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PART II.
CHAP. II.
SECT. VIII.

It were irrational in a man to hurt himself; and the neglect of this rule is marked with a consciousness of folly. But it has pleased the Almighty, that we should hold every perfon under a different form of obligation required to confult the welfare, or to abstain from the offer of harm to his neighbour. This form of obligation perceived carries with it the sanction of innocence, amounting to a high measure of fatisfaction in the consciousness of integrity, and a high measure of remorse, of diffatisfaction, and fuffering, in the consciousness of any criminal trefpafs on the rights of a fellow creature.

With this, in some degree, is connected the fanction of public repute alfo, in which every perfon apprehends that he is an object of efteem or reprobation to other men.

As man is formed for fociety, he is justly made to enjoy or to fuffer under the approbation or difapprobation of other men, as well as under his own. The complacency, therefore, of his fellow creatures, who esteem and who confide in him, or the averfion with which they reprobate or fhun him, are powerful acceffaries to confcience in urging its dictates.

Many articles of decency, or even propriety of manners, are derived from custom, or the arbitrary conceptions of men, relating to fuch matters. For the obfervance of thefe articles, public repute is the peculiar fanction. The obfervance of fome determinate forms is of great confequence to public order; and individuals, even in matters of indifference, muft not think themselves at liberty to flight the authority of their age and country, in the forms of behaviour, which they are required to obferve,

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CHAP. II.

SECT. VIII.

States or regular communities alfo have their rights, which they PART II. are prepared to maintain by force. They have their laws to which the magiftrate is empowered to compel obedience. For these purposes the community is armed, fortreffes are built, and military forms established. Tribunals are erected for the trial of crimes; officers are entrusted with public force; chains, fetters, and public prisons, and the other apparatus of coercion, are provided for the guilty. In thefe inftitutions, there is a fanction of force to fupport the obligation to innocence, to preserve the public peace, and to fecure the harmless in the poffeffion of his rights. Such may be termed the fanction of compulfory law, which, though not in every inftance proper to obtain acts of beneficence, yet in every instance is applicable to restrain the commiffion of crimes.

In aid of the magiftracy, also, in every well ordered community, inftitutions of religion are wifely adopted, and the authority of religion is impreffed on the minds of men, by folemn rites fignificant of the prefence of God and the homage which is due to him.

We may avoid for the prefent entering into any question relating to the abuse of such institutions, whether to the purposes of public tyranny or private gain. We confider them only with a view to their proper ufe in confirming the obligations to innocence and duty.

Man, we have had occafion to obferve, is formed for religion as well as fociety. He is capable of perceiving univerfal intelligence in the fabric of the universe. He perceives in the predilection

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PART II.

CHAP. II.
SECT. VIII.

lection for justice and innocence, in the horrors at guilt which are impreffed on his own mind, the will of that fovereign authority which reigns in the system of nature. To him the consciousness of integrity and goodness is peace and amity with God: The consciousness of depravity and wickednefs is rebellion and enmity; the one rendering existence itself a bleffing, in the confidence of present and future protection; the other rendering life itself a curfe, under the horrors of present remorfe, and the fear or apprehenfion of future and impending evils.

Such is religion in the form of mere reflexion as it operates in the mind; in the form of a public establishment it operates in the manner of compulsory law, with the denunciations of future punishment and the hopes of future reward. But the government of God, more comprehenfive than the government of man, extends to the mind as well as to external actions, and carries the application of compulfory law to reftrain not only the overt acts of iniquity, but even the thoughts, wishes or purposes which may lead to fuch external effects; requiring fuch a guard upon the mind itself as may suppress the first approaches to evil, and induce habits of innocence and of virtue.

Just religion, befides its effects as a restraining principle is in itself a fource of elevation and of goodness in the mind of man. In what is the love of God different from the love of goodness itself ? Or in what is the defire to act a part agreeable to the Supreme Being different from that elevation of mind with which the worthy afpire to perfection?

In this enumeration of fanctions, or motives to determine the virtuous choice, included in the general and comprehenfive diftinction

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tinction of good and evil. We have mentioned thofe of confci- PART II. ence, of public repute, of religion, and compulsory law.

Such then we may conceive to be the practical obligations of men, and fuch to be the fanctions to which they either do, or ought to, recur in fettling the tenor of their affections and of their conduct *.

In the farther arrangement of our fubject, we may avail ourfelves of a divifion that naturally arifes from the confideration of thefe different fanctions, and may confider the requifitions of compulsory law; or rights to be fupported by force, apart from the maxims of beneficence and duty, which are urged by the other confiderations now mentioned. The firft will extend to every cafe in which force or compulfion may be properly employed. The second, to those cafes in which the obligation of moral duty, however strong, cannot properly be enforced, and must be left to the free will of the agent.

The first may be termed jurifprudence; the fecond cafuiftry, or that part of moral science which relates to action and the characteristics of a happy life. And to these And to these may be fubjoined, under the title of politics, the difcuffion of material questions, relating not merely to men as members of fociety, but to the fociety itself, in respect to its inftitutions and forms. And under one or other of thefe titles may be comprised all that yet remains to be done in obfervance of the method which has been proposed for this work. VOL. II. CHAP.

* Juris precepta funt hæc: Honefte vivere, alterum non lædere, fuum cuique tribuere.

CHAP. II. SECT. VIII. m

Inft. Just. lib. i. par. 3.

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