rules may be framed from a careful inquiry into the constitution and faculties of man, the various relations he sustains, and the actual moral phenomena which he exhibits. It must come forth with the express warning that it is not to be regarded as a substitute for revelation, but as only preliminary to it: so that where natural ethics leave off as insufficient, there Christianity enters her own more peculiar province.

We have already suggested that a natural system of moral philosophy can present no points which are really at variance with the representations of Christianity. There is also another criterion which may be applied à priori as a test of the possible truth of any system; namely, its consistency with the fundamental idea of ethics, the idea of a law of obligation. For instance; a necessity that precludes the power of forming resolves, destroys the essential subjective preliminary to such a law; for by shutting out human freedom it renders obedience and disobedience equally impossible. Thus Anthony Collins maintained that man is in such a sense a necessary agent, that there neither is nor can be such a thing as liberty. On this principle, of course, there could be neither virtue nor vice. The Pantheistic system, also, is inconsistent with ethics, by denying the personality of moral agents. According to Spinoza, man is only a mode of the development of Deity. Our souls are forms of divine thought, our bodies of divine extension. Pantheism sees in man only a phenomenon, not a reality; the only reality is God, the one sole being, the one sole cause. Man has no causation ; his acts are not his own; they are the acts of the One-All. Man is thus deprived of his individuality, and therefore of his capacity of sustaining the character of a moral being. The sceptical philosophy, too, from its birth in Greece to the modern Pyrrhonism of Hume, is only consistent when it boldly denies all moral distinctions. This necessarily follows from the assertion, common to Carneades, Sextus Empiricus, and the whole school, that every thing is mere appearance, and nothing can be known as truth: an assertion respecting which Kant has acutely remarked, that it assumes both a distinction between mere appearance and real truth, and some mark of that distinction; consequently it presupposes some knowledge of truth, and thus contradicts itself. It is evident that, on the principles of philosophical scepticism, there can be no certain ethics; and, therefore, no definite moral obligation. Again; wide as was the chasm between scepticism and mysticism, when swarms of the population of Egypt retired to the deserts of the Thebaïs to be wrapped in contemplation, and when the sublime truths of christianity were blended with the wild vagaries of theurgy, and the perfection of man was deemed to consist in a kind of slum

ber of the spirit, in which it dreamed, but did not act, a state of passive ecstatic reverie, in which it was lost to all converse with the affairs of men, and was entranced in an ideal world, where all activity of every kind, bodily and mental, was alien from the grand object of being absorbed in the unseen: the tendency of this mysticism was evidently to weaken and at last to confound those moral distinctions which an active engagement in the duties of life tends so much to keep before the view of the mind. Hence the mystic Plotinus boldly denied the difference of actions, and asserted that there was neither good nor evil.

If the above systems preclude, à priori, in different ways, the operation of a law of obligation, there are others which virtually deny it. Such are all the systems of self-interest, of which, among the ancients, Epicurus, and in modern times, Hobbes, may be regarded as the leading representatives. For if selfinterest is the only law and guide of man, there is no room for the ordinary ideas of right and duty; all is determined by a calculation of which self is at once the spring and the object : the pursuit of personal well-being, either as aimed at immediately, or as seen to mix itself up with the well-being of society, is the principle of morality. In this cudemonism, disinterested motive is lost sight of; duty and self-interest are synonymous terms. The modern form of the ancient system of Epicurus may be found in the theory of Paley: also in the utilitarianism of Bentham; who, however, as a jurist, rendered great service to society by applying the principles of utility to legislation, a far more legitimate sphere for them than the sphere of morals. The same general theory of ethics is maintained, in its strongest form, by an able recent writer, Mr. Mill; who states that the utility of an action and its morality are two names for the same thing, and that motives have no moral character.

Other systems recognize the fact of disinterested motives; but differ widely from each other, both as to the objectivity of virtue, and the subjective faculty by which it is distinguished. Some find virtue solely in the constitution of the human mind; while others recognize an absolute objective rectitude, distinct from the benefit which good actions produce, and distinct from the faculties of man; a good founded in the eternal nature of things. Each of these two classes of moral systems also differ among themselves as to the nature of the moral faculty. Some represent the actual distinction between right and wrong as a matter of sentiment or feeling, in the form either of an instinctive impulse, an inward kind of sense or tact, or a susceptibility of emotion. Others refer the distinction to the operation of judgment or reason.

To the school of sentiment belong, with various modificatio

Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, Hume, Mackintosh, Adam Smith, and Brown; who maintain that good is tested by a moral sense, either primitive, or of secondary formation (so Mackintosh) in connexion with the principle of association; or by sympathy; or by our moral emotions. To the rational school, or those who derive the idea of good from a perception of judgment or reason, belong Cudworth, Price, Wollaston, Malebranche, Clarke, Montesquieu, Leibnitz, Wolf, Ferguson, Reid, and Stewart; and of the French eclectic school Cousin and Jouffroi. Some of these writers regard good as an indefinable idea, others resolve it into truth, or order, or the nature or fitness of things, or into perfection, or excellence, or the like. To this class also belongs Kant, who thus forcibly, on his own principles, describes the origin of the idea of good:-' In every case where reason begins to act, it annexes to actions the predicates right and wrong, and this is a necessary and universal operation of thought. The rule 'Thou shalt not promise falsely' is valid not only for man, but reason cannot figure to itself any intelligent being in the universe at liberty to deceive. The legitimacy here predicated of truth has both necessity and universality, i.e. is à priori, and is no perception taken from observation and experience. Reason enjoins every intelligent being to act rightly, i.e. conformably to an ideal practical law, and the formula expressing the law may be thus stated: 'So act as that the maxim of thy will might be announced as law in a system of universal moral legislation.' That this moral law is a synthetic proposition à priori* is obvious, and every man has, however darkly, an unchanging and necessary perception of it.'†

