about them. Where they had no philosophical notions, there they had no terms to express them: and it is no wonder men should have framed no names for those things they found no occasion to discourse of. From whence it is easy to imagine why, as in some countries, they may not have so much as the name for a horse; and in others, where they are more careful of the pedigrees of their horses than of their own, that there they may have not only names for particular horses, but also of their several relations of kindred one to another.

3. Instituted. Thirdly. Sometimes the foundation of considering things with reference to one another, is some act whereby any one comes by a moral right, power, or obligation to do something. Thus a general is one that hath power to command an army; and an army under a general is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man. A citizen or a burgher is one who has a right to certain privileges in this or that place. All this sort depending upon men's wills, or agreement in society, I call "instituted," or "voluntary," and may be distinguished from the natural, in that they are, most if not all of them, some way or other alterable and separable from the persons to whom they have sometimes belonged, though neither of the substances so related be destroyed. Now, though these are all reciprocal, as well as the rest, and contain in them a reference of two things one to the other; yet, because one of the two things often wants a relative name importing that reference, men usually take no notice of it, and the relation is commonly overlooked, v. g. a patron and client are easily allowed to be relations: but a constable or dictator are not so readily, at first hearing, considered as such; because there is no peculiar name for those who are under the command of a dictator or constable, expressing a relation to either of them; though it be certain that either of them hath a certain power over some others; and so is so far related to them, as well as a patron is to his client, or general to his army.

4. Moral.-Fourthly. There is another sort of relation, which is the conformity or disagreement men's voluntary actions have to a rule to which they are referred, and by which they are judged of; which, I think, may be called "moral relation," as being that which denominates our moral actions, and deserves well to be examined, there being no part of knowledge wherein we should be more careful to get determined ideas, and avoid, as much as may be, obscurity and confusion. Human actions, when, with their various ends, objects, manners, and circumstances, they are framed into distinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, so many mixed modes, a great part whereof have names affixed to them. Thus, supposing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return kindness received; polygamy to be the having more wives than one at once: when we frame these notions thus in our minds, we have there so many determined ideas of mixed modes. But this is not all that concerns our actions; it is not enough to have determined ideas of them, and to know what names belong to such and such combinations of ideas. We have a farther and greater

concernment; and that is, to know whether such actions so made up are morally good or bad.

5. Moral good and evil.-Good and evil, as hath been shown, (book ii. chap. xx. sect. 2, and chap. xxi. sect. 42,) are nothing but pleasure or pain, or that which occasions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil, then, is only the conformity or disagreement of our voluntary actions to some law, whereby good and evil is drawn on us from the will and power of the law-maker; which good and evil, pleasure or pain, attending our observance or breach of the law, by the decree of the law-maker, is that we call "reward" and "punishment."

6. Moral rules. Of these moral rules or laws, to which men generally refer, and by which they judge of the rectitude or pravity of their actions, there seem to me to be three sorts, with their three different enforcements, or rewards and punishments. For since it would be utterly in vain to suppose a rule set to the free actions of man, without annexing to it some enforcement of good and evil to determine his will, we must, wherever we suppose a law, suppose also some reward or punishment annexed to that law. It would be in vain for one intelligent being to set a rule to the actions of another, if he had it not in his power to reward the compliance with, and punish deviation from, his rule, by some good and evil that is not the natural product and consequence of the action itself. For that, being a natural convenience or inconvenience, would operate of itself without a law. This, if I mistake not, is the true nature of all law, properly so called."

7. Laws. The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their rectitude or obliquity, seem to me to be these three: (1.) The divine law. (2.) The civil law. (3.) The law of opinion or reputation, if I may so call it. By the relation they bear to the first of these, men judge whether their actions are sins or duties; by the second, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third, whether they be virtues or vices.

