PART II. SECT. III. acknowledged, in forming the theory in queftion, that virtue is not CHAP. II. referred to the test of actual fympathy, but to the test of a sympathy, imagined and felected in the cafe of a well informed and impartial obferver. Here too there is a masterly tone of expreffion *; and, if eloquence were the teft of truth, no want of evidence to obtain belief: But, in this reference to a fuppofed well informed and impartial obferver, there is an implied confeffion, that there is fome previous standard of eftimation, by which to felect the judge of our actions; and this standard, by which we are enabled to select an impartial and well informed spectator, to whose judgement we refer, or by which we are enabled to judge of fympathy itself, as well as of every other action or paffion, is that principle of moral approbation, of which we are now in fearch. This is not merely a queftion of fact, as in other examples of phyfical theory: For we do not enquire what men actually do in any number of inftances; but what they ought to do in every instance? what is the principle of moral difcernment on which they may fafely proceed, whether in judging of others, or in chufing for themselves? In Sympathy is no doubt a part in the focial nature of man. dividuals mutually beftow, and delight to receive it; but, like every other natural difpofition, it is fufceptible of abuse, and by no means a safe or an adequate principle of estimation. As the prefumptuous appreciate others by their own standard, the weak and dependent rife or fall in their own esteem, according to the value that is put upon them by others; but neither one nor the other, furely, should be set up as the models of perfection to mankind. * Vide Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments. PART II. It is difficult to name the power by which man is enabled to distinguish between right and wrong, without recurring to the ge- SECT. III. neric appellation of fome of his other faculties, as fenfe, perception, or judgement. This power has accordingly been termed a moral fense, or a sense of moral good and evil; and the name has led to an hypothefis or fuppofition, that as nature, in the case of different animals, has fuperadded to the other principles of fenfitive life, fome peculiar faculty of Jeeing, Jmell, or feeling, as in the lynx's eye, the hound's noftril, or the spider's touch; as to other qualities of the loadstone, are joined the magnetic polarity and the affinity to iron: So, to the mind of man, over and above the powers cognitive and active, the Maker has given a power judicative, refpecting the merit or demerit of character, and approving or difapproving even the difpofitions, from which the moral conduct proceeds. Lord Shaftesbury fometimes uses the term moral sense, as expreffive of a confcious difcernment of moral good and evil, but feems to refer to the fact merely without any thought of an hypothefis to account for the phenomenon of moral approbation. It was enough, in his apprehenfion, that the distinction of moral excellence is real, and that we are by our nature well qualified to perceive it. In this, alfo, the fects of antient philosophy feem to have acquiefced, without requiring any other account of the matter. If it be understood, therefore, that difficulties arifing on the question of theory, relating to the explanation of the phenomenon of moral approbation, do not amount to any degree of uncertainty in the fact; and, if it be admitted that moral right and wrong are of the most serious confequence to mankind; the faculty, by which we perceive the oppofite conditions of men in PART II. CHAP. II. SECT. III. this particular, may be known by any name that does not tend to confound the fubject with others of a different nature. If moral fenfe, therefore, be no more than a figurative expreffion, by which to distinguish the difcernment of right and wrong, admitting this to be an ultimate fact in the conftitution of our nature; it may appear nugatory to difpute about words, or to require any other form of expreffion than is fit to point out the fact in queftion. And if this fact, though no way fufceptible of explanation or proof, being uniform to a great extent in the operations or nature, is itself a law, not a phenomenon; it may no doubt ferve as a principle of fcience, to account for appearances that refult from itfelf, and to direct the practice of arts throughout the departments in which it prevails. Thus the laws of motion, gravitation, cohefion, magnetism, electricity, fluidity, elafticity, and fo forth, which are not explicable upon any principle previously known in nature, are nevertheless received as unquestionable facts, and with great advantage purfued to their confequences in the order of things. In this fuit they furnish at once a fecure direction to the practice of arts, and the most fatisfactory account of appearances in the terrestrial and folar fyftems. pur Men of fpeculation were fometimes amufed with conjectures, refpecting the cause of gravitation, and the intimate nature of other phyfical laws; but science made little progrefs, while these were confidered as phenomena to be explained, and not as principles of fcience applicable to explain their diverfified effects throughout the phyfical fyftem. PART II. CHAP. II. Such, alfo, we may fuppofe to be the fate of theory, when employed to explain the law of estimation in the mind of man. The SECT. III. existence of this law is known, as the exiftence of mind itself is known, without any thing previously understood, from which to infer or explain it, or on which to reft our belief of its truth. Its applications, in our judgement of manners, are no lefs proper than the application of any phyfical law in accounting for its own fpecific appearances. They enable the moralift, in particular inftances, to afcertain what is good for mankind; and to form a regular fyftem of moral estimation and precept, throughout all the fubdivifions of law, of manners, or political inflitutions. We may, or may not, conceive the power of difcerning between excellence and defect, as a faculty inherent to intelligent being. To fuch being, indeed, it appears effential to be conscious. of himself; and in his attainments, whether actually varied, or only conceived to be variable, it may be essential that he confider unequal degrees of excellence and defect, as measures of the good or the evil of which he himself is fufceptible. Created intelligence may advance in the ufe of this difcerning faculty, and have a continued approach to the model of divine wisdom; a termination from which its distance may diminish, but at which it never can arrive. The effence of almighty. God we must conceive to be most Simple; being that which neceffarily exists from eternity. Of his fupreme intelligence, we have full evidence in the system of nature; and of his distinguishing the oppofite conditions of moral good and evil, there is equally irresistible proof. The distinction of excellence and defect originates in the unequal R conditions VOL. II. PART II. conditions of mind, and the difcernment of fuch condition is not only peculiar, but neceffary alfo to the course which created beings of this order are destined to run. Hunger and thirst, or any other incitement to felf prefervation, is not more effential to the animal frame, than the preference of what is perfect, to what is defective, is to the conftitution of mind: It is a prefervative of reason, a main spring of exertion, and a princple of advancement, in the track of intelligent nature. Hence it is that numbers of men, who are far from conceiving virtue as the constituent of happiness, nevertheless confider it as the constituent of excellence and perfection, which they behold with respect and esteem. Man alone in this animal kingdom, for ought we know, apprehends the gradation of excellence in the fcale of being; and, thoughall men are agreed upon the reality of a comparative eminence, in the afcending steps of this scale, it may be difficult to affign the principle of estimation, fo as to justify the preference which is given to one order of being above another. Mr Buffon afcribes this preference to the greater number of relations, which certain orders of being bear to the system of nature around them*. " In the multitude of things prefented * Dans la foule d'objets que nous prefente ce vafte globe dont nous venons de faire la defcription, dans le nombre infini des differentes productions, dont fa furface eft couverte et peuplie, les animaux tiennent le premier rang, tant par la conformité qu'ils ont avec nous, que par la fuperiorité que nous leur connoiffons fur les etres vegitans ou inanimes. Les animaux ont par leurs fens, par leur forme, par leur movement, beaucoup plus de rapports avec les chofes que les environnent, que n'en ont les vegetaux; ceux-ci par leur developpement et par leur differentes parties, ont auffi une plus grand nombre de rapports avec les objets exterieurs, que n'en ont les mineraux ou les pierres, que n'ont aucune forte de vie ou de movement, et c'est par ce plus grand nombre de rapports que l' animal eft reellement au deffus du vegetal, et le vegetal |