1. No moral principles so clear and so generally received as the forementioned speculative maxims.
If those speculative Maxims, whereof we discoursed in the foregoing chapter, have not an actual
universal assent from all mankind, as we there proved, it is much more visible concerning practical
Principles, that they come short of an universal reception: and I think it will be hard to instance any
one moral rule which can pretend to so general and ready an assent as, "What is, is"; or to be so
manifest a truth as this, that "It is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be." Whereby it is
evident that they are further removed from a title to be innate; and the doubt of their being native
impressions on the mind is stronger against those moral principles than the other. Not that it brings
their truth at all in question. They are equally true, though not equally evident. Those speculative
maxims carry their own evidence with them: but moral principles require reasoning and discourse,
and some exercise of the mind, to discover the certainty of their truth. They lie not open as natural
characters engraven on the mind; which, if any such were, they must needs be visible by
themselves, and by their own light be certain and known to everybody. But this is no derogation to
their truth and certainty; no more than it is to the truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle
being equal to two right ones: because it is not so evident as "the whole is bigger than a part," nor
so apt to be assented to at first hearing. It may suffice that these moral rules are capable of
demonstration: and therefore it is our own faults if we come not to a certain knowledge of them. But
the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the slowness of assent wherewith others receive
them, are manifest proofs that they are not innate, and such as offer themselves to their view
without searching.
2. Faith and justice not owned as principles by all men. Whether there be any such moral principles,
wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history
of mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys. Where is that practical
truth that is universally received, without doubt or question, as it must be if innate? Justice, and
keeping of contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in. This is a principle which is thought to
extend itself to the dens of thieves, and the confederacies of the greatest villains; and they who
have gone furthest towards the putting off of humanity itself, keep faith and rules of justice one with
another. I grant that outlaws themselves do this one amongst another: but it is without receiving
these as the innate laws of nature. They practise them as rules of convenience within their own
communities: but it is impossible to conceive that he embraces justice as a practical principle, who
acts fairly with his fellow-highwayman, and at the same time plunders or kills the next honest man
he meets with. Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and therefore even outlaws and
robbers, who break with all the world besides, must keep faith and rules of equity amongst
themselves; or else they cannot hold together. But will any one say, that those that live by fraud or
rapine have innate principles of truth and justice which they allow and assent to?
3. Objection: "though men deny them in their practice, yet they admit them in their thoughts,"
answered. Perhaps it will be urged, that the tacit assent of their minds agrees to what their practice
contradicts. I answer, first, I have always thought the actions of men the best interpreters of their
thoughts. But, since it is certain that most men's practices, and some men's open professions, have
either questioned or denied these principles, it is impossible to establish an universal consent,
(though we should look for it only amongst grown men,) without which it is impossible to conclude
them innate. Secondly, it is very strange and unreasonable to suppose innate practical principles,
that terminate only in contemplation. Practical principles, derived from nature, are there for
operation, and must produce conformity of action, not barely speculative assent to their truth, or else
they are in vain distinguished from speculative maxims. Nature, I confess, has put into man a desire
of happiness and an aversion to misery: these indeed are innate practical principles which (as
practical principles ought) do continue constantly to operate and influence all our actions without
ceasing: these may be observed in all persons and all ages, steady and universal; but these are
inclinations of the appetite to good, not impressions of truth on the understanding. I deny not that
there are natural tendencies imprinted on the minds of men; and that from the very first instances of
sense and perception, there are some things that are grateful and others unwelcome to them; some
things that they incline to and others that they fly: but this makes nothing for innate characters on
the mind, which are to be the principles of knowledge regulating our practice. Such natural
impressions on the understanding are so far from being confirmed hereby, that this is an argument
against them; since, if there were certain characters imprinted by nature on the understanding, as
the principles of knowledge, we could not but perceive them constantly operate in us and influence
our knowledge, as we do those others on the will and appetite; which never cease to be the
constant springs and motives of all our actions, to which we perpetually feel them strongly impelling
us.
