will seems to have little or nothing to do? And since we have affirmed that nothing is either virtuous or vicious, unless the voluntary in some way intermingles with it, how shall we vindicate the moral rank which is commonly assigned to the mere susceptibilities of our nature?

221. What two axioms may be stated in regard to the virtuousness of the agent who performs a given act?

222. Is volition alone sufficient therefore to make a thing virtuous? 223. What then is the specific distinction of a voluntary action which is virtuous?

224. What further influence, beside that already described, has the will on the emotions, by which they acquire a moral character?

225. What effect upon the moral character of an action has the opinion of the agent in doing it?

226. Is the allegation true, that there are no good affections or actions but those which have a benevolent tendency?

227. Are actions right simply because they are expedient?

228. How has Mr. Dymond illustrated the abuse to which the adoption of the principle of expediency would be generally liable?

229. What is necessary to constitute an action absolutely or materially good, or good in itself?

230. Does the character of an action depend upon the intention of the agent?

231. How is this matter regarded by the Supreme Being?

232. How does it appear that even among men, the morality of actions is estimated by the principle from which they are judged to proceed, and that such as the principle is, the man is accounted to be?

233. May there be virtue or vice in our intentions themselves, though not exerted in outward acts?

234. Does the character of an action so depend upon the intention, that a good intention will justify the means employed to execute it?

235. But although intention may convert good into evil, does it possess the opposite power of turning evil into good, of infusing a moral goodness into an act otherwise evil?

236. What province should, in morality, be assigned to intention? 237. What is necessary to render an action good in the sight of God? 238. What inference may be drawn from the preceding positions? 239. Do not the words of Peter to Cornelius (Acts x. 34, 35) prove that the works of the heathen, as well as those of Christians, are pleasing to God?

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BOOK IV.

THE RIGHTS OF MAN.

CHAPTER I.

RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS-THEIR NATURE.

240. WHATEVER action we would deem either virtuous or innocent were it done by an agent in certain circumstances, we say he has a right to do it. Whatever one so possesses and enjoys in certain circumstances that we would deem it a wrong action in any other to disturb or interrupt his possession, we say 'tis his right, or he has a right to enjoy and possess it. Whatever demand one has upon another in such circumstances that we would deem it wrong conduct in that other not to comply with it, we say one has a right to what is thus demanded.

[Hutchinson.] According to Dr. Reid, "The term right is a term of art in law, and signifies all that a man may lawfully do, all that he may lawfully possess and use, and all that he may lawfully claim of any other person."

241. Natural jurisprudence is a code of relative duty, deriving its authority from impressions which are found in the moral feelings of all mankind, without regard to the enactments of any particular civil society.

242. The whole object of law is to protect men in all that they may lawfully do, or possess, or demand; hence civilians have defined the word jus or right, to be a lawful claim to do anything, to possess anything, or to demand something from some other person.

243. The ambiguity existing in the use of the word right, may be seen in the following instance, stated by Dr. Chalmers:

I may have a right to a given property, which, however, being in the use and possession of a poor relative who would suffer by the deprivation, it may not be right

for me to exact it from the industrious father of a sinking and industrious family.

There is therefore a difference between a legal right and a moral rightness. A claim may rightfully belong to me, and I can therefore prosecute it at law, and yet it may be extremely right in me to postpone, if not altogether to relinquish it. I may have a right to prosecute, and yet it may not be right in me to enter on the prosecution. It may thus be altogether wrong to insist upon a right.

244. The existing jurisprudence of society ought not to be complained of because there are many things morally right which it has not made legally binding, and many things most offensively wrong which it does not punish: because there would be no scope for the generosities of our nature, if man were not left at liberty, either to insist upon his claims, or to forbear them at his pleasure. It would supersede the need of compassion, if, upon every occasion when it were right for it to come forth with its willing dispensations, law also came forth with the authoritative declaration that they were altogether due; thereby turning that which ought to be a matter of free indulgence, into a matter of strict and legal necessity, and thereby also destroying motives to industry and economy in the poor, and the feeling of gratitude when relieved by law.

