The treatment of this subject is considerably perplexed, partly owing to the author's attempt to avoid the appearance of harboring egoism in his system,—an attempt, it should be added, which is not uniformly successful. From the controversial point of view, he doubtless had good reason to insist upon the greater importance of the internal sanction, and, indeed, his general position may very well be in accord with human experience; but it is to be doubted if the distinction will bear the weight which is actually put upon it in the treatise. For, by employing it, Cumberland attempted to prove the complete sufficiency of the 'sanction,' as given in the present life, for every moral agent whatsoever.
It will be seen that the whole account of 'obligation' brings out, in clear relief, the egoistic elements in the system. Cumberland's doctrine of obligation (so far as his explicit treatment is concerned) is not essentially different from Paley's, though it must be conceded that it is expressed in a much less offensive way. One may surmise that this appearance of egoism would have been more effectually guarded against, had it not been for the fact that the jural treatment of morality, involving emphasis on reward and punishment, was made necessary by the author's desire to fight Hobbes on his own ground.
Cumberland's deduction of the particular Laws of Nature from the general Law, which we have thus far been considering, is by no means elaborate. It is contained in the three short chapters: vi, "Of Those Things which are contained in the General Law of Nature"; vii, "Of the Original of Dominion, and the Moral Virtues"; viii, "Of the Moral Virtues in Particular."[1] The last chapter, ix, "Corollaries," as the name might suggest, does not properly belong to the systematic part of the treatise. In the pages immediately following we shall notice the principal points made in the three chapters first mentioned.
- ↑ The first five chapters are: i, "Of the Nature of Things"; ii, "Of Human Nature and Right Reason"; iii, "Of Natural Good"; iv, "Of the Practical Dictates of Reason"; v, "Of the Law of Nature and its Obligation." These titles, however, as already said, do not give a very definite idea of the nature of the contents of the several chapters.
