who do the greatest good to others. It is absurd to say with some, that the pleasure of benevolence is selfish because it is felt by self. Understanding and reasoning are acts of self, for no man can think by proxy; but no one ever called them selfish. Why? Evidently because they do not regard self. Precisely the same reason applies to benevolence. Such an argument is a gross confusion of "self," as it is a subject of feeling or thought, with "self" considered as the object of either. It is no more just to refer the private appetites to self-love because they commonly promote happiness, than it would be to refer them to self-hatred in those frequent cases where their gratification obstructs it.

But, besides the private or public desires, and besides the calm regard to our own general welfare, there is a principle in man, in its nature supreme over all others. This natural supremacy belongs to the faculty which surveys, approves, or disapproves the several affections of our minds and actions of our lives. As self-love is superior to the private passions, so Conscience is superior to the whole of man. Passion implies nothing but an inclination to follow an object, and in that respect passions differ only in force: but no notion can be formed of the principle of reflection, or Conscience, which does not comprehend judgment, direction, superintendency; authority over all other principles of action is a constituent part of the idea of it, and cannot be separated from it. Had it strength as it has right, it would govern the world. The passions would have their power, but according to their nature, which is to be subject to Conscience. Hence we may understand the purpose at which the ancients, perhaps confusedly, aimed when they laid it down "that Virtue consisted in following Nature." It is neither easy, nor, for the main object of the moralist, important, to render the doctrines of the ancients by modern language. If Butler returns to this phrase too often, it was rather from the remains

of undistinguishing reverence for antiquity, than because he could deem its employment important to his own opinions.

The tie which holds together Religion and Morality is, in the system of Butler, somewhat different from the common representations of it, but not less close. Conscience, or the faculty of approving or disapproving, necessarily constitutes the bond of union. Setting out from the belief of Theism, and combining it, as he had entitled himself to do, with the reality of Conscience, he could not avoid discovering that the being who possessed the highest moral qualities, is the object of the highest moral affections. He contemplates the Deity through the moral nature of man. In the case of a being who is to be perfectly loved, "goodness must be the simple actuating principle within him, this being the moral quality which is the immediate object of love." "The highest, the adequate object of this affection, is perfect goodness, which, therefore, we are to love with all our heart, with all our soul, and with all our strength." "We should refer ourselves implicitly to him, and cast ourselves entirely upon him. The whole attention of life should be to obey his commands."* Moral dis

tinctions are thus presupposed before a step can be made towards Religion : Virtue leads to piety; God is to be loved, because goodness is the object of love; and it is only after the mind rises through human morality to divine perfection, that all the virtues and duties are seen to hang from the throne of God.†

REMARKS.

There do not appear to be any errors in the ethical principles of Butler: the following remarks are in*Sermon xiii. "On the Love of God."

"The part in which I think I have done most service is that in which I have endeavoured to slip in a foundation under Butler's doctrine of the supremacy of Conscience, which he left baseless." Sir James Mackintosh to Professor Napier.-ED.

tended to point out some defects in his scheme. And even that attempt is made with the unfeigned humility of one who rejoices in an opportunity of doing justice to that part of the writings of a great philosopher which has not been so clearly understood nor so justly estimated by the generality as his other works.

1. It is a considerable defect, though perhaps unavoidable in a sermon, that he omits all inquiry into the nature and origin of the private appetites, which first appear in human nature. It is implied, but it is not expressed in his reasonings, that there is a time before the child can be called selfish, any more than social, when these appetites seem as it were separately to pursue their distinct objects, and that this is long antecedent to that state of mind in which their gratification is regarded as forming the mass called "happiness." It is hence that they are likened to instincts distinct as these latter subsequently become.*

2. Butler shows admirably well, that unless there were principles of action independent of self, there could be no pleasures and no happiness for self-love to watch over. A step farther would have led him to perceive that self-love is altogether a secondary formation, the result of the joint operation of Reason and habit upon the primary principles. It could not have existed without presupposing original appetites and organic gratifications. Had he considered this part of the subject, he would have strengthened his case by showing that self-love is as truly a derived principle, not only as any of the social affections, but as any of the most confessedly acquired passions. It would appear clear, that as self-love is not divested of its self-regarding character by considering it as acquired, so the social affections do not lose any part of their disinterested character, if they be considered as

*The very able work ascribed to Mr. Hazlitt, entitled "Essay on the Principles of Human Action," Lond. 1805, contains

formed from simpler elements. Nothing would more tend to root out the old prejudice which treats a regard to self as analogous to a self-evident principle, than the proof that self-love is itself formed from certain original elements, and that a living being long subsists before its appearance.*

3. It must be owned that those parts of Butler's discourses which relate to the social affections are more satisfactory than those which handle the question concerning the moral sentiments. It is not that the real existence of the latter is not as well made out as that of the former. In both cases he occupies the unassailable ground of an appeal to consciousness. All men (even the worst) feel that they have a conscience and disinterested affections. But he betrays a sense of the greater vagueness of his notions on this subject he falters as he approaches it. : He makes no

attempt to determine in what state of mind the action of Conscience consists. He does not venture steadily to denote it by a name; he fluctuates between different appellations, and multiplies the metaphors of authority and command, without a simple exposition of that mental operation which these metaphors should only have illustrated. It commands other principles: but the question recurs, Why, or How?

Some of his own hints and some fainter intimations of Shaftesbury, might have led him to what appears to be the true solution, which, perhaps from its extreme simplicity, has escaped him and his successors. The truth seems to be, that the moral sentiments in their mature state, are a class of feelings which have no other object but the mental dispositions leading to voluntary action, and the voluntary actions which flow from these dispositions. We are pleased with some dispositions and actions, and displeased with others, in

* Compare this statement with the Stoical doctrine explained by Cicero in the book De Finibus, quoted above, of which it is the direct opposite.

means;

ourselves and our fellows. We desire to cultivate the dispositions and to perform the actions, which we contemplate with satisfaction. These objects, like all those of human appetite or desire, are sought for their own sake. The peculiarity of these desires is, that their gratification requires the use of no nothing (unless it be a volition) is interposed between the desire and the voluntary act. It is impossible, therefore, that these passions should undergo any change by transfer from being the end to being the means, as is the case with other practical principles. On the other hand, as soon as they are fixed on these ends, they cannot regard any further object. When another passion prevails over them, the end of the moral faculty is converted into a means of gratification. But volitions and actions are not themselves the end or last object in view, of any other desire or aversion. Nothing stands between the moral sentiments and their object; they are, as it were, in contact with the Will. It is this sort of mental position, if the expression may be pardoned, that explains or seems to explain those characteristic properties which true philosophers ascribe to them, and which all reflecting men feel to belong to them. Being the only desires, aversions, sentiments, or emotions which regard dispositions and actions, they necessarily extend to the whole character and conduct. Among motives to action, they alone are justly considered as universal. They may and do stand between any other practical principle and its object, while it is absolutely impossible that another shall intercept their connexion with the Will. Be it observed, that though many passions prevail over them, no other can act beyond its own appointed and limited sphere; and that such prevalence itself, leaving the natural order disturbed in no other part of the mind, is perceived to be a disorder, whenever seen in another, and felt to be so by the very mind disordered, when the disorder