commands, and holds those to be answerable for their conduct to whom he has committed any charge. He blames those that are false or unfaithful to him as other men do. He perceives dignity and worth in some characters and actions, and in others, demerit and turpitude. He resents injuries, and is grateful for good offices.

If any man should plead the doctrine of necessity to exculpate murder, theft, or robbery, or even wilful negligence in the discharge of his duty, his judge, though a Fatalist, if he had common sense, would laugh at such a plea, and would not allow it even to alleviate the crime.

In all such cases, he sees that it would be absurd not to act and to judge as those ought to do who believe themselves and other men to be free agents, just as the skeptie, to avoid absurdity, must, when he goes into the world, act and judge like other men who are not skepties.

If the Fatalist be as little influenced by the opinion of necessity in his moral and religious concerns, and in his expectations concerning another world, as he is in the common affairs of life, his speculative opinion will probably do him little hurt. But, if he trust so far to the doctrine of necessity, as to indulge sloth and inactivity in his duty, and hope to exculpate himself to his Maker by that doctrine, let him consider whether he sustains this excuse from his servants and dependants, when they are negligent or unfaithful in what is committed to their charge.

Bishop Butler, in his Analogy, has an excellent chapter upon the opinion of necessity, considered as influencing practice, which I think highly deserving the consideration of those who are inclined to that opinion.

ESSAY V.

OF MORALS.

CHAP. I.

OF THE FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS.

MORALS, like all other sciences, must have first principles, on which all moral reasoning is grounded.

In every branch of knowledge where disputes have been raised, it is useful to distinguish the first principles from the superstructure. They are the foundation on which the whole fabric of the science leans; and whatever is not supported by this foundation can have no stability.

In all rational belief, the thing believed is either itself a first principle, or it is by just reasoning deduced from first principles. When men differ about deductions of reasoning, the appeal must be made to the rules of reasoning, which have been very unanimously fixed from the days of Aristotle. But when they differ about a first principle, the appeal is made to another tribunal; to that of common sense.

How the genuine decisions of common sense may be distinguished from the counterfeit, has been considered in essay sixth, on the intellectual powers of man, chapter fourth, to which the reader is referred. What I would here observe is, that as first principles differ from deductions of reasoning in the nature of

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their evidence, and must be tried by a different standard when they are called in question, it is of importance to know to which of these two classes a truth which we would examine belongs. When they are not distinguished, men are apt to demand proof for every thing they think fit to deny and when we attempt to prove by direct argument, what is really self-evident, the reasoning will always be inconclusive; for it will either take for granted the thing to be proved, or something not more evident; and so, instead of giving strength to the conclusion, will rather tempt those to doubt of it, who never did so before.

I propose, therefore, in this chapter, to point out some of the first principles of morals, without pretending to a complete enumeration.

The principles I am to mention, relate either to virtue in general, or to the different particular branches of virtue, or to the comparison of virtues where they seem to interfere.

1st, There are some things in human conduct, that merit approbation and praise, others that merit blame and punishment; and different degrees either of approbation or of blame, are due to different actions.

2dly, What is in no degree voluntary, can neither deserve moral approbation nor blame.

sdly, What is done from unavoidable necessity may be agreeable or disagreeable, useful or hurtful, but cannot be the object either of blame or of moral approbation.

4thly, Men may be highly culpable in omitting what they ought to have done, as well as in doing what they ought not.

5thly, We ought to use the best means we can to be well informed of our duty, by serious attention to moral instruction; by observing what we approve, and what we disapprove, in other men, whether our acquaintance,

or those whose actions are recorded in history; by reflecting often, in a calm and dispassionate hour, on our own past conduct, that we may discern what was wrong, what was right, and what might have been better; by deliberating cooly and impartially upon our future conduct, as far as we can foresee the opportunities we may have of doing good, or the temptations to do wrong; and by having this principle deeply fixed in our minds, that as moral excellence is the true worth and glory of a man, so the knowledge of our duty is to every man, in every station of life, the most important of all knowledge.

6thly, It ought to be our most serious concern to do our duty as far as we know it, and to fortify our minds against every temptation to deviate from it; by maintaining a lively sense of the beauty of right conduct, and of its present and future reward, of the turpitude of vice, and of its bad consequences here and here. after; by having always in our eye the noblest examples; by the habit of subjecting our passions to the government of reason; by firm purposes and resolutions with regard to our conduct; by avoiding occasions of temptation when we can; and by imploring the aid of him who made us, in every hour of temptation.

These principles concerning virtue and vice in general, must appear self-evident to every man who has a conscience, and who has taken pains to exercise this natural power of his mind. 1 proceed to others that are more particular.

1st, We ought to prefer a greater good, though more distant, to a less; and a less evil to a greater. [Note U U.]

A regard to our own good, though we had no conscience, dictates this principle; and we cannot help disapproving the man that acts contrary to it, as deserving to loose the good which he wantonly threw

away, and to suffer the evil which he knowingly brought upon his own head.

We observed before, that the ancient moralists, and many among the modern, have deduced the whole of morals from this principle, and that when we make a right estimate of goods and evils according to their degree, their dignity, their duration, and according as they are more or less in our power, it leads to the practice of every virtue: more directly, indeed, to the virtues of self-government, to prudence, to temperance, and to fortitude; and, though more indirectly even to justice, humanity, and all the social virtues, when their influence upon our happiness is well understood.

Though it be not the noblest principle of conduct, it has this peculiar advantage, that its force is felt by the most ignorant, and even by the most abandoned.

Let a man's moral judgment be ever so little improved by exercise, or ever so much corrupted by bad habits, he cannot be indifferent to his own happiness or misery. When he is become insensible to every nobler motive to right conduct, he cannot be insensible to this. And though to act from this motive solely, may be called prudence rather than virtue, yet this prudence deserves some regard upon its own account, and much more as it is the friend and ally of virtue, and the enemy of all vice; and as it gives a favourable testimony of virtue to those who are deaf to every other recommendation.

If a man can be induced to do his duty even from a regard to his own happiness, he will soon find reason to love virtue for her own sake, and to act from motives less mercenary.

I cannot therefore approve of those moralists, who would banish all persuasives to virtue taken from the consideration of private good. In the present state of