the uncorrupt and honourable minds of its justly eminent leaders. But our time has already expired, and I must leave it to yourselves to calculate at home, what must be the necessary result of a theory, provided it could ever be seriously embraced upon an extensive scale, that teaches, on the one hand, that intelligence is subordinate to instinct, and that our truest knowledge is that which is afforded by the dictates of nature, without trouble or exertion; and on the other, that our moral sense is identical with our instinctive propensities; and that the constitution of our nature is an infallible guide, and can never lead us amiss. This mischievous, but unquestionably unforeseen, tendency of the theory of common sense, I must leave you to follow up at your leisure; but I cannot quit this subject without once more adverting to the total failure of this theory, in accomplishing the chief point for which it was devised,—I mean that of engaging us to believe, in opposition to the philosophical vagaries of the Bishop of Cloyne and Mr. Hume, as well as of the earlier idealists, not only that the external world has a substantive existence, but that it substantively exists in every respect as it APPEARS to exist. I have already observed, that while Dr. Berkeley was contending, metaphysically, that we have no proof of a material world, because we have no proof of any thing but the existence of our own minds and ideas, M. Boscovich was contending, physically, that we have no proof that matter contains any of the qualities which it APPEARS to contain; that whatever the OSTENSIBLE FORMS of bodies may present to us, it has in itself no such properties as they seem to exhibit; that the whole visible creation is nothing more than a collection of indivisible, unextended atoms, or mere mathematical points, whose only attributes are certain powers of attraction and repulsion, and, consequently, that every thing we behold is A MERE PHENOMENON, AN APPARITION, and nothing more.

Now, meaning to oppose this doctrine, and every doctrine of a similar import, could it be supposed possible, if the fact did not stare us in the face from his own writings, that Dr. Reid would, after all, avow and contend, not indeed for the same, but for a parallel tenet, and support it almost in the same terms? Could it be supposed that he would tell us, as we have already seen he has told us, that every object has its APPARITION; that the object is one thing, and its APPARITION another; that the object is IN ONE PLACE and its apparition IN ANOTHER; and that neither the mind nor the eye behold the object itself, but only its APPARITION or APPEARANCE, its PHANTASM OF PHENOMENON?

But I have to draw still more largely upon your astonishment; for it yet remains for me to inform you, that Mr. Dugald Stewart, who may be regarded as the key-stone of Dr. Reid's system, and the chief aim of whose writings has been to proscribe the hypothesis of Berkeley, has himself fallen, not unintentionally, as Dr. Reid seems to have done, but openly and avowedly, into a modification of Boscovich's hypothesis; and has even brought forward its more prominent principles, “as necessary," I adopt his own terms, “to complete Dr. Reid's speculations."* He labours, indeed, to prove, that the two hypotheses of Berkeley and Boscovich have no resemblance or connexion with each other; and I am ready to admit, that in some respects there is a difference, since Boscovich allows us a visionary material world, a world of apparitions, or orderly phenomena, in the language of Leibnitz, phenomenes bien réglés, while Berkeley allows us no material world whatever; though he, too, has his world of phenomena: but I must contend that they are, to all intents and purposes, alike in their opposition to that tenet, which it is the leading feature of Reid's theory to establish,-I mean that we have an internal principle, that proves to us that the world around us is not a vain SHOW, but a solid REALITY, and that every thing actually is as it appears to be. So that the theory before us, even in the hands of its founder and principal supporter, has strikingly failed in the object for which it was devised; and, for all the purposes in question, the former might just as well have continued in the profession of Bishop Berkeley's principles, as have deserted them, and set up a new scheme for himself.

* Essay ii. ch. ii. p. 80, and compare with ch. 1. p. 62, 63.

Under these circumstances I must leave it to the enlightened audience before me to choose out of these different hypotheses as they may think best. For myself, I freely confess, that I have no ambition to soar into the higher rank and the infallible knowledge of an instinctive creature, and shall modestly content myself with the humbler character of a rational and intelligent being, still steadily steering by the lowly but sober lamps of a Bacon, a Newton, a Locke, a Butler, a Price, and a Paley, instead of being captivated by the beau tiful and brilliant, but vacillating and illusive, coruscations of these northern lights.

