admirable as it is even when considered in itself alone, but still more valuable for the feelings to which it may be made subservient. I wished the great conceptions of the moral society in which you are placed, of the duties which you have to perform in it, and of that eternal Being who placed you in it, to arise frequently to your mind, in cases in which other minds might think only that one phenomenon was very like another phenomenon, or very different from it; that the same name might, or might not, be given to both; and that one philosopher, who lived on a certain part of the earth at a certain time, and was followed by eight or ten commentators, affirmed the phenomena to be different, while another philosopher, with almost as many commentators, affirmed them to be the same. Of this at least I am sure, that your observation of the phenomena themselves will not be less quick, nor your analysis of them less nicely accurate, because you discover in them something more than a mere observer or analyst, who inquires into the moral affinities with no higher interest than he inquires into the affinity of a salt or a metal, is inclined to seek; and even though your observation and analysis of the mere phenomena were to be, as only the ignorant could suppose, less just on that account, there can be no question that if you had learned to think with more kindness of man, and with more gratitude and veneration of God, you would have profited more by this simple amelioration of sentiment, than by the profoundest discovery that was to terminate in the accession which it gave to mere speculative science.

I now, however, proceed to that part of my course which is more strictly ethical.

The science of ethics, as you know, has relation to

VOL. III.

2 I

our affections of mind, not simply as phenomena, but as virtuous or vicious, right or wrong.

Quid sumus, et quidnam victuri gignimur, ordo
Quis datus, aut metae quam mollis flexus, et unde;
Quis modus argento, quid fas optare, quid asper
Utile nummus habet: patriae, charisque propinquis
Quantum elargiri deceat: quem te Deus esse
Jussit, et humana qua parte locatus es in re.1

In the consideration of questions such as these, we feel indeed that philosophy, as I have already said, is something more than knowledge, that it at once instructs and amends us,-blending, as a living and active principle, in our moral constitution, and purifying our affections and desires, not merely after they have arisen, but in their very source. It is thus, in its relation to our conduct, truly worthy, and worthy in a peculiar sense, of that noble etymology which a Roman philosopher has assigned to it as the most liberal of studies. "Quare liberalia studia dicta sint vides; quia homine libero digna sunt. Ceterum unum studium vere liberale est, quod liberum facit: hoc sapientiae, sublime, forte, magnanimum, caetera pusilla et puerilia sunt." The knowledge of virtue is indeed that only knowledge which makes man free; and the philosophy which has this for its object, does not merely teach us what we are to do, but affords us the highest aids and incitements, when the toil of virtue might seem difficult, by pointing out to us, not the glory only, but the charms and tranquil delight of that excellence which is before us, and the horrors of that internal shame which we avoid, by continuing steadily our career. Its office is thus, in a great measure, to be the guardian of our happiness, by guarding that without which there is no happiness,

1 Persius, Satira III. v. 67-72.

Whether, on the rosy mead,

When Summer smiles, to warn the melting heart
Of Luxury's allurement; whether, firm.
Against the torrent, and the stubborn hill,
To urge free Virtue's steps, and to her side
Summon that strong divinity of soul

Which conquers Chance and Fate; or on the height
The goal assign'd her, haply to proclaim

Her triumph; on her brow to place the crown

Of uncorrupted praise; through future worlds

To follow her interminated way,

And bless Heaven's image in the heart of man.'

What, then, is the virtue which it is the practical object of this science to recommend?

That the natural state of man is a state of society, I proved in a former lecture, when, in treating of our desires in general, in their order as emotions, I considered the desire of society as one of these.

That man, so existing in society, is capable of receiving from others benefit or injury, and, in his turn, of benefiting or injuring them by his actions, is a mere physical fact, as to which there cannot be any dispute.

But though the physical fact of benefit or injury is all which we consider in the action of inanimate things, it is far from being all of which we think in the case of voluntary agents, when there is not merely benefit or injury produced, but a previous intention of producing it. In every case of this kind in which we regard the agent as willing that particular good or evil which he may have produced, there arise certain distinctive emotions of moral approbation or disapprobation, those immediate emotions, of which, as mere states or affections of the mind, I before treated, when

1 Pleasures of Imagination, second form of the poem, Book I.

v. 504-515.

I considered the order of our emotions in general. We regard the action in every such case, when the benefit or injury is believed by us to have entered into the intention of him who performed the action, not as advantageous or hurtful only, but as right or wrong; or, in other words, the person who performed the particular action, seems to us to have moral merit or demerit in that particular action.

To say that any action which we are considering is right or wrong, and to say that the person who performed it has moral merit or demerit, are to say precisely the same thing; though writers on the theory of morals have endeavoured to make these different questions, and have even multiplied the question still more by other divisions, which seem to me to be only varieties of tautological expression, or at least to be, as we shall find, only the reference to different objects of one simple feeling of the mind.

When certain actions are witnessed by us, or described to us, they excite instantly certain vivid feelings, distinctive to us of the agent, as virtuous or vicious, worthy or unworthy of esteem. His action, we say, is right, himself meritorious. But are these moral estimates of the action and of the agent founded on different feelings, or do we not mean simply, that he, performing this action, excites in us a feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation, and that all others, in similar circumstances, performing the same action, that is to say, willing, in relations exactly similar, a similar amount of benefit or injury, for the sake of that very benefit or injury, will excite in us a similar feeling of approbation in the one case, of disapprobation in the other case? The action cannot truly have any quality which the agent has not, because the action is truly nothing, unless as significant of the

agent whom we know, or of some other agent whom we imagine. Virtue, as distinct from the virtuous person, is a mere name, as is vice distinct from the vicious. The action, if it be any thing more than a mere insignificant word, is a certain agent in certain circumstances, willing and producing a certain effect; and the emotion, whatever it may be, excited by the action is, in truth, and must always be the emotion excited by an agent real or supposed. We may speak of the fulfilment of duty, virtue, propriety, merit, and we may ascribe these variously to the action, and to him who performed it; but whether we speak of the action or of the agent, we mean nothing more than that a certain feeling of moral approbation has been excited in our mind by the contemplation of a certain intentional production, in certain circumstances, of a certain amount of benefit or injury. When we think within ourselves, Is this what we ought to do? we do not make two inquiries, first, whether the action be right, and then, whether we should not have merit in doing what is wrong, or demerit in doing what is right for us to do; we only consider whether doing it, we shall excite in others approbation or disapprobation, and in ourselves a corresponding emotion of complacency or remorse. According to the answer which we give to our own heart, in this respect, an answer which relates to the single feeling of moral approbation or disapprobation, we shall conceive that we are doing what we ought to do, or what we ought not to do; and knowing this, we can have no further moral inquiry to make as to the merit or demerit of doing what is previously felt by us to be right or wrong.

Much of the perplexity which has attended inquiries into the theory of morals, has arisen, I have little doubt, from distinctions which seemed to those who