rapidly gaining converts at Athens; and that this doctrine represented the love of pleasure as universally the leading motive of men's actions. Cicero adds that the friends of Fabricius who had been intimate with the immortal Decius, and who felt convinced by his example, as well as by their own emotions, that there was an intrinsic rectitude and virtue, independent of mere pleasure, and which the noble and generous mind would ever keep in view these friends, when they heard the intelligence, declared at once that the people who embraced such a doctrine, would soon forfeit their liberties, and fall an easy conquest to their enemies.

At a later period an Athenian philosopher of this school (Carneades) visited Rome on an embassy. While waiting for the answer of the Senate he amused himself, we are told, in an attempt to demonstrate to the people, and especially the youth, that justice and injustice derived their origin from expediency, or from positive institutions, and that there was no foundation for a distinction between them in the nature of man. This gave great alarm to the fathers of the Republic ;--Cato, the Censor, was so disturbed at the thought of having the opinions of his countrymen unsettled on points so sacred and important, that he never rested till the ambassadors received their final answer and were dismissed from Rome.* And were these great men mistaken in their estimate of the consequences of this philosophy?

Let him who thinks so, trace its history among the Grecian disciples of Epicurus, who, disregarding the severer maxims of their master and acting upon his great principle as they understood it, sunk from one degree of degeneracy to another till the very title of their sect became synonymous with indolence and sensuality. Let him follow it, as migrating to Rome, it trained up a Cæsar to overthrow the liberties of his country; and there extended itself among all classes till the entire nation became one scene of effeminacy, venality, and corruption.-Let him observe its later history in France. First put forth in the celebrated maxims of Rochefocault, its influence was soon felt in every department of literature and through every circle of society. It contributed in no slight degree to create that levity of principle and that heartless frivolity of manners which was so long the reproach of the French people. How many writers has it sent forth whose business, to use the language of Addison, the first English critic by whom it is noticed, "seems to have been to depreciate human nature, and consider it under its

* Stewart on the Active and Moral Powers, p. 143. Cambridge, 1829.

worst appearances-giving mean interpretations and ascribing base motives to the worthiest actions-laboring to do away all distinction between man and man, or between the human species and the brute." As an illustration of the spirit of this philosophy, let the following extracts from a comedy composed previous to the Revolution be taken, and let it be considered whether it was strange that in a nation where such sentiments prevailed, the whole fabric of society was convulsed and overthrown:-"As for my own part (says Cleon in the Méchant of Gresset) to speak impartially, I am not one of those who believe in the existence of the wicked," "a phantom conjured up by the low prejudices of the vulgar. I consider every body as bad, and nobody as bad. As for the duplicity and intrigues with which you are offended, I see nothing in them when examined to the bottom but a fund of amusement for myself. We all take and give so as to balance our accounts pretty well with each other. The only crime now known is ennui, and as this would soon make its way into the best society if there were any serious attachments among friends, we must have only prejudices, calumnies and absurdities. Hence every body should speak and act according to his own humor; believing that all is wrong—all right, and that all the world is equally happy."

Our limits have not allowed us to enter as minutely as we proposed into the history of this philosophy. We conclude this branch of the subject with a remark or two respecting our own country. The perpetuity of the blessings which we enjoy as Americans, depends, as is well known, on the virtue and integrity of the people. Education is at present doing much for their intelligence; but it should never be forgotten that mere intellectual education unaided by moral influence can train up no people to a stern and incorruptible virtue. The " Schoolmaster may be abroad." He may carry down his lessons to the humblest hovel, and yet those lessons be only the means of perverting and demoralizing.-Are they addressed chiefly or entirely to the sordid desires of our nature? Are the rising generation appealed to only, or principally, by their regard to their own interest, when we would incite them to knowledge and virtue? Is it our hope that when the people are thus enlightened in respect to their true welfare, such knowledge will be sufficient to exalt and save them? We could not devise a more fatal expedient for leading them to ruin.-All history proclaims that where public morality rests on the basis of expediency rather than of duty, it is as shortlived as spurious, and that when it expires it carries with it all the vigor and glory of a people. Such a morality

never builds up a great and glorious public spirit; and without such a spirit, no nation endures long in honor and prosperity. Let the day come when among us that spirit is discarded as obsolete and old fashioned ;-when virtue, which ought to be the prompt impulse of the heart, gets to be the creature of the brain; when questions of duty are adjourned from the bar of conscience to the noisy tribunal of expediency-when we determine how far we shall discharge duty only by ascertaining how far it will subserve our advantage, and at that day the name of liberty may remain to us, but the reality will have fled. Better infinitely in such case that no schools had been opened, nor schoolmasters sent abroad. When a shrewd, enlightened, calculating people once become devoid of moral and religious principle, they must present a spectacle sufficient to fill every friend of humanity with sorrow and dismay.-A nation ignorant as well as depraved―imbecile in mind as well as corrupt at heart, may be governed, and in some sense saved. But a nation composed of strong and unprincipled minds, endowed with a thousand-fold energy, but restrained by nothing but self-interestready whenever passion indicates its expediency for wrong or outrage—such a nation contains within its bosom elements of woe and discord which must soon explode; and with a shock too that will convulse the world.

