ETHICS. 87 



regarded only as affections or faculties, with which the soul is 

 endowed ; and for the right use of which, it will be held responsible, 

 by its Creator. It remains to speak of the Will, or Volition ; which 

 we conceive to be the final decision of the mind ; or if regarded as 

 a mental power, it is the power to act, sometimes called the power 

 of agency. Our actions depend on our thoughts ; and these are 

 influenced not only by passing events, but by their own associa- 

 tions, previously existing, from resemblance, proximity, contrast, 

 or other causes ; whereby one idea suggests another, often involun- 

 tarily. Hence the great importance of correct associations of ideas, 

 to prompt the memory, and aid the reason. That the Will is so 

 often opposed to reason; and reason itself enfeebled by the affec- 

 tions ; clearly evinces a fall, or deterioration, from the primeval per- 

 fection of our nature. 



CHAPTER IV. 



ETHICS. 



ETHICS, or Moral Philosophy, is that branch of knowledge which 

 treats of our duties, to ourselves, to our fellow-men, and to our 

 Maker ; and the reasons by which those duties are enforced. Its 

 name is from the Greek ^0o$, morals : and it is also termed Morality, 

 Casuistry, or the study of Natural or Moral Law : but we think 

 that Morality refers rather to the performance of duty, than to the 

 study of it; and that the term Casuistry is the least appropriate of 

 them all. The great object of Ethics, is to promote the cause of 

 virtue ; by showing its reasonableness, its excellence, and beauty ; 

 and the melancholy consequences of neglecting or forsaking it. 

 Virtue, consists in the performance of our duty, from a sense of 

 obligation ; and Vice, is the neglect or violation of our duty, where 

 it should reasonably be known : for to learn what is our duty, is one 

 part of that duty itself. 



Socrates comprehended all virtue under two heads ; temperance, 

 or the duty which man owes to himself: and justice, or that which 

 he owes to his fellow-men. The obligation to virtue he derived from 

 the will of the Supreme Being. Zeno the stoic, and Seneca, of the 

 stoic school in philosophy, adopted the same views. Plato, copying 

 Pythagoras, enumerated four cardinal virtues, temperance, prudence, 

 fortitude, and justice, which have since been called philosophical vir- 

 tues ; while faith, hope, and charity, have been termed Christian 

 virtues ; though Christianity includes them all. Modern writers have 

 differed much concerning the obligation, or foundation, of virtue. 

 Hobbes places it in political enactment ; Mandeville, in the love of 

 praise ; Dr. Clarke, in the fitness of things ; Adam Smith, in sympa- 

 thy for our race ; Grotius, and Puffendorf, in the duty of improvement ; 

 Hume and Paley, in personal utility ; while Hutcheson, Cudworth, 

 Butler, Reid, Stewart, and others, derive it from a Moral Sense, or 

 natural impulse to do right, implanted by our Creator. 



