A Recapitulation of some of the leading principles contained in a treatise intitled 'An Inquiry into the nature and discipline of human motives.' In three letters to the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer. With an introductory preface and additions

Front matter

A RECAPITULATION OF SOME OF THE LEADING PRINCIPLES, CONTAINED IN A TREATISE INTITLED AN INQUIRY IXTO THE NATURE AND DISCIPLINE OF HUMAN MOTIVES. IN THREE LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF THE CHRISTIAN REMEMBRANCER. WITH AN INTRODUCTORY PREFACE, AND ADDITIONS. By JOHN PENROSE, MA. LONDON : PRINTED FOR BALDWIN, CRADOCK, AND JOY, PATERNOSTER-ROW. 1821. C. B*ldjrin, P/iottf, htw BrSd't-'-rtrfy.t, London. " If the mind ever exerts a power of willing as well as acting, she performs that work by the instrumentality of motives, for therein lies her whole strength. When she perfectly knows her tools, where they lie, what they will do, and when they are in proper order, she may take her measures surely with respect to her moral and prudential con duct. * * * * In short, I look upon the study of our motives as conducing more than any one thing to that most useful of all sciences — the knowledge of oneself.'' Tucker's Light of Nature pursued, vol. i. p. 96.

" The truth of these things is founded both on Reason and on the Testimony of God. If we receive his testimony, 'tis well: but, if we interest our hearts in the cause, and act as men resolved to secure to themselves these blessed hopes, then is our Faith made perfect. And, since this depends upon the due Regulation of our Desires, which are subject to the will and judgment of man, 'tis plain that the true Christian Faith is an internal principle, a religious habit and disposition of soul, which, like other good habits, depends upon the care we take to preserve the innocence and purity of our hearts and minds." Sherlock's Sermons, vol. i. disc. 14-, at the conclusion.

Preface

. The chief intention of a treatise on Human Motives, which I last year ventured to submit to the public, was to trace the connexion between the principles of religion, and the other active or moral principles of the mind ; " in other words, to show the dependancy on religion, in which all human thoughts and actions ought reasonably and prudently to be held." l With this purpose, I thought it advisable to treat directly of the different motives of action. Our motives are notoriously the source from which all our actions flow,2 and the immediate subjects of moral culture and discipline. It seemed plain, therefore, that if our motives be made right (they 1 On Human Motives, Pref. p. 1 . 'Ibid

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. cannot be right, unless they are efficacious), our actions must be right also. Much and serious apology is, I fear, requisite for making an attempt at any further explanation of maxims which, I must own, still seem to me to be quite plain, and of language in which I can discern no obscurity. Some of my friends, however, who allow those maxims to be true, are yet of opinion that they might be rendered more evident ; that men, who readily admit in the gross that the motive from which an action proceeds is the principle on which its moral import depends, yet hardly agree as to what a motive is ; or, at least, have no very clear perception that any habit or state of the motives, however excellent that state may be, can be wholly inclusive of every human virtue, and of all the practical influences of religion.

In deference to the opinion thus given to me, I shall here explain what is meant by a motive, and re-state what are the several kinds or classes of motives, and what the methods in which they become the consti tuents of every moral or religious effort or act which either reason or Scripture authorizes.

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. 7 Now I suppose a motive to be any mental feel ing of which the nature is to have some end in view, and to dispose or urge us to aim at it.1 This end may be either external or internal ; may be the acquisition of fame, or power, or fortune, or of the objects by which the senses are gratified ; or it may be any mental attainment, such as intel lectual or moral excellence ; it may be the discharge of our duty to God or man ; it may be the happiness of others, or of ourselves ; and, in many cases, as those of hatred and anger, it may be a vicious and mischievous end. In all cases, how ever, it is of the nature of a motive to have some end in view, and to dispose or urge us to aim at it : 1 This definition is, in all essential respects, precisely the same with that of Tucker. " A motive is the prospect of some end actually in view of the mind, and urging to attain it."

Light of Nature, vol. i. p. 85. The word prospect, in this definition of a motive, is of the same meaning with ex pectation. " In all action, there are three things to be con sidered, the prospect or expectation, the action itself, and the perception to be introduced thereby." P. 109. " It is not the substance, but the prospect or expectance of satisfaction which makes that part of the compound rendering it a motive." P. 106. But any expectation which urges to attain an end must be, in all respects, a mental feeling.

