space. But if the moral distinctions be as regular as the whole system of laws which carry on, in unbroken harmony, the motions of the universe, this regularity is sufficient for us, while we exist on earth; and when we leave this earth, we carry with us a conscience, which can have little fear that the virtues which Heaven has made it so delightful for us to practise below, and which have been the chief instruments of producing a happiness which, when the universe was formed with such innumerable adaptations to the enjoyment of all who live, was surely not foreign to the intention of its Author,―will, in that immortality, which is only a prolongation of this mortal life, be regarded with abhorrence by that great Being, whose perfections, however faintly we have endeavoured to image, and who has here been so lavish to us of a love, as constant in its approbation of moral good, as the moral excellence which it has made happy. We have now, then, examined very fully the great question, as to the distinctions which we find man every where to have made of actions, as morally right or wrong; and I trust, for the sake of your happiness in life at least, as much as for the accuracy of your philosophy, that you are not inclined to withhold your logical assent from the doctrine of the moral distinction of vice and virtue, a doctrine which seems to me to have every character of truth as a faithful picture of the phenomena of the mind; and which it would, therefore, be as erroneous, as it would be miserable, to deny. Certain actions, then, excite, when considered by us, certain emotions of moral regard. But, what are those actions, and how are they to be arranged? In this inquiry, which involves the whole doctrine of practical ethics, philosophers have been very generally misled, by that spirit of excessive simplification, of which, in the course of the various discussions that have occupied us together, we have had occasion to remark many striking instances; and in part, too, by the influence of another error, which also we have had frequent occasion of remarking,-the error of considering mere abstractions as realities. In considering the emotion, or rather the various emotions excited by the various objects which are termed beautiful, we observed the constant tendency of inquiries into these interesting phenomena, to suppose that there is one universal Beauty, which is diffused in all the objects that are termed beautiful, and forms, as it were, a constituent part of them. One Beauty of the world entire, The universal Venus,-far beyond The keenest effort of created eyes, And their most wide horizon,-dwells enthroned An altar burning with eternal fire, Unsullied, unconsumed. Here, every hour,- Of sisters, comely all, but differing far In age, in stature, and expressive mien, More than bright Helen from her new-born babe. To this maternal shrine, in turns they come Each with her sacred lamp;-that, from the source In stars, in planets, through the unknown shores Are rendered solemn by their frequent feet, Their rites sublime. There each her destin'd home, Informs with that pure radiance from the skies Brought down, and shines throughout her little sphere This universal Venus, from the undecaying flame of whose altar, has been derived whatever warms us with delight, in the myriads of myriads of objects that are lovely in nature, is indeed one of the most magnificent personifications of poetry. But philosophy has, in truth, been as fond of this personification as poetry itself, and is for ever seeking in objects that are beautiful, the charm of this universal beauty. It has been not less fond of personification in its ethical inquiries, and has for ever been employed in the search of one universal virtue of something, that is capable of existing, as it were, in various forms-and that may be supposed to form a part of all the actions which are denominated virtuous. There is no virtue, however, as I have already repeatedly said there are only virtuous actions, or to speak still more correctly, only virtuous agents: and it is not one virtuous agent only, or any number of virtuous agents, acting in one uniform manner, that excite our moral emotion of regard; but agents acting in many different ways-in ways, that are not less different in themselves, on account of the real or supposed simplicity of the generalizations and classifications, which we may have made. By some all virtue has been said to consist in benevolence-as if temperance, patience, fortitude-all the heroic exercises of self-command, in adversity and every species of suffering, were not regarded by us with moral love, till we had previously discovered, in the heroic sufferer, some benevolent desire, which led him thus to endure,-without a single murmur, or rather in all the circumstances of the case, with choice,-an amount of physical evil, from which others would have shrunk with cowardly feebleness. By another sect of philosophers, the virtues of self-command have been exalted even above the gentler virtues of benevolence. By others the calm exercise of justice has been said to involve all moral excellence; and almost every ethical writer has had some favourite virtue, to which he has built his altar, and ascribed to it a sort of omnipresence, in all the other virtues, that are adored; and that, but for the presence of this, as the inherent divinity, would have been objects of a worship that was idolatrous. From this very circumstance, indeed, of the different favourite virtues of different