A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (ebook)

Argumento de A Treatise of the Laws of Nature (ebook)

A Treatise of the Laws of Nature, originally titled De Legibus Naturae, first appeared in 1672 as a theoretical response to a range of issues that came together during the late 1660s. It conveyed a conviction that science might offer an effective means of demonstrating both the contents and the obligatory force of the law of nature. At a time when Hobbess work appeared to suggest that the application of science undermined rather than supported the idea of obligatory natural law, Cumberlands De Legibus Naturae provided a scientific explanation of the natural necessity of altruism. Through his argument for a moral obligation to natural law, Cumberland made a critical intervention in the early debate over the role of natural jurisprudence at a moment when the natural law project was widely suspected of heterodoxy and incoherence. Liberty Fund publishes the first modern edition of A Treatise of the Laws of Nature , based on John Maxwells English translation of 1727. The edition includes Maxwells extensive notes and appendixes. It also provides, for the first time in English, manuscript additions by Cumberland and material from Barbeyracs 1744 French edition and John Towerss edition of 1750.Richard Cumberland (16321718) was bishop of Peterborough.Jon Parkin is a Lecturer in Politics at the University of York, United Kingdom.Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the Centre for Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.0Foreword ix
A Note on This Edition xx

A TREATISE OF THE LAWS OF NATURE
Dedication 3
The Translator’s Preface 4
Names of Subscribers 11
Two Introductory Essays 23
Essay I. Concerning the City, or Kingdom, of God in the
Rational World, and the Defects in Heathen Deism 25
Essay II. Concerning the Imperfectness of the Heathen Morality;
from Both Which, the Usefulness of Revelation May Appear 68

A PHILOSOPHICAL INQUIRY INTO
THE LAWS OF NATURE
The Contents 237
The Introduction 247
CHAPTER I. Of the Nature of Things 289
CHAPTER II. Of Human Nature, and Right Reason 363
CHAPTER III. Of Natural Good 462
CHAPTER IV. Of the Practical Dictates of Reason 481
CHAPTER V. Of the Law of Nature, and Its Obligation 495
CHAPTER VI. Of Those Things Which Are Contain’d
in the General Law of Nature 651
CHAPTER VII. Of the Original of Dominion, and the
Moral Virtues 663
CHAPTER VIII. Of the Moral Virtues in Particular 684
CHAPTER IX. Corollaries 708
Editor’s Note 753

Appendixes
APPENDIX I. A Summary of the Controversy Between
Dr. Samuel Clark and an Anonymous Author,
Concerning the Immateriality of Thinking Substance 759
APPENDIX II. A Treatise Concerning the Obligation,
Promulgation, and Observance of the Law of Nature 795
APPENDIX I. Richard Cumberland’s Original
Dedication to De Legibus Naturae 947
APPENDIX 2. Hezekiah Burton’s “Address to
the Reader” 953
Selected Bibliography 961
Index 973