It does not at all appear, that a state of insanity makes a man less the subject of divine jurisdiction; because our omniscient Judge perfectly understands the nature of every action. He knows how far it arose from a good or bad disposition, and what were the views and conceptions of the agent. But since we can only collect our knowledge of these things from the action itself, considered with all its circumstances, and as our judgment is formed upon the supposition, that the action was the same in our view and in that of the agent, we are obliged, in charity, to suspend our judgment, when a diseased understanding may hinder a man from knowing what he does. These observations show, that no just objection can be made to the preceding notion of responsibility from the case of madmen; but that in this, as well as other cases, we suppose the morality of an action to lie in the nature of the volition that produces it. This further appears from considering, that even in human judicatories, where only overt acts are cognizable, the criminality of an action rests upon the disposition with which the action appears from the circumstances to have been connected. Where one man is put to death by another, it is from the apparent disposition that the action is denominated murder, manslaughter, or mere accident. Nay, the very same action may be either criminal in the highest degree, simply indifferent, or highly praiseworthy. Thus, a man may inflict a fatal wound upon his fellow-creature as his murderer, as his executioner, or by the appointment of the Creator and Proprietor of all, as a victim in sacrifice, as in the case of Abraham and Isaac. External acts may be useful or hurtful to others, and so may the rays of the sun, or the agitation of the air: yet no rational being will blame the sun or the air when they prove detrimental, because the agents act not from choice; being incapable of good or bad dispositions, they are not moral agents. We pass the same judgment upon the involuntary actions of mankind: if a man, when convulsed, happens to strike his neighbour on the face, no one regards the action as an injurious assault: but if a bad disposition, as malice, hatred, or wantonness, directed the blow, every one would esteem the act to be a criminal injury. A little reflection may therefore fully satisfy us, that virtue and vice have their proper residence in our dispositions or volitions and that it is the nature of these, and not their cause, which truly denominates them good or bad; rewardable or punishable. |