In the posthumous volume before us Mr. Spalding maintains the objective character of morality; and he belongs to the school of sentiment, inasmuch as he regards emotion as the criterion of virtue. But before exhibiting his opinions, let us state some particulars respecting him. During his course of study at the University College, London, in addition to high certificates of honour in other classes, he obtained five First Prizes, in the classes of Hebrew, French, Natural Philosophy, and the Philosophy of the Mind and Logic. Of the latter subject his pursuit was ardent, and his diligence and ability, as manifested in the vivá voce examinations, and in his essays, left a distinct and

Synthetic propositions (or judgments) à priori, according to Kant, are those in which the predicate is not already contained in our conception of the subject; and which, taken in their full extent, have not their origin in experience, but in pure understanding and reason, and are universally and necessarily true; e.g. every change must have a cause. That neither of the two following propositions, all bodies are extended, and some bodies are heavy, complies with the above conditions is evident.

+ Vid. Kritik der Praktischen Vernunft.

lasting impression on the mind of his instructor, blended with a sense of his moral worth, more grateful in the retrospect than any mere intellectual pre-eminence, especially that he is now no more. In the transactions of the University, his name is mentioned with honour for his examination in Animal and Vegetable Physiology, and in the Hebrew and Greek originals and the history of Scripture. On taking his master's degree, in 1840, he is recorded as having 'passed a distinguished examination in logic, the philosophy of the mind, and moral philosophy.' In consequence of this examination, he was urged by the examiners to write on some of these subjects; and we learn that 'this recommendation encouraged him to write the following work.' Unfortunately, his health already undermined by too great application to study, broke down under the effort; and the book possesses a melancholy interest from the fact that its preparation accelerated the fatal termination of his disease.

Soon after taking his degree, Mr. Spalding went to Italy, in hope of benefitting his health; and during the two years of his residence there he composed this volume; which, however, we are informed was 'the result of many years' close investigation and reflection.' Having returned to England, in 1842, with his health still further impaired, he determined on trying, as a last refuge, the effect of a sea-voyage.

With this object,' says his biographer, he left his native land for the Cape of Good Hope, in September, 1842. During the voyage, he suffered extremely, and on his arrival at Cape Town, was in a state of great debility. Fully conscious that his end was approaching, he used to speak of death with calmness and frequency. On the 14th of January, three weeks after his arrival, his medical attendant stated that his dissolution was near. The intelligence produced no alarm in the bosom of the dying man; for on being asked whether he felt any dread at the approach of death, he replied, 'No; I rest upon the Rock of Ages*this has supported me-it does support me and it will support me. Christ is able to save to the uttermost.'

'Almost the last words he uttered were expressive of the gratification it afforded him to think that he had lived to finish the work. With great composure, the result of Christian faith, he resigned his spirit into the hands of his Saviour. His life was a fine illustration of that exalted benevolence which forms his leading topic in the following pages.'

Mr. Spalding maintains that it is from emotion alone that we learn to distinguish between right and wrong; but he decidedly holds the objective reality of these distinctions, and

* Isa. xxvi. 4 (Heb.): authorized version, 'everlasting strength.'

resolves the idea of good into that of benevolence. The following are some of the principal doctrines contained in the volume: Our primary notions of morality are derived from the moral feelings produced in us in contemplating the conduct of others; and these notions must be thus gained before conscience can approve or condemn our own actions; virtue itself, and the mode in which it should be exhibited, are the objects of moral obligation; the rule of virtue is the will of God, either as revealed or as inferred from the end and object of the virtuous affections; virtue is benevolence, and all other right dispositions are its necessary consequences; feelings purely pathological (sympathy, or compassion, for instance) have no moral value; it is volition that marks the character of any pathological feeling; thus the choice of benevolence as a principle, and not the mere existence of natural kindness of disposition, makes the latter morally valuable; the moral character of the volition depends entirely on the object of our choice.

With regard to the process of mind by which we first arrive at the ideas of right and wrong; the author remarks that an object is called blue, or red, simply because it produces in us a certain sensation, which we cannot help referring to a cause. Exactly in the same manner the bare presentation of certain actions of others to the view of the mind, produces in us certain emotions, which we refer to their causes. When the contemplation is followed by a feeling of moral approbation, we say the action or state of mind—that is, the cause which originates the feeling, is right; when we disapprove, we say it is wrong. After experiencing the emotion, we cannot help thus referring it to its cause or antecedent, and this cause we call virtue or vice. There is always a preceding 'intellectual perception or conception' necessary to excite the emotion; but it is the emotion itself, so referred, which makes us think of the cause, (that is, certain actions, or dispositions of others) as right or wrong.' The emotions are the origin of the judgment which we are now able to pronounce on the character of these antecedents. Mr. Spalding, however, states that it is only in regard to the origin of the ideas of right and wrong that he contends for the priority of the emotions to the judgments. When the relation in which a whole class of actions can be regarded has been learned by experience, he says that we can at once pronounce a particular action to be right or wrong, according to the class to which it belongs, without any necessity of feeling in the given instance, a previous emotion. Thus (to adduce an instance which is rather pathological than strictly moral), we may say that an object is fearful, by referring it to a class, without feeling the emotion of fear at the time. But,' con