cal portions, indeed, are so occasional as almost to

admit of being particularized.

In the contrast between the intricacy and difficulty of a theoretical, and the interest of a popular or didactic delineation of the nature of virtue and vice, I have often been struck with the resemblance to the case of music - so complex and abstruse as a science, so delightful as an art; or, if I may use another comparison which I have somewhere seen employed, for this, or a similar purpose, I should say that the theoretical bears the same relation to the descriptive or sentimental moralist, that the anatomist does to the painter or the sculptor. To the latter the object of study is the graces of form, of attitude, of motion: the former has to penetrate with his knife into the dark recesses of the animal frame, and to exhibit the machinery of bones, and muscles, and tubes, and vessels, which support the structure of external beauty, and effect the motions of external grace.

CONTENTS

OF

THE FIRST VOLUME.

PART I.

OF THE SUBJECTS, GENERALLY, OF A THEORY OF

MORALS, AND OF THE NATURE OF THE MORAL

FACULTY.

CHAPTER I. - Principal divisions of the inquiry.

CHAPTER II. - Of specific distinctions comprehended

in the general term (morally) good - Ob-

jections to Dr. T. Brown's account of the

notion of an action in morals.

CHAPTER III. - On the question whether the per-

ception of moral distinctions resolves ulti-

mately into a judgment of reason or into an

emotion.

SECTION I. - Positive argument that Reason per-

ceives a moral distinction in actions.

SECTION II. - Absurdity of the consequences that

flow from the hypothesis that approbation and

disapprobation are mere emotions. - Examin-

ation of Dr. Hutcheson's and Dr. Brown's de-

fences.

Page

1

4

23

39

SECTION III.- Inadequacy of the supposition that ap-

probation and disapprobation are mere emotions,

to explain the phenomena of our moral senti-

ments. - Exemplification from the statements of

Dr. Brown and Dr. Smith.

APPENDIX TO SECT. III. - Of the nature of our de-

pendence on the constancy of the laws of

nature.

SECTION IV. - Of positive arguments against the

supposition that Reason judges of moral dis-

tinctions.

66

APPENDIX TO CHAP. III. Remarks on Sir James

Mackintosh's Preliminary Dissertation"

in the new edition of the Encyclopædia

Britannica. -

CHAPTER IV. - View of the origin and nature of our

moral judgments and feelings, and of the

related principles of action.

Page

58

89

94

111

SECTION I. - Of judgments and feelings strictly

moral.

134

SECTION II. - Of the natural affections.

152

SECTION III. Of the precise sense in which appro-

bation and disapprobation are acts of Reason.

162

CHAPTER V.- Recapitulation-analysis of the com-

plex notion of a moral action.

172

CHAPTER VI. - Of the distinctive nature of the

truths of moral science.

SECTION 1. --Separation of certain inquiries occa-

sionally confounded.

177

SECTION II. - Parallel between moral and mathema-

tical truths.

187

PART II.

DOCTRINES OF THE SCIENCE OF MORALS.

Page

CHAPTER I. - Moral axioms, or first principles of

moral truth.

CHAPTER II. - Of the moral fitness of certain ends

CHAPTER III. - Of obligation or duty as lying upon

an agent.

SECTION I. - Of general obligations-as arising from

the proper and immediate effects of actions

Theory of the construction of moral rules.

SECTION II. Of special obligations-as arising from

the circumstantial and derived effects of actions-

Source of the obligation of a promise-gratitude

-relationship. Of distributive justice-rights

and injuries.

CHAPTER IV. - Theory of civil government - origin

of political powers and rights.

-

CHAPTER V. - Theory of property. Nature of right

acquired by possession-by labour.

195

207

213

247

270

299