882 AN ENQUIRY ABOUT INNATE IDEAS. ed and limited by its Creator to have such and such appointed sensations or ideas raised in it bycertain external motions of the matter or body to width it is united, and that while the organs aregood and sound it cannot have others, so it is also inclined and almost determined by such principles as are wrought into it by the Creator, to believe some propositions true, others false ; and perhafis also some actions good, others evil. Therefore I might add, SECT. IV. In what Sense some rules of Duty may be innate. THIRDLY, there may be some practical principles also innate in the foregoing sense, though not in the form of proposi- tions : I mean thus ; that in the mouldingof our souls God has given us faculties to discern the justness or fitness of such and such actions; and together with this discernment he has also in- wrought into our souls some concomitant movements to judge aright, at least concerning the more generar and obvious in- stances of virtue and vice, religion and morality; such as, " contracts are to be kept truth and veracity should be prac- tised'; murder ought not tobe committed; Godmust be honoured, dr he that made us has a right to govern us," &c. though these are acknowledged to be much fainter and feebler than speculative Principles, because they have been more corrupted by men, as more frequently contradicting their sensual inclinations and vicious passions ; whereas in matters of speculation, there is no such opposition in our natures, in their present degenerate state. Yet it must be confessed, that at the very first proposal, whop the terms are understood, a rational being cannot but as- sent to this proposition, " He that made me should govern me ; it is right and fit that contracts should be kept. He cannot but see the fitness of these moral propositions, as he cannot but see the justness or truth of this natural one, that '5 all the parts taken together are equal to the whole." It seems to me to be the very nature of his reason so to judge : His soul is not therefore equally indifferent to these propositions, and to the reverse or contraries if them. SECT. V. Of the Foundations of moral Virtue, and of a moral Sense or Instinct. THERE has a controversy risen long since these papers were written, between two considerable authors, " Whether tho soul of wan judges of moral good and evil, by an inward prinei- ple or instinct, which is called the moral sense, antecedent to all reasonings; or whether it is by its survey of the moral propo- sitions offered to the understanding, and seeing the rational fit- ness and unfitness of things, that it judges of them by reason,.
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