§ 6.

Assuming the existence in man of such a faculty as this for prompting him to right dealings with his fellows, and assuming that it generates certain intuitionsa respecting those dealings, it seems reasonable enough to seek in such intuitions the elements of a moral code. Attempts to construct a code so founded have from time to time been made. They have resulted in systems based by Shaftesbury and Hutchinson on “Moral Sense,” by Reid and Beattie on “Common Sense,” by Price on “Understanding,” by Clarke on “Fitness of Things,” by Granville Sharpe on “Natural Equity,” by others on “Rule of Right,” “Natural Justice,” “Law of Nature,” “Law of Reason,” “Right Reason,” &c. Unsuccessful as these writers have been in the endeavour to develope a philosophical morality, all of them, if the foregoing reasoning be correct, have consulted a true oracle. Though they have failed to systematize its utterances, they have acted wisely in trying to do this. An analysis of right and wrong so made, is not indeed the profoundest and ultimate one; but, as we shall by-and-by see, it is perfectly in harmony with that in its initial principle, and coincident with it in its results.

Against codes thus derived, it is indeed alleged, that they are necessarily worthless because unstable in their premises. “If,” say the objectors, “this ‘moral sense,’ to which all these writers directly or indirectly appeal, possesses no fixity, gives no uniform response, says one thing in Europe, and another in Asia—originates different notions of duty in each age, each race, each individual, how can it afford a safe foundation for a systematic morality? What can be more absurd than to seek a definite rule of right, in the answers of so uncertain an authority?”

Even granting that there is no escape from this difficulty—even supposing no method to exist, by which from this source, Edition: current; Page: [28] a moral philosophy can be drawn free from so fatal an imperfection, there still results merely that same dilemma, in which every other proposed scheme is involved. If such a guide is unfit, because its dictates are variable, then must Expediency also be rejected for the same reason. If Bentham is right in condemning Moral Sense, as an “anarchical and capricious principle, founded solely upon internal and peculiar feelings,” then is his own maxim doubly fallacious. Is not the idea, “greatest happiness,” a capricious one? Is not that also “founded solely upon internal and peculiar feelings?” (See page 3.) And even were the idea “greatest happiness” alike in all, would not his principle be still “anarchical,” in virtue of the infinite disagreement as to the means of realizing this “greatest happiness?” All utilitarian philosophies are in fact liable to this charge of indefiniteness, for there ever recurs the same unsettled question—what is utility?—a question which, as every newspaper shows us, gives rise to endless disputes, both as to the goodness of each desired end, and the efficiency of every proposed means. At the worst therefore, in so far as want of scientific precision is concerned, a philosophy founded on Moral Sense, simply stands in the same category with all other known systems.