Section Vi. Is Entitled 'foundations of a More Just Theory of Ethics,'

and embraces a review of all the Ethical writers, from Butler downwards. The most palpable defect in Butler's scheme, is that it affords no answer to the question, 'What is the distinguishing quality of right actions?' in other words, What is the Standard? There is a vicious circle in answering that they are commanded by Conscience, for Conscience itself can be no otherwise defined than as the faculty that approves and commands right actions. Still, he gives warm commendation to Butler generally; in connexion with him he takes occasion to give some farther hints as to his own opinions. Two positions are here advanced: 1st, The moral sentiments, in their mature state, are a class of feelings with no other objects than the dispositions to voluntary actions, and the actions flowing from these dispositions. We approve some dispositions and actions, and disapprove others; we desire to cultivate them, and we aim at them for something in themselves. This position receives light from the doctrine above quoted as to the supreme happiness of virtuous dispositions. His second position is that Conscience is an acquired principle; which he repeats and unfolds in subsequent places.

He finds fault with Hume for ascribing Virtue to qualities of the Understanding, and considers that this is to confound admiration with moral approbation. Hume's general Ethical doctrine, that Utility is a uniform ground of moral distinction, he says can never be impugned until some example be produced of a virtue generally pernicious, or a vice generally beneficial. But as to the theory of moral approbation, or the nature of the Faculty, he considers that Hume's doctrine of Benevolence (or, still better, Sympathy) does not account for our approbation of temperance and fortitude, nor for the supremacy of the Moral Faculty over all other motives.

He objects to the theory of Adam Smith, that no allowance is made in it for the transfer of our feelings, and the disappearing of the original reference from the view. Granting that our approbation began in sympathy, as Smith says, certain it is, that the adult man approves actions and dispositions as right, while he is distinctly aware that no process of sympathy intervenes between the approval and its object. He repeats, against Smith, the criticism on Hume, that the sympathies have no imperative character of supremacy. He further remarks that the reference, in our actions, to the point of view of the spectator, is rather an expedient for preserving our impartiality than a fundamental principle of Ethics. It nearly coincides with the Christian precept of doing unto others as we would they should do unto us,--an admirable practical maxim, but, as Leibnitz has said truly, intended only as a correction of self-partiality. Lastly, he objects to Smith, that his system renders all morality relative to the pleasure of our coinciding in feeling with others, which is merely to decide on the Faculty, without considering the Standard. Smith shrinks from Utility as a standard, or ascribes its power over our feelings to our sense of the adaptation of means to ends.

He commends Smith for grounding Benevolence on Sympathy, whereas Butler, Hutcheson, and Hume had grounded Sympathy on Benevolence.

It is in reviewing Hartley, whose distinction it was to open up the wide capabilities of the principle of Association, that Mackintosh develops at greatest length his theory of the derived nature of Conscience.

Adverting to the usual example of the love of money, he remarks that the benevolent man might begin with an interested affection, but might end with a disinterested delight in doing good. Self-love, or the principle of permanent well-being, is gradually formed from the separate appetites, and is at last pursued without having them specially in view. So Sympathy may perhaps be the transfer, first, of our own personal feelings to other beings, and next, of their feelings to ourselves, thereby engendering the social affections. It is an ancient and obstinate error of philosophers to regard these two principles--Self-love and Sympathy--as the source of the impelling passions and affections, instead of being the last results of them.

