AN INQUIRY
INTO THE
INFLUENCE OF PHYSICAL CAUSES
UPON THE MORAL FACULTY.
DELIVERED BEFORE
THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY,
HELD AT PHILADELPHIA,
ON THE 27TH OF FEBRUARY, 1786.
GENTLEMEN,
It was for the laudable purpose of exciting a spirit of emulation and inquiry, among the members of our body, that the founders of our society instituted an annual oration. The task of preparing, and delivering this exercise, hath devolved, once more, upon me. I have submitted to it, not because I thought myself capable of fulfilling your intentions, but because I wished, by a testimony of my obedience to your requests, to atone for my long absence from the temple of science.
The subject upon which I am to have the honour of addressing you this evening is on the influence of physical causes upon the moral faculty.
By the moral faculty I mean a capacity in the human mind of distinguishing and chasing good and evil, or, in other words, virtue and vice. It is a native principle, and though it be capable of improvement by experience and reflection, it is not derived from either of them. St. Paul and Cicero give us the most perfect account of it that is to be found in modern or ancient authors. “For when the Gentiles (says St. Paul), which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves; which show the works of the law written in their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing, or else excusing another[1].”
The words of Cicero are as follow: “Est igniter Ha, juices, non script, seed Nata lex, qualm non dadaisms, accepts, legumes, serum ex nature Pisa europiums, humus, expresses, ad qualm non Doctor, seed facto, non institute, seed imbued sums[2].” This faculty is often confounded with conscience, which is a distinct and independent capacity of the mind. This is evident from the passage quoted from the writings of St. Paul, in which conscience is said to be the witness that accuses or excuses us, of a breach of the law written in our hearts. The moral faculty is what the school men call the “regular raglans;” the conscience is their “regular regulate;” or, to speak in more modern terms, the moral faculty performs the office of a law-giver, while the business of conscience is to perform the duty of a judge. The moral faculty is to the conscience, what taste is to the judgment, and sensation to perception. It is quick in its operations, and, like the sensitive plant, acts without reflection, while conscience follows with deliberate steps, and measures all her actions, by the unerring square of right and wrong. The moral faculty exercises itself upon the actions of others. It approves, even in books, of the virtues of a Trajan, and disapproves of the vices of a Marius, while conscience confines its operations only to its own actions. These two capacities of the mind are generally in an exact ratio to each other, but they sometimes exist in different degrees in the same person. Hence we often find conscience in its full vigour, with a diminished tone, or total absence of the moral faculty.
It has long been a question among meta physicians, whether the conscience be seated in the will or in the understanding. The controversy can only be settled by admitting the will to be the seat of the moral faculty, and the understanding to be the seat of the conscience. The mysterious nature of the union of those two moral principles with the will and understanding, is a subject foreign to the business of the present inquiry.