e_, he gives this
description: 'The mind is conscious to itself of all its own actions,
and both can, and often does, observe what counsels produced them; it
naturally sits a judge upon its own actions, and thence procures to
itself either tranquillity and joy, or anxiety and sorrow.' The
principal design of his whole book is to show 'how this power of the
mind, either by itself, or excited by external objects, forms certain
universal practical propositions, which give us a more distinct idea of
the happiness of mankind, and pronounces by what actions of ours, in
all variety of circumstances, that happiness may most effectually be
obtained.' [Conscience is thus only Reason, or the knowing faculty in
general, as specially concerned about actions in their effect upon
happiness; it rarely takes the place of the more general term.]

3. He expressly leaves aside the supposition that we have _innate
ideas_ of the laws of Nature whereby conduct is to be guided, or of the
matters that they are conversant about. He has not, he says, been so
happy as to learn the laws of Nature by so short a way, and thinks it
ill-advised to build the doctrine of natural religion and morality upon
a hypothesis that has been rejected by the generality of philosophers,
as well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against the
Epicureans, with whom lies his chief controversy. Yet he declines to
oppose the doctrine of innate ideas, because it looks with a friendly
eye upon piety and morality; and perhaps it may be the case, that such
ideas are _both_ born with us and afterwards impressed upon us from
without.

4. Will, he defines as 'the consent of the mind with the judgment of
the understanding, concerning things agreeing among themselves.'
Although, therefore, he supposes that nothing but Good and Evil can
determine the will, and that the will is even _necessarily_ determined
to seek the one and flee the other, he escapes the conclusion that the
will is moved only by private good, by accepting the implication of
private with common good as the fixed judgment of the understanding or
right reason.

5. He argues against the resolution of all Benevolence into
self-seeking, and thus claims for man a principle of disinterested
action. But what he is far more concerned to prove is, that benevolence
of all to all accords best with the whole frame of nature, stands forth
with perfect evidence, upon a rational apprehension of the universe, as
the