self, and so inadmissible in its application, that the system founded upon it yields with the reasoning adopted, the structure trembles over a foundation so insecure but we must not so dismiss the subject. It is not enough to prove the argument by which he defended his hypothesis, unequal to its support; it will be proper to look into the principle itself, and to show that it is false, pernicious, and impracticable.

If the principle be considered in its simplicity, and its simplicity is assumed to be its recommendation, it is impracticable; for it supposes, in order that we may decide upon what is expedient or the contrary, that we can trace with precision the relations of cause and effect, not merely in their more obvious alliances, but to their remotest dependencies, not in their simple forms only, but in all the complexities of their intricate, attenuated, and subtile combinations, through all the diversified shapes which they may wear,-not as applying to immediate and general principles, but as embracing the whole chain of possibilities to the most minute and apparently independent link,-not as confined to the present moment, but as extending through all future time. Unless this can be done, how shall the individual decide whether his action be expedient or not? In the very circumstance which he has overlooked, or does not know, may consist its inexpediency, and the rule laid down will then be violated in the very pursuit of it. There may be, there unquestionably is, an intelligence capable of grasping this mighty calculation, -whose wisdom and goodness pervading all the forms of created being, present themselves to our view, and awaken our devotion at all times and in all places; to him this rule applies, and by it his dispensations must be measured; but man is not such an intelligence.

It will be doubtless maintained, that this rule, laid down as the basis of human morals, is only intended to be applied generally; and that man is to act, not according to his knowledge of the certain consequences of his actions, which cannot be ascertained with precision, but according to their probable results. The rule is, on this supposition, false; it affects to be simple, when in application it becomes the most complicated that can be imagined: it assumes to be fixed and determinate, when in fact it fluctuates with all circumstances, with the different persons by whom it is adopted, and with the same individual at various periods of his life, as his opinions alter, or as his situation and interests change. Every man will have his own standard of calculation rela tive to the moral qualities of actions; and these standards will be as various as there are existing individuals; and, if

circumstances induce a change of opinion, his rule, instead of being immutable as truth demands, must fluctuate with his opinion; for he alone is the judge, and for himself, of what is expedient. Granting that he is the best judge in his own case, while he is aiming to secure his individual interest, is he as capable of deciding upon the line of conduct which will tend most effectually to general utility? While he is pursuing the part, will he have leisure or inclination to secure the whole? Society will present the spectacle of innumerable individuals, all professing to stand towards each other in moral relations, acting upon an expediency of which they are separately the judges, each also having an interest of his own, which it will of course appear to him most expedient first to secure; and the result will, in effect, whatever may be the avowal, be wrought out from such materials as may remain to the whole, when each has laboured to secure himself by those various methods of operation, which will be as diversified as there are actors upon the busy stage of human life.

The principle is most pernicious when it is brought into action, and applied to moral obligations. A rule which rests on individual opinion must be subject to individual caprice. His very constitutional tendencies will prescribe to his moral standard. If the question be, What is good for man? The slothful would recommend an inglorious ease, the enterprising, a dangerous and destructive activity: yet the expediency of these opposite qualities, in connexion with human happiness, would be undoubted by either party; and who is to decide between them when the rule is not right, but expediency?-and when each is to determine absolutely for himself? These again, being men, and liable to change, may alter their opinions at any moment, and with them the whole system of their morals must be revolutionized. We have not only opinion against opinion, in the multiplied combinations of society, but we have the opinion of the man against himself, at various periods of his existence. The balance is perpetually vibrating, as we pass the weights from scale to scale in our moral calculations: nothing is decided, and nothing can be fixed. Numa prescribed civilization, on the basis of expediency to the uncultivated Romans; Rousseau recommended to enlightened France, on the same plea, a return to barbarism. Facts soon decided which plan was the most beneficial in effect; but in speculation they ap-. pealed to the same principle, were tried by the same rule, and maintained with a plausibility the one not inferior to the other. What must we think of a rule which, in different lands, could lead to such opposite results? Whatever else it may be named, it is, in point of fact, no rule; and what a

miserable spectacle is presented by the attempt to constitute it the basis of ethics! Moral principle is yielded to mere speculation. The ancients, the moderns, as with one feeling, appealed to an internal perception of right and wrong, which could not be precisely explained,--to the jurisdiction of that conscience, which could not be reduced to a simple definition, -to an innate law, which, whatever was disputable as to its precise character, was universally felt and acknowledged, as to its power and influence: and whatever name they gave it, a decided and universal moral principle was understood and obeyed; until expediency arose to turn morals into a system of calculation,--to estimate virtue, not by what it is in itself, but by what it can be supposed to produce to the individual, and to subordinate all the great charities of our nature to a selfish interest.