philosophers, some sophistical writers have endeavoured to draw conclusions, subversive of the very distinctions of virtue and vice. They forget, that even those, who form their little exclusive systems, are still thus exclusive in their systems only-that, in their hearts, they feel the same regard for every virtue as if they had never entered into ethical controversy, and that the asserters of benevolence, as all which constitutes moral worth, did not, on that account, deny a moral difference of patience and impatience; -they only laboured to prove, though they might not be very successful in their demonstration, that to be patient was but a form of being benevolent, * Pleasures of the Imagination, B. I. and was valued by us for nothing more than the benevolence which it implied. Of these two narrow systems, it would be useless, however, to enter into any examination at present. Their error will be best seen, by considering the virtues which they would exclude. The classification of these virtues, that may be regarded as the most convenient, is that which considers them as duties, in their relation to different individuals, and, in the first place, as the most comprehensive of all classification,-the arrangement of them as duties which relate primarily to others, and duties which relate directly to our selves. LECTURE LXXXIII. DIVISION OF THE PRACTICAL VIRTUES INTO THREE CLASSES-DUTIES THAT RELATE PRIMARILY TO OTHERS-DUTIES THAT RELATE DIRECTLY TO OURSELVES-AND DUTIES TO GOD. GENTLEMEN, after the discussions in which we have been of late engaged, of the theory of morals, we are now to enter on the consideration of those practical duties of which we have been investigating the source. Man is not formed to know only,―he is formed still more to avail himself of his knowledge, by acting in conformity with it. In the society in which he is placed, he is surrounded with a multitude, to almost every one of whom some effort of his may be beneficial,—who, if they do not require the aid of his strenuous and long-continued exertions, which are necessary only on rare occasions, require, at least, in the social intercourse of life, those little services of easy courtesy, which are not to be estimated as slight, from the seeming insignificance of each separate act; since they contribute largely to the amount of general happiness by the universality of their diffusion, and the frequency of the repetition. While his actions may thus have almost unremitting usefulness, Nature has, with a corresponding provision, made it delightful to man to be active; and, not content with making it delightful to him to be merely active, since this propensity to action, which of itself might lead him sometimes to benefit others, might of itself also lead him to injure as well as to benefit,—she has, as we have seen, directed him how to act, by that voice of conscience which she has placed within his breast; and given still greater efficacy to that voice by the pain which she has attached to disobedience, and the pleasure that is felt in obeying it, and remembering it as obeyed. Of this moral pleasure it is, indeed, the high character, that it is the only pleasure which no situation can preclude; since it is beyond the reach of all those external aggressions and chances, which can lessen only the power of diffusing happiness, not the wish of diffusing it,--and which, even in robbing the virtuous of every thing beside, must still leave with them the good which they have done, and the good which they would wish to do. Human life, then, when it is such, as not impartial spectators only, but the individual himself, can survey with pleasure, is the exercise, and almost the unremitting exercise, of duties. To have discharged these best, is to have lived best. It is truly to have lived the most nobly, though there may have been no vanities of wealth in the simple home, which was great only because it contained a great inhabitant,—and no vanities of heraldry on the simple tomb, under the rude stone of which, or under the turf which is unmarked by any memorial, or by any ornament but the herbage and the flowers which nature every where sheds,—the ashes of a great man repose. What mere symbols of honour, indeed, which man can confer, could add to the praise of him who possesses internally, all which those symbols, even when they are not falsely representative of a merit that does not exist, can only picture to the gazer's eye,-to the praise of him who has done every thing which it was right for him to do,--who has abstained, in his very desires, from every thing which it would have required a sacrifice of virtue to possess, and who, in suffering the common ills of our nature, has suffered them as common ills, not repining at affliction, nor proud of enduring it without a murmur, but feeling only that it is a part of a great system which is good, and that it is that which it is easy to bear. Human life, then, when it is worthy of the name of life, is, as I have said, the exercise of duties. In treating of our practical virtues, I shall consider, first, those which directly relate to our fellow-creatures, and afterwards, those which immediately relate to ourselves. Besides these two classes of duties, indeed, there are others of a still higher kind,-the duties which we owe to the great Being who formed us,--duties which, though they do not absolutely produce all the others, at least add to them a force of obligation, which more than doubles their own moral urgency; and with the wilful