326 MENTAL FACULTIES. 



welfare. All the faculties, they assert, are returns of this self-love 

 upon itself; and, as in the case of the intellectual faculties, attempts 

 have been made to classify them ; but scarcely two metaphysicians 

 agree. ^ Some have divided them into the agreeable and distressing; 

 others into those of love and hatred; many regarding their effects 

 upon society into the virtuous, vicious, and mixed ; the first com- 

 prising those that are useful to society, as filial, parental, and con- 

 jugal love, which form the foundation of families ; goodness, pity, and 

 generosity, which, by inducing men to assist each other, facilitate the 

 social condition; and the love of labour, honour, and justice, which 

 have the same result, by constituting so many social guarantees. The 

 vicious passions, on the contrary, are such as injure man individually, 

 and society in general, as pride, anger, hatred, and malice. Lastly, 

 the mixed passions are such as are useful or injurious, according to 

 their use or abuse ; as ambition, which may be a laudable emulation, 

 or an insatiable passion, according to its extent and direction. 



Again, the passions have been divided into the animal or such as 

 belong to physical man, and the social or such as appertain to man in 

 society. The first are guides for his preservation as well as for that of 

 the species. To them belong fear, anger, sadness, hatred, excessive 

 hunger, the venereal desires when vehement, jealousy, &c. In the 

 second are included all the social wants when inordinately experienced. 

 These vary according to the state of civilization of the individual and 

 the community. Ambition, for instance, it is said, may be regarded, 

 when inordinate, as excessive love of power: avarice, as an exaggera- 

 tion of the desire for fortune: hatred, and vengeance, as the natural 

 and impetuous desire of injuring those that injure us, &c. Mr. Dugald 

 Stewart's 1 division of the active and moral powers embraces, 1. Instinct- 

 ive principles, and 2. Rational principles, the former including appe- 

 tites, desires, and affections ; the latter self-love and the moral faculty ; 

 all of which Dr. Brown 2 comprises under emotions, immediate, retrospect- 

 ive, or prospective ; and lastly, Dr. Abercrombie 3 refers all the prin- 

 ciples, which constitute the moral feelings, to the following heads : 

 1. The desires, the affections, and self-love; 2. The will; 3. The 

 moral principle, and 4. The moral relation of man towards the Deity. 



It is obvious, that the analysis of the moral faculties has been still 

 less satisfactorily executed than that of the intellectual ; and that little 

 or no attempt has been made to distinguish those that are primary or 

 fundamental, from those that are more complex; consequently, the 

 remarks which were made regarding the only quarter we have to look 

 to, for any improvement in our knowledge of the intellectual acts, apply 

 d fortiori to the moral ; although it must be admitted, that the difficul- 

 ties attendant upon the investigation of the latter are so great as to 

 appear to be almost insuperable. 



As the brain, then, is admitted to be the organ of the intellectual 

 and moral faculties, it is fair to presume that its structure may be 



i Op. citat. 2 Op. citat. 



3 Philosophy of the Moral Feelings, Amer. edit., p. 35, New York, 1833. 



