CHAPTER FIFTH.

ANALYSIS OF OUR MORAL PERCEPTIONS AND EMOTIONS.

BEFORE proceeding to this extensive and difficult subject, I shall quote a passage from Dr. Butler, in which he has combined together, and compressed into the compass of a few paragraphs, all the most important arguments in proof of the existence of the moral faculty which have been hitherto under our review. While this quotation serves as a summary of what has already been stated, it will, I hope, prepare us for entering on the following discussions with greater interest and a more enlightened curiosity.

That which renders beings capable of moral government is their having a moral nature, and moral faculties of perception and of action. Brute creatures are impressed and actuated by various instincts and propensities so also are we. But, additional to this, we have a capacity for reflecting upon actions and characters, and making them an object to our thought; and on doing this we naturally and unavoidably approve some actions, under the peculiar view of their being virtuous and of good desert, and disapprove others as vicious and of ill desert. That we have this moral approving and disapproving faculty is certain from our experiencing it in ourselves, and recognising it in each other. It appears from our exercising it unavoidably in the approbation and disapprobation even of feigned characters: From the words, right and wrong, odious and amiable, base and worthy, with many others of like signification in all languages, applied to actions and characters: From the many written systems of morals which suppose it, since it cannot be imagined that all these authors, throughout all these treatises, had absolutely no meaning at all to their words, or a meaning merely chimerical: From our natural sense of gratitude, which implies a distinction between merely being the instrument of good

and intending it: From the like distinction every one makes between injury and mére harm, which Hobbes says is peculiar to mankind, and between injury and just punishment, a distinction plainly natural, prior to the consideration of human laws; it is manifest great part of common language and of common behaviour over the world is formed upon supposition of such a moral faculty, whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine reason,-whether considered as a sentiment of the understanding, or as a perception of the heart,* or, which seems the truth, as including both. Nor is it at all doubtful in the general what course of action this faculty, or practical discerning power within us, approves, and what it disapproves. For, as much as it has been disputed wherein virtue consists, or whatever ground for doubt there may be about particulars, yet in general there is in reality an universally acknowledged standard of it. It is that which all ages and all countries have made profession of in public, it is that which every man you meet puts on the show of,-it is that which the primary and fundamental laws of all civil constitutions over the face of the earth make it their business and endeavour to enforce the practice of upon mankind, namely, justice, veracity, and regard to common good.” †

Upon the various topics here suggested, a copious and instructive commentary might be written, but I think it better to leave them in the concise and impressive form in which they are proposed by the author.

The science of ethics has been divided by modern writers into two parts; the one comprehending the theory of morals, and the other its practical doctrines. The questions about which the former is employed are chiefly the two following: First, by what principle of our constitution are we led to form the notion of moral distinctions,—whether by that faculty which perceives the distinction between truth and falsehood in the other branches of human knowledge, or by a peculiar power

There is here, I suspect, a typographical mistake. Butler, I have no doubt, wrote a perception of the understanding, or a sentiment of the heart.

† Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue subjoined to Butler's Analogy, 3d Ed.

of perception (called by some the moral sense) which is pleased with one set of qualities and displeased with another? Secondly, what is the proper object of moral approbation; or, in other words, what is the common quality or qualities belonging to all the different modes of virtue? Is it benevolence, or a rational self-love, or a disposition (resulting from the ascendant of reason over passion) to act suitably to the different relations in which we are placed? These two questions seem to exhaust the whole theory of morals. The scope of the one is to ascertain the origin of our moral ideas; that of the other to refer the phenomena of moral perception to their most simple and general laws.

The practical doctrines of morality comprehend all those rules of conduct which profess to point out the proper ends of human pursuit, and the most effectual means of attaining them; to which we may add, under the general title of adminicles, (if I may be allowed to borrow a technical word of Lord Bacon's) all those literary compositions, whatever be their particular form, which have for their aim to fortify and animate our good dispositions by delineations of the beauty, of the dignity, or of the utility of virtue.

