that stings us, may be said, upon such an explanation, to perceive our desert of punishment. So, if the benefit resulting to society is what constitutes the desert, a soldier killed in battle deserves to die. But, if the notion of desert is conceived not in regard to others, but to the agent himself, and if it is strictly a moral notion, it must be traced to the moral faculty; and, in consistency with the theory I am considering, to say that an agent deserves reward or punishment, ought to mean precisely this, and nothing else, viz.: either that the emotion of approbation or disapprobation carries along with it a desire to benefit or hurt the agent approved or disapproved; or that the contemplation of such an agent enjoying reward, or suffering punishment, affects us with an agreeable emotion.

It is needless to repeat, in regard to this representation, objections of an entirely similar effect to what have been already offered. Nothing would appear to be more clear than this, that, when we say, a man ought to be rewarded or punished, we assert something of him, not of ourselves; that his desert, in either way, is quite independent of any thing desired or felt by us; and that we feel bound, in innumerable instances, to regulate the gratification of our love or resentment, - to sacrifice the satisfaction we should feel in beholding a person affected with good or evil, to our idea of his desert, as something totally different from any mere feeling or affection we can entertain in re

gard to him. No mere feeling with which we can be affected, can possibly mean the same thing with this, that he deserves reward or punishment; or preclude us from asking the question, why he ought to receive good or evil, merely because we desire it, or should be pleased at it: - a question, which, if we do not answer, we leave a difficulty unsolved: if we do answer it, it is by reasoning in a circle: but which we cannot even profess to answer, without acknowledging it to have a fair intelligible meaning; and acknowledging consequently that the desert of an agent cannot mean the same thing with any affection or emotion felt by us.

From what was advanced in the preceding section, it might naturally be expected, that the patrons of the system I have been opposing would be particularly apt to betray an inconsistency, whenever they should come to speak of the character of the Deity, either in general, or as displayed in the endowing of certain orders of beings with faculties distinctive of right and wrong. It is obvious that if, on such occasions, the writers in question pronounce of the character or acts of the Deity, that they are good, or apply to them any terms whatever expressive of moral qualities, they pronounce such judgment, or apply such terms, in the use or exercise of their own moral faculty, whatever it may be. And if their expressions, as then made use of, are entirely undistinguishable from the determinations of reason, as declared on other occasions, clear and intelligible when taken as the dictates of reason, and yet utterly nugatory and unmeaning, because necessarily involving an argument in a circle, when considered only as denoting that certain sensations or emotions have been felt by those who utter such expressions, - surely the insufficiency of the hypothesis maintained by these authors must become glaringly apparent.

"I shall not," says Dr. T. Brown, "attempt to picture to you the wretchedness- the wretchedness of a world in which such feelings were not a part of the mental constitution;" and again, “But if, in the minds of different individuals, this distinction were differently formed, it is evident that the social happiness and even the social union of mankind could not be preserved. It is necessary for general peace, that there should be some great rule of conduct." Now suppose any person to ask here, - why should not the state of man be a state of wretchedness, - of wretchedness, beyond description? why should the social happiness, the general peace, be preserved? Had any person put such questions as these to Dr. B. would he not (and justly) have judged the querist insane? and must not his expressions be taken as those of a man, who, in the ordinary exercise of his reason, assumes the truth of such propositions as these"Man ought not to be wretched," - "It is right

that the social happiness, the general peace should be preserved, rather than the contrary?"

But suppose, for a moment, that Dr. Brown does not here speak in the use of the faculty which generally discriminates truth from falsehood, but in the use of that faculty, another and different one, that discriminates right from wrong - just as he might discourse upon the natural beauty of external objects, in the exercise of the power of taste. He determines then that men received the capacity of distinguishing right and wrong, for the sake of their happiness-because they would have been wretched without such capacity. Put the question then again, why not? Because their being wretched would be viewed with the emotion of disapprobation. And why should they possess the capability of this emotion ? because they would be wretched without it-and so on. Is not this very satisfactory reasoning? Let Dr. B.'s expressions then be otherwise translated into the language of his theory.

"We can discover nothing in the nature of our minds," Dr. Brown elsewhere observes, “which should enable us to perceive a distinction between right and wrong; but we may discover why our mind has been so constituted. It has been so constituted by the goodness of God for the sake of our happiness." - Now there are just three meanings that can be affixed to this, and the sup

porters of the views I am considering will have to choose among them.

By saying that we find the reason of our present moral constitution "in the provident goodness of God," Dr. B. may mean simply that we received this constitution because the Deity, in fact, desired to make us happy. - Now this, let it be observed, is just the same sort of explanation that it would be to say, that plagues and earthquakes have happened because the Deity, in fact, desires us to be miserable. In the one case, as in the other, we just infer the intention from the effect-then conversely again the effect from the intention. If this is a satisfactory explanation, surely philosophers have taken a great deal of unnecessary pains in accounting for the origin of evil.

But again; by saying that we owe our moral constitution to the provident goodness of God, Dr. B. may mean that God gave us this constitution because it was morally right to give us such a constitution. But morally right, in our apprehension, means, according to Dr. B. -"affecting us with the agreeable emotion" - in this sense his proposition will amount to this-we received this constitution, because its being given is agreeable to this constitution.

But suppose Dr. B. to mean by morally right, morally right in the divine apprehension, i. e.