every art and science. Nor is there any hand from which we should have more prized the gift, than that of M. Rossi-distinguished as he is among brothers in exile-the humblest of whom we never think of but with honour. Would to God that we may yet live to see, in the termination of that exile, some assurance that they are destined to be the last of far too long a list of martyrs in the cause of Italy and of freedom!

During our perusal of this work we have often asked ourselves the question, whether the period would ever come, when the sciences which have human nature, or at least as much of it as relates to human conduct, for their subject, should cease to consist of systems built upon arbitrary assumptions only? An hypothesis, for instance, like the present, can have no better title to be received than fifty others. As yet we see no glimpse of such a period. It is true that philosophy, both natural and moral, lay in one and the same confusion, and had lain so, as far as there now exist any traces of the intermediate labours of the human understanding, from the creation till the birth of Bacon and Galileo. But before we can indulge a hope that the sciences relating to human conduct are likely to make up even a small portion of the way which they are now behind, we must be able

most systematic and rigid application of the doctrine of utility to these subjects. The latter half of his treatise, Theorie des Peines et des Recompenses, was certainly, and indeed is still, a novelty in an English law library. It is curious that he should have been anticipated nearly half a century by a Neapolitan advocate. As we have never seen Dragonetti's essay, we cannot vouch for the degree of resemblance between the two works. That Mr Bentham knew nothing of it, will be readily presumed by all, who, however they may agree with his naive proposition, (that it was more important that other people should know what he thinks, than that he should know what other people think,) have, like ourselves, lamented the extravagance to which his ignorance and disdain of the writings and understandings of the greatest of his predecessors has been pushed. The following paragraph is from the preface to Gioja's work, Del Merito et delle Ricompense. L'argomento fu presentato per la prima volta all' attenzione del publico da un Italiano, nel 1765, Giacinto Dragonetti mandò alla luce uno scritto intitolato, Delle virtù e dei premj. Quest' opusculo di poche pagine è piuttosto un desiderio che un Trattato.' Diderot published an intermediate essay, sur le Merite et la Vertu. Nel 1811, Bentham alla teoria delle pene uni quella delle recompense. Sequendo ed ampliando le idee dello scrittore Italiano, senza citarlo, lo scrittore Inglese esaminò la trentesima parte dell' argomento e o'innesto varj errori che verranno confutati nella 2a parte di questo scritto.'

to form some idea of the instrument or process by which this most blessed end is expected to be brought about. The reader of those admirable Discourses, with which two great Masters of their respective sciences have so recently done service and honour to our times, must rise from them with sentiments of equal gratitude to both writers. But he will rise with very different feelings concerning the nature of our actual knowledge, and still more different expectations concerning the extent and richness of the land of promise shadowed out in the distance in each department.

The philosophy of mind generally, and that of morals, strictly so called, are concerned with, and depend on, two distinct classes of internal facts. It is not impossible, and perhaps not improbable, that observation and experiment may, when dealing with the first, enable us to mount to some comprehensive law or principle of human nature. A careful collection and analysis of this class of phenomena, will help us to the laws on which depends man's actual conduct-what he actually does. The facts are clearly not identical with those to which we must have recourse, when our object is the discovery of his perfect conduct-what he ought to do. In the first case, there is no dispute about the means which we must use, and the way in which we must proceed. The single question (and that is one of degree only) is, whether the effects are not too complicated and mixed up together for our present instruments, to make between them a separation sufficiently precise and certain, so that we can be justified in assuming, in any particular instance, the correctness of our induction of particulars, and the consequent truth of our expression of their supposed common character and cause. In the second case, the metaphysicians of morals, and consequently of philosophical jurisprudence, are yet debating on what are the proper means and method. Their very enquiry is grounded on the supposition that there are, or may be, two sets of facts-some which ought to be done; some which ought not to be done. But the difficulty is in discovering what facts (since the whole facts are out of the question) are to be selected from the chaos of human actions, for the purpose of forming out of them our principle and rule. It is evident, that instead of moral philosophers, in the first instance, having derived their principles from their facts, the greater part of the principles of every system has hitherto been previously assumed in the very choice of the respective facts, internal and external, on which different schools of philosophy have proceeded to establish their respective theories of morals.