The chief elementary feelings that go to constitute the moral sentiments appear to be Gratitude, Pity, Resentment, and Shame. To take the example of Gratitude. Acts of beneficence to ourselves give us pleasure; we associate this pleasure with the benefactor, so as to regard him with a feeling of complacency; and when we view other beneficent beings and acts there is awakened within us our own agreeable experience. The process is seen in the child, who contracts towards the nurse or mother all the feelings of complacency arising from repeated pleasures, and extends these by similarity to other resembling persons. As soon as complacency takes the form of action, it becomes (according to the author's theory, connecting conscience with will), a part of the Conscience. So much for the development of Gratitude. Next as to Pity. The likeness of the outward signs of emotion makes us transfer to others our own feelings, and thereby becomes, even more than gratitude, a source of benevolence; being one of the first motives to impart the benefits connected with affection. In our sympathy with the sufferer, we cannot but approve the actions that relieve suffering, and the dispositions that prompt them. We also enter into his Resentment, or anger towards the causes of pain, and the actions and dispositions corresponding; and this sympathetic anger is at length detached from special cases and extended to all wrong-doers; and is the root of the most indispensable compound of our moral faculties, the 'Sense of Justice.'

To these internal growths, from Gratitude, Pity, and Resentment, must be added the education by means of well-framed penal laws, which are the lasting declaration of the moral indignation of mankind. These laws may be obeyed as mere compulsory duties; but with the generous sentiments concurring, men may rise above duty to virtue, and may contract that excellence of nature whence acts of beneficence flow of their own accord.

He next explains the growth of Remorse, as another element of the Moral Sense. The abhorrence that we feel for bad actions is extended to the agent; and, in spite of certain obstacles to its full manifestation, that abhorrence is prompted when the agent is self.

The theory of derivation is bound to account for the fact, recognized in the language of mankind, that the Moral Faculty is ONE. The principle of association would account for the fusion of many different sentiments into one product, wherein the component parts would cease to be discerned; but this is not enough. Why do these particular sentiments and no others coalesce in the total--Conscience. The answer is what was formerly given with reference to Butler; namely, while all other feelings relate to outward objects, the feelings brought together in conscience, contemplate exclusively the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. Conscience is thus an acquired faculty, but one that is universally and necessarily acquired.

The derivation is farther exemplified by a comparison with the feelings of Taste. These may have an original reference to fitness--as in the beauty of a horse--but they do not attain their proper character until the consideration of fitness disappears. So far they resemble the moral faculty. They differ from it, however, in this, that taste ends in passive contemplation or quiescent delight; conscience looks solely to the acts and dispositions of voluntary agents. This is the author's favourite way of expressing what is otherwise called the authority and supremacy of conscience.

To sum up:--the principal constituents of the moral sense are Gratitude, Sympathy (or Pity), Resentment, and Shame; the secondary and auxiliary causes are Education, Imitation, General Opinion, Laws and Government.

In criticising Paley, he illustrates forcibly the position, that Religion must pre-suppose morality.

His criticism of Bentham gives him an opportunity of remarking on the modes of carrying into effect the principle of Utility as the Standard. He repeats his favourite doctrine of the inherent pleasures of a virtuous disposition, as the grand circumstance rendering virtue profitable and vice unprofitable. He even uses the Platonic figure, and compares vice to mental distemper. It is his complaint against Bentham and the later supporters of Utility, that they have misplaced the application of the principle, and have encouraged the too frequent appeal to calculation in the details of conduct. Hence arise sophistical evasions of moral rules; men will slide from general to particular consequences; apply the test of utility to actions and not to dispositions; and, in short, take too much upon themselves in settling questions of moral right and wrong. [He might have remarked that the power of perverting the standard to individual interests is not confined to the followers of Utility.] He introduces the saying attributed to Andrew Fletcher, 'that he would lose his life to serve his country, but would not do a base thing to save it.'

He farther remarks on the tendency of Bentham and his followers to treat Ethics too juridically. He would probably admit that Ethics is strictly speaking a code of laws, but draws the line between it and the juridical code, by the distinction of dispositions and actions. We may have to approve the author of an injurious action, because it is well-meant; the law must nevertheless punish it. Herein Ethics has its alliance with Religion, which looks at the disposition or the heart.

