4 command of a dictator, or conftable, expreffing a relation to either of them; though it be certain, that either of them hath a certain power over fome others; and fo is fo far related to them, as well as a patron is to his client, or general to his army. Moral. S. 4. Fourthly, There is another fort of relation, which is the conformity, or difagreement, 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 deferves 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, obfcurity and confufion. Human actions, when with their various ends, objects, manners, and circumstances, they are framed into diftinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, fo many mixed modes, a great part whereof have names annexed to them. Thus, fuppofing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return kindnefs received, polygamy to be the having more wives than one at once; when we frame thefe notions thus in our minds, we have there fo 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 fuch and fuch combinations of ideas. We have a farther and greater concernment, and that is, to know whether fuch actions fo made up are morally good or bad. §. 5. Good and evil, as hath been shown, Moral good b. ii. chap. 20. §. 2. and chap. 21. §. 42. and evil. are nothing but pleasure or pain, or that which occafions or procures pleasure or pain to us. Moral good and evil then is only the conformity or difagreement of our voluntary actions to fome law, whereby good or evil is drawn on us by the will and power of the law-maker; which good and evil, pleafure or pain, attending our obfervance, or breach of the law, by the decree of the law-maker, is that we call reward and punishment. §. 6. Of these moral rules, or laws, to Moral rules. which men generally refer, and by which they judge of the rectitude or pravity of their actions, there seem to me to be three forts, with their three different enforcements, or rewards and punishments. For fince it would be utterly in vain to fuppose a rule fet to the free actions of men, without annexing to it fome enforcement of good and evil to determine his will, we muft, wherever we fuppofe a law, fuppofe also fome reward or punishment annexed to that law. It would be in vain for one intelligent being to fet 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 fome good and evil, that is not the natural product and confequence 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 fo called. §. 7. The laws that men generally refer their actions to, to judge of their recti Laws. tude or obliquity, feem to me to be these three. I. The divine law. 2. The civil law. 3. The law of opinion or reputation, if I may fo call it. By the relation they bear to the first of thefe, men judge whether their actions are fins or duties; by the fecond, whether they be criminal or innocent; and by the third, whether they be virtues or vices. Divine law, the measure of fin and duty. §. 8. First, the divine law, whereby I mean that law which God has fet to the actions of men, whether promulgated to them by the light of nature, or the voice of revelation. That God has given a rule whereby men fhould govern themselves, I think there is no-body fo brutish as to deny. He has a right to do it, we are his creatures he has goodness and wifdom to direct our actions to that which is beft; and he has power to enforce it by rewards and punishments, of infinite weight and duration, in another life; for no-body can take us out of his hands. This is the only true touchone of moral rectitude; and by comparing them to Bb 2 this this law it is, that men judge of the moft confiderable moral good or evil of their actions: that is, whether as duties or fins, they are like to procure them happinefs or misery from the hands of the Almighty. Civillaw, the measure of crimes and §. 9. Secondly, the civil law, the rule fet by the commonwealth to the actions of those who belong to it, is another rule to innocence. which men refer their actions, to judge whether they be criminal or no. This law no-body overlooks, the rewards and punishments that enforce it being ready at hand, and fuitable to the power that makes it; which is the force of the commonwealth, engaged to protect the lives, liberties, and poffeffions of those who live according to its law; and has power to take away life, liberty, or goods from him who difobeys which is the punishment of offences committed against this law. Philofophical law the meafure of virtue and vice. §. 10. Thirdly, the law of opinion or reputation. Virtue and vice are names pretended and fuppofed every-where to ftand for actions in their own nature right and wrong; and as far as they really are fo applied, they fo 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 inftances of their application, through the feveral nations and focieties of men in the world, are constantly attributed only to fuch actions as in each country and fociety are in reputation or difcredit. Nor is it to be thought ftrange, that nfen every-where fhould give the name of virtue to thofe actions, which amongst them are judged praife-worthy; and call that vice, which they account blameable: fince otherwife they would condemn themselves, if they fhould think any thing right, to which they allowed not commendation: any thing wrong, which they let pafs without blame. Thus the measure of what is every-where called and esteemed virtue and vice, is the approbation or diflike, praise or blame, which by a fecret and tacit confent establishes itself in the several focieties, tribes, and clubs of men in the world; whereby feveral actions come to find credit 2 credit or difgrace amongst them, according to the judgment, maxims, or fashion of that place. For though men uniting into politic focieties have refigned up to the public the difpofing of all their force, fo that they cannot employ it against any fellow-citizens any farther than the law of the country directs; yet they retain ftill the power of thinking well or ill, approving or difapproving of the actions of thofe whom they live amongft, and converfe with: and by this approbation and dislike they establish amongst themselves what they will call virtue and vice. §. II. That this is the common measure of virtue and vice, will appear to any one who confiders, that though that paffes for vice in one country, which is counted a virtue, or at least not vice in another; yet, every-where, virtue and praife, vice and blame go together. Virtue is every-where that which is thought praife-worthy; and nothing elfe but that which has the allowance of public esteem is called virtue *. Vir tue 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 difcourfe concerning the nature of man has given me a late inftance, to mention no other. For the civility of his expreffions, and the candour that belongs to his order, forbid me to think, that he would have closed his preface with an infinuation, as if in what I had faid, book ii. 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 confider what the argument was I was then upon, and what was the chief defign of that chapter, plainly enough fet down in the fourth fection, and thofe following. For I was there not laying down moral rules, bus fhowing the original and nature of moral ideas, and enumerating the rules men make use of in moral relations, whether thofe rules were true or falfe: 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 efteem and fashion of the place, or fect they are of. If he had been at the pains to reflect on what I had said, b. i. c. 3. §. 18. and in this prefent 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 obferved, that, in the place he quotes, I only report as matter of fact what others call virtue Bb 3 Book 2. tue and praise are fo united, that they are called often by the fame name. "Sunt fua præmia laudi," fays Virgil; and fo Cicero, "nihil habet natura præftantius, quam "honeftatem, quam laudem, quam dignitatem, quam "decus;" which, he tells you, are all names for the fame thing, Tufc. lib. ii. This is the language of the heathen philofophers, who well understood wherein their notions of virtue and vice confifted, and though perhaps by the different temper, education, fashion, max ims, 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 feveral forts of actions find variously in the feveral focieties of men, according to which they are there called virtues or vices and whatever authority the learned Mr. Lowde places in his old English dictionary, I dare fay it no-where tells him (if I fhould appeal to it) that the fame action is not in credit, called and counted a virtue in one place, which being in difrepute, paffes 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 man does well, and as becomes his calling, to be watchful in fuch points, and to take the alarm, even at expreffions, which ftanding alone by themselves might found ill, and be fufpected. 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 infpired teachers have not feared to appeal to common repute : "Whatfoever things are lovely, whatfoever things are of good report, "if there be any virtue, if there be any praise," &c. Phil. iv. 8.' without taking notice of thofe 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 preferved; fo that even the exhortations of infpired teachers, &c.' by which words, and the reft of that section, it is plain that I brought that paffage 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 fociety within itself; but to fhow, that though it were fo, yet, for reafons 1 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 confidered this, he would have found it little to his purpose to have quoted that paffage in a fenfe I used it not; and would, I imagine, have fpared the explication he fubjoins to it, as not very neceffary. But I hope this fecond edition will give him fatisfaction in the point, and that |