naturally have supposed, capable of exciting in us different emotions, according to this difference of views or circumstances. It may excite our approval in one case; or, in another case, be so indifferent as to excite no emotion whatever; and in another case, may excite in us the most vivid disapprobation. The action is nothing, but as it relates to the agent himself, having certain feelings, and placed in certain circumstances."-Brown's Philosophy of the Human Mind, Lecture 73.]

["There are many cases in which the result of actions is complicated by a mixture of good and evil, and in which we may fix upon the good, and may infer the intention in the agent of producing this good, which is a part of the mixed result; while others may fix on the partial evil, and conceive him to have had in view the production of that. The same actions, therefore, may be approved and disapproved in different ages and countries, from the greater importance attached to the good or to the evil of such compound results, in relation to the general circumstances of society, or the influence, perhaps, of political errors, as to the advantage or injury to society of these particular actions; and in the same age, and the same country, different individuals may regard the same action with very different moral feelings, from the higher attention paid to certain partial results of it, and the different presumptions thence formed as to the benevolent or injurious intentions of the agent. All this, it is evident, might take place without the slightest mutability of the principle of moral sentiments; because, though the action which is estimated may seem to be the same in the cases in which it is approved or condemned, it is truly a different action which is so approved and condemned."-Ib. Lecture 75.]

[On this principle, theft might be approved in Sparta, because it led to those habits of vigilance and activity, which that warlike people supposed highly necessary; murder

57 What two reasons may cause the same action at different times to excite in us different feelings of right and wrong?

58 How then must an action be esteemed?

59 Is the result of every action always completely good or entirely evil?

60 What different views, might this occasion from different individuals?

61 What would follow from this?

62 Does this argue a changeableness of conscience?

might be looked upon in the primitive states of society as necessary, because the checks of law and magistrates were unknown. In some countries honor is associated with suffering, and it is reckoned a favor to be killed with circumstances of torture. Instances of this occur in the manners of some American nations, and in the pride which an Indian matron feels when placed on the funeral pile of her deceased husband.' In such cases an action may have to us all the external marks of extreme cruelty, while it proceeded from a disposition generous and affectionate.]

["But one argument more. That a rule of virtue has been 'slighted and condemned by the general fashion,' is no sort of evidence that those who joined in this general fashion did not still know that it was a rule of virtue. There are many duties which, in the present day, are slighted by the general fashion, and yet no man will stand up and say they are not duties. 'Suicide, in one age of the world, has been heroism, in another felony ;' but it is not every action that a man says is heroic that he believes is right. Forgiveness of injuries and insults is accounted by one sort of people magnanimity, by another meanness;' and yet they who thus vulgarly employ the word meanness do not imagine that forbearance and placability are really wrong.

"After all, the uniformity of human opinion respecting the great laws of morality is very remarkable. Sir James Mackintosh speaks of Grotius, who had cited poets, orators, historians, &c. and says, 'He quotes them as witnesses, whose conspiring testimony, mightily strengthened and confirmed by their discordance on almost every other subject, is a conclusive proof of the unanimity of the whole human race on the great rules of duty and fundamental principles of morals.'"-Dymond's Essays on the Principles of Morality. Essay 1. chap. 6.]

2. Granting that some general decisions are made without deliberation on points of conduct, and those, too, without any inducements of interest on our part; yet such apparent rapidity of judgment is no proof of the existence of an in

63 Give a few examples which may be explained by this principle. 64 Is a general perpetration of a vice, any evidence that individual consciences do not condemn it?

65 Mention a few examples.

66 Is there in fact a great diversity of opinion respecting right and wrong?

67 What is the second argument against the idea of a moral sense?

C

stinctive moral sense. Because, this phenomenon may be easily accounted for, by remarking the facility with which the mind draws general conclusions from insulated facts; and by noticing how readily the sentiment, which was the result of reflection as applied to the first case of a moral question, acquires the force of an habitual sentiment, when applied to a subsequent similar case.

Of this continuance of a feeling, even when the reason for it has ceased, the example of the miser is remarkably in point; who, when in years, and without ties of blood or friendship, continues to add to his hoard, and although he may even be sensible of his folly, still carries on his pursuit with all the ardor of an incipient passion, or the dread of impending starvation.

By such means, the custom of approving or disapproving certain actions commences: and the custom, once established, grows stronger and stronger by the various modes of social intercourse, such as censure and encouragements, the tendency of books and conversation, &c. ; until the lesson of the child, repeated by the man and scarce forgotten in dotage, produces that uniformity of sentiment, which is felt by all, though traced by few during its progress of association to the real principle of imitation.

