An Essay on the Origin of Evil (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from An Essay on the Origin of Evil

Though all writers of morality have in the main agreed what particular aétions are virtuous and what Otherwife, yet they have, or at leafi feetn to have differed very much, both concerning the Criterion of Virtue, viz. What it is which Maniac: any action vir tuous5 or, to (peak more properly, what it is by which we mull; try any aétion to brow whether it be virtuous or no 5 and alfo concerning the Principle, or motive, by which men are induced to offne Virtue. As to the former, fome ave placed it ably to nature, or reefers 5 others in the film]: qf things 5 others in a conformity with truth; Others in romoting the comm: good 5 Others in the will of God, c. This difagreement of moralilts concerniu the rule or Cri terion of Virtue in general, and at the fame time their almolt perfect agreement concerning the particular branches of it. Would be apt to make one forpeét, either that they had a difl'erent Criterion (though they did not know or attend to ir) from what they profefl'ed; or (which perhaps is the true as well as the more fa vourable o inion) that they only talk a difi'erent lan an that all of them have the fame Criterion in only they have exprefl'ed it in different words. There will appear the more room for this conjee C ture'

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