| Point out distinctly the relations, which constitute morality or obligation, that we may know wherein they consist, and after what manner we must judge of them. |
| If you assert, that vice and virtue consist in relations susceptible of certainty and demonstration, you must confine yourself to those four relations, which alone admit of that degree of evidence; and in that case you run into absurdities, from which you will never be able to extricate yourself. |
| For as you make the very essence of morality to lie in the relations, and as there is no one of these relations but what is applicable, not only to an irrational, but also to an inanimate object; it follows, that even such objects must be susceptible of merit or demerit. |
| RESEMBLANCE, CONTRARIETY, DEGREES IN QUALITY, and PROPORTIONS IN QUANTITY AND NUMBER; all these relations belong as properly to matter, as to our actions, passions, and volitions. |
| It is unquestionable, therefore, that morality lies not in any of these relations, nor the sense of it in their discovery. |
| [Footnote 13. As a proof, how confused our way of thinking on this subject commonly is, we may observe, that those who assert, that morality is demonstrable, do not say, that morality lies in the relations, and that the relations are distinguishable by reason. |
| They only say, that reason can discover such an action, In such relations, to be virtuous, and such another vicious. |
| It seems they thought it sufficient, if they could bring the word, Relation, into the proposition, without troubling themselves whether it was to the purpose or not. |
| But here, I think, is plain argument. |
| Demonstrative reason discovers only relations. |
| But that reason, according to this hypothesis, discovers also vice and virtue. |
| These moral qualities, therefore, must be relations. |
| When we blame any action, in any situation, the whole complicated object, of action and situation, must form certain relations, wherein the essence of vice consists. |
| This hypothesis is not otherwise intelligible. |
| For what does reason discover, when it pronounces any action vicious? Does it discover a relation or a matter of fact? These questions are decisive, and must not be eluded.] |
| Should it be asserted, that the sense of morality consists in the discovery of some relation, distinct from these, and that our enumeration was not compleat, when we comprehended all demonstrable relations under four general heads: To this I know not what to reply, till some one be so good as to point out to me this new relation. |
| It is impossible to refute a system, which has never yet been explained. |
| In such a manner of fighting in the dark, a man loses his blows in the air, and often places them where the enemy is not present. |
| I must, therefore, on this occasion, rest contented with requiring the two following conditions of any one that would undertake to clear up this system. |
| First, As moral good and evil belong only to the actions of the mind, and are derived from our situation with regard to external objects, the relations, from which these moral distinctions arise, must lie only betwixt internal actions, and external objects, and must not be applicable either to internal actions, compared among themselves, or to external objects, when placed in opposition to other external objects. |
| For as morality is supposed to attend certain relations, if these relations coued belong to internal actions considered singly, it would follow, that we might be guilty of crimes in ourselves, and independent of our situation, with respect to the universe: And in like manner, if these moral relations coued be applied to external objects, it would follow, that even inanimate beings would be susceptible of moral beauty and deformity. |