tents of the volume: an analysis to which we are confident that Mr. Penrose would not object; but would admit it to be a fair though brief view of his system.

The main principle is, that all systems of morals, which do not assume, as the first end of the science, the best preparation which it is possible to make for the happiness which man may hope for in a future state, are essentially either false or imperfect. Of a complete morality the basis is religion. Justice and benevolence are inadequate measures of it: and the human motives, which, in Scripture language, are spoken of generally as qualities of the heart, not the external acts to which they impel, are the immediate subjects of moral culture and discipline.

On this principle the present treatise is founded; and the different parts of it, excluding from view the collateral matter introduced, may be arranged under the following propositions.

I. The best preparation for future happiness consists in the attainment of a certain habit or character, which may be described in general, (that is, if we presume the governing power of conscience) as made up chiefly of the religious or moral qualities of humility, justice, and temperance, of benevolence, gratitude, and devotion, or as consisting partly in the just vigour, and partly in the correct regulation of the affections, desires, and appetites, the specific motives which are natural to our frame.

This character, justly balanced and composed, is the true object or pattern of human life. The first part therefore of the volume treats of those motives which may in themselves be properly regarded as moral qualities, and of the place and uses of each of these motives severally in the composition of the character so described; that we may thus acquire an accurate conception of the end which every wise man should pursue. (Part i. chap. i-iii.)

II. Those motives which may properly be regarded as moral qualities (presuming, as before, the governing power of conscience, and the jurisdiction of reason or intellect,) are the virtuous affections only. The desires may indirectly be instrumental to the attainment of some true object of morals, and it is always indispensably necessary to keep both the desires and appetites under restraint; but desire and appetite are never moral per se. These positions are in strict dependance on the religious principle, and are eminently confirmed and illustrated by the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. (chap. iv-vi.)

III. In the succeeding chapters are considered in turn the affections of piety, benevolence, sympathy, and friendship, and the nature and place of each of these feelings in the composition of a truly excellent character; and it is shewn particularly that while the limit or degree, in which every other principle should exist, is controlled and indicated by its subservience to piety, (the dictates of piety and of an enlightened prudence being in all respects co-extensive) true piety, though comprehending all other virtues, is not itself comprehended in any. (chap. vii-x.)

IV. A chapter follows on the malevolent sentiments, (chap. xi.) another on temper, (chap. xii.) and another in conclusion on that regulation of the natural desires, which is essential to virtue or excellence. (chap. xiii.)

And thus is completed that delineation of character which forms the object or moral pattern of human life.

PART II.

In the second part of the treatise are considered the means by which this object is to be gained, or this character to be acquired by man.

I. And here, after some previous observations on the powers with which man is endued, and the circumstances in which he is placed,

points which it is of course necessary to fix before we can enter rationally on any pursuit, the first position is that the primary rule for all who would aim at the acquisition of moral excellence, "a rule which is at the very root of morals, and to which neither in nature nor import any other is comparable," is to obey in all things the dictates of conscience. (chap. i.-iii.)

II. Under the strict and universal government of conscience, the active pursuit of some objeet or other becomes the natural and proper food of the mind. But it is of the nature of every one of these pursuits to be prompted by some motive or other. (chap. iv.)

III. The pursuit of the objects of the moral affections, those of the affection of piety in particular, is the sort of pursuit, which, where circumstances permit, is by far the noblest, and has the best results. (The importance of these affections as moral habits was before considered in the delineation of moral character contained in the first part of the volume.) (chap. v.)

IV. But circumstances, in the greater number of cases, restrict men to some subordinate pursuit, as the technical business or occupation of life; namely, to the pursuit either of some object of desire, or of some object of one of the natural appetites. Still, however, all these subordinate objects are to be pursued in just dependancy on the moral motives, as the natural fruit which those motives produce, or as being instrumental to their growth or production. (chap. vi.)

V. What remains, therefore, is the particular discussion of the nature and uses of the several desires of knowledge, power, money, and bonour. Thus is added to the consideration of all those motives, which were before shewn to be actual virtues, or actual constituents of the moral character, that of the motives which are instrumental to virtue: and thus is completed, by this view

of human motives, a general scheme of the whole practical application of the religious principle to the mind, the particular case only of the regula tion of the appetites being, for given reasons, omitted. (Chap. vii.-x.)

VI. The last chapter (chap. xi.) is meant to illustrate the general scope of the doctrines so proposed; and there is a brief Appendix on some incidental questions, which belong principally to the science of metaphysics.

