nclusions. Partiality of views may arise from this cause,
not merely in individuals, but in whole nations. The legal permission
of theft in Sparta is a case in point. Theft, as theft, and without
relation to the political object of inuring a warlike people, would
have been condemned in Sparta, as well as with us. [The retort of Locke
is not out of place here; an innate moral sentiment that permits a
fundamental virtue to be set aside on the ground of mere state
convenience, is of very little value.] He then goes on to ask whether
men, in approving these exceptions to morality, approve them because
they are immoral? [The opponents of a moral sense do not contend for an
_immoral_ sense.] Suicide is not commended because it deprives society
of useful members, and gives sorrow to relations and friends; the
exposure of infants is not justified on the plea of adding to human
suffering.

Again, the differences of cookery among nations are much wider than the
differences of moral sentiment; and yet no one denies a fundamental
susceptibility to sweet and bitter. It is not contended that we come
into the world with a knowledge of actions, but that we have certain
susceptibilities of emotion, in consequence of which, it is impossible
for us, in after life, unless from counteracting circumstances, to be
pleased with the contemplation of certain actions, and disgusted with
certain other actions. When the doctrine is thus stated, Paley's
objection, that we should also receive from nature the notions of the
actions themselves, falls to the ground. As well might we require an
instinctive notion of all possible numbers, to bear out our instinctive
sense of proportion.

A third limitation must be added, the influence of the principle of
Association. One way that this operates is to transfer, to a whole
class of actions, the feelings peculiar to certain marked individuals.
Thus, in a civilized country, where property is largely possessed, and
under complicated tenures, we become very sensitive to its violation,
and acquire a proportionably intense sentiment of Justice. Again,
association operates in modifying our approval and disapproval of
actions according to their attendant circumstances; as when we
extenuate misconduct in a beloved person.

The author contends that, notwithstanding these limitations, we still
leave unimpaired the approbation of unmixed good as good, and the
disapprobation of unmixed evil as evil. His further remark