PREFACE.

THE work now offered to the public is the last which proceeded from the lamented author’s hand. In the days which immediately preceded his peaceful departure out of the present life, and while his powers were free from all clouds and weakness, he spoke of these papers as nearly prepared for the press, and consigned them with that intention to two of his sons. With a trifling exception, the whole had been carefully transcribed by the hand of filial duty from his own character, which, more from declining eyesight than any manual debility, had lost its former boldness and clearness, 10and had become difficult. In giving his commands respecting the printing, he empowered his representatives to use a discretion as to lesser points in the form, which has been found to be almost entirely needless.

The ministers of Christ who in this and other countries remember the instructions of Dr. Alexander, will be best able to judge of this production. They will recognise in it the doctrines and arguments which characterized the author’s theological method, and will doubtless prize it as a comprehensive syllabus, even while they miss that copiousness, vivacity, and warmth, which added efficacy to his oral teachings.

The subject of Ethical Philosophy may be said to have engaged the mind of the author for at least threescore years. The earliest vestiges of his boyish studies show proofs of this, in connection with the metaphysical inquiries which afterwards became 11his favourite employment of mind. Though in after years he was almost daily adding to his knowledge of ethical literature, with an avidity which was unabated to the last, and which sought to be satisfied with the most recondite disquisitions in the ancient tongues no less than our own, he nevertheless appears to have arrived at definite conclusions very early, and to have maintained them with little change. It was not the habit of his mind, as is well known, to accumulate authorities, to load his discourses with learned citation, or even to break the continuity of his analytical discourse by unnecessary sallies against opponents. Amidst a life of perpetual reading, of which he held the spoils in his memory with singular exactness and tenacity, he persevered in seeking and presenting truth with the minimum of quoted aid. This quality of his thinking will be all the rather obvious in a treatise like the present, 12which, as an epitome of extended results, necessarily leaves out a thousand particulars of the process and all the lighter play of illustration.

During the period of nearly forty years, in which he was theological professor, the author had an exercise, for the most part weekly, in Mental and Moral Science; as a transition from college work and a recapitulation of juvenile studies. The lectures thus delivered were the basis of the succinct manual now made public. All its parts were thrown into a shape suitable for the printing, except the closing chapters on the Being and Attributes of God, and the duties resulting from the relation of the Creator and creature.

These portions not having been copied remain in autograph, and may be regarded as the last written speculations of one who employed his pen almost every day for more than half a century. If the articulation 13of this important member with the body of the discourse seem less obvious than might be desired, it will become sufficiently clear to such as reflect on the great earnestness with which, in the former part. the author maintains the intuitive perceptions of conscience as independent of every doctrine of theology, even the greatest.

A casual inspection will be enough to show any reader that this is a book of elements; laying down principles, clearing the statement of fundamental questions, and marking limits around the science. It does not descend therefore to the more usual and far easier work of gathering, naming, and tabling the human duties. This labour he did not undervalue; indeed it was part of his course of instructions; and his unfinished manuscripts contain large contributions towards a separate work in this kind, embracing even all the range of duties which are properly Christian 14and even ecclesiastical. But the treatise now presented was intended to lay foundations and elucidate principles; in other words it is upon the Philosophy of Morals. At the same time, however, that the topics here discussed are some of the most puzzling which have exercised human acuteness, patience and abstraction, from the days of the Greek authors till our own, they are such as cannot be set aside or turned over to others as matter for authority; for the very reason that they concern the springs of daily action, are presented every hour in the household, and meet us in the very babblings of the nursery. And notwithstanding the tenuity of the objects brought under review, and the delicate thread of inquiry along which the analysis must often feel its way, the writer seems to derive an advantage from his unusual simplicity and transparency of language, which might betray a superficial reader into the 15opinion that the train of argument is not original or profound. In none of the author’s works is this quality more apparent than in that which follows.

One of the reasons which impelled Dr. Alexander, at a stage of life which was encumbered with cares and infirmities, to address himself to this toilsome composition, was the desire to furnish a Manual for the young men of America, in our colleges, theological seminaries, and other schools. He was repeatedly besought to supply such a volume, and never wavered in his persuasion that it was necessary; especially when he saw with pain to what an extent the place of a class-book was occupied by the great but dangerous work of Archdeacon Paley. In common with other sound ethical inquiries he recognised the value of President Wayland’s labours, and the eloquence and richness of Dr. Chalmers’s striking but fragmentary contributions. 16Yet he thought he saw room for a brief hand-book level to the capacity of all; and he had a natural and pardonable desire common to all original thinkers, to give vent to his own opinions in his own order. In regard to the ethical system here expounded, the work may safely be left to speak for itself. It is positive and didactic rather than controversial, yet there is scarcely a chapter which, however tranquil and subdued in its tone, will not awaken opposition in some quarter or other. The polemic aspect of the treatise is, however, apparent only in cases where to avoid the naming of opponents would have been an affectation no less than a breach of trust. No one, whatever his private dissent may be, will justly complain that his opinions have been treated with unfairness or rigour. The connection of ethics with theology is such that no one can treat of the nature of virtue, of the will, of motives, and the like, 17without at least indicating his tendencies in regard to the great dividing questions of revelation; which only increases the necessity for giving the right direction to juvenile studies; unless we would receive to the professional curriculum minds already pre-occupied with ethical tenets subversive of great truths in law, politics and theology. Those who have watched the progress of modern speculation will not fail to apprehend the drift of this observation. Yet the way in which even these somewhat delicate parts of moral science are here set forth, is such as never to awaken suspicion of any sinister intention, or to betray any irregular passage into a neighbouring but separate science. Even those discussions which, at a first view, might seem to belong rather to natural theology, were deliberately assigned to their place after long experience in teaching, as pertaining to the limits where 18the two fields osculate if they do not cut, and with a clear pre-eminence given to the ethical side of the truths common to both.

The labours of the author were arrested by his last illness, when the work here published was complete indeed as has been said, but not ready for the press in the sense of being revised and corrected. It is this which has made these prefatory pages necessary; an introduction from the author’s hand would have precluded all such attempts as weak and impertinent.

As he gave the work in charge with his dying lips, after having no doubt offered it to God in many of his solicitous and elevated thoughts during the preparation, so it is now humbly dedicated to Him, without whose blessing, no human effort, even in the best cause, is other than worthless.

New York, Aug. 1, 1852.