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1840.] good, and that we have no way of knowing what is duty, of knowing what things are a means to this absolute good, except by comparing them with it. Price and those who hold the Sentimental System would say, that we have a faculty for knowing these means by some quality inherent in them, and that too without knowing the end until one has arrived at it.

It would not be safe or fair to proceed to examine Jouffroy's system, until he has developed it himself. Yet we will venture a few remarks upon it. When, according to this system, one has formed an idea of the absolute good, the means by which it is brought about are left to be determined by prudence, by expediency. So far as this feature of his system is concerned, Jouffroy would disagree with the systems of Paley and others only in the end for which one is to labor. Both systems recognise expediency and prudence as the method of determining what is our duty. The difference consists mainly in the different ends proposed. In the system of Paley and the selfish systems generally, the end is the good of self, and morality is self-interest well understood. With Jouffroy the end is the absolute good. By the former system we are taught to consult prudence and expediency, to ascertain what will be most conducive to self-interest; by the latter we are to consult the same guides to ascertain what will be most conducive to the absolute good. M. Jouffroy would say, that having fixed upon the absolute good as the end, we are left to prudence to choose the means. We should think, from the Lectures before us, that M. Jouffroy's system would overlook what seems to be true in Price's method of deciding upon duty. Is it not a matter of consciousness that we do decide concerning some things in and for themselves without any regard to their consequences, that they are right, and must never be omitted, or that they are wrong and ought never to be done? Have we not certain instinctive impressions, that make us feel that certain things are right and others are wrong, without any regard to consequences, or to absolute good? Or in other words, is not this part of Price's system true, though not the whole truth? If so, Jouffroy's System is true, but not the whole truth. He takes the matter where Price leaves it. If M. Jouffroy incorporates this part of Price's system into his own, and