dictions. And several of those pretended, mysterious, profound notions expressed in great swelling words, whereby some men set up for reputation, being this way examined, will appear to be either nonsense, or very flat and jejune." I will give a specimen of Wilkins's system in relation to our subject. The distribution of notions, for which he has to find names in his Universal Language, is made according to the Aristotelian scheme of the Ten Predicaments; nor would it have been easy to find a better or more general arrangement. Now, if I would, for instance, know the place of Conscience in this system, where shall I find it? It is plain that Conscience does not belong to either of the first two Predicaments, Substance and Quantity; but to the third, Quality, being a quality or attribute of man. Now Quality he divides, nearly following the Aristotelians, into Natural Power, Habit, Manners, Sensible Quality, and Disease. And Conscience he arranges under the first head, making three Natural Powers of the Mind, or Rational Faculties, Understanding, Judgment, Conscience; besides Will, the Natural Motive-Power. It may easily be conceived that all notions being thus arranged, may be noted by a corresponding arrangement of visible symbols. Thus the Natural Powers are all denoted by a line with a crescent touching its middle point (C ; and those of the Mind are noted as belonging to the first Class of such Powers by a mark at the one extremity of the line, and the several Powers of this Class are numbered by a series of marks annexed to the other extremity of the line. Hence the four Natural Powers of the Mind just mentioned would be thus denoted 201, 207, 20.

I have the more willingly dwelt a little upon the Cambridge Moralists of this period, because I conceive that there has always been in this place an important school of moralists; and it is interesting not only to us, but to all who

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regard the history of Moral Philosophy, to trace the changes through which the course of speculation here has passed.

I now turn back to speak of the effect produced on the public by these opponents of Hobbes. More's religious writings were extremely admired in their day. The Mystery of Godliness, and the Mystery of Iniquity, were extraordinarily popular; as also his Divine Dialogues concerning the Attributes and Providence of God. These works found a peculiar public who delighted in his pure and tranquil tone of thought, and his trains of religious contemplation, by which they found themselves elevated and soothed. But this mystical and enthusiastic spirit was altogether out of sympathy with the general temper of the most activeminded men of the times, and with the tendency of their speculations. The enquirers of the age demanded something far more definite and material than the Platonic First Good; and looked for something exhibiting more of the air of novelty. Hence we shall not be surprised that More's doctrines made few converts among the newer school: and that his writings did not produce any very general effect in resisting the spread of the Hobbian tenets; which, more or less modified, made their way very extensively. The doctrine of a complete distinction of virtuous and sensual enjoyments, when considered only as enjoyments, was not easy to impress upon the popular mind. And gradually, as the difficulty of maintaining the war at this point was more and more felt, the higher school of moralists sought for aid in another element of the subject;-namely the will and government of the Divine Lawgiver.

Undoubtedly this aspect of moral duty had never been lost sight of by Christian Moralists; but still there was, philosophically speaking, a difference in the modes in which the Divine sanctions of Morality were introduced by different writers; which difference it is, for our purpose, necessary

to state broadly and distinctly. Some theologians taught that God rewarded actions and dispositions because they were good, while others maintained that actions were only therefore morally good because they were commanded by God. The former doctrine was held by Cudworth, and other assertors of an independent morality; and these were, in fact, the genuine antagonists of the Hobbian school. But in the first burst of the assault on the old ethical views, Morality had been driven to a lower ground; and this, as the contest continued, they found it necessary to entrench more carefully than they had at first expected. And after the war had for sometime gone on in this direction, it ended, as we shall hereafter see, in a hollow compromise; which, as I think it is impossible to doubt, has been very injurious to morality. This, however, is a subject for future discussion.

I

HAVE already said that there were, among those of the

English moralists, who rejected the doctrines of Hobbes, two schools: those who held that goodness was an absolute and inherent quality of actions, of whom was Cudworth; and those who did not venture to say so much, but derived morality from the nature of man and the will of God jointly; and so doing, introduced more special and complex views.

Richard Cumberland, Fellow of Magdalen College, Cambridge (about 1655), afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, was the opponent of Hobbes who took the principal step towards the latter result which I have mentioned. His Disquisitio De Legibus Naturæ, published in 1672, is the first extensive attempt to construct a system of morals, which, being founded on the consideration of the consequences of actions, should still satisfy those moral feelings and judgments of man in his usual social condition, which had been revolted by many of Hobbes's doctrines and modes of reasoning. That the work was intended to contain a refutation of the Hobbian doctrines, is stated on the title-page; and is evident, not only in the controversial parts of the work, which constitute a large portion of it, but also in the selection of the main principles of the doctrine. Hobbes had maintained that the state of the nature of man is a universal war of each against all; and that there is no such thing as natural right and justice; these notions being only creations of civil society, and deriving their sanction entirely from the civil ruler. Cumberland's fundamental proposition is, that the law of nature with regard to man's actions is a universal bene

volence of each towards all. It will easily be conceived that when this proposition is once established, most of the common rules of morality may be deduced from it. But a question which also belongs to our present purpose is, how far the author's proof of the principle is effective. Two of the steps which his reasoning involves, enable him easily to place a wide interval between himself and the Hobbian school: namely these:-First, that the laws of human action must be universal; valid for all, and consistent with themselves; for the Law of Nature, as far as morals is concerned, cannot prescribe to Titius to do that which it enjoins Sempronius to prevent: and, second, that the Law of Nature, still speaking with reference to morals, prescribes internal dispositions as well as external actions, and contemplates the effect of actions upon the dispositions and satisfactions of the mind, as well as upon the comforts and pleasures of our body and outward state. These two principles do certainly enable the moralist of consequences to keep the mere sensualist at bay; and have for a long period assisted many intelligent and good men to frame systems of morals in which they have been able to rest tolerably well satisfied. Whether such principles do not in fact assume differences which they do not expressly state, and whether they do not give up the universality, or at least the independence, of the fundamental principle of the system (the pursuit of mere happiness, special or general), I shall not here examine. From the time of Hobbes to our own, the degree of importance practically given to these two considerations, has been a leading feature of distinction among different schools of moral writers; and has determined, in a great measure, the general complexion of their system, as it did in the case of Cumberland.

But Cumberland further, as I have said, calls to his aid another great principle, which also was used still more prominently by his successors. The proof which he gives, that