Ask this omoousiast, or improved Pythagorean, who maintains the unity of all nature in interest, power, and essence, in time and futurity, what he thinks of violence and destruction to noxious animals, as locusts, serpents, and beasts of prey. His answer will terminate in no absolute point, but waver in doubtfulness and conditionality. These observations, notwithstanding they are irrefutable, have no tendency however to discourage the moral philosopher, but, on the contrary, excite efforts of appreciating and multiplying moral evidence, whose balance, of more or less, in the approximation of moral truth, or human happiness, is of more inestimable interest than all the certitude of physical science. I shall elucidate this important truth by taking a retrospective view of all the advantages of physical certitude in its ample discoveries.

The mathematical discoveries of Archimedes or Pythagoras have enabled civilized nations to circumnavigate the globe, and disperse among the uncorrupted children of nature their passions, vices, wants, diseases, and mental imbecility. The discovery of the printing-press, so highly appreciated, has brought upon the human species a dazzling light of observation without any contemplation to direct it, who, like unfledged birds, forced from the nest by their own precipitate action, every succeeding motion accelerates their dissolution. This simile is clearly verified by the late revolution on the continent of Europe, where the people were excited by periodical publication to precipitate themselves into action without the least capacity to think or to reason.

These illustrations are not intended to depreciate the discoveries and communications of science, but only to shew the immense superiority of moral evidence over physical demonstration in its influence on human happiness. I will venture to declare, without any fear of censure, that the least important discoveries of moral evidence in these Lectures will have more influence on human happiness than all the discoveries of physical science throughout the annals of human history.

Sir Isaac Newton has discovered, on demonstrative evidence, the primary law of motion, viz. that bodies fall in the compound ratio of their density and distance. I have discovered, on moral evidence, the primary law of intellectual power, viz. that human intellect, in its sixth sense of thought, can have no action in an unintelligible medium, no more than the sense of sight in an invisible medium, or that of touch in an untangible medium.

Sir Isaac Newton has discovered the laws of light and colours in the precise demonstration of the prism. I have discovered the means of augmenting and disciplining the powers of intellect by a certain art of thinking according to stated rules. The physical demonstration of Sir Isaac Newton is qualified with the consummate precision of mathematical knowledge, while my moral evidence carries in it some degree of doubtfulness and indecision.

This incertitude of moral evidence is, however, sufficient to

effect all the purposes of use and instruction, and being employed to produce wisdom and sagacity instead of science, it exceeds the value of demonstration as much as the laws of intellect exceed in human interest and human happiness the laws of light and colours.

The doubtfulness of moral evidence and moral truth will appear a disgusting sentiment to the fixed and prejudiced disposition of unenquiring minds; but I think I can produce a satisfactory elucidation to remove all pious disquietude on that subject.

If we attend to nautical science, we shall discover a very close analogy between the marine longitude and moral truth or evidence. The constant motion of the sea renders all the observation of instruments on celestial objects doubtful and inaccurate in their locality and distances, by which means the marine longitude becomes doubtful and inaccurate in its adjustment. Just so it is with the adjustment of moral truth and evidence, the perpetual fluctuation of human opinion and human action, from the vicissitude of circumstances, resembles the motion of the sea, and affects the reasoning faculties, or instruments of moral observation, with the same doubtfulness and incertitude as to the adjustment of truth. Notwithstanding this incertitude, navigators continue to diminish it by improving their instruments, and by the assistance of its inaccurate evidence, extend with confidence their voyages to every part of the globe. Such also is the conduct of the true moral philosopher, he labours to improve and rectify the instruments of the understanding, and by the assistance of moral evidence, however defective in precision, he bears his doubts with all the cheerful confidence of the mariner, and pursues the course of self and universal good, in time and futurity, upon a competent, not precise, scale of approximative truth or good.

Having explained the nature of moral evidence, as opposed to mathematical demonstration, I shall resume my specific subjectthe explanation of the faculty of judgment in its operation on that evidence. I shall pursue the instructive and apt simile of nautical science, and treat the operations of judgment as most indeviably accordant with the needle of the mariner's compass. I shall, according to my proposed and constant method, describe the operations of the faculty of judgment in my own mind, which I have no doubt will be a just model of all intellectual action when the mental sensibility of mankind shall enable thought to invert its powers, and make the mind an object of its own contemplation. When my mind is put in action by the faculty of judgment, I feel the operations of thought oscillating backward and forward under the opposing arguments of moral evidence, just as the needle of the compass vibrates under the influence of magnetic variations.

I prepare the temperament or habitude of my mind previous to the operation of judgment, as the mariner prepares his compass. He first examines the traverse of all its parts, that all fixture may be avoided, and the oscillation preserved throughout the whole

mechanism. He next removes all great objects of magnetic influence, lest the needle of the compass should feel any undue impulse. In the same manner I detach the traverse of reason from all the fixed propensities of the will, that the essential character of judgment, doubt, may be preserved in oscillation like the magnetic needle. I next take a suspicious and vigilant view of all the impulses of education, example, custom, and habit, and remove them, as far as possible, from the sphere of influence on the intellectual compass.

The most momentous object of influence, and the most difficult to be resisted, is the intellectual habitude of reasoning, which forms the action of thought into a tune, whose key-note generates all the rest in consecutive harmony. This imperious habitude, which, like iron in the vicinity of the compass, deranges the action of the needle of judgment, is most evident in the most extravagant errors of metaphysics. Metaphysical Doctors, arguing either with themselves in meditation or in conversation with each other, mistake the impulse of habit for the sensation of object, and, like children, talk of ghosts and spirits till the motion of fancy becomes more powerful than the convictions of reason, and no eloquence whatever could convince these men of letters that the word spirit conveyed no possible idea.

