Book I. fon to gain its approbation. He would be thought void of common fenfe, who afked on the one fide, or on the other fide went to give a reason, why it is impoffible for the fame thing to be, and not to be. It carries its own light and evidence with it, and needs no other proof: He that understands the terms, affents to it for its own fake, or else nothing will ever be able to prevail with him to do it. But should that most unshaken rule of morality, and foundation of all focial virtue, That one fhould do as he would be done unto, be propofed to one who never heard it before, but yet is of capacity to understand its meaning; might he not, without any abfurdity, afk a reason why? And were not he that propofed it bound to make out the truth and reasonablenefs of it to him? Which plainly fhows it not to be innate; for if it were, it could neither want nor receive any proof, but must needs (at least as soon as heard and understood) be received and affented to, as an unquestionable truth, which a man can by no means doubt of. So that the truth of all these moral rules plainly depends upon fome other antecedent to them, and from which they must be deduced; which could not be, if either they were innate, or fo much as felf

evident.

$5. Inftance in keeping Compacts.

THAT men fhould keep their compacts, is certainly a great and undeniable rule in morality: But yet, if a Chriftian, who has the view of happiness and mifery in another life, be asked, why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reafon, Because God, who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us. But if an Hobbit be afked why, he will anfwer, Because the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you, if you do not. And if one of the old Heathen philofophers had been asked, he would have anfwered, Because it was difhoneft, below the dignity of a man, and oppofite to virtue, the highest perfection of human nature, to do otherwife.

§ 6. Virtue generally approved, not because Innate, but because profitable.

HENCE naturally flows the great variety of opinions concerning moral rules which are to be found amongst men, according to the different forts of happiness they have a prospect of, or propofe to themselves; which could not be, if practical principles were innate, and imprinted in our minds immediately by the hand of God. I grant the existence of God is fo many ways manifeft, and the obedience we owe him fo congruous to the light of reafon, that a great part of mankind give teftimony to the law of nature; but yet I think it must be allowed, that feveral moral rules may receive from mankind a very general approbation, without either knowing or admitting the true ground of morality; which can only be the will and law of a God who fees men in the dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account the proudeft offender. For God having, by an infeparable connection, joined virtue and public happiness together, and made the practice thereof neceffary to the prefervation of fociety, and visibly beneficial to all with whom the virtuous man has to do; it is no wonder, that every one should not only allow, but recommend and magnify thofe rules to others, from whofe obfervance of them he is fure to reap advantage to himfelf. He may, out of intereft, as well as conviction, cry up that for facred, which, if once trampled on and profaned, he himfelf cannot be fafe nor fecure. This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation which thefe rules evidently have, yet it shows, that the outward acknowledgment men pay to them in their words, proves not that they are innate principles; nay, it proves not fo much as that men affent to them inwardly in their own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own practice; fince we find that felf-intereft, and the conveniencies of this life make many men own an outward profeffion and approbation of them, whofe actions fufficiently prove, that they very little confider the lawgiver that prefcribed thefe rules,

nor the hell he has ordained for the punishment of those that tranfgrefs them.

$7. Mens actions convince us, that the rule of Virtue is not their internal Principle.

FOR if we will not in civility allow too much fincerity to the profeflions of moft men, but think their actions. to be the interpreters of their thoughts, we fhall find, that they have no fuch internal veneration for thefe rules, nor fo full a perfuafion of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality, to do as one would be done to, is more commended than practifed; but the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice than to teach others that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought madnefs, and contrary to that intereft men facrifice to, when they break it themselves. Perhaps confcience will be urged as checking us for fuch breaches, and fo the internal obligation and establishment of the rule be preserved.

§ 8. Confcience no Proof of any Innate Moral R::le. To which I anfwer, That I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts, many men may, by the fame way that they come to the knowledge of other things, come to affent to feveral moral rules, and be convinced of their obligation. Others alfo may come to be of the fame mind, from their education, company, and customs of their country; which perfuafion, however got, will ferve to fet confcience on work; which is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions. And if confcience be a proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; fince fome men with the fame bent of confcience, profecute what others avoid.

