(7.) A predilection for singular or paradoxical opinions. (8.) A disposition to unlimited scepticism.

["De nobis ipsis silemus; de re autem quæ agitur petimus, ut homines eam non opinionem, sed opus esse cogitent, ac pro certo habeant, non sectæ nos alicujus aut placiti sed utilitatis et amplitudinis humanæ fundamenta moliri. Deinde ut suis commodis æqui, . . in communæ consulant . . . et ipsi in partem veniant. Præterea ut bene sperent, neque instaurationem nostram, ut quiddam infinitum et ultra mortale, fingant et animo concipiant; cum revera sit infiniti erroris finis et terminus legitimus."-Baco. (Instauratio Magna, in Præf. sub fine.]-1st edit.

OUTLINES OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY.

SUBJECT AND ARRANGEMENT OF THIS TREATISE.

1. The object of Moral Philosophy is to ascertain the general rules of a wise and virtuous conduct in life, in so far as these rules may be discovered by the unassisted light of nature; that is, by an examination of the principles of the human constitution, and of the circumstances in which man is placed.

2. In examining the principles of our constitution with this view, our inquiries may be arranged under three heads; according as they refer,—

(1.) To the intellectual powers of man;

(2.) To his active and moral powers; and

(3.) To man, considered as the member of a political body. 3. Of these articles, the two first coincide with the common division of human nature into the powers of the Understanding and those of the Will; a division of great antiquity, and which (abstracted from the effects of political institutions) exhausts the whole of Moral Philosophy. As man, however, excepting in his rudest state, has been always found connected with a political community, the principles which lay the foundation of this species of union may be regarded as universal and essential principles of our constitution; and, without an examination of them, it is impossible for us to have a just

idea of our situation in the world, and of the most important duties we owe to our fellow-creatures. This last branch of the subject has, besides, a more intimate connexion with the other two than might at first be apprehended; for it is in the political union, and in the gradual improvement of which it is susceptible, that nature has made a provision for a gradual development of our intellectual and moral powers, and for a proportional enlargement in our capacities of enjoyment; and it is by the particular forms of their political institutions that those opinions and habits which constitute the Manners of nations are chiefly determined. How intimately these are connected with the progress and happiness of the race, will appear in the sequel.

4. An investigation of the Pleasures and Pains of which we are susceptible, might furnish the subject of a fourth view of man, considered as a sensitive being. But instead of aiming at so great a degree of analytical distinctness, it will be found more convenient to incorporate this part of the Philosophy of the Human Mind with the other three which have been already defined; connecting whatever remarks may occur on our enjoyments or sufferings, with those intellectual or moral principles, from the exercise of which they respectively arise.

PART I.

OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS OF MAN.

The most important of these are comprehended in the fol

(8.) Imagination.

(9.) Powers of judgment and reasoning.

5. Besides these intellectual faculties, which in some degree are common to the whole species, there are other more complicated powers or capacities, which are gradually formed by particular habits of study or of business. Such are, the Power of Taste; a Genius for Poetry, for Painting, for Music, for Mathematics; with all the various intellectual habits acquired in the different professions of life. To analyze such compounded powers into the more simple and general principles of our nature, forms one of the most interesting subjects of philosophical disquisition.

6. To this branch of our constitution may also be referred those auxiliary faculties and principles, which are essential to our intellectual improvement, or very intimately connected with it; in particular, the faculty of communicating our thoughts by arbitrary signs, and the principle of [sympathetic] imitation.

SECT. I.-CONSCIOUSNESS.

7. This word denotes the immediate knowledge which the mind has of its sensations and thoughts, and, in general, of all its present operations.

8. Of all the present operations of the mind, Consciousness is an inseparable concomitant.

9. The belief with which it is attended has been considered as the most irresistible of any; insomuch that this species of evidence has never been questioned: and yet it rests on the same foundation with every kind of belief to which we are determined by the constitution of our nature.

10. We cannot properly be said to be conscious of our own existence; our knowledge of this fact being necessarily posterior, in the order of time, to the consciousness of those sensations by which it is suggested.

11. From Consciousness and Memory we acquire the notion, and are impressed with a conviction, of our own personal identity.

SECT. II.-OF THE POWERS OF EXTERNAL PERCEPTION.

ARTICLE FIRST.-OF THE LAWS OF PERCEPTION IN THE CASE OF OUR DIFFERENT SENSES.

12. Our external senses are commonly reckoned to be five in number, and the same enumeration has been adopted by the soundest philosophers. An attempt has been made by some writers to resolve all our senses into that of feeling; but this speculation has plainly proceeded from over-refinement, and has no tendency to illustrate the subject of inquiry.

13. Of our five senses there are two, viz., Touch and Taste, in which there must be an immediate application of the object to the organ. In the other three, the object is perceived at a distance by the intervention of a material medium.

14. In order to form an accurate notion of the means by which we acquire our knowledge of things external, it is necessary to attend to the distinct meanings of the words Sensation and Perception. The former expresses merely that change in the state of the mind which is produced by an impression upon an organ of sense; (of which change we can conceive the mind. to be conscious, without any knowledge of external objects ;) the latter expresses the knowledge we obtain, by means of our sensations, of the qualities of matter. An indiscriminate use of these two words has introduced much confusion into philosophical disquisitions.

SMELLING, TASTING, AND HEARING.

15. The qualities perceived by Smelling, Tasting, and Hearing, are known to us only as the causes of certain sensations; and have therefore been contradistinguished by the name of Secondary Qualities, from those of which we learn the nature directly and immediately from the sensations with which they are connected. Of this last kind are Extension and Figure;to which (along with some others) Philosophers have given the title of the Primary Qualities of matter.

16. Abstracting from our other organs of perception, Smell