We have no doubt but there will arise within a few months

appropriate occasion (if it be worth while) for enlarging on these considerations. It is a subject over whose surface some new theory or other, or at least some old one, with a little variation in its outline or colouring, is for ever floating. Man, in the meantime, appears to be proof against systems. A sort of common sense, corresponding to the instinct of self-preservation, seems to tell him that they are meant for talk only, and not for action. So he treats them accordingly. In case any one chance to meet awhile with what passes for success, it is soon more than counteracted by a theory formed apparently on the very principle of reaction. The contemporaneous mischief from erroneous reasonings in morals, is limited within narrow bounds. For, there is a vis medicatrix contained in, and circulating through nature, which heals rapidly the wounds it may seem here and there occasionally to receive in the skirmishes of Sophists, from those scythes with which certain minds are fitted up, like mere intellectual machines, to mow their way clear and smooth over every argument. The similarity of the results, which (under the latitude of construction necessary to give plausibility to any of these exclusive systems) it is contrived by a little management to deduce from almost all of them, whilst it enables practical people to safely dispense with their perusal, imposes an additional difficulty in the way of the ambitious students of the science. It prevents them from verifying any one of such several hypotheses, by applying to them the crucial experiment. There are some systems, however, and those favourite ones too, which are free from at least this objection. Extremes from time to time arise, where the facts which are excluded, and the results which are admitted, furnish a startling exception to the moderate limits within which these differences ordinarily exist. Such, certainly, is the case, when we meet with a philosopher, one of whose historical facts is, the circumstance that the ancients paid little regard to the distinction between voluntary and involuntary actions; and that such a distinction is an invention of modern divinity. Metaphysical facts also appear to be dealt as freely with, when what is called a treatise upon human nature, professedly compiled from observation in a course analogous to that pursued in physics, is brought to a conclusion, with, on the one hand, the omission of the element of conscience altogether, and, on the other, with the averment that the tendency of a moral proposition can have nothing whatever to do with its truth. The most exceptionable part of the systems ordinarily composed in the opposite direction, is not in the omissions which are made of authoritative facts, or in the consequences finally deduced. It consists

in the arbitrary assumptions with which they start. Thus rules have been made for us without end. As we read human nature in our bosoms, look out into life, and think over all that we know of the history of our fellow-creatures, past and present, we see a great deal irreconcilable with the rules which philosophical ingenuity has provided with such picturesque and benevolent diversity, for every taste. Neither conscience, nor moral sentiment, nor the relation of things, nor abstract reasoning, nor any faculty, supposition, or device of the kind, have been in any way proved to be a rule in fact; neither has it been yet shown how any of them of them is capable of being made so. Concurrent with, and auxiliary to the result of human conduct, they may one or more be important, nay, sometimes indispensable elements, in the process by which we work out our way to our duty in a given instance. But they cannot dispense with or supersede the necessity of taking that result into consideration, and of looking for our rule in that hateful word, Utility. Much less, if reason is not to be hustled and hooted down by her colleagues in the council-room, can they be allowed to contradict whatever practical result is consecrated as beneficial to mankind. The terrors of superstition upset all principles. Out of that inexplicable circle, there is no fear, when we come to act, of a mere metaphysical dogma, unproved and unprovable, forcing any person in his senses upon behaviour which he sees to be inconsistent with the public good.

It is very unlikely that the dissensions of metaphysicians, on the problematical parts of this most interesting question, shall be set to rest. The Chillingworths of morals will still keep digging about the roots of the tree of knowledge. Where one thinks that he has found the tap-root, another will see nothing more than fibres. But much of the confusion which pervades books and conversation might be avoided, and more than a mouthful (if not a bellyful) of its sound and wholesome fruit may be secured, for most purposes of practice, if not of disputation, provided every body would keep separate, in moral consi derations, the motive of the agent and the tendency of the act. The ultimate sanction, the immediate and intermediate motive, and the guiding rule, are distinct in their nature, but will in every complete character be practically blended. Taken alone, Butler's triumphant exposition of the supremacy of Conscience over the whole system of our personal nature, in the last resort, may often have too peremptory and individualizing an effect. The great commandment, Do unto others, &c., so beautifully illustrated in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, by making us to be

constantly changing places with an impartial spectator, at once brings into play the whole sympathies of our frame. But, in proportion as a man is a reasonable creature, and as he attends to the experience of his nature and position as they are exemplified in life, he will be convinced that no motive,-neither conscience, nor sympathy, nor self-love, can be relied on as certain guides. However sure he may be of his motives, there can be no assurance for the act, that is, for the direction in, and objects upon which, they may impel him, except by passing it in review before his understanding, and applying the practical consequences to the circumstances of every case. This process is necessary, in order to finally correct the best possible motives into accordance with the rule of tendency-the happiness of mankind. Taylor, Sanderson, and Placete, reconsidering the divisions and subdivisions of their rules for (rather than of) conscience,-the voluminous Roman Catholic compilers of books of casuistry, (the law reports of morals,) would alike smile at the summary confidence with which our author substitutes one short phrase, 'the revelations of conscience,' for all their labours.

Many able men have tried their hand on visionary speculations concerning the form and essence of virtue-a right and a wrong in the nature of things-an absolute justice independent of circumstances and facts, (elle est parcequ'elle est, says M. Rossi, by way of information to us)-an abstract standard, the same in all times and places. So numerous have been the adventurers who started with brilliant promises for the shore of this mysterious ocean, whilst not one of them has brought us back any thing better than sea-weeds and cockle-shells as insignia of his triumph, that he must be credulous indeed who can expect any real addition to our knowledge from similar attempts. We lament more than we admire the enthusiasm under which, in this branch of metaphysical faith, a succession of missionaries is always found ready to volunteer on so hopeless an enterprise. As the reasonings of many religious writers proceed in some most important subjects on the supposition that God will not permit a sincere believer to be deceived; so some moralists (M. Rossi for example) seem to think that little more can be wanted to secure a successful issue to this experiment, than to interrogate the consciences of men. It is not necessary to subject this agreeable delusion to the destructive test of history. The mere metaphysical biography of conscience itself is far too obscure for any positive conviction of this description. The most careful observers of its origin and growth are divided in opinion, as a matter of ontology, whether it is natural or acqui