reference to social conditions. If men are fully intelligible as isolated individuals, and this assumption seems to be in accordance with the general tenor of Hume's philosophy, such impulses must appear to be unaccountable. If society, in other words, is a mere aggregate of independent units, and not an organic compound of related units, altruistic emotions are superfluous. Hume, indeed, escapes by appealing to experience; and experience-we may fully agree—amply justifies him. But then it seems necessary to admit the truth of his theory that anything may cause anything, and therefore to accept as an infallible fact what could hardly be anticipated from his general principles; or, perhaps, we may admit that Hume had an indistinct view of results which he could not explicitly formulate. Meanwhile, it was easier for most thinkers of his school to accept the explanation which he rejected, and to assume that altruism was merely self-love disguised. This indeed may be regarded as an early form of the explanation which we may probably regard as the soundest-namely, that the altruistic feelings are developed out of self-regarding feelings, though they have come to be something radically different. So long, however, as the development is supposed to take place in each individual, and an hereditary predisposition is tacitly denied, the doctrine tends to lapse into a more or less undisguised selfishness. In Mandeville it had appeared in the coarsest shape, as he denied that virtue is anything but a pretence. In later writers of the Benthamite school, the difficulty is more or less skilfully surmounted; but they generally show a reluctance, as did Bentham himself, to admit the possibility of a perfectly disinterested motive.

114. This tendency comes out in a different shape in another school of writers, which may probably be regarded as the dominant school of the century. Theological doctrine may be interpreted as purely selfish, though writers of more or less mystic tendency try to free it from the imputation. When the animating principle of the moral law is regarded as the will of a supernatural being, and that being is fashioned after the likeness of man, the penalties of disobeying the law become exaggerated to infinite proportions. Hell must be made more terrible the further it is removed from sensible percep

tion; and the penalties and rewards become so tremendous, that, if they could be fully realised, selfishness would be inevitable. The fate of his own soul becomes of such importance to each man that he would be mad to care for anything else. What can it profit him if he confers any benefit upon others and loses himself? If man is corrupt by nature, the ultimate sanction which keeps him in order must be sheer terror of Almighty vengeance. As theology decayed, the tendency of the largest class was, as we have seen at length, to remove the miraculous from the present, and to leave it in the past. The sense of facts was too strong to admit of any belief in supernatural agency in the eighteenth century; but, if the desire for logical unity was weak, it would still be allowed to find a refuge in the first century. In moral speculation the same tendency exhibited itself in the admission that men's conduct must be regulated by ordinary prudence, but with a retention of the fear of hell as a sufficient motive to clench moral doubts. There was nothing, it was plain, supernatural about our immediate motives, but a supernatural object in the extreme distance might be allowed to have an occasional influence. In ninety-nine out of a hundred actions men might be guided by common sense, exerted upon obvious considerations; but, if in the hundredth a man was tempted to step beyond the line, or if he insisted upon raising some remote question as to ultimate grounds of action, it was convenient to have a hell in the background. How the existence of hell could be proved consistently with the ordinary philosophy was one of those awkward questions which concerned only philosophers, and in regard to which the ordinary philosopher was apt to reply by sending a man back to common sense. This kind of theological utilitarianism was specially prevalent during the last half of the century, and we must notice one or two of the principal writers.

115. Less philosophical, it was a more convenient compromise between the old and the new. The orthodox teachers protested against all attempts to found theism or morality upon unassisted reasoning. Human ignorance, according to them, made it necessary that God should be made known to man by supernatural intervention, and human corruption that his law should be enforced upon them by supernatural sanctions.

As the evidences became more prominent in theological, so hell became of more importance in their ethical, speculations. And hence arose a coarse form of morality which, however, suited the temper of the age. Waterland, whose views upon the evidences of Christianity have already been noticed, may stand equally for a representative specimen of the Christian system of morality as Christianity was then understood. In a pamphlet which gave rise to a bitter controversy, he attacked Clarke's 'Exposition of the Catechism.' His wrath was aroused partly by certain symptoms of incipient Arianism in his adversary, but still more by a distinction drawn by Clarke between moral and positive duties. The distinction had been put into an epigrammatic form in Tillotson's assertion that a man had better never take the sacrament in his life than kill people for not taking it. In opposition to this doctrine, Waterland points out, with considerable logical vigour, that the distinction between moral and positive has been confounded by his adversaries with the distinction between external and internal. It is needless to follow him into the intricacies of the argument. Shortly stated, it is his view that all duties, whether moral or positive, are binding because they are imposed by God. Duty means simply obedience to a divine law, and it is not for us to enquire into the reasons for the commands given by the supreme authority. Obedience to a positive command may sometimes acquire greater value than obedience to a moral law; as is proved by his favourite case of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac-a deed which, as he assumes, has rendered its doer 'more famous both in heaven and on earth than all his moral virtues put together.' 1

