men
are ignorant of them, while others assent to them slowly, if they do
assent to them; all which is at variance with their being innate.

2. There is no Practical Principle universally received among mankind.
All that can be said of Justice is that _most men_ agree to recognize
it. It is vain to allege of confederacies of thieves, that they keep
faith with one another; for this keeping of faith is merely for their
own convenience. We cannot call that a sense of Justice which merely
binds a man to a certain number of his fellow-criminals, in order the
more effectually to plunder and kill honest men. Instead of Justice, it
is the essential condition of success in Injustice.

If it be said in reply, that these men tacitly assent in their minds to
what their practice contradicts, Locke answers, first, that men's
actions must be held as the best interpreters of their thoughts; and if
many men's practices, and some men's open professions, have been
opposed to these principles, we cannot conclude them to be Innate.
Secondly, It is difficult for us to assent to Innate Practical
Principles, ending only in contemplation. Such principles either
influence our conduct, or they are nothing. There is no mistake as to
the Innate principles of the desire of happiness, and aversion to
misery; these do not stop short in tacit assent, but urge every man's
conduct every hour of his life. If there were anything corresponding to
these in the sense of Right and Wrong, we should have no dispute about
them.

3. There is no Moral rule, that may not have a reason demanded for it;
which ought not to be the case with any innate principle. That we
should do as we would be done by, is the foundation of all morality,
and yet, if proposed to any one for the first time, might not such an
one, without absurdity, ask a reason why? But this would imply that
there is some deeper principle for it to repose upon, capable of being
assigned as its motive; that it is not ultimate, and therefore not
innate. That men should observe compacts is a great and undeniable
rule, yet, in this, a Christian would give as reason the command of
God; a Hobbist would say that the public requires it, and would punish
for disobeying it; and an old heathen philosopher would have urged that
it was opposed to human virtue and perfection.

Bound up with this consideration, is the circumstance that moral rules
differ among men, according to their views of happiness. The existence