245. But while the right and the rightness are separable in regard to the holder of the right, they are not so in regard to the other party. Though it be sometimes right for the creditor to forbear the prosecution of a debt, yet it is right for the debtor to strain his labor and his frugality to the utmost, in order to make out the payment. I may have a right over another man which it might be very wrong for me to act upon. But if another man have a right over me, it is never wrong, it is right, for me to act upon it. It is not at all times right in a man to proceed to the very uttermost of law upon his own right; but at all times right in him to defer the very uttermost to the rights of others.

246. The counterpart of a right upon one side, is an obligation on the other. If a man have a right to my services, I am under an obligation to render them. The counterpart again of a rightness, is not obligation, but

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it is my

approbation. If a man show a right over me, obligation and my part to submit to it. If any man show a rightness before me, it is my part to approve of it, and it is my duty to do it.

247. Duty is a wider term than obligation; just as right, the adjective, is wider than right, the substantive as when we say that a poor man has no right to relief, yet it is right he should have it.

My obligation is to give another man his right; my duty is to do what is right. The word obligation is not, however, used always in so narrow a sense, but is extended to the same limits as duty.

It is our duty to observe all rectitude, though there existed no being in the universe who had a right to enjoin the performance of it. It may be our duty to give to a needy person, though the thing given is in no way his due. It may be my duty to forgive a guilty person, though to say that forgiveness was his due would be a contradiction in terms.

The terms right and rightness, though distinct, appear to be closely associated in the minds of men. It may be that I ought to give to another a sum of money which I do not owe him. We do not owe a man forgiveness, when at the same time we ought to forgive him.

There is a distinction then between duty regarded in the light of moral propriety or rectitude, and duty regarded in the light of moral obligation.

If we look to morality only as it operates in human society and without reference to the Supreme Being, then we have many a rightness without a corresponding right; many duties which on my part should be performed, but not one of which is due to any living creature; many actions that may be the object of praise, and yet are not at all the matters of obligation. They are virtuous, and yet I am not bound to do them.

But God, who has an absolute property in us, and an absolute power over us, and whose will is on the side of virtue, has by his rightful authority turned proprieties and moralities into precepts: he has commanded them to be observed, and has thus brought them within the limits of moral obligation.

What our moral faculty recommends as so many proprieties, the law of God enjoins as so many precepts. In

virtue of our particular relationship to God, all whose commandments are infallibly right, there is naught in the shape of duty, which is not also due to the Being who made us; there is nothing that we ought to do, which we do not also owe to the Master who claims it in the shape of obedience to himself; there is naught which is simply becoming because of its moral goodness, which is not also legally binding because of a law from heaven that authoritatively requires it.

It is thus and thus alone, as far as we can perceive, that moral approbation and moral obligation have come to be coextensive with each other; and that each is alike applicable to virtue throughout the whole length and breadth of its territory. It is because of God's interposing this authority in behalf of what is right, that, though before a mere propriety, and therefore simply the object of approbation, it now becomes a precept, and is therefore a matter of actual obligation. Yet, apart from the authority of God, and without any reference, at the time, of our thoughts to him at all, we are accustomed to talk, not merely of the rectitude of morality, but also of the obligations of morality, because it belongs to the office of conscience to act the part of a judge, and condemn us when we refuse to do what is conceived to be right, and to reward us for a contrary course.

We are so constituted as to feel that we ought to do a thing which we conceive to be right, simply because we conceive it to be right. There is an inherent sense of obligation to do what is right. If it be asked, why must I do what is right? the answer is, because it is right. Why should I do what I ought? Because I ought. This is the ultimate answer, and to the unsophisticated and honest mind is a sufficient answer.

A man's

248. The opposite of rights, are wrongs. rights may be infringed, transgressed by the actions of other men. Thus a man infringes my right to personal safety, by striking me; my right to my property, by stealing it. He who thus violates a man's rights does him a

wrong.

249. The terms applied to actions, the opposite of right, are, violations of duties, transgressions, offenses, crimes, vices, sins.

250. The law assigns to each person his rights; but