Morality capable of demonstration.
The idea of a supreme Being, infinite in power, goodness, and wisdom, whose
workmanship we are, and on whom we depend; and the idea of ourselves, as understanding, rational creatures,
being such as are clear in us, would, I suppose, if duly considered and pursued, afford such foundations of our
duty and rules of action as might place morality amongst the sciences capable of demonstration: wherein I doubt
not but from self-evident propositions, by necessary consequences, as incontestible as those in mathematics, the
measures of right and wrong might be made out, to any one that will apply himself with the same indifferency and
attention to the one as he does to the other of these sciences. The relation of other modes may certainly be
perceived, as well as those of number and extension: and I cannot see why they should not also be capable of
demonstration, if due methods were thought on to examine or pursue their agreement or disagreement. "Where
there is no property there is no injustice," is a proposition as certain as any demonstration in Euclid: for the idea of
property being a right to anything, and the idea to which the name "injustice" is given being the invasion or
violation of that right, it is evident that these ideas, being thus established, and these names annexed to them, I can
as certainly know this proposition to be true, as that a triangle has three angles equal to two right ones. Again:
"No government allows absolute liberty." The idea of government being the establishment of society upon certain
rules or laws which require conformity to them; and the idea of absolute liberty being for any one to do whatever
he pleases; I am as capable of being certain of the truth of this proposition as of any in the mathematics.
