other men, or by studying our own. In the former way, we may undoubtedly collect many useful hints, and many facts to confirm or to limit our conclusions; but the conjectures we form concerning the motives of others are liable to so much uncertainty, that it is chiefly by attending to what passes in our own minds that we can reasonably hope to ascertain the general laws of our constitution as active and moral beings.

Even this plan of study, however, as I already hinted, requires uncommon perseverance, and still more uncommon candor. The difficulty is great of attending to any of the operations of the mind; but this difficulty is much increased in those cases in which we are led by vanity or timidity to fancy that we have an interest in concealing the truth from our own knowledge.

Most men, perhaps, are disposed, in consequence of these and some other causes, to believe themselves better than they really are; and a few, there is reason to suspect, go into the opposite extreme, from the influence of false systems of philosophy or religion, or from the gloomy views inspired by a morbid melancholy.

When to these considerations we add the endless metaphysical disputes on the subject of the will, and of man's free agency, it may easily be conceived that the field of inquiry upon which we are now to enter abounds with questions not less curious and intricate than any of those which have been hitherto under our review. In point of practical importance some of them will be found in a still higher degree entitled to our attention.

In the further prosecution of this subject, I shall avoid, as much as possible, all technical divisions and classifications, and shall content myself with the following enumeration of our Active Principles, which I hope will be found sufficiently distinct and comprehensive for our purposes.

1. Appetites.

2. Desires.

3. Affections.

4. Self-love.

5. The Moral faculty.

The three first may be distinguished (for a reason which will afterwards appear) by the title of Instinctive or Implanted Propensities; the two last by the title of Rational and Governing Principles of Action.*

In the above enumeration I have departed widely from Dr. Reid's language. (See his Essays on the Active Powers, Essay 3d, Parts 1st, 2d, and 3d.) This great philosopher, with whom I am always unwilling to differ, refers our active principles to three classes, the Mechanical, the Animal, and the Rational; using all these three words with what I think a very exceptionable latitude. My reasons for objecting to the use he makes of the words animal and rational will appear in the sequel. On this occasion I shall only observe, that the word mechanical (under which he comprehends our instinct and habits) cannot, in my opinion, be properly applied to any of our active principles. It is indeed used, in this instance, merely as a term of distinction; but it seems to imply some theory concerning the nature of the principles comprehended under it, and is apt to suggest incorrect notions on the subject. If I had been disposed to examine this part of our constitution with all the minute accuracy of which it is susceptible, I should have preferred the following arrangement to that which I have adopted, as well as to that proposed by Dr. Reid. 1. Of our original principles of action. 2. Of our acquired principles of action. The original principles of action may be subdivided into the animal and the rational; to the former of which classes our instincts ought undoubtedly to be referred as well as our appetites. In Dr. Reid's arrangement, nothing appears more unaccountable, if not capricious, than to call our appetites animal principles, because they are common to man and to the brutes; and, at the same time, to distinguish our instincts by the title of mechanical;—when, of all our active propensities, there are none in which the nature of man bears so strong an analogy to that of the lower animals as in these instinctive impulses. Indeed, it is from the condition of the brutes that the word instinct is transferred to that of man by a sort of figure or metaphor.

Our acquired principles of action comprehend all those propensities to act which we acquire from habit. Such are our artificial appetites and artificial desires, and the various factitious motives of human conduct generated by association and fashion. At present, it being useless for any of the purposes which I have in view to attempt so comprehensive and detailed an examination of the subject, I shall confine myself to the general enumeration already mentioned. As our appetites, our desires, and our affections, whether original or acquired, stand in the same common relation to the Moral Faculty, (the illustration of which is the chief object of this volume,) I purposely avoid those slighter and less important subdivisions which might be thought to savour unnecessarily of scholastic subtilty.

BOOK FIRST.

OF OUR INSTINCTIVE PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

CHAPTER FIRST.

OF OUR APPETITES.

THIS class of our Active Principles is distinguished by the following circumstances.

1. They take their rise from the body, and are common to us with the brutes.

2. They are not constant but occasional.

3. They are accompanied with an uneasy sensation, which is strong or weak in proportion to the strength or weakness of the appetite.