LECTURE VII.

ON HUMAN HAPPINESS.

It has required, I apprehend, but a very slight attention to the course of study we have lately been following up, to be convinced of the truth of the remark with which we opened the series,-I mean, that the subject it proposed to discuss is, of all subjects whatever that relate to human entity, the most difficult and intractable. And absurd and visionary as have been many of the opinions which it has brought before us, let us in conclusion, check all undue levity, by recollecting that they are the absurdities and visions of the first philosophers and sages of their respective periods; of the wisest and, with a few exceptions, of the best of mankind; to whom, in most other respects, we ought to bow with implicit homage, and who have only foundered from too daring a spirit of adventure, and amid rocks and shoals which laugh at the experience of the pilot.

For myself, I freely confess to you, that my own hopes of success are but very humble. I have done my best, however, to render the subject intelligible; and if, in the progress of it, I should also have betrayed dreams and absurdities, I have only to entreat that they may be visited with the candour which I have endeavoured to extend to others; fully aware that the ablest arguments I have been able to submit are not fitted, if I may adopt the eloquent words of Mr. Burke, "to abide the test of a captious controversy, but of a sober, and even forgiving examination; that they are not armed at all points for battle, but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance to truth."

There is one point, however, and the most important point we have con templated, in which all the different schools seem to be agreed,-I mean, that of moral distinctions. Whatever may be the roads the different travellers have lighted upon, whether short or circuitous, smooth or entangled, they all at last find themselves, in this respect, arrive at the same central spot; and coincide in prescribing the same rules of duty, enjoining the same conduct, and, with a few exceptions, delivering the same determinations. No philo sopher in the world has ever dreamed of confounding virtue with vice, or of writing a treatise on the benefit of committing crimes. Let us search where we will, we shall find that there is a something in human nature, when once emerged from the barbarism of savage life, that leads the learned and the unlearned to approve the one and to condemn the other, even where their own conduct is involved in the condemnation.

And what is this something in human nature that conducts to so general a conclusion? A set or system of innate ideas and first principles, replies one class of philosophers; a moral instinct or impulse of common sense, replies another class; the intrinsic loveliness and beauty of virtue itself, replies a third; because the attributes of virtue are useful and agreeable either to our selves or to others, replies a fourth; because it conducts to human happiness, replies a fifth; and because it is the will of God, replies a sixth.

But while all thus agree in the conclusion, the question that leads to it still

returns upon us: What proof have we of the existence of such innate ideas or instinctive impulse? of the intrinsic beauty of virtue? that it is useful to us, productive of our happiness, or that it is the will of God it should be cultivated? or rather, what proof have we that the original position is true, and that there is a something in human nature in general, which induces us to prefer virtue to vice?

The original position is true, but the reasons urged in support of it are neither equally true nor equally adequate, even where they are true.

It is not true that we have either innate ideas or moral instincts that impel us to a love of virtue; for in such cases the most savage tribes among mankind would be the most virtuous; their præcognita, or innate ideas, being but little disturbed by foreign ideas, acquired by education or extensive commerce with the world; and their moral instincts as little disturbed by foreign habits acquired from the same causes.

