short of that ordinary degree of proper beneficence which experience teaches us to expect of every body; and on the contrary, that feems praife-worthy which goes beyond it. The ordinary degree itself feems neither blameable nor praife-worthy. A father, a fon, a brother, who behaves to the correspondent relation neither better nor worse than the greater part of men commonly do, feems properly to deserve neither praise nor blame. He who furprises us by extraordinary and unexpected, though still proper, and fuitable kindness, or on the contrary by extraordinary and unexpected, as well as unfuitable unkindness, seems praife-worthy in the one case, and blameable in the other. Even the most ordinary degree of kindnefs or beneficence, however, cannot, among equals, be extorted by force. Among equals each individual is naturally, and antecedent to the inftitution of civil government, regarded as having a right both to defend himfelf from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of punishment for those which have been done to him. Every generous fpectator not only approves of his conduct when he does this, but enters fo far into his fentiments as often to be willing to affift him. When one man attacks, or robs, or attempts to murder another, all the neighbours take the alarm, and think that they do right when they run, either to revenge the perfon who has been injured, or to defend him who is in danger of being fo. But when a father fails in the or dinary degree of parental affection towards a fon; when a fon feems to want that filial reverence which might be expected to his father; when brothers are without the ufual degree of brotherly affection; when a man shuts his breast against compaffion, and refuses to relieve the mifery of his fellowcreatures, when he can with the greatest ease; in all these cases, though every body blames the conduct, nobody imagines that those who might have reafon, perhaps, to expect more kindness, have any right to extort it by force. The fufferer can only complain, and the fpectator can intermeddle no other way than by advice and perfuafion. Upon all fuch occafions, for equals to ufe force against one another, would be thought the highest degree of infolence and prefumption. A fuperior may, indeed, fometimes, with universal approbation, oblige those under his jurifdiction to behave, in this refpect, with a certain degree of propriety to one another. The laws of all civilized nations oblige parents to maintain their children, and children to maintain their parents, and impose upon men many other duties of beneficence. The civil magiftrate is entrusted with the power not only of preferving the public peace by reftraining injustice, but of promoting the profperity of the commonwealth, by eftablishing good difcipline, and by discouraging every fort of vice and impropriety; he may prefcribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citi-, zens, zens, but command mutual good offices to a certain degree. When the fovereign commands what is merely indifferent, and what, antecedent to his orders, might have been omitted without any blame, it becomes not only blameable but punishable to disobey him. When he commands, therefore, what, antecedent to any fuch order, could not have been omitted without the greatest blame, it furely becomes much more punishable to be wanting in obedience. Of all the duties of a law-giver, however, this, perhaps, is that which it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth to many grofs diforders and fhocking enormities, and to push it too far is deftructive of all liberty, fecurity, and justice. Though the meer want of beneficence feems to merit no punishment from equals, the greater exertions of that virtue appear to deferve the highest reward. By being productive of the greatest good, they are the natural and approved objects of the livelieft gratitude. Though the breach of justice, on the contrary, expofes to punishment, the obfervance of the rules of that virtue feems scarce to deserve any reward. There is, no doubt, a propriety in the practice of justice, and it merits, upon that account, all the approbation which is due to propriety. But as it does no real pofitive good, it is entitled to very little gratitude. Meer juftice is, upon most most occafions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The man who barely abftains from violating either the perfon, or the estate, or the reputation of his neighbours, has furely very little pofitive merit. He fulfils, however, all the rules of what is peculiarly called justice, and does every thing which his equals can with propriety force him to do, or which they can punish him for not doing. We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by fitting still and doing nothing. Benefi As every man doth, fo fhall it be done to him, and retaliation seems to be the great law which is dictated to us by nature. cence and generofity we think due to the generous and beneficent. Those whofe hearts never open to the feelings of humanity, fhould, we think, be fhut out in the fame manner, from the affections of all their fellow-creatures, and be allowed to live in the midst of society, as in a great defart where there is no-body to care for them, or to enquire after them. The violator of the laws of juftice ought to be made to feel himself that evil which he has done to another; and fince no regard to the fufferings of his brethren is capable of reftraining him, he ought to be over-awed by the fear of his own. The man who is barely innocent, who only observes the laws of juftice with regard to others, and meerly abftains from hurting his neighbours, can merit only that his neighbours in their turn fhould respect refpect his innocence, and that the fame laws fhould be religiously observed with regard to him. CHA P. II. Of the fenfe of justice, of remorse, and of the confciousness of merit. T HERE can be no proper motive for hurting our neighbour, there can be no incitement to do evil to another, which mankind will go along with, except just indignation for evil which that other has done to us. To disturb his happiness meerly because it stands in the way of our own, to take from him what is of real ufe to him meerly because it may be of equal or of more use to us, or to indulge, in this manner, at the expence of other people, the natural preference which every man has for his own happiness above that of other people, is what no impartial fpectator can go along with. Every man is, no doubt, by nature, first and principally recommended to his own care; and as he is fitter to take care of himself than of any other perfon, it is fit and right that it should be fo. Every man, therefore, is much more deeply interested in whatever immediately concerns himself, than in what concerns any other man: and to hear, perhaps, of the death of another perfon, with whom we have no particular connection, will give us lefs concern, will spoil our ftomach, or break our reft |