| An affection betwixt the sexes is a passion evidently implanted in human nature; and this passion not only appears in its peculiar symptoms, but also in inflaming every other principle of affection, and raising a stronger love from beauty, wit, kindness, than what would otherwise flow from them. |
| Were there an universal love among all human creatures, it would appear after the same manner. |
| Any degree of a good quality would cause a stronger affection than the same degree of a bad quality would cause hatred; contrary to what we find by experience. |
| Men's tempers are different, and some have a propensity to the tender, and others to the rougher, affections: But in the main, we may affirm, that man in general, or human nature, is nothing but the object both of love and hatred, and requires some other cause, which by a double relation of impressions and ideas, may excite these passions. |
| In vain would we endeavour to elude this hypothesis. |
| There are no phaenomena that point out any such kind affection to men, independent of their merit, and every other circumstance. |
| We love company in general; but it is as we love any other amusement. |
| An Englishman in Italy is a friend: A Euro paean in China; and perhaps a man would be beloved as such, were we to meet him in the moon. |
| But this proceeds only from the relation to ourselves; which in these cases gathers force by being confined to a few persons. |
| If public benevolence, therefore, or a regard to the interests of mankind, cannot be the original motive to justice, much less can private benevolence, or a regard to the interests of the party concerned, be this motive. |
| For what if he be my enemy, and has given me just cause to hate him? What if he be a vicious man, and deserves the hatred of all mankind? What if he be a miser, and can make no use of what I would deprive him of? What if he be a profligate debauchee, and would rather receive harm than benefit from large possessions? What if I be in necessity, and have urgent motives to acquire something to my family? In all these cases, the original motive to justice would fail; and consequently the justice itself, and along with it all property, tight, and obligation. |
| A rich man lies under a moral obligation to communicate to those in necessity a share of his superfluities. |
| Were private benevolence the original motive to justice, a man would not be obliged to leave others in the possession of more than he is obliged to give them. |
| At least the difference would be very inconsiderable. |
| Men generally fix their affections more on what they are possessed of, than on what they never enjoyed: For this reason, it would be greater cruelty to dispossess a man of any thing, than not to give it him. |
| But who will assert, that this is the only foundation of justice? |
| Besides, we must consider, that the chief reason, why men attach themselves so much to their possessions is, that they consider them as their property, and as secured to them inviolably by the laws of society. |
| But this is a secondary consideration, and dependent on the preceding notions of justice and property. |
| A man's property is supposed to be fenced against every mortal, in every possible case. |
| But private benevolence is, and ought to be, weaker in some persons, than in others: And in many, or indeed in most persons, must absolutely fail. |
| Private benevolence, therefore, is not the original motive of justice. |