ter, Space, duration, neceffary existence, power and caufation, c. and has advanced feveral things on this part of his fubject, which we do not remember to have met with any where else.

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Towards the conclufion of this fecond fection, he proceeds thus. When I confider thefe, and fome other things, I cannot help wondering, that, in enquiring into the original of our ideas, the understanding, which, though not first in time, is, perhaps, the moft fruitful and important fource of our ideas, fhould have been fo much overlooked. It has, indeed, been always confidered as, in general, the fource of knowlege: but it fhould have been more attended to than it has been; that it is the fource of knowlege as it is the fource of new ideas, and that it cannot be the one of thefe without being the other. The ⚫ various kinds of agreement and difagreement between our ideas, which, as is faid, it is its office to discover and trace, are fo many new, fimple ideas, of which it must itself have been the original. Thus, when it confiders the two angles made by a right line, ftanding in any direction on another, and perceives the agreement between them and two right angles, what is this agreement befides their equality? And is not the idea of this equality, a new, fimple idea, obtained from the underftanding, wholly different from that of the two angles compared, and reprefenting felf-evident truth? In much the fame manner, in other cafes, knowlege and intuition fuppofe somewhat perceived or difcovered in their objects, denoting fimple ideas, to which themfelves originally gave rife.---This is true of our ideas of proportion, of identity and diverfity, existence, connection, incompatibility, power, poffibility, and impoffibility; and let me add, though prematurely, moral right and wrong. The first concerns quantity; the next almost all things; the laff, actions. And they comprehend the most confiderable part of what we can defire to know of things, and the chief, if not all the objects of our reafonings and difquifitions.

It is therefore effential to the understanding to be the fountain of new ideas; on which are founded, and about which are converfant, its fubfequent improvement and advances. As bodily fight difcovers to us the qualities of outward, vifible objects; fo the understanding, which is the eye of the mind, and infinitely more fubtle and penetrating, difcovers to the qualities of fpeculative and intellectual objects, or whatever it is capable of being directed to; and thus, in a like fenfe with the former, becomes the inlet of new ideas.---It is obvious, that the ideas now meant, presuppose certain subjects of contemplation, whofe natures, connections, and qualities, they reprefent. I need not, furely, ftay to fhew, that there is no reafon for denying them to be diftinct and new ideas;

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or for afcribing them to any operations of the mind about ' its ideas.'

Mr. Price concludes this fection with obferving, that the fource of ideas he has infifted on, is intuition, and not deduction, with which it ought, by no means, to be confounded. Deduction confifts in inveftigating, by proper mediums, the relations of proportion, identity, connection, &c. between certain objects; ideas of which must have been previously in the mind, and got from intuition. That is, it fuppofes us already to have the ideas we want to trace; and therefore cannot give rise to new ones. No mind can be engaged in inveftigating it knows not what; or endeavouring to find out any thing it has no idea of, concerning an object. When, from the view of fubjects to which they belong felf-evidently, we have gained ideas of fuch and fuch principles, or general, abftract affections of things; we employ deduction, or reafoning, to trace thefe farther amongst .other fubjects, and in other inftances, where they cannot be perceived immediately.

In the third fection he confiders the original of our ideas of right and wrong in particular. Right and wrong, we are told, denote fimple ideas, and are therefore to be afcribed to fome immediate power of perception in the human mind. He that doubts this, need only try to enumerate the diftinct, fimple ideas they fignify; or to give definitions of them when applied, fuppole, to beneficence, or cruelty, which fhall amount to more than fynonymous expreffions. From not attending to this; from laying down definitions of thefe ideas, and attempting to derive them from deduction, has proceeded Mr. Price obferves, a great part of that confufion, and thofe difficulties, which have attended the enquiries into their foundation and original.

Suppofing it then clear, that we have a power immediately perceiving right and wrong, and that our ideas of them are not to be derived from deduction, which is never the fource of any new original ideas, the point our Author now endeavours to effablifh is, that this power is the understanding. The main obstacle to the acknowlegement of this, he imagines, has been already removed, by fhewing, that the understanding is an immediate power of perception, and a fource of new ideas; but in order to evince it more explicitly and diftin&tly, he obferves, first, that it implies no abfurdity, but evidently may be true. It is undeniable, that many of our ideas are gained from the understanding, or its intuition of truth, and the natures of things: our moral ideas therefore may be thus gained. It is furely poffible, that right and wrong may denote truth, and what we understand and know concerning certain objects, in like manner with proportion

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portion and difproportion, connection and repugnancy, and the other ideas before mentioned. And as this is poffible, so nothing, our Author fays, has ever yet been offered, as far as he knows, to fhew the contrary.

There is no better way, he obferves, fecondly, of determining this point, than by referring men to their own consciousness, and putting them upon examining and comparing their own ideas and perceptions. Could we fuppofe a perfon, who, when he perceived an external object, was at a lofs to determine, whether he perceived it by means of his organs of fight or touch, what better method could be taken to fatisfy him? The least attention to our own ftate and circumstances, and an inward, irrefiftible consciousness, take away the poffibility of doubting in all fuch cafes. And it feems not, in any very peculiar degree, harder to determine in the cafe before us.

Were the question, What that perception is, which we have of number, diverfity, caufation, proportion, or any of the other general principles and affections of things, about which reafoning is converfant; and whether our ideas of them represent truth and reality perceived by the understanding, or particular impresfions, made by the objects to which we afcribe them, on our minds; would it not be fufficient to appeal to common fenfe, and to leave it to be determined by every perfon's private confcioufnefs? These ideas feem to our Author to have little or no greater pretence to be denominated perceptions of the understanding than right and wrong.

