owe him so congruous to the light of reason, that great part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature; yet several moral rules receive a general approbation from mankind, without admitting the true ground of morality, which is the will of God. For God having inseparably connected virtue and public happiness, it is no wonder that every one should recommend those rules to others, from whose observance of them he is sure to reap advantage. This, though it takes nothing from the eternal obligations of these rules, yet shows that the acknowlegment men pay to them in words proves not that they are innate; nay, proyes not so much that men assent to them as the rules of their own practice, since we find that self-interest makes many own an outward approbation of them, whose actions prove that they consider not the Lawgiver that prescribed these rules, nor the punishment he has ordained for those who transgress them. For if we think men's actions to be the interpreter of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no such internal veneration for these rules. The rule, to do as one would be done to,' is frequently broken; yet to teach others that it is not obligatory, would be thought contrary to the interest men sacrifice to when they break it themselves.

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Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking us for these breaches, and so the internal obligation of the rule be preserved. I answer, that many men, by the same way that they come to the knowlege of other things, may come to assent to moral rules and obligations; others may come to be of the same mind from education or custom, which persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work, which is but our own judgment of our actions; and if conscience be a proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate, since some from conscience prosecute what others from conscience avoid. But I cannot see how any men should transgress those moral rules, were they innate

and stamped on their minds. View an army at the sacking of a town, and see what sense of moral principles or what touch of conscience they feel for all that they do. And if we look abroad to take a view of men as they are, we shall find that they have remorse in one place for doing or omitting that, which others in another place think they merit by. Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude, equity, chastity? Ör where is that universal consent, that assures us there are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made them honorable, are committed without remorse; nay, in many places, innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy.

He that will carefully peruse the history of mankind, will be able to satisfy himself that there is scarcely any principle of morality, (those only excepted which hold society together, which commonly are neglected between distinct societies) which is not slighted by whole societies of men.

Here it may be objected, that it is no argument that the rule is not known, because it is broken. Men may sometimes transgress, yet disown not the law; but it is impossible to conceive that a whole nation should renounce what every one of them know to be a law. Men may sometimes own rules of morality, which they do not believe to be true, only to keep up their reputation with others who believe them; but it is not to be imagined that a whole society of men should cast off a rule which they could not but be certain was a law, knowing that all with whom they should have to do regarded it as such, and therefore expose themselves to the contempt due to such as profess themselves void of humanity. Whatever practical principle is innate must be known to be just and good; it is therefore a contradiction to suppose that whole nations should give the lie to what they know to be right and good.

But farther, though the breaking of a rule is no

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argument that it is unknown, yet the generally allowed breach of it is proof that it is not innate. example, let us take any rule which the fewest people have denied or doubted. None can have a fairer pretence to be innate than this: Parents, preserve and cherish your children.' If this be an innate rule, it is either a principle which directs the actions of all men, or a truth which all men assent to. 1. That it is not a principle which influences all men's actions, we need not seek to prove by reference to savage and barbarous nations, when we remember that it was an uncondemned practice among the Greeks and Romans to expose their innocent infants. 2. That it is an innate truth is so far false that it is no truth at all, being a command, and not a proposition, and so not capable of truth or falsehood. To make it capable of truth it must be reduced to a proposition, as 'It is the duty of parents to preserve their children.' But duty cannot be supposed without a law, nor a law without a lawgiver, or without reward and punishment. So that it is impossible that this or any other practical principle should be innate, without supposing the ideas of God, of law, of obligation, of punishment, of a life after this, innate. But these ideas are so far from being innate, that it is not every thinking man, much less every one that is born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct.

From what has been said we may conclude that, whatever practical rule is in any place allowedly broken, cannot be supposed innate, it being impossible that men should confidently break a rule which they could not but know that God had set up, and of which he would punish the breach, which they must know if it were innate. Doubt of the law, or hope to escape the power of the Lawgiver, may make men give way to a present appetite; but let them see the pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty visibly held up to take vengeance;

then tell me, whether it be possible for people with such a certain knowlege wantonly to offend against a law which stares them in the face while breaking it? whether it be possible, that whilst a man thus bids defiance to this innate law, all the bystanders, who have the same sense of the law, should silently connive at the breach of it? Principles of action are lodged in men's appetites, but these, so far from being innate moral principles, would, without restraint, overturn all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb to these desires, proposing rewards and punishments that may overbalance the immediate gratification of a breach of the law. If, therefore, any thing be imprinted on the mind as a law, every one must have a certain knowlege of the punishment that will attend the breach of it; for if men can be doubtful of what is innate, innate principles are insisted on to no purpose. I would not here be mistaken, as if, because I deny an innate law, I thought there were none but positive laws. There is a difference between an innate law and a law of nature, between something originally imprinted on our minds and something we may attain by our natural faculties: and they are equally wrong who affirm an innate law, and who deny a law ascertainable by the light of

nature.

The difference among men in their practical principles is such, as to make it impossible to find out innate moral rules by general assent; and they who suppose such principles, are sparing to tell us which they are. But were there any such, there would be no need to teach them; there would be nothing more easy 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. Now, if men of different sects should go about to give us a list of those innate practical principles, they would set down only such as supported their own doctrines; a plain

evidence that there are no such innate truths. Nay, there are many who, denying freedom to mankind, make men mere machines, taking away innate and all moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a possibility to believe any such, to those who cannot conceive how any but free agents can be capable of law. On that ground, they who cannot reconcile morality and mechanism (which is not very easy) must reject all principles of virtue.

When I had written this, being informed that Lord Herbert had, in his book 'De Veritate,' assigned these innate principles, I presently consulted him, in hopes to put an end to my inquiry. In the chapter 'De Instinctu Naturali,' I met with these six marks of his Notitiæ Communes:' 1. Prioritas. 2. Independentia. 3. Universalitas. 4. Certitudo. 5. Necessitas,' i. e. as he explains it, faciunt ad hominis Conservationem. 6. Modus conformationis, i. e. assensus, nulla interposita mora.' At the latter end of his treatise De Religione Laici,' he says this of his innate principles: Adeo ut non uniuscujusvis religionis confinio arctentur quæ ubique vigent veritates. Sunt enim in ipsa mente cælitus descriptæ, nullisque traditionibus, sive scriptis, sive non scriptis, obnoxiæ,' p. 3. and, Veritates nostræ Catholicæ, quæ tanquam indubia Dei effata in foro interiori descriptæ.' Thus having given the marks of the innate principles, and asserted their being printed on the minds of men by the hand of God, he proceeds to set them down, and they are these: 1. Esse aliquod supremum numen. 2. Numen illud coli debere. 3. Virtutem cum pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem cultus divini. 4. Resipiscendum esse a peccatis. 5. Dari præmium vel pœnam post hanc vitam transactam.' Though I allow these to be clear truths, and such as, if rightly explained, a rational creature can hardly avoid giving his assent to; yet I think he is far from proving them innate.

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