objections may be urged against principles asserted in this treatise. If it appears that it has neither been attempted to answer such objections, nor indeed at all times to prove assertions, it is not necessarily because I am insensible of difficulties which may occur, or of solutions that may be offered, or of proofs that may be required: but it has seemed desirable to compress the materials which lay at hand into as short a space as possible, and to exhibit a succinct view of the whole subject proposed.

It may, however, be proper to introduce a few prefatory remarks, which will perhaps tend to smoothe difficulties, and which, being presented in this place, will not interfere with the thread of the main argument.

In the notion of a moral sense it is implied that men have a natural perception of right and wrong, together with a natural recognition of the former and rejection of the latter; and that they thus approve or disapprove of actions. Against this it is objected: When a child is born into the world, he is totally ignorant of all relations and objects contemplated in the

ideas of virtue and vice. What notions can an infant have of chastity, covetousness, cruelty?

To which, as regards practical purposes, is it not a sufficient reply to say, These considerations do not shew that God, judging of the actions of man, may not accuse him as having conducted himself in a manner contrary to the sense of justice, i. e. the law of nature written in his heart? And though, from not having enjoyed the advantages of proper mental culture, whole bodies and classes of men may have recognised principles altogether wrong; yet this does not appear to shake the conviction that there is such a thing as a sense of justice to which the Creator may refer as intended to dwell in our hearts. In regard to the wild boy whom Paley mentions,* the question seems to be, not whether when first caught he would feel a disapprobation of wickedness, but whether when duly trained and instructed an appeal might not be made to his conscience. So with respect to an infant, not whether at his birth he discriminates, but whether as he

* Paley's Moral Philosophy, Bk. 1. chap. 4.

grows up, being properly disciplined, he does not acknowledge moral distinctions. It is very possible indeed that there may be a latent moral sense in the human mind which time and culture develop. If a seed lies buried in the earth, and in process of time, under the influence of the sun and rain, becomes at last a plant, what is the explanation of the phenomenon? In a child just born there are no traces of reason, no proofs of intelligence to distinguish him from a puppy.* Yet who would assert that reason is not naturally inherent in man? But whether the intellectual and moral powers be or be not latent in the infant, may perhaps seem rather a question of curious speculation than of real utility: and the time at which the moral sense is exhibited may be thought indifferent to our argument, provided that at length it does indeed appear; that, anterior to such appearance, there is no call for it, no responsibility respecting it; and that when exhibited, God can with propriety refer to it as shewing His will.

*See Reid's Essays.

It is admitted that God has endowed man with certain higher faculties, which elevate him above the brutes. Suppose now that when he is placed in a state of society, and made acquainted with various truths in which he is more or less concerned, the necessities of his condition, together with the exercise of these higher faculties and the operation of any spiritual influences received from God, produce a result, i. e. a peculiar tone of mind. Suppose that at all times and in all places he, as it were instinctively, acknowledges veracity, justice, regard to common good, as principles which ought to regulate human conduct. Does it not therefore follow that God, having intended these necessities of society, having instructed the mind to which He originally gave its powers, has now at least imposed a law for the observance of which He may justly hold man responsible? What if savage nations do recognise principles which we abominate? If the wild man caught in the woods be totally unfit for our state of society? If God, for the furtherance of wise purposes, has given one species of trial to one person or nation, another

b

to another? We at least are not exempt from our own responsibilities. Christianity is revealed to some nations, is not revealed to others. Some men are born where religion in its purest form prevails. Others, though nominally Christians, are brought up in ignorance and bigotry; persecute, and are persecuted. Even in England, in our own day, some enjoy the highest advantages of leisure, civilization, education, intellect; others, sunk in poverty, are therefore naturally deprived of high mental cultivation. Still the Judge is just, and every one is answerable according to his powers and opportunities.

Nevertheless, under all circumstances, how ready is the human heart to admit appeals to certain primary principles, if those appeals are well and wisely made. However untruly, unjustly, cruelly a man may be acting, yet he will hardly with barefaced callousness avow that he is untrue, unjust, cruel; that it is his will and pleasure so to be: but he will endeavour to palliate his enormities, to reconcile, sophistically it is true, still to reconcile his proceedings with what he admits to be the law given for his obedience, or, "with necessity, the