d their
inquiries, and the greater part of the world would have rested content
in mental indolence, and ignorance it's inseparable companion. As
therefore the creator is a being, not only of infinite _power_, and
_wisdom_, but also of infinite _goodness_, he has been pleased so to
contrive the constitution and frame of humanity, that we should want
no other prompter to enquire after and pursue the rule of right, but
only our own self-love, that universal principle of action. For he has
so intimately connected, so inseparably interwoven the laws of eternal
justice with the happiness of each individual, that the latter cannot
be attained but by observing the former; and, if the former be
punctually obeyed, it cannot but induce the latter. In consequence of
which mutual connection of justice and human felicity, he has not
perplexed the law of nature with a multitude of abstracted rules and
precepts, referring merely to the fitness or unfitness of things, as
some have vainly surmised; but has graciously reduced the rule of
obedience to this one paternal precept, "that man should pursue his
own happiness." This is the foundation of what we call ethics, or
natural law. For the several articles into which it is branched in our
systems, amount to no more than demonstrating, that this or that
action tends to man's real happiness, and therefore very justly
concluding that the performance of it is a part of the law of nature;
or, on the other hand, that this or that action is destructive of
man's real happiness, and therefore that the law of nature forbids it.

THIS law of nature, being co-eval with mankind and dictated by God
himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other. It is
binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times: no
human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this; and such of them
as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority,
mediately or immediately, from this original.

BUT in order to apply this to the particular exigencies of each
individual, it is still necessary to have recourse to reason; whose
office it is to discover, as was before observed, what the law of
nature directs in every circumstance of life; by considering, what
method will tend the most effectually to our own substantial
happiness. And if our reason were always, as in our first ancestor
before his transgression, clear and perfect, unruffled by passions,
unclouded by prejudice, unimpaired by disease