which it originates in each. The mere mention of "gluttony," "drunkenness," reminds us that the promptings of appetite are not always good. Carbuncled noses, cadaverous faces, fœtid breaths, and plethoric bodies, meet us at every turn; and our condolences are perpetually asked for headaches, flatulence, nightmare, heartburn, and endless other dyspeptic symptoms. Again:-equally great irregularities may be found in the workings of that generally recognised feeling-parental affection. Amongst ourselves, its beneficial sway seems tolerably uniform. In the East, however, infanticide is practised now as it ever has been. During the so-called classic times, it was common to expose babes to the tender mercies of wild beasts. And it was the Spartan practice to cast all the newly-born who were not approved by a committee of old men, into a public pit provided for the purpose. If, then, it be argued that the want of uniformity in men's moral codes, together with the weakness and partiality of their influence, prove the nonexistence of a feeling designed for the right regulation of our dealings with each other, it must be inferred from analogous irregularities in men's conduct as to food and offspring, that there are no such feelings as appetite and parental affection. As, however, we do not draw this inference in the one case, we cannot do so in the other. Hence, notwithstanding all the incongruities, we must admit the existence of a Moral Sense to be both possible and probable.

§ 3.

But that we possess such a sense, may be best proved by evidence drawn from the lips of those who assert that we have it not. Oddly enough Bentham unwittingly derives his initial proposition from an oracle whose existence he denies, and at which he sneers when it is appealed to by others. "One man," he remarks, speaking of Shaftesbury, "says he has a thing made on purpose to tell him what is right and what is wrong; and that it is called a moral sense: and then

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he goes to work at his ease, and says such and such a thing is right, and such and such a thing is wrong. Why? 'because my moral sense tells me it is." Now that Bentham should have no other authority for his own maxim than this same moral sense, is somewhat unfortunate for him. Yet, on putting that maxim into critical hands, we shall soon discover such to be the fact. Let us do this.

"And so you think," says the patrician, "that the object of our rule should be 'the greatest happiness to the greatest number.'"

"Such is our opinion," answers the petitioning plebeian. "Well now, let us see what your principle involves. Suppose men to be, as they very commonly are, at variance in their desires on some given point; and suppose that those forming the larger party will receive a certain amount of happiness each, from the adoption of one course, whilst those forming the smaller party will receive the same amount of happiness each, from the adoption of the opposite course: then if 'greatest happiness' is to be our guide, it must follow, must it not, that the larger party ought to have their way?"

"That is to say, if you the people, are a hundred, whilst we are ninety-nine, your happiness must be preferred, should our wishes clash, and should the individual amounts of gratification at stake on the two sides be equal."

"Exactly; our axiom involves that."

"So then it seems, that as, in such a case, you decide between the two parties by numerical majority, you assume that the happiness of a member of the one party, is equally important with that of a member of the other."

"Of course."

"Wherefore, if reduced to its simplest form, your doctrine turns out to be the assertion, that all men have equal claims to happiness; or, applying it personally-that you have as good a right to happiness as I have."

"No doubt I have."

"And pray, sir, who told you that you have as good a right to happiness as I have?"

"Who told me ? - I am sure of it; I know it; I feel it; I

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"Nay, nay, that will not do. Give me your authority. Tell me who told you this-how you got at it-whence you derived it."

Whereupon, after some shuffling, our petitioner is forced to confess, that he has no other authority but his own feelingthat he has simply an innate perception of the fact; or, in other words, that "his moral sense tells him so."

Whether it rightly tells him so, need not now be considered. All that demands present notice is the fact, that when crossexamined, even the disciples of Bentham have no alternative but to fall back upon an intuition of this much derided moral sense, for the foundation of their own system.

§ 4.