8. Divine law, the measure of sin and duty.-First. The divine law, whereby I mean the law which God has set to the actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature, or the voice of revelation. That God has given a rule whereby men should govern themselves, I think there is nobody so brutish as to deny. He has a right to do it; we are his creatures. He has goodness and wisdom to direct our actions to that which is best; and. he has power to enforce it by rewards and punishments, of infinite weight and duration, in another life; for nobody can take us out of his hands. This is the only true touchstone of moral rectitude; and by comparing them to this law, it is that men judge of the most considerable moral good or evil of their actions; that is, whether as duties or sins they are like to procure them happiness or misery from the hands of the Almighty.

9. Civil law, the measure of crimes and innocence.-Secondly. The civil law, the rule set by the commonwealth to the actions of those who belong to it, is another rule to which men refer their actions, to judge whether they be criminal or no. This law nobody

overlooks; the rewards and punishments that enforce it being ready at hand, and suitable to the power that makes it; which is the force of the commonwealth, engaged to protect the lives, liberties, and possessions of those who live according to its laws, and has power to take away life, liberty, or goods from him who disobeys; which is the punishment of offences committed against this law.

10. Philosophical law, the measure of virtue and vice.-Thirdly, The law of opinion or reputation. "Virtue" and "vice" are names pretended and supposed everywhere to stand for actions in their own nature right or wrong: and as far as they really are so applied, they so far are co-incident with the divine law above-mentioned. But yet, whatever is pretended, this is visible, that these names, "virtue" and "vice," in the particular instances of their application, through the several nations and societies of men in the world, are constantly attributed only to such actions as in each country and society are in reputation or discredit. Nor is it to be thought strange, that men everywhere should give the name of "virtue" to those actions which amongst them are judged praiseworthy; and call that "vice," which they account blamable: since otherwise they would condemn themselves, if they should think any thing right, to which they allowed not condemnation; any thing wrong, which they let pass without blame. Thus the measure of what is everywhere called and esteemed "virtue" and "vice," is this approbation or dislike, praise or blame, which by a secret and tacit consent establishes itself in the several societies, tribes, and clubs of men in the world, whereby several actions come to find credit or disgrace amongst them, according to the judgment, maxims, or fashions of that place. For though men uniting into politic societies have resigned up to the public the disposing of all their force, so that they cannot employ it against any fellow-citizen any farther than the law of the country directs; yet they retain still the power of thinking well or ill, approving or disapproving, of the actions of those whom they live amongst, and converse with'; and by this approbation and dislike, they establish amongst themselves what they will call "virtue" and "vice."

11. That this is the common measure of virtue and vice, will appear to any one who considers, that though that passes for vice in one country which is counted a virtue, or at least not vice, in .another; yet everywhere virtue and praise, vice and blame, go together. Virtue is everywhere that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called "virtue." Virtue and praise are so united, that they are called often by the same name. Sunt sua præmia laudi, says Virgil; and so Cicero, Nihil habet natura præstantius quàm honestatem, quàm laudem, quàm dignitatem, quàm decus; which, he tells you, are all names for the same thing. (Tusc. lib. 2.) This is the language of the heathen philosophers, who well understood wherein their notions of virtue and vice consisted. And though, perhaps, by the different temper, education,

* See note at the end of this chapter.-EDIT.

fashion, maxims, or interest of different sorts of men, it fell out, that what was thought praiseworthy in one place escaped not censure in another; and so in different societies virtues and vices were changed yet, as to the main, they for the most part kept the same everywhere. For since nothing can be more natural than to encourage with esteem and reputation that wherein every one finds his advantage, and to blame and discountenance the contrary, it is no wonder that esteem and discredit, virtue and vice, should in a great measure everywhere correspond with the unchangeable rule of right and wrong which the law of God hath established; there being nothing that so directly and visibly secures and advances the general good of mankind in this world, as obedience to the laws he has set them, and nothing that breeds such mischiefs and confusion as the neglect of them. And therefore men, without renouncing all sense and reason, and their own interest, which they are so constantly true to, could not generally mistake in placing their commendation and blame on that side that really deserved it not. Nay, even those men whose practice was otherwise, failed not to give their approbation right, few being depraved to that degree as not to condemn, at least in others, the faults they themselves were guilty of: whereby, even in the corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of nature, which ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty well preserved. So that even the

exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute: "Whatsoever is lovely, whatsoever is of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," &c. (Phil. iv. 8.)

