Moral Sentiments.  Our judgment of actions as right or wrong is accompanied by certain Affections or Sentiments, named Approbation and Disapprobation, Indignation and Esteem; these are the Moral Sentiments.  V.—­The Reflex Sentiments, namely, the desires of being Loved, of Esteem or Admiration, of our own Approval; and generally all springs of action designated by the word self—­for example, self-love.

With regard to the Moral Sentiment, or Conscience, in particular, the author’s resolution of Morality into Moral Rules, necessarily supposes an exercise of the Reason, together with the Affections above described.  He expressly mentions ’the Practical Reason, which guides us in applying Rules to our actions, and in discerning the consequences of actions.’  He does not allow Individual Conscience as an ultimate or supreme authority, but requires it to be conformed to the Supreme Moral Rules, arrived at in the manner above described.

On the subject of Disinterestedness, he maintains a modification of Paley’s selfish theory.  He allows that some persons are so far disinterested as to be capable of benevolence and self-sacrifice, without any motive of reward or punishment; but ’to require that all persons should be such, would be not only to require what we certainly shall not find, but to put the requirements of our Morality in a shape in which it cannot convince men.’  Accordingly, like Paley, he places the doctrine that ’to promote the happiness of others will lead to our own happiness,’ exclusively on the ground of Religion.  He honours the principle that ‘virtue is happiness,’ but prefers for mankind generally the form, ‘virtue is the way to happiness.’  In short, he places no reliance on the purely Disinterested impulses of mankind, although he admits the existence of such.

III.—­He discusses the Summum Bonum, or Happiness, only with reference to his Ethical theory.  The attaining of the objects of our desires yields Enjoyment or Pleasure, which cannot be the supreme end of life, being distinguished from, and opposed to, Duty.  Happiness is Pleasure and Duty combined and harmonized by Wisdom.  ’As moral beings, our Happiness must be found in our Moral Progress, and in the consequences of our Moral Progress; we must be happy by being virtuous.’

He complains of the moralists that reduce virtue to Happiness (in the sense of human pleasure), that they fail to provide a measure of happiness, or to resolve it into definite elements; and again urges the impossibility of calculating the whole consequences of an action upon human happiness.

IV.—­With respect to the Moral Code, Whewell’s arrangement is interwoven with his derivation of moral rules.  He enumerates five Cardinal Virtues as the substance of morality:—­BENEVOLENCE, which gives expansion to our Love; JUSTICE, as prescribing the measure of our Mental Desires; TRUTH, the law of Speech in connexion with its purpose; PURITY, the control of the Bodily Appetites; and ORDER (obedience to the Laws), which engages the Reason in the consideration of Rules and Laws for defining Virtue and Vice.  Thus the five leading branches of virtue have a certain parallelism to the five chief classes of motives—­Bodily Appetites, Mental Desires, Love and its opposite, the need of a Mutual Understanding, and Reason.