There
could be no more doubt about their number than there is about the
number of our fingers; and it is like then every system would be ready
to give them us by tale. But since nobody, that I know, has ventured
yet to give a catalogue of them, they cannot blame those who doubt
of these innate principles; since even they who require men to believe
that there are such innate propositions, do not tell us what they are.
It is easy to foresee, that if different men of different sects should
go about to give us a list of those innate practical principles,
they would set down only such as suited their distinct hypotheses, and
were fit to support the doctrines of their particular schools or
churches; a plain evidence that there are no such innate truths.
Nay, a great part of men are so far from finding any such innate moral
principles in themselves, that, by denying freedom to mankind, and
thereby making men no other than bare machines, they take away not
only innate, but all moral rules whatsoever, and leave not a
possibility to believe any such, to those who cannot conceive how
anything can be capable of a law that is not a free agent. And upon
that ground they must necessarily reject all principles of virtue, who
cannot put morality and mechanism together, which are not very easy to
be reconciled or made consistent.
Pages:
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89