atural and public law,
with a full application of these principles to particular cases; and in
these circumstances, I trust, it will not be deemed extravagant
presumption in me to hope that I shall be able to exhibit a view of this
science, which shall, at least, be more intelligible and attractive to
students, than the learned treatises of these celebrated men. I shall
now proceed to state the general plan and subjects of the lectures in
which I am to make this attempt.

I. The being whose actions the law of nature professes to regulate, is
man. It is on the knowledge of his nature that the science of his duty
must be founded.[15] It is impossible to approach the threshold of moral
philosophy, without a previous examination of the faculties and habits
of the human mind. Let no reader be repelled from this examination, by
the odious and terrible name of _metaphysics_; for it is, in truth,
nothing more than the employment of good sense, in observing our own
thoughts, feelings, and actions; and when the facts which are thus
observed, are expressed as they ought to be, in plain language, it is,
perhaps, above all other sciences, most on a level with the capacity and
information of the generality of thinking men. When it is thus
expressed, it requires no previous qualification, but a sound judgment,
perfectly to comprehend it; and those who wrap it up in a technical and
mysterious jargon, always give us strong reason to suspect that they are
not philosophers but impostors. Whoever thoroughly understands such a
science, must be able to teach it plainly to all men of common sense.
The proposed course will therefore open with a very short, and, I hope,
a very simple and intelligible account of the powers and operations of
the human mind. By this plain statement of facts, it will not be
difficult to decide many celebrated, though frivolous, and merely verbal
controversies, which have long amused the leisure of the schools, and
which owe both their fame and their existence to the ambiguous obscurity
of scholastic language. It will, for example, only require an appeal to
every man's experience, to prove that we often act purely from a regard
to the happiness of others, and are therefore social beings; and it is
not necessary to be a consummate judge of the deceptions of language,
to despise the sophistical trifler, who tells us, that, because we
experience a gratification in our benevolent actions, we are therefore
exclusively