The Reverence for the Rules of Conduct [Karma]

¹⁰² This reverence for the rules of conduct is first impressed by nature.

Philosophy later confirms that those important rules of morality are the laws of the Deity.

The Deity will reward the obedient and punish the transgressors of their duty in the end.

¹⁰³ This opinion [law of karma] is first impressed by nature.

People naturally ascribe their sentiments to mysterious beings which are the objects of religious fear.

Those unknown, imaginary, but unseen intelligences, necessarily resemble actual intelligences.

During the ignorance, mankind has formed their divinities crudely.

Men indiscriminately ascribed to them all the passions of human nature, such as lust, hunger, avarice, envy, revenge.

They had the highest admiration for the excellence of those beings.

Men ascribed to them those sentiments and qualities which are the great ornaments of humanity.

Raised to divine perfection were:

• the love of virtue and beneficence
• the abhorrence of vice and injustice

The man who was injured called on Jupiter to witness the wrong done to him.

The man who did the injury felt himself to be the object of mankind’s resentment.

These natural hopes, fears, and suspicions, were propagated by sympathy and confirmed by education.

The gods were believed to be:

• the rewarders of mercy, and
• the avengers of injustice.

The natural sense of duty was enforced by the terrors of religion because it philosophy was too slow in revealing it.

¹⁰⁴ Philosophy confirmed those original purposes of nature.

Our moral faculties are from:

• a modification of reason,
• an original instinct called a moral sense, or
• some other principle of our nature.

Our moral faculties were given to us to:

• direct our life
• be the supreme arbiters of all our actions
• superintend all our senses, passions, and appetites, and
• judge how far each of them was to be indulged or restrained.

Some have pretended wrongly that our moral faculties:

• are on a level with the other faculties of our nature
• have no more right to restrain our other faculties

In reality, no other faculty judges other faculties.

• Love does not judge resentment.
• Resentment does not judge love.

They cannot approve or disapprove of one another.

The job of our moral faculties is to bestow censure or applause on all the other principles of our nature.

• They may even be considered as senses to sense our nature.

Every sense is supreme over its own objects.

• Whatever gratifies the taste is sweet.
• Whatever pleases the eye is beautiful.
• Whatever soothes the ear is harmonious.

The very essence of each of those qualities consists in its being fitted to please the sense to which it is addressed.

In the same way, our moral faculties to determine:

• when the ear should be soothed,
• when the eye should be indulged,
• when the taste should be gratified, and
• when and how far these should be indulged or restrained.

What is agreeable to our moral faculties, is fit, right, and proper.

• The contrary is wrong, unfit, and improper.