FIFTH EDITION.
LONDON:
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET.
MDCCCXXXIX.
EDINBURGH:
Printed by Balfour and Jack, Niddry Street.[Pg iii]
In a former work, the Author endeavoured to delineate, in a simple andpopular form, the leading facts relating to the Intellectual Powers, andto trace the principles which ought to guide us in the Investigation ofTruth. The volume which he now offers to the public attention, isintended as a sequel to these Inquiries; and his object in it is toinvestigate, in the same unpretending manner, the Moral Feelings of theHuman Mind, and the principles which ought to regulate our volitions andour conduct as moral and responsible beings. The two branches ofinvestigation are, in many respects, closely connected; and, on thisaccount, it may often happen, that, in the present work, principles areassumed as admitted or proved, which, in the former, were stated atlength, with the evidence by which they are supported.[Pg iv]
In presenting a fifth edition of this volume, the Author feels mostdeeply the favourable manner in which it has been received, and thenotice which has been bestowed upon it by those whose approbation heregards as a distinction of the most gratifying kind. He had two objectschiefly in view when he ventured upon this investigation. The one was todivest his inquiry of all unprofitable speculation, and to shew that thephilosophy of the moral feelings bears directly upon a practical purposeof the highest moment,—the mental and moral culture of every rationalbeing. The other was to shew the close and important relation whichexists between this science and the doctrines of revealed religion, andthe powerful evidence which is derived, for the truth of both, from themanner in which they confirm and illustrate each other. These twosources of knowledge cannot be separated, in the estimation of any onewho feels the deep interest of the inquiry, and seriously prosecutes theimportant question,—what is truth. If we attempt to erect thephilosophy of morals into an independent science, we shall soon findthat its highest inductions only lead us to a point beyond[Pg v] which we arecondemned to wander in doubt and in darkness. But, on the other hand, bydepreciating philosophy, or the light which is derived from the moralimpressions of the mind, we deprive ourselves of a most important sourceof evidence in support of revelation. For it is from these impressions,viewed in connexion with the actual state of man, that we learn thenecessity, and the moral probability, of a revelation; and it is byprinciples existing in the mind that we are enabled to feel the power ofthat varied and incontrovertible evidence, by which revelation comes tothe candid inquirer with all the authority of truth.
Edinburgh, November 1838.
[Pg vi]