deity, as well as from human nature, which will have been considered on the way, certain results will follow. The 'Platonists,' to be sure, find an easy way out of the difficulty by assuming 'innate ideas'; but Cumberland is obliged to confess that he has "not been so happy as to learn the Laws of Nature in so short a way."[1] Not that he will oppose those who believe themselves more fortunate in this respect; but it seems ill-advised to base everything upon "an hypothesis which has been rejected by the generality of philosophers, as well heathen as Christian, and can never be proved against the Epicureans, with whom is our chief controversy." The reference to the 'Epicureans' is significant. The author proposes to fight Hobbes with his own weapons. And, this being the case, he sets out to prove that "the Nature of Things, which subsists and is continually governed by its First Cause, does necessarily imprint upon our minds some practical propositions … concerning the study of promoting the joint felicity of all rationals; and that the terms of these propositions do immediately and directly signify, that the First Cause, in his original constitution of things, has annexed the greatest rewards and punishments to the observance and neglect of these truths." Whence it manifestly follows that these are 'laws,' "Laws being nothing but practical propositions, with rewards or punishments annexed, promulg'd by competent authority."[2]
The first point to be established, then, is that there are Laws of Nature, in the legitimate sense of the words. Having indicated his line of argument, which we shall consider later, Cumberland proceeds to the more characteristic and constructive part of his doctrine. From a consideration of the practical propositions which may fairly be ranked as Laws of Nature,[3] it appears that they may be reduced to one universal one. This may be expressed as follows: "The endeavor, to the utmost of our power, of promoting the common good of the whole system of rational agents, conduces, as far as in us lies, to the good of every part, in which our own happiness, as that of a part, is
