ed from fenfation or reflection. For example, let us confider the complex idea we fignify by the word murder; and when we have taken it afunder, and examined all the particulars, we fhall find them to amount to a collection of fimple ideas derived from reflection or fenfation, viz. First, From reflection on the operations of our minds, we have the ideas of willing, confidering, purpofing before-hand, malice, or wifhing ill to another; and alfo of life, or perception, and felf-motion. Secondly, From fenfation we have the collection of those fimple fenfible ideas which are to be found in a man, and of fome .action, whereby we put an end to perception and motion in the man; all which fimple ideas are comprehended in the word murder. This collection of fimple ideas being found by me to agree or difagree with the efteem of the country I have been bred in, and to be held by moft men there worthy praise or blame, I call the action virtuous or vicious: If I have the will of a fupreme invifible law-maker for my rule; then, I fuppofed the action commanded or forbidden by God, I call it good or evil, fin or duty: And if I compare it to the civil law, the rule made by the legi flative power of the country, I call it lawful or unlawful, a crime or no crime. So that whencefoever we take the rule of moral actions, or by what ftandard foever we frame in our minds the ideas of virtues or vices, they confift only, and are made up of collections of fimple ideas, which we originally received from fenfe or reflection; and their rectitude or obliquity confifts in the agreement or disagreement with thofe patterns prefcribed by some law.

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To conceive rightly of meral actions, we must take notice of them under this twofold confideration. First, as they are in themfelves each made up of fuch a collection of fimple ideas. Thus drunkenness, or lying, fignify fuch or fuch a collection of fimple ideas, which I call mixed modes; and in this fenfe they are as much pofitive abfolute ideas, as the drinking of a horse, or fpeaking of a parrot. Secondly, our actions are confidered as good, bad, or indifferent; and in this refpect

they are relative, it being their conformity to, or difagreement with fome rule that makes them to be regular or irregular, good or bad; and fo, as far as they are compared with a rule, and thereupon denominated, they come under relation. Thus the challenging and fighting with a man, as it is a certain pofitive mode, or particular fort of action, by particular ideas, diftinguifhed from all others, is called duelling; which when confidered, in relation to the law of God, will deferve the name fin; to the law of fashion, in fome countries, valour and virtue; and to the municipal laws of some governments, a capital crime. In this cafe, when the pofitive mode has one name, and another name as it ftands in relation to the law, the diftinction may as eafily be obferved, as it is in fubftances, where one name, v. g. man, is ufed to fignify the thing; another,. g-father, to fignify the relation.

V.

16. The Denominations of Actions often mislead us. BUT because very frequently the pofitive idea of the action, and its moral relation, are comprehended together under one name, and the fame word made use of to exprefs both the mode or action, and its moral rectitude or obliquity; therefore the relation itfeif is lefs taken notice of, and there is often no diflinction made between the pofitive idea of the action, and the reference it has to a rule.. By which confufion of these two distinct confiderations under one term, those who yield too eafily to the impreffions of founds, and are forward to take names for things,. are often mifled in their judgment of actions. Thus, the taking from another what is his, without his knowledge: or allowance, is properly called ftealing; but that name being commonly understood to fignify alfo the moral pravity of the action, and to denote its contrariety to the law, men are apt to condemn whatever they hear called ftealing, as an ill action, difagreeing with the rule of right. And yet the private taking away his fword from a madman, to prevent his doing mifchief, though it be properly denominated flealing, as the name of such a mixed mode, yet when compared to the law of God,. and confidered in its relation to that fupreme rule, it iss

no fin or tranfgreffion, though the name fealing ordinarily carries fuch an intimation with it.

§ 17. Relations innumerable.

AND thus much for the relation of human actions to a law, which therefore I call moral relations.

