[Footnote 24:  ADAM FERGUSON (1724-1816), is not of sufficient importance in purely Ethical theory to demand a full abstract.  The following remark on his views is made by Professor Veitch:—­’Ferguson, while holding-with Reid that the notion of Rightness is not resolvable into utility, or to be derived from sympathy or a moral sense, goes a step beyond both.  Reid and Stewart in the inquiry which he raises regarding the definite nature and ground of Rightness itself.’  The following is his definition of Moral Good:—­’Moral good is the specific excellence and felicity of human nature, and moral depravity its specific defect and wretchedness.’  The ‘excellence’ of human nature consists in four things, drawn out after the analogy of the cardinal virtues:  (1) Skill (Wisdom); (2) Benevolence, the principal excellence of a creature destined to perform a part in social life (Justice); (3) Application of mind (Temperance); (4) Force, or energy to overcome obstacles (Fortitude).  Regarding the motives to virtue, either virtue is its own reward, or divine rewards and punishments constitute a sanction; but, in any case, the motive is our own happiness.  All the virtues enumerated are themselves useful or pleasant, but, over and above, they give rise to an additional pleasure, when they are made the subject of reflection.]

[Footnote 25:  ’The theory which, places the standard of morality in the Divine nature must not be confounded with that which, places it in the arbitrary will of God.  God did not create morality by his will; it is inherent in his nature, and co-eternal with himself; nor can he be conceived as capable of reversing it.’  The distinction here drawn does not avoid the fatal objection to the simpler theory, namely, that it takes away the moral character of God.  The acts of a sovereign cannot, with, any propriety, as Austin has shown, be termed either legal or illegal; in like manner, if God is a moral lawgiver, if ’he is accountable to no one,’ then ’his duty and his pleasure are undistinguishable from each other,’ and he cannot without self-contradiction be called a moral being.  Even upon Mr. Mansel’s own theory, it is hardly correct to say that ’God did not create morality by his will.’  Morality involves two elements—­one, rules of conduct, the other, an obligation to observe them.  Now, the authority or obligatoriness of moral laws has been made to depend upon the will of God, so that, prior to that will, morality could not exist.  Hence the only part of morality that can be co-eternal with God, is simply the rules of morality, without their obligatoriness, the salt without its savour.  The closing assertion that God cannot reverse morality, may mean either that it would be inconsistent with his immutability to reverse the laws he had himself established, or that he is compelled by his nature to impose certain rules, and no others.  The first supposition is a truism; the second is not