fellow-creatures are summed up under three heads, corresponding, even critically, with the dictates of Conscientiousness, Benevolence, and Veneration. "He hath showed thee, oh man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” If Dr. Spurzheim, in his "Philosophical Principles of Phrenology," makes a distinction between virtue and what he calls "natural goodness," to which we cannot altogether subscribe. "I love goodness," he says, "and esteem virtue. The naturally good are charitable, because they find a pleasure in charity; while the others, i. e. those who want this natural goodness, of charity make a virtue." charity, then, such as that of the good Samaritan, proceeded from the overflowings of a predominant benevolence, the current of whose pure philanthropy was never ruffled by one selfish emotion, it must cease, according to Dr. Spurzheim's estimate, to claim the title of virtue. In one word, to carry his principle to its natural results, if Benevolence, Veneration, and Conscientiousness, the sentiments whose direct aim is to prompt to actions involving the relations of man to his Creator, and to his fellow;-if these sentiments be naturally so pre-eminent in a man's constitution as to rule through a whole life without being dirturbed by the sedition or rebellion of one selfish subject, then is that man no longer virtuous. It is with diffidence we dissent from so high an authority as Dr. Spurzheim; but we venture to conceive, that his error (for such we maintain it to be) has arisen from confounding with the virtue of the action the notions commonly entertained by mankind of its merit. Virtue, obligation, duty, and merit, are all, as has been already stated, held by Dr. Brown to be felt and recognised by the same moral principle. "It is impossible for us to have the feeling," he says, "and not to have these, i. e. the conceptions of virtue, obligation, &c.; or, to speak more precisely, these conceptions are only the feeling itself variously referred in its relation to the person and to the circumstances." With this view, in so far as it regards virtue, obligation, and duty, we entirely concur; and if the merit be considered as intrinsic and moral, we are still of the same opinion with Dr. Brown. But there is a different idea of merit, so common and so popular among men, and so closely identified with the virtue of which in reality it is extrinsic, as not only to have led Dr. Spurzheim to regard it as a necessary quality in the state of mind by which a virtuous action is produced, but the very quality in consequence of whose presence the action is virtuous. If we were able, however, to show that this idea of merit emanates in truth, solely from the operation of the selfish feelings and desires, its claim to be regarded as the characteristic of true virtue will become even more than questionable.* It is evident that Conscientiousness can see no merit in being just, for inclination can never perceive merit in its own gratification. In the same way, Veneration can discover no merit in yielding that deferential homage to superiority, which is its natural tribute. And Benevolence is equally blind to the perception of merit, in being kind and charitable. Yet merit is a word which, in reference to justice, veneration, and charity, conveys a distinct idea, and we are bound, therefore, to account for its existence. When we contemplate the noble Regulus refusing to enter within the walls of his native city, of which he was no longer a citizen, or even to visit his own little dwelling, and share in that joy which his return had inspired; when we see him standing in melancholy separation from the senate, of which he had once been so illustrious a member, instead of pursuing that course which would have given him to the friendly arms that were then held out to receive him into their embrace, calmly but eloquently pleading for the very decree which must consign him to the fury of his enemies, and see him, even while the entreaties and lamentations of his wife and his children were filling his heart with all the bitterness of a final separation from the objects of his fondest affection, returning to Carthage to suffer whatever the cruel imagination of an exasperated foe could invent of barbarous and inhuman torture, "Pudicæ conjugis osculum Parvosque natos, ut capitis minor, Donec labantes consilio patres Firmaret auctor nunquam alias dato, Interque moerentes amicos Egregius properaret exul." When we see all this, why is it that we regard this triumph of Veneration for the honour of his country, and of conscientious adherence to his word, as so singularly meritorious? It is in virtue neither of Conscientiousness nor Veneration that this great merit is perceived, because these faculties discover nothing in the action beyond the simple obedience to their own dictates. But Cautiousness, with its dark forebodings of pain and misery and death, and Adhesiveness, with its yearning after the objects of its fond desire, * It may perhaps be necessary to state here, in order to prevent misapprehension, that, in endeavouring to elicit the origin of our ideas of merit, it is not with the purpose of touching in any way on the question of its compatibility or incom patibility with moral necessity. This were to go beyond the object of the present essay. tell us of the terrible assaults which Conscientiousness and Veneration must have sustained in maintaining their supremacy. And the different degrees of merit which different minds will discover in this action, will be in exact proportion to the vigour in these minds of the two higher sentiments which produced the action in relation to the power of the two selfish feelings by which it would have been opposed. To take another instance, which, with reverence, we select from the sacred volume, it may be shown with similar ease, that our notion of the merit of Job's enduring piety, maintained in defiance of every thing that might have tended to shake his confidence in the great Being to whom it was offered, is still obtained from the operation of our selfish feelings and desires alone. When we read of the messengers bringing in swift succession the tidings of another and another wo, and by the sum of their desolating intelligence sweeping the venerable patriarch from the very pinnacle of prosperity into the lowest abyss of wretchedness and despair, the heart grows sick in the contemplation of misery so sudden and so complete. From whence do we derive, on studying this affecting picture, the idea of that extraordinary merit we discover in the utterance, at such a moment, of the pious sentiment with which he received the intelligence of his utter desolation :-"The Lord gave and the Lord taketh away; blessed be the name of the Lord!" These words beautiful, indeed, express