at first a doubt what course this Rule of the Duty of Truth directs us to take; but these cases we shall consider, when we have taken a view of the remaining Classes of Duties.

CHAPTER X.

DUTIES CONNECTED WITH PURITY.

319.

THE Duties connected with Purity, are those which result from the Principle of Purity; that the Lower Parts of our Nature are to be governed by and subservient to the Higher Parts. Thus the Appetites and Desires, which find their gratification in meat and drink, with the accompaniments of a decent table, are to be indulged as subservient to the support of life, strength, and cheerfulness, and the cultivation of the social affections; the indulgence is to be limited by these purposes, and these purposes by moral rules. In like manner, other desires, mingled of bodily and mental elements, are to be indulged only in subservience to the affections and hopes which belong to them; and the affections and hopes are to be regulated by conditions which morality and law prescribe. In the gradation of the parts of human nature, we place bodily appetite, and all merely selfish desires, below affection; but mere blind affection we place below the moral affection which approves of goodness. The affections of the heart in some measure refine the desires of the body; but the affections of the heart may be greatly impure, if they are not regulated by the law of the heart, which morality teaches. Affection alone does not make actions moral, or remove that stain of impurity which they derive from bodily appetite. The nature of man is purified, by having a

moral character given to it. This moral character purifies the affections; and the affections, thus purified, communicate their purity to the desires which are subservient to them. And thus, Morality does not require us to extinguish the desires, or to reject the pleasures arising from their gratification. Still, she directs us not to dwell on this gratification in our thoughts, as an object; but to accept from it that influence, which it can exercise in giving energy to our affections, without being itself a direct object of contemplation. The bodily desires are made the instruments and evidences of the affections; and are thus absorbed into the affections, and made conformable to the Principle of Purity.

320. The distinction of the Lower and Higher Parts of our Nature, by means of which we express the Principle of Purity, has been rejected by some moralists, and has been termed Declamation. Such moralists contend that pleasure is universally and necessarily the object of human action; and that human pleasures do not differ in kind, but only in intensity and duration: so that, according to these teachers, there is no difference of superior and inferior, between the pleasures of appetite, the pleasures of affection, and the pleasure of doing good. Hence, say they, the only difference in the character of actions, is their being better or worse means of obtaining pleasure. But the universal reason of man assents to the opposite doctrine, delivered by Butler: who maintains that our principles of action do not differ in degree merely, but in kind also; some being, by the constitution of human nature, superior to others, and their natural governors. Thus, as he teaches, the Rule of our nature is, that Prudence shall control Appetite, and that the Moral Sentiments shall control the Affections. If we take the opposite view, we obliterate the difference between man and brute beasts. We make no distinction between the blame which we

bestow upon Error, and upon Crime; for on this supposition, Crime is only miscalculation; and merely means an erroneous way of seeking pleasure. If we follow this view, we make a bad heart the same thing as a bad head. According to this doctrine, we can have no Supreme Rule of Action; for if pleasure be the highest object of action, it is also the lowest. such opinions, we deprive the words right and wrong of their common meaning; for to men in general, they do not mean right and wrong roads to enjoyment, which this view makes them mean.

With

321. The Duties of Purity are those which fol. low from such an operation of the Principle. They prohibit indulgence in the pleasures of the Table for the sake of bodily gratification alone; though they allow our meals to be so conducted, that they may not only satisfy the bodily wants of nature, but also min. ister to the cheerful and social flow of spirits and thought, which is a condition favourable to moral action. They prohibit, in like manner, the gratification of other bodily appetites when sought for their own sake; though they allow such gratification under the sanction of the conjugal tie, and with the hope of that extension of family affections, and family duties, which the birth of children brings.

322. As it is our Duty to regulate our actions by these Rules, it is our Duty also to acquire and possess an inward Principle, from which such a course of action will spring. It is our Duty to acquire and possess within us an Operative Principle, or Spirit, of Purity, which may of itself, and without the recollection of express Rules, direct us from all that is impure. A good man has dispositions, and habits of mind, which not only restrain him from acts of intemperance and unchastity, but repress and banish intemperate and unchaste desires and wishes.

And though it may sometimes be difficult for a man to arrive at this state of Purity of Heart and Mind; it

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is always the Duty of every man to aim at it. moral Self-culture in such Purity, is a constant and universal Duty, of which the obligation can never relax nor terminate. A Moral Progress in this, as in other respects, must be the constant aim of a good

man.

323. Offences against the Duties of which we are now speaking, more distinctly than in other Classes of Duties, produce their effect, of impeding our Moral Progress, and turning our course backwards. The intemperate and unchaste person becomes, by every vicious act and every vicious purpose, plainly more and more prone to Vice. These Vices affect his habits of mind in a very direct manner. The Glutton and the Epicure, eager and curious respecting the pleasures of the palate, can hardly give due weight in their thoughts to higher objects; and they often stimulate and overtask the bodily functions, till the mind is oppressed, impeded, or arrested in its intellectual and moral operations. In the man who indulges a love of intoxicating liquors, this takes place more evidently and more rapidly. He speedily reduces himself to a condition in which neither reason nor moral restraint has its due power. The indulgence of other sensual appetites stimulates the bodily desires and inflames the imagination. Lust, obeyed as mere Lust, tends to fill the mind with obscene thoughts, and to make the intellect and the fancy mere ministers of Appetite. By such courses, the heart and affections are corrupted: the imagination is polluted: the character is depraved. Any steps in such a course are the opposite of a moral progress: they are steps in a course of moral degradation, of which the end is utter depravity, filthiness, and profligacy; in short, moral ruin. Transgressions of the Rules of Duty, of the kind now referred to, especially produce their effect, as steps of a course. The act of transgression leaves a more distinct trace in the habits, than in the case of mere mental desires. The

appetites become more powerful by being gratified. Their craving becomes, by indulgence, more and more importunate and irresistible. The body will not let the mind turn away from the accustomed path of sensuality. Sensual acts leave a stain of material filth upon the mind; of which it takes long and earnest efforts to remove the trace, so that it shall not afterwards give a sensual tendency to the Will. And thus, every sensual act contributes to the moral degradation of which we have spoken; and is grossly at variance with the Duty of our own Moral Culture.

324. It is very important to dwell upon this Duty of Moral Self-culture, in reference to offences of Impurity; for these offences are not mere extensions of the notion of jural wrongs, as some moral offences are. Jurally speaking, each person may be said to have a Right over his own body, provided he injure no other person; and two persons may appear to have a Right to agree to unite in acts of sensuality, when no Right of a husband or a father is violated. Accordingly, Fornication, and Concubinage, have not been generally prohibited by the Laws of Ancient and Modern Countries. But yet such practices have almost always been condemned as impure and degraded. And the consideration of the Duty of Moral Self-culture, which we have insisted on, shows the propriety of this condemnation. No person can use his body for purposes of mere Lust, without utterly abandoning all aim at his Moral Progress, and all hope of it. He who thus gives himself up to the government of the Lower parts of his nature, neglects and despises the Higher. So far as he does this, he renounces his moral nature, reduces himself to the level of brute beasts, and goes on resolutely and recklessly to moral ruin. It is true, that men may continue to perform some Duties, and to aim at some Virtues, while they still do not refrain from the Vice of Impurity. But it is plain, that a man's desire of