cult, not a very easy thing. But he says that we may, and that we ought, with our utmost endeavour, to make the best possible use of the means we possess toward the formation of good intellectual and moral characters; and that the difference between the intellectual and moral characters formed by the worst and the best education is immense.

That is the matter of fact, very different, it appears, from that which it was the purpose of Sir James to make people believe.

3. We may pass the third sentence without any remark.

4. This goes beyond driveling. It is more of the nature of raving. Because we can do nothing to produce winds, though we know the causes of winds; does Sir James desire us to conclude, that we can do nothing towards the producing of good intellectual and moral characters? As well might he infer that we can do nothing towards the making of a good shoe. The reason why we making of winds, is,

can do nothing toward the because we have no power over the causes of winds; the reason why we can do a great deal towards the formation of the intellectual and moral character, is, because we have great power over the means of that formation. Mercy on us! And Sir James did take these two cases for parallels!

The reason why we can predict the winds, as

little nearly as we can act upon them, is, that we know little or nothing of the order in which the causes of them take place. But we know a great deal about the order of the causes which operate to the formation of a good character.

5. This is the last sentence of Sir James's wellconsidered and well-meant attack upon the supporters of the principle of utility with which we shall trouble the reader.

Does Sir James, then, mean to give it out, that when the causes which co-operate to any effect are "minute and multiplied," it would be absurd to attempt to reduce them to order, or to frame rules for the direction of them to the attainment of the effects which we desire?

If so, he is not worth thinking of for a moment. If he only means to give us the information, that many and minute circumstances do operate to the formation of character, nobody needed that information at his hands, at any rate not Mr. Mill, who has made a more comprehensive enumeration of those circumstances than any preceding writer.

Does Sir James not know many instances, beside that of Education, in which, though circumstances be minute and multiplied, we obtain a very complete command over them? The circumstances are minute, and multiplied, which influence the course of a ship, from the Thames to the Ganges; but we have obtained such a com

mand over them, as generally to insure a particular event. And here we may remark that even Sir James's intractable winds, are rendered the instrument of this steady result.

The circumstances are minute, and multiplied to an infinite degree, which contribute to the supply of London, or any other great city, with the necessaries and luxuries which it consumes; yet we can trace them all, to the one principle in human nature which produces that supply with invariable constancy, and measures it with almost incredible precision.

Surely we have no occasion to give more instances. And surely we may affirm, that never, since philosophy began, was matter like this given to the world for philosophy before.

THE view of Sir James is not complete, until, after having seen him at work on other men's doctrines, we see him at work also on his own.

He makes delivery of what he denominates his ethical theory, in his seventh, or concluding section, called "General Remarks."

For the reader's convenience I insert the whole passage, with the paragraphs numbered, in the Appendix.*

The first three of the said paragraphs offer nothing for remark. In the fourth, Sir James, with his usual skill, begins a dissertation which was little to his purpose.

It is introduced, by the notice of Brown's admission, that every act which is moral is also useful. Hereupon Sir James draws a conclusion. If this, says he, be true, then morality and utility should be considered reciprocally tests of each other.

Does this mean, that wherever we find morality

• Vide Appendix B.

in an act, it is a test or proof that there is also utility in it; and wherever we find utility in an act, it is also a test or proof that there is morality in it? This is not an inference from Brown's admission; it is sheer repetition; Brown's admission itself, only in obscure phrase. To say, that two things are always found together; and next, that where you find one of them, you will find the other, is merely to affirm the same thing twice; a very common method of inferring with Sir James.

Let us go on. According to this doctrine of Sir James, that morality and utility are reciprocally tests of each other, they are two separate things. The thing which tests is one thing; the thing which is tested is another.

Further; when any thing is to be used as a test, it must first be known; at least so far known, as to be distinguished from every other thing; else we never can tell when we have got it. Now, then, when morality is to be used as a test of utility, how are we to know that we have it? Sir James gave it us, as a sort of discovery, long ago, that one out of the two grand objects of moral philosophy was, to tell us what morality is. Sir James has not any where yet told us what it is, nor attempted to do so. He is therefore premature in instructing us to use it as a

test.

Sir James, however, does one thing here. He