Page images
PDF
EPUB

crimes, has of late, in consequence of the growing tendency towards these views, become more mild and humane, and has been compelled to walk in the train of morality. This, however, is a subserviency, to which the haughtier of the mystics, who still flatter themselves with the idea of being the peculiar favorites, the chosen servants, the appointed interpreters, and earthly vice-gerents of a deified image of themselves, do not submit without great reluctance, and many struggles, to throw off the yoke, and quitting the humble character of mere teachers of morality, to which, of late, they have been gradually restricted, to reëstablish themselves, as of old, with the keys of heaven and hell in one hand, and an earthly sceptre in the other.

25. As the opinions above sketched, respecting the Deity, originated in the application to theology of three different theories of morals variously modified, it has happened of course, that all the various sects of the three great theological schools above described, have held views of human nature correspondent to their theological opinions. Those who have applied to theology the selfish theory of morals, have preached with consistent zeal the total depravity of man; while those who have employed, in theology, the theory of pure benevolence, have run into the opposite extreme of representing men as by nature perfectly amiable and good, and all the evils of society as originating from something exterior, and therefore to be wholly removed by the removal of those exterior impediments. This is the doctrine of human perfectibility, preached by the French philosophers,

or some of them, in the last century, revived in this, by the late Dr. Channing, Owen, Fourier, and others, and which gains daily a greater circulation; an opinion not only more comfortable, but what is of far greater importance, much nearer the truth, than that doctrine of total depravity, which it is so rapidly superseding.

The various sects of the great intermediate school of theology, accordingly as in their theological opinions they have approached nearer to the selfish or to the disinterested school, will be found, in their opinions of the character of man, to approximate towards the extreme of total depravity on the one hand, and of perfectibility on the other.

CHAPTER VI.

GROUNDS OF MORAL JUDGMENT AS RESPECTS INDIVIDUAL ACTIONS AND ACTORS.

1. HAVING shown upon what principles, looking at the external event, actions in general are pronounced right and wrong; and upon what principles, looking at the motives by which they are ordinarily produced, actions in general are pronounced virtuous or vicious; it now only remains to inquire, What are the principles according to which we determine the moral character of individual acts and individual actors?

Suppose a beneficial action performed before our

eyes; that action is likely to have sprung from the sentiment of benevolence, modified more or less by other sentiments; and therefore it may be a virtuous action; and our first impulse will be to esteem it such. Yet, to pronounce it virtuous, we must suppose that the benefit was intended; that it was not conferred merely out of fear lest the actor might otherwise suffer some pain from the person benefited; or lose his good will; or lose the good will of his neighbours, by failing to fulfil their expectations; and that it was not performed out of the hope of reward, either from the person benefited, from his friends, or from society at large, by reason of a character for virtue thereby attained.

Here is ample room for controversy and difference of opinion; and we little need wonder at the disputes that prevail, as to the moral character of particular acts. In the first place, it may be disputed, whether or not the act is beneficial; and indeed a difference upon that point is apt to lie at the bottom of all moral controversies. Hence the importance of the science of Utility as a means of determining whether acts are, in fact, beneficial or not. If, as happens with respect to a great number of actions, there results a pleasure to some, and at the same time a pain to others; and if my sympathies are chiefly with those who suffer the pain, and yours with those who enjoy the pleasure, we shall dispute for ever about the character of the act; and accordingly as we pronounce it right or wrong, will be apt to be our judgment respecting the motives of the actor. For most men are natural adepts in the egoistical

philosophy, and find it difficult, if not impossible, to conceive that others view things in a different light from themselves; and upon all moral questions they have been confirmed in this narrow notion by the prevalent idea of the intuitive certainty of moral opinions.

2. Again, suppose the act, the moral character of which we are called upon to decide, to be apparently injurious, painful, that is, to persons who enjoy our sympathy. We shall conclude at the first aspect, that he who performed it could not have been impelled by virtuous motives. Yet, in this conclusion, we may be greatly mistaken. The action, though clearly wrong in our judgment, might have appeared \right to him; and he may have performed it from the best of motives. He has done wrong; that is to say, he has done an act which, looking merely to the external event, gives us moral pain; but he intended to do right; and looking merely at his motives, we experience a moral pleasure. We condemn the act, but approve the man.

3. We call those individuals virtuous, whose conduct, on the whole, corresponds with our ideas of moral obligation; we call those individuals vicious, whose habitual conduct runs counter to what we esteem the dictates of moral obligation.

As individuals, generally speaking, are brought into immediate and frequent contact, only with a very small number of persons, their connexions, friends, and neighbours; and as but little knowledge of individuals can be obtained, except by personal intercourse, most persons have no means whatever of

knowing the peculiar views, peculiar temperament, degree of knowledge and reflection, and particular position of those out of the little circle of their acquaintance. In this destitution of all the necessary data for forming a correct opinion of each other's moral character, we are apt to proceed upon very narrow grounds; to regard more words which we hear, than actions which we do not see; and to condemn or approve each other according to conformity, or want of conformity, whether in conduct or opinion, to some peculiar, often unfounded, notions of our own. Thus, a Scotchman hearing that the people of Paris and New Orleans dance, sing, and go to the theatre on Sundays, and that the people of New England observe that day with punctilious solemnity, concludes at once, without the slightest hesitation, that the French are a very immoral, the New Englanders a very moral, people. So a Mahometan, who is told for the first time, that all Christians eat pork, sets them all down at once, as destitute of goodness. Yet often the very persons who make these sweeping judgments as to communities or individuals of whom they know nothing or next to nothing, in deciding as to the moral character of their intimate acquaintances, will proceed with the greatest caution, discrimination, and candor, and will arrive, in consequence, at very just conclusions.

4. With respect, indeed, to those persons who are special causes to us of pleasure, whether the pleasure of admiration or any other pleasure, and who, by reason of pleasures conferred upon us, are objects of our love, we are always ready to make all

« PreviousContinue »