REMARKS on This Chapter
I can’t help thinking that our excellent author is not so distinct in this chapter as he ought to have been, and withal too tedious. It was indeed necessary to distinguish between the principle which constitutes external or legal obligation, and the principle which is the medium of knowledge with regard to it; or the mean by which it may be known and demonstrated. Now it is the will of God which constitutes external or legal obligation. But what is the medium by which the divine will may be known? Our author had already often said, that right reason is the faculty by which it may be known. But hence it follows, that conformity to reason, is the mean by which agreeableness to the divine will may be known and demonstrated. Why then does he dispute against those who say conformity to Reason, or which comes to the same thing, to our rational nature, is the principle or mean of moral knowledge? Or why does he not immediately proceed to enquire what is, and what is not agreeable to reason or our rational nature? Why does he dispute against those who in their reasonings about the laws of nature, infer them from the divine sanctity or moral rectitude, which must mean reason, or our rational nature compared with the rational nature of the supreme Being? For if the law of nature be discoverable by reason, conformity to reason, to the reason of God, and the reason of man, must be the principle of knowledge with regard to the law of nature. Nor can the divine sanctity or divine moral rectitude be an obscure idea, unless conformity to reason, or to a reasonable nature, be an obscure idea. Our author seems to have forgot what he said (§1), when he says (§86), that the happiness and perfection of mankind is not a principle from which the law of nature can be inferred; and what he here refutes, he afterwards (§77) returns to, as a necessary first principle in demonstrating the law of nature, viz. “That God intends the happiness and perfection of mankind.” For if his reasoning, <63> (§77) be just, the business of the moral science is to enquire what tends to the perfection and happiness of man, and what is necessary to it; and these will be good moral reasonings, which shew an action to be conducive to human happiness and perfection, or contrariwise: For thus they shew what the divine will commands, and what it forbids: nay, according to his reasoning in that section, we can not advance one step in morals, without first determining what our happiness and perfection requires, and what is repugnant to it. He seems likewise (§70) where he says, “That the intrinsic pravity or goodness of actions, is not a sufficient principle for deducing and establishing the moral laws of nature,” to have forgot what he had said in the former chapter, and frequently repeats in succeeding ones, of the priority in nature or idea of internal to external obligation. And indeed, to say that the laws of nature concerning human conduct, cannot be deduced from the consideration of the internal nature of actions, is in other words to say, that they cannot be deduced by reason; for it is to say, that they cannot be deduced from the conformity or disconformity of actions to reason. All I would infer from this is, 1. That it is impossible to make one step in moral reasonings, without owning a difference between conformity and disagreeableness to reason, and using that general expression, or some one equivalent to it; for the will of God cannot be inferred but from conformity to reason, or something equivalent to it, i.e. from some principle, which however it may be expressed, ultimately signifies conformity to the nature of things, or to reason. 2. That conformity to reason, to a reasonable nature, to moral rectitude, to the divine nature, and conduciveness to the perfection and happiness of a rational being, or conduciveness to the perfection and happiness of man, as such, and several other such phrases used by moralists, have and must all have the same meaning, or terminate in the same thing. 3. That to ask why a reasonable being ought to act agreeably to reason, is to ask why it is reasonable to act reasonably; or why reasonable is reasonable. This must be the meaning of that question, as it is distinguished from this other, “Is there good ground to think, that the supreme Being, the maker and governor of the universe, wills that his reasonable creatures should act reasonably, and will proportion their happiness according to their behaviour?” which question does likewise amount in other terms, to asking whether it is agreeable to supream reason, to approve acting according to reason? There is therefore no necessity of dwelling long upon either of these questions in moral philosophy; but it is its business to enquire what rules of conduct, what methods of action are agreeable, and what are disagreeable to reason, to the nature of things, to the qualities of reasonable beings, to the perfection and happiness of mankind as such; all which phrases, as hath been said, must have the same meaning, and may therefore be promiscuously used: And indeed about them there can be no dispute, unless <64> one has a mind to make a particular favourite of some one of them in opposition to all the rest; in which case, the dispute, ’tis evident, will be merely about a phrase; as in fact, most disputes in the moral science realy are, for that very reason, viz. through a particular liking to some favourite words.
Our author’s method of reasoning is, when he brings it out, plain and just enough. It amounts to this, “If we own the being of a God, and have a clear and just idea of his perfection, we must own that he wills the perfection and happiness of all his creatures, his moral creatures in particular: man therefore being a moral creature, God must will the happiness and perfection of man. He must then for that reason, will that man pursue his own perfection and happiness. But such is the nature of man, and so are things relating to him constituted and connected, that the pursuit of his perfection and happiness consists in what may properly be expressed in one word, Love, the love of his Creator, the love of his fellow creatures, those of his own kind in particular, and the love of himself.” Now according to this way of reasoning what our author hath to prove, is the latter proposition; and accordingly he goes on in the succeeding chapters to prove it.
In other words, our author’s manner of deducing human duties amounts to this, “Every obligation which man can be under as a rational agent, external or internal, may be expressed by one word, Love. For we can owe nothing to any being but love: all our obligations must therefore be reducible to these three; the love of our Creator, the love of our fellow-creatures, of those of our own kind, or with whom we are more nearly and immediately connected in particular; and the love of ourselves.” And accordingly our author proceeds to explain the duties belonging to these three classes. The principle upon which he founds may justly be called clear, certain, and adequate. For if there be any such thing as obligation upon a rational agent, external or internal, it can be nothing else, but obligation to love: internal obligation can belong to nothing else but the dictates and offices of reasonable love; and therefore external obligation can belong to nothing else. Wherefore love is justly said in the sacred writings, to be the fulfillment of the law; of the law of nature, of the law of reason, of the law of God. But let me observe, that this method of our author’s, is the same in other words with some of them he refutes. For is it not evidently the same thing as to say “that duty, obligation, or what is reasonable with regard to human conduct, must be inferred from the human nature, and the constitution of things relative to man. But according to the frame of man and the constitution of things, the chief happiness and perfection of every man arises from the love and the pursuit of order within and without him; or from the observation of the prevalency of wisdom and good order, and consequently of greater happiness in the administration of the universe; and from such an orderly discipline of his <65> affections as tend to produce universal happiness, order, and perfection, as far as his affections, and the actions they lead to, have any influence?’’ According to which state of the question, the remaining enquiry will be what the love of good order and general happiness requires.
Of the application of this rule to actions, and the differences of actions proceeding from thence.
SECTION XCV
The