All our false and erroneous opinions, however, it must not be forgotten, do not take their rise in the prejudices which we have been contemplating. Some of them have their origin in the general cast and character of our mind, without being referrible to any one faculty of it ; others are purely accidental, and belong to fortuitous cases, which can be ranged under no class. All our sentiments and judg ments (as circumstances, whether accidental or otherwise, call them forth) result, therefore, from the general tendency and habits of our dispositions and intellectual endowments, though their origin cannot always be minutely and factorily traced. And it is the power of memory, the love of the marvellous, the desire and necessity of emotions that modify them, and transform them into prejudices.
The taste we have for painful emotions is -me of the most singular and apparently absurd of all our dispositions. We undoubtedly wish to be happy ; and the pursuit of happiness is the greatest spring of action; but we arc not willing to abandon our title to be miserable, or rather there are not things so contradictory which we wish not to be at one and the same time. If any one congratulate us because we enjoy the smiles of fortune, because all our tastes and all our inclinations have been gratified, we never fail to answer hint that he knows not all the secret troubles, all the gnawing cares which lurk under the garb of outward prosperity. We seem to court melancholy ; and in the midst of success, and of all the advantages of fortune, we nourish the canker which destroys our happiness ; we cherish distaste of life, and complain of the fatigue and emptiness of all its enjoyments.
This partiality for painful emotions is not entirely affect ed; it is indeed often the true source of our actions, and the natural tendency of our thoughts. As we almost in sensibly place our band on the spot, which, being diseased or injured, excites pain, and as we cause irritation in it by our touch, in like manner we involuntarily give way to painful reflections; we resist the torpor which would remove them from our attention, and we excite and prolong anguish which otherwise might not have been felt, or would soon have disappeared. From this propensity of our mind arises a prejudice almost universal in favour of whatever produces sorrow or suffering. A recital, howeYer un founded, which disquiets and rouses us, is already in our estimation half proved; a fear which renders us unhappy is already half realized. The same remark is also appli cable to joy, and ,upon the same principle; the only dif ference between the two is, that joy is more common, as it is more directly and steadily the object of our wishes and pursuit. And in proportion as any narrative, or the rela tion of any event, makes a deep impression on our mind, either of a sorrowful or joyful description, our sensibility in the same degree increases our belief; and whatever raises emotions in us, assumes at once, in our view, the appearance of probability or of truth.
It is, however, not only in grief or in joy that sensibility is called forth ; it appears also in love and in hatred. Our self-love is higher when we feel ourselves to be influenced and actuated by strong emotions which we delight to cherish; and we have much greater satisfaction to have our conduct regulated by sympathy or antipathy than by reason and judgment.
It is the province of sensibility to direct our estimate of the various individuals with whom we may be connected, to form those ties which sweeten existence, to choose our friends, and to render us worthy of a return of their affec tion. This is indeed the proper department of sensibility;
but we extend it still farther. In appreciating things, and in forming our principles of action, we are, in no inconsi derable degree, determined by it ; we make morals not unfrequently an affair of sympathy or antipathy ; and we prohibit the examination of what we have thus approved or condemned, as 'emphatically as if the decisions of sen sibility were infallible, or as if there was no appeal to a higher or more unerring standard.
While we assert this, however, we do not deny the ex istence of what has been denominated the moral sense or moral faculty ; that state of the mind which (though it is modified by education, or the circumstances in which we are placed) gives us an intuitive perception of good and evil, of virtue and vice. It is not necessary, nor have we time at present to enter upon an analysis of the nature and functions of this faculty. We shall not endeavour to ascer tain whether it is an instantaneous exercise of ratiocination, so rapid that the several steps of the process escape our observation, or whether it is the result of early associa tions, and an impress of public opinion made on our minds, without our being in the least conscious of it; or whether the ideas which the moral faculty excites in us arc really intuitive and innate, imprinted by God himself on the human heart, and ought to be acted upon and appealed to in every case of doubt and perplexity. It may be remarked, however, that those who have espoused this last opinion, have been forced to allow that the two others have also a powerful tendency to produce similar emotions ; and that the line which separates the three opinions in question cannot be easily traced or defined. Besides, every innate perception should correspond with the decisions of reason; and as the suggestions of the moral sense, taken accord ing to the first two definitions of it, do often and may always correspond with the decisions of reason, the real origin of this faculty may at any time be made the object of discussion, and will never, it is probable, be entirely ascertained and established. As the origin of this faculty, therefore, cannot be indisputably settled, it is impossible to point out the exact degree of confidence which in every case should be given to it. It may, however, be regarded as the safest rule, that, while we pay the greatest deference to its suggestions, we ought also to subject them to strict scrutiny and examination. As in the opinions we form of external objects, we rectify one of our senses by the other ; as, for example, we consult the sense of touch when we suspect an error in that of sight, and when we find a contradiction between them, are assured that one or other of them has deceived us; so as often as the moral sense awakens in us emotions, whether of sympathy or or antipathy, whiolt reason and investigation do not confirm, we may conclude that error exists somewhere ; and we ought, therefore, to draw no inferences till we have brought the subject under review to a new and more strict exami nation. In making this examination, we shall find either that we have made a mistake in our reasoning, or that we have implicitly adopted opinions on the authority of others, or that our moral sense is clouded and distorted by the previous circumstances of our life, or by those in which we are at present placed. We may thus arrive at the truth with as much certainty, as in the case of external objects alluded to above, we confirm or disprove the decisions of one sense by the successive exercise of the others.