engage the most powerful mind, while it will impart strength to the most common understanding. It terminates in no barren speculations, but tends directly to promote peace on earth, and good-will among men. It is calculated both to enlarge the understanding, and to elevate and purify the feelings, and thus to cultivate the moral being for the life which is to come. It spreads forth to the view as a course which becomes smoother and brighter the farther it is pursued; and the rays which illuminate the path converge in the throne of Him who is eternal.

SECTION II.

OF FIRST TRUTHS IN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE MORAL FEELINGS.

The knowledge which we receive through our intellectual powers is referable to two classes. These may be distinguished by the names of acquired knowledge, and intuitive or fundamental articles of belief. The former is procured by the active use of our mental powers, in collecting facts, tracing their relations, and observing the deductions which arise out of particular combinations of them. These constitute the operations which I have referred to in another work, under the heads of processes of investigation, and processes of reasoning. The

full exercise of them requires a certain culture of the mental faculties, and consequently is confined to a comparatively small number of men. We perceive, however, that such culture is not essential to every individual, for many are very deficient in it who yet are considered as persons of sound mind, and capable of discharging their duties in various situations of life in a creditable and useful manner.

But the knowledge which we derive from the other source is of immediate and essential importance to men of every degree; and, without it, no individual could engage, with confidence, in any of the common transactions of life, or make any provision for his protection or comfort, or even for the continuance of his existence. These are the principles also treated of, in a former work, under the name of First Truths. They are not, like our knowledge of the other kind, the result of any process either of investigation or of reasoning; and for the possession of them no man either depends upon his own observation or has recourse to that of other men. They are a part of his mental constitution, arising, with a feeling of absolute certainty, in every sound mind; and, while they admit of no proof by processes of reasoning, sophistical objections brought against them can be combated only by an appeal to the consciousness of every man, and to the absolute conviction which forces itself upon the whole mass of mankind.

If the Creator has thus implanted in the mind of man principles to guide him in his intellectual and

physical relations, independently of any acquired knowledge, we might naturally expect to find him endowed, in the same manner, with principles adapted to his more important relations as a moral being. We might naturally expect, that, in these high concerns, he would not be left to the chance of knowledge which he might casually receive either through his own powers of investigation or reasoning, or through instruction received from other men. Impressions adapted to this important end we accordingly find developed in a remarkable manner,—and they are referable to that part of our constitution which holds so important a place in the philosophy of the mind, by which we perceive differences in the moral aspect of actions, and approve or disapprove of them as right or wrong. The convictions derived from this source seem to occupy the same place in the moral system, that first truths, or intuitive articles of belief, do in the intellectual. Like them, also, they admit of no direct proofs by processes of reasoning; and when sophistical arguments are brought against them, the only true answer consists in an appeal to the conscience of every uncontaminated mind. This is a consideration of the utmost practical importance; and it will probably appear that many well intended arguments, respecting the first principles of moral truth, have been inconclusive, in the same manner as were attempts to establish first truths by processes of reasoning,because the line of argument adopted in regard to them was one of which they are not susceptible. The force of this analogy is in no degree weakened

by the fact, that there is, in many cases, an apparent difference between that part of our mental constitution on which is founded our conviction of first truths, and that principle from which is derived our impression of moral truth: for the former continues the same in every mind which is neither obscured; by idiocy nor distorted by insanity; but the moral feelings become obscured by a process of the mind itself, by which it has gradually gone astray from rectitude. Hence the difference we find in the decisions of different men respecting moral truth, arising from peculiarities in their own mental condition; and hence that remarkable obscuration of mind at which some men at length arrive, by which the judgment is entirely perverted respecting the first great principles of moral purity. When, therefore, we appeal to certain principles in the mental constitution, as the source of our first impressions of moral truth, our appeal is made chiefly to a mind which is neither obscured by depravity nor bewildered by the refinements of a false philosophy: it is made to a mind in which conscience still holds some degree of its rightful authority, and in which there is a sincere and honest desire to discover the truth. These two elements of character must go together in every sound inquiry in moral science; and to a man in an opposite condition we should no more appeal in regard to the principles of moral truth, than we should take from the fatuous person or the maniac our test of those first principles of intellectual truth, which are allowed to be original elements of belief in every sound mind. every

To remedy the evils arising from this diversity and distortion of moral perception, is one of the objects of divine revelation. By means of it there is introduced a fixed and uniform standard of moral truth; but it is of importance to remark, that, for the authority of this, an appeal is made to principles in the mind itself, and that every part of it challenges the assent of the man in whom conscience has not lost its power in the mental economy

Keeping in view the distinction which has now been referred to, it would appear, that the first principles of moral truth, which are impressed upon the mind as a part of its original constitution, or arise in it by the most simple process of reflection, are chiefly the following.

I. A deep impression of continued existence,or of a state of being beyond the present life,-and of that as a state of moral retribution.

II. A conviction of the existence and superintendence of a great moral Governor of the universe, —a being of infinite perfection and infinite purity. The belief in this Being, as the great first cause, arises, as we have formerly seen, by a simple step of reasoning, from a survey of the works of nature, aken in connexion with the First Truth, that every event must have an adequate cause. Our sense of his moral attributes is fixed, with a conviction of equal certainty, upon the conscience or moral feelings. The impression, indeed, of the existence of one supreme and ruling intelligence is found in every age of the world, and among every class of