has the widest range; and this because he has the most understanding. He knows more than any animal; compares the present with the past; foresees future events; and discovers the relation between cause and effect. It is even to be observed that not only will, but also our participation and accountableness, begin with the perceptive faculties. Idiots have sometimes inclinations, but they are neither free nor answerable. It is the same with children

before a certain age; they are said not to be capable of distinguishing good from evil. A man of great understanding and good education is also more blameable for a fault than an uncultivated and stupid individual. Thus, the first condition to freedom is will, an effect of knowledge and reflection.

The second concerns what is to be known and compared, viz. motives. Will is the decision of the understanding, but is adopted according to motives. These result principally from the propensities and sentiments, and sometimes from the perceptive faculties; hence they are as numerous and energetic as these, and the animal which has many and powerful faculties, has many and vigorous motives, and freedom in proportion. The plurality of motives, then, is the second condition to liberty. An animal endowed with only one faculty could act but in one way, and cease from action only when this became inactive. If, on the contrary, it were endowed with several faculties, it would be susceptible of different motives, and a choice would become possible. Yet a plurality of motives is not alone sufficient to freedom of action; for, in that case, the stronger faculty would occasion the deed. If you offer food to a hungry dog, and at the same moment make a hare run before him, he will eat, or follow the hare, according to his strongest propensity. This is not freedom; the strongest propensity only prevails. If, on the contrary, the dog, endowed with the faculty of knowing and comparing, has been punished for following bares, he may tremble and have palpitations without pursuing; he chooses between different motives, he desires, but he remembers the chastisement, and he will not. Thus liberty requires will and a plurality of motives. It, however, demands still a third condition, viz.,

the influence of the will upon the instruments by which the actions are performed.

In cases of disease, it sometimes happens that different motives are known, and that the will has no influence upon actions. In convulsive fits, for instance, the patient may know what he does, but necessarily beats his chest, or head. It is remarkable, too, that the will may put certain faculties into action, while others are abstracted from its influence. It cannot excite the affective faculties, nor prevent their activity, and therefore we are not answerable for our feelings; but it has greater power on the intellectual faculties, and can reproduce their actions in thinking of their functions. It also influences the external senses by means of voluntary motion, and thus has power over the instruments of action. This is the reason why man is accountable for actions proceeding from feelings, though these themselves are involuntary. But soon as voluntary motion is withdrawn from the government of the understanding and will, liberty, responsibility and guilt are no more. Thus, true liberty is founded on three conditions united, and ceases as soon as any one of them is wanting.

'Examine it narrowly,' says Diderot, and you will see that the word liberty is a word devoid of meaning; that there are not, and there cannot be, free beings; that we are only what accords with the general order, with our organization, our education, and the chain of events. These dispose of us invincibly. We can no more conceive a being acting without a motive, than we can one of the arms of a balance acting without a weight. The motive is always exterior and foreign, fastened upon us by some cause distinct from ourselves. What deceives us is the prodigious variety of our actions, joined to the habit which we catch at our birth, of confounding the voluntary and the free. We have been so often praised and blamed, and have so often praised and blamed others, that we contract an inveterate prejudice of believing that we and they will and act freely. But if there is no liberty, there is no action that merits either praise or blame; neither vice nor virtue; nothing that ought either to be rewarded or punished. What then

is the distinction among men? The doing of good and the doing of ill! The doer of ill is one who must be destroyed, not punished. The doer of good is lucky, not virtuous.-Reproach others for nothing, and repent of nothing; this is the first step to wisdom.'

Similar passages may be found in many works of French writers. But their ignorance of human nature is evident. Man is supposed to be a blank paper, tabula rasa, and therefore, every motive considered as exterior,' whilst, according to Phrenology, every condition of liberty is given to man, like all his powers, and their employment is left to the influence of his reflective faculties. Freedom or liberty however is not absolute, and in itself it is a gift of the Creator. Man is free though he is not free to be so, and he is made free in order to be answerable or accountable for his actions. There is no effect without a cause, and no action without a motive, but man has received certain faculties to examine the motives of action and to make a choice among them. These faculties again act according to laws which are determined by the Creator, as well as those of life and nutrition. Man, therefore, cannot will every thing indiscriminately, he is obliged to give the preference to that which seems good and to place one motive above another. This choice among motives constitutes our free will.