Thus far, we have spoken only of the motive, or principle on which, according to the utilitarian, all duty must ultimately rest. There is another feature of his system, equally obnoxious to censure. To obviate the objection, that whoever acts merely from regard to his own interest will be ready to sacrifice the interest of others, he proposes a method by which self-love, (or, as Bentham calls it, self-regarding interest) can be pressed into the service of the public, and private and general utility became coincident. "God," says Paley, "wills and wishes the happiness of his creatures," and therefore any action, the general tendency of which is to promote that happiness, must be agreeable to Him, and conduce of course to our own final welfare. When, then, in any instance, we would know our duty, i. e., our highest interest, we must inquire into the general tendency of the contemplated action, in respect to the welfare of others, and so act as in the language of Bentham, "to promote the greatest happiness of the greatest numbers." Bentham himself, inasmuch as he believed in neither natural nor revealed religion, had to reach this result by a somewhat different course. Accordingly he maintained after the example of Hume, that even in this life he is most likely to enjoy personal happiness, who consults most assiduously the general good. It

would extend this discussion to an unpardonable length, to enter at large into the grave exceptions which may be taken at every step, in this train of reasoning. It rests, (we for the present confine ourselves to Paley's) as we conceive, on more than one false assumption-it establishes a rule often impracticable, and always dangerous, and it proceeds in practice on principles wholly at variance with some of the most obvious laws of our nature.

For example, it assumes that the great and only design of the Divine Government, is the promotion of human happiness; for if besides happiness, that government has any other great moral design, such as the promotion of virtue and holiness; or, if aiming only at happiness, it still comprehends in its plans the happiness of other worlds, and of higher intelligences with whose well-being, perhaps, the happiness of this insignificant planet may not always be in unison, then it follows that acts may be according to His will, which on the whole do not subserve human happiness. Waiving this, however, and admitting that to advance man's happiness alone, is the object of the Divine administration, does it follow that what appears to us, conducive to that end is therefore acceptable to God? Be it so, that the end is clear and definite; are the means equally so? God may "will and wish" the happiness of mankind; but may he not also "will and wish" the particular way in which he will have it compassed? And when we sit down to meditate, is it certain that the way which commends itself to our preference, is that on which, in his boundless wisdom and sovereignty, He has fixed? The President of the United States sends his minister to the court of France, to negociate a matter of great and delicate concern. Doubtless he would have him keep his eye intently fixed on the honor and interests of his country. But is that all? Does he leave him to exercise his own private discretion, as to the manner in which that honor, and those interests shall be maintained? Or, does he not rather say "the responsibility of these measures must devolve ultimately on me." For me it is to see, that they be so conducted as to accord, not with your views of public utility, but with my own ulterior plans, and with facts not yet made known. I must, therefore, be permitted to prescribe the method of your procedure-and where the letter of your instructions does not suffice for this purpose, be governed by their spirit, by what you have seen of my measures in analogous cases, and by the dictates of honor and conscience, as well as by any views which you may have of public utility.

Passing however, these assumptions, there is to this rule, the still more formidable objection, that it is often unavailable, and

more often, dangerous. It is unavailable, because it calls us frequently on the verge, or in all the hurry of action, to decide a problem among the most difficult ever presented to the human mind, viz: the ultimate tendency and bearing of a measure-supposing said measure to become general. This is the very question which legislators are called to decide—and they do it often how imperfectly! On many subjects which come before them, considerations of general expediency are their only guide, and do they find it easy with no other guide to reach the truth? Is there no difference of opinion among them when they deliberate on the bearings of a proposed measure? Even among the most gifted and enlightened minds, united in one wish to advance the public weal, is there no discordance of views? And when after weeks or months of deliberation, it has passed into a law-when it goes out and meets the countless currents of prejudice, and passion, and business-life-its purpose counteracted here, and promoted there-how different a thing does it often appear, from that which even the most sagacious apprehended. Here, then, are questions which cannot be decided aright, even by the wisest men after months of united counsel. How, then, shall the humble and unlettered man-of contracted views-who has rarely loooked at remote consequences--who knows little of the countless interests to be affected, how shall he hope to decide such questions, with even the most distant prospect of being right? How certain that, appalled with the magnitude of the inquiry, he will abandon it in despair, or else catching up the principle, that "whatever is expedient, is right" he will construe it to his own taste, and make it the pretext for self-indulgence and sin!

Even when carried out to its application in solitude, and by men anxious to show its excellence, this rule has sometimes taught lessons which send a chill through the heart. Look at Paley, the Christian moralist-the consecrated servant of the altar. He expressly teaches, in his work on Moral Philosophy, that, "falsehoods are not criminal if they do not happen to deceive" or if the person to whom they are spoken, "has no right to know the truth"-that there are no moral maxims, or rules, which may not innocently be made "to bend to circumstances”—and that the direction, "not to do evil that good may come" is for the most part a salutary caution, but is not always to be obeyed. Look at Hume. Guided by the principle of utility or general expediency he arrives at the conclusion, that moral, intellectual, and corporeal virtues, are nearly of the same kind-or in other words, and to use the paraphrase of Bishop Horne, that "to want honesty, to want understanding, and