His classification of Virtue comprehends (1) Duty to God, which he dilates upon at some length. (2) Duty to Ourselves, wherein he maintains that our sense of self-interest is not enough for us. (3) Beneficence, the Good of others. (4) Gratitude. (5) Veracity, which he inculcates with great earnestness, adverting especially to impartiality and honesty in our enquiries after truth. (6) Justice, which he treats in its application to the Rights of Property.  He considers that the difficulties in practice arise partly from the conflict of the different heads, and partly from the different modes of applying the same principles; which he gives as an answer to the objection from the great differences of men’s moral sentiments and practices.  He allows, besides, that custom, education, and example, may blind and deprave our intellectual and moral powers; but denies that the whole of our notions and sentiments could result from education.  No amount of depravity is able utterly to destroy our moral discernment.

Chapter VIII. treats of Intention as an element in virtuous action.  He makes a distinction between Virtue in the Abstract and Virtue in Practice, or with reference to all the circumstances of the agent.  A man may do abstract wrong, through mistake, while as he acts with his best judgment and with upright intentions, he is practically right.  He grounds on this a powerful appeal against every attempt at dominion over conscience.  The requisites of Practical Morality are (1) Liberty, or Free-will, on which he takes the side of free-agency. (2) Intelligence, without which there can be no perception of good and evil, and no moral agency. (3) The Consciousness of Rectitude, or Righteous Intention.  On this he dwells at some length.  No action is properly the action of a moral agent unless designed by him.  A virtuous motive is essential to virtue.  On the question—­Is Benevolence a virtuous motive? he replies:  Not the Instinctive benevolence of the parent, but only Rational benevolence; which he allows to coincide with rectitude.  Reason presiding over Self-love renders it a virtuous principle likewise.  The presence of Reason in greater or less degree is the criterion of the greater or less virtue of any action.

Chapter IX. is on the different Degrees of Virtue and Vice, and the modes of estimating them; the Difficulties attending the Practice of Virtue; the use of Trials, and the essentials of a good or a bad Character.  The considerations adduced are a number of perfectly well-known maxims on the practice of morality, and scarcely add anything to the elucidation of the author’s Moral Theory.  The concluding chapter, on Natural Religion, contains nothing original.

To sum up the views of Price:—­

I.—­As regards the Moral Standard, he asserts that a perception of the Reason or the Understanding,—­a sense of fitness or congruity between actions and the agents, and all the circumstances attending them,—­is what determines Right and Wrong.