I shall not inquire at present into the justness of this division. I shall only observe that the words theory and practice are not in this instance employed in their usual acceptations. The theory of morals does not bear, for example, the same relation to the practice of morals that the theory of geometry bears to practical geometry. In this last science all the practical rules are founded on theoretical principles previously established. But, in the former science, the practical rules are obvious to the capacities of all mankind, while the theoretical principles form one of the most difficult subjects of discussion that have ever exercised the ingenuity of metaphysicians.

Although, however, a complete acquaintance with the practice of our duty does not presuppose any knowledge of the theory of morals, it does not therefore follow that false theoretical notions upon this subject may not be attended with very pernicious consequences. On the

contrary, nothing is more evident than this, that every system which calls in question the immutability of moral distinctions has a tendency to undermine the foundations of all the virtues, both private and public, and to dry up the best and purest sources of human happiness. When sceptical doubts have once been excited in the mind by the perusal of such systems, no exhortation to the practice of our duties can have any effect; and it is necessary for us, before we think of addressing the heart, or influencing the will, to begin with undeceiving and enlightening the understanding. It is for this reason, that, in such an age as the present, when sceptical doctrines have been so anxiously disseminated by writers of genius, it appears to me to be a still more essential object in academical instruction, to vindicate the theory of morals against the cavils of licentious metaphysicians, than to indulge in the more interesting and popular disquisitions of practical ethics. On the former subject much yet remains to be done. On the latter, although the field of inquiry is by no means as yet completely exhausted, the student may be safely trusted to his own serious reflections, guided by the precepts of those illustrious men who, in different ages and countries, have devoted their talents to the improvement and happiness of the human

race.

In this department of literature no country whatever has surpassed our own; whether we consider the labors. of the great lights of the English church, or the fugitive essays of those later writers who (after the example of Addison) have attempted to enlist in the cause of virtue and religion, whatever aid fancy, and wit, and elegance, could lend to the support of truth. It is scarcely necessary for me to mention the advantage which may be derived in the same study from the philosophical remains of ancient Greece and Rome,-due allowances being made for some unfortunate prejudices produced or encouraged by violent and oppressive systems of policy. Indeed, with the exception of a few such prejudices, it may, with great truth be asserted, that they who have been most successful in modern times in inculcating the duties of life, have been the moralists who have trod

the most closely in the footsteps of the Greek and Roman philosophers. The case is different with respect to the theory of morals, which, among the ancients, attracted comparatively but a small degree of attention, although one of the questions formerly mentioned (that concerning the object of moral approbation) was a favorite subject of discussion in their schools. The other question, however, (that concerning the principle of moral approbation) with the exception of a few hints in the writings of Plato, may be considered as in a great measure peculiar to modern Europe, having been chiefly agitated since the writings of Cudworth in opposition to those of Hobbes; and it is this question accordingly, (recommended at once by its novelty and difficulty to the curiosity of speculative men) that has produced most of the theories which characterize and distinguish from each other the later systems of moral philosophy.

It appears to me that the diversity of these systems has arisen, in a great measure, from the partial views which different writers have taken of the same complicated subject; that these systems are by no means so exclusive of each other as has commonly been imagined; and that, in order to arrive at the truth, it is necessary for us, instead of attaching ourselves to any one, to avail ourselves of the lights which all of them have furnished. Our moral perceptions and emotions are, in fact, the result of different principles combined together. They involve a judgment of the understanding, and they involve also a feeling of the heart; * and it is only by attending to both that we can form a just notion of our moral constitution. In confirmation of this remark, it will be necessary for us to analyze particularly the state of our minds, when we are spectators of any good or bad action performed by another person, or when we reflect on the actions performed by ourselves.

The same remark is made in a passage already quoted from Dr. Butler, whose slightest hints are entitled to attention, as they seem to have been all scrupulously and deliberately weighed. "It is manifest great part of common language, and of common behaviour over the world, is formed upon supposition of a moral faculty; whether called conscience, moral reason, moral sense, or divine reason; whether considered as a perception of the understanding, or as a sentiment of the heart, or, which seems the truth, as including both.”