INTENTION OF THE AGENT. 103 is liable to error. He who created us has alone a right to prescribe the mode in which we should exert our faculties, and fulfill the purposes of our being. 230. We cannot decide upon the moral character of an external act without ascertaining the motive or intention of the agent. It is not the outward action merely that we approve or disapprove. A man may kill another by accident, or may kill another by design; and in both cases the outward action may be the same; the firing of a musket may do either. But, in the former case, the manslayer may be entirely innocent; in the latter, he may be guilty of murder: for in the latter, there may be a criminal purpose; in the former, there is, or may be, none. Our affections therefore, dispositions, motives, purposes, or intentions, are the real objects of moral approbation or disapprobation. The outward actions we consider as the signs and proofs of what was in the mind of the agent; for man cannot see the heart: and we call an action immoral or virtuous, according as it seems to us to manifest a criminal or a virtuous intention. 231. Independent of all action, it is, in truth, the state of the heart itself which forms our character in the sight of God. With our fellow-creatures, actions must ever hold the first rank: because by these only we can judge of one another; by these we affect each other's welfare, and therefore to these alone the regulation of human law extends. But in the eye of the Supreme Being, to whom our whole internal frame is uncovered, dispositions hold the place of actions; and it is not so much what we perform, as the motive which moves us to performance, that constitutes us good or evil in his sight. 232. Even among men the morality of actions is estimated by the principle from which they are judged to proceed. One man, for instance, may spend much of his fortune in charitable actions; and yet if he is believed to be influenced by mere ostentation, he is deemed not charitable, but vain. Another man may labor unweariedly to serve the public; but if he is prompted by the desire of rising into power, he is held not to be public-spirited, but ambitious; and if he bestows a benefit, merely that he may receive a greater in return, no man would reckon him generous, but selfish and interested. 104 PROVINCE OF INTENTION. Hence the rectification of our principles of action, is the primary object of moral and religious discipline. 233. There may be virtue or vice in our intentions themselves, though not exerted in outward acts. He who forms a purpose to commit murder, has already incurred the guilt of murder; and he who does all the good he can, and wishes he was able to do more, is virtuous in proportion to the extent of his wishes, however small his abilities may be. 234. It is the false maxim of some that "the end justifies the means," and there are those who excuse themselves, and even claim praise, when they have erred, on account of the alleged purity of their motives. In regard to this maxim and this excuse, it is acknowledged that an action good in itself may become bad through intention; or, in other words, it may be divested of all moral worth by being performed with an unlawful design, and the agent may be guilty of crime. The giving of alms is not a virtue when it flows from ostentation; nor zeal for truth, when it originates in pride and passion. 235. To ascribe to intention the power of turning a bad action into a good one, is to deny that there is any essential difference of actions, to render morality entirely an arbitrary thing, to represent it as continually changing its character, so that what is vicious to-day may be virtuous to-morrow. It sets aside the law of God, and substitutes in the room of a permanent standard the ever-varying decisions of the human mind, blinded by prejudice, warped by passion, and forming its judgments upon deceitful appearances and short-sighted calculations. 236. The only province which ought to be assigned to intention, in morality, is to give value to such actions as are conformable to the law of God, to the goodness of which it is indispensably necessary that the state of the mind be right. It is sufficient to explode the false doctrine of intention to consider the extent to which it would carry us; for upon this principle, many of the greatest crimes might be justified, because those who committed them imagined that they were doing their duty. 237. To render an action good, as before remarked in substance, it must be an action which God has implicitly or explicitly commanded; it must be done, not because QUALITIES OF A GOOD ACTION 105 it will please ourselves or others, but because it is commanded by God; it must flow from the love of God, and therefore done willingly and cheerfully; it must be done for the glory or honor of God, and not for a selfish end. [Lectures of Dr. John Dick, vol. ii. pp. 254-9.] 238. From the preceding positions it is an obvious inference, that actions truly, and in the highest sense good, can be performed only by those who believe, and live under the influence of, the Bible; and also that the boasted virtues of the heathen will not endure a thorough investigation. In the language of Dr. Dick, “It is intolerable to hear Christians giving the name of virtue to the mere exercise of the natural affections without any religious motive; to acts of natural. courage; to patriotism, as it is commonly understood, and was exemplified among the Greeks and Romans; to a proud morality, which elated the possessors with self-conceit, and led them to claim an equality, or a superiority to the gods." The heathen, being ignorant of the true God, evidently could not perform actions possessing the characteristics described above. 