On the second point—­the pleasure and pain accompanying right and wrong, he remarks on the one-sidedness of systems that treat the sense of right and wrong as an intellectual judgment purely (Clarke, &c.), or those that treat it as a feeling purely (Shaftesbury, Hutcheson, and Hume).  His remarks on the sense of Merit and Demerit in the agent are trivial or commonplace.

Chapter VI. is ‘Of Moral Obligation.’  It is needless to follow him on this subject, as his views are substantially a repetition of Butler’s Supremacy of Conscience.  At the same time, it may be doubted whether Butler entirely and unequivocally detached this supremacy from the command of the Deity, a point peculiarly insisted on by Stewart.  His words are these:—­

’According to some systems, moral obligation is founded entirely on our belief that virtue is enjoined by the command of God.  But how; it may be asked, does this belief impose an obligation?  Only one of two answers can be given.  Either that there is a moral fitness that we should conform our will to that of the Author and the Governor of the universe; or that a rational self-love should induce us, from motives of prudence, to study every means of rendering ourselves acceptable to the Almighty Arbiter of happiness and misery.  On the first supposition We reason in a circle.  We resolve our sense of moral obligation into our sense of religion, and the sense of religion into that of moral obligation.

’The other system, which makes virtue a mere matter of prudence, although not so obviously unsatisfactory, leads to consequences which sufficiently invalidate every argument in its favour.  Among others it leads us to conclude, 1.  That the disbelief of a future state absolves from all moral obligation, excepting in so far as we find virtue to be conducive to our present interest:  2.  That a being independently and completely happy cannot have any moral perceptions or any moral attributes.

’But farther, the notions of reward and punishment presuppose the notions of right and wrong.  They are sanctions of virtue, or additional motives to the practice of it, but they suppose the existence of some previous obligation.

’In the last place, if moral obligation be constituted by a regard to our situation in another life, how shall the existence of a future state be proved, or even rendered probable by the light of nature? or how shall we discover what conduct is acceptable to the Deity?  The truth is, that the strongest presumption for such a state is deduced from our natural notions of right and wrong; of merit and demerit; and from a comparison between, these and the general course of human affairs.’