15 feffes himself the murderer: my moral faculty inftantly fuggefts, that this perfon has committed a crime worthy of a most severe and exemplary punishment. By and by I learn, from what I think good authority, that former information is falfe, for that my the man now dead had made an unprovoked affault on the other, who was thus driven to the neceffity of killing him in felf-defence: my conscience immediately acquits the manflayer. I send a meffenger to make particular inquiry into this affair; who brings word, that the man was accidentally killed by a fowler fhooting at a bird, who, before he fired, had been at all poffible pains to difcover whether any human creature was in the way; but that the deceafed was in fuch a fituation that he could not be difcovered. regret the accident; but I blame neither party. Afterwards I learn, that this fowler was a careless fellow, and though he had no bad intention, was not at due pains to obferve whether any human creature would be hurt by his firing. I blame his negligence with great feverity; but I cannot charge him with guilt fo enormous as that of murder. Here my moral faculty paffes feveral different judgements on the fame action; and each of them is right, and will be in its turn believed to be right, and trufted to accordingly, as long as the information which gave rife to it is believed to be true. I fay the fame action, not the fame intention; a different inX 2 tention I tention appears in the manflayer from each information; and it is only the intention and affections that the moral faculty condemns or approves. To difcover the intention wherewith actions are performed, reafoning is often neceflary: but the defign of fuch reafoning, is not to fway or inform the confcience, but only to afcertain thofe circumftances or qualities of the action from which the intention of the agent may appear. When this becomes manifeft, the confcience of mankind immediately and intuitively declares it to be virtuous, or vitious, or innocent.Thefe different judgements of the moral faculty are fo far from proving it fallacious, that they prove the contrary: at least this faculty would be extremely fallacious, and abfolutely useless, if, in the cafe now fuppofed, it did not form different judgements. While the intention of the agent is wholly unknown, an action is upon the fame footing in regard to its morality, as a human face in regard to its beauty, while it is veiled, or at too great a distance. By removing the veil, or walking up to the object, we perceive its beauty and features; and by reafoning, or by information concerning the circumftances of the action, we are enabled to difcover or infer the intention of the agent. The act of removing the veil, or of walking up to the object, has no effect on the eye; nor has the reafoning any effect on the confcience.While we view an object through through an impure or unequal medium, through a pair of green spectacles, or an uneven pane of glafs, we fee it difcoloured or diftorted juft fo, when mifre prefented, a good action may feem evil, and an evil action good. If we be fufpicious of the representation, if we be aware of the improper medium, we diftruft the appearance accordingly; if not, we do and must believe it genuine. It is by reafoning from our experience of human actions and their caufes, or by the testimony of credible witnesses, that we detect mifreprefentations concerning moral conduct; and it is also by the experience of our own fenfes, or by our belief in thofe who have had fuch experience, that we become fenfible of inequalities or obfcurities. in the medium through which we contemplate visible objects. In either cafe the evidence of sense is admitted as finally decifive. A distempered fenfe, as well as an impure or unequal medium, may doubtlefs communicate falfe fenfations; but we are never impofed upon by them in any thing material. A perfon in a fever may think honey bitter, and the fmell of a rofe offenfive; but the delufion is of fo fhort continuance, and of fo fingular a kind, that it can do no harm, either to him, or to the cause of truth. To a jaundiced eye, the whole creation may feem tinctured with yellow; but the patient's former experience, and his belief in the teftimony of others, who affure him, that they perceive no no alteration in the colour of bodies, and that the alteration he perceives is a common attendant on his difeafe, will fufficiently guard him against mistakes. If he were to diftruft the evidence of fenfe, he could believe neither his own experience nor their testimony. He corrects, or at least becomes fenfible of, the false fenfation, by means of fenfations formerly received when he was in health; that is, he corrects the evidence of an illinformed fenfe by that of a well-informed fenfe, or by the declaration of thofe whose fenfes he believes to be better informed than his own. Still it is plain, that from the evidence of fenfe there can be no appeal to reafon. We conclude, therefore, that in natural philofophy, our fenfations are not supposed deceitful, and that reasoning is not carried beyond the principles of common sense. And yet in this fcience full fcope is given to impartial investigation. If, after the first experimental procefs, you fufpect that the object may be fet in a still fairer light, I know no law in logic, or in good fenfe, that can or ought to hinder you from making a new trial: but if this new trial turn to no account, if the object ftill appear the fame, or if it appear lefs diftinct than before, it were folly not to remain fatisfied with the firft trial. Newton tranfmitted one of the refracted primitive colours through a fecond prifm, thinking it not impoffible that this colour colour might refolve itself into others still more fimple; but finding it remain unaltered, he was fatisfied that the primitive colours are not compounded, but fimple, and that the experimental process had been carried far enough.-I take in my hand a perfpective glass, whose tube may be lengthened and fhortened at pleasure; and I am to find out, by my own industry, that precise length at which the maker designed it fhould be used in looking at diftant objects. I make several trials to no purpofe; the diftant object appears not at all, or but very confufedly. I hold one end of the perfpective at my eye with one hand, and with the other I gradually shorten the tube, having first drawn it out to its greatest length. At first all is confufion; now I can difcern the inequalities of the mountains in the horizon; now the object I am in queft of begins to appear; it becomes lefs and lefs confufed; I fee it diftinctly. I continue to fhorten the tube; the object lofes its diftinct appearance, and begins to relapfe into its former obfcurity. After many trials, I find, that my perspective exhibits no diftinct appearance, except when it is of one particular length. Here then I fix; I have adjusted the glaffes according to the intention of the maker; and I believe, that the distinct appearance is an accurate representation of the distant object, or at least more accurate than any of the confused appearances; of which I believe, that they come the |