He is disappointed at finding that Dugald Stewart, who made applications of the law of association and appreciated its powers, held back from, and discountenanced, the attempt of Hartley to resolve the Moral Sense, styling it 'an ingenious refinement on the Selfish system,' and representing those opposed to himself in Ethics as deriving the affections from 'self-love.' He repeats that the derivation theory affirms the disinterestedness of human actions as strongly as Butler himself; while it gets over the objection from the multiplication of original principles; and ascribes the result to the operation of a real agent.

In replying to Brown's refusal to accept the derivation of Conscience, on the ground that the process belongs to a time beyond remembrance, he affirms it to be a sufficient theory, if the supposed action resembles what we know to be the operation of the principle where we have direct experience of it.

His concluding Section, VII., entitled General Remarks, gives some farther explanations of his characteristic views. He takes up the principle of Utility, at the point where Brown bogled at it; quoting Brown's concession, that Utility and virtue are so related, that there is perhaps no action generally felt to be virtuous that is not beneficial, and that every case of benefit willingly done excites approbation. He strikes out Brown's word 'perhaps,' as making the affirmation either conjectural or useless; and contends that the two facts,--morality and the general benefit,--being co-extensive, should be reciprocally tests of each other. He qualifies, as usual, by not allowing utility to be, on all occasions, the immediate incentive of actions. He holds, however, that the main doctrine is an essential corollary from the Divine Benevolence.

He then replies specifically to the question, 'Why is utility not to be the sole end present to the mind of the virtuous agent?' The answer is found in the limits of man's faculties. Every man is not always able, on the spur of the moment, to calculate all the consequences of our actions. But it is not to be concluded from this, that the calculation of consequences is impracticable in moral subjects. To calculate the general tendency of every sort of human action is, he contends, a possible, easy, and common operation. The general good effects of temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice, benevolence, gratitude, veracity, fidelity, domestic and patriotic affections, may be pronounced with as little error, as the best founded maxims of the ordinary business of life.

He vindicates the rules of sexual morality on the grounds of benevolence.

He then discusses the question, (on which he had charged Hume with mistake), 'Why is approbation confined to voluntary acts?' He thinks it but a partial solution to say that approbation and disapprobation are wasted on what is not in the power of the will. The full solution he considers to be found in the mode of derivation of the moral sentiment; which, accordingly, he re-discusses at some length. He produces the analogies of chemistry to show that compounds may be totally different from their elements. He insists on the fact that a derived pleasure is not the less a pleasure; it may even survive the primary pleasure. Self-love (improperly so called) is intelligible if its origin be referred to Association, but not if it be considered as prior to the appetites and passions that furnish its materials. And as the pleasure derived from low objects may be transferred to the most pure, so Disinterestedness may originate with self, and yet become as entirely detached from that origin as if the two had never been connected.

He then repeats his doctrine, that these social or disinterested sentiments prompt the will as the means of their gratification. Hence, by a farther transfer of association, the voluntary acts share in the delight felt in the affections that determine them. We then desire to experience beneficent volitions, and to cultivate the dispositions to these. Such dispositions are at last desired for their own sake; and, when so desired, constitute the Moral Sense, Conscience, or the Moral Sentiment, in its consummated form. Thus, by a fourth or fifth stage of derivation from the original pleasures and pains of our constitution, we arrive at this highly complex product, called our moral nature.

Nor is this all. We must not look at the side of indignation to the wrong-doer. We are angry at those who disappoint our wish for the happiness of others; we make their resentment our own. We hence approve of the actions and dispositions for punishing such offenders; while we so far sympathize with the culprit as to disapprove of excess of punishment. Such moderated anger is the sense of Justice, and is a new element of Conscience. Of all the virtues, this is the one most directly aided by a conviction of general interest or utility. All laws profess it as their end. Hence the importance of good criminal laws to the moral education of mankind.

Among contributary streams to the moral faculty, he enumerates courage, energy, and decision, properly directed.

