INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.

Of the two causes of our deviations from rectitude-want of knowledge and want of virtue-the latter is undoubtedly the more operative. Want of knowledge is, however, sometimes a cause; nor can this be any subject of wonder when it is recollected in what manner many of our notions of right and wrong are acquired. From infancy, every one is placed in a sort of moral school, in which those with whom he associates, or of whom he hears, are the teachers. That the learner in such a school will often be taught amiss, is plain: so that we want information respecting our duties. To supply this information is an object of moral philosophy, and is attempted in the present work.

When it is considered by what excellences the existing treatises on moral philosophy are recommended, there can remain but one reasonable motive for adding yet another-the belief that these treatises have not exhibited the principles and enforced the obligations of morality in all their perfection and purity. Perhaps the frank expression of this belief is not inconsistent with that deference which it becomes every man to feel when he addresses the public; because, not to have entertained such a belief, were to have possessed no reason for writing. The desire of supplying the deficiency, if deficiency there be; of exhibiting a true and authoritative standard of rectitude, and of estimating the moral character of human actions by an appeal to that standard, is the motive which has induced the composition of these Essays.

In the FIRST ESSAY the writer has attempted to investigate the Principles of Morality. In which term is here included, first, the ultimate standard of right and wrong; and secondly, those subordinate rules to which we are authorized to apply for the direction of our conduct in life. In these investigations, he has been solicitous to avoid any approach to curious or metaphysical inquiry. He has endeavoured to act upon the advice given by Tindal the reformer to his friend John Frith: "Pronounce not or define of hid secrets, or things that neither help nor hinder whether it be so or no; but stick you stiffly and stubbornly in earnest and necessary things."

In the SECOND ESSAY these principles of morality are applied in the determination of various questions of personal and relative duty. In making this application it has been far from the writer's desire to deliver a system of morality. Of the unnumbered particulars to which this essay might have been extended, he has therefore made a selection; and in making it, has chosen those subjects which appeared peculiarly to need the inquiry, either because the popular or philosophical opinions respecting them appeared to be unsound, or because they were commonly little adverted to in the practice of life. Form has been sacrificed to utility. Many great duties have been passed over, since no one questions their obligation; nor has the author so little consulted the pleasure of the reader as

* B

26

INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.

to expatiate upon duties simply because they are great. The reader will also regard the subjects that have been chosen, as selected, not only for the purpose of elucidating the subjects themselves, but as furnishing illustrations of the general principles :-as the compiler of a book of mathematics proposes a variety of examples, not merely to discover the solution of the particular problem, but to familiarize the application of his general rule.

Of the THIRD ESSAY, in which some of the great questions of political rectitude have been examined, the subjects are in themselves sufficiently important. The application of sound and pure moral principles to questions of government, of legislation, of the administration of justice, or of religious establishments, is manifestly of great interest; and the interest is so much the greater because these subjects have usually been examined, as the writer conceives, by other and very different standards.

The reader will probably find, in each of these essays, some principles or some conclusions respecting human duties to which he has not been accustomed some opinions called in question which he has habitually regarded as being indisputably true, and some actions exhibited as forbidden by morality which he has supposed to be lawful and right. In such cases I must hope for his candid investigation of the truth, and that he will not reject conclusions but by the detection of inaccuracy in the reasonings from which they are deduced. I hope he will not find himself invited to alter his opinions or his conduct without being shown why; and if he is conclusively shown this, that he will not reject truth because it is new or unwelcome.

With respect to the present influence of the principles which these essays illustrate, the author will feel no disappointment if it is not great. It is not upon the expectation of such influence that his motive is founded or his hope rests. His motive is, to advocate truth without reference to its popularity; and his hope is, to promote, by these feeble exertions, an approximation to that state of purity, which he believes it is the design of God shall eventually beautify and dignify the condition of mankind.

ESSAY I.

PART I.

PRINCIPLES OF MORALITY

CHAPTER I.

MORAL OBLIGATION.

THERE is little hope of proposing a definition of moral obligation which shall be satisfactory to every reader; partly because the phrase is the representative of different notions in individual minds. No single definition can, it is evident, represent various notions; and there are probably no means by which the notions of individuals respecting moral obligation, can be adjusted to one standard. Accordingly, while attempts to define it have been very numerous, all probably have been unsatisfac tory to the majority of mankind.

Happily this question, like many others upon which the world is unable to agree, is of little practical importance. Many who dispute about the definition, coincide in their judgments of what we are obliged to do and to forbear and so long as the individual knows that he is actually the subject of moral obligation, and actually responsible to a superior power, it is not of much consequence whether he can critically explain in what moral obligation consists.

The writer of these pages, therefore, makes no attempts at strictness of definition. It is sufficient for his purpose that man is under an obligation to obey his Creator; and if any one curiously asks "Why?"-he answers, that one reason at least is, that the Deity possesses the power, and evinces the intention, to call the human species to account for their actions, and to punish or reward them.

There may be, and I believe there are, higher grounds upon which a sense of moral obligation may be founded; such as the love of goodness for its own sake, or love and gratitude to God for his beneficence: nor is it unreasonable to suppose that such grounds of obligation are opecially approved by the universal Parent of mankind.