Of the power of this principle the most conspicuous instance is afforded by children, in whom the propensity to imitate is, if any thing deserves the name, an instinct. By this very power, children learn first the words and then the ideas attached to the terms connected with the feelings of love and hatred, and of praise and censure, and thus exemplify, both in theory and practice, the generation of a moral sense.

[But it is admitted that our moral powers, like all our other powers, may be influenced by education, by passion, by habit, by association, and by political arrangement; but by no circumstances can man be brought to view pure benevolence and deliberate malice with the same feelings, or to regard all the actions of voluntary agents with the same

68 What example is given to prove that conscience proceeds from habit?

69 How is it said that the custom of approving certain actions is continued?

70 To what ultimate principle is it ascribed ?

71 What is said of imitation?

72 Do the advocates of the moral sense admit that it may be influenced? 73 To what length in this admission will they not go?

equal indifference.”—Dewar's Elements of Christian Ethics. Book ii. chap. 9.]

Another objection to the system of moral instincts is, that its maxims do not bend to circumstances. Veracity, which seems to be, if any, a moral duty, is not in that system permitted to be violated, as it ought to be. For as the obligation of a promise depends on the circumstances under which it was made, it cannot be enforced, if it was unlawful at the time in which it was made, or if it has become so since, or if it was extorted.

It has been further objected to the same system, that, if there existed an instinctive moral sense; a clear idea also would have existed of the object connected with such instinct. For the instinct and object are of necessity inseparable, both in imagination and reality; that is, if it were an instinct to approve an act, we should have (what we have not) a clear conception of such act.

As the preceding argument, however, if true, would deny the existence of instinct even in brutes, it will hardly carry conviction, although it cannot easily be answered.

[On this subject, Dr. Brown remarks, "I am astonished, that Paley should have stated this as an objection, to which it is difficult to find an answer;' since there is no objection to which the answer is more obvious. There is not a feeling of the mind however universal it may be, to the existence of which, precisely the same objection might not be opposed. There is no part of the world, for example, in which the proportions of number and quantity are not felt to be the same. Four are to twenty as twenty to a hundred, wherever those numbers are distinctly conceived; but, though we come into the world capable of feeling the truth of this proportion, when the numbers themselves shall have been previously conceived by us, no one surely contends that it is necessary, for this capacity, that we should come into the world with an accurate knowledge of the particular numbers."-Lec. 74.] But Dr. Paley continues,

It seems to me, either that there is no instinctive moral

74 What other objection has been brought against moral instincts?

75 What virtue is adduced as example?

76 What is said to be the obligation of veracity?

77 What argument is brought from the nature of instincts?

78 What would this argument tend to ?

79 How does Dr. Brown answer it?

sense, or if there is, it is not to be distinguished from habit; and consequently it is unsafe to found on such uncertain data a system of ethics; or to determine on the right or wrong of certain actions by appealing to impulses, which may or may not exist, instead of looking, as we ought, to the general tendency of such actions.

[This is the conclusion to which Paley has arrived. But the opposite opinion is maintained by the generality of modern writers. It is but just to Dr. Paley to suppose that he was 'combatting a phantom of his own imagination.' He probably considered the moral sense as a supposed infallible arbiter of action, while the true definition refers it only to the intention of the actor. We will subjoin a few authorities.]

["Conscience is an original and inherent faculty in man, and is universal in its operation. If any doubt had remained as to the existence of the moral faculty, or conscience, as an original power in human nature, that doubt would be removed by the explicit testimony of the apostle, which I am about to quote. The passage which contains this testimony must have escaped the notice of Paley, otherwise he would not have hesitated, as he has done, in admitting that man is endowed with a moral capacity. For when the Gentiles,

which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves which show the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the meanwhile accusing, or else excusing one another.'"-Dewar's Elements of Christian Ethics. Chap.

9.]

["The moral faculty is an original principle of our constitution, which is not resolvable into any other principle or principles more general than itself; in particular it is not resolvable into self-love or a prudential regard to our own interests.". Stewart's Philosophy of the Active and Moral Powers of Man. Book ii. chap. 3.]

["In tracing our moral feelings to an original susceptibility

80 What is Dr. Paley's conclusion relative to the point in debate?

81 Is this the opinion of other writers ?

82 What probably occasioned this decision of Paley's?

83 Give Dr. Dewar's opinion.

84 What Scripture does he quote as authority?

85 What is Stewart's opinion?