Being governs the world. We deduce them only from facts which fall within our own observation, or are properly attested by those who have observed them. (See Art. 74. Illus.)

2. The knowledge of some of these laws is necessary to all men, and all men soon discover them. Who does not know that fire burns, that water drowns, that bodies gravitate towards the earth; that day and night, spring and autumn, regularly succeed each other? As far back as our experience and information reach, we know that these have happened; and, upon this ground, we are led, by the constitution of human nature, to expect that they will happen in time to come, in like circumstances. (Illus. Art. 75.)

3. The knowledge which the philosopher attains of the laws of nature, differs from that of the vulgar, not in the first principles on which it is grounded, but in its extent and accuracy. He collects with care the phenomena that lead to the same conclusion, and compares them with those that seem to contradict or to limit it. He observes the circumstances on which every phenomenon depends, and distinguishes them carefully from those that are accidentally conjoined with it. He puts natural bodies in various situations, and applies them to one another in various ways, on purpose to observe the effect; and thus acquires from his senses a more extensive knowledge of the course of nature, in a short time, than could be collected by casual observation in many ages.

4. The result of his laborious researches is then barely this :-as far as he has been able to observe, such things have always happened, in such circumstances, and such bodies have always been found to have such properties. These are matters of fact, attested by sense and memory, and testimony, just as the few facts which the vulgar know are attested to them.

5. And the conclusions which the philosopher draws from the facts which he has collected, are barely these that like events have happened in former times, in like circumstances, and will happen in time to come; and these conclusions are built on the very ground on which the simple rustic concludes that the sun will rise to-morrow. (See Art. 76. Corol.)

6. Facts reduced to general rules, and the consequences of those general rules, are all that we really know of the material world. And the Evidence that such general rules have no exceptions, as well as the Evidence that they will be the same in time to come as they have been in time past, can never be demonstrative. It is only that species of Evidence which philosophers call probable. General rules may have exceptions, or limitations, which no man ever had occasion to observe. The laws of nature may be changed by Him who established them. But we are led, by our constitution, to rely upon their continuance with as little doubt as if it were demonstrable.

Note. The foregoing classification of Probable Evidence makes it incumbent on me that I enumerate also a few of the first principles, or intuitive truths, which other philosophers have laid down as the bases of Evidence; and the more so as the sophistry of all knaves is founded on the perversion, or the setting aside, of such first principles.

319. FATHER BUFFIER, a name entitled to the highest

encomium, finds two great sources from which he derives his first principles, viz.

I. The consciousness we have of our own thoughts.

II. Common sense-a phraseology which he employs in the common acceptation of language, as denoting the faculty by which men form judgments on the ordinary objects of their experience, which are not proper subjects of consciousness.

320. The following, though not perhaps a complete enumeration, are the examples of this good man's principles of common sense*.

I. There are other beings, and other men in the world besides myself.

II. There is in them something that is called truth, wisdom, prudence; and this something is not merely arbitrary. (See Art. 58. Corol.

III. There is in me something that I call intelligence, or mind; and something which is not that intelligence, or mind, and which is named body; so that each possesses properties different from the other. (See Art. 52. and 54.)

IV. What is generally said and taught by men in all ages and countries of the world is true. (Art. 60.)

V. All men have not combined to deceive and impose upon me. VI. What is not intelligence, or mind, cannot produce all the effects of intelligence or mind; neither can a fortuitous jumble of particles of matter form a work of such order, and so regular motion, as a watch. (Corol. Art. 73.)

321. This original thinker mentions three qualities, or tests, by which first truths, or maxims of common sense, may be distinguished from all others.

I. They are so clear, that they cannot be proved by any thing

clearer.

II. They have been admitted in all countries, and at all times, with exceedingly few exceptions.

III. They are so strongly imprinted in our minds, that we regulate our conduct by them, in spite of all the speculative refinements of that philosophy which denies them.

Obs. This illustrious genius lived in the beginning of the last century. Buffier considers the testimony of the senses as at best affording but Probable Evidence, and by no means entitled to be ranked on the footing of certain and intuitive truth; and he places the evidence of Memory on the same level as the evidence of sense. As far as I have been able to ascertain, he was the FIRST who successfully taught the important science of first truths, in opposition to the career of scepticism that then stalked over Europe. To M. Buffier's writings may be traced some of the finest thoughts which sparkle like diamonds in the productions of Drs. Reid, Beattie, Campbell, and Paley.

*See his "Traité des Premiers Vérités et de la Source des nos Judgmens."

322. Dr. Beattie, in his "Essay on the Immutability of Truth," makes many observations on the nature of Evidence, the grounds of rational Belief, and the different kinds of Truth. In this work the author proposes the following enumeration of the various kinds of evidence and sources of belief.

I. Mathematical Evidence.

II. The evidence of External Sense.

III. The evidence of Consciousness.
IV. The evidence of Memory.

V. That evidence which we have, when from effects, we infer causes.
VI. Probable Evidence.

VII. The evidence of Testimony.

Obs. 1. The first five he states to be certain and intuitive truths, or maxims of common sense. The remaining two, he likewise considers intuitive truths, or maxims of sense, but which Dr. Reid holds to be only probable, and not certain; and he divides the sixth class into two species.

