thifing with the hatred and abhorrence which other men muft entertain for him, he becomes in some measure the object of his own hatred and abhorrence. The fituation of the perfon, who fuffered by his injustice, now calls upon his pity. He is grieved at the thought of it; regrets the unhappy effects of his own conduct, and feels at the fame time that they have rendered him the proper object of the refentment and indignation of mankind, and of what is the natural confequence of refentment, vengeance and punishment. The thought of this perpetually haunts him, and fills him with terror and amazement. He dares no longer look fociety in the face, but imagines himself as it were rejected, and thrown out from the affections of all mankind. He cannot hope for the confolation of fympathy in this his greatest, and moft dreadful distress. The remembrance of his crimes has fhut out all fellow-feeling with him from the hearts of his fellow-creatures. The fentiments which they entertain with regard to him, are the very thing which he is most afraid of. Every thing feems hoftile, and he would be glad to fly to fome inhofpitable defert, where he might never more behold the face of a human creature, nor read in the countenance of mankind the condemnation of his crimes. But folitude is ftill more dreadful than fociety. His own thoughts can present him with nothing but what is black, unfortunate, and difaftrous, the melancholy forebodings of incomprehenfible

comprehenfible mifery and ruin. The horror of folitude drives him back into society, and he comes again into the presence of mankind, astonished to appear before them, loaded with fhame and diftracted with fear, in order to fupplicate fome little protection from the countenance of thofe very judges, who he knows have already all unanimously condemned him. Such is the nature of that fentiment, which is properly called remorfe; of all the fentiments which can enter the human breast the most dreadful. It is made up of fhame from the sense of the impropriety of past conduct; of grief for the effects of it; of pity for those who suffer by it; and of the dread and terror of punishment from the confcioufnefs of the juftly provoked refentment of all rational creatures.

The oppofite behaviour naturally infpires the oppofite fentiment. The man who, not from frivolous fancy, but from proper motives, has performed a generous action, when he looks forward to those whom he has ferved, feels himself to be the natural object of their love and gratitude, and, by fympathy with them, of the esteem and approbation of all mankind. And when he looks backward to the motive from which he acted, and furveys it in the light in which the indifferent fpectator will furvey it, he still continues to enter into it, and applauds himself by fympathy with the approbation of this fuppofed impartial judge. In both these points of view his own conduct appears to him every

way agreeable. His mind, at the thought of it, is filled with chearfulness, ferenity, and compofure. He is in friendship and harmony with all mankind, and looks upon his fellowcreatures with confidence and benevolent fatisfaction, fecure that he has rendered himself worthy of their most favourable regards. In the combination of all these sentiments confifts the consciousness of merit, or of deferved reward.

CHA P. III.

Of the utility of this conftitution of nature.

Tis thus that man, who can fubfift on

ly in fociety, was fitted by nature to that fituation for which he was made. All the members of human fociety ftand in need of each others affiftance, and are likewife exposed to mutual injuries. Where the neceffary affiftance is reciprocally afforded from love, from gratitude, from friendship and esteem, the fociety flourishes and is happy. All the different members of it are bound together by the agreeable bands of love and affection, and are, as it were, drawn to one common centre of mutual good offices.

But though the neceffary affistance should not be afforded from fuch generous and difinterested motives, though among the different members of the fociety there fhould be no mutual love and affection, the fociety, though

lefs

less happy and agreeable, will not neceffarily be diffolved. Society may fubfift among different men, as among different merchants, from a sense of its utility, without any mutual love or affection; and though no man in it should owe any obligation, or be bound in gratitude to any other, it may still be upheld by a mercenary exchange of good offices according to an agreed valuation.

Society, however, cannot fubfift among those who are at all times ready to hurt and injure one another. The moment that injury begins, the moment that mutual refentment and animofity take place, all the bands of it are broke afunder, and the different members of which it confifted are, as it were, diffipated and scattered abroad by the violence and oppofition of their discordant affections. If there is any fociety among robbers and murderers, they muft at least, according to the trite obfervation, abstain from robbing and murdering one another. Beneficence,

therefore, is lefs effential to the existence of fociety than justice. Society may fubfift, though not in the most comfortable state, without beneficence; but the prevalence of injustice must utterly destroy it.

Though nature, therefore, exhorts mankind to acts of beneficence, by the pleasing consciousness of deserved reward, fhe has not thought it neceffary to guard and enforce the practice of it by the terrors of merited punishment in cafe it should be neglected. It is the ornament which embellishes, not

the foundation which fupports the building, and which it was, therefore, fufficient to recommend, but by no means neceffary to impole. Juftice, on the contrary, is the main pillar that upholds the whole edifice. If it is removed, the great, the immenfe fabric of human fociety, that fabric which to raise and fupport feems in this world, if I may say so, to have been the peculiar and darling care of nature, muft in a moment crumble into atoms. In order to enforce the observation of juftice, therefore, nature has implanted in the human breaft that consciousness of illdefert, thofe terrors of merited punishment which attend upon its violation, as the great fafe-guards of the affociation of mankind, to protect the weak, to curb the violent, and to chaftize the guilty. Men, though naturally fympathetic, feel fo little for another, with whom they have no particular connection, in comparison of what they feel for themfelves; the mifery of one, who is merely their fellow-creature, is of fo little importance to them in comparison even of a small conveniency of their own; they have it fo much in their power to hurt him, and may have fo many temptations to do fo, that if this principle did not ftand up within them in his defence, and overawe them into a refpect for his innocence, they would, like wild beafts, be at all times ready to fly upon him ; and a man would enter an affembly of men as he enters a den of lions.