violation or neglect of which, there can be as little moral excellence of character in the observance of other duties, as there would be in the virtue of any one, who after boasting of a thousand good deeds, should conclude by confessing, that he had never felt the slightest affection for the parent to whom he owed existence, and wisdom, and worldly honour,-or for some generous benefactor who had been to him like a parent. These duties of gratitude and reverence which we owe to God, will admit, however, of more appropriate illustration, after the inquiries on which we are to enter in another part of the course, with respect to the traces of the divine perfections, that are revealed to us in the frame and order of the universe. At present, then, the practical virtues which we have to consider, are those that relate immediately, only to our fellow-creatures and ourselves. Of these two great classes of duties, let us consider, in the first place, the duties that primarily relate to others. Of the living multitude in the midst of which we are placed on this earth which is our common home, by far the greater number have no other relation to us, than simply as they are human beings,-who may, indeed, sometimes come within the sphere of our usefulness, and who, even when they are far beyond this sphere of active aid, are still within the range of our benevolent affection, to which there are no limits even in distance the most remote,but to whom this benevolence of mere wishes is the only duty which, in such circumstances, is consigned to us. There are others, with whom we feel ourselves connected by peculiar ties, and to whom, therefore, we owe peculiar duties, varying in kind and importance, with the nature of the circumstances that connect us with them. The general duties which we owe to all mankind, may be treated first,-before we enter on the consideration of the pe culiar duties which we owe to certain individuals only, of this wide community. The general offices which we owe to every individual of mankind, may be reduced to two great generic duties,-one negative, the other positive,-one leading us to abstain from all intentional injury of others, the other leading us to be actively beneficial to them. With the former of these, at least with the greater number of the specific duties which it generically comprehends, justice is very nearly synonymous; with the other set of specific duties, benevolence; -which, though it may, in truth, be made to comprehend the negative duties also, since, to wish to benefit, is at the same time to wish not to injure, is usually confined to the desire of positive increase of good, without including mere abstinence from injury. I proceed, then, to the consideration of the former set of duties, which are negative only,—as limited to abstinence from every thing which might be injurious to others. These duties, of course, are, specifically, as various as the different sorts of injury which it is in our power to occasion, directly or indirectly. Such injuries,—if man were wicked enough and fearless enough both of individual resentment and of the law, to do whatever it is in his power to do,— would, in their possible complication and variety, be almost beyond our power of numbering them, and giving them names. The most important, however, if arranged according to the objects which it is the direct immediate intention of the injurer, at the moment of an injury, to assail, may be considered as reducible to the following general heads :-They are injuries which affect the sufferer directly in his person,-in his property,-in the affections of others,--in his character,-in his knowledge or belief,-in his virtue,—in his tranquillity. They are injuries, I repeat, which are intended to affect the sufferer directly in his person,-in his property,-in the affections of others, -in his character, &c. Let us now, then, proceed to the consideration of these subdivisions of our merely negative duty, in the order in which I have now stated them. Of injuries to the person of another, the most atrocious, I need not say, is that which deprives him of life; and as it is the only evil which is absolutely irreparable by us, and is yet one to which many of our most impetuous passions might lead us,-jealousy, envy, revenge, or even sudden wrath itself,-without taking into account those instances of violence in which murder is only the dreadful mean of accomplishing a sordid end,-the Creator and Preserver of man has provided against the frequency of a crime to which there might seem so many fearful inducements and facilities,-by rendering the contemplation of it something, from which even the most abandoned shrink with a loathing which is, perhaps, the only human feeling which still remains in their heart; and the commission of it a source of a wilder agony of horror than can be borne, even by the gloomy heart which was capable of conceiving the crime. "Homo homini res sacra.' When we read or hear of the assassin, who is driven, by the anguish of his own conscience, to reveal to those whom most he dreaded, the secret which he was most anxious to hide,--addressing himself to the guardians, not of the mere laws, which he has offended, (for of the laws of man he does not think, except that he may submit himself to that death which they only can award,) but to the guardians of the life and happiness of those whose interests have been assigned to them,-the guardians of the individual whom their protection, at that moment, which is ever before |