content with observing and stating the authoritative character of conscience, without inquiring into the why or the right of its approval. Ever since Mackintosh remarked it, the criticism has been a general one, that Butler has given no answer to the question, "What constitutes morality or virtue?" or "What is the quality in any act which leads men to pronounce it virtuous?" but that he has answered only the cognate question, "By what inner process of intelligence or feeling do we recognize the virtuous act?" or, "What is the nature of the feelings with which men regard it?" Consequently Mackintosh proceeds to point out what he considers to be the circle involved in Butler's argument, and this stricture has been very frequently followed, notably by Mr. Leslie Stephen. It is said that Butler defines virtuous acts to be those which conscience approves, and then makes conscience the faculty which determines and approves virtuous acts. We disapprove immoral actions, and immoral actions are those which we disapprove.[1]
If, however, one remembers that Butler's psychological investigation is merely a method by which he sets out to ascertain the facts of human nature in order that an idea of the goal of that nature may be thence inferred, the force of such a criticism is lost. It was for the purpose of learning what was meant by the dictate 'Follow nature,' that an examination of the constitution of human nature was entered upon. The investigation of the facts has, Butler thinks, of itself shown both the adaptation and the obligation to the pursuit of virtue as the complete end of man, an end which appeals not merely to any one part of his nature, but to his nature as a consistent whole. His teleological argument presupposes that the facts of human nature have a significance beyond themselves, that their meaning is to be read in the light of the end to which they are adapted. All our perceptive powers have validity because they report reality. Butler's assumption will admit of no Cartesian series of doubts; our inner experience cannot be illusory; it must have meaning and design, and the meaning can be ascertained by learning to what end the various parts and the total constitution of human nature are
- ↑ Leslie Stephen, English Thought in the Eighteenth Century, p. 50.
