Essay on instinct, and its physical and moral relations / By Thomas Hancock.

  • Thomas Hancock
Date:
1824
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Essay on instinct, and its physical and moral relations / By Thomas Hancock. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    427/574 (page 409)
    words, the various actions arising from Gratitude, Integrity, Justice, Fortitude, Benevolence, and their opposites (which we suppose must enter into the ~vocabulary of all languages) are fairly brought before ‘the uncorrupted and unprejudiced view of the mind— they are discerned as clearly to be virtuous or vicious, ‘praiseworthy or blameable, and right or wrong, by ‘an internal sense or moral tribunal; as sounds are ‘discovered by the wnobstrucied ear to be harmonious ‘or discordant, or as objects of sight are seen to be beautiful or otherwise by a sound eye—without mote » or film—when looking through a clear medium with a steady light. . _ For, as many things are necessary, in the natural state, to perfect outward vision, and in fact to clear ‘perception, by any one of the outward Senses; so ‘many things are necessary, in the moral state, toa ‘correct moral judgment. But, as we do not consult Reason to know whether ‘an object. is beautiful, or a flower is fragrant, or a frait is sweet; so neither do we use it in feeling the first emotions excited by the moral qualities of human | ‘actions. By the constitution of our minds we are compelled to fee] certain emotions in perceiving these “actions; for which we can give no other explanation than this, that it is a law imposed upon our nature. ‘That we may pervert this original law, is very true; and that we may reason and rebel against these feel- -ings so as. to. reduce, change, corrupt, stifle, and al- ‘most annihilate, until we scarcely know what they