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the will of God, for the sake of eternal happiness." Here again the selfish utilitarian profit and loss view is betrayed; man is to be virtuous for the sake of eternal happiness. Paley was a Divine; and accordingly he concludes himself warranted in deferring the reward to another world; since he could not certainly promise it in this : but still you will observe the doer of a good action is to do it, not for virtue's sake, not because there is a sense of right and wrong in every man's breast; but for his individual profit: and herein Paley was more fortunate than the Stoic Philo

Greek Stoic Philosophy.

sophers of Greece. Having no revelation of

a future state of rewards and punishments, they were compet led to prove that their virtuous men would be happy in this world; yet here they were at once encountered by this practical contradiction, that every day's experience showed them the virtuous man in misery, the wicked in full enjoyment of worldly prosperity. They might have said with the Psalmist "I do also see the ungodly in such prosperity. They come in no misfortune like other men, neither are they plagued like other men, these are the ungodly: these prosper in the world, these have riches in possession. Then thought I to understand this, but it was too hard for me.” Hence they were obliged to argue that virtue is its own re

can only refer to his own consciousness and intuition: while the Sensationalist can analyse the feelings, and show how each may, or as he puts it, must be traced to a sensational source. Mr. Bain in his several works on the Reason, and the Emotions and the Will, undertakes to do this, and has carried the investigation farther than any one else I know of. To many minds his exposition may recommend itself as exhaustive and conclusive. He gives, no doubt, an account, and a very interesting and ingenious account, of the origin of all our ideas, reducing mind to subtle voltaic battery, working something after the fashion of the electric telegraph, by means of the muscles and nerves, both for the purpose of bringing in information to the central power and executing its orders. But the question is, not whether this is a plausible solution, but the solution of the subject. For my own part, after the most dispassionate consideration I can give to what he has advanced, I fall back on my own consciousness which tells me intuitively that certain ideas are nevertheless innate. I may not be able to prove this by argument; but I give unto faith the things that are faith's.

ward; and they placed happiness in a certain rapt contemplation of virtue. (1)

But Dr. Paley had another and future state to appeal to, in which all these differences will be adjusted; and indeed this necessity of such an opportunity of adjustment is the passionate argument of Jeremy Taylor in support of a life hereafter.

This is not the place to inquire minutely into the doctrines of this delightful writer, or indeed of the other philosophers whom I am necessitated to mention. Otherwise I should be converting this Lecture into one on Moral Philosophy instead of Jurisprudence; and I must content myself therefore with cautioning you that Paley, by excluding from his idea of happiness both the gross and sensual lusts and pleasures, and the objects of wordly ambition; and by placing it in the exercise of the social affections, and the enjoyment of bodily and mental health; may seem at first sight to inculcate a very pure system of morals-but you will find that he denies the existence of a moral sense, and expressly says that whatever is expedient is right. It is true that he says the objects of wordly lusts are inexpedient, but like all Sensationalist Philosophers, he makes pleasure and pain the foundation, and not the consequence of moral action. (2)

1. So in the celebrated treatise Demitatione Christi, whether the production of Thomas à Kempis or Gerson or Gersen, the rule of life is placed on seclusion from the world, not the exercise of the social duties. It is very remarkable that in the first nine books of the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle's aims are pointed at virtue of a practical, active, social nature; only in the 10th book does he suddenly quit all he has hitherto been preaching, and states the doctrine of happiness being centred in this θεώρια.

2. The whole philosophy of La Rouchfoucault, as exhibited in his five hundred and odd sparkling apothegms, is based upon the proposition that self-interest is the main spring of all our actions. Whereever good confronts him, he finds an evil motive for it, which he traces to self-love as its origin. This is the key to his Cynicism. "Self-interest," says he, "which we accuse of all our crimes, ought, often to be praised for our good actions." So he defines friendship to be a traffic, in which self-love always expects to be a gainer."

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Idealists.

IDEALISTS-CUDWORTH.

§ 59. Let us turn now to the doctrines of that other School of Philosophy which is known as the Idealist; the School of those who insist that all ideas are not primarily gained through the medium of some one or other of the senses; but that there are certain ideas in the mind of every man originally implanted therein by God, which they call" fundamental principles ;" and these they say you cannot account for on the theory that they have been gained by sensation or reflexion. Every man is conscious of their existence; he cannot explain how or when they arose in him; in their very nature they are such as show they are not and cannot be the product or result of experience; the only alternative is that they are directly imparted to us by God. We instantly admit their existence and their force by a sort of intuition; they are the "eternal truths" of Plato.(1)

Cudworth.

