  Butler had little doubt that arguments from abstract relations and arguments from matters of fact were complementary, but he held that the latter had major advantages over the former as a method in ethics. First it was in “a peculiar Manner adapted to satisfie a fair Mind; and is more easily applicable to the several particular Relations and Circumstances in Life” (“Preface”, §12). In other words, arguments from matters of fact allowed us to discern moral standards in human actions and for the standards to be accessible to and motivating for ordinary reflecting agents (to be discussed in 3.).  Whereas the abstract relations of things might establish for Clarke or Wollaston that “Vice is contrary to the Nature and Reasons of Things” (“Preface”, §12), arguments of matter of fact established that vice is “a violation or breaking in upon our own Nature,” (“Preface”, §12). These fitnesses or proportions were to be discovered in our nature and although they might be consistent with a priori metaphysical relations, the norms and values that they determined were obliging and motivating in absence of access to said relations. As such they were relativized to human nature, authoritative for it, and accessible via reflection on and observation of our actions and those of others