They lie not open as natural characters engraved on the mind; which, if any such were, they must needs be visible by themselves, and by their own light be certain and known to everybody.

But this is no derogation to their truth and certainty; no more than it is to the truth or certainty of the three angles of a triangle being equal to two right ones because it is not so evident as "the whole is bigger than a part," nor so apt to be assented to at first hearing.

It may suffice that these moral rules are capable of demonstration: and therefore it is our own faults if we come not to a certain knowledge of them.

But the ignorance wherein many men are of them, and the slowness of assent wherewith others receive them, are manifest proofs that they are not innate, and such as offer themselves to their view without searching.
2.

Faith and Justice not owned as Principles by all Men.
Whether there be any such moral principles, wherein all men do agree, I appeal to any who have been but moderately conversant in the history of mankind, and looked abroad beyond the smoke of their own chimneys.