In truth, none but those committed to a preconceived theory, can fail to recognise, on every hand, the workings of such a faculty. From early times downward there have been constant signs of its presence-signs which happily thicken as our own day is approached. The articles of Magna Charta embody its protests against oppression, and its demands for a better administration of justice. Serfdom was abolished partly at its suggestion. It encouraged Wickliffe, Huss, Luther, and Knox, in their contests with Popery; and by it were Huguenots, Covenanters, Moravians, stimulated to maintain freedom of judgment in the teeth of armed Ecclesiasticism. It dictated Milton's "Essay on the Liberty of Unlicensed Printing." It piloted the pilgrim fathers to the new world. It supported the followers of George Fox under fines and imprisonment. And it whispered resistance to the Presbyterian clergy of 1662. In latter days it emitted that tide of feeling which undermined and swept away Catholic disabilities. Through

the mouths of anti-slavery orators, it poured out its, fire, to the scorching of the selfish, to the melting of the good, to our national purification. It was its heat, too, which warmed our sympathy for the Poles, and made boil our indignation against their oppressor. Pent-up accumulations of it, let loose upon a long-standing injustice, generated the effervescence of a reform agitation. Out of its growing flame came those sparks by which Protectionist theories were exploded, and that light which discovered to us the truths of Free-trade. By the passage of its subtle current is that social electrolysis effected, which classes men into parties-which separates the nation into its positive and negative-its radical and conservative elements. At present it puts on the garb of Anti-StateChurch Associations, and shows its presence in manifold societies for the extension of popular power. It builds monuments to political martyrs, agitates for the admission of Jews into Parliament, publishes books on the rights of women, petitions against class-legislation, threatens to rebel against militia conscriptions, refuses to pay church-rates, repeals oppressive debtor acts, laments over the distresses of Italy, and thrills with sympathy for the Hungarians. From it, as from a root, spring our aspirations after social rectitude: it blossoms in such expressions as "Do as you would be done by," "Honesty is the best policy," "Justice before Generosity; " and its fruits are Equity, Freedom, Safety.

§ 5.

But how, it may be asked, can a sentiment have a perception? how can a desire give rise to a moral sense? Is there not here a confounding of the intellectual with the emotional? It is the office of a sense to perceive, not to induce a certain kind of action; whilst it is the office of an instinct to induce a certain kind of action, and not to perceive. But in the foregoing arguments, motor and percipient functions are attributed to the same agent.

The objection seems a serious one; and were the term sense to be understood in its strictest acceptation, would be fatal. But the word is in this case, as in many others, used to express that feeling with which an instinct comes to regard the deeds and objects it is related to; or rather that judgment which, by a kind of reflex action, it causes the intellect to form of them. To elucidate this we must take an example; and perhaps the love of accumulation will afford us as good a one as any.

We find, then, that conjoined with the impulse to acquire property, there is what we call a sense of the value of property; and we find the vividness of this sense to vary with the strength of the impulse. Contrast the miser and the spendthrift. Accompanying his constant desire to heap up, the miser has a quite peculiar belief in the worth of money. The most stringent economy he thinks virtuous; and anything like the most ordinary liberality vicious; whilst of extravagance he has an absolute horror. Whatever adds to his store seems to him good: whatever takes from it, bad. And should a passing gleam of generosity lead him on some special occasion to open his purse, he is pretty sure afterwards to reproach himself with having done wrong. On the other hand, whilst the spendthrift is deficient in the instinct of acquisition, he also fails to realize the intrinsic worth of property; it does not come home to him; he has little sense of it. Hence under the influence of other feelings, he regards saving habits as mean; and holds that there is something noble in profuseness. Now it is clear that these opposite perceptions of the propriety or impropriety of certain lines of conduct, do not originate with the intellect, but with the emotional faculties. The intellect, uninfluenced by desire, would show both miser and spendthrift that their habits were unwise; whereas the intellect, influenced by desire, makes each think the other a fool, but does not enable him to see his own foolishness.

Now this law is at work universally. Every feeling is accompanied by a sense of the rightness of those actions which give it gratification-tends to generate convictions that things are good or bad, according as they bring to it pleasure or pain; and would always generate such convictions, were it unopposed.