Was our reason steady, there would be just the same steadiness and regularity in our tempers; did not reason fall into follies and absurdities, we should have nothing foolish or absurd in our love or aversion. For every humour, every kind of love or aversion, is as strictly the _action_ or _operation_ of our reason, as judgment is the act of our reason. And the tempers and passions of a child, differ only from the tempers and passions of a man, as the reason of a child differs from the reason of man. So that our passions and tempers, are the natural real effects of our reason, and have no qualities, either good or bad, but such as are to be imputed to it. A laudable good nature, or a laudable aversion, is only reason acting in a _certain manner_: a criminal good nature, or a criminal aversion, is nothing else but reason acting in another certain manner. But still it is reason, or our understanding that is the _only agent_ in our bad passions, as well as good passions; and as much the _sole agent_ in all our passions and tempers, as in things of mere speculation. So that the state of reason in human life, is nothing else but the state of human tempers and passions; and right reason in morality, is nothing else but right love, and right aversion. All _that_ therefore which we commonly call the weakness, blindness, and disorder of our _passions_, is in reality the weakness, blindness, and disorder of our _reason_. For a right love, or wrong love, denotes only reason acting in a _certain, particular_ manner. So that if any thing can be said of love, aversion, good nature, or ill nature, as common to mankind; the same may be said of reason, as common to mankind. For the distinction of our reason from our passions, is only a distinction in language, made at pleasure; and is no more real than the _desire_ and _inclination_ are really different from the _will_. All therefore that is weak and foolish in our passions, is the weakness and folly of our reason; all the inconstancy and caprice of our humours and tempers, is the caprice and inconstancy of our reason. It is not properly _avarice_ that makes men sordid; it is not _ambition_ that makes them restless; it is not _bribery_ that makes men sell their consciences; it is not _interest_ that makes them lye, and cheat, and perjure themselves. What is it therefore? Why it is that _absolutely perfect_ faculty, which our author sets up as the _unerring_ standard of all that is _wise_, _holy_, and _good_; it is _reason_, the _use of reason, human reason_, that does all this. For whether any thing be fit to be done, it is as he says, “reason alone which must judge; as the eye is the sole judge of what is visible, the ear of what is audible, so reason of what is reasonable.”