innate principles: nay, it proves not so much as that men assent to
them inwardly in their own minds, as the inviolable rules of their own
practice; since we find that self-interest, and the conveniences of
this life, make many men own an outward profession and approbation
of them, whose actions sufficiently prove that they very little
consider the Lawgiver that prescribed these rules; nor the hell that
he has ordained for the punishment of those that transgress them.

  7. Men's actions convince us that the rule of virtue is not their
internal principle. For, if we will not in civility allow too much
sincerity to the professions of most men, but think their actions to
be the interpreters of their thoughts, we shall find that they have no
such internal veneration for these rules, nor so full a persuasion
of their certainty and obligation. The great principle of morality,
"To do as one would be done to," is more commended than practised. But
the breach of this rule cannot be a greater vice, than to teach
others, that it is no moral rule, nor obligatory, would be thought
madness, and contrary to that interest men sacrifice to, when they
break it themselves. Perhaps conscience will be urged as checking us
for such breaches, and so the internal obligation and establishment of
the rule be preserved.

  8. Conscience no proof of any innate moral rule. To which I
answer, that I doubt not but, without being written on their hearts,
many men may, by the same way that they come to the knowledge of other
things, come to assent to several moral rules, and be convinced of
their obligation. Others also may come to be of the same mind, from
their education, company, and customs of their country; which
persuasion, however got, will serve to set conscience on work; which
is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment of the moral rectitude
or pravity of our own actions; and if conscience be a proof of
innate principles, contraries may be innate principles; since some men
with the same bent of conscience prosecute what others avoid.

  9. Instances of enormities practised without remorse. But I cannot
see how any men should ever transgress those moral rules, with
confidence and serenity, were they innate, and stamped upon their
minds. View but an army at the sacking of a town, and see what
observation or sense of moral principles, or what touch of
conscience for all the outrages they do. Robberies, murders, rapes,
are the sports of men set at liberty from punishment and censure. Have
there not been whole nations, and those of the most civilized
people, amongst whom the exposing their children, and leaving them
in the fields to perish by want or wild beasts has been the
practice; as little condemned or scrupled as the begetting them? Do
they not still, in some countries, put them into the same graves
with their mothers, if they die in childbirth; or despatch them, if
a pretended astrologer declares them to have unhappy stars? And are
there not places where, at a certain age, they kill or expose their
parents, without any remorse at all? In a part of Asia, the sick, when
their case comes to be thought desperate, are carried out and laid
on the earth before they are dead; and left there, exposed to wind and
weather, to perish without assistance or pity. It is familiar among
the Mingrelians, a people professing Christianity, to bury their
children alive without scruple. There are places where they eat
their own children. The Caribbees were wont to geld their children, on
purpose to fat and eat them. And Garcilasso de la Vega tells us of a
people in Peru which were wont to fat and eat the children they got on
their female captives, whom they kept as concubines for that
purpose, and when they were past breeding, the mothers themselves were
killed too and eaten. The virtues whereby the Tououpinambos believed
they merited paradise, were revenge, and eating abundance of their
enemies. They have not so much as a name for God, and have no
religion, no worship. The saints who are canonized amongst the
Turks, lead lives which one cannot with modesty relate. A remarkable
passage to this purpose, out of the voyage of Baumgarten, which is a
book not every day to be met with, I shall set down at large, in the
language it is published in. Ibi (sc. prope Belbes in AEgypto) vidimus
sanctum unum Saracenicum inter arenarum cumulos, ita ut ex utero
matris prodiit nudum sedentem. Mos est, ut didicimus, Mahometistis, ut
eos, qui amentes et sine ratione sunt, prosanctis colant et
venerentur. Insuper et eos, qui cum diu vitam egerint inquinatissimam,
voluntariam demum poenitentiam et paupertatem, sanctitate venerandos
deputant. Ejusmodi vero genus hominum libertatem quandam effrenem
habent, domos quos volunt intrandi, edendi, bibendi, et quod majus
est, concumbendi; ex quo concubitu, si proles secuta fuerit, sancta
similiter habetur. His ergo hominibus dum vivunt, magnos exhibent
honores; mortuis vero vel templa vel monumenta extruunt amplissima,
eosque contingere ac sepelire maximae fortunae ducunt loco.
Audivimus haec dicta et dicenda per interpretem a Mucrelo nostro.
Insuper sanctum illum, quem eo loco vidimus, publicitus apprime
commendari, eum esse hominem sanctum, divinum ac integritate
praecipuum; eo quod, nec foeminarum unquam esset, nec puerorum, sed
tantummodo asellarum concubitor atque mularum. (Peregr. Baumgarten, 1.
ii. c. I. p. 73.) More of the same kind concerning these precious
saints amongst the Turks may be seen in Pietro della Valle, in his
letter of the 25th of January, 1616.

  Where then are those innate principles of justice, piety, gratitude,
equity, chastity? Or where is that universal consent that assures us
there are such inbred rules? Murders in duels, when fashion has made
them honourable, are committed without remorse of conscience: nay,
in many places innocence in this case is the greatest ignominy. And if
we look abroad to take a view of men as they are, we shall find that
they have remorse, in one place, for doing or omitting that which
others, in another place, think they merit by.

  10. Men have contrary practical principles. He that will carefully
peruse the history of mankind, and look abroad into the several tribes
of men, and with indifferency survey their actions, will be able to