BOOK III PART I
which all our notions of morals are founded.
But in the second place, should it be asked,
Whether we ought to search for these princi-
ples in nature, or whether we must look for
them in some other origin? I would reply,
that our answer to this question depends upon
the definition of the word, Nature, than which
there is none more ambiguous and equivocal.
If nature be opposed to miracles, not only the
distinction betwixt vice and virtue is natural,
but also every event, which has ever happened
in the world,excepting those miracles, on which
our religion is founded. In saying, then, that the
sentiments of vice and virtue are natural in this
sense, we make no very extraordinary discov-
ery.
But nature may also be opposed to rare and
unusual; and in this sense of the word, which