116. Waterland is a utilitarian so far as regards the criterion of morality, and he lays it down as a principle that we are to test the relative importance of divine commands, not by asking which is moral and which is positive, but by asking what depends upon our conscientious obedience to them; or, in other words, which is most conducive to the general good." He is thus conducted to a definition of virtue substantially identical with the well-known dogma of Paley. Moral goodness,' he says, 'is choosing and performing those beneficial actions upon a principle of obedience and out of love to God.' 3 3 Ib. p. 78.

Waterland, Works, iv. 46.

2 Ib.

p. 69.

It is thus essential to a virtuous action that it should be performed not only from love of God, but from the love of the God revealed in the Bible. Accepting fully the orthodox dogma of the intrinsic vileness of all human actions, he speaks with the utmost contempt of all the pagan virtues. The good deeds of the heathen, like the good deeds of the brutes, are ' materially,' not 'formally,' virtuous. The absence of the right motive vitiates them. Socrates was hopelessly inferior to Abraham or St. Paul, because his acts, though externally of the same character, were not grounded on the same faith and hope. In fact, Socrates was not virtuous because he did not do right with a view to posthumous repayment. Rather, it seems, he should be called a fool or a madman. Suppose there was no God, he says, it might be fit for a man to discharge the moral duties 'so far as is consistent or coincident with his temporal happiness. That would be no virtue nor duty, but self-interest only, and love of the world. But if he proceeds further to sacrifice his own temporal happiness to the public, that, indeed, would be virtue and duty, on the supposition that God requires it; but without it, it is folly and madness. There is neither prudence nor good sense in preferring the happiness of others absolutely to our own, that is to say, without prospect of a future equivalent. But if God commands us to postpone our present interest, honour, or pleasure, to public considerations, it is then fitting and reasonable so to do; for God, by engaging us to it, becomes our security that we shall not finally or in the last result be losers by it. What would otherwise be folly now commences duty and virtue, and puts on obligation.' 1

117. The theory thus expounded has an additional element of repulsiveness in Waterland's assumption, not only that virtue consists in giving credit to God for repayment of our sufferings, but that we should be mere fools to trust any God but his own. The doctrine is purified of that hideous corollary by later writers, and of the same school; but substantially the same theory was maintained by the most accepted teachers of the century. Its recommendation to men of strong common sense is obvious. It enabled them to threaten evildoers with hell-fire, instead of appealing to vague

I Waterland's Works, iv. 111.

fitnesses of things, or to a moral sense only perceptible to philosophers. At the same time it kept God at a convenient distance. It exiled mystery from the affairs of daily life, but left a dark background of terror sufficient to keep criminals in awe. It may be considered, indeed, as a crude mode of expressing some important truths; on the one hand, it admitted that the rule of life was to be discovered from experience, and not from a priori theories, which had too little consistency to be a safe guide; on the other, it asserted-in a crude and brutal fashion enough-the necessity of some religious sentiment to restrain the selfish passions of mankind. And thus it was essentially a compromise which could not satisfy a truly philosophical mind, but which did well enough as a stopgap, borrowing its term from the old theology, and drawing upon experience for practical guidance.

118. The theory of Bishop Law, or of the Rev. Mr. Gay -for Gay, it seems, chiefly compiled the essay which was adopted by Law-is given in an introduction to Law's translation of Archbishop King's 'Origin of Evil.' This introduction is remarkable because, as already noticed, it helped to suggest Hartley's theory of association. Two or three propositions extracted from its pages will sufficiently indicate its general character.

'Virtue is conformity to a rule of life, directing the actions of all rational creatures with respect to each other's happiness; to which conformity everyone is in all cases obliged, and everyone that does so conform is, or ought to be, approved, esteemed, and loved for so doing.' 'Obligation is the necessity of doing or omitting any action in order to be happy.' God alone can make a perfect obligation, for he alone can, in all cases, make a man happy or miserable.' As God wishes men to be happy, the happiness of mankind 'may be said to be a criterion of virtue but once removed.' Happiness is the general end of all our actions, and moral goodness or moral virtue in man is not merely choosing or producing pleasure or natural good, but choosing it without a view to present rewards, and in prospect of a future recompense only.'

119. The ablest and most original exponent of this theory was Abraham Tucker, author of the Light of Nature Pursued.' Few men have led more blameless or happier