the iniquitous sentence which condemned the nine captains, being neither intimidated by the menaces of the great, nor the fury of the people, but steadily preferring the sanctity of an oath to the safety of his person. For he was persuaded the gods watched over the affairs of men in a way altogether different from what the vulgar imagined; for while these limited their knowledge to some particulars only, Socrates, on the contrary, extended it to all, firmly persuaded that they are every where present, and that every word, every action, nay, even our most retired deliberations were open to their view."

In the last place, a sense of religion, where it is sincere, will necessarily be attend with a complete resignation of our own will to that of the Deity, as it teaches us to regard every event, even the most afflicting, as calculated to promote beneficent purposes, which we are unable to comprehend, and to promote, finally, the perfection and happiness of our own nature. This is the best, and indeed the only rational foundation of fortitude. Nay, it may be safely affirmed, (as Socrates long ago observed in the Phadon of Plato) that whoever founds his fortitude on any thing else is only valiant through fear. In other words, he exposes himself to danger, merely from a regard to the opinion of others, and of consequence wants that internal principle of heroism which can alone arm the mind with patience under those misfortunes which it is condemned to bear in solitude, or under sorrows which prudence conceals from the public eye. But to the man who believes that every thing is ordered for the best, and that his existence and happiness are in the hands of a Being who watches over him with the care of a parent, the difficulties and dangers of life only serve to call forth the latent powers of the soul, by reminding him of the prize for which he combats, and of that beneficent Providence by which the conflict was appointed.

"Safe in the hands of one disposing Power,

Or in the natal or the mortal hour."

The view which I have given of religion as forming the first and chief branch of moral duty, and as contrib

uting in its turn most powerfully to promote the practice of every virtue, is equally consonant with the spirit of the Sacred Writings, and to the most obvious dictates of reason and conscience; and accordingly it is sanctioned by the authority of all those philosophers of antiquity who devoted their talents to the improvement and happiness of mankind. "It should never be thought," says Plato in one of his Dialogues, "that there is any branch of human virtue of greater importance than piety towards the Deity." The chief article of the Unwritten Law mentioned by Socrates* is, "that the gods ought to be worshipped."-"This," he says, "is acknowledged every where, and received by all men as the first command." And to the same purpose Cicero, in the first book of his Offices, places in the first rank of duties those we owe to the Immortal Gods. "In ipsâ communitate sunt gradus officiorum ex quibus, quid cuique præstet, intelligi possit: ut prima Diis immortalibus; secunda, patriæ; tertia parentibus, deinceps gradatim reliquis, debeantur." +

The elevation of mind which some of the most illustrious characters of antiquity derived from their religious principles, however imperfect and erroneous, and the weight which these principles gave them in their public and political capacity, are remarked by many ancient writers; and such, I apprehend, will be always found to be the case when the personal importance of the individual rests on the basis of public opinion. "But he," says Plutarch, "who was most conversant with Pericles, and most contributed to give him a grandeur of mind, and to make his high spirit for governing the popular assemblies more weighty and authoritative; in a word, who exalted his ideas and raised at the same time the dignity of his demeanour: the person who did this was Anaxagoras the Clazomenian, whom the people of that age reverenced as the first who made mind or intellect (in opposition to chance) a principle in the formation and government of the universe."

The extraordinary respect which the Romans, during

Xen. Memor. L. iv. c. 4.

† Lib. i. c. ult.

In the

their period of greatest glory, entertained for religion (false as their own system was in its mythological foundations, and erroneous in many of its practical tendencies,) has been often taken notice of as one of the principal sources of their private and public virtues. "The Spaniards," says Cicero, "exceed us in numbers; the Gauls in the glory of war; but we surpass all nations in that wisdom by which we have learned that all things are governed and directed by the immortal gods."* In the later periods of their history this reverence for religion, together with the other virtues which gave them the empire of the world, was in a great measure lost; and we continually find their orators and historians drawing a melancloly contrast between the degeneracy of their manners and those of their ancestors. account which Livy has given of the Consulate of Q. Cincinnatus, he mentions an attempt which the tribunes made to persuade the people that they were not bound by their military oath to follow the consul to the field, because they had taken that oath when he was a private man. But, however agreeable this doctrine might be to their inclinations, and however strongly recommended to them by the sanction of their own popular magistrates, we find that their reverence for the religion of an oath led them to treat the doctrine as nothing better than a cavil. Livy's reflection on this occasion is remarkable. "Nondum hæc, quæ nunc tenet sæculum, negligentia Deûm venerat nec interpretando sibi quisque jusjurandum leges aptas faciebat, sed suos potius mores ad ea accommodabat." †

How completely the sense of religion was afterwards extinguished among the same people, and how intimately this change in their character was connected with that political profligacy which ended in the ruin of the commonwealth, may be collected from many passages in the writings of Cicero. Nunquam audivi in Epicuri scholâ Lycurgum, Solonem, Miltiadem, Themistoclem, Epaminondam, nominari; qui in ore sunt cæterorum om

66

"Sed pietate ac religione, atque hac unâ sapientiâ, quod Deorum immortalium numine omnia regi gubernarique perspeximus, omnes gentes nationesque superavimus."-Orat. de Haruspicum Responsis, c. ix.

† Lib. iii. cap. 20.

nium philosophorum." * In his own times he tells us "that the portrait of Epicurus was not only a common article of furniture in their houses, but that it formed a common ornament to their rings and vases."—" Nec tamen Epicuri licet oblivisci, si cupiam: cujus imaginem non modo in tabulis nostri familiares, sed etiam in poculis et in annulis habent." +

A review of the political conduct of the distinguished men who appeared at this period, and a comparison of the parts which they acted with the philosophical principles they professed, furnishes an instructive comment on these observations; and goes far to warrant the general inference, that wherever the same pernicious philosophy extends its influence widely among the great body of a people, men are unfitted to enjoy the blessings of rational freedom, and are prepared either to run into the excesses of democratical anarchy, or (what is the natural and inevitable consequences of such excesses) to submit quietly to the yoke of a despotic master.

This last observation I shall have occasion to illustrate afterwards when I come to contrast the practical tendency of the school of Epicurus with that of Zeno.

* De Fin. ii. c. 21.

† Ibid Lib. v. c. 1.

BOOK FOURTH.

OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT OUR FELLOW CREATURES.

UNDER this title it is not proposed to give a complete enumeration of our social duties, but only to point out some of the most important, chiefly with a view to show the imperfections of those systems of morals which attempt to resolve the whole of virtue into one particular principle. Among these, that which resolves virtue into benevolence is undoubtedly the most amiable; but even this system will appear, from the following remarks, to be not only inconsistent with truth, but to lead to dangerous consequences.

CHAPTER FIRST.

OF BENEVOLENCE.

BENEFICENCE is so important a branch of virtue that it has been supposed by some moralists to constitute the whole of it. According to these writers good will to mankind is the only immediate object of moral approbation; and the obligation of all our other moral duties arises entirely from their apprehended tendency to promote the happiness of society.

Among the most eminent partisans of this system in modern times, Mr. Smith mentions particularly Dr. Ralph Cudworth, Dr. Henry More, and Mr. John Smith of Cambridge; "but of all its patrons," he observes, "ancient or modern, Dr. Francis Hutcheson was undoubtedly beyond all comparison the most acute, the most distinct, the most philosophical, and what is of the greatest consequence of all, the soberest and most judicious." *

* Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part vii. Sect. ii. 6th edit.