in his analysis of the functions to be
ascribed to conscience. He calls it the Principle of Reflection, the Reflex
Principle of Approbation, and assigns to it as its province the motives or
propensions to action. It takes a view of these, approves or disapproves,
impels to or restrains from action. But at times he uses language that
almost compels one to attribute to him the popular view of conscience as
passing its judgments with unerring certainty on individual acts. Indeed
his theory is weakest exactly at the point where the real difficulty
begins. We get from him no satisfactory answer to the inquiry, What course
of action is approved by conscience? Every one, he seems to think, knows
what virtue is, and a philosophy of ethics is complete if it can be shown
that such a course of action harmonizes with human nature. When pressed
still further, he points to justice, veracity and the common good as
comprehensive ethical ends. His whole view of the moral government led him
to look upon human nature and virtue as connected by a sort of
pre-established harmony. His ethical principle has in it no possibility of
development into a system of actual duties; it has no content. Even on the
formal side it is a little difficult to see what part conscience plays. It
seems merely to set the stamp of its approbation on certain courses of
action to which we are led by the various passions and affections; it has
in itself no originating power. How or why it approves of some and not of
others is left unexplained. Butler's moral theory, like those of his
English contemporaries and successors, is defective from not perceiving
that the notion of duty can have real significance only when connected with
the will or practical reason, and that only in reason which wills itself
have we a principle capable of development into an ethical system. It has
received very small consideration at the hands of German historians of
ethics.

AUTHORITIES.--See T. Bartlett, _Memoirs of Butler_ (1839). The standard
edition of Butler's works is that in 2 vols. (Oxford, 1844). Editions of
the _Analogy_ are very numerous; that by Bishop William Fitzgerald (1849)
contains a valuable Life and Notes. W. Whewell published an edition of the
_Three Sermons_, with Introduction. Modern editions of the _Works_ are
those by W.E. Gladstone (2 vols. with a 3rd vol. of _Studies Subsidiary_,
1896), and J.H. Bernard, (2 vols. in the English Theological Library,
1900). For the