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. for, though in some instances, which doubtless might be imagined, the mental feeling to which we give the name of motive may chance to be in a state of mere excitability, or of mere excitement, without any definite end actually in view ; yet still, though not acting at the time with any end in view, it retains its active nature and essence. Thus, in the pious contemplation of the Divine at tributes, the mind may, for a time, cease to exert itself in the prosecution of any particular object. In friendship, there are times of mere enjoyment : in envy, there is much rankling uneasiness, with out any active exercise of malignity. But in these cases, and in all others that are similar to them, the excitement tends to some end so naturally, and, indeed, till actually determined to the pursuit of that end, is, in most cases, so imperfect, that we should be guilty of a very absurd refinement in language, were we to hesitate in any case to call it a motive, or were we to deny its active nature, because there may be intervals in which it does not act.1 ' " But as Hermogenes was a singer even when he did not sing ; and the cobbler retains his appellation after he has shut up his stall, and sits among his fellow topers at the twopenny

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. To this definition, it may, perhaps, be objected that a motive is not a feeling, but an end. Thus fame, and wealth, and knowledge, and other means either of real or supposed happiness, to be enjoyed by ourselves, or by others, which are properly the ends or objects that we pursue, are often spoken of as our motives of action. This way of speaking also is perfectly easy and natural ; and it would be altogether unreasonable to dispute the propriety of it. The fact is, that neither is the mind itself ever affected without an object, nor yet is it possible that any object should affect it without a corresponding susceptibility in the mind. And there being thus always an unalterable connexion between the ob ject itself, and the mental feeling by which we are led to pursue it, the word motive appears to be applicable in both cases.

Accordingly, a great master of language gives in one sentence the same title of motive, both to " punishment, and the club ; so motives still preserve their character with us, while they lie dormant in the box, and do not operate in the scale." Light of Nature, vol. i. p. 86, quoted in the Christian Re membrancer, for March, 1821, p. 161.

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. approach of death," which are clearly objects of terror, and also to " terror and grief" themselves, which are clearly impulses, or feelings of mind.1 Though this language, however, is in general un objectionable, it is highly important that we do not, by a lax use of words, confound our objects of pursuit with the mental feelings or impulses which lead to pursue them. Our conduct flows imme diately from these impulses ; these are, therefore, most strictly our motives. Thus, South : " That which moves a man to do any thing, must be the apprehension and expectation of some good from the thing which he is about to do,"2 And Tucker : " If we examine the matter strictly, it is not very satisfaction, but the prospect or idea of it ; for 1 " Religion may, and it can hardly, I think, be questioned but that it sometimes does, spring from terror, from grief, from pain, from punishment, from the approach of death ; and, provided it be sincere, that is, such as either actually produces, or as would produce, a change of life ; it is genuine religion, notwithstanding the bitterness, the violence, or, if it must be so called, the baseness and unworthiness of the motive from which it proceeds." Paley's Sermons, Sermon II. p. 30, 31, Second Edition. - South, in Johnson's Dictionary.

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. these are different."1 But this apprehension and expectation, this prospect or idea of good, are ma nifestly mental feelings or impulses. These, there fore, are, strictly speaking, our motives ; and it is highly desirable, for obvious reasons, that the distinction which the so speaking implies between the mind itself, and the objects, many of them ob jects of sense, by which it is influenced, should be clearly kept in view. Neither, as I conceive, is this use of the word motive less common in popular, than it is proper in philosophical language. In all our comments and criticisms on character, is it not at least as usual for us to say, that a man's motive is ambi tion or covetousness, as to say that it is power or wealth ? It is far commoner to speak of love as a motive, than of the actual welfare of the beloved object.

Indeed, in those cases in which the object pursued may be the object of different or of combined feelings, we can hardly speak of the motive intelligibly, if it be confounded with the « Light of Nature, p. 105. See the extracts in note I, p. 7, of this Preface.

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. object itself. Thus where Paley says, that the love of God is " the purest motive of human ac tion;"1 and Horsley, that " good actions, if they arise from any other motive than the pure love of doing good, or, which is the same thing, from the pure desire of pleasing God, lose all pretension to intrinsic worth and merit : " 2 it woidd have been difficult to express this meaning, except by this use of the word motive, or some equivalent word, in the signification of an internal feeling or impulse. — Thus far on the signification of the word. I proceed to restate what are the several kinds and classes of human motives. Now one motive, and doubtless the greatest,3 being, indeed, one into which it has been often sup posed that all other motives are resolvable, is the desire of happiness, that is, of one's own happiness.

In this desire is of course included the fear of misery ; and it is not easy to mistake in general 1 Sermon II. p. 31. % Sermons, p. 561, 2d edit. 1 Human Motives, part. i. c. i.

