He goes on to men who are represented as laying the foundations of a more just theory of ethics; that is, as approaching nearer the theory of Mackintosh.He gives just and valuable accounts of the systems of Butler, Hutcheson, Berkeley, Hume, Smith, Price, Hartley, Tucker, Paley, Bentham, Stewart, and Brown.He perhaps, exaggerates the originality of Butler, who was much indebted to Shaftesbury, but passed far beyond him in maintaining the supremacy of conscience." In these sermons he has taught truths more capable of being exactly distinguished from the doctrines of his predecessors, more satisfactorily established by him, more comprehensively applied to particulars, more rationally connected with each other, and, therefore, more worthy of the name of discovery, than any with which we are acquainted; if we ought not, with some hesitation, to accept the first steps of Grecian philosophy towards a theory of morals." Mackintosh does not seem to be aware that, lofty as was Berkeley's idealism in its moral tone, his ethical system is based on pleasure as the ultimate good." Sensual pleasure is the <summum bonum>.This is the great principle of morality.This once rightly understood, all the doctrines, even the severest of the gospels, may clearly be demonstrated.Sensual pleasures, qua pleasure, is good and desirable by a wise man.But if it be contemptible, 'tis not <qua> pleasure, but <qua> pain, or (which is the same thing)of loss of greater pleasure." (" Berkeley's Works, by Fraser, vol.iv.457).He has a great admiration of Hartley, but points out his defects.,The work of Dr.Hartley entitled `Observations on Man' is distinguished by an uncommon union of originality with modesty in unfolding a simple and fruitful principle of human nature.It is disfigured by the ab surd affectation of mathematical forms then prevalent; and it is encumbered by a mass of physiological speculations, ground less, or at best uncertain." He was particularly struck with the shrewdness and graphic though homely illustrations of Tucker, who was always a great favorite with him.He criticises Bentham at considerable length.He blames him, in particular, for maintaining that, " because the principle of utility {357}
forms a necessary part of every moral theory, it ought therefore to be the chief motive of human conduct." But he has not seized on the fundamental defect in Bentham's theory, for he himself has so far given in to it by reckoning tendency to produce happiness as the constituent of virtue.As setting so high a value on the social affections, he was specially offended with Mr.James Mill, who" derives the whole theory of government from the single fact that every man pursues his interest when he knows it."Altogether, these sketches have not the calm wisdom nor some of the other admirable qualities of those drawn by Dugald Stewart, who had evidently devoted his life to the study, and contemplated the subject on all sides.But they are often searching, generally just, and always candid, sympathetic, and comprehensive.
He criticises the ethical writers, as we might expect, by a standard of his own, which is ever cropping out, and at the close of his dissertation he expounds his own theory.He insists, very properly, on a distinction being drawn between the inquiry into right and wrong, and into the mental power which discerns them.In answer to the first, he maintains that virtue consists in beneficial tendency, and to the second that it consists of a class of feelings gendered by association.In both these points, he goes a step in the descending progress beyond Brown, who makes moral good a simple unresolvable quality, and the feeling of moral approbation an original one.I propose to consider both these points in the reverse order to that which he follows.