one of ten thousand, who is ftiff and infenfible enough to bear up under the conftant diflike and condemnation of his own club. He must be of a strange and unufual conftitution who can content himself to live in conftant difgrace and difrepute with his own particu lar fociety. Solitude many men have fought, and been réconciled to; but nobody, that has the least thought or fenfe of a man about him, can live in fociety under the conftant diflike and ill opinion of his familiars, and those he converfes with: This is a burden too heavy for human fufferance: And he must be made up of irreconcileable contradictions, who can take pleasure in company, and yet be infenfible of contempt and difgrace from his companions.

13. These three Laws the Rules of Moral Good and Evil. THESE three then, Firft, the law of God; Secondly, The law of politic focieties; Thirdly, the law of fashion or private cenfure, are those to which men variously compare their actions: And it is by their conformity to one of thefe 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 thefe Rules. WHETHER the rule, to which, as to a touchstone, we bring our voluntary actions to examine them by, and try their goodnefs, and accordingly to name them, which is, as it were, the mark of the value we set upon them; whether, I fay, we take that rule from the fashion of the country, or the will of a law-maker, the mind is eafily able to obferve the relation any action hath to it, and to judge whether the action agrees or disagrees with the rule; and fo 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 feveral fimple ideas, the conformity thereto is but fo ordering the action, that the fimple ideas belonging to it may correfpond to those which the law requires: And thus we see how moral beings and notions are founded on, and terminated in thefe fimple ideas we have receiv

Book II. ed from fenfation or reflection: For example, let us confider the complex idea we fignify by the word murder; and when we have taken it afunder, and examined all the particulars, we fhall find them to amount to a collection of fimple ideas derived from reflection or fenfation, viz. Firf, From reflection on the operations of our minds, we have the ideas of willing, confidering, purpofing before-hand, malice, or wifhing ill to ano ther; and alfo of life, or perception, and felf-motion. Secondly, From fenfation we have the collection of those fimple fenfible ideas which are to be found in a man, and of fome action, whereby we put an end to perception and motion in the man; all which fimple ideas are comprehended in the word murder. This collection of fimple ideas being found by me to agree or dif agree with the esteem of the country I have been bred in, and to be held by moft men there worthy praise or blame, I call the action virtuous or vicious: If I have the will of a fupreme invifible law-maker for my rule; then, as I fuppofed the action commanded or forbidden by God, I call it good or evil, fin or duty: And if I compare it to the civil law, the rule made by the legi flative power of the country, I call it lawful or unlawful, a crime or no crime. So that whencefoever we take the rule of moral actions, or by what ftandard foever we frame in our minds the ideas of virtues or vices, they corfift only, and are made up of collections of fimple idens, which we originally received from fenfe or reflection; and their rectitude or obliquity confifts in the agreement or difagreement with thofe patterns prefcribed by fome law.

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To conceive rightly of meral actions, we must take notice of them under this twofold confideration. First, as they are in themselves each made up of fuch a collection of fimple ideas. Thus drunkenness, or lying, fignify fuch or fuch a collection of fimple ideas, which I call mixed modes; and in this fenfe they are as much pofitive abfolute ideas, as the drinking of a horfe, or, fpeaking of a parrot. Secondly, our actions are confidered as good, bad, or indifferent; and in this refpect

they are relative, it being their conformity to, or difagreement with fome rule that makes them to be regular or irregular, good or bad; and fo, as far as they are compared, with a rule, and thereupon denominated, they come under relation.. Thus the challenging and fighting with a man, as it is a certain pofitive mode, or particular fort of action, by particular ideas, diflinguished from all others, is called duelling; which when confidered, in relation to the law, of God, will deferve the name fin; to the law of fashion, in fome countries, valour and virtue, and to the municipal laws of fome governments, a capital crime. In this cafe, when the pofitive mode has one name, and another name as it tands in relation to the law, the diftinction may as eafily be obferved, as it is in fubftances, where one name, v. g, man, is ufed to fignify the thing; another, v, g-father, to fignify the relation.

