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both because it is so noticed by our best ethical writers, and because it is an important modification of the desire of power, I am fully of opinion that it is radically the same as this desire.

I allow, indeed, that the desire of superiority differs in the following particular from the desire of power: it would appear that the desire of superiority, or the principle of emulation, is only excited by competition; whereas power is sought after in the absence of every kind of rivalship. The shepherd perceives no pleasure in his superiority over his dog; the farmer, in his superiority over the shepherd; the lord, in his superiority over the farmer; nor the king, in his superiority over the lord. Superiority, where there is no competition, is seldom contemplated.

With regard to the desire of action, it is almost enough to remark, that so closely is it connected with our nature, that the happiness of man mainly consists in the exercise of his bodily and mental faculties. Nor can we fail to observe, that the design of the Creator in this law of our nature is to remind us, that we are formed, not for inactivity, but for the discharge of most important duties. As it is the ordination of providence that no acquisition should be made without labour and effort, it is the kind appointment of heaven that this very labour should be a source of enjoyment. Whatever be our rank or fortune, therefore, we cannot be altogether idle, without being at the same time unhappy.

The desire of happiness, or self-love, is a very powerful principle in the human mind; so much so, that some writers consider a sense of duty to be only

another name for a rational self-love. I shall have an opportunity of noticing the influence of this principle, and the limits within which it should be circumscribed, when I come to speak of the duties which a man owes to himself.

CHAPTER IX.

ON THE MORAL FACULTY ;-AND ON THE FUNDAMENTAL LAW OF MORAL FEELING AND BELIEF.

Ir appears from observations already made, that man is endowed with a faculty, in the exercise of which he is led to perceive certain actions as right or wrong, as beautiful or the contrary, and as constituting their author virtuous or vicious, as meritorious or the opposite.

Hobbes, and certain writers since his time, have denied the existence of any such power as an original faculty of human nature, and have traced our moral sentiments to self-love or prudence. These views were opposed by Dr. Hutcheson, who referred our notions of right and wrong to a particular power of perception, which in conformity to the tenets and language of Locke's philosophy, he styled the moral sense.

We are so constituted, according to this author, that we receive involuntarily certain perceptions of external objects from the impressions that are made on our bodily organs; and, in like manner, certain qualities and actions of moral agents are the necessary occasions of agreeable or disagreeable feelings in us. He has not only shewn, in common with many others,

that we are endowed with a faculty which determines us immediately to approve or disapprove of actions, irrespectively of all views of private advantage; but he considers it as the effect of a positive constitution of our minds, by which a relish is given us for certain moral objects and forms, and aversions to others similar to the relishes and aversions created by our other senses.

The sceptical conclusions which have been deduced from the hypothesis of a moral sense shew that the term has not been happily chosen. But it ought to be remarked, in justification of Dr. Hutcheson, as Professor Stewart observes, that those sceptical consequences do not necessarily result from it. "Unfor

tunately most of his illustrations were taken from the secondary qualities of matter, which, since the time of Des Cartes, philosophers have been, in general, accustomed to refer to the mind, and not to the external object. But if we suppose our perception of right and wrong to be analogous to the perception of extension and figure, and other primary qualities, the reality and immutability of moral distinctions seems to be placed on a foundation sufficiently satisfactory to a candid inquirer.". As the term moral sense can only be used in a metaphorical acceptation, and as it is extremely liable to be misconcived, it would be better to avoid it in ethical disquisitions. My own opinion is, that as morality is a thing to be understood as well as felt,and as its elementary principles are intuitive judgments, so simple that they cannot be made clearer, and so essentially involved in the exercise of our faculties, that their truth is assumed in all our reasoning on

moral subjects, we are entitled to refer the origin of our ideas of right and wrong to a combination of the understanding and what may be termed moral susceptibility. My reasons for so thinking are, First, that morality is at once the object of the understanding and the heart, the judgment and the affections. Secondly, though reason, if sufficiently enlightened, would lead us to the same conclusions respecting the moral qualities of actions, viewed in their tendencies to produce happiness or misery, as are forced on us by an original moral faculty, yet we know that in other cases the defects of reason are supplied by appropriate affections and desires, and it is natural to suppose that a similar provision has been made to quicken our moral judgments, and to impress the heart with a more vivid sense of duty. Thirdly, the proper exercise of all the faculties, according to their true and original design, consists in our employing them either mediately or immediately in promoting our own virtue and that of others; and, consequently, we might expect that there would be connected with our nature, in addition to reason, an active principle to prompt us to what is right, and to punish us in doing what is wrong.

For these reasons, and several others which might be mentioned, I am inclined to think, that there is superadded to our understanding a moral capacity, principle, or power, and that all our moral sentiments take their rise from the combined exercise of these two faculties of the mind. As the intuitive judgments of common sense have been termed the fundamental laws of belief, I would propose to denominate our moral judgments, the fundamental laws of moral feel

ing and belief. They are involved in the exercise of the powers of the human mind, and are necessarily implied in all our reasonings concerning moral truth and obligation.

These views accord with the history of man as a moral agent, and with the testimony of our own con. sciousness. While the authority of conscience, that original power which the Creator has placed in the human mind, is felt more or less in every situation, it may, at the same time, be enlightened by moral and religious culture, or it may be darkened and debased by ignorance and vice. That it may assert that supremacy which it is designed to hold, its admonitions must be encouraged, and we must employ whatever means are in our power for becoming acquainted with our duty. While God has so formed our nature as to be capable of admiring and practising virtue, he has intrusted the culture of our moral powers to our own care, and has reminded us that for our diligence in improving this noblest part of our stewardship, we are to give an account at his tribunal.

How futile, then, is the objection, which has been urged by some philosophers, to conscience, as an original power of the human mind, namely, that we are not born with innate ideas or notions of any kind*. It is therefore inferred, that our moral notions and feelings are owing to accidental circumstances; and that were we entirely free from the prejudices of education, we should look with the same uniform and

* Even admitting with Dr. Smith, that the word conscience does not immediately denote any moral faculty by which we approve or disapprove, his own concession on this point is sufficient for our argument. 66 Conscience supposes the existence of some such faculty." Theory of Moral Sent. v. ii. p. 332.

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