| Now, as a like uncertainty and variety of causes take place, even in natural objects, and produce a like error in our judgment, if that tendency to produce error were the very essence of vice and immorality, it should follow, that even inanimate objects might be vicious and immoral. |
| One might think It were entirely superfluous to prove this, if a late author [William Wollaston, THE RELIGION OF NATURE DELINEATED (London 1722)], who has had the good fortune to obtain some reputation, had not seriously affirmed, that such a falshood is the foundation of all guilt and moral deformity. |
| That we may discover the fallacy of his hypothesis, we need only consider, that a false conclusion is drawn from an action, only by means of an obscurity of natural principles, which makes a cause be secretly interrupted In its operation, by contrary causes, and renders the connexion betwixt two objects uncertain and variable. |
| Now, as a like uncertainty and variety of causes take place, even in natural objects, and produce a like error in our judgment, if that tendency to produce error were the very essence of vice and immorality, it should follow, that even inanimate objects might be vicious and immoral. |
| It is in vain to urge, that inanimate objects act without liberty and choice. |
| For as liberty and choice are not necessary to make an action produce in us an erroneous conclusion, they can be, in no respect, essential to morality; and I do not readily perceive, upon this system, how they can ever come to be regarded by it. |
| If the tendency to cause error be the origin of immorality, that tendency and immorality would in every case be inseparable. |
| Add to this, that if I had used the precaution of shutting the windows, while I indulged myself in those liberties with my neighbour's wife, I should have been guilty of no immorality; and that because my action, being perfectly concealed, would have had no tendency to produce any false conclusion. |
| For the same reason, a thief, who steals In by a ladder at a window, and takes all imaginable care to cause no disturbance, is in no respect criminal. |
| For either he will not be perceived, or if he be, it is impossible he can produce any error, nor will any one, from these circumstances, take him to be other than what he really is. |
| It is well known, that those who are squint-sighted, do very readily cause mistakes in others, and that we Imagine they salute or are talking to one person, while they address themselves to anther. |
| Are they therefore, upon that account, immoral? |
| Besides, we may easily observe, that in all those arguments there is an evident reasoning in a circle. |
| A person who takes possession of another's goods, and uses them as his own, in a manner declares them to be his own; and this falshood is the source of the immorality of injustice. |
| But is property, or right, or obligation, intelligible, without an antecedent morality? |
| A man that is ungrateful to his benefactor, in a manner affirms, that he never received any favours from him. |
| But in what manner? Is it because it is his duty to be grateful? But this supposes, that there is some antecedent rule of duty and morals. |
| Is it because human nature is generally grateful, and makes us conclude, that a man who does any harm never received any favour from the person he harmed? But human nature is not so generally grateful, as to justify such a conclusion. |
| Or if it were, is an exception to a general rule in every case criminal, for no other reason than because it is an exception? |
| But what may suffice entirely to destroy this whimsical system is, that it leaves us under the same difficulty to give a reason why truth is virtuous and falshood vicious, as to account for the merit or turpitude of any other action. |
| I shall allow, if you please, that all immorality is derived from this supposed falshood in action, provided you can give me any plausible reason, why such a falshood is immoral. |