An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2Locke, John
Philosophy
An Essay Concerning Humane Understanding, Volume 1: MDCXC, Based on the 2nd Edition, Books 1 and 2
Locke, John
Knowledge, Theory of -- Early works to 1800
Whether there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I
appeal to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of
mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys.
Where is that practical truth that is universally received, without
doubt or question, as it must be if innate? JUSTICE, and keeping of
contracts, is that which most men seem to agree in. This is a principle
which is thought to extend itself to the dens of thieves, and the
confederacies of the greatest villains; and they who have gone furthest
towards the putting off of humanity itself, keep faith and rules of
justice one with another. I grant that outlaws themselves do this one
amongst another: but it is without receiving these as the innate laws
of nature. They practise them as rules of convenience within their own
communities: but it is impossible to conceive that he embraces justice
as a practical principle who acts fairly with his fellow-highwayman,
and at the same time plunders or kills the next honest man he meets
with. Justice and truth are the common ties of society; and therefore
even outlaws and robbers, who break with all the world besides, must
keep faith and rules of equity amongst themselves; or else they cannot
hold together. But will any one say, that those that live by fraud or
rapine have innate principles of truth and justice which they allow and
assent to?
3. Objection: though Men deny them in their Practice, yet they admit
them in their Thoughts answered.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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