Another example of conduct appealing strongly to our sentiment of the becoming, is the virtue of humility, formerly given as an instance of the noble. To assign a just and modest value to self, and an equally just value to every one else, seems at first sight to be only a case of justice. And undoubtedly substantial justice ought to be the basis of all esteem, and respect to ourselves and others. But it is always reckoned highly becoming to maintain the rights of others in preference to our own. The danger being always on the side of too much regard to self, the beauty consists in inclining sensibly to the opposite side.

There is great scope for obeying the sentiment of the becoming, in not insisting strongly on advantages procured independent of all merit on the part of the individual. Hence an additional motive for modesty of deportment in the wealthy and the great by birth, and in the possessors of brilliant natural gifts.

5. The sense of what is for the good of the individual considered with reference to the whole compass of being, easily chimes in with the moral instincts, and is in fact itself a sense of right. It is a grand extension of the instinct of preservation, involving a fair consideration of the entire mass of interests affecting the person, and if perfectly adjusted, it must be identical with the highest rule of rectitude. The only objection that can be taken against the arranging of all duties under a high self-regarding end, is founded in the general principle, that it is always better to look at something outward as an aim of pursuit. The outward glance is more healthy and more invigorating than the introspective glance; and hence, apart altogether from the danger of selfishness, it is desirable that the aim of one's life should lie among outward objects. At the same time, it is to be remarked, that high selfcultivation, which ranks among the noblest of human desires, has self wholly for its end.

6. The feeling of the good of the society that we live in.-In order to give the most ample scope to brotherly sentiment, we form a great abstraction of the highest good of mankind on the whole, in addition to our conceptions of what is for the good of those immediately related to us. By bringing the intellect into play, we are able to give the greatest possible range to the heart. Natural affection thus shaped and directed by intelligence, yields the enlarged sentiment of the good of mankind, which is to be ranked among the elevating and ennobling impulses of our being. For our own sake, for the sake of the society where our direct action lies, for the sake of our race, it is highly desirable that this sentiment should be cherished and cultivated. It is a sentiment that grows more upon men as society advances; and the form of it that belongs to the general opinion

and education of any one age, enters into the moral sense of that age. All the public transactions of governments, their wars, conquests, and treaties, require to be justified by their tendency to promote the good of the rest of the world. Pure selfishness on the part of any sovereign power, shocks the moral sense of every impartial community; there is now-a-days a protesting voice raised against the infliction of evil upon any race or tribe, or any class of a community, unless some necessity or philanthropic impulse can be pleaded in its favour. We have already remarked, that when security has once been attained, the generous sentiments of mankind expand into positive benevolence, at least in theory, and the suggestions of this positive benevolence go so thoroughly along with all the best impulses of human nature, that they become incorporated with the sense of right.

7. Every writer on morals has been more or less impressed with the very large share that Sympathy, Imitation, Education, Custom, Opinion, and Authority, or the general mass of influences from without, exercise on the moral sentiments, no less than on the other parts of human nature. On this head, we do not require to dwell. It would be interesting to assign something like the exact proportion that outward influence bears to inward promptings in forming the character of a people or of an individual. But if this problem were capable of the most approximate solution, it would only be for given cases, circumstantially known to the party attempting it. The historian of Greece, or of Rome, cannot avoid speculating on the probable share that foreign influences had on the character of those respective nations; and the biographer is still more disposed to point out the external causes influencing the character of his hero. But with regard to mankind in general, no proportion could be assigned between the two causes; the degree of susceptibility to outward influences being one of the varying elements of human character. The individuals marked by a predominance of the self-asserting organisation, which is the contrast to the yielding temperament, would be the persons to refer to for finding what mere natural instinct can amount to; but then they would not represent the average of mankind.

8. Legal sanctions, or the punishments enforced in a society against particular actions, must be included as determining the moral sense. The actions habitually associated in the mind with pain and infamy, are very readily looked upon as wrong; and it takes a great effort of intellect or of inward sentiment to rise above an influence so impressive. The legal punishments established in a community enter into the moral education of its subjects, and determine the sentiments of the many, by their enforcement against the few. In this way, an idea of wrong sometimes comes to be

attached to things that would not offend any other ingredient of the moral sense-as when men are punished for expressing opinions at variance with what the government countenances, or for meeting together in more than a given number.

9. Individual peculiarities of sentiment often become a prominent part of the individual moral sense, although they can never be maintained as belonging to eternal and immutable morality. We often meet with persons having fancies and notions as to conduct, such as others do not sympathise in; and we find that to the persons themselves, those fancies are as binding as the highest rules of right. Of peculiarities of this kind that have spread in the world, we may instance the notion of the celibacy of sacred officials both among pagans and Christians, the duty of renouncing society and living an isolated existence, and the abstinence from particular articles of food. It would never occur to the universal moral sense of mankind, to place such things among primary duties; but to certain constitutions they present themselves as such, and in those cases, there is perhaps more of the internal satisfaction of rightness of conduct attending them, than what springs from the other duties of Justice, Truth, and the like. We may often notice among individuals favourite duties, or actions that they have a peculiar satisfaction in performing; and on the same principle of constitutional peculiarity, factitious duties and virtues may be created, and attempts made to impose them upon others. But we require to repel all such propositions, and to place them upon their proper footing-that, namely, of Tastes, and not of Duties.

