3.  Ideas of Instituted of Voluntary relations.

Thirdly, Sometimes the foundation of considering things with reference to one another, is some act whereby any one comes by a moral right, power, or obligation to do something.  Thus, a general is one that hath power to command an army, and an army under a general is a collection of armed men obliged to obey one man.  A citizen, or a burgher, is one who has a right to certain privileges in this or that place, All this sort depending upon men’s wills, or agreement in society, I call instituted, or voluntary; and may be distinguished from the natural, in that they are most, if not all of them, some way or other alterable, and separable from the persons to whom they have sometimes belonged, though neither of the substances, so related, be destroyed.  Now, though these are all reciprocal, as well as the rest, and contain in them a reference of two things one to the other; yet, because one of the two things often wants a relative name, importing that reference, men usually take no notice of it, and the relation is commonly overlooked:  v. g. a patron and client are easily allowed to be relations, but a constable or dictator are not so readily at first hearing considered as such.  Because there is no peculiar name for those who are under the command of a dictator or constable, expressing a relation to either of them; though it be certain that either of them hath a certain power over some others, and so is so far related to them, as well as a patron is to his client, or general to his army.

4.  Ideas of Moral relations.

Fourthly, There is another sort of relation, which is the conformity or disagreement men’s voluntary actions have to a rule to which they are referred, and by which they are judged of; which, I think, may be called moral relation, as being that which denominates our moral actions, and deserves well to be examined; there being no part of knowledge wherein we should be more careful to get determined ideas, and avoid, as much as may be, obscurity and confusion.  Human actions, when with their various ends, objects, manners, and circumstances, they are framed into distinct complex ideas, are, as has been shown, so many mixed modes, a great part whereof have names annexed to them.  Thus, supposing gratitude to be a readiness to acknowledge and return kindness received; polygamy to be the having more wives than one at once:  when we frame these notions thus in our minds, we have there so many determined ideas of mixed modes.  But this is not all that concerns our actions:  it is not enough to have determined ideas of them, and to know what names belong to such and such combinations of ideas.  We have a further and greater concernment, and that is, to know whether such actions, so made up, are morally good or bad.

5.  Moral Good and Evil.