But let us see how this rule will apply. Put it in the hands of the conqueror. Can he ever want a plea for the accomplishment of the most unjust and unprincipled schemes of his restless ambition? He will easily bring the nation over which he presides to adopt his plans of aggrandizement, by pointing out how much it will conduce to the national glory. He will have no difficulty in persuading them, that nothing can so effectually conduce to the general good as the disgrace and overthrow of the State which withstands his insolent and unrighteous pretensions, or which he chooses, as a matter of conveniency, as a pretext for plunder, to consider as his enemy. It is true, the oppressed people may form different views of this sublime thought of the great man; but still he has the plea of expediency, which very quickly dispenses with justice, equity, and truth; with the rights and feelings of humanity-for who is the judge of the rule of his conduct but himself? This statement is not a mere calculation of probable results from an admitted principle-the experiment has been tried, and the issue has corresponded with these representations. Every State in Europe has, in its turn, experienced by bitter reverses, the facility with which expediency may be made to plead for the destruction of social order, and the annihilation of moral principle. It was in vain that Switzerland fought for her liberties, and marshalled her brave, but unfortunate sons, to defend her natural defiles, and guard her mountains and her vallies from the locust hordes of ambition. They came by thousands, pouring like her own mountain snows from her hills, and sweeping like her own wintry torrents through her glens. The little, but determined band of warriors, whelmed in the human tide, disappeared-desolation spread over her romantic scenes, resistance proved in vain, and served but

to provoke power to greater excesses of the most wanton cruelty-and what was the justification of this horrible contempt of the rights of humanity-the invasion of the liberties of an independent people? It was expedient that Switzerland should be under the wing of the great Empire! Holland, deeming that she would profit by the fearful example of unsuccessful opposition, yielded without a struggle, courted the friendship of the gigantic power, and sunk into a state of vassallage. What pretext was there, that an ally should be reduced to the condition of a slave? The same. It was expedient that Holland should make a part of France. It was expedient that the throne of Spain should be vacated to make way for a member of the Imperial family. It was expedient that Austria and Prussia should be partially dismembered, and wholly enslaved. It was expedient that Russia should be chastised, and her frozen barriers forced; in short, expediency would have found no moral bounds within which to contain insatiable ambition, when once tyranny cried "havoc, and let slip the dogs of war," had not Providence itself interposed, and, beating back the waves of desolation upon themselves, confined them to their original receptacle.

Nor is it necessary, in order to shew the dangerous tendency of the doctrine of expediency, to advert to it exclusively as the convenient cloak of unprincipled actions. It has a tendency to make a good man a bad one, by flattering the weak parts of his character. Suppose him conscientious, but a bigot: how easily will expediency make him a tyrant, if he be possessed of power. He will deem no imaginable action so good in itself, or so expedient for society, as to punish heretics with imprisonment, penalties, tortures, and death. If his own mild disposition would not suggest to him the cruel experiment of forcing conscience, others, interested personally in the result, will have an argument in the doctrine of expediency to propose, sufficiently powerful to silence the whispers of humanity, and overcome the scruples of the prince. He hardens his heart against the shrieks of the expiring sufferer, or looks unmoved at his torment. The spectacle indeed is a terrible one-he cannot conceal this from himself: but then it is expedient that the infected member of society be cut off, that the whole body perish not. With this he is satisfied; and, in the infliction of the most cruel injury, congratulates himself as a benefactor to mankind.—I will not believe that Mary, with all the infirmities of her character, delighted in the executions which disgraced her short and stormy reign, and wrote its hated history in characters of blood. She was a conscientious

bigot; and she was surrounded by those who easily persuaded her morbid and gloomy mind, that these severities towards individuals were expedient for the general advantage, and especially to secure grand religious purposes.

Hitherto, we have looked at this rule of expediency as it might be pressed into the service of the passions, or of interest, by men of talent; but, if no man has that knowledge of causes and effects, in all their infinite relations, which could enable him adequately to apply it-if the danger of the rule, even when associated with the best intentions, arises out of the contractedness of his information, how can it be constituted a safe rule for the unlearned and the ignorant? to men of narrow capacities and of limited means of information? that is, the bulk of mankind, who are so little qualified to find out those things which tend most decidedly to general utility-to trace remote contingenciesto calculate results, or judiciously to combine cause and effect. Morals are of universal obligation, their basis ought to be proportionably broad, their rule correspondently general. But, if no finite mind is sufficiently powerful to comprehend the subject which must necessarily be known before the rule can be safely, accurately, or usefully, applied; how shall the multitude, no less interested in the great question, be able to grasp it? It is a defect in this, and in several other rules of moral action laid down by philosophers, that they rest too entirely upon the intellectual powers of the man, to be universally, or even generally applicable. Besides, by such a rule, the most enlightened ought to be the most virtuous; which is, in many affecting instances, notoriously contrary to fact.

I am aware that the representations which have been made, and which yet remain to be produced, relative to the doctrine of expediency, will be characterized as unfair deductions from the principle. But, in examining a rule of morals, it is necessary not merely to ascertain the results fairly and directly arising out of it, but those also which are liable to be drawn, although acknowledged abuses; and even those applications of which it may be capable, however forced they may appear to be, and however distant they really were from the contemplations of the supporters of the systems. If it be allowed that all rules are liable to abuse, it becomes us at least to ascertain what principles are most readily convertible to immoral purposes, and to exclude them from our system of ethics; and, of all possible doctrines, this appears to me, both in theory and in fact, most capable of perversion, and most pernicious in its influence.

I have been the more surprised that Dr. Paley should have