Our appetites are three in number, hunger, thirst, and the appetite of sex. Of these, two were intended for the preservation of the individual; the third for the continuation of the species; and without them reason would have been insufficient for these important purposes. Suppose, for example, that the appetite of hunger had been no part of our constitution, reason and experience might have satisfied us of the necessity of food to our preservation; but how should we have been able, without an implanted principle, to ascertain, according to the varying state of our animal economy, the proper seasons for eating, or the quantity of food that is salutary to the body? The lower animals not only receive this information from nature, but are, moreover, directed by instinct to the particular sort of food that is proper for them to use in health and in sickness. The senses of taste and smell, in the savage state of our species, are subservient, at least in some degree, to the same purpose.

Our appetites can, with no propriety, be called selfish,

for they are directed to their respective objects as ultimate ends, and they must all have operated, in the first instance, prior to any experience of the pleasure arising from their gratification. After this experience, indeed, the desire of enjoyment will naturally come to be combined with the appetite; and it may sometimes lead us to stimulate or provoke the appetite with a view to the pleasure which is to result from indulging it. Imagination, too, and the association of ideas, together with the social affections, and sometimes the moral faculty, lend their aid, and all conspire together in forming a complex passion, in which the animal appetite is only one ingredient. In proportion as this passion is gratified, its influence over the conduct becomes the more irresistible, (for all the active determinations of our nature are strengthened by habit) till at last we struggle in vain against its tyranny. A man so enslaved by his animal appetites exhibits humanity in one of its most miserable and contemptible forms.

As an additional proof of the misery of such a state, it is of great importance to remark, that, while habit strengthens all our active determinations, it diminishes the liveliness of our passive impressions;-a remarkable instance of which occurs in the effects produced by an immoderate use of strong liquors, which, at the same time that it confirms the active habit of intemperance, deadens and destroys the sensibility of the palate. In consequence of this law of our nature the evils of excessive indulgence are doubled, inasmuch as our sensibility to pleasure decays in proportion as the cravings of appetite increase.

In general, it will be found, that, wherever we attempt to enlarge the sphere of enjoyment beyond the limits prescribed by nature, we frustrate our own purpose.

A man so enslaved by his appetites may undoubtedly, in one sense, be called selfish; for, as he must necessarily neglect the duties he owes to others, he may be presumed to be deficient in the benevolent affections. But it cannot be said of him that he is actuated by an inordinate self-love, (meaning by that word an excessive regard for his own happiness) for he sacrifices

to the meanest gratifications all the noblest pleasures of which he is susceptible, and sacrifices to the pleasure of the moment the permanent enjoyments of health, reputation, and conscience. This is true even when the desire of gratification is combined with the original appetite; for no two principles can be more widely at variance than the desire of gratification and the desire of happiness.

Of the errors introduced into morals, in consequence of the vague use of the words selfishness and self-love, I shall afterwards take notice. What I wish chiefly to remark at present is, that in no sense of these words can we refer to them the origin of our animal appetites ; and that the active propensities comprehended under this title are ultimate facts in the human constitution.

Besides our natural appetites we have many acquired ones. Such are our appetite for tobacco, for opium, and for other intoxicating drugs. In general, every thing that stimulates the nervous system produces a subsequent languor, which gives rise to a desire of repetition.

The universality of this appetite for intoxicating drugs is a curious fact in the history of our species. "It seems," says Dr. Robertson, "to have been one of the first exertions of human ingenuity to discover some composition of an intoxicating quality; and there is hardly any nation so rude, or so destitute of invention, as not to have succeeded in this fatal research. The most barbarous of the American tribes have been so unfortunate as to attain this art; and even those who are so deficient in knowledge as to be unacquainted with the method of giving an inebriating strength to liquors by fermentation can accomplish the same end by other means. The people of the islands of North America and of California used for this purpose the smoke of tobacco, drawn up with a certain instrument into the nostrils, the fumes of which ascending to the brain, they felt all the transports and frenzy of intoxication. In almost every part of the new world the natives possessed the art of extracting an intoxicating liquor from Maize, or the Manioc root, the same