attentive obfervation of men's characters, way of thinking, propenfities and manners, will be found fufficient for this purpose. I believe, indeed, that we can more certainly judge whether a given mode of conduct, or series of actions, in a given fituation, and under given circumstances, be natural to a given character, or to the human mind in general, and confequently to be expected, or not; than, from our knowledge of the phyfical world, we can determine what is poffible, or impoffible in it. The first obfervers of human nature seem to me to have known what is requifite to the former; and what the refearches of fubfequent ages have added to their knowledge ferves rather, I think, to the gratification of curiofity, and the enlargement of the bounds of fpeculative philofophy, than to the benefit of real life, or the improvement of the art of bending man to our purposes. It appears to me of fome weight, that later difcoveries have by no means fhewn the knowledge of human nature, delivered to us in the writings of its firft obfervers, to be fo imperfect, or erroneous, as the phyfical notions of the fame ages. They must have been capable, therefore, of more fully examining, and more eafily and juftly viewing the moral, than the phyfical world. Confider what Ariftotle has written on the faculties and actions of the human mind: his logic perfect at the first attempt; his moral and political writings; are they not ftill the fubject of our admiration, and the rule - of our tafte? And are they not ufed as helps to our knowledge of man, and all the arts and fciences dependant on it? Though the characters of Bruyere are more diftinct and finished than thofe -of Theophraftus, the latter is not lefs true and just in his moral delineations: and where fhall we find a modern hiftorian better acquainted with the human heart than Tacitus, or who fcrutinizes it with more depth of penetration?

Thus

Thus it seems, that we have a fufficient know. ledge of mankind, to examine the probability or improbability of an account of human actions, and to judge whether moral analogy be obferved, or violated in it. Our inquiry will go to this, whether the men defcribed actually felt, thought, and acted, as we ourselves fhould have done in fimilar circumstances, or not. Though the leaft learned and philofophical are not deftitute of this knowledge, they alone who have fome knowledge of the world can exercife it readily, and with certainty. Every thinking and attentive reader remarks deviations of this kind, and always with unwillingness and diffatisfaction. They deftroy the illufion and intereft we feel, far more than violations of phyfical order. It is much more unpleasant to us, to perceive an inexplicable contradiction in a character, an unfounded want of connection in a proceeding, or a pfychological and moral miracle, than exceptions from the laws of the natural world, or phyfical miracles. The fabulift may give his Proteus what wonderful forms he pleafes, now change him into water, and then into fire; ftill we forgive him whilft he remains true to the character he has adopted. The magician may with his wand change the most frightful defert into a beautiful garden, or a pile of rough ftones into an elegant palace, and act as an uncontroulable lord of nature. But if the poet prefent us with men whose perceptions, thoughts, and refolves are unconnected, unfounded, ineffectual, and tending to no end; if he introduce on the ftage devils or angels in human form, without accommodating the scene to the characters, by giving them fuitable employment, or placing them in fituations to juftify fuch bold fictions, fo as to avoid a violation of moral analogy; he would urge our credulity to the utmoft. Even were the laws of nature moft ftrictly obferved, fuch miracles would difguft us, and appear too improbable to be Sf 2 interefling.

1

interefting. The traveller may relate to us natural phænomena and occurrences never before heard of, yet, if we have no other reafon to miftruft his veracity, we shall not eafily reject, without examination, what he advances; and this on juft grounds. But if he tell us, that he has met with men, who, with the fame fenfations as we poffefs of good and evil, hate their benefactors, and love thofe who injure them, and who feek not to efcape death, though extremely attached to life, we immediately condemn him as a liar.

This at leaft fhews an almoft univerfal, juft, and acute fenfibility to every thing that agrees with moral order, or analogy, or is repugnant to it; and an equally general averfion to confider any deviation from it as probable, or to be for a moment deceived into a belief of it. This goes fo far, that we difapprove, and reject as improbable, all caricatures of moral beauty and uglinefs, if not naturally arifing from fituation. And yet thefe are not properly deviations from the fundamental laws of mind. Thefe laws require connected conceptions, and exertions of the faculties of perception and defire founded on each other. This combination is demonftrated by conftant experience. It is difcoverable, though not fo readily, in madness, frenzy, and fanaticifm. The laws of mind are but apparently violated in the madman. Still we find in him a pfychological and moral order, though to perceive it requires the penetrating eye of a Cervantes, a Shakespeare, or a Richardfon. Whence comes it, that the fools, madmen, and fanatics of thefe followers of nature intereft us fo agreeably? It is because in all their apparent deviations they remain true to moral analogy. They fpin the thread throughout as they began it; without cutting it, and tying together ends never defigned to meet. Their work is all of a piece; and they carefully guard againft reprefenting the human mind to us as an

inftrument

inftrument from which various hands produce unconnected tones. Such inftruments would perfectly resemble the minds of the firft preachers of chriftianity, were we to reject the fole ground on which the apparent contradiction, and inconfiftency, of their characters, and conduct, are to be explained, and reconciled. If the miracles, which alone afford us a key to decipher the myfterious harmony, did not happen, their minds were not guided by any fpirit from above, but were inftruments in the hands of fome fiends, who called from them difcordant founds without any plan. any plan. If, on the contrary, those miracles actually occurred, every thing is capable of an explanation, the moral or pfychological miracle vanishes, and the conduct of thofe who bore teftimony of Jefus appears in the fairest light, as natural, rational, and virtuous.

PROP. XLVIII. p. 199.

Of the Question whether the greater Part of Men's Actions, generally confidered, be rather good than bad; or the contrary,

THE queftion here ftarted by our author, whether men be upon an average moft inclined to good, or bad, and whether the greater number of their actions be commendable or blame-worthy, has generally been confidered as interefting to curiofity merely; but in his hands it becomes important, as from its folution he deduces an argument in behalf of virtue. It is true, indeed, that he lays no great stress upon it, and we must own, that the tendency of virtue, or its good confequences, conftitutes the chief and almoft only argument for purfuing it, as into this all others may ultimately be refolved. What he infers, however, from the practice and opinion of Sf 3. mankind

mankind may be admitted as a preliminary argument; and were there no other, it would have fome weight if it be true, that the general practice and opinion of mankind give a decided preference to virtue; or if it be true, that the practice of mankind is, upon an average, more inclined to virtue than to vice. Some good grounds for this fuppofition are adduced by Hartley. Still the inquiry is intricate and difficult, for this reafon, that men are not agreed on what is here to be understood by good and bad, and in measuring them employ different ftandards. The chriftian religion teaches us to endeavour after the attainment of fuch perfection, and places before us fuch a pattern of virtue, that, if we compare the actions and general practice of mankind with this perfection and pattern, deeming nothing good but what comes up to them, and ftyling every thing that falls fhort of them vicious or bad, we cannot deny, that men are more vicious than virtuous, and that their practice is rather bad than good. But if we form our judgment of men's actions from this point of view, a number of them, which do not here come into confideration, and which we may deem neutral, muft not be taken into our calculation. Such are all actions in themselves lawful and good, that is confonant to the ends and purposes of our Creator, requifite and neceffary to the avoidance of phyfical evil and the attainment of phyfical good, but which cannot with propriety be ftyled chriftian good works, not being performed on account of the law, and the exercife of them being unattended with fuch difficulties as render them properly objects of reward. Such actions are thofe which even the moft vicious man would rather do than thofe of an oppofite nature, or than those which may be confidered as properly vicious. According to our common mode of expreffion, thefe may rather be termed good than bad, though they can be reckoned neither as the good

works