sitting or walking, considered in specie, or as a mere attitude or exercise of body, cannot be characterized as right or wrong. Even when considered in individuo, or as done by an agent, with reference to an end, as walking or not walking, for the sake of amusement, an action may be indifferent. But on the other hand, as all moral actions imply knowledge and intention, it is said that they must be either right or wrong. An action considered in specie, is a mere abstraction. A human action is an agent acting deliberately, and his action must either be in accordance with right reason or not.

The Stoics are said to have held that every action is either right or wrong, and that all right actions are equally right and all wrong actions equally wrong. But in themselves and in their circumstances some virtues are more noble and praiseworthy, and some vices more base and odious, than others. (Cicero, De Finibus, lib. iv. cap. 27. Grove, pt. ii. lib. vi. Smith, Theory of Mor. Sent.,

pt. vii. sect. 2, ch. 1. Stewart, Act. and Mor. Pow., book iv. ch. 4, sect. 2.)

The circumstances which may characterize an action as moral, and render the agent more or less worthy of blame or praise, are enumerated in the following versicle:

Quis, quid, ubi, quibus auxiliis, cur, quomodo, quando.

Some things may be done by a magistrate, which cannot be done by a private person. The taking away of human life may be murder, or homicide, or suicide, &c., &c.

An action is said to be materially right, when, without regard to the end or the intention of the agent, the action is in conformity with some moral law or rule. An action is said to be formally right, when the end or the intention of the agent is right, and the action is not materially wrong. For a man to give his goods to feed the poor is materially right, even though he should not have charity or brotherly love; but when he has charity or brotherly love, and throws even a mite into the treasury of the poor, the action is formally right, although, in effect, it may fall short of that which is only materially right.

No action which is materially wrong, and known to he so, can become formally right. To give away what is not our own, does not become right by our intention to show kindness. The intention of an agent is only part of an action. It has its own character of

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rightness or wrongness. But the rightness of the intention cannot be transfused into the matter of an action which is of a different character.1

When moral actions have been done they are (by a term borrowed from arithmetic) imputed to the agent; and according as they are right or wrong, he is praised or blamed, rewarded or punished. The actions are called his actions; and he is regarded as the cause of what has been done or omitted, as the doing or omitting of the thing depended upon him.

KNOWLEDGE and INTENTION are implied in every moral action; and the agent is held responsible, according to the nature and amount of his knowledge of the action and its consequences, and the fulness and freedom of determination with which he acts.

The Knowledge of a moral agent may be defective or erroneous.2 Mistake as to the nature and consequences of actions is Error. Error is said to be vitabilis or inevitabilis, according as the mistake is such as could, or could not, have been avoided, by due diligence as to the means of obtaining knowledge.

Want of knowledge as to actions is Ignorance. In respect of the action, ignorance is called efficacious or concomitant, according as the removal of it would, or would not, prevent the action from being done. In respect of the agent, Ignorance is said to be vincible or invincible, according as it could, or could not be removed, by the use of accessible means of knowledge.

Vincible Ignorance is distinguished into affected or wilful, by which the means of knowing are perversely rejected; and supine or crass, by which the means of knowing are indolently or stupidly neglected.

Ignorance is said to be Invincible in two ways-In itself, and also in its cause; as when a man knows not what he does, through disease of body or of mind. In itself, but not in its cause; as when a man knows not what he does, through intoxication or passion.

In respect of the Intention of the agent, ACTIONS have been distinguished into three classes, viz. :-the Voluntary, the Involuntary, and the Mixed.

A Voluntary action proceeds from a principle intrinsic to the agent, and is done designedly, or with a view to an end. It is in

1 On regulating the motive or intention,

see Pascal, Prov. Letters, Letter VII.

2 To err is to believe what is not. To be

ignorant is simply not to know-nescire.Bossuet, Connaiss., ch. 1, sect. 14.

the power of the agent to do it or not to do it. This he determines by a volition or exercise of will. And whether he act or refrain from acting, he does so knowingly and of purpose.

An Involuntary action proceeds from a principle or cause extrinsic to the agent, and may not imply knowledge nor design. When the agent does not determine to do the action, or when he is compelled to do what he determined not to do, his action is Involuntary-or rather it is no action of his at all. What is done is the action of the party who prevents the agent from determining, or compels him to do what is contrary to the determination of his will.

