THE VIRTUE OF JUSTICE.

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Beneficence, when it thus attains a high degree, when it becomes productive of the greatest good, at once becomes the object of the liveliest gratitude, appears to be deserving of the highest reward, and consequently appears as meritorious and praiseworthy.

The virtue of justice differs from that of beneficence in that the violation of it, by doing real and positive hurt to some particular persons, from motives that are disapproved of, is the natural object of resentment, and calls in consequence for punishment. Resentment was given to us "by nature for defence, and for defence only. It is the safeguard of justice and the security of innocence. It prompts us to beat off the mischief which is attempted to be done to us, and to retaliate that which is already done, that the offender may be made to repent of his injustice, and that others, through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence." As mankind generally approve of the violence employed to avenge the hurt which is done by injustice, so they much more approve of that which is employed to prevent and beat off the injury, and to restrain the offender from hurting his neighbour. Even the person guilty of intending injustice feels that force may be used against him, both by the person he is about to injure, or by others, either to obstruct the execution of his crime, or to punish him when he has executed it.

This fact accounts for the great distinction between justice and all the other social virtues, that we feel a higher obligation to act according to justice than according to friendship, charity, or generosity; and that, while the practice of the latter virtues seems to be left in some measure to our own choice, we feel ourselves to be "in a peculiar manner tied, bound, and obliged to the observation of justice." For we feel that force may, with the utmost propriety, and with the

approbation of mankind, be made use of to compel us to observe the rules of the one, but not to follow the precepts of the others.

It is this feeling, then, of the legitimate use of force and punishment which makes us view with so much stronger a sense of disapprobation actions which are unjust—that is, injurious to others-than actions which are merely breaches of that propriety which we like to see observed in the various relationships that connect men together. A father who fails in the ordinary degree of parental affection to a son, or a sou who is wanting in filial respect for his father, or a man who shuts up his heart against compassion, incur, indeed, blame; but not that superior degree of blame which relates to actions of a positively hurtful tendency.

But though this superior form of disapprobation attaches itself to acts of injustice, just as a superior form of approbation attaches itself to actions of great beneficence, there is no more merit in the observance of justice than there is demerit in the neglect of beneficence. "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 positive good, it is entitled to very little. gratitude. Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbour. The man who barely abstains from violating either the person or the estate or the reputation of his neighbours, has surely very little positive merit. . . . We may often fulfil all the rules of justice by sitting still and doing nothing." As before explained, the sense of the merit of an action is different from the sense of its propriety, and unless an action has both these characteristics, it does not really satisfy the conditions of morality.

In proportion, therefore, to the resentment naturally felt by

DEGREES OF INJURY.

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a sufferer from injustice is the sympathetic indignation of the spectator, and the sense of guilt in the agent. But the resentment itself, being proportioned to the evil done by an act, the demerit of an act may be measured by the evil it causes. Death being the greatest evil one man can do to another, and consequently incurring the highest indignation from those connected with the slain man, takes rank as the worst of all crimes. Injuries to a man's property and possessions being less hurtful to him than an injury to his life or person, theft and robbery rank next to murder in atrocity. And as it is a smaller evil to be disappointed of what we have only in expectation than to be deprived of what we have in possession, breach of contract is a less heinous crime than one which attacks a man's actual property.

CHAPTER V.

INFLUENCE OF PROSPERITY OR ADVERSITY, CHANCE, AND

CUSTOM UPON MORAL SENTIMENTS.

IN the estimation of Dugald Stewart, the most valuable contribution of Adam Smith to the improvement of moral science is his attempt to account for the irregularity of our moral sentiments, and for their liability to be modified by other considerations, very different from the propriety or impropriety of the affections of the agent, or from their beneficial or hurtful tendency. Adam Smith was, he thinks, the first philosopher to appreciate thoroughly the importance of the difficulty, which is equally great in every theory of the origin of our moral sentiments; namely, that our actual moral sentiments of approbation, or the contrary, are greatly modified by matters extraneous to the intention of the agent; as, for example, by the influence on the act itself of quite fortuitous or accidental circumstances.

There are, first of all, the effects of prosperity and adversity on the moral judgments of men with regard to the propriety of action, whereby it is easier to obtain approbation in the one condition than it is in the other.

In equal degrees of merit there is scarcely any one who does not more respect the rich and great than the poor and humble; and, on the other hand, an equal amount of vice and folly is regarded with less aversion and contempt in the former than it is in the latter. How is this to be explained?

NATURAL SYMPATHY WITH JOY.

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and what is the origin of this perversion of moral sentiment?

The real explanation of it is to be sought in the fact of our sympathetic emotions, which, as they enter more vividly into the joys than into the sorrows of others, feel more pleasure in the condition of the wealthy than in that of the poor. It is agreeable to sympathize with joy, and painful to enter into grief; so that, where there is no envy in the case, our propensity to sympathize with joy is much stronger than our propensity to sympathize with sorrow; and our fellow-feeling for the agreeable emotion approaches nearer to its original intensity than our fellow-feeling for the painful emotion of another person. It is for this reason that we are more ashamed to weep than to laugh before company, though we may often have as real occasion to do the one as the other: we always feel that the spectators are more likely to go along with us in the agreeable than in the painful emotion. Hence our disposition to admire the rich and powerful, and to despise or neglect the poor and lowly, arises from our association of joy and pleasure with the condition of the former, and of pain and distress with that of the latter.

The condition of the former, in the delusive colours of our imagination, seems to be almost the abstract idea of a perfect and happy state. Hence we feel a peculiar satisfaction with the satisfaction we attribute to them. We favour all their inclinations, and forward all their wishes. We are eager to assist them in completing a system of happiness that approaches so near to perfection.

It is from the command which wealth thus has over the sympathetic and agreeable sentiments of mankind that leads to so eager a pursuit and parade of it, and to so strong an aversion to, and concealment of, poverty. To what purpose is all the toil of the world for wealth, power, and pre-emi