by the natural fenfe they have of what is good: but not that thofe perfons do not act contrary to their own confciences, unless we can fuppofe every man as good as he knows himself obliged to be.*

§ 8, page 38. Education, cuftom, company, and human laws, may add new force to the laws of nature; but if there be no foundations laid in the conftitution of our natures, for the diftinction between virtue and vice antecedent to them, I doubt they will prove but weak and uncertain, because they will depend upon contingent caufes; and the confequence of this doctrine will prove very dangerous to the foundation of morality and natural religion. But though falfe notions in religion may go a great way to corrupt men's manners and tempers, yet we never heard of any that were fo far corrupted as to own it lawful to kill an innocent perfon, or break any law of nature merely out of confcience. It is not confcience, (whatever is pretended, but fome irregular paffion, mingled with religious phrenzy, that oftentimes proves fo venomous and mifchievous.t

$9, page 38. Admitting thefe practices to be true, yet they do not prove that thefe people were seholly ignorant of the laws of nature, only that they were fuch monfters of men as not to regard and attend to them as they ought; befides, in all thefe inftances, there is no mention of any laws of the country to oblige the people to thefe enormities. It is one thing not to punish or allow another to command or reward. But fuppofe they were commanded, yet that would not demonftrate that they knew no better. There is a famous inftance to the contrary in the Romans expedition againft Cyprus. And therefore to make any of thefe practices

* Lee, p. 18. + Ibid. p. 19.

See this objection answered in § 1**

a convincing argument against innate principles of morality and religion, there must be proof, that the perfons who committed them were under no prejudices, under the power of no paffions, fear, or hopes of more prefent advantages or difadvantages than what nature fuggefts for the contrary practices.

For the whole ftate of the question is, not whether men can act contrary to these principles or not; for in that point there is no difpute: nor whether they be ftamped upon the fouls of all men as foon as they are united to their bodies; that is an idle thing to talk for or against; but whether human nature be not fo conftituted by the wife Author of it, as to be more inclined to the observance of fome rules of action, for the pro-' moting their own, and the happiness of mankind, than the breach of them; or in other words, whether all men, or any one man, is free from all fenfe of duty, and indifferent to all forts of actions? And I appeal to the fense of mankind, whether they do not feel, within themselves, an inclination to one, and an abhorrence to the other fort of actions, fuch as are here mentioned; and this abhorrence I call natural confcience, and is a demonstration, that we are all born with an inclination to the obfervance of those rules we call the laws of nature.*

§ 10, page 40. This may be owned true, and yet be no good proof that thofe rules of morality are not founded in nature, unless it be proved, that those people who do or have flighted them, have, all things confidered, fared the better for it.†

§ 13, page 43. I allow there is fuch a thing, which may be called a moral fenfe, in the mind, which inclines a man to judge right, and especially in the more general, plain, and obvious queries about virtue

VOL. I.

* Lee, p. 21.

+Ibid. p. 23.

C

and

and vice: But this moral fenfe is ftill the fame thing: It is intelligence or reafon itfelf, confidered as capable of difcerning, difcourfing, or judging about moral fubjects. And it contains the plain and general principles of morality, not explicitly as propofitions, but only as native principles, and cannot but judge virtue to be fit, and vice unfit, for intelligent and focial creatures whom God hath made.*

§ 14, page 44. As for practical propofitions there are fo many of them as there are moral rules for buman actions; in the obfervance of which, the natural happiness of mankind in general, and of every individual perfon, all things confidered, is promoted, and which every one does, and muft know, that knows any thing. And we call them the laws of nature, because, in the common courfe of the world, there are rewards or punishments annexed to the obfervance or breach of them, antecedent to human laws, and are therefore derivable from no lefs or other caufe, than the Author of Nature, the cause of all neceffary effects. And that there are fuch laws of nature, is manifeft from thefe reasons :

ift, Were there no fuch immutable laws of nature, antecedent to all human inftitutions, all actions would be in themselves indifferent.

2d, From the confcioufnefs fome emperors and princes have of their evil actions, when they knew themfelves out of the reach of human penalties.

3d, From nature's powerful efficacy in vicious perfons at the approach of death.

4th, Some laws of nature feem to have a deeper root than mere cuftom, education, or the hopes of human rewards, or fears of human punishments, could plant; because human laws themselves derive their whole or

*Watts Eff. p. 111.

main ftrength from those very laws of nature, and are more or less valid as they are more or lefs agreeable to those natural laws, or fooner or later refolved into them.*

ever

CHAP. IV.

Other Confiderations concerning Innate Principles, both
Speculative and Practical.

§ 1, page 55. Ta knowledge of prefent thoughts
THE
actual

HERE is no need of ideas, i. e. of an

of the fubject and predicate in general propofitions, to the forming a certain judgement of their truth, but only a readiness of mind to affent to them as foon as the things fignified by the words are propofed; and to form them into verbal propofitions, as foon as the words are understood. And because that power in the mind of comparing its own thoughts is natural to all intelligent beings, and that there is no need of the information of any of our fenfes concerning all the particulars implied in those general words, therefore fuch propofitions may be called innate.

§ 2, page 55- As for children's not having ideas, or notions which answer the terms which make up thofe general propofitions, it is nothing to the purpose, for grown men cannot have any fuch ideas. No man can have ideas of all the wholes in the world, and of all the parts of those wholes; yet a child that knows, or can judge of any thing, can certainly know and judge, that all wholes are bigger than any one of its parts; and fo of all other innate truths.

§ 8, page 57- By the idea of God is meant, the notion we have of a being diftinct from ourselves, and every other finite being; the infinitely wife, good,

Lee, p. 14.

VOL. I.

+ Ibid. p. 26. + Ibid.

C 2

and

and powerful Author of Nature, or primary caufe of all neceffary effects in the univerfe. And fuch an idea, or notion of God, may be called innate, becaufe it is formed in the minds of men, without any teaching, or artificial arguments, or fo much as the knowledge of words, by the efficacy of natural caufes operating upon us, and the unavoidable obfervation of fuch ef fects as can proceed from no lefs or other caufe, than fuch as we all mean by the word God.*

The ancients recorded for Atheists, are Protagoras, Diagoras, Melius, Theodorus Cyrenaicus, &c. But Tully, in the very period in which he gives us their names, makes the belief of a God natural to all men, quo omnes duce natura vebimur; and Seneca fays, mentiuntur qui dicunt fe non fentire Deum effe; nam etfi tibi affirment interdiu, noctu tamen, et fibi dubitant. And Epicurus, that took fo much pains to free himself and others of their natural fears of God, is reprefented by his cotemporaries, to have been one of the most fearful men in the world, of death, and the gods.

It is fcarce poffible to know the fenfe of whole nations in their difowning the exiftence of God, or to know they had no name for the natural notion of God, unless we were to fpeak with every fingle perfon, or underftood every fingle word of their language, which is impracticable. Their having mean and unworthy thoughts of God, is no. proof they had no thoughts of God any more than it does that our common people have none of the fun, because they judge it not much bigger than the crown of their hats.

Deos effe inter alia fic colligimus, quod omnibus de diis opinio infita eft; nec ulla gens ufquam eft adeo extra leges morefque projecta, ut non aliquos deos credat. +

*Lee, p. 29. § S, Baxt. 241.

† Lee, p. 34.