benevolence and justice, are correlative with these two great portions of the only true object of all voluntary actions of a human being. Benevolence is the desire to be the author of good, and justice the apprehension of the manner in which good ought to be done.
Justice and benevolence result from the elementary laws of the human mind.
CHAPTER I.
ON THE NATURE OF VIRTUE.
SECT. I. General View of the Nature and Objects of Virtue.—2. The
Origin and Basis of Virtue, as founded on the Elementary Principles
of Mind.—3. The Laws which flow from the nature of Mind
regulating the application of those principles to human actions.—4. Virtue,
a possible attribute of man.
We exist in the midst of a multitude of beings like
ourselves, upon whose happiness most of our actions
exert some obvious and decisive influence.
The regulation of this influence is the object of moral science.
We know that we are susceptible of receiving painful or pleasurable impressions of greater or less intensity and duration. That is called good which produces pleasure; that is called evil which produces pain. These are general names, applicable to every class of causes, from which an overbalance of pain or pleasure may result. But when a human being is the active instrument of generating or diffusing happiness, the principle through which it is most effectually instrumental to that purpose, is called virtue. And benevolence, or the desire to be the author of good, united with justice, or an apprehension of the manner in which that good is to be done, constitutes virtue.