There has often arisen in the mind an unaccountable whim, of supposing that a savage life, or state of nature, is the best and purest mode of human existence; and novelists, poets, and sometimes even philosophers have equally ranted upon the paucity of its wants, the simplicity of its pursuits, the solidity of its pleasures, and the strength and constancy of its attachments. It is here, we have been told, that the human soul developes its proper energies, and displays itself in all its native benevolence and dignity: here all things belong equally to every one; the only law is the will of the individual, the only feeling a sublime, unselfish philanthropy. This whim became epidemic in France about the beginning of the French Revolution, and was, in fact, the monster mania that led to it. And the contagion, not long afterward, began to show itself among many individuals of our own country, who, in the height of their phrensy, laboured earnestly to promote the same kind of trials among ourselves that our neighbours were actually exhibiting. The history is fresh in the mind of every one, and it is not necessary to pursue it. It is sufficient to observe, that it led, in a short time, to consequences so mischievous, as to work their own cure; and to afford another living proof of the fact I endeavoured pointedly to establish in a late lecture, that barbarism, vice, and misery are, by an immutable law of nature, the inseparable associates of each other. Throw your eyes to whatever part of the globe or to whatever history of mankind you please, and you will find it so without an exception. Other animals have instincts that control their appetites, and lead them insensibly to the perfection of their respective kinds; that inculcate constancy where constancy is necessary, and compel them to provide for and take the charge of their young. Man has no such instincts, whatever; he has reason, indeed, a more ennobling and efficient faculty, but it must be called forth, for it is a dormant priciple in savage life. And hence, destitute of the one, and uninfluenced by the other, he is the perpetual slave of his ungoverned and ungovernable passions, and is the only animal in the world that has been known to kill or abandon its own offspring in a state of destitute and helpless infancy; and to murder its own kind for the purpose of feasting upon it: a fact too well established to be doubted of; and which, instead of being confined to a single climate or a single people, has apparently been common to all countries, when under the influence of gross barbarism; which still exists among various tribes in Africa, South America, and Australia, and particularly among the islands of the South Sea, and which, according to the concurrent testimony of the best Greek and Roman writers, as Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo, and Pomponius Mela, was formerly to be traced among the Scythians, Tartars, and Massagetæ of Asia, and the Lestrigons of Europe. Strabo, indeed, ascribes the same practice even to the Irish in his day, and Cælius Rhodriginus to their neighbours of Scotland; while Thevenot asserts that, when he was in India in 1665, human flesh was publicly sold in the market at Debca, about forty leagues from Baroche.

Consentaneous to this view of the subject are the following remarks of

*Series I. Lecture xiil

one of the most inte.ligent circumnavigators of the present day, M. Von Langsdorf, which he gives as the result of a personal and comprehensive survey of different climates and countries :-"There is no creature upon the earth, in any climate or zone, that bears such an enmity to its own species as man. Let us only," says he, "cast our eyes over the history of the globe, in the most barren wastes, and in the most fertile countries, in the smallest islands, or on the most extensive continents, among the most savage as well as the most cultivated nations, in short, in every part of the world, wherever man exists, and we shall find him seeking to destroy his own species: he is every where, by nature, harsh and cruel. The observations we made upon these newly-discovered islands (the Polynesian), which never, to the best of our knowledge, had any intercourse with civilized nations, and whose inhabitants may be considered as children of nature, and as still in their original condition, afford remarkable examples in confirmation of these assertions.

"The sweet and tender feelings of affection and love, of friendship and attachment, even that of parents towards their children, and of children towards their parents, I have, alas! very seldom found among a rude and uncivilized people. The African hordes not only bring their prisoners taken in battle, but their own children, to market. The same thing is done by the Kirgis, the Kalmucs, and many other inhabitants of the north-western coast of America; and here at Nakatiwa (one of the islands of the South Sea) a woman would very readily have given a child at her breast, which had been asked by us in jest, in exchange for a piece of iron." And he might have added, that it was the exposure of British, or rather, perhaps, of Saxon, chil dren for slaves in the public market at Rome, as late as the close of the sixth century, expressly sold for this purpose, by their own parents, at their own homes, that first induced that excellent prelate, Pope Gregory I., to plan a mission for the conversion of our barbarous forefathers to Christianity, from the horror he felt at their conduct, and the pity with which he beheld the little outcasts.

In the view of history, therefore, as well as in the language of Scripture, man, in a state of nature, is prone to evil, and his heart is desperately wicked: or as it is given most exquisitely in the poetical language of the Psalmist.

"Behold the dark places of the earth

Are full of the habitations of cruelty!"†

The sentiment, then, that exists in human nature in favour of virtue, or virtuous conduct, though general, is not universal, and, consequently, cannot proceed from any original instincts or innate ideas. What, then, are the other causes to which it has been ascribed by moralists? The intrinsic loveliness of virtue itself. Because its attributes are generally useful and agreeable. Because it conducts to human happiness. Because it is the will

of God.

