be granted; but his next proposition is far from being self-evident. "As the true and ultimate happiness of no being can be produced," he says, " by any thing that interferes with truth, and denies the nature of things; so neither can the practice of truth make any being ultimately unhappy."

This is contrary to daily experience, unless the will of God, and the prospect of a future state of rewards and punishments, be called in aid of the perception of truth, to enforce the practice of virtue; but to call in such aid would be to acknowledge the defects of our author's theory, which, as I have already observed, rests our obligation to worship even God himself on the perception of the truth of things. Indeed, if happiness be that which every man naturally desires; and if every man be alone the proper judge of what constitutes his own happiness, I do not see upon what principle, other than the will of God-certainly not on the mere perception of the truth of things, and of the relations between them, the poor man could be condemned for abstracting from the coffers of the rich miser what might be necessary for procuring to himself the means of subsistence, and which procures nothing to him, in whose coffers it is lying. As the relation of a miser to his accumulated property is not natural but political,* neither the truth of things, nor the natural relations by which they are connected together, would be denied by such pil

* See Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy.

fering, whilst the money, which was useless to its original owner, would contribute to the happiness, and perhaps be the means of preserving even the life of its new master.

It is not, therefore, on the perception of the truth of things, or their fitness and suitableness to each other, that morality can rest as on a stable foundation. Indeed there is nothing, conceivable by me, which can oblige free agents to one course of conduct in preference to all others, but the will of that Being, who, as he created and governs the world, has power as well as authority to enforce obedience to his will. The great question, therefore, is, how we are to discover the Divine will, or the general design of Providence with regard to mankind, and the methods most directly tending to the accomplishment of that design; and I am not aware that a more perspicuous and satisfactory answer has anywhere been given to this question than by Bishop Berkeley, in a discourse where few readers will be led to look for it.

"As God," says that accomplished prelate," is a Being of infinite goodness, it is plain that the end which he proposes must be good; but God, enjoying in himself all possible perfection, it is plain that it is not his own good, but the good of his creatures. Again, the moral actions of men are entirely terminated within themselves, so as to have no influence on the other orders of intelligences or rea

* His Sermon on Passive Obedience, &c.

sonable creatures; the end, therefore, to be procured by them, can be no other than the good of men; and as antecedent to the end proposed by God, no distinction can be conceived between men, who are all equally related to him, that end itself, or the general design of Providence, is not determined or limited by any respect of persons. It is not, therefore, the private good of this or that man, nation, or age, but the general well-being of all men, of all nations, of all ages of the world, which God designs should be procured by the concurring actions of each individual. Hence, whatsoever practical proposition appears, on a comprehensive survey of the general nature, the passions, interests, and mutual relations of mankind, to have a necessary connection with their happiness, is to be looked on as enjoined by the will of God, and consequently as a law to men." trace the natural consequences of every action, and to determine what would be productive of universal happiness, and what of universal misery, were such actions regularly performed by all men; and though cases may, and often do occur, in which the natural consequences of actions are prevented by untoward accidents, or the perverseness of wicked men, yet it is their natural consequences, and those alone, that render them agreeable or contrary to the will of God, or, in other words, either morally good, or morally evil. Every one perceives, that, were all mankind to do to one another, as each would, on a change of circumstances, wish to be

Now, it is very easy to

L

done to himself; were they all to speak truth on every occasion; to be temperate, chaste, just in their dealings, compassionate; and content with that state in which Providence hath placed them, paying a willing and cheerful obedience to the laws of their country, they would be infinitely happier than they have ever yet been since the beginning of the world. On the other hand, were they universally to do the reverse of all this; were they to strive every one to overreach his neighbour; were they never to speak truth on any occasion; were they to be intemperate, lustful, unjust, cruel, hard-hearted, discontented each with his own state in society; and all prone to rise in rebellion; society would be instantly dissolved; and earth would become a hell, till its vicious inhabitants had exterminated each other, which, indeed, would inevitably take place in a very short time.

Virtue, therefore, or the practice of morality, may be defined to be the voluntary production of natural good or happiness in obedience to the will of God; and vice, the voluntary production of natural evil, in opposition to the Divine will.

I am fully aware, that, to this theory of morals, it has been objected, that the bulk of mankind, even in the most civilized nations, are incapable of tracing the natural tendency of actions to produce either good or evil; that, if they were even capable of so much foresight and sagacity, the process would be too tedious to be a safe guide in cases of emergency, where promptitude of action is requir

ed; and that, in fact, they are not left to discover, by the deductions of reason, the difference between virtue and vice, but are instinctively directed to practice the former, and avoid the latter, without even thinking of God, by an internal feeling, to which modern philosophers have given the name of the moral sense.

Now it is not to be denied, that, in civilized societies, mankind are in general prompted to their duty, by a feeling or sense that operates instantaneously, and that makes them reflect with approbation on their conduct, when it has been virtuous, and with disapprobation or remorse, when it has been vicious; but there is no reason to believe that this sense or feeling is innate in the mind of every man. If it were, it might be expected to operate (if a sense can be said to operate) most vigorously in the minds of savages; but so far is this from being the case, that they perpetrate with perfect indifference-sometimes perhaps with their own approbation-deeds of cruelty, from which almost every civilized man would shrink with horror. Of this no other proof need be produced than the practice, which once prevailed, and perhaps still prevails, among the savages of North America, of torturing in the cruelest manner their prisoners taken in war.

But we need not have recourse to the conduct of savages to prove that the moral sense is not connate with the mind of every man; for if it were, we cannot conceive that it should ever fill the mind