BOOK I.

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATION S.

DEFINITION AND USE OF THE SCIENCE.

MORAL PHILOSOPHY, Morality, Ethics, Casuistry, Natural Law, mean all the same thing—namely, that science which teaches men their duty and the reasons of it.

The use of such a study depends upon this, that, without it, the rules of life, by which men are ordinarily governed, oftentimes mislead them, through a defect either in the rule or in the application. These rules are, the Law of Honour, the Law of the Land, and the Scriptures.

THE LAW OF HONOUR.

The Law of Honour is a system of rules constructed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourse with one another; and for no other purpose: consequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law of Honour but what tends to incommode this intercourse. Hence this law only prescribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals, omitting such as relate to the Supreme Being, as well as those which we owe to our inferiors. For which reason, profaneness, neglect of public worship or private devotion, cruelty to servants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependents, want of charity to the poor, injuries done to tradesmen by insolvency or delay of payment, with numberless examples of the same kind, are accounted no breaches of honour; because a man is not a less agreeable companion for these vices, nor the worse to deal with in those concerns which are usually transacted between one gentleman and another.

Again: the Law of Honour being constituted by men occupied in the pursuit of pleasure, and for the mutual conveniency of such men, will be found, as might be expected from the character and design of the law-makers, to be, in most instances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of the natural passions. Thus it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkenness, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme: and lays no stress upon the virtues opposite to these.

[Sir James Mackintosh has remarked on this chapter in the following terms: 'His (Paley's) chapter on what he calls the Law of Honour is unjust, even in its own small sphere, because it supposes honour to allow what it does not forbid; though the truth be, that the vices enumerated by him are only not forbidden by honour, because they are not within its jurisdiction. Whenever higher honour is bestowed on one moral quality than on others of equal or greater moral value, what is called a point of honour may be said to exist. . . . . Cowardice is not so immoral as cruelty, nor indeed so detestable, but it is more despicable and disgraceful. . . Honour is not wasted on those who abstain from acts which are punished by the law.'-Dissertation on Ethical Philosophy under Paley.]

THE LAW OF THE LAND.

That part of mankind who are beneath the Law of Honour, often make the Law of the Land their rule of life; that is, they are satisfied with themselves so long as they do or omit nothing, for the doing or omitting of which the law can punish them: whereas every system of human laws, considered as a rule of life, labours under the two following defects:

I. Human laws omit many duties, as not objects of compulsion -such as piety to God, bounty to the poor, forgiveness of injuries, education of children, gratitude to benefactors.

The law never speaks but to command, nor commands but where it can compel; consequently those duties, which by their nature must be voluntary, are left out of the Statute-book, as lying beyond the reach of its operation and authority.

II. Human laws permit-or, which is the same thing, suffer to go unpunished-many crimes, because they are incapable of being defined by any previous description: of which nature are luxury, prodigality, partiality in voting at those elections in which the qualifications of the candidate ought to determine the success,

caprice in the disposition of men's fortunes at their death, disrespect to parents, and a multitude of similar examples.

For, this is the alternative: either the law must define beforehand, and with precision, the offences which it punishes; or it must be left to the discretion of the magistrate, to determine upon each particular accusation, whether it constitute that offence which the law designed to punish, or not; which is, in effect, leaving to the magistrate to punish or not to punish, at his pleasure, the individual who is brought before him, which is just so much tyranny. Where, therefore, as in the instances above mentioned, the distinction between right and wrong is of too subtile or of too secret a nature to be ascertained by any preconcerted language, the law of most countries, especially of free states, rather than commit the liberty of the subject to the discretion of the magistrate, leaves men in such cases to themselves.

THE SCRIPTURES.

Whoever expects to find in the Scriptures a specific direction for every moral doubt that arises, looks for more than he will meet with; and to what a magnitude such a detail of particular precepts would have enlarged the sacred volume, may be partly understood from the following consideration :-The laws of this country, including the acts of the legislature, and the decisions of our supreme courts of justice, are not contained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is not once in ten attempts that you can find the case you look for in any law-book whatever: to say nothing of those numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law professes not to prescribe or determine anything. Had, then, the same particularity which obtains in human laws, so far as they go, been attempted in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifest they would have been by much too bulky to be either read or circulated; or rather, as St John says, even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written.'

