that the pupils or operatives ought to determine their master's will concerning any action by examining its tendency to promote or diminish the general happiness. And yet this is what the Utilitarian principle does really assert. For what are the actual facts of the case? Are they not as follows? That the world is a School, in which we are the School-boys, having each some particular work to perform, which, both in itself and in the discipline which it involves, may serve to lead us to perfection, and to prepare us for that higher state to which our whole School-life is but a preparation; and that the Creator has, according to the needs of our various natures, and for the performance of this work and the better training of our faculties, apportioned to some chastisement, to others comfort, to some wealth, to others poverty, to some mental to others physical vigour, to none perfect happiness. But to assert that, because the teeth are made to eat with not to ache, fire to warm not to destroy, therefore God wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures, is to say that happiness consists in eating, warmth, &c., and to attach an importance and duration to these transitory aids, which neither Scripture nor experience warrants us in doing.

At the same time let me not be misunderstood. I accept most heartily as an important truth the principle which underlies Paley's rule; that every right action does tend entirely to the good of mankind; that everything evil, however apparently beneficial, does do harm of which we can estimate neither the consequences nor the influence; further, admitting this, I see no reason why we should not determine the morality of an action by its consequences, if we possessed a faculty by which we could judge them. But the truth is, we have no such faculty; as will be at once evident, if we consider not only how various are the influences at work upon us, and how different are their effects upon different minds, but also that all things really work for good in the world, the effect of evil being checked by that of good; and that the immediate consequences of many right actions are apparently evil, and the remote consequences of evil ones good. How, for instance, could we, on strictly Utilitarian principles, condemn Jacob's deceit or the sin of Joseph's brethren? How could we so distinguish the actual consequences of any action in the world's history, as to decide with certainty whether it has been on the whole productive of happiness or unhappiness?

It is then because the introduction of the word happiness so narrows the truth in it as to render it false, that I cannot accept Paley's criterion as a moral guide, and it is because we

are not able to determine whether an action will be expedient on the whole, at the long run, in all its effects collateral and remote, as well as in those which are immediate and direct, that I believe the rule, however interpreted, to be utterly useless and unsafe.

This last difficulty, arising from the limitation of our faculties, Paley himself seems to have in part perceived; for he bases the obligation of particular duties not upon the general principle of utility, but upon certain general rules deduced from it; and it is to these that he refers those actions which are morally wrong but apparently expedient, thus evading all difficulties that a too consistent adherence to his principle might lead him into. But these general rules themselves rest upon no secure foundation, for the truth of them really depends upon that of two propositions which Paley does not prove, and which do not appear to be universally true, viz. that similar consequences follow similar actions, and that an action, which if generally permitted would be inexpedient, must necessarily be so in any individual instance. Indeed, he does not himself appear to have been quite satisfied of the universality of his test, for he qualifies it by saying, that 'it 'is for the most part a salutary caution not to violate a general 'rule for the sake of any particular good consequence we may 'expect, the advantage seldom compensating for the violation ' of the rule.' But who is to decide what are the cases to which his principle does not apply, or what principle is then to take its place are questions he omits to answer. And yet this is called Philosophy, and this a treatise which, if not theoretically perfect, may yet be relied upon as a practical guide.

If any reader should still be in doubt about the truth of the principles I have been examining, let him apply one simple but practical test, and he can scarcely fail to be convinced. Let him conceive a man educated from his earliest childhood on the principles of Paley's Moral and Political Philosophy. Suppose him taught that self-interest has been the motive to every virtuous, every apparently self-denying action that has ever been performed, and to explain the admiration for such actions by the same reference to Self; suppose him taught, as soon as he begins to experience the power of human passion and the presence of an individual will, that pleasures differ in nothing but in their intensity and continuance; that private happiness is to be the motive to his every action, its effect on the happiness of mankind the rule; in other words, that, with regard to the motive, he is to consider himself as the centre of the Universe, to which all is to

be referred with regard to the rule, as a mere unit in a great scheme, which has for its object the greatest happiness of the greatest number; and then let the reader judge whether one so educated is likely to come very near to the New Testament standard of a perfect Man, to fulfil in purity and holiness and justice, the duties of a son, brother, citizen, husband, and father; and whether the conviction, that sensual pleasures endure but for a time and, if too much indulged in, cease to gratify, will keep him from sin, as surely as a belief, that man has a conscience, whose dictates he is bound to heed.

One word, before I conclude, on the general object of this paper. The absence of any statement of positive principles will I am afraid be an objection to many. And certainly it would have been more satisfactory, at least to the writer, to have first laid down sound principles, and then to have shown Paley's inconsistency with them. But this was not what I proposed, which was far more to gather up and express the thoughts which would suggest themselves to every careful student of Paley, who does not separate the recollections of his childhood, and the lessons he was then taught, from the studies of his manhood; who has learnt to love and reverence the great men of the past; and who, while admitting the fact of man's fall, has learnt, whether from books, from reflection, or from experience, that we are not all evil, not wholly given up to Self-to do this, far more than to lay down principles, which few perhaps would care to read, and still fewer agree with.

PHASELUS ILLE.

1.

Aquatic Muse, cheer up, girl, come!
What is the use of looking glum ?
What though last year without avail,
Thou bad'st our gallant crew, All hail!
Shrinkest thou still at thoughts of that,
And dread of wily Ouseburn Mat?
Thy goose is not yet cook'd, my jewel,
Though all Newcastle pile the fuel:
So, come-a cheerful brow display,
For now another crew demands another lay.

II.

Pearson is studying morals—
Snow's got his fibula broke-
Both of them rest on their laurels,-
Whom shall we have for a stroke?

Over the water to Magdalene!

Rowers are there in infinity:
Men, who without any dawdling,
Migrated thither from Trinity.

III.

If Oxford's a lion, as some people say,

We've found here a JACKAL to show him the way;
And, to light him along in the rear of our craft,
We've kindly established some gig-lamps abaft.

IV.

Oh! Scotland may boast of her bairns,
Nurtured on Cheviot or Grampian;

But fairer than bairns of those mountains and cairns,
Is Benjamin Caunt, our big champion.

V.

For the next we've a stalwart young Welshman employ'd,
And without any doubt is our courage a-Lloy'd,
Let us hope that the foe, when his energy fails,
Will acknowledge that he is defeated-by wails.

VI.

But whom have we got here to row number Five?
'Tis Cambria's last minstrel still up and alive;

For when oar's rapid music grows faster and sharper,
O who is so pleased as our President's HARPER?
And to cleave through the waters their strength so avails,
That our Five and our Six are both "very like whales."

VII.

Well, talk of strength, we'll show you even more,

If you inspect our mighty number Four;

He'll lift more weight than any other one can,
Will DUNCAN-

He has the strength of an entire barrack,
Has DARROCH.

VIII.

The next my Muse must look sedate on,
A chaplain from the house of Clayton;
I don't mean from the mart of oysters,
But from old Gonville's sainted cloisters,
Whose energy, with skill directed

To perfect style, should be respected-
I'd like to whip until they blubber,

Those naughty boys who call him LUBBER.

IX.

Next, our SMITH in the fire of his spirits so glowing,
Goes hammer and tongs at the science of rowing:
Yet amidst all his labours, he'll keep his back straighter
Than other more powerful men do,

That's why he's called Archy-(you'll need a translator) "Quasi lucus a non perlucendo."

X.

Would you HAVE ART a noble work to grace,
Of course you'd put it in the foremost place:
So we have done-we've one more reason yet,
That first of all rows Lady Margaret.