our active power, having no end to pursue, no rule to direct its exertions, would be given in vain. We should either be altogether inactive, and never will to do any thing, or our volitions would be perfectly unmeaning and futile, being neither wise nor foolish, virtuous nor vicious.

We have reason therefore to think, that to every being to whom God has given any degree of active power, he has also given some principles of action, for the direction of that power to the end for which it was intended.

It is evident that, in the constitution of man, there are various principles of action suited to our state and situation. A particular consideration of these is the subject of the next Essay; in this we are only to consider them in general, with a view to examine the relation they bear to volition, and how it is influenced by them.

7

CHAP. II.

OF THE INFLUENCE OF INCITEMENTS AND MOTIVES UPON THE WILL.

WE come into the world ignorant of every thing, yet we must do many things in order to our subsistence and well being. A new born child may be carried in arms, and kept warm by his nurse; but he must suck and swallow his food for himself. And this must be done before he has any conception of sucking or swallowing, or of the manner in which they are to be performed. He is led by nature to do these actions without knowing for what end, or what he is about. This we call instinct.

In many cases there is no time for voluntary determination. The motions must go on so rapidly, that the conception and volition of every movement cannot keep pace with them. In some cases of this kind, instinct, in others habit, comes in to our aid.

When a man stumbles and loses his balance, the motion necessary to prevent his fall would come too late, if it were the consequence of thinking what is fit to be done, and making a voluntary effort for that purpose. He does this instinctively.

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When a man beats a drum or plays a tune, he has not time to direct every particular beat or stop, by a voluntary determination; but the habit which may be acquired by exercise, answers the purpose as well.

By instinct, therefore, and by habit, we do many things without any exercise either of judgment or will. In other actions, the will is exerted, but without judgment.

Suppose a man to know that, in order to live, he must eat. What shall he eat? How much? And how VOL. IV.

often? His reason can answer none of these questions; and therefore can give no direction how he should determine. Here again nature, as an indulgent parent, supplies the defects of his reason; giving him appetite, which shows him when he is to eat, how often, and how much; and taste, which informs him what he is, and what he is not to eat. And by these principles he is much better directed than he could be without them, by all the knowledge he can acquire.

As the Author of nature has given us some principles of action to supply the defects of our knowledge, he has given others to supply the defects of our wisdom and virtue.

The natural desires, affections, and passions, which are common to the wise and to the foolish, to the virtuous and to the vicious, and even to the more sagacious brutes, serve very often to direct the course of human actions. By these principles men may perform the most laborious duties of life, without any regard to duty; and do what is proper to be done, without regard to propriety; like a vessel that is carried on in her proper course by a prosperous gale, without the skill or judgment of those that are aboard.

Appetite, affection, or passion, give an impulse to a certain action. In this impulse there is no judgment implied. It may be weak or strong; we can even conceive it irresistible. In the case of madness it is so. Madmen have their appetites and passions; but they want the power of self-government; and therefore we do not impute their actions to the man but to the disease. [Note E.]

In actions that proceed from appetite or passion, we are passive in part, and only in part active. They are therefore partly imputed to the passion; and if it is supposed to be irresistible, we do not impute them to the man at all.

Even an American savage judges in this manner: When in a fit of drunkenness he kills his friend as soon as he comes to himself, he is very sorry for what he has done; but pleads that drink, and not he, was the cause. [Note F.]

We conceive brute animals to have no superior prineiple to control their appetites and passions. On this account, their actions are not subject to law. Men are in a like state in infancy, in madness, and in the delirium of a fever. They have appetites and passions, but they want that which makes them moral agents, aceountable for their conduct, and objects of moral approbation or of blame.

In some cases, a stronger impulse of appetite or passion may oppose a weaker. Here also there may be determination and action without judgment.

Suppose a soldier ordered to mount a breach, and certain of present death if he retreats, this man needs not courage to go on, fear is sufficient. The certainty of present death if he retreats, is an overbalance to the probability of being killed if he goes on. The man is pushed by contrary forces, and it requires neither judgment nor exertion to yield to the strongest.

A hungry dog acts by the same principle, if meat is set before him, with a threatening to beat him if he touch it. Hunger pushes him forward, fear pushes him back with more force, and the strongest force prevails.

Thus we see, that, in many, even of our voluntary actions, we may act from the impulse of appetite, affection, or passion, without any exercise of judgment, and much in the same manner as brute animals seem to act.

Sometimes, however, there is a calm in the mind from the gales of passion or appetite, and the man is left to work his way, in the voyage of life, without

those impulses which they give. Then he calmly weighs goods and evils, which are at too great a distance to excite any passion. He judges what is best upon the whole, without feeling any bias drawing him to one side. He judges for himself as he would do for another in his situation; and the determination is wholly imputable to the man, and not in any degree to his passion.

Every man come to years of understanding, who has given any attention to his own conduct, and to that of others, has, in his mind, a scale or measure of goods and evils, more or less exact. He makes an estimate of the value of health, of reputation, of riches, of pleasure, of virtue, of self-approbation, and of the approbation of his Maker. These things, and their contraries, have a comparative importance in his cool and deliberate judgment.

When a man considers whether health ought to be preferred to bodily strength, fame to riches; whether a good conscience and the approbation of his Maker, to every thing that can come in competition with it; this appears to me to be an exercise of judgment, and not any impulse of passion or appetite.

Every thing worthy of pursuit, must be so, either intrinsically, and upon its own account, or as the means of procuring something that is intrinsically valuable. That it is by judgment that we discern the fitness of means for attaining an end is self-evident; and in this, I think all philosophers agree. But that it is the office of judgment to appreciate the value of an end, or the preference due to one end above another, is not granted by some philosophers.

In determining what is good or ill, and, of different goods, which is best, they think we must be guided, not by judgment, but by some natural or acquired taste, which makes us relish one thing and dislike another.