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fo mixed and infufed in the compofition of the human mind, and fo properly innate, that the one can never be entirely banished or difcharged, till the other be totally changed ar annihilated.

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SECT. II.

Of Ethical REASONING.

ON these congenial and collateral truths, The Diftinction between Good and Evil, The Exiflence of the Will, Reward and Puniment, implicitly refulting from the fame First Principle, and acting, as they always do, in perfect conjunction and unifon

Axioms; not Primary but Secondary Principles: which, indeed, fo far from being innate, are generally the conclufions of much reafoning and investigation. But, that many of these maxims are implanted in the mind by nature, as the foundations and principles of all its knowledge, never to be questioned, but always to be affumed and granted, was a fundamental and moft inveterate error, which this great man combated with fuccefs.

with each other, all moral REASONING is ultimately founded.

Convinced by felf-experience of their uniform operation upon us, in particular instances that are perpetually occurring, and seeing that uniform operation ftill more confirmed by the experience and obfervation of all others, in every stage and sphere of life, we are obliged, by a kind of tacit INDUCTION, to admit the truth of two moral Propofitions correfpondent to each other, and which are univerfal in their operation and extent. "All Voluntary Good will have Reward" "All Voluntary Evil will have Punishment." These are the two cardinal Axioms, or SɛCONDARY PRINCIPLES, from which the authority of all Ethical deductions is derived, and on which they ultimately depend.

But all morality confifts of particular Actions, deriving their specific character and complexion from different Relations: which moral Actions, as they are varied and multiplied by the triple Relation in which men are placed To God their moral Governor, and his Attributes-To Men their fellow

fubjects

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fubjects in their different ftations and connections—and to the purity and propriety of their own perfonal characters, fwell into fuch a number and complexity, that Reason can neither diftinguish the precife nature of their good or evil, nor apportion with fufficient difcrimination their reward or punishment, by reducing them under one or the other of thefe univerfal Axioms directly, and at a fingle effort; fo as to define and afcertain their moral truth.

From a view of these Relations, therefore, moralifts are under the neceffity of ranging Actions into different kinds and claffes, of afcertaining in each its fpecific good or evil, and of apportioning to every class its juft degree of reward or punishment. Under each Relation they form Propofitions lefs general than those above, as MEDIATE PRINCIPLES or middle Axioms fubordinate to them ; to which all particular actions, as they occur in the different departments of moral government, are referred, in order to receive from them their specific truth.

It is in the formation of thefe Axioms or Secondary Principles, in every branch of moral science, that the stress of ETHICAL REASONING is principally exerted: and the Method which it employs is of course INDUCTIVE. Morality, in all its parts, consists of individual or particular cases; and it is upon the obfervation of a number of these individuals or particulars poffeffing the same qualities and determinations, adduced and collected, that General Propofitions are established.

On the foundation of thefe inductive aggregates, are erected all the systems of moral science, differing from each other, according to the Relations. From the Relation in which men stand to the Deity and to his different Attributes exercised towards them, results a train of numerous correfpondent obligations, which, confidered as general laws, form the fyftem of Divinity. As the great society of mankind is divided into Commu

* Εςι δὲ τῶν καθ ̓ ἐκατα καὶ τῶν ἐσχάτων, ἅπαντα τὰ πρακτά· καὶ γὰρ τὸν φρόνιμον δεῖ γινώσκειν αὐτά. Ariftot. Ethic. Nicom. cap. II.

nities and States; from the Relation fubfifting between them fpring those reciprocal duties, which form the fyftem of the Law of Nations. As thefe Communities and States fplit and divide into smaller bodies, collective and individual, more numerous and complex Relations rife productive of more numerous offices, forming the fyftem of Civil Law; many parts of which, for publick utility, are enacted and fanctioned by public authority. As these larger bodies are again broken into Families, the duties arifing from which domeftic Relation become more perfonal and confined, and form the fyftem of Oeconomical prudence. And as each Individual, in every station and fituation of life, owes an obligation to himself and to the dignity of his character as a free and moral agent poffeffed of many privileges and diftinctions, in the discharge of this obligation many perfonal and most important duties fpring, which conftitute the system of Ethics in its appropriated sense.

From this fhort view of man in his several Relations, how different, how various, and

how

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