man fociety. Where this enters not into confideration, nothing can appear more whimsical, unnatural, and even fuperftitious, than all or moft of the laws of justice and of property. Thofe, who ridicule vulgar fuperftitions, and expofe the folly of particular regards to meats, days, places, postures, apparel, have an easy task; while they confider all the qualities and relations of the objects, and discover no adequate cause for that affection or antipathy, veneration or horror, which have fo mighty an influence over a confiderable part of mankind. A SYRIAN would have ftarved rather than taste pigeon; an EGYPTIAN would not have approached bacon: But if these species of food be examined by the fenfes of fight, fmell, or taste, or fcrutinized by the fciences of chymistry, medicine, or phyfics; no difference is ever found between them and any other species, nor can that precife circumftance be pitched on, which may afford a juft foundation for the religious paffion. A fowl on Thursday is lawful food; on Friday abominable: Eggs, in this house, and in this diocefe, are permitted during Lent; a hundred paces farther, to eat them is a damnable fin. This earth or building, yesterday was profane; to-day, by the muttering of certain words, it has become holy and facred. Such reflections as thefe, in the mouth of a philosopher, one may fafely fay, are too obvious to have any influence; because they must always, to every man, occur at first fight; and where they prevail not, of themselves, they are furely obstructed by education, prejudice, and paffion, not by ignorance or mistake. It may appear to a careless view, or rather a too abftracted reflection, that there enters a like fuperftition into all the fentiments of justice; and that, if a man expofe its object, or what we call property, to the same fcrutiny fcrutiny of fenfe and science, he will not, by the moft accurate inquiry, find any foundation for the difference made by moral fentiment. I may lawfully nourish myself from this tree; but the fruit of another of the same species, ten paces off, it is criminal for me to touch. Had I worn this apparel an hour ago, 1 had merited the feverest punishment; but a man, by pronouncing a few magical fyllables, has now rendered it fit for my use and fervice. Were this houfe placed in the neighbouring territory, it had been immoral for me to dwell in it; but being built on this fide the river, it is fubject to a different municipal law, and, by its becoming mine, I incur no blame or cenfure. The fame fpecies of reasoning, it may be thought, which so successfully expofes fuperftition, is also applicable to juftice; nor is it poffible, in the one cafe, more than in the other, to point out, in the object, that precise quality or circumstance, which is the foundation of the sentiment. But there is this material difference between fuperftis tion and justice, that the former is frivolous, useless, and burdenfome; the latter is abfolutely requifite to the wellbeing of mankind, and existence of fociety. When we abstract from this circumstance (for it is too apparent ever to be overlooked) it must be confeffed, that all regards to right and property, seem entirely without foun dation, as much as the groffeft and most vulgar fuperftition. Were the interests of fociety nowife concerned, it is as unintelligible, why another's articulating certain founds implying confent, fhould change the nature of my actions with regard to a particular object, as why the reciting of a liturgy by a priest, in a certain habit and posture, fhould dedicate a heap of brick and timber, and render it, thenceforth and for ever, sacred*. These reflections are far from weakening the obliga tions of justice, or diminishing any thing from the most facred attention to property. On the contrary, fuch fentiments must acquire new force from the prefent reafoning. For what stronger foundation can be defired or conceived for any duty, than to observe, that human fociety, or even human nature could not subsist, without the establishment of it; and will ftill arrive at greater degrees of happiness and perfection, the more inviolable the regard is, which is paid to that duty? The dilemma feems obvious: As juftice evidently tends to promote public utility, and to support civil fociety, the sentiment of justice is either derived from our reflecting on that tendency, or, like hunger, thirst, and other appetites, refentment, love of life, attachment to offspring, and other paffions, arifes from a fimple original instinct in the human breast, which nature has implanted for like falutary purposes. If the latter be the cafe, it follows, that property, which is the object of justice, is also distinguished by a fimple, original instinct, and is not afcertained by any argument or reflection. But who is there that ever heard of such an instinct? Or is this a fubject, in which new discoveries can be made? We may as well expect to discover, in the body, new senses, which had before efcaped the observation of all mankind. But farther, though it feems a very fimple propofition to fay, that nature, by an inftinctive fentiment, diftinguishes property, yet in reality we shall find, that there are required for that purpose ten thousand different instincts, and these employed about objects of the greatest intricacy and niceft difcernment. For when a definition of property is required, that relation is found to refolve itself into any poffeffion acquired by occupation, by industry b by prescription, by inheritance, by contract, &c. Can we think that nature, by an original inftinet, inftructs us in all these methods of acquifition? These words too, inheritance and contract, ftand for ideas infinitely complicated; and to define them exactly, a hundred volumes of laws, and a thousand volumes of commentators, have not been found fufficient. Does nature, whose inftincts in men are all fimple, embrace fuch complicated and artificial objects, and create a rational creature, without trufting any thing to the operation of his reafon? But even though all this were admitted, it would not be fatisfactory. Pofitive laws can certainly transfer property. Is it by another original instinct, that we recognize the authority of kings and fenates, and mark all the boundaries of their jurifdiction? Judges too, even though their sentence be erroneous and illegal, must be allowed, for the fake of peace and order, to have decifive authority, and ultimately to determine property. Have we original, innate ideas of prætors and chancellors and juries? Who fees not, that all these institutions arife merely from the neceffities of human fociety? All birds of the fame fpecies in every age and country, build their nefts alike: In this we fee the force of inftinet. Men in different times and places, frame their houfes differently: Here we perceive the influence of reafon and cuftom. A like inference may be drawn from comparing the instinct of generation and the inftitution of property. How great foever the variety of municipal laws, it must be confeffed, that their chief out-lines pretty regularly concur; because the purposes, to which they tend, are every where exactly fimilar. In like manner, all houses have a roof and walls, windows and chimneys; though though diverfified in their fhape, figure, and materials. The purposes of the latter, directed to the conveniencies of human life, discover not more plainly their origin from reafon and reflection, than do thofe of the former, which point all to a like end. I need not mention the variations, which all the rules of property receive from the finer turns and connexions of the imagination, and from the fubtilties and abftractions of law-topics and reasonings. There is no poffibility of reconciling this obfervation to the notion of original instincts. What alone will beget a doubt concerning the theory, on which I infift, is the influence of education and acquired habits, by which we are fo accustomed to blame injuftice, that we are not, in every inftance, confcions of any immediate reflection on the pernicious confequences of it. The views the most familiar to us are apt, for that very reafon, to escape us; and what we have very frequently performed from certain motives, we are apt likewife to continue mechanically, without recalling, on every occafion, the reflections, which firft determined us. The convenience, or rather neceffity, which leads to justice, is fo univerfal, and every where points fo much to the fame rules, that the habit takes place in all focieties; and it is not without fome fcrutiny, that we are able to ascertain its true origin. The matter, however, is not fo obfcure, but that, even in common life, we have, every moment, recourfe to the principle of public utility, and afk, What must become of the world, if fuch practices prevail? How could fociety fubfift under fuch diforders? Were the diftinction or feparation of poffeffions entirely useless, can any one conceive, that it ever should have obtained in fociety? Thus |