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. 13 what we mean by it, though people often refer to this motive, actions which in strictness do not proceed from it ;l and though it is inconvenient to use the same word desire, both for that general principle of our frame which prompts men to the pursuit of all objects from which they expect to derive happiness, and also for a particular class of principles, namely, those which prompt specifically to fame, or wealth, or knowledge, or power.2 This inconvenience, however, may be easily borne; and to speak of all the objects from which happiness may be derived, or expected, as objects in general of the desire of happiness, is a use of language which has become so inveterate that the altering of it would be too bold an innovation. This desire, though one of the essential proper ties of our kind, has not any thing in it moral or religious.

A man who felt it not, could such a man be, might not be capable, perhaps, of virtue 1 Human Motives, p. 34- — 36 ; and Butler and Smith as referred to in note 1, p. 34. * Ibid. p. 30, 31.

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. or religion : but the feeling itself, though, when enlightened and cultivated, it is of a highly liberal character, does not strictly possess any moral import, and may exist even in its greatest intensity, without making us good men. It is not virtue, but a motive or inducement to virtue. It is the chief motive, however, which is set forth by religion ; and it is certain that, to show or explain the way in which this motive ought to operate, so as to gain the end it proposes, is to show or explain that dependency on religion in which human thoughts and actions should be held. For the attaining of heaven, or of our own happiness, is the very first end which all religion proposes to us, and our own religion in particular. To clear the way, therefore, to heaven or happiness, is to direct our progress to the first end of religion.

And rightly to direct our progress, or, in other words, to direct our thoughts and actions, to the attainment of the first end of religion, is the same thing as to show the dependency on religion in which they should be held. It is quite clear, therefore, that the desire of

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. happiness is one great and general motive of the human mind ; and it is assumed1 that happiness is most wisely to be sought by the acquisition of a moral or religious character, or of moral or religious habits of mind. These habits, it is supposed, con sist altogether in a proper state of the specific mo tives of our frame.2 In order to gain, therefore, the great end we propose, we come to inquire what those specific motives are, and to show what their proper state should be. This inquiry will be found to include the whole field of moral duty or excel lence, — the whole compass of practical religion. So comprehensive a topic is that of motives ; so universally does some one motive or other, either as the principle, or as the subject of our exertions, run through the texture of moral conduct and character.3 Of these specific motives, the first class is that i Human Motives, p. 4,5. 1 Ibid. p. 10, 11, 28, 29. 3 Human Motives, Preface, p. 1.

" If the mind ever exerts a power of willing as well as acting, she performs that' work by the instrumentality of motives, for therein lies her whole strength." Light of Nature pursued, i. 96.

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. of the appetites, which it is plainly necessary to regulate and restrain, if we would acquire a moral temper or character.1 The second class is that of the desire of know ledge, the desire of power, which is inclusive of that of money,2 and the desire of honour. These motives also must be restrained and regidated. One office of virtue is to restrain them.3 But then their objects, though private and personal, and also the results gained by pursuing them, may, when gained, be made subservient or instrumental to many moral or religious purposes.4 The third class contains all the affections— love, reverence, gratitude, the affections subsisting be tween parent and child, benevolence, sympathy, friendship, resentment, emulation, envy, hatred, and perhaps some other varieties. Sentient beings are the objects of the affections ;5 and some affections, and these eminently moral, are even felt to wards God. 1 Human Motives, p. 31, 32. J P. 32, 131, 132. * Ibid. 2 Ibid. p. 281. « Ibid. p. 30.

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. 17 Another class of motives would be hope and fear, if hope and fear were not properly to be re garded as essential parts of every motive, of which the objects are either uncertain or distant. Hope and fear, when our own good is the end proposed, are other names only for the desire of happiness i1 when we propose the good of others, or even their harm, or any act of religious obedience to the Di vine will, to say that we hope to gain, or that we fear to lose, the proposed object, is to say only, that we really feel those disinterested motives of action, by which, in these cases, we are supposed to be ac tuated. And these, unquestionably, are the sole cases in which the sensations of hope or fear can exist. If habit were, properly speaking, a motive, the moral import of every kind of habit would be precisely the same with that of the actions or senti ments of which every habit must be composed. For it is clear that habit is not an original impulse, and that its power is acquired solely from use, or Human Motives, p. 65. B

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. from the repetition of certain efforts or acts. Thus the moral nature of the habit of piety must be the same with that of every single pious act or emo tion : it is the same with regard to the habit of generosity, the habit of lying, and that of detrac tion, and all other habits whatever. Every thing proved, therefore, of the nature of any motive, or of the nature of the acts to which that motive im pels, would, even if habit had a motive force of its own, be proved equally of the analogous habits. But, for reasons which have been elsewhere assign ed,1 it v*.iuld seem that habit itself, considered apart from the impulse which is made habitual, ought not properly to be entitled a motive, — though this is purely a verbal question. The only motive which now remains to be con sidered is the powerful impulse of conscience, a very inquisitive and active faculty, of which " the power, or at least the sanction, is presupposed in every thing which is moral, and which acts also often eminently as a motive both in restraining from 1 Human Motives, p. 29.