28

NOTICES OF THEORIES.

CHAPTER II.

STANDARD OF RIGHT AND WRONG.

It is obvious that to him who seeks the knowledge of his duty, the first inquiry is, What is the rule of duty? what is the standard of right and wrong? Most men, or most of those with whom we are concerned, agree that this standard consists in the will of God. But here the coincidence of opinion stops. Various and very dissimilar answers are given to the question-How is the will of God to be discovered? These diferences lead to differing conclusions respecting human duty. All the proposed modes of discovering his will cannot be the best nor the right; and those which are not right, are likely to lead to erroneous conclusions respecting what his will is.

It becomes therefore a question of very great interest,-How is the will of God' to be discovered? and, if there should appear to be more sources than one from which it may be deduced,-What is that source which, in our investigations, we are to regard as paramount to every other?

THE WILL OF GOD.

When we say that most men agree in referring to the will of God as the standard of rectitude, we do not mean that all those who have framed systems of moral philosophy have set out with this proposition as their fundamental rule; but we mean that the majority of mankind do really believe (with whatever indistinctness), that they ought to obey the will of God; and that, as it respects the systems of philosophical men, they will commonly be found to involve, directly or indirectly, the same belief. He who says that the "understanding"* is to be our moral guide, is not far from saying that we are to be guided by the Divine will; because the understanding, however we define it, is the offspring of the Divine counsels and power. When Adam Smith resolves moral obligation into propriety arising from feelings of "sympathy," the conclusion is not very different; for these feelings are manifestly the result of that constitution which God gave to man. When Bishop Butler says that we ought to live according to nature, and make conscience the judge whether we do so live or not, a kindred observation arises, for the existence and nature of conscience must be referred ultimately to the Divine will. Dr. Samuel Clarke's philosophy is, that moral obligation is to be referred to the eternal and necessary differences of things. This might appear less obviously to have respect to the Divine will, yet Dr. Clarke himself subsequently says, that the duties which these eternal differences of things impose," are also the express and unalterable will, command, and law of God to his creatures, which he cannot but expect should be observed by them in obedience to his supreme authority." Very simi.

* Dr. Price: Review of Principal Questions in Morals. † Theory of Moral Sentiments. † Evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion.

CHAP. 2.]

NOTICES OF THEORIES.

29

lar is the practical doctrine of Wollaston. His theory is, that moral good and evil consist in a conformity or disagreement with truth" in treating every thing as being what it is." But then he says, that to act by this rule" must be agreeable to the will of God, and if so, the contrary must be disagreeable to it, and, since there must be perfect rectitude in his will, certainly wrong." "It is the same with Dr. Paley, in his far-famed doctrine of expediency. "It is the utility of any action alone which constitutes the obligation of it;" but this very obligation is deduced from the Divine benevolence; from which it is attempted to show, that a regard to utility is enforced by the will of God. Nay, he says expressly, Every duty is a duty towards God, since it is his will which makes it a duty."+

Now there is much value in these testimonies, direct or indirect, to the truth-that the will of God is the standard of right and wrong. The indirect testimonies are perhaps the more valuable of the two. He who gives undesigned evidence in favour of a proposition, is less liable to suspicion in his motives.

But, while we regard these testimonies, and such as these, as containing satisfactory evidence that the will of God is our moral law, the intelligent inquirer will perceive that many of the proposed theories are likely to lead to uncertain and unsatisfactory conclusions respecting what that will requires. They prove that his will is the standard, but they do not clearly inform us how we shall bring our actions into juxtaposition with it.

One proposes the understanding as the means; but every observer perceives that the understandings of men are often contradictory in their decisions. Indeed, many of those who now think their understandings dictate the rectitude of a given action, will find that the understandings of the intelligent pagans of antiquity came to very different conclusions. A second proposes sympathy, regulated indeed and restrained, but still sympathy. However ingenious a philosophical system may be, I believe that good men find, in the practice of life, that these emotions are frequently unsafe and sometimes erroneous guides of their conduct. Besides, the emotions are to be regulated and restrained: which of itself intimates the necessity of a regulating and restraining, that is, of a superior power.

necessary

differ

To say we should act according to the "eternal and ences of things," is to advance a proposition which nine persons out of ten do not understand, and of course cannot adopt in practice; and of those who do understand it, perhaps an equal majority cannot apply it, with even tolerable facility, to the concerns of life. Why indeed should a writer propose these eternal differences, if he acknowledges that the rules of conduct which result from them are "the express will and command of God?"

To the system of a fourth, which says that virtue consists in a "conformity of our actions with truth," the objection presents itself—What is truth? or how, in the complicated affairs of life, and in the moment perhaps of sudden temptation, shall the individual discover what truth is? Similar difficulties arise in applying the doctrine of Utility, in “adjusting our actions so as to promote, in the greatest degree, the happiness of mankind." It is obviously difficult to apply this doctrine in practice.

✦ Religion of Nature delineated.

+ Moral and Political Philosophy