Human actions, we have said, are sometimes good, sometimes bad. These two qualifications have degrees in proportion to the importance or the difficulty of the action. It is thus we call an action _suitable_, _estimable_, _beautiful_, _admirable_, _sublime_, etc. On the other hand, a bad action is sometimes but a simple mistake, and sometimes a _crime_. It is _culpable_, _base_, _abominable_, _execrable_, etc.
If we observe in an agent the _habit_ of good actions, a _constant tendency_ to conform to the law of duty, this habit or constant tendency is called _virtue_, and the contrary tendency is called _vice_.
Whilst man feels himself bound by his conscience to seek the _right_, he is impelled by his nature to seek _pleasure_. When he enjoys pleasure without any admixture of pain, he is _happy_; and the highest degree of possible pleasure with the least degree of possible pain is _happiness_. Now, experience shows that happiness is not always in harmony with virtue, and that pleasure does not necessarily accompany right doing.
And yet we find such a separation unjust; and we believe in a natural and legitimate connection between pleasure and right, pain and wrong. Pleasure, considered as the consequence of well-doing, is called _recompense_; and pain, considered as the legitimate consequence of evil, is called _punishment_.
When a man has done well he thinks, and all other men think, that he has a right to a recompense. When he has done ill they think the contrary, and he himself thinks also that he must atone for his wrong-doing by a chastisement. This principle, by virtue of which we declare a moral agent deserving of happiness or unhappiness according to his good or bad actions, is called the principle of merit and demerit.
The sum total of the rewards and punishments attached to the execution or violation of a law is called sanction; the sanction of the moral law will then be called _moral sanction_.
All law presupposes a legislator. The moral law will presuppose, then, a _moral_ legislator, and morality consequently raises us to God. All human or earthly sanction being shown by observation to be insufficient, the moral law calls for a religious sanction. It is thus that morality conducts us to the _immortality of the soul_.