SECTION IV.
Of the manner in which different authors have treated of the practical rules of morality.
IT was obſerved in the third part of this diſcourſe, that the rules of juſtice are the only rules of morality which are preciſe and accurate; that thoſe of all the other virtues are looſe, vague, and indeterminate; that the firſt may be compared to the rules of grammar; the others to thoſe which critics lay down for the attainment of what is ſublime and elegant in compoſition, and which preſent us rather with a general idea of the perfection we ought to aim at, than afford us any certain and infallible directions for acquiring it.
As the different rules of morality admit ſuch different degrees of accuracy, thoſe authors who have endeavoured to collect and digeſt them into ſyſtems have done it in two different manners; and one ſet has followed thro' the whole that looſe method to which they were naturally directed by the conſideration of one ſpecies of virtues; while another has as univerſally endeavoured to introduce into their precepts that ſort of accuracy of which only ſome of them are ſuſceptible. The firſt have wrote like critics, the ſecond like grammarians.