Morality is taught in Scripture in this wise:-General rules are laid down, of piety, justice, benevolence, and purity: such as, worshipping God in spirit and in truth; doing as we would be done by; loving our neighbour as ourself; forgiving others, as we expect forgiveness from God; that mercy is better than sacrifice; that not that which entereth into a man-nor, by parity of reason, any ceremonial pollutions-but that which proceedeth from the heart, defileth him. These rules are occasionally illustrated, either

by fictitious examples, as in the parable of the good Samaritan; and of the cruel servant, who refused to his fellow-servant that indulgence and compassion which his master had shewn to him or in instances which actually presented themselves, as in Christ's reproof of his disciples at the Samaritan village; his praise of the poor widow who cast in her last mite; his censure of the Pharisees who chose out the chief rooms-and of the tradition whereby they evaded the command to sustain their indigent parents: or, lastly, in the resolution of questions, which those who were about our Saviour proposed to him; as his answer to the young man who asked him, ' What lack I yet?' and to the honest scribe, who had found out, even in that age and country, that' to love God and his neighbour, was more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifice.'1

And this is, in truth, the way in which all practical sciences are taught, as Arithmetic, Grammar, Navigation, and the like. Rules are laid down, and examples are subjoined: not that these examples are the cases, much less all the cases, which will actually occur; but by way only of explaining the principle of the rule, and as so many specimens of the method of applying it. The chief difference is, that the examples in Scripture are not annexed to the rules with the didactic regularity to which we are now-a-days accustomed, but delivered dispersedly, as particular occasions suggested them; which gave them, however-especially to those who heard them, and were present to the occasions which produced them—an energy and persuasion, much beyond what the same or any instances would have appeared with in their places in a system.

Beside this, the Scriptures commonly presuppose in the persons to whom they speak, a knowledge of the principles of natural justice; and are employed not so much to teach new rules of morality, as to enforce the practice of it by new sanctions, and by a greater certainty; which last seems to be the proper business of a revelation from God, and what was most wanted.

Thus the unjust, covenant-breakers, and extortioners,' are condemned in Scripture, supposing it known, or leaving it, where it admits of doubt, to moralists to determine, what injustice, extortion, or breach of covenant are.

The above considerations are intended to prove, that the Scriptures do not supersede the use of the science of which we profess to treat, and at the same time to acquit them of any charge of imperfection or insufficiency on that account.

1['And to love him [God] with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength, and to love his neighbour as himself, is more than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.'-Mark xii. 33.]

THE MORAL SENSE.

The father of Caius Toranius had been proscribed by the triumvirate. Caius Toranius, coming over to the interests of that party, discovered to the officers who were in pursuit of his father's life the place where he concealed himself, and gave them, withal, a description by which they might distinguish his person when they found him. The old man, more anxious for the safety and fortunes of his son, than about the little that might remain of his own life, began immediately to inquire of the officers who seized him, whether his son was well, whether he had done his duty to the satisfaction of his generals. "That son," replied one of the officers, so dear to thy affections, betrayed thee to us; by his information thou art apprehended, and diest." The officer with this struck a poniard to his heart, and the unhappy parent fell, not so much affected by his fate, as by the means to which he owed it.'1

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Now the question is, whether, if this story were related to the wild boy caught some years ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a savage without experience, and without instruction, cut off in his infancy from all intercourse with his species, and, consequently, under no possible influence of example, authority, education, sympathy, or habit; whether, I say, such a one would feel, upon the relation, any degree of that sentiment of disapprobation of Toranius's conduct which we feel, or not?

They who maintain the existence of a moral sense; of innate maxims; of a natural conscience; that the love of virtue and hatred of vice are instinctive; or the perception of right and wrong intuitive—all which are only different ways of expressing the same opinion-affirm that he would.

They who deny the existence of a moral sense, &c., affirm that he would not; and upon this, issue is joined.

As the experiment has never been made, and, from the difficulty of procuring a subject—not to mention the impossibility of proposing the question to him if we had one—is never likely to be made, what would be the event, can only be judged of from probable

reasons.

1 Caius Toranius triumvirûm partes secutus, proscripti patris sui prætorii et ornati viri latebras, ætatem, notasque corporis, quibus agnosci posset, centurionibus edidit, qui eum persecuti sunt. Senex de filii magis vitâ, et incrementis, quàm de reliquo spiritu suo sollicitus, an incolumis esset, et an imperatoribus satisfaceret, interrogare eos cœpit. E quibus unus: Ab illo, inquit, quem tantoperè diligis, demonstratus nostro ministerio, filii indicio occideris: protinusque pectus ejus gladio trajecit. Collapsus itaque est infelix, auctore cædis, quàm ipsâ cæde, miserior.'-VALER. MAX. lib. ix. cap. 11.