tiously gratuitous favour, resents the insult and despises the gift, and, together with fairness, honesty, and good faith, persists in ranking sympathy, placability, and readiness to do good, among the things that ought to be. With the facts I have thus cursorily alluded to patent to observation, and presenting on their surface a meaning which it needs no seer to interpret, so far from being under the necessity of making diligent search in order to determine whether we have or have not a moral sense, we may be permitted to marvel, if we will, that there should ever have been the slightest doubt as to its existence; and therefore, disṛegarding any contradiction that may still await the doctrine I defend, I venture to hold without hesitation, and to propound as a firmly established truth, that man is gifted with a sense whose function it is, in the way of approval and of disapproval, in the way of praise and of blame, to exercise a kind of discrimination which may be fitly called moral.

5. Its possession, indeed,—as will be readily conceded, for the remark is fully borne out by relevant facts, and at the same time elucidated and further confirmed by an obvious and suggestive analogy,-does not of necessity involve the due discharge of its functions. Like the senses which belong to the animal nature, it may be sluggish, or diseased, or fitful in its action, or even paralyzed; or, situated as one of these becomes when the corresponding organ is destroyed, it may, through cerebral defect, prove to be beyond the reach of every influence with which human agency has been intrusted with a view to moral amelioration. And, indeed, not only is it liable to assume an abnormal and unhealthy condition, but, for the ability to estimate correctly the moral significance of the phenomena it attempts to criticize, it is manifestly dependent upon information which must be acquired in the process of mental improvement.

Further than as involving a necessary recognition of fundamental principles, it is at its best but an aptitude for moral education, The soundness and purity of the sentiment which conceives and claims for every sentient thing as such, whether rational or irrational, its due, may leave the mind in which that sentiment has been awakened still ignorant of the plan on which the Cosmos had need to be formed, and of the course which events must necessarily take, with a view to the ultimate and satisfying illustration of the principle hereby recognized. The youthful spirit, in its favourable specimens, is shown to be comparatively fresh from God by a certain naïve simplicity and directness which notably characterize its judgments, and by its inaptitude to imbibe or understand any doctrine which militates against its love of fairness and its repugnance to cruelty and oppression; but these characteristics are simply what supply the richest soil for the growth of notions which it needs subsequent information and experience and moral discipline to rectify.

6. Having now ascertained that what may be called a Moral Sense must be reckoned among the endowments inherent in human nature, I have, in the process of investigation, clearly established its function in relation to the discovery of the Fundamental Character: I have shown that, although it still leaves us liable to error, and indeed, as regards the moral significance of phenomena, may even allow our judgment to go far astray, we have in it, nevertheless, the sort of qualification we require for ascribing a moral character to the Fundamental Will. This qualification, it will be seen, is absolutely indispensable. For let it be once conceded that the sense in question is a mere development or outgrowth of fear, and it must seem wildly fanciful to expect that One who is above all susceptibility

of fear will ever in the slightest degree countenance our appreciation of justice and equity as such and our disapproval of all deviations from them. If, however, we rightly assume that it is His design to develop in us the sense which naturally and properly bears fruit in such sentiments and their corresponding actions, we of course can never credit ourselves with becoming in these respects superior to, if indeed in any respect we might hope even to reach equality with, Him. No stream can rise higher than its source. If man's noblest conception of the ideal moral character invests it with the grace of a Benevolence which unceasingly exerts itself to the extent of its ability, if the perfect man is assumed to be one who has the interests of all men at heart, withholds not considerate sympathy from the least deserving, nay, despises not the sufferings of anything that feels, abhors all cruelty, would in no case allow himself to be the wanton cause of pain, would never needlessly occasion it, and would rejoice to find pain and death, wherever they have prevailed, superseded at last by pleasure and life,-if, I say, these characteristics are inseparable from the true description of the perfect man, we cannot but ascribe them to the Author of his being, or, on the supposition that the perfect man is a creature of the imagination, to the Originator of the lovely conception of such an ideal; while at the same time confessing to ourselves that the actual character they thus shadow forth in certain aspects to our apprehension must be to the ideal of our imagination as the Infinite is to the finite.

