for the general good, and is the first step or idea in the notion of an organized community, and the true basis of every rational political system.

Nothing, however, would be more erroneous than to suppose that law, or the legislator, is, or can be, the sole regulator of society. The moment a community assumes any magnitude, that moment it is broken up into sections, each section or group being a body or class within the greater body. Indeed, this phenomenon, the direct and immediate result of a previous proposition, that man seeks companionship, manifests itself in this, that not merely does he seek and appear to require it, but he selects out of the number that or those individuals whose circumstances, temperaments, and habits, make them his most congenial associates. Examples of this are presented in the family circle, where, whatever may be the affection of the children for their parents, they find in those of their own age a something in common, which instinctively draws them together, and renders them, to a given degree, a community, regulated by two sets of principles, those common to the whole family, and those peculiar to themselves. As the society increases in magnitude, division and subdivision multiply till we find sections and subsections representing every peculiarity of social position and sentiment. The constraining forces of each individual being, 1st, the law common to the whole; 2nd, the general views as to right and wrong, concerning things not within the purview of the laws, e.g. parental affection; and 3rd, the particular views or notions respecting matters peculiar to his special class. We have thus three controlling forces acting upon each individual,-1st, the law; 2nd, the general mo

rality of the community; and, 3rd, the particular morality of his immediate associates, which, to distinguish it, may be termed sectional morality.

Bentham says, Morality in general is the art of directing the actions of men in such a way as to produce the greatest possible sum of good.

'Morality commands each individual to do all that is advantageous to the community, his own personal advantage included. But there are many acts useful to the community which legislation ought not to command. There are also many injurious actions which it ought not to forbid, although morality does so. In a word, legislation has the same centre with morals, but it has not the same circumference.

'There are two reasons for this difference; 1st, legislation can have no direct influence upon the conduct of men, except by punishments. Now these punish

ments are so many evils, which are not justifiable except so far as there results from them a greater sum of good. But, in many cases in which we might desire to strengthen a moral precept by a punishment, the evil of the punishment would be greater than the evil of the offence. The means necessary to carry the law into execution would be of a nature to spread through society a degree of alarm more injurious than the evil intended to be prevented.

'2nd. Legislation is often arrested by the danger of overwhelming the innocent in seeking to punish the guilty. Whence comes this danger? From the difficulty of defining an offence, and giving a clear and precise idea of it. For example, hard-heartedness, ingratitude, perfidy, and other vices which the popular sanction punishes, cannot come under the power of the

law, unless they are defined as exactly as theft, homicide, or perjury."

In addition to the external forces which tend to conform man's conduct to the will of the society of which he is a member, are three native motive principles-acquisitiveness, indolence, and curiosity.

The primary motive principles of man may be reduced to three. Acquisitiveness, inducing exertion; indolence, or the love of repose, the recuperative principle; and the intermediate, or mean principle, of curiosity; to one of which it would appear that every human action may be referred. The first two present, in the most striking manner, the theory of conflicting principles, show that they are natural, and point out their true value, and what I apprehend to be the real basis of the doctrine of utility. To the first the great bulk of human energy is to be ascribed; in the second we see the safety-valve, the point beyond which enterprise cannot safely be carried. The mean principle may be regarded as an auxiliary to each of the others; for while it promotes the aim of the first, it satisfies the demands of the second by discovering the means by which the one may be gratified at the least cost to the other.

Last, but by no means least, in the scale of importance, as an agent of social order and tranquillity, is the fact that the great majority of human actions are purely mechanical or automatic-that is to say, are performed without any direct present effort of the will; they are the result of mere habit. Nor must it be supposed that this action is confined to things in their nature

1 Principles of Legislation, ch. 12. Morals from Legislation.

The Limits which separate

purely mechanical; for, anomalous as it may appear, it is the fact, that by far the greater number of our mental acts are performed in the same manner; the truth of which becomes abundantly clear by reflection. on the conduct of a single day. Were it not for this merciful provision or faculty, human action would either be reduced to a degree difficult to realise, or reason be overthrown. The effect of habit and this automatic action upon social institutions is apparent in our conservative tendencies, which grow in strength as we increase in years. In short, to so great an extent is man the creature of habit, that when habits are once contracted, whether good or bad, it requires an effort, seldom made, to change; thus institutions, old, unsuitable, and even repugnant to the spirit of the times, are suffered to exist, and practices known to be pernicious are persisted in.

Concerning a man's liberty, there yet, therefore, is raised this farther question, Whether a man be free to will? which, I think, is what is meant when it is disputed whether the will be free. And as to that, I imagine that, willing, or volition, being an action, and freedom consisting in a power of acting, or not acting, a man in respect of willing, or the act of volition, when an action in his power is once proposed to his thoughts, as presently to be done, cannot be free. The reason whereof is very manifest; for it being unavoidable that the action depending on his will, should exist, or not exist; and its existence, or not-existence, following perfectly the determination and preference of his will, he cannot avoid willing the existence, or not-existence, of that action. It is absolutely necessary that he will the one, or the other-that is, prefer the one to the other-since

one of them must necessarily follow; and that which does follow, follows by the choice and determination of his mind-that is, by his willing it; for if he did not will it, it would not be. So that, in respect of the act of willing, a man, in such a case, is not free; liberty consisting in a power to act, which, in regard to volition, a man, upon such a proposal, has not. For it is unavoidably necessary, to prefer the doing or forbearance of an action in a man's power, which is once so proposed to his thoughts; a man must necessarily will the one or the other of them, upon which preference or volition, the action, or its forbearance, certainly follows, and is truly voluntary; but the act of volition, or preferring one of the two, being that which he cannot avoid, a man, in respect of that act of willing, is under a necessity, and so cannot be free; unless necessity and freedom can consist together, and a man can be free and bound at once."

What determines the Will? The true and proper answer is, the mind. For that which determines the general power of directing to this or that particular direction, is nothing but the agent itself exercising the power it has that particular way. If this answer satisfies not, it is plain the meaning of the question, What determines the will? is this, What moves the mind, in every particular instance, to determine its general power of directing to this or that particular motion or rest? And to this, I answer, the motive for continuing in the same state or action, is only the present satisfaction in it; the motive to change, is always some uneasiness: nothing setting us upon the change of state, or upon any new action, but some uneasiness. This is the great 1 Human Understanding, Bk. ii. ch. 21, §§ 22, 23.