12. Its enforcements, commendation, and discredit.-If any one shall imagine that I have forgot my own notion of a law, when I make the law whereby men judge of virtue and vice to be nothing else but the consent of private men who have not authority enough to make a law; especially wanting that which is so necessary and essential to a law, a power to enforce it: I think I may say, that he who imagines commendation and disgrace not to be strong motives on men to accommodate themselves to the opinions and rules of those with whom they converse, seems little skilled in the nature or history of mankind: the greatest part whereof he shall find to govern themselves chiefly, if not solely, by this law of fashion; and, so they do that which keeps them in reputation with their company, little regard the laws of God or the magistrate. The penalties that attend the breach of God's laws, some, nay, perhaps most, men seldom seriously reflect on; and amongst those that do, many, whilst they break the law, entertain thoughts of future reconciliation, and making their peace for such breaches: and as to the punishments due from the laws of the commonwealth, they frequently flatter themselves with the hope of impunity. But no man escapes the punishment of their censure and dislike who offends against the fashion and opinion of the company he keeps, and would recommend himself to. Nor is there one of ten thousand who is stiff and insensible enough to bear up under the constant dislike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unusual constitution who can content

himself to live in constant disgrace and disrepute with his own particular society. Solitude many men have sought, and been reconciled to: but nobody that has the least thought or sense of a man about him, can live in society under the constant dislike and ill opinion of his familiars, and those he converses with. This is a burden too heavy for human sufferance: and he must be made up of irreconcilable contradictions, who can take pleasure in company, and yet be insensible of contempt and disgrace from his companions. 13. These three laws the rules of moral good and evil.-These three, then, First, The law of God, Secondly, The law of politic societies, Thirdly, The law of fashion, or private censure,-are those to which men variously compare their actions: and it is by their conformity to one of these laws that they take their measures, when they would judge of their moral rectitude, and denominate their actions good or bad.

14. Morality is the relation of actions to these rules.-Whether the rule to which, as to a touchstone, we bring our voluntary actions to examine them by, and try their goodness, and accordingly to name them; which is, as it were, the mark of the value we set upon them: whether, I say, we take that rule from the fashion of the country, or the will of a law-maker, the mind is easily able 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 not conformity of any action to that rule: and therefore is often called "moral rectitude." This rule being nothing but a collection of several simple ideas, the conformity thereto is but so ordering the action that the simple ideas belonging to it may correspond to those which the law requires. And thus we see how moral beings and notions are founded on, and terminated in, these simple ideas we have received from sensation or reflection. For example, let us consider the complex idea we signify by the word "murder;" and when we have taken it asunder, and examined all the particulars, we shall find them to amount to a collection of simple ideas derived from reflection or sensation, viz. First. From reflection on the operations of our own minds, we have the ideas of willing, considering, purposing beforehand, malice, or wishing ill to another; and also of life, or perception, and self-motion. Secondly. From sensation, we have the collection of those simple sensible ideas which are to be found in a man, and of some action whereby we put an end to perception and motion in the man ; all which simple ideas are comprehended in the word "murder." This collection of simple ideas being found by me to agree or disagree with the esteem of the country I have been bred in, and to be held by most men there worthy praise or blame, I call the action "virtuous" or "vicious:" if I have the will of a supreme, invisible law-maker for my rule, then, as I suppose the action commanded or forbidden by God, I call it "good" or "evil," "sin" or "duty:" and if I compare it to the civil law, the rule made by the legislative power of the country, I call it "lawful" or "unlawful," a "crime" or no crime." So that whencesoever we take the rule of