Page:Treatise of Human Nature (1888).djvu/695

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A TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE.

by 'Nature' we mean 'common to or inseparable from any species, 484, 526; though a human invention, yet as immutable as human nature, because based on so great an interest, 620.

§ 2. How the rules of justice and property are established by the artifice of man, 484 f.; though society increases man's power, ability, and security, 485, yet in a savage state he is not sensible of this, and so cannot produce society: but the natural appetite between the sexes and concern for common offspring makes the first beginning, 486; both the natural temper and outward circumstances of man adverse to society, viz. his limited generosity, 'for each man loves himself better than any other single person,' and the instability and scarcity of such goods as can be possessed, 487; 'uncultivated nature' could never remedy this: justice at this stage can only mean possession of the usual passions, viz. selfishness and partiality, so the 'idea of justice is no remedy,' 488; the remedy is not derived from Nature but from artifice; or rather, 'Nature provides a remedy in the judgment and understanding for what is irregular and incommodious in the affections,' 489; men remedy the instability of possessions by a convention, this restraint not being contrary to, but in the interest of the passions, 489, 516; this convention not a promise, 'only a general sense of common interest, which sense all the members of the society express to one another,' like that of two men rowing a boat, 490; after this arises immediately the idea of justice, also those of property, obligation, and right, which are unintelligible without the former, 491; vanity, pity, and love, being social passions, assist, 491; in this convention it is only the direction of the passions which is altered: there is no question of the goodness or wickedness, but only of the sagacity or folly of man, 492; since this convention is so simple, the savage state must be very short, and 'man's very first state and situation may justly be esteemed social;' the 'state of nature' a philosophic fiction, 493; as the golden age' is a poetic, though it expresses a great truth, 494; 'strong, extensive benevolence' cannot be the original motive of justice, since it would render it unnecessary, 495; nor can reason, 496; the impressions which give rise to the sense of justice not natural, but arise from artifice, otherwise no convention would be necessary, 497; the connexion of the rules of justice with interest is singular, for a single act of justice is often contrary both to public and private interest, 497 (cf. 579).

§ 3. Why we annex the idea of virtue to justice? 498; interest the natural obligation to justice, the sentiment of right and wrong the moral obligation, 498; by sympathy we take a general survey, and perceive that injustice always brings uneasiness, hence the sense of moral good and evil follows upon injustice, 499; 'self-interest is the original motive to the establishment of justice, but a sympathy