character from their own eyes. No man ever, in soliloquy or private meditation, avowed to himself that he was a villain; nor do I believe that such a character as Joseph in the School for Scandal, (who is introduced as reflecting coolly on his own knavery and baseness, without any uneasiness but what arises from the dread of detection,) ever existed in the world. Such men probably impose on themselves fully as much as they do upon others. Hence the various artifices of self-deceit, which Butler has so well described in his discourses on that subject.'

"We may defend villany," says Lord Shaftesbury, as quoted by Dugald Stewart, "and cry up folly before the world. But to appear fools, madmen, or varlets to ourselves, and prove it to our own faces that we are really such, is insupportable. For so true a reverence has every one for himself when he comes clearly to appear before his close companion, that he had rather profess the vilest things of himself in open company than hear his character privately from his own mouth. So that we may readily from hence conclude, that the chief interest of ambition, avarice, corruption, and every sly insinuating vice, is to prevent this interview and familiarity of discourse which is consequent upon close retirement and inward recess."

The metaphorical application of words, the frequent interchange of terms between the Moral and the Physical Sciences, has tended greatly to obscure and perplex the subject of which we are now treating, and to cover up some essential differences which would otherwise appear in the clearest light to the understanding. A statement of these differences and distinctions may serve to elucidate the theory of human nature, and to show how we are related to the natural world at the same time that we are subjects of a moral government. The object of the physical sciences, and of the intellect generally in its searches after truth, is to answer the question, What is? All degrees of probability or certainty attend our answers to this inquiry, and serve only to mark how successful we have been in the undertaking. We en

* Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers, p. 205.

deavour not only to ascertain facts, but to arrange and classify them with a view to their mutual relations; and the use of general terms enables us to make comprehensive statements of the results of our study, and to store them up in a form convenient for future reference. Such statements are often called laws, and are said to govern all the cases which are merely included under them. From the idea of government we pass naturally to that of influence and production, or causation; and the law, or general statement, is then said to cause all the particular facts which it comprehends. Unable to find the true cause, we assign a fictitious one, which is at first recognized by the understanding to be fictitious, but which comes at last to claim as its own the character which it had only borrowed.

The object of ethical science, and of the moral faculty generally, is quite distinct from this; here we ask, What ought to be? our aim being not so much to satisfy our curiosity as to regulate our conduct. We seek to ascertain "the rules which ought to govern voluntary action, and to which those habitual dispositions of mind which are the source of voluntary actions ought to be adapted." The conception of duty, and of absolute right, which then comes before the mind, corresponds to nothing physical, and has no archetype in the external universe. We enter a new world here; we may ask for the cause of a fact, an event; but it is irrelevant and absurd to inquire after the cause of an obligation. Duty is not caused, for it never began to be; it has existed from eternity. We cannot even conceive of a period when justice was not, or will not be, obligatory upon every being capable of understanding what justice requires. Upon the idea or feeling expressed by the word ought the whole science of morals depends. It differs not in degree, but in kind, from desire and appetite, so that these can never really come in competition with it. In truth, it does not admit of degrees, for there are no half-way obligations; conscience either speaks absolutely, or not at all. I am obliged either to cultivate a certain disposition of mind, or to repress it, if it be not indifferent in a moral point of view whether it be cultivated or not. The de

sires, on the other hand, exist in all conceivable degrees, from the faintest shade of inclination up to the strong passion which takes the reason prisoner.

It is only when the dictates of conscience are drawn out into the form of propositions, and stated as general laws, that any question can arise as to their certainty. Even then, the question would not be hard to answer. The intellect, we know, must begin with propositions which it cannot prove, because nothing more evident or certain can be found on which to rest the argument. That which is self-evident is not, surely, to be deemed inferior to that which requires to be supported by other evidence before we can receive and act upon it. He who can seriously distrust the evidence of his senses, or doubt his own identity, or deny that every event must have a cause, must be permitted, also, to exercise his skepticism as to the grounds of morality, and to maintain that he sees no reason why we should sometimes be obliged to sacrifice ourselves for others, or to submit our compassionate or benevolent impulses to the sense of duty and justice. It would avail nothing, if we were to hold up general expediency, or the command of God, as such a reason. He who cannot recognize the independent nature and entire supremacy of moral obligation, as such, will never yield to considerations like these, which have in fact no weight, unless a sense of duty be taken for granted. We cannot argue with those who will not first admit the principles upon which all reasoning is founded.

But fortunately for the world, skepticism in morals can never be any thing more than a diversion or a whim. The matter is exclusively a practical one. We are not concerned here about the truth of propositions, and therefore cannot be perplexed by the artifices of the logician and the sophist. Whether we know the meaning of words or not, we cannot but be conscious that we are urged to do and to refrain from doing certain things by a principle which is not coincident with self-love, but often runs counter to it, and assumes to moderate and restrain it with absolute authority. Call this principle what we may, its existence

is a fact attested by consciousness; and whether we submit to its guidance or not, we cannot but be conscious that it puts forth a higher claim to our obedience than all other motives and springs of action united. No one had a clearer perception of this fact, or avowed it more frankly, than Hume himself.

"Those," says he, "who have denied the reality of moral distinctions may be ranked among the disingenuous disputants; nor is it conceivable, that any human creature could ever seriously believe that all characters and actions were alike entitled to the regard and affection of every one.

"Let a man's insensibility be ever so great, he must often be touched with the images of right and wrong; and let his prejudices be ever so obstinate, he must observe that others are susceptible of like impressions. The only way, therefore, of convincing an antagonist of this kind, is to leave him to himself. For, finding that nobody keeps up the controversy with him, it is probable he will at last, of himself, from mere weariness, come over to the side of common sense and reason."

LECTURE V.

THE NATURE OF MORAL GOVERNMENT.

THE object of my last Lecture was to explain the nature and operations of that faculty by the possession of which, even more than by the gift of reason, man is raised above all the other orders of created being with which we are acquainted. Conscience, I endeavoured to show, is the inlet of a new set of ideas, which differ as widely from those which are furnished by the intellect, as the perceptions of vision do from those of touch and hearing. The object of the intellect is truth; that of conscience is duty. The former teaches us what is; the latter shows us what ought to be. The moral faculty is universal; for the most depraved and wicked person that ever lived is not ignorant of what the words ought and duty mean, though he may not heed them in his conduct. The uninstructed or perverted understanding may apply them wrongfully; but, however applied, their obligatory or binding character is always recognized. The idea of duty or moral obligation is simple or uncompounded; it does not admit of definition, because it is not susceptible of analysis, or of division into parts. Hence, it is not communicable by instruction; if it did not already exist in the infant mind, all the teaching in the world could never place it there, any more than mere words could inform a man what the color yellow is, if he had never seen a yellow object. In the latter case, indeed, the senses give us the necessary information; having once seen the unclouded sky, or the distant hills, or the deep ocean, I can