1st. The evidence by which we judge of future events by our past experience from similar events; and,

2dly. The evidence of analogy. Obs. 2. In Dr. Campbell's Philosophy of Rhetoric," (which proceeded from the same school, at the head of which is Father Buffier, and which gave birth to the writings of Reid and Beattie,) are ably handled, with the greatest similarity of sentiments to Dr. Reid, the two kinds of evidence, Intuitive and Deductive.

323. According to Dr. Campbell, INTUITIVE evidence is that which is admitted immediately, on a bare attention to the ideas under review; and DEDUCTIVE, which is admitted mediately, by a comparison of these with other ideas.

Illus. 1. Intuitive evidence the Doctor arranges under three heads.

I. MATHEMATICAL AXIOMS, which he states to be the result of pure Intellection.

II. CONSCIOUSNESS; and,

III. COMMON SENSE; under which last he comprehends both the evidence of Sense and Memory.

2. Deductive evidence is founded upon the Intuitive; and Dr. Campbell considers it as of two kinds :-First, that which is founded upon the axioms of pure intellection; and, Secondly, that which is founded upon the dictates of consciousness and common sense, which he calls Moral or Probable Evidence, and divides into

I. The knowledge we derive from experience.

II. That from analogy.

III. That from testimony; and,

IV. The calculation of chances; which last he considers as a mixed kind of evidence, partly certain, and partly probable only. Note. Truth is one, in which we have all a common property;

and the greatest pleasure I have in closing this Chapter, is, to refer my readers to the writings of those celebrated men whose names I have mentioned, and to the "Elements of the Philosophy of the Human Mind," by Mr. Stewart. These productions are so many altars of truth: the live coal on which is common sense-its vestal, Reason.

CHAPTER XII.

OF MORAL PERCEPTION.

324. MORAL PERCEPTION is the faculty which determines the choice of a rational being, as to what is good for him upon the whole, and what appears to be duty.

Obs. 1. That there is such a faculty as Moral Perception in man, I take for granted, on two grounds; first, because he is endowed with Consciousness, Memory, and Judgment; Secondly, because this faculty can have no existence but in a being endowed with Reason and all the other faculties, upon which, as principles or auxiliaries, it displays its exertions, in the various acts of Intention, of Will, and of Judgment.

2. This faculty spreads before our view a wide and variegated field of discursive inquiry and illustration, and we shall therefore arrange it under several sections.

I. The Rational Principles of Action in Man.

325. There can be no exercise of reason without judgment; nor, on the other hand, any judgment of things abstract and general, without some degree of reason.

Corol. If, therefore, there be in the human constitution any principles of action, which, in their nature, necessarily imply such judgment, they are the principles which we may call rational, to distinguish them from animal principles, which imply desire and will, but not judgment.

326. Every deliberate action must be done either as the means, or as an end; as the means to some end to which it is subservient, or as an end for its own sake, and without regard to any thing beyond itself; and that it is a part of the office of reason to determine what are the proper means to any end which we desire, no man ever denied. The philosophers, who assign to Taste, or Feeling, the office which we assign to Reason, cease to consider Reason a principle of action.

Obs. We shall, therefore, endeavour to shew, that, among the various ends of human actions, there are some of which, without Reason, we could not even form a conception; and that, as soon as they are perceived, a regard to them is, by our constitution, not only a principle of action, but a leading and governing principle, to which all our animal principles are subservient, and to which they ought to be subject.

Corol. These we call rational principles, because they can only exist in beings endowed with Reason; and because, to act from those principles, is, what has always been meant by acting according to Reason.

327. The ends of human actions which we have here in view, are two.

First. What is good for us upon the whole.
Secondly. And what appears to be duty.

II. Of regard to our good on the whole.

328. It will not be denied, that as soon as we come to years of understanding, we are led, by our rational powers, to form the conception of what is good for us upon the whole.

Obs. The general notion of good, which enters the mind at an early age, is one of the most general and abstract notions we form.

329. WHATEVER makes a man more happy, or more perfect, is GOOD, and is an object of desire as soon as he is capable of forming the conception of it. The contrary is ILL, and is an object of aversion. In other words, the neglect of good is in moral actions, matter of indignation or blame.

Corol. Hence MORAL LAWS may be considered under different aspects, and distinguished by different titles.

I. Considered in respect to their source, they may be distinguished as original, or natural, or adventitious, or conventional.

II. Considered in respect to their subjects, they may be distinguished by denominations taken from those subjects; as, laws of religion, or of society,—as laws of peace or of war;—as, laws political, civil, or criminal.

III. Considered in respect to the persons to whom they are applicable, they are laws of nations, or the laws of particular states.

330. Moral philosophy is, thence, the knowledge of Moral laws, respecting their sources and their applications.

Obs. The obligation of every law, whether original or adventitious, general or partial, may be resolved into an obligation of the law of nature. And the first, or fundamental, law of nature to mankind, is, an expression of the greatest good competent to man's nature. All subsequent laws are branches or applications of this.

331. That which, taken with all its discoverable connexions and consequences, brings more good than ill, we call GOOD UPON the WHOLE.