tem of political knowlege, which abounds in ingenious and brilliant thoughts, and is not wanting in folidity *.

What is a man's property? Any thing, which it is lawful for him, and for him alone, to ufe. But what rule have we, by which we can distinguish these objects? Here we must have recourse to statutes, cuftoms, precedents, analogies, and a

The author of L'Esprit de Loix. This illuftrious writer, however, fets out with a different theory, and fuppofes all right to be founded on certain rapports or relations; which is a fyftem, that, in my opinion, never will reconcile with true philofophy. Father MALEBRANCHE, as far as I can learn, was the first that started this abstract theory of morals, which was afterwards adopted by Dr. CUDWORTH, Dr. CLARKE, and others; and as it excludes all fentiment, and pretends to found every thing on reason, it has not wanted followers in this philofophic age. See Section 1. and Appendix 1. With regard to justice, the virtue here treated of, the inference against this theory feems fhort and conclufive. Property is allowed to be dependant on civil laws; civil laws are allowed to have no other foundation of their authority, and no other object, but the intereft of fociety: This therefore must be allowed to be the fole foundation of property and juftice. Not to mention, that our obligation itself to obey the magiftrate and his laws is founded on nothing but the interefts of fociety.

If the ideas of juftice, fometimes, do not follow the difpofitions of civil law; we shall find, that these cafes, instead of objections, are confirmations of the theory delivered above. Where a civil law is so perverse as to cross all the interests of society, it lofes all its authority, and men judge by the ideas of natural justice, which are conformable to thofe interefts. Sometimes alfo civil laws, for ufeful purposes, require a ceremony or form; and where that is wanting, their decrees run contrary to the ufual tenor of juftice; but one who takes advantage of fuch chicanes, is not commonly regarded as an honest man. Thus, the interests of fociety require, that contracts be fulfilled; and there is not a more material article either of natural or civil justice: But the omiffion of a trifling circumftance will often, by law, invalidate a contract, in foro humano, but not in foro confcientiæ, as divines exprefs themselves. In these cases, the magistrate is supposed only to withdraw his power of inforcing the right, not to have altered the right. Where his intention extends to the right, and is conformable to the interefts of fociety; it never fails to alter the right; a clear proof of the origin of juftice and of property, as affigned above.

hundred other circumftances; fome of which are conftant and inflexible, fome variable and arbitrary. But the ultimate point, in which they all profeffedly terminate, is, the interest and happiness of human fociety. Where this enters not into confideration, nothing can appear more whimfical, unnatural, and even fuperftitious, than all, or moft of the laws of justice and property.

Thofe, who ridicule vulgar fuperftitions, and expofe the folly of particular regards to meats, days, places, poftures, apparel, have an eafy tafk; 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 taftepigeon; an EGYPTIAN would not have approached bacon: But if these species of food be examined by the fenses of sight, fmell, or tafte, or fcrutinized by the fciences of chymistry, medicine, or phyfics; no difference is ever found between them and any other fpecies, nor can that precise circumstance 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 houfe, 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 these, in the mouth of a philofopher, one may fafely fay, are too obvious to have any influence; because they must always, to every man, occur at firft fight; and where they prevail not, of themselves, they are furely obftructed by education, prejudice, and paffion, not by ignorance and mistake.

It

It may appear to a careless view, or rather, a too abstracted reflection, that there enters a like fuperftition into all the regards of juftice; and that, if a man subjects its objects, or what we call property, to the fame fcrutiny of fenfe and fcience, he will not, by the moft accurate enquiry, 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 fame fpecies, ten paces off, 'tis criminal for me to touch. Had I worn this apparel an hour ago, I had merited the fevereft punishment; but a man, by pronouncing a few magical fyllables, has now rendered it fit for my use and service. Were this house 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 I incur no blame or cenfure. The fame fpecies of reasoning, it may be thought, which fo fuccessfully exposes superstition, is also applicable to juftice; nor is it poffible, in the one case more than in the other, to point out, in the object, that precise quality or circumftance, which is the foundation of the fentiment.