He recognizes 'duties to ourselves,' although condemning the expression as absurd. Intemperance, improvidence, timidity are morally wrong. Still, as in other cases, a man is not truly virtuous on such points, till he loves them for their own sake, and even performs them without an effort. These prudential qualities having an influence on the will, resemble in that the other constituents of Conscience. As a final result, all those sentiments whose object is a state of the will become intimately and inseparably blended in the unity of Conscience, the arbiter and judge of human actions, the lawful authority over every motive to conduct.

In this grand coalition of the public and the private feelings, he sees a decisive illustration of the reference of moral sentiments to the Will. He farther recognizes in it a solution of the great problem of the relation of virtue to private interest. Qualities useful to ourselves are raised to the rank of virtues; and qualities useful to others are converted into pleasures. In moral reasonings, we are enabled to bring home virtuous inducements by the medium of self-interest; we can assure a man that by cultivating the disposition towards other men's happiness he gains a source of happiness to himself.

The question, Why we do not morally approve involuntary actions, is now answered. Conscience is associated exclusively with the dispositions and actions of voluntary agents. Conscience and Will are co-extensive.

A difficulty remains. 'If moral approbation involve no perception of beneficial tendency, how do we make out the coincidence of the two?' It might seem that the foundation of morals is thus made to rest on a coincidence that is mysterious and fantastic. According to the author, the conclusive answer is this. Although Conscience rarely contemplates anything so distant as the welfare of all sentient beings, yet in detail it obviously points to the production of happiness. The social affections all promote happiness. Every one must observe the tendency of justice to the welfare of society. The angry passions, as ministers of morality, remove hindrances to human welfare. The private desires have respect to our own happiness. Every element of conscience has thus some portion of happiness for its object. All the affections contribute to the general well-being, although it is not necessary, nor would it be fit, that the agent should be distracted by the contemplation of that vast and remote object.

To sum up Mackintosh:--

I.--On the Standard, he pronounces for Utility, with certain modifications and explanations. The Utility is the remote and final justification of all actions accounted right, but not the immediate motive in the mind of the agent. [It may justly be feared, that, by placing so much stress on the delights attendant on virtuous action, he gives an opening for the admission of sentiment into the consideration of Utility.]

II.--In the Psychology of Ethics, he regards the Conscience as a derived or generated faculty, the result of a series of associations. He assigns the primary feelings that enter into it, and traces the different stages of the growth. The distinctive feature of Conscience is its close relation to the Will.

He does not consider the problem of Liberty and Necessity.

He makes Disinterested Sentiment a secondary or derived feeling--a stage on the road to Conscience. While maintaining strongly the disinterested character of the sentiment, he considers that it may be fully accounted for by derivation from our primitive self-regarding feelings, and denies, as against Stewart and Brown, that this gives it a selfish character.

He carries the process of associative growth a step farther, and maintains that we re-convert disinterestedness into a lofty delight--the delight in goodness for its own sake; to attain this characteristic is the highest mark of a virtuous character.

III.---His Summum Bonum, or Theory of Happiness, is contained in his much iterated doctrine of the deliciousness of virtuous conduct, by which he proposes to effect the reconciliation of our own good with the good of others--prudence with virtue. Virtue is 'an inward fountain of pure delight;' the pleasure of benevolence, 'if it could become lasting and intense, would convert the heart into a heaven;' they alone are happy, or truly virtuous, that do not need the motive of a regard to outward consequences.

His chief Ethical precursor in this vein is Shaftesbury; but he is easily able to produce from Theologians abundant iterations of it.

IV.--He has no special views as to the Moral Code. With reference to the inducements to virtue, he thinks he has a powerful lever in the delights that the virtuous disposition confers on its owner.

V.--His theory of the connexion of Ethics and Politics is stated in his account of Bentham, whom he charges with making morality too judicial.

VI.--The relations of Morality to Religion are a matter of frequent and special consideration in Mackintosh.

JAMES MILL. [1783-1836.]

