Page:Ferrier's Works Volume 3 "Philosophical Remains" (1883 ed.).djvu/513

Rh to give birth to a system of innate or intuitive morality. And such we find to be the case. In the history of philosophy the one of these theories is closely affiliated to the other.

10. The ethical system, which springs from the doctrine of innate ideas, is the hypothesis which contends for an innate moral faculty, an instinctive perception of the difference between right and wrong, a natural sense of justice and injustice, an original conscience which teaches us to govern our passions, and prompts us to do to others as we would that they should do unto us. This system of ethics maintains that we have from nature social affections which lead us into friendly fellowship with our kind, and incline us to consult the interests of others, no less than private feelings, which excite us to promote our own personal advantage. It holds that we grow up to be the moral agents that we are through an innate sense of duty, which at once approves of our conduct when we do right, and disapproves of it when we do wrong. It allows but little influence to the varied circumstances which operate upon us from without. It finds our moral sentiments not to be the result of any foreign agencies, but the spontaneous produce of our own internal constitution.

11. Our unreflective judgment is rather in favour of this hypothesis. When we look, with a not very critical eye, at the ongoings of human life, we are apt