6. General Remarks.

61. It appears by what has been said, that the different kinds of Springs of Action are distinguished by the nature of their objects. The Appetites have for their objects, Things; the Affections, Persons; the Mental Desires have Abstractions; the Moral Sentiments, Actions; and the Reflex Sentiments have for their objects the thoughts of other persons, or our own, about ourselves.

The Springs of Action which we have enumerated do not operate upon man as Forces operate upon inert Matter. They all operate through the Will. A man is moved by these Springs, when he will do that to which they impel him. Different springs of action may operate at the same time, and with opposite tendencies. The Desire of Safety would keep the sailor or soldier at home, but the Desire of Gain, or the Love of Glory, sends him to the sea or to the war. In either case, it is through his Will that the Desires act. He stays at home because he wills to do so; or he goes forth because he wills it.

62. In determining his actions, man is seldom impelled merely by the most elementary Springs of Action, bodily desire and affection. By the progress of thought in every man, bodily desires are combined with mental desires, and elementary affections with moral sentiments.

The men who most seek the pleasures of eating, seek at the same time the pleasures of society. The most blind maternal love generally takes the form of approving, as well as loving, its darling. And thus, in man, the Desires and Affections are unfolded by thought, so as to involve abstract conceptions and the notion of a Rule. The Reason, to which such steps belong (10) is at work, in all the actions which the Springs of Action produce.

63.

Reason is conceived as being in all persons the same in its nature. Different men desire different things, love different persons; but that which is seen to be true in virtue of the Reason, is true for all men alike. The influence of desire or affection may be mistaken for the result of Reason, for man is liable to errour (5); and so far, the decisions of Reason may be different in different men. But such decisions are not all really reasonable. So far as men decide conformably to Reason, they decide alike. His Appetites, and Desires, and Affections are peculiar to each man; but his Reason is a common attribute of all mankind and each man has his Reason in virtue of his participation of this common faculty of discerning truth and falsehood.

But though each man's Desires and Affections belong specially to himself, while Reason is a common faculty in all men; we consider our Reason as being ourselves, rather than our Desires and Affections. We speak of Desire, Love, Anger, as mastering us, or of ourselves as controlling them. If we decide to prefer some remote and abstract good to immediate pleasures; or to conform to a rule which brings us present pain; which decision implies the exercise of Reason; we more particularly consider such acts as our own acts. Such acts are deemed especially the result, not of the impulse of our desires, but of our own volition.

If we ask why we thus identify ourselves with our rational part, rather than with our desires and affections; we reply, that it is because the Reason alone is capable of that reflex act by which we become conscious of ourselves. To have so much thought as to distinguish between ourselves and our springs of action, is to be rational; and the Reason which can make this distinction, necessarily places herself on one side, and the Desires, which make no such distinction, on the other.

It is by the Reason that we are conscious;

and hence we place the seat of our consciousness in the Reason.

64. The habit of identifying ourselves with our Reason, and not with our Desires, is further indicated by the term Passion, which is applied to Desire and Affection when uncontrolled by Reason; as if man in such cases were passive, and merely acted on; and as if he were really active, only when he acts in conformity with his Reason. Thus, we speak, of a man being in a Passion, meaning an uncontrolled fit of anger; and having a Passion for an object, meaning an uncontrolled desire.

Still, it is to be recollected that man, under the influence of such Passions, is not really passive. When he acts under such influences, he adopts the suggestions of Desire or Affection, and rejects the control of Reason; but this is what he does in all violations of reasonable Rules. Passion does not prevent a man's knowing that there is a Rule, and that he is violating it. To say that Passion is irresistible, is to annihilate Reason, and to exclude the most essential condition of Human Action.

CHAPTER III.

MORAL RULES EXIST NECESSARILY.

65. In enumerating and describing, as we have done, certain Desires, as among the most powerful Springs of human action, we have stated (39) that man's life is scarcely tolerable if these Desires are not in some degree gratified: that man cannot be at all satisfied without some security in such gratification (41); that without property, which gratifies one of these Desires, man's free agency cannot exist (45); that without marriage, which gratifies another, there can be

no peace, comfort, tranquillity, or order (47). And the same may be said of all those Springs of Action which we enumerated as Mental Desires. Without some provision for the tranquil gratification of these Desires, Society is disturbed, unbalanced, painful. The gratification of such Desires must be a part of the Order of the Society. There must be Rules which direct the course and limits of such gratification. Such Rules are necessary for the Peace of Society. 66. Man acts as man, when he acts under the influence of Reason, and Reason directs us to Rules. Rules of action are necessary, therefore, for the action of man as man. We cannot conceive man as man, without conceiving him as subject to Rules, and making part of an Order in which Rules prevail. He must act freely, therefore he must have Security. He must act by means of external things, therefore he must have Property. He must act with reference to other men's intentions, therefore there must be Contracts. He must act with reference to Parents, Wife and Children, therefore there must be Families. We can

not conceive man divested of free agency, of relation to external things, of communication with other men, of the ties of blood and affection. We must therefore conceive him as existing in Security, with Property, Contracts and Family, subsisting about him; existing, therefore, under Rules by which these things are established; and thus, such Rules are necessary for the action of man as man.

Such Rules being established, that which is conformable to them is right, and the Rules are moral Rules. We must afterwards endeavour to establish such Rules in detail; but in the mean time, we have shown in general that the establishment of Moral Rules is necessary for the peace of society and for the action of man as man.

67. That Rules, determined by the Reason to be reasonable, are the necessary guides of Desire and Af

VOL. I.

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fection, is also apparent from a consideration of the nature of Reason. We cannot help recognizing, in the Reason, an authority to repress and resist Appetite and Desire, when the two come in conflict. The Reason is the light of man's constitution, which reveals to him himself, and enables him to choose between different objects. And this light, by being light, is fit to guide us; as in the world without, so in the world within us, the light, by guiding us, proves that it is its office to guide us.

68. It has been said by some that the Rules of human action, by which men in Society are governed, are the results of mutual Fear, by which the conflicting Desires of different persons are balanced. But this is not a true view of the subject. Mutual fear and conflicting desires prevail among wild animals; but yet animals have not among them Moral Rules of action. Brute beasts cannot properly be said to steal from one another, to wrong one another, to be morally guilty. They cannot transgress a Moral Rule; because they have not Reason, by which they may conceive a Moral Rule. Mutual fear and conflicting desire cannot give rise to a Rule, when there does not exist the Reason; which, presenting the objects of desire and fear under the general and abstract forms of conceptions, must supply the materials for a Rule. It is therefore not Fear and Desire, but Reason, which is the source of Moral Rules.

69.

Moral Rules balance the repulsive tendencies of the Desires. The Desires, so far as they are desires of external objects in each person, tend to disunite men; for they make each person the sole centre of his own springs of action. Further, they tend to bring men into conflict and opposition; for two men desire the same field, the same house, the same wife. But there are also faculties which draw men together, as the Affections of Family and of