Progress of Ethical Philosophy, has insisted strongly thereon, and considers that much of the obscurity which involves this subject has arisen from confounding two questions which ought always to have been kept separate. It may be true that actions ought to be called virtuous or vicious according to their general consequences; but does it therefore follow, that the view of these consequences is always present to the mind when it approves or disapproves? These it is clear are quite different inquiries. The second part, here termed the Rule of action, is what Sir James calls the Criterion of morality.

The speculative branch of morality naturally subdivides itself into two, in one of which we treat of the nature of the moral sentiments, and analyse them, supposing them susceptible of analysis; while in the other we trace the sources or causes from which they spring, in other words, their origin.

i. e.

Practical morality also admits of a twofold division. The first part investigates the final cause of these moral sentiments, i. e. the purpose for which they seem to have been given us, or the object which they serve; the second considers on what occasions they ought to arise in order to fulfil that purpose, what is the quality of actions on account of which we are justified in approving or disapproving them, and in calling them virtuous or vicious. In short, this last part treats of the characteristic quality or qualities of Virtue and Vice. Each of these heads must be touched upon in order; but previously we must endeavour, according to promise, to fix some of the principles of the general science of human happiness.

BOOK I.

ON MORAL SCIENCE IN GENERAL, OR THE SCIENCE OF HUMAN HAPPINESS.

PART I.

PRELIMINARY OBSERVATIONS ON THE HUMAN MIND, AND

ON HUMAN HAPPINESS.

INCE we are constantly forming plans of happi

SING

ness, and since there is nothing in which we feel so deep an interest, we can readily believe that enquiries into the sources thereof must have attracted the attention of mankind at a very early period. One of the principal objects of the Greek philosophers was to discover wherein lay the summum bonum, or chief good, which the wise man ought always to pursue. Various systems were formed, all of them imperfect, but all containing some truth, one placing the chief good in pleasure, another in the mere absence of anxiety; a third in active virtue, and a fourth in contemplation; while a fifth denied that there was any fixed good at all, and maintained that every thing depended upon individual opinion or humour. Some philosophers thought they could not be virtuous and happy but apart from the world; these said that we ought to place our happiness in nothing but what

was in our own power, and inaccessible to the strokes of fortune; and those, instead of instructing us to master and direct our passions, taught that we should be perpetually guarding against the occasions of them, treating the mind as Sanctorius did his body, who spent his life in guarding it from injury.

But inquiries into human happiness have not been abandoned to philosophers alone. Hints and reflections thereupon are to be met with every where, in prose works having no pretensions to great accuracy, in poems, plays, and even in daily conversation. In modern times, indeed, the subject has generally been considered merely as a popular one, perhaps as beneath the notice of persons of exalted attainments; and while the appellation of men of science has been awarded to those who studied grubs and butterflies, it has often been denied to such as addicted themselves to morals and politics. But even when these were allowed to be real sciences, it seems mostly to have been overlooked that a higher and more general philosophy reigns over all branches of knowledge which especially relate to the actions of man, whether considered in his individual or in his social capacity. Attempts, as we have seen, were made by the ancients towards founding a philosophy of this description, but with no great success. Their systems differed as much among themselves, and were as partial as the opinions met with daily in the world.

And this brings me to remark a difficulty belonging to all moral science, but in a peculiar degree to that comprehensive one now to be treated of, and

which will sufficiently account for the great diversity of opinions here alluded to.

Those who cultivate other branches of human knowledge require a keen intellect, and that alone. The mathematician who reasons of number and quantity; the natural philosopher who calculates mechanical forces; the chemist who analyses earths and alkalis, and determines the laws of heat, and of all insensible motion; the geologist who attempts to discover the causes of the changes already undergone, or now in progress near the earth's surface; the physiologist who investigates the causes of life and death and the functions of every organ in the body; even the metaphysician, so far as he studies our intellectual nature alone; lastly, the natural historian, who examines, describes, and classifies every mineral, vegetable, and animal, all have to do with objects cognizable by the intellect or the senses. Not so the moral philosopher. The grand end which he has in view is happiness, and happiness to be known must be felt. If it be allowed that no description could possibly give to a man born blind or deaf any clear notion of colours or of sounds, it must equally be true that no one could form any idea of an emotion which he had never at all felt. How should we proceed to give such an one a conception of beauty or sublimity, of love, hatred, or ambition? In vain should we heap words upon words till we had exhausted all the riches of language, for his mind would remain as before, dead to all notions of the sort. The only way in which we could succeed in opening the avenues of his heart would be to bring him to a spot commanding a

beautiful prospect, or place him in situations fit to call forth the passions. If still he should prove insensible, we would give up the case as hopeless. We should consider him as a moral anomaly cut off by natural deficiency, not only from the principal sources of enjoyment, but from the means of acquiring knowledge. He might, indeed, pursue one or other of the sciences above enumerated, and even attain to eminence, supposing the passion of curiosity not to be extinct with the rest; but were he to attempt moral subjects, he would instantly appear wanting in the first elements of success. He might often have read of love and ambition, and might even write down the words on his pages, but it is clear he could know nothing about them. By carefully attending to what others had said, he might be able to conceal his ignorance, and so compose a plausible book, but it could not add a tittle to the sum of information we before possessed. Now what is true of a person such as we have here imagined must apply in a less degree to many individuals in the world. Some have intellects of a high order, and yet are very deficient in sensibility or delicacy of feeling; so that when they come to reason on human happiness, they are sure to form some very partial system at best, if it be not quite erroneous. Here their intellect stands them in no stead from the want of data to go upon. Not being able to conceive what they have never felt, they are ignorant of all sorts of felicity except a few, and to these, therefore, they turn their attention, neglecting all the rest. Of this we have a very remarkable instance in Hobbes, a man of the highest order of