above all others. To this he steers his course; his projects and his actions will be regulated by it. Without this, there would be no consistency in his conduct. He would be like a ship in the ocean, which is bound to no port, under no government, but left to the mercy of winds and tides.

We observed before, that there are moral rules respecting the attention we ought to give to objects, and respecting our deliberations, which are no less evident than mathematical axioms. The same thing may be observed with respect to our fixed purposes, whether particular or general.

Is it not self-evident, that, after due deliberation, we ought to resolve upon that conduct, or that course of conduct, which, to our sober judgment, appears to be best and most approvable? That we ought to be firm and steady in adhering to such resolutions, while we are persuaded that they are right; but open to conviction, and ready to change our course, when we have good evidence that it is wrong?

Fickleness, inconstancy, facility, on the one hand, wilfulness, inflexibility, and obstinacy, on the other, are moral qualities, respecting our purposes, which every one sees to be wrong. A manly firmness, grounded upon rational conviction, is the proper mean which every man approves and reveres.

CHAP. IV.

COROLLARIES.

FROM what has been said concerning the will, it appears, 1st, that, as some acts of the will are transient and momentary, so others are permanent, and may continue for a long time, or even through the whole course of our rational life.

When I will to stretch out my hand, that will is at an end as soon as the action is done. It is an act of the will which begins and ends in a moment. But when I will to attend to a mathematical proposition, to examine the demonstration and the consequences that may be drawn from it, this will may continue for hours. It must continue as long as my attention continues; for no man attends to a mathematical proposition longer than he wills.

The same thing may be said of deliberation, with regard either to any point of conduct, or with regard to any general course of conduct. We will to deliberate as long as we do deliberate; and that may be for days or for weeks.

A purpose or resolution, which we have shown to be an act of the will, may continue for a great part of life, or for the whole, after we are of age to form a resolution.

Thus, a merchant may resolve, that, after he has made such a fortune by traffic, he will give it up, and retire to a country life. He may continue this resolution for thirty or forty years, and execute it at last; but he continues it no longer than he wills, for he may at any time change his resolution.

There are, therefore, acts of the will, which are not transient and momentary, which may continue long and grow into a habit. [Note L.] This deserves the more

to be observed, because a very eminent philosopher has advanced a contrary principle; to wit, that all the acts of the will are transient and momentary; and from that principle has drawn very important conclusions, with regard to what constitutes the moral character of

man.

A second corollary is, that nothing in a man, wherein the will is not concerned, can justly be accounted either virtuous or immoral.

That no blame can be imputed to a man for what is altogether involuntary, is so evident in itself, that no arguments can make it more evident. The practice of all criminal courts, in all enlightened nations is founded upon it.

If it should be thought an objection to this maxim, that, by the laws of all nations, children often suffer for the crimes of parents, in which they had no hand the answer is easy.

For, first, Such is the connection between parents and children, that the punishment of a parent must hurt his children whether the law will or not. If a man is fined, or imprisoned; if he loses life, or limb, or estate, or reputation, by the hand of justice, his children suffer by necessary consequence. 2dly, When laws intend to appoint any punishment of innocent children for the father's crime, such laws are either unjust, or they are to be considered as acts of police, and not of jurisprudence, and are intended as an expedient to deter parents more effectually from the commission of the crime. The innocent children, in this case, are sacrificed to the public good, in like manner, as, to prevent the spreading of the plague, the sound are shut up with the infected in a house or ship, that has the infection.

By the law of England, if a man is killed by an ox goring him, or a cart running over him, though there

be no fault or neglect in the owner, the ox or the cart is a deodand, and is confiscated to the church. The legislature surely did not intend to punish the ox as a criminal, far less the cart. The intention evidently was, to inspire the people with a sacred regard to the life of man.

When the Parliament of Paris, with a similar intention, ordained the house in which Ravilliac was born, to be razed to the ground, and never to be rebuilt, it would be great weakness to conclude, that that wise judicature intended to punish the house.

If any judicature should, in any instance, find a man guilty, and an object of punishment, for what they allowed to be altogether involuntary, all the world would condemn them as men who knew nothing of the first and most fundamental rules of justice.

I have endeavoured to show, that, in our attention to objects, in order to form a right judgment of them; in our deliberation about particular actions, or about general rules of conduct; in our purposes and resolutions, as well as in the execution of them, the will has a principal share. If any man could be found, who, in the whole course of his life, had given due attention to things that concern him, had deliberated duly and impartially about his conduct, had formed his resolutions, and executed them according to his best judgment and capacity, surely such a man might hold up his face before God and man, and plead innocence. He must be acquitted by the impartial Judge, whatever his natural temper was, whatever his passions and affections, as far as they were involuntary.

A third corollary is, that all virtuous habits, when we distinguish them from virtuous actions, consist in fixed purposes of acting according to the rules of virtue, as often as we have opportunity.

We can conceive in a man a greater or a less degree of steadiness to his purposes or resolutions; but that the general tenor of his conduct should be contrary to them, is impossible.

The man who has a determined resolution to do his duty in every instance, and who adheres steadily to his resolution, is a perfect man. The man who has a determined purpose of carrying on a course of action which he knows to be wrong, is a hardened offender. Between these extremes there are many intermediate degrees of virtue and vice.