dressed to the other appetencies of the mind. The love of pleasure, of fame, and of activity, do all hold out allurements to man, but none of them carries with it a binding obligation. When we follow them we have no sense of merit; when we decline them we have no sense of guilt. It is different when our moral convictions say that a particular line of conduct should be pursued. We feel now not only that we may do it, but that we should do it, and that if we neglect to do it we are guilty of sin. Hence arises the great ethical doctrine, expounded in so masterly a manner by Bishop Butler, that the conscience is supreme; that is, supreme among the other moving powers. Just as appetite craves for food, and the love of society for social intercourse, so the conscience directs to certain conduct, but with this difference, that it declares itself superior to the other springs of action. It carries with it its authority, and asserts its claims, and is prepared to denounce us if we disregard them.

IV.

The Conscience points to an Authority above itself. It is supreme as within the mind, but it is not absolutely supreme. It claims to be superior to all other motives, such as the love of pleasure, and even to the desire of intellectual improvement; indeed, it seems to point to an authority above the mind altogether. At the same time, it does not seem to announce what is the nature of the object which it would prompt us to seek after. In this respect it is like some of our intellectual intuitions, which impel us to look round for something which they do not themselves reveal. Thus, intuitive causality constrains us when we discover an effect to look for a cause, but does not specify what the cause is. In like manner our moral faculty seems to me to point to some power,

principle, or being, it says not what, above itself. It does not claim for itself that it is infallible, that it is sufficient, that it is independent. It bows to something which has authority; it acknowledges a standard which is and must be right; it looks up for sanction and guidance. It says that it ought to yield to no earthly power; but it does not affirm of itself that it can never mistake, and that there is no authority to which it should submit. On the contrary, it often finds itself in difficulty and perplexity, and feels that it should look round and up for a light, and it is sure that there is such a light. What is thus unknown to the intuition itself, but which, notwithstanding, it is ever seeking, is revealed by other processes.

V.

This obligation, when we are led to believe in a Supreme Being, takes the form of Law; and we believe that we are under Law to God. Our moral convictions

do not, so it seems to me, of themselves compel us to believe in the existence of God. I am persuaded, however, that like most of our deeper intuitions (as I hope subsequently to show) they do point upwards to God. And whenever we do, by combined intuition and the obvious facts of experience, reach God, the God who gave us all our endowments, and therefore our moral constitution, the mind traces up the obligation under which it lies to him. The expression of this inward conviction now is, not that we are under obligation to an unknown power, but under law, and under law to God. It is thus indeed we get the peculiar idea of moral government and moral law, not from sense, nor from pleasure, nor from utility, but from conscience constraining us to feel obligation, and combined intuition and experi

ence leading us to trace up that law to God as the Being who sanctions it. Till this object is reached our moral intuition is felt to be vague, indefinite; it is craving for something which it feels to be wanting: but when God is found, as he cannot fail to be found when we are in search of him, then the intuition is satisfied, and ever after connects the law with the Lawgiver.

VI.

Moral good is perceived as having Desert, as Approvable and Rewardable. This, too, is a peculiar idea, derived from the moral power in man, and cannot have been derived from, as it cannot be resolved into, any modification of pleasure, or pain, or sensation of any kind. We are convinced in regard to every good action that it is meritorious; we bestow upon it our approbation, and we look for encouragement and reward. This conviction operates with other considerations in leading us to look to God as the Governor of this world, and as ready to uphold and defend the right. There are times when our expectations on this subject are disappointed, and when we see acts of moral heroism only landing him who performs them in opprobrium and suffering. Still, even in such cases, our instincts keep firm, in spite of all appearances to the contrary; and we believe that, sooner or later, in this world or in the world to come, the deeds will meet with their appropriate reward.

The systems which represent man's moral faculty as a mere feeling or sentiment, such as those of Adam Smith, of Thomas Brown, of Sir James Mackintosh, are chargeable with two defects: First, the theory does not come up to the full mental facts, which embrace perception or knowledge, and judgment as well as emotion; and as a consequence, secondly, they make it appear as if virtue might arise from the peculiar constitution or temperament of the race.