There are cases, however, in which an agent, while he is free from external impediment or coaction, and while what he does may be said to be done volitionally, yet it is not done with the full consent of his will, nor the full acquiescence of his judgment, but with a degree of reluctance and hesitation, as to the action in its nature and consequences. These are cases of what have been called Mixed actions. They are neither simply and absolutely Voluntary nor Involuntary, but only secundum quid. The throwing overboard of his goods by the mariner, to avoid shipwreck-the delivering up of his purse to a robber, by the traveller, from the fear of being murdered-and, in general, the choosing of a lesser evil in order to escape from a greater-may be given as examples of what have been called Mixed actions.

But, after these distinctions have been taken, it may still be said, that the actions with which the Moralist has to do are Voluntary actions. The causes of these actions are in the agent, and he acts with knowledge and a view to some end. The consent of the will may be more or less full, according as the end is judged to be more or less clearly preferable. But, in all moral action, there is the presence of Knowledge and Intention on the part of the agent. It is only in such cases that the action is imputed to the agent, and he is held to be responsible as the author or cause of the action.

CHAPTER II.

OF PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

ACCORDING to Aristotle (Metaphys., lib. iv. cap. 1), “a principle3 (Apx) is that from whence anything exists, is produced, or is known." Principles have been distinguished into those of BEING and those of KNOWLEDGE-principia essendi and principia cognoscendi.

Principles of Knowledge are those truths by the medium of which other truths come to be known, but which are themselves known immediately.

Principles of Being are distinguished into the principle of Origination and the principle of Dependence.

The only proper principle of Origination is God, who gives essence and existence to all beings. (Hutcheson, Synop. Metaphys., p. 4).

The principle of Dependence is distinguished into that of Causality and that of Inherence—or Effective Dependence, as the effect depends upon its cause, and Subjective Dependence, as the quality inheres or depends on its subject or substance.

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"Of the things which men do of themselves, and of which they are properly the causes," Aristotle says (Rhet., lib. i. cap. 10), some they do through custom and acquired habit, others through original and natural desire." Now, in relation to the things which men do of themselves, and of which they are properly the causes, custom and acquired habit, and original and natural desire, are regarded as Principles; for a principle of action is anything that moves a man, with more or less deliberation or choice, to act.

When applied to human action, the word principle is used in the sense of the principle of Dependence; and to denote that the action depends upon the agent for its being produced. It may signify the dependence of Causality—that is, that the action depends for its production on the agent, as its efficient cause; or it may signify the dependence of Inherence—that is, that the action depends for its production on some power or energy which inheres in the agent

3 "The term Principle is always used for that on which something else depends; and thus both for an original law and for an original element. In the former case it

is a regulative, in the latter a constitutive principle."-Reid's Works, p. 762. Note by Sir William Hamilton.

as its subject. Hence it has been said that a principle of action is twofold-the principium quod-and the principium quo. Thus, man, as an active being, is the principium quod or efficient cause of an action being produced; his will, or the power by which he determines to act, is the principium quo.

But the will itself is stimulated or moved to exert itself; and in this view may be regarded as the principium quod, while that which moves or stimulates it may be regarded as the principium quo. Before we act we deliberate-that is, we contemplate the action in its nature and consequences; we then resolve or determine to do it or not to do it, and the performance or omission follows. Volition, then, or an exercise of will, is the immediate antecedent of action. But the will is called into exercise by certain influences which are brought to bear upon it. Some object of sense or of thought is contemplated. We are affected with pleasure or pain. Feelings of complacency or displacency, of liking or disliking, of satisfaction or disgust, are awakened. Sentiments of approbation or disapprobation are experienced. We pronounce some things to be good, and others to be evil, and feel corresponding inclination or aversion; and under the influence of these states and affections of mind, the will is moved to activity. The forms which these feelings of pleasure or pain, of inclination or tendency, to or from an object, may assume, are many and various; arising partly from the nature of the objects contemplated, and partly from the original constitution and acquired habits of the mind contemplating. But, they are all denominated, in a general way, principles of action; because they are in immediate contact with the will, and have more or less influence upon its determinations.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PRINCIPLES OF KNOWLEDGE AND PRINCIPLES OF ACTION.

"MORAL SCIENCE," says Sir James Mackintosh (Dissert., p. 56, Whewell's Edit.), " is founded on that hitherto unnamed part of the of human nature (to be constantly and vigilantly disIntellectual philosophy) which contemplates the

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