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that this system of moral jurisprudence can be brought to perfection; but as a new country requires guides and pioneers, whose business, though important, may be performed by every peasant, so the author will be quite satisfied if he can participate only in the humble labour of leading the way, and shall be excluded from sharing in the more distinguished honors of scientific research.

CHAPTER III.

Of the constitution of human nature as it relates to the protection and defence of individuals;—of animal resentment;—of rational resentment;—of punishment;-of the right to destroy life as a means of defence;-of Gisborne's conclusions.

IF I have succeeded in carrying the reader along with me in the previous arguments, he will find the next step one of easy transition; and he has, perhaps, already anticipated me in many of the observations I shall have to make on the principles of human actions. However, seeing that almost every author of reputation has felt the difficulties attending this subject, and has been so little satisfied with the system of his predecessors, that every one has had a system of his own, I cannot enter upon this chapter without expressing my fears of producing disappointment instead of conviction: but,

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as I shall endeavour to confine my remarks to those more palpable truths, which are the object of common sense, I hope I shall be borne with, while I state the train of reflection, that has led me to the conclusion, that the foundation of the criminal law is to be laid in those common principles of our nature, which are implanted within us for the resistance of aggression, and the defence of our just and unalienable rights. If I shall be able to shew, that there is a class of excitements, not depending on slight and casual contingencies, but uniform and constant in their operation; and that these are under the direction of the reasoning faculty, and are intended to promote our well being in society, it will go a great way towards satisfying the inquirer; and, I hope, will justify me in requesting his attentive consideration to the arguments I shall employ.

In looking into the natural history of man, one of the most striking characteristics of the species is a class of principles seated within him, which we denominate appetites, passions, affections, and the like; and another class, which is known by the various names of reason, understanding, intellect, judgment,, &c. intended to express those operations

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of the mind, by which the instinctive, or involuntary, principles are to be controlled and regulated. How far they are capable of being altogether subjected to reason is matter of conjecture; but it is certain, that the ascendency of this god-like faculty is aided and confirmed by a suitable education, and the formation of virtuous habits, which have a tendency to weaken the effect of the appetites and passions, and yet, at the same time, to encrease the disposition to practical virtue.

This singular constitution of our nature, which is luminously illustrated by Bishop Butler, points out an admirable economy in our involuntary excitements suited to the most important ends; and establishes, if there were no other argument, the idea of their order and design, which we before insisted on. If we look to the variety of affections with which we are endowed, to their endless modifications, and mixed natures, the wonder will not be that we know so little of them, and that so many contradictory systems have been promulgated, but rather that we have been enabled to obtain any knowledge of them at all. The more we study them, the more we find them con

sistent; and though it must be confessed, that our acquisitions at present do not enable us to particularize, without involving ourselves in inscrutable mysteries, yet it would be giving a very parsimonious credit to the Author of our being, if we were to withhold our faith in the order of the whole, because we do not comprehend all its parts; and attribute every thing to chance that cannot be analyzed in our alembic.

However irreconcileable the systems of Philosophers may have been in attempting to account for the origin of the multifarious feelings seated in the human breast, or of reducing some of them to an unexceptionable place in their respective arrangements (much of which difficulty is to be attributed to the penury of language,) none of them have questioned such truths as these---that we have pleasant and painful feelings---an apprehension of good and evil---and a desire to promote our well-being, and not the contrary. To determine the primitive sensation from which all others flow is not of much importance in a practical view; and as it cannot be attempted without a theoretical foundation, it has a tendency to fetter the mind, and to circumscribe it by the narrow prejudices

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