custom, there immediately arife a fet of rules, calculated for the conveniency of that attachment. The famous court or parliament of love in PROVENCE decided formerly all difficult cafes of this nature.

In focieties for play, there are laws required for the conduct of the game, and these laws are different in each game. The foundation, I own, of such societies is frivolous; and the laws are, in a great measure, though not altogether, capricious and arbitrary. So far is there a material difference between them and the rules of justice, fidelity and loyalty. The general focieties of men are abfolutely requifite for the fubfiftence of the fpecies; and the public conveniency, which regulates morals, is inviolably established in the nature of man, and of the world, in which he lives. The comparison, therefore, in these refpects, is very imperfect. We may only learn from it the neceffity of rules, wherever men have any intercourse with each other.

They cannot even país each other on the road without rules. Waggoners, coachmen, and poftilions have principles, by which they give way; and these are chiefly founded on mutual ease and convenience. Sometimes alfo they are arbitrary, at leaft dependent on a kind of capricious analogy, like many of the reasonings of lawyers *.

That the lighter machine yields to the heavier, and, in machines of the fame. kind, that the empty yields to the loaded; this rule is founded on convenience. That those who are going to the capital take place of thofe who are coming from it; this feems to be founded on fome idea of the dignity of the great city, and of the preference of the future to the past. From like reafons, among foot-walkers, the right-hand intitles a man to the wall, and prevents jostling, which peaceable people find very difagreeable and inconvenient.

To

To carry the matter farther, we may obferve, that 'tis impoffible for men fo much as to murder each other without ftatutes and maxims, and an idea of justice and honour. War has its laws as well as peace; and even that sportive kind of war carried on among wrestlers, boxers, cudgel-players, gladiators, is regulated by fixed principles. Common interest and utility beget infallibly a standard of right and wrong among the parties concerned..

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SECTION V.

WHY UTILITY PLEASE S.

IT

PART I.

T feems fo natural a thought to ascribe to their utility the praise which we bestow on the focial virtues, that one would expect to meet with this principle every where in moral writers, as the chief foundation of their reafoning and inquiry. In common life, we may obferve, that the circumstance of utility is always appealed to; nor is it fuppofed, that a greater eulogy can be given to any man, than to difplay his usefulness to the public, and enumerate the fervices which he has performed to mankind and fociety. What praise, even of an inanimate form, if the regularity and elegance of its parts destroy not its fitness for any useful purpose! And how fatisfactory an apology for any disproportion or seeming deformity, if we can show the neceffity of that particular construction for the use intended! A fhip appears infinitely more beautiful to an artist, or one moderately skilled in navigation, where its prow is wide and fwelling beyond its poop, than if it were framed with a precise geometrical regularity, in contradiction to all the laws of mechanics. A building, whofe doors and windows were exact fquares, would hurt the eye by that very proportion; as

ill

ill adapted to the figure of a human creature, for whose service the fabric was intended. What wonder then, that a man, whofe habits and conduct are hurtful to fociety, and dangerous or pernicious to every one who has an intercourse with him, fhould, on that account, be an object of disapprobation, and communicate to every spectator the strongest sentiments of disgust and hatred * ?

But perhaps the difficulty of accounting for these effects of usefulness, or its contrary, has kept philofophers from admitting them into their systems of ethics, and has induced them rather to employ any other principle, in explaining the origin of moral good and evil. But 'tis no just reason for rejecting any principle, confirmed by experience, that we cannot give a fatisfactory account of its origin, nor are able to refolve it into other more general principles. And if we would employ a

• We ought not to imagine, because an inanimate object may be ufeful as well as a man, that therefore it ought alfo, according to this fyftem, to merit the appellation of virtuous. The fentiments, excited by utility, are, in the two cafes, very different; and the one is mixed with affection, efteem, approbation, &c. and not the other. In like manner, an inanimate object may have good colour and proportions as well as a human figure. But can we ever be in love with the former? There are a numerous fet of paffions and fentiments, of which thinking rational beings are, by the original conftitution of nature, the only proper objects: And though the very fame qualities be transferred to an infenfible, inanimate being, they will not excite the fame fentiments. The beneficial qualities of herbs and minerals are, indeed, fometimes called their virtues; but this is an effect of the caprice of language, which ought not to be regarded in reafoning. For though there be a fpecies of approba tion attending even inanimate objects, when beneficial, yet this fentiment is fo weak, and fo different from what is directed to beneficent magiftrates or ftatefmen, that they ought not to be ranked under the fame clafs or appellation.

A very finall variation of the object, even where the fame qualities are preferved, will deftroy a fentiment. Thus, the fame beauty, transferred to a different fex, excites no amorous palion, where nature is not extremely perverted.

little

little thought on the present subject, we need be at no lofs to account for the influence of utility, and to deduce it from principles, the most known and avowed in human nature.

From the apparent usefulness of the focial virtues, it has readily been inferred by fceptics, both ancient and modern, that all moral diftinctions arife from education, and were, at firft, invented, and afterwards encouraged by the art of politicians, in order to render men tractable, and subdue their natural ferocity and selfishness, which incapacitated them for fociety. This principle indeed of precept and education, must be fo far owned to have a powerful influence, that it may frequently increase or diminish, beyond their natural standard, the fentiments of approbation or diflike; and may even, in particular inftances, create, without any natural principle, a new sentiment of this kind; as is evident in all fuperftitious practices and obfervances: But that all moral affection or diflike arifes from this origin, will never furely be allowed by any judicious inquirer. Had nature made no fuch diftinction, founded on the original conftitution of the mind, the words, honourable and fhameful, lovely and odious, noble and defpicable, had never had place in any language; nor could politicians, had they invented these terms, ever have been able to render them intelligible, or make them convey an idea to the audience. So that nothing can be more fuperficial than this paradox of the sceptics; and it were well, if, in the abstruser studies of logic and metaphysics, we could as easily get rid of the cavils of that fect, as in the more practical and intelligible sciences of politics and morals.

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The