To the Editor of the Remembrancer. V. IT was my fifth position, "that the acting conscientiously actually implies, wherever means can be found of learning what is the will of God, that reference of all our actions to God's will, which is the principle of which you suppose me to have lost sight." Is it not then a truth, almost selfevident, that the acting conscientiously does imply a desire to know, a disposition to inquire about, our duty, on all points on which we are not fully informed? That the Word of God is the first rule to be consulted by all persons who believe in a future state, and who would learn how best to prepare themselves for it, is premised distinctly in the formal opening of my treatise. I have there said, that "the first inquiry, in attempting to discover" the moral object of human life, is, "plainly, whether that Infinite Wisdom, from which both the present and the future are derived, has afforded to us any express direction. The doctrines and evidences, therefore, of revealed religion, appear to me to put in a claim to consideration, before we attempt to evolve, any principles from an examination into the order of nature." In arguing, also, in the chapter on conscience, concerning the authority of precept and rule, and on the obedience due to all established rules, till superseded by something better, the conclusion can, I think, hardly fail to suggest itself; (and this, although the proper business of that chapter consists rather in an inquiry into the philosophical criterion by which moral rules are to be expounded and limited, than in any direction to' the place where they are to be found); that the Scripture rule, and the Scripture authority, are the rule * Human Motives, p. 3. and the authority which every Christian is, upon these principles, bound to revere. I have said this distinctly also in a preliminary note; though in the course of the treatise I thought it superfluous to express formally a very plain application, which every attentive reader must be quite competent to draw for himself. Allow me to add, also, that on this subject of conscience I have referred t, more particularly than on almost any other subject, to writers by whom it has been discussed at length. Of these writers one is Taylor himself, with whom, if I had found myself to disagree, Í should have thought it necessary to consider the point at issue with more than usual care and anxiety. Another is Reid, who, in the last volume of his Essays, has a distinct chapter to prove that moral approbation, or, in other words, the suffrage of conscience, implies an actual judgment. But judgment implies comparison: and, if so, it is surely needless to prove, either that there must be something with which our conduct is to be compared, or that the law of God has the strongest of claims to be made the object of comparison. The same conclusion is also to be derived from what the same writer, if my memory fail me not, says of conscience, as being a relative function; that is, a function which does not dictate alike in all cases, something specific and unchangeable, but something referrible to the circumstances of each case. But, if there be a revelation from God concerning it, that assuredly is a very pregnant circumstance. And this no one ever saw more clearly, or believed more entirely, than Dr. Reid. Of the writers, therefore, to whom I have referred on this subject, and so as to imply a concurrence in their Human Motives, p. xii. the page after the Preface. + Ibid. pp. 151 and 154. doctrines, one of them is Taylor us to practise virtue; and though himself, whom you quote as if, in some way or other, my opinions were in opposition to his; another is Reid, from whose whole system it follows, that the acting conscientiously implies every thing for which you would contend. I may add also, that, where I refer to these writers, it is on the very point which gives birth to your objection, on the sub. ject of the errors to which conscience is liable. If conscience were not liable to error, we should not be in want of any law to direct it. -I might, undoubtedly, have treated the point more fully, but I was, throughout, unwilling to detain the reader's attention on points which I thought established by abler writers, and which the exposition of the chief end I had in view did not compel me to state in detail. The other writers, to whom I have referred concerning conscience, are Bishop Butler, and Mr. Dugald Stuart. To the merits of Butler you join, as might be expect ed, in the just and common testimony. And yet the exceptions which you have taken to what I have written on the subject of conscience, will apply equally to Butler himself, Mr. Stewart you think an unsafe guide. I cannot here engage in any discussion on the merits of that short treatise on morals, which I have long been accustomed to regard as one of his most valuable works. I must content myself, therefore, with briefly saying, that I apprehend him to be one of the very last writers, who would deny the existence of "a moral fitness that we should conform our will to" the declared will of the author and governor of the universe +." VI. It remains to prove, "that though I have not either said or implied that the desire of happiness, is the only motive which obliges • Human Motives, part ii, chap. iii. § 2. † Christian Remembrancer, p. 169. the meanings of the word obligation and the word prudence are, as I have repeatedly observed, very distinct, a man may still be under a real obligation to pursue a thing, though merely for his own benefit." In the first place, then, of what I have said on this subject. You state, both in p. 169, and again in p. 170, that I maintain "that the desire of happiness is the only motive which obliges us to practise virtue." But your misapprehension of my real meaning on this point has here led you to express it inaccurately. What I have said is, that the criterion of prudence, or of whatever conduct will turn out most for our happiness, cannot be averred to be the sole criterion by which the conscience may or ought to be guided and again, that "benevolence and justice, and every other principle of obligation, has each its appropriate province in the wide region of morals;" though I add immediately of the obligation of prudence, in strict analogy to what in the body of the work I had before said of prudence as a motive, that "this principle embraces the whole."