I have elsewhere asserted that precisely the same objection lies against the sentimental hypothesis, as against those theories which resolve right and wrong into the will of the Deity, or into human laws; to which I would now add, that there is no mode of defence that can possibly be adopted in behalf of the first, that may not be employed in behalf of the other two, with equal, in my opinion, with greater plausibility. We are told, for instance, that all that we mean by an action's being right, is just this, that it is agreeable to the moral sense no notion can be

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formed of the moral faculty that does not comprehend authority, superintendence, direction." But is it not at least as rational to say, - all that we mean by an action's being right, is, that it is agreeable to the divine will, that it is in conformity to the laws of the land, - no notion can be formed of the divine will, of civil law, that does not comprehend authority, superintendence, direction? How could we treat assertions of this nature otherwise than by just pronouncing them to be entirely arbitrary and groundless ? or could any consideration be urged against them that would not apply, with at least equal force, тиtatis mutandis, to the assertions of the sentimental theorist ?*

The only thing which has preserved the sentimental theory from the prompt and decided rejection met by the two opinions now alluded to, is the delusion occasioned by the ambiguity of the terms moral sense and conscience. Is man endowed with a moral sense? - undoubtedly. Is it by the moral sense that he judges of right and wrong?most certainly. Can he distinguish right and wrong without a moral sense? - truly not. Ought not the moral sense to be the supreme guide of his conduct? without question. What more, cry the sentimentalists, can any one desire? Nay, but it is overlooked that all this is true of the moral sense, only in its general meaning, as denoting the faculty, whatever it may be, by which right and wrong are distinguished; and under which meaning the moral sense may really stand for the reasoning faculty. But all that is thus true of the moral sense, or conscience, in the general signification of these terms, the sentimentalists unconsciously represent as true of the moral sense, or conscience, as specially denoting a capacity of receiving agreeable or disagreeable emotion from the view of certain actions; - hence, I repeat, the whole plausibility of their theory.

Upon the whole, then, in return for the dilemma which Sir James Mackintosh proposes to the intellectualists, * I would beg to offer the following

one:

If to perform such actions as excite the agreeable emotion, (the capacity of which and of its contrary is supposed to constitute the moral faculty,) is not something morally right or obligatory, something that it is our duty, or that we ought to do, - then it cannot be said that the moral faculty is what ought to be the guide of our conduct-which is absurd.

If to do such actions as excite the agreeable emotion, is something morally right, this is something which we must perceive to be morally right, otherwise than as it excites the agreeable emotion; unless we merely mean to say, that doing what excites the agreeable emotion, excites the agreeable emotion. And, if we can perceive, otherwise than by the supposed capacity of emotion, that any one thing is right, why may we not perceive that any other thing is right, and what is the use of supposing the existence of that capacity at all?

With regard to the theory, adopted by Sir James, which attempts to resolve the moral faculty into simpler component elements, by means of the principle of association, I have only to observe, that, as that theory at most proposes to explain a sentiment or emotive act, it can never, even supposing it true, be accepted by a disciple of the intellectual school, as furnishing an adequate or complete account of our moral perceptions. And although the existence of a sentiment, as a constituent part, or rather as the attendant of many of our determinations, is fully admitted by the intellectual theorist, yet as he pretends to account satisfactorily for the existence of the sentiment, as being a strictly necessary consequence, in cases where it occurs, of the previous intellectual perception; he cannot admit that this sentiment may be wholly rested upon the principle of association. But as the existence of an intellectual perception, with its necessary attendant desires and emotions by no means excludes the possibility of other desires or emotions arising from other sources, coexisting or concurring with these moral emotions

more strictly so denominated, a hypothesis whichr accounts for the existence of such auxiliary sentiments, as it is not necessary as a part of the intellectual theory, yet does not, in the slightest degree, impugn or contradict it; and may be accepted into its alliance, as forming a collateral branch of the subject. In fact it has never been sufficiently attended to, that the intellectual theory is of a positive more than of a negative or exclusive kind. Its supporters maintain this point absolutely-Reason, without any additional faculty but what is implied in the existence of reason itself, can perceive something to be right, something wrong; and though other faculties may exist, pointing to what is right, reason alone can determine what is right. They can easily admit a variety of principles, subsidiary to reason, impelling to what is right.

In the course of the Dissertation, much interesting and judicious remark as it contains, there is nothing more valuable than the considerations incidentally urged to evince the supreme excellence of virtue, as regards the happiness of the agent; and the great amount of the happiness derived from the exercise of virtue, as independent of, and distinct from its fruits. No topic is more worthy to engage the attention of a philosophical and virtuous mind; and the manner in which it has been treated by the author of the Dissertation,