§ 6. Moral rules.

Or 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 men, 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 iaw, 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. s. 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 that 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 every where to stand for actions in their own nature right and wrong; and as far as they really are so applied, they so far are coincident 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 every where should give the name of virtue to those actions, which amongst them are judged praise-worthy; and call that vice, which they account blameable : since otherwise they would condemn themselves if they should think any thing right, to which they allowed not commendation: any thing wrong, which they let pass without blame. Thus the measure of what is every where called and esteemed virtue and vice, is the 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 judgement, maxims, or fashions of that place. For though men, uniting to politic societies, have resigned up to the public the disposing of all their force, so that they cannot employ it against any fellow-citizens 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 among themselves what they will call virtue and vice.

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, every where, virtue and praise, vice and blame, go together. Virtue is every where that which is thought praise-worthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem, is called virtue.* Virtue and praise are so united, that they are

Our author, in his preface to the fourth edition, taking notice how apt men have been to mistake him, added what here follows: Of this the ingenious author of the discourse concerning the nature of man has given me a late inftance, to mention no other. For the civility of his expreffions, and the candor that belongs to his order, forbid me to think, that he would have closed his preface with an infinuation, as if in what I had said, book ii. chap. 28, concerning the third rule which men refer their actions to, I went about to make `virtue_vice, and vice virtue, unless he had mistaken my meaning; which he could not have done, if he had but given himself the trouble to confider what the argument was I was then upon, and what was the chief design of that chapter, plainly enough set down in the fourth section, and those following. For I was there not laying down moral rules, but showing the original and nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of in moral relations, whether those rules were true or false: and, pursuant thereunto, I tell what has every where that denomination, which in the language of that place answers to virtue and vice in ours; which alters not the nature of things, though men do generally judge of, and denominate their actions according to the esteem and fashion of the place, or fect they are of.

If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, b. i. c. 3. § 18, and in this prefent chapter, § 13, 14, 15, and 20, he would have known what I think of the eternal and unalterable nature of right and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice and if he had obferved, that in the place he quotes, I only re port as matter of fact what others call virtue and vice, he would not have found it liable to any great exception. For, I think, I am not much out in faying, that one of the rules made use of in the world for a ground or measure of a moral relation, is that esteem and reputation which several forts of actions find variously in the several societies of men, according to which they are there called virtues or vices: and whatever authority the learned Mr. Lowde places in his old English dictionary, I dare fay it no where tells him (if I should appeal to it) that the fame action is not in credit, called and counted a virtue in one place, which being in disrepute, passes for and under the name of vice in another. The taking notice that men bestow the names of virtue and vice according to this rule of reputation, is all I have done, or can be laid to my charge to have done, towards the making vice virtue, and virtue vice. But the good man does well, and as becomes his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm, even at expreffions, which standing alone by themselves might found ill, and be suspected.

It is to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his citing, as he does, these words of mine, in 11, of this chapter; "The exhortations of in fpired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute: Whatsoever

called often by the same name. Sunt sua premia laudi, says Virgil; and so Cicero, Nihil habet natura præstantius, quam honestatem, quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus; which, he

things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,' &c. Phil. iv. 8." without taking notice of those immediately preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: whereby 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, &c." by which words, and the rest of that fection, it is plain that I brought that paffage of St. Paul, not to prove that the general measure of what men call virtue and vice, thoughout the world, was the reputation and fashion of each particular fociety within itself; but to show, that though it were so, yet for reasons I there give, men, in that way of denominating their actions, did not for the most part much vary from the law of nature which is that standing and unalterable rule, by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude and pravity of their actions, and accordingly denominate them virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde confidered this, he would have found it little to his purpose to have quoted that paffage in a sense I used it not; and would I imagine, have spared the explication he subjoins to it, as not very neceffary. But I hope this fecond edition will give him fatisfaction in the point, and that this matter is now fo expreffed, as to fhow him there was no cause of scruple.

:

Though I am forced to differ from him in those apprehenfions he has expreffed in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had said about virtue and vice; yet we are better agreed than he thinks, in what he says in his third chapter, p. 78. concerning natural inscription and innate notions. I fhall not deny him the privilege he claims, p. 52. to state the question as he pleases, especially when he states it so, as to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have faid for, according to him, innate notions being conditional things, depending upon the concurrence of several other circumstances, in order to the foul's exerting them; all that he says for innate, imprinted, impressed notions (for of innate ideas he fays nothing at all) amounts at last only to this: that there are certain propofitions, which though the foul from the beginning, or when a man is born, does not know, yet by affistance from the outward fenfes, and the help of fome previous cultivation, it may afterwards come certainly to know the truth of; which is no more than what I have affirmed in my firft book. For I fuppofe, by the foul's exerting them, he means its beginning to know them, or else the foul's exerting of notions will be to me a very unintelligible expreffion; and I think at best is a very unfit one in this case, it misleading men's thoughts by an infinuation, as if these notions were in the mind before the foul exerts them, i. e. before they are known: whereas, truly before they are known, there is nothing of them in the mind, but a capacity to know them, when the concurrence of those circumstances, which this ingenious author thinks neceffary in order to the foul's exerting them, brings them into our knowledge.

P. 52. I find him express it thus; "thefe natural notions are not so imprinted

tells you, are all names for the same thing, Tusc. lib. ii. 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, fashion, maxims, or interests of different sorts of men, it fell out that what was thought praise-worthy 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 every where. 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 every where 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 preferred. So that even the exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute: "Whatsoever is lovely, whatsoever upon the foul, as that they naturally and neceffarily exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any assistance from the outward fenfes, or without the help of some previous cultivation." Here he fays they exert themselves, as p. 78. that the foul exerts them. When he has explained to himself or others what he means by the foul's exerting innate notions, or their exerting themfelves, and what that previous cultivation and circumstances, in order to their being exerted, are; he will, I fuppofe, find there is fo little of controversy between him and me in the point, bating that he calls that exerting of notions which I in a more vulgar style call knowing, that I have reason to think he brought in my name upon this occafion only out of the pleasure he has to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has done whereever he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as fome others have done, a title I have no right to.