CHAP. II.

SECT. IV.

PART II. fpecially directed to reform it, or even with greater severity punish, the first approach to fuch irregularities, and treat fuch approaches as a greater crime than even the perpetration of greater evils, to which the people are less disposed, and from which the public therefore has lefs to apprehend.

In fome of the smaller states of Italy, where family feuds and quarrels fo often prevailed, it was made capital, we are told, to fhed a fingle drop of blood in the streets. Where frauds committed on the revenue are more frequent, and more to be apprehended than private robberies, the law naturally directs its feverity to the quarter from which the public interest is most deeply annoyed. And its enactments are to be confidered, not as instructions of morality, but as the convention of parties particularly fituated, and mutually engaged to fupport the cause of a community, depending on circumstances peculiar to their own fituation,

If the law, in this manner is to be confidered as a local expedient provided for the welfare and peace of communities; the language of the people, we may believe, is not always calculated to express the mere abstract distinctions of right and wrong; but to discriminate virtue and vice under fuch diversities of external form, as they most frequently take in particular circumstances, and under specific fyftems of manners. Fortitude is made to exprefs not mere strength of mind in the abstract; but has a reference, at the fame time, to the particular and more ordinary form in which there is occafion to exercise this virtue; whether in heroic patience or military valour. Goodness is not employed to exprefs benevolence in the abstract, but has a reference to the form in which there is the most frequent occafion to practife beneficence, whether

3

vels.192

:OCLC: 4565032

:Source: OCLCILL

:DueDate:

: Lender: ZAP, ZAP, *ST2, ST2, AZU

Ferguson, Adam, 1723-1816. I

: VOL:

: NO:

:DATE: 1792,

:PAGES:

=

FORM 0805 PRINTED THE STANDARD REGISTER COMPANY, U.S.A.

CHAP. II.
SECT. IV.

PART II. fpecially directed to reform it, or even with greater severity punish, the first approach to fuch irregularities, and treat fuch approaches as a greater crime than even the perpetration of greater evils, to which the people are less disposed, and from which the public therefore has lefs to apprehend.

In some of the smaller states of Italy, where family feuds and quarrels fo often prevailed, it was made capital, we are told, to fhed a fingle drop of blood in the streets. Where frauds committed on the revenue are more frequent, and more to be apprehended than private robberies, the law naturally directs its feverity to the quarter from which the public interest is most deeply annoyed. And its enactments are to be confidered, not as instructions of morality, but as the convention of parties particularly fituated, and mutually engaged to support the cause of a community, depending on circumstances peculiar to their own fituation.

If the law, in this manner is to be confidered as a local expedient provided for the welfare and peace of communities; the language of the people, we may believe, is not always calculated to express the mere abstract distinctions of right and wrong; but to difcriminate virtue and vice under fuch diverfities of external form, as they moft frequently take in particular circumstances, and under specific fyftems of manners. Fortitude is made to express not mere strength of mind in the abstract; but has a reference, at the fame time, to the particular and more ordinary form in which there is occafion to exercise this virtue; whether in heroic patience or military valour. Goodness is not employed to exprefs benevolence in the abstract, but has a reference to the form in which there is the most frequent occafion to practise beneficence,

3

whether

whether in charity to the poor, and in relieving the diftreffed; or in PART II. acts of public service, and private humanity or candour.

In every language there is a multiplicity of terms in which general praise and blame are expreffed; but of fuch terms it is observed, that no two are fynonymous. There is implied in every term of praise a complication of circumstances. In some principal parts of the combination the terms agree, but in fome other part, perhaps, in fome minute circumstance of the occafion on which the good qualities are difplayed, or of the effect they produce, the meaning of the term is, in fome degree, diverfified, fo that any one of the terms fo diftinguifhed cannot, with propriety, be fubftituted one for another. Honefty cannot be substituted for probity, however nearly approaching in their meaning; nor is goodnefs with propriety fubftituted for either.

In the general appellation of a good man, befide the more important conditions of humanity, faithfulness, and beneficence, which recommend one man to another, there is, in particular fituations, fome reference to particular circumftances, to which perfons in those situations have peculiar occafion to attend ; as, among merchants, the qualities of punctuality and regard to credit, which mutually recommend the parties in their dealings with one another; in literary focieties, learning and genius; in national councils, and public affemblies, masterly judgement, and powerful expreffion; in warlike nations, manhood and military valour; and men, in all these different inftances, bestow the general term of praife, with a particular implication of the circumftance peculiarly required in their own condition.

Words derived from the fame ftock, and paffing into diffe

CHAP. I.
SECT. IV.

PART II.
CHAP. II.

SECT. IV.

rent languages, thus affume, in fome particular respects, a difterent meaning in the application made of them by different nations. As from the boneftum of the Romans, is derived the bonefly of the English, and the bonetteté of the French; but whoever should tranflate the one into the other, would lofe the meaning of his original, and substitute different circumstances of commendation, in paffing from one language to another; not because these nations have different ideas of what is commendable; but because they have come to express different articles of commendation in a term of the fame origin.

What is commended by one nation in any given term of praise, is commended by another in a different one; and they difagree in the ufe of words, not in conceiving the diftinctions of right and wrong; for each is ready to acknowledge the value of what the other commends, as foon as he understands the meaning of the word in which it is commended.

SECTION