ment. No argument is requifite to prove, that to rescue an innocent babe from the jaws of a wolf, to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, are right actions: they are perceived to be fo intuitively. As little is an argument requifite to prove, that murder, deceit, perjury, are wrong actions: they are perceived intuitively to be fo. The Deity has bestow'd on man, different faculties for different purposes. Truth and falfehood are investigated by the reafoning faculty. Beauty and uglinefs are objects of a sense, known by the name of tafte. Right and wrong are objects of a fenfe termed the moral fenfe or confcience. And fuppofing these qualities to be hid from our perception, in vain would we try to discover them by any argument, or procefs of reafoning the attempt. would be abfurd; no lefs fo than an attempt to difcover colour, by reafoning, or tafte, or smell *.

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Right and wrong, as mentioned above, are qualities of voluntary actions, and of no other kind. An inftinctive action is beneficial, is agreeable; but it cannot properly be denominated either right or wrong. An involuntary act is hurtful to the agent, and disagreeable to the fpectator; but in the agent it is neither right nor wrong. Thefe qualities alfo depend in no degree on the event. Thus, if, to fave my friend from drowning, I plunge into a river, the action is right, tho' I happen to come too late.

Every perception muft proceed from fome faculty or power of perception, termed fenfe. The moral fenfe, by which we perceive the qualities of right and wrong, may be confidered either as a branch of the fenfe of feeing, by which we perceive the actions to which thefe qualities belong, or as a fenfe diftinct from all others. The fenfes by which objects are perceived, are not feparated from each other by diftinct boundaries; and the forting or clafling them, feems to depend more on tafte and fancy, than on nature. I have followed the plan laid down by former writers; which is, to confider the moral fenfe as a fenfe diftinct from others, because it is the eafieft and clearest manner of conceiving it.

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And if I aim a ftroke at a man behind his back, the action is wrong, tho' I happen not to touch him.

The qualities of right and of agreeable, are infeparable; and fo are the qualities of wrong and of disagreeable. A right action, accordingly, is agreeable, not only in the direct perception, but equally fo in every fubfequent recollection. And in both circumftances equally, a wrong action is disagreeable.

Right actions are diftinguished by the moral fenfe into two kinds, viz. what ought to be done, and what may be done, or left undone. Wrong actions admit not that distinction: they are all prohibited to be done. To fay that an action ought to be done, means that we are tied or obliged to perform; and to say that an action ought not to be done, means that we are restrained from doing it. Tho' the neceffity implied in the being tied or obliged, is not physical, but only what is commonly termed moral; yet we conceive ourselves deprived of liberty or freedom, and neceffarily bound to act or to forbear acting, in oppofition to every o ther motive. The neceffity here defcribed is termed duty. The moral neceffity we are under to forbear harming the innocent, is a proper example: the moral fenfe declares the restraint to be our duty, which no motive whatever will excuse us for tranfgreffing.

The duty of performing or forbearing any action, implies a right in fome perfon to exact performance of that duty; and accordingly, a duty or obligation neceffarily infers a correfponding right. A promise on my part to pay L. 100, confers a right to demand performance. The man who commits an injury, violates the right of the perfon injured, which entitles him to demand reparation of the wrong.

Duty is twofold; duty to others, and duty to ourselves. With refpect to the former, the doing what we ought to do, is termed juft: the doing what we ought not to do, and the omitting what

we

we ought to do, are termed unjust. With refpect to ourselves, the doing what we ought to do, is termed proper: the doing what we ought not to do, and the omitting what we ought to do, are termed improper. Thus, right, fignifying a quality of certain actions, is a genus; of which just and proper are species: wrong, fignifying a quality of other actions, is a genus; of which unjust and improper are fpecies.

Right actions left to our free will, to be done, or left undone, come next in order. They are, like the former, right when done; but they differ, in not being wrong when left undone. To remit a just debt for the fake of a growing family, to yield a subject in controverfy rather than go to law with a neighbour, generously to return good for ill, are examples of this fpecies. They are univerfally approved as right actions: but as no perfon has a right or title to oblige us to perform fuch actions, the leaving them undone is not a wrong: no perfon is injured by the forbearance. Actions that come under this clafs, fhall be termed arbitrary, for want of a more proper defignation.

