Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face,
As bid me tell my tale in express words;

Deep shame had struck me dumb, made me break off,
And those thy fears might have wrought fears in me.
But thou didst understand me by my signs,

And didst in signs again parley with sin."

As this twofold application of the words right and wrong to the intentions of the mind, and to external actions, has a tendency, in the common business of life, to affect our opinions concerning the merits of individuals, so it has misled the theoretical speculations of some very eminent philosophers in their inquiries concerning the principles of morals. It was to obviate the confusion of ideas arising from this ambiguity of language that the distinction between absolute and relative rectitude was introduced into ethics; and as the distinction is equally just and important, it will be proper to explain it particularly, and to point out its application to one or two of the questions which have been perplexed by that vagueness of expression which it is our object at present to correct.

An action may be said to be absolutely right, when it is in every respect suitable to the circumstances in which the agent is placed; or, in other words, when it is such as, with perfectly good intentions, under the guidance of an enlightened and well-informed understanding, he would have performed.

An action may be said to be relatively right, when the intentions of the agent are sincerely good, whether his conduct be suitable to his circumstances or not.

According to these definitions, an action may be right in one sense and wrong in another; an ambiguity in language, which, how obvious soever, las not always been attended to by the writers on mora)s.

It is the relative rectitude of an action which determines the moral desert of the agent; but it is its absolute rectitude which determines its utility to his worldly interests, and to the welfare of society. And it is only so far as a solute and relative rectitude coincide, that utility can be affirmed to be a quality of virtue.

A strong sense of duty will indeed induce us to avail

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ourselves of all the talents we possess, and of all the information within our reach, to act agreeably to the rules of absolute rectitude. And if we fail in doing so, our negligence is criminal. "Crimes committed through ignorance," as Aristotle has very judiciously observed, are only excusable when the ignorance is involuntary; for when the cause of it lies in ourselves, it is then justly punishable. The ignorance of those laws which all may know if they will does not excuse the breach of them; and neglect is not pardonable where attention ought to be bestowed. But perhaps we are incapable of attention. This, however, is our own fault, since the incapacity has been contracted by our continual carelessness, as the evils of injustice and intemperance are contracted by the daily commission of iniquity and the daily indulgence in voluptuousness. For such as our actions are, such must our habits become.'

Notwithstanding, however, the truth and the importance of this doctrine, the general principle already stated remains incontrovertible, that in every particular instance our duty consists in doing what appears to us to be right at the time; and if, while we follow this rule, we should incur any blame, our demerit does not arise from acting according to an erroneous judgment, but from our previous misemployment of the means we possessed for correcting the errors to which our judgment is liable.†

From these principles it follows, that actions, although materially right, are not meritorious with respect to the agent, unless performed from a sense of duty. Aristotle inculcates this doctrine in many parts of his Ethics. ‡ To the same purpose, also, Lord Shaftesbury: "In this case alone it is we call any creature worthy or virtuous, when it can attain to the

*Aristotle's Ethics, by Gillies, p. 305.

† A distinction similar to that now made between absolute and relative rectitude was expressed among the schoolmen by the phrases matericl and formal virtue.

See Ethic. Nic., Lib IV. Cap. I.; Lib VI. Cap. V.

speculation or sense of what is morally good or ill, admirable or blamable, right or wrong. For though we may vulgarly call an ill horse vicious, yet we never say of a good one, nor of any mere changeling or idiot though never so good-natured, that he is worthy or virtuous. So that if a creature be generous, kind, constant, and compassionate, yet if he cannot reflect or what he himself does or sees others do, so as to take notice of what is worthy and honest, and make tha notice or conception of worth and honesty to be an object of his affection, he has not the character of being virtuous, for thus, and no otherwise, he is capable of having a sense of right or wrong." *

CHAPTER III.

OF THE OFFICE AND USE OF REASON IN THE PRACTICE OF MORALITY.

