mer, a better Cafuift, or a greater Master in fpiritual Medicine, might have contrived a Cure, full as fure, and much more innocent.

Having now given the general Divifions of Duty or Virtue, which exhibit its different Faces and Attitudes, as it ftands directed to its refpective Objects, let us next defcend into Particulars, and mark its most minute Features and Proportions, as they appear in the Detail of human Life.

SECT. II.

Of Man's Duty to HIMSELF. Of the Nature of GOOD, and the CHIEF GOOD.

E

Divifions of
Good.

VERY Creature, by the Conftitution of his Nature,is determined to love himfelf, to pursue whatever tends to his Prefervation and Happiness, and to avoid whatever tends to his Hurt and Mifery, Being endued with Senfe and Perception, he muft neceffarily receive Pleafure from fome Objects, and Pain from others. Thofe Objects which give Pleasure are

called

called good, and thofe which give Pain, evil. To the former he feels that Attraction or Motion we call Defire, or Love: to the latter that Impulfe we call Averfion, or Hatred. To Objects which fuggeft neither Pleasure nor Pain, and are apprehended of no Ufe to procure one, or ward off the other, we feel neither Defire nor Averfion, and fuch Objects are called indifferent. Thofe Objects which do not of themselves procure Pleasure or Pain, but are the Means of procuring either, we call useful or noxious. Towards them we are affected in a fubordinate manner, or with an indirect or reflective, rather than a direct and immediate Affection. All the original and particular Affections of our Nature, lead us out to, and ultimately reft in, the firft kind of Objects, viz. those which give immediate Pleasure, and which we therefore call good, directly fo. The calm Affection of Self-love alone is converfant about fuch Objects as are only confequentially good, or merely useful to

ourselves.

Moral Good.

But befides thofe Sorts of Objects which we call good,

merely and folely as they give Pleasure, or

are

are Means of procuring it, there is an higher and nobler Species of Good, towards which we feel that peculiar Movement we call Approbation, or Moral Complacency, and which we therefore denominate Moral Good. Such are our Affections, and the confequent Actions to them. The Perception of this is, as has been already obferved, quite diftinct in kind from the Perception of the other Species; and though it may be connected with Pleafure or Advantage, by the benevolent Conflitution of Nature, yet it conftitutes a Good independent of that Pleasure and that Advantage, and far fuperior not in Degree only, but in Dignity to both. The other, viz. the Natural Good, confifts in obtaining those Pleasures which are adapted to the peculiar Senfes and Paffions fufceptible of them, and is as various as are thofe Senfes and Paffions. This, viz. the Moral Good, lies in the right Conduct of the feveral Senfes and Paffions, or their juft Proportion and Accommodation to their refpective Objects and Relations; and this is of a more fimple and invariable kind.

By

Human
Happiness.

By our feveral Senses we are capable of a great Variety of pleafing Senfations. These constitute diftinct Ends, or Objects ultimately purfuable for their own Sake. To thefe Ends, or ultimate Objects, correspond peculiar Appetites or Affections, which prompt the Mind to pursue them. When these are attained, there it refts and looks no farther. Whatever therefore is purfuable, not on its own Account, but as fubfervient or neceffary to the Attainment of fomething else that is intrinfically valuable or for its own Sake, be that Value ever fo great, or ever fo fmall, we call a Mean, and not an End. So that Ends, and not Means, constitute the Materials, or the very Effence of our Happiness. Confequently Happinefs, i. e. buman Happinefs, cannot be one fimple uniform Thing, in Creatures conftituted as we are, with fuch various Senfes of Pleasure, or fuch different Capacities of Enjoyment. Now the fame Principle, or Law of our Nature, which determines us to pursue any one End, or Species of Good, prompts us to pursue every other End, or Species of Good, of which we are susceptible, or

to

Gradation of
Goods.

to which our Maker has adapted an ori-. ginal Propenfion. But amidst the great Multiplicity of Ends or Goods, which form the various Ingredients of our Happiness, we perceive an evident Gradation or Subordination, fuited to that Gradation of Senfes, Powers, and Paffions, which prevails in our mixed and various Conftitution, and to that afcending Series of Connections, which open upon us in the different Stages of our progreffive State. Thus the Goods of the Body, or of the external Senfes, feem to hold the lowest Rank in this Gradation or Scale of Goods. These we have in common with the Brutes; and tho' many Men are brutish enough to purfue the Goods of the Body with a more than brutal Fury; yet when at any time they come in Competition with Goods of an higher Order, the unanimous Verdict of Mankind, by giving the last the Preference, condemns the firft to the meanest Place. Goods confifting in exterior focial Connections, as Fame, Fortune, Power, Civil Authority, feem to fucceed next, and are chiefly valuable as the Means of procuring natural or moral Good, but principally