Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/33

RV 17 (Chap III.) §. 5. 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 o• eternal Life and Death, requires it of us. But if an Hobbist be asked why; he will answer: Because the Publick requires it, and the Leviathan will punish you, if you do not. And if one of the old Heathen Philosophers had been asked, he would have answered: Because it was dishonest, below the Dignity of a Man, and opposite to Vertue, the highest Perfection of humane Nature.

§. 6. Hence naturally flows the great variety of Opinions, concerning Moral Rules, which are to be found amongst 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 Law of a God, who sees Men in the dark, and has Power enough to punish the proudest Offender. For God, having, by an inseparable connection, joined Vertue and publick Happiness together; and made the Practice thereof, necessary to the preservation of Society, and visibly beneficial to all, with whom the vertuous Man has to do; it is no wonder, that every one should, not only allow, but recommend, and magnifie 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 prophaned, 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 shews, 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 Law-giver, that prescribed these Rules; nor, the Hell he has ordain'd for the Punishment of those that transgress them.

§. 7. 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 Perswasion 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. 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