It teaches, for the conduct of the understanding, a variety of delicate rules which can result only from such sort of meditation; and it gradually subjects the most impetuous feelings to patient examination and wise control it inures the youthful mind to intellectual difficulty, and to enterprise in thinking; and makes it as keen as an eagle, and as unwearied as the wing of an angel. In looking round the region of spirit, from the mind of the brute and the reptile, to the sublimest exertions of the human understanding, this philosophy lays deep the foundations of a fervent and grateful piety, for those intellectual riches which have been dealt out to us with no scanty measure. With sensation alone, we might have possessed the earth, as it is possessed by the lowest order of beings: but we have talents which bend all the laws of nature to our service; memory for the past, providence for the future,-senses which mingle pleasure with intelligence, the surprise of novelty, the boundless energy of imagination, accuracy in comparing, and severity in judging; an original affection, which binds us together in society; a swiftness to pity; a fear of shame; a love of esteem; a detestation of all that is cruel, mean, and unjust. All these things Moral Philosophy observes, and, observing, adores the Being from whence they proceed.

B

LECTURE II.

HISTORY OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

I PURPOSE to give, in this lecture, a succinct history of opinions, both in the intellectual and active divisions of Moral Philosophy; from the formation of the great schools in Greece to the present time.

Of the principles from which the obligations to virtue proceed, most sects have given an account which is at least intelligible, however each particular persuasion may vary from that which precedes it: but the speculations of many of the ancients on the human understanding, are so confused, and so purely hypothetical, that their greatest admirers are not agreed upon their meaning; and whenever we can procure a plain statement of their doctrines, all other modes of refuting them appear to be wholly superfluous.

Whoever is fond of picking up little bits of wisdom, in great heaps of folly, and of seeing Moral Philosophy and common sense beaming through the gross darkness of polytheism, and poetical fiction, may sit down and trace this science from Zoroaster the Chaldean, Belus the Assyrian, and Berosus, who taught the Chaldean learning to the Greeks. He will find a very pleasant obscurity in all that we know of the opinions of Zoroaster, of the Persian Magi, Hystaspes, and Hostanes. Of those celebrated men Cadmus, and Sanchoniathon, and poor Moschus the Phoenician, so heartily abused by Dr. Ĉudworth, he may pick up some acute remarks of Theut, or Thoth, the founder of Egyptian wisdom, and philosophize with Abaris, Anacharsis, Toxaris, and Zamolxis, the learned Scythians. Passing by all these gallant gentlemen (for whose company I confess I have no very great

relish), I shall descend at once upon Athens, where philosophy, as Milton says, came down from heaven to the low-roofed house of Socrates.

"from whose mouth issued forth

Mellifluous streams that watered all the schools

Of Academics old and new; with those
Surnamed Peripatetics, and the sect
Epicurean, and the Stoic severe."

The morality of Socrates was reared upon the basis of religion. The principles of virtuous conduct which are common to all mankind, are, according to this wise and good man, laws of God; and the argument by which he supports this opinion is, that no man departs from these principles with impunity. "It is frequently possible," says he, "for men to screen themselves from the penalty of human laws, but no man can be unjust or ungrateful without suffering for his crime-hence I conclude that these laws must have proceeded from a more excellent legislator than man." Socrates taught that true felicity is not to be derived from external possessions, but from wisdom; which consists in the knowledge and practice of virtue;-that the cultivation of virtuous manners is necessarily attended with pleasure as well as profit;-that the honest man alone, is happy ;—and that it is absurd to attempt to separate things which are in their nature so united as virtue and interest.

Socrates was, in truth, not very fond of subtile and refined speculations; and upon the intellectual part of our nature, little or nothing of his opinions is recorded. If we may infer any thing from the clearness and simplicity of his opinions on moral subjects, and from the bent which his genius had received for the useful and the practical, he would certainly have laid a strong foundation for rational metaphysics. The slight sketch I have given of his moral doctrines contains nothing very new or very brilliant, but comprehends those moral doctrines which every person of education has been accustomed to hear from his childhood;-but two thousand years ago they were great discoveries,-two thousand years since, common sense was not invented. If Orpheus, or Linus, or any of those melodious moralists,

sung, in bad verses, such advice as a grand-mamma would now give to a child of six years old, he was thought to be inspired by the gods, and statues and altars were erected to his memory. In Hesiod there is a very grave exhortation to mankind to wash their faces: and I have discovered a very strong analogy between the precepts of Pythagoras and Mrs. Trimmer ;-both think that a son ought to obey his father, and both are clear that a good man is better than a bad one. Therefore, to measure aright this extraordinary man, we must remember the period at which he lived; that he was the first who called the attention of mankind from the pernicious subtilties which engaged and perplexed their wandering understandings to the practical rules of life ;— he was the great father and inventor of common sense, as Ceres was of the plow, and Bacchus of intoxication. First he taught his cotemporaries that they did not know what they pretended to know; then he showed them that they knew nothing; then he told them what they ought to know. Lastly, to sum up the praise of Socrates, remember that two thousand years ago, while men were worshiping the stones on which they trod, and the insects which crawled beneath their feet;-two thousand years ago, with the bowl of poison in his hand, Socrates said, "I am persuaded that my death, which is now just coming, will conduct me into the presence of the gods, who are the most righteous governors, and into the society of just and good men; and I derive confidence from the hope that something of man remains after death, and that the condition of good men will then be much better than that of the bad.' Soon after this he covered himself up with his cloak and expired.

From the Socratic school sprang the Cyrenaic, the Eliac, the Megaric, the Academic, and the Cynic. Of all these I shall notice only the Academic, because all the rest are of very inferior note.

Of all the disciples of Socrates, Plato, though he calls himself the least, was certainly the most celebrated. As long as philosophy continued to be studied among the Greeks and Romans, his doctrines were taught, and his name revered. Even to the present day his writings

give a tinge to the language and speculations of philosophy and theology. Of the majestic beauty of Plato's style, it is almost impossible to convey an adequate idea. He keeps the understanding up to a high pitch of enthusiasm longer than any existing writer; and, in reading Plato, zeal and animation seem rather to be the regular feelings than the casual effervescence of the mind. He appears almost disdaining the mutability and imperfection of the earth on which he treads, to be drawing down fire from heaven, and to be seeking among the gods above, for the permanent, the beautiful, and the grand! In contrasting the vigor and the magnitude of his conceptions with the extravagance of his philosophical tenets, it is almost impossible to avoid wishing that he had confined himself to the practice of eloquence; and, in this way giving range and expansion to the mind which was struggling within him, had become one of those famous orators who

Wielded at will that fierce democratie,

Shook th' arsenal, and fulmin'd over Greece
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."

After having said so much of his language, I am afraid I must proceed to his philosophy; observing always, that, in stating it, I do not always pretend to understand it, and do not even engage to defend it. In comparing the very few marks of sobriety and discretion with the splendor of his genius, I have often exclaimed as Prince Henry did about Falstaff's bill,-" Oh, monstrous! but one halfpennyworth of bread to this intolerable deal of sack!"

His notion was, that the principles out of which the world was composed were three in number,-the subject matter of things, their specific essences, and the sensible objects themselves. These last, he conceived to have no probable or durable existence, but to be always in a state of fluctuation :-but then there were certain everlasting patterns and copies, from which every thing had been made, and which he denominated their specific essences. For instance, the individual rose which I smell at this instant, or a particular pony upon which I cast my eye, are objects of sense which have no durable