Let any one compare in his mind the ideas arifing from our powers of fenfation, with thofe arifing from an intuition of the natures of things, and enquire which of them his ideas of right and wrong moft resemble. On the iffue of fuch a comparison, Mr. Price thinks this question may fafely be refted, with all those whofe thoughts are unprepoffeffed in favour of any particular fcheme.---He that can impartially attend to the operations of his mind, and the nature of his own perceptions, and determine that when he perceives gratitude or beneficence to be right, he perceives nothing true of them, or underflands nothing, but only Juffers from a fenfe, must have a strange turn of mind indeed.

He obferves, thirdly, that if right and wrong denote effects of fenfation, it must imply the greateft abfurdity, to fuppofe them applicable to actions: or the ideas of right, and wrong, and of action, must be incompatible, and effentially repugnant to one another; as much fo as the idea of pleafure and a regular form, or of pain and the collifions of bodies.---All fenfations, as fuch, are modes of consciousness, or feeiings of a fentient Being, which must be of a nature totally different from the particular caufes

which produce them. A coloured body, if we speak accurately, is the fame abfurdity and impoffibility with a square found. We need no arguments or experiments to prove, that heat, cold, colours, taftes, &c. are not real qualities of bodies, because the ideas of matter, and of thefe qualities are incompatible.--- Let the Reader now confider,' fays our Author, is there, indeed, ⚫ any fuch incompatibility between actions and right? Is there any fuch great abfurdity in affirming the one of the other? Are the ideas of them as totally different as the idea of a fenfation, and its caufe? On the contrary, the more we examine, the more indifputable, I imagine, it will appear to us, that we • express ftrict, obvious, neceflary truth, when we say of fome • actions, they are right, and of others they are wrong. Some of the wifeft men, after the most careful enquiry, have thought thus, and been the moft perfuaded, that thefe are real diftinctions, belonging to the natures of actions and characters. Can it be fo difficult for attentive and impartial perfons, to dif <tinguish between the ideas of fenfibility and reafon; between the intuitions of truth, and the paffions of the mind? Is that a fcheme of morals we can be very fond of, which makes our perceptions of moral good and evil, in actions and manners, to be all vifion and fancy; juft as is a great part of the form. and drefs in which the whole material world appears to us? • Who can help feeing, that right and wrong are as abfolutely unintelligible, and void of fenfe and meaning, when fuppofed to fignify nothing true of actions, no effential, inherent dif⚫ference between them; as the perceptions of the external and internal fenfes are, when thought to be properties of the objects that produce them?'

In the last place, our Author observes, that all actions undoubtedly have a nature. That is, fome character certainly belongs to them, and fomewhat there is that may be truly affirmed of them. This may be, that fome of them are right, others wrong. But if this is not allowed; if no actions are, in themfelves, either right or wrong, or any thing of a moral or obliga tory nature, which can be an object to the understanding; it follows, that, in themfelves, they are all indifferent. This is what is effentially true of them, and this is what all understandings, that perceive right, muft perceive them to be. But are we not confcious, that we perceive the contrary? And have we not as much reason to believe the contrary, as to believe, or truft at all our own difcernment?

In other words; every thing having a determined nature, or effence, from whence fuch and fuch truths concerning it neceflarily refult, which it is the proper province of the understanding to perceive, and the capacity of d..covering which conftitutes the

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idea of it: it follows, that nothing whatever can be exempted from its infpection and fentence, and that of every thought, fentiment, and fubject, it is the natural and ultimate judge. Actions, therefore, ends and events, are within its province. These it is capable of concerning itself about; and of thefe, as well as all other things, it belongs to it to judge. What now is this judg ment? One would think it impoffible, our Author fays, for any perfon, without fome hefitation and reluctance, to reply; that the judgment his understanding forms of them is this, that they are all effentially indifferent, and that there is no one thing righter or better to be done than another. If this is judging truly; if, indeed, there is nothing which it is, in itfelf, right or wrong to do; how obvious is it to infer, that it fignifies not what we do; that there is nothing which, in truth and reality, we, or any other Beings, ought, or ought not, to do; and that the determination to think otherwife, is an impofition upon rational creatures, which, in fuperior Beings, must be rendered of no effect, by the clear perceptions of reafon.

Upon the whole, our Author thinks it unavoidable to conclude, that the point he has endeavoured to explain and prove, is as evident as we can well defire any point to be.--. The following important corollary, he fays, arifes from it: that morality is eternal and immutable. Right and wrong denote what actions are. Now, whatever any thing is, that it is not by will, or decree, or power, but by nature and nec fity. Whatever a triangle or circle is, that it is unchangeably and eternally. Every object, and every idea of the mind, has an indivifible and invariable effence; from whence arife its properties, and numberlefs truths concerning it. And the command which Omnipotence has over things, is not to alter their abftract natures; to make them to be what they are not; or deftroy neceffary truth; which is contradictory, and would infer the deftruction of all reafon, wifdom, and knowlege. But the true idea of Omnipotence, is an unlimited command over all particular, external, exiftences, to make, destroy, or vary them infinitely and endlefly: and even, with refpect to external exiftences, there are truths implied in their general natures, and arifing from every particular ftate of them; which, while this ftate continues, cannot, without a contradiction, be conceived alterable by any power.---The nature of things then being immutable, whatever we fuppofe the natures of actions to be, that they must be immutably. If they are abfolutely and univerfally indifferent, this indifference is itfelf immutable; and there neither is, nor can be any one thing that, in reality, we ought to do rather than another. The fame is to be faid of right and wrong, or of moral good and evil, as far as they exprefs real characters of actions. They muft, immutably and neceffarily,