$9. Inflances of Enormilies practifed without remorse. Bur I cannot fee how any men fhould ever tranfgrefs thofe moral rules with confidence and ferenity, were they innate, and ftamped upon their minds. View but an army at the facking of a town, and fee what obfervation, or fenfe of moral principles, or what touch of confcience, for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes, are the sports of men fet at liberty from punish

ment and cenfure. Have there not been whole nations, and thofe of the moft civilized people, amongst whom the expofing their children, and leaving them in the fields to perish by want or wild beafts, has been the practice, as little condemned or fcrupled as the begetting them? Do they not ftill, in fome countries, put them into the fame graves with their mothers, if they die in childbirth; or difpatch them, if a pretended aftrologer declares them to have unhappy ftars? And are there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expofe their parents without any remorfe at all? In a part of Afia, the fick, when their cafe comes to be thought defperate, are carried out, and laid on the earth, before they are dead, and left there, expofed to wind and weather, to perifh without affistance or pity. (a) It is familiar among the Mingrelians, a people profeffing Chriftianity, to bury their children alive, without fcruple. (b) There are places where they eat their cwn children. (c) The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on purpose to falt and eat them. (d) And Garcilaffo de la Vega tells us of a people in Peru, which were wont to fat and eat the children they got on their female captives, whom they kept as concubines for that purpofe; and when they were paft breeding, - the mothers themselves were killed too and eaten. The (e) virtues whereby the Tououpinambos believed they merited paradife, were revenge, and eating abundance of their enemies. (f) They have not fo much as a name for God, and have no religion, no worship. The faints, who are canonifed amongit the Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modefty relate. A remarkable paffage to this purpose, out of the voyage of Boumgarten, which is a book not every day to be met with, I fhall set down at large in the language it is published in. « Ibi "fc. prope Belbes in Agyto, vidimus fanctum unum

(a) Gruber apud Thevenot, Thevenot, p. 38.

(d) P. Mart. Dec. 1.

Lery, c. 15, 216, 231.

"Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero "matris prodiit nudum fedentem. Mos eft, ut didici"mus, Mahometiftis, ut eos qui amentes et fine ra«tione funt, pro fanctis colant et venerentur. Infuper "et eos qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatiffiman, vo"luntariam demum pœnitentiam et paupertatem, fanc❝titate venerandos deputant. Ejufmodi vero genus "hominum libertatem quandam effroenem habent, do"mos quas volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et quod "majus eft, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, fi proles "fecuta fuerit, fancta fimiliter habetur. His ergo ho"minibus, dum vivunt, magnos exhibent honores; "mortuis vero, vel templa vel monumenta extruunt "ampliffima, eofque contingere ac fepelire maximæ for"tunæ ducunt loco. Audivimus hæc dicta et dicenda "per interpretem a mucrelo noftro. Infuper fanctum "illum, quem eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime « commendari, eum effe hominem fanctum, divinum 2c integritate præcipuum; eo quod, nec fœminarum unquam effet, nec puerorum, fed tantum modo afel"larum concubitor atque mularum." Pergr. Boumgarten, 1. 2. c. I. p. 73. More of the fame kind, concerning thefe precious faints amongst the Turks, may be feen in Pietro della Valle, in his letter of the 25th of January 1616. Where then are those innate principles of juftice, piety, gratitude, equity, chastity? Or where is that univerfal confent, that affures us there are fuch inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made them honourable, are committed without remorfe of confcience; nay, in many places, innocence in this cafe is the greateft ignominy. And if we look abroad, to take a view of men as they are, we shall find, that they have remorfe, in one place, for doing or omitting that which others, in another place, think they merit by.

§ 10. Men have contrary Practical Principles. HE that will carefully perute the hiftory of mankind, and look abroad into the feveral tribes of men, and with indifferency furvey their actions, will be able to fatisfy himself, that there is fcarce that principle of morality to