explain, upon their hypothesis, the absolute nature of virtue be examined, and this fallacy will be found lurking at the bottom of it.

Dr. Thomas Brown's vindication of the doctrine of a moral sense from the objections brought against it, rests entirely on the following points :

1st. "Right and wrong indeed signify nothing in the objects themselves." - "They are words expressive only of relation" (relation between an act and an emotion excited by that act) "and relations are not existing parts of objects or things to be added to objects or taken from them.""But it is not to moral distinctions only that this objection, if it had any force, would be applicable. Equality, proportion, it might be said, in like manner, signify nothing in the objects themselves to which they are applied, more than vice or virtue."-" And if it be not necessary in the case of a science which we regard as the surest of all sciences, that the proportions of figures should be any thing inherent in the figures, why should it be required, before we put confidence in morality,

that right and wrong should be something existing in the individual agents?"

2nd. There is no reason for supposing that ever our moral sense will be changed in its nature, so as to make us view that as wrong, which we view as right just now, and vice versa.

3rd. Even supposing reason to be the judge of moral distinctions, reason itself may be overturned; and, arguments founded on the possibility of a change in our moral sense, are, no less than those that question the rectitude of the reasoning faculty itself, sceptical, and subversive of all inquiry.

In regard to the first point, it is almost superfluous to remark, that no one ever maintained the absurdity that virtue or vice are, any more than equality or proportion, "existing parts of objects that might be added to objects or taken from them." But has Dr. Brown meant to say, that, according to his account of the nature of the moral faculty, our moral determinations may be of as fixed and unchangeable truth, as are the doctrines of mathematics? -or, if he has not meant this, wherein does he stop short of such an assertion, or what proposition, as distinct from this, has he maintained? Either, I apprehend, he has maintained this, or he has maintained nothing at all. Let me ask then, when we perceive any of the properties which flow from the nature of mathematical figures, does our perception of such properties depend upon something belonging to the figure, or upon something peculiar to the constitution of our mind, an alteration of which constitution would also alter the properties of the figure? For instance, is our perception of the equality of the angles of an equilateral triangle, one which an alteration of our constitution could convert into a perception, equally just, of their inequality? or, when we speak of mathematical truths, can it be said that we speak of what has

66

no universality beyond that of the minds in which the perception of these truths arises?" of "what our mind is formed" to perceive, "not of what it might have been formed" to perceive differently? Has the immutability of mathematical truth "regard only to the existing constitution of things, under that Divine Being who has formed our nature as it is?" Is it customary to ask no more foundation for the existence of mathematical relations, than that "they are relations which we and all mankind have felt since the creation of the very race of man," or to arrogate for them no greater degree of regularity than that of "the whole system of laws which carry on in unbroken harmony the motions of the universe?" or is it usual to represent the regularity with which mathematical truths hold good as being “sufficient for us while we exist on earth,"* and what we have no particular reason to fear will be interrupted afterwards?

An entire perplexity of thought is visible in that part of Dr. Brown's argument in which he assimilates our perception of moral distinctions, (as explained by his theory,) to our perception of mathematical relations - a perplexity that arises from his confounding the moral emotion, as one act or state of the mind, with that other act or state of the mind which consists in the perception of a relation between that emotion and the action by which it is excited, and then representing the absolute truth of the relation thus perceived, as an absolute moral character belonging to the action which moves the emotion. A relation between an action, and an emotion excited by that action, may as truly exist as a fact, and be as certainly perceived, as the relation between one mathematical quantity and another. But would not a similar relation exist, and be perceived with the same certainty, under circumstances perfectly the reverse - that is, where the same action that now excites approbation should excite disapprobation? If we could view the murder of a father by his son with feelings of pleasure and approbation, the relation between that act and those feelings would remain equally real, and the perception of it be as certain, as on the opposite supposition.

In regard to the second point of Dr. B.'s defence:-it is entirely idle to tell us of the unlikeli

hood (though how the unlikelihood exists I have never seen shewn) that cruelty will ever become morally good or kindness bad. What we ask is could this be? Our question regards not probability, but possibility. Could cruelty, for its own sake, and because of its being cruelty, ever be good? If it could not, are we to suppose that an agreeable emotion cannot, in the nature of things, be connected with the view of cruelty, or that the particular emotion connected with the view of it is not what distinguishes it as good? These are the questions to be answered; but the questions - it somehow happens - that we never find answered.

What meaning, I would now ask, can we attach to the words, "We feel that it will be impossible, while the constitution of nature remains as it is, and we may say, while God himself exists, that the lover and intentional producer of misery, as misery, should ever be viewed with tender esteem," &c. Does the "constitution of nature" here mean that constitution by which we are formed to view an act productive of misery with the disagreeable emotion? If so, Dr. B. merely tells us that we can never view such an act with pleasure, so long as we remain constituted in such a way as to view it with pain. Does the "constitution of nature" mean the laws of thought or feeling, necessarily resulting from the nature of mind, as mind? If Dr. B. used the expression in this sense, he asserts the doctrine of his opponents, and contra