of public and deserved efteem, by the prefence of many grateful relatives; above all, by the refources of religion, by an unfhaken confidence in the designs of a "faithful Creator," and a fettled truft in the truth and in the promises of Christianity, is the fervent prayer of, my Lord, Your Lordship's dutiful, And moft devoted Servant, WILLIAM PALEY. CARLISLE, Feb. 10, 1785. PREFACE. IN the treatifes that I have met with upon the fubject of morals, I appear to myself to have remarked the following imperfections-either that the principle was erroneous, or that it was indiftinctly explained, or that the rules deduced from it were not fufficiently adapted to real life and to actual fituations. The writings of Grotius, and the larger work of Puffendorff, are of too forenfic a caft, too much mixed up with civil law and with the jurifprudence of Germany, to anfwer precifely the defign of a fyftem of ethics—the direction of private confciences in the general conduct of human life. Perhaps, indeed, they are not to be regarded as inftitutes of morality calculated to inftruct an individual in his duty, fo much as a fpecies of law books and law authorities, fuited to the practice of those courts of justice, whofe decifions are regulated by general principles of natural equity, in conjunction with the maxims of the Roman code: of which kind, I underftand, there are many upon the Continent. To which may be added, concerning both these authors, that they are more occupied in defcribing the rights and ufages of independent communities, than is necellary in a work which profeffes, not to adjust the correspondence of nations, but to delineate the offices of domestic life. The profufion alfo of claffical quotations with which many of their pages abound, feems to me a fault from which it will not be easy to excufe them. If these extracts be intended as decorations of style, the compofition is overloaded with ornaments of one kind. To any thing more than ornament they can make no claim. To propose them as serious arguments; gravely to attempt to establifh or fortify a moral duty by the testimony of a Greek or Roman poet, is to trifle with the attention of the reader, or rather to take it off from all just principles of reafoning in morals. Of our own writers in this branch of philofophy, I find none that I think perfectly free from the three objections which I have ftated. There is likewise a fourth property obfervable almost in all of them, namely, that they divide too much of the law of nature from the precepts of revelation; fome authors induftriously B declining the mention of fcripture authorities, as belonging to a different province; and others referving them for a feparate volume which appears to me much the fame defect, as if a commentator on the laws of England fhould content himself with ftating upon each head the common law of the land, without taking any notice of acts of parliament; or fhould choose to give his readers the common law in one book, and the ftatute law in another. "When the obligations of morality are taught," fays a pious and celebrated writer, "let the fanctions of Christianity never be forgotten: by which it will be fhewn that they give ftrength and luftre to each other: religion will appear to be the voice of reafon, and morality will be the will of God."* It The manner alfo in which modern writers have treated of fubjects of morality, is in my judgment liable to much exception. has become of late a falhion to deliver moral inftitutes in ftrings or feries of detached propofitions, without fubjoining a continued argument or regular differtation to any of them. This fententious, apothegmatizing ftyle, by crowding propofitions and paragraphs too faft upon the mind, and by carrying the eye of the reader from fubject to fubject in too quick a fucceffion, gains not a fufficient hold upon the attention, to leave either the memory furnished, or the understanding fatisfied. However ufeful a fyl labus of topics or a feries of propofitions may be in the hands of a lecturer, or as a guide to a ftudent, who is fuppofed to confult other books, or to institute upon each subject researches of his own, the method is by no means convenient for ordinary readers; becaufe few readers are such thinkers as to want only a hint to fet their thoughts at work upon; or fuch as will paufe and tarry at every propofition, till they have traced out its dependency, proof, relation, and confequences, before they permit themfelves to ftep on to another. A refpectable writer of this clafst has comprised his doctrine of flavery in the three following propofitions : "No one is born a flave, because every one is born with all his original rights." "No one can become a flave, because no one from being a perfon can, in the language of the Roman law, become a thing, or fubject of property." "The fuppofed property of the mafter in the flave, therefore, is matter of ufurpation, not of right." It may be poffible to deduce from thefe few adages fuch a theory of the primitive rights of human nature, as will evince the illegality of flavery; but furely an author requires too much of his * Preface to The Preceptor, by Dr. Johnson. + Dr. Ferguson, author of “Infututes of Moral Philofophy,” 1767. reader, when he expects him to make thefe deductions for himself;" or to fupply, perhaps from fome remote chapter of the fame treatife, the feveral proofs and explanations which are neceffary to render the meaning and truth of thefe affertions intelligible. There is a fault, the oppofite of this, which fome moralifts who have adopted a different, and I think a better plan of compofition, have not always been careful to avoid; namely, the dwelling upon verbal and elementary diftinctions with a labour and prolixity proportioned much more to the fubtlety of the queftion, than to its value and importance in the profecution of the fubject. A writer upon the law of nature*, whofe explications in every part of philofophy, though always diffufe, are often very fuccefsful, has employed three long fections in endeavouring to prove that "permiffions are not laws." The difcuffion of this controverfy, however effential it might be to dialectic precifion, was certainly not neceffary to the progrefs of a work defigned to defcribe the duties and obligations of civil life. The reader becomes impatient when he is detained by difquifitions which have no other object than the fettling of terms and phrafes; and, what is worie, they for whofe ufe fuch books are chiefly intended, will not be perfuaded to read them at all. I am led to propose these ftrictures, not by any propensity to depreciate the labours of my predeceffors, much lefs to invite a comparifon between the merits of their performances and my own; but folely by the confideration, that when a writer offers a book to the public, upon a fubject on which the public are already in poffeffion of many others, he is bound by a kind of literary juftice to inform his readers, diftinctly and fpecifically, what it is he profeffes to fupply, and what he expects to improve. The imperfections above enumerated are thofe which I have endeavoured to avoid or remedy. Of the execution the reader must judge: but this was the defign. Concerning the principle of morals it would be premature to fpeak; but concerning the manner of unfolding and explaining that principle, I have fomewhat which I wish to be remarked. An experience of nine years in the office of a public tutor in one of the universities, and in that department of education to which these chapters relate, afforded me frequent occafions to obferve, that, in difcourfing to young minds upon topics of morality, it required much more pains to make them percieve the difficulty, than to underftand the folution; that, unless the subject was fo drawn up to a point, as to exhibit the full force of an objection, or the exact place of a doubt, before any explanation was entered upon-in other words, unlefs fome curiofity was excited before it was at * Dr. Rutherforth, author of "Inftitutes of Natural Law." |