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and sour. This power of moral discernment has by some been ascribed to reason, the faculty, that is, by which truth in general is discerned; by others it has been ascribed to a supposed faculty appropriated to the discernment of moral truth in particular, called Conscience, or the Moral Sense. It has been further supposed, that Right is endowed with a certain peculiar beauty or desirableness, which attracts us to pursue it, and that Wrong carries with it a certain deformity or disgustfulness, which repels and restrains us. This theory of morals, which we may distinguish as the Platonic theory, taught by Plato, revived in modern times by Cudworth and Clarke, and more recently maintained by Price, Kant, Cousin, and Jouffroy, is liable, however, to insuperable objections.

4. In the first place, it seems to be well established, and notwithstanding strenuous efforts lately made in favor of the opposite opinion, philosophers are more and more inclined to admit, that the knowledge of the absolute is not within the reach of human capacity. What men have the power to know is, not what things are in themselves absolutely, but only what they are relatively to man; that is, how they appear to, and how they affect the human observer. All we can know is, what men perceive, and what men feel. The constitution of our own nature, not the absolute constitution of things, is the proper object of human research; and only in the constitution of man can we find, if we find at all, the origin of human opinions and actions.

5. To escape this objection, and at the same time

to account for the pleasurable and disgustful feelings attendant upon the perception of Right and Wrong, Shaftesbury and others maintain, that the distinction between right and wrong is, in fact, a subjective distinction, originating in a peculiar sensibility, to which they give the name of Moral Sentiment, by means of which we feel certain actions to be right, and others to be wrong.

But whether in its original shape, or thus modified, the Platonic theory is liable to the decisive objection, that it admits of no practical application; that it explains nothing, being a mere truism, a mere form of asserting, what is the very thing to be explained, that men do distinguish between Right and Wrong. So long and so far as there is a perfect coincidence between what is called the reason, conscience, moral sense, or moral sentiment of all men, like that which exists in the perception of forms, colors, and sounds, this theory answers sufficiently well. But it is precisely because there are great differences among men upon questions of morals, that the nature or law of moral distinctions becomes an object of such anxious inquiry. What we want is, some test by which to distinguish, in cases of dispute, what is Right, and what is Wrong. But so long as each man appeals to his own particular reason, his own particular conscience, his own particular moral sentiment, as the ultimate and infallible tribunal, just as he appeals to his eye in matters of color, to his sight and touch upon questions of form, and to his ear upon questions of sound, no such test does, or can, exist. All consciences do not agree, like all ears and all eyes. We

are bewildered amid a multitude of contradictory decisions, all claiming an equal authority; till at length we are driven to doubt, whether what is called conscience, or the moral sentiment, is, after all, any thing more than education, habit, prejudice, inclination, or caprice.

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6. Another theory of morals, which, under different forms, has had, and still has, a very extensive currency, places the difference between Right and Wrong, in the tendency of right actions to promote, and of wrong actions to diminish, the happiness of the actor. This is called the Selfish theory.

This theory is not without a certain degree of plausibility; since every man's consciousness will inform him, that the performance of actions which the agent esteems right, is always attended by a degree of satisfaction; while the performance of actions which the agent esteems wrong, is always attended by a degree of pain.

7. But when we look closer into the matter, and examine that which is called happiness, we find it not a simple, but a very complex thing, made up of many various, and often hostile, ingredients. There are numerous kinds of pleasures besides the pleasure of acting rightly; and numerous kinds of pains besides the pain of doing wrong. What is called happiness consists in the enjoyment of pleasures of all kinds; and those who have held that happiness and virtue are correlative, have been inevitably driven into one, or the other, of two opposite paradoxes. They have found themselves obliged to maintain, either that the pleasure of virtue is the

only pleasure, or that all pleasures are equally vir

tuous.

8. The Stoics chose the first horn of this dilemma. Filled with that admiration of the beauty and dignity of virtue which they had learned in the school of Plato, and led away by a certain affected contempt for the ordinary objects of human pursuit, borrowed from the Cynics, they went the length of maintaining, in defiance of the common sense of mankind, that bodily pain, hunger, poverty, degradation, disgrace, and a thousand other things, which men universally regard as among the greatest of evils, are in fact no evils at all, and cannot diminish the happiness of a truly virtuous man; while wealth, authority, and the so called gratifications of the senses and the appetites have no power whatever of conferring pleasure, or of making vicious men happy.

9. The Epicureans, avoiding this paradox, fell into the opposite extreme; and in equal defiance of the common sense of mankind, came to the conclusion, that the pleasures of virtue and the pains of vice are in no respect different from other pleasures and other pains. That the man who pleases himself with eating a good dinner is quite as virtuous, provided his pleasure be as great, as the man who pleases himself with doing a good action; that virtue, in fact, consists in making one's self as comfortable as possible.

These paradoxes are so monstrous, that few have been induced to defend them in their original form. But both the Stoic and the Epicurean doctrines,

slightly modified and disguised, have had, and still have, a host of supporters.

10. The semi-Stoics admit that bodily pain, poverty, sickness, hunger, nakedness, and degradation are certainly evils, and evils which men may reasonably do much to avoid, provided they can avoid them without any sacrifice of virtue. But they maintain, that, compared with the evil of conscious, departure from rectitude, all other evils are trifling, and do not deserve to be taken into account. like manner it is held, of the gratification of the senses and the appetites, wealth, power, superiority, and other like objects of human wishes, though, considered by themselves, they may be desirable, yet that, compared with virtue, they are quite unproductive in pleasure.

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This is a doctrine often preached, seldom sincerely believed, and still seldomer practised. Indeed it is to be observed, that the most zealous advocates of this doctrine are generally persons who are in quiet habitual possession of those very advantages which they affect to depreciate; advantages which, however meanly they may rate them, they show not the slightest inclination to resign. There are few Stoics among the humble, the sick, or the poor; and the experience of every day may convince us, that those pains which this doctrine esteems so inconsiderable, often rise to such a pitch as to make men wholly regardless of moral distinctions.

As has been already stated, virtuous conduct is doubtless one source of enjoyment, and vicious conduct one source of suffering. Yet it is evident that

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