SECTION XXIII
This work divided into two parts.
It will not therefore be an useless attempt to treat of both these laws, which have the same foundation <16> in the same work, in such a manner however, as carefully to distinguish the one from the other, since they differ from one another in respect of their objects and application. We shall therefore handle them separately in this order; in the first book, we shall enquire into the law of nature; and in the second, into the law of nations.
REMARKS on This Chapter
Tho’ our Author proceeds more distinctly and methodically than most other writers on the law of nature and nations, yet some steps of the reasoning of this chapter do not intirely satisfy me. For §8. he reasons thus, “A rule carrying along with it no more than internal obligation would be uncertain, and so would not deserve the name of a rule; because internal obligation only means the intrinsic goodness of an action, but man is so framed that he may mistake seeming for real good.”—Whence he concludes §9. “That no rule can be certain, and thus sufficient for our direction, but that which carries along with it an external obligation, i.e. according to his definition, the command of a superior invested with sufficient power to enforce his commands.” Now it is plain, that the command of God to do, or to forbear an action can only be inferred from the intrinsic goodness or pravity of that action, i.e. in our author’s language, the external obligation of an action can only be inferred from its internal obligation. Our author acknowledges this §5, and afterwards §60, and §77, & seq. But this being true, it evidently follows, That we cannot be more certain about the external obligation of an action, than we are about its internal obligation: whatever uncertainty our apprehensions of the latter are liable to, our apprehensions of the former must be liable to the same uncertainty. It appears to me very odd reasoning to say, That considering how obnoxious men are to mistakes about good and evil, there must be a more certain rule for human conduct than the intrinsic goodness of actions, even the divine will; when at the same time we are told, that we cannot come at the knowledge of the divine will with respect to our conduct, otherwise than by first knowing what an action is in itself; or that we can only infer the divine will concerning an action from its intrinsic nature, its intrinsic goodness or pravity. In order to cut off many verbal disputes, with which the moral science hath been hitherto perplexed in its very first steps, it ought in my opinion to set out in this manner. 1. If there be such a thing as good or evil belonging to, or arising from actions, there is an internal obligation or a sufficient reason to choose the one and to abhor the other. But that some actions are good and others evil, must be true if preservation and destruction, pain <17> and pleasure, happiness and misery, perfection and imperfection, be not words without meaning, which will not be said. This is the substance of what our author says in his first section, and thus the better antients deduced and explained the essential differences of actions, or the natural difference betwixt virtue and vice. See my Principles of moral and christian philosophy, T. 1. c. 5. t. 2. §3. introduction. In other words, if there be any such thing as natural good and evil, there must be moral good and evil; for actions tending to good must be good, and actions tending to evil must be evil; or if there be any such thing as perfection and imperfection with respect to any quality, any being, as a vine, a horse, &c. there must likewise be such a thing as perfection and imperfection with respect to moral powers and moral agents and their acts or exertions. 2. If there be a God, he must will that we should regulate our actions by, and act conformably to the internal obligation of actions. But that there is a God is the universal plain language of nature. 3. Wherefore wherever there is internal obligation to act in such or such a manner, there is likewise an external obligation to act in the same manner, i.e. there is an extrinsic reason for acting so, arising from the will of God, who is infinitely perfect, and upon whom all our interests here and hereafter absolutely depend. 4. Whatever therefore in respect of its internal obligation may be called a proper rule of conduct, is at the same time a law, in the proper and strict sense of the word, i.e. it is the will, the command of a superior who hath right to command, and power to enforce the obedience of his commands, being the will of God the creator. 5. A system of rules or of directions for our conduct, having internal obligation, may be properly called a system of laws, of natural laws, of divine laws, because it is a system of precepts discoverable from their natural fitness, or internal obligation to be the will or laws of God concerning our conduct. And therefore the whole enquiry into rules of moral conduct, may be called an enquiry into the natural laws of God concerning our conduct.
It is not properly the business of such an enquiry to prove the being of a God, and that where there is internal obligation to an action, there must also be external obligation to it. It supposes that done, and proceeds to enquire into internal obligations; or to unfold the goodness and pravity of actions, and from hence to deduce general rules or laws of conduct. Now if the preceding propositions be attended to, and the difference between a rule and a law, or between internal and external obligation, according to our author’s definition, be kept in mind; it may be asserted without any ambiguity, that abstractly from all consideration of the will of the supreme Being, there is no law for our conduct; there is a rule, but that rule is not a law, in the strict sense of that word. It would have prevented much jangling about the foundations of morality, if writers had carefully distinguished, with a late excellent writer, Dr. Sykes,2 in his <18> Essay on the Connexion of Natural with Revealed Religion, between the law and the sanction of the law. cap. 2.
Our author’s reasoning will proceed very clearly, if we understand the meaning of his 8 § to be to this purpose. “A rule of conduct while it is merely apprehended under the notion of reasonable, will not be sufficient to influence men; in order to have due influence upon them, it must be considered as having external, as well as internal obligation, arising from the will of God which never changes.” See how Puffendorf reasons, b. 2. of the law of nature and nations, ch. 3. §20. “But to make these dictates of reason obtain the dignity and power of laws, it is necessary to call into our consideration a much higher principle, &c.”
With respect to what is said, §22. of the law of nations, ’tis well worth while to add an excellent remark of the author of the Persian Letters, 94 and 95.3 “As the law of nature and nations is commonly doctored, one would imagine there were two sorts of justice; one to regulate the affairs of private persons, which prevails in the civil law; the other to compose the differences that arise between people and people, which plays the tyrant in the law of nations: as if the law of nations were not itself a civil law, not indeed of a particular country, but of the world. The magistrate ought to do justice between citizen and citizen; every nation ought to do the same between themselves and another nation. This second distribution of justice, requires no maxims but what are used in the first. Between nation and nation, there is seldom any want of a third to be umpire; because the grounds of dispute are almost always clear and easy to be determined. The interests of two nations are generally so far separated, that it requires nothing but to be a lover of justice to find it out: it is not the same with regard to the differences that arise between private persons as they live in society, their interests are so mingled and confounded, and there are so many different sorts of them, that it is necessary for a third person to untangle what the covetousness of the parties strives to tie knots in, &c.”
Concerning the nature and distinguishing qualities or characteristics of human actions.
SECTION XXIV
Transition to treat of human actions.
From what hath been said of the foundation