monitions,' he does not dwell on the importance of seeking and attending to the great law that is without and above himself.

Dr. Paley holds that 'the will of God' is the ultimate standard of right and wrong. But so far from having developed this doctrine, and caused it to appear in a clear and convincing light, he has almost entirely obscured its lustre by an interposition of the doctrine of expediency. Nor is this all. For although he holds up the will of God as the ultimate standard of right, yet is this so presented by him, as to cause a total eclipse of the moral perfections and glory of the Divine Being. If the will of God be the rule of right, says he, then what do we mean when we say that His will is holy, righteous, and good? Do we mean anything more than the silly assertion, that His will is as His will? His answer to this question is one of the most wonderful things in the history of moral science. From the benevolence of God, says he, we infer that He enjoins whatever is expedient, or for the good of His creatures. By means of expediency, then, as a test, we determine what rules are right; according to which rules moral judgments are formed. We even come, in process of time, to apply them. to the divine will itself, without recollecting that 'the rules themselves are deduced from the divine will.' But suppose that, instead of stopping at the rules,' we should happen to observe at the time,' that the rules, according to which we pronounce the divine will righteous, were actually deduced from that will itself, what must be our conclusion? The conclusion would be inevitable, that we merely imagine the Divine Being to possess a holy will, because we have established the habit,' by custom, of stopping at the rules' deduced from His will; and that, in reality, there is no such moral perfection belonging to His nature. We only seem to ourselves not to go around in this circle; whereas, in reality, we judge of the divine. will merely by comparing it with itself. When we say, that God acts right,' we think we are saying something; but if we would observe the process more closely, we should discover that we only advance the identical proposition, that He acts as He does act, and not otherwise. Thus, in Paley's attempt to vindicate the divine will as the rule of right, is the glory of

6

God's moral perfections made to disappear, and absolute, omnipotent will is all that is left upon the throne of the uni

verse.

No writer, so far as we know, has even made the attempt to refute this remarkable passage in the work of Dr. Paley. His doctrine of expediency has been belabored on all sides, and more than a hundred times refuted; while this virtual denial of the moral attributes of God, which forms by far the most objectionable feature of his work, has seldom, if ever, been assailed by his opponents. It has been noticed by Dugald Stewart, but he seems to think that such is the legitimate consequence of making the will of God the ultimate standard of right; and hence, with Cudworth, Clarke, and others, he seeks that standard out of, and beyond the, divine will itself. And as the difficulty mentioned by Paley appeared insuperable to such minds as those of Cudworth, Clarke, and Stewart, so, if it be not removed, it will continue to cloud the minds of thousands of others, and cause them likewise to deny that the will of God is the ultimate rule of right. Hence, the system of morals which holds the will of God to be the absolute standard of right, should place that doctrine on a solid foundation, clear up the difficulty by which it is obscured, and cause it to shine with a clear and convincing lustre.

Nothing can be more meagre than what is said in favor of this doctrine, even by its most recent advocates. Dymond, for example, alleges that He who says that the "understanding" is to be our moral guide, is not far from saying that we are to be guided by the divine will; because the understanding, however we define it, is the offspring of the divine counsels and power.' In like manner, Dr. Alexander says, That theory which considers conformity to the will of God to be virtue, is undoubtedly correct; for that faculty in us which approves of virtuous actions, was implanted by Him, and is an indication of His will.' Thus, it is argued that the will of God is the rule of right, because the conscience, which was implanted by that will, is so. Now, supposing this argument to be valid, it only proves that the will of God has made conscience the rule of right; and that, consequently, we may be