Mr. J. S. Mill gives up Paley as an expounder of utilitarianism (Dissertations, Vol. 11. p. 460), and allows, as to Bentham, "that there were large deficiencies and hiatuses in his scheme of human nature (p. 462). To whom, then, are we to look, if we would examine a system which assumes such different shapes; which now takes the form of a selfish system whose principle is that every man should seek his own happiness, now the form of a benevolent system which says that a man should promote the happiness of the greatest number? In the first of these forms it is at once set aside by an appeal to our nature, and to feelings which Mr. Mill admits to be in our nature. In the second of these forms, that taken by Bentham and Mill, there is a principle of intuitive morals surreptitiously admitted, that we should look to the happiness of others as well as our own. Mr. Mill "The matter in debate is what is right, says, - not whether what is right ought to be done" (p. 460). This is not a full or accurate account of the matter in debate. One question in debate is, Can the utilitarian theory account for our conviction as to right and wrong, merit and guilt? I hold that it cannot. The higher class of utilitarians seem to trace these convictions to the association of ideas proceeding on our feelings of pleasure and pain. Thus Mr. Mill says (Vol. I. p. 137), “The idea of the pain of another is naturally painful; the idea of the pleasure of another is naturally pleasurable. From this fact in our natural constitution, all our affections, both of love and aversion, towards human beings, in so far as they are different from those we entertain towards mere inanimate objects which are pleasant or disagreeable to us, are held by the best teachers of the theory of utility to originate. In this, the unselfish part of our nature, lies a foundation, even independently of inculcation from without, for the generation of moral feelings." Let it be observed that this makes the very unselfish part of our nature stand on a selfish basis. "The idea of the pleasure of another is naturally pleasurable," that is, to ourselves. I hold that we are led

to love our fellow-creatures independently of its being pleasant to ourselves; and that it is when we love them that the affection is found to be pleasant, by the appointment of the Author of our constitution, who thus prompts us to benevolence, and rewards us for cherishing it. The theory does not account for our benevolent feelings, and it fails still more when it would account for our moral convictions. I admit that it might give some explanation of certain accompaniments, but it can give no account of the conviction of "ought," "obligation," "duty," "merit," 'desert," "guilt."

6.6

A second question in debate is, Can the utilitarian show that anything is "right"? that there is truly anything such that it " ought to be done"? Suppose some sensationalist or sceptic were to maintain, as against the utilitarian, that he was not bound to promote this happiness of the greatest number, how would the advocate of the greatest happiness principle reply to him? Consistently, he could appeal only to these personal feelings of pleasure and pain; and if he appealed to anything deeper, it must be to the very moral principle whose existence he denies. There is a third question in debate, which will be more easily determined after we have settled the other two. For when it is shown that man has convictions as to moral good and evil, and that these require him to do certain acts and abstain from others, we may be the better prepared to admit, as to certain of these acts, that they do not contemplate the promotion of happiness. Thus, to love God is good, and to refuse to any one his due affection and gratitude for favors seems to be evil, independently of the happiness of the creature or Creator being thereby augmented or diminished. A fourth question is, Does utility afford a good test and measure of virtue and vice? It is foreign to the scope of this treatise to enter on this question, but I may remark that, the ultimate appeal to "ought" and " duty" being taken away, and the appeal in the last resource being to pleasure and pain, utilitarianism will not train men to deeds of self-sacrifice, and those who have embraced it will ever be tempted to give way on great emergencies, and to yield and equivocate when they should at all hazards resist the evil. And it has been shown again and again, that it is beyond the capacity of man to foresee the results of acts, or even to discern the tendency of certain acts done in complicated circumstances. But, omitting this, it is to my present purpose to call on my readers to notice that the theory of an independent morality, and of moral conviction, admits and embraces all that is true in utilitarianism. It affirms that we ought to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and in regard to all questions bearing on happiness, the conscience requires us to weigh consequences, and to look to long issues and results.