and so eloquently narrated, we omit to sketch them, and pursue our inquiry, from which we have been for a moment diverted to point out the immediate causes of the improvement of society in art and science:

EXAMINATION OF MODERN ETHICS.

[Continued from page 152.]

THIS undistinguished proscription of all the received

regulations of life is not a remote consequence, it is in the essence of the New System of Morals. The genius of pagan mythology was naturally mild and indulgent, because a reverence for any particular scheme of it was perfectly consistent with a respect for any other. But the project before us is necessarily intolerant; and the establishment of it supposes the extinction of every other. It has all the exclusive spirit of inspired truth, with all the wretched impotence of brain sick error. It enjoins inflexibly, as the sole legitimate principle of action, what is utterly inconsistent with every other principle of action whatever. For these it can have no toleration, no forbearance. It can thrive only on their decline; it can triumph only in their destruction. The most enthusiastic admirers of any particular virtues may entertain at least a decent respect for the rest. They are lawful potentates, each in his domain; and may well reign together. But the System before us aspires at universal despotism. It is the lord of moral nature, or it is nothing; and proscribes with equal jealousy allies and rivals. To a professor of this System, all, that has passed for wisdom in the world, can appear as nothing better, than foolishness; and the most revered and sacred principles in the government of life, as at best but rattles to amuse the infancy of reason. How can it be otherwise? Take these principles in any of their forms, in the municipal laws of the country, in traditionary usa

ges, in the institutions, which enforce both, in the prevailing sentiments on morality, and the received maxims, which regulate social intercourse among us. The established rules on these subjects have not been promulged by philosophers from the closet; nor fashioned by the imagination, where all is ductile, into those regular shapes, which the mind of man delights to form and contemplate. Still less have they been constructed on an abstract view of their ultimate tendency to the general good. In many instances they are purely arbitrary, and derive all their value from their general recognition. Some, and those not the slightest in practical importance, may even appear in speculation irrational, irksome, and oppressive. They have grown for the most part out of our common nature, as influenced by our particular situation, that is, they have been the creatures of exigency. Where they have not sprung from the suggestions of our nature, they have in general been formed and matured on an experience of its wants; and, where neither nature nor reason can claim them, as its offspring, where accident gave them being, and habit has retained them, they have at last acquired a value from adoption. They occupy a void, till it is better supplied; and contribute with the rest to the grand object of them all. This object, which is nothing more, than the maintenance of the System of life on its present footing, is precisely the grievance, that exasperates the philosophers of the new sect; and in the principles, which thus promote this end, there are abundant provocatives to their scorn and indignation. They operate by ordinary motives. They propose but trivial ends. They are altogether silent about the general happiness of sentient nature. To minds, heated by the project of promoting this happiness on a new and improved principle, whatever tends to make us content with our present miserable condition can appear in no other guise, than a vile abomination. The very circumstance of its being adapted to its purpose only irritates them the more. All respect for such despicable prejudices will be treated as nothing better, than bondage to exploded error; and all en

Ff

forcement of them by law or by opinion, as an atrocious usurpation on the sovereignty of reason. Hatred, when inflamed by the blast of zeal, is the fiercest of the passions; we must not therefore be surprised at the unbroken constancy and infuriate ardor, with which the projectors of universal happiness have urged, and resumed, and rallied, and pressed their assault on those inveterate obstacles. The ac complishment of their scheme depends on their destruction. Mr. Godwin has tried his hand at a few of them; at grati tude, friendship, patriotism, parental affection, filial piety, confidence, fidelity, right of property, conjugal union, and some other of the antiquated follies of former days. We have seen, what he has proposed to substitute.

