this, as it is better cultivated and directed, it will accomplish in a higher degree, in a continual progression, to which no limit can be assigned. But if the operation of this faculty be to render every other in the highest degree conducive to happiness, conformity to the course of conduct required by it, must of course be that highest happiness. Conformity to the course of conduct pointed out by the moral faculty as conducive in the highest degree to happiness is moral excellence, or, in the definite and exact sense of the word, virtue. And in this sense it is that virtue is happiness. It is because it discriminates the true sources of happiness, that is, directs every other faculty into its proper course, and guides it in that course to the attainment of its ultimate object, that the moral faculty is ranked as the highest faculty of the mind. Supposing the operation of this faculty to be perfect, it is but an identical expression to say, that to follow its guidance implicitly is to follow the road that leads to the most perfect happiness. But, over and above the happiness thus directly and necessarily resulting from yielding uniform and implicit obedience to the moral faculty, there is, in the very consciousness of such conformity, a new happiness, as pure as it is exalted. Thus, in a twofold manner, is the moral the highest faculty of the mind, the source of its highest happiness; and thus manifest it is, from every view that can be taken of the constitution of human nature, that every faculty with which it is endowed, from the highest to the lowest, not only affords its own proper and peculiar pleasure, but that each, as it successively rises in the scale, is proportionately the source of a nobler kind, and a larger amount of enjoyment. And the pleasure afforded by the various faculties with which the human being is endowed is the immediate and direct result of their exercise. With the exception of the organic organs, and the reason for the exception in regard to them has been assigned, the action of the organs is directly pleasurable. From the exercise of the organs of sense, from the operation of the intellectual faculties, from appetite, passion, and affection, pleasure flows as directly as the object for which the instrument is expressly framed.