The politician, conversing with himself and colleagues, perpetually singing the same arguments, nothing can variegate the tune of his tenets, though the Bastile of the despot, or the ostracism of the rabble, threaten him every moment with the scaffold, as exemplified in the histories of Greece and Rome. Such imperious habitudes of thought and opinion I guard against by reading controversial authors, conversing with men of contrary sentiments, and by the severest self-controversy. By such means I prepare the oscillation of the needle of judgment to vibrate with all the counter impulses of universal moral evidence, procured by the faculty of contemplation presenting to the mind every possible view, combination, and relation of things.

It may be objected to this mode of operation of the faculty of judgment, that it causes too much anxiety, ignorance, and irresolution, and deprives the mind of all decision.

To this I reply, that the phenomena or actions of judgment follow the closest analogy with the mariner's compass--the vessel it guides does not stop one moment, but turns its prow to the index of the card, where the magnetic needle points. Just so the moralist moves forward in deliberative calculation of necessary action, which conforms with the index of circumstances, without arresting the vibration of the needle of judgment, and the mind acquires the cheerful confidence and constant decision of the mariner, though doubt is inseparable from both operations of moral and physical truth. The highest degree of mental sensibility, or intellectual action, is necessary (I will not say to direct the nee

dle of judgment in its punctuation) but simply to give it vibration in doubt.

How few minds are capable or willing to open the door of wisdom called doubt. Legislators, both ancient and modern, have been obliged to temporize with this popular propensity, and to issue their laws and maxims in the name of oracles, which drove a nail into the mental compass, and arresting thereby the vibrations of judgment, individuals were preserved in a state of national harmony, while those great political bodies of nations were forced into the eccentric orbits of opinion, hatred and warfare.

This mode of reasoning by authority, instead of argument, has generated a universal repugnance to doubt. The Deist will read no books, and converse with no Doctors of Revelation, and vice versa. The democrat will read no books, and converse with no partizans of aristocracy, and vice versa. And these examples exhibit the whole cause of error in the operations of the faculty of judgment. Having explained sufficiently the nature of this faculty in its double phenomena of rectitude and error, as exhibited in the operations of my own mind, I shall proceed to consider in my proposed order the modes and means of augmenting its powers.

The import of the word judgment suggests to us all the means of its improvement; it imports decision, discrimination, or balance of arguments: now it is most demonstrable, that this balance of moral evidence, like that of arithmetic, cannot be struck without comprehending all the items that are to produce it. Who ever heard of the balance of an account current without comprehending all the items of both. debit and credit? where if a single item is neglected on either side, the sum of the balance must be false. This analogy teaches that the faculty of judgment in creases its powers by multiplying the matter of evidence. The barriers of authority must be trampled on, custom, education, prejudice, and mental habitudes, must be suspected and examined with the severest scrutiny; controversial writings and conversations must be sought after; and when a constant habitude of reasoning shall enable us to resist and suspect the influence of the will and affections, in this state to hold a controversial soliloquy becomes the true criterion of the temper of judgment, and carries its powers to their maximum of energy.

I now come to the last division of my topic, which is, according to the method of my Discourse, a rule of discipline to guide the improved powers of the faculty of judgment in their operations. The rule of discipline for the conduct of judgment is never to suspend the action of doubt even in the most peremptory decision. I shall exemplify this rule with a few clear and irrefutable examples. I will first exhibit a case of doubt in personal conduct to constitute virtue, or the art of happiness.

I will suppose that I am summoned before the Inquisition to

recant, with a verbal negative, philosophical truths that I have published in the most voluminous demonstrations. The great moral axiom of sincerity or truth, the north star of virtue, affects the oscillating needle of judgment, while doubt accommodates action to existing circumstances, and strikes the balance of verbal recantation as an indirect mean to obtain the end, sincerity. The conduct of Galileo, who obtained his enlargement from prison by the above mean of recantation, will explain the utility of doubt. He used his liberty to pursue and publish his demonstrations of the motion of the earth, which he could not have accomplished without his liberty.

The citizen, or moralist, must have the needle of judgment arrested in its punctuation of existing laws, customs, and institutions, while doubt vibrates its motions towards the perfectibility of a state of nature, through the progress of intellectual power, which converges the two objects, truth and doubt, to their maximum and minimum, without ever meeting the point of coales cence. This sentiment may be elucidated by considering the civil institution of matrimony, in which a great evil exists by subjecting the will of one human being to that of another.

The faculty of judgment must punctuate this expedient, evil, while doubt may oscillate its needle towards easier laws of divorce, or a speculative state of nature.

This same temperament of rational doubt has been censured with the appellation of inconsistency, want of principle, irresolution, and folly. I think I can easily confute this censure, and turn it all upon the adversary by a few simple observations.

The man of wisdom, or virtue, holds all his principles immutable in their ends, but mutable in their means; his judgment punctuates the inestimable good of liberty, but doubt oscillates the intellectual needle through all those restraints of checks and balances of power that may prevent the people in a democracy from assuming the executive authority into their own hands, the perpetual cause of anarchy and despotism.

The man whose mind is disciplined with doubt, can temporize with means, even though contrasted with their ends, as when the Habeas Corpus, the great bulwark of civil liberty, is suspended in times of insurrection; while men who have no discipline of doubt in the faculty of judgment, mistake the means for the end, and, like the hypochondriac, wear the same cloaths through the whole year, from an incapacity to accommodate the means to the end, as the dress to the seasons.

Doubt will probably be objected to as the cause of despondency; I think I can easily prove that rational doubt is the only cure of despair, and the preventative of almost all kinds of insanity, How many instances of despair and madness have we witnessed in history in the dogmatism of learned men. John Jacques Rousseau lingered through a consumption of jealousy, brought on