2

PRELIMINARY PRINCIPLES

of Moral Philosophy, to investigate the moral constitution ofman and the appropriate sphere of his duties ; to determine thestandard by which the various branches of duty may be meas-ured ; and to prescribe rules for our guidance in the principalemployments and situations in which men may be called to act,and in the chief relations of life which they are accustomed tosustain.

In moral philosophy, as in most other sciences, there is apractical part, and a part which may be called theoretical orspeculative; and, in respect to the last of these, we shallperceive, by adverting to the history of Ethics, that there hasbeen quite the usual diversity of sentiment which we are accus-tomed to see among men. Socrates, usually called amongthe ancients the Prince of Philosophers, maintained, that anaction, to be good, must be both useful and honorable {utileet honestum) ; and he was accustomed to express the strongestdisapprobation of those, who, holding that an action might beuseful without being honorable, first drew a distinction betweenthe usefulness and the rectitude of an action.* According toPlato, virtue consists in that state of mind in which everyfaculty confines itself within its proper sphere, without en-croaching upon that of any other, and performs its properoffice with that precise degree of strength and vigor whichbelongs to it.f In the view of Aristotle, each particular virtuelies in a kind of medium between two opposite vices, ofwhich the one offends by being too much, the other bybeing too little, affected by a particular species of objects.Thus the virtue of fortitude or courage lies in the mediumbetween the opposite vices of cowardice and of presumptuousrashness, of which the one offends from being too much, and

from any doubtful train of reasoning, but forced on men by the very conditionof their existence.” Again, “ The judgment of conscience, declaring to usthat we are responsible for our deeds, is recorded in the language and institu-tions of every civilized nation in the history of the world. If this does notsatisfy the metaphysician, it is at least enough for the Christian moralist, whoserule of life is simple, and whose light is clear.” — Professor Sedgwick, on theStudies of the University of Cambridge , pp. 33, 70.

* Cic. De Off. Lib. III. c. 3.

t Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, Vol. II. p. 69.