CHAPTER THIRD.

CONTINUATION OF THE SUBJECT.-EXAMINATION OF SOME OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING CONCLUSIONS.

IN the preceding observations I have endeavoured to prove that the moral faculty is an original principle of our constitution, which is not resolvable into any other principle or principles more general than itself; in particular, that it is not resolvable into self-love or a prudential regard to our own interest. In order, however, completely to establish the existence of the moral faculty as an essential and universal part of human nature, it is necessary to examine with attention the objections which have been stated to this conclusion by some writers, who were either anxious to display their ingenuity by accounting in a different manner for the origin of our moral ideas, or who wish to favor the cause of scepticism by explaining away the reality and immutability of moral distinctions.

Among these objections, that which merits the most careful consideration, from the characters of those by whom it is maintained, is founded on the possibility of explaining the fact without increasing the number of original principles in our constitution. The rules of morality, it has been supposed, were, in the first instance, brought to light by the sagacity of philosophers and politicians; and it is only in consequence of the influ ence of education that they appear to form an original part of the human frame. The diversity of opinions among different nations with respect to the morality of particular actions has been considered as a strong confirmation of this doctrine.

But the power of education, although great, is confined within certain limits. It is indeed much more extensive than philosophers once believed, as sufficiently appears from those modern discoveries, with respect to the distant parts of the globe, which have so wonderfully enlarged our knowledge of human nature, and

which show clearly that many sentiments and opinions, which had been formerly regarded as inseparable from the nature of man, are the results of accidental situation. If our forefathers, however, went into one extreme on this point, we seem to be at present in no small danger of going into the opposite one, by considering man as entirely a factitious being, that may be moulded into any form by education and fashion.

I have said that the power of education is confined within certain limits. The reason is obvious, for it is by cooperating with the natural principles of the mind that education produces its effects. Nay, this very susceptibility of education, which is acknowledged to belong universally to the race, presupposes the existence of certain principles which are common to all mankind.

The influence of education in diversifying the appearances which the moral constitution of man exhibits in different instances depends chiefly on that law of our constitution which was formerly called the association of ideas; and this law supposes, in every case, that there are opinions and feelings essential to the human frame, by a combination with which external circumstances lay hold of the mind, and adapt it to its accidental situation. What we daily see happen in the trifling article of dress may help us to conceive how the association of ideas operates in matters of more serious consequence. Fashion, it is well known, can reconcile us, in the cource of a few weeks, to the most absurd and fantastical ornament; but does it follow from this that fashion could create our ideas of beauty and elegance? During the time we have seen this ornament worn, it has been confined, in a great measure, to those whom we consider as models of taste, and has been gradually associated with the impressions produced by the real elegance of their appearence and manner. When it pleases by itself, the effect is not to be ascribed to the thing considered abstractedly, nor to any change which our general notions of beauty have undergone, but to the impressions with which it has been generally connected, and which it naturally recalls

to the mind. The case is nearly the same with our moral sentiments. A man of splendid virtues attracts some esteem also to his imperfections, and, if placed in a conspicuous situation, may corrupt the moral sentiments of the multitude in the same manner in which he may introduce an absurd or fantastical ornament by his whimsical taste in the articles of dress. The commanding influence of Cato's virtues seems to have produced somewhat of this effect on the minds of some of his admirers. He was accused, we are told, of intemperance in wine; nor do his apologists pretend altogether to deny the charge. "But," says one of them, "it would be much easier to prove that intemperance is a decent and respectable quality, than that Cato could be guilty of any vice." "Catoni ebrietas objecta est; et facilius efficiet, quisquis objecerit, hoc crimen honestum, quam turpem Catonem."

In general it may be remarked, that, as education may vary in particular cases the opinions of individuals with respect to the objects of taste, without being able to create our notions of beauty or deformity, of grandeur or meanness, so education may vary our sentiments with respect to particular actions, but could not create our notions of right and wrong, of merit and demerit. *

With respect to the historical facts which have been quoted as proofs that the moral judgments of mankind are entirely factitious, we may venture to assert in general, that none of them justify so very extravagant a conclusion; that a great part of them are the effects of misrepresentation; and that others lead to a conclusion directly the reverse of what has been drawn from them. It would hardly be necessary, in the present times, to examine them seriously, were it not for the authority which, in the opinion of many, they still continue to derive from the sanction of Mr. Locke.

