MORAL PHILOSOPHY. INTRODUCTION. NATURE AND PROVINCE OF MORAL PHILOSOPHY. Moral Philosophy, what. - Moral Philosophy is the science which treats of morals—the science of right. Natural Philosophy teaches us the laws of external nature; Intellectual Philosophy, the laws of the human mind; Moral Philosophy has to do with the laws of human conduct and duty. As thus defined, it is equivalent to Ethics. It may be termed, also, the science of duties, inasmuch as right and duty are, as regards moral action, one and the same. Term used in a wider sense. By the earlier English writers the term Moral Philosophy was used in a much more extended sense, to denote in general the science of mind, in distinction from physical science—whatever treats' of intellectual in distinction from material things. As thus employed, it includes psychology as well as other sciences; and this use is still, to some extent, prevalent. Thus many of the works of English and Scotch philosophers on psychology are termed Moral Philosophy. By French writers, also, the morale is frequently placed in contrast with the physique. Indeed, the dividing line between mental and moral science has not, as yet, been very closely drawn, for the most part, by those who have written upon either. Many of our own most popular works on Moral Philosophy treat of topics which properly pertain to psychology, as, e. g., the nature of Conscience, the Sensibilities, the Will, and other topics of like nature. These are faculties of the mind, and, as such, it pertains to psychology to explain and unfold them. Moral Philosophy, so far as it has occasion to make use of these phenomena, must go to psychology for the facts and the explanations, just as it must go to astronomy for the facts and laws of planetary motion; or to logic for the laws of thought and forms of reasoning. Its proper office is to teach, not logic, nor astronomy, nor psychology, but the science of right-of duty. It has to do neither with the affections, the emotions, nor the will, except so far as these are involved in the investigation and statement of duty. Intimate connection of Mental with Moral Philosophy. - The connection between the two sciences is indeed very intimate; and for this reason they should be all the more carefully distinguished. The very idea of right is to be sought among the primitive conceptions of the mind. To perceive and judge of the right, is one of the most impor tant offices of the reflective power of the mind. The emotions, affections, desires, furnish a powerful class of motives to human action, whether right or wrong. The will, or the power of voluntary mental action, constitutes. the basis of human accountability, and lies, therefore, at the foundation of ethics. Hence, not improperly, the faculties now designated have been termed, by some philosophers, the active and moral powers of man. Dugald Stewart thus designates them. In regard to the faculties now under consideration, a correct psychology is absolutely essential to a correct science of moral duty. In another respect, also, is the connection of the two sciences intimate. Duty pertains, first and chiefly, not to the external conduct, but to the responsible, intelligent mind, whose thoughts, feeling, and volitions find their expression in that outward conduct, and determine its moral character. To teach me what are my duties, is to teach me what thoughts and affections I ought to cherish; what purposes and volitions I ought to form and put forth; in a word, what ought to be my entire mental activity, as exerted in the various relations of life. Mental science contents itself with ascertaining what are the varied phenomena of mental action; moral science, while relating chiefly to the same department of observation, — i. e., the human mind, ― inquires not so much what are the laws and operations of its various faculties, as what they ought to be. General divisions. The science of morals properly divides itself into two parts-the theoretical and the |