Page:Philosophical Review Volume 6.djvu/159

143 ." But how can complete obligation (which common-sense demands) be vindicated, if we define obligation as has just been done? Gay sees very clearly that we must here depend upon the power and wisdom of the Divine Being, "because God only can in all cases make a man happy or miserable." And there is no restriction to rewards and punishments as given in this present life. This position was, of course, adopted by Tucker and Paley, the only difference being that Paley particularly insists upon rewards and punishments after death. This whole question as to the meaning of 'complete obligation' for Utilitarianism in its earlier form, would have to be discussed at some length, if we were to compare Paley and Bentham with Gay and with each other. Here it is enough to notice that, if we assume the necessarily egoistic nature of the motive of the moral agent, and at the same time attempt to preserve the absolute character of obligation, Gay's position is the only logical one.

In Cumberland we found some confusion in the use of the expression 'Right Reason.' The author had evidently been somewhat influenced by the intuitionists and intellectualists, though he opposed most of their characteristic doctrines, and this without really having worked out his own position in detail. Nothing corresponding to this confusion is to be found in Gay. He does, indeed, in one passage seem to distinguish between Experience and Reason, but this is misleading, for he immediately adds, "You either perceive the inconveniences of some things and actions, when they happen, or you foresee them by contemplating the nature of the things and actions." Reason here is evidently nothing but the faculty of predicting upon the basis of past experience.

Again, in Cumberland we are constantly confronted with the then almost universally current conception of Laws of Nature. It is easy to show that the system does not really depend upon this scaffolding, but that, on the contrary, it is rather cumbered than helped by it. At the same time, this conception of Natural Laws not only gives its name to Cumberland's treatise, but almost wholly determines its external form. The reader hardly