Thus two men pull the oars of a boat by common convention, for common intereft, without any promise or contract: Thus gold and filver are made the measures of exchange; thus fpeech and words and language are fixed, by human convention and agreement. Whatever is advantageous to two or more perfons, if all perform their part; but what lofes all advantage, if only one perform, can arise from no other principle. There would otherwise be no motive for any one of them to enter into that fcheme of conduct *.

The word, natural, is commonly taken in so many fenfes, and is of fo loose a fignification, that it feems vain to difpute, whether juftice be natural or not. If felf-love, if benevolence be natural to man; if reafon and forethought be alfo natural; then may the fame epithet be applied to juftice, order, fidelity, property, fociety.

Men's

inclination, their neceffities lead them to combine; their understanding and experience tell them, that this combination is impoffible, where each governs himself by no rule, and pays no regard to the poffeffions of others: And from these paffions and reflections conjoined, as foon as we obferve like paffions and reflections in others, the fentiment of juftice, throughout all ages, has infallibly and certainly had place, to fome degree or other, in every individual of the human fpecies. In fo fagacious an animal, what neceffarily arifes from the exertion of his intellectual faculties, may justly be esteemed natural †.

Among all civilized nations, it has been the conftant endeavour to remove every thing arbitrary and partial from the decifion of property, and to fix the fentence of judges by fuch gene

See NOTE [PP.]
+ See NOTE [QQ].

ral

ral views and confiderations, as may be equal to every member of the fociety. For befides, that nothing could be more dangerous than to accuftom the bench, even in the smallest inftance, to regard private friendship or enmity; it is certain, that men, where they imagine, that there was no other reafon for the preference of their adverfary but perfonal favour, are apt to entertain the ftrongeft ill-will against the magiftrates and judges. When natural reafon, therefore, points out no fixed view of public utility, by which a controverfy of property can be decided, pofitive laws are often framed to to supply its place, and direct the procedure of all courts of judicature. Where thefe too fail, as often happens, precedents are called for; and a former decifion, though given itself without any fufficient reason, juftly becomes a fufficient reafon for a new decifion. If direct laws and precedents be wanting, imperfect and indirect ones are brought in aid; and the controverted cafe is ranged under them, by analogical reafonings and comparisons, and fimilitudes, and correfpondencies, which are often more fanciful than real. In general, it may fafely be affirmed, that jurifprudence is, in this refpect, different from all the fciences; and that in many of its nicer questions, there cannot properly be faid to be truth or falfehood on either fide. If one pleader bring the cafe under any former law or precedent, by a refined analogy or comparison; the oppofite pleader is not at a loss to find an oppofite analogy or comparifon: And the preference given by the judge is often founded more on taste and imagination than on any folid argument. Public utility is the general object of all courts of judicature; and this utility too requires a ftable rule in all controverfies: But where feveral rules, nearly equal and indifferent, prefent themselves, it is a very flight

turn

turn of thought, which fixes the decifion in favour of either party

We may juft obferve, before we conclude this subject, that, after the laws of justice are fixed by views of general utility, the injury, the hardship, the harm, which refult to any individual from a violation of them, enter very much into confideration, and are a great source of that universal blame, which attends every wrong or iniquity. By the laws of fociety, this coat, this horfe is mine, and ought to remain perpetually in my poffeffion: I reckon on the fecure enjoyment of it: By depriving me of it, you disappoint my expectations, and doubly displease me, and offend every byftander. It is a public wrong, fo far as the rules of equity are violated: It is a private harm, fo far as an individual is injured. And though the fecond confideration could have no place, were not the former previously established: For otherwise the diftinction of mine and thine would be unknown in fociety: Yet there is no queftion, but the regard to general good is much enforced by the refpect to particular. What injures the community, without hurting any individual, is often more lightly thought of. But where the greatest public wrong is alfo conjoined with a confiderable private one, no wonder the highest disapprobation attends fo iniquitous a beha

viour.

See NOTE [RR].

1

APPENDIX IV.

Of SOME VERBAL DISPUTES.

Nothing is more ufual than for philofophers to encroach upon the province of grammarians; and to engage in difputes of words, while they imagine, that they are handling controverfies of the deepest importance and concern. It was in order to avoid altercations, fo frivolous and endlefs, that I endeavoured to state with the utinoft caution the object of our prefent enquiry; and propofed fimply to collect on the one hand, a list of thofe mental qualities which are the object of love or esteem, and form a part of perfonal merit, and on the other hand, a catalogue of those qualities, which are the object of cenfure or reproach, and which detract from the character of the perfon, poffeffed of them; fubjoining fome reflections concerning the origin of thefe fentiments of praise or blame. On all occafions, where there might arife the leaft hefitation, I avoided the terms virtue and vice; because some of thofe qualities, which I claffed among the objects of praise, receive, in the English language, the appellation of talents, rather than of virtues; as fome of the blameable or cenfurable qualities are often called defects, rather than vices. It may now, perhaps, be expected, that, before we conclude this moral enquiry, we fhould exactly feparate the one from the other; fhould mark the precife boundaries of

virtues