There are the Rights of Property, and a corresponding Class of Obligations. We are bound by Law not to meddle with the Property of another; not to take or appropriate what is not our own. We are morally bound to abstain from the Intentions and Desires which point to such appropriation. It is our Duty to avoid the Wish to possess what is another's. The Moral Precept is, Do not covet.

There is a Class of Obligations which regards Contracts and Promises. We are bound by Law to perform our Contracts; not to break our Engagements. We are morally bound not to wish to break our Engagements. And as the moral obligation is not confined by mere legal limits, we are morally bound to perform our engagements, whether or not they are legally valid as Contracts. It is our Duty to perform our Promises: not to deceive or mislead any man by our words. The Moral Precepts are, Do not break your word; Do not deceive.

There is a Class of Obligations which regards the Marriage Union. We are bound by Law not to meddle with the person, or seduce the conjugal affection, of her who belongs to another. There is a Class of Duties which regard the Desires and Affections on which this Union is founded. We are morally bound not to allow these Desires and Affections to point to unlawful objects. The Moral Precept is, Do not lust after her.

There is a Class of Obligations which regard the Governors and the Government of the State to which we belong. We are jurally bound to obey the Governors, and to conform our actions to the Law. We are morally bound to conform our Desires and Intentions to the Law. It is our Duty to submit to positive Laws, as the realization and definition of the Supreme Law. The Moral Precepts are, Do not desire what the Law forbids. Do not desire to violate general Laws.

The Moral Precepts just stated: Be not angry: Bear

no malice: Do not covet: Do not lie: Do not deceive: Do not lust Do not desire to break Law: are to be applied to the whole train of our affections, desires, thoughts, and purposes, and to the whole course of actions, internal and external, which make up our lives. By their application to the various circumstances of human character and condition, the Classes of Duties, thus pointed out, are further particularized and defined.

CHAPTER II.

OF THE IDEA OF MORAL GOODNESS.

230. THESE Moral Precepts, as now stated, are negative. They prohibit certain kinds of internal actions. They point out certain Conceptions which we are to avoid: Anger, Malice, Covetousness, Lying, Deceit, Lust, Lawbreaking. These are internal acts from which we are morally bound to abstain. These are points from which the Forces of morality tend.

But negative Precepts and repulsive Forces cannot suffice to express the character of Morality. The Supreme Law of Human Action must be positive. It must command as well as prohibit. It must direct us what to tend to, as well as from. It must not merely repress and control the Affections, Desires, and Intentions; it must direct them to their proper objects, and enjoin steadiness and energy in them, thus directed. The Supreme Law of our Actions must be a Law for all the Powers of Action. It must include the whole of our nature. Its rule for Affection and Desire must be, not that they shall be extinguished, but that they shall be right Affection and right Desire. And the Reason, which has for its office the formation of Concep

tions to which the Mental Affections and Desires tend, must form Conceptions to which the right Affections and right Desires may tend.

231. The Conceptions to which Morality directs our Desires and Affections, may be collected, in a general way, from what has been said of the Conceptions from which the impulses of Morality urge us. As Morality calls us from Anger, Malice, Covetousness, Lying, Deceit, Lust, Lawbreaking; she impels us to an opposite set of qualities:Mildness, Kindness, Liberality, Fairness, Truthfulness, Humanity, Temperance, Chastity, Obedience. These Conceptions must enter into the Idea of the End of Human Action. These must be included in the Supreme Law of Human Action. These points indicate the place to which the lines of Duty all tend. The Supreme Law of Human Action must be found in the point to which all such lines converge. It may be conceived as the Ideal Center of such special moral tendencies as we have spoken of; and thus, as the Idea of Morality.

232. We may proceed somewhat further in the determination of this Ideal Center, or Idea of Morality. The Supreme Law of Human Action must be a Law which belongs to man as man; a thing in which all men sympathize, and which binds together man and man by the tie of their common humanity (69). It excludes all that operates merely to separate men; for example, all Desires that tend to a center in each individual, without any regard to the common sympathy of mankind; and especially, all Affections which operate directly to introduce discord and conflict; as we have seen, accordingly, that it excludes Malice and Anger, and directs us to Mildness and Kindness. The absence of all the affections which tend to separate men, and the aggregate of the Affections which unite them, may be expressed by the term Benevolence, understood in its largest

and fullest sense, as including all the ties of Love which bind men together. We feel and conceive the affection of Love, at first, as binding together the members of the same Family, or of the same Community: but man is capable of extending his Love to all mankind; in proportion as there is unfolded, in his mind, the conception of the community of their nature and his own;-of their common affections, reason, and moral sentiments in which all mankind participate. With the development of this conception, he is led to a love of man as man, and a desire of the good of all men ;- an affection in which all mankind are ready to sympathize, and which binds together man as man. This Affection, then, of Love to man as man, is a part of the Supreme Law of Human Action: and the Idea of a complete and universal Benevolence is a point in the direction of the Ideal Center, or a part of the Idea of Morality of which we have spoken.

Again; in the Supreme Law of Human Action we must exclude, as we have said, all Desires that merely tend to their center in the individual, without regard to the common sympathy of mankind. The Desire of Property is, in its original form, of this kind. Each man desires Property for himself alone. But the nature of Morality, as we have seen, points out Liberality and Fairness as the proper guides of action, in opposition to Selfish Covetousness. Liberality partakes of Benevolence; but Fairness may be conceived as the Desire that each person should have his own. And this Desire may be conceived in its most complete and comprehensive form as Justice: and the Idea of Justice, thus fully understood, is part of that Ideal Center or Idea of Morality above mentioned.

Again; among the necessary conditions of a Rule of human action, is the existence of a Common Understanding among men, such that they can depend upon each other's actions. Lying and Deceit tend to separate and disunite

men; and to make all actions implying mutual dependence, that is, all social action and social life, impossible. Such acts are accordingly excluded by the Supreme Rule, and Truthfulness and Honesty are pointed out as proper guides of Moral Action. These qualities, conceived in their most complete form, as extending from the Acts to the Words, and from the Words to the Intentions, may be termed Integrity, as implying an entire consistence of external and internal acts; or may be termed Truth, as implying an agreement of the verbal expression with the thought: and the Idea of Truth, in this full and comprehensive sense, is a part of the Central Idea, or Idea of Morality.

Again the bodily Appetites and Desires, still more than the mental ones, tend to their center in the individual, and thus operate to disunite and oppose men. The Affections make the bodily Desires, in some measure, operate towards the union and sympathy of men; but still more towards their conflict and disunion, except so far as both Desires and Affections are governed by Obligations. The Supreme Rule requires that they should be so governed as not even to tend to violate Obligations;-that they should be conformed to Precepts of Duty; and therefore, that they should be controlled and directed by the Moral Sentiments and the Reason. The Control of the Appetites by the Moral Sentiments and the Reason is recommended to us by Morality, under the Conceptions of Temperance and Chastity. In our moral view of the Springs of Action, we conceive the Appetites and Desires as elements which ought to be thus controlled. Appetite and Desire are the Lower Parts; Moral Sentiments and Reason are the Higher Parts, of our Nature: and the Precepts which recommend to us Temperance and Chastity. may be expressed in a general form by saying, that the Higher Part of our Nature ought to control and govern the Lower. We may express this Control and Government