in removing hinderances to the welfare of ourselves and others, which is indirectly promoting it? The private passions terminate indeed in the happiness of the indivividual, which, however, is a part of general happiness, and the part over which we have most power. Every principle of which conscience is composed has some portion of happiness for its object. To that point they all converge. General happiness is not indeed one of the natural objects of conscience, because our voluntary acts are not felt and perceived to affect it. But how small a step is left for reason. It only casts up the items of the account. It has only to discover that the acts of those who labour to promote separate portions of happiness must increase the amount of the whole. It may be truly said, that if observation and experience did not clearly ascertain that beneficial tendency is the constant attendant and mark of all virtuous dispositions and actions, the same great truth would be revealed to us by the voice of conscience. The coincidence, instead of being arbitrary, arises necessarily from the laws of human nature, and the circumstances in which mankind are placed. We perform and approve virtuous actions, partly because conscience regards them as right, partly because we are prompted to them by good affections. All these affections contribute towards general well-being, though it were not necessary, nor would it be fit, that the agent should be distracted by the contemplation of that vast and remote object.

The various relations of conscience to religion we have already been led to consider on the principles of Butler, of Berkeley, of Paley, and especially of Hartley, who was led by his own piety to contemplate as the last and highest stage of virtue and happiness, a sort of selfannihilation, which, however unsuitable to the present condition of mankind, yet places in the strongest light the disinterested character of the system, of which it is a conceiveable though perhaps not attainable result. The

completeness and rigour acquired by conscience, when all its dictates are revered as the commands of a perfectly wise and good Being, are so obvious, that they cannot be questioned by any reasonable man, however extensive his incredulity may be. It is thus that conscience can add the warmth of an affection to the inflexibility of principle and habit. It is true that, in examining the evidence of the divine original of a religious system, in estimating an imperfect religion, or in comparing the demerits of religions of human origin, conscience must be the standard chiefly applied. But it follows with equal clearness, that those who have the happiness to find satisfaction and repose in divine revelation, are bound to consider all those precepts for the government of the will, delivered by it, which are manifestly universal, as the rules to which all their feelings and actions should conform. The true distinction between conscience and a taste for moral beauty has already been pointed out; ;* a distinction which, notwithstanding its simplicity, has been unobserved by philosophers, perhaps on account of the frequent cooperation and intermixture of the two feelings. Most speculators have either denied the existence of the taste, or kept it out of view in their theory, or exalted it to the place which is rightfully filled only by conscience. Yet it is perfectly obvious that, like all the other feelings called pleasures of imagination, it terminates in delightful contemplation, while the moral faculty always aims exclusively at voluntary action. Nothing can more clearly shew that this last quality is the characteristic of conscience, than its being thus found to distinguish that faculty from the sentiments which most nearly resemble it, most frequently attend it, and are most easily blended with it.-MACKINTOSH, Dissert. Encyclop. Britan. Sect. 7.

ERRATA.

Page 19, line 4 from the bottom, for physical read political.

26, line 8 from the bottom, for told read tells.

33, last line, prefix 7 to the first word.

85, line 6 from the top, for sakes read sake.

108, line 12 from the top, for general read generous.

109, in the note line, 2 from the bottom, for action read active.

110, line 17 from the top, for words read word.

118, first line, for that read than.

133, line 7 from the bottom, for interests read interest.

166, first line, for tle read little.

173, line 13, dele in at the end of the line.

181, line 7 from the bottom, dele will.

199, line 2 from the bottom, for alluded to, read attended to.

238, line 2 from the top, for ennemies read ennemis.

344, line 8 from the top, for Sir James's read Sir James.

355, line 14 from the top, for causes read cause.

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