should encourage an open-hearted and generous Disposition. Sickness, adversity and neglect may, on the contrary, make the temper sour, morose, and melancholy.

"Manners with Fortune, Tempers change with Times."

It only remains to notice that the Opinions or conclusions to which men come concerning the objects and events of ordinary life are formed under the influence of Education, Authority, Example, Fashion, and Popularity. The world, it is said, is governed by Opinion. But this power by which the world is governed is very much of its own making. And in nothing is the extensive influence of Association and Habit—that is, the effect of the law of Repetition or Custom-more clearly seen than in the different Opinions which, according to a difference of circumstances, prevail in different countries, and communities, and professions, and individuals. (Hutcheson On the Passions, sect. 1; King, Essay on Evil, Prelim. Dissert., p. 42; Tucker, Light of Nature, chapter on Translation or Transference.)

BOOK II.

OF THE GUIDES OF HUMAN ACTION.

"Inter hominem et belluam hoc maxime interest, quod hæc tantum, quantum sensu movetur, ad id solum, quod adest, quodque præsens est, se accommodat, paullulum admodum sentiens præteritum aut futurum. Homo autem, quod rationis est particeps, per quam consequentia cernit, causas rerum videt, earumque progressus, et quasi antecessiones non ignorat, similitudines comparat, et rebus præsentibus adjungit atque annectit futuras; facile totius vitæ cursum videt, ad eamque degendam præparat res necessarias."-CICERO, De Officiis, lib. i. cap. 4.

"That principle by which we survey, and either approve or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only to be considered as what is in its turn to have some influence-which may be said of every passion, of the lowest appetite; but likewise as being superior, as from its very nature manifestly claiming superiority over all others; insomuch that you cannot form a notion of this faculty, Conscience, without taking in judgment, direction, superintendency. This is a constituent part of the idea-that is, of the faculty itself: and to preside and govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, belongs to it. Had it strength, as it has right; had it power, as it has manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the world."-BUTLER, Sermon II., On Human Nature.

AMONG the various springs of Action there is no subordination nor government; but each, in its turn, prompts to its own particular end or gratification, and is satisfied for a time when that has been gained; and not till it has been gained. A creature with no other principles of action but such as have been denominated Springs, would be hurried impulsively from one thing to another, without any scheme of life or plan of conduct; and without being able to resist or control the impulse which was strongest at the time. Such seem to be the nature and condition of the inferior animals. They are altogether under the influence of sense and feeling, and are carried from one object, or one act, to another, according to the impulse which is strongest, and without deliberation or free choice.

But the nature and condition of man are altogether different. Ho

is subject, no doubt, to many incitements, which prompt him to act with quick and decisive impulse. But, even in doing so, he is not hurried blindly headlong. He has light and power within him, which enable him both to see his way, and how to walk in it. In short, man has not only principles which impel him to act, but also principles which direct and regulate his actions. He has not only Springs, but also Guides of action; and it is to the consideration of these latter that we now come.

The principles which assume the guidance and assert a control over human conduct are chiefly two, namely, Reason and Conscience. The ends at which they aim are, what is Advantageous and what is Right. In prosecuting the former, we are said to act from a Sense of Prudence, and in prosecuting the latter, from a Sense of Duty. These two principles are so very much alike, that, by many, they have been regarded as one and the same. The ends at which they aim coincide; and what is Right is also Advantageous. Reason and Conscience resemble each other, in their nature and operation, as powers or faculties of the mind; carrying us forward with deliberation and calmness, in the course of action to which they point. But, notwithstanding the resemblance and affinity between them, they are two distinct principles. What seems Advantageous may differ from what seems Right. To act from a regard to Interest is one thing; to act from a sense of Duty is another thing; and, therefore, it will be proper to treat of them separately.

CHAPTER I.

OF A SENSE OF PRUDENCE, OR A REGARD TO WHAT IS
ADVANTAGEOUS.

