PREFACE. This Lecture is, as the reader will perceive, the first of a Series which is now in course of delivery, and the publisher's purpose is, that it should be followed by the remainder of that Series, and from time to time by others. Being composed extemporaneously as delivered, and printed from the reporter's notes, they will doubtless have very many and very obvious literary defects; but numerous avocations leave only the alternative of bringing them out in this manner, or not at all. To furnish useful memoranda for the auditors; to preclude misrepresentation, to which former lectures have been subjected; and to realize more extensively the Lecturer's aim, of stimulating thought to exercise upon topics of great practical importance, are the views with which their publication is commenced. November 23, 1835. CLASS MORALITY. LIST OF SUBJECTS IN THE COURSE OF "LECTURES ON MORALITY AS MODIFIED BY THE VARIOUS CLASSES INTO WHICH THE MORALITY OF POVERTY. Ir Morality be rightly described as the means, or the art or science of happiness (and that different views of it are accurately defined by these expressions I have repeatedly endeavoured to show, and shall assume on the present occasion), it follows, as a necessary consequence, that it must be the most comprehensive of all arts and of all sciences-that, in fact, it must include whatever comes under those denominations, and claims the attributes of that highest wisdom which consists in the appropriate application of efficient means to the most important of all ends. In this view, Morality may be properly said to include whatever advances us in the knowledge of the laws of material nature, of the mind, or of social man. It includes whatever principles the natural philosopher can arrive at by the classification of his accumulated facts; whatever truths the metaphysician may detect by his more recondite researches; whatever the statesman can attain of political science, from the teachings of history, or the results of his own experience and observation; the right application of whatever mechanical machinery may be employed by the manufacturer in the production of the necessaries or the conveniencies of life; and whatever mental machinery may be employed by the teacher in the fabrication of intelligence and of character. They all come under this one head— Morality; for they are all capable of supplying means that B may be employed for the production, the multiplication, the perpetuation of human happiness. And yet, although this science be so comprehensive, although it be so inclusive of all things else, in practice it has too commonly been neglected. Instead of embracing them all, it has been distinguished from them all, both theoretically and practically. Men have been particularly prone to dissever it from that which is most immediately connected with their own interest; the very direction in which they ought to have endeavoured to preserve its union. They have inculcated morality upon others to regulate their behaviour towards themselves; but the tradesman has been disposed to tell us that the countinghouse or the shop is free from the intrusion of this principle, practically so disposed at least; legislators and rulers have held themselves the administrators of law, or the promoters of certain schemes of policy, but have told the inhabitants of the country, to regard their private morality as something very distinct from these. Nay, even our religionists, divines, have rested in ceremony, creed, and dogma; and have put these forward, with only perhaps the cold repetition of the decalogue, as that by which men's minds were to be made wise unto salvation. There is too often the power of a sinister interest over the members of different classes, which leads them to a deflection from the true standard of morality, and which disposes them to reduce its importance, and circumscribe its boundaries: nay, there is something in the bearing of the circumstances themselves in which different sets of men are placed, that may, and must lead them unwarily, unconsciously, to different views on this great matter from those which are taken by others who are exposed to opposite influences. It is, therefore, a most desirable work, I think, to endeavour to ascertain the nature, the direction, and the extent of these influences on the most important of the classes into which society is distributed; to one or other |