.. 



MOORISH ARCHITECTURE. 



MORALS. 



the lime in decomposing the vegetable fibre. After thi it 



become* extremely fertile, producing abundant crops of potatoes and 

 oats; and whenever it baa acquired sufficient solidity by the treading 

 of heep and cattle, it will produce good crop* of wheat, or, if laid 

 down to gnui, give abundance of hay and paature Tree* do not 

 thrive in moasy toil, there being too little solidity for the rooU, and 

 the large trunk* which are frequently found in bogs must have grown 

 before the mum waa formed. This may be easily imagined. A wood 

 laid flat by a atorm or hurricane may obstruct the natural flow of the 

 waters, and cause them to accumulate. The prostrate trees become 

 surrounded by aquatic plants, which spread their fibre* and roots freely 

 through the water, and, decaying, make room for others Thus the 

 trees are gradually covered and buried in the moss till future genera- 

 tions find them when the nioes or bog is explored for fuel or for 

 improvement. The trees which are found buried in mosses frequently 

 show erideut signs of having been gradually covered. The upper sur- 

 face is often decayed and uneven, while tie lower showa that it has 

 remained submerged and protected from the contact and influence of 

 the air, and thus preserved from rotting. 



MOORISH ARCHITECTURE. [SAUACEMC ARCHITFCTURE.] 

 MORAL SENSE is a name which, occurring first in Lord Shaftes- 

 bury's ' Inquiry concerning Virtue,' and afterwards adopted by 

 Hutcheson, has since come to be very generally employed to denote 

 the feelings with which we regard men's actions and dispositions. 

 These feelings are known also by the name of feelings of moral 

 approbation and moral disapprobation. Tliis last name answers 

 every purpose which is sought in naming, and is at the same 

 time free from the many objections that may be urged against the 

 phrase *vrvl t x$e. 



The phrase mural ten* is objectionable, first of all, because the feelings 

 for which it is proposed as a name have no analogy whatever to the 

 external senses, from which the phrase is borrowed. The phrase there- 

 fore tends to give a wrong notion of the thing for which it is a name, 

 an objection which is of itself altogether fatal to the use of the phrase 

 for the purpose of naming. 



A masterly exposition of the objectionableness of the phrase 

 mural tnitr, and of the theories that are founded upon it, will 

 be found in Mr. Austin's ' Province of Jurisprudence determined.' 

 [MORALS.] 



MORALITIES or MORAL PLAYS. [DRAMA.] 

 MURALS is a word used in several different senses, which it is 

 desirable to distinguish 1. It has been employed, together with the 

 expressions mural ph>l Jtopky and moral tie nee, to denote the whole 

 field of knowledge relating primarily to the mind of man ; and in this 

 sense it is co-exu nuive with the wnrd mita/Jiytirt. To this use of the 

 word there are many objections ; and it has accordingly now almost 

 entirely ceased. 2. Moral*, as well as the expressions mural pliiijtophy 

 and mo al tdatce, denotes specially the science of what is called man's 

 duty, what he ought and ought not to think, feel, say, do. In this 

 sense of the word, morals is one department of metaphysics ; mental 

 philosophy, or mental science, or psychology (which, as we Khali see 

 presently, is a necessary foundation for morals), being another depart- 

 ment. This is in every way the most convenient use of the word, and 

 is now generally sanctioned by custom. In this sense of the word 

 muraU, it is convertible with rtliia and with dcuntvl ijy, a word coined 

 by Mr. Bentham. 3. Marali and tibia are at the same time names for 

 the art corresponding to the science which has just been spoken of, 

 the art of periorming one's duty, or (as it is generally described) the 

 art of living a good and a happy life. The art and the science being 

 coextensive, and differing only in thin, that the same subject-matter i- 

 viewed from different poinU, the nidi-. Timinatc application of the 

 same term to both engenders n confusion worthy of notice. I 

 is, in current conversation, synonymous with u.or .tilt ; thus denoting 

 not only the science and the art, but also what is the subject-unit, i- 

 both of the one and of tin- other. 



It is the purpose of this article to give a brief general account of 

 morals, considered as the science of man s duty. 



Morals then is a name for the science which teaches what it is man's 

 duty to do and not to do, or (changing the phrase) what he ought and 

 ought not to do ; or again, what it is respectively right and wrong for 

 him to do ; or (to report to yet another change of phrase) which teaches 

 what is respectively virtue and vice Our account of the science must 

 necessarily commence with an explanation of this, it* fundamental 

 idea, which is thus expressed in so many different ways. 



It is man's duty to do, or he ought to do, or it is right that ho 

 should do, or lastly, that is virtue, which, on the most general view 

 possible of the tendencies of a disposition or an action, conduces most 

 to the happiness of mankind. That which nf any two acts thus viewed, 

 conduces the let* to this Imppinran, it is his duty not to do ; or he 

 ought not to do, or it is wrong for him to do, or lastly is vice. 80, 

 absolutely and unconditionally, of any disposition or action which 

 tends, on the whole, to cause unhappines*. It is generally stated, in 

 cy with this explanation, that conducive-ness to the general 



of mankind is the criterion of duty or virtue, 

 quest-on* now arise, to which, before wo proceed further, 

 OHM tort of answer must be given. The answers to these questions 

 will lead us to separate the science of morals from two other sciences 

 with which it is often more or less confounded, namely, mental science, 



or psychology, and theology, and also to point put the rcl.it i 

 which it stands to these sciences. The two questions are, - what does 

 human happiness consist of ? and what renders the pursuit of human 

 happiness man's duty ? 



