Page:An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding - Locke (1690).djvu/36

RV 20 (Chap III.) casions, excites and directs the Actions of all Men: Or else, that it is a Truth, which all Men have imprinted on their Minds, and which therefore they know, and assent to. But in neither of these Sences 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 Falshood. 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 Law-maker, 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 Idea's 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 allow'd Practice runs counter to it, is in it self evident. But these Idea's (which must be all of them innate, if any thing as a Duty be so) are so far from being innate, that 'tis 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. 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 any thing 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 gaity, slight and trample under Foot his most sacred Injunctions? And lastly, Whether it be possible, that whilst a Man thus openly bids defiance to this innate Law, and supreme Law-giver, all the by-standers; yea even the Governors and Rulers of the People, full of the same Sense, both of the Law and Law