without intending it, the effect in that case is perceived to be ill, and the action to be wrong; but not in such a degree as when intended: and, next, That if the disagreeable effect, though not foreseen, might have been foreseen, it is also perceived to be ill, and the action wrong, though in a still lower degree.
As instinctive actions are caused by blind instinct, without the least view to consequences, they are not perceived to be right or <6> wrong, but indifferent: and the effects produced by them may be agreeable or disagreeable; but they are not perceived to be good or ill; they are also indifferent.
Right actions are distinguishable into two kinds, viz. what ought to be done, and what may be done or left undone. Wrong actions are all of one sort, viz. what ought not to be done. Right actions that may be done or left undone, are, from our very conception of them, a matter of choice: they are right when done; but it is not a wrong to leave them undone. Thus, to remit a just debt for the sake of a growing family; to yield a subject in controversy, rather than go to law with a neighbour; generously to return good for ill, are right actions, universally approved: yet every man is sensible, that such actions are left to his free will, and that he is not bound to perform any of them.
Actions that ought to be done, as well as actions that ought not to be done, merit peculiar attention; because they give occasion to the moral terms duty and obligation; which come next in order. To say that an action ought to be done, means that we have no liberty nor choice, but are necessarily tied or obliged to perform: and to say that an action ought not to be done, means that we are necessarily restrained from doing it. Though this necessity be moral only, not physical; yet we conceive ourselves deprived by it of liberty and choice, and bound to act, or to forbear acting, in opposition to every other motive. The necessity here described is termed duty: the abstaining from harming the innocent is a proper example; which the moral sense makes an indispensable duty, without leaving a single article of it to our own free will.
If I be bound in duty to perform or to forbear any particular action, there must be a title or right in some person to exact that duty from me; and accordingly a duty or obligation necessarily implies a title or right.
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Thus, the duty of abstaining from mischief implies a right in others to be secured against mischief: the man who does an injury, perceives that he has done wrong by violating the right of the person injured; and that person hath a perception of suffering wrong by having his right violated.
Our duty is two-fold; duty to others, and duty to ourselves. With respect to others, an action that we ought to do is termed just; an action that we ought not to do is termed unjust; and the omission of what we ought to do is also termed unjust. With respect to ourselves, an action that we ought to do is termed proper; and an action that <7> we ought not to do, as well as the omission of what we ought to do, are termed improper.
Thus, right, signifying a quality of certain actions, is a genus, of which just and proper are species: and wrong, signifying a quality of other actions, is a genus, of which unjust and improper are species.
The sense by which we perceive the qualities of good and ill in effects, of right and wrong in actions, and the other moral qualities mentioned and to be mentioned, is termed the MORAL SENSE or CONSCIENCE.*
There is no cause for doubting the existence of the moral sense, more than for doubting the existence of the sense of beauty, of the sense of seeing, of hearing, or of any other sense. In fact, the perception of right and wrong as qualities of actions, is not less distinct and clear than that of beauty, of colour, or of any other quality; and as every perception is an act of sense, the sense of beauty is not with greater certainty evinced from the perception of beauty, than the moral sense is from the perception of right and wrong.
This is the corner-stone of morality: for, abstracting from the moral sense, the qualities of good and ill in effects, and of right and wrong in
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actions, would be altogether inexplicable. We find this sense distributed among individuals in different degrees of perfection: but there perhaps never existed any one above the condition of an idiot, who possessed it not in some degree; and were any man entirely destitute of it, the terms right and wrong would to him be not less unintelligible than the term colour is to one born blind.
That every individual is endued with a sense of right and wrong, more or less distinct, will readily be granted; but whether there be among men what may be termed a COMMON SENSE of right and wrong, producing uniformity of opinion as to what actions are right and what wrong, is not so evident. There appears nothing absurd in supposing the opinions of men about right and wrong to be as various as their faces; and the history of mankind leads us to suspect, that this supposition is not destitute of foundation. For from <8> that history it appears, that among different nations, and even in the same nation at different periods, the opinions publicly espoused with regard to right and wrong are extremely various; that among some nations it was held lawful for a man to sell his children as slaves, and in their infancy to abandon them to wild beasts; that it was held equally lawful to punish children, even capitally, for the crime of their parent; that the murdering an enemy in cold blood, was once a common practice; that human sacrifices, impious not less than immoral according to our notions, were of old universal; that even in later times, it has been held meritorious to inflict cruel torments for the slightest deviations from the religious creed of the plurality; and that among the most enlightened nations, there are considerable differences with respect to the rules of morality.
These facts, however well founded, tend not to disprove the reality of a common sense as to morals: they only evince, that the moral sense has not been equally perfect at all times, and in all countries: which is not surprising, being the case of all our more refined senses and faculties; witness, in particular, the sense of beauty, of elegance, of propriety. And with regard to this point, the following observation may give satisfaction. In the order of Providence, the progress of our species toward perfection resembles that of an individual: we may observe an infancy in both; and in both a gradual progress toward maturity: nor is the resemblance the
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less perfect, that certain tribes, like certain individuals, ripen faster than others. The savage state is the infancy of man; during which the more delicate senses lie dormant, abandoning nations to the authority of custom, of imitation, and of passion, without any just taste of morals more than of the fine arts. But nations, like individuals, ripen gradually, and acquire in time a refined taste in morals, as well as in the fine arts; after which we find great uniformity of opinion about the rules of right and wrong, with few exceptions but what may proceed from imbecillity, or corrupted education. There may be found, it is true, even in the most enlightened ages, some men who have singular notions upon some points of morality; and there may be found the like singularity upon many other subjects: which affords no argument against a common sense or standard of right and wrong, more than a monster doth against the standard that regulates our external form, nor more than an exception doth against the truth of a general proposition.
That there is in mankind a common sense of what is right and wrong, and an uniformity of opinion, is a matter of fact, of which <9> the only infallible proof is observation and experience: and to that proof I appeal; entering only one caveat, That, for the reason above given, the inquiry be confined to nations of polished manners. In the mean time I take the liberty to suggest an argument from analogy, That if there be great uniformity among the different tribes of men in seeing and hearing, in truth and falsehood, in pleasure and pain, &c. what cause can we have for suspecting that right and wrong are an
