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try to do away with it. Every one who considers the matter dispassionately, 
and thinks of it as deeply as thinking men should, will say that the subject 
is one of boundless extent. The Utilitarians, however, endeavour to narrow 
it by saying, “We have an easy test of goodness and propriety of actions ; 
they are obligations upon us, and their sanction is tested by the pleasure, 
positive or negative, produced by them in certain individuals. ’ Into 
this subject I do not now profess or wish to go. It is one which would 
occupy much more time than at present we have to spare. I shah, however, 
endeavour to point out one thing, that the Utilitarians have neglected m 
their theory (their theory of goodness and pleasure being equipollent and 
coexistent), namely, the true consideration of what causes the pleasure of 
good actions. Why is a good action pleasant, and why is an evil action 
unpleasant ? Because of a faculty which we call moral taste. As the moral 
sense is the intuitive perception of that which is considered moral good, so 
the taste is the intuitive perception of that which is beautiful. Moral 
taste, then, is the intuitive perception, not of the goodness, but of the beauty 
and fitness of virtue. That is the faculty which Utilitarians ignore, by 
making goodness and pleasure equal to one another, and each a test of the 
other.° They have forgotten there is this faculty of moral taste ; or they 
confound it with the conscience, or moral sense. Is this faculty implanted 
in us, or is it one gained by training 1 If we look to our Scriptural guide 
(and that is a very safe one,— it is a good philosophical book, as well as our 
guide for affairs of higher concern), we shall find what philosophy would have 
already taught us, that the moral taste is something gained by training and 
by experience ; the faculty, the power of perceiving the beauty of virtue and 
goodness, arises from the education of the man by obedience to his moral 
sense. One who habitually follows the dictates of conscience will arrive at 
a state of mind in which he will intuitively perceive that a virtuous mode 
of action is not only the one he is bound to adopt, but the most delightful to 
adopt ; he will perceive the pleasure connected with virtue : but that state 
of mind does not come until after the mind has been trained. We find it in 
Scripture in these words, “ If any man will do His will, he shall know of the 
doctrine.” We shall have not the mere discerning that good is not evil, and 
evil not good, but more than that : we shall have the moral taste exercised 
to perceive that good is in itself essentially beautiful, and evil in itself the 
reverse ; that goodness, if we may say so, shows, even on earth, some reflex of 
the bright face of that Deity whose will we believe it to be. (Hear, hear.) 
Mr. R. G. M. Browne. — One thing occurs to me, that Dr. Thornton has 
referred to Scripture in support of his assertion that moral taste enables us 
to judge ofthe beauty of goodness. Should we not rather discuss the theory 
which Mr. Mill would put forward on its merits, independently of Scripture ? 
That is a point which it occurred to me might be regarded by some as rather 
a weakness in the argument ; and whether Utilitarianism should not be con- 
sidered independently of Scripture. I think Dr. Thornton quoted from 
Scripture in support of his assertion. 
Dr. Thornton. — Ear from it ; I wish you to understand distinctly that I 