§ 60. The first writer to whom I shall call attention is Cudworth. "If we reflect," says he, "on our own cogitations of these things we shall sensibly perceive that they are not phantastical (i. e. imagined to us by the senses) but noematical, (i. e. the offspring of the mind) as for example, justice, equity, duty, obligation, cogitation, opinion, intellection, volition, memory, verity, falsity, cause, effect, genus, species, nullity, contingency, possibility, impossibility, and numerous others." Of these we shall confine ourselves to the ideas of Justice, Equity, Duty, for our present purpose.

1. "I believe" writes the historian Polybius" that nature herself has constituted Truth as the supreme deity which is to be adored by mankind and that she has given it greater force than any of the rest : for being opposed as she is on all sides, and appearances of truth so often passing for the thing itself in behalf of plausible falsehoods, yet by her wonderful operation she insinuates herself into the minds of men : sometimes exerting her strength immediately, and sometimes lying hid in darkness for a length of time; but at last she struggles through it and appears triumphant over falsehood."

Butler.

BUTLER CONSCIENCE-TEST OF MORAL ACTION. 256

§ 61. The next writer is Butler, who analyzed the phenomena of our moral nature. First he dissects the affections which hold society together by sympathy; secondly, the passions which add to the stability of society; thirdly, the conscience, the principle of moral approbation and disapprobation, which governs, restrains, and directs all the affections and passions.

Conscience.

§ 62. Here then we have the great principle of Duty developed, the existence of a moral sense asserted, which approves and disapproves in the region of man's moral nature, and which decides upon right and wrong, just as reason sits supreme in the kingdom of man's intellectual nature, and judges and decides upon what is true and false. It introduces us to a totally new and distinct sphere. If we ask whether such a thing is? The answer must be given by Reason; intellect busies itself about the material physical world-but if we ask whether such a thing ought to be, the answer must be given by conscience; the inquiry is internal; the material world being excluded, the world of man's moral nature rises on our view.

Test of a moral action.

§ 63. We assert then that the ideas of right and wrong are innate fundamental ideas; and that in considering the morality of any action, we must submit it to this test, is it right or wrong, independent of any consideration of the pain or pleasure, profit or loss, utility or inutility, expediency or inexpediency attached to it.? (1) To use the words of Cicero "Honestum igi*urid intelligimus quod tale est, detractâ omni utilitate, sine

1. The Emperor Marcus Antoninus has expressed a somewhat similar sentiment.

̓Ανῆκεν ὅλον ἑαυτὸν, δικαιοσύνη μὲν εἰς τὰ ὑφ ̓ ἑαυτοῦ ἐνεργοῦμενα, ἐν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις συμβαίνουσι, τη τῶν ὅλων φύσει. Τί δ' ἐρεῖ τις, ἢ ὑπολήψεται περὶ αὐτου, ἥ πράξει κατ' αὐτου, οὐδ ̓ εἰς νουν βάλλεται, δύο τούτοις ἀρκούμενος, αὐτος δικαιοπραγεῖν τὸ vvv

257

WHEWELL-REVELATION.

ulis præmiis fructibusve per seipsum jure possit laudari;" that we consider honourable, which, without regard to its utility, or to its rewards or fruits, can justly be praised on its own account.(1)

Whewell.

§ 64. The last to whom I shall allude is Whewell, who has, I think, incontestably

proved the existence of these ideas, totally independent of experience as their source.

§ 65. Let us now briefly endeavour to These principles applied. put these principles upon an intelligible footing, and one so satisfactory that it may readily receive the acquiescence of the minds of all who hear me. Were I addressing an exclusively Christian audience, I might perhaps be tempted to derive all morality at once from the expressed will of God; but if any of you were to ask me how does that will exhibit itself, it is clear that I could not answer that it has been revealed to mankind by a special Providence. Those who admit the inspiration of the Bible of course admit this; but it can never be a satisfactory answer to other than Christians; and I could not expect any acquiescence on your parts to such a doctrine, were I

Revelation.

πρασσόμενον, καὶ φιλεῖν το νυν απονεμόμενον ἑαυτῷ : “ He (the perfect man) commits himself wholly to justice, and the universal nature; to justice, as to those things which are done by himself; and in all other events, to the nature of the whole. What any one will say, or think about him, or act against him, he doth not so much as take into consideration; contented and abundantly satisfied with these two things, himself to do justly what is at this instant doing, and approve and love what is at this instant allotted him."

M. Anton. 1. x. S. 11. .

1. This criterion of a virtuous action, that of its being the subject of praise or blame, is Aristotelian, and may be profitably pursued in the Nicomachean Ethics, where Aristotle defines virtues to be habits which are the subjects of praise, των εξεων δε, τας επαίνετας, άρετας λεγουμεν. B. 1. Ch. 5. S. 7. We admire men for intellectual superiority; we pity them for misfortunes, but we praise or blame them only on account of their moral or immoral actions.