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MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

BOOKI,

PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS.

СНАР. І.

DEFINITION AND USE OF THE SCIENCE.

ORAL PHILOSOPHY, Morality, Ethics,

M Cafuiftry, Natural Law, mean all the fame

thing; namely, That fcience 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 miflead 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.

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TH

THE LAW O F HONOU R.

HE Law of Honour is a fyftem of rules conftructed by people of fashion, and calculated to facilitate their intercourfe with one another; and for no other purpose.

Confequently, nothing is adverted to by the Law of Honour, but what tends to incommode this intercourse.

Hence this law only prefcribes and regulates the duties betwixt equals, omitting fuch as relate to the Supreme Being, as well as those which we owe to our inferiors.

For which reafon, profaneness, neglect of public worship or private devotion, cruelty to fervants, rigorous treatment of tenants or other dependants, want of charity to the poor, injuries done to tradefmen by infolvency or delay of payment, with numberlefs examples of the fame kind, are accounted no breaches of honour; because a man is not a lefs agreeable companion for thefe vices, nor the worse to deal with, in thofe concerns which are ufually transacted between one gentleman and another.

Again, the Law of Honour being conftituted by men occupied in the purfuit of pleasure, and for the mutual conveniency of fuch men, will be found, as might be expected from the character and defign of the law-makers, to be, in most inftances, favourable to the licentious indulgence of the natural paffions.

Thus it allows of fornication, adultery, drunkennefs, prodigality, duelling, and of revenge in the extreme; and lays no stress upon the virtues oppofite to thefe.

I

CHAP.

CHA P. III.

THE

LAW OF THE

LAND.

HAT

TH

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 fatisfied with themselves, fo long as they do or omit nothing, for the doing or omitting of which the law can punish them.

Whereas every fyftem of human laws, confidered as a rule of life, labours under the two following defects.

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

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

II. Human laws permit, or, which is the fame thing, fuffer to go unpunished, many crimes, because they are incapable of being defined by any previous defcription-Of which nature is luxury, prodigality, partiality in voting at thofe elections in which the qualification of the candidate ought to determine the fuccefs, caprice in the difpofition of men's fortunes at their death, difrefpect to parents, and a multitude of fimilar examples.

For this is the alternative; either the Law must define beforehand and with precifion the offences which it punishes, or it must be left to the difcretion of the magiftrate to determine upon each particular accufation, whether it conftitutes that offence which the law defigned to punish, or not; which is in B 2 effect

effect leaving to the magiftrate to punish or not to punish, at his pleasure, the individual who is brought before him which is juft fo much tyranny. Where, therefore, as in the inftances above-mentioned, the diftinction between right and wrong is of too fubtile or of too fecret a nature, to be afcertained by any pre-concerted language, the law of moft countries, efpecially of free ftates, rather than commit the liberty of the fubject to the difcretion of the magiftrate, leaves men in fuch cafes to themselves.

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HOEVER expects to find in the Scriptures a

WHO
W fpecific direction for every moral doubt that

on.

arifes, looks for more than he will meet with. And to what a magnitude fuch a detail of particular precepts would have enlarged the facred volume, may be partly understood from the following confideraThe laws of this country, including the acts of the legislature and the decifions of our fupreme courts of jaftice, are not contained in fewer than fifty folio volumes; and yet it is not once in ten attempts that you can find the cafe you look for, in any law-book whatever; to fay nothing of thofe numerous points of conduct, concerning which the law profeffes not to prefcribe or determine any thing. Had then the fame particularity, which obtains in human laws fo far as they go, been attempted in the Scriptures, throughout the whole extent of morality, it is manifeft, they would have been by much too bulky to be either read or circulated; or rather, as St. John fays, "even the world itself "could not contain the books that should be " written."

Morality

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