e connexion betwixt
the relation and the will; and must prove that this connexion is so
necessary, that in every well-disposed mind, it must take place and have
its influence; though the difference betwixt these minds be in other
respects immense and infinite. Now besides what I have already proved,
that even in human nature no relation can ever alone produce any
action: besides this, I say, it has been shewn, in treating of the
understanding, that there is no connexion of cause and effect, such
as this is supposed to be, which is discoverable otherwise than by
experience, and of which we can pretend to have any security by the
simple consideration of the objects. All beings in the universe,
considered in themselves, appear entirely loose and independent of each
other. It is only by experience we learn their influence and connexion;
and this influence we ought never to extend beyond experience.

Thus it will be impossible to fulfil the first condition required to the
system of eternal measures of right and wrong; because it is impossible
to shew those relations, upon which such a distinction may be founded:
And it is as impossible to fulfil the second condition; because we
cannot prove A PRIORI, that these relations, if they really existed and
were perceived, would be universally forcible and obligatory.

But to make these general reflections more dear and convincing, we may
illustrate them by some particular instances, wherein this character of
moral good or evil is the most universally acknowledged. Of all crimes
that human creatures are capable of committing, the most horrid and
unnatural is ingratitude, especially when it is committed against
parents, and appears in the more flagrant instances of wounds and death.
This is acknowledged by all mankind, philosophers as well as the people;
the question only arises among philosophers, whether the guilt or moral
deformity of this action be discovered by demonstrative reasoning, or
be felt by an internal sense, and by means of some sentiment, which the
reflecting on such an action naturally occasions. This question will
soon be decided against the former opinion, if we can shew the same
relations in other objects, without the notion of any guilt or iniquity
attending them. Reason or science is nothing but the comparing of ideas,
and the discovery of their relations; and if the same relations have
different characters, it must evidently follow, that those characters
are no