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Or the two causes of our deviations from Rectitude-want of Knowledge and want of Virtue-the latter is undoubtedly the more operative. Want of Knowledge is, however, sometimes a cause; nor can this be any subject of wonder when it is recollected in what manner many of our notions of right and wrong are acquired. From infancy, every one is placed in a sort of moral school, in which those with whom he associates, or of whom he hears, are the teachers. That the learner in such a school will often be taught amiss, is plain. So that we want information respecting our duties. To supply this information is an object of Moral Philosophy, and is attempted in the present work.

When it is considered by what excellences the existing treatises on Moral Philosophy are recommended, there can remain but one reasonable motive for adding yet another-the belief that these treatises have not exhibited the Principles and enforced the Obligations of Morality in all their perfection and purity. Perhaps the frank expression of this belief is not inconsistent with that deference which it becomes every man to feel when he addresses the public; because, not to have entertained such a belief, were to have possessed no reason for writing. The desire of supplying the deficiency, if deficiency there be; of exhibiting a true and authoritative Standard of Rectitude, and of estimating the moral character of human actions by an appeal to that Standard, is the motive which has induced the composition of these Essays.

In the FIRST ESSAY the writer has attempted to investigate the Principles of Morality. In which term is here included, first, the Ultimate Standard of Right and Wrong; and, secondly, those Subordinate Rules to which we are authorized to apply for the direction of our conduct in life. In these investigations he has been solicitous to avoid any approach to curious or metaphysical enquiry. He has endeavoured to act upon the advice given by Tindal, the Reformer, to his friend John Frith: "Pronounce not or define of hid secrets, or things that neither help nor hinder whether it be so or no; but stick you stiffly and stubbornly in earnest and necessary things."

In the SECOND ESSAY these Principles of Morality are applied in the determination of various questions of personal and relative duty. In making this application, it has been far from the writer's desire to deliver a system of Morality. Of the unnumbered par

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