VIRTUE. 



nest queftion of importance in moral pliilofophy concerns 

 the principle of approbation (which fee), or that faculty of 

 the mind which renders certain charafters agreeable or dif- 

 agreeable to us, makes us prefer one tenor of conduft to 

 another, denominate the one right and the other wrong, and 

 confider the one as the objedl of approbation, honour, and 

 reverence, and the other as that of blame, cenfure, and pu- 

 nifhmeiit. Three different accounts have been given of this 

 principle of approbation. According to fome, we approve 

 and difapprove both of our own aftions and of thofe of 

 others, from felf-love only, or from fome view of their ten- 

 dency to our own happinefs or difadvantage. ( See Uti- 

 lity.) According to others, reafon, the fame faculty by 

 which we diftinguilh between truth and falfehood, enables 

 us to diftinguilh between what is fit and unfit both in aftions 

 and afre(Sion8 ; according to others, this diftinftion is alto- 

 gether the effeft of immediate fentiraent and feeling, and 

 arifes from the fatisfaition or difgull with which the view of 

 certain aftions or affeftion infpires us. 



Thofe who account for the principle of approbation from 

 felf-love, differ in their reprefentation of its influence. Ac- 

 cording to Mr. Hobbes, and many of his followers, man is 

 driven to take refuge in fociety, not by any natural love 

 which he bears to his own kind, but becaufe without the 

 afliftance of others, he is incapable of fubfifling with eafe 

 or fafety : virtue being the great fupport, and vice the great 

 difturber of human fociety, whence the former neceflarily 

 pleafes, and the latter is as naturally offenfive. Moreover, 

 a ftate of nature, according to Mr. Hobbes, being a ftate 

 of war, fo that antecedent to the conftitution of civil go- 

 varnment, there could be no fafe and peaceable fociety 

 among men ; to preferve fociety was to fupport civil govern- 

 ment, and the fupport of civil government depends upon the 

 obedience that is paid to the fiipreme magi (Irate ; hence it 

 was inferred, that the laws of the civil magiftrate ought to 

 be regarded as the fole ultimate ftandard of what was jull 

 and unjuft, right and wrong. See Hobbism. 



In order to confute fo odious a doftrine, it was neceflary 

 to prove, that antecedent to all law or pofitive inftitution, 

 the mind was naturally endowed with a faculty, by which it 

 diftingui(hed in certain aftions and affoftions the qualities of 

 right, laudable, and virtuous, and in others, thofe of wrong, 

 blameable, and vicious. This faculty was reafon, which 

 pointed out the difference between right and wrong, in the 

 fame manner in which it did between truth and falfehood. 

 Right and wrong, it is argued, denote fimple ideas, and are, 

 therefore, to be afcribed to fome immediate power of per- 

 ception in the human mind, which power is the undcrftand- 

 ing. Befides, all aftions have a nature ; fome charaftcr be- 

 longs to them, and there is fomething that may be affirmed 

 of them, i. e. fome are right and others wrong. But if our 

 aftions are, in themfelves, either right or wrong, or any thing 

 of a moral and obhgatory nature, which can be an objeft to 

 the underftanding, it mud follow tliat in themfelves they are 

 all indifferent. From fuch reafoning it follows, that morahty 

 is eternal and immutable : becaufe right and wrong denote 

 what aftions are ; and whatever any thing is, that it is not 

 by will, or decree, or power, but by nature and neccflity. 

 No will can render any thing good and obligatory, which 

 was not fo antecedently and from eternity ; or any aftion 

 right, that is not fo in itfelf. In this view of it, morality 

 appears not to be, in any fenfe, faftitious, or the arbitrary 

 produftion of any power, human or divine ; but equally 

 cvcrlafting and neceffary with all truth and reafon. Some 

 luve fuppofed, however, that, in men, the rational principle, 

 or the intellcftual difcernmcnt of right and wrong, fliould be 

 aided by fomcwbat in&iD^ve. Of this number it Dr. Price, 



who, in his reafoning concerning the original of our ideas of 

 the beauty and deformity of aftions, obferves, that in contem- 

 plating the aftions and affeftions of moral agents, we have 

 both a perception of the underftanding, and a feeling of the 

 heart ; and that the latter, or the elFefts in us accompanying 

 our moral perceptions, are deducible from two fprings ; they 

 partly depend on the pofitive conftitution of our natures, 

 but the moft fteady and univerfal ground of them is the 

 eflential congruity or incongruity between the objeft and 

 faculty ; in other words, placet fuaptt valura — virtus: Sen. 

 or, Etiamji a nulla laudetur, natura ejl laudabile. Tally. See 

 Common Sense. 



This leads us to mention thofe fyftems which make fen- 

 timent the principle of approbation ; thefe may be dillri- 

 buted into two different clafTes. 



According to fome, the principle of approbation i« 

 founded upon a fentiment of a peculiar nature, upon a par- 

 ticular power of perception exerted by the mind at the view 

 of certain aftions and affeftions ; fome of which affefting 

 this faculty in an agreeable, and others in a difagreeable 

 manner, the former are ftamped with the charaftcrs of right, 

 laudable, and virtuous ; the latter witli thofe of wrong, 

 blameable, and vicious. 



This fentiment being of a peculiar nature, diftinft from 

 every other, and the effeft of a particular power of percep- 

 tion, they give it a particular name, and call it a moral 

 fenfe. 



Dr. Hutchefon, having taken great pains to prove that 

 the principle of approbation was not founded on felf-love^ 

 and that it could not arife from any operation of reafon, 

 fuppofed it to be a faculty of a peculiar kind, with which 

 nature had endowed the human mind, in order to produce 

 this particular and important effeft. This power, which he 

 called a moral fenfe, he fuppofed to be fomewhat analogous 

 to the external fenfes. 



According to his fyftem, the various fenfes or powers of 

 perception, from which the human mind derives all its fimple 

 ideas, were of two different kinds, of which one were called 

 the direft or antecedent, the other the reflex or confequcnt 

 fenfes. The direft fenfes were thofe faculties from which 

 the mind derived the perception of fuch fpccics of things, 

 e. gr. founds and colours, as did not pre-fuppofe the ante- 

 cedent perception of any other quality or objeft. Tfie re- 

 flex or confequcnt fenfes, were thofe faculties from which 

 the mind derived the perception of fuch fpecies of things as 

 pre-fuppofed the antecedent perception of fome other ; fuch 

 as harmony and beauty. 



The moral fenfe was confidered as a faculty of this kind. 

 That faculty, which Mr. Locke calls reflcftion, and from 

 which he derived the fimple ideas of the different paffions 

 and emotions of the human mind, v.'as according to Dr. 

 Hutchefon a direft internal fenfe. That faculty again, by 

 which we perceived the beauty or deformity, the virtue or 

 vice of thofe different paffions and emotions, was a reflex 

 internal fenfe. 



Dr. Hutchefon endeavoured ftill farther to fupport this 

 doftrine, by fhewing that it was agreeable to the analogy of 

 nature, and that the mind was endowed with a variety of 

 other reflex fenfes exactly fimilar to the moral fenfe ; fuch 

 as a fenfe of beauty and deformity in external ohjefts ; a 

 public fciife, by which we fympathi/o willi the happinefs or 

 mifery of our fellow-creatures ; a lenfe of fhame and ho- 

 nelly, and a fenfe of ridicule. 



To this fyft-em it has been objcfted, that it makes virtue 

 an arbitrary thing, depending on the pofitive conftitution of 

 our minds ; that r-glit and wrong are only qualities of our 

 minda and fcnfations, depending on the particular frame and 



ttrufture 