7. The loftiest function of the Moral Sense is therefore, we may now say, that which it exercises in thus receiving the revelation of the Divine character, and hereby learning that "God is Love." Herein this truth becomes manifest.

It is not arrived at by induction: no reasoning based upon observation of phenomena can establish it. Phenomena are obviously opposed to it, that is, on the assumption that empirical investigation within the confines of mortal experience suffices for the discovery of their full significance, -of course an audacious assumption, even although æons of unimaginable duration be supposed to accumulate the sort of data requisite for such an inquiry. If the axiom in question is to be tested by the empirical method, it will not bear a moment's examination, it is refuted beyond contradiction by the miseries of mankind and of the inferior races, it is exploded by innumerable acts of cruelty and experiences of suffering, by never-failing instances of maddening oppression and excruciating anguish; even where the conditions of human life are exceptionally favourable it is still mocked by the everywhere patent truth, that "Nature is red in tooth and claw; "a in every region of this

a Few who have read Paley's "Natural Theology" will forget his beautiful representation of certain facts which, in his opinion, suffice to prove the goodness of the Deity. "It is," he says, "a happy world after all. The air, the earth, the water, teem with delighted existence. In a spring noon, or a summer evening, on whichever side I turn my eyes, myriads of happy beings crowd upon my view. The insect youth are on the wing.' Swarms of new-born flies are trying their pinions in the air. Their sportive motions, their wanton mazes, their gratuitous activity, their continual change of place without use or purpose, testify their joy, and the exultation which they feel in their lately discovered faculties. A bee amongst the flowers in spring is one of the cheerfullest objects that can be looked upon. Its life appears to be all enjoyment: so busy and so pleased: yet it is only a specimen of insect life, with which, by reason of the animal being half domesticated, we happen to be better acquainted than we are with that of others. The whole winged insect tribe, it is probable, are equally intent upon their proper employments, and, under every variety of constitution, gratified, and perhaps equally gratified, by the offices which the Author of their nature has assigned to them. But the atmosphere is not the only scene of enjoyment for the insect race. Plants are covered with aphides, greedily sucking their juices, and

teeming globe-the only theatre of life of which we have any knowledge-it is laughed to scorn by that ruthless

constantly, as it should seem, in the act of sucking. It cannot be doubted that this is a state of gratification. What else should fix them so close to the operation, and so long? Other species are running about with an alacrity in their motions which carries with it every mark of pleasure. Large patches of ground are sometimes half covered with these brisk and sprightly natures. If we look to what the waters produce, shoals of the fry of fish frequent the margins of rivers, of lakes, and of the sea itself. These are so happy that they know not what to do with themselves. Their attitudes, their vivacity, their leaps out of the water, their frolics in it (which I have noticed a thousand times with equal attention and amusement), all conduce to show their excess of spirits, and are simply the effects of that excess. Walking by the seaside, in a calm evening, upon a sandy shore, and with an ebbing tide, I have frequently remarked the appearance of a dark cloud, or, rather, very thick mist, hanging over the edge of the water, to the height, perhaps, of half a yard, and of the breadth of two or three yards, stretching along the coast as far as the eye could reach, and always retiring with the water. When this cloud came to be examined, it proved to be nothing else than so much space, filled with young shrimps, in the act of bounding into the air from the shallow margin of the water, or from the wet sand, If any motion of a mute animal could express delight, it was this; if they had meant to make signs of their happiness, they could not have done it more intelligibly. Suppose, then, what I have no doubt of, each individual of this number to be in a state of positive enjoyment, what a sum, collectively, of gratification and pleasure have we here before our view!" (chap. xxvi.),

The phenomena here described have, it must be admitted, in common with innumerable others of a similar kind, a moral significance which entitles them to profound attention. What can they mean, we reasonably ask, except on the supposition that the unsearchable Power and Wisdom to which they bear witness are associated with a sympathetic delight in giving pleasure? Unless we may assume this, they are unintelligible. Yet, again, they admit of no interpretation if, putting out of view man's destiny, we have no choice but to suppose the full design of sentient life to be revealed in the delirium of an ephemeral joy. It is probable enough that the Divine arrangements with respect to this kind of existence, as it appears in the scene ever passing before us, are such as to insure at each moment the greatest happiness of the greatest number. But although