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TREATISE CONCERNING THE MORAL DUTIES OF MANKIND.

MY SON MARCUS,

BOOK I.

I. Although, as you have for a year been studying under Cratippus, and that, too, at Athens, you ought to be well furnished with the rules and principles of philosophy, on account of the pre-eminent reputation both of the master and the city, the one of which can improve you by his learning, the other by its examples; yet as I, for my own advantage, have always combined the Latin with the Greek, not only in philosophy but even in the practice of speaking, I recommend to you the same method, that you may excel equally in both kinds of composition. In this respect, indeed, if I mistake not, I was of great service to our countrymen; so that not only such of them as are ignorant of Greek learning, but even men of letters, think they have profited somewhat by me both in speaking and reasoning.

Wherefore you shall study, nay, study as long as you desire, under the best philosopher of this age-and you ought to desire it, as long as you are not dissatisfied with the degree of your improvement; but in reading my works, which are not very different from the Peripatetic-because we profess in common to be followers both of Socrates and Plato-as to the subject-matter itself, use your own judgment; but be assured you will, by reading my writings, render your Latin style more copious. I would not have it supposed that this is said in ostentation; for, while I yield the superiority in philosophy to many, if I claim to myself the province peculiar to an orator-that of speaking with pro

priety, perspicuity, and elegance-I seem, since I have spent my life in that pursuit, to lay claim to it with a certain degree of right.

Wherefore, my dear Cicero, I most earnestly recommend that you carefully peruse not only my Orations, but even my philosophical works, which have now nearly equaled them in extent for there is in the former the greater force of language, but you ought to cultivate, at the same time, the equable and sober style of the latter. And, indeed, I find, that it has not happened in the case of any of the Greeks, that the same man has labored in both departments, and pursued both the former-that of forensic speaking-and the latter quiet mode of argumentation; unless, perhaps, Demetrius Phalereus may be reckoned in that number-a refined reasoner, a not very animated speaker, yet of so much sweetness, that you might recognize the pupil of Theophrastus. How far I have succeeded in both, others must determine; certain it is that I have attempted both. Indeed, I am of opinion that Plato, had he attempted forensic oratory, would have spoken with copiousness and power; and that had Demosthenes retained and repeated the lessons of Plato, he would have delivered them with gracefulness and beauty. I form the same judgment of Aristotle and Isocrates, each of whom was so pleased with his own pursuit that he neglected that of the other.

II. But having resolved at this time to write to you somewhat, and a great deal in time to come, have thought proper to set out with that subject which is best adapted to your years and to my authority. For, while many subjects in philosophy, of great weight and utility, have been accurately and copiously discussed by philosophers, the most extensive seems to be what they have delivered and enjoined concerning the duties of mankind; for there can be no state of life, amid public or private affairs, abroad or at home-whether you transact any thing with yourself or contract any thing with another—that is without its obligations. In the due discharge of that consists all the dignity, and in its neglect all the disgrace, of life.

This is an inquiry common to all philosophers; for where is the man who will presume to style himself a philosopher, and lay down no rules of duty? But there are certain

schools which pervert all duty by the ultimate objects of good and evil which they propose. For if a man should lay down as the chief good that which has no connection with virtue, and measure it by his own interests, and not according to its moral merit; if such a man shall act consistently with his own principles, and is not sometimes influenced by the goodness of his heart, he can cultivate neither friendship, justice, nor generosity. In truth, it is impossible for the man to be brave who shall pronounce pain to be the greatest evil, or temperate who shall propose pleasure as the highest good.i

1 Cicero thus enters briefly but definitely into the most vexed, and yet the most fundamental, question of ethics: What is that which constitutes human conduct morally right or wrong? In doing so, he plainly avows his own conviction that this great distinction is not dependent upon the mere expediency or inexpediency of the supposed conduct. The many eminent moral philosophers of modern times, and especially of our own country, may be comprehensively divided into the two classes of those who maintain, and those who oppose, the principle thus enunciated by Cicero. A very condensed view of the leading philosophers of these schools will not be uninstructive.