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. the commission of evil, and in stimulating to the performance of good." : Besides these motives there is not any other. Of these, there is not one, about which, either in cultivating or in restraining it, the office of morals or of religion is not conversant ; and by bringing all of them to their best possible state, that office would be accomplished and perfected. The virtue of temperance is fully attained, when none of these motives exceeds its limits, when none of the in ferior impulses of our frame interferes with the just prerogative of the higher, when the appetites are duly restrained, when the desires are made rightly subservient to the nobler ends of our nature, and when the affections are duly balanced and composed, and are centred in their great and final object. The virtue of justice, and the virtue of prudence, have similar and analogous offices.

Gratitude is a great motive in itself; so is devo tion ; so is also benevolence. And in the whole religious preparation of the mind for that futurit) Human Motives, p. 28. B

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. which good men hope to inherit, indeed on all theories of morals whatever, nothing is ever re garded as virtue, or as a part of Christian faith and obedience, which is not either a motive per se, or some application of intellectual principle to the regimen or the culture of motives. It is accord ingly stated in the 10th page of my Treatise, that the moral " habit, which the great motive of hap piness proposes in general as man's object or aim, consists altogether either in the just vigour, or in the just regulation of the affections, desires, and appetites, the specific motives which are natural to our frame. 1 For the sake of happiness, we learn 1 Is it meant that the affections, desires, and appetites, are the only specific motives which are natural to us ? Are not conscience, and the desire of happiness, specific motives like wise?

Perhaps the expression is not sufficiently precise. The meaning is, that the affections, desires, and appetites, are the only motives which have specific ends. " Appetite points always to some object of sense, the desire of honour to some worldly distinction, benevolence to some object of charity, piety to some object of religion." 2 And so in other instances. But conscience and the desire of happiness are, on the contrary, principles of universal operation ; though they 2 Human Motives, p. 66.

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. to be pious, that is, to cherish the motive of piety, of Christian piety in particular : we learn to love and to do good to mankind, that is, to cherish the motive of benevolence. Temperance, in the vulgar sense of the word, controls the excesses of appetite ; fortitude, the perturbations of fear ; justice corrects the irregular operations of those motives which are tinged most deeply with selfishness. In short, not any moral quality can be conceived, which is not either itself a motive, or of which some motive is not the subject." But if so, the moral discipline of our motives cannot but include the whole prompt always either to pursue or to avoid some designed or definite object,1 that object may be of any species what ever. It is said, accordingly, in the 29th page of my Treatise, that " conscience is too universal a principle to take rank formally in a distribution of motives into their several orders or kinds ;" and in page 65, that " hope and fear are only different expressions of the universal desire of happiness, and are pre-supposed as an essential part of our nature in every inquiry into the particular motives."

These principles are also spoken of repeatedly as being great and eminent mo tives^ The meaning, therefore, is, I hope, clear on the whole. 1 Human Motives, p. 151. 2 Ibid. p. 2, 4, 28, 34, 155, &c.

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. compass of morals, the whole application of the re ligious principle to the mind. Of all these motives, it is also stated distinctly, that they' lead of necessity to some corresponding action : that, though virtuous principle has its seat in the mind, virtuous acts are its necessary ex pression, l that an active habit implies a real em ployment, and that it is of the nature of every human pursuit to be prompted by some motive or other: that motives of appetite always impel to the pursuit of every object of sense which we can propose ; motives of benevolence impel us to do good ; motives of hope, of fear, or of piety, to the study or to the practice of religion.2 This point, though it can hardly demand explanation, will be re-stated also in one of the following letters.3 I have now explained, I hope sufficiently, the word motive, and the general principles of that moral importance which the several motives possess. ' Human Motives, p. 10. 2 Ibid. p. 170, 182. J Letter I. Prop. I. p. 42 — 49. ✓

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. The following letters were written in answer to some objections which were urged a few months since in the Christian Remembrancer,1 and they have been already inserted, by the kindness of the editor, in the numbers of that Journal for last May, June, and July. The specific objections of which they treat are well calculated to bring to an issue nearly every question which I have heard raised concerning the truth of the moral principles of my work ; and it is always desirable to take up all such objections in that form which they are in reality found to assume, rather than in a form which is merely anticipated or imaginary. I take the liberty of prefixing a sketch of the plan or argument of my Treatise, which was inserted in March in the review in the Remembrancer, and I shall subjoin in notes any other extracts which it may appear necessary or expedient to make. 1 In the number for March, 1821.