But there is this material difference between fuperftition and juftice, that the former is frivolous, useless, and burdensome; the latter is abfolutely requifite to the well-being of mankind and existence of fociety. When we abstract from this circumftance (for 'tis too apparent ever to be overlooked) it must be confessed, that all regards to right and property, seem intirely without foundation, as much as the groffeft and most vulgar fuperftition, Were the interefts of fociety nowife concerned, 'tis as unintelligible, why another's articulating certain founds, implying confent, fhould change the nature of my actions.

with

with regard to a 'particular object, as why the reciting of a liturgy by a priest, in a certain habit and posture, should dedicate a heap of brick and timber, and render it, thenceforth and for ever, facred *.

Thefe

'Tis evident, that the will or confent alone never transfers property, nor caufes the obligation of a promife (for the fame reasoning extends to both) but the will must be expreffed by words or figns, in order to impofe a tye upon any man. The expreffion, being once brought in as fubfervient to the will, foon becomes the principal part of the promife; nor will a man be lefs bound by his word, though he fecretly give a different direction to his intention, and with-hold the affent of his mind. But though the expreffion makes, on most occafions, the whole of the promife, yet it does not always fo; and one who should make use of any expression, of which he knows not the meaning, and which he ufes without any sense of the confequences, would not certainly be bound by it. Nay, though he know its meaning, yet if he uses it in jeft only, and with such signs as show evidently, that he has no ferious intention of binding himself, he would not lie under any obligation of performance; but 'tis neceffary, that the words be a perfect expreffion of the will, without any contrary figns. Nay, even this we must not carry fo far as to imagine, that one, whom, by our quickness of understanding, we conjecture, from certain figns, to have an intention of deceiving us, is not bound by his expression or verbal promise, if we accept of it; but muft limit this conclufion to those cases where the figns are of a different nature from those of deceit. All those contradictions are easily accounted for, if juftice arifes entirely from its usefulness to society; but will never be explained on any other hypothefis.

"Tis remarkable, that the moral decifions of the Jefuits and other relaxed cafuifts, were commonly formed in profecution of fome fuch subtilties of reasoning as are here pointed out, and proceeded as much from the habit of fcholaftic refinement as from any corruption of the heart, if we may follow the authority of Monf. BAYLE. See his dictionary, article LoYOLA. And why has the indignation of mankind rose so high against thefe cafuifts; but because every one perceived, that human fociety could not fubfift were such practices authorized, and that morals muft always be handled with a view to public intereft, more than philofophical regularity? If the fecret direction of the intention, faid every man of fenfe, could invalidate a contract; where is our fecurity? And yet a metaphysical schoolman might think, that where an intention was fuppofed to be requifite, if that intention really had not place, no confequence ought to follow, and no obligation be impofed. The cafuiftical fubtilties may not be greater than the fubtilties of lawyers, hinted at above; but as the former are pernicious, and

the

These reflections are far from weakening the obligations of juftice, or diminishing any thing from the most facred attention to property. On the contrary, fuch fentiments must acquire new force from the prefent reasoning. reasoning. For what ftronger foundation can be defired or conceived for any duty, that to obferve that human fociety, or even human nature could not fubfift, without the establishment of it; and will still 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 fupport civil fociety, the fentiment 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 paf-. fions, 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 simple, original

the latter innocent and even necessary, this is the reafon of the very different reception they meet with from the world.

It is a doctrine of the church of ROME, that the priest, by a fecret direction of his intention, can invalidate any facrament. This pofition is derived from a strict and regular profecution of the obvious truth, that empty words alone, without any. meaning or intention in the speaker, can never be attended with any effect. If the the fame conclufion be not admitted in reafonings concerning civil contracts, where the affair is allowed to be of fo much lefs confequence than the eternal falvation of thoufands, it proceeds entirely from mens fenfe of the danger and inconvenience of the doctrine in the former cafe: And we may obferve, that, however pofitive, arrogant, and dogmatical any fuperftition may appear, it never can convey any thorough perfuafion of the reality of its objects, or put them, in any degree, on a balance with the common incidents of life, which we learn from daily obfervation and experimental reafoning.

instinct,