The nine ingredients thus specified as entering into the commonly recognised conscience, seem to us fully to explain the perception of right and wrong in reference to actions, and to leave nothing to the exercise of an independent organ or faculty. We shall afterwards have to shew how they account also for the Sense of Obligation, or the motive power of rightness, which is a different thing from the mere discerning power. But as our author has chosen to consider the Moral Sense apart from the Sense of Obligation, and as there is a certain advantage gained from their separate consideration, we have forborne all express allusion to the moving element in the exposition of the element that gives the perception.]

The word happy is a relative term; that is, when we call a man happy, we mean that he is happier than some others with whom we compare him; than the generality of others; or than he himself was in some other situation. Thus, speaking of one who has just compassed the object of a long pursuit: 'Now,' we say, 'he is happy;' and in a like comparative sense- compared, that is, with the general lot of mankind—we call a man happy who possesses health and competency.

In strictness, any condition may be denominated happy in which the amount or aggregate of pleasure exceeds that of pain; and the degree of happiness depends upon the quantity of this excess. And the greatest quantity of it ordinarily attainable in human life, is what we mean by happiness, when we inquire or pronounce what human happiness consists in.1

In which inquiry, I will omit much usual declamation on the dignity and capacity of our nature; the superiority of the soul to the body, of the rational to the animal part of our constitution; upon the worthiness, refinement, and delicacy of some satisfactions, or the meanness, grossness, and sensuality of others: because I hold that pleasures differ in nothing but in continuance and intensity: from a just computation of which, confirmed by what we observe of the apparent cheerfulness, tranquillity, and contentment of men of different tastes, tempers, stations, and pursuits, every question concerning human happiness must receive its decision.

It will be our business to shew, if we can

1 If any positive signification, distinct from what we mean by pleasure, can be affixed to the term 'happiness,' I should take it to denote a certain state of the nervous system in that part of the human frame in which we feel joy and grief, passions and affections. Whether this part be the heart, which the turn of most languages would lead us to believe, or the diaphragm, as Buffon, or the upper orifice of the stomach, as Van Helmont, thought; or rather be a kind of fine network, lining the whole region of the præcordia, as others have imagined; it is possible, not only that each painful sensation may violently shake and disturb the fibres at the time, but that a series of such may at length so derange the very texture of the system, as to produce a perpetual irritation, which will shew itself by fretfulness, impatience, and restlessness. It is possible also, on the other hand, that a succession of pleasurable sensations may have such an effect upon this subtile organisation, as to cause the fibres to relax, and return into their place and order, and thereby to recover, or, if not lost, to preserve, that harmonious conformation which gives to the mind its sense of complacency and satisfaction. This state may be denominated happiness, and is so far distinguishable from pleasure, that it does not refer to any particular object of enjoyment, or consist, like pleasure, in the gratification of one or more of the senses, but is rather the secondary effect which such objects and gratifications produce upon the nervous system, or the state in which they leave it. These conjectures belong not, however, to our province. The comparative sense in which we have explained the term happiness, is more popular, and is sufficient for the purpose of the present chapter.

I. What Human Happiness does not consist in.

II. What it does consist in.

FIRST, then, Happiness does not consist in the pleasures of sense, in whatever profusion or variety they be enjoyed. By the pleasures of sense, I mean, as well the animal gratifications of eating, drinking, and that by which the species is continued, as the more refined pleasures of music, painting, architecture, gardening, splendid shows, theatric exhibitions; and the pleasures, lastly, of active sports, as of hunting, shooting, fishing, &c. For

1st, These pleasures continue but a little while at a time. This is true of them all, especially of the grosser sort of them. Laying aside the preparation and the expectation, and computing strictly the actual sensation, we shall be surprised to find how inconsiderable a portion of our time they occupy, how few hours in the four-and-twenty they are able to fill up.

2dly, These pleasures, by repetition, lose their relish. It is a property of the machine, for which we know no remedy, that the organs by which we perceive pleasure are blunted and benumbed by being frequently exercised in the same way. There is hardly any one who has not found the difference between a gratification, when new, and when familiar; or any pleasure which does not become indifferent as it grows habitual.

3dly, The eagerness for high and intense delights takes away the relish from all others; and as such delights fall rarely in our way, the greater part of our time becomes, from this cause, empty and uneasy.

There is hardly any delusion by which men are greater sufferers in their happiness, than by their expecting too much from what is called pleasure; that is, from those intense delights which vulgarly engross the name of pleasure. The very expectation spoils them. When they do come, we are often engaged in taking pains to persuade ourselves how much we are pleased, rather than enjoying any pleasure which springs naturally out of the object. And whenever we depend upon being vastly delighted, we always go home secretly grieved at missing our aim. Likewise, as has been observed just now, when this humour of being prodigiously delighted has once taken hold of the imagination, it hinders us from providing for or acquiescing in those gently-soothing engagements, the due variety and succession of which are the only things that supply a vein or continued stream of happiness.

What I have been able to observe of that part of mankind whose professed pursuit is pleasure, and who are withheld in the pursuit by no restraints of fortune or scruples of conscience, corresponds sufficiently with this account. I have commonly remarked in such men, a restless and inextinguishable passion for