this is an innate rule, what do you mean? Either, that it is an innate principle, which upon all occafions excites and directs the actions of all men or elfe, that it is a truth, which all men have imprinted on their minds, and which therefore they know and affent to. But in neither of thefe fenfes is it innate. Firft that it is not a principle which influences all men's actions, is what I have proved by the examples before cited: nor need we feek fo far as Mingrelia or Peru, to find inftances of fuch as neglect, abufe, nay and deftroy their children; or look on it only as the more than brutality of fome favage and barbarous nations, when we remember, that It was a familiar and uncondemned practice amongst the Greeks and Romans, to expofe, without pity or remorse, their innocent infants. Secondly, that it is an innate truth, known to all men, is alfo falfe. For, "parents, preferve your children," is fo far from an innate truth, that it is no truth at all; it being a command, and not a propofition, and fo not capable of truth or falfhood. To make it capable of being affented to as true, it must be reduced to fome fuch propofition as this: "it is the duty of parents to preferve their children." But what duty is, cannot be understood without a law; nor a law be known, or fuppofed, without a law-maker, or without reward and punishment: fo that it is impoffible, that this, or any other practical principle fhould be innate; i. e. be imprinted on the mind as a duty, without fup-pofing the ideas of God, of law, of obligation, of punifhment, of a life after this, innate: For that punishment follows, not, in this life, the breach of this rule; and confequently, that it has not the force of a law in countries, where the generally allowed practice runs counter to it, is in itself evident. But thefe ideas (which muft be all of them innate, if any thing as a duty be fo) are fo far from being innate, that it is not every ftudious or thinking man, much less every one that is born, in whom they are to be found clear and diftinét: and that one of them, which of all others feems most likely to be innate, is not fo, (I mean the idea of God) I think, in the next chapter, will appear very evident to any confidering man.

§. 13.

§. 13. From what has been faid, I think we may fafely conclude, that whatever practical rule is, in any place, generally and with allowance broken, cannot be fuppofed innate; it being impoffible that men fhould, without fhame or fear, confidently and ferenely break a rule, which they could not but evidently know, that God had fet up, and would certainly punish the breach of (which they muft, if it were innate) to a degree, to make it a very ill bargain to the tranfgreffor. Without fuch a knowledge as this, a man can never be certain that any thing is his duty. Ignorance, or doubt of the law, hopes to escape the knowledge or power of the law-maker, or the like, may make men give way to a prefent appetite: but let any one fee the fault, and the rod by it, and with the tranfgreffion, a fire ready to punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty vifibly held up, and prepared to take vengeance (for this must be the cafe, where any duty is imprinted on the mind) and then tell me, whether it be poffible for people, with fuch a prospect, fuch a certain knowledge as this, wantonly, and without fcruple, to offend against a law, which they carry about them in indelible characters, and that ftares them in the face whilft they are breaking it? whether men, at the fame time that they feel in themfelves the imprinted edicts. of an omnipotent law-maker, can with affurance and gaiety flight and trample under foot his moft facred injunctions? and lastly, whether it be poffible, that whilst a man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and fupreme law-giver, all the by-ftanders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the people, full of the fame fenfe both of the law and law-maker, fhould filently connive, without teftifying their diflike, or laying the least blame on it? Principles of actions indeed there are lodged in men's appetites, but these are so far from being innate moral principles, that if they were left to their full fwing, they would carry men to the overturning of all morality. Moral laws are fet as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant defires, which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments, that will overbalance the fatisfaction any one fhall propose to himself

in the breach of the law. If therefore any thing be imprinted on the minds of all men as a law, all men must have a certain and unavoidable knowledge, that certain and unavoidable punishment will attend the breach of it. For, if men can be ignorant or doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are infifted on, and urged to no purpofe; truth and certainty (the things pretended) are not at all fecured by them but men are in the fame uncertain, floating eftate with, as without them. An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoidable punishment, great enough to make the tranfgreffion very uneligible, muft accompany an innate law; untefs, with an innate law, they can fuppofe an innate gospel too. I would not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none but pofitive laws. There is a great deal of difference between an innate law, and a law of nature; between fomething imprinted on our minds in their very original, and fomething that we being ignorant of may attain to the knowledge of, by the ufe and due application of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forfake the truth, who, running into contrary extremes, either affirm an innate law, or deny that there is a law knowable by the light of nature, i. e. without the help of pofitive revelation.

Those who

nate practical principles, tell us not what they

are.

