To establish this position, he enters into an enquiry into the distinct provinces of Sense and of Understanding in the origin of our ideas.  It is plain, he says, that what judges concerning the perceptions of the senses, and contradicts their decisions, cannot itself be sense, but must be some nobler faculty.  Likewise, the power that views and compares the objects of all the senses cannot be sense.  Sense is a mere capacity of being passively impressed; it presents particular forms to the mind, and is incapable of discovering general truths.  It is the understanding that perceives order or proportion; variety and regularity; design, connexion, art, and power; aptitudes, dependence, correspondence, and adjustment of parts to a whole or to an end.  He goes over our leading ideas in detail, to show that mere sense cannot furnish them.  Thus, Solidity, or Impenetrability, needs an exertion of reason; we must compare instances to know that two atoms of matter cannot occupy the same space. Vis Inerticae is a perception of the reason.  So Substance, Duration, Space, Necessary Existence, Power, and Causation involve the understanding.  Likewise, that all Abstract Ideas whatsoever require the understanding is superfluously proved.  The author wonders, therefore, that his position in this matter should not have been sooner arrived at.

The tracing of Agreement and of Disagreement, which are functions of the Understanding, is really the source of simple ideas.  Thus, Equality is a simple idea originating in this source; so are Proportion, Identity and Diversity, Existence, Cause and Effect, Power, Possibility and Impossibility; and (as he means ultimately to show) Right and Wrong.

Although the author’s exposition is not very lucid, his main conclusion is a sound one.  Sense, in its narrowest acceptation, gives particular impressions and experiences of Colour, Sound, Touch, Taste, Odour, &c.  The Intellectual functions of Discrimination and Agreement are necessary as a supplement to Sense, to recognize these impressions as differing and agreeing, as Equal or Unequal; Proportionate or Disproportionate; Harmonious or Discordant.  And farther, every abstract or general notion,—­colours in the abstract, sweetness, pungency, &c.—­supposes these, powers of the understanding in addition to the recipiency of the senses.

To apply this to Right and Wrong, the author begins by affirming [what goes a good way towards begging the question] that right and wrong are simple ideas, and therefore the result of an immediate power of perception in the human mind.  Beneficence and Cruelty are indefinable, and therefore ultimate.  There must be some actions that are in the last resort an end in themselves.  This being assumed, the author contends that the power of immediately perceiving these ultimate ideas is the Understanding.  Shaftesbury had contended that, because the perception of right and wrong was immediate, therefore it must reside in