388 ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



Under these circumstances I must leave it to the enlightened audience before 

 me to choose out of these different hypotheses as they may think best. For 

 myself, I freely confess, that I have no ambition to soar into the higher rank 

 and the infallible knowledge of an instinctive creature, and shall modestly 

 content myself with the humbler character of a rational and intelligent being-, 

 still steadily steering by the lowly but sober lamps of a Bacon, a Newton, a 

 Locke, a Butler, a Price, and a Paley, instead of being captivated by the beau- 

 tiful and brilliant, but vacillating and illusive, coruscations of these northern 

 lights. 



LECTURE VII. 



ON HUMAN HAPPINESS. 



IT has required, I apprehend, but a very slight attention to the course of 

 study we have lately been following up, to be convinced of the truth of the 

 remark with which we opened the series, I mean, that the subject it pro- 

 posed to discuss is, of all subjects whatever that relate to human entity, the 

 most difficult and intractable. And absurd and visionary as have been many 

 of the opinions which it has brought before us, let us in conclusion, check 

 all undue levity, by recollecting that they are the absurdities and visions of the 

 first philosophers and sages of their respective periods ; of the wisest and, with 

 a few exceptions, of the best of mankind ; to whom, in most other respects, 

 we ought to bow with implicit homage, and who have only foundered from 

 too daring a spirit of adventure, and amid rocks and shoals which laugh at 

 the experience of the pilot. 



For myself, I freely confess to you, that my own hopes of success are but 

 very humble. I have done my best, however, to render the subject intelligible ; 

 and if, in the progress of it, I should also have betrayed dreams and absurdi- 

 ties, I have only to entreat that they may be visited with the candour which 

 I have endeavoured to extend to others ; fully aware that the ablest arguments 

 T have been able to submit are not fitted, if I may adopt the eloquent words 

 of Mr. Burke, " to abide the test of a captious controversy, but of a sober, 

 and even forgiving examination; that they are not armed at all points for 

 battle, but dressed to visit those who are willing to give a peaceful entrance 

 to truth." 



There is one point, however, and the most important point we have con 

 templated, in which all the different 'schools seem to be agreed, I mean, that 

 of moral distinctions. Whatever may be the roads the different travellers 

 have lighted upon, whether short or circuitous, smooth or entangled, they all 

 at last find themselves, in this respect, arrive at the same central spot; and 

 coincide in prescribing the same rules of duty, enjoining the same conduct, 

 and, with a few exceptions, delivering the same determinations. No philo- 

 sopher in the world has ever dreamed of confounding virtue with vice, or of 

 writing a treatise on the benefit of committing crimes. Let us search where 

 we will, we shall find that there is a something in human nature, when once 

 emerged from the barbarism of savage life, that leads the learned and the 

 unlearned to approve the one and to condemn the other, even where their 

 own conduct is involved in the condemnation. 



And what is this something in human nature that conducts to so general a 

 conclusion? A set or system of innate ideas and first principles, replies one 

 class of philosophers ; a moral instinct or impulse of common sense, replies 

 another class ; the intrinsic loveliness and beauty of virtue itself, replies a 

 third ; because the attributes of virtue are useful and agreeable either to our- 

 selves or to others, replies a fourth ; because it conducts to human happiness, 

 replies a fifth ; and because it is the will of God, replies a sixth. 



But while all thus agree in the conclusion, the question that leadi to it still 



