the pleasures of the moral sense, being the latest, are of all the most complex. In the first stage of their growth they consist mainly of the pleasing and displeasing associations of the language which children hear applied to virtues and vices respectively; with these are gradually blended traces of the (non-moral) satisfactions derived by a man from his own virtues and those of others. Sociality and benevolence, when they have been developed, add their quota; and a further contribution is furnished by the æsthetic gratification derived from "the great suitableness of all the virtues to each other and to the beauty, order, and perfection of the world." Again, from the hopes continually felt of rewards hereafter for the performance of duty, ideal pleasure tends to connect itself with the notion of duty without any express recollection of these hopes; and finally, religious emotion adds another element to the "general mixed pleasing idea and consciousness" which arise in us when we reflect on our own virtuous affections or actions. A similar blending

of pains causes the sense of guilt and anxiety that arises when we reflect on our vices.

Hartley's sensationalism, however, is very far from leading him to exalt the corporeal pleasures; indeed, the fact that they are, in his view, the foundation of all the rest is considered by him as an argument for their inferiority; since "that which is prior in the order of nature is always less perfect and principal than that which is posterior." Similarly the inferiority of the pleasures of imagination, excited by the beauties of nature and art, and by the sciences, is argued from the fact that they are "in general the first of our intellectual pleasures" and "manifestly intended to generate and augment the higher orders." On the whole, he concludes that no one aiming at his own greatest happi

ness ought to make the sensible pleasures, or those of imagination or ambition, a paramount object; a fuller measure of those inferior pleasures will be attained if the pursuit of them is subordinated to the precepts of sympathy, piety, and the moral sense. So far the argument in favour of religion and morality seems to rest frankly on an egoistic basis. But Hartley further maintains that to make even rational self-interest a primary object of pursuit, would tend to damp and extinguish the higher pleasures of the love of God and our neighbour: its proper function in human development is to put us on "begetting in ourselves the dispositions of Benevolence, Piety, and the Moral Sense." Accordingly our ideal aim-though probably unattainable in this life-should be to carry this subordination of selfinterest further and further till we arrive at "perfect selfannihilation and the pure love of God"; so that reasonable self-love may receive its fullest satisfaction by its own extinction. For the pleasures of sympathy, theopathy, and the moral sense, unlike the inferior kinds, may be pursued without danger of excess and without mutual conflict. Piety and Rational Benevolence mutually support each other: "it must be the will of an infinitely benevolent being that we should cultivate universal unlimited benevolence"; on the other hand "benevolence can never be free from partiality and selfishness till we take our station in the Divine Nature and view everything from thence": again, the pleasures of sympathy are "approved of and enforced entirely" by the moral sense, of which they are one principal source.

So far Hartley's practical doctrine appears to be broadly coincident with that of Shaftesbury or Hutcheson; and he expressly says that "benevolence being a primary pursuit," it follows that we are to "direct every action so as to pro

+

duce the greatest happiness and the least misery in our
power"; this is the "rule of social behaviour which universal
unlimited benevolence inculcates." But notwithstanding
his unhesitating acceptance of this rule, Hartley is far from
anticipating the method of later utilitarianism. Owing to
the difficulties and perplexities that attend the calculation
of the consequences of our actions, we must, he thinks,
largely substitute for this general rule several others less
general such as (besides obedience to Scripture) regard to
our own moral sense and that of others, and to our "natural
motions of goodwill and compassion"; preference of persons
in near relations to strangers, and of benevolent and religious
persons to the rest of mankind; regard for veracity; and
obedience to the civil magistrate. These subordinate rules
are chiefly to direct us in deliberate acts; while on sudden
emergencies, which exclude deliberation, the moral senti-
ments should be our guides. But what method of decision
is to be applied when any two or more of these maxims
conflict, as they are primâ facie likely to do, Hartley does
not make clear; he only suggests vaguely that they are to
"moderate and restrain,” to “influence and interpret " one
another nor does his derivation of the moral sense appear
to afford adequate grounds for that confidence in its utter-
ances which he seems to feel.

Psychology
On the whole we must say that, though Hartley is obvi-
and Ethics. ously in earnest in his attempt to determine the rule of life,
the systematic vigour which still gives an interest to his
psychology, in spite of its defects of style and treatment,
is not applied by him to the question of the criterion or
standard of right conduct; on this point his exposition is
blurred by a vague and shallow optimism that prevents
him from facing the difficulties of the problem. A some-

what similiar inferiority has been noted in Adam Smith's work, when he passes from psychological analysis to ethical construction. It would seem that the intellectual energy of this period of English ethical thought had a general tendency to take a psychological rather than a strictly ethical turn. In Hume's case, indeed, the absorption of ethics into psychology is sometimes so complete as to lead him to a confusing use of language; thus in one or two passages he insists with apparent emphasis on the "reality of moral distinctions"; but a closer examination shows that he means no more by this than the real existence of the likes and dislikes that human beings feel for each other's qualities. The fact is, that amid the observations and analyses of feelings which became prominent in the line of ethical thought initiated by Shaftesbury, the fundamental questions "What is right?" and "Why?" tended to drop somewhat into the background—not without manifest danger to morality. For the binding force of moral rules becomes evanescent if we admit—as even Hutcheson seems not unwilling to do--that the " sense of them may naturally vary from man to man as the palate does; and it is only another way of putting Hume's doctrine, that reason is not concerned with the ends of action, to say that the mere existence of a moral sentiment is in itself no reason for obeying it. A reaction, in one form or another, against the tendency to dissolve ethics into psychology was inevitable; and it was obvious that this reaction might take place in either of the two lines of thought, which, having been peacefully allied in Clark and Cumberland, had become distinctly opposed to each other in Butler and Hutcheson. It might either fall back on the moral principles commonly accepted, and, affirming their objective validity, endeavour to exhibit them as a coherent and

complete set of ultimate ethical truths; or it might take
the utility or conduciveness to pleasure, to which Hume
had referred for the origin of moral sentiments, as an ulti-
mate standard by which these sentiments might be judged
and corrected. The former is the line adopted with
substantial agreement by Price, Reid, Stewart, and other
members of the Intuitional school, still represented among
us by able writers; the latter method, with considerably
more divergence of view and treatment, was employed.
independently and almost simultaneously by Paley and
Bentham in both ethics and politics, and is at the present
time current under the name of Utilitarianism.
J

§ II. Later Intuition

ism. Price

(17231791).

Price's Review of the Chief Questions and Difficulties of Morals was published in 1757, two years before Adam Smith's treatise. In regarding moral ideas as derived from the "intuition of truth or immediate discernment of the nature of things by the understanding," Price revives the general view of Cudworth and Clarke; but with several specific differences which it is important to notice, as they find their explanation in the intervening development of ethical thought, which we have been employed in considering. Firstly, his conception of "right" and "wrong" as "single ideas" incapable of definition or analysis—the notions "right," "fit," "ought," "duty," "obligation," being coincident or identical—at least avoids the confusions into which Clarke and Wollaston had been led by pressing the analogy between ethical and mathematical or physical truth. Secondly, the emotional element of the moral consciousness, on which attention had been concentrated by Shaftesbury and his followers, is henceforth distinctly recognised as accompanying the intellectual intuition, though it is carefully subordinated to it. While right and wrong, in Price's