4. Moral rules need a proof, ergo not innate. Another reason that makes me doubt of any innate
practical principles is, that I think there cannot any one moral rule be proposed whereof a man may
not justly demand a reason: which would be perfectly ridiculous and absurd if they were innate; or
so much as self-evident, which every innate principle must needs be, and not need any proof to
ascertain its truth, nor want any reason to gain it approbation. He would be thought void of common
sense who asked on the one side, or on the other side went to give a reason why "it is impossible
for the same 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 assents to it for its own sake 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 al
social virtue, "That one should do as he would be done unto," be proposed to one who never heard
of it before, but yet is of capacity to understand its meaning; might he not without any absurdity ask
a reason why? And were not he that proposed it bound to make out the truth and reasonableness of
it to him? Which plainly shows 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 assented 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 some other antecedent to them, and from which they must be deduced;
which could not be if either they were innate or so much as self-evident.
5. Instance in keeping compacts. That men should keep their compacts is certainly a great and
undeniable rule in morality. But yet, if a Christian, who has the view of happiness and misery in
another life, be asked why a man must keep his word, he will give this as a reason:--Because God,
who has the power of eternal life and death, requires it of us. But if a Hobbist be asked why? he will
answer:--Because the public requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you if you do not. And if one
of the old philosophers had been asked, he would have answered:--Because it was dishonest,
below the dignity of a man, and opposite to virtue, the highest perfection of human nature, to do
otherwise.
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 among men, according to the
different sorts of happiness they have a prospect of, or propose 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 so many ways manifest, and the obedience we owe him so congruous to the
light of reason, that a great part of mankind give testimony to the law of nature: but yet I think it must
be allowed that several 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 sees men in the dark, has in his hand rewards and punishments and power enough to call to
account the proudest offender. For, God having, by an inseparable connexion, joined virtue and
public happiness together, and made the practice thereof necessary to the preservation of society,
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 those rules to others, from whose observance of
them he is sure to reap advantage to himself He may, out of interest as well as conviction, cry up
that for sacred, which, if once trampled on and profaned, he himself cannot be safe nor secure.
This, though it takes nothing from the moral and eternal obligation which these 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 so much as that men assent to them inwardly in their own
minds, as the inviolable rules of their own practice; since we find that self-interest, and the
conveniences of this life, make many men own an outward profession and approbation of them,
whose actions sufficiently prove that they very little consider the Lawgiver that prescribed these
rules; nor the hell that he has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress them.
7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their internal principle. For, if we will not in
civility allow too much sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to be the
interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no such internal veneration for these rules,
nor so full a persuasion of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality, "To do as
one would be done to," is more commended than practised. 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 madness,
and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they break it themselves. Perhaps conscience
will be urged as checking us for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment of
the rule be preserved.
8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I answer, that I doubt not but, without
being written on their hearts, many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of
other things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of their obligation. Others also
may come to be of the same mind, from their education, company, and customs of their country;
which persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work; which is nothing else but our
own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience be a
proof of innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men with the same bent
of conscience prosecute what others avoid.
9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot see how any men should ever
transgress those moral rules, with confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon
their minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see what observation or sense of moral
principles, or what touch of conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes, are
the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have there not been whole nations,
and those of the most civilized people, amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them
in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts has been the practice; as little condemned or scrupled
as the begetting them? Do they not still, in some countries, put them into the same graves with their
mothers, if they die in childbirth; or despatch them, if a pretended astrologer declares them to have
unhappy stars? And are there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their parents,
without any remorse at all? In a part of Asia, the sick, when their case comes to be thought
desperate, are carried out and laid on the earth before they are dead; and left there, exposed to
wind and weather, to perish without assistance or pity. It is familiar among the Mingrelians, a people
professing Christianity, to bury their children alive without scruple. There are places where they eat
their own children. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on purpose to fat and eat them.
