15. Moral actions may be regarded either absolutely, or as ideas of relation.
To conceive rightly of moral actions,
we must take notice of them under this two-fold consideration. First, as they are in themselves, each made up of
such a collection of simple ideas. Thus drunkenness, or lying, signify such or such a collection of simple ideas,
which I call mixed modes: and in this sense they are as much positive absolute ideas, as the drinking of a horse, or
speaking of a parrot. Secondly, our actions are considered as good, bad, or indifferent; and in this respect they are
relative, it being their conformity to, or disagreement with some rule that makes them to be regular or irregular,
good or bad; and so, as far as they are compared with a rule, and thereupon denominated, they come under
relation. Thus the challenging and fighting with a man, as it is a certain positive mode, or particular sort of action,
by particular ideas, distinguished from all others, is called duelling: which, when considered in relation to the law
of God, will deserve the name of sin; to the law of fashion, in some countries, valour and virtue; and to the
municipal laws of some governments, a capital crime. In this case, when the positive mode has one name, and
another name as it stands in relation to the law, the distinction may as easily be observed as it is in substances,
where one name, v.g. man, is used to signify the thing; another, v.g. father, to signify the relation.
