opponents. He had the moral courage to advocate unpopular

causes.

But, unlike greater men who had made greater mistakes than he ever committed, Price has left the first principles of ethics, politics, and finance substantially where he found them. When he is asked, "What is the power within us that perceives the distinctions of right and wrong?" he answers “The understanding.” Moral distinctions are founded on the fitness of things, and are necessary truths like those relating to space or causation. "The more we inquire, the more indisputable, I imagine, it will appear to us that we express necessary truths when we say of some actions they are right and of others they are wrong.” He is opposing Hume's Human Nature on the principles of Plato, Aristotle, Cudworth, and Bishop Butler. Sensation cannot give us general notions; and yet general notions are not therefore false, on the contrary they are therefore necessary. Kant has once for all amended this contention, and put the argument in the form in which it must be met; and at this distance of time Price's arguments seem only valuable historically, as interesting protests against Hutcheson's moral sense and Hume's utility.

In theology he was then considered too latitudinarian; but though a Unitarian he was in many matters of faith hardly less orthodox than Archdeacon Paley, while he was certainly more emotional. In finance, though pronounced by a great contemporary "by no means an able calculator," he was the cause of able calculation in other men, one of whom (William Morgan) was at pains to edit his chief financial tracts, as well as to write his Life (1815).

In political philosophy he abode by the principles of Locke's Civil Government, and did no harm by re-affirming them in 1776 and 1789. He gave Burke occasion to point out the weak points in Locke's case, and to press home the general principle that in politics general principles must never be pressed home. Price had strong faith in the "natural improvableness of the human race; but it was Godwin whose exaggerations of this doctrine brought out the full strength of the case against it.

J. BONAR.

DO OUR FACULTIES DECEIVE US?

LET us consider, first, that we are informed of this difficulty by our faculties, and that, consequently, if we do not know that any regard is due to their information, we likewise do not know that there is any regard due to this difficulty. It will appear presently to be a contradiction to suppose that our faculties can teach us universally to suspect themselves.

Secondly, our natures are such, that whatever we see, or think we see evidence against, we cannot believe. If then there should appear to us, on the whole, any evidence against the supposition that our faculties are so contrived as always to deceive us, we are obliged to reject it. Evidence must produce conviction proportioned to the imagined degree of it; and conviction is inconsistent with suspicion. It will signify nothing to urge that no evidence in this case can be regarded because discovered by our suspected faculties; for we cannot suspect, we cannot in any case doubt without reason or against reason. Doubting supposes evidence, and there cannot, therefore, be any such thing as doubting whether evidence itself is to be regarded. A man who doubts of the veracity of his faculties, must do it on their own authority; that is, at the very time, and in the very act of suspecting them, he must trust them. As nothing is more plainly self-destructive than to attempt to prove by reason that reason deserves no credit, or to assert that we have reason for thinking that there is no such thing as reason; it is certainly no less so to pretend that we have reason to doubt whether reason is to be regarded, or which comes to the same, whether our faculties are to be regarded. And, as far as it is acknowledged, there is no reason to doubt, so far it will be ridiculous to pretend to doubt. (From Questions in Morals.)

THE EFFECTS OF CUSTOM

ALL that custom and education can do is to alter the direction of natural sentiments and ideas, and to connect them with wrong objects. It is that part of our moral constitution which depends on instinct, that is chiefly liable to the corruption produced by these causes. The sensible horror at vice and attachment to virtue, may be impaired, the conscience seared, the nature of particular practices mistaken, the sense of shame weakened, the judgment darkened, the voice of reason stifled, and self-deception practised, to the most lamentable and fatal degree. Yet the grand lines and primary principles of morality are so deeply wrought into our hearts, and one with our minds, that they will be for ever legible. The general approbation of certain virtues, and dislike of their contraries, must always remain, and cannot be erased but with the destruction of all intellectual perception. The most depraved never sink so low as to lose all moral discernment, all ideas of right and wrong, justice and injustice, honour and dishonour. This appears sufficiently from the judgments they pass on the actions of others; from the resentment they discover whenever they are themselves the object of ill-treatment; and from the inward uneasiness and remorse which they cannot avoid feeling, and by which, on some occasions, they are severely tormented. (From the Same.)

THE VISION OF THE WORLD

IT is too evident that the state of this country is such as renders it an object of concern and anxiety. It wants (I have shown you) the grand security of public liberty. Increasing luxury has multiplied abuses in it. A monstrous weight of debt is crippling

it. Vice and venality are bringing down upon it God's displeasure. That spirit to which it owes its distinctions is declining; and some late events seem to prove that it is becoming every day more reconcileable to encroachments on the securities of its liberties. It wants therefore your patriotic services; and, for the sake of the distinctions it has so long enjoyed, for the sake of our

brethren and companions, and all that should be dear to a free people, we ought to do our utmost to save it from the dangers that threaten it, remembering that by acting thus, we shall promote in the best manner our private interest as well as the interest of our own country, for when the community prospers the individuals that compose it must prosper with it. But, should that not happen, or should we even suffer in our secular interest by our endeavours to promote the interest of our country, we shall feel a satisfaction in our own breasts which is preferable to all this world can give; and we shall enjoy the transporting hope of soon becoming members of a perfect community in the heavens, and having "an entrance ministered to us abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

You may reasonably expect that I should now close this address to you. But I cannot yet dismiss you. I must not conclude without recalling particularly to your recollection a consideration to which I have more than once alluded, and which, probably, your thoughts have been all along anticipating a consideration with which my mind is impressed more than I can express: I mean the consideration of the favourableness of the present times to all exertions in the cause of public liberty.

What an eventful period is this! I am thankful that I have lived to it, and I could almost say, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation." I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge which has undermined superstition and error-I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever, and nations panting for liberty which seemed to have lost the idea of it; I have lived to see thirty millions of people, indignant and resolute, spurning at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice; their king led in triumph, and an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself to his subjects. After sharing in the benefits of one revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to two other revolutions, both glorious. And now, methinks, I see the ardour for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of kings changed for the dominion of laws, and the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.

Be encouraged all ye friends of freedom and writers in its defence! The times are auspicious. Your labours have not been in vain. Behold kingdoms, admonished by you, starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming justice from their

oppressors ! Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France, and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes, and warms and illuminates Europe! Tremble all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish governments, and slavish hierarchies! Call no more (absurdly and wickedly) reformation innovation. You cannot now hold the world in darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights, and consent to the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together.

(From Discourse on the Love of our Country.)