Selected quad for the lemma: ground_n
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A30491
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Third remarks upon An essay concerning humane understanding in a letter address'd to the author.
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Burnet, Thomas, 1635?-1715.
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1699
(1699)
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Wing B5955; ESTC R20274
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20,916
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28
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THIRD REMARKS UPON AN ESSAY CONCERNING Humane Understanding IN A LETTER Address'd to the AuTHOR LONDON Printed for M. Wotton at the Three Daggers in Fleet-street MDCXCIX THIRD REMARKS UPON AN ESSAY CONCERNING Humane Understanding SIR I Have not yet receiv'd the Favour of your Answer to my Second Letter or Second Remarks upon your Essay about Humane Vnderstanding You ruffled over the First Remarks in a domineering Answer without giving any Satisfaction to their Contents but the Second being more full and explicit I was in hopes you would have been more concern'd to Answer them and to Answer them more Calmly and like a Philosopher You best know the reason of your Silence but as it will be understood in several ways so it may be subject to that Construction amongst others That you could not satisfie those Objections or Queries without exposing your Principles more than you had a Mind they should be exposed You know there is a Sect or Party of Men among us whom we have much ado to bring to a fair and distinct Account of their Doctrine and Principles They cannot or will not fix their Notions and declare them freely to the World that they may be impartially examin'd I hope you do not approve that Method nor think it worthy of imitation Yet if to find out Truth be the End and Design of your Writing as I believe it is it must be first known what you Affirm and what you Deny before the Matter can be examin'd especially as to those grand Points that are of common Concern and which I have made the Subject of my Enquiries I mean the Grounds of Morality and Religion And in Prosecution of the same Argument that we may have a little more Light into your Doctrine I now desire to know what Natural Conscience is according to your Principles I told you in my former Remarks That I thought it was Necessary as a Ground for Morality to allow a natural distinction betwixt Good and Evil Right and Wrong turpe honestum Vertue and Vice And this distinction I thought was manifested and supported by Natural Conscience whether amongst those that have or have not External Laws This I think is taught us plainly by the Apostle of the Gentiles when Rom. ii 14 15. he says Those that were without a Law were a Law to themselves doing by nature the things contained in the Law which show the Law written in their hearts Their Consciences bearing witness and their thoughts accusing or excusing them The Gentile Philosophers and Poets have said the same things concerning natural Conscience as you cannot but know And that you must go against the best Authors Divine or Humane if you deny to Man natural Conscience as an original Principle antecedently to any other Collections or Recollections I do not deny that you allow such a Principle as Conscience in some sence or other but consider pray how you define it or what you say is to be understood by it Conscience you Pag. 18. §. 8. say is nothing else but our own Opinion of our own Actions But of what sort of Actions I pray and in reference to what rule or distinction of our Actions whether as Good or Evil or as Profitable or Unprofitable or as Perfect or Imperfect Or of all promiscuously of natural Actions and about things of indifferency as well as others As for instance whether we have play'd well in a Game at Chess or in a party at Tennis is this matter of Conscience yet we make a judgment of our Actions in these cases as well as other But tho' they were imperfect in their kind or not well managed we feel no Accusation or Remorse of Conscience for it Surely therefore that Principle ought to be better described and distinguish'd than by such a loose Character of it as makes all our Actions indifferently the Objects of Conscience I take Conscience to relate to our Moral Actions only and to the distinction of moral Good and Evil and such other Differences Accusing excusing or justifying us according as we have observ'd neglected or contemn'd those Differences This we understand by natural Conscience and take it to be the Foundation of natural Religion as that is of Revealed Now I do not remember that in this sence you have once nam'd natural Conscience in your Book tho' you had a fair opportunity for it in your large Discourse about Practical Principles in your Third Chapter Book I. But it may be you think there is none truly natural in this Acceptation However seeing you own natural Religion let 's consider what you understand by it and how you can make it subsist without natural Conscience in that Sence and notion we have given of it You place natural Religion I think in the Belief of the Being of a Pag. 277. §. 23. God and of Obedience due to him This is good so far as it goes and is well supported But the Question is what Laws those are that we ought to obey or how we can know them without Revelation unless you take in natural Conscience for a distinction of Good and Evil or another Idea of God than what you have given us That Principle of Conscience and a true Idea of God with Moral Attributes being admitted we have a Foundation for natural Religion But not being admitted I do not see by what ratiocination you can collect antecedently to Revelation what the Will of God is what his Laws are how Promulgated and made known to us And consequently what we have to direct our Obedience if we do not know wherein that Obedience consists I may know there is a King and that I am bound to obey him yet if I do not know his Laws nor what his Pleasure is I cannot tell when I please him or displease him obey him or disobey him if I know not I say in what particulars my Duty and Allegiance are to be express'd and practis'd Neither can we think Natural Religion a matter of small concern or consequence seeing in virtue of that Principle without any External Laws so far as we know Noah and Job not to mention more have been accounted Just and Upright in the sight of God and mark'd as the particular Favourites of Heaven by one of the Prophets Ezek. xiv 14. If they had no other Guide or Motive to Vertue and Piety than your Idea of God and of the Soul with an arbitrary difference of Good and Evil I wonder how they could attain to such a degree of Righteousness as would bear that eminent Character from God and his Prophets Upon this occasion also we may reflect upon Natural Faith and the Nature of it You know how it is describ'd by the same Apostle of the Gentiles He that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a Rewarder of them that diligently seek him And without this Faith he says 't is impossible to please him Heb. xi 6. Now how shall a Man in
