for the fake of a growing family, to yield a fubject in controverfy rather than go to law with a neighbour, generously to return good for ill, are examples of this fpecies. They are univerfally approved as right actions: but as no perfon has a right or title to oblige us to perform fuch ac→ tions, the leaving them undone is not a wrong: no perfon is injured by the forbearance. Actions that come under this clafs, fhall be termed arbitrary or difcretionary, for want of a more proper defignation.

So much for right actions, and their di→ vifions. Wrong actions are of two kinds, criminal and culpable. What are done intentionally to produce mifchief, are crimi nal: rash or unguarded actions that produce mifchief without intention, are culpable. The former are restrained by punishment, to be handled in the 5th fection; the latter by reparation, to be handled in the 6th.

The divifions of voluntary actions are not yet exhausted. Some there are that, properly speaking, cannot be denominated either right or wrong. Actions done merely for amusement or pastime, without intention

tention to produce good or ill, are of that kind; leaping, for example, running, jumping over a stick, throwing a stone to make circles in the water. Such actions are neither approved nor difapproved: they may be termed indifferent.

There is no caufe for doubting the exiftence of the moral sense, more than for doubting the existence of the sense of beauty, of seeing, or of hearing. In fact, the perception of right and wrong as qualities of actions, is no lefs diftinct and clear, than that of beauty, of colour, or of any other quality; and as every perception is an act of fenfe, the fense of beauty is not with greater certainty evinced from the perception of beauty, than the moral fense is from the perception of right and wrong. We find this fense distributed among individuals in different degrees of perfection but there perhaps never exifted any one above the condition of an idiot, who poffeffed it not in fome degree; and were any man entirely deftitute of it, the terms right and wrong would be to him no lefs unintelligible, than the term colour is to one born. blind...

VOL. IV.

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That

That every individual is endued with a fense of right and wrong, more or less distinct, will probably be granted; but whether there be among men what may be termed a common fenfe of right and wrong, producing uniformity of opinion. as to right and wrong, is not fo evident. There is no abfurdity in fuppofing the opinions of men about right and wrong, to be as various as about beauty and deformity. And that the fuppofition is not deftitute of foundation, we are led to fufpect, upon discovering that in different countries, and even in the fame country at different times, the opinions publicly efpoufed with regard to right and wrong, are extremely various; that among fome nations it was held lawful for a man to fell his children for flaves, and in their infancy to abandon them to wild beasts ; that it was held equally lawful to punish children, even capitally, for the crime of their parent; that the murdering an enemy in cold blood, was once a common practice; that human facrifices, impious no less than immoral according to our notions, were of old univerfal; that even in later times, it has been held meritorious,

to

to inflict cruel torments for the flightest deviations from the religious creed of the plurality; and that among the most enlightened nations, there are at this day confiderable differences with respect to the rules of morality.

These facts tend not to difprove the reality of a common fenfe in morals: they only prove, that the moral fenfe has not been equally perfect at all times, nor in all countries. This branch of the history of morality, is referved for the fecond part. To give fome interim fatisfaction, I fhall shortly observe, that the favage ftate is the infancy of man; during which, the more delicate fenfes lie dormant, leaving nations to the authority of custom, of imitation, and of paffion, without any just taste of morals more than of the fine arts. But a nation, like an individual, ripens gradually, and acquires a refined tafte in morals as well as in the fine arts: after which we find great uniformity of opinion about the rules of right and wrong; with few exceptions, but what may proceed from imbecillity, or corrupted education. There may be found, it is true, even in the most enlightened ages, men who

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who have fingular notions in morality, and in many other fubjects; which no more affords an argument against a common sense or standard of right and wrong, than a monster doth against the standard that regulates our external form, or than an exception doth against the truth of a general propofition.

That there is in mankind an uniformity of opinion with respect to right and wrong, is a matter of fact of which the only infallible evidence is obfervation and experience: and to that evidence I appeal; entering only a caveat, that, for the reafon above given, the inquiry be confined to enlightened nations. In the mean time, I take liberty to fuggeft an argument from analogy, That if there be great uniformity among the different tribes of men in feeing and hearing, in pleasure and pain, in judging of truth and error, the fame uniformity ought to be expected with respect to right and wrong. Whatever minute differences there may be to distinguish one perfon from another, yet in the general principles that conftitute our nature, internal and external, there is wonderful uniformity.