VIRTUE

Imperishable as those of science itself. ( The Religion of Nature.) The other form of the rational theory, which explains the idea of good to be an immediate conception of the intuitive reason, intelligible in itself, and incapable of definition, now remains for elucidation. According to Cudworth (born 1617, died 1688), certain universal and absolute ideas exist from all eternity in the Divine mind, from which the human intellect emanates; and, therefore, by its nature po e es these ideas antecedently to experience. They remain dormant, it is true, until outward objects call them forth; but when once awakened, they immediately apply themselves to things, and give them a significant character, which in themselves they do not po e . Cudworth's chief object in advancing this theory of intellection, was to exempt the ideas of right and wrong from the arbitrary and relative character with which the sensuous doctrines of Hobbes had invested them. Accordingly, he shows that no relation of human will or pleasure can constitute these ideas. Positive laws, he urges, do not oblige by their mere enactment, but by virtue of the natural ideas of justice and obligation which they imply. Neither is this idea the mere creature of man's reason, for this does but conceive it, and, by applying its unchangeable standard to actions and characters, appreciates and judges them. Lastly, this ideals simple and indefinable, and inseparably combined with that of obligation. Hence every virtue a umes the character of a duty, and is as unalterable as good itself. ( Eternal and Immutable Morality.) Price (born 1723, died 1791,) ascribes all simple ideas to two faculties — sense and understanding. The latter sees things as they are; the former perceives the effects only that they produce on the sensuous organization. The ideas of the understanding consequently expre realities which are independent of man, whereas those of the latter are sensations which would be different if man's sensuous organs were changed. Now the question of the objective reality and immutability of the ideas of right and wrong reduces itself to the inquiry into their origin. According to Price, they belong to the understanding as a faculty of intuition or immediate power of perception, distinct from the understanding as a reasoning or deductive faculty. The doctrine which would a ign them to sensation as their origin has its source in the fact that the moral perceptions are invariably attended with agreeable or disagreeable emotions, and the exclusive consideration of this circumstance. But when men declare gratitude to be a virtue, and ingratitude a vice, they intend to signify not merely that they produce emotions in their own minds, but that they are naturally virtuous and vicious in themselves. If by virtue and vice nothing more be meant than certain mental affections, then, in that case, our moral judgments would be infallible, and the same act might with equal truth be the subject of the most conflicting estimates, and all things would be indifferent in their own nature, since the understanding, which alone apprehends things as they are, could see in them neither good nor evil. Moreover, in this case, they would be without authority; for what obligation can there be to do what is pleasing, or to forbear what is displeasing? But these ideas are both immutable and imperative: they are immutable, since they are real qualities of actions, and every real quality is a part of the nature of things, which is immutable. God may destroy the things themselves, but he cannot cause them to be what they are not. After establishing the rational origin and immutable character of the moral perceptions. Price proceeds to explain the manner in which they are apprehended by the intuitive reason. As the sight of an event suggests "the idea that it must have taken place in time, and thereby we arrive at the idea of duration, in the same way certain actions of free and rational agents are immediately apprehended to be good or evil, and the ideas of right and wrong arise in the consciousne . As to the notions of moral beauty and deformity, these we ascribe to good and evil actions in virtue of the pleasure and pain which accompany, but yet are distinct from the perception of right and wrong. In contemplating the actions and affections of moral agents, we have both a perception of the understanding and a feeling of the heart; the latter are the effects of the former, and partly depend on the positive constitution of our nature, and partly on the e ential congruity of object and faculty. The former are wholly inexplicable, and the only account we can give of them is — such is our frame; so God has seen fit to make us. But there are some objects and ideas which have a natural fitne and unfitne to please our mind, and such is the nature of certain actions that when perceived by a rational being, there must result in him certain emotions and affections. These are at first of a purely intellectual kind; but, as such, they are too weak to govern and actuate mankind, and they are therefore combined with a stronger excitement, and we are endowed with certain special instincts which impel us to goodne , and by means of these we are effectually moved towards their proper objects. As 1304 VIS. to duty or obligation: this idea is so intimately allied to th.at of good, that one cannot appear without the other. Obligation to action and rightne to action are plainly coincident and identical. It is not plainer that figure implies something figured, than that rightne implies oughtne . Rewards and punishments suppose in tiieir very idea moral obligation, and are founded upon it. They do not make it, but enforce it, or furnish additional motives to comply with it. They are the sanctions of virtue, but not its efficients. The ideas of good and ill desert are equally immediate; for they are really nothing le than a species of the ideas of right and wiong; although there is this difference in them, that while the latter are properly ascribed to actions, merit and demerit are applica'ole to agents or persons only. We have an immediate approljation of making the virtuous happy, and discouraging the vicious, apart from all consequences. The conception of virtue is totally distinct from the fact that virtue is a source of pleasure; for it is one thing to find by experience that the tendency of virtue is to the happine of the world, and vice to its misery, and another to conceive that virtue is by a nece ary truth deserving of happine . Neither does it result from the view that virtue is of public utility; for, even though this consideration may incline us to wish good to the virtuous, yet are we antecedently moved to the same wish by the more immediate and more simple consideration that he is virtuous, and as such, without any other consideration, we pronounce him deserving of honour. Lastly, Price makes liberty and intelligence to be e entially nece ary to the morality of the agent, and rightly distinguiSlies absolute virtue, which is to act voluntarily and consciously in conformity with the moral laws, from practical virtue, or acting on "a belief of good in supposed conformity to good. ( View of Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals.) Stewart (born 1753, died 1828,) distinguishes two questions in the fundamental problem of ethics — that of the nature of good, and that of the faculty which discerns and judges of it. With respect to the" first, he teaches that upon observation of certain actions the idea of good arises in the mind. This idea represents a certain quality of the actions themselves, and inherent in them, like tlie primary qualities of bodies, and therefore independent of the sensuous percipient, and not, like the secondary qualities, mere relations between us and the actions. As to the nature of these qualities, they are, like the ideas which we have of them, perfectly original, simple, and irreducible, and consequently indefinable. He further shows, after Price, that it is impo ible to explain the terms good and evil except by synonyms, or by substituting for the ideas which they represent some of the circumstances which accompany the perception of them. As to the second question, Stewart argues that good being a simple and real quality in actions, it is impo ible to refer the idea of it to any faculty which is not a source of original ideas, and which does not apprehend the real and inherent qualities of objects. It is, therefore, impo ible to refer it to a sense,— such as that of taste or smell, which do not reveal the real nature of objects, but only the effect which they produce in the perceiving subject; nor to reason, — if by this term we understand nothing more than the faculty which seizes the relations and deductions of ideas previously established, because the idea of good is simple and original, and not one of relation and consequence; but if by sense we understand a faculty analogous to that which perceives the primary qualities of bodies and their existence, — or if by reason we mean the intuitive understanding which furnishes the simple, primary, and original ideas of time, space, and causation, — then the ideas of good and evil may be referred to either. If Stewart inclines, neverthele , to favour the claims of reason, he yet declares the question to be unimportant when once it has been admitted that good and evil are simple and indefinable. {Fhilosophy of the Active and Moral Powers.) In this exposition, the first object has been to give a correct and impartial view of the several theories which have been proposed of the nature of virtue and of the moral perceptions. Their comparative merits have been left to the reader's judgment, in i bia ed and undisturbed by any critical estimate by the writer himself, except so far as his arrangement of the subject-matter nece arily implies his own opinion. (Cf. Ritter, History of Ancient Philosophy; Mackintosh, Di ertation on Ethical Philosophy; Schleiermacher, Krilik der Ethik; Jouffroy, Droit Naturel; Cou , Cours de Philosophic Morale; and the articles Ethics and Schelling in this work.) VIS (Lat. fo7ce or power), in Mechanics, is synonymous with /y7c<7. The term is chiefly used by the older writers, and is applied by them to divers kinds of forces or powers. Thus, vis acceleratrix, accelerating force; vis inertia:, resistance; vis niotrix, moving force, . Vis mortua, and vis viva, are terms which were used by Leibnitz and his followers; the former signifying a pre ure, and the latter the force of a body in motion estimated by the distance the body goes to. [s. 1317]