VIRTUE

CONSISTS of those acts or motions of the intellectu alized animal man, which procure the well-being of his essence or happiness. We have defined man to be a machine, formed of corporeal and mental faculties, possessing passions and reason; and the well-being or essence of this machine to be the freedom of thought and judgment, to direct the will, and absolute liberty to put it in execution.

Virtue having hitherto been placed upon a false basis, men of letters and not of ideas, vulgarly dubbed philosophers, have accumulated error upon error to prop it up. Some have invented the most impious and atrocious personifications, to torment and torture those who bow not in adoration to the demon of their corrupted and unprincipled imaginations. These dogmatic and systematic fools mistook the semblance for the principles of virtue, and by this error they have confined mankind in a moral labyrinth, which demands the clue of pure and enlightened, though simple reason, to extricate them.

The most important, as well as the most evident and true moral axiom, that ever the human understanding discovered is, that

"TRUE SELF LOVE AND SOCIAL IS THE SAME."

What a glorious instruction for human nature! this with its own mighty force destroys all the colossal and impious fictions of theology. Why imagine a metaphysical sovereign or deity to reward or punish the being that does not know how to love, or do good to itself? Every thinking being imagines it knows how, and intends, in all its actions, to do good to itself, and if it does harm instead of good, ignorance alone is the cause. Why then institute metaphysical punishments, when the evil suffered by man, and caused by ignorance, is, of itself, a cruel injustice? Those metaphysical quacks, called theologists, if they intended to cure the moral ills, arising from

the collision of the passions of men, should enlighten and extend the powers of judgment; whereas, by their gross fables, and mental impositions, they destroy that judgment, and perpetuate and increase ignorance, the cause of all human ills.

The inventors of metaphysical fictions-designing theologists and ignorant speculators, called philosophers, if they had possessed a grain of wisdom, would never have transferred the study of their own nature, or self, to infinity, because that is incomprehensible; nor to the physical sciences or arts, because these bear no appreciable proportion, in a comparative view of utility, with the knowledge of self.

Self, then, is the only subject worthy the study of man. The arts and sciences should be left to mere men of knowledge. Self if considered as isolated, appears to be in a state incompatible with well-being or full existence. The impotence of man, in a state of infancy, demands the aid of parents; the passion of hunger would be more painful; the passion of lust without gratification; the passion for life insecure, and the affections of sympathy unknown; and no approximation could be made to an intellectual existence. Self, therefore, must be considered in a state of society, and society must procure the well-being of its members. Should any member through ignorance, the cause of moral malady, become an ulcer, it must be healed by applying to it the balm of wisdom, and if this succeed not, coercion must be applied; should coercion be unsuccessful, the member must be amputated, or destroyed and thrown, like the potter's ill-moulded clay, into the general mass, to be re-kneaded with it, and to be cast and returned into a happier combination.

Wisdom, in its operation to gain the knowledge of self, must begin with the mental faculties, and by discovering the means to exercise them, and executing their functions, their primum mobile, or active moral force will be established.

The understanding, by taking a view of the past and the present, is enabled to anticipate the future; and to respect the wise axioms;

A less present pleasure is to be given up, in order to obtain a greater in future.

A less present pain is to be borne, in order to avoid a greater in future.

The volition of man may be guided to will no more or less than procures his well-being; [including of course its eternal connection with all sensitive existence.]

This volition thus formed, must be executed; and whatever promotes it is good, and whatever impedes it is evil or bad.

Society is formed to enable men to execute, with more efficacy and liberty, their particular volitions; and yet it is impossible to conceive a society, which, formed of individuals whose partial volitions are regulated by perfect and sound understanding, should be able to establish a general or social volition, that could restrain the will of any of its members.

Society in its origin was, probably, of this nature, and began with an individual family, whose increase gradually estranged its members, and becoming too numerous for subsistence they separated. With this separation commenced the era of moral evil.

The mind in the infancy of the world possessed only instinctive powers, and when men were assaulted by hard necessity or want, they had not sufficient power to anticipate, or look into futurity, and therefore obeyed their first volition: thus began contest, violence and murder.

Several societies were progressively established, and though the instinctive operations of the mind enabled self to extend to the contracted circle of a small parental society, and to prefer general and future to partial and present conveniences; yet it had not power to go beyond this circle. This separation of societies brought on a moral pestilence, which ended in universal and internal

infection, and violence abroad, engendering violence at home, the demon coercion was called upon to assist mankind in the civil wars of ignorance, and has so well established its own power, that it has reduced ignorance to be a tributary potentate, and maintains the security of its throne by the aid of this, the worst enemy of mankind.

What a melancholy prospect is furnished by the hostile operations of this universal enemy to human nature, IGNORANCE.

All men are in pursuit of the same two objects-happiness and truth; and ignorance is constantly employed to conceal them from the pursuers.

"Moral truth," says ignorance, or its advocates, priests and false philosophers, "is incomprehensible or imaginary, and happiness is unattainable in this life." They hold the language of folly and falsehood. Moral truth is the just association of ideas; and a nice calculation respecting future pain and pleasure, is formed from these ideas by judgment, in order to decide the volition to action. Happiness is the state acquired by such operations of the understanding and passions--it is the habit of pleasing emotion, in passing from one enjoyment or pleasure to another.

How heart-cheering is the reflection, that wisdom is self-knowledge, and virtue is self-love! Self-knowledge must precede self-love, and it may be attained without the aid of learning or art. Habits of solitude, contemplation and meditation, cannot fail to produce it in the weakest understandings, if they are long enough continued. They should, however, be frequently interrupted by social enjoyments, lest the understanding should be impaired instead of strengthened, and disgust terrify the mind so as to prevent all inclination for the alternate enjoyments of solitude and society, which confer on each other a reciprocal zest, and render man a more amiable guest, in proportion as he advances by means of meditation towards intellectual existence, or knowledge of

self.

Virtue is the conformation of the volition and judgment in the action of man, to procure happiness to self, and is subject, like the other cardinal principles of wellbeing, to a general standard.

It is an absolute truth, that no man can perform a voluntary act against the sovereignty or happiness of self; and the being that murders self, does it to avoid misery, or to obtain happiness.

The man who puts aliment into his body to preserve it. has the same motive as the man who thrusts a knife intc it to destroy it the former acts to promote its pleasure, the other to obviate its pain; but they are not in an equal degree virtuous or happy, (for the words are synonimous) their virtue must be judged of by circumstances. Was the suicide placed in the prison of the inquisition, from which there was no escape, it would be more virtuous in him to destroy, than to nourish himself; and the man who in such a predicament should take aliment, would be a coward and a traitor to self, considered as a part of the great integer of Nature, entrusted with the management and conduct of a certain proportion of matter, which it becomes an easy, though sacred duty to take care of, and advance in a right line to happiness, either by support or dissolution. Dissolution is the entrance into new life, and not death, which conveys a painful and false idea; for till we can conceive a period to the connection between us and Nature, death can mean nothing but a new mode of connection.

The virtuous man is he who gives the most happiness to the whole moral system, regarding self as the centre, which through the radii of sympathy comprehends the circle or orbit of all sensitive Nature. A being who

shall

cause, or permit any violence to any part of sensitive Nature, has not yet reached the system of intellectual existence, and the man who puts a bridle in the mouth of a horse, however he may justify his conduct, by necessity and custom, is but upon the low scale of being, or animal existence.