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THE POPULAR EDUCATOR. 



ing to Butler, if we understand our true happiness, conscience 

 and self-love do always lead in the same way. and we are con- 

 scious of violating our nature, in a totally different sense, when 

 we refuse to obey the dictates of conscience or our moral sense, 

 and when we refuse to obey any of the other numerous motives 

 to action, some of which have been already mentioned. In 

 fact, to use Butler's own words, "this moral discernment 

 implies in the notion of it a rule of action, and a rule of a very 

 peculiar kind ; for it carries in it authority and a right of direc- 

 tion authority in such a sense that we cannot depart from it 

 without being self-condemned;" and hia theory of conscience 

 is this: "that principle by which we survey, and either approve 

 or disapprove our own heart, temper, and actions, is not only 

 to be considered as what is in its turn to have some influence 

 which may be said of every passion, of the lowest appetites i 

 but likewise as being superior ; as, from its very nature, mani- | 

 festly claiming superiority over all others, insomuch that you | 

 cannot form a notion of this faculty, conscience, without taking 

 in judgment, direction, superintendeney. This is a constituent 

 part of the idea, that is, of the faculty itself ; and to preside 

 and to govern, from the very economy and constitution of man, 

 belongs to it. Had it strength as it had right, had it power 

 as it had manifest authority, it would absolutely govern the 

 world. " 



Having spoken of sympathy as one of the motives to virtuous 

 action, it is but natural to consider briefly the theory of morals 

 propounded by Adam Smith. This celebrated writer resolves 

 virtue into sympathy. According to his theory, to approve of , 

 another man's opinions or conduct is the same thing as believing 

 that we ourselves shoal I, under like circumstances, have acted 

 in a like manner. " In the suitableness or unsuitableness, in 

 the proportion or disproportion, which the affection seems to 

 bear to the cause or object which excites it, consists the pro- | 

 priety or impropriety, the decency or ungracefulness of the ! 

 consequent action : " and he tells us, with reference to our j 

 measurement of this proportionateness, that " when we judge 

 of any affection as proportioned or disproportioned to the cause 

 which excites it, it is scarcely possible that we should make use 

 of any other rule or canon but the correspondent affection in 

 ourselves. If, upon bringing the case home to our own heart, 

 we find that the sentiments which it gives occasion to coincide 

 and tally with our own, we necessarily approve of them, as pro- 

 portioned and suitable to their objects ; if otherwise, we neces- 

 sarily disapprove of them, as extravagant and out of proportion." > 

 When we examine our own conduct, for the purpose of passing 

 sentence upon it, the standard, by reference to which we judge ; 

 our acts, is the sentiment which they would excite in us, if looked i 

 at from the point of view of another ; and it is according to this i 

 standard that we pronounce them right or wrong. Such in : 

 substance is Smith's famous theory of sympathy. 



To prove the failure and inadequateness of this theory to 

 account for all the phenomena involved in what is called the 

 morality of actions, many arguments may be adduced. Chiefly j 

 three objections may be noticed : (1.) We are not conscious of 

 placing ourselves in the place of others, when we would j udge of 

 our own actions, or of placing others in the place of ourselves 

 when we would judge of theirs. On the contrary, we are con- j 

 scious of passing immediately in our mind from the action to its ! 

 morality, without any such substitution, however instantaneous, 

 as the sympathetic theory supposes ; and it can hardly be sup- 

 posed that such a forced and elaborate process would take place 

 without our being conscious of it, at any rate at times. (2.) 

 This theory also, even assuming the process which it supposes 

 to take place, affords no real answer to the question, why we 

 approve of some actions and disapprove of others. If I merely 

 say that I approve of the act of another man when, having ima- 

 gined myself, for the moment, in his place, I determine that I 

 would have acted similarly, I have not advanced really any 

 further towards the solution of the true difficulty. This proves 

 nothing as to the Tightness or wrongness, the virtnousness or 

 viciousness of the particular act itself ; unless, indeed, the true 

 reason I would approve of such conduct in the other person is 

 because I believe and judge that such would have been in that 

 case the right course of conduct for him to adopt. If this, how- 

 ever, be what is meant, it presupposes an already ascertained 

 distinction between risrht and wrong, existing in the mind pre- 

 vious to and independent of any such imaginary substitution. 

