rals is thus made to rest on a
coincidence that is mysterious and fantastic. According to the author,
the conclusive answer is this. Although Conscience rarely contemplates
anything so distant as the welfare of all sentient beings, yet in
detail it obviously points to the production of happiness. The social
affections all promote happiness. Every one must observe the tendency
of justice to the welfare of society. The angry passions, as ministers
of morality, remove hindrances to human welfare. The private desires
have respect to our own happiness. Every element of conscience has thus
some portion of happiness for its object. All the affections contribute
to the general well-being, although it is not necessary, nor would it
be fit, that the agent should be distracted by the contemplation of
that vast and remote object.

To sum up Mackintosh:--

I.--On the Standard, he pronounces for Utility, with certain
modifications and explanations. The Utility is the remote and final
justification of all actions accounted right, but not the immediate
motive in the mind of the agent. [It may justly be feared, that, by
placing so much stress on the delights attendant on virtuous action, he
gives an opening for the admission of _sentiment_ into the
consideration of Utility.]

II.--In the Psychology of Ethics, he regards the Conscience as a
derived or generated faculty, the result of a series of associations.
He assigns the primary feelings that enter into it, and traces the
different stages of the growth. The distinctive feature of Conscience
is its close relation to the Will.

He does not consider the problem of Liberty and Necessity.

He makes Disinterested Sentiment a secondary or derived feeling--a
stage on the road to Conscience. While maintaining strongly the
disinterested character of the sentiment, he considers that it may be
fully accounted for by derivation from our primitive self-regarding
feelings, and denies, as against Stewart and Brown, that this gives it
a selfish character.

He carries the process of associative growth a step farther, and
maintains that we re-convert disinterestedness into a lofty
delight--the delight in goodness for its own sake; to attain this
characteristic is the highest mark of a virtuous character.

III.---His Summum Bonum, or Theory of Happiness, is contained in his
much iterated doctrine of the deliciousness of virtuous conduct, by
which he proposes to effect the reconciliation of our o