The Online Library of Liberty

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• Introduction
• Note On the Text
• Acknowledgments
• Volume 1: The Principles of Natural Law
• Part I: General Principles of Right.
• Chapter I: Of the Nature of Man Considered With Regard to Right: of the Understanding, and Whatever Is Relative to This Faculty.
• Chapter II: Continuation of the Principles Relative to the Nature of Man. of Will and Liberty.
• Chapter III: That Man Thus Constituted, Is a Creature Capable of Moral Direction, and Accountable For His Actions.
• Chapter IV: Further Inquiry Into What Relates to Human Nature, By Considering the Different States of Man.
• Chapter V: That Man Ought to Square His Conduct By Rule; the Method of Finding Out This Rule; and the Foundations of Right In General.
• Chapter VI: General Rules of Conduct Prescribed By Reason. of the Nature and First Foundations of Obligation.
• Chapter VII: Of Right Considered As a Faculty, and of the Obligation Thereto Corresponding.
• Chapter Viii *: of Law In General.
• Chapter IX: Of the Foundation of Sovereignty, Or the Right of Commanding.
• Chapter X: Of the End of Laws; of Their Characters, Differences, &c.
• Chapter XI: Of the Morality of Human Actions. *
• Part II: Of the Law of Nature.
• Chapter I: In What the Law of Nature Consists, and That There Is Such a Thing. First Considerations Drawn From the Existence of God and His Authority Over Us.
• Chapter II: That God, In Consequence of His Authority Over Us, Has Actually Thought Proper to Prescribe to Us Laws Or Rules of Conduct.
• Chapter III: Of the Means By Which We Discern What Is Just and Unjust, Or What Is Dictated By Natural Law; Namely, 1. Moral Instinct, and 2. Reason.
• Chapter IV: Of the Principles From Whence Reason May Deduce the Law of Nature. *
• Chapter V: That Natural Laws Have Been Sufficiently Notified; of Their Proper Characteristics, the Obligation They Produce, &c.
• Chapter VI: Of the Law of Nations.
• Chapter VII: Whether There Is Any Morality of Actions, Any Obligation Or Duty, Antecedent to the Laws of Nature, and Independent of the Idea of a Legislator? 1
• Chapter VIII: Consequences of the Preceding Chapter: Reflections On the Distinctions of Just, Honest, and Useful.
• Chapter IX: Of the Application of Natural Laws to Human Actions; and First of Conscience. †
• Chapter X: Of the Merit and Demerit of Human Actions; and of Their Imputation Relative to the Laws of Nature. *
• Chapter XI: Application of Those Principles to Different Species of Actions, In Order to Judge In What Manner They Ought to Be Imputed.
• Chapter XII: Of the Authority and Sanction of Natural Laws † and 1. of the Good Or Evil That Naturally and Generally Follows From Virtue Or Vice.
• Chapter XIII: Proofs of the Immortality of the Soul. That There Is a Sanction, Properly So Called, In Respect to Natural Law. 1
• Chapter XIV: That the Proofs We Have Alledged Have Such a Probability and Fitness, As Renders Them Sufficient to Fix Our Belief, and to Determine Our Conduct.
• Volume 2: The Principles of Politic Law
• Part I: Which Treats of the Origin and Nature of Civil Society, of Sovereignty In General, of Its Peculiar Characteristic, Limitations, and Essential Parts.
• Chapter I: Containing a Few General and Preliminary Reflections, Which Serve As an Introduction to This and the Following Parts.
• Chaper II: Of the Real Origin of Civil Societies.
• Chapter III: Of the Right of Congruity Or Fitness With Regard to the Institution of Civil Society, and the Necessity of a Supreme Authority: of Civil Liberty; That It Is Far Preferable 1 to Natural Liberty, and That the State Is of All Human Conditions
• Chapter IV: Of the Essential Constitution of States, and of the Manner In Which They Are Formed.
• Chapter V: Of the Sovereign, Sovereignty, and the Subjects.
• Chapter VI: Of the Immediate Source, and Foundation of Sovereignty.
• Chapter VII: Of the Essential Characters of Sovereignty, Its Modifications, Extent, and Limits.
• Chapter VIII: Of the Parts of Sovereignty, Or of the Different Essential Rights Which It Includes.
• Part II: In Which Are Explained the Different Forms of Government, the Ways of Acquiring Or Losing Sovereignty, and the Reciprocal Duties of Sovereigns and Subjects.
• Chapter I: Of the Various Forms of Government.
• Chapter II: An Essay On This Question, Which Is the Best Form of Government?
• Chapter III: Of the Different Ways of Acquiring Sovereignty.
• Chapter IV: Of the Different Ways of Losing Sovereignty.
• Chapter V: Of the Duties of Subjects In General.
• Chapter VI: Of the Inviolable Rights of Sovereignty, of the Deposing of Sovereigns, of the Abuse of the Supreme Power, and of Tyranny.
• Chapter VIII: Of the Duty 1 of Sovereigns.
• Part III: A More Particular Examination of the Essential Parts of Sovereignty, Or of the Different Rights of the Sovereign, With Respect to the Internal Administration of the State, Such As the Legislative Power, the Supreme Power In Matters of Religion,
• Chapter I: Of the Legislative Power, and the Civil Laws Which Arise From It.
• Chapter II: Of the Right of Judging the Doctrines Taught In the State: of the Care Which the Sovereign Ought to Take to Form the Manners of His Subjects.
• Chapter III: Of the Power of the Sovereign In Matters of Religion.
• Chapter IV: Of the Power of the Sovereign Over the Lives and Fortunes of His Subjects In Criminal Cases.
• Chapter V: Of the Power of Sovereigns Over the Bona Reipublicae, 1 Or the Goods Contained In the Commonwealth.
• Part IV: In Which Are Considered the Different Rights of Sovereignty With Respect to Foreign States; the Right of War, and Every Thing Relating to It; Public Treaties, and the Right of Ambassadors.
• Chapter I: Of War In General, and First of the Right of the Sovereign, In This Respect, Over His Subjects.
• Chapter II: Of the Causes of War.
• Chapter III: Of the Different Kinds of War.
• Chapter IV: Of Those Things Which Ought to Precede War.
• Chapter V: General Rules to Know What Is Allowable In War.
• Chapter VI: Of the Rights Which War Gives Over the Persons of the Enemy, and of Their Extent and Bounds.
• Chapter VII: Of the Rights of War Over the Goods of an Enemy.
• Chapter VIII: Of the Right of Sovereignty Acquired Over the Conquered.
• Chapter IX: Of Public Treaties In General.
• Chapter X: Of Compacts Made With an Enemy.
• Chapter XI: Of Compacts With an Enemy, Which Do Not Put an End to the War.
• Chapter XII: Of Compacts Made, During the War, By Subordinate Powers, As Generals of Armies, Or Other Commanders.
• Chapter XIII: Of Compacts Made With an Enemy By Private Persons.
• Chapter XIV: Of Public Compacts Which Put an End to War.
• Chapter XV: Of the Right of Ambassadors.

