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SKETCHES

OF

MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

B

LECTURES.

INTRODUCTORY LECTURE.

By the term Moral Philosophy, is popularly understood ethical philosophy; or that science which teaches the duties of life: but Moral Philosophy, properly speaking, is contrasted to natural philosophy; comprehending every thing spiritual, as that comprehends every thing corporeal, and constituting the most difficult and the most sublime of those two divisions under which all human knowledge must be arranged.

In this sense, Moral Philosophy is used by Berkeley, by Hartley, by Hutcheson, by Adam Smith, by Hume, by Reid, and by Stewart. In this sense it is taught in the Scotch Universities, where alone it is taught in this island; and in this sense it comprehends all the intellectual, active, and moral faculties of man; the laws by which they are governed; the limits by which they are controlled; and the means by which they may be improved: it aims at discovering, by the accurate analysis of his spiritual part, the system of action most agreeable to the intentions of his Maker, and most conducive to the happiness of man.

There is a word of dire sound and horrible import which I would fain have kept concealed if I possibly could; but as this is not feasible, I shall even meet the danger at once, and get out of it as well as I can. The word to which I allude is that very tremendous

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