The work of James Mill, entitled the 'Analysis of the Human Mind,' is distinguished, in the first glace, by the studied precision of its definitions of all leading terms, giving it a permanent value as a logical discipline; and in the second place, by the successful carrying out of the principle of Association in explaining the powers of the mind. The author endeavours to show that the moral feelings are a complex product or growth, of which the ultimate constituents are our pleasurable and painful sensations. We shall present a brief abstract of the course of his exposition, as given in Chapters XVII.--XXIII. of the Analysis.

The pleasurable and painful sensations being assumed, it is important to take notice of their Causes, both immediate and remote, by whose means they can be secured or avoided. We contract a habit of passing rapidly from every sensation to its procuring cause; and, as in the typical case of money, these causes are apt to rank higher in importance, to take a greater hold on the mind, than the sensations themselves. The mind is not much interested in attending to the sensation; that can provide for itself. The mind is deeply interested in attending to the cause.

The author next (XIX.) considers the Ideas of the pleasurable sensations, and of the causes of them. The Idea of a pain is not the same as the pain; it is a complex state, containing, no doubt, an element of pain; and the name for it is Aversion. So the name for an idea of pleasure is Desire. Now, these states extend to the causes of pains and pleasures, though in other respects indifferent; we have an aversion for a certain drug, but there is in this a transition highly illustrative of the force of the associating principle; our real aversion being to a bitter sensation, and not to the visible appearance of the drug.

Alluding (XX.) to the important difference between past and future time in our ideas of pleasure and pain, he defines Hope and Fear as the contemplation of a pleasurable or of a painful sensation, as future, but not certain.

When the immediate causes of pleasurable and painful sensations are viewed as past or future, we have a new series of states. In the past, they are called Love and Hatred, or Aversion; in the future, the idea of a pleasure, as certain in its arrival, is Joy--as probable, Hope; the idea of future pain (certain) is not marked otherwise than by the names Hatred, Aversion, Horror; the idea of the pain as probable is some form of dread.

The remote causes of our pleasures and pains are more interesting than the immediate causes. The reason is their wide command. Thus, Wealth, Power, and Dignity are causes cf a great range of pleasures: Poverty, Impotence, and Contemptibility, of a wide range of pains. For one thing, the first are the means of procuring the services of our fellow-creatures; this fact is of the highest consequence in morals, as showing how deeply our happiness is entwined with the actions of other beings. The author illustrates at length the influence of these remote and comprehensive agencies; and as it is an influence entirely the result of association, it attests the magnitude of that power of the mind.

But our fellow-creatures are the subjects of affections, not merely as the instrumentality set in motion by Wealth, Power, and Dignity, but in their proper personality. This leads the author to the consideration of the pleasurable affections of Friendship, Kindness, Family, Country, Party, Mankind. He resolves them all into associations with our primitive pleasures. Thus, to take the example of Kindness, which will show how he deals with the disinterested affection;--The idea of a man enjoying a train of pleasures, or happiness, is felt by everybody to be a pleasurable idea; this can arise from nothing but the association of our own pleasures with the idea of his pleasures. The pleasurable association composed of the ideas of a man and of his pleasures, and the painful association composed of the idea of a man and of his pains, are both Affections included under one name Kindness; although in the second case it has the more specific name Compassion.

Under the other heads, the author's elucidation is fuller, but his principle is the same.

He next goes on (XXII.) to MOTIVES. When the idea of a Pleasure is associated with an action of our own as the cause, that peculiar state of mind is generated, called a motive. The idea of the pleasure, without the idea of an action for gaining it, does not amount to a motive. Every pleasure may become a motive, but every motive does not end in action, because there may be counter-motives; and the strength attained by motives depends greatly on education. The facility of being acted on by motives of a particular kind is a DISPOSITION. We have, in connexion with all our leading pleasures and pains, names indicating their motive efficacy. Gluttony is both motive and disposition; so Lust and Drunkenness; with the added sense of reprobation in all the three. Friendship is a name for Affection, Motive, and Disposition.

