plain, that we never approve or disapprove, neither with respect to ourselves or others, but when we are sensible an action is done voluntarily, by choice, with reflexion, and without external compulsion or necessity. Thus we neither approve nor disapprove what is done by a brute, an ideot, or changeling; nor even what a rational creature does, not of itself, but when externally forced and compelled. Approbation and disapprobation always suppose their object to be matter of voluntary and free choice and affection. We neither approve nor disapprove ourselves, but when we are conscious that what we do is our own voluntary deed. And with regard to other beings, in like manner, we can neither approve nor disapprove, but when we imagine an action is performed by them with like choice, affection and freedom,<113> as when we approve or disapprove ourselves for doing or omitting. It is not merely because actions are advantageous or disadvantageous, that we approve or disapprove them; actions must be free, in order to move such sentiments and affections. If they are not, we regard them as the fall of a beam or a tile. This is too evident to be longer insisted upon.
Of these veracity, candour, benevolence, &c. excite our approbation, and their contraries our disapprobation.
II. But of free actions, or actions excited to by affections, and done with reflexion, some cannot be reflected upon without approbation, nor others without dislike and condemnation. Now, what are those, which move our approbation, and by what characteristic are they distinguished from the others? It is experience that must determine this question. And therefore let any one consider,a how benevolent actions; how truth, candour, veracity, benignity, and such like dispositions, with their proper exertions in action affect us, so soon as we reflect upon them, or contemplate them: and what we think, on the other hand, of their contraries, falshood, dissimulation, treachery, instability, narrowness of mind, selfishness, malice, &c. Creatures capable of reflection, can, nay must make all the affections they experience in their breasts, and by which they are moved to action, the objects of their understanding: they must perceive them, and perceiving them there will naturally and necessarily arise in their minds a new class of affections towards these affections they feel themselves to be moved by. What then are the affections which we experience to accompany the different sorts of affections which have been just mentioned? How do they affect<114> or move us? Are they pleasant to us on reflexion and contemplation, or disagreeable, or do they no way touch or move us; but are we quite neutral and indifferent to them: or when we are agreeably affected by the one sort, and disagreeably affected by the other sort, as we certainly are, whether we will or not, when they are present to our mind, and reflected upon. Is it the same sort of pleasure or pain we perceive when we reflect upon a beautiful and useful plant or an ugly and pernicious one? One or other of these must be said. But surely it will not be affirmed, that we are quite unmoved by such contemplation, and that no affections, whether of the generous or ungenerous kind, do either excite our like or dislike, our approbation or disapprobation; for this would be to assert, that no one character is more agreeable to us than another; but that the mind is equally indifferent to all sorts of characters and tempers. Far less will it be said, that the false, deceitful, mercenary man is agreeable to us; and that the faithful, trusty, and benevolent man moves our hatred. And to say, that tho’ we are differently affected by these opposite characters, yet it is no otherwise than as we are differently affected with fruit, for instance, according as it is pleasant or disagreeable to our taste, is absurd. For however much we may like or dislike a particular sensation of taste fruit may affect us with; yet surely we do not like and dislike, approve and disapprove fruits, in the same way we like and dislike, approve and disapprove characters. Do we like or approve our generous friend in no other way than we like or dislike our dinner?
But if we are affected by such actions and characters, as have been described, agreeably or disagreeably, in a different way from the agreeable or disagreeable manner in which meats and drinks affect us; then it must follow, that we are fitted and determined by our nature to receive from the consideration of such actions and characters a particular<115> kind of agreeable or disagreeable sentiment, properly expressed by approbation and disapprobation. For this must be true, in general, that no one thing can give us pleasure or pain unless we are fitted by our make to be so affected by it. We could not, for instance, have the pleasures which the modifications of light and colours give to the eye, if we were not so framed as to perceive them and be agreeably affected by them. Now if we are determined by our nature to approve or disapprove characters, in the way that has been mentioned, we may give and ought to give, this aptitude, this determination in our nature a particular distinguishing name to denote it. Let it therefore be called a sense of the difference between actions or characters, or more shortly, a moral sense.
Whether we have a moral sense or not, is a question of fact.
Arguments to prove we have it.
Let us reason about this matter as much as we will, all we can do is but to turn this question into various shapes, viz. “Whether we are not necessarily determined to approve the public affections in ourselves or others, which lead to such conduct as promotes the good of our fellow creatures, and to disapprove their opposites; and that immediately, so soon as any one of them is presented to our mind.” For the question is about a fact, a part of our constitution; about something felt and experienced within us, in consequence of our frame; and it cannot possibly be decided, but by consciousness, or by attending to our mind, in order to know how we are affected on certain occasions by certain objects. But if any matter of experience merits our attention, this does, and therefore I shall offer the following considerations about it.
From analogy.
For we have a sense of beauty in sensible forms.
I. Did not affections, actions and characters, when they are contemplated by the understanding, and are thus made objects of thought and reflection, move us agreeably or disagreeably, there would be an analogy in nature wanting, which we have no reason from nature to think can be wanting. For there is nothing<116> more certain, than that all sensible forms, so soon as they are presented to the mind, do affect it with the agreeable perception of beauty, or the disagreeable perception of deformity. Some objects of sense do indeed so little affect us, that the perception produced by their contemplation is scarcely attended to; but every perception, as such, must be in some degree either pleasant or painful; tho’ it is only when perceptions have a considerable degree of pleasure or pain, that they considerably interest us, and we are therefore at any pains to class them, and give particular names to their effects upon us. However, setting aside that consideration, it is evident, in fact, with regard almost to all bodies or subjects of sense, that they give us either the idea of beauty or deformity according to the different disposition, measure or arrangement of their several parts. It is the same with respect to sounds; from every combination of them, there necessarily results either harmony or discord. Now, did not moral subjects affect us in like manner with the sense of beauty and deformity, as sensible species or images of bodies do,a there<117> would not be that analogy between the natural and moral world, or between the fabric of our mind with relation to sensible and to moral objects, that one is naturally led to apprehend must take place by the universal analogy of nature to itself observed throughout all its works. No object can indeed be present to the understanding or perceived by it, without affecting it in some manner as an object of the understanding, or as an intelligible species. And therefore every moral object must be fitted to affect the mind with some affection suited to it as a moral species, or an intelligible form. But not to lay any stress at all upon that abstract truth. How can we acknowledge a sense of beauty and deformity with respect to corporeal subjects, and no analogous sense with respect to mental ones? Can we allow the mind to have an eye or an ear for bodily proportions and harmonies; and yet imagine it has no eye or ear by which it can distinguish moral appearances and effects? No sense, whereby it can scan thoughts, and sentiments, and affections, or distinguish the beautiful and deformed, the harmonious and dissonant, the agreeable and disagreeable in them. Does the bodily eye afford us perceptions of pleasure and pain distinct from the sensations of touch? And has the understanding or eye of the mind, when it is employed about moral forms, no such discernment? Has it no class of pleasures and pains belonging to it, as a seeing or discerning faculty?