CHAPTER VIII

Consequences of the preceding chapter: reflections on the distinctions of just, honest, and useful.

There is a great deal of ambiguity and mistake concerning this subject.I. The reflections contained in the foregoing chapter give us to understand, that there is a vast deal of ambiguity and mistake in the different sentiments of writers, in relation to morality or the foundation of natural laws. They do not always ascend to the first principles, neither do they define and distinguish exactly; they suppose an opposition between ideas that are reconcileable, and ought even to be joined together. Some reason in too abstract a manner on the human system; and following only their own metaphysical speculations, never attend sufficiently to the actual state of things, and to the natural dependance of man. Others considering principally this dependance, reduce the whole to the will and orders of the sovereign master, and seem thus to lose sight of the very nature and internal con-<220>stitution of man, from which it cannot however be separated. These different ideas are just in themselves; yet we must not establish the one, by excluding the other, or by explaining it to the other’s prejudice. Reason, on the contrary, requires us to unite them, in order to find the true principles of the human system, whose foundations must be sought for in the nature and state of man.

Of just, honest, useful, order, and fitness.II. It is very common to use the words utility, justice, honesty, order, and fitness; but these different notions are seldom defined in an exact manner, and some of them are frequently confounded. This want of exactness must necessarily create ambiguity and confusion; wherefore, if we intend to make things clear, we must take care to define and distinguish properly.

An useful action may, methinks, be defined, that which of itself tends to the preservation and perfection of man.

A just action, that which is considered as conformable to the will of a superior who commands.

An action is called honest, when it is considered as conformable to the maxims of right reason, agreeable to the dignity of our nature, deserving of the approbation of man, and consequently procuring respect and honour to the person that does it.

By order we can understand, nothing else but the disposition of several things, relative to a certain end, and proportioned to the effect we intend to produce.

Finally, as to fitness or agreeableness, it bears a very great affinity with order. It is a relation of conformity between several things, one of which is of itself proper for the preservation and perfection of the<221> other, and contributes to maintain it in a good and advantageous state.

Just, honest, and useful, are distinct things, and must not be confounded.III. We must not therefore confound the words just, useful, and honest; for they are three distinct ideas. But though distinct from one another, they have no opposition; they are three relations, which may all agree, and be applied to one single action, considered under different respects. And if we ascend so high as the first origin, we shall find that they are all derived from one common source, or from one and the same principle, as three branches from the same stock. This general principle is the approbation of reason. Reason necessarily approves whatever conducts us to real happiness: and as that which is agreeable to the preservation and perfection of man; that which is conformable to the will of the sovereign master on whom he depends; and that which procures him the esteem and respect of his equals; as all this, I say, contributes to his happiness, reason cannot but approve of each of these things separately considered, much less can it help approving, under different respects, an action in which all these properties are found united.

