searching find out God, says, 'Vain man is born like the wild ass's colt.' The same poet proceeds to tell us the origin of laws : Jura inventa metu injusti fateare necesse est. And a little after says, Nec natura potest justo secenere iniquum. Here, although he mistakes the true origin and authority of laws, yet he ventures to tell us from whence the distinction between right and wrong is not derived; that nature is unable to discern between them, as she does between pleasure and pain, and between such things as are naturally useful and agreeable, and the contrary. St. Paul, in his Epistle to the Romans, speaks in much the same manner : 'I had not known sin,' says he, 'but by the law.' Cicero, in the fifth of his Tusculan questions, ascribes the original of societies and laws to instruction and acquired wisdom, which he calls philosophy, and addresses himself to it in these words: 'Tu urbes peperisti; tu dissipatos homines in societatem vitæ convocasti; tu eos inter se primo domiciliis, deinde conjugiis, tum literarum et vocum communione junxisti; tu inventrix legum; tu magistra morum.' In the third book of the same work, he ascribes the necessity of learning and instruction expressly to our not being able to discern nature itself. Si tales nos natura genuisset, ut eam ipsam intueri et perspicere, eaque optima duce cursum vitæ conficere possemus, haud esset sane quod quisquam rationem et doctrinam requireret.' Plato, in his first Alcibiades, takes a great deal of pains to shew the difficulty of distinguishing right from wrong; after endeavouring to prove, that a man knows not this difference of himself,' he then demonstrates, that 'the people are unable to teach it; and even that their leaders are ignorant of it; from whence proceed wars and battles among nations.' But, high as I carry my respect for these great men, I will freely own, that in my opinion they express themselves on this, and some other occasions, more like poets and orators, or rather dogmatists, than men who had studied human nature thoroughly, and were careful to express themselves precisely; for nature and necessity could hardly fail, in length of time, and at a great expense of mischief and confusion, to distinguish good and expedient actions from the contrary, at least in glaring instances. This distinction, however, being faint and dim, and when made, being either not at all, or but weakly, supported by religious sanctions, must very imperfectly answer the great ends of a divine law. Temp. Enough I think hath been said on this topic. All parents teach their children moral precepts of some sort or other; which they need not do, if nature did it to their own hand. But, no doubt, they find by experience, that although the world teach them the difference between right and wrong, yet, unless they were early accustomed to hate the one, and love the other, they would make but very indifferent members either of families, or larger communities. Dech. And does it not often happen, that they teach them right for wrong, and wrong for right? Temp. Yes, certainly; but it does not follow, that because some parents have taught their children amiss, therefore others ought not to teach theirs what is good, since children of themselves know nothing. I cannot help saying, that I never in my life heard a more wild and extravagant position advanced, than that parents ought not to instruct their children in the rules of their duty, and the difference between moral good and evil. I every day see numbers of grown people, who, after a great deal of pains taken with them since they came to be men and women, have not yet learned this useful lesson, against which their hearts, if not their understandings, seem to be shut up by rooted prejudices and bad habits; which perhaps they had never contracted, if the seeds of virtue had been early enough sown in their minds, and the principles of morality had taken the first possession of their reason and affections. People may talk as highly of what nature and reason are able to do, as they please; but if I should see a man so far carried away by a speculative dependence on the mere assistance of nature, as to neglect the moral education of his children, I should make no scruple to pronounce him stark-mad; and I am confident every mortal, except the inhabitants of Moorfields, would be of the same opinion with me. Shep. In the close of what Mr. Dechaine said to us, about the natural and universal clearness of moral precepts, he observed, that God never employs two causes to bring about that which may be effected by one; and that therefore, as nature teaches us our duty in all cases, it cannot be supposed, that God should allow us any auxiliary instructor. As this argument was founded on his opinion, that he had clearly proved the natural light to be a sufficient instructor in respect to the difference between right and wrong, and as we have since seen reason enough to think otherwise, there is no occasion for a particular answer to it. There is, however, another point, in regard to the law of nature, of equal importance with the two already considered; and that is, concerning the rewards and punishments annexed to it. Mr. Dechaine hath frequently made mention of the pleasure attending a good, and the compunction arising from a bad action, as