally right, that compound result of good and evil, of which we with better discernment, appreciate better the relative amount. Even the atrocious virtues,-if I may use that combination of words,-of which voyagers relate to us instances in savage life, or which have sometimes prevailed even in nations more civilized-we found in our inquiry, might very naturally, without any defect, or inconsistency of moral emotion, arise from some misconception of this sort. Vices may every where be found prevailing as vices; but where they are generally revered as virtues, it is because there is in them something which is truly, in those circumstances, virtue, however inferior the amount of good may be to the amount of evil. It is for some prominent moral good, however, that they are approved; and the defective analysis, which does not perceive the amount of accompanying evil, is an error of judgment, not an approbation of that which is injurious to individuals or mankind, for the sake of that very injury. The third limitation which we were led to form, is that which arises from the influence of the associating principle, an influ ence that concurs with the former in almost every instance, and promotes it. When actions have complicated results, this principle may lead us to think more of one part of the result than of another part; and, by the remembrances which it yields of the virtues of those whom we have loved, adds all the force of its own lively impressions to the particular virtues that are so recommended to us, or to actions that might otherwise have been absolutely indifferent. This influence, however, far from disproving the reality of original tendencies to moral feeling, is, as I showed you, in many of the cases in which it operates most powerfully, one of the most interesting exemplifications of those very moral emotions. It is by loving those whom it is virtue to love, that we learn often to value too highly, what otherwise we should have valued with a juster estimate. The same principle, we found too, to operate strongly in exciting through the medium of general terms and general rules, a disproportionate emotion in some cases, in which we have learned to apply to individual cases, an emotion that has resulted from many previous analogous emotions. Such are the limits within which alone, the original tendency of our nature to certain moral emotions, and the consequent accordance of moral distinctions can be defended,-but, within these limits, it may safely be maintained. There is in our breast a susceptibility of moral emotion, by which we approve or condemn; and the principle which thus approves or condemns in us, is the noblest of the ties that connect us with the universal community of mankind. / 274 LECTURE LXXXII. ON THE USE OF THE TERM MORAL SENSE; ARRANGEMENT OF THE PRACTICAL VIRTUES. GENTLEMEN, in my Lecture yesterday, after concluding my remarks on the theory of our moral sentiments which Dr Smith has proposed the last of the theories on this subject, which required our consideration, as differing in its principles, from the view which I have given you,-I briefly recapitulated the general doctrines which we had previously been led to form of the phenomena of moral approbation. All our moral sentiments, then, of obligation, virtue, merit, are, in themselves, as we have seen, nothing more than one simple feeling, variously referred to actions, as future, present, or past. With the loss of the susceptibility of this one peculiar species of emotion, all practical morality would instantly cease: for, if the contemplation of actions excited in us no feeling of approval, no foresight, that, by omitting to perform them, we should regard ourselves, and others would regard us, with abhorrence or contempt, or at least with disapprobation; it would be absurd to suppose, that there could be any moral obligation to perform certain actions, and not to perform certain other actions, which seemed to us morally equal and indifferent. There could in like manner, be no virtue nor vice in performing, and no merit nor demerit in having performed an action, the omission of which would have seemed to the agent as little proper, or as little improper as the performance of it,-in that state of equal indiscriminate regard or disregard, in which the plunderer and the plundered, the oppressor and the oppressed, were considered only as the physical producers of a different result of happiness or misery. It is by this, our susceptibility, then, of certain vivid distinctive emotions, that we become truly moral beings, united, under the guardianship of heaven, in one great social system, benefiting and benefited, and not enjoying the advantage of this mutual protection, only in the protection itself, that is constantly around us; but enjoying also the pleasure of affording the reciprocal benefit, and even a sort of pleasure of no slight amount, in the various wants themselves, which are scarcely felt as wants, when we know that they are to be remedied by the kind hearts and gentle hands, whose offices of aid we have before delighted to receive, and are in perfect confidence of again receiving. Such is the great system of social duties, that connects mankind by ties of which our souls do not feel the power less truly, because they are ties, which only the soul can feel, and which do not come within the sphere of our bodily perception. By that delightful emotion, which follows the contemplation of virtue, we can enjoy it, even while it is not exercised, in all its aspects as past, or future, as much as present. In our meditations on it, it is like some tranquil delight that awaits us,-which, in the very act of virtue, comes like an immediate reward, to actions that seem to need no other recompence, while they are thus rewarded; and to look back upon the generous toil, or the generous self-privation, as among the things which have been, is at once to enjoy again the past delight, and to feel in it a sort of pledge of future returns of similar enjoyment,increased trust of being able and worthy to perform again, whenever the opportunity of them shall recur, actions as worthy of delight, and as delightful. It is by this unceasing delight, which Virtue is ever spreading out before us, not merely in the direct exercise of the actions which we term virtuous, but in the contemplation of them as future in our wishes, or as past, in the remembrances of a good conscience, -that moral excellence is truly and philosophically worthy of the glorious distinction, by which the author of the Essay on Man would characterize it, of being what " alone is happiness below." The only point, where human bliss stands still, |