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Front Page  Authors (by Period) A Treatise of the Laws of Nature
Richard Cumberland, A Treatise of the Laws of Nature [1672]Edition used:A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, translated, with Introduction and Appendix, by John Maxwell (1727), edited and with a Foreword by Jon Parkin (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005).
 | About this title:A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, originally titled De Legibus Naturae, first appeared in 1672 as a theoretical response to a range of issues that came together during the late 1660s. It conveyed a conviction that science might offer an effective means of demonstrating both the contents and the obligatory force of the law of nature. At a time when Hobbes’s work appeared to suggest that the application of science undermined rather than supported the idea of obligatory natural law, Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae provided a scientific explanation of the natural necessity of altruism.
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Fair use statement:
This material is put online to further the educational goals of Liberty Fund, Inc. Unless otherwise stated in the Copyright Information section above, this material may be used freely for educational and academic purposes. It may not be used in any way for profit.
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- Foreword
- A Note On This Edition
- A Treatise of the Laws of Nature
- To His Excellency, John, Lord Carteret, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland . 1
- The Translator’s Preface
- Names of Subscribers
- Two Introductory Essays
- Essay I: Of the City, Or Kingdom, of God In the Rational World, and the Defects In Heathen Deism
- Essay II: Concerning the Imperfectness of the Heathen Morality
- The Introduction
- A Philosophical Inquiry Into the Laws of Nature , &c. and a Confutation of the Elements of Mr. Hobbes ’s Philosophy .
- Chapter I: Of the Nature of Things .
- Chapter II: Of Human Nature, and Right Reason .
- Chapter III: Of Natural Good .
- Chapter IV: Of the Practical Dictates of Reason .
- Chapter V: Of the Law of Nature, and Its Obligation.
- Chapter VI: Of Those Things Which Are Contain’d In the General Law of Nature.
- Chapter VII: Of the Original of Dominion, and the Moral Virtues.
- Chapter VIII: Of the Moral Virtues In Particular .
- Chapter IX: Corollaries.
- Editor’s Note
- Appendices
- Appendix I: A Summary of the Controversy Between Dr . Samuel Clark and an Anonymous Author, Concerning the Immateriality of Thinking Substance .
- Appendix II: A Treatise Concerning the Obligation, Promulgation, and Observance of the Law of Nature
- Appendix 1. Richard Cumberland’s Original Dedication to De Legibus Naturae
- Appendix 2: Hezekiah Burton’s “address to the Reader”
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