Excerpt from Essays on the Principles of Morality: And on the Private and Political Rights and Obligations of Mankind

The author of this work died in the spring of 1828, leaving in manuscript the three essays of which it consists. We learn from himself that the undertaking originated in a belief (in which he probably is far from being alone) that the existing treatises on moral philosophy did not exhibit the principles nor enforce the obligations of morality in all their perfection and purity, that a work was yet wanted which should present a true and authoritative standard of rectitude - one by an appeal to which the moral character of human actions might be rightly estimated. This he here endeavors to supply.

Rejecting what he considered the false grounds of duty, and erroneous principles of action which are proposed in the most prominent and most generally received of our extant theories of moral obligation, he preceeds to erect a system of morality upon what he regards as the only true and legitimate basis - the will of God.

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