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if a perfon fhould throw a large ftone over a wall into a public ftreet without giving warning to thofe who might be paffing by, and without regarding where it was likely to fall, he would undoubtedly deserve some chaftisement. A very accurate police would punifh fo abfurd an action, even though it had done no mischief. The perfon who has been guilty of it, fhows an infolent contempt of the happiness and fafety of others. There is real injuftice in his conduct. He wantonly expofes his neighbour to what no man in his fenfes would chufe to expofe himself, and evidently wants that fenfe of what is due to his fellow-creatures which is the basis of juftice and of fo iety. Grofs negligence therefore is, in the law, faid to be almost equal to malicious defign * When any unlucky confequences happen from fuch careleffness, the person who has been guilty of it is often punished as if he had really intended those confequences; and his conduct, which was only thoughtless and infolent, and what deferved fome chaftifement, is confidered as atrocious, and as liable to the feverest punishment. Thus if, by the imprudent action. above-mentioned, he should accidentally kill a man, he is, by the laws of many countries, particularly by the old law of Scotland, liable to the laft punishment. And though this is no doubt exceffively fevere, it is not altogether inconfiftent with our natural fentiments.

* Lata culpa prope dolum eft.

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Our juft indignation against the folly and inhumanity of his conduct is exafperated by our fympathy with the unfortunate fufferer. Nothing however would appear more fhocking to our natural fenfe of equity, than to bring a man to the fcaffold merely for having thrown a ftone carelefly into the ftreet without hurting any body. The folly and inhumanity of his conduct, however, would in this cafe be the fame; but ftill our fentiments would be very different. The confideration of this difference may fatisfy us how much the indignation, even of the fpectator, is apt to be animated by the actual confequences of the action. In cafes of this kind there will, if I am not mistaken, be found a great degree of feverity in the laws of almost all nations; as I have already obferved that in those of an oppofite kind there was a very general relaxation of difcipline.

There is another degree of negligence which does not involve in it any fort of injuftice.' The perfon who is guilty of it treats his neighbour as he treats himself, means no harm to any body, and is far from entertaining any infolent contempt for the fafety and happinefs of others. He is not, however, fo careful and circumfpect in his conduct as he ought to be, and deferves upon this account fome degree of blame and cenfure, but no fort of punishment. Yet if by a negligence of this kind he should occafion fome damage to an

*Culpa levis.

*

other

other perfon, he is by the laws of, I believe, all countries, obliged to compensate it. And though this is no doubt a real punishment, and what no mortal would have thought of inflicting upon him, had it not been for the unlucky accident which his conduct gave occafion to; yet this decifion of the law is approved of by the natural fentiments of all mankind. Nothing, we think, can be more just than that one man should not fuffer by the careleffness of another; and that the damage occafioned by blameable negligence fhould be made up by the perfon who was guilty of it. There is another fpecies of negligence *, which confifts merely in a want of the most anxious timidity and circumfpection, with regard to all the poffible confequences of our actions. The want of this painful attention, when no bad confequences follow from it, is fo far from being regarded as blameable, that the contrary quality is rather confidered as fuch. That timid circumfpection which is afraid of every thing, is never regarded as a virtue, but as a quality which more than any other incapacitates for action and bufinefs. Yet when, from a want of the exceffive care, a perfon happens to occafion fome damage to another, he is often by the law obliged to compenfate it. Thus, by the Aquilian law, the man, who not being able to manage a horse that had accidentally taken fright, should happen to ride down his neighbour's flave, is

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obliged to compensate the damage. When an accident of this kind happens, we are apt to think that he ought not to have rode fuch a horse, and to regard his attempting it as an unpardonable levity; though without this accident we should not only have made no such reflection, but should have regarded his refufing it as the effect of timid weakness, and of an anxiety about merely poffible events, which it is to no purpofe to be aware of. The perfon himself, who by an accident even of this kind has involuntarily hurt another, feems to have fome fenfe of his own ill defert, with regard to him. He naturally runs up to the fufferer to express his concern for what has happened, and to make every acknowledgment in his power. If he has any fenfibility, he neceffarily defires to compenfate the damage, and to do every thing he can to appease that animal refentment, which he is fenfible will be apt to arise in the breast of the fufferer. To make no apology, to offer no atonement, is regarded as the highest brutality. Yet why fhould he make an apology more than any other person? Why fhould he, fince he was equally innocent with any other by-ftander, be thus fingled out from among all mankind, to make up for the bad fortune of another? This talk would furely never be impofed upon him, did not even the impartial fpectator feel fome indulgence for what may be regarded as the unjust refentment of that other.tual: 19

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Of the final caufe of this irregularity of Grafentimentslundly su

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UCH is the effect of the good or bad confequence of actions upon the fentiments both of the perfon who performs them, and of others; and thus, fortune, which governs the world, has fome influence where we fhould be least willing to allow her any, and directs in fome measure the fentiments of mankind, with regard to the character and conduct both of themselves and others. That the world judges by the event, and not by the defign, has been in all ages the complaint, and is the great difcouragement of virtue. Every body agrees to the general maxim, that as the event does not depend on the agent, it ought to have no influence upon our fentiments, with regard to the merit or propriety of his conduct. But when we come to particulars, we find that our fentiments are scarce in any one inftance exactly conformable to what this equitable maxim would direct. The happy or unprofperous event of any action, is not only apt to give us a good or bad opinion of the prudence with which it was conducted, but almost always too animates our gratitude or refentment, our fenfe of the merit or demerit of the defign.

Nature,

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