A Treatise of the Laws of Nature. Richard Cumberland
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current edition reproduces Maxwell’s complete text, together with additional material taken from Cumberland’s copy of De Legibus, Barbeyrac’s Traité Philosophique, and Towers’s Philosophical Enquiry. The only substantial changes to Maxwell’s text are to the footnotes. Maxwell’s footnotes use a variety of conventions, but they are unnumbered and in the introductory essays and appendixes consist usually of very general abbreviated references that provide hardly any guidance for a nonspecialist modern reader.
For ease of reference, Maxwell’s footnote callouts (normally asterisks) in the text have been silently deleted and replaced by arabic-numbered footnotes for each essay or chapter. In some instances multiple references occurring close together have been rationalized into one note. In Maxwell’s supplementary essays, the notes have been expanded to include the full title of the work referred to and, where it can be identified, the edition used. Book, chapter, page, and section numbers have been left in the form of the original note. In his supplementary essays, Maxwell often both loosely paraphrases his source and quotes it verbatim in the original Greek or Latin; in those cases, the quotation is left out and only the reference is retained.
In the translation of Cumberland’s text, Maxwell supplemented Cumberland’s brief textual references (mostly to Hobbes’s works) with notes of his own. Maxwell’s comments are identified in the notes to this edition, as is material taken from Barbeyrac’s notes and Cumberland’s manuscript. Additional information is the work of the current editor. In order to facilitate comparison, references to appropriate modern editions of Hobbes’s major works have been used.
A TREATISE OF THE LAWS OF NATURE
A TREATISE OF THE LAWS of NATURE.
By the Right Reverend Father in God,
RICHARD CUMBERLAND, Lord Bishop of Peterborough.
Made English from the Latin by JOHN MAXWELL, M.A. Prebendary of Connor, and Chaplain to his Excellency the Lord CARTERET, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland.
To which is prefix’d,
An Introduction concerning the mistaken Notions which the Heathens had of the DEITY, and the Defects in their MORALITY, whence the Usefulness of REVELATION may appear.
At the End is subjoin’d,
An Appendix, containing two Discourses, 1. Concerning the Immateriality of THINKING SUBSTANCE. 2. Concerning the OBLIGATION, PROMULGATION, and OBSERVANCE, of the LAW of NATURE, by the Translator.1
LONDON:
Printed by R. Phillips; and Sold by J. Knapton, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, J. SENEX, over against St. Dunstan’s Church, in Fleet-Street, F. FAYRAM, at the South-Entrance of the Royal-Exchange, J. OSBORNE, and T. Longman, in Pater-Noster-Row, and T. OSBORNE, by Gray’s-Inn-Walks. 1727.
TO His EXCELLENCY, JOHN, Lord CARTERET, Lord Lieutenant of IRELAND. 1
May it please your Excellency,
When I was to publish the following Sheets, I knew not under the Authority of what great Name so properly to introduce them to the Publick as your Excellency’s, and that for several Reasons.
The Design of the Work, is, to enforce the Obligation of the Dictates of Reason, and the Necessity of Revelation, the Practice of Virtue and Religion, to Mankind; which could, with no Propriety, be address’d to a Person of an exceptionable Character.
How I have succeeded in my Performance, no one is a better Judge than your Excellency, who have made the Authors of Antiquity, which I have made use of in the following Work, the Diversion and Improvement of your retir’d Hours.
The Relation also, which you bear to my native Country, which is happy under your Excellency’s Administration, was another Inducement to my taking the Liberty of this Address, to which I was the more embolden’d, by having had the Honour of being receiv’d into your Excellency’s Service.
That your Country may long enjoy the Advantage of your Example and your Counsels; that you and your Family may be long Happy in one another; and that, after a long and prosperous Life here, you may receive an eternal Reward of all your Labours hereafter, is the sincere Prayer of him, who is, with the profoundest respect,
May it please your Excellency, your most devoted, and most faithful humble Servant and Chaplain,
| London March 8th, 1726–7. | JOHN MAXWELL. |
The Original of MORAL OBLIGATION, and the fundamental Principles of LAWS Divine and Human, of SOCIETY, of VIRTUE, and of RELIGION, are Points, which, in my Opinion, best deserve our Consideration, of any, which the Mind of Man can contemplate. ’Tis to these we chiefly owe all the Happiness we enjoy here, or hope for hereafter. ’Tis from Enquiries of this kind, that we learn our Duties of every sort, to God, our Creator and supreme Governor, our Fellow-creatures, and Ourselves; that we learn that unerring Rule and Standard of right Reason, by pursuing whose Dictates we regulate our Passions, and preserve them in a due Subordination. Whilst we preserve them under the Conduct of that governing Principle in the Mind of Man, which they were form’d to obey, they are our chief Instruments of Happiness; as, when they grow exorbitant, headstrong, and irregular, they are the Causes of all our Misery.
For these Reasons, being led as much by Inclination, as in pursuance of the Profession which I have undertaken, I was willing to inquire into what those Authors had offer’d, who had treated upon this Subject, among whom Bishop CUMBERLAND seems to me, to have handled it in the most masterly and rational Manner, and to have gone farthest in the Argument, of any I have had the good Fortune to meet with. But at the same time that I own myself an Admirer of his Reasoning in the main, I cannot but acknowledge, that his Periods are very perplex’d and intricate, and that his Language is too Scholastick and Philosophical; which have deterr’d many from reading him, and have been the Occasion of his valuable Work’s not being so universally known as it deserv’d. His Book labour’d also under another Disadvantage; his Manuscript was transcrib’d for the Press (as he himself says) by a Person unskillful in such Matters, whose Performance was, in consequence, very incorrect;1 and the Author, living in the Country at a distance from London, where the Book was printed, left the Care of the Edition to a Friend, who was not at sufficient Pains, to see that it came out correctly,2 as whoever examines the Original with attention, will perceive in every Sheet of the Book, in which many of the Errata are more than literal Mistakes, or Mispointings, and disturb the Sense extremely, which are a great Hinderance to the Reader, especially in an Argument otherwise intricate. This Fault has not been corrected in the subsequent Editions, but in the last greatly increas’d.3 His Paragraphs also, in many places, are not divided in such a manner as to give the most Light to his Argument, sometimes joining them where they should be divided, and dividing them where the Reasoning requires that they should be join’d. All these Circumstances conspire to make the Reading of his valuable Work, a laborious Task, which, therefore, few Readers will be at the Pains to do. This I thought well deserv’d a helping Hand, to which I have, therefore, contributed what lay in my power.
In order to remedy these Inconveniences, I thought it would be no disservice to the Publick, to publish his Work in English; Morality and the Law of Nature being Subjects, which many, who don’t understand Latin, would willingly