repute, Philip, iv. 8;" without taking notice of those immediately
preceding, which introduce them, and run thus: "Whereby even in the
corruption of manners, the true boundaries of the law of nature, which
ought to be the rule of virtue and vice, were pretty well preserved. So
that even the exhortations of inspired teachers," &c. By which words,
and the rest of that section, it is plain that I brought that passage
of St. Paul, not to prove that the general measure of what men called
virtue and vice throughout the world was the reputation and fashion of
each particular society within itself; but to show that, though it were
so, yet, for reasons I there give, men, in that way of denominating
their actions, did not for the most part much stray from the Law of
Nature; which is that standing and unalterable rule by which they ought
to judge of the moral rectitude and gravity of their actions, and
accordingly denominate them virtues or vices. Had Mr. Lowde considered
this, he would have found it little to his purpose to have quoted this
passage in a sense I used it not; and would I imagine have spared the
application he subjoins to it, as not very necessary. But I hope this
Second Edition will give him satisfaction on the point, and that this
matter is now so expressed as to show him there was no cause for
scruple.

Though I am forced to differ from him in these apprehensions he has
expressed, in the latter end of his preface, concerning what I had said
about virtue and vice, yet we are better agreed than he thinks in what
he says in his third chapter (p. 78) concerning "natural inscription and
innate notions." I shall not deny him the privilege he claims (p. 52),
to state the question as he pleases, especially when he states it so as
to leave nothing in it contrary to what I have said. For, according
to him, "innate notions, being conditional things, depending upon the
concurrence of several other circumstances in order to the soul's