THIS is a principle which can be found only in a rational being. Appetite and Desire, Passion and Affection, in themselves considered, are mere states of feeling, moving us to act in one way. But when we act from a Regard to what is most for our Advantage, we contemplate ourselves as ends, and other things as means subordinate to us, and select and employ them accordingly; that is, we act reasonably, or employ the faculties which belong to us rational beings. Without the powers of Understanding and Reason we could not frame the

conception of what is most for our advantage, nor make it the end or aim of our actions. It is common, indeed, to say that every living creature naturally seeks what is best for it. But brutes seek it blindly, under the impulse of sense and feeling; and without knowing that what they thus tend towards constitutes the perfection of their nature, and the happiness of their condition. It is the prerogative of man, above the inferior animals, to know what is most for his advantage, and, knowing it, to seek it. This he does in virtue of those powers of intelligence and reflection which are generally comprehended under the name of Reason.

According to Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay iii. pt. iii. ch. 1), Reason has, in all ages, been conceived to have two offices—to regulate our belief, and to regulate our actions and conduct. As it discharges one or other of these two offices, Reason may be distinguished into Speculative and Practical. As Speculative, Reason is Constitutive, and furnishes and determines our knowledge; as Practical, it is Regulative, and directs and governs our conduct. "To judge of what is true or false in speculative points," says Dr. Reid (Act. Pow., Essay iii. pt. iii. ch. 2), "is the office of Speculative Reason; and to judge of what is good or ill for us upon the whole, is the office of Practical Reason."

It is Reason, as discharging the latter of these two functions, that is now to be considered, so that the sense in which the phrase Practical Reason is here employed, is different from that in which it is employed in the philosophy of Kant. By the Practical Reason, Kant denoted Conscience, or the Moral Faculty; that is, Reason,1 revealing to us the Moral Law, and begetting a feeling of reverence for that law-evolving the idea of what is Right, and giving birth to a sense of our obligation to do it. But in the phrase Practical Reason, as employed by Dr. Reid, Reason is regarded as contemplating what has been found to be agreeable or disagreeable, useful or hurtful, and, on the ground of experience, coming to some general conclusion or conception of what is most for our advantage, in accordance with which we may regulate our conduct in particular cases.

That men, in general, irame some conception of what is most Advantageous for them, or that they have some leading idea or

1 "Reason is Theoretic when it applies itself to the objects of our knowledge, whether they belong to the order of nature or to that of speculation. Keason is Prac

tical when it determines and fixes the exercise of our moral and appetitive faculties." -Criticism of Practical Reason, p. 6.

scheme by which the tenor of their conduct should be regulated, will not be denied. It seems to be the natural or necessary result of placing rational beings in a world like this, where they are liable to feel pleasure and pain, and to experience good and evil, with the consequent desire to seek the one and to shun the other. During the stirring and thoughtless period of youth, pleasure and pain, good and evil, may come and go, without leaving any lasting lesson behind them. Unmindful of the past, and careless of the future, men may, for a season, yield to the random influence of fancy and feeling. But in beings "endowed with such large discourse of Reason, looking before and after," a period of reflection must come sooner or later. Under the teaching of experience they will learn to pause and to deliberate, to weigh actions and their consequences, and to adopt that course of conduct which promises, on the whole, to be productive of the greatest advantage.

If, in the course of experience and on the ground of experience, men come to frame some conclusion or conception as to what is best or most Advantageous for them, on the whole, then it is obvious to remark

1. That this conclusion, or conception, will prove a principle of action, and have an influence in directing and regulating their conduct.

As beings possessed of a sensitive nature, and susceptible of pleasure and pain, we no sooner know anything which gives us feelings of the former kind than we call it good, and have a desire to obtain it; and anything which gives us feelings of the latter kind we regard as evil, and seek to avoid. In like manner, those things which, though they may not directly give us feelings of pleasure or pain, yet do contribute to our happiness or misery, we call useful or hurtful, advantageous or disadvantageous, and have a correspondent desire to seek or to shun them. Knowing is different from Feeling; but in beings who are capable of feeling, the knowledge of what is likely to affect their susceptibility of pleasure or pain, naturally, perhaps necessarily, stirs some degree of emotion, and leads them to desire and endeavour to obtain the one and to avoid the other. It is plain, then, that such actions, and courses of action, as are contemplated as likely to give more pleasure than pain, to bring more advantage than disadvantage, will be done, and persevered in, by all who have come to any conclusion or conception as to what is best for them on the whole. Present pleasure will be weighed in