voluptuousness. For such as our actions are, such must our habits become." *

Notwithstanding, however, the truth and the importance of this doctrine, the general principle already stated remains incontrovertible, that in every particular instance our duty consists in doing what appears to us to be right at the time; and if, while we follow this rule, we should incur any blaine, our demerit does not arise from acting according to an erroneous judgment, but from our previous misemployment of the means we possessed for correcting the errors to which our judgment is liable.†

From these principles it follows, that actions, although materially right, are not meritorious with respect to the agent, unless performed from a sense of duty. Aristotle inculcates this doctrine in many parts of his Ethics.‡ To the same purpose, also, Lord Shaftesbury: "In this case alone it is we call any creature worthy or virtuous, when it can attain to the speculation or sense of what is morally good or ill, admirable or blamable, right or wrong. For though we may vulgarly call an ill horse vicious, yet we never say of a good one, nor of any mere changeling or idiot, though never so good-natured, that he is worthy or virtuous. So that if a creature be generous, kind, constant, and compassionate, yet if he cannot reflect on what he himself does or sees others do, so as to take notice of what is worthy and honest, and make that notice or conception of worth and honesty to be an object of his affection, he has not the character of being virtuous, for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of having a sense of right or wrong." §

* Aristotle's Ethics, by Gillies, p. 305.

A distinction similar to that now made between absolute and relative rectitude was expressed among the schoolmen by the phrases material and formal virtue.

See Ethic. Nic., Lib. IV. Cap. i.; Lib. VI. Cap. v.

§ Inquiry concerning Virtue, Book I. Part ii. Sect iii. Dr. Price, in his Review, Chap. VIII., has made a number of judicious observations on this subject; and Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Active Powers, has a particular chapter allotted to the consideration of this very question, "Whether an action deserving moral approbation must be done with the belief of its being morally good?" in which the doctrine he endeavours to establish is precisely the same with that which has been now stated. Compare Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Book III. Part ii. Sect. i., where this conclusion is disputed.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRACTICE OF MORALITY.

I FORMERLY observed that a strong sense of duty, while it leads us to cultivate with care our good dispositions, will induce us to avail ourselves of all the means in our power for the wise regulation of our external conduct. The occasions on which it is necessary for us to employ our reason in this way are chiefly the three following:

1. When we have ground for suspecting that our moral judgments and feelings may have been warped and perverted by the prejudices of education.

I formerly showed that the moral faculty is an original principle of the human constitution, and not the result (as Mandeville and others suppose) of habits superinduced by systems of education planned by politicians and divines. The moral faculty, indeed, like the faculty of reason, (which forms the most essential of its elements,) requires care and cultivation for its development; and, like reason, it has a gradual progress, both in the case of individuals and of societies. But it does not follow from this that the former is a fictitious principle, any more than the latter, with respect to the origin of which I do not know that any doubts have been suggested by the greatest skeptics.

Although, however, the moral faculty is an original part of the human frame, and although the great laws of morality are engraven on every heart, it is not in this way that the greater part of mankind arrive at their first knowledge of them. The infant mind is formed by the care of our early instructors, and for a long time thinks and acts in consequence of the confidence it reposes in their superior judgment. All this is undoubtedly agreeable to the design of Nature; and, indeed, if the case were otherwise, the business of the world could not possibly go on; for nothing can be plainer than this, that the multitude, (at

least as society is actually constituted,) condemned as they are to laborious employments inconsistent with the cultivation of their mental faculties, are wholly incapable of forming their own opinions on the most important questions which can occupy the human mind. It is evident, at the same time, that, as no system of education can be perfect, many prejudices must mingle with the most important and best ascertained truths; and as the truths and the prejudices are both acquired from the same source, the incontrovertible evidence of the one serves, in the progress of human reason, to support and confirm the other. Hence the suspicious and jealous eye with which we ought to regard all those principles which we have at first adopted without due examination, a duty doubly incumbent on those whose opinions are likely, from their rank and situation in society, to influence those of the multitude, and whose errors may eventually be instrumental in impairing the morals and the happiness of generations yet unborn.

