LESSON'S IN MORAL 



the Epicurean tried to account for ambition, by saying that 

 our lovo for the approbation of others only exist* in to far as it 

 enables us to gratify our sensual appetites ; and for compassion 

 by saying, that it merely springs from our knowledge that, if wo 

 do not assist others, they will not assist us. But although thU 

 theory has the merit of simplicity to recommend it, it fails to 

 account for all the appearances presented by men's actions. If 

 we take the case of ambition, or regard for the esteem of others, 

 Lucrotia, for instance), in order to preserve the good 

 ri of their fellows, have even sacrificed their lives, by 

 they knowingly destroyed all future moans of gratifying 

 their sensual appetites. Or let us take the pleasure men feel in 

 doing good to, or relieving the misery of, others ; no doubt men 

 may and often do act in this way from a love of fame, or a love 

 of power ; but then it is equally true that they often, perhaps 

 oftoner, do not act from such motives at all, i.f , they are in- 

 fluenced, not by their appetites, but by what ore called their 

 is. Nor can the Epicurean theory account for such 

 phenomena as men's pursuing knowledge for its own sake with- 

 out any consideration of the use it can be put to, but merely 

 because they like to do so, because it ignores the existence of 

 res, and recognises no pleasures except those of the body. 



Hence, from observation of the differences existing amongst 

 the various principles of our nature, we may divide them into 

 three classes : 1, Appetites ; 2, Desires ; 3, Affections. 



Our Appetites (at least such of them as are natural and not 

 acquired) are common to us with the brutes, the chief of them 

 being hunger and thirst, which wore intended for our preserva- 

 tion. Besides such natural appetites, there are others which are 

 acquired, such as that for tobacco or for opium. 



The Desires, unlike the appetites, have not their origin in the 

 body, and they are also more continuous in their operation. 

 The chief of them are five : 1, The Desire of Power ; 2, The 

 Desire of Esteem ; 3, The Desire of Knowledge ; 4, The Desire 

 of Superiority ; and, 5, The Desire of Society. 



The Affections include all those principles of our nature whose 

 object is the communication of enjoyment or suffering to any of 

 our fellow-creatures. They naturally divide themselves into the 

 benevolent and the malevolent affections ; the former including 

 love, patriotism, friendship, benevolence, gratitude, pity, etc. ; 

 and the latter, hatred, envy, resentment, jealousy, revenge, etc. 



The term passion is applied generally to any of these prin- 

 ciples of our nature, when they pass beyond their proper limit. 



Wo may now consider the two questions already stated ; and, 

 naturally, the first subject of inquiry in reference to the prin- 

 ciples which actuate men's conduct is, what is meant by virtue 

 and vice wherein do they really consist ? what is the particular 

 character of the conduct, or act, or temper of mind to which we 

 apply the terms virtuous or vicious respectively ? what is it 

 that we see in one character which excites in us approbation, 

 esteem, and praise, and in another disapprobation, contempt, 

 and blame ? 



It is possible that, at first sight, to a mind not much accus- 

 tomed to reflection, it might seem that these questions did not 

 possess much difficulty ; or, at all events, that all must agree in 

 the answers to be given. The matter, however, will not appear 

 so simple or easy when it is remembered that the standard by 

 which actions ore to be tried has varied at different times in the 

 history of the world ; that the acts which at one time or in one 

 country were considered even praiseworthy, have, at another 

 time or in another country, been visited with the severest blame ; 

 and that even amongst civilised countries at the present day 

 there is by no means complete unanimity as to the light in 

 which various particular actions are to be esteemed. These 

 considerations have even led some persons to imagine that there 

 is really no fixed and determinate standard of moral right and 

 wrong at all ; but merely that that is virtuous or vicious which 

 happens to be accounted so in a particular nation at a particular 

 time. But is this really so ? Is there no test except praise or 

 blame by which it can be surely decided whether an action is 

 virtuous or not ? To these questions, amongst other things, 

 the science of Ethics attempts to give a satisfactory reply. 



Assuming, however, for the present that there is in reality a 

 fixed criterion or standard of virtue and vice that there is a 

 real difference between right and wrong let us see what are 

 the chief accounts which have been given of the nature of 

 virtue. Partly adopting as a basis the classification of them 

 given by Adam Smith, it may be stated generally that the 



principal may be reduced to three classes, according M they 

 resolve virtue into propriety, prudence, or disinterested bene- 

 volence, which we mart consider separately, though it will not ' 

 be possible to examine them accurately in detail. 