The most cursory perusal of this analysis will have sufficed to convince the reader that the work is compactly put together, and contains a neat and useful system: but we apprehend that he will not be of opinion, that Mr. Penrose has fulfilled his intention of applying the principles of religion to the whole science of morals, or of shewing that the two sciences are in fact but one. This being the object that he professed to have in view, why has he thrown such important subjects, as prudence and obligation into the Appendix? They are treated, as we have already observed, as metaphysical questions, but then the results of these questions are assumed as incontrovertible in the body of the work; and impede the progress of every one who does not assent to them. But we will follow the example of the author in inverting the common line of argument; and set out with taking it for granted, that the desire of happiness is the great, if not the sole principle of men's voluntary actions; and most willingly admitting, that every prudent person ought to make the best preparation possible for the happiness which man may hope for in a future state. This preparation then, according to Mr. Penrose, consists in the attainment of what may be called a religious character; and that character is to be attained by due regulation of the motives. If these points can be established, the theory before us is made good.

The importance of forming, and

maintaining religious habits, has been insisted upon so repeatedly by Christian teachers, that this cannot be the point to which the author would call our special notice. It was by insisting upon the necessity of habitual godliness that Bishop Taylor, in his book upon Repent-, ance, silenced the Papist, and the Fanatic; confounding the absolutions of the one, and the instantaneeus conversions of the other: and Paley says, that the formation of religious habits is one of the proper exercises of virtue. But we do not conceive that Mr. Penrose's notion coincides with that of either of these writers. First, because if it does there is no great novelty in his book; and, secondly, because Paley, whom he may seem most to resemble, does not introduce his opinion on the subject (Mos. Phil. chap. vii.) as a substantive part of his system; but as an answer to certain objections which he anticipated and refuted. Having observed that mankind act more from habit than reflection, he shews that being habitual does not change the characters either of vice or virtue, because the guilt of the one, and the exercise of the other, consisted in the formation of their respective habits. This is indisputable, and coincides with some subsequent remarks of Mr. Penrose. But we conceive the general scope of his argument is intended to shew, that the formation of a religious character should be our great object in life; and that we should discipline our desires principally, if not entirely with a view to this object, and should judge of motives and actions by their tendency to promote it. If this be Mr. Penrose's meaning, his theory lies open to the following objection.

There is a marked and indelible distinction between saying, form moral habits, and form moral mo. tives; and though the consequence of complying with either request should be inevitably the same, which we are far enough from ad

mitting or believing, the precepts would still be essentially different. The first is universally intelligible; the second may be often misunderstood. The first is an old and an established rule; the second is a novelty, and may quite as well remain such. The first is substantial and tangible, the second imaginary and volatile. But we do not wish to dwell longer on this point; as it is possible that the two expressions may be considered as synonymous, and may both be intended to resolve themselves into the first. If so, our objection will assume a different shape, and we shall say that to aim at the formation of proper habits, is to aim at a partial and incomplete object, and that to judge of our actions solely by their tendency to such an end, is to adopt an unsafe and insufficient rule.

Putting the case in Mr. Penrose's own form, supposing our object to be the attainment of future happiness, we are to perform all the actions, to cultivate all the dispositions, and to adopt all the habits, which conscience, strengthened by reason and enlightened by revelation, may suggest as fit and proper for the accomplishment of our purpose. We are required, beyond all doubt, to correct our motives and dispositions; and the Gospel instructs us to do so more carefully, and enables us to do so more completely than any system of ethics that the world has seen. But where does the Gospel limit our object to the acquisition of good habits? Much more where does it tell us to judge of an action or a custom by its tendency to strengthen our virtuous principles, by its effect upon our minds and hearts and motives? Mr. Penrose appears to think that such instructions are contained in those evangelical precepts which require us to set our affections on things above, and declare that the love of God, and the love of our neighbour are the first and the second commandments of the law.

But we apprehend that these words cannot with any propriety be interpreted in the sense for which our author contends. For what the Gospel says of motives is simply this: not only are you required to do good actions, but you must also do them from good motives. You must give alms from charity, not from ostentation. You must promote religion from piety, not from love of power or popularity. You must worship God from devotion, not from ceremony or custom. There is nothing metaphysical or perplexing here. We receive a great variety of consistent rules, to every part of which it is necessary that we should attend; and although one or two of them may be said to embrace and contain the rest, it would nevertheless be highly improper to lay the rest aside, or to treat them as a mere matter of deduction and inference, instead of substantial and positive precepts. The commands of !religion are delivered at one time in minute detail, and at another in comprehensive summaries. Both have their specific advantages: the former being better suited for general and daily use, the latter being more portable and more striking in controversy. If we can embrace the general principle, without having practised the particular duties, we shall advance so much the faster on our road; but it is evidently taken for granted that few can do this, and other and plainer precepts are supplied for their direction. On these grounds we conceive that there is no authority in Scripture for saying, that the acquisition of good habits is the object and the guide of life. The great object, as Mr. Penrose admits, is happiness, and we cannot expect happiness on any other conditions than those which the Gospel reveals. These conditions are to lead the best life that our strength, circumstances, and assistance, both natural and spiritual, will permit; and since motives, and even habits, are not the whole but

