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 actually 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 from hope of gain, the act is destitute of the virtue of filial obedience, and becomes merely the result of passion or self-interest. And thus our Savior 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 develop moral character. He who medi

tates, 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, 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 fruitful 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 reacted, in the recesses of the criminal's own mind. Let the im

agination, 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 love 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 of 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 may 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; 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 affirmation, 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 either merely combined, but each possessing its original character, in which combination the moral idea is not involved; or else they must lose their original character, and be merely the stated antecedents to another idea, which is an idea like neither of them, either separately or 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, and 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 gunpowder, a modification of the spark and the gunpowder? 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 those two ideas 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 judgment 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 previously existed in the mind; but it can give us no original notions of quality, either in morals or in any thing else.

3. Is our notion of the moral quality of actions derived from association ?

The term association, is used to designate two habits of mind, considerably alike. The first is that, by which the sight or recollection of one object, calls to recollection some other object, to which it stands in some particular relation. Thus, the sight of a hearse may recall to recollection the death of a friend; or the sound of his native language, in a foreign country, may awaken in the breast of an exile all the recollections of home. The second case is, where a particular emotion, belonging to one train of circumstances,

is awakened by another, with which it has no necessary connection; and this first emotion comes at last to be awakened by the accidental, instead of by the necessary, antecedent. Thus, the countenance of a person may be suited to awaken no emotion of pleasure in itself; but, if I become acquainted with him, and am pleased with his moral and intellectual character, a degree of pleasure is, at last, excited by his countenance, which, in the end, appears to me agreeable, or, it may be, beautiful.

:

Now, in both these cases, it is evident that no new idea is gained. In the one case, a well known idea is revived; in the other, two known ideas are connected in a new relation but this is all. Association is the faculty by which we transfer; but we can transfer nothing which did not previously exist. We could never use the idea of right and wrong by association, unless we had already acquired it. In the acts of judgment and association, therefore, as the existence of the notion must be presupposed, neither of these acts will account for the origin of the notion itself.

4. Is our notion of the moral quality of actions derived from the idea of the greatest amount of happiness?

Thus, it is said, that our notion of right and wrong is derived from our idea of productiveness of happiness, or, in other words, that an action is right or wrong because it is productive of the greatest amount of happiness.

When the affirmative of this question is asserted, it is, I presume, taken for granted, that the idea of right and wrong, and of productiveness of the greatest amount of happiness, are two distinct ideas. If they be not, then one cannot be derived from the other; for nothing can correctly be said to be a cause of itself. We shall, therefore, consider them as different ideas, and inquire, in what sense it is true that the one is the cause of the other.

When we speak of two events in nature, of which one is the cause of the other, we use the word in one of the following senses. First, we use it to denote stated antecedency merely; as, when we say that sensation is the cause of perception, or, that a man perceives an external object, because an impression is made upon an organ of