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

excuses for them, and to see all their actions in a favorable light; nor do we easily believe that they are destitute of, or deficient in, that most excellent of all qualities, virtue. Hence it is, that so many apologists have started up to represent Alexander, Cæsar, Bonaparte, in spite of the enormous injuries which they inflicted upon mankind, as worthy to be classed among the most virtuous and beneficent of men. Hence it happens, that men of genius, poets, artists, and philosophers, who are sometimes men of very little virtue, always find so many zealous defenders of their moral character. Hence, too, the indulgent moral judgments respecting each other, formed by relatives, friends, and associates.

On the other hand, all those who are the causes to us of pain, even though that pain be inflicted involuntarily, or out of pure good will, become thereby objects of our malevolence, in the shape either of simple dislike or hatred, of envy, or contempt. These persons will be likely, in consequence, to have their motives very sharply criticized; and it will be with great difficulty, that we shall be induced to admit that there is any thing virtuous or good in their motives, or their conduct. Of this we have striking illustrations in the rage of party contests; in which we see great bodies of men, whose differences of opinion and of conduct are often scarcely perceptible, mutually denouncing each other as fools and knaves, destitute alike of sense and of virtue.

5. Men, in general, and especially that sort of

men called men of the world, men who have had an extensive experience of mankind, are much more apt to suppose that any given action, even though in their estimation beneficial, originated in selfish, or what are called bad, motives than in good or disinterested motives; and hence persons of this class have generally been supporters of the selfish theory of morals. This is partly owing to the fact, that observation has proved the general predominance of selfish motives over human conduct. It is partly owing, however, to a pain of inferiority, which does not allow us easily to admit that others are more virtuous than ourselves; and which often excites a certain degree of malevolence towards men of the most exalted virtue. People become tired of hearing Aristides called the Just.

6. This, however, is the case with respect to our contemporaries only, and those whom we have been accustomed to regard as our equals. With respect to the dead, who are no longer our rivals, or to whom we have been taught to look up with admiration from our infancy, as a sort of demi-gods; or with respect to kings, princes, or superiors, whom, in like manner, we have always regarded as far above all rivalry of ours, we may even derive a certain pleasure of superiority from extolling them, because their excellence and exaltation reflects an honor upon human nature, in which as men, and more particularly as subjects, or fellow-countrymen, we may esteem ourselves to have a share.

7. This double operation of the sentiment of Selfcomparison, leading us now to depreciate, and now