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SECTION III

VOL I

Of the Difficulty which has arisen in accounting for Moral Approbation.

SECT. III.

PART II. IF, according to the refult of our enquiries on the subject of CHAP. II. good and evil, what is required as the excellence or virtue of human nature, also constitute happiness; and if vice, on the contrary, is to be dreaded as the constituent of mifery; there cannot be any doubt of the choice to be made.

But virtue, even to thofe who are far from confidering it as happinefs, is still matter of esteem and respect; and vice, even where the vicious are conceived to poffefs the good things of this life, is reprobated and condemned: Infomuch, that virtue is proved even by those who depart from it; and vice is disapproved even where it is embraced.

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This fentiment, therefore, is of a peculiar nature, not a specimen of mere defire and averfion, directed to a particular object; but a cenforial act in the mind of man, having cognizance of a right or

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a wrong in the measure or tendency of his own defires or aver- PART II. fions, even when they have most entirely determined his will.

Doctor Clarke, and fome others, confidering virtue as the fitnefs of man's character and practice to his own frame, and to his place in the fyftem of nature; and, confidering reafon or understanding itself as competent to obferve the fitness of things, have affumed human reafon as the principle of moral difcernment.

This fyftem is nearly the fame with that which, making virtue to confist in the conformity of will to truth, makes reason alfo the arbiter of right and wrong, as of truth and error.

But these systems have been rejected, as unfit to explain the phenomenon of moral approbation; which, being itself an affection or fentiment of the mind, must be derived from a principle to be fought for among the confiderations that influence the will, not among the perceptions of mere intelligence, which go no farther than to remark the existence of things.

Upon this ground, men of fpeculation have had recourfe to various confiderations of utility, private or public; of Sympathy, and of moral fenfe; to account for the approbation or disapprobation of actions which they themselves or others perform.

The investigation and application of any one of these principles, joined to the refutation of others, has amounted to treatifes, and led to difcuffions of great length. But the utmost that can be done in this place, and in a mere fummary state of fo much argument, is to enumerate a few of the principal theories; and en

deavour

CHAP. II.
SECT. III,

PART II. deavour to extricate the mind from the perplexity, which fo many CHAP. II. difcordant accounts of the same subject may occafion.

SECT. III.

In the mean time, the Regula Philofophandi, or canons of reafon, as they are prescribed in other examples of physical investigation, must be sustained in this *.

I. We are not to affign, as the cause of any appearance, what is not itself known as a fact in nature.

Upon this principle, we reject hypothefis, or the mere supposition of a cause, of whofe existence we have not any previous knowledge; as the vortex of Des Cartes is rejected in accounting for the planetary revolutions.

On this rule, it is probable that none of our theorists will trespass; for, although fome have proposed to account for intelligence itself on the fuppofition of fome occult configuration or motion of material atoms, conftituting reflection and thought; yet, as the mind, when fo conftituted, ever acts upon fome confideration known to itself, it is impoffible to think of explaining an act of the mind, in any particular inftance, without recurring to fome one or other of the confiderations, on which the mind is generally known to proceed.

II. We are not to deduce effects from caufes, which, though real, are unfit to produce the effect.

In the connection of caufe and effect, in contradiftinction to a mere fortuitous contiguity of circumftances, there is supposed a continual

* Vide Newtoni Principia, lib. iii. ab initio.

SECT. III.

continual or infeparable accompanyment of one with the o- PART II. ther. Wherever the cause exists, there must the effect exift alfo. CHAP. II. And the converfe. They are ever to be found together, and in the fame proportions.

Upon these principles, actual utility, whether private or public, will not account for the phenomenon of moral approbation.

For, apart at least from any private utility, it must be acknowledged that men approve of virtue, as it was exhibited in fcenes long fince past, and on occafions in which they could not poffibly have any private or interested concern.

The fentiment of approbation, therefore, is certainly not proportioned to the private benefit actually received from the action approved, by the person who approves.

Utility, as it concerns mankind indifcriminately, and without any limitation of perfons and times, is certainly more likely to account for this phenomenon.

Virtue is no doubt of a nature to be useful to mankind; but if, under the title of utility, as is probable, we refer to the external effects of virtue, we fhall not find moral approbation keep pace with the actual measure of benefit mankind received from this or any other cause.

There are many examples of great utility, in which no fubject of moral approbation is conceived. Land is fertile; a tree is fruitful; a fteer performs much useful labour; yet, in these there is no fubject of moral esteem. The fuppofed caufe, con

trary

PARTII.

trary to rule, is found to exist in many fuch inftances, without SECT. lil. producing the effect it is brought to explain.

CHAP. II.

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In answer to this objection, it used to be admitted, by the author of this system, "that moral approbation does not extend to matters of mere phyfical utility; or is limited to mind, and its "active exertions." This limitation, accordingly, may be admitted: But actual utility, even in affections of mind, does not always amount to a fubject of moral approbation. What more useful in nature, than the difpofition of every man to preferve himself; for, on this the safety of the whole depends: Yet its most reasonable effects are merely tolerated, seldom applauded as virtue, and often reprobated as selfishness and vice.

This effect, also, of moral approbation is fometimes found without the actual utility which is fuppofed to be its cause.

The mere attempts of a virtuous man to ferve his friend, or his country, is an object of moral esteem; not only where he may have failed in his purpose, but even where the event may have been calamitous to himself, or to others. The perfon, who dies with his friend, in attempting to fave him; the person who finks under the ruins of his country, in ftriving to preserve it; is no lefs an object of moral approbation, than the most successful adventurer in either caufe. And, if fuccefs, for the most part, give luftre to enterprize, the tender melancholy that arifes from a tragic event, is well known alfo to enforce the love of virtue, without regard to utility, of which the idea is excluded by the want of fuccefs.

It appears plain from these instances, that moral approbation, though

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