I FORMERLY observed, that a strong sense of duty, while it leads us to cultivate with care our good dispositions, will induce us to avail ourselves of all the means in our power for the wise regulation of our external conduct. The occasions on which it is necessary for us to employ our reason in this way are chiefly the three following:

1. When we have ground for suspecting that our moral judgments and feelings may have been warped and perverted by the prejudices of education.

* Inquiry concerning Virtue, Book I. Part II. Sect. III. Dr. Price, in L's Review, Chap. VIII., has made a number of judicious observations on this subject; and Dr. Reid, in his Essays on the Active Powers, has a particular chapter allotted to the consideration of this very question, "Whether an action deserving moral approbation must be done with the belief of its being morally good?" in which the doctrine he endeavours to establish is precisely the same with that which has been now stated. Compare Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, Book III. Part II. Sect. I., where this conclusion is disputed.

I formerly showed that the moral faculty is an original principle of the human constitution, and not the result (as Mandeville and others suppose) of habits superinduced by systems of education planned by politicians and divines. The moral faculty, indeed, like the faculty of reason, (which forms the most essential of its elements,) requires care and cultivation for its development; and, like reason, it has a gradual progress, both in the case of individuals and of societies. But it does not follow from this that the former is a fictitious principle, any more than the latter, with respect to the origin of which I do not know that any doubts have been suggested by the greatest skeptics.

Although, however, the moral faculty is an original part of the human frame, and although the great laws of morality are engraven on every heart, it is not in this way that the greater part of mankind arrive at their first knowledge of them. The infant mind is formed by the care of our early instructors, and for a long time thinks and acts in consequence of the confidence it reposes in their superior judgment. All this is undoubtedly agreeable to the design of Nature; and, indeed, if the case were otherwise, the business of the world could not possibly go on; for nothing can be plainer than this, that the multitude, (at least as society is actually constituted,) condemned as they are to laborious employments inconsistent with the cultivation of their inental faculties, are wholly incapable of forming their own opinions on the most important questions which can occupy the human mind. It is evident, at the same time, that, as no system of education can be perfect, many prejudices must mingle with the most important and best ascertained truths; and as the truths and the prejudices are both acquired from the same source, the incontrovertible evidence of the one serves, in the progress of human reason, to support and confirm the other. Hence the suspicious and jealous eye with which we ought to regard all those principles which we have at first adopted without due examination, a duty doubly incumbent on those whose opin

ions are likely, from their rank and situation in society, to influence those of the multitude, and whose errors may eventually be instrumental in impairing the morals and the happiness of generations yet unborn.

2. A second instance in which the exercise of reason may be requisite for an enlightened discharge of our duty occurs in those cases where there appears to be an interference between different duties, and where of course it seems to be necessary to sacrifice one duty to another.

In the course of the foregoing speculations, I have frequently taken notice of the coincidence of all our virtuous principles of action in pointing out to us the same line of conduct; and of the systematical consistency and harmony which they have a tendency to produce in the moral character. Notwithstanding, however, this general and indisputable fact, it must be owned that cases sometimes occur in which they seem at first view to interfere with each other, and in which, of consequence, the exact path of duty is not altogether so obvious as it commonly is. Thus, every man feels it incumbent on him to have a constant regard to the welfare of society, and also to his own happiness. On the whole, these two interests will be found, by the most superficial inquirer, to be inseparably connected; but, at the same time, it cannot be denied that cases may be fancied in which it seems necessary to make a sacrifice of the one to the other.

In such cases, when the public happiness is very great, and the private comparatively inconsiderable, there is no room for hesitation; but the former may be easily conceived to be diminished, and the latter to be increased, to such an amount as to render the exact propriety of conduct very doubtful; more especially when it is considered, that, cæteris paribus, a certain degree of preference to ourselves is not only justifiable, but morally right. In like manner, the attachments of nature or of friendship, or the obligations of gratitude, of veracity, or of justice, may interfere with private or public good; and it may not be easy to say, whether