Grant

Al

The taste of these gentlemen is truly marvellous. them all, they wish. Give them their heart's content.. low them to have formed a race of beings precisely to their notion, disciples, who, by dint of long meditation and stout effort, had effectually subdued in themselves every affection whatever; and who on all occasions acted only for the gen ral good. What sort of characters would they form? Place them in imagination before you. Conceive of them as neighbours, fellow citizens, associates, friends. What should we think of an animal in any of these shapes, or in the shape of man, whom no intimacy could endear, no kindness attach, no misery move, no injuries provoke, no beauty charm, nơ wit exhilirate; whose cold heart no sorrow could thaw, no festivity warm; but who pursued with one fixed, steady, and inflexible design some abstract idea of the general good; dead to the glow of virtue; dead to the shame of vice; and calculating the degrees of rectitude, of posthumous advan→ tage over present suffering by De Moivre upon chances. It is difficult to figure any being more thoroughly hid eous and disgustful; more disqualified for the enjoyment or diffusion of any kind of happiness; or more ready to per petrate, what the human heart recoils at.

Now, though we might not be able to attain in full perfection this unnatural and monstrous perversion of all senti

ment; though we should never become under this discipline so perfectly wretched and detestable, as it anxiously labors to make us; though we should never dive so deep in this slough of dispond, as entirely to deaden all sensibility to every thing, which can interest and engage the human heart, and engender a feverish zeal for an object so remote and abstract, that it baffles speculation, we might render ourselves by unrelenting effort as odious and miserable, as our constitutions would allow. And for what? For the general good? But the general good is but an aggregate of individ ual good; and our capacity to suffer and enjoy remains precisely, as it was. Mr. Godwin furnishes us with no sixth He opens no new inlet to gratification. He discov ers no terra australis of delight, physical or moral, present or to come. All things stand exactly, as they were; except that, instead of each man's providing for himself, he is to purvey for others. Every body is to busy himself in every body's business but his own; every body is to meddle with every thing, but what he is competent to manage. to cater, and none to consume; and in the mortification, confusion, perplexity, distrust, and dispair of each individual are to consist universal confidence, peace, plenty, securi ty, and happiness.

sense.

All are

Such is this project in full expansion and luxuriance, "with all its blushing honors thick upon it." I am far from saying, that it is capable of all the mischief, I have stated. Few schemes either of good or ill fully answer the designs of the contriver, or the prognostications of the critic. All theory, which has human manners for its object, is so liable to deflection from the very medium, through which it acts, that it is extremely difficult to estimate its practical effects. Of all contrivances of this kind however that, which bends its aim, like the present, at the ruling principles of human conduct, has the fairest chance for success. All other plans and institutions, designed to effect a change in the temper of mankind, operate indirectly; their process is slow; the means circuitous; and the end but partial. This attacks

at once the spring head of action; and aspires, by the only practicable method, at an entire regeneration of the human character. If it fail to attain its purpose most completely, it is no fault of the System.

Surely it is scarcely possible to avoid seeing, that the original sin of the whole Theory of morals, which places virtue in utility, and which leads in its certain issue to all these shameful consequences, consists in considering, as the result of reason, an effect, which it is not in the competence of reason to produce. Mr. Godwin has laid down this fundamental error very distinctly. "To a rational being," says he, treating of the foundation of virtue,* "there can be but ❝one rule of conduct, Justice; and one mode of ascertain

ing that rule, the exercise of his understanding." On this scheme of morality, every thing is made dependent on reason. But our moral sentiments cannot be the result of reason. The object of reason is simply and exclusively truth and falsehood; and all the effect, which truth or falsehood can possibly produce on the mind, is to excite a mere assent or dissent, as any proposition appears under one or other of these characters. Whenever the mind is affected on any occasion beyond this, we may universally affirm, that this effect proceeds from some cause entirely independent on the powers of reason. Whatever is susceptible of truth or falsehood is within the province of reason. Reason may investigate the properties in any object, by which these affections are produced, the relations of these properties with other parts of the System, in which they act, or the effects, they are designed to produce upon that System. But those properties must previously have acted, to become a subject matter of inquiry; and must still continue to act, independently of any speculations respecting their nature, their relations, or their ultimate destination. Reason may be employed on subjects affecting the mind with any emotion as well, as on lines and figures; but its effects as reason must in both cases be the same. It may explore the causes of beauty in visi * See Pol. Just. b. ii, c. 6.