half, by directing our exclusive attention to them we substitute a less extensive for a more general precept. Reason is even still more opposed to the theory than Scripture, because reason never suffers us to assume a rule of moral conduct by which men may be easily and fatally misled. Mr. Penrose tells us repeatedly, that conscience must be guided by the tendency of actions to yield the fruit of virtue; and he states the objections to this proposition, and the answer by which he obviates it in the following passage: and the passage may be of very great service in forming a proper estimate of his book, because the same objection may be made to the whole system, and no other answer that we are aware of can be returued.

"But it may still be objected that I set up a rule of an uncertain standard; and

that, if the dictates of conscience may be erroneous, they ought to be guided by some ulterior principle. Quis custodiet ispos custodes?

"In answer to this question, the advocates for the different criterions of morals Some argue that we need not look beyond conbring in their different theories.

science itself, or the moral sense: some contend for the fitness of things, others for the rule of expediency. I do not deny that all these rules (not that the moral sense can be supposed to operate as a rule to itself) have their proper scope and several uses, particularly in all general schemes of the nature and divisions of

moral science. In a prudental view, however, the rule by which conscience is to be guided must be that of the tendency to improve the mind of the agent. It is certain, as has been said, that by acting in any case in opposition to conscience, the moral feelings are debased and deteriorated*;

and it is certain, also, that unless the decisions of conscience itself are guided carefully by the real tendency of the motives which it cherishes, and of the actions to which it propels, the very obeying it must serve to harden the mind in a course of mischief or vice t.

"The question still recurs: if conscience is to be guided and defined by the tendency of the actions and motives to † P. 156.

* P. 153.

which it prompts, in what way is this criterion to be applied? There is at first sight, certainly, a vagueness in it, similar to and probably neither greater nor less than the vagueness so often objected to the principles of moral fitness or expediency. All these principles may perhaps be so

limited as to secure from any essential error the philosopher or the divine, who sits apart from the crowd, and endeavours to adjust the balance of human actions with a steady hand. But is there not imminent danger, whenever any of these principles are consulted by any man under the influence of passion, of hope, for example, or fear, of envy or of desire, that he will throw all these impulses into the balance, and thus, by the very test to which he resorts, find himself confirmed in practical error?

"Undoubtedly, I admit it to be plain, that the tendency to moral excellence is inadequate, by reason of its vagueness, to be a direct check on the aberrations to which conscience is liable: nor is it only the case that this tendency is likely to be mistaken, but also that the very applying

of it must, in many cases, prove morally injurious. Where a man is prompted to expose himself to danger, in order to save the life of a fellow-creature, it cannot ordinarily be right to institute a calculation of the effect of courage or of benevolence on the mind neither should a moral agent, on the principle of expediency, pause to calculate the usefulness to society of the life in peril. Nor, in a question which has given rise to some of the ingenious follies of the schoolmen, should a man, under the influence of hunger, call off his attention from the carvings of appetite to the physical and moral uses of food. In this case natural appetite, in the other cases the love of God, or the love of our neighbour, are the proper and useful motives, and prescribe the immediate rules of

action.

as the test and touchstone of general rules; and the sympathy of Adam Smith is intended to teach us the outlines and great divisions of our duty. The latter, like other sceptical philosophers, was probably in search of a system which might supersede the necessity of revelation; and in spite of his great talents, and amiable character, his attempt has met with the success which it merited. But Paley had no sinister purpose to serve; he wrote with the sincerity of a Christian teacher; and it is most astonishing that a man of his acuteness and piety should not have perceived that in enumerating the answers that may be given to the question, "Why am I obliged to keep my vord?" the last answer, "Because it is required by the will of God," was a full, a sufficient, and the only proper answer, and that the expediency which he afterwards substitutes in its stead, is a fallacious and a disputable rule. The utility of his writings has been diminished at least one half, by this unfortunate sacrifice to theory and system; and the argument from inexpedience, may, therefore, teach his successors to pursue another course. But the lesson has unfortunately been thrown away upon Mr. Penrose, and he has given us another specimen of misapplied ingenuity, by adopting another theory and another test, which is less objectionable than Paley's, He admits but is still incomplete. that his principle may be often misapplied, and that the rules which it helps him to construct must be implicitly followed by the many. What, therefore, are the advantages of establishing the principle at all?

The foundation of morality being obedience to the will of God, it is the business of ethics to teach us what God's will requires; and, perhaps, we may say that the philosopher undertakes to shew what is required in general cases, and the casuist to explain and defend the