If we read History, and cast our glance over the world, we shall scarcely find any rule of Morality (excepting such as are necessary to hold society together, and these too with great limitations) but what is somewhere or other set aside, and an opposite established, by whole societies of men.  Men may break a law without disowning it; but it is inconceivable that a whole nation should publicly reject and renounce what every one of them, certainly and infallibly, knows to be a law.  Whatever practical principle is innate, must be known to every one to be just and good.  The generally allowed breach of any rule anywhere must be held to prove that it is not innate.  If there be any rule having a fair claim to be imprinted by nature, it is the rule that Parents should preserve and cherish their children.  If such a principle be innate, it must be found regulating practice everywhere; or, at the lowest, it must be known and assented to.  But it is very far from having been uniformly practised, even among enlightened nations.  And as to its being an innate truth, known to all men, that also is untrue.  Indeed, the terms of it are not intelligible without other knowledge.  The statement, ‘it is the duty of parents to preserve their children,’ cannot be understood without a Law; a Law requires a Lawmaker, and Reward or Punishment.  And as punishment does not always follow in this life, nothing less than a recognition of Divine Law will suffice; in other words, there must be intuitions of God, Law, Obligation, Punishment, and a Future Life:  every one of which may be, and is, deemed to be innate.

It is incredible that men, if all these things were stamped on their minds, could deliberately offend against them; still more, that rulers should silently connive at such transgressions.

4.  The supporters of innate principles are unable to point out distinctly what they are.[18] Yet, if these were imprinted on the mind, there could be no more doubt about them than about the number of our fingers.  We well know that, if men of different sects were to write out their respective lists, they would set down exactly such as suited their several schools or churches.

There is, Locke remarks, a ready, but not very material, answer to his objections, namely, that the innate principles may, by Education and Custom, be darkened and worn out of men’s minds.  But this takes away at once the argument from universal consent, and leaves nothing but what each party thinks should pass for universal consent, namely, their own private persuasion:  a method whereby a set of men presuming themselves to be the only masters of right reason, put aside the votes and opinions of the rest of mankind.  Thus, notwithstanding the innate light, we are as much in the dark as if it did not exist; a rule that will warp any way is not to be distinguished amidst its contraries.  If these rules are so liable to vary, through adventitious notions, we should find