Can any man have a higher notion of the rule of right and the eternal fitness of things?

Fielding’s question invokes an Enlightenment moral vocabulary—“the rule of right” and “the eternal fitness of things”—to suggest that morality is not merely conventional or expedient but grounded in an objective order of reason and propriety. Framed as a rhetorical challenge (“Can any man…?”), it implies that a truly elevated mind recognizes a standard of right that stands above self-interest, fashion, or partisan argument. The phrase “fitness of things” echoes contemporary ethical rationalism (the idea that actions can be judged by their congruence with what is rationally ‘fit’), so the line can be read as praising—or demanding—a conscience aligned with universal moral principles rather than shifting human appetites.