16. The Denominations of Actions often miflcad us. Bur because very frequently the pofitive idea of the action, and its moral relation, are comprehended together under one name, and the fame word made ufe of to exprefs both the mode or action, and its moral rectitude or obliquity; therefore the relation itfelf is lefs taken notice of, and there is often no diftinction made between the pofitive idea of the action, and the reference it has to a rule. By which confusion of these two distinct confiderations under one term, thofe who yield too eafily to the impreffions of founds, and are forward to take names for things, are often mifled in their judgment of actions. Thus, the taking from another what is his, without his knowledge or allowance, is properly called flealing; but that name being commonly understood to fignify alfo the moral pravity of the action, and to denote its contrariety to the law, men are apt to condemn whatever they hear called ftealing, as an ill action, difagreeing with the rule of right. And yet the private taking away his fword from a madman, to prevent his doing mifchief, though it be properly denominated fealing, as the name of fuch a mixed mode, yet when compared to the law of God,. and confidered in its relation to that fupreme rule, it is

no fin or tranfgreffion, though the name fealing ordinarily carries fuch an intimation with it.

17. Relations innumerable.

AND thus much for the relation of human actions to a law, which therefore I call moral relations.

It would make a volume to go over all forts of relations; it is not therefore to be expected, that I fhould here mention them all. It fuffices to our prefent purpose, to fhow by thefe, what the ideas are we have of this comprehenfive confideration, called relations Which is fo various, and the occafions of it fo many, (as many as there can be of comparing things one to another) that it is not very eafy to reduce it to rules, or under juft heads: Thofe I have mentioned, I think, are fome of the most confiderable, and fuch as may serve to let us fee from whence we get our ideas of relations, and wherein they are founded. But before I quit this argument, from what has been faid, give me leave to obferve:

18. All Relations terminate in fimple Ideas. FIRST, that it is evident, that all relation terminates in, and is ultimately founded on thofe fimple ideas we have got from fenfation or reflection; fo that all we have in our thoughts ourselves, (if we think of any thing, or have any meaning) or would fignify to others, when we use words ftanding for relations, is nothing but fome fimple ideas, or collections of fimple ideas, compared one with another: This is fo manifeft in that fort called propor tional, that nothing can be more; for when a man fays, honey is sweeter than wax, it is plain that his thoughts in this relation terminate in this fimple idea, fweetness ; which is equally true of all the reft, though where they are compounded or decompounded, the fimple ideas they are made up of, are, perhaps, feldom taken notice of; v. g. when the word father is mentioned; first, there is meant that particular species, or collective idea, fignified by the word man; fecondly, thofe fimple ideas fignified by the word generation; and thirdly, the effects of it, and all the fimple ideas fignified by the word child. So the word friend being taken for a man who

loves, and is ready to do good to another, has all these following ideas to the making of it up; fir, All the fimple ideas comprehended in the word man, or intelligent being; fecondly, The idea of love; thirdly, The idea of readinefs or difpofition; fourthly, The idea of action, which is any kind of thought or motion; fifthly, The idea of good, which fignifies any thing that may advance his happiness, and terminates at laft, if examuu ed, in particular fimple ideas; of which the word good in general fignifies any one, but if removed from all himple ideas quite, it fignifies nothing at all. And thus alfo all moral words terminate at last, though perhaps more remotely, in a collection of fimple ideas, the immediate fignification of relative words, being very often other fuppofed known relations, which, if traced one to another, ftill end in fimple ideas.

§ 19. We have ordinarily as clear (or clearer) a Notion of the Relation as of its Foundation.

SECONDLY, That in relations, we have for the most part, if not always, as clear a notion of the relation, as we bave of thofe fimple ideas wherein it is founded; agreement or difagreement, whereon relation depends, being things whereof we have commonly as clear ideas, as of any other whatsoever; it being but the diftinguishing fimple ideas, or their degrees one from another, without which we could have no diftinct knowledge at all: For if I have a clear idea of sweetness, light or extenfion, I have too, of equal, or more or lefs of each of thefe: If I know what it is for one man to be born of a woman, viż. Sempronia, I know what it is for another man to be born of the fame woman, Sempronia; and so have as clear a notion of brothers as of births, and perhaps clearer For if I believed that Sempronia dug Titus out of the parfley-bed (as they use to tell children) and thereby became his mother; and that afterwards, in the fame. manner, the dug Caius out of the parfley-bed, I had as clear a notion of the relation of brothers between them, as if I had all the skill of a midwife: the notion that the fame woman contributed, as mother, equally to their births (though I were ignorant or mistaken in the man