'God exercises,' says Bishop Butler,* the same kind of government over us with that which a father exercises over his children. It evidently appears that veracity and justice must be the natural rule and measure of exercising this government to a being who can have no competition or interfering of interest with his creatures. The intelligent author of nature has given us a moral faculty, by which we distinguish between actions, and approve some as virtues and of good desert, and disapprove others as vicious and of ill desert, which moral discernment then implies a rule of action.'

True liberty in itself, however, has not yet a moral character, for many animals exhibit liberty, in different degrees. We must consequently examine where the morality of actions begins.

* Part I. Ch. vi. of the opinion of necessity.

On Morality, its origin and nature.

The doctrine of morality-Ethics-is the most interesting subject which can come under our views. Ethics embraces all that

is loved in God and in man, the notions of good and evil, of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, of merit and demerit, of moral liberty and responsibility.

The majority of every existing community require to be conducted by regulations which must even be imposed upon them in a dogmatic way. A very few only are capable of understanding the concatenation of causes and effects; and even the natural laws. will be incomprehensible dogmas to the great mass of mankind. Belief in, at least submission to, the true laws is quite indispensable to the well being of man, and hence obligatory upon all, but specially upon those who know them.

It is remarkable that hitherto all nations have adopted their religion, and a part of their moral laws, from revelation. We may therefore easily conceive that the priesthood will continue to esti mate their services highly, to keep religious notions stationary, and to make their own interpretations pass as the revealed will of God.

All positive laws are imposed, but the obligation of bowing to them is no proof of their being what they ought to be. Indeed the most opposite rules of conduct have, at different times, been enjoined even as divine and infallible, and it has not generally appeared singular that divine laws have varied according to persons, localities and circumstances. I cannot, however, help saying that my esteem is not great for a legislator who is constantly in contradiction with himself, who desires moral good, but who notwithstanding his omnipotence corrects only by exterminating, who punishes the innocent on account of the guilty. My intention here is only to show that belief, or the necessity of obeying, does not prove the perfection of positive laws.

Some actions in the Christian doctrine are styled good, and others bad or sinful, and whilst the first are commanded, the last are forbidden. Good actions are farther stated to be done after

the spirit, and sins after the flesh, though the flesh is allowed not to be evil in itself. But if actions be not specified, how can we know which are good and which are bad? Is there no standard, according to which they may be judged universally?

In every branch of natural science positive and exact knowledge is sought after. I think that the same ought to be done in regard to the morality of human actions. Mere faith in religious opinions will no longer suffice, the reign of positive truth should begin. The moral nature of man ought to be examined, with observation as a guide, and reduced to principles capable of general and constant application. Invention in the knowledge of man cannot be permitted, and arbitrary interpretations must give place to invariable laws; actions done in conformity with which will be declared as good, and those not in conformity as bad. Morality must become a science.

The nature of every being is regulated by laws, and the human body is evidently so. The laws of propagation and nutrition cannot be changed, and from analogy we may conclude that the moral nature of man is not left to the guidance of chance. But in what do the moral laws consist, or how are they to be determined? Shall it be by force, by a majority of votes? or are they to be sought from among the works and decrees of the Creator?

It is of the highest importance to be convinced that human nature is governed by natural laws. Many philosophers have acknowledged the existence of natural laws of morality as well as of organization. In the opinion of Confucius law is that which is conformable to nature.' Cicero thinks that the law cannot vary, but that it is the same for every nation; and that no injustice, whatever name is given to it, can be considered as law, though a whole nation may submit to its infliction. Lord Bacon calls the laws of nature the law of laws. Charron says, that wise men conduct themselves, that nature is their guide, and that the laws are at the bottom of their hearts. Montesquieu observes, that to say there is neither justice nor injustice except that which is so declared by positive laws, is to say that the radii of a circle are not equal before