So much for right actions, and their divifions. Wrong actions are of two kinds, criminal and culpable. What are done intentionally to produce mifchief, are criminal: fuch rafh or unguarded actions as produce mifchief without intention, are culpable. The former are restrained by punishment, to be handled in the 5th fection; the latter by reparation, to be handled in the 6th.

The divifions of voluntary actions are not yet exhausted. Some there are that, properly speaking, cannot be denominated either right or wrong. Actions done merely for amusement or paftime, without intention to produce good or ill, are of that kind; leaping, for example, running, jumping over a ftick, throwing a stone to make circles in the water. Such actions are neither approved nor difapproved: they may be termed indifferent.

There is no caufe for doubting the existence of the moral fenfe, VOL. II.

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more than for doubting the existence of the sense of beauty, of feeing, or of hearing. In fact, the perception of right and wrong as qualities of actions, is no lefs diftinct and clear, than that of beauty, of colour, or of any other quality; and as every perception is an act of fenfe, the fenfe of beauty is not with greater certainty evinced from the perception of beauty, than the moral sense is from the perception of right and wrong. We find this fenfe diftributed among individuals in different degrees of perfection: but there perhaps never existed any one above the condition of an idiot, who poffeffed it not in fome degree; and were any man entirely deftitute of it, the terms right and wrong would be to him no lefs unintelligible, than the term colour is to one born blind.

That every individual is endued with a sense of right and wrong, more or less distinct, will probably be granted; but whether there be among men what may be termed a common fenfe of right and wrong, producing uniformity of opinion as to right and wrong, is not fo evident. There is no abfurdity in fuppofing the opinions of men about right and wrong, to be as various as about beauty and deformity: and that this fuppofition is not deftitute of foundation, we are led to fufpect, upon difcovering that in different countries, and even in the fame country at different times, the opinions publicly espoused with regard to right and wrong, are extremely various; that among fome nations it was held lawful for a man to fell his children for flaves, and in their infancy to abandon them to wild beafts; that it was held equally lawful to punifh children, even capitally, for the crime of their parent; that the murdering an enemy in cold blood, was once a common practice; that human facrifices, impious no less than immoral according to our notions, were of old univerfal; that even in later times, it has been held meritorious, to inflict cruel torments for the slightest deviations from the religious creed

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of the plurality; and that among the most enlightened nations, there are confiderable differences with refpect to the rules of morality.

These facts tend not to disprove the reality of a common sense in morals: they only prove, that the moral sense has not been equally perfect at all times, nor in all countries. This branch of the history of morality, is referved for the fecond part. To give fome present fatisfaction, I fhall fhortly obferve, that the favage ftate is the infancy of man; during which, the more delicate fenfes lie dormant, leaving nations to the authority of custom, of imitation, and of paffion, without any just taste of morals more than of the fine arts. But nations, like individuals, ripen gradually, and acquire a refined tafte in morals as well as in the fine arts: after which we find great uniformity of opinion about the rules of right and wrong; with few exceptions, but what may proceed from imbecility, or corrupted education. There may be found, it is true, even in the most enlightened ages, men who have fingular notions of morality; and there may be found the like fingularity upon many other fubjects: which no more affords an argument against a common fenfe or standard of right and wrong, than a monster doth against the ftandard that regulates our external form, or than an exception doth against the truth of a general propofition.

That there is in mankind an uniformity of opinion with respect to right and wrong, is a matter of fact of which the only infallible evidence is obfervation and experience: and to that evidence I appeal; entering only a caveat, that, for the reafon above given, the enquiry be confined to enlightened nations. In the mean time, I take liberty to fuggeft an argument from analogy, That if there be great uniformity among the different tribes of men in feeing and hearing, in pleasure and pain, in judging of truth and error, the fame uniformity ought to hold with respect I i2

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