2. A second instance in which the exercise of reason may be requisite for an enlightened discharge of our duty occurs in those cases where there appears to be an interference between different duties, and where of course it seems to be necessary to sacrifice one duty to another.

In the course of the foregoing speculations, I have frequently taken notice of the coincidence of all our virtuous principles of action in pointing out to us the same line of conduct; and of the systematical consistency and harmony which they have a tendency to produce in the moral character. Notwithstanding, however, this general and indisputable fact, it must be owned that cases sometimes occur in which they seem at first view to interfere with each other, and in which, of consequence, the exact path of duty is not altogether so obvious as it commonly is. Thus, every man feels it incumbent on him to have a constant regard to the welfare of society, and also to his own happiness. On the whole, these two interests will be found, by the most superficial inquirer, to be inseparably connected; but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that cases may be fancied in which it seems necessary to make a sacrifice of the one to the other.

In such cases, when the public happiness is very great, and the private comparatively inconsiderable, there is no room for hesitation; but the former may be easily conceived to be diminished, and the latter to be increased, to such an amount as to render the exact propriety of conduct very doubtful; more especially when it is considered, that, cæteris paribus, a certain degree of preference to ourselves is not only justifiable, but morally right. In like manner the attachments of nature or of friendship, or the obligations of gratitude, of veracity, or of justice, may interfere with private or public good; and it may not be easy to say, whether all of these obligations may not sometimes be superseded by paramount considerations of utility. At least, these are points on which moralists have been arguing for some thousands of years, without having yet come to a determination in which all parties are agreed. It is much in the same manner that the different foundations of property may give rise to different claims; and it may be exceedingly difficult to determine, among a variety of titles, which of them is entitled to a preference over the others.

The consideration of these nice and puzzling questions in the science of ethics has given rise in modern times to a particular department of it, distinguished by the title of casuistry.

3. When the ends at which our duty prompts us to aim are to be accomplished by means which require choice and deliberation.

Even if the whole of virtue consisted in following steadily one principle of action, still reason would be necessary to direct us to the means. The truth is, nature only recommends certain ends, leaving to ourselves the selection of the most efficient means by which these ends may be obtained. Thus all moralists, whatever may be their particular system, agree in this, that it is one of the chief branches of our duty to promote to the utmost of our power the happiness of that society of which we are members; but the most ardent zeal for the attainment of this object can be of no avail, unless reason be employed both in ascertaining what are the real constituents of social and political happiness, and by what means this happiness may be most effectually advanced and secured.

It is owing to the last of these considerations that the study of happiness, both private and public, becomes an important part of the science of ethics. Indeed, without this study, the best dispositions of the heart, whether relating to ourselves or to others, may be in a great measure useless.

The subject of happiness, so far as relates to the individual, has been already considered. The great extent and difficulty of those inquiries which have for their object to ascertain what constitutes the happiness of a community, and by what means it may be most effectually promoted, make it necessary to separate them from the other questions of ethics, and to form them into a distinct branch of the science.

It is not, however, in this respect alone that politics is connected with the other branches of moral philosophy. The provisions which Nature has made for the intellectual and moral progress of the species all suppose the existence of the political union; and the particular form which this union happens in the case of any community to assume, determines many of the most important circumstances in the character of the people, and many of those opinions and habits which affect the happiness of private life.

These observations, which represent politics as a branch of moral philosophy, have been sanctioned by the opinions of all those authors, both in ancient and modern times, by whom either the one or the other has been cultivated with much success. Among the former it is sufficient to mention the names of Plato and Aristotle, both of whom, but more especially the latter, have left us works on the general principles of policy and government, which may be read with the highest advantage at the present day. As to Socrates, his studies seem to have been chiefly directed to inculcate the duties of private life; and yet, in the beautiful enumeration which Xenophon has given of his favorite pursuits, the science of politics is expressly mentioned as an important branch of the philosophy of human nature. "As for himself, man, and what related to man, were the only subjects on which he chose to employ himself. To this purpose, all his inquiries and conversations turned on what was pious, what impious; what honorable,