A Methodical System of Universal Law. Johann Gottlieb Heineccius

others, and God had its roots in a long intellectual tradition, and it is likely that Heineccius encountered it in the writings and lectures of his teacher Christian Thomasius in Halle.⁹ Heineccius’s definition of the morally good as “whatever tends to preserve and perfect man” and of a “good action” as that “which contributes to human preservation and perfection”¹⁰ is also very similar to Thomasius’s definition of the morally good in his second work on natural law, the Foundations of the Law of Nature and Nations of 1705: “Do that which makes human life as long-lasting and happy as possible, and avoid that which makes life unhappy and hastens death”;¹¹ so is Heineccius’s definition of love as the central principle of natural law: “Love in us is the desire of good, joined with delight in its perfection and happiness.”¹² There are only three possible objects of the offices of love, which correspond to the tripartite division of duties: “God, the creator of all things; ourselves, who are certainly the nearest to ourselves; and other men, whom we plainly perceive to be by nature equal to us.”¹³

      Love, as a motive, created an “internal” obligation to perform moral actions, which, Heineccius is suggesting, are generally also to the advantage of the agent. But this internal obligation was insufficient, because mankind was often mistaken about the nature of moral goods and, like Ixion in ancient mythology, who tried to seduce a cloud in the shape of the goddess Juno, often embraced false goods. Immorality could be a reflection of mistaken beliefs, rather than vicious intentions. Heineccius thereby modified the ideas of Christian Thomasius, who had argued that the desire for the true good was prior to any beliefs in the intellect. Once the desire for good, which Thomasius identified with the love for God, had established itself in human nature, true beliefs about the nature of the morally good followed spontaneously.¹⁴ Heineccius, however, argued that the general desire for what was morally good was not enough. It was necessary to have a prior rule or standard, which defined what was to be considered morally good and which directed the abstract desire for morality toward the right ends. This rule constituted the external obligation arising from the will of some “Being whose authority we are obliged to acknowledge.”¹⁵ In the case of the law of nature this Being was God: “The law of nature, or the natural rule of rectitude, is a system of laws promulgated by the eternal God to the whole human race by reason.”¹⁶ Heineccius’s notion of a “rule of rectitude” may well have been motivated by the desire to correct the radical anti-intellectualism of Christian Thomasius’s moral theory. Thomasius’s emphasis on the pre-intellectual guidance of the heart, rather than the understanding, in moral actions was a position many contemporaries associated with “enthusiasm,” a label Heineccius would have been keen to avoid.¹⁷

      Turnbull’s Life and His Response to Heineccius

      George Turnbull (1698–1748) was one of the key figures of the Scottish Enlightenment who was familiar with contemporary developments in European theories of natural law. His education and intellectual formation took place in Edinburgh, where he graduated from the university there in 1721.¹⁸ In 1721 he became a regent at Marischal College, Aberdeen, where Thomas Reid was among his students.¹⁹ Leaving the university in 1727, he traveled as tutor of young aristocrats in Europe. After joining the Anglican Church (bachelor of civil law, Oxford University, 1733) he was ordained in 1739, became chaplain to the Prince of Wales, and, finally, served as a minister in County Derry. During this period he started to draw his experiences together in a wide range of different writings, including his translation of Heineccius.²⁰ His extensive notes surveyed modern natural law and introduced his readers to significant authors, such as Johann Franz Budde, who were barely known in Britain. At the same time, Turnbull’s notes added substantially to the ideas he found in Heineccius’s work. Often Turnbull developed Heineccius’s theory to his own liking, telling the reader what the latter really should have said.

      Turnbull accepted Heineccius’s definition of love, for example, as the central ethical principle of natural law, but criticized his distinction between internal and external obligation, a distinction which he regarded as artificial and unnecessary. There was no need for an external obligation in the sense of a rule imposed by a superior. The obligation of natural law was reinforced externally by the natural connection between virtue and temporal happiness or prosperity. There were exceptions, but on the whole “the far greater part of the evils and miseries complained of in human life, are the effects and consequences of vicious passions, and their pursuits. Whence else is it that honesty is so universally pronounced the best policy, and dishonesty folly?”²¹ Punishments for immorality and rewards for morally good actions were part of the natural order created by God, not imposed in individual cases by particular acts of the divine will. There was no need to add another, “external” obligation, a “rule of rectitude,” to this,²² because the existing, natural connection between morality and happiness was already a sufficient indication of God’s providential will for humanity. Moral philosophy, therefore, involved the study of natural causes and effects, in the same way as natural philosophy.²³ The consequence of this natural connection or tendency in human affairs was that the actual distribution of goods, such as happiness or wealth in this world, on the whole reflected the virtue and merit of those who owned or enjoyed them. It is important to note, however, that although morality was also advantageous, of course not every self-interested action was automatically virtuous. Turnbull distinguished the advantages of morality from vulgar notions of self-interest, which were attributed to Epicureans and the followers of Mandeville and which implied that actions were morally justified because they were self-interested. Turnbull’s emphasis on the advantageousness of morality was intended to prove the existence of a theodicy, in a loose sense, a belief that temporal affairs reflected the benevolent influence of a divine justice and providence.

      The rewards for virtue in this life included property. Although the truly virtuous person knew how to be happy without material goods, only he or she could “have true happiness from them.”²⁴ It was “a fact too evident to be called into question” that “man is made to purchase every thing by industry, and industry only, every good, internal or external.”²⁵ The actual distribution of property, in general, reflected the merit of its owners, for if “we own a blind fortuitous dispensation of goods, and much more, if we own a malignant dispensation of them, or a dispensation of them more in favour of vice than of virtue, we deny a providence, or assert bad administration.”²⁶ In fact, however, “the universe is governed by excellent general laws, among which this is one, “That industry shall be the purchaser of goods, and shall be generally successful.”

      This “general law of industry”²⁷ had important implications for Turnbull’s political theory. Turnbull believed that political society was essential for humans to reach the highest degree of happiness possible for them in this life.²⁸ As Turnbull explained in another work, “many of the goods of life are by our social constitution dependent upon the right government of society,” that is, on “a good politic constitution, and the impartial execution of good laws.”²⁹ Constitutional structures and the distribution of property were closely related because “a greater share of external goods, or of property, naturally begets power. And hence it will and must always hold as a general law, That dominion will follow property or that changes in property will beget certain proportional changes in government.”³⁰ It is this belief in the close connection between government and property ownership which helps to explain Turnbull’s strong interest in the political theory of James Harrington (1611–77), whom he often quotes at length in his comments on Heineccius’s text.

      Harrington’s central aim had been to solve the same problem as his contemporary Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679), the threat of anarchy following from constitutional collapse. However, Turnbull’s interest in Harrington was more the Englishman’s view of the relationship between property and political power. Harrington, he said, “reasons from natural causes in these matters, as natural philosophers do about phenomena commonly called natural ones.”³¹ Like Harrington, Turnbull argued that the ownership of property, especially of landed property, was the natural basis of power. If one man owns far more land than all others taken together, then the constitution will be that of an absolute monarchy. If a small group of people holds the greatest proportion of land, this leads either to aristocracy or a regulated monarchy. Popular