thofe actions, which amongst them, are judged praiseworthy; and call that Vice, which they account blameable: fince otherwife they would condemn themselves, if they fhould think any thing right, to which they allowed not commendation: any thing wrong, which they let pafs without blame. Thus the measure of what is every where called and efteemed Virtue and Vice, is the approbation or diflike, praise, or blame, which by a fecret and tacit confent establishes itself in the feveral focieties, tribes, and clubs of men in the world; whereby feveral actions come to find credit or *difgrace amongst them, according to the judgment, maxims, or fashions of that place. For though men, uniting into politick focieties, have refigned up to the publick the difpofing of all their force, fo that they cannot employ it against any fellow-citizens any farther than the law of the country directs; yet they retain ftill the power of thinking well or ill, approving or difapproving of the actions of those whom they live amongst, and converfe with: and by this approbation and diflike, 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 confiders, that though that paffes for vice in one country, which is counted a virtue, or at least not vice in another, yet, every where, virtue and praife, vice and blame go together. Virtueis every where that which is thought praife-worthy; and nothing elfe but that which has the allowance of publick efteem, is called Virtue.* Virtue and praife are fo united, that they *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 discourfe concerning the nature of man has given me a late instance, to mention no other. For the civility of his expreffions and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid me to think, that he would have clofed his preface with an infinuation, as if in what Thad faid, book ii. chap. 28, concerning the third rule which men refer their actions to, I went about te are called often by the fame name. Sunt fua præmid laudi, fays Virgil; and so Cicero, Nihil habet natura præftantius, quam honeftatem, quam laudem, quam dignitatem, make virtue vice, and vice virtue, unless he had mistaken my meaning; which he could not have done, if he had but giv en himself the trouble to confider what the argument was I was then upon, and what was the chief defign of that chap. ter, plainly enough fet down in the fourth fection, and those following. For I was there not laying down moral rules, but fhowing the original and nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of in moral relations, wheth er thofe rules were true or falfe: and, pursuant thereunto, I tell what has every where that denomination, which in the language of that place anfwers 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 efteem and fashion of the place, or fect they are of. If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had faid, 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 wright and wrong, and what I call virtue and vice and if he had obferved, that, in the place he quotes, I only report as a 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 fay ing, that one of the rules made ufe of in the world for a ground or measure of a moral relation, is that esteem and reputation which feveral forts of actions find variously in the feveral focieties of men, according to which they are there called virtues or vices and whatever authority the learned Mrr 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 difrepute, paffes for and under the name of vice in another. The taking notice that men beflow 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 fuch points, and to take the alarm, even at expreffions, which flanding alone by themselves might found ill, and be fufpected. quam decus; which he tells you, are all names for the fame thing, Tufc. 1. 2. This is the language of the Heathen philofophers, who well understood wherein It is to this zeal, allowable in his function, that I forgive his citing, as he does, thefe words of mine, in § 11 of this chapter: "The exhortations of inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute: Whatfoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praife," &c. Phil. iv. 8.” without taking notice of thofe 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 preferved; fo that even the exhortations of infpired teachers, ke." 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, through out the world, was the reputation and fashion of each par ticular fociety within itself; but to fhow, that though it were fo, yet, for reafons I there give, men, in that way of de rominating their actions, did not for the most part much va ry from the law of nature which is that standing and unal→ terable rule, by which they ought to judge of the moral rectitude and pravity of their actions, and accordingly de nominate 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 fenfe I used it not; and would, limagine, have fpared the explication he fubjoins to it, as not very neceffary. But I hope this fecond edition will give bim fatisfaction in the point, and that this matter is now fo expreffed, as to fhow him there was no caufe of fcruple. Though I am forced to differ from him in thofe apprehenfions he has expreffed in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had faid about virtue and vice; yet we are better agreed than he thinks in what he fays in his third chapter, p. 78. concerning natural infcription and innate notions. I fhall not deny him the privilege he claims, p. 52. to ftate the queftion as he pleafes, efpecially when he ftates it fo, 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 feveral other circumftances, in order to the foul's exerting them; all that' And though their notions of virtue and vice confifted. perhaps, by the different temper, education, fashion, maxims, or interest of different forts of men, it fell out that what was thought praise-worthy in one place, efcaped not cenfure in another; and fo in different focieties, virtues and vices were changed; yet, as to the he fays for innate, imprinted, impreffed notions (for of innate ideas he fays nothing at all) amounts at laft 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 affiftance 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 first book. For I fuppofe by the foul's exert ing 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 cafe, it misleading men's thoughts by an infinuation, as if thefe 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 thofe circumstances, which this ingenious author thinks neceffary in order to the foul's exerting them, brings them into our knowledge. fenfes, or without Here he fays they When P. 52. I find him exprefs it thus; thefe natural notions are not fo imprinted upon the foul, as that they naturally and neceffarily exert themselves (even in children and ideots) without any affiftance from the outward the help of fome previous cultivation." exert themselves, as p. 78. that the foul exerts them. he has explained to himself or others what he means by the foul's exerting innate notions, or their exerting themselves, and what that previous cultivation and circumftances, in order to their being exerted are; he will, I fuppofe, find there is fo little of controverfy 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 reafon to think he brought in my name upon this occafion only out of the pleafure he has to fpeak civilly of me; which I muft gratefully acknowledge he has done wherever he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as fome others have done, a title I have no right to. main, they for the most part kept the fame every where. 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