A Methodical System of Universal Law. Johann Gottlieb Heineccius
law of nature and nations, it is obvious, that it hath for its object and <19> scope the direction of human conduct; and therefore order makes it necessary to enquire accurately into the qualities and characteristics of human actions.
SECTION XXV
What is meant by action and what by passion? What by external and what by internal action?
Experience, the fountain of all knowledge, teaches us, that various motions and changes happen in the human mind; but since no motion can be produced or conceived without a sufficient moving cause, the motions which happen in the mind of man must have some sufficient cause, which must either be within or without man. And therefore motions, the sufficient cause of which is in man himself, are called actions; and those the cause of which must be sought after without man, are termed passions. But because the motion called action, either produces nothing without the mind, but rests there, or produces by will some effect in the body, the former are denominated internal, the latter external actions.
SECTION XXVI
Passions of what kinds are they?
Passions not proceeding from us, but from some external cause, are so far without our power, and therefore are not unfrequently excited in us against our will or inclination; yet they may sometimes be as it were repulsed and prevented, if we are provided with sufficient force to resist the external exciting cause; and on the other hand, in certain circumstances we can assist the external mover, so as that the motion it tends to produce may be more easily excited in us. Whence it follows that some passions are within our power, and others are not.* <20>
SECTION XXVII
Whether they are subject to our direction or not?
Because the law of nature hath only free actions for its object, (§4) it cannot have for its object, in order to be directed by it, passions which are not within our power. Tho’ it may lay down some rules relative to our passions, so far as they are in our power, yet, properly speaking, these rules are not directions to our passions, but to those free actions, by which we can resist or assist these passions, shewing what we ought to do with regard to hindering or forwarding them.†
SECTION XXVIII
Whether the law of nature extends to them?
The law of nature therefore only extends to our actions; but let it be observed, that tho’ the sufficient cause of all these be in man himself, (§25) yet experience teaches us, that of some actions we are conscious and are absolute masters; others are of such a nature that they proceed from some mechanical disposition, in such a manner that we are not always conscious of them, nor have them not wholly in our power.* <21>
SECTION XXIX
Actions are either human or natural. Whether the latter are the object of the law of nature?
Actions of which we are conscious, and which are within our power, and subject to our direction, are properly termed human or moral actions; those of which we are not conscious, or not masters, are called physical or natural actions; whence it is plain, that the former are free, the latter necessary; and therefore that human or moral actions alone can be directed by the law of nature (§4), and not natural ones, except so far as it is in our power to assist and promote, or contrariwise to avoid and prevent them.† <22>
SECTION XXX
The understanding and will are the principles of human actions.
Human or moral actions being free or within our power, and every thing being in our power which is directed by our will; it follows that human or moral actions are actions which may be directed by our will. But because the will never determines itself, unless it be excited to desire or reject by the understanding;* hence it is justly concluded, that the understanding likewise concurs in the exertion of free human actions; and therefore there are two principles of free human or moral actions; the understanding and the will.
SECTION XXXI
What the understanding is?
Understanding is the faculty by which the mind perceives, judges, and reasons. When this faculty takes the name of imagination, we have sufficiently shewn in another treatise, (in the elements of rational philosophy).
SECTION XXXII
Without its concurrence an action is not moral.
But since the will cannot exert itself, unless it be excited by the understanding, (§30) it follows <23> that it cannot prefer a just action as such, nor abhor an unjust one as such, unless the understanding hath first distinctly perceived the action to be just or unjust, by comparing it with the rule of action, i.e. by reasoning. And therefore moral actions presuppose the capacity of perceiving a rule of action, and of comparing actions with the ideas of just and unjust.*
SECTION XXXIII
Hence conscience.
That faculty by which we reason about the goodness or pravity of our actions is called conscience, concerning which we have discoursed at large in another treatise. Here however it is necessary to repeat, or rather add some observations upon conscience.
SECTION XXXIV
Which is reasoning.
Because conscience reasons concerning the goodness and pravity of actions; (§33) but actions are called just, in respect of an external obligation arising from a law; conscience must therefore compare the one with the other, the law and the fact; that is, form two propositions, and from them deduce a third; which, since it cannot be done but by syllogism, it follows that every reasoning of <24> conscience is a syllogism, consisting of three propositions, the law, the action, and the conclusion.†
SECTION XXXV
It is divided into good and evil conscience.
Since conscience in its reasonings always terminates in a sentence which it draws (§34): but every sentence either condemns or absolves according as the action is found to be conformable or disagreable to the law. Conscience, when it absolves, is called good, and when it condemns, it is called evil; the former is attended with tranquillity and confidence; the latter with suspiciousness and dread.*
SECTION XXXVI
It is likewise divided into antecedent and consequent.
We may reason either about past or future actions, and therefore conscience reasoning about actions not yet performed, is called antecedent conscience, and when it reasons about actions already done, it is called consequent conscience.
SECTION XXXVII
In some persons both are found.
In both cases conscience compares the action with the law. But because the good and upright man, <25> who hath a due sense of virtue and duty alone sets himself to conform his future actions to the divine law; such only exercise antecedent conscience. The consequent exerts itself even in the breasts of the most profligate.†
SECTION XXXVIII
Conscience either excites, admonishes, or reclaims.
Further, as often as we compare a future action with the law, we find it either to be commanded, forbidden, or permitted. In the first case conscience excites us to perform the action. In the second it restrains us from it. In the third, having wisely examined all its circumstances, it advises what ought to be done. Conscience is therefore divided into exciting, restraining, and admonishing.* <26>
SECTION XXXIX
Conscience is either right or erroneous.
Moreover, because conscience is a reasoning, the same things agree to it which are true of a syllogism; wherefore as reasoning, so conscience may be either right or erroneous; and as every reasoning is either faulty in the form