fible Marks and Images, otherwise we cannot attend to them, nor be much affected by them. THEREFORE verbal Ado-. ration, Prayer, Praise, Thanksgiving, and Confeffion, are admirable Aids to inward Devotion, fix our Attention, compofe and enliven our Thoughts, imprefs us more deeply with a Senfe of the awful Prefence in which we are, and, by a natural and mechanical fort of Influence, tend to heighten thofe devout Feelings and Affections which we ought to entertain, and after this manner reduce into formal and explicit Act.

Public Worhip.

This holds true in an higher Degree in the cafe of PUBLIC Worship, where the Prefence of our Fellow-creatures, and the powerful Contagion of the focial Affections confpire to kindle and fpread the devout Flame with greater Warmth and Energy. To conclude: As God is the Parent and Head of the focial Syftem, as he has formed us for a focial State, as by one we find the best Security againft the Ills of Life, and in the other enjoy its greatest Comforts, and as by means of both, our Nature attains its higheft Improvement and Perfection; and moreover, as there are public Blef

fings

fings and Crimes in which we all share in fome degree, and public Wants and Dangers to which all are expofed, it is therefore evident, that the various and folemn Offices of public Religion, are Duties of indifpenfible moral Obligation, among the best Cements of Society, the firmeft Prop of Government, and the fairest Ornament of both.

THE

ELEMENTS

OF

Moral PHILOSOPHY.

BOOK III.

SECT. I.

Of Practical Ethics, or the Culture of

Dignity and Importance of the Subject.

the Mind.

WE

E have now gone thro a particular Detail of the feveral Duties we owe to OURSELVES, to SOCIETY, and to God. In confidering the first Order of Duties, we just touched on the Methods of acquiring the different kinds of Goods, which we are led by Nature to

purfue;

parfue; only we left the Confideration of the Method of acquiring the Moral Goods of the Mind to a Section by itself, because of its fingular Importance. This Section then will contain a brief Enumeration of the Arts of acquiring Virtuous Habits, and of eradicating Vitious Ones, as far as is confiftent with the Brevity of fuch a Work; a Subject of the utmost Difficulty as well as Importance in Morals; to which, nevertheless, the leaft Attention has been generally given by Moral Writers. This will properly follow a Detail of Duty, as it will direct us to fuch Means or Helps as are most neceffary and conducive to the Practice of it.

In the first Part of this Inquiry we traced the Order in which the Paffions shoot

up in

Senfible Ideas and fenfible Tafle.

the different Periods of human Life. That Order is not accidental, or dependent on the Caprice of Men, or the Influence of Custom and Education; but arifes from the Original Conftitution and Laws of our Nature; of which this is one, viz. "That fenfeble Objects make the first "and strongest Impreffions on the Mind." Thefe, by means of our outward Organs being conveyed to the Mind, become Ob

jects

jects of its Attention, on which it reflects, when the outward Objects are no longer prefent, or, in other words, when the Impreffions upon the outward Organs cease. Thefe Objects of the Mind's Reflection are called Ideas or Images. Towards thefe, by another Law of our Nature, we are not altogether indifferent, but correfpondent Movements of Defire or Averfion, Love or Hatred, arife, according as the Objects, of which they are Images or Copies, made an agreeable or disagreeable Impreffion on our Organs. Thofe Ideas and Affections which we experience in the first Period of Life, we refer to the BODY, or to SENSE; and the TASTE which is formed towards them, we call a SENSIBLE, or a merely NATURAL TASTE ; and the Objects correfponding to them we in general call

GOOD Or PLEASANT.

· Ideas of Beauty and

a fine Taste.

But, as the Mind moves forward in its Courfe, it ex

tends its Views, and receives a new and more complex Set of Ideas, in which it obferves Uniformity, Variety, Similitude, Symmetry of Parts, Reference to an End, Novelty, Grandeur. These compose a vaft Train and Diverfity of Imagery, which the Mind compounds, divides, and

moulds