Now the queftion is, whether, if this story were related to the wild boy, caught fome years ago in the woods of Hanover, or to a favage without experience, and without inftruction, cut off in his infancy from all intercourfe with his species, and confe quently, under no poffible influence of example, authority, education, fympathy, or habit; whether, I fay, fuch a one would feel, upon the relation, any degree of that fentiment of difapprobation of Toranius' conduct which we feel, or not.

They who maintain the existence of a moral sense -of innate maxims-of a natural confcience-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 expreffing the fame opinion) affirm that he would.

They who deny the existence of a moral sense, &c. affirm that he would not.

And, upon this, iffue is joined.

As the experiment has never been made, and from the difficulty of procuring a fubject (not to mention the impoffibility of propofing 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 reafons.

Those who contend for the affirmative, observe, that we approve examples of generofity, gratitude, fidelity, &c. and condemn the contrary, initantly, without deliberation, without having any intereft of our own concerned in them; ofttimes without being conscious of, or able to give, any reafon for our approbation; that this approbation is uniform and univerfal; the fame forts of conduct being approved or disapproved in all ages and countries of the world— circumstances, fay they, which ftrongly indicate the operation of an inftinct or moral fenfe.

protinufque pectus ejus gladio trajecit. cædis, quam ipfa cæde, miferior."

Collapfus itaque eft infelix, auctore

VALER. MAX. Lib. IX. Cap. 11..

On the other hand, anfwers have been given to most of these arguments, by the patrons of the oppo fite fyftem: and,

First, as to the uniformity above alleged, they controvert the fact. They remark, from authentic accounts of hiftorians and travellers, that there is scarcely a fingle vice, which in fome age or country of the world has not been countenanced by public opinion; that in one country it is esteemed an office of piety in children to fuftain their aged parents, in another to dispatch them out of the way; that fuicide in one age of the world, has been heroifm, is in another felony; that theft, which is punished by moft laws, by the laws of Sparta was not unfrequently rewarded; that the promiscuous commerce of the fexes, although condemned by the regulations and cenfure of all civilized nations, is practifed by the favages of the tropical regions, without referve, compunction, or difgrace; that crimes, of which it is no longer permitted us even to speak, have had their advocates among the fages of very renowned times; that, if an inhabitant of the polished nations of Europe is delighted with the appearance, wherever he meets with it, of happiness, tranquillity, and comfort, a wild American is no lefs diverted with the writhings and contortions of a victim at the stake; that even amongst ourselves, and in the present improved state of moral knowledge, we are far from a perfect confent in our opinions or feelings; that you fhall hear duelling alternately reprobated and applauded, accord< ing to the fex, age, or ftation of the perfon you converfe with; that the forgiveness of injuries and infults is accounted by one fort of people magnanimity, by another, meannefs; that in the above inftances, and perhaps in most others, moral approbation follows the fashions and inftitutions of the country we live in; which fashions also, and institutions themselves, have grown out of the exigencies, the climate, fituation, or local circumftances of the country; or

have been fet up by the authority of an arbitrary chieftain, or the unaccountable caprice of the multitude -all which, they obferve, looks very little like the fteady hand and indelible characters of nature. But,

Secondly, because, after thefe exceptions and abatements, it cannot be denied, but that fome forts of actions command and receive the esteem of mankind more than others; and that the approbation of them is general, though not univerfal: as to this they fay, that the general approbation of virtue, even in inftances where we have no intereft of our own to induce us to it, may be accounted for, without the affiftance of a moral fenfe: thus,

"Having experienced, in fome inftance, a particular conduct to be beneficial to ourselves, or observed that it would be fo, a fentiment of approbation rises up in our minds, which fentiment afterwards accompanies the idea or mention of the fame conduct, although the private advantage which firft excited it no longer exift."