-I do not thus surely say, or imply, that it is the only motive which obliges us.” ་ But you affirm that prudence does not oblige us at all. Or, in your own words, "For our own parts, we confess, that the words obligation and prudence appear to us so distinct, that we cannot perceive how a man is obliged to pursue a thing merely for his own benefit: and therefore we consider the obligation of prudence to be a contradiction in terms. If our only motive for an action be our own advantage, we must think that we are at liberty to sacrifice that advantage, if we please, and consequently, that we are not obliged, however strongly Human Motives, p. 382. + Ibid. p. 384. . we may be urged, to perform the action." And you add, that on this point I disagree with Mr. Stewart, (who holds precisely the same doctrine concerning it which Butler and Reid had held before him); and that you apprehend me also to speak inconsistently with what, (in entire conformity to both Butler and Stewart), I had said previously of "resting obligation upon conscience" solely t. Now it is quite certain, that if I disagree with Mr. Stewart, he also must disagree with himself, and that Reid and Butler also, to whom I refer as actually proving the point, must be equally inconsistent with themselves. It would be easy to go into detail on this subject, and to show the exact conformity of what I have said, to what has been said by all the writers here spoken of: but I may content myself with transcribing from Butler two passages referred to in my treatise, in which he proves, incontrovertibly, the point to which your objection applies. Interest,' says this consummate reasoner, in the admirable Preface to the Sermons at the Rolls, " one's own happiness, is a manifest obligation" and he explains this farther in the Dissertation on the Nature of Virtue, subjoined to his Analogy. "It deserves to be considered, whether men are more at liberty, in point of morals, to make themselves miserable without reason, than to make other people so; or dissolutely to neglect their own greater good, for the sake of a present lesser gratification, than they are to neglect the good of others, whom nature has committed to their care. It should seem, that a due concern about our own interest and happiness, and a reason Christian Remembrancer, p. 169. + Ibid. able endeavour to secure and promote it, which is, I think, very much the meaning of the word prudence in our language: it should seem that this is virtue, and the contrary behaviour faulty and blameable: since, in the calmest way of reflection, we approve of the first, and condemn the other conduct, both in ourselves and others. This approbation and disapprobation are altogether different from mere desire of our own, or of their happiness, and from sorrow upon missing it. For the object or occasion of this last kind of perception is satisfaction or uneasiness; whereas the object of the first is active behaviour. In one case, what our thoughts fix upon is our condition: in the other, our conduct." *****“It is matter of experience that we are formed so as to reflect very severely upon the greater instances of imprudent neg lects and foolish rashness, both in ourselves and others. In instances of this kind, men often say of them. selves with remorse, and of others with some indignation, that they deserved to suffer such calamities, because they brought them upon themselves." ****« From these things it appears, that prudence is a species of virtue, and folly of vice: meaning by folly something quite different from mere incapacity; a thoughtless want of that regard and attention to Our own happiness which we had capacity for." And he adds farther, a few lines afterwards, as the sum of the whole proof upon this question, "that the faculty within us, which is the judge of actions, approves of prudent actions, and disapproves imprudent ones *." You must see clearly, that I have affirmed nothing of the reality of that obligation which, for the sake of brevity, I have once or twice called simply the obligation of pru See Outlines of Moral Philosophy, dence, which is not equally affirmed part ii. chap. ii. § 3. Human Motives, pp. 8, and 369. Preface, p. xvii, ed. 1729. Analogy, 8vo. 1740, p. 458–461. in these passages. Reid and Mr. Stewart say exactly the same.How prudence can be a test of what is obligatory, though all obligation rest on conscience alone, is therefore a question which I am not peculiarly concerned to solve. The just solution of it, however, will not be difficult to any person who takes duly into his consideration, that conscience, as has already been shown, is far from being a mere instinct or sentiment; but is, on the contrary, an inquiring, and, as has been somewhere justly observed, a very pragmatical faculty. It is the specific obligation of conscience itself which accompanies us through the whole inquiry, which conscience urges us to make. It is the voice of conscience which obliges us to follow that rule which, on a sincere inquiry, may seem to us the most entitled to preference. And if it appear, on such inquiry, that to act prudently, in the sense which prudence bears in my trea.. tise, is the sort of action to which conscience gives preference, we may speak summarily of the obligation of prudence, or say that the prudence is the test or measure of the obligation; though we still hold that the force of the obligation resides in the