MORALITY, the duties ormen in their social or that rule of conduct, which promotes the happiness of others, and renders their welfare accordant with our own. This implies. that our acts must proceed from a motive of obedience to the divine will.—The term was given to a kind of allegorical plays, formerly in vogue, and which consisted of moral discourses in praise of virtue and condemnation of vice. They were oc casionally exhibited as late as the reign of Henry VIII., and after various modi fications, assumed the form of the masque, Which became a favorite entertainment at the court of Elizabeth and her successor. MORAL Pill LOSOPHY, the science of manners and duty ; the science which treats of the nature and condition of man as a social being, of the duties which re sult froin his social relations, and the reasons on which they are founded. It is denominated a science, as it deduces the rules of conduct and duty from the principles and connections of our nature, and proves that the observance of them is productive of our happiness. It is likewise called an art as it contains a system of rules for becoming virtuous and happy ; and whoever practises these rules attains an habitual power or facil ity of becoming virtuous and happy. It
is an art and a science of the highest dig nity. importance, and use. Its object is man's duty, or his conduct in the several moral capacities and connections which he sustains. Its office is to direct our conduct, to show whence our obligations arise, and where they terminate. Its use or end is the attainment of happiness, and the means it employs are rules for the right conduct of our moral powers. Like natural philosophy, it appeals to nature or fact ; it. depends on observa tion, and it builds its reasonings on plain incontrovertible experiments, or upon tho fullest induction of particulars which the subject will admit. The terms, moral philosophy, moral science, and morals, are synonymous, though seine writers have employed them improperly to de note the whole field of knowledge, relat ing primarily to the mind of man, thus giving them a signification co-extensive with the word Metaphysics.