But it is more important in another respect; for it enables the author to avoid the difficulty of finding any principle according to which the moral sense may be related to the empirical content of action. As long as the moral sense was simply spoken of as a feeling of pleasure, it could be conveniently regarded as the consequent of external actions. But if it is an internal sense distinct from pleasure, it is easier to relate it to what he calls our internal powers or affections than to action. The moral sense, then, is to be the regulator of all our powers; and by means of it Hutcheson attempts to reduce human nature to a scale of morality. [Sidenote: but its grounds of preference] [Sidenote: mainly depend not on the nature of the affection, but on its objects.] It is to be noted that, in the classification he offers,[98] what are commonly called the virtues of candour, veracity, &c., are not accounted virtues at all, but only immediately connected with virtuous affections: these are identified with the "kind" or benevolent affections, directed to the happiness of sentient beings. Within the latter there are two grounds of preference: the deliberate affections are preferred to the passionate; those which are more extensive in the range of their objects to the less extensive. With regard to the former ground of preference, the "moral sense" of the community has perhaps undergone some modification since Hutcheson's time, and looks upon enthusiasm with less suspicion than it formerly did. The other ground of preference ascribed to the moral sense refers not so much to the affection itself--which is the direct or immediate object of the moral sense--as to the way in which the affection is applied, the number of the objects to which it is directed. The affection of benevolence is the same in nature whether its object be wide or restricted; though difference in this respect profoundly influences the actions to which it leads. The object approved or most approved by the moral sense is therefore, according to Hutcheson, utilitarian conduct, or rather, as he would say, the calm disposition leading thereto.[99] In this way he obtains a principle for determining the morality of actions; but only through the arbitrary assertion that this principle is immediately approved by the moral sense. The connection of the moral sense with an object such as universal benevolence could only be made out by showing a rational, or at any rate an organic union between individual sentiment and social wellbeing; and Hutcheson, like Shaftesbury, has no conception of attempting this in any other way than the traditional one of exhibiting the personal advantages of benevolent conduct, and the disadvantages that accompany selfishness. * * * * * [Sidenote: (_c_) Third view of the moral sense.] [Sidenote: Butler.] [Sidenote: Conscience an authoritative law,]