the state of Nature have just grounds of this Faith if he have no other Idea of God than that he is an All-powerful All-knowing and Eternal Being How from this can he prove that he will be a Rewarder of those that seek him If Goodness and Justice belong to his Essence as well as those other Perfections he may from the Idea of God have a good foundation and support of his Faith and consequently of his Vertue and Piety But without these he is left in the dark as to his fate or future Reward in another state Lastly As to Providence we cannot tell from your Principles how far it will extend We see Provision is made for the Subsistence of Creatures here that the World may be kept upon the Wheels and still going But as to their Happiness as we see it uncertain here so we cannot prove from the bare Power and Knowledge of their Maker what it will be hereafter So much for Natural Religion We return now to Natural Conscience and to what you call Practical Principles whereof you discourse amply in the foremention'd Chapter As to that B. 1. c. 3. Controversie about Natural Principles I think it may turn either way according as they understand the Terms of the Question which in my mind you have not fairly represented If by Principles you understand distinct Knowledge that is distinct Idea's and distinct Propositions we do not hold innate Principles in that sence Yet so you seem to represent them and their Idea's and you call them Characters fair Characters indeleble Characters stampt imprinted engraven in the Mind Ch. 2 3. for all those Expressions you use upon that occasion Now all these Expressions seem to signifie clear and distinct Representations as Pictures or Sculptures represent their Originals Does any one assert that there are such express Idea's express Propositions in the Mind of Man and an express discernment of their connexion or inconnexion before the use of Reason or as much before it as after it I say as much before it as after it for the fullest clearest and most distinct Knowledge that we have after the use of Reason cannot be more amply express'd than to say it is imprinted or engraven upon the Mind in fair and indeleble Characters You exaggerate the matter and set the question at what height you please that you may have the fairer mark to shoot at If you had reflected upon that common distinction of Knowledge as clear or obscure general or particular distinct or indistinct whereof we have daily Instances in the Life of Man you might have represented more softly and more easily conceiv'd those Natural Impressions which indeed compar'd with perfect Knowledge are but general obscure and indistinct Notices and yet sufficient for the Purposes to which they are design'd When a Child feels the difference of bitter and sweet he knows and understands that difference in some kind or degree for it hath its Consequences and becomes a Principle of Action to him Now whether you please to call this Principle Knowledge or Sense or Instinct or by any other Name it still hath the effect of Knowledge of some sort or other and that before this Child hath the Name of Bitter or Sweet Pleasant or Unpleasant much less can he define what either of them is We suppose these original Impressions to be like Gold in the Oar that may be refin'd or rough Diamonds that by polishing receive a further lustre or to come nearer to your similitude like Monograms or Sketches that want their full Lines and Colours to compleat them and yet one may discern what or whom they are made to represent though imperfectly drawn I say this only by the bye that the Question may be better stated for my Design at present is only to speak of Practical Principles or what I call Natural Conscience in reference to the distinction of Moral Good and Evil. Accordingly I understand by Natural Conscience a Natural Sagacity to distinguish Moral Good and Evil or a different perception and sense of them with a different affection of the Mind arising from it and this so immediate as to prevent and anticipate all External Laws and all Ratiocination And when I say Moral Good and Evil I mean it in contradistinction to Natural Good and Evil Pleasure or Pain Conveniences or Inconveniences which are things of another order and character This inward Sense we speak of is simple and irrespective as to those Natural Evils or Goods They are not its proper Objects They may be frequently in conjunction but not necessarily By these Rules and Marks I think it appears sufficiently what I mean by Natural Conscience and I wish you would as freely and fully tell us your Notion of it so far as it is opposite or different from this that by a just state of the Question we might come more easily to the discovery of Truth For there are some Questions that are harder to state clearly and distinctly than to resolve when so stated You will not now say I believe That if there was such a Natural Principle in the Soul of Man Infants or young Children would be able to distinguish Moral Good and Evil For you might as well expect that in a Seed there should be Leaves Flowers and Fruit or that in the rudiments of an Embryo there should be all the Parts and Members of a compleat Body distinctly represented which in continuance are fashioned and brought to perfection This is the case we represent Such a Principle as Natural Conscience we say is seated in the Soul of Man as other original Principles are which shew themselves by degrees in different times and differently according to other circumstances Whether you will call this Principle Knowledge or by any other name as we told you before is indifferent to us but 't is a Principle of distinguishing one thing from another in Moral Cases without Ratiocination and is improveable into more distinct Knowledge We may illustrate this from our Outward Sensations We can evidently distinguish Red and Yellow Colours and yet are at a loss how to define either of them or to express their difference in words And so in Tastes Odours Sounds and other sensible qualities We are differently affected by their Impressions and so is a Child before any Reflection or Ratiocination though neither of us can give an Idea of the Affection we feel nor of the particular Modification and Action of the Object whence it arises This shews us that there may be a power in the Soul of distinguishing one thing from another without Ratiocination And if in Sensible Qualities why not also in Moral and Intellectual Relations such as Good and Evil True and False As our Outward Senses are sufficient without distinct Idea's and Propositions to give us notice of what is convenient or inconvenient to the Body So those Inward Sensations were design'd to direct us as to what is agreeable or disagreeable good or hurtful