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THE

CHURCHMAN'S MONTHLY REVIEW

AND CHRONICLE.

JANUARY, 1846.

THE ELEMENTS OF MORALITY, INCLUDING POLITY. By WILLIAM WHEWELL, D.D., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, &c. In two vols. 8vo. London: Parker. 1845.

To a work on so vast a subject, and by one of the most powerful minds of our time, it is at least due that we first endeavour to give a fair account of its scope and general purport.

Mental Philosophy will always be an interesting subject of study to the thoughtful reader. It is, however, invariably the case, that works of this kind receive little attention, even from those who may be classed with the learned. Questions connected with trade, commerce, and manufactures, are considered of importance, and justly so, in a commercial country; but discussions on moral philosophy, carried on with an intention of deducing practical truths, are of greater importance; for on them may chiefly depend the orderly conduct and the moral well-being of the whole community. If ethical studies are unattractive, they are undoubtedly useful if we grant to mind the superiority claimed for it, the study of mind must be superior to all other studies to which that mind can be applied. Neither can the utility of such studies be disputed: the skill of the workman depends much on the knowledge he possesses of the power and method of adapting the power-of the various instruments he employs and the utility cannot be less of our endeavour to learn, even imperfectly, the nature of that mysterious part of our being, deprived of which we should be reduced to the condition of brutes, without their instinct and physical strength. Other studies there are, which have apparently a degree

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of fascination which produces students, theorists, and their opponents, and the enthusiasm which should accompany every successful advance in knowledge: but it is very different with mental, and especially moral philosophy;-and thus it is that years pass away, before an addition is made to ethical literature. The greatest minds of antiquity were roused to the consideration of moral questions, and made no little progress in that science.

Paley's Moral Philosophy is the only systematic work of any consideration in the English language; and this is open to great objections. It is to supply this deficiency, and to substitute a work free from the errors of Paley, that Professor Whewell has written these volumes. Paley's Moral Philosophy forms part of the Cambridge course of reading; and, on an important subject, it is singular that so long a period should have elapsed before any work has presented itself to supplant a book, the unsound principles of which have hitherto (by its use) received the countenance and acquiescence of the university. Excepting these volumes, it would be very difficult to find a work which could take the place of Paley; there is not one which contains a consistent exposition of true principles of morality (the great defect of Paley) with the same practical sense, moderation and acuteness, and conveyed with the same striking clearness and poignancy of style. But the defective groundwork of the morality cannot be counterbalanced by merits of exposition and general ability. It has even been considered that "The general currency which Paley's Moral Philosophy has acquired (a currency due, in no small degree, to the adoption of the work by this university) has had a very large share in producing the confusion and vacillation of thought respecting the grounds of morals, which is at present so generally prevalent in England, even among persons of cultivated minds." 1

These elements of morality have, therefore, great claims to attention, from the absence of any other sufficient work; from the subject itself; and also from the celebrity of the writer. The work commences with an outline of the faculties and actions, or motive powers of mind.

"In the present work I have to speak of the actions of man, and of those faculties by which he acts as man. These faculties belong to man in virtue of the human nature which is common to all men. They are human faculties, and give rise to human actions."-(p. 1.)

These springs of human action are then enumerated as follows: the appetites or bodily desires-the affections or mental desiresthe moral sentiments, and the reflex sentiments.

1 Cambridge University Sermon, November, 1837.

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'Every object of desire as contemplated by the mind may be described by the general term, as a good. Quicquid pelitur petitur sub specie boni. This is the most general aspect of the objects of desire. Opposed to the objects of desire, are objects which we shin, as pain, constraint, and the want or privation of objects of desire. Those are evils."—" Desires operating merely as tendencies to action, and not unfolded by the exercise of thought, so as to become tendencies to mental objects (abstractions), are like instincts." (p. 15.)

But this observation should also be extended to moral sentiments; for it is evident, right is an object of desire, that is, the moral perception of right is not unfolded by the exercise of thought, but operates merely as a tendency to action. In a child, the influence of the moral power is direct, and without the intervention of thought by any process of reasoning.

"That which is conformable to rules of action is right. We may observe that our judgment of actions as right, or as wrong-the opposite of right, is accompanied with certain affections or sentiments. Those affections, approbation, disapprobation, indignation, and esteem, are the moral sentiments.Though the moral sentiments thus partake of the nature of the affections, they differ in this respect, that they have for their objects in the first instance, not persons, but actions.-But the sentiment is transferred from the action to the agent, and thus the moral sentiments combine with and modify our other affections, and are powerful springs of action."-(p. 27.)

Moral rules also exist necessarily

"Man acts as man, when he acts under the influence of reason, and reason directs us to rules. Rules of action are necessary, therefore, for the action of man as man. We cannot conceive man as man, without conceiving him as subject to rules, and making part of an order in which rules prevail. He must act freely, therefore he must have security. He must act by means of external things, therefore he must have property. He must act with reference to other men's intentions, therefore there must be contracts. He must act with reference to parents, wife, and children, therefore there must be families. We cannot conceive man divested of free agency, of relation to external things, of communication with other men, of the ties of blood and affection. We must therefore conceive him as existing in security, with property, contracts, and family subsisting about him; existing, therefore, under rules by which these things are established; and thus such rules are necessary for the action of man as man.

