They can of course be cast into the form of a proposition, and thou shalt not steal' may be rendered 'it is wrong to steal,' but the form in which they naturally appeal to the unsophisticated man is that of the imperative, whether it be hypothetical or categorical. It seems that in the last resort the insistence displayed by Balguy and Price (§§ 551, 626) in describing a right action as a 'true' one, is due to their conviction that moral distinctions are a function of reason and are also objective, and that it so they must be in some way or other an expression of 'truth,' 'practical reason' not yet being invented, or not yet applied to the solution of this difficulty. It is perhaps noticeable that there is a tendency to couple 'order and truth' (§§ 719, 730), and it may be admitted that the idea of a moral 'order' is much more suitable for the purpose of these writers, than that of truth, but in their minds it is at least partly a theological idea.

14. The fitness of actions.

As for 'relations,' Balguy is easily driven to admit that mathematical relations can only be used figuratively in morals, and that moral perceptions, e. g. of moral agreement and fitness, are different in kind from mathematical perceptions (§§ 714-19), though they are still perceptions of reason and not of sense. A great deal of the intellectualist argument turns upon merely verbal ambiguity, which Price is obliged to admit (§§ 670, 694); relation, agreement, congruity, suitableness, fitness, form a series which lead, conveniently but loosely, from the non-moral to the moral. But to serve the purpose of the intellectualist, with his demand for absolute virtue, it must be absolute fitness (§ 483), and absolute fitness is a contradiction in terms. Moral fitness must mean either fitness to an end, e.g. happiness, or fitness to gratify a desire

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(§§ 807, 1014), or that conformity to a certain standard of character, otherwise determined, which is more usually called propriety or decency. Suitableness to human nature, whether that of the ideal man or the ordinary man (§§ 220, 262), is a quite intelligible phrase, but it recognizes a standard which the intellectualists could not accept. That a virtuous act must not violate the physical laws of the universe, and in this sense must be suitable to the nature of things, is quite true, but that is only a negative condition of virtue, and such violation would constitute folly rather than vice, and an action which was calculated with most exact reference to physical conditions might yet be a very bad one. Abstract fitness is certainly not sufficient to constitute virtue (§§ 739, 747 ), and it is impossible to give a definition of virtuous fitness without including in the definition the idea of virtue. 'These expressions,' says Price, referring to congruity, suitability, &c., are of no use and have little meaning if considered as intended to define virtue; for they evidently presuppose it' (§ 697). Hume's remark on the writers of this school, that they thought it sufficient if they could bring the word relation into the argument without troubling themselves whether it was to the purpose or not' (Treatise, p. 464 n), is much to the point, as indeed is his whole criticism of the theory which places virtue and vice in relations (ib. pp. 463470). If you say that the virtue of an act is a relation, he replies that all the four relations discoverable by reason are perceptible between inanimate objects or animals just as much as between persons: there is no actual relation in parricide which does not exist between the ivy and the oak, nor in incest which does not occur between animals. If it be replied that the moral relation is a new relation different from any of the four recognized relations, he says, show it me!

That is precisely what the intellectualists are inclined to do, and they name it 'fitness' or 'rectitude.' Fitness we have already dealt with, and shown that it carries us beyond itself to some standard which is already moral or else not founded in the nature of things'; of 'Rectitude' we may say with Price that it is only another name for 'oughtness' (§§ 671, 686 n). And if 'oughtness' is a relation it is at all events a different kind of relation from the other relations, and thus far there is no ground for ascribing its perception to the same kind of reason as perceives them, nor is there any ground for . deducing this new relation from others which are entirely different from it (Hume, Treatise, p. 469).

15. Are there acts which are virtuous in all relations?

Hume properly points out (loc. cit.) that no conclusion can be drawn as to the nature of virtue or the faculty which perceives it from the assertion that we perceive an act in certain relations to be virtuous or vicious.' It may also be pointed out that it warrants no conclusion as to the immutable nature of morality. It may be granted that the same act in the same relations is always virtuous or vicious, if 'relations' be taken in the widest possible sense, but that is a perfectly barren proposition. What the intellectualists want to assert is something very different, viz. that there are certain acts, or classes of acts, which are virtuous or vicious in all relations and all circumstances. They instance 'keeping faith and performing equitable covenants and equity' (§§ 487, 498), ‘making a virtuous agent happy' (§ 654 f.), and gratitude (§ 717). But as soon as they come to define that gratitude which is always virtuous they are obliged to limit their statement to the state of mind or will, 'the ultimate principle of conduct or the deter

mination of a reasonable being' (§ 622), as distinguished from the overt act, for we clearly cannot say that any particular act is always virtuous or vicious in all circumstances. But can we say any more of any state of mind that it is always and in all circumstances virtuous? Is there not a proper and an improper gratitude, as Adam Smith suggests (§§ 290, 294-6)? and is it possible to advance a single step in the definition of the gratitude or other state of mind which is proper, without including in the definition the idea of virtue itself? Can we ever say more than that the gratitude which is virtuous is always virtuous,' which again is a perfectly barren proposition? We are thus driven practically to reduce immutable morality to the one empty proposition of Kant: there is nothing good but a good will, the goodness of which consists in formality alone. His efforts to get materiality into his moral law led him to recur to those considerations of material absurdity which we have already examined. It may be repeated, in this connexion, that Kant would be a good deal better understood if he were read in connexion with the British Moralists, with whom he was well acquainted. There is little in him that is not in them, though his general attitude towards ethics is a different and more distinguished one. It is perhaps worth noting that the theory of the absolute fitness of certain kinds of action sometimes takes the form of asserting that one kind of action is 'fitter' in itself than another, generally its opposite (§§ 483, 619). This suggests the modification, lately revived by Dr. Martineau, of an absolute code of duties into an absolute scale of duties, in which each class of act or motive appears not as 'good' or 'bad' but as better or worse than those below or above it'.

Types of Ethical Theory, part ii. c. 1. § 2, vol. ii. p. 40 f.

16. Reason as the moral faculty.

Let us pass from the consideration of the attempt to deduce morality from the nature of things' to exhibit it as part of that order of nature with which science is concerned, and to apply the formal tests of truth and falsehood to virtue and vice, and consider the meaning of the attempt to exhibit morality as a function of Reason. And first let us take it in its weakest aspect, in which it appears as a positive rather than a negative theory. We have here to deal with bold intuitionists. Price quite rightly points out that the sensationalist argument that reason gives rise to no new ideas is framed with reference primarily to deductive reason (to which we may add inductive reason, if there is any essential difference), the function of which in morals can only be ancillary. This reason, which 'is and only ought to be the slave of the passions' (Hume, Treatise, p. 415), is not the only form of reason, and it is asserted that intuitive reason does give rise to new ideas. Price (§§ 589-604) goes through the stock arguments (borrowed from Plato and Cudworth) for the activity of reason in the formation of general and abstract ideas, in the criticism and correction of sensation; he also instances the ideas of solidity, power, and causation. He then boldly asserts that right and wrong are simple ideas arising from some power of immediate perception in the human mind' (§ 605), i. e. from our intuition of the nature of things' (§ 612). He means presumably that as soon as the idea of gratitude or truthfulness is brought before us we also form the idea of 'right,' and that this perception of right, being simple, is ultimate and undefinable (§§ 670, 682). This statement may be true, and yet not warrant any conclusion such as he has drawn. We touch, of course, here upon the general Idealist argument that the activity of reason