tion or removal of misery, as such. To human agents at least, these must always be ends; ends which, with human means, can never be pursued to excess. Even if there may be other ends besides these, and by which these may occasionally be interfered with or superseded, these can never cease to be ends; even if there be cases in which pain ought to be inflicted or happiness withheld, it cannot be for the sake of inflicting pain, for the sake of withholding happiness. That happiness, simply as such, ought to be promoted rather than misery, that happiness should, simply as happiness, be promoted in a great degree, to a great extent, rather than in a small degree or to a small extent - these are propositions which must of necessity be received as at least among the first principles of morals, under every system, every theory which man can possibly form.

The question has sometimes been put, whether the promotion of virtue is not in itself something fit, as distinct from the promotion of happiness? But the promotion of virtue must always be the promotion of happiness; since virtue, both as a subject of contemplation and a source of conduct, necessarily produces happiness. To put such a question then is really to ask whether the promotion of virtue is not fit, as distinct from that from which it yet can never be made distinct.

This much, at all events, seems certain, that the perception that the promotion of happiness is

fit, must necessarily precede the perception that the promotion of virtue is fit; because without the former perception, we could not so much as form a notion of what virtue is; and the subsequent perception that the promotion of virtue is itself fit, is another instance of that sort of reproductive sequence in our moral sentiments that has already been observed.

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CHAPTER III.

OF OBLIGATION OR DUTY AS LYING UPON AN AGENT.

SECT. I.

Of general Obligations, as arising from the proper and immediate Effects of Actions.

In the last chapter, I treated of the fitness of actions, or of that quality which belongs to the end, result, or effect of an action, without reference either to any duty, conceived as lying upon an agent, or to any approvable or rewardable conduct in such agent. That a living being should be happy rather than miserable, does not merely mean, that it is the duty of a moral agent to render him happy, or that this is what a moral agent would be praised or rewarded for. The first proposition is true, absolutely, and in itself, and presupposed in those that follow. Immediately connected with the notion of fitness, however, and arising out of it, is that of obligation or duty, which the mind at once forms on conceiving of some fit or unfit effect, as what a moral agent may produce.

:

Our notion of the obligation of any action is

just that of the amount of cause or reason why that action should be performed. Now that an action produces a fit effect, is certainly a cause or reason for the performance of it; that it produces a fitter effect, is a greater reason; that it produces a less fit effect, is a less reason. We immediately and necessarily perceive then, that if any effect is, in itself, fit to be produced, it is obligatory on an agent to produce it, and vice versa; and that, in proportion as the effect of an action is more or less fit, such action is more or less obligatory.

The various deductions applicable to the circumstances of mankind, that may be drawn from the principle now stated, - directing what particular actions are to be performed, what avoided, fixing the comparative obligation of different sorts of actions, or determining what line of conduct is proper in various supposed cases, - constitute the practical rules of morality; and I am now to exhibit the manner in which these rules are formed.

It must be specially kept in view, that the subject of present inquiry is not, what sort of conduct makes an agent a virtuous agent, or what confers merit upon him. It has just been observed, that our notion of an end's being a fit end, is not equivalent with that of its being the duty of an agent to produce it; but that, on the contrary, an obligation to pursue the end, presupposes that some ends are, in themselves, fit to be pursued. In like manner to shew that actions are obligatory on an agent, is very different indeed from shewing what would be virtuous or meritorious in that agent. The virtue or merit of the agent, that is, the disposition or endeavour of such agent to do his duty, presupposes that something is his duty, and his duty independently of what may be his disposition or endeavour.

Still less, if possible, must we, when pointing out what makes certain actions morally obligatory, be viewed as explaining what generally makes men perform such actions. Men perform good actions from many principles besides a perception of moral obligation; and what we are to investigate is only why men ought to perform certain actions, independently of any impulses which they may feel from natural instincts, passions, or affections.

The just way of arriving at a knowledge of the foundations of moral duty, is to suppose a being destitute of all the natural instincts, affections, and passions, which lead to the preservation of the individual and the species-still, however, supposing him to be possessed of different sources of happiness and misery - for without these, as formerly shewn, no moral notions could possibly come to exist. Though a man were destitute of parental affection, there would still be a reason why he ought to nourish and protect his children; this would be morally right rather than the contrary. Though he were destitute of the desire of food, and derived no pleasure from taking nou