the dictates of a presiding Conscientiousness and Veneration; but for that very reason can convey to these faculties no idea of merit. It is Acquisitiveness contemplating the loss of the servants, and the sheep, and the camels, and Adhesiveness and Philoprogenitiveness bewailing the objects of their attachment now no more; Self-esteem, burning under a consciousness of rank and importance, exchanged for degradation and wretchedness; Love of Approbation, "mindful of the days that had been in months that are past, when the young men saw him, and hid themselves, and the aged arose and stood up; when the princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand on their mouth; when the nobles held their peace, and their tongue clave to the roof of their mouth." It is Love of Approbation remembering all this, and foreseeing the bitter change it must henceforth experience. "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock." And, as if all these were not enough to fill up the horrors of the picture, Cautiousness comes in to deepen the gloom of the present, by throwing a cloud of yet darker misery over the future. These are the true and only sources of that merit we dis cover in the enduring piety of Job. The clamorous outcries of these selfish feelings tell us of the snares with which Conscientiousness and Veneration were in this instance environed, and it is therefore we attach merit to the supremacy they maintained. If this analysis be sound, the conclusion appears inevitable, that merit is something essentially distinct from virtue; and we shall then have escaped from the paradox to which Dr. Spurzheim's doctrine seems naturally to lead, that, in such instances of virtue as we have cited, the mind in which the selfish feelings were most predominant, in other words, the mind least virtuous, would discover the greatest proportion of virtue. There is another conclusion to which we appear, by this view of our notions of merit, to be conducted, and which, as it accords with a great and important Scripture truth, is not unworthy of notice. If the merit of the most virtuous actions of men is perceived solely by the operation of the lower and selfish part of our nature-of those feelings and desires, in a word, which are opposed to the virtue these actions must necessarily appear devoid of all merit to that Infinite Mind-and we speak with deep reverence on a subject so high and so sacred-in which such feelings and desires are necessarily unknown. The view we have thus submitted of the origin of our notions of merit, while it appears to show a very evident distinction between that quality and the virtue with which it is, in common language, so closely identified, reflects, at the same time, additional evidence on our position, that the term virtue does, in the strictness of philosophic precision, express only the relation of the sentiments of Benevolence, Veneration, and Conscientiousness, to certain actions contemplated by us, in which the enlightened exercise of these sentiments is involved. This distinction between the virtue and the merit of an action, will be more apparent in an example. When we read of the intrepid Hampden opposing an unjust tax, which to him, personally, was of so little consequence, at the risk of incurring the vengeance of a powerful and vicious government, we readily acknowledge his conduct to have been both virtuous and meritorious. By what faculties in our nature, then, are these two qualities perceived? Self-esteem reminding us of the difficulty of sacrificing self for the interest of others; Cautiousness creating a feeling of alarm and apprehension at the prospect of contending with an enemy so formidable; and Acquisitiveness dreading the loss of property, and the utter ruin in which such a contest was so likely to terminate, are evidently the sources from whence we here derive the idea of merit, as attaching to the virtue which was maintained in defiance of the powerful opposition these selfish faculties must necessarily have produced. It is, on the other hand, simply because we regard the conduct of this patriot as the dictate of Conscientiousness, that we acknowledge it to be virtuous; for if the action in question were presented to us under a different form, and we were called on to regard it as emanating as much from the desire of obtaining eminence and authority in a political faction as from the wish to see his country delivered from an unjust and intolerable grievance, our estimate of its virtue would instantly sink. The fountain of virtue is then no longer pure; self has polluted the stream at its very source; the upright and virtuous patriot has degenerated into the ambitious leader of a faction. And why is this change produced? Merely because the relation between the action and the sentiment of Conscientiousness is no longer the same. Love of Approbation, Selfesteem, and, perhaps, Acquisitiveness, have been enlisted as motives to produce the action, while the opposition of Cautiousness has been, in a great measure, removed; and exactly in proportion to the amount at which we estimate their influence, will our sense of the virtue be diminished. In the same way, if we analyse any action, or any class of actions, to which the title of virtuous has been justly conceded, the same result will appear-that wherever the selfish feelings and desires are contemplated as motives to act, our account of the agent's virtue is proportionally lowered. We hold, then, 1st, That virtue is a term expressive of the relation of the sentiments of Benevolence, Veneration, and Conscientiousness, to certain actions contemplated by us, in which the enlightened exercise of these sentiments is involved. 2dly, That virtue, obligation, and duty, are all felt and recognised by the same moral emotion; or rather, that these are nothing more than the same emotions variously referred in their relation to the person and the circumstances. And 3dly, That merit, instead of being identical with virtue, is a term which, in truth, expresses the relation to any virtuous action of those feelings and desires whose direct operation is opposed to the virtue in which the merit is involved. In one word, that virtue, obligation, and duty, are all felt and recognised by the three sentiments pointed out, as prompting to those actions involving the relations of man to his Creator and to his fellow. That merit, on the other hand, in the sense in which the term is usually understood, is perceived in consequence of the operation of the feelings and the desires, whose direct object is purely selfish. In surveying the wide diversity of opinion, which, on the subject of virtue, the moral history of mankind presents, it appears to us, that these phenomena, various and seemingly contradictory as they |