"Such rules being established, that which is conformable to them is right, and the rules are moral rules. We must afterwards endeavour to establish such rules in detail; but in the mean time, we have shown in general that the establishment of moral rules is necessary for the peace of society, and for the action of man as man."-"It has been said by some, that the rules of human action, by which men in society are governed, are the results of mutual fear, by which the conflicting desires of different persons are balanced. But this is not a true view of the subject. Mutual fear and conflicting desires prevail among wild animals; but yet animals have not among then moral rules of action. Brute beasts cannot properly be said to steal from one another-to wrong one another-to be morally guilty. They cannot transgress a moral rule; because they have not reason, by which they may conceive a moral rule. Mutual fear and conflicting desire cannot give rise to a rule, when there does not exist the reason; which presenting the objects of desire and fear under the general and abstract form of conceptions, must supply the materials for a rule. It is not therefore fear and desire, but reason, which is the source of moral rules."-(pp. 33, 34.)

And as there is a universal human reason common to all, to which the reason of each should conform, so also there is a universal moral sympathy, common to all: "a conscience of mankind, to which each man's conscience must conform." To determine these moral rules, the import of the terms right and wrong must be exactly considered. The adjective right, signifies conformable to rule, and is used relatively to the object of the rule; and there may be a series of actions each conformable to the rule prescribing its particular action, the superior rule supplying a reason for the inferior.

"But besides such subordinate rules, there must be a supreme rule of human action. For the succession of means and ends, with the corresponding series of subordinate and superior rules, must somewhere terminate. And the inferior ends would have no value, as leading to the highest, except the highest end had a value of its own. The superior rules could give no validity to the subordinate ones, except there were a supreme rule, from which the validity of all these were ultimately derived. Therefore there is a supreme rule of human action. That which is conformable to the supreme rule is absolutely right; and is called right, simply, without relation to a special end. The opposite to right is wrong.

"The supreme rule of human aetion may also be described by its object. The object of the supreme rule of human action is spoken of as the true end of human action, the ultimate or supreme good, the summum bonum.”—(p. 37.)

In treating of the doctrine of rights and obligations, the Latin term jus is used, and the adjective jural. Morality being the doctrine of duties which imply rights and obligations, these are next brought under consideration; and it is observed that

"There is no term in the English language which denotes the doctrine of rights and obligations. In Latin, French, and German, the same term which denotes a right denotes also the doctrine of right. Thus we say Jus meum, and Stadium Juris: mon Droit, and l'étude du Droit: mein Recht, and die Kentniss des Rechts. In English, we say, My right, Their rights, but we do not use the term in the other sense. Instead of this we employ various phrases—thus, Jus Nature has sometimes been translated, the law of nature, sometimes the rights of nature, natural rights, natural justice. But no one of these phrases fully expresses the doctrine of rights: for rights are not law only nor justice only: (meaning by law, the law of society; and by justice, that which is right); they are both law and justice; law, because justice; justice expressed in law. Hence, when we have occasion to speak of the doctrine of rights and obligations in a single word, we shall borrow the Latin term jus and by the adjective jural, we shall denote that which has reference to the doctrine of rights and obligations; as by the adjective moral we denote that which has reference to the doctrine of duties. We have already, in the English language, several derivatives from the term jus, in the technical sense which we adopt: as jurist, jurisprudence, jurisdiction; so that the word need not sound strange in our ears. Jus is the study of the jurist. The term jurisprudence has sometimes been applied by English writers to describe the doctrine of rights and obligations in general: but the corresponding Latin term is often written in separate words;-Juris Prudentia, a knowledge of jus. It seems unreasonable and inconvenient to make the English name of this doctrine so much more complex than its names in other languages. The word jus is also implied in the word injury. The words just

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and justice are connected with the same root; but by these, we express moral, not merely jural, notions."-(p. 46.)

Duties are actions, or courses of action, considered as being right. Virtues are the habits of mind in which we perform duties. Thus virtue and duty are the objects of our moral sentiments. Actions opposed to these are offences; and the transgression of a duty, when habitual, is a vice. That which is a duty is a law of action. Those rights and obligations which attach to man in his position in the world as man, are duties, and enforce laws of action? Where there is a right, there is necessarily an obligation. The desire, and consequent existence of civil society, gives rise to another and a peculiar class of rights-those of government. Families cause the rights, obligations, and laws, without which no family could live in peace: the aggregate of families, or a civil family, requires the laws arising from the rights and obligations of

citizens.

"Society, where it thus declares and enforces laws, acts as a state, not merely as an assemblage of individuals, but as a collective agent. A state has an organization by which it acts. It has a government, tribunals, stated modes of action."-(p. 49.)

It has governors, judges, executive officers,-the law is administered, and thus "rights are realized, and remedies are provided for wrongs." Rights are made realities in human society, by its conduct as a society. The conceptions of personal security, property, contracts, and the like, are realized among men by their actions. Men, for the most part, respect each others' rights.

"The appropriation of rights is established and declared by the law, or by custom, which is law expressed in actions instead of words; and the law also gives rights validity or reality, by assigning punishment to those who violate them."

"Punishment is itself a reality, and thus gives reality to the rights which laws establish. The various forms of punishment, constraint, bodily pain, loss of possessions, exile, death, are among the most common and palpable of the real things from which the human affections and desires recoil. And by the existence of law, supported when necessary, by punishment, personal safety, property, contracts, marriage, become things no less real than the most palpable objects of bodily desire. Through the reality of such things, human society, instead of being a mere struggle of appetites, desires, and affections, tending to and from different quarters, is a balanced system, governed by a coherent body of rules. And all these rules spring, not from desire or affection, which know nothing of rules, or of the terms in which they are expressed; but from reason, which apprehending rules, directs us to right actions, as those which are conformable to the supreme rules; and to rights, as the terms in which subordinate rules must be expressed. From what has been said, it will be seen that the adjective right has a much wider signification than the substantive right. Every thing is right which is conformable to the supreme rule of human action; but that only is a right which, being conformable to the supreme rule, is realized in society, and vested in a particular person. Hence the two words may often be properly opposed. We may say that a poor man has no right to relief, but it is right he should have

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