ceived of this action before they performed it. They both resolved to do precisely what they did. In all this, both actions coincide. A, however, gave it to C, with the intention of procuring the murder of a friend, B, with the intention relieving a family in distress. It is evident, that, in this case, the intention gives to the action its character as right or wrong.

That the moral quality of the action resides in the intention, may be evideut from various other considerations.

1. By reference to the intention, we inculpate or exculpate others, or ourselves, without any respect to the happiness or misery actually produced. Let the result of an action be what it may, we hold a man guilty, simply on the ground of intention, or, on the same ground, we hold him innocent. Thus of ourselves. We are conscious of guilt or of innocence, not from the result of an action, but from the intention by which we were actuated.

2. We always distinguish between being the instrument of good, and intending it. We are grateful to one who is the cause of good, not in the proportion of the amount effected, but of the amount intended.

Intention may be wrong in various ways.

As, for instance, first, where we intend to injure another, as in cruelty, malice, revenge, deliberate slander.

Here, however, it may be remarked, that we may intend to inflict pain, without intending wrong, for we may be guilty of the violation of no right. Such is the case, when pain is inflicted for the purposes of justice; for it is manifest, that, if a man deserves pain, it is no violation of right to inflict it. Hence we see the difference between harm, injury, and punishment. We harm another when we actually inflict pain; we injure him when we inflict pain in violation of his

rights; we punish him when we inflict pain which he deserves, and in so doing, there is therefore, a violation of no right.

2. Intention is wrong, where we act for the gratification of our own passions, without any respect to the happiness of others. Such is the case of seduction, ambition, and, in nations, commonly, of war. Every man is bound to restrain the indulgence of his passions, within such limits, that they will work no ill to his neighbor. If they actu ally inflict injury, it is no excuse to say, that he had no ill-will to the individual injured. The Creator never conferred on him the right to destroy another's happiness for his own gratification.

3. As the right and wrong of an action resides in the intention, it is evident, that, where an action is intended, though it be not actually performed, that intention is worthy of praise or blame, as much as the action itself, provided, the action itself be wholly out of our power. Thus God rewarded David for intending to build the temple, though he did not permit him actually to build it.

4. As the right or wrong exists in the intention, wherever a particular intention is essential to virtuous action, the performance of the external act, without that intention, is destitute of the element of virtue. Thus, a child is bound to obey his parents, with the intention of thus manifesting his love and gratitude. If he do it from fear, or hope of gain, the act is destitute of the virtue of filial obedience, and becomes merely the result of passion or selfinterest. And thus our Saviour charges upon the Jews the want of the proper intention, in all their dealings with God. "I know you, said he, that ye have not the love of God in you."

And again, it is manifest, that our moral feelings, like our taste, may be excited by the conceptions of our own

imagination, scarcely less than by the reality. These, therefore, may develope moral character. He who meditates, with pleasure, upon fictions of pollution and crime, whether originating with himself or with others, renders it evident, that nothing but opposing circumstances prevents him from being himself an actor in the crime which he loves. And still more, as the moral character of an action resides in the intention; and as whatever tends to corrupt the intention must be wrong, so the meditating with pleasure upon vice, which has manifestly this tendency, must be wrong also.

And here let me add, that the imagination of man is the great parent both of virtue and vice. Thus saith the wise man, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life." No man becomes openly a villain, until his imagination has become familiar with conceptions of villany. The crimes which astonish us by their atrocity, were first arranged and acted and re-acted, in the recesses of the criminal's own mind. Let the imagination, then, be most carefully guarded, if we wish to escape from temptation, and make progress in virtue. Let no one flatter himself that he is innocent, if he loves to meditate upon any thing which he would blush to avow before men, or fear to unveil before God.

SECTION IV.

WHENCE DO WE DERIVE OUR NOTION OF THE MORAL QUALITY OF ACTIONS?

To this question several answers have been given. Some of them we shall proceed to consider.

1. Is our notion of right and wrong a modification of any other idea?

The only modifications of which an idea is susceptible, are, first, that of greater or less vividness of impression, or, secondly, that of simplicity or composition. Thus the quality of beauty may impress us more or less forcibly, in the contemplation of different objects; or, on the other hand, the idea of beauty may be simple, or else combined, in our conceptions, with the idea of utility.

Now, if our notion of right and wrong, be a modification of some other idea, in the first sense, then one degree of the original quality will be destitute of any moral element, and another degree of it will possess a moral element, and, by ascending higher in the scale, it will at last lose all its original character, and possess another, having no remains of resemblance to itself. This would be to say, that a quality, by becoming more intense, ceased to be itself; or, as if a triangle, by becoming more perfect as a triangle, at last became a square. Thus, if it be said, that the idea of right and wrong is a modification of the idea of beauty, then the same object, if beautiful in one degree, would have no moral quality; if beautiful in another degree, would begin to be virtuous; and, if beautiful in the highest degree, would cease to be beautiful, and be purely virtuous or holy. What meaning could be attached to such an affirmative, I am not able to discover.

The other meaning of a modification, of an idea, is, that it is compounded with some other idea. Now, suppose our notion of right and wrong to be a modification in this latter sense. Then this notion either enters into the original elements of the compound idea, or it does not. If it does, then it is already present; and this supposition does not account for its existence. If it does not enter into the elements of the compound idea, then, these elements must exist merely combined, but each possessing its original character, in which combination, the moral idea is not involved, or else they lose their original character, and are

merely the stated antecedents to another idea, which is an idea like neither of them separately, nor combined. In this latter case, it is manifest, that the consequent of an antecedent is no modification of the antecedent, but an entirely different subject, coming into existence under these particular circumstances, in obedience to the laws of its own organization. Do we ever term a salt a modification of an acid, or of an alkali, or of an acid and alkali united. Is the explosive power of gun-powder, a modification of the spark and the gun-powder? We think, then, it may be safely concluded, that the notion of right and wrong, is not a modification of any other idea.

If any one assert, that it universally ensues upon the combination of two other ideas, it will become him to show what two ideas they are, neither of which involves the notion of right and wrong, but upon the combination of which, this notion always arises, while the original elements which precede it, entirely disappear.

2. Is our notion of the moral quality of actions derived from an exercise of the judgment?

Judgment is that act of the mind, by which, a subject and a predicate being known, we affirm, that the predicate belongs to the subject. Thus, he who knows what grass is, and what green is, affirms that grass is green. But, in this act of the mind, the notion of the two things of which the affirmation is made, must exist before the act of judg ment can be exerted. A man who had no notion of grass, nor of green, could never affirm the one of the other. And so of any other instances of this act. A man who had no notion of right or wrong, could never affirm this quality of any subject; much less could he, by this faculty, acquire the original idea. And thus, in general, the judgment only affirms a relation to exist between two notions which pre