It is observed by Condorcet in his Eloge of Euler," That, if we except the common maxims of morality, there is no one truth which can boast of having been so generally adopted, or through such a succession of ages, as certain ridiculous and pernicious errors." The assertion, although not without some foundation in fact, is manifestly expressed by this author in terms too strong and unqualified. I quote it here chiefly on account of the remarkable concession which it involves in favor of the fundamental principles of morality;—a subject on which it has been generally alleged by sceptical writers, that our opinions are more liable, than on most others, to be warped by the influence of education and fashion.

"Have there not been whole nations," says this eminent philosopher, " and those of the most civilized people, among whom the exposing their children, and leaving them in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts, has been the practice, as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them? Do they not still in some countries put them into the same graves with their mothers if they die in child-birth, or despatch them if a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy stars? And are there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their parents without any remorse at all? Where, then, are our innate ideas of justice, piety, gratitude; or where is that universal consent that assures us there are such inbred rules?"

To this question of Locke's, so satisfactory an answer has been given by various writers, that it would be superfluous to enlarge on the subject here. It is sufficient to refer, on the origin of infanticide, to Mr. Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments; and, on the alleged impiety among some rude tribes of children towards their parents, to Charron Sur la Sagesse, † and to an excellent note of Dr. Beattie's in his Essay on Fable and Romance. The reasonings of the two last writers are strongly confirmed by Mr. Ellis in his voyage for the Discovery of a North-West Passage, and by Mr. Curtis, (afterwards Sir Roger Curtis) in a paper containing some particulars with respect to the country of Labradore, published in the Philosophical Transactions for the year 1773.

In order to form a competent judgment on facts of this nature, it is necessary to attend to a variety of considerations which have been too frequently overlooked by philosophers; and, in particular, to make proper allowances for the three following:-1. For the different situations in which mankind are placed, partly by the diversity in their physical circumstances, and partly by the unequal degrees of civilization which they have

Vol. II. p. 45.

† Liv. ii. Chap. viii. Charron's argument is evidently pointed at certain passages in Montaigne's Essays, in which that ingenious writer has fallen into a train of thought very similar to that which is the groundwork of Locke's reasonings against innate practical principles.

attained. 2. For the diversity of their speculative opinions, arising from their unequal measures of knowledge or of capacity; and, 3. For the different moral import of the same action under different systems of external behaviour.

I. (1.) In a part of the globe, where the soil and climate are so favorable as to yield all the necessaries, and many of the luxuries of life, with little or no labor on the part of man, it may reasonably be expected that the ideas of men will be more loose concerning the rights of property than where nature has been less liberal in her gifts. As the right of property is founded, in the first instance, on the natural sentiment, that the laborer is entitled to the fruits of his own labor, it is not surprising, that, where little or no labor is required for the gratification of our desires, theft should be regarded as a very venial offence. There is here no contradiction in the moral judgments of mankind. Men feel there, with respect to those articles which we appropriate with the most anxious care, as we, in this part of the world, feel with respect to air, light and water. If a country could be found in which no injustice was apprehended in depriving an individual of an enjoyment which he had provided for himself by a long course of persevering industry, the fact would be something to the purpose. But this, we may venture to say, has not yet been found to be the case in any quarter of the globe. That the circumstance I mention is the true explanation of the prevalence of theft in the South Sea Islands, and of the venial light in which it is there regarded, appears plainly from the accounts of our most intelligent navigators. "There was another circumstance," says Captain Cook, speaking of the inhabitants of the Sandwich Islands, "in which the people perfectly resemble the other islanders we had visited. At first on their entering the ship they endeavoured to steal every thing they came near, or rather to take it openly, as what we either should not resent, or not hinder.” (January 1778.)

In another place, talking of the same people :-"These islanders," says he, "merited our best commendations