And this continuance of the paffion, after the reafon of it has ceafed, is nothing more, fay they, than what happens in other cafes; especially in the love of money, which is in no perfon fo eager, as it is oftentimes found to be in a rich old mifer, without family to provide for, or friend to oblige by it, and to whom confequently it is no longer, (and he may be fenfible of it too) of any real ufe or value: yet is this man as much overjoyed with gain, and mortified by loffes, as he was the first day he opened his shop, and when his very fubfiftence depended upon his fuccefs in it.

By thefe means, the custom of approving certain actions commenced; and when once fuch a cuftom hath got footing in the world, it is no difficult thing to explain how it is tranfmitted and continued; for then the greatest part of thofe who approve of virtue, approve of it from authority, by imitation,

E

and from a habit of approving fuch and fuch actions, inculcated in early youth, and receiving, as men grow up, continual acceffions of ftrength and vigour, from cenfure and encouragement, from the books they read, the converfations they hear, the current application of epithets, the general turn of language, and the various other caufes, by which it univerfally comes to pafs, that a fociety of men, touched in the feebleft degree with the fame paffion, foon communicate to one another a great degree of it.* This is the cafe with moft of us at prefent; and is the cause alfo, that the process of affociation, defcribed in the laft paragraph but one, is little now either perceived or wanted.

Amongst the caufes affigned for the continuance and diffufion of the fame moral fentiments amongst mankind, we have mentioned imitation. The effica cy of this principle is moft obfervable in children; indeed, if there be any thing in them which deferves the name of an instinct, it is their propenfity to imitation. Now there is nothing which children imitate or apply more readily than expreffions of affection and averfion, of approbation, hatred, refentment, and the like; and when thefe paffions and expreffions are once connected, which they foon will be by the fame affociation which unites words with their ideas, the paffion will follow the expreffion, and attach upon the object to which the child has been accuftomed to apply the epithet. In a word, when almost every thing else is learned by imitation, can we wonder to find the fame caufe concerned in the generation of our moral fentiments?

* "From inftances of popular tumults, feditions, factions, panics, and of all paffions, which are fhared with a multitude, we may learn the influence of fociety in exciting and fupporting any emotion; while the most ungov ernable diforders are raised we find by that means, from the flightest and moft frivolous occafions. He must be more or lefs than man, who kindles not in the common blaze. What wonder, then, that moral fentiments are found of fuch influence in life, though fpringing from principles, which may appear, at first fight, fomewhat fmall and delicate?"

Hume's Inquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, Se&t. IX. p. 326.

Another confiderable objection to the fyftem of moral instinct is this, that there are no maxims in the science, which can well be deemed innate, as none perhaps can be affigned, which are abfolutely and univerfally true; in other words, which do not bend to circumstances. Veracity, which feems, if any be, a natural duty, is excused in many cafes, towards an enemy, a thief, or a madman. The obligation of promises, which is a first principle in morality, depends upon the circumftances under which they were nade they may have been unlawful, or become fo fince, or inconfiftent with former promifes, or erroneous, or extorted; under all which cafes, inftances may be suggested, where the obligation to perform the promife would be very dubious, and fo of most other general rules, when they come to be actually applied.

An argument has also been propofed on the fame fide of the queftion of this kind. Together with the instinct, there must have been implanted, it is faid, a clear and precife idea of the object upon which it was to attach. The inftinct and the idea of the object are infeparable even in imagination, and as neceffarily accompany each other as any correla tive ideas whatever; that is, in plainer terms, if we be prompted by nature to the approbation of particular actions, we must have received alfo from nature a diftinct conception of the action we are thus prompted to approve; which we certainly have not received.

But as this argument bears alike against all inftincts, and against their existence in brutes as well as in men, it will hardly, I fuppofe, produce conviction, though it may be difficult to find an answer to it.

Upon the whole, it feems to me, either that there exift no fuch inftincts as compose what is called the moral fenfe, or that they are not now to be distinguished from prejudices and habits; on which acCount they cannot be depended upon in moral rea