lixity, proportioned much more to the fubtlety of the question, than to its value and importance in the profecution of the fubject. A writer upon the law of nature,* whofe explications in every part of philofophy, though always diffuse, are often very successful, has employed three long fections in endeavouring to prove, that "permiffions are not laws.” The difcuffion of this controversy, however effential it might be to dialectic precision, was certainly not neceffary to the progress of a work defigned to defcribe the duties and obligations of civil life. The reader becomes impatient when he is detained by dif quifitions which have no other object than the fettling of terms and phrases; and, what is worse, they, for whose use such books are chiefly intended, will not be persuaded to read them at all.

I am led to propose these ftrictures, not by any propensity to depreciate the labours

* Dr. Rutherforth, author of "Inftitutes of Natural

"Law."

of my predeceffors, much less to invite a comparison between the merits of their performances and my own; but folely by the confideration, that when a writer offers a book to the public upon a subject on which the public are already in poffeffion of many others, he is bound by a kind of literary justice, to inform his readers diftinctly and fpecifically, what it is he professes to supply, and what he expects to improve. The imperfections above enumerated are those which I have endeavoured to avoid or remedy. Of the execution the reader must judge: but this was the design.

Concerning the principle of morals it would be premature to speak; but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have fomewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience of nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the universities, and in that department of education to which these chapters relate, afforded me frequent occafion to obferve, that, in

difcourfing to young minds upon topics of morality, it required much more pains to make them perceive the difficulty, than to understand the folution; that, unless the subject was so drawn up to a point, as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon; in other words, unless fome curiofity was excited before it was attempted to be fatisfied, the labour of the teacher was loft. When information was not defired, it was feldom, I found, retained. I have made this observation my guide in the following work; that is, upon each occasion I have endeavoured, before I fuffered myself to proceed in the difquifition, to put the reader in complete possession of the queftion; and to do it in the way that I thought most likely to stir up his own doubts and folicitude about it.

In pursuing the principle of morals through the detail of cafes to which it is applicable, I have had in view to accommodate both the

choice of the fubjects, and the manner of handling them, to the fituations which arise in the life of an inhabitant of this country in these times. This is the thing that I think to be principally wanting in former treatises; and, perhaps, the chief advantage which will be found in mine. I have examined no doubts, I have difcuffed no obscurities, I have encountered no errors, I have adverted to no controverfies, but what I have seen ac

tually to exist. If fome of the questions treated of appear to a more instructed reader minute or puerile, I defire such reader to be affured that I have found them occasions of difficulty to young minds; and what I have observed in young minds, I fhould expect to meet with in all who approach these subjects for the first time. Upon each article of human duty, I have combined with the conclufions of reafon the declarations of fcripture, when they are to be had, as of co-ordinate authority, and as both terminating in the fame fanctions.

In

In the manner of the work, I have endeavoured fo to attemper the opposite plans above animadverted upon, as that the reader may not accuse me either of too much hafte, or of too much delay. I have bestowed upon each subject enough of dissertation to give a body and substance to the chapter in which it is treated of, as well as coherence and perfpicuity on the other hand, I have seldom, I hope, exercised the patience of the reader by the length and prolixity of my essays, or disappointed that patience at last by the tenuity and unimportance of the conclufion.

There are two particulars in the following work, for which it may be thought necessary that I should offer fome excufe. The first of which is, that I have scarcely ever referred to any other book, or mentioned the name of the author whofe thoughts, and sometimes, poffibly, whose very expreffions I have adopted. My method of writing has constantly been this; to extract what I could from my own ftores and my own reflections