14. Morality is the relation of voluntary actions to these rules.
Whether the rule to which, as to a touchstone, we
bring our voluntary actions, to examine them by, and try their goodness, and accordingly to name them, which is,
as it were, the mark of the value we set upon them: whether, I say, we take that rule from the fashion of the
country, or the will of a law-maker, the mind is easily able to observe the relation any action hath to it, and to
judge whether the action agrees or disagrees with the rule; and so hath a notion of moral goodness or evil, which
is either conformity or not conformity of any action to that rule: and therefore is often called moral rectitude. This
rule being nothing but a collection of several simple ideas, the conformity thereto is but so ordering the action,
that the simple ideas belonging to it may correspond to those which the law requires. And thus we see how moral
beings and notions are founded on, and terminated in, these simple ideas we have received from sensation or
reflection. For example: let us consider the complex idea we signify by the word murder: and when we have taken
it asunder, and examined all the particulars, we shall find them to amount to a collection of simple ideas derived
from reflection or sensation, viz., First, from reflection on the operations of our own minds, we have the ideas of
willing, considering, purposing beforehand, malice, or wishing ill to another; and also of life, or perception, and
self-motion. Secondly, from sensation we have the collection of those simple sensible ideas which are to be found
in a man, and of some action, whereby we put an end to perception and motion in the man; all which simple ideas
are comprehended in the word murder. This collection of simple ideas, being found by me to agree or disagree
with the esteem of the country I have been bred in, and to be held by most men there worthy praise or blame, I
call the action virtuous or vicious: if I have the will of a supreme invisible Lawgiver for my rule, then, as I
supposed the action commanded or forbidden by God, I call it good or evil, sin or duty: and if I compare it to the
civil law, the rule made by the legislative power of the country, I call it lawful or unlawful, a crime or no crime.
So that whencesoever we take the rule of moral actions; or by what standard soever we frame in our minds the
ideas of virtues or vices, they consist only, and are made up of collections of simple ideas, which we originally
received from sense or reflection: and their rectitude or obliquity consists in the agreement or disagreement with
those patterns prescribed by some law.