proceeding entirely from nature, as placing on all occasions a manifest distinction between moral good and evil, and as giving sufficient weight and cogency to the supposed dictates of nature, which they always accompany. These he sets forth as the rewards and punishments of the natural law. But he is yet to shew us, that these pleasures and pains proceed entirely from nature; that the first always follows such actions as are good in themselves, and the last such only as are evil; and that they are sufficient, without any additional sanctions, to enforce the law to which they are annexed; or, if they are not, that nature gives us full and clear assurances of other rewards and punishments, more efficacious. Dech. As to the first point, which you oblige me to prove, I own I am utterly unable to bring any arguments in support of it. It is to me, and I thought it had been so to every body, self-evident, that the pleasure we take in doing good, and the pain or remorse we feel upon doing evil, proceed entirely from the natural frame of our own minds, previous to, and independent of, all instruction or habit. Shep. As this point is self-evident to you, it will indeed be impossible for you to offer any arguments in defence of it. But, as it appears doubtful to me, I can produce some reasons against it, over and above those already offered, which, if they are brought against what you take to be self evident, you will surely be able easily to refute. Pray are those pleasures and pains, attending good and evil actions, equally strong in all men? Or are they stronger in some, and weaker in others? Dech. They are stronger in some than in others. Shep. How comes it to pass, that one man is better than another? Dech. It is partly from nature, and partly from habit; but by no means from instruction. Shep. Don't you call him the best man, whose life is most conformable to the law of nature? Dech. I do. Shep. He then, who hath the strongest sense of the rewards and punishments annexed to that law, is, I suppose, the most apt to conform himself to it. Dech. So I think. Shep. It follows then, that men are made good or evil, in some measure by nature, and in some measure by habit. Dech. How does that follow? Shep. You say it is the greater pleasure in doing good, and the greater remorse in doing evil, that make one man better than another; and that it is partly owing to nature, and partly to habit, that men differ in goodness. As therefore some men are very regardless of the law, for want of a due sense of its sanctions, and as that want is confessedly owing to nature as well as habit, it follows, that nature and habit concur to make men evil as well as good. Dech. Suppose I should grant you this, what will you infer? Shep. Only that some men are in part rendered wicked by the nature which you say God hath given them. If you maintain the premises, you must allow the consequence. Dech. I shall never allow it. I revoke what I granted, and do insist, that, as to the motives of duty, all men are by nature put on a level. Shep. You must then grant, that the wickedness of bad men is entirely owing to habit. Dech. And what then? Shep. If the wickedness of bad men is entirely owing to habit, the virtue of good men must be owing to the same cause. Dech. That is no consequence. Shep. Do you not say, that nature puts all men on an equality as to the motives of duty, which render men good or evil according to the sense they entertain of them? Dech. I do. Shep. The difference then between the good and bad man arises not from nature, but habit; and, consequently, the virtue of the former is owing entirely to a habitual and acquired pleasure in doing good, and remorse in doing evil, as well as the wickedness of the latter to the want of such a habit. Dech. But the wicked man, sir, hath by wicked habits suppressed the sanctions of the natural law; whereas the good man hath preserved those ties in their full strength; and to this is owing the whole difference between them. Shep. What could have induced the good man to follow the dictates of nature, and the wicked man to stifle them within him, since they set out at first on equal motives to virtue ? Dech. The latter, perhaps, had the misfortune to meet with bad education, bad examples, bad company; and these might have suppressed his natural love of virtue and abhorrence of vice. Shep. And might not the love of virtue, and aversion to vice, in the former, have been as much owing to a happy opportunity of being well educated, seeing good examples, and conversing with good men? Habit is that propensity, or facility, which proceeds from long use, or frequent repetition; and by its nature is disposed to the service of virtue, as well as vice. But it operates with greatest force, when it builds on a foundation already laid, either by principles heartily embraced, or inclinations strongly turned beforehand to the same point. If all men had by nature strong inclinations to virtue, and aversions to vice, these would at least introduce them into a course of virtue; and that course would, in a little time, add the force of habit to that of nature, and confirm them virtuous; so that few or none would be vicious. But as the greater part of mankind are wicked, though some pains, more or less, are taken to make every |