Now all these answers, however diversified, may be resolved into two general ideas-human happiness, and the will of God: for we can only regard that as lovely, or an object of love, which contributes to our happiness: and we can only regard that as useful or agreeable which conduces to the same end.

The subject, therefore, becomes considerably narrowed, and the only substantial replies that appear capable of being given to the question, What is the source of this general sentiment among mankind in favour of virtue ? are, Because it is the path to happiness; or, Because it is the will of God.

But may not the subject be still farther narrowed, and both these replies be resolved into one identical proposition? may not human happiness and the will of God be the same thing? If so, we shall then only have to inquire farther, whether virtue be the real path to human happiness? for if it be, then, necessarily, he who pursues that path obeys the will of God.

•Vos Langsdorff's Voyages and Travels, ch vii. p. 139.

1 Psalm ixxiv. 20.

Both questions are important: the first, however, may be settled in a few words. To discover the will of an intelligent agent, nothing more is necessary than to examine the general drift or tendency of his contrivance, so far as we are able to make it out. Taking it, then, for granted, that the world is the work of an intelligent agent, does it exhibit proof of having been devised for the general accommodation and happiness of man ?—for his general misery, -or for neither? It cannot have been devised for neither, because that would be to relinquish the very foundation of our present position, and to deny that the world exhibits contrivance, or has been formed by an intelligent agent? Is, then, the world, with its general furniture, is the frame of man itself calculated to promote man's happiness or his misery? It is impossible to answer this question more strongly than in the words of Archdeacon Paley:

"Contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer. The world abounds with contrivances; and all the contrivances with which we are acquainted are directed to beneficial purposes. Evil, no doubt, exists: but is never, that we can perceive, the object of contrivance. Teeth are contrived to eat, not to ache: their aching now and then is incidental to the contrivance, perhaps inseparable from it; or even, if you will, let it be called a defect in the contrivance; but it is not the object of it. This is a distinction which well deserves to be attended to. In describing implements of husbandry, you would hardly say of the sickle that it is made to cut the reaper's fingers, though, from the construction of the instrument, and the manner of using it, this mischief often happens. But if you had occasion to describe instruments of torture or execution, this engine, you would say, is to extend the sinews; this to dislocate the joints; this to break the bones; this to scorch the soles of the feet. Here pain and misery are the very objects of the contrivance. Now, nothing of this sort is to be found in the works of nature. We never discover a train of contrivance to bring about an evil purpose. No anatomist ever discovered a system of organization calculated to produce pain and disease; or, in explaining the parts of the human body, ever said, This is to irritate; this to inflame; this duct is to convey the gravel to the kidneys; this gland to secrete the humour which forms the gout. If, by chance, he come at a part of which he knows not the use, the most he can say is that it is useless. No one ever suspects that it is put there to incommode, to annoy, or to torment. Since, then, God has called forth his consummate wisdom to contrive and provide for our happiness, and the world appears to have been constituted with this design at first, so long as this constitution is upholden by him, we must, in reason, suppose the same design to continue."*

A thousand other examples might be added, but it is unnecessary. The conclusion is clear, and it is most important: we obtain from the light of nature, or the exercise of our own reason, irresistible proofs of the divine benevolence, irresistible proofs that God has made man to make him happy: or, in other words, that human happiness is the will of God.

We are now, then, prepared to enter upon our last question: Is a course of virtue the path to happiness, for if it be, it must necessarily be the will of God to walk in it? Or, having proved the terms to be co-ordinate, we may propose the question conversely, Is a course of virtue the will of God? For if it be, it must necessarily conduct to human happiness. Under either view of the question, the general proposition will be as follows: God has willed human happiness, and he has willed it to be obtained by a course of virtue. God, then, is the Author, happiness the end, and virtue the means.

Let us take the question before us in its first view, Is human virtue the means of human happiness?

Had we time it might perhaps be expedient to enter into a definition of the terms: but we have not time, and I must refer, therefore, to the general understanding of mankind upon this subject: which I may do the more safely,

• Mor. and Pol Pbil. vol. i. ch. v.