of performing. But the intention to perform the promise, or not to perform it, whether the intention be known to the other party or not, makes no part of the promise, it is a solitary act of the mind, and can neith er constitute nor dissolve an obligation. What makes a promise is, that it be expressed to the other party with understanding, and with an intention to become bound, and that it be accepted by him.

Carrying these remarks along with us, let us review the passage cited.

1st, He observes, that the will or consent alone does not cause the obligation of a promise, but it must be expressed.

I answer: the will not expressed is not a promise; and is it a contradiction, that that which is not a promise should not cause the obligation of a promise? He goes on the expression being once brought in as subservient to the will, soon becomes a principal part of the promise. Here it is supposed, that the expression was not originally a constituent part of the promise, but it soon becomes such. It is brought in to aid and be subservient to the promise which was made before by the will. If Mr. Hume had considered, that it is the expression accompanied with understanding and will to become bound, that constitutes a promise, he would never have said, that the expression soon becomes a part, and is brought in as subservient.

He adds, nor will a man be less bound by his word, though he secretly gives a different direction to his intention, and with-holds the assent of his mind.

The case here put, needs some explication. Either it means, that the man knowingly and voluntarily gives his word, without any intention of giving his word, or that he gives it without the intention of keeping it, and performing what he promises. The last of these is indeed a possible case, and is, I apprehend, what

Mr Hume means. But the intention of keeping his promise is no part of the promise, nor does it in the least affect the obligation of it, as we have often observed.

If the author meant that the man may knowingly and voluntarily give his word, without the intention of giving his word, this is impossible: for such is the nature of all social acts of the mind, that, as they cannot be, without being expressed, so they cannot be expressed knowingly and willingly, but they must be. If a man puts a question knowingly and willingly, it is impossible that he should at the same time will not to put it. If he gives a command knowingly and willingly, it is impossible that he should at the same time will not to give it. We cannot have contrary wills at the same time. And, in like manner, if a man knowingly and willingly becomes bound by a promise, it is impossible that he should at the same time will not to be bound.

To suppose, therefore, that when a man knowingly and willingly gives his word, he with-holds that will and intention which makes a promise, is indeed a contradiction; but the contradiction is not in the nature of the promise, but in the case supposed by Mr. Hume.

He adds, though the expression, for the most part, makes the whole of the promise, it does not always so.

I answer, that the expression, if it is not accompanied with understanding, and will to engage, never makes a promise. The author here assumes a postulate, which nobody ever granted, and which can only be grounded on the impossible supposition made in the former sentence. And as there can be no promise without knowledge, and will to engage, is it marvellous that words which are not understood, or words spoken in jest, and without any intention to become bound, should not have the effect of a promise?

The last case put by Mr. Hume, is that of a man who promises fraudulently with an intention not to perform, and whose fraudulent intention is discovered by the other party, who, notwithstanding, accepts the promise. He is bound, says Mr. Hume, by his verbal promise. Undoubtedly he is bound, because an intention not to perform the promise, whether known to the other party or not, makes no part of the promise, nor affects its obligation, as has been repeatedly observed.

From what has been said, I think it evident, that to one who attends to the nature of a promise or contract, there is not the least appearance of contradiction in the principles of morality relating to contracts.

It would indeed appear wonderful, that such a man as Mr. Hume should have imposed upon himself in so plain a matter, if we did not see frequent instances of ingenious men, whose zeal in supporting a favourite hypothesis, darkens their understanding, and hinders them from seeing what is before their eyes.

CHAP. VII.

THAT MORAL APPROBATION IMPLIES A REAL JUDGMENT.

THE approbation of good actions, and disapprobation of bad, are so familiar to every man come to years of understanding, that it seems strange there should be any dispute about their nature.

Whether we reflect upon our own conduct, or attend to the conduct of others with whom we live, or of whom we hear or read, we cannot help approving of some things, disapproving of others, and regarding many with perfect indifference.

These operations of our minds we are conscious of every day, and almost every hour we live. Men of ripe understanding are capable of reflecting upon them, and of attending to what passes in their own thoughts on such occasions; yet, for half a century, it has been a serious dispute among philosophers, what this approbation and disapprobation is, whether there be a real judgment included in it, which, like all other judgments, must be true or false; or, whether it include no more but some agreeable or uneasy feeling, in the person who approves or disapproves.

Mr. Hume observes very justly, that this is a controversy started of late. Before the modern system of ideas and impressions was introduced, nothing would have appeared more absurd than to say, that when I condemn a man for what he has done, I pass no judg ment at all about the man, but only express some uneasy feeling in myself.

Nor did the new system produce this discovery at once, but gradually, by several steps, according as its consequences were more accurately traced, and its spirit more thoroughly imbibed by successive philosophers.

Des Cartes and Mr. Locke went no further than to maintain, that the secondary qualities of body, heat and cold, sound, colour, taste, and smell, which we perceive and judge to be in the external object, are mere feelings or sensations in our minds, there being nothing in bodies themselves to which these names can be applied; and that the office of the external senses is not to judge of external things, but only to give us ideas or sensations, from which we are by reasoning to deduce the existence of a material world without us, as well as we can.

Arthur Collier and bishop Berkeley discovered, from the same principles, that the primary, as well as the secondary qualities of bodies, such as extension, figure, solidity, motion, are only sensations in our minds; and therefore, that there is no material world without us at all.

The same philosophy, when it came to be applied to matters of taste, discovered that beauty and deformity are not any thing in the objects, to which men, from the beginning of the world, ascribed them, but certain feelings in the mind of the spectator.

The next step was an easy consequence from all the preceding, that moral approbation and disapprobation are not judgments, which must be true or false, but barely, agreeable and uneasy feelings or sensations.

Mr. Hume made the last step in this progress, and erowned the system by what he calls his hypothesis; to wit, that belief is more properly an act of the sensitive, than of the cogitative part of our nature.

Beyond this, I think no man can go in this track; sensation or feeling is all, and what is left to the cogitative part of our nature, I am not able to comprehend.

I have had occasion to consider each of these paradoxes, excepting that which relates to morals, in Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man; and, though they be strictly connected with each other, and with