the case. But if, by a mad fit of passion, you mean only a strong passion, which still leaves a man the power of self-government, then he is accountable for his conduct to God and man. For every good man, yea, every man that would avoid the most heinous crimes, must at some times do violence to very strong passions. But hard would be our case indeed, if we were required, either by God or man, to resist irresistible passions.

You think that will and intention is sufficient to make an action imputable, even though that will be irresistibly determined. I beg leave to dissent, for the following reasons:

1. An invincible error of the understanding, of memory, of judg ment, or of reasoning, is not imputable, for this very reason, that it is invincible; why then should an error of the will be imputable, when it is supposed equally invincible? God Almighty has given us various powers of understanding and of will. They are all equally his workmanship. Our understandings may deviate from truth, as our wills may deviate from virtue. You will allow, that it would be unjust and tyrannical to punish a man for unavoidable deviations from truth. Where, then, is the justice of condemning and punishing him for the deviations of another faculty, which are equally unavoidable?

You say we are not to judge of this matter by reasons, but by the moral sense. Will you forgive me, My Lord, to put you in mind of a saying of Mr Hobbes, that when reason is against a man, he will be against reason? I hope reason and the moral sense are so good friends as not to differ upon any point. But to be serious, I agree with your Lordship, that it is the moral sense that must judge of this point, whether it be just to punish a man for doing what it was not in his power not to do. The very ideas or notions of just and un

just are got by the moral sense; as the ideas of blue and red are got by the sense of seeing. And as by the sense of seeing, we determine that this body is red, and that is blue, so by the moral sense we determine this action to be just, and that to be unjust. It is by the moral sense that I determine in general that it is unjust to require any duty of a man which it is not in his power to perform. By the same moral sense, in a particular case, I determine a man to be guilty, upon finding that he did the deed voluntarily and with intention, without making any inquiry about his power. The way to reconcile these two determinations I take to be this, that, in the last case, I take for granted the man's power, because the common sense of mankind dictates, that what a man did voluntarily and with intention, he had power not to do.

2. A second reason of my dissent is, That the guilt of a bad açtion is diminished in proportion as it is more difficult to resist the motive. Suppose a man entrusted with a secret, the betraying of which to the enemy may ruin an army. If he discloses it for a bribe, however great, he is a villain and a traitor, and deserves a thousand deaths.

But if he falls into the enemy's hands, and the secret be wrested from him by the rack, our sentiments are greatly changed; we do not charge him with villany, but with weakness. We hardly at all blame a woman in such a case, because we conceive torture, or the fear of present death, to be a motive hardly resistible by the weaker

sex.

As it is therefore the uniform judgment of mankind, that where the deed is the same, and the will and intention the same, the degree of guilt must depend upon the difficulty of resisting the motive, will it not follow, that when the motive is absolutely irresistible, the guilt vanishes altogether?

3. That

3. That this is the common sense of mankind, appears further from the way in which we treat madmen. They have will and intention in what they do; and therefore, if no more is necessary to constitute a crime, they ought to be found guilty of crimes. Yet, no man conceives that they can be at all subjects of criminal law : For what reason? for this, in my opinion, that they have not that power of self-command, which is necessary to make a man accountable for his conduct.

You suppose, my Lord, a physical power to forbear an action even when it is necessary. But this I cannot grant. Indeed, upon the system of free agency, I can easily conceive a power which is not exerted; but, upon the system of necessity, there can be no such thing; every power that acts by necessity must be exerted.

`I do indeed think, that a man may act without a motive; and that, when the motives to action lie all on one side, he may act in contradiction to them. But I agree with your Lordship, that all such actions are capricious; and I apprehend, that if there were no actions of this kind, there could be no such thing as caprice, nor any word in language to signify it: For why should every language

have a word to signify a thing which never did nor can exist?

I agree also with your Lordship, that there can be no merit in such an action, even if it is innocent. But if it is vicious, it has the highest degree of demerit; for it is sinning without any temptation, and serving the devil without any wages. It ought to be observed, however, that a virtuous action can never be capricious; because there is always a just and sufficient motive to it. For, if I have no other motive, I must at least have this, that it is a worthy action, and is my duty; which in reason ought to weigh down all motives that can be put into the opposite scale. A capricious action may be innocent,

4.

innocent, and then it is folly: Or it may be vicious, and then it is pure wickedness.

Liberty, like all other good gifts of God, may be abused. As civil liberty may be abused to licentiousness, so our natural liberty may be abused to caprice, folly and vice. But the proper exercise of liberty is, after weighing duly the motives on both sides, to be determined, not by the strongest motive, but by that which has most authority.

It is of great importance in this matter, to distinguish between the authority of motives and their force. The part that is decent, that is manly, that is virtuous, that is noble, has always authority upon its side Every man feels this authority in his own breast; and there are few men so wicked as not to yield to it when it has no antagonist.

But pleasure, interest, passion, sloth, often muster a great force on the other side, which, though it has no authority, has often the greater power; and a conflict arises between these opposite parties. Every man is conscious of this conflict in his own breast, and is too often carried down by the superior force of the party which he knows to have no authority.

This is the conflict which Plato describes between reason and appetite; this is the conflict which the New Testament describes between the spirit and the flesh. The opposite parties, like Israel and Amalek, dispute the victory in the plain. When the self-determining power, like Moses upon the mount, lifts up its hand and exerts itself, then Israel prevails, and virtue is triumphant; but when its hands hang down, and its vigour flags, then Amalek prevails.

I am, my dear Lord, most respectfully yours,

Glasgow College, December 3. 1772.

THO. REID.

APPEN

APPENDIX.-No. VI.

LETTER from DAVID HUME, Esq; to the Author of the Delineation of the Nature and Obligation of Morality.

SIR,

WHEN I write you, I know not to whom I am addressing myself; I only know he is one who has done me a great deal of honour, and to whose civilities I am obliged. If we be strangers, I beg we may be acquainted, as soon as you think proper to discover yourself; if we be acquainted already, I beg we may be friends; if friends, I beg we may be more so. Our connexion with each other, as men' of letters, is greater than our difference, as adhering to different sects or systems. Let us revive the happy times, when Atticus and Cassius the Epicureans, Cicero the Academic, and Brutus the Stoic, could, all of them, live in unreserved friendship together, and were insensible to all those distinctions, except so far as they furnished agreeable matter to discourse and conversation. Perhaps you are a young man, and being full of those sublime ideas, which you have so well exprest, think there can be no virtue upon a more confined system. I am not an old one; but being of a cool temperament, have always found, that more simple views were sufficient to make me act in a reasonable manner : Νήφε, και μεμνησο ἄπιστειν * : in this faith I have lived, and hope to die.

* i. e. Be sober-minded, and remember always to doubt.

Your