It would make a volume to go over all forts of relations; it is not therefore to be expected, that I should here mention them all. It fuffices to our prefent purpose, to fhow by thefe, what the ideas are we have of this comprehenfive confideration, called relation: Which is fo various, and the occafions of it fo many, (as many as there can be of comparing things one to another) that it is not very easy to reduce it to rules, or under just heads: Thofe I have mentioned, I think, are fome of the most confiderable, and fuch as may ferve to let us fee from whence we get our ideas of relations, and wherein they are founded. But before I quit this argument, from what has been faid, give me leave to obferve:

18. All Relations terminate in fimple Ideas. FIRST, that it is evident, that all relation terminates in, and is ultimately founded on thofe fimple ideas we have got from fenfation or reflection; fo that all we have in our thoughts ourselves, (if we think of any thing, or have any meaning) or would fignify to others, when we use words ftanding for relations, is nothing but fome fimple ideas, or collections of fimple ideas, compared one with another: This is fo manifeft in that fort called propertional, that nothing can be more; for when a man fays, honey is íweeter than wax, it is plain that his thoughts in this relation terminate in this fimple idea, fweetnefs; which is equally true of all the reft, though where they are compounded or decompounded, the fimple ideas they are made up of, are, perhaps, feldom taken notice of; vg. when the word father is mentioned; first, there is meant that particular species, or collective idea, fignified by the word man ; fecondly, thofe fimple ideas fignified by the word generation; and thirdly, the effects of it, and all the Emple ideas fignified by the word child. So the word friend being taken for a man whe

loves, and is ready to do good to another, has all thefe following ideas to the making of it up; firft, All the fimple ideas comprehended in the word man, or intelligent being; fecondly, The idea of love; thirdly, The idea of readinefs or difpofition; fourthly, The idea of action, which is any kind of thought or motion; fifthly, The idea of good, which fignifies any thing that may advance his happiness, and terminates at last, if examined, in particular fimple ideas; of which the word good in general fignifies any one, but if removed from all fimple ideas quite, it fignifies nothing at all. And thus alfo all moral words terminate at last, though perhaps more remotely, in a collection of fimple ideas; the immediate fignification of relative words, being very often other fuppofed known relations, which, if traced one to another, ftill end in fimple ideas.

§19. We have ordinarily as clear (or clearer) a Notion of the Relation as of its Foundation.

SECONDLY, That in relations, we have for the most part, if not always, as clear a notion of the relation, as we have of thofe fimple ideas wherein it is founded; agreement or difagreement, whereon relation depends, being things whereof we have commonly as clear ideas, as of any other whatsoever; it being but the diftinguishing fimple ideas, or their degrees one from another, without which we could have no diftinct knowledge at all: For if I have a clear idea of fweetnefs, light or extenfion, I have too, of equal, or more or lefs of each of thefe: If I know what it is for one man to be born of a woman, viz. Sempronia, I know what it is for another man to be born of the fame woman, Sempronia; and fo have as clear a notion of brothers as of births, and perhaps clearer: For if I believed that Sempronia dug Titus out of the parfley-bed (as they use to tell children) and thereby became his mother; and that afterwards, in the fame. manner, fhe dug Caius out of the parsley-bed, I had as clear a notion of the relation of brothers between them, as if I had all the fkill of a midwife: the notion that the fame woman contributed, as mother, equally to their. births (though I were ignorant or miftaken in the man-

Book II. ner of it) being that on which I grounded the relation, and that they agreed in that circumftance of birth, let it be what it will. The comparing them then in their defcent from the fame perfon, without knowing the particular circumstances of that defcent, is enough to found my notion of their having or not having the relation of brothers: But though the ideas of particular relations are capable of being as clear and diftinct in the minds of those who will duly confider them, as thofe of mixed modes, and more determinate than those of subftances, yet the names belonging to relation are often of as doubtful and uncertain fignification, as thofe of fubstances or mixed modes, and much more than those of fimple ideas; becaufe relative words being the marks of this comparison which is made only by nens thoughts, and is an idea only in mens minds, men frequently apply them to different comparifons of things, according to their own imaginations, which do not always correfpond with thofe of others using the fame names.

§ 20. The Notion of the Relation is the fame, whether the Rule any Action is compared to be true or falfe. THIRDLY, That in thefe I call moral relations, I have a true notion of relation, by comparing the action with the rule, whether the rule be true or falfe: For if I meafure any thing by a yard, I know whether the thing I measure be longer or fhorter than that fuppofed yard, though perhaps the yard I meafure by be not exactly the ftandard; which indeed is another inquiry: For though the rule be erroneous, and I mistaken in it, yet the agreement or difagreement obfervable in that which I compare with it, makes me perceive the relation; though measuring by a wrong rule, I fhall thereby be brought to judge amifs of its moral rectitude, becaufe I have tried it by that which is not the true rule; but I am not mistaken in the relation which that action bears to that rule I compare it to, which is agreement or disagreement..