The most celebrated of the earlier opponents of the principle laid down by Cicero was Hobbes, of Malmesbury, who flourished in the 17th century. His system takes no account of moral emotions whatever. He makes pure selfishness the motive and end of all moral actions, and makes religion and morals alike to consist in passive conformity to the dogmas and laws of the reigning sovereign.

Perhaps the best reply to this latter notion was given by Cicero himself, in his treatise, "De Legibus:"-"The impulse," he says, "which directs to right conduct, and deters from crime, is not only older than the ages of nations and cities, but coeval with that Divine Being who sees and rules both heaven and earth. Nor did Tarquin less violate that eternal law, though in his reign there might have been no written law at Rome against such violence; for the principle that impels us to right conduct, and warns us against guilt, springs out of the nature of things. It did not begin to be law when it was first written but when it originated, and it is coeval with the Divine Mind itself."

The most noted cotemporary opponents of these views were Cudworth and Dr. Clarke; the sum of whose moral doctrine is thus stated in Mackintosh's " Progress of Ethical Philosophy:-"Man can conceive nothing without, at the same time, conceiving its relation to other things. He must ascribe the same law of perception to every being to whom he ascribes thought. He cannot, therefore, doubt that all the relations of all things to all must have always been present to the Eternal Mind. The relations in this sense are eternal, however recent the things may be between whom they subsist. The whole of these relations constitute truth; the knowledge of them is omniscience. These eternal different relations of things involve a consequent eternal fitness or unfitness in the applica

Though these truths are so self-evident that they require no philosophical discussion, yet they have been treated by me elsewhere. I say, therefore, that if these schools are

tion of things one to another, with a regard to which the will of God always chooses, and which ought likewise to determine the wills of all subordinate rational beings. These eternal differences make it fit and reasonable for the creatures so to act; they cause it to be their duty, or lay an obligation on them so to do, separate from the will of God, and antecedent to any prospect of advantage or reward."

This system professes to base all morals upon pure reason, as applied to the fitness of things. A single passage from the work of Sir James Mackintosh points out the fallacy it involves. "The murderer who

poisons by arsenic acts agreeably to his knowledge of the power of that substance to kill, which is a relation between two things as much as the physician who employs an emetic after the poison, acts upon his belief of the tendency of that remedy to preserve life, which is another relation between two things. All men who seek a good or bad end by good or bad means, must alike conform their conduct to some relation between their actions as means, and their object as an end. All the relations of inanimate things to each other are undoubtedly observed as much by the criminal as by the man of virtue."

Lord Shaftesbury, a little later, made a considerable advance in ethical philosophy, by placing virtue in the prevalence of love for the system of which we are a part, over the passions pointing to our individual welfare; and still further, by admitting an intrinsic power in all, of judging of moral actions by a moral sense. In his general principles Leibnitz, to a great extent, concurs: though the latter appears to have lost himself in a refinement of the selfish system, by considering the pleasure connected with the exercise of this virtuous benevolence as the object in the view of the benevolent man.

Malebranche places all virtue in "the love" of the universal order, as it eternally existed in the Divine reason, where every created reason contemplates it.

The metaphysician of America, designated by Robert Hall, "that prodigy of metaphysical acumen," Jonathan Edwards, places moral excellence in the love to being (that is, sentient being) in general. This good will should be felt toward a particular being-first, in proportion to his degree of existence ("for," says he, "that which is great has more existence, and is further from nothing, than that which is little"); and, secondly, in proportion to the degree in which that particular being feels benevolence to others.

With the 18th century arose a far higher system of morals, under the auspices of the celebrated Dr. Butler. He makes CONSCIENCE the ruling moral power in the complex constitution of man, and makes its dictates the grand criterion of moral rightness and wrongness. A few of his own words will explain the essence of his system. Man," says he, "from his make, constitution, or nature, is, in the strictest and most proper sense, a law to himself; he hath the rule of right within, and what is wanting is that he honestly attend to it. Conscience does not only offer