GENERAL OBLIGATION, AND DIVISION OF THE SUBJECT,. THEORETICAL ETHICS. CHAPTER FIRST. OF THE ORIGIN OF OUR NOTION OF THE MORAL QUALITY OF ACTIONS. SECTION I. OF MORAL LAW. ETHICS, or Moral Philosophy, is the Science of Moral Law. The first question which presents itself is, What is moral law? Let us then inquire, first, what is law; and, secondly, what is moral law. By the term law, I think, we generally mean a form of expression, denoting either a mode of existence, or an order of sequence. Thus, the first of Sir Isaac Newton's laws, namely, that every body will continue in a state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless compelled by some force to change its state, denotes a mode of existence. The third law of motion, that, to every action of one body upon another, there is an equal and contrary reaction, denotes an order of sequence; that is, it declares the general fact, that, if one event occur, the constitution of things under which we exist, is such, that another event will also occur. The axioms in Mathematics are laws of the same kind. |