§. 14. The difference there is amongst men in their practical principles, is fo evident, that, I think, I need fay no more to evince, that it will be impoffible to find any innate moral rules by this mark of general affènt and it is enough to make one fuf

pect, that the fuppofition of fuch innate principles is but an opinion taken up at pleasure; fince thofe who talk fo confidently of them, are fo fparing to tell us which they are. This might with juftice be expected from thofe men who lay ftrefs upon this opinion and it gives occafion to diftruft either their knowledge or charity, who declaring, that God has imprinted on the minds of men the foundations of knowledge, and the rules of living, are yet fo little favourable to the information of their neighbours, or the quiet of

mankind,

45 mankind, as not to point out to them which they are, in the variety men are distracted with. But, in truth, were there any fuch innate principles, there would be no need to teach them. Did men find fuch innate propofitions ftamped on their minds, they would easily be able to diftinguish them from other truths, that they afterwards learned, and deduced from them; and there would be nothing more eafy, than to know what, and how many they were. There could be no more doubt about their number, than there is about the number of our fingers; and it is like then every fyftem would be ready to give them us by tale. But fince nobody, that I know, has ventured yet to give a catalogue of them, they cannot blame thofe who doubt of these innnate principles; fince even they who require men to believe, that there are fuch innate propofitions, do not tell us what they are. It is eafy to foresee, that if different men of different fects fhould go about to give us a lift of those innate practical principles, they would fet down only fuch as fuited their diftinct hypothefes, and were fit to fupport the doctrines of their particular fchools or churches: a plain evidence, that there are no fuch innate truths. Nay, a great part of men are so far from finding any fuch innate moral principles in themfelves, that by denying freedom to mankind, and thereby making men no other than bare machines, they take away not only innate, but all moral rules whatfoever, and leave not a poffibility to believe any fuch, to thofe who cannot conceive, how any thing can be capable of a law, that is not a free agent and upon that ground, they must neceffarily reject all principles of virtue, who cannot put morality and mechanifm together; which. are not very eafy to be reconciled, or made confiftent.. §. 15. When I had writ this, being informed that my lord Herbert had, in his book de Veritate, affigned thefe innate principles, I prefently confulted him, hoping to find, in a man of fo great parts, fomething fatisfy me in this point, and put an end to my enquiry. In his chapter de Inftin&tu Naturali, p. 72. edit. 1656, I met with thefe fix marks of his Notitia Communes: 1. Prioritas.

Lord Herbert's innate principles

examined.

that might

1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia. 3. Univerfalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Neceffitas, i. e. as he explains it, faciunt ad bominis confervationem. 6. Modus conformationis, i. e. Affenfus nullâ interpofitâ morâ. And at the latter end of his little treatife, De Religioni Laici, he fays this of thefe innate principles: Adeo ut non uniuscujufvis religionis confinio artentur quæ ubique vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipfâ mente cœlitus defcriptæ, nullifque traditionibus, five fcriptis, five non fcriptis, obnoxiæ, p. 3. And, Veritates noftræ catholicæ quæ tanquam indubia Dei effata in foro interiori defcripta. Thus having given the marks of the innate principles or common notions, and afferted their being imprinted on the minds of men by the hand of God, he proceeds to fet them down; and they are thefe: 1. Effe aliquod fupremum numen. 2. Numen illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum pietate conjun&tam optimam effe rationem cultûs divini. 4. Refipifcendum effe à peccatis. 5. Dari præmium vel pænam poft hanc vitam tranfattam. Though I allow thefe to be clear truths, and fuch as, if rightly explained, a rational creature can hardly avoid giving his affent to; yet I think he is far from proving them innate impreffions in foro interiori defcripta. For I must take leave to observe,

§. 16. First, that these five propofitions are either not all, or more than all, those common notions writ on our minds by the finger of God, if it were reasonable to believe any at all to be fo written: fince there are other propofitions, which, even by his own rules, have as juft a pretence to fuch an original, and may be as well admitted for innate principles, as at least fome of these five he enumerates, viz. " do as thou wouldeft be done. unto;" and, perhaps, fome hundreds of others, when well confidered.

§. 17. Secondly, that all his marks are not to be found in each of his five propofitions, viz. his firft, fecond, and third marks agree perfectly to neither of them; and the first, second, third, fourth, and fixth marks agree but ill to his third, fourth, and fifth propofitions. For befides that we are affured from hiftory, of many men, nay, whole nations, who doubt or difbelieve fome or all of them; I cannot fee how the third, viz. " that virtue