you. A moral action, a crime, fuch as ingratitude, is a complicated object. Does the morality confift in the relation of its parts to each other. How? After what manner? Specify the relation: Be more particular and explicit in your propofitions; and you will eafily fee their falfehood.

No, say you, the morality confifts in the relation of actions to the rule of right; and they are denominated good or ill, according as they agree or disagree with it. What then is this rule of right? In what does it confift? How is it determined? By reafon, you fay, which examines the moral relations of actions. So that moral relations are determined by the comparison of actions to a rule. And that rule is determined by confidering the moral relations of objects. Is not this fine reasoning?

All this is metaphyfics, you cry: That is enough: There needs nothing more to give a strong prefumption of falfehood. Yes, reply I Here are metaphyfics furely: But they are all on your fide, who advance an abftrufe hypothefis, which can never be made intelligible, nor quadrate with any particular inftance or illuftration. The hypothefis which we embrace is plain. It maintains, that morality is determined by fentiment, It defines virtue to be whatever mental action or quality gives to a spectator the pleafing fentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary. We then proceed to examine a plain matter of fact, to wit, what actions have this influence: We confider all the circumstances, in which thefe actions agree: And thence endeavour to extract fome general obfervations with regard to these fentiments. If you call this metaphyfics, and find any thing abftruse here, you need only conclude, that your turn of mind is not fuited to the moral fciences.

II. When a man, at any time, deliberates concerning his own conduct (as, whether he had bet

ter,

ter, in a particular emergence, affift a brother or a benefactor), he must confider these feparate relations, with all the circumftances and fituations of the perfons, in order to determine the fuperior duty and obligation: And in order to determine the proportion of lines in any triangle, it is neceffary to examine the nature of that figure, and the relations which its feveral parts bear to each other. But notwithstanding this appearing fimilarity in the two cafes, there is, at bottom, an extreme difference between them. A fpeculative reafoner concerning triangles or circles confiders the feveral known and given relations of the parts of these figures; and thence infers fome unknown relation, which is dependent on the former. But in moral deliberations, we must be acquainted, before-hand, with all the objects, and all their relations to each other; and from a comparison of the whole, fix our choice or approbation. No new fact to be afcertained: No new relation to be difcovered. All the circumftances of the cafe are fuppofed to be laid before us, ere we can fix any fentence of blame or approbation. If any material circumstance be yet unknown or doubtful, we must firft employ our enquiry or intellectual faculties to affure us of it; and muft fufpend for a time all moral decifion or fentiment. While we are ignorant, whether a man were aggreffor or not, how can we determine whether the person who killed him, be criminal or innocent? But after every circumftance, every relation is known, the underftanding has no farther room to operate, nor any object on which it could employ itself. The approbation or blame, which then enfues, cannot be the work of the judgment, but of the heart; and is not a fpeculative propofition or affirmation, but an active feeling or fentiment. In the difquifitions of the understanding, from known circumftances and relations, we infer fome new and unknown. In

.

moral decifions, all the circumstances and relations must be previously known; and the mind, from the contemplation of the whole, feels fome new impreffion of affection or difguft, efteem or contempt, approbation or blame.

Hence the great difference between a mistake of fact and one of right; and hence the reafon why the one is commonly criminal and not the other. When dipus killed Laius, he was ignorant of the relation, and from circumstances, innocent and involuntary, formed erroneous opinions concerning the action which he committed. But when Nero killed Agrippina, all the relations between himself and the perfon, and all the circumstances of the fact, were previously known to him: But the motive of revenge, or fear, or intereft, prevailed in his favage heart over the fentiments of duty and humanity. And when we exprefs that deteftation against him, to which he, himfelf, in a little time, became infenfible; it is not, that we fee any relations, of which he was ignorant; but that, from the rectitude of our difpofition, we feel fentiments, against which he was hardened, from flattery and a long perfeverance in the moft enormous crimes. In these fentiments, then, not in a difcovery of relations of any kind, do all moral determinations confift. Before we can pretend to form any decifion of this kind, every thing must be known and ascertained on the fide of the object or action. Nothing remains but to feel, on our part, fome fentiment of blame or approbation; whence we prónounce the action criminal or virtuous.

III. This doctrine will become ftill inore evident, if we compare moral beauty with natural, to which, in many particulars, it bears fo near a refemblance. It is on the proportion, relation, and pofition of parts, that all natural beauty depends; but it would be abfurd thence to infer, that the perception of beauty, like that of truth in geome

trical

trical problems, confifts wholly in the perception of relations, and was performed entirely by the understanding or intellectual faculties. In all the sciences, our mind, from the known relations, inveftigates the unknown: But in all decifions of taste or external beauty, all the relations are before-hand obvious to the eye; and we thence proceed to feel a fentiment of complacency or difguft, according to the nature of the object, and difpofition of our or

gans.

Euclid has fully explained all the qualities of the circle; but has not, in any propofition, faid a word of its beauty The reason is evident. The beauty is not a quality of the circle. It lies not in any part of the line, whofe parts are equally diftant from a common center. It is only the effect, which that figure produces upon the mind, whofe peculiar fabric or structure renders it fufceptible of fuch fentiments. In vain would you look for it in the circle, or feek it, either by your fenfes or by mathematical reasonings, in all the properties of that figure.

Attend to Palladio and Perrault, while they explain all the parts and properties of a pillar: They talk of the cornice and frieze and bafe and entablature and shaft and architrave; and give the description and pofition of each of these members. But should you ask the defcription and pofition of its beauty, they would readily reply, that the beauty is not in any of the parts or members of a pillar, but refults from the whole, when that complicated figure is presented to an intelligent mind, fufceptible to thofe finer fenfations. 'Till such a spectator appear, there is nothing but a figure of fuch particular dimenfions and proportions: From his fentiments alone arife its elegance and beauty.

Again; attend to Cicero, while he paints the crimes of a Verres or a Catiline; you must acknowledge that the moral turpitude refults, in the fame

manner,

manner, from the contemplation of the whole, when presented to a being, whofe organs have fuch a particular structure and formation. The orator may paint rage, infolence, barbarity on the one fide: Meekness, fuffering, forrow, innocence on the other: But if you feel no indignation or compaffion arise in you from this complication of circumstances, you would in vain ask him, in what confifts the crime or villany, which he fo vehemently exclaims againft: At what time, or on what fubject it first began to exift: And what has a few months afterwards become of it, when every difpofition and thought of all the actors is totally altered, or annihilated. No fatisfactory answer can be given to any of these questions, upon the abstract hypothefis of morals; and we must at last acknowledge, that the crime or immorality is no particular fact or relation, which can be the object of the understanding: But arifes entirely from the fentiment of disapprobation, which, by the ftructure of human nature, we unavoidably feel on the apprehenfion of barbarity or treachery.

IV. Inanimate objects may bear to each other all the fame relations, which we obferve in moral agents; though the former can never be the object of love or hatred, nor are confequently fufceptible of merit or iniquity. A young tree, which over-tops and deftroys its parent, ftands in all the fame relations with Nero, when he murdered Agrippina; and if morality confifted merely in relations, would, no doubt, be equally criminal.

V. It appears evident, that the ultimate ends of human actions can never, in any cafe, be accounted for by reafon, but recommend themselves entirely to the fentiments and affections of mankind, without any dependance on the intellectual faculties. Afk a man, why he uses exercifes; he will anfwer, because he defires to keep his health. If you then enquire, why he defires health, he will readily reply,