conscience, or in the moral sense itself. And this, you will observe, is implied in Butler's argument, as above quoted from the analogy: for, where he speaks of the obligation of prudence in the same manner in which I have spoken of it, he proves the obligation by an appeal to the moral sense. From what has been said, it must be sufficiently evident, that a man may be under a real obligation to pursue a thing, though merely for his own benefit. And this is the last of those positions which I had to establish, in order to remove, the objections which you have made to the principles contained in my treatise. I am sorry to intrude longer on your patience: yet you will, per haps, allow me a page or two more, on that point in which you suppose me to disagree with the doctrines held by Mr. Stewart, on the supremacy of the moral sense, or of conscience. Mr. Stewart has proved satisfactorily, that if we make "vir. tue a mere matter of prudence," we must conclude, that "the disbelief of a future state absolves from all moral obligation, excepting in so far as we find virtue to be conducive to our present interest; and that a being independently and completely happy cannot have any moral perceptions, or any moral attributes*."? He thus effectually disproves the notion that virtue is a mere matter of prudence. And with this doctrine of his I agree entirely; for though I hold that to prove the tendency to future happiness infers at once the obligation of those acts in which that tendency is found, this is not, as has been explained sufficiently, because prudence alone constitutes obligation, but because an enlarged and liberal prudence, or a wise regard for our happiness in a future state, is always an accurate measure of obligation: because the sense of obligation goes along with us in all the decisions which this prudence can make. With regard to the case of a man who is ignorant of a future state, or who disbelieves it, and who is also subject to the additional misfortune. of apprehending that the practice, Outlines of Moral Philosophy, p. 149. It may here, perhaps, be worthy of notice, that in thus speaking of “ a being independently and completely happy," Mr. Stewart must mean such a being as mun, supposing man, for the sake of the argument, capable of an independent and complete happiness. The "being" here spoken of cannot mean God, because we cannot, without gross paralogism and impiety, think of transferring to God moral qualities, which, for aught we know, may be peculiar to the human race. And in the present instance, especially, it is to be observed, that we can no more attribute to God the sense of obligation, than that of regard for his own interest or benefit. of what is commonly called virtue, will, on the whole, be productive to him of unhappiness; it is certain that, however calamitous the ignorance in which such a man may have been bred, or however perverted the opinions he may have formed, he still cannot be quite insensible to all the claims which God or man may have on him, to all the lessons which nature, or reason, or authority, may have conspired to fix in his mind; and which he cannot, if he would, eradicate. Such a man, therefore, has still a conscience, however imperfect and ill-informed it may be : and although his duty and his interest must seem to him incongruous; although his only alternative, (as is said by Dr. Reid, who refers, I believe, the remark to Lord Shaftesbury), is, whether he will choose to be a knave or a fool; it assuredly cannot be required of the believer in a future state, that he should be able to reconcile in the mind of the infidel, that incongruity between duty and interest, from which it is his own happiness to have escaped, solely, or chiefly, by means of his own belief, and which he always holds, that the truth of that belief is either the sole or the best means of reconciling. If, indeed, any man on a serious inquiry into the reasonableness of his moral convictions, after considering what are his own true interests, what the probable end of his being; no longer a moral agent, is no longer capable of either virtue or vice, is not a subject of exhortation or reasoning, but is to be regarded only as an ideot, or a brute. And, if such men are, do we not so regard them? But it may still be asked, whether the tendency of an act to promote, on the whole, the true happiness of the agent, be the true measure of obligation, even for those persons who are in these unhappy circumstances; who are either ignorant of, or who disbelieve in, a future state; and who think that virtue tends to present unhappiness? Can the proper measure of the obligations of such persons be a measure which they must believe to be inaccurate: or is it possible that we can have one measure for them, and another measure for the Christian? If the measures are different in the two cases, what becomes of that paramount criterion, which I suppose that prudence may in all cases afford? Now it is plain, that our first business, with the persons whose case I have been here describing, is to remove their ignorance or error. To hold out to them the good consequences of virtue, before they can be prepared to see or acknowledge them, would manifestly be but a waste of labour. I must here, therefore, say plainly at once, that I refuse to argue on any such premises as the non-existence of a future state, or the supposition that virtue can, on the whole, be, by any contingency, productive of unhappiness. We have already seen, that though the doctrine of a future state may serve to all men, sua si bona norint, as a complete and accurate guide through all intricacies of moral practice or theory, it does not follow that ignorance or disbelief of the doctrine will either expunge the sense of obligation, or acquit the conscience of him who acts in opposition to it. Nor yet' does it follow that, in the absence of this guide, any other is, or ought |