PHI LOS 0 P H Y . - Classic Works of Apologetics Online

PREFACE.
IN the treatises that I have met with upon th,e subject of
11lorals, I al)!)ear to myself t\) Ilave remarked the following
ilnperfcctions-eithel' that the p;inciple was erl"oneous, or
that it was indistinctly explained, or that the rules deduced
irom it \VC1'e not S8fficie~ntly adapted to real life and to actual
situatiohS.' '!'lle ,vritings of (~rotius, 811rl the larger worklf
Puffendorff, are of too fore1lsic 8 .. cast, too m1.1cJl mixed up
lyith civil law and ,vith the jurisprudence oIGermany, to aL-,
s\ver precisely tIle design of a system. of ethics---the direction
of private consciences in the general conduct of hUIllan
life. Perh.ips, indeed, they are not to be regarded as institutes
of morality, calcl1lat~d to instruct an illdividual in his
duty, so much as a species of law books and Il\V aut:lol'ities,
suited to the practice of tho~e courts of justice, whose decisions
are regulated by general principl~s of natural equity, in
conjullction with the maxims of the ll.onlan code: of 'Vllil:h
kind, I urtdel'stand, thel'e are many UpOll tIle Contine11t. To
which may be added, concerning both these authors, that they
are more occupied in describing the rights and uc;ages of 111-
dependent cOl11mUl1ities,than is necessary in a work.,vhcill profess2s,
not to adjust the cOl"respondence of nations, but to delineate
the offices of domestic tife. 'l'he prtofusioD also of
classical quotations with ,vhich many of their pages abound,
seell1S to me a fault fronl ,vhicll it ,viII not be easy to excuse
them. If these extracts be inteDded as decorations of style,
t.he composition is overloaded with ornaments of one kind.
1'0 any thing more than ornament they can make no claim.
rro propose theln as Sel'iOl!S arguments; gravely to att.etnpt to
estaLlish or fortify a moral ("iuty by the testimony of a Greek
or Romall l)oet, is to trifle with the attentioll L·f the reader,
or rather to take it off from all just principles of reasoning
ill morals.
Of oUt o,vn ,,"riters in this branch of philosophy, I find none
tll,ft I think l)erfectly free from the thr-ee objections \vhich I
llave stated.
1'Jlere is like\l·ise a fourth property observable
almost in all of them, numely~. that they divide too Dluch of
the law of nature from the pre~cepts of revelation; SOOle au-
1110r!; industriously declining the Inel1tion of scripture authorities,
as belonging to a (litfercnt pruvince; alld others
t'~