happiness of many good men, and inferior to this is the happiness of any particular person."[1]
Thus far we have neglected what Cumberland himself may very well have regarded as most important, i.e., the jural aspect of the system. As we have already seen, he begins with an elaborate discussion concerning the Laws of Nature. It did not seem best to follow his order of exposition, because this appeared to have been dictated in part by controversial considerations. Moreover, it is important to see that,—from our present point of view, at least,—the system stands alone, without the assistance of this scaffolding of Natural Laws.[2] At the same time one would have but a very inadequate idea either of the external form of the system or of the author's actual application of his unifying principle, without a knowledge of the substance of what he says regarding Laws of Nature. To this subject, then, we shall proceed. It will form the third, and last, main division of our exposition.
Hobbes had spoken much of Laws of Nature, but in a sense wholly different from that ordinarily attaching to the expression, as used by his contemporaries,—indeed, in a sense not easy to define, as we have seen. Cumberland returns to the original conception of Natural Laws,[3] and is intensely in earnest in maintaining their existence.
It will be remembered that our author discards the doctrine of 'innate ideas.' We must, then, learn the Laws of Nature from experience. How does this take place? In early childhood, we act in a practically purposeless way until we come to recognize the different effects of different kinds of actions, not only upon ourselves, but upon others as well. "Hence," as Cumberland naïvely says, "we draw some conclusions concerning actions acceptable to God, but many more concerning such as are advantageous and disadvantageous to men."[4] When, in
