of him as acting perhaps under the influence of such accidental circumstances: and though his action, considered as an action which might have been performed by any man under the influence of other circumstances, may excite our moral disapprobation in a very high degree, our disapprobation is not extended to him. The emotion which he excites is pity, not any modification of dislike. We wish he had been better informed; and when his general conduct has impressed us favourably, we feel perfect confidence that in the present instance also, if he had been better informed, he would have acted otherwise."

Now what, I would ask, can be meant by speaking of the "discrimination of an individual" as "clouded," by " pitying" him, or by "wishing that he had been better informed:" what is the use, in short, of all the practical rules of morality, if" an action in morals is only the agent acting?" If an action, merely flowing from good intentions, is right in all the senses in which an action can be right, and if it is impossible for what is done to be wrong, if what is intended be right; surely an agent who intends well, cannot be mistaken in his consciousness of the nature of his intention; and if he cannot be mistaken in this particular, he cannot, according to Dr. Brown, be mistaken in any thing at all affecting the moral character of the action

why then pity him, or wish he had been

better informed? Even on the author's own showing, then, there is something more that we desire in an action, than merely the good intentions of the agent. If we must not, according to Dr. Brown, denominate this the goodness of the action, we must just have some other name for it : and this, so far as I am able to gather, is the total result that flows from the establishment of Dr. Brown's favourite position, that “an action in morals is only the agent acting." Indeed we may lay our account with finding that, whenever an author sets himself to contradict a sentiment that is universally understood and assented to, such as this, that a man with good intentions may commit a wrong action, he involves us in a mere question of words.

If a man were, by fraud or violence, to maintain possession of a property which ought to belong to another, it would, I apprehend, be a very intelligible and convenient method of stating the nature of such a case, to say, "the one is proprietor in point of right, the other in point of fact." Now suppose any one were to tell us that this is quite a superfluous and imaginary distinction, tending to nothing else but to perplex and obscure our notions of property; that there is really no such thing as being a proprietor in fact only; that the proprietor is, and only can be, he who has the right of possession; and that when we speak of any one as being proprietor in fact, as opposed

to being so in right, we merely speak of what such a one would be under a different situation of circumstances; that is, what he would be if he were in possession by right. Is it possible to imagine greater trifling than this? yet the results here obtained exhibit, in a different instance, all that Dr. Brown accomplishes by his rejection of the common distinction between the goodness of an action, and the goodness of an agent.

Perhaps it may be said, our disappointment in such cases as those spoken of in the last extract from Dr. B. is still conceived wholly in relation to the agent; and that his ignorance, or want of capacity, implied in his mistake of the means to fulfil his intentions, though they are not morally wrong, yet indicate deficiency and imperfection. Now it is undeniable that our estimation of the agent is, in a certain way, increased or lessened, according as he is more or less capable of contriving means to an end, or powerful in employing them. But it is no less undeniable, that our opinion of an agent suffers as much in this respect from a view of his incapacity or inability to compass a bad end as a good one. But as, when an agent, meaning to do good, actually does evil, our respect for the purity of his intention does not prevent us from at once despising his incapacity and sincerely regretting the event; so when a man meaning to do evil, actually does good, our reprobation of his purpose and contempt of his incapacity (as in the other

case) do not prevent us from being sincerely rejoiced at his failure.

An action then, as restricted by Dr. Brown to mean the person acting with a certain intention,and even if we comprehend with the intention the skill and power displayed in fulfilling that intention, an action, I say, even in this extended sense, is not the sole object of moral approbation or disapprobation. An action, as meaning the person acting, and the effect produced by his acting, is, by itself, the object of a moral sentiment. The thing done, as well as the person doing; the effect, as well as the intention, is that in which our moral faculties, whatever they may be, discover a good and a bad. We value the good intentions of the agent, even without reference to the end; but we also value the end, without reference to the good intentions of the agent; we value the wise adaptation of the means with reference to both; we admire the wisdom of the agent in adapting the means to the end; but we have also a distinct satisfaction with this adaptation, solely for the sake of the end. Though the sentiments excited by the agent, and those by the end, are of very different kinds, we bestow the name of approbation, or the contrary, on both, and apply indifferently to both agent and end several of the terms distinctive of moral qualities. We speak of approving an agent, approving an end, a good agent, a good end. The specific difference, however, be

tween these qualities, when separately applied to agents and ends, is also indicated by certain more appropriate and exclusive designations; we speak of a right or proper end, not of a right or proper agent; an agent is virtuous, an end is not.

But I must maintain, farther, not merely that there is a right and a wrong in ends, as separate from that which is ascribed to intentions, but that the former is the original and primary notion; the other, which relates to intentions, being founded upon it. That any supposed being, A. for instance, should be happy rather than miserable, (i. e. that it is fit, or right he should be so,) is a moral truth of itself, perceived to be such independently of all consideration of the goodness or badness of any intention whatever; on the contrary, that the intention of B. to make A. happy, is good or right, is not an original truth, but one which presupposes a fitness in the effect which B. intends to produce; nor can we possibly denominate any intention good, without the supposition of such an antecedent fitness in the end as now described. If no end were originally and in itself better than another, we should not understand what the good or bad intentions of an agent meant. How could a man be said to intend well or ill, if we knew of nothing but those very intentions themselves, which could be said to be good or bad? To use an illustration that may here strike more than one of a higher kind,-when we say that a man's coat