And Garcilasso 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 purpose, and when they
were past breeding, the mothers themselves were killed too and eaten. The virtues whereby the
Tououpinambos believed they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating abundance of their
enemies. They have not so much as a name for God, and have no religion, no worship. The saints
who are canonized amongst the Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modesty relate. A
remarkable passage to this purpose, out of the voyage of Baumgarten, which is a book not every
day to be met with, I shall set down at large, in the language it is published in. Ibi (sc. prope Belbes
in AEgypto) vidimus sanctum unum Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero matris
prodiit nudum sedentem. Mos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut eos, qui amentes et sine ratione
sunt, prosanctis colant et venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam,
voluntariam demum poenitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos deputant. Ejusmodi vero
genus hominum libertatem quandam effrenem habent, domos quos volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi,
et quod majus est, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, si proles secuta fuerit, sancta similiter habetur.
His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent honores; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta
extruunt amplissima, eosque contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco. Audivimus haec
dicta et dicenda per interpretem a Mucrelo nostro. Insuper sanctum illum, quem eo loco vidimus,
publicitus apprime commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum ac integritate praecipuum;
eo quod, nec foeminarum unquam esset, nec puerorum, sed tantummodo asellarum concubitor
atque mularum. (Peregr. Baumgarten, 1. ii. c. I. p. 73.) More of the same kind concerning these
precious saints amongst the Turks may be seen in Pietro della Valle, in his letter of the 25th of
January, 1616.
Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude, equity, chastity? Or where is that
universal consent that assures us there are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has
made them honourable, are committed without remorse of conscience: nay, in many places
innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy. 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.
10. Men have contrary practical principles. He that will carefully peruse the history of mankind, and
look abroad into the several tribes of men, and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to
satisfy himself, that there is scarce that principle of morality to be named, or rule of virtue to be
thought on, (those only excepted that are absolutely necessary to hold society together, which
commonly too are neglected betwixt distinct societies,) which is not, somewhere or other, slighted
and condemned by the general fashion of whole societies of men, governed by practical opinions
and rules of living quite opposite to others.
11. Whole nations reject several moral rules. Here perhaps it will be objected, that it is no argument
that the rule is not known, because it is broken. I grant the objection good where men, though they
transgress, yet disown not the law; where fear of shame, censure, or punishment carries the mark of
some awe it has upon them. But it is impossible to conceive that a whole nation of men should all
publicly reject and renounce what every one of them certainly and infallibly knew to be a law; for so
they must who have it naturally imprinted on their minds. It is possible men may sometimes own
rules of morality which in their private thoughts they do not believe to be true, only to keep
themselves in reputation and esteem amongst those who are persuaded of their obligation. But it is
not to be imagined that a whole society of men should publicly and professedly disown and cast off
a rule which they could not in their own minds but be infallibly certain was a law; nor be ignorant that
all men they should have to do with knew it to be such: and therefore must every one of them
apprehend from others all the contempt and abhorrence due to one who professes himself void of
humanity: and one who, confounding the known and natural measures of right and wrong, cannot
but be looked on as the professed enemy of their peace and happiness. Whatever practical
principle is innate, cannot but be known to every one to be just and good. It is therefore little less
than a contradiction to suppose, that whole nations of men should, both in their professions and
practice, unanimously and universally give the lie to what, by the most invincible evidence, every
one of them knew to be true, right, and good. This is enough to satisfy us that no practical rule which
is anywhere universally, and with public approbation or allowance, transgressed, can be supposed
innate.--But I have something further to add in answer to this objection.