 But (3) this theory, however clearly and satisfactorily it might 



account for everything else, could never account for the idea of 

 obligation which accompanies ' the idea of right. It fails to 

 show how it is I feel I ouyht to do what is right and refrain 

 from what is wrong ; it. fails to account for what has been 

 termed " the imperativeness of moral rectitude." 



Amongst the different theories which have been put forward 

 from time to time by writers who are opposed to the notion of 

 an intuitive moral sentiment, we should notice that which re- 

 solves our sentiments of virtue and duty into the " association 

 of ideas." This explanation of the growth of our ideas of right 

 and wrong seems to have been first offered by Hume and Smith, 

 but was afterwards developed by Hartley, and more recently 

 still by Mackintosh. 



By the " association of ideas " is meant the law that ideas 

 which have been in the mind at the same time have a tendency 

 afterwards to call up each other, which tendency increases with 

 the frequency and duration of the period for which they have 

 been together in the mind. But in using this phrase, in reference 

 to the formation of the moral sentiment, it is understood in a 

 wi.lsr sense than that of the simple association of mere ideas. 

 "Ideas " must be taken generally to include passions, volitions, 

 and emotions; and "association" to include a union which., 

 \vhan once formed, is so close as that we are unable to detect its 

 component elements ar.d resolve it again into the ideas, passions, 

 or emotions by which it was formed. 



According to Mackintosh's view, the chief elements which go 

 io make up the moral sentiments are gratitude, pity, resent- 

 in jnt, and shame. Let us first take gratitude as an example. 

 When an act of kindness or benevolence is done towards us, we 

 receive pleasure from it, and associate that pleasure with the 

 icba of the benefactor, so as to regard him with a feeling of 

 complacency ; and then, when we afterwards see similar acts of 

 kindness or benevolence done to others, there is called up in our 

 minds the pleasure we felt when ourselves the object of similar 

 acts. Then as to pity. We transfer the pleasure we receive 

 from this to others, and that even more fully than in the case 

 of gratitude, for the reason that the outward signs of the emotion 

 are the same. We feel so strong a sympathy with a person 

 whom we conceive to suffer, that we cannot help approving of 

 the actions and dispositions which tend to relieve, and dis- 

 approving of those which tend to neglect or increase the suffering. 



Besides these primary causes which tend to form the moral 

 sense, there are secondary or auxiliary causes of its growth, 

 which are education, imitation, general opinion, laws, and 

 government, upon which we cannot enter into details, but which 

 naturally lead to the consideration, in conclusion, in as brief a 

 manner aa possible of the connection of morality with civil laws 

 and government. 



The rules laid down by Ethics, to be observed in human 

 action, are of two kinds. First, those whose observance is en- 

 forced by a penalty or punishment of one kind or another ; and 

 secondly, those whose observance is merely stimulated by the- 

 I nope of reward. Those coming under the first class are termed 

 ! the laws of morality proper, or obligatory morality ;. those 

 coming under the second, the laws of optional morality. 



In the former class of rulos, the laws of morality and the laws 

 j of the land, or the sanction of civil government, exactly coincide. 

 ] Morality condemns as a vice what the magistrate visits with 

 j punishment as a crime against the state. There are, however, 

 > many cases in which society is forced to gain its ends, not by 

 punishing men for failing to fulfil a particular obligation, but 

 by rewarding them, directly or indirectly, for fulfilling it. 

 Society does not punish men for not being charitable, or bone- 

 ; volent, or forgiving, but rewards them, by praise or otherwise, 

 , when they are so which is done almost entirely by individuals, 

 | not in a public but in a private capacity. These are the clas* 

 i of duties inculcated by the second class of moral rules. 



This division of morality into obligatory and non-obli'gatorv 

 , leads us to notice that every rule of morality is obligatory ir. 

 i one sense ; i. e., we cannot violate it without being self-condemned v 

 I and without conscience telling us that we are acting wrongly. 

 But "obligation," as Warburton says, "necessarily implies an 

 I obliger, who must be different from, and not one and the same 

 i with the obliged ;" or, to use the language of Paley, " obligation 

 ; is nothing more than an inducement of sufficient strength, and 

 ; resulting in some way from the command of another." Hence, 

 that which obliges us to virtue is the sense we have of being 

 under the moral law ; and it is our realisine the existence an-J 



