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Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1859 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. OF THE VARIOUS BRANCHES OP ODR DUTY. 245. The different theories which have been proposed concerning the nature and essence of Virtue, have arisen chiefly from attempts to trace all the branches of our duty to one principle of action; such as a rational Self-love, Benevolence, Justice, or a disposition to obey the will of God. 246. In order to avoid those partial views of the subject, which naturally take their rise from an undue love of system, the following inquiries proceed, in an analytical order, upon an arrangement which has, in all ages, recommended itself to the good sense of mankind. This arrangement is founded on the different objects to which our duties relate:--1. The Deity; 2. Our Fellow-creatures; and, 3. Ourselves. After having thus laid a solid foundation for our theoretical reasonings concerning Virtue, by an examination of our principal duties in detail, we shall be enabled to rise safely, in the way of Analysis, to the common quality in which they all concur, and which renders them proper objects of moral approbation. A contrary arrangement would expose us to the danger of circumscribing our inquiries, at our first outset, within the limits of an arbitrary and partial definition.--2d edit. SECT. I.--OF THE DUTIES WHICH RESPECT THE DEITY. 247. As our duties to God, (so far as they are discoverable by the light of nature,) must be inferred from the relation in which we stand to him as the Author and Governor of the let edit. Universe, an examination of the principles of Natural Religion forms a necessary introduction into this section. Such an examination, besides, being the reasonable consequence of those impressions which his works produce on every attentive and well-disposed mind, may be itself regarded, both as one of the d...
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