SECTION II.

OF JUSTICE AND BENEFICENCE.

CHAP. I.

Comparison of thofe two virtues.

ACTIONS of a beneficent tendency, which 8 E C T

proceed from proper motives, feem alone to require reward; becaufe fuch alone are the approved objects of gratitude, or excite the fympathetic gratitude of the fpectator.

Actions of a hurtful tendency, which proceed from improper motives, feem alone to deferve punishment; becaufe fuch alone are the approved objects of resentment, or excite the fympathetic refentment of the fpectator.

Beneficence is always free, it cannot be extorted by force, the mere want of it expofes to no punishment; because the mere want of beneficence tends to do no real pofitive evil. It may disappoint of the good which might reasonably have been expected, and upon that account it may justly excite diflike and difapprobation: it cannot, however, provoke any refentment which mankind will go along with. The man who does not recompenfe his benefactor, when he has it in his power, and when his benefactor needs his affiftance, is, no doubt, guilty of the blackeft ingratitude. The heart of every impartial fpectator rejects all fellow-feeling with

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PART the selfishness of his motives, and he is the proper object of the highest disapprobation. But ftill he does no pofitive hurt to any body. He only does not do that good which in propriety he ought to have done. He is the object of hatred, a paffion which is naturally excited by impropriety of fentiment and behaviour; not of resentment, a paffion which is never properly called forth but by actions which tend to do real and pofitive hurt to fome particular perfons. His want of gratitude, therefore, cannot be punished. To oblige him by force to perform, what in gratitude he ought to perform, and what every impartial fpectator would approve of him for performing, would, if poffible, be ftill more improper than his neglecting to perform it. His benefactor would dishonour himself if he attempted by violence to constrain him to gratitude, and it would be impertinent for any third perfon, who was not the fuperior of either, to intermeddle. But of all the duties of beneficence, thofe which gratitude recommends to us approach nearest to what is called a perfect and complete obliga tion. What friendship, what generofity, what charity, would prompt us to do with univerfal approbation, is ftill more free, and can ftill lefs be extorted by force than the duties of gratitude. We talk of the debt of gratitude, not of charity, or generofity, nor even of friendship, when friendship is mere efteem, and has not been enhanced and complicated with gratitude for good offices.

Refent

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Refentment feems to have been given us by SEC T. nature for defence, and for defence only. It is the fafeguard of juftice and the fecurity 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 injuftice, and that others, through fear of the like punishment, may be terrified from being guilty of the like offence. It must be referved therefore for thefe purposes, nor can the spectator ever go along with it when it is exerted for any other. But the mere want of the beneficent virtues, though it may disappoint us of the 'good which might reasonably be expected, neither does, nor attempts to do, any mischief from which we can have occafion to defend ourselves.

There is however another virtue, of which the obfervance is not left to the freedom of our own wills, which may be extorted by force, and of which the violation expofes to refentment, and confequently to punishment. This virtue is juftice: the violation of justice is injury: it does real and pofitive hurt to fome particular perfons, from motives which are naturally dif approved of. It is, therefore, the proper object of refentment, and of punishment, which is the natural confequence of refentment. As mankind go along with, and approve of the violence employed to avenge the hurt which is done by injuftice, fo they much more go along with, and approve of, that which is employed to prevent and beat off the injury, and to reftrain the offender

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PART offender from hurting his neighbours. The

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perfon himself who meditates an injustice is fenfible of this, and feels that force may, with the utmost propriety, be made ufe of, both by the perfon whom he is about to injure, and by others, either to obftruct the execution of his crime, or to punish him when he has executed it. And upon this is founded that remarkable diftinction between justice and all the other focial virtues, which has of late been particularly infifted upon by an author of very great and original genius, that we feel ourselves to be under a ftricter obligation to act according to justice, than agreeably to friendship, charity, or generofity; that the practice of thefe laft mentioned virtues feems to be left in fome measure to our own choice, but that, fomehow or other, we feel ourselves to be in a peculiar manner tied, bound, and obliged to the observation of juftice. We feel, that is to fay, that force may, with the utmost propriety, and with the approbation of all mankind, be made ufe of to conftrain us to obferve the rules of the one, but not to follow the precepts of the other.

We must always, however, carefully diftinguifh what is only blamable, or the proper object of difapprobation, from what force may be employed either to punish or to prevent. That feems blamable which falls fhort of that ordinary degree of proper beneficence which experience teaches us to expect of every body; and on the contrary, that feems praise-worthy which goes beyond it. The ordinary degree

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itself feems neither blamable nor praife-worthy. s E C T. A father, a fon, a brother, who behaves to the correfpondent relation neither better nor worfe than the greater part of men commonly do, feems properly to deferve neither praise nor blame. He who furprifes us by extraordinary and unexpected, though ftill proper and fuitable kindness, or on the contrary by extraordinary and unexpected, as well as unfuitable unkindness, seems praise-worthy in the one cafe, and blamable in the other.

Even the most ordinary degree of kindness 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 himself from injuries, and to exact a certain degree of punishment for thofe which have been done to him. Every generous spectator 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 ordinary 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 fhuts his breaft