said to obey His will when we obey the dictates of conscience. It sets forth the will of God, not as the rule, law, or standard, for the guidance of the conscience; but, as a rule of right, it identifies the will of God with the conscience itself. It is true, that when we obey conscience, we obey the will of God; because it is His will that we should obey the vicegerent which He has set up in our hearts. But in a very different sense from this, should the terms be understood, when it is said, that the will of God is the rule of right. This is a rule for the conscience itself, and not the same with the conscience as a rule for the will. If we identify these two rules, then we shall have only one rule of right, namely, the rule of conscience for acts of the will; a doctrine which, as we have seen, can scarcely stand alone even among its friends. A doctrine which Dr. Alexander himself has deserted at times, however strenuously he may have asserted it at others; lest, in teaching that we always do right in obeying the dictates of conscience,' he should be found to sanction what is wrong in itself,' or contrary to the will of God. Nor can such unsteady, vacillating, and selfcontradictory views ever be avoided, unless both rules of right be introduced, and the relation they sustain to each other exhibited, as well as the function each is designed to perform. Such an adjustment of the great principles of moral science seems to be exceedingly desirable, inasmuch as it is believed that it will unite the one-sided views of apparently conflicting schemes in one harmonious whole, and secure them against that liability to abuse which is incident to all half truths. For no truth, if detached and isolated, can possess either the stability or the lustre which it derives from being firmly fixed in its own appropriate place in a well articulated system of doctrine. In such a system, each truth will be found to impart additional support and beauty to the others, as well as derive an additional support and beauty from them. It will be thus, we trust, in regard to the great truths concerning 'the supremacy of conscience,' and the authority of the divine will as the ultimate standard of morality, as exhibited in a true system of ethics.

A theory of ethics should also aim at another object, which

is either not considered at all, or at least not steadily and successfully considered. It is this: those precepts of morality, which are usually found under the head of Practical Ethics,' should have a place in the body of the science itself, and an organic connection with its great central truth. As they now exist, they appear like so many detached principles, destitute of a scientific unity or import, and having no connection with what has been laid down in the theory. On the contrary, it seems to us, that after having exhibited the great idea of the morally good, these several precepts should be shown to emanate from this idea as rays of light from the sun. In other words, these separate lights should not be left in this apparently loose and scattered condition; but, so far as possible, they should be organized into one great light to rule by day.

Hence, after having expounded the two-fold rule of right, the internal rule for the will, and the external for the conscience, we should endeavor to show that the latter embraces and contains all the essential elements of morality. If some of these elements be omitted, it should be remembered how very numerous they are; and also, that it is not so much the object of the science of ethics to teach us what things are right, as why they are so; that it aims, as Plato truly tells us, not so much to inform us what things are holy, as to point out the common idea in which all holy things agree. Such a reduction of the precepts of morality to its fundamental principle, it seems to us, is essential to anything like a complete reconstruction of the body of the science. Nothing appears more unsightly, indeed, than a meagre half-construction of the science, while its disjecta membra are loosely scattered over what is usually called Practical Morality.'

But if in pursuing this course, we should omit some of the minor points of morality, we would bring before the mind the discussion of certain great principles, which are usually left out of every division of works on ethical philosophy. For example, we would consider man's accountability for his belief, a doctrine which lies at the foundation of all morality and religion, and without the consideration of which, no theory of ethics can be complete. Since no man can follow the external

standard of right, except so far as it is understood by him, or revealed to his conscience, (just as no eye can be guided by a light which it does not see,) so it is truly wonderful that the great duty of forming correct opinions on moral subjects, or of informing and enlightening the conscience, should have been so little insisted on by moralists. And this is the more won

derful, inasmuch as this has been so zealously denied to be a duty at all by some very eminent writers; by a Baily, a Mackintosh, a Brougham, and a host of others. All that a man has to do, say these writers, is to attend to and follow his own conscientious belief, while for this belief itself, he is not responsible. Hence, the moralist who overlooks this question not only fails to present a complete system of ethics, but he is also inattentive to the best interests of mankind. For, as we shall see, every man has first to inform his conscience aright, and then to follow its dictates. Otherwise he will follow a blind or a false guide. He may be a law, but he should not be a God, unto himself.

But if it be so unspeakably important to form correct opinions for ourselves, in regard to morals and religion, surely the training and cultivation of the intellectual powers by which they are formed, cannot be neglected with impunity, nor even without incurring great guilt. Right here, then, another duty of vast magnitude rises before us, and demands a place in a system of ethics. Though few duties possess greater claims than this upon the attention of mankind; yet, somehow or other, it seems to have escaped the notice of ethical writers. The right of private judgment, which, as Christians and as men, we should all hold dearer than life itself, has, indeed, been abundantly discussed by theologians, and by the champions of the most sacred rights of human reason. But it seems to have been forgotten, or at least not sufficiently attended to, that this is a right coupled with a duty, even the duty of every man to think for himself, and to form those opinions for which he alone is responsible to the Author of his being. That the question of right has been drawn into the whirlpool of theological controversy, is no reason why the question of duty should be permitted to escape the attention of the moralist. On the contrary,