human character, and far lefs happiness, than when joined with CHAP. V. another rational principle, to wit, a regard to duty.

A

CHA P. V.

Of the Notion of Duty, Rectitude, moral Obligation.

BEING endowed with the animal principles of action on

ly, may be capable of being trained to certain purposes by discipline, as we fee many brute-animals are, but would be altogether incapable of being governed by law.

The subject of law must have the conception of a general rule of conduct, which, without fome degree of reafon, he cannot have. He must likewise have a fufficient inducement to obey the law, even when his strongest animal defires draw him the contrary way.

This inducement may be a sense of interest, or a sense of duty, or both concurring.

These are the only principles I am able to conceive, which can reasonably induce a man to regulate all his actions according to a certain general rule or law. They may therefore be justly called the rational principles of action, fince they can have no place but in a being endowed with reason, and fince it is by them only, that man is capable either of political or of moral government.

Without them human life would be like a fhip at sea without hands, left to be carried by winds and tides as they happen. It belongs to the rational part of our nature to intend a certain port, as the end of the voyage of life; to take the advantage of winds

Ff2

CHAP. V. winds and tides when they are favourable, and to bear up against them when they are unfavourable.

A fenfe of intereft may induce us to do this, when a suitable reward is fet before us. But there is a nobler principle in the conftitution of man, which, in many cafes, gives a clearer and more certain rule of conduct, than a regard merely to interest would give, and a principle, without which man would not be a moral agent.

A man is prudent when he confults his real intereft, but he cannot be virtuous, if he has no regard to duty.

I proceed now to confider this regard to duty as a rational principle of action in man, and as that principle alone by which he is capable either of virtue or vice.

I fhall firft offer fome obfervations with regard to the general notion of duty, and its contrary, or of right and wrong in human conduct, and then confider how we come to judge and determine certain things in human conduct to be right, and others to be wrong.

With regard to the notion or conception of duty, I take it to be too fimple to admit of a logical definition.

We can define it only by fynonymous words or phrafes, or by its properties and neceffary concomitants, as when we fay that it is what we ought to do, what is fair and honeft, what is approvable, what every man professes to be the rule of his conduct, what all men praise, and what is in itself laudable, though no man should praise it.

I obferve, in the next place, That the notion of duty cannot

be

be refolved into that of intereft, or what is most for our happi- CHAP. V. nefs.

Every man may be fatisfied of this who attends to his own conceptions, and the language of all mankind fhews it. When I fay, this is my intereft, I mean one thing; when I fay, it is my duty, I mean another thing. And though the same course of action, when rightly understood, may be both my duty and my intereft, the conceptions are very different. Both are reasonable motives to action, but quite diftinct in their nature.

I prefume it will be granted, that in every man of real worth, there is a principle of honour, a regard to what is honourable or dishonourable, very distinct from a regard to his interest. It is folly in a man to difregard his intereft, but to do what is dif honourable is baseness. The first may move our pity, or, in some cases, our contempt, but the last provokes our indignation.

As these two principles are different in their nature, and not refolvable into one. fo the principle of honour is evidently fuperior in dignity to that of interest.

No man would allow him to be a man of honour, who fhould plead his interest to justify what he acknowledged to be dif honourable; but to facrifice intereft to honour never costs a blush.

It likewise will be allowed by every man of honour, that this principle is not to be refolved into a regard to our reputation: among men, otherwife the man of honour would not deferve to be trusted in the dark. He would have no averfion to lie, or cheat, or play the coward, when he had no dread of being dif covered.

I take it for granted, therefore, that every man of real honour

feels

CHAP. V. feels an abhorrence of certain actions, because they are in themselves base, and feels an obligation to certain other actions, because they are in themselves what honour requires, and this, independently of any confideration of interest or reputation.

This is an immediate moral obligation. This principle of honour, which is acknowledged by all men who pretend to character, is only another name for what we call a regard to duty, to rectitude, to propriety of conduct. It is a moral obligation which obliges a man to do certain things because they are right, and not to do other things because they are wrong.

Ask the man of honour, why he thinks himself obliged to pay a debt of honour? The very question fhocks him. To fuppose that he needs any other inducement to do it but the principle of honour, is to fuppofe that he has no honour, no worth, and deferves no esteem.

There is therefore a principle in man, which, when he acts according to it, gives him a confcioufnefs of worth, and when he acts contrary to it, a fense of demerit.

From the varieties of education, of fashion, of prejudices, and of habits, men may differ much in opinion with regard to the extent of this principle, and of what it commands and forbids; but the notion of it, as far as it is carried, is the fame in all. It is that which gives a man real worth, and is the object of moral approbation.

Men of rank call it honour, and too often confine it to certain virtues that are thought moft effential to their rank. The vulgar call it honesty, probity, virtue, confcience. Philofophers have given it the names of the moral fenfe, the moral faculty, rectitude.

The universality of this principle in men that are grown up

to

to years of understanding and reflection, is evident. The words CHAP. V. that express it, the names of the virtues which it commands, and of the vices which it forbids, the ought and ought not which express its dictates, make an effential part of every language. The natural affections of refpect to worthy characters, of refentment of injuries, of gratitude for favours, of indignation against the worthlefs, are parts of the human conftitution which suppose a right and a wrong in conduct. Many tranfactions that are found neceffary in the rudeft focieties go upon the same supposition. In all teftimony, in all promises, and in all contracts, there is neceffarily implied a moral obligation on one party, and a truft in the other, grounded upon this obligation.

The variety of opinions among men in points of morality, is not greater, but, as I apprehend, much less than in fpeculative points; and this variety is as eafily accounted for, from the common caufes of error, in the one cafe as in the other; fo that it is not more evident, that there is a real diftinction between true and false, in matters of fpeculation, than that there is a real distinction between right and wrong in human conduct.

Mr HUME's authority, if there were any need of it, is of weight in this matter, because he was not wont to go rafhly into vulgar opinions.

"Thofe, fays he, who have denied the reality of moral di"ftinctions, may be ranked among the difingenuous difputants "(who really do not believe the opinions they defend, but engage "in the controverfy, from affectation, from a spirit of oppofition, or from a defire of fhewing wit and ingenuity fuperior to the reft "of mankind); nor is it conceivable, that any human creature "could ever seriously believe, that all characters and actions. were alike entitled to the regard and affection of every one.

"Let a man's infenfibility be ever so great, he must often be

"touched