97.1.One may conceive three sorts of duties:political,moral,and religious;correspondent to the three sorts of sanctious by which they are enforced:or the same point of conduct may be a man's duty on these three several accounts.After speaking of the one of these to put the change upon the reader,and without warning begin speaking of another,or not to let it be seen from the first which of them one is speaking of,cannot but be productive of confusion.
2.Political duty is created by punishment;or at least by the will of persons who have punishment in their hands;persons stated and certain,political superiors.
3.Religious duty is also created by punishment:by punishment expected at the hands of a person certain,the Supreme Being.
4.Moral duty is created by a kind of motive,which from the uncertainty of the persons to apply it,and of the species and agree in which it will be applied,has hardly yet got the name of punishment:by various mortifications resulting from the ill-will of persons uncertain and variable,the community in general:that is,such individuals of that community as he,whose duty is in question,shall happen to be connected with.
5.When in any of these three senses a man asserts a point of conduct to be a duty,what he asserts is the existence,actual or probable,of an external event:viz,of a punishment issuing from one or other of these sources in consequence of a contravention of the duty:an event extrinsic to,and distinct from,as well the conduct of the party spoken of,as the sentiment of him who speaks.If he persists in asserting into be a duty,but without meaning it should be understood that it is on any one of these three accounts that he looks upon it as such;all he then asserts is his own internal sentiment:all he means then is,that he feels himself pleased or displeased at the thoughts of the point of conduct in question,but without being able to tell why.In this case he should e'en say so:and not seek to give an undue influence to his own single suffrage,by delivering it in terms that purport to declare the voice either of God,or of the law,or of the people.