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CHAP. XXVIII.

OF OTHER RELATIONS.

§1. Proportional.-Besides the before-mentioned occasions of time, place, and causality of comparing, or referring things one to another, there are, as I have said, infinite others, some whereof I shall mention.

First, The first I shall name, is some one simple idea; which being capable of parts or degrees, affords an occasion of comparing the subject wherein it is to one another, in respect of that simple idea, v. g. whiter, sweeter, bigger, equal, more, &c. These relations depending on the equality and excess of the same simple idea in several subjects, may be called, if one will, proportional; and that these are only conversant about those simple ideas received from sensation or reflection, is so evident, that nothing need be said to evince it.

§ 2. Natural. Secondly, Another occasion of comparing things together, or considering one thing, so as to include in that consideration some other thing, is the circumstances of their origin or beginning; which being not afterwards to be altered, make the relations depending thereon, as lasting as the subjects to which they belong; v. g. father and son, brothers, cousin-germans, &c., which have their relations by one community of blood, wherein they partake in several degrees; countrymen, i. e. those who were born in the same country, or tract of ground and these I call natural relations: wherein we may observe, that mankind have fitted their notions and words to the use of common life, and not to the truth and extent of things. For it is certain, that in reality, the relation is the same betwixt the begetter and the begotten, in the several races of other animals, as well as men; but yet it is seldom said, this bull is the grandfather of such a calf; or that two pigeons are cousin-germans. It is very convenient, that by distinct names, these relations should be observed, and marked out in mankind, there being occasion, both in laws, and other communications one with another, to mention and take notice of men under these relations; from whence also arise the obligations of several duties amongst men; whereas in brutes, men having very little or no cause to mind these relations, they have not thought fit to give them distinct and peculiar names. This, by the way, may give us some light into the different state and growth of languages: which being suited only to the convenience of communication, are proportioned to the notions men have, and the commerce of thoughts familiar amongst them; and not to the reality or extent of things, nor to the various respects might be found among them; nor the different abstract considerations might be framed 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 shewn, so many mixed modes, a great part whereof have names annexed 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 shewn, b. 2. c. 20. §2. and c. 21. § 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 or evil is drawn on us by 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 that law which God has set to the actions of meu, 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 commouwealth, 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 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 na

tions and societies of men in the world, are constantly attributed onl 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 praiseworthy; 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 judgment, maxims, or fashion 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-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 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 every where, virtue and praise, vice and blame, go together. Virtue is every where that which is thought praiseworthy; and nothing else but that which has the allowance of public esteem, is called virtue.*

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 instance, to mention no other. For the civility of his expressions, and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid me to think, that he would have closed his preface with an insinuation, as if in what I had said, book 2, 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 consider 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 shewing 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 sect, they are of.

"If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, b. 1. c. 3. § 18, and in this present 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 observed, that in the place he quotes, I only report 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 saying, 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 sorts of actions find variously in the several societies of men, according to which they are there called virtues or vices; and whatsoever authority the learned Mr. Lowde places in his old English Dictionary, I dare say it no where tells him (if I should appeal to it), that the same 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

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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, quam honestatem, quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam decus;" which, he tells you, are all names for the same thing, Tusc. I. 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 interest of different sorts of men, it fell out, that what was thought praiseworthy in one place, escaped not censure in another; man does well, and as becomes his calling, to be watchful in such points, and to take the alarm, even at expressions, which standing alone by themselves, might sound ill, and be suspected.

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"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 inspired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute, "whatsoever 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 section, it is plain, that I brought this passage of St. Paul not to prove that the general measure of what men call virtue and vice, throughout the world, was the reputation and fashion of each particular society within itself; but to shew, 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 considered this, he would have found it little to his purpose, to have quoted that passage in a sense I used it not; and would, I imagine, have spared the explication he subjoins to it, as not very necessary. But I hope this second edition will give him satisfaction in the point, and that this matter, is now so expressed, as to shew him there was no cause of scruple.

“Though I am forced to differ from him in those apprehensions be has expressed 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 shall 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 said: for according to him, innate notions being conditional things depending upon the concurrence of several other circumstances, in order to the soul's exerting them, all that he says for innate, imprinted, impressed notions (for of innate ideas he says nothing at all), amounts at last only to this; that there are certain propositions, which though the soul from the beginning, or when a man is born, does not know, yet, by assistance from the outward senses, and the help of some 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 suppose by the soul's exerting them, he means its beginning to know them; or else the soul's exerting of notions, will be to me a very unintelligible expression; and, I think, at best is a very unfit one in this case, it misleading men's thoughts by an insinuation, as if these notions were in the mind before the soul 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 necessary, in order to the soul's exerting them, brings them into our knowledge.

"P. 52, I find him express it thus: These natural notions are not so imprinted upon the soul, as that they naturally and necessarily exert themselves (even in children and idiots) without any assistance from the outward senses, or without the help of some previous cultivation.' Here he says they exert themselves, as p. 78, that the soul exerts them. When he has explained to himself or others what he means by the soul's exerting innate notions, or their exerting themselves, and what that previous cultivation and circumstances, in order to their being exerted, are; he will, I suppose, find there is so 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 occasion only out of the pleasure he has to speak civilly of me; which I must gratefully acknowledge he has done, wherever he mentions me, not without conferring on me, as some others have done, a title I have no right to."

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