10. Moral Judgment does not result from the comparison of individual objects, but from the comparison of a particular act with a general truth. The comparison of an envious disposition present in consciousness, with a former experience of the same kind, only warrants the affirmation that these are two examples of the same disposition. Their similarity of nature being recognised, and the accuracy of a judgment of condemnation upon the earlier experience being assumed, there is a legitimate inference to the wrongness of the present disposition; but it is thereby proved that the judgment is not attained by simple comparison of particular cases. The first judgment,—and by consequence, every dependent judgment, -must be accounted for by reference to a general truth applicable to all examples of the same form of experience. Moral Judgments, therefore, take rank as judgments which apply a definite standard in particular cases.

11. Moral Judgments are not distinguished by moral quality, as right or wrong, but by intellectual quality, as true or false, correct or incorrect; and they are as liable to error as other judgments.-Hutcheson's Syst. of Mor. Philos. 1. 4, 9.

12. Every accurate moral judgment affirms a particular application of a general moral truth. It contains a principle valid as a law of activity, not only in the particular case, but in all similar cases; not only at this time, but at all times (Id quod semper aequum et bonum est); a principle whose validity is in its own nature. There are other judgments which apply a standard altogether adventitious, the result of agreement, or of common association. Judgments of morality differ in this respect from judgments of measurement. The judgment that an honest or benevolent act is right, contains an element of self-evident truth. The judgment that an extended body is seven yards long, contains an element of truth dependent on common consent. In morality, the standard of judgment is invariable, because independent of personal or national choice. In measurement, the standard of judgment

is variable, because dependent upon national sanction. There may be various standards of measurement, but only one standard of morality. Truthfulness, and noth else, must be the standard of morality in utterance. Honesty, and nothing more nor less, must be the standard of morality affecting property. It is therefore an essential feature of a valid moral judgment that it carry in it a general truth.

13. PROBLEMS.-(1.) Distinguish between the rightness of an action, and the approbation of the action. (2.) In discussing the manner in which moral qualities are recognised, is the question as to 'that which renders morality an active principle' (Hume, followed by Mackintosh) legitimately introduced? (3.) Distinguish between the rightness of an action, and the merit of an agent. (4.) How is the moral quality of an action distinguished from obligation to do or not to do it?

CHAPTER III.

FIRST PRINCIPLES OF MORALS.

(INTUITIONAL THEORY.)

1. As Moral Judgments involve the application of a general truth to a particular action, they pre-suppose knowledge of First Principles as a requisite for the discovery of moral distinctions among actions. For example, approval of a man who speaks the truth, is implicitly approval of truthfulness itself. The ultimate intellectual basis of the approval may be very dimly perceptible to the person pronouncing the judgment; but when such a judgment is scientifically tested, its philosophical warrant is found in the general principle that Truthfulness itself is right, that is, that Truthfulness is of the very nature of rectitude. Mr. Martineau denies that Morality is a system of truths.--Essays, second series, p. 6.

The term Principle (principium, άpxý) signifies literally a beginning, and may refer to any commencement. Within the mind, it applies either to first principles of knowledge or to sources of activity, such as the passions. It is here employed in the former sense exclusively. See Reid, Intell. Powers, Essay vi. c. 4, and Hamilton's Notes, p. 761; very particularly Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, Transcend. Dialectic, Intro. II., Meiklejohn's transl. p. 212. In the latter sense it is employed by Hume, Adam Smith, and others who assign superiority to sentiment.

2. The general truths involved in moral judgments are such in their nature that a reasoned contradiction of them cannot be maintained. Their opposites are incapable of vindication by any test, either from the forms of knowledge, or from the facts of experience. That Falsehood is right, that Malevolence is right, that Cowardice is right, are positions which cannot be reasoned out as applicable to human conduct. -Hume's Essays (Prin. of Morals, sect. i.); Reid's Intell. Powers, vi. 6 (Hamilton's Ed., p. 454).

3. The general truths involved in moral judgments are not generalized truths dependent for their validity on an induction of particulars; but self-evident truths, known independently of induction. They are as clearly recognised when a single testing case is presented for adjudication, as when a thousand such cases have been decided. In this relation, the Inductive Method guides merely to the fact that such truths are discovered in consciousness. But Induction as little explains the intellectual and ethical authority of these truths, as it settles the nature of the facts pertaining to physical science. The rightness of Honesty is not proved by an induction of particulars. But the conclusion that 'Honesty is the best policy,' is essentially a generalization from experience.

For elucidation of the former statement, it is needful to distinguish between the Action,-the Judgment, as to its moral character, the Warrant for that judgment,-and the Abstraction which represents the particular form of moral quality present, namely, Honesty. Exchange of property by mutual consent may stand for the example. The judgment is that the acquisition of property in such a manner is morally right. What then is the warrant for this judgment? The purchaser pays his money and receives the property. Purchase depends on possession of the purchase-money. Honesty consists in paying the price. In pronouncing upon an exchange of property, therefore, we lean on a principle which determines what is right in acquiring property. How did the purchaser obtain his

money? In reply, we are led back to personal effort, where we come upon the natural law of production—the ultimate law on which Political Economy rests-man possesses wealth by producing it. The source of property is in the man himself. So it is with the source of truthfulness, temperance, beneficence. The moralist is thus led into the inner circle of human life. He deals with the activity which has its source within and only its ultimate results in the outer world. Moral quality does not belong to property, but only to personal activity; consequently, moral considerations are not concerned with variety in the kinds of property, but only with the lines of action taken for securing it. Rightness or wrongness applies to personal action in acquiring property. And the question of morality in acquisition, must depend upon what is right in producing property. This result is reached by simple analysis of the facts, discovering their relation to each other. By the use of his understanding in the direction of his energies, man becomes a producer. This is, in point of fact, the origin of property.

This analysis brings us to Personality as the centre and source of the activity to which alone moral distinctions are applicable. The question as to property thus becomes ultimately a question as to the use or non-use of our powers. By the use of our powers property is produced; without such activity, production is impossible. The enquiry is thus concerned with what is right in the use of our powers. Here there are two preliminary facts essential to the case. These are, the existence of powers to be used, and ability for self-direction in their use. The latter is obviously itself a power, which might be included in the first statement, but it is here distinguished as different from the producing powers, and concerned in their control. There are then powers, physical and mental, by the use of which man becomes a producer, and he has power of self-direction, by means of which he can determine, with due regard to external circumstances, what he shall