In Chapter XXIII., the author makes the application of his principles to Ethics. The actions emanating from ourselves, combined with those emanating from our fellow-creatures, exceed all other Causes of our Pleasures and Pains. Consequently such actions are objects of intense affections or regards.

The actions whence advantages accrue are classed under the four titles, Prudence, Fortitude, Justice, Benevolence. The two first--Prudence and Fortitude [in fact, Prudence]--express acts useful to ourselves in the first instance, to others in the second instance. Justice and Benevolence express acts useful to others in the first instance, to ourselves in the second instance. We have two sets of association with all these acts, one set with them as our own, another set with them as other people's. With Prudence (and Fortitude) as our own acts, we associate good to ourselves, either in the shape of positive pleasure, or as warding off pain. Thus Labour is raised to importance by numerous associations of both classes. Farther, Prudence, involving the foresight of a train of consequences, requires a large measure of knowledge of things animate and inanimate. Courage is defined by the author, incurring the chance of Evil, that is danger, for the sake of a preponderant good; which, too, stands in need of knowledge. Now, when the ideas of acts of Prudence and acts of Courage have been associated sufficiently often with beneficial consequences, they become pleasurable ideas, or Affections, and they have also, from the nature of the case, the character of Motives. In short, there is nothing in prudential conduct that may not be explained by a series of associations, grounded on our pleasurable and painful sensations, on the ideas of them, and on the ideas of their causes.

The real difficulty attaches to Justice and to Beneficence.

As to Justice. Men, in society, have found it essential for mutual benefit, that the powers of Individuals over the general causes of good should be fixed by certain rules, that is, Laws. Acts done in accordance with these rules are Just Acts; although, when duly considered, they are seen to include the main fact of beneficence, the good of others. To the performance of a certain class of just acts, our Fellow-creatures annex penalties; these, therefore, are determined partly by Prudence; others remain to be performed voluntarily, and for them the motive is Beneficence.

What then is the source of the motives towards Beneficence? How do the ideas of acts, having the good of our fellows for their end, become Affections and Motives? In the first place, we have associations of pleasure with all the pleasurable feelings of fellow-creatures, and hence, with such acts of ours as yield them pleasure. In the second place, those are the acts for procuring to ourselves the favourable Disposition of our Fellow-men, so that we have farther associations of the pleasures flowing from such favourable dispositions. Thus, by the union of two sets of influences--two streams of association--the Idea of our beneficent acts becomes a pleasurable idea, that is, an Affection, and, being connected with actions of ours, is also a Motive. Such is the genesis of Beneficent or Disinterested impulses.

We have next a class of associations with other men's performance of the several virtues. The Prudence and the Fortitude of others are directly beneficial to them, and indirectly beneficial to us; and with both these consequences we have necessarily agreeable associations. The Justice and the Beneficence of other men are so directly beneficial to the objects of them, that it is impossible for us not to have pleasurable associations with acts of Justice and Beneficence, first as concerns ourselves in particular, and next as concerns the acts generally. Hence, therefore, the rise of Affections and Motives in favour of these two virtues. As there is nothing so deeply interesting to me as that the acts of men, regarding myself immediately, should be acts of Justice and Beneficence, and the acts regarding themselves immediately, acts of Prudence and Fortitude; it follows that I have an interest in all such acts of my own as operate to cause those acts in others. By similar acts of our own, by the manifestation of dispositions to perform those acts, we obtain their reciprocal performance by others. There is thus a highly complex, concurring stimulus to acts of virtue,--a large aggregate of influences of association, the power at bottom being still our own pleasurable and painful sensations. We must add the ascription of Praise, an influence remarkable for its wide propagation and great efficacy over men's minds, and no less remarkable as a proof of the range of the associating principle, especially in its character of Fame, which, in the case of future fame, is a purely ideal or associated delight. Equally, if not more, striking are the illustrations from Dispraise. The associations of Disgrace, even when not sufficient to restrain the performance of acts abhorred by mankind, are able to produce the horrors of Remorse, the most intense of human sufferings. The love of praise leads by one step to the love of Praiseworthiness; the dread of blame, to the dread of Blameworthiness.