CONTENTS. Sketch of the argument of an Inquiry into Human Motives 27 Three Letters to the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer. Letter 1 33 Prop. I. That the attainment of the proposed character includes every condition of future happiness .. 42 Prop. II. That there are good reasons for treating of the human motives as the immediate subjects of moral discipline and control 49 Letter II. 53 Prop. III. That, to propose religious character as a general object is not to limit men's objects or ends, and may often have an eminent moral utility 53 Prop. IV. That the tendency to the formation of this character is a correct and necessary test of actions 60 Letter III. 75 Prop. V. That the acting conscientiously implies a reference to God's will 75 Prop. VI. That the statements made on the subject of obligation are correct and authorized 79 Postscript RECAPITULATION, &c. SKETCH OF THE ARGUMENT OF AN INQUIRY INTO HUMAN MOTIVES.

The main principle is, that all systems of morals which do not assume, as the first end of the science, the best preparation which it is possible to make for the happiness which man may hope for in a future state, are essentially either false or imper fect. Of a complete morality the basis is religion. Justice and benevolence are inadequate measures of it: and the human motives, which, in Scripture language, are spoken of generally as qualities of the heart, not the external acts to which they impel, are the immediate subjects of moral culture and discipline. On this principle the treatise is founded; and the different parts of it, excluding from view the collateral matter introduced, may be arranged under the following propositions. ARGUMENT OF AN INQUIRY

Part I

I. The best preparation for future happiness consists in the attainment of a certain habit or character, which may be described, in general (that is, if we presume the governing power of conscience), as made up chiefly of the religious or moral qualities of humility, justice, and temper ance, of benevolence, gratitude, and devotion, or as consisting partly in the just vigour, and partly in the correct regulation, of the affections, desires, and appetites, the specific a motives which are natural to our frame. This character, justly balanced and composed, is the true object or pattern of human life. The first part of the volume treats, therefore, of those motives which may in themselves be properly regarded as moral qualities, and of the place and uses of each of these motives severally in the composition of the character so described; that we may thus acquire an accurate conception of the end which every wise man shoidd pursue.

(Chap, i — iii.) II. Those motives which may properly be re garded as moral qualities (presuming, as before, the governing power of conscience, and the juris- 1 See note 1. p. 20, of the preceding Preface. INTO HUMAN MOTIVES. diction of reason or intellect) are the virtuous af fections only. The desires may indirectly be instrumental to the attainment of some true object of morals ; and it is always indispensably necessary to keep both the desires and appetites under restraint; but desire and appetite are never moral per se. These positions are in strict dependance on the religious principle, and are eminently confirmed and illustrated by the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. (Chap, iv — vi.) III. In the succeeding chapters are considered in turn the affections of piety, benevolence, sym pathy, and friendship, and the nature and place of each of these feelings in the composition of a truly excellent character; and it is shown particularly that while the limit or degree, in which every other principle should exist, is controlled and indicated by its subservience to piety (the dictates of piety and of an enlightened prudence being in all respects co-extensive), true piety, though com prehending all other virtues, is not itself compre hended in any other.

(Chap vii — x.) IV. A chapter follows on the malevolent senti ments (chap, xi.), another on temper (chap, xii.), and another, in conclusion, on that regulation of the natural desires which is essential to virtue or excellence. (Chap, xiii.) o' ARGUMENT OF AN INQUIRY And thus is completed that delineation of character which forms the object or moral pattern of human life.

Part II

In the second part of the treatise are considered the means by which this object is to be gained, or this character to be acquired by man. I. And here, after some previous observations on the powers with which man is endued, and the circumstances in which he is placed, points which it is of course necessary to fix before we can enter rationally on any pursuit, the first position is that the primary rule for all who would aim at the ac quisition of moral excellence, " a rule which is at the very root of morals, and to which neither in nature nor import any other is comparable," is to obey in all things the dictates of conscience. (Chap, i — hi.) II. Under the strict and universal government of conscience, the active pursuit of some object or other becomes the natural and proper food of the mind.