12. The generally allowed breach of a rule, proof that it is not innate. The breaking of a rule, say
you, is no argument that it is unknown. I grant it: but the generally allowed breach of it anywhere, I
say, is a proof that it is not innate. For example: let us take any of these rules, which, being the most
obvious deductions of human reason, and comformable to the natural inclination of the greatest part
of men, fewest people have had the impudence to deny or inconsideration to doubt of. If any can be
thought to be naturally imprinted, none, I think, can have a fairer pretence to be innate than this:
"Parents, preserve and cherish your children." When, therefore, you say that this is an innate rule,
what do you mean? Either that it is an innate principle which upon all occasions excites and directs
the actions of al men; or else, that it is a truth which al men have imprinted on their minds, and
which therefore they know and assent to. But in neither of these senses is it innate. First, 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 seek so far as Mingrelia or Peru to find instances of such as neglect, abuse, nay,
and destroy their children; or look on it only as the more than brutality of some savage and
barbarous nations, when we remember that it was a familiar and uncondemned practice amongst
the Greeks and Romans to expose, without pity or remorse, their innocent infants. Secondly, that it
is an innate truth, known to all men, is also false. For, "Parents preserve your children," is so far
from an innate truth, that it is no truth at all: it being a command, and not a proposition, and so not
capable of truth or falsehood. To make it capable of being assented to as true, it must be reduced to
some such proposition as this: "It is the duty of parents to preserve their children." But what duty is,
cannot be understood without a law; nor a law be known or supposed without a lawmaker, or
without reward and punishment; so that it is impossible that this, or any other, practical principle
should be innate, i.e., be imprinted on the mind as a duty, without supposing the ideas of God, of
law, of obligation, of punishment, of a life after this, innate: for that punishment follows not in this life
the breach of this rule, and consequently 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 these ideas (which must be all of
them innate, if anything as a duty be so) are so far from being innate, that it is not every studious or
thinking man, much less every one that is born, in whom they are to be found clear and distinct; and
that one of them, which of all others seems most likely to be innate, is not so, (I mean the idea of
God,) I think, in the next chapter, will appear very evident to any considering man.
13. If men can be ignorant of what is innate, certainty is not described by innate principles. From
what has been said, I think we may safely conclude, that whatever practical rule is in any place
generally and with allowance broken, cannot be supposed innate; it being impossible that men
should, without shame or fear, confidently and serenely, break a rule which they could not but
evidently know that God had set up, and would certainly punish the breach of, (which they must, if it
were innate,) to a degree to make it a very ill bargain to the transgressor. Without such a knowledge
as this, a man can never be certain that anything 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 present
appetite; but let any one see the fault, and the rod by it, and with the transgression, a fire ready to
punish it; a pleasure tempting, and the hand of the Almighty visibly held up and prepared to take
vengeance, (for this must be the case where any duty is imprinted on the mind,) and then tell me
whether it be possible for people with such a prospect, such a certain knowledge as this, wantonly,
and without scruple, to offend against a law which they carry about them in indelible characters, and
that stares them in the face whilst they are breaking it? Whether men, at the same time that they
feel in themselves the imprinted edicts of an Omnipotent Law-maker, can, with assurance and
gaiety, slight and trample underfoot his most sacred injunctions? And lastly, whether it be possible
that whilst a man thus openly bids defiance to this innate law and supreme Lawgiver, all the
bystanders, yea, even the governors and rulers of the people, full of the same sense both of the law
and Law-maker, should silently connive, without testifying their dislike 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 swing they would carry men to the
overturning of all morality. Moral laws are set as a curb and restraint to these exorbitant desires,
which they cannot be but by rewards and punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction any one
shall propose to himself in the breach of the law. If, therefore, anything 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 insisted on, and urged to no purpose; truth and certainty (the things
pretended) are not at all secured by them; but men are in the same uncertain floating estate with as
without them. An evident indubitable knowledge of unavoidable punishment, great enough to make
the transgression very uneligible, must accompany an innate law; unless with an innate law they can
suppose an innate Gospel too. 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 great deal of difference between an innate
law, and a law of nature; between something imprinted on our minds in their very original, and
something that we, being ignorant of, may attain to the knowledge of, by the use and due application
of our natural faculties. And I think they equally forsake 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 positive revelation.
14. Those who maintain innate practical principles tell us not what they are. The difference there is
amongst men in their practical principles is so evident that I think I need say no more to evince, that
it will be impossible to find any innate moral rules by this mark of general assent; and it is enough to
make one suspect that the supposition of such innate principles is but an opinion taken up at
pleasure; since those who talk so confidently of them are so sparing to tell us which they are. This
might with justice be expected from those men who lay stress upon this opinion; and it gives
oc