wish to prefs on their notice, the following juft obfervations with which Mr. Rofcoe concludes his preface : "He must also be allowed to obferve, that the hope of promoting, in fome degree, the laudable object which the author himself had in view, if it did not lead him to undertake the tranflation, operated as a chief inducement to lay it before the public. That the character and manners of our countrymen, both in higher and lower life, affords but too much room for reform, is an affertion which may be made without incurring the imputation of morofenefs; but till we can decidedly point out thofe circumftances which give rife to this laxity, not to fay depravity, of manners of the prefent day, it will be to no purpose to adopt meafures for their improvement. Of these causes the custom, ftill fo prevalent, of committing the children of the richer and middle ranks of fociety to be brought up by the poor, is, in the opinion of the tranflator, one of the moft efficacious, and, like all other vicious inftitutions, its effects are injurious to all the parties who engage in it. The reafon generally affigned by medical men for promoting a custom which has of late received their almoft univerfal fanction, is, that the mode of living which now prevails in the higher ranks is fuch, as renders it impoffible for a woman to afford her infant thofe advantages which are indifpenfibly neceffary to its existence and fupport. But is it poffible to conceive a feverer fatire against the female fex than this affertion implies? Such, it feems, is the rage for pleasure and amusement, that it must be gratified even by the facrifice of the most important duties of life, and by a practice, which, if generally extended, would endanger the very existence of the human race. The affiftance of a nurfe is not then intended as a benefit to the child, but as a licence to the mother to purfue her gratifications, without thofe reftraints which the performance of her own proper and indifpenfible duties would impofe upon her, and by the due exercife of which he would find her health and her affections equally improved." Preface, Pp. 13, 14. ART. IX. Mackintosh on the Law of Nature and Nations. (Continued from P. 146.) E come now to the general plan and subjects of Mr. WE In his statement of the matter he is to confider, and the arrangement he is to purfue, we perceive very great powers, acting on the most extensive materials, comprehending their diftinctive and common properties; and, from a moft judicious felection, combining whatever is useful and instructive. The fame genius that can felect with difcrimination, combine with fkill and force, difpofes its materials according to their relation relation and order. Another quality, very prominent in these outlines, is fimplification. Subjects, in the common mode of difcuffion, apparently intricate and abftrufe, are here rendered plain and manifeft. The being, whofe actions the law of nature profeffes to regulate, is man. Man, in the diverfity of duties arifing from diverfity of relations, Mr. Mackintosh proposes to exhibit: "It is on the knowledge of his nature," he obferves, "that the fcience of his duty muft be founded. It is impoffible to approach the threshold of moral philofophy without a previous examination of the faculties and habits of the human mind." Mr. Mackintosh, therefore, propofes to open with a very short, and, he hopes, (not without reafon,) with a very intelligible and fimple account of the powers and operations of the human mind. "2dly, To confider the first and most fimple part of Ethics is that which regards the duties of private men towards each other, when they are confidered apart from the fanction of pofitive laws.---3dly, To confider Man under the important relation of Subject and Sove. reign.--4thly, To lay open the General Principles of Civil and Criminal Law.---5thly, The Law of Nations in General.---6thly, The Diplomatic and Conventional Law of Europe. "Though this courfe (as Mr. Mackintosh obferves) may feem to comprehend fo great a variety of miscellaneous fubjects, yet they are all, in truth, clofely and infeparably interwoven. The duties of men, of fubjects, of Princes, of law-givers, of magiftrates, and of ftates, are all parts of one confiftent fyftem of universal morality." Prefatory to the outlines of his enquiry into the nature of rnan he makes an obfervation to which we most readily accede : "Let no reader (he fays) be repelled from this examination, by the odious and terrible name of metaphyfics; for it is, in truth, nothing more than the employment of good fenfe, in obferving our own thoughts, feelings, and actions; and when the facts which are thus obferved are expreffed as they ought to be, in plain language, it is, perhaps, above all other fciences, moft on a level with the capacity and information of the generality of thinking men. When it is thus expreffed, it requires no previous qualification, but a found judge ment, perfectly to comprehend it; and those who wrap it up in a technical and myfterious jargon, always give us strong reason to fufpect that they are not PHILOSOPHERS but IMPOSTORS. Whoever thoroughly understands fuch a fcience must be able to teach it plainly to all men of common fenfe." Although our own literary engagements have not yet allowed us the benefit of hearing Mr. Mackintosh's Lectures, we are, from from his powers of profound investigation, and from this text, convinced that his detailed explanation of metaphyfics must be extremely inftructive, and must tend to rescue that valuable fcience from the odium with which it has been loaded, on account of the productions of writers, calling themselves METAPHYSICIANS, but being merely vifionaries. Metaphyfics, or ontology, are, in fact, nothing more than a knowledge of the general properties of being; the refult of our powers of abftraction and generalization, fupplied with materials by obfervation and experience. The works, either on phyfics or morals, which pretend to exhibit general principles, not juftified by obfervation and experience, confift not in metaphyfics but fictions; belong not to philofophy, which is a deduction of reafon, but to poetry, which is a creature of imagination. If we confider the real nature of the writings, which have of late done fo much mischief under the name of metaphyfics and philofophy, we fhall find that they do not confift of metaphyfics, nor any kind of philofophy, but are really poetry. Rouffeau was not a philofopher in the general tenor of his writings; for he neither argued from felf-evident principles, nor from an experience of actual exiftences. He did not DEDUCE SCIENCE, he framed hypothefis. Godwin has given us no philofophy, no genuine metaphyfics; he has not defcribed the general properties of exiftences; he has created a ftate of