CONFERENCE III. 487 Questions, he says, " Qui vero probari possit ut sibi mederi animus non possit? &c. qui se sanari voluerint, przeceptisque sapientum paruerint, sine ulla dubitatione sanentur, &c." Thesense of all these expressions may be:summed up in this manner: " Right reason which is conformable to nature, is, that true law which is diffused or spread abroad among all men ; it is constant, it is everlasting, it calls us to our duty by its com- mands, it forbids us to practise iniquity, and deters us from it. Nor can we be freed fromour obligations to this law by senate or people. Nor need we seekany other explainer or interpreter of it, it is so clear in itself. It is not one law at Athens and another at Rome, one now and another hereafter ; but it is the same im- mortal and everlasting law that obliges all nations, and at all times. And there is one as it were the common Master and Ruler of all men, even that God who is the inventor and the maker of this law, &c. This natural reason is both a human and a divine law,, which is not invented by the wit or fancy of men, is not the statute anddecree of any particular nations ; but something eternal, that does or should govern the whole world. He that obeys it will never be guilty of coveting his neighbour's goods, nor of assuming to himself that which he takes away from another, whether it be in point of honour, of property, or estate. And if the mind of man leas at any time failed in its duty, and suffered itself to be corrupted with vice, there is no doubt but it is able to heal and reform itself, since it is the mind that has found out the verymedicines for healing the body : and those souls who fire willing to be healed and reformed, and will obey the precepts of the wise men and philosophers, shall without doubt be reformed and healed ; for philosophy, that is, the doctrine of reason, is the medicine of the mind." And no doubt this was the sense of most of the great men amongst the ancients, as well as of Cicero, as would evidently appear, if we had time to search out and make citations from their writings. Fan. Give me leave, Sir, to make these two answers to what you have drawn from this great man of antiquity. First, all that he says of the sufficiencyof reason, willreach no farther than the concessions which have been already made, viz. That the power of reason in every man bath a natural and remote sufficiency to lead them to the most general notions and practices of duty both to God and man : " There are indeed," saith he, "in our minds some seeds of virtue, which, if we would let them growup, would lead us by nature to blessedness;" 'I'us- eulan Questions, book iii. And it is granted also, that this power has been drawn out into a more regular exercise by some happy geniusses in some nations than it has in others : Where personsofa thoughtful and philosophic spirit have =IS=
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=