Chap.  XXVIII. discusses Moral Relations.  Good and Evil are nothing but Pleasure and Pain, and what causes them.  Moral Good or Evil is the conformity or unconformity of our voluntary actions to some Law, entailing upon us good or evil by the will and power of the Law-giver, to which good and evil we apply the names Reward and Punishment.

There are three sorts of Moral Rules:  1st, The Divine Law, whether promulgated by the Light of Nature or by Revelation, and enforced by rewards and punishments in a future life.  This law, when ascertained, is the touchstone of moral rectitude. 2nd, The Civil Law, or the Law of the State, supported by the penalties of the civil judge. 3rd, The Law of Opinion or Reputation.  Even after resigning, to public authority, the disposal of the public force, men still retain the power of privately approving or disapproving actions, according to their views of virtue and vice.  The being commended or dispraised by our fellows may thus be called the sanction of Reputation, a power often surpassing in efficacy both the other sanctions.

Morality is the reference of all actions to one or other of these three Laws.  Instead of applying innate notions of good and evil, the mind, having been taught the several rules enjoined by these authorities, compares any given action with these rules, and pronounces accordingly.  A rule is an aggregate of simple Ideas; so is an action; and the conformity required is the ordering of the action so that the simple ideas belonging to it may correspond to those required by the law.  Thus, all Moral Notions may be reduced to the simple ideas gained by the two leading sources—­Sensation and Reflection.  Murder is an aggregate of simple ideas, traceable in the detail to these sources.

The summary of Locke’s views is as follows:—­

I.—­With reference to the Standard of Morality, we have these two great positions—­

First, That the production of pleasure and pain to sentient beings is the ultimate foundation of moral good and evil.

Secondly, That morality is a system of Law, enacted by one or other of three different authorities.

II.—­In the Psychology of Ethics, Locke, by implication, holds—­

First, That there is no innate moral sentiment; that our moral ideas are the generalities of moral actions.  That our faculties of moral discernment are—­(1) those that discern the pleasures and pains of mankind; and (2), those that comprehend and interpret the laws of God, the Nation, and Public Opinion.  And (3) he counts that the largest share in the formation of our Moral Sentiments is due to Education and Custom.

[We have seen his views on Free-will, p. 413.]

As regards the nature of Disinterested Action, he pronounces no definite opinion.  He makes few attempts to analyze the emotional and active part of our nature.

III.—­His Summum Bonum is stated generally as the procuring of Pleasure and the avoiding of Pain.