fociety for himfelf, and arranged the regulations of that fociety as feemed good to himself. Another poet, of the prefent age, we fhall mention, as an illustration of our doctrine, and that is Thomas Paine. Whoever reads the Rights of Man, and the Age of Reafon, parts first and second of both, will fee that the writings of the faid Thomas, against government and religion, are not hiftory; for they are not a record of actual fact, are not that fpecies of philofophy called metaphyfics; for they do not exhibit the general properties of beings; they belong not to any fpecies of philofophy, for they are not deductions from either felf-evident principles, or the experience of actual existence; they belong to the clafs of poetry arifing from mere fancy. We do not fay that Godwin's or Paine's are all original poetry, much of what they fay having been feigned long before they were born. We are ftill farther from faying that it is good poetry. The best See Lord Bacon, De Augmento Scientiarium, in which the three. great departments of intellectual exertion, Hiftory, Philofophy, and Poetry, are derived from the three great faculties of the underftanding, memory, reafon, and fancy. kinds and specimens of poetry have been imitations of hiftory and philofophy; reprefentations of life, manners, and characters. The poetry of Godwin and Paine has no resemblance to any thing that ever exifted. It has nothing probable, but all marvellous. It is a picture, but entirely a fancy picture. It reprefents what Hume would call a miracle, that which has exifted in no age nor country. Let not, therefore, what are called the new doctrines, be mifnamed metaphyfics or philofophy; they are neither more nor lefs than execrable poetry. We have thought this comment on Mr. Mackintosh's outline of an explanation of metaphyfics might be useful to those readers who may not have had the advantage of being able to hear him speak for himself. We recommend the confideration of it to those who may have fuppofed that when they were quoting Paine, Wollstonecraft, Holcroft, and Godwin, they were difplaying philofophy; while they were only repeating plagiarifms of bad poetry, or original fictions, ftill more extravagant, chimerical, and pernicious. In enquiring into that branch of fcience which may be termed pneumatology, or the science of the mind, Mr. Mackintofh, like the moft fuccefsful enquirer of modern times, proceeds upon the principles of common fenfe,* and appeals to mens' feelings, thoughts, and actions. In establishing, by an appeal to every man's experience, the fact, that we often act from a pure regard to the happiness of others, and are therefore focial beings, he expreffes a juft contempt for the fophiftical frivolity of thofe, who, because benevolence to others is pleafing to ourselves, would derive it entirely from that felfish pleasure. In unfolding the nature of virtue, or, in the ufual language of moral fchools, of the object of moral approbation, the author gives the following concife, but important, sketch : "A correct examination of facts will lead us to difcover that quality which is cominon to all virtuous actions, and which distinguishes them from those which are vicious and criminal. But we shall fee that it is neceffary for man to be governed, not by his own tranfient and hafty opinion upon the tendency of every particular action, but by thofe fixed and unalterable rules which are the joint refult of the impartial judgement, the natural feelings, and the embodied experience of mankind. The authority of thefe rules is, indeed, founded only on their tendency to promote private and public welfare; but the morality of actions will appear folely to confift in their correfpon *Doctor Reid. dence dence with the rule. By the help of this obvious distinction we shall vindicate a juft theory, which, far from being modern, is, in fact, as ancient as philofophy, both from plaufible objections, and from the odious imputation of fupporting thofe abfurd and monftrous fyftems which have been built upon it. Beneficial tendency is the foundation of rules, and the criterion by which habits and fentiments are to be tried. But it is neither the immediate standard, nor can it ever be the principal motive, of action. An action, to be completely virtuous, muft accord with moral rules, and muft flow from our natural feelings and affections, moderated, matured, and improved, into fteady habits of right conduct." P. 34. After laying the foundations of morality deeply in human nature, Mr. Mackintosh proceeds, 2dly, to the duties of private men towards each other, when they are confidered a-part from the fanction of pofitive laws; a-part (he repeats) from that fanction, not antecedent to it; for human fociety never has fubfifted, never could fubfift, without being protected by government, and bound together by laws. The relative duties of private life have been treated fo fully and ably, both by ancient and modern moralifts, that Mr. Mackintoth would have contented himself with a brief and general furvey, -" if some fundamental principles had not of late been brought into queftion, which, in all former times, have been deemed too evident to require the fupport of argument, and almost too facred to admit the liberty of difcuffion. I fhall here endeavour to ftrengthen fome parts of the fortifications of morality which have hitherto been neglected, because no man had ever been hardy enough to attack them. Almost all the relative duties of human-life will be found more imme diately, or more remotely, to arife out of the two great institutions of PROPERTY and MARRIAGE; they conftitute, preferve, and improve fociety. Upon their gradual improvement depends the progreffive civilization of mankind; on them refts the whole order of civil life. These two great inftitutions convert the selfish as well as the focial paffions of our nature, into the firmeft bands of a peaceable and orderly intercourfe; they change the fources of difcord into principles of quiet; they difcipline the moft ungovernable; they refine the groffeft, and they exalt the moft fordid, propenfities; fo that they become the perpetual fountain of all that ftrengthens, and preferves, and adorns fociety; they fuftain the individual, and they perpetuate the race. Around these institutions all our focial duties will be found, at various diftances, to range themselves; fome more near, obviously effential to the good order of human life; others more remote, and of which the neceffity is not, at firft view, fo apparent; and fome fo diftant, that their importance has been fometimes doubted, though, upon more mature confideration, they will be found to be outpofts and advanced guards of these fundamental principles; that man fhould fecurely enjoy the fruits of his labour, and that the fociety of the |