But though they are distinct, yet they are naturally connected.IV. For such is the state of things, that the ideas of just, honest, and useful, are naturally connected, and as it were inseparable; at least if we attend, as we ought to do, to real, general, and lasting utility. We may say, that such an utility becomes a kind of characteristic to distinguish what is truly just, or honest, from what is so only in the erroneous opinions of men. This is a beautiful and judicious remark of<222> Cicero. *The language and opinions of men are very wide, says he, from truth and right reason, in separating the honest from the useful, and in persuading themselves that some honest things are not useful, and other things are useful but not honest. This is a dangerous notion to human life.———Hence we see that Socrates detested those sophists, who first separated those two things in opinion, which in nature are really joined.

In fact, the more we investigate the plan of divine providence, the more we find the Deity has thought proper to connect the moral good and evil with the physical, or, which is the same thing, the just with the useful. And though in some particular cases the thing seems otherwise, this is only an accidental disorder, which is much less a natural consequence of the system, than an effect of the ignorance or malice of man. Whereto we must add, that in case we do not stop at the first appearances, but proceed to consider the human system in its full extent, we shall find, that every thing well considered, and all compensations made, these irregularities will be one day or other redressed, as we shall more fully shew when we come to treat of the sanctions of natural laws.<223>

Whether an action is just, because God commands it?V. Here a question is sometimes proposed; whether a thing be just, because God commands it, or whether God commands it, because it is just?1

Pursuant to our principles, the question is not at all difficult. A thing is just, because God commands it; this is implied by the definition we gave of justice. But God commands such or such things, because these things are reasonable in themselves, conformable to the order and ends he proposed to himself in creating mankind, and agreeable to the nature and state of man. These ideas, though distinct in themselves, are necessarily connected, and can be separated only by a metaphysical abstraction.

In what the beauty of virtue and the perfection of man consists.VI. Let us, in fine, observe that this harmony or surprising agreement, which naturally occurs between the ideas of just, honest, and useful, constitutes the whole beauty of virtue, and informs us at the same time in what the perfection of man consists.

In consequence of the different systems above mentioned, moralists are divided with regard to the latter point. Some place the perfection of man in such a use of his faculties as is agreeable to the nature of his being. Others in the use of our faculties and the intention of our Creator.2 Some, in fine, pretend that man is perfect, only as his manner of thinking and acting is proper to conduct him to the end he aims at, namely, his happiness.

But what we have above said sufficiently shews, that these three methods of considering the perfection of man, are very little different, and ought not to be set in opposition. As they are interwoven with<224> one another, we ought rather to combine and unite them. The perfection of man consists really in the possession of natural or acquired faculties, which enable us to obtain, and actually put us in possession of solid felicity; and this in conformity to the intention of our Creator, engraved in our nature, and clearly manifested by the state wherein he has placed us.*

A modern writer has judiciously said; that to obey only through fear of authority, or for the hope of recompence, without esteeming or loving virtue for the sake of its own excellency; is mean and mercenary. On the contrary, to practise virtue with an abstract view of its fitness and natural beauty, without having any thought of the Creator and Conductor of the universe; is failing in our duty to the first and greatest of Beings. He only who acts jointly through a principle of reason, through a motive of piety, and with a view of his principal interest, is an honest, wise, and pious man; which constitutes, without comparison, the worthiest and completest of characters.<225>

[* ]In quo lapsa consuetudo deflexit de via, sensimque eò deducta est, ut honestatem ab utilitate secernens, & constituerit honestum esse aliquid quod utile non esset, & utile quod non honestum: quâ nulla pernicies major hominum vitae potuit adferri. Cic. de Offic. lib. 2. cap. 3. Itaque accepimus, Socratem exsecrari solitum eos, qui primum haec naturâ cohaerentia opinione distraxissent. Idem, lib. 3. cap. 13. See likewise Grotius, Rights of war and peace, preliminary discourse, § 17. and following; and Puffendorf, Law of nature and nations, book ii. chap. iii. § 10, 11.

[1. ]This question is originally from Plato’s Euthyphro 10a. The question was usually presented by critics of Pufendorfian voluntarism, who argued that Pufendorf ended up with a paradoxical claim, that good and evil are imposed by an arbitrary act of the divine will. This paragraph expresses Burlamaqui’s conviction that he has found a system that can do justice to the insights of both Pufendorf (and Barbeyrac) and his (their) critics.

[2. ]The translation is not very clear. The second option discussed by Burlamaqui is to emphasize “the relation there is between our usage of our faculties and the intentions of the Creator of our being.”

[* ]Theory of agreeable sensations, chap. viii.