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On the words RIGHT and WRONG.

Mr. TooKE begins his account of these words strangely, by telling us he does not know what other people mean by them; as if it could be of much importance what he, or any individual, meant by them, if he meant not the same as other people do. And, if he has explained his meaning truly, I think it will not be doubted, that he did understand those words in a manner peculiar to himself.

"RIGHT is no other than RECT-um (regitum), the past participle of the Latin verb regere, and "means ordered, commanded, or directed.

"Thus when a man demands his RIGHT, he "asks only what it is ordered he shall have.

"A RIGHT Conduct is that which is ordered.” "A RIGHT line is, that which is ordered or di"rected (not a random extension, but) the

"shortest between two points.

* H.-What do you mean by the words RIGHT and WRONG? F. What do I mean by those words

them.

H.-And what is that?

what every other person means by

F-Nay, you know that as well as I do.

H.-Yes, but not better: and therefore not at all. — Vol. ii. p. 3.

"The RIGHT road is, that ordered or directed "" to be pursued for the object you have in view. "To do RIGHT is to do that which is ordered to " be done.

"To be in the RIGHT is, to be in such situa"tions or circumstances as are ordered. — Vol. ii. p. 7-12.

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"WRONG is the past participle of the verb, "to wring, vringan, torquere. The word answering to it in Italian is torto, the past participle of "the verb torquere; whence the French also have "tort. It means merely wrung or wrested from "the Right, or ordered line of conduct."— Vol. ii. p. 89.

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Mr. Dugald Stewart quotes these passages in his Philosophical Essays, as an instance of the extravagance to which Mr. Tooke has carried his system; and observes, in a note (page 215, second edition) - -" The application of the same word to "denote a straight line, and moral rectitude of conduct, has obtained in every language I know; "and might, I think, be satisfactorily explained, without founding the theory of morality upon a philological nostrum concerning past participles." To trace the very different senses or applications of the word RIGHT from its primitive meaning, would be a task not unworthy of that distinguished philosopher who has so successfully illustrated the " generalizations" of the terms BEAUTIFUL and SUBLIME. It is a task which I shall not attempt; it will be sufficient here to observe, that

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straightness is aimed at in many works of art. In these, therefore, to be straight is often to be right in the secondary sense of the word.* A straight line has been said to be the line of business, and before the refinement of taste it was considered the line of beauty.

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We are told by Mr. Harris (in his Hermes, book iii. ch. 1. note c.) that "the original meaning of "the word YAH, was SILVA, a wooD. Hence as "WOOD was perhaps the first and most useful "kind of Material, the word "Yλn, which denoted it, came to be by degrees extended, and at length to denote MATTER or MATERIALS in general. In this sense Brass was called the "Yλn "or Matter of a statue; Stone, the "Yλn or Matter "of a pillar; and so in other instances. * "With philosophers every thing was called "Yλn, "or Matter, whether corporeal or incorporeal, "which was capable of becoming something else, or

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of being moulded into something else, whether "from the operation of Art, of Nature, or a higher "Cause. In this sense they not only called Brass "the "Yan of a statue, and Timber of a boat, but "letters and syllables they called the "Yλar of

*We may account in the same manner for such expressions as these :

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"Words; Words or simple Terms, the “Yλaɩ of Propositions; and Propositions themselves the " "Yat of Syllogisms."

Nothing can be more analogous to the supposed transference of the word denoting straightness, which was right in many things, to denote RIGHT in general, and where straight and crooked had nothing to do. In the same manner the epithet SUBLIME is applied to things which have nothing to do with height; BEAUTIFUL, to things that have nothing to do with colour or form; SWEET, to things not tasted, &c.

That the original and literal meaning of the word RIGHT is not "ordered or commanded," but straight, appears not only from the circumstance mentioned by Mr. Stewart, that in many other, if not in all languages, the same word is employed to denote a straight line and moral rectitude, but from this, that the contrary term wrong, torto, cannot by any twisting be made to signify not ordered or directed. Besides we find the same allusion frequently made in unequivocal terms.

Scilicet ut possem curvo dignoscere rectum.

Horat.

The more I see the impossibility from the number and extent of his crimes, of giving equivalent punishment to a wicked man in this life, the more I am convinced of a future state, in which all that here appears wrong shall be set right, all that is crooked made straight.— Franklin's Letters.

This wrong connexion in our minds of ideas in themselves loose and independent of one another, has such an influence, and is of so great a force to set us awry in our actions, as well moral

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as natural, that perhaps there is not any one thing that deserves more to be looked after. - Locke.

By this organ (the eye) we can often perceive what is straight and what is crooked, in the mind as well as the body. — Reid. Much of the soul they talk, but all awry.

You married ones,

Milton.

If each of you would take this course, how many
Must murder wives much better than themselves,
For wrying but a little.

Cymbeline, Act v. sc. 1.

Mr. Tooke may have been led to think the original meaning of Right was "ordered or commanded," by the circumstance of our considering or talking of Morality as consisting in the observance of certain rules; it might perhaps be suggested to him by the following passage in Locke's Essay, of which work he was so great an admirer.

"Whether the rule, to which as to a touchstone "we bring our voluntary actions to examine them

by and try their goodness, and accordingly "name them; whether, I say, we take that rule "from the fashion of the country, or the will of

a lawgiver, the mind is easily led to observe "the relation any action hath to it; and to judge "whether the action agrees or disagrees with the "rule, and so hath a notion of moral goodness or "evil, which is either conformity or non-conformity of any action to that rule: and therefore "is often called Moral Rectitude." On Moral Relations.