We shall answer the second of these questions first It is man's 

 duty to strive to increase the general amount of human happiness, 

 because he knows, both from the adaptation of the external world to 

 that end, and from express revelation of God's will, that God desires 

 the happiness of mankind. The full and detailed establishment of this 

 proposition belongs to theology, in its two departments of natural and 

 revealed religion. Thus is morals connected with theology. We have 

 said that their provinces have been often more or less confounded, and 

 this has taken place principally in two ways. God having revealid. in 

 a general manner, the assignment of rewards and pr.ni.-hiiii nu in a 

 future life to the performance of duty and its violation in this some 

 writers, as Paley for instance (who defines virtue as " the doing good 

 to mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of ever- 

 lasting happiness " ), have directly referred virtue to an expectation of 

 these rewards and punishments, and, instead of treating them as some- 

 thing extraneous and accidental, have introduced them as essentials 

 into the definition of morality. Now morals has nothing to do with 

 these rewards anil punishments further than to determine what are the 

 dispositions and actions to which they are respectively assigned; and 

 this is determined altogether independently of the rewards and punish- 

 ments themselves. The other \v;iy in which the province* of morals 

 and theology hav been confounded (and here the confusion is com- 

 plete) is by deriving all duty directly from the revealed will of God. 

 Those who consult the Bible only as being the depository of God's 

 revealed will, for a complete enumeration of their duties, clearly 

 reject morals as an independent Bcitnce, and merge it entirely in 

 theology. It is needless to observe that the Bil>le, which, as Mr. 

 Burke observes in a well-known passage, " is not one summary of doc- 

 trines regularly digested, in which a man could not mist-ike his nay." 

 cannot take the place of, any more than it can be superseded by, a science 

 which systematically treats duty on the principle of couduciveuess to 

 tlie general happiness of mankind. 



The question, what does human happiness consist of ? remains to un- 

 answered. And here too we can only generally indicate the mode of 

 answering the question, rather than provide in detail the answer itself. 

 Man is so framed as to be susceptible of certain pleasures and ceitain 

 pains. These pleasures and pains are of two different kinds, physical 

 and intellectual , in the last division being included the pleasures and 

 pains of sympathy, and also those derived from the feelings of moral 

 approbation and disapprobation. These pleasures and pains differ of 

 course among themselves, both in kind and degree. Now generally 

 the greater the number of pleasures gratified, and the greater the 

 number of pains avoided, the more is man's happiness consulted; 

 and when there is a necessity of choice between pleasures and pains 

 of different kinds, thin happiness is consulted more, in proportion 

 as the pleasures and pains respectively gratified ami avoided art- 

 more enduring and extensive in effect. The full cnumi 'latioii and 

 explanation of all the pleasures and pains of which man i- l>y nature 

 susceptible belongs to psychology, or mental science. Morals, availing 

 itself of the results of this science, proceeds to determine, by a OOOV 

 parison, in each case, of known pleasures and pains, in respect nf 

 number and value, the different duties of man. 



Much confusion has been made between mental and moral .- 

 first by treating the moral feelings (as they are called '. < >r the feelings 

 of moral approbation and disapprobation, as the immediate ol 

 moral science; and secondly, by supposing these feelings, nnd< . 

 names as conscience and moral sense, to be the only and all-sin 

 criterion of morality or duty. The consideration of these feelings, as 

 of all other feelings, belongs to mental science. So far as they eon 

 tribute to increase the number of human pleasures and pains, their 

 consideration is a necessary preliminary to the treatment of moral 

 seienee. ho far, on the other hand, as the proper dneeti. m ol 

 feelings is concerned (which belongs to the act of education), it is clear 

 that the enumeration and explanation of duties slionM precede. Those 

 writers who, merging altogether moral in mental M , i,. i , derive all 

 duties from what they call an independent moral faculty, which, by 

 way of making the thing clearer, they nar / unte, 



or right rto*/n, commit the error of mistaking the effect for the cause. 

 So far as the judgments of this conscience, or moral sense, or right 

 reason, are good and proper judgments, so far must they be founded 

 upon the results of moral science, treated, as we propose to treat it, in 

 e to the principle of ronducivcness to the happiness of man- 

 kind. And it will invariably be found that whatever of good exists in 

 any moral system professing to be founded on something else is really 

 (though its authors imagine otherwise) iliij.. I Eroo this science. 

 But where direct and conscious reference is not made to this science, 

 there is no longer any security for the projwr direction of the moral 

 feelings. As L)r. 1'aley happily expresses it, " a system of mmal.ty, 

 built upon instincts, will only find out reasons and excuses for 

 opinions and practices already established will seldom correct or 

 reform either." 



Thus much in the way of preliminary disquisition. We now proceed 

 to enumerate man's several duties. 



It i of course out of the question to give a complete enumeration of 



