SENSE, MORAL, is a determination of the mind to be pleased with the contemplation of those affections, actions, or characters, of rational agents, which we call good or virtuous.
This moral sense of beauty in actions and affections, may appear strange at first view: some of our moralists themselves are offended at it in lord Shaftes-
bury, as being accustomed to deduce every approbation, or aversion, from rational views of interest. Our gentlemen of good taste can tell us of a great many senses, tastes, and relishes, for beauty, harmony, imitation in painting and poetry; and may we not find too, in mankind, a relish for a beauty in characters, in manners? The truth is, human nature does not seem to have been left quite indifferent in the affair of virtue, to form to itself observations concerning the advantage or disadvantage of actions, and accordingly to regulate its conduct. The weakness of our reason, and the avocations arising from the infirmities and necessities of our nature, are so great, that very few of mankind could have framed those long deductions of reason, which may show some actions to be, in the whole, advantageous, and their contraries pernicious. The Author of Nature has much better furnished us for a virtuous conduct than our moralists seem to imagine, by almost as quick and powerful instructions as we have for the preservation of our bodies: he has made virtue a lovely form, to excite our pursuit of it; and has given us strong affections, to be the springs of each virtuous action. See MORAL Philosophy, (Encycl.)