Of these various Motives, the most constant in operation, and the most in use in moral training, are Praise and Blame. It is the sensibility to Praise and Blame--the joyful feelings associated with the one, and the dread associated with the other--that gives effect to POPULAR OPINION, or the POPULAR SANCTION, and, with reference to men generally, the MORAL SANCTION.

The other motives to virtue, namely, the association of our own acts of Justice and Beneficence, as cause, with other men's as effects, are subject to strong counteraction, for we can rarely perform such acts without sacrifice to ourselves. Still, there is in all men a certain surplus of motive from this cause, just as there is a surplus from the association of acts of ours, hostile to other men, with a return of hostility on their part.

The best names for the aggregate Affection, Motive, and Disposition in this important region of conduct, are Moral Approbation and Disapprobation. The terms Moral Sense, Sense of Right and Wrong, Love of Virtue and Hatred of Vice, are not equally appropriate. Virtue and Morality are other synonyms.

In the work entitled, 'A Fragment on Mackintosh,' there are afforded farther illustrations of the author's derivation of the Moral Sentiment, together with an exposition and defence of Utility as the standard, in which his views are substantially at one with Bentham. Two or three references will be sufficient.

In the statement of the questions in dispute in Morals, he objects to the words 'test' and 'criterion,' as expressing the standard. He considers it a mistake to designate as a 'test' what is the thing itself; the test of Morality is Morality. Properly, the thing testing is one thing; the thing tested another thing. The same objection would apply to the use of the word Standard; so that the only form of the first question of Ethics would be, What is morality? What does it consist in? [The remark is just, but somewhat hypercritical. The illustration from Chemical testing is not true in fact; the test of gold is some essential attribute of gold, as its weight. And when we wish to determine as to a certain act, whether it is a moral act, we compare it with what we deem the essential quality of moral acts--Utility, our Moral Instinct, &c.--and the operation is not improperly called testing the act. Since, therefore, whatever we agree upon as the essence of morality, must be practically used by us as a test, criterion, or standard, there cannot be much harm in calling this essential quality the standard, although the designation is to a certain extent figurative.]

The author has some additional remarks on the derivation of our Disinterested feelings: he reiterates the position expressed in the 'Analysis,' that although we have feelings directly tending to the good of others, they are nevertheless the growth of feelings that are rooted in self. That feelings should be detached from their original root is a well known phenomenon of the mind.

His illustrations of Utility are a valuable contribution to the defence of that doctrine. He replies to most of the common objections. Mackintosh had urged that the reference to Utility would be made a dangerous pretext for allowing exceptions to common rules. Mill expounds at length (p. 246) the formation of moral rules, and retorts that there are rules expressly formed to make exceptions to other rules, as justice before generosity, charity begins at home, &c.

He animadverts with great severity on Mackintosh's doctrines, as to the delight of virtue for its own sake, and the special contact of moral feelings with the will. Allowance being made for the great difference in the way that the two writers express themselves, they are at one in maintaining Utility to be the ultimate standard, and in regarding Conscience as a derived faculty of the mind.

The author's handling of Ethics does not extend beyond the first and second topics--the STANDARD and the FACULTY. His Standard is Utility. The Faculty is based on our Pleasures and Pains, with which there are multiplied associations. Disinterested Sentiment is a real fact, but has its origin in our own proper pleasures and pains.

Mill considers that the existing moral rules are all based on our estimate, correct or incorrect, of Utility.

JOHN AUSTIN. [1790-1859.]

Austin, in his Lectures on 'The Province of Jurisprudence determined,' has discussed the leading questions of Ethics. We give an abstract of the Ethical part.