certain the characteristic quality of right action. Friendship is conformable in its dictates to Morality; but it may, and does exist, without any view to it: he who feels the affections, and performs the duties of friendship, is the object of that distinct emotion which is called "moral approbation."

It is on the subject of Conscience that, in imitation of Mr. Stewart, and with the arguments of that philosopher, he makes his chief stand against the theory which considers the formation of that master faculty itself as probably referable to the necessary and universal operation of those laws of human nature to which he himself ascribes almost every other state of mind. On both sides of this question the supremacy of Conscience is alike held to be venerable and absolute. Once more, be it remembered, that the question is purely philosophical, and is only whether, from the impossibility of explaining its formation by more general laws, we are reduced to the necessity of considering it as an original fact in human nature, of which no further account can be given. Let it, however, be also remembered, that we are not driven to this supposition by the mere circumstance, that no satisfactory explanation has yet appeared; for there are many analogies in an unexplained state of mind to states already explained, which may justify us in believing that the explanation requires only more accurate observation, and more patient meditation, to be brought to that completeness which it probably

will attain.

SECTION VII.

GENERAL REMARKS.

THE oft-repeated warning with which the foregoing section concluded being again premised, it remains

that we should offer a few observations, whichira rally occur on the consideration of Dr. Brown's ange ment in support of the proposition, that moral ar bation is not only in its mature state indeper le and superior to, any other principle of human at (regarding which there is no dispute), but that ins origin is altogether inexplicable, and that is ex ence is an ultimate fact in mental citie I these observations are immediately occasioned by writings of Brown, they are yet, in the na., et a general nature, and might have been made wit reference to any particular writer.

The term "suggestion," which might be is. *. - . in describing merely intellectual assoniations, b

peculiarly unsuitable when it is applied to the binations of thought with emotion, and to them to of feeling, which compose the emotive nature of V Its common sense of a sign recalu 7 the the fied, always embroils the new setse Vaita's upon it. No one can help owning, that it it consistently pursued, so as that we were to suggesting a feeling "or" passion," the lat maga be universally thought absurd. To "suggest "hatred" is a mole of expression so matutestly gruous, that most readers would choose to t it as suggesting reflections on the subset of t: Sages, ** Suggest" would not commonly be wi as synonymous with "revive" or "reki

of the same sort may indeed be fou i m the phrases of most, if not all, philosophers; and them proceed from the erroneous but prevaler a that the law of Association produces or la s. a unon of a thought and a feeling, AVEN power of reviving the other; the tuh b forms them into a new compound, in which • pics of the component parts are no l

d which may itself bete

le of human hat are, Tex

dition, proslice 1 by the power of that law, toor a that of material wil statices in a state of ne

separation; whereas in reality it may be better likened to a chemical combination of the same substances, from which a totally new product arises. Their language involves a confusion of the question which relates to the origin of the principles of human activity, with the other and far more important question which relates to their nature; and as soon as this distinction is hidden, the theorist is either betrayed into the Selfish system by a desire of clearness and simplicity, or tempted to the needless multiplication of ultimate facts by mistaken anxiety for what he supposes to be the guards of our social and moral nature. The defect is common to Brown with his predecessors, but in him it is less excusable; for he saw the truth and recoiled from it. It is the main defect of the term "association" itself, that it does not, till after long use, convey the notion of a perfect union, but rather leads to that of a combination which may be dissolved, if not at pleasure, at least with the help of care and exertion; which is utterly and dangerously false in the important cases where such unions are considered as constituting the most essential principles of human nature. Men can no more dissolve these unions than they can disuse their habit of judging of distance by the eye, and often by the ear. But "suggestion implies, that what suggests is separate from what is suggested, and consequently negatives that unity in an active principle which the whole analogy of nature, as well as our own direct consciousness, shows to be perfectly compatible with its origin in composition.

Large concessions are, in the first place, to be remarked, which must be stated, because they very inuch narrow the matter in dispute. Those who, before Brown, contended against "beneficial tendency" as the standard of Morality, have either shut their eyes on the connection of Virtue with general utility, or carelessly and obscurely allowed, without further remark, a connection which is at least one of the most remarkable and important of ethical facts. He acts more boldly, and avowedly discusses "the rela

tion of Virtue to Utility." He was compelled by that discussion to make those concessions which so much abridge this controversy. "Utility and Virtue are so related, that there is perhaps no action generally felt to be virtuous, which it would not be beneficial that all men in similar circumstances should imitate."* "In every case of benefit or injury willingly done, there arise certain emotions of moral approbation or disapprobation.Ӡ"The intentional produce of evil, as pure evil, is always hated, and that of good, as pure good, always loved." All virtuous acts are thus admitted to be universally beneficial; Morality and the general benefit are acknowledged always to coincide. It is hard to say, then, why they should not be reciprocally tests of each other, though in a very different way;-the virtuous feelings, fitted as they are by immediate appearance, by quick and powerful action, to be sufficient tests of Morality in the moment of action, and for all practical purposes; while the consideration of tendency of those acts to contribute to general happiness, a more obscure and slowly discoverable quality, should be applied in general reasoning, as a test of the sentiments and dispositions themselves. In cases where such lastmentioned test has been applied, no proof has been attempted that it has ever deceived those who used it in the proper place. It has uniformly served to justify our moral constitution, and to show how reasonable it is for us to be guided in action by our higher feelings. At all events it should be, but has not been considered, that from these concessions alone it fol

Lectures, vol. iv. p. 45. The unphilosophical word "perhaps " must be struck out of the proposition, unless the whole be considered as a mere conjecture; it limits no affirmation, but destroys it, by converting it into a guess. See the like concession, vol. iv. p. 33., with some words interlarded, which betray a sort of reluctance and fluctuation, indicative of the difficulty with which Brown struggled to withhold his assent from truths which he unreasonably dreaded. Ibid. vol. iii. p. 621.

† Ibid. vol. iii. p. 567.

lows, that beneficial tendency is at least one constant property of Virtue. Is not this, in effect, an admission that beneficial tendency does distinguish virtuous acts and dispositions from those which we call vicious? If the criterion be incomplete or delusive, let its faults be specified, and let some other quality be pointed out, which, either singly or in combination with beneficial tendency, may more perfectly indicate the distinction. But let us not be assailed by arguments which leave untouched its value as a test, and are in truth directed only against its fitness as an immediate incentive and guide to right action. To those who contend for its use in the latter character, it must be left to defend, if they can, so untenable a position: but all others must regard as pure sophistry the use of arguments against it as a test, which really show nothing more than its acknowledged unfitness to be a motive.

When voluntary benefit and voluntary injury are pointed out as the main, if not the sole objects of moral approbation and disapprobation,-when we are told truly, that the production of good, as good, is always loved, and that of evil, as such, always hated, can we require a more clear, short, and unanswerable. proof, that beneficial tendency is an essential quality of Virtue? It is indeed an evidently necessary consequence of this statement, that if benevolence be amiable in itself, our affection for it must increase with its extent, and that no man can be in a perfectly right state of mind, who, if he consider general happiness at all, is not ready to acknowledge that a good man must regard it as being in its own nature the most desirable of all objects, however the constitution and circumstances of human nature may render it unfit or impossible to pursue it directly as the object of life. It is at the same time apparent that no such man can consider any habitual disposition, clearly discerned to be in its whole result at variance with general happiness, as not unworthy of being culti vated, or as not fit to be rooted out. It is manifest