paffion on the contrary, my thoughts and words are, << That flesh and blood "could not bear the affront; and that I "must have been branded for a coward, "had I not done what I did." In reality, both actions were equally neceffary. Whence then opinions and fentiments fo oppofite to each other? The irregular influence of paffion on our opinions and fentiments, will folve the question. All violent paffions are prone to their own gratification. A man who has done an action that he repents of and that affects him with anguish, abhors himself, and is odious in his own eyes: he wishes to find himself guilty; and the thought that his guilt is beyond the poffibility of excuse, gratifies the paffion. In the first cafe accordingly, remorfe forces upon me a conviction that I might have restrained my paffion, and ought to have restrained it. I will not give way to any excufe; because in a severe fit of remorfe, it gives me pain to be excufed. In the other cafe, as there is no remorfe, things appear in their true light without difguife. To illuftrate this reafoning, I obferve, that paffion warps my judgement of the actions of a

thers,

thers, as well as of my own. Many examples are given in the chapter above quoted: join to thefe the following. My fervant aiming at a partridge, happens to fhoot a favourite fpaniel croffing the way unfeen. Inflamed with anger, I storm at his rafhness, pronounce him guilty, and will listen to no excufe. When paffion fubfides, I become fenfible that the action was merely accidental, and that the man is abfolutely innocent. The nurse overlays my only child, the long-expected heir to a great estate. With difficulty I refrain from putting her to death: "The wretch "has murdered my infant: fhe ought to "be torn to pieces." When I turn calm, the matter appears to me in a very different light. The poor woman is inconfolable, and can scarce believe that she is innocent: fhe bitterly reproaches herself for want of care and concern. But, upon cool reflection, both fhe and I become fenfible, that no person in found fleep has any felfcommand, and that we cannot be anfwerable for any action of which we are not confcious. Thus, upon the whole, we discover, that any impreffion we occafionally have of being able to act in contradiction

diction to motives, is the refult of paffion, not of found judgement.

The reader will obferve, that this fection is copied from Effays on Morality and Natural Religion. The ground-work is the fame the alterations are only in the fuperftructure; and the subject is abridged in order to adapt it to its prefent place. The preceding parts of the Sketch were published in the fecond edition of the Principles of Equity. But as law-books have little currency, the publishing the whole in one effay, will not, I hope, be thought improper.

I

APPENDIX.

Upon Chance and Contingency.

Hold it to be an intuitive propofition, That the Deity is the primary cause of all things; that with confummate wifdom he formed the great plan of government, which he carries on by laws fuited to the different natures of animate and in

animate

animate beings; and that these laws, produce a regular chain of causes and effects in the moral as well as the material world, admitting no events but what are comprehended in the original plan (a). Hence it clearly follows, that chance is excluded out of this world, that nothing can happen by accident, and that no event is arbitrary or contingent. This is the doctrine of the effay quoted; prehenfion, well founded. But I cannot fubfcribe to what follows, "That we have ແ an impreffion of chance and contin

and, in my ap

gency, which confequently muft be de"lufive." I would not willingly admit any delusion in the nature of man, unless it were made evident beyond contradiction; and I now fee clearly, that the impreffion we have of chance and contingency, is not delufive, but perfectly con→ fiftent with the established plan.

The explanation of chance and contingency in the faid effay, fhall be given in the author's own words, as a proper text to reafon upon. "In our ordinary train "of thinking, it is certain that all events

(a) See Effays on Morality and Natural Religion, part 1 effay 3.

VOL. IV.

е

appear

1

appear not to us as neceffary. A mul❝titude of events feem to be under our

power to caufe or to prevent; and we readily make a diftinction betwixt events that are neceffary, i. e. that must be; and events that are contingent, i. e. "that may be, or may not be. This dif "tinction is void of truth: for all things "that fall out either in the material or "moral world, are, as we have feen, a"like neceffary, and alike the refult of "fixed laws. Yet, whatever conviction a

philofopher may have of this, the dif"tinction betwixt things neceffary and

tr

things contingent, poffeffes his ordinary "train of thought, as much as it poffeffes "the most illiterate. We act univerfally

upon that distinction: nay it is in truth

the cause of all the labour, care, and in"dustry, of mankind. I illustrate this "doctrine by an example. Conftant ex"perience hath taught us, that death is a neceffary event. The human frame

is not made to laft for ever in its pre"fent condition; and no man thinks of more than a temporary existence upon this globe. But the particular time of our death appears a contingent event. However