239. The words of the apostle Peter to Cornelius may here be objected. "Of a truth, I perceive that God is no respecter of persons; but, in every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness, is accepted of him." But these words, as the context shows, do not teach that men of every nation work righteousness; but that, to whatever nation those who work righteousness belong, they are accepted. This is evident; for the apostle is speaking in reference to the prejudices of the Jews, who believed that they were the objects of the divine favor, to the exclusion of every other people. This he now discovered to be an error; for, in the case of Cornelius, God had shown, that if there were any righteous Gentiles, they also were acceptable to him. But Cornelius, let it be remembered, was not such a Gentile as Socrates, or Cato, or Aristides, but one who knew the true God and worshiped him. 215. How are human actions distinguished? 216. What are the steps leading to action? 217. What is the tendency of actions? 218. In what part of the process antecedent to an external action does the characteristic of right or wrong first become applicable? 219. What then is essential to the moral character of a human action? 220. Is any moral character attached to our emotions, with which the E* 106 QUALITIES OF A GOOD ACTION. will seems to have little or nothing to do? And since we have affirmed that nothing is either virtuous or vicious, unless the voluntary in some way intermingles with it, how shall we vindicate the moral rank which is commonly assigned to the mere susceptibilities of our nature? 221. What two axioms may be stated in regard to the virtuousness of the agent who performs a given act? 222. Is volition alone sufficient therefore to make a thing virtuous? 223. What then is the specific distinction of a voluntary action which is virtuous? 224. What further influence, beside that already described, has the will on the emotions, by which they acquire a moral character? 225. What effect upon the moral character of an action has the opinion of the agent in doing it? 226. Is the allegation true, that there are no good affections or actions but those which have a benevolent tendency? 227. Are actions right simply because they are expedient? 228. How has Mr. Dymond illustrated the abuse to which the adoption of the principle of expediency would be generally liable? 229. What is necessary to constitute an action absolutely or materially good, or good in itself? 230. Does the character of an action depend upon the intention of the agent? 231. How is this matter regarded by the Supreme Being? 232. How does it appear that even among men, the morality of actions is estimated by the principle from which they are judged to proceed, and that such as the principle is, the man is accounted to be? 233. May there be virtue or vice in our intentions themselves, though not exerted in outward acts? 234. Does the character of an action so depend upon the intention, that a good intention will justify the means employed to execute it? 235. But although intention may convert good into evil, does it possess the opposite power of turning evil into good, of infusing a moral goodness into an act otherwise evil? 236. What province should, in morality, be assigned to intention? 237. What is necessary to render an action good in the sight of God? 238. What inference may be drawn from the preceding positions? 239. Do not the words of Peter to Cornelius (Acts x. 34, 35) prove that the works of the heathen, as well as those of Christians, are pleasing to God? RIGHT AND OBLIGATION. 107 BOOK IV. THE RIGHTS OF MAN. CHAPTER I. RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS-THEIR NATURE. 240. WHATEVER action we would deem either virtuous or innocent were it done by an agent in certain circumstances, we say he has a right to do it. Whatever one so possesses and enjoys in certain circumstances that we would deem it a wrong action in any other to disturb or interrupt his possession, we say 'tis his right, or he has a right to enjoy and possess it. Whatever demand one has upon another in such circumstances that we would deem it wrong conduct in that other not to comply with it, we say one has a right to what is thus demanded. [Hutchinson.] According to Dr. Reid, “The term right is a term of art in law, and signifies all that a man may lawfully do, all that he may lawfully possess and use, and all that he may lawfully claim of any other person." 241. Natural jurisprudence is a code of relative duty, deriving its authority from impressions which are found in the moral feelings of all mankind, without regard to the enactments of any particular civil society. 242. The whole object of law is to protect men in all that they may lawfully do, or possess, or demand; hence civilians have defined the word jus or right, to be a lawful claim to do anything, to possess anything, or to demand something from some other person. 243. The ambiguity existing in the use of the word right, may be seen in the following instance, stated by Dr. Chalmers: I may have a right to a given property, which, however, being in the use and possession of a poor relative who would suffer by the deprivation, it may not be right |