By virtue, consisting in propriety of conduct, is meant that it 

 consists in the suitableness of. the affection from which a man 

 acts to the object by which it is excited. This was the foun- 

 dation of the Platonic, Aristotelian, and Stoical system*. 



The soul, according to Plato, was composed of three faculties 

 or parts, called the rational, irascible (including, for example, 

 ambition, animosity, emulation, and revenge), and concupiicent 

 (i.e., all passions founded in the love of pleasure, and including 

 all the bodily and sensual appetites). Justice, the greatest of 

 all virtues, and which comprehended in it prudence, fortitude, 

 temperance, and the rest, existed when the three parts or faculties 

 of the soul were in a state of balance, and confined themselves 

 each to its proper place, without either interfering with the 

 province of the other. Hence he represented virtue as the 

 harmony of the soul, or as a state of perfect health ; and com- 

 pared it to a well-ordered republic, in which the wise laws of the 

 ruler were promptly and cheerfully obeyed by the ruled. 



Aristotle regarded each of the virtues as a mean lying between 

 two opposite vices, one of which has too much and the other too 

 little of some particular quality the quality being the being 

 duly and properly affected by some particular class of objects. 

 Thus, courage is the mean between the vices of cowardice on the 

 one hand, and rashness on the other ; the former of which con- 

 sists in being too much, and the latter in being too little, affected 

 by the objects of fear. So frugality lies in a mean between 

 avarice, an excess, and profusion, a defect, in attending to the 

 objects of self-interest. 



Zeno, the founder of the great Stoical school, taught that 

 virtue consisted in choosing or rejecting the different objects of 

 choice presented to us, according as they were by nature consti- 

 tuted more or less the objects of choice or rejection for us. 

 Every animal was, at its birth, entrusted to its own care by 

 nature, and was endowed for this purpose with self-love, that it 

 might try to preserve, not only its existence, but also all the 

 different parts of its nature, in their most perfect state. What- 

 ever, therefore, tended to this preservation, was pointed out by 

 nature as an object of choice, and whatever had a contrary 

 tendency was similarly pointed out as an object of rejection. 

 Some, however, of the objects in each class were more the 

 objects of choice or rejection, as the case might be, than others: 

 for example, health was preferable to strength, strength to 

 agility, and reputation to power ; and so, also, sickness was 

 more to be rejected than unwieldiness of body, ignominy than 

 poverty, and poverty than the loss of power. And, accordingly, 

 it was in choosing those objects which, out of several presented 

 to us of which we could not obtain all, were most to be chosen ; 

 and, in like manner, rejecting those which were most to be re- 

 jected when we could not reject all, that virtue consisted. 



Several modern writers on Ethics have also regarded virtue 

 as ultimately resolvable into propriety of conduct. Clarke 

 makes it consist in a conduct conformable to the fitness of 

 things, and Wollaston in a conduct conformable to truth. 



The earliest philosopher who made virtue to consist in 

 prudence was Epicurus. According to him, bodily pleasure and 

 pain are the sole ultimate objects of desire and aversion ; and 

 anything else is desired or shunned only from its tendency to 

 procure us such pleasure or save us from such pain. "All other 

 virtues," ho said, " grow from prudence, which teaches that we 

 cannot live pleasurably without living justly and virtuously, 

 nor live justly and virtuously without living pleasurably." And 

 although he regarded the pleasures and pains of the mind as 

 infinitely greater than those of the body, yet, according to his 

 view, the former were always ultimately resolvable into the latter ; 

 i.e., the pleasures and pains of the mind were derived from the 

 recollection and anticipation of those of the body. None of the. 

 virtues were, in this system, to be pursued upon their own 

 account, but only because they tended to secure the greatest 

 happiness which man can enjoy. In this respect Epicurus was 

 wrong, though he was clearly right in his statement that a 

 virtuous course of conduct is necessary to happiness. 



Hutcheson and others (such as Cudworth and More) have 

 made virtue to consist in benevolence, or love ; which, as it was 

 according to them the sole principle of action with the Deitv. 

 so it was the only praiseworthy motive to action with man. " In 



